Apple Silicon – The Future is here

I recently published my first post, which was a rant fuelled by my anger upon seeing my fraying MacBook cable. This post was frowned upon by the owner of this website because it was a negative post, moreover, it was a negative post on a brand that she loves, Apple. So, to get back into her good books, and retain the privilege to publish posts, I’m writing this one to tell you everything that Apple Inc. has done right in the recent past. But before you read on, a small disclaimer, this post contains a history lesson and is going to get a bit technical, where I’ll try and use as simple a language as possible. If this doesn’t interest you, here’s a tl;dr right at the beginning- Apple has designed a revolutionary new chip as announced (to the public) in its last event of the year “one more thing”, and I’m in awe of them again. While most people eagerly await Apple’s event where they announce the latest iPhone, I wait for their announcement of the latest MacBook. And this year they had a huge announcement, after years of rumours, and confirmation at the WWDC event, Apple finally launched their own hardware for the new MacBooks, offering better performance as well as better battery life. Most people would brush aside this announcement because that’s what Apple claims each year, but the significance of this new M1 chip is far greater than they realize.

A processor in any device is like the brain of the computer and does most of the operations. Back in the 1980s when Apple launched its first computer, it used processors made by Motorola called the 68000. For over a decade, Apple relied upon Motorola, before finally developing its own processor the PowerPC. While Apple was struggling to make its processors faster, Intel’s processors were gaining popularity. Intel, thanks to its huge profits from processor manufacturing, was able to invest a lot more in its R&D compared to its competitors. To keep its computers up to date, Apple decided to join hands with Intel for manufacturing processors for its laptops and PCs and stopped producing the PowerPC after a little over a decade. Intel benefited furthermore with this deal, and thanks to a series of lawsuit wins, was able to thwart its closest competitor at the time, AMD. Now, at the time when Apple moved to Intel, it was also working on the iPhone and tried to get Intel to manufacture processors for it as well, but Intel didn’t think much of Apple’s foray into the phone industry and declined. So, Apple turned to Samsung and then ARM for processors for its initial iPhones. Later, Apple signed a licensing deal with ARM that allowed it to make its own processors.

In case you are wondering, computers and phones both use processors, but they are different kinds of processors. ARM stands for Acorn RISC Machine and manufactures RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processors while Intel popularly makes an x86 processor which is based on CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer). Think of instruction set to be a set of commands that a processor understands. So, say you meet someone who doesn’t speak your language, and the only words you can speak in this person’s language mean forward one step. So, if you want that person to go ten steps forward, you have to tell it to go forward one step 10 times in reduced instruction set, while if you knew a phrase that would allow you to instruct the person x steps forward, you could have used it, which would fall under complex instruction set.

Over time, phones today have become as powerful as some computers. As one YouTuber demonstrated, the new iPhone 12 mini was faster than his Mac at exporting a video. And the iPad Pro has been said to have faster than since powerful laptops for certain operations. Now Apple writes its own operating system, and although it used Intel’s processor, it wasn’t using the entire instruction set it had to offer, and because Intel has a more generic implementation which fits a wide variety of uses, and supports legacy instruction sets, their design didn’t exactly fit Apple like a glove. And this is how the Apple M1 chip was born.

It’s not just the reduced instruction set that makes the M1 more powerful and efficient. Apple has another trick up its sleeve called SoC or System on a chip. Imagine a restaurant kitchen which has an executive chef, a couple of sous chefs all in separate rooms altogether, while the food is stored in yet another room, all far away from one another. This makes the work of the kitchen porter really hard, and everything takes longer to do. This is how a traditional computer is designed. The processor (executive chef) stays far away from the other chips which have a designated role. While this is something which is suitable for generic application and allows you to customize your system, it is not the most efficient way to operate. What Apple has done with the M1 is that it has placed all the things that a processor needs on a single chip making the entire system faster and efficient as well.

I’m a huge fan of disruptive technology because it forces evolution and brings about innovation in leaps and bounds. I look forward to a laptop that can last me an entire day on a single charge. I take back my words from my previous post, and when it’s time for a new laptop, it’s now MacBook, yes please. Oh, and the issues with the fraying cables of the MacBook, Apple solved it way back in 2016 when it came out with USB-C charging. All you need to do is replace them with third party cables, and you are sorted because Apple still can’t make cables that last.