Anthony Frausto-Robledo EIC ([email protected])

25 May 2005

 

Apple and Intel: Company's Plans for Intel-inside Mac Not Likely

Apple's Discussions with Intel Likely Centered on New Class of Device, Not Macintosh Computers

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Road Map Issues

Again, three very smart companies chose IBM over all other possible choices for their next generation game machines. In fact, three years ago or more when these companies were looking at IBM's PowerPC technology road map they didn't have any physical evidence of technical superiority like they do today. They had the POWER 4 chip, but they were lacking the very successful PowerPC 970 (G5) and the POWER 5 from which it is based. The G5 in particular has taken the Supercomputer 500 List by storm making two top ten finishes consecutive years and the chip has also altered the IBM server line in positive ways.

Today the Cell chip is on the verge of revolutionizing microprocessor performance in a power efficient design. For Apple today to suddenly think that Intel has a better road map than IBM would mean that Intel has something in the labs that the world doesn't yet know about.

If they do why did Intel not tell Microsoft that it was coming? Why have them move to PowerPC -- and suffer that embarrassment -- for the second XBox design to only have them possibly move back to Intel for the third? It simply doesn't make sense.

Lastly, even if there were some minor progress issues with PowerPC -- which there are in regards to manufacturing output, Apple has faced far worse than this and stuck with PowerPC for years. Consider the recent drought in G4 performance gains. Apple is not going to suddenly demonstrate impatience and jump to a far more daunting task and port OS X to x86 just so they can put Pentium M chips in their iBooks.

In fact, judging by the small size of the next XBox, the modified G5 chips inside that machine would seem to suggest that IBM is not that far off from producing a reasonably cool enough chip for Apple PowerBooks.

Who Said Macs?

The more likely scenario is that there has been some sort of confusion in the rumor itself. Apple is possibly considering Intel for a new device. And the mostly likely new device would be a device that would run QuickTime as an OS or as part of an OS scenario. With QuickTime as the OS Apple is free to choose either PowerPC or Intel x86 since QuickTime has long been written for Pentium-class processors. What we can safely rule out is that regardless of what the machine may or may not be called -- and hypothetically Apple could use the Mac brand name for just about any machine -- this new device will not be running OS X as we know it today in current Macintosh computers. That takes both tremendous work and undermines Apple's total-widget integration philosophy.

Instead Apple would likely embed an OS -- such as the one inside the current iPod or QuickTime operating system -- inside a processor. This "system on a chip" design would allow it to be the sole producer of the device, which is in keeping with Apple's general strategies.

If we had to guess what type of device Apple may have planned, the most logical would be a home-media hub type device. Think of it as a super iPod for both audio and video playback, storage, management, and TV recording functionality. A great package would include:

• QuickTime-based GUI OS
• iTunes
• iTheater (for owning/renting and watching videos)
• iPhoto
• iStore (for recording TV shows)
• iCal-E (a calendar for managing your entertainment life)

What people desperately need in the living room is a way to simplify and organize the world of home entertainment. Apple could turn the infrastructure of iTunes into an organizing and sorting mechanism for our busy and confounding cable channel experience as well as create a TiVo type device that integrates into a calendar for Entertainment. That way we never miss that weekly show we love, special sporting event, or rare old television movie. iTheater could be the program we all want to buy or rent QuickTime 7-based H.264 high definition movies over the Internet.

All of this is completely possible and all of this is something Apple is uniquely positioned to deliver in a very elegant way. We just have to wait to see if that is indeed the case. What doesn't seem likely though is a Pentium Mac.

Editor's Note

A breaking story on the Register is suggesting that Apple may have been using the talks with Intel to force open the specifications to the new Cell chip, which the three companies may have been hesitant to provide to Apple at a reasonable cost. Since it is well known that Apple has the Darwin project for x86 in its back pocket and many other key OS X software layers already written for Intel x86 (such as QuickTime) the threat of moving to Intel -- although realistically very painful for all involved -- is technically doable. This story is likely a coincidence however and is more aimed at the open-source world. We think the rumor has nothing to do with this announcement.

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