Apple Switching To Intel Chips In 2006 1427
telstar writes "According to C|Net, Apple has officially decided to drop IBM, and will use Intel processors starting in their '06 line of systems. This change was rumored last month. The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech." From the article: "Apple successfully navigated a switch in the 1990s from Motorola's 680x0 line of processors to the Power line jointly made by Motorola and IBM. That switch also required software to be revamped to take advantage of the new processors' performance, but emulation software permitted older programs to run on the new machines."
Hello Pear! (Score:5, Funny)
x86 (Score:3, Funny)
Must be a slow news week at CNET... (Score:5, Funny)
Hell has frozen over. (Score:1, Funny)
It's going to be a terribly difficult rewrite... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:You heard it here first (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for the insight. Did you happen to miss the entire point of this slashdot post?
Re:The sky is falling! (Score:3, Funny)
Say it ain't so! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
good thing i bought armageddon insurance!!
Well spank my ass and call me Judy! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm scared. Hold me.
Re:MacOSX on x86? (Score:5, Funny)
if Apple get's it's own chipset
ERROR: unnecessary apostrophe overflow
I'll eat my hat... (Score:4, Funny)
Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.
So Apple's going to force their Developers, the people who need to have the latest, greatest and fastest machines, to use Mac Minis to develop their software on? Not in a billion years!
There's no way in Hell that Apple could ever get away with switching low-end Mac Minis first and then top of the line Power Macs a year later. No developer is going to torture himself on a Mac Mini when they could be developing on a Dual 2.7 GHz (or higher) G5. Sure there are those that will say that Apple will let you compile on a G5 and then just test on a Mini - that will never happen either. It would increase development time by at least a factor of 2 and probably more. This would effectively kill the Mac platform.
If Apple would ever consider this (which I doubt, AMD is far better than Intel and I believe the PPC platform has a far brighter future than the x86 platform, just look at all the next-gen gaming consoles) then they would need to transition their high-end machines first if not at the same time as everything else.
Not to mention the fact that SSEx pales in comparison to Altivec. Why does this matter? Because Apple has invested heavily in vectorized libraries, especially CoreImage. CoreImage & Quartz 2D Extreme rely heavily on Altivec when you don't have a graphics card capable of running them. SSE just wouldn't be able to cut it. Also, what's Apple to do with all their engineers that have so much experience with PPC and Altivec? I could go on and on.
It would take 4-5 years or more for Apple to make the transition and optimize OS X on Intel to where it is today (Apple might have a version of OS X running on x86, but I'm sure that it's nowhere near as optimized as Tiger is for PPC). Does Apple really want to give Microsoft that much time to catch up? I think not! They'd much rather run circles around Microsoft. It will be a cold day in Hell before this happens.
OH GOD FUCK YES MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Must be a slow news week at CNET... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This obviously means no Powerbook G5s (Score:3, Funny)
And a bike is almost a motorcycle.
Re:Well spank my ass and call me Judy! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:MacOSX on x86? (Score:1, Funny)
Dude, if you're going to be reading slashdot you'd better make your parser a little more robust than that when handling malformed input.
Re:Any Evidence At All? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
Re:It was only a joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Apple vs IBM (Score:2, Funny)
Re:April Fools? Right? (Score:3, Funny)
The P3 being just a somewhat revised, better-process P2; and the P2 being a somewhat revised, better-process Pentium Pro. Which was introduced in 1995. The Pentium M is a supercharged 686.
Re:April Fools? Right? (Score:2, Funny)
shudder
Re:The sky is falling! (Score:5, Funny)
And I got laid! We're all fucked!
Re:The sky is falling! (Score:3, Funny)
You might be, but I'm still waiting... bastard
Re:Apple vs IBM (Score:2, Funny)
Do you know him personally? Do you know he has a heart of gold and a soft spot for babies, dogs and old people? Do you know those mean old reporters are just jealous of his manliness, his leadership, his, his, his MOJO?
Yeah, you are being an ass.
What's the magic word? "x86"! (Score:2, Funny)
So, Intel and Apple (though not x86) is mentioned in some rumor articles and you will now be surprised unless Apple switch to AMD x86 processors?.
My advice? Next time be wary of the difference between caffeine and cocaine.
Re:Any Evidence At All? (Score:2, Funny)
-Nano.
Re:This obviously means no Powerbook G5s (Score:2, Funny)
You have obviously had an experience with a Pentium 4 HP "desktop replacement" unit. Of which seem to actually run hotter and weigh more than the iMac G5 (once you remove the stand ;-)
It does not make sense. (Score:2, Funny)
I have one final thing I want you to consider: (pulling down a diagram of of x86 chip) this is the x86 processor. The x86 is a processor from Intel, but the x86 is now installed in MAC Mini. Now, think about that. That does not make sense!
Why would a x86 processor -- not even a PPC -- come be be found in MAC Mini with a bunch of Mac software? That does not make sense!
But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this post? (calmly) Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this post! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a software developer posting on slashdot, and I'm talkin' about x86 on a Mac. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.
And so you have to remember, when you're sitting there reading this post and wondering where in the hell is Chewbacca... does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this fine website, it does not make sense.
If x86 is now found in Mac hardware, you must accept it!
End Post.