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Macintosh Moving to Intel Processors [Updated]
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I think this is a great thing
1) The IntelMac seemed to be pretty fast to me when Steve was demonstrating it.
2) An x86 proc will make the porting of anything made for Windows MUCH easier. I think we'll see many more games put out for the Mac as a result. And if OpenGL is being used, the port will be even faster.
3) I'm going to need a new laptop in a year. I'll go out and get a Pentium M Powerbook for sure if they're out (Or whatever x86 proc is in there).
4) Someone will most definately (if not Microsoft themselves) make an app to let us run Windows full blown in the background, or in a Virtual PC-like environment. M$ doesn't lose, and Apple sells even more hardware, win-win.
I would love to see some benchmarks for the Mac Intel developer machines. Any developers out there who have gotten access to one of those labs and can give us some info, or is there an NDA in affect? And is OpenFirmware being used on these machines? That would probably effectively lock out the use of Mac OS X on non-Mac hardware.
1) The IntelMac seemed to be pretty fast to me when Steve was demonstrating it.
2) An x86 proc will make the porting of anything made for Windows MUCH easier. I think we'll see many more games put out for the Mac as a result. And if OpenGL is being used, the port will be even faster.
3) I'm going to need a new laptop in a year. I'll go out and get a Pentium M Powerbook for sure if they're out (Or whatever x86 proc is in there).
4) Someone will most definately (if not Microsoft themselves) make an app to let us run Windows full blown in the background, or in a Virtual PC-like environment. M$ doesn't lose, and Apple sells even more hardware, win-win.
I would love to see some benchmarks for the Mac Intel developer machines. Any developers out there who have gotten access to one of those labs and can give us some info, or is there an NDA in affect? And is OpenFirmware being used on these machines? That would probably effectively lock out the use of Mac OS X on non-Mac hardware.
Why would it be any easier now? I mean Windows games these days uses DirectX I don't see there is a translation layer for that. I don't think it wil get any easier to port games from Windows -> PC than before.. DirectX has so much penetration it made OpenGL irrelevant in the gaming industry.
We still don't know the bridge/chipset design.. they even tried to "full blown" Windows in the background of Xbox.. did they manage to do it? I don't think so..
On the hardware level.. a lot of things are still in teh design stage.. it si best to leave Apple hardware engineers to do the work and us Software developers churn out new software.
AFAIK OpenFirmware or not.. software is abstracted and honestly it is non of the non Apple developers' business.
We still don't know the bridge/chipset design.. they even tried to "full blown" Windows in the background of Xbox.. did they manage to do it? I don't think so..
On the hardware level.. a lot of things are still in teh design stage.. it si best to leave Apple hardware engineers to do the work and us Software developers churn out new software.
AFAIK OpenFirmware or not.. software is abstracted and honestly it is non of the non Apple developers' business.
dethl said:
Well you need more than OS X to sell Macs. I imagine there's still lot of work left to be done in terms of porting all the iApps to x86, not to mention that you need certain key 3rd party apps like Office to be ported over.GregA said:
Plus, they'll need time to perfect the new hardware design, test it, and retool their manufacturing. I'm sure much of the groundwork has been laid out already but it's a huge huge undertaking for a small company like Apple.
It makes sense that Apple will release the consumer Macs first with Intel chips. There will be less to worry about with third-party apps. I'm praying for a Pentium M iBook release by MWSF 2006. If they ship fat binaries for all the Apple pro apps AND certain key third-party pro apps like ADOBE CS, I can even see them releasing a Macintel PowerBook by then.
Good Move? Maybe...
IF ISVs (and Apple) offer 'fat binaries' or dual support of both PPC and x86 then this is a good move.
Otherwise, IMHO, the $3K plus that I have recently invested in my 17" Powerbook with aftermarket Samsung 2GB of memory is a bad investment within a couple of years or sooner.
Otherwise, I have a current day Radio Shack Model 4 that I once owned. While it was a good machine in the past, circa 1983, it was soon something that only ran a few odd BASIC programs or ran Pascal (when it's linker got past the editor bugs and actually ran a program) for school or fun.
IF, and I stress IF, Apple can get the majority of ISVs to support BOTH PPC and Intel for say 5 years then this should be a good move.
Otherwise, I think back to the old 'trash80' that I used to run before I moved to the next best thing.
Cut to several generations of 'IBM Clones' each costing much more than a current Mac. Ah, the economies of scale finally came to pass. I guess the Prof in Econ101 was right after all!
I only hope that Apple does not screw this one up like the Lisa....
IF ISVs (and Apple) offer 'fat binaries' or dual support of both PPC and x86 then this is a good move.
Otherwise, IMHO, the $3K plus that I have recently invested in my 17" Powerbook with aftermarket Samsung 2GB of memory is a bad investment within a couple of years or sooner.
Otherwise, I have a current day Radio Shack Model 4 that I once owned. While it was a good machine in the past, circa 1983, it was soon something that only ran a few odd BASIC programs or ran Pascal (when it's linker got past the editor bugs and actually ran a program) for school or fun.
IF, and I stress IF, Apple can get the majority of ISVs to support BOTH PPC and Intel for say 5 years then this should be a good move.
Otherwise, I think back to the old 'trash80' that I used to run before I moved to the next best thing.
Cut to several generations of 'IBM Clones' each costing much more than a current Mac. Ah, the economies of scale finally came to pass. I guess the Prof in Econ101 was right after all!
I only hope that Apple does not screw this one up like the Lisa....
MontyZ said:
Neither is correct.
Apple PAID Xerox for the technologies that were used to develop the Lisa/Mac OS, which actually wasn't that much. Apple developed a lot of what ended up as Macintosh in-house. What Apple saw at Xerox PARC was pretty primitive at the time, but enough to spark the GUI direction for the Lisa/Mac. In any event, Xerox was paid, had knowledge of Apple's intentions, and Apple had their consent.
Microsoft licensed portions of the Mac GUI from Apple for use in Windows. In Apple v. MS, Apple contended that the license was narrow and limited to Windows 1.0, not subsequent versions of Windows. The judge didn't see it that way. That gutted a significant portion of Apple's case. The remainder of the "look and feel" aspects of Windows was found to be non-infringing. In the decision, the Judge went through a laboriously detailed analysis of all the aspects of the Mac OS that Apple complained Microsoft infringed, and found that they either were covered by the original license agreement or were metaphoric elements too common to be copyrightable or patentable.
Bottom line is Apple signed a lousy agreement and MS took full advantage of it. It's been speculated that MS pressured Apple to sign, holding the cancellation of Word/Excell on the Mac platform over Apple's heads at the time when the "deal" came about.
Products in the PowerPC pipeline...
I'd love to know what products are yet to be released/updated with the PPC. I really want a new update/facelift to the PowerMac and/or iBook, but it should come fast. I don't know how successful they will be because of the switch tho. Which brings up another point. I am starting work at the local Apple Store this week...I guess I will have a lot of people coming in and starting fights about why they should buy the PowerPC macs now....should be an interesting transition into a new job...
What do you guys think the Pipeline Products are??
I'd love to know what products are yet to be released/updated with the PPC. I really want a new update/facelift to the PowerMac and/or iBook, but it should come fast. I don't know how successful they will be because of the switch tho. Which brings up another point. I am starting work at the local Apple Store this week...I guess I will have a lot of people coming in and starting fights about why they should buy the PowerPC macs now....should be an interesting transition into a new job...
What do you guys think the Pipeline Products are??
If you are a software developer or any business user why would buying a computer be a "bad investment" I mean if you hire any half competent accountant you can write off the machine as a business cost within 3 years anyways... just in time to get the latest and greatest MacTel..
Unless you tell me the taxes you pay won't cover the write off.. then there is something seriously wrong.
Unless you tell me the taxes you pay won't cover the write off.. then there is something seriously wrong.
cosmos said:
Can someone please direct me to somewhere, where I can learn about the different Intel processors and how they are good (especially the Pentium M). I would like to learn now and start getting excited because no matter where Steve takes us, I will always be 100% behind his decisions. Also looking to buy the first Intel PowerBook iteration. 
Willy S said:Will the Mactels have "Intel inside" sticker?
I´m pleased with this move although I consider the Powermacs and high end iMacs worse investment than they were.
Hell no.
If that Intel Inside crap was gonna be on our Macs, it better be approved by Apple and lazer engraved.
Godwin said:
I'm currently in college, CS major, and use my Dual 2.0ghz for all of my programming. I'm very interested in the performance of the new Intel Macs. If I had the money, I'd actually buy a full Student membership to the ADC.
Sure, but the circumstances surrounding this processor switch are different. The transition will be a gradual one and eventually existing PPC-based hardware will no longer be supported, but that won't happen for a while. I was holding out for a dual core G5 PowerMac, but I have no reservations about buying the latest and greatest Mac that is available now. Personal computers, for me, are only good for 4-5 years anyway before I have a compelling need to upgrade.5300cs said:
Go to the G5 web site...You'll still see all the benchmarks of how the G5 smokes the P4. I think that's humorous.
Back on topic, though, this is an onerous decision. I haven't posted here in months, but I must say, I find these moves troubling. Yes, I know that IBM has had some fab problems, but going to a CISC processor, particularly one as poorly mashed together as a Pentium, for the entire line seems unwise. A Centrino or Pentium M in a laptop might be nice, but I'd still prefer the G5 in desktop systems? Whatever happened to using the processor with the best architecture.
All Intel has ever had going for it is clock speed and now that's tapering off. What are they going to come up with in the next few years that will be so great? If I'm not mistaken, IBM has done even more dual core research than Intel has.
I just can't believe this decision and I'm very displeased.
Back on topic, though, this is an onerous decision. I haven't posted here in months, but I must say, I find these moves troubling. Yes, I know that IBM has had some fab problems, but going to a CISC processor, particularly one as poorly mashed together as a Pentium, for the entire line seems unwise. A Centrino or Pentium M in a laptop might be nice, but I'd still prefer the G5 in desktop systems? Whatever happened to using the processor with the best architecture.
All Intel has ever had going for it is clock speed and now that's tapering off. What are they going to come up with in the next few years that will be so great? If I'm not mistaken, IBM has done even more dual core research than Intel has.
I just can't believe this decision and I'm very displeased.
You know how some people moan that Apple keep things too close to their chest, get all upset when someone leaks details of an upcoming bit of kit, etc. etc...
Now those people know why Apple do that I guess. Coz if they had announced that they were bringing out a new G5 Powerbook at the end of this year, it would have the same affect on current Powerbook sales as this Intel announcement will have.
I read a lot of people going on about their 'investment' in Apple hardware or software. I too have in the past convinced myself that the totally unneccesary but way too cool purchase was an 'investment'; it wasn't. If you need whatever you just bought (or are about to buy) to do a job of work to a certain level of efficiency right now, good choice. If (in the same way my mother used to buy my school uniforms when I was a kid), you bought it hoping you'ld 'grow into it' in a year or so, bad choice.
Simple.
Now those people know why Apple do that I guess. Coz if they had announced that they were bringing out a new G5 Powerbook at the end of this year, it would have the same affect on current Powerbook sales as this Intel announcement will have.
I read a lot of people going on about their 'investment' in Apple hardware or software. I too have in the past convinced myself that the totally unneccesary but way too cool purchase was an 'investment'; it wasn't. If you need whatever you just bought (or are about to buy) to do a job of work to a certain level of efficiency right now, good choice. If (in the same way my mother used to buy my school uniforms when I was a kid), you bought it hoping you'ld 'grow into it' in a year or so, bad choice.
Simple.
"Photoshop and its plug-ins run with typical performance but take longer to load."
The article dosn't mention that version of photoshop in the demonstration was and unmodified PPC compiled version of CS2 and was effectivley being emulated on the Intel system (hence the longer load time). It may be worth modifying the article before people jump to conclusions over the intel chip's performance?
The article dosn't mention that version of photoshop in the demonstration was and unmodified PPC compiled version of CS2 and was effectivley being emulated on the Intel system (hence the longer load time). It may be worth modifying the article before people jump to conclusions over the intel chip's performance?
Well Pentium is a whole family name (much like you call Mercedes Benz A klass the same as a S klasse).. P4 is EPIC and P3/2/Pro/M is another animal all together..
EPIC is well regarded as a failure and Intel has even discontinued it for the laptop market.. I think M is the future and that's where Apple is riding on.
Not to mention the Pro core is well understood and is known to be probably the best designed out there.. I won't call it mashed together.. I would say it has been refined with modern manufacturer techniques..
Power5 will probably reach better efficiency with the 45nm manufacturing technology in 2 yearsbut with the die shrinks problems we had over the last few years we know how hard and long that would be. You might be willing to wait that long for G5 for the laptop.. but I don't think Apple will survive.. considering Laptops are the main reveniue generator.
EPIC is well regarded as a failure and Intel has even discontinued it for the laptop market.. I think M is the future and that's where Apple is riding on.
Not to mention the Pro core is well understood and is known to be probably the best designed out there.. I won't call it mashed together.. I would say it has been refined with modern manufacturer techniques..
Power5 will probably reach better efficiency with the 45nm manufacturing technology in 2 yearsbut with the die shrinks problems we had over the last few years we know how hard and long that would be. You might be willing to wait that long for G5 for the laptop.. but I don't think Apple will survive.. considering Laptops are the main reveniue generator.
themadchemist said:
We haven't even seen Apple's first Intel-based Macintosh and you're already very displeased?themadchemist said:
If Apple wanted to release a P4-based Mac, they would have done it already. There was one running the keynote this morning and OS X has been running on Intel-based processors for the last 5 years.
This leads me to believe that Apple is going to start off with perhaps the 2nd generation dual-core Pentium (with an internal core-to-core bus) and of course the dual-core Yonah (Pentium M).
Finally, Intel is doing extensive research into next-generation materials and process technologies to keep the momentum going from 65nm to 45 to 32 to 22. They will probably be among the first to develop and ramp up next generation process technologies. Yonah was among the very first all-new 65nm-based designs, if not the very first.
Not Convinced
I'm just a little nervous about this, even on the PowerMac G5 performace page:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/
Apple are clearly stating that the Pentium is rubbish compared to the G5, SJ has publicly stated in the past that CISC has gone as far as it can... and now we are going to use them??
Unless Intel have some exponentially better CPU's in the pipeline* that will deliver a massive performace gain then I think all this move is is a marketing manoeuvre to finally kill off the "Megahertz Myth" - a pretty poor reason, I can't see what major performance benefit we are going to get from Intel. This news comes just as IBM/Sony/Toshiba announce the Cell processor, a radical change in processor thinking, providing truly massive processing power.
* ie: not on the current roadmap
And now Apple publicly dumping IBM this way, the likelihood of Cell being used is Macs has all but evaporated. The other issue is that now we are at the mercy of Intel's processor decisions. I don't know what influence MS have over the development of Intel CPUs but I doubt that any dramatic innovation will occur at Intel that will cause a conflict with the operation of MS legacy OSs/installed user base, so you end up with old technology hanging around, try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no-one and Apples needs will not be heard.
My only hope is that this whole Universal Binary/OS-X CPU agnostic strategy is Apples' killer punch. Thinking of Steve's "...Apple likes having options" comment, should Intel produce under-performing CPUs and the Cell starts to take off, Apple could then transition to Cell, or at least offer another line of Macs while still allowing developers to easily maintain backward compatibility - or by using a hardware version of Quicktransit for Cell. You never know we could end up in a situation where we have Macs running a "Who-Give-A-Damm" processor, be it PPC/Intel/Cell/???
So I'm still a little sceptical and not really sure if this is a good or bad thing, Steve left some Grand Canyon style chasms in his presentation so we will just have to wait and see. If Apple can dump IBM that quick (referring to the G5 line), Intel could face the same.
I'm just a little nervous about this, even on the PowerMac G5 performace page:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/
Apple are clearly stating that the Pentium is rubbish compared to the G5, SJ has publicly stated in the past that CISC has gone as far as it can... and now we are going to use them??
Unless Intel have some exponentially better CPU's in the pipeline* that will deliver a massive performace gain then I think all this move is is a marketing manoeuvre to finally kill off the "Megahertz Myth" - a pretty poor reason, I can't see what major performance benefit we are going to get from Intel. This news comes just as IBM/Sony/Toshiba announce the Cell processor, a radical change in processor thinking, providing truly massive processing power.
* ie: not on the current roadmap
And now Apple publicly dumping IBM this way, the likelihood of Cell being used is Macs has all but evaporated. The other issue is that now we are at the mercy of Intel's processor decisions. I don't know what influence MS have over the development of Intel CPUs but I doubt that any dramatic innovation will occur at Intel that will cause a conflict with the operation of MS legacy OSs/installed user base, so you end up with old technology hanging around, try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no-one and Apples needs will not be heard.
My only hope is that this whole Universal Binary/OS-X CPU agnostic strategy is Apples' killer punch. Thinking of Steve's "...Apple likes having options" comment, should Intel produce under-performing CPUs and the Cell starts to take off, Apple could then transition to Cell, or at least offer another line of Macs while still allowing developers to easily maintain backward compatibility - or by using a hardware version of Quicktransit for Cell. You never know we could end up in a situation where we have Macs running a "Who-Give-A-Damm" processor, be it PPC/Intel/Cell/???
So I'm still a little sceptical and not really sure if this is a good or bad thing, Steve left some Grand Canyon style chasms in his presentation so we will just have to wait and see. If Apple can dump IBM that quick (referring to the G5 line), Intel could face the same.
bayol05 said:
Hey! I'm also starting my job at an Apple Store (in San Francisco) very soon. I'm kind of worried about how I'm going to pitch a sale if someone brings up why they should fork over $$$$ to buy the current PPC line, especially the anemic portables....
onlysublime said:
here's what we are getting - a deliverable chipset and maybe not the "best" or "fastest".
That assumes Intel won't go all "IBM" on Steve's ass and let him hop on stage and pipe up about a chip that will never arrive ("3ghz G5 within a year").
Looks like Steve and IBM have got a divorce, I just wonder who filed for it - did IBM say "we don't need you" or did Steve just get the strop and walk out after a tiff over dinner into the arms of someone who has convinced him the grass is greener?
So... where is AltiVec? And where is 128 Bit? Why are we always moving in the wrong direction? Now that we have file extension we get the crappy processor, too. Don't like it. I would love to see an Intel G6 though.
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