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Link · Jun 7, 2005, 02:17 AM

I can't understand the mac community's falling hook line and sinker for something that now looks like what apple did in the mid 90s, spend millions on a product and then dump it in the end and watch everyone copy it and use it and make millions off it.

Quicktake? Newton? Now it's the PPC.

While I think the x86 move could be intersting, I think Steve Jobs also has his head up his butt. Okay, you're angry, I see that... how the heck could mr. JoeG4 who dresses like Link in parades be insulting Mr. Steve Jobs of Apple!

Ohhh that's so easy. The 2.7ghz g5, a nice competitor to the 2.6ghz athlon64, isn't enough for his royal butt! Sure, he got too excited and said 3ghz but give it a break already, Freescale was just about there with the dualcore g4, and IBM was bound to have a dualcore g5 soon enough, IF ANYTHING, kinda like how apple handled the iMac G4, I think they've been downright irresponsible and lazy with the PowerMac G5, the whole reason for its demise.

A machine with a fast bus, dual 64bit processors, shoot a cluster of these things has been in the top 500.. nein.. top 10 supercomputers in the world, and instead of improving upon that with PCIe, or a higher max ram capacity, or more RAM, more drives, etc... Nooo let's just let it rot for 2 years and then ditch it for Intel...

I think Steve Jobs is blaming IBM, Motorola, and the PPC platform for problems that he himself should have tried to fix, he's done it before and he's bound to do it again, except next time he'll blame it on Intel, then it'll be AMD, etc...

I don't see how a P4/xeon based machine will be cheaper, faster, or produce less heat. Fast P4s run $500-600, fast Xeons $600-800, granted those are retail prices OEM doesn't drop much, and a top end P4/xeon sucks anywhere from 110-130 watts of power, a dual of those?! It'd dim the lights every time it throttled up to full speed!

I say we dump the old geezer and get someone who knows what they're doing. *sigh* Bring on the flames!

MindFad · Jun 7, 2005, 02:24 AM

Watch the keynote. Research processors.

Everything will be just peachy. Nothing's getting ditched. The world will go on, despite the fact that the Mac will have a different kind of processor in it—and nothing more.

It should be noted we still have no idea what the first Intel Mac will have inside of it.

alphasubzero949 · Jun 7, 2005, 02:26 AM

Originally Posted by Link

I say we dump the old geezer and get someone who knows what they're doing.

Like John Sculley?

AKcrab · Jun 7, 2005, 02:30 AM

Originally Posted by Link

Ohhh that's so easy. The 2.7ghz g5, a nice competitor to the 2.6ghz athlon64, isn't enough for his royal butt! Sure, he got too excited and said 3ghz but give it a break already, Freescale was just about there with the dualcore g4, and IBM was bound to have a dualcore g5 soon enough, IF ANYTHING, kinda like how apple handled the iMac G4, I think they've been downright irresponsible and lazy with the PowerMac G5, the whole reason for its demise.

Wow! An IBM employee right here in our midst! Tell when we'll be seeing the big ramp up of the PPC that is more than a year overdue. Pretty please?

Irresponsible and lazy? Well please gift us with some miracles to speed up our PPC macs, or maybe you've optimized OS X? Yours must be uber-snappy.

thunderous_funker · Jun 7, 2005, 02:37 AM

Eliminate the 64-bit dependency and you've got your answer already.

Obviously Apple is sacrificing 64-bit in the short term for better CPUs in the long term. And I'm sure Intel will do 64-bit when it makes sense to do so.

Expect to see PPC rigs available in those segments where 64-bit really matters for a long time yet. You need 64-bit, you can still buy it.

Going with Intel means they have access the world's best mobile processor RIGHT NOW. Oh, and the OS and most of the software will run on it RIGHT NOW. That's win-win.

Your rant assumes that IBM could deliver what you're talking about and that Intel has nothing up their sleeve for Apple. I imagine that if you'd been in those meetings with Jobs, you'd have made the same decision.

IBM: no mobile chips now, unclear future for any chips
Intel: best mobile chips now, garunteed chips in the future no matter what

osxpinot · Jun 7, 2005, 02:38 AM

Rhapsody...

xi_hyperon · Jun 7, 2005, 02:46 AM

Gee, another emotional, knee-jerk reaction to read in the lounge. Color me shocked.

alphasubzero949 · Jun 7, 2005, 02:47 AM

Originally Posted by xi_hyperon

Gee, another emotional, knee-jerk reaction to read in the lounge. Color me shocked.

You should see the other forums. There are plenty to go around.

PacHead · Jun 7, 2005, 02:53 AM

Screw IBM !

They couldn't deliver on what they promised, and this may even have been intentional, as there was a conflict of interest between IBM server machines and Apple. And besides, Apple is a tiny, little client for IBM anyhow. It is obvious that the relationship with IBM was a dead end and not providing desirable or acceptable results. I'm sure the top of the line dual 2.7 G5 is still a killer machine, but I suppose IBM told Apple what they had on the drawing block for 2006/2007 regarding the chip, and Apple decided to get the heck out of dodge.

IBM could barely supply the mininum amount of chips to Apple, and Apple asked for a price reduction, and IBM said no. Their G5 chip will never be in a powerbook, and looking towards the future, Jobs did the right thing by going with a company which gets along great with the Apple engineers, and you can bet that there's going to be a damn hot chip (not temperature wise, you silly person) inside the Pro Mac line, when it's out eventually. Imagine the powerbooks that are going to run on the intel laptop chips. Should be faster/cooler and better battery time.

osxpinot · Jun 7, 2005, 02:58 AM

Apple just should've made their own fabrication plant in Cupertino, CA. They could call it Fabrapple or something actually clever.

Big Mac · Jun 7, 2005, 02:59 AM

Originally Posted by MindFad

Watch the keynote. Research processors.

Everything will be just peachy. Nothing's getting ditched. The world will go on, despite the fact that the Mac will have a different kind of processor in it—and nothing more.

It should be noted we still have no idea what the first Intel Mac will have inside of it.

Just peachy, huh? There's enough denial and willful delusion in this forum to choke a horse. And the first Mactel machines are the developer boxes that have 3.6GHz P4s. Fancy that, M$ makes news by basing its Xbox development system on G5s while Apple does the same in reverse.

Drakino · Jun 7, 2005, 03:01 AM

Wow. You suggest Steve should get the boot (again), because you somehow can magicially see the future of IBM and Motorola, err Freescale. But somehow that magicial ability doesn't extend to Intel.

IBM and Freescale have Apple and the Mac upgrade market for customers when it comes to making PowerPCs for the most part. Sure, the XBox 360 and Nintendo GameCube/Revolution use PowerPCs as well, but those platforms don't demand a constantly evolving platform. IBM does just enough work to eek a product out for those customers and gets to sit easy for a long time. IBM in the PowerPC (not POWER) space is too used to just doing minor improvements here and there, due to the nature of the embedded market. Freescale is the same way. They have no huge demanding need to serve Apple well, since losing Apple means nearly nothing to their bottom line.

Ok, now Intel makes the main processor in a high percentage of computers today. Intel will continue to be in this position for a long time. So, Apple comes along and uses their chips. Will this cause Intel to bend over backwards? Not really. But since it requires little to no extra work on their part to now gain some more sales, they are happy.

What does Apple get? Well, they get access to the same tech the rest of the PC industry has at the same time. No more stalling at 500mhz and having to release dual processor machines that are worthless to nearly everyone (IE, the G4 stalling, and OS 9 not supporting dual processors) while your competitors are racing to 1ghz in the PC world. Now any speed bump Dell sees also goes to Apple. And Intel is far less likely to let any issue impacting peformance growth stand for long.

Now you talk about the Pentium 4 as if that is the only product Intel makes. It's not. They also have this chip called the Pentium-M that does wonders, and can do some amazing things clock for clock. It's gotten to the point where Intel did a public benchmark of a P4 vs a P-M in gaming. The P-M came out ahead, while putting out 75% less heat.

Intel has some good chips on the horizon. They are moving to 65nm by the time Apple uses them, and this time it won't be a mess like the 90nm move was. Expect a dual core Xeon DP (likely Dempsey) in the PowerMacs, since the Xeon DP is a workstation/low end server CPU. The Powerbooks are likely to get the dual core P-M based chip (Jonah) while the iBook and possibly the eMac/Mac Mini may move to a single core version of it. The iMac is a hard one to pin down where it is going, but likely it will get a midrange CPU. The nice thing is that Apple now will have lots of choices going forward in every product line. Keep in mind this is all my speculation alone, but could very will happen similar to this. I'm betting the PowerBooks will be top priority for the transition, but I highly doubt it is going to take a full two years for the PowerMac to change over. I see it more likely that Apple will have both Intel and PowerPC variants available in that space to help ease transition by the major shops buying many of the PowerMacs.

Anyhow, your logic for why Steve should be canned is seemingly flawed. At this point we can't say your completly wrong, but most signs point to it. Steve is the reason Apple is not dead, and has over $6 billion in cash on hand. They could have easially killed PowerPC today and not shipped a single Mac till next year and still be in good shape because of him. Thats not something Sculley could have done.

Drakino · Jun 7, 2005, 03:18 AM

Oh, one last thing. With the move to Intel, Apple gets to be in a position to constantly state how much faster they are then the competition. How is that possible with everyone using the same CPUs? Well, it's a few factors:

1. Legacy. Dell, HP and others still make legacy filled boxes. From the PC BIOS to the PS/2 ports. Apple has no need to hang on to PC legacy features that slow things down a bit.

2. Compilers. In the press release, it states Apple gets to use all the Intel compilers. This is a pretty good sign that this is a move to Intel chips only, and not AMD. Why is this a good thing? Using Intel specific compilers instead of generic x86 ones worried with compatibility across CPUs grants a program a noticible speed boost. Sometimes in the area of 20-30%. Apple had an advantage with the PowerPC chips of really only having to support one kind and could speed things up that way. Moving to Intel, they get similar benefits. Under the hood, an Athlon is quite different then a Pentium-M or 4. Want proof that CPU specific code is faster? Look up Linux benchmarks that compile against the generic i686, or more specific compilations against a P4 or Athlon64.

Apple gets to see many benefits from Intels research due to not having to carry PC legacy luggage. Intel killed the PC BIOS long ago in favor of other better solutions, but no PC vendor adopted it. Apple may be the first company to do so.

Intel could even use this relationship with Apple to help prove to PC vendors that legacy sucks. Thus pushing PC vendors to be better, and encouraging better competition.

I think in the long run, people will look back at this transition as the right thing to do. Just as the 68k->PPC was the right thing to do when Apple did it then.

xi_hyperon · Jun 7, 2005, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Just peachy, huh? There's enough denial and willful delusion in this forum to choke a horse.

There's enough premature, dramatic, hand-wringing, dogmatic angst in this forum to last a lifetime. Seriously, this sort of drama is the sort of thing that gives people the desire to laugh at Mac users. I find it mildly entertaining, but I also find it sad at the same time.

There are risks associated by this big change, and there's no denying that, but there are also some potential long-term business benefits. The fact is, nobody knows how well this will work out. Unless one has a crystal ball, it's silly to panic just yet.

Lancer409 · Jun 7, 2005, 03:21 AM

too early and not enough info given out ...

strangely ... no apple death knells yet ... =P

alphasubzero949 · Jun 7, 2005, 03:26 AM

Originally Posted by Lancer409

strangely ... no apple death knells yet ... =P

Who needs analyst death knells when you have the fanboys in this forum?

xi_hyperon · Jun 7, 2005, 03:28 AM

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Who needs analyst death knells when you have the fanboys in this forum?

Yeah, all the media has to do is come here and they've got a virtual treasure trove of hysterical quotes they can use.

Luca Rescigno · Jun 7, 2005, 03:43 AM

Two words: YOUR RETARTED.

BasketofPuppies · Jun 7, 2005, 04:24 AM

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Like John Sculley?

I prefer Michael "The Diesel" Spindler.

Randman · Jun 7, 2005, 05:14 AM

Well, Steve Jobs said he read Link's post and agreed. He's quitting, John Scully is returning and Apple will opt for Moto chips.

Happy?

Eriamjh · Jun 7, 2005, 05:22 AM

bviously Apple is sacrificing 64-bit in the short term for better CPUs in the long term. And I'm sure Intel will do 64-bit when it makes sense to do so.

You base this on what? NOTHING!

:XI: · Jun 7, 2005, 05:29 AM

MacNN should give Link da boot!

Scooterboy · Jun 7, 2005, 05:31 AM

Originally Posted by Drakino

Apple gets to see many benefits from Intels research due to not having to carry PC legacy luggage. Intel killed the PC BIOS long ago in favor of other better solutions, but no PC vendor adopted it. Apple may be the first company to do so.

Intel could even use this relationship with Apple to help prove to PC vendors that legacy sucks. Thus pushing PC vendors to be better, and encouraging better competition.

Is that why Apple is now hiring BIOS engineers?

Apple is dropping OpenFirmware.

At least the PentiumMac P4 will be saddled with some of that PC legacy stuff.

OpenStep · Jun 7, 2005, 06:44 AM

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

Two words: YOUR RETARTED.

I believe the correct usage is "you're" and not "your". ex. "You're retarded"

Randman · Jun 7, 2005, 06:49 AM

Originally Posted by :XI:

MacNN should give Link da boot!

Randman · Jun 7, 2005, 06:50 AM

Originally Posted by OpenStep

I believe the correct usage is "you're" and not "your". ex. "You're retarded"

I think he was being facetious. Hence, the misspelling of retarded as well the incorrect usage of your/you're. I hope so, at least.

budster101 · Jun 7, 2005, 07:48 AM

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

Two words: YOUR RETARTED.

It's three words, "You're Retarded" as in You are retarded, not YOUR RETARDED.

(It's the lounge)

Link · Jun 7, 2005, 11:12 AM

Okay so I was just mad, this one was good for taking my anger out, but I still don't believe any of the "marketing" you guys are repeating off Steve Jobs' keynote..

I guess like Linus Torvalds, I'm one of the few people immune to his RDF. FWIW though I'll have a little fun here:

1. The Intel-based mac does NOT use OpenFirmware, and due to many comments regarding windows, I'm suspect it runs BIOS, not surprised. The Mac ROM on it allows OS X to run because OS X needs it to run

It's kinda like a fake OpenFIrmware, I'm guessing *shrug* either way..
2. Almost everybody but Intel fanboys will agree that 1. The P4 runs very hot, 2. It sucks TONS of energy, 3. it is not as fast as an a64.
3. You're insane not to believe #2
4. #2 is true
5. The Pentium D is about as close to real as the 7448 or that dual core G4.
6. The Pentium D doesn't exist yet.
7. The Pentium M is not a big deal. Not big enough to drop PPC, at least. You guys are weenies.
8. If Apple had gone with AMD, scotttheking would cream his pants dreaming of how many Seti WUs he'd be able to crunch at atime

9. So would PowerMacMan....
10. And it'd be a mac so they could both be happy.
11. But it'd cost too much for an x86 machine.

Randman · Jun 7, 2005, 11:22 AM

12. You should stop posting because it's really showing that you don't have a good grasp of the situation.

alphasubzero949 · Jun 7, 2005, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by Randman

12. You should stop posting because it's really showing that you don't have a good grasp of the situation.

iDriveX · Jun 7, 2005, 12:20 PM

Steve Jobs didn't have anything to do with the failure of the Quicktake and the Newton. He axed it to save Apple's neck and bottom line. They might have been good products, if the marketing behind them had been any good. Too early to the party. I think he's done a mediocre job making the iPod the number one digital music player in the World and the iTunes Music Store the number one Digital Music Store in the world. Let's cut him some slack eh?

turtle777 · Jun 7, 2005, 12:24 PM

Originally Posted by xi_hyperon

Gee, another emotional, knee-jerk reaction to read in the lounge. Color me shocked.

Seconded.

-t

budster101 · Jun 7, 2005, 12:25 PM

He turned a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy and put it firmly in the BLACK INK.

brapper · Jun 7, 2005, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by Link

I think Steve Jobs is blaming IBM, Motorola, and the PPC platform for problems that he himself should have tried to fix, he's done it before and he's bound to do it again, except next time he'll blame it on Intel, then it'll be AMD, etc...:

I guess he should turn Apple into a chip maker now?
It's easy to blame the other guys, and indeed it's right to do so, when they're underperforming.
Can't stay with a loser forever.

Lateralus · Jun 7, 2005, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by Link

:
8. If Apple had gone with AMD, scotttheking would cream his pants dreaming of how many Seti WUs he'd be able to crunch at atime

9. So would PowerMacMan....

8. Doubt it. I'm feeling more than a little cocky with these 970 optimized BOINC builds. I have no envy.
9. I don't know anybody named PowerMacMan.
666. I agree with the motion above to boot you. You're annoying.

:XI: · Jun 7, 2005, 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by Randman

12. You should stop posting because it's really showing that you don't have a good grasp of the situation.

I don't think he has a grasp of anything other than his wiener.

agentz · Jun 7, 2005, 03:27 PM

Joe, you really ought to stop stating 'facts' like you've spouted here and in other threads. You're in the same boat as the rest of us, you know as much as any of the rest of us do (probably less

)

How do you know what Intel based Macs WILL or WILL NOT run, or do, or include or whateverthe****? You don't.

Personally, I'd go with the point 666 above.

osiris · Jun 7, 2005, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

M$ makes news by basing its Xbox development system on G5s while Apple does the same in reverse.

It's Bizarro world! Not long ago this news would have sent both sides laughing. Now it's just weird.

Steve did the right thing - considering IBM putting their bottom line first (it's just business) to meet the demands of a much larger gaming industry.

I bet Steve was seriously pissed, waiting around for those IBM 3ghz G5s. It probably really hit the fan on Steve's last conversation with IBM. Maybe some day we'll see a movie on TNT about what happened.

But da boot? Nah. Steve was smart enough to co-develop on Intel all along. He may have saved Apple by doing so.

trip · Jun 7, 2005, 03:31 PM

Originally Posted by Link

I think they've been downright irresponsible and lazy with the PowerMac G5, the whole reason for its demise.

Yeah ok. whatever.

Originally Posted by Link

I think Steve Jobs is blaming IBM, Motorola, and the PPC platform for problems that he himself should have tried to fix, he's done it before and he's bound to do it again, except next time he'll blame it on Intel, then it'll be AMD, etc...

And he should! It's not just about capability. It's capability at a competetive price. Look at the cost of a 3.6 intel that's already on the market vs. an IBM 3.6 which is only in test...
If IBM can't handle the heat in the kitchen, well....

I know you can't compare hardware vs. hardware since they're too different (ie.e complex instruction set vs risk based processor), but my understanding is that for the same GHZ the intel chip is still faster.... somebody please correct me if I am wrong.

Originally Posted by Link

I don't see how a P4/xeon based machine will be cheaper, faster, or produce less heat. Fast P4s run $500-600, fast Xeons $600-800, granted those are retail prices OEM doesn't drop much, and a top end P4/xeon sucks anywhere from 110-130 watts of power, a dual of those?! It'd dim the lights every time it throttled up to full speed!

edit: is xbox powerpc or intel ?

Originally Posted by Link

I say we dump the old geezer and get someone who knows what they're doing. *sigh* Bring on the flames!

I say we give him a raise !

typoon · Jun 7, 2005, 03:57 PM

When a company that promises you something and it doesn't deliver you look somewhere else. THAT IS what Apple did. IBM couldn't deliver on 3GHz so Apple went someplace else. Jobs promised a 3GHz almost 2 years ago. What has IBM done? Not too much about it. We Mac users are a finiky bunch. We complain that we want faster processors and now that we finally get some we have people (a Person) calling for Steve Jobs' head. Apple Delivered. Maybe not the way most would want but they finally delivered. Quit yer complainin.

The original poster seemed to have forgotten a few things. Steve jobs' most imporant feats at Apple since his return.

1. iMac
2. iPod/iTunes
3. Mac OS X
4. iLife
5. Once again Making the Mac and Apple relevant again.

If you want to get rid of him for that then you are

ReggieX · Jun 7, 2005, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by :XI:

MacNN should give Link da boot!

Fourthed.

Originally Posted by typoon

Jobs promised a 3GHz almost 2 years ago.

He promised it for last year. At the time, it seemed a reasonable thing to happen.

Chuckit · Jun 7, 2005, 04:45 PM

Originally Posted by ReggieX

He promised it for last year. At the time, it seemed a reasonable thing to happen.

I think that's what typoon meant. He promised to have a 3 GHz G5 within a year, and they implied that G5 PowerBooks would be out shortly after that. They had no way of knowing that IBM would make absolutely no progress at all.

Jasoco · Jun 7, 2005, 08:32 PM

If Steve Jobs goes, Apple will be dead. It's that simple. Steve is the man, he will keep the company going for years.

exactopposite · Jun 7, 2005, 09:05 PM

Originally Posted by Link

5. The Pentium D is about as close to real as the 7448 or that dual core G4.
6. The Pentium D doesn't exist yet.

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050405/index.html

not only does the Pentium D exist, but it has already been tested and reviewed. as far as i know they are already on the market but since it was just released, they aren't widelly availible yet.

that being said the Pentium D is not as fast as the AMD Athlon 64 X2. there is a direct comparion of the 2 chips on that same site btw. this is becasue the athlon 64 was designed to be dual core from day one. they just didn't actually make the dual core version until it was feasible to actually manufacture them.

aside from all that, i think that apple went with the bigger company (intel vs amd) becasue that gives them more options for processors and they know fure sure that intel will have no problem keeping up with demand.

JoshuaZ · Jun 7, 2005, 09:14 PM

Dude, when Steve went in for Cancer treatment the market responded by sending Apple's stock down several points. Steve is a major part of Apple right now, and a lot of people in the tech industry, music industry, and movie industry trust him and his hype. He's good for Apple.