“Apple’s mercurial and high-handed relationship with its chip suppliers” was what caused Apple’s switch from IBM to Intel processors, according to Ars Technica’s Jon “Hannibal” Stokes.
Apple over the years has routinely demanded that Motorola dedicate their CPU design teams to making special chips for Apple that will never generate much revenue. If Motorola won’t play, Apple will go to IBM. Apple kept up the demands with IBM, threatening with their only valid threat: we’ll go to Intel. “Apple has been pulling these stunts for a long time, as anyone who followed the company’s relationship with Motorola knows,” Stokes writes.
Basically, IBM told Apple, “Fine, go to Intel.”
“The cold, hard reality here is that the Mac is Apple’s past and the iPod is Apple’s future. It’s a shame that Steve Jobs can’t be upfront with his user base about that fact, because, frankly, I think the Mac community would understand. The iPod and what it represents… is the Macintosh of the new millennium… [It’s not that IBM] dropped the performance ball,” Stokes explains. “What Jobs is really doing is shifting the focus of Apple from a PC-era ‘performance’ paradigm to a post-PC-era ‘features and functionality’ paradigm.”
“For the real reason behind the switch, you have to look to the fact that it’s the iPod and iTMS—not the Mac—that are now driving Apple’s revenues and stock price. Apple is more concerned with scoring Intel’s famous volume discounts on the Pentium and XScale lines than it is about the performance, or even the performance per Watt, of the Mac,” Stokes writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Stokes’ questions about the recently announced PowerPC 970MP and 970FX chips from IBM are interesting. You’ll need to read Stokes’ full article, which we highly recommend. For us, it’s always been about “features and functionality” over “performance” anyway. As we used to ask Windows users, “what good are high performance CPUs if you’re constantly running virus scanners, routinely fighting the user interface, and can’t run best-in-class applications like Final Cut Pro, Motion, Logic, DVD Studio Pro, GarageBand, iMovie, or iDVD, to name but a few?”
Now that the CPU issue has been eliminated from the conversation, Apple’s strong points are highlighted even more. The Mac OS and the applications are without compare in the Wintel world. Mac OS X Tiger vs. Windows XP? Puleeze. If the Mac is Apple’s past, it’s also its present and future.
We all need to email this fool.
mailto:hannibal@arstechnica.com
<mailto:hannibal@arstechnica.com>
hannibal@arstechnica.com
This article has no new info, and zero relivant info.
I dont think hannibal did any real research on this..
take a trip to tomshardware and you will easily see the Pentium M is by far the best cpu available right now. and add to it some tweaks, faster clock speed, more chace, and 2 cores and there IS no competition.
Also making the transition to x86 lets apple choose from at least 5 CPU manufactures instead of 2.
Common sence here folks, All apple hardware and software will continue to exist and get better, OSX is not going away! how stupid.. as long as apple is able to make computers people that arent idiots will buy them.
Even if their market share drops (wich its going up NOT DOWN hannibal!) (dumbass) OSX based Macs will still be the core of Apple Computer. I dont care if their iPods and iTunes music store suppliment them, why should I?
Hard to argue with nonsence, and people that cant grasp basic concepts.
This hannibal guy has an obvious chip on his shoulder. He shows his disdain for Apple and Apple fans in several of his Mac related articles. At the end of those articles, he usually feels the need to insert some kind of snide remarks about “Mac zealots” and their “religion”. (Didn’t MacDailyNews take a USA Today writer to task for doing the same thing?) He constantly stirs the pot and when people do react, he then plays the victim and uses the people’s reaction to justify himself. Read the discussion forums at the end of his articles and look at his responses. How can MacDailyNews be praising this guy’s articles?
Jobs is lucky that he was successful to create a religion based on minority/evangelist smoke and mirrors so he can sell every crap for his lemmings. The deformed minded Mactards would buy even a turd with Apple logo on it.
Reality Check,
Same goes for PCs, too. Only deformed-minded MSidiots would continue to buy an OS that took mear minutes to be infested with malware and viruses.
You sound like a 9yr old with your flame-baiting. Can’t you do better than that?
Let me throw this out there for everyone.
It’s not about Apple vs. IBM or Intel better watt/performance ratio… it is hardly a business issue at all. It’s personal. You all may see where I’m going before I get there… but here goes. Remember when Halo, the much anticipated VideoGame from Bungie was about to debut on the Mac Platform a few yearsago? Who was there to take all the thunder and lightning from Apple…just when they where about to strike gold with Halo? Who just resorted to the same tactics… this time with an even stronger blow… to the hearts (microprocessors) of Apple’s desktop line-up, just when Apple is on the runway once again to soar to even loftier heights of technological bliss…
and Longhorn still in the hangar… yes without mentioning names, an up
to now forced low profile business bully has usurped the Mac faithful again, under the guise of partners, Sony, and Toshiba I believe… for the
X box and more. Yes, IBM could not ignore the captial being thrown at
them no more than Bungie could. The timing in all this is very suspect… Oh nooo not again… no they did’nt!
I’m pretty sure that Mr. Jobs and this non too pleasant De ja-vue experience just pushed him to the point of… well if you (IBM) put your
resources to the development of PowerPCs toward the Xbox… well
what aboout us? We’ll just go elsewhere. Apple has deep pockets… not as deep as a competitors who slickly teamed with others to veil its real intention of putting a real serious roadblock in the way of the momentum that Apple was/is enjoying. Is it dirty pool? It’s been done before. It’s that timing thing. Apple is a real threat to the Microsoft empire. It was verified when the Processor switch took place at the recent WWDC. Why has no one made this connection? It’s as viable as anything else I’ve read …amidst all the speculations.
Hobbes,
Be perplexed no more. The reason that IBM doesn’t use its own PPC chips in its general business server line is the same reason that Apple couldn’t make headway with the Mac in the enterprise market. 97% of businesses are on the x86 platform and have x86 specific server software needs.
Now we will see what Apple can do on the same platform as Windows.
Once the transition to Intel is complete, with most third-party apps on board, and once Macs stop making money for Apple, it can “flick to switch” and license Mac OS X to other PC makers.
The Mac as we know it may one day be dead but Mac OS X will be a force to be reckoned with.
“Once the transition to Intel is complete, with most third-party apps on board, and once Macs stop making money for Apple, it can “flick to switch” and license Mac OS X to other PC makers.”
Why is it that you think that Macintosh computers will stop making money for Apple? And … especially … prior to any “flicking of a switch: that will enable Mac OS X to be licensed to PC makers?
“The Mac as we know it may one day be dead but Mac OS X will be a force to be reckoned with.”
I agree that Mac OS X will, indeed, be a force to be reckoned with … I suspect that, going to x86 chips will enable the Mac OS to run Windows Apps natively through the Mac Interface. Eventually, all PC users will be able to choose which platform to use, and run any software they want.
WmB,
The exact argument I had with a guy at Bestbuy.
I would have sold everything I own to be a fly on the wall in Ballmer’s office when Steve announce Apple’s plans to M$.
my guess is that ‘reality check’ IS hannible, and his post reflects how he feels
hannible just know this, we are happy, safe and secure with osx..
and most of us are simply fed up with windows.. and its unlikely MS will do anything but get worse, and GD OSX is so effing smooth.. So stop writing shit articles or we’ll have your ass fired (once apple takes over the planet you will feel better)
brother’s rejoice (sisters too)
C’mon now — some windows “savant” spinning silliness again.
This is a move which indicates Apple is not prepared to
sit on its laurels in a rocking chair somewhere & muse about past achievements.
So Intel has managed to create processors to compete with the graphics specific Motorola & IBM processors to good result.
If Apple stays with chip development that is oblivious to their future & cutting edge needs, you know what the stories would read. They could rehash more of the same old articles they’ve been printing for a decade & more.
At the same time as the market reaches maturity & saturation with desktops & laptops, a more integrated path is something even microSoft is visiting.
If ever there was a time for Apple to make a move which is a step toward cost cutting parity, now is it, when they are still on the crest of a financial wave.
If the cost & development cycle is better going with the same core chipset as the rest of the market, it brings it closer to a head-to-head competition. Makes the low end of the product line easier to produce.
With the iPod being the premiere recognizable toy & overpriced (which can’t continue too much longer unless they really have some earth-shattering new direction for the iPod), a great suite of first rate applications & a solid OS which winDoze can only pine for at the moment, why not?
MacOS X has a clear identity & direction that works – it is a mature OS ontop of Unix now & there is probably no major fiddling any longer to tune THAT transition.
The future markets are close to saturation at the price points these companies need to operate comfortably, so now its taking market share from one another & competing with growing open source communities.
Addendum:
Portable is IN.
If IBM is not prompt in producing G5s good for laptops, the iBook is a dead end in a year or two, if the performance curve between laptops grows significantly.
Faster G4s in the iBook won’t necessarily make up for new OS features that leave the G4 chip wanting.
That is an ignominious end for a nice product even diehard winDoze users have found elegant & sexy. Its only recently that the wintel hardware has competed favorably with the iBook.
So that also makes it logical to move to something else that will get you there.
It is not going to be a straight wintel box in all probability. Apple hasn’t given up the computer hardware business model yet.
Even if they did — they could run with software only.
Look at the inroads Linux has made into winDOze territory, and Apple does GUI over Unix far better.
So, while ARS Technica is more authorititve than most, go back & look at their failed past predictions too. They’ve had some blunders & misses.
in the meantime, it riles the natives & they get talked about.
What kind of mushrooms is Hannibal eating these days?
Chew on this for a while hannible: http://www.osviews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4954&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Highest Mac sales in over four years. 52% of total revenue. 1.182 million units shipped.
So what was that you were saying about the ipod being apple’s future?
Since the release of the market figures for the latest Quarter, Hannibal and his fellow Machaters have been rather quiet on the subject of the death of the Macintosh. I wonder WHY? </Sarcasem