CONFIRMED: Apple to ditch IBM, go Intel Inside in 2006-7

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#1 Post by **K. Eng** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:32 pm

Confirmed!

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 828517.htm

I guess it's curtains for PPC in the notebook/workstation space. x64 reigns supreme.

http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM% ... =nefd.lede

Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.

Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.

The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor.

2006-7 is when Intel makes the shift to the Merom/Conroe architecture. If Apple does intend to give x64 compatibility to OS X, this could change the Operating System market entirely.

wolfman · #2 Post by **wolfman** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:44 pm

If it turns out to be true that Apple will bring OS X to Intel x86 platform will be very interesting to see how Microsoft responds...wonder how long after that announcement, for example, Microsoft will continue to develop Office for the Mac? I'd love to see the competition on the same hardware between M$ and Apple...

emorphien · #3 Post by **emorphien** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:56 pm

Competition on the same hardware would likely kill apple. They'd have to transfer very quickly from relying on their hardware sales to relying on their software sales and I doubt it would be easy for them to incorporate support for a broad variety of hardware like Windows has.

wolfman · #4 Post by **wolfman** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 1:10 pm

Although with the cash being thrown off by the iPod success, now is as good a time as any to try - but it seems to be a "bet the company" move. They also seem to be having a great deal of success with their iLife suite of products and now have introduced the iWork suite which they will grow (hopefully) into a full featured suite. Since Darwin is based on freebsd I'd bet they could support a descent subset of pc hardware drivers in a year or two. I think there would still be a market for Apple branded hardware as they could sell it with guartanteed compatiblity branding.

asiafish · #5 Post by **asiafish** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 6:04 pm

For the last decade or more there have been rumours of Apple switching to the x86 architecture, countless articles written about it, and still Apple has its own (very successful) platform.

Don't hold your breath, its not going to happen.

#6 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 9:02 pm

It could happen, and rather smoothly if Steve does his homework first. Porting OSX will be the easy part given it's UNIX based and they should already have some code for X86/Pentium. Back when Apple was working on Rhapsody (beta codename for OSX) there was for a very short time an X86/Pentium version until it got killed off for some reason.

Hardware wise, Intel could probably supply higher quantities of chips at slightly lower prices but the move might turn several customers away from Apple.

asiafish · #7 Post by **asiafish** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 12:04 am

Will never happen as Apple does not want to put itself out of the hardware business.

Mind you, I'd like nothing more than to run OSX on my T42p, I just know that it will never happen.

#8 Post by **K. Eng** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 8:07 am

Hannibal (CPU articles editor at Ars Technica) stated in a thread that he knows that OS X has had x86 compatibility from the beginning, and that the OS X software has been continuously updated (apparently now x64 compatible).

OS X is the Mac, and I don't think that many people will care what runs inside the box, so long as the user experience is the same.

That being said, nobody knows what Apple will really do... until Monday!

asiafish wrote:Will never happen as Apple does not want to put itself out of the hardware business.

Mind you, I'd like nothing more than to run OSX on my T42p, I just know that it will never happen.

#9 Post by **K. Eng** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 9:46 am

More confirmation:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23714

HE RUMOURED APPLE MOVE to x86 is true, the INQUIRER has gotten independent confirmation of this.

The Intel chips are almost assuredly going to start with a mobile part, probably Yonah, then on to Merom. Both use the same FSB technology, but Merom is faster so the switch will be a fairly painless one. The markets pointed out by CNet back up the idea that Yonah will start it all off, then Conroe and Woodcrest will take over. These sure are interesting times. µ

Here's my guess: We will see new iBook, iMac and Mac Mini machines based on Yonah, and when Intel releases Merom/Conroe, we'll see PowerBook and PowerMacs with Intel processors

If Apple goes with Intel or AMD, it means the x64 architecture has won over the last major bastion of desktop RISC platforms.

#10 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 12:00 pm

asiafish wrote:Will never happen as Apple does not want to put itself out of the hardware business.

Mind you, I'd like nothing more than to run OSX on my T42p, I just know that it will never happen.

[/quote]

There's already code (Apple Rhapsody, aka OSX beta had an x86 version which never made it to market for some reason) for the x86/Pentium so who knows, Apple could very well start a line of x86 based computers. If this does happen, I don't think they'd abandon the Power architecture completely, or at least not at first. If this change actually does happen, I think it'd have to be a very gradual change for it to go smoothly.

bhtooefr · #11 Post by **bhtooefr** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:42 pm

Jobs announced that they had OS X/x86 ever since the beginning, and demonstrated 10.4.1 on a 3.6GHz P4, so that answers everyone's questions...

If you've got a Select or Premier Apple Developer membership, you can get a dev kit (including 3.6GHz P4-based Mac) for $999... The Select membership is $500...

Anybody want to bite to try one out, and give us a review?

#12 Post by **K. Eng** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:47 pm

Now that it's confirmed, the implications are interesting... especially for the PowerBook series.

Pentium M PowerBook, anyone?

emorphien · #13 Post by **emorphien** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 4:54 pm

K. Eng wrote:Now that it's confirmed, the implications are interesting... especially for the PowerBook series.

Pentium M PowerBook, anyone?

I'd stick to the thinkpad just for the case.

#14 Post by **K. Eng** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:23 pm

I dunno... I've always liked the PowerBook and iBook cases. Then again, Apple notebooks are an incredible pain in the butt to service. Overall I still like the ThinkPad case best - it's a nice clean design and easy to maintain

But I haven't felt this enthusiastic about Macs since I was in middle school! (way back when before Windows 95).

emorphien wrote: I'd stick to the thinkpad just for the case.

emorphien · #15 Post by **emorphien** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:52 pm

K. Eng wrote:I dunno... I've always liked the PowerBook and iBook cases. Then again, Apple notebooks are an incredible pain in the butt to service. Overall I still like the ThinkPad case best - it's a nice clean design and easy to maintain

But I haven't felt this enthusiastic about Macs since I was in middle school! (way back when before Windows 95).

emorphien wrote: I'd stick to the thinkpad just for the case.

My main gripe with powerbook case is that it's pretty [censored] flimsy. Sure dells may creak and rattle more, but I've had to fix far fewer Dells than I have powerbooks and there are quite a few more Dells than there are Powerbooks floating around here.

asiafish · #16 Post by **asiafish** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 6:38 am

The titanium PowerBooks were delicate, but the aluminum ones (and all iBooks) are pretty strong.

Pennstate · #17 Post by **Pennstate** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:34 pm

Reposting relevant picture from another thread

:D:D:D:D:D:D

Introducing the IBM PowerPad aka the Apple ThinkBook

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/ ... CT0672.jpg

bhtooefr · #18 Post by **bhtooefr** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:14 am

Technically, the ThinkPad 8xx series are PowerPC-based ThinkPads...

Run Linux on one, and then run Mac-on-Linux, and you've got a Mac OS ThinkPad

#19 Post by **K. Eng** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 4:44 pm

Excellent

Pennstate wrote:Reposting relevant picture from another thread :D:D:D:D:D:D

Introducing the IBM PowerPad aka the Apple ThinkBook

#20 Post by **K. Eng** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 6:48 pm

Arstechnica posted what I think is a very good analysis of the timetable of the Apple transition, as well as what processors Apple will use:

http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars

A Yonah-based mac mini would be really cool

CONFIRMED: Apple to ditch IBM, go Intel Inside in 2006-7

CONFIRMED: Apple to ditch IBM, go Intel Inside in 2006-7

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