Compiled by Charles Moore
and edited by Dan Knight
- 2005.07.14
This Week's Mac-on-Intel News
Low End Mac has standardized on Macintel as our official
informal label for the forthcoming OS X-on-Intel Macintosh
computers, although you'll probably find just as many people
calling them "Mactels". Whatever we call them, Apple's decision to
switch to Intel CPUs means we live in very interesting times.
PowerBook, iBook, and other portable computing news is covered
in The 'Book Review. General
Apple and Mac desktop news is covered in The Mac News Review. iPod news is
covered in The iPod News Review.
News, Analysis, and Opinion
Tech Developments
News, Analysis, and Opinion
Expect Mac mini, Laptops as First Macintel
Systems
Macsimum News reports:
"Some analysts are predicting that the first Macs to use Intel
chips - the Mactels - will be iMacs and Mac minis, according to an
article at Macworld UK. ". . . given that Mac OS X
is a 64-bit operating system and Intel hasn't yet announced a
64-bit mobile chip, Apple will probably make desktops such as the
iMac and the Mac mini the first recipients of Intel architecture,
says Shane Rau, PC chip analyst for the research firm IDC," adds
Macworld UK.
"That may be the case, but I think the first Mactel machine will
be a Mac mini, followed shortly thereafter by iBooks and/or
PowerBooks. These will then be followed - according to my crystal
ball - by Intel-based iMacs, then eMacs, and finally Power Macs.
There may be some snafus to work out with Intel chips for laptops
and Mac OS X, but I suspect that Jobs & Company are working
with Intel right now to iron out those difficulties."
Did Apple Rush to Judgment in Choosing
Intel?
Gene Steinberg, the Mac Night Owl, writes:
"The way Steve Jobs tells it, Apple decided to switch to Intel
because its processor road map is superior to IBM's. On the
surface, it does appear that IBM was unable to deliver the parts
Apple needed when it needed them. Since then, there's been plenty
of speculation as to just what chips will make their way into the
next generation of Macs, which some of us call Macintels just to
distinguish the new from the old. Or just to be silly, or a little
bit of both."
The Big Myth About the Intel Transition
Macsimum News' Dennis Sellers says:
"After Apple announced its plans to move the Mac line to Intel
chips, Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood said it was a bad idea.
He told the San Mercury News that Apple lost market share every
time it has made a major transition, such as in the mid-1990s when
the company moved from Motorola's 680x0 line of chips to IBM's
PowerPC chips. Brookwood added that such a move could frustrate
some loyal customers of Apple....
"There's some fallacies in his argument, which the excellent
MWJ, the 'The Weekly Journal for Serious Macintosh' points out and
which I thought I'd share with you (in summary form; you'll need to
read the entire lengthy report for details)."
Intel, the iPod, and the Future of Apple
Computer
ars technica's Jon "Hannibal" Stokes says:
"If you've been following the Apple-to-Intel transition, you're
going to want to read this whole article. Why? Because I'm going to
do something that I almost never do: spill insider information from
unnamed sources that I can confirm are in a position to know the
score. Note that this isn't the start of some kind of new trend for
me. It's just that all this information that I've been sitting on
is about to become dated, so it's time to get it out there."
Macs with Intel Inside - What Next?
PC World's Rebecca Freed says:
"It was a 'Hell-has-finally-frozen-over' moment: In early June,
Steve Jobs stood before the most devout of the Mac faithful,
software developers for the Mac, and told them that Mac hardware
will be based on Intel CPUs in the future. Even though rumors of
the news had been circulating for a few weeks, the announcement
still came as a shock, since Intel is so closely associated with
Microsoft.
"It's a testament to Jobs's persuasive abilities that the news
was accepted with relative equanimity by many Mac users and
developers. Presumably, all those developers are now working to
port their programs to the new Mac architecture.
"On the whole, I bought the story too, although I know that it
won't all go smoothly. Anyone who owns or is considering buying a
Mac has to have questions; these are what I think the answers
are."
Apple to Break Wintel Duopoly?
TechWeb's Alexander Wolfe says:
"Two countervailing trends are converging, in a technological
pincer movement that could upend long-standing notions about just
what constitutes the standard PC architecture. Since 1992, when
Windows 3.1 was released, the dominant platform has been the
'Wintel' combo of a Microsoft operating system and an Intel
processor.
"Sure, there have been attempts to supplant Intel with alternate
architectures, notably Apple's Macintosh, which started life in
1984 using Motorola's 68K processors and 1994 moved to the
IBM-Motorola PowerPC. It's safe to say, however, that perceptions
about the Mac's market success outpace the reality....
"....Apple's plan to use the Mac OS on Intel hardware - I call
it the Mactel architecture - is likely to create a large, messy
category consisting not only of Apple-authorized machines but also
standard PCs that have been hacked to host Mac OS."
IBM and Apple: A Mutual Break-up?
webpronews' Jason L. Miller says:
"Steve Jobs has accomplished at least one thing recently: all
eyes are on his company as industry aficionados give themselves
migraines trying to figure out what's going on over there. So much
so, IBM's new multicore Power PC chips becomes a conversation speed
bump serving only to redirect comments toward a confounding Apple
business move.
"The assumed reasoning behind Apple's pivotal switch to its old
enemy Wintel, um, I mean, Intel microchips was IBM's inability to
deliver the goods on 3 GHz speedy and less power consuming
processors for the next generation of Macs....
"If Apple wanted speedier multicore processors consuming less
power, then IBM has delivered, a month after Apple's shocking Big
Blue drop. The PowerPC chips were presented at the Power Everywhere
forum in Tokyo."
A Secret Plan to Kill the Mac?
Gene Steinberg, the Mac Night Owl, writes:
"The conspiracy theories abound and some of them are so far
beyond the realm of logic that you have to wonder what the writers
were drinking, smoking, or whatever. Some theories actually seem
logical, although you wonder if the writers want you to believe
they employ mind reading abilities to get their information."
Tech Developments
IBM Shows Dual-core, Low-power G5 Chips
IDG News Service's Tom Krazit reports:
"IBM unveiled two new PowerPC chips Thursday at an event in
Tokyo, one month after its primary customer for those chips
announced plans to switch to Intel's processors.
"The new PowerPC 970MP is a dual-core version of the PowerPC
970FX, which users of Apple Computer's Power Mac and iMac computers
know as the G5 processor. IBM also unveiled a low-power version of
the 970FX chip with power consumption statistics that would make it
suitable for a notebook.
"IBM had said little publicly about its PowerPC road map during
the last several weeks of speculation, then confirmation, that
Apple would make the historic switch away from the PowerPC
architecture in favor of Intel's x86 architecture starting in 2006.
IBM and Apple have had a rocky partnership since IBM became the
exclusive supplier of the G5 processors. Manufacturing problems at
IBM caused a delay in shipments of the G5 chips last year and
power-consumption issues forced Apple to use liquid cooling in a
high-end Power Mac and hold back on launching a G5 PowerBook or
iBook."
More Mac News
PowerBook, iBook, and other portable computing news is covered
in The 'Book Review. General
Apple and Mac desktop news is covered in The Mac News Review. iPod news is
covered in The iPod News Review.
