Apple based the design trusting in Intel's roadmap. Then when Intel failed to ship quad-core Kaby Lake on schedule, Apple was stuck between a rock and a hard place, having designed yet another super-thin machine with no room for other components and insufficient battery capacity to support them even if they'd wanted to do so.
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Same $hit will happen with CannonLake and CoffeeLake which will also be late (2018 instead of 2017), at which point Apple may just decide it's had enough and switch to ARM once and for all.
I can see Apple putting a A## Fusion chip into a future MacBook 12" product or the like, for starters.. I bet they are close to being able to pull it off, as step one in removing dependency on Intel. Apple is not looking too good with this latest MacBook Pros line-up... selling people Skylake stuff when competitors are selling Kaby Lake stuff at a fraction of the price. The blame can't all be placed on Intel, to be fair, but Intel delivery schedules slipping and missed targets certainly hasn't helped their partners.
MAC isn't as strategic nor a large part of Apple revenue but still I am sure they do t want to see it left behind
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/processors/42010-macs-with-10nm-intel-in-late-2017
Move it to ARM and TSMC is guaranteed for better process and design cadence as Intel 10nm is going to be very very late
Apple first had Motorola and when they couldn't deliver process improvements as required they moved to POWER thinking IBM and the consortium could keep pace with x86 and Intel. That decade was too much and the virtuous cycle of x86 beat everyone so Apple switched again.
Well now boys & girls and calling all retard Intel management, you paying attention! The virtuous cycle of billions of the ARMy and foundries have gone from 4 years and two generations behind on process to equivalence and next year they will surpass Intel in process. All because PSO turned down Apple and Intel continues to denial that there is a new virtuous and more powerful cycle. The ARMy factories are bigger, the suppliers have fierce competion that forces behavior and decisions of life and death. Intel is so caught up in their on little x86 world they forgot their is something g beyond their ringed garden and now it has overrun the Intel garden. Sorry once overun it is over. CRB, PSO and BK have pissed away Intel's golden goose and it is gone forever.
At Intel BK and TMG monkeys still stuck in the x86 dark ages.
Apple will move MAC to ARM as riding more than a billion ARMy can't be beat.
Still waiting for a real winable strategy from Intel, none yet! BK is simply wasting time and money as Intel's current strategy at BKs
More ACTs to come baby!
PS the A10x simply not ready, on 10nm it will be more than ready and on 7nm unbeatably 😉