Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple in Talks with Intel?

d.perel said:
If apple started using Intel chips, they would have to be extremely price competitive, and could no longer demand high prices like it had before. Software would be the only advantage, unless the chips are way better than whatever is in most cheaper PC's. Wasn't it the money from the hardware that let apple develop such good software over the years?
Click to expand...

Yeah but IBM is holding Apple back right now, raw speed matters to be people more than reliable software it seems. Most consumers don't know enough to differentiate and so price and raw speed makes a difference to them.

I don't know how much M$ and Sony paid IBM to get their chips preferential treatment, but maybe Apple should be buying stock in IBM so that they can eventually have more influence than they seem to now.
 
Object-X said:
All I can say is I get goose bumps everytime I think about it. Wow. Running OS X on all my company's Dells...it boggles the mind. All I can say, if this turns out to be true, is it will change the entire computer industry. I have believed that the demise of Microsoft's empire was inevitable, and this would be the stone that brings Goliath down.
Click to expand...

Even if Apple starts using Intel processors (which is an incredibly long shot unless Intel's chips suddenly become PPC-compatible), you still won't be able to run OS X on non-Apple computers. I don't know if anyone here realizes it, but you can buy G4 PowerPC motherboards and processors from various sources (the current Amiga platform springs to mind), but you can't run OS X on them, because they don't have Apple's ROM chip. OS X will not install on any PowerPC machine that doesn't have Apple's ROM chip in it, and the software in that ROM chip can't be sold by anyone other than Apple. This allows Apple to provide incentive for the purchase of their hardware, and keeps quality control up.

So no, that Dell you own won't be running OS X any time soon.
 
Who is the enemy?

I have followed this thread with interest and a bit of recollection of the past. Some of us have been around long enought to remember when IBM was the enemy of Apple and all loyal to it. When the PowerPC chip development process started, many devotees were agast. How could Apple lower its ideals to lay down with their sworn enemy? Now, there is hardly a mention of this antipathy.

In business and life alliance change. The Mac loyalists would be wise to recall their roots and how Apple has always promoted loyalty by clearly defining its enemies. Over time, those enemies have become their friends. Often, these alliances with former enemies have developed in the spirit of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as newer more diabolical enemies of Apple emerged.

I consider myself a Mac loyalist. I got onboard way back in 1985/6. I have stopped trying to decide who are the villians and who are the heroes. I enjoy using my Mac and have been pleased with Apple's commitment to innovation and progress. The enemies have changed but the quality of the product has remained fairly consistent. If Intel helps to continue that tradition, then they can be a new "former" enemy from my perspective.
 
I think Apple is just stirring up the waters with this one, but what is the possibility of Apple jumping onto Sun's UltraSPARC in the long-run? I don't think anyone here has mentioned that possibility.
 
GhostImage said:
I have followed this thread with interest and a bit of recollection of the past. Some of us have been around long enought to remember when IBM was the enemy of Apple and all loyal to it. When the PowerPC chip development process started, many devotees were agast. How could Apple lower its ideals to lay down with their sworn enemy? Now, there is hardly a mention of this antipathy.

In business and life alliance change. The Mac loyalists would be wise to recall their roots and how Apple has always promoted loyalty by clearly defining its enemies. Over time, those enemies have become their friends. Often, these alliances with former enemies have developed in the spirit of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as newer more diabolical enemies of Apple emerged.

I consider myself a Mac loyalist. I got onboard way back in 1985/6. I have stopped trying to decide who are the villians and who are the heroes. I enjoy using my Mac and have been pleased with Apple's commitment to innovation and progress. The enemies have changed but the quality of the product has remained fairly consistent. If Intel helps to continue that tradition, then they can be a new "former" enemy from my perspective.
Click to expand...
What at least some people from the old days wonder about is whether we are talking about evolution or regression when it comes Apples progress. For example SCSI -> IDE, ADC -> DVI.
When I have read these pages I get the impression that people are crying for more Ghz, more raw power.
It worries me that Apple could be losing its soul.
Whatever became of the think different ideal?
 
The PowerPC architecture was originally intended to be clonable. What was that company that was going to make some high end chips for Apple at one time? I forget their name - they ended up suing Apple when it was all done, but the G3 ended up being faster than their fastest chip and that killed them. But, Intel could make PowerPC chips. Maybe even make an x86/PowerPC hybrid chip.
 
iMeowbot said:
Why is it assumed that this would be about desktop CPUs?
Click to expand...
alandail said:
because that's what the original article was talking about.

See page 10 of the thread
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/128198/
Click to expand...

Yes, I read the article, thank you. Once again. Why is it assumed (in the article even) that this would be about desktop CPUs? Computers are by no means the only Apple products, and CPUs are by no means the only intel products. The article makes it rather clear the the writers don't really know what the companies might be discussing, only that people from each company are believed to have been in contact. The rest is obviously speculation.
 
Dr.Gargoyle said:
What at least some people from the old days wonder about is whether we are talking about evolution or regression when it comes Apples progress. For example SCSI -> IDE, ADC -> DVI.
When I have read these pages I get the impression that people are crying for more Ghz, more raw power.
It worries me that Apple could be losing its soul.
Whatever became of the think different ideal?
Click to expand...

How would it be losing their soul to make a better macintosh? If IBM fell flat on their promise and they can now make a better laptop with an Intel chip and adopt a multiprocessor strategy, what is wrong with that? Right now IBM can take Apple as a customer for granted. Make them compete on price/performance with Intel and AMD and let Apple put themselves in a position to use whatever is most cost effective or has the best performance at each level. That would be a good thing, right? The difference is in the OS and having the OS integrated with the hardware - choice of CPU is largely irrelevant to that.
 
I haven't read all of the posts on this, but this "story" reminds me of the time the head of Sony visited Apple a year or two ago, for undisclosed reasons. Of course, rumors that Sony was getting ready to buy Apple spread like wildfire...

Nevertheless, I'll make a couple of points here and apologies if they have already been mentioned somewhere in this thread.

A poster over at Slashdot claiming to be an Apple employee (speculated to be no other than Jobs himself - not likely) made a comment that is worth highlighting. He/she said that Apple doesn't make products for geeks, they design and manufacturer products that "just work." Fulfillment of the "just works" standard has been Apple's unswerving direction for years. Think about it.

In light of that, a few things you can bet the farm will never happen at Apple:

1) OS X (and it's apps) on PC hardware, a la Dell, OR the substitution of Intel x86 chips for G5 chips in Apple boxes. Among the hundreds of reasons why not, dilution and erosion of Apple's profits (remember the clone experiment?) and the inherent technical disadvantages of x86 far outweigh any conceivable advantage over the G5 (if there ever was any x86 advantage left these days) inside Macs. When asked why Virginia Tech choose G5 over x86, Srinidhi Varadarajan, director of the project, remarked "people get the numbers wrong" when discussing the performance (dis)advantage of x86 over the G5. And it's worth reminding that VT used off-the-shelf consumer Powermacs, the same you could have bought yourself at the local Apple store. That should have sounded the final death nail once and for all for the "gigahertz myth" and x86 on Apple, but when rumors like this crop up once again, it appears no one has gotten the message. There is simply no reason in the world these days for Apple to move to or adopt the x86 platform, and plenty of reasons not to, marketshare notwithstanding (more on that below).

The only way x86 on Apple could possibly happen is if John Scully somehow regains control of Apple...


2) A video iPod, i.e., one that plays movies. A concept that may play well to the geeks, but has no real world practicality for the average consumer. Put simply, tiny movies are not on anyone's wish list. What folks like Bill Gates (a proponent of iPod-like movie players) don't understand is that just because you can do it doesn't mean that you should. Remember, if it doesn't pass the "it just works" test (and that test applies just as rigorously to real world usability), you won't see it coming from Apple. Period. As for Microsoft vision, well, as Bob Cringely recently put it so eloquently, they "just kick the dog."

Finally, for the "market share" nay-sayers that seem to be tickled by rumors like this: Apple sells literally millions of boxes every year, not to mention that it's boxes tend to remain in service longer than Wintel variants. And its sales numbers appear to be significantly increasing as of late. No one is going to argue that Windows has a dominant marketshare, but that doesn't mean the competing platforms such as OS X and Linux are automatically devalued relative to Wintel. Leaving aside arguments that standardization behind the internet (and internet technologies) has made the desktop OS less significant than it was before, Apple can still boast a) an installed base of roughly 25 million worldwide, more than half of which are now running OS X; and b) the largest installed base of unix in the world.

Although some argue that the Mac's low marketshare makes providing products for the Mac unprofitable and not worth the while, it's just too big of a pill to swallow. When you have potentially millions of PAYING customers to attract for any given product (not to mention the average Mac user's legendary loyalty), there isn't a marketing/manufacturing argument in the world prevents anyone from being successful in providing Mac products. Just ask none other than Bill Gates, who remarked as recently as this month that Office for the Mac has been very profitable for Microsoft. So the financial impact of the "tiny" marketshare just doesn't wash, even according to one of the biggest FUD trumpeters on the planet.

As Steve Jobs said, we have to get of the notion that in order for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. It was the most accurate thing anyone has said about "marketshare" and no one listened.
 
DStaal said:
People should remember that Intel makes more than just CPUs. They invented USB, among other things.

The fact that Apple and Intel are talking shouldn't be news. There are probably plenty of projects they work on together.

This just sounds like a re-run of the Mac-on-PC rumors that play every year.
Click to expand...

This is actually a really good point. USB 3.0 (they already took Firewire away from the iPod without a $30 cable)? Perhaps some kind of new protocol, that allows for uncompressed capture of hdv (or HD) footage directly into the computer? As it stands right now, even though you CAN capture HDV straight from the camera into FCP, your results are better with a KonaHD. Think of the possibilities. Just because Apple talks to Intel there's a lot out there besides processors that could be the reality. (802.11 standards could be another).

As for the OSX on Intel processors, I agree with the majority of the other posters. Too many hurdles and Apple hardware would almost certainly die out. Hardware is still a money maker, though it doesn't play very high in their marketing efforts, that they would be foolish to abandon.

- vibinc
 
macs run on RISC cpu for a reason. my guess is that any new cpu manuf. that apple ever inks a deal with (now or in the future) will be making RISC cpu for apple.

intel and amd are both huge companies with huge r&d budgets. a risc chip is not a stretch for either..
 
Wow! Over 400 posts in 8 hours. This thread has been busy!

The "FCS shipping" post got less than 100 in 6 days. Could it be that people don't really care too much about one of Apple's top software products (aside from Tiger), but are just waiting to talk about the hardware. Many people've been saying how much they only care about software.
Agree or not, nobody can do anything if Apple switched to Intel processors, and it is surprising to see how many people immediately say no, without even listening to the option or how it could work. What if it were a new PPC processor? Or what if the processor was fast enough that a transition from PPC to Intel-based macs wouldn't be noticeable? People close themselves to new options and it is that that keeps so-so hardware or software from getting updated, because people keep on accepting it no matter how much (or how little) it has been "improved".
This is a rumor anyways, which I believe could be true. But that doesn't mean it's gonna happen, either. Apple has been stuck with the G5 and IBM with their desktops and Motorola in the laptops for quite some time now, and it's better if Intel and other processor company's realize Apple wants more and is looking for it.
If Apple were to make a decision to switch it would only be for the better as they have come to make us believe on switching.
 
Get serious, we need Apple to involve other chip makers

OK, the other arguments aside, involving Intel with Apple's chip design is a great move. Read the article! Apple is DYING in the notebook business, which is a cornerstone to their business.

BTW, You all way overestimate how hard it would be to port OS X to an intel chip. Remember, UNIX is the core - processor independent. Everything else just needs developer attention. Sure, rearchitecture may need to come into it, but for the most part - this is something that is ABSOLUTELY possible.

Lets just face facts, the processor war is interesting, but only in as much as getting the most power for the cheapest amount. G5's are fabulous, but way out of reach for the common computer user. The fact that the mac mini does not have some scaled down g5 is a failure in of itself. If IBM doesnt make some serious inroads into making these chips at a seriously lower cost, the move to intel would be Apple's only long term course to save their business. Things cant go on as they are, not if Apple has it's eye on a bigger prize
 
another thought is that ibm is a pioneer of risc technology. ibm for goodness sake! if ibm can do it then so can intel.

isn't it sometimes odd that apples closest friends in the industry are its biggest competition. apples even seems to go out of its way to make this happen.
 
It's Time!

minimax said:
That doesnt seem unlikely at first sight. The SMT potential hyped by Intel hasnt lived-up with HT on the P4 as it is not able to free enough execution resources for a second thread but IBM's Power5 architecture makes fantastic use of SMT (read this
There is more and more evidence Power is the way to move forward as x86 has hit the wall of wire delay, memory lag and power leakage. Intel needs to simplify their architecture to handle their massive power leakage problems (shorter pipeline!) which is the reason they are already moving away from the P4 and are defusing the GHz-myth they installed with that same P4.
But for apple to move to Intel, and intel to make a strategic move to PPC, this would impy a Power version of Windows as well (as I believe PPC is co-owned by Apple, correct me if I'm wrong). A power pentium and ppc derivative from Intel would still leave Apple with the side-product of a main product, just as is the situation now with IBM. A mainstream PPC Pentium would imply windows be ported to PPC as well and Apple going head to head with MS, not only on their own hardware, but also forcing Apple to license it to every other hardware manufacturer. In other words, a move to Intel would mean a head-to head confrontation with MS and a salesmodel that is based on software revenues, not hardware.
Doesnt sound very likely to happen, although I can imagine wintel to be interested in the PPC architecture.
Click to expand...

You're logic concerning a direct confrontation with Windows may have been accurate a few years ago, but it is possible that Apple will be relying less on it's hardware sales in the (near) future. Listening to Jobs talk about Apple being one of the 10 most profitable Internet companies would suggest this too. So, perhaps it's time for OS X to go head-to-head with Microsoft. Longhorn is languishing and Microsoft is unable to answer it's competitors in a timely manner. This would be an oppertune time to have OS X slice off a significant portion of Microsoft's marketshare. By the time Longhorn comes out there might be a more balanced competition between Apple, Linux, and Windows.
 
alandail said:
How would it be losing their soul to make a better macintosh? If IBM fell flat on their promise and they can now make a better laptop with an Intel chip and adopt a multiprocessor strategy, what is wrong with that? Right now IBM can take Apple as a customer for granted. Make them compete on price/performance with Intel and AMD and let Apple put themselves in a position to use whatever is most cost effective or has the best performance at each level. That would be a good thing, right? The difference is in the OS and having the OS integrated with the hardware - choice of CPU is largely irrelevant to that.
Click to expand...
I dont have anything against Apple going with Intel per se, but if this entails in a x86 chip there will be another transition. Perhaps not as big for the programmers as for the actual users. We will in best case have another classic mode where we can run our "old" programs for some more years. ´
You can still run an old Win 3.1 in Xp. Since the market for Mac applications isn't exactly flooded, it might be a good idea not to render all >3 years programs obselete.
That being said, I would be all for if Apple some how could make IBM, Intel, AMD... compete in producing PPC chips. We would all benefit from that. But as I have understood it there are some patents could stop such attempt (?) (correct me if I am wrong).
That about the chip.
Apple has always been the clever guy in computers. They have always solved problems with their brains instead of with raw power. This has resulted in elegant solutions such as SCSI and ADC. Apple was also know for smart coding which resulted in less need of computing power and HD space. It saddens me to see that Apple is giving up all these smart ideas in the name of conformity.
I do understand that e.g. cutting edge GPU demanded the transition to DVI. However, the question I am asking is how far should Apple go in their attempt to attract more customers?
Would we want Apple to become just another Dell or HP in their strive to reach double digits market shares?
 
I don't like this. Essentially this is running Mac OS X on a x86 (PC). A Mac just wouldn't be a Mac if it could run on anything. Apples makes durable, nice looking computers to compliment their solid, eye appealing OS. Running Tiger on a DELL Dimensions just wouldn't be the same. I do hope these are just rumors and nothing more, because this would be horrible. :(
 
ITASOR said:
Running Tiger on a DELL Dimensions just wouldn't be the same.
Click to expand...
The horror... :eek:
God forbid that.
I don't agree with people that says Macs are just about the OS. It is the entire thing. A computer and a OS designed to optimal as a unit, hence no clones. When I hear people talking about building their own Macs or proting the OS to run on Dells... I just crumble.
 
how sad they could think of that

Dr.Gargoyle said:
The horror... :eek:
God forbid that.
I don't agree with people that says Macs are just about the OS. It is the entire thing. A computer and a OS designed to optimal as a unit, hence no clones. When I hear people talking about building their own Macs or proting the OS to run on Dells... I just crumble.
Click to expand...



aggre
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back