Intel Developer Macs Outperform G5s

Good news! by lucaschan.com · 2005-07-13 10:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Although, Firefox doesn't run particularly fast on my G5 compared to my run-of-the-mill XP box at work.

Re:Good news! by marmoset · 2005-07-13 11:00 · Score: 5, Informative

That's becaus you're running the wrong builds. :)
Re:Good news! by ArbitraryConstant · 2005-07-13 11:16 · Score: 4, Funny

Yes, the MacOS port of Firefox is an embarrasment. The interface is responsive in the same way that steering a rocket by sending olfactory messages to slugs is responsive.

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I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Re:Good news! by Monkey+Angst · 2005-07-13 12:51 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, the MacOS port of Firefox is an embarrasment. The interface is responsive in the same way that steering a rocket by sending olfactory messages to slugs is responsive.
Your frame of reference makes me really wonder how the hell you spend your weekends!

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stripShow - Where WordPress meets webcomics

Boot times disk/network bound by Toby+The+Economist · 2005-07-13 10:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

OS boot times are usually disk and network bound.

I don't see how even an order of magnitude increase in CPU power could shorten boot times to the extent described here.

There must be other factors.

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Toby

Re:Boot times disk/network bound by Cecil · 2005-07-13 10:57 · Score: 5, Funny

There is something fishy about these numbers, I agree.

It also runs "Windows XP at blazing speeds"? Well, hm, that doesn't sound like a plain old P4 to me. :P

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Random and weird software I've written.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by Rosyna · 2005-07-13 11:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

Yes, the other factors are that the dev kits don't support any kind of special features. It's standard PC BIOS so it doesn't have to bother to search any of the many other places/buses a standard mac can boot from.

Also, since plugins cannot be emulated, there is no way for anyone to install kernel extensions that slow down the boot times of OS X.

In other words, the speed these people think they're seeing are actually do to a horrific lack of features.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by antrik · 2005-07-13 11:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

> OS boot times are usually disk and network bound.

While disk plays *some* role in OS startup, it's usually far from being the decisive factor. In a typical setup, a much larger amount of time is consumed on CPU use; and quite a large amount on various kinds of timeouts, related to networking, but not only -- various kinds of hardware probing etc. are the main reason why OS bootup doesn't even remotely scale with CPU and disk speed improvements.

CPU *does* make a considerable difference, but not an enormous one -- the other hardware in the box (which is also different for Intel Macs) might be quite relevant, too.

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All my comments get moderated +-0, spotless.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by b1t+r0t · 2005-07-13 11:14 · Score: 4, Informative

"Although there's usually a few seconds between the machine powering up and the apple logo appearing. What's going on during that time?"
Memory test.

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"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by hazee · 2005-07-13 11:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

I've never understood why it takes so long to boot a computer. It takes far longer than the time necessary to transfer the actual amount of data that ends up in memory after the boot sequence.

Why not use something more like a resume from hibernation, where you just restore the contents of memory directly from the disc in one go and be done with it?

Actually using hibernation rather than booting is no good, becuase it only restores you to the state that your computer was in last time you used it, which might not be "clean". For example, if you had been running something with a memory leak, hibernation won't fix that.

But the solution is simple - instead of writing the hibernate data to disc just before you shut down, instead store it just after you've finished booting, so that you've got a "clean" system ready.

This way you get a "clean" system every time at the speed of a restore from hibernation. (And if something goes wrong, you still have the option to do a "full" boot.)

Some might say that you need to go through all the slow processing of a full boot in case anything's changed. Really? Restoring from hibernation seems to cope with that possibility.

More likely, most times, nothing will have changed. And for the times when it has, well, you do the extra configuration necessary after the restore - you're still no worse off.

So why are we still forced to sit through full boot cycles?
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by klui · 2005-07-13 11:28 · Score: 4, Funny

Yeah, maybe those guys compared it to running Windows XP under VirtualPC.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by imsabbel · 2005-07-13 11:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

Your logic has a flaw:
A resume form hibernation has to read ALL of your memory from disc, as only saving "used" memory frames would just invide bugs from hell. (think about memory windows from drivers, or what is "clean state" ? which autostarts/services,ect)
And with 1GB, even on a very fast HD it would need 20 seconds... Not faster

Also consider that bootup is usually the time to detect new hardware.

In fact, im quite happy with the 20-30 seconds i get with windows xp.

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HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by hazee · 2005-07-13 11:38 · Score: 4, Informative

Surely the OS has to know what memory is in use, otherwise there would be chaos. How would it allocate blocks of memory if drivers were "secretly" allocating their own blocks?

As for detecting new hardware - that's such a rare event that it should be treated as an exception, rather than the norm. Most days I boot my computer, there's a marked absence of strange new hardware...
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by thatguywhoiam · 2005-07-13 11:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

So why are we still forced to sit through full boot cycles?
Apple has really been pushing people to Sleep the machines instead of turning them off. Sleep mode uses a very tiny amount of power, and you get your instantaneous boot (with apps open and windows positioned...). I have been doing this with my Macs since OS X appeared and let me tell you it is the only way to go. Especially on laptops. In fact I am still using a CRT on my G5 and the computer 'boots' faster than the monitor (warm up).

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If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by Johnno74 · 2005-07-13 11:47 · Score: 3, Informative

Both techniques (discarding unused memory and compressing used memory) are used by windows xp, which is why it is so fast to hibernate/resume (less than 10 secs for my p3/512mb laptop)
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by gabebear · 2005-07-13 12:06 · Score: 3, Informative

Yes, the other factors are that the dev kits don't support any kind of special features. It's standard PC BIOS so it doesn't have to bother to search any of the many other places/buses a standard mac can boot from.
If your default boot disk is available then a normal Mac doesn't take anytime looking for other boot devices. These Intel dev Macs do support booting from USB drives so that is not the case anyway.
Also, since plugins cannot be emulated, there is no way for anyone to install kernel extensions that slow down the boot times of OS X.
OSX kernel extensions are very rare. Almost no program uses them except Norton products(anti-virus and disk doctor). I recommend staying away from Norton stuff for this reason and using Alsoft's Disk Warrior. Third party kernel extensions are a bad idea on any OS.
In other words, the speed these people think they're seeing are actually do to a horrific lack of features.
What features are lacking?? The Intel dev Macs have Firefox, iPhoto, iDVD, and Quicktime installed. The average user may install some extra dashboard widgets and a driver or two, but I doubt that would add more than a couple seconds to boot time.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by krbvroc1 · 2005-07-13 13:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

There is no way for the system to 'detect a change'. There is not magic signal that the motherboard produces if a PCI card is inserted. In fact, for consumer level motherboards, inserting a PCI device while the system is powered will fry your system since they are not HOT swappable/insertable.
Your point makes sense though about making some sort of assumed last known configuration the default. This would require the user to hit a button if they change their config so a full reboot with full PCI scan could ocurr - probably not too user friendly.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by Rosyna · 2005-07-13 13:15 · Score: 5, Informative

If your default boot disk is available then a normal Mac doesn't take anytime looking for other boot devices. These Intel dev Macs do support booting from USB drives so that is not the case anyway.

What makes you think they support booting from USB drives?

OSX kernel extensions are very rare. Almost no program uses them except Norton products(anti-virus and disk doctor). I recommend staying away from Norton stuff for this reason and using Alsoft's Disk Warrior. Third party kernel extensions are a bad idea on any OS.

Uhm, I hope you realize that apple includes many as well that aren't exactly usable on these Dev kits. Such as Bluetooth kexts, ATI kexts (or Nvidia kexts), Airport kexts, netboot, FWTDM kexts, Audio kexts (there are 8 audio kexts loaded on my G5), CHUD kexts, fan control kexts, slew, voltage, sensor kexts, and other kinds of kexts that either lack the hardware or software support on the Intel Dev Kits.

Then for third party kexts there are Logitech Drivers, Norton Utilities kexts, Virtual PC kexts, the Ambrosia kext, DiskWarrior kexts, and many other third party drivers and kexts that shouldn't be loading at startup and shouldn't even be kexts but are.

What features are lacking?? The Intel dev Macs have Firefox, iPhoto, iDVD, and Quicktime installed. The average user may install some extra dashboard widgets and a driver or two, but I doubt that would add more than a couple seconds to boot time.

What makes you think these dev kits have either iDVD or Firefox installed on them? Did you see iDVD in use during Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote?

See above for a large list. You don't need to load a kext for hardware that doesn't exist.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by antrik · 2005-07-13 13:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

Note that this is really a weakest-link situation: If trippling the disk speed halfed the boot time, it means the disk was actually the major stopper in the *original* setup; however, once you have a very fast disk, further disk speed improvements won't change much. Other factors will become more important now.

When I upgraded my old 1.7 GB disk to a 13 GB one, bootup got *lots* faster. However, now the CPU was the major stopper, and upgrading from Pentium 166 to Celeron 400 again resulted in a considerable speedup. Upgrading to a 40 GB afterwards disk didn't change that much -- the processor is still the slowest part in the system. After another CPU upgrade it would be different again, of course...

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All my comments get moderated +-0, spotless.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by jerkychew · 2005-07-13 14:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

As someone that's built thousands of Windows machines over the past few years, let me be the first to say this: Out of the box, on current hardware, Windows XP is blazing fast. What slows it down is all the bloatware and DLLs that you load up as you install software.

Take XP, load Office 2003, Norton AV, the standard CD burning and DVD viewing apps, and watch the performance (and boot times) degrade considerably.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by Rosyna · 2005-07-13 16:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

The fact that it's already been confirmed that iLife '05 ships on the Intel Macs? Did you even watch the WWDC keynote you're referring to? Jobs' entire presentation was done on the Intel Mac.

They do, do they? Where was it confirmed? And at what point in the keynote did Jobs ever show off anything but iPhoto and iTunes? http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc05/ There's the keynote. Go ahead, tell me where.

and FWIW, I was at the keynote. What's in the dock during the keynote is all that comes with the dev kits.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by hcdejong · 2005-07-13 23:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

Tiny? It's 3-5W for my Mac mini. Doesn't sound like much, but it's yet another 26 kWh/year (2% of my power bill). Too much for my taste, especially when it's not the only device that has a large idle/off power draw. My VCRs consume 10W apiece doing nothing, etc.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by Octorian · 2005-07-14 00:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

Many people in the Windows world seem convinced that a major cause of a slow machine is "I've got a lot of things installed on it".

Now those of is in the here see that as nonsense, since filling up the hard drive with not-currently-executing code does not have any impact on memory usage or CPU usage.

However, a lot of Windows programs have this tendency to install things that "always run in the background", and that does eat memory and impact CPU load. Back in the day when I actually used Windows a lot (and when RAM was still expensive), it was commonplace for people like us to spend the time digging through the Start Menu and the Registry to disable all those little side-processes.

As a result, people like me had machines that were MUCH faster and more responsive than most normal people with their storebought machines with specs usually much better than mine on-paper.

I suspect the same may be true today, between store pre-loaded crap and resident bits of installed software, even if cheap RAM has averted some of the issue.
Re:Boot times disk/network bound by aug24 · 2005-07-14 00:25 · Score: 4, Funny

"Although there's usually a few seconds between the machine powering up and the apple logo appearing. What's going on during that time?"

Memory test.

Nope, I'm damned if I can remember what it's doing for those few seconds. Now will you tell me the damn answer?

J.

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You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.

Re:Dual Boot by maztuhblastah · 2005-07-13 10:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

The developer version of OS X can run on non-apple hardware, but only if you think troubleshooting is fun (read: not well). The versions that will reach consumers on Intel systems will be DRM'ed to prevent this. It will be crackable, but the 1% of the population that can do this isn't Apple's target market anyways.

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The real litigious bastards...

Re:Dual Boot by uncle_fausty · 2005-07-13 10:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

For God's sake, will you please stop beating this issue to death? No, MacOS will not officially run on non-Apple hardware. Yes, l337 h4x0rs will probably find a way to make it happen. No, it will not be the rosy seamless computing experience MacOS provides on controlled hardware. Apple's success in OS development is in no small amount tied to their control of the hardware it runs on; don't expect that to go away anytime soon.

Impressed by Tamerlan · 2005-07-13 10:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

Intel outperforming PowerPC was kind of expected. However I am impressed with a technology behind Rosetta. Are ther any open source projects like that?

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my sstream of consciousness

Re:Impressed by poleshifter · 2005-07-13 11:24 · Score: 4, Funny

cherry os

Re:Dual Boot by AKAImBatman · 2005-07-13 10:52 · Score: 3, Interesting

Sometimes I have the need to develop on Mac environment for compatibility requirements, but I don't really want to buy a Mac just for that. For example I don't buy a TUX machine to run Linux.

You would if it was important enough to you. I bought mine so that I could support Apple users. i.e. I saw a very real use for the machine. (Best purchase I ever made, BTW.) With Linux, there's just too much noise and not enough signal to make anyone want to purchase a Linux-built Desktop machine.

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Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade

64bit and vector code by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-13 10:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

So simple stuff runs as fast or faster...

How does the Mactel box do on floating point, 64bit and/or vector based code? The main reason for getting a G5 was to improve performance of 64bit/floating/vector code like is used in video production and scientific apps.

Since Intel has always been shaky in floating point and probably doesn't really know the meaning of vector I'm wondering how those kinds of apps will fare on the Mactel boxes.

Re:64bit and vector code by jiushao · 2005-07-13 12:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually you have it a bit backwards. The P4 is rather back to the roots for Apple, an excellent SIMD performer with a bit so-so performance on linear floating point. It was the initial issue with the P4, a weak x87 implementation with a great focus instead on the excellent performance of the SSE2 (and SSE3 with the prescott).
Compare this to the G4, another weak linear performer that Apple more or less specialized in getting to fly through good use of the excellent Altivec unit. The G5 on the other hand has a somewhat weak Altivec unit but a much beefed up set of single-element FPU units, yielding so-so vector performing but good linear performance. IBM did probably not focus much energy on the Altivec unit but instead threw it in since Apple required it (after all, the single-element FPU performance of the G5 almost puts the Altivec unit to shame).

Some might now be quick to point out that Altivec is a nicer instruction set than SSE2/SSE3, this is by most standards true, but if you are hand-coding assembly you can make do with either. On the flip side Intel has quite impressive auto-vectorization support in their compiler.

So, what does this add up to? The G5 is in a good place for beating the P4 on unoptimized unvectorized code, but the P4 really screams if things are tuned up a bit. Considering Apples history with Altivec I think we can safely assume that they won't be afraid of doing some hand-tuning to get good perfomance.

This all ends up looking quite favorable for the P4, I still don't think we will see a commercial Mac with a P4 derivative in it, but anyone who thinks the P4 is a weak performer has another thing coming. For a bit more on my opinion on the state of the x86 vs. PPC today see my earlier post in the "Apple Switch to Intel Not a Big Loss for IBM" story.

Intel Graphics by saterdaies · 2005-07-13 10:54 · Score: 5, Funny

Clearly the speed boost comes from the amazing graphics capabilities of the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900. I mean, the 900 stands for 450 times better than their last integrated system which was numberd 2, right?

Re:Dual Boot by cappadocius · 2005-07-13 10:54 · Score: 3, Informative

On the opposite side of the coin, does that mean that future Mac OS can run on any Intel (and AMD?) machine?

No. The version of OS X on the developer Macs may be compatible with other PCs, but the final product will be tied to an special Intel DRM chip that will prevent it from running on other machines.

The developer machines are loaners and will go back to Apple in two years, and will not continue to be supported.

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omnia tua castra sunt nobis

Re:The real question by networkBoy · 2005-07-13 10:55 · Score: 4, Informative

I get 7 hours on my p4-m notebook.
so I'm thinking they may see an increase.
-nB

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whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump

Re:The real question by savagedome · 2005-07-13 10:56 · Score: 5, Funny

Performance is nice, but it isn't always everything

Will you explain that to my girlfriend please? Please?

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Free XBox, PS2

Talk about a 180... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-13 10:56 · Score: 5, Funny

So now that Apple is going to use Intel processors, Apple developers are allowed to note that Intel makes faster processors?

I should feel vindicated, I suppose.

What the... by jav1231 · 2005-07-13 10:57 · Score: 4, Funny

So...the development Mac's run XP faster than other vendor's boxen? This is getting weird.

Integer vs. Altivec by WatertonMan · 2005-07-13 11:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think most of us expected the P4 to perform better for Integer like code on applications that don't effectively SMP. So that's not that surprising. I am surprised at the speed of Rosetta, although that will be a mixed bag once again depending upon the application.

What I'm really interested in is speed on stuff that really leveraged Altivec, like A/V programs. I'm curious about Quicktime 7 for instance. Now some of these programs can use some similar functions on the P4. But from what the Altivec folks were telling me some code ought differ by as much as 50%. (i.e. the PPC is twice as fast) A nice simple test is to compare programs like iMovie on both platforms.

Re:Integer vs. Altivec by ArbitraryConstant · 2005-07-13 11:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

The altivec implementation on G5s is weak compared to that on G4s, so the advantage isn't as great.

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I rarely criticize things I don't care about.

Re:The real question by lightyear4 · 2005-07-13 11:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Son, perhaps you should inflate her?

Re:Dual Boot by keytoe · 2005-07-13 11:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

the final product will be tied to an special Intel DRM chip that will prevent it from running on other machines.

I keep seeing this spouted around as fact, but I have yet to see anywhere where this was stated in any official capacity. They may do that. They may not - they haven't said one way or another. Outside of the iTMS, Apple hasn't done much with DRM, and I'm pretty sure that was only to make the labels happy - so I'd say it's still pretty much up in the air.

So stop saying it like it's a fact, please.

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Culture is more than commerce

Re:Intel Mac's poor hd performance by oberondarksoul · 2005-07-13 11:12 · Score: 4, Informative

Methinks you've been had. This is an update of a quite famous rant made about one of the earlier PPC Macs, the 8600/300, as found here.

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And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race

Re:Dual Boot by blackmonday · 2005-07-13 11:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

Actually, Apple makes money selling iPods!

But seriously, I hate the "Apple makes money selling machines, not software" myth. Apple also makes a killing on software, and there's higher margins than hardware. Steve Jobs said Tiger had already sold a million boxed copies of Tiger at the WWDC. Multiply by $129? That's a lot of cash coming from just the OS. And don't forget about their stance in the professional media market. How much is Final Cut Pro selling for these days? What does Motion cost?

Re:Big-endian vs. little-endian by javaxman · 2005-07-13 11:19 · Score: 4, Informative

This is a problem only when it comes to data I/O to non-native programs ( meaning PPC code running under Rosetta ), really, isn't it ?

It's likely that Rosetta is pulling a lot of tricks, I/O level and otherwise, and when you're reading data from a hard disk or the network, using a few spare CPU cycles to swap some bytes around isn't going to be noticed *at all*, because if you're doing that sort of I/O bound processing, you'll likely have plenty of CPU cycles laying around to swap bytes in memory.

If you're not talking about Rosetta, but about multi-platform applications more generally, the long answer is in the Universal Binary Programming Guidelines PDF. The short answer is that you abstract away from your own code byte-order issues where possible, and where not possible, you otherwise have separate code paths that do the right thing depending on the targeted platform.

Seasoned developers who coded applications under NeXTStep have been through this once before, remember. This is not a new problem. We've been here before... I avoid binary data formats where it's reasonable to do so.

no by diegocgteleline.es · 2005-07-13 11:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

This just means that the G5 crap being better performing than the Intel stuff was pure marketing BS

Maybe G5s are not so fast. But:

"It's fast," said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel's Pentium processors. "Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5."

So, uh, a 3.6 Ghz P4 is faster than two 2 Ghz G5 - 4 Ghz? - SMP, but 4 Ghz.

Sorry, I don't buy that. Even more if you take into account that Intel isn't exactly the performance/Hz leader - in fact it's the worst performer these days, Opteron and PM beats the sh*t out of that P4 at much lower speeds from what I've read.

There're lots of factors that can change things - freebsd algorithms, are, for one, optimized for i386 variants. Also, Mac OS X is compiled with -Os - optimized for size, no for speed. (Paranoic mode on=Hey, maybe this switch was planned and it's not a coincidence)

And then there's the Placebo effect. IOW: Show me numbers, don't tell me "it's fast", I don't trust you. In Linus' words: "If we can't measure it, it doesn't exists". Unless someone writes a decent comparative, I'll take this article as Apple Marketing - Apple has been very critized for this change, I wouldn't be suprised that Apple is interested in articles like that, showing how good move has been the switch to intel

DVD leak when? by Knight_Walker · 2005-07-13 11:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

So when will the DVD leak and I'll be able to see hackers working on getting it to run on regular x86-machines at http://www.osx86.classicbeta.com/ ? :)

Bad news for Mac software by Tim+Browse · 2005-07-13 11:41 · Score: 4, Funny

This is going to be a real problem for Mac software, because most of it isn't frame limited, and isn't designed to run this fast. You'll be typing a sentence in a word processor, and before you know it, the cursor will have zoomed off and crashed into the right hand edge of the window.

Not good.

Transparency by lullabud · 2005-07-13 11:45 · Score: 3, Funny

Well I think that by transparent they mean that you can see through it. I mean, metaphorically speaking, if Rosetta was a person and it was wearing the apps that ran using it, it would be frightening to see those apps walking around with no body. Very frightening indeed, like a ghost. 65 to 70 percent of normal speed is definitely frightening, so this must be exactly what they mean.

Or the corollary by Colin+Smith · 2005-07-13 11:50 · Score: 3, Funny

Get rid of the unnecessary crap installed on your system to help improve your boot times. Have you seen the junk FC4 installs and starts at boot by default?

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Deleted

Re:The real question by PakProtector · 2005-07-13 12:02 · Score: 4, Funny

No, the real point is in relationships you want to avoid the 'boot' process.

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Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"

Re:It *has* been stated in an official capacity by Shawn+Parr · 2005-07-13 12:07 · Score: 3, Informative

They actually state that it will only run on Apple sold machines, they do not specifically state THEIR DRM'D MACHINES

Rather than using DRM, if they use specific altered BIOS and/or a specific chipset then that is all that is necessary. The OS will not have the drivers/ability to work on other hardware.

Apple will most likely still be designing their own MB's, even if they do include Intel chips, so this is a very easy way for them to maintain sales on their own, still technically proprietary, machines. DRM may be used, but if it does then it will probably be a second line of attack, not the primary.

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Shawn's Tech Articles

Re:Dual Boot by drsmithy · 2005-07-13 12:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

Steve Jobs also said that Apple had no plans to compete in the $500 computer market and then later Apple released the Mac mini.

But by the time they did that, the $500 market had become the $250 market...

Re:reports like this will impact sales by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-13 12:20 · Score: 5, Funny

I definitely won't be buying a PPC Mac. I'll wait for Intel Macs next year.
What overall effect will this have on Mac sales?

It will reduce total sales by one.

Wrong meaning of "Blazing" by electrosoccertux · 2005-07-13 12:22 · Score: 3, Funny

Technically, since this is Windows XP we are talking about (thus 10% processor usage in idle), and its running on a Pentium 4, then it IS running at "blazing" speeds.

Better put out that fire.

Developer Transition System photos by MarcoPon · 2005-07-13 12:42 · Score: 3, Informative

As seen here on Macity.it:

Bye!

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SeqBox

Not more than they are already by LFS.Morpheus · 2005-07-13 13:32 · Score: 3, Informative

I think it will impact sales per se, but not any more then it is already affecting sales. Let me explain.

I bought a 15" Powerbook in September 2003 - this system is a G4 at 1.25 GHz. I love it but I would really like something faster (and with a better graphics chip) so it could be a real desktop replacement. But, this simply doesn't exist. Today's fastest powerbooks are still G4s at 1.67 GHz - an increase of just 34% in nearly 2 years. This isn't enough to make me buy a new machine. The way it was looking, I was waiting for Powerbook G5s - but it wasn't happening (and now, of course, it won't happen).

I am guessing that the significantly faster machines (both desktops and notebooks) with significantly help Apple sales, but will not hurt them more than the lack of speed was already. Increases in performance will correlate to sales, and if IBM was unable to deliver but Intel can, than I think it will help Apple immensely. If people need an Apple box they'll buy one, but right now they're just too slow or too expensive for people to consider (i.e., the fast machines are too expensive).

I look forward to finally replacing my Powerbook with a nice speedy Intel-powered machine in a year or two, and I bet many Apple users will be with me. The new speed will then make it a lot easier to get new switchers on board.

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The space unintentionally left unblank.

Rosetta only translates G3 code, not G4/G5 by green+pizza · 2005-07-13 13:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

The biggest gotcha with Rosetta is that it will not translate opcodes for G4 or G5 processors. There are already some applications for Mac OS X that require a G4 processor.... these *will not* run via Rosetta and will require an x86 recompile to run under the new Mactel machines.

G4 optimized Firefox builds by green+pizza · 2005-07-13 13:48 · Score: 5, Informative

G4 Optimized Firefox 1.1 pre-alpha nightlies (fast!)
http://homepage.mac.com/krmathis/

fishy numbers by commodoresloat · 2005-07-13 15:25 · Score: 5, Funny

There is something fishy about these numbers, I agree.

Well, there is a one in three chance that this study is nonsense.

Re:Dual Boot by sydlexius · 2005-07-13 15:45 · Score: 4, Informative

For instance, as ubiquitous as Creative Labs hardware is, Apple can't support it because it's really low quality compared to Apple's on board audio (designed by Bang Olufsen)

I won't get into the debate about the quality (or lack therof) of Creative's products, except to say that there is a thriving market for aftermarket audio products for the Mac platform (M-Audio being one such vendor).

My point of contention with your post is your assertation that Apple employs the aid of Bang and Olufsen for its built-in audio. While searching on Google reveals others using superlatives that compare Apple's design to the afformentioned company's products, there is no evidence of collaboration. There are aftermarket products made for lines such as the iPod, but that's as close as it gets.

A few more little known facts: Apple uses all Bose speakers even down to the smallest speakers in their systems. And Bose designs the case section where the speaker will be housed in order to provide high quality, room filling sound no matter what system you have.

Furthermore, Bose has only had a limited relationship with Apple, starting and ending with the PowerMac 6400 family. And for the record, the logevity of this particular piece of design has been lacking. Apple has collaborated with other companies on their speaker design, such as utilizing Harman Kardon enclosures/speakers starting with the iMac DV.

Your references to startup tones are tangential, more a matter of taste and style than metrics. Apple succeeds in the the fields of arts primarily because of their decent first-party applications, and additionally because of their ISVs and aftermarket hardware. Many creative types still call the Mac home, and I don't think it's because of trendy start-up tones or hardware companies.

As to Apple's success and appeal, I wholly agree it is due in large part to the bottom-to-top control they have of the platform. I may have made mistakes in calling you out on some of these facts you are presenting. I have spent nearly 10 years working in and around Apple's various offerings, and have admired their industrial design (with a number of exceptions). That said, I would like to think that whatever zeal that I may have for them is grounded in reality. If you can find reference to any of your above claims, I would appreciate that they be presented for sake of perusal.

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