Yes as much as we hate motorola for not keeping up with the modern world, as well as their lousy modems and cell phones, for Apple to dump them now is highly unlikely. As stated several times previous to this post, most of the apps available for the mac are optimized for AltiVec, and in this time of economic turmoil, Apple would surely suffer if they changed the core of their hardware. Also, don't you people remember that the one company that SJ has always disliked if not hated more than M$ is IBM. But then again, he did blow the biggest deal in history with his NeXTStep OS and IBM. With a guy like Steve, no one knows what to expect. Bottom line: Dont get all jumpy about the possibility of dumping Motorola. It's not gonna happen any time soon.
This just solidifies my assumptions that Apple will just replace all their processors with an oreo cookie. Yes...an oreo cookie.
What is that biggest deal in history with IBM and NextStep? I am not familiar with that. As for processors Apple will be using a new organic based chip. No more of that silicon mumbo jumbo.
well thanks to the expert journalism of the staff of CARS we now know that the g5 has not made it to market due to moto's failure in allocating the proper amount of dip and salsa to ship with its chips.
Motorola really needs to catch up in the clock speeds. They just don't have the resources devoted to their processors that Intel and AMD have because they also make embedded chips, cell phones, and other stuff. Apple, while a good part of their buisness, still doesn't get the attention it deserves. IBM has come out with all the cool stuff for the PowerPC's like copper on silicon process and all that.
Basically IBM was fed up with DOS, and wanted a new stable OS. One of the few god things to come out of NeXT was their OS based on UNIX, and IBM really wanted it. However, Steve kept demanding huge royalties and prices because at the time he was barely clinging on to the computer industry, and NeXT was a faliure from the start based on revenge. IBM gave a final quota which would have removed DOS as their OS and given Steve more money than Gates was given from his deal. Steve still wanted more, and they just said screw you. He could have eliminated M$ from that deal, but he ruined it. I learned this from The Second Comming of Steve Jobs . 'Tis a good book, and i suggest you read it.
I agree, The Second Comming of Steve Jobs is a good read, as is Apple Confidential (a quick read with lots of neat information). Anyways, I doubt Apple will drop Moto unless they purchase Altivec and give it to IBM. Apple has really displayed a commitement to Altivec and I would be shocked if they just abandoned it. My assumption is that Apple will keep falling behind in the MHz race, but will continue to compensate by providing us with more OS updates and better iApps. Bill
i dont believe the multithreading capabilities of the oreo cookie are quite up to snuff to justify a doublestuff price. i have heard some rumblings of a oreo+ that may make its way to market soon tho.
I thought I read somewhere that the chocolate cream oreos are about 50% more efficient than even the doublestuff.
That was too close for comfort. Do you realize that if the deal would have gone through there would be no OS X today? Who knows what the old guard at Apple would have given us for OS 10? That is, if Apple were still in business. Drained of revenue by the clones, Apple may have been bought out by now. The course of history is strange at times.
in my opinion NeXT would become Apple in heart because it was Unix, plus you know how Jobs is always looking for the best user interface. Heck, they might have merged if Sculley was given the boot.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't IBM help make the 350 mhz G4's when they first came out, because Motorola couldn't put out enough of the high end chips (500 mhz)? I heard this from an Apple employee, but he may have been wrong, since he admitted that he wasn't exactly the hardware guy...
I've seen that elsewhere, G4scott. IBM apparently saved Motorola's ash in that one. I still would like to see Apple give up Motoduma for the faster chips and start kicking the processors into high gear. And I don't care if it's a G4, G5, G6, Gwiz, wizp!ss, whatever. As long as it's faster, cheaper, more powerful and doesn't smell.
You see, if IBM can make motorola's newest processors at their slightest whim, imagine what else they are capable of. Jobs may hate IBM for losing that deal, but it was his fault still. Anyways, that was the past, when computers were in their infancy, and we were traveling full speed ahead into the future, with no idea where computers would go. We still don't know much about the long term future of computers these days. I think that Apple needs to release the beast of the PowerPC processor that IBM's been holding back, or get IBM to make the G4's (and G5's) to clock at higher speeds without ruining the chip (can we say P4?)
What makes you think ... Why would Motorola want to sell Alti-vec to anyone? They want to license it to IBM, not sell it outright. IBM is the one who refuses to use it (they have their own reasons). Motorola will not sell Altivec to Apple because that would mean they'd have to license it back to manufacture G4's (and G5's) for Cisco and the rest of the embedded market.
I don't think that IBM has been holding anything back. They typically release info on what they're working on months in advanced. If they had some super chip ready for people to use, they'd be selling them. As for the IBM manufacturing the G4 thing, they did, in fact, produce G4s with Altivec back when Motorola was having their manufacturing difficulties. After that episode, it became obvious that Apple was leaning towards Altivec and IBM decided not to utilize it, even though Motorola was willing to license it to them. In the perfect world (in Apple's perspective), Motorola would continue to develop the G4 line for use in Apple's consumer machines and IBM would be developing the G5 (with Altivec) for the pro machines. But since we're dealing with 3 separate companies that don't have each other's interests at heart, we're left with what we have.
I don't think many people will miss Altivec at all once it's gone. I mean, people keep ranting about how OS X is optimized for Altivec, but do we really need it with 10.2? Personally, I think the use of 3d acceleration will MORE than make up for the lack of altivec, as evidenced by the 700Mhz ibook, which is quite the little screamer. Also, how many Altivec enabled programs do you really use? Name them. I think you'll be able to count them all with one hand. I'm not going to miss motorola or their altivec.
Well, I'm just a regular user, but I can name 5 (kinda) 1. iTunes 2. iPhoto 3. iMovie 4. iDVD - when I get my 17" iMac (maybe) 5. OS X I'm sure some of the pro users could name a few more.