While Microsoft has only just begun fighting the perception problems surrounding Windows Vista, the company is already thinking and planning way beyond its latest operating system. We all know that Windows 7 will build on top of the foundations laid by Vista, and that it will include a fancy multitouch framework (and a mysterious new taskbar). According to Microsoft, Windows 7 is still on track for January 2010, and in a memo to his employees, CEO Steve Ballmer outlined some interesting new approaches the company might try with Windows 7 - including being just a little more like Apple.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Incorrect, They design the board lay out, they decide what chips they'll use - for example, they choose to use Broadcom wireless instead of the 'status quo' for Intel chipsets being Intel's own wireless chipset. Apple also has their own firmware - I am unsure, however, who are the provider of these firmware tools given that there are quite a number who provide EFI development tools.
It isn't just a matter of throwing a board into a nice case - end of story. There is a heck of a lot more design and work involved with designing a PC besides throwing it into a beige case and giving it a cool sounding name involving an X somewhere in it - to sopme how garner money from the 'eXtreme' crowd.
In the case of a laptop, the design of the board layout is critical to how heat is moved around when one takes into account the design of the case itself. You can't just pick up a generic laptop board - because all laptops are designed differently and have different ways of dispersing heat based on what the engineers at the given companies consider the best course of action.
Edited 2008-07-26 09:51 UTC
Member since:2008-07-07
I don't believe Apple are any longer into much hardware design now than when they really used to have their own specific platform. That's proved good for them, because it's less expensive to put together and sell basically standard PC hardware instead of niche stuff (no matter how good the latter is/was). I guess that also means they're more into business than engineering nowadays.
Member since:2005-06-29
As far as I know, Apple's boards are designed by Intel, not by Apple itself. During the PPC days, Apple co-designed their boards with Freescale and IBM. The Open Firmware during the PPC era was developed by Sun. EFI was developed at Intel for the Itanium platform, and doesn't originate from Apple either.
Apple does the software, and the external design. That's it. The internals are designed by Intel (at the moment) and built by little kids in the far east. Just like most other OEMs.
Because don't fool yourself. Apple is an OEM, just with a different operating system.
Member since:2006-02-05
Gotta disagree with you kaiwai. Apple's engineering involves choosing which components to use and the case, and thats about it. They tend to choose the high end of mid range pretty much across the board, but there is nothing special about apple hardware, and as machines go you can do much, much better.
IMO even their cases are very overrated. Typically they have a nice, clean esthetic, but have very poor cooling. The macbook air can't even play a 45 min xvid without the machine overheating to the point where one of the cores shuts down, leaving you without enough performance to finish watching the rest. The macbook pro is better then that, but I wouldn't want to push the hardware too much for any substantial length of time. Honestly, what it comes down to is they didn't want to put more vents on the bottom because they wanted to keep things pretty.
Keep in mind, this is coming from a lifelong apple fan. That machine in my avatar delivered is one of my favorite machines I have ever owned.
Member since:
2007-01-13
Apple don't design hardware except the case. Their computers are built in the same Chinese factories as any other cheap mainstream PC. All Apple does is support a tiny subset of PC hardware.