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whine whine. the fact of the matter is, it is STILL a mac.

I wonder whether IBM has its hands full since they now are to supply all the nextgen consoles... surely in comparison Apple are a small customer.

...until I realized that laptops are Apple's bread and butter (at least as far as computer hardware goes. There is of course always the iPod) and that all of Steve's talk of computational performance per watt had everything to do with maximizing CPU power *and* battery life.

Apple's in a really lousy situation right now. Their laptops, the heart of their business, are underpowered in comparison to both PC laptops and their desktops. The G5 PowerBook was always a pipe dream... the CPU is simply not cut out to compete against the Pentium M in the portable market.

So that's it. Look forward to fancy high end Intel-powered Apple notebooks in the near future.

Yea, the G5 is too big, too power consuming, and too hot for a laptop. I think the writer didn't know this - or was too naive

Yes, it is still a Mac, and on an Intel platform it will have something akin to CrossOver Office to run Windows applications. It will be able to run x86 linux binaries just like some free *BSDs. We are talking about a truly universal workstation platform, that will run software made for its competitors with no performance hit, with an OS X desktop! Sweet

The benchmarks he cites on tbreak.com as "proving" that the Pentium M is a slow worthless chip have about as much validity as the bencmarks that Apple cites "proving" that the G5 is 300x faster than a P4. Specifically, pcmark puts a HUGE emphasis on memory bandwidth, and systems that provide more, do better on pc mark. The i855gme chipset that was tested with the pentium-m only allows for a single channel of pc2100 ram. On from there, he doesn't even consider that the chips that the Intel Macs will ship with might actually be better than the ones available now.

As for the dynamic recompilation, I have no doubt that in some applications, it will run just fine, while in others it will be dog slow. The best way to get a feel for what this might be like, give a recent cvs checkout of pearpc a spin and install osx on it. You can safely bet that the performance will be better than that, as under the rosetta emulation, only the actual application code has to be emulated instead of the whole OS. All the OS library support code will still run natively.

The letter defends IBM and attacks Intel, like IBM has never made mistakes. Yes, Itanium was not a success, but what about the IBM projects that have failded. That happens. You put products in the market, some fail other succeed. You think that Steve Jobs wouldnt like to stay with Power. They know what they doing. I am not a Mac user, but I which the best of the luck to the Mac users, developers, designers and everybody associated with Mac. Keep putting great products out there.

People need to understand that Apple wouldn't have done this unless absolutely necessary. This same guy would've started an open letter to Apple in 6mo about the lack of progress in the hardware lines.

This was a big decision for Apple. People act like there was a wonderful PPC roadmap ahead and Apple decided to switch to Intel because they had nothing better to do with their time.

GROW UP! This was a huge decision based on what was most likely a dead-end IBM roadmap. If IBM stopped developing the PPC CPU, what were Apple's other choices?

I further believe that you have made such a bafflingly shortsighted decision ...

It's neither baffling or shortsighted - it was explained, at the keynote, that PPC chips simply won't offer the performance necessary in the years to come. Why do you find the switch baffling on that basis ... ?

Yes but now Mac means PC clone made by third parties with an Apple badge as opposed to a seperat hardware platform.

Apple can only differentiate itself based on the OS now. Hardware is gone. That may be good or bad depending on how you look at it, but the consumer desktop and notebook market is poorer for it in my opinion.

I think the author is right for many points, the halo effect might become a negative halo effect. People do not want to be the next guinea pig. People will wait. Sales at apple might be in jeopardy.
I do not agree that running on an Intel platform brings in all the crap that Windows carries along. Isn't Linux running on the same crap but without IE, blue screens and mail worms ?
Mac OS X is based on a solid BSD foundation.
A Mac will always be a Mac, despite the platform it runs on.
BTW, who knows what Intel has in the pipeline ? If Steve Jobs has been able to hide for 5 years the Intel 'Just in Case' scenario... With Longhorn coming in and the 64 bit halo effect to the desktop, maybe Intel has some more to show...

my 2 cents.

They are just changing the chip set.

A Mac will be still a Mac.

A developer that makes an application will still support an install base of 20 million ppc macs (potentional customers) - with the development tools provided from apple (Xcode) producing universal binaries (ppc and intel) there are little things to do to remain ppc compatible and new applications will be tested from start on both platforms so there really is no need to do code translation in both directions.

Code translation is more for developers who are late or for older apps that aren't supported anymore - at this time I think only classic (Mac OS 9/68k) users will be affected.

I am still thinking about buying new ppc machines and don't expect support being dropped during the normal lifespan (say 5-6 years).

Irony is defined as a Mac users who raves about the elegance of PowerPC, then starts harping about "Itanic".

The cloning issue is silly. APPLE WILL NOT ALLOW OSX TO RUN ON OTHER PEOPLES HARDWARE! If people circumvent Apple's protection, it will be a small number of technically sophisticated people - no big deal.

Apple's OS and software should be what differentiates Macs from the PC. It is superior! Now, all things being equal your choice of computer will depend on the OS. I could care less what crunches the numbers in my iMac as long as I can use OS X and the related software - The Mac experience is MOSTLY about the OS.

Facts:
1. IBM doesn't want to deliver a laptop CPU, since only Apple needs it and Apple is too small a customer for IBM compared to the console business.
2. Laptops are the most sold computers (vs. desktop) last year.
3. Intel has the best mobile CPU platform (Centrino).
Add 1+2+3.

whats the deal here.
only thing is that Apple will be using Intel processors period.

as for apple market share increasing that was due to software, people didn't went for it because it came with PPC (if they did they were very few & mainly PPC fan)
most people wouldn't even know the different if they had got their G5 with Intel chip & even if they did they wouldn't have cared as long as their stuff was working

i am looking forward the possibility of a dual boot with windows. hate windows, but i play games and there are many games not ported to os x. so it would be nice to boot into xp once in a while just to play a game.

Don´t you guys see it? Apple is a business and it´s looking for ways to make money. "The Mac experience is MOSTLY about the OS." Exacly! It´s only a matter of time for OSX to run on any cheap x86 hardware, not only apple "branded" x86, but also the Dell or the HP you are using. Most people are sick of MS bullshit and OSX is a real alternative. Let´s leave Linux on the servers.


Esteban

"I am still thinking about buying new ppc machines and don't expect support being dropped during the normal lifespan (say 5-6 years)."

Exactly....it will take much longer than 2 years to get 20 million PPC using mac users over to Mactels. This is why developers will continue to keep PPC code in their universal binaries.

The PPC will be the predominant CPU type for Apple developers to write applications for....for at least 4-6 years.

But as an emerging and future market developers will develop x86 programs and include them in the UBs so they court the inevitable new platform.

Apple's plans are as solid as one could expect during a difficult transition time.

I heard this same grousing when Apple transitioned to PowerPC in 1995, and again when they made the jump to OS X. Where are those naysayers now? There are always those willing to second guess a company's decisions, but the truth is that only time will tell if a critical decision pans out. No one but Apple knows what Apple has up its sleeve. The WWDC keynote made it obvious that this was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, no matter how volatile or childish Jobs is. Apple has been carefully preparing for such an eventuality for years, and I'm willing to bet that only Apple and Intel know for sure precisely what processor will find its way into Macs in 18 months time. Remember also that Apple contributed to the design of the PowerPC, and retains some IP rights to aspects of the design, so it will be interesting to see if Apple contributes to the design of the forthcoming processor.

Lashing Apple's decision based on Intel's current offerings makes no sense. Let's wait until the Intel-based Macs appear before we pass judgement.

I am no Apple user but I respect them for some of the things that they have done in the past. As much as I understand why Apple had to go with Intel I could never support them for not breaking the tradition and choosing AMD for the processor manufacturer. After all the whole point was to get something more powerful than a g4 and I really don't see how a p4m fits the picture. The p4 though revamped is still yesterday's technology with slow fsb and no 64 bit instruction support. Also dual core is not coming to the mobile Intel market for quite some time and AMD is once again ahead of Intel there. Plus 64bit mobile CPUs have been in AMD's bag for quite a while now. Sure adding the extra registers in no big deal and Intel can fix that is a day or so but the fact of the matter is that they haven't. And while all this is not that big of a deal for a Windows user it should be a huge deal for Apple. After all Apple has been perfecting a 64 bit OS for the last 3-4 years and MS just released their abomination.
So while some of the claims of the author might be way too strong and short-fused I thing he is expressing the general opinion of many of the Mac developers. After all Mac OS is starting to get more expensive than even Windows and this is really sad. Plus the switch over to x86 is going to introduce Apple to the PC related phenomenon of mass piracy and I am not sure the company is really up for it ... but time will tell

Geez Apple makes a solid business decision to layout a successful roadmap for the future and people whine like babies. Even with intel CPU's the machines will not really be IBM PC's. All of Mac's problems like like of software slow processors speed jumps and expense disapears with the intel switch. Get over it Macs have a serious future now be happy.

"Facts:
1. IBM doesn't want to deliver a laptop CPU, since only Apple needs it and Apple is too small a customer for IBM compared to the console business. "

And so what ? Freescale will have the dual core G4 (e600) at autumn, 2Ghz with DDR2, PCI-Express support high FSB and low consumption. and the G4 64 bit early in 2006.

You are right, Apple hadn't any alternatives ....

talk about chicken little. do you really think a billion dollar company that has to answer to millions of shareholders would make a decision like this without thinking about these issues? Do you think that this kind of decision was made without months upon months of research and planning?

A whine is acceptable if the whiner knows what he's talking about, but this guy is completely clueless! This whole letter is nothing more than hurt PPC fanboy's overflowing emotions put to words. I had no idea OSNews would publish such a pathetic piece of writing.

That melody from Adam Sandler song is buzzing in my head after I read that article.

1. More jobs will be created around apple/intel than ppc/apple will ever mananage in 10 years.
2. PPC distribitions will die out eventually to the point of obscurity.
3. I wish apple moved up the date of the switch by 6 month and deliver something very soon. I can't wait that long. I know it will be slow, but it will give access to ordinary cs students who don't have $500 and $3500 for a ADC membership. Even if it is slow, geeks will make it better quicker than you can say jackrabitt and imagine 1000 rabbits doing it at once in your head.

I can't say I feel the same only b/c I'm not a Mac user. I just know that IBM wasn't exactly putting their nose to the grindstone when it came to the 3GHZ G5. Steve Jobs has been embarrassed many times over b/c IBM keeps promising but doesn't deliver. The only way to go that I saw was that Apple adopt the new Cell processor - although being new tech I'm not really sure why this wasn't an acceptable option. I thought cell was based on Power and wouldn't be hard to write to. IBM is miles ahead of the game with the cell. Intel & AMD don't have an answer for it. Anybody know what happened?

How can you say Rosetta will be slow when it was demoed running the PCU intensive Photoshop at what seemed a perfectly acceptable speed. Big and CPU hungry apps like Photoshop will be ported by the launch and Rosetta will be reserved for older apps or ones whose ports are not yet complete for whatever reason. The lack of classic support is no big deal, the only app I have that runs under classic is Civilisation Call to Power which I will continue to run on my Mac Mini. Java is not (as has been pointed out so many times on OSNews) a slow system, JIT dynamic recompilation allows really quite fast execution, have you ever used a Transmeta system? They perform well (for their market) yet the entire thing is dynamically recompiled.
Dynamic recompilation of device drivers is IMPOSSIBLE due to their low level nature. Roisetta is not designed to replace x86 ports but to assist the switch over just as the 68k emulator in MacOS 8 and 9 was.
Apple know far more than us about IBM and Freescale roadmaps. If IBM are conentrating on consoles. If they are unable to get yields up and power consumption down, if they are unable to increase clock speeds or introduce multi core systems soon then Apple will know about it and if they feel it is a long term problem they will shift. THis is not an easy decission to make and a lot of thought will ahve been put into it. This is NOT Apple/Jobs throwing a mardy with IBM but a carefully planned long term stratagy.
Saying the Pentium M is an awfully performing chip is also rediculus. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/index.html shows that it can and does beet top of the line P4 and Athlon64 systems in real world games. the lack of SSE (and possibly HT) puts it further behind in Video encoding apps but they will be present in future versions, as will EM64T and dual cores. Right now Intel have a more complete package, there is still no PCI-Express or DDRII etc. support on PPC and there may well not be any time soon. Intel on the other hadn have it now, it is shipping.
I dislike Intel chips, I would be much happier with AMD macs and I still belive that PowerPC is a superior system I think the x86 design is old and flawed while the PPC design is a nice new, clean implementation and Altivec kickes the crap out of SSE3 but the implementations are stil slightly lacking, there is still no definite performance advantage of PPC over x86. The x86-64/EM64T design goes a long way towards impriving the x86 architecture; the new array of general purpose registers are a god send and SSE3 is a step in the right direction (towards AltiVec/VMX).

This guy should stay away from writing technical letters. First, what's the fuss about this assembly code blah. ... who still writes a significant protion of their product in assembly? No one. Only very small, optimized bits are written and then abstracted to a high level. Plus, I can't think of very many scenarios that actually require that type of optimization. Certainly 99% of all software products do not require this.

Second, what's up with his understanding of viruses and their propogation? I would love to see someone execute a virus for Windows on any platform that's not Windows. Linux runs on x86 hardware and it's not plagued with viruses. Get a grip on OS security...

Third, what's wrong with Wine and more generally interoperability with other operating systems. Running Windows apps through an emulation or abstraction layer on another OS doesn't make the other OS unstable. Stability is the job of the OS, not the applications. ...that's something that he should have learned when he switched to Linux.

Fouth. What's with complexity -> less reliability? Tell that to the Solaris folks. :-)

Bottom line is that Apple needs a processor that can deliver the highest performance, especially in the notebook market. The G5 is nice, and I'm sad to see the PowerPC go since this will most likely be the end of it on the desktop - but IBM couldn't deliver the power - especially for notebooks, and the Apple line is under powered. Plus, there are plenty of pluses for running on an x86 platform. Virtualization with other OSs (when do you think IBM would add virtualization instructions to the G5 - never), compatibility layers for Linux and Windows binaries (you better believe the Crossover folks are going to be loving this), software vendors only having to optimize assembly code for one architecture (the 0.1% products that actually have some assembler in them). All that good stuff, along with IBM's bad performance, makes for a strong case to switch.

I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner.

We have a YEAR before anything of substance is known about Mac on Intel. The OS will be evolved and the hardware will be evolved beyond anything that is available today.

In the meantime, YOU CAN PAY APPLE $1000-$1500 for the privilege of debugging OS X for Intel.

Honestly, in a year so much can change it is impossible to say what will happen. When Longhorn ships, it will be 5 years ahead of OS X 10.4, at least. And in a year Linux will be close to what OS X 10.3.X is today.

Interesting times.

Looks like it's back to Windows for you then my boy - I wish you well. Personally I'll stick to my G3 iBook until the new Intel Macs get released and the glitches (if there are any) get ironed out. As it is, the PPC Apples will probably still hold their value fairly well compared to Windows laptops on eBay.

So, do I care about the switch to Intel? No - I didn't buy a Mac for the processor after all, I bought it for OSX!!

Don't these idiots realize that regardless of what processor any future mac is running, the user will not notice any difference from running on a PPC processor? It is the software that you are interested in, not the processor. NeXT ran on many different processors. I have the Pentium version of OpenStep and It does not run any different than the 68k version, except that it runs faster on the Pentium Pro 200 than the 68040 NeXT machine. This is what you can expect from the x86 version of OSX. IBM is simply not interested in making desktop processors. Intel is. If Apple had released some small speed bumped G5/G4 machines, everyone would complain about how slow/overpriced they are, and how much faster their P4/Opteron chips are. Even in the demo Steve Jobs did with the Intel based system seemed much faster than my Dual 1.8 G5. If Apple can provide machines with better/faster specs than current PPC speeds at the same price point with new Intel based macs, then I am happy.

Cell processor is completely inappropriate without rewriting every line of code in every application....out-of-order execution is horrible - IT"S NOT A DESKTOP CPU! PERIOD!

Dual-core e600 from Freescale is an embedded processor and there has been no indication they would sell it as a discrete processor.

Mobile CPUs were a problem, but the G5 roadmap for Powermacs was still a problem. It's dead at 2.7GHz......with all the fab problems unless IBM started selling tons of it's own equipment with the PPC970 in it, selling Apple a couple million G5s per year is a losing proposition.....ever try finding an IBM product with the G5 in it....you have to look long and hard!

As an audio maker, Apple is good enough on producing iPod. Then it does not care about the chip it is using.

OTOH, IBM is a good CHIP MAKER, it does not care what an audio maker wants.

The end of the computer Apple. Let's focus on the Audio Apple.

OHNOES!!!!

Worst, article, evah.

The cell is a stripped down PPC64 core with 7 custom co-processors which would be hard to take advantage of in an OS, you would need to a least recompile and prefereably optimise all the apps just as they had to do for Altive. Also, there are yeild problems with the cell, most will be used in the PS3 and the rest will go to IBM and Toshiba first not to mention that we have not seen any desktop chipsets demoed for it yet, the closest is a blade server.
The e600 based 8641D faces a similar problem, the only chipset on the market that can connect to the host via PCI-Express is made by ULI, that doesn't give you a lot of flexibility.

The transition probably means a delay of 2 years in the progression of OS X 64-bit support. You shouldn't expect a 64-bit x86 next year since the developer boxes are only 32-bit.

Even if sales of Macs decline the iPod is more than enough to tide them over then there is the small matter of the $6bn in the bank...

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/,

most of your points are refuted by someone who is there on a intel/mac.

Unneccesary Shift?
Jobs explained this one... When your processor isn't really going anywhere and you can't even put it in a laptop in the forseeable future, I think that is justification switch.

Rewritting Device Drivers?
It's UNIX under the hood. Recompile the source and you have a driver ready.

Releasing Intel Only Binaries because it is too much of a hassle to make fat binaries?
Last time I checked, clicking on two checkboxes isn't that difficult to do.

Twice the size for binaries means twice the size for files to download?
Looking at most apps, it is comprised of a small amount of binaries and a lot of content (images, sounds, etc...) so two binaries does not mean twice the size.

I stopped after this because the author didn't seem to do too much research/thinking.

"They are using a Pentium 4 660. This is a 3.6 GHz chip. It supports 64 bit extensions, but Apple does not support that *yet*. The 660 is a single core processor. However, the engineers said that this chip would not be used in a shipping product and that we need to look at Intel's roadmap for that time to see what Apple will ship."

Why do you expect developers will release Intel only binaries in a year? Intel powered macs will have only just started appearing and dropping PPC support would lose a lot of customers. For current applications it should be fairly easy to keep PPC compatibility for the future. I don't expect to see Intel only apps until at least 2008, and even then not many of them. There is plenty of life left in new PPC machines.

Fat binaries will increase program size, but probably not to 2x the size as you suggest. Most programs include icons, pictures, sound, data files that won't need to be duplicated. Small applications may not include many extra data files but they are small enough that even if the size doubles it won't matter much. Few desktop applications include much if any assembly code anymore.

I'm going to trust Apple when they say they've looked at the roadmaps and determined that PPC won't allow the future products they want to make. Even if there is a chance the pentium M is a bit slower then some alternatives I'll give up a little for extra battery life. I can't imagine Apple placing a desktop chip in a laptop and I'm amazed you even suggest it. True, many of Intel's processors aren't 64 bit now, but that might change in a year. I doubt Apple is too worried about AMD since they can switch fairly easily.

Maybe I haven't read it yet, but can you point to some specific information that says memory usages will rise? The complexity will increase so much that systems become less secure and reliable? They aren't introducing additional APIs and most of it will even use the same code. It doesn't seem likely to introduce new security exploits.

The only reason Apple may be decreased sales in the next 6 months is because people like you are scaring customers for no good reason.

"This transition is not about current P4 vs G5. It is about the future directions of the processor families. Intel is committed to desktop/notebook and server in a big way. Freescale/IBM are chasing the embedded market and console market. Apple would have been in a lurch in 2 years."

from xlr8 article.

To be honest, good to see you leaving the party. I think Apple is making a better move. If you want to whine, go whine to IBM who is no providing the chips it needs. Apple is being smart to get out while the getting is good.

Now go soak your head...

Read this when you are done.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10794

yeah whatever...

You put an advertisement in the middle of a letter to someone? How rude.

I am a low-level, embedded computer programmer who started like many on a Windows desktop, then switched to Linux, then switched to the Mac. And plans to switch back to Linux before long.

I take it you are also going to be switching back to x86 Linux then? If so you might like to check out the new x86 Macs coming out in about a year. Apparently you'll be able to boot all 3 platforms which would put your extensive cross platform experience to good use.

With the global economy probably entering recession over the next 5 years it seems tech companies are rationalising their strategic priorities, much like eveyone else. If Apple has to shift then I think yesterday is the best time to do it.

And since it's a done deal ... all power to unix on the x86! Here's to Linux and BSD against a bloated Longhorn.

This hinges upon the enthusiasm and dedication Intel decides to devote to Apple and it's Engineers.

When at NeXT Intel promised huge amounts of technical resources, including marketing dollars to promote NeXTSTEP 3.x for Intel.

It never materialized. All device drivers were written in-house, all system configurations done in-house, hardware certification $5k in-house.

Now eliminate the cloning and we reduce our system configurations ala current Macs.

Without actual third party OEM support that goes beyond the delivery of hardware and some reference materials, ala the NeXT experience with Intel, Matrox, DEC excluded, Creative Labs, Trident, and all the other former and now bought out device driver vendors, Apple will once again be on bending knees begging for Intel to be gracious.

With Hypertransport a shoe-in, Apple will develop board controller to manage its future custom motherboard design. So much for unified motherboard design and reducing manufacturing costs--this will annoy Wall Street.

Will nVidia actually write I/O Kit certified device drivers, and ATI, and all other third parties so that the Mac experience on Intel will feel as seemless as it does on the PPC?

I had to support and configure NeXTSTEP for Intel @NeXT. The just works was not an option. Once it worked it was smooth. Apple will have to lock down the hardware as it presently does. This lock-down will not reduce the system costs. Systems will be on-target with present day costs/performance +/- 10% in my estimation.

The big IF is whether Intel will deliver regardless of what sorts of pressures Microsoft puts on them during the QA Cycle Longhorn goes through regarding all its clone vendors.

Meanwhile, AMD is an option, if Intel doesn't provide acceptable levels of aide during this transition, and it's still x86 compatible.

I don't share the writers feelings. I couldn't be happier. I think we might finally see lower cost macs and real competition for MS. That is wonderful from my perspective.

The real value is in the software not the hardware though altivec was nice.

I have mixed feelings, I belive that PPC is superior to Intel in an theoretical sense. However, in the real world this has not been the case. Compilers tend to not take advantage of the PPC. Also improvements have been slow in comming. Combine this with the fact that I am forced to run windows compilers (I am an embedded OS developer), the ability to run VPC at near native speeds is a great thing.

So what makes a Mac a Mac? It is the OS. This will be a little bit of a headache for developers, but the mix of processors should insure that the fat binary catches on, and good cross platform programming practices are followed. This will be good for the industry. Especially if we can convince Apple to release Cocoa for Windows. The dream of OpenStep/Rhapsody may eventually come about - Write once, run everywhere.

For Apple, this means that they can shift between CPU's as the market dictates.

Will the emulation be fast enough? Yes, most programs will run on my old 500MHz iBook today, and from what i saw it was running much faster than my 5 year old mac.

My question to you is why did you switch to the mac? I switched (back) for the OS, not the processor. As much as i prefer the PPC, it is the OS that makes it a Mac. When you switch back to linux, are you going to stick with PPC? I am betting not, and I would argue that OS X on either platform gives you all the good of linux combined with all the benifits of the mac as well.

Hmm...doesn't sound like 'whining' to me. Sounds like a well formed rebuttal to Apple's announcement, backed up with solid evidence. Maybe you should get a dictionary and look up the definition of 'whine'.

I have been a Mac, Linux and Windows user for the past six years and have seen all three platforms mature side-by-side. I have owned two PowerBooks and a used PowerMac, and yet I agree completely with Jobs here, despite not thinking he's anywhere near the genius he's made out to be. The move to Intel will make it easier for Apple to sell cheaper hardware and it will let them do things they previously couldn't.

My PowerBook gets about 1 hour of battery life now with its 1Ghz G4. Maybe I should accept 20 minutes of battery life as a "compromise" for using a G5 in a Powerbook. Excuse me, but I don't give a damn about the hardware, but the software that's availible for Macs, especially the OS. If Apple can do great things on PowerPC, then surely they can do them on x86.

Go ahead and switch back to Linux. Clearly you're one of those nerds who needs to use it to make yourself feel like you're part of an elite because it's so much more complicated to use Linux as a desktop than a Mac. Why did you switch in the first place?

What's going to give me a good laugh is when Apple's critics end up coming crawling back to MacOS X when the Intel version ends up kicking Windows XP's teeth in. I would be shocked if Apple doesn't do some good price dropping to reflect the savings from switching to x86. I have a feeling that this is going to be the watershed moment in Apple's history that gets Apple's marketshare to go back up to double digits. With Macs becoming closer in price to Dell PCs, it'll be a bad era for many PC vendors.

I thought Apple moved from IBM to Intel, but somehow it seems Apple moved from OSX to Windows. Who cares what kind of hardware is underneath?

For one thing there are a half million developers, NeXT didn't have that and Apples been writing it on X86 all along, plus all the other App's. It's not anything new to them. WE all new by rumors this was happening.

This guy is a insane who scribed this letter!

Intel is the best choice.

IBM sat on it's heat sink and could't deliever enough 970s...had to hand pick them!

I'm sure in about 5 years we will find out what was said CEO to CEO between Apple and IBM.

IBM like Moto promised but didnt' deliver. MS should be concerned!

The guy also says he's going back to Linux....what for? Doesn't his current Maac work good anymore?? What happened to it? Apple not supporting it?? Give me a BREAK! OS X is the same as on the PPC and X86. x86 opened more possiblities for Apple and customors. Better partner too!

People aren't getting it. This is about chip availability not performance. Steve is lying about that. The PPC roadmap is quite strong which is why so many companies are moving to it. Intel just doesn't care about what Apple want's or when they want it. Neither does Intel really but they at least have chip availability. As a Mac user since 1984 I am looking at various Linux distro's I'm tired of all Apple's shifts. Also consider what OS X will be like without Altivec speedwise. The emulation will be horrid, far worse than the terrible problems that occurred during the last emulation where the OS was also emulated in large parts and it took years to make it PPC native.

1. Unnecessary shift? I guess he wants there to only be 2.9 ghz G5s in his powermac 2 years from now.

2. Companies aren't stupid. Who will produce Intel only binaries a year from now when the overwhelming majority of users are on PPC machines? Anyone doing that would not sell much software. I personally would still buy a shiny new dual-proc Powermac if they start lower the prices before the Intel version comes out. PPC software will still be around for years.

3. Device Drivers? Haven't hardware manufacturers made drivers for XP, 2000, 98, Me and Linux simultaneously? Now, all of the sudden when it comes to Apple, it's too hard?

4. I may be wrong on this but isn't on the fly recompilation altogether different from emulation? Isn't Rosetta an emulator? From what I've read today, a single P4 (not the intended platform) did not perform poorly at all compared to a dual proc Powermac. Even still, it is irresponsible to benchmark a product that is neither close to release stage nor is it running on its intended, final platform.

5. Fat binaries. I disagree with the writer. I think it is a rather elegant transitional solution to the situation.

6. Why is he worried about P4s when we're talking about next year. Again, if we're lucky, maybe IBM will give us 2.8 G5s by December.

7. Recompile Assembly code??? That will surely alienate tons of people. All 10 of them.

Frankly, I'm astounded that someone at OSNews considered this "news" enough to make it its own article. There is enough real news out there to report on rather than a disgruntled user's rant. Everyone has an opinion, an opinion isn't "news", information is. Maybe this is also the year that OSNews has decided to become a tech blog.

Moderate away!

"I heard this same grousing when Apple transitioned to PowerPC in 1995, and again when they made the jump to OS X. Where are those naysayers now?"

Well here's one right here and I remember what an awful experience that was. At that time I was the Systems Maanger for a company that had hundreds of Macs and it was a significant and long term disruption to our ability to get work done. This new emulation will be far worse. How many companies that use Macs are up for going through this again?

Apparently you weren't around during the heyday of NEXTSTEP. As a former sysadmin of a quad-architecture NetInfo network, let me assure you, this is how is was and how it will be again.

While I would never deign to put words in Steve's mouth, I believe that he is of the mindset that Quality software is platform agnostic. The Mac devotee doesn't care which company's trademark is on their CPU. They care about a Quality experience.

Windows users have to spend their time as system administrators, or face premature death of their krufty system of choice.

Mac OS X users just get on with _using_ their systems, being productive and getting the value out of them which they expect.

Mac OS X will continue to provide all of the Quality of the current G5 experience, without the weaknesses of an undependable supply chain, incompatible byte-code architecture with the mainstream world, adn all of the FUD from the Wintel camp. Like "Blade." All of the strengths with none of the weaknesses.

Windows apps will run without command translation. PPC apps will run in Rosetta. Someone will figure out an AltiVec accellerator, so don't even go there. SoftPC/VirtualPC/WINE will run natively.

P4 sux gonads. But, the Pentium M is very nice for portables. I bet the 2007 64-bit multicore Pentium M will be everything you wanted from your mythical G5. I still have a TiBook 550 and it runs great as a portable. Dells from the same vintage are already dead. That's the value Apple provides. That Quality of build will not change.

No need to be a Chicken Little. I bet you were one of those people who decried the end of Apple when they went to IDE drives (if you were even in the field that far back). Or were you a doomsayer in 1996 with the clones?

I was a NeXT user when NeXT reverse-acquired Apple, and I have been patiently waiting for Apple to prune its old crappy legacy and bring the world up to where OpenStep was in 1997. This is another step in the right direction.

Come on... We've had disputes before about what passes for content here on OSNews, but this is a new low.

Yeah, there are a lot of people upset about the switch to Intel, but a lot of those people, including this nutjob who got you to post his complaint letter, have no more of an idea of what the future holds than you or I do. The fact that he no longer sees his Mac as relevant due to ths announced switch says that he's more into having a trophy, or being different than the norm, than he is in a quality computing experience.

You know what? The guy who wrote this whiny letter, and those like him (Look around the Net... the whiners aren't as numerous as those who see this as a good thing, but they're out there nonetheless) are going down the same road as all the Amiga nutcases have! In a year or so, you'll see Apple steaming along nicely, growing the brand as they suck up X86 users, and you'll see people like this dork lamenting the late great Mac, which was the pinacle of computers in his opinion. I'm sure these types of people will soon be lamenting that all future OS's, including future versions of OSX will not be able to match the combination of the mighty PPC and OSX match.

Sound familiar? If it doesn't, then you've never ran into one of the mighty Amiga lovers out there, who still croon abuot the forthcoming OS4, and how it's going to completely renew the computing world with its prowess and speed.

Even though it's what? Like 5 years overdue at this point (15 -20 years, if you want to go back to when the Amiga first started going downhill), yet there's nutcases around the world who swear by Amiga, and who complain bitterly whenever someone suggests they change.

Just like the author of this "letter" is doing.

I would question how this got posted on OSNews in the 1st place, but I think we all remember the fiasco surrounding Eugenias open complaint letters about her iBook. Not comparing her to this guy, but why peoples personal complaints are considered newsworthy items on this site, are beyond me. Keep that stuff to the forums, and let news fill your front page up.

This kinda stuff brings the whole site down IMHO.

Not a single thing you said makes any sense or shows any knowledge of what is happening.

I don't use a Mac, but my wife has one. I use Linux with an Athlon 64. The point being that just as one OS (Windows) is a bad idea, one CPU is equally bad. It's one thing that IBM can't or won't deliver any real improvements on their CPU (whether the techniology has hit a ceiling or not is debatable), but to roll over and join the Intel crowd sounds too much like everyone using Windows because everyone else is. In fact, since Athlon's are code-compatible with Pentium 4s, I wonder why Apple counldn't switch back and forth as pricing on the two CPUs fluctuate.

Food for thought.

"I don't share the writers feelings. I couldn't be happier. I think we might finally see lower cost macs and real competition for MS. That is wonderful from my perspective.
The real value is in the software not the hardware though altivec was nice."

Dream on if you think Macs will be cheaper. No way that will happen. Altivec was (is) more than nice. It's the only reason Apple did so well with Photoshop filters etc compared to other platforms.

I'm not impressed that moving to Intel is particularly important. It's definitely not worth the press it's gotten.

The only benefit is accessibility of lower power CPUs for laptops (though, it appears AMD would have been a better choice there).

Cost? There's no reason the switch will make a difference. Disruption in support? The plan they have for the transition sounds fine -- I imagine that there might be minor issues, but most software ought to run stably and perform fairly well via Rosetta or what have you (there's repcendent for that). Drivers? Well, new drivers pop-up all the time for Windows revisions, new hardware, etc. no biggie there. Viruses? These buggers are not OS/software independent, so no problem there...

For most consumers, the actual CPU inside the machine is not going to make much of a difference unless there's a very substantial performance difference. A lot of the performance hits are likely to be absorbed by the microkernel (which has considerable overhead to beign with, but it's acceptable) and never appear as a problem.

Yeah, but Marc, remember that when we were building out 486s with NS 3.2, we had ISA interface cards. We had to hardwire the jumpers of our ProAudioSpectrum 16 ISA cards by hand and tell the system where all of the IRQs were being allocated. Remeber the Adaptec ISA SCSI cards which had to be set to IRQ10? Sure glad the DPT2021 solved that one.

Anyway, my point is, yes, NEXTSTEP for Intel was tough to configure in 1993. But, those were different times. Windows didn't even come with an IP stack then (remember Crynwyr and Wollongong?). I hardly think that a modern Apple machine (which is essentially an OpenFirmware-enabled standard PCI/PCI-X box now anyway) will be anywhere close to as problematic. Heck, a Mini is basically all laptop with a G4. You could pop a Pentium M in there an no one would know.

Remeber when we could run NEXTSTEP 3.3 on SPARC? It was so nice to not have IRQ and driver issues. The driver set was tiny. I have a feeling that the new Apple boxen wil be just the same. This isn't "Revenge of the Clones." This is "A New Hope." Pardon the Star Wars bastardizations.

Maybe.

But don't we as Mac users hold at least part of the key to that? Vote with your wallet, folks.

If you want native ports, tell the manufacturer. And refuse to buy the WIndows version. Look for native alternatives.

Just say NO to Windows software via VPC or Dual Boot.

And most importantly, if a mac native version DOES appear, BUY it. Yes, PAY for it.

It should be easier than ever, at least in theory to port. All you have to do is maintain different front ends.

It's economics. If there is a market, stuff will appear. It's YOU, the mac user, that will create the market.

That was the biggest whine I've ever read here. If a company's business decisions have that kind of effect on the author, I'd suggest Prozac...

Dude, you are just p*ssed you didn't find out about the switch before you got your Mac.
I am also sorry that Apple is switching to Intel, the PPC is superior to x86 chips. However, (1) there are now (fairly) clean design x86 chips thanks to AMD, Intel will also have clean design chips in a couple of years (right when the Power Macs will be switching.) (2) In case you didn't here, notebooks now account for over 50% of the computer market. How do you expect Apple to ignore this market? IBM had no interest in scaling the G5 to fit in a laptop, Apple was between a rock and a hard place. The G4 is obsolete, there won't be able to hang onto it that much longer.
So Apple decided to bite the bullet while they have the iPod craze to cushion the inevitable decline in sales during the transition. And what makes you think that Apple will be tied to Intel? As opposed to the PPC landscape, Apple will now have choice of processor supplier. Why do you think that anything prevents them from selling AMD boxes? With the PPC, Apple was at IBM's mercy.
Also if you thought that Apple's were "special" because of the PPC, you were deluded. Apple's hardware has been standardizing on regular "PC" components for quite some time, ditching many of their proprietary technology. The CPU switch is just the culmination of this switch. What makes Mac special is the front-to-back wholesale design and integration of the hardware and software of the machines.
Unlike you, I think most people will see the ability to run Windows natively with the Mac on the same hardware as a good thing. As I said, you are just p*ssed you didn't find out about the news before you bought your new toy.

You seem to pining for a future that no longer exists. There was a time when the PowerPC was going to race ahead of x86 and sell Macs all on its own. But it didn't happen and it never will. Maybe if Apple hadn't dumped on Motorola's Mac clone business it would've been better, but it's ancient history.

If they can see IBM being just the same as Motorola, then they're right to make a bold decision and make it early. How long were we stuck at the 500mhz G4 ceiling? It seemed like forever - I'm typing this on a G4/500, but the machine I had 4 years earlier was a G3/266! The fastest Powerbook today is a G4/1.67ghz - not a great breakthrough.

I really wanted IBM to make the G5 into a x86-beater and I'm a bit sad that yet again we have a transition to make. But any future transition will be one that pretty much the whole computer market has to make. Another thing that will change is that people can make like-for-like comparisons more easily. This might give us more for our money and will also show that anyway, Macs are better value than people think.

WINE: Are people REALLY going to run Outlook Express and IE? They'd have to know what WINE is, how to install it and how to copy their mailbox across. Are people like that stupid enough to choose Outlook Express? I doubt it, but frankly, that's their problem. It would, however, make my life as a web developer a whole lot easier.

Anyway WINE will stick out like a sore thumb on OS X, just like Classic and X-Windows. If it doesn't on Linux, that's because - just my personal opinion! - the interface is already uglier and more inconsistent.

As for FAT binaries, well we've been here before. In the past, for years developers offered a choice of 68k/PPC/FAT versions, so you make your choice, now as then.

Your complaints apply to Windows and Linux only more so. That might be a reason to go and run a Solaris box or something, but strange reasoning to switch to Linux.

I don't know much about what he wrote, but I can say this. I want to buy a MAC, but now I'm waiting and I am sure a lot of other people are now. Why buy a PPC machine if they will be releasing on an entirely differnt processor? Sure they claim 5 years of support, but they can't say the same for eveyone who releases software for them. This may be a good short term move and from the financial end it may make sense as the ipod can carry them. I even understand the G4 Power book problem, but it is going to hurt the pocket for a little while.

1. Macs being interesting :: I'm sure that Apple doesn't care about Macs being an interesting hardware platform. They care more about success. Let's face it, when something becomes the biggest, it isn't interesting because it is common. Intel processors are common and so they are uninteresting. This comment is just plain stupid because it is simply arguing that people should do things differently simply to be different.

2. FAT binaries - the author says it will require at least twice the disk space if not more. In fact, really, the most it could use is twice the disc space and never more. In reality, it will be much less than half because all of the graphics, configuration files, etc. will not be duplicated. The author also doubts that it will be easy to recompile code for different processer architectures. Well, for most programs, it's a simple and automated process.

3. Worms/virii - anyone with any knowledge would know that Windows worms won't hurt the Mac on x86 any more than they would hurt Linux on x86.

The fact is that this person is pissed, probably because he is a low-level programmer whose PowerPC skills will be useless (or much less in demand) once Apple moves to x86.

The fact is that Apple hasn't been able to update their iBook in about 8 months now and it doesn't look like they will be able to update it anytime in the near future. The info that's coming in about these new boxes is showing that they are as fast or faster than the fastest stuff Apple has today when running native code and the fact is that the translation software just isn't going to be a big deal since most apps will simply recompile.

Talk about a troll.

Excellent article. A+

I wasn't aware Mac programmers still hand crafted everything in assembly. This is obviously the REAL reason why the platform is dead now, will be dead after the switch, and in fact was always dead.

Every other platform makes use of "high level lanaguages" like C. If Mac developers have been forced to use assembly all this time, no wonder no one ports decent software to Mac OS!

I have switched my parents and girlfriend over to the Mac OS X side, and not a single one knows what a PowerPC is. Heck, my parents call the computer case the CPU or hard drive. To us extremists, this will be a noticeable change, as we are actively looking for possible issues. The average users will most likely not even experience a hiccup. As long as it runs that familiar Mac OS X desktop, and their Safari and Mail applications and Dashboard widgets work, the majority of people will not even notice a difference.

What people on these computer-centric websites overlook is that the average user is just that, a user. They are not a custom computer builder, the majority never even open up their systems (they instead ask me to install their memory). Apple's plan to give up to a year for the developers to ready their applications before the hardware is available, and I feel the transparent dual-platform application-package is a very smart move. With this notice, by the time the first system rolls off the line, the majority of mainstream applications will already be available. By the time the transition is planned to be complete, the developers will have been given two-years to ready for the new Intel-based Macintosh platform.

> Even though it's what? Like 5 years overdue at this point (15 -20 years, if you want to go back to when the Amiga first started going downhill), yet there's nutcases around the world who swear by Amiga, and who complain bitterly whenever someone suggests they change.

And this is what passes for content?

Exactly how fast was the Amiga going downhill 20 years ago?
Most Amiga owners do NOT say OS 4 is going to renew the computing world with its power. Most of them are already running the pre-release and know it's far from perfect, but are just happy to be running it all the same.
And I'm not surprised they complain when you call them a 'nutcase' for sticking with what they like.

This site is about alternative OSes - any more you'd like to pick on?

You wrote:

Yeah, but Marc, remember that when we were building out 486s with NS 3.2, we had ISA interface cards. We had to hardwire the jumpers of our ProAudioSpectrum 16 ISA cards by hand and tell the system where all of the IRQs were being allocated. Remeber the Adaptec ISA SCSI cards which had to be set to IRQ10? Sure glad the DPT2021 solved that one.

Anyway, my point is, yes, NEXTSTEP for Intel was tough to configure in 1993. But, those were different times. Windows didn't even come with an IP stack then (remember Crynwyr and Wollongong?). I hardly think that a modern Apple machine (which is essentially an OpenFirmware-enabled standard PCI/PCI-X box now anyway) will be anywhere close to as problematic. Heck, a Mini is basically all laptop with a G4. You could pop a Pentium M in there an no one would know.

Remeber when we could run NEXTSTEP 3.3 on SPARC? It was so nice to not have IRQ and driver issues. The driver set was tiny. I have a feeling that the new Apple boxen wil be just the same. This isn't "Revenge of the Clones." This is "A New Hope." Pardon the Star Wars bastardizations.

I totally remember those days. Personally, I enjoyed getting my hands dirty and discovering all the nuances necessary to make NEXTSTEP scream on Intel.

I also remember the WindowServer fixes that never were found until the merger that made the screen redraw rate sore and Peter G. quote, "It's just like butta."

I was stoked to see Rhapsody on Intel, get the proposal organized with some brilliant minds all to have it put into the trash heap, as a not going to happen.

I just annoyed me seeing Openstep turn into such a delay I left.

Let's hope they keep Ivy and the design team churning out systems with the Intel mods so we can enjoy the best damn operating system.

Unfortunately, my biggest gripe is the lack of Vertical Menus as a dwrite.

Give me that option and the ability of some of the NeXTKeyboard layout and I'll be one happy pig in shit.

After I downloaded XCode2.1 and saw WOF Java 5.3 I was happy and hopeful we'll get Cocoa back in WOF but I noticed the OpenFirmware note stating it isn't going to be there for Intel. To me this smells of a new solution that Intel and Apple have been working on that will be specific to the new Macs. Personally, if this elimininates some of the ROM issues with VESA and other crap, so be it.

Steve just needs to realize that being the best means you are always the target by the rest to be kicked around.

When I see Adobe releasing ObjC/Cocoa CS3 applications then I'll know Pigs really can Fly.

I hope the new systems have some DSPs on board so they can really do some interesting work for the Audiophiles. Perhaps a real NeXTDimension solution on a chip that completely works and accelerates H.264? Who knows?

Hindsight is 20/20 and if they hadn't tanked Apple Enterprise I wouldn't be writing this since I'd most likely still be there and living in expensive Cupertino, limpin' along, but at least enjoying my career.

> I have switched my parents and girlfriend over to the Mac OS X side, and not a single one knows what a PowerPC is. Heck, my parents call the computer case the CPU or hard drive

I haven't told my friends about this particular piece of news because I know it'll be the least interesting thing they've ever heard.

The Mac always was supposed to be the 'computer for the rest of us' but it always ended up being a little elite. I hope this helps them sell to the average iPod buyer..

>I am among the many switchers you successfully brought to your platform. And now I plan to switch back.

I read the whole article, but it was this line that interests me. Honestly, this is the only line that really matters.

So my question is, why did you switch to a Mac to begin with? Has that changed? Why do you plan on switching back?

The only difference is that Apple is using x86. Switiching back would require you to use x86. Has anything that made you want to use Macs initially changed?

This letter is well written, but written by what I define as what's wrong with macintosh users.

What is going to be the difference. It'll look like a mac, use the same os, your same apps, and you're complaining because there's an intel processor in there?

Apple is a lot smarter than you. I'm sure they've gone through all of this over the last 5 years, plus who even knows what's gonna happen in a year. A lot, I would guess...

Use your writing talent and attention for detail writing about how much the Republican party blows =)

These people were drinkng the koolaid for all these years that the G5 was a "supercomputer" and it didn't have all the x86 "cruft", but of course with laptops now outselling desktops the reality of the situation hit home for Jobs and co, finally realizing that they were going to be in big trouble withtout making the switch.

How many of these whiners even know what to do with PowerPC assembly code?

Just a thought to people comparing current situation to the 68k to PPC. I had a PowerPC Mac in the 90s, used it constantly for years,it was great, but the company I bought it from (Apple) NEVER provided a native operating system for it. huge important chunks of system 7/8/9 were 68k running in emulation. Apple are now moving to intel, and they demo'ed a native operating system, the same day they announced the shift. That seems like a big difference.

I would have thought apple to go AMD rather than intel, intel's like super mainstream company and AMD's always been the 'little-different-a-little-better" company. it would feel weird to have my think different box thinking like a DELL, but I guess we shall see.

but it wont be "thinking" like a Dell, it will have a similar "brain capacity" but it's operating system, its "thinking", will be entirely different, and arguably much superior.

If what I've heard about the lack of development of future desktop PPC processors is true then Apple didn't have much of a choice. They may still be fairly competitive at the moment, but if they stuck with PPC in the long term Macs would fall far behind in speed.

Apple have switched CPU in the past when it became clear that the M68k didn't have a future as a high performance CPU. I think that Mac OS X will make this transition even easier and more successful.

NeXTSTEP was successfully ported to different platforms and the majority of apps were released for all of them. Even when NeXTSTEP had been available for years on faster Intel hardware, people still released apps for 68k too. IMO NeXTSTEP's failed despite the support for multiple platforms, not because of it. I think Apple have learned from that failure and will not make the same mistakes.

That's the key. I'm going to assume that a whole lot of even regular apps were written with substantial amounts of 68k assembly language back then, not to mention the actual operating system.

In so many ways this is a non-event, except it for being a smart business move for Apple. Apple didn't even try to keep it a secret that they've always kept x86 builds in parallel with the powerpc.

The only people I really see this affecting is someone like YellowDog and maybe some people that do ports of games to Mac (and that assumes that virtualization will be so good that degradation will be negligable). Actually, I was over at InsideMacGames and most of the game makers were on board with the decision. Once you get past some initial setup using native APIS its pretty much all OpenGL and straight C++ anyway. Now game makers don't have to worry about altivec, or powerpc assembly, or endian issues.

As a new Mac Mini owner I must say I am disappointed that my device will be obsolete in a year or so (as new MacIntel specific apps come out). Apple has lost some of the mystique that got me interested in the first place. My Mac Mini has now become a cute toy rather than a stepping stone into things OSX.

Contrary to marketing hype, conversions on this scale ALWAYS suck even a little. I don't want to have to provide support at the ground level.

I do think Apple's move makes business sense in the long run. If they can survive the short term hit to their business that I suspect will happen and still have an affordable, compelling product in a few years then I may reconsider.

Fanaticism aside there are just too many questions/unkowns to really commit.

I wish them the best of luck..

E.

Sorry if this has been said before, but i don't understand the authors comments on the fact that once hacked, mac os x will run on any x86 processor but it will be unstable.

That might be due to the fact that it's not supposed to run on generic machines, Mac OS X is supposed to run on Mac's, X86 or PPC.

AltiVec: Apple engineer wrote it, they can rewrite it for Intel and do better.

"I was a NeXT user when NeXT reverse-acquired Apple, and I have been patiently waiting for Apple to prune its old crappy legacy and bring the world up to where OpenStep was in 1997. This is another step in the right direction".

NeXT technology had brought Apple out of a dark-rotten age. New thinking will bring it more.

Intel is the right move.

last month i was about to fork out the cash for a new mac just to try and run linux on it, but now there's no more reason for me to buy a mac (ppc).

long live AMD/linux

I'm a new Mac Mini owner to, but I will buy a Intel powered Mac when they are avalible and try to pick up a cheap dual PPC Mac between time if they are offered. Why because the PPC 970 isn't obsolete! They all can be used for years, because of the Universal Code.........did you forget about that?

Or is the Mac bad now that it will have a different chip(Intel)in it?

people say 'unstable'.. well this will lead to stability.

ok, the 'little elite' does not make a business very profitable. they have to push out volume and the excessively cheap intel cpus will help apple increase its profit margin by a huge amount.

we'll see more ordinary people buy macs instead of a tiny group of 'mac loyalists'

long ago, IBM was the big bad person and intel was good.

it looks like apple is back in its mindset when it became so incredibly succsesful

For this, anyway. I'm a little bummed, because I too expected great things from IBM and the PPC family. But Jobs had to acknowledge reality, and so do the rest of us.

And with that in mind, I won't be buying Macs ever again either (I've bought 5 so far since 1992), not because of the cpu switch, but because of their general unsavory and MS-like business practices.

Linux isn't a fall-back, it's the platform of the future.

If you switch to Linux over a CPU change, I doubt that you actually bought a Mac at all. If you do actually do have a Mac, you can still enjoy the hardware and run Linux. Although, I am not sure why anyone would WANT to run linux if they had an OSX system to use (unless, as a software engineer, they were paid to).

The Mac is about the OS experience and the hardware design. It is NOT about the CPU it uses.

Also, you may want to give Jobs the benefit of the doubt on this switch issue. He has started (3) companies from scratch, all of which were successful and (2) that are extremely successful and he runs both of them, simultaneously. He may have a little more business acumen than you or I.

Vertical menus ? Have you tried this :

http://homepage.mac.com/khsu/DejaMenu/DejaMenu.html

Good for those with 2 displays too : you can have your application menu on any screen, just under your mouse pointer.

this can only HELP the mac platform in the long run. What makes the mac interesting is not the slow power pc chips. its interesting because its designed well. the software, the hardware, much thought goes into the design of such things with a mac. Anyone who says that the current x86 chips are poorly designed or have inherent flaws because its x86 do not know a thing about processors. it may have made a difference when risc first came along, when x86 processors were still termed as cisc chips. but computer chips had FAR less transistors than they do now. and x86 chips are no longer cisc, they are termed post RISC now. because these chips take the best of risc ideas, and merge them with new designs that are even better.

in 2 more years there would be no faster power pc chips, its best to switch to something now. the other option is to let your business fall flat on its face. because there is no chips to power your computers.

apple is lucky they were looking to the future when they made os 10.

I just bought a 20' iMac G5 and was going to buy the next release of the PowerBook. With the transition announcement, I've decided to buy a new Pentium M/Centrino laptop instead. It's not a good feeling when you know the machine you just bought will be phased out in 2 years time. Will never buy another Apple again.

While i respect the author's concern what does he propose Apple do? Had he put forth a viable alternative to Apple's move, he would have positioned his rant from an emotional outburst to a cogent analysis. No such luck....

Chestbeating about the switch to Intel is ill-informed and silly. We expect this from fringe Linux nutjobs, not from rational people.

Jobs clearly indicated he needs the kind of chips Intel is going to deliver, because IBM is not going to deliver them. No chips, no business. IBM's failure to produce the chips Apple wants has aleadry meant that there's no 3 mHz G5 machine. Apply clearly wants to launch small mobile consumer-level computing devices, like the iPod, and it can't do that as long as IBM is shipping them chips that generate enough heat to melt plastic.

As long as the software runs the same, there is no reason for users to care what is inside the box. Remember. OS X is a Unix variant written in C. Why was Unix writen in C? So it is portable from one architecture to another.

Remember, if Apple didn't tell you what kind of chips were inside, you wouldn't know the difference.

You wrote:

Vertical menus ? Have you tried this :

http://homepage.mac.com/khsu/DejaMenu/DejaMenu.html

Good for those with 2 displays too : you can have your application menu on any screen, just under your mouse pointer.


It doesn't specifically mention the tear-off menu option and if it doesn't have it yet I hope it gets implemented.

Thank you for this information.

-Marc

With a little effort (possibly), will I be able to run Windows on these new Intel Macs? Probably. Therefore, that makes them PC's. People will be buying nothing but Apple-flavored Wintel boxes, running MacOS X. No thank you.

Being a Mac user... a really, REALLY enthusiastic, die-hard Mac user... I don't own a Mac JUST because it's made by Apple. Nor JUST because I love MacOS X. Not even because I love JUST the hardware. It's a combination of all three! It's a synergistic combination that you simply can't explain. You simply MUST be there, to know the feeling. One without the other weakens the whole.

I only hope MacOS X can manage to kick some Longhorn booty on the other side of the fence. In a BIG way!

Luposian

Why would someone switch and use Windows, because Apple is using Intel. It's very lame. Zealots are impossible to please. I thought zealots throw-up at the sight of a Win-pc.

Still the same OS X, just on another chip.

Time for Apple to get off of the sinking ground of the PPC. I mean it's a good chip, but it can't keep up with X86 all the time. Dang things heat of like fire-bands anyways.

Liquid-cooled Macs...come one! No new G5 Powerbooks. IBM could hardly deliver 2.5 chips. They had to hand pick them.

XBox maybe in trouble. If IBM couldn't keep up with a Million Chips a year. What will it do with a quarter of a billion orders?

I still want a PPC Mac. I hope prices are cut to a grand for a dual chip. It will be good for performance for a good couple of years.

I disagree with you on many points. Apple's machine will be known throughout the industry as the system that 'just works'.

I don't think Apple made this move without thinking and deliberating over it.

I only see good things coming from this.

Seriously, what's the fuss? I own two Powerbooks and I am happy with them. At the end of the day, as long as Intel Macs look good, have a good build quality and run Mac OS X, I will be happy.

To the guy who wrote the article, Go back to Linux, it's your loss, somehow you believe your Mac is suddenly useless. It's software that counts, Mac OS X will remain exactly the same operating system no matter what CPU architecture it runs on. Being a Linux user, surely you would understand this?

It will be years before PPC macs disappear, and by then, something else will probably come along. Next year will be extremely interesting and costly on the wallet. We will have Longhorn (hopefully), KDE 4, and possibly Mac OS X Leopard by the end of the year, and this time, they can all be benchmarked on machines with the same hardware specifications. Compatibility will be so much easier with projects line WINE.

Just one thing though, shouldn't Apple remove the references to G5 vs P4 on their Powermac site, seems a but hypocritical now!.

It was quite some time since i last read something this full of sh1t ...how can this be frontpage on OSNEWS ?? this world is falling apart...

Are you sure that's really the word you're looking for?

Man, some of you people are waaay too damn precious about which processor is being used in a *tool*.

PPC and x86 both have their pros and cons. If IBM couldn't deliver the CPUs that Apple needed to *stay* in business, then they made the right choice by going to a vendor that could.

While I'm no fan of Intel either, I prefer AMD myself, this move makes sense from a business point of view. Also, this move could potentially open up a wider market for Apple.

Once the hackers get a hold of OS X/x86 and crack the Apple-only protection, which they *will*, millions of others will get to experience OS X for themselves. Who knows? Some of them may actually go out and buy aa Apple IntelMac because of it. I might. Or Apple could be really smart about it and offer a generic PC version of their OS and keep certain packages as premiums for their own IntelMac line.

As for the 'user experience' some of you all are screaming and crying about, I'm certain it will be the same. The same exterior for the box, the same nice LCD panels, the same nice keyboard, same nice mouse and same beautifully presented OS X. How many of you actually have even opened your PowerMac's to even look at the processor anyway? Oh, I forgot, you couldn't even if you wanted to without removing that massive heatsink the thing has on top of it.

These things are just tools, I'd suggest that anyone not cling to them so preciously as to cause themselves suffering.

Basically, the writer of this open letter is an idiot!

Disclaimer: I do not use Apple products, but few of my friends do, several for professional reasons, one because he likes its GUI better than windows. None of them cares about what kind of chip is inside. They care about usability and functionality.

Of course, it can be expected that few of the apple users use apply for no other reasons but to feel 'special' and 'different than others'. For those - good luck in your lifelong search for something more exotic using which makes you so special, at least in your eyes.

" Worms/virii"

Plural of virus is, well, viruses - not virii FYI

"How can you say Rosetta will be slow when it was demoed running the PCU intensive Photoshop at what seemed a perfectly acceptable speed."

Because a lot of so-called "experts" here @ OSNews talk out of their a**es.

Hii, i truly agree with the author of the article!
also, i think this imho stupid and bisness suicidal move was whispered in Jobs' ears and, had himself convinced in a time he lost his otherwise smart and great business instincts, by an implanted guy at the Apple fruitbag from M$oft to kill off them! goodnight all at Apple! sleepwell and tight.

I think it's funny to hear all the recent 'switchers' moaning that the Intel switch makes their machines 'obsolete'. No developer is going to write Intel Only software unless there is an extraordinary technical reason to do so, and guess what? With Core Image and Core Audio and other development frameworks doing much of the heavy lifting, there are few reasons to do that. Most useful apps aren't written by fools. Fat Binaries are simple, and they will be the reality for every new app. Drive space is cheap. Smart installers might even strip out the code not needed by your CPU.

Classic apps are history. Good riddance. Used machines are readily available and cheap, and few apps that old see much performance benefit in the newest hardware anyway. I have yet to meet a 'switcher' who even has a classic app other than an occasional six year old bootleg copy of Quark XPress (which they shouldn't have anyway).

Take a valium, switchers. Practically all new software will run on your old machine for many many years. Your 'obsolete' macs will do you right.

> I just bought a 20' iMac G5 and was going to buy the next release of the PowerBook. With the transition announcement, I've decided to buy a new Pentium M/Centrino laptop instead. It's not a good feeling when you know the machine you just bought will be phased out in 2 years time. Will never buy another Apple again.

You are the exactly who I am talking about. I can understand if you need a laptop right now, and you bought a Centrino, but why will you never buy another Apple? In two years, when everything new from Apple is Intel, why would you not buy an Apple then? What made you want an Apple now that changes with this announcement?

I think we are going to see the new Macs within the next 6-8 months. Apple hardware will crash because new potential customera are going to wait for the new ones since the PPC arquitecture is already obsolete. Let see when his market shares start to sink.....
-2501

I'm using a Mac right now. You're wacko.

Please explain yourself. Unless you can discern what chip is inside based on your usage of the machine, what do you care? Tell me how the programs you use you can tell what's you what's inside the machine.

I could be wrong, of course, but the timelines in the articles kind of
support Apple's "low end Macs in '06, the high end Macs by 2007"
intel chip timeline. Recommend interested folks check out the article
links or google "Conroe", "Merom", or "Woodcrest" with the word "intel"
placed before each chip's name.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23055

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5697088.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-5181256.html

http://www.endian.net/details.asp?ItemNo=3883

Have a good one...

Zen

This guy makes a good point that is often ignored. People who whine and wail about backward compatibility, are more often than not people who are running old, un-upgradeable warez. if you spent £1000 on licensed professional software, and are used to spending regular money on application upgrades anyway for good professional software upgrades. then what do you care that the highly paid people who write the software you use are going to have to spend a few extra man hours tweaking the software you pay for to run on your newest mac, thats why you're spending the big bucks, you know it and so to the guys making a nice living selling you the software.

if it runs os x, then stfu.

What will be Apple's position on this? AMD being a huge investor of it, along-side Apple, makes a better fit.

Has anyone any concrete proof which Intel CPUs will be used? Sure the demo and dev systems have a P4 in them but will these off-the-shelf CPUs be the ones used in Intel based Macs? The keynote didn't even mention any specific chips that will ship in these new systems, just "Intel chips". Could there custom
chip for Apple Macs based on x86?

I get a good laugh from reading this article and all the comments. What a bunch of maroons! Get a life, why don't you?

"You are the exactly who I am talking about. I can understand if you need a laptop right now, and you bought a Centrino, but why will you never buy another Apple?"

Because most people in this world are stupid and irrational with poor reasoning skills! I haven't read a single intelligent article or thread from an OMFG the sky is falling and I'll never look at an Apple again because Steve Jobs did this without any thought and the end of Apple will be me switching back to Intel person.

They just aren't credible.

"I switched a month ago, and now I'm switching back to Windows"

Why? The machine you bought hasn't changed. Yes, it's going to be obsolete in a few years, but unless you bought the top of the line PowerMac and expected Apple to cease all hardware development, then it was going to be obsolete anyway!

My iBook still runs OS X, and if I listen closely to the little fan (on those rare moments it comes on) I don't hear any fear that it's going to be replaced any time soon. Of course, I'm anthropomorphising here, but it probably thinks I'm not so logical so what do you do?

And when the change happens, there won't be bands of Apple engineers roaming the planet, clubbing old Macs to death with terminated SCSI cords and forcing people to upgrade or die.

No, there'll be an extended transition for a few years where users can migrate as they naturally upgrade their machines. During that time, the only developers who will release OS X86-only binaries will be the ones who don't want to profit on the large PPC installed base. That's not good business sense - it makes far more sense to support both and keep track of what type of Mac your users have.

It's a massive change, but not necessarily a cause for the sort of fear I've been seeing.

"I was thinking of getting a new dual 2.7GHz PowerMac, but after this news I've decided to bomb Apple headquarters, burn down all the Apple Stores, hack the iTunes web site and beat every single Apple user on the planet to death. No way are Apple getting a single cent from me now! And I'm vitally important to them like no other user is!"

... I'm probably mis-characterising some complaints though...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(plural)

"In the English language, the normal plural of virus is viruses. This form of the plural is correct, and used most frequently, both when referring to a biological virus and when referring to a computer virus. The forms viri and virii are also used as a plural, although less frequently. There is disagreement among users of the Internet over whether these forms should be considered correct. No reputable printed dictionary includes them as correct forms.
The plural virii is frequently perceived to be founded on a misunderstanding of Latin plurals such as radii. It may have originated as whimsical usage on BBSs (see also: leet). The virii form is used most frequently, although not exclusively, among crackers and computer virus writers with reference to computer viruses. Most computer professionals unaffiliated with the warez, crackers, and virus writing scenes use the viruses form instead of the virii form."

By the way "virii" would be the plural of "viri" - this means men and is already the plural of "vir". Hackers and warez people are just plain ol' wrong.

Enjoy your linux. You obviously don't have a clue.

No, virii would be the plural of *virius.

The latin plural of virus, if ever there was one, is not known. The word virus is irregular so it can't be simply deduced from the declension class.

The english may as well do what it does to popular -us words, which is to build a -uses plural.

Take a word such as bus - it's from omnibus, 'for-all-ones'. It (-ibus) is a dative plural, it has no latin plural whatever that might mean in latin. It works as an adjective and if used to mean bus, the plural would be on the qualified noun (vehicle, for one, now path); since that is ommitted, it might as well be grafted onto the word, giving (in english) bus + es -- which, just guess, it how it's done.

If anyone has experience in transitions from processors it is Steve Jobs and Apple. Between NeXT and Apple all of this is well-covered ground. They know the pros and cons. What mistakes were made and what they should do to avoid some of them. Hindsight is indeed 20/20 and they have the unique position of actually putting that wisdom to use here.

You will bet there are deals already inked that are appropriate for Intel and Apple in this new venture. I know an Intel-based Mac would be relatively useless if it shipped tomorrow. Unless you want to run most apps in emulation. The funny thing is, with the speed increase they're seeing. I don't doubt some emulated PPC apps will run faster than on a native PPC soon.

That said, it will be interesting to see what they're shipping by the holidays. They'll need to be offering something. I could see the first Intel Macs popping up then. I'm in the market for a new machine, but I guess I'm holding off a bit to see what pops up.

The Apple Macintosh is much more than the PowerPC CPU. Apple is an attitude, a beleif, and a mindset. It doesn't matter if it is 5% of the market or 95% of the market. The CPU never made a platform, but CPUs have always ended with a platform. Remember the Apple // line? Needed better CPUs. Maybe it was always that we needed more power.

But I have been waiting for a nice shiny G5 PowerPC PowerMac...and I don't think it would ever see the light of day with the power drain and heat that CPU produces.

The original posting indicated a move from Windows, to Linux, to Mac. Isn't it true that Linux is a mindset, an attitude, and not bound by a SINGLE CPU? Linux is about an alternative that is different (imho better) than the Windows alternative. I don't buy the OS based on the CPU. I buy the CPU based on the OS. I bet most of you do too.

Counsel

Maybe the G5 hit a brick wall with respect to portables. Maybe.
If so, changing processors makes sense.
I won't mind a bit having a nicely designed fast intel powerbook running OSX.

What worries people is that the future usability of their current system may be diminished: in, say, 3 years, the current G5 and powerbook hardware will still be used and work okay. Applications, and the system, may be stuck at 2007. You may not be able to run the latest photoshop because it will no longer be available for you. Improvements to the system may be reduced to a trickle or even stop altogether.

It's not a certainty, but it's worrisome.

You're being completely irrational. The days when a Mac was a Mac were over a decade ago. At one time, Macs had their own busses (NuBus, ADB), their own CPUs and motherboards, high-end SCSI drives, etc. That hasn't been true for a very long time. The G5s have the same AGP/PCI combo PCs have, the same cheapo IDE drives, the same DVI connectors. The only thing different is the CPU and motherboard, and even that is very similar to a PC motherboard (same dual-channel DDR400, same northbridge/southbridge arrangement, etc). Now, Apple is just completing the transformation, replacing the last non-PC parts of the Macs with PC-parts. People don't seem to have cared up till now, I don't see why they should care now.

I'm curios about comments by some people about Rosetta not supporting AltiVec. Considering that we will not see an Intel based Mac until sometime next year I would imagine that Rosetta will get its own updates. I'm also surprised that no one has raised the point of Apple's involvement in designing the processors that go into Macs. I personally feel that the processor(s) that end up in future Macs will be co-designed by Apple and manufactured by Intel. They'll be something that we have not even heard of yet.

If youve ever spoken to apple support or anyone who works in their sales department. You should know they dont care what the customer thinks. So dont write letters, if you like ppc hardware get an amiga

well hopefully the (even unsupported) ability to run windows on a mac will mean that the laptops gain the second mousebutton that has been missing for years

I have to agree with him in most ways. Ever since I herd of the switch I was completly turned off by the mac and do not plan on buying one any more, so yes this switch will greatly effect them since many buyers see every new mac as obselete and wont probably buy them. I know I wont touch them anymore and I expect many more to feel the same way.

As a user of the first gen of PowerPC 601 computers, I remember all the wierd problems and glitches. I remember having to decipher what software vendors meant with fat binary. Now this. So, are we going to be subjected to the infamous "ERROR Type 11" or is it going to say "Reboot baby!"? The migration to Intel does not bode well.

They've been doing that for several years now.

Darwin.

What will it do with a quarter of a billion orders?
--------------------------------------------------

I dont think the XBox 360 will sell that much. The PS2 just recently hit 80 million units shipped. And thats for the 4 years its been out.

What makes people think the new macs will run windows? Yeah somebody at apple said it would "probably" happen but he is trying to sell something. I wouldn't believe a thing he said on this topic. I don't see how they will run windows without microsoft's help.

Anybody who thinks macs will be cheaper after the switch is a stupid mac zealot. Apple will always charge a premium over a dell or hp or even a DIY PC. The change in processor will in no way affect what they charge for their computers they will still cost more than dell and everybody else just like today. If you want macos then you are going to have to pay a premium just like today.

Having used windows, linux and macos I think the premium is probably worth it compared to windows but IMO macos has nothing on linux. The only reason I have a mac is to run the software that you can only run on a mac like iLife.

.. you should rip them for transitioning to PPC in the first place. The 680x0->PPC transition was purely done because of RISC hype at the time. Unlike the G5 today, the 680x0 _had_ a future when Apple decided to transition. Motorola was plugging forward with 68060 at the time that PPC came around.

This transition actually has far more rationale, like trying to get a decent chip supplier, some decent chips for laptops, and being on an instruction set that has little chance of dying on the desktop in the next couple decades.

I agree that fat binaries suck. However, it sucks a lot less than not having a decent Apple Powerbook anytime soon. For every 10 people Apple loses like you back to Linux, they're going to gain 100 new users because they have competitive hardware that will likely also run Windows.

Recall your memory, how long does it take for our G4 finally push to 1Ghz? And while IBM save us from the nightmare with the G5 in 2003, but obviously it fail us again. IBM can produce Cell for Sony, triple core 3.2GHZ for Microsoft, but we what have NOW is single core 2.7GHZ G5 and we are still using the aging G4 for our laptop.

We have to realize this can't happen forever. We don't know the full picture behind, but from what Steve have said on the keynote, G5 on Powerbook and faster and more advanced G5 won't arrive anytime soon.

PowerPC may be a more advanced technology. It may really crush the Pentium 3 processor back in many years ago. MHZ myth may be true due to the difference in processor architecture, plus Apple Computer did a kick ass job in software optimization to overcome the lag of raw power. But sometimes you need REAL horsepower for performance. And it can't be DEAD ON ARRIVE. No matter how good look in paper, it is useless if it doesn't deliver on time.

Some people crack the OS X and run on their generic PC and Mac Clone business is too things. If some geeks like us crack it and run os x, this will increase market share and won't do a big loss to Apple since we are talking very very little amount of money here. But letting other company release a "Mac" is another issue. As we see in 10 years ago, they keep pushing the price lower and giving higher peformance, and so Apple can't sell its own hardware. Apple won't allow this happen. If some company dare to do so Apple will simply sue them.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

What worries people is that the future usability of their current system may be diminished: in, say, 3 years, the current G5 and powerbook hardware will still be used and work okay. Applications, and the system, may be stuck at 2007. You may not be able to run the latest photoshop because it will no longer be available for you. Improvements to the system may be reduced to a trickle or even stop altogether.


Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with this too. I remember the 68040 to PowerPC jump and the fat binaries. I remember accidentally buying a PowerPC only version of software, bit of a headache. Obviously I returned it. The thing was, that that started happening more and more where certain companies just said the heck with it and only released for PowerPC. The old machines quickly became second class citizens when it came to new software releases.

Obviously, this will start to happen. It just makes sense that companies would start to put their resources into the newer platform. Course, Jobs wasn't around back then running Apple and you could only wonder how he would have went about things. He may have even gone with Intel back then. Such a very small world in Silicon Valley.

If your switching back you probably don't appreciate the Mac in the first place. This so-called open letter appears to me to be a FUD.

I have many Macs of different vintages spanning the last twenty years. All of them are wonderful. The first Mac I bought in 1984 was a revelation to me after the impersonal character based environments of that time. Apple replaced the command line with visual metaphors and put computers in the hands of the rest of us. Not only for purposes of commerce, but also, self-expression. It took Steve Jobs to understand the universal potential of that 1st transition from the Apple II to the Macintosh. Shall I say it, "It changed the world".

And now, we have the incomparable elegance of OS X.4. Mac Users will continue with the Mac because it's the best thing going regardless of the hardware manufacturer.

The author of this letter is exactly right. I just switched to Mac, thanks to the Mac Mini. I liked 10.3.9, and am still reserved on 10.4. [I liked 10.3.9 better.]
Now, Apple will be just another beige box builder. OK, so their boxes will be pretty, white instead of beige, look cool, and cost a premium.

Do you think this will save them? I didn't think they needed saving until they made this move. Think about it. Now they have good hardware and a good OS. When the switch is finished, they'll be comparable to Dell, HP, and any of the other thousands of x86 box builders, only it'll be an "Apple". [Intel inside of an Apple computer will be an "Apple" in name only.] OK, so let's take this to the obvious next step:

Mid-to-high range Dell computer (Dimension 8400), 3.6 gig P4, 1 gig RAM, no monitor, 128 meg video card, 80 gig HD, 16x CD/DVD Burner, keyboard, mouse, XP Pro: $1,508 today. [XP Pro just to raise the price another $80]

Now let's look at Apple, Entry level G5 1.8 gig, 1 gig RAM, no monitor, 128 meg video card, 80 gig HD 8x CD/DVD Burner, keyboard, mouse, OS X: $1,724 today.

But, you say, you are comparing Apples and Oranges. Yes, I am, because the systems are different enough that I can't just compare the exact same thing. OK, fast forward a year or two, now both boxes use the exact same processor. That would mean you are paying a premium price for the Apple name, the Mac OS, and a slower CD/DVD rom drive, and I know it because I can now look at two computers side by side and directly compare everything from HD to processor to memory.

The thing that made Apple unique, the bit that made them just different enough that you couldn't compare a Mac directly with an Intel box is now eliminated.

In true, As Seen on TV fashion, but wait, there's more!

Now, I can't find chip prices for PowerPC G5 processors, but I bet the price difference between the 1.8 gig G5 and the Intel 3.6 gig is at least a couple of hundred dollars. Maybe I'm wrong here, I'm going out on a limb because I can't find corroborating information on the G5 prices quickly. And you know, that's kind of my point.

Apple must make a small to medium margin on their computers. If the chips from Intel are not the same price as the chips from IBM, then Apple will have to raise prices in order to maintain their margins. That means the difference in prices would be even greater than just a couple of hundred dollars.

Look at the prices for extra memory when you order the Apple or Dell. The same 1gig 2x512 option is $175 from Apple, and only $90 from Dell. Plus, you can go to places like Crucial to buy quality memory for reasonable prices. A lot of people don't buy their memory from Apple because the price difference between what Apple sells and what others have is so great.

With it more difficult to find the price of processors for the G5, it is harder for people to really consider the price differences between systems. Intel prices are quoted all over the place. They are a commodity item, so it's easy to find their prices. The price differences between an "Apple" and a beige box will be even more obvious.

In the end, Steve is doing it again. He's doing to Apple what he did to NeXT. And I'm really sorry to see it. Because, when he ruins Apple like he did to NeXT at the end, he won't have an Apple to go to and sell it. [Unless Pixar buys Apple?]

NeXT was ahead of its time. Too far ahead I'm afraid. And it was a beautiful system. In fact, my appreciation for NeXT and many of it's core features now in the Mac is the primary reason I went ahead and got the Mac Mini. However, when the hardware started struggling, he took the company to a software only platform. And then, a few short couple of years later, things appeared to have gotten pretty grim, until Apple bought NeXT.

This time, instead of stopping the hardware altogether, he's cheapening the hardware. I only see this backfiring on Apple, and that wouldn't be a good thing.

I hope I'm wrong. But, I'll probably be going back to my Linux desktop. Until more time passes, Apple is a company in stasis, and I'm not willing to invest more of my money in software or hardware until I see real progress somewhere. It's a shame too. I like Mac OS X, the Mac Mini, and the Power PC.

BTW - I've yet to hear the fan on my Mac Mini. I guarantee an Intel powered Mac Mini would NOT be this quiet. Or cool to the touch. The external harddrive sitting next to the Mac Mini is warmer.

Irony is defined as a Mac users who raves about the elegance of PowerPC, then starts harping about "Itanic".

LOL, too true.

The sad part is, Itanium IS a nice architecture; I would have *LOVED* to see a Itanium based Mac - imagine all that raw FPU power the sad part is, Intel would never reduce the price of the CPU as to allow volume sales, and grow the market.

What Itanium needed was a champinion, the fact is, Intel priced its CPU's TOO high, and there is a complete and utter lack of applications for it - both the technical workstation market AND server.

I wonder why people always think about switching from one OS to another as a major move. I switch from Linux to Windows and backwards at least once every day.

You didn't read or listen to anything Apple said, did you? Full of marketing-speak, yes, they were. But factual was your reply? Not.

1. IBM doesn't want to deliver a laptop CPU, since only Apple needs it and Apple is too small a customer for IBM compared to the console business. "

And so what ? Freescale will have the dual core G4 (e600) at autumn, 2Ghz with DDR2, PCI-Express support high FSB and low consumption. and the G4 64 bit early in 2006.

But the fact is, Motorola/Freescale have repeatedly failed to deliver everytime they've been asked to. IBM was the last ditch attempt to get to the holy grail of finally, continuously out flank Intel. The fact remains that neither Freescale or IBM are willing to put the big dollar into processor development - it *COULD* have happened had IBM bought Freescale off Motorola, and folded the business into IBMs chip fabbing side, but the fact still remains, IBM is concerned about other things at the moment.

As for the alternative, what else is there? SPARC64? In an ideal world, SUN would put their ass into high gear and actually producing some damn chips that weren't such a damn joke, but thats just a dream - so the only alternative was Intel, more correctly, x86.

Even if this guy is right, he's talking like a troll. Poor writing and bad tone.

I've only read the first page of comments, so maybe the responders have wised-up, but I'll mention this just in case.

Why, exactly, are you all pandering to this mental case? What we have here is a classic example of a profoundly disfunctional personality type, that would refuse to accept that the sky is blue if such a fact got in the way of his bizarre view of thngs. He clearly has such a tenuous and delicate grasp on his delusional view of reality, that even the slightest disruption sends him reeling. Frankly, as I was readng his "manifesto", on more than one occasion found myself thinking, 'This guy belongs in a mental hospital.' Seriously. I mean, his entire point of view is not grounded in the reality I or any other sane person I know of knows, not to metion his... utterly disproportionate? (and viscerally personal)... reaction to a simple business decision by a company from which he merely buys a product.

Finally I can't help but ask OS News WTH they were thinking when they decided to run this whack-job rant. Really.

Maybe IBM just wasn't willing to invest in a processor line which doesn't meant much profit to them. To go with Intel was a painful but necessary decision. At least there's still some competition in the x86-64 market (AMD).

What's going to give me a good laugh is when Apple's critics end up coming crawling back to MacOS X when the Intel version ends up kicking Windows XP's teeth in. I would be shocked if Apple doesn't do some good price dropping to reflect the savings from switching to x86. I have a feeling that this is going to be the watershed moment in Apple's history that gets Apple's marketshare to go back up to double digits. With Macs becoming closer in price to Dell PCs, it'll be a bad era for many PC vendors.

I think what would be even better would be if Apple delivered exactly what Dell offers, but only $50 more. Imagine users going, "gee, and for $50 more, we can have an operating system that isn't painful to use"

Considering that Apple don't assemble their hardware (they outsourced that, along with iPod product a LONG time ago), their over all cost structure should be ALOT cheaper, couple that with the fact Intel will be designing the *WHOLE* machine, Intel everything, EFI firmware (for obvious reasons, the current developer machines are BIOS because of the limited time frame they had to ramp up production of developer machines, hence the reason to return them afterwards they're not going to truely reflect what is going to be offered), the works.

Apple will basically have a group designing the hardware - send the designs out to the assemblers, they'll do all the hard work, and the only thing that Apple will be doing in house will be software development. Over all, Apple is a pretty efficient company.

As for margins; I'm sure Steve WANTED to increase sales, but the fact is, he couldn't due to the mediocre CPU supply; now that they *KNOW* that there is a company who can provide as much as they need, when they need it, they can start ramping up production to high gear, push down the price, and start going for volume.

Luposian, you have gone off the deep end. Get a GRIP. Like the other person responded to you. Where is the ADB and all the ports of the first Macs? They have been gone for years. Time marches on. Who wants all those old things? You bash jobs and Apple but did you ever look at why he went to Intel? Like your favorite company IBM screwing Jobs over time and time again? Where is the 3.0Ghz IBM Promised Jobs? Where is the G5 Laptop CPU? Jobs got fed up with their lies and false promises. People are sick of a G4 in a $3000 Powerbook. Every Wintel system out there uses the latest CPU except Apple and why? because IBM will not give Apple what they promised. Funny though they give Microsoft a 3-Core 3.2Ghz for their new Xbox. I feel that is what caused Jobs to blow. Apple needs more speed and IBM either will not or Can not give it to them, so jobs did the best thing he could. As long as they don't make OSX run on a DELL I am fine with it.
I wish they went with AMD but AMD can NOT keep up with the supply Apple will need.

Seriously. I mean, his entire point of view is not grounded in the reality I or any other sane person I know of knows, not to metion his... utterly disproportionate? (and viscerally personal)... reaction to a simple business decision by a company from which he merely buys a product.

hear hear.

My 5 year old 400MHz iMac is nearing retirement (even though Tiger runs better than Panther on it), I think will be buying a new PPC Mac before then.

If I buy a Mac now (I'm undecided on whether it'll be desktop laptop or mini) or wait for the next PPC upgrade cycle, and enjoy it for the next five years before I decide it's time to upgrade again. In that way my trend will be to buy a new Apple computer every other generation; G3 > G5 > Intel (Rev.2)

I hardly noticed the 68k to PPC transition, I survived the Mac OS 9 to OS X migration and I'm pretty sure this chip-switch isn't going to affect me much either.

Am I the only one who thinks great a new source for new more easily convertable drivers for hardware that will never get drivers for Linux, like broadcom wireless (on my hp nx9105 laptop running Gentoo) and airport extreme. Drivers based on a Unix background, more easily to run on linux by some sort of interface layer (like ndiswrapper does for windows drivers).

And maybe, jus maybe, if they write a driver for Mac X they take the little extra effort to make it run on Linux and OpenSolaris.

Whatever good points the writer has are diminished by his comments on the shortsightedness of Apple to make the switch.
By what stretch of the imagination is a company who has planned for this for 5 years, just in case, shortsighted?

This man may be able to code, he has no experience in senior management decision making processes. The shareholder wants value, the company must sell computers. IBM does not want to or does not care to deliver the parts that Apple requires to build its products.
What do you want Steve Jobs to do? Go to IBM's CEO and ask him "pretty please with whipped cream and a cherry on top spend some money on developing a new chip for me. PPPPLLLLLleeeaase?". I would have loved seeing a G6-processor, but if IBM won't build them what do you want Apple to do, close the door on One Infinite Loop?

This has been very carefully planned. The demo was on an Intel box, for chrissakes, the tools to make the transition are already there. There WILL be bumps and bruises, but it should not be an upset. It is part of a very sensible, necessary, step that Apple would not have taken if they were not forced to, but they show all signs of executing this in a smooth, responsible and well-supported manner. I see no reason to call this shortsighted, quite the contrary.

And on top of all that, the Leopard is going to be released without delays, you bet on that. And this is after an architecture change.
Redmond can't get the cow out of the barn and Apple tells us when the next OS is going to be released, after a processor make-over.
You call that shortsighted, dear unwashed writer, I call that an amazing piece of engineering, right there.

Do go back to your Linux box, don't call yourself a Mac driver. Enjoy prying the motherboard out of a defunct Barbie doll house and installing Kunbuntu on it with drivers you wrote for it. You can run the Congo national switchboard on it. It'll be as relevant as anything else you do.

"Do go back to your Linux box, don't call yourself a Mac driver. Enjoy prying the motherboard out of a defunct Barbie doll house and installing Kunbuntu on it with drivers you wrote for it. You can run the Congo national switchboard on it. It'll be as relevant as anything else you do."

The funniest comment I ve read in a long time.

i can go back to work now.

Thank you so much. So well said. I wish I could have worded it like that. All very true.

Looks like Steve got caught in his own RDF!

Well, I personally don't think it is a short sighted decision. A lot of sound decisions can be found for moving away from PPC to x86-64 based chip. (Albeit perhaps slightly different).

I would really have liked to see a Cell processor based Mac in the future, now that is seemingly unlikely. it seems the Cell is going to screetch along at high speed. However with IBMs over hyping of previous processors I can understand Apple doubt about it. The Cell just has so much uncertainty, whilst the x86-64 appears to have a very concrete future at lower costs.

Its a pity, I like diversity.

Excellent article: the whole truth about Steve's switch (pun intended) and the consequences to the Mac users (I'm one too + Linux at home, and Win at work), hardware (64 bit future?, extreme heat and noise of Pentium, even M's, aka P 3's mobility-optimized: great progress, right, over totally silent, cool (phisically) all the way, 4 hour+ batt. life and quicker-than-u-need G4 iBook's) and software-like, for the future. What amazes me is the technical ignorance/reactions of many of the comments here: your "faith" and worship in Steve's sayings and actions plus a blind's attitude of "if it has an Apple logo then can only be good" won't save you from all the insightfull points of the article.
Thanks, Martin, for the courage of putting out so accurately all the technical truth, at the expense of not beeing understood/believed (now!) by the big croud. So, for all of you unbelievers and non-whiners out there, just print the article for future reference when you'll be enjoying Steve's MacIntel vision of future performance/best computing experience on desktop P4/Xeon descendants noise and free room heating, not to forget laptop leg burning and non-stop iTunes fans...

Increasingly I'm begining the doubt the veractiy of those little "I am a super-de-duper programmer" blurbs at the bottom of these adolescent rants (Moderate away!)

First off, what's with the emphasis on assembly?! Almost no-one uses it anymore: even a lot of embedded software design these days is done on unhosted C. With regard to G4, G5 and Altivec, most compilers compiled in these extra instructions as an optional aside, there's code that the application will fall back on when the extra features are not available (see the docs for Intel's compiler on how this is done). This is how Adobe Photoshop CS was able to run on the virtual machine when it makes huge use of Altivec normally - there is a fall-back code path for legacy processors.

With regard to IBM, as is being increasingly reported, Apple was a tiny market for them, and came second to the console business. IBM were unable to deliver the kind of processors Apple needed, and finding itself bound to another under-performing chipset maker must have been frustrating in the extreme.

It's important to remember that Apple is switching to x86, and that they've chosen Intel as their manufacturer. Once established, they will be free to move to AMD as their manufacturer as circumstances dictate. This gives them huge lee-way. It's also important to note that the huge competition in x86 space is driving innovation, creating chips that, while certainly less elegant, perform better.

Your issue about 64-bit is valid, and it is worrying how little Apple has said about that. I would hope that ultimately, Apple will move to x86-64. It's worth remembering that at the moment Apple ships 32-bit systems (iBooks, Powerbooks, eMacs and MacMini's) and 64-bit systems (iMac, PowerMac). In the near future I think it's going to remain that way. I expect the existing 32-bit systems to switch to 32-bit Intel chips (except now it'll be a Pentium M instead of an aging G4). The last two computers to switch will be the iMac and PowerMac: by 2007 there will be dual-core 64-bit x86-64 Intel chips available for Apple to use (note that 2007 is the planned launch date for Intel's "Meron" chip).

And in 2010, if Intel isn't delivering the goods, Apple can switch to AMD chips without any worries for developers.

As for Rosetta, the launch time looked pretty fast on the demo. You're confusing it with the JVM, which has to load and link the whole Java library when it starts. Rosetta has no such library to worry about. As regards speed, given the event driven nature of GUI applications, I imagine the use of a translation buffer will lead to impressively usable performance.

You're comments about PPC compatibility were really off the wall though, and make me doubt your technical abilities (and even your attention span). In one paragraph you pan Rosetta as being slow (which I've debunked). You then complain about the size of universal binaries. Finally, you say that PPC is left out in the cold as Rosetta doesn't work both ways except......

All code right now works for PPC, and universal binaries mean all code written in the next three to four years will continue to work on PPC.

Doh!

After three to four years, it's unlikely there will be code that, even if it were written for PPC, a PPC chip could handle at appropriate speeds (and you do seem rather concerned with performance). As regards disk space, I would direct your attention to the 80GB and 160GB hard-disks being shipped with Apple's budget eMac line. I somehow doubt people will find their application binaries chewing up that space; in fact it's far more likely that photos and music files will do the damage first.

As for getting WINE to work on Macs, I don't see how this could hurt Apple. "Run Windows apps on your Mac" would bring even more switchers over. However given WINE's eternal beta status, I don't see Apple advertising this. And only the most infantile ill-informed adolescent would blame Apple for the failure of an application Apples neither ships nor endorses.

So I must conclude that OSNews has once again damaged their reputation by posting, on their front-page no less, an uninformed, inconsistent rant by an author whose bona fides - given his lack of technical knowledge and particularly a sense of balance - I find myself doubting. The Intel switch will hurt Apple in the short term, but will set it up for huge gains in the long term.

"What worries people is that the future usability of their current system may be diminished: in, say, 3 years, the current G5 and powerbook hardware will still be used and work okay. Applications, and the system, may be stuck at 2007. You may not be able to run the latest photoshop because it will no longer be available for you. Improvements to the system may be reduced to a trickle or even stop altogether.


Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with this too."

No, no, no!
PPC software will be produced for many years to come. Some estimate there are 40 million Macs in use at this moment. How long do you think it will take 40 million Mac users to upgrade?

Apple sells 3.5 Macs per year. If that continued the current Mac install base would take 11 years to fully convert to Intel. It will be AT LEAST 4-6 years from the time all shipping Macs have Intel CPUs before Mactels become a majority of macs.

Developers will cater to the larger PPC install base for years to come!

YOUR PPC INVESTMENT IS SAFE FOR THE NEXT 6-8 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I would really have liked to see a Cell processor based Mac in the future, now that is seemingly unlikely."

Does anyone read anymore? THE CELL PROCESSOR SUCKS AS A DESKTOP CPU! REPEAT AFTER ME - DUE TO IT'S POOR OUT OF ORDER EXECUTION ALMOST ALL CURRENT OSX CODE INCLUDING ALL SOFTWARE WOULD HAVE TO BE COMPLETELY REWRITTEN AND THIS WOULD BE A MUCH LARGER PROBLEM THAN MOVING TO INTEL!

CELL != REALLY FAST DESKTOP CPU!!!!!!!

As long as macos X is being used be the enduser, no one cares about the hardware.

It is the software that counts.

//Rickard

Hey,

Would this count as a focus shift? Seriously, sort of like the one Be Inc. did?

;-)

Hardware is not using Mac's specific hardware(not in Mac format when it was using PowerPC already), then software is Unix with nice front-end, you can call Mac-desktop-environment like you call KDE or Gnome, but what about the machine that comes with the OS you bought from Apple? it is not Mac anymore. It is:

Intel + Unix + Mac-custom-made-desktop-environment

Where is Mac? it's already dead. You bought products from Futureshop doesn't mean that it's a product built by Futureshop. You've bought a car from GM doesn't mean that the car is built-by GM.

So is it a Mac? or it's Apple computer? I believe the latter.

As long as macos X is being used be the enduser, no one cares about the hardware.

It is the software that counts.

That is exactly why Next failed. Really, who cares what the machine looks like? Any two bit company can make hardware that looks half decent. And what the software runs on? Does anyone really care aside from fanatics? Nope. It's all about the software.

I'm still buying a mac mini next month. For the hardware? Hell no! For MacOSX. As has been stated by many, I think this is a complete non issue outside of the "biz" realm. End users won't even notice or care.

Apple is doing this that Intel has nicer stickers to go with their chips - "Intel Inside" beats the crap out of any "G5 - It's Alive!" or "G4 - Coolest Core" that IBM might have come up with.

Joke aside, you all seem to willingly accept that a company hides their intentions from you for 5 years (albeit not entirely succesfully), touts the strengths of their cpu's above the competitors, then suddenly switches to that very competitor's chips, thus invalidating their own claims, leaving the people who bought their machines in good faith to their own (read: "We lied to you before you bought the machine, please buy a new machine in a years time").

To me, all market scam, corporate bullshit.

Where's the quad G5? If the guys http://www.orionmulti.com/
can make something like this, why can't you, Jobs?

Where's the removal of the biglock on Mac OS X? Why does the spinning ball appear to LOCK my Mac still today - 2005?

And to all you people shouting "Linux will be dead in a year or two": What do you think will be running on those millions of PPC-based dust collectors in 5 years time? And that's an install base of about 20 million - left behind by Apple for Linux to invade.

And about the PPC being an archaic architecture with no future - I won't point to the game consoles, but to the servers: I know of a company that runs 10.000 simultanous clients on an IBM server with a G3 and LOTS of cache. And my PowerMac 7300/200 still feels more responsive with BeOS on it than my dual G5 running Mac OS X 10.3.9.

Go with the flow, Apple, don't innovate or stand your ground. You never did.

I completely agree. I've used and still use Windows and, while it has its strengths, many upgrades can leave users out in the cold.

I remember when 2000 and XP was released and many new users found out that their antivirus, many games, and cd burning software was no longer compatible. There was no attempt from MS to include an emulator for backwards compatibility (probably couldn't realistically be done for those apps). And that was not even a platform change. Apple seems determined not to abandon their userbase and just knowing that they are putting great effort into making sure apps are compatible a year before the new platform is release puts me at ease.

Most users never even realize what processor is in their machine. I know that my iBook has a G4 in it but, except for the G4 mark on it, I wouldn't know. It just works and that's what I need. The only people who are acutely aware of what processor is in their machines are scientists and developers. Apple/Mac is still Apple/Mac and an Apple with an Intel processor is still an Apple (and a Mac).

Zealots can truly kill a good thing.

Steve jobs or someone at apple know that laptop and tablet pc is the future. so they need that centrino, something that ibm just can't deliver. as simple as that.

and we know apple laptop design is just so damn cool with no equal, what lack is cpu power, so with intel they will offered the best laptop ever.

i believe the future is good for apple, even they osx for intel mac only. but if i were steve jobs i will release osx for all.

I had cause to go to the Apple store in London this morning. When it opened 6 months ago I was walking by, and there were queues of people round the block. It took hours for that queue to die down once the shop was open. (According to TV news, people had been sleeping out over night in front of the store - and this was a winter's night). Well, I've made a few visits back there in the last 6 months, and every time (to my astonishment) the queue for the cash registers was a long and snaked through the shop (contained by barriers). But not today - I was in the shop for about 15 minutes, and there was never more than 1 person in the queue. This doesn't look good for Apple. (For what it's worth, I did actually make a £600 purchase...) Like the guy who wrote the article, I was a switcher. I have bought 3 Apple computers in as many years, and I care more for the silence and low-heat of my mac mini than I care about CPU speed per se. I hope Apple is doing the right thing, but it doesn't seem so to me.

talk about short sighted. fool. i can't imagine why whiney rants like yours get coverage here. completely lame.

This guy's articale only shows his own ignorance. Too bad. While I perfer the PPC - Apple is right Intel, has a better road map for the PC market in terms of PC desktops and laptops. Freescale and IBM are not interested in producing PPC chips for those markets. I can't wait to get my Intel Inside Mac and have the x86 *nix worlds open to me. This is better for everyone and Apple will gain strength in the long term becuase of it.

Now if Apple would only do something about the native screen resolution on their laptops, many of us could safely "switch."

have OSX run on Intel, AMD, and PowerPC? I mean Windows supports both Intel and AMD.

What's the big deal? (other than Steve's ego)

http://rjdohnert.blogspot.com/2005/06/mac-retailers-reactions-to-in...

Joke aside, you all seem to willingly accept that a company hides their intentions from you for 5 years (albeit not entirely succesfully), touts the strengths of their cpu's above the competitors, then suddenly switches to that very competitor's chips, thus invalidating their own claims, leaving the people who bought their machines in good faith to their own (read: "We lied to you before you bought the machine, please buy a new machine in a years time").

You're pretty far off base there Primal. Their claims about the power chips current or past performance have absolutely nothing to do with their future or IBM's ability to produce what they require. This move is a move for the future. And they will NOT require you to buy a new machine next year. They don't even plan to have the power chips completely phased out of their own product line for another year and a half.

Go with the flow, Apple, don't innovate or stand your ground. You never did.

Apple has been the most innovative consumer grade computer maker in history. I'd like to hear one software or hardware company that can match them. Their problem has stemmed from management, including their lack of ability to get off the classic mac os years ago. Aside from that, they have always innovated.

You sound like you have an intense hate for apple for no particular reason. I don’t even own a mac and I don’t think this is a big deal to the consumer. It’s Jobs positioning the company for the future.

"I don't like mac on intel because it's not an interesting hardware platform so I'm going to switch back to..." um... PCs which are neither an interesting hardware or software platform.

Not only that but your logic, although seductive is flawed. You should switch to pen and paper, that'll match your expecations every time. Just don't buy A4 by mistake!

I thought the entire idea behind Apple is "Think Different".

I think they are doing just that! Who would have expected Apple to trash thier successful "niche market" strategy and modernize the hardware that they are using?

Also, the fact that the long-term strategy appears to be "volume sales" is way different for them.

I'm happy that Apple is thinking different, because it will give Microsoft the kick in the pants it needs to create a superior product...well, either that or I'll get OS XI!

We can't tell you anything about XI yet. It would kind of embarrass a number of people.

But we like the way you think, though

I bet that Apple will get exclusive CUSTOM CPUS from Intel. Something like Yonah plus Altivec.

Yonah by itself will be vastly superior to Intel's current dual-core kludges (crap) because it will be designed for dual-core from scratch. This is for Dells and other PC makers.

Yonah+Altivec will be for Apple exclusively. This will add another roadblock to running Mac OS X on a cheaper Dell PC. There's a small chance that there might be additional currently unannounced improvements to Yonah that only Apple will receive--most likely improvements that help with PPC hardware emulation that Apple is unwilling to disclose at this time.

Apple gets a better CPU than standard PC desktops/laptops. Intel gets experience producing Altivec which can help them with SSE4.
People need to buy Apple to run Mac OS X at full speed due to Altivec.

How many people will buy a Mac 2007 if:
1. it has Yonah+Altivec+secretsauce
2. it can run OS X, Windows XP & Longhorn, Linux, FreeBSD, ...
3. it doesn't have all the x86 baggage in the mobo chipset so that it outperforms even the most expensive gaming PC from Alienware?

Get a clue.
Altivec is IBM property, intel can't include that in a processor.

The new Apple's will probably be standard pc hardware in a nice case and at a premium price.

Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot if they had a new processor or extensions that are hidden from everyone. All of the developer kits for Mac on Intel would be incorrect and all developers upgrading to the new architecture would then have to redevelop once these "mystery" chips surface when the first Intel Macs are shipped.

Its off-the-shelf hardware running an exceptional OS. Nothing more and nothing less.

Apple would be shooting themselves in the foot if they had a new processor or extensions that are hidden from everyone. All of the developer kits for Mac on Intel would be incorrect and all developers upgrading to the new architecture would then have to redevelop once these "mystery" chips surface when the first Intel Macs are shipped.

Its off-the-shelf hardware running an exceptional OS. Nothing more and nothing less.

The only people that have reason to worry are those that wish to use legacy apps on the new Intel hardware via Rosetta, correct?

Those running Intel or PPC Macs w/ newer software that includes both binaries will be fine, and won't suffer a conversion performance hit.

So, why are people whining? I don't complain that legacy software doesn't run well in XP; I upgraded, and dealt with it. Yeah it sucks to spend more money, but such is the nature of the computing world, at least IMHO.

A: The processor/architecture doesn't matter.
Mac OS (etc) will work just fine on Mac/Intel hardware.
People don't care, and wouldn't understand the difference even if you tried to explain it to them.

B: The processor/architecture does matter.
x86 may be fairly open, well-documented and cheap, but I'd prefer to have something that was -also- good, sane, modern, clean - easier to code for, system-level.

No, application writers mostly don't have to care about assembly. HOWEVER, the low-level aspects of a platform are more important than ever, since that's where all your 3D game and DVD ripping (etc) power come from. - Try using a modern PC with harddisk DMA turned off, without video card 2D/3D acceleration, or completely without drivers since nobody cared to write them for your OS. It almost as "fun" as using a 28.800 bps modem.

There are thousands and thousands of people writing low-level system code, and to them the architecture does matter, but they often get paid to cope with crap hardware.

Personally I hope the Cell processor and [BSD|Linux|Haiku|whatever] will bring a new era of personal computing that doesn't suck. Getting a second-hand Mac with Linux, today, is probably a good start on getting up to speed on coding for Cells, but don't take my word for it.

Anyway, don't slag the PowerPC. I'm thinking Mac OS X's strange kernel makes the hardware look bad, and the GUI effects + app runtime also add to the perceived less snappy user experience. (On the other hand, my G3 -is- old.

macs will have a bios and irq numbers (hello conflicts)

The author of this article, and everybody reading it, either wants to buy a computer now or doesn't. Similarly, everybody will either buy a computer sometime in the next two years or they won't.

If you're not going to buy a computer in the next two years anyway, this move doesn't really concern you, because who knows how things will be then anyway.

If you're planning on buying a computer right now, then keep in mind that G4-based Apple laptops and G5-based Apple desktops are still very competitive with their PC counterparts. Apple's own website claims that the Power Mac G5 creams the Pentium 4 in Photoshop tests. Sure, in two years, the new Macs (which will almost definitely not use Pentium 4s) will be faster, but that would be true whether or not Apple switched architectures.

If you'll be buying a new computer a year or two from now, then you don't have to worry about the Intel switch yet. When you're actually in the market for a computer, then you can compare Apple's offerings with everyone else, and you'll have the advantage of being able to configure a Mac and a Dell with the exact same processor. In fact, the Mac might only be marginally more expensive, since Apple will be able to use mass-produced Intel chipsets, but without the southbridge, the BIOS, and other legacy parts that add cost and complexity.

If you're considering buying a computer now, but aren't sure if you want to make the switch to Mac, then feel free to wait until the Intel ones come out; they'll make your switch easier. But if you're already a Mac user, and you want a computer now, there's no point in waiting. No matter when you buy a computer, a year later, there will be better ones out, and your computer might not be able to run some of the applications that the new one will.

If you're pissed off at Apple for switching from PPC, it would be very stupid to go out and buy an AMD box out of spite. After all, you're still not getting PPC. Luckily, your PPC Mac won't stop working for a long time. I recently installed Tiger on my dad's G3 Pismo laptop, and it still works great. If Apple eventually stops supporting PPC, then just switch to Linux. And if there finally comes a day when you need a more powerful computer, then decide how powerful a computer you want, look at how much Apple would charge for it, and consider that Apple's computer design will be much more elegant than any other x86 box you'd by—and isn't elegance why you liked PPC in the first place?

Finally, if you're pissed off at Apple for being an evil corporation, I can't really criticize you; every corporation is evil, and Apple is no exception. If you want to avoid supporting evil companies, though, you either have to hold on to the computer you have, or only buy used. Or, if you just think Apple's evil, you can build a new Intel-based computer... wait, aren't they building DRM into the Pentium D? You can build a computer with an AMD processor and an nForce chipset... wait, hasn't AMD been working with Microsoft since the early 90s, and wasn't nVidia the first company to make a DirectX-only graphics chip? Okay, maybe you can build a computer with Via's C7... although you'll be buying from a foreign company, and thus supporting the process of globalization that is impoverishing the world's poor. (All of the most successful countries in history, the US included, grew up under protectionism.) Hmm... maybe you could just buy the computer that works best?

I love the smell of cognitive dissonance in the morning.

Apple's marketing department took you for a ride, buddy. Suck it up and get over it.

what the hell is he whining about? switch back to what? the amigaos?

That melody from Adam Sandler song is buzzing in my head after I read that article.

Ah, what a wonderful Song, and Adam Sandler sure deserves lots of credit for giving it to the world. I still favor Kelly Osborne ("Papa don't preach") and Sid Vicious ("My Way") though...

they have the best people and smartest people, and just incase you don't know - eh uhm...

they've worked on this 5 yrs ago, and since.... it's running pretty well.

so stop your whining.. i'm waiting for it.

you are a moron.
that is all.

That's a lot of "exclusive to osnews" FUD to digest. /me rolls eyes.

The truth about the business world is that perception is everything. I am a recent Mac Mini purchaser (w/ Tiger) and my initial reaction is that I just "took the bait" and switched to a Mac. That was what I understood the Mac Mini to be all about. Now Apple is pulling the rug out from under me and my Mac Mini may not be supported much longer. Again, it may not be entirely true, but it's a common perception. And, although I might be a little more informed than other Mac Mini users, the less informed are going to be very P.O'ed.
Another perception is that long time Mac users with Power PC machines feel the Intel based machines are going to dilute the quality of Macs and make them just another PC. I could go on, but the point is that it's all about perception. That perception will drive the market, not necessarily reality. I see alot of articles, expecially on cnet, trying to prop up the Intel Macs. Why not AMD Macs? AMD has better chips for a better price. Most people I know buy AMD because that's what they can afford. And the Bushies are only going to make it harder to afford Intel.
Well, that's MY perception. You want to know who really will have a good view on this issue? The Mac User Groups.

You sir, are an idiot.

IBM did not meet its commitments nor did they have any plans to work on a mobile chip to replace the G4.

What alternatives did Apple have with prospects drying up? The Cell? It is useless as a general purpose CPU as it lacks out of order instruction execution and other important CPU features.

Freecell? They have some decent chips in the pipeline but they are un-proven and were originally part of Motorola. Remember them?

The Pentium M is not the "hot" chip like the Netburst based Pentium 4 but rather a very efficient core which Intel can build upon.

OS X is what made me switch to macs. The hardware is cool but I look forward to a future with Apple as a vibrant company rather than a company fading into obscurity without a supplier of CPU chips that it can depend on.

"Think Different" is now out the window... the Mac way started dying when Winblows could do all the creative work (DTP), then OS X threw the interface guidelines out, and now this hardware assimilation. Just another PC hardware company, just another Unix-on-Intel (OS X; I'll stay with Linux, thank you, which offers the plus of freedom). Nothing more to see, move along, move along...

http://eclecticsatyr.hostultra.com/intelmin.htm ("Intelminated!" commentary article)

During my career I have used both MAC and PC based computers. I have always felt the Apple product was superior in many ways but the "world belonged to the PC" so I have spend most of my money and time working with PCs. A couple of months ago, out of frustation with the WinTel dynasty, I started seriously looking at MAC. You had me hooked with the MAC Mini and the new Tiger OS. I was going to make my purchase the next day when I read Apple's offical announcement to move to Intel. Well, I had heard the rumors but had written them off as being crazy because that would be the end of Apple. Shocked by the annoucement I put my $500 back in my pocket and am looking at Linux and AMD Athlon64.

I guess Apple is now just another PC that will be priced above its competitors with very little to justify the additional cost. The people I feel sorry for are the faithful MAC supporters who now must feel betrayed. They were like disciples preaching the truth in the PC wilderness winning converts one-at-a-time. For those faithful, I salute you. Perhaps its time to introduce a White and Black Ribbon inscribed "Honoring the life and death of a legend. We will miss you Apple" on my bumper.

"I further believe that you have made such a bafflingly shortsighted decision"
I don't think so. Apple has been making Intel versions of OS X for the last five years. One could guess that Apple has been working on a transition plan just in case for at least that long. Apple has access to roadmap information that we consumers do not, and for Apple to make such a move,. the PowerPC roadmap must have been awfully crappy.

I'm saddened that Apple's moving away from the PowerPC, but I am not going to abandon the Mac over it as long as Apple continues to make quality products that are powerful and easy-to-use. I ask that others do the same.

"I guess Apple is now just another PC that will be priced above its competitors with very little to justify the additional cost."
Many Mac users (myself included) justify the higher cost by one thing: Mac OS X. We don't justify it by the chip inside (we couldn't until the G5 came out because the G4 gets its ass kicked by the x86 world) or the look of the hardware; we justify it by the OS it runs.

I'm sorry, but some people are taking this whole thing to an extreme.

Welcome back to Linux - we`ve missed you, but there`s a great future ahead - for ALL of us...