Apple confirms switch to Intel

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Apple Computer chief executive Steve Jobs today confirmed company plans to deliver models of Macintosh computers with Intel microprocessors by this time next year, and to transition all of its Macs to using Intel microprocessors by the end of 2007.



In front of a World Wide Developers Conference crowd that included over 3,800 developers -- the largest in over a decade -- Jobs previewed a version of Mac OS X Tiger running on an Intel-based Mac.



Mac OS X has been leading a "secret double life," Jobs proclaimed. He said every release of the Mac OS X over the last five years was secretly built for both the PowerPC and Intel processors. ?So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for both PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years,? he said.



Jobs also announced that developers can begin to pre-order a Developer Transition Kit. It will consist of a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-based machine and Mac OS X 10.4.1 "Tiger" for Intel, which will allow them to prepare versions of their applications that will run on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. The kit will begin shipping in two weeks for $999.



Under the transition to Intel, technologies such as Dashboard Widgets, scripts and Java will "just work," Jobs said. Meanwhile, Cocoa applications will require a few days worth of work to update and Carbon applications a few weeks. The majority of new Mac OS X applications are of the Cocoa flavor.



At one point, Jobs invited to the stage Theo Gray, cofounder of Wolfram Research, to demonstrate the portability of Mac OS X applications to the Intel platform and alleviate developer fears of another costly and timely code updating processes. Gray said his team ported Mathematica 5 to Intel-based Macs in 2 hours. "We?re talking about twenty lines of source code out of millions," he said. "This is nothing like Carbonizing."



Jobs also showed off a new dynamic binary translator called "Rosetta," which runs PowerPC code on Intel-based Macs transparently to the users and without a significant speed decrease. In a demonstration he showed Microsoft Office for Mac and Photoshop CS2 running on Intel hardware in unmodified PowerPC binary form. Jobs said that Apple will be including the technology for its users because he knows each application isn't going to be ready for the new Intel Macs on day one.



Representatives from big name companies, including Microsoft and Adobe, also joined Jobs on stage to vouch their support of the transition to Intel and reaffirm their commitment to the Macintosh platform. They were soon followed by Paul Otellini, Intel's president and CEO, who played a 1996 Apple ad where an Intel bunny was set a blaze. Intel doesn't have a grudge, he said. "So after thirty years, Apple and Intel are together at last."



In closing, Jobs said that with both Apple and the Mac strong, it's a great time to start building for the future and making the company stronger. By next year's World Wide Developer Conference he suspects that most developers will be shipping universal binaries of their Mac OS X applications as Apple begins to divulge information about the next-generation Mac OS X operating system, code-named Leopard.



?Because more than even the processor, more than the even hardware innovations we bring to the market, the soul of the Mac is its operating system,? Jobs said. "And we're not standing still."
«13456722

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 423
    Un-stinkin'-believable.
  • Reply 2 of 423
    nondualnondual Posts: 78member
    Wow!



    I honestly did not think this was going to happen.
  • Reply 3 of 423
    gugygugy Posts: 794member
    Nooooooo!!!!!

    Just kidding! I could not careless. IBM screwed up anyway. Get rid of them now before more damage.

    I am only sad for no products announcements today.
  • Reply 4 of 423
    insliderinslider Posts: 86member
    Crow is a dish best served cold.
  • Reply 5 of 423
    auroraaurora Posts: 1,142member
    Wow! its true the soul is in the OS and now we will have the fastest hardware with the best software Bravo Jobs should have done it sooner but Bravo! Enough of slow PPC.
  • Reply 6 of 423
    futuremacfuturemac Posts: 242member
    all i can say is WOW...



    but for some strange reason im looking forward to the new mactel boxes and exited about apples future. however i was just about to get a mac mini, but since we have a year left im still going to get one.
  • Reply 7 of 423
    appleriscapplerisc Posts: 31member
    I never thought I'd say this, but I think Steve Jobs has completely lost his mind. He spewed a pile of bovine manure this morning about Intel's "great roadmap," yet of course failed to actually provide any details. He did no speed comparisons between Mac OS X on Intel and PowerPC because he knows the x86 version would lose. What happens to AltiVec? The reason Apple has superior rendering times for Final Cut Pro, faster DVD encoding, etc, is because of the PowerPC's AltiVec instructions. Why the hell would I want a Mac that's at 3.7 GHz "Intel inside" if I'm going to have slower rendering time? My time is worth something, too, but apparently the almighty Steve doesn't give a rat's ass.



    Nor does he care about my money. Who the hell's going to be supporting any software for PPC Macs 7 years from now? Why should I be forced once again (it was classic to OS X, now it's PPC to Intel) to pay for upgrades that I don't really want or need just so I can run the software (properly, their cheesy PPC -> x86 translator will most certainly not provide the performance I expect out of my apps on a Mac) on newer Macs in the future? I again have to shell out money for an upgrade to the newest Adobe Creative Suite even though I'm fine with the last revision? Why should I have to buy a new version of Microsoft Office?



    Is Steve insane enough to believe that processor intensive games created today for the Mac are going to run fine in his stupid PPC emulation environment? Somehow it doesn't seem that translating RISC to CISC is going to offer acceptable performance. If he does pull this off, kudos to him, even though I think it's one of the dumbest moves he's ever made. Switching to the crusty x86 ISA is insane. What's next, we're ditching Mac OS X and installing Windows on our future Macs?



    By the way, it's been many years, but I don't see how this would be any different today: http://mackido.com/Hardware/WhatIsRISC.html



    This move is singularly stupid. Flame me all you want because I'm sure some of you think Steve Jobs can do no wrong. But this is just stupid.
  • Reply 8 of 423
    unixpoetunixpoet Posts: 41member
    Damn it's a bloody cold day today in hell ej?!







    Un-fscking-believable! So Scoble was right after all! That means that MS has known about it for some time. The strategic implications of this move are legion. This week has truly been a historic week: two founding members of the EU reject the treaty, and Apple hugging Intel!



    While Job was touting G5 and the mac fans drinking it all up he's been playing with OSX on Intel - the sheer cheek! Would you buy a used car from the guy?



    I knew Jobs didnt give a damn about altivec - he's after a lower power chip for laptops (a growth market) not faster rendering times.



    I applaud the move to Intel. PowerMac is dead! Long live MacTel!



    Exciting times ahead!
  • Reply 9 of 423
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member




    It's a madhouse! A madhouse!
  • Reply 10 of 423
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    What we know:

    [list=1][*]No Powerbook G5 EVER! -- For once, Apple can't make a product that it wants to. Back when the Powerbooks had G3s, it was hard to believe they'd ever get a G4 because of heat issues. Now, it is impossible to believe that an Apple laptop will ever have a G5.[*]No 3.0 GHz Power Mac G5s...probably -- While not cancelling out the possibility, it seems like Jobs was making it pretty clear that the G5 won't make it to 3.0 Ghz. This really amazes me, because I was under the impression that the G5 was going to be HUGELY scalable.[*]Apple's products keep hitting ceilings where their chips are concerned -- Why is it that the 680X0 and PowerPC chips have all run out of gas? The x86 chips are still moving onward and upward, right? Is this empty promises from Motorola and IBM, short-sightedness on Apple's part, or a little of both?[*]The Megahertz Myth will end for lack of opposing arguments -- Think about it: Except for the fact that OS X will still probably remain a more efficient OS than Microsoft's offerings, the "difference" in megahertz between the two platforms will all but vanish. It'll be interesting to see how well PC and Mac chips parallel each other in clock speeds since they'll both be from the same company. Are we going to see Intel's "arms" getting pulled in both directions like a child in a custody battle? "We should have the faster chips first!" "No WE should!" Sheesh.[/list=1]



    Any that I missed?



    I have to say that today's news has me a bit concerned, yet I still have cautious optimism. I really want to see how this plays out in the next couple years. I take it we'll see no "new" computers from Apple between now and 2006. Speed bumps aplenty, maybe.
  • Reply 11 of 423
    the cool gutthe cool gut Posts: 1,714member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleRISC

    Nor does he care about my money. Who the hell's going to be supporting any software for PPC Macs 7 years from now?



    Apparantly, supporting the PPC will just be a recompile after the transition.



    He didn't mention ipod sales so far for this quarter - wonder if thats good or bad news?
  • Reply 12 of 423
    How can anyone be disappointed with this news? A Mac is a Mac because of its OS and the quality and style of its hardware, not because of its processor. Both Motorola and IBM dropped the ball big time! No longer will we have to wait 6 months for a .25 mHz "leap' in performance. Now chip performance increases will come so routinely that they will hardly even garner any attention.



    As a loyal Mac owner and, more importantly, a heavily-invested shareholder, I applaud this long overdue switch. My only concern now is that sales of Power PC based Macs will be hurt for the next 12-18 months until the shiny new stuff finally arrives.
  • Reply 13 of 423
    insliderinslider Posts: 86member
    The best C|net quote:



    After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."

    However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.



    --



    Apple just killed Microsoft VirtualPC.



    Head-to-head tests will be pretty easy now, as you will be able to put Windows on Mac hardware. I wonder if you will be able to install them both at the same time and choose which to use at startup/bios.
  • Reply 14 of 423
    appleriscapplerisc Posts: 31member
    http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/



    The irony is great. Steve has become a real clown lately.
  • Reply 15 of 423
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
    Heh. Just ordered my Developer Transition Kit.

    This is going to be fun.
  • Reply 16 of 423
    akhomerunakhomerun Posts: 386member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleRISC

    I never thought I'd say this, but I think Steve Jobs has completely lost his mind. He spewed a pile of bovine manure this morning about Intel's "great roadmap," yet of course failed to actually provide any details. He did no speed comparisons between Mac OS X on Intel and PowerPC because he knows the x86 version would lose. What happens to AltiVec? The reason Apple has superior rendering times for Final Cut Pro, faster DVD encoding, etc, is because of the PowerPC's AltiVec instructions. Why the hell would I want a Mac that's at 3.7 GHz "Intel inside" if I'm going to have slower rendering time? My time is worth something, too, but apparently the almighty Steve doesn't give a rat's ass.



    Nor does he care about my money. Who the hell's going to be supporting any software for PPC Macs 7 years from now? Why should I be forced once again (it was classic to OS X, now it's PPC to Intel) to pay for upgrades that I don't really want or need just so I can run the software (properly, their cheesy PPC -> x86 translator will most certainly not provide the performance I expect out of my apps on a Mac) on newer Macs in the future? I again have to shell out money for an upgrade to the newest Adobe Creative Suite even though I'm fine with the last revision? Why should I have to buy a new version of Microsoft Office?



    Is Steve insane enough to believe that processor intensive games created today for the Mac are going to run fine in his stupid PPC emulation environment? Somehow it doesn't seem that translating RISC to CISC is going to offer acceptable performance. If he does pull this off, kudos to him, even though I think it's one of the dumbest moves he's ever made. Switching to the crusty x86 ISA is insane. What's next, we're ditching Mac OS X and installing Windows on our future Macs?



    By the way, it's been many years, but I don't see how this would be any different today: http://mackido.com/Hardware/WhatIsRISC.html



    This move is singularly stupid. Flame me all you want because I'm sure some of you think Steve Jobs can do no wrong. But this is just stupid.




    1. Intel has the best encoding on the market. even without altivec, apple encoding will still be way faster

    2. The binaries are PPC/x86 combo. they work for both. companies making x86 mac programs will be subconsiously making PPC programs. so 7 years from now, PPC macs will be supported.

    3. since converting programs to x86 mac takes a stunning 2 hours for a software developer, i'm sure they could release a patch for their programs that would make PPC mac programs run on the x86 hardware. i'm not so sure, but i think steve said somethign about an x86 mac being able to convert PPC mac programs on the fly with a tiny bit of overhead

    4. WHAT PROCESSOR INTENSIVE MAC GAMES? THERE ARE NO MAC GAMES!! This is only a good thing for mac games. think about it, virtual PC will be able to run without any overhead. think about having virtual PC or even intel's simultanious OS processor architecture in the future where you can just use virtual PC to run ALL PC GAMES. Virtual PC is already the best emulator around, imagine getting the full directx 9 support. heck, converting PC games to Mac and programs in general will be so much easier.

    5. Although RISC is more efficient, switching to a CISC 3.6 Ghz vs. a 2.7Ghz RISC will probably increase performance. benchmarks confirm this.
  • Reply 17 of 423
    akhomerunakhomerun Posts: 386member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AppleRISC

    I never thought I'd say this, but I think Steve Jobs has completely lost his mind. He spewed a pile of bovine manure this morning about Intel's "great roadmap," yet of course failed to actually provide any details. He did no speed comparisons between Mac OS X on Intel and PowerPC because he knows the x86 version would lose. What happens to AltiVec? The reason Apple has superior rendering times for Final Cut Pro, faster DVD encoding, etc, is because of the PowerPC's AltiVec instructions. Why the hell would I want a Mac that's at 3.7 GHz "Intel inside" if I'm going to have slower rendering time? My time is worth something, too, but apparently the almighty Steve doesn't give a rat's ass.



    Nor does he care about my money. Who the hell's going to be supporting any software for PPC Macs 7 years from now? Why should I be forced once again (it was classic to OS X, now it's PPC to Intel) to pay for upgrades that I don't really want or need just so I can run the software (properly, their cheesy PPC -> x86 translator will most certainly not provide the performance I expect out of my apps on a Mac) on newer Macs in the future? I again have to shell out money for an upgrade to the newest Adobe Creative Suite even though I'm fine with the last revision? Why should I have to buy a new version of Microsoft Office?



    Is Steve insane enough to believe that processor intensive games created today for the Mac are going to run fine in his stupid PPC emulation environment? Somehow it doesn't seem that translating RISC to CISC is going to offer acceptable performance. If he does pull this off, kudos to him, even though I think it's one of the dumbest moves he's ever made. Switching to the crusty x86 ISA is insane. What's next, we're ditching Mac OS X and installing Windows on our future Macs?



    By the way, it's been many years, but I don't see how this would be any different today: http://mackido.com/Hardware/WhatIsRISC.html



    This move is singularly stupid. Flame me all you want because I'm sure some of you think Steve Jobs can do no wrong. But this is just stupid.




    1. Intel has the best encoding on the market. even without altivec, apple encoding will still be way faster

    2. The binaries are PPC/x86 combo. they work for both. companies making x86 mac programs will be subconsiously making PPC programs. so 7 years from now, PPC macs will be supported.

    3. since converting programs to x86 mac takes a stunning 2 hours for a software developer, i'm sure they could release a patch for their programs that would make PPC mac programs run on the x86 hardware. i'm not so sure, but i think steve said somethign about an x86 mac being able to convert PPC mac programs on the fly with a tiny bit of overhead

    4. WHAT PROCESSOR INTENSIVE MAC GAMES? THERE ARE NO MAC GAMES!! This is only a good thing for mac games. think about it, virtual PC will be able to run without any overhead. think about having virtual PC or even intel's simultanious OS processor architecture in the future where you can just use virtual PC to run ALL PC GAMES. Virtual PC is already the best emulator around. if you use virtual PC, you can get full directx support without the huge slowdown of virtual PC. whatever platform it's on, mac will probably never get directx. heck, converting PC games to Mac and programs in general will be so much easier.

    5. Although RISC is more efficient, switching to a CISC 3.6 Ghz vs. a 2.7Ghz RISC will probably increase performance. benchmarks confirm this.
  • Reply 18 of 423
    appleriscapplerisc Posts: 31member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by inslider

    I wonder if you will be able to install them both at the same time and choose which to use at startup/bios.



    I doubt there will be a BIOS. There's no reason Open Firmware can't work with an x86 chip and there's no reason to believe Apple will adopt the use of BIOS on its motherboards. Then again, they already chose an inferior chip architecture, who knows what they'll do next.
  • Reply 19 of 423
    And what about those who use PPC because of lower power requirements? What happens to AltiVec? Does this mean we lose 64-bit support (if we have a G5)? I have no desire to learn x86 asm for what I do, but it looks like I won't have a choice...



    Two things I read were that Windows won't run on an Intel-based computer produced by Apple and OS X will not run on a an Intel-based computer produced by anyone else.



    This will clearly make it easier for some applications to be ported to OS X, but why would it change anyone's mind? I can see the next version of Office now, one that uses some code converter to change Windows API calls to Cocoa API calls. Sounds a lot like MS Word 6.



    I just don't understand what market they are going after. This won't increase sales in any market that I can think of. I don't see how this will appeal to anyone who doesn't already own a Mac..



    One thing of interest is that I don't recall reading that this precludes them from still producing PPC based Macs in 2007 and beyond. What if IBM releases a dual-core G6 at 4+ GHz before 2007? Would Apple change decide to stick with PPC?
  • Reply 20 of 423
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    From Apple's G5 performance page:

    Quote:

    The PowerPC G5 out-shoots the Pentium 4 in a battery of tests.



    Quote:

    Nearly Two Times Faster Than Pentium 4



    Quote:

    HDV Rendering: 84% Faster Than Pentium 4



    So how long will it take for Intel chips running Mac OS X to catch up to TODAY'S PowerPC G5 chips running Mac OS X?



    May the computing Gods help us all. \
Sign In or Register to comment.