Intel's New Image and Apple's Role

[EricNau]

Cute image, but the truth is that wireless and networking support in XP is pretty seamless and transparent.

I use several WiFi access points, and XP remembers my keys and automatically connects to the nearest AP (home, office, local coffee shop...). At the airport, I can see all the pay-for options and connect, or plug in my cellular modem PC-card and work about anywhere.

So, make your joke, but Windows does in fact work OK for most people - as evidenced by its market share.

I have to disagree. I had my Apple network working with WPA network security and it was working within 5 minutes (I think I had to click a total of 5 buttons). Then I discovered that XP didn't support WPA, so I had to disable the security so it could work with my xp laptop.

Also, recently I had to help a friend set up a Wireless Network with two identical HP laptops (with built in wireless) and a Linksys router. It took me several hours to get it working, but even then it wasn't working properly. Now every time they turn off their computers they have to manually sign onto the network, even though it is in their "preferred networks" list.

Windows doesn't have good networking capabilities (and it can't even do WPA). 😡

 

[EricNau]

The terminal is NOT DOS. The "terminal" is cmd.exe. Go to any 2K XP system. In the start menu it is called a Command Prompt. The command prompt is simple a command interpreter that sits on top of the OS. Its a shell is what it is.
Oh and before someone tells me about well what about hitting F8 and selecting command prompt. The OS simply loads cmd.exe instead of explorer.exe

So cmd.exe replaced MS-DOS? 😕

 

[ktlx]

So cmd.exe replaced MS-DOS? 😕

Nope. cmd.exe simply provides a similar command line environment to DOS. It only provides a subset of MS-DOS. For example, there are a lot of MS-DOS specific games and applications that cannot run inside cmd.exe. You can run most old BAT scripts, manipulate files and so forth, execute system commands and so on, that was only a part of MS-DOS. If the EXE doesn't try to access hardware resources, it can normally run just fine. cmd.exe does not provide any of the operating system functions of MS-DOS.

 

[EricNau]

Nope. cmd.exe simply provides a similar command line environment to DOS. It only provides a subset of MS-DOS. For example, there are a lot of MS-DOS specific games and applications that cannot run inside cmd.exe. You can run most old BAT scripts, manipulate files and so forth, execute system commands and so on, that was only a part of MS-DOS. If the EXE doesn't try to access hardware resources, it can normally run just fine. cmd.exe does not provide any of the operating system functions of MS-DOS.

I'm a little confused.

Apple is Unix based, what is Windows based on?

 

[Peace]

I'm a little confused.

Apple is Unix based, what is Windows based on?

XP is based on the NT Kernel

 

[AidenShaw]

might not be Microsoft, but IBM

XP is a POS when it comes to Wireless. I'm speaking from someone who is at this moment typing on a IBM X31 Thinkpad with XP W/ SP2.

Maybe you should check with IBM.... My Dell Centrino never has those problems.

Power management/syspend/hibernate involves platform specific drivers on XP. Those come from IBM, not Microsoft. Have you gone to IBM/Lenovo's website and updated all the relevant pieces from IBM/Lenovo?

 

[AidenShaw]

blaming Microsoft when it's a hardware limitation...

I have to disagree. I had my Apple network working with WPA network security and it was working within 5 minutes (I think I had to click a total of 5 buttons). Then I discovered that XP didn't support WPA, so I had to disable the security so it could work with my xp laptop.
...
Windows doesn't have good networking capabilities (and it can't even do WPA). 😡

Why don't you check first, before posting FUD and nonsense?

Like, for example, typing "WPA" into XP's Help app?

802.11 security
...
The wireless network adapter in your computer might support the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) security protocol. WPA provides stronger encryption than WEP. With WPA, the network keys on networked computers and devices are automatically changed and then authenticated regularly, which provides greater security than WEP.

To use WPA, your wireless network adapter must support it. To find out if you can use WPA on your wireless network, check the manufacturer's Web site for information about your device. The manufacturer might have software or a driver that you can download and install.

So, you're claiming that XP doesn't support something - when in fact it does. Not every WiFi card that XP supports has WPA capability, but most certainly XP supports it.

Please check your facts before posting misleading and incorrect information....

 

[AidenShaw]

think of Linux or one of the Eunices

So cmd.exe replaced MS-DOS? 😕

The Windows terminal app (cmd.exe) implements a command shell that is a subset and superset of the DOS command language.

(Subset because it omits a number of DOS commands that don't make sense for an NT system, yet superset because it also has many extensions from DOS.)

On a Linux or Unix system, one can choose from many distinct shell command languages (sh, bash, tcsh, csh, ...).

The Windows "DOS" shell is similar, it's just a command language interpreter that happens to share many of the commands and syntax from the 16-bit DOS O/S. It doesn't mean that 16-bit DOS is at the core of NT, or that any code is shared from the 16-bit world. It just means that the commands that the user types in the NT terminal app have similar syntax to the DOS commands.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Maybe you should check with IBM.... My Dell Centrino never has those problems.

Power management/syspend/hibernate involves platform specific drivers on XP. Those come from IBM, not Microsoft. Have you gone to IBM/Lenovo's website and updated all the relevant pieces from IBM/Lenovo?

whatever. I live in this industry. So yes. I've updated everything from Windows patches down the my HD's firmware. My laptop is a Centrino system as such the drivers are Intel based not IBM. All IBM does is roll Intel drivers into a custom installer package.
And the fact remains that it always starts off flawless. I can go months without problems. Then all of a sudden what happened 2 minutes ago happens. That being the system doesn't reestablish the connection when it comes out of suspend. Oh the system reestablishes a connection to the AP. I can see the laptop connected to the AP. I just can't get an IP address again without rebooting. (Even with a release renew.) At this point it's simply MS's dumb butt interaction with NDIS drivers. Actually wireless was better is 2K simply because you didn't have Microsoft's wares competing with Intel's, Cisco's, Linksys's, Netgear's, or DLink's wares. The same goes with BlueTooth as well.
And please don't give me this crap about MS not managing power management/syspend/hibernate. At a certain level it sure as heck does. ACPI and ACPI hardware is managed through Windows. Go into your device manager and drill down to system devices. Take a look at who is the driver owner of everything listed as ACPI. Yes at a certain level there is shared responsibility between the hardware manufacturer and Microsoft but at this point I've done enough troubleshooting to pretty much rule out IBM. XP has gotten better. Its NOT anywhere near your typical Mac Laptop when it comes to suspend/hibernation features.

 

[dernhelm]

I'm a little confused.

Apple is Unix based, what is Windows based on?

VMS! 😛

 

[50548]

Maybe you should check with IBM.... My Dell Centrino never has those problems.

Power management/syspend/hibernate involves platform specific drivers on XP. Those come from IBM, not Microsoft. Have you gone to IBM/Lenovo's website and updated all the relevant pieces from IBM/Lenovo?

Sorry, but your Dell Centrino must be "special" then; all my PC-using friends have big troubles trying to connect to university or dorm WLANs, and most of them use that piece of crap called XP and its rudimentary plethora of control panels/wireless software; at the same time and under the SAME conditions, my old iBook G3 always connected on the spot and without a hitch. It's not only a matter of range, it's a matter of ease of use and stability, which PCs will NEVER have.

Same works for sleep functions in PCs; I have NEVER seen any PC, modern or old, to be as quick and reliable in its sleep routine as all Macs. Sometimes I have to use a new Dull PC at work, and it takes ages to sleep (not to mention shutdown), whereas, again, my OLD iBook is almost instantaneous in both tasks.

Besides (assuming you are right, bien sûr), how the HELL am I supposed to know that sleep software comes from the manufacturer of the computer and not from the OS maker itself? Obviously most PC makers DON'T have anything to do with sleep software routines, as most of them don't even create drivers themselves; it IS MS's fault, or an intrinsic fault of the PC wonderland and its thousand brands...go figure.

It's always disturbing to see PC/MS fanboys in a Mac site when they keep trying, all the time, to "demonstrate" that PCs work as well as Macs. Fact is: they DON'T, and only people using BOTH platforms are able to tell that. That's why we see so many switchers following the iPod halo effect, finally discovering how much time they have been dragged through the mud in PC land...pathetic.

 

[EricNau]

Why don't you check first, before posting FUD and nonsense?

Like, for example, typing "WPA" into XP's Help app?



So, you're claiming that XP doesn't support something - when in fact it does. Not every WiFi card that XP supports has WPA capability, but most certainly XP supports it.

Please check your facts before posting misleading and incorrect information....

Sorry for not checking my facts; but I thought I had. According to my CISCO teacher widows doesn't support WPA without help of 3rd party software.

But you totally missed my point. My point was that it can take hours to network just two identical computers with windows, and with Apple it took me a matter of about 5 minutes.

 

[AidenShaw]

whatever. I live in this industry. So yes. I've updated everything from Windows patches down the my HD's firmware. My laptop is a Centrino system as such the drivers are Intel based not IBM. All IBM does is roll Intel drivers into a custom installer package.
And the fact remains that it always starts off flawless. I can go months without problems. Then all of a sudden what happened 2 minutes ago happens. That being the system doesn't reestablish the connection when it comes out of suspend. Oh the system reestablishes a connection to the AP. I can see the laptop connected to the AP. I just can't get an IP address again without rebooting. (Even with a release renew.) At this point it's simply MS's dumb butt interaction with NDIS drivers. Actually wireless was better is 2K simply because you didn't have Microsoft's wares competing with Intel's, Cisco's, Linksys's, Netgear's, or DLink's wares. The same goes with BlueTooth as well.
And please don't give me this crap about MS not managing power management/syspend/hibernate. At a certain level it sure as heck does. ACPI and ACPI hardware is managed through Windows. Go into your device manager and drill down to system devices. Take a look at who is the driver owner of everything listed as ACPI. Yes at a certain level there is shared responsibility between the hardware manufacturer and Microsoft but at this point I've done enough troubleshooting to pretty much rule out IBM. XP has gotten better. Its NOT anywhere near your typical Mac Laptop when it comes to suspend/hibernation features.

It works on my Dell....

The Windows ACPI abstraction layer depends on the BIOS and drivers from the vendor - but of course, since you're in the industry, you know that.

Blame IBM, not MS.

 

[toneloco2881]

Sorry, but your Dell Centrino must be "special" then; all my PC-using friends have big troubles trying to connect to university or dorm WLANs, and most of them use that piece of crap called XP and its rudimentary plethora of control panels/wireless software; at the same time and under the SAME conditions, my old iBook G3 always connected on the spot and without a hitch. It's not only a matter of range, it's a matter of ease of use and stability, which PCs will NEVER have.

It's always disturbing to see PC/MS fanboys in a Mac site when they keep trying, all the time, to "demonstrate" that PCs work as well as Macs. Fact is: they DON'T, and only people using BOTH platforms are able to tell that. That's why we see so many switchers following the iPod halo effect, finally discovering how much time they have been dragged through the mud in PC land...pathetic.

You my friend sound pathetic. Im just as big a Apple fan as the next(fairly recent switcher I might add), but your pedantic drivel is nonsense. To state with absolute certainty that a PC is incapable of "ever" possessing stability on par with that of a Mac is ridiculous. While it's obviously not the case today, who knows what the future may hold.

If anything I hope Windows Vista comes out and is fabulous, because competition breeds innovation, which Apple is best at. You give mac users all over a bad name...

 

[amholl]

I hope for more sales!!! Since that will help all the stock I own.

But I do not believe Apple or Jobs will ever allow the Intel logo to grace the outside of the computer. If you look at every single apple computer it is completely void of goddie logos. they have the Apple logo and the name of the product and what makes an Apple is not the fact of the processor inside, look how many processor Apple has gone through over the yrs, 68K, 020, 030, 040, PPC 601, 602, 603, G3, G4, G5, and for the most part Apple never really advertised on the computer what was inside.
-------------------------
Thats not true. My old preforma towers have the powerpc logo right above the floppy and below the cd rom drive

 

[kalisphoenix]

Apple is Unix based, what is Windows based on?

VMS! 😛

😎 Nice.

 

[Peace]

This whole Gates vs Jobs thing goes way back don't it ?😛

 

[steeldrivingjon]

Plus with the rumors of the pending new Intel product to be announce with the help of Intel's design center I am afraid we will all get the same crap the PC world has been getting.

Do you think Intel builds their supercomputers that way?

 

[steeldrivingjon]

so will Apple and developers rewrite apps to recognise Intel's instructions? .

Apple has libraries of higher-level functions for performing AltiVec-type computation. Apple can (or already have) modified these libraries so that when you're on Intel, they'll use the Intel equivalents, when you're on a G4 or G5 they'll use AltiVec, and when you're on G3 (or trying to use an AltiVec function which has no equivalent on Intel) the library will perform the calculation without the acceleration.

If developers used these libraries they'll have the least work to do. If they hand-coded AltiVec instructions in assembly, they'll have to work out how to do the equivalent for Intel.

 

[steeldrivingjon]

And down the line, probably in MacOS X v10.7 ("alley cat"?), will we start to see universal-binaries being phased out?

I don't think universal binaries will be "phased out". Technically, the capability has been there all along, because it's inherent in the operating system. All along, OS X has included the 'lipo' commandline utility for working with universal binaries (aka fat binaries, hence 'lipo') which goes back to NeXTSTEP over 10 years ago, which ran on four different CPU architectures.

But at some point over the next 5 or 6 years or so the old hardware isn't going to be supported anymore in new operating systems and applications, simply because it's not up to the job. At some point, G3s will stop being useful for new applications and operating systems, then G4s, then G5s.

Even so, Apple will probably continue allowing developers to build PPC binaries for older versions of OS X. So a developer with an Intel Mac, running 10.7 in 2013 should be able to build software that'd run on a G5 running 10.5.

Whether developers opt to do so is, of course, up to them.

 

[strange days]

here's what MORLIUM at SPYMAC has posted :

Just under the wire for 2005, Intel announced Friday that it was changing its logo and slogan after 37 years, making the characters a bit more streamlined and the catchphrase more imperative. The "Leap Ahead" logo no longer advertises what's inside; rather, it informs the user what's to come.

It's not a horrendous slogan and it definitely has a certain ring to it, not unlike "Just Do It" or "Tastes Great, Less Filling." Or, I suppose, "Think Different."

So I guess all those discussions about whether Apple will put "Intel Inside" stickers on its PowerMacs and iBooks are null and void, right?

Not really. Now, a slightly different question remains: Will Apple adopt "Leap Ahead" for its computers?

Before you write me off, let's put it into perspective. For one, it's rather interesting that Intel would announce such a major shirt less than two weeks before Apple is expected to roll out its first batch of Intel-based Macs.

And Intel said itself that the slogan is a departure from its generic PC business and make a push into consumer electronics.

Wait. Isn't the iPod a consumer electronic, if not one of the most widely-used ones? And aren't there a bunch of rumors floating around that places Apple at the forefront of digital music distribution, both handheld and in the living room?

So, hear me out. What if, when you turned on your stickerless Mac mini, a little "Leap Ahead" insignia flashed just below the Apple symbol?

No? OK, what if the Intel swirl showed on the screen when Front Row 2.0 was launched?

No? What about print ads? TV spots? Billboards? Anything?

Well, get used to it, because somewhere on your next Mac will be a tag reminding you to "Leap Ahead" while thinking different. These type of announcements are timed just so, and they don’t happen by accident: the Mac mini, Intel switch, Front Row, iTunes Video Store, iPod video and now, a new, edgier Intel slogan.

We're all being groomed for a change, and finally, the pieces are starting to fit. It's not just about shoving an x86 processor into an iMac — Apple and Intel are in cahoots and the coming weeks will reveal the true nature of their partnership.

After all, these days, Steve Jobs and Apple are holding quite a few cards, especially if Intel wants to delve into the world of consumer electronics.

It's funny, but I never stopped to think that the processor switch would mean as much to Intel's development as it did to Apple's. All these months, we've been studying Intel’s roadmap and debating design while we should have thinking a bit more abstractly.

I mean, Intel even formed an internal "Apple group," presumably to hammer out these very ideas. And AppleInsider reported recently that Intel was responsible for the design and development of the new Power Mac’s motherboard, not just its processor.

These aren't signs of a simple partnership. These are the early stages of a juggernaut deal, one that will push both companies to the forefront of the industry.

Leap Ahead. Think different. The phrasing is irrelevant.

Besides, what's a few slogans between friends?

...on top of that, it wouldn't hurt Intel to get rid of the common M$ association that somehow tarnished its image ( on occasions ? ) in the past... 😉

 

[steeldrivingjon]

"Will Apple adopt "Leap Ahead" for its computers?"

Why should they? It doesn't buy Apple anything. Apple has vastly higher mindshare compared to a new disposable Intel slogan that means nothing to anyone.

Further, Apple has little incentive to promote Intel in general. If you buy a Mac, you'll get an Intel chip, making Intel happy.

On the other hand, Intel has significant incentive to promote the Mac: A Mac sale is better for Intel than a Wintel sale, because a Wintel customer can easily be lost to AMD. A Mac customer is likely to be a long-term Intel customer. Every % point of increased Mac marketshare represents Intel marketshare that AMD can't easily win back unless they can persuade Apple to sell AMD Macs.

And it doesn't help Apple if they promote the idea that the *Intel CPU* is the source of the great experience, because that will lead some to think they can get the same experience if they buy a PC with the same CPU, and run Windows on it.

Basically, I'm not sure what Apple would have to gain from slapping Intel branding all over their OS and hardware. They don't really need the advertising subsidies Intel offers PC makers (who really need the help because they're all interchangeable). Apple might get a low price on CPUs, but that may not be all that significant, given the savings Apple is likely to see from not designing and using PPC parts with relatively low economies of scale.

And in the end, Intel might be willing to grant those discounts and subsidies just to get those long-term safe non-AMD customers, without the branding.

 

[strange days]

Intel has significant incentive to promote the Mac: A Mac sale is better for Intel than a Wintel sale, because a Wintel customer can easily be lost to AMD. A Mac customer is likely to be a long-term Intel customer. Every % point of increased Mac marketshare represents Intel marketshare that AMD can't easily win back unless they can persuade Apple to sell AMD Macs.

great point !

never thought about it, do you think Intel did and offered Apple special treatment in return ?

 

[50548]

You my friend sound pathetic. Im just as big a Apple fan as the next(fairly recent switcher I might add), but your pedantic drivel is nonsense. To state with absolute certainty that a PC is incapable of "ever" possessing stability on par with that of a Mac is ridiculous. While it's obviously not the case today, who knows what the future may hold.

If anything I hope Windows Vista comes out and is fabulous, because competition breeds innovation, which Apple is best at. You give mac users all over a bad name...

It's not pedantic drivel, it's a fact; and that's what you just did above, acknowledging that PCs are not as stable and reliable as Macs in terms of their sleep, wireless or most other functions.

Obviously I cannot predict the future, and that's not what I meant by my statement above; what I said is that, all other things equal, Macs will ALWAYS be superior, especially if Apple can keep its masterful integration between hardware and software. It's not only about the Mac OS, it's about being able to predict almost all possibilities of interaction between man, software and machine. No other company is able to do that, and none will if they are to rely on MS on one side, and (fill your preferred name here for MOBO/chip makers) on the other.

As for Vista, I couldn't care less about that kind of "competition", since most of its advertised wannabe features are either better implemented in Mac OS, or just cheap copycats of Apple's system (and please, don't come with cryptic features that no one cares about).

If you wanna tell me about innovation, show me perhaps some equivalent to BeOS or NeXT; Windows has never shown anything new to Apple (oh yeah, apart from more usable open/save dialog boxes)...and Apple does pretty well by itself, innovating even when there is no close competition.

 

[Peace]

The Apple Core G6 and Apple Core Duo G6