“Apple Computer customers shouldn’t expect to see ‘Intel Inside’ stickers slapped on the sides of their beloved Macs anytime soon. That’s the consensus of industry analysts, who spent Monday digesting a Wall Street Journal report that Apple was considering a switch to Intel microprocessors for its computers now powered by IBM chips,” Michael Bazeley reports for The Mercury News. “Such a move — to a chip found in 80 percent of the world’s computers — would be a major technological and philosophical shift for Apple, which has prided itself on going against the grain of the computer industry.”
“Apple has reportedly been frustrated with IBM’s inability to manufacture its PowerPC processors quickly enough. And Apple has so far been unable to build a laptop that can successfully tap IBM’s G5 Power PC processor, which runs hot and uses a lot of power,” Bazeley reports. “IBM has also been quiet about its long-term plans for personal computer chips, and analysts said Apple may be concerned about how committed the company is to the product.”
“Rumors about an Apple-Intel alliance have cropped up intermittently for more than a decade. In summer 2002, Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff said there was a better than 80 percent chance that Apple would begin using an Intel chipset within two to four years. [Analyst Tim] Bajarin said the rumors are no surprise. Apple and Intel have talked many times over the years and could well be talking again,” Bazeley reports. “But Bajarin said the companies are more likely brainstorming how Intel chips might work in other Apple products — some of which may never make it out of Apple’s research and development labs, he said. One possibility is that Apple is eyeing Intel’s XScale processor, used in a variety of handheld devices. The technology could be used in a future version of Apple’s popular iPod or another type of mobile device, analysts said.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Okay, they finally seem to be figuring it out. As in the related “hogwash” article from Electronic News below, the full article also features quotes by Kevin Krewell, editor in chief of the Microprocessor Report and an analyst for InStat, about how he considers this thing to be a ploy by Apple to send a message to IBM. Now, can we have some other Apple-related news, please?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Did Apple plant ‘Intel Mac’ rumor to send IBM a message? – May 23, 2005
Analyst: Apple-Intel rumor ‘hogwash’ (today marks 11th month that Jobs’ promised 3GHz G5 is late) – May 23, 2005
Enderle: ‘If Intel gets Apple, it could make Intel look brilliant after the fact’ – May 23, 2005
Stocks extend rally on Apple-Intel report; Dow closes up 52 to 10,524; Nasdaq climbs 10 to 2,057 – May 23, 2005
Apple said to be considering switch to Intel chips for Macs according to Wall Street Journal – May 23, 2005
Apple shares rise on Intel Mac rumors – May 23, 2005
Apple CEO Jobs misses ‘3Ghz G5 within a year’ prediction by wide margin – June 09, 2004
cool the analysts just disagreed with themselves. I guess logic as a last-minute resort prevailed..
As if Apple would allow Stickers on their products anyway.
“can we have some other Apple-related news, please”
You mean, like your regular Apple news that there is a new virus to Windows or that Longhorn is delayed?
DUH!!!
Star Trek anyone?
What’s so wrong with going with an Intel based chip? If it happened, then maybe the Powerbooks would have some competative speed. It’s embarassing how slow the fastest Powerbook (1.67MHz) is against the new Intel Sonoma’s
Bart: everyone got tired of Star Trek, I don’t think Apple could bring it back either. =)
i asked a friend who works for Intel. He won’t say anything to me. Everything is hush hush. The only thing he could say is “think multicore chips running multiple OSes simultaneously.”
I think Apple is furious that IBM thinks it can produce so many processors at over 3 gigahertz for 3 different products yet couldn’t get enough supply just for Apple alone. Also where is the 3 gigahertz processor that Apple needs? Why is it so easy for IBM to make a 3.2 gigahertz processor for 3 different gaming machines but they can’t even get one out the door for Apple?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”angry” style=”border:0;” />
Something is not right and Apple is letting IBM know there not happy with it.
John, the reason is that the PPC processors for MS are not fully spec’d G5 processors. They’ll be missing a lot of the complicated out of sequence instruction execution logic as well as the VMX/AltiVec stuff also. It’s a lot easier to get good chip yields on simipler chips, they can also run faster too.
IBM are also busy working on their own POWER chips for their hugely expensive servers. POWER chips makes PowerPC chips look like Pentium 2’s, unfortunately for us and Apple they cost a bundle.
Don’t be too sure those rumors are meant for IBM. IBM has far less to fear with OS X Tiger on Intel than someone else does: Microsoft! With all the foes arranged around it in every market, Microsoft is a wounded and dangerous animal. Reminding it periodically with the Apple/Intel rumor that it could be facing off, on its own turf, against the most advanced OS on the planet keeps Microsoft in line, and behaving nicely for Apple.
And why should Apple be angry at IBM? Obviously, the plans have changed. One of those lovely new game console chips, and the most powerful at that, should do nicely in Apple’s entire line. Cell is designed to work in everything from high end desktops (Power Macs) to cell phones, and probably will do nicely in Power Books, though G5 won’t.
Expect GCell Macs out either the end of this year, or the beginning of next year, at 3.2 Ghz or better.
No NDAs were broken in this posting. Moth Maidens have better sources.
Eric: Read the back of this weeks InfoWorld. It’s all laid out there for all to see.
Intel is the biggest cpu company in the world, with the biggest R&D budget in the world. I think that it makes a lot of sense to have OS X running on Intel. Apple desperately needs faster, cooler, cheaper, and less power draining processors for notebook pcs, as that is where the pc market is rapidly trending toward. The g5 seems to be having major problems adapting to a notebook design.