Intel forms internal 'Apple group'

[AppleInsider]

In the wake of Apple Computer's decision to base its next generation of Macintosh computers on Intel processors, Intel Corp. has created an internal 'Apple group' comprised of both engineers and sales staff, eWeek is reporting.

The report notes that Intel has similar groups for other large clients such as Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard. However, specifics on the Apple group are sparse and an Intel representative quoted in the report said the inner workings of the group are considered "confidential internal information."

Gartner research analyst Mark Margevicius told eWeek that Intel sets up groups "to work with as many unique suppliers as possible." While the official Apple group is new, the analyst said Intel has had "skunkwork" operations over the years to demonstrate technologies to potential customer Apple.

Margevicius also noted that Intel makes not only processors, but entire motherboards, including modules for wireless networking. He said that if Apple decides to pass-off the design of its motherboards to Intel, it could lead to economies of scale, which could reduce Apple's costs to manufacturer Macs and result in lower prices for the consumer.

"If Apple is looking to grow the platform, they have to be cost-competitive," Margevicius said.

Additional analyst comments are available in the full eWeek report.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Splinemodel]

Cool. Go Intel. I would hope that this means that, somehow, we'll get some of the newer developments that will take much longer to hit PC mainstream given the much more cautious business model of that industry/market.

[Outsider]

They must be working with Apple on custom chipsets that only Apple would use. Maybe taking existing designs and modifying them to the needs of Apple. Well at least it's an interesting idea.

How about working with Apple on developing a cross between SSE and VMX? Apple had a lot of input on the original spec of VMX. Another possibility.

It could also be something as mundane as working on getting some fast compilers for Xcode.

[fuyutsuki]

Originally posted by AppleInsider
The report notes that Intel has similar groups for other large clients such as Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard.

In other words, don't get your hopes up. Sure, we'd love to see Apple first out of the gate with break-through Intel kit ... and the odds are that they will be among the first, a deal Jobs probably secured in the talks knowing his ambition. But the work will come mainly from Apple. Anyway, the products Apple will make will cause shockwaves in the Wintel world regardless, now that like can be compared with like.

Hell, if Darwine or other forms of application emulation ship with or are widely available for Mac OSX86 (emulating only windows calls, not the cpu) then there will be a rough reception for Vista and maybe something approaching a second 1984 after all!

[SpamSandwich]

Originally posted by fuyutsuki
...there will be a rough reception for Vista and maybe something approaching a second 1984 after all!

I dunno... 2006 just doesn't have the same ring to it.

[mcloki]

Apple is always going to be the poster child for new tech. It's their thing. And if Intel has cool technology, Apple will be there to put a cool wrapper on it and sell it to the public.
It's a shame that Intel stopped their CMOS High definition TV set on a chip work. I'd have loved to see them part of an Apple home theatre set up.

Oh well maybe Apple can hook up with Canon or Toshiba and get a SED HDTV in the lineup. Those screens look to be hot and it's something Apple would do.

[Bmaier]

Hard to imagine Apple ever turning over its motherboard or peripheral production to Intel, but anything is possible. Just like Microsoft has an internal group, this makes sense. Direct support, both sales and technical, encourage Apple's transition and make the switch much more sensible. Intel is definitely working to secure the percieved care that I'm sure it wants from the established Macintosh community.

[kim kap sol]

Originally posted by Bmaier
Hard to imagine Apple ever turning over its motherboard or peripheral production to Intel, but anything is possible. Just like Microsoft has an internal group, this makes sense. Direct support, both sales and technical, encourage Apple's transition and make the switch much more sensible. Intel is definitely working to secure the percieved care that I'm sure it wants from the established Macintosh community.

One thing is for sure (well...it isn't but I'd imagine there'd be a public outcry if it didn't happen), Macs will become cheaper. Moving the entire line to Intel should mean significant savings on processor purchases compared to when Apple was buying from Motorola and IBM. Also, the latest build of 10.4.3 for Intel apparently contains drivers for PC ATI cards. Again, if Mac users can just plop any PC ATI graphics card (and nVidia eventually I suppose) into their Mac...or if Apple can ship Macs with a card that doesn't have the Mac-card R&D and support premium baggage...instant savings of 100-300 dollars on all Macs.

If the motherboard isn't designed by Apple and if what I said is true and high-end Macs didn't drop at the very least by 200 or even 300 dollars, I'd be very skeptical of Apple's motives.

I suppose they could play the "but you get a PC and a Mac all in one box"-card but that still wouldn't justify no drop in prices. People (except perhaps shareholders) would point accusing fingers at Apple.

[Guartho]

I buy your vid-card point, but I was under the impression that Intel processors will actually be slightly more expensive than Apple's current contract with IBM for G5s.

[kenaustus]

The skunk works project is the interesting part here. We know that APple has been running OS X on Mactels since Day One - has the skunk works team been with them the entire time?

It's an interesting era we are moving into. Like the PC makers who release a new computer when Intel releases a new chip, Apple will probably be releasing computers with new chips on the same day - not the usual wait for a Keynote from Steve J. It will probably mean that computers are refreshed far faster than we are used to seeing in the past, making a buying decision (buy now or wait?) more difficult.

While Apple will start with the generic processors that Dell and IBM use there is also a chance for Intel to let Apple lead with the more exotic chips that the others don't want to move to, which could be interesting in 2 - 3 years.

As far as initial pricing of the initial Mactels go, I see the potential for some cuts, but I also see the opportunity for Apple to recover the R&D, design and administrative investments that have been needed to get the Mactel to market. Look for the lower end to remain about the same in terms of pricing and the upper end to get improvements that will justify a $2,999 price tag on the top PM.

[Bmaier]

I think that the price of Macs will stay the same. People have come to expect the current pricing of the Macintosh line, and still making the "switch" to a Mac will have nearly the same consequences as it always has had.

As for chip pricing, I would find it hard to believe that the current G4/G5 pricing is more expensive than Intel processors. Intel makes processors in bulk and has been doing so for a long, long time.

Sure, Apple may be able to drop the prices a tad. But Apple will always protect its high margins.

[Booga]

Originally posted by kim kap sol
Moving the entire line to Intel should mean significant savings on processor purchases compared to when Apple was buying from Motorola and IBM.

Actually, my understanding is that processor prices will be similar, if not a little more. The reason is that Intel processors tend to be high performing at any given time. While Apple is probably paying a pretty penny for their dual-core 2.5GHz G5's, the G4's in the PowerBooks are probably dirt-cheap and are scheduled to be replaced by much more expensive (and much better performing) next-generation Pentium M processors.

Where Apple will see the savings is, if not outsourcing the entire motherboard, at least outsourcing the chipset. Buying an entire CPU/northbridge/southbridge from a third party for their low/mid-range models makes a lot of sense. Intel chipset have usually been ahead of Apple's in performance anyway. At the very high end, Apple seems to have special needs, as evidenced by the new G5's insanely extensive expansion options (1 16x, 1 8x, and 2 4x PCIe slots is more than you'll find anywhere else, by far. To put these slots in perspective, a 1x slot can offer 5Gbps and a 4x slot 20Gbps.) So it may make sense for Apple to put their own southbridge on some machines, but those will cost corresponsingly more.

[melgross]

Originally posted by kenaustus
The skunk works project is the interesting part here. We know that APple has been running OS X on Mactels since Day One - has the skunk works team been with them the entire time?

It's an interesting era we are moving into. Like the PC makers who release a new computer when Intel releases a new chip, Apple will probably be releasing computers with new chips on the same day - not the usual wait for a Keynote from Steve J. It will probably mean that computers are refreshed far faster than we are used to seeing in the past, making a buying decision (buy now or wait?) more difficult.

While Apple will start with the generic processors that Dell and IBM use there is also a chance for Intel to let Apple lead with the more exotic chips that the others don't want to move to, which could be interesting in 2 - 3 years.

As far as initial pricing of the initial Mactels go, I see the potential for some cuts, but I also see the opportunity for Apple to recover the R&D, design and administrative investments that have been needed to get the Mactel to market. Look for the lower end to remain about the same in terms of pricing and the upper end to get improvements that will justify a $2,999 price tag on the top PM.

Apparently Intel has at least been showing them R&D that they were doing over the years. Intel has been pursuing Apple since the IIE.

I still say that Intel wants to release technologies that MS won't support. That happened before when Intel introduced MX=like technology, and MS refused to support it. The technology that did result was mostly to MS's specs.

My feeling is that Intel won't release chips with Mac only technology. But what they may do is to release technology that only Apple supports. There is a difference. with the first, only Apple would have the chips, a semi-custom design. The second, everyone would get the chips, but only Apple would be using the new tech. This would give Apple an advantage. Other computer companies would then have to turn to MS and demand that they support it as well.

This would make Intel happy. They would be controlling their tech rather than MS. As they would be offering it to everyone, on one could complain that they would be giving Apple special handling. The cost would be spread out because Intel could put this on all the chips in that line instead of just those sold to Apple. Therefore the excuse that both Freescale and IBM used, which was that Apple didn't buy enough chips for customization wouldn't hold.

It's like EFI. Intel has been trying to get other companies to use it for years now. The only thing that does is the Itanium. If Apple uses it, then others will follow.

Insofar as boards and chipsets go, I don't think that Apple really wants to continue designing them. Apple is what's known as a conglomerator. That is, a company that takes different technologies and parts to someone and has them built it.

They haven't built mobo's in years. They just design them. The same thing with chipsets, except that they never built them.

If Intel can comeup with boards for Apple , then that would be a good thing.

[ajmas]

Don't forget Apple wants to be as cutting edge as reasonably possible. For this reason I don't necessarily see lower priced Macs in general and I find it difficult to imagine Apple having Intel design its boards.

What we might see on the other hand is the Mac mini being more affordable.

Apple has a very strong engineering team and they are likely to want to have as much control as possible with regards to motherboard design. This is based on the premise that Apple plays around a lot with form factors that traditional PC boards would not fit into. Remember delegation comes at the price of losing a certain amount of control.

[Benton]

To pay for the switch Apple may choose to increase margins as the recording industry did when dvds were priced higher than cassettes. Who doesn't want the best? 8)

[melgross]

Originally posted by ajmas
Don't forget Apple wants to be as cutting edge as reasonably possible. For this reason I don't necessarily see lower priced Macs in general and I find it difficult to imagine Apple having Intel design its boards.

What we might see on the other hand is the Mac mini being more affordable.

Apple has a very strong engineering team and they are likely to want to have as much control as possible with regards to motherboard design. This is based on the premise that Apple plays around a lot with form factors that traditional PC boards would not fit into. Remember delegation comes at the price of losing a certain amount of control.

Intel is the worlds largest mobo maker. They make about 50% of all the boards going into PC's. They make numerous different designs, and form factors.

It's not impossible to think that Apple would have some engineers over at Intel working on these designs. I'm sure that Dell and Hp do as well.

Controlling board shape is trivial. If Intel has the chipsets for Apple, there is very little that Apple would have to do other than to spec the board to Intel, and let them do it. Intel has the best facilities in the world for that.

[ajmas]

Originally posted by Benton
To pay for the switch Apple may choose to increase margins as the recording industry did when dvds were priced higher than cassettes. Who doesn't want the best? 8)

Don't get me into that argument. Did CDs every come down to the price of cassettes, even once they had paid off their new manufacturing facilities?

In the end what the customer pays doesn't always correspond to the price of the materials going into the product.

[melgross]

Originally posted by ajmas
Don't get me into that argument. Did CDs every come down to the price of cassettes, even once they had paid off their new manufacturing facilities?

In the end what the customer pays doesn't always correspond to the price of the materials going into the product.

Quite true, quite true.

Cd's do carry about $1.50 more royalty costs than Lp's or cassettes. It doesn't make up for the increase in price though.

[Booga]

Originally posted by melgross
Quite true, quite true.

Cd's do carry about $1.50 more royalty costs than Lp's or cassettes. It doesn't make up for the increase in price though.

Which is why the argument that Blu-Ray may cost more to the consumer is pretty comical, but we're starting to digress...

[aegisdesign]

I think the truth will lie somewhere between using off the shelf Intel motherboards and Apple/Intel custom hardware.

Apple doesn't yet hit the really cheap market and I think we'll see a move from Apple into that area using as much Intel standard stuff as they can get away with. Maybe not the Celeron D £149 Dell econo-boxes but as close as they can get.

I'm sure Apple doesn't want to outsource all it's R&D as they then lose a lot of their IP. We've recently seen them take back control of their trackpad from Synaptics. I'm sure they'll want to retain as much IP as possible. What they invent next, I don't know, but that's why we like Apple for being Apple.

[Louzer]

Originally posted by Splinemodel
Cool. Go Intel. I would hope that this means that, somehow, we'll get some of the newer developments that will take much longer to hit PC mainstream given the much more cautious business model of that industry/market.

Where did this belief come from that Apple embraces new tech sooner or something. Apple is always so far behind the curve lately its ridiculous. Sure, everyone brings up "Hey, they brought USB to the mainstream!" like no other PC manufacturer carried it before Apple (they did). But for every USB there's a PCI, PCI-Express, CD-RW, USB 2.0, DDR RAM, etc, etc, etc that shows they're very slow to incorporate new tech into their computers.

Meanwhile, the 'mainstream' PC manufacturers are almost always swallowing whatever Intel feeds them, and usually they're releasing something as soon as Intel announces.

As for cost, why anyone would think that moving to Intel would make things cheaper is beyond me. Apple likes their high prices and their high margins. Its what they like. Its their business model. They like being considered the Mercedes of the computer world. They don't want to sell things cheaply, no matter what it does to their marketshare.

For example, how about a cheap G5, you know, one without an attached monitor that would cost less then a $1000? Oh, right, can't do that. Got to give everyone a built-in screen.

And when component prices drop, does Apple drop the prices of their products? Generally, no. They raise the specs. So rather than charge $500 less for a dual 1.8GHz G5, they drop it complete and move the low-end to 2GHZ. Or they add-in some extra memory or better DVD drive. But dare sell a dual-G5 tower at less than $2000? Nope, won't hear of it. (Oh, they did sell that piss-ant single 1.8 for $1500, but it was so underspecced - or overpriced - compared to the $2000 model you'd have to be really cheap or unable to afford the dual to spend the money on it).

[Chucker]

Oh yeah? How fast were PC manufacturers with implementing EFI? They still haven't.

How fast were PC manufacturers with offering DVD burners? Apple was first by several months.

[Outsider]

Originally posted by kenaustus
It's an interesting era we are moving into. Like the PC makers who release a new computer when Intel releases a new chip, Apple will probably be releasing computers with new chips on the same day - not the usual wait for a Keynote from Steve J. It will probably mean that computers are refreshed far faster than we are used to seeing in the past, making a buying decision (buy now or wait?) more difficult.

I don't know. They will be refreshed so often the difference between revisions will not matter as much.

[Booga]

Originally posted by Louzer
Where did this belief come from that Apple embraces new tech sooner or something. Apple is always so far behind the curve lately its ridiculous. Sure, everyone brings up "Hey, they brought USB to the mainstream!" like no other PC manufacturer carried it before Apple (they did). But for every USB there's a PCI, PCI-Express, CD-RW, USB 2.0, DDR RAM, etc, etc, etc that shows they're very slow to incorporate new tech into their computers.

This is a good point. In general, Apple's "innovations" have been in removing old technology rather than adding new technology. USB existed on several machines before the iMac, but the iMac was the first without anything ELSE. The floppy disappeared from Macs long before PCs. With the latest G5's, Apple completely dumped old PCI cards for PCIe.

While such moves drive implementation of the new spec, they don't exactly forge ahead on new technologies. In the cases where Apple has been first to implement a technology (NuBus, external SCSI, AAUI, Firewire, etc., etc) they almost always somehow end up picking the long-term losing technology-- it's almost uncanny.

Anyway, in reply to another poster, there are EFI machines today, and Microsoft Windows 64-bit uses them, but it's not very widespread... I expect this will be another area where Apple dumps old BIOS technology and pushes EFI adoption.

[Chucker]

Originally posted by Booga
Anyway, in reply to another poster, there are EFI machines today, and Microsoft Windows 64-bit uses them, but it's not very widespread...

Well, okay, but I was talking about the commodity market.

[Splinemodel]

How many PC apps actually use SSE3, or for that matter SSE at all? That's been around for years.

Who was the first with WiFi?
Who was the first with DVD Burners?
Who seems to be one of the only with DDR2?
Who was early to the HyperTransport bandwagon?
Who was early to encapsulate system LSI in general?

Sometimes technologies go straight to commodity status -- these are the times when the generic PC industry picks up quickly. For higher end technologies, though, the PC industry is rarely first, since it's so motivated by component cost. The only cases I can think of where Apple is not leaping for the latest and greatest are when they are bound by unfortunate hardware dependencies. The partnership with Intel should end this problem pretty easily, and I'm sure it's why they have it in the first place.

[Henriok]

Originally posted by Chucker
How fast were PC manufacturers with offering DVD burners? Apple was first by several months.

They were first to drop disk drives, legacy ports, the first to add Ethernet, Gbit Ethernet, auto sensing Ethernet, WLAN, Bluetooth, trackpads, DVI, ADC, dual screen support, DVD-RAM, Zip, axis-sensors, built in audio, high speed bus, boot from anything other than diskette or hard drive (cd, dvd, zip, external drives, netboot), Firewire and I've probably forgotten half of it.. Anyhoo.. Apple have done more innovation than any other PC vendor, probably more than all others combined. They havn't be anble to be first with everything but moving to Intel they pretty much can.

It's a good thing.

[wmf]

Originally posted by Outsider
They must be working with Apple on custom chipsets that only Apple would use.

There is no evidence of this. Remember that any product from any vendor that only Apple uses is by definition expensive because of the lack of volume.

How about working with Apple on developing a cross between SSE and VMX?

SSE and VMX are already 90% the same. If they got any more similar I wonder if anyone would notice.

[Gene Clean]

Originally posted by Henriok
They were first to drop disk drives, legacy ports, the first to add Ethernet, Gbit Ethernet, auto sensing Ethernet, WLAN, Bluetooth, trackpads, DVI, ADC, dual screen support, DVD-RAM, Zip, axis-sensors, built in audio, high speed bus, boot from anything other than diskette or hard drive (cd, dvd, zip, external drives, netboot), Firewire and I've probably forgotten half of it.. Anyhoo.. Apple have done more innovation than any other PC vendor, probably more than all others combined. They havn't be anble to be first with everything but moving to Intel they pretty much can.

It's a good thing.

Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation. They're all things others designed and Apple used in their computers. Just like everyone else.

And Apple being more innovative than other computer companies put together is laughable: First, there's no data to support such a sweeping statement, and second, 'PC vendor' is a very broad category, involving such things as your next-door neighbor selling $119 P2s.

Look no farther than IBM for the company with more innovations than Apple.

[Chucker]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation.

We weren't discussing that. We were discussing whether Apple was adopting industry innovations early or late, regardless of whether Apple or somone else developed them.

[melgross]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
Except that nothing in that long list of yours, apart from FireWire, is an Apple innovation. They're all things others designed and Apple used in their computers. Just like everyone else.

And Apple being more innovative than other computer companies put together is laughable: First, there's no data to support such a sweeping statement, and second, 'PC vendor' is a very broad category, involving such things as your next-door neighbor selling $119 P2s.

Look no farther than IBM for the company with more innovations than Apple.

You're right in that, basically. But it's also true that except in a few cases, with very small vendors, Apple was the first to use these technologies. That does count. Apple can't invent all of these things themselves.

What matters is that they recognize the usefullness of these before any other major competitor does.

Even with USB. Intel and Ms had introduced that way back when the ISA bus was still king, and Win 3.1 was still in effect.

They never got it working. It took Apple, with the first iMacs, to come up with a computer that had it working. MS was then embarrassed to the point that finally, in Win 98 2nd Edition, it became functional. Lucent even gave Apple credit for co-developing the first WiFi technologies.

In the mid '90's, Apple was the first to put cd players in their machines as standard in some of the lines, and then all of them. Other companies said that they were crazy. But that was important to the industry as a whole, once they realized the potential. My last install of Wordperfect was on 10 Hi density floppies. That just had to stop. The cd was considered to be one of the main reasons that home computer purchases led sales of business computers.

[Gene Clean]

Originally posted by Chucker
We weren't discussing that.

I wasn't referring to your discussion - I was referring to what Henriok equated to Apple's innovations.

[Gene Clean]

Apple can't invent all of these things themselves.

That's why this pissing contest is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who invented them (with all due respect to the inventors) in this case - all that matters is who gave them function and market penetration.

Apple, is up there in the list with some things, but with others, it's simply a follower.

[melgross]

Originally posted by Gene Clean
That's why this pissing contest is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who invented them (with all due respect to the inventors) in this case - all that matters is who gave them function and market penetration.

Apple, is up there in the list with some things, but with others, it's simply a follower.

Of course. But for a small company, they've done well with those introductions. I can't think of another computer company that has stuck their neck out as far and risked as much.

It's not a pissing contest Gene, it's just a discussion. The pissing comtest starts on Ars, with guys like T2k and others.

[TenoBell]

My feeling is that Intel won't release chips with Mac only technology. But what they may do is to release technology that only Apple supports. There is a difference. with the first, only Apple would have the chips, a semi-custom design. The second, everyone would get the chips, but only Apple would be using the new tech. This would give Apple an advantage. Other computer companies would then have to turn to MS and demand that they support it as well.

It will indeed be interesting what Apple and Intel will do. Steve Jobs is a maverick and I still don't see him following the computer industry at large.

And Intel will need a maverick alley in Apple to push its own technology and improve its instruction sets as AMD is on the move.

With the adoption of of its x64, AMD will advance its own proprietary instruction set that will only work on AMD processors and backward compatible with Intel's IA-32. AMD will have certification for applications "optimized for AMD64".

[wilco]

Originally posted by Chucker
Oh yeah? How fast were PC manufacturers with implementing EFI? They still haven't.

How fast were PC manufacturers with offering DVD burners? Apple was first by several months.

Someone's grasping at straws...

[sunilraman]

Originally posted by mcloki
Apple is always going to be the poster child for new tech. It's their thing. And if Intel has cool technology, Apple will be there to put a cool wrapper on it and sell it to the public.
It's a shame that Intel stopped their CMOS High definition TV set on a chip work. I'd have loved to see them part of an Apple home theatre set up.

Oh well maybe Apple can hook up with Canon or Toshiba and get a SED HDTV in the lineup. Those screens look to be hot and it's something Apple would do.

yes, yes. SED definitely has the technology and aesthetic elements that are very synergistic and attractive to apple.

[sunilraman]

Originally posted by Splinemodel
Cool. Go Intel. I would hope that this means that, somehow, we'll get some of the newer developments that will take much longer to hit PC mainstream given the much more cautious business model of that industry/market.

yeah, it's looking much better now. at least its a better partnership overall, than with IBM that wanted to sell apple more niche and more expensive high-end chip design, and freescale that was targeting entirely different markets/platforms than apple. the match was unlikely, but overall much better, with apple-intel than apple-freescale or apple-ibm. enough's enough with the moto/freescale/ibm foofarahh, let's see the true silicon valley mainstays get back to doing what they do best. and say hi to SGI as you pass them by

[Louzer]

Originally posted by melgross
Of course. But for a small company, they've done well with those introductions. I can't think of another computer company that has stuck their neck out as far and risked as much.

Apple a SMALL company? OK, I guess if your definition of small is any company that has revenues less then $10 Billion a year. Apple's one of the top-5 computer makers. They always have been (OK, they've always been top-10, I think they dropped to 7th a couple of years). Calling them small is kind of stretching things as well. The OS X marketshare is small, but as a company, Apple is large.

And let's not forget other forefronts Apple has taken the lead in. They've championed the ADC connector (oh, right, that didn't really go over too well). They're the first ones to basically cut their offerings to such a meager few that customers are forced to compromise when buying a computer ("Well, I have a monitor, so I can either get a pitifully outdated tech and get a mini, get an iMac, which is in my price range, but comes with a monitor I don't need, or pay more to get a tower so I can use my own monitor. Man, if only Apple were like any other company that sold what the customer needed, not just what it felt like.").

They've basically forced consumers into paying an arm and a leg for new computers, not just because they're expensive, but because they are so well known for their "Let's get rid of the legacy parts!" mantra that they force their userbase who upgrade to buy either new peripherals, or adapters that hopefully get their peripherals to work (dropping serial and ADB ports just to go straight to USB wasn't a masterstroke, it was a consumer annoyance, there's no way else to look at it). Oh, and, say, you had several peripherals that had a serial or SCSI ports on them (or the next big thing that apple dumps their stuff for), it sure would be nice if you could just get a PCI card and shove it in the computer to get back your functionality. But, oh wait, most macs come with no expansion slots!

And now anyone getting a new G5 tower has to go "Hey, do I need these PCI cards that I have in my current computer, because, guess what, they won't work in my new one!").

They've basically told their customers they don't care what they like, they'll do what they want, customers be damned. Apple dropped their computers from 6 to 3 PCI slots. Despite the uproar (and there was one), they've refused to sell a computer with more slots (oh, sorry, I think they might be up to 4 now). They've gone out of their way to make the biggest computer on the block, the G5 tower, that have less expandability then computers half its size. And they've basically said that the only people who need or WANT to upgrade video cards or other things are those same tower owners, for if you're too cheap to spend $2000 for a computer, you can forget about adding anything to it.

Yeah, Apple is great at doing stuff no other company would dream of doing (mainly because I think they worry about losing their customers to competitors, which Apple doesn't have to fear, as they have none that run their software).

[melgross]

Originally posted by Louzer
Apple a SMALL company? OK, I guess if your definition of small is any company that has revenues less then $10 Billion a year. Apple's one of the top-5 computer makers. They always have been (OK, they've always been top-10, I think they dropped to 7th a couple of years). Calling them small is kind of stretching things as well. The OS X marketshare is small, but as a company, Apple is large.

And let's not forget other forefronts Apple has taken the lead in. They've championed the ADC connector (oh, right, that didn't really go over too well). They're the first ones to basically cut their offerings to such a meager few that customers are forced to compromise when buying a computer ("Well, I have a monitor, so I can either get a pitifully outdated tech and get a mini, get an iMac, which is in my price range, but comes with a monitor I don't need, or pay more to get a tower so I can use my own monitor. Man, if only Apple were like any other company that sold what the customer needed, not just what it felt like.").

They've basically forced consumers into paying an arm and a leg for new computers, not just because they're expensive, but because they are so well known for their "Let's get rid of the legacy parts!" mantra that they force their userbase who upgrade to buy either new peripherals, or adapters that hopefully get their peripherals to work (dropping serial and ADB ports just to go straight to USB wasn't a masterstroke, it was a consumer annoyance, there's no way else to look at it). Oh, and, say, you had several peripherals that had a serial or SCSI ports on them (or the next big thing that apple dumps their stuff for), it sure would be nice if you could just get a PCI card and shove it in the computer to get back your functionality. But, oh wait, most macs come with no expansion slots!

And now anyone getting a new G5 tower has to go "Hey, do I need these PCI cards that I have in my current computer, because, guess what, they won't work in my new one!").

They've basically told their customers they don't care what they like, they'll do what they want, customers be damned. Apple dropped their computers from 6 to 3 PCI slots. Despite the uproar (and there was one), they've refused to sell a computer with more slots (oh, sorry, I think they might be up to 4 now). They've gone out of their way to make the biggest computer on the block, the G5 tower, that have less expandability then computers half its size. And they've basically said that the only people who need or WANT to upgrade video cards or other things are those same tower owners, for if you're too cheap to spend $2000 for a computer, you can forget about adding anything to it.

Yeah, Apple is great at doing stuff no other company would dream of doing (mainly because I think they worry about losing their customers to competitors, which Apple doesn't have to fear, as they have none that run their software).

They're not so small now, thankfully. But they were hovering around the $6 billion mark for a while. In this industry, that small for a leading company.

Inso far as cutting their models down, that was almost forced upon them. Apple had a lot more models than they have now. It was said publicly by many in the industry that one of Apple's biggest problems was that they had too many models, thus confusing customers. S, they cut it down.

Every time they come out with another model, Apple is criticized as going back to the bad old days of too many models. You should learn about this issue.

The all in one units are the biggest sellers that Apple makes. You complain about that? Obviously, people want an all in one unit. Of course, if you are a PC user, then the idea of this is upsetting. But as almost no PC users ever upgrade their machines, it's a ridiculous attitude to have.

And it's dumb to also complain about Apple going to Express without adding a second PCI bus as well. Only some PC makers who have gone to Express are doing that. Not letting go of ISA is what screwed plug n play for PC's. When they finally dropped it, everything started to work.

Yes, I would prefer to have a couple of extra slots on my towers, but it's not as big a deal as you are making it out to be.

I can't imagine why you are even here if you hate Apple and Mac's that much. Just stick to PC's. They obviously have everything you want.