“I guess Apple will move to Intel, and they’re relying on a fast, seamless emulator to do it. But it’s really about Hollywood: Apple’s looking to transform the movie industry the same way the iPod and iTunes changed the music business,” Leander Kahney writes for The Cult of Mac Blog for Wired News. “As initially reported, there a couple of big problems with Apple moving to Intel. The biggest is shifting all the Mac software to a new platform. Apple apparently mulled moving to Intel a few years ago, when Motorola’s chip development fell woefully behind, but Steve Jobs nixed it because of the massive disruption it would cause developers.”
Kahney writes, “What’s new this time is a fast, transparent, universal emulator from Transitive, a Silicon Valley startup. Transitive’s QuickTransit allows any software to run on any hardware with no performance hit, or so the company claims… But why would Apple do this? Because Apple wants Intel’s new Pentium D chips. Released just few days ago, the dual-core chips include a hardware copy protection scheme that prevents ‘unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted materials from the motherboard,’ according to PC World. Apple — or rather, Hollywood — wants the Pentium D to secure an online movie store (iFlicks if you will), that will allow consumers to buy or rent new movies on demand, over the Internet. According to News.com, the Intel transition will occur first in the summer with the Mac mini, which I’ll bet will become a mini-Tivo-cum-home-server.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If Jobs’ WWDC keynote doesn’t hurry the hell up, we might completely lose our minds! Oh, and if Jobs is planning to subject Mac users to a switch to Intel just so Apple can sell and rent movies online, he’d better have a nice thick protective vest on underneath that mock turtleneck.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
MacDailyNews to present live Steve Jobs’ WWDC Keynote coverage – June 06, 2005
RUMOR: Apple planning Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ release for x86 PCs? – February 25, 2005 (Transitive Technologies)
Startup claims ‘near-universal emulator’ allows any software to run all platforms with almost no performance hit – September 13, 2004 (Transitive Technologies)
iPod success opens door to Mac OS X on Intel – March 04, 2004
Why would Apple switch? PowerPC is smaller, more efficient, cheaper than comparable Intel chips – June 05, 2005
Intel Inside Apple Macs? – June 04, 2005
Intel in Macs?! How’s Apple CEO Steve Jobs going to spin that switch? – June 04, 2005
Apple to switch to Intel chips starting in 2006 – CNET [updated] – June 03, 2005
Apple and Microsoft battle for control of future living rooms – June 01, 2005
Anticipation, rumors build ahead of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ June 6 WWDC keynote – May 27, 2005
Intel CEO Otellini: If you want security now, buy a Macintosh instead of a Wintel PC – May 25, 2005
Analyst: Apple-Intel rumor ‘hogwash’ (today marks 11th month that Jobs’ promised 3GHz G5 is late) – May 23, 2005
Apple bundles videos with select music albums via iTunes Music Store – May 10, 2005
Apple releases iTunes 4.8; now supports QuickTime video along with contact, calendar transfers – May 09, 2005
With Mac mini Apple CEO Jobs attacks the Achilles heel of Windows dominance: the living room – January 14, 2005
Apple Computer will own the living room, not Microsoft – January 10, 2005
Can Apple crack the living-room conundrum before Microsoft? – December 30, 2004
NY Times: Can Steve Jobs put Apple in the center of your living room? – March 23, 2004
Is the keynote being broadcast?!?!
The author’s argument makes not sense. If Intel can emulate PPC, then can’t PPC emulate x86? Besides what I remember about Transitive is that it run at about 80%, not 100% that’s rediculous. There will be much code that has to be emulated on a per-instruction basis too because the Transitive system emulated blocks of code that is cached.
I don’t beleive it. There are huge holes. iTunes and iPod DRM’d music, why would hardware DRM on a Mac for movies be outside of the grasp of Apple, would Steve Jobs roll over so quickly after so masterful a win? I don’t think so.
Just the same old rumor coming ’round.
Something has got to give with all this tension!
First the waiting for the release of OS X Tiger. Hanging around my front porch waiting for the UPS dude. And now this potential watershed moment in my Mac life!
Damd this waiting and suspense! Damd it all to hell!
All I can say is that if my shiny new PowerMac, Powerbook, & Mini all become a legacy architecture by tomorrow afternoon, that’s the last Apple product I will buy. I felt edgy buying into proprietary hardware, but if the proverbial rug gets pulled out from under me, hello Linux.
Think of the businesses. Apple will lose ALL credibility in the corporate space. Single vendor hardware typically is a no-no, but I wouldn’t want to be the IT director of a large Mac based infrastructure that suddenly and without any warnings, find that all that hardware/software needs to be ported all over again.
Dell sucks, but one of the reasons they’re successful in the corporate world is that they publish a hardware ROADMAP. With Apple; it’s surprises. And businesses DON’T LIKE SURPRISES.
I’m placing my bets on a iPod Video player with an Intel chip inside, the new Pentium D with DRM built in. You can’t tell me Apple is switching when it looks like IBM has finally got the PowerPC at triple-core and 3.2GHz (Xbox 360).
Please stop writing “If Apple uses Intel chips. Apple will have to re-write all its software”
Instead, scroll back up to the top of this page and read the artical snip.
If you’re confused click on the “full artical here” link and read.
If you’re still confused click on the “or so the company claims” link and read.
I apologize to those of you who actually read before you post.
This product is similar to Virtual PC except it allows OSX to run on an Intel Chip (for our discussion) so well, that apparently only an extreme power user will see the difference.
Power users are not going to be abandon. I’m sure Apple will continue to upgrade the G5 product line allowing a smooth transition. Who knows maybe the pentium D chips with the Transitive emulator will perform quite well.
I’m still not convinced; I’ll be one of those Mac users that will be dragged kicking and screaming :-\
Funny thing is that Intel claims no DRM in the Pentium D and the new corresponding chipset.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23708
I wanted to know if all the “experts” on these message boards who love to claim they know better than….well just about everybody will come back and eat their words if Demi-God Jobs comes out tomorrow and proclaims Apple and Intel a match made in heaven. I mean seriously eat their words. Not the typical “well I guess I understand why they are doing it” or the “this move was inevitable”, I want to hear blunt honesty. Something like “I guess I am not the all knowing expert I always thought I was”, “wow Jobs must really not read my messages and see how upset this makes me” or more importantly “maybe sitting in my living room and typing away on my keyboard doesn’t give me the kind of insight I believed I had into Apple’s inner workings.” Just wondering…..
Now I don’t know if they will make this move or not. I would think not but then again who the hell am I to be sure one way or the other? What the hell do I know about Apple’s best business interests? Or better yet, what do all of you?
So if crow is on the menu tomorrow I just want to know if all the appropriate parties are going to eat up.
Bandit Bill:
Can’t stop writing it cuz Transitive is vaporware.
Also, the main premise of this article (in which you place so much credence) is flawed. If Apple’s video ambitions rely on a critical mass of computers utilizing HARDWARE IP protection, than the iTunes/iVideo store is dead in the water. There is no existing market.
This “download a video” technology is unlikely to be rapidly adopted, like say DVD.
According to TiVo’s website, there are only 1.9 million TiVo subscribers. Nothing to scoff at, but not world-shattering. How many satelite radio receivers are there in the wild? Far fewer than iPods. Dramatically fewer than Macs/PCs.
These are the hardware technologies Apple would be competing against. Apple would be doomed like a Napster or a BuyMusic.com.
The only viable solution is cross-platform software and existing hardware.
This is a moronic article. Copy protection based on a chip/hardware serial number would be no more secure than one based on software.
What is everyone talking about. Intel in a Mac is not news. Apple needs something now, product in a box, or better yet, tomorrow, to keep the momentum of Tiger, Mac mini and the G5’s going into the holiday season. G5 laptops, 3ghz+ dual core G5, G5’s across the entire line of Apple products. And maybe a new product. This is big news, not freak-en Intel. The public and Apple’s shareholders aren’t going to wait two years before they see more powerful Intel hardware than todays IBM PPC. This talk of Intel was started by the PC pundits. Their future jobs are at stake. The only way Intel will make the CPU’s that go into Macs is if IBM licenses them to make the PPC. Even IBM uses Intel inside their boxes. Tests of the 2.5ghz Mac G5 against the fastest Intel show a very slight lead over Apple and the damn thing cost a lot more money then the Apple G5. Apple is not going to take a step backwards. There are severe hardware and software issues to solve before going to x86 systems. You would think Apple would first sue IBM for not producing results as promised or make them license the PPC before going to Intel for their x86 CPU.
–Solar Flare–
“I for one will NOT buy all my apps AGAIN just to run them on a intel mac!”
You want to move to Windows XP and buy all new apps, and then do it again with Longhore, because you don’t want to “buy all my apps AGAIN”
Stick with the Mac! By the time you purchase an Intel Mac you will most likely have already upgraded your apps for other reasons. And they will run natively on both platforms.
Then again it is a rumor, it think, right? What did the New York Times confirm again?
Magic Word “knew” (sorry, I couldn’t pass that one up.)
Dear “Just Wondering,”
To be fair, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the readers of MDN are in fact fairly expert in Apple’s business. For example, I have been using Macs for 21 years, programming Mac software for a living for 18, and have been an Apple shareholder for 12 years. I have closely observed Apple’s spectacular successes and failures over the years.
That doesn’t mean that any of us claims to be, as you say we claim to be, “all knowing” experts. That would be a pretty outrageous, even blasphemous, claim. But it does mean that we’re not all blathering hacks holed up in our living rooms chain smoking and playing armchair CEO as you suggest.
Yeah, because Apple and IBM can’t make their own DRM.
And even better, Apple really wants to use DRM controlled by Microsoft.
MDN, think things through before you retread opinion found on the web. You’re better than this.
Just kidding…
I’m not buying….still too many holes. There will have to be some major advancements announced if the whole line is to be moved to Intel. The key still is, the articles all say Intel, not x86.
Tomorrow will be the first time that I will be upset that I am on the East Coast. Not till after 1 PM will I know the truth……
‘Just Wondering’ I’m with you on that!
For all you arm chair “Apple CEO’s”, “Mac Experts”, “Analysts” and what not, if iCon throws everyone a curve ball tomorrow or sometime soon, prove you got some and admit your ignorant stupidity with some style and grace.
For those needed help with this, it goes something like this: “Yummy (licks lips and fingers), crow”.
damm. this thread exploded…
if apple switches to intel, then it’s bye, bye apple.
I’ll be getting a dual-processor boxx with AMDs instead…
I don’t understand why it would be bye bye apple if they switched to intel.
I may agree if it were a switch to x86, but its clearly not, and Intel does more than just x86
Don’t believe it. Not x86. Maaaybe if Intel puts out another architecture. God save us if Apple goes w/ hardware DRM. That will be tough to swallow.
“I’m not buying….still too many holes.”
Um, yeah…. The holes are not going to be filled in until the announcement is actually made.
Geesh
“if apple switches to intel, then it’s bye, bye apple.”
Donnie, See ya later!
Hey HedgeHog,
Here’s a temporal lesson.
No one actually has to wait longer than anyone else to know what the truth is on this matter. Everyone gets to find out the same “truth” at the same moment, no matter what time the clock says, because Steve Jobs will only be giving his keynote address one time.
… that is, unless you believe in parallel universes.
It’s all relative.
Here is something from the past.
devil-inside.jpg