Apple: Intel Inside!

The 7th sign of the apocalypse?

from WinCustomize Forums

Steve Jobs announced today that over the next year, Apple is going to move its Macintosh line over to have Intel Inside.  According to Jobs, Apple has been leading a "secret life" for the past 5 years -- each version of MacOS X has had an Intel version and many of its popular internally developed programs have had versions compiled for an Intel version.

For users who purchase Intel-based Macintoshs starting mid-next year, they will need to either get upgraded MacOS X software that has been recompiled for MacOS X for Intel or run it through a compatibility layer that will run software via emulation.  It won't be as fast as it would have been natively but with most high end applications expected to be ported over, it will mean that most software for MacOS X should run acceptably no matter what.

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Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
As to the debate as to whether the Intel chips that Apple will be using are "x86" or not, you'll notice that in the press release, the phrase "X86" was NOT used. However all the technical data on the Apple developer site indicates that it will in fact be a Pentium-equivalent CPU.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Anybody remember hearing of "Marklar"?

Rumors said that the first release of OSX was also compiled for x86 under the codename Marklar (South Park anyone?). This seems to verify this rumor.

Here's an old link i found:

http://www.letterneversent.com/index.php/archives/2002/08/31/project-marklar-osx-for-pcs/
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
@caseagainstfaith: It is x86 as a base. The new dev kits run 3.6 P4's.

It won't be P4 in the final machines I guess, but it's successor by that point. Or at least natural progression.

I'm sure the CPU's will be Mac locked and have certain extra Instruction sets built in to ease the transition from PPC that will be fazed out over time.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Mac OSX will only work with Mac Computers still.

I think this is just a bad move. (by think i mean im certain)
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ok so LG makes the mac screens, Nvidia an ATI make the video cards and now Intel will make the cpu's.
Who makes the ram and motherboards for mac right now?
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
i think apple makes the ram and i dunno about the ram but i think u can upgrade that with any ram stick.
I dunno im not really a mac guru or anything. They try 2 hard to push their wacky philosophies down my throat =P

In the end itll prolly mean nothing except less market share for apple. I was just planning to get a ibook though. I think ill wait for 2 years
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Expect to see a lot of development on this, ie. I have been looking at this all day, and some of the popular ideas are among the following:

- expect to see X86 chipsets in future macs
- expect to see macs capable of running windows alongside macintosh (dual boot)
- expect to see Windows based PC's able to run Mac OSX (leopard)(dual boot)
- expect to see virtual ware in use to ease the transition
- expect to see people on both sides of the fence moaning about this, and applauding it.
- expect to hear more, and more, and more, and more, and more etc about this ramping up until the end of this new deployment scheme.

These may not be cold facts, however, given the analysis from the people who actually heard the keynote speech Jobs gave today, these are some of the reasonable expectations in the near future.

Sembetu
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Very interesting. I was just looking at ibooks and mac minis today.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
- expect to see people on both sides of the fence moaning about this, and applauding it.


This is the only one of your predictions of which I'm certain.

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Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think this is a Mac thing. All in all it won't change much to Windows users. I reckon it is an intelligent move from Steve Jobs though.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
no Macs will not run on x86
no systems wont dual boot mac/windows

its just a architecture change, not a switch to x86. This is a bad move cause now developers have to recompile, and passibly do major tweaking to lots of software.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Okay, so I've been reading up on this and the news still hasn't settled in. You know, the shock of it all, that notion you get when it's so unbelievable that it's hard to believe it's true now.

I've always known that they've had a dual architecture development for OS X. It's evident when you look at Apple's Darwin project page. They have builds for both PPC and for Intel architectures. The only thing that is missing is the GUI. That's to be expected. But I had originally thought that the dual-arch development was just for Darwin itself. How wrong I was.

I'm particularly happy for this news. But at the same time, I'm also skeptical. It's weird to hear this news. And while it'll be a couple of years for them to transition over to Intel, I question on the hardware end. It's known that the demo was running on Intel P4s. That much is known. What I'd like to know is how much of a hardware compatibility can we see out of Apple? Are we going to see a generic OS X where it'll work on most hardware? Or are we going to still see Apple branded machines with only a certain chipset and BIOS?

Let us not forget that the x86 platform still has the ancient and legacy BIOS to deal with, unlike the Apple machines that has its own BIOS and hardware. What are we to expect in two years when 10.5 is released? This is all great and dandy, especially from someone who'd love to own a G4 just to play around with OS X. But the lot of us are using Frankenstein PCs where we've built our machines from spare parts or newly ordered parts.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sixshot, as far as the end user is concerned - nothing is changing. Macs will be Macs, no different than they are today, just with a cpu made by Intel instead of IBM. It's already been stated by Apple reps that OS X will continue to ONLY run on Apple hardware.
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
no Macs will not run on x86
no systems wont dual boot mac/windows

its just a architecture change, not a switch to x86. This is a bad move cause now developers have to recompile, and passibly do major tweaking to lots of software.


I don't think you have any evidence to substantiate those claims. I don't think it's foolish to assume that a Mac machine could dual-boot Mac OS X/ Windows.
x86 seems the most probable instruction set, though other instructions are expected to be added in in order to ease the transition to Intel processors.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No its not on an x86 nore x86-64 architectures. This will be an entirely new architecture that is x86 based
You will ONLY be able to run apple software on apple machines. Its just an architecture change. Nothing more.
They are only changing chip makers, its not as big a deal as people are making it out to be. This is more business news then technology news.

"Macs would still be a niche market. Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller confirmed, "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac." Nothing has change. In fact, the sole Apple advantage gained by moving to an Intel-based platform is that new users could use Windows along with Mac OS X – however Schiller also confirmed that Apple wouldn't sell nor support Windows on their Macs.."

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10770

Why the hell would apple throw away half their market, only to have microsoft smash them in the pc or os market in the long wrong.

OSX will not be on pcs. period. This is probably just going to be some new architecture which is a collaboration between apple and Intel, and Intel will be manufacturing and supplying the chip. There is no reason to make this story more than it is.
And since its a new architecture you can bet your soul MS wont recomile their entire OS to get it on there. Heck they didnt do it for PPC, why the hell would they do it now.

Apple did this cause they think intel will advance the most over the years, thats it. To the end user, the circumstances are exactly the same, except now they might have to go through some bs to get their PPC applications running on this new Mactel architecture.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think you're getting all worked up on your own. Nobody claimed that Mac OS X could somehow be ported onto any PC platform. I don't understand why you have to sound so aggravated... No evil PC user will put their disgusting fingers on your cherished Mac OS X!


No its not on an x86 nore x86-64 architectures. This will be an entirely new architecture that is x86 based


Like to argue over semantics, eh?
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have a name for the new Mac with Intel Inside:

MATTEL

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Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hehe x86 and x86 based goes much farther then semantics. Thats like saying linux is unix because linux is unix based
Im just saying dont take the story farther then it is.
Oh and I dont really care for apple. But if I did i would be pissed off after hearing Steve tout ppc as the best then turn around and say that watt for watt intel outperforms ppc but thats just me.

But meanwhile... I do think its foolish to assume a Mac machine could dual-boot Mac OS X/ Windows. (legally of course)
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Geez...lots of people seem to be certain what's going to happen...or not.

If the only basis of 'certainty' is individual interpretation of various press releases then you really cannot claim 'certainty' over anything.

If and when Steve Jobs comes over here to WC or JU and tells us face to face all what is 'going to happen' it STILL won't be gospel.

Sit on yer bums and wait.

Eventually conjecture will be fact, one way or another.

Anything before is just pissing into the wind....

 

Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Man, that would be cool if Bill and Steve hung around WinC...
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
@caseagainstfaith: It is x86 as a base. The new dev kits run 3.6 P4's.

It won't be P4 in the final machines I guess, but it's successor by that point. Or at least natural progression.


I read a report (can't find it now lol) that stated Intel wasn't going to breach the 4 GHz speed and instead focus on performance. Keep in mind that the AMD Athlon 64 bit line and FX line of chips run at 2.2 GHz or there about in speed and outperform 3.8 GHz P4's.

I think this was a bad move for Apple. Everytime they have switched chips they have suffered.

I think that if they were looking to switch they should have gone with AMD. AMD chips would make the price of an Apple PC fall a bit - thereby making a Mac Mini even more affordable.

Instead I think by using Intel that Apple PC price will go up a bit.

Sad really...