Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Tim Cook has shared his thoughts on what Mountain Lion means for the future of the Mac, and has hinted Apple may be considering a grand unification of iOS and OS X somewhere down the line.
Microsoft released a number of important details about its plans for Windows 8 on Arm (WOA) tablets. WOA tablets will focus on having a long battery life as well as being light, thin, and inxpensive. They will feature some traditional Windows elements but have a focus on the Metro interface pioneered on Windows Phone and included as the default on all Windows 8 machines. They can be thought of as Microsoft’s response to the iPad, which will certainly be their biggest competition.
Not surprisingly, many of the first pieces discussing the announcements to hit the media have struck on the “Apple should be worried” theme and have used the fact that WOA tablets will include the major Microsoft Office apps to backup that assumption.
UPDATE: This article was written in 2012 and some of its predictions didn’t pan out. For a much more recent look at this subject, read 5 reasons Apple should dump Intel processors [Opinion].
Ever since Apple launched the new MacBook Air, analysts and Mac fans alike have gone wild speculating that Cupertino might dump Intel and use custom-made, ARM-based chips in their laptop line instead. Yesterday, more fuel was thrown on the fire when it was revealed that an Apple intern worked on porting OS X to ARM devices back in 2010. Even Intel has said it would be “remiss” of them to dismiss the possibility that ARM might steal their Apple business. On the surface of things, it looks like ARM might make its way to our MacBooks soon.
Is ARM really a threat to Intel? Yes, absolutely, and especially as we transition into Apple’s Post-PC world. But there is next to no chance Apple will replace Intel chips for ARM-based ones any time in the next five years. In fact, there’s a good chance the exact opposite could be true, and Intel chips will be powering our iPhones and iPads by then. Here’s why.
While Apple has previously dismissed the idea of porting its entire Mac OS X operating system to ARM-powered mobile devices, the Cupertino company has at least been working on it. That’s according to one intern who worked with Apple’s Platform Technologies Group — a subdivision of the CoreOS department — for four months back in 2010. But does it really mean anything?
In the latest chapter from the Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight, Intel and Microsoft chase profits over a cliff. Unable to agree, the two companies created a rival tablet that costs more than the iPad and will likely hasten the move to ARM. The Wintel team is back at it snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
It’s hard living in a post-PC world, especially if you’re chip giant Intel. A Wall Street analyst downgraded the company from “Buy” to “Neutral” after key PC makers signaled plans to adopt rival ARM – not to mention the smartphones and tablets also throwing sand in Intel’s face.
iOS hacker Pod2g, who has become increasingly famous over the last few weeks thanks to the progress he’s made on an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5, is one step closer to jailbreaking the iPhone 4S. Apple’s latest iPhone was tricky to hack thanks to its new dual-core A5 processor, but Pod2g reports the new chip “is not a problem anymore.”
Following the release of the seventh-generation iPod nano earlier this week, iFixit performed its customary teardown to discover that Apple isn’t just producing its own processors for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad — but also the iPod nano, too.
It’s been a long-standing rumor that Apple will switch to its own, proprietary ‘A’ series of ARM-based chips in its MacBook and desktop machines. Currently, Apple relies heavily on Intel to provide processors for its computers — the MacBook specifically.
In terms of the MacBook, a recent interview with the director of Intel’s Ultrabook group shows that Intel sees Apple switching to ARM processors as a very real threat. There could very well be a day when all Apple products run on the same series of chips — and that series will be exclusively made by Apple.
According to our own dear Mike Elgan, Apple is through creating new devices and will continue to coast on the product categories they currently have.
Not so fast, though! According to a Japanese site, component suppliers are gearing up to help Apple create new Macs that are “absolute different from current products,” with a debut as early as the end of the year.
Though the iPhone is still yet to benefit from Apple’s latest dual-core A5 chip, the company has already begun testing its successor, according to a Reuters report. However, it may not be produced by Samsung like its predecessors.
The iPad has already killed netbooks, and now it’s starting to do the same to laptops. Within five years, the iPad might even kill off the Mac, says NVIDIA… replacing it with ARM-based machines that can outperform even the speediest Intel processors.
Speculation that Apple is to introduce ARM processors to the next revision of its MacBook Airs continues, as one source claims the company is internally testing the ultraportable notebooks with its A5 processor… but will we really see an A5 powered MacBook Air? I don’t think so.
Apple has built the majority of its modern day fortunes upon the back of the low-voltage ARM chipset. Ever since the first iPhone, ARM chips have driven Apple’s biggest and best-selling products. Thanks to the success of iOS, which only runs on ARM, the futures of Apple and ARM are so intertwined that Cupertino now designs its own custom specced ARM chips.
Given how forward thinking Apple is, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that the Mac maker once bought a 43% stake in ARM back in the early 1990s. What probably would surprise, you, though, is that Apple sold that stake at a loss… and that sale saved the company from total bankruptcy.
Will Apple, as rumored, shift the MacBook line over to an ARM processor this year, starting with the MacBook Air? If you answered yes to that question, one analyst has some compelling reasons why you might just be huffing fumes.
An analyst believes that as soon as this year, Apple will rip the Intel right out of the MacBook Air and transfuse an ARM-based chip in its place, maybe even some successor to the iPad 2’s A5 SoC. But that’s just stupid. Isn’t it?
