[ShotgunEd]

There's no particular need to drop universal binary support, ever.

Apple have had a team (albeit small) developing OSX on Intel while the main OS is on PPC. When they switch to Intel I expect them to have a small team making sure OSX runs on PPC.

For the most part, if you are a dev (there are some exceptions) maintaining a Universal Binary isn't much more work than maintaining a binary for one platform.

Come 2011 maybe IBM will have got its act together and will be shipping a really nice processor that isn't exclusively licensed by M$. Apple, with its universal binaries and its PPC OSX can migrate back, with no problems whatsoever.

Unrealistic perhaps, but they've had a plan B the past 5 years, why would they kill the concept of it altogether,

[macintologist]

So what's going to happen to all those Altivec functions, like ripping in iTunes, Garageband, iMovie plugins, Photoshop plugins and everything?

Is there some kind of Altivec equivalent on Intel? Is it easy to port Altivec code to that equivalent and is it as fast?

[michaeljohn63]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

No, it would mainly alienate them.

If Apple wants to encourage PowerPC holdouts to go for their Intel based systems in the future, they need to de-emphasize PowerPC support, not drop it.

I agree completely. If you read my first post, that's essentially what I said--Apple will encourage migration to MacTel by touting its advantages, not by dropping PPC support. I also emphasized that Apple is well aware of the importance of their very loyal customer base (Classic being a case in point). Apple is nothing without it (okay, it can still sell iPods). So, Apple will not suddenly say, "PPC support is done." I do think that will happen eventually, and I still think it will happen as soon as Apple thinks it can do it without losing any of its customer base. The bottom line is this: other than maintaining its customer base (not pissing off all of us who bought PPC Macs), there is NO real reason to want to support PPC any longer than necessary to get us on board with MacTel. In fact, there are very compelling reasons (Mac sales) to speed that process along as quickly as possible). There are other reasons to drop PPC support (see my reply to the next post).

[michaeljohn63]

Originally Posted by chabig

I agree with Lateralus. There is no reason for Apple to drop support for PPC. It's not in their best interest. The move to OS X was different. Apple really needed the user base and the developer base to move to X. Not so with a CPU change. I think Apple's software will ship in Universal Binary format for years to come (in computer terms, that's 7-10 years). Chris

I beg to differ. Apple wants everyone to upgrade as often as we are willing. That's never been different, never going to change. However, Apple knows that it can't force migration too soon or it will lose customer base, and people will wonder whether a Mac is a good investment (e.g. education market).

As to universal binaries, I guess I "get" the concept, and it all seems so nice and easy, but some of that is The Steve's Kool-Aid. I doubt its that simple, especially for Apple (the click of an extra checkmark button). For instance, everytime Apple comes out with a new version of OS X, it must test the new version on a number of different Macs to ensure that it works across the board. There have been numerous times when a 10.x.x release has come out that the new version was fine for 95% of us, but a small percentage had a particular difficulty because of the components or architecture of that particular model. So, now that Apple is going to Intel, it will need to test OS X on both its Intel Macs and its PPC Macs. There's no way around that, and Apple will do it because it has to. But, being a "for-profit" company, it will not want to spend the resources (manpower=money) on PPC testing every new version of its OS any longer than it must. And every time Apple comes out with a new software product (OS or App) that it says will support a group of Macs, and then there is some bug which causes problems on that Mac, Apple gets bad press.

Here's a comparison: there's a reason Microsoft, with vastly greater resources, takes so much longer to upgrade its OS--there are vastly more configurations of PC's that it must ensure its OS will work with before it can release its next OS (and even then, there are numerous examples of whole groups of PCs that never end up working well with the new Windows version).

[osxisfun]

From the NYTimes article today.

The New York Times also confirms that Apple has investigated other chips as well. Apple reportedly met with Sony regarding the Cell design but Jobs "was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/11/te...ple.html?8hpib

[Mike Pither]

Originally Posted by turtle777

Even the brits don't change the spelling of technical abbreviations.

-t

I thought that it was the Americans who change everything as the rest of the english speaking world spell words the same as them.

[Miniryu]

MichaelJohn63, I understand what you are trying to say, I think you are right and I think everyone else is missing your point.

Let me clarify:
What Apple wants: To drop PPC support in OS X right away. This will force people to buy Mactels to stay have current software and hardware. More sales of hardware are the most benificial thing to the company.

What customers want: To have PPC support for that fancy PowerMacG5 they just took out a loan to purchase. The typical computer owner buys a computer with the intention of using it for a long time. Besides, Apples have a repulation for their longevity. People invest more money in them because they expect them to last longer.

Obviously the customer and Apple both can't have their way, so what will happen is that Apple will push for the Mactel switch as soon as they can without pissing off people who made recent purchases.

[besson3c]

I found it amusing that when this was first announced, so many people reacted by assuming that their PPC machines will be immediately useless and obsolete. To me, this move doesn't change the pace of obsolescence of your current machine.

[michaeljohn63]

Originally Posted by Miniryu

MichaelJohn63, I understand what you are trying to say, I think you are right and I think everyone else is missing your point.

Let me clarify:
What Apple wants: To drop PPC support in OS X right away. This will force people to buy Mactels to stay have current software and hardware. More sales of hardware are the most benificial thing to the company.

What customers want: To have PPC support for that fancy PowerMacG5 they just took out a loan to purchase. The typical computer owner buys a computer with the intention of using it for a long time. Besides, Apples have a repulation for their longevity. People invest more money in them because they expect them to last longer.

Obviously the customer and Apple both can't have their way, so what will happen is that Apple will push for the Mactel switch as soon as they can without pissing off people who made recent purchases.

Thank you for saying so nicely what I had been trying to say in several posts. I think any confusion may have been due to my use of historical examples, which were apparently taken as somehow actually connected to the current situation.

The basic point in all of this is that Apple will need to find a good balance between what it wants for itself (migration, asap) and what its current customers want (longevity of use of current hardware and software and a smooth transition). Apple is facing a problem faced by every major IT company when moving to newer technology. Microsoft faces the same kind of problem every time they come up with an overhaul to their OS (e.g. 3.1, 95, NT, XP). I am sure that Microsoft wishes it could just "start over" and release a brand new OS that didn't have to deal with legacy software and hardware, but then no one would have any reason not to consider other alternatives (like OS X). On a much smaller scale, that's what Apple is facing. If Apple dropped PPC support right when it came time for MacTel, we would all wonder whether it was worth it to continue with Apple or go with Windows, since none of our current hardware or software would be relevant. Apple wants to avoid this, while also encouraging people to continue buying PPC hardware in the meantime (tough sell, imho). I wish them luck in that department.

My guess is that Apple's PPC Mac sales will slowly slide until next year, and then plummet after Apple releases its first MacTel machines, which may be somewhat offset by the uptick in sales of the new MacTel machines. I hope Apple will be ready to release all of its Macs on Intel ASAP once it releases its first MacTel.

[michaeljohn63]

Originally Posted by besson3c

I found it amusing that when this was first announced, so many people reacted by assuming that their PPC machines will be immediately useless and obsolete. To me, this move doesn't change the pace of obsolescence of your current machine.

For those of us who already own PPC machines, I'd agree. PPC support should continue in full swing for the expected useful life of our current products. I'd even say that this is true for anyone who purchases a Mac within the next few months (except maybe a PB).

For those of us who need to upgrade within the six months to next year, I think the obselescence is greatly accellarated. Let's say you buy a PowerBook in 6 months, which costs you $2,499. You probably hope that PB will keep up with software technology for at least 3 years, and maybe 5. Within a year of your purchase, or even less, a new Intel PB comes out which is two to three times faster (if you consider bus speed differences, etc., and not just CPU clock cycle). Even if OS X and your major apps are Universal Binary (Apple iLife and pro apps, Adobe CS apps, etc.), optimizations and new features will be geared toward MacTel, with PPC support an afterthought. In two years, you are likely to see others on their new InBooks running their apps at twice or three times the speed of your still pretty new PB. Third-party peripherals and upgrades will also be phased out for current hardware more quickly (I now believe I will never have a reason to use any of my PCI-X slots on my G5). Oh well, I will just need to be sure I get the fastest video card I can while PPC support for such things continues to evolve.

The timing for me is pretty good, though. My purchase of an iBook last fall should fair me well for basic stuff until the MacTel iBooks have been around for more than a year and the kinks are worked out. My Dual G5 PowerMac is now more than 1.5 years old. I had expected a useful life of four to five years from it. The Intel announcement doesn't change that by much. In another 3 years, I may be looking at a Macintosh Pro 8, with two quad-core processors (or four dual-cores) running at 3.8 GHz, 8 Gigs standard RAM, four Raid striped SATA HD, and who knows what other enhancements in video cards, bus architecture, etc.

After more than 1.5 years, the Mac at the same price point as mine is really only marginally faster. According to Moore's law, it should be half the price, and twice as fast. In some ways, that fact is THE reason Apple needed to do this. Given the time it will take Apple to make the Intel switch, my iBook will be fairly current for at least another year, and my G5 for another two years. So, I am good.

[rozwado1]

Anybody know? Now I'm interested...

Originally Posted by macintologist

So what's going to happen to all those Altivec functions, like ripping in iTunes, Garageband, iMovie plugins, Photoshop plugins and everything?

Is there some kind of Altivec equivalent on Intel? Is it easy to port Altivec code to that equivalent and is it as fast?

[osxisfun]

intel has something called SSE2? or SSE3. i am unsure. SSE1 sucked. the later versions get it into the same ballpark as altivec. by the time apple ships machines i bet we will not notice the diff.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by michaeljohn63

For those of us who already own PPC machines, I'd agree. PPC support should continue in full swing for the expected useful life of our current products. I'd even say that this is true for anyone who purchases a Mac within the next few months (except maybe a PB).

For those of us who need to upgrade within the six months to next year, I think the obselescence is greatly accellarated. Let's say you buy a PowerBook in 6 months, which costs you $2,499. You probably hope that PB will keep up with software technology for at least 3 years, and maybe 5. Within a year of your purchase, or even less, a new Intel PB comes out which is two to three times faster (if you consider bus speed differences, etc., and not just CPU clock cycle). Even if OS X and your major apps are Universal Binary (Apple iLife and pro apps, Adobe CS apps, etc.), optimizations and new features will be geared toward MacTel, with PPC support an afterthought. In two years, you are likely to see others on their new InBooks running their apps at twice or three times the speed of your still pretty new PB. Third-party peripherals and upgrades will also be phased out for current hardware more quickly (I now believe I will never have a reason to use any of my PCI-X slots on my G5). Oh well, I will just need to be sure I get the fastest video card I can while PPC support for such things continues to evolve.

Maybe the Intel stuff will be 23904820394 times faster, but that isn't a given. It isn't a given that if this Intel thing weren't announced, that you wouldn't buy a G4 Powerbook and a 234283094 Ghz G5 Powerbook comes out shortly thereafter, or whatever. You just can't really plan for improvements to processing speed, it's inevitable, but it's also an uncontrollable variable.

Of course, I'd argue quite emphatically that processing speed has become irrelevant to the vast majority of users too, but I suppose this is a different argument.

[osxisfun]

>Of course, I'd argue quite emphatically that processing speed has become irrelevant to the vast majority of users too, but I suppose this is a different argument.

Bingo. That's why i think we are going to see a change to the imacs next year. more feature rich consumer machines.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by osxisfun

>Of course, I'd argue quite emphatically that processing speed has become irrelevant to the vast majority of users too, but I suppose this is a different argument.

Bingo. That's why i think we are going to see a change to the imacs next year. more feature rich consumer machines.

What sort of changes do you foresee?

[osxisfun]

better vid cards, (faster of course) cpus, more revs of said CPUs means consumer macs are always more on the edge of tech, and probably next year... more tv - hd goodies built in so the mini will move more into the living room (even though i am a big fan of the separation of living room and computer) i really do see it moving in there as a media server which does not seem so bad if i can put all my stuff in one place and access from all over the house.

overall all, more bang for your buck.

the powermacs will be all dual duals and the fastest SATA type drives fastest mem, BTO any onster vid card you like, pci express ...

its going to be a good year to buy a mac.