Microprocessor

A microprocessor is a processor whose components have been miniaturized sufficiently to be grouped in a single integrated circuit. Functionally, the processor is part of a computer that executes instructions and processes data programs.

Description

Until the early 1970s, various electronic components forming a processor that could fit on a single integrated circuit. It should therefore be placed on multiple integrated circuits. In 1971, the American company Intel succeeds, for the first time, placing all the transistors that constitute a processor on a single integrated circuit giving rise to microprocessor.

This miniaturization has enabled: increases the operating capacity of processors, by reducing the distances between components, among others; reduce costs through the replacement of several circuits with a single one among others; increase reliability, by deleting connections between components of the processor, it removes one of the main vectors of failure; computers to create much smaller: micro-computers; reduce energy consumption.

The main characteristics of a microprocessor are: The set of instructions it can execute. Examples of instructions that a microprocessor can perform: add two numbers, compare two numbers to determine if they are equal, compare two numbers to determine which is larger, multiply two numbers, A processor can execute tens or even hundreds or thousands of different instructions.

The complexity of its architecture. This complexity is measured by the number of transistors contained in the microprocessor. Over the microprocessor contains transistors, the more it can perform complex operations, and / or treating large numbers.

The number of bits that the processor can handle whole. The first microprocessors could handle more than 4 bits at once. They had to execute multiple instructions to add the numbers 32 or 64 bits. The current microprocessors (in 2007) can handle 64-bit numbers together. The number of bits is directly related to the ability to handle large numbers quickly, or numbers of high precision (number of decimal places).

Clock speed. The role of the clock is clocking the speed of the microprocessor work. The higher the clock speed increases, the microprocessor carries out instructions in a second.

All this is theoretical, in practice, as the processor architecture, the number of clock cycles to perform an elementary operation can vary from one cycle to several dozen per unit of execution (typically on a standard processor) . For example, processor A 400 MHz may be faster than him other B 1 GHz, depending on their respective architectures.

The combination of the above characteristics determines the power of the microprocessor. The power of a microprocessor is expressed in Millions of Instructions Per Second (MIPS). In the 1970s, microprocessors were doing less than one million instructions per second, the current processors (in 2007) can carry more than 10 billion instructions per second.

History

The microprocessor was invented by two engineers from Intel: Marcian Hoff (aka Ted Hoff) and Federico Faggin. Marcian Hoff made the architecture of the microprocessor (block architecture and a set of instructions) in 1969. Federico Faggin invented the microprocessor design (new design methodology for chip and logic, using for the first time on silicon gate technology developed by him in 1968 at Fairchild, circuit design and logic; new layout and several new technical solutions) in 1970. Federico Faggin also led the design of the first microprocessor to its market introduction in 19,714.

In 1990, Gilbert Hyatt has claimed the patent of the microprocessor based on a patent he had filed in 1970. Recognition of prior patent Hyatt would have enabled him to claim royalties on all microprocessors manufactured by the world. However, Hyatt's patent was invalidated in 1995 by the U.S. Patent Office, on the basis that the microprocessor is described in the patent application had not been done, and would not, could the be with the technology available at the time of filing the patent.

The first microprocessor market, November 15, 1971, is the Intel 4004 4-bit. It was followed by the Intel 8008. This microprocessor was originally used to manufacture integrated graphics in text mode, but considered too slow for the client who requested the design, it became a general purpose processor. These processors are the precursors of the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80, and future Intel x86 family.

The following table describes the main features of microprocessors manufactured by Intel, and shows their rapid evolution in both increasing the number of transistors in circuit miniaturization and increasing power. Keep in mind that if this table describes the evolution of Intel products, changes in competitors' products has followed more or less early or late the same course.

A computer program is, in essence, a stream of instructions executed by a processor. Each instruction requires several clock cycles, the instruction is executed in as many steps as necessary cycles. The sequential microprocessors running the following statement when they finish the current instruction. In the case of ILP, the microprocessor can process several instructions at the same clock cycle, provided that these do not mobilize different instructions simultaneously a single internal resource. In other words, the processor executes instructions in sequence, and are not dependent on one another, at various stages of completion. This queue is called future execution pipeline. This mechanism was first implemented in the 1960s by IBM.

The most advanced processors running at the same time as they have instructions to pipelines, provided that all instructions execute in parallel are not interdependent, that is to say that the outturn of each of them does not alter the conditions of implementation of one another.Processors of this type are called superscalar processors. The first computer to be equipped with this type of processor was Seymour Cray's CDC 6600 in 1965. The Pentium is the first superscalar processors for PC compatible.

Today, designers of processors are not looking simply to run multiple independent instructions simultaneously, they seek to optimize the execution time of all instructions. For example, the processor can sort the instructions so that all its pipelines contain instructions independent.This mechanism is called the performance out-of-order. This type of processor has become the engine for general public from the 1980s until the years 19905. The canonical example of such a pipeline is that of a RISC processor, in five steps. The Intel Pentium 4 has 35 floors of pipeline6. A compiler optimized for this kind of processor will provide a code that will run faster. To avoid loss of time due to pending new instructions, and especially within the context reloading between each change of threads, fondeurs7 added to their processors optimization methods that threads can share the pipeline, caches and registers. These processes, collectively known Simultaneous Multi Threading, have been developed in the 1950s. By cons, for higher performance, compilers should take into account these processes, we must re-compile the programs for these types of processors. Intel began to produce the early 2000s, the SMT processors that run at two tracks. These processors, Xeon processors can simultaneously execute two threads that share the same pipelines, caches and registers. Intel called this two-way SMT:

Hyperthreading. Super-threading is, in turn, an SMT in which multiple threads also share the same resources, but these threads only run one after the other and not simultaneously. Have long existed the idea of multiple processors to coexist within a single component, such as System on Chip. This was, for example, to add to the processor, FPU, DSP, or a cache memory, possibly even the entire components found on a motherboard. Processors using two or four cores are therefore emerged, such as the IBM POWER4 released in 2001. They have the technologies mentioned previously. Computers that have this type of processors are cheaper than buying an equivalent number of processors, however, the performances are not directly comparable, it depends of the problem. Specialized APIs have been developed to make the best use of these technologies, such as the Intel Threading Building Blocks.

Date: the year of the microprocessor market.
Name: the name of the microprocessor.
Number of transistors: the number of transistors contained in the microprocessor.
Manufacturing process (μm): the diameter (in micrometers) of the smallest wire connecting two components of the microprocessor. In comparison, the thickness of a human hair is 100 microns.
Clock frequency: the frequency of the clock of the motherboard that the CPU speed. MHz = million (s) of cycles per second. GHz = billion (s) of cycles per seconds.
Width of data: the first number indicates the number of bits on which a transaction is made. The second number indicates the number of bits transferred between both memory and microprocessor.
MIPS: the number of million instructions performed by the microprocessor in a second.

1971 4004 2300108 kHz 4 bit / 4-bit bus
1974 8080 6 000 6 2 MHz 8 bit / 8 bit bus 0.64
1979 8088 29 000 May 3 MHz 16-bit / 8 bit bus 0.33
1982 80286 134 000 1,5 6-16 MHz (20 MHz AMD) 16-bit bus bits/16 1
1985 80386 275 000 1.5 16-40 MHz 32-bit bus 5 bits/32
1989 80486 1 200 000 1 16-100 MHz 32-bit bus 20 bits/32
Pentium 3.1 million in 1993 from 0.8 to 0.28 60-233 MHz 32-bit bus 100 bits/64
Pentium II 1997 7,500,000 0.35 to 0.25 233-450 MHz 32-bit bus 300 bits/64
1999 Pentium III 9.5 million from 0.25 to 0.13 450-1 400 MHz 32-bit bus 510 bits/64
Pentium 4 2000 42,000,000 0.18 to 0.065 from 1.3 to 3.8 GHz 32-bit bus bits/64 1700
2004 Pentium 4D "Prescott" 125,000,000 0.09 to 0.065 2.66 to 3.6 GHz 32-bit bus bits/64 9000
Core 2 Duo ™ 2006 291 000 000 0.065 2.4 GHz (E6600) 64-bit bus bits/64 22,000
Core ™ 2 Quad 2007 2 * 291 000 000 0.065 3 GHz (Q6850) 64-bit bus bits/64 2 * 22 000 (?)
2008 Core 2 ™ Duo (Penryn) 410 000 000 0.045 3.33 GHz (E8600) 64-bit bus bits/64 ~ 24,200
2008 Core ™ 2 Quad (Penryn) 2 * 410 000 000 0.045 3.2GHz (QX9770) 64-bit bus bits/64 ~ 2 * 24 200
2008 Intel Core i7 (Nehalem) 731 000 000 0.045 (2008)
0.032 (2009) 2.66GHz (Core i7 920)
3.33GHz (Core i7 Ext. Ed. 975) 64-bit bus bits/64?
2009 Intel Core i5/i7 (Lynnfield) 774000000 0.045 (2009)
2.66GHz (Core i5 750)
2.93GHz (Core i7 870) 64-bit bus bits/64?
2010 Intel Core i7 (Gulftown) 1170000000 0.032 3.33GHz (Core i7 980X) 64-bit bus bits/64?

Families of Microprocessors

Microprocessors are usually grouped into families, according to the set of instructions they execute. This game includes instructions, often a common basis for the entire family, often the most recent microprocessors families have new instructions. Backward compatibility within a family is not always assured. For example a program known for writing x86 compatible processor 80386, which allows memory protection, could not not work on earlier processors, but works on all newer processors (eg a Core Duo or Athlon d AMD).

Families of Microprocessors

The family best known by the general public is the x86 family, developed primarily by companies Intel (maker of the Pentium), AMD (Athlon manufacturer), VIA and Transmeta. The first two companies dominate the market and they make the largest share of microprocessors for personal computers compatible PC. Intel also supplies the microprocessors for the Macintosh computers since 2006.

PowerPC microprocessors from IBM and Motorola team until 2006 Macintosh computers (made by Apple). These microprocessors are also used in the P-series servers and IBM in various embedded systems. In the field of gaming consoles, the PowerPC microprocessors derivatives equip the Wii (Broadway), GameCube (Gekko) Xbox 360 (three hearts secondary named Xenon). The PlayStation 3 is equipped with the Cell microprocessor, derived from POWER4, PowerPC architecture close.
The company's 6502 MOS Technology was used to produce the famous Apple II.
The Zilog Z80 microprocessor has been widely used in the 1980s in designing the first personal computers as the 8-bit Radio Shack TRS-80, the Sinclair ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, with a daughter card, the Standard MSX, Amstrad CPC and the latest in embedded systems.
Family 6800 the company Motorola.

The family 68000 (also known m68k) Motorola animated the old Macintosh, Sega Genesis, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. Derivatives (Dragonball, Coldfire) are still used in embedded systems.
Among the smaller families known to the general public:
The family Sparc animates most of the servers and workstations from Sun Microsystems, though more and more new products are made on x86.
The family of HP PA-RISC and VLSI Technology, animates the old servers and workstations from HP, now replaced by the family IA-64
IA-64 family of HP and Intel, brings 64-bit servers and workstations from HP
The family runs MIPS workstations from Silicon Graphics, game consoles like the PSone, Nintendo 64 and embedded systems, as well as Cisco routers. This is the first family to offer a 64-bit architecture with the R4000 in 1991. The Chinese foundry Loongson processors are based on a new generation of MIPS Technologies, used in supercomputers and low-power computers.
The ARM family is nowadays only used in embedded systems, including many PDAs and smartphones, it has previously been used by Archimedes and Acorn for his RiscPC.
The animated family DEC Alpha computers in December, then taken over by Compaq, which HP has definitely stopped.

Fast Instruction Execution in Operating Frequency

The microprocessors are clocked by a clock signal (oscillating signal requiring a regular rhythm to the circuit). In the mid-1980s, this signal had a frequency of 4 to 8 MHz. In the 2000s, this frequency is 4 GHz. Over this frequency, the higher the microprocessor can execute at a high rate basic instructions of programs.

Increasing the frequency drawbacks: higher it is, the processor consumes more power, and it heats more: it means having a CPU cooling solution developed; particular frequency is limited by the switching time of logic gates: it is necessary between two formidable clock, the digital signals have time to travel all the way necessary for the execution of the statement expected and for faster processing, requires action on many parameters (size of a transistor, electromagnetic interactions between the circuits, etc..) it becomes increasingly difficult to improve (and ensuring reliability operations).

Overclocking

The overclocking is to force the increase in the frequency of the clock signal from the microprocessor (compared to the manufacturer's recommendations) in order to execute more instructions each second.

Optimization of the Execution Path

Current microprocessors are optimized to run more than one instruction per clock cycle, they are microprocessors with threads in parallel. In addition they have procedures that "anticipate" the following instructions with the help of statistics.

In the race to the power of microprocessors, two optimization methods are in competition:
The RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer, a simple set of instructions) and fast with simple instructions for standard size, easy to manufacture and which you can mount the clock frequency without too many technical difficulties.

Technology CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer), each complex instruction requires more clock cycles, but which has at its heart a lot of instructions pre-wired.

However, with decreasing size of computer chips and faster clock rates, the distinction between RISC and CISC has almost completely disappeared. Where families trenches existed, are now observed as a microprocessor RISC provides internal structure of power while remaining compatible with type use CISC (Intel x86 family has been transitioning from an organization initially very typical a structure CISC. Currently it uses a very fast heart RISC, based on a rearrangement of the code on the fly), implemented in part through caches become larger, with up three levels.

Structure of a Microprocessor

Main article: Architecture and processor microarchitecture.
The central unit of a microprocessor includes mainly:
an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) which performs operations;
registers that allow the microprocessor to store data temporarily;
a control unit which controls the entire microprocessor based on the instructions of the program.
Some records have a very specific role:
register status flag (flags), this register gives the status of the microprocessor at any time, it can only be read;
the program counter (PC Program Counter) contains the address of the next instruction to execute;
the stack pointer (SP Stack Pointer) is the pointer to a special area of memory called the stack where the arguments are stored sub-programs and return addresses.
Only the Program Counter is essential, there are (few) processors having no status register or not stack pointer (eg NS32000).
The control unit can also be decomposed:
register instruction, stores the instruction code to execute;
the decoder decodes the instruction;
the sequencer executes the instruction, he will control all organs of the microprocessor.

Manufacture of Microprocessors

The fabrication of a microprocessor is essentially identical to that of any integrated circuit. It follows therefore a complex process. But the enormous size and complexity of most microprocessors tends to increase further the cost of the operation.

Moore's Law

Moore's Law, which states that the degree of integration of microprocessors doubles every 18 months, also indicates that production costs at the same time doubling the degree of integration. The manufacturing of microprocessors is now considered one of the two factors increase the capacity of manufacturing facilities (with the constraints related to the manufacture of large-capacity storage). The fineness of the engraving industry reached 45 nm 20 068. By further reducing the fine engraving, smelters face to the rules of quantum mechanics.

Multiple Parallel Processors

According to the operating system, the current trend is to install multiple parallel processors and multiple tasks where the growing importance of trade-offs between process functions (eg hyper threading). In fact, the superscalar architecture (paralleling of tasks in an execution unit) of current processors currently does more multi-threading as used. However, processors that require multiple cores should be studied closely the distribution of tasks between them so that we do not see see a slowdown in transactions, this is called the affinities between processors (processor affinity).

Security and Rental

There are many integration projects at the heart of the microprocessor functions to prevent unauthorized copying of files (DRM). The consortium Trusted Computing Group, in particular, has already created chips to create a "zone of confidence" in the computer system, using a specific identification chip. Some computer models, such as IBM laptops already include such chips. The next generation of this technology will probably be integrated in the CPUs of computers. These technologies are decried, especially by supporters of free software, for which they have a potential of civil liberties. Indeed, combined with an operating system for this purpose, for example derived from Microsoft Project NGSCB, this technology enables the trusted third party (the provider that will check the validity of the system components) to access distance inside the computer, or even prevent the execution of some operations on it.

Apple Computer

Apple, formerly Apple Computer (NASDAQ: AAPL) is an American multinational computer company, whose headquarters is located in Cupertino, Silicon Valley. The firm became famous with his Apple II personal computer (1977), then the Macintosh line (1984) 2. In 2001, Apple has diversified its activities by venturing into the music industry with the iPod and the iTunes Store (2003) two products designed for digital music, then to the mobile with the iPhone (2007). The brand is known for its simple user interface and sleek design of its products, and also for its ability to inform the public of existing technologies by making them accessible even to a lay audience. This was the case with the graphic interface with windows, mouse and more recently the Multitouch screen.

History of Apple

Apple was established on 1 April 1976 in Cupertino, then incorporated as a company Jan. 3, 1977. Some years before its inception the company as it exists in 2010, Apple has had various facets related to the evolution of the computing world, from a world without personal computers to a company of twenty-first century by interconnected through fixed and mobile devices. His story is particularly related to that of one of its co-founders, Steve Jobs, forced to leave the firm in 1985, then rehired in December 1996 before becoming CEO of the company in 1997. Among the key products Apple has experienced since its inception, are the Apple I and II, the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

The "Apple culture"

The meetings with the public. Apple has always favored a technical trade reconciliation with its consumers and potential consumers. This is part of an overall marketing technique aimed, among other things, to give the impression to the consumer to be part of a community of users close to the computer company. There are several important annual meetings between Apple, its customers, developers and especially the press. Each opened with a video projection where Steve Jobs presents the financial results of the company and generally new products. The importance of these major meetings fluctuates, and in 2000, the three most important were the Macworld Expos New York (now defunct), San Francisco and Tokyo.

Macworld Conference & Expo San Francisco takes place in January. Apple is mostly announced new products geared toward the general public. The last took place from 14 to 18 January 2008. The MacWorld Expo 2009 was the last and took place without Steve Jobs, replaced by Phil Schiller (Vice-President of the company). According to an official statement, the website and their stores are sufficient to ensure the success of the brand.

Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC): annual event of great importance, it was then that Apple would unveil the main novelties of the year (usually software oriented and professional audience). The last was held in San Francisco from June 7 to June 11, 2010 which was unveiled the iPhone 4.

Apple Expo: Launched in 1984, it took place in Paris (Porte de Versailles) in September, is the first appointment Mac in Europe, and the first rendezvous IT & Digital France. Its importance in communicating the publisher has fallen in recent years: Apple has ceased to hold a keynote since 2006 and announced his departure from the show's 2008 edition, held from 17 to 20September 2008.

Thus, Apple has phased out all these conferences, in favor of cheaper ways of rapprochement with the users, such as Apple Store and their official website. However, the decision of this tradition gave rise to a certain sadness among fans of the brand, who see the evaporation of the friendly atmosphere that maintaining old Apple. Still, unless Apple continues to hold regular keynote to present major new products.

The first version of the logo represented Isaac Newton under an apple tree from which hung. Very quickly, it is replaced by an apple in the colors of the rainbow in the sky bitten on the right side, designed by Rob Janoff. The visual features of the logo appear as the result of a systematic walk-cons made from the logo of IBM, Apple's main competitor at the time. Indeed, the silhouette of the apple logo gives Apple a simple configuration and understood in a general block, while IBM is in the form of a triptych. Secondly, the shapes of the fruit are completely constructed from curves, straight-based IBM. Third, the chromatic sequence type ABBA Apple: warm colors in the center, emphasizing the pinch of the apple cold outside. The sequence in the case of IBM is repetitive (BABA) and two colors: the bands are disjoint cool colors like blue. The apple is bitten not to be confused with the logo of Apple Corps record label founded by the Beatles but the story says that the apple is bitten not to be confused with that of a tomato.

In his history of Apple, entitled The Third Apple, Jean-Louis Gassée Alan Turing mentions several times but did not mention an iconic tribute to him there are three apples, the fruit of the tree of knowledge ( myth of Adam and Eve), Isaac Newton's apple (besides the organizer called the Apple Newton), and finally the apple of Apple. The foundation of Apple prone to myths, the newspaper reported SVM Mac also the legend according to which the poverty in which both Steve lived in their infancy have led to high consumption of apples, Steve Jobs has a particular liking for McIntosh , which tended to get a tan.

Another legend says that Steve had two months of delay to give a name to his business and then threatened to call his company "Apple Computer" if his colleagues did not do him a good name suggestion before 17 pm. Finding nothing the company became Apple. Another reason mentioned was the desire to appear before its competitors in alphabetical order, the first time since the Atari.

Rob Janoff met Steve Jobs for the first time when he worked in Palo Alto, in the PR firm Regis McKenna. He was in charge of designing a logo for a friend of his boss, Steve Jobs. "For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket to buy a bag of apples and slice them," recalls Janoff. The fruit of his work: an apple monochromatic 2D, with a small bite on the right side. Jobs liked the concept, although he suggested would have been better a bit more colorful. Janoff's boss disagreed, insisting that a black logo would be less expensive to print.But Jobs was determined, arguing that the color was the key to humanizing the company "continues Janoff.

From 1997 to 2001 the logo changed again: the form remains the same (although sometimes it is adorned with a slight relief effect), but the reason rainbow is replaced by a monochrome tone, varying by product door. The battle with IBM was over. Apple is now a symbol catchy, as is Sony or Nike. This change is intended to give the company an image more in line with its ambitions in the professional market. The apple colorful, evoking for many the hippie movement, the sounds at the opening of windows or the "Happy Mac" (previously shown at startup of the Macintosh), like other icons of Susan Kare, had gone out of fashion, while logo embossed gloss gives the brand an image of luxury and quality. On computers, the iMac is the first to replace the apple with a monochrome color on its hull. And the operating system Mac OS X which completes the work by making monochrome apple at the corner of the menu bar of the computer.

Between marketing, innovation and choice

Apple has a reputation for providing systems easy to use, intuitive and integrates perfectly stable operating system, which in turn fits perfectly with the machine. This is due to Apple's closed policy, which chooses its own hardware and peripheral products. This is probably the main advantage of vertical product strategy led by the mark, despite the drawbacks of such a strategy for the customer and the company. Apple has upgraded its distribution network-house, opening his own store, Apple stores.Although this initiative to enter the field of retailing has received a mixed reception from the independent dealers, this strategy proved successful. Indeed, sites promoting "Apple brand" responsible for a concept design that combines technology and simplicity accents, Apple Stores contribute to the identity of the brand. Naomi Klein identifies in his book No Logo as one of the most sophisticated of modern times, tied with Nike. In 1984, Apple gets George Orwell in an advertisement against IBM. Later, Gandhi Think different testifies in favor of the mark in its publicités5.

Organization

It alleges that Apple's model of vertical development, which goes against the requirements of most economists, especially for IT. Despite this, the company released a profit. Apple is also criticized because it depends heavily on the personality that directs it, especially during two eras of Jobs. Some argue that Steve Jobs is the subject of a cult of personality, or at least between some elements of such a cult in its relationship with its customers, and it maintains about him a field distortion of reality.

Apple is still criticized for a closed architecture, and its refusal standards: we use the term syndrome of not-invented-here. This criticism is out of place, however, most electronic components of its computers are common to the entire computer industry. In addition, the operating system utilizes a number of popular technologies (1-4 MPEG, OpenGL, programming free). Finally, the time when the policy choice of technology existed, it was not objectionable in itself, because research and innovation are engines of development, each company seeks to recoup its research costs and development by setting market his inventions.In addition, several technologies Apple first used by Apple are then generalized in the personal computer (FireWire ZeroConf (Hello, ex-Apple Rendezvous)). Similarly, Apple has enabled and accelerated the adoption of innovations by generalizing from a blow to its range (3.5-inch floppy disks, SCSI, USB, Wi-Fi (AirPort)).

Some analysts criticize the competition within Apple itself, between different programmers programming environments, those in Cocoa, NeXTSTEP heirs, and those of Carbon derived from Mac OS 9. This rivalry is seen as cons-productive, as was his time in the rivalry between the teams Apple II and Macintosh. A less commonly heard criticism [ref. necessary], because on most businesses and individuals, concerning the lack of a "Roadmap" (Planning announced) on Apple marked its software technologies. IT departments of large companies expect from a publisher to clearly announce what will tender its software in the next five years, in order to make investment choices in the medium term. However, the allegation that Apple is not really announce what will be the stages of its evolution beyond a year, unlike its competitors like Microsoft. A simple example is if, for the abrupt announcement of the abandonment of PowerPC processors from IBM / Motorola in favor of those from Intel: publishers need to update their applications, while owners of ParkMicro will have to pay these updates, and will manage two lines of machines. An announcement earlier had allowed them to anticipate the phenomenon, in planning the park renewals based on the torque hardware / software in order to avoid additional costs for updating.

The cancellation of the regular development of promising technologies yet (eg OpenDoc) has also left on the roadside of developers, tired of investing time and money in "dead ends". As a result, the number of independent developers and publishers declined during the 1990s. This criticism is outdated since the introduction of Mac OS X, which has returned to the bosom of many Apple developers from the Unix / Linux and free software.

Moreover, the management system of after-sale in Europe, told a single provider for laptops and G5, proved to be one of the weaknesses of the trading system Apple. Following significant delays in the early 2000s, the service provider went bankrupt in early 2005, forcing Apple to use technicians to the retailers and causing further delays in repairs.

Price

Finally, Apple is often accused of pursuing a policy of price too high. The price of a Macintosh could often be twice that of a PC / IBM compatible in the 1980s, or even three times in the 1990s after the advent of the Pentium. This policy of high prices has probably hampered the development of the Macintosh in favor of the PC and consumer multimedia computers of the era, such as the Amiga and the Atari. Today, Apple posted rates are often more expensive and represent a barrier for many users wishing to make the "switch", that is to say, from Windows to Mac OS X, even if the output Mac mini is an initiative which again opens a field in the area.
It is true that the margins applied by Apple are much higher than those generally practice in this area (between 25% and 30% gross margin in the early 2000s, when some PC makers are content to 8% or less). However, a Gartner Group study commissioned by Apple Australia and distributed by him in the press in 2002, stated that the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) or TCO, that is to say the total cost of computer equipment when you add optional hardware, software (licenses), support (etc.) is lower with a Mac than on a PC running Windows. Balanced review later by Gartner, which said that the information contained in the report did not reflect the editorial position and were intended for internal use at Apple, corresponding to a specific scenario.

Environment

In late 2006 and early 2007, Apple was ranked twice by Greenpeace as the last in a ranking of fourteen companies manufacturing electronic products, on criteria such as environmental waste management, recycling of obsolete products, the use of polluting components or communication to the general public on these sujets6, 7. Apple denies this classification in an open letter from Steve Jobs8. The company says make for several years in shares environnemental9. Sites devoted to the Macintosh have on several occasions discussed the environmental aspects of Apple and the use of the image of Apple by Greenpeace10, 11.Greenpeace France has recently shown (May 2007) by organizing a demonstration outside an Apple dealer even though the international section of the association has rebounded in early May on Apple's ranking with an average of 5 / 10 following the letter of Steve Jobs12. In March 2008 Apple is located in mid-table, with a score of 7 / 1013.
The Cupertino company has responded fairly quickly but not for the iPhone. In announcing the new iMacs August 7, 2007, Steve Jobs's Apple event begins in these words: "Ladies and gentlemen, here is the new iMac, it is much more environmentally friendly and recyclable ...". The white polycarbonate and is replaced by anodized aluminum components and glass facades. The iPhone has also been criticized by Greenpeace, which denounced the extremely toxic materials inside it. Apple has not responded and seems in no hurry to make its iPhone more environmentally friendly. Indeed, Apple has replaced the aluminum hull aft of the iPhone by a polycarbonate shell for iPhone 3G.