Apple going to Intel after all!

[thefultonhow]

I would love to load OSX on my Sony Centrino-based laptop.

http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+I...?tag=nefd.lede

[David M]

THINK (or thwim)

I wonder how much better off IBM would be if it had the equivalent of Tom Watson Jr's leadership today.

[mairving]

That would be good news and the end of the PowerPC chip. I guess the question is what will Apple do. Will they still sell OSX only on machines they built or will they make it available as separate product. Knowing Apple they will figure out some way to screw it up. Probably do something like adding a proprietary device which will keep OSX from running on a PC.

[Mac Medic]

Originally Posted by mairving That would be good news and the end of the PowerPC chip. I guess the question is what will Apple do. Will they still sell OSX only on machines they built or will they make it available as separate product. Knowing Apple they will figure out some way to screw it up. Probably do something like adding a proprietary device which will keep OSX from running on a PC.

Of course they would prevent it from running on a PC. Apple are a hardware company not a software company. The only reason they make an OS is to sell hardware, why would they give that up and lose 90% of their revenue?. It's not going to happen anyway, the cost of intel X86 processors to apple is higher than PPC chips anyway and would affect their bottom line, and considering Apple is the most profitable hardware manufacturer in the market right not I doubt they'll be too quick to mess that up either. I could see Intel producing PPC or core processors to try and take business from IBM though.

[discodanman45]

What about IBM, how do you think this will really effect Big Blue. I know IBM still is involved with nVidia and making gaming console processors for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. I really think that Apple was asking too much of IBM for making too many varieties of the processors that were esentially made for one company. The only company I would do this for would be Dell. I think this will eventually help out IBM, but after a year or two.

[Mac Medic]

At the very best it was a break even proposition for IBM, Apple demanded DEEP discounts and generally got them. at the latest round of talks IBM couldn't go any lower on price period. So it won't affect IBM in the least.

[mountainking]

lol now all the schools will be getting PCs with amd cpus lol. Schools highly dislike the architechture of intel cpus. I just talked to my old tech ed teacher the other day and he said when they upgrade computers now... they are going to probably get amd based computers for the tech design lab lol. Looks like apple might be losing some business here.

[ric449]

Strange, must be different where you are. In the UK, pretty much every computer I have seen in a school is using Intel. A few have Mac's though.

[thefultonhow]

Yeah, the schools where I am practically all buy Dells and Apples. My college bought IBMs (with Intel processors) and Apples.

[mountainking]

my tech ed teacher... mr thompson says he will buy amd over intel any day. He works a TON with multimedia and crap and he said that the boards for it with the nvidia chipsets just seem to work more stable from his expiriences. Im not saying its better... im just stating his oppinion.

[thefultonhow]

Originally Posted by mountainking my tech ed teacher... mr thompson says he will buy amd over intel any day. He works a TON with multimedia and crap and he said that the boards for it with the nvidia chipsets just seem to work more stable from his expiriences. Im not saying its better... im just stating his oppinion.

I'm pretty sure he's in the minority, though. Lots of people equate Intel with stability, and most non-techies have no idea about the performance merits of either and so will pick Intel because they see a lot of ads for it on TV. In most public school systems, computer purchase plans are negotiated on a system-wide level, and so the higher-ups make the decisions. They usually see it as simpler and cheaper from a TCO perspective just to get Dells.

[nocturnx]

Originally Posted by thefultonhow I'm pretty sure he's in the minority, though. Lots of people equate Intel with stability, and most non-techies have no idea about the performance merits of either and so will pick Intel because they see a lot of ads for it on TV. In most public school systems, computer purchase plans are negotiated on a system-wide level, and so the higher-ups make the decisions. They usually see it as simpler and cheaper from a TCO perspective just to get Dells.

Yea, all the computers at my high school were dells and all the military computers here on base are dells. I know the military has a deal with dell because military members also get dell discounts. They were probly the cheapest to buy in bulk.

I cant wait to see what the intel apple processors will be. I wonder if they will all be the same spec or if they will have a range of x.xghz processors.

[Force Flow]

check it out: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc05/

At about 25:00 or so, Steve Jobs confirms the shift over to intel architecture stating that the powerpc architecture doesn't offer nearly as much performance per watt as intel architecture does.

Secondly, throughout OS X's 5 years of production, apple has covertly made both powerpc and intel versions of the O/S. In fact, his whole presentation is done on an intel box running OS X.

Steve Jobs is one sneaky sonovagun.

[Mac Medic]

I still don't think it'll be a processor we're familiar with today. I know the demo machine was a P4 but it just doesn't make any sense. The entire push for the G5 was 64bit, "it destroys the 4gig memory barrier" said Apple. Why take a step back now with a processor line that has pretty much reached the end of it's life and dump 64bit? especially considering Tiger was just released and is a 64bit OS?. I think intel must have something new in the works for this, it just doesn't make any sense otherwise. To me it's a big step backwards, even M$ is choosing PPC for their new xbox, sony picked the cell processor for the PS3, Dell is apparently talking to AMD, all because the pentium processor isn't keeping up. Intels 64bit Itanic was a sinking ship, where do they go now? AMD would have been a much better choice (I'm not being devils advocate here, I don't really care if it's AMD or Intel, just that AMD seem to be innovating faster lately, so please be nice).

[ric449]

The Pentium 4 is 64 bit (the more recent ones anyway). People think that Apple may not even use P4, since by the time Apple move to Intel there will be more of a selection, including Yonah, the dual core Pentium-M. Apple's laptops really need refreshing.

[mountainking]

I really highly doubt that apple will be using a pentium 4 processor on their desktops. Im thinking that apple is having intel make processors the same way that IBM did. But this way they will have the intel name. They will probably have similar architechture and stuff. The problem with most people is they look at pure GHZ. Right now intels processors show the most ghz... but dont neccierely perform the most. Unless intel is coming out with something new... i have no idea why apple would do such a stupid thing lol.

[thefultonhow]

Apple will at the very least be using an Intel x86 product... be it Netburst or Pentium-M. And I guarantee that they will not get Intel to make a custom chip. That was one of the whole points of moving to Intel -- they get to use all the R&D that has gone into the x86 platform.

[ric449]

There is no way it will be Power PC or anything other than X86. The development kits Apple are selling have an Intel P4 in them, an X86 chip.

[arubahounds]

Watch Apple's profit margins drop over the next two years as buyers hold back purchases, waiting for the Mactels to come out.

I'm a die-hard build-yer-own PC'er, but I might buy a machine that runs OSX/Windows/Linux all natively. If there's a way to connect to the web only via OSX, while Windows is firewalled off, even better. All the Windows software you want and no viruses/spyware.