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damn you apple! my ibook/intel concerns

M

mrweirdo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 21, 2005
370
0
So I was finaly gona do it after I finally have saved up enough spare income to get myself an ibook and now I'm not so sure if I will because of the upcoming switch to intel. I'm concerned that if I buy something now i will get stuck with something that is useless later on. If I'm buying a laptop it has to last me at least 3-4 years for one reason i will have other things that I have to spend money and probably will not be able to by anouther laptop untill then.

Now I know apple is implamenting universal binaries but I havent goten any clear info as to rather os x and software that is later designed for intel cpus if i will still run on ppc or not and if so what kind of performance hit are we talking about. I can live with a bit of a slow down just not something thats insanely slow. Mayby an example of that i can think of would be trying to run win xp on an old pentium 2 64mb machine :D that is just plain hell lol. My primary concern is eather the new software wont work on the older proc or it will be indeed extremly slow/laggy.

The other concern i have is what is going to hapen to all those open source apps. I'm a big fan and user of them. Mainly firefox, thunderbird & gaim. Once intel cpus are in the market are we going to see most if not all of the developers stop porting their apps to the ppc and instead just focus on intel?

I cant realy wait for a laptop that long as I need for next semester of college which starts up January 23th. I have heard a new ibook might be a widescreen version with the posibly the intel cpu in it and it will be $200 cheaper then the current ppc ibooks. If apple had it out in january and I could get it shipped to me before then then its posible i could wait for it. Athought it might not be a good idea to get the first of the new ibooks because of apples history with revison a products I'm thinking there shouldnt be any issues in terms of hardware bugs. Most likely if there are some issues it will be software related and hopefully they will fix them with updates to OS X and the individual software packages themselves.
 
You've kind of answered your own question.
As you've stated, developers will compile their apps as universal binaries so from here-on-out, it doesn't matter what platform your working on - the apps will, in the words of Steve Jobs, "just work".

The only trouble with waiting for an Intel Mac instead of buying a PPC now, is that any older software you own won't be native. Therefore it will (admittedly, seamlessly) be emulated by' Rosetta'. This will mean that they won't run at 100% of their speed - unless of course, recompiled versions of your software are made available by the time you get an Intel Mac. This would also involve you re-purchasing everything.

Anyway, Apple have stated that they will still be shipping PPC Mac until the end of 2007 and will continue to support the platform for a long time after that (after all, how hard is it to mark 2 checkboxes instead of 1?).

Personally, I'd get a PPC Mac now. In perfect sync with Apple's own timescale, it's gonna be that long until all apps are going to be native anyway. You Mac will be safe for as long as it is deemed 'usable' (i.e. at least 3-5 years).
 
You say you want your new laptop to last you 3-4 years. PPC will be supported for that long and probably longer.

As for software, think about this logically. Even even for some miracle when the first Mactel is released all apps suddenly are Intel your PPC Mac will still operate and run what ever software you have on it. It will still be compatible with Mactels so you will be able to exchange files between PPC and Mactel users etc. (eg: like a Word doc between a Mac and a PC)
 
Hell, a powerbook even!

It doesnt matter whats under the hood, just whats installed on the drive.

Os X!

$
 
if i buy one now, will i be able to run the new apps that r compatitable with the MacIntels?
 
poolin1243 said:
or he could pick up a used ibook, and go from there and keep it as a temp till he feels it safe to by a intelbook?? or am i off my rocker?...its possible....
Click to expand...

ya I'm actualy looking at and most likely might go with a refurbished system from apple. Wich i would rather do anyways if they are truely just as good as new except for not coming in a fancy box. I'd rather save the $200ish and instead put it towards something like maxing out the ram ;) I will probably later on after the warrenty has expired upgrade the hd in my ibook to a 5400rpm(doubt i will go 7200 because of heat + batery life loss) as well since I dont realy like the speed of the drives that come with them. It doesnt look to hard for me since I'm great at being able to dismantle things and put them back together :D
 
DarkNetworks said:
if i buy one now, will i be able to run the new apps that r compatitable with the MacIntels?
Click to expand...

YES!!!!!!

Why are people freaking out about this? Its called UNIVERSAL binary for a reason. All software post mactel will be intel/ppc which means it will run on both. And anyway if you have a mactel they will have rosetta so what I like to say is: in reality, no regualr consumer will be effected!

Now, some people like to avoid Rev A stuff, and some people hate intel, and some people think intel will be faster.... That is what ur purchase should be based on.

For the person who started this thread, if you want to avoid Rev A go ahead and buy one now, besides the odds are against you that there will be intel iBooks by Jan. 23. The speed difference will not be a P4 compared to a P2. My god people, give PPC some credit, it might be possible the intels will be slower!!!! OMG!!!!!!!

Bottom line: Do not worry about software issues between PPC and Intel, everyone wins both ways.
 
Jedi128 said:
YES!!!!!!

Why are people freaking out about this? Its called UNIVERSAL binary for a reason. All software post mactel will be intel/ppc which means it will run on both. And anyway if you have a mactel they will have rosetta so what I like to say is: in reality, no regualr consumer will be effected!

Now, some people like to avoid Rev A stuff, and some people hate intel, and some people think intel will be faster.... That is what ur purchase should be based on.

For the person who started this thread, if you want to avoid Rev A go ahead and buy one now, besides the odds are against you that there will be intel iBooks by Jan. 23. The speed difference will not be a P4 compared to a P2. My god people, give PPC some credit, it might be possible the intels will be slower!!!! OMG!!!!!!!

Bottom line: Do not worry about software issues between PPC and Intel, everyone wins both ways.
Click to expand...


I will add to that I'm thinking we should mostly have software compatible on both platforms except for mayby a few(very) open source projects with lazy devs that have converted to universal. I guess for that the best thing to do is go to the individual devs and see what their future plans are. Then again some of these same projects might still offer special ppc compiled versions. I'm gona be looking into packages I might want to use and see what they have planed to help me decide if i want to buy now or wait ;)
 
Jedi128 said:
YES!!!!!!

Why are people freaking out about this? Its called UNIVERSAL binary for a reason.
Click to expand...
Haha! Exactly what I was saying!
I think people forget that the universal binary not only means it will run on a x86 architecture, but a PPC one too! :rolleyes:
 
mrweirdo said:
( . . . )

I cant realy wait for a laptop that long as I need for next semester of college which starts up January 23th. I have heard a new ibook might be a widescreen version with the posibly the intel cpu in it and it will be $200 cheaper then the current ppc ibooks. If apple had it out in january and I could get it shipped to me before then then its posible i could wait for it. Athought it might not be a good idea to get the first of the new ibooks because of apples history with revison a products I'm thinking there shouldnt be any issues in terms of hardware bugs. Most likely if there are some issues it will be software related and hopefully they will fix them with updates to OS X and the individual software packages themselves.
Click to expand...

Personally, I doubt the first Intel-based iBook to be released will be $200 cheaper than the current models. There will be a lot of transition-related R&D costs to be amortized. If it is cheaper, it will confirm my sinking feeling that Apple plans to use Intel's Celeron CPUs in the consumer-oriented Macs.

I just bought an iBook myself. I'm happy with it. I expect most of the software I use will remain compatible for as long as I'll want to keep it.


Crikey
 
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