We know that the next-gen Mac will soon be upon us, but we don’t know much else, really. How next-gen will these next-gen Macs be? The word from Apple Insider is that they will be way, way next-gen, like totally.
Word on the street is that the architectural jump from the current generation of Macs to the next may be as significant as the transition from Power PC to Intel. This is because Apple will likely strive for unique system architecture, distancing itself from the more standard, run of the mill Intel architecture it currently uses.
This will return to Apple a sense of exclusivity that it lacks right now (your MacBook’s Intel Santa Rosa mobile platform is used in a ton of Dell and HP laptops, tough guy). This means the new Mac notebooks will most likely not adopt Intel’s new Montevina chipset. In fact, according to people close to the project, the new mobile Mac chipsets may have little to do with Intel at all.
Barring Intel-made chipsets, Apple’s options include going back to developing their own chipsets or forging a relationship with other established manufacturers like AMD or Via. Doing so would effectively give them the ability to hand pick their technology from the best developers, which of course, would be awesome. So start saving, friends; it sounds like the new Macs are going to be the bee’s knees.
New and unique Macs sound great and all, but if Apple moved to a whole new architecture for its Macs, what would happen to all the apps that have been built for Intel ones? It wasn't that long ago that we made the transition from PowerPC to Intel; do you really think Apple would put developers and users through another architecture upheaval so soon? Not to mention that the switch to Intel has been extremely succesful by all accounts. A new, Mac-only Intel-based architecture seems possible, but I wouldn't bet on anything else.
The black border makes me puke. This is nothing but making a change for the sake of change. I'm glad I got the latest 2.5GHz MBP. Looks like I'll have to make it last as long as possible.
I don't buy it, I'm willing to bet that a non-trivial percentage of recent Mac buyer's bought their Mac because they could dual boot. I did. I think that if they move away form the Intel core, it will hurt them, unless they come up with a kick @$$ way to run Windows natively (hypervisor: ok, vmware or fusion, no)
I think they are differentiating themselves so that cloners such as psystar and hobbyists can not "build" there-own macs...
It would be great to see Apple go over to AMD, as personally, I know that the build and design of their processors is superior. However, there's no way that Apple will stop using the x86 architecture that all intel and amd based processors are designed on. The cose and instruction set alone, would require a full rewrite of OS X, or require it to run as an emulated enviroment on the MAC - this would make it run horrifically slow. Then there's the entirity of the software base, both existing that runs via rosetta, and all the new software written for the x86 architecture. It would be a total disaster for Apple with users, software companies and their reputation, given the unquestionable fact that there will be delays, compatibility issues, design and code compromises etc. This is exactly the problem that happened when Apple moved from PPC to x86, and it will be worse if they do this again, considering all the changes that have happened in the last 2 1/2 years since Apple went to Intel. I'd be interested to see what they do, and if it's aimed to stop anyone running OS X on an Intel based enviroment, I'd imagine they'd create a more secure locked out boot loader. I just can't see Apple, out of sheer good sense, both from a business point of view, and for users/potential buyers, to make such a fundemental change, so short a time after a huge change in hardware/architecture and required support, that will create known and fundemental problems. Would hope at least they have more sense than this. Just to point out, to run windows on anything other that x86 architecture, would require a processor emulation as well as an enviroment emulation.
The story is about which CHIPSET Apple may use, not which CPU. There is a very large difference.
If you check out motherboards for PC you will see that there are many different chipsets for each type of Processor.
The article in no way talked about Apple switching processor (CPU) architecture again. A PC/Mac is more than its CPU. While there should be no doubt that Apple will stay with x86 for long, long time, it could be of great charm for Apple to use its own, custom-built chipsets. Maybe P.A.Semi is already developing them.
So ... the won't switch to another architecture. They will use its own, custom chipset and internal system architecture. This would result in exclusive Apple branded hardware AND full compatibility with x86 applications.
Isn't Snow Leopard being designed to complete the transition to Intel chipsets? I know that no one knows for sure, but that's sure what it sounded like when it was announced. Why change to another chipset before they even launch Snow Leopard? Doesn't seem very likely unless they are designing the new OS for a new chipset instead of Intel.
Just so everybody knows this does not mean that they will go away from intel CPUs they are still going to use them. These rumors are refering to the chipset which does not include the CPU.
It'll be the chipset, not the CPU. There isn't going to be a transition away from Pentium.
BB
People, please read! Apple will continue using Intel processors, but they are considering other chipsets for the other processes like sound, video, wireless, Ethernet, etc. OSX will not need modification at all.
Isn't that whole chipset thing independent from the issue of the underlying processor architecture? I don't expect Apple to perform such a major transistion if there are still so many PPC Macs out there (my iBook included). I think the major change will be some other hardware features that would distance that notebook from its competition in a more obvious way.
I don't see them moving away from x86 or even intel at this point.
What I do see is moving to a more proprietary based chipset system so that they can play with the form factor. Much like they did with the Air, they will be able to have Intel or anther chipset manufacturer (AMD or Nvidia) make custom chipsets that allow them to change the computer size and shape drastically.
Perhaps with the upcoming OpenCL architecture they are looking to get 'bigger pipes' to the video subsystem so that processor instructions can be relayed faster?
The problem with the 'when they zig we zag' philosophy is our application software developers are slow to rewrite. Improving graphics performance is great but do not lose the ability to run windows and other platforms. Apple is taking the notebook market and will not screw up this momentum. ( I hope ). I was one of the holdouts that built my own computers and told my MAC Boy friends ' when Apple goes Intel I will buy one.....well I bought 2. I still need Exchange Server and AutoCad and then I am done. Make the products better, allow cross platform, and you will continue to have a winner. As far as AMD......uh no. Intel has the roadmap for 8 and then 16 core processors on the horizon and the pockets to make it happen. My money is on Apple and Intel.
YOU saw it here first!!
WELCOME...TO THE FUTURE OF MACINTOSH LAPTOP... OR LUGGAGE...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Macintosh_portable.jpg
Gabe Glick: The Intel applications will continue to work as before, as long as Apple use processors that work with the X86 instruction set.
Processors made by quite a few manufacturers use this instruction set. For instance AMD processors.
However, what the blog post is talking about isn't replacing the Intel processors. Instead, it's about replacing the chips that control things like hard drives, USB ports and PCI buses.
This hardware is usually only accessed by the operating system.
Peetz: The image at the top of the page is NOT the design for the new MacBook.
Most likely it's a mock-up by one of the designers at Macworld.
Nobody outside Apple, and their manufacturing partners know what the new designs will look like.
Relax.
is negotiating with the suppliers in his usual way: squeezing till it hurts.....