Remember the day when Apple didn’t run on an Intel processor? It was only seven years ago when Apple, announced back in 2005, that it would ditch the PowerPC processors made by IBM. But now, with Apple already producing its own chips for the iPhone and the iPad, could they produce their own processor for the Mac?
Well, that is what Bloomberg is suggesting. The reporter notes, “If Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook wants to offer the consumer of 2017 and beyond a seamless experience on laptops, phones, tablets and televisions, it will be easier to build if all the devices have a consistent underlying chip architecture, according to one of the people.”
It also appears that the recent shakeup in Apple’s management has made it possible to explore alternatives to Intel, with Bob Mansfield’s new “Technologies” group having access to computer scientists who can write software that “governs these chips”. Those formerly worked in the iOS division under Scott Forstall.
And while it is only rumour, and Apple is said not to ditch Intel in the next few years, it does sort of make sense. All because of the predicted shift from desktop to mobile.
Back in 2005, there were only two big chip companies – AMD and Intel. Windows worked with both, despite Intel being the more popular out of the two. This concept of system-on-a-chip wasn’t introduced back then. Now, we have plenty of competitors – especially where we see a shift from PC to mobile. We now see Intel and AMD’s duopoly slowly breaking down with NVIDIA, Qualcomm and ARM emerging as big players.
Its rival Microsoft already knows this – Windows has always been focused on AMD and Intel. Windows RT is the first full version of Windows to run on a system-on-a-chip architecture (of course, with limitations – you can’t run any full versions of apps like Photoshop).
Apple has been quiet on the issue – they always do for rumours.