The lack of software was mostly a fallacy, but in this case, Apple's Intel Macs really do have such a problem.

Self-fulfilling prophesy does come true.

Sheesh... give the developers some time. Remember back in the day when you had System 6 stuff that may or may not have worked under System 7?

Or how about 68000 level code that may or may not have worked under the 'new' PowerPC chip?

Let's not put the cart before the horse (power). It'll be worth it in the end when no Rosetta code will be necessary and the apps will be MUCH faster and more stable.

Cheers!

Most applications will run faster under emulation than on the previous iMac's. There are exceptions like Photoshop etc.. which are heavily dependant on CPU specific optimizations (altivec), but for the most part most users should not notice the difference.

Sheesh... give the developers some time. Remember back in the day when you had System 6 stuff that may or may not have worked under System 7?

Or how about 68000 level code that may or may not have worked under the 'new' PowerPC chip?

Let's not put the cart before the horse (power). It'll be worth it in the end when no Rosetta code will be necessary and the apps will be MUCH faster and more stable.

Yeah, why should we learn from previous problems when we can enjoy them again and again!

Oh, and to hope NO apps will need rosetta may be more pipe dream then reality. There's going to be a lot of software that may stay PPC for a while because of the effort involved in migrating (esp. if the code isn't written in xcode), plus software that may never get updated because the developer doesn't see the need/want/desire (the "Rosetta is good enough, why do I need to make more work for myself" syndrome - the same concern people have with windows programs no longer being ported because win apps can run on intel macs one way or another).

BTW, OS 6 code that didn't work under OS 7 was basically poorly written shlock where the developers were s******* around with memory addresses in a way to save memory (they weren't 32-bit clean - which, BTW, Apple's code generally wasn't, including the ROMs on a couple of early 32-bit macs). Generally, System 6 code worked in 7 with no problems.

As for the PPC conversion, that's probably not the example you wanted to use, since a boatload of OS 9 code is still 680x0 code being emulated (oddly, being emulated in OS X through classic and then through the 680x0 emulator).

And I think if you ask people who went through these transistions, many of them would probably tell you that the end result didn't warrant the early headaches.

Testudo, you are one of those "cup half empty" guys aren't you...

I have hope. I'll find a positive post from you someday. And when I find it, I'm going to point and say, "Ah HA!"

:)

From what I have read Rosetta runs things at about 1/2 as fast as they ran on the similar G5 equipped unit. My guess is that is still a whole lot faster than my 667 G4 Powerbook, or as fast as my Dual 1GHZ G4 tower. At these speeds how could Photoshop be unusable since I use it at these speeds every day now?

Has your current computer stopped working because there is an Intel CoreDuo in an iMac? Did your current software stop working on your PPC computer? You can still buy G5 iMac in addition to the CoreDuo iMacs. PowerBooks are still shipping even though the MacBook Pros were announced. PowerMacs are still available with Dual Dual core 2.5 GHz G5 if you need them. Nothing has changed except we have options in addition to PPC. People don't make lateral moves when purchasing new computers. People who are purchasing CoreDuo iMacs are upgrading from three and four year old systems. They will immediately notice an increase of power and an ever greater increase when Universal Binaries of their favorite apps are released.

I bet testudo isn't going to rush right out and buy G4 PowerBook. This switch to Intel was necessary if we were ever going to see an updated PowerBook any time soon. Or we could have waited (and waited, and waited) for the dual core from Freescale. Some people don't like change. testudo is one of them.

Actually, I recently just bought two macs last year with the sole reason of being backward compatible, before Apple went nuts and decided to start dropping support left and right. And a good move, too, as the iMac was updated a lot sooner then most people surmised.

"And a good move, too, as the iMac was updated a lot sooner then most people surmised"

And they still have iMac G5's available for sale. So what exactly was the "good move?" Seems to me that people fail to see that the PPC systems *are* still available along with the newly announced MacIntel systems. Like a previous poster mentioned, *NOTHING* has changed, except for the fact we have two new choices.

And by the way, as far as workstations go, the Dual Core G5 is still a speed/throughput monster even compared with these newer Intel chips. Only thing is, they run very hot and will never make it into any other product other than the PowerMac.