Apple goes Intel [by Monday…]

[Stevejr]

Hi,

What does this mean. I am new to Mac. Just bought a brand new g5. My Conern is Mac going to become a PC. I left the PC world to go Mac. Can someone please explain what Apple is thinking of doing. Thanks.

[Dom Silverio]

Don’t worry too much. It is the OS that is the heart and soul of the Mac platform.

[Tom Wolsky]

Apple wants to run those dual core chips.

[Sean Oneil]

I’m all for it. I love Apple’s OS and software. Their hardware is top of the line… for a few months. Then for years it just becomes dated and lacking new technology whilst the prices stay the same.

[Scott Thomas]

I think the article is a bunch of crap. There was this same speculation just before the G5 systems were released. There is already a ton of decent discussion from people who understand computer hardware at Arstechnica.com.

Main points brought up over and over, elsewhere:
Moving to x86 is not the non-trivial process some would have one believe.
Cnet article isn’t specific. This could be a different chip architecture for a different product other than Macintosh.
Intel may have been contracted to do manufacturing of PPC cores.
Any processor move would cause deep hurting if said chip doesn’t include AltaVec. (Much of the OS and Apps take advantage of this tech) Think adding an AltaVec to an x86 core is a walk in the park?
There are no sources in the article. It’s lazy, terrible journalism; Jason Blair style.

[Graeme Nattress]

I guess the real issue is, that if this announcement is true, Apple better have new products with the new chips on sale monday, or their sales of everything but iPods will drop through the floor so fast that it won’t be funny. Say they take a year to transition to the new products as indicated by the article. That would mean a year with practically no sales of computers from Apple – how are they going to justify that to their shareholders? I mean, why would Apple move to a intel based architecture?? Instead, surely knowing that they’d sell no hardware for over a year, they’d just ditch the hardware completely and become a software company? None of this really has the ring of total truth to it. The issues are just so much more complex than the article suggests.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Tom Wolsky]

There may be a lot of smoke and mirrors in this. It may just be that Apple will start using Intel chips in Airports, similar to the Intel product.

[Hector Candleleven]

“I mean, why would Apple move to a intel based architecture??”

This is why I think that the article is not true. Apple has just released a new OS. They have promised the dev’s that they will no longer touch the API’s within Tiger(what ever that is, but sounds important). We have a new a new version of FCP studio. Everything points to this article not getting it right.

They ONLY possible outcome from Monday’s announcement is Apple hiring Intel to create PPC chips. If this is the case then I don’t have a problem. Apple has to stay ahead of the game if it expects to move machines off the shelf. And in the end if it brings better, faster chips without lowering the quality that Apple as bestowed upon the industry, then we all win. If they stick a Pentium inside a mac, I will die.