http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/06/...el.transition/

[Krypton]

Indeed.

Well no new Mac for me then (for a year)

[Where's iTunes 4.9 - you can't demo something twice and then not release it!]

[Goldfinger]

I'm praying that this Rosetta stuff actually works as advertised. It all depends on that.

[IFLY2HIGH]

So does this mean that the next macs will be x86 platform, or will Intel be making the next series of PowerPC chips? I do find it intesteresting that everyone makes out IBM as the PowerPC people when old Moto was making them for apple before IBM.

[andreas_g4]

If I had had to bet, I woud have bet wrong!

I think it is a good thing...

[Gee4orce]

What, exactly, was announced ? What specs, if any, were mentioned ? Can I build a PC - erm - Mac using off the shelf components ? Or is it still an Apple motherboard ?

I'm struggling to find something positive about this news. I get an aweful feeling that this is all down to a spat between Steve and IBM.

[blackbird_1.0]

Well, at least I'll get a good 3 or 4 years out of my G5, before I get an Intel Powerbook/PowerMac.

[waxcrash]

This is a sad day.

[AssassyN]

Sweet. This is the first time in my life I can safely hold off on a new Mac, because I actually have tangible evidence that something awesome is coming down the pipe instead of hoping rumor sites are correct. I want an Intel-based PowerBook, badly.

[Chuckit]

I means the next Macs (probably a couple of revisions down the road, actually) will be on x86. You can see in the article that it contrasts the new Macs with "the PowerPC."

[starman]

I wonder what this will do to computer sales in general. Some Windows users may wait to buy a new PC.

Mike

[Goldfinger]

This sucks so hard because I wanted to buy a PowerMac at the end of the year. Guess i'll buy a mac mini in the beginning of 2006 to fill the gap.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by IFLY2HIGH

So does this mean that the next macs will be x86 platform, or will Intel be making the next series of PowerPC chips? I do find it intesteresting that everyone makes out IBM as the PowerPC people when old Moto was making them for apple before IBM.

It mean that Apple is switching to Pentium chips. The same chips Steve have been making fun of for the past 10 years.

[OreoCookie]

We are living in crazy times: MS uses PowerPCs in future products, Apple uses Intel As long as they work like a Mac … but I guess I have to postpone my next purchase for a bit then

[Randman]

Anyway, I guess there won't be any G5 PowerBooks this year.
But despite cries of doom, this could be good for Apple in the long run, cheaper prices, no supply problems, etc. I hope so at least. Plus, I won't haver to save money on a new PowerBook for at least 18 months.

[Krypton]

The most bizarre thing: no announcement on Apple's main page - are they just not going to draw attention to "the roadmap"?

And what the hell are they going to sell for the next year?!

[Don Pickett]

It's clear that Steve is thinking very, very long-term about the company. The fact that every build of OS X has been compiled for both platform – apparently including all the core technologies – means he and the rest of the decision makers have had their doubts about PPC for a while. In one sense they've covered their butts on this, as it means we won't see the desperate struggling we saw with the Copland/Rhapsody debacle. Developer machines are shipping with 10.4.1 in a week or two, which means we will get development sooner than later.

My big question is what this will do to Apple hardware sales over the next two years. It's a good thing the company has $4+ billion cash on hand.

[xi_hyperon]

I suspect a lot of people will hold off on buying a new Mac for awhile. Sales of PowerPC-based Macs will be in a slump soon, methinks. Once past that though (and assuming developers play along), I think it is a good thing. It was encouraging to see Adobe and MS behind this.

[ajprice]

Same here, I was planning on a new mac next year, to replace my 4 year old G4. Not sure what I'll do now, oh well. It's all good!

[waxcrash]

Why Intel and not AMD?

[Dalhectar]

Given the first generation problems Apple normally has, it seems the smart thing to wait until the beginning or middle of 2007 to buy a new Mac (perhaps longer for the PowerMac G5 replacement). One can only hope that iPod sales can keep the company going while hardware sales plummet.

[jools]

What happened to Apple hardware sales in the mid 90's with the announced switch to PowerPC?
Can there be any correlation?

[buggsuperstar]

As long as Apple continues to produce leading-edge design on their hardware, and they keep up the development on their excellent OS, it doesn't matter too much what processor it runs on does it?

I appreciate Macs for their beautiful design and OS.

Whatever is under the hood is not going to stop me from purchasing and using them.

Who knows? Another 10 years down the line Macs may be running on AMD chips.

As long as the design and beautiful OS remain, Apple is set.

my 2 cents.

[chris v]

What will they do with that graph showing the G5 trouncing the P4?

I'm still stunned.

[Millennium]

Well, that settles it. I'm moving to Linux.

No, I mean it. The root of just about every advantage the Mac had lay in the superior hardware architecture, and the most important aspect of this was in the clean, efficient PowerPC processor. Everything else -such as the software/hardware integration- came forth from it. With Apple settling for what is cheap over what is good, this no longer applies, and the remaining Mac advantages are not enough to justify the extra cost. My next machine will be a homebuilt PC, probably running Ubuntu.

So long, Apple. It's been a good 21 years. But my platform is truly dead.

[jasonsRX7]

Anandtech article is up with pictures

[Fozz_uk]

Great, so in 2 years Apple's tiny user base will be split in half. How many developers will be willing to wheel out two versions of an app for a couple of % of marketshare?

I'd love to see Apple taking on Microsoft, but that won't happen if the x86 OSX only runs on Apple boxes. If that's the case the only progress here is slightly more speed in 2 years at the expense of severing PPC users from x86 users. I'm not looking forward to buying my next computer in 1.5 years time, unless of course I can make my own PC and shove 10.5 on it.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Krypton

Indeed.

Well no new Mac for me then (for a year)

[Where's iTunes 4.9 - you can't demo something twice and then not release it!]

no new mac for me for a long time! Im just going to wait until some one makes it so u can install it on an any x86 computer PC. Apple better release a standalone PC copy cuz they will lose out big monies if they dont.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Well, that settles it. I'm moving to Linux.

I bet you won't. I mean the intel chip isn't horrible or anything and the way the G5 is evolving the P4 will beat it in less than a year.

I think the only negative is the transition.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by jools

What happened to Apple hardware sales in the mid 90's with the announced switch to PowerPC?
Can there be any correlation?

They nearly went out of business. Of course, that was also the same time-frame they tried the clone thing, so it's hard to correlate. Hardware sales for the next year are going to tank, for sure.

[PacHead]

I see this as good news.

The Mac has never been about the chip inside. When Motorola couldn't deliver anymore, Apple turned to IBM. IBM obviously also couldn't deliver, since they made Steve Jobs look like a fool with his 3Ghz announcement, which was supposed to have happened 1 year ago. So they turn to Intel. The only thing I care about is, will it be more powerful ? Can I run more plug ins ? Will it render quicker ? Does it still run OSX ? Well, hell, I'll take a machine like that.

Besides, this isn't the first time Steve Jobs uses Intel chips inside one of his computers. The NEXT computer also used intel chips.

And those people who say they are going to be waiting are probably the same procrastinators which never buy any latest model anyhow. The same people will probably say when the Intel PowerMac arrives (2007), "Well it's out now, but I'm gonna wait for the second revision."

[OreoCookie]

I'm also a bit disappointed that IBM didn't manage to offer something competitive – which I can't understand, really, they have a huge portfolio of upcoming chips and if they should have learnt anything from Intel's Itanium, then that they have to offer a high-volume chips.

[PacHead]

DP . . .

[Athens]

Originally Posted by chris v

What will they do with that graph showing the G5 trouncing the P4?

I'm still stunned.

Change it to OS X trouncing Windows on the same CPU

[powertrippin]

http://chicane.myftp.org/Videos/empire.mp4

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Well so much for all the Alti-Vec and G5 programming enhancements.

[mdc]

intel inside widget

my first widget

[sideus]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Well, that settles it. I'm moving to Linux.

...

So long, Apple. It's been a good 21 years. But my platform is truly dead.

I'll buy an iMac G5 and it will be the last Mac I'll purchase. Started using Macs in 1992. I feel like I'm going to puke.

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Well, that settles it. I'm moving to Linux.

No, I mean it. The root of just about every advantage the Mac had lay in the superior hardware architecture, and the most important aspect of this was in the clean, efficient PowerPC processor. Everything else -such as the software/hardware integration- came forth from it. With Apple settling for what is cheap over what is good, this no longer applies, and the remaining Mac advantages are not enough to justify the extra cost. My next machine will be a homebuilt PC, probably running Ubuntu.

So long, Apple. It's been a good 21 years. But my platform is truly dead.

So you'll make things harder on yourself by switching to linux? What do you think a move like this will do to the world of consumer linux users? This could very well destroy any chance of linux as a consumer Windows alternative.

What hardware advantages? The only things remotely unique about the hardware are the mobo, proc and industrial design. Apple hasn't had an advantage in mobo/proc for years and industrial design is a platform independent concept.

And what extra cost? You presume to know what the costs in the future are going to be? If Apple is to increase market share they HAVE to make Macs cheaper period. Not CHEAP, but fully in line with the PC world.

Your reaction seems pretty knee-jerk to me.

[Goldfinger]

Could anyone tell me why they won't move the entire platform all at once to Intel next year ? Why the low end first and then the high end ?

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

Could anyone tell me why they won't move the entire platform all at once to Intel next year ? Why the low end first and then the high end ?

Because the low end isn't going to care about photoshop, Quark and After effects running slower in emulation perhaps?

Remember when Steve and the Adobe prez talked about Carbon and how photoshop was recompiled by ONE guy in 20 minutes to make it run natively in osx? Then it was something like 3 years before Photoshop was native? And remember Quark?

No way in hell well any of those pro apps be ready in a year.

[ajprice]

Goldfinger, at a guess, which is all we can do right now, the 'low end' mac (Mac mini, iBook...) will have Pentium 4 processors (or a version of it), and the 'high end' macs will have Pentium 64bit processors (or a version of it).

[Ethel Farberty]

Originally Posted by sideus

I'll buy an iMac G5 and it will be the last Mac I'll purchase. Started using Macs in 1992. I feel like I'm going to puke.

Um, ok. Other than a year or two of transition time, why would you care?

[Krypton]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger

Could anyone tell me why they won't move the entire platform all at once to Intel next year ? Why the low end first and then the high end ?

You'd think they'd do it the other way round, what with PowerMac sales being so poor.

[trancepriest]

I'm moving to an SGI Prism... so long Macworld. Apple is not a stable platform and I was severely dissapointed by this years WWDC. I see slow software development cycles similar to Microsoft on our Horizon. And no matter what Apples says... Mac OS X will be running on any regular PC soon.

[bit.shiftr]

About a month ago I purchased a PowerMac duel 2.7 At the moment I'm not too pleased about this! Perhaps after a few days I'll feel different. I agree that it's going to make it hard to continue marketing the powerpc machines...I wouldn't have make the purchase of the PowerMac if I knew then what I know now.

Oh well, in three to four years I'll be wanting a new machine anyway! ~sigh~

[xi_hyperon]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Well, that settles it. I'm moving to Linux.

I fully expect rash, dramatic comments about this from the forums here. But you, on the day the story breaks, before we even know the details? I'm a bit disappointed, Millennium.

I think I'll give it awhile before deciding to change platforms, thank you.

[typoon]

I'm a bit mixed by this announcement. In a way it's good and in a way It's not. The Mac was always known for it's uniquness in Processor and OS. Now what's left is the OS. To me It doesn't really matter what's under the hood as long as it still runs OS X. It'll be interesting. Now we don't have to hear "Macs are slower... blah blah blah." I'm frankly tired of explaining it to people. It'll hopefully Make Macs more affordable to the cost minded people and help Apple in the long run. It'll be interesting to see if we will be able to just go out and buy Faster Intel Processors when they come out and upgrade our Macs. That was another thing stopping people from buying Macs. Percieved non-upgradability of the Mac also will hopefully be gone as well. This could be a blessing in desguise.

If it will Run on Intel Based Macs and on regular Intel "PC's" that might also be a good thing. It'll definately give Windows a Run for it's money and give people a TRUE choice in OS. Especially if it Runs what people need it to run.

[mitchell_pgh]

What a sticky situation for Apple. It makes me wonder weather or not I'm going to pick up an iBook when they finally release them. Generally speaking, I make my systems last 3-4 years.

[sideus]

Great. The PC trolls are here.