Apple Switching To Intel..


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Its confirmed!

Apple have ditched the PowerPC architecture and are going x86.

Do you think this means future versions of OSX will run on standard PC hardware? I hope so!
It'd also be funny to see Windows running on a Mac.

All those years claiming hardware superiority and now future Macs will just be PCs in over-priced shells. Or maybe.
 
David Moody, VP of worldwide Macintosh product marketing at Apple, says emphatically that this does not mean that anyone with an Intel-based PC will be able to install the Mac OS X. However, he notes that while Apple will not sell or support other operating systems with next year's Intel-based Macs, the company has no plans to prevent users from concurrently installing a second operating system like Windows XP. The possibility of running Mac OS X and Windows on the same Intel box may make Apple hardware more appealing to enterprise customers.
Click to expand...
 
while the wider world won't see releases of apple oses, hacks like pear pc say to me that it will just be a matter of time before a fully fledged operating system is available for x86 boxes with a bit of jiggery pokery. dual boot here i come!
 
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I bet Microsoft are going to allow this. :rolleyes:

I mean, Look what happened to BEos, According to microsoft, They own the hard drive real estate in any x86 machine.

This won`t be very successful.

Trooper
 
I think it's a good move, releasing an expensive powerful machine that can't really run many commercially available applications is a bit.........well, -dumb-. market wise. Makeing something that can run mac -and- PC software (maybe they will implement mac emulation of some sort?) however is a nice move.

Instead of developers porting their games and apps now and then to completely foreign hardware arcitecture(sp?), now they can just co-exist. And I doubt the mac will die now due to the processor change, If mac supporters have stuck with the thing this long, (I love ya you crazy mac people) it's gonna be ok :p Plus their sales are coming from i-pods mostly now. So even if it tanks they'll probably shrug it off.
 
trooper posted on Jun 7 2005 said:
I bet Microsoft are going to allow this. :rolleyes:

I mean, Look what happened to BEos, According to microsoft, They own the hard drive real estate in any x86 machine.

This won`t be very successful.

Trooper
​
Click to expand...
Hahahaaha yeah sure buddy. Microsoft own no more estate over Apple's x86 machines than they do over iMacs. Apple don't want you to dual boot or install Windows, nor do they want you to hack their OS to run on a normal computer.

But if that does happen, people might move to Mac, at least dual boot, and Microsoft's market share might erode. This hinges on the fact that PC gaming is on the decline, and people really really like the look of OS X.
 
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RoboJoe32 posted on Jun 7 2005 said:
I think it's a good move, releasing an expensive powerful machine that can't really run many commercially available applications is a bit.........well, -dumb-. market wise. Makeing something that can run mac -and- PC software (maybe they will implement mac emulation of some sort?) however is a nice move.

Instead of developers porting their games and apps now and then to completely foreign hardware arcitecture(sp?), now they can just co-exist. And I doubt the mac will die now due to the processor change, If mac supporters have stuck with the thing this long, (I love ya you crazy mac people) it's gonna be ok :p Plus their sales are coming from i-pods mostly now. So even if it tanks they'll probably shrug it off.
​
Click to expand...
Their OS and hardware sales are their main business, not iPods. The OS will not magically run Windows applications and games. Mac software is going to be rewritten.

Games have as much a chance of being ported to Mac as they would to Linux. It's marginally easier, but there aren't that many changes required to get x86 code running on a PowerPC, once recompiled. Stuff like Mac frameworks and the Library will still exist.

As far as I know, they are only changing the CPU chip. Nothing else.
 
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It's a bold move, and one that will be criticised. I think it's a good one though.

For the forseeable future, all apps released on the mac (including its OS) will run on both PPC and x86 based macs. They've been making an x86 compile of every version of their OS since OS 10.0 came out...

The dev kit (Xcode) that ships with macs will have a tick box that will enable you to compile for PPX, x86 or bboth. That's right! Both! It'll basically produce 'fat' binaries that include the code for both, and so will run on both. The size of the app will increase very little, and there will be no speed hit.

Also, they are planning to release an OS component called 'Rosetta' that will run the PPC software natively on an x86 Mac.

Oh yes, and x86 DOES mean intel in this context. It will definitely be intel, as Apple have been doing a deal with them for the last few years now.

Thing is, IBM have been dragging their feet as far as PPC development is concerned, and Apple have realized that. It's all about the fact that a mac is WAY more than just the CPU. The whole architecture is generally different to a PC.

Oh and as far as OS choice goes, apple have said that they wont stop anyone running other OS's on their x86 macs, but they will stop OS X running on normal x86 PCs. Obviously, this is likely to be cracked, but ah well! I'd definitely think about running a dual-boot system, as there are still a few things I cant do on my mac that I can on my PC (mond you, there's a lot more the other way around!).

All-in-all, who cares what CPU is inside it, it's whats running on it that counts...
 
Axeman posted on Jun 8 2005 said:
Thing is, IBM have been dragging their feet as far as PPC development is concerned, and Apple have realized that. It's all about the fact that a mac is WAY more than just the CPU. The whole architecture is generally different to a PC.
​
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the hardware is accessed differently in macs than pcs. The physical hardware is actually quite similar is it not?

I like macs, but I'd never own one :)

My university got a large shipment of G5's not to long ago, that made me happy.
 
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Yeah, but what I want to do is run OS X on hardware I already own and didnt pay in excess for.

I hope that day will come and that this has just brought it nearer.
 
For the suits and bean counters it is a good move. They have a regular supply of chips rather than the trickle IBM were sending them.

For the engineers, well they have new hardware to tinker with, so they're happy :D

The software guys just push a 'compile' button and out pops the app whatever processor is targetted. -_- zzZZZZzz


The main problem is how the public sees this.
Are you going to buy a PPC Mac in the next eighteen months, knowing that they're the end of a line? Ooooh! Maybe they'll be collectors items ;)

Maybe Apple will show their true OS colours being able to go head to head with Microsoft on similar spec machines and blow Windows away.
Or will M$ strongarm Intel into crippling Apple's chips.


This is the future I see.
Apple will split into hardware (iPod) and software (OS) divisions and sell the OS on third party machines. (See what Palm did?) Because their PPC machines aren't selling now.
M$ will buy the OS division (and stuff it full of bloat :p)


Go see this opinion piece .. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/08/ap...osborne_effect/
 
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