Intel says Ultrabooks trump MacBook Air, iPad

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  • Reply 121 of 131
    jlanddjlandd Posts: 873member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    Like others I'm left to wonder if this kind of public announcement doesn't signal something Intel knows that we don't. Otherwise, why go out of your way to piss off a customer?



    What's happened is this: Apple goes Intel, Intel praises Apple and Apple's innovative designs, sort of suggesting PC parts assemblers might try to be innovative as well (Intel has a long history of mostly goofy "reference platforms" that attempt to goose just that). PC business goes to hell. In a desperate effort to rekindle the old fire, Intel very openly uses the briskly selling MacBook Air as a template for their stupid marketing category "Ultrabook" (actually offering discounts to PC parts assemblers in an effort to hit Apple's price points), which means they are in the very bizarre position of paying a bounty in an effort to get the larger share of their market to copy the design of their minority share. Then they go on record as claiming the fruits of those efforts will eclipse the Air because Windows is so awesome and "choice."



    So if they weren't going out of their way to enrage Apple and all but guarantee that they'll lose them as a customer at the first opportunity, then they're either very stupid or insane. I have no idea if or when alternates to Intel will become viable, but does anyone doubt that Apple will jump ship the instant they do? Or that Apple will pour money into making that possible? And who can blame them? This isn't run of the mill hurly burly of doing business, it's a very deliberate, astonishingly brazen slap in the face to your own customer.





    It occurred to me that Jobs was the only person at practically any of these companies who you didn't dare play chicken with, because he was eccentric enough to call a bluff by yanking something out from under you and be not at all concerned that he'd come off as a bad person or a big baby. He didn't care. It's possible that Apple has entered the era where its vendors and rivals have let their guard down in their public statements now that the gorilla in the room is no longer liable to make a painful retaliation based on an unflattering soundbite.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tundraboy View Post


    A few years ago, when Apple had just switched to Intel, there were a couple of Intel flacks who dissed Macs in some public forum somewhere, and boy did Intel's top brass come down hard on those two jokers. The CEO had to come out with a statement to basically contradict what the two flacks said.





    Right. And the difference is that this time he won't feel he has to.
  • Reply 122 of 131
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Ironically, any likely future hardware releases of the sort Intel is talking about most assuredly will not run "an OS that people have come to love over the years", in that Windows 8 is a pretty sharp break with the past. Particularly for devices that are supposed to be competing with the iPad we should expect Metro to be the main interface, meaning "an OS that you've never seen before."
  • Reply 123 of 131
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jlandd View Post


    It occurred to me that Jobs was the only person at practically any of these companies who you didn't dare play chicken with, because he was eccentric enough to call a bluff by yanking something out from under you and be not at all concerned that he'd come off as a bad person or a big baby. He didn't care. It's possible that Apple has entered the era where its vendors and rivals have let their guard down in their public statements now that the gorilla in the room is no longer liable to make a painful retaliation based on an unflattering soundbite.



    Sure, but Jobs was also an extremely cagey businessperson. He never did any yanking without a pretty good plan B. At the moment, I think Intel knows there really isn't a plan B ready to go, so Apple's stuck for the time being.



    Perhaps it's hubris that makes them think there will never be a plan B and they can afford to throw Apple under the bus without fear of reprisal. I think this is a mistake.



    At any rate, it's easy to see why Jobs was so obsessed with Apple being master of its own destiny where ever possible. If they could build every part of every product themselves I'm sure they'd do it.
  • Reply 124 of 131
    jlanddjlandd Posts: 873member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    Sure, but Jobs was also an extremely cagey businessperson. He never did any yanking without a pretty good plan B.



    Yes, absolutely. It will be interesting to see how some of these other things things NOT Apple technology or OS or product lines play out in the first post Jobs era, as in how the specter/lack of specter of his presence, as opposed to Apple's, affects how the rest of the players move.
  • Reply 125 of 131
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Relic View Post


    Actually, Apple was named one of the least green companies in America partially do to them using coal burning plants to power their data centers and their none use of recycled materials. Though they do have a recycling program for old Macs so that is defiantly a move in the right direction.



    Evidence for the bolded? And methodology?
  • Reply 126 of 131
    lukeskymaclukeskymac Posts: 506member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SSquirrel View Post


    The premium isn't that huge in most cases. The problem w/those higher specced pc laptops is that most of them have from 1/8-1/2 the battery life.



    Bullshit. Macs do have longer lasting battery, but "1/8 - 1/2" is just dumb.



    Quote:

    There are some laptops w/pimped out video that don't last even a single hour. Not too portable really.



    That varies. Nvidia just introduced the Kepler Mobile series. 300 GFLOPs on a mid-level ultrabook with 8hr battery. There are rumors that not just the next-gen MBAs, but also the 13" MB PRO will remain stuck with stinking Intel graphics. I don't care if Ivy Bridge has a 30% increase in performance, that's still ~150 GFLOPs and still unacceptable for $999+ notebooks.



    And before anyone downplays the importance of GPUs, remember how Apple users (me included) boast about how iDevice GPUs blow even the "pimped out" CPU powerhouses w/ 5hr batteries (Galaxy Nexus) out of the water in GPU performance.





    If those rumors come true and Apple falls behind again in a field where they have been steadily catching up with the rest of the industry, I'll look for the less shitty Asus ultrabook with a REAL GPU and maybe hackintosh it. I'll miss a lot of good things about the MBP, but I have been missing GPU performance since I bought my first Mac three years ago.
  • Reply 127 of 131
    nikon133nikon133 Posts: 2,600member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bdkennedy1 View Post


    "...and with an operating system that people have come to love over the years, as well as all the legacy applications that they would like to run," they said."



    What operating system would that be? Windows 8 that few people have used?



    Windows 7, mayhap?



    http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windo...t-134018.shtml
  • Reply 128 of 131
    nikon133nikon133 Posts: 2,600member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rbryanh View Post


    The one thing seldom mentioned in these sorts of comparisons is that Windows-only products have absolutely no appeal to many of us.



    Their whole ecosystem is limited and limiting. Microsoft has yet to produce a credible OS for a handheld, Android is a fragmented mess, and all of it - including Windows itself - is grotesquely insecure.



    Intel is scared, and with good reason. Apple is not going to get out of the hardware market, and will increasingly roll its own.



    Well this is Apple fan site - it would be disastrous if Windows would have much appeal to many of people here...



    Re Intel, Apple is one of their big customers, but not the biggest, not by any means. First off, majority of Apple's income come from iDevices, in which Intel has no part. Also - regardless of Apple's profit on laptops and desktops, Apple is not moving that much units, they make money on value rather than volume, and it is unlikely that Intel margins on hardware sold to Apple is reflecting Apple's retail margins.



    I think what is Intel afraid off is, that other OEMs will follow Apple and put more emphasis on non-Intel hardware, which would hurt Intel much more than alienating Apple alone. Thus this Ultrabook-moralle-boosting statement.
  • Reply 129 of 131
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by roontoon View Post


    What kind of crack are they smokin'?



    The kind that says start the hype early cause we got a huge hill to climb. Why does anyone listen to sales people anyway, only about 20% of what they promise ever comes true.
  • Reply 130 of 131
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Relic View Post


    Actually, Apple was named one of the least green companies in America partially do to them using coal burning plants to power their data centers and their none use of recycled materials. Though they do have a recycling program for old Macs so that is defiantly a move in the right direction.



    I'm still only getting 4.5 hours on my MacBook Air plus they had to double the size of the battery in my iPad to keep their 10 hour time thus waisting more energy then the previous iPad not to mention making it heaver and thicker.



    Now these are the prices we have to pay for either having the thinnest MacBook or the fastest tablet and I don't mind paying a little penalty if it means I get the best possible solution for me. Apple though is not always the best at everything and all this energy kissing their****or defending their honour can be better used in discussing how we can use our machines better.



    Hi, I'm earth, have we met? You are trolling my friend. Apple was ranked 2nd as of November. What you are referring to is source of electricity, hate to burst your bubble but Apple can't change the primary energy method used in every city. Last I checked they were making inroads on plans to fix some of that in the future, not that it matters much anyway since it's never enough for the you radical environmentalists. Quit using the internet, you're wasting valuable energy.
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