How different are Apple's new Macs from the Intel-based systems we know?

Iria · Jan 12, 2006, 06:02 PM

San Francisco (CA) - The very first Apple computers, distributed nationwide in 1977, had a hood you could pry off to reveal the CPU, the memory, and the motherboard. But almost three decades later, the company that pioneered "open architecture" with the Apple II, even with thousands of admirers looking on, was reluctant to pry the back panel off its new Intel Core Duo-based iMacs and MacBook Pro portables.

It isn't so much that Apple has some secretive technology they don't want us to see, believes Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst with the Insight64 consultancy. Brookwood is one of the more knowledgeable sources on Intel architectures such as x86 and IA-64, who attended Tuesday morning's keynote unveiling by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Instead, he told TG Daily this afternoon, it's more that Apple is a shy and reserved company. Up to now, it's never had to answer questions about what technologies and what chips - other than the PowerPC CPU - goes into its boxes. So with Apple formally entering the Intel realm just this week, he said, the company didn't demonstrate any willingness to change its basic personality. The lid didn't come off the back of the iMac; all that Brookwood got to see was revealed through the front end, where the screen is.

For Apple, Brookwood told us, "Making the decision to use Intel wasn't a change in business models or religion, it was simply a matter of expedience." Apple's existing PowerPC suppliers - originally IBM and Motorola, the latter replaced recently with spin-off company Freescale Semiconductor - simply could no longer deliver the chips Apple wanted, probably at the temperatures that the human race required. "Intel was there and said it could. So Apple is making zero changes in its business practices. It's still a systems supplier, it works with its customers to provide software interfaces, APIs, development tools, external interfaces like USB, FireWire, and doesn't really talk a lot about the pieces that go in its boxes."

There could be another reason Apple continues to be protective about its system specifications: The technology necessary to run a Core Duo-based computer is available to OEMs right now. What is to prevent an OEM - or, for that matter, an enterprising system builder and frequent reader of Tom's Hardware Guide - from using an existing Core Duo kit to effectively build himself a Macintosh?
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Read More / Source: TG Daily

Jan 12, 2006, 06:02 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	How different are Apple's new Macs from the Intel-based systems we know? San Francisco (CA) - The very first Apple computers, distributed nationwide in 1977, had a hood you could pry off to reveal the CPU, the memory, and the motherboard. But almost three decades later, the company that pioneered "open architecture" with the Apple II, even with thousands of admirers looking on, was reluctant to pry the back panel off its new Intel Core Duo-based iMacs and MacBook Pro portables. It isn't so much that Apple has some secretive technology they don't want us to see, believes Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst with the Insight64 consultancy. Brookwood is one of the more knowledgeable sources on Intel architectures such as x86 and IA-64, who attended Tuesday morning's keynote unveiling by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Instead, he told TG Daily this afternoon, it's more that Apple is a shy and reserved company. Up to now, it's never had to answer questions about what technologies and what chips - other than the PowerPC CPU - goes into its boxes. So with Apple formally entering the Intel realm just this week, he said, the company didn't demonstrate any willingness to change its basic personality. The lid didn't come off the back of the iMac; all that Brookwood got to see was revealed through the front end, where the screen is. For Apple, Brookwood told us, "Making the decision to use Intel wasn't a change in business models or religion, it was simply a matter of expedience." Apple's existing PowerPC suppliers - originally IBM and Motorola, the latter replaced recently with spin-off company Freescale Semiconductor - simply could no longer deliver the chips Apple wanted, probably at the temperatures that the human race required. "Intel was there and said it could. So Apple is making zero changes in its business practices. It's still a systems supplier, it works with its customers to provide software interfaces, APIs, development tools, external interfaces like USB, FireWire, and doesn't really talk a lot about the pieces that go in its boxes." There could be another reason Apple continues to be protective about its system specifications: The technology necessary to run a Core Duo-based computer is available to OEMs right now. What is to prevent an OEM - or, for that matter, an enterprising system builder and frequent reader of Tom's Hardware Guide - from using an existing Core Duo kit to effectively build himself a Macintosh? ____________ Read More / Source: TG Daily