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You don't make money long term if people hate your product, so I'm just hearing blah blah blah blah from you.

Apple is not a monopoly and despite the whole walled garden meme its not that hard to get out if you really want to.
If they're making money, it's people they made the right decision on the product / service side as a whole.
Being entrenched on how to do anything, or a particular niche, is a recipe for disaster.

I'm not sure why you replied. The Mac is just a tool like your toaster. If your toaster doesn't work, you get a different one.

I'm not sure what the talk about being entrenched is all about.

All I hear is "Apple is right about everything.. .blah blah blah" from you.
 
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Thats where we differ. There is nothing to adapt to... There is no "old" and "new". There is no "moving forward". The mac is just a tool like Windows boxes... Linux boxes... or my refrigerator. This isn't a quantum shift in how computing is done. This is way for Apple to make more money and they will lose customers. The question is how many and how many more chrome book type devices will they sell?

Talking about "old", "moving forward", "adapting", etc... is just a smoke screen to validate Apples decision to move architectures. Shifting architectures isn't really about new technology. It's not about a paradigm shift in how to do business. It is all about the money.

I suppose that's called business. I look forward to the new features they can bring to the platform through further integration of their hardware. I've certainly adapted my workflow over time to new technologies and I don't expect that to change.
 
Not saying I disagree with your overall point, but are you asserting that somehow powerppc was more proprietary and obscure than 68k? Cuz that’d be silly.

I could buy an MC680x0 chip in any electronics store back in the day right next to the 80x86 chips. The electronics magazines of the day had plenty of 680x0 coverage/projects. It was a well standardized chip used in many applications. Even the Amiga used them. That was never true of PPC it was proprietary to Apple/Motorola/IBM and not widely used.

As a side note though, IBM tried to market PPC in Windows and OS/2 machines and the market wasn't interested because of lack of software that would run on it.
 
I suppose that's called business. I look forward to the new features they can bring to the platform through further integration of their hardware. I've certainly adapted my workflow over time to new technologies and I don't expect that to change.

Obviously Apple has a target they are shooting for with a move to ARM. I can see it working for lower end devices like a Macbook. Selling a larger number of devices ala iPod and iPhone has worked well for them over the years. Removing roadblocks/suppliers helps with that.

How long or will they move the higher end machines to ARM? I have a harder time visualizing how that works in their favor. They need those to develop apps for their mobile platforms so it will be interesting to see what they do and how that impacts their ecosystem.
 
I believe the situation is quite different now. The Mac is still a significant part of revenue but it's not the biggest anymore. Apple could in theory afford to lose it.

True enough right now; I'd go further and say Apple is trying to kill the mac market thoguh. Between "what's a computer" and Timmy asking "Why would anyone buy a computer", and their stance on education, it's pretty clear Apple doesn't want to be in the Mac business anymore.

Plus, ARM is not an obscure architecture. Arguably, most computers these days run on it.

If you subscribe to the "what's a computer" camp sure, you're right. On the other hand, ff you do more than browse facebook and youtube, then no ARM doesn't run on may computers at all.
 
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I have read all the posts here, Took me a couple of hours. But I haven't found what looks more strange, should I say scarry thing in this rumor: the dead-line!

2020? Really? It's two years from now. It's so close... When Apple has announced the end of PowerPC's Macs they told all the community to start recoding a lot earlier. Do you remember the "rosetta" thing? How could Apple step up to a proprietary chip so fast without the whole world? In just two years?:eek:
 
I could buy an MC680x0 chip in any electronics store back in the day right next to the 80x86 chips. The electronics magazines of the day had plenty of 680x0 coverage/projects. It was a well standardized chip used in many applications. Even the Amiga used them. That was never true of PPC it was proprietary to Apple/Motorola/IBM and not widely used.

As a side note though, IBM tried to market PPC in Windows and OS/2 machines and the market wasn't interested because of lack of software that would run on it.

There were lots of people using PowerPC. I designed one and I didn’t work at Apple Motorola or ibm. The fact that they weren’t sold in bins at radio shack didn’t really render them obscure.
 
I have read all the posts here, Took me a couple of hours. But I haven't found what looks more strange, should I say scarry thing in this rumor: the dead-line!

2020? Really? It's two years from now. It's so close... When Apple has announced the end of PowerPC's Macs they told all the community to start recoding a lot earlier. Do you remember the "rosetta" thing? How could Apple step up to a proprietary chip so fast without the whole world? In just two years?:eek:
This is obviously in the works for a few years already.
 
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Mac started thriving long before they switched to Intel. Switching to USB was actually the key. Your revisionist account of history is awful, to say the least.

What revisionism? Steve started making major changes towards open standards as soon as he came back; the switch to USB (which I did mention in my post) was easy and quick. The switch of an entire CPU architecture was more complex and took Steve years to pull off.

So certainly it "started thriving" with the earlier changes in the sense it started improving right away which only goes to show how bad proprietary is, but the switch to Intel was a major part of opening up the Mac and without that it would have floundered with low computer power, expensive, inefficient CPUs.

Let's also not forget that Apple owes much of its meteroric success to the iPhone, which has very little to do with what kind of CPU was and is in the Macs.

I don't agree with that; it ignores a lot of history. I agree they owe much of their current profit to the iPhone. But they very much market the iPhone as a fashion accessory which is a very fickle market. It's clear that Timmy would rather run Burberry than Apple, and he's running Apple accordingly.
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There were lots of people using PowerPC. I designed one and I didn’t work at Apple Motorola or ibm. The fact that they weren’t sold in bins at radio shack didn’t really render them obscure.

Way to get condescending; I'm talking stores like Electrosonic, Active Electronics, and a few others (all local versions of digikey of the day -- they did most of their sales to large businesses via catalog).

And not to be flippant, but you designed one what? Not clear at all what you're talking about.
 
What revisionism? Steve started making major changes towards open standards as soon as he came back; the switch to USB (which I did mention in my post) was easy and quick. The switch of an entire CPU architecture was more complex and took Steve years to pull off.

So certainly it "started thriving" with the earlier changes in the sense it started improving right away which only goes to show how bad proprietary is, but the switch to Intel was a major part of opening up the Mac and without that it would have floundered with low computer power, expensive, inefficient CPUs.



I don't agree with that; it ignores a lot of history. I agree they owe much of their current profit to the iPhone. But they very much market the iPhone as a fashion accessory which is a very fickle market. It's clear that Timmy would rather run Burberry than Apple, and he's running Apple accordingly.
[doublepost=1522852125][/doublepost]

Way to get condescending; I'm talking stores like Electrosonic, Active Electronics, and a few others (all local versions of digikey of the day -- they did most of their sales to large businesses via catalog).

And not to be flippant, but you designed one what? Not clear at all what you're talking about.
iPhone fashion accessory? Did i just wake up in a different universe ...
 
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Obviously Apple has a target they are shooting for with a move to ARM. I can see it working for lower end devices like a Macbook. Selling a larger number of devices ala iPod and iPhone has worked well for them over the years. Removing roadblocks/suppliers helps with that.

How long or will they move the higher end machines to ARM? I have a harder time visualizing how that works in their favor. They need those to develop apps for their mobile platforms so it will be interesting to see what they do and how that impacts their ecosystem.

Yea I don't expect them to make their own chips for the high end machines just yet, but I have been impressed with what they have been able to do with their A series chips. Given the space/power available in a desktop/laptop, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see Apple develop chips that can rival Intel. If they can provide the right tools to develop for this platform, developers will come. There is plenty of money to be made. If developers aren't willing to move to the new platform, it leaves an opening for new developers that are more willing to adapt to the new platform.
 
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I have read all the posts here, Took me a couple of hours. But I haven't found what looks more strange, should I say scarry thing in this rumor: the dead-line!

2020? Really? It's two years from now. It's so close... When Apple has announced the end of PowerPC's Macs they told all the community to start recoding a lot earlier. Do you remember the "rosetta" thing? How could Apple step up to a proprietary chip so fast without the whole world? In just two years?:eek:

True, and don't forget Rosetta worked because the Intel chips were several times more powerful than the PPCs being transcoded from.

Current Ax chips are 5-10% the capability of current Intel chips (at 5-10% the price which is why Apple loves them). 2 years isn't much time to add that kind of power.
 
True, and don't forget Rosetta worked because the Intel chips were several times more powerful than the PPCs being transcoded from.

Current Ax chips are 5-10% the capability of current Intel chips (at 5-10% the price which is why Apple loves them). 2 years isn't much time to add that kind of power.
CPU TDP in current regular iMac is 65W, Apple can do miracles with that. If they can achieve same performance or be very close and have their own roadmap they will do it.
 
Yea I don't expect them to make their own chips for the high end machines just yet, but I have been impressed with what they have been able to do with their A series chips. Given the space/power available in a desktop/laptop, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see Apple develop chips that can rival Intel. If they can provide the right tools to develop for this platform, developers will come. There is plenty of money to be made. If developers aren't willing to move to the new platform, it leaves an opening for new developers that are more willing to adapt to the new platform.

That would be a confusing place to be. The Mac line running on two different processors. Would love to be the one explaining to clients why blah software won't run (or won't run well) on their Mac because its Intel only.

There is so little benefit to all this, that its not funny. Apple already can't be bothered updating Macs when Intel have chips avaliable so I don't buy into the 'Apple won't have to wait on intel' argument. Apple will never pass on the cost savings to consumers. Would much rather they work on integrating A series chips into Macs, as a coprocessor.

In the end they'll do what they'll do. Apple could sell anything these days. This forum alone shows the number of people who will blindly buy what ever Apple sells, which is a shame.
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CPU TDP in current regular iMac is 65W, Apple can do miracles with that. If they can achieve same performance or be very close and have their own roadmap they will do it.

And the benefit would be? (Apart from loosing compatibility with my programs and sending me back into the dark ages of the PPC).

Wish Apple would tell us soon, I need to start planning to move away from the ecosystem if its the case.
 
CPU TDP in current regular iMac is 65W, Apple can do miracles with that. If they can achieve same performance or be very close and have their own roadmap they will do it.

If they can achieve same or close performance, they're better off just discontinuing the mac now.

You want to break all current software, thousands of niche programs that will never be updated for the new architecture, screwing over millions of customers for "same or very close" performance? And take away compatibility with the OS that dominates 90% of the market. And that's *if* they can scale the chip effectively. More cores is not a substitute for faster cores; not everything is easy to run in parallel. And doing concurrency right takes more skill than clicking compile and crossing your fingers.

The switch to Intel went to a much more powerful CPU with a much larger library of easily portable software. And made dual booting with the OS that owns 90% of the market trivial.

This switch is worse in every way except you hope they can achieve very close capability.
 
That would be a confusing place to be. The Mac line running on two different processors.

There is so little benefit to all this, that its not funny. Apple already can't be bothered updating Macs when Intel have chips avaliable so I don't buy into the 'Apple won't have to wait on intel' argument. Apple will never pass on the cost savings to consumers. Would much rather they work on integrating A series chips into Macs, as a coprocessor.

In the end they'll do what they'll do. Apple could sell anything these days. This forum alone shows the number of people who will blindly buy what ever Apple sells, which is a shame.
OS X and iOS is independent of CPU architecture, so it is not a big deal to have one Mac with an ARM CPU and the other one with Intel CPU.
 
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That would be a confusing place to be. The Mac line running on two different processors.

There is so little benefit to all this, that its not funny. Apple already can't be bothered updating Macs when Intel have chips avaliable so I don't buy into the 'Apple won't have to wait on intel' argument. Apple will never pass on the cost savings to consumers. Would much rather they work on integrating A series chips into Macs, as a coprocessor.

In the end they'll do what they'll do. Apple could sell anything these days. This forum alone shows the number of people who will blindly buy what ever Apple sells, which is a shame.

I disagree. I think people will buy Apple products if it adds value. Just because you don't see the value, doesn't mean everyone won't. Many on this forum are simply so stuck in their ways that can't imagine any other way.
 
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If they can achieve same or close performance, they're better off just discontinuing the mac now.

You want to break all current software, thousands of niche programs that will never be updated for the new architecture, screwing over millions of customers for "same or very close" performance? And take away compatibility with the OS that dominates 90% of the market. And that's *if* they can scale the chip effectively. More cores is not a substitute for faster cores; not everything is easy to run in parallel. And doing concurrency right takes more skill than clicking compile and crossing your fingers.

The switch to Intel went to a much more powerful CPU with a much larger library of easily portable software. And made dual booting with the OS that owns 90% of the market trivial.

This switch is worse in every way except you hope they can achieve very close capability.
Most apps require only recompile and slight tinkering. If devs are lazy it's on them, because things change sooner or later. We also have no idea how relevant windows is to majority of mac users.
 
That would be a confusing place to be. The Mac line running on two different processors. Would love to be the one explaining to clients why blah software won't run (or won't run well) on their Mac because its Intel only.

There is so little benefit to all this, that its not funny. Apple already can't be bothered updating Macs when Intel have chips avaliable so I don't buy into the 'Apple won't have to wait on intel' argument. Apple will never pass on the cost savings to consumers. Would much rather they work on integrating A series chips into Macs, as a coprocessor.

In the end they'll do what they'll do. Apple could sell anything these days. This forum alone shows the number of people who will blindly buy what ever Apple sells, which is a shame.
[doublepost=1522853080][/doublepost]

And the benefit would be? (Apart from loosing compatibility with my programs and sending me back into the dark ages of the PPC).

Wish Apple would tell us soon, I need to start planning to move away from the ecosystem if its the case.
What compatibility are you actually losing?
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Honestly if the rumour was that Apple was switching back to the PPC, people would be defending it as well.
IBM has some pretty awesome PPC cpus these days ;)
 
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What compatibility are you actually losing?
So much talk about windows, but can't people see that if they want to run windows it is a much better idea to buy a windows computer? Macs already cost a premium, if you're not wanting to run macOS all the time then it's better to buy a Windows computer and a separate mac than speccing up a mac at great expense to run an OS that only has a basic level of optimisation for it.
 
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I disagree. I think people will buy Apple products if it adds value. Just because you don't see the value, doesn't mean everyone won't. Many on this forum are simply so stuck in their ways that can't imagine any other way.

Plenty of us are more than open to POSITIVE change. I went through the OS9 - OSX change and the PPC to Intel change. Both POSITIVE. We're not talking some revolutionary change here that will make the Mac experience exceedingly better. We're talking positive change for Apple (higher margins) which I don't give a flying toss over, perhaps slightly better battery life and maybe better software compatibly (because who wouldn't want to run stripped down iOS apps on the Mac rather than the existing library of proper desktop software), but the negatives far outweigh this. There were negatives in the Intel switch, yes, but they were outweighed by the positives, two of the most important were far better performance, compatibility with 100 percent of the computing world. The increased power meant that Rosetta was very effective.
 
So much talk about windows, but can't people see that if they want to run windows it is a much better idea to buy a windows computer? Macs already cost a premium, if you're not wanting to run macOS all the time then it's better to buy a Windows computer and a separate mac than speccing up a mac at great expense to run an OS that only has a basic level of optimisation for it.
Tell that to them :) to me it was kind of obvious 20 years ago.
 
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What compatibility are you actually losing?

My current library of Mac OS software and my library of Windows software.

So much talk about windows, but can't people see that if they want to run windows it is a much better idea to buy a windows computer? Macs already cost a premium, if you're not wanting to run macOS all the time then it's better to buy a Windows computer and a separate mac than speccing up a mac at great expense to run an OS that only has a basic level of optimisation for it.

Um no, because if I'm already overpaying for a Mac, I'd like to be able to run everything on it. I didn't have to over spec my Mac to run Windows. Why on earth would I want a seperate crappy computer when I can have one well designed machine that can run both?
 
Most apps require only recompile and slight tinkering. If devs are lazy it's on them, because things change sooner or later. We also have no idea how relevant windows is to majority of mac users.

You can't be serious with this statement.

The reason Mac took off was because of their switch to Intel processors. Developers had less of a battle to port their apps. Lazy? You clearly have never ported anything beyond a simple "Hello" app.

Some of you have chosen to forget the PPC days and how few apps there were. :D
 
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