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Intel Macs running Windows...
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Even if Apples weren't prevented from running windows, why would you want to use Windows? I have a feeling that OSX running on an Intel system will be just as capable. Though I do wonder why Apple is preventing this function, in the end I think people would see the advantage of OSX. Unless when Longhorn is finally delivered the difference is not all that much. Let's hope Apple makes use of its head start.
El Phantasmo said:The picture of an iBook running Windows XP just looks wrong
Those sorts of things happen in our Sunday sales flyers quite frequently. It's amazing to see an x86 machine with Mac OS X video on the display.
It will be interesting to see the changes as they happen. Hopefully, Adobe and Macromedia will get their act together quickly. The fact that they're still trying to get their software to work well on Mac OS X on PPC doesn't actually bode well for another transition, though.
Actually the comment was referring to your 95% to 5% ratio of how much time you put into the software for each platform.ewinemiller said:
5% makes you a lazy Mac developer (unless you don't think it even qualifies you as a Mac developer).
Since Apple makes their own logic boards and always has... this statement has no foundation in fact or reason.
Why would Apple (a hardware maker) all of a sudden stop making hardware?
Beyond wishful thinking, do you have any evidence to back up such a statement?
Because what I'm getting from friends at Apple is that they are designing their own logic boards right now.
So where in the world did you get the idea that Apple was going to have a PC motherboard maker build their motherboard?
And please, don't say that it is because the developer kits are using such a logic board. Apple has already said that that hardware is not indicative of what the final Intel based Macs are going to be like.
Or did you just pull that idea out of thin air?
RacerX said:
Why should I spend any more, if the code compiles and works?
There is this silly notion in the Mac community that a developer must optimize for the Mac. That's just wrong, straight C++ code works just as a well on a Mac as it does on a PC. This notion is probably in a small way hurting the Mac as a development platform since it scares away folk who think that to make stuff run decent on a Mac it must be multithreaded and Altivec optimized.
It's plug-ins for 3D software so the UI and the platform stuff is handled by the plug-in SDK. In 100k lines of code or so, there is probably only a half dozen places where I need to do something specific for the platform and that includes the spots where I do Altivec for the mac and SSE for windows.
That's why I only spend 5% on the Mac. I can write the entire plug-in on the cheap portable PC, copy it to the Mac and compile. If it worked on the PC, 95% of the time (actually probably higher) it works on the Mac. There's no reason to spend more time.
RacerX said:
Hmmm, I see in the news all the time about "manufacturer X wins contract to produce Apple product Y", so that is where that comes from. I wasn't aware that Apple had it's own factories anymore.
They might design their own motherboards, but I suspect (and a whole lot of other people suspect too) they will be using an Intel chipset (part of what made the Intel thing attractive they offer the whole package). So we are back to they will have to go out of their way to make windows not work and a VP of Apple said they wouldn't do that so I'm not sure why there is even any debate on that anymore.
That article makes a big leap in assuming that Apple will make a deal with HP or Dell to sell rebranded Macs that have both Windows and OS X installed...how likely is this? Also, how difficult would it be to install Windows on a Mactel by yourself? Exactly what components need to be made compatible with Windows? The processor will be compatible but what else would need to change in the Mactels? Any really tech savvy people know the answers to this?
RacerX said:
You are horribly wrong. Intel processor + compatible motherboard w/ on board video + PATA or SATA hard-drive + PATA CD-ROM Drive = Windows Compatible Computer. Of course you do need a license of the OS, I guess that might be the extra steps you are talking about???
Phil Schiller, Apple V.P. of Marketing, has gone on record saying that Windows will run on the new Intel based Macs. Read the report on AppleInsider, the developer report there says Windows is super fast on the dev-boxes.
krunch said:
I don't see Apple making a deal with Dell or HP. I don't think they will need to or want to if they do this right.
It probably won't be difficult to install windows at all. Apple has moved away from proprietary parts and if you make a machine with an Intel processor, Intel chipset, AGP or PCI-X bus, etc., you'd have to go out of your way to make Windows not run on it. One of the "weaknesses" of Windows that is often brought up is that it has to run on everything and guess what, it does! Pretty much any random assembly of hardware that all matches their appropriate spec will install and boot Windows. I think the only troublesome spot will dealing with which boot loader will work to let it dual boot, but I'm sure a day after the first ones ship there will be a write up on the web about how to do it.
I know the developer machines are not supposed to be indicative of the final product, but even the driver issue they had was a no brainer fix. If I remember correctly they couldn't display the apple display's native resolution with the video driver they found. Driver manufacturers often just put the most common resolutions in the selection list. If they'd just used something like Power Strip, they could have added it and been fine.
applelast said:
If you're a die hard Windows guy then why do you want to run the Mac OS at all?
Apple laptops aren't price competive at all. They're lacking a ton of features that PC users take for granted like media card readers, dual button trackpads, dual layer DVD burners, (e)SATA, PCI Express, 7200rpm hard drives, greater than (W)XGA screens, IPS screens, integrated webcam, removable drives, big batteries, dual batteries, tablet features, etc.
The screens on Apple laptops suck compared to the average Dell, HP, Compaq, or Acer, Sager/Clevo, Gateway/Emachine. iBooks feel solid but Powerbooks feel pretty flimsy.
At this point it's irrational to assume that you can run Windows on a Apple laptop and draw in a lot of Windows users. Apple's problem has never really been their OS but their hardware. Apple likes to paint themselves as innovative because they come out with some technoloiges first (widescreen LCD's and Firewire 800 for example) but most of the time they are lagging behind the rest of the industry in terms of feature set (look at the list above), especially in some of the more basic areas like DVD burning (speed, dual layer, +RW support) hard drives (size, speed, SATA, removable), ram (512 ram has been basically standard on PC since early 2002 and 1GB is now standard above $900) and LCD quality (IPS, Glossy screens, WSXGA, WUXGA). Despite their lacking feature set Apple still charges much more for their machines that HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Acer, Asus, Sager/Clevo, Gateway/Emachines and basically everyone except for IBM and some Sony stuff.
Unless they change their product strategy then they still won't appeal to PC users, especially not anyone who wants an AMD processor.
Oh... well, if it is a plug-in then that makes a lot more sense. Usually when some one says that they are a cross platform developer they are talking about stand alone applications.ewinemiller said:
So you are right, lazy wouldn't apply to the ratio of the amount of time you spend.
Actually, part of what made this deal attractive for Intel was the fact that unlike PC makers, Apple isn't tied to Windows. Intel has been trying to make advances for years that PC makers were slow to adopt because they are always concerned with Windows compatibility.
Apple has no such restrictions. When new technology comes along, they are in control of both the hardware and operating system and can adopt the technology fairly quickly.
At the very best, Windows years from now may run on Macs from a few years earlier, but I still think extensive help is going to be needed.
And as for what a whole lot of other people suspect, most of them have never seen anything other than Windows compatible PCs to begin with. As I point out (time and time again) getting your processors from someone doesn't make you compatible with all the operating systems that run on that processor. NEXTSTEP doesn't run on Apple Quadras even though NeXT and Apple were both using Motorola's 68030 and 68040 processors. Similarly, System 7 doesn't run on NeXTcubes or NeXTstations either.
So sadly you end up with poor people like this guy:
"You are horribly wrong. Intel processor + compatible motherboard w/ on board video + PATA or SATA hard-drive + PATA CD-ROM Drive = Windows Compatible Computer. Of course you do need a license of the OS, I guess that might be the extra steps you are talking about???
Phil Schiller, Apple V.P. of Marketing, has gone on record saying that Windows will run on the new Intel based Macs. Read the report on AppleInsider, the developer report there says Windows is super fast on the dev-boxes."
Where he thinks there is going to be a Windows compatible logic board in the new Macs because there is one in the developer kits (even though Apple has already said that that hardware is not indicative of what the final Intel based Macs are going to be like.Phil Schiller, Apple V.P. of Marketing, has gone on record saying that Windows will run on the new Intel based Macs. Read the report on AppleInsider, the developer report there says Windows is super fast on the dev-boxes."
And that Schiller saying that Apple wouldn't stop anyone from trying means that those systems are going to be compatible. Which is a big leap in order to make that conclusion... specially as Apple hadn't even started designing their systems at the time the statement was made.
It is sad when guys like that over look what Apple really said so that they can see what they want to see.
Which is why I don't listen to what a whole lot of other people suspect, I go to people I know that actually know what is happening (people at Apple rather than AppleInsider).
Honestly... the debate is over until Apple releases their hardware development documentation for these new systems (the documentation that is needed to help third party hardware developers design their products for Mac hardware). I would guess that Apple should release that information in about 7 or 8 months. We'll all have a much better idea then of what is what on the hardware end.
And we can finally see the beginning of the end of these developer kit systems which so many uninformed people are using to make really bad assumptions (again, like the person I quoted above).
No they're not.ewinemiller said:
Apple specifically stated (over and over) that they are not indicative of the final product (which is why benchmarking those systems violates Apple's NDA).
Those systems were based on standard PC parts so that Apple hardware wouldn't need to be use to keep the Intel builds up to date in the years since the last Intel release. The reason they are based on standard PC parts is that the original operating system they started with (Rhapsody for Intel, which Apple stopped releasing at version 5.1) was designed for standard hardware (I run Rhapsody on an IBM ThinkPad as my main mobile system). And it was originally designed that way because it was originally planned that it would be released for standard PCs. So at the time the Intel builds first started, Apple making Intel based hardware wasn't even on the radar.
Software developers don't need the system running on final hardware... they need to be able to compile and test their software on for the operating system on the platform.
Now if you really believe that the developer kit systems are indicative of Apple's final hardware, then you are hopelessly lost.
...and you don't have to be lost.
Apple has put out good, complete information on this subject (I believe that everything that is publicly available supports what I've said, and that the people I know at Apple have just confirmed that). You need to stop listening to people who want to see stuff that isn't their.
This all reminds me of the Red Box issue. People wanting something to be true so badly that they convince themselves that it is.
And so no one can say they haven't heard about this, I'll repeat the most important thing to keep in mind with all the misinformation out there these days:
Apple specifically stated that the developer kit systems are NOT indicative of what the final Intel based Mac systems are going to be like.
RacerX said:
Here is a little gentleman's bet for you:
1. I bet you that the Intel based macs have almost identical motherboards compared to the reference motherboards Intel makes for their partners (Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, ect). The ONLY difference will be either the BIOS (or lack thereof) or additional chip with that restricts OS X to only booting on that MB. Apple is no longer going to be heavily involved in designing the final MB, apart from the chip I described earlier. If you would like to debate who can design a motherboard better look at Rev. A apple products and Intel's reference designs. Do you really think Apple is going to spend R&D to move around the socket or PCIe slots? Thats just stupid. They will give Intel an idea for what they want it to look like so case shots with the side open will still look clean. 2. Windows, be it XP or Longhorn, will run flawlessly on the Rev. A Mactels.
They may only boot into VGA but drivers for whatever GPU will be available to download. This will take a re-partition of the installed or 2nd drive. It is in Apples interest to allow Windows to run on Macs. And MS will be happy because thats just another paid license.
If I am wrong, I will apologize and scream from the top of the mountain you are right. You must do the same if you are wrong.
Now for a question: Since you apparently know hardware engineers at Apple, what chipsets are they using? Is Apple designing their own north and south bridges? Is PCI-X being dropped for PCIe? What about a flavor of PCIe x8 for some SLI'd GPUs?
Yep...treblah said:
Apple will spend the money to put all the I/O currently into the MacTel that they currently have on the Mac -- this will mean redesigning the motherboard and adding some I/O, and failing to hook up any legacy PC I/O that some of those machines may have.
The new machine will look like all the other Macs -- but with an Intel CPU, and that alone will require some changes and extensions to the chipset.
First round we may see a standard PC chipset, extended via PCI -- but I fully expect Apple to either build their own Southbridge, or have Intel do it.
This definitely will not be anything like the Mac LPX-40 or the current x86 Developers Box.
Sounds like a plan.treblah said:
I haven't asked... and frankly, I wouldn't. There is no way I would ask a friend to risk their job on this stuff (and I have friends in both the hardware and software divisions, and the same is true for all of them).
If they don't volunteer the information, I don't push them for anything extra. And what I do know from our conversations I'm not completely sure if I should actually know... which is why I try not to stray to far off what I believe is publicly available.
I can tell you that Apple's hardware division had next to nothing to do with the developer kit systems. Those were put together based on the systems that the operating system team had been building to keep the Intel builds up to date.
Given that information alone... you should be able to figure out that we shouldn't base anything on those systems.
Now I know that people are scouring the internet (and any other sources they can find) to try to figure out what an Intel based Mac is going to be like... but the absolute wrong place to look is the developer kit systems. If you base any assumption on those systems, then you are already wrong.
Oh, and if anyone is wondering... no, my friends at Apple didn't tell me about the Intel builds of Mac OS X. Again, I never press them for information (you just don't do that to people working at Apple), and that was even when I was in a debate with Cringely that spanned a couple weeks (and involved a few* or so e-mails back and forth) on the subject (which I was wrong in).
* Edit: This was back in March of 2004 and I thought we had a longer correspondence on the subject than we actually did.
RacerX said:
can you repeat that please. i couldn't read it. the font is too small.
btw: i completely agree. apple needed to give the developers a intel machine. but for the customers they will come up with something new. either extra features to distinguish themselves from the wintel boxes or extra cheap components (e.g. GPU's) because we're used to it
dejo said:
When ipod became windows compatible, analysts were saying its sales will double - but they shoot 40 times up. ipods hold not half but 3/4 of market, where they heck is dell dj?
Windows compatible mactel is attractive to window users, because if Windows goes down due to virus, they will have mac os as back up. plenty will want to pay $100-300 more to have two machines in one
Sun Baked said:
Are you being sarcastic? What I/O do current Macs have that Intel boards don't? Is it the antiquated AGP or the D.O.A. PCI-X? The dropping of Serial Ports and PS/2 can be done without any engineering from Apple. I am not sure Apple (with their vastly superior knowledge of x86 compared to Intel
) could even begin to create a southbridge, and why would they? What extensions to the chipset are needed to run OS X? It seems the off-the-shelf parts in the Devboxen are running Tiger fine.
But alas you say they wouldn't change ANYTHING... but the BIOS and add DRMtreblah said:Are you being sarcastic? What I/O do current Macs have that Intel boards don't? Is it the antiquated AGP or the D.O.A. PCI-X? The dropping of Serial Ports and PS/2 can be done without any engineering from Apple. I am not sure Apple (with their vastly superior knowledge of x86 compared to Intel
But you can almost expec Apple to switch back to their sound chip (maybe -- if Apple really wants to play games with Windows dual boot users), add FW 400/800, their Airport Card, etc.
Stuff that is on and in every Mac... and is expected by developers.
Sun Baked said:
Actually, in the same paragraph you quoted, I said, "Do you really think Apple is going to spend R&D to move around the socket or PCIe slots? Thats just stupid. They will give Intel an idea for what they want it to look like so case shots with the side open will still look clean."
Intel MBs already have FireWire support and I disagree about the Airport Card. I think Apple has already figured that the new chipsets will support native 802.11a/b/g and Bluetooth. I came to this conclusion because Apple has already started making WiFi/BT a standard features with each bump to their product lines. They can no-longer gouge their consumers with these features when WinTel boards will come with them standard. Isn't WiFi integration one of the big selling points of Centrino?
treblah said:
Not only will the GPU not work without finding some hacked drivers or changing the firmware but Macs can't really do a lot with NTFS and Windows can't do much with HFS+. Longhorn has a big update to NTFS and that's only going to make it harder to read. IIRC Microsoft is going to do full-volume encryption by default so reading the drive will be alomst impossible from another OS (this is to stop people from stealing your data by booting into Linux or something similar).
WinFS will be next to impossible to read even from an unencrypted drive.
Even hacked display drivers won't do much in Longhorn because of the new driver system. At best you'll be able to run a lightly hardware accelerated tier. But you probalby won't even be able to do that because Longhorn requires signed drivers AFAIK.