[Big Mac]

Bring on the Dell clon.. I mean, Mactels, Steve: Think Different indeed. The assimilation has seemingly just begun only a little while ago, yet it is proceeding at a fast and furious pace. All too soon we will be lamenting the Mac's passing.

[RAILhead]

[Dakar]

The end is nigh.

[Chuckit]

o noes!!!1 wut will they do next hire ibm to make theyre chips??!?!?!

[Hugi]

A computer company outsourcing work, that's unheard of!

[Rolling Bones]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Bring on the Dell clon.. I mean, Mactels, Steve: Think Different indeed. The assimilation has seemingly just begun only a little while ago, yet it is proceeding at a fast and furious pace. All too soon we will be lamenting the Mac's passing.

http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lounge/279915/no-more-intel-inside-logos-good/

[Big Mac]

When I'll be able to hack with minimal effort another vendor's Intel PC to run OS X, that's precisely what I'll do. And you know that's most likely what you'll do, too. With the Mac Apple hardware was the only game in town. But now that Apple seems to think it will continue to be able to charge a premium for completely generic Intel hardware, the company should be prepared for a rude awakening. I'll hack a PC and run OS X as long as it remains viable, which probably won't be that long a period of time - third party support will be as rare as Linux within a few iterations as companies direct their Mactel customers to run Windows versions of their products.

Look guys, I keep looking for the bright side here. The thing is, the RDF is wearing mighty thin. Apple's industrial design may be good, but it's cases aren't that great - not nice enough to justify a premium for Intel generic excrement inside. SJ said he'd milk the Mac for what it was worth and move on to the next big thing, and apparently that next big thing was the iPod. There is no apparently no room for the Mac at Apple Media Inc.

[EnemyTerritoryish]

OH NO INTEL IS MAKING HTE MOTHERBOARD! Who cares.

[RAILhead]

Ever heard of a proprietary board?

Again:

[::maroma::]

Woah, did we just jump back to the early 90's? Where's PowerComputing when you need em?

Don't fret Big Mac, Apple isn't stupid. I promise.

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

SJ said he'd milk the Mac for what it was worth and move on to the next big thing, and apparently that next big thing was the iPod. There is no apparently no room for the Mac at Apple Media Inc.

Hey, when did he say that?

[goMac]

Who did you think was designing the motherboard? I thought that was one of the big reasons we were moving in the first place, so Apple didn't have to do the chipset.

BTW, Intel Oregon DID open up a Macintosh department, rumor checks out with me.

Edit: I don't get what the big deal about this is. Apple motherboards, at best, have always been outdated buggy pieces of crap. Yeah, the rest of the machine is great, but we ran 2 years late on PCI Express, missed the DDR bandwagon for the most part, ran late on USB 2.0, and every Apple machine I've owned has had some issue on the mainboard preventing me from doing something (Rev 1 G3 IDE issues, iMac G5 board problems, etc). Whatever platform you're on, Intel boards are the gold standard. That's the reason I bought a Pentium, the AMD64 is a nice chip, but quite honestly, the Intel boards are so much better than the AMD ones.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by goMac

BTW, Intel Oregon DID open up a Macintosh department, rumor checks out with me.

Oh really? That rocks. More jobs for Oregon! Woot!

(and damn do we need em)

[goMac]

Originally Posted by ::maroma::

Oh really? That rocks. More jobs for Oregon! Woot!

(and damn do we need em)

They were advertising the jobs a while ago actually.

[andreas_g4]

Big Mac, you do that just because it is ridiculous, don't you?

[Big Mac]

no. . . I'm not trolling; I'm not joking. I'm very serious.

[Chuckit]

So hiring a company that they have already shown faith in to design custom motherboards for a chip they understand better than anyone else means Apple is a Dell clone? That's a big logical leap.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

no. . . I'm not trolling; I'm not joking. I'm very serious.

What about? Intel's motherboards are famous for their quality, not something that can be said for Apple. Intel is building custom hardware components for the Apple, at specs Apple would find hard, if not impossible, to meet. How can this be a bad thing?

[moodymonster]

back in the day Macs had more capabilities than PCs, sound, SCSI etc

Now PCs have the same stuff, USB, Firewire etc - it would be a strange duplication of resources to use Intel chips but not Intel m.boards.

but I get the point, the Mac is losing that hardware mystery factor

[IceEnclosure]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

What about? Intel's motherboards are famous for their quality, not something that can be said for Apple. Intel is building custom hardware components for the Apple, at specs Apple would find hard, if not impossible, to meet. How can this be a bad thing?

[The Godfather]

Oh no!

[Ratm]

^^^

I posted this on digg but people didn't really give a fig.

Steve Jobs said "OS X must be processor independent."
You can interpret this in a few different ways but for the sake of my post I'll say that if Apple licenses their OS to third parties, OS X will be able to run as smoothly as it does on Apple made hardware because Apple designed OS X to do just that—built from the ground up.

He also said "More than even the processor, more than even hardware innovations we bring to the market, the soul of the Mac is its operating system."

This to me is a clear indication that sometime in the near future, Apple will openly license it's OS to anyone that is interested. One of the best indications that this is true is when Steve offered(free of charge)OS X for the MIT $100 laptop program. If anything they are open to more possibilities than they've ever have before.

Now this little bit of news leaks to the net. Intel will take over and design the motherboards for Apple and Apple will take care of the rest. This will free up considerable resources that can now be applied to other areas. I'm sure Apple will still be involved in the process but not to the extent that they were.

(I'm sleepy. Take a nap now.)

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Ratm

This to me is a clear indication that sometime in the near future, Apple will openly license it's OS to anyone that is interested.

That is a brilliant idea completely borne out by history.

[Kerrigan]

Intel's design headquarters are in Santa Clara, not in Delaware. Many, many companies incorporate themselves in Delaware in order to take advantage of Delaware's common law (which lets them avoid frivolous lawsuits). Ehh.. lame.

[macintologist]

Steve Jobs (1996): "The PC wars are over. Microsoft won a long time ago. If I were the head of Apple, I would milk the Mac for all it's worth and then move on the next big thing."

Big Mac you're a little late.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by macintologist

Steve Jobs (1996): "The PC wars are over. Microsoft won a long time ago. If I were the head of Apple, I would milk the Mac for all it's worth and then move on the next big thing."

Big Mac you're a little late.

And you really believe that, in business especially, people never change their opinions, affiliations and loyalties? Nobody cares what Jobs said ten years ago, least of all Jobs. Sheeesh.

[Y3a]

Soon the Mac OS will be history. The hardware will be modified PC's for the most part, and the magic will be in someones bank account.

The majority of PC users won't like the OS X, won't ever get it about system vunerabilities - they've had 15 years to get it - and PC users just don't like spending money, which is why Apple has had a low market share. That and Apple didn't hammer MS in the early days when they had a chance.

Face it, the hardware change will be the death of Apple, and it's OS.

It's like saying "we won't be building Rolls Royces anymore, but this Yugo plant will be making Rolls Royces that do the same thing...Hauling your butts to the 7-11".

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Y3a

Soon the Mac OS will be history. The hardware will be modified PC's for the most part, and the magic will be in someones bank account.

The majority of PC users won't like the OS X, won't ever get it about system vunerabilities - they've had 15 years to get it - and PC users just don't like spending money, which is why Apple has had a low market share. That and Apple didn't hammer MS in the early days when they had a chance.

Face it, the hardware change will be the death of Apple, and it's OS.

It's like saying "we won't be building Rolls Royces anymore, but this Yugo plant will be making Rolls Royces that do the same thing...Hauling your butts to the 7-11".

1. The reason Apple got hammered when they had a chance to become the standard in early computing was that Jobs was (is) a control freak. Had Apple licensed the OS when they had the chance then by now we would all hate Apple - pretty much the way many peeps feel about MS - and use some other obscure OS.

2. For the average consumer, the Mac is all about the OS, about the user experience. Nobody outside geekdom gives a toss what processor powers their computer. My parents like their Mac because it's easy to use, not because it's powered by a G3. I like the Mac because it works and it costs my company less in support costs. People like their computer for what it does, not for what it is. It's a tool, not a freaking religion.

3. Apple still builds and controls the hardware that runs OS X. Apple make their money out of selling boxes, not out of selling the OS. People buy the pretty box because of the OS that powers it and Apple is acutely aware of that. Sure you might run Windows on a WinMac, but who cares? OS X comes pre-installed and supported and even if peeps run Windows, Apple has already made the sale. Sure a couple of geeks will run OS X on their generic box but again, who cares? It's a miniscule number of users.

4. The plural of PC is PCs, not PC's.

5. Comparing Intel to Yugo is just nonsense. Intel builds some of the best processors on the market, their mobos are the gold standard other manufacturers aspire to meet. These guys aren't amateurs. A better comparison might be that Apple is ditching a BMW engine for a Mercedes.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

2. For the average consumer, the Mac is all about the OS, about the user experience. Nobody outside geekdom gives a toss what processor powers their computer. My parents like their Mac because it's easy to use, not because it's powered by a G3. I like the Mac because it works and it costs my company less in support costs. People like their computer for what it does, not for what it is. It's a tool, not a freaking religion.

And this is the problem. Nobody gives a toss about what's inside the computer, but they *will* give a toss that they can't run their copy of 4x4 Evolution 2 or Ghost Recon on it. One thing the Mac misses out on is backwards compatibility. You know all those PC and Playstation games you bought in 1998? You can still play 'em. You know all those Mac games bought in 1998? No chance. Better get used to fiddling with emulators and stuff.

Likewise, forwards compatibility isn't all that good either. Want to run the latest app (i.e. Pages)? Better upgrade to Tiger (which may or may not break your other apps). What a heap of crap way of doing things.

The development and change cycle is way too fast on Macs to make them of interest to the average Joe.

[JoshuaZ]

I don't know about you, but all the Mac games I played in 1998 play just fine in 2005 on my Powerbook.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Doofy

And this is the problem. Nobody gives a toss about what's inside the computer, but they *will* give a toss that they can't run their copy of 4x4 Evolution 2 or Ghost Recon on it. One thing the Mac misses out on is backwards compatibility. You know all those PC and Playstation games you bought in 1998? You can still play 'em. You know all those Mac games bought in 1998? No chance. Better get used to fiddling with emulators and stuff.

Up until the introduction of the Intel Macs, thanks to the Classic environment, most old Mac games worked just fine. There is seriously some stuff from the mid-80s that still works on OS X, as long as you're on a PPC. Ironically, until the Intel switch was announced, it was the Mac that was known for that backward compatibility - with Windows, a lot of old DOS games don't work too well under XP...

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ

I don't know about you, but all the Mac games I played in 1998 play just fine in 2005 on my Powerbook.

Not once the Intel Macs come out.

[SpaceMonkey]

If anyone has any doubt about the ineptitude of the general populace when it comes to computers, just go to the Windows or iPod-related sections of the Apple discussion boards. Average people aren't going to be hacking their Mac OR Windows boxes to do anything other than what they shipped with anytime soon. Apple will continue to exist much like it does now.

[JoshuaZ]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Not once the Intel Macs come out.

No. I'm quite sure that the lame games I was playing on a 233 iMac will play on a an intel mac. 1998 was really really lame.

[demograph68]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

3. Apple still builds and controls the hardware that runs OS X. Apple make their money out of selling boxes, not out of selling the OS. People buy the pretty box because of the OS that powers it and Apple is acutely aware of that. Sure you might run Windows on a WinMac, but who cares? OS X comes pre-installed and supported and even if peeps run Windows, Apple has already made the sale. Sure a couple of geeks will run OS X on their generic box but again, who cares? It's a miniscule number of users.

That's exactly what pisses me off. Frankly, I am getting sick off their hardware.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ

No. I'm quite sure that the lame games I was playing on a 233 iMac will play on a an intel mac.

Really? You don't think you'll be getting any problems with minor things? Like screen colour depth? On Jaguar there was no way to bump down to 256 colours so a lot of old games running under Classic wouldn't work (I see they've corrected this in Tiger - time to go load Prince of Persia 1. Oh wait, no floppy. Bah!).

[JoshuaZ]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Really? You don't think you'll be getting any problems with minor things? Like screen colour depth? On Jaguar there was no way to bump down to 256 colours so a lot of old games running under Classic wouldn't work (I see they've corrected this in Tiger - time to go load Prince of Persia 1. Oh wait, no floppy. Bah!).

Hmm... I wonder if the games from my Mac Classic II will run fine on my new hardware. Oh, look. No one really cares.

Ever tried to get old PC games from 10 years ago to work on modern PCs? There are problems there as well. This isn't an issue for most people, nah, the vast majority of people. If someone wants to play a very old game they should maybe spend $20 and buy an old computer for the same experience.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ

This isn't an issue for most people, nah, the vast majority of people.

Spoken like a true geek. I can assure you, there's plenty of non-geeky people who do care about this kind of thing. Why the hell else do you think that Microsoft keep backwards compatibility in their OSes and PC manufacturers still put floppies in their machines?

[JoshuaZ]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Spoken like a true geek. I can assure you, there's plenty of non-geeky people who do care about this kind of thing. Why the hell else do you think that Microsoft keep backwards compatibility in their OSes and PC manufacturers still put floppies in their machines?

They put floppies in their computers because they are dumb. Actually I see quite a few PC laptops without floppies these days, and everyone I work with in my school district uses a USB flash drive for data storage. No floppies to be seen.

But back to the point. Have your tried running 8 year old games on a modern XP Windows computer? Yeah, it'll run. But as you said before, there will be small problems. Just as you'd expect in OS X computers.

[Kerrigan]

Apple is just one of those brands that will never quite become mainstream enough to hold onto any marketshare advantage.

Take for instance the iPod. Sure, it has 70% marketshare (or more, I can't remember), but if you go into places like Best Buy, they have started putting the iPod immitations on special illuminated "plays4sure" display cases, and you can hear the sales people talking about how much better the MS Plays4sure system is.

Apple might make better products, but they will never ever be able to maintain a long term advantage over their competitors.

[EnemyTerritoryish]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

5. Comparing Intel to Yugo is just nonsense. Intel builds some of the best processors on the market, their mobos are the gold standard other manufacturers aspire to meet. These guys aren't amateurs. A better comparison might be that Apple is ditching a BMW engine for a Mercedes.

Edit: What do you expect? Y3a is an audiophile, so he's about as gullible as they come.

[EnemyTerritoryish]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Spoken like a true geek. I can assure you, there's plenty of non-geeky people who do care about this kind of thing. Why the hell else do you think that Microsoft keep backwards compatibility in their OSes and PC manufacturers still put floppies in their machines?

Because they're stupid. Nobody uses floppies anymore, they use USB drives, email, and burnable CDs. Floppies are a dead technology.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Doofy

Spoken like a true geek. I can assure you, there's plenty of non-geeky people who do care about this kind of thing. Why the hell else do you think that Microsoft keep backwards compatibility in their OSes and PC manufacturers still put floppies in their machines?

PC manufacturers still put floppies in their machines because Windows usually requires them for specialty hardware during installation.

Intel can knock whatever they want of the motherboards without being under control of Microsoft. Previously if Windows didn't support it, it didn't get on the boards, and if Windows needed it, it had to be on the boards. This isn't the case anymore.

[ghporter]

Floppies are still relevant in the Windows world because the BIOS that runs the motherboard knows what they are-guaranteed-and they are always bootable. You can always use a floppy boot disk to investigate a corrupt hard drive problem (if the drive is formatted as NTFS you need a set of boot floppies), and you can always use a boot floppy to bypass Windows OS issues and do things like image and restore partitions, install special drivers and so on. Just because individuals don't need a floppy on a day-to-day basis does NOT mean they're irrelevant.

With that said, I think it is time to move beyond the floppy to something else that's guaranteed to be bootable on every current machine-Mac or PC-and that gives the user and maintainer the level of control one gets from a floppy on a PC today. USB flash drives are a good idea as a starting point, but they're not there yet.

[jcadam]

Originally Posted by Mastrap

And you really believe that, in business especially, people never change their opinions, affiliations and loyalties? Nobody cares what Jobs said ten years ago, least of all Jobs. Sheeesh.

Perhaps Jobs is purposefully trying to kill the mac so he can fulfill his vision of turning Apple into a media company.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ

No. I'm quite sure that the lame games I was playing on a 233 iMac will play on a an intel mac. 1998 was really really lame.

No, they won't, because according to all currently available information, the Intel Macs will not support the Classic environment.

Originally Posted by Doofy

On Jaguar there was no way to bump down to 256 colours so a lot of old games running under Classic wouldn't work (I see they've corrected this in Tiger - time to go load Prince of Persia 1. Oh wait, no floppy. Bah!).

This isn't true - IIRC, I was able to switch to 256 colors as far back as 10.0. The problem was, the OS interface became very ugly when doing so, because the designers apparently didn't anticipate users doing this. IIRC, I think that text in the Finder became black-on-black, causing it to be unreadable. It was good enough to make a game work, though, as long as you switched it back as soon as you were done.

I think they fixed it so that the Finder looked acceptable under 256 colors in Panther, but I don't remember perfectly anymore.

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ

Hmm... I wonder if the games from my Mac Classic II will run fine on my new hardware. Oh, look. No one really cares.

Ever tried to get old PC games from 10 years ago to work on modern PCs? There are problems there as well. This isn't an issue for most people, nah, the vast majority of people. If someone wants to play a very old game they should maybe spend $20 and buy an old computer for the same experience.

It's not that they will run with some "problems." It's that, due to lack of support for the Classic environment, those apps won't run at all, period on Intel Macs without an emulator.

[wdlove]

The important thing is that we are moving forward.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

This isn't true

Yes it is. I only upgraded from Jaguar a couple months ago, so my memory is quite fresh on the matter.

[moodymonster]

It could be that there's all these Intel engineers rubbing their hands with glee, thinking that they can now do all the exciting things with motherboards that they couldn't do before because Windows didn't use it.

[macintologist]

A good friend of mine is a hardcore PC gamer and hates Macs for the obvious reasons that it's not very good at gaming like Windows PC's are.

I told him about the Intel switch and how the new Powerbooks will have Intel processors and you can boot into Windows natively. His current PC laptop is 2 years old.

His next laptop will be an Apple Powerbook with Windows installed.

Multiply that story by 2 million and what do you get?

[Dakar]

Originally Posted by macintologist

Multiply that story by 2 million and what do you get?

2 million stories. Do I get a gold star?