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Apple Switching to Intel
Posted by
pudge
on Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:54 PM
from the but-but-but-but dept.
from the but-but-but-but dept.
Steve Jobs announced at the WWDC keynote today that Apple is switching to Intel processors. MacNN has live coverage. The bottom line is that Mac OS X for the last five years has been running on Intel, the switch is expected to be complete in two years, and Rosetta will allow PPC apps to run on Intel-based Macs, transparently. If you're using Xcode, it is small changes and a recompile; otherwise, you might be seeing a lot of work ahead of you. You will be able to order the 10.4.1 preview for Intel today.
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Apple Switching to Intel
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Have a taste... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday November 16, @09:04AM)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Informative)
Apple is adopting Intel, but is not "ditching" IBM.
New G5 towers will still be around for at least another year, and probably at least two. Intel is probably going to start by replacing the G4 CPUs in Powerbooks and minis.
At the Stevenote, he informed devs that they would be supporting both platforms for a long time to come.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a huge blow to PowerPC's credibility, though. First, Motorola had problems, then IBM couldn't deliver competitive chips. Without MAC, that leaves IBM's own machines running PowerPC, which will vastly shrink PowerPC's Slashdot fanboy club. MAC is what made PowerPC 'cool' outside of the embedded world.
It'll still be true that it's x86-64, SPARC, and PowerPC moving forward as the surviving ISAs, but the overall balance in the demographic will be quite different by a few million CPUs after two years.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
But people don't buy computers for the concept. The x86 world beat out the PPC world when it comes to consumer chips by simply doing a better job of implementation. While IBM was promising 3 GHz performance that they couldn't deliver, Intel was cranking out a new chip which offers more performance per Watt on laptops than the "insanely great" G4.
x86 didn't look like it had a hell of a lot of potential three years ago, but AMD and Intel kept pounding. A good old "three yards and a cloud of dust" attack won the game.
You're right.... dammit! (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday November 13 2003, @03:44PM)
That the chip guys could start spending resources on actual innovation in hardware design, without having to keep one foot in the bucket of x86 binary compatibility.
That PowerPC, or the Cell, or anything with less than thirty years of binary baggage, might get out ahead and stay there long enough to put x86 to rest.
Dammit!
Re:You're right.... dammit! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.sophiafieldphotography.com/)
A lot of people won't give up, though: in the face of enormous evidence they'll still assure themselves that because something is "new" and "clean" it's somehow better.
So if x86, with all it's hacks and kludges, is still faster and more efficient than these so called "clean" designs, what the heck is the point of having a clean design?
Cheers.
but what about 68k code? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday December 30 2004, @06:43PM)
Will it happen with the 68k emulator itself being emulated.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I *do* have enough 68k software for this to be an issue
hawk
Re:You're right.... dammit! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.article16.org/)
From an architectural standpoint, PPC is still a lot cleaner than x86. But the immense brainpower and $ that Intel has put behind x86 made it into something that is hard to beat even with a cleaner design.
In the end, it's a matter of priorities: Intel had to go low-power and had the resources to develop this technology while the company line was going in the exact opposite direction (P4). Now they are killing with it. Even AMD is way behind regarding low power chips.
IBM never wanted to commit the resources or people to make the G5 portable. They would have had to spend serious money - chip design is extremely expensive - and hire very very good people. IBM never had this commitment.
Besides, I have this feeling that the G5 was designed with some P4-envy in mind: Huge pipeline, high clock speeds. And using lots of power and generating lots of heat... Intel had the Pentium-M as a 'plan B' for this boneheaded strategy, whereas Apple/IBM did not.
AMD kept Intel Honest. (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://tsfraser.googlepages.com/index.html)
It is just in the same way that Linux forced Microsoft to improve. If you don't believe me see Windows 3.1 and compare it to windows 95 - 98. And now compare it with Windows 2000 and 2003. Microsoft OS's are much more dependable then they were back 10 years ago and much more then they nessarly wanted it to be.
Now with Mac using x86 this will probably keep the Dells, Gateways, and other honest by having With these new Macs being able to Run windows as well (although not supported). So now the consumer can either choose a well designed system, that can run OS X with all its niceties and run Windows too.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday April 04 2004, @09:33PM)
Not according to the NYT [nytimes.com].
By contrast, the chips I.B.M. makes for Apple represent less than 2 percent of chip production at its largest factory in East Fishkill, N.Y. And while the microelectronics business as a whole is strategically important for I.B.M., it is a small part of the revenue of a company that increasingly focuses on services and software. A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, estimates that the company's technology group - mostly microelectronics - will account for less than 3 percent of I.B.M.'s revenues and 2 percent of its pretax income this year.
For years, according to industry analysts, the work for Apple has been barely a break-even business for I.B.M. When the two companies were negotiating a new contract recently, Mr. Jobs pushed for price discounts that I.B.M. refused to offer. For I.B.M., "the economics just didn't work," said one industry executive who was briefed on the negotiations. "And Apple is not so important a customer that you would take the financial hit to hold onto the relationship."
I'm more interested in this quote [com.com]:
However, [Apple Senior Vice President Phil] Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."
Too bad. I'd like to run OS X w/out having to pay an Apple hardware premium.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
Trusted Computing/DRM? I don't see any other way then through some form of remote attestation. Given their track record with iPod DRM, i wouldn't put it past them, either.
Perhaps the Mac crowd will become the ultimate DRM apologists, claiming, with some credibility, that Mac couldn't survive if it didn't have TC/DRM involved.
A unique argument: We're using technology to preserve a monopoly - except that it isn't really a monopoly.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://iabervon.org/~barkalow/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 31 2003, @02:01AM)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://shockandblog.com/blog)
Lawyers?
Not using openfirmware (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday April 27 2007, @02:20PM)
from cnet today:
http://news.com.com/Apple+throws+the+switch%2C+al
--------------
After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."
However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.toonamiarsenal.com/)
I can't wait to see what people are able to do (legitimately or not) with the x86 dev boxes...
Re:Have a taste... (Score:4, Insightful)
Once the machine has booted, it has booted. And remember, MacOS X Leopard would have to tell the difference between running over Darwin on Apple hardware, vs. running over Darwin on generic hardware. It isn't MacOS X Leopard that boots; it's Darwin. And we know it will work.
I fear Apple is setting themselves up to compete against Microsoft _and_ Dell at the same time. And they won't have the cash to pull it off. Revenues are going to fall off sharply this year and next; noone will want to spend money on PPC software that will be hobbled by running on an emulator in just a year or two. And if you're not buying new software, why bother buying new hardware?
Precedent: Silicon Graphics "Visual Workstation" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.miscz.pl/)
My guess is just a really fast Virtual PC (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://homepage.mac.com/mikemunson/)
I think the more likely scenario is a version of Virtual PC that doesn't suck. Runs the windows code semi-natively...
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://allyourbasearebelongto.us/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 14, @04:15PM)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to wonder if maybe he's hedging his bets. If IBM or one of the PPC licensees comes out of their coma and delivers, he has plenty of opportunities to backstroke. Nothing like having some options.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.sdonag.plus.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday June 07 2006, @04:05AM)
Sorry, just seemed appropriate.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.cs80.com/)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Funny)
This only caused the I/O of some geeks to choke up due to wrong endianness. But for most Mac users the network flows as calm as ever.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.kabong.ca/)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Saddening. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.autobotcity.net/)
Apple has been slowly transitioning from proprietary hardware for a very long time. 20 years ago the system was all SCSI/68000/3.5" floppies (when PCs were IDE/x86/5.25"). That stuff cost too much money though (economics of scale), so they switched. The only thing left was the CPU, and its been killing them.
As long as the machines are still built by apple exclusively, this'll be more-or-less transparent to the mac user.
Re:Saddening. (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.killerdeathrobot.com/)
Either that, or that Jobs has made a mistake in going to Intel.
Re:Saddening. (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday December 08 2006, @09:23AM)
That sounds more like a free operating system running on commodetized parts.