9 replies to this topic

[XLR]

"Apple is exploring ways to replace Intel processors in its Mac personal computers with a version of the chip technology it uses in the iPhone and iPad, according to people familiar with the company’s research."

http://www.bloomberg...or-the-mac.html

[Riley Freeman]

Yeah they plan to rebrand the iMac as the iPad Maxi.

[XLR]

Mac Pro Mini with Intel Atom, for semi-professionals and freelancers.

[TH3L4UGH1NGM4N]

Wonder how Appel's cpus will hold up against the crowned king of cpus, Intel.

[Alessandro17]

I hope it doesn't happen. As we learned from the PPC->x86 transition, a change of arch is a pain. Suddenly all your programs will need an emulator, or will need to be "universal binaries" and eventually they won't work any longer. Ask people who had to abandon perfectly fine programs or not upgrade to Lion.
7 years after the Intel transition, the "healing" process is far from complete. Why start such a nightmare all over again? And probably losing many users in the process (certainly most of those who remember the previous transition).

[alaskantraveler]

You may want to consider it.

There is already a laptop out that runs ARM instead of AMD or Intel. The Google ChromeBook. I, for one would love to see MicroSnot take one in the shorts, as it were, and having any machine that is not dependant on Intel chips will really make those Bozo's sit up and take notice! http://www.google.co...hromebooks.html

And there is also a small footprint ChromeBox for those that want a desktop setup.
http://www.google.co.../chromebox.html

[3.14r2]

I don't care what CPU is inside, as long as there is a hardware (NOT from Apple), capable of running OS X.

As for Google using ARM... Well, I'm fed up with Google chrome offered to be installed by default with each and every Windows free software. It sounds scary to me Google PC+Google OS+GoogleChrom+Google search. Such a combination would know about you more then you know yourself. No!

[SS01]

From their perspective, this is a really good idea. Apple's advertising model has always been "we're different", and with this they'd actually have grounds for it.

From a user's standpoint ugh no. Along with all the previously mentioned problems, this would completely kill OSx86, as well as running Windows or Windows programs on OS X.

But you know what would be fun? Apple buying Intel. AMD would finally have a chance to catch up a bit, and Apple could brag that they make their own CPU's. Honestly, who doesn't love the sound of Apple Core i7? It'd kill off post-Snow Leopard OSx86, though.

[instant idiot]

Apple Core i7

I don't generally like the cores of apples... But seriously, do they really need to change architectures again? It would kill off OSx86 for sure, but is that what they want to do? Also, as has already been said, they would probably have to make an x86(_64) emulator, and on and on...

EDIT: Hey, we both have 43 posts!

[jamiethemorris]

"The shift is part of Apple’s push to make products thinner and smaller without sacrificing performance." To me, this implies that IF they finally make the switch, there will still be SOME models that will be intel... and the OS would have to be backwards compatible for some time (Well, we would hope... It would be just like Apple to force users to buy new computers right away.

"Mansfield has been more interested in melding iOS with the Mac to create a more uniform experience for all Apple devices..." Could this mean the end of OS X, and the beginning of iOS for the desktop? No thanks... Unless they re-code all of their apps (namely logic) to work on iOS. If they DID switch to iOS on desktops/laptops, I can guarantee you we wouldn't be able to use 3rd-party apps. No thanks. If that happens, developers would have to continue to support OS X for years to come.

Would this be the end of hackintoshing? Not necessarily. The ultimate result as far as hackintoshing goes could still end up positive... If Apple does switch to (as they stated, equally powerful) ARM processors they would probably initially have an exclusive contract for a limited amount of time, and then PC's would be able to follow suit. Provided someone figures out how to run Apple's OS on an ARM pc (OR A PHONE/TABLET!), we could still build an up-to-date, ARM-powered hackintosh. What do you guys think about that? Does it seem feasible?
.
If this does mean the end of the hackintosh, I could switch to Linux... Hopefully as a result there would be more drivers available for it, and better music/audio production software (probably not free and open-source software), such as the upcoming bitwig studio which will be available for Linux. Also, I've used Cubase on Windows and I found it very intuitive and similar to my DAW of choice (Logic).