Apple decides to make its own chips either through a joint venture or going it alone.
That's not jaw dropping either. We all know they bought PA Semi for 350 million. Ihnatko clearly said this is something new, well he insinuated that. It doesn't matter who makes the chips frankly, what matters is the hardware, what wows is something revolutionary. A full Cocoa touch layer on top of Snow Leopard running on an Apple tablet, that would be wow. That would be "NO WAY!!!".
"NO WAY!!!" would be like the reaction the first iPhone got from people. "NO WAY!!!" isn't a chip. "NO WAY!!!" is something "really big", metaphorically. Maybe in Andy's world, no way is a great Mac mini, but that was the main rumor at the time when he said this is a new rumor.
All I know is I'm about to buy a MacBook Air soon, so if this tablet is coming, it better hurry up!
We know Apple 'rolls their own' soon for the iPhone / iPod ARM chips.
But what if they were to do the same with Intel chips? Hmm...
Instead of 6 cores on one CPU, stick with 4 but use that other area to incorporate a GPU, memory controller, etc. System on a chip, but high-end. Allows for really tiny (and cheap) motherboards...
Not sure though whether Intel or NVidia would rent out their designs for SOC.
I guess the only 2 big announcements that would elicit a 'NO WAY!!!' from me would be:
a) Apple abandon Intel and moving back to PowerPC / Cell CPUs.
b) Apple selling OSX Snow Leopard for non-Apple hardware, going head-on against Windows 7.
One thing we can rule out, I think, is some kind of employment of exotic new tech, like flexible or folding screens.
Why? Because Apple never does that. They take parts that are pretty solidly in the mainstream, figure out interesting ways to assemble them (with an emphasis on smaller and some clever engineering flourishes for the mechanicals), and marry that to genuinely innovative software.
The one place where they seem oddly fixate on pushing the envelope is when it comes to ports, endlessly dicking around with proprietary/not widely adopted connectors. Some weird quirk of Steve's, no doubt.
But as far as screens and drives and CPUs and whatever neat things are recently out of the labs? Forget it. We'll have seen whatever cool new stuff is around on that count in non-Apple machines for quite some time before Steve decides to incorporate it into one of his machines.
EDIT: I just remember Apple got Intel to slip them some CPU goodness a little early, a while back, so I guess they occasionally get a head of the curve.
EDIT: I just remember Apple got Intel to slip them some CPU goodness a little early, a while back, so I guess they occasionally get a head of the curve.
Um...that was a tried and true with different packaging wasn't it?
Um...that was a tried and true with different packaging wasn't it?
Right, the smaller LV Merom Intel apparently produced for the Air. Still, Apple got a hold of (demanded?) it before it was generally available, so they're not always late to the CPU party if they have a compelling reason. Unfortunately for some users, that reason is almost never "more power" and almost always has something to do with "smaller", which is clearly why they switched to Intel in the first place.
Right, the smaller LV Merom Intel apparently produced for the Air. Still, Apple got a hold of (demanded?) it before it was generally available, so they're not always late to the CPU party if they have a compelling reason. Unfortunately for some users, that reason is almost never "more power" and almost always has something to do with "smaller", which is clearly why they switched to Intel in the first place.
Well, there was also that 3Ghz Xeon too for the Mac Pro. Was it 3Ghz or a little higher? Anyway for a month or two there were the fastest Xeon boxes made.
I'm not a reader of this guy, so can anyone confirm whether or not he's been accurate or not over the past? I just want to know if he's a credible journalist or a blogging fanboy.
I don't know if he's accurate or not, but the sound of his voice (on the Macbreak Weekly podcast) makes me want to punch him.
Well, there was also that 3Ghz Xeon too for the Mac Pro. Was it 3Ghz or a little higher? Anyway for a month or two there were the fastest Xeon boxes made.
Yeah. They should do that more. Trouble is, even when they get out of the gate early, they tend to sit pat for so long they still end up with pretty long in the tooth components before they get around to refreshing.
We know Apple 'rolls their own' soon for the iPhone / iPod ARM chips.
But what if they were to do the same with Intel chips? Hmm...
Instead of 6 cores on one CPU, stick with 4 but use that other area to incorporate a GPU, memory controller, etc. System on a chip, but high-end. Allows for really tiny (and cheap) motherboards...
Not sure though whether Intel or NVidia would rent out their designs for SOC.
I guess the only 2 big announcements that would elicit a 'NO WAY!!!' from me would be:
a) Apple abandon Intel and moving back to PowerPC / Cell CPUs.
You have to remember here, that we need to account for two things:
a 'NO WAY!!!' response, and also
'fist-pumping excitement
While returning to PowerPC would produce the former, it won't product the latter. More like jaw-dropping astonishment.
Quote:
b) Apple selling OSX Snow Leopard for non-Apple hardware, going head-on against Windows 7.
Now that could account for both responses. I'm just guessing, that if this was in the works, they would not have gone after Psystar in court.
You have to remember here, that we need to account for two things:
a 'NO WAY!!!' response, and also
'fist-pumping excitement
While returning to PowerPC would produce the former, it won't product the latter. More like jaw-dropping astonishment.
Now that could account for both responses. I'm just guessing, that if this was in the works, they would not have gone after Psystar in court.
They won't. Apple will never...
If I know Apple, if they did ever decide to allow computer makers to run OS X, they would be selective. Say Sony etc. Very selective to start with. And they have a list of things these companies would have to stick to, only allowed on certain models, above a certain price etc. We'll see, I have my doubts, but I'd never say never.
The question is whether buying adobe would be considered rumored or not. Certainly, plenty of folks TALK about it but actual rumor of Apple buying Adobe?
Borderline.
But I'd have a happy grin if it were true. Apple would lock in a critical market securely for the next decade.
Still, quite a bit of $$$ to do so. I prefer if they bought Sun but that's not a happy grin act.
Say what you want, but when I read this I thought, "this is something amazing, and new". He was told about something, not shown something. Someone can't tell you something about Snow Leopard and get that response. I'm expecting something big.
But isn't someone always saying these things at some point or other? Remember the elaborate 'brick' rumor that merely turned out to be that the laptops were carved out of blocks of aluminium. We had all sorts of crazy rumors going on there.
It seems the less information people give, the more important it is to some. How about the Mac community starts implementing a policy whereby if we don't get any solid and meaningful information that we just ignore everything until we do.
Otherwise, the best that's going to happen is that all but one of the ideas will actually happen and it's been largely a waste of time talking about it. We keep talking about the same stuff year after year and Apple continue to churn out events ranging between lame and mediocre.
The following kinda sums up how I feel too:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phong
If they can't update the Mini or deliver a decent headless Mac, nothing else matters.
Though their pro software needs a good seeing to as well.
The reality is that the Mini is nearing two years since an update, the tablet has taken so long that 3rd parties are buying machines from Apple and modifying them, Apple's pro software is growing mould and they have the audacity to put Phil Schiller in front of us and blab for an hour about iwork. I am already saying 'No way' because I can't believe how absolutely terrible their performance has been in the past few years.
Now I'm judging their performance from my own expectations not from how their company is performing financially and they may very well be working on something that will blow us away but I would say that I should damn well hope so because if they aren't then they will just move one more notch down the ladder towards irrelevance. Towards a company built on hype and no delivery. The iphone is the single exception of course.
I think an important part of a rumor is not so much what but when. I'd like to know when something big is supposed to be announced so that we know what is most likely to happen and whether it's worth waiting for. What if the thing he supposedly heard isn't being announced until WWDC?
All I have to say right here is I heard some info that Apple will deliver something amazing.
No timeframes, no suggestions and then when Apple does do something, I can sit back and say 'told you so'. People who do that don't deserve any recognition.
The real problem (for the Mac fan base, at least) is that Apple isn't judged by what they actually do but by how far they fall short of completely baseless imagining.
So we've got a bunch of "Apple enthusiasts" who are forever in a state of semi-outrage that Apple "refused" to make made up product x, or is "falling hopelessly behind" because they didn't jump into product segment y (despite the fact that we were very clear that we really wanted them to!), or is "resting on their laurels" because some product refresh hasn't occurred when the internet decides it should.
It happens over and over again, the rumor mills get cranking, nothing comes of it, Apple gets blamed for "letting us down", and there is much dark muttering about how Apple is losing its edge or Steve has gone senile or some nonsense. Apple has been losing its edge for as long as I can remember, according to the legions of pundits.
By any reasonable measure, Apple has been on an amazing run. The iPhone/Touch platform has seemingly limitless potential, Snow Leopard bodes to be a significant enhancement of OS X, with better performance and stability on existing hardware, the current laptops are the best Apple has ever made (barring some caveats about glossy screens and lack of firewire), and we can certainly expect refreshes of the iMac, Mini, and Powermac in the near future. There are also, no doubt, some really interesting, exciting new products that we don't know about in the pipeline, which at some point will be revealed.
No, Apple doesn't have a netbook, at the moment, and there are the usual concerns that they are "pricing themselves out of the market" in bad economic times, but when has that not been a rap on Apple? Doesn't seem to have cramped their style so far, and if sales plummet they have a lot of cash on hand to give themselves some wiggle room on margins.
Comments
Apple decides to make its own chips either through a joint venture or going it alone.
Apple decides to make its own chips either through a joint venture or going it alone.
That's not jaw dropping either. We all know they bought PA Semi for 350 million. Ihnatko clearly said this is something new, well he insinuated that. It doesn't matter who makes the chips frankly, what matters is the hardware, what wows is something revolutionary. A full Cocoa touch layer on top of Snow Leopard running on an Apple tablet, that would be wow. That would be "NO WAY!!!".
"NO WAY!!!" would be like the reaction the first iPhone got from people. "NO WAY!!!" isn't a chip. "NO WAY!!!" is something "really big", metaphorically. Maybe in Andy's world, no way is a great Mac mini, but that was the main rumor at the time when he said this is a new rumor.
All I know is I'm about to buy a MacBook Air soon, so if this tablet is coming, it better hurry up!
But what if they were to do the same with Intel chips? Hmm...
Instead of 6 cores on one CPU, stick with 4 but use that other area to incorporate a GPU, memory controller, etc. System on a chip, but high-end. Allows for really tiny (and cheap) motherboards...
Not sure though whether Intel or NVidia would rent out their designs for SOC.
I guess the only 2 big announcements that would elicit a 'NO WAY!!!' from me would be:
a) Apple abandon Intel and moving back to PowerPC / Cell CPUs.
b) Apple selling OSX Snow Leopard for non-Apple hardware, going head-on against Windows 7.
Neither of the 2 will happen likely. Won't they?
Why? Because Apple never does that. They take parts that are pretty solidly in the mainstream, figure out interesting ways to assemble them (with an emphasis on smaller and some clever engineering flourishes for the mechanicals), and marry that to genuinely innovative software.
The one place where they seem oddly fixate on pushing the envelope is when it comes to ports, endlessly dicking around with proprietary/not widely adopted connectors. Some weird quirk of Steve's, no doubt.
But as far as screens and drives and CPUs and whatever neat things are recently out of the labs? Forget it. We'll have seen whatever cool new stuff is around on that count in non-Apple machines for quite some time before Steve decides to incorporate it into one of his machines.
EDIT: I just remember Apple got Intel to slip them some CPU goodness a little early, a while back, so I guess they occasionally get a head of the curve.
EDIT: I just remember Apple got Intel to slip them some CPU goodness a little early, a while back, so I guess they occasionally get a head of the curve.
Um...that was a tried and true with different packaging wasn't it?
Nah. But I'd guess there's be a good amount of fist pumping if it happened and it'd be "Mini who?"
Andy's conversation:
Informant: "Mini blah blah blah, MBP 17" blah blah blah, Snow Leopard blah blah blah. Oh, and we just entered negotiations to buy Adobe"
Andy: "NO WAY!". Happy Grin.
---
Amusingly, Sony's market cap is a mere 23B. That wouldn't elicit a Happy Grin as much as a WTF?
Hey, nVidia is a mere 4B. Kinda of a yawner though and not as good a match as Adobe.
jeez...Apple could buy Sun who's market cap ($3.3B) is only $1B more than their cash on hand ($2.5B). AMD is down to 1.53B.
Apple buys AMD and nVidia...cornering the market on GPUs.
Um...that was a tried and true with different packaging wasn't it?
Right, the smaller LV Merom Intel apparently produced for the Air. Still, Apple got a hold of (demanded?) it before it was generally available, so they're not always late to the CPU party if they have a compelling reason. Unfortunately for some users, that reason is almost never "more power" and almost always has something to do with "smaller", which is clearly why they switched to Intel in the first place.
I don't care if it's a Tablet MacPhone nano that shoots photon torpedoes. Screw Apple for ignoring its core competency.
Right, the smaller LV Merom Intel apparently produced for the Air. Still, Apple got a hold of (demanded?) it before it was generally available, so they're not always late to the CPU party if they have a compelling reason. Unfortunately for some users, that reason is almost never "more power" and almost always has something to do with "smaller", which is clearly why they switched to Intel in the first place.
Well, there was also that 3Ghz Xeon too for the Mac Pro. Was it 3Ghz or a little higher? Anyway for a month or two there were the fastest Xeon boxes made.
I'm not a reader of this guy, so can anyone confirm whether or not he's been accurate or not over the past? I just want to know if he's a credible journalist or a blogging fanboy.
I don't know if he's accurate or not, but the sound of his voice (on the Macbreak Weekly podcast) makes me want to punch him.
Well Adobe's market cap ($12.6B) is under Apple's war chest in cash and about half when including short term investments.
Nah. But I'd guess there's be a good amount of fist pumping if it happened and it'd be "Mini who?"
Andy's conversation:
Informant: "Mini blah blah blah, MBP 17" blah blah blah, Snow Leopard blah blah blah. Oh, and we just entered negotiations to buy Adobe"
Andy: "NO WAY!". Happy Grin.
---
Amusingly, Sony's market cap is a mere 23B. That wouldn't elicit a Happy Grin as much as a WTF?
Hey, nVidia is a mere 4B. Kinda of a yawner though and not as good a match as Adobe.
jeez...Apple could buy Sun who's market cap ($3.3B) is only $1B more than their cash on hand ($2.5B). AMD is down to 1.53B.
Apple buys AMD and nVidia...cornering the market on GPUs.
That's a good post.
Well, there was also that 3Ghz Xeon too for the Mac Pro. Was it 3Ghz or a little higher? Anyway for a month or two there were the fastest Xeon boxes made.
Yeah. They should do that more. Trouble is, even when they get out of the gate early, they tend to sit pat for so long they still end up with pretty long in the tooth components before they get around to refreshing.
We know Apple 'rolls their own' soon for the iPhone / iPod ARM chips.
But what if they were to do the same with Intel chips? Hmm...
Instead of 6 cores on one CPU, stick with 4 but use that other area to incorporate a GPU, memory controller, etc. System on a chip, but high-end. Allows for really tiny (and cheap) motherboards...
Not sure though whether Intel or NVidia would rent out their designs for SOC.
I guess the only 2 big announcements that would elicit a 'NO WAY!!!' from me would be:
a) Apple abandon Intel and moving back to PowerPC / Cell CPUs.
You have to remember here, that we need to account for two things:
- a 'NO WAY!!!' response, and also
- 'fist-pumping excitement
While returning to PowerPC would produce the former, it won't product the latter. More like jaw-dropping astonishment.b) Apple selling OSX Snow Leopard for non-Apple hardware, going head-on against Windows 7.
Now that could account for both responses. I'm just guessing, that if this was in the works, they would not have gone after Psystar in court.
Neither of the 2 will happen likely. Won't they?
They won't. Apple will never...
You have to remember here, that we need to account for two things:
- a 'NO WAY!!!' response, and also
- 'fist-pumping excitement
While returning to PowerPC would produce the former, it won't product the latter. More like jaw-dropping astonishment.Now that could account for both responses. I'm just guessing, that if this was in the works, they would not have gone after Psystar in court.
They won't. Apple will never...
If I know Apple, if they did ever decide to allow computer makers to run OS X, they would be selective. Say Sony etc. Very selective to start with. And they have a list of things these companies would have to stick to, only allowed on certain models, above a certain price etc. We'll see, I have my doubts, but I'd never say never.
OSX as an Ubuntu distro (i.e. as Kubuntu is one)*
i7 and Itanium chipsets taking over from Core2 and Xeon due to the 64bit direction
Apple plug-in hybrid powertrain or even full vehicle working with, say, Tesla or PML Flightlink?
* the iPhone might be the show stopper here
That's not new ... it's called an iPhone (or iPod Touch.)
Oh, the iPhone's fantastic, but I'd echo the comments about the screen size.
I think integrated services and a slab o' glass of twice the size would be really getting there.
That's a good post.
The question is whether buying adobe would be considered rumored or not. Certainly, plenty of folks TALK about it but actual rumor of Apple buying Adobe?
Borderline.
But I'd have a happy grin if it were true. Apple would lock in a critical market securely for the next decade.
Still, quite a bit of $$$ to do so. I prefer if they bought Sun but that's not a happy grin act.
If they can't update the Mini or deliver a decent headless Mac, nothing else matters.
I don't care if it's a Tablet MacPhone nano that shoots photon torpedoes. Screw Apple for ignoring its core competency.
"headless Mac" gets my vote, but it will never happen, ever.
Say what you want, but when I read this I thought, "this is something amazing, and new". He was told about something, not shown something. Someone can't tell you something about Snow Leopard and get that response. I'm expecting something big.
But isn't someone always saying these things at some point or other? Remember the elaborate 'brick' rumor that merely turned out to be that the laptops were carved out of blocks of aluminium. We had all sorts of crazy rumors going on there.
It seems the less information people give, the more important it is to some. How about the Mac community starts implementing a policy whereby if we don't get any solid and meaningful information that we just ignore everything until we do.
Otherwise, the best that's going to happen is that all but one of the ideas will actually happen and it's been largely a waste of time talking about it. We keep talking about the same stuff year after year and Apple continue to churn out events ranging between lame and mediocre.
The following kinda sums up how I feel too:
If they can't update the Mini or deliver a decent headless Mac, nothing else matters.
Though their pro software needs a good seeing to as well.
The reality is that the Mini is nearing two years since an update, the tablet has taken so long that 3rd parties are buying machines from Apple and modifying them, Apple's pro software is growing mould and they have the audacity to put Phil Schiller in front of us and blab for an hour about iwork. I am already saying 'No way' because I can't believe how absolutely terrible their performance has been in the past few years.
Now I'm judging their performance from my own expectations not from how their company is performing financially and they may very well be working on something that will blow us away but I would say that I should damn well hope so because if they aren't then they will just move one more notch down the ladder towards irrelevance. Towards a company built on hype and no delivery. The iphone is the single exception of course.
I think an important part of a rumor is not so much what but when. I'd like to know when something big is supposed to be announced so that we know what is most likely to happen and whether it's worth waiting for. What if the thing he supposedly heard isn't being announced until WWDC?
All I have to say right here is I heard some info that Apple will deliver something amazing.
No timeframes, no suggestions and then when Apple does do something, I can sit back and say 'told you so'. People who do that don't deserve any recognition.
So we've got a bunch of "Apple enthusiasts" who are forever in a state of semi-outrage that Apple "refused" to make made up product x, or is "falling hopelessly behind" because they didn't jump into product segment y (despite the fact that we were very clear that we really wanted them to!), or is "resting on their laurels" because some product refresh hasn't occurred when the internet decides it should.
It happens over and over again, the rumor mills get cranking, nothing comes of it, Apple gets blamed for "letting us down", and there is much dark muttering about how Apple is losing its edge or Steve has gone senile or some nonsense. Apple has been losing its edge for as long as I can remember, according to the legions of pundits.
By any reasonable measure, Apple has been on an amazing run. The iPhone/Touch platform has seemingly limitless potential, Snow Leopard bodes to be a significant enhancement of OS X, with better performance and stability on existing hardware, the current laptops are the best Apple has ever made (barring some caveats about glossy screens and lack of firewire), and we can certainly expect refreshes of the iMac, Mini, and Powermac in the near future. There are also, no doubt, some really interesting, exciting new products that we don't know about in the pipeline, which at some point will be revealed.
No, Apple doesn't have a netbook, at the moment, and there are the usual concerns that they are "pricing themselves out of the market" in bad economic times, but when has that not been a rap on Apple? Doesn't seem to have cramped their style so far, and if sales plummet they have a lot of cash on hand to give themselves some wiggle room on margins.