May Wong
Sun
Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs speaks at the MacWorld conference in San Francisco Tuesday. Apple’s historic shift to Intel Corp. microprocessors came earlier than planned. Photograph by : Paul Sakuma, Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Computer Inc.’s historic shift to Intel Corp. microprocessors came months earlier than expected as CEO Steve Jobs Tuesday debuted personal computers based on new two-brained chips from the world’s largest semiconductor company.
The first Macs to deploy Intel’s Core Duo processors will be the latest IMac desktop, whose circuitry is all built into the display, and the MacBook Pro laptop.
When it announced the massive switch in June, Apple said it expected to begin making the transition by mid-2006. On Tuesday, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was joined at Macworld Expo by Intel CEO Paul Otellini to unveil the new jointly designed computers.
The shift comes as Apple is on a streak with its hugely popular IPod music players. Earlier, Jobs said the company brought in a record $5.7 billion US in sales during the holiday quarter as it sold nearly three times as many IPods as it did in the same period a year ago.
But Tuesday’s focus was on Apple’s Macintosh computers. Jobs said its entire Mac line will be converted to Intel by the end of this calendar year.
Otellini came onstage wearing a clean-room suit that the chip company has famously used in its ad campaigns — and that Apple once lampooned in an ad of its own.
For years, Apple shunned Intel, which has provided chips that power a majority of the world’s PCs, along with Windows software from Microsoft Corp. In the late 1990s, Apple even ran TV ads with a Pentium II glued to a snail.
But Apple, looking for faster, more energy-efficient chips, became increasingly frustrated in recent years as its chip suppliers, IBM Corp. and Motorola Corp.’s spinoff, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., failed to meet its needs.
Of particular concern was IBM’s apparent inability to develop a G5 chip that would work well in notebook computers.
Intel, has been focusing on developing chips specifically tailored for notebooks. In 2003, it launched its Centrino notebook technology with a processor that boosted battery life by minimizing its power demand without hurting performance much.
During last week’s International Consumer Electronics Show, Intel unveiled the latest generation, the Core Duo, which features two computing engines on a single piece of silicon.
It was that chip that Apple decided to fit into the new IMacs and MacBooks.
Though the change to Intel has occurred faster than expected, it still poses some risks.
Besides potentially alienating a fan base accustomed to doing things differently, Apple’s move opens up the issue of backward compatibility and the possibility that PC users might run pirated versions of Mac OS X, Apple’s critically acclaimed operating system, on their generally cheaper non-Apple computers.
During his speech, Jobs demonstrated software that will make older software work on older Macs with a minimal performance hit. But he did not comment on how the company will lock its operating system to its hardware.
The change, however, does not appear to have alienated another important player, Microsoft, which offers a Mac version of its popular Office productivity suite. Roz Ho, general manager of Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, said: “We’ll continue shipping Office [for the] Mac for a minimum of five years.”
The new IMacs will have the same all-in-one design as previous models and will be available with 17-inch and 20-inch screens for $1,299 and $1,699 US. Jobs claimed the new models are two to three times faster than the IMac G5, based on an IBM chip.
All the new computers will include Apple’s Front Row software and a remote control, which lets users watch videos, listen to music or browse photos from across a room.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
