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Apple ditches IBM and Motorola and moves to Intel chips

Good? Bad? I don't know...but it looks like it'll bring down the price and I really want a powerbook

quote:

Taking care of its core Jun 6th 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda Apple is set to announce that it will switch its computers from microprocessors supplied by IBM and Motorola to those made by Intel, the world�s biggest chipmaker. Emboldened by the success of its iPod music player, this is Apple�s latest move in an attempt to return to the mass market ASK people to describe their computers. Most, with a shrug, will mention a couple of grey-coloured (or is that cream?) boxes, and software that crashes occasionally. But the sliver of the population who own one of Apple�s products are more likely to enthuse about the cool design of their hardware and the robustness and user-friendliness of their software. It is a surprise, then, that more people don�t chose the American firm�s computers. This is what Steve Jobs, its chief executive, hopes to put right. On Monday June 6th, Mr Jobs was set to use the platform of Apple�s annual developers conference to announce that the firm will switch from the chips supplied by IBM and Motorola for over a decade to products from Intel, the world�s biggest chipmaker. The first products with Intel chips should be available next year. Most observers suggest that the move is part of a strategy dedicated to returning Apple to the mass market for computers, which it dominated before the advance of Microsoft and Intel in the 1980s. There are several suggestions about what prompted the change. Apple blamed it current chip suppliers for slow delivery last year, which held up production of some lines. And chip development has not lived up to promises Apple made for improvements in processing speed. Intel�s chips are faster and run cooler than Apple�s current chips. And cooler chips are important for the production of better laptops, a market growing considerably faster than that for desktop PCs. But there is much speculation that Intel can simply supply chips more cheaply than IBM and Motorola, and that Apple can use the saving to cut the retail price of its computers. Apple�s problems in increasing its market share are, to a large extent, a result of the high prices it charges for its computers compared with similar products from the likes of Dell or Hewlett-Packard. Apple sold only around 2.3% of new desktop and laptop computers worldwide in the first quarter of 2005, according to IDC, a research firm. Dell commanded 18.9% of the market, HP 15.4%. But Apple is concentrating hard on ways to improve its market share and is banking on the huge success of the iPod, its digital music player, to create a �halo effect� and speed the revival of Apple as a force in world computing. The firm�s recovery has been apparent for 18 months, after several years in the doldrums. In 2004, Apple�s net profits were four times higher than the year before, at $276m, and in mid-April the firm announced another blistering set of quarterly results: revenues up by 70% compared with the same period the year before, and net profits 530% higher, at $290m; Apple shipped over 1m computers (a 43% rise) and a staggering 5.3m iPods (over six times more than the year before). The iPod has done wonders for Apple, providing not only profits but a positive brand image to a swathe of new young consumers. Though the iPod was derided by some as exorbitantly expensive at the time of its launch in 2001, it has amassed some two-thirds of the world market for hand-held music devices. And not content with anything less than total domination, in January Apple introduced the iPod shuffle, a flash-memory player, which is naturally smaller and better looking than anything the competition can yet muster. No wonder iTunes, Apple�s online music store, leads the field. But Apple still makes most of its cash from computers, and to extend its product range it introduced the Mac mini at the beginning of the year. This small, relatively cheap computer comes without �peripherals��customers can add their own keyboard, mouse or screen. This helps to keep costs low and so, it is hoped, will nudge more users of Microsoft�s Windows to switch to Apple. Mr Jobs hopes to spread the Apple message further still through a network of Apple retail stores. There are now over 100 around the world in prized locations. The lead that the iPod has in the hand-held music player market looks unassailable for the time being. That said, Bill Gates is touting Microsoft�s own software format, Windows Media, to several online music services and hardware firms, hoping to set a rival standard with greater interoperability. At present, iTunes offerings only work with the iPod. Mr Gates suggests that the convergence of mobile phones and music players (using his software, of course) could threaten the iPod�s dominance. Apple should take the threat seriously. Nokia recently announced that it was preparing to launch a handset with a hard drive. Sony Ericsson will unveil its first Walkman phone later this year. To counter these threats, a deal between Motorola and Apple is expected to spawn phones with iTunes included in a couple of months. If Apple is to make the most of the halo effect from the iPod to push its upmarket computers on greater numbers of customers, it would be well to do so as soon as it can. Such is the importance of the iPod to Apple that on June 3rd the firm�s shares fell by 4.5% after analysts suggested that sales of the device may be flat in the current quarter. If the halo slips, Apple may have to content itself with selling its wares just to the select, fashion-conscious bunch who presently make up the company�s loyal fan base.

Source: http://www.economist.com/agenda/dis...tory_id=4052665

WOW!!

I expected this the day Apple embraced the *nix kernel as the basis of their kernel...

Now it all make sense.

Expect OSX to direclty compete Windows on the Intel platform.

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Originally posted by malek Expect OSX to direclty compete Windows on the Intel platform.

Ha, that'll be the day. It's been known that IBM is getting out of the consumer PC market, so I don't know if this has anything to do with that ,or if Apple were just forced to go to another manufacturer. Either way, I don't really see this being a HUGE boost to Apple. People can bitch and complain about Microsoft all they want, bottom line is, the product is out there cuz it DOES work. If, on the other hand, Apple actually gets the support of the thousands of developers that are currently Windows-exclusive, then we could see some big changes.

Screw Macs... I just ordered an Alienware Area-51 ALX SLI It's time to get jiggy with dual nVidia 6800 Ultra 256s and 2gb of DDR2 Ram, with a 148 GB 10,000 RPM harddrive... and silent liquid cooling w/SLI solution motherboard and a 3.6 ghz Intel processor. I can't wait... The video games will be even harder to look away from and to boot an Audigy Platinum 4 sound card. I could start producing tracks

It's so... beautiful

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Originally posted by zokissima Ha, that'll be the day. It's been known that IBM is getting out of the consumer PC market, so I don't know if this has anything to do with that ,or if Apple were just forced to go to another manufacturer. Either way, I don't really see this being a HUGE boost to Apple. People can bitch and complain about Microsoft all they want, bottom line is, the product is out there cuz it DOES work. If, on the other hand, Apple actually gets the support of the thousands of developers that are currently Windows-exclusive, then we could see some big changes.

Well they're saying that OS X Tiger is better than Longhorn already and that one's not coming out for another year...besdies I think Apple is more of a niche product and I think I'd like to see it stay this way - I know they want to get more market share but I hope by doing so they won't start cutting corners and producing cheap crap like everyone else

The problem with MAC is that I find their overly graphic intensive UIs painfully annoying. I learned how to use a computer via DOS and anything with funky popup scroll bars for my quicklinks is getting the huge thumbs down. Typing commands and custom UIs are simply more efficient. Not to mention the ugly boxes macs come in. Mac remind me of IKEA furniture... not a good thing for marketing.

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Originally posted by PartyHarlequin Screw Macs... I just ordered an Alienware Area-51 ALX SLI It's time to get jiggy with dual nVidia 6800 Ultra 256s and 2gb of DDR2 Ram, with a 148 GB 10,000 RPM harddrive... and silent liquid cooling w/SLI solution motherboard and a 3.6 ghz Intel processor. I can't wait... The video games will be even harder to look away from and to boot an Audigy Platinum 4 sound card. I could start producing tracks It's so... beautiful

Sweet, Alienware pcs are the shit. Too bad they're just ridiculously overpriced for what you actually get in the box. The dual 6800s is the coolest thing about that system, you should be getting some INSANE framerates. Damn.

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Originally posted by PartyHarlequin The problem with MAC is that I find their overly graphic intensive UIs painfully annoying. I learned how to use a computer via DOS and anything with funky popup scroll bars for my quicklinks is getting the huge thumbs down. Typing commands and custom UIs are simply more efficient. Not to mention the ugly boxes macs come in. Mac remind me of IKEA furniture... not a good thing for marketing.

oh god....dude! au contraire...it's beautiful design

I'm comparing it to the Dell XPS alienware Area 51 and most custom boxes. MACs are pure ugly, yuppy, pastel garbage. Nothing about them screams l33t.

A major reason for the overpricing of the Alienware is their "high performance" or whatever hardware. All commercial hardware has a pass acceptance rate usually in the %80+ category. That means that the 6800 Ultra you buy off the shelf might actually be running at only 85% of it's supposed speed. Alienware cherry picks hardware with a 95-98%+ acceptance rating so what you see is actually what you get. Although it makes it hard to justify that I just spent almost 10k on a computer, thank god it was someone else footing the bill int his case.

quote:

Originally posted by PartyHarlequin Screw Macs... I just ordered an Alienware Area-51 ALX SLI It's time to get jiggy with dual nVidia 6800 Ultra 256s and 2gb of DDR2 Ram, with a 148 GB 10,000 RPM harddrive... and silent liquid cooling w/SLI solution motherboard and a 3.6 ghz Intel processor. I can't wait... The video games will be even harder to look away from and to boot an Audigy Platinum 4 sound card. I could start producing tracks It's so... beautiful

what the shit!?

what the hell do you need all that for!? I understand games will be nice as hell, but if you were using it JUST for gaming, wouldnt it be more useful to just wait for the next gen of game consoles?

If you are using for producing, and graphics then i understand...but thats one sick monster.

the reason why Apple couldn't compete directly with windows (which is superior in entreprise environments in so many ways) is due to the expensive hardware Apple was stuck with. Less developpers also, less games, less of everything.

Ummmmm, no almost exclusively for gaming. Oh and Signal Processing for testing Acoustic Sonar displays for the military (my day job). My roomie is the console adict, he'll probably have all three on their release dates. So no reason to buy them.

Good move but if they are even thinking of dominating the PC/Laptop Market, they need to revamp MAC OS.....

Hey, I posted this thread before this one... My news wasn't a real article but taken from a blog of a guy at the show.

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Originally posted by Funkyfun Good move but if they are even thinking of dominating the PC/Laptop Market, they need to revamp MAC OS.....

No, they just need to make everything cheaper. OSX is so much more intuitive and nicer to use, I find. However, after toying around on a dual G5 with 1.5GB RAM a while back, I found it lacking in everyday desktop performance compared to my Athlon64 3200+/1GB PC3200DDR setup.

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.p...8&tid=179&tid=3

Oh and Intel does NOT necessarily mean x86. Even if they do use x86, I'm sure it will be specialized hardware. Apple does not want to try and be like Windows supporting a zillion different hardware configs. Things are just supposed to work under OSX.

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Originally posted by SurrJRS Oh and Intel does NOT necessarily mean x86. Even if they do use x86, I'm sure it will be specialized hardware. Apple does not want to try and be like Windows supporting a zillion different hardware configs. Things are just supposed to work under OSX.

actually it does mean x86, but not the same bus/architecture as other PCs (different motherboards)...

but how long will that last before people start modding OSX to run on regular brown boxes

I think Apple wanted more performance and a cooler running chip than the G5 because their big market is in notebooks and the G5 ran too hot to go in a notebook. Also sometimes IBM could not deliver enough PowerPC chips of certain types and that was a problem.

All the Intel chips within a couple of years are going to be Centrino types - fast but not much heat and that's what Apple wants. Plus it lowers the cost so Mac computers will be closer to Wintel in price.

One of my friends just got a 12" iBook and I must say it is really well-designed. He set his iBook next to my Toshiba/Wintel notebook, both have wi-fi, and within 2 minutes our Mac guru buddy had them networking and transferring files. It's not all graphic user-interface stuff too, they have text-line command interfaces for many systems if that's what you want.

All of my friends who are not computer jocks have a real mess with their Wintel boxes - loaded with viruses, spyware, becoming slow and buggy - these are the people that need a Mac! I am in the Wintel world and have no problems but I'm more of a techy.

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Originally posted by malek actually it does mean x86, but not the same bus/architecture as other PCs (different motherboards)...

Probably something based off of the EPIC/IA-64 architecture, such as the Itanium 2.

It does however have an IA-32 execution layer, which means you can run legacy 32bit x86 code.

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but how long will that last before people start modding OSX to run on regular brown boxes

Doubtful with a x86 CISC based processor. But I suppose one can wish that OSX would be in direct competition with Micro$haft Winblows.

quote:

Originally posted by SurrJRS Probably something based off of the EPIC/IA-64 architecture, such as the Itanium 2. It does however have an IA-32 execution layer, which means you can run legacy 32bit x86 code. Doubtful with a x86 CISC based processor. But I suppose one can wish that OSX would be in direct competition with Micro$haft Winblows.

I don't know about you... but this couldn't be clearer than this:

(read below)

Apple CEO promises two-year Intel conversion
By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco
Published Monday 6th June 2005 20:41 GMT
Steve Jobs has committed Apple Computer to an aggressive timetable for porting the Mac architecture to Intel, while promising a smooth transition for developers and ISVs already building applications and services for PowerPC machines.

Apple will roll out Intel-based Macs during the next two years with machines available by next June and a phased introduction to be "mostly" complete by the end of 2007. Apple announced the rollout at the World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco on Monday.

For the Intel-phobes out there, and there were quite a few judging by the anxious shuffling and mutterings from the assembled WWDC audience, Jobs pledged Apple will continue developing PowerPC-based Macs during the transition.

The future, though, is clearly Intel because Apple apparently wants to capitalize on a high-performance, low-power consumption architecture that will enable it to finally deliver on the 3GHz PowerMac - promised to arrive last year by Jobs but still missing. By mid-2006, Intel will have about five times the performance per watt of IBM, Apple's chief said.

"The most important reasons [for adopting Intel] are... as we look ahead we can envision some amazing products for you, and we can't imagine how we will get there building them with the PowerPC chipset," Jobs said. That future also includes the next version of Apple's OS X, codenamed Leopard, and due in either 2006 or 2007, in time to take-on Microsoft's Longhorn client.

Cementing the message, Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini joined Jobs on stage to shake on the companies' alliance and put years of niggling rivalry behind them.

"There's a whole bunch of you who never thought you'd see that logo [Intel] on this stage. I was one!" Otellini remarked, before slipping into corporate speak: "We are excited to work with Apple to bring you some really great products."

But don't worry Mac fans, it won't be a case of PowerPC cold turkey. OS X can already compile to Intel, Jobs told WWDC. To prove his point, he demonstrated the Tiger operating system running multiple desktop widgets, and opened Microsoft Office and Adobe System's documents, all on top of an Intel Pentium 4 3.6GHz system. Jobs said OS X already "sings" on Intel.

Jobs also unveiled Xcode 2.1, letting developers build applications for either Intel or PowerPC using the same tools and universal binaries from a single CD.

"We are going to support both processors for a long time because you will have [an] install base on PowerPC you want to see use applications, and will have a growing customer base on Intel you will want to sell your applications to," Jobs said.

ISVs, meanwhile, can tweak applications in Apple's Cocoa and Carbon C/C++ environments in a matter of days or weeks; however, those using Metrowerks are advised to go Xcode 2.1 to access those universal binaries.

For the tweak challenged, Jobs unveiled Rosetta - a dynamic bin translator that runs PowerPC binaries on Intel. "It's nothing like Classic... It's transparent, where users don't know [it's there]. It's lightweight and fast," Jobs said.

Importantly, Apple has drawn support from two influential software partners. Microsoft's Mac business manager Roz Ho promised binaries for future versions of Office for Mac running on Intel, while Adobe chief executive Bruce Chizen pledged to be the first ISV with a complete line of applications for Mac on Intel.

To encourage developers to switch from PowerPC to Intel, Apple is offering a $999 Developer Transition Kit with 3.6GHz Pentium 4 hardware, OS X 10.4.1, pre-release of XCode 2.1 universal binaries for its premium-level developers. �


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/06/jobs_intel/


so we have OSX on x86 and a new version ready to take on the next Windows... people will have a real choice.

quote:

Originally posted by malek

I guess I should RTFA before I post!

Thank you, malek, for cutting through the hype.

This is unbelievable.

Fuck I love progress.

forgive my ignorance, but how would OSX run on CISC-based processors?

quote:

Originally posted by ShadoWolf forgive my ignorance, but how would OSX run on CISC-based processors?

its like how linux can run on the x86, PowerPC (RISC), SUN (RISC), etc etc...

OSX is based on BSD, which in turn runs on many platforms.

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