Newsflash! Apple Switching to Intel Processors!

[Kent Pribbernow]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731398.html?tag=nefd.lede' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731398.html?tag=nefd.lede</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned. Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/pentium_guy.jpg" /><br /><br />No, this isn't April fools, though it might seem like a good material for leg pulling. This is major news, if true. 8O Rumors of Apple switching to Intel's x86 architecture have circulated for the past several years, but like any rumor there was little credible evidence to back it up. Frankly I've always believed this rumor was hogwash. Back in the late nineties Motorola (who supplies Apple with its G4 processor) embarrassingly fell behind PC chip makers who were already past 1GHZ while the G4 line was still clunking along at mere Megahertz. However, Apple's fortunes have improved somewhat since they made the switch to IBM's G5 PowerPC processors which offer good performance. Even Microsoft's XBOX 360 is powered by such a chip. <br /><br />The move to x86 opens a whole field of questions. The biggest one being; does this mean that Macs will now be able to dual boot between OSX and *gasp* Windows? Will PCs now be able to run *gasp* OSX? The answer to these questions will come Monday at the annual WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference). One thing is for certain...my purchase plans have been turned upside down. I was planning on moving to either a 20" G5 iMac or a Dual processor PowerMac G5+20" Cinema. Needless to say those plans are now very much on hold until I know more about what the hell is going on in Cupertino. If the move is indeed coming in 2006 I may stick with the Mac Mini and wait. <br /><br />Now I know how Austrians felt in 1938, awaiting the Anchlus. 8O

[mememe]

[i]"Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors

I guess we will see, for sure, this coming Monday. One would assume that they would design a system which would be MacOSX only capable.

DMT is getting pretty slow on this stuff.. i've seen this on a 100 sites prior to yours... :cry:

[Kent Pribbernow]

DMT is getting pretty slow on this stuff.. i've seen this on a 100 sites prior to yours... :cry:

DMT isn't a Mac news site, so normally we don't cover this. This story has been circulating for the last week or so but we elected not to post on because it isn't "digital media" related. The only reason I changed my mind is because NOW the story appears to be more than just a rumor, which I find interesting.

[mememe]

DMT is getting pretty slow on this stuff.. i've seen this on a 100 sites prior to yours... :cry:

DMT isn't a Mac news site, so normally we don't cover this. This story has been circulating for the last week or so but we elected not to post on because it isn't "digital media" related. The only reason I changed my mind is because NOW the story appears to be more than just a rumor, which I find interesting.

Umm.. list of other sites include.. among others..

Engadget
Gizmodo
Mobile Burn
eHomeUpgrade
I4U Future Technology News
PVRblog
Joystiq

Many times DMT seems to be a little slow on the draw, but then, I have 90 RSS feeds coming in..

[Macguy59]

We'll see but this also smacks of Apple putting pressure on IBM to up the clock rates and production of chips.

[James Fee]

Umm.. list of other sites include.. among others..

Engadget
Gizmodo
Mobile Burn
eHomeUpgrade
I4U Future Technology News
PVRblog
Joystiq

Many times DMT seems to be a little slow on the draw, but then, I have 90 RSS feeds coming in..
All great sites, I have them in my OPML also.

[Felix Torres]

We'll see but this also smacks of Apple putting pressure on IBM to up the clock rates and production of chips.

...a bluff, in other words...
Only problem is, bluffs get called sometimes.
And then you have to play your cards...

This can go one of three ways:

1- Apple is giving IBM till monday to meet their terms (funny how the story broke friday after hours, huh?) and IBM folds
2- IBM calls the bluff (maybe they already did) and Apple now moves on to a proprietary Intel-based architecture; this is not unheard of: SUN tried it in the late 80s with a 386 box and SGI tried it in the 90's with a first-gen Pentium. Commodity CPU's plus proprietary BIOS chipset that won't run Windows or Linux...
3- Apple decides the size of its market is too small to justify proprietary chipsets and adopts generic hardware, with maybe a proprietary BIOS needed to run MAC OS. Or maybe they won't bother with even that...

Its worth considering that nobody has yet said *which* Intel cpus they'd be using.
They might be going to Itaniums. :-D
(Intel has been working on a line of cheap Itaniums as well as a low-power line.)

The interesting thing is that moving MAC OS to commodity hardware is a great first step towards setting the stage for a spinoff or divestiture of the MAC product line altogether, probably via sale to some low-cost asian manufacturer...

Maybe the iPod's success has convinced Apple to ditch the Mac in three easy steps:
1- Porting to commodity hardware
2- Spinoff of the Mac product line
3- IPO or sale of the MacCompany...

[Macguy59]

We'll see but this also smacks of Apple putting pressure on IBM to up the clock rates and production of chips.

...a bluff, in other words...
Only problem is, bluffs get called sometimes.
And then you have to play your cards...

This can go one of three ways:

1- Apple is giving IBM till monday to meet their terms (funny how the story broke friday after hours, huh?) and IBM folds
2- IBM calls the bluff (maybe they already did) and Apple now moves on to a proprietary Intel-based architecture; this is not unheard of: SUN tried it in the late 80s with a 386 box and SGI tried it in the 90's with a first-gen Pentium. Commodity CPU's plus proprietary BIOS chipset that won't run Windows or Linux...
3- Apple decides the size of its market is too small to justify proprietary chipsets and adopts generic hardware, with maybe a proprietary BIOS needed to run MAC OS. Or maybe they won't bother with even that...

Its worth considering that nobody has yet said *which* Intel cpus they'd be using.
They might be going to Itaniums. :-D
(Intel has been working on a line of cheap Itaniums as well as a low-power line.)

The interesting thing is that moving MAC OS to commodity hardware is a great first step towards setting the stage for a spinoff or divestiture of the MAC product line altogether, probably via sale to some low-cost asian manufacturer...

Maybe the iPod's success has convinced Apple to ditch the Mac in three easy steps:
1- Porting to commodity hardware
2- Spinoff of the Mac product line
3- IPO or sale of the MacCompany...

I don't care anymore what's under the hood but I would hate to see Apple's innovative hardware design go by the wayside. What makes a Mac a Mac is the combination of hardware and software (specifically for me OS X). Lose either part of that equation and it becomes just another boring PC IMO.

[James Fee]

No one cares what is inside the Mac, as long as the outside and the OS remain the same. The fact that there was an IBM or Motorola chip inside didn't really matter and it won't matter that there is an Intel chip unless it does increase the speed of OS X or lowers the price.

Any word what processors they plan to use? I know there was talk of Itanium, but that won't help on their laptops. Same problem I suspect with Xeon. Must be Pentium Extreme and Centrino on the workstations and Itanium on the servers?

[Felix Torres]

Any word what processors they plan to use? I know there was talk of Itanium, but that won't help on their laptops. Same problem I suspect with Xeon. Must be Pentium Extreme and Centrino on the workstations and Itanium on the servers?

I would say x86-64 if its an exit strategy and itanium if they really intend to stay in the computer business long term.

Intel does have low-power itaniums on the roadmap for this year as well as desktop-cheap chips:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040219125800.html

And, while they're not Pentium M LV-grade, they are lower-power than the best IBM has done with PPC.

Since its a phased transition (if its not a bluff) it'll take 3 years to complete anyway; ample time for Intel to cook up a truly low-power Itanium...

[Kent Pribbernow]

I highly doubt this is merely a bargaining table bluff by Apple. If it is, they have gone about this in completely the wrong fashion. One reason why I belive this story is going to end up being authentic is that the original rumor started not from within the mac community, but from Intel sources. Paul Thurrot first ran the story during WinHEC, where he claims that sources from Intel told him that not only was this going to happen but OSX is already running right now on Intel's hardware in company labs.

My biggest concern is that Apple may have just Osborned the entire Mac line by announcing this move so early. If Jobs makes a big announcement on Monday, and the gradual x86 switch begins next year, what's going to happen to their current offerings? No one will want to buy these soon to be obsolete models. It's already effected my plans. Yesterday I was looking forward to buying a Mac. Today I seriously doubt I will buy any Mac until the mid-2006. Surely I'm not alone.

[Macguy59]

I highly doubt this is merely a bargaining table bluff by Apple. If it is, they have gone about this in completely the wrong fashion. One reason why I belive this story is going to end up being authentic is that the original rumor started not from within the mac community, but from Intel sources. Paul Thurrot first ran the story during WinHEC, where he claims that sources from Intel told him that not only was this going to happen but OSX is already running right now on Intel's hardware in company labs.

My biggest concern is that Apple may have just Osborned the entire Mac line by announcing this move so early. If Jobs makes a big announcement on Monday, and the gradual x86 switch begins next year, what's going to happen to their current offerings? No one will want to buy these soon to be obsolete models. It's already effected my plans. Yesterday I was looking forward to buying a Mac. Today I seriously doubt I will buy any Mac until the mid-2006. Surely I'm not alone.

I think people will wait to see the price points and perhaps benchmarks. I could see it affecting the low end Macs like the mini and eMac but I have a hard time believing Apple would cannabalize their high end G5 systems. [/i]

[Kent Pribbernow]

I think people will wait to see the price points and perhaps benchmarks.[/i]

That's what I said....the Osborne effect. Announcing a move to Intel so early is going to cripple Mac hardware sales. A lot of people are going to tuck their credit cards back in their wallets after Monday.

[Macguy59]

I think people will wait to see the price points and perhaps benchmarks.[/i]

That's what I said....the Osborne effect. Announcing a move to Intel so early is going to cripple Mac hardware sales. A lot of people are going to tuck their credit cards back in their wallets after Monday.

And what I'm saying is that the initial Intel based offerings from Apple won't outperform their G5's or highend G4's (even if that means capping processor performance).

[Kent Pribbernow]

That may be true, but the point is still moot if Apple is switching entirely to x86. This would mean that PowerPC is being replaced en masse. It won't matter if the PowerPC based PowerMac models outperform x86-based eMacs because the PowerMacs will ultimately be running x86 as well. If consumers know this they won't want to buy Apple's current or future PPC offerings.

[Mr. MacinTiger]

You guys can relax - I have it on good authority that this whole thing is one big hoax thrown out there by Steve Jobs to mess with the rumor sites. I bet he gets up there Monday and says, "Oh yeah, one more thing..." and announces 3.5 GHz G5 bumps without having to switch to a different chip.

Don't believe the hype!

[Macguy59]

That may be true, but the point is still moot if Apple is switching entirely to x86. This would mean that PowerPC is being replaced en masse. It won't matter if the PowerPC based PowerMac models outperform x86-based eMacs because the PowerMacs will ultimately be running x86 as well. If consumers know this they won't want to buy Apple's current or future PPC offerings.

Depends on Apple's timeline. If I'm a consumer looking to upgrade my 2 year old PowerBook, am I going to wait 2 more years for the Intel version or am I going to go with the best Apple has to offer right now? Will all the software I currently use/need now be recompiled and available when the Intel based Macs become available? In 2000 if you had known much faster Xscale processor based Pocket PC's were going to be available in late 2002 would you have waited to buy a Pocket PC? (for example) I'm sure it will cause some hesitation, but overall I don't think it will impact Mac sales significantly unless the timeline is a very short one.

[Felix Torres]

My biggest concern is that Apple may have just Osborned the entire Mac line by announcing this move so early.

If you want something to worry about, worry about the developers, more than the customers.

Given the differences between Altivec and SSE3, to say nothing of the cpu architectures, the porting job for most apps will be complex and expensive.
And the installed base of IntelMacs will be zero.
Remember how long it took for native OS-X apps to appear? Over two years in some cases. And that was just a software switch.
Earlier, it took even longer during the switch from 68k to PPC, and there Apple had a usable emulator.

That's why I'm thinking Itanium; Itanium could conceivably run dynamic code translation software to run PPC executables.

Just be prepared to see some apps *never* get ported.

[James Fee]

I'm sure other than Adobe, Apple could care less. They've shown they don't really care about 3rd party apps since they've moved into almost all areas that 3rd party companies used to provide. I'm guessing they'll make sure Adobe is on board and then make sure iLife and iWork are ready.

I think that Linux companies might be excited as they can probably port their apps to OS X on intel pretty quickly. I wonder how easy it will be for windows companies to port to OS X?

[Mr. MacinTiger]

Before iWork is ported, Apple needs to fix the Pages portion of it for those of us who currently try to use it on current systems. It's a horrible mix of MS Publisher and Word and ends up being inferior to both :cry:

[Kent Pribbernow]

I'm absolutely stupidfied they wouldn't switch to AMD. Their Athlon 64's and Opterons are incredibly scalable from very low power up to high-speed multi-socket multi-core monsters. Intels non Itanium stuff doesn't scale anywhere near as well with multiple cores/sockets. What gives? :? Come to think of it, I would like to see what Apple could do with the Itanium as some have mentioned. Thoughts? :D

Apple has had a great deal of supply issues between Motorola and IBM. My guess is Apple chose Intel because they have the capacity to supply them with the chips they need in volume, on time. That and the fact that Intel has a good trackrecord for development progress, something Motorola was notoriously bad at. Remember how long Apple was stuck at 500-800MHZ while the PC industry was well beyond 1GHZ?

[Kent Pribbernow]

You guys can relax - I have it on good authority that this whole thing is one big hoax thrown out there by Steve Jobs to mess with the rumor sites. I bet he gets up there Monday and says, "Oh yeah, one more thing..." and announces 3.5 GHz G5 bumps without having to switch to a different chip.

Don't believe the hype!

Not likely. The problem with your theory is that the rumor originally started from Intel sources. Even if this were a hoax created by Steve Jobs...how would he get Intel engineers to go along with it?

[Felix Torres]

I'm sure other than Adobe, Apple could care less.

Ah, but Adobe *is* one of the most heavily-affected; they were the last of the major developers to ship native MacOs/x versions of their apps and their MAC apps are heavily optimized for altivec. And they have publicly complained about how marginal their profits are on the mac compared to their windows profits.

Whether they eventually do IntelMac apps or not, Adobe will *not* be pleased.

[James Fee]

Before iWork is ported, Apple needs to fix the Pages portion of it for those of us who currently try to use it on current systems. It's a horrible mix of MS Publisher and Word and ends up being inferior to both :cry:Well if begs the question will MS Office be ported? I'd assume so and if that is the case, could Office for Linux be far around the corner?

[James Fee]

Whether they eventually do IntelMac apps or not, Adobe will *not* be pleased.Who knows, it might open up Photoshop for Linux, or Apple may just do this to own the software market themselves. I wouldn't put it past Steve to release their own Photoshop program....

[Felix Torres]

Who knows, it might open up Photoshop for Linux, or Apple may just do this to own the software market themselves. I wouldn't put it past Steve to release their own Photoshop program....

Actually, both MS and Adobe have gripes with jobs and they might drag their feet on new ports in silent retaliation, giving lip-service support and taking their sweet time getting new versions out.

As for Linux support, don't hold your breath on Office; with MS going to xml-based open document formats for Office12 they have no reason to spend development dollars to capture the minimal OpenOffice customer base for the money-making Office Servers to come.

Speaking of Linux, it should be interesting to see what happens to it if IntelMacs are x86-based instead of Itanium. I imagine a nice scramble among ABM-ers to crack MacOS to run on non-Apple x86 hardware... :-)

This is fun; things were getting boring...

[Jason Dunn]

OK, stupid question from the peanut gallery: why wouldn't Apple use the triple-core 3.2 Ghz PowerPC CPU that's inside the Xbox 360?

[James Fee]

OK, stupid question from the peanut gallery: why wouldn't Apple use the triple-core 3.2 Ghz PowerPC CPU that's inside the Xbox 360?I suspect if this is at all true, most of it has to do with the mobile market. I think the lack of a good G5 processor for powerbooks is killing them. I don't know much about the processors in the Xbox or PS3, but I suspect they aren't optimized for mobile uses.

I think the G5 stands up really well to the x86 processors from Intel or AMD in workstation uses, but Apple's laptops are just so far behind the latest Centrino laptops that they have to do something.

[Macguy59]

but Apple's laptops are just so far behind the latest Centrino laptops that they have to do something.

In what regard?

[James Fee]

In what regard?
The 1.67GHz PowerPC G4 in a Powerbook can't hold a candle to the latest Intel Pentium M 760. And its even going to get worse since Apple is still saying don't look for a G5 laptop anytime soon. The G4 was a good processor in it's time, but that time has passed over a year ago. Between the battery savings that the latest Centrinos get, coupled with their faster, more efficient processors, the Powerbooks are long in the tooth.

[Macguy59]

In what regard?
The 1.67GHz PowerPC G4 in a Powerbook can't hold a candle to the latest Intel Pentium M 760. And its even going to get worse since Apple is still saying don't look for a G5 laptop anytime soon. The G4 was a good processor in it's time, but that time has passed over a year ago. Between the battery savings that the latest Centrinos get, coupled with their faster, more efficient processors, the Powerbooks are long in the tooth.

In benchmarks absolutely. In everyday use I don't see a difference (though I'm not a gamer). My 17" AlumPB can play 2 DVD's back to back and still have 12% battery left. I can browse, email. IM continuously for 3 hours (using Airport Extreme) before I get battery warnings. It's only an inch think and weighs less then 7lbs. I have used a Centrino based laptop so I know what the performance is like but I didn't use it extensively to gauge battery life.

[Felix Torres]

OK, stupid question from the peanut gallery: why wouldn't Apple use the triple-core 3.2 Ghz PowerPC CPU that's inside the Xbox 360?

The Xbox 360 cpu isn't a PowerPC chip.
It uses IBM tech but it doesn't run the PPC instruction set.

For details on the architecture, check this:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars

Bottom line, the 360 CPU and Sony's Cell use pieces of the PPC processors rearranged to optimize performance on certain very specific types of functions that make for a killer game box and (in the case of the 360) an outrageous media streamer, at the expense of other features that are secondary to games but crucial to applications code. One side effect of this is that the missing pieces are the parts of the PPC that don't scale up well and hence both the 360 and the Cell can at 3.2Ghz while the PPC can't.

(One interesting detail: in architecting the cell with one general-purpose cpu and seven vector units--instead of three and six--Sony made even more of a trade-off than MS; where the 360 is strong, the cell is slightly stronger, but where the 360 is weak, the cell is *seriously* weak. The 360 cpu is lean on cache but the Cell cpu is positively cache-starved.)

Basically, Apple's problem is that with 160 million cpus to sell per year, Intel can afford the development and manufacturing costs of maintaining four or more x86 microarchitectures up to date, each optimized for a separate market, while IBM can't cause Apple only sells a million or so boxes a year.

For comparison purposes, MS is expected to sell one to two million 360's per *month* during the six weeks it will be on sale this year and about six to ten million units during its first year; about five to ten times as much cpus as apple can move. Even if IBM's royalties on their tech are only 10% of what applecpays per cpu. they still make more money of the MS and Sony deals, each, than they lose by letting Apple walk.

No amount of media hype or spin can hide economic fact; while IBM enjoys selling a million cpus a year to Apple--the portable cpus are made by the old Motorola guys--they are hardly going to cry over the $50 or 60 million in lost profit.

They might even think its a cheap price to pay to get Jobs to stop screaming at them. :twisted:

Addendum: as for why Apple needs to make the switch, check this Apples-to-oranges comparison:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436

5x real world performance diferential.

[James Fee]

I still don't think Apple is going to Intel for processors (maybe they'll make PowerPC chips?), but if they do what are the odds that Apple throws Intel Inside stickers on the front?

[Kent Pribbernow]

It's hard to decipher what really is at play here; either a switch to x86, WiMAX deal, or a bluff being pulled on IBM. What makes the rumor more credible this time is that so many sources are confirming it. Even sources from inside Intel, which is highly unusual.

Oh well, all will be answered tomorrow.

[Felix Torres]

I still don't think Apple is going to Intel for processors (maybe they'll make PowerPC chips?), but if they do what are the odds that Apple throws Intel Inside stickers on the front?

1- IBM owns PowerPC, not Apple; Intel is *not* going to pay IBM for the design...
2- Apple's problems--those that aren't due to the kernel--are due to the PowerPC architecture, not IBM's manufacturing process; 970 chips will always be power hungry and clock-rate limited whether manufactured by intel, ibm, or vulcans...
3- If Apple wants the advertising co-payment from Intel, they have to put the sticker on. No sticker, no money.

Dunno what all the angst is about; apple has switched cpus before.
(And if they stay in the business long enough, they'll switch again; its not the end of the world.)
And contrary to what some may think, the Power Chips, these days, are fairly ordinary RISC chips. Back in 90 they were special--on the floating point side--but these days they're run-of-the mill.

To be honest, I'd be more impressed if Apple were switching to Opteron.
At AMD, Apple would be a catch; at Intel they're one day's production.

[James Fee]

1- IBM owns PowerPC, not Apple; Intel is *not* going to pay IBM for the design...
Could be, but then again we are talking about Apple using Intel chips. Anything is possible
2- Apple's problems--those that aren't due to the kernel--are due to the PowerPC architecture, not IBM's manufacturing process; 970 chips will always be power hungry and clock-rate limited whether manufactured by Intel, IBM, or vulcans...
Probably, but who knows

3- If Apple wants the advertising co-payment from Intel, they have to put the sticker on. No sticker, no money.
Then again, this is Apple. Intel might let it slide just to be able to say they have 100% of Apple and Dell sales.... Not a bad combo.

Dunno what all the angst is about; apple has switched cpus before.
(And if they stay in the business long enough, they'll switch again; its not the end of the world.)
But remember the PPC did a great job of emulating 680x0. From what I've read x86 or Itanium doesn't.

And contrary to what some may think, the Power Chips, these days, are fairly ordinary RISC chips. Back in 90 they were special--on the floating point side--but these days they're run-of-the mill.
Which is why they need to move more than anything else. The PPC chips are just lagging behind. Most of the breakthroughs are done by Intel or AMD.
To be honest, I'd be more impressed if Apple were switching to Opteron.
At AMD, Apple would be a catch; at Intel they're one day's production.I think being able to say Apple uses your chips is worth more than the quantity, which is why Intel wants them and will work with them. My gut feeling is that if this rumor is true, it is more driven by mobile sales than by workstation/server sales and there is no company doing better with mobile processors and mobo combos. Evey time AMD gets close, Intel just jumps way ahead.

[Felix Torres]

[I think being able to say Apple uses your chips is worth more than the quantity, which is why Intel wants them and will work with them. My gut feeling is that if this rumor is true, it is more driven by mobile sales than by workstation/server sales and there is no company doing better with mobile processors and mobo combos. Evey time AMD gets close, Intel just jumps way ahead.

Apple's visibility is way out of line with its market impact, I'll grant that much...

But the value of bragging rights to Intel's customers--other manufacturers--is minimal. Intel's consumer cpu business is a nice sideline, but that's all it is; a sideline. Given that Apple was the last measureable vendor *not* using Intel chips, the only people left to impress are euro-regulators; the last people on earth Intel needs to draw attention from.

On the Mobile side, yes; Intel has a big lead over AMD and a ridiculous one over PPC. But other than sales brochure comparisons I don't think Apple has been hurting over it; corporate road warriors, the folks who *really* care about battery life don't, as a rule, use Macs anyway.
(Anecdotal evidence aside.)
Its not as if Apple is itching to may OQO Macs or B-size Macs or Tablet Macs; those half-percent markets aren't viable playgrounds for MacOS any time soon.

Given that any IntelMacs won't show up for a year or more--need time to get developers onboard and apps out the door--this isn't so much about today's product lines and chips as the next-gen products of 07 and about Apple being able to use the cpu transition to slipstream a new, competitive-threading, kernel architecture underneath Aqua.

At least I hope they are; cause once they're on Intel they won't be able to hide behind the Apples-to-oranges defense.

Speaking of Dell, btw; one reason I think the rumor is real is that last week Dell anounced a new line/sub-brand of premium "Lexus-grade" PCs with high feature, high-value capabilities. I'm guessing they're preparing a proper welcome to the new market for Apple.

http://news.com.com/Dell+to+launch+Lexus+lineup+of+PCs/2100-1042_3-5730030.html?tag=nefd.pop

"Welcome to the PC business, Apple. Seriously." :twisted:

[Jason Eaton]

Miss a weekend and bam. While it is a 'rumor' till it comes from the horses mouth it makes for some interesting thoughts.

I guess the first thing to make assumptions is on possible time lines. If the talk is for an eventual shift from IBM to Intel type chips, there would be plenty of time for the new partnership to 'create' a chip that meets their needs (low power, profile, battery life). They could create instruction sets that mimic prior chip functionality for emulation sake to transition current customers then phase out the PPC.

Once the fevor of the news settles down people will realise that the Mac they have today will still work tomorrow and the next day for quiet some time till the new line of computers come out.

Additional thoughts on why this may happen and not a bluff is that Apple has had many issues getting the full supply of CPU's from IBM before, and with further demand soon to come from MS... well speculation would be that it would get worse before better. If an entire arm of you company was being held 'hostage' by a business partners issues it would be wise to evaluate and if need be shift strategies.

Does this mean Dell (and other makers) can make an Apple computer? No, not unless Apple sells them the rights to. So Apple *could* maintain their status as sole provider for the complete solution like it does now.

So switch foot here...

If they said next product refresh will be stock intel chips, and a new OS is needed, and all applications are now moot. Well let us just say I wouldn't want to be in the room below them when they shoot their foot.

[Kent Pribbernow]

Once the fevor of the news settles down people will realise that the Mac they have today will still work tomorrow and the next day for quiet some time till the new line of computers come out.

True, but for a lot of consumers, purchase plans will change. Now that I have had time to digest this news, I may still buy a Mac...but it sure as hell won't be the $2,000 PowerMac with 20" Cinema display I had been considering. Instead, I'll likely opt for the less expensive $1,799 20" iMac G5 instead to hold me over until the switch to Intel takes place.

[Jason Eaton]

True, but for a lot of consumers, purchase plans will change.

Heh, true. But then again I have a hard time advocating the Power PC line anyways. While the iMac G5 isn't as big a number cruncher for full length movie rendering and such I guess the question is how many times are you going to do that? Working with the timeline is fairly quick in editing it is usually the rendering to output that consumes most resources. For me ... once in a blue moon, so I pull the 'Ron Popeil' set it and forget it and go to sleep and get the complete thing in the morning. Otherwise it is a sound machine. Your mileage may very.

Back to topic, what better time to take the risk? Stock is up, iPod line is pushing profits up. No large bump in product specs coming out... so I say better to try when you can absorb some loses then when you are at the bottom.

Either way I am waiting for my wireless tablet. Replace my Wicom, freedom to roam... ah to dream.

[Mr. MacinTiger]

You guys were right...Looks like Apple is going to switch to Intel 8O

Frankly, I am stunned, and just disappointed enough with Steve Jobs that I may just switch back over to a Win PC in a few years when my Mac Mini runs its course.

[Jason Eaton]

For those of you looking for a quick run of the Keynote try:

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

Updates every 2 minutes on what is going on.


For this topic... Intel is inside. :?

[Macguy59]

You guys were right...Looks like Apple is going to switch to Intel 8O

Frankly, I am stunned, and just disappointed enough with Steve Jobs that I may just switch back over to a Win PC in a few years when my Mac Mini runs its course.

Frankly I'm stunned why anyone would think this way. What difference does it make what's inside? It's not like we'll be sacrificing performance :wink: As long as Apple stays on the cutting edge of computer design and OS X remains the OS . . . I'll remain an Apple user.

[sheik]

Now I know how Austrians felt in 1938, awaiting the Anchlus 8O .
Offtopic, but I didn't know what "anchlus" meant so I googled for it and this thread came up as the third link - impressive!

/\

[Jonathon Watkins]

Now I know how Austrians felt in 1938, awaiting the Anchlus 8O .
Offtopic, but I didn't know what "anchlus" meant so I googled for it and this thread came up as the third link - impressive!


That's probably because it's actually spelt anschluss. :wink:

Nothing like a provocative analogy, is there Kent? :wink: