Intel-based Macs coming soon?

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal on Saturday confirmed CNET's report, stating that an industry executive "familiar with the matter" verified the schedule outlined in the story.



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Following weeks of speculation, a new report on CNET News.com suggests that will Apple use next week's World Wide Developers Conference to announce a transition to Intel-based Macs.



Apple chief executive Steve Jobs will announce a phased transition to Intel-based microprocessors after what has been an increasingly rocky relationship with IBM.



According to the report, Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007.



Steve Jobs is scheduled to deliver the opening keynote at WWDC on June 6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The week-long gathering includes in-depth technical sessions, hands-on labs, and other special events. The conference poses an ideal opportunity to announce such a controversial transition.



"The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor," CNET's Stephen Shankland wrote.



Friday's report follows weeks of speculation sparked by a Wall Street Journal article published last month suggesting Apple was considering moving to Intel-based Macs.



While the Journal report generated a buzz in the industry, it was met with much skepticism from analysts and Mac fans. According to the WSJ, a partnership with Intel might help Apple become more competitive in the personal computer industry by reducing the cost of Macs and allowing the company to deliver faster Macs with shorter intervals between product refreshes.



A move away from the PowerPC platform would help Apple remain competitive with Intel-based PCs, which have historically touted faster microprocessors, according to some analysts. And while a faster processor does not necessarily correlate to better performance, periodic refreshes of PCs with higher clock rates have helped drive computer sales.



When the Power Mac G5 debuted in 2003, hopes were high for Apple's partnership with IBM. Apple had found a way out of its frustrating reliance on Motorola (now Freescale), which had been the primary supplier of PowerPC chips. Apple turned to IBM -- one third of the AIM (Apple-IBM-Motorola) alliance -- for a much-needed new generation of PowerPC processors.



At WWDC 2003, Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented the Power Mac G5, with IBM PowerPC processors running as fast as 2.0GHz. At the time, it appeared Apple had a fighting chance in the so-called gigahertz wars with Intel and AMD. IBM promised 3.0GHz G5 processors by WWDC 2004, with even faster chips expected in 2005.



Unfortunately, two years later, IBM is still unable to deliver a 3.0GHz processor for Apple. The fastest Power Mac G5, announced in April, approaches that milestone with two processors running at 2.7GHz. Many Mac enthusiasts, however, feel the latest update is too little, too late.



While most users and analysts credit the G5 as worthy competitor to processors from Intel and AMD, there is much frustration in the Mac community about inconsistent update cycles and product availability. If Apple transitions to Intel processors, it will mark the end to one long-standing love-hate relationship, but perhaps the start to another.



Drop us a line if you are attending WWDC.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 433
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    What IF it's not X86 but Intel manufacturing a PPC ISA chip of Apple's design?
  • Reply 2 of 433
    amac4meamac4me Posts: 282member
    I think it's wise that we all keep cool and wait for WWDC to see if this story is true. Who knows, this may be related to a Mac Tablet of some sort.
  • Reply 3 of 433
    insliderinslider Posts: 86member
    Hah. If this turns out to be true, I'll enjoy a good laugh at the expense of the "ain't never gonna happen" numbnut knee-jerk dogpilers.
  • Reply 4 of 433
    bandalaybandalay Posts: 116member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by inslider

    Hah. If this turns out to be true, I'll enjoy a good laugh at the expense of the "ain't never gonna happen" numbnut knee-jerk dogpilers.



    And if it turns out to be false we'll continue to think of you as the snide prick we always knew you were.
  • Reply 5 of 433
    insliderinslider Posts: 86member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bandalay

    And if it turns out to be false we'll continue to think of you as the snide prick we always knew you were.



    That's a silly thing to say, since I rarely post here...
  • Reply 6 of 433
    C'est incroyable! It will be a busy weekend for the news crews!
  • Reply 7 of 433
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Outsider

    What IF it's not X86 but Intel manufacturing a PPC ISA chip of Apple's design?



    There's no point in Intel doing this. Intel works purely on economy of scale. They've already said they'll only work with Apple if it makes economic sense. Making PowerPC chips for Apple never seems to make any chip companies a lot of money.



    I could, on an outside shot, see Intel licensing Altivec from Apple, but even that is a long shot.
  • Reply 8 of 433
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Booga

    There's no point in Intel doing this. Intel works purely on economy of scale. They've already said they'll only work with Apple if it makes economic sense. Making PowerPC chips for Apple never seems to make any chip companies a lot of money.



    I could, on an outside shot, see Intel licensing Altivec from Apple, but even that is a long shot.




    I agree, I was trying to come up with a believable scenario, even though it's improbable.



    It may end up being Xscale for some other project Apple is working on and CNET got it almost right.
  • Reply 9 of 433
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Well, if they are making a switch, WWDC is the time to announce it seeing as many software developers will be there.
  • Reply 10 of 433
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    holy sh1t if this is true this is teh bomb...!!

    apple is sending a clear signal, "we are going to play ball".



    ALL YOUR MARKETSHARE ARE NO LONGER BELONG TO MICROSOFTEL





    this is where i get on my soap box and say, i've been f8cking telling you all, everything is sweet with apple, except their CPU pipeline strategy, which has been f8cked.



    and i have said repeatedly that people are teh dumb:

    1. they don't realise how fast the g5 chip is

    2. the GHZ myth is alive and well

    3. the Gflops myth is alive and well

    4. people want dual-core g5, even though a dual-g5 2.7ghz is out there people are clamouring for a dual-core or single-core 3ghz g5 that's affordable

    5. well, we can't blame them

    6. xbox360 and playstation3 have faster clock speeds and more cores than the top-of-the-line 'power mac', so apples suck

    7. i don't agree with no.6, but i'm saying that's what could happen







    .....................

    (my brain has melted due to various stresses this past month so i am degenerating into pseudo-leetspeak)
  • Reply 11 of 433
    9secondko9secondko Posts: 929member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sunilraman

    holy ---- if this is true this is teh bomb...!!

    apple is sending a clear signal, "we are going to play ball".



    ALL YOUR MARKETSHARE ARE NO LONGER BELONG TO MICROSOFTEL





    this is where i get on my soap box and say, i've been ---- telling you all, everything is sweet with apple, except their CPU pipeline strategy, which has been ----.



    and i have said repeatedly that people are teh dumb:

    1. they don't realise how fast the g5 chip is

    2. the GHZ myth is alive and well

    3. the Gflops myth is alive and well

    4. people want dual-core g5, even though a dual-g5 2.7ghz is out there people are clamouring for a dual-core or single-core 3ghz g5 that's affordable

    5. well, we can't blame them

    6. xbox360 and playstation3 have faster clock speeds and more cores than the top-of-the-line 'power mac', so apples suck

    7. i don't agree with no.6, but i'm saying that's what could happen







    .....................

    (my brain has melted due to various stresses this past month so i am degenerating into pseudo-leetspeak)






    Dude, please return to your normal, intelligent sounding self... SOON! The fake cursing kind of ruins the AI experience. It almost sounds like someone stole your password for a few days and is pretending to be you. Normally, you sound very educated.
  • Reply 12 of 433
    rolorolo Posts: 686member
    If Apple's going with Intel, it won't be just for a chip, it'll be for a chipset, a whole logic board. Itanium, Opteron and beyond? Maybe, but that won't be until 2 years from now for the PM. Wait, it won't be called the Power Mac then because it won't be using IBM's Power architecture then.



    What would the Mac mini use? Celeron? Centrino? Centavo?
  • Reply 13 of 433
    chagichagi Posts: 284member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sunilraman

    holy sh1t if this is true this is teh bomb...!!

    apple is sending a clear signal, "we are going to play ball".



    ALL YOUR MARKETSHARE ARE NO LONGER BELONG TO MICROSOFTEL





    this is where i get on my soap box and say, i've been f8cking telling you all, everything is sweet with apple, except their CPU pipeline strategy, which has been f8cked.



    and i have said repeatedly that people are teh dumb:

    1. they don't realise how fast the g5 chip is

    2. the GHZ myth is alive and well

    3. the Gflops myth is alive and well

    4. people want dual-core g5, even though a dual-g5 2.7ghz is out there people are clamouring for a dual-core or single-core 3ghz g5 that's affordable

    5. well, we can't blame them

    6. xbox360 and playstation3 have faster clock speeds and more cores than the top-of-the-line 'power mac', so apples suck

    7. i don't agree with no.6, but i'm saying that's what could happen







    .....................

    (my brain has melted due to various stresses this past month so i am degenerating into pseudo-leetspeak)




    Something to keep in mind though is that both AMD and Intel have really hit a wall lately in terms of CPU development, the new dual-core chips aren't all that spectacular. That said, Intel certainly has the capacity to allow Apple to produce as many computers as they could possibly dream of.



    I really wonder about this one, but then again, Apple has platform hopped before with the original transition to PowerPC CPUs. I would be willing to bet that Apple could offer emulation for the purpose of backwards compatibility for software. It's also worth noting that Apple itself has become one of the key developers for the Mac platform, and the transition would be a heck of a lot less painless if it has iLife, iWork, Final Cut Studio, etc. compiled in x86 waiting to go in the wings.



    Heck, this could potentially even be a shot at dethroning Microsoft - for the first time in years Microsoft has really, really badly dropped the ball in terms of viruses, security exploits, etc. We could end up seeing Apple-Tel instead of Wintel.
  • Reply 14 of 433
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by 9secondko

    Dude, please return to your normal, intelligent sounding self... SOON! The fake cursing kind of ruins the AI experience. It almost sounds like someone stole your password for a few days and is pretending to be you. Normally, you sound very educated.



    aww, thanks. okay i got my password back. yeah i don't know what's up with me. i think its living with my parents and not having my usual alcohol/trance-music fueled 'escapes', that's how i maintain my 'normal composure' \



    also i'm helping college students with Flash actionscripting now so they are sucking up my 'brain cycles' with dumbass questions





    <educated mode : force enable>

    essentially, various things have got me flying off my handle in a good way.



    1. the strength of apple's programming team



    contrasted with their hardware team, apple's software engineering is stellar. the fact that every iteration of panther made things run faster and smoother, and with Tiger actually running faster than panther on my iBook, they are showing their abilities.



    quicktime7.0.1 divx and xvid decoding has improved remarkably. h.264 is a superb codec, aesthetically.



    edit: also, their growing portfolio of in-house Apple-branded applications have been quite outstanding, of course, not perfect, but very impressive. keynote2 beats powerpoint 2004 hands down.



    this is of course not without its cost, for example, numerous bugs in Tiger, Tiger being force-shipped to a deadline, not a build of traditional-apple standards... also h.264 being very slow to encode (although this is probably becaused it is optimised for iChat 3, which in recent tests showed very good results between two tiger 10.4.1 isight-enabled machines)



    my personal take is that they have got some very talented software engineers which they are pushing hard, and making compromises based on marketing trade-offs, a slippery slope perhaps, that microsoft has long tumbled down...



    2. okay, now let's look at the relevance of no. 1 above. this means that it is possible for a switch to some Intel platform. what i was trying to say in my previous posts has always been, apple has the financial and brand clout to now spread its Mac platform wider and further than we have imagined. however, clearly IBM has been holding them back. as i've said this year, apple has until the end of the year to shore this up. a switch to Intel means that they are sick and tired of this IBM bullshit of not being able to deliver a forward-thinking, scalable, predictable CPU pipeline. given the talent of apple software engineers (see my point no.1 above), a switch to an Intel platform of some sort is possible, but they WILL have to give a very convincing case and make the transition as seamless as possible. Additionally, apple will definitely have to have a clear up to 5 year vision on their CPU strategy if they are going to pull this off and get developers on their side. CPU design has gone a bit wonky, with moore's law threatened, heat, portablility, power issues, all out of sync with a customer base that is trained to want faster, better, cheaper.



    3. the apple-tablet-device is a very interesting platform for TigerLite running on Intel, to cover their bases for 6 months. almost something that could be 'written off' as R&D.



    4. let me give you my reasons for no.3.



    4.(a)

    apple's 6-month trial is an important period for the future of the Mac platform. yes it is that dire. remember that xbox360 and cell are vaporware. chip manufacturers are talking about jumping straight to 45nm, almost 'giving up' on 60nm processes (not really, but the idea is that they understand that this CPU 'wall' they've hit is problematic). apple's core image strategy and warming up to ATi is a very smart move to shift processing to GPU while they sort out the CPU pipeline mess.



    4.(b)

    this june2005-december2005 period could very well be, apple sending a clear message, we are a well-run public company with incredible gains with the iPod, and the long-term digital-lifestyle strategy is to have the Mac as the consumer, prosumer, and possibly, business digital hub. they are sending a message that they except nothing less than reliable, deliverable CPUs from their partners. If IBM doesn't deliver solidly by end of 2005, possibly the Intel-based Apple TabletMac with TigerLite will pave the way for a transition away from IBM to somebody that CAN deliver the CPU pipeline apple demands to continue their revenue and profit growth through the end of the decade.



    5. (insert something here on digital video, high-def, h.264, and iTunes video store)



    <phew... ctrl-c, /educated mode>



    ...........................

    yeah one of the reasons i enjoy AI is the generally higher calibre of discussions. i feel if i do need to vent and release my teenage angst (i am only 26 after all) i'll go to macrumors.com

    ...........................

    ............................
  • Reply 15 of 433
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,457member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Booga

    There's no point in Intel doing this. Intel works purely on economy of scale. They've already said they'll only work with Apple if it makes economic sense. Making PowerPC chips for Apple never seems to make any chip companies a lot of money.



    I could, on an outside shot, see Intel licensing Altivec from Apple, but even that is a long shot.






    Lets pray that (if there is any truth to this nonsense) that this is what will happen. Changing ISAs (to x86 no less!) will just be a disaster -- even just the big-endian -> little-endian issue will be a huge mess. Might as well put a gun to their head right now.



    On the other hand, if Intel can just replace the instruction set decoder already on the front of all their chips with a PPC decoder... perhaps there is something sensible here after all. Intel has been stuck with x86 for a long time, that doesn't mean they like it... especially now that AMD has forced an extension to 64-bits that Intel doesn't control. The IA-64 is not in a happy state. Intel's process technology is top notch, and internally their cores are pretty impressive. Its just the horrid x86 ISA that really sucks, and switching to that opens up Apple to piracy on a grand scale.
  • Reply 16 of 433
    macfandavemacfandave Posts: 603member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chagi

    We could end up seeing Apple-Tel instead of Wintel.



    IF, and it is a BIG IF, this came to pass, I don't think Apple-Tel or AppTel has the right pop. I think we ought to mix up the letters of the two companies to get something that really has appeal. Here ya go:



    Nipple.



    What could be more natural than the Nipple duopoly? Guys have been discussing Nipple duopolies for centuries!



    You can thank me on Monday afternoon if this thing happens.
  • Reply 17 of 433
    brent1abrent1a Posts: 42member
    Jeezle-beezle doesn't anyone ever read zdnet and/or cnet independantly of Appleinsider or Thinksecret? If anyone did, like I do because I have no life, they would realize that the filth that those two sites spew forth is just that, rumors and bunk news. I don't know anybody that takes cnet or zdnet seriously anymore.
  • Reply 18 of 433
    solsunsolsun Posts: 763member
    This just does not make any sense..



    If this were true... Why would Steve be announcing the news now? Seems like this would just about kill all current CPU sales. People won't buy now if the "new Macs" aren't coming until next year?
  • Reply 19 of 433
    sam damonsam damon Posts: 129member
    I'm just freakin' stunned.



    As of when I write this, it may just be a hypothesis that fits some facts this CNet dude has gathered.



    The technical challenges in both hardware and software are daunting, to say the least. Unless -- as has been suggested earlier in this thread -- Intel has come up with some sort of PPC decoder unit for a projected microprocessor, I just cannot believe Uncle Steve would pull the trigger ending PPC desktop development.



    Two other things. This will send the rumor sites into a frenzy, and we'll all know for sure after the Stevenote.



    As I said I'm just freakin' stunned. Sorry for the stream-of-consciousness post.
  • Reply 20 of 433
    iqatedoiqatedo Posts: 1,822member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Programmer

    Lets pray that (if there is any truth to this nonsense) that this is what will happen. Changing ISAs (to x86 no less!) will just be a disaster -- even just the big-endian -> little-endian issue will be a huge mess. Might as well put a gun to their head right now.



    On the other hand, if Intel can just replace the instruction set decoder already on the front of all their chips with a PPC decoder... perhaps there is something sensible here after all. Intel has been stuck with x86 for a long time, that doesn't mean they like it... especially now that AMD has forced an extension to 64-bits that Intel doesn't control. The IA-64 is not in a happy state. Intel's process technology is top notch, and internally their cores are pretty impressive. Its just the horrid x86 ISA that really sucks, and switching to that opens up Apple to piracy on a grand scale.




    Hi all



    I'm interested in Progrmmers view on this. What if Apple's brilliant engineering teams have worked with Intel to bring a new processor to the market. First, could it be done without the industry finding out? Second, are economies of scale perhaps irrelevant if the resulting processor and chipset are intended by both Apple and Intel for other markets? Of course, IBM produce their own computers which Intel doesn't (is that correct?) but Apple seems to have been on the wrong end of the technology, taking a cut-down version of something else that IBM wanted for their own use. What if instead, Apple (who have the best OS and importantly, vision!) were able to work with Intel's engineers to produce a killer (desktop/server) chipset?



    I guess that I've wondered for ages whether Apple could come up with its own processor technology, I can imagine the frustration their hardware and software engineers must have felt over the years having to work with perhaps diffident partners, (please forgive me if that is wrong). If not an actual chipset design, at least an architecture overview.



    Of course, part of this scenario relies on a wider market for the chipset, perhaps a true home multimedia system running an embedded OS X (I know, wishful thinking - I'd love to have an embedded OS X with a real-time capability). Imagine a Mac Mini on steroids (politically incorrect statement I know) with a full multimedia capability. Apple is the company to do it, perhaps with Intel as partners.



    What would be in it for Intel? Capturing Apple and in the process, creating a (truely) new market! Got to be good for something!
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