“Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life. There have been rumors to this effect… We’ve had teams working on the ‘just in case’ scenario.” said Steve Jobs. Apple will ship a Mac with Intel processors by June 6th, 2006, as reports said. It should be complete by June 2007. Says that Intel offers a better roadmap for the markets that Apple services. Jobs talked about IBM missing the 3 GHz mark for the G5 and not being able to put one in a PowerBook. Today’s WWDC demonstration has been done entirely on an Intel Mac Xeon-P4. Developers applauded Steve when he said that both processors would be supported for a long time and the core to this will be universal binaries. ‘Rosetta’ will allow PowerPC compiled apps to work on an Intel Mac. UPDATE: After Jobs’ presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. “That doesn’t preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will,” he said. “We won’t do anything to preclude that.” However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers’ hardware. “We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac.“
CONFIRMED: Apple to use Intel Chips – *updated*
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
OMFG I still can’t believe it. O_O
It’s over.
IBM just got *clowned*
Let me be the first to say, I told you so.
“‘This has been going on for the last five years.’ Every release of OS X has been compiled and run on Intel processors.”
Steve! you were my brother! you were the chosen one! you were supposed to destroy the X86 not join them!”-IBM-wan kenobi
“I hate you!”-Steve Jobs
To me it still seems unclear, is OS X ported to x86 or is it a custom Intel processor?
I always knew that they had internal versions of software that could run on Intel chips. However, I always thought IBM would be the one to break the relationship and trigger the switch to Intel. Go figure.
*cries* why oh why!??!
Bye bye NexT, bye bye BeOS, bye bye SGI, bye bye Sun and now bye bye Apple. Let’s go back to RISC OS
Time for Win32 on OS/X via Wine =)
But when are we gonna get an Apple OS you can install on any whitebox, just like windows? That’s the significant thing for me. Its no use taking an open architecture and building around it like it was closed.
OSX runs on Intel P4 …
He still has said nothing as to what type of Intel processor. x86? 64? That’s what I want to hear.
I don’t think it’ll affect IBM’s bottom line. All three game consoles coming out are powerpc based and they’ll have more units sold within the first month of release than apple has in the same time frame.
So yes, Steve Jobs was miffed about the 3.0 GHz G5 being vapor and a dream. But I think the people who will be crying isn’t IBM but rather Apple fanboys. Personally, this just turned me off the Mac. I liked the fact that their systems ran on a different architecture.
It still remains to be seen if OS X/x86 will run on generic PCs.
Intersting and, IMHO, a stupid move. Chiplevel DRM on Intel processors means I will go through many contortions to avoid getting one.
Flash will finally run at decent speed on OSX
From the feed, on how long it took to port the huge Mathematica software:
“Jobs asked a long time developer (Theo Grey of Wolfram Research, the makers of Mathematica) to come out to Apple and work on Intel.”
“Mr. Gray is joking about getting “the most crazy calls from Apple,” where Steve asked him on Wednesday night to come out to Apple and port Mathematica, one of the most complex apps on the planet to Intel by Monday.”
“According to Mr. Gray, it took two hours to do this port. “We’re talking about 20 lines of code out of millions from a dead cold start where he didn’t even know why he was going.””
We’re getting a demonstaration of Mathematica at work. It’s quite impressive, of course, and it’s working on an Intel Mac
From Macworld..
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/06/liveupdate/index.php
“Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple’s Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.”
still any doubts???
IT’S OVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW,
MAJOR news! …. and I thought nothing could top the OS 9 to OS X transition …..
Console processors are well served by Power, since consoles don’t compete on speed increases (except for new generations of consoles). Xbox 360 processors will probably be the same speed when it’s first released as it is 2 years after it’s released.
Apple kept getting bit in the ass by Power’s inability to get performance boosts like the hyper-competitive, hyper-consumer-sensitive (at least by comparison) x86 market. They probably got tired of begging IBM to make faster chips.
Develpoer Kit includes 3.6GHz Pentium 4. OS X 10.4.1 for Intel (preview release). Order today; available in two weeks. [10:48 am]
Being that an x86 mac is at least 1 year away, who is going to buy a mac in the interim ?
I remember fat binaries from the NeXT days. We’d have binaries for the 4 platforms that NeXTSTEP ran on (HP-RISC, SPARC, x86, and of course, NeXTSTATION/680×0)
“Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple’s Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.”
Will make a lot of people happy.
I take it this means the final end to Classic – no more of being able to run your old apps eh? or will rosetta take care of this ?
Transition using emulation layer Rosetta…binaries are not truly compiled for x86 they are using an emulation layer, that would surly affect performance IMHO
Roz Ho, the MBU General Manager at Microsoft is on stage talking about this transition
Just a few months ago good ol’ Steve was encouraging G5 CPU’s and the pipelines and how clock speed has very little to do with performance and bs and more bs.
What happend to that, how can a man with such two faces be trusted?
I will finally make the plunge now and buy an apple i have been waiting for a reason to for a long time and if i can run OSX on a system i built that would be fantistic
He keep saying “compiled for Intel” – does he mean x86? He’s completely skirting the issue of whether this lets us install OS X on any PC…
Roz also said that Microsoft has been working with Apple on Xcode, and plans on having universal binaries of its products to support the fractured user base transparently.
http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,477662,00.jpg
how is that a big deal. it will still be an apple, not a commodity built Dell system.
And the article ddidnt say anything abotu being X86, but rather intel processor (they do make more than just x86s
this is not gonna change much, it will be the same thing as before, just a faster processors
this was a total nonanouncement because honestly, it wont change things much. apple delivers the total package and it is basically immaterial what one individual component happens to be
For all the unbelievers out there, this rumour has been finally put to rest.
Whats amazing is how they kept this secret and hidden from any public eyes for so long…
Jobs can’t be trusted. It should be an official wikipedia entry.
Job’s 10:33am PDT – “As a matter of fact, this system I’ve been using here…” the keynote’s been running on a P4 3.6GHz all morning
3 button mouse ???
aint gonna happen
Looks like no new Mac for me til late 2006 early 2007. This is going to kill their hardware sales.
Read the reports. It wasn’t a matter of Apple calling it quits. IBM no longer felt a need to coddle a whiny baby like Jobs after getting the Microsoft deal. IBM will be selling to MS each week what Apple was buying in year.
do you beleive apple will allow that ? nope
those chips will be customized so OSX will not run on a standard P4
you want OSX? you will still have to buy a mac, not a spare parts machine.
Why not support Intel, AMD, and PowerPC? You could then have Intel for your consumer systems (iMacs, iBooks), AMD for your killer gaming rigs, and PowerPC for your workstations.
I was seriously considering getting a PowerMac. But with this news there’s no point.
Watch Apple’s hardware sales tank until 2007.
Once again, Steve’s ego go the better of him (pissed at IBM for his 3.0Ghz promise)
You could have at least gone x86-64 exclusive, for the real performance benefits.
Now Apple is just another Alienware or Falcon Northwest-style boutique PC builder. Both produce nice products, but only for people who give a crap. People WILL hack OS X to run on non Apple PCs. Even if it means emulating OpenFirmware. Heck, it might become a feature of the next VMWare. Other enterprising devs will implement a complement to WINE to allow Mac OS X apps to run on Windows and other *nixes. They could call it COGNAC, as that’s what I’ll need lots of to deal with this news. Either way, it will be pointless to buy a Mac. Some others will just make their Macs dual-boot Windows.
I was seriously hoping that the real Intel news was iPods using XScale processors, as that would be interesting to me.
Finally, you’d think IBM was in the know about this early and would have done SOMETHING to stop this Steve tantrum. Aren’t they promising >3 GHz chips for Microsoft AND Sony? Don’t they ALREADY fab chips in excess of these speeds for AMD?
Dammit, this just ruined my day.
–JM
COGNAC expands to COGNAC Operates Great on New Apple Chips or some silliness.
I felt a great disturbance in the mac world, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. …
This news still really makes me laugh
Steve said by way of introduction said that when they talked to Intel, they found that Intel was just as passionate about making great products as Apple
Interesting. This could be a killer move by Apple. Everyone knows that Mac OS X is a much better operating system than Microsoft Windows in nearly every way. And this should help destroy Linux’s ambition on the desktop markets I think. People wanting a easy to use Unix variant that can run on the Intel PC will be as happy as Larry. Why have to buy a Mac now? Why have to download and install Linux or BSD (both notoriously difficult to use/administrate operating systems)?
I’ll still be sticking with GNU/Linux but a lot of others will ‘make the switch’ I suspect. It will be very interesting how much negative effect this imposes on GNU Linux and open source software in general as users move across in droves. Business? They’ll by OS X for x86 because of *support*, something that is really lacking in both BSD & Linux.
This is a killer move by Steve Jobs from a business point of view, but I fear what it will potentially do to Open Source software, most of which has helped power OS X.
Dave
Hey Steve!
Let’s talk sales goals for the interim between today’s bombshell announcement and the arrival of those first Intel Macs.
Can you say, “deeply discounted,” Mr. Jobs?
I guess in the long run it was really NeXT that took over apple then.
Is a dual boot system, XP for games and OSX for everything else.
my thoughts. i see apple turning into a software company becuz of this desizion. on top of that possibly loosing some of there fan base. (now i would never buy6 an apple) if they was going to use AMD it would not be a bad desicion. it could hav helped 2 small companys grow. the choice to use intel is a bad choice for everyone… i do hav some proof and rational thoughts for all of these but dont feel like typing it here. maybe i will do a writeup on it.
Jeez every rumor about this this has turned out to be true, fat binaries, dynamic translation of code, intel chips.
What’s really amazing is they’ve got everyone on board : Intel, MS, Adobe, Wolfram Research. You’ve got to admit it perfectly planned and expertly executed. (Let’s hope the real job goes as smooth)
Mmm. Barbecued crow marinated in garlic and wine.
I was so sure this was bulls**t, too. You were right, Eugenia.
I too am very disappointed with this. Sure, the x86 is a much crappier architecture than PowerPC, but on top of that they are using the thermally-challenged P4 with an architecture (NetBurst) built around marketing clock speed!
They could have at least signed with AMD and used Opterons/Athlon64’s.
Does anyone know if the “fat binaries” throw out all the code it can’t execute to conserve disk space (not that it’s really an issue these days)?
BUMMER!!!
-Eric
How can IBM deliver a triple core 3gzh+ chip in mass volume to MS when they can’t get a single core chip to apple greater than 2.7 ghz?
Because the XBox chips are much simpler.
The PPC chips Mac used were quite complicated.
The development machines are P4’s.. That doesn’t mean that they are going to use P4’s next year.
>How can IBM deliver a triple core 3gzh+ chip in mass volume to MS when they can’t get a single core chip to apple greater than 2.7 ghz?
Most likely because the proc for MS is “custom”, maybe a version light / other which allows to have a higher speed.
Don’t forget that the console will cost about 300$, microsoft will sell at a lose for certain but if it was a “G5 quality” proc in it, they will lose surely more than 1000$ for each console…
Ah well, maybe we’ll finally be able to purchase some PowerPC Macs at ‘normal’ PC prices….
This will kill their bottom line.
Good ‘ole snake-oil Steve
I don’t like this news one bit! Now I really don’t care if they move over to the x86, but just picking Intel. Might as well sign the company over to the devil.
I’ve hated Intel chips in the past, and still hate them today.
Why couldn’t Apple go with AMD!? AMD is by far the better player, plus they already have 64-bit procs on the desktop. Wasn’t that the whole G5 thing, bringing 64-bit power to the desktop?
Intel is still nothing moving foward with that. Sure they have the chips but they are going about it all wrong. Forcing people to upgrade their motherboard just so they can have a 64-bit proc.
If Apple wanted to go x86 then choose AMD, not Intel.
Ok let’s move on to the next flamewar : will they support generic pc’s or custom hardware only ? I say there’s no way Jobs’ test system had a custom bios/firmware whatever already. So why should the actual systems ?
ALso Slashdot (I know) claims “You will be able to order the 10.4.1 preview for Intel today.”
This will run on regular x86 hardware. Apple will make money with the powerbooks on Pentium M. Laptops is where they are good at.
Welcome back to 32-bit land, Mac users! You’ll never be asked to buy more than 4GB of RAM ever again. A giant step backwards…
15 years as a Mac user, today marks the end of my happiness and support of Apple.
Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. “When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel’s roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do,” he explained.
Personally, I am going to sell my iBook. Apple is just an example of how unstable companys can be.
It is just sad.
If anyone is interested in 1 Ghz 12″ iBook with 512 RAM/Wireless/Bluetooth let me know.
“AMD is by far the better player, plus they already have 64-bit procs on the desktop. Wasn’t that the whole G5 thing, bringing 64-bit power to the desktop?”
Intel has already released thier 64bit desktop processors. They are available for your buying pleasure.
And the pentium M destroys anything that AMD has in terms of heat and power consumption. And you can even use the thing on a desktop.
As much as I do not like this decision to switch processors, I dont think it will be the doom of apple. If is it, I see myself being like an Amiga fan:
buying a top of the line Mac, maxing it out, and then buying processor upgrade cards lol :p
“Personally, I am going to sell my iBook. Apple is just an example of how unstable companys can be.
It is just sad. ”
What the? did your ibook stop working?
Why did you get one? you can’t do anything on it now?
These attitudes really puzzle me.
It’s a machine and it will still work for a long time. Weird.
I use an Apple Mac (366mhz iBook)
I like it. But my liking is for the design and the OS (X 10.3.9)
I really wouldn’t care if it was running a SPARC processor, a P2, or even a RISCchip instead of the G3 as long as it continues to look good and work well
All the software I use is opensource anyway, consolidating on x86 will be very good for those projects (especially OpenOffice) and I have no doubt that development will continue to support x86 OSX binaries for Firefox, thunderbird and various other apps dear to me. I was planning to buy a G4 or G5 iBook in a year or two to replace this, depending on what was available.
So yes. So what if it has a different interior, I’ll buy an x86 iBook when they come out. Various people in this thread are being very patthetic by claiming some sort of allegiance to a processor which they never even see.. as long as the system works, so what?
So, price of used Macs will go way, way down?
Do you really care about the instruction set of your processor ?
Or you really care about the hole OS X experience ?
1) Why oppose this? This is great for Apple? For the better part of the last decade, Apple has had this CPU thing hung around its neck. Even when they were the fastest (pre-G3 and early G5), they still had to worry about what would happen six months down the line. Switching to x86 fixes all of this.
2) People are seriously deluded if they think Intel made a custom chip for Apple. This thing will be a bog-standard P4. Setting up product for another core is expensive and requires dedicating a whole line at a fab. If Apple couldn’t get IBM to keep the PPC970 up to date, they certainly can’t get Intel to make custom processors for them.
3) I found this quote humerous: it will still be an apple, not a commodity built Dell system.
It’ll use an Intel CPU, (likely) an Intel motherboard, a NVIDIA or ATI graphics card, a WD or Maxtor SATA hard drive, and a case design at Apple, but manufactured in Taiwan just like Dell’s cases. It will be a commodity-built Dell, just using a different case and OS.
really who cares what chips apple uses in their products? it’s the user experience that is important and that’s hardly likely to change now is it? okay, so some apple zealots may see this as an enormous betrayal but i would imagine that the majority of users aren’t that bothered about the processor manufacturer. it’s the design, aesthetics and usability that’s important.
The NetBurst architecture (Pentium 4) is on its last few breathes… then again it dual cores would play much better in OSX anyhow.
it’s today a mac is just a pc beside the proc and the motherboard. Big fucking deal, they changed their proc~
i own an amd64 and seems fine with me. what’s so bad about x86?
Probably not. I always thought Intel chips cost more than the PPC chips made by IBM.
> Sure, the x86 is a much crappier architecture than PowerPC
In what way?. Do you write code in x86 assembly? Are you forced to do memory management in x86 using the old DOS extenders?
PPC didn’t make any innovations for bus interconnects or memory – all the innovation – DDR2, PCI-x, SATA and SLI were due to x86!.
Just a few months ago good ol’ Steve was encouraging G5 CPU’s and the pipelines and how clock speed has very little to do with performance and bs and more bs.
Actually it’s a couple of _years_ ago..don’t be so dramatic
At the end of the day, Apple is about the “experience”, as long as it looks like a Mac, runs smoothly like a Mac, is cute like a Mac, is priced like a Mac, who cares what’s the chip inside?
Give it somedays so the news “sink”, and you’ll see it’s not _that_ bad.
of armchair CEO’s chime in…
After my wife’s G3 iMac crapped out (6 years of service) I bought her a shiny new powerbook. I should’ve just bought her a Dell instead.
we will be having a sale today on imacs…free with a purchase of our 100 gal pickle jar..right next to the $50.00 walmart desktops
3:
it will not use a standard p4. it will use something custom so that OSX will only work on that.
apple is a hardware company, that is their mission, they dont want to be an operating system software company.
this will not be a standard dell, it will be a customized system that will run OSX. it is really immaterial what chip the system is running, it is an Apple System, not a dell computer
Will the recently announced1 DRM infecting Pentium 4 chips affect us Apple/Mac OS X users now?
1. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23708
That resolves a dilemma for me ! No Mac purchase until this is out, that’s for sure !
Very exciting. However, it’d be more exiting if any compliant PC could run OSX. Nothing has been said on that or did I miss something ?
And don’t flame me for that. There’s been so many flames to dismiss a switch to Intel has utter nonsense than I think now we can talk can’t we ?
“What the? did your ibook stop working?”
Nop it is working fine. I just dont like keeping legacy hardware.
I would rather keep a 486 laptop than this G4 iBook.
Wait few years and no OS will support it. Just like the previous hardware.
All this seems like Intel big PR campaign to me (besides Apple/IBM CPU supply problems of course). Interesting, will this new OSX run on my home-brewed AMD system?
I’m pretty sure that Jobs will require a custom chip from intel and not the standard x86 chip. Reason? So OSX won’t have to support every friggin piece of hardware out there like M$ is doing with their OS. More hardware support = less stable + more resources going towards supporting hardware instead of making the software better.
Besides, if Apple were planning on releasing a version of OSX that will run on any x86 platform, why not just release it now? Why are they waiting until 2006 to release an intel based mac? I’m guessing it’s to prevent OSX from running on ugly machines. I hope the intel chip will be specialized and the mac platform will remain somewhat unique.
I would like to see AMD based macs down the road though, that would be sweeet.
LoL You stole my line. Damn!!
This is the day I’ve been waiting for scince Darwin was released for x86! I knew this day would come. Yay!
“Does this mean i soon can run OS on my PC?, and what types of intel CPU’s are they using, still wish that they would go for AMD when they moved to x86.”
OSX has been running on x86 for years as confirmed by Steve. Just because they offically use intel chips in thier new computers I see no reason why AMD chips won’t work. Hell, Dell just uses Intel as well.
i doubt flash speed will be on par with XP.
The slowness of X and the resulting slowness of flash lies in the software/architecture, the hardware has plenty of power but is not used in an effective way.
if X is ported to x86 the slowness should still be there, although it would be a bit faster due to the faster intel-chips.
i’m a mac-user, a ppc-mac user, a os9 ppc mac user.. :.)
That’s the key question. Will I be able to buy Mac OS X from CompUSA to run on generic Intel hardware, or will it only be runnable on a Mac? How long until “OS X on generic PC” site shows up?
How will this hurt their current Mac sales? Anyone on the fence is doing a long, thoughtful “hmmm” right now.
Next 4 years will be very expensive for Apple I think.
AFAIK they did not specify either way if they would allow OS X to run on non-mac machines. I could forsee them allowing it but, not officially supporting it and not having any OEM licensing for the operating system.
Yeah, it’ll be a custom system……made here in Taiwan by Asus, Hon Hai and Quanta.
I was glad that I’d finally be able to justify buying a Mac and being able to play with the simply beautiful OS X, but now I’ve heard it is definately Intel and not AMD, I’ve gone off the idea very quickly.. I build all my boxes with AMD, all the computers I’ve ever had over the last 5 years have been AMD, I don’t want to ever pay my money to Intel.. this leaves me in a pickle.
I guess Intel is closer to AMD than PPC was though.. maybe they’ll work out something with AMD down the line..
Well thats took the wind out of a few people!….. us eternal clunky mac fiddlers getting old things running os x (with xpostfacto etc) the thought of more hardware variations just boggles my brain, maybe i give up! I’m going of to live the woods as a hermit and design stuff with home made charcoal.
For the moment I’m of to the attic to bash the 9500 up there with a hammer and stay away from the mac web for a few days (weeks! years!) it’s going to be unbearably tedious!
>>He still has said nothing as to what type of Intel processor. x86? 64? That’s what I want to hear.
Pentium 4 as some articles have said. A developers kit is available for sale already featuring a 3GHz Pentium 4 and OS X