January 13th, 2006
Apple Slights Intel’s Other Partners
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Intel is upset with its new dance partner, Apple, over a TV ad (you can see it here) which says:
“The Intel chip: for years, it’s been trapped inside PCs, inside dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks, when it could have been doing so much more. Starting today, the Intel chip will be set free and get to live life inside a Mac. Imagine the possibilities.”
Apparently Intel only got a peek a short time before the initial showing of the ad, at Macworld. “Never would we characterize our customers that way,” Intel Vice President Deborah Conrad said in an interview.
We Say: I can imagine companies like Dell, Gateway, HP and more, being upset as well … also AMD, since its CPUs do the same dull tasks as Intel CPUs. Too much hyperbole for me. Dull tasks? Please, the big difference is the OS … the work, the tasks, are essentially the same (except I can’t currently play as many games on the MacOS). Why the deal between Apple and Microsoft’s over Office, then? I mean, isn’t that just dull, boring software that shouldn’t be run on the Mac? 
Don’t worry, I realize this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and I also found a different quote from Conrad, referring to the same ad, in an L.A. Times story where she said “It’s tongue-in-cheek, it’s a cool ad.” My guess (and it is a guess, based purely on who buys the most CPUs, of course) would be this quote was made before a few people from HP, Dell, etc. called higher-ups about it, and that the earlier quote is the current Intel stance.
Tom Kroplinski says:
OK, maybe its just because I’ve converted to the Mac from Windows in the last year, but this commercial made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The transition to the Mac has reinvigorated my passion for PC’s and all that they help us accomplish. Yes Alice, many of the tasks are the same. For that matter, the “basic driving experience” of a Dodge Neon and a BMW M5 are roughly the same. However, there is a reason why people pay $91,000 for the BMW. Imagine the commercial talking about the internal combustion engine in a world where the Dodge was the industry standard and you’ll get some idea of the analogy that Apple was going for.
January 14th, 2006 at 6:06 am
Michael Santo says:
Don’t worry, Tom, I get what they were saying. However, I thought the Intel backtracking was interesting. I don’t want to get into a Mac - Windows discussion (and I’ve used both and can see advantages to both) but, I’m sure that there are Windows fans who would look at it the other way …
January 14th, 2006 at 6:39 am
Greg Manning says:
I completly see why Intel would be miffed, Jobs has made incredible claims in the past that were completely false, and this one just seals it. First claiming that G5’s were the fastest CPU on the planet while it got it’s butt handed to it in almost ALL gaming scenarios, now backtracking and claiming that Core Duo products are “3 to 4 times faster then a G5″, insulting Intel’s past business history, and daring to attack Intel’s other business partners they way he did, all adds up to a major snaffu. Jobs is one of the biggest liars in the industry and I cannot see how or why people still buy into his drivel. Additionally, the only reason Intel was chosen over the technilogically superior and more mature AMD dual core chips was supply issues, NOT performance. I hope people see this as a lesson that Jobs is NOT to be trusted.
January 14th, 2006 at 7:58 am
Ricky says:
Greg,
Where did Jobs say the Core Duo was “3 to 4 times faster then a G5″? What he DID say that it was 3 to 4 times faster than a G4. BIG difference. When the G5 was first released, it was a great cpu. One of the chief reasons that games are slower on a mac is because of OS X, not the hardware.
Many sites have done comparisons with a mac running OS X versus linux. Linux won almost every time.
If you’re going to compare liars, then lets start at the top with Gates.
January 14th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Joey says:
to the above post…ahem http://www.apple.com/imac/intelcoreduo.html
To the car scenario, thats just absurd. Now that apple has switched to intel processors they essentially use the same hardware as PC’s. Personally, as a computer enthusiast and computer engineer, I just dont get mac people. I will however agree that OSX is farr superior to windows, but the machines are simply overpriced and are aimed more at people who want a computer to look great not perform great. With that being said I do think it was a smart move of jobs part to move to the Duo (albiet a bit hypocritical).
January 14th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Silver&Silver says:
Regardless if Apple switches to Intel or someone else one day, MACs have a niche market and always will be unless the fortune 500 companies of the world suddenly shove their heads up their arse and switch to a system that runs literaly none of the most popular corporate applications. Let MAC have the intel, it will not give them enough ground to move beyond the niche they are in. The only way I see they will ever leave the niche is for other companies, maybe google, technologies that can go head to head and at the same time the corporate world take notice.
January 14th, 2006 at 8:53 am
fuddam says:
post to Ricky: pwned!!!
January 14th, 2006 at 10:01 am
No Name says:
who DIDNT see this coming, when they had seen the commercial?
January 14th, 2006 at 11:34 am
to fuddam says:
fuddam you are a jack@ss who doesnm’t know 1337 $h!t about pwned,
it says 2-3 times faster not 3-4 so the only foo is you.
January 14th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Greg Manning says:
2-3, 3-4, so I was a little off, and I agree Gates is as big a liar as Jobs. It’s just that Jobs has made a living out of outrageous claims and this time has alienated the very supplier of the chips he’s touting.
To Fuddam and the other guy, Niether I nor Ricky are “pwning” each other, we’re discussing this like adults. Leave the flames out of the discussion please. But back to the discussion at hand, I think Jobs and Gates should start Liars Anonymous, then charge for admission into it, they would make a killing
January 14th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Spaz says:
“Jobs said that the MacBook Pro is up to four times as fast as previous Mac laptops, with the new iMacs running two to three times faster than the IBM-powered iMac G5.”
The G5s are not that great
January 14th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Oscar says:
The G5 is an excellent CPU, but the fact is that much of the Mac software is compiled to the lowest commmon denominator, the G3. With so many Mac users with G3 systems and G4 systems, the G5 didn’t sell in the numbers necessary for developers to even bother to write G5 optimized code for most of their software. Altivec is great, but aside from the people that code Mathematica, it’s just too much effort for such a small number of systems. The G5 Quad is going to be the most underutilised system ever made by Apple.
January 15th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Paul says:
Who cares what Intel or the “competition” think. It is an advertisement, nothing more, even if it is an accurate assessment of the market.
January 15th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
johnny says:
from what “we” say:
Dull tasks? Please, the big difference is the OS … the work, the tasks, are essentially the same (except I can’t currently play as many games on the MacOS).
is there anything more that can be said here? not to mention how many movies with heavy CGI duty going into production are rendered on AMD chips in linux clusters. i seriously don’t think that will be changing any time soon either with intel’s crippled bus architecture having no upgrade on the roadmap. this commercial was not about microsoft, yet that is what they were implying when they refered to “dull tasks”. i don’t know who really thought this was a clever ad, but it seems it would have been more relivant to have big bird and grover talking about finally getting a market share of “chipzilla” (since mac does all their educational deals… at the University of Texas it is MANDITORY for all education majors to own a mac laptop of some kind).
January 16th, 2006 at 2:10 am
Barrie says:
I’d have thought being able to spell would be mandatory as an Education Major at U. Texas
Manditory… Pah…
Even worse you slapped it in capital letters just to make the point even clearer (and worse)
Ahh well, I guess a football oriented institution can’t expect to get the pick of the crop where actual students who’re going to graduate are concerned… Doesn’t this make you proud of all the top NCAA schools??? With the exception perhaps of Penn State and certainly Notre Dame.
January 16th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
sckrap says:
It seems all the rants against Macs are from gamers who spend their lives in a braindead trance playing games on a computer.
For those who are serious computer users, Mac is the Lamborghini of computers, and so far has a niche– a niche for serious users, just like the Lamborghini has a niche for serious drivers.
January 18th, 2006 at 8:57 am
nabelon says:
the problem is with jobs.he’s know for big deepshit quote and quite a tempered person.Insider’s said that he’s an tempremental person with the urge to insult ppl.i guess mac’s commercial reflects him after all..remember the blame on obese ppl bout faulty fragile ipods screen ?
January 20th, 2006 at 7:09 am
nabelon says:
well lamborghini are way fast cars..i dont think that macs can go to that extremes..maybe good on the aesthetic side..not a lambo for sure maybe more like the new beetle..sleek n slow..:P
January 20th, 2006 at 7:13 am
andrew says:
i highly doubt that Jobs had anything to do with that commercial. and personally, the first thing i thought when i saw that commercial was…Oooooh…burn! but you know what, i am proud of Apple for that. its about time. OSX is so streamlined compared to other operating systems, especially Windows XP. XP is so bloated i cant stand to use it. I am running an iBook G3 on 700MHz, with and it runs more than 2x faster than my PC that runs at 2GHz. That makes Windows completely inferior to OSX. I can only imagine what OSX runs like on a mac with an intel dual core processor. i dont know about what dull simple tasks they were talking about but all i know is the only thing i would trust a PC doing is something dull and simple because from my own experience the new apples are much more stable.
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