What really worries you about the Intel transition?

[Voidness]

Now that Macworld is just a few days away, and with anticipation for the new Intel-based Macs, I thought about what really worries me about the Intel transition, and I came up with 3 issues:

1- Adoption of Intel® Celeron evilness (or whatever new name Intel would be introducing for their new line of "broken" processors)
2- Adoption Intel® eXtreme Graphics (Intel® Media Accelerator, as they are calling it now)
3- The attack of the clones!

What are you guys worried about?

 

[TMA]

The only thing that concerns me slightly is how long universal binaries for popular software will be available once the transition is complete.

 

[Benjamindaines]

The only thing that concerns me slightly is how long universal binaries for popular software will be available once the transition is complete.

Yes that worries me too. I think Apple should create a "reverse Rosetta" for all of us on PPC to be able to run x86 mac apps.

 

[combatcolin]

Now that Macworld is just a few days away, and with anticipation for the new Intel-based Macs, I thought about what really worries me about the Intel transition, and I came up with 3 issues:

1- Adoption of Intel® Celeron evilness (or whatever new name Intel would be introducing for their new line of "broken" processors)
2- Adoption Intel® eXtreme Graphics (Intel® Media Accelerator, as they are calling it now)
3- The attack of the clones!

What are you guys worried about?

Apples built in graphics have always been able to blast a PC's built in graphics out of the water so i wouldn't worry there.

 

[PlaceofDis]

worried about app availability the most. and i hope OS X isn't pirated.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Apple either not having enough stock at launch, or there being a major HW or SW bug soon after launch. (see the infamous 50 MHz "downgrade" debacle with the launch of the Sawtooth G4's)

Either one would take the wind out of Apple's sales and they would lose their forward momentum.

 

[Benjamindaines]

Another thing about app availability is how long will the freeware / open source apps stay current for PPC.

 

[Voidness]

Yes that worries me too. I think Apple should create a "reverse Rosetta" for all of us on PPC to be able to run x86 mac apps.

Yeah, I also had this idea in mind. In case developers stopped making native apps for the PowerPC, why wouldn't Apple make some sort of "Reverse Rosetta", as you said, for x86 native apps? But from a business point of view, this won't be beneficial for Apple, since they want us to buy the new Intel-based hardware.

 

[puckhead193]

what worries the most is i don't want people to hack or install OS X on their cheep plastic PC boxes and run OS X. If your going to run OS X get it right and just get the whole package

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

What are you guys worried about?

That the new processors will allow execution of data fields in buffer overloads, even if Intel claims that they won't, and that someone exploits this (e.g. along with the sudo grace period or some other "hole") to make the first effective Mac OS X malware and release it into the wild.

Remember that the malware writers (and I'm first and formost talking the serious hackers/crackers, not your average script kiddie) is very much more familiar with Intel's architechture than PPC.

Security "experts" and Windows zelots would have a field day!

 

[umrdad]

OS X.x.xp

with no support for earlier systems or platforms

 

[maya]

I am worried, that I might not get my hands on a x86 iBook or PowerBook.

 

[pknz]

First couple of Mactels being less stable as the more mature PPCs
Loss of support from companies for PPC Macs

No one making games good games for PPC!

 

[bousozoku]

What worries me besides AMD not being involved? The strong possibility that Adobe will botch another transition and their products will become slower still.

To my thinking, they will head up a group of developers unwilling to put forth useful effort in achieving good software. Right now, it's obvious that they care about producing adequate software based on 15 year old designs. Will we see a lot of new software released that only runs on Intel Mac OS X because it's emulated?

I'm hoping that Apple will put things right quickly since it's already taken quite a few releases to get to decent performance in Mac OS X and that the developers are already putting their best effort into their part of our future.

 

[chatin]

64bit Worries

I'm concerned over 64bit. All the Intel products, except the Itaniums, use a psuedo 64bit add-on called EMT64. Not true 64bit. The AMD64 X2 competition can run circles around them!

 

[maya]

I'm concerned over 64bit. All the Intel products, except the Itaniums, use a psuedo 64bit add-on called EMT64. Not true 64bit. The AMD64 X2 competition can run circles around them!

64bit should not even be a concern for a home user. It pure advantage is for servers.

 

[chatin]

64bit should not even be a concern for a home user. It pure advantage is for severs.

Thank you maya. That soothed my troubled mind. Not your comment about servers, but the meditation thing!



Seriously 64bit is important to the Powerbook crowd. They crunch serious data.

 

[bousozoku]

64bit should not even be a concern for a home user. It pure advantage is for severs.

What does 64-bit computing sever?

3D users (gamers, in particular) could make use of expanded graphics space afforded by 64-bit computing.

 

[semaja2]

my concerns is stil the software thing, like when small developers stop making the ppc software or big developers doing the same. i mean that would just wreck my brand new fun ibook

 

[maya]

What does 64-bit computing sever?

3D users (gamers, in particular) could make use of expanded graphics space afforded by 64-bit computing.

Thank you, Mr. Word Police.


So you are telling me that you would install 8+GB of RAM to take advantage of 64-bit processors. If you have that much to burn, why not purchase a workstation.

 

[jhu]

That the new processors will allow execution of data fields in buffer overloads, even if Intel claims that they won't, and that someone exploits this (e.g. along with the sudo grace period or some other "hole") to make the first effective Mac OS X malware and release it into the wild.

Remember that the malware writers (and I'm first and formost talking the serious hackers/crackers, not your average script kiddie) is very much more familiar with Intel's architechture than PPC.

Security "experts" and Windows zelots would have a field day!

a well designed operating system will not allow this to happen (eg openbsd). so you're worried that mac os x isn't well designed?

 

[jhu]

1- Adoption of Intel® Celeron evilness (or whatever new name Intel would be introducing for their new line of "broken" processors)

depends on the celeron. the p4-based celerons suck. the pentium m-based celerons are quite good.

 

[jhu]

I'm concerned over 64bit. All the Intel products, except the Itaniums, use a psuedo 64bit add-on called EMT64. Not true 64bit. The AMD64 X2 competition can run circles around them!

i'm not quite sure what you mean by "pseudo 64-bit" since 64-bit software works just as well with emt64 as amd64. for all intents and purposes software will see emt64 as a true 64-bit platform.

 

[jhu]

Thank you, Mr. Word Police.


So you are telling me that you would install 8+GB of RAM to take advantage of 64-bit processors. If you have that much to burn, why not purchase a workstation.

on other architectures, there usually isn't a speed difference between 32-bit and 64-bit programs. however, x86_64 adds many more registers, so a program that doesn't even use 64-bit integer math will see a speed improvement when recompiled.

 

[thirdkind]

I thought the whole point of universal binaries was to make continued support for the PPC architecture easy on developers. Will supporting PPC still involve significant time and expense above and beyond what's spent on the x86 version?

I bought my first Power Mac in September despite warnings from some to hold out for the Intel transition, thinking PPC would be supported for many years. Mac users hold on to their machines for quite a long time, after all. I'd be really disappointed if in two or three years PPC support is abandoned completely.

Then again, I usually upgrade my software every other generation, and it's very likely vendors will provide cross upgrades from PPC versions to x86 versions. Adobe and Macromedia had no problems cross upgrading my old Windows versions of their suites to their current Mac counterparts at upgrade pricing. I'd be surprised if they didn't offer the same upgrade path to x86 Mac buyers.