Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Intel iBook at MWSF (January) 2006?
- Thread starter Daveway
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Randall
macrumors 6502a
findpankaj said:
Apple will continue to support the PPC architecture for at least the length of your extended care plan and probably longer then that. They want the transition to be as smooth as possible, and they do not want to alienate their users at all.
Apple wants to switch out all of their old (read: ancient) G4 processors out and put Intel Yonah processors in ASAP. A full switch is planned for the end of 2006, so you can bet that all Macs will be Intel inside by the beginning of 2007. But that still doesn't change the fact that Apple will continue to support the PPC architecture in everything they do. OS X 10.5 Leoppard will be coming out at the end of 2006, and it will fully support PPC (your G4) and Intel Macs from the same installation disc using "fat binaries" that are precompiled to work for both PPC and Intel Macs.findpankaj said:
I think that developers will choose to support both architectures for the near future. They want to help make it a smooth transtion as well. I'm sure 99% of the developers out there have a PPC based Mac and are going though the same feelings that you are. In many cases, the software applications are such high level, that a simple recompile with the -x86 flag set will enable their same code to run 100% compatable with both architectures with the use of fat binaries. Other developers that have large projects that are hardware dependent cannot do a simple recompile, and if they have no previous experience programming for x86 hardware instructions, they are ripping their hair out as we speak. The transition ranges from trivial all the way to nightmare. Apple is aware of this, and it is a calculated risk. They feel that we will have a smooth transition, and I hope that they are right.findpankaj said:
Don't be ridiculous. Intel doesn't mean the end of innovation for Apple. In fact, it could mean a beginning of innovation. Finally Apple will have the freedom of low power and high yielding processors to put into their mobile line. This switch to x86 could possibly be the best thing that's ever happend to Apple. It is more then possible that many Windows only applications that rely on x86 architecture could be ported over to OS X, since they will now both use the same instruction set. Granted the OSes themselves are still very different, but hardware (x86 architecture) dependent core applications such as video encoding and processing engines optimized for x86 could be ported over to Mac in a slightly easier fassion. Not to mention the future opportunity (if you saw fit) to have your Mac dual boot either OS X or Windows. Again a benefit to the x86 architecture.findpankaj said:
Don't feel alienated. Apple wants to make it's customers feel as comfortable as possible during the transition. I know how you feel though, if I bought a PPC mac and then less then a year later they started offering a whole different architecture, then I would be pissed off bigtime. It's understandable. But I would guess that some/most 3rd party vendors (Adobe for instance) will be much slower in fully porting their underlieing code to the x86 architecture. (This is the reason for the Rosetta project) to use software based emulation to "spoof" a PPC architecture for the x86 Macs that cannot natively run the PPC based applications. So PPC still holds the upper hand in this respect, and will continue to do so probably at least well into 2007.findpankaj said:
See above answers. Apple will try their best to make it a smooth transition for everyone.findpankaj said:
RE: ZDNet blog- is his pricing correct?
Are his price numbers correct? $72 for G4, and $240 per unit for the two year old, 32bit, 1.8Ghz Pentium M Yonah predecessor? (both are volume prices)
If so, that's quite a bit of a challenge there for Apple. I would actually expect PPC consumer computers for awhile, and the pro machines to switch first.
OTOH, if Win computers are generally cheaper, how can there be such a disparity in the prices for the CPU's for budget machines? Even Apple doesn't have a tremendous margin on the Mac Mini and iBooks.
Are his price numbers correct? $72 for G4, and $240 per unit for the two year old, 32bit, 1.8Ghz Pentium M Yonah predecessor? (both are volume prices)
If so, that's quite a bit of a challenge there for Apple. I would actually expect PPC consumer computers for awhile, and the pro machines to switch first.
OTOH, if Win computers are generally cheaper, how can there be such a disparity in the prices for the CPU's for budget machines? Even Apple doesn't have a tremendous margin on the Mac Mini and iBooks.
Randall said:
I wasn't even sure what he meant by '2 years old' since obviously the G4 is older. I just copied and pasted his description (although I guess I made a mistake, I should have said 'Yonah predecessor' and not 'Yonah'.)
Nonetheless, is the Pentium M chip that much more expensive than the G4?
Randall
macrumors 6502a
It is, although I don't think that Apple is paying those prices for them. I am sure bulk discounts are in order and do apply. Intel is foaming at the mouth to be able to supply Apple with their processors. Exactly how much per chip Apple is paying is anybody's guess. Since the G4 is so so very old, modern fab techinques are more then likely allowing IBM to pump those babies out at "a dime a dozen" to coin a phrase. The G4 is probably one of the cheapest computer processors to manufacture at the moment, due to it's old age. I don't have exact numbers, so I can't say for certain though.madmaxmedia said:
Very interesting, thanks for the reply.
If the Pentium M CPU's are signficantly more expensive (whatever the actual Apple price is), that would seem to be an argument to release a PowerBook before an iBook, especially since the newer Pentium M's are touted as being significantly faster than the G4.
Of course, the flip side to that is native vs. emulated code, and how many of the major apps will be native in the next say 6 months.
Funny, just going by price you could almost argue for a dual CPU Mac with a Pentium M and a G4 for non-Intel native apps. (of course this is not actually realistic, just an idea based on G4 prices.)
I think the biggest performance hogs are going to be Photoshop and Dreamweaver as far as emulated code goes. Office will not be Intel-native for awhile, but those apps are generally less CPU intensive anyway (at least in terms of how most users use the apps.)
If the Pentium M CPU's are signficantly more expensive (whatever the actual Apple price is), that would seem to be an argument to release a PowerBook before an iBook, especially since the newer Pentium M's are touted as being significantly faster than the G4.
Of course, the flip side to that is native vs. emulated code, and how many of the major apps will be native in the next say 6 months.
Funny, just going by price you could almost argue for a dual CPU Mac with a Pentium M and a G4 for non-Intel native apps. (of course this is not actually realistic, just an idea based on G4 prices.)
I think the biggest performance hogs are going to be Photoshop and Dreamweaver as far as emulated code goes. Office will not be Intel-native for awhile, but those apps are generally less CPU intensive anyway (at least in terms of how most users use the apps.)
Randall said:
for the record....
...I was shocked (Stata did quickly release a Universal binary version of Stata 9). Kudos to them. Now I wonder when Stata 10 is coming out...
...I was shocked (Stata did quickly release a Universal binary version of Stata 9). Kudos to them. Now I wonder when Stata 10 is coming out...