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No More Intel Inside, Apple Plans To Use Its Own Custom-Built Chips in Mac (bloomberg.com)
Apple is planning to use homegrown custom-built processors in its Mac line of computers, ditching Intel, the processors by which powers Apple's current line of computers, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The company could make the switch to its own chips as early as 2020, the report said. From the report: The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple's devices -- including Macs, iPhones, and iPads -- work more similarly and seamlessly together, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The project, which executives have approved, will likely result in a multi-step transition.
The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple's Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple provides Intel with about 5 percent of its annual revenue, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis. Intel shares dropped as much as 9.2 percent, the biggest intraday drop in more than two years, on the news.
The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple's Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple provides Intel with about 5 percent of its annual revenue, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis. Intel shares dropped as much as 9.2 percent, the biggest intraday drop in more than two years, on the news.
Am I surprised? No.
Apple has a track record of moving across chip lines. Being that they make the OS and the Hardware, the processor isn't that big of a deal, and they have a really good track-record of keeping compatibility across different processor lines. Compared to say Microsoft who barely made the 64bit transition.
That being said. The real question is for the people who duel boot their Macs, or use Virtualization. My biggest fear is if OS X moves to the closed infrastructure that is iOS. I can deal with Apple approved apps for my phone, but for my laptop, I will want to install whatever I feel like.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This will not be a good move for Apple. It might turn out to be the final nail for apple as a computer manufacture.
Back when Apple was 68K there where lots of companies that developed exclusively for Mac. Then Apple switched to PowerPC this forced all these companies to spend millions to rewrite code to support the new chips. To compound all this a few years later apple switched to x86 architecture. Again sending developers scrambling and spending millions to rewrite old code for the new architecture. The switch to x86 allowed some of these companies to mitigate some of the cost because now they had a code base that shared a common processor with windows.
Because of these processor switches and the millions that had to be committed to rewrite old code send an number of developers, Adobe, looking for another market. Where Adobe used to develop their flagship products for Mac first and Windows as after thought, that is no longer true. Now Adobe and many former Mac companies now develop for windows first then mac as after thought.
With the prospect of another processor switch and having to spend millions now to develop a code base for two different processor lines, I imagine many will simply drop Mac as a native platform all together. They simply will not see the value in supporting a shirking market place with millions of dollars worth of research. Not when they can develop one code base for windows and macs can run it under a windows emulator.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.