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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, May 23, 2005

Apple and Intel: A tale of rumors and truths

Everyone has an opinion about the Wall Street Journal report that Apple may be moving to Intel chips. The most common opinion is that Apple is foisting this rumor itself in a bid to pressure IBM, its current chipmaker. Apple, these people say, is upset that IBM can't deliver the 3 GHz chip that Steve Jobs promised two years ago, and it's jealous that IBM is spending so much time working on chips for video game systems.

It all makes a lot of sense. There's just one problem. In the past, when rumors of Apple jumping ship to a different chip architecture came up, I just reported on them like everyone else. This time, I'm involved personally. I was the first to report it was happening, for starters. And I now have three sources that have independently provided me with information about these developments. That doesn't mean that Apple isn't playing Intel off of IBM of course. But I have to wonder.

One of my sources is a Microsoft evangelist who heard that Apple was moving to Intel from two senior Apple executives. The second is an Intel engineer I met at WinHEC last month, who told me that Intel then had OS X running on Intel hardware in its labs. The third source is a Tablet PC enthusiast and expert who regularly provides me with Tablet PC information.

The first two were unequivocal: Apple is porting OS X to Intel--not to x86, but specifically to Intel--and abandoning IBM's PowerPC architecture. The third noted this week that he's hearing that the Intel work is related to Apple's much discussed Tablet device. Too, there's a hidden display option that lets you orient the screen in landscape mode in Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," a clue that such a device is on the way, I was told by others. (However, I can't get this secret option to work because my PowerBook doesn't support it.)

So what does all this mean? I'm not sure. It may happen. It may not. But this is the first time I've actually been involved, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

[ Posted at 11:00 PM | Permalink ]