[News] Apple Explores Use of Intel Chips

[X-Istence]

ok a Apple Tablet strikes me as a bit of odd idea since the ones that run windows have not really taken off etc and that Apple is following the rest of the PC world which they are not generally from what I've seen known to do

One thing you forget:

Windows vs Mac OS X

Let me tell you why:

1. Mac OS X was designed from the ground up to be a one button mouse system. So there is no problem in having to for some reason right click on anything.

2. The dock can be resized to be as big or small as wanted, which means people with fat fingers, or people that can easily miss the start button, can not miss the icons in the dock to start an application. Thing's like Expose to find a window will also be extremely handy. Tap in the bottom right corner of the screen, and see thumbnails of all your open application's/windows.

3. Apple has full control over the hardware, this means they can build OS X around the way the hardware works

4. OS X can easily scale, fonts can easily be made bigger and or smaller, and buttons as well. It can all be done on the GPU, so that if the touch pad senses you have your finger near the screen, that part of the screen magnifies just slightly so you can easily hit even the smaller buttons

 

[chastity]

Well most of my expernice with a Mac was before OS X and I've not really used a Mac in general. Well I still say it looks like Apple it following the other side of the PC market but hey more power to them if they want too

 

[Xie]

An Apple tablet is interesting, not sure if I would buy one but interesting. I still don't see why even bother with Intel though.

 

[NetRyder]

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.

The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor.

IBM, Intel and Apple declined to comment for this story.

CNET News.com

Guess we'll find out on Monday then.

 

[X-Istence]

Hrm, that would be weird.

And uhm, yeah.

 

[muzikool]

Crazy.

 

[Xie]

Well since C|Net is the only source I'm hoping it's just rumor again. If true though I won't be following Apple to a Intel CPU.

 

[Tuffgong4]

I know this is impossible but if in mid 2007 (like the story reports) the processors apple are using are descendants of the Pentium M we will be in for a great suprise in performance.

The Pentium M running single channel ddr 2700 overclocked to it's highest competes with an AMD 4000+ and blows away the highest Intel p4 chips. If these processors ever get their marchitechture into true desktops I will switch from AMD processors to the intel ones. Lowest power consumption and great performance from a dated processor that with tweaks to more recent technology will create quite a stir.

And with the thermal problems of the G5 and not being able to get them into powerbooks casue of the heat, this is a great idea.

 

[NetRyder]

Well since C|Net is the only source I'm hoping it's just rumor again. If true though I won't be following Apple to a Intel CPU.

As I posted on my blog last night, the first time I heard this was at the WinHEC in April from Robert Scoble [MSFT] and a person from Intel. The Wall Street Journal then posted a report about this sometime towards the end of last month. Now CNET seems to have received a tip. Lots of signs so far. We won't know for sure until Monday though.

Edit: "It's for x86 chips," he says in the comments box.

 

[NetRyder]

Is there going to be a live webcast of the keynote? Anyone have the URL?
I'll probably end up watching it (or part of it) just to find out if this is true.

 

[X-Istence]

Is there going to be a live webcast of the keynote? Anyone have the URL?
I'll probably end up watching it (or part of it) just to find out if this is true.

http://apple.com/ will probably have a link to the keynote.

 

[NetRyder]

Ah ok, so I guess they haven't set up the page yet then. I'll keep a watch.

The WSJ is now confirming the story:

CNET on Friday reported that Apple would announce the transition plan June 6. It reported that Apple would 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. An industry executive familiar with the matter, contacted Saturday, verified that schedule.

[ Via Spymac ]

 

[NetRyder]

THE RUMOURED APPLE MOVE to x86 is true, the INQUIRER has gotten independent confirmation of this. Prior to publication of this, sources had told the INQ that a switch was in the works. More importantly, they also said that Apple was playing the AMD card at full force, so don't be too surprised if a green logo shows up on some models.

The Intel chips are almost assuredly going to start with a mobile part, probably Yonah, then on to Merom. Both use the same FSB technology, but Merom is faster so the switch will be a fairly painless one. The markets pointed out by CNet back up the idea that Yonah will start it all off, then Conroe and Woodcrest will take over. These sure are interesting times.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23714

SAN FRANCISCO, June 5 - Steven P. Jobs is preparing to take an unprecedented gamble by abandoning Apple Computer's 14-year commitment to chips developed by I.B.M. and Motorola in favor of Intel processors for his Macintosh computers, industry executives informed of the decision said Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/t...71be44e02&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Looks like this is really happening folks.

 

[X-Istence]

I am waiting for it to be official tommorow at the keynote.

 

[NetRyder]

Yep yep.

 

[Xie]

I am waiting for it to be official tommorow at the keynote.

Ditto that. If true I may have to find a new OS.

 

[Perris Calderon]

Ditto that. If true I may have to find a new OS.

if the company is planning on doing this, my opinion is that it's because they will realize a gain in performance...the apple people are not fools

wait and see what happens

 

[Xie]

if the company is planning on doing this, my opinion is that it's because they will realize a gain in performance...the apple people are not fools

wait and see what happens

If Intel is in, I'm out.

 

[NetRyder]

Change of plans! Jobs just pulled off one of his last minute acts. Apple will now be using Sun chips!




hee hee

 

[X-Istence]

if the company is planning on doing this, my opinion is that it's because they will realize a gain in performance...the apple people are not fools

wait and see what happens

See thing is that they won't gain much performance at all, rather, performance will decrease.

The reason the myth is still alive that Power CPU's run 4x or more faster than Intel is because of the amount of registers that they have.

Registers are little pieces of ram, high-speed memory where the CPU can temporarily store information. Intel after a certain amount of registers has to swap them to the main RAM, and put new data into the register, whereas the Power CPU can keep putting it in register a lot longer, as there are more available. This means there is no waiting on the FSB to write and or get the data.

Another thing is that SSE2 the floating point processor does not match up with Altivec in terms of speed, and or what it can do. The reason Mac's currently do not need the top of the line graphics cards for many things is because the Altivec unit can do many of the operations needed, faster and better.

"Apple is the primary customer for AltiVec, and uses it to accelerate multimedia applications such as QuickTime and iTunes and image-processing programs such as Adobe Photoshop. AltiVec is also put to work in key parts of Apple's Mac OS X including in the Quartz graphics compositor. Motorola has supplied AltiVec units in all of their desktop CPU's since the G4. AltiVec is also used in some embedded systems to provide extremely high-performance digital signal processing." (AltiVec)

I for one would be sad to see Altivec go, especially with the processing power it has. I could see why Apple might want to do this though, if they can get it to run on x86, it means they have a bigger market potential if they start supporting standard run of the mill systems as long as it has the required specifications. This also means that they will be direct on competition with Microsoft, for desktop. Only thing that they would damage is the fact that they have been known for their own quality systems that last. They might be pricey but you get what you pay for so to say, will be lost, since then every Joe Sixpack can get Mac OS X.

AltiVec -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltiVec