“A new generation of personal computers on the way from Apple Inc. may sport some of the most significant architectural changes since the Mac maker made the jump from PowerPC processors to those manufactured by Intel Corp.,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider.
“As part of its move to Intel chips in early 2006, the Cupertino-based company largely abandoned its practice of using custom motherboard chipsets to support the primary CPU in its Macs. Instead, it began to rely on slightly tweaked versions of industry-standard chipsets offered by Intel to the broad range of PC manufacturers that develop Intel-powered systems,” Jade reports.
“However, with Apple striving to maintain Mac sales growth of more than two times the industry average, it’s again looking to differentiate the architecture of its personal computer systems through alternative technology that will afford it an advantage beyond the reach of its competition,” Jade reports.
“As such, people familiar with these plans say an upcoming generation of Macs, lead by a trio of redesigned notebooks, won’t adopt the Montevina chipset announced as part of Intel’s Centrino 2 mobile platform earlier this month. What’s more, those same people suggest the chipset employed by the new wave of Macs may have little or nothing to do with Intel at all,” Jade reports.
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: We are talking chipsets, not processors. Possibilities discussed in AppleInsider’s full article include Intel CPUs with Apple-designed proprietary chipsets and/or new relationship with AMD, NVidia or Via chipset makers.
Arnold Kim writes for MacRumors, “This does not mean that Apple will be moving away from Intel’s processors. The chipsets are simply the support chips required to interconnect the processor and the rest of the computer. Intel’s Montevina platform (now known as Centrino 2) consists of a Penryn processor, the Montevina chipset and wireless networking interface. Future laptops will continue to use Intel’s most recent Penryn processors which provide improved bus-speeds (1066MHz). To the customer, Apple’s decision to use 3rd party or custom chipsets is not of great significance, as all the chipsets should be functionally identical.”
Full article here.
“We are working to develop new products that contain technologies that our competition will not be able to match.” – Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, July 21, 2008
Then what? PowerPC again? Isn’t that a step backwards?
They’ll continue to use intel but not in all products(?) What is Apple up to now?
They MUST keep the ability, whether people use it or not, for one to dual boot. Otherwhise people will perceive it as a negative and shy away.
of course I still say Apple should just build in Windows emulation right into the OS. They have the rights to some of the API’s from XP. If they wait too long MS will change it enough over time to where current Win software won’t work if Apple does decide to support the API.
“Nointel”…
The CPU is Intel (Penryn), just the chipset will come from someone other than Intel, but this is all rumor.
They’ll still have intel chips (core 2 duo etc.) but apple made motherboards
Is Apple afraid of success? This is not a wise maneuver. The Mac Pro’s and Core2Duo MacBook Pro’s have been great. By dumping Intel, Apple is jumping into murky waters just when more and more folks are warming to the product lines. I recall a few years ago when Jobs rolled out the timeline of Intel products saying how much power was there and how energy efficient the line would be. This may just be rumor. It does not make much sense to switch processors in mid-stream. I believe that using a mainstream processor company such as Intel had a great deal to do with folks switching. Why mess up a good thing?
Finally, I get my PowerBook G6! Yeah!
How will people use Windows on their Macs without Intel?
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As a long-time Apple fan (pre-Mac), I for one was pretty excited by the move to Intel. For the first time, you could choose one hardware platform that would run practically any operating system along with Mac OS X. That level of flexibility is a HUGE advantage to buying Apple hardware if you’re the sort that needs or can use that capability, and has a lot to do with the adoption of OS X by the tech community. Many people can justify the additional cost of (admittedly superior) Apple hardware on that capability alone.
Whatever Apple is up to, I hope they don’t compromise in the new hardware the awesome and powerful hardware/OS flexibility that exists today.
Sounds like a weird rumor regardless.
Wonder what AMD/ATI might have up their sleeve.
I remember how Steve Jobs criticized Apple before he came back, saying that they hadn’t made any strides on the internal architecture of the Mac. He said it was basically the same design. Apple has made a fair number of changes with regard to internal communication and RAM usage, but is this Steve trying to make another leap? Does he have something in mind? I can’t imagine him jumping off of one platform unless he feels confident about another. Remember that he ran OSX on intel for a long time before Apple made the switch.
There is no arsh change to be done. People like the idea of having “familiar” Intel chips inside the Macs… But Apple will do better: There will be Intel – Apple designed chips and extra chips other PCs will never have!
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@Bill (and everybody else)
*sigh* People are so damn careless its amazing. No geniuses, they are not dumping intel. They are doing custom chipsets (and as many other components as they can) not custom cpus. That is why they bought PA Semi.
For da luv of gawd people! *smacks forehead in disgust*
Relax! Even if this rumor is true, it could be a good thing. I’m sure that in some way, Apple thinks it will give them an edge, either due to additional feature(s) or lower costs (making some of their own chips), thereby possibly reducing Mac prices. In any case, so long as they remain 100% Windows-compatible, it will be fine.
Chances are, this would thwart future clone-makers too, if the chipsets are only available through, or to, Apple.
@Olternaut:
Yeah, what you said!
If they are doing this- one big reason would be to thwart cloning.
Protection at the chipset level.
Just a thought.
The product transition isn’t for the new MacBooks at all. MacBooks will retain the Intel chipset. The new product transition has to do with the iTele Apple’s soon to announce. After all, how can any other company compete with an Apple built personal Teleportation system like the iTele.
That is what others (except dell) are planning too anyway but as someone else said the cpu will be intel.
Olternaut is correct, but there is one worrisome thing.
The Operating System must communicate with these chipsets in order to work. One reason Windows works on your MacBook, for example, is that it knows how to talk to an Intel X3100 graphics processor. But I doubt Windows will know how to talk to a custom Apple graphics processor. Who’s going to write the Windows driver?
Apple will not move from Intel it has been the fuel for all the growth they have been enjoying.
As for “Driver”‘s comment about including Windows libraries for full compatibility. No thank you, and not going to happen ever.
No thank you because it would open up the OS X platform to a whole new host of exploits and malware that commonly plague Windows.
Not going to happen anyway because IBM tried this with OS/2 and what ended up happening was developers only built software for Windows. When Windows software could run on both OS/2 became unessential for organizations and expensive for IBM to keep licensing technology from Microsoft.
So when can I get my Apple Microwave Oven, and a color TV?
Folks .. this is a misleading headline.
Apple is still going to use the INTEL Processors. It is just the mother board that will be custom designed.
Peace!!
As with all Mac / Apple rumors, I’ll just have to wait & see what Apple does rather than having someone ‘Whisper in my ear.’
(hums Beatles’ tune to self)
First, to all those morons who read this article and jumped to the completely erroneous conclusion that Apple was dropping Intel CPUs – jezus, folks, grow a brain and reread the article.
As for surrounding Intel CPUs with a custom chipset/motherboard (which, by the way, is what this article is about geniuses), I see that as a good thing. In combination with Snow Leopard, it could signal new capabilities from combining custom hardware and software.
Side note: One reason Apple was so quick to market with Intel Macs was their near total reliance on Intel’s standard chipsets and motherboards. It makes sense, now that the Intel Mac has matured, to move in a more refined, custom direction.
Finally, don’t worry about drivers for Windows compatibility – Apple or related vendors have written all the drivers for the various versions of Boot Camp so XP/Vista can talk to the Apple hardware. I am sure the same would happen for the new hardware configurations.
@Peter
I guess Apple will be writing it. If they are going to do this they have to make sure everything works. And if not then Steve is not going to tolerate it as he apparently has tolerated the botched mobileme launch and iphone 3g activation problems. I hope the takes a freaking hot branding iron and starts branding managers butts randomly to set an example and to keep his people in line. Not to mention motivating them NOT to mess up like that again.