Apple May be Intel Show Pony 481
Robert writes "Computer
Business Review reports that the implications of Apple dropping IBM as its chip vendor
in favor of Intel, announced earlier this week, will straddle the broader computing
landscape. Apple stands to gain a competitive edge by partnering with Intel because
it will have access to slightly cheaper stuff."
Skewed headlines (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple May Be Intel Show Pony
Indeed, twisted by the Dark Side of the Source, young Zawinski has become.
And that's just on the front page this morning! It's not that I have anything against a little editorializing, but these don't even seem like relevant comments any more...
Apple? Massive volume? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
KFG
Surely not... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the slashdot type crowd will find a way around it, but Apple will never sell copies for the general public, and they will never support it for non-macs. As long as they make it *difficult* for the general user to instal OS X on their Dells, etc.
I think saying Apple will *stop* people from running OS X on their computers is a bit much. That's why they have said they won't "allow" it.
Simple (Score:1, Insightful)
Stealing software (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm confused by this logic. How would running Windows on a Mac lead to people stealing Mac software?
And how is this a new problem? Fair enough, it's claimed that there isn't as much software piracy on the Mac as on Windows, but it must still constitute more than half of the install base? At least for home users. I don't know anyone who has paid for Office or Photoshop, for example. It can't be that much difference, can it?
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you read
Quite true (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If they wanted cheaper stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If they wanted cheaper stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Jobs's Plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Surely not... (Score:2, Insightful)
Then what's the point? I'd only try OSX if I could get it to run on generic, non-proprietary hardware. I don't currently buy *anything* from Apple and never have due to their draconian hardware lock-in that allows them to rape the consumer.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree with you that many will still buy Apple machines because it's 'easy', and of course they'll still get tech support, It'll be well under a year after release before the first pre-cracked OS X/x86 torrent is available download, which will mean they could lose quite a bit of business from the geek population.
Apple is about one and only one thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intel needs a show pony (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm on several of the JEDEC committees. Intel has no interest in developing hardware that breaks any rules.
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless a big market for video cards, sound cards, etc springs up around the Apple machines, you won't have much in the way of drivers even if you do get OS X running on your Dell.
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:5, Insightful)
So? What would some enthusiasts getting MacOSX running on their Athlon 64s mena to Apple? Nothing.
But it will stop a significant clone industry from developing. Even if it's relatively trivial to get MacOSX to boot on generic hardware, doing this as a business means you'd be a nice fat target for Apple's lawyers under the DMCA.
Re:Surely not... (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. I can install Windows on just about any old computer I can scrounge up from thrift shops.... Which is why I'm wondering why the switch to Intel isn't about cheap hardware. I certainly think that the move is to get people like myself using OSX. I still can't imagine ever buying overpriced Apple hardware, but I'll fork over $200 to try out their OS for fun.
Re:Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
They may lose some "business from the geek population", but I doubt it will be significant. I suspect the folks who run a cracked x86 version of OS X would not have been Apple customers anyway.
There are a significant number of people, like myself, who switched to OS X from Linux because it works without having to spend a weekend tweaking, testing, and swearing at the screen. It's likely we'll all line up to buy the new x86 (or whatever Intel chip) Macs. The guys who are running the cracked x86 will be the ones who don't mind having to spend hours playing, writing custom scripts, tweaking, and swearing in order to get the initial install to work, and then repearting that process every time they want to install a new application (which of course won't have been purchased either).
Re:Would be a FATAL error ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Until Apple has a Intel powered Mac out, I'd imagine that OS X will run on anything with supported hardware. However, if you check some of the MacRumors sites (thinksecret.com [thinksecret.com], MacRumors [macrumors.com], Apple Insider [appleinsider.com] to name a few), the general opinion is that they will use a different BIOS [macrumors.com]
Apple also makes excellent hardware designs. How about a Dual P4 iMac in a case the size it currently is? Apple is about hardware and software. Moving to Intel just means that they will be just as fast as anything you can get Windows to run on.
Re:Surely not... (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, you buy from Microsoft, who would never dare do such a thing.
I think that was sarcasm, so responding with 'Exactly' is not really appropriate ; )
Exactly. I can install Windows on just about any old computer I can scrounge up from thrift shops....
You can't buy a PC with anything but Windows installed on it, and competing OSs have a habit of dying inglorious deaths (Be, OS/2, Next). I wonder why?
You think Microsoft has your best interests at heart?
If it weren't for Microsoft's ruthless and illegal suppression of any competition, we might have a vibrant OS scene with several alternatives on x86. It might not have taken us till a few years ago to have decent web browsers. Consumers might actually have a choice of hardware and software. You haven't even noticed because you're so focused on the cheap hardware side of the equation. If you can't see how you're locked in there to MS products, you must be blind.
I doubt Apple will ever fully support any old PC that you find in a junk shop, however at some point they might start making deals with PC OEMs to sell OS X - that would seem the most likely long term reason for jumping to x86, along with the removal of the roadblocks on the PPC roadmap. It fits with the previous Next strategy, and Next has slowly taken over Apple from the inside. This time, if they manage the transition well, they have the big software providers with them, already producing the major apps for their platform. That's a lot of momentum all previous contenders didn't have.
PS, Apple don't 'rape' their customers, they are more expensive than cheaper, often cut-down PC alternatives like Dells. You might compare their laptops to things like IBM Thinkpads, in the same price range, and with the same range of features. I have no idea why you feel this is comparable to rape.
Re:MODS! (Score:3, Insightful)
With LATEST_APPLE_HARDWARE and the LATEST_APPLE_SOFTWARE. Apple is going to take over the world!!
The reality is that Apple is stuck at about 3% of market and some very loyal customers and few strong niches, but no real "momentum". They're profitable and make customers happy but they're never going to take over. Stealing desktop marketshare from Sun or Linux barely makes any statistical difference.
At this point, people have the right to be cynical about the eternal unpopularity of the Linux Desktop, but that only translates into Mac Advocacy because the editorial biases of this site.
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't see Apple using some generic PC board in a production Macintosh. They WILL use a board that they design, and it won't be like a PC board. As the above poster stated, Apple doesn't need to support Legacy crap.
Just because the development machine is a standard PC, doesn't mean that the shipping product is going to be one. The development machine is to just get developers started in getting their code working on Intel powered machines. And Steve Jobs did say they would want them back (the machines). So, I'd think that in 6 months, a lot of Developers are going to be asked to send back the machines and receive real Intel Macs before they become available to the public.
Re:If they wanted cheaper stuff (Score:1, Insightful)
Intel and AMD are in a leapfrog games. AMD is ahead a few years, then Intel is a head a few years. From 2006/2007 and forward perhaps Intel will be infront.
Revolutionary? Try the Cell processor. (Score:3, Insightful)
The risk is that the sales of the game units falter, and the market of cheap computer components used by the Cell processor never materializes. On the other hand, the benefit is that the future Apple Macintosh will provide a graphical experience that rivals the very best animation created by Industrial Light & Magic. Another benefit is that Apple retains its status as a rebel fighting the establishment.
However, Apple management chose the evolutionary establishment-approved route: x86. It is a safer bet than the Cell. The next generation Apples will hawk significant price reductions due to the use of all those cheap Chinese components manufactured in the Taiwanese-run factories and R&D facilities in China[1].
side note
---------
The Taiwanese voluntarily invested more than $100 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. More than 1 million Taiwanese voluntarily emigrated to China to live and work. More than 50% of Taiwan's GDP is now dependent on commerce with China.
Re:Hype vs. actual developments (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intel needs a show pony (Score:5, Insightful)
And it makes sense to support Apple on Intel.
Up until now, Intel has had to rely on their periodic festival of dreck, where they feature some cloners' ideas of cool computer designs, which usually suck (PC ottomans?), and generally include something that looks an awful lot like something Apple recently shipped.
It doesn't help that nobody is really betting their company on those designs succeeding.
Now with Apple, Intel doesn't need to rely on second rate designers or whimsical-but-useless designs produced without any concern for marketability.
And on top of physical attributes, these showpiece machines will be running OS X, which makes the Apple machines more distinctive. Otherwise, Intel has to say "It's an ottoman! That runs Windows! Isn't that... great?! Huh? Huh? Pretty cool, huh? Comfy, too! Haven't you wished your laptop was an ottoman sometimes? No? Oh. But, wait, you can get it with a Green Bay Packers logo on it!" (yawn)
Re:the intel mini (Score:3, Insightful)
Now Intel has a partner that is willing to think outside of the clone box.
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Revolutionary? Try the Cell processor. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, as a game console oriented chip, the Cell isn't about ramping up processor power/speed. It is about cutting manufacturing costs while holding the processing power steady. Do you really want Apple to make major transition to an unproven CPU architecture that is going to remain at the same speed over its lifetime? At least with x86 Apple has five years experience with making the code run. Going to the Cell would mean starting with no experience.
Re:Maybe better to let OS-X run on a generic PC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus a HP or a Sony would be a much stronger partner than that crappy PowerComputing outfit.
Folks need to understand that Apple has just turned itself inside-out. You can no longer make any assumptions based on how they handled things in the past, their business model is going to have to change.
Re:Intel needs a show pony (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks like an ugly, extremely generic PC for playing games on.
Or Alienware, for that matter?
Looks like an ugly, generic PC for playing games on. That has been made shiny in an attempt at "style."
Re:Surely not... (Score:3, Insightful)
But I see no reason why Microsoft wouldn't want to make sure Windows XP and Longhorn run beautifully on Apple's new Intel-based Macs. After all, Microsoft is a software company, and they want to sell as many copies of Windows as possible.
(By the way, although Apple is a hardware company and Macs running Windows is better than Dell PCs running Windows, Windows running on Macs really wouldn't be in Apple's best interest - it will encourage developers to say "just reboot into Windows to run our app! We don't need to port it to OSX." It will be interesting to see how this works out.)
Re:Skewed headlines (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, once you get past "Computer Business Review reports that," the whole "summary" is just the first few sentences yanked from the article, with nothing to let you know that it's a direct quote. I hate it when they do that. If you're going to summarize, SUMMARIZE for pete's sake. If you're too lazy to do that, a few quotation marks do wonders.
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:3, Insightful)
While there are a few *compatible* modes from way back still supported in modern PCs (at no real added cost, financial or performance), these are almost unused in modern software.
Perhaps you have not noticed how modern PCs have highly complex interrupt virtualisation/routing capabilities, programmable edge/level sensitivity, prioritisation, etc in their interrupt subsystems, or how 'DMA' has grown in to a full arbitrated bus master/slave transfer system allowing zero-CPU activity transfers even between different IO devices directly, but that does not mean they are not there.
There is no legacy pc 'crap' as you put it, just a handfull of compatibility modes that are so immaterial as to mean nothing.
Do you really think the physical memory map means anything in these days of fully remapped virtual memory?
A modern 'pc' makes the system architecture of a 15 year old alpha server,a 10 year old sun workstation, or a 5 year old Macintosh look like a joke.
Lets also not forget that the internals of a modern Macintosh, other than the CPU and memory subsystem, are basically all PC hand-me-downs now anyway, IDE, USB, PCI, video cards, the list goes on.
Re:That May be true... (Score:2, Insightful)
You're the kind of person I'm talking about; willing to trade freedom for gaudy buttons and the illusion of occasional convenience, no matter how irrelevant that vaunted "convenience" actually is. I'm glad you fanboys are leaving Linux; you never understood the value of it it the first place.
I've been a corporate slave before, paying the yearly tithe and begging for scraps at the altar of Jobs. Jobs lets you "use" his software but when it suits him he pulls the rug out from under you. No longer. I'm more pragmatic than that. I figured it out long ago; freedom is more important.
You haven't figured it out yet. That's your problem. Linux will still be here when Jobs burns you all again and you finally get a clue.
Re:That May be true... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Corporate slave", "yearly tithe", "altar of jobs"? What planet are you living on? It's a computer, not a political statement. With a Uid as low as yours, you're too old to be blurting that sort of tripe.
And after all those stereotypical catchphrases, you're accusing me of being a "Fanboy"?
You appear to be rather emotionally tied to your choice of platform. Now calm down, and try to talk rationally. It's a computer with an OS, not your entire sense of being.
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:3, Insightful)
When you boot a modern PC, it turns on with the hardware set up just like the original XT. A20 line disabled, crappy cascaded interrupt and DMA controllers in use, etc. Yes, a modern OS will disable that stuff as part of the boot process, but it does have to work with the old stuff for the early stages of the boot process.
As to the physical memory map, that certainly makes a big difference on the boot process. See zImage vs bzImage in the Linux kernel. You still have to load your kernel and do a decent amount of setup work within the 640KB limit before you can enable virtual memory.
So as you said, this stuff isn't really an issue once the OS is running. But the whole discussion is about making the boot process different.
Re:how could they stop it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That May be true... (Score:3, Insightful)
- dmix doesn't solve the problem, and we all know it. If it was as simple as plug-n-play-ing a program, it'd be done. But it's not. Even the dmix documentation admits that many apps do not take advantage of it yet.
- A $10 card that supports sound mixing, but not the other features he wanted. Oh, and a $10 card that you can't just go out and buy at a store. You need to hunt around to get it. Time is worth money.
- Quite frankly? Switching to Fedora 4 was the complex solution. Zawinsky has used linux for years. Why should he expect it to stop biting him in the ass over and over?
Your criticism is based on an experience that is at least 4-5 years in the past. This is 2005. Please join us. We're talking about Mac OS X, preferably 10.3 or 10.4. Switching to Mac OS X hurts this ideological Freedom a lot less than other moves, and certainly a lot less than linux hurts itself by being such a fragmented community. Vast swaths of OSX are open sourced and free as in beer, and the license is OSS-approved. The parts that aren't tend to fall under ESR's definition for what kinds of code shouldn't be open sourced, like the windowing system's video-card-virtual memory-system.Linux's fragmentation has some benefits, but it hurts them in many areas. For example, why aren't people jumping on Apple's 100% open sourced launchd for their distros? There is no code to port, just distros to reconfigure. It's a much better solution, and it's backwards compatible. Gentoo may have an excuse. But most distros do not. The common excuse for why? A bunch of handwaving about how XML sucks and completely untrue allegations of insoluable Mach dependencies.
How about ALSA adoption? Why would anyone use anything but ALSO and dmix-support these days? Dunno, but people refuse. Apps don't get support, and great features fall by the wayside.
And how about KDE? Dude, Qt is not good for the FSF movement. But people love KDE and it's gaining dominance in the market.
I recommend linux for server applications ever day. It's part of what I do. I believe in linux. But because of non-tecnical reasons, the various distros have a hard time keeping cutting edge and adapting as fast as MacOS X is. Did you ever notice how the biggest advances in the linux user experience tend to occur on distribtuion boundaries?
While freedom is nice, my first loyalty as a geek is to technical superiority and correctness. Call me a sellout, but I'd rather work on The Future, and let the OSS movement continue to play catchup to force commercial vendors to innovate in order to keep charging