Apple M1 foreshadows Rise of RISC-V
With all the discussion about what the “big trick” is that makes the M1 seem to be such a breakthrough, I can’t help but wonder, if the M1 is more like the iPhone: The sum of a large number of small engineering improvements, coupled with a lot of component integration detail work, topped off by some very shrewd supply chain arrangements.Analogous to the iPhone being foreshadowed by the iPod without most experts believing Apple could make a mobile phone from that, the M1 was foreshadowed by the A1 for mobile devices with many(most?) experts not forecasting how much it could be the base for laptops and desktops.It seems, the M1 includes numerous small engineering advances and the near term lockup of the top of the line fab in the supply chain also reminds me of how Apple had secured exclusivity for some key leading edge iPhone parts (was it the screens?).So the M1 strikes me as the result of something that Apple has the ability to pull off from time to time.And that is rather hard to pull off financially, organizationally and culturally. And it more than makes up for some pretty spectacular tactical mis-steps (I’m looking at you, puck mouse, cube mac, butterfly keyboard).EDIT for typo