Will You Stick with Apple, After the Switch?

caseykoons writes "While I understand the /. crowd is likely to be biased, I am curious. Has Apple's decision to switch to Intel Chips lost the company some of its old supporters? I have used Macs since I grew up, was a loyal 'Mac Evangelist' back in the '90's, but the company's decision and the recent connection to Trust Computing have had me wondering if I will stick with the old Apple from now on. What are your thoughts?"

Comments

It's all about OSX..

[Vlad_Drak]

..and it will still be all that it is today. The only people leaving would be the ignorant ones.

Re:It's all about OSX..

[nocomment]

bingo. now if he was one of the guys over at ppcnerds, I might understand.

If you bought your iBook and then formatted and put Debian on it, you will still be able to get your ppc fix. Other than that, you probably bought it for OS X.

I was a little shocked at first too because I like OpenFirmware. I like forth. I also like cheaper faster Mac's and the results of OS X on intel are promising.

Re:It's all about OSX..

[davecrist]

I can't believe people are having this argument so much.

There are two reasons why this is fairly much a moot point:

(1) How many Mac users CARE about the hardware? I have a Samsung monitor, an old Gateway keyboard, and a logitech mouse. Most of my storage is on external FireWire drives. My personal exposure to the BOX is only when I move it. OS X is what makes a Mac so great... who cares what it is running on... and

(b) How do most people even KNOW what CPU their machine is running? How many users have actually opened up the box and pulled the CPU out, taken off the heat sink and compared the numbers on the chip to a reference? Not me. I only know what a G4 is because that's what the OS is telling me it is. It could be a ShitSparc 7000 for all I know. Hell, all of those descriptions of how great the G5 is and how awesome the pipelining is are moot unless you actually: designed the chip or write assembly or other code that accesses the registers on the CPU directly.

I'm working on an MPI project in C. It will run on ANY cluster of machines with MPICH installed. It makes no difference what processor is on it.

Get over it already! It JUST DOESN'T MATTER. Only that FASTER == MORE GOOD.

THAT'S what we should care about... I feel the need... the NEED FOR SPEED.

dave

Re:It's all about OSX..

[TimWeigel]

Yes - all about the OS. Really, it's been beaten to death in the Mac press, but here're my 2 cents: Given that Apple will doubtless keep exercising control over the internal hardware (I don't see just any ol' commodity expansion crap being supported on the Intel Macs), and given that Apple will continue with their spiffy industrial design, and given that they'll keep on trucking with OS X, well, the processor isn't a big deal.

Apple sells a computing experience - distinctive hardware, distinctive software (OS X, iWhathaveyou, etc.), and sundry other devices (iPod, anyone?) - and the processor isn't as important as the hardcore PPC geeks would make it out to be. Processors pack enough grunt these days to make AltiVec more or less superfluous (Depending on your needs, of course. I don't need AltiVec, and I suspect that most people don't either.), so that distinction is somewhat pointless. AMD's spiffy consumer-level 64-bit processors render the G5 a bit less unique (though I prefer G5 to Athlon 64, name-wise). Given that the PPC "cool factor" is starting to wane, it doesn't really matter to the average user.

Of course, I'll still by buying a G4 PowerBook 'cause I want to get one of the last PPC-based PBs ever, but that's more of a nostaliga thing than anything else.

My OS X machines give me fewer headaches than my Windows machines overall, and I don't think a mere change in processor will change that.

Re:It's all about OSX..

[Bastian]

I'm not so sure that the switch will result in a cheaper Mac. MAYBE $100 or $200 cheaper on average, but PPC chips can't be that much more expensive.

But, of course, they aren't. A lot of the price difference also comes from the fact that Apple just makes their computers using more expensive designs. For example, look at the industrial design any Apple computer, and compare it to any of the PCs that give the platform a reputation for being so cheap, and you'll notice a lot of differences in the way they are constructed. Practically everything about the Macs smacks of expensive.

Plus, keep in mind that when you buy a Mac, you're heavily subsidizing the cost of developing MacOS and all its apps. I don't believe for a moment that they could possibly break even selling that thing for $130 a pop, given Apple's miniscule market share.

Re:It's all about OSX..

[HTH NE1]

There have been 5-6 processor changes in the history of Apple.

Apple: 6502, 65c02, 65c816

Macintosh: 68000, 68020, 68030, 68040

PowerMac: 601, 604, G3, G4, G5

That's two major changes in the past (three if you count the Mac OS X compatibility break between the 604 and G3). Should I have counted the processors used in the Newton and iPod? Or NeXT?

Mactel: Pentium 4

And there ends the run of the 6's/G's that harkened back to the original Apple I price of $666.66, unless Jobs gets Intel to relabel the processors for Apple for the production model.

And shouldn't such a major processor change also entail a model name change?

Re:It's all about OSX..

[CptTripps]

The one's I'm calling ignorant are the ones that think the whole OS is going to change because of the chip inside it.

I'm an ADC Select developer, and have one of the P4 'G5' boxes on my desk...I see no signifigant speed differences one way or another on native apps. Photoshop and the Altivec-intence apps are a LITTLE sluggish, but nothing that a native build won't fix.

Rosetta is a real nice little ...er...application. We have yet to find something that'll choke it and not run on this box.

Now keep in mind, this is all just the quickie/development/transition box. I'd expect that the production boxes will have a better processor in them and should make for a seemless user experience.

For whatever reason people are boycotting a Intel, I'd say it's a bit foolish to pre-judge what will/wont be available for another 8-10mos.

Re:It's all about OSX..

[DA-MAN]

Everything I've read is saying Apple obtains the G5 ships for less than the going rate for comparable Pentium chips.

Wow, so Apple buying G5 Proc's in bulk pays less than we do for Intel procesors retail. I bet they will be paying even less buying the Intel procs in bulk.

What makes a Mac a Mac?

[SteveX]

It's not the processor.

Re:What makes a Mac a Mac?

[timdorr]

It's the rampant zealotry!

Re:What makes a Mac a Mac?

[Tumbleweed]

No, it's the zesty sauce! (and the RDF(tm))

Re:What makes a Mac a Mac?

[alan_dershowitz]

Not since Apple has updated their literature, anyway. Wasn't so long ago that they saw fit to trash x86's architecure. A mac was a mac because the architecture was superior.

Personally I don't care. I switched for OS X, the increasing crappiness of MacOS 8/9 in the face of Windows 2K-XP was the reason I left in the first place. They are starting to do most everything right now, as far as I'm concerned.

Yes.

[Spock the Baptist]

I'll be sticking with Apple. Recall that IBM was the object of Apple's animus in the Big Brother ad in 1984. If Apple made nice with IBM, I really don't see the problem with making nice with Intel.

Intel is fine with me

[manual_overide]

I plan to actually buy an Apple after the switch happens. I'm more annoyed at the "lock out" chip to prevent OSX from running on anything but Apple's lineup of Intel stuff, but for the most part, I can't wait to go Mac

Software...

[adamjaskie]

I like their software. Their hardware will still be nice. Not as different, but still nice, even if it is still overpriced. But their OS won't change. It will still be a nice, easy to use OS with Unix underpinnings. That is why I bought my iBook, not because it has a G4 processor.

Re:Software...

[duffbeer703]

I hope you like buying their software again!

OSX is cool, but having to buy all of the other apps again or run them in emulation is pretty damn lame if you ask me!

Re:Software...

[daviddennis]

Adobe and even Apple charged for the upgraded versions that transitioned to native MacOS X. You paid for the version of Photoshop that upgraded, and you paid for the version of Final Cut Pro that upgraded.

But you did get a lot of cool features. I don't remember too many complaints, more a mad thundering rush of credit cards escaping wallets and being taken out for a spin.

D

Re:Software...

[PygmySurfer]

- You have to pay for point releases of the operating systems to stay current. Microsoft still supports six year old operating systems with frequent and free patches. Solaris still provides free updates for Solaris 2.6

Only if you read the versioning that way. I tend to look at them like this: 10.x.y, where 10 is the product (Mac OS 10), X is the major version, and Y is the minor version. The updates you get with each X release are certainly worth the cost. The Y updates are free.

Besides, Windows XP is just a point release upgrade from Windows 2000 (5.0 -> 5.1). So, in the Microsoft world, you're also paying for point release upgrades.

If you look at it by version numbering, it may look like a ripoff. But if you look at what you actually get, its a damn good deal.


- Some schmuck who paid $2,000 for an Apple serial laser printer in 1997 got reamed by Apple in 1998 when it retired all legacy interfaces in new Macs. Either pay $300 for an ethernet adapter or enjoy your $2000 paperweight

Bummer. I'm glad Apple eschews backwards compatibility, however. Not having floppy drivers and parallel ports is a good thing.

The fools who decided to include Apple systems in an enterprise environment is now stuck with two hardware platforms to support. I'm sure the University of Virginia is really happy that they've wasted thousands of man-hours developing computatinon software on Power.

Most enterprises are likely supporting multiple environments anyway (Windows, UNIX, etc). U of V can probably port their software quite easily (especially if they developed it in Xcode). Not to mention, it was likely developed by students. Porting to the new platform would be a good exercise for current students.

The even more foolish souls who try to sell software to Apple users get fucked, since Apple will steer lots of consumers towards Apple software solutions when consumers complain about "slow" programs running in emulation. (End Mac-users don't know shit about processor architectures or emulation)

Apple try to sell their own solution? That's unthinkable! This is no different than any other company.

Why does this make a difference?

[rnxrx]

There has been an unbelievable amount of hype around this change. I guess I'm not sure why so many people seem to have some sort of religious attachment to the CPU. The vast majority of folks (even many developers) never interact in any meaningful way with the CPU itself (e.g. assembly) that would really differ in moving from PPC to Intel. There will be emulation for a while and this will be less than optimal but for the most part this shouldn't have much effect on most users and from a functional point of view will barely be a blip on the radar in 2-3 years.

Barkeep! More Kool Aid!

[BandwidthHog]

Computer user since December 25, 1982

Mac user since July 5th, 1988

I've gone through System 6, System 7, OS 8.1/8.6, pretty much skipped OS 9, and then from 10.0.4 on up to 10.4.2. That has carried me across 8mhz 68000s, some 68020s, a IIfx (I still pine for that machine), various 030s and 040s, a handful of PPC601 upgrade cards, eventually to native PPC machines (some of those with 486 cards in them!), all the way to my current 533mhz G4 tower and G3 iBook.

So what was the question? Whether or not I'm gonna ditch the Mac because of a processor change?

Re:Barkeep! More Kool Aid!

[RevAaron]

So what was the question? Whether or not I'm gonna ditch the Mac because of a processor change?

No, the question was: "Are you going to jump to some paranoid conclusion that Apple is going the way of locked-down, 'Trusted Computing,' the the most evil thing on earth, and stop using Apple computers- even without having any data whatsoever on whether or not Apple will be going that direction?"

And to that I answer: hell no. I mean, what kind of tool makes that decision now? Some sort of freaky INTJ? If Apple announces that in their new Intel Macs that you will have to have a fancy, expensive certificate to write and run new code on their OS and CPUs, to be signed- ala trusted computing style- then maybe I'll dump Apple. But I really doubt that sort of shit is going to happen, at least not now. But people love to jump to weirdo conclusions here. :)

Let me see...

[darkov]

The new Apple hardware will be stylish, perform well, run the best combination of usability and power on the market and be compatible with the other 95% of the computing world. You'd have to be an ideological moron to give all this up because of a "connection" with something that's a bit on the nose. But those sorts of people are few and are already running Linux (but they call it GNU/Linux).

When Apple starts affecting my freedom to use my computer the way I want, or otherwise fucking up the user experience, I'll ditch them.

Re:Let me see...

[ernst_mulder]

>When Apple starts affecting my freedom to use my computer the way I want, or otherwise fucking up the user experience, I'll ditch them.

And go .. where?

Apple caused it

[Zebbie]

From my experience much of the Intel hatred in the Mac crowd was caused by Apple themselves with their anti-Intel campaigns (remember the toasted bunny suit?). In my mind these ads were targeted towards the not-so-knowledgeable crowd who thought Apple and Intel were directly competing companies (which they obviously aren't, Intel being a chipmaker and Apple being a computer-maker). Mac-thusiasts who bash Intel are almost certainly just repeating the same messages that Apple fed to them several years ago.

It seems to me that Apple is just doing what is necessary to ensure that they deliver a top-notch product to their customers, which is a fairly rare thing today. As far as I'm concerned, bravo to Apple for being aggressive enough to make such a decision.

not directly

[anthony_dipierro]

Has Apple's decision to switch to Intel Chips lost the company some of its old supporters?

That decision alone won't directly affect very many people's decision. In the end Apple may lose some customers, if the transition is too difficult for the software developers, or if the Intel chips can't perform as well, or if the rate of piracy goes up. But directly, who cares what company makes the chip? A few zealots, maybe, but the vast majority of the world doesn't make this type of distinction.

What "recent connection to Trusted Computing?"

[mTor]

You're just repeating unsubstantiated rumors. Please, provide us with some evidence that Apple will fully implement TC.

Also, I don't know anyone who runs anything but OS X on their Macs and Apple's Schiller has stated many times that you'll be able to run Windows XP on your machine (but they won't support it) so I don't see how TC makes any difference to me. I don't care about Linux (that's why I run OS X).

Re:What "recent connection to Trusted Computing?"

[sevinkey]

In fact, I would venture to say that Apple will definitely not fully implement trusted computing. From what I hear from Microsoft, the roadblocks to getting Microsoft DRM v2 (WMRM9/10) onto OS X has been Apple, because of their moral opposition to strong DRM.

the answer depends

[sootman]

If it's DRM'ed 9 ways from Sunday then I maybe wouldn't. If it's just a Macintosh with an Intel chip, though, why the hell not? 9 out of 10 blindfolded lab rats can't tell the difference between PPC and x86 without cracking the case. It's not like free-vs.-non-free, (DRM aside, which they could have done with PPC if they really wanted to) it's just one vendor's chip or another. Unless you're an irrational fanboy, it shouldn't matter if it's PPC, Intel, AMD, SPARC, silicon, diamond, neural net, or whatever. It's just a chip in a box you like, running an OS you like, running the apps you like.

Won't matter to many

[Sir Holo]

A computer is a tool. You use it to get stuff done.

An Apple Mac does its best to help you do your stuff done, and gets out of your way otherwise.

This is why many people love their Macs. As long as that doesn't change, we won't care what's on the inside.

Re:Won't matter to many

[DarkYoshi]

Um... Hi. We're computer geeks. We don't care if the computer shoots us in the head and then sleeps with our wife. We ONLY care about the inside.

I'll be switching to Apple

[FullCircle]

Not so much because of the CPU, but because I like the OS. I have been planning this for some time now.

I'm tired of playing "Pimp My OS" with Linux and I hate working with Windows.

The CPU switch does make me more comfortable with the future of the system though. PPC is like Matrox video cards, every few years they release a new version that is the best thing on the planet, then two months later it's slow compared to everything else.

This last generation of PPC didn't seem to live up to expectations very well, but with x86 the CPU is no longer a problem.

I may simply buy a cheap used G5 once the Intel hype kicks in. Apple seems like it has a future for the first time in many years.

Re:OS X

[spir0]

don't even joke about Dell. They're so cheap for a reason.

I Don't Know

[linguae]

I'm not really a Mac user, although I do own a Mac SE and a Performa 6220 (both machines I received about a year ago). I have always liked NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP, and I have always lusted over a Mac with Mac OS X. Mac OS X is magnitudes better than Windows and *nix, IMO. The software available for Mac OS X is also wonderful and very easy to use. And the development environment is something to envy for.

However, a major part of the reason why I liked Macs a lot is because Macs aren't your everyday boring Intel x86 PCs. I completely despise the x86 PC platform and I think it is cheap utter crap. There is nothing elegant about x86 architecture, BIOS, legacy ports, and all of that utter crap that should have been replaced a decade ago. Compare that to PowerPC/Motorola 68k architecture, Open Firmware, USB/Firewire, and all of that other nice stuff Apple adopted over the years. Unfortunately, due to market issues (people wanting cheap machines instead of great machines), the MIPS and Alpha platforms are dead, Apple is now switching to x86 (which will kill the PowerPC), and the SPARC is still staying alive. The Power Mac G5 is of workstation quality. You got the best processors (two PowerPC G5s) and the best operating system (Mac OS X). Now in 2007 the Power Mac will lose what makes that Mac a Power Mac. I just hate seeing elegant platforms die.

With that being said, I hope that Apple releases Mac OS X for regular x86 computers. That would be the best thing that would ever happen for the x86 PC platform, since the only choices we have for operating systems are *nix and Windows. The x86 PC platform needs a better operating system, and Mac OS X will fill that void. Unfortunately, that would probably never happen, since that would completely cannibalize Apple's hardware sales and would lead to mass piracy. As for me buying a Mac, I don't think I'll buy an x86 Mac, but I might pick up a Power Mac G5 in a few years once they become cheaper.

Still, I wish that somebody would build new workstation-quality computers that had an elegant 64-bit RISC architecture, kind of like the Power Mac G5. Sure, a cheap $300 Dell is perfect for Joe Average who needs to check his mail, play his multimedia files, type some documents, and surf the Web. However, what about scientists, engineers, researchers, and other people who need a workstation to do their jobs? Everybody is focusing on Joe Average, but nobody is focusing on scientists, engineers, and researchers. Plus, we need more choices in the computer market. In 2007, we'll be completely stuck with the x86...forever. That completely scares me. We need more choices, soon. I don't want an Intel and AMD monopoly, where there is very little innovation. I want to see a mixture of different chips like we have seen back in the 1990s. Remember Alpha, SPARC, PowerPC, Motorola 68k, and PA-RISC? I wish that we had this diversity in chipsets again.

Re:I Don't Know

[Blakey Rat]

I can pretty much guarantee that Apple will create the most legacy-free x86 you've ever seen... they were the first ones to switch to USB for everything, they were the first ones to drop the floppy, and they were the first ones to offer wireless internet and CD-burners as standard equipment. Apple likes being current, and they have no problem dropping obsolete components.

Mac is Mac

[kcwookie]

It wouldn't matter if it only ran on Bill Gates underware soaked in electrolytes, I will us a Mac. Scrape the intel inside sticker off and it won't be any different then before.

Of course not

[Linus Torvaalds]

I'm not going to stick with Apple! I'll switch to... er... to... er... I'll buy an x86 machine that will run all x86 OSes except for OS X, instead of an x86 machine that will run all x86 OSes. Just to spite them.

A hit from the crackpipe?

[frenchs]

So if your looking to jump off the Apple boat because you don't like TC, what are you going to post to Slashdot on? A Windows Box?

So lets look at the options here:

A) I'm skipping out on a lifetime of mac loyalty and I'm going to run a PC

B) I'm skipping out on a lifetime of mac loyalty and I'm going to run *NIX even though it's UI is terrible.

C) I give up, I'm going to use an etch a sketch and an abacus.

D) Ok, I guess I'll stick with a mac.

Re:No freakin' way.

[linguae]

Same with me. The Mac was the last bastion of hope for those who wanted to avoid the x86 platform without having to pay thousands of dollars for a Sun workstation. The Mac was a blend of elegant hardware (PowerPC and OpenFirmware) and elegant software (Mac OS X). There was nothing crappy about a Mac with OS X. It was something to lust after.

And in 2007, that elegance will be gone. Choice will be gone. There will be an x86 monopoly on computers (except for the SPARC, and who knows how long that will stay). The only choice we'll have left to make is whether to buy crappy hardware and run Linux/Windows on it, or to buy crappy hardware that comes bundled with Mac OS X.

The x86 is one of the worst processor architectures ever designed. It has a crappy instruction set and is filled with hacks. However, due to Joe Sixpack users who believe that higher megahertz == higher performace, and because of stupid companies who fell for that Itanic pile of BS and dropped their elegant architectures, the x86 somehow killed the MIPS, Alpha, Motorola 68k, PowerPC, and PA-RISC archiectures. The x86 isn't popular due to technical superiority. The x86 is only widespread because of some excellent marketroids running the company, and because Joe Average can't walk into the computer store and buy himself a MIPS or PowerPC machine.

Yep

[MBCook]

I switched in February.

I'll stay with the Mac after the transition. Hopefully it will make things better. If not, I doubt it will make things worse. As another poster said, I could care less about the hardware (I like it, but it's not a dealbreaker). I want OS X (and to a lesser extent, iLife). That's what will keep me with the Mac.

I do like the switch in some ways. It means there will be no reason to release graphics cards and other hardware for Macs 6-12 months later (if at all). Since the underlying chips are the same, it's only the drivers that would stop you. That mean more hardware, more competition, and therefor better prifces.

It should also help with ports of programs (like games) from Windows. You loose the hardware excuse, there is no platform endieness issues, etc. As long as you write something portable (OpenGL, for example) porting shouldn't be that hard. And for those who don't, I fully expect someone like TransGaming to make something to let me run them on my new hypothetical Mac anyways.

As for DRM, that doesn't really worry me. I certanly trust Apple far FAR more than I trust MS in that department. And if worse comes to worse, I can always go back to Linux.

Re:No freakin' way.

[FLAGGR]

OSX on ARM? Funny. You really don't know what your talking about do you? ARM is nice for their ipods, but not their powermacs (I just assume the ipod uses arm) Unless you spend all your time coding in asm (and I hope you wouldn't, modern c/c++ compilers can do better asm then humans anyway) then you shouldn't care about which architecture your using. PPC may sound better in docs, and may be a cleaner arch compared to old x86, but I'm sorry, compare the G5 to your amd64 (yes I know theyre not using amd, but intel's been slack with their 64bit, and the amd chip is still an x86_64 chip so all is well) in terms of power consumption, heat and performance. Or the G4 vs Pentium M for the same reasons. Sure, PPC may be a cooler arch, but unless you plan on living in a dreamworld, x86 beats out ppc.

Sure you can run Linux or *bsd on your intel machine, but you can on a ppc machine too. That's not the point of having an apple computer. The x86 darwin port is not the same as the OSX x86 port.

Why would I switch?

[nerdsv650]

Why would I switch away form Apple? The answer lies in why I switched to Macs in the first place. Terrific integration between well designed hardware and an OS which is robust, performant, familiar (I'm a BSD user since BSD 2.8), available (mostly) in source, pretty, and most importantly, just works.

Is a substantial amount of this going to change when the CPU changes? Not likely. I've been running Darwin on a PC for some time now, just to get a feel for it and all seems well in all regards (OK, it's not yet pretty).

Will I switch? Only if Apple messes up big time. All indications are that I'll be replacing whatever hardware will need replacing with whatever Apple happens to be offering at the time I decide I need to replace.

-michael

Can't wait!

[chochos]

Man, I can't wait to get my hands on a 17" PB with an intel processor that will go twice or thrice as fast as my current PB. I'll be selling this one right away, which shouldn't be a problem, and getting one of those because man are they going to be fast... I use my Mac mostly for java development and the usual web surfing, mail viewing, Instant messaging... also for VoIP, organizing my photos, making the occasional DVD, ripping CD's for my iPod, recording and playing music with GarageBand... none of that stuff is going to change at all. The switch to intel, to me, only means a faster powerbook.

Survey: Switch attracts 6X more than it repels

[KH2002]

Forbes.com had an article about a comprehensive consumer survey conducted by S.G. Cowen & Co. in June. 1,443 households were surveyed.

"Some pundits had speculated that Apple would lose Mac market share while it transitions from IBM's PowerPC chip to Intel's Pentium. But 16% of the responders said the decision by Steve Jobs' team to switch to Intel made them more likely to consider buying Macs. Only 2.7% said they were "less likely" to buy a Mac because of the switch."

So according to this survey (and it was a pretty big survey), the switch is 6X more likely to encourage Mac purchases than to discourage them.

Of course the civilian population reacts differently than Slashdot readers...

Hell, I'm switching *to* Apple

[FFFish]

I've had it with the hodge-podge accumulation of hacks of a Wintel-based computers and the excrecable Windows craptastical OS.

I. Want. Something. That. Just. Works.

So I'm making the switch to Mac.

I don't give a flying fart for what's inside the box, just so long as it works. I want to plug stuff in and have it work. I want to install software and have it work. I want to do my work, without having to work on making stuff work.

Windows has never made that possible. Wintel hardware has never made that possible. Linux certainly hasn't made that possible.

So I'm hoping OSX does the trick. It certainly can't be any worse.

Thanks for the input.

[caseykoons]

I apologise to those who thought my submission was inappropriate. I was mostly curious about the security implications of the switch. Personally I don't see much a difference between the chips and I agree to many of the comments regarding the increased versatility of the new computers.

My main concern with the switch was the DRM issue, but those who have touched on it here seem to think that Apple will handle the issue in a way that preserves the security and integrity of the system. Maybe I shouldn't, but I trust you all on that.

Having recently purchased a little iBook with little need to do more that surf and mince words, I think I'll hold out until the IntelMacs have been around long enough to get the bugs out.

Just the sort of thinking that kept my PowerMac G3 in service way too flippin' long.

Reverse switch with a half-twist

[gabe]

As I am a Mac user who owns a PC explicitly for the purpose of gaming, I am quite happy with the switch. Soon I'll be able to ditch my PC, and have a dual-booting Mac instead. I'll keep a Windows partition around as a gaming platform.

Shucks, I'll have to reboot to play games, until VirtualPC or another suitable product works well enough on Intel Macs.

Yes will stick

[DVant]

I run a media production studio in Melbourne and we have a healthy mix of hardware. We Have a couple of generic Windows Boxes for day-to-day work, a debian based server, two G5 workstations and a powerbook. The reason I have always used Apple is the Hardware/Software integration and the (albeit recent: 4-years or so) quality software. Most of our visualization for film and TV work is done on the G5's without a hitch, but thats down to tight SW/HW integration and nothing more. Apple don't tend to give a toss what their customers want or like most of the time, but if you've used most big name hardware this is nothing new. Sony is a wonderful example of this too. We have far less day to day hassles with the G5's than we do with the WinXP boxes, but maybe thats just us, or that we chose bad with the hardware in the Win boxes. Either way, the intel switch will likely make little difference to us.

I've got a better one.

[Ironweaver]

Will you stick to PC's, after the switch?

"elegant"

[Mr.Progressive]

From Ars Technica:

See, there's often a difference between what a company sells and what consumers actually get when they purchase the product. Apple Computer, Inc. has "sold" slightly exotic, "technically superior," performance-oriented hardware for years, regardless of where the company's products have actually stood vis-à-vis the PC on the performance ladder. Or, to put it differently, the "RISC" PowerPC architecture has been a core part of the Apple brand and the overall "mythology" of the Mac platform since the 68K transition, even if that architecture rarely delivered on company's promises with benchmark numbers. So what Apple fans are mourning right now isn't the loss of some actual technical superiority of the Mac hardware, but rather the loss of the perception of that hardware's "technical superiority." Even more importantly, Mac enthusiasts are also mourning the loss of that perception's role in the ongoing maintenance of the myth of Apple and of the Apple brand in the form in which these two have coexisted in the PowerPC era.

Look beyond the mythos and marketing, man...

Some of us actually HAVE written asslemby...

[SvnLyrBrto]

> or write assembly or other code that accesses the registers
> on the CPU directly.

... and that factors heavily into why I, for one, am so aghast and disgusted at this change.

My own first exposure to x86 assembly was CS311; I forget the actual title, it was "Microprocessor Architectures" or something like that. Now, start off with the the general cruddiness of the x86... the general lower reliability and quality, little-endian, segmented memory addressing, the 1MB limit and the hoops you have to jump through to access any more, and the very existence of real mode. Remember, this is the architecture that was purposely designed, from the outset, to be a worthless POS that wouldn't be able to seriously compete with the higher-end offerings of the company Apple is abandoning.

But the real clincher was when it cam time to do the actual assembly programming exercises. The way the professor had us progress was through a series of increasingly difficult (For a 300-level class, that is) exercises, all in M68K (I forget which actual model in the series.) assembler. Then he had us solve, from beginning to end, the exact same set of problems, but for x86 (Again, I don't recall the actual model.)

Until then, I too was kind of ambivalent about the whole PPC vs. x86 thing. X86's were in PCs, and PPC's were in Macs and workstations. But that class, and seeing, first hand, what a colossal POS x86, assembly and all, is; is what firmly cemented me in the PPC/Macintosh camp, and instilled a deep and abiding loathing for x86 and everything that goes with it.

So yeah, some of us actually HAVE been exposed to, and DO care, about these sorts of things.

Now, I'm not quite sure I'm willing to join the lunatic fringe and buy a Sun or SGI off of eBay to use on my desktop, once Apple switches to wintel. But I certainly don't see myself paying the Apple price premium, once they downgrade. If all I have realisticly available to me is crappy-ass broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash; I may as well have CHEAP, crappy-ass, broken-by-design, unreliable, wintel trash.

The point immediately above is abrogated though, if Apple slashes their prices down to the levels of their x86-peddleing compatriots when they make the downgrade.

cya,
john

Re:Some of us actually HAVE written asslemby...

[wfeick]

I've written assembly as well, but haven't needed to in years. And I'm not talking about a school project, I'm talking about real world code. Lots of it, over many, many years of my career.

Why on earth do you care about how clean the assembly language is for a particular chip? Do you care about how clean the microcode is in the computer in your car? Do you care about what goes on inside your TV or VCR? The vast majority of people buy a computer for the applications they can run on it, and never do any programming at all. Of the minority that do program, the vast majority are never exposed to anything but high level languages.

If you're writing the code generator for a compiler, I can see as you might care. But even there, there are larger issues. Apple is switching to Intel chips because Intel is achieving more performance for a given power/heat budget than the PPCs. Intel has economy of scale on its side as well. The end result is better for the user of the computer.

Sure, I agree that Intel's instruction set is not that pleasant to deal with, but seriously dude, get some perspective.

Re:No freakin' way.

[__david__]

and I hope you wouldn't, modern c/c++ compilers can do better asm then humans anyway

No they can't, not even close.

Well, it depends what you mean by "better". Can a compiler get a inner loop optimized as well as a human can by hand? Well, I had this exact argument with a guy at work who wrote a memory test for an embedded system in assembly because "it needed to be fast". So I said, "why did you waste your time writing in assembly?" I wrote a C version and the compiler ended up optimizing it better than the human had (16% faster!).

On the other hand, in general I find that when looking at compiler generated assembly I find things that I would have done differently (that is, better). But the downside is writing assembly that works is a pain in the butt. And this is where the compiler kicks a human's ass. I have found compiler bugs where the compiler spits out the wrong assembly, but 99.99% of the time it produces assembly that corresponds to your source code. And since C is at an ever so slightly higher level of abstraction from assembly you are guaranteed to write better code in C.

Only fools write first in assembly any more. Assembly should be reserved for things that absolutely can not be done in C, like interrupt routine wrappers and extremely speed critical inner loops. Otherwise you are just making an unmaintainable mess for no reason.

So, if by "good" you mean the tightest, fastest, most optimized code possible, then you are generally right. A really good human can generally outdo a compiler. But even then not 100% of the time. Now, if by "good" you mean code that is maintainable and bug free then no, a human writing assembly cannot even begin to compete with a compiler writing assembly from human generated C.

-David

In Other News, Ford Switches from V6 to Straight 6

[Logger]

Why would it make a difference? If you are a loyal Ford/Benz/Honda/etc. owner, and you found out the company was switching the type of engine used, would you look elsewhere?

You will ask yourself:
1) Will it be as reliable as the old type of engine?
2) Will it get at least as good fuel efficiency as the old type of engine?

You don't buy a car based on the type of engine it uses. You buy a car based on what it consumes (type and quantity of fuel), and what it produces (locomotion).

Computers are purchased the same way. The question is more about how smoothly the transition will be made, than it is about Intel processors. New model year cars generally have more hiccups than the 2nd or 3rd year. I can only imagine this will be the same way. Doesn't stop people from buying new model cars though.

Palm has already eaten their seed corn...

[argent]

And just as soon as Apple subsumes Palm they'll have my whole personal-computing niche sewn up.

I'm not sure that Palm has anything left to save at this point. The Lifedrive is a lunatic device, and now they're talking about Linux? What's left of Palm that would be worth subsuming?

Re:No freakin' way.

[91degrees]

VHS was superior.

It had longer tapes. This is what people were after at the time. This was a substantial difference at a time when betamax tapes were limited to just one hour.

Cheap 64 bit RISC workstation from EBay

[spaceyhackerlady]

Just for the hell of it I bought my very own 64 bit RISC workstation on EBay, a Sun Ultra 5 (360 MHz UltraSPARC IIi, 512 MB). With Debian Linux it's entirely serviceable, with interactive response like a fast Pentium II box.

It works fine for all the usual applications. It even has PCI slots, one of which has a cheapie 3rd party USB card in it. Which works just fine. This isn't a good box for playing DVDs, but for what I paid for it, I'm not complaining.

I like the fact that it is immune to both Windows and x86-based attacks.

...laura

Loss of Backward Compatibility: A Real Issue

[DJSpray]

There is one problem that I see looming. I'm a long term Mac user and have done a lot of development on the platform for 68K MacOS = 7, PowerPC MacOS through 9, and MacOS X, everything from drivers to GUI applications, HyperCard, C, C++, AppleScript...

Over the course of 20 years with the platform I have a lot of old code, little apps, archives, tools, and old software. I've got programs ranging from a version of Quicken from a few years back that I never bothered to upgrade, to a lot of documents that require old applications: Claris Draw, Canvas, Word 5 and earlier, Nisus, archived files that need DDExpand to open, or Compact Pro, or really old versions of Stuffit. Even old desk accessories. Think C projects. Apple Dylan stuff. Ready, Set, Go! files. Archives from a half-dozen different e-mail programs. Old applications like a Turing Machine simulator. Really old stuff.

And, a lot of it, stuff that never became PowerPC-native, much less for the Intel ISA.

Over the years as I've had time, I've tried to get ancient files into either plain text or something more compatible with modern applications, but there is a lot of my old writing, drawing, and programming material I haven't gotten around to yet.

While very CPU-specific tools have always broken, Apple up until this transition has had a remarkable record of backward compatibility. Unfortunately it sounds like they are going to drop support for Classic altogether. It is easy to understand why; it would need a lot of hacking to handle all the endian transforms.

I'm all-too-aware now that the clock is ticking on this stuff. It makes me wish I had not even bothered to maintain all this stuff in digital form over the years, but just printed out a few hundred pounds of paper instead. Unfortunately, as they say, you can't grep a tree. I'll probably have to buy at least one more PowerPC-based Mac. But I find it appalling that the compatibility story for my old PC files, including DOS applications, is now better than Apple's compatibility story.

As far as financial impact to me: almost none. But the discontinuity in my whole history on the platform -- almost the whole salvageable history of anything I've ever done on computers, given that writing and programming I did for the TRS-80, Apple II, and C64 is irrevocably gone -- is disturbing, and really is making me think harder about the problems associated with digital data in general.