Intel is so far ahead that Apple has no choice but to work with them

In 2005, Steve Jobs made a historic announcement: Apple would start using Intel processors in Macs instead of chips it designed itself. It was a shock because Intel was the biggest chip maker for PCs that ran Windows, and Microsoft was Apple's biggest rival at the time. (Now Apple and Google are enemies.)

http://www.businessinsider.in/

But Apple was having trouble designing chips that could keep up with its ambitions for Macs and MacBooks, so it went with Intel. Macs have used Intel chips since 2006.

We're almost 10 years into Apple's partnership with Intel, and there's increasing talk that Apple will be able to start making its own Mac chips again in a few years. Apple already creates its own chips for the iPhone and iPad based on designs from ARM and then has manufacturers like Samsung build them.

The theory goes that eventually Apple's ARM chips will be powerful enough to run Macs and Apple won't need Intel anymore. There are also rumblings that some of Intel's new chips are coming out behind schedule, which means Apple has to wait on Intel before it can release innovative new products, like the new super-thin MacBook Air it's cooking up.

In an interview with Business Insider Thursday, Intel's CFO Stacy Smith brushed off those concerns. Smith said that Intel is so far ahead of the competition when it comes to PC processors that Apple (and just about every other PC maker) has no choice but to use Intel chips.

"Apple is a great partner of ours," Smith said. "Like Intel they like bringing really cool stuff to the market ...As long as we're bringing great technology to the marketplace, we're enabling them to do great Apple products."
And it sounds like Apple will have to keep that partnership going for some time.

"Our leadership over the rest of the industry is extending," Smith said. "We're not delayed relative to the industry. We're actually ahead of the industry."

Basically, that means Apple has no choice but to use Intel processors for now or risk losing a lot of performance in new Macs.

Source : Business Insider

Windows XP : End of the Road

Everyone seems alarmed that, as of April 8, Microsoft no longer will provide technical support for Windows XP. The company has been trying to kill off its old but still widely used operating system for several years now.
Consider, for example, that since 2011, updated versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser have not worked on Windows XP. And if you're running XP on your computer, you won't be able to run the latest versions of Microsoft Office.
The real problem (for Microsoft) is not that Windows XP is three generations old, having been succeeded by Vista, Windows 7 and now Windows 8. It's that despite the company's best efforts to bump it off, XP is still the OS on nearly one-third of all Windows computers. And the refusal of users to abandon it is hurting sales of Windows 8.

In pulling the plug on Windows XP, Microsoft strongly implied that users should either upgrade to Windows 8 or buy a new computer (with Windows 8 on it). The company said that sticking with XP after technical support is withdrawn could leave computers vulnerable to security risks and viruses, and that users can expect to encounter more apps and devices that won't work with XP. 
You don't need Microsoft for technical support. You can protect your computer with a good antivirus program, like the free versions of Kaspersky, Avast and AVG. And don't worry about apps and devices. Most software is available now in the cloud - making it compatible with any operating system - and most printers, routers and other devices you're likely to need will work with XP. Interestingly, other browsers (apart from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer), including Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, work fine with XP, as do free office software such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice. So moreover, till now you may consider it as a strategy by Microsoft to bring back its falling Windows 8 OS on track. 
The danger in sticking with XP is not that compatibility will be hard. It is that there will be no more security patches from Microsoft. No more patches means that if there is a remote exploit that can allow someone to gain administrator access to your system, no fix for you. Your system joins a botnet. There have been multitudes of these exploits over XP's lifespan and there is no reason to doubt that there are some exploits that are known and not yet reported, held back until this end of support. Antivirus is not going to save you. 

Conclusion: 
Get a Mac, Get Windows 7 or Get Linux. If you want to poke your eye with a sharp object, get Windows 8. But please do not stick with XP if you are in any way connected to the Internet. Botnets built out of compromised XP systems are one of the reasons why we can't have nice things.

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