Intel PowerBook Rumor Mill 362
catdriver writes "AppleInsider has an article guessing about Apple's new Intel portable offerings in early 2006. 'With the initiation of the Intel Power Mac project last month, all five of Apple's Intel Macintosh projects are now said to be underway and moving at an exhaustive, yet fruitful pace. It should come as no surprise that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is reportedly leading the charge, with his heart set on making 2006 the next 1984.' With Mac OS X for x86 now catching up to its PPC sibling, is Apple ready to take the plunge?"
Yawn - more unsubstantiated speculation (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not even a wild-ass guess that may become true, nor rampant speculation on something unlikely and unannounced. We all know Intel Powerbooks are coming, just not precisely when. This is just another educated guess within that timeframe.
Wake me when they have something substantive. Though by the time they have anything substantive, it'll be just a few days before the release or at the release anyway.
Should anyone be surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been speculated in many places that one of the main reasons Intel was chosen over AMD was mobile CPUs. Notebooks is one area where Apple is far behind PCs in terms of perceived performance. While servers and desktops have received new generations of PowerPC chips, the notebooks still use G4s. Although they've been updated, they're still G4s. It would stand to reason that this would be a main area of focus for Steve Jobs and Apple once the change had been made.
Re:So THAT'S the reason? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the flagship line for Apple, the most visible (non iPod) member of it's product range, and is probably the driver for most iBook sales as well (for the people who can't afford the real thing). So of course it'll be the first to go Intel. iBooks follow, naturally. Powermacs and xServes will be last - Pro users have a much bigger investment in software and peripherials so will be slower to move anyway. And the mini? Probably somewhere inbetween, and not far behind the iBooks.
I don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Current OS X users.
They will almost invariable switch to the new Intel-based macs. I would say that most of them don't even know or care what chipset they are running on.
2. New OS X users.
These are people who will now be enticed to switch, because of the Intel move, that otherwise wouldn't have been. Perhaps they were waiting for the extra performance that Apple can offer in a laptop now that they have Intel processors. Perhaps they like that they can recompile their x86 specific programs on Macs now. (Yay! SBCL w/ Threading on OS X!? Dare I dream!?!?)
3. New Mac Hardware users (but not OS X)
This is the group you seem to be in. You want the Mac hardware, but don't care for the OS. I can't say I agree with you, but that's beside the point.
So, Apple will have all the people they have now (group 1), some new folks (group 2) and some additional hardware sales to people who are going to install Linux or Windows or BSD or something on the box (group 3).
Do you seiously believe that group 3 is big enough compared to the combined sizes of groups 1 and 2 that it will do anything other than add more to Apple's bottom-line? You aren't going to affect Apple's image unless group 3 is BIG or astonishingly well publisized.
Besides, even if group 3 were very large, we are talking about people who are buying the Hardware for the Hardware's sake. Because it's high-quality, attractive hardware. This could NEVER put them into direct competition with Dell. Dell is all about volumes. High volumes at low prices. Apple is EXACTLY the opposite. If Apple were buying the cheapest parts at the highest volumes to crank out machines as quickly and cheaply as possible, then group 3 wouldn't exist.
Well, those are my thoughts. You know the drill. Grain of sand and what-not.
Justin Dubs
The next 1984? Not quite. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Will it cost more than a Dell running Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they're largely a hardware company? I mean, why does Dell still want control over their hardware? Why don't they just package their Dell restore CD to work on other vendor's machines? It'll be cheaper, right?
Only cheaper != more profit. In order to sell their OS as their primary business, they'd need to make it support an ungodly number of weird hardware configurations, and probably raise the price of OSX a whole lot just to stay profitable. Plus, then they'd need to worry much more about piracy. When you're a hardware company, you don't need to worry too much about people downloading your product.
Re:could backfire (bwa ha ha ha ha) (Score:2, Insightful)
And your argument that this will "move mindshare for apple to a premium hardware supplier, not a platform supplier." Doesn't really make much sense either, because if apple does manage to gain mindshare as a premium hardware vendor, they would happily go up against Dell, as apple has much better profit margins than dell. (Remember, your argument is people already are ok with spending more for apple hardware... why would that change if over time if the mindshare that they are a premium hardware maker is growing?)
Anyway in this day of many cheap linux boxen replacing 1 expensive Sun or any of the older 'premium hardware' vendors, I don't think apple really expects to be increasing it's profit margins on the computer hardware side, the handwriting is on the wall, profit margins for computers will continue to slide. By switching to intel they will gain some economy of scale, but more importantly, if and when the profit margins on computer hardware become too slim, Apple will will already have the safety net option of just licensing OS X to Dell or HP to build boxes for them, or they could just release OS X as software only and sell it to anyone with the right x86 box.
This move to intel could hurt apple for a number of reasons, but not because people might buy the hardware to install something besides OS X on it.
Re:could backfire - but it probably won't (Score:2, Insightful)
no, they just won't offer supp (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget as well, that virtual PC will truely *fly* under OS X on intel - it takes away most of the requirements for emulation, so if you need windows stuff, that'll be the way to do it, it won't suck performance wise like it does now.
Re:Will it cost more than a Dell running Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now for a $1k system they might get $100 profit. If they license OS X for $30, they might get $20 profit (being optimistic here). So if they sold $1.6b Macs last quarter, and have 10% margins (they actually have reported 9.6%), they made $160m; if they license overnight, they'll have to sell 80m copies to make the same amount of profit. Only 177m PCs were shipped last year, so they'd have to take HUGE chunks of the market in order to make a transition profitable.
News [com.com] article about shipment last year.
So it's not good enough that shipping OS X for Intel is cheaper; it has to be profitable. Microsoft is profitable because they got $30 or so for every PC shipped last year, or $5b in OS licenses last year.
2) Why do they want a bigger share? They only need to make more money, and that doesn't necessarily equate to bigger share. As I outlined about, $100 per PC vs $20 per PC requires an overnight 5x increase in shipment.
If Apple wants to lower prices, they still have lots of things they can do:
a) strip out components: Compare a Mac mini to an XBox 360 or PS3
b) use cheaper components
c) increase process efficiencies
None of those things have anything to do with adopting OS X for Intel en masse.
Ready to take the plunge? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will it cost more than a Dell running Windows? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:could backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally don't like OSX, but LOVE the Apple hardware. I would be interested in purchasing a Titanium (x86) and putting Windows and Linux on it. I odn't believe I'm alone with that opinion either.
First glance you may say, good for apple, they still get the money. However, what that starts to do is move mindshare for apple to a premium hardware supplier, not a platform supplier.
I believe there are many people that will consider doing this, and I think this could hurt OSX. This move could put Apple (overtime) going Head to Head with Dell not MS.
apple has a much much better chance at competing with dell and gaining market share than they do against microsoft. selling hardware to windows users is a damned good business plan for apple - can you say iPod? profits from OS X are minimal, they give it away with their machines. so, suddenly that other, oh, 95% of computer users are potential apple hardware customers. windows users will switch hardware vendors (eg. dell to hp to apple) at the drop of a hat. but switching operating systems, even if it costs nothing, is a huge investment of one's time in relearning everything and repurchasing applications. so among committed windows users (eg. 80% or more of all computer users), "mindshare for apple" is already zero. this will change that. dramatically.
now, literally millions of windows users will pick up apple powerbooks and imacs because the hardware is so #%#$%#$% awesome. at the same time, that gives them free access to OS X, while not forcing them to use it. so that massively opens up the potential market for (higher-margin) apple software products like FinalCut, DVD Studio Pro, etc., which are really top-of-the-line in their class.
remember in the 90's, apple headed down that road of trying to compete with microsoft, licencing clone manufacturers of apple hardware. it was suicidal. jobs is smarter than that. look for apple to triple their hardware sales (where they make most of their profit) in the next few years...
What about applications? (Score:4, Insightful)
In particular, there's no point getting pro-level Mactels into the wild unless Office and Creative Suite are ready to go Intel-native. Maybe MS and Adobe have quietly moved into high gear on the conversion. But last I read, Adobe was thinking late 2006 to get its Carbon-based apps ready for market.
No pro user will rely on Rosetta. On the other hand, one would assume Apple with have its iWork and iLife suites flipped, along with the applications which come with OS X. That will allow home users to make the switch in fairly short order. I'm sure the rumored widescreen iBooks will sell well right out of the box.
But a Mactel Powerbook makes no sense without pro applications. If Apple is really pushing advance release, they must have convinced their major software partners to get a move on.
Re:Will it cost more than a Dell running Windows? (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably, but how much time can I save by using a Mac instead, and how much is that time worth?
It's so obvious when you put it like that (Score:3, Insightful)
The Intel Powerbooks have to be first [...] Powermacs and xServes will be last - Pro users have a much bigger investment in software and peripherials so will be slower to move anyway.
So, pro users will be slowest to move, and thus the last targeted for transition, and the first thing to change will be the PowerBooks, which are targeted at pro users? Your logic has some internal consistency issues.
Re:1984? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No more 12"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Should anyone be surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about Winex/Cedega? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about applications? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No more 12"? (Score:3, Insightful)
To be honest I was quietly expecting Apple to do something like that with the iMac range - you essentially have something very much like the G5 iMacs with wireless keyboard and mouse and simply add the ability to pick the the up off it's stand carry it somewhere else and use it is tablet with writing recognition. The stand/base can act as a dock for power (and potentially any wired devices you care to attach).
One of the biggest issues with Tablets is that as much as handwriting recognition has improved it is still a low and inefficient way to enter text. If you can make it an optional secondary interface (for when just want to go and sit on the couch and make some notes, dabble, etc.) with the keyboard as the primary option when entering lots of text... well you just might have something.
Jedidiah.
Widescreen? (Score:3, Insightful)
I never understood this widescreen frenzy that's going on these days. On a computer, widescreen is much less useful than on a TV. High-screen, that would be handy, because then you can see more of the document you are typing. But why anyone would want a widescreen laptop is beyond me.
Re:It's a reference to the Mac commercial. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Widescreen? (Score:5, Insightful)