I am in shock. At the moment, I think this is Jobs' ego at its worst. Maybe in a few weeks I'll have calmed down and think that this is a good idea.
It's not ego. He knows that portables are outselling desktops and without a proper chip for portables Apple is finished. Imagine Apple only selling desktops with tiny little 200MHz boosts each year. This is what you would be getting under IBM. They have been unable and in some cases it seems, unwilling, to provide what Apple needs. Why stick with them? Now is the time to switch. The iPod momentum will likely peak during this transition so it's best to do this now while they have that revenue to back them up. To continue on the same course would be suicide.
In two years they definitely are. They barely hold their own against P4's today. Ask anyone with an iBook if its snappy. Or see how smoothly those HD trailers look on brand new 17" PowerBooks.
Something clearly needs to be done, no?
Yes, clearly the thing to do is abandon years and years of developer effort on Intel's slower and hotter desktop chips just so Apple can ship faster laptops.
It is sad, Apple was really kicking ass and now all that is gone. Apple is now nothing more than a non-compatible and overpriced x86 OEM.
See ya Apple, I won't be along for your impending irrelevance alongside OS/2 and Be.
I don't see Apple moving out of the hardware business. I see Apple switching to Intel/x86 precisely so they can continue to innovate with their hardware and penetrate new markets. G5s are not a flexible as Intels complete spectrum of processor options (and think of the versatility of form factors with low power designs).
Think powerbooks as thick as an iPod, with OLED displays and 8 hour battery life.
Smoke and mirros folks. Intel's roadmap isn't written in stone. They cancelled Tejas and the next Xeon successor last year. They recently cancelled their LCos chips after crowing about how they would enable 60" screens for sub $2k prices. Anyone who bets on Intel paperlaunches is going to get bloodied.
Yes it is, but it's what the entire industry deals with practically. If Apple can't perform, then no one else does either.
I kind of got the sense that Apple is going with Intel more for new products. Apple likes making small things, and the PPC is not for that and probably never will be.
IBM and Moto failed to provide Apple the fastest chips out there. Steve is just tired of this nonsense. Intel might be the answer. let's hope so. If IBM catches up with G5 maybe we still see that on Macs for awhile.
For the end users I don't think we are going to have major problems migrating into Intel. Why Steve would lie for all of us.
IMHO I think this will be a good move on the long run.
I sold my G4 Powerbook on Friday in anticipation of something new in the next couple of weeks. I'd sure like a boosted iBook or Powerbook with a better screen and video card and I still think we'll see that soon, very soon.
I've thought about the Intel switch and I think its a good move. The processor is meaningless to me as a user, what I want are good features (nice screen, long battery life, powerful processor, lots of ram, wireless) and a solid operating system. I think Apple will provide that and more in the upcoming years.
I have no fear of change, just anticipation of the cool goodies we'll see! Wimax is coming, faster, stronger, quieter and cooler processors for our laptops, the options are very exciting.
Bring on the goodies! Its not just computers anymore with Apple, its wonderful technology that can only enhance our lives. Move with it, grow with it, and have some fun.
The thing that shocks me is not that there will be new machines, but the cavalier disregard for the existing customers, who have made investments in Mac hardware. Existing Macs will depreciate rapidly, no question. New hardware and software will have to be purchased, as new software only comes out for the new CPUs or hasn't been debugged thoroughly on the PPC platform.
Endianness is a huge mess. Writing code that is truly portable is very difficult, and you cannot count on that 1980's mess which is Cocoa to do things for you. Developers will not have the time to check every single assignment for endian sensitivity (which is what you have to do). They will simply optimize for the Intel platform and refuse to support old PPC machines - because any true Mac fan will buy a new machine, of course.
Loyalty works both ways, Steve. It is this realization that Apple is a corporation like any other, with no other goal than to extract as much money as possible from its customers, that rankles the most.
It was the right move, perhaps the only move left to do.
Remember, the cost of a new, next generation fab (65 nm, 45 nm) about doubles every generation. A 45 nm fab will cost 10+ billions USD, if not 20+ G$. Apple looked at the comparative finances and capabilities of Intel and IBM and came to the only conclusion, Intel is virtually the only company guaranteed to get to 45 nm.
IBM will be selling 200+ sq mm, 200+ million transistor Cells and Xenons into boxes selling for about $400. Intel will be selling 200+ sq mm, 200+ million transistor Yonahs, Conroes and Meroms into boxes selling for about $1500. IBM's coming investment into 45 nm is going to be shaky compared to Intel.
That's all to it. Apple made the right move.
There really is no denying that Intel's 90 nm, absent SOI no less, offers better transistor/watt than IBM's 90 nm: 2.13 GHz P-M at 27 Watts compared to 2 GHz 970fx at about 45 Watts (based off of the Xserve 2.3 55 Watts). And Cell at 3.2 GHz looks to be at ~80 Watts, with 30 to 40 Watts attributed to 1 PPE + 512 kB L2. Apple has been for IBM to produce a <35 Watt max 2 GHz 970fx for the better part of a year now, and there are still no signs of it coming.
The future is about the quality of the fab and who gets there first. The basic trend is fab costs doubles every generation. There will be fewer and fewer companies capable of developing a next generation fab, so that leaves Intel, East Asian conglomerate, and IBM. Apple went with the sure thing.
Apple still needs to offer compatible software though. At minimum it needs browser compatibility, IM compatibility with MSN, Yahoo and AOL, and media compatibility. If they can do that on top of executing on Intel, it will be all good.
I'll be looking forward to a dual-core Yonah Mac laptop in Fall 2006. It will be faster and cooler running than a dual-core 8641D of the same performance I guarantee you.
Yes every apple computer model does not match up specwise with most PCs in its catagory.
Apple moving to Intel won't change this because they will simply charge me more money for design and some fancy white casing.
I do betrayed. I've been told that PowerPC was "Pentium Crushing" and now I'm supposed to drop that and welcome Intel with open arms?
I'll buy an Apple X86 laptop and perhaps a desktop. However my support for the company as far was dreaming about a whole Mac home network is for the most part over. I can't support a company that is willfully deceitful. I believe Apple to have poor character and that stems from Job's "say anthing today to make the sale" attitude.
Mamma didn't raise no fool.
Like Ben said in Star Wars, it all depends on your point of view. Evil, that is. We don't think we're fools, but we allow ourselves to believe advertising every day. It's excused and even rewarded in our society. Are you really that mad at Jobs for changing directions, or just at yourself for not realizing that most of what CEOs say is marketing. Think of his former words as comfort food for your mind that allowed you to weather the humiliating speed at which the PPC has languished. Not since the days of Power Computing have we really had any self esteem.
Come on, Steve was telling us that PPC was kicking Intel, but yet your everyday computing experience on the Mac was so much slower in comparison to a PC - things like the time it takes to open an application to the speed at which your browser renders a web page. The signs were there, we just didn't want to read them. Religion can do this to a man if he's not careful.
Let me give you a great example of marketing deception at its finest going on right now. You may or may not have heard about GM's "Employee Pricing for Everyone" campaign that was just announced. The gist is you can buy a car at the same price and discount as any GM employee. Sadly, most people will believe this because they "want" a new car, and this is the excuse that it's OK. See, what you won't know (unless you're in the industry or do your research) is that simultaneously with the announcement of the employee pricing campaign, GM on Chevy alone cut their maximum rebate from $6,500 to $3,000. Hmm. Wonder why they did that? See, instead of giving the buyer a REAL discount, they gave their employees a price hike, cutting everyone down to the same level. Find a Chevy ad in your newspaper from two weeks ago. Compare the prices with today (make sure the stock numbers are still identical in the disclaimer). See if the prices are not the same. I personally did the ad production for a Chevy dealership in a major Texas city, and their prices went UP by around $500 to $2,500 on EVERY VEHICLE IN THE AD. Nothing changed except that GM, like a great magician, moved the cards around on the table to give the illusion of savings. There just aren't enough minutes in 60 Minutes to get to it all.
I think in America today, "marketing" is a way of lying that is accepted. What GM did is even considered more noble, since not only do they let you think you are getting some "once-in-a-lifetime" deal, they're actually SCREWING YOU FOR MORE MONEY at the same time!!! They have the biggest corporate balls in history! Consumers want to accept it because they love to buy things. Sellers have to lie to compete because everyone else does too. GM is desperate to sell cars. We're desperate to love Macs and everything associated with them.
The thing that shocks me is not that there will be new machines, but the cavalier disregard for the existing customers, who have made investments in Mac hardware. Existing Macs will depreciate rapidly, no question. New hardware and software will have to be purchased, as new software only comes out for the new CPUs or hasn't been debugged thoroughly on the PPC platform.
Apple is loyal to its customers. They will be continuing to offer the near highest performance desktop computers (at what cost I don't know) into the future, something not guaranteed with PowerPC. They are providing an emulation environment so that PPC apps can run on Intel.
What they are not loyal to is PowerPC. That's the right decision.
The troubles involving incompatibility is the cost of transitioning, similar to the cost of Mac OS 9 to Mac OS 10. That price is worth it, if not necessary, if IBM can't provide Apple the CPUs they are looking for.
Quote:
Endianness is a huge mess. Writing code that is truly portable is very difficult, and you cannot count on that 1980's mess which is Cocoa to do things for you.
I was a NEXTSTEP user since 1993 up to 1997. Cocoa app cross-compiles are 99% trivial and endian issues where few and far between.
Quote:
Developers will not have the time to check every single assignment for endian sensitivity (which is what you have to do). They will simply optimize for the Intel platform and refuse to support old PPC machines - because any true Mac fan will buy a new machine, of course.
This will be an issue. I agree. But it's symptomatic of any transition. It's a price Apple is willing to pay. They have essentially lost all the customers who refused to budge from Mac OS 9.
Quote:
Loyalty works both ways, Steve. It is this realization that Apple is a corporation like any other, with no other goal than to extract as much money as possible from its customers, that rankles the most.
Apple had a choice between steady decline with PowerPC or possible vitality with Intel. It's an easy choice. If you didn't notice, Macintosh was declining and IBM wasn't producing higher performance or low watt 970fx chips on any sort of timely schedule.
I think Apple instead will make all the the smaller consumer Macs themselves, and align with another vendor to make more powerful workstation model Macintoshes, It sounds like a good idea to me. Mac OS X Ala Alienware.
stop your bitching_____steve is smart and look at his history. if apple is to stay competitive ibm isn't helping. you have all complained about lack of ooomph in apple laptops. time will tell. but what more elegant solution to "emulation" than mac osx on intel and you can use all your other software. hey, now i can get a pb and run my single business app without using ms emulation junk. great news. now you keep saying that apple is a hardware company, now it can spread it's good fortune without having to worry about software developers. we get os x and access to many software. you complained that appple should have include emulation software in os x as standard, well now you have it.
stop the doom and gloom. wait and see.
if you need an apple computer now get it now, the software will be supported for long enough to not make a difference.
as time goes by, amd may help also, so we have more options not less.
Apple's switch to Intel does NOT mean they will be running the OS on PC's, and it does NOT mean they will stop making Apple hardware. Intel to IBM, they are all just chips, and there won't be any major change except performance, politics, and price. Also, who said Apple will use the pentium chip series or any other pc chip series at all?
It is the end of an era, and has come of a shock (seeing as the next gen consoles have all shifted to PowerPC Processors). However, Apple is moving to Intel next year, perhaps the chips used won't be Pentium 4s. Lets face it, the P4 seems to be dying.
This move can go either way, it could be fantastic or the end of Apple as we know it today. Perhaps we disapprove of the move as lets face it, we like being different, and the fact that we're moving to x86 makes us less different, elitist, unique, or whatever you want to call it.
We didn't go mad when Apple moved from Motorola to IBM.
I think Apple will weather this storm, wether its with 40% market-share or 2% remains to be seen.
The Mac faithful will stand by there machines. Now they get bonus compatabilites... Think how fast VPC will be now, and you may be able to boot into Windows too. I don't use PCs or VPC, but some users do, and if it ran faster I'd be more likely to use it for testing.
Plus, if Windows compatability remains, you've just removed another barrier to entry. I'd bet a good chunk of PC users would pay Apple prices for a Mac knowing it can dual boot to Windows if they change their mind or need to run a Windows thing. Right now if you buy a Mac and change your mind you're pretty much stuck. I bet the average Joe would stick with Mac, but if you still want to switch back you just need to pay for Windows, and you can always switch back to Mac if you later change your mind. This is a no brainer.
You know Linux will run on this too. This makes Mac even more Unix l33t.
Some sales will be lost, but if you need a Mac you should just go get one. Nothing is changing for about a year, and who knows how it will start? (My money is on XServe.)
Overall I think the downsides are shortsighted and longterm this will be huge. The potential upside is unimaginable! And you know our boys have done their homework!!
Comments
Originally posted by Mr. H
I am in shock. At the moment, I think this is Jobs' ego at its worst. Maybe in a few weeks I'll have calmed down and think that this is a good idea.
It's not ego. He knows that portables are outselling desktops and without a proper chip for portables Apple is finished. Imagine Apple only selling desktops with tiny little 200MHz boosts each year. This is what you would be getting under IBM. They have been unable and in some cases it seems, unwilling, to provide what Apple needs. Why stick with them? Now is the time to switch. The iPod momentum will likely peak during this transition so it's best to do this now while they have that revenue to back them up. To continue on the same course would be suicide.
Originally posted by Sopphode
In two years they definitely are. They barely hold their own against P4's today. Ask anyone with an iBook if its snappy. Or see how smoothly those HD trailers look on brand new 17" PowerBooks.
Something clearly needs to be done, no?
Yes, clearly the thing to do is abandon years and years of developer effort on Intel's slower and hotter desktop chips just so Apple can ship faster laptops.
It is sad, Apple was really kicking ass and now all that is gone. Apple is now nothing more than a non-compatible and overpriced x86 OEM.
See ya Apple, I won't be along for your impending irrelevance alongside OS/2 and Be.
Think powerbooks as thick as an iPod, with OLED displays and 8 hour battery life.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Smoke and mirros folks. Intel's roadmap isn't written in stone. They cancelled Tejas and the next Xeon successor last year. They recently cancelled their LCos chips after crowing about how they would enable 60" screens for sub $2k prices. Anyone who bets on Intel paperlaunches is going to get bloodied.
Yes it is, but it's what the entire industry deals with practically. If Apple can't perform, then no one else does either.
I kind of got the sense that Apple is going with Intel more for new products. Apple likes making small things, and the PPC is not for that and probably never will be.
For the end users I don't think we are going to have major problems migrating into Intel. Why Steve would lie for all of us.
IMHO I think this will be a good move on the long run.
I've thought about the Intel switch and I think its a good move. The processor is meaningless to me as a user, what I want are good features (nice screen, long battery life, powerful processor, lots of ram, wireless) and a solid operating system. I think Apple will provide that and more in the upcoming years.
I have no fear of change, just anticipation of the cool goodies we'll see! Wimax is coming, faster, stronger, quieter and cooler processors for our laptops, the options are very exciting.
Bring on the goodies! Its not just computers anymore with Apple, its wonderful technology that can only enhance our lives. Move with it, grow with it, and have some fun.
Endianness is a huge mess. Writing code that is truly portable is very difficult, and you cannot count on that 1980's mess which is Cocoa to do things for you. Developers will not have the time to check every single assignment for endian sensitivity (which is what you have to do). They will simply optimize for the Intel platform and refuse to support old PPC machines - because any true Mac fan will buy a new machine, of course.
Loyalty works both ways, Steve. It is this realization that Apple is a corporation like any other, with no other goal than to extract as much money as possible from its customers, that rankles the most.
Remember, the cost of a new, next generation fab (65 nm, 45 nm) about doubles every generation. A 45 nm fab will cost 10+ billions USD, if not 20+ G$. Apple looked at the comparative finances and capabilities of Intel and IBM and came to the only conclusion, Intel is virtually the only company guaranteed to get to 45 nm.
IBM will be selling 200+ sq mm, 200+ million transistor Cells and Xenons into boxes selling for about $400. Intel will be selling 200+ sq mm, 200+ million transistor Yonahs, Conroes and Meroms into boxes selling for about $1500. IBM's coming investment into 45 nm is going to be shaky compared to Intel.
That's all to it. Apple made the right move.
There really is no denying that Intel's 90 nm, absent SOI no less, offers better transistor/watt than IBM's 90 nm: 2.13 GHz P-M at 27 Watts compared to 2 GHz 970fx at about 45 Watts (based off of the Xserve 2.3 55 Watts). And Cell at 3.2 GHz looks to be at ~80 Watts, with 30 to 40 Watts attributed to 1 PPE + 512 kB L2. Apple has been for IBM to produce a <35 Watt max 2 GHz 970fx for the better part of a year now, and there are still no signs of it coming.
The future is about the quality of the fab and who gets there first. The basic trend is fab costs doubles every generation. There will be fewer and fewer companies capable of developing a next generation fab, so that leaves Intel, East Asian conglomerate, and IBM. Apple went with the sure thing.
Apple still needs to offer compatible software though. At minimum it needs browser compatibility, IM compatibility with MSN, Yahoo and AOL, and media compatibility. If they can do that on top of executing on Intel, it will be all good.
I'll be looking forward to a dual-core Yonah Mac laptop in Fall 2006. It will be faster and cooler running than a dual-core 8641D of the same performance I guarantee you.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Yes every apple computer model does not match up specwise with most PCs in its catagory.
Apple moving to Intel won't change this because they will simply charge me more money for design and some fancy white casing.
I do betrayed. I've been told that PowerPC was "Pentium Crushing" and now I'm supposed to drop that and welcome Intel with open arms?
I'll buy an Apple X86 laptop and perhaps a desktop. However my support for the company as far was dreaming about a whole Mac home network is for the most part over. I can't support a company that is willfully deceitful. I believe Apple to have poor character and that stems from Job's "say anthing today to make the sale" attitude.
Mamma didn't raise no fool.
Like Ben said in Star Wars, it all depends on your point of view. Evil, that is. We don't think we're fools, but we allow ourselves to believe advertising every day. It's excused and even rewarded in our society. Are you really that mad at Jobs for changing directions, or just at yourself for not realizing that most of what CEOs say is marketing. Think of his former words as comfort food for your mind that allowed you to weather the humiliating speed at which the PPC has languished. Not since the days of Power Computing have we really had any self esteem.
Come on, Steve was telling us that PPC was kicking Intel, but yet your everyday computing experience on the Mac was so much slower in comparison to a PC - things like the time it takes to open an application to the speed at which your browser renders a web page. The signs were there, we just didn't want to read them. Religion can do this to a man if he's not careful.
Let me give you a great example of marketing deception at its finest going on right now. You may or may not have heard about GM's "Employee Pricing for Everyone" campaign that was just announced. The gist is you can buy a car at the same price and discount as any GM employee. Sadly, most people will believe this because they "want" a new car, and this is the excuse that it's OK. See, what you won't know (unless you're in the industry or do your research) is that simultaneously with the announcement of the employee pricing campaign, GM on Chevy alone cut their maximum rebate from $6,500 to $3,000. Hmm. Wonder why they did that? See, instead of giving the buyer a REAL discount, they gave their employees a price hike, cutting everyone down to the same level. Find a Chevy ad in your newspaper from two weeks ago. Compare the prices with today (make sure the stock numbers are still identical in the disclaimer). See if the prices are not the same. I personally did the ad production for a Chevy dealership in a major Texas city, and their prices went UP by around $500 to $2,500 on EVERY VEHICLE IN THE AD. Nothing changed except that GM, like a great magician, moved the cards around on the table to give the illusion of savings. There just aren't enough minutes in 60 Minutes to get to it all.
I think in America today, "marketing" is a way of lying that is accepted. What GM did is even considered more noble, since not only do they let you think you are getting some "once-in-a-lifetime" deal, they're actually SCREWING YOU FOR MORE MONEY at the same time!!! They have the biggest corporate balls in history! Consumers want to accept it because they love to buy things. Sellers have to lie to compete because everyone else does too. GM is desperate to sell cars. We're desperate to love Macs and everything associated with them.
Wise up. Grow up. Get a life.
Originally posted by cubist
The thing that shocks me is not that there will be new machines, but the cavalier disregard for the existing customers, who have made investments in Mac hardware. Existing Macs will depreciate rapidly, no question. New hardware and software will have to be purchased, as new software only comes out for the new CPUs or hasn't been debugged thoroughly on the PPC platform.
Apple is loyal to its customers. They will be continuing to offer the near highest performance desktop computers (at what cost I don't know) into the future, something not guaranteed with PowerPC. They are providing an emulation environment so that PPC apps can run on Intel.
What they are not loyal to is PowerPC. That's the right decision.
The troubles involving incompatibility is the cost of transitioning, similar to the cost of Mac OS 9 to Mac OS 10. That price is worth it, if not necessary, if IBM can't provide Apple the CPUs they are looking for.
Endianness is a huge mess. Writing code that is truly portable is very difficult, and you cannot count on that 1980's mess which is Cocoa to do things for you.
I was a NEXTSTEP user since 1993 up to 1997. Cocoa app cross-compiles are 99% trivial and endian issues where few and far between.
Developers will not have the time to check every single assignment for endian sensitivity (which is what you have to do). They will simply optimize for the Intel platform and refuse to support old PPC machines - because any true Mac fan will buy a new machine, of course.
This will be an issue. I agree. But it's symptomatic of any transition. It's a price Apple is willing to pay. They have essentially lost all the customers who refused to budge from Mac OS 9.
Loyalty works both ways, Steve. It is this realization that Apple is a corporation like any other, with no other goal than to extract as much money as possible from its customers, that rankles the most.
Apple had a choice between steady decline with PowerPC or possible vitality with Intel. It's an easy choice. If you didn't notice, Macintosh was declining and IBM wasn't producing higher performance or low watt 970fx chips on any sort of timely schedule.
Sounds promising.
Macintosh was declining
Mac market share doubled recently, from 2% to 4% - and he said right in his speach that mac sales were growing much faster than PC sales.
Besides that, I agree with you.
stop the doom and gloom. wait and see.
if you need an apple computer now get it now, the software will be supported for long enough to not make a difference.
as time goes by, amd may help also, so we have more options not less.
This move can go either way, it could be fantastic or the end of Apple as we know it today. Perhaps we disapprove of the move as lets face it, we like being different, and the fact that we're moving to x86 makes us less different, elitist, unique, or whatever you want to call it.
We didn't go mad when Apple moved from Motorola to IBM.
Originally posted by mattyj
We didn't go mad when Apple moved from Motorola to IBM.
Oh, I'm sure some people managed to get mad about that.
Weither it fails or succeeds depends on how certain litttle details are worked, and its anybodies guess which way those will turn, for or again Apple.
But if a wrong turn is made it might just be possible to turn back.
ONLY TIME WILL TELL !!!
Odds are Apple will own the WORLD by this time next year !!!
Originally posted by e1618978
Mac market share doubled recently, from 2% to 4% - and he said right in his speach that mac sales were growing much faster than PC sales.
Was Jobs quoting growth rates or market share? If it was market share, I don't think I will believe him until independently verified.
XCode will compile two types of programs: PPC only, or PPC/X86 FAT binaries (because developers aren't stupid).
How exactly is Apple abandoning its user base?
The Mac faithful will stand by there machines. Now they get bonus compatabilites... Think how fast VPC will be now, and you may be able to boot into Windows too. I don't use PCs or VPC, but some users do, and if it ran faster I'd be more likely to use it for testing.
Plus, if Windows compatability remains, you've just removed another barrier to entry. I'd bet a good chunk of PC users would pay Apple prices for a Mac knowing it can dual boot to Windows if they change their mind or need to run a Windows thing. Right now if you buy a Mac and change your mind you're pretty much stuck. I bet the average Joe would stick with Mac, but if you still want to switch back you just need to pay for Windows, and you can always switch back to Mac if you later change your mind. This is a no brainer.
You know Linux will run on this too. This makes Mac even more Unix l33t.
Some sales will be lost, but if you need a Mac you should just go get one. Nothing is changing for about a year, and who knows how it will start? (My money is on XServe.)
Overall I think the downsides are shortsighted and longterm this will be huge. The potential upside is unimaginable! And you know our boys have done their homework!!