It'll be official on Monday: Apple switching to Intel chips

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Well, thats just what they are saying now. At the time they were full of the equal and opposite BS.

IBM failed. I guess they are trying to put the best spin on it, but they failed.

IBM fails by having the fastest growing instruction-set-architecture in the industry (Power/PowerPC) -- without Apple's help?

Apple sells a trivial amount of computers.

As for your claim about how enthusiastic they were, I think you're confusing press releases with reality. Partners in a joint venture will always talk about how excited they are...

[Q Classic]

All told, I fail to see how IBM is the loser, Aggie.

'Specially since IBM has larger market capitalization, a diversified product portfolio, and iirc, larger profits...

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
This is from an AP article:


If this is true, Apple could very well lose more users. Myself included. Why? I'm not about to drop $2,000 for a high-end iMac whose very guts could very well be useless within 1.5 years. Unless, of course, the AP is mistaken (it wouldn't be the first time, folks).

It sounds like the Transitive deal is going to mitigate some of this...though how much, who knows. And if porting everything else is as easy as Mathmatica (yeah right, but...) the transition shouldn't be too bad.

At least all the shouting matches over PPC vs Intel will be over.

I just hope they don't lock OS X to Apple hardware....

[Asher]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
All told, I fail to see how IBM is the loser, Aggie.

'Specially since IBM has larger market capitalization, a diversified product portfolio, and iirc, larger profits...

And Apple has historically lost users per transition.

Many of my Mac-using friends are pretty disgusted in Apple right now.

[Asher]

Originally posted by dv8ed
I just hope they don't lock OS X to Apple hardware....

They absolutely will.

I'm going to go on the record and predict Apple will get "special" Pentiums with special instructions and/or protection mechanisms.

Apple would go out of business if they actually had a competitive hardware market. That's why they forced clone makers out of business.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by dv8ed
And....it's official. His Steveness announced it a few minutes ago.

Apparently the rewrite on Mathmatica to support Intel only took 20 hours...

Mathematica already supports Intel chips perfectly fine

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Asher
They absolutely will.

I'm going to go on the record and predict Apple will get "special" Pentiums with special instructions and/or protection mechanisms.

Oh, I'm sure they will too, I was just hoping. Though I doubt the processor will be any different, it'll probably just be a chipset thing.

I'm glad Apple is doing this...I'd just be happier if I knew they were releasing OS X for use on generic hardware.

[Agathon]

All told, I fail to see how IBM is the loser, Aggie.

If they can't do what they promised, they look like goofs. They were **** a hoop about gettin Apple to sign on a couple of years ago. Now they are pretending it doesn't matter. Classic business BS.

We can add another notch to the Apple Death Knell Counter, but I don't think it makes much of a difference. Most people buy Apple for the software, and they'll still be here in 10 years.

[Asher]

Quote from my Mac-using best friend just now.

Tom: ugh
Tom: demo is a P4
Tom: so it looks like x86.
Tom: linux time.
Dave: they also talked about "universal binaries"
Dave: x86/powerPC mix
Dave: I can't imagine how massive those will be
Tom: great, ultra slow kludgy programs running on a kludgy architecture
Tom: one step backwards for man, one giant leap backwards for apple.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
If they can't do what they promised, they look like goofs.

What did IBM fail to deliver as promised?

The 3GHz G5 claims were made by Jobs and Jobs alone, as part of a ploy to get IBM to ramp up clockspeed. It was a PR stunt.

[Atahualpa]

I just hope they don't lock OS X to Apple hardware....

Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that they'll do.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

For any who care, Stevie is going to be on CNBC in a few minutes to justify the switch to fanboys...er, explain the decision.

[Q Classic]

If they can't do what they promised, they look like goofs. They were **** a hoop about gettin Apple to sign on a couple of years ago. Now they are pretending it doesn't matter. Classic business BS.

So if they fail in one section of their market, a part that wasn't a) exceptionally profitable, and b) they stopped investing much into, and remain quite profitable with everything else... I still fail to see how IBM is the loser.

Frankly, whether IBM really wanted this or not is irrelevant. IBM isn't a loser because, well, it's still a) profitable, b) growing, diversifying, and adapting, and c) a behemoth.

For IBM, losing Apple is like shaving the hair off a forearm. It doesn't really hurt, doesn't really change anything, and they're still unstoppable.

So I ask again, how is IBM a loser in all of this?

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Asher
Quote from my Mac-using best friend just now.

a lot of speculation and nothing concrete...
Good luck with Linux

[Agathon]

It really doesn't matter as far as users are concerned. IBM was a millstone around Apple's neck who couldn't produce the goods.

I guess only Asher could believe that IBM didn't promise Apple a G5 in a notebook, which is what this is really about. I don't think Apple was pissed off so much about the lack of speed progress, but the notebook thing was the big deal.

But good riddance to bad rubbish. Here's hoping Intel can do a better job.