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Will Apple use another Power PC processor? - Page 2

post #41 of 127
5/23/07 at 11:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

That's absurd! No customer should ever have to pay for more than the product. It's not as though Apple was the only customer for the chips, even though they were the largest. This was up to IBM. If they wanted to sell their chips to a wider audience (and remember they used those chips in their own servers) then they had the responsibility to do their own investments. IBM was pushing the idea of a ciommunity of PPC users. It never got off the ground. If Apple had to bribe IBM, by paying them an extra hundred million or two each year, to help pay for R&D, Apple's costs would have risen too high, and then you would have complained about Apple's even higher pricing.

Apple was IBM's only real customer other than its own servers. Apple would have had to pay some development costs in order to continue development of the 970 series and beyond. When it came right down to it, staying with the PowerPC was a bigger pain than it was worth.
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post #42 of 127
5/23/07 at 11:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadow View Post

I am afraid you still don't get it! Do you understand that Apple currently supports 5 (FIVE) processor architectures? Will they bet there will be no changes in processor architectures the next couple of decades? Because the legacy code in OS X goes before NEXT, there is some older UNIX stuff there, so may be more than 2 decades.
And Yellow Box is another story - it is about support of Apple frameworks under Windows, not about supporting Intel. Apple never made Yellow box widely available, but it was there for a while for OEM use, to fill the gap for some software vendors running on NEXT before OS X was there. But thats not the point...

I get it very well.

Apple supports what they need to support for product lines going forward. They are NOT going to continue to support a line that is moving backwards. Which is what you and some other here seem to want.

Apple is not Amiga. It is a company that has an increasingly large presence in all markets it's involved in.

The PPC is dead and gone for Apple. Why is this so hard to believe?

Why do you think Jobs, when he dropped the name "Power" from Apple's products, said that "We are through with Power"?

Do you think that Apple is planning products that they know no one seriously wants?
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post #43 of 127
5/23/07 at 11:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenRoethig View Post

Apple was IBM's only real customer other than its own servers. Apple would have had to pay some development costs in order to continue development of the 970 series and beyond. When it came right down to it, staying with the PowerPC was a bigger pain than it was worth.

Correct, what I said!

Apple was estimated to be about 75% of IBM's PPC customer base. Other than IBM's own servers, there were some small companies making machines, and boards, based on the product, but no large production products were out there.

IBM was trying to convince others to move to PPC, but wasn't having much success.
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post #44 of 127
5/23/07 at 12:13pm
Don't know if anybody has said this yet but I wonder if Apple keeps an up to date version of OS X for the PPC platform? (like they did for Intel)

FWIW, I wish Apple would offer both computers with both PPC and Intel chips in them. I'd prefer the freescale 8641D processor over anything Intel has now as it has dual altivec units, an onboard memory controller and is dual core.

- Mark

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- Mark

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post #45 of 127
5/23/07 at 12:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post


The PPC is dead and gone for Apple. Why is this so hard to believe?


So if IBM had a superior PPC processor for cell phones, you think Apple would not be interested?


Quote:
Originally Posted by sc_markt View Post


. . . I wonder if Apple keeps an up to date version of OS X for the PPC platform? (like they did for Intel)


Of course, but Apple is not keeping it secret, as with the Intel build.

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post #46 of 127
5/23/07 at 1:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sc_markt View Post

Don't know if anybody has said this yet but I wonder if Apple keeps an up to date version of OS X for the PPC platform? (like they did for Intel)

FWIW, I wish Apple would offer both computers with both PPC and Intel chips in them. I'd prefer the freescale 8641D processor over anything Intel has now as it has dual altivec units, an onboard memory controller and is dual core.

Obviously Apple is because the G5 is a PPC, and 10.5 will be a universal binary for some PPC machines like the G5, and I think 10.6 will be but I have doubts that 10.7 will.

Intel has it's own SIMD (altivec) and it is a quad core, plus there is going to be an ODMC, and hyper-threading on their mid 2008 processors. A dual socket quad core machine will act like a 16 processor machine, and ZBrush 3 is one application that can take total advantage of that.

I don't see how freescale can compete with intel in any way. Not now, and definitely not in the future.
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post #47 of 127
5/23/07 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

Correct, what I said!

Apple was estimated to be about 75% of IBM's PPC customer base. Other than IBM's own servers, there were some small companies making machines, and boards, based on the product, but no large production products were out there.

IBM was trying to convince others to move to PPC, but wasn't having much success.

In all fairness, the only real chance IBM had for any significant PPC orders was if Apple agreed to license OSX.
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post #48 of 127
5/23/07 at 1:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

That's absurd! No customer should ever have to pay for more than the product. It's not as though Apple was the only customer for the chips, even though they were the largest. This was up to IBM. If they wanted to sell their chips to a wider audience (and remember they used those chips in their own servers) then they had the responsibility to do their own investments. IBM was pushing the idea of a ciommunity of PPC users. It never got off the ground. If Apple had to bribe IBM, by paying them an extra hundred million or two each year, to help pay for R&D, Apple's costs would have risen too high, and then you would have complained about Apple's even higher pricing.

Well then MS is absurd and Sony too and let's not forget Nintendo. They paid for developing their cpus and even worse they were stupid enough to order millions in advance. Then comes Prima Donna Jobs and makes demands, well we know the outcome. Trust me no one sheds a tear at IBM over losing Apple and getting all console makers instead. Step out of the sdf for a second.

Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

If you're so far out of it that you haven't been paying attention to what Intel is doing, and to what IBM hasn't been doing, you won't believe me anyway. Read some of the articles here about Intel.

Well so you not able to name one. That's pathetic. I'm just not blinded as you that's all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

I'm not going to go looking for a lot of software. But this is an example of what I mean. We're seeing some heavy hitters in the Windows business space moving to the Mac because of the switch to Intel. I have others bookmarked, But I don't have time now to find them.

http://www.kx.com/news/press-releases/pr070417.php

First totally unimportant company with an unimportant product. Secondly how can you tell that this has anything to do with the switch? Maybe the made a linux to fbsd port.
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post #49 of 127
5/23/07 at 1:37pm
Well I sure hope apple supports PPC for years to come. Just a year and a half ago, I purchased the latest and greatest 17" Powerbook 1.67 G4, 7200 RPM HDD and maxed with 2 GB RAM.

Now, I can't even use the Adobe Master Collection because some apps are intel only.

What?!?!

Not everyone can afford to upgrade in between five years! I must say, I thought everything was going to be Universal.

At least apple needs to fully support and optimize for PPC for at least 5 years.

Don't be like MS and cut support after 2 years just so you can push the new stuff. Support the people that got you here.

Ah well, time will tell.
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post #50 of 127
5/23/07 at 3:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by User Tron View Post


Well then MS is absurd and Sony too and let's not forget Nintendo. They paid for developing their cpus and even worse they were stupid enough to order millions in advance. Then comes Prima Donna Jobs and makes demands, well we know the outcome.


I pointed out your mistake earlier, and you are making it again. When IBM amortizes development cost over a great number of products, cost per unit to the customer is less. IBM can sell game console CPUs with less added for design and development because they have a large order. It's that simple. All makers of game consoles compete on a more or less equal footing.

Apple was in a bad position with IBM. With a much smaller CPU order, the cost of deign and development was high per chip. Manufacturers purchasing Intel chips for PCs were in a superior competitive position, using high volume CPUs. Apple had no choice, really, but to switch.

Let's make an example. Say IBM and Intel spend about the same for developing a CPU. If IBM's chip is used in 3 percent of the market, and Intel's in 80 percent, you can see Apple is paying about 27 times as much per unit for development costs. On top of that, IBM would not have the manufacturing economies of scale that Intel has. So, the bottom line is that Apple was paying a hell of a lot more for IBM CPUs than they now pay for Intel CPUs.

The example is flawed because it assumes just a single CPU for the entire market, but you get the idea.

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post #51 of 127
5/23/07 at 3:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 9secondko View Post


Now, I can't even use the Adobe Master Collection because some apps are intel only.

What?!?!

. . . I thought everything was going to be Universal.


Damn Adobe. Evidently Adobe still does not use Universal code. No?

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post #52 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post

Damn Adobe. Evidently Adobe still does not use Universal code. No?


Acrobat 8 is Universal. Adobe developed its follow-on to Acrobat 7 as UB. Unlike some developers--including many much smaller developers--Adobe does not upgrade its products for the sole purpose of taking advantage of new hardware.
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post #53 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 9secondko View Post

.....
At least apple needs to fully support and optimize for PPC for at least 5 years.
......
\\.

Don't fret. They probably will support your PowerBook or whatever it was, but I think the G4 machines are going to be useless, and incompatible sooner than the G5's. It's a matter of how much power newer applications and operating systems will need, and I don't think the G4's will run at all past leopard. They don't support all the features in tiger. They just can't handle it. What should apple do? Some features are just too powerful to run on a G4.
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post #54 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:17pm
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Originally Posted by onlooker View Post


Don't fret. They probably will but I think the G4 machines are going to be useless, and incompatible sooner than the G5's.


Would you please explain how a G4 will be incompatible and a G5 not?

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post #55 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:22pm
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Originally Posted by snoopy View Post

Would you please explain how a G4 will be incompatible and a G5 not?


I have a G4 and I do not have the **water drop effect in dashboard. I can not use **Motion, or **Aperture. The system requirements are going to be too demanding for older machines. It's that simple.

**All of which are available in newer G5's.
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post #56 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sc_markt View Post

Don't know if anybody has said this yet but I wonder if Apple keeps an up to date version of OS X for the PPC platform? (like they did for Intel)

FWIW, I wish Apple would offer both computers with both PPC and Intel chips in them. I'd prefer the freescale 8641D processor over anything Intel has now as it has dual altivec units, an onboard memory controller and is dual core.

Of course they do. They have to.

They just stopped selling PPC machines, there's lots of them out there.

They will have a PPC version of 10.6. But, I'm pretty certain that it will be the last.
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post #57 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post

So if IBM had a superior PPC processor for cell phones, you think Apple would not be interested?

No. They would not.

Not that IBM has any interest in that market anyway.
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post #58 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenRoethig View Post

In all fairness, the only real chance IBM had for any significant PPC orders was if Apple agreed to license OSX.

That's possibly true.

We know the chance of that happening anytime soon.

Though there is actually a greater chance of it happening now.
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post #59 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:35pm
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Originally Posted by User Tron View Post

Well then MS is absurd and Sony too and let's not forget Nintendo. They paid for developing their cpus and even worse they were stupid enough to order millions in advance. Then comes Prima Donna Jobs and makes demands, well we know the outcome. Trust me no one sheds a tear at IBM over losing Apple and getting all console makers instead. Step out of the sdf for a second.

Sony OWNS the IP for the Cell, along with IBM and Toshiba. They ALL developed it.They were producing it themselves as well.

Have you any evidence that Nintendo is paying IBM for the R&D for their chip?

You're just making things up here.

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Well so you not able to name one. That's pathetic. I'm just not blinded as you that's all.

As usual, you're wrong.

I'l give you one just because you're lazy.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2135201,00.asp

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First totally unimportant company with an unimportant product. Secondly how can you tell that this has anything to do with the switch? Maybe the made a linux to fbsd port.

It shows how little you know about these companies.
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post #60 of 127
5/23/07 at 4:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by onlooker View Post


I have a G4 and I do not have the **water drop effect in dashboard. I can not use **Motion, or **Aperture. The system requirements are going to be too demanding for older machines. It's that simple. . .

Okay. Je comprends. There is always the minimum performance requirements, such as CPU clock rate. I thought you were referring to features, like the G4 and G5 have AltiVec, but the G3 does not.

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post #61 of 127
5/23/07 at 5:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post

Okay. Je comprends. There is always the minimum performance requirements, such as CPU clock rate. I thought you were referring to features, like the G4 and G5 have AltiVec, but the G3 does not.


Needless to say, what I said about that has noting to do with my earlier statement that I doubt Apple will support PPC beyond 10.6. I would be very surprised if it made it to 10.7 but there is no chance they will be releasing versions beyond that, and that is not only because of system requirements, but developer resources. They may update it in house for "just in case" reasons, or for new developer training or something, but otherwise PPC will go the way of the Dodo.
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post #62 of 127
5/23/07 at 6:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadow View Post

I am afraid you still don't get it! Do you understand that Apple currently supports 5 (FIVE) processor architectures? Will they bet there will be no changes in processor architectures the next couple of decades? Because the legacy code in OS X goes before NEXT, there is some older UNIX stuff there, so may be more than 2 decades.
And Yellow Box is another story - it is about support of Apple frameworks under Windows, not about supporting Intel. Apple never made Yellow box widely available, but it was there for a while for OEM use, to fill the gap for some software vendors running on NEXT before OS X was there. But thats not the point...

Oh, and did you notice that it took Apple much longer to add full 64 bit support than to switch to Intel? I don't want to go into a long discussion here on what it takes to support more processor architectures but I believe that most developers, including those working at Apple on Mac OS, don't really care to make special optimizations for a specific processor. They rely on the compiler (Apple is using third party compilers) and, in rare cases, on some highly optimized libraries.

5 Architectures?

I count (probably) 3 and maybe one more. The 2 we know for sure are x86 (and it's 64 bit extensions) and PowerPC. The third likely one is ARM for the iPhone. The 4th and 5th possible ones that NeXTSTEP have but are not guaranteed to still be supported and probably aren't are SPARC and PA-RISC. So that still leaves 3, and chances are they will drop PowerPC from their own internal development by the time 10.7 or 10.8 comes out if IBM does nothing with it by then. If another architecture comes along that looks like it will be competitive for any Architecture Apple continues to support, chances are they will add it with their own internal builds and mark it as interesting so the next time their CPU partner is as stupid as IBM was with the PPC, then they have a backup plan. I doubt they will continue to support anything that continues to prove how worthless it is for their needs, so expect PPC to leave the equation in the end.

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post #63 of 127
5/23/07 at 6:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by onlooker View Post


. . . I doubt Apple will support PPC beyond 10.6. I would be very surprised if it made it to 10.7 but there is no chance they will be releasing versions beyond that, and that . . .


Apple dropped OS X support for the Beige G3 after 10.2.8. Yet, I was running my Beige G3 with Panther, and even Tiger before I sold it. A utility called XPostFacto allowed the G3 to go beyond Apple's imposed limit.

What is the possibility for something like this happening for the PPC? My guess is very low, since Apple could eliminate PPC code completely for some future build of Mac OS X. Yes?


Quote:

. . . PPC will go the way of the Dodo.


I'll ask you the same question I asked melgross. If IBM had a superior PPC processor for cell phones, do you think Apple would not be interested?

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post #64 of 127
5/23/07 at 6:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 9secondko View Post

Well I sure hope apple supports PPC for years to come. Just a year and a half ago, I purchased the latest and greatest 17" Powerbook 1.67 G4, 7200 RPM HDD and maxed with 2 GB RAM.

Now, I can't even use the Adobe Master Collection because some apps are intel only.

What?!?!

Not everyone can afford to upgrade in between five years! I must say, I thought everything was going to be Universal.

At least apple needs to fully support and optimize for PPC for at least 5 years.

Don't be like MS and cut support after 2 years just so you can push the new stuff. Support the people that got you here.

Ah well, time will tell.

Quote:
Originally Posted by onlooker View Post

Don't fret. They probably will support your PowerBook or whatever it was, but I think the G4 machines are going to be useless, and incompatible sooner than the G5's. It's a matter of how much power newer applications and operating systems will need, and I don't think the G4's will run at all past leopard. They don't support all the features in tiger. They just can't handle it. What should apple do? Some features are just too powerful to run on a G4.

Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post

Would you please explain how a G4 will be incompatible and a G5 not?


The main reason the G4 would be dropped first is because it's just not as powerful. I predict Apple will just drop both altogether to make things easier because some of their lineup never had a G5 to begin with, only the iMac and Powermac had the G5s.

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post #65 of 127
5/23/07 at 8:03pm


So, if IBM built a PPC processor for cell phones, and it was superior to other cell phone CPUs on the market, would Apple be interested?

Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post


No. They would not.


I changed the wording a little, but it's essentially the question I asked you.

I don't believe your answer, and I doubt you could defend it. If there were a processor that is significantly better than ARM and the others, Apple would jump at the chance to put it in an iPhone. After all, that is essentially why Apple switched to Intel. Their CPUs are better for laptop, desktop and workstation computers.


Quote:

Not that IBM has any interest in that market anyway.


Remember some time back when IBM had the Power Everywhere campaign going. IBM spoke of Power all the way from mainframe computer to the smallest of hand held devices -- like a cell phone.

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post #66 of 127
5/23/07 at 8:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post



So, if IBM built a PPC processor for cell phones, and it was superior to other cell phone CPUs on the market, would Apple be interested?



I changed the wording a little, but it's essentially the question I asked you.

I don't believe your answer, and I doubt you could defend it. If there were a processor that is significantly better than ARM and the others, Apple would jump at the chance to put it in an iPhone. After all, that is essentially why Apple switched to Intel. Their CPUs are better for laptop, desktop and workstation computers.

I can defend my answer. It's up to you to decide if you want to agree with it or not. I suspect that no matter how many people agree that the PPC will be dead and gone within a few years, there will always be a few who cling to the hope that it won't, for reasons I can't fathom.

I suppose it's like Amiga users, or users of any other obsolete system.

I suppose that even after five or six years, there will still be a small few who insist that Apple will bring back the PPC if IBM just makes one more chip that Apple would like.

People who want to BELIEVE are impossible to convince otherwise.

Quote:
Remember some time back when IBM had the Power Everywhere campaign going. IBM spoke of Power all the way from mainframe computer to the smallest of hand held devices -- like a cell phone.


I mentioned that already. It's been a big bust. No one was interested. Not even IBM is interested any more. They have gone on to make profitable game chips.
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post #67 of 127
5/23/07 at 10:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post


I'll ask you the same question I asked melgross. If IBM had a superior PPC processor for cell phones, do you think Apple would not be interested?


Probably not. There is always going to something superior in one form or another in everything. If you've watched AMD, Intel, and PPC, or, ATI and Nvidia for long enough you'd know that. Apple got into bed with the PPC years ago and stayed with it for the longest time. Now Apple is in bed with intel, and they will remain there for probably longer. Intel is always going to have more money for R&D, and they will always have ample amounts of processors for Apple. They are not the largest chip maker in the world for nothing. I think IBM f**ked up in a big way. It's that simple.
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post #68 of 127
5/23/07 at 10:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post


I suspect that no matter how many people agree that the PPC will be dead and gone within a few years, there will always be a few who cling to the hope that it won't, for reasons I can't fathom. . . .

People who want to BELIEVE are impossible to convince otherwise.


I'm not clinging to any hopes. I want Apple to choose the best chip for the job at hand, no matter who makes it. What I simply don't understand is people saying that the PPC will be dead and gone. Nobody know this for a fact. It's pure speculation. There in nothing inherent in the PPC architecture that makes it inferior to Intel's.

Since there may be good business reasons for Apple to drop the PPC for Macs before too long, Apple will do that. I have older Macs, so I hope it will be five years before OS X stops supporting the PPC.

I also try to be realistic about how things can change. If IBM decided to go after the cell phone processor market for example, a very competitive PPC chip might appear. I do not believe Apple should close the door on this possibility, even though some of you say Apple already has, apparently, if I'm interpreting it correctly.

Right now IBM has mainframes and game consoles, from what you say. Yet nobody knows what IBM is working on in its labs. IBM may have learned how to keep secrets better, working with Steve Jobs. We simply don't know what IBM's next move will be. I suspect the workload was too much with both Apple and three different game consoles to take care of a few years ago. Now things have settled down, and I'd bet IBM is up to something else. We just have no idea what it is. I think one thing is sure. IBM will not be satisfied just making chips for game consoles and their own servers. Game consoles was simply a stepping stone.

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post #69 of 127
5/23/07 at 10:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by onlooker View Post


Apple got into bed with the PPC years ago and stayed with it for the longest time. Now Apple is in bed with intel, and they will remain there for probably longer.


Why should Apple be more restricted than Dell and HP in what it does? Dell and HP use Intel chips, but do these companies not also use AMD at times? I don't think Intel expects Apple to never use another chip vendor. What about the iPod and iPhone? These are different enough markets to warrant another vendor if the product is right.

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post #70 of 127
5/24/07 at 6:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post

...
I suspect that no matter how many people agree that the PPC will be dead and gone within a few years, there will always be a few who cling to the hope that it won't, for reasons I can't fathom.
...

I assume you meant "dead and gone" for desktops.

In addition to embedded to mainframe computers and consoles, PPC may find a very useful home in media centers. I believe at one point some TV manufacturers were evaluating PPC also. But yes, for desktops PPC is dead. IBM and Motorola screwed the pooch so to speak, in my opinion.
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just waiting to be included in one of Apple's target markets.
Don't get me wrong, I like the flat panel iMac, actually own an iMac, and I like the Mac mini, but...........
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post #71 of 127
5/24/07 at 7:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post

I'm not clinging to any hopes. I want Apple to choose the best chip for the job at hand, no matter who makes it. What I simply don't understand is people saying that the PPC will be dead and gone. Nobody know this for a fact. It's pure speculation. There in nothing inherent in the PPC architecture that makes it inferior to Intel's.

Since there may be good business reasons for Apple to drop the PPC for Macs before too long, Apple will do that. I have older Macs, so I hope it will be five years before OS X stops supporting the PPC.

I also try to be realistic about how things can change. If IBM decided to go after the cell phone processor market for example, a very competitive PPC chip might appear. I do not believe Apple should close the door on this possibility, even though some of you say Apple already has, apparently, if I'm interpreting it correctly.

Right now IBM has mainframes and game consoles, from what you say. Yet nobody knows what IBM is working on in its labs. IBM may have learned how to keep secrets better, working with Steve Jobs. We simply don't know what IBM's next move will be. I suspect the workload was too much with both Apple and three different game consoles to take care of a few years ago. Now things have settled down, and I'd bet IBM is up to something else. We just have no idea what it is. I think one thing is sure. IBM will not be satisfied just making chips for game consoles and their own servers. Game consoles was simply a stepping stone.


Apple, or any other manufacturer can't jump back and forth bewtween chips every time a new chip comes out. Despite those who seem to think that XCode will make this easy, it won't.

No company is going to be wasteful enough to keep programmers around just "in case" Apple decides to choose another PPC chip "sometime" in the future.

Apple moved to x86 for very good reasons, and there they will stay.

IBM doesn't have to learn anything from Jobs.

You are extropolating your own desires onto IBM. They don't have those desires. They are a business and are not sentimental.

The PPC 970 might not even survive. POWER is too much for Apple, and they don't do big iron.

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post #72 of 127
5/24/07 at 7:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy View Post

Why should Apple be more restricted than Dell and HP in what it does? Dell and HP use Intel chips, but do these companies not also use AMD at times? I don't think Intel expects Apple to never use another chip vendor. What about the iPod and iPhone? These are different enough markets to warrant another vendor if the product is right.


Yopu are not realizing what you are saying.

Both AMD and Intel make x86 chips, do they not?

Developers don't have to re-do their software for either, though they might put a few lines of code in.

What does that have to do with the PPC?
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post #73 of 127
5/24/07 at 7:57am
I been watching this thread and I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this (or perhaps I missed it); Apple doesn't need one powerful sexy chip a la Power 6. Sure the benchmarks look amazing (downloaded the entire iTunes library in about 1 minute) but Apple needs a broad array of chips for multiple uses. Mostly Apple needs low power (and low heat dissapating) chips that constitute the majority of chips that go in their machines. The PPC line is just too much of a one trick pony.
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post #74 of 127
5/24/07 at 8:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rickag View Post

I assume you meant "dead and gone" for desktops.

In addition to embedded to mainframe computers and consoles, PPC may find a very useful home in media centers. I believe at one point some TV manufacturers were evaluating PPC also. But yes, for desktops PPC is dead. IBM and Motorola screwed the pooch so to speak, in my opinion.

Well, for computers it is dead and gone. They still use them for printers, auto's, and other embedded purposes.

Who is going to produce a media center with these chips? What OS will it use? I saw several media centers at the Home Entertainment Show here in NYC recently. They all use Vista Media Center as their OS. Except for one that uses a proprietary OS, but it costs $30,000, and is also designed to control your entire house, or be used commercially.

But, that had been one of the problems for Apple. The embedded market is huge, dwarfing the computer market.

Freescale hadn't made a computer cpu for years. Apple was using embedded designs. The 74xx series were all embedded designs.

IBM also makes embedded PPC's. The G5 was their only desktop computer chip at the lower level that Apple could use.

But the tiny sales of that chip didn't allow IBM to invest the money required to keep up with x86. It was going to continue to fall behind. Where are the four core models? How about eight core? How about the new multimedia instructions? There aren't any plans for any of this.

There is another company that's going to make more "modern" PPC's, but hasn't produced any yet. With no guarantee that they will be successful, Apple couldn't take a chance there either.
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post #75 of 127
5/24/07 at 8:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post


[You] are not realizing what you are saying.

Both AMD and Intel make x86 chips, do they not? Developers don't have to re-do their software for either, . . .

What does that have to do with the PPC?


Read the history of this reply. I asked whether Apple would use a PPC chip in the iPhone if IBM made a superior cell phone processor. Onlooker's reply was no, because Apple got into bed with Intel. Naturally I asked why Apple should be more restricted than Dell and HP, or any other company for that matter? These companies use chips from other vendors, and it doesn't appear to hurt the relationship with Intel. Since I referred specifically to the iPhone, not Macintosh computers, a requirement to use only Intel chips makes even less sense.

Your post here doesn't relate to the discussion between onlooker and me.

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post #76 of 127
5/24/07 at 9:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kolchak View Post

Let's not forget that OS X itself is not Universal. They have separate builds for PPC and Intel. Sooner or later, Apple will tire of devoting part of their limited development resources to the PPC code base, targeted at a customer base that can only shrink. Remember that they stopped supporting Classic, a very similar situation. I give PPC another 4-5 years before OS X 10.7 no longer supports it. At which point, no big deal, people can either just stay with the last version of the OS that works for them or they can buy new machines to replace their slow, 6+ year old antiques.

The latest retail version of OS X Server (10.4.7) is universal. I thought Leopard was going to be too.
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God made grass. Man made booze. Who do you trust?
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post #77 of 127
5/24/07 at 9:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jamm View Post

The latest retail version of OS X Server (10.4.7) is universal. I thought Leopard was going to be too.

It will have a PPC version but the builds will likely be separate. Like with tiger. Ever noticed on updates to Tiger that there is an Intel and PPC version?
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post #78 of 127
5/24/07 at 9:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross View Post


Apple moved to x86 for very good reasons, and there they will stay.

No company is going to be wasteful enough to keep programmers around just "in case" Apple decides to choose another PPC chip "sometime" in the future.


No argument here. Apple will use X86 type chips in Macintosh computers from now on. However, this does not mean Apple should use only X86 chips in other products. In fact, the iPhone and iPod do not use the X86 as you know.

Is it more difficult to keep OS X working on PPC than ARM? I don't think so. If IBM is developing a really great PPC chip for the cell phone, why not keep the PPC code and drop ARM? I believe this could happen. What are the odd? Not very good, but possible.

We are all speculating here, and no one has yet provided an inside track to say which scenario will emerge. I agree that the PPC is not very likely, but I object to it being dismissed as essentially impossible. That's all.



Quote:

IBM doesn't have to learn anything from Jobs.


No, but if IBM wants to succeed greatly, it will learn from anyone and anything it can.

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post #79 of 127
5/24/07 at 12:05pm
There are many people on this thread that confuse two things: portability of the codebase and "returning" to PPC processors. I will try to make it clear:

1. Apple is not going to keep support for old architectures forever. As soon as the installed base becomes low and slow Apple will drop support for it.

2. Now, when Apple's support for multiple architectures is almost 100%, Apple is going to keep it that way in order to be able to easily switch to a FUTURE architecture if this makes sense for it's growth.

3. Keeping many architectures for computers only complicates support, so Apple will avoid it. The reason for this is NOT OPTIMIZATION as many here seems to believe, design and manufacturing costs of motherboards, testing and compatibility are more important here - see my next post.

4. Apple is widening the base of hardware running Mac OS X. It may make sense to have different architecture for some range of devices (iPods, iPhones or whatever Apple decides to introduce next), if no suitable option from Intel is available. NOTE: iPod currently does not run OS X, but it is likely that the future versions will use it.
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post #80 of 127
5/24/07 at 12:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadow View Post

NOTE: iPod currently does not run OS X, but it is likely that the future versions will use it.

sorry mate, cant agree with you there. the iPod will NEVER run OS X in any shape or form, thats what the iPhone is for. there is no need anyway. the way i see the iPod going is basically the ipod, photo/contact viewing part of the iPhone. maybe wireless syncing, but thats way off. and yes i have contradicted myself there, as i presume these networking features would be lifted from OS X.
"i find that if you keep talkin', your mouth comes up with stuff..." Karl Pilkington
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"i find that if you keep talkin', your mouth comes up with stuff..." Karl Pilkington
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