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Comment by cure | Hacker News Reader

> I wonder how different the path might have been if intel had come up with something for apple.

They kind of tried and failed. Intel is completely stuck in their "x86 is the only way" culture. x86 just can't compete in the low power space. For phones, the x86 power requirements made it effectively DOA.

Sure, Atom could have competed with arm in some markets (small laptops for example, they had some success in the early netbook days), but Intel managed to screw even that up by deprioritizing Atom development - they thought they could make more money in the server space. Short term, not a bad bet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it set Intel's eventual demise in motion. We're starting to see the signs now.

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They turned Apple down in 2005 to make the iPhone processor.

They've been shooting themselves in the foot toe by toe for a while.

I hope they come back for a while though, I mean at least to like $55/share for undisclosed personal reasons.

It's a bit ironic that they owned StrongARM which of course became XScale and was sold the year before the iPhone appeared! I think some of the StrongARM team founded PASemi and others may have ended up working for Arm in Texas.

The issue is this. Apple asked intel to make the chip for the iphone. If you partner with apple on this, then, together, and with billions of dollars, your entire ecosystem improves even if you were not originaly the best.

When you do this type of deal, you get to work with top class engineers and real major customer driving your power / efficiency story.Intel at the time had the process node advantage as well.

What's happened is Apple has SIGNIFICANTLY funded massive capital investment in the ARM ecosystem and in non-intel fab because now those non-intel providers are critical. Imagine all that money flowing to intel just on fab side.

Rumors around TSMC and Apple for iphones is that Apple funds some of the capacity at TSMC and pays for leading nodes. I'm not sure of the scale of Apple's orders, but they are going to be meaningful both in quantity and what apple is willing to pay.

I wonder if x86 really is inherently inefficient, or if it could get there given enough investment (i.e. not just put a 2nd tier team on it for a few months but really push it with major resources). It feels like they just did not want to bother, not that it was impossible.

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