MacTel? To Cry or Cheer?

[krizzle]

Who's happy with this? Lets hear your thoughts.
Personally I am quite disappointed...

 

[MH Knights]

I was hoping for MacAMD but whatever....

 

[JethroXP]

I think this is a good move for Apple. Given the small volume of PowerPC CPUs that IBM was producing for Apple, they weren't very motivated to continue innovating and keeping pace with Intel. By switching, Apple gets to take advantage of the progress that Intel is making on behalf of the other 95% desktop computer users.

This may even open the door for a do-it-yourself enthusiast crowd to start making home brew Macs as we've been doing for years with PCs. That can only be a good thing for Apple as well, because it gets their products out to a wider market.

Apple could easily be dominating the PC market as Microsoft does now if they didn't have their death grip on the hardware. Open up the hardware, and you can make money from the software licenses, a lot more money.

 

[cell_491]

I was hoping for MacAMD but whatever....

whats so amazing isnt that they switched to intel its that they switched to x86!! hopefully that means within a few years you will be able to install mac os X (XI maybe) on your home built pc

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

What bothers me is that one of the options you have there is "I could care less." Don't you mean "I couldn't care less?"

 

[cell_491]

What bothers me is that one of the options you have there is "I could care less." Don't you mean "I couldn't care less?"

no...if hes saying he could care less that means he has the potential to care even less than he already does, by saying he could'nt care less that means it is impossible for him to care less about it.

 

[seanmcd]

it depends - I'm excited but it's only because I'm dreaming of being able to sell my G4 - and run a dual boot apple/windows machine. It would even make me switch to Intel from AMD if it would actually work. But - who knows if it will be ported for a standard x86 cpu - or if it will be proprietary. This is big news I guess - but in the end, nothing may change as far as being forced to buy apple hardware goes

 

[swatbat]

I'm looking forward to a pentium m powerbook.

 

[krizzle]

I donno how good it would be to port osX to x86...
the reason osX works with such stability is because 95% of instability in PC's comes from hardware-software problems. Windows is designed to function on generic combinations of practically any x86 hardware = thousands of possibilities for problems. osX knows exactly what hardware it will be working with, because there's not much room to vary given apple's models. When devs know exactly what they are workign with, things work well.
So, I think this is a bad step for the OS. Porting it to x86 will definitly take some of the finesse away from the OS, considering the thing was originally written for the PPC architecture... to make it work flawlessly on x86 it cant be ported, it must be rewritten.

And besides, if they plan to stick to the whole 64-bit architecture, shouldn't they talk more x64 than x86?

 

[cell_491]

I donno how good it would be to port osX to x86...
the reason osX works with such stability is because 95% of instability in PC's comes from hardware-software problems. Windows is designed to function on generic combinations of practically any x86 hardware = thousands of possibilities for problems. osX knows exactly what hardware it will be working with, because there's not much room to vary given apple's models. When devs know exactly what they are workign with, things work well.
So, I think this is a bad step for the OS. Porting it to x86 will definitly take some of the finesse away from the OS, considering the thing was originally written for the PPC architecture... to make it work flawlessly on x86 it cant be ported, it must be rewritten.

And besides, if they plan to stick to the whole 64-bit architecture, shouldn't they talk more x64 than x86?

well if you read some articles apparently osX was writin for both the ppc and x86 from the getgo

 

[krizzle]

considering it is off a unix base... darwin at the core... perhaps i was a bit judgemental...
But something about OSX running on X86 puts a frown on my face..
They should have at least turned to AMD... realizing how much better their architectures are (e.g. multi-cpu hypertransports and memory controllers irrespective of northbridge...)

My guess is that they are gonna start playing the Ghz game, since they need more stupid costumers. "ooh, a 3.8ghz apple, sounds fast..."

 

[cell_491]

considering it is off a unix base... darwin at the core... perhaps i was a bit judgemental...
But something about OSX running on X86 puts a frown on my face..
They should have at least turned to AMD... realizing how much better their architectures are (e.g. multi-cpu hypertransports and memory controllers irrespective of northbridge...)

My guess is that they are gonna start playing the Ghz game, since they need more stupid costumers. "ooh, a 3.8ghz apple, sounds fast..."

amd is still "x86" bro

 

[KaosDG]

re-opened for good points

 

[Rune75]

I was hoping for MacAMD but whatever....

Being a total PC (Win/Lin), I honestly, I think I have more of a problem with the Mac hardware than the software... I wouldn't mind changin one of my AMD puters in the future over to OSX(ver something or other) for the fun of it.

 

[The_Engineer]

I was hoping for MacAMD but whatever....

I'm with you there

I still think this is a great move for apple. their software is 2nd to none IMO, but price premiums have always been soo incredibly high because of proprietary hardware/software architechures. The one thing that this does for apple is opens their software base to the applications us PC users are using now. Even if I can't get OSX for my homebuilt PC or for my Dell laptop, the same applications will run cross platform! (Read; theoretcially any newer pc game will work on the new mac hardware!) This will be a huge boon for apple because the only reason alot of people aren't with apple is due to application availability.

I have a big feeling this is going to change the way the hardware wars are going. And we will probably be seeing apple having a decent bit larger chunk of the current market than is available now for mac.

 

[XOR != OR]

I can't understand why they'd go with x86. We've been trying to kick that out the door for years now. At the very least, I would have gone with amd's 64bit chips, but I seriously would have looked at a whole new design based off of the x86 arch.

Although now that I'm thinking about it, I never would have ditched IBM and the cell processor ( but maybe it won't be all it's being said to be ).

I would question their decision to go with intel, who's record this past year has been..questionable..and the p4 specifically.

We'll see what happens, and as it doesn't effect me at all ( no mac in house ), I'm a mere spectator. Given apple's past couple years, I'd be willing to grant them leeway with some decisions as an investor ( were I an investor ), but this one would have me gripping the leash pretty tightly.

</ramblings of a drugged up, post surgery lunatic>

 

[ProphetSix]

the reason osX works with such stability is because 95% of instability in PC's comes from hardware-software problems. Windows is designed to function on generic combinations of practically any x86 hardware = thousands of possibilities for problems.

FYI, the Intel version of OSX will NOT run on your gereric PC. (Dell, HP, Gateway, homebuilt). Yes, they're going to Intel chips. Yes, they're going to x86 arcitecture. No, they're not sacraficing quality.

The next versions of the Mac will technicially be Intel based, but do you think His Steeve-ness would even think about letting them leave the store if they weren't true Macs? Apple is still making the boxes. Apple is still making the OS that will run on them. They are NOT making an OS for every box out there. We'll still have quality control because they're still designed to run off of a reference spec by Apple, not MS, or Dell, or HP, ect.

Don't worrk, it's all good. Think faster chips, lower upgrade costs, faster technology integration, and all Apple goodness. It'll work out.

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

no...if hes saying he could care less that means he has the potential to care even less than he already does, by saying he could'nt care less that means it is impossible for him to care less about it.

I'm going to guess that alternative #3 meant that you do not care at all. If you say "I could care less," you mean that you have an opinion on the matter. I could care less about my house burning down.




Oh, and regarding the x86 switch, it's not really concrete and permanent, right? I've seen nothing that indicates that they couldn't also switch back to IBM, should they want to. If IBM actually get their heads out of their asses and manage to produce a POWER5-derived PowerPC dual-core processor running at high clock frequencies and equipped with "VMX 2," maybe they'll use that instead of an Intel processor? This is about keeping doors open, I suppose.

 

[Thud]

osX knows exactly what hardware it will be working with, because there's not much room to vary given apple's models. When devs know exactly what they are workign with, things work well.

OSX will still know exactly what hardware it's working with. Apple will still control the hardware that goes into every Mac.

So, I think this is a bad step for the OS. Porting it to x86 will definitly take some of the finesse away from the OS,

It's not "ported" to x86. Watch the keynote video. OSX was designed from the very beginning to be platform independent-- it has always compiled for both PPC and x86.

considering the thing was originally written for the PPC architecture... to make it work flawlessly on x86 it cant be ported, it must be rewritten.

Incorrect. See above.


The cool thing about the keynote video is that for the first 45 minutes or so, Steve Jobs is demonstrating all these cool things on OSX, new widgets, etc. He then reveals that the computer he's been using the entire time is an Intel Pentium4 running Tiger.
He shows MS Office and Photoshop running just fine (the original PPC compiled versions) running through the "Rosetta" compatibility layer.

 

[krizzle]

On the hard/soft compatibility, sorry i should have cleared it up. It was in response to

hopefully that means within a few years you will be able to install mac os X (XI maybe) on your home built pc

All will still work flawlessly as always with mac, but I think that running OSX in a native PC without emulation is a long way off.

In a conversation with one of our school's IT guys, a certified mac technitian, he mentioned something about apple now clipping the PPC extentions... I don't think that they gave any particular advantage over the x86 extensions, but nonetheless if this is true this is a fairly significant revamp of the OS at its base. I wonder how Rosetta performs on more hardware-intensive proggies such as Maya or Lightwave. I hope they can pull this off seamlessly.

 

[Susurrus]

I think that it was definitely time for a switch for Apple from IBM. IBM has definitely had too many problems for it to be reasonable for Apple to stay with them. Their advancements just aren't going fast enough for Apple, who has been playing catch-up with the rest of the PC industry for years now. I don't know what Pentium chips the new hardware will run on, if it's the x86-64 chips or the regular x86 ones, but I would've hoped that Apple would switch to AMD. I understand perfectly why they didn't, there isn't enough volume production from AMD, but AMD certaintly has sexier dual/quad-core designs than Intel. Since multiple-core designs and SMP is where things are headed, not to mention 64 bit computing (I don't know the quality of Intel's 64-bit processing for its enabled chips), AMD would've been the better choice. Too bad it didn't become the choice. Steve Jobs is normally right about things, and I'm sure Apple has been considering this for a while. I don't think he's gone wrong on this decision.

 

[Thud]

Here's why I think it'll be possible to run OSX on any x86 hardware:

Apple has been doing it for 5 years, since OSX 10.0. I doubt they had custom prototype hardware built simply for their internal test builds. So, Tiger is already running on non-Apple hardware, in Apple's labs. Yes, Apple will put in some sort of "safeguard" that prevents the OS from installing on a non-approved BIOS... but it will be possible to circumvent. It may require a hacked BIOS for each particular motherboard (kind of like what you do to get linux installed on an XBox, which has similar "safeguards") but more likely it'll be a software hack-- since it's the OS itself Apple wants to control, they don't care about preventing other OS's from being installed on their own hardware, which is the opposite of MS's case with the XBox.

You most likely will need to use specific video cards, SATA controllers, etc but they will still be commodity items.
You might not get all the benefits of running on Apple hardware... I'm sure that Intel will create a chipset for Apple that benefits OSX in certain ways, in the same way that XP is able to take advantage of hyperthreading (while windows 2k can't).

 

[KaosDG]

I'm still a little undecided about this news.

I liken it to SGI moving away from MIPS and onto x86.
We all know how that went.

 

[Parastie]

I think that it was definitely time for a switch for Apple from IBM. IBM has definitely had too many problems for it to be reasonable for Apple to stay with them. Their advancements just aren't going fast enough for Apple, who has been playing catch-up with the rest of the PC industry for years now. I don't know what Pentium chips the new hardware will run on, if it's the x86-64 chips or the regular x86 ones, but I would've hoped that Apple would switch to AMD. I understand perfectly why they didn't, there isn't enough volume production from AMD, but AMD certaintly has sexier dual/quad-core designs than Intel. Since multiple-core designs and SMP is where things are headed, not to mention 64 bit computing (I don't know the quality of Intel's 64-bit processing for its enabled chips), AMD would've been the better choice. Too bad it didn't become the choice. Steve Jobs is normally right about things, and I'm sure Apple has been considering this for a while. I don't think he's gone wrong on this decision.

Marketing is probably the big reason Apple went with Intel, that and the Pentium M line.
As it stands, laptops are outselling desktop computers and Apple is rapidly falling behind on that market. By the time the switch occurs, Apple will have Access to Intel Dual Core Pentium M CPUs that are IA-64compatible. Pentium M CPUs have shown to be cooler then the AMD mobile counter parts.

That's not to say that they will never use AMD CPU's, we're just going to have to wait and see.

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

I liken it to SGI moving away from MIPS and onto x86.
We all know how that went.

SGI were going down the toilet regardless, weren't they?

Marketing is probably the big reason Apple went with Intel, that and the Pentium M line.
As it stands, laptops are outselling desktop computers and Apple is rapidly falling behind on that market. By the time the switch occurs, Apple will have Access to Intel Dual Core Pentium M CPUs that are IA-64compatible. Pentium M CPUs have shown to be cooler then the AMD mobile counter parts.

That's not to say that they will never use AMD CPU's, we're just going to have to wait and see.

Opteron PowerMacs, P-M PowerBooks, C-M iBooks. Awesome.

 

[bahula03]

"Things weren't looking better in the coming months, Jobs said, saying that IBM's PowerPC road map would only deliver about a fifth the performance per watt as a comparable Intel chip." - from a recent cnet article

This switch will mean big things for the book division at apple, namely a processor line that will compete very well with windows based laptops and even better battery life than the books already have. Both very good things from both a consumer and business standpoint IMO.

It's definitely time to leave IBM IMO, they're processor are now lagging well behind the competition and it would seem that there is no foreseeable remedy to this in the near future. Also, they don't seem to be putting in the engineering effort that a company like apple needs to stay competitive. I will say that I'm not a fan of Intel (let's just say because of their processor naming scheme...or any number of other reasons), but given the possibilities, the choice makes very good business sense for apple. They (intel) have a huge chunk of the windows market, as well as excellent brand recognition with the average consumer, which means bringing a sense of familiarity and comfort to the growing number of "switch" customers. On the technical side, they bring a product line that's been proven time and time again as well as a proven record on keeping their products up to date and competitive; both qualities apple should IMO be looking for in a new partner.

As far as apple controlling the hardware at a premium price, I've gotta say I agree with the reasoning and for the most part I think it works well for them. The main by-product of hardware control is stability and compatibility...which is not common in even well maintained windows machines. And those two words make the average consumer very happy, and when they're happy, the bottom line is usually happy, which is good for everyone.

wow, my longest. post. evar.

 

[Vincent Vega]

I do wonder about the extensibility of the new Macs. Will they be upgradable with stock x86 compatible hardware and will OSX fly with it?

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

I do wonder about the extensibility of the new Macs. Will they be upgradable with stock x86 compatible hardware and will OSX fly with it?

My guess is that some 'generic' hardware will work. Hard drives and such will obviously work, as they do that already. It is possible that graphics cards will be compatible. I hope so, anyway. As for more exotic hardware, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[RGM-79(G)Pilot]

after watching the keynote yesterday, streamed from apples site, i have little to no concern about this move. i really want to get my hands on one of these new machines. i only hope to god that the start up tone, is not replaced by the intel jingle.

the problem i am having in convincing others that are not "in the know" about this, that it isnt nearly as catastrophic as it sounds initially.

eg: my brothers family just bought (a month ago) a new 20" iMac. this news sent them into some kind of weird frenzy, becuase they initially though that this long term invest ment of 2200$ was now completely useless. *obviously its not* it took me a lot of time to convince them otherwise.

we are going to replace out accounting computer at work. i work at a small business, where there are three employees in the office, and about 15 contracted trainers.we currently use a 4 year old gateway 1ghz celeron. its as slow as a snail. out plan was to get a new dual 2.0 or 2.3 powermac next week. my boss had the same reaction my brother did, doom and gloom.

i have now convinced my boss that the platform will STILL be supported, and the system will still have plenty of use in 2 years, or even longer than that..(he still uses a mac classic "lunchbox" from 1988 )

people just have to comprehend what is going on here, and it will be fine, unfortunatly, they wont.

 

[Selecter]

Well, if the price on PPC's starts going south, maybe I'll pick up a few. I'd buy a Dual 2.3 for 700 bucks even if it would be crap in 3 years. Those would be some good 3 years.

 

[Rune75]

The next versions of the Mac will technicially be Intel based, but do you think His Steeve-ness would even think about letting them leave the store if they weren't true Macs? Apple is still making the boxes. Apple is still making the OS that will run on them. They are NOT making an OS for every box out there. We'll still have quality control because they're still designed to run off of a reference spec by Apple, not MS, or Dell, or HP, ect.

So what you are saying is that Apple still makes the OS and the hardware is hand picked using cheaper PC components... enabling Apple to make an even greater profit from their sales?

 

[westrock2000]

A: I hope Apple continues to keep a shut door on the hardware....its the best thing for an OS. Microsoft would probably love to do it but they can't break the tradition of building a "clone", and IBM just couldn't get their OS to ever take off and Intel, who has the ATX/BTX standard, doesn't even have an OS. True it might lower costs, but at what expense of realability and performance. Imagine how fast the current PC would be if the code was specifically written for a Intel CPU, a nVidia GPU, an Intel mobo. It would probably scream like the next generation video game consoles are going to.


B: I really hope Apple keeps the current G5 style in the next case. Its the most beautifull case there is...and I would really hate to have to buy a current G5 just because the next generation looks like every other PC

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

I really hope Apple keeps the current G5 style in the next case. Its the most beautifull case there is...and I would really hate to have to buy a current G5 just because the next generation looks like every other PC

I really hope they bring back the PowerMac G4 case design. It was smaller and had more room in it.

 

[swatX]

Bad move APPLE!!!!


when i look at G5 or powerbook i think of them as higly expensive but also unique in terms of hardware and software but now all that remains uinique is the software..

i dont want a powerbooks pentium-m . god dammit apple

 

[Black Morty Rackham]

i dont want a powerbooks pentium-m . god dammit apple

You don't want a PowerBook with better performance and battery time?

 

[Abysmal]

Eh, IBM processors aren't all that unique anymore. And I don't see anyone all up in arms because Apple uses the same graphics chips as PCs (not to mention hard drives, LCDs, memory, etc.), I think the whole "exotic CPU" thing is a shallow argument. Apple is unique through hardware and software design, not the technology behind it. (man it's just UNIX and OSS technology underneath all that? how generic!)

I'd much prefer the best performing consumer CPU out there (Pentium M), with low heat output and better battery life.

 

[Rune75]

A: I hope Apple continues to keep a shut door on the hardware....its the best thing for an OS. Microsoft would probably love to do it but they can't break the tradition of building a "clone", and IBM just couldn't get their OS to ever take off and Intel, who has the ATX/BTX standard, doesn't even have an OS. True it might lower costs, but at what expense of realability and performance. Imagine how fast the current PC would be if the code was specifically written for a Intel CPU, a nVidia GPU, an Intel mobo. It would probably scream like the next generation video game consoles are going to.


B: I really hope Apple keeps the current G5 style in the next case. Its the most beautifull case there is...and I would really hate to have to buy a current G5 just because the next generation looks like every other PC

So you would *limit* yourself to older & /slower/ technology just because of its appearance? Isint there just something fundamentally wrong with that statement?

Oh, and imagine if there were only 1 hardware/OS maker... and it had a very short approved list of components or software for that matter... The issue is choice man.

 

[Thud]

Eh, IBM processors aren't all that unique anymore.

A lot of people are still clinging to the belief that PowerPC is a superior architecture.

That may have been true in 1996.

PowerPC is "supposed" to be better because it's less complex-- I mean, it's RISC, right?

Well, in reality, PowerPC has turned out to be unscaleable and very inefficient as speed demands have increased. Intel makes chips that are as fast or faster, while putting out much less heat, and can even be used in notebooks.

Cripes, don't you realize that there are Pentium-M based notebooks that can outperform a dual G5 Powermac in many tests? And with the PowerPC chips, there's no way Apple can even produce a notebook capable of decoding HD video! So much for Quicktime 7.

This is a good move by Apple... but people are still clinging to PowerPC for nostalgia, ignoring the fact that it's simply an inefficient, under-performing architecture and a dead-end path. This is precisely why Apple chose to "switch." The current PPC systems perform well by today's standards (there's no reason to throw away a G4 or G5), but we're at the limit. They wouldn't have been able to get much faster than what they are today.

But because of the change, in 2 years, you'll be able to buy a Powermac that is MUCH FASTER than would have otherwise been possible. And notebooks that rival powermacs in performance. Why doesn't this make people happy??

 

[El Nacho]

Its been a few days since I watched the video, but I dont remember him saying anywhere that apple will be using x86, only that they will be using intel chips. If thats the case, is it out of the question to think that intel could make a "custom" chip for them?

also, for those of you that this will mean cheaper macs.....not gonna happen.

 

[JethroXP]

Its been a few days since I watched the video, but I dont remember him saying anywhere that apple will be using x86, only that they will be using intel chips. If thats the case, is it out of the question to think that intel could make a "custom" chip for them?

also, for those of you that this will mean cheaper macs.....not gonna happen.

Yes, it is out of the question. The whole point of switching to Intel is to leverage their economies of scale with their current production lines. A custom chip would be far more expensive to produce.