Slashdot Mirror
Apple May be Intel Show Pony
Robert writes "Computer
Business Review reports that the implications of Apple dropping IBM as its chip vendor
in favor of Intel, announced earlier this week, will straddle the broader computing
landscape. Apple stands to gain a competitive edge by partnering with Intel because
it will have access to slightly cheaper stuff."
Why didn't they just go with AMD?Because their hardware requires certain operating temp parameters that only an Itel chip can achieve.
which is that AMD cannot yet produce the massive volume required.
Guess they don't want backlogs or something and maybe intel offers a better deal if they sign some "exclusive" type agreement.
Is it just me, or are the headlines and summaries becoming more and more sarcastic and twisted, especially with regards to anything Apple-related?
Apple May Be Intel Show Pony
Indeed, twisted by the Dark Side of the Source, young Zawinski has become.
And that's just on the front page this morning! It's not that I have anything against a little editorializing, but these don't even seem like relevant comments any more...
FTA Apple has said it would not allow Apple OS X to run on any machine other than an Apple Macintosh.
Seriously, I'm asking...how would they be able to stop it? I must be missing something.
You must be thinking of the fruit, because the computer maker has no such massive volume.
I think apple dropped IBM because microsoft is using the IBM chips in the xbox 360. Apple responds saying fuck you?
But not as much as how slashdot is becoming Apple's show pony
"For Great Justice."
Linux will be hurt by Apple moving to Intel like fish will be hurt by someone adding a bucket of water to the ocean.
KFG
Dell has proven that they only want to make cheap stuff... they used to brag they made "PCs" now they just make "clones" but make them cheaply. Intel needs somebody to really show off their cutting edge stuff...which no normal PC maker will do. Enter apple looking for a new partner. Intel just lost the Xbox account anyway.. and the writing on the wall is that MS will stab them in the back just as fast as every other partner.. It's foolish of Intel NOT to take the opportunity to develop hardware that breaks all the PC rules and start over from scratch.. frankly they'll be Intel's "demo" group and just let everybody else copy them.
Anyone who thinks the switch to Intel is all about cheaper components has surely lost their mind...
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Apple dropped IBM because IBM like Linux, and Apple needs Linux to fail so that Apple can be the next big thing.
You know I kind of wondered about that myself. After all, would Mac on Intel take market share from MS or Linux. Or neither. I can't decide.
This is all to complicated. I used to know who to distrust.
When I walk into a store selling Apple components, all of the prices have seem to have been standardized. I walk into Fry's electronics, and the thirty inch flat-panel is $2999. I walk into an Apple store and the thirty inch flat-panel is $2999. I bet if I walked up to an Apple Factory, they would sell me the thirty inch flat-panel for ... $2999.
Apple has never been in the game of "cheap" hardware, letting the market decide how much things will cost, etc. They like their components viewed as top-shelf, and I doubt things will change in the future. All Intel means to Apple is more profit, not lower prices for the consumer.
Compare the prices to Intel based computers.
While "technies" like us may look at IBM/Linux vs Apple/Linux relationships, the common user is looking at a price tag.
I found this great article here. Read this carefully before you thing about trying OS-X.
That makes it only three today, but I'm sure the editors are just warming up.
Is mac ready to take on the challenges of NOT beeing in a protected little bubble-mac-world? Mac didn't have to deal with viruses/spy-ware but that's ALL going to change as soon as they open the door to the mainstream market, will they do a better job at it than say, microsoft? Will apple fall in the same trap as microsoft and ignore such threats? ... just wondering
Slashdot! Today's front page has had at least 3-5 apple-related stores and maybe even less of anything else. I don't care!
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
For those of you who are wondering how apple is going to keep people from using it on any computer, just remember: almost everything used in an apple computer is proprietary hardware. You keep that portion, you have it. The dev kit was probably only leaked b/c they don't quite have the proper hardware, but that's a small problem. The actual version most like will not run on a normal x86 processor, and even if it DOES, most people will still buy apples, b/c they want it to be 'easy'. That's why you don't see many computer-illiterates installing linux. They hear it's 'hard-to-use' and that they have to install it themselves. That seems so daunting to them, when it seems like peanuts to me.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Additionaly, Mac und Linux users are usually totally different types of guys...
Apple using Intel-compatible motherboards and platforms means that Apple's platform designers are on the way out.
Focussing on the OS will make Apple much more cost efficient.
End of era.
Someone hand that lady back her hammer.
I'm confused by this logic. How would running Windows on a Mac lead to people stealing Mac software?
And how is this a new problem? Fair enough, it's claimed that there isn't as much software piracy on the Mac as on Windows, but it must still constitute more than half of the install base? At least for home users. I don't know anyone who has paid for Office or Photoshop, for example. It can't be that much difference, can it?
Apple will be able display the tons of technology Intel has developed. Look at the cool shit they have every year at the Intel Developer Forum. Look how little of it has been adopted into the mainstream (BTX for example). Intel can put Apple on the cutting edge.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Capitialism and arbitrage at work. Apple gets a cheaper component...and instead of passing the savings to the consumer...it passes the $$ to the shareholders. Lovely.
it doesn't turn Apple in to a Dog & Pony show.
Shut up shill! Linux has a perfectly good desktop for people with at least half a brain. It must suck to be you if you can't hack it.
Because AMD doesn't produce the motherboard chipsets as well as various other devices. I'd imagine Apple could buy the motherboard chipset and CPU from Intel at an enormous discount.
There has been much speculation that Apple will use the inherent DRM built into Intel processors to control where Mac OS X runs. DRM does not only manage the "rights" of music and movies: it also can be used to limit where software runs.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
You'll note that the "Show pony" title was the title of the original article. Editorializing, perhaps, but not Apple.
Hi, welcome to 2005. AMD's high end chips run cooler than Intel's. Thanks for playing!
Not fair! I want to be Intel's show pony!
This page was generated by a Barrel of Circus Midgets, and that is the way I like it!!!
I was under the impression that Apple was still going to be doing all the hardware, and that it was mainly just the CPU. The x86 Macs will not be PCs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Everyone is assuming that this is driven by Apple or Intel or somehow Microsoft is forcing this move. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has looked into IBM's intentions.
IBM has been re-focusing lately and selling large parts of its enterprise. Could it be that they no longer intend to have anything to do with the chips that Apple needs?
This could totally be driven by IBM. Anyway, by changing to BSD, Apple made the migration MUCH easier. I'm not sure if that was why they did it but this move could have been in the cards for a long time.
Indeed. Probably the real reason why they've gone for Intel is because businesses won't buy computers without an "Intel Inside" sticker. We all know AMD chips are stable, but businesses are still wary of AMD chips because of being burned by VIA's Athlon chipsets.
Saying "water," rather than "seawater," was an explicit choice of language on my part.
KFG
Apple has just released the first official benchmarks of the new x86 Mac. Steve was even kind enough to show how the P4 Mac related to the speed of the G5.
Wait, but I run Tiger on my iBook here and Gentoo on my box upstairs... Does that make me an impossibility? There was an article some time back, oh right, a Paul Graham article suggesting that techies might start going Mac. I've seen it happening with other people, it's definitely happening with me. I'll never have an Xserve replace my Debian server box, but Tiger does a damn good job on the laptop.
Nice try for a troll, but the truth is high-end Intel P4's these days dissipate more heat than high-end AMD Athlon64's.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Here's what I think is Jobs's plan. Apple sales will crumble anyway over the next year--he knows that--so I think we can expect massive discounts to employees of major corporations, of the order of 70 percent off with no restrictions on the numbers sold to individuals within those corporations for personal use--they buy them for relatives, friends, and so on. Apple will take the hit for a while because that way lots of powerbooks with OSX get into the hands of non-IT people in big companies--the people with the money. OSX is so spectacularly good they won't be able to help themselves being impressed. Then in 2006, just when MS begins its "upgrade to Longhorn" push, these managers who have had cheap Macs for a few months will think, "Er, no, we won't, thanks, lets look at these new Intel Macs." Then: Profit!
Surely Apple won't be designing a new chipset themselves to go with the x86 Mac? It would be one hell of a lot cheaper to go with a regular Intel chipset which would cost less and already be known to work properly.
If they want to use hardware incompatibility to stop people running OS X on a regular PC (yeah right!), there are quite a few other cheaper and easier ways to go about it.
Until Apples are sold with "AMD Inside".
--
make install -not war
It was a tough choice, but I doubt Apple moved to Intel for cheaper chips, or better processors. Intel has always developed chips that aren't x86 or IA64 for "research" purposes.
I'd imagine that Apple are probably after Intels vast fabrication resources. They probably see that IBMs fabs will probably be under pressure to crank out chips for the XBox and Playstation.
For the volumes of chips that those two platforms will need, its hard for IBM to justify Apple taking up their valuable fab space.
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
A low voltage Itanium 2 is coming at the end of the year in production quantities.
The support chipset for the Itanium is also quite impressive.
The Itanium roadmap shows support for up to 8 Itanium dual cores.
I understand that the proposed Apple / Motorola/Freescale settlement involves an unlimited Altavec X86/Itanium license.
I also understand that IBM is to make a significantly improved proposal to Apple about PPC supply and development within two weeks.
If much of this is true, Apple would have interesting options.
After the announcement was made last week, I began to wonder about something. Was the Intel mini that was unveiled a few weeks ago made with Apple's blessing? Proof that Apple could very easily rerelease their iMac mini with an Intel chip/guts?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Yes. Get the fuck out of here and don't come back until you exist.
What's the likelihood that Intel will finally give its legacy x86 parts (including x87 and MMX) the axe in the near future? They waste valuable transistor space, and are essentially useless to Apple.
:\
As for Windows, most versions of XP out there are 32-bit, so I guess it will still be necessary to keep legacy x86 around for at least a few more years.
In any case, it would be nice to just have a pure 64-bit RISC-like design, without the compatibility hardware piled on top. For one, it would help tone down the vehement anti-Intel sentiment.
WTF are you smoking?
yea, you know, that REALLY cuts into Apple's gaming sector...
That's what it seems to me. Apple was happy when they were the only desktop computer manufacturers using the PowerPC processor, Being "different" gave them a sense of superiority over Intel based workstations.
Sony puts these CPU's in their PS3 console, and Apple gets all queeny ("I'm the only PowerPC product in the store") because they are no longer "different". And since IBM isn't interested in creating a differentiated version of the CPU just for Apple to be different from everyone else, Apple has to look around for a new CPU maker.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
It sounds like they intend to use some of Intel's fancy-schmancy new chipsets that have DRM built into them and are tailored to specific needs: This one for Apple, and maybe the RIAA & MPAA set.
Then Apple will have instructions in the startup process (launchd?) to look for the Apple specific key encoded in the Intel hardware, and it will die if it fails.
Finally, future version upgrades might be 'upgrade only' so that your $129 doesn't get you a bare-metal installable OS, just a launch-from-the-finder or launch from the BIOS OS improvement package. The only way to get the new version of OS X might be to have the old version of OS X that came pre-installed on your Apple hardware.
It might be hackable, but then again, it might not. By crafting the OS and hardware together, even on commodity architecture, Apple maintains the ability to create sufficient interlocks, interdependencies, and failsafes to prevent ramant redistribution of their OS, something MIcrosoft has never had.
Two things that remain to be seen: is not opening OS X to commodity boxes the same mistake that not allowing clones was, and will Microsoft care if Apple starts selling dual core systems that can run NT or Longhorn kernel programs without the Windows desktop/Windows explorer?
The common person buys cars for the features and looks and most often not for speed and the acceleration. Common people are willing to pay a premium price for the car with less speed but with more features and better looks.
I think the same goes for Apple computers. Lots of users would be willing to pay a premium price if they're able to have a good looking computer with a nice set of features as long as it's fast enough for them (which the macs will undoubtedly be).
1) Intel is sick of having most of its cool technology dropped through the narrow mindset of Taiwan^H^H^H^H^H^H^HChinese motherboard makers and the control-freak Microsoft. Microsoft's strategic interest is to blast hardware margins, differentiation and technology differences to zero, creating massive low price competition and a single software target. Then all innovation and profit margin goes onto the Microsoft side.
Intel hates this. Now, they have a cool computer maker who agrees with them and isnt' Microsoft's beeyatch.
2) Microsoft said "fuck you" to Intel on xbox.
4) IBM said "ok pay us....one TRILLION dollars" when Apple wanted them to actually make lots of performance and heat compatible chips at a fair price.
5) Intel to Apple: "Hey Sailor, new in town?"
That's it, I'm starting work on "The Leopard Post". Where OS X requires the root password each time MOV EAX EBX occurs. Where the Finder realizes it's lost. Where Job Steves outsources the BSOD code to Gill Bates. And where Clippy finally comes to OS X.
Apple Inside. Where do you want to think different today?
It's the superpipelined pentium 4's which are hot and slow.
The upgrades of the Pentium M will not suck.
Has anyone else noticed any direct consequences of this move by apple?
The ones i have seen have been rather negative, my dad for example scraped his plans of buying an apple computer next year when his current pc has become outdated.
His reasons was fear that any current and future apples that come out before the new Intel ones and any software he will buy will become obsolete faster as software developers switch to the new Intel based platform and put more resources into that and that new versions of software might not be available to ppc apple users.
Also the net of sunshine, lollipops and grass is greener mentality i had shrouded apple with in my mind was ruthlessly torn off as my brain moved apple to the same category as dell and hp resides in.
Solid Splash design
Why would Apple care about where else IBM is selling processors? The reason Apple is moving to x86 is because IBM has not been able to deliver cool-running PowerPCs. As we've seen from another /. article, laptops are now overtaking desktops in sales, and very clearly if Apple wants to retain the market position it has, or even grow it, it can't afford to wait for IBM to get its ducks in a row.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
e.g. Demand for pirated Apple apps won't go up unless someone figures out how to install MacOS X on stock PC hardware. (not counting the dev version out in the wild as recently reported. )
--Aaron Greenberg
That is a 25+% profit margin on computer sales. To think this is going to chance is pure fantasy. It could if Apple did something totally radical to go head to head with Microsoft. But just switching a CPU will mean more of hte same thing.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
How about this: IBM- Hey Apple, we are going to spend all our resources developing next gen console processors, unless you pony up more cash to keep us interested. Apple- So... how about those low power, low heat G5's for our laptops? The G4 is looking pretty sad these days... Oh, and while we're at it where's our 3ghz chips? Intel (who's been hiding behind some shrubbery) psssst.... TEH STEVE, we can give all you want, and so much more... and for less money.
I call FUD. The above paragraph doesn't pay attention to what it's saying. First they say you can't use OS X on non-Apple machines, but you can use Windows on all x86 machines. Then somehow it jumps from there to saying that people will pirate Apple's software and justify that statement by saying OS X will run on non-Apple machines.
I got one ...
I heard it here that some people thought Apple will have problems if it is not a simple matter to install MacOS X on your regular 'wintel' hardware. Some people suggested that even for the developer release you should be able to start some kind of application that runs MacOS X inside Windows. Now this got me thinking again about a crazy thought, mainly, what if Apple and MS are in the same boat and MacOS X is an upgrade path for Windows. Since we know that Apple has experience in helping users transition from non-Unix OS to a Unix based one it sounds plausible.
So, Apple + MS + Longhorn = MacOS X
You always point your finger at the bad guy, but what if the bad guy points his finger at you?
I too run both Mac and Linux systems, not to mention Windows, but I am not the sort of person to try to generate argument by interpreting the word "usually" as a claim of unversality.
KFG
Dell and Microsoft will have to start producing some better products due to the increased competition. Apple is one step away from going toe-to-toe with Dell and Microsoft now. Dell will still continue to dominate the cheap-as-hell market, but don't expect people to proudly say they own a Dell (I know I wish I could hide their logos on my laptop). And Microsoft knows that OS X may be a direct competitor to Windows if Apple chooses to become more of an OS vendor or partner with a big OEM.
Who says IBM didn't drop Apple? Why does IBM even care about selling Power PC chips with Cell on the way.
..Until someone cranks out a Mac OS x86 platform emulator for Windows a week after the boxes launch.
This reporter doesn't seem to understand that even if the Apple Intel Macs run Windows OS, you still will not be able to run Macintosh apps on Windows XP/Longhorn.
Uhm, why not? NetBSD has a COMPAT_DARWIN option that has already progressed far enough to run command-line OS X applications as well as XDarwin on any PowerPC machine. I will expect this work to be ported to the i386 and x86_64 platforms once OS X86 is released. I'll be quite excited when I can run the iLife suite of applications on my NetBSD workstations!
The home media center market is going to be huge. Sony have PS3. Microsoft have Xbox3.
Now Intel and Apple are teaming to take them on. and IMO have the engineering skill, market credebility and design genius to do very well.
I can't wait...
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
IIRC, USB was an Intel spec. And intel shipped it, and it worked, and nobody - I do mean NOBODY - gave a shit. Good luck finding hardware, etceteras.
Then in late '98, Apple dropped the iMac bomb.
Not only were they using Intel's USB, they'd dropped everything else. You either got on the boat or you stayed behind. Now EVERYTHING ships with USB - a spec everybody refused to touch until Apple made it trendy and sexy to do so.
Apple + Intel == a very, very good thing. Both companies will get to bust ass doing what they're best at.
Feel the love.
Wow, everyone is acting like Apple broke up.
Look at the HTTP headers for slashdot... there's an awesome easter egg hidden in there. "X-Fry", I think it is.
~Tai
PPC = dead end.
In the reverse of this we at my house have replaced tiger with linux on our apple laptops. Is this ALSO an impossibility?
It is the ONLY UNIX os that your grandmother can install and use.
The more Apple machines on the Internet the better it will be, fewer zombies and viruses slowing down mail servers and routers when I am trying to do research...
If MS made a Windows Shell that ran on UNIX and grandma could install it with a cd, buy hardware and it never got compromised I would suggest that 99% of the computer users switch to the BSD/MS Windows OS. Since MS does not make this product I believe that 99% of computer users should use Apple hardware/software.
Owning and using a MS windows machine should REQUIRE a Windows state certified license, proof that you are not an idiot.
Your Average Joe
Honestly, I really doubt this, and we've already read enough of the history to know that this has very little to do with the reason for the switch. If IBM had been able to deliver 3 GHz G5's and cool/low-power G5's to run in the laptop, that would have been all that Apple would have asked for. The notion that Apple switched because IBM was delivering PPC variants (note that the Cell and the other console PPC-based chips are not G5's) to console makers doesn't make much sense.
Though likely subtle at first, the implications of Apple Computer dropping IBM as its chip vendor in favor of Intel, announced earlier this week, will straddle the broader computing landscape.
So, uh, the implications start subtle but end by straddling, somehow putting their metaphorical legs on either side of a landscape? And who knew Intel was only announced earlier this week?
Jeez.
"Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible" -Jacob Bronowski
i would guess that even if Apple can not physically supress it they will legally hold it back. there will be no commercial rollout of that. Apple legal will be on the hunt for people that do it. if nothing else they will use some proprietary code that has to be breached to boot Aqua/OS X and that will give them legal footing.
a small amount of people hacking OS X onto their boxes is not a big deal, it's the masses installing OS X onto some eMachines box that would be a big problem.
i can only assume Apple has evaluated the threat of this?
if you never installed OS X you may not know there is NO copy protection. no serial number on the box or anything (at least not as of 10.4). the iLife suite (iPhoto, iDVD, Garage Band etc) has no serial number either. the garage band expansion Jam Packs require nothing more than the disk. yes, it will only run on hardware you buy from Apple, but Apple has unusually honest users. if you think i am wrong, remember when iTunes music store did not exist for windows? iTunes sold something like 9 of 10 legally downloaded songs on the internet, and what percentage of people use Macs? do windows users not listen to music? did they not have a good legal option? are they most all thieves?
Apple is kind of weird with what has serial numbers. quicktime pro does, but that is to unlock features that are already in there. iWork requires a serial number. Final cut and those other high end apps require serial numbers or some sort of registration thing.
Could be the best combo and the least expensive. Volume drives pricing and volume drives software developers platform choices.
If Sony can sell 50 million PS3 consoles that can run Mac OS X and Apple gets 1/2 of those to upgrade you have large cash cow...
Your Average Joe
How is Microsoft going to continue developing games for the Xbox 360 (which is now done on G5 hardware from Apple) when Apple no longer supports the PPC processor? Microsoft must be shitting their pants right now, running around, trying to create a new development box that can support this now-dated platform.
With IBM looking at the hundreds of millions of units going to the console market vs the few million Apple would sell, it's easy to see IBM's point of view on this.
If Apple prevents its OS from running on a standard PC, it will be a fatal error for them. Instead, they need to make it available as the Windows competitor, and
in a first time close their eyes on piracy, because people fed up with windows bugs will sometimes agree to switch to OSX "just for a test" at first, and then become more and more used to it. The same way as Windows replaced DOS. They would need an OS which runs on standard PC with some limitations (eg: no smp), so that when people running OSX will want to upgrade their PC, they may finally chose a mac to have a full-featured system.
If, on the other side, they allow Windows to run on their Macs, people who will encounter problems in OSX (usually cannot open a self-extracting zip or cannot use a particular browser plugin), will finally switch to windows and stick to it. Then, when the day of the hardware upgrade happens, they will think that to do the same thing, a standard PC will cost less.
Willy
That's what I really meant - IBM wasn't willing to customize the G5 with a higher clock speed and lower power consumption.
Apple wouldn't find it easy to sell a workstation that was outperformed by a console system, but they would have more to gain from having a workstation that could be used as a development platform for next generation console systems (SGI briefly gained from being the development platform for the Ultra64).
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I believe that some people are way too bothered with Intel/Apple and are actually forgetting to look a little further into the future.
IBM has just sold its PC-department and is yet actualy massively supporting the Linux development. While that started out on Intel/x86 boxes, it is now an operating system that supports an incredible variety of processor platforms, including the recently premiered Cell Processor.
I believe there is a dying horse out there and it is calle Intel/x86. While it might have been a smart move on Apple's side to switch to Intel based processors in the short to mid term range, stragically speaking Apple has just abandoned its platform for the future and I doubt they will switch back to IBM in the foreseeable future. Apple customers would not accept another platform move.
IBM is not interested in short to mid term profits, IBM wants a firm piece of the entire pie in the very long run.
I suspect that IBM's unwillingness (or inability) to met Apple's demands for the G5, I tink this has something to do with its production facilities that are currently undergoing a massive reconstruction to meet the future demand for the cell processor.
Give IBM another two years and it will have produces cell processors for workstations, notebooks and embedded platforms. Not only will they have the fastest platform available, they will also have an operating system available that is already tailored to the specifications of the computing platform of the future.
Apple has had the opportunity to use that very platform, but decided against it.
I am not so sure whether that was a really smart move.
Command line apps and X Windows apps are one thing... Re-creating the Cocoa/Aqua API (a la Wine for Winodws apps) is quite another. How long have the Wine folks been trying to perfect their product? Sure they've had much success over the last .. I don't eight years... and still 75%? of all Windows apps will not run without some sort of problem.
I also don't think you'll see the same number of motivated developers and corporate interest (CodeWeavers) to fuel such a project. I may be wrong about that but some how I think the drive to run Windows apps on Linux/*BSD is much greater than that of running Mac apps on anything.
Yes, I know the beauty of Mac apps, but the dedicated will just by a mini-Mac rather than spend hours of coding to run it on Linux/BSD. There is a certain mentality that says I would rather fork over my first-born child rather than run MS Windows that exists in the open source community. This same sentiment isn't really felt against the Macintosh. So, while I'm sure it will happen eventually, running Mac Apps like Photoshop under Linux/*BSD is still years away.
--Aaron Greenberg
you saw how they nailed those P2P file sharing kiddies who spread OSX over the file sharing networks. They got some sort of Internet sniffer out there that can sniff out piracy over the file sharing networks.
Also the part of OSX that Apple does not give the source to, has a function that phones home with the Macintosh serial number from the hardware and IP address, etc. If there is no serial number, or duplicate serial numbers are used on many different IP networks, they can suspect piracy. Then the lawyers subpeona whomever those IP addresses belong to to find out who was using what account at the time to make the Internet connection.
Like Microsoft Windows, OSX also has NSA spounsered back-doors in it.
Yeah, pirate Mac OSX, or use it improperly, and the Mac Cops will come knocking on your door.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Apple has a gaming sector?
Even if it's relatively trivial to get MacOSX to boot on generic hardware, doing this as a business means you'd be a nice fat target for Apple's lawyers under the DMCA.
Which probably means that, rather than paying Apple for their OS and running it on tweaked PC hardware, the OS will be illegally modified to run on totally generic PC hardware.
This approach is far simpler for Joe Six-Pack who owns a generic Wintel PC, and it doesn't involve the manufacture/modification of hardware; just an ordinary CD burner.
This has the 'advantage' that, unlike the hardware-based solution, its spread does not require an easily-watched (and sued) industry of sellers and middlemen; a moderately competent 10-year old could do it. Unfortunately for Apple, it also means the creation of a market where they get paid for neither the hardware nor the software. The tweaked hardware route at least promises Apple some OS sales; by contrast, the hacked OS is *only* available illegally. In short, Apple may inadvertantly be creating a market/culture where (rightly or wrongly) they get paid *nothing*.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
CPU pricing is about complexity and die size, with a discount on top based on order quantity. Intel top-tier CPUs are similar in compexity and die size to the IBM 970, and Apple will be ordering them in similar quantities. The price will not be significantly different.
Sure, Dell gets Intel CPUs for cheap because they order huge quantities. This has led to an Intel==cheap chips meme that is basically unsupported by evidence. It doesn't follow that Apple will therefore get the same chips for the same price that Dell does (unless they order the same quantity).
Intel does not give discounts to companies based on "Tier 1" status. The base their discounts on quantity just like any other vendor. The do offer marketing $$$ to companies that actively promote the "Intel Inside" brand, but that's a different elephant.
This is unfair moderation, IMNSHO! If you disagree with the poster, reply! I *am* curious: are people who have had enough with MS switching over to OS X instead of Linux? Has momentum slowed at places like KDE, Gnome and Enlightenment? Is this affecting Linux's establishment in server-land, or only a desktop thing? Is OS X stealing Window's marketshare or Linux's?
Come on, just cos you disagree doesn't mean the poster isn't stating his honest opinion!
It was a tough choice, but I doubt Apple moved to Intel for cheaper chips ...
Kay, "expert" quoted, speculates:
[Apple] might actually pay more (than it would with IBM) for the processor, but Intel's total platform ... is less expensive.
Reality is? Who knows. I speculate Intel will cut Apple's throat.
They probably see that IBMs fabs will probably be under pressure to crank out chips for the XBox and Playstation.
I'm glad that IBM will have some business left, though Xbox is not a very good bet. Perhaps IBM will create a new PC based on Linux and finish off their Microsoft mistake once and for all. At that point I'll be happy someone is buying Intel so they don't go under.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The current G5 XBox360 dev systems are temporary. Eventually MS will offer dev kits that are variants of the retail product. Even if this were not true, *current* G5 Macs are the dev systems. Future Macs are not needed, only what exists now.
Command line apps and X Windows apps are one thing... Re-creating the Cocoa/Aqua API (a la Wine for Winodws apps) is quite another. How long have the Wine folks been trying to perfect their product? Sure they've had much success over the last .. I don't eight years... and still 75%? of all Windows apps will not run without some sort of problem.
/emul/linux/ and we can seamlessly run Linux binaries alongside the native system binaries.
/emul/darwin tree.
;)
NetBSD's COMPAT_ options are nothing like Wine. Not sure if it was clear on manu's web site, but the idea is that you simply drop your binaries into a compatibility tree (/emul/darwin/ in this case), and your applications will run.
A good example of this is COMPAT_LINUX -- we didn't re-implement glibc, we simply drop something that looks similar to a standard Linux install into
This works the same for COMPAT_SUNOS, COMPAT_SVR4, COMPAT_FREEBSD, COMPAT_IRIX, etc. The COMPAT_DARWIN support is to the point now where we can take an XDarwin binary from an existing OS X system and run it on any machine with a compatible CPU. The kernel takes care of emulating IOKit and friends. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the work is done to make the Quartz server run, and at that point, you should be able to launch any OS X application provided that you have all of the necessary dependencies in your
I also don't think you'll see the same number of motivated developers and corporate interest (CodeWeavers) to fuel such a project. I may be wrong about that but some how I think the drive to run Windows apps on Linux/*BSD is much greater than that of running Mac apps on anything.
Agreed. Apart from Safari and Mail, there's not much on here that comes to mind that I would really want to run on a typical home desktop.
Yes, I know the beauty of Mac apps, but the dedicated will just by a mini-Mac rather than spend hours of coding to run it on Linux/BSD. There is a certain mentality that says I would rather fork over my first-born child rather than run MS Windows that exists in the open source community. This same sentiment isn't really felt against the Macintosh. So, while I'm sure it will happen eventually, running Mac Apps like Photoshop under Linux/*BSD is still years away.
See my comment above about how COMPAT_DARWIN works. I really don't think it's that far off -- and the beauty of it, is that hopefully someday you will be able to run NetBSD on your typical Dell/HP/home-built PC, launch the Quartz windowing system, and run the OS X GUI on top of it.
I own a Powerbook, and I love OS X. I don't love it for Darwin though -- it's nothing special to me. I'd be just as content with my system if I was running on top of a NetBSD kernel, or for that matter, an NT kernel.
As another poster said, Apple legal certainly won't be very happy with this
/me kicks your sarcasm detector in the face
Well, I don't necessary see what this has to do with Apple. One year ahead, the P4 line is in it's last year and being phased out. I doubt Apple will use any of the remaining P4 chips since the first Intel based products will be notebooks.
Intel and AMD are in a leapfrog games. AMD is ahead a few years, then Intel is a head a few years. From 2006/2007 and forward perhaps Intel will be infront.
I don't think it will be a total redesign. I'm sure we're going to see a lot that's derivative of the PowerPC line. Remember, Apple will still be controlling the hardware, and if they went to PC, it would open up a hole bag of worms that I'm quite certain they don't want.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The risk is that the sales of the game units falter, and the market of cheap computer components used by the Cell processor never materializes. On the other hand, the benefit is that the future Apple Macintosh will provide a graphical experience that rivals the very best animation created by Industrial Light & Magic. Another benefit is that Apple retains its status as a rebel fighting the establishment.
However, Apple management chose the evolutionary establishment-approved route: x86. It is a safer bet than the Cell. The next generation Apples will hawk significant price reductions due to the use of all those cheap Chinese components manufactured in the Taiwanese-run factories and R&D facilities in China[1].
side note
---------
The Taiwanese voluntarily invested more than $100 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. More than 1 million Taiwanese voluntarily emigrated to China to live and work. More than 50% of Taiwan's GDP is now dependent on commerce with China.
I don't know, I saw someone else on Slashdot point out that the perceived benefit of the computer being able to be used as a development platform for a next gen console system isn't necessarily all its cracked up to me..... they brought this point up in regards to what happened with MIPS.
Look, people are forgetting one fact about running OS X on run-of-the-mill PC hardware. And it actually has to do with PPC MLBs...
There are plenty of cheaper, more standardized PPC MLBs available from various vendors like TerraSoft and Pegasos. They are G3s or G4s, some with standard PC-style serial ports, etc. OS X does not run on these boards. That is because the Mac needs a custom boot ROM. If people were able to slap together a cheaper PPC box (which they can) and then put OS X on it (which they cannot) there wouldn't have been such a clamor for x86 Mac OS X.
Also, Apple does not use the typical northbridge/southbridge approach to MLB design. They have custom designed ICs, and we have heard nothing as to whether they will try to modify HyperTransport to work with x86 or use something else entirely. Apple makes a whole widget - and while I have no advance knowledge whatsoever, you can be damn sure that the Apple x86 MLBs are going to bear little resemblance to an off-the-shelf VIA board.
Put the issue to bed. Beyond these two facts is the simple fact that if you WERE able to just build a box and throw OS X on it, it wouldn't necessarily work correctly or be supported at all. And most people DON'T BUILD THEIR OWN BOXES ANYWAY. It would have minimal effect on sales because most people buy computers as appliances and tools, NOT as a HOBBY KIT. There will always be some that choose that path, but they are the grand, sweeping minority.
That all being said, i REALLY hope this switch offers us the ability to use a wider range of video cards and upgradable CPUs.
Frikkin moron. Ignore the link and mod parent flamebait.
AC
I believe there is a dying horse out there and it is calle Intel/x86. While it might have been a smart move on Apple's side to switch to Intel based processors in the short to mid term range, stragically speaking Apple has just abandoned its platform for the future and I doubt they will switch back to IBM in the foreseeable future. Apple customers would not accept another platform move.
Now why would Apple owners care about another platform move? With all of the developers having to do work that makes programs essentially endian-neutral, Apple actually has the freedom to possibly dare to make a line of computers with different processors! They could for instance release a cheap Cell based computer in a year or two, that could possibly either run the PPC stuff as if native or perhaps make it work with tweaking from Rosetta.
I'm not saying they will do this, I'm saying that most Apple owners neither know nor care what processor is actually in the box, and furthmore that developers are going to HAVE to write platform neutral code and ship universal binaries for years to come.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For a long time, the PPC macs will still outnumber the Intel macs. So even new software will be cross-compiles for the PPC for several years (basically as long as Apple support ths OS on PPC macs, seven years is about the timeframe they have been going with).
The only possible exception is games, many game designers are more willing to impose specific hardware requirements (like Intel only) and go after niche markets. Is your dad a game player? Then have him buy a console.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If Apple used a custom Intel chip, they'd risk ending up in the same situation they're in now with IBM.
Intel could cut off Apple's supply without doing itself any harm. Apple wouldn't be a big enough part of Intel's business to have any leverage - the same problem it had with IBM (and Motorola, for that matter).
Further, if Apple requires a special x86 CPU, then that would interfere with the ability to switch to AMD or VIA if necessary. Apple would have to wait for the other company to have a similar custom chip ready in quantity.
So, no, I don't see Apple using anything but a stock CPU.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Guess what? Even if IBM had continued to produce faster chips and this switch was not going to occur, the mac that you would have bought would have been just as old and slow a year from now. *Gasp*.
Guess what else would have been true? The software you buy/use now and years into the future would have continued to work fine on your purchase. This change in the "future" changes none of that.
I'm starting to believe that people on slashdot do not know how to use google and have the attention span of a three year old.
Apple has more PPC products in the pipeline. New software will be released as ""universal" (fat) binaries. Current software will work on the new Intel machines through Rosetta.
These technologies will actually "protect" your investment in software into the future and if IBM/Freescale smarten up to produce competitive chips in the future, Apple can use them if they wish in addition to Intel's offerings. Platform independence is a good thing.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
That would be true - you don't get to know the true latencies of a console system unless you are using the actual hardware. These would be different between the embedded system and PC due to the different cache memory sizes, bus architectures and CD speed.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Actually getting a variant of a current chipset may be practical.
Buying a Mac now would not be a bad descision at all, there's still a 4-6 years of life left on the PowerPC. Apple made it "check box" easy to develop for either architectures, so there's no worries of not having new support over the next few years of transition. The PPC support will definately outlive the life of any Mac bought now. I don't know about you, but 4+ years on any Mac is pushing it for me. 1-2 years is what I get out of my PCs.
I recomend a Mini if you've never owned a Mac before, and was intersted in treading in Apple's water. Stepping in now guaratees a ton of software compatibility.
Regardless, OSX is already a half a decade "ahead" of Windows, so switching now will only put you way ahead of the tech curve.
Switchin to OSX, or somehow aquiring this leaked Intel copy, and actually having the exact configurguration that it needs, will only show you how lazy Microsoft is now days, and how mediocre their bloated-sub-par apps and OS are. They stopped trying in the ninties, and why shold they when they have huge "Cash Cows" raking in billions upon billions, upon billions.
bleh..
I would first like to warn everyone that this torrent turned up less than 45 minutes ago and HAS NOT BEEN VERIFIED BY ANYONE I KNOW and could therefore completely break your computer.
OTOH, it's more than 900 mb.
I'm not making the URL clickable so that you have a few extra seconds to think about whether you really want to download it.
http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3343842
Aside from having your dates mixed up, as another poster pointed out, you're still missing the boat. Look at it from the point of view of a device manufactuer: why would you take on the expense of making a seperate device with USB, when you can count on all PC users having parallel? Then suddenly the iMac hits the market, and it only has USB. And hundereds of thousands of the consumers buying it are also going to need new USB perphrials. Face it, the iMac is what broke the USB damn.
Buying a Mac now would not be a bad descision at all, there's still a 4-6 years of life left on the PowerPC.
I see a lot of wishful thinking about this. Remember the OS X transition? Within 2 years Jobs is up on stage sticking OS9 into a coffin and killing hardware support for the thing. Developers got the message and OS9 software disappeared.
I personally believe that Apple is going to quickly move to x86 hardware, and both Apple and ISV software support for PPC is going to start dying off in 2008. That doesn't make your shiny new PowerMac worthless, but it does mean you better be happy with only one generation of new software.
But, yeah, there's a lot of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about PowerPC right now, and rightfully so. Apple could alleviate things if they just released a software/hardware road map.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Arrggh! :-D I wish this fascination with the Cell processor would die. Yah, the Cell is derived from the Power architecture, but it is not a drop in replacement for a desktop CPU. It might not even be that great of a game console CPU. The Cell is designed to make graphics processing easier (well, to feed vector units, IIRC).
Also, as a game console oriented chip, the Cell isn't about ramping up processor power/speed. It is about cutting manufacturing costs while holding the processing power steady. Do you really want Apple to make major transition to an unproven CPU architecture that is going to remain at the same speed over its lifetime? At least with x86 Apple has five years experience with making the code run. Going to the Cell would mean starting with no experience.
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
I think you missed the endless threads around the net saying that the Cell isn't a good general-purpose chip.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
1) Cell Processors aren't good for "general computing"
2) They would have left them stuck with IBM, whom they were trying to get away from
3) Have you been reading anything lately? Cell processors are not some wonder cure...
This is a given. Which would Intel like to be associated with, the latest secruity breach or virus or elegant industrial design that works.
Odd, I didn't put the URL in code...
Anyway DON'T DOWNLOAD THE TORRENT. It's a GNAA hoax. Sorry for wasting your time. Move along, nothing to see here.
First, "computers" are no longer Apple's sole determinant of success. The iPod/iTMS combination has proven that Apple is pushing into new markets. The digital hub concept isn't just hot air - Apple has been moving in that direction for some time now and doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon. Apple's profits no longer come purely from Macs, and their overall strategy of late reflects this change.
Second, Apple's profit margins with the Mac have fluctuated over the last 20 years depending on the model and the market situation, so there's no strict Apple mantra that margins on their computers have to be at a certain level. In particular, the Steve II Era of Apple has shown that Apple is far more business-savvy than it was in the past. My take is that Apple is serious about expanding marketshare, and is willing to go through another big transition in order to hit Microsoft while they're having difficulty delivering on promises.
Given that Apple has been secretly keeping OS X up to date on Intel processsors for the last five years makes me think that blanket statements about Apple based on what they did 10 or 15 or even five years ago make little sense.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
the dropped the current best consumer level CPU on the market for one that everyone else is trying to get away from. Now they are on a level playing ground with MS but they STILL will not compete with MS. Now your choise is a PC with ALOT of customization options and a decent operating system or a PC with almost no room for opgrades but with a better operating system. While they do still have the better os they have abandoned the hardware edge and for they they can suck my nuts and I'm sticking with an AM/Windows PC. Apple is dead.
go to version tracker and look through the os 9 software that is gone...
You can even find os 7 stuff out there.
My prediction: The moto chips will remain in service for a while longer, gradually tapering off with a healthy overlap of x86 in the future. I plan to buy the next mini, or the new eMac regardless of chip.
Currently using a 600MHz G3.
Linux has lost momentum, but so has Windows. IE no longer has 90% of market share.
Jobs said Intel Macs could run Windows, but he says "who would want to?". I think he's being disingenuous. I for one, would love to be able to dual boot Windows and OS X on an Intel-powered Powerbook. That's one less computer I need on my desk.
Mark my words: more machines that _can_ run Mac OS X means more machines that _will_ run Mac OS X. Apple better have a good plan to make a Windows partition and an even better plan to reclaim abandoned Windows partitions.
My father is a blogger.
PPC is dead. The writing is on the wall for anyone who cares to read it. Sure, it will live on for a while. Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. Of course you can keep on running today's applications on it. But that doesn't change the fact that sometime in the future, pretty much everyone will have moved on to the next big thing and the PPC Mac users are just going to be stuck with obsolete hardware running old software.
The only reason I can see to buy a PPC Mac would be to run Linux. It's a pretty good bet that PPC Linux will still be alive and well long after Apple leaves the PPC crowd high and dry.
IMO a big reason for the switch was IBM's inability or unwillingness to produce a low power version of the G5 for laptops. Remember when the G5's first came out, the "laptop" version which people speculated would also power the next playstation was supposed to be more or less ready for production, I even remember reading some power consumption specs. Apparently this product is vaporware. I can't imagine that the desire to get their hands on pentium M's to replace the aging G4 chips in the uber-sexy powerbooks didn't play some part in their decsion
According to the NY Times article, Apple was "disappointed" with the Cell processor. It may just be too tricky to get high performance out of the Cell. Console developers are highly motivated to get maximum performance, but that is unlikely to be the case for companies developing software for what is (in numbers, at least) a minor platform.
> No one gave a shit about USB until the iMac
> created a market for USB peripherals.
You are incorrect. I worked on the SP92 and SP93 USB design committees and the UTF1995 and UTF1996 USB adoption groups and directly took part in what you are talking about.
Simple mathematical models existed already in 1994 predicting (and quite accurately) the growth of USB, in units delivered by the 10 motherboard producing companies of any significance (accounting for 98% of computers in use.)
Furthur, USB accessory development requires pre-registry with the TS-USB council so the number of devices being developed and in use was modeled well before the iMac incoporporated it.
Apple has never affected USB adoption or usage by more than 2%
So that happens to be my web page, and basically it's just a place for me to vent - especially since I was never able to find a good way of giving feedback to Apple. It's not like I've examined each successive version of MacOS to see whether all of my earlier complaints were addressed. (feel free to inform me if they have, or to explain workarounds)
I still believe MacOS sucks far less than Windows, though I suppose that's damning with faint praise.
While I can understand going to x86, I still don't qiute understand why Apple decided to go with Intel over AMD. I suspect it's a politically motivated decision, but in my mind, AMD trumps Intel in price, performance, and advancing features.
It would make sense for both Apple and AMD to go with each other: it would benefit both their markets, and the consumer market would see AMD stuff as "new miracle technology", as Intel has been on the forefront for so long, people are simply tired of the blue men and the Intel jingle. "Intel stuff? That runs Windows, and Windows sucks. Why would I want that on a Mac?" is what most people seem to think. AMD has no such stigma.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Apple will make use of Intel's newly announced CPU and CHIPSET. The reason is simple: embedded DRM to limit Apple's next generation x86 "iiMacs" from running any other OS, and prohibiting any commodity Wintel box from running an x86 OS X. Apple is in the software and HARDWARE business, and intends to stay there.
Did you miss where they said nothing would be done to prevent Windows from running on an Intel based Mac?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Remember the OS X transition? Within 2 years Jobs is up on stage sticking OS9 into a coffin and killing hardware support for the thing.
Except he didn't. You could still buy a Mac supporting OS 9 last year. If Jobs could just kill OS 9 when he wanted to, it would have been killed back in 1997 when it was called OS 8.
both Apple and ISV software support for PPC is going to start dying off in 2008.
Why? Unlike the 68x-PPC transition or the OS9-OSX transition, there's no cost to building 2-way applications. This one's using a development environment designed from the beginning, almost 15 years ago now, for supporting multiple platforms. It used to build them 4-way: 68k, x86, Sparc, and HPPA. 2-way is trivial.
Welcome to America, where anyone with extensive study in keg stands and beer bongs can graduate with a journalism degree. It's not just the headlines. Whole articles are being written by space cadets, and apparently editors could care less. Look no further than the one linked in the summary:
I have serious doubts that Roger Kay at IDC said anything of the sort. I'm guessing the article's author Rhonda Ascierto doesn't grok computers and misquoted the hell out of Roger Kay. More likely, Roger mentioned something about the possibility that Mac OS X (Not Apple OS X, Rhonda) might be reverse engineered to run on a commodity hardware and it was turned into "W00T! Now we can pirate teh Mac warez!!!1oneone!11"
Learn to expect this from mainstream American journalism. It's sensationalistic, sloppy, and factually inaccurate. Line your bird cages with it.
People, this meme is dead. It should be an ex-meme. Only Microsoft Apologists still argue that it's market share that makes Microsoft a stinking pool of viruses.
will they do a better job at it than say, microsoft?
They're already doing a better job of it than Microsoft.
The reason that Microsoft has all these viruses is real simple. Internet Explorer is designed to let people push native brinary code into your running browser window and execute it. That's what ActiveX in the Microsoft HTML control is all about.
This was Microsoft's World Domination Plan in the late '90s. Everyone was going to use ActiveX components and Active Scripting and nobody else was going to be able to compete with their own browser.
It didn't happen. What *did* happen is that if you can let good people push code into your browser window, then you can't keep bad people from doing the same thing. You can make it harder, with "security zones" and certificates and dialogs and "are you sure". But it only takes a very small percentage of the users saying "OK, infect me" and suddenly you have a HUGE virus problem.
NOBODY ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD does this.
Will Apple do something similar? Not yet, they haven't. They've made a few little mistakes in the browser, but nothing like what Microsoft did.
WFM.
there's no cost to building 2-way applications
Ha. Maybe for a basement shareware developer. For a large vendor there's QA, marketing, and support costs. Plus there's all those Altive/SSE3 codes that have to be manually kept in sync.
My perspective is that Apple has pretty firm control of their userbase and won't miss this obvious opportunity to encourage upgrades.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Why should you. as a consumer care about this? When it does happen, your machine would be old and obsolete anyway regardless of what chip it has in it.
If developers continue to support universal binaries, your "old" hardware will still run the software in some fashion or another.
Do you expect vendors to continue supporting 10 year old hardware?
Whaa! My PC XT does not run windows. Whaa! My Mac Plus does not run OS X.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
he opened his post with a quote, not a cliche. Complaining of cliches on /. is so trite, only old people in Korea troll like that!
"revolutionary" is the last you want for a consumer platform. Old, dog-eared, stable, maybe, but never "revolutionary". This is the lowest of the low, the workingest of the workingest. Please.
OTOH, I thought the posts by CMdr Taco have become *dumber*. Was this worth the asking?
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
You are really reaching there. Most of the changes only need to be done once when you abstract the code but most code runs fine on G3's so it will also run fine on X86 without any SSE.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
First off, I've always liked PC hardware and I run them along side my Macs, it's the stagnant-mediocre OS that they use, that makes me cringe. My motto is that a PC is only as good as its OS. But fortunately for me, PCs are mostly a hobby and I only need them for a cheap rendering solution and geometry conversion now days. Everything else I can do more productively on a Mac, since the OS is vastly better. Apple isn't the company that is "rotting" now days, and is definitely full of life. They're not the company that will need to be embalmed in a few years, if no changes are made; *Cough* MS! And as a friend of mine has mentioned, who's worked with MS various times; They are populated by smart peeps that will shoot down any idea if it is even remotely a threat to their position or a supposed risk to the company, so hence MS no longer innovates. They're a victim of their own success.
Look at this way, Apple is only going to push MS to do better things. On the PC side, MS really has no competion, so why should they care about improving their products? One reason, is that most peeps feel they don't have a choice, so will ignorantly stick with Windows, thinking that it is the best option.
And clarfy on what you mean by no room for upgrades? Besides the video card, Macintoshes use virtually all of the same components. They use the same RAM, same HDs, same USB/Firewire dvices, etc... Even the video cards are 99% the same. The manufacture that makes Apple's workstation boards, also make PC counterparts. iBooks use boards made by ASUS, so how are things going to be different? Besides the obvious CPU change of course, Apple will continue to use of quality components in their systems. Components that you could've also bought at any time to assemble a PC workstation. But what's different about Macs, "true Software/Hardware Inteegration." Something that absolutely no PC has.
Software/Hardware integration is a luxary Apple can afford, since it makes the OS and tailors its components for it.. Sorry, but you're not going to get that if you buy a consumer board like MSI, or GIgabyte, or even a high-end workstation board as an example. You'll most likely have drivers from different manufactures, which will all weave there way into WIndows registry like a parasite. The point I'm making as all ready stated, is that PCs level of software/hardware integration is simply not there, and will never be as long as their are too many choices to be made. Only MS has the power to do this, but it would mean boining all the OEM makers like Dell and limiting our choices, but then again maybe they've arelady done thish with the XB360?! Nah, that's just another Media Center, its not really a PC.
So how has Apple lost its edge? Oh, it hasn't! I look forward to a Dual-Core Pentium M Powerbook next year to replace my aging TI-Book. And then a (2 or 4)x(dual or Quad-Core Pentium) to replace my DP 2.5 in a few years.
Bleh.
If Intel is an 800lb gorilla, Microsoft is 1600lbs
Intel's ACPI reference implementation doesn't work with a lot of hardware, despite great efforts being made by both Intel and FreeBSD, all the vendors code their ACPI implementations to the point that they work with the Windows ACPI implementation (not derived from Intel's reference), and no farther.
If Intel had the power in the market that you're claiming for it, then all boards out there would work with the ACPI reference implementation, and FreeBSD and Linux would have far fewer headaches.
-- Terry
If the management of Apple really wanted to try something revolutionary ... However, Apple management chose the evolutionary establishment-approved route: x86 ...
Prediction: Apple will say now look how well Windows runs!
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I am not the sort of person to try to generate argument by interpreting the word "usually" as a claim of unversality.
If you were though, your karma would probably be higher.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I read that IBM more or less voluntarily bowed out as an Apple desktop supplier, having demanded within the negotiating process that Apple itself subsidize new development in the PowerPC line. If Apple wanted cooler and faster, good, Apple could pay for it. This account has IBM making Apple an offer Apple had to refuse. However, another account had IBM being "in the dark" about the Intel choice--which doesn't exactly contradict the IBM-forced-the-breakup line but doesn't confirm it either.
For a large vendor there's QA, marketing, and support costs.
:)
Those aren't costs for building the app.
OK. They do exist, but unless Apple does something truly horrible they'll be lower for this than for just about every transition I've ever been through. Including 8.1 to 8.5, 8.6 to 9.0, 10.1 to 10.2, 10.2 to 10.3, and 10.3 to 10.4. So long as Apple provides OS upgrades for PPC (and they've previously provided OS upgrades for old hardware for 4-5 years after the new hardware came in... which in this case means past 2010 even for the Mac mini, and 2012 for whatever they supplant near the end of 2007) there's not going to be a major problem.
Well, if I was going to spend a lot of money on a computer, I would expect it to last a while. Right now, the Mini is the only computer in Apple's line up that I would consider buying, because for $500 I wouldn't care when it becomes completely obsolete in a few years. But the PowerMac? Forget about it. Right now, a high end x86 PC is going to have a longer useful life than a PowerMac.
:/
Besides, I don't see x86 going away in the foreseeable future. But then again, I said the same thing about PPC Apples.
WTF? You don't think Apple currently uses Taiwanese/Chinese manufactured chips? Don't you know that PowerBooks are manufactured in Taiwan?
And where did you hear about Apple's plans to use chipsets that aren't designed by Apple or Intel? Are you assuming Apple will use "cheepsets" like VIA or SiS? Are you just talking out of your ass?
I think people are being mislead by the fact that the development machines have Pentium processors. I am certain that the next generation Macintosh will not be of x86 architecture. The Intel processor that will power the next generation of Macs will will not be compatible with Windows, but it will be compatible with Mac OS X thanks to the versatility of the Mach kernel. The purpose of the development machines is not to get current apps running on a Pentium. It is to get current apps PLATFORM INDEPENDENT. The next Mac OS X will decidedly not run on any generic PC. Apple's goal is NOT to make Mac OS X run on stock PCs, it is to make Mac OS X run on the best processor possible, one that IBM refuses to make, but one that Intel has been wanting to make but until now has not been able to justify bringing to production because there is no way any mass market OS would be able to support it, therefore no PC manufacturer would buy it. Developer Intel Mac notwithstanding, it will be as impossible to run the released "Intelified" Mac OS X on a stock PC as it is now. Once again, the purpose of the developer-version Intel Mac is not to make sure applications work with a Pentium, but to make sure they work without a PowerPC.
How does the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 roadmap look? Thanks for looking so foward into the future.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
I see a lot of wishful thinking about this.
I agree. My reasoning is that the next version of OSX is due out in late 2006, early 2007.. around the same time as the x86 macs take over.
Look at how many mac developers only support the *newest* OS. Even Apple sells software (like Motion) that only works on their newest OS.
Yes, your old PPC mac will continue to work, but you're not going to be able to install any new software on it because most mac developers are going to drop PPC like a rock.
Not a big deal anyway.. mac owners go on about how they can use a 5 year old mac laptop but what they don't tell you is that they all have brand new G5s sitting on their desks. Mac owners buy new hardware practically every year.
Apple and Intel Sitting on a Tree...
By Charles Jo
Senior Appleologist, CharlesJo.com
Rev. June 12, 2005 05:54PM PST
Forget Tom Cruz and his new and barely legal girlfriend. Or Brad Pitt and Lara Croft. The hottest couple of this summer is Apple and Intel. After years of bad-mouthing the Santa Clara-based Nelson of the chip sector, Jobs announced last week that Apple and Intel had been secretly dating for 5 years and now are comfortable enough about their relationship to announce to the world their commitment to each other. When asked about the future of the Cupertino-based computer company, Jobs said,"People want better user experience. So, with the hardware giant working on the [air quotes] exciting stuff, I would like to focus Apple's resources to the really really important stuff."
"The logo is our first priority. People love our Apple logo but I've got some neat ideas to take this to a new level that'll really make people go, 'Wow! Now that is a symbol that rappers would be proud to wear.' Watch out Mercedes. And come on, do you really want to be seen wearing a Dell logo? It's like you're advertising to the entire world that you eat at McDonalds and shop at Walmart." He then took a sip of bottled water, adjusted his Freudian spectacles, and continued,"Next on our list is the screensaver. Apple is at the top of the screensaver technology with the fades and zooms so why improve, you ask?" Before I could respond, he answered his own question with another question,"Why not? It's only a matter of time before the Windows folks and Linux folks copy me but by then, I'll have the next screensaver technology ready and BAM! I am on top again. Seriously, this is really important stuff to people. When you walk away from your workstation and your screensaver starts, you want your cubicle neighbors to turn green with envy and our R&D shows that Apple screensavers are excellent ways to increase social ranking in any corporation. Lastly, our commercials are going to so rock you. We are neck to neck with Sony and Budweiser right now and our future commercials will alter the way you view the universe." Jobs then leaned back and pushed a button on a remote control whereupon a giant white screen descended from the ceiling and in parallel, a podium rose from the floor. He insisted that this one-on-one interview continue with him standing at the podium.
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Related links:
http://stream.apple.akadns.net/
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.h tml
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050609.html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050609. html
http://news.com.com/The+brains+behind+Apples+Roset ta+Transitive/2100-1016_3-5736190.html?tag=nefd.le de
http://www.slashnot.com/article.php3?story_id=532
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/12/ 1450217&tid=118&tid=3
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/06/ 1752234&tid=118&tid=179&tid=3
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/12/ 130234&tid=179&tid=1
Charles Jo
Yeah, that more or less seems to be backed up by the NY Times report. They actually reported on both situations..... that IBM basically did say that Apple was going to need to make the investment themselves if they wanted to see these developments in the PPC line. I don't think it's contradicted that IBM didn't find out about Apple's decision to switch to Intel until they saw the news reports, since it sounds like that was done independently (i.e. Apple didn't go to IBM and say "Look, if you don't do this, we're going to Intel").
Perhaps it has a great deal to do with the fact that AMD is partners with IBM, and that the same plant that is producing AMD chips just happens to be the one that the G5 is currently coming out of.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
The thing people on this topic seem to be missing from all the "news" on this announcement is that you have to consider the source (of the writers and their reactions) and the source architecture that Apple is bringing to light.
1- Cringley is a maniac. And probably likes a nice hot karl.
And you kiddies can have fun with your speculation while you figure out how DIFFERENTLY things will be with an OPEN SOURCE Apple OS on INTEL hardware... (i know i just riled the kids, but it will take them a while to figure out how to script me outta here. work hard boys, im running a G3 tower circa 97. It runs 10.2.8 like a 5th runner up (im running, sure not terribly fast, but stable). But's it's a race for other 8 year old wintel tech, too. (try running xp pro even home on your 97 rig.) right!
2- Apple has already given the ppc machines longevity by combining this hardware with an evolving OPEN SOURCE OS. Mac OS X is the premier desktop over the very strong BSD base. Looks to me like this platform is setup to give not only x86, *nix, and Mac devs but also WIN devs the comprehensive set of software, support, and hardware (in Intel).
Anyone who interprets this "week old" announcement and intro of pre-alpha dev platforms as the word and the way are seriously lost children...
If you'll read a few of the main articles at macsurfer, you'll see that there are several motives clinging to each and every one of the disfunctional columnists (if you can call them that - check your local laws) in this drama... below my two cents.
I've used a Mac since 1989, and missed the whole DOS win3... and other crap while I created termpapers that "just work!" My allure to the platform was one of plug and chug - start typing, sooner or later you will wrap up your paper and turn it in for EXTRA CREDIT.
Granted that I've had to put my APPLE affinity on the backburner to *gulp* swallow PC standard machines because I am Network+ and A+ certified systems supporter. Swallow your pride, and you lose your soul, but it makes for a paycheck.
That's why I'm writing this (under influence of ambien and michelob Ultra state-of-mind) because so many people are not basing interpretation of the news as deeply as they should.
APPLE's pants are on fire over IBM's apparently flippant attitude toward IBM's OWN "promises or contracts. They can't continue to provide as much support and or R&D to the G5. They have better boxes [read: game consoles] on the horizon. Well, that's good for you old buddy.
Ok BIG BLUE, since you are happy about that, take a listen to this... (oh to be a bug in a fone)
2 Jobs and the Apple team have not said that OSX and WIN will be dual-bootable, yet that possibility is obviously there (boot trickery, Microsloth's own hijacked VPC, etc. could lead to Win on Macintel, but what does Jobs care? Cool, we can run them both, NATIVELY (maybe?)! how bout you Billy?
I'd be willing to bet that the effort given to keep Windows off will boil down to this - VPC development cancels this monday. Support would end as the first Macx86 machines arrive. Billy boy will ignore security patches and exploits to sleep hours at a time worrying over that scenario. But it will come to him, some sort of nuclear deathray option built deep in the crevassas of his code, one that would recognize and refuse to boot on whatever the "macintel" becomes.
It's now a Billy Boy "you stole my thunder" issue to deal with, and maybe he can fall asleep hugging that precious little Mac Steve gave hime those many years ago.
Meanwhile, Macs will just continue to work, thanks to the blood Apple eng's have poured out for over 30 years. Bill might have shocked himself on a power supply once... that would explain his jumpy goofy, klepto ways.
But let me regress - my point is that opening up a fully functional, open source system that will run on industry standard (i.e. Intel, AMD) processing architecture is an EXTRAORDINARILY "GOOD THING."
It's like
Is that a nice way of saying "bitch"?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Apple stopped using those ROMs several years ago, I believe when they made the transition from m68k to PPC. There's actually a ROM image of the old Mac toolbox ROM on the hard disk (I think Classic MacOS used it).
Yes, there is a ROM image file but it was introduced with the original iMac which from then on are called New World Macs. The previous Mac models, the beige G3s, are called Old Word Macs. That file also contains more than just the contents of the Old World ROMs, I believe.
I learned more than I wanted to about the ROM file when I tried to perform a clean install of OS 9 (or was it 8.5?) on my original Bondi Blue iMac. The ROM file had to reside within the first gig or so on the hard drive and as best as I could determine, the clean install placed the new file past the limit.
That had to be one of the most frustrating day I ever spent with any Mac -- and I've been working with them since 1986 (or 1984 i f you include the Lisa 2). Since then I do not do a clean install unless I have a specific reason to do so. Think about it: Apple engineers put a tremendous amount of effort into making sure that an upgrade will work for the 98% of their users who do an ordinary update, not the rest of us geeks.
"Where's my other sock?" - A. Einstein
IBM screwed steve jobs and wasn't exactly forthcoming in their dealings with apple. In all honesty his steveness went looking for a really fast PPC processor a few years ago. He went to IBM and they were like hell we have the fastest processor in the world and it is a PPC called the power5. IBM can make you a power4 variant called the PPC 970, it is big and bad and after going to a non-stable process it will have legs, we can make it hit 3ghz. IBM required steve sign a contract with IBM and front some of the development costs which were not all that high because it is mostly existing design, except altivec. IBM led steve to believe that they would deliver an x86 killer, unfortunately IBM hobbled this otherwise fast design with a modified PPC750 cache thus starving this fast wide processor.
When it unfolded that IBM purposely screwed apple, was playing games and was generally not going make a proc that will threaten its own market or make any concessions to apple. Honestly apple should have taken its PPC Intellectual property and approached either amd or intel and tried to cut a deal to use their x86 technology and remove the if and id stages and build a PPC to micro-OPs decode and an optimized fetch I think an intel PPC could be pretty good.
I remember that BeOS said that moving to Intel gave them a huge performance boost, or something along those lines. "Intel good, PPP not so good"
yea, you know, that REALLY cuts into Apple's gaming sector...
No, it's because IBM abandoned their roadmap for the PowerPC. And they did that because of the consoles, because they represent a bigger market for IBM than Apple did.
IBM wanted 'additional investment' from Apple or they weren't going to continue with any PowerPC development beyond crappy chips for game consoles. Note that I'm talking about PowerPC here, not Power.
Well, that's one version of events anyway.
Anyway, this is the best thing that could have happened. I can't wait to buy a Pentium M PowerBook. :-)
The reason Apple is moving to x86 is because IBM has not been able to deliver cool-running PowerPCs.
It was probably more like IBM didn't WANT to deliver, because doing so wasn't worthwhile for IBM. More $$ for them turning the PowerPC into a console chip than continuing its development as a CPU for a general purpose computing platform.
" Hi, welcome to 2005. AMD's high end chips run cooler than Intel's. Thanks for playing!"
How does the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 roadmap look? Thanks for looking so foward into the future.
Yes, and AMD has ALWAYS had chips that ran cooler, at slower clock speeds (more effecient), etc that Intel. Intel is now finally copying AMD's plans for a chip that AMD has had for years, and is unchanged. Intel's roadmap is: use the Pentium M instead of the Pentium. Wow- brilliant road map!
Also, AMD is king of the 64bit cpus, and has been for over 2 years now. But alas, Intel will copy them later to make an effecient 64bit home cpu chip, and the world like you, will embrace Intel as the better.
"One, two." "Numbers," Kraftwerk.
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
Add to that the fact that the Power Mac G5 is the development platform for the Xbox 2, and you get very little of any import.
It's possible that the chips for Apple may have very slight variations from the regular Intel CPUs, and most likely a somewhat different motherboard chipset, but because they seeded x86 boxes to developers with one year to go, switching ISAs at the last minute would be suicide for Apple. While it is true that supporting x86 is likely to flush out most of the endian bugs in Mac software, you'll still have lots of code like:
And the guy that wrote do_sse_code() will be mighty pissed if that has to be pitched and needs to be written at the last minute, plus of course all the regression testing, etc.The next Macs will definitely run x86 and make a slow transition to x86-64. Although you can't trust anyone's predictions about anything, especially Apple!
Why? No, I'm serious. Why? They've changed the chip that runs their computers. Nothing else. There's no effect on their business model.
Apple doesn't need to change thier business model as long as it's alright to remain a "bit player", ie someone with a small market. But if they want to grow then they should make adjustments other than a change in processors if nothing else. Because they're a hardware as well as a software company, I don't really know what changes can be made though, maybe license MacOS for low end clones while they concentrate on higher endusers. Now that may work, more people may try low cost clones, then when they decide to upgrade they'll get one of those high end Macs from Apple.
FalconShould there be a Law?
See http://www.versiontracker.com/macos/
That that is is that that that that is not is not.