What do you think of it? Will Mac OS X 10.5 support Intel and PPC machines, or will it be Intelexclusive? Has somebody any idea about this?
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Mac OS X 10.5... Intel only? PPC?
- Thread starter hugotron
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I seriously doubt 10.5 will be Intel only. There are too many G4s and G5s out there.
I would be more worried if I had a G3...
I would be more worried if I had a G3...
10.5 probably not ... beyond that they might take a firm stance when they think more people have upgraded .... there havent' even been any 10.5 rumors or previews ... if they introduced the rawest of beta's at WWDC in June and a year later it came out (June 2007?) for the release of 10.5 ...
so I mean then two more years for 10.6 or 11 ... I would assume they'd jump to 11 and mac it intel only. I guess it would also depend on when they sell the last G4/G3 ... don't forget your mac doesn't break just because ... gasp its not running the newest software ... I still have a win 98 pc running at home, why? because it does everything my dad needs and he doesn't complain about it.
thats my theory
so I mean then two more years for 10.6 or 11 ... I would assume they'd jump to 11 and mac it intel only. I guess it would also depend on when they sell the last G4/G3 ... don't forget your mac doesn't break just because ... gasp its not running the newest software ... I still have a win 98 pc running at home, why? because it does everything my dad needs and he doesn't complain about it.
thats my theory
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Concur - Given other transition timelines, and just the simple reality that Mitthrawnuruodo points out, there are likely to be years of OS releases that are going to work on either. We see the Mac software moving to universal binary (for example if you buy iLife '06, it works without Rosetta on either the Intel or PPC machines) - I would expect to see that for years to come.
Like with the G3 comment, I think there's more likely to come a point when my dual G4 system with its 4x AGP card, etc. is simply too performance limited to run the universal binary at what I would consider to be an acceptable rate. Again - years off. That's the point I would have upgraded to a new PPC machine (if there had been no intel switch) anyway.
I would have to say no. At most they will have 10% of all there Macs out there having Intel prosessers, why would they release something that big to that small of a market? That would not be a good business move for apple. I could see them doing that when 40-50% of Macs out in the world have x86 in them.
I would bet that the PowerPC will at the minimum be supported (in first party software) for at least three years from the date the last PowerPC product from Apple ships. Whatever the Mac OS X updates happen during the lifetime of that product (10.5 and 10.6 most likely) will be compiled for the both the PowerPC and Intel architectures.
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple continues to develop Mac OS X on the the PowerPC platform just for the sake of processor independence. The PowerPC is not dead yet, and who knows which company may want to revive it five years from now.
I'm not sure, but it looks like after developers port their code to Xcode—maintaining both PowerPC and Intel updates shouldn't be that big of a deal.
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple continues to develop Mac OS X on the the PowerPC platform just for the sake of processor independence. The PowerPC is not dead yet, and who knows which company may want to revive it five years from now.
I'm not sure, but it looks like after developers port their code to Xcode—maintaining both PowerPC and Intel updates shouldn't be that big of a deal.
There are people who will buy Quad G5s today. Those machines are not going to be considered slow for a long time, and it would be in developer's best interest to support PowerPC machines such as those for as long as practical. Obsoleting so many machines too quickly is not going to make people have a high opinion of Apple.
I just want universal system disks/images that install everything, so that I can just
move the disk from the old PPC machine to the new Intel machine. I don't want to reinstall all my applications on a new system, so I won't upgrade until I can do that.
move the disk from the old PPC machine to the new Intel machine. I don't want to reinstall all my applications on a new system, so I won't upgrade until I can do that.
10.5 will support PPC no doubt about it. The transition will only just finish at year end, which is around the same time Leopard will be released.
Whether 10.6 will support it is a more difficult question to answer.
Whether 10.6 will support it is a more difficult question to answer.
ahunter3 said:
Oh GOD Please no.....
While I am not particularly pleased with the switch to Intel, I understand why. However, with that said, Apple has done a great job making XCode universal. Many programs you write can be ported as universal with little more than a simple re-compile.
However...
Anyone remember the VirtualPC problem when it came to the G5? One problem you potentially run into when going to a new processor is specifics of a particular architecture. Case in point, When IBM released the G5, it lacked the ability to go from Big Endian to Little Endian and vise versa. This was a feature that was unique only to Motorola's PowerPC. Now, Developers had to start to pay a little attention to that issue then, but as the G5 is Little Endian, and Intel is Big Endian, any developer optimizing code for both processors will essentially have to write code twice. The same can be said about Altivec and SSE.
If you introduce a third architecture, you will probably force developers to once again go through this exercise when it comes to very high performance apps.
Long and short, If there is a new super-duper non-Intel chip somewhere down the line, Apple needs to just make sure that it will make it worth the transition again.
A quick word on Windows on Mac...
While this is good for the hardware side of Apple, how many people here wonder if it is going to eventually hurt or kill off OS X? I don't like this transition at all.
Max.
You are terribly, terribly confused. IIRC, the PPC can be either big endian or little endian. The Motorola 680x0 was big endian. Intel processes are little endian, not big endian. Prior to the PPC 970 (aka G5), the PPC from Motorola and IBM had an instruction that switched endians. The G5 goes either way, but lacks the instruction to make the switch. Running MacOS X, the G5 is big endian. Running Win NT/PPC, the G5 is little endian.maxvamp said:
I don't know how many times people will have to be reminded that universal binaries are not new. OpenSTEP ran on several different processors, not just two. There is no reason to believe that Apple will ever limit MacOS X to a single processor. It never did so in the past. Once the developer base converts to Universal Binaries, it will have to reason to do so in the future.
MisterMe said:
Most likely I am BASS Ackwards on which processor is which Endian. I am bad about that.
I do remeber though that the G5 is not as flexable in edian Switching as the MOTO. However, right now, I believe that issue is minor compared to the point I was trying to make...
Now, where did I put that coffee cup...<GRIN>
Max.
Considering I just got my Mac Mini I hope the day PPC is not supported is the day that even if it was My Mac couldn't run the newer OS X versions.