The omnipresent ‘sources’ of AppleInsider have told the rumoursite that Apple has ‘outsourced‘ the design of the next PowerMac’s motherboard to Intel. “In a move that may surprise some Apple watchers, reliable sources tell AppleInsider the Mac maker has contracted the design duties for its next-generation Power Mac motherboard over to industry heavyweight Intel. With Apple moving aggressively to introduce four Intel-based Mac models in the first four months of 2006 – iMacs, 15-inch PowerBooks, 13-inch widescreen iBooks and Mac minis – resources at the company’s engineering labs have worn thin, sources said.” Judge for yourself.
Macs got the name “power mac” because they used “powerpc”, not necessarily because they were powerful.(though they are just that) These machines will be intel based, seems like the “powermac” moniker is strictly because of how powerful it will be.
Ahhhhh, how times are a changing.
(at first, I was thinking that Intel was going to be producing a PPC chip for apple) 😛 If they truely want to keep producing powermacs, that’s how they’d do it.
Macs got the name “power mac” because they used “powerpc”, not necessarily because they were powerful.(though they are just that) These machines will be intel based, seems like the “powermac” moniker is strictly because of how powerful it will be.
Incorrect – Apple in the past released a computer called a PowerMac without a PowerPC CPU. PowerMac is simply their way of differentiating their consumer and professional lines, just as there is a difference between iBook and PowerBook lines.
which model was a PowerMac without a PowerPC? Better make sure, and was it a PowerMac or a Power Macintosh…?
“Apple in the past released a computer called a PowerMac without a PowerPC CPU. ”
I looked all over http://www.everymac.com and can’t find a single Power Macintosh/PowerMac that did not have a PowerPC chip in it. Care to elaborate?
“I looked all over http://www.everymac.com and can’t find a single Power Macintosh/PowerMac that did not have a PowerPC chip in it. Care to elaborate?”
I guess s/he’s confused with the Power Book.
Exactly, PowerMacs were meant for the power user (also called professional user), had nothing to do with PowerPC. It’s like saying NT in Windows NT means networking (we all know that NT is an abbreviation for New Technology)
Edited 2005-12-28 20:47
I have been buying “powermacs” from their very first line, the 6100/60 (the one with no level 2 cache). I can not recall a single “powermac” that did not have a powerpc chip. Name one! The fact that powermacs are used by “pros” or “power users” is incidental to their naming. While the first generation powermacs were indeed powerful, subsequent generation powermacs got blown away by Intel and AMD crowd. The reason I kept buying Apple was because I was used to it, and did not want to learn a new OS.
From memory – all PowerMacs were PowerPC based. Everything before the switch to PowerPC based macs were either Quadra’s, Mac II’s, LC’s etc.
I hope that clears this little misconception up.
Anon
Hmm, I had a look, it was the PowerBook that was called that, even though it it had a 68K processor, but with that said, Power doesn’t equate to the use of a PowerPC, just as a Dell Power Edge server doesn’t equate to using a PowerPC CPU.
As a side note, I don’t reply to anonymous posters; if they’re too lazy to register, I’ll do like wise and fail to respond to their garble.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. The Power in Power Macintosh always indicated a PowerPC based system.
In my eyes, It will be pretty blasphemous if they decide to continue to use that moniker for the Apple PCs, but with all the changes Apple has made in recent years, especially with the new types of users on the platform, that they might just ignore these long established conventions, how sad.
Intel manufacturing PPC chips for Apple would defeat the purpose of switching to an Intel platform. Apple switched to Intel because the PPC architecture consumes too much power and generates too much heat for the amount of work it does. Having Intel produce chips that don’t suit Apple’s needs wouldn’t further their effort.
An architecture can’t consume more power. Intel *could* make a PowerPC CPU that was as fast as Yonah, and consumed as little power, and it would even be marginally cheaper, because you’d save the extra 5% of die space used to handle the complex decoding of x86.
However, that is a pointless theoretical exercise. Apple isn’t big enough for Intel to make a PowerPC CPU just for them. Apple switched to x86 because PPC fell to the same market pressures that Alpha, MIPS, etc did — the x86 manufacturers simply have too much R&D money to allow the maintainence of competitive CPU lines in the desktop/workstation marketes.
Rayiner,
If that were true that PPC would be continually behind in the speed race. Aside from a 2-year fiasco with the G4, PPC has continually sped past x86 (except at the end of a chip’s product cycle when it is due for replacement.
The ONLY area where x86… or rather Intel (not AMD) has excelled past PPC is in mobile technology (laptops). Its not because PPC could not, its because Apple didn’t want to play IBM’s politics when it could be in the same processor boat with the rest of the industry… AND benefit from running all the other x86 OSes while excluding the other PC manufacturers from running the best.
I find it interesting how some of the PC fanboys are trying desperately to make the chip transition something that it is not in an effort to support the party line that they’ve spouted all these years.
If that were true that PPC would be continually behind in the speed race.
Which it has been. Even Steve realized it, five years ago, the first time he wanted to jump ship.
PPC has continually sped past x86
There have been moments, but they have been short. The G4 actually beat the PIII for a short bit during its lifecycle, because they were comparable clock-for-clock, and the G4 clock speeds edged out the PIII’s slightly when both were around ~500MHz. Ever since then, the G4 was the loser. The G5 beat out the P4 for a few months, but then the Opteron was released, and as soon as that hit 2.0GHz, the G5 was on the losing side. Now, it can be argued that the G5 is faster when running highly optimized floating-point code taking advantage of AltiVec (like Final Cut Pro), or when running silly benchmarks like LINPACK, or when running FORTRAN-code compiled with IBM’s XLF running on AIX, but those are very specific circumstances. Real code has a big integer component (or are even completely integer-oriented!), and modern code is much more dependent on integer performance thanks to fast GPUs offloading exactly the tasks AltiVec does well. Why do you think Apple is pushing CoreVideo/Image so much these days?
I find it interesting how some of the PC fanboys are trying desperately to make the chip transition something that it is not in an effort to support the party line that they’ve spouted all these years.
Yes, I’m a PC fanboy. Believe whatever makes you feel better. In truth, I’m a Mac and Linux user, who has both a recent-model PowerMac and a recent model AMD PC. The AMD PC is cheaper, quieter, and faster, no two ways about it. I am excited about the Intel transition because it means that I don’t have to put up with an inferior CPU platform in order to use a superior OS. If you were a real Mac user, rather than an Apple apologist, you’d feel the same way.
“Which it has been. Even Steve realized it, five years ago, the first time he wanted to jump ship.”
You’re mixing up Steve’s practicality of using an operating system that’s already established and optimized for x86 5 years ago with your need to try to communicate that PPC is somehow inferior.
>>”PPC has continually sped past x86″
“There have been moments, but they have been short
Again, excluding the 2 year G4 fiasco, PPC was more often than not faster than x86.
“The G4 actually beat the PIII for a short bit during its life-cycle, because they were comparable clock-for-clock”
Actually, the G4 beat the PIII and P4 for about 6 months… because it was so much faster than x86 clock for clock.
“The G5 beat out the P4 for a few months, but then the Opteron was released, and as soon as that hit 2.0GHz, the G5 was on the losing side.”
The G5 was only on the losing side of that equation for about 6-8 months total throughout various iterations of its lifetime.
“Now, it can be argued that the G5 is faster when running highly optimized floating-point code taking advantage of AltiVec (like Final Cut Pro), or when running silly benchmarks like LINPACK, or when running FORTRAN-code compiled with IBM’s XLF running on AIX, but those are very specific circumstances.”
Actually, that argument held true for the G4, but the G5 is faster in raw performance and optimized floating-point code. Its the Opteron that has demonstrated that it could be faster in very specialized circumstances.
“Yes, I’m a PC fanboy. Believe whatever makes you feel better.”
I don’t need to. You show your colors repeatedly on this site’s forums.
“In truth, I’m a Mac and Linux user, who has both a recent-model PowerMac and a recent model AMD PC.”
And you’re claiming that because you own a Mac that this doesn’t make you a PC fanboy?
“The AMD PC is cheaper, quieter, and faster, no two ways about it.”
That’s actually not true. When you build an AMD PC to the exact same specs as those which come standard on a Mac (or as close as possible without substituting anything) the Mac is actually less expensive in almost every instance. Apple’s current laptops are really the only exception.
“I am excited about the Intel transition because it means that I don’t have to put up with an inferior CPU platform in order to use a superior OS.”
If that’s your rational then you deprived yourself for no reason.
“If you were a real Mac user, rather than an Apple apologist, you’d feel the same way.”
If you were a realist rather than a PC fanboy you wouldn’t make such ridiculous statements.
You’re mixing up Steve’s practicality of using an operating system that’s already established and optimized for x86 5 years ago with your need to try to communicate that PPC is somehow inferior.
NeXT was very cross platform. Before Apple bought it, it had already been running on 68k, x86, SPARC, and PA-RISC. Trying to pretend Steve wanted to switch to x86 at the time because of the “hassle” of porting NeXTStep is idiotic. Rhapsody was running on PowerPC the same year Apple bought out NeXT. Steve wanted to jump ship just to save a few months of porting work? Please!
And I have no need to try and communicate that PPC is inferior. Architecture is largely irrelevent. The relevant fact is that Intel and AMD can devote much more R&D resources into pushing x86 than those pushing competing architectures can combined. That’s the only reason x86 has survived as long as it has, and why it has beat architectures like SPARC, Alpha, and MIPS. Motorola doesn’t have the funds and IBM doesn’t have the desire to make PowerPC competitive with x86 on the desktop/workstation space. That’s why PowerPC chips are less suited for such uses, not because of any inherent flaw in the architecture.
Actually, the G4 beat the PIII and P4 for about 6 months… because it was so much faster than x86 clock for clock.
This is a myth. The G4 was never faster than the PIII clock for clock. http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/05/182/
The G5 was only on the losing side of that equation for about 6-8 months total throughout various iterations of its lifetime.
A G5 is slower, in most real code, than a comparably clocked Opteron. I’m not the only one who thinks so: http://www.systemshootouts.org/processors.html Again, the SPEC benchmarks are definitive in this regard. Discounting the cherry-picked, overclocked, and overvolted 2.5 and 2.7 GHz 970’s that Apple put in the PowerMacs, the Opteron held the clock-speed advantage over the G5 ever since it hit 2.0GHz.
Actually, that argument held true for the G4, but the G5 is faster in raw performance and optimized floating-point code.
I have a G5. No it’s not.
Its the Opteron that has demonstrated that it could be faster in very specialized circumstances.
The Opteron is an extremely well-balanced chip, but its not something you can get a lot of extra performance out of through tweeking. Its relatively insenstive to scheduling, and its low-latency memory controller means its also relatively insensitive to memory access patterns (within reason!). The biggest bottleneck in the Opteron for integer code is usually its mediocre branch predictor, and for floating-point code is its limited FPU capacity (asymmetric pipes, no multiply-accumulate). The G5 can be a lot faster in FPU code, per clock, than the Opteron, which is something the recent 970MP SPECfp results show, but to achieve that theoretical performance, you need a compiler (XLF 8.0) only available for AIX and Linux.
And you’re claiming that because you own a Mac that this doesn’t make you a PC fanboy?
Um, yes? I like my Mac very much, moreso than my PC. How am I a PC fanboy? Just because I don’t drink the kool-aid and pretend my Mac if faster, despite the fact that I can run the same code on each and see the reality for myself?
That’s actually not true. When you build an AMD PC to the exact same specs as those which come standard on a Mac (or as close as possible without substituting anything) the Mac is actually less expensive in almost every instance. Apple’s current laptops are really the only exception.
Kool-aid. Why don’t you actually try doing that, and see what you come up with?
If that’s your rational then you deprived yourself for no reason.
Deprived myself of what? On a given day, I can set and flip my KVM to either my Mac or my PC. You think I’m going to use the slower one, and pretend its faster, just because of some deep-seated mental issues? Please!
“Rhapsody was running on PowerPC the same year Apple bought out NeXT. Steve wanted to jump ship just to save a few months of porting work? Please!”
Oh, then you must be trying to tell me that it took 4 years AFTER the acquisition to develop… A USER INTERFACE? Excuse me… but thats just wrong. In addition to interface, they were optimizing for PPC. x86 was what NeXT was optimized for… so much so in fact that steve used an IBM thinkpad for those 4 years.
“And I have no need to try and communicate that PPC is inferior.”
Ok, then give me a genuine reason why you came to that far reaching conclusion?
“Architecture is largely irrelevant. The relevant fact is that Intel and AMD can devote much more R&D resources into pushing x86 than those pushing competing architectures can combined.”
IBM sells as much if not more silicon that Intel and Moto sells more than AMD.
“That’s the only reason x86 has survived as long as it has, and why it has beat architectures like SPARC, Alpha, and MIPS.”
The reason why x86 superseded these architectures has very little to do with superiority or lack thereof of any processors but everything to do with breaking a widely used standard.
“Motorola doesn’t have the funds and IBM doesn’t have the desire to make PowerPC competitive with x86 on the desktop/workstation space.”
Motorola is a bigger company than AMD. It wasn’t for a lack of funds, it was lack of ROI. IBM on the other hand has more than proven that it has the desire to make PowerPC competitive with x86 on the desktop. PPC currently boast the speed crown right now. Apple is switching not because of speed issues so much as IBM’s lack of desire to make a mobile chip. There are other issues too… such as Apple immediately having all the advantages that every other PC manufacturer has while keeping all the advantages they had previously.
“That’s why PowerPC chips are less suited for such uses, not because of any inherent flaw in the architecture.”
But they’re not less suited for such uses.
“This is a myth. The G4 was never faster than the PIII clock for clock. ” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/05/182/”
In the SPEC benchmark… a benchmark that is heavily optimized for x86.
“A G5 is slower, in most real code, than a comparably clocked Opteron. I’m not the only one who thinks so: http://www.systemshootouts.org/processors.html “
I said 8 months.
“I have a G5. No it’s not.”
I do to. Two of them in fact. Yes it is.
“Um, yes? I like my Mac very much, moreso than my PC.”
Maybe you’re not a fanboy. Maybe you’re making all these incorrect statements because you don’t know any better.
“How am I a PC fanboy?”
I came to that conclusion after you defended the argument that x86 has been faster than PPC for the majority of the two chips lifetime. As I mentioned in my response above… maybe you didn’t know any better and were among the legions of PC users who defended their arguments be referencing PC fan sites that made comparisons using very specific benchmark specifications offered to them by Intel that would show a performance advantage.
“Just because I don’t drink the kool-aid and pretend my Mac if faster”
As if kool-aid is what’s needed to come to this conclusion?
“despite the fact that I can run the same code on each and see the reality for myself?”
I’ve done the same (repeatedly in fact) and had respults which justified my comments.
“Kool-aid. Why don’t you actually try doing that, and see what you come up with? “
I’ve done it MULTIPLE times and came to the same conclusion nearly every time. When I’ve done such comparisons in the past, the ONLY way the PC came out to be less expensive is if you exclude some of the extra hardware or software that came standard with the Mac and swap it out with something else or exclude it all tegether on the PC… essentially trying to leverage the PCs ability to be infinately configured to achive a supposed price advantage. Yes, the PC is more versitle. It allows you to buy less and spend less. The Mac requires you to buy more, but it is less expensive when compared equally.
“Deprived myself of what?”<?i>
You said that you opted to use a PC despite prefering to use OS X so that you wouldn’t have to use an inferior processor. I’m telling you that you deprived yourself if using your preferred operating system for no reason, as the pricessor was in fact not inferior.
[i]”On a given day, I can set and flip my KVM to either my Mac or my PC. You think I’m going to use the slower one”
You just admitted to using your PC because you thought the procesor was superior… so yes. Apparently you do opt for the slower of the two.
Oh, then you must be trying to tell me that it took 4 years AFTER the acquisition to develop… A USER INTERFACE?
Aqua, Quartz, DisplayPDF, CoreAudio, etc, all grew on trees? Carbon alone was an enormous effort! This line of argument is inane.
x86 was what NeXT was optimized for…
Which is why the NeXT boxes were 68K machines?
IBM sells as much if not more silicon that Intel and Moto sells more than AMD.
What about desktop/workstation don’t you understand? IBM’s PPC sales are in the embedded/high-end server arena. Motorola’s sales are in the embedded area. It makes sense for them to spend money maintaining competitive CPU lines for those markets. It makes no sense for them to make CPUs competitive in the desktop/workstation markets, because their sales in those markets are very small. Why do you think IBM decided to concentrate on console processors instead of PC processors? Because it fit right into their embedded PPC business model!
Motorola is a bigger company than AMD. It wasn’t for a lack of funds, it was lack of ROI.
Motorola might be, but was Motorola’s CPU division? Freescale is certainly a smaller company then AMD!
PPC currently boast the speed crown right now.
In an alternate reality.
In the SPEC benchmark… a benchmark that is heavily optimized for x86.
Why do I even bother replying to you? SPEC is an industry standard benchmark, and is written in C and FORTRAN (thus not optimized for x86!) Indeed, the Power5+ is the current SPECfp leader, with second place being held by the Power5, and third place being held by an Itanium chip. Optimized for x86 my ass!
I do to. Two of them in fact. Yes it is.
Do you have an Opteron/Athlon64 as well? Do you write code for both machines? Have you benchmarked them relative to each other? I have, and the conclusion I came to is evident.
Maybe you’re not a fanboy. Maybe you’re making all these incorrect statements because you don’t know any better.
Yep, that’s it. I’m a moron. That’s the perfectly logical explanation!
I came to that conclusion after you defended the argument that x86 has been faster than PPC for the majority of the two chips lifetime.
It’s like defeinding the argument that gravity pulls you towards the center of the earth!
defended their arguments be referencing PC fan sites that made comparisons using very specific benchmark specifications offered to them by Intel that would show a performance advantage.
When did I reference a “fan” site, with benchmarks offered by Intel? I referenced Heise, a well-respected German publication, and SPEC, an industry-standard benchmark by an independent organization.
As if kool-aid is what’s needed to come to this conclusion?
It’s certainly not based on an analysis of the available benchmark results!
I’ve done the same (repeatedly in fact) and had respults which justified my comments.
My benchmarks are available on OSNews. They can be backed up by ones done by AnandTech, by the publically-available SPEC results of the chips involved, several independent benchmarks (eg: the R statistical benchmarks done with the G5), and indeed, even Apple’s own benchmarks: http://www.veritest.com/clients/reports/apple/apple_performance.pdf
All show the G5 being slower, per-clock, than an equivalent Opteron/Athlon64.
You said that you opted to use a PC despite prefering to use OS X so that you wouldn’t have to use an inferior processor.
Wrong. I use a Mac despite the fact that my PC is faster. That’s the compromise I was referring to. I use my Mac despite the fact that its slower. I’ll be happy when I can get a nice Conroe-based PowerMac, and don’t have to make that compromise anymore.
“Aqua, Quartz, DisplayPDF, CoreAudio, etc, all grew on trees? Carbon alone was an enormous effort! This line of argument is inane.”
DisplayPDF and Quartz were part of the NeXT Step. Core Audio and Video weren’t released until 3 years AFTER the release (not necessarily part of the original 4 year development process.
Again, at the time Steve came to Apple, the preferred environment that NeXTStep was optimized for was x86. It wasn’t 68k (It hadn’t been for quite a long time… they made that transition away from that architecture at around the same time Apple did. Actually, a couple years earlier. Steve was interested in x86 because he had an OS that was all but entirely ready for x86. He knew that they only needed to invest 1.5-2 years if they were to release on x86. Instead, they took 4 years, and even then released about 2 years too early.
>>”IBM sells as much if not more silicon that Intel and Moto sells more than AMD.
“>What about desktop/workstation don’t you understand?”
The first comment I corrected you on was a blanket statement that implied that these two companies couldn’t compete with AMD and Intel. Later you differentiated between desktops and other chip usage.
“It makes no sense for them to make CPUs competitive in the desktop/workstation markets, because their sales in those markets are very small.”
You’re right about Motorola and their previous PPC line, but the advantage with the G5 is that Apple latched onto a processor line that benefits from the R&D that IBM invests for much higher chips. They had only to scale back these chips to make them suitable for the desktop. So in desktop computer processors you’re wrong… hence the reason why Apple has remained competitive and has frequently surpassed speeds from other computer manufacturers using x86 chips. You do have a point with regard to mobile processors. Apple have had to have IBM custom develop a new processor technology. It would have not been a financially sound investment… hence the primary reason for the transition to x86.
“Why do you think IBM decided to concentrate on console processors instead of PC processors? Because it fit right into their embedded PPC business model!”
There was never a decision to not concentrate on desktop processors… they already were with the PPC970 and doing a fantastic job at it I might ad. They managed to get a lock on all the console processor business because of their embedded PPC affiliation which allowed them to offer spectacular processors at a great discount. This caused them to take the market completely away from all their competitors.
“Motorola might be, but was Motorola’s CPU division? Freescale is certainly a smaller company then AMD!”
And it’s not a coincidence that the Freescale transition occurred in the same relative time frame as Apple’s decision to transition to x86.
>>”PPC currently boast the speed crown right now.
“In an alternate reality.”
I think I understand now. You’re not in the same reality as the rest of us. That explains a lot.
Quad G5 Macs outperform all systems
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/12/22/quad.power.macs.deliver/
“Why do I even bother replying to you? SPEC is an industry standard benchmark, and is written in C and FORTRAN (thus not optimized for x86!)”
I don’t think I responded correctly. I meant to say that Intel optimizes its processors so that they make spec benchmarks perform well. That’s why you often see a significant advantage in spec benchmarks for Intel processors, but that speed advantage isn’t realized when shown in real world tests. Intel effectively made a processor that make’s the Spec benchmark SCREAM, but only performs roughly on par with everybody else in real world performance.
“Indeed, the Power5+ is the current SPECfp leader, with second place being held by the Power5, and third place being held by an Itanium chip.”
If it performs well, it does so because its a genuinely fast chip… rather than the chip being optimized for Spec.
“Do you have an Opteron/Athlon64 as well?”
Not me personally, but when I’ve done comparisons I had access to one.
Do you write code for both machines?”
Are you asking because of compiling benchmarks or are you asking because you think writing code for both supposedly offers you insight that I would otherwise not have? I use Applications on both. I run benchmarks on both. Writing code for both is not relative to this conversation.
“Have you benchmarked them relative to each other?
Several times.
“I have, and the conclusion I came to is evident.”
Lemme guess… you ran Spec benchmarks.
“When did I reference a “fan” site, with benchmarks offered by Intel? “
I never said you did. I said that you probably did as that is the only resource that you will find that could support that argument.
“I referenced Heise, a well-respected German publication, and SPEC, an industry-standard benchmark by an independent organization.
Heise referenced Spec. I’ve already responded to the Spec benchmark.
“It’s certainly not based on an analysis of the available benchmark results!”
Which benchmarks? You haven’t provided any that don’t cite Spec, or outdated comparisons.
“My benchmarks are available on OSNews. They can be backed up by ones done by AnandTech, by the publically-available SPEC results of the chips involved, several independent benchmarks (eg: the R statistical benchmarks done with the G5), and indeed, even Apple’s own benchmarks: ” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.veritest.com/clients/reports/apple/apple_performance.pdf…
There you go again… citing Spec. The veritest benchmarks are over 2.5 years old. And there has been a period totaling about 8 months throughout the G5’s lifetime that it was behind. But then, I’ve already mentioned that several times.
“All show the G5 being slower, per-clock, than an equivalent Opteron/Athlon64.”
Quad G5 Macs outperform all systems
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/12/22/quad.power.macs.deliver/
“Wrong. I use a Mac despite the fact that my PC is faster.
I don’t know which Macs and PCs you have. But if you’re telling me that you opted to use a PC rather than your Mac full time because of the supposed processor limitation, then you did so without reason. If its simply because you bought a Mac that is less powerful than your PC yet wanted to use the Mac OS… that was your own decision for not being the computer with the faster processor at the time. Unless of-course you mistakenly bought your Mac at the end of a product life-cycle at it was bought during the 2-3 months that a PC’s speed supersedes whatever Apple has available at the time.
“I use my Mac despite the fact that its slower.”
Sounds to me like you should have just bought a Mac that was faster if in fact thats where your preferences lay.
“I’ll be happy when I can get a nice Conroe-based PowerMac, and don’t have to make that compromise anymore.”
You didn’t have to before, but I’m glad that you’ll be able to put your mind at ease in the future as a compromise didn’t have to be made in the past.
Edited 2005-12-30 05:05
Quartz was not part of NEXTSTEP.
There is no such thing as “DisplayPDF.” Quartz 2D uses an imaging model compatible with PDF 1.4. So does Cairo.
It makes no sense to “optimize a processor” for SPEC in an artificial manner. You could optimize a compiler to cheat on SPEC benchmarks, but this is against the testing requirements and since results must be reproducible with a publically-available compiler this is easy to verify.
In short you’re a tool.
For the sake of your own self-respect I sincerely hope that you are trolling. SPEC biased for the x86? NEXTSTEP heavily optimized for the x86? Ignoring that most of OS X wasn’t derived from NEXTSTEP but was developed from an a collection of sources and entirely new technologies? Claiming without any evidence that the PPC has not just been competitive but has been a performance leader for years?
“That’s actually not true. When you build an AMD PC to the exact same specs as those which come standard on a Mac (or as close as possible without substituting anything) the Mac is actually less expensive in almost every instance. Apple’s current laptops are really the only exception.”
We keep seeing this posted time after time in exactly the same words by allegedly different people on various different topics. It is evidently a matter of faith, or perhaps it is Cupertino Marketing speaking.
It is simply false. Some months ago I compared products available for sale in the UK from Evesham, a well known good value, quality mail order house, with the PowerMac, and I also compared what MacWarehouse sells at the low end with the Mini that it also sells. Generally, the Macs are between one half as much again to double.
Now, if you look at what extra, if anything, you are getting with the macs, it turned out to be less of some things and more of others. It was less hardware. Lower spec graphics, less disk space, less memory. What you got more was the bundled software. Turns out, if you are going to make the above argument about getting more and paying more, you have to value iLife at many hundreds of dollars at the high end. And you have to argue that iLife on a PowerMac is worth a lot more than iLife on a Mini – because the dollar discrepancy is so much greater at the high end, this is what it takes to make the numbers add up.
This is not a reason for buying PCs or avoiding Macs. It just says, know what you are paying and what you are getting. It may well be ‘worth it’ to lots of people.
As a social phenomenon, I no longer believe people who post these things really believe them either. I’m in two minds about the explanation. It could be Astroturfing. Or it could be spectacular Groupthink. In any case, its a turnoff. When you have a bunch of guys who go around chanting that black is white when it comes to one matter of fact, sensible people avoid their whole cause.
The right way to approach this is just to say, yes, its more expensive, but I like it, I can afford it, and its worth it to me. Argument over. Its your money, its your life, do what you want with it. You don’t have to convince anyone else.
—————–The analyst also fueled rumors of an even closer relationship forming between Apple and Intel, saying there are indications that the two companies may be working together on a custom microprocessor chip-set that would appear only in Apple systems.——————–
That’s part of how they’re going to minimize those who want to run the MacOS on non apple hardware.
I felt that one of the best reasons for switching to Intel was that Apple could then outsource things like motherboards (which users really don’t care if Apple builds themselves or if it’s an exclusive design) to companies like Intel who can produce them more cheaply since they will sell more of them than Apple would alone (since they could go in Dell XPS systems and the like).
It’s always good to see Apple leveraging the cost benefits of reusable parts.
But they are not really reusable. They are going to be designed to run only OSX. The volume of motherboard being sold will not be any greater than what they would produce themselves. More likely it’s just a short term shortage of engineers.
Why couldn’t they be used in other computers? Apple has already said that Windows will boot/run on their Intel boxes so it isn’t a matter of designing them only to run OS X. It’s actually a matter of designing them so that OS X won’t run on non-Apple boxes. All Intel has to do is build a chip onto it that OS X can check to see if it is an authoried machine and then omit that chip on the ones they sell to other companies.
Intel has wanted to get DRM in their chips/motherboards for the whole “trusted computing” thing. If they put a trusted chip on these motherboards, the ones sold to Apple could use a chip allowing OS X while the ones sold to other companies won’t have that authorization.
99% (if not 100%) could be reused while keeping OS X exclusive to Apple-branded machines.
Apple didn’t say “Windows will boot/run on their Intel boxes”, Apple said they would not try to avoid (as in “we don’t care if you do it”). Apple NEVER said windows would boot on an Intel Mac… NEVER, EVER!
If Apple knew Windows wouldn’t work on the new Intel Macs, then they wouldn’t bother making the statement about “we won’t try to stop you”. I don’t wear hats, but I’ll print out this post and eat it with ketchup if you can’t install Windows on the new Intel Macs!
You don’t get it do you. You seam to not understand the statement very well, the previous poster got it right. Apple simply said with that statement they won’t stop people from installing windows. Doesn’t mean it will work out of the box. They probably would be happy if MS made windows run on their macs. People would still have to buy the mac to be able to do that. And no one is going to buy a mac to just run windows on in. Windows may very well run with no effort on the new macs, but it won’t be because apple designed them to be able to.
Also their statement about not stopping people didn’t have a press conference built around it. It was just a side remark. The blocked people in the past like Be from running their OS on macs. They are just stating they won’t do that this time. Also, they probably slipped it in there because if they didn’t the first question they would get asked is if windows would be able to run on them.
Windows XP (32bit) that you buy shrink-wrapped today probably won’t work. Rumours suggest that Apple, with no legacy concerns, will adopt Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). This is Intel’s substitute for open firmware and replaces the traditional BIOS. Rumours are that OS X’s “Am I running on an Apple” check with be written with EFI and a custom ‘ROM’ chip.
64bit XP supports this for Itanium and no doubt will support it in Longhorn.
Linux will probably lead the migration since Red Hat and others already have an EFI bootloader for Itanium.
more info about EFI:
http://www.deviceforge.com/articles/AT9479223305.html
They only stated, “We won’t try to stop you” but didn’t state that it’d work immediately out of the box, or with some tweaking, based on the information made available about the Apple hardware/firmware.
So, I don’t know and won’t claim to know (as I don’t have a released machine, or even one of the leased development machines) if they will run Windows or not as-is, but if you can’t install Windows as-is on the new macs, I’d like to request that you print out your post on Tyvek paper and eat that
Uh, no mobo built for the powermacs will be available for sale to other companies. Clearly apple would not allow that. Just because they hire intel to make it, does not mean they can sell it to others. It will be some ultra custom non standard (as in form factor) mobo the same as every mobo in powermacs.
The CPUs will probably be much the same. I highly doubt apple will be using socket compatible cpus with non apple computers running the same cpu. Expect daughter cards to remain and so forth. Thus without those bits of hardware OSX will not run. I think the copy protection the dev box intel OSX have seen are for just the dev boxes. It may remain in production just as one extra thing to get through, but I don’t think there is any chance in heck Apple would protect themselves just on software. Also with the custom socket it makes it less easy for people to go and upgrade to a faster mac. They would have to get expensive 3rd party solutions, not go to the electronics store and buy a boxed cpu.
Custom chips set is believable, they don’t need PS/2 ports and other legacy hardware, but they probably will want lots of USB, FW (if apple hasn’t deemed it dead), SATA and such.
The CPUs will probably be much the same. I highly doubt apple will be using socket compatible cpus with non apple computers running the same cpu.
Apple isn’t nearly a big enough vendor to get their own CPU pin-out!
Expect daughter cards to remain and so forth.
No way in hell.
Thus without those bits of hardware OSX will not run.
By all indications, OS X x86 is a month from shipping. If the TPM chip is the only dependency now, it will likely remain the only dependency.
Custom chips set is believable, they don’t need PS/2 ports and other legacy hardware, but they probably will want lots of USB, FW (if apple hasn’t deemed it dead), SATA and such.
Current chipsets support everything Apple needs (my PC has more USB ports than my Mac!) If they support some things that Apple doesn’t need, then Apple needn’t connect them do they. Making a whole seperate chipset just to leave some little features out would be a major waste of money. There would be no point in doing that.
The Apple change to Intel silicon, Intel design, all sounds so logical and well planned and a good business decision – so why do I have this irresistible feeling it’ll all end in tears
“so why do I have this irresistible feeling it’ll all end in tears”
Probably what worries you is the comparisons. Reasonable enough. It will be identical main board chip sets, cards, disks, processors. There will inevitably be direct price comparisons.
Then you’ll have Photoshop etc running on both halves of a dual boot system with XP on one side and OSX on the other. If it should all go pear-shaped, there will be nowhere to hide.
One hopes they did the studies before going into this and that it won’t be so, at least not the performance part. But, you never know.
The Apple change to Intel silicon, Intel design, all sounds so logical and well planned and a good business decision – so why do I have this irresistible feeling it’ll all end in tears
Basically because Intel is a crack-pusher. They sure pushed that Itanium crack onto SGI, and look where they are now..
Well at least on the good side when the intel crack causes too many mac deaths, they can easily switch to AMD crack. Couldn’t do that with the itanium.
Though the problem with AMD is they aren’t as big of a dealer and can’t seam to make enough product to serve addicts like apple. They are too much of a niche club designer drug, not a wholesale dealer.
Does anyone better informed than me about hardware understand why they would not use off-the-shelf main boards? To go with the off-the-shelf processors? Branded and promoted as special different and unique, of course. But why would you go to the trouble of actually designing and manufacturing different ones? Could you really think you could get them better or cheaper or faster that way? Seems crazy.
I could see when the processors were different, you had no choice. But I always thought that was why they changed processors, not to have to do that nonsense any more.
Because they don’t use standard ATX designs (or any xTX design). They also want to make it more difficult to run OSX on non-Mac hardware.
I doubt they are designing an entirely custom board for Apple. Likely, they are doing the same thing they do for Dell, taking a standard Intel motherboard, and customizing it for the customer’s use. Dell motherboards (at least back when I bought my last Dell tower system in 1998) are just regular Intel boards with custom power connectors, slightly different layout, etc. These changes are made to better fit the case and PSU Dell will use for the computer. Apple’s PowerMac boards have always been immaculately routed (in mine, every connector is placed just so so all the cables reach without cutting into the air-space inside the case). I presume Intel will take one of their standard boards and customize it for Apple to fit their new PowerMac case.
It’ll probably use a modified version of a board already in production or in the pipline. The mods will probably be BIOS and the custom chipset, which will probably be just a modified Intel chipset that has something special that the OS will need in order to run on only boards with those chipsets.
This is not really that surprising. A long time ago, Steve Jobs (in another moment of hyperbole) once said he thought Intel were the only ones “innovating” in the PC sphere. The fact is, everyone who buys a Mac, buys it primarily for the software, not the hardware. The low to mid-end Macs have little to distinguish themselves from a purely hardware perspective (I’m not talking about the appearance or aesthetics of their case designs, purely the hardware specs). Things get a little bit more interesting with the high-end Macs, but not by much.
If Intel designs the Mac motherboards, Mac users may potentially have an even greater range of peripherals and supporting hardware to choose from. I’m sure Intel will ensure some commonality between PC and Mac motherboard design.
Mac motherboards (even today) have a ton of commonality with PC motherboards. For ages now, Macs have gone the route of PCI, AGP, PCI-X. Macs use the same RAM as their PC counterparts. IDE is another commonality as is USB.
Common hardware isn’t what holds the Mac back from better hardware compatibility. It’s drivers. I can physically connect pretty much any external drive to a Mac today (since almost everything external is USB) and I can connect any PCI card to a Mac, but without the drivers to make it work, I’m out of luck.
Take a printer as an example. I can connect a printer to any Mac OS X box, but there’s no guarantee it will work since it might not have Mac drivers. Heck, I can connect a printer to a Linux box and there might not be drivers which means it won’t work even though I can run Windows on the same machine and get the printer working.
You must buy seriously weird printers – I can’t think of one offhand that doesn’t support Mac/Linux drivers. Doesn’t Mac now use CUPS (common unix print system) just as Linux does anyway?
Hp LaserJet 1000
Needs firmware downloads, provided by Windows driver.
There is an implementation of that on Mac, but have not been able to make it work. Yes I googled around, and found lots of people similarly annoyed.
Fair enough – never heard of it. I assume it’s fairly ancient as the only quick Google I could find was one on e-bay (current bid price $0.99).
See last 2 paragraphs of my post directly above – that’s why I reckon it supports most (though as you say apparently not all) printers.
I have an ancient A3 scanner from Mustek that won’t do anything but W95/96 and Macs – I’m waiting for my daughter’s Mac (hoping it will work with it) so I can finally wipe W98 (much too flaky for the way I overload machines with heavy graphics work) off the old machine in the corner!
Edited 2005-12-29 14:04
Moderation strikes again! The author makes two points which are not at all inflammatory and, whether you agree with them or not, are not idiotic or obviously false.
The first is that he finds the mid/low range macs unremarkable in technical specification, which he is careful to say does not mean industrial design. Well, its a point of view.
The second is that he thinks if Intel designs the mainboards, it may widen the choice of peripherals for mac users. I don’t know if it will or not, but its not a totally insane suggestion.
People, you really have to stop marking down things just because you disagree with them. Its not about disagreement. Its if they are offensive, inflammatory etc, which this just isn’t.
I believe that Intel can make a great motherboard, but if they have just recently put this team together and the release is in January. Something tells me that this is being rushed and the product will suffer.
The release is going to be late 2006, not January 2006. You’re thinking of the low-end Macintoshes which people believe will be out in January.
The first desktop release has to be done just right. It will be the lowest common denominator of Apple’s attempt keep OSX exclusive to Macs. If these new Intel machines are insecure, then it’ll be a back door for people to run future versions of OSX. Apple won’t let that happen.
I also wouldn’t be the least bit suprised were this to turn out to be true. I thought a big part of the reason for the switch to Intel was so that Apple would be able to make machines cheaper, and not having to design that much more of the hardrware you sell seems an easy way to do it.
Who is more qualified to design motherboards using Intel microprocessors and chipsets than Intel, who has been designing complete hardware solutions for many CPU generations already?
Why, when many manufacturers are already using rebadged Intel motherboards and reaping the benefits of economy of scale, would it make sense for Apple not to do likewise?
When Intel has already done all the engineering for the form factor to include standardized cases and power supply requirements, would it make sense for Apple to repeatedly do that themselves (beyond the aesthetics point)?
When the biggest practical differentiator between motherboards sold by Intel sold is the firmware and what settings are tweakable, and that (the firmware) is something provided by several possible BIOS writers for common platforms, would Apple want to write a completely new BIOS, that would likely mutate for every chipset variation, when all they need to do is add a very small portion (at most) for their special booting needs (perhaps to use their own partition table format on boot devices is all they really need)?
It is also logical to Intel’s purpose to provide a common platform for both Apple and others, and simply not solder on the (most likely) single additional chip Apple will use to lock down OS X, because that provides only one hardware design (per chipset/processor combination) to support, which (again) leads to economy of scale and less fixed up-front engineering costs. This is a very common practice, that of having sockets/holes/traces for an optional chip that’s not installed, and doesn’t affect mass manufacturing costs much to vary between filling it and not filling it.
As has been repeated repeatedly, Apple is all about Total User Experience, and as long as what’s under the hood provides the performance requirements for reliability, speed, and intended functionality at a hardware level, it becomes about making the computer hardware/software combination as pleasant to use as possible, and pleasing to the senses of customers, current and prospective; hardware without software is just another large space heater with little additional added value. A large part of the intended appeal of Apple products is for the form to be stylish, and making the hardware more pleasant to work on (when upgrades are desired) is something that Apple has used quite well to differentiate themselves in that respect, and may (for many) help justify the (real or perceived) price premiums compared to a lot of the less service-friendly designs.
Rumor or not, it has always been quite obvious for a choice for Apple to have Intel provide them nearly stock Intel-designed hardware guts.
Jonathan Thompson
I found it interesting that appleinsider brought up the subject of custom-designed chips. We know that Steve loves to tell other companies what parts to make, how to make them, and at which price to sell them. My take is that with the increased revenue coming from both processor and motherboard sales, Intel and Apple have found some ground for discussing this. Or possibly just that Apple will be happy with SSE3, and not have to worry about a custom solution.
“so why do I have this irresistible feeling it’ll all end in tears”
Because it’s so: all will end in tears… for Microsoft! 😀
So what? Intel has made motherboards for years. Why wouldn’t they make Apples motherboards for Intel chips? Do you really think Apple did all the motherboard design for the G5’s?
Uh, yes, actually, they have been doing this for the last 16 years. The only thing that has changed since the NeXT merger, was to replace some interfaces and components with commodity PC versions. SUN did the same. But Apple continued to design their own system controllers, the parts that really made sense to develop themselves. This made the Mac more competitive on price, while still maintaining it’s own unique architecture (besides the PowerPC itself, mind you).
One primary motivation for this switch is that it will likely allow them spend considerably less of their own time & resources on hardware architecture design, just like any other PC vendor. It’s sad in many respects, as it’s liable to make the Mac just another ordinary PC, internally at least. We shall see just how ordinary it really is, with the first shipping Intel based system. If the DTK, transition documentation and rumors like this, are any indication, it’s likely the architecture will be decidedly “PC-ish”. If this is the case, it’s likely that the only redeeming value to the Mac will indeed be the OS, as Jobs so boldly stated, at the end of that memorable keynote, in June 2005.
intel motherboards are the single best motherboards for intel platforms. I have owned quite a few different brands and the least headache came from their boards. My only complaint is the anemic BIOS some of their boards use. In this case for the Macs they will rock and be produced fast.
I second that. Intel builds great and very reliable boards. I’ve never seen a faulty one and they last for 10+ years. That’s off-topic though…
I bet that the new motherboard will be of BTX standard. And I still can’t see why they moved, guess they will save tons of money but surely for the cost of power.
I don’t know why so many of you are hung up on the form factor. Apple has zero reason to use ATX or BTX. They don’t have to compatible with anyone. By not being standard thats what has let them make the PM G5 motherboards be so nicely laid out. No clutter, works with the case. Apple won’t want to be constrained by a standard like ATX or BTX. Such standards are only important in a world were people build computers at home, or companies that outsource from different vendors and don’t care about optimizing their designs.
Once you leave standards that have no purpose for your use, options open up for you. Look at the shuttle XPCs. they ditched ATX form factor and were able to create great little computers. They can’t do the same with ATX or BTX.
But what apple does do it make sure interconnects to 3rd party stuff is standard. Thats all they need to do, make sure connectivity is standard. Its silly to bother when it’s your motherboard in your case, with your thermal solution, and your PSU.
The cost savings would be just about non if they used BTX or ATX. Its already a custom board for them, at that point the shape doesn’t matter. They also run with the same board for a long time (they don’t change powermacs every other week). But the pains and cost in going with a standard in their design would probably cost them heavily.
Aren’t these all just buzz words, or marketing terms, for how to fix a motherboard into a box? It doesn’t matter which two letters you prepend to “X,” it’s just a motherboard. You can make it any size and shape you like. You can make it L-shaped if you like. If you’re building a completely new platform like Apple on Intel, it won’t be too far fetched to create a new form factor.
If you read (and believe) Steve Jobs’ comments in the news, he has said that he is very disappointed that Apple did not hit the 3gig speed with their G5 processors before year end 2005 as he had promised.
I think many people have heard about how Apple took the 7447 chip (G4) production from Motorola- and gave it mostly to IBM- because Mototola could not meet speed requirements and had engineering difficulties due to production machinery.
Steve says that Apple for a time was not able to produce enough chips to meet demand- and that has to hurt someone who has been been turning a markey losing company around into a market success story.
Personally, it seems like Steve sort of got the “outsourcing fever”- due to the success with IBM, and feels like why not take it one step further with Intel by going for M/Bs also.
Plus- it could be that Intel is losing money on the motherboards, at least initially, in order to shore up their relationship with Apple.
Or, it could be Mr. Steve knows something that Intel doesn’t- and has put forth stringent SLAs penalizing Intel if they fail to meet expectations.
Just like the other poster, it seems like such a great idea all of this- but I have this fear everyone is going to end up crying…
Intel have been trying to push new hardware for a long time, but are hamstrung by the backwards compatibility issues of the Windows world and are overly restricted by what Microsoft will do.
Apple can choose from the wide range of R&D technologies that Intel have, and modify their OS to provide any required support. Intel benefits from the showcase of improved hardware, Apple benefits from being first to market with the total user experience.
I expect that the new machines will have legacy support for running Windows applications (likely in a VM, displayed in OS X windows like X11), but OS X itself will use the new hardware that is not available in commodity white box PCs.
No need for DRM locking…
OS X itself will use the new hardware that is not available in commodity white box PCs.
Like? Can you name some of these technologies that are not available from commodity motherboards from Intel?
The reaction of Mac folks to this news is comical. First it was the abandoning of SCSI and ADB. Then it was the abandoning of PowerPC. Now, with the abandoning of custom Apple chipsets and motherboards, the Mac folk are trying to play up incompatible case form factors in a desperate bid to retain some sort of special cachet! It’s pretty comical, really.
Look, Apple is a business. I think its becoming clear that they are a business just like any other. Thus, they will make whatever decisions make sense from the point of view of the bottom line. Using x86 and Intel motherboards are obvious examples of this fact. If using BTX saves them some money, well, that’s what they’ll do. Especially considering that Intel has some say in this too — they want to push BTX, and Apple is an obvious way to do it.
This sales guy was trying to sell a Mac to a guy and I told the guy that he should wait until the end of January because Apple was shaving their yearly announcements about new products and new Macs will most likely be introduced so he will be able to get a better deal on the older models or be able to buy the new stuff for the same price…. the manager kicked me out.
…the long-planned homogenization of the PC industry will be complete.
(I jest, OS X is cool, please don’t flame at me!)
Doesn’t Dell pretty much use all Intel parts and brand them under Dell? The only thing that separates Apple from Dell is OSX. Should just merge with Dell and make Appdell.
Open any Dell PC and then open a G5 tower. If you have half a brain cell you will realize there is more to just the motherboard that separates the two companies, and you will stop comparing them.
The previous poster was saying that if Apple combined their programming ethics and OS concept with Dell’s build and distribution marketing they’d have a more powerful selling force. Thanks for understanding how analogies work.
Oh, not this again. The only thing seperating the two is the case/PSU and the motherboard. Similar brands of RAM, similar brands of hard drives, similar brands of graphics cards, etc. With the motherboard switched to Intel, the *only* difference between a Mac and a Dell will be the case/PSU. Otherwise, they’ll be the same, right down to the customized Intel motherboard.
It is very interesting the way this debate goes. Really there are two different assessments of the situation.
One point of view goes, the thing that gets Apple sales is the OS, there are hordes of new apple buyers out there, people who desperately want to run it on standard hardware, so we have to stop them. Then, the argument goes, they will have to buy Apple hardware. This is why Apple will have non-standard chip sets and main boards. This argument is usually combined with the view that current Apple customers, given the chance, would also migrate to generic hardware, so Apple sales would plummet, which is another reason for having non-standard main boards. Its often combined with the view that Apple hardware is superior to and no more expensive than others’ hardware, but that human nature is corrupt and fallen, which accounts for the fact that in the previous argument they will know the better and choose the worse. Or perhaps they will just not know the better when they see it.
The second point of view is quite different. It would say that the reason Macs sell has little or nothing to do with the OS, but has to do with brand image and industrial design. People, this argument says, buy Macs for the same reason they buy Bang and Olafson, Gucci or Vuitton. Or Ralph Lauren. Performance and price is irrelevant. They have the feeling that they are getting quality, and the image goes with their sense of their lifestyle. This is why people when challenged about the alleged superiority of Macs end up talking about their feelings. Its the ‘whole experience’, or ‘its not just the hardware or the software’. Its not just the cloth, its not just the cut, I just sort of feel good in Lauren clothes.
If this second argument is correct, Apple would sell just as many, perhaps more, machines if it bundled Windows with them. If this argument is correct, there must be lots of people who would like to buy Macs on brand and lifestyle grounds, but who are not willing to run a different OS than the majority. If this argument is correct, Macs are selling in spite of X, not because of it. This argument would also suggest Apple will do best to ship absolutely standard chipsets, whatever the form factor of the main boards.
The evidence so far is very limited, though one assumes vendors have quite a lot more than is in the public domain. But there are straws in the wind which suggest that the OS is less important than we have generally assumed. Apple was able to completely change the OS, without changing any customer attitudes or feelings. Other vendors seem to feel they can charge more for similar form factors running Windows. On the other side, there have been attempts by Intel vendors to market all-in-ones with Apple form factors running Windows, and they all seem to have failed.
Time will tell. But I think it may be a mistake to assume too readily that there really is a huge demand for OS X, as opposed to a demand for Apple industrial design. Its at least worth considering. And of course, if it turns out to be the design, you can be sure Apple will meet it….it is, after all, a hardware company!
Now that would be one for the books.
“The second point of view is quite different. It would say that the reason Macs sell has little or nothing to do with the OS, but has to do with brand image and industrial design…..If this second argument is correct, Apple would sell just as many, perhaps more, machines if it bundled Windows with them.”
Surely the ‘Mac Experience’ extends right through to the User Interface. The desktop on a Mac, though superficial, is part of the OS, so is by definition part of the total Mac experience that devotees crave. Also – it isn’t Windows – which gives it a certain exclusivity (=desirability).
On the subjest of supposed ‘Mac form factor’ machines running Windows, they haven’t got it right – they’re expensive (for Windows machines) and they don’t really look or feel like Macs.
On another (related) subject, don’t forget that the Mac is still the weapon of choice in the graphic design/photography/print industries – they lost a lot of ground to Windows in the late ’90s (when they’d kicked out Jobs and were floundering) but hung on by their teeth until they had good products again.
I hope the new Macs are good – my daughter at Uni doing graphic design is hanging on to buy a laptop until the new ones are out – soon?!
I see you have been marked down to -3, and I to -4. Heaven knows why! Perhaps we are committing the cardinal sin of thinking aloud in public?
“All your thoughts are belong to US” – but who?
I thought we were having an interesting discussion, but obviously I’m wrong. I must be musn’t I? – THEY have spoken.
Not to worry, I’ve just reset my preferences to browse at -5.
Wait, wasn’t this news six months ago?
When did Apple do a decent mobo last? With good speed all over?
I submitted two news to OS news that i thought will be interesting for readers. One of them was about using the Audio Extraction API Quicktime (http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/audioextraction.html), the other one was about a new book about porgraming with Quartz written by members of the development team at Apple (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-0123694736-0).
None of them has been published by the OS news members. Now i see this news orginally from a rumor site published here to say us what? Intel is gonna to be involved in the development of motherboards for Apple pro machines. Great, that’s a dam amazing news….
Is this news really relevant compared to some informations about interesting mac programming? I dont think so!!!
For sure those kind of news wont atrract all the zealots to produce a 100+ messages forum (the aim of OS news recently, i guess), but i think they are intersting for people who want to improve their knowledge about the mac platform and the technology around it.
OS news is said to be the site for “Exploring the future of computing”, but i guess we should say “Exploring the future of rumors” instead.
Leave it to OS News and Thom in particular to misrepresent the facts by posting a sensationalistic headline in order to grab page views for their advertisers. Obviously Apple is going to lean heavily on Intel for motherboard design since Intel makes processors, motherboards, and motherboard chips. Duh. But Apple is not about to turn all design over to Intel or anyone else as the lame headline implies.
“Leave it to OS News and Thom in particular to misrepresent the facts by posting a sensationalistic headline”
The problem isn’t Thom posting a sensationalistic headline… he posted the same headline that the other site posted. The problem is the headlines Thom chooses to exclude because the headline or article doesn’t support his OS politics. Thom has repeatedly shown that his Apple-centric news must never show news of Apple growth, Apple being less expensive, Apple having better support, Apple system’s being faster, or news mentioning interesting upcoming systems (unless there is at least a subtle implication that Apple is somehow selling out).
Its interesting that several sites published these headlines, but they were all curiously absent from OS News:
Quad G5 Macs outperform all systems
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/12/22/quad.power.macs.deliver/
Apple Specialists say holiday Macs sales up year-over-year
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1429
All eyes on Apple for its 2006 offerings: Maybe an iPhone?
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/technology/story/5416865p-48…
Apple Sells Out of 1GB iPod Shuffle
http://www.betanews.com/article/Apple_Sells_Out_of_1GB_iPod_Shuffle…
Apple will rule notebook roost: study
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/12/19/2003285097
Apple: # 1 in Reliability Survey. Again
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=5580
Apple had a heavy hand in designing the G5 motherboard along with IBM because they wanted very fast transport to all regions of the motherboard. IBM had never designed a motherboard for a consumer PC using PowerPC chips. Also Apple wanted to make sure the internal hardware including motherboards met their requirements such as adding Altivec to the PPC chip. As far as speed the quad core G5 is now spanking everything else out there of comparable or even higher price.
Try whatever Canon and you are screwed, and I don’t think Canons are the only ones.