For Mac Users - thoughts on Apple's switch to Intel chips.

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For those who haven't heard about it yet,

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I don't know a whole too much about computers but here is one opinion why I see them making the switch,

Laptops:
Since the Power PC 970 (which Apple calls the G5) produces too much heat for even a Titanium PowerBook and the fact that Apple doesn't see any improvements to the CPUs heat. Apple had no choice to move to Intel since they do have laptop chips that are becoming more cooler. IBM hasn't made plans to cool the PPC for the Mac platform.
Apple could've chosen AMD but I don't know if they even make a mobile version of there Athlon processors.

PPC Roadmap:

IBM seems like they are now focusing the PPC on embedded products like cell phones, DVD players and yes game consoles. I am sure that most of you know that the XBox 360 will sport 3-core PPC 970 in there consoles and I believe Sony will have there PS3 sporting the same CPU but with more cores I think. And of course at higher clock speeds. These CPUs cannot really be used for personal computers, for why I woudn't know why, so it looks as if IBM is looking to focus the PPC on devices and supercomputers instead.

Easier ports of software:

Developers of software can move a Windows app to the Mac easier now since they don't have to worry about dealing with the x86 code now that the Mac has Intel's chips. Code for the orignial processor may be left causing the finished port to run slower or not as fluent as the original app.

Many PPC Mac apps are rumored to be ported with a flash and not need too much time being tweaked.

My concerns are,

Who will get the first Intel chips? I hope it is the laptops since the PowerBook G4 hasn't had a major upgrade in years. I wouldn't mind if both laptops (PowerBook, iBook) picked up the CPUs first since they would benefit laptop customers who need the speed, and laptops are becoming the computer that many people want to buy.
Regarding the desktops, it would be obvious that the Power Mac and then the iMac be the first in line for the chips, but then I wouldn't be surprised if the Mac Mini and the eMac become the first. The mini and the eMac use the PPC G4 processor so an Intel x86 chip would probably give them much more radical speed increases than the PM and iMac, which use the G5 chips.

Will there be 64-bit chips? Especially if the G5 desktops are first in line.

The g5 is a 64-bit processor and can address 4 billion times more memory than a 32-bit CPU, which can only address up to 4 GB of RAM. So wouldn't it be a waste to go from a Power Mac G5 sporting 8 gigs of RAM to a 32-bit Pentium with only a 4 gig maximum?

Will OS X be able to run on any PC?
I don't think it can since Apple controls the OS and the hardware so they can make OS X exclusive. Same goes for Windows, I heard that it can be booted on any x86 Mac at all. But then I heard that Apple won't support it.

That's all I think about right now. I know the report was rumored for a long time before it was announced but I am a little stunned about it.

What has the world come to? Apple using a UNIX based OS designed for an Intel processor? That's just bizare! Mac could have gone with AMD since they do have Mobile Athlon-64s and are coming out with a dual-core version. Since there is going to be so little difference between Macs and PCs, I'd like to see a Mac OS for the PC so I could have Macintosh'ssoftware innovation and The hardware of the PC to continue to support my games. Also, consumers could only benifit from fierce competition between Apple and M$.

First of all Apples first and most
continuous mistake is isolating
it's customer's. They cannot see
past their nose and this has and
will get them in trouble.

I go to the apple store and the
main answer for components
and support is "buy the latest
unit".

They will 3rd party out their older
products. Say 1 year earlier that
supported X.x.x and they are on
X.x.z OS. They tend to have
1 year limited customer service
and warranties, and can't see that
this is one of the BIG reason's
they had problems in 1997.

I DO NOT BUY A NEW MAC,
because after a year it might
as well be a leper and be put
to sleep in their customer
support department.

So HEAR! HEAR! to further
ISOLATING THEIR CUSTOMER
BASE SINCE 1 YEAR IS A "LEPER"
AND should go away and die,
say's their OS support, product
support, and fading customer
loyalty support.

I LOVE THEIR PRODUCT, but not
their customer service consideration.

Hmmmmmmm?

...And I thought support for PC, PC peripherals, and internet service was bad! At least M$ still offers a little support for Windows 98.

I'll even admit it too. Let's say someone still remains on OS X Jaguar (10.2) but then all of a sudden he needs Panther (10.3) to use a specific app running version X, so then he spends his 129 bucks or if lucky, maybe less. Then the poor schmuck finds out that the app's upgrade (from let's say, version 2 to version 3) not only requires 10.3, but 10.3.4 and then some other part of the app will need 10.3.6.

The worse news is that the bummed out customer only has dial-up and these updates are frickin' huge which is why he never attempted to update the OS. So now our furious customer will either dare download it for hours and lose the connection after being 99.9% complete, or spend bucks for a special update disk. This happened to me when I had Jaguar before getting DSL. Get the OS minor update and security updates and now I find out the the next free update to the app (V3.1) requires 10.3.9 repeat step 1, Now Tiger is out (10.4) better off spending money again leaving the customer broke. And these OS requirements happen so fast. Tiger is already at 10.4.1 and probably required for Tiger-only apps, as those programs may have to be upped a notch.

Doesn't Windows XP usually require at most a Service Pack update if necessary? And how often do those come out? How big are they?


Oh, and I am still on Jaguar 10.2.8

Will they still be supporting Win98 when Longhorn comes out? Hmmm.

OS X 10.0.x to maybe the first 3 or 4 updates of 10.3 are dead.

I am still using this as well. I think
that Safari sucks, but at least it's not
netscape.

I feel X.2.x or "Jaguars" are the best
OS X's apple has made. Too bad for
their ADHD switching. Hmmmm?
I wonder if Steve Jobs has a OCD
co-morbided with ADD and ADHD?

This may explain his constant switching
and reactive to the 1 year patience limit
behavioral syndrome that seems to
affect him?????

Hmmmmmm?
Ghosthunter

I like the new stuff in Tiger, but the problem is that with so many features being put in, my 2002 Power Mac will not be able to really let the cat pounce with authority. I sometimes feel that the minimum even the recommended HW requirements written on the box is BS. Tiger is more like "have a G5 processor to be lucky at all to use it... or don't bother buying it." I heard that QT 7's H.264 codec runs slow on even the top G5s.


Regarding Safari, I don't use it much anymore now that Firefox and Camino are out.
The New Safari RSS doesn't really help me at all. Firefox's decent RSS capabilities are fine with me, at least I can subscribe by clicking the RSS icon on the bottom corner of the browser window, and put the folder wherever I want.


And yes Steve Jobs probably does have OCD, ADD and maybe even drama queen issues, which is probably why he was dumped from Apple 20 years ago.

I like Tiger.

Many Unix based operating systems (linux, freebsd) are designed for intel processor so it isn't bizarre. IN fact, linux and freebsd were both originally written for the intel architecture.

Also, there is nothing wrong with Apple's customer support. Customer support always sucks and Apple is one of the few companies for which it doesn't suck. Ghosthunter is wrong about their support record and wrong about Safari sucking. Safari was the first browser to pass the Acid2 web standards test and is now only one of 2 browsers to be able to pass the test (and Konqueror, the browser that also passed used apple's work to pass). Even firefox has not passed this test.

Also, Apple is on the path to opensourcing Safari (it hasn't done so but its done a lot to help).

Also, Apple has consistently made its new operating system releases FASTER than the previous ones so Tiger is FASTER than Jaguar for instance. Its new features can easily be disabled and may come disabled by default.

I can't really see Tiger fly on a G3 or a single G4 below 1 GHz unless it has enough memory, but I know it will run fine on my Dual GHz G4. I only need to pick up more RAM though since 256 Megs is the required, which is what I only have.

I know the Darwin layer, Mach-O, and FreeBSD are x86 coded as long as QT, OpenGL, The Cocoa Frameworks (I think it is). But is the entire OS X compliant? (Aqua, Quartz, Quartz Extreme) Which is what I wanted to know.


Now regarding using AMD, I know Apple could use them whenver they want since Athlons are x86 CPUs and the fact the Athlon 64 is available. 64-bit like the G5 is. And in laptop form? I didn't know. Other PC manufacturers offer or did offer chips from both fabricators so it wouldn't be strange since Apple did too. I mean the G4 was made my Motorola while the G5 and the G3 were IBM.
But there is rumors that even AMD has supply problems and not able to get their chips out, and I don't think Apple wanted to have that problem again. So even if Intel didn't have THE best CPU now or tomorrow, they do have a large supply and in many flavors of CPUs which is why the fruit company chose them. AND they also believe Intel has a much broader roadmap in the long run.

Of course nobody said which Intel processors are gonna be used when the first MacTels come out in 2006.

Just my $.02 cents on the topic here.

Apple began to throw in the towel 11 years ago when they switched to the PowerPC chips and the PCI bus.

If Apple was smart, IMO they should have stuck with nubus, making an improved version of it to compete with PCI, as well as sticking the 68K line of processors, even with the 68K, Apple still would have had the preformance edge over intel. 68040 based macs that came out in the early 90's blew anything out of the water that the wintel crowd could offer in terms of capabilites and performance.

Sorry, Scoots5012, but I disagree with you.

If Apple had stuck to the 68k-series of processors, then the fastest Mac would be a 66MHz 68060. Motorola decided to end the 68k-series, and that's why Apple had to switch to another processor back then (the last 68k CPU that Apple used, was the 040). Several other types of computers that were based on the 68k-series suffered from a lack of new and faster processors (when compared to the Intel, or the PPC-Mac).

I'm not so sure that sticking to the NuBus would be a good idea ... just about every other platform started to use PCI back then. Hardware for the Mac would be much more expensive than similar hardware for the PC if the Mac kept on using NuBus (or some other, non-PCI bus).

Apple will start producing Macs with an x86-chip in it. I think those machines will not be compatible with the PC, at least not directly (think about the XBox, for a similar example). MacOS X will still only run on Apple's hardware - at least until someone comes up with an unofficial and unsupported way to get it to run on regular PC's.
I read somewhere that new software will have executables that run on both PPC and X86-based MacOS X - that is, they will use "fat binaries", just like in the old days. This means that the current machines won't be obsolete. Also, Mac OS X for the Intel-based Macs will have some sort of emulator, so that older PPC-software will run on the new machines.

And if they stuck with the G4, they would've been stuck at a low clock-speed



Add the fact that some manufacturers were not willing to produce expandable peripherals without PCI. The parts would be expensive like crazy.
So Apple had no choice but to go with PCI (now PCI-x and maybe soon PCIe), AGP for the graphics, and USB to plug in peripherals (which was a considered copy of Apple's ADB ports). At least they got one format to be popular in Firewire 400 and 800 but it seems PCs and even Macs are using USB 2.0 over FW400 now for stand peripherals (iPod may be phasing out FW 400) but keeping FW for camcorders and the like. Firewire 800 is usually catered to big time video pros and other serious peripherals.



There will be hackers willing and ready to take the challenge.



Many Software developers say the transition will be easy and yes applications will be able to carry both PowerPC in x86 binaries, making the app "universal" Some apps will take time, others will be done according to a few developers "in a snap"
But if somewhere in time the app is PPC-only, there will be a program Apple created called Rosetta that will translate PPC into Intel code while by running the applictaion natively on top of OS X on top of an Intel. No need to boot some emulator-like program, like Classic for OS 9 apps or Virtual PC for Windows apps. It won't be 100 percent as running an app built for x86 CPUs but it is something to prevent customers from having to replace some of those apps. It may not work well for heavy apps like 3-D intensive apps though.

Last edited by nocturnalowl on 24 Dec 2005, 3:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Rosetta is really just this: http://www.transitive.com/products.htm#p3 which wasn't created by Apple.

Bad move going with intel. They've had some bad business practices over in Japan and make slower, hotter processors compared to AMD.