Here comes a challenger to MS. Initially, Apple OS market share will still be small. There will be more and more software developers offering Apple version of their software in the future since the hardware platform will be essentially the same for either OS's
In time, Apple OS market share will grow. MS being smart at killing competition will probably stop developing Apple version of MS Office to slow Apple's penetration into the coporate world. Needless to say, 2008-2012 will be a very interesting time for computing world.
"If AMD collapses, Intel would immedately go back to it's good old days of 1990-1998 of $500 CPUs...this is the nail in Apples coffin. $400 Dells' will kill them."
I competely agree with Zebo's #5 post, this move threatens to isolate AMD even further and surely will spell the death of Apple. Why buy an Apple, even if it comes in under $1000, when cheapee Dell's are available? There was an argument that Mac's were better that their Wintel cousins, but you can't make that claim anymore. Apple survived because it was unique, yet now they have traded that commodity away. And what guarantee's does Jobs have that all their vendors will jump on the new platform for a mere $1000? It will be interesting to see how many of these developer packages they sell, and how fast too.
IMO Apple's only hope is to become a software company offering their OS and other warez as a counter-point to Microsoft. If OSX were compatible with AMD I'd purchase it over Windows, as long as they don't try to imitate Longhorn.s long as they don't try to imitate Longhorn.
Apple goes for Intel because it can provide them all they need.
Products from Intel are "bad" for the market because if all comes from the same manufacture means less competition, less differential products (all cost the same, do the same, look the same).
And it's all about marketing. On that post all your questions are answered. And it doesn’t have nothing to do we this subject.
#51 - If you look at Apple's OS X for Intel documentation, you'll find that the overwhelming focus is on IA-32 and not x64. Apple probably can and will use Yonah because: (1) it'll take awhile to get x64 OS X working (2) lower end consumer machines don't need or can't physically fit more than 4GB of memory. For a Mac Mini or iBook, an IA-32 rather than an x64 processor is just fine.
To #47, I think you're correct that Anandtech is very wrong. However, I'm a bit puzzled: I highly doubt Apple would bother with the "old" x86, that would just mean they need to transition to x86_64 shortly afterwards. But, Yonah is supposed to not have EMT64, and its successor Merom (with EMT64) will not appear before late 2006.
As for the power-efficiency, indeed the 65nm Netburst cores (single-core cedar mill / dual-core presler) are supposed to be not doing too well. But the successor to them (conroe) are rumoured to run VERY cool (should also appear late 2006).
I'm pretty sure all powermacs will use dual-core cpus, after all at that time "normal" PCs will pretty much all be dual-core except the Celeron-class ones.
So in fact I can't see what cpus apple wants to use before late 2006 - and their transitioning is beginning in june 2006. The only half-way decent box I can see at that time-frame would be a imac with a single-core cedar mill (which is rumoured to not have a too high power consumption), but notebooks are out until late 2006/2007, unless apple reconsiders and chooses a amd turion64 for that...
Won't virtualization lift all barriers and make OS-X run on an AMD platform as well? If they can tweak OS-X and an x86 Intel to run OS-X now, that possibility will surely come in the future even without any hacking.
I can see why Apple marries Intel, though there's a lot of technological reasons why it could have been AMD too.
#44 Intel still wins video and audio benchies over AMD. It just depends what software you run.
All in all this is kinda sad. Apple ceases to be the oddball, square peg in the round hole called Personal Computers. You could cynically say that future Apples are tweaked Intel boxes, no more, no less.
#42 Interesting, AMD should work with ULi on laptops. Just how does this relate to the article?
I dont think Ive read what I consider another factor in Apple choosing Intel (and not mentioning Amd).
Namely, had Apple gone for Amd and announced how wonderful they were - how likely would an Apple + Intel partnership be after that? Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot if they mentioned or partnered with Amd in this enterprise.
I cant wait to see how well Apple goes on x86, I think its a great decision in the medium-long term.
Anandtech's conclusions are unlikely to be correct. When CNET first broke the story, it said that Apple intended to move the lower end consumer machines (iBook, Mac Mini) to x86 first. The 65nm netburst chips are probably not good candidates for small form factor PCs and notebooks that don't need much cooling.
The more likely scenario is Yonah in iBook and Mac Mini, and Merom/Conroe in the PowerBook and PowerMac when it comes out in late 2006.
The name for the first x86 Macs? I think it's gonna be
PowerMac X1
PowerBook X1
X "just makes it cool", right? X also continues the "OS X" meme that has shown up in the Xserve, Xsan, and XRAID products. "X" could also refer to x86.
Apple needs to go Intel because Intel is percieved to be more reliable, and in this transition they need no points of uncertanty.
This deal does not hurt AMD since it doesnt decrease AMD's market share, and Apple's market share is only 1.5% anyway.
AMD does not have *any* production capability issues. They have deals with three other fabs to build thier chips if the need ever comes.
The biggest reason Apple should have gone with AMD (although, not better than the reason to go with intel), is that AMD is gaining popularity in the movie and music industries due to their low latency architecture. Apple's pro series of software deals in these areas I believe.
Apple makes all of their own hardware except for the components (processors, fans, chipsets, IC's).
I believe it was stated that you can dual-boot windows on a mac, but you cannot boot macintosh on any other pc. Sure it will be hacked, and someone will make it run on an AMD computer, etc, but are they *really* going to go through the effort of writing all of the necessary drivers, etc, when Apple might kill it with an update?
Most of the people who steal OS's would regardless of whatever security measures may be in place. Apple might benefit more if they dont have it since it would get more people to use it.
IBM does not want to try to compete with Intel and AMD with only 1.5% market share, that's just silly.
Apple can not have huge prices on their hardware now since it will be much easier to compare against other PC manufacturers. Previously the high price was justified by the G5 processor. Now you can go build the exact same dell computer online and see what that is priced at.
IMHO I believe that Intel CPU's will work best for Apple in their desktop lines for reasons stated in teh article. However, I think apple would be doing itself a huge favor if they looked seriously at the Opteron for their X-Serve line of servers. Their current ones basically can't hold a candle to a dual or quad opteron setup plus in the server market, a lot more people realize the advantages of Opteron over Xeon, and would probably be more likely to go that route at this point.
"Q: When ULi was first spun off, over 80% of your revenues came from notebook chipsets. However, this year, the company expects a significant portion of revenues to come from desktop chips. Can you tell us about this transition?
A: When ULi started out, we did focus on notebook chipsets, and it was actually quite a profitable business for us. The strength of our notebook-chipset solutions was the southbridge, which had better power-saving technology than southbridges from other vendors. In addition, it was a cost-effective, integrated solution, with the graphics supplied by our partner at that time, California-based Trident Microsystems.
When Intel introduced its Centrino platform, we knew we could not focus on notebooks in the long-term.
Centrino changed the whole dynamic of the notebook market. Centrino systems require an Intel CPU, a wireless module and Intel chipsets. So, even if ULi provided a solution that supported Intel CPUs and wireless networking, we would not be able to call it Centrino. In addition, despite ULi having all the parts and better power-saving technology than Intel, some of our customers, such as Toshiba, started to worry. It was all because of naming, a marketing issue."
This is not bad, like someone already said here AMD is the BMW the other are not, and not everyone can have a BMW.
If you look good this is not that bad, amd have the others support (nvidia, ati, sis, via, uli), and the others will support even more amd, why?
The others don’t like centrino, intel igp, ... WHY? Because they aren’t there. Where can they be? Teaming with an amd processor for example.
Besides in the future you will see MAC dual core system 80FPS, AMD dual core system 120FPS... that will look bad for who...
(Prepare to see some amd systems with 9600 cards vs sli 6800 ultras on apple benchmarks/marketing)!!!!! ;)
Intel best performance per watt...... it there where AMD in that chart was scoring what? 300 points?
Isn't all hardware and software developed with some form of industrial standard, i.e. USB, Firewire, Flash, etc. The drivers are simply the tool for "integrating" the hardware with software.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work as it should because M$ gives hardware developers the development version of Windows and they design the drivers and hardware to support Windows. Of course new versions of Windows have to support old hardware, but we are seeing Windows dropping support for legacy devices, i.e. ISA. Soon LPT, serial/com/rs232, and floppy will be dropped as well.
Given the way the PC industry is done, it shouldn't take too long for Apple to develop a compatable OS. Just, give hardware development copies of the OS and all will be fine. It will just take some investment.
Plus, they shouldn't have too much trouble getting M$ to cooperate given they don't want another antitrust case.
"If Intel does indeed embrace an on-die memory controller and a Hyper Transport-like interface by 2007 in a cooler running architecture, the demand for Apple to support AMD may in fact diminish."
I don’t understand these articles that say that intel will have a superb system by 2007.... 2007 is not today, and in 2007 amd will still have the same processor (amd athlon64 4000+, fx55, ....) ?!?!
There is a simple answer why AMD was not choosen as the CPU manufacturer. Intel not only is the CPU manufacturer, but they also manufacture Motherboards and Chipsets. AMD does not. Apple was probably looking for a total solution that they can slam into their cases without have to design or develop anything else. Intel can do that and AMD can not.
Mine:
Because of the Intel chip transition:
...more games will run under the new Mac OS making the gaming platform of choice.
...Macs will be come affordable and more fans will arise.
...the faults of Windows will be obvious making a Mac OS the choice.
...Windows will buy Apple and merge making the Best OS the computing world has ever seen!
...Bill Gates will own the world!!
On their G5 website, Apple is comparing the G5s of today to the Pentium chips of today. They are not saying that the G5 will trounce the Intel chip they will use in the future. So what if a current G5 can beat the current development kit? Development kits are frequently underpowered. The G5 machines that were used to develop Xbox 360 games, for example. The comparisons Apple is making today do not hold for the future.
Apple isnt saying that intel chips are faster. and there is no reason for apple to change its product page stating that the G5 is no longer faster
all they stated was that intel has a better performance per watt. not that it has better performance overall.
so if intel has 4 units of performance per wat and ibm has 2 units per watt. well then the intel part uses has as much energy to go just as fast.
not that its twice as fast
I don't know if it has really occured to anyone, or if it's just me, but has anyone considered that the reason Jobs choose Intel was because they can provide a platform where AMD can't. If this hardware is to remain Apple specific, then they will need what IBM provided them in the past; An entire platform. This goes for mobile, as well as desktop. The last personal Intel Machine I had was a Pentium MMX. I would love to run OSX, but not sure if I'm willing to buy Intel to do it. All this being said. I think Jobs should launch an all out x86 version of OSX, and slowly wiggle free of the hardware buisness. Their software is some of the best on the market, and at a fair price they could really build up a solid user base.
My guess is that Apple/Jobs doesn't want to release OS X for non-Apple hardware because then they would run into many of the same problems as Windows, that being loss of stability and greater risk of hacks and viruses/spyware etc, not to mention that they would probably lose the hardware side somewhere down the road (the reason I believe Jobs killed the Mac compatibles when Apple rehired him after his exit from Next).
I know many don't like Microsoft, but I have to give them credit for making Windows work with so many different hardware and software combinations. The current Mac better be more stable considering that Apple controls both the OS and the hardware.
If Apple made OSX standalone that you could install on any PC they would die. Everyone would pirate it (you don't even need to activate OSX), Apple's sales would be awfull, and stability would suck (MS has said before that most of the problems they have are due to device drivers). Every Mom and Pop computer shop would sell discount PCs with pirated OSX. I really don't see how you can think selling OSX for PCs is a good idea. Please explain it to me.
Becuase Apple would rather sell their own computers that exclusively run MacOS and Windows ... and they can get away with it. Imagine, all us Mac users who also play games won't need two machines anymore! There have been dual-boot macs in the past, but they were always quirky because they had a pc on a daughtercard. With an x86 OS X, one could conceivable use WINE to run windows apps inside OS X, or have the option to dual-boot into Longhorn (just make sure to have LOTS of disk space!)
I wonder if IBM told Apple that they won't have the production capacity to make much more PPC's since they will now be making the PowerPC alternatives for the next 3 Gaming Consoles....XBOX360/Revolution/PS3. ???
They may have asked them to pay more for future processors since they would possibly have to build another factory just to handle the load...
"I think Jobs reminds me of the John Kerry of computing. The guy is always saying one thing and doing but doing another. PPC is better than x86 one minute, the next he's transitioning in two year time. Apple users are deaf, dumb, stupid and blind not to see how patheic Apple really is. And all of the time they have been hating PC's, because of this and that; guess what, now your stuck with one like it or not. Maybe that little Apple dome sticker on the front of your x86 powered, defacto standard PC will make you feel all warm and fuzzy so you can sleep better at night? "
PPC is better than x86, but economies of scale have made development for the x86 cheeaper and faster. If Apple had 20% marketshare instead of 1-2%, I doubt we'd be seeing this switch. Personally, I don't care what chips they use, and I like the idea of being able to dual-boot Windows and OS X on a PowerBook so I only need one laptop instead of two.
All in all, I don't think this is the way Apple wanted to go, but they're left with little choice as they don't have the marketshare to defray the R&D costs.
I agree with #20. Refusing to release it for sale like Windows is sold is a bad decision. They could definitely increase their market share if they opened up their platform to x86.
They could simply state to refuse support for PCs with parts that are not on their hardware compatibility list.
Either way, with x86 support and the os based on open source Free BSD core, it's just a matter of time before we see free copies of their OS on the web. Heck, with x86 machines already sold to developers, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see OSX on the web within a month or two.
#16 The thing is that if Jobs were truly worried about the OS, then he would sell the dammed OS to be used on generic PC hardware. Not take generic PC hardware, create proprietary BIOS and brand it Mac.
From what I've read, the only difference between the hardware will be the BIOS. Which is only being used as a key to keep people from buying non-Mac branded PC's to be used with their OS.
Pathetic. Their OS may be good, but their buisness sense, and lies are pathetic.
Mac = Evil = Microsoft
Why are all of our(American) companies out to F the consumer.
I really pity on AMD, a good innovative, technology driven company, but just lacking of sale and marketshare. I wonder how long AMD can stand under this difficult environment.
20
The problem making OS X working with other x86 machine is support. Drivers, hardware conflicts, etc will occur and supporting it will cost alot of time and money.
Too bad they are making it Mac hardware only; if they had made it where I could just go buy a copy of OSX and run a dual boot, I'd try it out for the hell of it. But since it's still just the same overpriced hardware from Apple (rest assured, they will not lower the prices, contrary to what the say). Only this time, it's not apples to oranges (Intel to PPC made it where consumers never knew how the two compared, speedwise) but apples to apples...and their "Switch" marketing isn't going to convince someone to pay 1200 dollars for the exact same system Dell has for 400. Open the OS and you could get some money, but right now it's just a shot in the foot. Besides, who buys that expensive crap except Apple fanboys anyway? It's not like their marketshare is really going to drop if they release an OS to the general hardware using public.
Why wouldn't apple agree to selling a version of its software to run on regular PCs?
Wouldn't that boost their sales?
With the new changes the idea seems more logic than ever before, so why not release it in a way that users can take advantage of multi booting OSX and Windows in a PC or a Mac-intel
Maybe part of the reason Apple are switching from IBM to Intel and not mentioning AMD, is because AMD and IBM are partners. I'm not sure how IBM would respond if they lost business to a company they are in partnership with.
"Given the interest OS X on x86 has sparked I would almost guarantee someone will be cracking it in the immediate, popular software is always the first to be cracked and I'd say this will be high on their priorities... and given that, Apple really is shooting themselves in the foot by missing out on that market it could easily tap into and make a lot of money on."
Hopefully IBM will counter Intel/Apple by actually pushing their Opteron servers instead of their outclassed Xeon based servers.
Unlike AMD, IBM can definitely compete against Intel financially and can easily inflict some financial pain to Intel for courting Apple away from the PowerPC.
Lastly, I wonder how Michael Dell is going to respond when he realizes that he has competition for mother Intel's affections.
"I think Jobs reminds me of the John Kerry of computing. The guy is always saying one thing and doing but doing another. PPC is better than x86 one minute, the next he's transitioning in two year time. Apple users are deaf, dumb, stupid and blind not to see how patheic Apple really is. And all of the time they have been hating PC's, because of this and that; guess what, now your stuck with one like it or not. Maybe that little Apple dome sticker on the front of your x86 powered, defacto standard PC will make you feel all warm and fuzzy so you can sleep better at night? "
No one gives a crap about what processor is inside a Mac as long as it runs OSX fast. Thats what people like about Macs, the OS. You know, that thing that actually matters about a computer that so many of the people on this site forget about (instead focusing on things like 2% increases on hardware performance).
"The Intel brand is much stronger than AMD's, and that is the sort of partner that Apple is interested in."
This doesn't make any sense to me at all
People who bought Mac PC bought them because of Apple not the IBM CPU. I don't the Intel brand will have anything to do with sales either. Even they stick some unknown CPU in nobody cares, they cares about the Mac OS and that's what make people buy Mac
I think Jobs reminds me of the John Kerry of computing. The guy is always saying one thing and doing but doing another. PPC is better than x86 one minute, the next he's transitioning in two year time. Apple users are deaf, dumb, stupid and blind not to see how patheic Apple really is. And all of the time they have been hating PC's, because of this and that; guess what, now your stuck with one like it or not. Maybe that little Apple dome sticker on the front of your x86 powered, defacto standard PC will make you feel all warm and fuzzy so you can sleep better at night?
I say good luck Apple. Keep telling your lemmings what they want to hear. Just get better at the lies, the PC world has gotten quite good at it. I mean we are going to all be buying back our p3's arent we!?
I heard a number along the lines of 50,000 EE chips are manufactured per SKU. It looks like Intel will actually make this a real processor instead of just something to get headlines.
"If Intel does indeed embrace an on-die memory controller and a Hyper Transport-like interface by 2007 in a cooler running architecture, the demand for Apple to support AMD may in fact diminish."
Wow...lots of if's. And IF Intel had let the Isreali's design the P4 they wouldn't be in the mess they are in now.
Zebo, Steve was actually the one who saved Apple when they needed it the most.
He turned a dying company with nothing but red ink on their financial reports into a profitable company with some very well recognized brands.
Most Apple fan's will be dissapointed but the fact is that the move to Intel will mean more money for Apple. The Mac's will become faster and cheaper and software compatibility will be enhanced. I say good move of Apple.
Jeff what Stevie is doing should have been done 15 years ago then Apple would be Dell. Now it's too little to late, a wish and a prayer, a shot in the dark. Dell simply has too much presence, awesome prices and is the defacto standard for PC's. Gateway, HP, Compaq etc all going or went down to Dell and they are much bigger than Apple. The only PC makers doing well are boutique builders like AW or high-end servers from IBM, HP or Sun. Apple caters to neither market.
I never thought about how it would benefit Intel in that they keep coming up with these standards for PC's that are never really adopted by OEM's... maybe Apple will help with this.
Also something I haven't seen anyone mentioned is Dell. If Apple's Intel powered computers are simiarly priced to a Dell, I think Dell stands to lose marketshare. People who own a Dell and don't like Microsoft for whatever reason could possibly have a viable alternative in a Mac.
If AMD collapses, Intel would immedately go back to it's good old days of 1990-1998 of $500 CPUs.
Anyway Stevie will bankrupt Apple like he did with NeXT. The only thing which has saved Apple is iPod which is now dying now that people have baught a clue how overpriced and underfeatured it is. Apples's PC sales conitinued to diminish under Jobs leadership so he had no choice but to go x86. But this is the nail in Apples coffin. $400 Dells' will kill them.
I am also puzzled as to how Apple can show how much better the PowerPC CPUs are on their website than Intel's and AMD's CPUs and then switch to Intel in two years time while pointing to Performance vs. Power.
Anand's comments about the Apple user base supporting anything that Jobs does must really be true (not that I was doubting you Anand, it's just hard for me to stomach seeing how Apple has made every attempt to show PowerPC superiority to the x86 platforms and now this).
Given the interest OS X on x86 has sparked I would almost guarantee someone will be cracking it in the immediate, popular software is always the first to be cracked and I'd say this will be high on their priorities... and given that, Apple really is shooting themselves in the foot by missing out on that market it could easily tap into and make a lot of money on.
I just think the roadmap thing in the article is wrong.
Apple will move first the notebboks, Mac minis and eventually new products based on Centrino leaving (FINALLY) Freescale. That's the real market, growing 3 times as fast as the desktop.
As for the desktop Apple has in the pipeline (September or Jan 2006) the Dual core 970MP with 1MB cahce at 3.0Ghz, full 64bits, altivec. Those CPU's will find their way into the Powermacs giving a real strong performance machine. Also another CPU the 970GX will probably find its way into the iMac G5. Until 2007 we won't see any powermac with intel.
It's interesting to understand what processor will be used then. I think something like a dual Xeon, 64, dual core. And something also for the Xserve. I bet Jobs would love to renew Pixar render farm and worstations using Intel Macs!
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Tripper - Sunday, June 12, 2005 - link
For an entirely different POV than my own previous comment see http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050609.... as to why Microsoft my be the real loser. I can only hope.yanon - Thursday, June 9, 2005 - link
Here comes a challenger to MS. Initially, Apple OS market share will still be small. There will be more and more software developers offering Apple version of their software in the future since the hardware platform will be essentially the same for either OS'sIn time, Apple OS market share will grow. MS being smart at killing competition will probably stop developing Apple version of MS Office to slow Apple's penetration into the coporate world. Needless to say, 2008-2012 will be a very interesting time for computing world.
Tripper - Wednesday, June 8, 2005 - link
"If AMD collapses, Intel would immedately go back to it's good old days of 1990-1998 of $500 CPUs...this is the nail in Apples coffin. $400 Dells' will kill them."I competely agree with Zebo's #5 post, this move threatens to isolate AMD even further and surely will spell the death of Apple. Why buy an Apple, even if it comes in under $1000, when cheapee Dell's are available? There was an argument that Mac's were better that their Wintel cousins, but you can't make that claim anymore. Apple survived because it was unique, yet now they have traded that commodity away. And what guarantee's does Jobs have that all their vendors will jump on the new platform for a mere $1000? It will be interesting to see how many of these developer packages they sell, and how fast too.
IMO Apple's only hope is to become a software company offering their OS and other warez as a counter-point to Microsoft. If OSX were compatible with AMD I'd purchase it over Windows, as long as they don't try to imitate Longhorn.s long as they don't try to imitate Longhorn.
nserra - Wednesday, June 8, 2005 - link
#50 Very simple.Apple goes for Intel because it can provide them all they need.
Products from Intel are "bad" for the market because if all comes from the same manufacture means less competition, less differential products (all cost the same, do the same, look the same).
And it's all about marketing. On that post all your questions are answered. And it doesn’t have nothing to do we this subject.
Pandaren - Wednesday, June 8, 2005 - link
#51 - If you look at Apple's OS X for Intel documentation, you'll find that the overwhelming focus is on IA-32 and not x64. Apple probably can and will use Yonah because: (1) it'll take awhile to get x64 OS X working (2) lower end consumer machines don't need or can't physically fit more than 4GB of memory. For a Mac Mini or iBook, an IA-32 rather than an x64 processor is just fine.mczak - Wednesday, June 8, 2005 - link
To #47, I think you're correct that Anandtech is very wrong. However, I'm a bit puzzled: I highly doubt Apple would bother with the "old" x86, that would just mean they need to transition to x86_64 shortly afterwards. But, Yonah is supposed to not have EMT64, and its successor Merom (with EMT64) will not appear before late 2006.As for the power-efficiency, indeed the 65nm Netburst cores (single-core cedar mill / dual-core presler) are supposed to be not doing too well. But the successor to them (conroe) are rumoured to run VERY cool (should also appear late 2006).
I'm pretty sure all powermacs will use dual-core cpus, after all at that time "normal" PCs will pretty much all be dual-core except the Celeron-class ones.
So in fact I can't see what cpus apple wants to use before late 2006 - and their transitioning is beginning in june 2006. The only half-way decent box I can see at that time-frame would be a imac with a single-core cedar mill (which is rumoured to not have a too high power consumption), but notebooks are out until late 2006/2007, unless apple reconsiders and chooses a amd turion64 for that...
ceefka - Wednesday, June 8, 2005 - link
Won't virtualization lift all barriers and make OS-X run on an AMD platform as well? If they can tweak OS-X and an x86 Intel to run OS-X now, that possibility will surely come in the future even without any hacking.I can see why Apple marries Intel, though there's a lot of technological reasons why it could have been AMD too.
#44 Intel still wins video and audio benchies over AMD. It just depends what software you run.
All in all this is kinda sad. Apple ceases to be the oddball, square peg in the round hole called Personal Computers. You could cynically say that future Apples are tweaked Intel boxes, no more, no less.
#42 Interesting, AMD should work with ULi on laptops. Just how does this relate to the article?
Vesperan - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I dont think Ive read what I consider another factor in Apple choosing Intel (and not mentioning Amd).Namely, had Apple gone for Amd and announced how wonderful they were - how likely would an Apple + Intel partnership be after that? Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot if they mentioned or partnered with Amd in this enterprise.
I cant wait to see how well Apple goes on x86, I think its a great decision in the medium-long term.
T8000 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I think Apple is going to call the Intel generation the G6.They can do this, because the G names just represent Apple branding. IBM has only 3 digit model numbers for their PPC CPU's.
Pandaren - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Anandtech's conclusions are unlikely to be correct. When CNET first broke the story, it said that Apple intended to move the lower end consumer machines (iBook, Mac Mini) to x86 first. The 65nm netburst chips are probably not good candidates for small form factor PCs and notebooks that don't need much cooling.The more likely scenario is Yonah in iBook and Mac Mini, and Merom/Conroe in the PowerBook and PowerMac when it comes out in late 2006.
Vitaboy - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
The name for the first x86 Macs? I think it's gonna be
PowerMac X1
PowerBook X1
X "just makes it cool", right? X also continues the "OS X" meme that has shown up in the Xserve, Xsan, and XRAID products. "X" could also refer to x86.
Griswold - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
There is a worm in the apple. And the worm's name is intel.What happens with an apple when the worm is done eating? Right.
Quanticles - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I cant remember everything I was going to put...Apple needs to go Intel because Intel is percieved to be more reliable, and in this transition they need no points of uncertanty.
This deal does not hurt AMD since it doesnt decrease AMD's market share, and Apple's market share is only 1.5% anyway.
AMD does not have *any* production capability issues. They have deals with three other fabs to build thier chips if the need ever comes.
The biggest reason Apple should have gone with AMD (although, not better than the reason to go with intel), is that AMD is gaining popularity in the movie and music industries due to their low latency architecture. Apple's pro series of software deals in these areas I believe.
Apple makes all of their own hardware except for the components (processors, fans, chipsets, IC's).
I believe it was stated that you can dual-boot windows on a mac, but you cannot boot macintosh on any other pc. Sure it will be hacked, and someone will make it run on an AMD computer, etc, but are they *really* going to go through the effort of writing all of the necessary drivers, etc, when Apple might kill it with an update?
Most of the people who steal OS's would regardless of whatever security measures may be in place. Apple might benefit more if they dont have it since it would get more people to use it.
IBM does not want to try to compete with Intel and AMD with only 1.5% market share, that's just silly.
Apple can not have huge prices on their hardware now since it will be much easier to compare against other PC manufacturers. Previously the high price was justified by the G5 processor. Now you can go build the exact same dell computer online and see what that is priced at.
phaxmohdem - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
IMHO I believe that Intel CPU's will work best for Apple in their desktop lines for reasons stated in teh article. However, I think apple would be doing itself a huge favor if they looked seriously at the Opteron for their X-Serve line of servers. Their current ones basically can't hold a candle to a dual or quad opteron setup plus in the server market, a lot more people realize the advantages of Opteron over Xeon, and would probably be more likely to go that route at this point.nserra - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
VERY INTERESTING TO READ:"Q: When ULi was first spun off, over 80% of your revenues came from notebook chipsets. However, this year, the company expects a significant portion of revenues to come from desktop chips. Can you tell us about this transition?
A: When ULi started out, we did focus on notebook chipsets, and it was actually quite a profitable business for us. The strength of our notebook-chipset solutions was the southbridge, which had better power-saving technology than southbridges from other vendors. In addition, it was a cost-effective, integrated solution, with the graphics supplied by our partner at that time, California-based Trident Microsystems.
When Intel introduced its Centrino platform, we knew we could not focus on notebooks in the long-term.
Centrino changed the whole dynamic of the notebook market. Centrino systems require an Intel CPU, a wireless module and Intel chipsets. So, even if ULi provided a solution that supported Intel CPUs and wireless networking, we would not be able to call it Centrino. In addition, despite ULi having all the parts and better power-saving technology than Intel, some of our customers, such as Toshiba, started to worry. It was all because of naming, a marketing issue."
nserra - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
This is not bad, like someone already said here AMD is the BMW the other are not, and not everyone can have a BMW.If you look good this is not that bad, amd have the others support (nvidia, ati, sis, via, uli), and the others will support even more amd, why?
The others don’t like centrino, intel igp, ... WHY? Because they aren’t there. Where can they be? Teaming with an amd processor for example.
Besides in the future you will see MAC dual core system 80FPS, AMD dual core system 120FPS... that will look bad for who...
(Prepare to see some amd systems with 9600 cards vs sli 6800 ultras on apple benchmarks/marketing)!!!!! ;)
Intel best performance per watt...... it there where AMD in that chart was scoring what? 300 points?
erinlegault - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Please ignore the last sentence in #39.erinlegault - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Isn't all hardware and software developed with some form of industrial standard, i.e. USB, Firewire, Flash, etc. The drivers are simply the tool for "integrating" the hardware with software.Unfortunately, it doesn't work as it should because M$ gives hardware developers the development version of Windows and they design the drivers and hardware to support Windows. Of course new versions of Windows have to support old hardware, but we are seeing Windows dropping support for legacy devices, i.e. ISA. Soon LPT, serial/com/rs232, and floppy will be dropped as well.
Given the way the PC industry is done, it shouldn't take too long for Apple to develop a compatable OS. Just, give hardware development copies of the OS and all will be fine. It will just take some investment.
Plus, they shouldn't have too much trouble getting M$ to cooperate given they don't want another antitrust case.
Now that Apple will be getting in the PC business
nserra - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
"If Intel does indeed embrace an on-die memory controller and a Hyper Transport-like interface by 2007 in a cooler running architecture, the demand for Apple to support AMD may in fact diminish."I don’t understand these articles that say that intel will have a superb system by 2007.... 2007 is not today, and in 2007 amd will still have the same processor (amd athlon64 4000+, fx55, ....) ?!?!
othercents - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
There is a simple answer why AMD was not choosen as the CPU manufacturer. Intel not only is the CPU manufacturer, but they also manufacture Motherboards and Chipsets. AMD does not. Apple was probably looking for a total solution that they can slam into their cases without have to design or develop anything else. Intel can do that and AMD can not.Other
drumt - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Predictions?Mine:
Because of the Intel chip transition:
...more games will run under the new Mac OS making the gaming platform of choice.
...Macs will be come affordable and more fans will arise.
...the faults of Windows will be obvious making a Mac OS the choice.
...Windows will buy Apple and merge making the Best OS the computing world has ever seen!
...Bill Gates will own the world!!
Yours?
Scott66 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Two reasons apple wants to stop using powerpc. Can't deliver on promise to ship 3 GHz G5 with IBMCan't design G5 Powerbook with IBM PowerPC
Fricardo - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Tears for AMD.downtowncb - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
On their G5 website, Apple is comparing the G5s of today to the Pentium chips of today. They are not saying that the G5 will trounce the Intel chip they will use in the future. So what if a current G5 can beat the current development kit? Development kits are frequently underpowered. The G5 machines that were used to develop Xbox 360 games, for example. The comparisons Apple is making today do not hold for the future.adamfilip - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Apple isnt saying that intel chips are faster. and there is no reason for apple to change its product page stating that the G5 is no longer fasterall they stated was that intel has a better performance per watt. not that it has better performance overall.
so if intel has 4 units of performance per wat and ibm has 2 units per watt. well then the intel part uses has as much energy to go just as fast.
not that its twice as fast
rivieracadman - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I don't know if it has really occured to anyone, or if it's just me, but has anyone considered that the reason Jobs choose Intel was because they can provide a platform where AMD can't. If this hardware is to remain Apple specific, then they will need what IBM provided them in the past; An entire platform. This goes for mobile, as well as desktop. The last personal Intel Machine I had was a Pentium MMX. I would love to run OSX, but not sure if I'm willing to buy Intel to do it. All this being said. I think Jobs should launch an all out x86 version of OSX, and slowly wiggle free of the hardware buisness. Their software is some of the best on the market, and at a fair price they could really build up a solid user base.MrEMan - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
My guess is that Apple/Jobs doesn't want to release OS X for non-Apple hardware because then they would run into many of the same problems as Windows, that being loss of stability and greater risk of hacks and viruses/spyware etc, not to mention that they would probably lose the hardware side somewhere down the road (the reason I believe Jobs killed the Mac compatibles when Apple rehired him after his exit from Next).I know many don't like Microsoft, but I have to give them credit for making Windows work with so many different hardware and software combinations. The current Mac better be more stable considering that Apple controls both the OS and the hardware.
barnett25 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
If Apple made OSX standalone that you could install on any PC they would die. Everyone would pirate it (you don't even need to activate OSX), Apple's sales would be awfull, and stability would suck (MS has said before that most of the problems they have are due to device drivers). Every Mom and Pop computer shop would sell discount PCs with pirated OSX. I really don't see how you can think selling OSX for PCs is a good idea. Please explain it to me.edwardhchan - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
#20:Becuase Apple would rather sell their own computers that exclusively run MacOS and Windows ... and they can get away with it. Imagine, all us Mac users who also play games won't need two machines anymore! There have been dual-boot macs in the past, but they were always quirky because they had a pc on a daughtercard. With an x86 OS X, one could conceivable use WINE to run windows apps inside OS X, or have the option to dual-boot into Longhorn (just make sure to have LOTS of disk space!)
Chadder007 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I wonder if IBM told Apple that they won't have the production capacity to make much more PPC's since they will now be making the PowerPC alternatives for the next 3 Gaming Consoles....XBOX360/Revolution/PS3. ???They may have asked them to pay more for future processors since they would possibly have to build another factory just to handle the load...
radams - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
"I think Jobs reminds me of the John Kerry of computing. The guy is always saying one thing and doing but doing another. PPC is better than x86 one minute, the next he's transitioning in two year time. Apple users are deaf, dumb, stupid and blind not to see how patheic Apple really is. And all of the time they have been hating PC's, because of this and that; guess what, now your stuck with one like it or not. Maybe that little Apple dome sticker on the front of your x86 powered, defacto standard PC will make you feel all warm and fuzzy so you can sleep better at night? "PPC is better than x86, but economies of scale have made development for the x86 cheeaper and faster. If Apple had 20% marketshare instead of 1-2%, I doubt we'd be seeing this switch. Personally, I don't care what chips they use, and I like the idea of being able to dual-boot Windows and OS X on a PowerBook so I only need one laptop instead of two.
All in all, I don't think this is the way Apple wanted to go, but they're left with little choice as they don't have the marketshare to defray the R&D costs.
gibhunter - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I agree with #20. Refusing to release it for sale like Windows is sold is a bad decision. They could definitely increase their market share if they opened up their platform to x86.They could simply state to refuse support for PCs with parts that are not on their hardware compatibility list.
Either way, with x86 support and the os based on open source Free BSD core, it's just a matter of time before we see free copies of their OS on the web. Heck, with x86 machines already sold to developers, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see OSX on the web within a month or two.
Backslider - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
#16 The thing is that if Jobs were truly worried about the OS, then he would sell the dammed OS to be used on generic PC hardware. Not take generic PC hardware, create proprietary BIOS and brand it Mac.From what I've read, the only difference between the hardware will be the BIOS. Which is only being used as a key to keep people from buying non-Mac branded PC's to be used with their OS.
Pathetic. Their OS may be good, but their buisness sense, and lies are pathetic.
Mac = Evil = Microsoft
Why are all of our(American) companies out to F the consumer.
chennhui - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I really pity on AMD, a good innovative, technology driven company, but just lacking of sale and marketshare. I wonder how long AMD can stand under this difficult environment.santa590 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
20The problem making OS X working with other x86 machine is support. Drivers, hardware conflicts, etc will occur and supporting it will cost alot of time and money.
ZobarStyl - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Too bad they are making it Mac hardware only; if they had made it where I could just go buy a copy of OSX and run a dual boot, I'd try it out for the hell of it. But since it's still just the same overpriced hardware from Apple (rest assured, they will not lower the prices, contrary to what the say). Only this time, it's not apples to oranges (Intel to PPC made it where consumers never knew how the two compared, speedwise) but apples to apples...and their "Switch" marketing isn't going to convince someone to pay 1200 dollars for the exact same system Dell has for 400. Open the OS and you could get some money, but right now it's just a shot in the foot. Besides, who buys that expensive crap except Apple fanboys anyway? It's not like their marketshare is really going to drop if they release an OS to the general hardware using public.orion23 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Why wouldn't apple agree to selling a version of its software to run on regular PCs?Wouldn't that boost their sales?
With the new changes the idea seems more logic than ever before, so why not release it in a way that users can take advantage of multi booting OSX and Windows in a PC or a Mac-intel
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Maybe part of the reason Apple are switching from IBM to Intel and not mentioning AMD, is because AMD and IBM are partners. I'm not sure how IBM would respond if they lost business to a company they are in partnership with.JBird7986 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
"Given the interest OS X on x86 has sparked I would almost guarantee someone will be cracking it in the immediate, popular software is always the first to be cracked and I'd say this will be high on their priorities... and given that, Apple really is shooting themselves in the foot by missing out on that market it could easily tap into and make a lot of money on."AGREED!
MrEMan - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Hopefully IBM will counter Intel/Apple by actually pushing their Opteron servers instead of their outclassed Xeon based servers.Unlike AMD, IBM can definitely compete against Intel financially and can easily inflict some financial pain to Intel for courting Apple away from the PowerPC.
Lastly, I wonder how Michael Dell is going to respond when he realizes that he has competition for mother Intel's affections.
barnett25 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
"I think Jobs reminds me of the John Kerry of computing. The guy is always saying one thing and doing but doing another. PPC is better than x86 one minute, the next he's transitioning in two year time. Apple users are deaf, dumb, stupid and blind not to see how patheic Apple really is. And all of the time they have been hating PC's, because of this and that; guess what, now your stuck with one like it or not. Maybe that little Apple dome sticker on the front of your x86 powered, defacto standard PC will make you feel all warm and fuzzy so you can sleep better at night? "No one gives a crap about what processor is inside a Mac as long as it runs OSX fast. Thats what people like about Macs, the OS. You know, that thing that actually matters about a computer that so many of the people on this site forget about (instead focusing on things like 2% increases on hardware performance).
ranger203 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Will I be able to dual boot a MAC OS 11 on my pentium 4???AnnihilatorX - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
"The Intel brand is much stronger than AMD's, and that is the sort of partner that Apple is interested in."This doesn't make any sense to me at all
People who bought Mac PC bought them because of Apple not the IBM CPU. I don't the Intel brand will have anything to do with sales either. Even they stick some unknown CPU in nobody cares, they cares about the Mac OS and that's what make people buy Mac
Backslider - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I think Jobs reminds me of the John Kerry of computing. The guy is always saying one thing and doing but doing another. PPC is better than x86 one minute, the next he's transitioning in two year time. Apple users are deaf, dumb, stupid and blind not to see how patheic Apple really is. And all of the time they have been hating PC's, because of this and that; guess what, now your stuck with one like it or not. Maybe that little Apple dome sticker on the front of your x86 powered, defacto standard PC will make you feel all warm and fuzzy so you can sleep better at night?I say good luck Apple. Keep telling your lemmings what they want to hear. Just get better at the lies, the PC world has gotten quite good at it. I mean we are going to all be buying back our p3's arent we!?
KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I heard a number along the lines of 50,000 EE chips are manufactured per SKU. It looks like Intel will actually make this a real processor instead of just something to get headlines.Kristopher
phantom505 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
"If Intel does indeed embrace an on-die memory controller and a Hyper Transport-like interface by 2007 in a cooler running architecture, the demand for Apple to support AMD may in fact diminish."Wow...lots of if's. And IF Intel had let the Isreali's design the P4 they wouldn't be in the mess they are in now.
Sunner - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Zebo, Steve was actually the one who saved Apple when they needed it the most.He turned a dying company with nothing but red ink on their financial reports into a profitable company with some very well recognized brands.
Dukemaster - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Most Apple fan's will be dissapointed but the fact is that the move to Intel will mean more money for Apple. The Mac's will become faster and cheaper and software compatibility will be enhanced. I say good move of Apple.JAS - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Video of the WWDC keynote:http://stream.apple.akadns.net
Zebo - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Jeff what Stevie is doing should have been done 15 years ago then Apple would be Dell. Now it's too little to late, a wish and a prayer, a shot in the dark. Dell simply has too much presence, awesome prices and is the defacto standard for PC's. Gateway, HP, Compaq etc all going or went down to Dell and they are much bigger than Apple. The only PC makers doing well are boutique builders like AW or high-end servers from IBM, HP or Sun. Apple caters to neither market.Jeff7181 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I never thought about how it would benefit Intel in that they keep coming up with these standards for PC's that are never really adopted by OEM's... maybe Apple will help with this.Also something I haven't seen anyone mentioned is Dell. If Apple's Intel powered computers are simiarly priced to a Dell, I think Dell stands to lose marketshare. People who own a Dell and don't like Microsoft for whatever reason could possibly have a viable alternative in a Mac.
Zebo - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
If AMD collapses, Intel would immedately go back to it's good old days of 1990-1998 of $500 CPUs.Anyway Stevie will bankrupt Apple like he did with NeXT. The only thing which has saved Apple is iPod which is now dying now that people have baught a clue how overpriced and underfeatured it is. Apples's PC sales conitinued to diminish under Jobs leadership so he had no choice but to go x86. But this is the nail in Apples coffin. $400 Dells' will kill them.
Ged - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I'm dissapointed.I am also puzzled as to how Apple can show how much better the PowerPC CPUs are on their website than Intel's and AMD's CPUs and then switch to Intel in two years time while pointing to Performance vs. Power.
Anand's comments about the Apple user base supporting anything that Jobs does must really be true (not that I was doubting you Anand, it's just hard for me to stomach seeing how Apple has made every attempt to show PowerPC superiority to the x86 platforms and now this).
plewis00 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
Given the interest OS X on x86 has sparked I would almost guarantee someone will be cracking it in the immediate, popular software is always the first to be cracked and I'd say this will be high on their priorities... and given that, Apple really is shooting themselves in the foot by missing out on that market it could easily tap into and make a lot of money on.zzmad - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
I just think the roadmap thing in the article is wrong.Apple will move first the notebboks, Mac minis and eventually new products based on Centrino leaving (FINALLY) Freescale. That's the real market, growing 3 times as fast as the desktop.
As for the desktop Apple has in the pipeline (September or Jan 2006) the Dual core 970MP with 1MB cahce at 3.0Ghz, full 64bits, altivec. Those CPU's will find their way into the Powermacs giving a real strong performance machine. Also another CPU the 970GX will probably find its way into the iMac G5. Until 2007 we won't see any powermac with intel.
It's interesting to understand what processor will be used then. I think something like a dual Xeon, 64, dual core. And something also for the Xserve. I bet Jobs would love to renew Pixar render farm and worstations using Intel Macs!
bobsmith1492 - Tuesday, June 7, 2005 - link
What? No comments?I can't resist. :P
Anyway, this is interesting I suppose. I still don't see much use for these things.