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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Apple goes Intel
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Tue, 07 June 2005 21:40
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Hi,
Apple Computers announced that they are switching from the PPC chip to the Intel chip platform.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.h tml
I'm sure they'll still run their OSX, but it will run on the Intel Pentium, rather than the PowerPC chipset.
It doesn't really bother me. I've regarded Apple as a niche and bit player in the PC world since the AppleII was discontinued, as far as sales and size of market are concerned.
It will be interesting to see the reaction of Apple devotees to the decision to change to Intel processors in their product line.
seeyuzz
river
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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
June 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 00:53
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Enter a Apple devotee! 
They will most certainly run their OSx still. The new version has only just come out about a month ago. It will mean pretty much nothing as far as the system and applications go. I dont mind them doing it. The current chips are designed and made by Motorola, so it's not like Apple is losing business or anything...
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Location:
Campbelltown
Registered:
February 2005
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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
June 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 01:02
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Honestly?
Never, at least not while Steve Jobs is CEO. Even though they are so small, I really think that they will never get sold to MS.
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Location:
Parramatta
Registered:
July 2002
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 01:10
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i coucldnt agree mnore
ever since steve was re empolyeed by apple things again have looked up for apple i pod, OSX etc. he has alot more of the market shar then say about 3 years ago.
i hate apples but i admire steve, that man has a brain.
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 01:13
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actually, the G5 chips are IBM PowerPC chips - Apple went to IBM as motorolla couldn't deliver a fast and powerful enough chip.
i doubt there'll be much price reduction as the rest of the hardware (e.g. openfirmware based motherboard) will still be apple's unique design not a whitebox PC board from asus.
My understanding of this is that it will give them faster laptops and more energy efficient chips - but there's no great erformace increase for workstations unless they run dual core CPUs in the dual CPU box (e.g. 4 x CPU for the real estate of two). lets not forget that the multi-core PowerPC 64 bits chips and Cell chipsets planned to come from IBM is very powereful hardware, it's a shame that we'll not see them in the Apple Xserves.
There was a story on slashdot saying that the actual userbase (not just new purchasors) of Mac users could be as high as 16% in the desktop/laptop arena - i somehow doubt the high numbers but i think they're in for the long haul - i'm a big fan of them to (i work with Macintosh and we have 4 macs at home plus my mum is now an iBook devotee)
but, if they get DTP/design software on linux to the level of quark/photoshop then i'l jump ship. sorry steve.
cheers,
Charles.
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Location:
Campbelltown
Registered:
February 2005
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 01:37
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i rember them claming they they had the first 64 bit desktop, and the althlon 64 was out before then, ive never got that
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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
June 2003
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 05:18
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| paulw85 wrote on Wed, 08 June 2005 11:37 |
i rember them claming they they had the first 64 bit desktop, and the althlon 64 was out before then, ive never got that
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True he chip was available, but the windoze OS didn't supported 64 bit at the time so the chip may as well have been a 32bit core on steriods.
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Location:
Campbelltown
Registered:
February 2005
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 10:19
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as far as i know the 64 bit windows isnt avalable? becaasue ive got the althlon 64, but on 2k, it runs faster but i dont get the full 64 bit experence
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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
February 2005
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 10:54
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hehe...hehe keyboard.
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 13:22
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| paulw85 wrote on Wed, 08 June 2005 20:19 |
as far as i know the 64 bit windows isnt avalable? becaasue ive got the althlon 64, but on 2k, it runs faster but i dont get the full 64 bit experence
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i think some of the 2003 server software runs 64 bit native? perhaps some PC geeks can confirm?
Linux was the first cab out of the rank (apart from ibm, sun, etc mainframe OSes) with native 64 bit support - closely followed by BSD/openBSD (of which OS X is derived from).
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Location:
Campbelltown
Registered:
February 2005
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 21:53
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server 2003 does support 64 bit processors, but threre is a version optimised for 64bit processors, which is the one im looking at. but its a bit expensive
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 22:00
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Hi,
I would of thought that Apple would of gone for the AMD chips instead of the Intel ones. AMD seems more innovative and have more performance per dollar than the Intel chips. Plus, AMD chips would of fitted into Apples "line of thinking" where they seem to do more innovative things than the general PC makers.
seeyuzz
river
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Location:
Campbelltown
Registered:
February 2005
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 22:09
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hmmm, from my experence, amds run hotter, and intel seems better, but amds getting better with the 64 chip, the one i had before was xp 2400+... i think intel and amd should merge, and make lots and lots of great little chips
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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
June 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Wed, 08 June 2005 23:59
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They went for Intel simply because it gets more power per "unit" of energy it uses. Watched a big long speech on it last night by Steve Jobs. Looks promising.
A measure of what a good move it was I reckon is that when they announced this move, IBM stocks went down 63 cents instantly.
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Thu, 09 June 2005 00:17
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| Caledwvech wrote on Thu, 09 June 2005 09:59 |
A measure of what a good move it was I reckon is that when they announced this move, IBM stocks went down 63 cents instantly.
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It's also a measure of how irrational the stock market is - Apple's chips are just 2% of IBM's total chip business - i can't see how dropping a just-breaking-even chip supply contract is a bad move?
i think a big part of the move is to get faster chips for the laptops (as the overall market for laptops is growing faster thant the OEM desktop/workstation market).
If you've tried to use a powerbook on your lap for extended periods of time, you'd appreciate a cooler running machine 
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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
June 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Thu, 09 June 2005 00:34
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I agree about the heat. The new apples arent too bad, but they get warm.
True about the chips being only 2% but I think it will also have an impact on the computer market.
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Location:
Epping, Sydney
Registered:
April 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Thu, 09 June 2005 00:43
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Apple are also a high-profile company despite how small a market percentage they make up
And if a company like Apple viewed as innovative/high-end jumps ship it will probably rattle a few cages.
My biggest concern is the 64bit issue actually. Pentium, do they even DO 64 bit chips yet? Apple has been cleaning up in the 64 bit world for a while now running 64 bit stuff long before even AMD came out with it.
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Location:
Newcastle
Registered:
July 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 11:34
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both the intel itanium and intel Xeon chips are 64 bit.
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Location:
Epping, Sydney
Registered:
April 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 11:52
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| toof wrote on Sat, 11 June 2005 21:34 |
both the intel itanium and intel Xeon chips are 64 bit.
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ah they are now are they... cool 
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Location:
Victoria
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 12:16
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i say bring on a switch from apple proprietry hardware to generic IBM-cloneness
Finally might be able to get a decent GUI based OS, only problem with that theory is, once they switch to non proprietry hardware they loose the edge with hardware support 
So in that case, bring on a good linux based GUI i use FreeBSD on my main computer, and while it takes ALOT of fiddling, once its right it STAYS right and tends to run mem intensive java apps better than windows (which i use alot of unfortunatly)
Switching to intel will make no difference for the cosumer i think, unless the new chip is loosely based on x86 and someone manages to port OSX over, unlikely though
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 13:01
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| gearb0x wrote on Sat, 11 June 2005 22:16 |
i say bring on a switch from apple proprietry hardware to generic IBM-cloneness
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so you'd rather have cheap-and-nasty and not quite standards compliant hardware - or something works 1st time out of the box and comes with built-in support for all kinds of devices and hardware?
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Finally might be able to get a decent GUI based OS, only problem with that theory is, once they switch to non proprietry hardware they loose the edge with hardware support
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OS X is a GUI-based OS ... do you mean to say that you want a GUI that looks like windoze? if so, why not get a linix distro and run a window manager that looks like Xpee ?
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i use FreeBSD on my main computer, and while it takes ALOT of fiddling, once its right it STAYS right and tends to run mem intensive java apps better than windows (which i use alot of unfortunatly)
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OS X is based on BSD - that's why it's so stable and scalable. It also runs java apps without trauma - both on the server and desktop.
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Switching to intel will make no difference for the cosumer i think, unless the new chip is loosely based on x86 and someone manages to port OSX over, unlikely though
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duh x 2... it is already running on i86 CPUs ... they (Apple via Steve Jobs) are saying that OS X is mostly ported to i86 (using their openfirmware boards, not the ibm-pc bios-driven boards).
it's going to be developers who code relied on the peculiarities of the power PC chip (e.g. the altivec stuff) that will have the hardest time migrating over.
the thing for consumers is that some will decide to wait for the hardware change, some will complain about buying hardware with a roadmap that has a dead-end, and the mac zealots may not buy the new hardware at all because Steve has turned to the dark side.
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I supported Toymods
Location:
sydney.au
Registered:
August 2002
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 13:17
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its going to be manufactured with a proprietary hardware spec just like the power pc from moto was/is.
dont get your knickers in a twist over it too much i rekon. just a change in manufacturers.
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Location:
Victoria
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 13:49
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| thechuckster wrote on Sat, 11 June 2005 23:01 |
| gearb0x wrote on Sat, 11 June 2005 22:16 |
i say bring on a switch from apple proprietry hardware to generic IBM-cloneness
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so you'd rather have cheap-and-nasty and not quite standards compliant hardware - or something works 1st time out of the box and comes with built-in support for all kinds of devices and hardware?
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Look here i mentioned that down there VVV
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Finally might be able to get a decent GUI based OS, only problem with that theory is, once they switch to non proprietry hardware they loose the edge with hardware support
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I should have mentioned, i meant a good GUI based OS on 'affordable hardware'. I'm all for apples way of doing things when it comes to standards compliance, its just i cant afford it
There are alot of benifits to cheap and nasty hardware, you can buy it everywhere, cheaply.. If something majorly fails you dont have to wait weeks for apple to fix your computer, etc (and dont give me any crap on cheap hardware failing, expencive hardware fails just as much)
The easiest way to say what i said before is, i would love a full on x86 OS-X port and i would switch to it in an instant. You get the ruggedness of a BSD based OS with the easy configuration only a good GUI can offer (AND you can use the shell if you so desire) if apple wanted to increase their share in the desktop market i believe this would be the way to go, but as you say 'cheap-and-nasty' hardware adds support issues to the table
As a software developer, a MAC is useless to me unless im developing primarily web/java apps, I would love a good Apple box running OS-X for day to day stuff but cant spare the expence to buy an expencive proprietry hardware PC. Now if they switch to 'cheap-and-nasty' i could just pull an old PC out of the cupboard and install it
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 14:04
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gearb0x: get an old 2nd-hand mac - my dual 500mhz G4 seems to cope with high-end publishing software and current OS (10.4) - cheaper than a white-box PC and very stable and the hardware lasts for years. I paid just over $600 for the box and a 17" monitor (privately, not thru a reseller or auction).
As for apple hardware issues - you learn to fix stuff yourself and like most PC's hardware either works or is dead. I've been using these boxes in pro publishing since 1992 and in that time we've had: one m/board replaced, several x dead HD, one dead P/S. All replaced by us inhouse from parts ordered from Apple.
The old hairy chestnut of sending stuff 'back to apple' is a crock. Unless you know nothing about basic computer hardware, you can do it yourself. Plus the design and build quality is good enough for you to never need to take it in for service.
sorry about the dig at you about non-standard hardware 
If apple get the hardware migration right, it's only altivec-specific stuff and possibly tools that interact directly with bus control and possibly memory management (if they change the whole chipset) that will be greatly affected. Most application developers are treating that as system level stuff so it's Apple's problem, not the developes (at the moment).
cheers,
charles.
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Location:
Victoria
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sat, 11 June 2005 14:24
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| thechuckster wrote on Sun, 12 June 2005 00:04 |
sorry about the dig at you about non-standard hardware
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Its cool, i actually thought you were diggin into me for being an anti-Mac (was confused because i said nothing anti-mac )
On hardware failures, ive allways built my own PC's so thats not the problem, I find the problem is with proprietry hardware you have to wait for parts etc (as apposed to any of my Clone desktops if ANY part fails i can have a new one purchased and installed in the time it takes to drive to my local PC store)
As for the old hardware, i might look into this option, my FreeBSD box is my old workstation recycled (1ghz Athlon, 512mb ram) and performs better during development of my current project (which requires running apache tomcat, mysql, intellij idea (java IDE) all on the same PC) than my other computer which is a 2.4ghz, 512mb ram running windows XP, i am really starting to loose any faith i had in windows and have taken a liking to FreeBSD
FreeBSD's biggest problem is setting it up, it can be a real pain in the ass, right now i cant get flash to work its killing me. Just to get my MS wireless mouse to work i had to patch the kernal BUT after all that work, it is far more stable and offers simlar performance than my faster windows xp box doing the same thing
My biggest problem is i need to keep a windows box around so i can keep up with windows based stuff programing wise.
I wish i could just walk away from computers, live off the land or something. They can be real frustrating sometimes. people get confused when i tell them i hate computers, but im a computer programer 
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Location:
Newcastle, Australia
Registered:
March 2005
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Sun, 12 June 2005 23:09
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My job is an Apple technician, if we order a replacement part before 2PM, it arrives the next morning, so no huge wait for parts. Sometimes Apple is out of stock (they have been a lot lately), but normally this hasn't been a problem. I've owned an LC2, LC475, PowerCurve, Umax Pulsar, G4/350, G4/dual450, G4/dual867, and now a PowerMac G5 dual 1.8 64bit. All that has gone wrong is 1 or 2 HDDs, and the firewire port on the motherboard blew on the dual450. All covered by warranty
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Location:
Brisbane
Registered:
February 2003
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Mon, 13 June 2005 01:01
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just to add some more thoughtsopinions to the thread, i found this interesting read on groklaw.net (great site if you're a open source supporter):
Some more reactions to add to the early hype -- CIO Today's "PowerPC's Legacy Lives On," which offers some theories on what went wrong. Linspire's Michael Robertson's "Apple's Colossal Disappointment" says that there will be specially designed Intel chips for the Mac, to make sure there will be no white box possibilities:
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My disappointment was captured by an Apple spokesman who commented on what the switch does not mean: "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac." Future "Mactel" computers will have specially designated Intel chips, not generic x86 compatible chips found in common PCs. My sources say that Jobs is going to use Intel's cryptographic technology called LaGrande to make sure OS X will only boot on Apple-branded hardware. This is a similar technique to the one that Microsoft used to make sure Linux could not be loaded on Xbox - see: MM on Linux on Xbox.
The bottom line is that PC buyers will unfortunately not have the option to install and experience OS X. There will be no low-cost laptops from budget-minded Taiwanese manufacturers. There will be no generic AMD or Via white boxes sold by the millions capable of running OS X. Apple will not be reaching the 95% of the world buying Intel-compatible machines.
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And here's another view from IT Jungle:
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The sad truth is that IBM and Apple should have long since ported Mac OS to the Power-based server line created by Big Blue, and IBM should have listened to Apple and created a low-powered, 64-bit PowerPC chip that could run Mac OS X in a laptop without cooking a user's legs. IBM most certainly could have done this, but it has had other priorities--like ramping up performance on the Power5 chips as much as possible to compete in the Unix and proprietary midrange and enterprise server space or selling low-powered chips for embedded devices. IBM's PowerPC 970 and its supposed kicker, the PowerPC 970MP with dual cores, was a high volume product in relation to Power5, but it probably didn't make IBM as much money or Big Blue would have fought to retain the Apple business. For all we know, IBM made such promises. It doesn't matter. This should have happened in 1995.
So why will it take 18 months to roll out the Intel-based Apple machines? Because Apple thinks it is a hardware manufacturer, and it is in love with the idea of designing and building computers. And that is fair enough. Let's face it: Apple has the sexiest computers on the market, whether they are desktops or iPods or xServes. But if Apple is really interested in taking the X86/X64 market by storm, it may be time to let Mac OS X go--and really let it go. At the very least, Apple might be smart to create an open source community and let that community do a port of all the relevant pieces of Mac OS X to all kinds of X86 and X64 machines. For native Intel code, this would be a great strategy.
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Cringely thinks it's about taking on Microsoft, and that Intel will buy Apple. Since Apple says it's about chips, here's an article on chips and heat. Intel has a statement on Dave Farber's interesting-people list, reinforcing that it does not have DRM embedded in the chip, in response to a thread of skepticism about exactly what their earlier statement meant. You might also find this Intel page fascinating, on DTCP, Digital Transmission Content Protection, and how wondrous it is. But the page adds this information:
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Intel had decided copy protection shouldn't be implemented in hardware - an approach that would require platform changes. Instead Intel proposed a software solution that would be clad with 'tamper-resistant' software to provide protection for the implementation.
In a way, it's surprising a company known for its silicon would suggest a software solution. But Intel knew a major objective for CE companies was for the solution to be extremely lightweight and inexpensive. CE devices can range hugely in price, from an inexpensive digital recorder for kids to a $5,000 home theatre system. Consequently, any copy protection solution had to work for the cheapest device and add practically nothing to its price. . . .
An immediate concern was that content owners might want to prevent all copying and mark everything "copy never." This would defeat most of what the PC and CE industry were trying to do and, most importantly, frustrate the consumer. Consumers expected DVD and digital recording technologies to perform just like VCRs and tape recorders. They expected to be able to make reasonable use of content, including making copies of content. Consequently, part of the initial work was figuring out what kinds of content should be marked "copy never," "copy one generation," and "copy freely." The 5C began work to strike policy and legal agreements that would define and enforce the use of DTCP. An organization for handling all these policy and licensing issues was created. This organization, the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator, is a limited liability corporation charged with licensing and administering the DTCP technology.
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So Intel enables software "protection", cryptography, which they claim hackers can't break, not a hardware solution, to which the consumer may well respond: However you do it, how are you guys planning to protect fair use? And what is in it for us? Here's the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator's May 2005 Adaptor's License [PDF] and their Statement [PDF] about it when it was released, in which they detail and explain all the ways they have figured out to make companies using their encryption system pay them for the privilege and set out their compliance rules and the ways to sue one another if things go South. That's the proprietary way. I suggest you read the two documents after you first read the GPL, and then ask yourself which world you wish to live in. Here's [PDF] how it works, sort of. If you really want to know, you have to pay for a license first. This isn't necessarily the system Apple would use, of course. All of this is just to say, the world is dividing into two camps, closed and closely monitoring consumers, with all the privacy issues that implies, and the Free World.
We also learn from IP, in this post, that the Apple developer kit is based on Pentium 4. And finally, ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn has a theory on why he thinks IBM didn't care about losing the Apple account, in his article, "Could Apple loss be IBM's gain?":
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The chip business is moving in two directions at once, toward mass production and mass customization.
A Microsoft order for XBox chips means mass production. Orders for FPGA chips onto which a process may be programmed represent mass customization.
An order for Mac chips falls somewhere between the two. Extensive development is needed for one customer, but is production really high enough to beat Moore's Second Law, the idea that costs rise with complexity, and grow exponentially?
It's possible that IBM concluded, not any more. Given Apple's proprietary model, the contract may not have been worth fighting for.
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From PJ's site: <http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200506121 4161076>
Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2005 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on those pages are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: Apple goes Intel
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Tue, 14 June 2005 05:53
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Hi,
I got to admit I'm not a big fan of anything Apple has produced since the wonderful AppleII. This is mainly because the open architecture of the AppleII was great for homebrewing circuit boards and extra things. It was (and still is) a magnificent machine.
I'm currently going back into a time warp at the moment as I try and resurect a battered old MITS8800 CPU card. Hopefully I'll be able to build another cool old S100 system, which is a pleasant change from the old Multibus and STD bus repairs/builds I've been doing lately.
In any event, I'm sure that Apple will still offer their user base something different from the normal white-box machines and keep their loyal devotees happy.
seeyuzz
river
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