Apple's television ads for its new Macs boast that for years, Intel's chips have been "trapped inside PCs - dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks." Now, the voiceover proclaims, the Intel processor will finally be set free. Of course, that's not exactly the way Intel would put it. "Never would we characterize our customers that way."
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
As to the Intel issue, Apple is not, I repeat NOT in bed with Intel. Apple could use any chip it wants to and switch without much difficulty since extreme platform neutrality is built in OSX AND the Mach kernel. It's not the hardware that is most important here, it's the OS and the software that runs on it.
You sir, are clueless.
Did you even read the sentence you've written; "It's not the hardware that is most important here, it's the OS and the software that runs on it".
It's exatly the hardware that is important here. They can make OS X run anywhere, but they can't make Mac software run anywhere by their own. And just look at the problems the switch is causing them. Photoshop runs like crap - even Steve himself said he wouldn't recommend running PS on Macintel for professional use. When this man says something like this it's gotta be at least 3x as bad as he says. Rosetta isn't all that great as people want it to be.
Member since:2005-11-09
Member since:2005-07-07
OSX is a UNIX based Operating System using the Mach microkernel technology, which by the way is better in concept than most Linux and other Unices and Unix-Like OSes
Mach is old and nothing really special. In fact OSX isn't really a microkernel anyway. It is more of a fusion of FreeBSD and Mach. Most of the advantages modern microkernels have don't exist in Mach. It's too big and does too many things. The OSX kernel does even more and is even less "micro".
Member since:
2005-08-17
In the old days that may have been true but now it is actually the opposite.
OSX is a UNIX based Operating System using the Mach microkernel technology, which by the way is better in concept than most Linux and other Unices and Unix-Like OSes, AND designed from the ground up for multiprocessors/cores. OSX has attracted millions of programmers and scientists to the platform because of it's extreme power, not only because of it's extremely advanced technology but also because of its open source abilities and support, fantastic GUI, and UNIX nature.
As to the Intel issue, Apple is not, I repeat NOT in bed with Intel. Apple could use any chip it wants to and switch without much difficulty since extreme platform neutrality is built in OSX AND the Mach kernel. It's not the hardware that is most important here, it's the OS and the software that runs on it.
What makes a Macintosh a Macintosh is the whole machine (software AND hardware) and not wether Intel makes the chips or AMD or IBM, simple, as that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_kernel