“The headline of Apple’s press release reads, ‘Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006.’ How did it come to this? What’s it all mean? Here’s how I feel as a Mac enthusiast since 1984, an engineer by education, a programmer by profession, and an all-around Apple geek,” John Siracusa writes for Ars Technica.
Siracusa outlines reason why he thinks Apple broke from IBM, writing, “It’s a simple equation really: angry Jobs plus an IBM that doesn’t feel like it needs Apple anymore equals no more IBM CPUs for future Macs.”
Along the way, Siracusa mourns the Power PC, confessing, “I’m one of the biggest x86 haters. I’ve often argued that the collective human effort spent making fast implementations of the bass-ackwards x86 ISA would be much better spent elsewhere.”
Siracusa then explores some remaining mysteries, such as, “One thing in particular was made notable by its absence. Here’s the $64 million question: WTF happened to AMD? …If you’re Steve Jobs, how is AMD not your very first call?”
Siracusa concludes, “If all goes as planned, the Mac platform will be stronger in a couple of years than it is today. (Who knows, maybe Doom 4 will even get decent frame-rates.) I’ll buy a multi-core, multi-CPU x86-64 Mac and I’ll like it because it’ll be fast, good-looking, and it’ll run Mac OS X. But I’ll still think of what might have been…and what someday might be again. Call me a hopeless romantic. I’ll miss the PowerPC.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Switch to Intel processors unlikely to threaten Apple Mac’s security – June 07, 2005
Apple+Intel news is no reason not to buy a new PowerPC-based Mac today – June 07, 2005
Apple to use Intel microprocessors beginning in 2006, all Macs to be Intel-based by end of 2007 – June 06, 2005
Hey, what great press!
When’s the last time someone called the G5 architecture “bass-ackwards”?
What an embarrassment.
Quote: “…of the bass-ackwards x86 ISA…”
He called the x86 bass-askwards, not the G5. No need to worry, this move to Intel will turn out to be one of the best and smartest things Apple has ever done…
PPC be damned, I don’t give a shit what’s inside as long as it’s fast…and as long as it’ll run OS X…
Who gives a sh*t about the PPC. As long as what’s inside is fast and as long as it runs OS X, that’s all I care about…
Several years ago, IBM declared that the PC was DEAD.
Maybe its just me, but I think this was a very, very BAD sign.
Sigh. For the millionth time: It’s the software, not the silicon, that matters. PPC vs. Pentium is the undercard. The title fight is OS X vs. Windows. And Microsoft is looking pretty punchy these days…
I feel the same way as the author… PowerPC is so much more elegant, so it’s a shame to see it lose. It’s too bad that nobody but Apple ever put Velocity Engine to good use, and that Motorola and IBM both took their sweet time updating the PowerPC CPUs.
Still – I’m excited about Mac OS X on Intel, the way Apple is going about it. It is going to be an awesome trip for us Mac users!
Here is how this whole thing appears to me. Lap tops have just exceeded desktops recently in sales. Lap tops are where IBM could / would not be of any real help.
It seems to me that Intel makes the best performing laptop chips. I may be a layman here, but a recent Consumer’s Reports found the Centrino chip to have some definite performance advantages in laptop performance.
Now apple is back in the running for competitive, best in class laptop performance, assuming it can use Centrio or whatever Intel has up its sleeve.
[“Siracusa then explores some remaining mysteries, such as, “One thing in particular was made notable by its absence. Here’s the $64 million question: WTF happened to AMD? …If you’re Steve Jobs, how is AMD not your very first call?”]
Maybe because his friend was already working at Intel?
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Does Intel even have 64 bit chips ready? I thought only PPC & AMD had them. Goodbye complex calculations.
I’ll miss the PPC too. 🙁
Winston –
Windows isn’t even a contender as far as I’m concerned. I’m totally not interested in the virus-ridden, spyware-infested piece of bloatware that Windows has continued to be. As much as Motorola and IBM lagged at getting CPU upgrades done, Windows has lagged far worse at gettting Windows upgrades done! WindowsXP shipped in October 2001, and Longhorn is coming in early 2007, minus most of its interesting features… like WinFS and hardware tie-ins to the video card for the GUI (like Mac OS 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4 have to increasing degrees).
It’s time for Intel users to drop Micro$oft and go with Apple! Micro$oft has provided nothing but disappointments for years!
One other thought. . . . . Does the power pc (and perhap cell?) version of OSX now go into hiding in that “secret double life” in Apple’s labs?
“Hey, what great press!
When’s the last time someone called the G5 architecture “bass-ackwards”?
What an embarrassment.”
Misquoting an article printed right in front of your eyes.
What an embarrassment.
just for everyone to know:
I have got in confirmed: the next line of macintosh hardware will be based on an intel processor, but it will not be pentium.
All I can say is that Sony won’t be so proud of its cell in a few months…
mac freak –
The PowerPC version of Mac OS X is still in active, public development…
The Cell version, PSP version, DEC Alpha version and TRS-80 versions are still in secret development though. They will all be unveiled in 2007, with the advent of Apple’s new “yo-mama-so-fat binaries”.
Bingo.
Ok, I just can’t keep it a secret.
The next line of macintosh hardware will be based on…
drum roll please…
Intel processors!!
I’ll bet you never saw that coming! BOO-YA!
I think Ricardo was asking a sarcastic and hypothetical question. as in,
When’s the last time someone called the G5 architecture “bass-ackwards”?
NEVER
pointing out that only x86 would ever be called bass-ackwards.
Most people have no clue on something like this.
I just called up a friend who I switched to the Mac recently. He hadn’t even heard about the switch to Intel!!! For those of us who follow such things this is earth shaking news. For the average user, they have no idea what the move to Intel means and probably could care less as long as OS X continues to “just work” and be secure. Most have just a vague impression that “Intel makes good chips” because of all the Intel marketing over the years.
Anyway, long story short, I had to figure out how to explain what the move meant in a sound byte for the guy. Pretty much what I said was that after Apple makes the move, Macs may be able to run windows as well as OS X and all the old software will still work. Maybe the old apps will run just a tiny bit slower but they probably won’t be able to tell the difference. That was even probably more information than he wanted, what most people are probably gonna come away from this is “Macs will be able to run windows as well as OS X”. Except for the perhaps the geekiest of us, people will see this as a good move for Apple and their market share is gonna soar after the switch.
In the mean time tru Macheads in the know will continue to buy Macs unless they absolutely have to run windows for work or something and then they might wait on a purchase to get the increased functionality. The worst I can see happening is Apple sales flattening out to match the PC industry as a whole for a while and then take off like a rocket after the switch.
Sadly gone are the days of proudly saying that our computers run on different hardware and OS. I suppose we can still say we have a different OS but it lacks the full mac mystique which implied that the machine and the OS were totally different. I agree with Siracusa to a very large extent. Jobs is making a virtue out of necessity because you can bet your ass that had IBM indicated that there was a low power version of the G5 coming soon and some speed bumps for the desktops he would be happily staying with the PowerPc architecture. But the effectiveness of his RDF on most people never ceases to amaze me. The same way we all denied the fact that the classic OS froze constantly and defended it as the best OS on the planet until OS X came along then it was as though MacOs never existed except when we were saying how much better X was compared to 9 or Windows.
I , for one, plant to reboot my G3 ibook into OS 9 now and enjoy a few hours of a mac being a mac…running a unique OS on a unique machine.
Intel’s “Roadmap” means the same thing to me as Longhorn and the 3Ghz PPC. Just because they may have really great plans for releasing a really great product, it doesn’t mean it will actually work or it might take two years longer than they initially thought to get it actually produced and working. And to all of you that say it doesn’t matter what chip is being used, well, that’s fine unless the type of chip dictates how quickly and smoothly certain software features work.
btw, what the PHOCK did happen to AMD?
64-bit is 64-bit.
I’d much rather have a dual AMD than a dual craptel anyday…
“I , for one, plant to reboot my G3 ibook into OS 9 now and enjoy a few hours of a mac being a mac…running a unique OS on a unique machine.”
A vacation filled with crashes every 10 mins is headed your way soon. Take some pictures, will you? Enjoy the trip down memory lane.
“I’d much rather have a dual AMD than a dual craptel anyday…”
It’s not like thats not an option. Buy your AMD, run Linux, and be done with it…or buy a G5 or wait and run Intel…either way, just stop whining.
Worst-case scenario: Apple exits the computer business, becomes a software and consumer appliance maker, and licenses out its OS (sound familiar?) Mac OS X then just might have a shot at Windows.
stantheman(real one):
OS8/OS9 on a heavy-use production Mac was/is still more stable than any Windows version I’ve ever encountered.
Oh I forgot, you just re-installed Windows for the tenth time this year, so your PC is running smooth today. My bad.