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Apple's A20 Pro shatters Geekbench 7 single-core record — 2nm chip beats desktop Intel Core i9 and AMD Ryzen 9 by up to 32%
(www.tomshardware.com)
A20 Pro vs Intel Ultra 7 Series 3
I'm not disagreeing with the rest of your post, but you do realize the MacBook Neo running the desktop macOS is using the A18 Pro, right? The A20 is an iteration on the same design and will likely end up in the next MacBook Neo.
I think OPs point is not that it’s unable to, is that Apple won’t let it
“Won't let it” by putting it in a Macbook and running MacOS on it?
As in you plug your phone into a monitor and it becomes a fully fledged desktop running MacOS, and you don't have to buy a 2nd device from Apple.
Edit: Like Samsung DEX
Who said anything anything phones specifically? You pulled some random criterion out of your ass.
And by this logic, Google also doesn't let you run desktop OSes on phone CPUs, because their phones don't do some random thing that you saw somewhere.
Apple intentionally limits what features iOS and 'iPadOS' have versus macOS to sell as many devices as possible. An alternate reality where Apple were consumer-friendly would converge all three operating systems into one, with a limited feature set on smaller screens that expands into the full feature set if connected to an external monitor with a docking adapter.
And Android is as full-featured as a desktop?
Jobs was pretty much describing iPad as what computers would be like ‘in the future’ in interviews in the eighties. It was his vision for ages. IPhones and iPads allowed more people to use computers than all desktop OSes combined.
And again, what does this have to do with the processor? You people just jump at any opportunity to mention how you hate Apple?
They could even sell a laptop shell that connects with the phone so you don't pay for the phone internals twice except the shell having a 2nd battery for the bigger display. The shell could then survive for an even longer time than a regular laptop as the internals keep getting upgraded via the phone instead of a whole new laptop.
You're describing the nexdeck
That looks cool, and yes! Apple could totally do that with MacOS, and a shell with their aluminum body and track pad. I bet itd sell very well, and for more of course.
Its cool the company is also offering a multi boot Windows / Debian mode (edit: phone) when connected.
Dex is a really neat concept, but ultimately sucks ass.
Maybe the duo will baby step us towards that. But even iPad OS which supports this for years is rough.
Have you tried the newer one built into AOSP yet? Is that one any better?
It's been a year or two since I tried it last. Are current Samsung phones using dex or the AOSP one? Or does the Pixel 9a running Graphene OS support it?
The Samsungs are still using DEX. I think only Pixels support the AOSP one right now, but it's there for other OEMS / devs to build upon. I don't know if Graphene OS supports it or not.
Edit: I just realized, I do have a pixel 8 for development work, and the cable to run it somewhere. Maybe I can find it and give it a try.
It does as of this morning on GrapheneOS
It appears OP wasn't clear they were talking about a phone using the A20 SoC, their message was a direct reply to the article posted which was about the A20 Pro itself and not any particular phone using it. Hence my reply which was also about the A20 SoC and not any particular phone.
I stand behind what I said: The A20 Pro will likely end up in a future MacBook, where it will definitely be running the desktop macOS.
Now, the fact that desktop macOS is becoming more and more like iPadOS/iOS is a discussion for another thread ;-)
I don't really see how you can read that post and not see they were talking about phones, but you are right that the A20 Pro will almost certainly show up in a MacBook Neo successor at some point.
Edit: And what do you think the benchmark was run on? It was a phone.
Doesn’t mean anything currently running an A20 can run a desktop OS. Point still stands.
We’ll see what the next Neo runs and how when it releases. The A18 Pro in the Neo is what’s in my phone and it’s said to be between M1 and M2.
Plus, if game developers targeted ARM instead of x86, im sure their games would actually run great on those A20s, but they're probably not going to make an ARM version of their game.
For any games running on phones with those A20s, they're already compiling for ARM.
For anything that gets an official MacOS release, they're probably targeting ARM at this point and soon they'll have to. Rosetta 2 support is getting dropped next year (supposedly a limited subset of Rosetta 2 will stay around for old x86 games).
I don't think triple-A is meant to run on those chips in anything but low at 1080p60. Not even double-A
The A20 could theoretically handle 4K gaming. Just depends on the game developer. The iPhone 18 Pro has 7 GPU cores, and it has about 12GB unified RAM to share between the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine.
Plus the ARM instructuin set is a bit more modern, so there is probably performance gains to be had that x86 couldnt handle