Apple Mac to be powered by Intel Processors?
June 4th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 75 times, 1 so far today
CNet says Apple moving on to Intel Processors
CNet has reported that the rumors are true that Apple Computers is indeed moving to Intel Processors. The report claims that the official announcement is expected to come this Monday as Apple plans to dump IBM as their primary chip supplier. They are expecting to start shipping their cheaper variant Mac Mini featuring an Intel processor as early as 2006 with higher end models switching in 2007.
Steve Jobs is scheduled for a keynote speech at the annual conference for software developers on Friday and the opportunity is perfect to announce such a crucial change of policy for the Macintosh maker. This move would require significant changes in the way the softwares are developed for the Apple Macintosh platform. This would not please many Apple platform developers.
In addition to International Business Machines Corporation, Freescale Semiconductor Inc. also supplies processors to Apple and is likely to be affected by this decision. Apple is reported to be unhappy with IBM as they think the company is not developing a broad enough line of chips for them to offer to the customers. In addition, with IBM supplying processors for the next generation gaming machines for Microsoft, Sony (Cell Processor) and Nintendo… Apple has reasons to be worried about IBM’s commitment to Macs in the longer term.
However, the move is not expected to be smooth if it indeed takes place. This policy change would mean that a lot of work would be required from Apple and their contributing software developers for a transition from IBM to Intel Processors. And it might make the current prospective customers of the Apple Computers to delay their decisions to buy current generation Apple. Everything would however depend upon the speculated announcement scheduled for day after tomorrow.
Apple, Apple Mac, CNet, Hardware, Intel, Microprocessors, Processor News, processors, Rumors
Manuj Kumar
Category: News
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June 4th, 2005 at 11:55 pm
It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for this to happen!
June 5th, 2005 at 12:26 am
INTEL BLOWS. SHOULDA WENT W/ AMD.
June 5th, 2005 at 12:36 am
Yourself and CNet should watch out. Apple has sued over similar journalistic efforts to pre-announce their announcements. Just like kids getting mad over who gets to break the news… Lame.
June 5th, 2005 at 12:46 am
I just hope there are no blueman group/apple ads.
June 5th, 2005 at 1:16 am
Apple won’t get mad about this article since it was Apple who made the announcement. It’s official.
I think Intel is a good move for two reasons. First is that this clearly opens the door for OS X to run on any PC, and could potentially allow Apple to sink their teeth into the Windows marketshare. Second is that it would seem (based on comments made by Intel) that Intel truely appreciates Apple and their products, and have been wanting to supply their hardware for some time. This is something that IBM has neglected to express.
June 5th, 2005 at 1:55 am
Apple’s switching to Intel would be an excellent choice. According to Intel “Intels Pentium D (a dual core processors) will be in use in most new motherboards sold for PC in 2006.”
Using the Pentium D, Apple could become more reasonable priced without loss of quality.
June 5th, 2005 at 8:16 am
Who says Apple will be using x86 CPUs?
The story is about Intel supplying CPUs to Apple. Don’t forget that Intel are CPU manufacturers, and could just as easily supply PPC CPUs – just as IBM did when Apple had an agreement with Motorola to supply PPC.
Motorola couldn’t supply CPUs properly and severely embarrassed Stevey (remember the 500MHz G4 debacle?). Next thing you know IBM were in the loop (for G4 CPUs – IBM were already supplying G3s). Now Stevey’s embarrassed again by IBM saying they’d be at 3GHz a year ago. I say Apple are now looking at another manufacturer who CAN supply.
Personally I would have backed AMD for this, but hey, what do I know?
June 5th, 2005 at 3:36 pm
“Apple won�t get mad about this article since it was Apple who made the announcement. It�s official.”
This is simply not true, Apple have not, I repeat have not announced that it would switch to intel processors.
There are 10,000+ programs for Mac OS X. Do you people realise the man power required to convert all of these?
Yes in some cases it wouldn’t be “that” complicated, but there would be many problems overall, and many expenses for things like support, boxes, distribution… etc. If you add all these you get astronomical amounts of energy, time and human resources needed to achieve that.
Developers wouldn’t port OS X x86 versions of their apps on an OS that is just a reboot away from Windows.
This is just one of the reasons why it cannot happen.
Stop thinking that Apple uses PowerPCs just to be different or because they were lured into thinking that it was a better technology. Until we get major shifts in the way computing is done (quantum and photonics computing), its the only way for Apple to survive as an OS and computer vendor.