Discussion Apple Silicon SoC thread

[Eug]

M1
5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LP-DDR4
16 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 12 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache
(Apple claims the 4 high-effiency cores alone perform like a dual-core Intel MacBook Air)

8-core iGPU (but there is a 7-core variant, likely with one inactive core)
128 execution units
Up to 24576 concurrent threads
2.6 Teraflops
82 Gigatexels/s
41 gigapixels/s

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Products:
$999 ($899 edu) 13" MacBook Air (fanless) - 18 hour video playback battery life
$699 Mac mini (with fan)
$1299 ($1199 edu) 13" MacBook Pro (with fan) - 20 hour video playback battery life

Memory options 8 GB and 16 GB. No 32 GB option (unless you go Intel).

It should be noted that the M1 chip in these three Macs is the same (aside from GPU core number). Basically, Apple is taking the same approach which these chips as they do the iPhones and iPads. Just one SKU (excluding the X variants), which is the same across all iDevices (aside from maybe slight clock speed differences occasionally).

EDIT:



M1 Pro 8-core CPU (6+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 14-core GPU
M1 Pro 10-core CPU (8+2), 16-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 24-core GPU
M1 Max 10-core CPU (8+2), 32-core GPU

M1 Pro and M1 Max discussion here:

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M1 Ultra discussion here:

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M2 discussion here:

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Second Generation 5 nm
Unified memory architecture - LPDDR5, up to 24 GB and 100 GB/s
20 billion transistors

8-core CPU

4 high-performance cores
192 KB instruction cache
128 KB data cache
Shared 16 MB L2 cache

4 high-efficiency cores
128 KB instruction cache
64 KB data cache
Shared 4 MB L2 cache

10-core iGPU (but there is an 8-core variant)
3.6 Teraflops

16-core neural engine
Secure Enclave
USB 4

Hardware acceleration for 8K h.264, h.264, ProRes

M3 Family discussion here:

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M4 Family discussion here:

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[Eug]

AnandTech’s take:

Apple Announces M1 Pro & M1 Max: Giant New Arm SoCs with All-Out Performance

www.anandtech.com

In terms of performance, Apple is battling it out with the very best available in the market, comparing the performance of the M1 Max to that of a mobile GeForce RTX 3080, at 100W less power (60W vs 160W). Apple also includes a 100W TDP variant of the RTX 3080 for comparison, here, outperforming the NVIDIA discrete GPU, while still using 40% less power.



Today reveal of the new generation Apple Silicon has been something we’ve been expecting for over a year now, and I think Apple has managed to not only meet those expectations, but also vastly surpass them. Both the M1 Pro and M1 Max look like incredibly differentiated designs, much different than anything we’ve ever seen in the laptop space. If the M1 was any indication of Apple’s success in their silicon endeavors, then the two new chips should also have no issues in laying incredible foundations for Apple’s Mac products, going far beyond what we’ve seen from any competitor.

—-

BTW, while I think the Intel vs AMD vs Apple raw CPU and GPU performance discussions are interesting, what will be even more interesting for many real world users are the hardware accelerators included. For example, many of the Final Cut types are gonna love the hardware ProRes acceleration. This will make video editing so much easier. Not just export, but actual editing.

Also, regarding the GPU, I’m not sure how informative gaming comparisons will be. It’s more about content creation for Apple at this point.

 

[insertcarehere]

Just keep in mind that the M1 Max would not have designed and manufactured on 7N instead of 5N.
TSMC's charts show a density increase of 1.8 (max, much much less for the large amount of SRAM on the M1 line up) for 5N. The M1 Max, in particular, would have been unreasonably large on 7N.

Counterpoint: The primary reason the M1 Max may not work on 7N has nothing to do with the CPU side, rather, it has to do with making an iGPU that (at least in theory) matches the performance of the very best mobile GPUs...on less than half the power budget. In terms of iGPUs for PCs, this is in a completely different galaxy to anything that has come before in terms of design.

The actual 'CPU' parts of the M1 don't take up much area at all. From https://semianalysis.com/apple-a14-...sis-terrifying-implications-for-the-industry/, 2x Firestorm + 8MB shared L2 (Architecture has no L3) takes up ~7.5mm^2 in the A14, given that the M1 Pro is most likely 8x Firestorm + 24MB shared L2, that's ballpark around ~30mm^2 for the performance cluster + ~3-4mm^2 for the efficiency cluster.

Even if we arbitrarily "assign" 32MB SLC (~15mm^2) to the CPU as cache (dubious reasoning given other parts of the SoC i.e GPU can directly access and benefit from the cache in ways that a normal CPU L3 cannot), that'd still be around 50mm^2 combined for the whole thing on 5nm. The majority being SRAM that (in your own words) doesn't shrink well for smaller nodes, and conversely also doesn't gain lots of size in bigger nodes.

In comparison:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1426013678936145927

~53mm^2 for Cezanne 8 core complex w/ 16MB L3 at TSMC 7nm.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1327350850604371968

~43mm^2 for TGL 4 cores w/ L3 at Intel 10nm.

Even accounting for the node advantage, which probably isn't that large density wise given all the cache, the Apple architectures seem to do just fine in terms of area efficiency. It'd almost certainly look diminutive next to Golden Cove, the architecture that may get anywhere close in IPC.

 

[repoman27]

Last night I pulled together a bunch of data just to sanity check some of the assumptions here. I figured I'd share, because some items, like the AX series release cadence, were far less consistent than I had remembered. On the other hand, the average interval between releases ends up being 17.6 months, which is pretty much what everyone thought.

SoC	launch date	months between launches	notes
A5X	2012-Mar-16
A6X	2012-Nov-02	7.6
A7X	skipped		28nm node skipped
A8X	2014-Oct-16	23.4
A9X	2015-Sep-09	10.8
A10X Fusion	2017-Jun-16	21.2	10nm lead product
A11X Bionic	skipped
A12X Bionic	2018-Oct-30	16.5	15.9 mo. avg. for AX series
A12Z Bionic	2020-Mar-18		fully enabled A12X
A13X Bionic	skipped	skipped	N7P node skipped
M1 (A14X Bionic)	2020-Nov-17	24.6
M2 (A15X Bionic)	2022-Jul-01	19.4	17.6 mo. avg. for AX incl. M

The regular A series is obviously far more consistent, generally hitting the annual release window like clockwork. I thought Apple might do something along the lines of:

A = 12 months​

M = 18 months​

M Pro/Max/Ultra = 24 months​

M Mega = 30 months​

So maybe we see M2 iPads announced in September along with the A16 iPhones, and in October Apple announces the all new M2 Mac mini and refreshed 24-inch iMacs, along with the M2 Mega Mac Pro to conclude the Apple silicon transition. The gap to the M3 might be less than 18 months, and then the M3 Pro/Max/Ultra would follow that several months later. I could see Apple choosing to sit out N3 for the larger chips, depending on how initial yields look on that node.

Here are some shipment numbers for reference:

2021 shipments	All PCs	Mac	iPad
IDC	348.8	27.775	57.8
Gartner	339.769	25.983
Canalys	341.053	28.958	61.043

And here is an additional breakdown based on quarterly shipments from Canalys and x86 market share from Mercury Research:

Segment	2021 unit shipments
PC	341.053
Notebook	275
Desktop	66
Intel PC	250.317
Intel Notebook	200.372
Intel Desktop	49.945
AMD PC	61.852
AMD Notebook	51.394
AMD Desktop	10.458
Apple Mac	28.958
Apple iPad	61.043
Apple M Series iPad (estimate)	21.365
Apple M Series Total	50.323

 

[repoman27]

Why so defensive of Apple when their product doesn't match consumer expectations? And how do you know the design decision was intentional? When lower end products that have a less aggressive clock and inferior process begin to compete with shiny new gadgets, its not a good look for anybody. They could have stayed within parameters so it would not throttle. Or they could have said their product isn't going to run the same when it gets to a certain thermal threshold. All I saw was marketing toting how fast and efficient it was because its better than previous products. That's not always true. They could have made it true.

I prefer to base my opinions on empirical evidence and deductive reasoning rather than what some random person on YouTube said, especially when their entire monetization strategy hinges on driving engagement by making sensational claims that portray large companies or popular products in a negative fashion.

I have very little stake in Apple's welfare outside of my own personal involvement with their ecosystem. However, I find it upsetting that journalistic integrity, research, and fact checking have become entirely marginalized. There's practically nobody left in the industry still doing the hard work. AnandTech definitely took a hit when Anand and Brian left for Apple, and now with Ian going solo and Andrei joining Qualcomm's Nuvia team, it's on life support.

And Apple certainly did imply that the M2 MacBook Air would throttle under sustained loads by pointing out that the active cooling system in the 13-inch MacBook Pro would prevent that from happening. The M2 MacBook Air is also thinner, lighter, faster, and has a better screen than the M1 MacBook Air. However the regression in storage performance between the M1 and M2 generations is extremely unfortunate. If Apple wasn't forced into that decision by supply chain constraints or some other factor, it's something worth beating them up over.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by, "When lower end products that have a less aggressive clock and inferior process begin to compete with shiny new gadgets..."

 

[mikegg]

Mobile Zen never consumes >20W for pure ST loads. Desktop does, mobile is usually around 15W. It also comes with lower peak performance though, so that's to be expected.

For iso-performance Zen 4 will likely be significantly more competitive with Apple's current end cores in performance/W. A lot of power is used for that last roughly 15% performance. To put things into perspective, Zen 4 uses similar levels of power for 4.5GHz as Zen 3 uses for 3.5GHz. That being said, AMD still have a significant disadvantage on power coming from their uncore by comparison however - what I said only applies to looking at the core power only.

I was referring to Package power because package includes powering on things like L3 cache which is used by the CPU core.



For 1T, it seems like the package power is 24w. Core itself is 12.3w.

Here's my M1 Pro CPU wattage data during ST portion of Geekbench5.

Wattage info is shown every 1 second.

We can see that the M1 Pro stays below 2w for most the ST test. It peaked at 5w for 1 second.



I'm not an expert in CPU testing nor do I have a Zen3 or M2 laptop. But at the very least, it seems like M1 is roughly 3-6x more efficient than Zen3 in ST.

 

[mikegg]

Here's the data for the MT portion of Geekbench5.

It peaks at 35w. Just a ballpark estimate but M1 Pro seems like it's roughly 2-4x more efficient than 6900HS in MT. The 6900HS closes the gap somewhat in MT efficiency because AMD chips tend to excel in MT.

 

[mikegg]

and OS introduces fixed-function hardware as part of the SoC package to accelerate Y common workload with fairly common repeating algorithms/functions that can easily be modeled in an ASIC.

Like what?

The M series CPUs are just general-purpose chips using ARM ISA. Any software that compiles for ARM can utilize M1/M2's ARM based instruction sets.

I think you're referring to the SoC's neural engine. As far as I know, Geekbench and 99.99% of software do not make use of the neural engine.

If I'm wrong, let me know what fixed function hardware the M series uses to beat AMD and Intel CPUs.

 

[mikegg]

If I wanna run Geekbench for a living, I'll know what to buy.

AMD redactedrun Cinebench for a living though.

And Cinebench is a terrible general purpose CPU benchmark compared to Geekbench. Ex Anandtech, Andrei F, agreed with me:

AnandTech does not disagree.

I heavily favour Geekbench over Cinebench and very much agree with what's being said by OP.

Cinebench absolutely isn't a computational throughput workload.

It's defined by extremely long dependency chains, bottlenecked by caches and partly memory. This is why you get a huge SMT yield from it and why it scales very highly if you throw lots of "weak" cores at it, for example see the M1 4C/8C score scaling.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/pitid6

use of the word fanboy is still not allowed.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[Mopetar]

My comments were not meant to gaslight anyone. I simply point out Apple picked their OS to be optimized to their hardware, and vice versa. Neither Intel nor AMD enjoy that support from an OS. Its not a bad thing by any means. Add in they are on smaller processes than Intel or AMD, it adds to the performance gap. But even Apple struggles on Windows when run in emulation, smaller relative process or not. So Apple's performance depends on their OS-hardware symbiotic relationship.

None of that matters for the SPEC results and those are quite good for Apple SoCs and have been for years. Apple is making an excellent CPU and any specialized hardware and OS optimizations that can add performance are just gravy on top.

If either AMD or Intel cared to they could release their own customized *nix distribution that does the same.

 

[mikegg]

What software did you use to meadure power consumption? Also, you should use Cinebench rather than Geekbench. Geekbench doesn’t load the CPU as heavily as other software.

Cinebench does not load the CPU properly.

 

[richardskrad]

Report: Apple axed plans for next-generation GPU in iPhone 14 Pro after rare engineering blunder (9To5Mac)

Inside Apple’s War for Chip Talent (The Information)

 

[Heartbreaker]

Personally I just find Mac "mini" too big to my taste so I hoped for something between the current size and Apple TV's one. I think Mac mini still has the dimensions from back when it included a DVD drive, just with reduced height.

I think it's fine. I'd rather they keep the size and keep an internal PSU, than shrink it and give it a big brick.

 

[Eug]

M2 Pro gets 1950/15000 in Geekbench 5, at 3.5 GHz:

Mac14,12 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for a Mac14,12 with an Apple M2 Pro processor.

browser.geekbench.com

Not sure if this is a MacBook Pro or a Mac mini, but regardless, it's impressive we can get this level of performance in a Mac mini now. This is literally twice as fast multi-core as the M1 Mac mini I bought last year, and 4 times as fast multi-core as my 27" Core i5-7600 iMac 2017 sitting beside it.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the iMac. I was planning on giving it to my kid, but she just wants to stick with the 2015 13" MacBook Pro I got for her a year ago. The decline in popularity of the desktop for mainstream users (and many pro users too) continues...

 

[repoman27]

HDMI is no different from any other modern I/O specification that includes optional features (i.e. pretty much all of them), in that the specification version number alone can only indicate a baseline of functionality and not guarantee the full capabilities of a particular product or implementation. HDMI LA requires licensees to at least make an attempt to explain what optional features are supported if they choose to refer to the specification version number on product labels/markings, packaging, marketing and instructional materials, user manuals, online ads, websites or other related promotional materials. From the HDMI ATLUGs:

Since each version of the HDMI specification provides a set of potential capabilities and not a set of required functionalities, you shall... reference HDMI Specification version numbers only when clearly associating the version number with a feature or function as defined in that version of the HDMI Specification. You shall not use version numbers by themselves to define your product or component capabilities or the functionality of the HDMI interface.

For example, you shall not say that your product or component is 1.X or 2.X compliant, or that your product or component has 1.X or 2.X features or capabilities, without specifically listing some or all the 1.X or 2.X functionality that the product or component supports. Without indicating an HDMI version number, you may say that a product or component supports a particular feature as defined in the HDMI Specification.

If you use an HDMI Specification version number to describe your HDMI implementation, you shall clearly and explicitly identify some or all features or functions of that version of the HDMI Specification that are supported by your implementation.

Apple never mentions the HDMI version numbers in their marketing materials for the new M2 Macs; they simply list the display output capabilities of the various configurations. We can still infer plenty about the platform capabilities from what they do tell us, though.

The HDMI port on the M2 Mac mini does not support any of the new features added in versions 2.1 or 2.1a of the HDMI specification. However, the HDMI ports on the M2 Pro and M2 Max devices do support at least FRL and DSC, and possibly other features as well. Here's a full breakdown...

HDMI 2.1 features:

• Fixed Rate Link (FRL) - yes
• VESA Display Stream Compression 1.2a (DSC) - yes
• High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection 2.3 (HDCP) - probably
• Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) - no
• Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC) - no
• Quick Frame Transport (QFT) - possibly
• Quick Media Switching (QMS) - possibly
• Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) - probably

HDMI 2.1a features:

• Source-Based Tone Mapping (SBTM) - probably not

If we dig a little deeper, we can see that the display output limitations of the Apple Silicon Macs arise from several areas unrelated to the PHYs. The quantity, capability, and configuration of both display pipelines in the GPU and the display controllers (DCPs) ultimately dictate what resolutions and refresh rates can be driven.

It looks like the M2 GPU only supports two display pipes—one with a maximum resolution of 5120 x 4096 and one with a maximum resolution of 6144 x 4096, same as the M1. For display output PHYs, the M2 has two Thunderbolt 4 (ATC) ports and one eDP port. The eDP port is connected to either the built-in panel or, in the case of the Mac mini, a discrete DP to HDMI protocol converter. While the ATC PHYs are essentially capable of UHBR20 signaling, the DCP appears to be limited to HBR2 output. The DP to HDMI PCON used in the M2 Mac mini is only capable of TMDS signaling and is likely the same part used for the M1 generation machines. The one party piece the M2 brings to the table is that the DISP0 pipe is no longer tied to the eDP port and is now routable to the ATC ports as well, making the Type-C ports on the M2 Mac mini Thunderbolt 4 compliant. In theory this could also make it possible for the M2 MacBooks to support two external displays when the lid is closed and the built-in panel is not in use (i.e. in "clamshell" mode).

The M2 Pro GPU can manage three display pipes, and it looks like the maximum resolutions might be one at 5120 x 4096 and two at 7680 x 4096. From what I could glean from ioreg, I believe the M1 Pro supported 3 pipes at 7680 x 4096, so possibly a slight (albeit inconsequential) regression there. Meanwhile the M2 Max supports five display pipes, at least four of which have maximum resolutions of 7680 x 4096. The M2 Pro and M2 Max both sport four ATC PHYs and one eDP port. The eDP port is once again connected to either the built-in panel or a DP to HDMI protocol converter chip in the M2 Pro Mac mini. Since eDP is taken by the built-in panel in the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros, the HDMI PCON is connected to one of the ATC ports instead. The PCON chip used with the M2 Pro and M2 Max machines is capable of HDMI 2.1 FRL and DSC. Although DISP0 appears to be restricted to the eDP PHY for the M2 Pro, the full-size pipes are now routable to the eDP port as well. The DCP blocks on the M2 Pro and M2 Max are HBR3 capable, although outputting above HBR2 bandwidth levels appears to require two full-size (7680 x 4096) display pipes.

Here's a list of supported resolutions grouped to illustrate the bandwidth dependencies...

Single 5120 x 4096 pipe:

• MacBook Air built-in panel: 2560 x 1664, 60 Hz, 30 bpp = 8.135 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR)
• Apple Studio Display: 5120 x 2880, 60 Hz, DSC 12 bpp = 11.090 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR2)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch) built-in panel: 3456 x 2234, 120 Hz, DSC 12 bpp = 12.042 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR2)
• 4K UHD at 60 Hz: 3840 x 2160, 60 Hz, 24 bpp = 12.543 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR2 / HDMI TMDS)

Single 6144 x 4096 or 7680 x 4096 pipe:

• Pro Display XDR: 6016 x 3384, 60 Hz, DSC 12 bpp = 15.279 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR2)
• 4K UHD at 144 Hz: 3840 x 2160, 144 Hz, DSC 12 bpp = 15.674 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR2 / HDMI FRL)
• Dell UltraSharp 32 6K Monitor (U3224KB): 6144 x 3456, 60 Hz, DSC 12 bpp = 15.931 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR2)

Dual 7680 x 4096 pipes:

• 4K UHD at 240 Hz: 3840 x 2160, 240 Hz, DSC 10 bpp = 22.852 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR3 / HDMI FRL)
• 8K UHD at 60 Hz: 7680 x 4320, 60 Hz, DSC 12 bpp = 24.824 Gbit/s (DisplayPort HBR3 / HDMI FRL)

Going by the die images provided by Apple, it looks like the DCP blocks received a considerable overhaul between the M1 and M2 generations, despite the relatively modest differences reflected on the spec sheets. It's notable that the maximum display output width on the M1 and M2 is 6144 pixels, which is slightly higher than the Pro Display XDR at 6016 pixels, but also just enough to accommodate the new Dell U3224KB. Now that macOS is FRL aware, USB Type-C to HDMI 2.1 dongles should finally work, and in theory that should allow M-series Max and Ultra Macs to drive up to two 8K UHD displays at 60 Hz.

 

[poke01]

The man himself, Anand.

 

[Ajay]

I don't think this is true at all RE: how easy it would be to port but it's nice you're now coming around to the idea A17 on N3E in time, and no I don't think it's N3E currently. They aren't design rule compatible, it just not some hybrid process, it's N3B.

N3E ramp is H2 2023 sure but that's not soon enough. Porting it wouldn't necessarily be a huge cost for next year but I do not in fact think this is a "hybrid N3E/N3B design" or that the M3 could use N3E. It does not work like that. The differences between N3E and N3B extend beyond the cache size.

At any rate the rumors about the M3 are that it's delayed, the chips are done and it's primarily a function of N3B supply which also makes sense given the parametric and/or catastrophic yield issues.

Yeah, having to deal with a new PDK is a major problem. I image all the RTL characteristics are different and all macros will need to be redone. If that's the case, I would think the expected launch of M3 Macs would be pushed out 6-9 months from the original target date (architecture would still be the same). N3E would be a much better choice, particularly for laptops, but Apple may just dance with the one they brought to the party (N3b) as a release timing issue.

 

[FlameTail]

Offtopic, just want to Say Dr Ian Cutress do use Andrei graph and He updated it to include modern soc like SD 8 Gen 2, you can check his YouTube Chanell Techtechpotato,

I know about the great Dr Ian Cuttess and his channel.

But he unfortunately doesn't do testing in the scale of Geekerwan or even the former Andrei, which is understandable since he now has little spare time to do so.

 

[eek2121]

I know about the great Dr Ian Cuttess and his channel.

But he unfortunately doesn't do testing in the scale of Geekerwan or even the former Andrei, which is understandable since he now has little spare time to do so.

I follow him on Twitter (and enjoyed his content here at AT), and very occasionally watch his videos, but outside of constantly attempting to eat wafers, and traveling I can’t tell what he does, if anything, for a living.

 

[Doug S]

Considering the price of the Vision Pro, I would want them pack in some exotic tech.

Including some.spicy batteries. Solid-State? Graphene battery? ,Some exotic stuff.

I'm not aware of any technology that would get you 10x better power per volume/weight at any price, let alone that can be manufactured in the hundreds of thousands soon and would have to be manufacturable in the millions if Vision Pro takes off.

 

[gdansk]

Wow, that estimated yield for a ~103mm² part. N3B more like N3Bad

 

[Eug]

M2 based MBA13" did release in WWDC 2022, the interval is about one and a half years. How about I speculate that both MBA 13"& 15" are going to get upgrade one year later?

Could happen, although I'll go on record to predict that the M4 13" & 15" MBAs will not be updated until WWDC 2025 or summer/fall 2025.

 

[FlameTail]

It would be a nice early morning surprise to wake up and find out that M3 CPU is now available in a Lenovo Thinkpad laptop. One can dream.

Soon, that will be a reality with WoA. Die, Apple, die!

Snapdragon X Elite will be our saviour

 

[Glo.]

New chip flaw hits Apple Silicon and steals cryptographic keys from system cache — 'GoFetch' vulnerability attacks Apple M1, M2, M3 processors, can't be fixed in hardware

This vulnerability is stupendously serious, affecting most encryption algorithms including those hardened against quantum computers.

www.tomshardware.com

"Researchers have discovered a massive security vulnerability inside Apple M1, M2, and M3 silicon. The vulnerability, dubbed 'GoFetch,' steals cryptographic information from the CPU cache enabling an attacking program to build a cryptographic key from stolen data, allowing the application to access sensitive encrypted data. Ars Technica first reported on the security flaw. "

This will also affect iPads with M series chips.

Also - since the CPU shares the architecture with M series, it also should affect iPhone A series chips.

 

[FlameTail]

Apple is doomed

 

[SpudLobby]

For a completely new product they'll announce early because they can't lose sales for something they don't have on the market, but for almost anything else they're typically taking orders for something that will ship in the next two to four weeks.

The M2 Air was unveiled at WWDC and launched a month later. People exaggerate how close to release Apple is sometimes, it varies. The key with them is when they do officially release, it isn’t a paper launch. Whereas with other vendors you’ll see “releases” sometimes and it’s a paper launch.

iPhones also have had delays before for the Pro or Max models.


“In fact, Apple isn't launching all four iPhone 12 models at the same time. Only the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro will be available to preorder on Friday, Oct. 16, with deliveries a week later on Oct. 23.The iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max will go on sale Nov. 6, and start shipping on Nov. 13.“

This isn’t rare for Apple. They might do 2-6 week delays for a real launch from announcement but when it releases, it *hits in volume*.

On the other hand, if it were going on sale the day of the event, someone somewhere should be receiving shipments already. Even if they're only sending to their own stores first, I'd be surprised that some hasn't leaked that yet. Apple isn't nearly as tight-lipped as they'd like to be.

I don't really see the announcing something that wouldn't ship by the end of the month. If it's longer, they'd just delay the announcement until they were closer to the ship date. Even with a May 30th release date, it would still make for an 8 month interval between M3 and M4.

Perhaps we get something like an M3X where it's not an M3 but is not an M4 either.