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Intel Inside For Apple?
iomud writes "Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff predicts that there's a better than 80 percent chance Apple will make the jump to Intel in two to four years. As the relationship with Motorola seems to be weaning the question may be what chip would you like to see in next-generation Macs and why?" It seems important to note that Bear Stearns owns shares of Intel and Dell, and has a banking relationship with Dell and HP. Oh, and even if it didn't, that I can't see any reason why anyone should care what Andrew Neff says. But that doesn't mean it can't be fun to talk about!
MMM Twinkies. Tasty.
I read today that the reason guys wear baseball caps backwards is that it makes it much easier to give blowjobs. IS that why I see all those young boys with backwards baseball caps?
Sure gay people use apples. That should be a clue- if you want to be manly too, switch to a Mac!
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I think that most people here are missing the point. I've scanned the discussions, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but everybody is sticking to the argument about speed. This machine is faster, that machine is faster. Apple will do this because of speed, and Apple will do that because of speed. Whoah, whoah! Apple doesn't really care that much about speed!
Think about it. Sure, they try to ship the newest and the greatest processors when they can, but do you honestly think they'd still be in the AIM partnership if all they cared about was speed? Of course not. The key to understanding Apple is knowing what they value. What do they value? Being the God of their customer's computers.
Think about it. Apple is constantly building walls between itself and the community. They control all hardware. They are the sole producers of the OS. They approve all drivers. They produce many of the basic Applications one might use (Office Suite, photo program, movie making, burning software, music player, calendar program, scanning software, chatting program, email program). They produce a server that has heavy integration with Macintosh clients. They have a web hosting business that integrates heavily with OS X. The list of internal Apple ties is endless. Sure, you could make the argument that Apple has lots of ties to outside companies and products, but Apple branches out to them (for example, see the digital hub) instead of the companies coming to Apple.
Apple is building a contained Mac world. They have been forever. Switching to x86 chips would mean losing a lot of control. If they can sacrifice a little bit of speed for a lot of containment, they'll do it in a heartbeat. If you go by Michael Kanellos's stupid argument, Apple will dump their current sound cards and switch to Creative cards within the next couple years as well, because of their better performance. Do you honestly think Apple will want to start relying on another company to produce drivers, tech support, etc.? Apple will produce everything that they can, and when they can't produce it they will invest heavily in a company that can, and set up a strict partnership.
Earlier I mentioned the AIM partnership. Apple doesn't just buy their chips from the cheapest dealer on the street. They were integrating when that partnership was created, and they continue to integrate today. They won't throw away years and years of work to form a new integration with Intel as a part. It would go completely against Apple's plan.