Exciting new products with Intel
Early on in his announcement Steve mentioned that there were products they wanted to build that weren't possible with PPC. He had already mentioned the Powerbook G5 and 3GHz PowerMac not being possible yet, so it wasn't those. He also made a big thing about Intel CPUs low power requirements.
So what do you lot think these products are?
So what do you lot think these products are?
Comments
Originally posted by kwsanders
What about a new PowerBook with a much faster CPU that does not have the 167 MHz FSB limitation?
Well yes, but that was imminently possible with the 7448 and next gen G4s, and without the hassle of switching architectures.
No, the way he said it implied other new products.
Roger
Originally posted by Blackcat
Early on in his announcement Steve mentioned that there were products they wanted to build that weren't possible with PPC. He had already mentioned the Powerbook G5 and 3GHz PowerMac not being possible yet, so it wasn't those. He also made a big thing about Intel CPUs low power requirements.
So what do you lot think these products are?
A game console. No one could ever build one of those with a power PC.
(A more serious guess. A TIVO killer with online purchasing.)
But in all honesty, its a real possibility. I personally would like to see an all-in-one cell phone/PDA/media handheld thing. Those two products would define Apple's "digital lifestyle" movement to a 'T'.
Originally posted by acr4
I'm suprised the first post wasn't "TABLET MAC!!!!!"
But in all honesty, its a real possibility. I personally would like to see an all-in-one cell phone/PDA/media handheld thing. Those two products would define Apple's "digital lifestyle" movement to a 'T'.
Bingo.
Maybe the recent patent requires a very low power CPU. Or dare we hope for XScale to return where it began?
Originally posted by D.J. Adequate
A game console. No one could ever build one of those with a power PC.
(A more serious guess. A TIVO killer with online purchasing.)
Oh, I think Intel is a company such that they are paranoid about what MS wants to do with the Xbox 360. MS is hedging on losing the software war with that box. Intel is hedging on losing 50 million possible sales to homes to Xbox/PS3. I think this is where Apple may come into the play.
If MS makes a play for a convergence device with the Xbox 360 in 50 million homes, Intel will respond with some entertainment converged device as well. The PC and game console are sufficiently different in usage that the two don't mix right now, but whose to say MS doesn't want to sell 2 Xboxes to every home, one for the living room and one for the desk, eventually.
Originally posted by damasta55r
Oh ya, apple should wait for the dual-core yonah pentium M line for their powerbook, so it'll support 64-bit like the G5 processor and still offer lots of power and lots of battery life, what the ppc G5 could never bring.
[drooool] This is why I'm optimistic about the switch.
-BUBBA
My first thought is that Intel doesn't really need much in the way of "enhanced market position", being the 800 lb. gorilla and all, but perhaps the current leadership has a hankering for something a little more glamorous than cranking out endless commodity parts for Dell.
Certainly it seems more likely with Intel then IBM/Freescale, in that a little of formers attention is a bigger resource than a lot the latter.
I think Intel & Apple will be coming out with an entirely new chip of their own. I'm sure they'll WOW everyone sooner or later. I just wish they would give a little more hope (perhaps a better peek into their plans) other than "OK we're a team now!" - thats not enough. I think most Mac users are more confused than happy about the news.
Welllll, the key advantage with Intel is volume. Lots and lots of volume and therefore lower prices. The lack of availability from IBM and the consequential product delays (PowerBook? Hello? Cooey!?) led to "The Switch."
Oh and coming out with dual-core chips didn't hurt either.
A custom ship would put Apple right back where they started with fab difficulties, lower turnout and higher costs.
It's the last step of common architectures (SCSI to IDE, ADB/Geoport to USB, etc.)
Originally posted by damasta55r
Apple switches to intel. I hope they put an intel pentium M into the apple mini, the ibook and powerbook, and they put the Intel Pentium D into the imac, put double pentium Ds into the powermac. As for the emac line, perhaps just a plain pentium 4 with em64t, or discontinue with the emac line as i've never been a fan of that machine. Oh ya, apple should wait for the dual-core yonah pentium M line for their powerbook, so it'll support 64-bit like the G5 processor and still offer lots of power and lots of battery life, what the ppc G5 could never bring. The G4 is very outdated already, i hope apple stops production of it. THe G5 should be kept in their servers, i really hope they keep it around, that processor is revolutionary, or if they don't keep it around, maybe a G6 or getting the cell processor into a desktop platform.
Roger
I expect them to put Pentium M and its derivatives into everything. I expect nothing with the netburst architecture will ever be commercially available in a Mac and I expect the laptops and minis will be first to swap using regular Pentium Ms that would be used for any laptop.
Originally posted by addabox
It's come up in several threads, and I'm curious: with Intel's deep pockets and massive fab capacity, does it make sense for them to work with Apple on "boutique" products that enhance their market positioning? Ala an Apple/Intel media server or set top box type device, where Apple provides the OS front-end for a custom chip set optimized for same?
My first thought is that Intel doesn't really need much in the way of "enhanced market position", being the 800 lb. gorilla and all, but perhaps the current leadership has a hankering for something a little more glamorous than cranking out endless commodity parts for Dell.
Certainly it seems more likely with Intel then IBM/Freescale, in that a little of formers attention is a bigger resource than a lot the latter.
I think there might be something to that. Right now, if Intel wants to release a new technology they have to get the Dell's of the world to sign on. If they don't, nothing happens. Perhaps they hope that if Apples support the newer technologies, it will force the PC makers hands to follow suit. That's the first theory I've heard that helps make sense of this to me.
Originally posted by D.J. Adequate
I think there might be something to that. Right now, if Intel wants to release a new technology they have to get the Dell's of the world to sign on. If they don't, nothing happens. Perhaps they hope that if Apples support the newer technologies, it will force the PC makers hands to follow suit. That's the first theory I've heard that helps make sense of this to me.
I agree as well, esp. since Apple has a history of getting stuff out first (Airport, Firewire, USB even!) and also of making exclusivity agreements with manufacturers, look at the Cinema Displays, Apple has consistantly gotten their hands on the new TFT Panels before anyone else, and obviously made a deal to keep them away from others for a while.
Is there any chance that Apple have said to Intel, we'll take your latest and greatest, showcase your technology on the best platform which we can completely control AS LONG AS we can have it first, exculsively, for say 3-4 months. That would keep Apples Intel products ahead of the other x86 rabble, whom Apple cant really compete with on price anyway.
What do you think?
sounds and feels good.
And Apple switching to Intel is the end of boutique processors... for good. Apple has learned their lesson from motorola (shudder) and IBM (grumble). From now on the processor will not be a point of distinction. Apple will compete on look and feel, using a standard, affordable, reliable, roadmapped architecture.
Originally posted by damasta55r
... THe G5 should be kept in their servers, i really hope they keep it around, that processor is revolutionary, or if they don't keep it around, maybe a G6 or getting the cell processor into a desktop platform.
Roger
I would argue that the G5 is just an evolution of past PPC design. In some respects, it's a DE-evolution from the POWER series. I think Apple was very smart to do this, since the only really revolutionary chip in the past couple of years is the Pentium M. This chip outpaces the 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 and any G5 you can throw at it. It also runs at a maximum of (I think) 2.4 Ghz for the time being, and draws only 27 watts at peak load. Think passive cooling dual processors. Granted, the Pentium M isn't MP aware, but the M line is going to replace the Netburst (original P4) line in the near future. Intel is set to shake things up, I think. They're also starting to price better than AMD. They still don't have an on-die memory controller, but hey, we can't have everything.