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'Intel Based Mac' Rumor Roundup...

mkrishnan said:
Yes, but read this thread...market share is not the best metric when you're competing against computers that sell for $300 and last for six months.... :)
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1.8% is still 1.8% 10-15% is where it should be apple should try harder at flogging Mac's ie TV ads

when was the last time you see a mac computer advert on tv? (ipod no included)
 
Porco said:
I'd like Intel and AMD to both announce they are joining AIM (becoming the wonderfully palindromic AIMIA in the process), going PPC, scrapping x86 altogether and it's Windows that will have to recompile everything. That would be ace. :D

(yeah, I know, probably not).
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Of course Apple would have the prime position of being the first A. :)
 
How Pi__ed Off is Intel over MS going to IBM for XBox Processor?

Do you think that Intel is so pi__ed off over MS going to IBM for the XBox processor that they gave Steve the deal of a lifetime? If Steve's in the driving seat who knows what he can accomplish (think music rights for ITunes launch.)
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
No, will you please read what I've written... :rolleyes:

No the virus will be written for an OS, but may execute assembly code to exploit hardware weaknesses, to execute code, without being "bothered" by the OS.
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execute code to do what????????????????????

To do something harmful like changing files, sending emails, .... what ever it needs do call a "system call".
 
PowerMac x86

Hey everyone, I'm already using x86 based PowerMac, see the attached, its really fast. Check out the attached.
 

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Nooooooo!

I hope what i read is not true! I yust got a PM g5 Dual 2.3, and i for sure paid for it because of OS X and PowerPC cpus inside. I hope those rumors are yust plain rumors, because if apple puts its customers thru such pain as the transition from Power to X86 would be than they can go to hell and the PowerMAC G5 would be my last apple product... Ah what would the name of the new mac be? IntelMAC P4? AthlonMAC X2? :eek:
 
MacPhreak said:
The PPC's are apparently considerably cheaper, so a move to Intel chips may actually raise the price of a Mac.
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The processor is only one part of the equation. There is also the costs involved with developing the parts on the motherboard which is no small sum when your only making less than a million for each product line compared to the competitors 60 million or so. The costs are much higher for Apple on every Mac with Apple's custom PPC motherboards than it would be using a off the shelf X86 motherboards.

Here are a few hard facts about the PowerPC vs. Intel case to consider:

# Apple pays less for its PowerPC processors than the cost of comparable Intel chips, and analysts say the cost is less than half as much for some models. Moving to Intel would hit Apple's bottom line.
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The costs of designing and manufacturing the PPC motherboard more than makes up for any small advantage Apple might have in processors prices.

# The PowerPC G5 is a smaller, more efficient chip than the competition.
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An IBM article projected that the maximum power use of a 2.5GHZ 970 at about 100 watts, and projecting that chart furture, a 2.7GHz 970 would probably have at least a 120 watt maximum power use. The rapidly increasing power use as the voltage is increased is the reason why IBM has not produced a 3GHz 970 yet. In fact the above mentioned article recommends that the 970 not be used beyond 2.3GHz for the sake of the lifespan of the chip. The estimation is that raising the frequency from 2.3GHz to 2.5GHz decreases the lifespan of the processor from 100,000 hours to less than 50,000 hours.
 
Mr. Dee said:
Hey everyone, I'm already using x86 based PowerMac, see the attached, its really fast. Check out the attached.
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That's the lousiest Photoshop I've ever seen... the colors on the sticker are way too bright/vivid, and where's the shading?
 
toolhouse said:
Do you think that Intel is so pi__ed off over MS going to IBM for the XBox processor that they gave Steve the deal of a lifetime? If Steve's in the driving seat who knows what he can accomplish (think music rights for ITunes launch.)
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This might be the dealbreaker for Intel
 
michaellehn said:
BTW:

Did anyone try to install Tiger on a PC? Maybe it's already working, but nobody tried?
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Well, here's an idea... I'll keep my Mac mini open on MacRumors.com while I install it on my old Celeron system.

Let's see. Inserting the DVD.

Woah, it's booting!

WTF do they mean by "reconfiguring hardware"?

Holy crap, my mouse just lost 2 buttons! And its scrollwheel!

Hey, the Windows key has been changed to Apple!

Why is the whole system turning white and aluminium?

It worked!

... just kidding, of course. :rolleyes:
 
makes a lot of sense

Motorola can't get more bang out of G4; IBM can't supply quantity of G5 or get more bang; Apple halo-effect from G5/iPod great; MS a couple of years from Longhorn with real credibility issues over security/reliability(with 100 million lines of buggy legacy code vs 5million clean-ish OSX lines code); Dell going upscale (despite their cheapo's costing more than a mac mini for same spec; quality/support issues) etc.. once in decade opportunity to ramp up market share.

Thus, license HP, IBM (denova) (both strong relationships, maybe IBM a goodbye f**k !), Gateway (desperate, good kit, open to ideas) to produce good quality "clones" with OS discount; charge $199 for OSX for other folks (kinda $100 cheaper than Win) for better quality experience; bundle openoffice (great, except word tables migration bad).

Ramp from 1.8% to 10% in a year, build momentum, and M$ is history 5 years from now (hoping ;) )
 
The key is the emulation

Loge said:
While this information appears convincing, the question arises how does Apple retain its revenue stream during the transition - if we are to believe that the first Intel based Macs appear during 2006 and the rest in 2007? As well as not wanting to purchase deprecated hardware, purchasers would be worried that Apple could even survive the transition.
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Having been through the 68K-PPC transition I'd say that the key to pulling this off rests entirely with how the emulation works. Its a bit different than the 68K-PPC transition because the emulation has to run smoothly both ways for Apple to pull this off. BUT if an OS X program compiled for the PPC runs acceptably on an x86 Mac and an x86 OS X program runs acceptably on a PPC Mac then the transition will go well. Apple can't count on all its developers rewriting their code for the x86 so, particularly in the next 2-3 years it needs current PPC OS X stuff to run well on the new machines. Likewise if you can count on newer x86 OS X code running on current PPC machines then Apple's PPC sales will not be badly hurt in the transition.

They succeeded in 1994 with the 68k-PPC transition. This time some things are harder and some easier.

On the harder side, they don't have the luxury of moving from a much slower microprocessor to a fast one. That means that their emulator (Transitive?) must be much better than the 68K emulator on the PPC.

On the other hand they have a big advantage in that they can probably make OS X completely x86 native at the release of the new machines. That was not true when the PPC machines came out. For many years significant parts of the Mac OS were 68K code running in emulation on the PPC (Quickdraw for example). When you remember how much of any program is OS calls you can see why this transition may not be so bad. Even if a developer does not recompile his code and it runs in emulation, every time that program makes a system call its running native. In fact this makes all the Core toolboxes that Apple has added to OS X even more important.

Anyway we'll find out tomorrow. I was planning on buying a new PPC Powerbook and unless an x86 Powerbook is much close than I think, I stick with my original plan.
 
Who knows

First, the article strictly says Intel Chips, it does not say x86, or PPC for that matter. Who knows, Intel might be knocking out 64 bit PPC chips with VMX capabilities, or an EM64T with VMX, or apple might drop VMX.

The fact is, we don't know what's going to happen. Also, like 95% of the mac rumors, these seems blown out of proportion. We will all see tomorrow.
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Then where is the Mac OS X viruses exploiting this...?
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I think that the point is being missed here.

It is very much possible to smash the stack on PowerPC and execute code, and root it. The problem for an attacker is that the entry options are limited, but control of individual machines is very much doable.

The reason that doesn't translate into virus propagation is that OS X (not PowerPC) offers little in the way of predictable entry points from the outside world (i.e., network).

As has been said over and over and over and over and over and over and over in this thread, it's the OS, not the bleedin' chip.
 
Yvan256 said:
Well, here's an idea... I'll keep my Mac mini open on MacRumors.com while I install it on my old Celeron system.

Let's see. Inserting the DVD.

Woah, it's booting!

WTF do they mean by "reconfiguring hardware"?

Holy crap, my mouse just lost 2 buttons! And its scrollwheel!

Hey, the Windows key has been changed to Apple!

Why is the whole system turning white and aluminium?

It worked!

... just kidding, of course. :rolleyes:
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sounds like a wet dream to me :) :cool: :p ;)
 
Forget marketshare!

Even if switching to x86/intel (or x86/AMD, or whatever) makes the systems less expensive, it won't quadruple Apple's marketshare.

Yes, they WOULD increase marketshare, especially the first year or two. But then it's back to less than 5%.

Why? Because Apple writes efficient software, unlike Microsoft. How many 1GHz Celeron systems run Windows XP at a decent speed? How many of you currently have G3/500 systems running Tiger at a decent speed?

The low marketshare (computers sold per year) of Apple is because of Apple themselves: they don't have this "sloppy code" attitude that seems to be the norm at Microsoft.

I'd be interested in solid installed user base numbers, not marketroid marketshare numbers...
 

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iMeowbot said:
I think that the point is being missed here.

It is very much possible to smash the stack on PowerPC and execute code, and root it. The problem for an attacker is that the entry options are limited, but control of individual machines is very much doable.

The reason that doesn't translate into virus propagation is that OS X (not PowerPC) offers little in the way of predictable entry points from the outside world (i.e., network).

As has been said over and over and over and over and over and over and over in this thread, it's the OS, not the bleedin' chip.
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Thanks for restating things clearly.
 
iMeowbot said:
I think that the point is being missed here.

It is very much possible to smash the stack on PowerPC and execute code, and root it. The problem for an attacker is that the entry options are limited, but control of individual machines is very much doable.

The reason that doesn't translate into virus propagation is that OS X (not PowerPC) offers little in the way of predictable entry points from the outside world (i.e., network).

As has been said over and over and over and over and over and over and over in this thread, it's the OS, not the bleedin' chip.
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Good summary.

The fact of the matter is that neither PPC or x86 is so incredibly flawed that very careful programming and design can't make a piece of software secure. So if OS X exists some day on x86, it could be just as secure as it appears to be now.
 
WillR said:
Having been through the 68K-PPC transition I'd say that the key to pulling this off rests entirely with how the emulation works.
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I agree that is going to be key. I expect we'll be finding out a whole lot more about Transitive in the coming weeks. However, the risk is still there that no matter how good the emulation might be, people often see such a transition as an opportunity to evaluate alternatives. Even just a decision to make do with existing hardware for longer, until the new machines appear, could adversely affect Apple's bottom line.

Having said that given where they are with IBM, particularly regarding portables, they probably have no better option.
 
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