Really switching to Intel!!??

[vouder17]

So if they switched to an intel chip in it's current form wouldn't every bit of software from all companies have to be rewritten? This sounds like a nightmare transition.

It might be a nightmare software transition...but for once..we could always be in-front with all the latest hardware..etc...And if something new comes up...apple aswell as windows will get it, i see no problem here...apple will keep its originality with OS X and its hardware will just get a boost!!

 

[aldo]

Thanks for the reply, aldo.

So, would it be any easier to port a windows application to OS X on x86 vs. porting it to OSX on PPC?

Slightly. But in reality the main problem porting is all the graphical elements - menus, buttons, dialog boxes etc. They all need _competely_ rewritten.

 

[evolutioneight]

Assuming this is real, why would Apple wait until mid 2006 and 2007 to make the switch...? Obviously they would need give developers time to redo everything for x86, but what happens until then? If they have hit the wall with the PowerPC chip then where are they going to push it? Are we going to be stuck with 2.7ghz Powermacs for the next 2 years? G4 Powerbooks at 1.7 for that long when by that time the dells and lenovos are running at much higher speeds? Also why would they put the consumer computers on the intels first? The consumer computers like the iMac and the Mac Mini have more room to go with the PowerPC in terms of speed than the pro machines.

 

[aldo]

It might be a nightmare software transition...but for once..we could always be in-front with all the latest hardware..etc...And if something new comes up...apple aswell as windows will get it, i see no problem here...apple will keep its originality with OS X and its hardware will just get a boost!!

I don't think it'll be a nightmare at all.

All of Cocoa, Quartz, Mach, and the FreeBSD kernel will be recompiled to x86. 75-95% of your standard application spends all of its time in here. The other 5%-25% would have to be emulated, which wouldn't be too slow thanks to the speed of Intel's chips.

The only problem will be things that us a lot of assembly-execution time. For example video editing software or games. These will have to be somewhat rewritten and recompiled to be bearable at all.

 

[GrannySmith_G5]

How much does IBM care about developing chips for Apple? How much money does IBM make from the chips they supply to apple? Now that they will be developing all 3 console chips (co-developing for sony), where does that leave Apple on their priority list?

If IBM isn't on full throttle in the development of PPC chips for Apple, then who do they have to turn to if sticking with PPC. Freescale?

 

[varmit]

um, this switch is coming just as IBM is about to introduce a dualcore PPC chip made specifically for Apple, and some of the development software is showing this dualcore ability. I don't see this switch happening, not after making the jump from the G4 to the G5. Everyone knows that IBM didn't produce the best chip, but I'm sure IBM will more than make up for it in the future. As for the speed, and the benchmarks, the kernel is still a baby and has yet to mature to great system kernel. So the speed of the PPC that IBM delivers has yet to come out yet. As soon as Apple can add more to kernel, which breaks backwards compatability and causes problems for developers (happened with Ciscos VPN software), the speed will show.

 

[daveL]

Sorry, that's ridiculous. Choosing PowerPC for the games consoles vs Intel is a no-brainer because a games console simply plays games, it doesn't need many of the features that a full, normal CPU would use.

And most importantly, IBM/Toshiba etc are willing to _license_ their CPU design and let MS and Sony fab it themselves. Intel weren't, so IBM won.

Intel's CPUs are very good because they are mass produced, cheap in volume, and not only that they come with a proverbial ******** of motherboard chipsets, compatible graphics cards, sound chipsets, North and Southbridges.

Not only that the Pentium-M CPU is incredibly good in terms of power consumption, which means 10 hour laptops are being made now.

Yes, you're right, IBM's Power CPUs for servers aren't "full featured" either, right? The G5 was derived from the Power 4. The fact is PPC scales from embedded applications to super computing. Believe what you like. As a Mac owner, a forced transition to x86 would cost me a bunch of money and application support. It would also bring into question whether Apple can actually pull it off without committing suicide in the process. Maybe that doesn't matter to you; that's fine, but it matters to me.

 

[VanNess]

I'm sitting here, with my DP G5, thinking my investment just became worth zero. With this announced so far in advance, and the uncertainty of what it would mean for application support going forward, who would want to buy a PPC Mac?

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.

On a positive note, probably most of the free world is going to be watching Job's keynote on Monday because of this. Well, maybe not quite that many, but this keynote will get more attention now due to this "story" than any other before it. You can't buy publicity like that.

 

[DavidCar]

Slightly. But in reality the main problem porting is all the graphical elements - menus, buttons, dialog boxes etc. They all need _competely_ rewritten.

I think it would be a confidence builder if I could see Tiger running on a PC at WWDC.

 

[mduser63]

I don't know whether I really believe this or not, but if it's true, the biggest problem I see will be lack of compatibility with older applications for which developer support is gone. I don't worry about really old applications as emulation should be OK, but not so old applications won't run well under emulation until computers get significantly faster.

 

[lostboy85]

Well make sure to bring your rotten fruit to the keynote just incase.
Wow this had better be just a rumor.

 

[mad jew]

We're gonna look back at this thread after WWDC and think "Oh my god, what were we thinking!"



...hopefully...

 

[daveL]

I don't think it'll be a nightmare at all.

All of Cocoa, Quartz, Mach, and the FreeBSD kernel will be recompiled to x86. 75-95% of your standard application spends all of its time in here. The other 5%-25% would have to be emulated, which wouldn't be too slow thanks to the speed of Intel's chips.

The only problem will be things that us a lot of assembly-execution time. For example video editing software or games. These will have to be somewhat rewritten and recompiled to be bearable at all.

Oh, like all the Altivec code?

 

[ericdano]

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.

I think that Apple will buy the rights to the chip (or something like that), the G5, and have it produced and modified by Intel. Intel might be able to tweak it (faster, better, etc), and might be able to get more processors out for cheaper.

 

[Yvan256]

IBM=Lenovo=China=ENEMY

You did, of course, check were Apple computers were made.... right?

 

[Laurent]

I don't understand this. Intel makes RISC chips that aren't x86. Why should we think Apple isn't going to be supplied with somehow PowerPC-like chips?

 

[TorbX]

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...

Edit:
MARKLAR!
(there, I said it)

 

[HAViK]

You have to ask yourself when the last time Apple made an announcement this far in advance.

OK, we knew what PowerPC CPUs were in the next gen (603/604) after the 601 -- but Apple has been tight lipped since then and has avoided public announcements.

If they were really doing it, they'd dump a x86 machine on the market and make it emulate a PowerPC until the developers recompile.

They wouldn't tell us they'll be switching to x86 next year, and kill sales for the next 2 years.

I agree on this. If they announced something like this so far ahead of time wouldn't sales be killed on their machines? I for one would not purchase a new mac until this new machine was out, and secondly, I think I would just purchase an amazing PC rig since they will be so similar no? Lower price, more performance. A mac only wins me over with the great feeling it gives you by owning and using it. But then again, an announcement so far ahead of time would be good for developers for sure. I just hope they don't pull a Longhorn type thing if they do decide to go this way, so many promises, so little return.

 

[SiliconAddict]

wow.... If true we are talking the biggest event in the history of Apple. Admittedly until it passes Jobs's lips its all rumor but still. Wow.

 

[xy14]

In five years..

Intel has just released then new Pentium 6, which can go blazing speeds of 10+ghz, while machines running Windows using IBM's PowerPC will go very slow at only 8ghz. Because Apple had a good reputation of managing its software to maintain optimal speed, it became the new Microsoft, while Microsoft died away because no one wanted to switch to a slower computer that isnt compatible with anything...hehe.

How do I know Microsoft will switch to IBM? lets just say xbox 360.

 

[mvc]

IF this happens, it's really just a logical conclusion to the process that Apple started years ago when it got rid of things like ADB ports and SCSI drives and moved increasingly toward the generally cheaper contemporary PC equipment and tech standards.

It has never stopped them from making superior hardware, and superior software. And this won't either.

It may also be a precursor, long term, to licensing OSX as a competing OS to Windows on the PC platform.

The people with most to lose from this are IBM and particularly Microsoft.

And to go along with this announcement, it would be the perfect time for Steve to introduce an Apple Two Button mouse.

 

[Booga]

So if they switched to an intel chip in it's current form wouldn't every bit of software from all companies have to be rewritten? This sounds like a nightmare transition.

Not at all. ReCOMPILED. It's the equivalent of clicking a radio button for which CPU you want to target, then doing a QA regression. It will mean changes for some of the SIMD stuff (maybe Apple will do a cross-compiler,) but in general it should be fairly painless for developers. MUCH more so than the 680x0 transition, and that one went fairly well.

 

[SiliconAddict]

How do I know Microsoft will switch to IBM? lets just say xbox 360.

You really don't get the gaming industry do you?

 

[vitaboy]

I think Apple has a secret weapon up its sleeve. If this rumor is true, I think the Intel-based Mac we will see will be a low-end machine. A $399 basic machine for the corporate market.

It will come with OS X for Intel as well as all the iLife apps and Safari ported to it, meaning the machine will be totally functional out of the box for 90% of users.

The secret ingredient is that OS X for Intel will have the ability to run existing Windows apps. Performance and compatibility will be on par with the perfomance of Classic Mac apps in OS X, or Motorola 68K apps on the first PPC 601-based Macs.

Such a machine would have GREAT appeal to corporations. It runs their existing Office suite for Windows as well as other Windows-only apps. Except that unlike Windows, there are no viruses or adware.

At the same time, because of the low-end nature of the machine (limited expandability, lower-end CPU, slight performance hit for Windows apps), it will protect Apple's core markets while forcing IBM to pay attention and perform better.

In essence, a low-end Intel Mac that comes with iLife and Safari, which can run exisiting Windows app at 80% native performance is the equivalent of Apple b****-slapping IBM. It's one thing to show IBM a technology demo of OS X running on an Intel chip in the labs, but another thing to annouce a real product. This gives Apple options on choosing the best route for the future, based on sales, developer interest, and IBM's response.

I would love to see IBM suddenly announce that it has a 3 GHz dual-core PPC in production, and Apple is finally able to announce a dual dual-core PowerMac at 3 GHz and a dual-core PowerBook with an HD screen in a month's time.

 

[aldo]

Yes, you're right, IBM's Power CPUs for servers aren't "full featured" either, right? The G5 was derived from the Power 4. The fact is PPC scales from embedded applications to super computing. Believe what you like. As a Mac owner, a forced transition to x86 would cost me a bunch of money and application support. It would also bring into question whether Apple can actually pull it off without committing suicide in the process. Maybe that doesn't matter to you; that's fine, but it matters to me.

Well firstly, neither Microsoft's or Sony are using IBM Power CPUs. They are using PPC -- yes, but they are vastly customised and the Cell CPU that Sony sells is very, very different.

The fact is that noone cares about CPU scaling. On an embedded device you use an XScale from Intel and change your GCC or other compiler flags to output to XScale. You want it on a larger embedded device? Do the same, but use MIPS. Hell, AMDs Geode CPUs are x86 and they only need 0.9W of power.

What people care about is power output, performance and price. IBM is losing all of these. It's 970FX Power Output rivals the worst Prescott days. It's performance is nothing special anymore and pales in comparision to a dual core from Intel/AMD. The prices are not great compared to Intel and AMD.