Intel Inside... Macs

[gekko]

Apple's WWDC keynote is still going on, but thus far we know...

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will be released late 2006 early 2007. Longhorn timeframe, well, the new dumbed-down Longhorn or XP 2, whatever you want to call it.

Apple will be switching to Intel chips. they plan to ship the first Macs running on Intel chips this time next year. Why? Simply put: When you stand in front of the world and promise a 3ghz G5 chip, and here we are two years later with a 2.7ghz G5. I'd be pissed.

The reason he gave:

Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. "When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel's roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do," he explained.

How about compatibility? Well, it works, already. there were rumors that Apple was working on a x86 version of Mac OS X, and it's true. Every version of Mac OS X shipped in the last 5 years was compiled for both PowerPC and x86 chips. So guess what? It already works, as Apple showed by running 10.4.1 on a 3.6ghz P4.

Apple is releasing Xcode 2.1 today, which supports compiling one build that works with both processors, so all software released after today will work, and that gives your software a year to be compatible before the new systems are released.

Also had Methematica developers up there, showing it only took about 2 hours of work and 20 lines of code to make it run on Intel.

Rosetta is a PowerPC emulator, for the software that isn't changed. Ran Photoshop CS 2 and Office on it.

iTunes supports PodCasting now.

And my comments...

Macs are getting even faster, how can anyone complain? This is awesome. so when I buy my new Mac in 07, it's going to be running fast as hell on Leopard. Beautiful.

Though, I'm shocked they didn't go with multi-core PowerPCs, which obviously IBM can do after seeing Xbox 360. But then again, IBM pissed Apple off pretty bad. Start out with the fastest desktop PC in the world, and then can't deliver an extra ghz in two years. Ouch.

[thatmariolover]

So does this mean we'll be able to install Mac OS X on existing Intel PC's? I would imagine that, as with Mac clones six or seven years ago, Apple won't allow them to be made and sold by other companies. But could I custom install this on a PC if I really wanted to (which I do).

Either way, I wonder if Apple's going to be seeing dropping hardware sales and vastly improved software sales.

[gekko]

No, Apple still has complete control over the hardware, just now instead of including G5 chips, they will include Intel chips. Not sure if intel will make custom Mac chips, or if Apple will just use the existing chip they have at the time. If it was possible to just install it on a PC, they could've done it the last 5 years, and Mac OS X would've run fine.

However, this could make Windows to Mac ports a lot smoother. We'll see.

[gekko]

Wow, interesting turn of events.

After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."

However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."

Windows on a Mac may be a possibility. Interesting.

X86 has not been mentioned in any way, shape, or form. Due to its horrible 64-bit support, it's doubtful that it will be the processor of choice for Apple. But then Intel decided to announce quad-core processors for Q1 2006. Coincidence?

And give Apple a round of applause. They have been planning this for 5 years, before the G5 was even out, and yet they managed it to be kept a complete secret, until now.

[thatmariolover]

No, Apple still has complete control over the hardware, just now instead of including G5 chips, they will include Intel chips. Not sure if intel will make custom Mac chips, or if Apple will just use the existing chip they have at the time. If it was possible to just install it on a PC, they could've done it the last 5 years, and Mac OS X would've run fine.

However, this could make Windows to Mac ports a lot smoother. We'll see.

I guess I'll have to read more before I fully understand it then. Because it states that they have it running on a 3.6GHZ P4 right now, and they're making that dev kit available. So I guess what confuses me: what makes it incompatible with current PC's if it's compiled for x86 processors. What decides what's compatible with what?

[gekko]

It was running on a PowerMac with a Pentium 4 inside it.

The BIOS, motherboard, RAM, drivers, I/O, and everything else is incompatible.

[thatmariolover]

It was running on a PowerMac with a Pentium 4 inside it.

The BIOS, motherboard, RAM, drivers, I/O, and everything else is incompatible.

Right, but they're saying that there'll be a way to get Windows on their Macs. I guess I'm just under the assumption that somebody will do the same for Mac OS on PC. They're going to be facing the same obstacles. Just the other way around.

[gekko]

No, Windows has support for a wide-array of hardware. Mac OS X doesn't, and I'm sure Apple went out of their way to ensure that Mac OS X can't run on anything but their hardware.

Keep in mind, this changes nothing. It's been 5 years and they still haven't done it.