“There have been a few recent PowerPC announcements that have caused the Mac Faithful to wonder anew about The Switch and the ‘real’ reasons behind it. First, there was the 970FX announcement, which clearly showed that IBM is capable of putting out a 970 processor that compares quite well with the Pentium M in performance/watt. And then there’s the 970MP, which Apple has used to make a monster of a quad-processor 64-bit RISC workstation. For even the most diehard Jobs fans, both of these product releases, especially when set against Intel’s current performance/watt woes, raise serious questions about the public case that Teh Steve made for The Switch,” Hannibal writes for Ars Technica.
“To make matters even more interesting—or more vexing, if you were one of the true believers in PowerPC’s alleged power failure—P.A. Semi has just announced a dual-core 64-bit PowerPC processor SoC that, if the specs and numbers are to be believed, could take PowerPC to a whole new performance/watt level,” Hannibal writes. “Needless to say, jaws are on the floor, especially among those who were sold on Jobs’ description of The Switch as a purely performance/watt proposition… If you don’t think that Jobs was aware of the P.A. Semi project at the time of The Switch, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. There is absolutely no way that P.A. Semi has been developing a PowerPC design like this for the past two years and not courting Apple with it at the same time. So what gives?”
“Ever since The Switch I’ve been preaching that Jobs’s stated reasons for moving to Intel are bogus, and that Apple really cares more about gadgets going forward than it does about the Mac line (Part I and Part II). The Switch proves, I’ve argued, that the Mac line is no longer the foundation for Apple’s future growth, and it could very well go bye-bye,” Hannibal writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hannibal doesn’t mention the reason we think Jobs made the switch: to take back the personal computer industry from Microsoft. We think Jobs’ goal is to provide Macs that can run both Mac OS X and have the capacity to run Windows or Windows applications. Windows-only applications and people who think they need Windows are a main reasons why Mac’s aren’t chosen – or even considered – by more computer buyers. Ask a Realtor, for just one example, why they don’t use Macs; their main apps are Windows-only.
As we’ve asked previously, if you can buy a computer from Apple that can run both Mac OS X and Windows applications at native speeds, why would anybody buy a crippled Windows-only Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, Sony, etc.? Once people can see Mac OS X vs. Windows latest right in front of their faces, you know what happens. Bye-bye Windows.
Steve Jobs thinks big, not small. We believe that Jobs considers Microsoft Windows’ dominance illegitimate, undeserved, and a severe hinderance to the promise of personal computers. Windows dulls creativity with its inherent medicocrity. We certainly believe that “the world’s” choice of Windows has been a huge mistake and that people are starting to wake up to that fact. Jobs is not killing the Mac with the switch to Intel, he’s positioning the Mac to kill box assemblers like Dell and, eventually, Windows.
Related articles:
How Apple can win the OS war – October 19, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal: ‘to take back the computer business from Microsoft’ – June 16, 2005
Intel’s built-in virtualization tech could be one way to run Windows on Intel-based Apple Macs
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Why buy a Dell when Apple ‘Macintel’ computers will run both Mac OS X and Windows? – June 08, 2005
Windows users who try Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger might not want to go back – June 07, 2005
Microsoft: The safest way to run Windows is on your Mac – October 08, 2004
The argument about Apple challenging Microsoft’s dominance is questionable. It’s misleading to talk about “a crippled Windows-only Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, Sony, etc.” In fact, they aren’t Windows-only: they can also run Linux, etc. The reason they couldn’t run OS X is that Apple is designing OS X not to run on non-Macs. If Macs start to gain significant market share, what’s to stop Microsoft from designing Windows not to run on Macs?
This may have already been said (I didn’t read the other posts) but I have always beleived that the dual binary is going to be a permanant fixture. I think one (of probably) many goals with this move is to ultimately become processor independant. It power pc is currently fastest then Apple goes with power pc if it’s Intel Apple goes with Intel. I think it’s more inovation. Apple is leading the way to a future of processor independance.
i wonder how places like Virgina Tech and others who’ve spent millions on xserves feel about this switch. They bought xserves because they offered the best bang for the buck. Now they’ll have to spend $ on software tweaks for new hardware in the future. And how will xserves be any different from HP, Dell or vendors in the future? It’s funny that the PPC isn’t working for Apple in laptops but is great for servers. Pity. I hope Intel has some really great stuff coming up.
the answer is:
slow ass laptops and minis.
When steve jobs founded apple he developed a unhealthy obsession with taking down IBM. Ask Woz about it, it bothered him a lot and may be part of the reason he left. The switch to PowerPC was made without Steve Jobs and maybe he just hates that he is running on IBM. His OS, NeXT, ran on x86, and he has probably inteded to move the mac platform to intel since the day he came back to Apple.
Maybe the paper thin reasons of performance/watt and other theories are simply the justification for something Steve has always had an irrational desire to do. He just had to get enough to convince everyone else he wasn’t crazy, but I think he is.
this
makes me throw up
tatle makes sense to me. From the very beginning of the Apple G5 introduction, I figured “conflict of interest” in the server enterprise was going to be a problem for Apple’s future with IBM.
Apple will be using Intel’s next generation chips for their MacTel machines. They won’t be using Pentium 4’s or M’s.
Intel have promised them fast chips with low power usage that are going to change the laptop world as we know it.
Question is can Intel deliver on time and on spec? I dunno – same thing has happened before with IBM and Moto and look at the mess Apple got into with that.
Hopefully Intel will come through and then Apple can start making some very powerful and portable machines that will blow people away.
MW: Result!
All I can say watching the unveiling of the new machines is Wow! My rev cycle takes me to next Fall when I can buy new hardware. In the 20 odd (different) years I’ve been a Mac users, I’ve never been disappointed with the new hardware. I always get considerably more in the package each time. As I usually say to friends: “my new machine is bigger on the inside.”
I’m really looking forward to the new products next Fall considering what is available now. My new gear will be amazing!
I don’t believe Steve would move a step backward. And remember, the Mac was his baby from the start. that’s why he came back. This is all part of a much larger strategy.
MW: ‘next’– I can’t wait to see what’s next!
Given that Apple has 5+ years of experience under its’ belt in maintaining OS X for both PPC and Intel – and the apparent ease of making Universal Binaries – I’d not be surprised at all if OS X remains cross plarform indefinitely. Jobs likes that, obviously, given what NeXT did.
Such a scenario will give Apple a lot more flexibility and bargaining power with processor vendors as well as being able to tailor hardware to the needs of various market segments. Where cost is a big factor, use Intel; where brute floating-point performance is the key issue, a G5 or analogous Power5 derivative. Low power consumption/heat dissipation? Use whichever is best at the time.
Maybe you all need to read Gene Steinberg’s article posted today. He is quoting from your favorite person, that’s right, wait for it, Rob Enderle.
Rob says that reports he has seen from the labs with OS X on Intel is that performance rates are incredible, numbers he at first just couldn’t believe. Appears that OS X and its kernal are optimized for Intel from the beginning and has to be reworked for the PPC. (I’m paraphrasing a bit here so go read the article.)
Its interesting that when Enderle actually has something good to say and reason to believe that the Mac is going to be blazingly fast in this switch that MDN won’t report it.
I agree with Teflon and disagree with MDN’s reasoning. MDN is comparing Apples with Oranges. Apple wants to take over the PC industry. But MDN says they want to kill Windows with Apple Hardware? That analogy is wrong. Windows is software. To kill Windows, have a better OS available for the Dells and HP’s. License out OS X. Apple makes $50 per copy off of it. They make maybe $500 per high end Mac and maybe $100 tops for the Mini. Seems to me they could sell a lot more boxes of OS X than computers.
MDN is right. Steve is diving into the jungle with Intel for no other reason than to slay Bill forever. Only then will he be at peace.
Oops. Link and quote from enderle.
http://www.macnightowl.com/index.htm#equation
From Enderle’s article
Desktop Lines
Desktop hardware will be visibly changed as well as Intel favors BTX designs for cooling and noise containment. What’s new in this area is small form factor, high performance products. When I say high performance, I’m not just blowing smoke, as the labs I’m in contact with are reporting performance improvements that even I find hard to believe.
Speculation is that since the UNIX kernel the Mac OS starts with is optimized for Intel before being ported to the Power platform, the result, up until now, has been a significant performance setback. Going back to Intel removed this inefficiency, which the applications have had to make up. The result, we understand, is like suddenly finding your emergency brakes were stuck on. Now Intel test systems are acting like they have permanent after-burners.
Hairbo quote:
‘It also wouldn’t surprise me if Apple decided to be totally agnostic about chips going forward. If he can get all of his developers using the universal binary, then Apple machines can have either PPC or x86 chips in there, and nobody will give a damn. That might be the real motive.’
My thinking is similar to this. I am absolutely sure that, even when the whole product line is running in Intel, the skunkworks in the basement of 1 Infinity Loop will be keeping OSX current on the best available PPC chips.
The universal binaries are a great deal and Apple even provides the software to develop and save them. That’s a considerable amount of work to produce a development environment that can produce both. And they essentially gave it away to the developers.
MW: gave!
As the ONLY proponent to grace these pages of this very same argument, I thank Hannibal for finally dosing this debate with some logic.
MDN says: “Steve Jobs thinks big …” and thus this is about letting Windows embeds switch to a more CPU friendly (for them) version of Mac. The problem with that argument is that the better way of luring those customers AND keeping your own products on the forefront of performance would have been to allow a PC partner – HP, for instance – sell the Macintels under license. This also would’ve had the added benefit of being MUCH cheaper for Apple, since optimizing software would have been the only thing they’d need to concern themselves with. So luring Windows users, at least as a primary reason, fails the smell test given the ‘all-or-nothing’ strategy they did take.
It’s The Notebooks Stupid! says: “… look at the updates made in recently months. Speed upgrades to: iMac, Power Mac, Mac Mini. Left out in the cold: iBook, PowerBook, … The G5 … continues to be a good desktop processor – but IBM cannot get it to work well … as a notebook processor… In his January 2003 MacWorld Keynote Jobs said the future was notebooks, and to have your future riding on a not very current technology (G4) is not good – not good at all.”
Problem number one with this argument is what I’ve been saying here for months, and what Hannible now verifies – the recent 970FX revision DOES allow for a very ‘notebookable’ G5. Problem number two, P.A. Semiconductor’s truely groundbreaking lowpower PPC work has been ongoing for 2 years – well before the Macintel transistion was announced – and, as Hannible rightly points out, there’s NO WAY a company does that kind of work with a PPC chip and doesn’t tell Apple about it. Problem number three, regarding the G4; I almost get tired of trying to get through to someof you lunk heads, but the new G4 revisions are VERY advanced in their own right (lower power, dual cores, system on chip designs, the works). And if you want to talk about roadmaps, Freescale is working on a 64bit version with even more goodies as we speak. “Proof” you scream? Here, you ingrates
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue wink” style=”border:0;” /> , from a recent presentation they made in Europe:
http://www.freescale.com/files/sndf/doc/reports_presentations/SNDF2004_EUROPE_P1302.pdf
Make sure you get to the last page – it’s next CPU will be a “Next-Gen 64-bit Processors e700 core, multi-core option, 32/64 bit, 3+Ghz …” 3 GIGs!! I may swoon. So the G4 is also NOT the turkey you in the RDF field so ardently believe.
Others of you have mentioned that Universal Binaries are the magic potion – that platforms not longer matter with them. I’m sorry, but that’s wishful thinking. While the programmers have been thankful that the revisions they have to make to their software has been relatively painless, it’s still been a lot of work. Specifically, optimizing for SSE3 is totally different than Altivec, and UBs don’t do that for you automatically. So Apple indeed does have to ‘pick a side’ here, at least until they manage to take literally ALL the hard handiwork out of optimizing code. Again, a logical strategy would have been to use UBs to help break in a Macintel market with someone else building the Macintels, leaving Apple to continue to build on the performance advantages of – and their years of experience building for – PowerPC.
But that logic only works if you beleive the switch is being made for performance reasons. IT IS NOT. Hannibal is only half right when he says it’s being made for the device strategy, and totally wrong when he says the Mac OS is no longer central to Apple’s plans. The devices will be an integral part to the MacOS centric iTunesVideo Download World that Jobs wants to build.
And the Macintosh computer IS necessary, but just not as a high performace computer anymore – as basically a high tech ‘Jar’ with which to hold (and more importantly, lock down) all of a customer’s multimedia content. And it will do this with Intel’s hardware DRM scheme. THAT’S what Intel offers that IBM, Freescale, and P.A. Semi don’t have, and what the Hollywood studios insist on being in place before they turn over a single movie to Steve Jobs.
Steve sold out. I’m sure he’s justified it in his head 6 different ways to Sunday (i.e. this will REALLY get Bill Gates’s goat), but that’s really the long and short of it.
MDN thinks this is all forgivable since Jobs thinks big – thathe sees the forrest through the trees. The occasional problem with thinking like that is, while walking through that grand forrest, you can easily bust your ass by running into or tripping over one of those ‘mere trees’ you couldn’t be bothered with. It’s the Law of Unintended Consequences writ large. We all should be worried about it, if we love the Mac.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cool smirk” style=”border:0;” />
Does anyone else believe that Apple does not have to make a complete switch to Intel? Tell the developers you are making a total switch so they write the new code. Change your low-end machines to Intel first. Then when it comes time to change the high-end machines over announce that you also have big Power PC hardware for Finalcut Pro, 3D rendering and research computing.
“what’s to stop Microsoft from designing Windows not to run on Macs?”
Who the hell would want to despoil their nice shiny new apple computer with THAT?!?!
Steve Jobs thinks big, not small. We believe that Jobs considers Microsoft Windows’ dominance illegitimate, undeserved, and a severe hinderance to the promise of personal computers. Windows dulls creativity with its inherent medicocrity. We certainly believe that “the world’s” choice of Windows has been a huge mistake and that people are starting to wake up to that fact. Jobs is not killing the Mac with the switch to Intel, he’s positioning the Mac to kill box assemblers like Dell and, eventually, Windows.
My thought’s exactly.
MDN word: “Head” With my perverted mind, do you really want me to use this word in a sentance?
drenrav says: that Enderle says: “Speculation is that since the UNIX kernel the Mac OS starts with is optimized for Intel before being ported to the Power platform, the result, up until now, has been a significant performance setback. Going back to Intel removed this inefficiency, which the applications have had to make up.”
Unix is CPU agnostic. PPC chips running Linux/Unix variants (including OSX) routinely smoke anything running on Intel’s stuff. The fact that the Pentium developer kits make OSX more snappy-looking could simply be Apple finally getting around to addressing that problem, and using the Switch as the tactical time to do it. After all, if the CPU you’re moving to is actually not as good as the one you’re leaving, then anything you can do to convince the end-user this is actually not the case would be a good move to make. No?
If you don’t believe Apple would allow any such performance issue to last this long if they could fix it, I submit that they do in fact do this. Maybe they have so many software projects that it’s just a matter of limited resources or something, but it has been known for years that OSX Server is abissmal when it comes to handling large numbers of requests at one time (such as the case would be if your were an online store selling alot of stuff, or an online gaming environment). The reason is that the OSX ‘surface’ doesn’t integrate well with the BSDUnix kernal (which ultimately needs to deal with this kind of stuff). It’s not that OSX can’t be optimized to do so – Apple simply never has done it.
So, while Enderle brings up an interesting phenomena, he – as usual – misconstrues his facts regarding what might be causing it, and thus extrapolates ut to an absurd conclusion as a result. Sadly typical for him, which is why I no longer read his stuff.
Selling out is not what happened. DRM is coming, no matter what. Content providers would stagnate growth in digital media if there was no DRM scheme.
What’s Steve’s choice– “not sell out” and remain a niche player, or anticipate what is inevitably coming and lead ther way. As people want more personalized digital m edia, Apple will be placed to at the forefront. Big things are coming.
Geez. Sell out. Whatever.
I like MDN’s comment about realtors. I almost had a buddy converted from Win XP to Mac and then he found that Georgia’s real state listing service used by most realtors runs only on MS Explorer for Windows and has really bad performance on Virtual PC. I actually called the company that makes that piece of crap and they confirmed it. No mac support is planned. Sadly my friend bought a commodity Dell notebook.
If anyone knows of a real state listing internet service that runs on a Mac please let me know
Oddyssey67, question for you.
How many of these 970FX chips are around or can be manufactured in large scale. Don’t you remember the problem IBM had with it’s G5 yields. Good, the 970FX revision kicks butt. What good will it do Apple if there are only a handful. Apple needs something now, and with Intel you get the added bonus of DRM which Apple will need as they will be the new media empire.
Seems to me that you’re still stuck in a love affair with PPC. Don’t get me wrong, PPC is great but Intel will do just fine and the time is now.
Ever heard of a PowerBook G5? I didn’t think so. That alone was reason enough for Apple to switch to Intel.
“Specifically, optimizing for SSE3 is totally different than Altivec, and UBs don’t do that for you automatically.”
With the Accelerate framework, you don’t need to be concerned with the architecture of the user’s machine because the routines in this framework abstract the low-level details. Your application will run on either PowerPC-based or Intel-based Macintoshes without processor-specific customization.
http://developer.apple.com/performance/accelerateframework.html