It's true! Apple go x86!!!! :-o

Live macworld.com feed

The rumors are true: Intel will be inside

Jobs talked about the major transitions in the Mac's life -- starting from the Mac's Motorola 68000-series processor to PowerPC. "The PowerPC set Apple up fro the next decade. It was a good move," he said.

"The second transition was even better -- the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X that we just did," he continued. "This was a brain transplant. And even though these operating systems (9 and x) vary only by one in name, they are very different, and this has set Apple up for the next 20 years."

As the Intel logo lowered on the stage screen, Jobs said, "We are going to make the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors, and we are going to do it for you now, and for our customers next year. Why? Because we want to be making the best computer for our customers looking forward."

"I stood up here two years ago and promised you 3.0 GHz. I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you," said Jobs. "But as we look ahead, and though we've got great products now, and great PowerPC products still to come, we can envision great products we want to build, and we can't envision how to build them with the current PowerPC roadmap," said Jobs.

Intel processors provide more performance per watt than PowerPC processors do, said Jobs. "When we look at future roadmaps, mid-2006 and beyond, we see PoweRPC gives us 15 units of perfomance per watt, but Intel's roadmap gives us 70. And so this tells us what we have to do," he explained.

Transition to Intel by 2007, and yes, Marklar exists

"Starting next year, we will introduce Macs with Intel processors," said Jobs. "This time next year, we plan to ship Macs with Intel processors. In two years, our plan is that the transition will be mostly complete, and will be complete by end of 2007."

Jobs then confirmed a long-held belief that Apple was working on an Intel-compatible version of Mac OS X that some have termed "Marklar."

Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years."

Jobs demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4-processor equipped system, running a build of Mac OS X v10.4.1. He showed Dashboard widgets, Spotlight, iCal, Apple's Mail, Safari and iPhoto all working on the Intel-based system.

@Self

Bye bye OS4, bye bye MorphOS.

Hello AROS?

[Piru]

apple pressrelease

[lorddef]

So does this mean that the G4 chip I've been looking to get for my beige G3 will be cheaper now  :lol:

Dam I'm such a c*nt!

lorddef wrote:
So does this mean that the G4 chip I've been looking to get for my beige G3 will be cheaper now  :lol:

Dam I'm such a c*nt!

Second hand G4 laptops will be cheap on ebay in the next few days methinks!

[odin]

Mmmmmmm

Cheap Apple laptops....yum.

[bloodline]

mdma wrote:

lorddef wrote:
So does this mean that the G4 chip I've been looking to get for my beige G3 will be cheaper now  :lol:

Dam I'm such a c*nt!

Second hand G4 laptops will be cheap on ebay in the next few days methinks!

I likes the sound of that!

[Karlos]

Meanwhile, behind the stage, the intel bunny, still disfigured from the burns inflicted in apple's old advert was taking an effigy of Jobs from behind shouting "Who own's ye now, eh?" :lol:

[glitch]

Jobs is a freaking idiot.  Nobody is going to buy any Macs for the next year.  He easily just lost half of his loyal fanbase.  He banked on the fact that Apple is cash rich for the first time in a long time to leverage such a risk.   I give it about 6 weeks before someone finds an openfirmware workaround for current PC bioses, and OS X is running under Windows or something.  Moron.

Anyone want to buy a Mac mini?

-G

[Insanity]

Here's the Intel press-release.
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20050606corp.htm


Does anybody have any idea of the number of lost devs during the last arcitectural change apple did (68k->PPC)?



Do note that even I as a PC-guy(in the sence that I am using an a64 for my daily doings) thinks this is a bad bad bad idea.  Monopoly is never good. The PPC970 is a vastly great processor, the flip side is that GCC still cannot use Altivec on more than 10 % of the code (don't hang me over the numbers, just correct me will ya?). All in all it means that much of its potential is for naught.

Read here for an architectural review of the PPC970. http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436

[Doobrey]

glitch wrote:
Jobs is a freaking idiot.  Nobody is going to buy any Macs for the next year.  He easily just lost half of his loyal fanbase.

Maybe even longer than that.
Why didn't they switch to Intel when OSX came out ?
All their happy users upgrading to OSX, paying for new/updated software to run on it, only to be told that they'll have to do it all again in a couple of years as PPC software dries up.
 I'd love to be there when Jobs realises there's a limit to how much you can push your customers.
 
Great, there's a PPC emulator for the Intel boxes, but whats the point in buying a faster mac if it runs all your existing software at the speed of your old one? ..at least with OS4/MorphOS the 68k code ran faster.

Universal Binaries ?? WTF, great idea Steve,I always thought PPC binaries were too small and needed padding out with useless junk :pissed:
Is having to create 2 separate archives too much hassle for developers?

Ah well, I've only just started coding on the mac, but I'll be buggered if I'm gonna buy another one next year just to test my stuff on.

[x56h34]

Since we are rolling out bad jokes, here's another one:

It seems that Eyetech and Bplan have finally forced Apple out of the PPC market due to stiff competition. Jobs was forced to switch. :-)

[nagaflas]

mdma wrote:
@Self

Bye bye OS4, bye bye MorphOS.

Hello AROS?

Looks to be the case. Without Apple's commitment to the PPC, we may as well consider it dead, because they will never make enough Morph boxes to sustain the Power PC.

[lorddef]

@bloodline

I may join you in the switch to a g4  :lol:

[glitch]

I would LOVE it if IBM came in right now and bought out Apple.  They turfed their PC business to Lenovo, now they could have their own MacOS running in their own PPC chips.  They tried to do this with OS/2 but this time their takeover target would already be established...  I had heard about this a few months ago, but it also fell under the "yeah right" category.  I feel as sick today as when CBM went under...

-G