Intel-ARM hybrids. Could Apple be next?

Seth Weintraub
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February 11, 2009
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At ARM's recent earnings call, CEO Warren East talked up a new type of hybrid computer platform.  This platform would use Intel for serious processor intensive work and ARM as a dashboard type of OS for web browsing and email.  According to East,  Dell's Latitude ON E4200 is already doing this.  Other manufacturers are using Linux distros like Splashtop that run on Intel.  Apple has every reason to do this as well.  They already have a pretty solid ARM OS with an App store and plenty of applications. 

An ARM chip from PASemi could also thwart Hackintoshes.  Could hybrid Macs be coming down the pipe?  Read More at Computerworld

 

 

Comments (3)

Mac User (not verified) | February 11, 2009 - 8:48am

well i read that article and if we mac users have to use an iPhone or iPod Touch OS on a laptop i would need to have a touch screen. second of all, if we had to choose between a full leopard or just the iPod or iTouch OS, i would use full Leopard mainly because so much more stuff that i need to do, and i can't stand dual booting. if anything i go VMWare. i guess its a good idea but it needs some work

Cory Schulz | February 11, 2009 - 12:36pm

http://www.9to5mac.com/netbook-psystar#comments

4th Comment. I made this a few days ago before I had heard of anything like this. It's a logical step forward. I'm sure Apple will implement the technology better than any other company.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | February 11, 2009 - 1:32pm

As an application software developer guy, one thing I want to minimize is development complexity. I want my software to run on as many platforms as possible with a minimal amount of code changes.

It would be a great savings if I could run my apps on both OS X and on the iPhone with minimal additional work. I think Apple is likely to further converge these two platforms.

One of the beauties of the Mac platform is standardization - as a developer, I worry much less about the local environment than I did on Windows. If the future "Mac platform" automatically includes iPhone/iPod/AppleTV without adding developer complexity, that's an even more compelling reason to develop software for Apple devices.

I think this convergence is more likely to happen at the OS layer than at the hardware layer, but convergence at the chipset layer may provide additional capabilities. However, if the OS doesn't hide these things, and if my App needs to be rewritten to run on the ARM component or the Intel component, my development costs could go way up but my sales remain the same.