With the announcement that Apple is switching to Intel, the computing world has been thrown a curve ball. Speculation will run rampant for the next year. We obviously won’t know what’s going to happen until it happens, but I see a bright future coming out of this. I see Apple with more headroom for the future to create better, faster designs. I see much more opportunity for the hacker community to work with this also.The Hardware
One of the biggest reactions people have had is “Why not AMD?” AMD64 chips are very good processors, but I think this switch runs much deeper than just processor. What would Apple use as a platform had they chosen AMD? The 8xxx series chips? NVidia? ATI? Would Apple risk it’s laptop market on the Turion? I predict that the machines will be all Intel. Processor, Chipsets, network, everything. Intel makes quality parts. There are questions to the Pentium 4, but the Pentium M is a great laptop chip, and I think that’s what Apple needs.
This is a good move for Intel also. Apple can now become a showing of all the newest Intel technology. Intel’s newest audio specs can now be fully supported by Apple the day they come out. ACPI can now work without issue with the closed platform. Does anybody remember EFI? I am willing to bet that Apple will use EFI instead of Open Firmware. This will help move EFI into the consumer space for Intel. BTX? As far as Intel is concerned, the sky’s the limit. There is no existing model of an “Intel Mac” that they have to adhere to. I also bet you will be able to drop in any new processor or video card you want. That should make a lot more people happy.
When people complain about x86, one of the biggest things people complain about is the legacy support built up from years and years. Does anybody run a 16bit real mode OS on Intel chips anymore? I predict these machines are going to be legacy free, just like current Apples. PCI-e only (1 x16 and 3 x1?). WiMax? The newest 802.11 standards? 10gig Ethernet? It’s all available. I think people hear Apple is moving to Intel and thing that Apple is moving. Think of it more as Apple is integrating Intel. I am willing to bet that with this move, Apple’s hardware can now be even more elegant. Imaging a 12″ iBook with a ULV Pentium M and integrated Intel graphics. Could it be done in 3 pounds and get 8 hours of battery life? It’s much more feasible than trying to fit a G5 into a powerbook without making it a HP zd7000. I personally think that Apple could have sold a G5 laptop, but they wouldn’t. Apple would not sell a 10 pound beast that gets 2 hours of battery life, has a constantly running fan, and does not fit into people’s lives. The switch to Intel gives them hope for the future without having to constantly worry about whether they’ll have a chip to compete for the next generation and where to get it from.
The software
Switching hardware architectures is a huge deal. It means that all of your software needs to run on a new architecture. Even if Apple makes it very easy for developers, this is one of the biggest changes they can make. I am willing to bet that the day they release the hardware, every piece of Apple consumer software will work exactly the same as it’s PowerPC counterpart. I’d even bet that most, if not all of the pro apps will be available on Intel the day it comes out. That’s great for Apple. What about everybody else?
The way I see it, there are two groups of developers in this. Those with cross platform apps, and those with Mac only apps. For those with cross platform apps, this is great. Consider Adobe, Alias Wavefront, or Macromedia. Previously, they had to maintain two separate products. Ignoring the flamewar that is SSE vs. Altivec/VMX, these companies only have to maintain one optimized core now, and have different front ends. How many cross platform apps are there that run on Mac, but not Windows? Maybe some UNIX/X only apps, but even those are probably fairly portable anyway. Maybe now all the Adobe products will be on both platforms again.
The other developers are a mixed bag. Running cocoa and Xcode? Great. Carbon? You might have some issues. It is almost impossible to switch platforms without warning people from day 1 that it might happen and not have issues. Especially with older code. But I think most companies/personal developers will rise to the challenge. When you program for Mac, you are making the conscious decision to program for a smaller platform, and as the saying goes, it’s much easier to turn a small ship around. I think Apple will help as much as it can, and try to make the switch easy on developers. Let’s face it, Rosetta is a hack. All software emulators are, but it’s a necessary hack. It will work. It obviously won’t be perfect, but it will smooth the transition, and with my prediction that all of Apple’s software will work perfectly, how many people will be affected? Me and my wife both have Apples, and very little 3rd party software. Office? Already onboard (we’ll see when it’s actually released though.) Firefox? Will be ready day 1. Professionals that rely on third party applications might be affected, but it sounds as though Apple will has support from the big players. You will still be able to use your PowerPC Macs for years to come. I think it will be about as clean an architecture transition as one could hope for.
Why not 64-bit only? There are two parts to a switch to 64-bit. OS (not just the kernel) and application. First of all, OS X isn’t fully 64bit clean to begin with. Neither cocoa or carbon are. I’m not even sure if any of their core frameworks are. I predict the 64bit support will be the same with the switch to Intel as it was on the G5. 64bit kernel, with minimal 64bit app support, but mostly 32bit. It would be too big of a transition for developers to say, “make your software platform agnostic, and make it 64bit clean.”
What Apple loses
Hardcore geeks. PowerPC extremists. But really, now that you’re only left with the choice of x86 on the desktop, are you going to turn away Apple? Just because Apple has changed ISAs, OS X is still that much better than the alternatives. I think there is an initial backlash from the hardest of the hardcore, but I think they’re bluffing. Try switching to Linux from OS X. I dare you (I run Linux, dragonfly, windows, and OS X). It works. But it’s not the same. It’s not as smooth. When was the last time you spent two hours trying to resolve dependencies on OS X? Hell, when was the last time you had to look up an error code in Google because something broke? The experience will still be the same.
What Apple gains
A future. No more MHz myth. Developers who can now settle on one platform, even if it might not be the prettiest to code in assembly. Remember the fiasco that was the Mac release of Doom3? With the same processor and video card, games written in OpenGL should perform almost identical. That’s a big selling point. People have pointed out wine/cedega also. New worlds of possibilities are opened for the hacker community. VMWare? Xen? Will Apple officially support Intel’s virtualization extensions coming out? Who knows, but these are things that could not have been done on PPC. How many people who are complaining about x86 being ugly really know ? Or have to work with/around it? How much software is written in PowerPC assembly? I can think of many more examples written in x86 assembly than PowerPC, and now it will be much more feasibly to bring it to the Mac platform.
What happens to the other OS players?
In the short term, nothing. Will this affect windows users? No. I doubt there will be a price drop because of the switch. I might be wrong, but you’re still buying a premium product, and with that comes a premium price. This might help Apple’s hardware business. I could see a lot of people buying powerbooks and loading windows on them just because the hardware is much nicer than anything out there. Consumers are not going to flock to Apple because of an architecture change. Apple will probably even try to hide this fact from the average consumer. Linux users? Linux users have their own reasons for doing things (I will include BSD users in this too.) They might buy the sexy hardware, but people don’t just run Linux/BSD because it’s the best OS out there. They might want to make it that way, it might be good enough, they might like free software, but it’s not because it’s the best offering out there. Even if it was, Apple switching to Intel does not change the merits or flaws of other systems.
Conclusion
As a geek, I am sorry to see PowerPC get pushed off into an obscure corner, just as I was when Alpha was sent to go play by itself. Things change. An ISA is just a platform. It does not change the feel of the system. As I said earlier, this is not Apple coming to “x86” as people know it. This is x86 coming to Apple.
About the Author:
I’m 22, and have a BS in Computer Science and Applied Math. I have been using computers since I was 8, have been using Linux and BSD since I was 17, and OS X for about a year. I am interested in OS design, and would like to work on a commercial OS some day.
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For the 1st time in the US the notebooks sales are higher than the desktop computers…
Where are the G5 powerbooks and notebooks? Simple, they aren’t!
Apple could wait IBM to develop higher speed clocks in the professional line, but what about the mac mini and notebooks?
It’s a really no alternative, they have to choose any thing other than IBM PPCs and choose Intel.
IMO Apple can do only good for Intel. What Intel needs right now is a partner that can innovate on the software side. And there is no better partner than Apple Inc.
I like the part about Apple adopting Intel (“Think of it more as Apple is integrating Intel.”) I had never thought about it that way.
How will Apple shed the legacy junk? Isn’t one of the advantages of moving to x86 that Apple can take advantage of more-mass-produced hardware?
Apple’s success in the competitive landscape was dependent on IBM’s ability to deliver competitive chips, a company who’s priority isn’t desktop chips. IBM has shown they’re either not dedicated to delivering Power chips that are consistently competitive in terms of speed/power, or they are just not able to.
By moving to Intel, Apple has effectively nullified the highs and lows of the Mac versus Intel speed comparisons, and they no longer have to whine to IBM about them not delivering chips.
“Imaging a 12″ iBook with a ULV Pentium M and integrated Intel graphics.”
I’d rather not. Integrated graphics have a lacklustre performance and MacOS relies heavily on the GPU. I’m also afraid they may put the Celeron-M in the iBook and leave the Pentium-M for the PowerBooks (PentiumBooks?).
Perhaps they give the consumer more choices so one can have integrated graphics if he wants to go for battery life.
Apple should really bring out their entire line with Pentium M chips even for desktops I would say,
apple sales will surely increase also this will help software companies keeping the cost down & in a way this will affect the other PC vendors business,
imagine a software copany which makes softwares for both PC & Mac will simply go for Intel Mac (what do you call it now) & will get Windows copy now Apple is happy they have sale, MS is happy they have sell, DELL is screwed cause they don’t have market!
BTW does anyone has any idea as what hardware apple will be using? but i think laptop market will belong to apple in next 3 to 4 years time
How will Apple shed the legacy junk?
Well, they won’t. Intel isn’t likely to do a special edition without real mode, segmenting, x87 FPU, the infamous A20 gate, and whatever else Apple doesn’t actually need.
Perhaps they will have OpenFirmware instead of BIOS, but who knows.
they found a reliable supplier who has a long term roadmap for desktop chips and they’re still making macs, regardless of the processor. what’s NOT to like?
Macs have been using the same GPUs that x86 systems have used for years now, including laptops, with only minor modifications (a ROM chip I believe for OpenBoot?), which doesn’t boost performance.
This is the best thing that can happen to Apple. I think it will affect the price of the product also since pound for pound Intel CPU’s/Parts are alot cheaper. Either was i am looking forward to seeing what an intel based apple machine will look like.
I really hope Intel sees Apple as a partner who is ideal to showcase Intels best hardware. It makes sense. Longhorn will not come until late 2006 or early 2007. The Linux market is too fractured to be of much use to an ambitious harware maker. Apple has a great OS (Tiger), which will be very mature by 2006. Apple has customers who want good systems, not the cheapest possible boxes. Apple has a well-deserved reputation as an innovative company even in the hardware field (think USB support!).
I do hope Intel will produce some top-quality processors and give them to Apple at cut-rate prices so that we will have lots of Macs that kick anything short of a Cell into next week. Intel will makebig bucks when everybody else wants the same procesors.
As for IBM: Well, history repeats itself. They had a great technology and blew it. This happened with OS/2, now it happens again with PowerPC.
I don’t understand this need for clock speed, freescale had dual core G4’s coming out soon. The whole world is stepping away from upping clock speed and now looking at dual cores. Apple was behind in technology but x86 to me…is such a kludge.
This move effectivly destorys the top reasons peopl won’t buy macs right now.
The top reasons (as untrue as some may be) follow:
1.) They are too expensive
2.) They are slower then PCs
3.) I rely on some obscure peice of windows software
4.) There arn’t as many programs
5.) There aren’t any games
The switch solves these in the following ways:
1.) Intel hardware is mass produced, it will be much cheaper for apple to use Intel processors, motherboards, and x86 compatible video cards. Even if they keep the same profit margins the prices on all systems will drop by a few hundred dollars (possibly excluding the mini).
2.) The hardware is now the same, there is no longer anything to compare.
3.) Dual boot with windows to use necessary software.
4.) There are plenty of programs, if you can’t find one you can always dual boot. But i doubt it’ll be necessary.
5.) Games will be much easier to port now, and even ones that don’t get ported can always be run in windows.
Nothing but good can come of this switch, great job Apple.
I hope Intel and Apple make a commerical. Maybe of Apple resurrecting the Intel bunny on Holloween. Like a Friday 13 spoof on themselves. It would be funny.
Very good partnership! Intel can deliver on low, medium, and high end stuff.
Apple can produce slick Laptop designs, it’s very evident. A new Powerbook design is probably already in prototypes. They will have the Laptop markent for a while.
IBM couldn’t deliver. MS should be concerned now.
I wonder if Apple PC’s will have an Intel Inside sticker on them.
Yup it will be nice to see all the Adobe app’s on the Mac again to. Autodesk,,,,,maybe somemore of your app’s….Flame,,,Max??
RE: legacy
Intel won’t make special chips for Apple, but apple won’t have to support any legacy things since there is no legacy of an Intel Mac. No serial/parallel/ps/2. No old applications that still require vm86 mode. It is a chance to start fresh.
RE: integrated graphics
I don’t like the idea either, and I do think that OS X needs a fast 3d card to really shine, but it is an option they will have now that they didn’t before. They can cut costs and reduce power usage if they decide the desktop experience will be good enough integrated graphics. It gives them new options and the opportunity to make cheaper, smaller, more power efficient macs if they decide to do so.
RE: powerpc extremists
I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I was just going for the people who say the only reason they ran Mac was for the processor. I think the Mac experience will be the same on Intel as it was on PowerPC. People will fight RISC vs. CISC until the end of time, but in the end, I think it’s the total package apple puts together more than the processor it runs on. I think the people who say they are going to dump Apple because it’s going x86 are bluffing.
“I wonder if Apple PC’s will have an Intel Inside sticker on them.”
Why not?? It’s inside them.
I’m hoping G5’s will be lowered, so I can pick up a cheap dual……before I plunge into the Intel ones.
Except this won’t stop the Doom3 fiasco from happening again. IIRC, the major reasons Glenda Adams gave for the lackluster performance was a) it wasn’t optimized enough for Mac OS X (less time spent from everyone optimizing for it) and b) Mac OS X’s robust OpenGL architecture instead of the hackish Windows one that can get away with more things for more performance. Neither of these will change. GG.
What about the commercials about comparing p4 with ppc’s. So maybe they weren’t true at all?
It would be a real shame if Power architecture really took off thanks to the gaming consoles. Jumping off the rising star to get on the Titanic.
“What about the commercials about comparing p4 with ppc’s. So maybe they weren’t true at all?”
They *were* true. PPC has lagged. P4’s are no longer 2.5GHz, they’re 3.6GHz and the MHz Myth cannot climb that much of a difference.
Sure, the switch may allow for greater performance/cost ratio and less hassle with chip availability. But what about that threading performance problem in the OS that was all the talk last week? And, should I care whether my compiler will be writing x86 or PPC instructions? What about fat binaries… how much total system bloat will that add? Surely AAPL are working hard to resolve these problems and isolate the user from any back-end changes. I just hope that they don’t create something that is a monster to maintain due to supporting multi-architectures, emulation, etc. The beauty of mac is it’s seamlessness. I suppose that’s my biggest concern.
No Dell wont give Apple special treatment. Doing that would anger Dell who are considerably bigger than Apple. Dell would start using Opterons in their servers and Athlon FX’s in their desktops.
Wait a minute I hope that does happen
Doubt apple will do that. OEM who have the Intel Inside logo get subsidies on their marketing. Other than that there is not much of a benefit to having the branding.
you must use vm86 on X86 to setup up vesa and memory mangment you can`t get rid of it,it is stuck into the X86 ISA.
so they will need to use the same tech and use 16 bit emulation of the X86.
No it would be poetic
Doubt it will happen. Maybe Amiga will return PPC to desktop/notebook glory
It would be a real shame if Power architecture really took off thanks to the gaming consoles. Jumping off the rising star to get on the Titanic.
But it is taking off, in a real big way! In consoles, in servers, in embedded applications. But one place it won’t take off is in desktop PC’s. There was only one company to purchase them (Apple). And that just wasn’t enough money on the table to justify the expense of dedicating the kind of resources to the desktop implementations that Intel, with their greater economy of scale, can dedicate to x86.
PPC has a great future. But that future is not in desktop PC’s.
So much mourn about loosing a “great” architecture and none is capable of describing why.
How on earth can Apple compete against the likes of Dell and HP or even IBM? Just too many players right now making either good quality good service or best price.
Apple owned the design of the Power chips. They didn’t need IBM to make them.
Except apple have no chip fabs, and no CPU R&D department.
Apple has announced that it is switching to Intel processors. But you won’t be able to buy any of those new machines for a year. Under these circumstances, who’s going to buy a new Apple PowerPC-based machine? Won’t everyone wait for the new ones?
This sounds like the Osborne Effect to me: Adam Osborne announced how cool his company’s next-generation machines were going to be, and it caused sales of his existing machines to dry up, and the company ran out of money before he could ship the new ones. Maybe Apple can stay alive with iPods and iTunes if it can’t sell any Macs for a whole year; we’ll see.
Since this box will also run Windows there is no reason to port them to Mac. People will jsut buy and play the PC version. This is not good for Mac game developers but it is good for Mac gamers.
is that Jobs has spent the last 10 years running down Intel, is Intel less sucky now that Jobs has embraced it?
My boss asked me how long until Apple gives in to the other half of the Wintel alliance? After this most recent news, I couldn’t even tell him that was an absurd idea…..
I don’t see the Osbourne Effect only because I’m sure Apple has been letting their supply dwindle, plus there are so many people who insist the PPC is what’s best about that Mac then they should be buying up the supply while they can. Let’s face it, PPC on the desktop won’t be moving forward anymore so for those that insist it’s the be-all-end-all chip they should be there to buy the remaining Apple supply.
My first posting anywhere on this. I have been looking, but I haven’t seen this factor pointed out anywhere.
I think the single biggest factor in Apple’s switch is Intel’s DRM roadmap.
Apple is cozying up to record and music companies, convincing them that iTunes is the way to go. Every couple of months a new iTunes hack comes out. How do you think that makes Apple look? Big Media has had nowhere better to go than Apple so far, but I think the gauntlet must have been cast: when hardware DRM is available, anything else gets cut off.
This isn’t a move for performance. It isn’t a marketing move. It is going to hurt Apple’s computer buisness in the short term, but it is the right thing for their iPod/iTunes buisness. Wow, it is going to hurt their computer buisness: Mac OS X is going to be hacked in no time to run on any computer…. unless hardware DRM can fix that too.
“Apple should really bring out their entire line with Pentium M chips even for desktops I would say”
I think that’s where they are headed, judging by the performance comparisons S. Jobs was making. By the time of the official x86 Apple launch next year, Intel is planning on dumping the P4 netburst architecture and transitioning to their Pentium M on the desktop. It will more than likely be a dual-core part as well. Apple is demoing with a P4 right now because that’s whats out for the time being.
Chris
Im as big a supporter of the PowerPC as anyone. I love the fact that my mac has a different architecture than 97% of the pcs out there. I run old macs and sparcstations and next hardware just because of the oddness of them. I’m immensely sad that in two years the desktop will become a cpu monoculture, but I think that this is what Apple had to do.
This will be the first time since the original 128k mac that Apple won’t have to beg and threaten its supplier to get new cpus. Apple always had technically better cpus. The 68000 killed the 8086, it was a much better design. The same goes for the Power-PCs, But the companies manufacturing them were always more interested in other applications of the technology, motorola wanted embedded processors and IBM wants mainframes and games systems. Apple wasn’t a big enough customer to warrant them putting the resources into full-time development. Now finally apple has a supplier whose main focus is personal computers. x86 may not be better than PowerPC, but at least you know that it will be here in ten years, because that’s what Intel and AMD do, 24 hours a day. It’s virtually their only focus.
I think that it will be interesting to see an Apple that doesn’t have to worry about where its cpus come from.
Please stop with these damn Intel/Apple articles. I’ve read this same thing 25 times on different sites. Post about an “OS” osnews.
“This sounds like the Osborne Effect to me: Adam Osborne announced how cool his company’s next-generation machines were going to be, and it caused sales of his existing machines to dry up, and the company ran out of money before he could ship the new ones. Maybe Apple can stay alive with iPods and iTunes if it can’t sell any Macs for a whole year; we’ll see.”
Apple’s sitting on a great big 10 billion dollar pile of cash money boy
Yeah, so I guess we can apply the same reasoning to any computing platform. Say, 2 years ago – “why should I buy a G4 mac when a G5’s about to come out?” then th G5 comes out “why should I buy the G5 when a more powerful G5’s about to come out?” etc.
Why buy any compuiter since new better faster ones will be out next year?
Osbourne effect? Destroyed!
Very well written. Thanks for the sanity check.
Bruno the Arrogant,
But it is taking off, in a real big way! In consoles, in servers, in embedded applications.
That was my point – one of the problems cited by Apple was not enough performance but this may be something that was about to get resolved. If consoles become the center piece of home computing, the chips that go with them will increase in power more quickly than in the past. Apple could have hitched a ride to the top in that case. They might also have enjoyed the potential explosion of USB devices targetted at consoles in the future.
Great article. You provide evidence and rationality instead of emotion. You left out one thing though: one of the major reasons Apple did not go with AMD is the same reason they left IBM–unreliable supply. AMD has been quoted in various publications as currently selling every chip they make. In this situation how are they going to supply Apple reliably–especially considering that Apple will not be a major volume customer for several years at least (try and compare Apples volume to HP). On the other hand Intel has undeniably the greatest manufacturing capability of any CPU vendor. That fact combined with their excellent mobile technologies sealed the deal (i.e. Pentium M has always surpassed the G4 in performance). I cannot wait for a dual core SSE3 Pentium M, Yonah, Powerbook. Apple you’ve got my money.
So much mourn about loosing a “great” architecture and none is capable of describing why.
Because all they can say is “cruft” and “clean” and are incapable of giving sound technical reasons why Apple should stay with PowerPC when everybody (including Jobs now) could see that especially the powerbooks were underpowered compared to the intel/amd offerings.
….is really a moot point. What’s become more important is the compiler.
Just look at SSE and Velocity Engine/VMX. They are fairly similar in most respects. However, there is one major and important difference: GCC can’t generate vectorized code well at all for SSE/VMX, while Intel’s compilers can optimize for SSE/SSE2 extremely well.
As for Legacy support, it’s all in the BIOS anyway. A PC’s bios is 16-bit, so the 16-bit modes of IA32 are still used to access VESA (which is a DOS thing, really), etc. Gate A20 is a hack to work around 16-bit address limitations. Also, option roms for SCSI cards have a severe size limit. This is all so DOS will boot on your Athlon64. Since Apple has no need for 16-bit support, 90% of the legacy goes out the window right there.
As for IBM: Well, history repeats itself. They had a great technology and blew it. This happened with OS/2, now it happens again with PowerPC.
PowerPCs are found in all three next-gen game consoles. We’re looking at 100 million+ units here, or the equivalent of 20 years of Mac computers. IBM didn’t “blow” anything.
Personally, the big news for me is the Cell-based Linux workstation that’s supposed to be demoed at Linux Tag. That should be interesting…
The new Apple boxes with Intel use a piece of shit Phoenix BIOS, no OFW, no EFI. Steve Jobs can take his pentium4 boxen and shove them up his ass.
I agree. Apple has made a gravely wrong decision this time. But, hey, who cares – there will be plenty of CELL based PCs by next year that outperform any Intel based platform.
“With the same processor and video card, games written in OpenGL should perform almost identical.”
That’s absolutely incorrect. If there were no kernel it’d be true, but this isn’t MS-DOS anymore…
Ah well… We lost the Alpha (best chip ever!), SGI’s moving away from MIPS, Itanium’s nearly dead (before it even took off), Sun’s using Opterons and now PowerPC’s obituary has been written. No more “nice” desktop processors.
If I could afford it, I’d go to IBM and buy something with a Power5.
“I also bet you will be able to drop in any new processor or video card you want.”
Bwahahahaha!
Apple letting it’s users add a faster CPU? That’s rich! These are gonna be *APPLE* PC’s. Not your average PC.
If Apple allowed it’s users to add a faster CPU, why buy a newer model of Intel Mac? Notice how the ONLY thing that was EVER changed about the G5’s since their inception, was the CPU speed? All they did was slap a faster CPU in the thing and call it a new system! Wow!
Unless Apple takes the Microsoft route and starts trying to support every single card out there, you can bet your farm that only a thin selection of video cards will work on the Intel Mac, to keep Apple’s headaches to a minimum.
Apple’s got a lot of figuring out to do on this new Intel roadmap. I only hope it turns out ok…
Luposian
To what legacy junk are you referring?
read this little article….it seems that the audio community is very excited also.
http://www.avrev.com/news/0605/7.apple.html
“Bwahahahaha!
Apple letting it’s users add a faster CPU? That’s rich! These are gonna be *APPLE* PC’s. Not your average PC.”
You have no idea what you are talking about and have obviously never owned a Mac. YES you can upgrade the processors in Macintosh computers as I have done it several times with Mac towers I have owned (Apples Pro lines). The G5 upgrade path will come soon I’m sure, for the time being there is little need to upgrade G5 systems.
FYI – There are several companies you can purchase upgrades from, read for yourself:
http://www.sonnettech.com
http://www.powerlogix.com
http://www.gigadesigns.com
Perhaps you are confusing the fact that iMacs/eMacs are not processor upgradeable. They are consumer systems, and mostly in a form factor no bigger than a laptop computer. Individuals who purchase these are well aware that the processor and video cards of these systems cannot be upgraded but Ram/Hard drives can be upgraded though.
When was the last time you dumped a new processor in your PC laptop?
Nuff said
Genesis
Since the new universal executable runs on both powerpc and intel, why doesn’t apple just use both processors? Why abandon powerpc? Why not use the powerpc chip for some boxes and intel for other boxes? Does it just have to be one or the other?
I feel like crap because I just got my G5 and now Steve is saying that Intel processors are better than PPC processors.
How is he going to convince new users of buying his products for the next year if they will come with something better?
Also, I know he is planning to support our PPC computers for while using universal binaries….but for how long???
But…..after seeing the presentation and I must admit that Steve made the right decision. I hope to see 2-4 processors running at the same time on the new Macs. If they just come with just one crappy one….I won’t buy it. If the Xbox is coming with 3 PPC processors for $300, I am pretty sure that Steve can do better than that. Pls, Steve, give us something very special.
-2501
Reading through these posts I see all sorts of comments about how IBM could not deliver and how IBM screwed up
Did it ever occure to you people that IBM dosen’t care?
They still have their entire power line….. and .. they were making a minimal profit on G5’s
From IBM’s perspective, they may almost be glad that it dosen’t have to keep wasting money on R&D on a dumbed down server cpu they were making little money on
IBM does servers, and they do consoles
Now, with all that having been said, I am a fan of the ppc processors including the G5, I really hate to see it go, but I truly believe this switch to Intel will open up the market for apple and allow them to really sperad their wings.
as far as current processors, I would have liked to see them negotiate something with AMD, however, in a year intel will probably have a superior cpu (maybe 2), and a year or 2 after that…. AMD will jump to the front again. My point is… …. … no point lol
go Apple best of luck
If it will make you feel any better and you think your G5 is worthless, I’ll happily give you $.30 on the dollar for your worthless machine right now. I’ll enjoy that machine for the next five years while you, what, go to Windows?
> How is he going to convince new users of buying his products for the next year if they will come with something better?
Hate to break it to you, but on average, there’s “something better” every 9 months or so already. There’s no “Osborne effect” here.
PowerPCs are found in all three next-gen game consoles. We’re looking at 100 million+ units here, or the equivalent of 20 years of Mac computers. IBM didn’t “blow” anything.
That’s a great market for any chip maker, because you don’t have to worry about performance and yet still have high volume. They pump out 100 million units without needing to increase performance for years at a stretch. An XBox bought the day they are released will have the same speed processor as the processor in a unit built and sold 2 years later.
The desktop/workstation market requires performance increases almost every quarter to remain competitive, and IBM just wasn’t coming through. No cool-enough G5 chips for laptops, no 3 GHz G5’s, and strings of production delays. While the G5 is great on paper, the execution is enough to make it undesireable for Apple for the desktop market.
IBM, of course, probably doesn’t care that much, even happy to have a pushy customer off their back. They can continue to maked PowerPC embedded processors (where they need to be cool but not fast), server processors (which don’t have the same concerns about cooling as laptops). It’d be interested to see Apple use Power5 for the Xservs, where they could probably still be a good idea, but I doubt it.
from our friends at slashdot: http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/archives/old/gsb-archive/gsb2001-…
Brings a new perspective on the scene.
Want to bet OS X 10.5 will be able to use Windows drivers? It’s the same processor, same I/O architecture, why not the same driver binaries. We’d get the upside of cheap add on hardware and timely, reasonable driver support and we’ll avoid the downside of dealing with Windows.
Of course, my other theory is that OS X 10.5 Leopard IS Windows Longhorn. Microsoft may have thrown in the towel on Longhorn and Gates has cut a deal with Jobs for the next generation of Windows. At least Apple can still release operating systems.
I could be wrong, of course, but the timelines in the articles kind of
support Apple’s “low end Macs in ’06, the high end Macs by 2007”
intel chip timeline. Recommend interested folks check out the article
links or google “Conroe”, “Merom”, or “Woodcrest” with the word “intel”
placed before each chip’s name.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23055
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5697088.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-5181256.html
http://www.endian.net/details.asp?ItemNo=3883
Have a good one…
Zen
do not get me wrong….I love PPC processors. Did you notice that MS Media center can run on PPC platforms? Bill fell in love with the PPC arquitecture because he knows is better for graphics. Playstation 3, the same story and Nintendo already knows about the power of the PPC processors.
Now Steve is going to the dark side thinking of getting better performance with Intel processors. PPC arquitectures will have more customers when the Xbox 360 comes out and that means that Bill will make that his new xbox will run MS Windows. More Windows for the new gamers. I am getting one….and i forgot PS3 and Nintendo also running PPC processors.
I will be praying for Apple.
-2501
Intel hardware is mass produced, it will be much cheaper for apple to use Intel processors, motherboards, and x86 compatible video cards. Even if they keep the same profit margins the prices on all systems will drop by a few hundred dollars (possibly excluding the mini).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You are delusional if you think Macs will be any cheaper on Intel hardware. Part of the Mac snob appeal is their premium price. Jobs is counting on that to increase his profit margin above and beyond what it is on PPC hardware.
All of you touting the Xenon and Cell are forgetting one very important factor: Both of them are ‘stupid’. Just look at their design specifications, they’re both built for a very specific problem domain. They’re both missing features needed to perform half decently as a desktop, or anything outside their problem domain, for that matter.
Cell is worse off than Xenon in this regard because it’s even ‘stupider’ than Xenon is. Also Xenon doesn’t have to scale, and Cell isn’t scaling anywhere near what IBM was claiming. It’s little surprise that Apple switched in the end, Apple is in the end, a business.
ROFLMAO!!
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up – you have to give Sun and IBM credit for telling Intel to take a hike, and concentrating on their own architectures.
But I don’t think it’s applicable in this case. x86 is already the industry standard, truthfully, these days the processor is the least interesting differentiating factor about the Mac.
You also have to consider, that when Apple first went with PPC, it gave them a significant, and much needed performance advantage over competing Windows systems. That advantage has not held. Now that Apple has had the opportunity to modernize, and build an ecosphere around their platform, the last thing they need is to be put at a disadvantage by an indifferent supplier.
While Apple will never be at a performance advantage over Windows boxes again, it will at least never be at a disadvantage to them again, and in the meantime they’ve managed to build a number of compelling differentiating factors around their platform such that the processor is the least compelling reason to consider it. I regret seeing PPC leaving the desktop arena, but I still think Apple has done the right thing.
do not get me wrong….I love PPC processors. Did you notice that MS Media center can run on PPC platforms? Bill fell in love with the PPC arquitecture because he knows is better for graphics. Playstation 3, the same story and Nintendo already knows about the power of the PPC processors.
Again, they’re different markets. Game consoles only increase performance once every few years. An XBox 360 will have the same processor the day it’s released as an XBox 360 released 2 years later.
I, like many here, bought into the superior platform that is PPC. For a while, it was superior, but that edge has slowly ebbed away over the years. Now, at best, it retains parity in terms of performance, and even dips below x86. Not enough resources have been brought to bear to leverage the PPC on the desktop, and it puts Apple in a bad position.
It’s still a compelling server and embedded architecture (although IBM hasn’t had that much success so far in the Power servers), but I can see why Apple made that move, and I agree with it.
It seems to me that most of the readers of this site are early 20s or younger.
If you have been around computers for more than 25 years you will know that IBM is the only computer company hat survives from the earliest days.
Wang, Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Acorn, Amstrad, Commodore have all gone.
Apple will dissapear too or transform into a consumer electronics company.
you are right. i agree with your opinion.
-2501
While it is true that the Cell’s real strenght lies in floating point operations, you shouldn’t dismiss its performance in integer operations as well. The speed increase is not as dramatic, but still impressive from what I’ve read.
A Cell business desktop might not make much sense, but I can very well imagine a 3D/editing/sound mixing workstation using it. Or a “true” multimedia home desktop…
That said, let’s wait until they’ve shown the Linux Cell-based workstation at LinuxTag before commenting on whether or not the Cell “works” on the desktop.
Am I the only one that doesn’t see Mac OS X as the usability holy grail that the hype says it is? I have a Powerbook and dual-booted OS X and Linux and found that I was only booting into OS X to play around. I learned how to use it, I installed all of the right tools. In fact, in many ways, I know how to use the OS better than my coworkers that are full-time OS X users. I don’t get why it is better, “so much better”.
I am more than happy with Debian unstable and the 2.6 kernel. Everything worked “out of the box” for me, I didn’t have to do any major tweaking or anything. I use Gnome, Epiphany, Emacs, XChat, gaim, and a whole slew of console applications regularly. I get my work done just as fast. I can do most everything they can do. What’s so nice about it?
Besides, it isn’t as problem-free as everyone says it is. I have had a ton of problems with some of the Macs here at work and I have been baffled at times on how to fix them. Mind you, I refuse to touch the Windows machines.
the good thing is, that apple is one step from clones again. imagine if they started selling macos for every computer. and dell started selling macs. This could concievably put an end to microsoft.
Bill fell in
love with the PPC arquitecture because he knows is better for graphics
ROFL! It amazes me how clueless people on this website are.
Good God.. You people are truely unbelievable.
Before releasing Mac OS for every computer, Apple could release a Mac live CD so that people can check whether their hardware is Mac compatible.
I suspect they will see a huge drop on sales for the rest of G4-G5 stuff or let see how they handle it.. is funny how Jobs mention “they are switching to intel but they still have great g5 products comming out” yeah Jobs … I was seriously thinking on switching to Mac but now with this shit.. no way I stay with linux….
This is the best thing that can happen to Apple. I think it will affect the price of the product also since pound for pound Intel CPU’s/Parts are alot cheaper. Either was i am looking forward to seeing what an intel based apple machine will look like.
True. The latest graphics chipsets from Intel aren’t too bad either; when it boils down to it, the only thing Apple will need to do is design the case, and Intel will take care of the rest – expect some reductions in the hardware side of the business, or atleast a reallocation of those person to other parts.
We’ll probably see the mini-Mac with a Centrino CPU, the latest Intel graphics card thrown on a PCIe bus, along with using DDR2 533Mhz memory. It’ll be an interest time in the next 12-18 months.
I found this at the inquirer… which says that Apple is in talks with AMD as well and there is a possibility that AMD might also join the Apple bandwagon…
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23714
Will the x86 or G5 computer I use do the job I want it to? A faster start here, or a quicker image render there, a tool the other billionaire didn’t bother to develop, hum, what to do? It’s all relative to one thing, which is; does it simply do the job I want it to do?
What does it matter what is inside the box that sits there making heat and noise and attracting dust? Can you drive it to grandma’s house? How fast does it have to do anything before it’s just too fast for me to catch with my aging eyes and dulling brain? Will it send an email, correct my ignorance with spelling, and keep a spreadsheet so I know how little money I have? Can I make a web page, pay bill? Do payroll?
X86, G5, why not a coffee maker? I could hang around the pot and read hour old news stories on Yahoo. I’d be strung out on vanilla flavored Columbian, ground at the local grocery store, and I could do calculations at the same time using my CNC Brewermater XV-007 (OS included) until I found a way to beat ol’ Star B*cks at its own game. No more five-dollar brews for me, man.
It is simply too bad I can’t have my computer run any task I want it to with only a screen and a keyboard and never even once have to give a thought to or even know what’s under the hood. All I need to know is where’s wall plug and the on switch is.
How about no OS or Box at all? Why not throw the keyboard away and just tell the computer what to do, or better, because your voice might get tired, why not think about what you want it to do, and it simply does it even when you’re down stairs sitting in the john? You can check the results on any screen, placed through out the house or office when you get a chance after washing your hands. You could do your computer work anywhere at anytime. Just walk up to a term on any wall anywhere in the world and think at it. If you need a document, the wall that the term is mounted on simply spits it out at you. You’ll find a shredder below and to the right. A common format used throughout the world, except in Bozeman, Montana. They like the shredder to be a little further to the left.
As it is today, the guys and gals who make these rudimentary, market driven throw-away, plastic covered, pieces of technology work, well, I have to hand it to you, you are simply amazing brains. Thanks.
But, let me know when I can expect to just plug in a computer, go watch TV in my Lazy-Boy, and just think about what I need it to do. I won’t have to lay my eyes on it again after I place it on the shelf, next to my Craftsman 3/8th drill, in the garage. After that, how about those slots in the wall that simply spits out the pages I want after I’ve thought about what to say. If your wall quits printing, just sell the house or call the cable guy.
I think Apple is simply caught between a rock and a hard place with the G4/5. Ideally they’d like to stay with the platform, but it just isn’t delivering. So they’re doing the only thing they can do to keep performance up to par. There is no consumer chip that can compete with Intel and its compatibles.
If Apple plays their cards right, and Rosetta really works for most legacy apps, switching to Intel shouldn’t hurt them, and could help them by making them perform more competitively. Of course there will be people who will jump ship, but I don’t think most will. Some people may not notice the difference. They could gain users who have previously been afraid of a new hardware platform.
Imagine, Windows apps will be able to run in something like Virtual PC or VMWare at native speeds. People will still get OS X, only it will be faster. The people who complain about x86 assembly and a BIOS instead of OpenFirmware are a tiny minority. How many people give a shit about that? I only do in theory. Yes, it’s cool to have the exotic factor of PowerPC, but OS X is really the most important feature of a Mac. Besides, Macs will now be more hackable. Before you know it, people will find a way to make OS X run on ordinary PCs. Watch for it. The more I think about this, the better it gets.
This is probably the best time for Apple to make this move. On one level it seems like they should have done it at the same time they introduced OS X to reduce the number of paradigm shifts, but it would have been a very messy transition. They probably weren’t ready anyway, with Rosetta and all. And it’s better that they get it done now, before PPC is lagging so far behind that it’s hopeless.
Are the current $999 boxes feature a 64-bit P4 or the old 43-bit P4s?
Imagine, Windows apps will be able to run in something like Virtual PC or VMWare at native speeds.
No, if you’re going to run Virtual PC you’ll be running the whole Windows operating system and not just your apps. What you want is WINE. Then you’ll be getting much nearer native speeds.
Take a look:
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/
First, although the development machine is running a Phoenix BIOS, that does not mean teh final machines will. Having said that, developers may need information about teh machine their software is running on. It would therefore make sense that the development machines will be passing that information to software in a similar manner to a BIOS.
Second, Apple will not want to be known as another PC clone maker. I imagine that in their negotiations with Intel they dropped requirements for Intel Inside and “ding ding ding ding” in their advertising. Of course I am just speculating.
Third, they may not necessarily use integrated graphics in their final shipping machines. The fact that Macs don’t use shared memory for graphics is a point of differentiation and one that took me by surprise when I first looked at Mac laptops. Even if they do go for integrated graphics in some machines the decision may be based on future Intel (or other) designs that are significantly better than existing solutions (no Nostradumus there – technology always improves).
Fourth, the Mac experience is the integration between the software and the hardware. processor choice does not change that.
Fifth, Intel, or someone else, may well produce a chipset that is Mac only and not sold to other producers. That chipset may or may not be better than other Intel chipsets (I don’t see why Intel would do that however).
Sixth, there may well be hacks to get OS X onto generic-PCs, however, first any DRM / protection measures must be overcome, then drivers must be written for generic PC chipsets. A lot of work for relatively little savings. Combined with Apples’s legal muscle, hacking OS X for generics is going to be a very niche activity. Again this is speculation.
Seventh, there is no seventh.
Eighth, I will buy another PowerPC Mac between now and the release of Intel powered machines. Possibly an iMac so at least i can say i had a G5. Why? Because I want a new machine now, not in two years. Because most of the software I am using now, I will be using in two years. Because I want to make some DVDs and my machine doesn’t have a superdrive, or the power to do MPEG-2 encoding in reasonable time.
Apple won’t be disappearing soon (I hope).
Why doesnt Intel take this opportunity to push the Itanium? Enough of the x86 legacy…
From http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessio…
“Hopes for Cell are so high that Sony, which plans to use Cell chips in the next generation of PlayStation game consoles, has invested $325 million in improvements to IBM’s semiconductor plant in East Fishkill, N.Y.
“IBM’s production of chips for Apple accounted for only about 2 percent of Fishkill’s (NY) capacity.”
The reality is that Apple was meaningless as a buyer.
Apple’s best choice for success would be to either make a cross plattform development kit, or build on an existing platform.
It should be possible to compile a mac-program on Windows. I don’t see the software situation improving much when people still need a Mac to compile programs. Most programs have no need for assembler codes, so all they require is a compiler. (With the exception of certain games and math-intensive programs)
Very good article. I was thrown off, however, by a simple but unfortunately common grammatical error:
” Would Apple risk it’s laptop market on the Turion?”
“It’s” means “It is”. It is *not* the possessive form of ‘it’, as in Apple’s laptop market. The possessive form of ‘it’ is ‘its’. There are no exceptions.
A simple error, but one that is really distracting to the reader (me).
Thank you for your consideration.
‘linux better than osx?’
Gotta be something wrong with you Travis B. Hartwell.
or “it has”..
but why would this bother anybody at a forum where people confuse “their” and “there” at least 30 times per forum page..?
O-S-B-O-R-N-E???
Enough said, I don’t care what’s inside an Apple box as long as the “user experience” is the same. What I *do* care about is whether Apple will exist.
It seems to me that most of the readers of this site are early 20s or younger.
If you have been around computers for more than 25 years you will know that IBM is the only computer company hat survives from the earliest days.
Wang, Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Acorn, Amstrad, Commodore have all gone.
Apple will dissapear too or transform into a consumer electronics company.
I was wondering how long before the doom-mongers started reappearing.
In the early days, the word computer meant Big Iron (as in mainframe and the like) which is why you still won’t find Apple in the same list as IBM, Amdahl, Wang, Digital, etc.
One of the first things I learnt whilst working in IBM is that they’ll readily admit that Apple invented the first personal computer, but then IBM also likes to brag that it’s the only survivor from the time the computer revolution began — lets not forget that they started off making typewriters.
I don’t think Apple’s move to Intel chips necessarily mean that it’s given up on PPC. They just, very wisely if you ask me, can’t trust IBM to keep its end of any bargain.
I think it was someone at Sun who said: “when working with IBM one of two things will happen, your problem eventually gets solved or you’ve run out of money”.
I’m sure Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will do well enough, maybe Apple will take another look at the PPC architecture when the time is right.
I’m sure Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will do well enough, maybe Apple will take another look at the PPC architecture when the time is right.
IBM truely walked away from a great market.
With Apples growing market share, this is the first real chance that IBM could have gotten into the game of building the markets desktop chips.
With Billions of chips sold every year, and the fastest chips being sold for $800. That’s a LOT of potential to KISS AWAY, just because you can’t PLAICATE Steve.
The CELL processor is a nice SINGLE User SINGLE Application chip. Maybe IBM could put together a Linux Dev Kit for it. But, that might cost MONEY, and be RISKY, better not try it.
Forgive the Vernacular: IBM get some BALLS.
The CELL would be Great for Folding@Home for example.
I’d buy one Just to run that.
Fat binaries are simply binaries with extra code for specific architectures. When you run the installer, it detects the processor type you are running and installs ONLY the code needed for that arch.
They do tend to be a tad larger, when done right not much larger at that.
Blizzard has been doing this sort of thing for many years. Notice how you use the same disc for both x86 and PPC.
The CELL processor is a nice SINGLE User SINGLE Application chip.
Where did you get that idea from? Cell won’t have any particular problem with a multi-user multi-tasking OS.
The Cell will perform very well on applications that are specially written for it. It will perform tolerably for applications that are at least recompiled for it.
But it would perform badly on any existing Mac applications.
Maybe IBM could put together a Linux Dev Kit for it.
That rather contradicts your previous single-user single-task statement.
Besides, IBM does indeed provide Linux on Cell:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/27/ibm_demos_cell/
instead of blindly criticizing IBM as the bad guy here (in spite of Jobs’ screwing over Mac users any time he has been with Apple), how about looking at what IBM is actually doing for developers:
http://www-130.ibm.com/developerworks/
Pay particular attention to
http://www-130.ibm.com/developerworks/linux
http://www-130.ibm.com/developerworks/power
As far as IBM walking away from Apple’s growing market share, even if IBM did deliver 3GHz (or 10GHz for that matter), Apple wouldn’t be buying any additional CPUs. People aren’t waiting around to buy G5s in the hopes that suddenly Apple will release 3GHz. Apple jerks their developers around constantly; IBM is actually returning a lot back to the developer community (they just aren’t spinning the media like Jobs).
Steve jobs told in the press that he will not allow Mac OS X to run on the existing pc hardware. I wonder how he is going to do this?????.
Give me some reply…..
“PowerPC extremists
So if we are not of you opinions, we are extremists …
Humm, for me YOU are the only extremist here.”
Why is it that so many OSNews readers are such little trolls. Go back to your cave troll. I thought this article was very well written and well thought out. I agree with the author that this move is a good one… however as with anything I’ll have to see it before I believe it… as a general rule first gen. apple hardware usually has some very particular flaws.
I’m feed up with Inetl. If you find Apple innovative in the software side, AMD is in the hardware side. AMD switched to 64 bits 2 years ago, like Apple. Why don’t they go further together ?
Let Microsoft glue software migration to 64 bits to let their friend Intel to slownly follows AMD. Apple needs a manufacturer with balls like AMD ! Let’s mary them !
What made Intel these last years ? the run of MHz ? Tweaking a Pentium D where AMD created a real dual code system ? Intel is mocking consumers, AMD is taking them more seriously…
Now AMD deserves to get the market that Intel lost by arrogance and lazyness…
My 2 euro cents !
Kochise
” I see Apple with more headroom for the future to create better, faster designs.”
–unsubstantiated, no evidence given for why a switch to Intel would do this.
“I see much more opportunity for the hacker community to work with this also.”
–needs glasses then. Since this switch means nothing more than the cpu change I don’t see how that would give the “hacker community” to do more. If this switch also meant they were becoming an OS company so we could build our own Mac clone then sure, this prophecy would have some merit but since its not then I don’t see the user base changing very much at all, especially in the hacker/power user community.