TigerTel: Intel+Tiger at Apple Developer Conference? (1 Viewer)

A major shift in Apple strategy if true:

i saw this at this link. according to them, apple is going to "severe" contacts with ibm. hate to break it to you, allheadlinenews.com severe is not a verb. wonder if anyone proofreads these articles before posting.

funny how apple is making this move, since steve jobs constantly praised ibm's ppc cpu over intel. i think it will probably bring in more customers than it drives away.

CJ

I think Jobs may want more performance and it appears Apple has been frustrated with the lack of progress in terms of speed and not solving the heat issue on the G5 so it can be added to laptops...

There is speculation that this may be happening in part due to downloadable videos being more secure on the dual core chips.

Monday will be very interesting.

i have a hard time believing that apple would change their entire architecture because of the security of downloaded videos. if that factors into things, it must be a very minor detail.

CJ

Interesting news. Only worry is this will be even more marketshare for Intel, who have an insane amount as it is. It would be nice if Apple went with AMD just to make the competition more fierce between the two companies, but oh well.

Here's a cool article at Tom's showing how the Pentium M destroys the P4 on a clock-for-clock basis.

I believe it could be a factor...but there may be big pricing incentives from Intel...it could be a personal spat between Jobs and smoe guy at IBM.

Apple is certainly an attractive partner for Intel since they have been wanting to get more into consumer electronics. And Apple may be able to get some really cool features and special arrangements.

April Fools After falling for the Dual Core BS, I'm not buying anything until it is from the source.

For all we know Intel could make PPCs or a chip for H.264 acceleration or a chip for another device. All of these stories uses each other as the main source. Even a non journalism grad knows this low life reporting style is ripe for proliferation of bogus info. The PPC does many things very well especially the Dual G5 combo. If they can't get it in less energy consuming forms for Mini, PB, and other items there could be a benefit but I don't see an immediate benefit for tower users.

If it's good news for Apple, the stock will drop. If it's bad news, it will go up. Guaranteed. Seems to happen whenever they beat the estimates or release a new product.

Joseph,

You may have to eat some crow...WSJ is confirming this again today and has evidence that Apple has talked to it business partners about the switch already.

The Jobs keynote is scheduled for 1pm.

However, if they really are to switch architectures, wouldn't they tell their developers first about it? I haven't heard from anyone that anything this big has been communicated to developers.

I have a hard time believing that they are going away from PowerPC CPUs anytime soon. It just doesn't make sense, after all the work they have done to carve out their niche, to be "just another x86 box".

-Christian

Well, whaddayaknow. This really seems to happen, according to the keynote coverage I'm currently following on http://www.macrumorslive.com/web/ Pretty unbelievable, still...

I also think it would have been nice to select AMD, though. Does Intel really need any more market share?!?

-Christian

I told ya so!

Here's the MacNN keynote highlights.

http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/wwdc/05/index.html

The only I see it adding to the customer base if this results in lower prices.

There's some question as to whether they could keep up with the volume needed by Apple. And it seems that one of the main drivers was performance per watt, not just today but in terms of the roadmap for next decade, and it seems Intel has the advantage there.

According to the WSJ, lower chip prices were obtained by Apple.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10757
Editorial: Why Apple's Switch Makes Sense NOW

After News.com's Friday report that Apple is moving to Intel/x86, the respected publication Wall Street Journal and now NYTimes threw their reputation behind the rumor. Many people still remain skeptical, but I personally believe that the time is right for Apple to switch to x86-64, for two main reasons:

1. Longhorn is late.
Remember all those articles and opinion pieces online that "Linux's big chance" is now with Longhorn being late and with Longhorn losing features one by one and with many companies claiming that they won't upgrade to Microsoft's new monster? Well, what a better time for Apple to get into the x86 market and steal the thunder from both Longhorn and Linux! If the "time is right" for Linux because of Longhorn's problems, then the time is even more right for Apple! Linux is no real threat on the desktop compared to the Mac OS X experience, while Longhorn hasn't won many hearts either for different reasons we all know.

2. x86-64 is still a virgin market.
There is no OS today for x86-64 that anyone would call "really mature". This is essentially a new platform: a platform on which many existing OSes have to "start all over again." Linux applications still have major problems with x86-64 (weird incompatibilities or even compilation problems), while the newly released WindowsXP-64 has almost no third party drivers for it yet except the very basic stuff. And Microsoft doesn't seem to care to market it either. If Apple were to come over to x86 today, it would be for full 64bit support for their Apple PCs and it would be good enough to compete on fair terms against Linux and Windows. In the 32bit market, Windows XP is simply unbeatable because of its vast hardware compatibility that it enjoys via third parties. Linux tried and it still has a 2-3% of that market. But on x86-64, the market is just different, and Apple has a serious start-off advantage.

Remember, we are not talking about having OSX running on random PCs here, Apple would never get into the "generic PC" market. This market is impossible to support fully; that was one of the reasons BeOS was killed when it moved from PPC to x86 as well. Apple won't make the same mistake. They know better and they have the infrastructure to modify the stock x86 platform to lock-in Mac OS X to their modified PCs only. I am confident that Windows and Linux and FreeBSD would be able to run just fine on these hypothetical Apple PCs, but Mac OS X won't run on your random PC. And it would be better that way (for Apple), as third party hardware manufacturers release hardware faster than anyone could add support for them, even if they had the full hardware specs. And these hardware manufacturers could probably not be persuaded to write brand new drivers for Apple which it will still have a fraction of the market share when on x86, so the logical step for Apple is to "lock" OSX to specific hardware so the user experience remains good.

Regarding software compatibility, I won't be surprised if Apple re-introduces "fat binaries", like NeXTSTEP had. These are binaries that run on both PPC and x86. Of course, lots of third party software will have to be recompiled, but at least it won't be necessary to be re-written or heavily modified as it was in the switch from 68k to PPC in 1993 or from OS9 to OSX in 2001. In other words, the move to x86-64 could be really smooth for users! Emulation does not make much sense as emulating the PPC in "OS-mode" like Apple did with 68k inside PPC is complex and it would be slow. As for PPC user support, I am sure that Apple would be able to support PPC users for at least 4-5 more years, as they did with 68k support.

For those who claim that Microsoft will never recompile Office for x86-64 for Apple, I can only say that Apple coming to x86 is not bad business for Microsoft initially in terms of "fighting together" Linux. Microsoft has failed to squash the Linux hype but users who go Mac OS X almost never look back. With Apple managing to squash Linux in the x86-64 market, Microsoft will have to fight Apple at a much later future date. And it will be easier for Microsoft to fight an 'enemy' that plays with the same rules as they are rather one that doesn't (open source). My enemy's enemy is my friend, kind of thing... This is a lot like you are getting beaten at both the club and the school, but you give your lunch money to the bullie at the club guy to come and beat the school guy. At the end, you end up with ONE bully instead of two and that's a progress...

With all this in mind, I believe that THIS is the best time for Apple to move to x86. I would argue that the best time was actually last year, but I will give the benefit of the doubt to IBM who seem to have managed to anger Jobs, mostly because the G5 doesn't fit well on laptops rather than because the G5 might not be fast enough. And remember folks, the laptop business, is Apple's business. If IBM can't deliver, it's time to move to someone who can. It makes sense, and the time is right, so why not?

I'm still spinning in my grave -- and I'm not even dead yet. My guess -- it's all about the laptops, though I don't understand why Apple couldn't have gone with IBM's Cell.

Jobs must really have very little faith in IBM's ability to deliver, and he wants to go to a company whose CORE business is CPUs, having been burned first by Motorola and now IBM...

Ted

Does this mean we'll possibly see more Windows-only programs come out on Mac? With all the HTPC software out there it's hard NOT to have a PC.

Oh and how about games? Will this make it easier for developers in any way or should we expect more of the same?

Scott,

I think this does make it easier for game and HTPC software development...there is speculation that the DRM capability of the Pentium chips will allow for downloaded movies.

There is a lot of software for the Mac right now however, 12,000 titles versus 100,000 roughly for Windows. I just saw these numbers in a news story and thought they were quite interesting.

According to this article: http://news.com.com/Apple+throws+the...tag=macintouch

...Windows can be installed on MacTel hardware:

I don't see what for, I said I wouldn't believe until it came from the source. The way in which this story was reported was the same as the other bogus stories. No sources, everybody quoting each other, and references to past rumors. A second grader could do better than what passes for journalism in technology media.

Now, it's interesting that now the Mac remains the ultimate machine even on Intel. You get OS X support, you can run POS OS if forced to in a pinch, and also more varities of Linux than before. A more uniform PSU connection would make moving a Mac into an Atech styled case much easier, especially if it could run POS OS if need be for Meedio when you've upgraded the Desktop. The only real hardware change for the user is probably a ROM on the MB or key in the CPU. The other interfaces were already universal. If anything, this provides a superior MB source for a Linux or XP HTPC than the crap I've put up with from Asus over the past few years. Bluetooth 2, Wireless, FW2, FW1, Gigabit, etc all on the backplane and not obstructing any PCI slots.

I think the transition would have been a lot tougher last year. With Tiger complete, they've got time to fool around with this. My Dual 2.3GHz is plenty fast for the next year plus. Some of their staff is probably pissed though, because it was talked of a major slowdown in OS development with Tiger's release.

Don't see how they really made a bad choice with the PPC either. It's been a top performer for years and gave us options for things like the Quad 604e, Dual G4, and Dual G5s. The last two make using OS X that much better.

DRM doesn't "allow for downloaded movies". Studios could set up a legal download service without it, if they chose to do so. What DRM allows is for someone else to control your use of your own private property (your computer) in your own home.