Apple Mac Rumors

You know what's the funniest thing about Apple, Macs, iPods and iPhones? Don't tell me about the clones, because those are not funny, especially for people that paid almost as much as they would have spent on the originals! While I like most of Apple's products a lot, I am not crazy about their way of handling some things, like continuing to sell DRM-protected media on iTunes or the recent change they made with the iPhone 3G, using a plastic back, instead of aluminum. Anyway, the funny part is that you always hear at least five rumors regarding upcoming products for each official statement coming from Apple, and their statements are not giving away any special details before a certain product is released, exactly as it's happening now with the next-gen Macs...


Before anything else, just my 2 cents - I wouldn't be amazed to see some low price notebooks from Apple, with at least some low quality materials used in their manufacturing, maybe even cheap displays...but let's not go that far! The Apple notebooks are selling pretty well as they are, and it would be a pity to see them going into competition with all those cheap ones. After all, you want quality and outstanding tech support, you have to pay. That's it. Nothing's free, remember that!

Now, why would Apple switch from Intel to NVIDIA for the next-gen Macs? The core of the answer is this - Apple notebooks need more graphics power, and Intel can't provide it right now. According to PC Perspective's Ryan Shrout, Apple could even develop its own integrated graphics solution and chipset(that would surely solve the clones problem!), but "This would take much longer, and require many more resources than I think Apple has in its engineering team. Designing their own core logic and IGP (integrated graphics processor) chipset just isn’t in the equation at this point." For now, this is right, but as Apple's market share continues to grow, it may become the only solution for avoiding the Mac to be turned into a 21st Century "Apple-PC compatible."

While these are only speculations, I don't think NVIDIA is developing a competitor for Montevina with advanced GeForce graphics core incorporated in each variant just hoping they would get a part of the market. They surely have something big in mind, and Apple seems to be the right bet. While supporting the same technologies as Intel's chipsets, NVIDIA's upcoming MCP79 is just a single compact chip, and since Intel's approach uses one northbridge chip and one southbridge chip, I am sure NVIDIA can come up with something cheaper.

At last, it should be noted that NVIDIA covered its plans in the mobile sector in a veil of secrecy, just as Apple does most of the time. Look, even Mr. Shrout said "They have been surprisingly silent for quite some time; there have been no planned media summits or technology days on these well known mobility products. And that fits in with the traditional Apple mentality of keeping their partners silent as long as possible. If an OEM asks you to pull back on promoting a product you have had in development for this long, that OEM had better be as big a name as Apple."

Intel fans shouldn't be disappointed, since Apple will keep using their processors for a long time, I am sure of that...but regarding the rest of the Apple Mac rumors, we surely need to keep our eyes open!