Remember PA Semi? The company has just released, as promised, its first chipset. "They are full 64-bit PPC, support virtualisation, and would do Alitvec but that name is copyrighted by Freescale. Instead they do 'VMA'. The three parts run at a max wattage of 25, 15 and 10W for the 2.0, 1.5 and 1.0GHz parts respectively, with typical wattage listed at 13, 8 and 6W. The individual cores are said to have a 7W max and 4W typical power consumption at 2.0GHz." PA Semi was one of the prime reasons why Ars's John 'Hannibal' Stokes doubted Apple's reasoning for the switch to Intel.
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Member since:2005-11-14
Your post is very beautifully written, but devoid of substance.
Classic wasn't a tragedy in any sense. When its legacy cruft became too much to bear, Apple moved to a completely new OS (compared to Vista) which still managed to bridge backwards compatibility.
The "new variations on PPC" you mention are largely Cell processors which no one has tried to pass off as being suitable for general-purpose CPUs, or more powerful PPCs which still consume too much power to be laptop-feasible. Laptop sales outpace desktop sales, and vendors ignore this at their peril.
I'm disappointed that IBM refused to invest their own money in Apple's corporate future, too, but realistically PPC entered Apple when Intel had no comparable offerings. Intel caught up, fast, but IBM saw no incentive to compete with Intel and even sabotaged Intel emulation in the G5s without telling Apple.
As far as the 'can't tell them apart' argument is concerned, Macs have been running standard hardware for close to a decade. ADB, NuBus, RS422 serial ports and nonstandard analog video all died back in the Clinton administration. The silent argument from Apple on hardware is the same: OS and hardware run smoothest when designed by the same people. It's the model that used to rule the industry, and until IBM and Microsoft it was unquestioned. Thanks to cloners and Windows, compatibility and driver BSODs are a real issue. Linux has to work twice as hard to resolve this problem because of the amount of blackboxing. Yeah, I'll pay more for a system that doesn't fight or guess to work.
This is about performance, not gut feelings.
Member since:2005-10-12
There is a real logical difficulty with the argument, and its why there is such nostalgia for PPC. Fact is, you cannot at the same time describe a supplier as "running standard hardware for close to a decade" AND as designing its own hardware. The two are incompatible.
What Apple did with the move to Intel was stop designing hardware, and instead did totally what it had been doing partially for some time: start packaging off the shelf stuff. The result was a real loss of difference, and this is something some Apple customers found very hard to accept. But it was right. The market has voted on the question of unique hardware tied to an OS, and the verdict has been, too expensive for too little if any gain. It turned into difference for its own sake. There really was nothing to be gained from designing your own graphics cards or desktop peripheral interfaces. Or even, latterly, your own main board. You just end up being different for its own sake, at vast expense.
You could see the Intel decision was right as soon as the new towers came out. Where before the interior had been filled with humongous loud cooling, now there was space for extra drives.
Now, do OS and hardware run smoothest when designed by the same people? Don't know of any evidence to that effect on modern hardware, because no-one is doing it any more. On the possibly related point, is there any evidence that OSX runs more smoothly than XP or major flavors of Linux? Don't know of any.
And even if there were, its not clear what it would show. How would you separate out the two possible contributors of OS quality, and quantity of hardware supported, to assign blame or praise properly?
The one thing such evidence could not prove however is that designing the hardware and the OS is better. Because Apple is not doing that, and hasn't for years.
Member since:2006-03-17
Sorry, I jsut think that for the sake of Apple developers and customers, they should have held-on to the PPC line for a little longer. I'll say again that I'm not a big fan of the PPC, but the ultralow power-consumption of the newer models is quite impressive (and that's a major laptop benefit). The reliability of the PPC chip makers has always been a problem, and that was probably the deciding factor for the 'Switch', but it was a heck of a sacrifice.
Performance is important, but compatability's more useful. The Switch finally brings new Apple customers to the same table (and plugs) as PCs (more internally that externally). Now they can Really run Windows, good for them - so why didn't they just buy an HP/Gateway/Lenovo/etc? Apple controls the hardware - yes. But PCs have evolved to handle this diversity (maybe not all hobby OSes run on all laptops, okay). Windows is the MacOS of x86 (everyone insert your favorite MS joke here), but it's got home-field advantage in peripherals and software. Apple has made all sorts of devices (and they totally rock, don't get me wrong), but now they're being abandoned. I wish I had a BeBox 'Geekport' connector for windows - it was a kick-ass concept and device, but the company controlled it's demise. I fear the same fate for the loyal fans of Apple. (words from a BeOS refugee - we died on x86 too...)
Member since:
2006-03-17
While I agree with your statements about the x86 line, I have to say that I feel Apple made a mistake in this 'switch' process.
I had an intense crash-course in the MacOSX world at my last job and I found them to be rather weak machines. Whether this was because they were older machines and I've been so spoiled by 2Ghz goodness, or if they really are as slow as they felt - I don't know, but they did have a different personality.
I've studied all the aspects (the Mach underpinnings, the tragedy of 'Classic', the bastardized unixness of it all, etc) - and I came to appreciate the amount of dedicated development time that went into making the total package. I personally don't really like the environment, but that's just my taste and I understand why some people prefer OSX over XP (and far too few consider Linux).
But for Mac users, I think it would have been best to maintain PPC chipsets - as there are many new PPC/variations coming into the market now. I've seen the poor performance of 'Rosetta' and feel pity for those that got stuck with new PPC laptops only to find they've been obfuscated. I know that it's great that new Mac laptops can run Windows, but to me - now it's just an over-priced PC laptop. If it had a unique CPU along with a unique OS - then I think it would be appropriate, but I've got a gut feeling that _someone_ will publicly crack OSX on X86 (correct me if this has not already happened, as it may) - so what's the value in a x86Mac? Show me a laptop based on the STI-Cell chip and I'd take more notice (this being feasable or not is probably fanciful musing).
While Intel will probably be providing Apple with their top-line Core2 chips, there's also AMD and others to consider (lets just say competitive options are better). I love my 2Ghz Turion64 (and I'm looking to upgrade CPU to an x2) But while Mac users can finally fight back against the "But it doesn't run windows.." argument, maybe it was better that they didn't. At least their machine was truly 'different', for better or worse.
Edited 2007-02-06 02:50