First Look at Apple's Intel Developer Macs 770
xyankee writes "Think Secret is reporting that developers have started taking receipt of Apple's Intel-based Mac kits. Along with some specs and photos, the site reports that Windows XP installs without a hitch on the systems and that casually trying to install Mac OS X for Intel on a Dell doesn't work... yet..."
Strategy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps this is part of the strategy? I wonder if they could run Windows on one core and OSX on the other.
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
AMD pulled an ace on Intel with x86-64 and it seems AMD will also have the better deal on virtualization with more of it being transparently handled by hardware.
To me, it seems Intel severely dulled its edge on the P4 anvil. I wonder how many years it will take for it to be solidly back on tracks... I am guessing 3-5 years as a minimum unless something truly ground-breaking failed to leak through the usual rumour channels.
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Strategy? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151972&
I'm dead serious- I WANT this. I really like the Powerbook. I think it has one of the best feature sets of any laptop on the market. And it looks sexy. But, I'm not totally sold on OS X, probably because I'm really quite productive in Windows. If I could switch back without ditching the hardware if I ended up not liking it as much, I'd be really stinkin' happy.
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Funny)
Just put wine on it (Score:4, Interesting)
If wine runs on all x86 unix-like OS's, and OSX is unix-like, will wine run on OSX-86? It would open up a very large market for apple without having to invest too much money. They will need to do some tricks to get it to use native widgets and stuff, but that's not impossible to do.
The downside is that the better wine works, the better the adware/spyware works on it too. I am probably not the only one to infect my wine IE install with ad/spyware.
What works for OSX will maybe also work for linux. There are already ABI's to make use of executables compiled for *BSD, so maybe OSX-86 binaries will run on linux soon too.
(yup wishfull thinking and pie in the sky...)
Re:Just put wine on it (Score:3, Interesting)
2) did you read the article yesterday about Codeweavers support? Apparently the Wine codebase works great under Linux, but BSD support is regularly broken.
Re:Just put wine on it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone listening? (Score:3, Funny)
That is the same exact same reason Linux will do so great on that new Apple hardware!!!!
fsck you Dvorak, you are a hack
Re:Is anyone listening? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or in other words: Hardly anybody cares about running Linux applications on an OS X platform because many Linux applications have been ported and run just as well on OS X. The same isn't true for Windows.
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Informative)
It is not a problem of being able to run both concurrently on separate processors; it is being able to manage hardware resources (busses, graphics, peripherals, etc...) among operating
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, a simulated NAT could be done. So, the second OS has a different IP address, and doesn't directly touch the router, only the OS that eventually touches the router.
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Let both OSes share the same IP, same MAC.
2. Put Windows behind a virtual NAT router on its own IP and own software-generated MAC.
Either way, Virtual PC software sits between Windows and the OS X network stack. In the first case, Virtual PC handles corner cases where both OSes are trying to run services on the same port, etc... To the outside w
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Never had a single NIC in Linux bound to multiple IP's have yo
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Running two OSes still doesn't seem quite parallel to having Linux sitting underneath all those IPs to manage them, but apparently I don't quite understand how switches learn to direct packets. So... I still see problems on the machine trying to run two OSes, but I trust that you're right in saying that external switches/rou
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? That's almost exactly the opposite of what most people say... "Oh, I love the UI and OS, but I'm sure not paying an extra [$100 / $500 / $1000] for their hardware!"
Aesthetics being the usual culprit, it's amazing that Apple's more "unique" designs, like the original iMac, appeal to people despite the fact that the machines are really kinda marginal.
So, would someone pay an extra hardware fee just to have a funky looking hardware design that runs Windows (gamerz not withstanding; I guess they've demonstrated that people will, but we're talking mainstream here.)
I doubt it. If Apple chucked OS X into the bin and just started shipping Windows boxes, they'd stay in the computer hardware business, oh, maybe 14 minutes. No "true" Mac person would buy one, out of righteous indignation, if nothing else, and the snobs out there who would be willing to pay a premium for what would amount to nothing more than a cool looking beige box would be too few in number to keep it going long.
Apple's strength is indeed in design, but that's bolstered by a great software product holding it up. Without OS X, Aqua and all the doo-dads that you show off to your friends, it's just a pretty looking box.
And if said box is stuffed under your desk and the only entry to it you have is through your monitor, who cares what it looks like?
iMacs are a consumer machine. Marginal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aesthetics being the usual culprit, it's amazing that Apple's more "unique" designs, like the original iMac, appeal to people despite the fact that the machines are really kinda marginal.
iMacs with each freshening have been re-situated at a tier and a nudge behind a power/graphics user's level -- which is to say as a decidedly middle-class system. "Marginal" isn't the word for that. They're middle-class appliance computers. Actually as each generation of iMac has come out, Apple watchers have wondered whether the top-of-the-line models were being undercut by them on performance-for-price. The iMac G5 models were no exception. As they came out, /. types were anticipating new tower G5s, because otherwise that line almost didn't make sense any more.
And if said box is stuffed under your desk and the only entry to it you have is through your monitor, who cares what it looks like?
And again, iMacs are designed precisely for people who do not NOT NOT want to dedicate a hutch shrine to their tower down in the basement. Desk? Who wants to dedicate a whole desk in some extra office in their house? That's exactly the model that Apple was tilting against. Note the emphasis on low footprint, from the first CRT models on. This is for people whose response to a tower under the typical chintzy computer desk is "ugh" (and to some extent for schools with limited space or spots on a long counter).
(Personally I got an original Rev A CRT iMac gratis, and it grew on us a ton. There's a lampshade 17" version on the narrow kitchen counter now. The machine's lasted for years now, so if it was marginal when it started it must be positively archaic now -- despite being quite capable of handling Tiger and everything else I've had to touch on it. And it's displaced the [more recent] Wintel boxes in the house, despite my being required to keep those up for work reasons. They're in the basement corner for over a year now. The kids liked the iMacs far more.)
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I'm not a mind reader, but I don't think that Steve Jobs' intent in the grand scheme of things is to become a boutique manufacturer. Apple sees the Intel roadmap as a path to a significantly greater market share, and that means hitting the mainstream, not picking up ten guys here and there.
This is an argument that I've seen numerous times over the years... Apple should just dump the OS and start selling PC clones with pizzazz. But distinguishing yourself in a design which, like I said, for most people is irrelevant because it's still just a computer that few people see, and a higher price, isn't going to bring people in the doors.
Logically, your argument is correct. Ten guys is ten guys. Realistically, it's not. That's not where Apple is headed. Well, hopefully not, because that's a dead end.
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Although this is historically true, it would be foolish to assume that this would be true in perpetuity. The balance of revenue streams in a business does change over time, sometimes by the whims of market forces, and sometimes by deliberate strategy. Take the iPod/iTunes revenue stream, for example, which could be a deliberate attempt to grow a revenue stream that is large enough to ensure that Apple could survive a transition from
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Who? I have never heard anyone say they hate the Mac OS. I have heard they hate that they could not get this or that program for the Mac but I have never hear that they hate Mac/OS.
You are probably right that Apple couldn't care less if you bought an Apple and ran WindowsXP on it. They get their money so who cares.
Two potential big winners in this will be VMWare and CrossOver Office. The lack of software fo
Re:Strategy? (Score:4, Informative)
There is a way to use menus without a mouse:
System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts > Keyboard Navigation > Move focus to the menu bar.
You can change the short cut key to any key or combination you like.
Re:Strategy? (Score:4, Interesting)
I prefer to think of Apple as a consumer appliance company (allbeit a consumer appliance that runs Unix). The OS is an integrated part of that. It's only when you think of the PC market where the hardware has been commoditized do you think of the need to buy a seperate OS.
Re:Strategy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ofcourse its not free - the price is just hidden.
Re:Strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ludicrous? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one of the reasons people like to say Apple is secure. For remote exploits, they have a fabulous reputation of quick patches. For local exploits, they have an average (good, but marred by a few bad apples, like the sync bug).
But, MacOSX has always defaulted to all-services-off. So, you wouldn't see a worm targetting the AFP server making it very far on the net.
Apple's security is on par with most Linux distros. This does not mean it's OpenBSD. It means that it does have some bugs, but is highly resistant to most attacks. Apple has been able to be more lax about buffer overflows because of the PPC's architecture, which makes a classic buffer overflow more difficult. When they switch to Intel, we'll probably see them step up their local security policy to compensate.
And your comment, "Most of these are ludicrous! Look at how many remote vulnerabilities there are! Some are absurd! Didn't apple do ANY checking?" That implies that you are not a security person, don't really understand the vulnerabilities listed, and are trying to spread FUD. I count 5 exploits that are triggerable remotely (even if they are not going to disclose data and permissions remotely). Of course Apple does checking. That's why the thing isn't riddled with bugs, has awesome security features like a time sensitive, integrity-checking Keychain, and generally has a good set of secure, default settings.
Re:Ludicrous? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two kinds of insecure. The first, insecure and everyone knows it, is Windows. That's bad. The second is statistically insecure, which is the state of most software today. Very few systems actually go to the level of rigor provided by OpenBSD which allows them to make bold claims about security.
And even then, they mess up.
Well yeah, that'd be great, I'm sure. But you're tragically misinformed if you think this will ever be the case. The state of software engineering, and by extension security techniques, is constantly changing. In software, you update until you're obsolete. If you don't like that, don't use software.
Bugs have slipped through, and they will continue to slip through. This is a problem endemic to the industry, and Free Software is no exception. Please do not blame Apple. If you must blame someone, blame the Apple Fanboys who preach absolute security, because they're creating unfair expectations. So far, OS X has a good track record as a desktop OS. As a server OS, I wouldn't go that far.
You mean the qts file heap overflow? [securiteam.com]. The one blown totally out of proportion because successful remote code execution was extremely difficult?
You mean the one Secunia rated at "Very Low Risk"? [secunia.com] because it was trumped up by the mac antivirus community? The one that doesn't work properly if you have "show file extensions" on? The one that Apple publicly acknowledged? [macworld.com]
Yeah, too bad they don't work anymore.
Because things like Gentoo, Debian and Redhat get special poster-child treatment. They cheerfully call people when their integrated apps have holes. But, when someone points out that many standard linux applications have holes in them, they claim it's "not part of the distribution."
I was talking about on the front page. Yes, Apple has has remote exploits. As I said, in general their track record on patching them has been at least as good as any other commercial vendor. A heck of a lot better than some. They are not the paragon of security, and as they move to intel machines (which, architecturally, are easier to exploit and better understood by the crowd who writes exploits) t
Re:Strategy? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the reason why Microsoft didn't completely fold up the Mac Business Unit after Apple raised its middle finger in Microsoft's face with Safari and iWork was that the "Chief Software Architect" prefers working with Mac OS X over XP.
Who could blame him?
I believe this is also why, when MacIntel makes its appearance, that without fail there will be a brand new version of Virtual PC that will use Intel's hardware virtualization ideas and the Connectix Windows/Mac OS connectivity co
In case we lose the article due to slashdotting (Score:5, Informative)
By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor
June 22, 2005 - Apple's Intel-based Mac development kits have started trickling into developer's hands, Think Secret has learned.
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The Apple Development Platform ADP2,1, as the systems are officially designated, features 3.6GHz Pentium 4 processors with 2MB of L2 cache operating on an 800MHz bus with 1GB of RAM.
The Intel systems run Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger identically on the surface as ordinary Macs, with the exception of a modified Processor System Preference (from Apple's CHUD tools) that allows the user to toggle Hyper-Threading on or off. Apple System Profiler includes a new line under Hardware listing CPU Features; for the 3.6GHz Pentium 4 this comprises a rather lengthy list of technical acronyms: FPU, VME, DE, PSE, TSC, MSR, PAE, MCE, CX8, APIC, SEP, MTRR, PGE, MCA, CMOV, PAT, PSE36, CLFSH, DS, SCPI, MMX, FXSR, SSE, SEE2, SS, HTT, TM, SSE3, MON, DSCPL, EST, TM2, CX16, and TPR.
Apple's System Profiler reports the graphics card as an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 800. Inside the Intel Mac, DVI support for the video card is provided by a Silicon Image Orion ADD2-N Dual Pad x16. Oddly, neither Silicon Image's Web site nor Google turns up much information on the latter card, the latter yielding a single link to a recent Dell support forum posting.
The motherboard on the system is unmarked except for the word Barracuda. The system's internals are housed inside a case similar to Apple's Power Mac G5 systems but with a different configuration of fans.
Running Windows; Mac OS X on other PCs
Along with running Mac OS X, Windows XP installs without hitch on the Intel-based Mac, just as it would on any other PC, and booted without issue when installed on an NTFS-formatted partition. The only misbehavior sources encountered involved the video card. Initially, Windows refused to budge from an 800x600 setting on a 23-inch Cinema Display. Some prodding managed to get the screen to 1600x1200, but sources were unable to get Windows to take advantage of the entire screen.
Apple alluded to developers at its recent Worldwide Developer Conference that Windows should be able to run on Apple's Intel Macs.
As for installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, attempts to boot from the included Mac OS X for Intel disc resulted in an error message on both a Dell and off-brand PC. The message states that the hardware configuration is not supported by Darwin x86.
Sources have indicated that Apple will employ an EDID chip on the motherboard of Intel-based Macs that Mac OS X will look for and must handshake with first in order to boot. Such an approach, similar to hardware dongles, could theoretically be defeated, although it's unknown what level of sophistication Apple will employ.
Also uncertain is whether the Intel-based development kits seeded to developers already feature the EDID chip or whether the installation disc contains a less sophisticated installation check that simply seeks out one particular hardware configuration--the one given to developers--and will not install on other configurations.
Darwin support (Score:3, Interesting)
What if one tried installing on a machine with chipsets supported by Darwin x86, e.g. something already running Darwin? I'm curious if it's actually a Darwin issue or if it's some other check that the install does.
Re:In case we lose the article due to slashdotting (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the 2nd option is more likely. It's exactly what Apple has been doing with OS X for years. When you buy a Mac you get an install CD which is exactly like any other except each model comes with a "supported hardware" check as it installs. The eMac install will not work on a Mac mini, nor the iBook install on a Powerbook, etc... They all have a list of chipsets / CPU's and other hardware built in that they use to identify which system it's running on. (That is, assuming you don't have OF as these x86 Macs won't) All Apple has to do is keep doing what they've always done and you're pretty much locked into Apple hardware, I suspect they'll simply include drivers for their own chipsets and motherboards and tada... everyone is already locked out. There's no need to add extra hardware components simply to identify it as a Mac when Apple is the only one using a certain Mobo.
-Don.
The question is... (Score:3, Funny)
Leaks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Leaks? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Leaks? (Score:4, Funny)
I think that's the breast one of all.
so.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:so.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Really i'm suprised the images have not leaked yet...
with photos.... (Score:4, Funny)
Can't decide (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Can't decide (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can't decide (Score:5, Informative)
3rd paragraph from the bottom. [builderau.com.au]
"For smaller companies that may not want to invest the time or the US$1,000 to rent the Intel system, a company called Advenio has a service in which it will do the necessary porting work. As an indication of the relative time involved, the company is charging a flat US$100 fee to create a universal binary of a Cocoa application; the fee for porting a Carbonised program starts at US$500 and depends on the amount of work involved."
http://www.advenio.com/ [advenio.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Driver Support (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Driver Support (Score:5, Informative)
This is utterly and completely wrong.
SCSI may be SCSI but a Tekram SCSI controller is not an Adaptec SCSI controller, so you need driver for each. WiFi may be WiFi (not, depending on which version you are thinking of), but Broadcom continually makes minor tweaks to their chips that require new versions of drivers. PCI - heh, clearly you've never read the internals of an operating system with all of its tweaks for different PCI bridge chipsets, and lets not forget PCI-X and PCI-E. And don't forget audio, a domain in which there are still at least a a half-dozen chipset makers and at least twice that many board makers with widely different products.
Re:Driver Support (Score:3, Insightful)
Adaptec - supported
NCR/LSI/Symbios - supported
Tekram - supported
No. I know for a fact many Adaptecs and LSI cards are not supported in a usable way. Very few are bootable, and most don't work well.
Mod Parent Down! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Driver Support (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Driver Support (Score:3, Informative)
Is there an updated HCL available? The only one I could find was ancient, and listed only the 440BX chipset as supported.
First Post of the Inevitable Post (Score:5, Interesting)
Nowhere did Apple say x86, they just said Intel chips! So maybe there is a brand new chip that Apple will use from Intel.
Now the truth: Apple did say x86 and that, if you are interested in which specific Intel x86 chips Apple will use, check the Intel CPU roadmap for mid 2006 to get an idea.
Just trying to be efficient...
OS X on a Dell (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OS X on a Dell (Score:5, Insightful)
We're all unix geeks here, right?
**crickets**
Okay, well even if not....
Go to the Darwin site. Download Darwin for x86, install it. Ta da! We have the BSD Subsystem.
Okay, get your shiny new developer mac, place it side by side with your Darwin machine. Check the passwd file, the passwd entry in netinfo, and groups. Make sure the uid's and gid's generally match up.
Export for nfs from you dev mac:
/ --alldirs --maproot=0
Now, mount that someplace on your darwin boxen.
Use cp -pr anything of interest to the darwin box. I would take special note of anything in
Kick the darwin box.
I filesystem comparison between a clean dev box and a clean Darwin box might me useful, diffs on text files to go along with it.
Provide me or any good hacker that, and we'll have an installer out in no time.
Re:OS X on a Dell (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Um... no? (Score:3, Insightful)
that if darwin-x86 doesn't run on
some machine then OS X-x86 won't
either.
all the people who're saying "*once*
OS X-x86 comes out someone'll hack it
to work on other machines" aren't
really paying attention - if you want
OS X to run on other machines, you
should be making Darwin run on those
machines *right now*, because that'll
certainly be a prerequisite for OS X
running. (and FWIW Darwin's x86 support
is currently limited to a pretty short
list of hardware so there's quite a
bit o
Sigh. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sigh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Display drivers are not magic beans. They need to work, correctly, with every piece of hardware and software along the chain between the OS and the monitor.
In order to boot the developer x86 edition of OSX on a generic PC and have Aqua work, you will need a video driver that works with the following:
- MacOX X 10.4.2/x86's implementation of Quartz
- little-endian CPUs
- little-endian GPUs
- PC BIOS
-
At t
Re:Sigh. (Score:4, Interesting)
You're missing where the video driver lies and how it works. Darwin includes (or can use; I don't recall if they're actually bundled) X11 (x.org or xfree86) video drivers. Those drivers are specific to X11, and bear no relation to the video drivers that are used for Aqua/Quartz/QE on MacOS X.
(Well, if they're vendor-provided drivers there's probably some code overlap, but the driver interfaces are completely different, and that's what counts.)
OS X on a PC... (Score:4, Funny)
Can't wait, though. Triple boot PC! Or if a decent OpenSolaris distro comes out, tetra-boot! After that, no one on Slashdot can trash my OS anymore...
Re:OS X on a PC... (Score:3, Informative)
Mac OS X has a completely different, subset of C++ driver system called IOKit. They did this because the *BSDs had basically no ability to change power states, and writing new drivers was time consuming (now you subclass a similar driver that does not of the work already).
So, no, it would take a complete re-write to get normal BSD or Linux drivers into OS X.
OS X on a PC (Score:5, Insightful)
But since Apple won't officially allow it to install OS X on any other computer but a mac, nobody will ever be able to sell a computer with OS X pre-installed. So it will enver get mainstream and i'm sure Apple will have few sleepless nights because a few geeks have it running on their generic PC box.
Re:OS X on a PC (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll never be able to do that with a Mac, unless Apple specifically decides to let you. If my mom wanted to switch to OS X, it would never oc
It sez... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hardware sales == good for Apple (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt Apple would care too much. They make money selling hardware. If you bought an Intel Mac just to run Windows on it, it's your loss, not Apple's.
Even so, Apple probably won't do anything to make it easy for those who want to run Windows on the MacIntels. They've said that they won't prevent, it either.
It's probably simply not an issue.
The
Coral Cache (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.thinksecret.com.nyud.net:8090/news/050
Why run OS X on generic PCs, anyways? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, somebody'll figure out a way to do it - every DRM scheme devised thus far has been cracked, pretty much - but what do you get after cracking OS X? You get a unsupported OS on your PC that may or may not work right with the combination of cards, chipset, and BIOS you happen to have. Do people really think that there's going to be any enterprise demand for that? Really?
Bottom line: Macs are Macs, PCs are PCs, and despite the change in architecture the twain are not going to meet any time soon. Stick to Windows, Linux, or xBSD on your generic PC, and run OS X on your Mactel. You can probably expect Apple to give up a little bit of their price delta now that the hardware is directly comparable (and the hardware superiority image is gone), but not all of it - after all, Apple puts a lot more engineering into their boxes than the typical PC vendor does. And when you're running your Mactel, you can look forward to emulation that's finally less crappy than what Virtual PC gives you. Yippee!
Re:Why run OS X on generic PCs, anyways? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you mean legitimate market demand sure there'll be no demand, mainly because it'd (probably) be illegal to circumvent the protection.
But every hacker/hobbyist/etc. and their uncle will be trying to get it running on their clone pc, ASAP.
Unsupported OS? you mean like the millions upon millions of copies of windows?
Re:Why run OS X on generic PCs, anyways? (Score:3, Informative)
And remember, Windows may not be supported very well, but it's designed and qualified to run on any system that meet
Re:Why run OS X on generic PCs, anyways? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why run OS X on generic PCs, anyways? (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple engineers may change the name to G5, and slap their logo on the technology, but you need to go look up the POWER achitecture.
The G5 is nothing more than a IBM designed CPU, from the original IBM POWER designs, and is identical in operation to the IBM POWER designs which Apple has NO hand in...
This is why Apple is fed up with IBM's slow migration to the 3ghz version, and is mov
Apple's "Red Box" for Windows compatibility (Score:5, Informative)
Seems to fit with this whole Intel dev edition story.
Re:Apple's "Red Box" for Windows compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Apple's "Red Box" for Windows compatibility (Score:3, Informative)
Y'know, I was waiting for someone to mention this finally.
The "Red Box" was real, at least on OpenSTEP for x86. I believe it was WWDC 2000 when Apple engineers (Avi Tevanian himself?) showed Quake running on OpenSTEP.
Granted, Windows has changed considerably since then. But a built-in virtualization environment for other Intel-based OSes would shake up the market drastically.
Sadly, pissing of MSFT is not a viable option for the AAPL business plan. But if I needed Windows, and could get Red Box, I know
Hardware style (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I know the pictures in TFA are of a developer's kit, but I'm hoping the hardware for the release models looks a hell of a lot better than that. It's entirely disorganized, especially the cabling (when compared to current Mac models). I'm hoping this isn't a side-effect of the Intel switch.
Admittedly this is a bit of a silly gripe, but Apple's philosphy to date has to been to have a very definitive style for their systems, for both their hardware and software. I'd hate for them to become just another PC hardware supplier with a nifty OS.
IP to share (Score:3, Interesting)
Intel has ditched their own 64-bit platform in favor of AMD's, they have essentially reached many material limits in their process, they backpedaled to the PIII for the current Celeron and Pentium M designs, and their fake-dual-core designs are pretty lackluster also.
Apple has problems with IBM advancing the PowerPC and producing enough of them to give Apple a very good image in the processing power area. Sure...the PowerPC might have a lot more room to grow (and other such arguments), but if you can't get them fast enough for demand...you have a problem. And with Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony looking to the 970 and the Cell for their new consoles...supply wasn't looking better for Apple.
Intel is gaining new life with dual and quad-core designs that Apple has property rights over. Intel is also getting new VPU designs. Lo and behold they have already announced new processors with some of these design changes in them, and I bet Apple will use them in their new machines.
Apple get a product line that doesn't have the shortcoming concerning clock-speed envy. They get Intels successful marketing. And Apple gets a company that can meet processor supply demands. In addition Apple has a very smooth transition plan with fat-binaries for new applications, and Rosetta to run old binaries on the new systems.
They have obviously had this on the back burner for a long time. I personally think this is win-win for both Intel and Apple.
And additionally for us consumers and professionals, we may get a slightly cheaper machine...but will definitely get lower cost items like video cards, controllers, etc. that don't have to have special firmware for PowerPC platform.
Apple/Intel FAQ (Score:5, Informative)
What did Apple announce at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 2005?
Apple announced that it is transitioning from PowerPC processors provided by IBM and Freescale (formerly Motorola) to x86 architecture processors from Intel. The first Intel-based Macs will ship before mid-2006, and the transition will be complete by the end of 2007.
Where can I find out more official information about this announcement?
Apple press release [apple.com]
Intel press release [intel.com]
WWDC keynote address [apple.com] (Transcript [com.com])
Why did Apple make this change?
The following scenario likely contributed to this decision:
IBM has been unable to meet its performance commitments for the PowerPC 970 family (G5) processors. In mid-2003, IBM promised 3 GHz G5s to Apple by mid-2004. As of mid-2005, 3 GHz G5s are still not available, over two years after the initial announcement, and over one year after the promised delivery.[1 [eweek.com]]
Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that IBM will make 3.2 GHz triple-core G5 derivatives available to Microsoft for Xbox 360.[2 [com.com]] IBM is also concentrating efforts on chips for Nintendo Revolution and Sony PlayStation 3.[3 [sci-tech-today.com], 3.1 [investors.com]] With IBM concentrating on expensive high-end server class processors and the console and embedded markets, and with Apple at less than 2%[4 [usatoday.com]] of IBM's PowerPC business, it was clear IBM's priorities were focused elsewhere.
Apple is also less than 3%[4 [usatoday.com]] of Freescale's PowerPC business, with Freescale focusing on embedded, communications, and automotive markets. The priorities of IBM and Freescale do not coincide with performance and other needs of the traditional desktop and portable computing marketplace.
What has Apple done to prepare for this transition?
Apple has been publicly maintaining the core OS of Mac OS X, Darwin [apple.com], for both PowerPC and x86 platforms since the release of Mac OS X. Internally, Apple has been secretly maintaining Mac OS X in its entirety and all Apple applications for both PowerPC and x86 for over 5 years, since before Mac OS X's public release.[5 [cio-today.com]] Mac OS X's predecessors also ran on x86.
Apple has made available Xcode 2.1 [apple.com], which adds the capability of creating PowerPC/x86 universal binaries [apple.com]. Xcode 2.1 can be used on either PowerPC or x86 systems to create universal binaries. Application developers already using Xcode in most cases need only recompile their application with an additional checkbox adding x86 architecture support.
Apple has also licensed[6 [com.com]] QuickTransit [transitive.com] from Transitive Corporation [transitive.com] for Rosetta, a realtime binary translation system to support PowerPC binaries seamlessly on x86 hardware. The current performance of Rosetta
Some corrections to this FAQ (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the Xenon processor in the Xbox 360 is not a G5 derivative at all, though it shares some pedigree in common with the G5. Each Xenon core most closely resembles the PPE from the Cell processor. The similarity between the G5 and the Xenon core is that they both support the PowerPC instruction set and they both are 64-bit capable. That's about it. The Xenon cores support SMT, whereas the G5 does not. The Xenon cores also lack out-of-order execution logic, which the G5 possesses. You can find out more about Xenon at ArsTechnica. [arstechnica.com]
This is false. The PowerPC can't emulate the 680x0 instruction set on its own; the early PowerMacs were shipped with a sophisticated piece of emulation software which allowed "context switching" between running PowerPC native code and 680x0 code. (You may have heard the term CFM, or Code Fragment Manager.) This facility was necessary because many Mac toolbox routines had not been rewritten in PowerPC-native code, and many libraries and other pieces of the OS were similarly only available in 680x0 code. In fact, some toolbox routines were supplied in both PowerPC versions and 680x0 versions, because there were cases where emulated 680x0 code needed to call upon a toolbox routine, and the context switch from emulation to native PowerPC and back again was worse than just running the toolbox routine under emulation.
Anyway, bottom line, the PowerPC never had built-in 680x0 emulation. The design win with PowerPC was that it could be made with the same bus that the 680x0 processors used, allowing Apple to retain much of its existing hardware designs. It should be noted that before the PowerPC was decided upon, some folks wanted Apple to go with the Motorola 88000 series of chips -- these were Motorola's first stab at RISC, and had the virtue of being pin-compatible with the 68000 series. I've seen some Omron workstations that used 88000 processors, but I don't think they ever got a lot of traction in the general market. At least one history of the Mac that I've read indicated that the 88000 was seriously considered within Apple before PowerPC was decided upon.
Not all G3-based systems are unsupported in Tiger. I believe G3-based iBooks are still supported, for example. Of course, "supported" doesn't mean you get all the eye candy, but that's true for some lower-end G4 systems as well.
Re:Apple/Intel FAQ (Score:3, Informative)
IBM's own very wide array of PowerPC-based servers.
Telecommunications equipment.
Automotive engine control systems.
Transmission control systems.
Networking equipment.
Satellites.
Many, many more embedded applications.
PowerPC is used in a *lot* more places than it's used in "computers".
How to Open the Intel Mac Bios (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if you want to get really freaky, go into the 'boot' menu and turn off the quick and silent boot options. This will display the bios information at boot...
The bios at boot will display the same serial number that is on the chasis sticker, and another secondary id string. It also indicates the system as a Apple Transition Dev system.
Now on the first time you boot it, for 2 seconds you will see 'Darwin x86' on the screen - but we all figured that out all ready.
Re:I can't wait (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I can't wait (Score:4, Interesting)
So, the Grandparent was right. You'll be building a PC that runs MacOS.
Re:I can't wait (Score:4, Insightful)
Just the way I mock those people who paid too much for their Ferrari's. I built mine with a VW Beettle frame and a fiberglass kit I ordered from a magazine. Man those "Ferrari ethusiasts" look down their nose at me because they paid too much for their cars. I laugh and laugh at them!
w00t!
Re:I can't wait (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I can't wait (Score:3, Informative)
Not once they've gotten past the bootloader, they don't.
Missing the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why have apple just built a PC? (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't throw shit on the motherboard that they don't need just to rice it out, Everything on your motherboard has a reasom for being there, and all of it is designed similar. Windows has to install on a lot of different flavours of hardware, so there's no big shocker when it installs on this one.
It is easier to carry the "antiquated baggage" (Score:4, Insightful)
However, the laws of economics say otherwise.
The reason that it is hard to dump them is because it doesn't really cost anything to continue to support them. You cannot buy an Intel processor that does not support 16 bit code. Antiquated timers like the PIT8253 are supported in the chipsets. Unless the legacy parts actually take up physical space on the motherboard (like ISA slots and the physical parallel port itself), it is much easier to buy an off the shelf chipset that supports everything. The alternative is to make a custom chipset that may be cleaner but have less volume.
You would be paying extra so that CGA doesn't exist. Thats just plain silly.
Re:Why have apple just built a PC? (Score:3, Interesting)
How hard were you thinking?? (Score:3, Informative)
How hard were you thinking?? Or maybe you haven't been paying attention? Apple has said, and its been repeated time and again, that these aren't production machines. There's no guarantee whatsoever that the "real" Intel-powered Macs will look anything like this. That could mean no BIOS, no segmented memory, no A20 gate, and so on. These are just preview machines to give developers a head start while Apple finishes the real Intel-pow
Re:Why have apple just built a PC? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Here's what I think (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm... Sounds like trolling, but I'll bite.
What's the incentive to port an app when you can tell the user to run it under these applications?
Well, for one thing Mac users are fanatical about the look/feel/integration of the entire OS. This is largely why such cool technologies as Fink, and Darwin ports haven't taken over more on the Mac: The look and feel isn't the same as native OSX apps. The GUI/widgets are different, they don't share data off the clipboard in the same way that the Mac does. They don't support standard OSX keyboard commands, instead defaulting to the same shortcuts and such as their x86 counterparts.
Another great example is Open Office - It's no longer being ported due to the low number of users. Instead, NeoOffice was born from the ashes of OO, and is rapidly gaining in popularity due to it's native look/feel, and it's overall integration as a native OSX app.
Running Windows apps under OSX (emulated, or via a virtual pc, such as vmware)will meet some people's needs (read this as potential switchers), but the diehard Mac users will still demand native apps, and an OSX look/feel.
Further, Apple has said, it wont stop people from putting Windows on their Macs, which I think is a mistake. Don't have that specific application? Boot into Windows or run it via emulation
I disagree... There's a helluva lot more apps written for Windows than there is for OSX. And a lot of the apps for Windows duplicate a lot of the other Windows apps that are out there. There's a lot of very similar programs, doing very similar things on the Windows end of things. I personally like to find the best tool for a job, when the need arises. On the Windows end, this means constantly evaluating a lot of different, but similar programs to find which meets my needs/wants the best, and there's constantly more apps coming out that need to be evaluated.
On the Mac end, there's fewer programs, but they're usually of a much higher caliber, and they're way more integrated with the OS look/feel than Windows apps typlically are. As opposed to you, I think that once Windows users start checking out OSX and seenig what can be done w/it, these same people will begin looking for native apps to replace their Windows apps, rather than running them emulated, or rebooting into Windows. Keyboard shortcuts are a great example! Will the average switcher want to remember all the OSX commands, in addition to all the Windows ones, or will they just prefer to memorize one set of commands for all apps? I personally think it'll be the latter, but time will tell.
One quick note about the above: The one app that I use regularly on Windows, which has no Mac counterpart yet is Homesite! There is no Mac editor that will allow me to highlight code the way that Homesite will. Specifically, I'm referring to letting me mod the foreground AND the background colors, based on code syntax. Very disapointing, and I'm a very visual guy, and being able to do this is very important to me. Dreamweaver MX allows me to do this, but it comes with so much bloat that I really hate to use it when all's I really need is a decent editor. If BBEdit allowed me to do this, my life would be much happier! But I digress...
A few die hard companies make Linux games, for instance, but very few. That's the future: A widespread OS with no nifty applications.
I think the difference here is the number and type of users. Linux users tend to be few in numbers (compared to OSX and Windows users - Although that is slowly changing), and of a much geekier variety than the average Windows user (I'm not counting the users of very dumbed down Linux distros, such as Linspire and such... These people are typically the point-and-click, email and web users types, and never stray too much from these basic tasks.). Several companies have tried to make a living out of writing native ports of Windows games for Linux, and you know what? They al
Re:Think Its A Bad Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't work yet... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Blah. (Score:3, Insightful)
There's more to a good computer's style than just a good looking case. Apple has for years been producing some of the most innovative works of art the computer industry has ever known.
Truthfully a good computer platform should be:
1) Do what the user needs the system to do. (I'm not talking about "wants" here I'm talking about needs.)
2) Efficient.
3) Easy to use/Easy to maintain.
4) Be a good balance of internal and external s
Re:Gaming Horsepower (Score:4, Informative)
When new Intel-based Macintoshes ship next year, they'll presumably be based on whatever processors & GPUs meet Apple's needs for the product they're in. You probably wouldn't want to use the processor from the current development system in a laptop or a Mac mini, for example.
If you want to play the guessing game, take a look at the announced roadmap for Intel's processors, starting at a point about one year from now.
-Mark
Re:Jobs' At It Again! (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Somebody starts by ranting about how they have to pay "twice as much" or "three times the price" for a Macintosh. Which is obviously ridiculous, but it keeps being said time after time.
2. Examples are brought forward showing currently available Macintosh models selling for roughly the same price as comparably configured Dells. Sometimes the Apple is slightly less than the Dell. Sometimes the Apple is a fair bit higher -- but never anything like the 2X or 3X that anti-Apple trolls keep shouting out.
3. PC fanatics jump all over the proffered examples, ridiculing them because they could "build a system for a third that much". Never mind that we were talking about Dell versus Apple when the debate started, not home-built systems. When this is pointed out, someone on the anti-Apple side will chime in that only morons buy Dells anyhow, and the smart people always build their own computers.
And that's where it ends. As soon as you show that Macs don't, in fact, cost 2X or 3X as much as a Dell, then suddenly it doesn't matter because Dell is no longer the standard for comparison. (They're only the #1 computer maker in the world, sheesh.) Instead it's now computers cobbled together from components that you have to compete against on price.
Other amusing things sometimes pop up during the argument. . . Some PC fans seem to believe that Quake frame rates are the only meaningful measure of a computer's performance or value. Others are stubbornly oblivious to the typically long lifespan of a Mac, or how well used Macs hold their value (check eBay!), or how much time (and money, if you value your time at all) can be saved from reduced troubleshooting when running a Mac.
I suspect many of the complainers also are school kids who aren't accustomed to working with an adult budget. They're the same class of people who got a C64 or an Atari ST back when the rest of the world was going to PC clones, just because they could save some bucks. They're the same class of people who were too cheap to shell out for a monitor or a hard drive for their Amiga 500 -- blurry TV sets and floppy swapping was fine for playing games, anyow.
That was than. Nowadays PC clones are the cheapo systems.
So where does this whole myth of an Apple for "three times the price" come from? Here's my hypothesis. .
1. In years gone by -- in the 1980s especially -- Apple sold a lot of systems that were outrageously overpriced. Anybody remember when a Commodore C64 was $250 and an Apple II was $1600? Or when the Mac II was $8000? Yeah, people tend to remember that kind of sticker shock.
2. Apple don't sell very stripped-down models, or compete at the very lowest end of the market. (Though the Mac Mini got them quite a bit closer to it than they ever have been before.)
3. What many of the complainers really want is to run Mac OS X on the PC hardware they've already got. You can't get any cheaper than something you've already got. That's free! And current Mac users have a hard time seeing this, because a Macintosh is what they've already got. They're looking at it from the other side of the river.