Apple Quietly Opens Oregon Engineering Lab and Poaches Intel Employees

DooKey

DooKey

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According to a source that spoke to the Oregonian, Apple is opening up a new hardware engineering lab in Washington County, Oregon. The job listings and other information are pointing to them poaching Intel employees and from other tech employers. Considering where the lab is located and who they hired lends credence to the rumor of Apple developing their own in-house CPU. The next few years should be interesting on the Apple PC front.

Apple didn't respond to a request for comment - the company is notoriously secretive about its research activities - so it's unclear how many people it plans to hire for the Oregon facility, what products they're working on, or the office's exact location.
 
Terms like "poaching" and "raiding" are really odd. They're introducing another place to work up there for people. They can take the jobs or not.

It isn't like they are running around the Intel building with a butterfly net, nabbing hapless engineers.
 
PhaseNoise said:
Terms like "poaching" and "raiding" are really odd. They're introducing another place to work up there for people. They can take the jobs or not.

It isn't like they are running around the Intel building with a butterfly net, nabbing hapless engineers.
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I agree... I think intel has been victim of its own poor labor practices.. so people will naturally leave.
 
If Intel thought they were important they would have paid them more to stay, the fact they didn't means they don't mind Apple having them.
 
Uvaman2 said:
I agree... I think intel has been victim of its own poor labor practices.. so people will naturally leave.
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So they go work at Apple who is also known for poor labor practices? Well under Steve jobs they were. Don't know how much they changed after his death.
 
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PhaseNoise said:
Terms like "poaching" and "raiding" are really odd. They're introducing another place to work up there for people. They can take the jobs or not.

It isn't like they are running around the Intel building with a butterfly net, nabbing hapless engineers.
Click to expand...
I think in this type of context, poach is meant less like literally poaching and more like a new employer approaches talent and makes them an offer they’re unlikely to turn down. Incentivizing them to leave an already good job.

Obviously it’s their choice if they wish to change employment.
 
In regards to any credence of Apple building their own CPU, they have been for a long while now and really they are pushing what Intel can offer them in terms of temperature and power as is, Apple wants thinner and lighter with a longer battery life and unless Intel releases something stunning in the next 2-3 years they wont keep up with Apples goals. Apple switched from PowerPC because IBM couldn't give them something cool enough that had good enough performance to put into a laptop as PowerPC was just too hot and power hungry, they are currently feeling like Intel is in the same boat.
As to the complexity of the task it shouldn't bee too hard for Apple to release OSX for a different architecture and if they are not insane they will provide an update for XCode that lets developers port their code over with a simple recompile. Third party compatibility may be an issue but lets face it, Apple users are used to living in dongle hell at this point so finding out their new mac won't support their existing printer or what not shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to them.
 
Don't know how to feel about this, even being interesting and innovative: if Apple manage to create their own instructions set, that's the end for Hackintoshes and would close their ecosystem (locking their users) even more.

Hope it's only for iPhones
 
Atearen said:
Don't know how to feel about this, even being interesting and innovative: if Apple manage to create their own instructions set, that's the end for Hackintoshes and would close their ecosystem (locking their users) even more.

Hope it's only for iPhones
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They already make their own CPU’s for iPhones and iPads. It is for their laptops and probably the desktops as well.
 
Nolan7689 said:
I think in this type of context, poach is meant less like literally poaching and more like a new employer approaches talent and makes them an offer they’re unlikely to turn down. Incentivizing them to leave an already good job.

Obviously it’s their choice if they wish to change employment.
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And it is also their current employer's choice to remain competitive or not. Offers can be placed, considered, countered, rejected freely by both parties.

All I am saying is that I do not understand the use of semi-pejorative terms to describe new job possibilities for people there.
 
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Lakados said:
They already make their own CPU’s for iPhones and iPads. It is for their laptops and probably the desktops as well.
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That's why I used the term instruction set; Apple mobile CPUs still use ARM architecture, and ARM is nowhere near to be ready for performance desktops (x86 is miles ahead in single core performance).
 
Atearen said:
That's why I used the term instruction set; Apple mobile CPUs still use ARM architecture, and ARM is nowhere near to be ready for performance desktops (x86 is miles ahead in single core performance).
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That is true, but if Apple were to take 2-3 years of improvements on their current Arm CPU's and then make up for their lack of single core performance with say 64 or 128 core systems?
 
Atearen said:
Don't know how to feel about this, even being interesting and innovative: if Apple manage to create their own instructions set, that's the end for Hackintoshes and would close their ecosystem (locking their users) even more.

Hope it's only for iPhones
Click to expand...
If Apple were to create their own instruction set, it wouldn't go well for them. Using ARM and x86 is good because most developers know how to code for these, but Apple's instruction set is only good for Apple products, which by the time something comes from this then the market would have pushed Apple into a very small corner. So small that learning how to code exclusively for Apple isn't worth it. But this is less of a problem for their phones than their desktops/laptops, but we all know that Apple wants to push their Mac's into the same platform as their phones.

Apple just wants to be independent when it comes to making hardware. So far they make their out SoC including the GPU now, and soon enough they won't even need to pay royalties to ARM. From what I've heard their GPU is pretty good compared to the competition. But I really doubt that Apple could make something that competes with Intel and AMD.
 
vegeta535 said:
So they go workwork Apple who is also known for poor labor practices? Well under Steve jobs they were. Don't know how much they changed after his death.
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Well, i can only go by internet searches, so info i gather could very well be poor... Looking at Intels shit performance, i guessed shit management and forced ranking, seems I am right... I don't know if apple uses forced ranking. Forced ranking is terrible management technique.. its just complete shit.
 
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Smart move for Apple. There products are constrained by other companies: Intel, AMD, etc. The other companies products have a massive control over Apple's products.
I would argue that Intel was lazy over the last several years. AMD (until Ryzen) was not a threat. At least we are seeing activity in the CPU area. (Now, AMD how about hitting Nvidia on the GPU front.)
Besides CPUs, Apple uses other chips for their products. I believe Intel is making the modem in the iPhone's. As long as the suppliers are in line with your products vision, it's fine. If they are not, you are forced to suck it up.
 
steakman1971 said:
Smart move for Apple. There products are constrained by other companies: Intel, AMD, etc. The other companies products have a massive control over Apple's products.
I would argue that Intel was lazy over the last several years. AMD (until Ryzen) was not a threat. At least we are seeing activity in the CPU area. (Now, AMD how about hitting Nvidia on the GPU front.)
Besides CPUs, Apple uses other chips for their products. I believe Intel is making the modem in the iPhone's. As long as the suppliers are in line with your products vision, it's fine. If they are not, you are forced to suck it up.
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This is true... Apple would be smart to keep building in this direction... About gpus, they also screwed the company that used to make them for them... I was shocked Intel didn't buy them, nor Amd, nor Qualcomm.. the Chinese did, along with a bunch of patent, so we will see how long before Chinese gpus show up, it will be interesting.
 
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