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A beautiful future for my precious Mac...

The x86 Mac will be most interesting to switchers who run Virtual PC on it. Windows and Windows apps would run at full speed, unemulated, on an x86 Mac. Think Microsoft will bother to port Virtual PC to the Intel Mac? Or will Apple adopt WINE or some other Windows emulator?

It's been an entertaining year so far (Mini, Shuffle, Tiger, Intel) and things will only get more interesting from here on.

And my wife wonders why I spend so much time at this site. This is WAY better than watching sports or reality TV.

I like that!

Fatty Arbuckle, you're married? You know girls? How do they smell?

Better than me, that's all that matters.

i don't understand why it is going to take so long to get intel macintoshes to market though. maybe they learned from the ibm 3ghz fiasco and are being very conservative. also, given the recent news on longhorn, leopard might be out for quite a while before longhorn.

I've heard a lot of comments about how switching to Intel will improve gaming for Macs. I do not know much about game design but I was under the impression that the two hurdles for porting games to the Mac was the CPU and the graphic cards (particularly the drivers).

Now going to Intel will help the CPU side, but how will it effect the graphics card issue? Will changing the CPU automagically make the graphic card drivers better?

Like I said, I know very little of this issue, other than what I have read.

With the switch away from PPC, Steve Jobs has killed off the last legacy of the "Dark Ages" (think Sculley/Spindler/Amelio) of the Macintosh. He's also well along his push to standardize the Mac. The ADC is dead, USB 2 seems to be getting bigger play than FireWire these days and now a switch from PPC to the Intel family. It's been and will continue to be a very interesting time to be a Mac user.

Intel's processors have sucked major ass for a while now. What the hell is he smoking?!?

AMD has better technology, Apple went with marketing muscle, not better technology.

Intel's Emergency Edition Pentium processors cost more than double and still can't beat AMD's FX series processors.

Mactel versus Wintel it a headline in the making. Dell can do what they want to their machines, it's Microsoft that's the problem

Will somebody please explain to me why, when I look across the floor of our building, which is full of Macs & PCs, all the Macs screen are still, but all & every PC, the screen flickers up & down, like you would see when you catch it on video? My eyes are great & I have no problem, but I do work on a Mac. I'm just worried that when I do have to go on a PC, if this would cause me a problem. I know up close the screen looks fine, but if they flicker from a distance, there must be some damage that’s going on. Is this flicker going to happen when they switch to Intel?

Snr Arbuckle:

I know what you mean. I tried telling my wife that the 05 Apple keynote was a turning point for computers. See looked at the bankley. I poored the tea, she continued mending my trousers...haaaa domestic bliss. At least she let me buy a 15" 1.67 powerbook.

Given the recent events I'm not sorry I bought this now. I think it's the best engineered laptop ever. A true benchmark. However I'm sure Apple have an understanding with intel and the next gen of x86books will be just as well crafted and better specified. Now is the turning point.....

Viva Apple, Viva OS X!

defondo

I'm not totaly convinced the Intel Macs will be on x86 platform. If you listen to the keynote, Steve's performance/watt chart is what they project for mid 2006. No where does it say on x86. My guess is that Intel has something better in the works.

Just my 2 cents.

Hey, and all you nay-sayers should actually take some time a watch the keynote and understand what's going on before you call the end of time.

If Apple/Intel can get an equivalent 3Mhz+ 64 bit PowerPC performance into a Powerbook, I think a lot of Nay-Sayers will change their iTune.

Look like somebody boat is starting to sink or two boats starting to sink.You can kill two birds with one stone. 5 years from now and it's all over Mary Dell and Betty Gates. Thanks for wasting the people money you bottom feeders

iNext,

if intel was going to make a PPC chip, why did Apple hand out dev kits with x86 CPU's in them. Seems like a waste of time getting devs to convert their code to x86 compatible binaries if intel are going to make PPC.

>See looked at the bankley. I poored the tea,>

Is this a third world sentence?

sorry miss read your post, just ignore what i said

Dix99,

That's because the monitor refresh rate settings on the pc's are too slow. Go to one and set it above ~85 hz and the flicker will go away. Some people are more sensitive to this than others. It drives me crazy when I see the flicker...

Ha! It was ron ron, it was ron ron.

I thought so.

"USB 2 seems to be getting bigger play than FireWire these days and now a switch from PPC to the Intel family."

Well, let's not forget that Intel announced just a few weeks ago they were including firewire support in future motherboards. The announcement seemed weird to me at the time, but in light of yesterday's news, seems right on.

Yesterday, admittedly, I felt betrayed by the switch announcement.

Today, I have come to accept the fact and am even realizing what a brilliant move this could turn out to be.

I guess I just spoke before I had time to digest the news and the consequences.

Forgive my lashing out yesterday.

umm,

I didn't say Intel would make PPC chip. I think Intel might have something in the works that is better than the current x86 chips.

and 64 bit tooo but you can get the developer mac right now for $1500 (Premier membership and $999 mac with Intel P4 at 3.6ghz)

Me too Sam. But after I watched the speech last night, I felt much better. I think things are going to get very interesting. Check the box Universal Binaries for godsake! That's kick ass in it's own right!

So now we have our own Longhorn. We were all so smug in the fact that we had OS X Tiger on G5 Macs that we went a little to far in ridiculing the PC fanboys who begged us to believe that the next Windows OS was gonna be awesome... Well, what goes around, comes around.

We'll all be sitting here together (Win & Mac users)in 2007 waiting for our new magical OS or CPU to ship.

... I just hope I don't have to resort to trolling the PC Fanboy Weblogs, screaming unintelligibly about how the new iIntel Mac (vapor-CPU) is gonna smoke the bejeezum out of the new Longhorn (vapor-OS)...

Argh... this stupid MDN Magic Word jacks up so many posts.

---

A quick review of those sucky Intel Processors:
http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=32744

They happen to soundly trounce any Mac, as well as AMD's duallie.

I can't get a MacTel soon enough!

Intel is going to release a dual-core Pentium-M next year. It will be low power and have SSE3. =)

"I'm not totaly convinced the Intel Macs will be on x86 platform. If you listen to the keynote, Steve's performance/watt chart is what they project for mid 2006. No where does it say on x86. My guess is that Intel has something better in the works."

iNewt,
I concur. 18 months is a geological age in computer terms, and Jobs did not say which processor specifically would be used in Intel-powered Macs. Remember too that Apple contributed to the design of the PowerPC, and i can't help but wonder what they're bringing to the table with regards to engineering. I strongly suspect that dual-core Intel Dothan chips will be the basis for the new hardware.

It seems to me that the reason Steve didn't specify chipsets yesterday was because there is something in the 'pipeline' that he won't tell us about. You know how he likes surprises. I expect Leopard to run on something very sexy.

Also, someone asked why the developer's kit comes with and x86. Why, because the new chip will just be a superset of the current family and they already have everything Mac running on it. they don't want to give out the new hardware until next year.

Leopard, I expecrt, will be able to run on both PPC and Intel. but the next big cat, three years away, will not. Have to encouraage folk to upgrade somehow. Hell, about a third of Mac users are still back before Panther!

We sure live in interesting time!

One day Microsoft will go back to being a software developer for the Mac platform, which is what Bill Gates originally wanted, and how it should have been all along.

MDN, pleeeeeze put a bloody "Preview" button on the page. I was going to refer my fellow forum members to the most recent thread on Slashdot, which reports on Intel's dual-core Dothan chip, due to be introduced in 2006. Coincidence? I think not. There is a lot of interesting discussion in the thread speculating on the timing of this announcement and what it could mean for Intel on Apple. I'm convinced that something big is brewing between them, and this raises the possibility that a chip produced by the collaboration could give Apple a decided advantage over other computer makers. How would Microsoft, Dell, HP etc feel if the latest and greatest silicon made its way into a Mac first?

i'm not an engineer so here's my question would it possible that apple has looked at intels chips and based on apple chip experience is helping intel design chips that are a fusion of x86 and ppc technology?

or maybe have intel add altivec or something similar to the board? I'm am suddenly very happy that my PB lease runds out next summer!!!

Captain,
About a third of Mac users are still back before Panther because Apple insists on charging 129 smackaroos for dot upgrades. Ok so they're kick-booty upgrades but dot upgrades nontheless.
I'd be on Tiger now very easily but I don't have the funds. While I understand that the financial benefits for Apple charging for .3 .4 etc the price they pay is in adoption rates, which languish. Low adoption means lower developer interest - outside developers and potential customers/converts such as Art Leather, the wedding album people who have been telling me for a year they'll have a Mac version of their pro ordering software "soon". And Fuji, who have next to zero Mac software......

Dothan chip sound interesting. I wonder SSE3 will be similar or equivalent to Motorola/IBM's AltiVec/SIMD.

While looking for SIMD, I found this article in linuxinsider dated 07/08/2004. I guess Apple had to drop IBM and go with another CPU vendor. Given the choices available, Intel was only logical choice (AMD takes lead over Intel once in a while, but Intel usually takes the lead back. They been doing it since 8080 days, remember Zilog Z80?).
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/34994.html

I don't think Apple is only one who needs this partnership. Intel probably feel need for this partnership too. Intel has been trying to break out of X86, but has not succeeded (i432, i860, itanium). Microsoft has not succeeded in switching CPUs either (MIPS, Alpha and itanium). Apple has done it once, and they will do it again, when they switch to X86 in 2006. SJ has done it at Next too, 680XX to X86. So they have good track record. Once Apple succeed switching users to X86, Intel will probably want them to move users to Itanium or a new version of CPU they will be producing 10 to 15 years from first x86 Mac. Microsoft forced Intel to drop their Ada machine, RISC machine and VILW machine. May be with Apple, Intel can finally put X86 to bed.

I think it's going to be x86. Apple has been working for at least 5 years on an x86 version of os X. They're most definitely going to be more advanced chips, they're not coming out for a year. However, there must be some reason for the year wait that we're not hearing about. Judging from the demonstrations yesterday, most major applications (all the Xcode apps) should be ready in a "few weeks". So why the year wait?

" Captain,
About a third of Mac users are still back before Panther because Apple insists on charging 129 smackaroos for dot upgrades. Ok so they're kick-booty upgrades but dot upgrades nontheless.
I'd be on Tiger now very easily but I don't have the funds. While I understand that the financial benefits for Apple charging for .3 .4 etc the price they pay is in adoption rates, which languish. Low adoption means lower developer interest - outside developers and potential customers/converts such as Art Leather, the wedding album people who have been telling me for a year they'll have a Mac version of their pro ordering software "soon". And Fuji, who have next to zero Mac software......"

Two points to keep in mind:
1) We probably shouldn't get too wrapped up in naming conventions. Many publishers use full dot upgrades to do maintenance; others use them for major upgrades. Apple's convention in this respect has changed over the years. The move from 6 to 7 and 7 to 8 was rather minor, though it did introduce features. The move from 8 to 9 was a bit larger, but still was not a fundamental shift in concept. The move from 9 to 10 was, as we all know a complete change in paradigm. Since then, Apple has intentionally labeled their OS upgrades with the primary dot system, I suspect because, to do otherwise would mean abandoning the OS X moniker. That has been a powerful marketing tool for Apple and moving to OS XI or some other naming system will mean re-engineering their marketing: something they probably don't want to do at this time. I wouldn't be too hasty to dismiss that value of dot upgrades from Apple.

2) Yes some people will lag with whatever system they have that works; but keep in mind that Steve Jobs has already announced that Tiger is the fastest selling OS ever for Apple. That may die down, of course, but there is some pretty stunning technology in it. My casual reading of articles indicates that interest among developers is only growing. Sure, some very specialized software may never appear for Mac if it is not in the finacial interests of the developer, but most Mac users use alternatives to that software anyway. Perhaps it is just the PC version users of that software that are pining to have it ported.

Just some thoughts.

Dead right technology. On /. forums I read that a lot of intellectual property in the PPC was now with Apple owing to IBM having not delivered on their part of the contract.

With Intels wealth and might, and Apples creativity there will be fantastic developments. As Fatty Arbuckle said this is turning into quite a year and we're not even halfway through it.

Say it fast.
"Microsoft and Dell must have a lot of bricks lying around today."
hahahaha.

b says "I think it's going to be x86. Apple has been working for at least 5 years on an x86 version of os X. They're most definitely going to be more advanced chips, they're not coming out for a year. However, there must be some reason for the year wait that we're not hearing about. Judging from the demonstrations yesterday, most major applications (all the Xcode apps) should be ready in a "few weeks". So why the year wait?"

My guess is because "Leopard" will coincide with the release of Macintels and the new OS will include all the needed optimization for the Intel chip.

Also, got to give the developers some time to get their apps ported over.

b - the main reason for the year's wait is so Steve can unleash the future of personal computing on the world on 06.06.06.

You can bet that the first MacIntel box he announces on that day will retail at $666.

What goes around comes around... ahh the beauty of Apple symmetry!

Twenty Benson if you tried to scare us consider yourself successful. As good as OS X on Intel will be for Mac market-share, something feels wrong about it. I hope Apple have more sense that to release something major on that date. Going by the 667 MHz G4 Macs I say that they do.

"I can't get a MacTel soon enough!"

I couldn't agree more.. I use them side by side and it's obvious to me that my PC's have more power, as much as I don't like to admit it.

"Microsoft and Dell must have a lot of bricks lying around today" - MDN Headline


Yeah MDN, Bricks of Cash laying around...

Current Mac software is BSD which already runs on x86. The Mactel chip will be x86. We will be stuck with this damned, flawed arcitechure from the stone age forever. All of us. You realize the original instruction set for the 4004 is still used by x86. Don't believe for a minute that this marriage is "progress". PPC is truely better, period. This deal has nothing to do with advancement of technology, it's all about profit margin. Apple wins, Intel wins. Technology loses. Along with the rest of us.