Support NeoGAF

[FortNinety]

So I've been out of loop with recent Apple events and just wanted some clarification on things. From what I understand...

1. Intel will be making the G5. Or is it some other chip, like the G6?
2. Macs will now run windows.
3. PCs will not run OS X.
4. Does this mean a dramatic shift in the Apple hardware lineup? Or will the new stuff be sold side by side with the old stuff?

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Next macs will run with Pentiums.
macs may run windows (likely)
PCs will not run OS X (officially)
yes, dramatic shift.

 

[DarienA]

So I've been out of loop with recent Apple events and just wanted some clarification on things. From what I understand...

1. Intel will be making the G5. Or is it some other chip, like the G6?
2. Macs will now run windows.
3. PCs will not run OS X.
4. Does this mean a dramatic shift in the Apple hardware lineup? Or will the new stuff be sold side by side with the old stuff?

#2... no... though the capability could potentially exist... that's not what they are shooting for.

 

[Sapiens]

I was under the impression that Jobs specifically stated that should apple owners want to, they could run Windows on their new Intel machines. Which is fantastic. Having a dual boot powerbook/ibook.

 

[Laurent]

Next macs will run with Pentiums.
macs may run windows (likely)
PCs will not run OS X (officially)
yes, dramatic shift.

There you have it...

 

[Triumph]

Actually, they've only confirmed that they will be using Intel chips, not Pentium chips in particular I believe. Intel could cook up a whole new chip for Apple.

As for 2-4:

2- probably(you can use virtual pc as it is now and also have stuff like office for apple so I don't see it being that huge of a leap, but why in God's name you'd want to is beyond me)
3- pretty much confirmed that pcs will never run OSX, as that is the real drawing point of owning a mac.
4- yep, it's a pretty big shift. Bigger than the leap from OS9 to OSX but not as major as the leap from 680X0 to the PowerPC, if that helps. According to Apple, though, the first Intel Macs will be coming out around this time next year and the last PowerPC macs will be made around the same time in 2007, so yes they will be sold simultaneously.

 

[sc0la]

this is great for me because I love using my mac for personal computing and for creative software, but certain programs that are crucial to me proffesionally (specifically AutoCAD) are not made for OSX

 

[Laurent]

They talked about the Pentium during the conference, without stating clearly that it was going to be the CPU that they were going to use, but still... The Developer Kits are Pentium 4, and Apple would get a much much better deal money-wise using existing Intel technology than asking for something new... It's just comon sense!

 

[ckohler]

Still, Apple stated many times that developers should expect the first Intel Macs to have whatever is on Intel's 2006 roadmap for that time. So if Intel did plan to have a new chip out by then, it would be that.

 

[fart]

Still, Apple stated many times that developers should expect the first Intel Macs to have whatever is on Intel's 2006 roadmap for that time. So if Intel came out with a Pentium 5 next year, it would be that.

right. they're going to use whatever's cheapest and within their design specs. with the range of mups that intel produces, there's absolutely no reason for them to buy into a custom chip.

 

[maharg]

Actually, they've only confirmed that they will be using Intel chips, not Pentium chips in particular I believe. Intel could cook up a whole new chip for Apple.

This would defeat the purpose of the shift to Intel. Also, it's extremely unlikely Intel would make a entirely new chip for such a low volume product. Intel has three lines of different cores afaik right now, StrongARM, Pentium, and IA-64. StrongARM is pretty big in small devices, Pentium is obviously a huge consumer chip, and IA-64 is an utter flop that they barely produce in any number anymore. Intel is not going to put out a whole new line of chips for a buyer as 'small' as Apple.

 

[fart]

afaik intel will do custom chips if you fork over enough money and can guarantee a certain volume. i believe the xbox mup is something like this.

 

[Phoenix]

Actually, they've only confirmed that they will be using Intel chips, not Pentium chips in particular I believe. Intel could cook up a whole new chip for Apple.

While possible it seems highly unlikely. FOr protection, Apple/Intel have their own DRM architectures which are likely to form the new BIOS architecture and provide hardware encryption/decryption. Outside of that it is unlikely that Apple is interested in throwing R&D money down the toilet to have Intel build a custom chip.

4- yep, it's a pretty big shift. Bigger than the leap from OS9 to OSX but not as major as the leap from 680X0 to the PowerPC, if that helps. According to Apple, though, the first Intel Macs will be coming out around this time next year and the last PowerPC macs will be made around the same time in 2007, so yes they will be sold simultaneously.

Actually I'd argue that its MUCH bigger. Apple is handling it better but if you've been writing software that works pretty close to the hardware, life is 'not fun'. As someone doing a lot of low level OpenGL stuff on OSX I'll just say that the experience has been unpleasant as Rosetta doesn't help with this transition much at all.

 

[Phoenix]

afaik intel will do custom chips if you fork over enough money and can guarantee a certain volume. i believe the xbox mup is something like this.

The big difference being that Intel can fab the exact same part forever for the Xbox. The CPU in the XBox is the same chip that the XBox will die with (within a small margin change for fab efficiencies). THe chip that will power Apple machines would change fairly often so it would not be useful to constantly be throwing money at Intel for new chips when you could just build a custom chipset to solve most of the 'business concerns'.

 

[bionic77]

#2... no... though the capability could potentially exist... that's not what they are shooting for.

Why not? It would only add like a hundred dollars to the cost and you could make it optional unless there is some gay copyright law that would prevent someone from installing a dual boot OS without MS's permission.

I always loved Apple laptops and I would spend the unholy amount it takes to buy their top of the line laptops if it had both operating systems.

 

[Phoenix]

Why not? It would only add like a hundred dollars to the cost and you could make it optional unless there is some gay copyright law that would prevent someone from installing a dual boot OS without MS's permission.

I always loved Apple laptops and I would spend the unholy amount it takes to buy their top of the line laptops if it had both operating systems.

The official line according to Apple folk I talk to is that they aren't going to hinder you from running Windows on the boxes, but they aren't going to support it either. You put Windows on the box and you're on your own - they just won't prevent it from installing and running or anything.

Having the ability to run both operating systems is cool, but ultimately stupid. Once you're on the same architecture, the only thing you really need is to emulate the Win32/DirectX API and you can run those applications INSIDE OSX. There are already a bunch of companies (mostly from the Linux world) who are already cranking on that.

 

[border]

Having the ability to run both operating systems is cool, but ultimately stupid. Once you're on the same architecture, the only thing you really need is to emulate the Win32/DirectX API and you can run those applications INSIDE OSX.

So are Windows games going to start running on Mac machines? That seems like the main reason why you would want both OSes.

 

[Phoenix]

So are Windows games going to start running on Mac machines? That seems like the main reason why you would want both OSes.

The folks who let them run on Linux are porting their wares to OSX.

 

[Timbuktu]

So are Windows games going to start running on Mac machines? That seems like the main reason why you would want both OSes.

So yeah, when the Intel Macs arrive, we're really paying for something extra, rather then just something different. And according to Appleinsider, it's going pretty well.

Speed of Apple Intel dev systems impress developers

By AppleInsider Staff
Published: 12:45 PM EST
The speed of Mac OS X running on Intel hardware is impressing some developers who've been privy to one of Apple's first Intel-based developer transition systems.

Advertisement

The systems started shipping to Mac OS X developers three weeks ago, each equipped with a 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor with 2 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz front-side bus, 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 Dual Channel SDRAM, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900.

Developers are renting the $999 hardware from Apple for a period of 18 months in order to get a head start in porting their applications to run on the Intel version of Mac OS X.

"It's fast," said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel's Pentium processors. "Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5." In addition to booting Windows XP at blazing speeds, the included version of Mac OS X for Intel takes "as little as 10 seconds" to boot to the Desktop from when the Apple logo first displays on screen.

Included with the Mac OS X for Intel distribution is an Applications folder stocked with a mixture of PowerPC and Intel-native applications. Applications that are compiled only for PowerPC processors are of filetype "Application (PowerPC)" whereas Intel-native binaries are labeled of standard type "Application".

Developers sources say the early version of Rosetta, a dynamic binary translator that is designed to run unaltered PowerPC applications on Intel Macs, is also impressive. "Rosetta is completely 100 percent seamless and nothing like the Classic environment used to run older Mac OS 8 and 9 applications under Mac OS X," one source told AppleInsider.

"With the exception of the "PowerPC" denotation and the presence of "Open in Rosetta" checkbox in the application info boxes, you can't tell which applications are universal and which are PowerPC-only unless you examine package contents," the source explained.

Since the developer version of Mac OS X for Intel offers users the option of running any application under Rosetta, developers have been able to perform rudimentary speed comparisons between native Intel Mac applications and those that must first filter through the Rosetta binary translator.

"Taking a universal binary and timing its startup in Intel native speed versus its startup when opened via Rosetta results in a slowdown, but not as much as one would think," said another source. "The apps run at about 65 to 70 percent of their normal speed."

However, some PowerPC-native applications realize little to no speed reductions while running under Rosetta. A source told AppleInsider the current PowerPC version of the popular Firefox web browser loads just as fast under Mac OS X Intel as it does on a high-end dual processor Power Mac G5.

If reports are accurate, Mac users have a lot to look forward to in regards to web browsing under Mac OS X for Intel. According to sources, web browsing in general is much faster under Mac OS X for Intel than it is under the shipping version of Mac OS X for PowerPC. Web pages snap to the screen, the same way they do in Internet Explorer running on a new Pentium system, they say.

The first Mac systems to sport Intel processors are expected to hit the market around the middle of next year according to statements made by Apple, though recent mumblings indicate that the company may be striving to beat those estimates by several months.

 

[maharg]

afaik intel will do custom chips if you fork over enough money and can guarantee a certain volume. i believe the xbox mup is something like this.

I really doubt the xbox cpu is really that different from a run of the mill pentium. Might be some minor changes, but the core is probably virtually identical. There's a big difference between a new minor variant on an existing chip and an 'all new chip' or even 'making a PPC chip' like some people were thinking at first.

 

[Triumph]

Actually I'd argue that its MUCH bigger. Apple is handling it better but if you've been writing software that works pretty close to the hardware, life is 'not fun'. As someone doing a lot of low level OpenGL stuff on OSX I'll just say that the experience has been unpleasant as Rosetta doesn't help with this transition much at all.

You seriously think this is gonna be a bigger deal than the 680X0 to PowerPC jump? :/

Bleah if so.

 

[fart]

I really doubt the xbox cpu is really that different from a run of the mill pentium. Might be some minor changes, but the core is probably virtually identical. There's a big difference between a new minor variant on an existing chip and an 'all new chip' or even 'making a PPC chip' like some people were thinking at first.

yes, yes, and yes to this and what phoenix said. it's silly for apple to ask for any kind of customization in their mups and silly for intel to oblige them.

 

[Phoenix]

You seriously think this is gonna be a bigger deal than the 680X0 to PowerPC jump? :/

Bleah if so.

Under the covers, the architecture change is much more of a big deal. However Apple has prepared a LOT more than they did in the PowerPC move.

 

[stormer]

frankly.. i'd be interested if some smart people out there were able to port OS/X to pentium laptops that arent apple

 

[DopeyFish]

windows is far more universal than MacOS

So basically having the PROPER compatibility will make apple sales rise like nuts.

Sure some people buy it for the mac stuff, but there's other people that only want to buy a mac for the whole reason of aesthetics.

 

[GhaleonEB]

5) Intel's stock goes up disproportionate to the increased revenue, making Ghaleon (and his employee stock purchase account) very happy.

 

[Deku Tree]

So are intel-mac desktop models coming out in 2006 or 2007? And how about laptops?

 

[GhaleonEB]

So are intel-mac desktop models coming out in 2006 or 2007? And how about laptops?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050606-4974.html

the first Mac to ship with Intel Inside will be released by June 6, 2006, and the transition should be complete in 2007.

I don't think any details other than that are known. Even Intel's internal news stuff didn't go into more detail on the timeline.

 

[blackwind]

to summarize......it's good....fast.....and will be able to run windows and Mac from the same machine......