appleinsider.com — Industry heavyweights Samsung Electronics and Intel Corp. were dealt a considerable blow earlier this week when Apple chief executive Steve Jobs revealed that his company will start developing its own chips to power the next-generation of Multi-Touch devices.
Jun 11, 2008 View in Crawl 4
superhobo2Jun 11, 2008
Typical
nciancaJun 12, 2008
Apple has been designing chips since the beginning of the company usually in the form of ASIC or Application Specific Integrated Circuits and has a very capable group doing this.One of the first chips Apple made was the innovative and capable IWM or "Integrated WOZ machine" which was really a state machine. The IWM handled the I/O and allowed the floppy drive to work at variable speeds storing more data then a normal controller. Apple was also involved in the PowerPC chip. Apple's weakness in this area has been that it has relied on others to actually make the chips and the PA Semi acquisition will help them here.
geogeerJun 12, 2008
True, but it WON'T happen now, will it?
bipolarruledoutJun 16, 2008
Just how is devoloping for a unix like OS anything like programming on Windows? The two platforms are more or less CPU independant. Never mind the fact that Apple designing any high profile software for Windows nearly completely negates any benifits of moving to a mac. No need for apple applogists to come up with some weird idea that doesn't invalidate the PowerPC platform... the move to intel was made simply because it's cheap, fast, and has a long future ahead of it. None of which apply to the PowerPC RISK platform.... at least on the desktop.
lordredsnakeJun 19, 2008
OK troll. Did you read my comment? Saying they have "and will always be a hardware company" is a gross oversimplification and overlooks the major element that sets them apart from other companies. They only arguably design hardware in the iphone, ipod, and apple tv realm (although the ipod has been the key to their recent success). The rest is commodity hardware which is sold mostly because of the OS (software) that runs on it. Nobody buys a Mac for its hardware because it's nothing out of the ordinary, and it's usually quite a bit more expensive than the same exact configuration from another manufacturer. The only concrete difference is the software. That is what people pay a premium for.
byronneJun 23, 2008
Not trying to be a troll here. Apple started as a hardware company. I still have my Apple II+, which was manufactured by Apple in a hardware manufacturing facility. Sure the 6502 was outsourced, but the motherboard assembly etc. was all Apple. You're not getting the point - apple is a computer and technology manufacturer - both hardware and software. I think a LOT of people buy Mac for its hardware - along with the software.