All of your skepticism's have no basis in reality, according to Apple.
Since the early days of OS X there have been rumors of an Intel version that was said to run well.
Of course NeXT ran well on Intel and much of OS X was built from NeXT.
The only real beef programmers have is the "drivers" issue and there's this interesting little driver tech formerly called Rendezvous.
If they have managed to pull their magic with that there won't be any drives issues, there won't be any configuration issues either !!!
Then there are the stories from Intel cited in this thread that OS X in running well on Intel in labs.
I think Tiger represents the pinnacle of functionality for the OS and trying to move beyond this could be a mistake, it could just lead to change for the sake of change and not improvement.
Therefore Jobs is finding something to keep his teams busy, Mac OS Xntel should keep them busy for a little while.
You guys that have a stake in Win/tel and give lip service to Macs, well, you are about to loose your stake !!! HA HA HA !
Apple has new vastly superior display technology that will allow them to sell laptops and beat the competition in any market.
They have patentable tech that is not likely to be duplicated by other strategies that will allow them to build a 3D gaming and laptop display tech that could be used with all sorts of consumer devices.
Because it will use much less battery power it will make their laptops superior to all others, especially laptops with multiple cores.
Its an idea I sent them a few months ago. There was a rumor shortly afterwards about Apple looking at chips from the UK that could do 3D display and other cell phone things with low power.
So Jobs being the Genius that he is, is using this opportunity to tighten the thumb screws on IBM and Intel at the same time.
It does not seem that way now but it will when they start to ship this new display tech that should be about a year from now -- its pretty easy to build !!!
Here it is right here, the chip set to run MY DISPLAY !!!
Building on the success of the VC01, Alphamosaic is now sampling VC02, the world's most advanced mobile multimedia processor. The VC02 can display video on 3.5 inch color LCDs and capture 8 megapixel images, making it ideal for watching TV, making videos or taking studio-quality photos on a cellphone."
And...
"Broadcom says the chip uses very small amounts of battery power and "excels in high-quality 3D graphics performance with the capability to support pixel shading and volumetric lighting with low power consumption, making it ideal for use in mobile gaming applications and comparable in performance to home consoles.""
Mac/tel is bad for 2 reasons despite MACchine ranting.
The licensing of the Mac operating system was a failure on G4 systems. Apple found out that I could not survive just as software company.
The move of NeXT to Intel put the nail in NeXTs coffin until Apple resurrected it.
Apple needs to keep its operating system on unique hardware or it will lose too much revenue. Too many developers and customers will lose faith in the stability of the Mac platform in a switch to a Mac/tel machine. Look at how many years it took Quark to release a MacOS X update. A switch to Advanced Micro Devices would be more likely. Apple needs an advanced 64-bit processor. AMD's floating point capabilities are much greater then Intel's. The Opteron is a much better choice for a graphics-intensive OS like MacOS X. Unless Apple believes that IBM's Commitment to the PowerPC is fading the switching to Intel while the G5 sill has room for development is extremely unlikely.
[*]The licensing of the Mac operating system was a failure on G4 systems. Apple found out that I could not survive just as software company.
? Actually if you remember there were never G4 clones. The clones were developed as far as the 604e, and were killed when G3 systems were introduced.
Quote:
A switch to Advanced Micro Devices would be more likely. Apple needs an advanced 64-bit processor. AMD's floating point capabilities are much greater then Intel's. The Opteron is a much better choice for a graphics-intensive OS like MacOS X.
Hmmm. All the business downsides of a x86 transition without any of the business advantages. Sounds good to me! Even worse, since Intel is a much better match in Laptop CPUs, which is really where Apple is currently crippled; and more importantly where industry growth is strongest.
Here is the thing Aurora,IBM did that in 1995,remember IBM's O/S2 ,from what I understand,it was much better than Windows 95,but because both of them run on Intel and the majority of users are using Windows,guess who won,Microsoft.
If we are living in 1985,then Apple has good chance surviving the use of Intel.But we are in 2005,realistically speaking,they will be dead in three years as a computer company if they go choose this route.Honestly,I think this is just smokescreen,we will see on Monday.
Jobs maybe a egomaniac,but he should of all people should had learn the lesson of migrating to Intel with a hardware/OS combination.He saw his NeXTstep company dwindle into irrelevance until it was bought by Apple.
Hardware is the lifeblood of Apple,no hardware,bye-bye Apple.
I think if this happens we will have a transition phase or perhaps Apple could sell Intel next to ppc.I would like to see Apple make OSX for PCs. There are many ways to organize a transition and apple has through the years done a good job. Remember Microsoft made its billions on Software and has lost money on its hardware. Apples real strenth is its software its hardware though designed very well has had ho hum performance due to Stagnated Motostink and do they really care IBM!
First on the IBM OS/2 issue. As I recall Microsoft was originally codeveloping OS/2 and jumped ship on IBM to come out with Win 95 and Windows NT. When OS/2 came out it was said to run Windows software better than Windows, for this reason developers didn't develop OS/2 specific programs. Without the developers the OS died. The software and developer support is key for an OS to survive, it doesn't matter what hardware it is running on.
That does pose a problem for Apple in the high end, and that might be why they may choose to transition the low end products first, and that is Microsoft Office. Of course Apple does have advantages as well, especially on the low end where most of the "neccessary" apps are bundeled with the computer. If Apple can't get Microsoft on board then they have a real problem in the Pro end, but less of one in the consumer market.
There are other developers of course, and one of them that is key for Apple is Adobe. But then Adobe is setting themselves up to go head to head with Microsoft in certain markets such as Web development. This might work to Apple's advantage. Also Apple has most certainly been talking with Adobe and other key developers about any switch that may be anounced. Still it will take time to optamize code for Adobe's application library, which is larger now that they bought Macromedia, so it make sense to go slower with the switch for professional systems.
The other problem that I see is how many platforms (and varients there of) will developers be willing to support? The software at minimum would need to be recompiled for the new platform, and preferably optamized for it as well. I'm not a programmer, and don't have much experience with UNIX outside of OS X so I don't know how much "work" it takes to get a UNIX from on platform to the next. However there are a number of UNIX Apps that were recompiled by early adopters, and there is the whole X11 (?) windowiing app that Apple has to run X windows Apps, so it can't be too hard to at least get them running even if they don't take full advantage of the hardware. That was also one of the key points that they made when Apple started developing OS X, it's portability. I'm sure that the programmers here will flame me on this, but IT doesn't seem like it would be that much more work for developers to support another processor in their code, especially since a lot of these developers already have their programs coded for both platforms anyway so they know how to optamize the code for x86 and might be ablt to just graft some of that code into the Mac version of their code base from the windows.
The last software issue is the install, and Apple has successfully done that with FAT bionaries before to make it seamless to the user.
As other's have pointed out the article does not identify x86 as the chip that Intel would be providinig for Apple. Recient news and developments of IBM initiatives with the Power PC might point to another scenerio:
...Under the foundry program, IBM will offer to manufacture the chips for licensees at its facilities. It also intends to allow licensees to manufacture the chips elsewhere, a company representative said...
These two developments could point to Apple "licensing" and a PPC core, and customizing it then taking the design to Intel for fabing. Isn't that what Sony is doing with Cell, having it fabed by someone other than IBM?
The other possibility of going with a Intell developed chip also opens up avenues for Apple in the form of partnerships, like the one they have with HP (who rumor has it does not like Microsoft much) for the iPod. Apple still keeps controll of the software, only making it work on a 64 bit Intell chip, and adding in some other software tricks to keep it from running on generic computers. They license it to HP and maybe a few others, Sony?, and they gain partners in their battle against Microsoft.
Mac/tel is bad for 2 reasons despite MACchine ranting. The licensing of the Mac operating system was a failure on G4 systems. Apple found out that I could not survive just as software company. The move of NeXT to Intel put the nail in NeXTs coffin until Apple resurrected it. Apple needs to keep its operating system on unique hardware or it will lose too much revenue. Too many developers and customers will lose faith in the stability of the Mac platform in a switch to a Mac/tel machine. Look at how many years it took Quark to release a MacOS X update. A switch to Advanced Micro Devices would be more likely. Apple needs an advanced 64-bit processor. AMD's floating point capabilities are much greater then Intel's. The Opteron is a much better choice for a graphics-intensive OS like MacOS X. Unless Apple believes that IBM's Commitment to the PowerPC is fading the switching to Intel while the G5 sill has room for development is extremely unlikely.
Opteron and G5 set ups are practically the same. Hypertransport is used also. the only issue is that look at the prices of an Opteron system. there is no cost advantage compared to Intel. an Opteron based PM would cost the same or more than the current G5.
It looks like CNET has provided something to keep the discussions lively until the WWDC keynote. Maybe Intel will modify the mobile Pentium M with a PPC front end and AltiVec for things like the iBook and Mac mini. I haven't given up on the 970MP appearing in a new quad workstation class Mac.
IMHO, if Apple goes through with this, sell your stock now; because it will be worthless in less than 3 years. That is how long, on the outside, Apple would last in a software only battle vs Micro$oft. I know the reason I bought my Mac was as much for the hardware design as for the OS X. So what would we have to look forward to, OS X running in those 'ricer' ATX cases??
And if they are serious about this, why Intel? They would be using the most expensive, most archaic architecture and most power/heat inefficient x86 CPU's. AMD would be a much better choice, IF they were actually going to switch.
My prediction - Intel will produce a RISC chip for Apple that is not PPC, but really close (just different enough to avoid legal trouble). Apple will bundle this with a DSP that translates the PPC instruction set to the new processors machine language.
Any re-compiled application will use the new processor directly, while legacy applications will get piped through the DSP. The DSP will not have to do that much because the Intel processor's instruction set will be designed for easy translation.
Wow. And not so long ago people were complaining about how unstormy it was prior to WWDC.
The only way I see Apple moving to Intel is if CEOs of Intel, Dell, HP, Gateway and Acer are standing up there with Steve at the WWDC keynote and promising that they will be shipping Mac OS X for Intel by the time Xbox 360 comes out this fall, or at least a converged home device to compete with Xbox and PS3.
So what would we have to look forward to, OS X running in those 'ricer' ATX cases??
Probably! Having to run the same cheap 3Ghz hardware as those proles would be such a let down - what would the neighbours think?!
Quote:
Originally posted by iPoster
And if they are serious about this, why Intel? They would be using the most expensive, most archaic architecture and most power/heat inefficient x86 CPU's. AMD would be a much better choice, IF they were actually going to switch.
Better to go with Intel first. If Intel become a pain then Apple could always Switch to AMD. Going with AMD first and Intel might not like being second in line.
Pentium M is expensive but neither archaic nor generate lots of heat, indeed much less heat than a G5 . And on the roadmap there is Yonah.
As other's have pointed out the article does not identify x86 as the chip that Intel would be providinig for Apple. Recient news and developments of IBM initiatives with the Power PC might point to another scenerio:
...Under the foundry program, IBM will offer to manufacture the chips for licensees at its facilities. It also intends to allow licensees to manufacture the chips elsewhere, a company representative said...
These two developments could point to Apple "licensing" and a PPC core, and customizing it then taking the design to Intel for fabing. Isn't that what Sony is doing with Cell, having it fabed by someone other than IBM?
If I had to bet, my money would be on this explanation.
I flatly don't believe the cnet article is accurate. Some aspect of it might be. There might be talks between Apple and Intel but there is no way in hell Apple is going to start putting an X86-like chip in their hardware. It will mean the end of their hardware line within three years--Apple understands this. It would be cheaper for them to simply announce they are no longer interested in producing harware.
It may be that Apple is talking to Intel about creating a non X86 chip, something that windows will never have a chance of running on nor cause major enough changes in OS X that would ever allow it to be run on a wintel system.
Or, as others here have speculated, it may be that Apple wants Intel to do something altogether non-CPU related.
If Apple wants to steal OS market share from M$, wouldn't they just do a software version of the mac mini and creat an OS X for wintel machines. If such an OS were successful, fewer people would switch over to Apple when they saw they could get what they wanted (OS X) on there Dells and Gateways, and Apple would make loads of money. If it were unsuccessful, consumers would realize they would have to make the switch to get the real Mac experience.
Okay, I'm blowing all of this out of my a%#. Nevertheless, I bet cnet is wrong. What they report would be a stupendously expensive and suicidal business decision.
And I'm still getting a new iBook or PB (which ever is announced first) even if they do tell us they're switching to Intel. Keep my 100% Mac experience alive for as long as possible.8)
Comments
All of your skepticism's have no basis in reality, according to Apple.
Since the early days of OS X there have been rumors of an Intel version that was said to run well.
Of course NeXT ran well on Intel and much of OS X was built from NeXT.
The only real beef programmers have is the "drivers" issue and there's this interesting little driver tech formerly called Rendezvous.
If they have managed to pull their magic with that there won't be any drives issues, there won't be any configuration issues either !!!
Then there are the stories from Intel cited in this thread that OS X in running well on Intel in labs.
I think Tiger represents the pinnacle of functionality for the OS and trying to move beyond this could be a mistake, it could just lead to change for the sake of change and not improvement.
Therefore Jobs is finding something to keep his teams busy, Mac OS Xntel should keep them busy for a little while.
You guys that have a stake in Win/tel and give lip service to Macs, well, you are about to loose your stake !!! HA HA HA !
Originally posted by MACchine
Apple has new vastly superior display technology that will allow them to sell laptops and beat the competition in any market.
They have patentable tech that is not likely to be duplicated by other strategies that will allow them to build a 3D gaming and laptop display tech that could be used with all sorts of consumer devices.
Because it will use much less battery power it will make their laptops superior to all others, especially laptops with multiple cores.
Its an idea I sent them a few months ago. There was a rumor shortly afterwards about Apple looking at chips from the UK that could do 3D display and other cell phone things with low power.
So Jobs being the Genius that he is, is using this opportunity to tighten the thumb screws on IBM and Intel at the same time.
It does not seem that way now but it will when they start to ship this new display tech that should be about a year from now -- its pretty easy to build !!!
Here it is right here, the chip set to run MY DISPLAY !!!
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/...convalleyw.php
"From press release dated September 20, 2004:
Building on the success of the VC01, Alphamosaic is now sampling VC02, the world's most advanced mobile multimedia processor. The VC02 can display video on 3.5 inch color LCDs and capture 8 megapixel images, making it ideal for watching TV, making videos or taking studio-quality photos on a cellphone."
And...
"Broadcom says the chip uses very small amounts of battery power and "excels in high-quality 3D graphics performance with the capability to support pixel shading and volumetric lighting with low power consumption, making it ideal for use in mobile gaming applications and comparable in performance to home consoles.""
Mac/tel is bad for 2 reasons despite MACchine ranting.
- The licensing of the Mac operating system was a failure on G4 systems. Apple found out that I could not survive just as software company.
- The move of NeXT to Intel put the nail in NeXTs coffin until Apple resurrected it.
Apple needs to keep its operating system on unique hardware or it will lose too much revenue. Too many developers and customers will lose faith in the stability of the Mac platform in a switch to a Mac/tel machine. Look at how many years it took Quark to release a MacOS X update.eWeek has a better reputation then c|net. :P
Rumor Says Apple May Ditch IBM for Intel
Apple's Talks with Intel Raise Eyebrow
Latest News Analysts: Dual-Core PowerPC G5s Due for Apple
Old news Apple Explores Use of Intel Chips for Macs
A q u a M a c
Originally posted by AquaMac
[*]The licensing of the Mac operating system was a failure on G4 systems. Apple found out that I could not survive just as software company.
? Actually if you remember there were never G4 clones. The clones were developed as far as the 604e, and were killed when G3 systems were introduced.
A switch to Advanced Micro Devices would be more likely. Apple needs an advanced 64-bit processor. AMD's floating point capabilities are much greater then Intel's. The Opteron is a much better choice for a graphics-intensive OS like MacOS X.
Hmmm. All the business downsides of a x86 transition without any of the business advantages. Sounds good to me! Even worse, since Intel is a much better match in Laptop CPUs, which is really where Apple is currently crippled; and more importantly where industry growth is strongest.
The Final Frontier...
Originally posted by Wil
Here is the thing Aurora,IBM did that in 1995,remember IBM's O/S2 ,from what I understand,it was much better than Windows 95,but because both of them run on Intel and the majority of users are using Windows,guess who won,Microsoft.
If we are living in 1985,then Apple has good chance surviving the use of Intel.But we are in 2005,realistically speaking,they will be dead in three years as a computer company if they go choose this route.Honestly,I think this is just smokescreen,we will see on Monday.
Jobs maybe a egomaniac,but he should of all people should had learn the lesson of migrating to Intel with a hardware/OS combination.He saw his NeXTstep company dwindle into irrelevance until it was bought by Apple.
Hardware is the lifeblood of Apple,no hardware,bye-bye Apple.
I think if this happens we will have a transition phase or perhaps Apple could sell Intel next to ppc.I would like to see Apple make OSX for PCs. There are many ways to organize a transition and apple has through the years done a good job. Remember Microsoft made its billions on Software and has lost money on its hardware. Apples real strenth is its software its hardware though designed very well has had ho hum performance due to Stagnated Motostink and do they really care IBM!
Originally posted by failedmathematician
Truthfully though, AIM has been like a bad relationship for a long time now.
You mean since it ceased to exist?
First on the IBM OS/2 issue. As I recall Microsoft was originally codeveloping OS/2 and jumped ship on IBM to come out with Win 95 and Windows NT. When OS/2 came out it was said to run Windows software better than Windows, for this reason developers didn't develop OS/2 specific programs. Without the developers the OS died. The software and developer support is key for an OS to survive, it doesn't matter what hardware it is running on.
That does pose a problem for Apple in the high end, and that might be why they may choose to transition the low end products first, and that is Microsoft Office. Of course Apple does have advantages as well, especially on the low end where most of the "neccessary" apps are bundeled with the computer. If Apple can't get Microsoft on board then they have a real problem in the Pro end, but less of one in the consumer market.
There are other developers of course, and one of them that is key for Apple is Adobe. But then Adobe is setting themselves up to go head to head with Microsoft in certain markets such as Web development. This might work to Apple's advantage. Also Apple has most certainly been talking with Adobe and other key developers about any switch that may be anounced. Still it will take time to optamize code for Adobe's application library, which is larger now that they bought Macromedia, so it make sense to go slower with the switch for professional systems.
The other problem that I see is how many platforms (and varients there of) will developers be willing to support? The software at minimum would need to be recompiled for the new platform, and preferably optamized for it as well. I'm not a programmer, and don't have much experience with UNIX outside of OS X so I don't know how much "work" it takes to get a UNIX from on platform to the next. However there are a number of UNIX Apps that were recompiled by early adopters, and there is the whole X11 (?) windowiing app that Apple has to run X windows Apps, so it can't be too hard to at least get them running even if they don't take full advantage of the hardware. That was also one of the key points that they made when Apple started developing OS X, it's portability. I'm sure that the programmers here will flame me on this, but IT doesn't seem like it would be that much more work for developers to support another processor in their code, especially since a lot of these developers already have their programs coded for both platforms anyway so they know how to optamize the code for x86 and might be ablt to just graft some of that code into the Mac version of their code base from the windows.
The last software issue is the install, and Apple has successfully done that with FAT bionaries before to make it seamless to the user.
As other's have pointed out the article does not identify x86 as the chip that Intel would be providinig for Apple. Recient news and developments of IBM initiatives with the Power PC might point to another scenerio:
IBM to broaden PowerPC licensing
...Under the foundry program, IBM will offer to manufacture the chips for licensees at its facilities. It also intends to allow licensees to manufacture the chips elsewhere, a company representative said...
Also:
IBM opens up its Power line
These two developments could point to Apple "licensing" and a PPC core, and customizing it then taking the design to Intel for fabing. Isn't that what Sony is doing with Cell, having it fabed by someone other than IBM?
The other possibility of going with a Intell developed chip also opens up avenues for Apple in the form of partnerships, like the one they have with HP (who rumor has it does not like Microsoft much) for the iPod. Apple still keeps controll of the software, only making it work on a 64 bit Intell chip, and adding in some other software tricks to keep it from running on generic computers. They license it to HP and maybe a few others, Sony?, and they gain partners in their battle against Microsoft.
Originally posted by AquaMac
MACchine aka Bill Gates?
Mac/tel is bad for 2 reasons despite MACchine ranting.
The move of NeXT to Intel put the nail in NeXTs coffin until Apple resurrected it.
Apple needs to keep its operating system on unique hardware or it will lose too much revenue. Too many developers and customers will lose faith in the stability of the Mac platform in a switch to a Mac/tel machine. Look at how many years it took Quark to release a MacOS X update.
eWeek has a better reputation then c|net. :P
Rumor Says Apple May Ditch IBM for Intel
Apple's Talks with Intel Raise Eyebrow
Latest News Analysts: Dual-Core PowerPC G5s Due for Apple
Old news Apple Explores Use of Intel Chips for Macs
A q u a M a c
Opteron and G5 set ups are practically the same. Hypertransport is used also. the only issue is that look at the prices of an Opteron system. there is no cost advantage compared to Intel. an Opteron based PM would cost the same or more than the current G5.
And if they are serious about this, why Intel? They would be using the most expensive, most archaic architecture and most power/heat inefficient x86 CPU's. AMD would be a much better choice, IF they were actually going to switch.
Any re-compiled application will use the new processor directly, while legacy applications will get piped through the DSP. The DSP will not have to do that much because the Intel processor's instruction set will be designed for easy translation.
The only way I see Apple moving to Intel is if CEOs of Intel, Dell, HP, Gateway and Acer are standing up there with Steve at the WWDC keynote and promising that they will be shipping Mac OS X for Intel by the time Xbox 360 comes out this fall, or at least a converged home device to compete with Xbox and PS3.
Originally posted by iPoster
So what would we have to look forward to, OS X running in those 'ricer' ATX cases??
Probably! Having to run the same cheap 3Ghz hardware as those proles would be such a let down - what would the neighbours think?!
Originally posted by iPoster
And if they are serious about this, why Intel? They would be using the most expensive, most archaic architecture and most power/heat inefficient x86 CPU's. AMD would be a much better choice, IF they were actually going to switch.
Better to go with Intel first. If Intel become a pain then Apple could always Switch to AMD. Going with AMD first and Intel might not like being second in line.
Pentium M is expensive but neither archaic nor generate lots of heat, indeed much less heat than a G5
Originally posted by @homenow
On to hardware.
As other's have pointed out the article does not identify x86 as the chip that Intel would be providinig for Apple. Recient news and developments of IBM initiatives with the Power PC might point to another scenerio:
IBM to broaden PowerPC licensing
...Under the foundry program, IBM will offer to manufacture the chips for licensees at its facilities. It also intends to allow licensees to manufacture the chips elsewhere, a company representative said...
Also:
IBM opens up its Power line
These two developments could point to Apple "licensing" and a PPC core, and customizing it then taking the design to Intel for fabing. Isn't that what Sony is doing with Cell, having it fabed by someone other than IBM?
If I had to bet, my money would be on this explanation.
It may be that Apple is talking to Intel about creating a non X86 chip, something that windows will never have a chance of running on nor cause major enough changes in OS X that would ever allow it to be run on a wintel system.
Or, as others here have speculated, it may be that Apple wants Intel to do something altogether non-CPU related.
If Apple wants to steal OS market share from M$, wouldn't they just do a software version of the mac mini and creat an OS X for wintel machines. If such an OS were successful, fewer people would switch over to Apple when they saw they could get what they wanted (OS X) on there Dells and Gateways, and Apple would make loads of money. If it were unsuccessful, consumers would realize they would have to make the switch to get the real Mac experience.
Okay, I'm blowing all of this out of my a%#. Nevertheless, I bet cnet is wrong. What they report would be a stupendously expensive and suicidal business decision.
And I'm still getting a new iBook or PB (which ever is announced first) even if they do tell us they're switching to Intel. Keep my 100% Mac experience alive for as long as possible.8)