“Apple CEO Steve Jobs said this week that his company would consider moving to Intel chips, but that he would wait until at least 2003 because the transition to Mac OS X was more important. But with the speed of Power PC hardware increasingly falling behind Intel’s chips–The Pentium 4 will hit 3 GHz this year–Apple would be wise to do a bit of research. I recommend AMD’s upcoming 64-bit Opteron, which will give Apple a technological leg up on Windows and, perhaps, offer them Windows compatibility through the Opteron’s full compatibility with 32-bit x86 code. Come on, Apple: Do the right thing.” Read the blurb on WinInformant. Read more for a short commentary. Appendix 21/July/2002: Please read for a small update and more explanations at the end of the article.Our Take: Personally, I believe that OSX will jump architectures soon enough. Motorola is not interested in their PPC line of CPUs, and G5 is nothing but vaporware so far. They have clearly stated that these CPUs are too far away from their focus as a company. Where does that leave Apple?
G4s might be good machines, but the x86-based CPUs are now riding away the clockspeed horse and they only get better and faster with time. G4s are currently on 1 Ghz, while rumours want Jobs to introduce faster G4s, only at 1.2 Ghz, with the release of OSX Jaguar next month. Obviously, Apple is lagging behind in raw speed (and this has nothing to do with the “Mhz myth”). Their products are outrageously overpriced for the raw speeds they offer these days while more and more users seem to wake up from Job’s “reality distortion field”.
Apple, once upon a time, used to have more than 10% of the computer market. Latest statistics show that Apple has fallen to 2.4% of the overall desktop market for the summer 2002, while it had 2.9% last October, 2001.
Time is running by, and Apple will need to make a decision, fast. I believe they will indeed use another architecture, which it might be AMD’s 64-bit Opteron, or Itanium2 or maybe, the simple 32-bit x86. Wallet-wise, it does not matter what they will pick. Why is it so? Read on.
Because Apple is primarily a hardware company. If they leave the PPC world (and that won’t happen overnight, all their third party apps run there and all their loyal costumers are still there), their new platform of their choice will also have the same “theme” as their PPC products.
Forget the possibility that you could purchase OSX off the shelf and run it on your PC. This will never happen (except for a demo CD for promotional purposes, maybe). Apple would do the same ‘tricks’ they did for PPC to make sure that OSX only runs on exact hardware they sell. They will modify BIOSes of both cards and motherboards to make sure that OSX would only run on the specific Apple hardware (while it would be able to run other x86-based OSes like Linux and Windows (which might be a good strategy), while other x86 hardware and PCs won’t be able to run OSX).
By doing it this way, Apple wouldn’t necessarily have to clash with the Microsoft giant, as the hardware they would run on, wouldn’t be exactly what I would call “IBM PC and compatibles”.
I am not against the idea of a more “closed” x86 hardware. History taught us that no one can go against Microsoft’s OS and have a profitable company at the same time by only selling a boxed OS. Apple will have to “close” their x86 hardware and only work with a very particular set of hardware and cards. It is the only way they would survive in the x86 jungle. And this is fine with me. We see Linux distribution companies going down and only be strong in the server market because of its price per seat (free), Be died, QNX does not care about the desktop, OS/2 is history too. Apple won’t make the same mistake.
There is such large choice of hardware out there that Apple won’t be able to support all of it. Hardware support is the main problem of every OS in the x86 world. Even Windows XP does not support all the recent hardware yet. Therefore, Apple would only support a fraction of this hardware, rebrand them if necessary and possibly change… the way they look. In other words, the jump of architectures won’t look much different to an end-user, not much different as it was looking before when he/she was purchasing a PowerBook or a PowerMac. It will still be hardware controlled and modified and manufactured by Apple.
The reason I wrote this is to calm down people who would be so excited to use OSX on their current PCs, as this won’t be happening. You will still have to purchase an x86, or Opteron or Itanium or whatever machine that it is Apple-branded (and possibly on a pretty high price as the current Macs). If Apple changes architectures (to whichever architecture that might be) that won’t matter much for the consumer. It will still be branded as “Apple Hardware” and it will still cost you to get it.
Appendix: I would like to make some points more clear:
1. A possible jump to a new architecture, would NOT happen overnight. PPC computers would still be selling from Apple, in parallel to whichever new architecture Apple might choose. PPC won’t die overnight, it will take years.
2. This article is mostly to advocate the fact that Apple would still sell “closed” hardware, no matter which architecture they might choose to jump in.
3. IF (I am saying, IF) that architecture might be x86, they will possibly first try to only sell an XServe server rack product based on x86 and not a desktop/workstation machine. This way, Apple can find some good excuses for using x86 (compatibility for server software, better support from ISPs and CPU manufacturers, you name it), without making their userbase angry (because their average Mac customers do not really use rack servers…). “They only use it for the server product” the Mac users will say and they will sleep tight at night. After this “transition” in the minds of the Mac users happen, 8-10 months later Apple will be offering x86-based workstations too (in parallel to the PPC ones). People would have now used to the idea, and not all will be bad for Apple. What I am trying to say, is that whichever transition might happen, Apple will try to make it as smooth as possible in the minds of all costumers. Apple is great on marketing…
4. Binary compatibility of course will have to break. However, that is the whole point of a “transition”. API compatibility can be very strong, as history has taught us with BeOS and QNX versions of PPC/x86, and theoretically, a simple recompilation of an application can produce binaries for both platforms without much hassle. Not all applications will be ported to the new architecture, but this “transition time” will help Apple establish themselves in the new platfom overtime. Nobody said that it would be easy.
5. Is such a platform-jump the real reason behind the divorce of Microsoft and Apple, regarding Microsoft’s application ports to the Mac, that the news media is covering the past few days?
Here is a recent benchmark of latest P4s and Athlons against a dual G4, where the x86-based machines are ahead on all tests. Apple is trying to establish themselves in the digital video/imaging/3D area in the last few months with the buyout of many such multimedia software companies, but clearly, with their current G4s, they have no chance to compete with WindowsXP’s equivelant software and raw speed. In my view, a platform switch is imminent for Apple and it should be expected.
Apple has always had a great os, but lacked so far behind in hardware that it isn’t even funny. If apple were to move, obviously as stated in the article, it will be a closed hardware labeled apple ‘ware, like everything else Jobs’ gets his grimey paws… I mean, hands on. It’s obvious that in order for such a big move to happen, Jobs’ is gonna have to stop everything and start this right away, or hurry up and start it asap. If apple were to knock off with the closed hardware and go on to more or less full hardware support and try to support as much as windows, I bet you everything that apple will rise to become a giant like windows, again, maybe even bigger, who knows?
There’s no way Apple will move to x86. heck there’s no way they can use IBM PPC cpu’s because of the altivec issue. Moving to x86 not only means crushing Steve Jobs’ ego but it also stresses the will of the Mac community. Someone is going to have to port all those apps! While the idea makes sense to me many mac fans will point to it and call it “an Apple PC…why bother?” They’ll just have to live with Motorola and just make the most out of it (DDR Ram, offloading the UI to geforce, more optimizations, more photoshop benchmarks, etc)
>>Someone is going to have to port all those apps! While the idea makes sense to me many mac fans will point to it and call it “an Apple PC…why bother?”<<
Finally a PC user that sees the light!
why not have transmeta design a PPC software layer for OS X and move over the the transmeta design and code for the chip itself directly, no code morphing software. i don’t think i’ve seen any benchmarks for a transmeta CPU unless they were running X86 code morphing. Also these CPU’s are low power. Check out http://www.transmeta.com/everywhere/products/notebooks.html and the run time on these devices. I think this would work out well, transmeta could also include the velocity engine.
side note.
i have both a PC and a mac, which is a g4, 450 with 320 megs ram, and i’d still rather use my PC over the G4, its just much snappier.
Jobs is keeping Apple’s options open. One thing here is not being emphasized enough – what does Apple do if PPC keeps falling behind further and further? I don’t know if that will be the case or not but, if I were Jobs, I’d certainly be thinking about what to do if that does happen.
I don’t personally care whether or not Apple switches to x86 or some other processor, entirely. If Pentiums are going to be 3GHz, I don’t rationally understand why 1 or 1.2GHz PowerPC CPU’s can compete with this. Especially in MP systems, which Apple <cough, cough> “invented.” =)
It’s the software that matters, and what you can do with it, and whether or not the machine can keep up with it. Anything beyond that is pure greed. The machines that we have today, even my wimpy 500/66 MHz iBook, are the equivalent of the “supercomputers” of yesteryear. What we need is more efficient software — from the OS layer on up.
Little birds tell me that Jaguar is much better on G3 hardware and above, that the new BSD internals, kernel changes, gcc3.1 compiler and all of the optimizations Apple has been working on really pay off in a visible manner. I have no doubt that a dual 1GHz G4 system is “more than enough power” for your average professional.
Be showed us what is possible when you carefully engineer a system as close to the hardware as possible. By not having piggish memory requirements, keeping code size down, having a fairly sane virtual memory system, and abstracting common system services out into servers with clean API’s, Be proved that you can have a “wicked fast” operating system on today’s commodity hardware. Apple can follow suit, and all indications are they are headed in this direction.
Much of the problem seems to be the NeXT folks at Apple, who while credited with reigning in better and more quality-conscious engineering efforts (I used to be a QA Engineer at Apple, and it was a chaotic mess with few “heroes” who pulled things together), yet still believe that the original NeXT blueprints and designs were impeccably correct. Cocoa to me looks more like a fragmented application that can be hooked into, rather than a simpler set of reusable objects — it’s still much better than the old Mac (“Carbon”) Toolbox.
Regardless, those of us who wrote software for BeOS with their lightweight and powerful servers and API, or those of us who were lucky enough to have experienced Newton programming know that there are much simpler, easier, faster, more rewarding and enjoyable ways of writing software for computers.
Things will change — they will have to. Apple realizes that it’s forced to innovate. Purely adding eye-candy is not going to get Apple out of the hole it’s in. Regardless, Apple seems to be doing a much better job at software and hardware engineering than they were last year. I think that we’ll see many user interface and input device improvements from Apple in the not-too-distant future.
Plugging away on my 500Mhz G3 with 66Mhz system bus and a 1024×768 screen,
Steve Klingsporn
[email protected]
http://www.seapod.org/
(Note: I removed most of my criticisms of Apple from the “writing” section, as I truly believe Apple is back on the right track again. Innovation and change takes time, software development is a hard process to manage, as is a transition from one operating system to another — essentially combining parts of both systems and assuring binary compatibility and/or emulation integrity).
P.S. I still wish Apple would buy Palm, integrate the Newton runtime architecture, etc. into a hybrid PDA device, and integrate the best technologies and API’s from BeOS into Mac OS X.
PS/2: Apple better be working on a system that is post-Mac, because so many factors have changed since the “desktop metaphor” made sense, and if they’re not optimizing more for what people generally use computers for, and the ideal user experience to provide, someone else will eat them alive. Pure evolution.
It is about time Apple looks into other hardware for their computers. I am a MAC die-hard, but really folks you cannot tell me Apple cant make a stable OS with X86 chips. Apple should start concidering this move ASAP, I have said for years Apple should turn into a software mainly company. Motorola has been F@#%^ing Apple with the PPC Mhz lag for 2 years now. Also bus speeds. OOnly saving grace for Motorola would be a huge jump in Mhz and their RAPID I/O!
Ido not have a PHD in computers, but I can tell you this much, my ATHLON system is DAMN fast vs Apples computers. Even though I do have 3 Apples(snow ibook, overclocked biege G3 and a 7100 that I use to serve my domains http://www.maccomputers.com )
P.S. it would be nice to build your own Apple would it not?
If we had a few choices, even. Triple boot, Windows, Linux, and OS X. Good stuff. Or VMWare and run them all at once!
All the ingenuity in the PC world would serve Apple well.
Apple would have had rackmount computers a long time ago.
And affordable iCubes.
Mac OS X on Intel/AMD would be so fun.
#m
I still think that an X86 compatible OS from Apple would be the best scenario of any mentioned here. They have plenty of people that would go with the alternative OS just to get away from Microsoft. It might even be in Microsoft’s best intrest as well. With a strong competitor, it would call off some of the anti-trust dogs. I could see Microsoft investing cash into this idea as well for this reason. It would give them the oportunity to do integrate anything into their OS they wanted, as long as competitors were doing it as well.
Think about buying a house. You always here it’s Location, Location, Location. Well, Apple’s market share is nil because in the computer world it’s Compatibility, Compatibility, Compatibility. After that, speed and cost of course. None of which Apple has on their side. A switch to the software side would certianly bring compatibility, price and speed right in line where they wanted. They can still make apple computers. The average user sees Dell as a brand, Compaq and HP as a brand, and they would learn to see Apple as a brand as well, but with their OS they tout so highly. Who cares if you can put another OS on it. If people don’t like the OS, it’s because it sucks. MAKE IT BETTER. If you wanna compete, you’re not gonna survive by tricking people and forcing them to use you cuz they are stuck. That pisses people off, and spreads bad publicity.
Think about this seriously guys. It really looks to be the only hope for Apple.
Steve, I agree with you – software really is the thing. I’m worried for Apple though. As I posted above, if the PPC keeps falling behind and Apple has no plan, things could be bad for Apple. You have an excellent point about multi-processing though. That can certainly help on the high end. Who knows there may be Power Macs with quad processors. I guess it’s the consumer models that would really suffer, if that happened. The fact is, web surfing on my XP box (just a Celeron 1.4 GHz!) is so must faster than doing the same on our flat panel G4 800 MHz iMac, it’s incredible. At any rate, the buzz is that there will be new Power Macs announced next month. Might as well see what happens, assuming that is the case. However, Jobs is smart and he surely must be looking for solutions if PPC continues to lag or even stall.
LOL, whoever said (above) that Gnome looks better than OS X should go to the eye doctor!! That is not meant as a flame – only meant in the most lighthearted way 🙂
Steve, I agree with you – software really is the thing. I’m worried for Apple though. As I posted above, if the PPC keeps falling behind and Apple has no plan, things could be bad for Apple. You have an excellent point about multi-processing though. That can certainly help on the high end. Who knows there may be Power Macs with quad processors. I guess it’s the consumer models that would really suffer, if that happened. The fact is, web surfing on my XP box (just a Celeron 1.4 GHz!) is so must faster than doing the same on our flat panel G4 800 MHz iMac, it’s incredible. At any rate, the buzz is that there will be new Power Macs announced next month. Might as well see what happens, assuming that is the case. However, Jobs is smart and he surely must be looking for solutions if PPC continues to lag or even stall.
LOL, whoever said (above) that Gnome looks better than OS X should go to the eye doctor!! That is not meant as a flame – only meant in the most lighthearted way 🙂
Sorry about the double post!
Did you not read the article?!
The article states…
Forget the possibility that you could purchase OSX off the shelf and run it on your PC. This will never happen (except for a demo CD for promotional purposes, maybe). Apple would do the same tricks they did for PPC to make sure that OSX only runs on exact hardware they sell. They will modify BIOSes of both cards and motherboards to make sure that OSX would only run on the specific Apple hardware (while it would be able to run other x86-based OSes like Linux and Windows (which might be a good strategy), while other x86 hardware and PCs won’t be able to run OSX).
Oh my gawd, Jay… yes, new Macs are said to arrive and with 1,2 GHZ they will be marginally faster than the current high end Macs, meaning they come at high end prices around 4000 USD – does your Celeron 1,4 cost cost more than 20% of that? No?! So what does this tell you relating to them being worth buying in order to increase your surfing experience? You know the answer….
Yeees people, they have Firewire Jay doesn’t need and which he of course could obtain for +30 USD…
Yeees people, it has GBit which Jay doesn’t need and which comes in at another 30 USD because he can account the 100 MBit he would normally buy to it….
Yeees people, there are one or two other things hardware-wise for the Mac as opposed to the vast amount of disadvantages, but remember: If he had cared for these gadgets in the first place he had bought a Mac, not the Celeron 1,4 GHz – Mac is dead like fucking fried chicken…
Once it runs the same hardware minus all the cool software available on PC, it’ll be even more dead – who’d thought that? Actuall Macs already run the same hardware of an average/low-end PC, except for the CPU – that is why Mac-zealots like to talk themselves into believing of having something special… same HD, same graphics (actually, even average PC-systems get bashed for having MX-grapics in benchmarks, not so in 4000 USD Macs), same everything…. minus expandability that is, of course (ever tried to shove another 4,25″ device into your G4..? *lol*).
Bye-bye… you won’t be missed.
If Apple were seriously considering moving to the x86 processor, I’m positive they would use it to create a proprietary platform capable of running only Mac OS X. The Macintosh platform is based on three things – a user experience perceived to be distinct, unique product design, and a powerfully differentiated brand image.
The consumer purchase decision is such:
“I need a computer. I’ll buy a Macintosh because I believe it looks and feels different, and I want to be different.”
Right or wrong, tt’s no different than buying a PT Cruiser or New Beetle.
“I need a car. I’ll buy a PT Cruiser or New Beetle because I believe it looks and feels different, and I want to be different.”
The processor isn’t a primary factor in consumer decision making.
That said, it is likely a secondary factor because the impression exists that the PowerPC processor is underpowered. As this impression grows and begins to take mainstream hold, beyond technical web sites and geek discussion boards, it’s importance in the decision making process increases. Apple would be wise to make a move of some kind before the decision becomes this:
“I need a computer. I’d like to buy a Macintosh because it looks and feels different, and I want to be different, but I don’t want to be slow.”
Any article that begins by comparing MHz/GHz as if it had anything to do with performance should end up at anyones ignore list. The clockspeed only makes sense, and only limited sense, when comparing otherwise identical processors. A processor is only as fast as its design allows it to be. One processor may perform 4-5 instructions per clock cycle while another only perform one (or less). It actually makes much more sense to compare the MHz/GHz of the memory bus and the memory used rather than the MHz/GHz of the processor itself.
Fact is, a G4 is several times faster than a P4 at the same MHz/GHz. And rather than using just one processor, using a dual/quad/… system at a much lower MHz/GHz would be much faster, produce less heat, use less power, wouldn’t need fans, etc making it a much better option for everyone except the producers since low MHz/GHz processors are very cheap.
Anyone who doesn’t already know all of the above written should spend some time actually LEARNING something about processors and computers BEFORE ever making any kind of statement regarding them again!
I agree with this, but the ultimate fact is, x86 CPUs are now faster than the faster Macs on real life tests. Read the benchmarks linked at the end of the article, cowboy.
Steve states that once they have the large installed base of OSX “then we’ll have options and we like options”.
What that says to me is this: Once we get this OS9 boat out of the water we can hop from lake to lake in our OS X boat with no problem. This gives the lots of options like using the other lakes as leverage againts the lake they are already in. (Does this make sence???)
Old Steve is just sliding that out there letting everone know that OS X is flexible. They can move it wherever they want. Sure they’ll consider x86 why not? They look at lots of stuff.
But sometimes merely having options has more value than actually using them. I see Apple sticking with some sort of PPC closed hardware platform.
Perhaps Jobs is using the media to make Moto nervous to force them to release faster PPCs. Apple has already demonstrated that it can move their OS from one architecture to another, but is was more costly than Apple expected. Not to mention that secondary costs to other hardware vendors and customers.
1) Apple computers are PC99 and PC2000 compliant. Yes, these are MS and Intel specifications; but Apple is the only company using Intel’s chips. If Apple does go x86, it would only run on a PC99 or PC2000 compliant hardware. Which is currently not manufactured. (ie: no serial, keyboard, mouse, or printer ports; only USB and Firewire)
2) If Apple started using the IBM G3 line of PPC chips, it could also move to the 64bit versions which have backward compatability. The current high end chip is the POWER4 (duel 1GHZ 64bit CPUs on a single die) which is much faster then anything Intel makes including the Itanium2.
“I agree with this, but the ultimate fact is, x86 CPUs are now faster than the faster Macs on real life tests. Read the benchmarks linked at the end of the article, cowboy.”
How many users need 100% of the power of a 2.4 ghz Pentium4? With videogames you use a good graphic card and if you really, really need to do heavy calculations you get yourself a cheapo linux cluster.
a] If Apple enters the world of x86 there could be no stopping of microsoft to eventually port Windows to the Apple platform (if the Macintosh sells well enough, which would be the point of going x86 as the article claims). This would reduce Apple to a x86 machine vendor who has to compete with Dell and the likes. Think about it – Windows has lots of software and runs on fast computers. Apple chooses to use the same CPUs thus also has to adjust it’s prices to the x86 world a bit.
b] If Apple is even at the speed game there’s still the lack of special software that keeps most people away. And the software wont come – no software company is shortsighted enough to develop for two x86 operating systems. If Photoshop runs fine on Windows you will have trouble make Adobe port it to x86 OSX since it runs fine on Windows and the x86 OSX market would surely represent only a tiny fraction of the whole x86 market. If you make a PPC port you can target the whole Mac PPC audience whereas the x86 world is fine with a Windows copy of it. That is, btw, the reasoning that most bigger software companies don’t port their software to Linux. If you want to run it, get Windows. If you don’t want Windows, you don’t want to run it bad enough.
c] PowerPC architecture by itself is said to be very elegant and effective. One can not say that for the x86 architecture which some call cumbersome and innefective (that’s one of the reason x86 CPUs work with a RISC model internally, from what I know). Now Motorola is only said to be losing interest in CPUs for the desktop market, this does not mean there are no other PPC options there for Apple. You have a lot of ideas floating around the web, anywhere from Apple using the POWER5 chip from IBM to IBM and/or AMD fabbing the chips Apple designs itself and even sticking a PPC instruction decoder in front of the Hammer CPU (which is said to actually “only” decode x86 instructions as well, so it wouldn’t mean there is much of a difference), and any of those PPC options would be easier to implement than a switch to x86.
d] Control. Apple currently controls the whole package, they can afford to release new products as they please and more or less are able to control their profits, margins and stock. There is no way Apple could compete with a 30% margin in the x86 world, much less it could only release new models every 6-9 months. With x86 the day before a new higher clocked CPU is thrown at the market you have to offer a machine using it. Not to mentions the good OS/hardware implementations that total control allows – no “uh-oh, the CPU and the graphics card have some sort of a conflict”.
and finally
e] The future. Noone (outside Apple, IBM and Motorola) can tell how the PowerPC world will look in two years time – maybe even the POWER5/6 line of CPUs will get cheap enough for desktops (Apple). Also the GPUs (see GeForce4/Radeon9700) are getting more and more programmable (a sidekick CPU, so to say) and are opening whole new worlds of processing – if the OS can offload heavy calculations to a GPU while handling “normal” tasks with the CPU all of a sudden the CPU speed doesn’t matter that much anymore. Right now the only “stressful” applications are 3D games/animation packages and video/sound processing/encoding. Most of the other stuff runs just fine for Joe User and these stressful applications could be easily offloaded to the programmable GPU.
…folding proteins. 😉
Kevin wrote:
>Is the day I decide to NEVER, E V E R buy a Mac.
>Hmm. Would you mind explaing why you would not buy a x86 mac?
I’m not the original poster, but as I own 15 years worth of legacy software that most certainly would not run an a x86 box, I see no attraction in x86 chips. Most of these applications perform just fine in Classic in OSX — why would I abandon them for this pipe dream x86 garbage. I’m confident that either Motorola or IBM will release PPC chips that will provide Apple users with what next need.
It’s too bad the article mentions Itanium 2 because it discredits what is otherwise a reasonable sentiment. Apple’s going to have to go x86 or its days are sharply numbered.
Base Itanium 2 systems start at around $30K. Apple has no 64-bit OS even under development, and the x86 emulation scheme for 32-bits for I2 is even slower than current P4/Athlon 32-bit technology. I2 is completely out for Apple.
Athlon Clawhammer, however, would indeed be a great boon to Apple as it would allow them to go from running the slowest cpus to running the fastest available in one fell swoop.
What Apple really needs to do however is to start manufacturing its own x86 clone, Apple-branded, and let purchasers choose among OS’s–such as Apple’s NeXT (the basis for OSX), Windows, Linux, etc. Really, Apple at heart is a hardware OEM, not a software developer akin to M$, so something like this would grant Apple instant access into huge markets that up to now have been locked away from Apple. Such a move is one that Apple shareholders should applaud, although the Mac faithful may screech to the heavens, those people are the way they are because of Apple’s incessant rumor and propganda mill over the last decade, and so they are Apple’s problem to straighten out anyway. Objectively speaking, this would be a bold stroke for Apple, and by far the most intelligent decision Steve Jobs would make since his return to the company.
Well…. I don’t think they would go with x86… Way too much recoding on the part of their software vendors… and many vendors would jump ship! “Didn’t we just do some rewriting for OS X?”
G3 is also out… Just from a marketing perspective, though a RENAMED/REBRANDED ultrafast G3 from IBM could be possible.
I think <just a feeling, nothing concrete> that Power4, or something derived from it is probably a more likely candidate.
Now I’m not a coder, so this might be way off base. But IIRC Power4 is a tech progression of the Power3 series on which the PPC is based? Yes, no?
Steven D. Leary
Apple will NEVER move to x86 or windows compatibility. It ain’t gonna happen for one thing that Apple does not give a damn thing to windows compatibility layer. moving to x86 after OSX transition is over is just an idiotic expression, if Jobs said that he must be high, remember it is ANOTHER TRANSITION to move to x86!
Apple simply vanish if they have that Windoes sh*t.
I have no idea regarding the technical aspects of the switch but the scenario you drew up is not going to happen – Apple is not going back to the days of the NuBus/SDSI/ADB or whatever other slightly to very incompatible standards – they might be willing to accept companies having to create different drivers but there will not be hardware connectivity differences. Customers are not willing to pay the premium price in that area – OS and the Mac hardware, yes but not the rest of the attachments. So, whatever happens with any possible switch to Intel/AMD is going to have to take that fact into account.
Once there was an alternate OS and hardware platform that ran on on similar hardware to Mac. I am talking about the AtariST which also ran on a 68000 same as the original Mac. There was a company which wrote an emulation package for the Atari ST and after loading it up you coud stick the Mac System disks into the machine and Magically run the real mac environment.
it became evident (to users and to Apple) that the only real secret to turning your Atari into a mac natively was to replace the ROMS. At first, the software company just sold a package which included the ROMS and instructions on how to change them out. Apple quickly forbid that, but there were some computer repair shops which would sell Roms out the side door. My guess is that the codes to change the BIOS and hardware if necessary, would be available _somewhere_
So DIY computer enthusiasts everywhere could run a MacOSX box…like they have always been dreaming to.
“Apple has no 64-bit OS even under development”
– ehm, how about OSX? If a 64bit CPU comes out, it usually coes out with a compiler and if you compile the whole OS with it you have a 64 bit OS. It’s not a lot you have to change.
“moving to x86 after OSX transition is over is just an idiotic expression, if Jobs said that he must be high”
– Jobs actually never said it, his quote was stretched to the max by x86 zealots. he said they “have options and that they like options”. and by options he could have ment everything from 3thz G3/G4/G5, POWER4/5/6, UltraSparcII/III/IV, MIPS, Pentium and Hammer.
Your entire ARGUMENT is pointless. Yeah, on a megahert to megahert basis G4’s are faster, but the megehurt differential is so vast the truth remains the same, and that is x86 blows PPC away. Period. End of story. Sorry.
As for your argue that multiprocessor systems are the answer and PPC scales better. Well, let’s think for a minute. That really only matters if the software you are running supports more than one processor first of all, otherwise the performance gain is negligible. Also, while current x86 systems do not scale very well, future, NEAR future BTW, systems will. AMD Hammer chips are built to scale and have a tremendous ceiling.
Subsystem performance. Where is the advantage for Apple here. At best, they may catch up with current X86 suubsystems on bus performance, memory speed, etc. Ow, so they level that playing field and where are they? Back to a Megahertz gap approaching insurmountable. And future use projects to video/audio type apps that will consume as much of both as possible and still be hungary for more.
As for others arguments that Megahertz don’t matter and computers are fast enough, please. Software is catching up with hardware and the bloated requirements are going to be pushing slower systems to the grave. Even Jaguar, the OS, running as intended will bring fairly recent Apple hardware to its knees, while OSX has it bending over as it is.
Look, truth be told, OSX is awesome. I would LOVE to play with it, use it, and discard Windows. MANY, MANY, MANY, feel this way. Linux is not the answer, but there is a strong base of x86 consumers who would make the Apple switch in a heartbeat, all other hardware more or less equal. Add that base to Apples current base, and they could probably control 10-15% of the PC market. That is a huge step in the right direction and would ensure their viability.
Regardless of what some have said, it would be a fairly easy port., and Hammer is the obvious architecture. Why?
1. Speed + IPC
2. Cost(small die size comparatively, with shrinks coming)
3. Future Scalability
4. 64 bit
5. Strong Subsystem support(including HT)
6. Not Intel, so could maintain that “different” image
7. Low Power models could be manufactured for Notebooks
8. Apple AMD fit together and could use each other.AMD has had long troubles maintaining TIER 1 relationships. Intel’s marketing muscle insures this as they bully vendors around. Apples exclusive use of this architecture would ensure their sales.
It is also protection from the strongly rumored Microsoft boxes which threaten Apple and Hardware vendors. MS and NVidia already have an acrimonious relationship and MS money could push a lot of hardware vendors to the mat. Having another viable option would provide a tremendous advantage in stayng that onslought.
AMD will have the capacity to support both the standard PC market and an exclusive Apple partnership at their Dresden fab with the recent Die shrink and outsourcing of 32 bit Athlons to UMC very, very soon.
This partnership only makes sense for both companies.
That is obvious. I think the move to any of the 64-bit offerings from AMD/Intel (whatever name they have) is a smart move. Bundle OS X and their iApps into a sexy Apple branded AMD/Intel box. Shrink wrap boxed versions of their iApps for retail for Windows users. This may work for a while but what will ultimately happen in this scenerio is Apple will become a PC maker with Windows only installed. iApps galore bundled on their machines only (other customers must buy these same apps for their PC), and hi-end software (ie: Final Cut Pro) for sale on the shelf.
I guess that would be the price of greater market share (in units sold that is).
Well, what if Apple does nothing but continue to bump the G4 in the coming months. Dual 1.2GHz + DDR in a month, dual 1.4GHz by Christmas perhaps, and then dual 1.6GHz by next spring.
The G5 has been elusive, but the fact is that the PPC 8540 (one non-Mac variant of the G5) is already released. What it lacks it AltiVec and other features necessary for use in Macs (it’s an embedded chip). The G5+, which is expected to run at 2.4GHz, will, as a conservative estimate, according to Motorola’s roadmap as of Dec. 2001, arrive sometime between Q3 of this year and Q2 of 2003.
We know the G5 in the Mac is not going to happen in August, but what it Apple sticks this CPU drought and this crappy economy out for another 9 months? The preliminary G5 SPEC_CPU2000 scores are very impressive – in excess of 1300 in both int and fp, and that’s running at only 1.6GHz. Which puts it well ahead of the P4 at 3GHz. Add AltiVec II to this, which is a beefier double-precision version of current AltiVec.
Yeah, I know, roadmaps schmoadmaps. But the fact is that, besides the crappy G4 rollout, Motorola has been quite good about sticking to its roadmaps. Look at the 680×0 series, and the early years of the PPC. Sure times are different, but it’s really not a question of Motorola not caring about the desktop market, it’s a question of when this crap economy will pick up and when Motorola can get their shit back together. Isn’t it? They are a semiconductor giant with lots of potential. As is IBM. It would be FOOLISH of Apple to hop the fence and abandon these two great allies just because the fruit on their tree is not as ripe as the fruit on the other side is.
Have some faith, people. Yes, Macs are slow and getting slower, but Apple is hardly dying. Do you file for divorce from your spouse the moment he/she gains 30 pounds too? I can see Apple going to another architecture – not necessarily x86 – as a last-resort bail-out move, but just because the PPC is slower than the Pentium/Athlon at this moment in time and is forecast to be that way for the next year or less is no reason to undergo such a HUGE transition.
Can Apple hold out for the G5 without going out of business? I sure as hell believe they can. And I believe that when the G5 DOES arrive in the Mac, and it will, damnit, the Mac zealots will look back on this thread and laugh, while the PC zealots will get all flustered with their challenges of, “Well, can you build a complete ____ system for $139?!?” and so on. I’m sure you can take it from there.
Alex
Let’s be clear. Apple will never release OS X on any intel chips. Heck, they already have Darwin on Intel NOW and it’ll never see the light of day. To put themselves into a position where they are one hack away from OS X running natively on Dells is pure suicide, so that is another point against Intel and by extension AMD. Regardless of how many existing PC users would love to run OS X, unless it is enough to unseat Microsoft as the market leader, it simply can’t happen. As well, Apple also thrives on the inverse economy of scale present in the computing world. By supporting a limited set of hardware peripherals, they limit their R&D costs, which in this current economy is fantastic.
So, from a business perspective, what makes sense for Apple? Buying out Motorola, deving the G class themselves (with some help from IBM), and outsourcing the fab to IBM and AMD. Considering that Motorola just lost $1.3 Billion for the QUARTER, even though it is a non-recurring gain, selling off the chip design division would be win-win. Moto sells off a non-core business and Apple more completely controls its own destiny.
Why would IBM and AMD do this? Well, firstly, their only responsibility would be making the chips (their specialty), which is MUCH cheaper than doing both deving AND fabing. This also allows them to more quickly fill up their new fab plants’ capacity, thus positively affecting their respective bottom lines. IBM adds some consulting in exchange for being their primary contractor and ensuring the designs will yield high per wafer (again adding to the bottom line). Also, Apple isn’t going anywhere, so having a solid, returning customer in the wild world of chip fabbing is super.
Why would Apple do this? Firstly, it ensures a lack of CPU platform divergence for the next several years, at least, as well as removing the inept Motorola from the Mac’s performance equation. Secondly, it allows them to optimize the chips to best work with OS X without depending on any other company to have Apple’s best interest (which on other occassions has proven to be a disaster). Let us not forget, Apple didn’t buy NothingReal and other companies to honestly expect that a year from now that OS X 10.3.4 will be running on the latest dual G4 1.4 GHz. No, they must have much bigger iron to throw at these processor-intensive apps than we have seen so far. OS X 10.2 was a big hurdle and it showed in Jobs voice. Now we will see them spend LOTS more time on the hardware side. Can Apple afford it? Surely. Designing their own chip actually saves them engineering dollars in other places, improves overall system stability and keeps Apple out of the chip fabbing business. It is also more cost effective than a CPU platform migration right on the heels of a total OS migration (while keeping the ISVs happy – never Apple’s strong point). This point is huge!!! Their current membership in the HyperTransport alliance is a sign that Apple’s designs can put a priority on removing the price disparity on peripherals. Their memberships ensure that Apple will embrace the same standards that the rest of the industry will embrace (other than freakin’ ADC, don’t get me started).
Lastly, some other economics. Many have quoted server prices as indiciations of chip prices. Trust me, they have no correllation. Intel first created the Xeon line because they got tired of selling lots of cheap chips that were getting madly marked up solely because they were being put into servers. Apple folding the R&D of chip design into their existing budget would be high initially until they integrated with motherboard and OS engineering. Then it would come down dramatically. As well, it would subsequently lower the per chip cost as neither vendor would have to incorporate any R&D costs into the per chip price structure, only ramp up which is minimal compared to full-blown R&D. Such a plan ends up allowing Apple to count twice the benefit of deving their own chip. Firstly, they fully integrate the HW to SW engineering pipeline (not farting around with the MOTO engineers alone will same bundles). While perhaps slightly more expensive, the volume of better performing machines FAR outweighs this. Secondly, their chip prices are muted since they are simply being being outsourced. While there will always be a fab needing clients, finding a chip vendor willing to take on the dev costs isn’t nearly as easy and comes with significant alternative costs. Look at all of the discussion of platform switching that has gone on so far. Intel v AMD v IBM Power2&4 v MIPS v Transmeta v et al. Each, while having certain pros shares a single con. Program migration. OS X made sense. No one could argue that regardless of the immediate pain, that Apple needed to do it. However, no matter which platform they chose to switch to, some ISVs would really be put out. So much so that Apple would be fighting a two front war and that is no good, especially in this economy.
Bottom line: What should we expect? The G5 (only to mean fifth generation) based motherboard will support RapidIO, 8 (16?)X AGP, DDR RAM, HT, Gigawire, USB 2.0 and certainly at least one thing NO ONE has on their radar yet. When? Well, I would expect some time for that transition to take place, but once it does, the performance disparity will diminish quickly. Q3 2003 is a good time frame. Sooner is rushing things. The 64 bit G6 (only to mean the sixth generation) is where the fully 64 bit OS X and OS come together. Q4 2004 is good.
Any surprises? Well, the only thing I see being different is that Apple may go Power4 in the Xserves only. The servers don’t need Altivec and the Power4 is perfect for servers. Plus, it won’t take too much to put a Power4 into an Xserve from an engineering standpoint. As well, IBM is committed to it, so Apple won’t be stuck like they are with Motorola.
The purpose of this post is to remind everyone that how Apple can best leverage technology to make money is what will ultimately govern the decision making process. Becoming a IBM clone maker won’t do that. Adopting AMDs new 64 bit chip might do that, but only if they can ensure that it is running OS X, not some other OS. Same with Transmeta. IBMs Power4 with it’s scalability and SMP abilities is definitely a possibility, but would ultimately still be a chip migration. I just think that Apple makes the most money, nets the most profit and controls their destiny best by designing their own chips.
My reading of this quote is that such a move will only be possible when the vast majority of users are running OSX and have ditched their classic apps. This will take quite a while. I also think the main point of the quote was to put Motorola on notice that they will then have to compete for Apple’s business. Even with these caveats this still represents a substantial shift in Apple’s publicly declared position.
Apple just lives to make cool hardware. This is now utterly ingrained in the company culture. So even if it is possible to transition to a software only company without running into the financial mess they were in before Steve jobs returned, and without Redmond eating them for breakfast, (both of which I doubt), it will simply never ever happen, even if Apple stops being profitable. So dream on PC owners, because thats all OSX on a PC is, just a dream..
So the one question I have over this is, is it really possible for Apple to build a truly closed platform based on x86? Or would it then be too easy to hack the OS to run on a Dell/whatever? Or perhaps produce some board that could make OSX think the PC was a Mac? I am no computer expert so I only pose this question, I do not have an answer. But unless a secure closed platform can be created, a switch to x86 would never happen for the reasons outlined in the previous paragraph.
There’s an interesting take on this at the inquirer.net
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4559
Sounds to me like Apple is tired of waiting for a fast CPU. The speculative angle might also be due to the possibly another CPU topology aside from PPC is being considered as well as x86. If Motorola is truly giving Apple the ‘go thither’ look, then Apple is simply holding cards close to the chest. Too bad there are no earth shattering topologies waiting in the wings which could ignite a definitive CPU war (not that I am in the know).
Given the G4’s superiority for pure CPU stuff (look at the system benchmarks for RC5 – a single 1GHz G4 toasts a P4/2.5 with ease), then seeing these AfterEffects behchmarks, to my mind it seems that it’s more likely to be a software thing than anything else. Altivec makes a HUGE difference to stuff that can use it (far beyond anything SSE2 can offer – see the comparison on Ars Technica). It’s far cheaper and easier to improve the software than to switch the hardware.
Also, something that Apple has said many times – OS X is new, and widely unoptimised (make it work, then make it work well), so expect Jaguar to take only the first step to improving that.
What’s more, speed really isn’t an issue for most stuff – I have a 1998 G3/450 and a P3/1G, and yet I’m at least twice as productive on the Mac, plus I actually LIKE it (speed is the least of Windows’ problems), and I’m a multimedia developer. The majority of users stress their systems much less than even I do.
I think Apple would be stupid not to port Mac OSX to x86. I think there are plenty of people out there that buy PC’s out there because they are cheaper and more powerful than any Mac’s out there but have upset stomachs using Microsoft. Microsoft has no real threat in the PC world (this includes Linux) because Windows can be used from the dumber-than-rocks person to a computer genius. Mac OS’s carry a reputation of being a sound design and if they could prove and advertise that OSX will not crash or lock up your computer every day and it is reasonably priced, people will buy it. I would have bought OSX if it was available when I bought my 1.3Ghz AMD Sony laptop (for $1500…beat that Apple!). Microsoft became the 20-billion-dollar-in-cash gorilla by selling software, not hardware. If Apple snagged 10% of that market they’d be raking in the insane profits too.
Make no mistake on why Sun Microsystems recently announced that they will support a version of Linux on x86 machines (and should be able to run on any PC machine as long as it has the correct linux drivers). Sun is trying to push it’s SunOne philosophy into the lucrative PC market. Though the dumber-than-rocks people probably will not buy a machine with any version of linux because of its complexity, Sun can enter the market where small businesses and intelligent PC owners with a software and service solution comparible (and more open) than Microsoft. Getting a piece of the .NET pie is a huge win which will reak in many $$. It is becoming an intense free-for-all in which Apple will eventually be gobbled up unless they figure a way to increase their sales and solutions and reachability via ways like offering an OSX x86 alternative solution (instead of going to expensive propretary machines). Who knows, companies like Sun could partner with Apple and include its SunOne strategy on all x86 OSX computers (and NOT x86 proprietary machines I might add). That could be a TREMENDOUS win for both companies. OSX is after all a form of UNIX.
Apple has little choice but to switch processor architectures. Frankly, I don’t think Motorola is going to continue making the G4 for them any longer and without faster CPUs people will consider Intel or AMD systems long before MACs.Sun might also be interested in processor design, they’ve invested enough already in the processor designs as it is.
I’m considering buying a MAC but right now they are too expensive. With the possibility of Apple switching architectures to a more mass produced processor like an Intel or AMD, they’ll get better speed, performance and better chances of improving the processors in the future. All in the hopes of bringing down the price of the systems.
Apple will have to keep the systems proprietary which is good. The problem with the Wintel architectures is too much choice. Everyone has different hardware, which means a whole slew of drivers are needed and more often than not, more choice also means more lower quality components. Besides, OSX is really nice and I like the fact all the developer tools I’ll ever need come with the OS. That in itself is a selling point for me.
i agree with all of this