While I agree that I doubt Apple has any Intel boxes running OSX faster than PPC boxes, that is likely nothing more than a function of how much work they've put into it.
Apple is seriously going to have to learn to drop this Napoleon complex bullshit that forces them to constantly knife-the-baby.
First they burn the bunny now Jobs bemoans IBM's ineptitude on stage? How many bridges do you have to burn, jack ass? And for what, so Maccies can jerk off on Internet websites?
How about not being a prick thereby making sure you have good relationships with everyone producing the most cutting-edge product around? I'm tired of this "I've got my hat in my hand but it's not really my fault!" crap Jobs pulls.
Don't you think that's a little over the top? I recommend valium.
But seriously. It shouldn't be all that upsetting for a manufacturer to choose a supplier or advertise their products.
While I agree that I doubt Apple has any Intel boxes running OSX faster than PPC boxes, that is likely nothing more than a function of how much work they've put into it.
Apple is seriously going to have to learn to drop this Napoleon complex bullshit that forces them to constantly knife-the-baby.
First they burn the bunny now Jobs bemoans IBM's ineptitude on stage? How many bridges do you have to burn, jack ass? And for what, so Maccies can jerk off on Internet websites?
How about not being a prick thereby making sure you have good relationships with everyone producing the most cutting-edge product around? I'm tired of this "I've got my hat in my hand but it's not really my fault!" crap Jobs pulls.
i understand where you're coming from, but also remember that, if there is a partnership to be struck, sins will be forgiven when there's profit involved. see also: intel, bunnies. and trust me, if ibm can make a profit off apple in the future, and apple wants to go back to them, bygones will once again be bygones.
First they burn the bunny now Jobs bemoans IBM's ineptitude on stage?
Dude, the bunny suit and snail ads were 10 years ago. How much did things change with technology over that span? A lot, right? This is business, not religion. If anything, Apple maybe should have made this move for their portables at least a year ago.
Catch is as a lower power chip it has been dreadful.
These days, the low-power, high performance chip is a serious holy grail. Without making a paradigm shift -- that is, to emergent technologies that are radically different that what we know today -- there will continue to be no low power chip. The Pentium M is not anything special.
What Intel does have is a great plan for the next few years that includes getting to 32nm before 2010. (They quote "before 2009.") Intel is focused on making chips for PCs. IBM isn't really.
Lastly, no one ever said that macs were going to run on Pentiums. Steve just said that Intel will supply all chips by 2007, and that today's P4 can serve as an early development platform. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the Intel chips that will appear in high end macs will be "compatible" with the current lineup, but will be radically different than today's P4. Perhaps closer to the Itanium.
So, at the end of the day, I'm glad that Apple is dealing with Intel. Intel better at what they do that anyone else in the world. I had predicted this would be the case, but I didn't think it would come so soon. I thought it would happen after IBM started phasing out the POWER line, but that may be happening now. Also, at the end of the day, I'm going to buy a bunch of PowerPC macs. Probably G3, G4, and G5 iMacs. They are fantastic for developing PPC software.
It's not about being nice to Intel or IBM, it's about the attitude. It's nice to be confident and stuff, so long as it doesn't make you blind to your own problems.
Further, it's extremely insulting to users to do a complete 180. "Pentium 4 is for ovens LOL! ... ... ... Oh hay you guys want a Pentium 4 Mac?"
Quite honestly if it's a matter of credibility as to whether IBM didn't deliver what they said or Apple just decided to once again act like a whining bitch, I'm going to believe the people who say IBM could do what they promised but Jobs had already made up his mind to switch and wanted to just take his ball and go home.
I've read (supposed) IBM employees saying that Apple could have a dual-core 3.2ghz G5 but they rejected the northbridge. I've read them say that Apple has guided a chip all the way to taping out only to scrap it then subsequently complain that the replacement wasn't coming fast enough.
And at this point, with Jobs' track record, I'll take the word of an anonymous Internet poster over that self-serving gas-bag's. It's always someone else's fault with him.
And at this point, with Jobs' track record, I'll take the word of an anonymous Internet poster over that self-serving gas-bag's. It's always someone else's fault with him.
I really don't understand what's insane about my post, just imagine a less egotistical Jobs.
He wouldn't dedicate so much energy into screaming about how much everyone else sucks to beef himself up, so the community wouldn't be such a hard sell on big switches like this.
Honestly, if Jobs keeps up his "IBM screwed us!" act (and that's what it is, an act) and the crowd gets embittered against IBM, what happens if(when) Intel isn't meeting whatever random standards are thrown out? Jobs shuffles back out and pouts about mean 'ole Intel and how we have to go back to IBM now.
Why not just be friendly all around and keep your options open?
Why not announce the cross-platform nature of OSX right at the outset and leave the possibility open and encourage developers to keep their code portable instead of giving them the false impression that PowerPC was Jesus-made-of-silicon and naught else would be necessary?
Why not help them out instead of saying "We strongly encourage you to use XCode instead of Codewarrior, but I can't tell you why because I like big secrets tee-hee-hee!"
If OSX's portable nature was confirmed from OSX's launch and Jobs just said "We're still on PowerPC because IBM/Moto are delivering the goods, but if there's a hiccup or Intel/AMD do something cool we have the flexibility to bring you the very best" from the outset would anyone be wailing and gnashing teeth right now? No.
And in the future, if/when we go back to PowerPC would there be gnashing of teeth if Jobs remained positive on and open to that platform? No.
But if he just flips the script and dogs IBM incessantly it makes any subsequent transition more difficult for everyone, and for no other reason than to sate his Napoleon complex.
I've read (supposed) IBM employees saying that Apple could have a dual-core 3.2ghz G5 but they rejected the northbridge. I've read them say that Apple has guided a chip all the way to taping out only to scrap it then subsequently complain that the replacement wasn't coming fast enough.
And at this point, with Jobs' track record, I'll take the word of an anonymous Internet poster over that self-serving gas-bag's. It's always someone else's fault with him.
I wonder if thats why Microsoft has a triple core in the works... maybe they just let IBM do their thing.
And your other point about attitude... its true, Jobs has always talked down about "Pentiums" and the whole time he had OSX running on "Pentiums" down in the basement... if its been cross platform the whole time, why not manufacture some x86, some PPC and let the consumer decide which computer fits there needs... instead we've been given sub par hardware at a premium price. When Jobs went shopping for Pixar he outfitted them with Intel because Intel had better performance. At the time everyone dismissed it as "well, they are just dumb renderboxen".
To the people that think 1.42 Ghz G4's and less than 2.5 Ghz G5's were better than Intel's latest and greatest... check back over these forums over the past couple of years and you will see that "its not about performance, speed, price, etc, it's about the OS" which is an acknowledgment that we didnt have the best processors but, darnnit, we've got the best OS ! Well it seems that the best processors were available the whole time... imagine the countless hours wasted optimizing for Altivec!
Hopefully, Intel won't take any crap from Jobs... supposedley they dont fab other companies designs. Who knows, five years from now, we might just transition to Cell.
I for one am glad that I buy computers for something other than "feeling special."
I always felt special using my Macs because I knew I had an awesome OS with hardware that had some thought put into it, rather than just a few parts thrown together. I work on a Windows PC at work, and I can't wait to get back to my Mac at home (just ask my co-workers!). That's why I feel special using a Mac. Oh, I also do quite a bit of work (creative and non-creative) on my Mac as well. So, yes, I didn't buy my Mac because of the "feeling" I got. I bought it because it was the best option at the time.
When the transition is complete, OS X and apps will support PPC and x86. You can't say the same for Windows, aside from the special XBox devkit version.
While we're swinging a bunch of support behind intel, I'm sure keeping PPC will payoff. If the pendulum swings the other way or we want some embedded system or game console, PPC may be the choice within the next 5 years.
PPC is good, its just not getting pushed as far or as fast for desktops at the moment. The roadmaps indicate that x86 is the way to go in a year plus, so that's the way we go.
Independent of power and performance, using the same processors as our PC brethren (Windows brethren, really) will only help. Now we get the perks of the x86 world without most of the drawbacks -- just have to rip off the band-aid first!
Of course I don't feel cheated because the current Pentium 4 isn't that good of a chip and certainly wasn't worth switching OSX over to.
However the new low power efficient core products Intel has coming out the pipleline are worth it.
Pentium M is the only Intel product I've envied and Apple is now jumping into the curve at the right spot where everything Intel ships will be Pentium M quality and above. Kill this pedantic whining about the current Pentium 4. You're only confusing yourself.
It is right now that the move to Intel makes sense.
Of course I don't feel cheated because the current Pentium 4 isn't that good of a chip and certainly wasn't worth switching OSX over to.
However the new low power efficient core products Intel has coming out the pipleline are worth it.
Pentium M is the only Intel product I've envied and Apple is now jumping into the curve at the right spot where everything Intel ships will be Pentium M quality and above. Kill this pedantic whining about the current Pentium 4. You're only confusing yourself.
It is right now that the move to Intel makes sense.
I see you've decided to drink the koolaid.
Obviously the move to Intel makes sense now... like it did five years ago. I'm not confused, I was misled and I dont like it.
always felt special using my Macs because I knew I had an awesome OS with hardware that had some thought put into it, rather than just a few parts thrown together.
In the PC world, the "amount of thought" put in the hardware is all up to you. That's the freedom you have.
You can choose to go with a rock stable, exteremely well designed Intel board, Intel CPU, reliable and quiet Seagate drive, made-by-Ati video card etc... and end up with a rock solid, fast machine that is quiet and powerful without any tinkering.
Or you could go with rock bottom price board (Shuttle comes to mind), some cheap video card from a taiwanese sweatshop and end up with a cheap rig that will take some time to be stable.
It's all up to you.
Notebooks are the same. Get a purebred Japanese machine like Fujitsu and it will last you for years or get a Dell and you'll be on the phone with tech support every other day.
Are these lies (marketing spin, if you prefer) or did such statements just represent the best wisdom of their times? Probably some of both, but as technology evolves so will what we understand about technology.
Obviously the move to Intel makes sense now... like it did five years ago. I'm not confused, I was misled and I dont like it..
No Aslan I believe you're off a bit and here's why.
The current Pentium 4 architecture was designed to clock high by Intel. They figured that if they could design a microprocessor that had "legs" they could make up for the long pipeline that they were forced to use that results in low instruction per clock. They also had to beef up the branch prediction because with long pipes if the processor errs in prediction its a long wait(relatively) to requeue the correct information.
It worked initially..people ooohed and aaawed about having a 2GHz processor but the benchmarks showed that weaknesses of the P4 were efficiency in IPC and power consumption
In contrast the G4+ has 7 pipes and a lower penalty for errors in prediction are lessened but clocking them higher was a problem but they remained cool running in comparison.
The G5 is kind of in the middle. It has more pipes than a G4 and less than a Pentium 4. It has a decent branch prediction but not as good as a Pentium which lives or dies by BP.
Summary 5 years ago there was no need to switch to Intel and even today there is no need to envy any Intel processor but the Pentium M. Apple doesn't have a capable answer for it using IBM solutions and Steve was clear about that. While this is contained to portables right now it's potentially going to be a problem with desktops as well. I would guess that it is the laptop Intel chips that sealed the deal for Apple.
3-5 years ago you had it fine. Steve is moving you to Intel when it means the most and that's 2006-2007. Just because the nextgen Intel chips are good and possibly better overall than the PowerPC doesn't mean that was the scenario 3-5 years ago.
That's not koolaid that's common sense.
Skatman Fujitsu notebooks rock! I would seriously consider buying one. Nice LCDs...Dell laptops suck and scream "I went with the lowest bidder"
I think this Intel announcement hasn't been handled too well.
Customers thinking of upgrading are confused and loyal (zealots?) fans are furious.
I think the ideal would have been to announce just what kind of chips Intel were going to put inside the Macs. Will they just be off the shelf Pentiums or something more specialised?
it looks like Apple just had to get this information out there quick for the developers to start working on the transition. No specific Intel Mac machine details being available yet was the downside. Casual buyers/switchers probably won't have the slightest interest who makes the CPU though. the fact that they have a working, state of the art OS is the only thing that matters.
Personally I trust Apple enough not to worry. If my next Mac will be a more powerful and efficient machine with an Intel processor rather than a Power PC then that's great news!
In order to announce which Intel chips they plan on using, they would need to announce this info much closer to a product launch, if not with a product annoucnement. To me, that would be an even bigger jolt: "Hi, everyone, we're going to be using Intel chips in future products, oh, and here it is! Get your apps ready!"
As for what changes in 5 years in the technology world: a lot. Did anyone think MS would lose a significant chunk of the browser market in that time? Did anyone see Adobe eating up Macromedia and knifing some of its own products that it touted as the bee's knees before that? Did people expect MS to invest in Apple and for them to share patents back inthe late 90's? Did anyone expect IBM and Apple to partner up on the original PPC development? Why this shift in the winds is such a terrible surprise to people is what's confounds me. Gospel doesn't change, but technology and business do. 5 years ago, Apple was floundering with Moto's chips. People screamed from the hills to switch to Intel back then, and instead, Apple went with IBM. IBM has not panned out like they thought, so now they're trying Intel. Apple thought IBM could deliver what they needed better, and I'm sure IBM thought the same thing at the time. Things didn't work out. I don't know why people think this is Apple jerking your chain, or IBM jerking Apple's chain. Things don't go as planned. Plans change. Expectations and past performance are not indicative of future results. Shit happens. Once again, people take the marketing and expectations, sincere or otherwise, as gospel but this is busines, not marriage, and not religion. If anyone took the whole PPC vs Intel thing so personally, well, that's not anyone else's problem but their own.
Comments
Originally posted by groverat
While I agree that I doubt Apple has any Intel boxes running OSX faster than PPC boxes, that is likely nothing more than a function of how much work they've put into it.
Apple is seriously going to have to learn to drop this Napoleon complex bullshit that forces them to constantly knife-the-baby.
First they burn the bunny now Jobs bemoans IBM's ineptitude on stage? How many bridges do you have to burn, jack ass? And for what, so Maccies can jerk off on Internet websites?
How about not being a prick thereby making sure you have good relationships with everyone producing the most cutting-edge product around? I'm tired of this "I've got my hat in my hand but it's not really my fault!" crap Jobs pulls.
Don't you think that's a little over the top? I recommend valium.
But seriously. It shouldn't be all that upsetting for a manufacturer to choose a supplier or advertise their products.
Breath, two, three, four...
Originally posted by dfiler
Don't you think that's a little over the top? I recommend valium.
But seriously. It shouldn't be all that upsetting for a manufacturer to choose a supplier or advertise their products.
Breath, two, three, four...
Or some OC80's. Mmmmmm...oxycontin.
Originally posted by groverat
While I agree that I doubt Apple has any Intel boxes running OSX faster than PPC boxes, that is likely nothing more than a function of how much work they've put into it.
Apple is seriously going to have to learn to drop this Napoleon complex bullshit that forces them to constantly knife-the-baby.
First they burn the bunny now Jobs bemoans IBM's ineptitude on stage? How many bridges do you have to burn, jack ass? And for what, so Maccies can jerk off on Internet websites?
How about not being a prick thereby making sure you have good relationships with everyone producing the most cutting-edge product around? I'm tired of this "I've got my hat in my hand but it's not really my fault!" crap Jobs pulls.
i understand where you're coming from, but also remember that, if there is a partnership to be struck, sins will be forgiven when there's profit involved. see also: intel, bunnies. and trust me, if ibm can make a profit off apple in the future, and apple wants to go back to them, bygones will once again be bygones.
Originally posted by groverat
First they burn the bunny now Jobs bemoans IBM's ineptitude on stage?
Dude, the bunny suit and snail ads were 10 years ago. How much did things change with technology over that span? A lot, right? This is business, not religion. If anything, Apple maybe should have made this move for their portables at least a year ago.
Originally posted by Telomar
Catch is as a lower power chip it has been dreadful.
These days, the low-power, high performance chip is a serious holy grail. Without making a paradigm shift -- that is, to emergent technologies that are radically different that what we know today -- there will continue to be no low power chip. The Pentium M is not anything special.
What Intel does have is a great plan for the next few years that includes getting to 32nm before 2010. (They quote "before 2009.") Intel is focused on making chips for PCs. IBM isn't really.
Lastly, no one ever said that macs were going to run on Pentiums. Steve just said that Intel will supply all chips by 2007, and that today's P4 can serve as an early development platform. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the Intel chips that will appear in high end macs will be "compatible" with the current lineup, but will be radically different than today's P4. Perhaps closer to the Itanium.
So, at the end of the day, I'm glad that Apple is dealing with Intel. Intel better at what they do that anyone else in the world. I had predicted this would be the case, but I didn't think it would come so soon. I thought it would happen after IBM started phasing out the POWER line, but that may be happening now. Also, at the end of the day, I'm going to buy a bunch of PowerPC macs. Probably G3, G4, and G5 iMacs. They are fantastic for developing PPC software.
Further, it's extremely insulting to users to do a complete 180. "Pentium 4 is for ovens LOL! ... ... ... Oh hay you guys want a Pentium 4 Mac?"
Quite honestly if it's a matter of credibility as to whether IBM didn't deliver what they said or Apple just decided to once again act like a whining bitch, I'm going to believe the people who say IBM could do what they promised but Jobs had already made up his mind to switch and wanted to just take his ball and go home.
I've read (supposed) IBM employees saying that Apple could have a dual-core 3.2ghz G5 but they rejected the northbridge. I've read them say that Apple has guided a chip all the way to taping out only to scrap it then subsequently complain that the replacement wasn't coming fast enough.
And at this point, with Jobs' track record, I'll take the word of an anonymous Internet poster over that self-serving gas-bag's. It's always someone else's fault with him.
Originally posted by groverat
I'll take the word of an anonymous Internet poster over [steve jobs]
What happened to the real groverat? Normally your posts have at least some semblance of sanity...
Originally posted by groverat
And at this point, with Jobs' track record, I'll take the word of an anonymous Internet poster over that self-serving gas-bag's. It's always someone else's fault with him.
hehe.
damn. i hate laughing out loud in the office.
He wouldn't dedicate so much energy into screaming about how much everyone else sucks to beef himself up, so the community wouldn't be such a hard sell on big switches like this.
Honestly, if Jobs keeps up his "IBM screwed us!" act (and that's what it is, an act) and the crowd gets embittered against IBM, what happens if(when) Intel isn't meeting whatever random standards are thrown out? Jobs shuffles back out and pouts about mean 'ole Intel and how we have to go back to IBM now.
Why not just be friendly all around and keep your options open?
Why not announce the cross-platform nature of OSX right at the outset and leave the possibility open and encourage developers to keep their code portable instead of giving them the false impression that PowerPC was Jesus-made-of-silicon and naught else would be necessary?
Why not help them out instead of saying "We strongly encourage you to use XCode instead of Codewarrior, but I can't tell you why because I like big secrets tee-hee-hee!"
If OSX's portable nature was confirmed from OSX's launch and Jobs just said "We're still on PowerPC because IBM/Moto are delivering the goods, but if there's a hiccup or Intel/AMD do something cool we have the flexibility to bring you the very best" from the outset would anyone be wailing and gnashing teeth right now? No.
And in the future, if/when we go back to PowerPC would there be gnashing of teeth if Jobs remained positive on and open to that platform? No.
But if he just flips the script and dogs IBM incessantly it makes any subsequent transition more difficult for everyone, and for no other reason than to sate his Napoleon complex.
Originally posted by groverat
I've read (supposed) IBM employees saying that Apple could have a dual-core 3.2ghz G5 but they rejected the northbridge. I've read them say that Apple has guided a chip all the way to taping out only to scrap it then subsequently complain that the replacement wasn't coming fast enough.
And at this point, with Jobs' track record, I'll take the word of an anonymous Internet poster over that self-serving gas-bag's. It's always someone else's fault with him.
I wonder if thats why Microsoft has a triple core in the works... maybe they just let IBM do their thing.
And your other point about attitude... its true, Jobs has always talked down about "Pentiums" and the whole time he had OSX running on "Pentiums" down in the basement... if its been cross platform the whole time, why not manufacture some x86, some PPC and let the consumer decide which computer fits there needs... instead we've been given sub par hardware at a premium price. When Jobs went shopping for Pixar he outfitted them with Intel because Intel had better performance. At the time everyone dismissed it as "well, they are just dumb renderboxen".
To the people that think 1.42 Ghz G4's and less than 2.5 Ghz G5's were better than Intel's latest and greatest... check back over these forums over the past couple of years and you will see that "its not about performance, speed, price, etc, it's about the OS" which is an acknowledgment that we didnt have the best processors but, darnnit, we've got the best OS ! Well it seems that the best processors were available the whole time... imagine the countless hours wasted optimizing for Altivec!
Hopefully, Intel won't take any crap from Jobs... supposedley they dont fab other companies designs. Who knows, five years from now, we might just transition to Cell.
Originally posted by FormerLurker
I for one am glad that I buy computers for something other than "feeling special."
I always felt special using my Macs because I knew I had an awesome OS with hardware that had some thought put into it, rather than just a few parts thrown together. I work on a Windows PC at work, and I can't wait to get back to my Mac at home (just ask my co-workers!). That's why I feel special using a Mac. Oh, I also do quite a bit of work (creative and non-creative) on my Mac as well. So, yes, I didn't buy my Mac because of the "feeling" I got. I bought it because it was the best option at the time.
turboSPE
While we're swinging a bunch of support behind intel, I'm sure keeping PPC will payoff. If the pendulum swings the other way or we want some embedded system or game console, PPC may be the choice within the next 5 years.
PPC is good, its just not getting pushed as far or as fast for desktops at the moment. The roadmaps indicate that x86 is the way to go in a year plus, so that's the way we go.
Independent of power and performance, using the same processors as our PC brethren (Windows brethren, really) will only help. Now we get the perks of the x86 world without most of the drawbacks -- just have to rip off the band-aid first!
Of course I don't feel cheated because the current Pentium 4 isn't that good of a chip and certainly wasn't worth switching OSX over to.
However the new low power efficient core products Intel has coming out the pipleline are worth it.
Pentium M is the only Intel product I've envied and Apple is now jumping into the curve at the right spot where everything Intel ships will be Pentium M quality and above. Kill this pedantic whining about the current Pentium 4. You're only confusing yourself.
It is right now that the move to Intel makes sense.
Originally posted by hmurchison
God this thread sucks.
Of course I don't feel cheated because the current Pentium 4 isn't that good of a chip and certainly wasn't worth switching OSX over to.
However the new low power efficient core products Intel has coming out the pipleline are worth it.
Pentium M is the only Intel product I've envied and Apple is now jumping into the curve at the right spot where everything Intel ships will be Pentium M quality and above. Kill this pedantic whining about the current Pentium 4. You're only confusing yourself.
It is right now that the move to Intel makes sense.
I see you've decided to drink the koolaid.
Obviously the move to Intel makes sense now... like it did five years ago. I'm not confused, I was misled and I dont like it.
always felt special using my Macs because I knew I had an awesome OS with hardware that had some thought put into it, rather than just a few parts thrown together.
In the PC world, the "amount of thought" put in the hardware is all up to you. That's the freedom you have.
You can choose to go with a rock stable, exteremely well designed Intel board, Intel CPU, reliable and quiet Seagate drive, made-by-Ati video card etc... and end up with a rock solid, fast machine that is quiet and powerful without any tinkering.
Or you could go with rock bottom price board (Shuttle comes to mind), some cheap video card from a taiwanese sweatshop and end up with a cheap rig that will take some time to be stable.
It's all up to you.
Notebooks are the same. Get a purebred Japanese machine like Fujitsu and it will last you for years or get a Dell and you'll be on the phone with tech support every other day.
http://www.ionicstudios.net/MacTel
HA!
I see you've decided to drink the koolaid.
Obviously the move to Intel makes sense now... like it did five years ago. I'm not confused, I was misled and I dont like it..
No Aslan I believe you're off a bit and here's why.
The current Pentium 4 architecture was designed to clock high by Intel. They figured that if they could design a microprocessor that had "legs" they could make up for the long pipeline that they were forced to use that results in low instruction per clock. They also had to beef up the branch prediction because with long pipes if the processor errs in prediction its a long wait(relatively) to requeue the correct information.
It worked initially..people ooohed and aaawed about having a 2GHz processor but the benchmarks showed that weaknesses of the P4 were efficiency in IPC and power consumption
In contrast the G4+ has 7 pipes and a lower penalty for errors in prediction are lessened but clocking them higher was a problem but they remained cool running in comparison.
The G5 is kind of in the middle. It has more pipes than a G4 and less than a Pentium 4. It has a decent branch prediction but not as good as a Pentium which lives or dies by BP.
Summary 5 years ago there was no need to switch to Intel and even today there is no need to envy any Intel processor but the Pentium M. Apple doesn't have a capable answer for it using IBM solutions and Steve was clear about that. While this is contained to portables right now it's potentially going to be a problem with desktops as well. I would guess that it is the laptop Intel chips that sealed the deal for Apple.
3-5 years ago you had it fine. Steve is moving you to Intel when it means the most and that's 2006-2007. Just because the nextgen Intel chips are good and possibly better overall than the PowerPC doesn't mean that was the scenario 3-5 years ago.
That's not koolaid that's common sense.
Skatman Fujitsu notebooks rock! I would seriously consider buying one. Nice LCDs...Dell laptops suck and scream "I went with the lowest bidder"
Customers thinking of upgrading are confused and loyal (zealots?) fans are furious.
I think the ideal would have been to announce just what kind of chips Intel were going to put inside the Macs. Will they just be off the shelf Pentiums or something more specialised?
it looks like Apple just had to get this information out there quick for the developers to start working on the transition. No specific Intel Mac machine details being available yet was the downside. Casual buyers/switchers probably won't have the slightest interest who makes the CPU though. the fact that they have a working, state of the art OS is the only thing that matters.
Personally I trust Apple enough not to worry. If my next Mac will be a more powerful and efficient machine with an Intel processor rather than a Power PC then that's great news!
As for what changes in 5 years in the technology world: a lot. Did anyone think MS would lose a significant chunk of the browser market in that time? Did anyone see Adobe eating up Macromedia and knifing some of its own products that it touted as the bee's knees before that? Did people expect MS to invest in Apple and for them to share patents back inthe late 90's? Did anyone expect IBM and Apple to partner up on the original PPC development? Why this shift in the winds is such a terrible surprise to people is what's confounds me. Gospel doesn't change, but technology and business do. 5 years ago, Apple was floundering with Moto's chips. People screamed from the hills to switch to Intel back then, and instead, Apple went with IBM. IBM has not panned out like they thought, so now they're trying Intel. Apple thought IBM could deliver what they needed better, and I'm sure IBM thought the same thing at the time. Things didn't work out. I don't know why people think this is Apple jerking your chain, or IBM jerking Apple's chain. Things don't go as planned. Plans change. Expectations and past performance are not indicative of future results. Shit happens. Once again, people take the marketing and expectations, sincere or otherwise, as gospel but this is busines, not marriage, and not religion. If anyone took the whole PPC vs Intel thing so personally, well, that's not anyone else's problem but their own.