Apple soon to switch to Intel? - Page 2

Well that won't happen...not at first at least.

People will buy these thinking "now I can have a Mac and Windows for my games too!" but eventually it's going to get tired/annoying to keep dual booting just because you want to go and play a quick game of Half Life or summat. Once the game developers see people buying Macs because they can dual boot but then see people not wanting to dual boot anymore and just sticking with OS X they'll get the message.

Personally I have to chuckle. All those Mac-Zealots who would say "you can only do blank on a Mac correctly" will have to finally shut up.

First they tried to say that about graphics and desktop publishing - now Illustrator CS2 and Photoshop CS2 come out on x86 first. Then they tried to say it about Desktop Video - Hello Vegas Video or Premiere Pro?? Now they are trying to say it about Professional Audio - Reason 3.0, Cakewalk, Sonar, Wave Plugins . . . Get over it - its a machine, nothing more. I use them both, and I could give a crap. But for my dollar, I'd never pay the premium for Mac hardware. WHY? There is nothing it can do that my PC can't, and my PC does it cheaper - MUUUUCH cheaper.

Now all the Mac Zealots will have to admit - there really isn't anything special about their machines - their elite view of things is dead.

Apple has been working for 2 years to get OSX to port to x86. That's why the rumors have been around for so long. Things have just gotten to the point that there is enough power for the emulation layer.

When Apple switched from 68000 series to PowerPC, they did it with a transition so as not to upset users who invested in software. The PowerPC had twice the power (MHz) and twice the memory bandwidth - just enough to run the emulation.

Now, we have dual core processors and massive bandwidth memory in x86 land - just enough power to run the required emulation layers and not impact performance.

But you KNOW the MAC zealots will start touting that their classic Mac is a better machine, and slowly fade out of existance, holding on to a time long past, much like the Amiga people did with their 4000 machines . . . .

This has become a Mac/Windows war. Getting way off the topic, but yes, Apple has been using a lot of PC parts now, it's no new news. Now some of you are getting all crazy over that statement. These parts aren't actually PC or belong to PC users alone. It's just that Apple has threw in their towel and stopped wasting money on building their own crap when the world is building stuff out of generic and compatible parts. Apple used to make their own crap, but they were barely surviving as it was. They started purchasing from other manufacturers for all their components. Video cards, hard drives, cd-roms, etc. It's just that some Mac users have really become super anal over stupid stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like Macs, but I'm pretty limited at things I can do. As for them to use Intel processors, that isnt far-fetched either. If you have been reading CNET/ZDNET magazines from 3+ years ago, they've been doing these tests a long time now. Apple- From 10% of the market, down to 5% and then 2.2% and so on, if I was Apple, I would be making my crap more compatible with the rest of the world also. Only a fool wouldn't. Some hardcore Mac users still cry about firewire being the best thing ever. Some of you guys had a heart attack when the 2.0 USB topped the firewire speeds. You guys are lucky that Mac adopted the USB feature (a Universal Feature). The Ipod was a joke until they made it PC compatible.
I'm an IT Administrator and I work at a Commercial & Industrial Print House. The first thing I did was switch the entire art dept to a PC Platform. The reason I did this because it was much more secure. All large format printers and servers were PC format anyways. But a decade later, new technology has come and go.... am I willing to switch over to a Mac Platform? At only 2.2%- of the market, I dont think so. It's like being a doctor with medicine that's available all over the world, I'm not going to put my job at stake just to try something "cool and trendy".

mrgraphics,
what part of Macs being focused around user experience have u missed? the much praised OS, tiger, is the same, along with the much praised apps that will continue to ship with it, stock. so the OS has nothing to do w/ how one experiences a computer? LMAO! maybe u need to head back to windows 3.1 if that's your stance.


for the record, Adobe likely wouldn't even exist if it weren't for Apple. it's why their CEO noted his commitment to making the transition with them, and also noted they'd be the 1st to have OS X x86 professional graphics/media programs up and running for the creative community (and no i don't think said community is apple specific).

Read the commentary going around. Much of what has been said re: Macs is that the collaboration will help Macs sell for less. though arguably this may have little to do w/ Apple as opposed to intel, who tend IMO to overcharge for their processors. if your system is muuuuch cheaper than a Mac system, you're likely cutting corners to build it. an $800+ P4 EE is a hole in your pocket regardless of what platform you are on. will there be a premium for Apple computers simply bc they are Apple? we'll have to see. w/ essentially identical hardware, Apple would be idiotic to not play in the same price range as their competitors. much like any brand, it's "high end" stuff will be given a premium, simply bc of it's product segmentation, which is no different than any other PC company.

did u read any of the keynote coverage by PC and Mac sites alike? it's been 5 years, ever since OS X began. how exactly do u gather that the x86 OS X is an emulation? from everything that's been said, it's x86 native. the only emulation mentioned is in the form of Rosetta which will allow PPC apps to run in the x86 environment.


Read anandtech's 2nd article regarding WWDC and the intel transition. pay attention to the commentary re: developer reactions in the crowd. granted there will be PPC loyalists, but hopefully they'll be "converted" once they find they can actually get their work done as effectively on a x86 system.



madmike23,
what's the point of this commentary exactly? it seems as if it's oblivious to the fact that Apple has been making their entire systems out of components made by other manufacturers, but then u mention that this is effectively what they do. apple is kinda like a fabless chip developer, though even so it has had little to do w/ actually manufacturing their own "crap". they have effectively told their manufacturers what they want in their systems and they put it in. it's not as if IBM had to invent IDE, PCI, AGP, etc.,controllers for the Macs. mind u, Apple is also a relatively small customer to both motorola and IBM. in short, the noted companies have done little to tweak their architecure to appease the interests of apple (hence the shift in platform. apple may have some influence on getting altivec into intel chips, but intel will also not be catering ala carte to apple's wants. however this will be less of am issue as intel has a much more aggressive approach to chip development than IBM and motorola have had.) Apple has used what is available and makes efforts at trying to include new, useful, and innovative "crap" that is already available. not much different than how ATI and nvidia send out their chips and blueprints for their reference cards to 3rd party manufacturers. saying that sapphire or powercolor for instance are illegitimate as video card vendors because they don't manufacture their own chips, seems a bit wacky to say the least. Apple engineers the goods and places like Asustek spit them out for working models and further development. ( not trying to insult your intelligence by commenting on the obvious). granted however, apple has it's role in the development of new tech standards, but then again so does MS and any number of tech companies.

it's comparable in speed, but tends to have a higher CPU overhead than firewire on either of my systems. maybe it doesn't matter on the surface. simply having high transfer rates is cool for basic computing. but if for instance i'm encoding a video file which is being put out to my external drive, i want as much of my CPU cycles dedicated toward encoding and not the transference of the data over the bus. same goes for internal data transfers. it's why u output from one drive to another instead of the same drive (the same principal as to why it's much more efficient to copy from one drive to another instead of onto the same drive).

k, time for bed.