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A11-Feature

Apple's CPU design chops and its willingness to tackle custom silicon work have created an odd situation in calculating — 1 in which the coprocessors the visitor designs into its products are at present treated as major announcements in and of themselves. Information technology'due south a baffling, Apple tree-specific treatment of coprocessors that probable leaves the company's competitors in fits. Just information technology's as well a handy way of keeping tabs on what the visitor is rolling out, and what platforms are slated for updates in 2022.

According to an extensive report from Bloomberg, Apple is working on multiple new projects, including a new iPad refresh, with iii updated Mac models, all of which supposedly use new custom coprocessors (new laptops and at least one new desktop).

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The best candidate for the desktop flake would be the redesigned Mac Pro, which is supposed to be arriving at some point in the not-too-afar time to come. Concluding year, Tim Cook admitted that Apple's diminutive Mac Pro made the wrong bets for the company, with its odd class factor, dual custom graphics cards, and heavy reliance on Thunderbolt ii. The new system'due south capabilities and options aren't yet known, merely Apple has said information technology'll introduce a new high-end workstation model for customers who don't want an integrated display like that offered past the recently introduced iMac Pro (pictured in a higher place). An updated iPad is also in the works, though it may skip the A11 Bionic in favor of an "A12" CPU, when it debuts.

Apple-Development

Prototype by Bloomberg

Part of what'southward interesting about the larger Apple tree "story" around these products is how they're ofttimes used to fit a narrative of superior production pattern. There'due south real truth to this — as nosotros've previously stated, Apple tree'southward CPU cores are the highest-performing single-threaded ARM CPU cores y'all tin buy. Apple'southward investment into its ain custom ARM implementation has paid off since information technology bought PA Semi in 2008, no question. Its custom T1 and T2 controllers allowed it to differentiate its platforms, its W1 scrap is baked into its wireless AirPods, and its T2 fleck is inside the Apple tree Lookout Series 3. These parts take unquestionably helped Apple build an empire in which it has a much larger share of the profits in the smartphone industry than its relatively small-scale market share would show.

Simply we've also seen how some of that same engineering exposes Apple to liabilities it might not otherwise be carrying. Despite what the Bloomberg report states, Apple tree's exposure to Meltdown and Spectre is worse than ARM'due south, considering Apple'southward custom architectures made use of some of the same aggressive operation-enhancing characteristics that Intel'southward do. We know that Intel has performance fixes coming in-silicon for Meltdown and Spectre; we don't yet know whether Apple has anything equivalent or when it'll deploy whatsoever such solution. Smartphones run on tight timelines; Apple'south A12 SoC may or may non have any solutions broiled into silicon. And designing silicon solutions to complex problems hasn't protected Apple tree from several high-contour security flaws of its own making in the past few months. Apple's biggest tech story of 2022 may not exist its processors, merely what it's doing to set those CPUs.