“Right now, Apple is growing 40% year-over-year while using PowerPC-based hardware. While they may not win the GHz speed wars, they do win on looks, overall performance, reliability, functionality, and elegance,” Dan Knight writes for LowEndMac. “Now imagine Apple offering a dual-core 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 system that has the looks and elegance of the Power Mac G5. Further imagine that Microsoft, never one to overlook an opportunity to sell Windows, ports Virtual PC to OS X on Intel. No more CPU emulation, so Windows on a Macintel computer should be close to the performance on a dedicated Windows PC.”
“Do you see the potential to bring in switchers who won’t need to leave their Windows apps behind? It’s huge! Unless Apple really botches things, Intel-based Macs will have the same stability OS X users are used to, and clock speed will be directly comparable with Windows computers. Factor in Virtual PC, and Apple could quickly rise to 10% market share,” Knight writes. “Another benefit of putting OS X on Intel is that Apple could produce a fully interactive OS X demo that would run from a CD (or, more likely, DVD) on standard Wintel hardware and lets current Windows users try OS X without investing in new hardware.”
“Because Microsoft owns Virtual PC, they shouldn’t see any threat at all from Apple moving to Intel. In fact, because Mac users tend to buy more software than Windows users, Microsoft may come out ahead. More than that, Apple should come out well ahead of where they are today. I suspect they’ll be #2 behind Dell by the time the entire line has switched to Intel CPUs,” Knight writes. “And with the growth, we’ll see an even more diverse range of Macintosh computers. Perhaps an ultralight portable, a quad processor Power Mac, and a DIY Power Mac for geeks that lets them choose their own CPU, hard drive, video card, etc.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Of course it’ll grow faster. Macs rule!
Yup!
(FP?)
“DIY Power Mac for geeks that lets them choose their own CPU, hard drive, video card, etc.”
That would be cool.
damn:)
My thoughts: Why have the overhead of VirtualPC emulating the entire WinOS (such that it is)? It would surely be better to have a Rosetta-like method for loading PC apps. Sure, without hardware emulation you’ll get better speeds, but the same PC will end up running TWO OS’s simultaneously, and XP ain’t exactly a lightweight when it comes to computer resources (I’m thinking of high-end gaming apps in particular here).
No doubt, the main attraction of this technology will be the “two-in-one” approach, especially for laptops (i could rid myself of that blood vaio at last!). But i’d rather not “pay” the overhead of running windowsOS either – I think Transitive has a better role to play than MS/VPC…
Two issues with this:
1) I’m assuming the Apple-Intel box will cost approx 30% more than a comparably equipped Dell.
2) Virtual PC: Why would anybody want to write software to run in native mode in OS X? VPC will allow almost NO speed loss. I imagine software vendors will tell Apple-Intel users to get VPC and buy the standard windows product.
As far as I’m concerned, with the current PPC Apple boxes increasing in sales, I would have stayed the PPC course. Once IBM saw this year over year increase was a permanent thing (I’m assuming it would have been), I think they would have been more open to putting more resources on the PPC’s for Apple (again, assuming that they put more resources on MSFT and Sony due to the higher sales volumes of those chips).
– Mark
Who cares? Only things that matter were:
a) IBM could not produce chips in a timely manner
b) IBM could not develop and deliver on its chip road map
Friggin period. Given that, there was no choice.
bye bye PPC.
Mark,
A PPC Mac is very close in price to a comparable Dell. Why would an Intel Mac be any different?
Running Windows apps without a Windows OS is the Holy Grail for a Mac user. We would pay a 10% speed cut to do that. Someone, perhaps even Apple, will come up with a low cost way to do that very thing.
“1) I’m assuming the Apple-Intel box will cost approx 30% more than a comparably equipped Dell”
You know, it looks as if Apple will never live down the reputation of being higher priced. My company runs both Macs and Dells. Comparably equipped they cost virtually the same. Please see:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/
Mark said “I imagine software vendors will tell Apple-Intel users to get VPC and buy the standard windows product.”
They’d better not say that to me if they want a sale.
I know i want the Intel mac. Just for the games. All those Xbox 360 titles are going to be ported to the PC eventually if not at the same time. Halo 3 on the Mac running as fast as it can. That would be sweet. I don’t like Windows but i do like games. And the games do somewhat shield me from the Windows interface. Though i do worry about great Windows emulation on the new machines. If that happens some developers will not make an OS X version but just assume everyone will be running it in Windows. Apple really needs to sell it’s unique features to developers so they make OS X version of their products.
And since Apple is moving to Intel why don’t they release Safari for Intel now. That would be a nice thing to do.
Apple already owns the most popular word in the English language-POD–you cant talk web casting without saying POdcasting and IPOD.
You got a mini–I would have found away to link minis so that home users might harness the power of 5 of them strung together–10 of them
—that should have been cool. — Here is the real disappointment:
The Mac OSX should have been on a cell phone before the first IPOD rolled off the assembly line—but we look arounnd and there is no mac phone device. That is a huge blow to where Apple could have been now
if only it had developed a phone along with the IPOD.
Apple is the Gadget force in this solar system — its the wave of the
future
It is more important than ever for Apple to distinguish itself from Windows and PCs. I imagine Leopard and the first Intel Macs will be very different. I am so curious to see if Leopard will be as big an update as Tiger. It seems like Apple would not be able to improve the system that much, but I want more ammo for those saying Longhorn has most of what the Mac OS has. They will never have security.
“Another benefit of putting OS X on Intel is that Apple could produce a fully interactive OS X demo that would run from a CD (or, more likely, DVD) on standard Wintel hardware and lets current Windows users try OS X without investing in new hardware.”
Come on.. you have to do this!!! I suggest passing those DVD’s out at Apple Stores
the major update that Leopard will feature is a Start Menu
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”big surprise” style=”border:0;” />
loganson:
The Finder and Spotlight have plenty of room for improvement and workflow integration. That’s my expectation for Leopard. Onward and upward.
Personally, I don’t want VirtualPC solution to run Win Applications. Why have instability of Windows on Mac. I prefer Wine solution, which means I don’t have to buy MS Windows and Windows Applications will run on a stable OS. Problem will be compatibility, but, if Apple can get sufficient user base, Windows Application developers probably will make their software Wine compatible. That would make Mac and Linux users happy. If Apple can entice the developers to use xcode to write the Wine compatible applications, may be they can be persuaded to port their appications to Cocoa in the future.
Wait a minutes. This sounds familiar…. It is how MS got the Mac application developers to switch from MacOS toolbox to WinAPI. Except, WinAPI on Mac was slow and unstable.
Well, what the heck major additions can Leopard make? Assuming nothing radical, can’t think of much that would make an incremental upgrade worthwhile!
I know there must be something, but–seriously–what’s left??
Interesting times we are living in. Lots of possible paths in the future. I would bet on Apple and Steve to come out of it well but there are possible game changing things in the works too. Check out this article:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5740705.html
I hope Intel (and Steve) are taking things like this into account and have something to compete or exceed it.
The one thing I find really interesting about this and know one seems to be talking about it yet, is the fact that everyone in my business (web design) almost always needs to have a windows box lying around, because of MS-SQL & Access. Does this transition mean that I could finally run these on my Mac?!? Not that I like using those Apps, but try converting data over to a mySQL database on a Mac.
Also, Microsoft said they would never port those over, now they might not have a choice… and what about Verio too… interesting.
Yep, another slow news day.
Forget VirtualPC. Bring on VMWare.
VMWare should jump all over this. VMWare already has dirvers for the virtual hardware in the VM. Suppose there is little reason it couldn’t make a version for osx. Then have a really well done non-ms solution to virtualizing your server. Even hosting os x on os x.
Would be beutiful for developers.
Microsoft are sick of having to deal with security.
Longhorn is reported to have many of the features of Tiger
Leopard has been announced for late 2006 – early 2007
This is why Longhorn has been delayed time and again, waiting for release simultaneously with Leopard.
Why, because they are the same operating system, the Longhorn builds to date are bogus. Created to throw PC users off the scent.
It has always been said that Longhorn would require a new computer, who knew that computer would be a Mac
Can you imagine when Steve says “One more thing……”
Boxshifters and home builders “Its time to go”
One question remains… since Apple won’t be using PowerPC inside anymore, well they still call them PowerMacs? Maybe PentiuMacs??
“I want more ammo for those saying Longhorn has most of what the Mac OS has”
I doubt Longhorn will have anything like Automator or Dashboard (Konfabulator notwithstanding), and it doesn’t sound like they’ll have WinFS as a counter to Spotlight either. Plus its Expose-like feature doesn’t appear to be as well implemented.
What’s left – transparent windows?