Intel Transition, MacBook Name, and Windows on Mac?

[~Shard~]

In that case, I suspect you will be fine with a 20" iMac. The speed bump by the intel processor may not make it faster running stuff under/through rossetta, but I think it will be good enough for what you want. If you can wait a few weeks, I would thus allowing all the mac pubs to get their hands on an actual imac and run some tests. I know many have looked at putting the CS suite through its paces to see how non-universal binaries compare to universal ones.

Yeah, I think this is good advice. Wait a for a few weeks until some hardcore users get their hands on these machines and put them through the paces. When we see sopme real live benchmarks and hear some reviews and impressions, then we'll have a better idea of how these machines really perform and if they are as good as Apple it touting them to be.

 

[sfwalter]

Since the intel iMacs are shipping today it should be a week or so before we get some good feedback on performance.

 

[Dunepilot]

Nomenclature

I think the replacement Powerbook name is useless. Too disjointed.

I'm going to keep calling them Powerbooks.

I also think the name 'MacStation' as mentioned earlier in this thread would be the best option for the PowerMac (which I will still call a PowerMac), seeing as they've decided to change it.

 

[Damek]

With regards to Phil's comment about windows - I am all for it!! Hopefully we can have the best of both worlds. Mac for productivity. Windows for games. How much better can it get??

*raises hand*

Um ... not having to boot into Windows for games?

 

[Damek]

sense apple switch to intel will there be more games available for OS X?
Call of Duty 2 for mac
Battlefield 2 for mac
Counter-Strike for mac

Not being too into games anymore, except for a bunch of old ones I'm already familiar with and love playing over and over, like the original Dooms and Quakes, Half-Life 1, Unreal Tournament 1, and some old adventure games...

I'm most interested in seeing older Windows games run on these new machines.

For games like Doom & Quake where there's source, I suppose it'll be the same old thing, with some ports available, but for other games, unless WINE makes big headway, I'm not expecting much.

The biggest thing isn't going to be the chip, but OS X and the way it handles graphics and sound. There are fewer OS X source ports of games where you can do that because people don't have Macs to work with and make sure the ports work. Sadly, that isn't necessarily going to change just because Macs now include Intel chips.

Big companies making new games may find it easier to port their games to Mac, but old games whose availability relies on fans of the game trying to port it are still going to be hindered by what computers the fans have.

 

[macosxuser01]

Naming the macs

if apple can't call the new notebooks powerbooks, i think instead of MacBook Pro it should be called iPowerbook. the i standing for Intel even though the 'i' means internet.

 

[sfwalter]

From what I read its up to Apple's implementation of EFI if you will be able to dual boot with windows xp (or before) and linux. EFI can include a bios compatibility module but it's not required.

So since Apple has no need for the old pc bios, the question is did Apple include it or not?

 

[chibianh]

Yoh Dude! chill!

I'm a web developer. I need to test websites under windows, and under OSX. I don't give a rat's ass about games. It's all about testing, and using PC-only tools.

So am I... you should have read the rest of my post.

 

[interlard]

No TV out?

Where did the S-Video output go? Will there be some kind of adaptor, like the VGA adaptor that comes with it?

I can live without:
- great battery life (I just use it at home)
- PC card slot (ExpressCard instead)
- FW800
- dual layer DVD burner

But if I get one of these, I'll need to finally buy a DVD player. Hmmm.

 

[macosxuser01]

no s-video but also they need to have a firewire 800 port.

 

[portent]

I find it odd that Apple now wants to put the "Mac" name in all of its products. Before the iMac, every Mac OS computer Apple made had "Macintosh" in the name.

Old PowerBooks were called..."Apple Macintosh PowerBook." Photos prove it:

http://www.allaboutapple.com/museo/pictures/donazioni/pb1400_cs.jpg
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads3/3400a.jpg

Sometime in the G3 series, Apple dropped the "Macintosh" altogether.

Why not just put the "Mac" back where it was before they messed with the name?

 

[nsb3000]

I must admit I'm hoping that behind the scenes Microsoft are talking to Apple with a view to creating a much improved "VirtualPC" product to take advantage of the new MacPro architecture, that would enable one to have a windows environment either fully bootable or in a window on your desktop.

Vanilla

I agree. Duel boot, while it sounds like a nice idea, it is really only feasible if you spend the mass-majority of your time in one OS or the other. What you really want is something like Virtual PC (Accept now at a usable speed), or even better a compatibility layer like a windows version of X11 or something, that allows you to use the windows apps you have to along side your mac apps.

 

[Object-X]

...therefore....

PowerMac -> MacMac

Actually I think it should be...

Mac² <-- Mac squared, why doesnt that tag work?

Being dual core and all

 

[Westside guy]

Re: dual-booting the new Macs w/ Windows...

I think rather than doing that, folks might want to keep an eye on Codeweavers (the company that makes Crossover Office, which allows MS Office to run on Linux via WINE). They've already said they're going to work on getting their WINE implementation to work on the Intel Macs. An advantage to this approach is it'll run Windows apps in "rootless mode" (in its own window, without an underlying XP window such as you see with Virtual PC), and without launching a full-blown Windows session - that'll mean Windows apps will launch more quickly.

 

[Macheath_Messer]

I like "AppleMacIntel NonPro Rev A 2006 "

LOL, or how about:

"MacBook Amateur"!!

 

[d_saum]

I can see it now. Go into a general computer repair store.

"Hi, can you fix my Mac Book?"
"You're what?"
"My Mac Book"
"What's a Mac Book?"
"You know, the apple laptops?"
"Oh, you mean powerbook"
"No, Mac Book."
"What the **** is a Mac Book?!"
"THE NEW APPLE LAPTOPS!"
"Sorry, I don't know what a Mac Book is. We only fix powerbooks and ibooks."
"Moron...*sigh*"
"Mac Book...*sigh*"

Huh? Macs don't break? Why would you need to take it to be repaired? Just to mess with the repair techs? You cruel bastard!!!! JK... Although, If your macbook was still so new that they didn't know what it was, why would you be taking it to a "general computer repair store"??? And also, who would ever trust someone who didn't know the name of the products they worked on?

Speaking of names, I'd bet money its going to be:

Mac mini
iMac
Mac Pro (maybe...)
MacBook
MacBook Pro

iBook is outta there and power mac will be changed, but DEFINITELY not to iMac Pro.

 

[micsaund]

*raises hand*

Um ... not having to boot into Windows for games?

Yep, I'm hoping you're right! Hopefully with the Intel CPU and the rising awareness of OS X (and Linux) more gamedevs will be targeting multi-platform releases. And, with the new CPUs, the Macs will finally have similar game performance available, so maybe they'll actually release for Mac native. That's my hope at least

Mike

 

[smiley]

It's all well and good running Windows on a 'MacBook Pro' (hate that name). But windows can be quite funny when it comes to drivers. It's gonna be a bitch getting your isight to work. You're going to need to someone to write the software for it, which I doubt will happen.

To be honest I buy a Mac to get away from Windows. If I'm going to be switching OS's I still want my music collection there to listen to, movies etc and there's no way I'll take two copies of everything.

I'm the same way. I don't want to run windows, I even hate running virtualPC. What I want is to be able to run win32 apps in something like Wine. Wrap a cocoa interface around it like we have now with X11 and then I can run my ONE or TWO windows apps that I'm forced to keep around. I don't need the whole windows thing.

That would be sweet.

edit: Sorry, codeweavers already mentioned. But, I second it. I have an old version of codeweavers from my linux days (preswitch) and it worked remarkably well. I'd buy a copy for Mac in a heartbeat.

 

[Peace]

I dont understand what all the fuss is about..
Why would anybody even want to dual-boot?..
I had my DTK dual-booted mainly for testing purposes.The only windoze app I ever used was flight simulator..
It wont be worth the hastle imho..
As for naming conventions..How many people here refer to their "
Mac" as a "Mac" already ?..
I understand folks are used to the name powerbook but before that name was around people still refered to their Mac as a Mac!..

The Powermac will be called the ProMac 64..

 

[bugfaceuk]

So dual boot with XP would depend on Apple's EFI including CFM, which is optional, so why would they do it? They don't have a legacy BIOS issue, why build one into their machines? It's not Apple being evil or lazy, it would be Apple being as productive as possible.

Dual boot would be "ok-ish", the virtualization solution is "prety ok if performance is OK" but want I want is "Suspend & Switch", hit a key combo, sleep the mac, switch into Windows (or boot if it's the first time) sleep windows, wake mac... My reasons are the same as others have stated, games.

Even better would be a robust Wine solution, BUT it's fiddly and despite really great hard work from all in the wine/crossover teams, I've not ever been that impressed with the reality, but the vision is a great one.

As to MacBook Pro as a name... eeeehhh.... I don't think it's going to hurt, and I don't really care that much myself.... but... it's not great is it...

Mind you, no one ever listens to me... The Intel machines should have been called "Mintels"

 

[ruud]

I'm the same way. I don't want to run windows, I even hate running virtualPC. What I want is to be able to run win32 apps in something like Wine. Wrap a cocoa interface around it like we have now with X11 and then I can run my ONE or TWO windows apps that I'm forced to keep around. I don't need the whole windows thing.

Check out the DarWine project.

 

[wildmac]

So am I... you should have read the rest of my post.

But what you were suggesting, running Windows apps natively under OSX, would not provide a true testing environment.

But perhaps I missed something else...

 

[mrwalker]

Duel boot

Now THIS I cannot wait to see

 

[dr_lha]

Where did the S-Video output go? Will there be some kind of adaptor, like the VGA adaptor that comes with it?

I can live without:
- great battery life (I just use it at home)
- PC card slot (ExpressCard instead)
- FW800
- dual layer DVD burner

But if I get one of these, I'll need to finally buy a DVD player. Hmmm.

There's a $19 DVI->Composite/S-Video adapter that Apple makes for this purpose. I think that's fine, its what us 12" PB owners have had to put up with for years.

I always wondered why they put an S-Video out on PBs. VGA I can understand (nothing worse than getting to a conference having forgot your DVI->VGA adapter when using a Projector).

 

[~Shard~]

Duel boot

Cool, I've never heard of duel booting before - can you please explain this concept more? Do the OSes actually battle to decide which one loads? Do they use pistols at dawn or some other method?