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Apple Hedges Its Bet on New Intel Chips
Corrado writes "The Mercury News is reporting that Apple is still planning to use PowerPC chips well into 2008 for its low end and portable systems. Does this increase the "warm fuzzes" for the Intel move?
More information from TheStreet and lots more links from Google News."
Has anyone ever heard of support? Apple may need the occasional extra lot of processors for years to come to support their existing support contracts.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Apple is just covering their bases. This is merely a safeguard, not an indication that the move is behind schedule.
Why doesn't apple just continue to use both architectures?
This has nothing to do with the change over to Intel. Apple needs to support the warranty its existing base of G4 Macs for at least three years.
Entirely outside the ADC NDA...
If you take a look at Apple's developer tools - specifically, XCode 2.1 and above, you'll find that building binaries for both platforms is fairly easy. I think that Apple not only wanted to allow developers to build binaries for Intel and PPC, but to allow itself some time for the transition. Apple hasn't locked itself into a position where it must switch to Intel on a certain date. This is a good thing.
Really, if we can consider Mac OS X as simply OpenStep 4 (or whatever), then the CPU - to a very large extant - becomes just another part of the machine. With the exception of low level hardware driver experts, do you really care what bridge / Firewire / USB chip is used? Think the same way about the CPU, and you have Apple's apparent perspective on using Intel chips - the OS is fairly independant from the CPU, the developer tools can target multiple platforms, and consumers really won't have too much to worry about.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Apple have stated that the low end will switch to Intel first, so I don't really know what the basis for this `story' is. It seems much more likely that, if they are extending their purchasing options for G4s to 2008, they will stop selling G4s at the end of this year. This would then give them a supply of G4s to use in replacements until the end of the 3-year AppleCare period for the last G4 units sold.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Apple did say the transition would take a couple of years.
It's obvious that after the Intel bomb shell they dropped that they now need to secure supplies of current processors until the entire line has moved onto Intel.
This is common sense. (But you don't have to expect this from news sites that report, even, that Apple might be back-tracking on the Intel switch.)
Intel has made their whole company strategy around low power high performance chips. That was the stated reason for moving to Intel. Therefore, I would think that Portables would be the first thing to move. For example, there is no G5 portable and we've been waiting a long time for a portable with a better chip than the G4. My powerBook is getting long in the tooth, but I won't replace it with another G4 powerBook - what would be the point? - unless it quit working.
The G5 desktops are still very fast and I could see staying with PPC there for a while, but not on portables.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
When an auto manufacturer ships a new engine, they don't immediately halt production of the old ones that it is destined to supplant. A phased transition is simply a reality of the manufacturing business.
Apple doesn't have to rush out an entire new line of units in one big bang. Good engineering and facility planning take time.
Hard disk space is cheap. RAM is less cheap, but having twice as much code and then only loading half of it into RAM doesn't increase bloat at all.
English is easier said than done.
But with PPCs in portables til 2008, that means software will probably support PPC into 2010, if not longer.
The Aztecs predicted the end of the world to happen on December 12, 2012. Seven years out of a mac portable? I'm satisfied.
eric http://www.ericdfields.com/
Apple is not only extending the line for compatibility. If the Cell proves to be a sucesefull processor i think Apple will probably look into IBM for a nice chip contract. This way, what Apple is trying to secretly doing is to decide wich chip will target the high segment and wich one will remains for lower budget machines. Just my 2cts
This move makes sense from the standpoint of smoothing the transition to Intel chips. It may mean additional challenges for Apple's support personnel, but the bottom line is that Apple's typical customer doesn't care what chips are in the box as long as Macs act like Macs and iPods act like iPods, etc... Apple managed the transition to PPC pretty well, so there is a good chance that they'll be okay going to Intel, afterall, there isn't any big rush to do this that I've heard about.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Well, this contract is with Freescale, i.e. Motorola, who make the G4. The G4 is a pretty energy efficient processor, unlike IBMs G5. So the question here is how on earth are the going to make anybody buy a computer, portable or otherwise, powerd by a G4 in 2008?
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
Well, this is not so much about Apple hedging its bets, as it is about timing. A lot of folks anticipate an announcment of new hardware at MWSF in January. It ain't gonna happen!
Having now seen last weeks Intel announcement, it makes me believe it is unlikely they will launch Intel based Macs with 32-bit processors. Both iMac, Pro Mac and XServe are already 64-bit and they will stay that way. Anything else would be seen as a complete failure by the market.
For the mini and portables, the picture is a bit more tricky. From what I can gather from the latest announcements from IBM and Freescale, what I think will happen is that Apple will introduce a mini with a dual core processor from IBM perhaps even in September at MacWorld Paris, and follow up with similar announcements for the rest of the product line. Exception is of course the portables where they for thermal reasons have to stay at G4 until the switch to Intel, hence the agreement with Freescale.
I have a little more detail about this in an article I wrote a couple of days ago.The future is in beta
Frankly I think it's very good news, and I do think Apple stands to benefit greatly from using the same CPU as is running Windows and the majority of Linux boxes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I can see several uses: Future portable products (video player?) and spare parts. There will still be PowerBooks under AppleCare service contracts in 2008.
You hit the nail on the head. In fact, Apple's plans are to phase out the PPC by 2007, that means they will have PPC chips under AppleCare at least until 2010, and I'm sure they'll have many out of warranty repairs for many years to come after that.
Anybody who tries to twist this into "Apple isn't so sure about Intel" is just fooling themselves.
One thing that many people don't consider - does an intel chip HAVE to the of the x86 variety?
- Chris - PC, Apple and guitar Geek
What we know is Apple has secured a line of PowerPC chips into 2008. However, Apple has no commitment to buy. It being for Powerbook, etc is pure speculation on the part of the contributor and contradictory to the keynote.
"The G4 is a pretty energy efficient processor,"
So is an 8086, but you don't use it in a modern computer.
If you went to the pain of adding Altivec enhancements by hand, then you're probably going to have no problem recoding them for Intel's SSE and such. Most major products are cross-platform and have this code written already, and most minor products just used compiler optimizations. Either the hard work is already done, or Intel will do it for them, gratis.
And as I said elsewhere, nearly every program has a G3 codepath, so Rosetta will run them just fine. Those that really got a significant boost from the G4 will be hurt the hardest, so those will be the ones you upgrade first to Intel native versions. Since such apps clearly have made an investment in the platform and have a need for speed, they're also the most likely to be ready first.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Problem is that Freescale (formerly Motorolla) makes G4s, not the IBM G5. Of course, it would make no sense to put a G5 processor in an Intel Mac, because if the G5 were faster, they could simply just ship a G5 Mac instead. Which is exactly what they announced: replacing the G4 with mobile Pentium M first, and transistioning the G5s later. If it were cost effective and/or technically practical to put a G5 onto a little card, they'd probably be using the G5 where the G4s are now. But they're not, so they aren't and won't. Schools weren't holding on to old //e hardware, but rather wanting to run their //e software on those Mac LCs. The PDS card was required because the Mac wasn't really fast enough to emulate the //e hardware in software. Neither problem exists in WRT the Intel Macs. OS X software runs fine natively or via Rosetta, so no hardware is necessary.
Dude, I gotta call bullshit on your numbers. The 970FX most definitely does not dissipate 28watt at peak. Maybe at 50% idle, with the clock throttled back to 66%. The PM also has half the main-memory latency of the G5, and roughly double the integer performance.
Furthermore, Apple isn't interested in sticking Intel's current lineup in their products, they're interested in the next-gen hardware, the ones that provide roughly triple the computing performance at lower power. Did you see some of the pics from last week's IDF? 9 watts for the lower-power laptop parts, with performance to match almost anything the 970 ever did save very well-scheduled and hand-tuned FP and AltiVec algorithms, something that devs don't even have to screw with (mostly) on the x86 side, as Intel's compilers smoke the hell out of anything on the PPC side.
Why we won't see a G5 PowerBook/iBook...
Re:Why we won't see a G5 PowerBook/iBook...
You might also want to check out Apple's Universal Binary Programming Guidelines. Note the section titled Conventions (emphasis mine):
Apple has only give developers an IA-32 roadmap for Intel. Not a single Apple engineer has given any information about future 64-bit support on Intel processors. The reasons for this are outlined in my links above, but the bottom line is that 64-bit x86 chips cannot run the same way that 64-bit PPC chips can. A 64-bit PPC chip (the G5) can run a 32-bit operating system (Mac OS X 10.4) and both 32-bit and 64-bit applications at the same time. However, a 64-bit x86 chip can only run 32-bit and 64-bit applications at the same time under a 64-bit operating system.
This is why IA-32 will be first. Apple has not yet announced what they are going to do for 64-bit support on Intel nor have they given developers the roadmap that we need to prepare for it.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
um, yes...I have. The point is that the Intel "mobile" chips are an alternative in the Intel world. There is no alternative in the PowerPC world. Which means that they can't make anything other than hot laptops, whereas cool intel or amd based laptops are easily available.
Was just saying I didn't realize until recently just *how* hot it was. With no alternative, I can see why that was a major platform change issue.
They need a piece of news to keep people interested in PPC Apple products.
Been to Fry's since the announcement? No electricity in the air.. Just a bunch of high-priced, under-equipped machinery.
Those G4 iBooks won't sell themselves, especially not when they are presumed to be the last of the breed. Who wants that?
If you use the right libraries endian issues are automatically corrected.
No, not at all. Particularly for any software which implements networking protocols (other than character strings based protocols like HTTP), you'll get bugs porting from big-endian software (which don't per se need to use htonX(), as the byte order is the same), to little-endian. Other things will break, where a programmer manipulates data naively. Little-endian systems tend to discourage such naivety pretty quickly, simply cause little-endian is so odd.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Apple is very confident.
The people working on the Intel transition are aware of the risks, and are addressing them like the consummate professionals they are. I talked with a lot of them at WWDC 2005, and they know what they were doing, and they know what roadblocks could come up and bite them.
You cannot repair or replace a G4/1.5 powerbook motherboard with any processor Intel ships. By having supply through 2008, they can satisfy any Applecare requirements they may have. This alone would justify their contract with freescale. After all, Applecare is three years, and they are going to be selling laptops with G4 processors until early 2006.
Further, depending on Intel's price points, there may be a place for G4 iBooks or Mac Minis for a few months after introduction. Apple currently sells laptops and minis ranging from $500 to $3000, which is a very big range. It is not clear to me just how quickly they will change every segment of their laptop and mini offerings. Certainly, the high end laptops will change fast, as Apple is getting creamed in that market. For a mini, though, where battery life is not a critical factor, but price is?
The only concrete statement we have comes from WWDC - they will have something running by WWDC 2006, and will have completed their transition by the end of 2007. That is a two year range, in which every machine must change. I am betting that the G4 will vanish overnight, but I am not going to bet the farm, and having an insured supply of chips means that Apple is not going to either.
It takes confidence to make a change this drastic. I, for one, am in favor of it.
Scott
--- scott_ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu Java, Databases, and Software Magic