“What are to we to expect from Apple? Would the company petulantly reject these new dual-core processors for the subsequent generation or two of high-end Macs yet to come before the Intel changeover is complete? That would be crazy. Apple will use the highest-power IBM chips it can get for its top-end Macs right up to the point where it makes the jump to Intel,” Robert X. Cringely writes for PBS. “This simple knowledge changes everything. And it certainly justifies a second look back at the Apple/Intel announcement and what the heck is really going on.”
“For all Steve had to say about IBM’s supposedly puny processor roadmap, he had to have known these dual-core chips were coming. But since they weren’t mentioned at that time in the official IBM roadmap, he didn’t have to refer to them. This says a lot about the timing of the announcement. I wondered why Apple was pre-announcing the processor jump by a year or more? The timing was unknowingly set by IBM. To have the greatest impact, Apple had to make the announcement before IBM revealed the new dual-core chips so the pundits would buy the move as logical, so that the announcement would help Intel and hurt IBM the most,” Cringely writes. “Why would Apple want to hurt IBM? Apple wouldn’t, but Intel WOULD. That had to have been part of the deal with Intel, to kick IBM in the corporate groin, and Jobs certainly did so. Now what’s in it for Steve? This is not solely about the price of chips.”
“The whole Apple/Intel deal gets curiouser and curiouser. I wonder if Apple even intends to go forward with the changeover? My guess is they will, but only if Intel complies fully with more unannounced terms of the deal. As I have written in previous columns, Apple is working on its own movie download service (HD movies at that!), and I believe that service and ClickStar are one in the same,” Cringely writes. “Good pricing is not enough reward for Steve Jobs kicking IBM in the corporate groin at the behest of Intel. Let’s guess, then, that not only will ClickStar morph into ITMS, but that Intel’s ‘digital home entertainment devices’ will be ITMS-compliant. No Microsoft, no Real, just H.264, FairPlay, and something behind Door Number Three… Get ready for the Video iPod, which will presumably be available from more than just Apple. HP is already on board and these clues suggest Intel is likely there, too.”
Full article, with much more, here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Cringley: Apple and Intel to merge; Steve Jobs finally beats Bill Gates – June 09, 2005
Apple’s shift to Intel really all about Hollywood, owning the living room, and Transitive – June 05, 2005
I must agree with Cringely that Apple must have something juicy comming up, especially for HP to expand it’s humiliating HP iPod by Apple line.
That is a slap in the face for HP. HP must either had stupid negeotiators or they saw something that Apple is comming out with which they want a piece of.
” I wondered why Apple was pre-announcing the processor jump by a year or more?’
Hammer take: Perhaps to give developers some lead time to transitioning their apps you idiot
“That had to have been part of the deal with Intel, to kick IBM in the corporate groin, and Jobs certainly did so”
Hammer take: By all accounts IBM doesnt give a crap that Apple switched. It seemingly has no effect on IBM’s future plans. No one got kicked in the groin as you put it.
i cant wait to watch hd movies on a 2 inch screen
i hope you all have broadband for those 20 gig movie files.
I always enjoy reading Cringely’s predictions… However, I must say that this one seems a bit too “imaginative” in some areas.. iPod Video with retinal scans? I don’t know about that one!
“NerdTV”… “retinal scan display”… Ouch!
“When Cringely talks, we listen”. That’s what MDN has said, anyway. Good plan. I been claimin’ in here that IBM wasn’t going anywhere either. Not that I’m any Robert Cringely. Just sayin’ …. heh
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Wild? No doubt. Off the top? Probably. However, Cringely makes some interesting guesses on the always entertaining story about what is going on in the non-smoke-filled rooms at One Infinity Loop.
I like Cringely’s take much better than the one at Ars Technica (namely, Apple switched to get a good deal on Intel wireless chips for mobile devices, the Mac is soooo last year, and the devices — like iPod — are the future). The points that impress me is that Apple had to know about IBM’s newly announced chips and that one year is an awfully long time to create universal binaries (with a chance of slowing Mac sales badly).
Jobs has moved the date of the developers’ conference in the past for an announcement. Didn’t he do that for the new G5 PowerMacs? (I can’t recall — too many dead brain cells from celebrating a record quarter.) Also, Tiger has been one of the worse OS releases for bugs and unfinished pieces (like Dashboard). My personal theory was that Apple put out Tiger before its time to get the product out before the Intel announcement. But the Intel announcement could have been delayed a couple of months by pushing off the developers’ conference. Now Cringely gives us a plausible reason why the developers’ conference was held on time.
Don’t you love it when a plot comes together?
Al: That is a slap in the face for HP.
All, HP does have the franchise for iPods at Wal Mart, and the iPod Shuffle from HP was recently announced.
And yes, HP remembers when Steve showed Carly the DRM golden path.
i was with him all the way up to the “retinal scan” part.
Man, sometimes, he’s so close, and then veers off.
“As Seen On TV”.
uh.. HP is on board?? okay.. this is the first I’ve heard of HP being on board BEFORE SOMETHING IS RELEASED..
it took them like 6 months to decide the iPod mini was a ‘good seller’
I, for one, would be a happy man if Apple didn’t drop PPC. As Intel’s latest lackluster 65nm announcement makes clear, for high performance computing the future is NOT with them.
However, many posters have made the point (ad nausium) that it would be too costly and/or confusing to maintain the R&D for two versions of OSX, not to mention a software developer base to do ther same. And this does make some sense, at least from the standpoint of really small developers. On the other hand, it doesn’t make any sense at all that a true innovation like universal binaries is only useful for massive, costly, once every ten years platform/CPU transitions.
But does that mean we’re actually diving into a mixed platform, retina scan iPod dominated future? Wasn’t Cringely saying just last month that Intel was going to take Apple over, so Jobs could then run Disney or something? He reminds me of the crazy guy around the campfire in the old Spielberg film “Always” … you have to wade through a lot of nonsense, but you might find he has an answer for you if you do.
I just wish I knew which of his ramblings could be trusted most.
You don’t watch the movies on your iPod. You watch them on your lap top, 23-30″ monitor or stream it to your TV.
I wonder what the X stands for in Robert X. Cringely.
not to change the subject or anything
Xavier
(or System X!)
Hey X, can I have some of what you’re smoking?
I pulled my scab off & it hurts! ow! Now I know what it must feel like to use Windows XP.
(ow.)
I don’t think it will necessarily happen the way Cringely propose it will. But you gotta believe an iTMS-like movie service is in Apple’s playbook.
For those who point to Steve Jobs’ dismissal of portable video players like Archos, please note that Steve is only down on the idea of a video iPod because there is no easy way to get legal video content.
iTMS for movies would change all that. Consumers would have an easy way to download and sync their movies to the iPod in a legal manner. Just like the iPod did not launch without iTunes, neither will a video iPod launch without iTMS for movies.
Can’t wait for that day to come!
Sounds good to me, this is what I have been saying for a year will get me to buy a new high end iPod. They should also have video out so you can watch it on a big screen as well as the view goggles.
As aluded to elsewhere here, and as I have stated previously in these forums: The issue downloading HD movies is bandwidth.
Even at H.264 and using the best forward error correction codes available today (Low Density Parity Check codes if you’re curious) transmitting a 1080i HDTV movie takes almost 9 Mbps if done in real time.
Have a connection that is “only” 4.5 Mbps? Then downloading a two hour movie will take four hours. Have “only” a T-1 (1.544 Mbps)? Then downloading that same two hour movie will take 12 hours.
Please don’t say things like Bittorrent will make these figures wrong. They won’t. Things like Bittorrent will only help on the server side. If the pipe coming into your house is only 1.5 Mbps then it does not matter how many (even thousands) of sites are sending you data. You can only get it at the 1.5 Mbps rate. It will still take 12 hours to download a two hour 1080i HDTV movie.
Will downloading HD quality movies make sense? Yes, someday. Someday, when a significant fraction of the expected user base has at least 5 Mbps plus connections. Until then expect any movie download service to have to make its money off much lower resolution fare.
“Remember in his original announcement of the Intel alliance, Steve Jobs said the full changeover to Intel would take two years, that it would be a year before the first Apple Intel machine appeared and those machines would start toward the low end, presumably with the Mini and iBook.”
No, Steve Jobs DID NOT SAY that the Intel machines would start at the low end! Has there been ANY official Apple statement to that effect? Quotes from unnamed sources on rumor sites don’t count.
I’ve said this before when rumors first started popping up just before the Intel announcement. Apple will use new chips from Intel that will blow all the competition out of the water. Intel is currently prepping a new chip that will leave IBM’s Cell processor in the dust when it comes to multicore processing and whatever else the rest of the competition is touting right now. Steve Jobs saw IBM’s roadmap and Intel’s roadmap, and obviously, Steve made the obvious decision. It will set back both IBM and AMD years and years to catch up. All this of course is straight from my source at Intel who is one of the chief engineers involved in the project.
Why would Steve J. make the switch to Intel? To get more Windows switchers and gain market share! (This is his job) All Steve needed was to have everything in place to make the transition smooth and the right moment when IBM was behind.
He didn’t have long to wait.
Apple needs to concentrate on selling the OS, not the processor.
Shadowself-
It won’t be long until we’re up to 10 mbps commercially.
Comcast is already offering(or about to) offer 6 mbps.
And how many weeks will it take to download a HD movie even with a broadband connection…
As for HD on a 2 inch screen, whats the point. Now if you could plug this fabled vPod into your TV…..