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'Intel Based Mac' Rumor Roundup...
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Abercrombieboy said:
Mac OS 8 and 8.1 worked on 680x0 and PowerPC Macs, I would expect something similar if Apple were to move to x86.
It matters less to me, since I plan on upgrading my Mac, my OS, and my major apps anyway in the 2-3 year timeframe.
But even people who plan to go longer with what they have... there will still be apps for PPC for a LONG time to come, even if "the worst" is true.
Your PPC Mac won't stop working, and many if not most apps will still see a PPC update or three. We're talking a transition, not a sudden drop.
But even people who plan to go longer with what they have... there will still be apps for PPC for a LONG time to come, even if "the worst" is true.
Your PPC Mac won't stop working, and many if not most apps will still see a PPC update or three. We're talking a transition, not a sudden drop.
jwhitnah said:
BBC got all its info from the C|Net article...not sure about the NYT but it seems that a lot of sites are just jumping on the band wagon and not getting info from there own sources. It is possible there is only one source and they have gone to a few news agencies.
nytimes article
for the ones that have no login for NYTIMES:
Steven P. Jobs is preparing to take an unprecedented gamble by abandoning Apple Computer's 14-year commitment to chips developed by I.B.M. and Motorola in favor of Intel processors for his Macintosh computers, industry executives informed of the decision said Sunday.
The move is a chesslike gambit in a broader industry turf war that pits the traditional personal computer industry against an emerging world of consumer electronics focused on the digital home.
"This is a seismic shift in the world of personal computing and consumer electronics," said Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a Seaford, N.Y., computer and consumer electronics industry consulting firm. "It is bound to rock the industry, but it will also be a phenomenal engineering challenge for Apple."
Mr. Jobs is expected to announce the transition to Intel chips at Apple's annual developer conference, which will begin here Monday. Apple's intention to shift to Intel chips beginning in 2006 was reported Friday by CNET News.com, a technology news service. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Apple and I.B.M. were negotiating.
Apple, according to analysts, has become increasingly alarmed by I.B.M.'s failure to deliver a new version of its Power PC chip, called the G5, that does not generate much heat - a crucial feature for notebook computers, which do not have as much room for fans and ventilation as desktop machines.
Apple's notebooks now use the older G4 chips, made by Freescale Semiconductor, which was spun off from Motorola last year.
"That's a huge looming problem for Apple, if it can't keep up with Intel notebooks in performance," said Charles Wolf, an analyst for Needham & Company. "And that's been an I.B.M. problem. I.B.M. hasn't delivered a cool-running G5."
Apple, I.B.M. and Intel spokesmen all refused to comment this weekend on the possible shift in alliances.
The first move in the complex industry realignment now taking place was made more than a year ago when Microsoft broke with Intel and said that it would use an I.B.M. processor chip, similar to the one used by Apple for its Macintoshes, in the second version of its Xbox video game machine.
What Microsoft has made clear recently is that the new Xbox, to be called the 360, will be much more than a video game player when it reaches store shelves this fall. It will perform a range of home entertainment functions, like connecting to the Internet, playing DVD movies and displaying high-definition television shows as well as serving as a wireless data hub for the home.
Microsoft's decision to build its own computer hardware, with help from I.B.M., was a direct assault on a market that Intel was counting on for future growth. It is likely that Intel forged the alliance with Apple in an effort to counter the powerful home entertainment and game systems coming from Microsoft and Sony.
While the new partnership is a clear and long-coveted win for Intel, the world's largest chip maker, it portends a potentially troublesome shift for Apple, the iconoclastic maker of sleek personal computers and consumer electronics gadgets.
Apple was the largest maker of personal computers in the early and mid-1980's, but its share of the worldwide computer market fell steadily during the past two decades as the Windows-Intel alliance emerged as an overwhelming personal computing standard.
That decline came despite Apple's earlier shift from Motorola microprocessor chips to the PowerPC processor, the fruit of a grand alliance that Apple entered into in 1991 with Motorola and I.B.M.
Originally intended to counter Microsoft and Intel, the alliance was never able to stop the erosion of Apple's market share, as Apple customers were forced to upgrade their hardware and software to take advantage of the newer processor chip.
Mr. Jobs, who left Apple in 1985 to found Next Inc., went through a similar transition when he moved his NextStep operating system from Motorola chips to Intel's x86 processors. When Mr. Jobs sold Next to Apple in 1997 and then returned to the company to lead its resurgence, he moved the operating system to the PowerPC. But it has been widely reported that the company has kept alive a small development project called Marklar that has developed an Intel-compatible version of the Macintosh operating system.
For I.B.M., the end of the Apple partnership means the loss of a prestigious customer, but not one that is any longer very important to I.B.M.'s sales or profits. It further underlines how much I.B.M. and its strategy in recent years have moved away from the personal computer industry that it helped create. Last month, I.B.M. completed the sale of its personal computer business to Lenovo of China.
Even as a chip maker, I.B.M. has moved aggressively beyond the PC industry, focusing on making the processors for video game consoles from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, and specialized chips for other uses, like the Internet router computers made by Cisco Systems and cellphone technology by Qualcomm. I.B.M. also uses its Power microprocessors in many of its own server computers, which run corporate networks.
By contrast, the chips I.B.M. makes for Apple represent less than 2 percent of chip production at its largest factory in East Fishkill, N.Y. And while the microelectronics business as a whole is strategically important for I.B.M., it is a small part of the revenue of a company that increasingly focuses on services and software. A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, estimates that the company's technology group - mostly microelectronics - will account for less than 3 percent of I.B.M.'s revenues and 2 percent of its pretax income this year.
I.B.M. supplies about 50 percent of the microprocessors used by Apple, providing them for desktop and server computers. Freescale makes the processors used in Apple's notebook and new Mac mini computers.
For years, according to industry analysts, the work for Apple has been barely a break-even business for I.B.M. When the two companies were negotiating a new contract recently, Mr. Jobs pushed for price discounts that I.B.M. refused to offer. For I.B.M., "the economics just didn't work," said one industry executive who was briefed on the negotiations. "And Apple is not so important a customer that you would take the financial hit to hold onto the relationship."
The attitude was very different in 1991, when I.B.M., Apple and Motorola contributed a total of 300 engineers to a project in Austin, Tex., code-named Somerset. Company executives hailed the project as a make-or-break effort to design PowerPC chips intended to be, among other things, a crucial weapon to wrest technological control of the PC industry from Intel and Microsoft.
Mr. Jobs is scheduled to take the stage on Monday to face his software developers, an important constituency he must convince of the wisdom of the shift. It is the software developers who will need to do the hard work of making their programs run on Intel chips if Mr. Jobs's strategy is to succeed.
Apple must be able to persuade software developers who make business and graphics programs for the Macintosh - Microsoft, Adobe, Quark and others - to overhaul their code.
"That's a huge challenge for Apple, to win the software developers over and drag them along," said Mr. Wolf, the Needham analyst.
John Markoff reported from San Francisco for this article, and Steve Lohr from New York.
for the ones that have no login for NYTIMES:
Steven P. Jobs is preparing to take an unprecedented gamble by abandoning Apple Computer's 14-year commitment to chips developed by I.B.M. and Motorola in favor of Intel processors for his Macintosh computers, industry executives informed of the decision said Sunday.
The move is a chesslike gambit in a broader industry turf war that pits the traditional personal computer industry against an emerging world of consumer electronics focused on the digital home.
"This is a seismic shift in the world of personal computing and consumer electronics," said Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a Seaford, N.Y., computer and consumer electronics industry consulting firm. "It is bound to rock the industry, but it will also be a phenomenal engineering challenge for Apple."
Mr. Jobs is expected to announce the transition to Intel chips at Apple's annual developer conference, which will begin here Monday. Apple's intention to shift to Intel chips beginning in 2006 was reported Friday by CNET News.com, a technology news service. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Apple and I.B.M. were negotiating.
Apple, according to analysts, has become increasingly alarmed by I.B.M.'s failure to deliver a new version of its Power PC chip, called the G5, that does not generate much heat - a crucial feature for notebook computers, which do not have as much room for fans and ventilation as desktop machines.
Apple's notebooks now use the older G4 chips, made by Freescale Semiconductor, which was spun off from Motorola last year.
"That's a huge looming problem for Apple, if it can't keep up with Intel notebooks in performance," said Charles Wolf, an analyst for Needham & Company. "And that's been an I.B.M. problem. I.B.M. hasn't delivered a cool-running G5."
Apple, I.B.M. and Intel spokesmen all refused to comment this weekend on the possible shift in alliances.
The first move in the complex industry realignment now taking place was made more than a year ago when Microsoft broke with Intel and said that it would use an I.B.M. processor chip, similar to the one used by Apple for its Macintoshes, in the second version of its Xbox video game machine.
What Microsoft has made clear recently is that the new Xbox, to be called the 360, will be much more than a video game player when it reaches store shelves this fall. It will perform a range of home entertainment functions, like connecting to the Internet, playing DVD movies and displaying high-definition television shows as well as serving as a wireless data hub for the home.
Microsoft's decision to build its own computer hardware, with help from I.B.M., was a direct assault on a market that Intel was counting on for future growth. It is likely that Intel forged the alliance with Apple in an effort to counter the powerful home entertainment and game systems coming from Microsoft and Sony.
While the new partnership is a clear and long-coveted win for Intel, the world's largest chip maker, it portends a potentially troublesome shift for Apple, the iconoclastic maker of sleek personal computers and consumer electronics gadgets.
Apple was the largest maker of personal computers in the early and mid-1980's, but its share of the worldwide computer market fell steadily during the past two decades as the Windows-Intel alliance emerged as an overwhelming personal computing standard.
That decline came despite Apple's earlier shift from Motorola microprocessor chips to the PowerPC processor, the fruit of a grand alliance that Apple entered into in 1991 with Motorola and I.B.M.
Originally intended to counter Microsoft and Intel, the alliance was never able to stop the erosion of Apple's market share, as Apple customers were forced to upgrade their hardware and software to take advantage of the newer processor chip.
Mr. Jobs, who left Apple in 1985 to found Next Inc., went through a similar transition when he moved his NextStep operating system from Motorola chips to Intel's x86 processors. When Mr. Jobs sold Next to Apple in 1997 and then returned to the company to lead its resurgence, he moved the operating system to the PowerPC. But it has been widely reported that the company has kept alive a small development project called Marklar that has developed an Intel-compatible version of the Macintosh operating system.
For I.B.M., the end of the Apple partnership means the loss of a prestigious customer, but not one that is any longer very important to I.B.M.'s sales or profits. It further underlines how much I.B.M. and its strategy in recent years have moved away from the personal computer industry that it helped create. Last month, I.B.M. completed the sale of its personal computer business to Lenovo of China.
Even as a chip maker, I.B.M. has moved aggressively beyond the PC industry, focusing on making the processors for video game consoles from Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, and specialized chips for other uses, like the Internet router computers made by Cisco Systems and cellphone technology by Qualcomm. I.B.M. also uses its Power microprocessors in many of its own server computers, which run corporate networks.
By contrast, the chips I.B.M. makes for Apple represent less than 2 percent of chip production at its largest factory in East Fishkill, N.Y. And while the microelectronics business as a whole is strategically important for I.B.M., it is a small part of the revenue of a company that increasingly focuses on services and software. A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, estimates that the company's technology group - mostly microelectronics - will account for less than 3 percent of I.B.M.'s revenues and 2 percent of its pretax income this year.
I.B.M. supplies about 50 percent of the microprocessors used by Apple, providing them for desktop and server computers. Freescale makes the processors used in Apple's notebook and new Mac mini computers.
For years, according to industry analysts, the work for Apple has been barely a break-even business for I.B.M. When the two companies were negotiating a new contract recently, Mr. Jobs pushed for price discounts that I.B.M. refused to offer. For I.B.M., "the economics just didn't work," said one industry executive who was briefed on the negotiations. "And Apple is not so important a customer that you would take the financial hit to hold onto the relationship."
The attitude was very different in 1991, when I.B.M., Apple and Motorola contributed a total of 300 engineers to a project in Austin, Tex., code-named Somerset. Company executives hailed the project as a make-or-break effort to design PowerPC chips intended to be, among other things, a crucial weapon to wrest technological control of the PC industry from Intel and Microsoft.
Mr. Jobs is scheduled to take the stage on Monday to face his software developers, an important constituency he must convince of the wisdom of the shift. It is the software developers who will need to do the hard work of making their programs run on Intel chips if Mr. Jobs's strategy is to succeed.
Apple must be able to persuade software developers who make business and graphics programs for the Macintosh - Microsoft, Adobe, Quark and others - to overhaul their code.
"That's a huge challenge for Apple, to win the software developers over and drag them along," said Mr. Wolf, the Needham analyst.
John Markoff reported from San Francisco for this article, and Steve Lohr from New York.
They threw 68K Macs, and went with the Power PC? They threw out Mac OS and went with Mac OS X? WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM! Both of those first "threws" lasted 10 years! 10 WHOLE YEARS! It's like blaming the movie industry for pushing higher quality mediums like Blue-Ray or HD-DVD because they "threw" something else earlier...Abercrombieboy said:
"WHY DID THE MUSIC INDUSTRY HAD TO GO WITH CD-ROM! I JUST BOUGHT A BRAND NEW 8 TRACK CASSETTE PLAYER!!!"
Just Reminding you guys
Just like previously said: Don't Doubt Apple
Iv'e doubted and found that it was useless to doubt before. Apple always has things planned out almost perfectly if not perfectly. They know what they are doing and don't make decisions without major conferencing.
Just like previously said: Don't Doubt Apple
Iv'e doubted and found that it was useless to doubt before. Apple always has things planned out almost perfectly if not perfectly. They know what they are doing and don't make decisions without major conferencing.
runninmac said:
I can't believe it! I knew Jobs said Tiger was years ahead of Longhorn, but I didn't know Longhorn was a complete OS X rip off!And the people demoing it!... Check out the "Longhorn 5060: Desktop search experience" movie. I can't believe he said boom...
Ok, a little off-topic, but it was hilarious to watch those movies.
Now, a Cell chip inside a Mac-x86 would be an interesting combination. I've got no idea what that would accomplish.LaMerVipere said:
oskar said:
And the people demoing it!... Check out the "Longhorn 5060: Desktop search experience" movie. I can't believe he said boom...
Ok, a little off-topic, but it was hilarious to watch those movies.
Yeah, that "Boom!" part caught mine attention to
Not only that they rip the OS X but also the way to present the it.
Found this on Macnn forums
The doc mentions assembling apps for PPC and i486 intel procs, is this new or always been there? i386 and i486 seem a bit old to me but i don't know.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Reference/Assembler/ASMIntroduction/chapter_1_section_1.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000851-CH211
'Introduction to Mac OS X Assembler Guide
The Mac OS X assembler serves a dual purpose. It assembles the output of gcc, Xcodes default compiler, for use by the Mac OS X linker. It also provides the means to assemble custom assembly language code written for its supported platforms.
This document provides a reference for the use of the assembler, including basic syntax and statement layout. It also contains a list of the specific directives recognized by the assembler and complete instruction sets for the PowerPC and i386 processor architectures.
Important: The i386 Addressing Modes and Assembler Instructions section is considered preliminary. It has not been updated with the latest revisions to the i386 addressing modes and instructions. While most of the information is technically accurate, the document is incomplete and is subject to change. For more information, please see the section itself.'
The doc mentions assembling apps for PPC and i486 intel procs, is this new or always been there? i386 and i486 seem a bit old to me but i don't know.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/Reference/Assembler/ASMIntroduction/chapter_1_section_1.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000851-CH211
'Introduction to Mac OS X Assembler Guide
The Mac OS X assembler serves a dual purpose. It assembles the output of gcc, Xcodes default compiler, for use by the Mac OS X linker. It also provides the means to assemble custom assembly language code written for its supported platforms.
This document provides a reference for the use of the assembler, including basic syntax and statement layout. It also contains a list of the specific directives recognized by the assembler and complete instruction sets for the PowerPC and i386 processor architectures.
Important: The i386 Addressing Modes and Assembler Instructions section is considered preliminary. It has not been updated with the latest revisions to the i386 addressing modes and instructions. While most of the information is technically accurate, the document is incomplete and is subject to change. For more information, please see the section itself.'
Linux on S390? Nah, too expensive.Dont Hurt Me said:It would be nice to have the Best Software on the Best Hardware
Laurent said:
Look I just changed my avatar so I will be 'in style" now. You don't see the impact that this has on the education and commercial markets. You wonder why Apple has lost HUGE amounts on marketshare in their non-consumer markets, this is one of the reasons. Last I checked CD's and boom boxes were a little cheaper then outfitting a whole school or business with computers.
longhorn sucks
yeah, and it's not great either
Longhorn build 5048 is hugely disappointing from an end user perspective because it shows how far behind Microsoft is in delivering the next client version of Windows. Also, expectations were high that Microsoft would hit a home run with this build, because it was the first public Longhorn release in a year.
--Paul Thurrott
May 5, 2005
Beta tester
oskar said:
And the people demoing it!... Check out the "Longhorn 5060: Desktop search experience" movie. I can't believe he said boom...
Ok, a little off-topic, but it was hilarious to watch those movies.
yeah, and it's not great either
Longhorn build 5048 is hugely disappointing from an end user perspective because it shows how far behind Microsoft is in delivering the next client version of Windows. Also, expectations were high that Microsoft would hit a home run with this build, because it was the first public Longhorn release in a year.
--Paul Thurrott
May 5, 2005
Beta tester
bozs13 said:
BUT if Longhorn will run all the software we have on the racks over at the school and people can load XP software on it and it runs well...it will be sucessful.
Jumping to conclusions...
There are so many things that could happen with this rumour affecting the main line of computers. Additionally, there are more things that could happen affecting the other lines.
Traditional macs:
1. Intel purchasing Freescale (to manufacture PPC) - I think they are looking to be bought last I heard.
2. Intel producing a new PPC processor (no AMD)... this would be a complete surprise, yet cool.
3. Intel shoe-horning a PPC decoder into a current line (M-series for example, which would lock out AMD). Not easy, but not impossible. This would be pretty cool imho.
4. Apple is converting to x86. This would be a total disaster in my humble opinion, unless done with extreme care. This would open up the field for AMD as well, and I can't see Intel being too happy about opening such a front. Unless they have a new line of everything tomorrow for x86, no-one will buy the old PPC stuff and hardware sales would evaporate. There are so many pitfalls here it is akin to Apple shooting itself in the foot. I would hope they are not so desperate to take this course, because this will be a pained one.
It unfortunately sounds like a giant step backwards.
Others:
Alternatively, this could be something where:
1) Intel is replacing iPod / Airport etc with XScale
2) Intel is making logic chipsets for Apple (chipset?)
3) Some PCIe announcement (all worked up for nothing)
We'd also have to consider why IBM would be giving up the 900 series. They went and built custom PPC chips for both Sony, and Microsoft, and probably Nintendo, so I would think there would be more to gain in producing a Power derivative for Apple. One of the advantages of the 970 was that it was easy to make compared to starting from scratch.
All IBM has to do is to keep advancing the 9xx series line and everyone would be happy.
Steve better have his reality warp field at maximum power to annouce x86 for Apple; Otherwise he will be facing a hall filled with pissed developers.
-Wyrm
There are so many things that could happen with this rumour affecting the main line of computers. Additionally, there are more things that could happen affecting the other lines.
Traditional macs:
1. Intel purchasing Freescale (to manufacture PPC) - I think they are looking to be bought last I heard.
2. Intel producing a new PPC processor (no AMD)... this would be a complete surprise, yet cool.
3. Intel shoe-horning a PPC decoder into a current line (M-series for example, which would lock out AMD). Not easy, but not impossible. This would be pretty cool imho.
4. Apple is converting to x86. This would be a total disaster in my humble opinion, unless done with extreme care. This would open up the field for AMD as well, and I can't see Intel being too happy about opening such a front. Unless they have a new line of everything tomorrow for x86, no-one will buy the old PPC stuff and hardware sales would evaporate. There are so many pitfalls here it is akin to Apple shooting itself in the foot. I would hope they are not so desperate to take this course, because this will be a pained one.
It unfortunately sounds like a giant step backwards.
Others:
Alternatively, this could be something where:
1) Intel is replacing iPod / Airport etc with XScale
2) Intel is making logic chipsets for Apple (chipset?)
3) Some PCIe announcement (all worked up for nothing)
We'd also have to consider why IBM would be giving up the 900 series. They went and built custom PPC chips for both Sony, and Microsoft, and probably Nintendo, so I would think there would be more to gain in producing a Power derivative for Apple. One of the advantages of the 970 was that it was easy to make compared to starting from scratch.
All IBM has to do is to keep advancing the 9xx series line and everyone would be happy.
Steve better have his reality warp field at maximum power to annouce x86 for Apple; Otherwise he will be facing a hall filled with pissed developers.
-Wyrm
well?
how can you expect windows to run well? windows has never ever run well!
Abercrombieboy said:
how can you expect windows to run well? windows has never ever run well!
You're saying that Apple threw Mac OS, then changed their mind, which is totally false. Things evolves. The computer scene is probably one of the fastest when it comes to evolution. The PC you bought 2 years ago is history. It's thought to update for anyone... Families, small companies, corporations and school... but that's the way it goes! But don't worry... once a dominant PC manufacturer will get total monopoly, you'll get your slow evolution and you won't have to upgrade so often...Abercrombieboy said:
Apple/Intel collaborate on WiMax, IBM/Apple new desktop...
Here's what the tea leaves tell me - On Monday, Apple and Intel announce that they are collaborating on WiMax (sp?) technology for a new digital device or enhancement to Apple's existing devices or laptops.
IBM wakes up and introduces 5 ghz PowerPC and 4ghz laptop model processors. Also IBM announces a new desktop collaboration with Apple- designed systems, aimed at business customers. Selling points are no viruses, no spyware, better security, high speed, Unix compatibility, IBM support and systems integration, including (optional) IBM supported z/OS emulator on PowerPC. Beautiful Apple design and small desktop footprint with the solid IBM business support!
And then I woke up...
Here's what the tea leaves tell me - On Monday, Apple and Intel announce that they are collaborating on WiMax (sp?) technology for a new digital device or enhancement to Apple's existing devices or laptops.
IBM wakes up and introduces 5 ghz PowerPC and 4ghz laptop model processors. Also IBM announces a new desktop collaboration with Apple- designed systems, aimed at business customers. Selling points are no viruses, no spyware, better security, high speed, Unix compatibility, IBM support and systems integration, including (optional) IBM supported z/OS emulator on PowerPC. Beautiful Apple design and small desktop footprint with the solid IBM business support!
And then I woke up...
Abercrombieboy said:
Don't underestimate the impact that Transitive's QuickTransit technology may have in this conversion. It's too early to jump to the conclusion that all current PPC hardware will suddenly be obsolete overnight. If the current Mac software will run on the new Intel based systems with very little performance hit (as Transitive claims) then this conversion will be much less painful. It'll give everyone (consumers and developers alike) a good 2-3+ year window to upgrade to the new technology because their current software will still run on both the old PPC and new Intel based hardware.
Laurent said:
Um, no. My computer that is almost 4 years old is not even close to history. My well administered p3 1ghz still out paces a lot of poorly built p4 machines. In GUI speed, and in real world office speed. Once in RAM Photoshop CS still opens in 7 seconds, while my Dual 1.25ghz at work still takes 10 seconds. I would hardly call that history.
bozs13 said:
If Windows is SO BAD then why do they have 95%+ marketshare? Why have they gained in the education market by double digits? You are going to try and tell me that Apple going x86 and making everything that businesses and schools own right now, hardware and software, nothing but "surplus garbage" is going to help Apple. School boards will say...Oh hell no...and stay with PC's and Windows because when you are using the tax payers money you have to decide on what will last the school the longest.
Isn't there anyone a little upset that after tomorrow we will all be on a "dying platform" with no future of software support? I know I put enough money into this iMac 3 months ago that it upsets me a little. I would recommend NOT ONE person buy a new PowerPC Mac after tomorrows announcement or they will be very sorry in a year or two.