Apple Tablet Has No Intel Inside

Is it really that significant? Designs haven't been released for the tablet yet but it sounds more like a mobile device than a "desktop" style device.

Most similar devices use ARM chips right?

"As of 2007, about 98 percent of the more than a billion mobile phones sold each year use at least one ARM processor.[3] As of 2009, ARM processors account for approximately 90% of all embedded 32-bit RISC processors. ARM processors are used extensively in consumer electronics, including PDAs, mobile phones, digital media and music players, hand-held game consoles, calculators and computer peripherals such as hard drives and routers."

For the general market I don't believe ARM will get far until there's a Windows ARM port available.

I'm a 100% Linux user and my Atom netbook is a pain-free experience. All software (including Flash and Skype) works out of the box as intended. Compared that to my experience of running Linux on PPC where even open source software didn't always work perfectly.

The experience for a Windows user is even more extreme; they are comparing a Windows machine which is the target/test platform for every vendor, to a Linux ARM machine where most software can be kind of sort of made to work, if you try hard enough. Atom's x86 ISA makes all that pain go away.

With battery life in atom systems beating 8 hours (i.e. a full days work and charge over night) there pain reduction of moving to ARM isn't as big as gaining binary compatibility.

The only people to whom this doesn't apply are Apple, who have two key things:

- A much stronger control over their platform and developers.

- Developers who are already used to multi-platform development thanks to PPC fat binaries and shared libraries between the iPhone and OS X.

Therefore I believe it will be necessary for Microsoft to _really_ support an ARM port before Atom is in any danger at all. And right now their chips are frankly good enough that I can't see Microsoft really being that motivated.

One thing worth considering is that parts of Intel may not so thrilled about the Atom. It's a really low-margin chip and it's being manufactured at TSMC, both of which are somewhat out-of-character for Intel.

When Craig Barrett left as chairman of Intel's board last year, they didn't follow the usual plan of having the CEO take over as chairman and a new guy taking over as CEO. Instead, Barrett just left with Otellini staying as CEO. It's tempting to speculate that Barrett, who rose up through the manufacturing arm of Intel, was unhappy about the commoditizing and outsourcing going on. Maybe other parts of Intel are unhappy too. See this: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2009/01/27/45340/c... .

It's difficult to see what alternative Intel has though. For consumers Windows is dying and the x86 lock-in is dying with it, so if they don't compete on price, ARM will eat their business from below. But a market-leading company like Intel really hates it when their main product gets commoditized.

Yes, in so far as major, main-stream news organizations (NYTimes, Wall St. Journal, etc.) have treated it as fact for months now. Additionally, if Apple were not about to announce a tablet they would have squashed this ages ago, as they have squashed previous out-of-control rumors that had no basis, like rumors about the imminent release of an ebook reader or netbook. Apple knows it can't allow this level of hype to build up if nothing is to come from it, and it knows that if February comes without a tablet announcement its stock with take a huge hit. Therefore, their silence is as good a confirmation as needed that the tablet does indeed exist and will indeed be announced soon.

I'm pretty unconvinced that it's a worthwhile product. I don't see a worthwhile gap in the market in between smartphones and laptops.

Smartphones are great because they fit in your pocket, but annoying because they lack some of the features of laptops. Laptops are great because they have full keyboards, optical drives etc but are annoying because they won't fit in your pocket. I don't really have any desire, though, for a device which has no keyboard and still won't fit in my pocket.