Further explorations of ARM? (or a rant?!)
(mostly informal rant, I encourage research though)
Okay I went on a small rant about ARM based processors and how Apple is, (obviously) a very evil company, but I needed to add a few more things, some positives and negatives.
In the future, ARM based processors for computers would be a much more energy efficient choice on paper, utilizing native reduced instruction set coding to provide longer battery life and to chase the ideal of offsetting carbon emissions, but of course greenwashing takes hold. Even so, at the end of the day what is more energy efficient?...(still ARM based processors...)
Pivoting to X86 processors real quick, I had spoken on it before but at my job which is an AMD partner, I had access to AMD's personal training. (to get free money) I spent a few hours eventually finishing all they had and getting a nice cool $125 for free while utilizing all their "great talking points" to actually steer people away from buying many of their new CPUs. To elaborate, AMD processors are not ARM based like say, Apple's silicon series, or phone processors along with the majority of mobile devices.
Lately AMD has been pushing the envelope on AI and all of those banal talking points like any other big tech company, but something I found continually hilarious was how they mentioned continually how "powerful" their AI chips were, along with their selling points. Plus, I'm exposed to them much more due to the access I have so...
Now, the "selling points," involved running image generation (stolen content) locally, LLMs locally, (also stolen and inaccurate content) and a soiree of weird, unneeded, power heavy "AI" tasks for video calls. I mean seriously, is forcing your eyes to stay focused on the camera a feature that people are craving...it just looks weird.
At the same time, AMD kept boasting, again, like any tech company, about how "energy efficient" their new AI chips were, and exactly why everyone would need one. I am mentioning this so much only because since my company is a partner of Apple and AMD, I can talk about some of their "training" on how they want people to sell. I don't work in sales, but it's what AMD wants, and all other CPU companies.
I'd say "to be fair" AMD has reduced emissions in some areas, but it's just another example of greenwashing. In all truth, if they were so concerned, they wouldn't create such bloat like these new AI chips. (same goes for intel's AI chips)
X86 processors use loads of more power than ARM based CPUs on average, but the real issue goes back around to the bloat with their latest "innovations" for personal, mobile CPUs.
What I would really love one day; the dream, is to have a more energy efficient ARM based processor like the M series of chips, but somehow able to run the vast majority of X86 based applications, scripts, games, everything, all while maintaining a faster speed.....X 86 can be inefficient on multiple levels, but it also, as it stands, is the gold standard for almost everything. Plus, besides power, it has its benefits with processing power. Multiple projects to overcome the x86 architecture have cropped up over the years, but there's always been a failure, or push back.
For a while as x86 has been around this has been a dream but...still..one day hopefully! It doesn't even have to be ARM, a different ISC could take over, as long as it's more power efficient and somehow faster?? >~< I hate Apple, but their M chips are a good start when it comes to the market share, even if consumers love X86..! (and it is crucial for literally almost everything still, emulators do exist though)
For wrapping this up, I want to mention a series of steps I take at my job to approach the topic of new computers and ones I work on as ethically as possible. (still always learning)
At my job, I always turn off diagnostic data for new pcs on clients, educate them on power consumption, how leaving a pc on could be terrible for it as well, (mainly for windows computers not set to hibernate, this is default for mac though) disabling as much telemetry as I'm allowed to with my job, and further optimizations and practices to do what I can to at least attempt to make things just a teensy tiny bit greener. (it's computers at the end of the day though............so.....oxymoron...but still!)
I've never told a client that I did give instructions on what to buy as to why i was shying away from certain companies and processors, but I always steered them towards the most energy efficient choices that were inexpensive. (so not Apple) Sales people (on no commission mind you!) tend to still always have to get people the highest, most expensive, most stupidly powerful computer for no reason, and I almost always sit down and talk with someone as to why they don't need it. They do tend to listen to me, and I have gotten many items returned because of it, which is good.
I brought up a client with a 1700 iPad last time FOR JUST EDITING PDFs, but I also had another client with a $2000 Mac Studio with the M4 Pro Max. On its own, yes that is a fantastic processor in terms of pure specs, and I will concede, it is quite energy efficient as well. However, this was just for Adobe lightroom. I sat down with her, gave her the whole spiel and she did end up listening.
Those little things do help, and although this doesn't really apply to many people, it's a small thing but helping someone pick a new computer, or a new device, or anything. It can be helpful to know what options are best. I won't fully break them down here as it differs completely on what someone is doing in the end, but I will always aim to tell someone to get something refurbished regardless.
On a different note, I am in charge of Apple Services at my job and that includes phone repairs. Typically, people try to aim to get WUR (whole unit replacements) as much as possible as opposed to illustrating the right to repair!!! Not only can WUR be more costly and produce more carbon emissions, there is usually many ways a phone, not just an iPhone can still be repaired; to save time, money, and to conserve just a little bit more energy.
For example, some of my coworkers may give up or say a repair is too hard or too broken, I literally rush over and say "NO...I WILL MAKE IT WORK" and I have done some insane stuff to fix phones instead of getting them replaced sometimes. >~< I'm kind offf just going on a silly rant now but...phones can be repaired is what I mean, just one example of something I try to do. : p One day I would love to do phone repairs, but for all phones at my own company...a girl-hamster can dream, PCs should be my main focus for a long while.
All in all, no one is ever going to be perfect at any of this, and I don't blame people for probably thinking I'm crazy when I talk about some of this at times either. I don't blame people either for not caring about this too much as well. Nonetheless, I like to illustrate at least some of my actions that I do to try and make things a little better. I'm still learning and will make a host of mistakes as I continue on, but the effort to improve is what matters!
Take care of yourselves.
- Victoria