My Thoughts On Apple & Intel
Rather than having my reply buried under eight pages worth and likely ignored, I thought I would post my own response to Apple moving to Intel.
The main thought that came to my mind, was not it's about time or Apple is doomed or so many other things so many of you thought of but rather....
1 When I watch tv and I see an Intel ad, I see a boring laptop or tower and it just does not look appealing. I think with this recent relationship between Apple and Intel, the marketing will be cross-platform. Intel will start using Mac's in their ads because they look much more cool and have a more advanced OS. This would obviously benefit Apple.
2 When the PPC came out it was like a new Apple was born and there was excitement because they were advertising like crazy, and their overall vibe just felt....well felt like Apple was alive again. I have a feeling that once we have Intel based Mac's, advertising and marketing is going to largely pick up where as we have not had a commercial showing off our pro wares since....well....the last commercial I remember seeing for the tower was the Tank ad for the PowerMac G4.
3 As for everyone stating that Apple is eating their own words now with benchmarks and how can they do this when they blah blah blah blah.....anyone ever think that the reason why the Intel machines are slower is because they do not have software with optimized code running specifically for the Macintosh? Something tells me Photoshop will absolutely scream because it will be optimized to run on Mac for Intel. Of course time will tell, but I am not worried. After all, how many of you complained that AltiVec was not much of a speed boost and just a marketing ploy?
4 Another reason why I am not so let down is because Intel is dedicated. This is what they do. This is their business. IBM and Motorola on the other hand have no straight focus on microprocessors alone but a huge marketplace for many different products. Without focus on just one market, you will get much better results which is why I believe both IBM and Motorola have failed us time and time again in the past.....they just do not have the focus.
5 And my last thought....not really related to hardware at all is really about Steve Jobs. All of you know, as much as we do not want to think about it, Steve will not always be at Apple. Having the PPC and working with Motorola and IBM must be a huge headache to always have to think of what to do next. Like Steve even said, they cannot make the great products they have planned with the current roadmap. Intel on the other hand is stable and has direction and experience and typically lives up to their word. This will allow a new CEO have an easier time with transitions to the latest processor from one supplier who knows what they are doing rather than having to worry about what to do next and how to handle the marketing. Steve Jobs marketing (reality distortion field) is very effective....even if it was thin air, we would buy it and you know it.
Anyway, just my few ¢ worth.
The main thought that came to my mind, was not it's about time or Apple is doomed or so many other things so many of you thought of but rather....
1 When I watch tv and I see an Intel ad, I see a boring laptop or tower and it just does not look appealing. I think with this recent relationship between Apple and Intel, the marketing will be cross-platform. Intel will start using Mac's in their ads because they look much more cool and have a more advanced OS. This would obviously benefit Apple.
2 When the PPC came out it was like a new Apple was born and there was excitement because they were advertising like crazy, and their overall vibe just felt....well felt like Apple was alive again. I have a feeling that once we have Intel based Mac's, advertising and marketing is going to largely pick up where as we have not had a commercial showing off our pro wares since....well....the last commercial I remember seeing for the tower was the Tank ad for the PowerMac G4.
3 As for everyone stating that Apple is eating their own words now with benchmarks and how can they do this when they blah blah blah blah.....anyone ever think that the reason why the Intel machines are slower is because they do not have software with optimized code running specifically for the Macintosh? Something tells me Photoshop will absolutely scream because it will be optimized to run on Mac for Intel. Of course time will tell, but I am not worried. After all, how many of you complained that AltiVec was not much of a speed boost and just a marketing ploy?
4 Another reason why I am not so let down is because Intel is dedicated. This is what they do. This is their business. IBM and Motorola on the other hand have no straight focus on microprocessors alone but a huge marketplace for many different products. Without focus on just one market, you will get much better results which is why I believe both IBM and Motorola have failed us time and time again in the past.....they just do not have the focus.
5 And my last thought....not really related to hardware at all is really about Steve Jobs. All of you know, as much as we do not want to think about it, Steve will not always be at Apple. Having the PPC and working with Motorola and IBM must be a huge headache to always have to think of what to do next. Like Steve even said, they cannot make the great products they have planned with the current roadmap. Intel on the other hand is stable and has direction and experience and typically lives up to their word. This will allow a new CEO have an easier time with transitions to the latest processor from one supplier who knows what they are doing rather than having to worry about what to do next and how to handle the marketing. Steve Jobs marketing (reality distortion field) is very effective....even if it was thin air, we would buy it and you know it.
Anyway, just my few ¢ worth.
Comments
Originally posted by zenatek
I agree with everything you said... well said.
Thanks zenatek. Anyone else?
I just have 1 question:
How reality distorted are Steve's presentations and marketing really?
I mean isn't it at the end all a point of view? And Steve always manages to convince us that his pointof view is the right one?
The only thing that I was never really sure about was the processors, because there are just not too many tests out there. AMD and Intel are always compared to each other every single month so you know whatever the processors are called which one is the fastest, but G4s and G5s I was never sure about and I am still not. I want to get a MacMini but I am not sure if I should wait 9 month for the 1st Intel one which might be twice as fast.
There is 1 thing for sure: MacOSX is the best operting system in the world for end users. A Fantastic User interface, secure and almost no crashes or software incompatibilities.
The design is simple the best, and if it is the "Steve effect" I don't care when I look at a Mac its just exiting like seeing a Ferrari or Aston Martin.
So what do you call so eality distorted?
1) Steve's presentation and the reality distortion field can convince anyone of anything.
2) Steve is actually the greatest actor on earth, even better than Alec Baldwin.
3) The adhesive on the back of post-it notes is actually Steve's semen.
4) I shouldn't post while hungover.
I have had Mac's since the first passively cooled version, the Mac 128K. This had Steve all over it, no access to the inside, silent by design and a friendly user interface. Just use it 'Steve's way'. Intel will put the Steveness back in the Mac.
Every once in awhile Apple has returned to the Steve design, i.e. the first iMac or the Cube. However, in general the power performance factors keep driving for more watts and more active cooling. I owned a 'Hoover' (Quicksilver) and now I have the 'almost silent' G5 tower. Thermal design is extremely important in these massive towers.
In the RISC days of G3 the performance almost became competitive with Intel with much lower power. (The copper interconnects as a IBM manufacturing innovation actually came to market first, the second gen Wall Street didn't burn like the original 250/292.) The G4 and G5 essentially tossed the concept of RISC and the performance/watts race was on. IBM has the promise of SOI and improved strained silicon to reduce power losses (however it's hard to see when the computer needs water cooling). The G5 is a chip with excellent performance (Virginia Tech did not buy a bunch of Macs because they had loyalty to Apple). As good as the G5 is it is also extremely hot, almost like a P4?. The Mac Mini/Cube and Powerbooks are mirages in the distance on this roadmap, very little Steveness and the need for a high dose of RDF.
However, Apple has obviously seen the handwriting on the wall for 5 years and has been hedging there bets on the G4/G5 architecture. Chip design capabilities are improving rapidly, however the focus for Motorola/Freescale and IBM has been the embedded market. Now IBM has turned to gaming. Gaming is a known growth market and IBM's turn to gaming was awhile ago, long before Apple started catching it's stride. For IBM/Apple it has probably just been a question of how much business would IBM land from the Sony and Microsoft. IBM hit the jackpot with machines needing millions of chips. Can they produce?????? and what will the XBox and Playstation need for cooling at 3.2Ghz?????
On the Intel side I have been looking with envy at the Pentium M (Centrino chip set) since gen 1 as it broke the Megaherz myth for Intel and it provided a new power performance ratio for the darkside. I have been recommending this chip for all of my PC using friends. (Most don't listen as the Megaherz myth is powerful and those P4 desktop chips in a notebook are so cheap. Besides they are on the darkside and don't see good design when it slaps them in the face.) This chip is already in it's second generation and I would take it in a Mac Mini or Powerbook in a heartbeat. I need to replace my aging 400 Mhz Tibook. (I want a notebook that doesn't need a fan and is cool enough to actually be a laptop.)
On a final note I also look forward to Steve's Mac Mini with the processing power to edit/compress video in real time with solid state hard drives, passive cooling, wireless input, wireless firewire/usb and wireless networking. (No Spam, no Viruses, and $0.25 iTunes songs) All running on a solar cell. This has Steve all over iit without any RDF.
Originally posted by punica888
sorry me stupid
Reality Distortion Field
I have some questions for the programers in the house.
1) I'm not an expert in the programming field, however, in using Windows one can't help but notice that it's a patched up OS - even XP. Wouldn't OS X run faster than Windows with Intel as OS X it is a better designed OS?
2) Is Intel's innovation in chip design being held back because it has to support legacy code for Windows?
3) If so, could Intel make a chip that needs not support such legacy code, hence making OS X even faster?
Originally posted by iPeon
Excellent points Jared.
I have some questions for the programers in the house.
1) I'm not an expert in the programming field, however, in using Windows one can't help but notice that it's a patched up OS - even XP. Wouldn't OS X run faster than Windows with Intel as OS X it is a better designed OS?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Anand had a good comparison last week of MacOSX on G5 compared to some Intel boxes with Linux. In some tests the Macs did very well, in some they did very badly. In the really bad scores, it was blamed squarely on the OS. Threads get bottle necked very quickly.
Some parts of OSX are very fast. Some are not. We will see how it does on Intel.
Originally posted by iPeon
2) Is Intel's innovation in chip design being held back because it has to support legacy code for Windows?
Intel is always trying to move from legacy issues if it can. If you look at their concept PC's for the last few years, they always take cues from Apple in design, and in implementing as very legacy components as possible.
Originally posted by iPeon
3) If so, could Intel make a chip that needs not support such legacy code, hence making OS X even faster?
The could, obviously. Hell, they could come out with something PPC like if they wanted too. But, in terms of economies of scale, I would question whether this would be in their best interests right now. It would also conflict with Apple stating they are goign x86. If they had just said they were switching to Intel as a supplier, then I might consider they were doing a custom chip. The fact that Apple said they want Intels roadmap for the next few years, and the fact they they said they were doing x86, says that they are moving to the x86 world, not a new custom Intel chip world.
my daughter wanted to click on the smilies sorry