You can watch the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) WWDC 2008 Keynote. If you are interested in the future of the information, communication and entertainment technology business, it is probably worth the time.
As emphasized by Steve Jobs, there are three legs to the Apple business: Mac, music and iPhone. It seems whatever the iPod was will soon be merged with the iPhone. The new $199/128€ 3G GPS-enabled iPhone will certainly help sell more Macs. The iTunes offering grows continuously and progressively (TV, movies, videos, games, talking-books, etc.). In a couple of years, it will all boil down to devices and distribution, digital that is (though contrary to convention the Apple Stores have done very well and will undoubtedly continue to do so). Apple will have much more than a cloud to depend on. We are on the road to assimilation (we have used Macs for years; we appreciate their success).
In the meanwhile, the PASemi designers now inside Apple are certainly working on the next big thing...
How much more zippy can this be?
Broadband networks allow both data and application to travel between users. If all members on a network, that is, all computers and computing devices on the network, are constructed from a common computing module then we have a totally pervasive solution - everyone can get everything, everywhere. A common computing module with a consistent structure and the same instruction set architecture (ISA) was the objective of the CELL technology. The idea was that the members of the network, e.g., clients, servers, PCs, mobile computers, game machines, PDAs, set top boxes, appliances, digital televisions and other devices, would use the same core computer processor logic to insure compatibility. The consistent modular structure would enable efficient, high speed processing of applications and data by the network's members and the rapid transmission of applications and data over the network.
Which clouds will hold your silver lining? Certainly, one that makes you amazingly zippy! It seems where the CELL technology failed, Apple took note and will make the concept work.
All this suggests a new programming model for transmitting data and applications over a network and for processing data and applications among the network's members (vs. data just being transferred between stand alone devices that must run the same application software to process and display the data sent). This was the original CELL programming model. It was to be a software CELL that was transmitted over the network for processing by any network member (some to a higher degree and some to a lesser degree). Each software CELL was to have the same structure and contain both applications and data. The "old" stuff would still work, but it needed to be compiled in a new way (Apple has done this before). What is created is a dynamic not unlike the advent of the fax machine -- to send or receive a fax you had to have one (and if you don't too bad!). This means the code for the applications *must* be based upon the same common ISA. All computing resources on such a network would have to have the same basic structure and employ the same ISA so any particular resource performing the processing can be located anywhere on the network and dynamically assigned to the activity required.
The tug-of-war for the best way to reach the consumer is underway: datacenter vs. device. Yes, ultimately it is all about everything, it is just a question of how the network is the computer. We still contend the enduser holds the terminal for every departure and arrival in their hand (@me.com by the way). The device is the conductor of the charge. There will be many clouds and some will just keep on floating by as Apple continues their lofty ascent one step at a time.
The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!
4 comments:
$199 is certainly comparable to similar products on the market. We might even see a $0 iPhone with 3 year contract.
Is it just me or is biometrics (ie finger print) missing from these devices?
Who wouldn't want to keep their personal information to themselves?
I imagine the day will come when you have this built into the devices.
One person can use the device then hand the device over to another person can access their own personal account by touching the device.
BB & RV,
One thing that gets left out is that Intel has slowly become one of the top compiler design companies in the world. Due to the Itanium's design, Intel required better compilers. Fortunately, this "trickled down", so to speak, to the x86 compilers. I believe that many veterans of places such as SGI, HP, and Digital ended up at Intel after they stopped making their own compilers and switched to Intel's. Every time you look at a SPEC benchmark where Intel houses the competition (of which there are many), they're using Intel compilers. Apple is now using them too (http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2006q3/cpu2006-20060513-00010.cfg).
Due to this, and esp. due to the fact that SGI, who uses the Intel Compilers themselves (http://www.spec.org/cpu2006/results/res2008q1/cpu2006-20070918-02096.cfg), and who has a lot of FPGA-based accelerators (http://www.sgi.com/products/rasc/) that are used with said Intel compilers (hey, its what SGI supplies these days!), has already done this, adding it to OS X should not be difficult.
I think that the major reason for the switch to Intel on Snow Leopard is that Apple may have switched compilers internally to icc as opposed to gcc. This means that they're optimizing for Intel. This doesn't preclude the use of supporting chips with different instruction sets. As a matter of fact, due to the work they've done with SGI, it enhances it :).
It just means that Apple can package up what Intel has already worked on, add a decent API to it so developers can be empowered to use such devices just by virtue of them having a decent OS-level driver API, and let Intel's compilers and Apple's APIs take care of the heavy lifting.
Grand Central isn't anything 100% new. It's the first time its appeared in a consumer-level OS, however.
Apple is also infamous for maintaining their own Java port (as opposed to paying Sun Professional Services insane amounts of money to port it), and their own version of the Nvidia and ATI graphics drivers.
Something tells me that the next 64-bit APIs from Apple are going to include the ability to target GPU acceleration for vector math by linking to their libraries, and also will include the same types of acceleration for video, audio, and even basic I/O.
Intel also has a ton of ARM compiler experience as well.
I like the new iPhone, but I think PA Semi is going to make it 64-bit in later iterations :).
This is the start of a wonderful thing.
Amazingly Zippy is pretty catchy, they should buy that domain and market the iphone through it!
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