“On June 22, the US Patent & Trademark Office revealed Intel’s patent application titled ‘Method, apparatus and system for transparent unification of virtual machines,'” Neo reports for Macsimum News.
“The patent states that ‘given the complexity and processing requirements of virtualization, this technology has typically been available only on workstations, servers and/or mainframes for use by sophisticated users. As processor technology advances, however, virtualization is being made available in the desktop environment for use by average users.’ Considering the fact that the patent relates to average consumers using advanced virtual machine technology, the chances are high that Apple will take advantage of Intel’s ‘unified desktop interface’ in their next iteration of OS X, dubbed Leopard. What’s described herein goes far beyond the initial capabilities of Apple’s current Boot Camp solution,” Neo reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tacitus” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: MDN reader “Tacitus” asked in his email to us, “Is this the death of the OS as we know it?” What do you think? A unified interface that controls apps using separate virtual machines is an interesting concept to say the least. Just how radical is Apple planning to be with Leopard?
Advertisements:
• Introducing the super-fast, blogging, podcasting, do-everything-out-of-the-box MacBook. Starting at just $1099.
• Get the new iMac with Intel Core Duo for as low as $31 A MONTH with Free shipping!
• Get the MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo for as low as $47 A MONTH with Free Shipping!
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple ready to take back market share; may debut Windows virtualization in Mac OS X Leopard – April 21, 2006
Apple’s Boot Camp is first step towards Mac OS X Leopard’s inevitable support for virtualization – April 11, 2006
RUMOR: Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to include VMWare-like ‘Chameleon’ virtualization software – March 24, 2006
Will future Intel-based Apple Macs offer multiple OS worlds via virtualization? – November 16, 2005
Intel’s built-in virtualization tech could be one way to run Windows on Intel-based Apple Macs – June 16, 2005
that could be interesting
Interesting even more if Leopard implements the use of Windows APIs to allow users to run Windows programs without Windows.
Whoa.
MW: Property, as in your ar$e is mine. (Refering to M$ of course)
Intel has stated on more than one occasion that they hoped Apple would broaden their (Intel’s) perspective, and that Apple hasn’t disappointed.
My feeling is that if there is a marriage, of sorts, between Intel’s Unified Interface technology, and MacOSX, the lead influencer of how it looks and operates will be MacOSX.
Running Windows software without windows is the atom bomb. If they could somehow make it so that it looks like an OSX app, then its all over.
Darth Avenous. reimpleneting windows API’s (aka the linux wine project) is a massive undertaking and MSFT isn’t going to license them to Apple. People who thin this is an easy thing to do are really out of touch of reality.
Just as I had suspected. Look for great things in 10.5!
Only God knows how I hate Windows.
Nice… doing web browsing and emails through a VM, that’s pretty sweet! Reading emails in the VM, making it basically impossible for buffer overflows or script-kiddies to take over your machine, keeping address book and other information outside of that VM. Then when you reply or forward it transparently moves it to your host system and allows address book use, etc…
Same idea for web browsing… the browser could be running on a VM without any visual difference or speed hit, any buffer overflows or vulnerabilities can be kept insulated from your system.
Of course stupid people can always download and run trojans… there’s no solution for that short of every application being signed by the OS vender, and we DON’T want to go down that road.
and MSFT isn’t going to license them to Apple.
Apple already has Windows API’s.
Anyway the Linux Wine project mimicks Windows API’s, do you really think M$ would license their API’s to the open source community?
Apple has had Mac OS X running on x86 based processors for years, who know what else they have been doing.
Kensfield Quad core Intel processor – Cinebench Multiple CPU score 1649
PowerMac G5 Quad (dual Dual Core 2.5) – only 1016
Apple has access to Windows pattens (XP APIs) for those years they shared access to each others pattens when Microsoft bought a bunch of Apple stock. That window has since ended (no new Vista API pattens), but Microsoft needs to remain backwards compitible, so XP APIs still work fine.
Can it be done, no idea. But it would be interesting.
How come this Intel patent “hints” at Apple’s plans for Leopard? Yes, this adds potential but it implies nothing about Apple’s intentions.
While this doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple will use this technology it does go along the path that Apple has been following. They have pretty much gotten rid of just about every roadblock that people had with switching. Incompatibility (gone), price (gone), speed (gone), and windows runs slow in VPC (gone. Now they can possibly run just about any piece of software in the Mac OS. Steve has been working hard to make the Mac OS the most versatile OS and this would just be the next logical step. Seriously, the excuses for not switching would all be gone.
Regardless of the API situation, the Wine project has demonstrated that any attempt to reimplement Windows is misguided. The core problem is that Windows shouldn’t have been implemented in the first place; it’s a hodge-podge of interim measures with a lack of an intelligent overall structure.
The Vista effort has demonstrated that even Microsoft cannot implement Windows with any success any longer. The beast is too complex and lacks the modularity that comes with a good design philosophy. It’s time to buy Windows, not repeat it.
er… BURY Windows, duh.
MegaMe: “Apple has access to Windows patten(t)s (XP APIs) for those years they shared access to each others patten(t)s when Microsoft bought a bunch of Apple stock. That window has since ended (no new Vista API pattens), but Microsoft needs to remain backwards compitible, so XP APIs still work fine.”
Uh, no. Buying another companies stock does not give you rights to anything including patents, except perhaps in bankruptcy proceedings. Having your stock owned by another company doesn’t give you rights to their holdings, even in bankruptcy. If there was any cross licensing done, it was done regardless of any stock transactions.
Fedex seems to be doing pretty well. I suppose because of Imac Shipments
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
Fedex seems to be doing pretty well. I suppose because of Imac Shipments
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
OSXI
Btw., why does this site look so much like a Microsoft site? And what’s with the text ads?
New desktop ideas. Look here!
http://honeybrown.ca/Pubs/BumpTop.html
@ Chris:
The Microsoft/Apple agreement specifically gave Apple access to technology within a certain timeframe. It’s a fact that Apple had access to the Windows XP APIs. It remains to be seen whether they took advantage of that.
I can’t imagine that they didn’t.
MegaMe + Chris:
People, people!! The word is spelt: P A T E N T, patent… geddit?! My god, you’ve all got a dictionary sat at your fingertips through widgets. It ain’t hard to check.
Oh, and by the way MegaMe, “compitible” is spelt compatible.
Schools…. what are they good for, really…!
absolutely nothin’ …say it say it again now
hard to unnerstan spelin eror when da wird is in da hedlyn of da artikul!
Notice to all………. when tiger came out, there was multiple previews even before the prelude to the launch….. has Apple done any previews with this upcoming product??? NO!!… Why would you not preview a product, why be even more secretive about a product than you typically are???
We are going to see something that may or may not seem as big as it’s eventually going to be.
Ånd also of importance is this, Put your copy of Pirates of Silicon Valley in, forward to the part where Jobs and Woz are with Captain crunch and Jobs says something like…. ” It’s like in those other countries where the Army guys overthrow the government and the first thing the do is take over the newspapers and phone lines, they take control over the way people communicate, information is power.”
Now, how much control is Apple ultimately going to end up with over the way we communicate? I personally don’t have a clue, but I do know that they have a giant start in the process.
late