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I don’t believe it

June 4, 2005 | Computers | 6 Comments

The rumors are flying: Apple to switch to Intel.

I’m gonna put my 2 cents in now: I don’t believe it.

  1. Apple can’t survive another huge architecture switch
  2. Who says they’re talking about x86 cpus?
  3. Apple can take the PowerPC anywhere they want from what I understand
  4. Apple loves control: Even if they did switch I doubt they’d switch to a "normal" x86 chip
  5. They’ve got way too large an investment in the PowerPC architecture
  6. Apple doesn’t announce major changes like this very far in advance. It would absolutely kill Mac sales over the next year – nobody would want a processor that is being phased out.

So my vote is in. I don’t think a switch is gonna happen. I think it’ll be a collaborative effort on adding more PPC fabrication capabilities or maybe that Intel has bright ideas for where to take the PPC next. Its no secret that IBM is not enthused about the low yield and profitability of the Macintosh variant of the PPC970, aka: G5, so it would stand to reason that Apple (who is also not happy with Intel’s progress on the G5) to seek alternate methods of fabrication.