Exclusive: Apple to adopt Intel's ultra-mobile PC platform
Apple Inc. will form a closer bond with once-rival Intel Corp. early next year when it begins building a new breed of ultra-mobile processors from the chipmaker into a fresh generation of handheld devices, AppleInsider has learned.
Context & Ripple Effects
This exclusive lands two months after DigiTimes reported Apple was weighing Intel's platform for the iPhone, and it extends that thread from the phone to an unnamed 'fresh generation of handheld devices' built on Intel's new ultra-mobile processors early next year. It also gives substance to [[a:1176745|the 'ultra-portable' Macworld speculation AppleInsider itself has been tracking since mid-2006]], which has since hardened into rumors of a flash-based super-slim laptop and roughly five million iPhone sales at January's show.
The pickup pattern matters: CNET and Gizmodo both ran versions within hours, treating a single-outlet scoop as credible enough to amplify — but nothing here is confirmed by either company, and the report sits alongside Apple's confirmed year of mocking Microsoft in ads, making the 'once-rival' framing part of the story's appeal.
First-order effects
- If the report holds, Intel gains its first marquee consumer-handheld design win for the new ultra-mobile processor family just as the chips reach production, with Apple as the anchor customer rather than a traditional PC maker.
- Apple's device roadmap becomes tied to Intel's mobile silicon cadence for a second product category, deepening a supplier relationship that began with the Mac transition.
Second-order effects
- Rival handheld and UMPC vendors building on ARM-class or VIA silicon would face an x86 competitor with Apple's industrial-design halo attached, pressuring them to match Intel's low-power roadmap or differentiate elsewhere.
- Intel's other ultra-mobile customers lose exclusivity leverage: an Apple endorsement makes the platform the reference point for the category, shifting negotiating power toward Intel on pricing and allocation.
Third-order effects
- The report points toward the boundary between notebooks and handhelds dissolving into one low-power silicon market, where chip vendors compete to define the platform rather than sell components.
- For device makers, silicon choice becomes a strategic alliance decision rather than a procurement line item — a pattern that shapes every subsequent architecture debate between x86 and alternatives in portable computing.
The trend: PC chip vendors are pushing x86 down into handheld-class devices, turning low-power silicon platforms into the battleground on which next-generation consumer devices are defined.