As if the Pentium M weren't already way too fast for the G4...

[C-Mezak]

I use an 800MHz iBook G4 and a 900MHz Acer tablet PentiumM daily. Both computers have just over 512MB of RAM. I could not say that the Intel chip was faster than the G4. In fact I find that the G4 handles multi tasking much better than the Intel. Maybe its OS X, maybe it's the G4, but the iBook has far few problems and has a much smoother interface (less "stalls" and smoother graphics).

You make a good point: while a mac might be slower under the hood, the experience at the user end is often faster than on a windows machine. The main reason for this is probably OSX. Im no ubergeek, and it's obvious to me after switching to mac that OSX is about a hundred times cleaner running than windows. UNIX was originally designed for machines that were meant to be rarely shut down, wasnt it? Anyway, I have friends with top-of-the-line windows boxes, who can barely get anything done now because their system has gradually become glutted and bloated. It may be possible for a geek to avoid this fate, but I think most computer users either have to reformat, or deal with a slow system on what should be a lightning fast machine.

Im sure that Apple understands that they have to keep the cpu upgrades coming, but there are plenty of other things they have going for them in terms of speed, IMHO.

charlie

 

[dieselg4]

Actually, I know quite a bit about technology, but thanks for the personal attack, its much appreciated. OS X is built on Unix, which runs on x86 hardware as well. I'm fully aware that the PPC platform is different than the x86 platform. I wasn't suggesting using emulation. A lot of program written on the Mac are also available on the PC.

Suck it up, you know the G4 is a pathetically slow processor. Apple should have switched to x86 gear a long, long time ago. The performance just isn't there, and quite frankly, the G5 isn't doing that much better.

Apple's current marketshare almost necessitates it to run on hardware OTHER than x86. If OS X ran on x86 hardware, that would effectively make apple a software company. It basically would only produce iPods, iSights, OS X, iLife, Final Cut, maybe a few other things. It's a bit of a catch 22 - OS X might be installed on many more computers if it ran on x86, but the revenue Apple makes would be cut drastically.

It wouldn't be all that different than OS/2 and OS/2 warp. OS/2 was, in many ways, a superior operating system to windows at the time. The development of OS/2 untilmately didn't pay for itself with sales, and it's now relegated to a blip in digital history.

 

[slughead]

you clearly know nothing or very little about technology; there's a reason why apple uses PowerPC processors and the consumer PC manufacturers use x86 processors - and that is called "binary compatibility".

you just cannot run PPC binaries on a x86 platform without any emulation, and i can assure you any kind of (hardware or software) emulation will give such a drastic performance hit that you just cannot even think about it as an option.

if apple would switch to x86 hardware, or even began to support it, that would mean that all macintosh developers would have to re-code their software; which would effectively mean either abandoning macintosh or not supporting x86 hardware - so, you see, there's no point for apple in doing something like that.

"waa you have to re-code your software"

hahaha, uhhuh, you're the expert, guy!


This is why I can take software designed for x86 linux OS's (like hx) and recompile it and run it on my G5, right? or maybe I didn't just do that 10 minutes ago.. yeah.. must've imagined it.

Or maybe this is how I can recompile things for x86 linux x windows and run it through x11

you must be right, instruction sets make alllll the difference heh.

I suppose you could be right though, binaries can't be emulated.. but ON THE SAME OS YOU CAN JUST RECOMPILE ON THE DIFFERENT COMPUTER.

Apple has already ported OS X to x86... or did you miss that Steve Jobs interview?

I'm not just talking about Darwin, either.. though Darwin for x86 is available for download for free.

If Apple released an x86 OS X on thursday, by friday afternoon 75% of all commercial software for OS X would be ported.

hah, recoding, that's a good one. I'm sure that extra 20 minutes of recompiling is going to really slow the wheels of progress.

 

[Celeron]

Apple's current marketshare almost necessitates it to run on hardware OTHER than x86. If OS X ran on x86 hardware, that would effectively make apple a software company. It basically would only produce iPods, iSights, OS X, iLife, Final Cut, maybe a few other things. It's a bit of a catch 22 - OS X might be installed on many more computers if it ran on x86, but the revenue Apple makes would be cut drastically.

It wouldn't be all that different than OS/2 and OS/2 warp. OS/2 was, in many ways, a superior operating system to windows at the time. The development of OS/2 untilmately didn't pay for itself with sales, and it's now relegated to a blip in digital history.

I'm not sure I follow your logic on this one? Apple doesn't make its current hardware, so why not switch to x86 and continue on as before? Instead of IBM floundering to make its G5, Apple could use AMDs Athlon64 line which is doing quite well. Instead of hobbling the Powerbooks/IBooks with the rather pathetic G4, they could just toss in a PentiumM.

I'm not saying Apple needs to stop designing the hardware, they just need to switch to the dominate, and faster, platform. There's no saying that Apple can't build the motherboards/bios in such a way that OS X will only run on machines equiped with such hardware.

And the day that OS X gets installed on x86 machines is when Apple truely starts making money. OS X is a pretty awesome OS, and its much better than Windows in many ways, but the short sighted view point that expanding their market share onto the x86 platform will ultimately hurt their bottom line is laughable.

 

[dieselg4]

And the day that OS X gets installed on x86 machines is when Apple truely starts making money. OS X is a pretty awesome OS, and its much better than Windows in many ways, but the short sighted view point that expanding their market share onto the x86 platform will ultimately hurt their bottom line is laughable.

Its not laughable at all. If they make signifacantly less money w/o the sale of hardware, they can't continue to develop OS X. I'm not saying its right, I'm just saying that currently one supports the other. Apple makes the bulk of its money selling hardware. That's a fact. The money, plus a smidge they make from final cut and other software, and the iTunes music store, and the massive amount they make from iPods, all gets redistributed to developing products and software.

I would like to see apple use faster hardware, but I remeber that when Apple licensed its OS out, it ran into the problem I have just described - Power Computing, Umax, etc., ate into Apple's hardware sales, which subsidized development of Mac OS, which helped put Apple into the red (further than it already was.) Basically, Apple doesn't sell enough copies of OS X to enough users for enough money to pay for itself.

 

[Celeron]

Its not laughable at all. If they make signifacantly less money w/o the sale of hardware, they can't continue to develop OS X. I'm not saying its right, I'm just saying that currently one supports the other. Apple makes the bulk of its money selling hardware. That's a fact. The money, plus a smidge they make from final cut and other software, and the iTunes music store, and the massive amount they make from iPods, all gets redistributed to developing products and software.

I would like to see apple use faster hardware, but I remeber that when Apple licensed its OS out, it ran into the problem I have just described - Power Computing, Umax, etc., ate into Apple's hardware sales, which subsidized development of Mac OS, which helped put Apple into the red (further than it already was.) Basically, Apple doesn't sell enough copies of OS X to enough users for enough money to pay for itself.

You aren't reading what I'm saying. Apple can keep making the hardware, keep developing the software with no licensing involved. Just switch from the PPC to the x86 platform. The machines out already use the same hardware for hard drives, opticals drives, memory and video cards. Apparently you aren't grasping what I'm saying. I'm not suggesting Apple drop their hardware line and simply make software for use on a Dell machine.

 

[Silencio]

"Relatively near future." Isn't that just more of the same Intel FUD we've come to know and love?

Multicore is one area in CPU design where IBM has a big advantage because they have been doing it for a lot longer than Intel, and multicore has been in the PowerPC roadmap all along.