Apple go x86!!!!!

[System]

Apple today confirmed that by June 6, 2006, they'll be offering OSX on both the x86 and PPC.

macworld.com

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the keynote stage of this week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco, Calif., wearing his customary black turtleneck.

"Good morning, thank you," Jobs said to the crowd, who greeted him with warm applause. "Today is an important day. We've got some great stuff for you today."

Big numbers

Jobs said that WWDC 2005 is the largest gathering in the last decade of Apple developers -- more than 3,800 attendees are present this week from 45 countries, including dozens from China and India. More than 500 Apple engineers have trekked into San Francisco this week to offer on-site help to those developers as well.

"The number that blows my mind, we've got more than half a million Developer Connection members. The development community at Apple is thriving," said Jobs.

Likewise, Apple's retail stores are pulling in impressive numbers, according to Jobs. With 109 stores open around the world, Apple is seeing more than 1 million visitors per week, he said, and has sold more than half a billion dollars in third-party products this past year.

"The iPod has really entered popular culture in America. You know that when you get on the cover of the New Yorker," Jobs said. By the end of its last fiscal quarter, Apple had sold a cumulative total of 16 million iPods, he added, and had 76 percent market share. "So we're thrilled with that."

What's more, Jobs said that Apple's iTunes Music Store has sold and had downloaded more than 430 million songs. "We've had a lot of competition, and what's happened? Our market share's gone up," said Jobs. "It's now 82 percent in the month of May."

Podcasting comes to iTunes

Jobs turned his focus to podcasting, which he described as "TiVo for radio" and "Wayne's World for radio." "We see it as the hottest thing going in radio." And as he had previously mentioned, Jobs said that iTunes will now support podcasting directly.

"We're building a podcast directory in the iTunes Music Store," he explained. Jobs demonstrated by navigating the itunes Music Store, clicking on a podcast link, which then displayed a directory of podcasts. Clicking on famed podcaster Adam Curry's name presented a hierarchical list of podcasts, and Jobs then subscribed and listened to a short segment.

"We're thinnk it's going to basically take podcasting mainstream, to where anyone can do it," said Jobs, who also noted that Apple would get into the game with its own "New Music Tuesdays" podcast.

Mac grows in leaps and bounds

Jobs also lauded the Mac's recent performance, compared to the rest of the computer industry. Apple has seen year over year growth in the Mac business unit for the past five quarters. "So last quarter, the Mac grew at over three times the rate of the rest of the industry," he told attendees.

Tiger has been a huge success, Jobs added. "I'm really pleased to report to you, that this week we will deliver, copies sold through retail, maintenance, and shipped on Macs, the two millionth copy of Tiger," said Jobs. "Remember, it's been about six weeks [since Tiger's release]. This is the most successful OS release ever."

Of the 2 million users of Tiger already represent 16 percent of Apple's entire Mac OS X user base. Forty-nine percent of Mac OS X users are running Panther, and 25 percent of Mac OS X users are still running Jaguar. The remainder are "laggards on early versions of Mac OS X," according to Jobs.

Leopard

Apple's next major operating system release will be called Leopard, said Jobs. "We're not going to be focusing on it today, but we intend to release Leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007, right about the time Microsoft expects to release Longhorn," he said.

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.

Apple needs developers' help to complete the transition

"We are very far along on this, but we're not done," said Jobs. "Which is why we're going to put it in your hands very soon, so you can help us finish it."

The future of Mac OS X development is moving to Xcode, said Jobs. Of Apple's top 100 developers, more than half -- 56 percent -- are already using Xcode, and 25 percent are in the process of switching to Xcode. "Less than 20 percent are not on board yet. Now is a good time to get on board," said Jobs.

Apple press release:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.html

Quick transscript of the wwdc2005 keynote speech:
http://live.macobserver.com/article/2005/06/wwdc2005_keynote.shtml

[JKD]

Pretty misleading intro statement there....since they are offering Intel based Apple Macs...not OSX on vanilla x86.

A world of difference...one Jobs must be hoping Apple can still retain some of it's healthy margin on :-D

[Dragster]

So, what's the future of PowerPC processors in the desktop computer market? Does this mean the dead of the PPC procesors for such systems, like the AmigaOne and next generation Amiga computers? Does it mean PPC processors will go even more expensive and will eventually stop from being produced?

It doesn't look like good news for the 'new-next-gen' Amiga platform.

:-(

[Argo]

Hmm, well, they finally did it. Though I suspect alot of non-mac users were abit disappointed that Macs will still be highly controlled hardware even if it made mostly of off the shelf components. Meaning no MacOS X on just any x86 hardware.
I wonder what affect this will have on PPC.

My favorite comment from Slashdot on this story:
"I felt something, a disturbance in the network, as if a million mac zealots cried out in horror and were suddenly silenced"

[jutrem]

This is a well timed win for Intel. They had to "answer back " because IBM/Power PC has been getting all the attention recently. Apple (Jobs) did not like the fact that they would not be IBM's top PPC customer anymore.They would be 4'th to 5'th after IBM, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo. Intel will be losing IBM x86 business during the same 2006-7 period that Apple will ship Intel systems(I know Leveno will still be around, but no IBM name). Apple actually hindered PPC adoption and development by
- ending Mac clones.
- artificially inflating hardware prices. They were getting G4/G5 for the same prices as comparable Intel P4 models.
- OS X/Mac OS was seen as the only OS solution. OS X is great, but now there other PPC OS options. Microsoft has been keeping up Windows on PPC just like Apple kept OS X on Intel up to date. Other OS:Linux, Amiga OS4, MorphOS etc.
- Absorbing most of the high end PPC CPU production.

 Apple represented the PPC to the general public.  Their branding and unique case designs will help them survive on x86. The OS will not be affected. When I saw Windows NT demoed in ~1995 on similar PPC and Pentium systems it visually looked the same. It worked the same and ran the same programs. You had to be told what CPU was in the case. They both looked like clone PC's.

The desktop is important for marketing. Users know what CPU is in their desktop PC, not what CPU is the Server their connected to, or what CPU is in their game console/set top box. The PPC market is stronger now, then last year when Apple and IBM were the only major players. The quickest way for PPC to get back on the desktop is the availability of systemboards and CPU's to the public. IBM has to lead/help here. They have Power/PPC systemboards(yes I work with their servers). Eyetech and Genesi have the right idea but not the budget to make it affordable. They also don't have the name to stand behind.

[DanDude]

I lost my trust in the reliability of Intel.  Always breaking down--even my motherboard lasts longer than Intel.

[Plaz]

Interesting news. IBM AIX begins supporting PPC, Mac goes Intel..... How will this effect the availability of PPC for future Amigas? I'm as lost as ever, and don't bother trying to explain. That's been tried ever since CBM first filed bankruptcy :-? Maybe this is a play by Apple to force motorola PPC developement to go the way Apple wants, and not some other way.

Plaz

[adolescent]

IBM AIX begins supporting PPC, Mac goes Intel.....

Huh?  AIX has supported the POWER architecture since the beginning.  So nothing new here.

As for how it will affect the Amiga, I don't think it will at all.

[adolescent]

The quickest way for PPC to get back on the desktop is the availability of systemboards and CPU's to the public. IBM has to lead/help here. They have Power/PPC systemboards(yes I work with their servers).

IBM has all but abandoned the desktop market with the sale of it's PC business last year.  IBM survives by innovation and selling services, not marketing low margin commodities like PCs, hard drives, etc.

[Magic-Merl]

To break this down to it's basics.  We will have some amazingly good looking PC's in over the next 2 years.

Maybe the hardware will be worth the money which we pay for it,

Another point - We have not seen the end of the PowerPC.  The Xbox 360 uses the processor.  Not only that but maybe Jobs saw this as a move, by Microsoft, to move silently into Mac territory.  Jobs is simply fighting back by unleasing and unbinding his OS to the hardware.

[keropi]

That's good news

[Pyromania]

Apple is doing this because P is further down the alphabet then G. Also, 7 is higher than 5. Thus they are able to jump from a G5 all the way to a P7 (Pentium 786), P + 7 is  further down the line thus a big boost in performance. Also they will not loose their PPC because of the following mathematical formula.

Dual core Pentium or two P's (PP) and still works with x86 Cisc (C)= PP + C=PPC

Got it everyone?

[Magic-Merl]

Nice one.

[Emufreak]

I don't know what to think. But it's very exciting.  What's next? Windows goes PPC :-o

[AmigaPapst]

Oh my god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-( :-( :-(
Amen.