Compiled by Charles Moore
and edited by Dan Knight
- 2005.12.22
This Week's Macintel News
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 iNews Review.
Will Apple Promote 'Intel Inside' New
Macs?
Sci-Tech Today says:
"Intel is the master of helping its partners sell computers, in
part by helping them foot the bill for advertising. If you're Dell,
Hewlett-Packard, Gateway, Toshiba, or IBM, the more you advertise,
the more you sell. And the more you sell, the more you want to
advertise to sell more.
"The coming year for Apple Computer is full of questions, and
many of them are connected one way or another with the switch to
using microprocessors from Intel. How Apple will or won't build
around this or that Intel platform is likely to be answered when
CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage at the annual Macworld conference on
Jan. 10.
"But to me, a more interesting question is one that goes
straight to the heart of the relationship between Apple and its
newest chip supplier. As Apple includes Intel's chips inside its
machines, will it also point to the Intel brand on the outside? In
particular, will Apple place an Intel medallion on computers, or
mention Intel in the ads for computers that house Intel chips?"
- Link: Will
Apple Push Intel Inside?
Intel's 'Napa' Platform Faster, More Popular
than Previous Gen 'Sonoma'
The Register's Tony Smith reports:
"Intel's next-generation Centrino platform, codenamed 'Napa',
not only consumes rather less power than its predecessor does, but
is faster and has garnered a greater degree of industry support,
the chip giant claimed this week.
"According to Keith Kressin, a marketing director within Intel's
Mobility Group, Napa will form the basis for at least 230 systems,
more than the previous generation of the platform, 'Sonoma'.
"Why? A greater interest in mobile products, for one, but also
because Napa consumes 28 per cent less power than today's
top-of-the-range Sonoma-based notebooks, Kressin claimed. That's a
result of the use of a 65nm process to make the CPU, 'Yonah', but
it also arises from the tweaks made to the chip's sleep modes and
its cache infrastructure."
- Link:
'Napa' Faster, More Popular than 'Sonoma' - Intel
Will Intel's 'Napa' Platform be Foundation for
Apple Laptops?
Mercury News's Dean Takahashi says:
"Intel announced Tuesday that its new line of chips will be
built into more than 230 new laptop computers coming in 2006,
making them much better at running music, movies and other digital
media.
"But it wouldn't say a word about whether that includes the
laptop creating the most buzz, expected from its new marquee
customer, Apple Computer.
"The new laptops are based on Intel's new Napa platform that
will enable the biggest upgrade in two years for portable
technology. An Apple laptop with the technology could address the
pent-up demand among the Macintosh faithful who have been
disappointed with Apple laptops that run on PowerPC chips. Apple
said this year it would switch to Intel by mid-2006.
"The Napa-based computers have a microprocessor chip, dubbed
Yonah, that has two processing brains on a single chip. It is
Intel's first dual-core laptop microprocessor and can perform 30
percent to 68 percent faster on software programs compared with
single-core chips.
"Napa computers will also be as much as 30 percent smaller and
consume 28 percent less battery power than current Intel-based
laptops, said Keith Kressen, an Intel mobile marketing
director."
- Link: Will
Intel's Napa Chip Run Apple Laptops?
Intel Drives Apple Sales Up in 2006?
techrepublic.com reports:
"'Apple Sales Mushroom, Thanks To Intel CPUs'
"That is one headline that we will definitely not be seeing in
2006. Standard business practice to making a product sell, is to
accomplish at least one of the following: better product for the
same price, equal product at a better price, or superior customer
perception of product, regardless of price. In other words, it
either needs to be better, cheaper, or marketed as such.
"I am not going to dispute Apple's back office reasons for
switching to the Intel CPUs. They had a rocky relationship with IBM
and Motorola, and the PPC platform was not going where Apple needed
it to. Intel offered them a way out, and Apple had conveniently
been maintaining an x86 version of OS X the whole time. If
Apple had been maintaining a SPARC version of OS X instead of
x86, we would be hearing about a Sun/Apple partnership right now.
The decision has been made, the code has been written and is being
tested. It is a done deal.
"But those who think that this deal will significantly boost
sales of Macintosh computers are dead wrong. The Intel architecture
simply does not add value, reduce prices, or make the product more
marketable. Here is why."
- Link:
Intel Drives Apple Sales Up in 2006?
The Apple/Intel Report: The Pressure
Mounts
Gene Steinberg, the Mac Night Owl, writes:
"Over the past six months, most of my columns have focused on
the well- known positive aspects of Apple's impending switch to
Intel processors. But, no, I'm not being a cheerleader; I just want
to take as realistic an approach as possible and clear up the
confusion and misguided speculation."
- Link: The
Apple/Intel Report: The Pressure Mounts
NEC Unveils First 'Yonah' Notebook
The Register's Tony Smith reports:
"NEC has announced what may well be the first notebook to be
based on Intel's upcoming 65nm, dual-core processor, 'Yonah'.
"The Japanese manufacturer's LaVie RX LR900/ED, announced
yesterday, will contain the new CPU, backed by 512 MB of DDR2 SDRAM
- the upper limit's 1.5 GB - and Intel's 945 Express chipset, aka
'Callistoga' and derived from the 945 desktop chipset
series.....
"What NEC didn't say was when the machine will ship - 'sometime
in 2006' was as close as it got to a launch timeframe. Yonah is
expected to debut early next year as part of the launch of the
third-generation Centrino platform."
- Link: NEC
Unveils First 'Yonah' Notebook
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 iNews Review.
