Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Really switching to Intel!!??

Snowy_River said:
That's a wrong analogy. With classic, if the developer didn't move to OS X native, they'd loose all their users as users updated and wanted native apps (and potentially removed classic altogether). For Windows, they'd have the majority of their base - the Windows users - and the ability to say that it runs on Mac OS. Granted there would be some incentive, but not the level of the Classic -> OS X, and what incentive there is could easily be offset by the cost savings of only developing one version.

I'm not saying that there wouldn't be developers who would do it, I'm just saying there would likely be a lot of developers who wouldn't, likely including some that currently provide OS X software.
Click to expand...

I disagree. It's exactly like Classic in the early days of MacOS X. Developers updated to OS X because it ran better for their users, thus not converting would put them at a competitive disadvantage for their users. It'll be the same thing here. They could stay with windows only, but would be at a competitve disadvantage vs companies who offer OS X versions. Many people installing OS X on an x86 box would prefer to no longer have to deal with windows and the associated security/spyware/etc issues.

Done right and Windows/Windows apps gets turned into a 2nd class citizen.
 
What about 64 -> 32 bits

What about the 64/32 bit issue? If I'm not mistaken, x86 from Intel only works 64 bit. The Itanium uses a different instruction set (that's why AMD is eating Intel's lunch in the 64 bit arena). I'm sure Apple wouldn't be going BACK to 32 bits, so if they are striking a deal with Intel, it wouldn't be for the x86 line.

Just my guess, anyway.
 
Adam Ruth said:
What about the 64/32 bit issue? If I'm not mistaken, x86 from Intel only works 64 bit. The Itanium uses a different instruction set (that's why AMD is eating Intel's lunch in the 64 bit arena). I'm sure Apple wouldn't be going BACK to 32 bits, so if they are striking a deal with Intel, it wouldn't be for the x86 line.

Just my guess, anyway.
Click to expand...

Tiger on a Pentium M in the rumored iTablet makes the most sense as the first Mac hardware using an Intel chip.
 
Adam Ruth said:
What about the 64/32 bit issue? If I'm not mistaken, x86 from Intel only works 64 bit. The Itanium uses a different instruction set (that's why AMD is eating Intel's lunch in the 64 bit arena). I'm sure Apple wouldn't be going BACK to 32 bits, so if they are striking a deal with Intel, it wouldn't be for the x86 line.

Just my guess, anyway.
Click to expand...

Perhaps just use Intel as the low-end Mac. Perhaps in 2006, Intel will have a high-end 64/32bit solution. I think the Pentium M would be a good move for the Powerbook / iBook line.
 
The term dual boot capability might play a critical factor in which
processor design Apple chooses.

A workstation/server capable of booting into either OSX or LINUX under the same chassic would please quite a few people.

I'm not sure how someting like this would play out for Apple, but
the market would love it.
 
Adam Ruth said:
What about the 64/32 bit issue? If I'm not mistaken, x86 from Intel only works 64 bit. The Itanium uses a different instruction set (that's why AMD is eating Intel's lunch in the 64 bit arena). I'm sure Apple wouldn't be going BACK to 32 bits, so if they are striking a deal with Intel, it wouldn't be for the x86 line.

Just my guess, anyway.
Click to expand...

No one said they're using any current chips from Intel. It's my guess that Intel making a PowerPC based chip no one even knows about yet.
 
FFTT said:
The term dual boot capability might play a critical factor in which
processor design Apple chooses.

A workstation/server capable of booting into either OSX or LINUX under the same chassic would please quite a few people.

I'm not sure how someting like this would play out for Apple, but
the market would love it.
Click to expand...
You can run Linux on current Mac hardware. What's your point?
 
WWDC and Offerings

iMeowbot said:
I did happen to notice that the session descriptions for WWDC this year seem different. I don't see the usual glowing mentions (or really any mentions) of PowerPC, G5, Velocity Engine and so on. Even the 64 bit migration tracks don't mention G5. It's odd.
Click to expand...


Here is the odd part...

"Details on more than 35 hands-on sessions are currently posted."
"Details on more than 50 labs are currently posted."

I am missing something... or does this sound like, After the keynote there will be more sessions offered becasue they will be on INTEL migration and do not want to get in trouble before then.
 
bdkennedy1 said:
No one said they're using any current chips from Intel. It's my guess that Intel making a PowerPC based chip no one even knows about yet.
Click to expand...

That makes the most sense to me. Something like the Opteron that runs PPC instructions natively on top of a different architecture (or the G5 that run 32 bit instructions natively on a 64 bit core). That would make the transitions seamless for most developers. They can continue to ship PPC only versions, but can add another version to their fat binary that uses the new and improved Intel instructions.

That would be more workable than a wholesale transition.
 
Anyone think that Intel might just be replacing an IBM chip OTHER than the processor? I'm sure CNet just assumed chip==processor, but what if the processor has nothing to do with it?
 
Adam Ruth said:
What about the 64/32 bit issue? If I'm not mistaken, x86 from Intel only works 64 bit. The Itanium uses a different instruction set (that's why AMD is eating Intel's lunch in the 64 bit arena). I'm sure Apple wouldn't be going BACK to 32 bits, so if they are striking a deal with Intel, it wouldn't be for the x86 line.

Just my guess, anyway.
Click to expand...

Intel has had "EMT64" in their Pentium 4 line for quite a while now.

http://www.intel.com/technology/64bitextensions/index.htm
 
DavidCar said:
My main concern is what such an announcement would do to Apple PowerPC hardware prices in the near term. I may be weeks away from buying a new computer I can't really afford.
Click to expand...

David

Very simple wait till monday afternoon about 4 pm EDT and you will know what to do.

Wait or buy. I have been waiting for WWDC to see what was going to come out of that.

On the positive side if you are going to buy new... you might just get a deal. THough I think many people are going to stock up on PPC versions of Macintosh.
 
OS X on Intel

I'm sure this has been stated in one of the previos 700+ messages but needs rehashing again it seems.

OS X has always had the technical ability for running on Intel procesors.

I would just about guarantee that most OS X apps would simply need a recompile. One area that would require checking is the big/little endian issue. Cocoa/NeXTStep already has functions for convertering from big to little endian and vice-versa (i.e. NSSwapHostDoubleToLittle).

At WWDC they will be stating what areas you will need to make sure you properly code for to make sure it will run properly on an Intel processor. The endian issue is a perfect example. I'd bet 99% of the developers are assuming when they directly manipulate floating point numbers they are not using the NSSwap* family of functions.

The gcc compiler can already produce x86 code.

The bundle structure of OS X native applications (control-click on icon in finder) has a MacOS folder which is the binary for the application to run on PPC processors. They will simply have another folder like "Intel" where a binary that is compiled for the x86 family would be found. The app would then be able to run on a PPC mac or x86 mac seamlessly by detecting which binary/folder is included in the bundle.

I don't understand why anyone would be upset by this. The days of Motorola against Intel are long over. Apple has done a good job in making it easy if they needed to switch to a different processor from the very beginning. The end user would probably not even be able to tell if their mac is using an Intel chip or PPC chip. Apps not-recompiled for the x86 processors should run slower though then the same app with an x86 binary in it.

These analysts saying how this would be detrimental to apple if they did this obviusly are not developers themselves nor do they understand all of the behind the scenes work that apple maintained to allow them to switch.
 
-Jeff said:
In the end, all code is assmebler. Not 0.00001%
Click to expand...

No, it isn't. Assembly language code has to be assembled by an Assembler.

In the end, all code is binary machine language, better represented to humans in hexadecimal or Assembly language text.
 
VanNess said:
Bingo.

There would be near zero motivation for anyone to buy from the existing Mac Line after Monday and until at least 2006, if that. As hardware sales go, so goes sales (and installations) of the brand new OS (Tiger). It makes absolutely no sense unless there is a huge (and not very good) story - as yet untold - concerning IBM. And if such a story existed, there would be clues leading up to this, but there's nothing except retelling old G5 shortage stories from last year. The current refresh of the iMac line hasn't been hampered with new G5 shortages.
Click to expand...

What if the typo or bad info is 2006/7 and it really is 2005/6. MacMiniTel shipping next week with iLife, iWork, safari etel.

Guess what. I will up at Mall of America and buying one ASAP for my wife.

Or better yet.... dual core powerbooks.
 
alandail said:
wait - the whole thread is about Tiger - Tiger running on multile architectures. It's Tiger combined with the declining relevance of Classic that makes this discussion even viable.
Click to expand...

I don't think so...

Any references to OS X in the Intel CPU story are generic and not specific to Tiger. And Tiger is a MAJOR upgrade to OS X, far more than previous releases of OS X have been. There is lot cooking under the hood of Tiger than what's been generally exposed at this point. The Ars review of Tiger was extremely long - because it had to be.

In terms of OS technologies, Tiger is like moving from System 6 to OS 9, skipping 7 and 8 for those that remember back that far. Jobs wasn't in his RDF mode when he said Tiger was years ahead of everyone else. That's basically a factual statement. All the more reason to discount the alleged need to move to Intel CPU's, much like the alleged need to have to the iPod operate with online music stores other than Apple's. Right now, it just isn't necessary.
 
aldo said:
Slightly. But in reality the main problem porting is all the graphical elements - menus, buttons, dialog boxes etc. They all need _competely_ rewritten.
Click to expand...

What in the world are you talking about? You obviously have no idea how software works.

Sure, porting software from one operating system to another would require te above, but the OS stays the same. The APIs stay the same. Only the actual processor changes.

For 90% of the apps out there, a simple recompile is all that will be needed. And I do speak from considerable authority since I write complex software that uses a single API that runs on 4 processor architectures (ARM, MIPS, SH3, and x86) and could run on more if the compilers for others existed in my dev environment.
 
TorbX said:
No, no, no, you guys got it all wrong. This is whats up:

Its a personal thing between Steve and Bill. Steve will enter MSs market - operating system for peeecees. Oh yes, its true. OS X on your dell, next month.

Only by doing this, can Steve kill MS. He can't sell Macs to the whole world, I'm sure...
Click to expand...

No but you can sell software to an entire world that wants something better then WinDope. Have a smooth transition and you are out of the gate by... July. And the idiot up in Redmond sells his stock and goes home.

IF apple did make MACOSX to run on many existing WINTEL machines... The amount of money made would be incrediable. People would dump Windope in a heartbeat
 
J-Ray1000 said:
LOL, yeah, because Half-Life on the xbo...oh, wait, never mind. And all the RTS and FPS that aren't on the consoles simply offer an inferior playing experience on a controller.

The point is Alienware, Falcon and Voodoo are in business for a reason: the PC gaming industry is huge and isn't going anywhere. When a household's resident 16 yr old male is the computer expert, why would he ever pick the family's computer to be game-devoid? He wouldn't - I didn't when I was a kid nor did any of my friends (nor their parents for that matter)

But get the iPod of computers that runs Half-Life or World of Warcraft and, well, you get the idea...
Click to expand...

Actually the PC game market has been shrinking--it's definitely going somewhere: to consoles. It shrunk in 2003, and it shrunk in 2004--and I'm pretty sure it's even been going for longer than that. Apple doesn't lose that many customers due to game performance--hardcore gamers are a very small part of the market. Many people never take part in 3d gaming.

Article

So don't go complaining about half life 2 this and counterstrike that--normal people are a much more important market than hardcore gamers with no lives. Plus, just buy a console. The Xbox 360 and PS3 pretty much imitate computers anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back