Macintosh Moving to Intel Processors [Updated]

[MacTruck]

Hopefully next we will get 2 mouse buttons and the coolness will be complete.

Yes. The lack of new announcments was not a good idea. He should have at least come out with a 2 button mouse like "Hey because of the intel move we would like to celebrate and introduce the long awaited 2 button mouse". No, drop the bomb on mac users then run off to make the MSNBC interview, oh and when he gets there not tell them anything. Apple has more secrets than the US government.

 

[MattG]

WOW

Lots of negativity in this thread

Well I for one am excited. Anyone who has any doubts should really watch the keynote.

 

[blackbird71]

Me think Jobs can start closing down his big stores.. Who in their right mind would buy any PowerPC based machines. And 2007 is a LONG time in the future. Myself I do not buy Intel so I will build a AMD Mac Box...

 

[admanimal]

Far as i know there it seems that apple isn't going to care if you install it on your PC. But lets put it this way. In simplest terms you have a video card, you have a sound card and all the other goodies on your motherboard. These items are designed to work with window, you install OS X and it's possible that the OS does no contain an intructions on how to work with those items. The equivalent would be taking the engine out of a Porsche and installing it in Ford. The two are not just going to sync up and work unless you're lucky. You can hack it and get it to work, but don't expect any help with it

You make an excellent (read: one that I agree with) point here, however Apple has actually stated that they don't intend to allow people to install OS X on a non-Mac.

 

[infobhan]

Apple have basically just lost part of their differentiation in this announcement and I really think this is commercial suicide by Steve Jobs.

Who the hell is going to buy an overpriced Powermac PC in a year or so when you can have a Dell at a fraction of the price and STILL run Mac OSX..

What makes you think OS X will run on a Dell just because it has the same processor? There's more to OS support than the processor. Apple has been quite clear that X will not run on anything but their own machines.

 

[sacear]

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....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...!!!!!!!!!

First, NeXT machines used Motorola 68040 CPUs.

Second, neither Apple nor Microsoft were around in 1974. Heck, there was no such thing as a personal computer in 1974, because there were no personal computers in 1974!

 

[fgdn17]

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.

to gear up your factories/suppliers NOW...doesn't work...it takes 3-6 months
to get things moving....use your head...!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ObsidianIce]

It won't work because OSX will need the OpenFirmware to install...and only Apple has said OpenFirmware

Oh yeah..and there's that minor thing as well

 

[leftbanke7]

Arn, if you're listening, you probably need to make a FAQ page for this transition business or this thread will go to 600000 pages real quick.

 

[blitzkrieg79]

Not really. IBM is just focusing on different markets, like consoles, supercomputers, and massive servers. Have you not heard of Blue Gene? It's a Power-driven machine too, you know, and is the fastest computer in the world. The Xbox360 and the PS3 are going to have insane processing power, for what are functionally going to be digital hubs on steroids. Apple could have had highly superior technology. IBM just let things slip.

Motorolla once let things slip...about the same time Steve killed the clones. Figure that was a coincidence? Figure nobody at IBM was annoyed when Steve ratted them out after failing to deliver 3.0GHz?

IBM has stellar technology. They just aren't developing it for the Mac. The fact is, it's AMD and IBM stomping on Intel...in various markets. Apple's getting the worst, albeit the biggest, of the three.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm, everyone is stomping on Intel and YET they only have an over 80% processor market dominance... AMD dual cores are 3 to 4 times as expensive as Intel dual cores, and I am willing to bet that soon Intel will come up with a new processor architecture that will dominate AMD all over again (they already dominate the mobile market as AMD has nothing on them)...
In the wintel world, Intel is not the problem, Microsoft is as it designs crappy OS, as far as AMD goes, great single threaded performance, NOT so great multithreaded compared to Intels, You can find benchmarks showing AMDs dominance and I will show you benchmarks showing Intels dominance... AMD is not as reliable as Intel, in fact I used a couple of AMD prcessors and wasnt too thrilled with them as I had constant lockups, drives not recognized (bad chipset design)... Intel right now is just a more stable company than IBM (current big time financial trouble) and AMD (their narket gain percentage has cooled off recently) put together...

 

[admanimal]

SO?? It mean's they're not locked onto Intel. Remember, Microsoft chose Power for it's new box. Why? Because it's better. Microsoft wants to have a nice, closed cash cow just like Apple has now. Think the Xbox360 can't be a PC?

Well as Apple has shown, nothing is impossible but I think it would take an even bigger effort on MS's part to ever move Windows to a different architecture, simply because they have many more developers and many more users. I don't think they are the type of company who would take such a risk...Although they do like to copy apple...so maybe.

 

[blitzkrieg79]

Not really. IBM is just focusing on different markets, like consoles, supercomputers, and massive servers. Have you not heard of Blue Gene? It's a Power-driven machine too, you know, and is the fastest computer in the world. The Xbox360 and the PS3 are going to have insane processing power, for what are functionally going to be digital hubs on steroids. Apple could have had highly superior technology. IBM just let things slip.

Motorolla once let things slip...about the same time Steve killed the clones. Figure that was a coincidence? Figure nobody at IBM was annoyed when Steve ratted them out after failing to deliver 3.0GHz?

IBM has stellar technology. They just aren't developing it for the Mac. The fact is, it's AMD and IBM stomping on Intel...in various markets. Apple's getting the worst, albeit the biggest, of the three.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm, everyone is stomping on Intel and YET they only have an over 80% processor market dominance... AMD dual cores are 3 to 4 times as expensive as Intel dual cores, and I am willing to bet that soon Intel will come up with a new processor architecture that will dominate AMD all over again (they already dominate the mobile market as AMD has nothing on them)...
In the wintel world, Intel is not the problem, Microsoft is as it designs crappy OS, as far as AMD goes, great single threaded performance, NOT so great multithreaded compared to Intels, You can find benchmarks showing AMDs dominance and I will show you benchmarks showing Intels dominance... AMD is not as reliable as Intel, in fact I used a couple of AMD prcessors and wasnt too thrilled with them as I had constant lockups, drives not recognized (bad chipset design)... Intel right now is just a more stable company than IBM (current big time financial trouble) and AMD (their market gain percentage has cooled off recently) put together...

 

[jZilla]

Just a thought

Anyone think Intel may launch a Mac-only X86 in the future?

Appreciate that could be utterly stupid to even think let alone type "out loud"... just musing and pondering!

 

[leftbanke7]

Maybe Intel should call the processors they sell to Apple X-87 just so we can still feel like we're better than everybody.

 

[rareflares]

Seriously?

That Intel are being lauded in the same way that IBM were not too long ago.

That Intel chips won't give us fast cool powerbooks.

That somehow OSX is nearer being an OS that anyone can buy and run (and by that I fear that writing an OS for a range of potential 3rd party hardware strewn self built rigs would see it's reliability hit).

NB none of those are proven and none are dispelled right now - but it's what's in my mind right now.

I guess I believed Apple too much when they told me Intel sucked ;-)

ok, i understand where you're coming from about some basic uncertainties but from what we HAVE heard I don't see what's necessarily bad. True, it does contrast a lot with what was said just a year before, but Apple is a business and they have to adapt to stay alive and competative. I see this as one of those moves.

Obviously they wanted to do this at WWDC because they can provide all 3800+ developers there with the tools necessary (500+ Apple engineers, 100+ lab sessions, etc.) to complete the transition within the stated time of 1.5 years.

 

[brap]

Well I for one am excited. Anyone who has any doubts should really watch the keynote.

Yes.

Watch the keynote.

Go on.

Watch it.

It'll make all your fears vanish.

You will be at peace.

At one with yourself.

Let the words wash over you like a blissful, soothing wave.

Corps is mother.
Corps is father.


Maybe I'll do a frame-by-frame...

 

[ObsidianIce]

You make an excellent (read: one that I agree with) point here, however Apple has actually stated that they don't intend to allow people to install OS X on a non-Mac.

Excellent i agree with that whole heartedly, that would be bad, though i could really enjoy hearing people say they bought and installed it and it happened to work and made them want to switch over to mac competely cause when they tried to install on their second computer it just just didn't work on that one

 

[admanimal]

Oh yeah..and there's that minor thing as well

Actually, there is a developers guide that specifically mentions that OpenFirmware will not exist on Intel Macs. (I was wrong about this myself before)...but that's not to say something else won't exist.

 

[jimbobb24]

Have you ever used a Centrino laptop? Or an M-Series laptop? It's one hell of a lot cooler than my PB G4.

The reason Apple's switching is because of the ROADMAP, not currently available processors. IBM doesn't care enough about Apple to justify sticking with them. They care about producing high-power processors, regardless of size or power consumption. If they had a cooler G5, the G5 case wouldn't have holes in it.

This is important. This decision is not a casual "We want the best for our users" thing. That's all marketing baloney. IBM told Apple to go bleep-themselves, and so Apple had to find another solution. Steve was showing Watts/Performance? Who has ever cared about that as a main feature? Ever seen that in a keynote before? Its just marketing. Its a cry for help. IBM likely said they decided they would not develop the G5 in the future, Apple was too small a customer to matter, and Apple desperately looked for some solution. This is the result of a small desperate company who cannot garner any respect from a manufacturer so they make the move to just use chips that will be being made anyway, for someone else.

In the future, as IBM stalls, Intel may surpass IBM in all chips as they have done in laptops. But that is only because IBM does not care, not because Intel is innovative or has good technology. Because IBM will be doing nothing, and the turtle can pass the hare. So far, despite missing projections, the G5 is still doing just fine and is a great chip and system.

So, for all the people who suddenly don't care about the chips - I care alot. X86 is old tech. PPC is great tech and the G5 is great for science. Now, we will be going Linux, which is sad for me, since OSX is nice for home and business users, but the G5 was the draw in sciences.

Its nice of Steve to try to make this desperate move look forward looking, but you can bet he wished that IBM had been giving him a nice future roadmap instead.

And who knows, maybe if the Universal Binary thing works out and IBM gets it in gear they could use both chip sets - one for laptops and Mac minis, one for people who want a little more...Power.

 

[herocero]

finally!

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!

thank god someone came to the rescue, all this stupid talk about people not bothering to READ and LISTEN was driving me insane.

apple WILL NOT destroy it's hardware profit margins and allow you to install os x on your dell 8100 pos. if you pay attention to quarterly financial conferences, they are largest on POWER MACS and POWERBOOKS. i agree apple is an excellent software maker, but the $ is in the hardware.

i'm going to agree with you on the viruses to a point, except point yourself over to /. or arstechnica, there are lots of reasons hackers target wintel (even linux on intel), read Buffer Overflow. there's a reason intel came up with that execute bit disabled feature or whatever the hell they call it.

why idiots think all their PC apps are gonna run on os x86 is beyond me. windows programs are coded using the win32 API, it's how your app interacts with the OS and makes function calls. one reason there are so many windows apps: it's so damn easy to code for it! os x requires a different set of APIs calling different OS functions (read carbon and cocoa). it's not just copy and paste that code in there and *whisk* off to neverland.

i think this could be a good transition, but let's use some common sense. apple says it won't be hard for developers to switch to x86. if you take this at face value, i want you to put your head in a blender. altivec is nowhere near identical to sse2 or sse3. no "simple" recompile is going to turn every ppc app into an os x86 app. the one program jobs brought on who said it took them 2 hours and 20 lines of code to change HAD THE WHOLE APPLE TEAM HELPING THEM. do youself a favor, think for yourself, pull your head out of your a$$ (not you whoever i'm responding to, just in general) and eliminate your unwarranted bias and see through the smoke and mirrors along the way and we might get through this.

it takes a gargantuan event like this to bring me back to writing in the forum again. what is the world coming to . . .

 

[leftbanke7]

Actually, there is a developers guide that specifically mentions that OpenFirmware will not exist on Intel Macs. (I was wrong about this myself before)...but that's not to say something else won't exist.

I'm assuming it will be some sort of chip put on the logic board?

 

[MacG]

Anyone think Intel may launch a Mac-only X86 in the future?

Appreciate that could be utterly stupid to even think let alone type "out loud"... just musing and pondering!

Was thinking that myself. May not be as rediculous or hard. All Intel chips since Pentium III have had processor ID's in them. Intel could set aside a range for Apple and Mac OSX will only run on Pentiums with the correct ID range. Otherwise they'd need some BIOS tweaks to lock the machine down.

On an unrelated note, it seems Intel's marketing department is getting ready. anyone notice the P4 EE logo???

Look at that big X!

 

[M@netic]

betrayal

WHY WHY? just when I am starting to become a mac fanatic...

I hate CISC chips and long pipelines. For us geeks, it's not only about speed, but also about elegance in design. I would use a slower system if it has a better design.

Apple's hardware business will be over as soon as hackers figure out a way to run OSX on generic hardware.

 

[willhclark]

All the Sky is falling comments come from those who either did'nt watch the keynote or did'nt comprehend it.

 

[Stella]

its called "Marketing", which a lot of people who say this sort of thing forgets.

OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO 'TRASH' THE COMPETITIONS PROCESSORS!!!!!!!

They aren't going to say "Intel" is better if they are trying to sell PPC based machines.

Reality - for some things PPC is better, others, Intel.

IBM, Moto couldn't deliver good enough supply or fast enough processors so Apple have jumped ship.

If you buy an Apple branded Mac based Intel machine, you'll be able to dual boot OSX and Windows ( Apple have confirmed this).

An historic day, one that will see Apple gain more marketshare that they could have with PPC machines.

Seriously?


I guess I believed Apple too much when they told me Intel sucked ;-)