Apple/Intel Speculation Running Rampant

6031769 writes "ZD Net are reporting a rumour that Steve Jobs will announce Apple are going to move to an Intel chip base at their worldwide developer conference today. Still just a rumour, but could this be the masterstroke Apple have been promising or is it a blind alley?" Lots of submissions about this one, but no one knows for sure - there have been stories about how AMD is hurt by this - but I think my favorite debunking of it is the piece by John Gruber on Daring Fireball.

Comments

Its all just talk.

[Willy on Wheels]

This is all just rumors to get Apple users upset. Its being going since the 1980's, and its never happened. The G5 is too much of an asset to dump for the hell that is the P4. Even diehard Windows users are all migrating to AMD64 these days, Intel is just trying to get some free advertising and FUD to play with.

Re:Its all just talk.

[Yaruar]

there are a lot of problems with the G5 though. It's a great chip, but there are major issues with power and size on it, so much so that it's looking unlikely it will make it into a laptop any time soon, and remember it's the sexy titanium powermacs's that everyone has been drooling over in recent years. + they have had so much trouble sorting out supplies for power chips with motorola and IBM messing them about in recent years. It makes sense to shift to intel. the architecture isn't as good, but the supply is readily available and development is going on a lot faster than with the power chips. A move to AMD 64's or pentium M's would do apple a great deal of good, especially with the integtation into advanced motherboard architecture which again is a problem with the Power.

Re:Its all just talk.

[Senjutsu]

The PPC is a fantastic proc, but if IBM has come to Apple and said that they simply cannot deliver an efficient mobile PPC 970, given the way Freescale has totally dropped the ball on delivering a G4 with a clock and bus speed that belongs in this century, this would be the probable reaction by Apple.

Laptops are the fastest growing, most important segment to the company, and the iBook and PowerBook lines are both hurting for serious updates. The continued failure of these updates to appear suggests that their are serious issues preventing their appearance. If Apple's portable lines were projected to be stuck with the moribund G4 line for the foreseeable future, they'd react in the only way possible to ensure the continued relevance of their computers in their most important market; they'd switch to someone who could supply the mobile CPUs they need to survive, even if that meant some tough times in their immediate future.

"The IBM can't deliver a mobile G5" theory even explains the rumored roll out time line; the low-end minis and the portables will have fallen furthest behind the rest of the industry in another year or two if they're stuck with the G4, and be most desperately in need of an upgrade the soonest. The desktop G5s, thanks to the G5's excellent performance as a desktop CPU, will keep pace with the industry longer, and thus be in far less need of an upgrade than the heat- and power-constrained lines.

Re:Its all just talk.

[TheRaven64]

Sure, there are problems with the G5, but FreeScale is about to release a dual-core, 64-bit CPU with clock speeds starting at around 2GHz, integrated memory controller and 3 integrated GigE controllers (and a few other things I've forgotten), with a power consumption in line with current G5s. Abandoning IBM (at least in the short term) makes sense, but abandoning PowerPC does not. More speculation here.

Re:Its all just talk.

[Arker]

I agree. Going to x86 would be insanely stupid. Adding a third supplier of PPC chips would not be. And it would be a smart move for Intel to start making PPC chips - there's nothing stopping that from happening.

Very rampant...

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point pretty much everyone is saying something about it: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UT F-8&ncl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4612 951.stm

Re:Very rampant...

[sjf]

Certaintly if this story isn't true, it has to go down as the greatest troll in history.

I dunno, those Elbonian's got me pretty bad recently. Had to get my tighty-whiteys surgically removed.

On the other hand, as a Mac zealot, I'd like to say that Apple will never shift to Intel. It would be business suicide. Unless, that is, Steve announces a shift to Intel today. In which case, it will be the most brilliant business decision made since he invented the MP3 player.

branding POV

[rokzy]

the worst thing in the world would be for a Mac to have an "Intel inside" sticker on it, or even on the packaging. but as annoying as their stupid campaign is, would Intel make an exception to their rule for Apple? Apple's design is one of their biggest assets so I can't see them giving in either.

Re:branding POV

[bitmason]

Using "Intel Inside" sticker isn't a requirement for anyone. However, if you choose to use the sticker, you can get co-op marketing dollars from Intel for doing so, so there's often a sizable financial incentive to use it. (There are also a fair number of restructions on how the dollars can be used--basically only for advertising/marketing products or product lines that are 100% Intel.)

Could be a disaster....

[eyegor]

Can you say binary incompatability?

When Apple last changed processor families, there was a big problem with binary incompatability. Needless to say, there were a lot of very pissed off Apple users. The transition from PowerPC to Intel could be very painful given two different processor families.

The LAST thing Apple needs to do is to piss off it's user base.

Re:Could be a disaster....

[teslar]

Can you say binary incompatability?

This is where this bit of information comes in:

Industry sources also say Apple is a licensee of Transitive's QuickTransit virtual processor technology, which allows anything to run on Intel x86 (and vice versa) via dynamic instruction translation.

Re:Could be a disaster....

[Mark_in_Brazil]

The LAST thing Apple needs to do is to piss off it's user base.

But maybe there's a way for the story to be true and Apple to not piss off its user base.
I've been told that Apple managed to put some very tough clauses into its contract with IBM over the chips. If IBM were unable to meet certain criteria, Apple would be able to take some of the intellectual property, basically allowing Apple to take the design and have somebody else make the processors.
I've noticed that the reports on C|Net don't say Apple will use Pentium chips. They say Apple will use Intel chips.
If you RTFD (D="Debunking") from the blurb, it's mentioned there that Apple pays a lot less for the chips it gets from IBM than it would pay for comparable Pentium chips.
It's also interesting (mentioned in the "debunking") that Apple has NOT been warning its developers about a pending change of endian-ness, as you might expect them to if a change to little-endian Pentium chips from big-endian PowerPC chips.
But... if it's true that Apple can take the chip design to Intel, then Intel could conceivably make PowerPC chips for Apple. That's about the only way I can see this rumor being true. It would still be tough, because I don't think it would be easy for Intel to get production of a new chip going at the required volume within a year, but I am not a silicon expert.

Re:Could be a disaster....

[mr_gerbik]

Yes but this could be the last time they do it, and it would give it more of a reassuring "once and for all" impression.

Yeah, I hope this is the last architecture change they ever make. I really want to be using x86 20-50 years down the line.

Re:Could be a disaster....

[squiggleslash]

Problems with this theory: 1. Intel probably wouldn't want to produce PowerPCs. 2. Apple has little or nothing to gain by Intel producing 970 clones except, possibly, fractional improvements in price.

Apple's problem at the moment is two-fold: The 970 is capped at well under the 3GHz originally promised, and it's still a power hog. It can't be used in laptops. Intel building clones isn't going to help, the 970 will need some design work to get faster and/or use less power.

Meanwhile, not only are we supposedly asking Intel to undermine the credibility of its own competitors to the PowerPC range, but also to make a CPU for one manufacturer that's come to it saying "We went to Freescale and they suck, so we went to IBM and they suck too, and now we're coming to you". For Intel to bite, it has to have real value for them, and being a second-tier chip cloner is not where Intel is at. They need Apple to confer credibility on what Intel does.

Re:Could be a disaster....

[hammeredpeon]

WSJ does actually say x86 chips, not that Apple is just using Intel as their new manufacturer

The best of this wave of debunkings, you mean

[ianscot]

Sure, that's a pretty good set of debunkings linked to at the end of the posting. I'd even go with something like the guess at the end -- seems like Jobs wouldn't just be announcing "We're on the intel bandwagon, hook link and sinker," for all the reasons people usually mention. (What would it do to the existing sales base? I mean, my God, who would buy a G5 iMac right now knowing that in a year it'd be a cut-off technical backwater for the company?)

But, you know, we have at least five or ten years of people debunking this particular rumor. Describing this list as the best ever is jumping the gun a little. Maybe we'll have another five years of the same, and then we can judge better.

Dvorak is bragging

[scupper]

I heard Dvorak on the episode 8 twitcast basically bragging he "called" this x86 switch a couple of years back.

he's completely extatic about it, and discuss the x86 switch as a done deal.

He's also going off on his blog.

I'm still not sold, and the debunk arguments by Gruber seems reasonable.

Re:Dvorak is bragging

[The Original Yama]

Dvorak has been living in his own dimension for as long as I can remember. Remember the media speculation surrounding the last CPU switch that Apple made? To most people, the most obvious choice seemed to be the IBM PPC970. Dvorak in his infinite stupidity, however, predicted that they would choose the Opteron. Why on Earth would Apple choose a chip that was so expensive to manufacture and designed for servers and not desktops? I'm surprised he's not claiming that they'll be using the Itanium this time.

Re:Dvorak is bragging

[Alioth]

Dvorak is a professional troll. I don't know why someone who whined that Windows was slow "because the system idle process was thrashing 95% of cpu time!!111oneone" can ever get front page news on Slashdot. He's basically a clueless dolt.

Re:Dvorak is bragging

[sg3000]

> Yeah, along with every two-bit prognosticator in the business
> since 1985.

Absolutely. It's a pretty easy prediction to make. Back in 2002, I posted how Mac OS X could allow Apple to switch to x86 on Slashdot:

It's very unlikely that you'll see such a project until Apple can safely move as many Mac users there as possible, while stranding as few users as possible. The Mac market is too small for it to be successfully fragmented into Mac-PPC and Mac-x86 camps. But there is a path for Apple to get there.

1. Introduce Macintoshes running on as much PC-compatible hardware as possible. CHECK: current Macs use the same video cards, video memory, bus ports, and other parts as regular PCs. Just the processor is different

2. Introduce an operating system that can be run truely architecture independent. CHECK: Mac OS X is based on NeXTStep that used to run on x86. All they need is to get the majority of their users onto Mac OS X. Right now they're at 20% penetration.

3. Get Mac users off of Classic so they don't have to worry about PPC compatibility. IN PROGRESS: with Mac OS X 10.2, expect a lot more users spending all their time in Cocoa and Carbon. It'll probably be until 2004 before Classic will fall to a minority of users (once the specialized apps are replaced by Mac OS equivalents)

4. Introduce a Mac that uses a non-PowerPC processor (like AMD Hammer) which gives a definite performance advantage or price advantage. You'd better bet that Apple is at least considering this

5. Allow other PC makers to build Mac clones. But this time, Apple will have to negotiate from a position of strength, rather than one of desparation like before.

Clearly, I'm no expert. I think the AMD part I wrote is unlikely in the extreme, and I don't think Apple will be switching to become a software-only (item 5) business since their combination of hardware/software allows them to have a finely-tuned user experience. However, making such a prediction is pretty easy (particularly if you leave out the specifics), so Dvorak gloating about it is just silly.

That said, it's more likely Apple is announcing a WiMAX deal with Intel, or they're going to license PPC to Intel to make. Switching to x86 could be done, but it will be difficult to manage the transition (even with Mac OS X's advantages over Mac OS 9). Then again, Apple handled a processor change fairly successfully with the 68k to PPC, so maybe they can pull that off.

But it's probably best to not second guess Apple on this, and just wait until the announcement comes out. Apple sure knows how to get people to pay attention to its developers' conference!

What is all the fuss about? (El Reg)

[Gary W. Longsine]

The Register weighs in with two articles this morning.

Apple shifts to Intel: What is all the fuss about

Apple to announce Intel 'Switch' - WSJ

Switching the Mac would be bizarre. Other product?

[Lemming Mark]

Switching the Mac over now would be really weird: for years Apple struggled with the G4's performance - then I might have understood. Now they've got IBM as a partner - one of the world leaders in CPU architecture, silicon fabrication, etc. It would seem truly bizare to ditch out from PPC at this point, especially given IBM's huge commitment to PPC world domination (and their manifest triumphs over Intel in another volume market - games consoles).

Using an XScale, I could understand. Intel are *the* market leader in high end portable processors at the moment (try to find a powerful PDA that *doesn't* have an XScale). An XScale would be the sensible choice for an Apple PDA or, indeed, the iPod / Phone combo that has been so talked about.

This "leak" might about buying Intel might a be deliberate publicity stunt but I find it really hard to believe the Mac will move away from PPC in the foreseeable future.

The third possibility is that Apple will introduce something new - something else they've not mentioned before. An ultra Apple / Windows friendly UNIX server? An appliance computer (e.g. a cross between iPod and a {web,file,database}server?) A set top box (*cough* *pippin* *cough*)? Personally, I think Apple could be good with appliance computing.

As an Apple employee

[Anonymous Coward]

(I'm in the cubicle next to ASOTV) I thought I'd confirm what's going on. It's actually a little more complex than has been speculated upon.

Apple is building an updated version of OS X called "Mac OS X Extreme", which uses the Windows NT kernel as its underpinning (essentially Darwin is going away, and being replaced by the lower layers of Windows XP, witha BSD-type POSIX layer for reverse compatability)

This will ensure Apple can still produce high quality and different computers (it'll still have the OS X GUI, for example) while migrating to more popular, and hence better tested, cheaper, technologies. The first machines will be Pentium M based, and we'll see the Mac mini Extreme in 2006, with others following using a forthcoming so-far unannounced 64-bit version of the Pentium.

These are exciting times.

Prediction #3,452

[archdetector]

Here goes: 1. Yes, they switch, and yes, OS X will still be closed to Apple machines. 2. Apple will provide hooks for all published MS API's, allowing 90% of Windows programs to run natively within OS X on Intel. 3. Apple will open source the Cocoa API's. They will provide the API's for Windows, leaving others to port them to Linux, etc. 4. Steve will claim to have saved the world by freeing the world from Windows.

AMD, and other speculation

[mattdm]

The AMD link isn't really about how it'll hurt AMD, but about how Apple couldn't choose AMD because AMD can't reliably keep up with that level of demand.

That's a lot more interesting/reasonable, since a switch to Intel architecture for Apple would be *good news* for AMD, since then going from Intel-made chips to AMD ones would be possibile sometime later.

The "debunking" link sounds reasonable -- "Here's my bet: Intel is going to produce PowerPC chips for Apple. But I'm only betting one dollar." Another possibility along those lines would be that Apple is switching to Intel *graphics chips*, which would make sense given the comment in the original rumors that the switch would happen on low-end computers first.

fact vs fiction

[larry bagina]

Fact: intel is not just a one trick (or 386 trick) pony.

Fact: NeXT used an i860 (64-bit RISC) graphics accelerator. Manufactured by Intel.

Fact: Intel manufactures ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) processors.

Intel knows a thing or about RISC chips. Intel manufacturing PPCs is far more probable than Apple jumping to x86.

Re:fact vs fiction

[ptomblin]

Fact: Because IBM didn't meet their performance promises to Apple, they now have to give Apple a whole bunch of PowerPC intellectual property. Apple could take that IP over to Intel and either have Intel manufacture 3GHz G5s, or make an Itanic/Power hybrid chip.

In other words, don't assume that a move to Intel means a move to x86.

Re:Today...

[Kjella]

Why, then we'd miss the

a) update to this story
b) actual announcement
c) ...that would be mistaken for a dupe
d) trolls reposting comments from this story to the next
e) all of the above

Why not an Intel PowerPC chip?

[peterdaly]

Here's my theory:
If any of this is true, which I'm not at all sure it is, why does everyone think it's going to be an x86 chip?

Apple IIRC has the ability to license the PowerPC chip to others. What if Apple is licensing PowerPC to Intel because IBM can't deliver? No incompatability. The current chips are already made by two differrent companies.

If there is ANY fact to this rumor, and it all seems to be rehash of the cnet story, this where where I think the most logical answer lies.

-Pete

Stock price? Re:Its all just talk.

[Gary W. Longsine]

It seems likely that this frenzy of speculation will affect the stock price in the short term. It seems like no matter what Apple announces at WWDC today, the headline will be related to this speculation. The folks who drive the stock price probably don't read Slashdot, and the headline "Apple did or did not switch to Intel" may drive some pretty big buy/sell movement as soon as the keynote is over.

Which direction will it move? If it moves down, how long will it take to recover?

There is enough uncertainty in such a move that it sure seems to me -- a slashdot reader who doesn't affect stock prices -- that it could only move down if such a switch is announced. However, when I think about it from the perspective of a trader who probably doesn't know all that much beyond the headline that shows up on his pager at say 11:01 PST today, I wonder if a switch would be considered good, and a series of PowerPC related announcements would be considered as a sell indicator.

Re:The most important question: Where is AsSeenOnT

[porcupine8]

He's busy preparing for his keynote, duh.

Re:Meanwhile Microsoft and Sony are using IBM PPC.

[dick johnson]

1) Chip supply. IBM and Motorola have had repeated problems supplying Apple with the number of chips that Apple needs. Intel will not have this problem.

IBM is now something like two years behind on its promised 3 Ghz chips.

2) Laptops. Apple needs a low-heat G-5 chip for it's laptops. From all accounts, it may be as long as two years before IBM or Motorola will be able to provide these chips.

3) Cost. Apple, according to today's NY Times, in its latest renegotiations with IBM wanted a discount on the price of the PowerPC chips. IBM essentally said forget about it.

4) There's no way Apple will NOT have a way for users to run their old applications on the new Intel/Macs. There will be some form of emulation available -- count on it.

Re:Ok, here's my bit of rampant speculation...

[Orion_]

Microsoft bought Connectix (authors of the VirtualPC software that lets Macs emulate Wintel boxes) and then quickly dropped their main product for no readily aparrent reason (other than pure spite). ... This leaves Apple with a VirtualPC shaped hole in their 'switch' marketing campaign.

Really? I guess my mind must be playing tricks on me; I was sure I had a copy of Microsoft Virtual PC 7.0 on my Mac...

Just something interesting...

[omega9]

Some posts argue that Apple switching to Intel would mean switching byte endianness, and that would piss off a whole slew of Mac developers and require enough software rewrites to be extremely uncomfortable.

That's a good arguement, but it's interesting to note that IA64 can go both ways. I'm not saying they'd go IA64, but that Intel is capable of making that a non-issue.

Personally, I think this while notion is awesome entertainment no matter what happens. And I don't think Apple will be going Intel any time soon.

It is The Inquirer, Enquirer is that trashy...

[Groo Wanderer]

....gossip rag.

Seriously though, I wrote the Inq piece, and I do have it from an independant source, and I had the info before CNet broke theirs, so it isn't a case of someone seeing CNet and running to me. I didn't get times though, which is why I was waiting.

On a related note, it would not surprise me if the be-turtlenecked megalomaniac had a hissy fit (a given), and put off the announcement. He can't cancel it, but putting it off to screw the journos would not be out of character.

There is more to this story though, and I will put some up as soon as I get bac from Computex, plane in 6 hours. Aargh.

-Charlie

Confirmed (via engadget)

[Augusto]

10:26am PDT - "Now, let's go to the big topic: Transitions."

10:27am PDT - 1994-1996 Moto 68K -> PowerPC. "I wasn't hear then, but from everything I hear the team did a great job." 2001-2003: OS9 - OS X.

10:28am PDT - "It's time for a third transition. And yes, (puts up slide that says): It's true." Next slide is one word: "Why?"

10:29am PDT - "I stood up two years ago and promised this (3.0G PowerMac), and we haven't been able to deliver." Steve says it's bigger than that, though. No roadmap for the future based on PowerPC - they can't see a future.

10:30am PDT - Intel offers not just increased performance, but reduced power consumption. Transition will be complete by WWDC '07.

From Maccentral.com

[pressman]

The rumors are true: Intel will be inside

Jobs talked about the major transitions in the Mac's life -- starting from the Mac's Motorola 68000-series processor to PowerPC. "The PowerPC set Apple up fro the next decade. It was a good move," he said.

"The second transition was even better -- the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X that we just did," he continued. "This was a brain transplant. And even though these operating systems (9 and x) vary only by one in name, they are very different, and this has set Apple up for the next 20 years."

As the Intel logo lowered on the stage screen, Jobs said, "We are going to make the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors, and we are going to do it for you now, and for our customers next year. Why? Because we want to be making the best computer for our customers looking forward."

"I stood up here two years ago and promised you 3.0 GHz. I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you," said Jobs. "But as we look ahead, and though we've got great products now, and great PowerPC products still to come, we can envision great products we want to build, and we can't envision how to build them with the current PowerPC roadmap," said Jobs.

Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. "When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel's roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do," he explained.

Transition to Intel by 2007, and yes, Marklar exists

"Starting next year, we will introduce Macs with Intel processors," said Jobs. "This time next year, we plan to ship Macs with Intel processors. In two years, our plan is that the transition will be mostly complete, and will be complete by end of 2007."

Jobs then confirmed a long-held belief that Apple was working on an Intel-compatible version of Mac OS X that some have termed "Marklar."

Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years."

Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple's Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.

Apple needs developers' help to complete the transition

"We are very far along on this, but we're not done," said Jobs. "Which is why we're going to put it in your hands very soon, so you can help us finish it."

The future of Mac OS X development is moving to Xcode, said Jobs. Of Apple's top 100 developers, more than half -- 56 percent -- are already using Xcode, and 25 percent are in the process of switching to Xcode. "Less than 20 percent are not on board yet. Now is a good time to get on board," said Jobs.