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Big Mac · Jun 7, 2005, 04:20 AM

mAxximo, this is difficult to do, but I must apologize to you. . . I must apologize for reacting in the way I often did when you would spout off about OS X. But, I'm not apologizing for second-guessing your critiques, because most of the particlar insignificant matters you were screaming about then are just as meaningless today. Yet, you ended up being right about the Mac no longer being the Mac, and even though your reasoning was flawed you arrived at the truth - accidentally, perhaps - far earlier than I did. For that you truly deserve accolades of some sort. The Mac is dead; perhaps it would not have been such a shock if I could have recognized some of what you saw.

xi_hyperon · Jun 7, 2005, 04:27 AM

Here, put this to your mouth and breathe before you hyperventilate.

alphasubzero949 · Jun 7, 2005, 04:28 AM

I see the new fad now...perhaps I should go start a new thread with my own death knell.

Drakino · Jun 7, 2005, 04:42 AM

In a sad sort of way, this is entertaining. Did this sort of response pop up in the days of the 68k->PowerPC transition> Or is this specific to the Intel stuff going on.

I bought a Mac not because it had a PowerPC in it. I bought a Mac because OS X caught my attention. 5 years later, I own a G4 Cube and a Powerbook, and am eyeing more Apple hardware. Do I care that it will have an Intel chip? No. All I care about is what I can do with the product, because in the end, thats all that matters. Argue pipeline length and RISC vs CISC all day, I'll be busy doing something productive.

Big Mac · Jun 7, 2005, 05:04 AM

Originally Posted by Drakino

In a sad sort of way, this is entertaining. Did this sort of response pop up in the days of the 68k->PowerPC transition> Or is this specific to the Intel stuff going on.

I bought a Mac not because it had a PowerPC in it. I bought a Mac because OS X caught my attention. 5 years later, I own a G4 Cube and a Powerbook, and am eyeing more Apple hardware. Do I care that it will have an Intel chip? No. All I care about is what I can do with the product, because in the end, thats all that matters. Argue pipeline length and RISC vs CISC all day, I'll be busy doing something productive.

It's good you think reactions like mine are entertaining. I'd like to see your view win out and for Apple to succeed with its new Mactel platform. I just don't think it's going to happen. You can write me off all you want - it may very well be comforting to you. But please don't sell me short here. It's not at all about RISC versus CISC. Everyone has been aware for some time that Intel chips are essentially RISC chips. The concern here is about the Mac platform and its ability to weather this drastic, abrupt and questionable shift. It's also about the long term cost to, and viability of, the Mac platform, which, IMO, is seriously undermined by this course.

The fact is, I have invested a lot in the Macintosh platform over fifteen years. And, unfortunately, in my view the Mac is dead. Mactel may or may not have a future. The third party software situation will be moderately healthy at best - if all of Apple's claims are to be believed. If you think this transition will be an easy one for developers or users, good luck with that assumption.

Randman · Jun 7, 2005, 05:07 AM

Drama Queen.

Big Mac · Jun 7, 2005, 05:09 AM

Originally Posted by Randman

Drama Queen.

Fairy princess.

xi_hyperon · 05:33 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

The fact is, I have invested a lot in the Macintosh platform over fifteen years. And, in my view, the Mac is dead. Mactel may or may not have a future. The third party software situation will be moderately healthy at best - if all of Apple's claims are to be believed. If you think this transition will be an easy one for developers or users, good luck with that assumption.

No one is denying there is risk. It would simply be nice if you explain how you rationally came to the conclusion of Apple's death with such finality, on the day after the announcement. I have yet to read *one* post in the countless threads here that explains this kind of quick conclusion.

Do you have more insight into the details than the rest of us? If so, please share. If not, then why so pessimistic before we know more? I'm simply trying to understand the "sky-is-falling" mentality that is pervading the community of the bigger Mac fans here.

SomeToast · Jun 7, 2005, 05:17 AM

Set the Wayback Machine for eleven years ago...

"The fact is, I have invested a lot in the Macintosh platform over four years. And, in my view, the Mac is dead. PowerPC may or may not have a future. The third party software situation will be moderately healthy at best - if all of Apple's claims are to be believed. If you think this transition will be an easy one for developers or users, good luck with that assumption."

Apple's in a far better position with OS X to weather a processor change now than they were then. Yes, transitions are a challenge, but PPC -> Intel will be smoother for both developers and users than 680x0 -> PPC was, and that was survivable.

PacHead · Jun 7, 2005, 05:26 AM

OK, the Mac is dead, according to some.

So, when are these people gonna leave the forum ?

I mean, why hang around at a forum for a dead platform ? Surely, that's dumb and unproductive.

They're certainly entitled to their viewpoint (even if it is hysterical and/or kneejerking), but their whining/spamming isn't going to change anything, besides showing that there are a few really weirdo Mac users.

The Mac platform moves ahead. Either come along for the ride, or get out of the way.

effgee · Jun 7, 2005, 05:35 AM

Apple goes Intel, Microsoft goes PPC ... and now I (almost entirely) agree with something PacHead said ... spooky.

I gotta go see a doctor ... right now.

AKcrab · Jun 7, 2005, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

The third party software situation will be moderately healthy at best - if all of Apple's claims are to be believed. If you think this transition will be an easy one for developers or users, good luck with that assumption.

Did you watch the keynote? Photoshop runs without hassle. Hell, it booted faster on Jobs' MacTel/InMac box then it does on my G4 867.

Randman · Jun 7, 2005, 06:13 AM

I timed it. PS in the keynote booted faster than my PB17 (1.5Ghz, 1.5GB of ram).

budster101 · Jun 7, 2005, 08:54 AM

This thread officially made coffee come out my nose.

"Drama Queen"
"Fairy Princess"...

Caught me off guard.

version · Jun 7, 2005, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by Randman

I timed it. PS in the keynote booted faster than my PB17 (1.5Ghz, 1.5GB of ram).

Your Mac is faulty then, because PS on my Albook 1.25 was up n running long before Steve's.

Plus, this is Jobs we're talking about, I'm sure all his apps had been launched at least once before his speech, meaning they were cached. God knows what the real performance hit will be.

Chuckit · Jun 7, 2005, 10:12 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

The concern here is about the Mac platform and its ability to weather this drastic, abrupt and questionable shift. It's also about the long term cost to, and viability of, the Mac platform, which, IMO, is seriously undermined by this course.

By increasing its options so that it can always choose what it feels to be the best platform at the time, Apple is undermining its viability? HOW?

Originally Posted by Big Mac

The fact is, I have invested a lot in the Macintosh platform over fifteen years. And, unfortunately, in my view the Mac is dead. Mactel may or may not have a future. The third party software situation will be moderately healthy at best - if all of Apple's claims are to be believed. If you think this transition will be an easy one for developers or users, good luck with that assumption.

Okay. Since nobody has given me any reason to doubt it and Apple would've had no reason to make the switch if they didn't feel reasonably certain they can do it, I'll go with logic and assume that it will be pretty painless except for those who want to get their panties in a bunch before they even see a shipping product.

budster101 · Jun 7, 2005, 10:14 AM

BREAKING NEWS!

Apple Buys INTEL... film at 11.

Millennium · Jun 7, 2005, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by Drakino

In a sad sort of way, this is entertaining. Did this sort of response pop up in the days of the 68k->PowerPC transition> Or is this specific to the Intel stuff going on.

For the most part, this is unique to Intel. PowerPC was undeniably a step up from 680x0, and there was a bemused sense of irony that Intel was now suddenly one of the "good guys", but that was pretty much all. Whereas the switch to Intel is undeniably a step down, and Jobs has wrecked the Mac's superior architecture for the sake of a few marketing dollars rather than invest in the best technology out there. This leaves the Mac without any clear advantages over Wintel except the OS, and the OS, while very good, is not good enough to be worth several hundred dollars' worth of Apple tax on its own. I doubt any OS could be that good.

Without the superior architecture, a Mac is little more than an overpriced PC. The OS is better, but I can save anywhere from $300-1000+ by using Linux, while getting almost all of the advantages over Windows. What advantages I don't get aren't worth enough to cover the difference.

Chuckit · Jun 7, 2005, 10:24 AM

If your RISC processors aren't getting any faster, all the superior architecture in the world will do jack for you. All that matters is that Apple chooses the best processors, whether they're best because of their underlying architecture or because a company worked to build something great on top of a less impressive architecture. You're a smart guy. I don't know why you'd let one tiny detail of the computers (the ARCHITECTURE — a completely useless measure of a processor's worth that would indicate my original PowerPC is better than a high-end modern SGI machine) get in the way of rationally evaluating what Apple has to offer.

Millennium · Jun 7, 2005, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

If your RISC processors aren't getting any faster, all the superior architecture in the world will do jack for you.

You assume that the problem is inherent to the POWER architecture; it is not. Apple should have taken the money involved in switching and invested it into more development effort. At the absolute least they should have gone with AMD64; it's no PPC but it's leaps and bounds ahead of x86, and it's still cheaper.

The point is that even if Apple was forced into this -which they were not- they didn't even pick the superior chips for that junk architecture when price wasn't a barrier. This is about marketing, not technology, and we're the ones who get screwed.

All that matters is that Apple chooses the best processors, whether they're best because of their underlying architecture or because a company worked to build something great on top of a less impressive architecture.

And they failed to do either one. If they want meaningless terms like clockrate (or this ridiculous 'units of power per watt' crap), they should have gone with AMD64. If they wanted a clean computing architecture, they should have stuck with PowerPC. Instead they went for a glorified desktop calculator. This is not the Apple I knew.

You're a smart guy. I don't know why you'd let one tiny detail of the computers (the ARCHITECTURE — a completely useless measure of a processor's worth that would indicate my original PowerPC is better than a high-end modern SGI machine) get in the way of rationally evaluating what Apple has to offer.

Because I've studied the Intel architecture and the PowerPC. I know just what a steaming load of crap we're supposed to be taking here. I know not just one but several ways Apple could have done better. Above all, I demand the best, and Apple has given up on producing the best.

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 10:39 AM

Big mac. THE Pod people got you! (and not the good ipod type pod people)...

Rest up and bit and watch how things evolve over the next couple on months.

This is a good thing.

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 10:41 AM

Mill, they had no chip for the powerbook.

How well would apple be doing with a powerbook 18 months from now.

Listen to steve "The operating system is the soul of our company"...

That OS is still the same if not better...

Cody Dawg · Jun 7, 2005, 10:41 AM

I like drama and I like this thread.

I particularly like it when people apologize and mean it.

Millenium
Jobs has wrecked the Mac's superior architecture for the sake of a few marketing dollars rather than invest in the best technology out there.

Seems that others think that also (from today's New York Times):

Several analysts said Monday that they were skeptical of such claims.

"We're not sure about whether Intel is that much better than A.M.D. or I.B.M.," said Richard Doherty, president of the Envisioneering Group, a consulting firm in Seaford, N.Y. The crucial factor in the deal was probably price, he said.

I agree with Millenium about all of this and I know a lot of others do also. I have some Apple developer friends (three of them out in Texas) that I emailed about this and they are NOT impressed with this latest decision of Steve-O's.

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 10:43 AM

>Millenium
Jobs has wrecked the Mac's superior architecture for the sake of a few marketing dollars rather than invest in the best technology out there.

They did invest. In IBM, and IBM failed them. Including apple's need for a laptop chip.

Go to this thread and tell me apple switched for "the sake of a few marketing dollars"

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=259074

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 10:45 AM

>I agree with Millenium about all of this and I know a lot of others do also. I have some Apple developer friends (three of them out in Texas) that I emailed about this and they are NOT impressed with this latest decision of Steve-O's.

Big changes cause people to be scared. Ask them again after they got their $999 dev machines.

zerostar · Jun 7, 2005, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

I agree with Millenium about all of this and I know a lot of others do also. I have some Apple developer friends (three of them out in Texas) that I emailed about this and they are NOT impressed with this latest decision of Steve-O's.

Price is a huge concern in the computer selling business, sorry but a cheaper chip that is just as fast is a no brainer. Plus you get to put a new chip in a stale Powerbook that would have probably sat for another year before adding 4" to the bottom to make a G5 work, c'mon.

What specifically are youe developer friends not impressed with? The money they will make on upgrades with out needing to add any features at all? If I was a developer I would be pretty happy with first the switch from OS 9 to OS X got people to re-buy my apps, now the intel switch will be people to re-buy my apps again. Some of these people were like me, using Quark 4.0 on os 9 and perfectl happy if it ran on OS 9, OS 10, OS 11 forever. Since It didn't we forked over almost $900 a seat to upgrade to quark 6.

Then again I don't develop SW.

Millennium · Jun 7, 2005, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by osxisfun

Listen to steve "The operating system is the soul of our company"...

This, from someone who has repeatedly insisted "We're a hardware company". Why believe him now?

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 10:55 AM

Because they make most of their money with hardware. They make all _that_ money because they have the best OS on the planet running it.

>Millenium
Jobs has wrecked the Mac's superior architecture for the sake of a few marketing dollars rather than invest in the best technology out there.

They did invest. In IBM, and IBM failed them. Including apple's need for a laptop chip.

Go to this thread and tell me apple switched for "the sake of a few marketing dollars"

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=259074

Mill not to bother but i have posted this twice for you. You know I love you and all but please try and tell me with a straight face after reading the link above that apple switched chips for marketing dollars.

You. won't.

The IBM chips are ok for today, but they are not ok for tomorrow.

IBM failed apple by not giving them a 3 gig chip.
IBM failed apple with no latop chip.

The fact alone that powerbooks and laptops now drive the personal computer market should be reason enough to understand that we needed one. and we could not listen to ibm's promises any longer.

They failed us.

SomeToast · Jun 7, 2005, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by Millennium

For the most part, this is unique to Intel. PowerPC was undeniably a step up from 680x0, and there was a bemused sense of irony that [IBM] was now suddenly one of the "good guys", but that was pretty much all.

Now that's some revisionist history.

People were concerned about the longevity of their 680x0 hardware. They were worried about the emulation performance of non-native software (and how long it would take devs to ship native versions). They were shocked to see Apple working with "The Evil Empire" and many felt that Apple had sold its soul. Others wondered if instead of buying new hardware and software they shouldn't just switch platforms.

Thanks to a far more pervasive Internet, the shitstorm is much more visible today, but we saw much the same rending of garments and gnashing of teeth eleven years ago.

TETENAL · Jun 7, 2005, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by Millennium

You assume that the problem is inherent to the POWER architecture; it is not. Apple should have taken the money involved in switching and invested it into more development effort. At the absolute least they should have gone with AMD64; it's no PPC but it's leaps and bounds ahead of x86, and it's still cheaper.

How do you know that switching to AMD64 would bee cheap for Apple? Mac OS X had been developed for PowerPC and x86 in parallel from day one. Is the same true for AMD64? How long would it take and how much would it cost to port OS X to AMD64? What are the future roadmaps of AMD and Intel? What is Apple's future roadmap? How much is each company willing to react to the other's wishes.

There are so many unknowns, that it is pretty much impossible for any outsider to tell what is the best and cheapest way to go for Apple in the future.

wdlove · Jun 7, 2005, 01:59 PM

It's just going to take time to adjust. Apology accepted.

LaGow · Jun 7, 2005, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

You assume that the problem is inherent to the POWER architecture; it is not. Apple should have taken the money involved in switching and invested it into more development effort. At the absolute least they should have gone with AMD64; it's no PPC but it's leaps and bounds ahead of x86, and it's still cheaper.

That may need to wait until Hector de Ruiz, CEO of AMD, who used to be the head of Motorola's semiconductor division back in the G4 days, leaves.

Egos, egos, he goes.

Don Pickett · Jun 7, 2005, 02:41 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

For the most part, this is unique to Intel. PowerPC was undeniably a step up from 680x0, and there was a bemused sense of irony that Intel was now suddenly one of the "good guys", but that was pretty much all. Whereas the switch to Intel is undeniably a step down, and Jobs has wrecked the Mac's superior architecture for the sake of a few marketing dollars rather than invest in the best technology out there. This leaves the Mac without any clear advantages over Wintel except the OS, and the OS, while very good, is not good enough to be worth several hundred dollars' worth of Apple tax on its own. I doubt any OS could be that good.

Without the superior architecture, a Mac is little more than an overpriced PC. The OS is better, but I can save anywhere from $300-1000+ by using Linux, while getting almost all of the advantages over Windows. What advantages I don't get aren't worth enough to cover the difference.

It's clear to me you have never run a business. Businesses do not run on principle, and that is the argument you are making over and over and over, with no logic to back it up.

PPC may have a superior architecture, but that is far from a provable fact. What is abundantly clear, however, is that PPC does not have the performance of x86. No amount of principled arguments or appeals to architectural purity will change the fact that it takes two G5s to out perform one P4/Pentium-M, and that Opterons are, at the same frequency, faster chips. Given this very basic fact, and the fact that neither IBM or Moto have shown the ability to push the PPC architecture to speeds competitive with x86 ( G4s with 167 MHz busses?!?!?) it is quite clear that Apple had two choices – slowly whither on the vine or make a switch.

Let me repeat that: Neither IBM or Motorola have shown the ability to makes the PPC truly competitive with x86, and neither one can show they will do it in the future. Do you remember the bad old days of the eternal 500MHz G4s? Imagine those, ad infinitum.

Suggestions by some that Apple should've started making their own chips are economically ignorant: the capital investment required for this would, quite literally, bankrupt the company with no guarantee it would solve the problems. Apple may have invested it's $5 billion in cash and been in the same boat. That's financial suicide.

I understand your argument – you stand on principle. The business world, and the vast majority of consumers, don't. If you have been paying attention you will have seen that the enormous amount of positive press about Apple in the last years is about the operating system, not the processors. Most people do not care about architecture. Most people I know, even very serious, very successful Mac-based professionals, don't know the difference between PPC and x86. They do know that OS X makes their computing lives easier and simpler and more effective, and that's all they care about. Computing is a commodity industry, which means marketing and features differentiate products, not hardware. The only proprietary pieces in my, and your, G5s are the CPUs. What really sets the machine apart from the Wintel world is the design and the tight coupling between software and hardware. This will continue to be true.

I do not mean to tell you that your beliefs are wrong, as they are not. We are all entitled to our beliefs. What I am telling you is that extrapolating your beliefs onto the future of the platform shows a misunderstanding of how business, and how the computer business works. It is not the best technology or the best architecture which is always the most successful. It is the product which best fills the needs of consumers at the lowest opportunity cost. In this OS X excels. This is the only way Apple will ever grow their market share, because, as I have said, no PPC manufacturer has ever been able to consistently produce chips which have allowed Apple to remain competitive with the x86 world. Ever.

Worries about architecture impact a very small segment of the business world. Personally, I do not care about architecture. And, when I make purchasing recommendations to individual or corporate customers, I do not mention architecture. I mention ease of use, ease of maintenance, TCO and ease of rolling out fixes and updates. I mention easy training curves and increased efficiency. All of these rest on the OS, and all of these things are ways in which OS X beats Windows, not ways in which PPC beats x86. When people see Macs they see OS X. All of the switchers I know, including my brother, switched because of the OS, not the chips.

To reiterate: I do not mean this to be a personal attack. I am not trying to tell you your beliefs are wrong. I am saying that applying your beliefs to macroprojections of Apple's future are illogical. The statement that Without the superior architecture, a Mac is little more than an overpriced PC is the crux of this misunderstanding, as the real reasons to choose Apple over other platforms are embodied in the OS. Until Apple tells us they will abandon the OS, I see no reason to worry about Apple's long-term future. The fact that Apple now has access to a reliable line of high performance processors makes that future brighter. It may interest you that most of the financial industry sees this decision as a good thing.

thunderous_funker · Jun 7, 2005, 03:45 PM

I'm not even sure the problem is "principles". I think its aesthetics. Mac had always been a kind of fetish and the "exotic" CPUs were part of that fetish.

Of course the irony is that Jobs could have given everyone in the audience a shiny new Mac, let them play on it for hours and hours noticing how fast and great it was before he unveiled the "Intel Inside" sticker.

As shocking as the announcement was, I can't shake the feeling that if Apple could have shown off a new machine (like a new Powerbook) it would have eliminated most of this drama. There is always angst over any new rumored or speculated product line for Mac-head. This transition just amplifies that dramatically because it so alien and unexpected.

Advice to Mac fans: Don't panic. When a new Mactel comes out you won't even notice the difference (except it will be faster there won't be shortages of CPUs holding up your order).

Advice to Apple: Launch a new rig ASAP to give people something to look forward to rather than fear/fret over.

Eriamjh · Jun 7, 2005, 03:47 PM

I never thought this would happen. I was wrong.

Cody Dawg · Jun 7, 2005, 04:23 PM

Heck, maybe some of us SHOULD just dump our Apple systems and beat the Apple "switch" gang...and go buy Wintel machines right now.

Hey, remember a while back when I mentioned that a friend said that Jobs had/has a Dell system in his office? I believe it now! I thought it was a joke and it turns out that it probably wasn't.

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 04:27 PM

>Hey, remember a while back when I mentioned that a friend said that Jobs had/has a Dell system in his office? I believe it now! I thought it was a joke and it turns out that it probably wasn't.

In fact he may have been talking abou the dell laptop steve used the first year or 2 when he came back to the company in '97. Perhaps he has another one now. who knows.

LaGow · Jun 7, 2005, 04:49 PM

All this angst. The processor is a complete and utter non-issue to everybody but the most technically inclined. Mac sales won't be hurt because, as has been pointed out a million times (and no-one is apparently listening), the only people who genuinely care about what's inside their boxes are wireheads (and teenage boys) like the type who go to online forums and post.

Change is a scary thing. But we've been throught this before and come out fine, in fact stronger. I have a friend who believes this is all about egos, but I disagree. There are a lot of smart people milling about in Cupertino and this entire announcement sounds less like the whim of an autocrat and more like a strategic shift.

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 04:54 PM

This is a good thread if true:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...hreadid=130894

analogika · Jun 7, 2005, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

This, from someone who has repeatedly insisted "We're a hardware company". Why believe him now?

Oh, fer cryin' out loud, Mill - BECAUSE IT'S TRUE.

You know as well as anybody here that all that great software that Apple writes and includes with new machines exists solely to sell computers, and you know full well that that is a large part of how most Mac sales work.

Ideological aversion to Intel is one thing, and easily justifiable IMO, but this thread is just so full of idiocy...

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 05:00 PM

Originally Posted by analogika

Oh, fer cryin' out loud, Mill - BECAUSE IT'S TRUE.

You know as well as anybody here that all that great software that Apple writes and includes with new machines exists solely to sell computers, and you know full well that that is a large part of how most Mac sales work.

Ideological aversion to Intel is one thing, and easily justifiable IMO, but this thread is just so full of idiocy...

I think he left for forums.linuxnn.com

analogika · Jun 7, 2005, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by wdlove

It's just going to take time to adjust. Apology accepted.

YOU are mAxximo? :o

Big Mac · Jun 7, 2005, 05:22 PM

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

It's clear to me you have never run a business. Businesses do not run on principle, and that is the argument you are making over and over and over, with no logic to back it up.

Are you saying all businesses operate without principles or that the free market fails to function when principles are part of the equation? Unprincipled business decisions don't necessarily lead to market success.

PPC may have a superior architecture, but that is far from a provable fact. What is abundantly clear, however, is that PPC does not have the performance of x86. No amount of principled arguments or appeals to architectural purity will change the fact that it takes two G5s to out perform one P4/Pentium-M, and that Opterons are, at the same frequency, faster chips.

Two G5s don't just out perform the P4, they out perform it be a serious margin. And Opterons aren't necessarily faster per clock, not according to what I've read. I'll grant you it's possible that we've both consumed too much partisan platform kool-aid, but I think you're grossly oversimplifying things. And, while we're on the subject of the chips themselves, if, as you claim, they really don't make that great a difference, why are you putting so much emphasis on these performance claims? I thought it was the OS that mattered.

Worries about architecture impact a very small segment of the business world. Personally, I do not care about architecture. And, when I make purchasing recommendations to individual or corporate customers, I do not mention architecture. I mention ease of use, ease of maintenance, TCO and ease of rolling out fixes and updates. I mention easy training curves and increased efficiency. All of these rest on the OS, and all of these things are ways in which OS X beats Windows, not ways in which PPC beats x86. When people see Macs they see OS X. All of the switchers I know, including my brother, switched because of the OS, not the chips.

And you should be making all of those ease of use, maintenance, TCO etc. arguments. Here's the rub, though. Just because you see no value in discussing processor architectures doesn't mean there truly isn't any. More importantly, many of your arguments about ease of use and TCO are jeopardized by this drastic transition. Ease of use will decline due to the bifurcated nature of our new schizophrenic platform. Ease of use will also suffer when people find out their barely used PPC Macs will increasingly be left without future software compatibility. (If history has taught us anything, it's that developers will support two separate code bases only so long, universal binary propaganda notwithstanding.) Imagine the average consumer's reaction to the news that even though it says Mac Compatible, it really means Mactel compatible. Finally, TCO will certainly increase as a result of this transition.

So where does that leave us? Only time will tell how this Mactel transition will play out. If the PPC were truly no longer viable from business standpoint, I could see the logic in this move. Many experts question Apple's assessment, though. Whatever the case may be, Apple has imperiled the platform. As many of us have noted, Jobs appears to be following a path very similar to the one he took NeXT on - and we all know how successful he was then. (Before anyone thinks of a smart retort, I'm not saying Apple and NeXT are in the same position.) Let's hope the company exercised the prudent judgment many of you presumed it did in making this stupendous decision.

osxisfun · Jun 7, 2005, 05:30 PM

>Apple has imperiled the platform.

IBM imperiled the platform.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthr...threadid=130894

Thank god apple took the proactive step now.

I don't want the powerbook i buy in 2008 to be a 1.8 ghz g4.

MindFad · Jun 7, 2005, 05:37 PM

Are these threads for real?

LaGow · Jun 7, 2005, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Are you saying all businesses operate without principles or that the free market fails to function when principles are part of the equation? Unprincipled business decisions don't necessarily lead to market success.

You're twisting his statement if I'm reading what you're saying correctly. There's a difference between an abstract principle--in this case the architectural type that millenium and Don are talking about-- and business "principles." Whole other deal. If I read you right.

version · Jun 7, 2005, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by analogika

YOU are mAxximo? :o

Now that would really screw up the order of the cosmos, if true.

Don Pickett · Jun 7, 2005, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Are you saying all businesses operate without principles or that the free market fails to function when principles are part of the equation? Unprincipled business decisions don't necessarily lead to market success.

Of course not – I didn't say anything like that. I mean that trumpeting "principle" as it is being used now – sticking with a under-performing processor architecture because it is suuposedly better – is a very bad decision.

Two G5s don't just out perform the P4, they out perform it be a serious margin. And Opterons aren't necessarily faster per clock, not according to what I've read. I'll grant you it's possible that we've both consumed too much partisan platform kool-aid, but I think you're grossly oversimplifying things.

Grossly simplifying? No. Opterons have on-die memory controllers, so they have much less latency than any other competing chips, which gives them a definite advantage. And, while the G5 beats the x86 chips at floating point operations, one the whole for general purpose computing, the PPC can't compete with the x86, even when over-clocked and water-cooled, as the 2.7 GHz G5s are. Apple has been very successful over the years in dealing with the fact that the PPC is often over 1 GHz behind in speed, but you can't do that forever.

And, while we're on the subject of the chips themselves, if, as you claim, they really don't make that great a difference, why are you putting so much emphasis on these performance claims? I thought it was the OS that mattered.

I am talking to other's claims that architecture is the most important factor when comparing different platforms. For the vast majority of uses, it isn't.

Ease of use will decline due to the bifurcated nature of our new schizophrenic platform.

How do universal binaries impact ease of use?

Ease of use will also suffer when people find out their barely used PPC Macs will increasingly be left without future software compatibility.

Apple has pledged support for both platforms for five years. Adobe, MS and others have pledged dual support for several years. My G5 still woke from sleep this morning and worked perfectly. That won't change.

Finally, TCO will certainly increase as a result of this transition.

There is no proof for this.

Many experts question Apple's assessment, though. Whatever the case may be, Apple has imperiled the platform.

And many more applaud it.

As many of us have noted, Jobs appears to be following a path very similar to the one he took NeXT on - and we all know how successful he was then. (Before anyone thinks of a smart retort, I'm not saying Apple and NeXT are in the same position.)

Good, because they're not in even remotely similar places. NeXT was an over-priced, brand new platform with no installed base, no market niches, no developer support and no software base. Jobs essentially tried to start an entire new platform from scratch, and failed. Apple has a large installed base, customer and developer support and $5+ billion in the bank. The only real similarity is his attempt to leverage the OS as the main selling point. The difference there is that OS X has large, loyal base.

Let's hope the company exercised the prudent judgment many of you presumed it did in making this stupendous decision.

There is one, basic pragmatic fact all of these peans to principle ignore: no one has been able to make PPC chips competitive with the fastest x86 chips, and IBM told Apple it couldn't and wouldn't. Given the lack of competitive processors, there were two choices: watch the platform die or make a change.

JoshuaZ · Jun 7, 2005, 08:25 PM

Lets all hold hands and sing a song. That'll make a lot of people feel better.

macaddict0001 · Jun 8, 2005, 12:56 AM

1984 first major architecture change, accompanied by a software change.
1993 second major architecture change.
2005 third major architecture change.
notice a pattern