Strap on that tinfoil hat
It’s time to dive into the world of rumour and speculation about what’s going to happen tomorrow at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference.
Typically, hardware and full-on-geek rumours abound before the WWDC. Lately, this geekfest has been the showcase of what’s up and coming in the Mac world, with demos guaranteed to make a geek’s mouth water. So the rumours that fly before WWDC tend to be more outlandish than ones before other Apple trade shows.
This year is fairly interesting though. There have always been rumours that Apple will dump the PowerPC processor, designed and manufactured by IBM and Motorola’s Freescale chip company, and jump into bed with Intel’s x86 family of chips. Sure enough, those rumours have come up again. This time, C|Net is getting into the fray. And they’ve not often been wrong about Mac stuff.
Because of the C|Net story, I’m a bit more willing to believe that this isn’t just idle talk this time around. I have a hard time believing that Apple will change their entire architecture to something else completely, when there is still lots more life in the PowerPC family, and it has been proven again and again to be faster and cheaper than Intel chips – at least on the high end.
However, Intel makes more than just x86 chips. Given the right design, they can make pretty much anything. And the timing is a bit funny too. Apple’s in the middle of optimising all their software for the new 64-bit G5 processor. The Cell processor, used in the new Playstation 3, is based around the PowerPC, and it’s supposed to be really hot shit. Interestingly, IBM announced that they’re publishing open specifications for the thing. Could Apple have convinced IBM and Intel to play nice? With Motorola losing interest in the whole CPU business, perhaps Intel could step in and start pumping out PowerPCs as well. Apple still owns a chunk of that intellectual property.
Another possibility: Apple is aggressively trying to get people to switch from Windows to the Mac. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to get switchers if the Mac ran Windows software quickly and painlessly? How about a dual-processor PowerPC and x86 machine? There are lots of technical issues there in terms of the way a motherboard has to work, but perhaps they’ve figured something out.
Still another possibility: Intel’s doing a lot of work with chips with embedded digital rights management (and are also doing a lot of denying on the same topic). Could Apple have tapped Intel for some kind of DRM for their ever-expanding music empire? Intel’s not all about the x86 platform, after all. They make decent video cards, and excellent networking equipment…
I’m not sure what kind of outcome I’ll be more disappointed with tomorrow: a major change to a substandard processor and years of software compatibility headaches, or a completely empty rumour. Whatever happens, I foresee a lot of PR spinning going on.