Macintosh Moving to Intel Processors [Updated]

[Spazmodius]

Well the bright side is that if Intel or AMD can't do anything down the road, the entire personal computer world is stuck, cause MS really can't switch to anything else either.

Except that the Xbox360 runs NT...

 

[eVolcre]

I have to agree a bit about the technology being more than a mere tool. A piano could be thought of as a tool, but a nice instrument is a joy to play. Macs are a "joy" for people to use. They exceed simply being a tool for different reasons for different folks. It might be simply - "wow, I made a movie - I never thought I could do that" - sure, making a little movie, the tool did that, but the software made it easy, made the product look good, made the user feel good about themselves instead of frustrated or dumb. People want to see what else they can do and find a similar outcome in iPhoto - that makes people happy and want to use their computer; it becomes enjoyable, creative, people want to see how they can express themselves (now that they aren't feeling frustrated and dumb) - that gets people really excited. They post lots of messages about it!

Point taken. I'd like to respond to this in a little more detail but this thread is moving too damn fast for me. But yes, valid point, and I agree. But my overall approach doesn't change much.

See, I'm willing to listen to valid points. MACTRUCK ... *hint* READ what others are saying before going off at half cock again.

 

[jZilla]

I AGREE...THE BEST OS IN THE WORLD ON THE BEST CPU's AVAILABLE IN THE WORLD...CAN'T LOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

I think that gets to the heart of where I am now - not that I agree on both counts, that I agree OSX is the king but I have concerns Intel isn't.

I agree Steve had to jump ship - but this would appear to be because IBM don't need him so they let him go.

Nothing so far proves Intel will be anymore attentive.

Ultimately, I just want the fastest, coolest (and therefore quietest) chip to sling OSX around in the best designed case with no third party hardware ambushes awaiting me.

It's easy to think of Intel as Wintel but it clearly isn't (as the Intel CEO recently suggested OSX was the smart option).

Shame, I was looking forward to all those PPC consoles spilling their games onto my G5! Maybe they still will?

 

[neocell]

anyone have the link for the keynote video? much appreciated. 😀

[URL=http://stream.apple.akadns.net/]link

 

[fgdn17]

Wow talk about eating my own words... Hell has frozen over. WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! I totally did not see this comin... I wonder if they will use custom made intel chips or just off the shelf products... if so then it would pretty much be a PC with Apple OS... maybe Apple is thinking about exiting the hardware biz all together and focusing on software and Mac OSX instead. I would have never thought apple would leave the hardware side but now it's definately possible... Probably why Apple has partnered with HP, so in the future HP may make the hardware and Apple the os and software. I dont think will see konka computers with mac osx inside or Dell computers with mac. Crazay this world has gone crazay i say!

never saw it comming???? are you brain dead??? the best OS in the world
has been crippled for what about 20 years...just because they wanted their OWN hardware...even JOBS knew it when he when to NEXT and did the stuff on what...X86...duh....he knew but has resisted because of the what...hold outs...??? finally he has done the move he knew he'd ALWAYS do when he returned to APPLE...cannot beat GATES until you can compete in the same arena...now the test will be on finally after 30+ years...who really can produce the best OS for the comsumer....no one REALLY CARES WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD...it's APPLE vs. Microsoft FINALLY...the hardware is secondary as it should have been from 1974 ish on...finally...a real test is about to begin...AND THE CONSUMER IS TO BE THE WINNER...!!!!!!!!! 🙂

 

[whatever]

ok, i want to try to make things clear, does this mean you will be able to buy osx and use it on a pc? does this mean that it will be more susceptible to viruses? does this mean changing anything other than whats inside the box? does it mean we can run windows applications on osx?

answers please


NOWWWWW 😉

Here are your answers.

1. No - Apple will not jeopardize their hardware business and they will want to maintain control over the hardware so that they can optimize their systems.
2. Yes, if they take over alot of market share. Virus programmers attack large groups. But this has nothing to do with the CPU, if the Power PC Macs had a larger percentage of the PC market then there would be more viruses. I'm starting to wonder if you stupid or something!
3. No - all they're talking about is changing the CPU. Just think of it like going from a G4 to a G5.
4. No! Here let's me help you out. Window applications require Windows. OS X programs require OS X.

Whatever!

 

[blackpeter]

Woah... Deja Vu!

Aren't all you nay-sayers the same people who b!tched and complained about the move to OS X? Funny, you're still here? Glad to know it wasn't the end of the world afterall...

 

[ObsidianIce]

maybe you didn't read the keynote address or haven't done your homework...they have been processor independent for 5 years...cross-compiling to run on BOTH PPC AND INTEL...the kernel of MAC OSX is the
same kernel developed in the 1992 time frame that ran on the DEC ALPHA
UNIX system...it can run on ANY PROCESSOR...!!! the apps above are
just a recompile...using the correct compiler....that's why the MAC OSX was so smart...try that with an Microsoft OS...won't work!!! 😀

Wow Digital Equipment Corporation, bring back memories, Ken Olsen, That idiot Palmer, Jesse and many other the Alpha chip is what should have killed Intel, but hey..they stole the specs and made it "just different enough" to pass....

 

[kcmac]

OK...after reading a couple pages...still haven't found a definitive answer to my quandery...(forgive me as i'm not too knowledgable about this sort of thing)

I'm taking delivery this week of a dual 2.5 g5, mostly for audio production, but also for graphics (illustrator, flash etc.).

What does this announcement mean for the future of this g5, specifically for software optimization? WIll companies (like digidesign) even bother to optimize for the PPC architecture when they know this massive shift is coming starting next year? Should I cancel this order and just build a damn AMD machine and keep my powerbook for daily tasks???

I'm VERY worried about this shift (although I think ultimately it's good), because the plans and upgrade paths for current g5 users look VERY ambiguous.

You will be fine. Jobs showed Photoshop running straight up on a Pentium with Tiger. No recompile. Rosetta made it so.

And of course, if the apps work now in Tiger, they will work later in Tiger.

Do you wanna use OS X or Windows. Forget about the processor. Watch the Keynote stream and you will feel much better.

 

[nishishei]

[URL=http://stream.apple.akadns.net/]link

thanks a bunch!

 

[MontyZ]

OK ****er, go back to using Windows. See if I give two *****.

So in closing, all of you armchair CEOs should probably consider the fact that while Steve Jobs is the uncontested master of innovation in personal computing, you are some guy sitting at your computer on a Monday afternoon probably eating a bag of cheetos and waiting for your shift at your crappy minimum wage job.

Only in the Mac community would people think of faster, cooler processors and more readily availble games and hardware a bad thing.

You really need to stop being an ****** and making stupid generalizations like this. No one will take you seriously.

 

[sacear]

when gates screwed apple in the early 70's... 😕

Early 70's?? You are confused.

"Let's all do the time warp again!"

Maybe you meant mid to late 1980's, yes?

 

[mandis]

My original point was trying to explain why you couldnt just install OS X on any random PC and have it work. My reasoning is that OS X drivers do not exist for all of the PC hardware that Windows drivers exist for. OS X probably has drivers for whatever hardware Mac has used over the past decade or whatever, which is not the full gamut of PC hardware.

Maybe this isn't obvious to everyone, but there is not one generic "sound card driver" that magically makes every sound card work with OS X, for example.

Fair enough, however we should all asume that the switch to intel's architecture will atleast allow mac users to take advantage of the many upgrade options already on offer for the pc users out there. That would be about the single most important advantage of this migration. If this occurs then i don't see any reason why OSX shouldn't work on any other PC.

 

[leftbanke7]

So, in two weeks when all of this has died down, what are we going to bitch about then?

 

[FF_productions]

everyone will be bitching about another rumor/fact

 

[ObsidianIce]

...cannot beat GATES until you can compete in the same arena...now the test will be on finally after 30+ years...who really can produce the best OS for the comsumer....

Everyone already know who has the best operating system. That been attested to by people who don't even like Macs. That still doesn't mean we'll beat Gates. The best does not always win unfortunately, but yes overall...good for consumer and Apple.

 

[Spazmodius]

So, in two weeks when all of this has died down, what are we going to bitch about then?

No Halo 3 on the Mac!!!

 

[jouster]

Weren´t we taught that Pentium architectures sere still spending a few million transistors to keep compatibility with the 8080 architecture?

Maybe, but so what? It doesn't seem to have done them any harm performance-wise.

And it isn't like MOT or IBM didn't leave legacy transistors in their designs.

 

[guez]

Goody, a Flame War!

It makes me a guy who has made several thousand dollars investing in Apple's innovation over the last 3 years.

I'm not trying to second-guess someone who's a lot better at what they do than I would be at it. I am, in fact, just some guy sitting at his computer on a Monday afternoon, waiting to get the schedule for his crappy minimum wage job. I'm not eating Cheetos. My point is, I don't have the audacity to pretend to know more than someone who is at the forefront of the indsutry.

This is so much more fun than working. Should we continue? I could mention that you DO have the audacity to tell everyone else that they should just shut up and listen to the Great Steve, and then you would tell me that I was hypocrite for having the audacity to tell you're audacious, AND THEN WE COULD START WRITING IN ALL CAPS...

But seriously, though. Maybe you wouldn't feel be so defensive if you didn't invest so much of your hard-earned money at your "crappy minimum wage job" in Apple products.

 

[fgdn17]

Wow Digital Equipment Corporation, bring back memories, Ken Olsen, That idiot Palmer, Jesse and many other the Alpha chip is what should have killed Intel, but hey..they stole the specs and made it "just different enough" to pass....

oh and BTW...Cutler did his development for WXP on ALPHA...and there is a version of WXP64 that runs on ALPHA as developed by Culter's team.... 🙂

 

[MacG]

This ain't so bad

There's a lot of doom and gloom here, so I thought I'd share my more optimisitc thoughts:

1) Upgradability. Won't it be nice to not have to purchase a new PowerMac when you're a Rev or two behind and instead just drop in the newest Intel chip? - Intel revs CPUs much more frequently than mobos or pin layouts. PC users have been doing this for years

2) Competitiveness in the K12 market. Apple has lost some recent school districts due to perceived lack of competitiveness with Wintel. This will help get Macs back in the classroom

3) We can finally rid rumor boards of the useless "PowerBook G5" comments that are made in every thread 😱

4) much more competitive powerbooks and ibooks

5) easier to convince switchers to come to the Mac world without having to constantly dispell the MHz myth and explain new hardware terms

6) Not being generations behind PC's video card hardware

I dunno but for me, today's news isn't so bad. As long as I have a cool looking computer and it's running Mac OS X, I'm happy! 😎

 

[whatever]

Wow!

I was planning on reading all of the posts before I made one, but now that I see that this goes on for 45 pages...

It's kind of ironic. Apple has a great OS but is hindered by their CPU.
And Intel makes great CPU's and is hindered by their OS.

Everytime someone switches from Windows to OS X, Intel loses a customer. And the longer it takes MS to release Longhorn the more lost revenue Intel sees.

Intel really isn't doing anything wrong, but they are currently linked to Windows. So people view Windows shortcomings as Intel's. The same is true for Apple. People view their CPU shortcomings as their fault, not their vendor of choice.

Whatever

 

[jouster]

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

Too late for that.

what can we do?

Nothing.

 

[MacTruck]

Can I ask you a question? Why are you even reading this thread anymore? You've made up your mind. There is not much value you're adding at this point. Most of your points are at best absurd that have been shot down very well and at worst troll like.

Shouldn't you be hanging out at PCrumors.com or some other equivalent?

You're not willing to open up your mind and listen to reason. You've got your set opinions .. nothing wrong with that .. and have made a flash decision in one day. You also seem to know better than Steve Jobs and are double guessing his decision.

You should either leave this thread or .. as an alternative ... since you seem to be brilliant , brush up your resume and go be a CEO somewhere. start up your own company. Why waste time here?

🙄

Oh shush. You not a blind follower so leave please. Thats the message right. I didn't know this was the "Apple did us right again thread". Sorry my posts don't make you feel better. But heah why do you need to feel better about this right?

 

[majidf]

I'm wondering if these new Mac-tels will boot Windows and LINX as well as OSX? Running all at native speeds? I'm assuming so.! It looks like Steve wants to get wintel developers to go with Xcode for development and start using the universal binary code so all their applications will work under Mac or Windows. Nice trick if it works.

I think your on to something, you could run OS/NS applications on windows, and whats stopping APPL from doing so now as the they are already compiled for IA(32, 64).