10.4.3 8F23, 10.4.2 DTK Seeded to Developers

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

ThinkSecret (http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0509builds.html) has posted that new builds of OS X 10.4 have been released to developers. The PowerPC build of the update is said to include some 500 bug fixes. Final release of 10.4.3 is not expected until September, according to the site.

The Intel-based Developer Transition Kits (DTK) have been seeded their first major OS update since release. The new build weighs in at 2.7GB and is a complete system replacement that brings the DTK boxes up to par with the PowerPC version. According to ThinkSecret, the build addresses not only bug fixes, but piracy concerns as well, rendering earlier Xcode 2.2 Universal Binaries useless after the update.

[debroglie]

Great, so the pirates have forced apple to concentrate on breaking piracy instead of concentrating all energy on optimizing the OS.

thanks :rolleyes:

[zakatov]

so does that mean it breaks the pirated versions of x86 Tiger??

[RobHague]

Cool, look forward to seeing 10.4.3 :D

[quackattack]

Final release of 10.4.3 is not expected until September, according to the site.

:confused: Late September perhaps? I hope we see it sooner than later.

[Dr. Dastardly]

Wow! 500 bug fixes! This is the update most have been waiting for perhaps.

But is this going to render all universal binaries useless? That sounds bad, is it bad? I'm confused. :confused:

[VicMacs]

I wonder how long it will take the PC hackers to get it up and running on Dells :rolleyes:

[Fiveos22]

Wow! 500 bug fixes! This is the update most have been waiting for perhaps.

But is this going to render all universal binaries useless? That sounds bad, is it bad? I'm confused. :confused:


I second that, what does the breaking of Xcode binaries mean to me?

[kainjow]

They probably changed the format of the universal binaries, so that when you double click them it may do some more piracy checking, to see if the app is running on the right hardware. (only an idea)

Or it's gotta be something major like that for all Xcode 2.1 universal binaries to not run at all.

[Maedus]

:confused: Late September perhaps? I hope we see it sooner than later.

Or September 2006. :eek:

Intra-Apple rivalries: The race between the 10.5.0 Leopards and the 10.4.3 Tigers on who can release their software first. :p

Announcer One: At first it looked like an easy win for the Tigers, but numerous bugs have plagued their team and with the pushing back of their expected release date to September '06 allowed Leopards to make up much of the lost ground. Steve Jobs firing of the entire Tigers team for having Microsoftesque time tables and release dates was also a lucky break for Leopards.

Announcer Two: Even if the Leopards don't win, they will definitely beat the spread which will mean many employees will have to stay home sober after losing their check for the week to gambling.

Announcer One: Right you are, Number Two. And I have to add that converting the secretaries into cheerleaders was a brilliant move on Steve Jobs part. Well, except for having them bring coffee while doing backflips.

Sorry about that. I've been binge reading some of my college texts so my sense of humor is a little warped at the moment. :p

[Mudbug]

I second that, what does the breaking of Xcode binaries mean to me?
If you're not using one of the Intel-based developer boxes, it means absolutely nothing to you.

[tiiim]

If you're not using one of the Intel-based developer boxes, it means absolutely nothing to you.

Agree.

i dont know what everyone is worrying about. The xcode 2.2 thing is for developers only those on intel macs. In theory once this new update hits also current hacked intel macs will come useless on non-apple hardware. The only prob with this is it gives hackers a few months to see what Apple's security is like until the gold version.

10.4.3 this could be the update we are waiting for. I look forward to getting that one.

[Lollypop]

I think its good that Apple keeps on trying to deter hackers. When the PC hackers do break it Apple learns and by the time the intel machine finally ship the Mac OS will be rather secure and VERY difficult to hack! So go ahead hackers... try and break it again! hehe

500 bug fixes... that could be great! hehe

[ZildjianKX]

I hope this fixes the iChat insufficient bandwidth error that 10.4.2 was suppose to fix... my iSight it utterly useless currently.

[Neuro]

I don't know why everyone is so concerned with OSX being hacked onto standard Intel hardware.

Not many 'normal' users would ever dream of downoading a hacked OS and using it as their every day environment. Hackers getting the OS running just gives it useful coverage.

Would most hackers ever buy an OS anyway?

[Doctor Q]

These 500 bugs are probably in newer software, not in software that has been stable through previous O.S. releases. Therefore, using 129 as the number of new features in a major O.S. release (based on previous Apple ads matching the price to the number of features), we can divide 500 bugs by 129 features to compute an average of about 3.9 bugs per feature.

[uaaerospace]

The only prob with this is it gives hackers a few months to see what Apple's security is like until the gold version.

10.4.3 this could be the update we are waiting for. I look forward to getting that one.

I've sure if this release is hacked, Apple will (if they haven't already) come up with something new to deter hackers.

I'm with you though, I'm ready for this update. Bug fixes can't be a bad thing. ;)

[treblah]

I don't know why everyone is so concerned with OSX being hacked onto standard Intel hardware.

Not many 'normal' users would ever dream of downoading a hacked OS and using it as their every day environment. Hackers getting the OS running just gives it useful coverage.

Would most hackers ever buy an OS anyway?

Well said.

Personally, one of my friends played around with OSx86 and liked it so much he bought a new iBook. I am not saying this is some sort of viral marketing campaign but the 'locks' on 10.4.1 Intel were embarrassing as far as anti-piracy measures go. And having über-geeks playing with your software is always good.

[m-dogg]

[QUOTE=Dr. Dastardly]Wow! 500 bug fixes! This is the update most have been waiting for perhaps. [QUOTE]

Hahhah - Me too - I haven't made the jump from 10.3.9 yet. Not that I was purposefully holding out or anything though. But it is nice to hear...

[SiliconAddict]

Can someone tell me if premier Apple developers are getting preferential treatment? Specifically are they getting builds that others are not?
I was talking to a friend over the weekend and he was telling me that the company he works for gets relatively routine builds of x86 Tiger. That was interesting because it’s the first I’ve heard of such a thing. What was more distressing was that he told me that Tiger for x86 is severely lacking in certain areas, mainly API calls. Off the top of my head things like audio wasn’t working among other things. (It was 11PM on Saturday, beer in hand. I don’t remember the finer details of that evening.) I want to call BS on him but honestly this wouldn’t be the first time Apple has played the whole smoke and mirrors game.
Does anyone have any insight into Tiger x86 and if any of this is true?

Then again he told me that Apple WAS without a doubt designing their mainboards from scratch not using any Intel reference designs. In that case I DID call BS on him. There is NO way in hell Apple is going to leak such info. But he remained adamant that he was told by someone at Apple that it’s a ground up build. Of course someone else could be BSing him. *shrugs*

I’m uberly confused. At this point I'm guessing this is all ugly rumor but he seeded enough doubt that I’m nervous about where Apple really is in their x86 development.

[digitalbiker]

What was more distressing was that he told me that Tiger for x86 is severely lacking in certain areas, mainly API calls. Off the top of my head things like audio wasn’t working among other things.



I have heard this repeated enough times from various sources that I also believe this to be the case.

It breaks the developers agreement with Apple if they discuss details of Tiger x86 such as this but I have heard several developers on boards make off-hand comments that the Tiger we see on PPC is quite a bit different from what is ready on x86.

I wouldn't be surprized if much of the demo that we saw Steve give was a special version of MacOs x86 for the demo, that was solely designed to "do good demo" if you know what I mean. :D

[BillHarrison]

Can someone tell me if premier Apple developers are getting preferential treatment? Specifically are they getting builds that others are not?
I was talking to a friend over the weekend and he was telling me that the company he works for gets relatively routine builds of x86 Tiger. That was interesting because it’s the first I’ve heard of such a thing. What was more distressing was that he told me that Tiger for x86 is severely lacking in certain areas, mainly API calls. Off the top of my head things like audio wasn’t working among other things. (It was 11PM on Saturday, beer in hand. I don’t remember the finer details of that evening.) I want to call BS on him but honestly this wouldn’t be the first time Apple has played the whole smoke and mirrors game.
Does anyone have any insight into Tiger x86 and if any of this is true?

Then again he told me that Apple WAS without a doubt designing their mainboards from scratch not using any Intel reference designs. In that case I DID call BS on him. There is NO way in hell Apple is going to leak such info. But he remained adamant that he was told by someone at Apple that it’s a ground up build. Of course someone else could be BSing him. *shrugs*

I’m uberly confused. At this point I'm guessing this is all ugly rumor but he seeded enough doubt that I’m nervous about where Apple really is in their x86 development.

Well, I can say without any doubt audio is working.

So, BS on that.

[tiiim]

Well, I can say without any doubt audio is working.

So, BS on that.

and anyways "normal" people dont need to worry about those "horror" mac os x stories. Trust me you can your hand on that intel mac it will be singing away and will make the PPC look like a pentium 1 (no pun intended ;) )

ok maybe not that bad. But the tech specs for intel macs are fantastic the new technology that intel are introducing (and that everyone in the PC industry is not paying attention too accept apple) are great. Everyone is running after super fast and very hot amd. Wait to Apple shows off intel's hidden technology then the chip battle will get very interesting. More Ghz does not always mean faster chips.... (perfomance by watt anyone?).

[fatbarstard]

Here we have upgrade 3 to the last major release and they are looking at fixing 500 bugs??? That sounds like Apple was more focused on getting 10.4 out the door rather than get it right... a bad situation if that is how Apple is running software development...

Still I'm looking forward to Apple fixing my bug which gives Finder the *****....

[ZildjianKX]

Here we have upgrade 3 to the last major release and they are looking at fixing 500 bugs??? That sounds like Apple was more focused on getting 10.4 out the door rather than get it right... a bad situation if that is how Apple is running software development...

Still I'm looking forward to Apple fixing my bug which gives Finder the *****....

Speaking of bugs that give Finder the *****, has anyone seen the bug where you can't type in Finder?

Totally weird, it's happened to me twice... I have to either reboot, or type something into Textedit and copy/paste it into Finder.

[dernhelm]

OK - so it isn't 500 bug fixes in 10.4.3, it's 75, bringing the total from 10.4.0 upto 500.

Also the release is due at the _END_ of september at the _EARLIEST_.

Cheez, people, wording is everything...

[Abstract]

I don't know why everyone is so concerned with OSX being hacked onto standard Intel hardware.

Not many 'normal' users would ever dream of downoading a hacked OS and using it as their every day environment. Hackers getting the OS running just gives it useful coverage.

Look how many "normal" users have a bootleg copy of Windows on their computer.

Not everyone has to be a hacker. All a guy needs is a friend, younger brother, or a friends friend who downloads software, and lots of people can share the disk.

Trust me when I say that when I had a PC, I had never paid for Windows, Office, or any piece of software on my PC in my entire life. Ever. Funny thing is that I don't know anything about hacks or software piracy or where to get this stuff.

[BRLawyer]

Great, so the pirates have forced apple to concentrate on breaking piracy instead of concentrating all energy on optimizing the OS.

thanks :rolleyes:

That's what pirates do, they just **** up with legitimate R&D in companies, whilst attempting to get the goodies for themselves without paying a penny for'em...

HUNT THEM DOWN, APPLE!

[BRLawyer]

I don't know why everyone is so concerned with OSX being hacked onto standard Intel hardware.

Not many 'normal' users would ever dream of downoading a hacked OS and using it as their every day environment. Hackers getting the OS running just gives it useful coverage.

Would most hackers ever buy an OS anyway?

Perhaps because you don't know how many "normal" Winblows users out there use pirated versions of Gates's system...of course they would download OS X if they could...after all, piracy exists because it's still easy to download, not because of the price (a very old myth indeed)...

[iMeowbot]

Wow! 500 bug fixes! This is the update most have been waiting for perhaps.
That's more than two bug fixes for each of the over 200 new features Tiger was supposed to include :D
But is this going to render all universal binaries useless? That sounds bad, is it bad? I'm confused. :confused:
There are already some programs using fat binaries in the wild, and those would need to be rebuilt. It's all smallish stuff at the moment, and there is plenty of time for those programs' caretakers to get new builds out.

[Mac_Freak]

OK - so it isn't 500 bug fixes in 10.4.3, it's 75, bringing the total from 10.4.0 upto 500.

Also the release is due at the _END_ of september at the _EARLIEST_.

Cheez, people, wording is everything...

Actually, it is 500 fixes, but some of them are more like enhancements than fixes. Plus, if you were to fallow previous Think Secret reports you will know that the number of fixes was going up 300, 400, 500 with each new report about 10.4.3 update.

[swissmann]

I really need the 10.4.3 update soon. Can't ever say I've needed an update before but one of my computers is crashing multiple times a day (hard boot required). I hope 10.4.3 fixes it or else I will have to do a clean install. It all seemed to happen with a Microsoft Excel file that corrupted when I tried to print it. So on another note I hope iWork is gaining a spreadsheet and maturing so that Microsoft can be cleaned from my machine.

[jamesnajera]

Pretty cool to see that apple plans to release developer updates for the x86 kits. Funny how they made it not support previous uni-binaries.

Tip for apple, make sure the updated kernal for the x86 update does not support sse1 or sse2 or sse3 hack.

late

[mdriftmeyer]

Can someone tell me if premier Apple developers are getting preferential treatment? Specifically are they getting builds that others are not?
I was talking to a friend over the weekend and he was telling me that the company he works for gets relatively routine builds of x86 Tiger. That was interesting because it’s the first I’ve heard of such a thing. What was more distressing was that he told me that Tiger for x86 is severely lacking in certain areas, mainly API calls. Off the top of my head things like audio wasn’t working among other things. (It was 11PM on Saturday, beer in hand. I don’t remember the finer details of that evening.) I want to call BS on him but honestly this wouldn’t be the first time Apple has played the whole smoke and mirrors game.
Does anyone have any insight into Tiger x86 and if any of this is true?

Then again he told me that Apple WAS without a doubt designing their mainboards from scratch not using any Intel reference designs. In that case I DID call BS on him. There is NO way in hell Apple is going to leak such info. But he remained adamant that he was told by someone at Apple that it’s a ground up build. Of course someone else could be BSing him. *shrugs*

I’m uberly confused. At this point I'm guessing this is all ugly rumor but he seeded enough doubt that I’m nervous about where Apple really is in their x86 development.


In short, Yes.

Buy professional support developer contracts that can range in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Do you think your Select member should get and would get the same build fixes that the developing house who has specific needs gets?

When I worked for NeXT and Apple we had multiple tiers and when someone like Merrill Lynch paid us $7 Million they got specific build patches to Openstep that never got rolled out to anyone but them. (This is the exception)

Now regarding OS X we always gave preferential treatment to developers that beat the crap out of the APIs and tested deeply the changes to the Foundation and AppKit APIs.

Add CoreData(EOFlite) and CoreAudio with CoreImage and expect that those that leverage these deep APIs will get preferential treatment. It benefits the end user, in the end.

[BWhaler]

I hope this fixes the iChat insufficient bandwidth error that 10.4.2 was suppose to fix... my iSight it utterly useless currently.

Me too.

Tiger has been a low quality disappointment. 200 bucks to be a beta tester.

I hope when Apple is going head-to-head with Longhorn, they don't pull this crap.

[BRLawyer]

I've never had any serious issues with Tiger, it's working just as it should since 10.4.0...the only noticeable bug I see is that disk images, in rare moments, don't properly mount on the desktop (so I have to log out and in again)...that's all.

[Evangelion]

Here we have upgrade 3 to the last major release and they are looking at fixing 500 bugs??? That sounds like Apple was more focused on getting 10.4 out the door rather than get it right... a bad situation if that is how Apple is running software development...

500 bugs is peanuts, really. IIRC Mozilla (the browser) has something like 50.000 bugs in their bugzilla. Hell, Safari alone has propably over 1.000 bugs in it! Of course most of those bugs are the kind that normal users are never going to encounter, but they are still there.

Konqueror (KDE's web-browser/filemanager etc.) currently has 1.859 open bugs. But that doesn't mean that it's buggy as such.

[tiiim]

Perhaps because you don't know how many "normal" Winblows users out there use pirated versions of Gates's system...of course they would download OS X if they could...after all, piracy exists because it's still easy to download, not because of the price (a very old myth indeed)...

Yes but what we need to remember is getting OS X up running on a non-apple sanction system is MUCH harder than getting a copy windows disk.

Anybody can use a cd-burner with a license key generator.


Getting OS X to work though is an entirely different story that only the elite of all hackers will attempt to do. Even once you have OS X up and running common things like sound drivers, graphics drivers etc wont be that easy to obtain and involve a lot of hacking to get it working. So the whole "normal" crowd is excluded. At the moment getting OS X to work is not really a "oh i need it" its more of a "hey look at me im soooo cool". Well ppl make non-apple hardware OS X more productive then there will be a real thret to Apple. But again as its been mentioned its the marketing technique of the year. Why post screen shots when you can let people demo your OS then release an update a few months later to kill it off within that time you gained a few more hundred converts... genious apple, genious!

[quadrakid]

Look how many "normal" users have a bootleg copy of Windows on their computer.

Not everyone has to be a hacker. All a guy needs is a friend, younger brother, or a friends friend who downloads software, and lots of people can share the disk.

Trust me when I say that when I had a PC, I had never paid for Windows, Office, or any piece of software on my PC in my entire life. Ever. Funny thing is that I don't know anything about hacks or software piracy or where to get this stuff.

yeah its true.

The final build of OSx86 will of course be hacked into a non-specific hardware version and people will use it for free.

[toxicfreak]

neither they provide a version of osx for every type of intel and amd box or get hack until no more. its as easy as 1+1 . (people will buy at 149.99 can$ they will buy )

as far as people saying that only uber-hacker can install the hack version of tiger .....guess again .

i have see with my own eyes tiger roll like hell on both intel and amd ,on laptop .
you only need a external drive, a linux live cd. and here you go .


there a ball in apple side and the choice is easy ..... provide ever a unsupported version, will manage it. or its the unlimited hacking departement and no money for apple easy ..


toxicfreak

[wdlove]

These 500 bugs are probably in newer software, not in software that has been stable through previous O.S. releases. Therefore, using 129 as the number of new features in a major O.S. release (based on previous Apple ads matching the price to the number of features), we can divide 500 bugs by 129 features to compute an average of about 3.9 bugs per feature.

Very good Doctor Q, thank you. Always appreciate a thorough math analysis.

Sounds as though this may be the update to bring more users to Tiger, wow 2.7 GB.

Hopefully it will be ready about the time of the Paris Expo.

[SPUY767]

and anyways "normal" people dont need to worry about those "horror" mac os x stories. Trust me you can your hand on that intel mac it will be singing away and will make the PPC look like a pentium 1 (no pun intended ;) )

ok maybe not that bad. But the tech specs for intel macs are fantastic the new technology that intel are introducing (and that everyone in the PC industry is not paying attention too accept apple) are great. Everyone is running after super fast and very hot amd. Wait to Apple shows off intel's hidden technology then the chip battle will get very interesting. More Ghz does not always mean faster chips.... (perfomance by watt anyone?).


Just a heads up, AMDs almost always clock lower than comparable Intels. And the Fastest AMD chip, is only about 10% hotter at full load than the Intel is at idle. Those are just facts.

[artifex]

They probably changed the format of the universal binaries, so that when you double click them it may do some more piracy checking, to see if the app is running on the right hardware. (only an idea)

Or it's gotta be something major like that for all Xcode 2.1 universal binaries to not run at all.

Maybe the binaries will now serialize based on the particular build machine's MAC address, (pun intended) so they can track people down more easily. Don't forget all those developer boxes have to go back at the end of this year or beginning of next, and they don't want anyone with a loose copy of the pre-release OS or a "stolen" box after then.

[Neuro]

Perhaps because you don't know how many "normal" Winblows users out there use pirated versions of Gates's system...of course they would download OS X if they could...after all, piracy exists because it's still easy to download, not because of the price (a very old myth indeed)...

Perhaps users won't be able to run software update unless their installed version checks out as valid. Microsoft is heading exactly the same way with Windows now (Genuine Advantage program).

Basically, to run a hacked copy will be a liability in terms of performance and stability.

Also, I'd just like to add that I've never bought a copy of Windows (a PC user of 10+ years), but I've bought every version of Mac OS X. In my eyes it's worth the money, which makes a huge difference to me opening my wallet.

[BRLawyer]

Perhaps users won't be able to run software update unless their installed version checks out as valid. Microsoft is heading exactly the same way with Windows now (Genuine Advantage program).

Basically, to run a hacked copy will be a liability in terms of performance and stability.

Also, I'd just like to add that I've never bought a copy of Windows (a PC user of 10+ years), but I've bought every version of Mac OS X. In my eyes it's worth the money, which makes a huge difference to me opening my wallet.

Sorry, Neuro, but the sheer acknowledgement of the fact that you've never paid for a copy of Windows just proves that pirates and hackers will NEVER pay for OS X as well, as most of the ordinary users, no matter how "insecure" or "unreliable" software update is...the price myth has been debunked a long time ago in regards to piracy, and even cheap shareware is pirated as hell whenever possible.

And if it were a matter of quality, no good games, applications or OSs would ever be copied in such a widespread manner; it's just easy, that's why people do it...once they have'em in their HDs, the urge for legitimate payment of a company's R&D and marketing simply vanishes...and that's why Apple must keep on fighting the virtual thieves...simple as that.

[Neuro]

Sorry, Neuro, but the sheer acknowledgement of the fact that you've never paid for a copy of Windows just proves that pirates and hackers will NEVER pay for OS X as well, as most of the ordinary users, no matter how "insecure" or "unreliable" software update is...the price myth has been debunked a long time ago in regards to piracy, and even cheap shareware is pirated as hell whenever possible.

And if it were a matter of quality, no good games, applications or OSs would ever be copied in such a widespread manner; it's just easy, that's why people do it...once they have'em in their HDs, the urge for legitimate payment of a company's R&D and marketing simply vanishes...and that's why Apple must keep on fighting the virtual thieves...simple as that.

My point is - using pirate OS software is about to become less viable. If you don't buy the OS, you will not be able to update (ie fix) it, so you'll be stuck with all the launch bugs.

Users who don't care about having a 'proper' working version of their OS are people who will never buy an OS - so why would Apple (or Microsoft) care about them? They will persist in using crippled, hacked, buggy versions.

Anyone with enough money to afford an OS will buy it if them deem it important enough to them. Apple makes an OS that is 'more' important to its users. Microsoft makes an OS that is 'less' important to its users.

People are more likely to buy an Apple OS.

[DeathChill]

Can someone tell me if premier Apple developers are getting preferential treatment? Specifically are they getting builds that others are not?
I was talking to a friend over the weekend and he was telling me that the company he works for gets relatively routine builds of x86 Tiger. That was interesting because it’s the first I’ve heard of such a thing. What was more distressing was that he told me that Tiger for x86 is severely lacking in certain areas, mainly API calls. Off the top of my head things like audio wasn’t working among other things. (It was 11PM on Saturday, beer in hand. I don’t remember the finer details of that evening.) I want to call BS on him but honestly this wouldn’t be the first time Apple has played the whole smoke and mirrors game.
Does anyone have any insight into Tiger x86 and if any of this is true?

Then again he told me that Apple WAS without a doubt designing their mainboards from scratch not using any Intel reference designs. In that case I DID call BS on him. There is NO way in hell Apple is going to leak such info. But he remained adamant that he was told by someone at Apple that it’s a ground up build. Of course someone else could be BSing him. *shrugs*

I’m uberly confused. At this point I'm guessing this is all ugly rumor but he seeded enough doubt that I’m nervous about where Apple really is in their x86 development.


Well the stuff in the Dev Kit is NOT a ground up motherboard, it's a version of the D915GUX with Firewire, which was an option for that board. Though these kits don't reflect anything to do with the real deal hardware wise (excluding CPU as it will obviously be an x86 Intel CPU).

Also, they have NOT been feeding new builds of Tiger x86 to developers, there's only been one update to Tiger x86 which is the topic of this thread.

Also, everything works in Tiger x86, it's just not 100% complete yet as certain things (ATSServer) are still run by Rosetta but everything is functional.

[Gilles]

When can I expect to put my hand on a MacTel machine? end of 2006?

[wdlove]

When can I expect to put my hand on a MacTel machine? end of 2006?

It's possible that the Intel Mac could be announced at MWSF in January '06. Not sure about actual delivery date though. We can always hope that delivery will be soon. Maybe that day, just depends on Intel & Apple progress.

[AidenShaw]

It's possible that the Intel Mac could be announced at MWSF in January '06.
Apple's been telling developers exactly which chips will be in the first MacIntels, and they are currently available chips.

The clue is that the DTK documentation is telling developers to use 32-bit and to replace AltiVec code with SSE2 vector instructions - not 64-bit and not the newer, higher performance SSE3 vector instructions.

If we look at Intel's current and future chips, we see:
Xeon (Paxville) - 64-bit, SSE3, dual-core (due by end 2005)
Xeon (Irwindale) - 64-bit, SSE3 (current)
Pentium 4 - 64-bit, SSE3 (single and dual-core)
Celeron - 64-bit, SSE3
Pentium M (Merom) - 64-bit, SSE3, dual-core (due by end 2006)
Pentium M (Yonah) - 32-bit, SSE3, dual-core (due by end 2005)
Pentium M (Dothan) - 32-bit, SSE2 (current)

Note that the current "Dothan" Pentium M's are the only CPUs in Intel's current lineup that only have SSE2 - therefore Apple is clearly telling us that Dothan-based products are on the way.

Which systems would get a Dothan? Mostly likely the iBook and the MiniMac. Apple could relatively quickly release those two systems with Dothans - all the chips are ready and they don't need to wait for anything on Intel's roadmap.

However, a Dothan-based iBook would kick the G4 PowerBook's butt on lots of tasks. Apple, therefore, might be inclined to hold off on releasing the MacIntel iBook and MiniMacIntel until the PowerBook could have some "power".

What do we see in the roadmap - dual-core Yonah should be ready around MWSF'06 time, also dual-core Xeon!!

So, at MWSF'06 Apple could announce any or all of:
iBook Dothan - immediate availability
MiniMac Dothan - immediate availability
PowerBook Yonah (dual CPU, single dual-core) - available in limited quantities, or "soon"
iMac Yonah (dual CPU, single dual-core) - available in limited quantities, or "soon"
PowerMac Paxville (64-bit quad CPU, dual dual-core) - also limited or "soon"

By waiting for Yonah in the PB, the problem of the iBook eclipsing the PB disappears.

Will Apple do iMac? Probably not. The Dothans and Yonahs would outperform the G5 on some things, but if the video apps aren't well-optimized for x86 the G5 might be better for those. There's also the minor embarrassment of going from 64-bit back to 32-bit - but we all know that 64-bit brings almost no benefit to the iMac.

How about the PowerMac quad Xeon.... IMO it would be a good transition system for early adopters and developers - Apple could continue to sell the G5 systems for legacy apps until the transition is complete. However, using the current Xeon chips might be too large a serving of crow for Jobs to swallow - so I don't see this as too likely.

(There's also the issue that OSX86 is 32-bit only, so trying to hype a 64-bit hardware system with a 32-bit O/S might seem cheeky. Oh wait, Apple did that all through Panther.... ;) )


( Pentium M codenames explained at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_m, Xeon at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon, Pentium 4 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4 )

[Tupring]

yeah its true.

The final build of OSx86 will of course be hacked into a non-specific hardware version and people will use it for free.

And it will be a very sad (or good) day :confused:

[thequicksilver]

I've never had any serious issues with Tiger, it's working just as it should since 10.4.0...the only noticeable bug I see is that disk images, in rare moments, don't properly mount on the desktop (so I have to log out and in again)...that's all.

An issue that makes you have to log out to get it to work properly isn't a serious problem to you? I wish I had your levels of tolerance.

Tiger's not quite a train wreck, but was a waste of my money.