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Apple May be Intel Show Pony
Robert writes "Computer
Business Review reports that the implications of Apple dropping IBM as its chip vendor
in favor of Intel, announced earlier this week, will straddle the broader computing
landscape. Apple stands to gain a competitive edge by partnering with Intel because
it will have access to slightly cheaper stuff."
FTA Apple has said it would not allow Apple OS X to run on any machine other than an Apple Macintosh.
Seriously, I'm asking...how would they be able to stop it? I must be missing something.
Dell has proven that they only want to make cheap stuff... they used to brag they made "PCs" now they just make "clones" but make them cheaply. Intel needs somebody to really show off their cutting edge stuff...which no normal PC maker will do. Enter apple looking for a new partner. Intel just lost the Xbox account anyway.. and the writing on the wall is that MS will stab them in the back just as fast as every other partner.. It's foolish of Intel NOT to take the opportunity to develop hardware that breaks all the PC rules and start over from scratch.. frankly they'll be Intel's "demo" group and just let everybody else copy them.
Apple dropped IBM because IBM like Linux, and Apple needs Linux to fail so that Apple can be the next big thing.
You know I kind of wondered about that myself. After all, would Mac on Intel take market share from MS or Linux. Or neither. I can't decide.
This is all to complicated. I used to know who to distrust.
When I walk into a store selling Apple components, all of the prices have seem to have been standardized. I walk into Fry's electronics, and the thirty inch flat-panel is $2999. I walk into an Apple store and the thirty inch flat-panel is $2999. I bet if I walked up to an Apple Factory, they would sell me the thirty inch flat-panel for ... $2999.
Apple has never been in the game of "cheap" hardware, letting the market decide how much things will cost, etc. They like their components viewed as top-shelf, and I doubt things will change in the future. All Intel means to Apple is more profit, not lower prices for the consumer.
I found this great article here. Read this carefully before you thing about trying OS-X.
Exclusively Intel OEMs get large discounts.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Linux has lost momentum and OS X has gained it. More and more people have decided that there's no point in waiting for Linux to provide a good user friendly nix desktop where things just work, when OS X already offers it. People have waited long enough for Linux already.
It was a tough choice, but I doubt Apple moved to Intel for cheaper chips, or better processors. Intel has always developed chips that aren't x86 or IA64 for "research" purposes.
I'd imagine that Apple are probably after Intels vast fabrication resources. They probably see that IBMs fabs will probably be under pressure to crank out chips for the XBox and Playstation.
For the volumes of chips that those two platforms will need, its hard for IBM to justify Apple taking up their valuable fab space.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
A low voltage Itanium 2 is coming at the end of the year in production quantities.
The support chipset for the Itanium is also quite impressive.
The Itanium roadmap shows support for up to 8 Itanium dual cores.
I understand that the proposed Apple / Motorola/Freescale settlement involves an unlimited Altavec X86/Itanium license.
I also understand that IBM is to make a significantly improved proposal to Apple about PPC supply and development within two weeks.
If much of this is true, Apple would have interesting options.
After the announcement was made last week, I began to wonder about something. Was the Intel mini that was unveiled a few weeks ago made with Apple's blessing? Proof that Apple could very easily rerelease their iMac mini with an Intel chip/guts?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
What are you talking about? What "bubble" are you talking about? This is a hardware shift, pure and simple, not a change to the operating system.
The argument has long been that there are no (well, few) MacOS virii because with a reduced market share, the hackers have no interest in the platform. If true, that could change, yes.
But I think it's more a matter of:
a) Programming a Mac has a higher learning curve than Windows, and no script kiddie is going to spend the required time to learn it solely for the purposes of writing trojans (never mind that a script kiddie lacks the basic knowledge of progamming to even contemplate such a thing)
b) The operating system is designed with security from the bottom up, not some hobbled together patchwork of fixes slopped on to try and cover fundamentally flawed OS holes at the root level.
Is the platform vulnerable? I suppose that there aren't many that aren't.
Is it ever going to be even remotely as vulnerable as Windows? Fat chance.
1) Intel is sick of having most of its cool technology dropped through the narrow mindset of Taiwan^H^H^H^H^H^H^HChinese motherboard makers and the control-freak Microsoft. Microsoft's strategic interest is to blast hardware margins, differentiation and technology differences to zero, creating massive low price competition and a single software target. Then all innovation and profit margin goes onto the Microsoft side.
Intel hates this. Now, they have a cool computer maker who agrees with them and isnt' Microsoft's beeyatch.
2) Microsoft said "fuck you" to Intel on xbox.
4) IBM said "ok pay us....one TRILLION dollars" when Apple wanted them to actually make lots of performance and heat compatible chips at a fair price.
5) Intel to Apple: "Hey Sailor, new in town?"
Has anyone else noticed any direct consequences of this move by apple?
The ones i have seen have been rather negative, my dad for example scraped his plans of buying an apple computer next year when his current pc has become outdated.
His reasons was fear that any current and future apples that come out before the new Intel ones and any software he will buy will become obsolete faster as software developers switch to the new Intel based platform and put more resources into that and that new versions of software might not be available to ppc apple users.
Also the net of sunshine, lollipops and grass is greener mentality i had shrouded apple with in my mind was ruthlessly torn off as my brain moved apple to the same category as dell and hp resides in.
Solid Splash design
The home media center market is going to be huge. Sony have PS3. Microsoft have Xbox3.
Now Intel and Apple are teaming to take them on. and IMO have the engineering skill, market credebility and design genius to do very well.
I can't wait...
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
With IBM looking at the hundreds of millions of units going to the console market vs the few million Apple would sell, it's easy to see IBM's point of view on this.
I believe that some people are way too bothered with Intel/Apple and are actually forgetting to look a little further into the future.
IBM has just sold its PC-department and is yet actualy massively supporting the Linux development. While that started out on Intel/x86 boxes, it is now an operating system that supports an incredible variety of processor platforms, including the recently premiered Cell Processor.
I believe there is a dying horse out there and it is calle Intel/x86. While it might have been a smart move on Apple's side to switch to Intel based processors in the short to mid term range, stragically speaking Apple has just abandoned its platform for the future and I doubt they will switch back to IBM in the foreseeable future. Apple customers would not accept another platform move.
IBM is not interested in short to mid term profits, IBM wants a firm piece of the entire pie in the very long run.
I suspect that IBM's unwillingness (or inability) to met Apple's demands for the G5, I tink this has something to do with its production facilities that are currently undergoing a massive reconstruction to meet the future demand for the cell processor.
Give IBM another two years and it will have produces cell processors for workstations, notebooks and embedded platforms. Not only will they have the fastest platform available, they will also have an operating system available that is already tailored to the specifications of the computing platform of the future.
Apple has had the opportunity to use that very platform, but decided against it.
I am not so sure whether that was a really smart move.
I believe there is a dying horse out there and it is calle Intel/x86. While it might have been a smart move on Apple's side to switch to Intel based processors in the short to mid term range, stragically speaking Apple has just abandoned its platform for the future and I doubt they will switch back to IBM in the foreseeable future. Apple customers would not accept another platform move.
Now why would Apple owners care about another platform move? With all of the developers having to do work that makes programs essentially endian-neutral, Apple actually has the freedom to possibly dare to make a line of computers with different processors! They could for instance release a cheap Cell based computer in a year or two, that could possibly either run the PPC stuff as if native or perhaps make it work with tweaking from Rosetta.
I'm not saying they will do this, I'm saying that most Apple owners neither know nor care what processor is actually in the box, and furthmore that developers are going to HAVE to write platform neutral code and ship universal binaries for years to come.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No one gave a shit about USB until the iMac created a market for USB peripherals. It was still several years before it started appearing on most new PCs, thanks to Intel's chipsets - yet most consumer PC's to this day ship with non-USB mice and keyboards. This is exactly why Intel wanted to partner with Apple.
Buying a Mac now would not be a bad descision at all, there's still a 4-6 years of life left on the PowerPC.
I see a lot of wishful thinking about this. Remember the OS X transition? Within 2 years Jobs is up on stage sticking OS9 into a coffin and killing hardware support for the thing. Developers got the message and OS9 software disappeared.
I personally believe that Apple is going to quickly move to x86 hardware, and both Apple and ISV software support for PPC is going to start dying off in 2008. That doesn't make your shiny new PowerMac worthless, but it does mean you better be happy with only one generation of new software.
But, yeah, there's a lot of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about PowerPC right now, and rightfully so. Apple could alleviate things if they just released a software/hardware road map.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Linux has lost momentum, but so has Windows. IE no longer has 90% of market share.
Jobs said Intel Macs could run Windows, but he says "who would want to?". I think he's being disingenuous. I for one, would love to be able to dual boot Windows and OS X on an Intel-powered Powerbook. That's one less computer I need on my desk.
Mark my words: more machines that _can_ run Mac OS X means more machines that _will_ run Mac OS X. Apple better have a good plan to make a Windows partition and an even better plan to reclaim abandoned Windows partitions.
My father is a blogger.