You do understand that Apple spent untold millions of dollars to port it's OS to Intel, right? The benefit to Apple was it didn't have to play the which chip is faster game and worry about it's processor supplier being slower then Intel based chips. The move was expensive for both Apple and it's developers.
[/snip]
What millions?
OS X was originally NeXTStep, and the NeXT machines were X86...
Anything that was higher level code, like C, can just be recompiled.
Where they did spend money though, may just be routine maintenance.
On the other hand, the developer community as a whole did have to burn thru millions IF, and only IF they didn't keep Xcode at hand...developers that did, just recompiled their Cocoa code. It was reasonably seamless.
It has a lot to do with Intel. Apple isn't using Intel's Atom chipset in any of its products and those are used in many netbooks. ARM has focussed on mobile devices and Apple has created a new category that sits between a smart phone and a laptop with the iPad. They've bought a company that excellerates ARM processors. They definitely plan to use ARM and not Intel in future devices. ARM has multi-core proc designs and Apple apparently feels they are suitable for much larger devices - laptops includes.
Apple does not want to be dependant on any chip manufacturer anymore. Motorola, IBM, and Intel have all held-up Apple's progress (Atom failed for Apple's consumer device plans).
There are two lines. ARM is used for small mobile, and Intel for everything else.
You're talking about replacing Intel's chips with ARM. That's what you said in your post. How do you know what Apple "feels"?
x86 hardware and software are completely different from ARM hardware and software. When a couple of years from now ARM chips are 4 core and faster, x86 chips will be much faster as well.
You can't substitute an ARM device for an x86 one. Apple will make a more powerful device than the current iPad. That's a certainty. But it will be in addition. I need certain software. I can't use something else. But I'm buying an iPad for the something else to use in addition. It's for a different direction.
The iPad will be great for a lot of things, but not for others.
This is where it will be great, for example, and an area in which a Macbook won't serve (ignore the snotty remarks from posters):
OS X was originally NeXTStep, and the NeXT machines were X86...
Anything that was higher level code, like C, can just be recompiled.
Where they did spend money though, may just be routine maintenance.
On the other hand, the developer community as a whole did have to burn thru millions IF, and only IF they didn't keep Xcode at hand...developers that did, just recompiled their Cocoa code. It was reasonably seamless.
Dan
The first Next machines were PPC. Later, when they exited the hardware business (they never sold more than 50,000 machines in toto), because Apple wouldn't give them the info they needed to move the OS to Apple's machines (Be had the same problem after a while), they ported over to x86.
But it cost Apple many millions after buying Next for $400 million to maintain both architectures over the years.
But that won't matter much in the coming years. The iPad does not have bootcamp yet will still sell 10s of millions a year. If Apple made a Macbook that ran iPhone OS (probably wouldn't be called a Macbook) then that would be geared to consumers that are less likely to dual boot.
The ipad doesn't boot Windows but it can sync to Windows via iTunes.
The macbook with the iphone Os is here already and its the ipad.
I am pretty sure that for the next couple of years that's as close as we will see the iphone os running on/as a computer.
The first Next machines were PPC. Later, when they exited the hardware business (they never sold more than 50,000 machines in toto), because Apple wouldn't give them the info they needed to move the OS to Apple's machines (Be had the same problem after a while), they ported over to x86.
But it cost Apple many millions after buying Next for $400 million to maintain both architectures over the years.
Oops, sorry...
I checked, and yeah the magnesium NeXT cube was PPC.
But i had always thought that buying NeXT was a last resort move to save Apple, with among other things bringing back SJ, and buying whatever IP and talent that was there to be had.
So, i'd assumed OS X was sort of windfall, considering all the software already written for the old substandard MacOS, and not the main pursuit, and that it wasn't even useful on the PPC platform until it was ported.
It will be a long time, if ever, before Apple abandons X86 architecture. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that PC to Mac switching really only gained momentum when they dropped PowerPC in favor of Intel. Abandon Intel and the Mac business will shrivel up in about 13.5 seconds.
I would think it would be a pretty big antitrust issue for Apple to acquire ARM and potentially cut off (or make prohibitively expensive) licensing to all others. If Google did the same, people would be screaming bloody murder.
Although I don't agree this is going to happen (you don't see Apple running around buying up all of their hardware manufacturers do you?), I don't see anti-trust playing a part if this were to happen. There are plenty of alternatives to ARM processors.
This entire thread has been devoted almost exclusively to Apple's perspective. Almost no one except Warren East at ARM has expressed ARM's perspective - and even then no one here seems to be listening.
ARM is a gold mine and its people no doubt are very good and happy at what they're doing. Why would they want to work for an overlord like Apple who would only limit and confine their maneuvering room? ARM enjoys providing its IP to numerous customers. What's to gain from selling out? A lot of money and early retirement? Money certainly isn't an issue and early retirement doesn't exactly stimulate the creative intellect.
And even if money were relevant, why would you want to sell your gold mine when you may be on the verge of striking the mother lode?
This entire thread has been devoted almost exclusively to Apple's perspective. Almost no one except Warren East at ARM has expressed ARM's perspective - and even then no one here seems to be listening.
ARM is a gold mine and its people no doubt are very good and happy at what they're doing. Why would they want to work for an overlord like Apple who would only limit and confine their maneuvering room? ARM enjoys providing its IP to numerous customers. What's to gain from selling out? A lot of money and early retirement? Money certainly isn't an issue and early retirement doesn't exactly stimulate the creative intellect.
And even if money were relevant, why would you want to sell your gold mine when you may be on the verge of striking the mother lode?
Quite simple. Intel is aiming at the bullseye on ARM's back and as crappy as Intel is at deliver mobile class processors I wouldn't rule them out as far as having a solid entry in a few years.
This entire thread has been devoted almost exclusively to Apple's perspective. Almost no one except Warren East at ARM has expressed ARM's perspective - and even then no one here seems to be listening.......
A seemingly good point.
However, at the end of the day, a target company's blah blah is irrelevant, to some extent. There is a price at which Mr. East -- or anyone, for the matter -- will fold. That is the nature of the beast in the Anglo-American system of governance.
In today's market, a takeover is useful when one is looking to acquire market share or IP.
In Apple's case, I don't see them looking to acquire ARM's market because they are a consumer electronics company not a chip design company.
They do design chips. Apple did the northbridge and controller on the G5, they influenced all of the PowerPC designs, they designed the A4 as well. I'm sure there are others.
I was thinking maybe that server farm isn't a server farm after all. Perhaps they have something else in mind?
They do design chips. Apple did the northbridge and controller on the G5, they influenced all of the PowerPC designs, they designed the A4 as well. I'm sure there are others.
I was thinking maybe that server farm isn't a server farm after all. Perhaps they have something else in mind?
Yeah, Apple had their own desktop chips in the PPC (with help from Motorola and IBM I think) and look were they were in terms of market share. They are in a much better position today with Intel inside.
It has a lot to do with Intel. Apple isn't using Intel's Atom chipset in any of its products and those are used in many netbooks. ARM has focussed on mobile devices and Apple has created a new category that sits between a smart phone and a laptop with the iPad. They've bought a company that excellerates ARM processors. They definitely plan to use ARM and not Intel in future devices. ARM has multi-core proc designs and Apple apparently feels they are suitable for much larger devices - laptops includes.
Apple does not want to be dependant on any chip manufacturer anymore. Motorola, IBM, and Intel have all held-up Apple's progress (Atom failed for Apple's consumer device plans).
Exactly. And if intel purchased ARM and let it stagnate, what are the alternatives? It is ARM or Intel in that space. If Apple buys them, it's a smart play. Even if they do not run the company and keep everything as it is today. Not letting others control your future is smart. Even if I am sick of Apple and copying Microsoft's playbook. Personally hope it doesn't happen. I like ARM and do not want them apart of Apple, Intel, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, or the works. But, that stock has been undervalued for about 15 years. eMate?
Oh yeah, and one more thing. Remember that Apple's precious chip designers have government contracts. So, it might be in their best interest to keep that government contract. After all, they have to help the governments spy on people in more ways than just iphones.
Lol, maybe they are looking for global warming and need to design it into the chipset for Al.
Maybe they are looking for a way to mess with google and screw up a few instruction set timings.
or maybe they figure the dang company is undervalued and it's just a good dang investment. Better than leaving it in Federal Reserve Notes. Given Steve's government connections, I'm sure he knows it's time to play ball and spend $40 billion, or at least convert it to bullion.
Bundling Spiderman with the PSP is a smart move but forcing a new and proprietary disc format?
Content is king. Apple has a tremendous distribution platform in iTunes that seamlessly integrates with their mobile devices. At the moment, no other company can boast of this. If all the labels and the networks pull out of iTunes tomorrow, it's over. Of course this is unlikely but who knows? TV networks fear giving Apple too much control after what happened with the music industry and they will definitely do whatever they can to mitigate this risk.
This sounds more plausible than spending a few billions on a chip company that is in the business of licensing its technology...
I checked, and yeah the magnesium NeXT cube was PPC.
But i had always thought that buying NeXT was a last resort move to save Apple, with among other things bringing back SJ, and buying whatever IP and talent that was there to be had.
So, i'd assumed OS X was sort of windfall, considering all the software already written for the old substandard MacOS, and not the main pursuit, and that it wasn't even useful on the PPC platform until it was ported.
This kind of sets things straight...
Thanks
Dan
They really needed the OS. Copeland had failed, and they had nothing "modern" to replace it with. You know, pre-emptive multitasking, protected memory and so forth.
Comments
[snip]
You do understand that Apple spent untold millions of dollars to port it's OS to Intel, right? The benefit to Apple was it didn't have to play the which chip is faster game and worry about it's processor supplier being slower then Intel based chips. The move was expensive for both Apple and it's developers.
[/snip]
What millions?
OS X was originally NeXTStep, and the NeXT machines were X86...
Anything that was higher level code, like C, can just be recompiled.
Where they did spend money though, may just be routine maintenance.
On the other hand, the developer community as a whole did have to burn thru millions IF, and only IF they didn't keep Xcode at hand...developers that did, just recompiled their Cocoa code. It was reasonably seamless.
Dan
It has a lot to do with Intel. Apple isn't using Intel's Atom chipset in any of its products and those are used in many netbooks. ARM has focussed on mobile devices and Apple has created a new category that sits between a smart phone and a laptop with the iPad. They've bought a company that excellerates ARM processors. They definitely plan to use ARM and not Intel in future devices. ARM has multi-core proc designs and Apple apparently feels they are suitable for much larger devices - laptops includes.
Apple does not want to be dependant on any chip manufacturer anymore. Motorola, IBM, and Intel have all held-up Apple's progress (Atom failed for Apple's consumer device plans).
There are two lines. ARM is used for small mobile, and Intel for everything else.
You're talking about replacing Intel's chips with ARM. That's what you said in your post. How do you know what Apple "feels"?
x86 hardware and software are completely different from ARM hardware and software. When a couple of years from now ARM chips are 4 core and faster, x86 chips will be much faster as well.
You can't substitute an ARM device for an x86 one. Apple will make a more powerful device than the current iPad. That's a certainty. But it will be in addition. I need certain software. I can't use something else. But I'm buying an iPad for the something else to use in addition. It's for a different direction.
The iPad will be great for a lot of things, but not for others.
This is where it will be great, for example, and an area in which a Macbook won't serve (ignore the snotty remarks from posters):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHPmc...mbedded&fmt=22
And her site:http://www.destroythesilence.com/
What millions?
OS X was originally NeXTStep, and the NeXT machines were X86...
Anything that was higher level code, like C, can just be recompiled.
Where they did spend money though, may just be routine maintenance.
On the other hand, the developer community as a whole did have to burn thru millions IF, and only IF they didn't keep Xcode at hand...developers that did, just recompiled their Cocoa code. It was reasonably seamless.
Dan
The first Next machines were PPC. Later, when they exited the hardware business (they never sold more than 50,000 machines in toto), because Apple wouldn't give them the info they needed to move the OS to Apple's machines (Be had the same problem after a while), they ported over to x86.
But it cost Apple many millions after buying Next for $400 million to maintain both architectures over the years.
But that won't matter much in the coming years. The iPad does not have bootcamp yet will still sell 10s of millions a year. If Apple made a Macbook that ran iPhone OS (probably wouldn't be called a Macbook) then that would be geared to consumers that are less likely to dual boot.
The ipad doesn't boot Windows but it can sync to Windows via iTunes.
The macbook with the iphone Os is here already and its the ipad.
I am pretty sure that for the next couple of years that's as close as we will see the iphone os running on/as a computer.
The first Next machines were PPC. Later, when they exited the hardware business (they never sold more than 50,000 machines in toto), because Apple wouldn't give them the info they needed to move the OS to Apple's machines (Be had the same problem after a while), they ported over to x86.
But it cost Apple many millions after buying Next for $400 million to maintain both architectures over the years.
Oops, sorry...
I checked, and yeah the magnesium NeXT cube was PPC.
But i had always thought that buying NeXT was a last resort move to save Apple, with among other things bringing back SJ, and buying whatever IP and talent that was there to be had.
So, i'd assumed OS X was sort of windfall, considering all the software already written for the old substandard MacOS, and not the main pursuit, and that it wasn't even useful on the PPC platform until it was ported.
This kind of sets things straight...
Thanks
Dan
I am still not convinced it makes sense for Apple, and have not seen any good arguments so far.
Here's one:
...the company that licenses a majority of the world's mobile chip designs.
Hmm, if Apple owns ARM that means other companies can't license their technology. Right?
Here's one:
Hmm, if Apple owns ARM that means other companies can't license their technology. Right?
Very true, also means getting anal probed by the Eu at the first whiff of anti competitive behavior. I
I would think it would be a pretty big antitrust issue for Apple to acquire ARM and potentially cut off (or make prohibitively expensive) licensing to all others. If Google did the same, people would be screaming bloody murder.
Although I don't agree this is going to happen (you don't see Apple running around buying up all of their hardware manufacturers do you?), I don't see anti-trust playing a part if this were to happen. There are plenty of alternatives to ARM processors.
ARM is a gold mine and its people no doubt are very good and happy at what they're doing. Why would they want to work for an overlord like Apple who would only limit and confine their maneuvering room? ARM enjoys providing its IP to numerous customers. What's to gain from selling out? A lot of money and early retirement? Money certainly isn't an issue and early retirement doesn't exactly stimulate the creative intellect.
And even if money were relevant, why would you want to sell your gold mine when you may be on the verge of striking the mother lode?
This entire thread has been devoted almost exclusively to Apple's perspective. Almost no one except Warren East at ARM has expressed ARM's perspective - and even then no one here seems to be listening.
ARM is a gold mine and its people no doubt are very good and happy at what they're doing. Why would they want to work for an overlord like Apple who would only limit and confine their maneuvering room? ARM enjoys providing its IP to numerous customers. What's to gain from selling out? A lot of money and early retirement? Money certainly isn't an issue and early retirement doesn't exactly stimulate the creative intellect.
And even if money were relevant, why would you want to sell your gold mine when you may be on the verge of striking the mother lode?
Quite simple. Intel is aiming at the bullseye on ARM's back and as crappy as Intel is at deliver mobile class processors I wouldn't rule them out as far as having a solid entry in a few years.
This entire thread has been devoted almost exclusively to Apple's perspective. Almost no one except Warren East at ARM has expressed ARM's perspective - and even then no one here seems to be listening.......
A seemingly good point.
However, at the end of the day, a target company's blah blah is irrelevant, to some extent. There is a price at which Mr. East -- or anyone, for the matter -- will fold. That is the nature of the beast in the Anglo-American system of governance.
In today's market, a takeover is useful when one is looking to acquire market share or IP.
In Apple's case, I don't see them looking to acquire ARM's market because they are a consumer electronics company not a chip design company.
They do design chips. Apple did the northbridge and controller on the G5, they influenced all of the PowerPC designs, they designed the A4 as well. I'm sure there are others.
I was thinking maybe that server farm isn't a server farm after all. Perhaps they have something else in mind?
They do design chips. Apple did the northbridge and controller on the G5, they influenced all of the PowerPC designs, they designed the A4 as well. I'm sure there are others.
I was thinking maybe that server farm isn't a server farm after all. Perhaps they have something else in mind?
Yeah, Apple had their own desktop chips in the PPC (with help from Motorola and IBM I think) and look were they were in terms of market share. They are in a much better position today with Intel inside.
It has a lot to do with Intel. Apple isn't using Intel's Atom chipset in any of its products and those are used in many netbooks. ARM has focussed on mobile devices and Apple has created a new category that sits between a smart phone and a laptop with the iPad. They've bought a company that excellerates ARM processors. They definitely plan to use ARM and not Intel in future devices. ARM has multi-core proc designs and Apple apparently feels they are suitable for much larger devices - laptops includes.
Apple does not want to be dependant on any chip manufacturer anymore. Motorola, IBM, and Intel have all held-up Apple's progress (Atom failed for Apple's consumer device plans).
Exactly. And if intel purchased ARM and let it stagnate, what are the alternatives? It is ARM or Intel in that space. If Apple buys them, it's a smart play. Even if they do not run the company and keep everything as it is today. Not letting others control your future is smart. Even if I am sick of Apple and copying Microsoft's playbook. Personally hope it doesn't happen. I like ARM and do not want them apart of Apple, Intel, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, or the works. But, that stock has been undervalued for about 15 years. eMate?
Lol, maybe they are looking for global warming and need to design it into the chipset for Al.
Maybe they are looking for a way to mess with google and screw up a few instruction set timings.
or maybe they figure the dang company is undervalued and it's just a good dang investment. Better than leaving it in Federal Reserve Notes.
Ah.... the Sony, Comcast, AOL, etc logic.
Well obviously Sony is not the shining example
Bundling Spiderman with the PSP is a smart move but forcing a new and proprietary disc format?
Content is king. Apple has a tremendous distribution platform in iTunes that seamlessly integrates with their mobile devices. At the moment, no other company can boast of this. If all the labels and the networks pull out of iTunes tomorrow, it's over. Of course this is unlikely but who knows? TV networks fear giving Apple too much control after what happened with the music industry and they will definitely do whatever they can to mitigate this risk.
This sounds more plausible than spending a few billions on a chip company that is in the business of licensing its technology...
Oops, sorry...
I checked, and yeah the magnesium NeXT cube was PPC.
But i had always thought that buying NeXT was a last resort move to save Apple, with among other things bringing back SJ, and buying whatever IP and talent that was there to be had.
So, i'd assumed OS X was sort of windfall, considering all the software already written for the old substandard MacOS, and not the main pursuit, and that it wasn't even useful on the PPC platform until it was ported.
This kind of sets things straight...
Thanks
Dan
They really needed the OS. Copeland had failed, and they had nothing "modern" to replace it with. You know, pre-emptive multitasking, protected memory and so forth.
Here's one:
Hmm, if Apple owns ARM that means other companies can't license their technology. Right?
We've rehashed that argument into the ground. Not happening.