MacBook Pro’s switchable graphics doesn’t use Optimus

We noted yesterday that Apple’s new Core i5/Core i7 MacBook Pro notebooks featured Nvidia GeForce 330M graphics as well as on-the-fly switchable graphics technology. The logical assumption to take from that was that Apple was utilizing Nvidia’s Optimus, a smart switchable graphics solution that the company has been working on. As it turns out, that’s not the case–we’ve since learned that Apple’s solution is different and seemingly better. Ars Technica has an excellent write-up on the story if you are interested in all the details.
To over-simply the situation, Optimus switches dynamically from integrated to discrete graphics when a program needs the extra power. One of the ways it knows which to use is that there is a whitelist, provided by Nvidia, that tells the system to move over to the power-hungry discrete graphics. During this time the integrated graphics keeps running, it’s a bit inefficient but it gets the job done.
Apple’s solution, as explained by Ars, has the graphics switching when “advanced graphics frameworks” (like OpenCL) are being called upon, so no whitelist is necessary. It also powers down the integrated graphics while the dicrete GPU is a working, maximizing battery life.
This is all handled through OS X, so seems like Apple is able to implement the more elegant solution thanks to the control they have over their hardware and software.
Read more at Ars, don’t miss out on the comments as there is a lot to this issue.