Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Do you play with your Willy?
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
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.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
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
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
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.
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.
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.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
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.
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.
- sigs are for wimps.