RUMOR: Apple won’t use Intel’s default 32nm Arrandale, refuses to adopt Intel integrated graphics

Black Friday/Cyber Monday Apple Blowout“Apple is the company that is known for always going on their own way and now it seems that the divide between Apple and Intel is wider than ever,” Theo Valich reports for Bright Side Of New.

“According to sources close to the heart of the matter, Apple allegedly refused to adopt Intel’s Arrandale and the Calpella platform in its default form. In order for Apple to implement Calpella design with their next refresh of Mac mini / MacBook / MacBook Pro lines, Intel will have to provide Apple with the 32nm version without the integrated graphics part,” Valich report.

Valich report, “Again, we cannot confirm the information about the replacement CPU, we only know that Apple rejected Arrandale.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]

54 Comments

  1. “Apple to Intel: “We don’t want your crappy integrated graphics in our Pro line. These are professional machines and our customers expect more.”

    Apple to customers: “The Mac Pro comes standard with the powerful NVIDIA GeForce GT 120.”

    Ha-ha.”

    Ironic, isn’t it? Six in one, half a dozen in the other.

    “You design them, and either contract with a builder, or a better option: buy a processor plant. The infrastructure is there, and can be bought for a lot less than Apple’s cash position, I’ll bet.”

    Why would Apple lay out $4 billion to build a plant for a comparatively low-yield component, where they can’t even achieve cost-effective economies of scale for their own products? There’s zero reason for Apple to distract themselves with getting into the semiconductor business when they can contract it out to Intel, TSMC, GF, et al.

    Say what you will about Apple and contract manufacturing, but they’ve tweaked the process pretty well to their own ends.

  2. “I don’t think the car industry is a good example of success since they have been struggling to survive in recent years. Having to control every part of the process takes up a lot of resources and slows down the rate of innovation. This is why the US car industry can never make a modern, reliable advanced car. They spend forever churning out the same old crap that only old men or muscle freaks go for.

    Depends on who we are talking about. The successful ones who I listed control a higher degree of all their operations from design to manufacturing to sales (as far as sales practices in the US can be with our laws, less control than in other countries, and I am not suggesting that manufacturers own dealerships as they do in many other countries)

    In reality, they are more like Apple in terms of having more control of what happens. So I don’t think we really disagree. With other regulations to deal with, the auto business is FAR more complex than computers.

    I would like to see Apple apply their expertise, improved in most areas compared to when they did it before, and take another shot of some types of manufacturing.

    There is a production facility 5 miles away from my home, ready to go back to work. In a down market, Apple could buy it cheaply and run it. It ran for nearly 30 years, building all kinds of boards for international corporations, including some medical equipment boards that sold for $25,000 each. I know because I tested many of them.

    I’m betting there are others, although that specific thing is not my area. I just hope someone looks at that, given the unemployment rate in the country. Including those who are no longer looking and those who are no longer eligible for jobless benefits, the real unemployment number is around 17%. 30% in Modesto California where they have shut off the irrigation water for enviro reasons. For those who don’t know, that is where a huge percentage of our fruit and vegetables come from. I know that has nothing to do with computers. Well, I would not wanting to be selling them in Modesto.

    That cannot go on, and printing Monopoly money, thereby diluting the value of whatever real dollar we still have, cannot continue. If it does, we will have much larger problems than where our computers are made. They won’t matter.

  3. @Another IT Guy…
    The Mac Pro does not come with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120, it comes with whatever GPU Apple offers for your Mac Pro. Why the hell would a sound engineer care what GPU ships on there Macs. Not everybody needs OpenGL, so why stick it to every one of your customers. If you are doing 3D or gaming, then you know the GT 120 will not cut it. So no, I don’t think its ironic at all. It is a lot more common for a prosumer to need Open GL than a Pro user that works on a field where a robust GPU may or may not be necessary.

  4. Hmm..I get what you’re saying but look for a second what Apple have done in the last decade:

    1. In 2000 when the bubble burst. Apple stock got hammered, then everyone felt the economic downturn. What did Apple do when everyone else got negative. They innovated, spent more on R&D;than ever and rolled out OSX and started building their mac platform again.
    2. By 2002 they have released the iPod, opened it up to windows, opened Apple Stores and rapidly evolved OSX.
    3. In 2006 they made the bold switch to Intel.
    4. Even in this last downturn they are not holding back.

    These are the signs of a company that knows what they are doing. Are so far ahead of the competitions that it is almost laughable. Whilst others in their industry are struggling to make money selling low cost cheap crap, Apple are showing everyone how to operate the business.

    Apple employ more people now than ever. Granted a lot of those are in retail, but they are definitely expanding their R&D;and operations. The tickle dow n effect with the iPod and IPhone accessory industry also offers opportunities.

    So guess what…Apple charge a reasonable price for a good product, haven’t had to resort to cutting margins for market share (like the rest of the PC and car industry), they haven’t taken bad risks to increase profits (like the banking industry), and have been willing to innovate to produce sellable products (unlike the PC and car industry).

    If you want to increase employment in the US then maybe think of ways to increase innovation. Clinton did it in the 90s by pouring money into basic research and it paid off with 10 years of benefits.

    Unfortunately we are in a syndrome of fast profits and ridiculous bonuses for executives who don’t care for their business.

    Apple have clearly demonstrated a successful model for business with double digit growth, zero debt, large cash holding and sustainable profit margin:
    Innovate, balance your books, invest when you need it regardless of the economic environment and most important know your business.

  5. “Apple is the company that is known for always going on their own way and now it seems that the divide between Apple and Intel is wider than ever,” Theo Valich reports for Bright Side Of New.

    Wider than ever? Even wider than when they used Motorola processors?

  6. “If you want to increase employment in the US then maybe think of ways to increase innovation. Clinton did it in the 90s by pouring money into basic research and it paid off with 10 years of benefits.”

    Innovation that actually creates jobs comes from private business, not from government. Government typically funds thing that are economically shaky but politically correct. Recipe for disaster.

    And it does it using printed money that was taken (albeit legally) from someone who created the value that it supposedly represents.

    Analogy: I am watching the Denver Broncos right now. They just scored a touchdown against 3-8 Kansas City. If you apply our tax code to it, Denver should give 3 of the 6 points to Kansas City in the form of a tax payment.

    It won’t help Kansas City to solve its problems, and will just cause Denver to say “to hell with it” and not play as hard.

    Exactly what is happening in our economy. Companies are not hiring because they know their taxes and expenses will rise dramatically if things continue as they are now. Time to lay low, glad I don’t own a company now. But it still affects me because I would like to be hired for something better. Not likely to happen until government (which produces NO profit, it only consumes those created by others) gets out of the way. Not in as you suggest.

  7. Some are making an conclusion based on two separate facts. An erroneous conclusion because there is no evidencethat one fact resulted in the other… except that the two facts somewhat overlap in time.

    Apple’s shift to Intel and Apple’s success are those two facts.

    The erroneous conclusion is that the shift to Intel is the reason for Apple’s success.

    Unfortunately, this conclusion ignores a third fact… that Apple’s success was already well underway prior to the Intel switch.

    Besides, Apple’s success was and is in the consumer market where the vast majority of buyers don’t know (let alone care) about the processor used.

    If there is one single factor… that all evidence supports as being responsible for Apple’s success…

    it’s Steve Jobs return to Apple.

    (And that’s no reality distortion.)

    Which is not to say that Jobs did it singlehandedly.

    Least anyone think I’m some Jobsian fanboi… when Steve Jobs returned, I (and some in the Mac tech community I corresponded with) thought he came back to destroy Apple. What better evidence to support such a “conclusion” than his famed “mercurial” temper and (most importantly) the fact that Jobs sold his Apple stock as soon as legally possible after he returned.

    Why sell your stock if you intend to stick around? (About a year later, I figured out a good reason for that.)

    So be careful when making conclusions.

  8. From my POV as a color management professional, Apple have at long bloody last come up with real, actual professional level laptop that can be used for color management. This is NEW with the current generation of MacBooks and MacBook Pros. It NEVER existed before. There are two main factors:

    (1) 8-bit color laptop displays, versus the previous 6-bit, merely thousands of colors, laptop color displays with baloney dithering added to fake the millions of missing colors.

    2) A 170º viewing angle on laptop color displays, preventing shifting colors and contrast by merely moving your head.

    Having achieved this professional level in their laptops, why would Apple want to hobble themselves with crap, unprofessional, integrated graphics from Intel? That’s the junk you put in the dirt cheap, short lifespan, POS laptops from those other companies.

  9. Keep pushing that Freidmanite supply side lie. Whenever taxes are cut for corporations they do not hire more workers. They just pocket the money for their CEO’s and less tax money goes to basic social services and funding a highly educated populace. This is why states are broke. Government right now is a pawn for the oligarchs. Those with the gold and plenty of it.

    Demand for products pushes companies to hire more not extra capital or supply. If there is not a strong middle class with good jobs and good wages that spend 80% of their income, then there is no one to buy there products. And they sure as heck cannot buy it at the current prices. 30 years of Reagonomics has killed the middle class and this country(Bush, Clinton, Bush jr.). If you want a third world country or a banana republic than keep continuing to support anti-labor legislation/propoganda and bending over for billionaires. They love slave labor and sheople.

  10. I was born in Modesto. My parents were born in Modesto. None of us live there anymore.

    Apple and Intel are closer now than they were at any point prior to the move from PowerPC to Intel. No crisis here. Unlike Modesto…

  11. @kenh

    Apple doesn’t sell enough computers to make developing and producing its own chips feasible. Too many different chips would be needed (Mac Pro, iMac, laptops, etc.), which require different fabrication equipment.

    Yes, Apple has PA Semi. But Apple buying a production facility and rolling its own chips will simply start the long road to Apple not being as advanced as Intel chips. Intel does nothing but research how to improve chips. Apple doesn’t have that kind of resources to do the same, nor could Apple sell enough chips to pay for the personnel, technology, equipment and facility needed to produce them.

    Plus, I doubt Apple wants the headache of chip fabrication. Remember how well IBM’s Fishkill factory opening went? It was a couple of years before the facility was producing reasonable numbers of chips without having to throw away a large percentage of production.

  12. Guys,

    Everyone here is getting too worked up and are missing a very important fact. Intel is Apple’s bitch.

    Apple got intel to design a custom low power, small package cpu for the macbook air because they refused to wait another 8 months for the next generation parts.

    Apple has been getting new CPU’s before any other hardware manufacturers since the intel transition. Heck for the last couple generations apple announces products with chips that aren’t even on intel’s price list yet.

    What Apple wants from intel apple gets and it gets it before HP, Dell and the rest. Apple will have quad core 32nm cpus sans integrated graphics for the macbook pro and they will have parts shipping days or weeks ahead of reference capella designs.

Reader Feedback (You DO NOT need to log in to comment. If not logged in, just provide any name you choose and an email address after typing your comment below)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.