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Apple to Adopt Intel Ultra-Mobile Platform?

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Apr 12, 2001
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Appleinsider claims that Apple will be adopting Intel's upcoming "Menlow" Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform for multiple new devices in 2008.

Menlow incorporates a 45-nanometer low-power "Silverthorne" chip that promises to utilize only between half a watt to 2 watts of electrical power, making it ideal for future mobile phones and ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs). Other features to be included in the platform include WiFi, 3G, and WiMAX technologies.

Menlow is expected to be delivered by Intel in the 1st half of 2008. Appleinsider is uncertain when Apple will announce products based on the new platform, but suggests that it is under consideration for next-generation iPhones or in the rumored Apple tablet/PDA.

DigiTimes had previously disclosed that Apple was looking into Intel's most advanced mobile system-on-a-chip, Moorestown. Intel claims Moorestown will be even more efficient than the Menlow platform, however it isn't due until 2009.

Ultra-mobile PCs were in the spotlight in early 2006 when Microsoft revealed their Origami Project which introduced a line of UMPCs into the marketplace. The adoption of such mobile devices has so far been limited.

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2007/12/21/apple-to-adopt-intel-ultra-mobile-platform/
To me, this platform was the carrot at the end of a long 3 year stick that cinched the deal for Apple to cross over. The Wintel compatibility is a big factor, but Apple is, at its core, an all-in-one consumer device company.

Macintosh "platform"
iPhone "platform"

Rocketman

Supporting evidence from article:

"The importance of the new Silverthorne chip is only comparable with the 8088 processor or Pentium,” he told the German-language Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a June interview. Otellini added that his firm plans to deploy a whole "product family" of 45 nm Silverthorne chips in the near future aimed at capturing the "top 10 to 20 percent of the cellphone market.”
 
Curious about what kind of performance we'll get out of this. But the TDP is impressive.
 
Rocketman said:
To me, this platform was the carrot at the end of a long 3 year stick that cinched the deal for Apple to cross over. The Wintel compatibility is a big factor, but Apple is, at its core, an all-in-one consumer device company.
Click to expand...

True, and if we can look back to the D5 Conference earlier this year, I think Jobs made some comments on device specific platforms that alluded to such a thing joining the rest of the Apple product line.
 
Rocketman said:
To me, this platform was the carrot at the end of a long 3 year stick that cinched the deal for Apple to cross over. The Wintel compatibility is a big factor, but Apple is, at its core, an all-in-one consumer device company.

Macintosh "platform"
iPhone "platform"

Rocketman
Click to expand...

I remember a lot of people complaining when the announcement was made that Intel was a dinosaur and that AMD had destroyed them, and Apple was just going to have to switch again because Intel was going the way of Sun and SGI.

Amusing, how it looks a couple years later...
 
so would these chips fit into phones or just tiny laptops? Would be pretty interesting seeing something like this in the iPhone - especially if it makes Mobile Safari snappier ;)
 
InkMaster said:
so would these chips fit into phones or just tiny laptops? Would be pretty interesting seeing something like this in the iPhone - especially if it makes Mobile Safari snappier ;)
Click to expand...


They would fit perfectly in a new revision of the iPhone.And the :apple:TV And any other small form factor device Apple can come up with.
 
InkMaster said:
so would these chips fit into phones or just tiny laptops? Would be pretty interesting seeing something like this in the iPhone - especially if it makes Mobile Safari snappier ;)
Click to expand...

That's the thing- how much more could processor speed help the iPhone platform? The limiting factor now seems to be download speed. Wifi + iPhone 's current processor seems plenty ample. The phone can play video, render web pages relatively quickly, produce cool visual effects (the back to home screen icon fall in, for example). All of this seems to suggest that the phone would percievably do everything we would want it to do (edit word processing or even presentation documents).. etc. Why would they update the iphone processor significantly and how would they market it? What next? Photoshop on the iphone?

I would guess then that this would be applied to either a tablet mac or an iphone that really does things that we can't imagine yet.
 
walnuts said:
That's the thing- how much more could processor speed help the iPhone platform? The limiting factor now seems to be download speed. Wifi + iPhone 's current processor seems plenty ample. The phone can play video, render web pages relatively quickly, produce cool visual effects (the back to home screen icon fall in, for example). All of this seems to suggest that the phone would percievably do everything we would want it to do (edit word processing or even presentation documents).. etc. Why would they update the iphone processor significantly and how would they market it? What next? Photoshop on the iphone?

I would guess then that this would be applied to either a tablet mac or an iphone that really does things that we can't imagine yet.
Click to expand...

A faster/more powerful processor will probably help if/when Apple supports more complex codecs. Like a 24/32/however many bit 192 KHz audio or whatever. But you're right; at the moment, internet speed needs to get faster first.

As for WiMAX, sounds cool. I know while Apple & ATT has a deal, that doesn't mean WiMAX can't get through w/ another provider. I'll admit, I'm not sure who provides WiMAX where, but it is possible.
 
walnuts said:
...Why would they update the iphone processor significantly and how would they market it? What next? Photoshop on the iphone?
Click to expand...

The current processor can drive the screen well but if the screen had four times as many pixes the processor would need to be four times faster. (Remember that if you double the screen size you have 4x as many pixels.)

What next? I don't know, Voice input? Natural language understanding? There are applications waiting that can suck up any amount of available computing power. For example wouldn't it be nice if you could simplely ask your phone using the blue tooth headset "any voice mail from John?" Much better then scrolling a screen and looking. Or just say "Ring if John calls, put the others straight to VM" and the phone would do it. The only reason we have a touch screen is because natural language understanding requires far more compute power than we have now even on the Mac Pro. Wait 20 years and it will be on a cell phone.
 
guzhogi said:
But you're right; at the moment, internet speed needs to get faster first.

As for WiMAX, sounds cool. I know while Apple & ATT has a deal, that doesn't mean WiMAX can't get through w/ another provider. I'll admit, I'm not sure who provides WiMAX where, but it is possible.
Click to expand...

Sprint is deploying Wimax most quickly right now. Could AT&T buy Sprint?

I always felt and hoped Apple's enterprise division would be the "new telco" hardware provider for the AT&T high bandwidth protocol wireless rollout worldwide. Win-win, and rapid deployment indeed.

Then there is the new 700 mhz FCC sale in process.

Heck, AT&T and Apple could put a Wimax transceiver at every Starbucks and McDonalds and have really wide coverage overnight.

Rocketman
 
ChrisA said:
The current processor can drive the screen well but if the screen had four times as many pixes the processor would need to be four times faster. (Remember that if you double the screen size you have 4x as many pixels.)

What next? I don't know, Voice input? Natural language understanding? There are applications waiting that can suck up any amount of available computing power. For example wouldn't it be nice if you could simplely ask your phone using the blue tooth headset "any voice mail from John?" Much better then scrolling a screen and looking. Or just say "Ring if John calls, put the others straight to VM" and the phone would do it. The only reason we have a touch screen is because natural language understanding requires far more compute power than we have now even on the Mac Pro. Wait 20 years and it will be on a cell phone.
Click to expand...

Exactly- I was talking more near-term. Why introduce a more powerful processor now? I agree that someday in the future we'll have devices with true voice recognition or other things you've mentioned, but why update the processor now?
 
SthrnCmfrtr said:
I remember a lot of people complaining when the announcement was made that Intel was a dinosaur and that AMD had destroyed them, and Apple was just going to have to switch again because Intel was going the way of Sun and SGI.

Amusing, how it looks a couple years later...
Click to expand...

That was true up until the CoreDuo line was released, which was right around the time of the switch. I don't think anyone who knew what they were talking about was, at that point, contending that AMD was outpacing Intel.

Anyways, the idea of the UMP was cool about a year or two ago, but lately I've been less interested in the technology. Here's what made me look twice: the Asus eeepc (arguably the best of the UMPs, when you consider form factor, features, and price) vs. the touch/iPhone. The only thing the eeepc has on either handheld is a keyboard, expansion ports, and a bigger screen. The handhelds, tho, have superior battery life, a more innovative input mechanism, and most importantly portability.

I think my point is that rather than a 7" laptop or even a tablet, I'd rather see a 4" touch with an (obviously) larger, higher res screen and BT to connect it to a BT keyboard (and mouse if you wanted). A small, option docking station with some ports including USB, DVI, and audio out would certainly make it really interesting in my book.

Slightly larger/higher res multitouch screen, bigger battery, 16/32gb of flash, maybe more RAM than the touch, BT, a docking station to charge and connect a USB HDD and a cheap 17/19" LCD... charge $500 for the handheld (16gb version, +$150ish for the 32gb?), another $50 for the dock, a $100 for a decent sized USB HDD (320gb or so), $150 for a cheap LCD, $100 for a BT keyboard/mouse set and you're up to $900-1000 for a device that would serve as a laptop, desktop, PDA, and iPod. Not the most powerful thing in the world, but it would certainly be adequate for my wife, me at work (and most of my co-workers) and be really, really cool. Take (and access) all your files everywhere you go... anywho, just my end of the week ramblings.
 
No one's talking about the pink elephant in the room?

I always here how innovative and far reaching Apple is and how Redmond are the copycats but I don't hear or see any of that now. It distinctly looks like Apple is on MS's heels with this idea. If it is true. This is just a rumor after all.

Not that I am a fan of the idea. I don't like the UMPCs. But give MS credit where it's due.
 
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