[UnixMac]

I don't get it... we're told the G5 is the best chip for OS X, and now we're told it's not...

I know there is a lot of BS marketing hype to all of this, but the fact is Intel is not going to 64 bit anytime soon on low end chips, or are they?

[SoClose]

Originally Posted by UnixMac

I don't get it... we're told the G5 is the best chip for OS X, and now we're told it's not...

I know there is a lot of BS marketing hype to all of this, but the fact is Intel is not going to 64 bit anytime soon on low end chips, or are they?

Intel has a couple of 64-bit options. Their true 64-bit CPU, the Itanium 2, is a brand new chip not based on existing Pentium lines. However, it's very large and expensive and primarily targeted at large servers and very high-end workstations. Last time I saw stats on Itanium sales you could literally count them on a few hands.

Intel has released Pentiums with 64-bit extenions: EMT64. I don't think that Intel has a chip that's the equivalent of a G5, at least not that they're talking about yet.

The interesting thing about all of the Apple and Intel announcements is that no where is it documented which specific Intel chips Apple will be using. I think it's odd, but it could be nothing.

[UnixMac]

Yeah, that's my point... They kept it pretty vague as to what "intel" chip the Mac will run on, and there was no mention at all of 64 bit, which leads me to think the first Intel Macs are going to replace the G4 stuff like the mini and power book. I don't think you can call a single processor 3.6 PIV an upgrade over a dual 2,7 G5.. can you?

[winterlandia]

The demo during the keynote was a regular 3.6 ghz P4 if I remember right when he showed the about box. Also, Phil Schiller said something about not stopping customers from running windows if they want to on the new apple x86 boxes so I'm guessing normal desktop PC pentiums will be the ones they're using.

[CarbonG4]

The dev kits are just being distributed in Power Mac G5 towers... they aren't going to market a 3.6GHz Pentium based Mac as a replacement/upgrade to the dual 2.7GHz G5 systems. Apple is clearly going to be maintaining the G5 in the iMac and Power Mac until 2007. The initial Intel processor push will be getting past the G4 processor speed limitations by using existing (in 2006) Pentium technology in the laptops and Mac mini. Apple is in no way saying that the current 3.6GHz P4 is faster than the G5 processor -- what they're saying is that by 2007 they believe Intel will surpass IBM and the G5 because of the almost instant speed limitations IBM has suffered w/ the G5 just one year after it's introduction. The biggest question is whether Apple is jumping the gun here... yes IBM has failed to deliver a 3GHz G5 but will Intel really have a viable replacment to the G5 by 2007 now w/ all this new funding and R&D IBM will be receiving from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo who are all looking towards IBM as their chip supplier (mostly G5-based)?

Anyway, who really cares... Apple and the developers are going to be commited to both architectures for at least two and a half years if not longer. An surely Intel will have a viable 64 bit offering by then.

Peace
//Carbon

[k squared]

Originally Posted by UnixMac

I don't get it... we're told the G5 is the best chip for OS X, and now we're told it's not...

The G5 might be the best chip for OSX TODAY, but what about the FUTURE? Job's said it best: two years ago we were promised 3 GHz within a year. We are still only at 2.7 GHz and without a PowerBook G5. Something very unsettling in the PowerPC roadmap must have been found if Apple's board of directors approved of this transition.

Besides, what's the big deal? Give me a fast PowerBook that is cool with long battery life and runs OS X and I'll be happy.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally Posted by winterlandia

The demo during the keynote was a regular 3.6 ghz P4 if I remember right when he showed the about box. Also, Phil Schiller said something about not stopping customers from running windows if they want to on the new apple x86 boxes so I'm guessing normal desktop PC pentiums will be the ones they're using.

Just because Windows can potentially run on the new Macs doesn't mean it will. Do you really think that Billy Boy is going to allow that to happen?

[WJMoore]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Just because Windows can potentially run on the new Macs doesn't mean it will. Do you really think that Billy Boy is going to allow that to happen?

Bill Gates doesn't care what hardware Windows runs on, if it means someone pays for another copy of WIndows he'll be happy.

[WJMoore]

Originally Posted by k squared

The G5 might be the best chip for OSX TODAY, but what about the FUTURE? Job's said it best: two years ago we were promised 3 GHz within a year. We are still only at 2.7 GHz and without a PowerBook G5. Something very unsettling in the PowerPC roadmap must have been found if Apple's board of directors approved of this transition.

Besides, what's the big deal? Give me a fast PowerBook that is cool with long battery life and runs OS X and I'll be happy.

Exactly and in the unlikely event that PPC chips take over the world they can always switch back.

[ryarber]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Just because Windows can potentially run on the new Macs doesn't mean it will. Do you really think that Billy Boy is going to allow that to happen?

Yes, why wouldn't he? MS is about selling windows. I'm sure they are glad to be able to get a copy of windows on a mac that runs at decent speeds. If MacOS and windows can peacefully coexist, everybody wins. This is not a zero sum game.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by UnixMac

Yeah, that's my point... They kept it pretty vague as to what "intel" chip the Mac will run on, and there was no mention at all of 64 bit, which leads me to think the first Intel Macs are going to replace the G4 stuff like the mini and power book. I don't think you can call a single processor 3.6 PIV an upgrade over a dual 2,7 G5.. can you?

I don't get it either. We have been told PowerPC is much better, much faster, blabla. They compare a Dual PowerPC with a Dual Intel, being faster. Then they show us the speed of Mac OS X on on a single Intel chip:

[RevEvs]

The Intel Macs wont be out for a year though, and they are going to be faster than what they replace. Just because we were shown a 3.6Ghz P4, doesnt mean that we wont have dual 4Ghz P4s in a year, whatever apple realease will be faster than what we have now.

I wonder which version os OS X is most optimized, PPC or Intel, Id love to know how much money/dev has been going intot he Intel version, and when it started to get more dev time etc..

[UnixMac]

Originally Posted by RevEvs

I wonder which version os OS X is most optimized, PPC or Intel, Id love to know how much money/dev has been going intot he Intel version, and when it started to get more dev time etc..

And there lies another rub.... it's bad enough the current Mac has to take sloppy seconds in the form of crappy port-over software from wintel, but now we have to deal with the fact that all subsequent software will be optimized for Intel 32bit? Basically my dual 2.5's shelf life just went from about 5 years to 2.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by UnixMac

Basically my dual 2.5's shelf life just went from about 5 years to 2.

I just checked: my Dual 2 GHz is as fast as it was on Sunday, and will be as fast until 2007-2008.
By then it's time anyway to buy a new PowerMac, as it will be some three-four years old.
If Apple did not had made this decision, I would have bought a new PowerMac by then as well.
In the meantime I am enjoying it's speed.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Just because Windows can potentially run on the new Macs doesn't mean it will. Do you really think that Billy Boy is going to allow that to happen?

Certainly he will. It'll let Mac users switch to Windows without giving up their hardware. All he has to do then is fine-tune the usual marketing lies, and you have a death sentence.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Appleman

I just checked: my Dual 2 GHz is as fast as it was on Sunday, and will be as fast until 2007-2008.

Yes, but it will be a second-class citizen much sooner than that. I remember the 680x0 switch; I don't think a single major app had more than one more 680x0 version after the PowerPC was released. Fat Binaries ("Universal Binaries", Apple's calling them now) never caught on, either; companies preferred to simply ship two builds, one for each processor.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Yes, but it will be a second-class citizen much sooner than that. I remember the 680x0 switch; I don't think a single major app had more than one more 680x0 version after the PowerPC was released. Fat Binaries ("Universal Binaries", Apple's calling them now) never caught on, either; companies preferred to simply ship two builds, one for each processor.

It was second-class citizin as soon as I received it at home, that's what computers (and cars) are. What I mean is that I bought it for purpose x and it still serves for that purpose.
I remember very well the transition from 680x0 to PowerPC, and yes it wasn't as smooth, most software started to have the "Accelerated for PowerPC" stickers on it, but it must have been a pain in the a$$ for them to write their software. Lots of them went Windows in that time, can't really blame them.
Steve now says that since they have the experience of transitions blablabla.
As we aal know history does repeat itself, let's just hope they do have learned from it.

[Hi I'm Ben]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Yes, but it will be a second-class citizen much sooner than that. I remember the 680x0 switch; I don't think a single major app had more than one more 680x0 version after the PowerPC was released. Fat Binaries ("Universal Binaries", Apple's calling them now) never caught on, either; companies preferred to simply ship two builds, one for each processor.

Maybe becuase of file sizes? Wasn't this around the time where having a 8x CD-ROM on your computer was a feature?

[NeilCharter]

At least this way Apple will have three options- Intel, IBM and Freescale. If Intel does not come up with the goods then maybe the other two will.

Look at it this way - Apple can put P4's or the laptop equivalent straight into their PB's, ibooks and mini's and compete with Wintel laptops and cheap systems almost immediately in terms of speed and wipe the floor with them in terms of usability.

The desktops can wait for improved 64 bit CPUs. If Intel make them then switch to those. If IBM sort out their problems, Apple have a fall back position.

I have a couple of fears - first is the effect that this will have on existing sales over the next two years - Apple need to reassure customers that their hardware will not be obsolete. This means demonstrating performance of Intel-optomized SW on G5's and G4's. Plus making sure that the SW will be Universal for next 5 years.

Second, that just like IBM, any speciality CPUs that Intel make for Apple will have problems with yield and speed. I'm confident that Apple can take advantage of standard Intel CPUs, I'm less confident that Intel will do well making fast, cheap 64 bit CPUs.

I would like to hear from developers like Moki to hear their take on this. After all, this means more work for them.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by NeilCharter

Look at it this way - Apple can put P4's or the laptop equivalent straight into their PB's, ibooks and mini's and compete with Wintel laptops and cheap systems almost immediately in terms of speed and wipe the floor with them in terms of usability.

On what is this based? How do you know that Mac OS X is faster than Windows XP on Intel? Nobody ever said so, only Apple internal probably knows the answer to this. Maybe Mac OS X is slower than Windows XP, just think about that possibility as well!

[k squared]

Originally Posted by Appleman

I don't get it either. We have been told PowerPC is much better, much faster, blabla. They compare a Dual PowerPC with a Dual Intel, being faster.

What if it is much better and faster? The PowerPC might very well be a better architecture, but what does that matter if we are stuck at 2.7 GHz for years? Where have we come in 2 years? 700 Mhz? I'll write it again: there must have been major trouble in the PowerPC roadmap to cause Apple to switch processors. Let's all get over it already.

[cambro]

Originally Posted by NeilCharter

Look at it this way - Apple can put P4's or the laptop equivalent straight into their PB's, ibooks and mini's and compete with Wintel laptops and cheap systems almost immediately in terms of speed and wipe the floor with them in terms of usability.

The desktops can wait for improved 64 bit CPUs. If Intel make them then switch to those. If IBM sort out their problems, Apple have a fall back position.

Are you kidding???

Apple cannot afford to put the whole OS into fundamental platform limbo, demanding significant investment from all of their developers (no matter how easy Stevo says it is), and then just about face and say...JUST KIDDING!! We're sticking with PowerPC afterall!

The longer and more protracted this fundamental switch, the more and more unstable things at Apple will become.

If Apple is going to switch to Intel (for good or ill), they better do it as completely and quickly as possible.

[gururafiki]

Originally Posted by cambro

If Apple is going to switch to Intel (for good or ill), they better do it as completely and quickly as possible.

They already said it will happen in the next two years, starting a year from now, and finishing 2 years from now.

[SkaGoat]

First off, the G5 was not completely 64-bit, it is closer to the Athlon 64 than the Itanium. and Intel has 64 bit technology is their high end chips, so no worries there.

And one of the major reasons for leaving IBM would be that there basically was no roadmap for PPC, whereas Intel has a very good, and fairly accurate one. To build a business, to plan for future products he has to be able to plan where his silicon will be 2 years from now, he can do that with Intel and can't do that with IBM.

Boy did the marketing work... the G5 is not a better CPU than the Athlon 64, and it's no where close to the new Pentium D chips. it was all marketing hype, and always has been. Why do you think we've seen so many dual CPU systems, it's because they had to have two of them to keep up, yes a dual 2.7 GHz G5 is faster than a P4 3.6 GHz chip.... but not by much, and that's why they switched.

The truth is pretty harsh, to wake up and see you weren't on the forefront of technology at all.

[FurionStormrage]

Intel's latest 500 series and the entire 600 series chips are the current "low end" 64-bit chip. The 600 series chips are only approximately $50 to $80 more than the 500 series. The Athlon 64s are all 64-bit and have been since Day 1. There's no real barrier of entry to 64-bit computing in x86-land.

The Pentium D is only going to be a good "dual-core" solution because it's not going to be priced much above current Pentium chips. The Athlon dual-core solution is a much better one, but the AMD prices are going to be a lot higher for the time being.

The chips that Jobs is talking about for laptops will be x64 by next year.

This is both a good and bad move by Apple, IMO.

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Certainly he will. It'll let Mac users switch to Windows without giving up their hardware. All he has to do then is fine-tune the usual marketing lies, and you have a death sentence.

NOBODY! switches from Mac OS to Windows because of the OS. It's the bloody hardware. (And anybody who says lack of software needs to get off their butt and stop playing so many video games and get some work done -- 99.999%+ of Windows freeware/shareware is crap and most commercial product is available for the Mac.)

So, say I from my 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 2800+ -- the one I had to buy because $600 won't buy a G5, I'm not going to pay any more to buy and overpriced LCD with no expandability and the mini didn't exist. I certainly haven't abandoned the platform, but I had no choice but to take a hiatus when my Mac's MLB gave up the ghost for the 4th time. I'm very sad and I miss my Mac.

No, really, how many die-hard Macintosh users are there out there who have never touched Windows? You don't just wake up one day, stumble accross Windows and say to yourself, Oh, my God, what have I been doing since 1984?! This OS is so wonderful. I'll never pay $2000+ for a desktop machine again. A hop and a jump and a couple-hundred bucks later and I've got my very own beige box kickin' this awesome Windows xp! Whatever was I thinking?! You just don't do it.

You've been paying top dollar for the best computing experience available. PPC hardware hasn't been competative for a while but the OS has ALWAYS been head and shoulders above the rest. THAT is why people buy Apple computers. And no one who buys an Intel-based Mac is going to say ... oh, wait, what's this? Windows? I think I'll install it ... It's brilliant! I'm never switching back to Mac OS X again! No. If you were going to do that you would have bought a Windows machine already and saved yourself $1000+.

(Sorry for any spelling problems. Without Safari and SpellCheck, I wander the internet as a barbaric slob, incapable of spelling and generally so distraught that my grammar is shot to hell as well.)

[iluvmymactoo]

Simply we're talking about corporate greed. Do we really need faster computers? Yes because that's what they tell us.

Apple are a business. They know the trend is faster processors are good so if the company directors want to get richer they have to make a choice. For them Intel is the obvious one. Now they can satisfy all those people out there who want a dual Pentium blah blah blah so they can rocket through their web surfing, play their 3D games without a hitch and howl at the moon that they have a faster computer than Joe Bloggs next door.

No doubt Apple are doing a good thing... for their business and for their bank accounts. If all goes well Steve Jobs can retire with a fat cheque in his hand. Of course Apple executives will prosper, but the poor suckers who have believed all these years the Mhz myth that Apple have been feeding them now have their bank account backs against the wall.

PPC will eventually be old technology and Intel will be the new. At some point when you do finally upgrade your Macs it will be to an Intel one, of course you'll have to upgrade all your software to boot. If PPC were to stay you'd have a choice whether you wanted to upgrade your software or not. This way at least everybody will be happy.. perceivably the consumer as well (until his monthly credit card statements come in). The consumer really has no choice, we're just being led by the nose like lambs to the financial slaughter.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye

NOBODY! switches from Mac OS to Windows because of the OS. It's the bloody hardware. (And anybody who says lack of software needs to get off their butt and stop playing so many video games and get some work done -- 99.999%+ of Windows freeware/shareware is crap and most commercial product is available for the Mac.)

So, say I from my 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 2800+ -- the one I had to buy because $600 won't buy a G5, I'm not going to pay any more to buy and overpriced LCD with no expandability and the mini didn't exist. I certainly haven't abandoned the platform, but I had no choice but to take a hiatus when my Mac's MLB gave up the ghost for the 4th time. I'm very sad and I miss my Mac.

No, really, how many die-hard Macintosh users are there out there who have never touched Windows? You don't just wake up one day, stumble accross Windows and say to yourself, Oh, my God, what have I been doing since 1984?! This OS is so wonderful. I'll never pay $2000+ for a desktop machine again. A hop and a jump and a couple-hundred bucks later and I've got my very own beige box kickin' this awesome Windows xp! Whatever was I thinking?! You just don't do it.

You've been paying top dollar for the best computing experience available. PPC hardware hasn't been competative for a while but the OS has ALWAYS been head and shoulders above the rest. THAT is why people buy Apple computers. And no one who buys an Intel-based Mac is going to say ... oh, wait, what's this? Windows? I think I'll install it ... It's brilliant! I'm never switching back to Mac OS X again! No. If you were going to do that you would have bought a Windows machine already and saved yourself $1000+.

(Sorry for any spelling problems. Without Safari and SpellCheck, I wander the internet as a barbaric slob, incapable of spelling and generally so distraught that my grammar is shot to hell as well.)

I'll donate a buck towards ur new Mac

[Catfish_Man]

Originally Posted by iluvmymactoo

Simply we're talking about corporate greed. Do we really need faster computers? Yes because that's what they tell us.

No, I need faster processors so that I don't have to go "damn, looks like this machine is going to be under 100% load for the next 3 days rendering a 1024x768 image"... or "arg, how can I test a bunch of different options when a compile takes 10 minutes?". Strangely enough, some of us actually use our computers' power.

[jmiddel]

"....The consumer really has no choice, we're just being led by the nose like lambs to the financial slaughter."

iluvmymactoo, nobody is leading you anywhere. If you don't want a faster computer, don't get one. I don't plan on upgrading in the next few years, my dp 1.8 does quite well, thank you very much.

Regarding the general thread, my worry is that some of the hysteria found in this forum will lead people to by fewer macs laboring under the false impression that there g5 will be obsolete. Nothing could farther from the truth. This is a wonderful processor, it is a flying workhorse, and if anything, people should rush to buy it especially if were being discontinued.Compatibility between apps running p4 or g5 should not be that hard to achieve, most don't care what's under the hood unless they have to engage low level functioning, and darwin runs fine on both platforms, so please don't panic, reasssure your friends and family because I doubt that Jobs is stearing us towards an iceberg

[NeilCharter]

Originally posted by Appleman
On what is this based? How do you know that Mac OS X is faster than Windows XP on Intel? Nobody ever said so, only Apple internal probably knows the answer to this. Maybe Mac OS X is slower than Windows XP, just think about that possibility as well!

I think you misunderstood. I said that Apple already could put Intel chips into laptops because other PC makers can. What Windows PC can't do is match OS X usability. Even if the raw speed of a Intel Mac doesn't beat a WinTel machine, the user experience of OS X will bea the XP experience.

Originally posted by Cambro
Are you kidding???
Apple cannot afford to put the whole OS into fundamental platform limbo, demanding significant investment from all of their developers (no matter how easy Stevo says it is), and then just about face and say...JUST KIDDING!! We're sticking with PowerPC afterall!

The longer and more protracted this fundamental switch, the more and more unstable things at Apple will become.

If Apple is going to switch to Intel (for good or ill), they better do it as completely and quickly as possible.

Ideally Apple won't have to swap back, but who can tell what is going to happen? Certainly two years ago, Jobs thought the G5 was the bees knees. Maybe the Intel chips will be like that in 3-4 years.

Sooner or later Apple may be able to go chip independent - have OS X run with a host of chips - IBM, Freescale and Intel. It could provide a lot of flexibility in the long term. Providing that developers are able to code easily then what is the big deal.

[wadesworld]

No doubt Apple are doing a good thing... for their business and for their bank accounts. If all goes well Steve Jobs can retire with a fat cheque in his hand.

I hate to throw water on such a, uhm...interesting analysis, but Steve Jobs could have retired with a fat check at 25.

Wade

[JLL]

Originally Posted by UnixMac

I don't get it... we're told the G5 is the best chip for OS X, and now we're told it's not...

I know there is a lot of BS marketing hype to all of this, but the fact is Intel is not going to 64 bit anytime soon on low end chips, or are they?

And Apple isn't going Intel anytime soon. Apple probably knows a lot more about what IBM and Intel has on their road map, and here at WWDC the worst thing seems to be the loss of AltiVec - especially in the HPC area.

The G5 is pretty good by now, and I don't think that it's the G5 that's the problem for Apple, it's the missing G5 Mobile.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by iluvmymactoo

Simply we're talking about corporate greed. Do we really need faster computers? Yes because that's what they tell us.

Two words:

Pro. Laptops.

Yes, Apple needs to build faster laptops, because that's what users are telling THEM.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye

NOBODY! switches from Mac OS to Windows because of the OS. It's the bloody hardware. (And anybody who says lack of software needs to get off their butt and stop playing so many video games and get some work done -- 99.999%+ of Windows freeware/shareware is crap and most commercial product is available for the Mac.)

So, say I from my 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 2800+ -- the one I had to buy because $600 won't buy a G5, I'm not going to pay any more to buy and overpriced LCD with no expandability and the mini didn't exist. I certainly haven't abandoned the platform, but I had no choice but to take a hiatus when my Mac's MLB gave up the ghost for the 4th time. I'm very sad and I miss my Mac.

No, really, how many die-hard Macintosh users are there out there who have never touched Windows? You don't just wake up one day, stumble accross Windows and say to yourself, Oh, my God, what have I been doing since 1984?! This OS is so wonderful. I'll never pay $2000+ for a desktop machine again. A hop and a jump and a couple-hundred bucks later and I've got my very own beige box kickin' this awesome Windows xp! Whatever was I thinking?! You just don't do it.

You've been paying top dollar for the best computing experience available. PPC hardware hasn't been competative for a while but the OS has ALWAYS been head and shoulders above the rest. THAT is why people buy Apple computers. And no one who buys an Intel-based Mac is going to say ... oh, wait, what's this? Windows? I think I'll install it ... It's brilliant! I'm never switching back to Mac OS X again! No. If you were going to do that you would have bought a Windows machine already and saved yourself $1000+.

(Sorry for any spelling problems. Without Safari and SpellCheck, I wander the internet as a barbaric slob, incapable of spelling and generally so distraught that my grammar is shot to hell as well.)

[cgc]

I'm more interested in what hardware Apple will release between now and next year. Will they have something compelling (e.g. 970MP) to offer or will it be deep discounts? I would love to get a new map as my 400MHz Sawtooth is a tad slow (still plays Ghost Recon fine though).

[godzookie2k]

The Pentium 4 *is* 64 bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4

[FeralCat]

Originally Posted by Godzookie2k

The Pentium 4 *is* 64 bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4

I'm assuming you meant to link to the EM64T page, and not the stock Pentium 4 page, since not all P4 cores will support the 64-bit extensions.

And, Ars Technica has a new article up that discusses how they think the Intel roadmap and Apple products match up. I'm not sure about their guess on the iMac, but everything else seems spot on. The interesting thing is that if Apple does make the Mac mini one of the first Intel-processor based machines, that will be a great "switcher" machine for a lot of Windows users: it doesn't need to be hella fast, doesn't need 64-bit extensions, and can be a cheap gateway-drug type of machine.

I guess we'll see what happens.

[godzookie2k]

there is a paragraph in there on it

[FeralCat]

Ok, fair enough.

[nuggetman]

http://anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2439

[dru]

Originally Posted by RevEvs

The Intel Macs wont be out for a year though, and they are going to be faster than what they replace. Just because we were shown a 3.6Ghz P4, doesnt mean that we wont have dual 4Ghz P4s in a year, whatever apple realease will be faster than what we have now.

I wonder which version os OS X is most optimized, PPC or Intel, Id love to know how much money/dev has been going intot he Intel version, and when it started to get more dev time etc..

Since it's been a small team working on the Intel OS X releases it's tough to guess. HOWEVER, NeXT's OPENSTEP was on Intel and has been for about 10 yrs and had to be ported to PowerPC.

It's likely some core elements are more efficient on Intel but Carbon and so forth may still be coming up to speed.

People keep talking about the FAT binaries from the 68K->PPC transition but that's less meaningful to NeXT having already moved from 68K->Intel, and PA-RISC, and SPARC, and PPC, and MIPS (and Windows). They have the engineering experience (from NeXT) to do this and you could build single binaries that ran on the released OPENSTEP platforms (68K, Intel, PA-RISC, SPARC). The biggest sticking point is how tied to PPC have the developers been with their code. I'm sure Apple's already looked at this in some detail but is giving Developers a head-start *now* so we probably won't have to suffer the kind of lag that Quark on OSX did (although who believes Quark OSX-x86 will be ready before the decade is out ).

These $999 development boxes are for testing / QA purposes and are *not* indicative of any shipping product's details. In fact they're only leased and have to be returned by '07. The fact that you can build on PPC and test on these x86 boxes is a GOOD THING.

In the mean time, I'm hoping there's some fabulous G5's coming before 2007 ends. I'd be happy to pick one of the last PPC Macs up while everyone else rides out the transition.

[moki]

Originally Posted by wadesworld

I hate to throw water on such a, uhm...interesting analysis, but Steve Jobs could have retired with a fat check at 25.

shhhhhhh. Your facts are interrupting was was shaping up to be some entertaining drama

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

I'll donate a buck towards ur new Mac

Many thanks, The Wolf, but I'm pretty sure I'll be back in the fold by the end of summer.

[NeilCharter]

moki

As a developer, what is your view on having to modify your software for the new architecture?

I feel sorry for those devs who have heavily used AltiVec code for their software. I don't know if Xcode 2.1 will ease the pain for those guys.

Back to the post's topic, more from Intel sounds like they well ahead of the game than IBM

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06...view/index.php

I also find it interesting that Intel are showing Apple a hell of a lot of respect. I think this deal is more than money, it's about pride for them.

[OwlBoy]

Guys, did you not watch the keynote?

They are using THIS chip:



-Owl

[Scooterboy]

It's true that Intel seems to be showing Apple respect. And that is significantly different than IBM, who seemed to take about as much notice of Apple as you or I would a pair of socks. Then there's Motorola, who had so much bad blood because of the end of the Clone Wars. It's too bad, becuase the G5 really is a great product, and deserves further development, and Freescale dual core G4's could be supurb mobile CPU's, especially if they would have a decently fast FSB. I only hope that Steve Jobs doesn't piss off yet another chip supplier. Maybe he whines and whinges as much as most of us here do at times, but how many CPU bridges can a PC maker burn?

[moki]

Originally Posted by NeilCharter

moki

As a developer, what is your view on having to modify your software for the new architecture?

I feel sorry for those devs who have heavily used AltiVec code for their software. I don't know if Xcode 2.1 will ease the pain for those guys.

Back to the post's topic, more from Intel sounds like they well ahead of the game than IBM

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06...view/index.php

I also find it interesting that Intel are showing Apple a hell of a lot of respect. I think this deal is more than money, it's about pride for them.

The vast majority of software out there has not been optimized for AltiVec. Those that have bothered to optimize some of their bottlenecks for AltiVec have done so in a way that they also run on machines that do not have AltiVec will still continue to work.

Certainly some developers will then want to go back and optimize their code using the Intel-variant of AltiVec -- that part of it will suck.

So assuming you're using XCode already (a large assumption for many products), making the Intel transition is not that big of a deal. Some possible endian issues for data stored on disk or sent over the network, some minor API changes, and away you go.

The biggest problem, IMHO, is that not all projects/developers are running the latest tools. Many are still using CodeWarior even for current product development, and many old products used CodeWarrior as well.

Updating these older projects to XCode/Intel is something that not all developers will do: they have a choice between working on new products, or updating old ones.

[ghporter]

"Running Windows on a Pentium is like having a brand new Porsche but only be able to drive backwards with the handbrake on."
Unknown

The Pentium series of processors has an enormous amount of power that is NOT UTILIZED by Windows. Any P4 processor, and particularly a new model, will be a great platform for a really good and well designed operating system. And almost all of the "issues" associated with Windows ARE BECAUSE OF WINDOWS. So using the same basic hardware for a 'good' OS should present few challenges for the user.

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye

NOBODY! switches from Mac OS to Windows because of the OS. It's the bloody hardware. (And anybody who says lack of software needs to get off their butt and stop playing so many video games and get some work done -- 99.999%+ of Windows freeware/shareware is crap and most commercial product is available for the Mac.)

So, say I from my 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 2800+ -- the one I had to buy because $600 won't buy a G5, I'm not going to pay any more to buy and overpriced LCD with no expandability and the mini didn't exist. I certainly haven't abandoned the platform, but I had no choice but to take a hiatus when my Mac's MLB gave up the ghost for the 4th time. I'm very sad and I miss my Mac.

No, really, how many die-hard Macintosh users are there out there who have never touched Windows? You don't just wake up one day, stumble accross Windows and say to yourself, Oh, my God, what have I been doing since 1984?! This OS is so wonderful. I'll never pay $2000+ for a desktop machine again. A hop and a jump and a couple-hundred bucks later and I've got my very own beige box kickin' this awesome Windows xp! Whatever was I thinking?! You just don't do it.

You've been paying top dollar for the best computing experience available. PPC hardware hasn't been competative for a while but the OS has ALWAYS been head and shoulders above the rest. THAT is why people buy Apple computers. And no one who buys an Intel-based Mac is going to say ... oh, wait, what's this? Windows? I think I'll install it ... It's brilliant! I'm never switching back to Mac OS X again! No. If you were going to do that you would have bought a Windows machine already and saved yourself $1000+.

(Sorry for any spelling problems. Without Safari and SpellCheck, I wander the internet as a barbaric slob, incapable of spelling and generally so distraught that my grammar is shot to hell as well.)

another