Apple confirms switch to Intel - Page 7

Sunilraman, we could go ahead a claim victory and just play We are the Champions by Queen " . . . we'll keep on fighting till the end . . . "

I guess I do not understand why everyone is so worried about the Intel hardware, I would love OS X on the Intel structure, I just hate Windows XP Pro and Home with a passion. My brother has to do a spyware scan everytime he boots his windows machine, and it has to many problems for me to ever use again. Like I said before I ran Linux on the x86 structure and loved it, the only problem I had was I could not get wireless to work, but then again at the time, wireless technology was new.

Probably. Well, that and the built-in DRM in Pentium-D.


1. Probably not a big issue.
2. Probably not as much as you imagine.
3. Probably not as bad as you imagine. When I was developing for NEXTSTEP, supporting the different CPUs that it ran on (SPARC, 68K, HP-PA-RISC, Intel) was a matter...quite literally...of clicking a check box in the IDE).
4. So what?
5. Pfft. Probably not.
6. Maybe. Maybe not. This probably tends to be a very small % of the total cvode of any application that does do it.
7. Don't see how.
8. Maybe. Probably not though.
9. Why?
10. Perhaps. But that is more their problem than ours.
11. Probably not.

Quit your whining. This move isn't as bad as all that. "It's the OS stupid."


What? Now who sounds like they are on crack?

a couple more thoughts on the forthcoming change in processor suppliers at Apple:

1. Jobs used Intel processors in the boxes he built at NeXT, the computer company he founded after he was kicked out of Apple (OK, he lost a palace revolution) in the mid-80s. Some say he was replaced by John Sculley, which is not so, since Jobs was not at the time the CEO.
However, return the mind to NeXT. It had Intel inside.

2. NeXT and its Unix-based operating system was bought by Gil Amelio during his brief and inglorious period as Apple's CEO. He also hired Jobs as consultant, which resulted in the departure of Amelio and the rejuvenation, resurrection and resurgence of Apple.

3. NeXT OS is the base on which Mac OS X was built. As Jobs observed at the World Wide Developer conference in San Francisco last night, Mac OS X has always run on Intel processors. NeXT OS brought with it that legacy. It's just that at the time, and so far, Apple used PowerPC a RISC chip designed by a team formed by Apple, IBM and Motorola. Motorola dropped out, although Freescale, a Motorola spin-off chipmaker, still makes the G4s that are in PowerBooks and iBooks.

4. IBM has had big problems improving clock speeds and reducing heat from its G5. Yields were also a problem, causing delays in delivery of Power Mac G5 boxes.

5. Apple needs a 3 GHz PowerBook. Jobs said last night that the PowerPC is unlikely to deliver that kind of performance, and, more importantly, low power drain and low heat output, in time for Apple to remain competitive in the important notebook market. Somewhere around 30 per cent of Macs sold are notebooks; maybe more.

6. With video becoming ever more important to consumer electronics, and with competition looming from devices such as the PlayStation, Xbox, and a heap of stuff already starting to cascade from the mega-factories in China, Apple also needs faster, more powerful computers, of whatever form the designers and engineers next produce.

So, finally, what does it all mean? It is a change of processor. It will require a lot of engineering work, but not so much as you would think.
And for the rest of us ... will we notice? I doubt it.

These days it does not matter who makes the chip or how it works. What is important is what it does. Mac OS X will run on the Intel chip. It will still be Mac OS X. Version 10.4 (Tiger) will continue to be upgraded, one supposes, and Version 10.5 (dare we suggest it will be called Leopard -- because the story goes the leopard can change its spots (processor) -- will be out in a year or so.

All of our much loved features (and the very few that bug us) will be there. Life will go on.

I think that this isn't really a switch to Intel - it is a swtich to "processor independance".

We will have fat binaries for the rest of time, and Apple will use whichever processor is best at a particular time.
G6 towers, x86 laptops, and maybe later something else.

Ding Ding! Give that man from Chapel Hill a cookie. This opens the door to a lot more flexibility in Apple's future. Unlike NeXT, they're not dumping the hardware with this change, but it offers them to be much more agile with what they do under the hood of any of their future hardware products. I mean, what if they do want to use a PPC chip in the future? This doesn't proclude such a thing at all.

I think the most interesting aspect is that it's really going to push a lot of developers into the higher-level APIs, XCode and Cocoa that Apple wants them to use anyway. Once that happens, if it hasn't already in some cases, Apple can go beyond even Intel and PPC offerings if any alternatives appear on the horizon.

Oh, and for eveyone who's decided that having an Intel chip inside a Mac someday means you might as well buy a Dell next, congratulations, you've apparently completely missed out on the Macintosh experience.

Until yesterday we speculated if and how Intel will enter the game. Now we speculate if and how IBM will enter again.

That's the deal. Jobs declared the PowerPC dead. No backdoor open. But now who will trust him again?

That's nice to dream about, but the official Apple position is to drop the PowerPC processors completely from the beginning of 2008. Once they do that, we will have those fat binaries until the x86 machines hit a critical mass. After that expect them to drop software support for old PPC machines.

I am really surprised by the reactionary, knee-jerk responses on this forum. Most of the posts here from "developers" are just as irrational as those from laymen. Yes, there are many unanswered questions right now, but that doesn't give your assumptions (i.e. user hurdles, loss of 64-bit, etc) any credibility. In fact, if you are a real developer, then why aren't you at WWDC? I'm sure there will be many more answers provided there.

For over ten years, I have waited for the PPC to deliver...I'm still waiting. Are your memories so short that you've forgotten all the drama that has surrounded Apple's CPUs?

Forget about elegant chip architectures, this is business 101. Did you notice IBM's reaction to the loss of Apple's business? Neither did most people, because there was none. Apple's switch does nothing to impact IBM's bottom. If the company does not care about loosing your business, then how can you expect them to work to keep it?

These are simple economies of scale. Apple does not sell enough computers to garner the undivided attention of a mainstream chip manufacturer. Yet, for years they have tried. Motorola wanted to make phones and IBM wants to make its own servers (high margins) and game consoles (high volume), both firms treated Apple as an after thought. How can the Mac market-share grow in these conditions? It can't.

This is a great day for the future of the Mac platform. Finally, we have a chip maker that is dedicated to making great chips that are competitive in the consumer, workstation, and server space. Apple is no longer the ugly step-child, but a valued customer of a key business area.

Let the FUD go!

Yes, but now apple will have to make it feel as fast, if not faster than windows. Otherwise, who would buy it.

How can you tell the difference? Really - my mac mini feels lightning quick, and I can't tell the difference between it and one of the G5 towers when doing normal work.

Processor speed is not that interesting anymore - what is interesting is low-cost. If all the cars are 1000+ hp, who cares if you have 1000 hp or 10,000 hp.

I've had some time to chew on this now and here are my thoughts (not that anyone cares, but consider it therapy).

1. The importance of laptops. There were numbers out recently that laptop sales have surpassed desktop sales for the first time. Apple's laptop line-up is underpowered. IBM and Freescale don't seem to be able/willing to provide the low power/high performance chips Apple needs to keep their laptops from slipping further down the performance slope.

2. Apple is small potatoes to IBM and Freescale. I read in the WSJ that Apple sales are 2-3% of IBM and Freescale's chip revenue (and chip revenue is a small percentage of IBM's total revenue). There was a quote in the WSJ this morning from IBM saying essentially, "we're following the money". Apple's CPU business does not represent enough money for IBM or Freescale to care about keeping Apple as a customer.

3. Intel makes and sells LOTS of PC CPUs for both laptop and desktop machines. The kinds of CPUs that Apple needs - and lots of other PC makers (Dell, HP, et al.). What's good CPU-wise for Wintel box makers is good for Apple, and Intel is interested in keeping the Wintel world happy, thus Apple gets some joy as a convenient by-product.

4. This may free up Intel to do some interesting things chip-wise. I wonder if Microsoft has influenced Intel to keep their ISA ugly to make life easier for MS? If Apple is a viable (not major, just viable) CPU customer, perhaps Intel can release some cool stuff they've been wanting to do and show that they are not MS's pawn?

I believe all those factors make the Intel "switch" a good/only choice. As has been pointed out, there still is room for monster PPC workstations - which seems to be the realm where the PPC shines. But the laptop line goes to Intel. For the "average" PC user, they won't notice the difference or care what CPU is inside as long as fat/universal binaries and Rosetta work as advertised.

Things get more interesting when you start talking Motion, FCP, GarageBand, and anything that is heavily AltiVec optimized/reliant or benefits from the PPC's awesome bus speeds. At the high-end there may definitely end up being clear performance reasons to choose a PPC or Intel based Mac. While Mathematica may run on Intel, it may be a lot faster on PPC; while Adobe CS may run on PPC it may be faster on Intel. I don't know how that will work out for Apple. Will they be able to crow, "choose the chip that's right for you!" or end up fragmenting the market, causing confusion and frustration, and ultimately lose out to the Windows and Linux camps?

I think this will work out alright for Apple. If the OS and development platform they have has been abstracted away from the CPU hardware enough to support this sort of chip-agnosticism, they should be able to migrate to different and even more powerful CPUs in the future with little trouble.

- Jasen.

Yes, and Sun's not doing so well, and oh, how about that SGI? I've never seen a company that could dependably choose the WORST option each time, every time, like SGI...

That is why they are starting out with the low-end macs, because the current PowerPC towers would be lower performance if they switched to x86 now.

hmmm
e1618978 and bozza have just made one of the most intelligent, rational and realistically hopeful statements on this thread...

It will be very interesting, and I bet the first thing everyone's going to want to know is how does [insert your favorite intense application] on a 3.6Ghz Intel-based Mac compare to Photoshop on an 3.6Ghz Wintel box, natively. I'm guessing first results will show things running slower on Intel-based OS X. Then we'll all say, "yeah, but wait until it's optimized!". We'll surely lag behind for a few years.

Here's my guess: a fresh-out-of-the-box comparison of a OS X and Windows running the same Intel chip will have the Windows applications coming out ahead. But a comparison of applications running on an OS X and Windows box that have been in use for six months will have the OS X applications come out ahead, due to all the spyware and garbage bogging down the Windows-based Intel box.

Actually, this is not true. NEXT never produced Intel-based machines (at least not publicly). They began with the Motorola 68030 (some say the first NeXT computer was a the next Mac computer). Then the 68040. There were rumors of a Motorola 88000 or PowerPC based NeXT computer before the hardware went away.

NeXT did however make NEXTSTEP publicly available for the following processors:

1. 68K (their own machines)
2. Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC machines
3. SPARC
4. Intel

I think this is exactly correct.

I do agree with you, but what Apple have going for them is that they will have programed OS X for their hardware, so hopefully they will be able to optomize the software and hardware IMEDIATELY.

I predict the Apple speed will be greater over a Wintel box speed. The reason I say this is that my G4 Cube is running 450, yes some it is slower than todays modern hardware, but if you care my cube to an AMD anthlon running at 1.2 to 1.5, I would have to say that my cube runs better. The problem with Windows other than the sercurity problems is that they require so many resources just to run the operating system. I have found that Apple's OS is extremely effiecent and it use the resources it has at hand wisely.

Really? Mine's a 68040...you'd better hang on to yours, it'll be quite a one-of-a-kind collector's item...

It is not processor independence, exactly. Yes, OS X runs on both processors but Apple is phasing out of PPC and into Intel. If I had an intel iMac and intel iBook (see my sig) I would not be worried.

If it was processor independence and he had said, "Don't worry, you can pick your processor (intel or PPC) by the end of 2007 and beyond," I would be cool as a refrigerated mustard and would be estatic. He did not say that. It is obvious he is expecting heat just from the way he says things. You can tell he is really watching his step so current sales don't fall off.

So basically, in 10 more years he can pull out another double life PPC Keynote and say guess what, Intel Sucks, look what IBM is doing, our OS runs on it, and here we go again. I guess it is just a mental thing but that is aggravating.

"We know transitions." That can be good and can be bad. Customers, like me, only want to put up with so much change because it becomes tiresome and makes me think that software I am using today won't be used on current hardware 4 years from now. Even though I will most likely have new stuff by then. See how silly some consumers are.

Ummm...so why go to Intel, who's even more mainstream than IBM?

Maybe this could have been MIPS big comeback.... :/

Guess what, the G4 has the Altivec unit and OS X makes much use of it. The x86 processors don't have that. Ooops.

Sorry, look at how many chips Apple will buy vs. how many Dell will buy. Apple is still the ugly step child. They are kind of a trophy for Intel--something they can brag about finally capturing--but Apple will make no dent in their bottom line. And if they start to hurt Dell, and Dell threatens to go to AMD? Well, we might find those nice Intel processors come a little slower.

Let go of the RFD and I'll let go of the FUD. Then maybe we can discuss the unanswered questions this leaves, and the dangers and possibilities it represents.

Man, you're in a different biz than me. I have to process terabytes of data, and the Mac Mini won't quite cut it.

Processor speed (and bus speed) are VERY interesting.

You are not a typical user - I write software, and all my compiling and linking is done on a sun server anyway.

The only mainstream use for CPU is games - besides that 99% of users are fine with mini-style performance.

That's right, unless MacIntel boxes start selling like hotcakes, and even then we're looking at incremental development as a major player. But Apple has the scrappiness of a stray dog and the elegance of a monied doyenne. They have amazed the industry by not merely hanging in but by thriving. They will continue to do so, even as the tech stream grows murkier by the minute. (Thank G-d the iPod put the company in a financial position that makes this "transition" possible.)

Jobs is an optimist and has reason to be. He is doing everything he can to make his company a viable player for the long term, bumps in the road notwithstanding. Bring on the universal binaries!

-------------------------
Warming to it in Nashvegas

An interesting take, and one with which I agree, from editor Rob Griffiths at MacWorld...

I agree completely. WELL PUT.

If Apple has truly made it "click this box" easy to create universal binaries and have some system by which they can do something similar for Altivec/SSE/blahblahwhatever migrations then I see no logical reason to not simply advocate a policy of hardware flexibility.

Why take all your eggs out of one basket and put them all into another? If IBM pulls something awesome out of its ass why not be able to take advantage of it?

Going with Intel is an extremely safe move as far as performance go, but there's no logical reason to think that the worm could not turn once again, so save yourself and your users the future headache and just teach them to not give a crap what chip is in there.

the Grove speaks

It may or may not be wishful thinking...but I happen to think you are spot on. This is about making the CPU more of a commodity.

Speaking of which, if you watch the WWDC keynote, that demo sure is pretty zippy (at least until he deliberately gets into the emulated stuff).

This is what I really believe, yes I understand why some people are interested in the hardware aspect of the PPC v. Intel chips, but for me at least when it comes down to it, I have my Apple computer for the OS, not the processor or the motherboard, or anything else hardware wise really. For it is the elegance, productivity, and ease of use that OS X provides. Everything I do i could probabely do on a Windonws machine, however I do not like using Windows, I would get so mad because I would have all this crap keep poping up that I did not want and or need. In short OS X is simplicit yet still productive and that is what I value about OS X.

I, too, have my mac for the OS, not the processor.



On the other hand, I have my Apple stock because of the whole ball of wax. And a large chunk of that ball (harware sales) are totally unpredictable right now. I don't think anyone expects a sudden surge in sales, and most don't reasonably expect sales to remain at their current levels. Most likely, we're looking at pretty weak hardware sales for the foreseeable future.

Unless of course they slash the prices, but in that case increased sales doesn't mean shit.

So yeah, many people who are nervous don't necessarily pin those feeling on the fact that OS X is going to be on Intel. It's about the state of their stock until that transition is well underway...

But you don't understand why they still have problems.

It was because they waited too long. Both companies were at the top of the heap in their respective areas.

But as x86 machines began to get closer to their performance at far lower prices, they turned their noses up at the thought that they would ever be serious competition.

By the time they looked down, they were surrounded. They finally made their moves, and they did good jobs of it too. But they were already so undercut that they haven't recovered. And they may not.

Jobs made a very good point at the keynote. With the chart up there showing Apple's 40% increase in sales against the industry's 10%, he said that because Apple was strong, this was the time to do it.

He's right. If Apple's sales were in the toilet and they made this switch then people would be saying; "uh oh, this is their last ditch chance, they're doing any desperate thing they can to get attention", and it might very well fail.

But to do it when your sales are at an all time high, profits are up, you have other product lines that are doing very well, and public awareness of the company as a provider of quality products is not under serious threat, it the best timing I can think of.

Apple seems to have done a good job of it. Programs are already running, and development machines are going out the door.

For those who have small programs that are shareware and can't afford the total of $1,500 for the development kit including the select membership, I'm sure that any Apple store would allow you to spend some time at a free machine at the store to try your stuff out. The idea that they wouldn't is unrealistic. Just don't make a habit of hogging a machine for hours at a time. I've already spoken to the manager of the SoHo store here in NYC about this.

I remember the switch from 68xx to PPC as going very smoothly. Old programs did run more slowly on the new, much faster, machines. But that passed.

As Apple HAS done a very good job of this so far, my worries have mostly passed about the technical shift itself.

The rest is user perception. If Apple can show that buying a machine now is not going to be a mistake, then I think that problem will take care of itself. I expect some falloff, but as I say, if it's managed well it should come back. The old machines won't be left in the dust for some time to come. Just remember that developers have every reason to produce the universal binaries, and none to not produce them. It will take years after the x86 machines are established for them to surpass 50% of the Macs out there. By that time any of the old machines will have been ready for pasture anyway, and moving to a new one will be no different than it is today.

In my user group here we have around 800 members a fair percentage of them still are using OS 9 and earlier. They know that for most of their machines new software or OS X itself is impossible, but they don't care. When one of these people decides to move up, they just do it.

I think that it will be the same here as well.

Stop kvetching already.

I just sold my stock. I am convinced that Apple will survive and thrive over the next decade, but there will be at least one quarter of dissapointing earnings in the next couple years.

My magic stock value formula says that Apple is currently worth $25.67/share - I will buy it back below that price.

Has anyone else read John Siracusa's article on ars?

He's very pragmatic and he has some interesting comments and speculation on the whole situation.

http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050607.ars

I think he's right. In the end it's probably good, but it doesn't mean it's not a little sad.

1. "I, too, have my mac for the OS, not the processor."
me too

2. "On the other hand, I have my Apple stock....."
Not anymore, I bailed today. Bumpy road ahead. Hopefully I'll be back early next year.

Yes, I have 10,000 shares of Apple stock. Am I concerned? Of course I am! And it is dropping a bit. I just checked on my real time account, and it;s a bit under 37. But it had dropped to 34 a few weeks ago and recovered. We'll see. Apple has to assure the investor community that they can manage this well. If they can convince the public that this won't cause them any problems, then they will succeed. If those of us here, who should know better, stop acting as though this is going to matter for more than 5% of the user out there, then Apple will succeed.

This feeling of betrayal is simply childish! This is not a religion, This is not a philosophy. This is a company making hardware and software. They do what they think is best for them, and by extention, us. The whole reason for them doing this was that they know that their customers, and their potential customers are not going to be happy down the line if IBM can't or is unwilling to do what they need.

I'm reading here that we lose the Cell, the Power 5 and 6 etc. That's nonsence. We don't have the Cell, the Power 5 and 6 etc.!

Moving to the Cell would be more disruptive than moving to x86. Apple was ready for that for years. The Cell is so different that it's being doubted that it would be effective as a general purpose cpu. Maybe later as a daughter card for rendering, yes. But this move does nothing to stop that should Apple decide to go thar way later.

As for the Power chips, these are VERY expensive chips, as are the IA-64 chips from Intel. Try $3,000 and up for the top of the line units. Slower ones are cheaper, but start at $1,000 or so.

What gain there?

Perhaps Apple might contemplate keeping XServes with the PPC if customers demand it, but there would have to be significant demand.

I think you missed my point.

By going with Intel, Apple is not relying on a manufacturer to produce chips especially for them. Its ok for Apple to be relatively insignificant to Intel, because Intel is in the business of making very good CPUs. They will do this even if Apple closes shop tomorrow. See the difference?

Both Motorola and IBM were producing the GX series almost exclusively for Apple. Motorola eventually succumbed to scale economies and transitioned most of its focus to the embedded market.

This is an excellent business move because Apple has removed a major obstacle from its path: processor speed. How long have you read this forum? As long as I can remember, people have been pissin' and moanin' about Motorola, then IBM. Neither of these companies has produced what was promised, but, because of their reliance on a niche processor, Apple had nowhere to turn.

This is a great time. The Mac OS if finally strong enough to differentiate itself on the merits of the system, instead of relying on the fortunes of other companies that do not have the best interest of the Mac in mind.

Let the FUD go!


-edit-
This link was posted above, but here it is again because it speaks about the issues I'm referring to...its all business.

http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050607.ars