1. 08 June 2005

    1309 days ago

    Picking up the pieces: John Siracusa mourns the Power PC : Page 1

    What really happened?

    Jobs wasn’t a fan of IBM, they didn’t meet his expectations – and partly because they’ve nettet big contracts for game consoles.

    For a “visionary” CEO of an innovative company, nothing’s worse than having your fortunes tied to another company. If you’re a bit of a control freak, it’s even worse. If you’re Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, you can hardly contain your seething resentment.

    Apple has always used exotic chips, and not the conservative widely used chips. That had upsides, being apple could tailor the chips it used to its specific needs, but downsides too:

    Apple’s been hit by the downsides too, of course. Fewer resources behind each CPU line can mean higher prices, technical stagnation, and CPUs that are not designed primarily to meet Apple’s needs. So here we are at the end of that road. It was a valiant effort, but Apple has thrown in the towel.

    Q: Will future Macs use Pentium 4 CPUs like Apple’s x86 developer kit announced today?
    A: Probably not. I expect Apple to start with Intel’s next generation of multi-core CPUs. Hannibal will have more to say about this issue.

    Q: Is Microsoft worried that every Windows user is suddenly a potential Mac OS X user if Apple ever decides to give up or de-emphasize its hardware business?
    A: You bet your ass they are. Don’t believe the hype. Microsoft worries about everything, and this is more than a little blip on their radar.

    If all goes as planned, the Mac platform will be stronger in a couple of years than it is today. (Who knows, maybe Doom 4 will even get decent frame-rates.) I’ll buy a multi-core, multi-CPU x86-64 Mac and I’ll like it because it’ll be fast, good-looking, and it’ll run Mac OS X. But I’ll still think of what might have been…and what someday might be again. Call me a hopeless romantic. I’ll miss the PowerPC.

    via Kjell Olsen1309 days ago

  2. 05 June 2005

    1312 days ago

    Daring Fireball: Intel-Apple Odds and Ends

    It strikes me as not-outlandish that this was a planned leak. Friday afternoon, three days before the start of WWDC — what better time to ignite widespread interest in the keynote address? On Friday morning, no one was talking about WWDC; by Friday night, everyone was.

    Gruber has one dollar on Intel producing powerpc chips for apple. But this story is really out of hand.

    via Kjell Olsen1312 days ago

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