Apple - Intel Inside
Hell hath frozen over yet again. Unless you have been in Siberia recently I'm sure you are aware that Steve Jobs just announced that Apple will be transitioning their entire Mac line from PowerPC's to Intel based processors.
A sign of the end times?
I've been asked by my coworkers if I'm upset about this news, especially since they know I purchased a new Power Mac G5 last year. At first I did feel cheated by Jobs, especially since they've taken so much pot shots at Intel over the years (remember the G4 supercomputer commercial with the tanks?). Good thing for Google, it gives you a chance to read some of the articles they posted over the years. Also who can forget the famous Megahertz Myth speech by Senior VP of Hardware, Jon Rubinstein? After all this I felt that Apple was abandoning the very platform I invested so much money into. Then I realized well its really OS X that I invested in, as long as the applications that I buy will continue to run on the G5 (hopefully optimized as well) then I will be OK with it. It's still a new announcement so all the details will need to be sorted out.
Proof positive that it works.
So why would Steve make this drastic change all of a sudden? My guess is that he was absolutely fuming about IBM not being able to produce the G5 in terms of quantity and in clockspeed that they promised him. I bet that IBM originally showed up some fantastic roadmaps, including a rapid speed increase within a 2-3 year period so he went out and committed his company to making the G5 the basis for all future Mac's. It's good that he had the secret x86 builds of OS X going on as a contingency as we all know, IBM was only able to increase the speed of their flagship desktop processor a measly 200MHz in a one year period.
So why not AMD instead of Intel? I think because although AMD makes some excellent processors, they too are hitting the edge of how fast they can make their CPU's. If you look at the specs of their latest Athlon 64's you will notice the internal MHz does not increase much, so they have to resort to tricks like increasing the amount of cache in order to get more performance. Also Intel makes the absolute best (but highly underrated) notebook processor, the Pentium M, which was designed from the ground up to be a low powered and cool running notebook CPU. Apple is dying to get the next generation PowerBook off the ground and they must feel that this chip (or it's future incarnations) are the best platform to base it off of.
Here are some of the funny postings I've read on various web forums (the first comment only makes sense if you have watched Episode 3)...
My Predictions:
You can catch the entire WWDC 2005 Keynote here. It's worth watching to see how deathly quite the audience gets after Steve announces the Intel partnership and to see their pale faces after the keynote is over. They're walking around with a zombie-like stare just like how I felt after experiencing Super Star Limo at DCA. The best part of the entire presentation was watching Microsoft's very own Roz Ho. It just isn't a keynote without her!
She seems nervous as usual...
A sign of the end times?
I've been asked by my coworkers if I'm upset about this news, especially since they know I purchased a new Power Mac G5 last year. At first I did feel cheated by Jobs, especially since they've taken so much pot shots at Intel over the years (remember the G4 supercomputer commercial with the tanks?). Good thing for Google, it gives you a chance to read some of the articles they posted over the years. Also who can forget the famous Megahertz Myth speech by Senior VP of Hardware, Jon Rubinstein? After all this I felt that Apple was abandoning the very platform I invested so much money into. Then I realized well its really OS X that I invested in, as long as the applications that I buy will continue to run on the G5 (hopefully optimized as well) then I will be OK with it. It's still a new announcement so all the details will need to be sorted out.
Proof positive that it works.
So why would Steve make this drastic change all of a sudden? My guess is that he was absolutely fuming about IBM not being able to produce the G5 in terms of quantity and in clockspeed that they promised him. I bet that IBM originally showed up some fantastic roadmaps, including a rapid speed increase within a 2-3 year period so he went out and committed his company to making the G5 the basis for all future Mac's. It's good that he had the secret x86 builds of OS X going on as a contingency as we all know, IBM was only able to increase the speed of their flagship desktop processor a measly 200MHz in a one year period.
So why not AMD instead of Intel? I think because although AMD makes some excellent processors, they too are hitting the edge of how fast they can make their CPU's. If you look at the specs of their latest Athlon 64's you will notice the internal MHz does not increase much, so they have to resort to tricks like increasing the amount of cache in order to get more performance. Also Intel makes the absolute best (but highly underrated) notebook processor, the Pentium M, which was designed from the ground up to be a low powered and cool running notebook CPU. Apple is dying to get the next generation PowerBook off the ground and they must feel that this chip (or it's future incarnations) are the best platform to base it off of.
Here are some of the funny postings I've read on various web forums (the first comment only makes sense if you have watched Episode 3)...
- Steve! you were my brother! you were the chosen one! you were supposed to destroy the X86 not join them!"-IBM-wan kenobi
"I hate you!"-Steve Jobs
- I felt a great disturbance in the mac world, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. ...
- what's next? 3 button mouse ???
My Predictions:
- Current sales for Mac hardware will dramatically slow during the next year. Remember this happened last time Steve made the prediction that the G5 would reach 3GHz within the following year, there was a large group of people that said they would wait until then before purchasing their next PowerMac. Well it looks like Steve will hit beyond 3GHz, just not until 2006-2007 and with something called other than the G5. My recommendation for anybody who is about to buy a high end Power Mac or PowerBook is to wait until the Intel models are out. If you can't wait until then an interim iMac or iBook should fit the bill.
It's been 2 years Steve... - I also predict that Apple will use a new case design. Because of the relatively cooler running processors (most likely dual core), Apple won't need all the space the existing G5 heatsinks take up just to cool the processors. With the extra room they will be able to easily fit multiple optical media drives, and at least 4 internal hard drives.
You can catch the entire WWDC 2005 Keynote here. It's worth watching to see how deathly quite the audience gets after Steve announces the Intel partnership and to see their pale faces after the keynote is over. They're walking around with a zombie-like stare just like how I felt after experiencing Super Star Limo at DCA. The best part of the entire presentation was watching Microsoft's very own Roz Ho. It just isn't a keynote without her!
She seems nervous as usual...
posted by Marcos at June 06, 2005
2 Comments:
Ha ha ha, great blog brother Mark! The Episode 3 paraphrasing was hilarious.
As far as the announcement goes, I feel a little bummed. As most Mac aficionados know, Apple has been grilling Intel since the dawn of time- RISC vs CISC, the snail commercial, toasted bunnies, etc. -and always with PowerPC claims of “up to twice as fast” as Intel.
So Jobs is telling us to forget about all of this? Forget about the world’s first 64-bit desktop computer? Forget about the pumped up Power Mac G5 intro video? Forget that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all using PowerPC technology in their next-gen consoles? All PowerPC's systems are now legacy hardware? Mark, Krud and Gary, just remember that your machines are still fast and still the best systems out there for digital video, photography, etc. OS X will fortunately stand the test of time.
I know what you mean Rob, I drank the Steve Koolaid only to wake up to this, but it's not all bad when you think of the future of Apple. Read this article, hopefully it will make you feel a little better.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10794
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