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Intel PowerBook Rumor Mill
catdriver writes "AppleInsider has an article guessing about Apple's new Intel portable offerings in early 2006. 'With the initiation of the Intel Power Mac project last month, all five of Apple's Intel Macintosh projects are now said to be underway and moving at an exhaustive, yet fruitful pace. It should come as no surprise that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is reportedly leading the charge, with his heart set on making 2006 the next 1984.' With Mac OS X for x86 now catching up to its PPC sibling, is Apple ready to take the plunge?"
I am sure that there have been some issues, that I have written about before, notably the porting of hand coded Altivec instruction sets to equivalent Intel specific instructions. However, the code bases between Intel and PPC have been pretty close to one another going back to the NeXTstep days. You do remember that NeXTstep ran on Intel, right? At any rate, the next step, no pun intended :-), should be interesting indeed. I am hoping for additional professional plans that Intel specific chips should allow, particularly at the subnotebook (or even Newton formfactor) level. I have been travelling more and even the 12in Powerbook, which has been the best laptop I've ever owned, is starting to be cumbersome.
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Hmm, I wonder what Orwell would think about that.
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
I've been considering a laptop as my next upgrade, since it will use less power, have wireless built in, and be quieter than my desktop with 3 hard drives in it. It will work better as my entertainment center, if it has a TV capture device in it. And I need to upgrade my P-P-P-Powerbook anyway, the screen is cracked.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
So what does this article say really? Apple's Intel based laptops "may" come out in April-May next year? Yawn.
It's not even a wild-ass guess that may become true, nor rampant speculation on something unlikely and unannounced. We all know Intel Powerbooks are coming, just not precisely when. This is just another educated guess within that timeframe.
Wake me when they have something substantive. Though by the time they have anything substantive, it'll be just a few days before the release or at the release anyway.
Yonah is scheduled to arrive in January 2006, and will be followed in Q3/2006 by "Merom".
Most "Yonah" models are dual core, but a low-end model with only one core will be available. Apple will most likely opt to use the dual core "Yonah".
Merom will add 64 bits - yes, Yonah is 32 bits only.
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No, wrong logic. The fact that IBM could not pump out enough PPCs and could not keep down the G5 power consumption (getting too hot) was what prompted Jobs to switch to intel.
It has been speculated in many places that one of the main reasons Intel was chosen over AMD was mobile CPUs. Notebooks is one area where Apple is far behind PCs in terms of perceived performance. While servers and desktops have received new generations of PowerPC chips, the notebooks still use G4s. Although they've been updated, they're still G4s. It would stand to reason that this would be a main area of focus for Steve Jobs and Apple once the change had been made.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I personally don't like OSX, but LOVE the Apple hardware. I would be interested in purchasing a Titanium (x86) and putting Windows and Linux on it. I odn't believe I'm alone with that opinion either.
First glance you may say, good for apple, they still get the money. However, what that starts to do is move mindshare for apple to a premium hardware supplier, not a platform supplier.
I believe there are many people that will consider doing this, and I think this could hurt OSX. This move could put Apple (overtime) going Head to Head with Dell not MS.
No, the reason there are no G5 Powerbooks is that the mobile G5s came out too late and are too slow. Keep in mind that any G5 based laptop computer would max out at nearly 1GHz slower than the fastest Pentium-M and Turion 64 laptops, yet have similar IPC.
I've no plans to buy PC or Mac hardware until I see the value proposition Apple offers in its future products. I am all Mac PowerPC now, but I keep eyeing those cheap Wintel boxes (today it is $299.00 after mail in rebate for an HP with 15" LCD). Hard to resist a bargain.
I don't need new hardware, but if the Mactels allow me to run PC application via Wine or some other software, I'll go for it real fast.
What I would really like to is have one drive boot into MacOS and another with an alternative OS. I would like the Apple computer to boot any PC OS. I don't care if Mac OS X never boots on standard PC hardware.
Mostly I am just curios as to how Apple will engineer these machines.
Change is good.
Insightful?! Wtf! How about bleeding-frigging-obvious. Don't waste your mod points on this crap I wrote.
Most importantly, Altivec, while really fast, only support single precision computations. This is sufficient for improving multimedia playback, applying image filters on photos or compressing music, but lacking for high-precision computations. SSE supports double precision, a big improvement for the scientific market.
I think it means...
"We're tired, but guess what... I got Quake3 to run at 120fps"
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
The Intel Powerbooks have to be first, they've gone from being top of the line to average, performance wise, relative to PCs, though their design and build quality is still the best. eg. my C laptop has had a high res screen for well over two years, and Apple has only just caught up on that.
It's the flagship line for Apple, the most visible (non iPod) member of it's product range, and is probably the driver for most iBook sales as well (for the people who can't afford the real thing). So of course it'll be the first to go Intel. iBooks follow, naturally. Powermacs and xServes will be last - Pro users have a much bigger investment in software and peripherials so will be slower to move anyway. And the mini? Probably somewhere inbetween, and not far behind the iBooks.
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Why does Apple still want to control the hardware? Why don't they just port to Intel and let vendors sell Intel machinces with licensed versions of Mac OS. It'll be cheaper.
Because they then control the drivers and save themselves from the driver compatibility hell that Microsoft has been going through for years. One crappy driver reduces the "experience of Macintosh," and that is not something Jobs would want to do.
So, we have a few groups of people here:
1. Current OS X users.
They will almost invariable switch to the new Intel-based macs. I would say that most of them don't even know or care what chipset they are running on.
2. New OS X users.
These are people who will now be enticed to switch, because of the Intel move, that otherwise wouldn't have been. Perhaps they were waiting for the extra performance that Apple can offer in a laptop now that they have Intel processors. Perhaps they like that they can recompile their x86 specific programs on Macs now. (Yay! SBCL w/ Threading on OS X!? Dare I dream!?!?)
3. New Mac Hardware users (but not OS X)
This is the group you seem to be in. You want the Mac hardware, but don't care for the OS. I can't say I agree with you, but that's beside the point.
So, Apple will have all the people they have now (group 1), some new folks (group 2) and some additional hardware sales to people who are going to install Linux or Windows or BSD or something on the box (group 3).
Do you seiously believe that group 3 is big enough compared to the combined sizes of groups 1 and 2 that it will do anything other than add more to Apple's bottom-line? You aren't going to affect Apple's image unless group 3 is BIG or astonishingly well publisized.
Besides, even if group 3 were very large, we are talking about people who are buying the Hardware for the Hardware's sake. Because it's high-quality, attractive hardware. This could NEVER put them into direct competition with Dell. Dell is all about volumes. High volumes at low prices. Apple is EXACTLY the opposite. If Apple were buying the cheapest parts at the highest volumes to crank out machines as quickly and cheaply as possible, then group 3 wouldn't exist.
Well, those are my thoughts. You know the drill. Grain of sand and what-not.
Justin Dubs
Breathless journalists are always demaning another "1984" from Apple. Well I've got news for you: there won't be any more 1984a in the computer industry. it's too mature And especially not this. Apple changes the guts (to Intel) in a way that has no actual effect on the user interface and this is supposed to be like 1984 how? Idiot.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
Because they're largely a hardware company? I mean, why does Dell still want control over their hardware? Why don't they just package their Dell restore CD to work on other vendor's machines? It'll be cheaper, right?
Only cheaper != more profit. In order to sell their OS as their primary business, they'd need to make it support an ungodly number of weird hardware configurations, and probably raise the price of OSX a whole lot just to stay profitable. Plus, then they'd need to worry much more about piracy. When you're a hardware company, you don't need to worry too much about people downloading your product.
I have NEVER seen that kind of emphasis put on this transition. Way more emphasis was placed on the 68k to PPC transition and the OS 9 to OS X transition. I don't recall reading anywhere that this transition would be the evolutionary step the synopsis makes it out to be.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I really don't think there are many who are considering buying a mac just to install windows or linux on it. Anyway if it were linux that you want on your mac, it's already readily available, in a number of distros.
And your argument that this will "move mindshare for apple to a premium hardware supplier, not a platform supplier." Doesn't really make much sense either, because if apple does manage to gain mindshare as a premium hardware vendor, they would happily go up against Dell, as apple has much better profit margins than dell. (Remember, your argument is people already are ok with spending more for apple hardware... why would that change if over time if the mindshare that they are a premium hardware maker is growing?)
Anyway in this day of many cheap linux boxen replacing 1 expensive Sun or any of the older 'premium hardware' vendors, I don't think apple really expects to be increasing it's profit margins on the computer hardware side, the handwriting is on the wall, profit margins for computers will continue to slide. By switching to intel they will gain some economy of scale, but more importantly, if and when the profit margins on computer hardware become too slim, Apple will will already have the safety net option of just licensing OS X to Dell or HP to build boxes for them, or they could just release OS X as software only and sell it to anyone with the right x86 box.
This move to intel could hurt apple for a number of reasons, but not because people might buy the hardware to install something besides OS X on it.
There is a flaw in that logic as far as I can see. People who are going to buy Apple hardware just to run another OS on it are going to be in addition to the people who are are going to buy it just for the OS, not instead of. It doesn't really matter why you buy a Mac, it only matters that you buy a Mac. That way the company will say "we'll keep doing what we're doing with the OS and the other people will still buy our products anyway." Also, I think there will only be a small number of people who will do this as most people are not geeks like us. Also, there will be a percent of that number who will buy a Mac thinking they will probably buy it just to replace the Mac OS but then use it for a little while and decide to stick with it. Overall I can only see the move to x86 growing the Mac OS mindshare, not reducing it. The only real way I can see the move reducing the Mac OS mindshare is if programmers say to themselves "both mac and windows users can now run our program as as a windows only program since Mac users will be able to dual boot or run windows programs natively some other way now, so we are no longer going to release our programs for Mac." But I doubt that will happen either.
The problem with that scenario is that Apple won't offer support for Windows on Macs, or Linux on Macs. So that rules out any users who might want support, e.g. business and educational institutions. I can't see many normal home users either forking out for a mac, then forking out again for a copy of windows XP, downloading drivers if needed etc. It might be 1% of users (i.e. you if you're reading this) who have got the time and interest for that. And are you really going to go to all that trouble to install windows???
Don't forget as well, that virtual PC will truely *fly* under OS X on intel - it takes away most of the requirements for emulation, so if you need windows stuff, that'll be the way to do it, it won't suck performance wise like it does now.
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1) Where is the profit in letting vendors sell Intel machines with Mac OS X?
Right now for a $1k system they might get $100 profit. If they license OS X for $30, they might get $20 profit (being optimistic here). So if they sold $1.6b Macs last quarter, and have 10% margins (they actually have reported 9.6%), they made $160m; if they license overnight, they'll have to sell 80m copies to make the same amount of profit. Only 177m PCs were shipped last year, so they'd have to take HUGE chunks of the market in order to make a transition profitable.
News article about shipment last year.
So it's not good enough that shipping OS X for Intel is cheaper; it has to be profitable. Microsoft is profitable because they got $30 or so for every PC shipped last year, or $5b in OS licenses last year.
2) Why do they want a bigger share? They only need to make more money, and that doesn't necessarily equate to bigger share. As I outlined about, $100 per PC vs $20 per PC requires an overnight 5x increase in shipment.
If Apple wants to lower prices, they still have lots of things they can do:
a) strip out components: Compare a Mac mini to an XBox 360 or PS3
b) use cheaper components
c) increase process efficiencies
None of those things have anything to do with adopting OS X for Intel en masse.
GPL Deconstructed
Not sure where the "Is Apple ready to take the plunge?" tag came from. Of *course* Apple is ready to take the plunge. They've already announced the switch to x86 processors, and they even gave a specific time frame (2006). It's not like there's any real question here.
Looks like the 12 inch Powerbook is disappearing from the lineup as well (and the 12" ibook is set to become a 13"). It hasn't had a proper update in ages, so the writing's on the wall, but it's a shame, and leaves Apple without a mini-notebook style product. Unless they've got something under wraps...
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Apple has consistently positioned itself as a "boutique" computer manufacturer rather than a low-end manufacturer. It has always been graphic designers, digital sound/video editors, and technology aficionados that have bought Macs. Steve Jobs has no real interest in that changing, although he has touched on the mid-range market with the mini. Dell sells a lot of cheap computers with a small profit margin on each (focus on quantity for profitability). Apple sells fewer high end computers, with a high profit margin on each. I really don't think of them as competing for many of the same people.
> Why does Apple still want to control the hardware? Why don't they just port to Intel and let vendors sell Intel machinces with licensed versions of Mac OS. It'll be cheaper.
1. Because Apple is a Hardware and Software Business, unlike Microsoft. 80% of Apple's profits come from their hardware.
2. Increased development and debugging time to try and make it run on a vast selection of hardware which in turns makes it buggier, slower, and more driver failure prone.
3. Apple doesn't like the idea of Mac OS X, which is beautiful, running on ugly ass hardware.
4. Apple doesn't want to have to try and support everything under the sun, which is what Microsoft tries to do, but often never goes well.
5. Apple doesn't have any form of anti-piracy software in any of their current builds of the consumer level OS. Only the Server editions get that.
6. People would pirate OS X and take a huge chunk out of that measily 20% of their profit intake, take into consideration that already 80% of their profits would be gone, because of supporting other computers.
> I've often heard it said that Apple has priced itself out of the market. If they want a bigger market share they'll need to take advantage of cheaper prices that come through competition. My guess is that if Apple is allowing only specific hardware to run their OS it'll envitably be more expensive.
And those people that say such stuff are about as bright as a lightbulb in a closed fridge. Steve has repeatly said they have no interest in garnering a huge marketshare. They are happy with what they want. Take into consideration what would happen if all of a sudden they had a huge marketshare.
1. Suddenly troubleshooting and technical help services would have to multiply in their size exponentially to keep up with the market mass.
2. Suddenly they'd have to start supporting every piece of hardware under the sun that Windows does, because customers will whine.
3. Suddenly the OS will have a lot more attention from the cracker community, yeah cracker, not hacker. While OS X and all *nix systems are far superior in their security model than Windows, its still not crackproof.
I'd also like to point out if you looked at any of Sony, VoodooPC, Alienware, or other vendors... outside of that discount bargin crap stuff like Dell. You'll see that Apple's hardware is more than reasonable pricing.
I doubt that prices will rise. One of the biggest reasons Apple went with Intel is because Intel is the 800lb gorilla of the market. They can give HUGE discounts on their CPUs that AMD and IBM/MOTOROLA/FREESCALE just can't match. Not because of some "performance lead on the competition." Anyone that can put 1 and 1 together knows AMD clobbers Intel in the gaming, 64-bit, server, and price market.
Right now there is virtually no difference in hardware between OS X and the average run of the mill PC. Outside of the processor and motherboard, which will soon not be there at all. I'm pretty confident that the prices will either stay at their current level or drop down a bit.
Why does Apple still want to control the hardware?
Off the top of my head: One, because they make a good profit on the hardware. Two, because the limited hardware choices simplify OS development, and allow them to make the overall package more reliable.
I've often heard it said that Apple has priced itself out of the market.
This is business, not sports. Just because you're not the top dog doesn't mean you "lost the game". Apple is a niche company in the PC market, and they seem pretty comfortable in that position. 3% marketshare (or whatever it is) doesn't sound like much, but don't forget, it's 3% of a very large number. Apple has been making shitloads of money for the last five years, and will continue to do so in the near future.
In particular, there's no point getting pro-level Mactels into the wild unless Office and Creative Suite are ready to go Intel-native. Maybe MS and Adobe have quietly moved into high gear on the conversion. But last I read, Adobe was thinking late 2006 to get its Carbon-based apps ready for market.
No pro user will rely on Rosetta. On the other hand, one would assume Apple with have its iWork and iLife suites flipped, along with the applications which come with OS X. That will allow home users to make the switch in fairly short order. I'm sure the rumored widescreen iBooks will sell well right out of the box.
But a Mactel Powerbook makes no sense without pro applications. If Apple is really pushing advance release, they must have convinced their major software partners to get a move on.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
"You know, the girl with the sledgehammer breaking that giant screen with Big Brother in it.
Only this time around the girl is the stoner chick from the Switch campaign.
She wanders into the room looking dazed, sees the giant talking face on the screen, then cocks her head like a confused cocker spaniel while trying to use her iPod as a remote to change the channel.
Eventually she wanders out a side exit.
> Will it cost more than a Dell running Windows?
Probably, but how much time can I save by using a Mac instead, and how much is that time worth?
The Intel Powerbooks have to be first [...] Powermacs and xServes will be last - Pro users have a much bigger investment in software and peripherials so will be slower to move anyway.
So, pro users will be slowest to move, and thus the last targeted for transition, and the first thing to change will be the PowerBooks, which are targeted at pro users? Your logic has some internal consistency issues.
Craploads of RAM and HD space
Running the latest version of OSX
Running any version of Windows and Linux in VM spaces
Just reduced my development test machines from four to one
I've currently got six separate machines. My main development box (Suse 9.3), my game box (WinXP), and my four test machines for compatability testing ( WinXP, Win2k on cheap beige boxen, Suse9.3 on a decent IBM Thinkpad, OSX on a MacMini ). Reduce my test machines down to one machine that's also my portable. Lowers my power bill, more desk space, and a portable I can do ANYTHING on (from development, to BF2/Civ4)
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Would one be able to finally compile cedega under an intel-running OS-X system to play games so that people can stop bitching about the lack of games running on Macs?
Consider if you said that about Ferrari or BMW. They have high priced product, and they certainly sell a lower volume than companies that focus on cheap product that has a large market share. Their business sense is generally not questioned; they have a loyal customer base who is willing to pay for their brand. Even items with the Ferrari and BMW logo like jackets and... well... laptops sell well.
Apple is a brand associated with high quality products. Thus they do not compete on price, but rather on perceived quality.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
put the following in order and win a prize!
1) port an operating system from x86 to powerpc (or do it concurrently)
2) release proprietary boxes using new operating system.
3) watch competitor sell os only that run on generic boxes. (wait, couldn't I install nt3.51 on powerpc?)
4) take os and port it (back) to x86 (it was always there anyway)
5) offer a (relatively) virusless experience for the HUGE install base of x86 users for (I'll bet a dollar) very cheap. christmas '07's big gift for mom? an osx install disk that sniffs everything, converts everything, and puts in almost back for her.
6) linger with the x86 support for a few years, while the PA Semi boxes (oh please oh please oh please let it be true) roll out of cupertino for a couple hundred bucks. goodbye big heater boxes, all boxes are small now.
7) insert favorite company that apple takes away from here.
8) oh, and one more thing.
the best beer is always the local - uncle arnold
Apple currently offers iBooks with either a standard 12- or 14-inch screen, but looks poised to introduce a completely new model built around (what appears to be) a 13-inch widescreen. Whether the company will offer other iBook models or standardize around the new widescreen model remains unknown.
I never understood this widescreen frenzy that's going on these days. On a computer, widescreen is much less useful than on a TV. High-screen, that would be handy, because then you can see more of the document you are typing. But why anyone would want a widescreen laptop is beyond me.
-- Cheers!
Short answer: The reason there is no G5 Powerbook is the same as why Dell isn't selling Xeon laptops.
Rant answer:
"G5" alphabetically follows "G4," but that does not automatically mean that a given processor architecture, hidden behind a simplistic marketing name, is appropriate for all uses.
The designation of G3/G4/G5 were arbitrary marketing simplifications for consumers. Each G# referred to a family of chips, some of which are appropriate for mobile, some of which aren't. Demanding a "G5 Powerbook" is one of the simplest knee jerk, ignorant battle cries I've heard in a while. Apple could have called the latest rev of Powerbooks the "G5 series" and been done with it.
Hell why not play like Netscape (or iTunes) and skip 5.0 entirely, and call the current band of anemic Powerbooks G6?
WHO THE FUCK CARES WHAT NUMBER IS ASSIGNED TO A MODEL?
Silly answer:
Having the current PowerMac G5 CPU bolted onto a PowerBook would provide 30 minutes of lap scorching fun.
Yeah, except now it's Apple making the TV screens with the cameras in them. Oddly.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
Go Intel Haifa!
-phozz
So far, Apple has officially said that they will do nothing to prevent Windows from booting on their systems, just that they won't be supporting it. Granted a lack of a BIOS may put a damper on things, but it's too early to know just yet.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
My primary work machine (which costs less than any half decent laptop you can buy) is a desktop class system with 4 GB of ram, 2 CPU's, plenty of fast SATA drive space and a comfortable keyboard and mouse.
So what? You'll be able to get all of that with a Mactel Powerbook if it's a dual core, with the possible exception of the 4 gigs of ram. You can plug your mouse, keyboard and monitor into your laptop just fine...in fact some companies made docks for those periphreals so you could plug them in at the same time. You can buy external RAIDS for Firewire 800, or you can use the gigabit ethernet to connect to a fileserver.
faster than a PowerPC based Mac? As I understand it, the slowdown in performance isn't necessarily from the CPU, but in the way the OSX kernel is designed, which is a hybrid micro/monolithic-kernel. Not that long ago, Anandtech published performance figures too for Linux vs OSX on the serverside, and largely threading issues were blamed for performance. IIRC, there's multiple levels of API's before you get to the 'fast' threads - forgot what they're called on OSX, which slow the threads down on OSX vs Linux. Will switching to a new CPU necessarily give any performance benefits at all over the old PPC CPUs?
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels