Macintosh Moving to Intel Processors [Updated]

[admanimal]

They also said 3GHz within a year etc...etc...

I don't see the similarity. Apple can control what OS X gets installed on. There is some chance that it can be hacked to work on any* PC, but not everyone is going to want a hacked OS.

*any = any PC that happens to have hardware compatible with OS X's purposely limited set of drivers

 

[MacBarry]

Imac G5- A legacy Machine

Could someome please confirm that my 3 week old, $2000, 17", 2.0 ghz, 1 gig ram, 250 Gig HD, Rev. B Imac G5 did not just become obsolete overnight......At least my IPOD will work with my new intel machine.

 

[areyouwishing]

NO! It won't run on any Intel/AMD because THERE ARE NO DRIVERS FOR 99% OF THE HARDWARE!!!! I don't understand why people keep missing this.

Actually, i would say there are no drivers for about 10-20% of the hardware.

Most of Apple's components are all OEM made by other people, and these OEM components can go into a PC. The DVR-109 that is in my PC is the same 16x super drive that apple sells. Hard Drives are ubiquitous as well. Really the only thing that OS X needs drivers for are the chipsets, everything else already works in OS X, RAM, a selection of video cards, mice, keyboards, bluetooth adapters, monitors.

Apple will be creating a custom bios with intel to make it secure so that only Macs can run OS X. But if someone does get a hold of the source for OS X and makes a change so the OS does not look for that bios, you have a major problem.

 

[jaykk]

Mac OS X, Linux and Windows on a single machine..

I didn't read all of the posts here, but I see only positive things on this move.

You can run Mac OS X, Linux and Windows on a single sleek aluminum enclosure. If I had a select member ship, i will order the the Developer Kit for $999; its steal to run 3 different OS in a beautiful computer. I bet the windows Installation CD will boot fine , or someone will hack it in few days to install and dual-boot XP/Linux on it.

 

[php]

Apple only had one choice.

Nah. They could have bought Sun Microsystems and went with a SPARC V chip.

 

[sacear]

One thing is clear, however: Steve Jobs has no crystal ball. (If he did, we would not be here, now. We would all be sitting in front of our 3.5 MHz (sic) G5s).

I disagree. If Jobs had a crystal ball, then Apple would have switched sooner. Having a crystal ball does not magically produce 3.5 MHz (I think you meant GHz) G5s. The crystal ball would just reveal that IBM would not deliver the goods.

 

[eVolcre]

And here's the problem, all this time you thought you were fighting something, it turns out you were just using a computer. I honestly have no idea what you are talking about, the end? What was a waste of time? What exactly has changed? You really need to sit down and figure out what's important in life, it sure as **** isn't what kind of CPU is in your computer...

Isaac

Give this guy a frigging medal. (Isaac if it isn't clear). Man, I feel like I'm in a roomful of a)kids or b)mac zealots who understand NOTHING about business and the realities of the marketplace. The same zealots who ... in all likelihood ... don't have much money to spend and are too small a group for APPLE to please because, simply, they either can't be pleased or their demands serve such a small percent of the market that it doesn't make sense to meet them.

Seriously people, it's guys like you that give the 'sane' MAC users a terrible name. This isn't a cult, this isn't a crusade, this isn't frigging STAR WARS (Sith/Palpatine????? WTF) and this isn't some geek driven war against an "EMPIRE" This is business and at the end of the day my conmputer is a TOOL. Not the essence of my life.

Damn man. I'm speechless.

Japanese submariners???? Dude, if I was steve I would personally beseech you to leave my platform because it makes the rest of my potential users look like IDIOTS.

eV

 

[phloydde]

This si the best news in the Computer news in years!!!

THAT if anything would kill off Apple totally. They make a LOT of money on hardware... How many 3k machines do you think they would sell if Dell pumped out machines for $399?

Gee I dunno.. It's hard to imagine how alienware or Voodoo PC, or any of the other high-end pc makers stay in buisness too...

I mean hey, I can get a dell fro $299! Why would I shell out 2k + for an alienware???

I think everyone is overreacting. This is the best thing to happen to apple in forever.

Trust me.. apple will come out on top in the long run.

If everyone who spent $299+ for an ipod now shells out $129 for OSX + any other cool mac software, and HARDWARE add-ons, such as airport extreme, etc... then I think Apple just found a way to mint cash in the short term.

As for the long term? You think that it is just a battle in regards to hardware? Think of the in-roads linux has made.. if anything all the Linux geeks should be crying out in pain because a Unix OS is now ready for the desktop in the x86 marketplace -- *Plus* add in osx server.. you have a powerul software combination that can run on most enterprise hardware out there now! You don't think there are IT managers out there salivating just thinking of being able to now run OSX on their corporate desktop/servers?

sheesh.. think of all the open-source gurus that are now going to be bashing away on osx... the future is bright indeed!

 

[mstecker]

STOP SAYING THAT PPC MACHINES WON'T BE SUPPORTED

Guess I won't be buying a powerbook anytime soon then.

It's going to suck when x86 software starts coming out and you can't run it on your PPC mac.

This really is going to kill older macs.

I'm an old NeXT-er who lived through the NeXT processor transition from proprietary hardware to PCs, HPs and Suns. This NEVER happened. Years after they had stopped shipping 68K NeXT hardware, EVERY single third party package still supported it. Why? YOU DON'T DEVELOP FOR X86 OR FOR PPC. YOU DEVELOP FOR THE APIS.

Adding "legacy" support is as simple as checking a single box in Xcode if your application is written right. There is no reason that the author of a new piece of software wouldn't click this box at compile time.

EVERY MAC APPLICATION RELEASED IN THE NEXT 6 YEARS WILL RUN NATIVELY ON YOUR PPC HARDWARE - EVEN WHEN APPLE SELLS ONLY i86 MACHINES.

Remember - with Fat Binaries under XCode, there is no such thing as "x86 software". There will be OS X software, and it will run on old machines and new machines.

 

[MacIke]

And if they put one Intel sticker on the case of any Apple machine, I'm done, OS or not.

and go to which user unfriendly OS? Linux, maybe a few will go. Windope? I think not.

If you go windope you will have the INTEL or some other hoard of stickers.

Just rip the dump thing off

 

[seashellz]

Ha! This can only be good-watch large numbers of people jump ship from the crap OS known as WINDOWS-theyve just been waiting for a chance-and this is it.

If APPLE dont shoot itself in the foot, they could suddenly have 25% of the market in 4 years.

 

[mandis]

NO! It won't run on any Intel/AMD because THERE ARE NO DRIVERS FOR 99% OF THE HARDWARE!!!! I don't understand why people keep missing this.

99% OF WHAT HARDWARE?? INTEL'S HARDWARE??
You do realise that Intel cpu means intel chipset right? There will probably be some sort of bios lock for OSX but how long do you think it's going to take for a group of good crackers to bypass it??

 

[miccoli84]

I just wanna say one thing....

at the end of the day when apple releases OS X for x86 chips, were gonna have some of the best minds in the world working on getting it (OS X) to run on your run of the mill clone pc, and I believe it is only a matter of time before that happens.

If and when that occurs, apples hardware division, is DEAD IN THE WATER. I don't care how pritty our powerbooks or powermacs are/will be, in the end, the average consumer really just wants OS X for the lowest price possible. Unless apple makes major price cuts across the board to compete with dell, HP, etc, they're cooked.

As far as I am concerned, I would rather build a kick ass AMD64 gaming rig that runs OS X that plays Half-Life 2 for 1000$ then pay 3000$ for a Powermac that will be underpowered.


Thats just my two sense. I hope that never happens but I fear it will

 

[jazpirozleehan]

Where did good computer architecure go?

It's unfortunate, I think, that IBM has been unable to meet the roadmap. It is highly unfortunate that they were unable to develop a low power, adequately performing G5 for mobile computing.

The biggest issue is the loss of distinction between Wintel/x86/AMD, etc users and PowerPC users. I know that it is somewhat artificial, given that upon moving to a platform independent OS Mac has had the ability to run on x86 architecture for a long time.. however, this just makes us all together in one pool... x86 users.. running different OSs.

I just think that running on a different chip makes a huge difference.. at least, to me.. philosophically. Maybe it's just me, but now I feel like I'm walking in Microsoft's shadow... It makes me feel like I'm using cheap, shoddy equipment. I just can't shake the feeling that the same chip that is running in some POS DELL is RUNNING IN MY BELOVED MAC. And for those of you who are pointing out all the shared components such as hard drives, graphic cards, etc. Foo to you. The chip is the soul of a computer.

Didn´t we learn that Power Architecture processors were still kind of following the RISC architectures, that they were better engineered?
In a few years all that will be left of Apple will be the software division. We´ll have OSX? competing with Linux and Windows.
Weren´t we taught that Pentium architectures sere still spending a few million transistors to keep compatibility with the 8080 architecture?

Didn´t we think that BIG companies were BAD? Intel is as bad as Microsoft in this respect.

 

[admanimal]

Actually, i would say there are no drivers for about 10-20% of the hardware.

Most of Apple's components are all OEM made by other people, and these OEM components can go into a PC. The DVR-109 that is in my PC is the same 16x super drive that apple sells. Hard Drives are ubiquitous as well. Really the only thing that OS X needs drivers for are the chipsets, everything else already works in OS X, RAM, a selection of video cards, mice, keyboards, bluetooth adapters, monitors.

Apple will be creating a custom bios with intel to make it secure so that only Macs can run OS X. But if someone does get a hold of the source for OS X and makes a change so the OS does not look for that bios, you have a major problem.

Your argument is basically that if you build a PC with all of its hardware being things that are also available in a Mac, then it's going to work...that's not the same as OS X supporting ALL available PC hardware.

 

[areyouwishing]

Could someome please confirm that my 3 week old, $2000, 17", 2.0 ghz, 1 gig ram, 250 Gig HD, Rev. B Imac G5 did not just become obsolete overnight......At least my IPOD will work with my new intel machine.

Your g5 is safe. You are no more at risk than you were yesterday. A faster iMac will come out in a year at the earliest, your performance still bests p4's in most video/photo/music apps and will continue to do so for at least a year if not more.

BUT. In 2-3 years OS X apps will start taking advantage of intel's version of the Velocity engine (SSE3). At that point it will be like when g4s came out and g3s didn't support the "extra special" processing of the g4.

 

[jjmaximum]

This simply doesn't add up

If Jobs was running OSX on an Intel machine today, why wait 1-2 years to start selling them. Either do it now or not at all...something smells rotten here.

 

[Alte22a]

Why does everyone assume this? Did I miss something. How does an OS recompiled for an Intel CPU affect the other components and drivers? If they change the way components interact in the next OS won't that mean that every Mac up to then will need new drivers written?

I am no techie. My assumption is that there is a "hybrid" Intel chip ready for us as mac users. I dont know why, maybe I am being too ideal, I assume that Xp-Longhorn is like 9-OSX and theres this magic intel chip that will run Longhorn and OSX. Maybe wishful thinking thats what I am hoping for in the long run. Or maybe a different chip altogether. Hell knows, just want a mac bottom line.

I personally dont want apple to use intel chips, but I want IBM to shape up.

what can we do?

 

[admanimal]

99% OF WHAT HARDWARE?? INTEL'S HARDWARE??
You do realise that Intel cpu means intel chipset right? There will probably be some sort of bios lock for OSX but how long do you think it's going to take for a group of good crackers to bypass it??

Um, I'm talking about all of the video cards, sound cards, TV tuners, etc etc that are available in PCs. Intel doesn't make all of those.

 

[firestarter]

Here is what REALLY happened.

yadda yadda
They are the ones to told Apple to take a hike not the other way around.
yadda

Probably some truth in this.

As far as apple having a team making OSx for intel all the time, that is bull crud. No way, if they did they could release it today.

Wrong. OSX is NeXTStep!!! NeXTStep was multi-architecture, and Steve had it running on x86 before he rejoined Apple. Darwin/BSD has always run on x86 too. He would have had to have been an idiot not to have kept up with this multi-platform compatibility. It's not that big a deal.

yadda
It took yrs for programmers to adapt to the OSx framework, not becuase it was hard but because they didn't see a future in apple. Eventually through a few yrs of stability with apple they jumped in and started to develop again. Now will the do it again? I wouldn't.

You're not a programmer are you?

OSx conversion was hard, especially to Cocoa/Mach0. It was a complete change of OS and APIs, even if it looks kind of familiar. The x86 recompile doesn't look too hard (there are some gotchas, but fixable - I've read Apple's binary compatibility developer white paper).

As far as people wanting faster and faster macs, its not our fault. If apple didn't bloat its OS and software (microsoft too) then we would be happy with an older processor. Just seems like no matter how many years pass my machine still boots up the same speed, opens images the same speed, plays video the same speed and games still suck. I say leave HD for TV and leave the computer for programs.

If you have a Mac with any sort of a graphics processor you should have notived a big speedup with Tiger. And when the new version of Quartz gets turned on it should go really fast - and FOR FREE!

IBM Thinkpad:
I still have the same thinkpad from 6 yrs ago that works perfectly and is frankly not that slow. It will work for years to come.

Powerbook:
Brand new top of the line bought 2 months ago, obsolete.

You're nuts! I have a 6 year old thinkpad too (X20 - sweet machine) and a new 15inch PowerBook. I know which one does more. Obsolete? Yeah, right! What changed over the weekend that makes your PowerBook any less usable?

Is OSx better than windows? You betcha. Is windows more reliable for long term investment? You better believe it.

Begone then!

 

[DakotaGuy]

Has anyone posted a mock-up of what "About this Mac" will look like once PowerPC G3, G4 and G4 are taken out? It would be fun to see so we can start getting used to it. Also the case of the iMac would allow them to put a small "Intel Inside" logo embedded in the corner unstead of a cheap sticker. I am guessing that Intel will require branding, they always do...if that is the case I would rather see something that is "built-in" like the Apple on the front of my iMac so it will look better.

 

[shakeyjake]

Feeling Better

I have to say I was quite disappointed/worried about this, for me one of the things about Mac was that it is different - the whole package, but I've just watched the Keynote and do feel a lot better about it.

As far as new software goes if it really is as easy as "checking two boxes" I don’t think anyone using PowerPC machines has anything to worry about new software and their machines coming obsolete, at least not for ages. There's probably just as much if not more concern over how well existing software (that's not been recompiled) will actually run on the new Intel chips even with Rosetta.

My only concern would be allowing OSX to run on any of the x86 machines, I really don't think that is a good idea and even though I'm no expert and fairly new to Mac I really can't see Apple letting that happen and there was no evidence that it will happen from the Keynote.

I guess only time will actually tell, all I have to do now is decide whether to get a bleedin' PowerBook for Uni in September or wait a while...

(sorry if that's been said, last time I was on here it was at 18 pages, just had to add my two cents!)

 

[calyxman]

This is entertaining. I just watched the keynote. I think I'll grab me a cappucino now and enjoy reading all the hysteria and revilement in this thread.

By the way, I updated my sig with a great quote from the keynote.

 

[areyouwishing]

I assume that Xp-Longhorn is like 9-OSX and theres this magic intel chip that will run Longhorn and OSX. Maybe wishful thinking thats what I am hoping for in the long run.

There is a magic processor that runs Longhorn and OS X... it's called the Pentium 4.

 

[dadada2000]

whats Next FCP for windows

well this sucks.. I just hope they don't put thoes gay stickers on the new macs that say Intel inside.. whats next? Final Cut Pro for PCs?..