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No chance of Intel Inside Apple’s iPhone: Is Intel’s Mac position safe?

Monday, October 1, 2012 · 5:01 pm · 40 Comments

“Not only is Intel not inside of the iPhone 5, but the likelihood of Intel (or any other chip designer for that matter) scoring the SoC design win in the iPhone has been reduced to what could only be a small rounding error away from zero,” Ashraf Eassa writes for Seeking Alpha.

“This was, of course, expected, as moving iOS and all of the applications to be x86 would be a hassle and a flat out risky business decision,” Eassa writes. “However, a much more interesting — and important — question is whether Apple will give Intel the boot when it comes to the MacBook line of products.”

Eassa writes, “In order to answer that question, it behooves the savvy investor to understand just why Apple moved from an ARM-designed (ARMH) core to a custom one.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Carl H." for the heads up.]

Categories: News

Tags: Apple A6, ARM, Intel, mac, Macintosh, PoP, SoC, x86

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Comment Feed

40 Comments

Gary J.

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:08 pm · Reply

Not sure Intel cares at this point, as the Apple Inc. ship appears to have sailed and now the beginning of the demise of Apple appears to be on the horizon. HP alone outsells all other PC makers including Apple.

Apple is 36 years old and only has about 5 years of notable traction in the business and that is not healthy. Intel will do just fine without Apple as will Samsung and Nvidia.

7″ tablet will not do it as that trend is already in play and doing just fine.
- DRMSSDB
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:16 pm · Reply
  
  Yes, Apple is days away from bankruptcy. A single app will take Apple from the most valuable company in the world to the reject bin in a matter of days, if not hours. The fact that Apple Mac sales keep increasing while the rest of the market is contracting should be taken as a red herring.
  
  The really critical thinking here would be to average out the last decade with the previous decades. That is wave of fucking genius.
  - botvinnik
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:59 pm · Reply
    
    ..could even be minutes!
    - ditchdoc68
      
      Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:19 pm · Reply
      
      …if not seconds!
      - Troy
        
        Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:31 pm · Reply
        
        Nanoseconds?
        
        ppctyler
        
        Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 12:59 am · Reply
        
        Come on, we all know that Gary is a real KIA. You just have to believe him. Look at all the insight he possesses. Why can’t we all be as intelligent and resourceful as Gary?
  - Gary J.
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:33 pm · Reply
    
    Who suggested bankruptcy? Not sure I follow. Is MSFT bankrupt? My point is and by all means do challenge me but my point is that Intel can hang with the PC crowd and do just fine.
    
    In terms of your unwavring confidence in Apple, please remember that Apple Inc’s market value can tank within hours and you know it. Fund Managers can make or break any stock and with Google trading at $100.00 above Apple all it takes is repositioning and Google can easily catch up.
    
    36 years in Apple has strong together 5 good years but they can easily be relegated to the back of the bus in a matter on months.
    - KenC
      
      Monday, October 1, 2012 - 8:37 pm · Reply
      
      Usually, the word “demise” implies a company on the verge of bankruptcy.
      
      What are you talking about regarding Google’s nominal shareprice vis-a-vis Apple’s? They’re nominal, and have no relationship to relative value between the companies.
    - botoncandy
      
      Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 11:15 am · Reply
      
      “36 years in Apple has strong together 5 good years but they can easily be relegated to the back of the bus in a matter on months.”
      
      You might want to try that sentence again.
  - zek
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 8:20 pm · Reply
    
    Have pity on this poor soul, being one of the latest evolutions of humanity, albeit a small minority as yet. Before the advent of turn-by-turn navigation on smartphones, they would have died before reaching breeding age. Keep in mind that for them, the maps app is not just one app among many and a mere adjunct to the core functionality of their device, it’s a matter of life and death.
    
    You have the great good fortune, like most of us, to look out of the window and choose any coffee shop that looks nice, and can even wind down the window and ask another human for directions if things get really bad.
- HTML5 Gordon
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:26 pm · Reply
  
  Are you referring to the same HP whose PC sales revenue dropped 10% last quarter? And the same HP whose plan now under Meg is to attempt to copy Apple’s designs to try to reinvigorate them?
  - Gary J.
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:40 pm · Reply
    
    Indeed I am as HP still dwarfs Apple in unit sales. Nuff said.
    - ecrabb
      
      Monday, October 1, 2012 - 7:13 pm · Reply
      
      Hyndai and Kia both dwarf BMW in terms of worldwide unit sales – massively so in the US. So, by your logic this is the beginning of the demise of BMW, right?
      
      Yep. Soon, BMW will be relegated to “the back of the bus”.
      
      Nuff said?
      - bginna
        
        Monday, October 1, 2012 - 7:29 pm · Reply
        
        +1
    - KenC
      
      Monday, October 1, 2012 - 8:39 pm · Reply
      
      Yeah, and ask any of HP’s numerous CEOs whether they’d rather have Apple’s computer profits or HP’s unit sales. Nuff said.
      
      36 years of Gary J’s existence and yet to string together 5 years of coherent thought.
      - HTML5 Gordon
        
        Monday, October 1, 2012 - 9:05 pm · Reply
        
        +1!
    - Rorschach
      
      Monday, October 1, 2012 - 10:12 pm · Reply
      
      What, exactly, have unit sales to do with anything, when most of the unit sales you are comparing with are cheap, short lifetime products.
      Ooooo, looky here, Hyundai outsell Porsche and Audi, Porsche and Audi must have only a few years left at the top!
      Yeah, of course they do.
      You’re yet another of the half-wits who equate unit sales with profit.
      Anyone can sell tens of millions of cheap phones, but make bugger-all off of them.
- Necron99
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:28 pm · Reply
  
  Another stupid shot from Gary J Buttface, a Korean troll.
  - Gary J.
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:42 pm · Reply
    
    Korea loves the USA! Debt until death economy. What’s not to love?
- ChiMac
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:31 pm · Reply
  
  TROLL WARNING!
  Please do not feed or interact with the trolls. While they look human, they lack basic social skills necessary for reasoning and coexistence. Your cooperation is appreciated.
- peterblood71
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:38 pm · Reply
  
  Spectacular display of complete stultifying disingenuous stupidity!!! Anyone else saying that here would be taken as tongue in cheek instead of foot in mouth.
- ploogman
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:42 pm · Reply
  
  Wow, this article shows how little the author knows about programming, Unix/Linux, BSD, etc.
  
  iOS can run on anything. It runs on the Mac as a simulator so you can develop iOS apps for example – those are all INTEL machines.
  
  The smallest kernel of the OS deals with the underlying CPU – the rent of the programming rides on top and does not care what kind of chip is in use. As long as the OS remains a version of BSD Unix, does not matter if Apple chip or Intel or whatever. BSD Unix compatibility is all that is required and that is a pretty simple order to fill.
  
  This author knows NOTHING about what they are talking and should be out of a job. Sorry but its true.
  
  It is so irritating to see these kind of uninformed dumb** articles posted online.
- KenC
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 8:33 pm · Reply
  
  LOL! I hope someone is paying you for all of this astroturfing, because no one could seriously be writing all the delusional garbage you have. I mean even Rob Enderle gets paid for writing what you write. You aren’t Rob Enderle are you?
  - silverhawk1
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 9:36 pm · Reply
    
    I knew Rob Enderle, and Gary J, you are no Rob Enderle.
BoC

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:10 pm · Reply

I see little positives for the consumer of Mac Books in ARM given the extensive coding by Apple to move OSX.

ARM in iPhone & iPad makes lots of sense when you do 100 million units a year.

There is also a significant need by lots of Mac Book users to run Windows natively, regardless of what Apple does.
steve h.

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:52 pm · Reply

A Macbook Air with an Apple-designed, ARM-inspired cpu has a certain appeal. I may hold off replacing my MacBook Pro for another product cycle.

My take is that both Intel and Microsoft better up their game.

We’ll see how this plays out.
mredofcourse

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:55 pm · Reply

I could possibly see Apple designing custom x86 chips that license the x86 instruction set, and then are fabbed by Intel. This is exactly what they’re doing with ARM today.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if at some point Intel was also involved in Apple mobile in the near future.

Apple is in the unique position to do this, that is design around an Intel or ARM based core.
- Shadowself
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:19 pm · Reply
  
  “This is exactly what they’re doing with ARM today.”
  
  Absolutely NOT. ARM (even as Acorn) did not have their own fab and did not get 90+% of their income from chips they fab themselves.
  
  ARM is in the business of licensing its designs and instruction sets. The licensee either implements the designs as they see fit and get them fabbed OR they implement a design of their own choosing based upon the instruction set and then they get them fabbed.
  
  At no point is ARM fabbing any chips.
  
  Intel will NOT license either its x86 design or its instruction set to Apple so that Apple can make a custom implementation — then turn around and ask Intel to fab it.
  
  What is more likely (but still somewhat unlikely) is that Apple will take its designs of the chips it designs based upon the ARM instruction set and ask Intel to fab them on its 22 nm (or upcoming 14 nm) fab lines.
  
  If Apple and Intel can work that out, then Apple would have an even bigger lead in both lower power consumption and performance.
  - mredofcourse
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 11:55 pm · Reply
    
    Easy there Francis, I was saying that Apple is licensing ARM and then getting their design fabbed, I didn’t mean to imply they were getting their design fabbed by ARM.
    
    Intel wouldn’t fab ARM design, but Intel would do custom fab for Apple. At least, they have done so in the past.
Really

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 5:56 pm · Reply

I’d dump the MacBook in a heartbeat if they got rid of Intel and I’m sure I am not the only one.

I’m not sure I see the value in going ARM on the Mac.
- silverhawk1
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 9:41 pm · Reply
  
  I remember the same thoughts from people here concerning the change from PPC to Intel.
  - Really
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 11:21 pm · Reply
    
    The appeal of the Mac for me, next to the great hardware design and OS X is the ability to run pretty much any OS that is out there for x86 including windows.
    
    If they go to ARM on the macbook then I’m gone. I see no point in losing computing performance for the sake of battery life and ARM matching even a previous gen Core architecture cpu from Intel is a tall order and ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
    
    A move like going to ARM on the mac might make sense for Apple but it sure won’t make sense for a lot of their customers.
    
    If I want an ARM powered apple computer I’ll by an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard.
Vega 51

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:03 pm · Reply

I’ve never had a “significant need” to run windows on an Apple computer. That’s like bringing a fat girl along with you and your hot girlfriend on a date because she eats like a pig but then you remember that there’s just healthy food there and the fat girl won’t enjoy herself anyway and you have to look at that discussing blob the whole time. Oh, and she keeps saying, “terminate batch file?” and, “end task” every time you try to get her a cab out of your date!
- Gary J.
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:27 pm · Reply
  
  Based on these comments you will do just fine with anything that hooks up to the internet so you can watch your porn.
  - Burton C
    
    Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:39 pm · Reply
    
    Based on your comments to date it looks like the only one who could even bother to date you is your hand.
    - Gary J.
      
      Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:52 pm · Reply
      
      Prefer my hand over your boyfriend’s hand. Get a life!
Taras

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 6:10 pm · Reply

I do most of my personal stuff on my iPhone and iPad, what I do on my MacBook Pro is work. I love OSX but that still means Microsoft Windows is required for work even if it is in a VMware environment. Most people willing to pay a premium price for a Mac are using the best laptop they can find for work to do Windows. Apple knows that and will keep it that way.
A View From the Other Side

Monday, October 1, 2012 - 9:17 pm · Reply

So if apple decides to drop intel totally, will there be a need for all apps to be rewritten like when they changed from PPC to Intel. Cause if thats the case, no thanks…
- really
  
  Monday, October 1, 2012 - 11:25 pm · Reply
  
  Yes there would be that need. It would probably be worse because at least when moving from PPC to Intel the CPUs had enough horse power to emulate the PPC via Rosetta.
  
  You aren’t going to see an x86 emulator on ARM that provides decent performance. Its the same problem MS ran into when making Windows on ARM so they just dropped all x86 apps.
DanoX

Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 6:20 pm · Reply

Apple probably has OSX running on PPC, PPC Cell, and ARM right now in the back room, after all they had Intel running for nearly ten years on OSX in the back room.