News.com, like, totally sure Apple to Drop IBM

Does anyone out there no the quick answer to the following question/s or where I can go to find information to help me answer the question/s? Thanks in advance... Knowledge Navigator: Where did Apple want to be in 2010? What was their vision in 1985?

Does anyone out there no the quick answer to the following question/s or where I can go to find information to help me answer the question/s? Thanks in advance... Knowledge Navigator: Where did Apple want to be in 2010? What was their vision in 1985?

It is amazing that it was just about 1+ years ago Apple was so thrilled to be in alliance with IBM. The G5 chip is fantastic, supercomputers are being installed with this chip. The overall system is what is important in a stable and reliable computer. When you have something good don't scrap your goals. Now is not the time or place to experiment with hypotheticals. People are moving over to the Macs such as I have because of the steadfastness of Apples ideals. Don't let capitalism destroy another great company that has foresight with technology and inovation. Keep on a straight path a do not get sidetracked.

i think this would be a terrible mistake for apple. Not only would they need to re-program their os but putting an intel chip into an apple is just plain stupid. yes, pc users be able to use mac os making the mac os have more worms, viruses, and tojan horses, because if everyone used mac os then virus writers would focus on mac os x. If nobody see's my point here, they are turning the mac os into windows creating more glitches in the os. this would not be good

OK, first off, even if they switch to x86 chips, it doesn't mean you'll be able to run it on non-Apple hardware; some sort of BIOS a la the old Mac clones could be used to ensure it was 'accepted'/licensed hardware designs. I also can't see Intel making powerpc chips. In fact, while many of the CPUs do run with much less power than comparable Intel chips, that is NOT true of the Centrino series. Intel's Centrinos run with less comparable power, AND the corresponding chipsets provide advanced features "for free" (802.11g...) Hmm. Oh, but that's for laptops though. Wait, why don't we have G5 laptops? For power reasons. Hmm. AP is reporting that for the first time ever, laptop sales (in PC market) outstrip desktops. Hmm. OSX's underpinnings already run on x86 (Darwin, FreeBSD, etc.). I don't know how much of the OS is written in assembly (probably a miniscule amount), but I'm sure the rest of the *OS* could be ported quickly, if it hasn't been already. Sure, you'd need to port AltiVec to MMX or whatever Intel's equivalent is these days, but that's not an undoable task. And maybe AltiVec-compatible operations would be something Intel could easily add to x86 cores...? For developers, I don't think you'd have to do much more than recompile your code for the new architecture. Probably Apple would figure out a way to make fat binaries and do cross-compilation in Xcode automatically. DOn't think you have to rewrite everything (unless you write in pure assembly, which I suspect almost no Mac developers outside of Apple do these days--which was NOT the case when we did the 68k->PPC swtich!) And even if it's NOT x86, but intel producing PPC (frankly seems unlikely to me), it would make some sense; it does seem that Apple's demands for PPC improvements/fab time from IBM will be miniscule compared to the voices of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony for their game consoles. On a side note, this is totally anecdotal, but honestly my mac DOES seem a lot slower than the PCs I used to have, and my work PC, for a lot of tasks--web browsing and general app-shifting, specifically. I've just been willing to "pay that price" to have a much more USABLE OS, even it crunches data more slowly. I wonder if moving to (what would be then the next-gen?) Centrino chips would widen the performance gap (that at least I perceive) even more. As usual, should be an interesting keynote at WWDC!

I don't think they're switching the computers to Intel chips - it could be wireless (WUSB, WiMax, 802.11n) or RAID controllers (at least I think that's the Intel chip in the XServe) or something for the iPod (ARM processors). Or something we haven't thought about at all, especially given the Tablet patent we saw making the rounds. Two more days, people. Until then, the sky's staying where it is.

Bottom line: your average dude (or dudette) out there is more likely to buy a Mac if they here that annoying "bum ding da ding" at the end of an Apple ad, right? Why? Because, as they say in MIB, people are stupid. They hear that, and like the preconditioned salivating jellies that they are, will somehow "know" it is the right computer... But even though I'm on vacation down here in a very hot climate this story sent a chill down my spine. Time for another colada... Hopefully this too shall pass (away)...

The Wall Street Journal today (Sat June 4) confirmed the story. The article states "An industry executive familiar with the matter, contacted Saturday, verified that [cutover schedule]". WSJ observes that IBM is selling more PPC chips these days to Sony, MSoft (Xbox) and Nintendo, so Apple is becoming a smaller customer for the chips. Threatening to offer an Intel-based Mac could be a ploy by Jobs to keep his leverage against IBM. Look what Pixar is doing to Disney! If this turns out to be true, there's an interesting sideline in the story. OS X could one day run on other Intel-based PC's. Interesting thought. That would allow companies line Sun and IBM to OEM OS X as a viable desktop alternative to Windows. Joe

I don't see what apple has to gain from this, their business model as it seems is basically, make a great os to make people buy the nice hardware. unlike MS apple doesn't make it's money from selling the OS itself but rather using the OS to sell the box so to speak. making the OS run on any box would take away half the reason to buy a shiny new mac. Also, an intel mac just wouldn't be a mac any more. It's the specific integration of the specific os with the specific hardware that makes macs what they are. remember what happened last time apple experimented with third party macs? it fell apart. their revenue was be stolen away by cheap and nasty third party macs. If apple switched the mac to x86 then they'd have to change their business model and style and everything. it just wouldn't be worth it.

I think I will buy it now. Thanks for all those who helped. I'll be sure to post a review of it somewhere on the internet :-D Thanks to you especially Steve. I realized, thanks to you, that macs DO hold their value better than any other notebook. I will definitely buy it now. Thanks again!