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Apple Joins BAPCo
DigitalDame2 writes to tell us Gearlog is reporting that Apple has joined up with Windows benchmarking consortium BAPCo as a full blown member. From the article: "This is significant because it means that Apple has now committed to Windows-based performance testing, and it will influence industry-standard testing methodologies going forward, possibly including Mac OS X testing."
It's obvious that this was just done so Apple can more easily load Windows XP by default on new Macs and phase out OS X. I mean, that's why Avie's leaving after all, his precious mach isn't used in Windows.
Does this mean that Windows Vista will be delayed yet again until it passes the Apple user interface benchmark? Maybe Microsoft should license Mac OS X.
Apple's not phasing out their #1 competitive advantage. Avie's leaving because he rich, he's worked very hard for decades, and wants to enjoy himself a bit.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Your "obvious," I suppose, is another person's crazy
Is there any way MS could pull the rug out from under Apple if Apple goes further than MS likes? You know, oops, Windows won't activate on Macs anymore. I'm sure the EULA retains MS's right to revoke a license any time they see fit.
Maybe Microsoft should license Mac OS X.
You probably meant this facetiously, but if you look at the numbers for what MS blew on the Longwind debacle, and what it would cost them to buy a license for OS X, it makes sense.
When Apple was in the same boat with Copland, they were able to buy NeXT to recover from the disaster. MS has just spent several billion on a failed development project, they're going to ship SP4 six years late and pretend it's Longwind, and they really need to consider whether it's a good business decision to keep throwing good money after bad, trying to update their botched VMS knock-off.
The Evil Empire has killed off all of the other OS's they could buy, with the possible exception of Solaris. An OS-X license would cost them a couple of billion at a minimum, plus a hefty ongoing royalty, but it would cheaper than what they're doing now. As a bonus, life improves drastically for their users. Something to consider.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This move makes sense: now they're working with (more or less) the same hardware, they must hava a common benchmark to measure their hardware performance.
Does it mean Apple will use new Intel CPUs as soon as they'll be available ?
AFAIK - that's the only way to play the speed game in the Intel world.This move makes sense: now they're working with (more or less) the same hardware, they must hava a common benchmark to measure their hardware performance.
Apple must be very confident about their benchmarking results.
mootion.com - Never underestimate VCs stock options (was: Web 2.0)
Vista requires _really_ powerful graphics capabilities to display its higher end Aero Glass interface. This relies on DirectX 10. Older cards will have downgraded UI. But, Apple does not need to incorporate these $-sucking monsters into its machines, as they are not required by OS X (which uses OpenGL).
This means the Apple machines will not be the ideal machines to run Vista.
Life is just a conviction.
OS X is starting to base more things on top of Core Image (like iPhoto and Aperture) and other technologies that rely pretty heavily on the video card - which is why in the new imacs and Macbook Pro Apple included a halfway decent video card for once.
So I think in fact Apple computers will be able to run Vista better than most cut-rate $500 computers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Microsoft should be the scene of many high fives (Granted, they would be clumsy, nerd high fives) if Apple facilitates a way to get Windows working in a virtual machine in the new Intel Macs - Microsoft would win because it would mean another copy of Windows sold and Apple would win because that many more would-be switchers would finally have their last objection to getting a Mac removed.
There's a mind-boggling selection of specialty software that runs in Windows that will never get ported to the Mac, and it's very easy to imagine a near future where Windows XP takes a role very similar to X11 today - That of providing a compatibility layer for apps that for whatever reason never get around to being made native to OS X.
The only ones who would stand to lose and should be nervous are the brand name and beige box PC builders, particularly Dell, who easily could see their half of the education market disappear overnight.
I say bring it on!
Who read that title as "Apple joins BADCo", and then scanned the summary and read "Apple ... joins up with Windows"...
"2) IBM dumping Apple as a customer"
;-)
:-)
I'm sure you meant that in jest, as we all know Apple hedged their bets and essentially two-timed IBM by keeping a fancy woman in Intel as a bit on the side. I guess if IBM claimed to have 'dumped' Apple at any point, it'd be more the actions of a 'spurned lover' trying to save face
"You aren't going to recognize Apple a year from now. And I sure as hell wouldn't be so foolish as to buy an Intel based Mac unless you plan on selling it on eBay a few years down the line as a novelty item"
Hmmmm... is your surname Dvorak by any chance?
To be fair, computer users generally fall into two camps regarding upgrades - the ones who do (and want to keep 'up with the Jones's') and those who don't (and will keep the machine until it breaks).
If you fall into the 'do' camp, whether you'll end up with a machine which is obselete in 2009 is a moot point - you'll have moved onto something else long before then. If you're a 'don't' type, then you'll be happily using the computer with whatever OS it came with (probably) rather than lusting after whatever's shiniest.
"If you're a Mac user you better start getting over your hate for Microsoft and Windows..."
I don't have hatred for MS or Windows. I just choose the best product for me at a given time (which happens to be OSX for everything except my legacy and web dev work, which requires a PC on which I run XP). Hate's a bad thing, but recognising the flakiness of products such as Windows and the general sloppiness of MS' approach to security, etc., is just being prudent. I choose to avoid that grief as much as possible, and I voted OSX. YMMV.
Predictions coming as funny little jokes. It happens all the time you know.
While Apple would never dump OSX, with the sheer amounts of people who bought MacTels based on pure speculations they may run Windows next to OSX, software developers will feel less pressure to develop Mac software, since Mac users can "just" boot Windows.
So even if OSX was teh omg bestest OS in the world, without software to make use of it, it's just a nice toy with a pretty interface.
The reference point of benchmarking now is a relaity for Apple and m$. How confident are they against the m$ force? It will be interesting to see the direct results from the benchmarks.
To be fair, I'm not sure the Aero issue is necessarily relevant for a lot of users - it is, after all, only "Eye Candy" and not (AFAICT) in any way a necessity to run Vista - as is certainly the case with Core Image.
When Vista comes out, and assuming I end up upgrading my XP dev box to it, it wouldn't matter a damn as I use Remote Desktop COnnection from my OSX box to do dev work - and the RDC facility 'dumbs down' the 'eye candy' anyway.
That said, I'm no gamer (my bad!) and I'm running an old graphics card on that dev box anyway (and see no need to upgrade) so it wouldn't help much. But, hey, it's the principle and the fact that eye candy such as Aero should only ever be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
If MS made the mistake of making the eye candy central to effective use of Vista, they'd have made a big mistake and will alienate more users (such as myself and the 'non cutting edge' users (who must, surely, form the bulk of MS' customer base).
John
One way Apple has survived through the yars of Microsoft monopoly (besides obivously better software) is that it has able to make its system very interoperable (as much as possible) with Windows in terms of file formats and protocols. Apple has phased-out some of its own in favor of the widely used (and not necessarily better) ones.
The single biggest incompatibility has been applications, and the single biggest reason has been the fundamentally different processor. With that out of the way, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is seriously considering helping Windows apps run on OS X. Then it would have the best of both worlds - Unix-like (Darwin) codebase and Windows app compatibility.
So the fact that "Apple has now committed to Windows-based performance testing" is hardly surprising.
"Microsoft would win because it would mean another copy of Windows sold"
;-) but I'd be very surprised if anyone in this situation would then go out and buy a copy of XP - after all, the reason one would run Windows on a Mac is IN ADDITION to OSX, not INSTEAD - so unless one was already firmly entrenched in the Windows world (and hence already have XP, say) there'd be no compelling reason to want Windows. In my opinion, of course.
Do you really believe that Joe Public is really going to want to pay the going rate for a full copy of XP Pro specifically to put on their Mac? I don't. I think people who gravitate towards Apple products either see it as a means to an end (home pc, does what they need, quite happy thank you) or are power/regular users who've grown tired of the hassles of the Windows world and/or fancy a change. Like me.
These same people (myself included) won't buy a new copy of WIndows. No, they'll install a copy if they happen to have one (as I do - legit, natch
"Apple would win because that many more would-be switchers would finally have their last objection to getting a Mac removed."
I concur!
"There's a mind-boggling selection of specialty software that runs in Windows that will never get ported to the Mac, and it's very easy to imagine a near future where Windows XP takes a role very similar to X11 today - That of providing a compatibility layer for apps that for whatever reason never get around to being made native to OS X."
That makes sense, and I largely agree, though I'd argue that once people sample a better system they will find alternatives if they exist. I think the concept of virtualisation which is offered by the Intel roadmap means that we might actually find it possible to run Windows apps with some OSX native compatibility layer - given that the biggest obstacle (hardware architecture) is now more or less unified between the two platforms.
AC correctly smacking down the concept that it makes sense for MS to throw out over 20 years worth of API development, force all their ISVs to rewrite their software, and become technologically dependent on their major consumer OS competitor.
Let's also not forget it took Apple four years to release a stable version of OS X after buying NeXT.
This sig is false.
Microsoft doesn't sell hardware like Apple does! Maybe Dell could license OSX, but Microsft? I mean, they're somewhat diversified, but getting an OSX lisence would kill a key source of income! This plan really doesn't seem to make sense.
Cheers.
I've come across several comments that predict that Apple is planning to dump OSX in favor of Windows as their OS. I'm no Nostradamus, but this seems ludicrously unlikely while Steve Jobs is alive. And no, it's nothing like the switch to intel... processor flamewars were always foolishness: who really cares what processor architecture is underneath? Ask NetBSD... if it can run the OS that's what matters.
It's all about the user experience, and OSX is the experience Apple wants to deliver.
Big surprise... having used nearly every OS known to man, I can say that OSX is certainly one of the greatest ever. And it's already well past the bootsrapping stage that kills most young OSs. Ditching it now would be completely insane.
Cheers.
Whereas everything that can be seen on teh internet seems to be true, nothing about this story can be found on Apple's press page or BAPCo's website. The Apple logo is Photoshopped into the picture that BAPCo uses on their about page.
So, nice headline, but where are the facts?
The assumption in this discussion is that this move will allow Windows tech to run on OS X, but it could just as easily be the reverse too. OS X software & technologies running on Windows. Optimising Quicktime for Win, iTunes for Win etc etc
BAPCo is "the industry-standard *Windows* benchmarking consortium" because all the members make Windows stuff - now they dont.
So before we jump the gun & assume that OS X will now be assimilated by Windows, consider also the Windows adoption of Apple software.
I can't see either taking over the other, just better interoperability all round.
* Game Over * High Score: 264,846,927 -- Your Score: 14
Fair point, Suzerain. Fact is, like any relationship (business/personal), any split is rarely all down to one party - the relationship obviously was souring long before the split, and you make good points about the lack of serious development on IBM's part to come up with (a) the mythical vapourware that was the 3GHz G5, and (b) the equally mythical vapourware that was the portable/low-power G5.
In Apple's position? Well, if I were Steve Jobs, I'd probably have hedged my bets by keeping OSX running on all the contemporary CPU architectures too, though I don't know if I'd have had the balls to risk the revolt of the 'faithful' by switching across to Intel.
So, who dumped who? Don't know, and don't really care. You'll probably get a completely different flavour if you spoke to an IBM insider as if you spoke to someone at Apple, so the truth really isn't known, but I suspect that Apple probably 'dumped' IBM in balance (as otherwise IBM would have been happy enough to receive revenues for G5s as it probably made them some profit regardless).
John
Somewhat lame as a troll, utterly stupid if you really mean it.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
"IBM's proprietary model?" WTH is that? The BIOS?
"Fatal?"
(How many manufacturers of "Apple clones" are there again?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
I remember the first time that I saw suggestions that Mac OS had had its day. It was when the first news that Copland was struggling made its way out of Infinite Loop. A fairly well known and respected member of the UK computer journalism world suggested that as Apple were trying to port to PowerPC permanently, why not build the Copland architecture on Windows NT, whose kernel was fairly mature at the time and available for the PPC chipset. At the time it was fairly radical thinking but MS was in a far better technical position then that it is now. Of course, MS binned their PPC and Alpha support not long afterwards, NextStep became Rhapsody became Mac OS X, Linux matured to become a genuine alternative to big iron Unix and Windows found competition both on the desktop and in the datacentre again.
In 2005 Steve Jobs announces that the next generation of Macs will run on Intel processors and almost immediately everyone assumes that this will mean Windows in some way. But with the apparent dissatisfaction within Microsoft over the progress of Vista, against the almost inevitable success of getting Windows XP to work on the Macintel platform, who is going to be the winner? OS X is far ahead of XP in usability, incorporated apps and security. Gnome has a better unified API, even if it struggles to create blue water between it and Windows and for me at least, consequently limits itself on the user experience. So why even consider Windows? Just because it works on Intel doesn't mean that is has to be the de facto OS for Intel machines. That's been broken all ready.
Remember that the migration to Intel was based on the phrase 'just in case'. So what are Pages, Keynote, Aperture and the other Apple workflow apps for? The day that Mac OS 10.5 appears in a box for Intel PCs? That's a good 'just in case' scenario - just in case Microsoft take their ball home completely and don't release a Universal version of Office perhaps? Apple isn't down, and anyone who assumes that doesn't remember its history.
Dude, I don't think anyone (intelligent) is (seriously) predicting a future for Apple in Windows.
We all know Mac OSX kicks the ass of WinXP sp2 for the time being. Windows has always been slow to update, in fact they suck at delivering on time. If I could get Mac OSX to run on my PC hardware I would be thrilled but Apple would soon after be out of the hardware game and lets face it, they just finally joined the hardware race again with the Intel machines. Can we expect to see BAPCo style maneuverings continue for Apple? Will WinXP load on my Mac in an OS9 classic-style environment? I bet it will.
consider the fact that microsoft makes their money off of office and not windows. windows is a way of keeping their company dominant in the pc market and insuring that office would stay on top.
the interesting thing about all of this is that a breakup of the company would probably been beneficial to microsofts innovation... right now microsoft is putting people from their office team, as well as their xbox team in an effort to boost up the production on vista... if they had been forced to break up these divisions they would never have had the coroporate bloat that is drowning vista, as well as other msft products.
the xbox is a perfect example of this: they created an entirely seperate division for the xbox team. they were givin the ability to create their own corporate culture seperate from microsoft, and they created an excellent product... one must wonder what the companies products would have been like if they had been forced to seperate their divisions into say windows, office, networking, etc.
Not in Windows, but in boxes that will run both Windows and OSX as a bridge to bring new users to OSX and wean them away.
So Apple's going to get all jacked up on 'roids, break a home run record, be scandalized in a former teammate's book, and then deny that they knew they were juicing up?
Oh... that's *BALCO*. My bad.
Here's my witty comment about a signature. Ha. Ha.
When I think about Apple rating Windows performance, the phrase "full blown member" takes on multiple meanings.
--
make install -not war
They probably changed to IDE because it saved money and to USB because USB2.0 and FireWire speeds are nearly the same. But all these comments implying switching to windows is insane. OSX is what truely separates their entire product line. People use Apple PCs and Laptops because of OSX. Their hardware looks prettier, but it's all about how everything seemlessly integrates because they only have a few things to worry about. Microsoft is trying to convince people that Windows can do the same with all the thousands of little devices that say they run on windows, but iPods and iTunes work better and are easier to use than those PlaysForSure devices and especially the ones that don't even guarantee that.
Aside from the "Job's will NEVER do it" attitude, it would be bad business because they'd just be another windows dealing OEM and their margins on the hardware would dry up overnight.
What the hell kind of moron would want to run Winshit on an expensive piece of Apple hardware?
It would be many orders of magnitude more useful to run OS/X on commodity x86 hardware.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not trolling.
There are plenty of elite PC manifacturers that make slick designs such as the recently purchased by DELL, Alienware computers.
Ummm, alienware is junk with "cool" cases and high prices. They haven't put together a reasonable machine in years. You fell for marketing tripe.
Now they joined BAPCo, to pull their latest ace: OSX, the only thing remaining that makes them unique. We'll see a lot of tests proving how superior OSX is compared to Windows in terms of speed and reliability.
I don't know about you, but most of the people here buy Macs because of the OS, not the hardware. The fact that the hardware is nice is a requirement, but it is not the driving factor of the sale. They joined so that they can have a hand in making sure Macs perform well with Windows so that they don't have all sorts of FUD about how "inferior" and "slow" their machines are.
They lied before when they claimed G5 is the fastest CPU on Earth, they lied when they said the Intel chips are 2x faster than the G5 (I mean they lied at least one of the times, right)...
Probably, their motivation is to fight just the kind of crap you're parroting. The g5 was the fastest desktop machine you could buy for quite a while. It is still trouncing the competition on many benchmarks. When someone says, "these chips are up to two times faster than the old chips, of course since the disk, memory, and other hardware is often the bottleneck you won't see applications running twice as fast" you'd think the press could accurately report it. Instead what you get is a bunch of crap about how applications aren't running twice as fast and he lied. What a crock.
That is not to say Apple's marketing has not been over the top. I would never base a purchase on the marketing from any company, as they are all basically paid to sell things, not provide the most accurate assessment of something. Maybe you should try looking at independent evaluations now and again and stop listening to the marketing.
They lied before when they claimed G5 is the fastest CPU on Earth, they lied when they said the Intel chips are 2x faster than the G5 (I mean they lied at least one of the times, right)
I'm not going to get into whether either of the claims were true, but the fact that the claims were made at different times means that they could both have been true.
"processor flamewars were always foolishness: who really cares what processor architecture is underneath?"
It mattered at one time because the Intel architecture was limited by 64K segment sizes. It was limited by the 1M address space of the 8088.
Back in the early days, the choice of processors was important because it determined a lot about how good the operating system could be. People who wrote code had to be aware of processors and it's limitation.
Look at the first mac...the Motorola 68000 gave you a 24 bit address space and it was flat. So you could malloc 4M of memory. Try that in MS-DOS! And because the address space was flat, it became easier to program more interesting things because the programmer was more involved in doing cool stuff and less in manipulating registers to get access to extended and/or expanded memory.
Today, it seems silly; compilers and operating systems paper over the underlying hardware architecture, but at one time *it did matter*.
They really shouldn't call this benchmarking, but rateher bench-MARKETING. Apple has always used benchmarking as a marketing tool. For a long time, it was Macs were than comprab;ae intel base PC. Now that Macs are on Intels, they say Intel Macs are faster than PowerPc Macs. But this is only an onetime deal. It would seem silly to keep touting that in the next revision of Intel Macs. So, hmm let's, what is Macs tangibly better than...? Why not Mac OSX is faster than Windows XP (Vista). You need a selling point and everyone use the same hardware as Apple. Apple can't say they have more apps and Vista should catch up with features (you can't tout those). But I bet, with all the problem Microsloth is having with Vista, optimization is not top of their priorities at this time. Apple will bite and simply say Mac OSX offers the same features but they run faster on Macs.
You guys think they are phasing out OSX. Pfft!!!. Come out the closet, Windows is not that great
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Posting as AC this probably won't make the threshold and get looked but, it seems pretty obvious to me that Apple is:
1) joining this Windows benchmark group
2) building virtualization into OS X 10.5 so it can run XP at essentially native speed
3) profit, as people who want to switch but have some stuff they need Windows for (or don't want to pony up $$$ for a Mac version when they've got a perfectly good version for Windows)
See, people who might be interested in a Mac today are held back by not wanting to spend $1000 on the various applications they've got over the years like Office, Quicken, home remodeling software, Photoshop, whatever. The idea of running Windows apps under OS X will appeal to them, but the naysayers will claim it will be dog slow.
Solution? Run the Bapco tests on Windows, running virtualized under OS X 10.5, to show people the Mac they can buy will be 3x faster than the PC they got for Xmas 2004 and are ready to replace.
Why does the Mac world have so many crackpots with outlandish theories? Every little action by Apple is overanalyzed and taken to baseless conclusions.
Why would Apple working with a benchmarking organization mean that they are 'supporting Windows'? Why would they not just be getting apps benchmarked on MacOS?
"Logic" of the Mac rumors crowd:
Oh look, there are some hoofprints.. there must be unicorns around here.
CoLinux (http://www.colinux.org/)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Not the Core Mac Mini - what were they thinking.
Actually even the new mini has a grpahics card that has been optimized for things like Core Image - it's not that great at 3D stuff sure, but for the kind of UI accelleration that OS X and Vista need it's more powerful than you would think.
After all, if I can play 1080p video on the mini what else do I need? It's true that it's not really enough of a video card fro some pro apps like Aperture, but then it's not targeted at them in the same way a Macbook pro is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Claiming the G5 is the fastest CPU on Earth in 2003 and that the Core Duo is 2x faster in 2006 doesn't require any contradiction or lies. But Apple never said any such thing.
Claiming that X is "up to 2x faster" than Y and Y is "up to 2x faster" than X is also perfectly doable without lying (the P4 is faster than the G5 at integer ops, much faster in some cases; the G5 is faster than the P4 at floating point ops, much faster in some cases; so there you go).
To survive in this world, it helps to learn:
1) "Up to 50% off everything in the store" means that there is one item somewhere in the store that is being sold at 50% off.
2) "50% off marked prices" doesn't mean that they didn't double all the marked prices.
The filesystem is the package manager
Given that I've seen comments in Channel 9 interviews that MS plans a Mac release of WinFX, I wouldn't be surprised if a 100% .Net/WinFX application can run on Windows and Mac.
No, I will not work for your startup
>> All I see from reading this article is that, at some point, an Apple will be able to run Windows applications.
It already can. http://darwine.opendarwin.org/
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
But Core image and the UI accelleration use the 3D stuff, while playing 1080p video only needs bandwidth - and lots of CPU power if the GPU (like that in the Mini) doesn't have video decoding support.
First of all, the 950 does have decoding support (though not for H.264 I think).
The primary thing that OS X and vista make use of is NOT the 3D features exactly, it's the programmable GPU to do custom 2D manipulations of graphic data. Both systems are thinking of the screen more as many seperate layeres images, not really true 3-D and the card is more optimized for this use in part so that there can be cheap computers that support using Glass in Vista.
The parts of the video card exercized by games vs applications and the OS are very different.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple trends for the most recent financial quarters:
* iPods sold in Q4 2005: 6,451,000
* iPods sold in Q1 2006: 14,043,000
* Computers sold in Q4 2005: 1,236,000
* Computers sold in Q1 2006: 1,254,000
Source: http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q106data_sum.pdf
Sales of machines that run OSX are flat - and the number of notebooks they sold actually *fell* this quarter (offset by a slight increase in desktop sales). Since they sold 10x the number of iPods than OSX machines, this means that literally 90% of all iPods are being used on Windows.
If computer sales are down this quarter - they may have to run Windows in order to reach a wider consumer base and maintain their stock price. Otherwise they run the risk of iPod and iTunes becoming their only products. Apple - the company - is going strong. Apple - the computer - is better than it was a few years ago, but is still sickly brand.
Apple would be able to easily sell high-end Windows machines given their superb industrial design. My current notebook is a Powerbook running OSX, but my next one will probably run Windows - I'd jump at the chance to buy a Windows notebook if it was made by Apple. OSX may have the right technical bits, but Windows still owns usability. It's still easier for most people to get work done on Windows, thanks to all the annoying OSX quirks.
(For starters: the OSX dockbar is useless compared to the Windows taskbar; OSX can't even maximize a window; there doesn't seem to be a standard for OSX keyboard shortcuts between applications).
Here's a few choice quotes from Darwine's list of TODOs
Work has been done, and commited to the WineHQ CVS. Though it still crash.
stalling, preliminary work on darwine cvs rep @ cvs.opendarwin.org
Again, I do plan on using Darwine if I ever buy a Mac, but its TODO page makes it look like it won't be usable for awhile.
No, I will not work for your startup
like everyone else, but
Wha...? PowerPC is a freaking huge success. You've either forgotten or ignored that IBM PowerPCs are inside of: