Have you seen something like this in standard ndas?

The machine is supposed to be handed to devs. Why shouldn't they run any benchmarks. We all know the spec may change radically. But how are they supposed to write code for some machine when they don't know how it may perform under various instructions.

 

Yes, this is what every NDA is about. Non disclosure. As in - not telling the general public about stuff the manufacturer doesn't want you to. This is standard practice. For example, both Intel and AMD, when shipping review CPUs to youtubers, mention a specific point of embargo lift - before that date/time, you can not post any content/review of the products you got from them.

They can run benchmarks, they can't make a YouTube video and tell everyone what the score is, or post a screenshot on Twitter.

EDIT: Think you're, let's say, Gigabyte, and you're working on a motherboard for new Intel CPUs. You get the early prototype units, but you must sign a NDA. It says you can't sell the prototypes, or tell anyone about them. They're provided to you for the purpose of being able to create compatible motherboards and being ready to sell them the day the CPU launches. The NDA was there to protect Intel from you leaking things like list of improvements made, benchmark scores, maybe prices (you might need these to decide on the price of your motherboard), or expected release date - by releasing this information before they planned puts them at a disadvantage. Competition can react faster. If the product doesn't look to have potential of being great, you get bad press before you release, people talking on forums and saying "don't bother, get this other thing".

 

Last edited: Aug 22, 2020

Totally: their goal is clearly to kill your hackintosh at some point in the near future

 

IMHO the only reason for doing this is money and power. They sell the idea of their own CPU same as they sold the idea that headphone jack is ancient technology that needs to be discontinued.
Such CPU will no doubt have Intel's ME-like backdoors and execution prevention to block users from running apple restricted software, at some point

 

Objectively it makes sense. The inclusion of the Intel chip to replace the risc and Motorola structures pointed to that eventually, everything would run on any platform. I am saying neither yay or nay because all this means, in the long run, is that you will buy a computer like you buy a car. You will choose the one that best suits your workflow, personal choices and needs, pretty much just like a car, with or without the bells and whistles because every application will run on any of them without being proprietary.

 

Yes, it's basically boilerplate. I could mention several big name hardware and software companies who do this.

 

I doubt that they do the transition because of hackintoshes. They rather want more control and more money.

 

Yes, I agree, the end of hackintoshes will be a side effect, with thunderous applause!

 

People just love conspiracy theories.

 

another side effect might be that developers jump the ship and stop developing for macOS since teh transition and rewrite is simply not economic. On facebook for example signaled the VPS Avenger developer that he doubt that they will create a ARM version

Another scenario is that the open core developer find a way to make macOS working on 3rd party arm hardware.

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2020

Thanks for your answers mates. Yes i have seen many ndas before hehe, it seemed to me they wanted to prohibit benchmarking -period, but thanks anyway.
Btw, has it occured to anyone that Nvidia is negotiating to buy ARM? Given that the feud between Apple and Nvidia stands strong after all these years, this will be a very interesting twist since anyone who wants to manufacture ARM cpus needs a license from ARM. I 'd like to see Apple getting a license from Nvidia lol, i mean surely they both want to make money and i'm sure there will be some kind of agreement (if finally Nvidia succeeds in buying ARM), but who knows what may happen 'till they reach that point.
Cheers

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2020

Some interesting thoughts and insight here:

Oh btw, Nvidia is very close in purchasing ARM for 40 billion. I reckon more turbulence for Apple is on the way.
EDIT: It's now official:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16080/nvidia-to-acquire-arm-for-40-billion

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2020

I don’t think Apple are using ARM chips as much as their template and making their own chips.

 

I am sorry but i don't understand what you mean. Let's get one thing clear first. It is either an ARM chip or it's not. Even if there is a lesser analogy of ARM tech inside Apple's cpus they still need a full license. Up to now, all their -so called- Apple Silicon SoCs, are modified ARM cpus. So Apple alone, cannot make any cpu of this kind without ARM's license. They will likely have to come up with their own RISK cpu which i don't think they are up to the task. And for instance RiskV is not ARM. They may pose similarities but they are much different too.
Secondly, it is no secret that ARM architecture is heavily patented. From its end, Apple can only -if possible- patent their mods on the original architecture and nothing more. Which leads me to think that if others come up with similar mods or improvements on an ARM cpu, Apple will have a hard time maintaining what they 're aiming for, which is essentially a locked ecosystem with all "Apple" hardware. Good luck proving since you modified those transistors that no other can. They can only patent the method of improving upon an ARM design. So, it maybe is unlikely, but we may see more Hackintosh than we 've ever seen, because of the open end of ARM design. On the other hand, we may see nothing at all if Nvidia, which atm with ARM's acquirement has finally all the tech needed to compete with Intel & AMD at the super computer/ data center level of the "market", decides that no other can make ARM cpus. This will probably lead to fullfiling existing contracts with companies like Fujitsu and from there and on it 'll be just Nvidia cpus and most likely ARM will pass to history pages just like 3dfx and so many others did. Which again makes me wonder what kind of existing agreement/contract does Apple have with ARM in the first place and how vulnerable it is from a legal standpoint.
And don't forget, even if dumb, impaired and practically not a full OS, Windows on ARM is a thing and theoretically can improve as well, so here's a competitor right out of the box and one that has given Apple a hard time for ages.
For what it's worth, i want Apple to succeed. We need a viable alternative to x86, because we can't have Intel and AMD alone driving cpu prices (and many other reasons of course) and i will welcome with open ARMs (pun intended) Apple's successful transition, if it's so.
Cheers

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2020

I am a novice in this topic but Apple has had years in working with ARM technology and I think they have taken some concepts from ARM chips and building something different.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/13/21435507/nvidia-acquiring-arm-40-billion-chips-ai-deal

It will be interesting to see what happens for all involved. SoftBank made, well... bank. heh

 

Of course they did. How else would they dare make such a leap. I don't criticize their ability of making SoCs for mobile devices because it is a proven fact they have the fastest most versatile chip atm. But you 'll see where i am getting at.
They guy on the vid is clearly a fanboi. That vid, is about establishing what Apple has done so far. Supposedly this should give us a hint or two about what Apple can do... Never spoke once, not even speculated how Apple will transition their custom mobile chips to powerful desktop computers which can create three 4k streams instead of just playing them back (to quote the guy on the vid). And so on with all the rest a powerful modern computer can do that an iPad cannot.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out since Nvidia gave 23+ billion in Nvidia stock to Softbank as part of their agreement. Even for someone like Nvidia (who has a rep to be "evil" in many ways) having bankers as stockholders may not be completely ideal, if you know what i mean...
EDIT: On another vid he's quite optimistic about the transition:

 

Last edited: Sep 15, 2020

Not gonna happen, Apple are already rolling their own GPUs instead of using ARM's Mail GPU design.

And NVIDIA explicitly stated ARM is to stay independent, licensing is not going to change and that they want to keep all the licensees unaffected, while expanding ARM's R&D in the server market. They want to sell their GPU and AI technology to huge datacenters, not prevent Apple from using some cheap little CPU in their new iphone or whatever new fancy name they come up with for their toys. They're interested in the big money and big server rooms - since they finally got their hands on something that allows them to get there.

ARM is gripping too many people by the balls and making too much money to make saying "no one can get our technology" make any sense

It is, but it's never been a thing anybody actually bought, used or even wanted, really.

 

He answered the question in the first 3 seconds

 

I wonder if this means Apple will release a license to Nvidia for the current drivers to run on Macs now.