murrays 0 #1 June 7, 2005 Well, this time it wasn't a rumor....at the Apple World Wide Developer's Conference Steve Jobs announced Apple will be switching to Intel processors for all it's computers. I'm even more stunned than usual This is a huge change. Some stock analysts see it as a positive. I'm not so sure. Apple will have to do a hell of a transition job. So, I guess I won't be buying one of those coffee mugs on a Mac site that says "Intel Inside...Idiot Outside". I think I should buy a few Mac posters touting the Power PC "Pentium Killers" ads though...they'd be cool to have. According to Macrumors.com OS X has led a double life for five years as OS X was designed to be processor independent from the outset. It will be interesting to see how this is implemented. I'd really like a Mac that I could also boot into Windows if need be and run the Windows apps I need natively without using Virtual PC. The pressing issue that I think was a huge factor was IBM's inability to deliver a low power/low heat G5 chip for Apple's laptops. In the short term I think this kills Apple's sales of laptops...I sure as hell wouldn't buy a G4 laptop if I knew that 3 ghz Pentiums were in my future. Just wondering what other people think of this move.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tso-d_chris 0 #2 June 7, 2005 QuoteJust wondering what other people think of this move. Well, since you brought it up... I think that Apple has had up and running for five years an operating system that was from day one designed to run on a 32 bit x86 processor. Microsoft cannot say that. As I understand it, there will be nothing to stop a Mac from running Windows; non Apple x86 chips will NOT be able to run OS X. So basically customers will be given the ability to switch back to Windows if they don't like OS X. According to Apple, OS X has them set for the next two decades. Given that they have written five operational versions of the current OS already, it appears that Apple does indeed have longterm vision. And if they do take a temporary hit in Mac sales between now and the time they are intel inside, they have iPod sales and iTunes to carry them through. The transition, from a users standpoint, should be pretty seemless. The company that produces Mathmatica, a pretty hard core math application, was able to recompile their software, and it only took one person two hours to recompile the entire program, including unreleased extensions. And that was from the time Apple told the guy what he had to do. Only twenty lines of code had to be changed, and the end result could be run on either platform. Software developers are more familiar with the x86 platform than the PPC, anyway. And apple has a transparent emulator that will run the few programs that have not yet been ported at release time. Their timing couldn't be better with respect to Microsoft, who has been unable to deliver Longhorn. The intel macs should be out by then, possibly already running Leapard. It is unlikely Microsoft will field a comparable OS. I think Apple knows exactly what they are doing, and by making this move they are taking a short term risk at a time they can well afford to lose and survive, for the longterm benefit of being able to increase sales and make large gains in market share by letting users take the Pepsi Challenge, so to speak. I think the Apple stores have proven to Apple that if you let people try it, most will want to switch. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #3 June 7, 2005 QuoteThe transition, from a users standpoint, should be pretty seemless. How so? Wouldn't it be true that the newest software, after the Intel swap, will not be compatible with the 'older' Mac machines (like the new G5 that just came out). The Intel chips are rumored to be in all Macs by 2007. That would make the 2005 G5's (and my lovely G4's) incompatible. ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
indyz 1 #4 June 7, 2005 That is up to the software manufacturers. Steve Jobs says Apple is committed to supporting PowerPC (G3, G4, G5) processors for a "long time." Whether other software companies will do the same is up to them, but Apple is putting a lot of effort in making it easy for developers to support both types of processors. Unless prices drop substantially after the processor switch (which I don't think will happen), it will be a long time before the Intel Mac installed base outnumbers the PPC Mac installed base. Combined with Apple's commitment to making is easy for developers to support both processors, it won't make economic sense for most products to drop PPC support for at least 5 years. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tso-d_chris 0 #5 June 7, 2005 QuoteHow so? Wouldn't it be true that the newest software, after the Intel swap, will not be compatible with the 'older' Mac machines (like the new G5 that just came out). Nope, not true. The universal binaries will run on both platforms. BTW, there are simple work arounds to allow G5 software on a G3, your G4 should be good to go for a long time to come, with few if any limitations. The Intel chips do not support Alta-Vec, so the fastest of the G3 machines might actually be viable a bit longer, since this is the primary difference between G3 and G4. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tso-d_chris 0 #6 June 7, 2005 QuoteUnless prices drop substantially after the processor switch (which I don't think will happen), it will be a long time before the Intel Mac installed base outnumbers the PPC Mac installed base. The days of overpriced Macs has been gone for awhile. To buy a comparable PC costs about the same, and Total cost of ownership has been shown many time over to be substantially lower than that of PCs. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
EricTheRed 0 #7 June 7, 2005 One thing I found interesting was the statement that after the switch ALL Macs would be able to run Windows and OSX. Windows PC's would NOT run OSX. Seems like a good bid to really get market share from MS. Who wouldn't want a platform that could run both? Seems like it would be an easy sell as long as the prices were reasonable (which they promise to be) I hope that AAPL can live off of the profits from iPods and iTunes till the switch is made. Might be a rough sell for Macs till then.illegible usually Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr2mk1g 10 #8 June 7, 2005 Back in the days of Win 95 I built a system which allowed me to select whether I booted up into windows or into a conventional dos prompt (as opposed to the dos prompt running within windows itself). I would value a system which allowed me to do the same with XP/OSX... and these days hardware’s cheap enough to have them running on separate HD's so for all they knew they were on completely separate machines. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #9 June 7, 2005 I wonder if it might be possible to have both OS's running at the same time.....I run Windows in Virtual PC, OS X and applications in Classic mode at the same time....it would be very cool to be able to drag and drop from a Windows app to the Mac Desktop and vice versa.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tso-d_chris 0 #10 June 7, 2005 QuoteSeems like a good bid to really get market share from MS. Do you think Jobs is still bitter that Gates stole requisitioned from him the software he himself borrowed in an other than fully ethical manner from Xerox? Or maybe it's because Gates went on to build the world's biggest fortune with the booty? Either way, Microsoft has failed to ever produce, by themselves, from scratch, a decent operating system. Apple has succeeded. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
phoenixlpr 0 #11 June 7, 2005 QuoteEither way, Microsoft has failed to ever produce, by themselves, from scratch, a decent operating system. Apple has succeeded. Whichone are you talking about? OSX is based on FreeBSD and Mach kernel.... Thats not thier scratch, I think. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tso-d_chris 0 #12 June 7, 2005 QuoteOSX is based on FreeBSD and Mach kernel.... True, but some of the BSD engineers were brought on board by Apple. OS X also draws on many of the lessons learned by Jobs NeXT project, which also was not strictly speaking an apple project. But none of it appears to be stolen this time. Unix and FreeBSD are open source, and Darwin and open Darwin are apple projects. You're right though, it wasn't from scratch. It's Unix underneath. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
phoenixlpr 0 #13 June 7, 2005 QuoteUnix and FreeBSD are open source, Unix is NOT open source. Unix is a trademark owned by SCO with other right around the original source codes. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
freakydiver 0 #14 June 7, 2005 "they have iPod sales and iTunes to carry them through." LOL -- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." -- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #15 June 8, 2005 Quote"they have iPod sales and iTunes to carry them through." LOL They also have billions of dollars in cash...... around $7 billion.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DavidKing 0 #16 June 9, 2005 I understand that Apple won't be using the 64 bit Intel chips at all and that the latest test of a Mac running Intel chips, are yielding bench tests speeds at 30% of what a G5 will do. I think I'll get a new dual chip G5 before they are gone for good. David Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kris 0 #17 June 10, 2005 Quote I understand that Apple won't be using the 64 bit Intel chips at all and that the latest test of a Mac running Intel chips, are yielding bench tests speeds at 30% of what a G5 will do. I think I'll get a new dual chip G5 before they are gone for good. David You understand wrong. The G5 has fallen far short of the performance that Apple had hoped for. Especially in power-per-watt. The G5 would make a great griddle though. Not only will the new Mac's be using Intel 64-bit CPU's. They'll be using the dual-core version. Granted, it's not as nice of a dual-core implementation like AMD's Athlon 64, but it's still incredibly faster and more efficient than the G5. WWDC 2005 - Apple to Move to Intel Processors in 2006 Apple's Move to x86: More Questions AnsweredSky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasingBlueSky 0 #18 June 10, 2005 QuoteYou understand wrong. The G5 has fallen far short of the performance that Apple had hoped for. Especially in power-per-watt. The G5 would make a great griddle though. Not only will the new Mac's be using Intel 64-bit CPU's. They'll be using the dual-core version. Granted, it's not as nice of a dual-core implementation like AMD's Athlon 64, but it's still incredibly faster and more efficient than the G5. WWDC 2005 - Apple to Move to Intel Processors in 2006 Apple's Move to x86: More Questions Answered Kris is right - the entire PC/x86 world is moving to 64bit (thanks to AMD). Intel originally figured they had close to 6-10 years before the home market was switched over and they focused on high-end 64bit server hardware that wasn't fully compatible with 32bit x86 (and has since failed). AMD took a different approach to their CPUs and were able to come up with scalable, cool running and backwards compatable 64bit chips (they run 32bit apps faster and have almost no compatability issues) for the workstations. Intel is finally catching up to the way AMD has been doing things and will try to flood the market with their new dual-core setup. I agree with Kris that AMDs version is better but I feel that Intel will have a greater influence on the market with their product. Even if the MAC Intel chips are not 64bit, I know myself and a few others will try to get them to run on AMD64. Apple would be making a mistake not to run their Intel chips at 64bit. How can they compete against another OS that will run faster and run programs faster? It is a good move to make the switch, the G5 just couldn't compete anymore with x86 CPUs. I'm a bit worried about Apple's move away from PowerPC simply because it will remove competition from the retail market. The PowerPC has forced AMD and Intel to be innovative to match their performance with a full instruction set. I still feel the RISC chipsets are useful outside of use in the XBOX 360 and PS3. It should be interesting to see how IBM proceeds next. When all is said and done, I may have to build myself a dual boot OS machine next year!_________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
indyz 1 #19 June 10, 2005 QuoteWhen all is said and done, I may have to build myself a dual boot OS machine next year! OS X won't run on non-Apple hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," Phil Schiller, Apple Senior Vice President. Honestly, this is not a suprising move. Apple is in the hardware business. One of the major components of OS Xs stability is Apple's tight control over everything that goes into the box. The good news is that Apple has said that they won't prevent other OSes from running on their hardware, so Linux Mac86 is a given, and Windows XP/Longhorn for Mac86 is at least possible. It may also be possible to do sneaky things and make OS X run on non-Apple hardware, but I don't have my fingers crossed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasingBlueSky 0 #20 June 10, 2005 Then you won't see me purchasing a new Intel Mac. In fact, I don't buy any systems outside of laptops. Why? The components they use are often scaled down, sub-par versions of the real product. Also, they cut corners to integrate parts and remove modular abilities. I can spend just as much to build my own and come out with a better and more powerful machine that will be easy to upgrade down the line. At the moment it would only cost me about $250 to upgrade to a AMD64 system from my current AMD XP3200+ system._________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ChasingBlueSky 0 #21 June 10, 2005 Figured this was somewhat relevant: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/pcworld/121266 Should help you MAC people understand what the X86 world is doing._________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tso-d_chris 0 #22 June 11, 2005 QuoteShould help you MAC people understand what the X86 world is doing. They're trying to match the speed of the 2x 2.5GHz G5? Or the multi-core PPC? You can't just compare clock speeds. While Apple's "twice as fast as a same speed x86" claim is probably an overstatement, 1 1/2 times seems reasonable, at least as far as G5s are concerned. Similarly, it cannot be said that a dual core 2 GHz chip is twice as fast as a single core 2 GHz chip. The performance would be closer to that of a 3 GHz single core processor of the same archetecture type. It will still be a year or two before the PPC becomes irrelevant in the personal computer industry. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
