Comments on: Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips

Apple will announce its plans Monday in a move that raises questions about the Mac maker's future computer strategy.

[Orion Blastar]

Intel Mac = New Coke

This will be the biggest blunder since New Coke, if Apple makes this switch. Apple has always criticised the Intel chips for being too slow and running too hot, etc.

On the plus side of things, Apple can have an Intel Mac run Windows via a dual-boot or something as well as other Intel X86 based operating systems.

[The_Raven]

This is all pure speculation.

I don't see it happening, unless they decide to go with Intel for
their Xserve, or use some type of Intel chip in the iPod. Maybe they
have a completely new device that they are developing.

I'm pretty confident that this has absoulutley NOTHING to do with
their desktop and notebook offerings.

[crainial]

Mistaken Identity

has anyone thought that maybe Apple is going yo use the Intel Xscale in a portable? This is WAY more likely

[sanenazok]

CE

It's barely tolerable in CE devices and runs at less than 700MHz. Might as well use a Via processor or make your own.

[skellener]

This is key...

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

My guess...just a lot of FUD. CNET doesn't know crap and is just
spreading rumors.

[kxmmxk]

crap

This is very unfortunate. I was talking with some people at work a few days ago about how my iBook was almost 4 years old, and still working very nicely. They couldn't believe how nice it was to be that old.

It came up because the intel folks were all buying new laptops cause what they had was outdated. They couldn't image a system not being outdated and slow after 4 years.

RISC works better and it's a shame if true. Megahertz doesn't come close to being the end all and be all that some simple minds think it is. They are even finally finding that out in the intel world where the new M2 (?) chips have less megahertz but are faster than the traditional ones.

Of course in some minds that might be a reason to do it, to force everyone to upgrade their computers more often. Of course everyone has just finished buying new software for the switch to OS X, after upgrading for the switch to PowerPC. To do it again is ridiculous.

[kxmmxk]

Intel doesn't necessarily mean x86, but can still mean PPC

There was this post on slashdot that actually makes way more sense. The poster believes that Intel will make the new PPC chips for Apple.

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151621&cid=12723681

Because IBM has not met their obligations and messed up so badly, Apple has the right to take the IP to any manufacturer that can meet their requirements.

This is certainly the most likely scenario.

[sanenazok]

I don't know about that

I'm not sure that PPC is Apple's IP, as you put it. Isn't it being used by IBM "everywhere" including in IBM switches, servers, and the three game consoles? I'm sure Apple engineers contributed to the PPC, but I'm certain that it's IBM's property through and through.

[fmcgowan]

Exactly: Intel != x86

IBM "open sourced" the Power architecture some months ago. Intel can make Power cores for Apple or anyone else. And, as long as they stick to the published specs, they should be binary compatible.

Didn't anyone else read the articles about that???

My guess (and that is *all* it is) is that Intel will be shipping 90nm parts for Apple that both pin and binary compatible with the Apple motherboards currently in production.

Great move for Apple...if true

How many people would like to buy a Mac but don't because (i) they want to play games or (ii) they need Windows compatibility? Loads, I bet. Me, for one, anyway :-)

With an x86 Mac (hopefully dual-Opteron, dual-PCIe), we can multi-boot into Mac OS, Windows, Linux. So, we can play games and have a computer that works. This is something many of use do now with dual-boot Windows/Linux but imagine doing it on an iMac G5 derivative!

Watch out for M$ announcing OEM pricing for purchasers of Apple Mac x86 products wishing to 'upgrade'!

[Jon N.]

Think again Mr. Lawson...

Yeah, it would be great to have a dual boot i86 with OSX & XP/Longhorn, but here is the fact that may burst a bubble. Microsoft's next version of Windows, Longhorn, is not going to allow it's users the option of dual booting. XP is running for now, & I can dual boot with it. When Longhorn comes out, Microsoft will do what it does best...whittle down the download, update, & service options for their older products so that you HAVE to buy their new product.
Folks, it's the end of an era. A computer manufacturer evolution that had to eventually come to pass. Soon, the PPC Apple Mac will be in the collector's museums, & a hit on old-computers.com! I see the future, & it strangely looks likee a i86 running OS X! Fascinating! I just hope that Apple won't go out all togeether, because I like to see the founders of the personal computer industry speak & advertize from time to time. My sincere hope is that the i86 or the newer 64 bit dual processors will be able to run OS X straight from the box. If Apple makes the Mac a i86 or 64 bit DP chip dependant, then they should make the OS X runnable on any intel box with 1.5 Ghz or greater. If they do not, it could just mean the end of Apple, Inc. as we know it ! God forbid!

If we wanted to play games

If we wanted to play games we would buy a XBOX or a Mickey
mouse PC. What we ant is more than that, we want a real computer.

My follow up in the Inquirer

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23769

[GGGlen]

Truly sad

In one, long diatribe, you have just stated everything about yourself
that you have (incorrectly, I might add) accused Apple users of
doing.
You should read yourself sometimes... then quit trying to shout
down people that simply disagree with your rantings.
Apple users have tried both platforms, and have come to the
informed decision that they have chosen the better of the two
offerings.

Unlikely to be about GHz, more about Windows

I can't see Apple making this enormous change simply for GHz
reasons. IBM seems able to deliver both low power and
extremely high-performance chips as we have seen with the
Xbox and Cell (PS3) processors. X86 is probably a better long
term bet, but I doubt the need switch now just for this reason.

I think the main motivation is to gradually position the Mac as a
"Better PC", which is able to run Windows software while
delivering a better user experience than a PC. Apple needs this
to secure access to Office, which is much less guaranteed than
the supply of IBM chips now that Apple openly competes with it,
as well as other Windows apps that may be criticall to this or
that user.

I'd expect Apple to make a deal with VMware or a similar vendor
to offer excellent PC (and maybe even Linux) emulation. Apple
can easily port the Finder, OS utilities, music and productivity
sofware that the bulk of the users use, without having to lean on
any third party developers. They could even make the switch free
to users (and probably should). Users should be delighted to
have the superior uasbility and aesthetics of a Mac and also run
Windows software.

[thekornreeper]

Multiple OS support is getting better

" (and maybe even Linux) emulation"

For linux, one can run OSX in an application box using "Mac-on-Linux" given your running on mac with Mac OS installed, but it is fairly fast as no emulation is occuring.

And not to mention PearPC which can alows Mac OSX to be run on x86 (slow, but usuable on a super fast x86). But it works in both linux or windows.

Linux (I've only tested this on x86), also can emulate any version of windows using Win4Lin with good speed (it's just a ram gobbler). The Mac equivalent (windows emu) Virtual PC is still slow in comparison. Wine (or crossover office which has wine core) allows linux users to run windows software without installing windows, and the application support is also getting better.

So it's possible to install linux on a mac, install crossover/ or another windows emulator, and also install mac-on-linux. Or have an x86 with
linux and pearpc.

As computers get really fast and emulators improve, the interplay of the major 3 oses (Mac ie. unix, Linux and windows), improves, so one can utilize what they want from a given OS.

[jamie.p.walsh]

RE: GHz reasons

"I can't see Apple making this enormous change simply for GHz reasons. IBM seems able to deliver both low power and extremely high-performance chips as we have seen with the Xbox and Cell (PS3) processors. X86 is probably a better long term bet, but I doubt the need switch now just for this reason."

You're right. I think, though, that Apple sees a better product line that is diverse and one that has a shorter lifecycle.

These two processors you mention took nearly 2 years to develop. IBM has been slower to rotate in new and faster technology than Intel.

I'm going to kill myself

No, seriously. If we have to move to that crappy x86 archtiecture, I'm going to kill myself.

[Sboston]

Sad

I guess he's dead then.

[Christopher Hall]

The birth of the "Mintel"

I'm no Mac-head, but this doesn't seem all bad from a strategic point of view. I think Apple could probably pull this off.

Think of it this way: Steve Jobs has always said that his OS could easily run on Windows hardware equivalents. If he's given the opportunity to put his money where his mouth is, then make the shift from being a computer manufacturer to being that PLUS an OS author competing on equal grounds with Windows, the market will have a better choice of operating systems.

I see this putting Microsoft and Apple on equal footing. Is that so bad?

[fmcgowan]

Yes; it's bad for Apple.

I don't use Macs, so I'm not seeing this from the "Mac fan" angle. No, the problem for Apple comes in when they try to compate with MS as a software supplier on x86. Look at how MS made monkeys of IBM over OS/2. I used and liked OS/2; it was *far* superior to its contemporary Windows - 3.1, but still got blasted out of the marketplace.

I don't think Apple is switching to x86 at all.

Steve Jobs is not an idiot. He knows that Apple cannot succeed where IBM failed as a direct competitor with MS and Windows on x86. Apple cannot afford to lose > $2B competing against MS and Windows (as IBM did with OS/2) and survive on other lines of business (as IBM did - the iPod alone won't keep the company afloat).

Those points, along with the IBM decision to open the Power architecture (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/02/ibms_mighty_morphin_power_rangers/) lead me to *guess* that Apple will contract with Intel to make 90nm Power cores for their use.

Everybody wins.
Apple gets a second supplier.
Intel gets a new customer (and experience fabbing a proven RISC processor).
IBM gets Apple to complain about someone else.
POWER gets a second major manufacturer to add life the planned "ecosystem."
Apple customers *maybe* get cheaper computers as Intel applies low cost (relatively speaking) x86 production techniques to POWER production.

Intel Doesn't Mean Wintel

I've noticed quite a bit of replies that seem to blur the distinction between a processor and an entire hardware platform. There is a giant difference between using an Intel chip solution and creating an Wintel computer. There is a great deal more to a computer's hardware platform than simply the processor.

Also, some analyst has been mentioning that Apple would have to reprogram their software for the x86 platform. According to many reports, they already have Mac OSX builds for x86 fully running, and have kept every build of MacOS X running on actual PC hardware (though I would anticipate a custom architecture using intel processors for the new Macs). After the core-os is fully running on a new platform (as Mac OS X already is), compiling applications to that platform should be fairly straight-forward.

SK

[mcthingy2]

This is Going to Happen

I guess all that RISC versus CISC **** us Mac users had to peddle
was all marketing BS. Still if it means a cheaper Mac I say "On
with the hardware transition". It all has a bit of a 1984 ring to
it. Haven't we always been alliance with Eastasia and at war with
Eurasia?

[tharcod]

Inaccuracies

Core inaccuracies (should have been caught by a fact checker):

* Apple started suing clones somewhere around 1979; the PowerPCs were an exception during the Taligent era only, when Apple was expecting to move to IBM's operating system (that fell through, though).

* Motorola, IBM and Apple jointly own the PowerPC specification. Apple moved G3 from Motorola to IBM, and certainly could allow Intel to produce G5 processors if it elected to.

* Jobs has stated he is happy with the PowerPC architecture on numerous occasions; if he has the contractual capability (which he does) as a joint owner of the PowerPC Specification to move production to another supplier (which he does), and he is unhappy with the current supplier (which he is), wouldn't it be far, far more likely that he would simply move the PowerPC production to a new supplier, than use an architecture that he considers inferior?

* There is no savings in terms of peripherals nor in terms of hardware in moving to x86. The G5's use PCI, PCI/x and AGP just as the Intel and AMD machines do, and are not Apple proprietary. The only difference on these boards is the driver software and BIOS.

The only way it would make sense for Apple to make this move -- the only way -- is if they ran on PC compatible hardware.

Why would that make sense?

Right now, many companies won't support MacOS' significant market share (it's significant -- not huge, but larger than any Linux distribution's current share of desktops), because they have to buy a $3000 machine for each developer, and they have to buy a few machines for testing.

If there were a PC version of MacOS, and you got Metrowerks to support it with their C/C++ compiler (which already supports x86 and already supports PowerPC), then you could remove that obsticle.

It would be much easier to justify a $500 Mac Mini for testing a power PC build and a dual boot MacOS port. It, in fact, with proper frameworks, etc. would be very difficult to justify supporting only Windows in such an environment, in some market segments.

If you add to that the underlying BSD operating system's inherent, but potentially latent, capability to run Linux applications in compatibility mode, something that is routinely done, you would have an operating system that could potentially have a large enough target base to take on Microsoft.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is having a hard time getting users to upgrade from Windows 98. If Apple could convince those users it had a viable option and could allow them to try MacOS (say from a live CD) without impacting their current UI, they might be able to score some converts.

If Apple were to go x86, it wouldn't be for cost savings (there are none) but rather to attempt to directly compete with Microsoft (their nemesis).

If Apple could get more developers to support its platform -- both PowerPC and x86 -- by making it easier for developers to support its OS, it would stand to gain a lot.

My .02

I am an experienced coder, administrator, and consultant for several firms throughout my city. I have intimate experience with Windows, Linux, and BSD/Darwin/OSX, to the point of being able to debug the kernel blind.

As a general rule I would say that it doesn't surprise me that Apple is moving to the x86 platform. IBM wasn't doing a good job with the G5. What does surprise me is that they would move to Intel. Although Intel does make some decent products [Dothan/Alvino/Sonoma], I would say that the majority of their work [Barton] is pretty much a waste. I also have access to system specs for Turion64 and from early benchmarks, it looks like it's going to totally whoop the Pentium M on a number of levels.

That being said, Apple does [did] design great hardware. I deal with Apple hardware regularly, and find it to put *most* PC manufacturers to shame. [http://There are a few exceptions, Asus being one of them.|http://There are a few exceptions, Asus being one of them.]

The main beef i had with Apple products was the software. While I felt that the Darwin-community model was a good idea, I think that eventually Apple focused too much on new innovation for OSX and less of their property is ending up as free software [Darwin].

This is evidenced by my research [and what numerous Apple coders tell me] about OSX 10.4. Quite frankly, I'm shocked that they closed the codebase when they did. From an outsider looking in, it's a security nightmare. I wish the new code they implemented would be under Darwin so more developers could look at it to spot problems. I would estimate that there are at lest twice as many vulnerabilities in 10.4 in its release as 10.3 at its release. Admittedly, I haven't spent an eternity looking, but I have taken samples from code likely to have changed, and frankly I'm shocked at the result.

I think the one thing Apple had going for them was hardware [I have several Apple notebooks that now run Ubuntu and Gentoo linux], but I feel that they may be throwing some of that away by moving to the x86 architecture. Only time will tell if they can keep up the same quality on a different chip. Because their old tricks will no longer work.

Darth Jobs

Welcome to the Darkside...consume you it will.

AHAHAHAHAHA >_< !!! FALLS OVER

see subject line

[Richard G.]

heh?

I thought it was Microsoft you sheep didn't like? Apple has been using Intel technology for years. The main processor is just the final (and biggest) missing peice.

Did you complain when Apple went with the PCI bus? AGP bus? DDR memory? So why worry about the processor?

[Richard G.]

More to the story at Wired...

There's an interesting blog from Wired magazine at this link:

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,67749,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

It's all speculation on the author's part, but he does reference a specific emulator Apple could take advantage of.

Moo?

This is true, but that's not zealotism. No Windows user who hasn't tried both is all about windows. They complain about it crashing and this and that. The people you're thinking about are the cattle of the world anyway. They wouldn't know a good operating system if it bit them in the ass.

Personally, I PREFER OS-X, but see it as useless since it won't run on arbitrary hardware (being a linux geek, I don't like being forced into a situation where I can't change out my OS by simply rebooting. Windows is useful and preferrable for some things, as is linux.), and I see a Macintosh as an overpriced hardware.

With the switch to x86 (it's official now, and the DEVELOPER's estimates of porting costs are similar to my own; eat that, mother beeches), both of these concerns are gone. Using x86 processors will be cheaper (don't give me any bollocks here; it's true, and if you don't believe me, go compare the price of an x86-based mini-itx mobo to that of a PPC-based mini-itx mobo of the same clock), and I'll be able to run an arbitrary OS on it (don't even try to say otherwise; if I own the device, I can open it and replace the BIOS with hacked firmware if necessary. This sort of thing is only about the trouble of a nights' work.)

All I have to say to Apple is "Yay! Thank you! Thank you!", and all I have to say to the foolish Mac users who apparently don't believe Apple has their best interests at heart is, "Get over it."

[DeusExMachina]

Clueless

Wow, you truly don't know anything about what you purport to
speak! to wit:

Personally, I PREFER OS-X, but see it as useless since it won't run
on arbitrary hardware

Um, neither will Linux, Windows, or anything else for that
matter.

being a linux geek, I don't like being forced into a situation
where I can't change out my OS by simply rebooting.

What the hell are you talking about? Since when was I not able to
boot into Linux on my Mac? Damn, I never knew I was doing the
impossible.

I see a Macintosh as an overpriced hardware.

PLEASE. Macs have always been comparatively priced, and if you
take resale value into account, you can not even BYO cheaper
than I can buy a mac at retail. Two years from now, while my
mac still has 70% of it's original retail value, your top-of-the-
line PC is sitting on the curb waiting for the garbage man.

Using x86 processors will be cheaper (don't give me any
bollocks here; it's true, and if you don't believe me, go compare
the price of an x86-based mini-itx mobo to that of a PPC-based
mini-itx mobo of the same clock)

No, they won't. You really know very little about such things.
First, processor costs are not the same thing as mobo costs, and
high-end pentium chips are just as expensive as PPCs. Also,
there is no such thing as a commercial mini-itx PPC mobo. ITX is
a form factor specification from intel, and has nothing to do with
this discussion.

and I'll be able to run an arbitrary OS on it (don't even try to say
otherwise; if I own the device, I can open it and replace the BIOS
with hacked firmware if necessary. This sort of thing is only
about the trouble of a nights' work.)

Can anyone else smell a script kiddie? First, as above, I already
CAN run an arbitrary OS on it, including windows, Be, Yellow dog
and other Linux variants, BSD, even Atari TOS for god's sake. As
for replacing the BIOS, so what? what, exactly is your point?
Since I use a mac and a soft bootloader, I don't need to replace
the BIOS, since I don't need one in the first place.

Go to Dollar Tree. Even a cheap clue would be better than your
current situation.

Bye Bye APPLE

So you think the move to INTEL is a good move.... think again... all I
can say is BYE BYE APPLE.

I have my last APPLE computer, and I have buying APPLE computers
since the MAC PLUS came first on the market in the UK, but buy a
INTEL machine.... over my dead body.

Yep INTEL SUCKS and now they have APPLE backing them

Yep INTEL SUCKS and now they have APPLE backing them... bye bye
APPLE.

What is the phone number of DELL?

[Michael Grogan]

Hmmm, Dell?

Dell uses Intel hardware. And they use it poorly. Wonderful choice : )