DTphonehome
macrumors 68000
Should have been more specific. Look at where their phones are now. They successfully pivoted toward services but you can't deny they lost out tremendously on Windows Mobile.
Incoming Intel CEO Derides Company's Inability to 'Deliver Better Products' Than Apple's M1 Chip
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davepete
macrumors member
Sounds like Intel's new CEO gets it. Whether he can turn the ship is another matter.
Not really. Apple is a technology company. One can argue that they have a life style brand, but that does not make them a life style company.
He is taking a shot at Apple even while he is criticizing Intel. Apple has always been focused on technology, creating or co-creating tech used by many people outside its own products (FireWire, Thunderbolt, QuickTime, etc.). Steve Jobs used to describe them as focus on the intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts.
It is that framing that is the problem with the statement and in many ways is the wrong focus. Apple beats Intel because Apple is focused and Intel has not been for years.
Why is he right? Apple has a much easier problem than Intel does. Apple has to deliver chips that meet the needs of a single customer with whom its chip designers can work and share responsibility from very early in the process. Intel has to hit a broad base of users with a small number of chip designs. The perfect example of this is the hardware support fo reference counting that Apple implemented in Apple Silicon. That provides a major performance boost to applications written in Objective-C and/or Swift and but would do nothing for C#.
Comes back to focus.
Intel’s focus would need to be different than Apple’s, but it actually needs to have one.
You aren't wrong. Apple had to start somewhere and they started at the low end. The problem is their low end solution started in the middle of Intels high end, faster than almost every non-Xeon chip Intel makes, laptop or desktop. Its faster than some Mac Pros and almost all iMacs.
And using the current M1 chip in a MacBook Pro could easily work, it substantially surpasses the top end MBP in performance, and even limited to 16 gb with swap it's likely still more powerful for most use cases. Of course it would be silly for Apple to do that, since its a no brainer to wait 6 months to release new high end MBPs with a M1X with 8 performance cores, that also supports more thunderbolt ports and more RAM.
And the M1X will be so fast it will obviate the need for any Intel Based iMacs, so I'm guessing the iMac refresh at year end will be all M1X. Even low end Mac Pros would be better off with it, but my guess is the Mac Pro line is going to be held to ship with 16/24 Firestorm core versions next year (the M1-XXX?, cause it's obscenely fast!). Much faster with far less heat allowing for tighter packaging.
This man is completely out of touch. A "lifestyles company". Apple has been acquiring some of the best chip design people for years now and have an incredible team. A team that rivals your company. Where did they get this new guy, Blackberry?
I have a love/hate relationship with Apple. I'm completely in the ecosystem and have been for decades. They do great things and sometimes make real, bonehead decisions. But make no mistake, Apple is now one of the best chip designers in the world.
ARM was always a completely brilliant design. The first ARM chip was running AFTER the power supply was cut off to the chip. The engineers were stunned to find out that the very low voltage for the chip's signal input was enough to power the whole chip! It is complete stupidity on Intel's part for not doing what Apple did two decades ago.
I have a love/hate relationship with Apple. I'm completely in the ecosystem and have been for decades. They do great things and sometimes make real, bonehead decisions. But make no mistake, Apple is now one of the best chip designers in the world.
ARM was always a completely brilliant design. The first ARM chip was running AFTER the power supply was cut off to the chip. The engineers were stunned to find out that the very low voltage for the chip's signal input was enough to power the whole chip! It is complete stupidity on Intel's part for not doing what Apple did two decades ago.
dzankizakon
macrumors regular
Of course he'd say something like that, he has no choice other than to come out swinging. His company is in serious trouble, I'd be surprised if he said anything other than a hysterical "Charge!!1"
Johnny907
macrumors 68020
Oh please. Apple has been throwing shade at their business partner for years. I’m fine with intel throwing down the gauntlet if it means they’re finally getting serious about delivering a competing product.
Let these two fight it out on the playground, as that can only mean better and better offerings for us consumers.
People here picking sides like your loyalty means anything other than money to a 1% that doesn’t even know you exist. Bizarre.
Let these two fight it out on the playground, as that can only mean better and better offerings for us consumers.
People here picking sides like your loyalty means anything other than money to a 1% that doesn’t even know you exist. Bizarre.
It's not the x86 architecture. It's their manufacturing troubles compared to TSMC's rapid pace of progress. They have to get their act together and get their 7nm process (which is roughly equivalent to TSMC's 5nm) working fast. The one thing that saves them right now is that TSMC alone cannot meet the global demand for chips, but that may not last forever given how much money they (TSMC) are currently investing.
Chriss5471
macrumors newbie
Personally I think the word lifestyle hits the nail on the head in a good way. Apple have merged technology in with your life in a way that makes it hard/impossible to do with out. The products are lifestyle but it doesn’t mean the technology is poor, even Apple admit however that their hardware doesn’t have to be the best on paper it has to integrate with the rest of product to give the best overall product.
Intel should be blowing others out of the water with their chips as they are more focused on that area solely and if they were cutting edge I’m sure companies like Apple would still rely on them. Intel can only blame Intel for their recent failures to progress and keep up.
Either way Intel need to bounce back in order to create competition which feeds innovation.
Intel should be blowing others out of the water with their chips as they are more focused on that area solely and if they were cutting edge I’m sure companies like Apple would still rely on them. Intel can only blame Intel for their recent failures to progress and keep up.
Either way Intel need to bounce back in order to create competition which feeds innovation.
axboi87
macrumors regular
If I were him I'd demand: 3NM in a year, and performance per watt equal to or better than the M1X or upcoming M2. Be Tyrannical about it. Also integrated graphics on par with Apple's GPU cores in whatever is going into the Mac Pro (if rumors are true that apple is doing away with Nvidea and AMD graphics, in favor of full in house graphics)
Incoming Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has said that the company must "deliver better products" than Apple, which he described as a "lifestyle company," and says that Intel's best days are "in front of it" (via The Oregonian).
Speaking at an Intel all-hands meeting yesterday, Gelsinger derisively implied that Apple is merely a "lifestyle company," so Intel must be able to surpass its technology:
The jibe at Apple comes after the launch of Apple Silicon last year, which has begun to displace Intel chips inside Mac computers. The M1 chip, Apple's first custom silicon processor for the Mac, has far surpassed the capabilities of equivalent Intel offerings, with markedly better performance and power consumption.
Gelsinger will replace Bob Swan as Intel CEO, having already spent 30 years at the company before leaving in 2009. He was the company's first Chief Technology Officer before becoming CEO of VMware. Speaking to employees, Gelsinger insisted that Intel has its best days "in front of it."
He joins the company at a time of crisis as it contends with multiple threats. With major client Apple dropping Intel for its own custom silicon, and Microsoft expected to follow suit in the near future, Intel has struggled to deliver technological innovations. This is after the company has repeatedly reported delays with its latest processors, while its main competitor, AMD, has proceeded to capture valuable market share.
In December, a major hedge fund with a one-billion-dollar stake in Intel, Third Point, issued a letter urging Intel to take "immediate action" and shake up its business model to combat the mounting threats to the company. Gelsinger's arrival will go some way to appeasing shareholders, but the company has some way to go to regain its footing.
Gelsinger starts as CEO next month, having been lured away from his current job with a package reportedly worth $116 million.
Article Link: Incoming Intel CEO Derides Company's Inability to 'Deliver Better Products' Than Apple's M1 Chip
NT1440
macrumors P6
I don’t think Intel can pivot at an infrastructural level like that. There’s no way they can take manufacturing capacity offline to retool at a scale that matters without severely jeopardizing existing contracts.
Baymowe335
Suspended
That “lifestyle company” is kicking your butt in chip design architecture.
Lifestyle company is different than Lifestyle brand, and he was using it as a pejorative. His point is that Apple is not a technology company and so should not be able to beat a major technology player like Intel. It would not make sense to say if it was not denigrating Apple. In other words, his point is that it is embarrassing that a company that is just a marketing company (that is what it means to be a ”lifestyle company”) is beating them.
It would not make sense if it was intended as a positive. Think of it this way: If the new CEO of a high end food company said: “We are getting beaten by a Michelin 3-Star Chef”, it would not be a surprising statement. If on the other hand the CEO said: “We are getting beaten by a fast food chain” everyone would understand the embarrassment.
That is not his point. He is not praising Apple, he is denigrating them. He may be denigrating Intel more, but it is not intended to be a compliment to Apple. Again, Apple is a technology company with a lifestyle brand. Funny, because that is exactly what Intel wanted to be with its “Intel Inside” campaign.
To be clear, I am not insulted by his statement, nor do I think Apple should care about it, I think however, it does not bode well for Intel that it is his attitude, as it shows he does not understand his real problem. Apple is not his competition nor should it be surprising that they are able to beat Intel’s general purpose designs. AMD is his problem and it should be surprising that they are beating the much bigger and better funded Intel.
Thank you for gracing us with your superior intellect. I look forward to your continued knowledge of all things
iSee
macrumors 68040
I hope Intel does turn it around. But they have a long way to go.
The first thing they need to figure out is if it's really the x86/x64 instruction set and execution model that's holding them back or something else.
Machine compatibility with almost all the software ever released is *still* a huge advantage, if they could keep up in other ways. Of course, time is not on their side. That advantage evaporates as more and more software is re-released for ARM. And, of course, there's still AMD.
Man, they are neck-deep in quicksand with a couple of giant gorillas jumping on their heads.
The first thing they need to figure out is if it's really the x86/x64 instruction set and execution model that's holding them back or something else.
Machine compatibility with almost all the software ever released is *still* a huge advantage, if they could keep up in other ways. Of course, time is not on their side. That advantage evaporates as more and more software is re-released for ARM. And, of course, there's still AMD.
Man, they are neck-deep in quicksand with a couple of giant gorillas jumping on their heads.
They didn't lose the 5G business to Qualcomm; they never had it.
You can't lose something you never had.
They attempted entry into the modem market and didn't succeed. Very different.
They had an okay offering for a first and second attempt in the modem market, but Qualcomm has history and expertise.
They are not a decade behind.
Their 10nm is equivalent to TSMC 7nm in density.
Stop comparing the M1 to a full featured CPU that has 24-48 lanes of PCIe and external memory, etc.
Compare when Apple has made a CPU that incorporates multichannel DDR support for more than 16GB and multi-lane PCIe.
Exactly, M1 is not a real competitor for anything besides low end machines.
This exactly. Years ago I went to a meeting with a major entertainment company as part of a team being brought in to to bid on redesigning their website. They started the meeting saying Disney was #47 on the top 100 websites and that they were #61. Their goal was to be #46 with Disney at #47.
We started by asking what did they want their website to be? An information portal? A community site? A content distribution site?
Their response was: Disney is #47 we want to be #46.
We left the meeting and one of our guys commented that no one at Disney sat around thinking about things that way. Disney’s goal was to be the best, their goal was to beat Disney. Jonny Soruji’s team’s goal is not beating Intel, it is building the best products they can (which as a consequence means beating Intel).
Maconplasma
Cancelled
Wow so much defense for Intel. They don't care about you so hold back the defenses. The truth is no matter which way you spin it Intel puts out processors that create too much heat, drain battery and cause fans to blow like crazy. Just know that the M1 was the beginning and the MacBook Pro 16", the iMac and the Mac Pro will push Intel off the Sandy Bridge it used to be on.
Unregistered 4U
macrumors G4
Low end machines and laptops are 80% of what Apple sells and a pretty large percentage of what anyone else sells either. So, right off the bat, they’ve created a processor that suits the needs of a huge swath of their customers. Not bad.