“In 2001, Transitive Technologies demonstrated a technology called ‘Dynamite’ which allowed code written for one CPU to be run efficiently on another CPU. This “translator” was said to dynamically translate and accelerate binaries — claiming to provide substantial performance over traditional “emulators”. Recent numbers claim 80% performance matching,” ‘arn’ writes for MacRumors.
“According to an unconfirmed report, there is evidence that Apple has had special internal seeds of Tiger which support this technology for the x86 platform. Beyond allowing Tiger to run on x86, perhaps more significantly is the potential to also allow existing Mac OS X applications to be run on the x86 (PC) platform without recompilation. Otherwise, requiring developers to recompile all current Mac OS X applications has been seen as a major hurdle in providing Mac OS X on the PC,” ‘arn’ writes. “Other arguments against such a transition would, of course, still hold. Apple has traditionally been a hardware company, with the bulk of revenue coming from Mac hardware. The past few years, however, has seen software become a larger portion of their revenue.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Dynamite?” If Apple did release Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ for x86, “Hydrogen Bomb” would be more like it for the PC industry. Everything would change. As MacDailyNews’ own SteveJack explained nearly a year ago, iPod does much to help free up Apple’s dependence on Mac hardware revenues to explore more radical opportunities such as this idea. See related article below.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
iPod success opens door to Mac OS X on Intel – March 04, 2004
x86s running Tiger??!?!
How will I shame and humiliate my Intel friends now?
LET’S WELCOME THIS WITH OPEN ARMS!!!
Here we go again…..
Not. Going. To. Happen.
help me understand this. I thought the reason (or one of) our macs run so beautifully is that the OS only has to work with one set of hardware. and the problem (among many) for windoze is that it has to work with a million graphic cards, a million this, a million that and that to accomodate all those….windoze sucks.
so how will this work, and still be the OS we know and love?
Although having OS 10.4 run on x86 would significantly increase the number of Mac OS users, I feel it would also dilute the brand. There would be little need to buy a Apple hardware based computer and I don’t think it would be good for Apple’s UNIX reliability based on how cheap and unstable PC hardware is on low end machines like Dell.
That’s just what I think. But I’m betting most Mac users would see this as selling out to PC users and forgeting about us Mac people. *cough* iPods with USB 2 cables *cough*
Why not? Expansion may overun the Win Manopoly.
Think about it!
Eek.
Or should that be Ugh!?
Oh please — I am sure Apple has this technology and has internal builds of OS X that run on Intel hardware, but with the horrendously chaotic architecture that makes up an Intel-based PC, WHY WOULD APPLE WANT TO OPEN THAT CAN OF WORMS? So their tech support people can be swamped with calls saying that “your OS crashes my no-name PC with a video card I bought at a garage sale for $3!”
I don’t think so. Take a look at iPod/iTunes — Apple controls the whole ball of wax. Same with the Mac. Same with Apple’s new retail division. Jobs has ALWAYS believed that the experience is the thing — the only way to control the whole experience is to build the hardware to run the software correctly.
Can we put this “Mac OS on Intel” crap to rest?
Im not sure what to think. Great for bringing more into the fold but it would be painful to see OSX on a beige box, just no style.
All your Wintel belong to us . . .
Apple, more than likely, would only allow Tiger to run on say HP and SONY computers. That would allow them to better guarantee a great user experience.
You got a point there, digital boy!
I would hate this… it would kill Apple as a hardware company, and we would get stuck running ugly cheap plastic boxes full of inferior hardware….
dammit
While I think this is a total possibility, i do not think it will be done with Tiger. Apple just released the cheapest mac it has ever made in order to entice frustraded or curious Windows users to try the path of the Mac. Why on earth would they release a OS a few months later that will run on any X86 platform, which would inturn kill the mac mini? They would have just barely seen the results from Q2 and any spike in Mac sales would not be really visible by then. I think there are internal OS X builds that run on X86, but MDN Magic word is “internal”. If anything, I say expect a release of OS X-86 only as a last ditch effort before Longhorn is really released in 2006 -7 -8, enough time to see if iPod halo, causes mac mini sales, which causes powerbook/power mac sales.
Don’t hold your breath people. I seriously doubt Apple will ever give into x86.
Jay, that is absurd…. You cannot do that, if it is able to run on x86 then it will be able to run on x86… who made the computer would make no difference.
or better yet…windows on a Mac!!
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IF this happens you are not going to be able to install Mac OS X Tiger on any old Dell PC, or one you made yourself. It’s not going to happen. Forget it.
What WOULD happen is that Apple would be able to release a Mac that utilised an x86 processor instead of a PPC one, thus solving the chip shortage problems that have beset them for years. This is the only way it would happen, it cannot happen any other way because it would kill them stone dead.
Apple is a hardware company, and always will be, it’s where all the money is to be made.
Apple could just be getting prepared should they ever have to introduce Intel/AMD-based hardware. They can always build their own boxes using Intel/AMD CPUs instead of relying on other brands. Although the 2.5 GHz helped Apple to catch up in terms of CPU speed, IBM hasn’t updated the G5 since … forever? Wasn’t it just last summer when everyone was expecting to see a 3 GHz G5 promised a year before?
Man, if I had a dollar for every one of these “translators” that were announced and supposed to be able to run one platoform’s apps and/or OS on another architecture, well I’d have like 10 bucks probably. The odds of this actually happening are slim to none.
This rumor, of course, ignores project Star Trek, which is an x86 version of the Mac OS that has been maintained for years at Apple behind closed door, just in case we needed to go that direction.
Interesting, but makes me nervous.
Apple hardware sucks for the money, it’s the software that sets Apple apart.
OS X on PC hardware is a dream come true! No more overpriced Mac hardware!
HOLLA!
No big deal. If anything happened it would probably be similar to VPC on the mac funning DOS or Windows. Too slow for daily use, but OK when you need to run a small app now and then.
The simple fact is that there are too many potential components in the PC world for Apple to consider a general release. All of the potential configurations is one of the reasons why Windows is in such a mess. Apple won’t go there.
Neither, in my opinion, will Apple move in any direction that drains their talent from moving forward in their product road maps – hardware and software. There is just too much for them to do in their own world.