Indeed. Apple is going to have to eat R&D costs that were previously bundled in Intel's pricing. And Mac sales are relatively small compared to the Windows market, so economies of scale are going to be less significant.
Which means the actual per-CPU fab cost is going to become a smaller part of the complete development and production cost of a run. And that total cost is the only one that matters.
I expect savings can still be made, because Apple will stop contributing to Intel's profits. On the other hand I'm sure Apple was already buying CPUs at a sizeable discount.
Either way it's an open question if Apple's margins are going to look much healthier.
IMO an important motivation is low power/TDP for AR/VR.
Ax will also eventually give Apple the option of a single unified development model, which will allow OS-specific optimisations and improvements inside the CPU/GPU.
Ax has the potential to become MacOS/iOS/A(R)OS on a chip in a way that Intel CPUs never could.
Which means the actual per-CPU fab cost is going to become a smaller part of the complete development and production cost of a run. And that total cost is the only one that matters.
I expect savings can still be made, because Apple will stop contributing to Intel's profits. On the other hand I'm sure Apple was already buying CPUs at a sizeable discount.
Either way it's an open question if Apple's margins are going to look much healthier.
IMO an important motivation is low power/TDP for AR/VR.
Ax will also eventually give Apple the option of a single unified development model, which will allow OS-specific optimisations and improvements inside the CPU/GPU.
Ax has the potential to become MacOS/iOS/A(R)OS on a chip in a way that Intel CPUs never could.