Posted by
Hemos
on from the circle-round-round-and-again dept.
Stack_13 writes "Wall Street Journal reports that Apple will agree to use Intel chips. Neither Apple or Intel confirm this. Interestingly, PCMag's John C. Dvorak predicted this for 2004-2005. Are even cheaper Mac Minis coming?"
Stuff like this keeps coming up. Seems to be part of the Apple rumour cycle. Can we trust the source???
Using the G5 is par to of the advantage in marketing terms, as a far as i can see: think different!
Re:Does this mean -
by
southpolesammy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
More likely it will mean that you'll see better pricing on PowerPC-based Macs in the future.
-- Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Why move now?
by
JabrTheHut
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Why move now? Everyone's been hearing about the dual-core PowerPC chips for months, PS 3 and Xbox 180 will be running 3-core versions of this chip, so why go Intel?
-- Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
Here we go again...
by
tliet
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
For the n-th time, what would Apple have to gain? Who would buy a Mac when they could buy a Dell. Does anyone seriously believe Microsoft would release Office for Mac OS X for Intel?
The Mac would die the day the CPU would be the same as in a generic PC. Not from a architectural standpoint, I think they could make it happen, but marketingwise.
Currently all of Intel's stuff runs hotter, so Apple would have to work significantly harder at heat dissipation issues in all but their tower designs.
And what, pray tell, do you expect them to do with little-endian issues, backwards compatibility, and all those little details?
Unless Apple thinks that neither IBM or Motorola are ever going to catch up, I just can't see them justifying the huge cost of a major architecture change like this.
- Peter
-- INsigNIFICANT
Re:Does this mean -
by
/ASCII
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Apple may be planning on using Intel network cards. Or maybe one of intels hardware raid chips. Flash memories, Cellular processors, wireless chips are al possible. But processors? I doubt it.
Re:Intel make chips other than CPUs
by
imroy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Intel bought the StrongARM processor design from Digital a number of years ago. They now produce them under the Xscale brand. They've been used in heaps of devices, including the Compaq iPAQ, and lots of small embedded boards. Apple has previously used AMD's MIPS-based processors in some of their Airport AP's. Given the Xscale's low power/heat and relative processing power, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple use the Xscale in another funky little portable device.
Re:Does this mean -
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Going out on a limb here: yes.
Keeping my feet on the ground here: No.
We will see Windows on PowerPC long before we ever see the full OS X on x86. There's absolutely no advantage to changing platforms at this point.
Sure, the Intel/AMD world looked very attractive when Apple was relying on Motorola and lagging way behind in CPU speeds, but current PowerPC technologies from IBM are outstanding. The G5 is a terrific chip. Multi-core PowerPC chips offer a great deal of promise in the very near future.
If Apple does move away from the G5 archetecture, it will be to go to Cell chips, not Intel-64.
No I think he meant to say their architecture. The PPC is a pretty well defined processor, I've used it on a number of designs way outside that of a traditional computer, but it's just a processor. You can string it to just about any impossible chain of stuff imaginable, trust me, I have. None of them were compatible with Apple's Macintosh however.
PCs and Apple's have an "architecture" defining how the chips are strung together, how expansion is expected to work, how the interrupt controller works (and yes, which interrupt certain hardwired devices are on), etc. Unlike Apples, for the PC it's not one but many standards defining their function, not one of which defines how the processor should work. Worse still, it's essentially defined as "Be backwards compatible with an PC AT from 20 years ago". No single company really owns it, although many would like to. Even the evil empire has relegated itself to "putting up with cooperation" in this regard.
I find it more likely that Apple will define their own computer architecture using Intel chips. Maybe they will do their own north bridge, in fact much of the traditional PC architecture is emulated in this device, and changing it with something else would make an incompatible system. Let's not forget that much of PC legacy crap is software as well as hardware. If Apple throws all that out the window, they may as well have defined a new Intel based system. You aren't going to install windows on it, nor will you get a regular x86 build of linux to come close to working.
The chief measure of successful punditry is not accuracy, but credibility. Credibility is not based on any particular insight on the part of the public, but on three factors:
(1) Telling people what they already know or are being told by other credible sources. (2) Being considered a credible source. (3) Thinking of arguments that sound good suporting what everyone thinks is going to happen.
If there is a bit of recursion going on here, it's simply because the basis of credibility is so flimsy. It also means that credibility is self-reinforcing, which means the hardest thing about being credible is getting on the credibilty gravy train. Which is good, because there are limited spots avaiable.
Mr. Dvorak used a time honored method for obtaining credibility of getting in early, on the ground floor.
From a technical perspective he's a bit late on the Mac/x86 speculation though, which has been rife for nearly twenty years now. However, this is actually a highly sophisticated bit of punditry timing. Apple had been off the punditry radar screen for nearly a decade at the time. You simly cannot excercise punditry on something nobody else is thinking about -- novel ideas have no basis for sounding credibile (see above).
However, by 2004, it was apparent that Apple was no longer irrelevant, that it had not only stopped the bleeding but had built a successful business, established valuable and powerful brand identity, and had reasserted its influence as a design leader, not only in the computer field, but beyond. So people started thinking about Apple again. And, in the same way that old English roads still bear the ruts of Roman chariots, their thoughts naturally fell into the grassy ruts of the MaxOS x86 idea.
Mr. Dvorak's 2004 prediction bears the hallmarks of expert punditry. First the conclusion is public property so well broken-in that nobody is apt to mind if it takes a bit of additional abuse. Secondly , of course, is the exquisite timing that only an ear planted firmly on the ground of public opinion can execute, falling on the heels of Apple's successful iMac by a mere six years. This is probably, ifyou will permit me a bit of nelogizing, the minimal period needed for effective punditric credibilogenesis. Any shorter and you're talking about something that nobody is thinking about yet -- disaster. Any longer and all the good theories for what everyone expects to happen will have been taken, and the whole idea will have to be put back on the shelf for five or more years.
-- Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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ARM for iPods maybe, but otherwise, absolutely no chance. Only a fool would even think this was likely.
Stuff like this keeps coming up. Seems to be part of the Apple rumour cycle. Can we trust the source??? Using the G5 is par to of the advantage in marketing terms, as a far as i can see: think different!
More likely it will mean that you'll see better pricing on PowerPC-based Macs in the future.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Why move now? Everyone's been hearing about the dual-core PowerPC chips for months, PS 3 and Xbox 180 will be running 3-core versions of this chip, so why go Intel?
Work like no one is watching. Dance like you've never been hurt. Make love like you don't need the money.
For the n-th time, what would Apple have to gain? Who would buy a Mac when they could buy a Dell. Does anyone seriously believe Microsoft would release Office for Mac OS X for Intel?
The Mac would die the day the CPU would be the same as in a generic PC. Not from a architectural standpoint, I think they could make it happen, but marketingwise.
And why, now, would Intel CPUs be any cheaper?
Currently all of Intel's stuff runs hotter, so Apple would have to work significantly harder at heat dissipation issues in all but their tower designs.
And what, pray tell, do you expect them to do with little-endian issues, backwards compatibility, and all those little details?
Unless Apple thinks that neither IBM or Motorola are ever going to catch up, I just can't see them justifying the huge cost of a major architecture change like this.
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
Apple may be planning on using Intel network cards. Or maybe one of intels hardware raid chips. Flash memories, Cellular processors, wireless chips are al possible. But processors? I doubt it.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
Intel bought the StrongARM processor design from Digital a number of years ago. They now produce them under the Xscale brand. They've been used in heaps of devices, including the Compaq iPAQ, and lots of small embedded boards. Apple has previously used AMD's MIPS-based processors in some of their Airport AP's. Given the Xscale's low power/heat and relative processing power, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple use the Xscale in another funky little portable device.
Going out on a limb here: yes.
Keeping my feet on the ground here: No.
We will see Windows on PowerPC long before we ever see the full OS X on x86. There's absolutely no advantage to changing platforms at this point.
Sure, the Intel/AMD world looked very attractive when Apple was relying on Motorola and lagging way behind in CPU speeds, but current PowerPC technologies from IBM are outstanding. The G5 is a terrific chip. Multi-core PowerPC chips offer a great deal of promise in the very near future.
If Apple does move away from the G5 archetecture, it will be to go to Cell chips, not Intel-64.
No I think he meant to say their architecture. The PPC is a pretty well defined processor, I've used it on a number of designs way outside that of a traditional computer, but it's just a processor. You can string it to just about any impossible chain of stuff imaginable, trust me, I have. None of them were compatible with Apple's Macintosh however.
PCs and Apple's have an "architecture" defining how the chips are strung together, how expansion is expected to work, how the interrupt controller works (and yes, which interrupt certain hardwired devices are on), etc. Unlike Apples, for the PC it's not one but many standards defining their function, not one of which defines how the processor should work. Worse still, it's essentially defined as "Be backwards compatible with an PC AT from 20 years ago". No single company really owns it, although many would like to. Even the evil empire has relegated itself to "putting up with cooperation" in this regard.
I find it more likely that Apple will define their own computer architecture using Intel chips. Maybe they will do their own north bridge, in fact much of the traditional PC architecture is emulated in this device, and changing it with something else would make an incompatible system. Let's not forget that much of PC legacy crap is software as well as hardware. If Apple throws all that out the window, they may as well have defined a new Intel based system. You aren't going to install windows on it, nor will you get a regular x86 build of linux to come close to working.
The chief measure of successful punditry is not accuracy, but credibility. Credibility is not based on any particular insight on the part of the public, but on three factors:
(1) Telling people what they already know or are being told by other credible sources.
(2) Being considered a credible source.
(3) Thinking of arguments that sound good suporting what everyone thinks is going to happen.
If there is a bit of recursion going on here, it's simply because the basis of credibility is so flimsy. It also means that credibility is self-reinforcing, which means the hardest thing about being credible is getting on the credibilty gravy train. Which is good, because there are limited spots avaiable.
Mr. Dvorak used a time honored method for obtaining credibility of getting in early, on the ground floor.
From a technical perspective he's a bit late on the Mac/x86 speculation though, which has been rife for nearly twenty years now. However, this is actually a highly sophisticated bit of punditry timing. Apple had been off the punditry radar screen for nearly a decade at the time. You simly cannot excercise punditry on something nobody else is thinking about -- novel ideas have no basis for sounding credibile (see above).
However, by 2004, it was apparent that Apple was no longer irrelevant, that it had not only stopped the bleeding but had built a successful business, established valuable and powerful brand identity, and had reasserted its influence as a design leader, not only in the computer field, but beyond. So people started thinking about Apple again. And, in the same way that old English roads still bear the ruts of Roman chariots, their thoughts naturally fell into the grassy ruts of the MaxOS x86 idea.
Mr. Dvorak's 2004 prediction bears the hallmarks of expert punditry. First the conclusion is public property so well broken-in that nobody is apt to mind if it takes a bit of additional abuse. Secondly , of course, is the exquisite timing that only an ear planted firmly on the ground of public opinion can execute, falling on the heels of Apple's successful iMac by a mere six years. This is probably, ifyou will permit me a bit of nelogizing, the minimal period needed for effective punditric credibilogenesis. Any shorter and you're talking about something that nobody is thinking about yet -- disaster. Any longer and all the good theories for what everyone expects to happen will have been taken, and the whole idea will have to be put back on the shelf for five or more years.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.