Jeeze, I should check my posts before sending them. Sorry for the horrible spelling and grammar. Hopefully you get the point! :)

..Of course I understand, are you trying to say that the decision to go with the G5 was made a couple of months before its launch?

No, the decision was made far in advance of that, the crazy thing is that the NeXT OS was running perfectly on x86 architecture when they bought it. They've spent years "Thinking Different" and look where it's got them, into another quagmire.

Far from me not understanding perhaps you need to remove those rose tinted specatacles, Apple made the wrong shout again.

.. I couldn't care less what chip it runs on, the only reason I use a Mac is because the user experience of the OS is far in excess of anything else out there. As I say Apple are in a league of their own when it comes to software but I still stand by my comments that they suck at hardware and by that I don't mean aesthetically which again they excel at, I mean technologically.

NeXT's OS may have run on x86 hardware back in 1997, but that OS and the modern Mac OS X are completely different beasts...

There has been, and continue to be a dependence on PowerPC code on the Mac OS platform... classic, carbon, cocoa.. no matter... it all compiles down to PowerPC binaries in the end.

You make it sound like it was an arbitrary decision to choose PowerPC over x86... wrong. You have no idea of the implications, going back more than a decade that are tied in with PowerPC. Back in 1997, there was a HUGE amount of legacy applications running on the old Mac OS designed for PowerPC hardware. To top that off, you have an installed base of millions of PowerPC macs...

How would you have handled this transition from classic Mac OS to OS X differently? Apple isn't being stubborn... they're being realistic wrt to their installed base, and the vast investment that they've made of PowerPC compiled software...

I assert this... if in 1997 Apple had decided to switch to x86 processors when they bought NeXT (and don't go blaming Steve Jobs for stubbornness... he CAME from NeXT remember?) and tried to release x86 Macs along with Mac OS X, Apple would have went belly up a long time ago. You'd abandon consumers with years of incompatible software and hardware... and you'd abandon developers too.

Think before you speak... no matter how you cut it, Apple CANNOT transition to x86 from PowerPC... not in the past 15 years, not in the future decade in the very least... not with abandoning a huge user base...

In the future 64 bit PowerPCs courtesy of IBM will still be competitive with Intel's offerings, if not best them. Don't let small setbacks like IBM's slight manufacturing hiccup with the G5 turn you so negative... heck... look at Intel and their manufacturing of 90 nm Prescott chips. Everyone is having trouble with the next generation of chips.

Apple excels had hardware technology. First computer company to do wireless networking for the masses, Apple, first consumer computer company offering 64bit computing, Apple, first company to introduce wide screen form to laptops, Apple, first company to develope fully functional "thin" laptops. As far as speed goes, I find my 1.25 15 PowerBook blows the doors off my 2.66 Pentium 4 Shuttle at work, both have a gig of ram. I look at PC notebooks, I mean come on, bulky, that is tech that allows for a small form factor. As one of the posters above stated, don't let the IBM hicup throw you.

when did MacNN become a rumor site?

..had to port the NeXT x86 code to PowerPC binaries and then essentially emulate Classic - which incidently didn't exactly set the World alight in speed terms - so why not just emulate Classic on x86. You must forgive me, I'm by no stretch of the imagination expert on the subject so I'm more than willing to accept factual truths as to why this is not feasible.

Sorry to sound like I'm being negative here but I'm looking at 8 months since an upgrade to the top of the range PPC, Powerbooks getting yet another tiny speed upgrade using what if people are honest is a dead processor, iMac's.. I can't think of anything to say here that is constructive so I'll keep quiet.. let's be honest we're not talking $750 machines here, we're talking minimum $1500, if we had significant price reductions perhaps we could look and say well things are in the duldrums but at least the prices reflect that, I can't help feeling that Apple is letting the users pay for their management failures.

I remember reading John Sculley's autobiography and in it he loosely says that when he arrived at Apple, Steve Jobs was a loose cannon flitting from idea to idea without any real focus, he says that beneath the surface the company was in a bad shape and I can't help feeling that this is what's happening at the moment, no one is steering the ship at Apple. Be honest, other than iPod can you see anything positive coming out of Apple at the moment.

"Sorry boys, you should have gone with AMD"

Talk about turds. That's one huge t*** of an idea.

So, let me get this straight. 4 years after making every software maker rewrite their code for OS X, you want Steve to go them AGAIN and say "Ok folks. New processsor. You now have to rewrite your programs AGAIN. Surprise!"

Good thing your advice is limited to MacNN boards. If you were working for Apple this would be an absolute disaster (technologically and PR).

Yep, a fool 365 days a year. You PC whiner-trolls come here to spend your time?
Fuggin' funny. The epitome of loser.
I'll take my "polished t***" any day over your idea of a personal computer. I laugh at all you DULL guys. $399. Buys a sweet piece of s***. Go play your WMV files on your DULL DJ - LMAO!

SB

for you.

This is what you would hear from SJ if you brought up that stupid idea at a board meeting.

You're Fired! :D

So, let me get this straight. 4 years after making every software maker rewrite their code for OS X, you want Steve to go them AGAIN and say "Ok folks. New processsor. You now have to rewrite your programs AGAIN. Surprise!"

No, it's too late now, 8 years ago though they should have started to think about moving to x86 architecture. Apple have never grown their market because they've always used niche hardware, the clones where a disaster for one reason, they let anyone go after their already tiny market, it was the lamest decision ever and nearly killed Apple. Now then Apple on x86 would be a different story, it would have meant that they were competing in Microsofts market and are you telling me that Apple with OSX would have failed against the pile of shite that is Windows and Linux?

slboett, I think it's way past your bed time.. leave the grown ups to have a chat..

Classic essentially acts as bridge of older APIs on top of a modern one, but still running on PowerPC hardware. It ran slower because there was a little bit more overhead, but it definitely was not emulation at the instruction level...

Emulation is software running on a particular architecture translating the instruction code of applications. In the case of Virtual PC, it takes x86 instructions and translates them into PowerPC instructions on the fly. To the client system, it appears that the virtual processor is x86...

This is not what happens in Classic. classic code ( at least all code in the past decade ) has been PowerPC code. There is no translation of powerpc instructions going on here... Classic applications run at probably about 90% of their performance in the OS X environment than in OS 9 because there is overhead in terms of other processes running at the same time as the classic ones that don't run when you're booted up in OS 9...

Apple has made some mistakes in the past, and continue to, most notably in the area of pricing and marketing, but in regard to actual engineering and their suite of technologies, they are not as bad off as you describe. Not being an expert in this area, it may be easy for you to trivialize things like emulation and instruction sets... its in no means trivial... you're talking tens of thousands of man hours just for Apple and millions of man hours for developers to transition needlessly to x86...

Again you imply that if Apple transitioned to x86 when they went to OS X that they would have been better off... I disagree. They would have just continued to marginalize themselves. Instead of embracing an already strong and faithful user base, switching to x86 would put them on NO ONEs good sides... suddenly 100% of existing mac hardware in 1997 would be useless...

Once again, no matter how you spin it, you could not have done things differently for the better... otherwise why aren't you CEO?

The whole thing of switching to x86 is frustrating to me because in the end its NOT about the technology. x86 is a sloppy sloppy instruction set, and in many many ways except for just one ( ease of upclocking ) PowerPC is superior. No... the whole issue of switching to x86 is purely marketing based... its not about technology, its about perception, which as an engineer, seems quite silly. Analysts, pundits and forum junkies will always think its a good idea, but any level headed and informed individual will see the folly of it... it wasn't a good idea 8 years ago either... if you really want to go back, you have to go back to at least 1990 or earlier before i will admit it was a "good idea" and that it would have been feasible to transition to x86. Back in the early 90s and 80s when Apple had more influence, a switch to x86 would have been feasible, but not from that point forward.

As for your assertion that Apple has done no good since Steve Jobs came back, I completely disagree... Some of the finest Macs (and computers) ever created were put out in this period... Any number of the new age Powerbook G4s, for example...

You'd abandon consumers with years of incompatible software and hardware... and you'd abandon developers too.


Hey, wait, isn't that what happened with OS X!

Just had to get that in there. As for emulating classic on PPC, I believe a previous poster set that person right. Its one thing to make a virtual machine, its another where that machine has to emulate a whole other code base is something else. This is why VPC running on a PC is a lot more usable than it is on a Mac. It doesn't have to emulate the machine code, it just passes it on to the processor.

The only time going to AMD would have been doable was when they switched to PPC in the first place, 1994. Because they actually did go to another chip at that point.

Do you really think Apple abandoned all of their existing Mac OS developers, by providing Mac OS X with both a Classic environment to run existing applications and an Carbon API that not only remained mostly compatible with existing Mac OS toolbox code, but also provided the option to create one binary to run on two disparate operating systems?

Anyway, x86 was a non starter from the start. The only reason people want x86 is so that they can use their existing hardware, which means tons of driver development for Apple, not to mention having to support antiquated system bus architectures. Not very attractive from Apple's point of view.

If Apple went x86, they'd have designed their own systems, with a completely different architecture that happened to use the x86 processor. In the end, the cost would be little different than for PowerPC. In other words, there'd be no benefit.

And don't give me any CPU speed arguments. I use a PowerBook G4 and a Windows XP PC everyday. They are both about the same vintage (800 MHz G4, 1.8 GHz P4), and there is no comparison. I don't understand why people insist that PCs are faster; my PC has very slow filesystem access, and I can *watch* the window/desktop contents redraw as I resize windows or move them around. This is not to mention that I can't even *move* an application's window if it's busy updating things. Sure, the Mac might sometimes take a second or two to re-layout a window, but at least it's usually a complete rendering when it draws on the screen!

What good is a fast CPU if the user interface can't even keep up with it?

The way MacOS X is designed, it is like Unix or Linux -- it's PORTABLE.

Everything sits on top of the BSD layer with the Mach kernel (Darwin), which is already running on X86 for free if you want to download it.

Carbon, Cocoa, Aqua, the display kit, quicktime -- everything is portable.

This means all you'd have to do to switch to X86 is RECOMPILE.

Remember "fat binaries"? They were programs that were written for System 7 which contained the biaries for both the Motorola 68000-series chips and the first PowerPC chips.

That is exactly the same thing that would be required for an X86 switchover.

1. They should drop the iMacs. Keep only the eMacs and a headless eMac as their consumer desktops.

2. They should sell high-end G5 workstations with lots of power and lots of profit margin.

3. They should contract with IBM to sell extremely high-end blade servers with G5s

4. They should sell the OS for X86 for $300 a copy (much better than the profit margin on an iMac) or license almost free onto new X86 boxes. This would let other hardware vendors fight out the low end of the consumer space, where there isn't enough margin.

5. They should create good-looking, Apple-quality X86 boxes built for OS X, but that could run Windows. These would sell at a premium, but would be worth it.

Anyone who has MacOS 9 applications that still need to be run could buy a PPC Mac and run the apps under Classic (which wouldn't run in a recompiled OS X on X86).

Anyone else could choose between any hardware vendor they want for X86 stuff, or Apple for PPC stuff.

Poke holes in this -- seriously. I want to hear feedback.

This is what I would do, were I Steve Jobs right now. The timetable would be a little spread out, but this would be my plan.

The problem with Apple is they build c***. For a company that has control of the whole process from hardware to software and charges a premium for the hardware it should be flawless. I am a repair technician in a large government environment that has about 75% PC and 25% Macintosh. It saddens me that over 50% of the hardware that breaks are Macs. To top it off Apple usually sends us parts that don’t work any better then the one we took out of the machine. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 times to get a part that works. Apple makes a great OS but they need to step it up with the hardware otherwise not even loyal fan base can save them.

good ideas in general...

the problem with OS X for X86 is going to be plug n' play, reliability, and other issues like that. Since there are so many different possible hardware configurations that would exist once you put an X86 proc in a box, the seamless nature of using an Apple OS would be compromised.

The biggest advantage that allows for Apple's great reliability right now (and for dstark93, your experience would seem to be an anomoly, compared to my experience working in tech support at various multiplatform locations for many years now... i've always found that Macs are more reliable for a longer period of time...) is the fact that they are a closed system, hardware-wise. They build the OS to work with specific hardware, they know that there is only so much hardware on the market that can be installed on a Mac, and due to their great adoption of standards like USB, Firewire, 802.11b/g, IDE, etc, they can pretty much guarantee that there wont be hardware conflicts or driver issues.

So, that, IMO is going to be the biggest problem with your specific ideas on the adoption of an X86 based platform.

Your point 5 would negate these problems since Apple would still retain control over the hardware involved. Of course, you would lose the Classic environment (which, in the next couple years, i think, wouldnt be that big of a deal... i think that most people who are running X are pretty much transitioned over to either carbon or native X apps.) But you also mention that it would cost a premium... so, ya gotta wonder what it's actual place in the market would be... Apple's hardware is already considered expensive (in general, despite the fact that performance wise, it is pretty competitive if you stack it up against an equivelent X86 box), so why would people buy it? If there was an X86 version of OS X, they would just get that, and make it work on the boxes that they would get themselves... either building their own (and running into possible driver issues), or installing it onto other manufacturer's machines...

So i dunno... good ideas, but i think there would be a significant number of problems that would manifest...

and that doesnt even get into 3rd party software... but that has already been addressed....

Apple is not a software company. They are a hardware company. You will *NOT* see OS X running on commodity PC hardware. It is possible that they will run on x86 architecture in the future (and damn unlikely), but it would still be proprietary.

How are they not a software company?

Yeah, they make alot of great hardware, but they also make a pretty significant amount of software...

I mean, come on... OS X and its variants, Final Cut Pro, Quicktime, safari, all of the iApps, appleworks (not one of the strongest examples), keynote, dvd studio pro, logic, shake, etc etc etc...

i agree with you, though, that we will see OS X running on X86 hardware... at least anytime in the forseeable future. i think apple needs to focus on its own commitments to its own, well developed and integrated architecture, and POSSIBLY in the future there may be an opportunity to release an X86 compatible version of its OS to the world... but only when that move would not mean that there would be a resultant drop in PPC based hardware sales...

it's a tough position for them to be in. there is alot of money to be made in the x86 world, but not yet...

The fact that the new eMac is so similar in spec to a 17" iMac, albeit crt vs lcd screens, suggests to me that Apple would have to make the next speed bump quite a big one. Maybe 1.6 - 1.8 GHZ even. At these speed the obvious choice of processor must be a G5. The existing G5's will get a speed bump too, and use new processors and the new iMac will use the old ones. You know it makes sense.

"it's a tough position for them to be in. there is alot of money to be made in the x86 world, but not yet..."

This is my biggest fear, I may be wrong but from my observations and from comments coming out of Apple, a significant number of developers are switching to the Mac as their platform of choice which is a positive thing and a opens up significant new market for Apple. The problem is that over it's shoulder is Linux in its various guises running on x86 which gives it 90%+ of the market to go for. Now admittedly at the moment Linux is to say the least a chaotic mess but more and more big names are jumping on the bandwagon.. IBM, Novell, HP to name just a few along with muttering from Adobe and Macromedia that they are looking at porting apps to the platform.

If the Linux camp get their act together and start agreeing on standards then it's only a matter of time before Apple's already shrinking market comes under further pressure. Apples new found market will have a cheaper hardware platform to work on which gives them everything that OSX does but at significantly reduced cost. They already have half of the equation, i.e a Unix core, all they need now is a pretty UI and some big name developers releasing products and I fear that Apple will have big problems.

Perhaps it's too late now but I feel that there has never been a greater opportunity for Apple to go after true growth. Microsoft has never been so vulnerable and while the Linux camp are going after them, Apple is releasing music players. Yeah iPods are great for getting column inches but it's a very short term approach to business.

I think Steve Jobs is an extremely charismatic person, I look forward to watching him give his keynotes etc.. he's obviously passionate about Apple, thing is I just can't help thinking he's has lousy strategic business mind, I just hope I'm wrong.

"No, it's too late now, 8 years ago though they should have started to think about moving to x86 architecture. "

If you think that decision had to be made 8 years ago, then you can not blame Steve Jobs for not making it because 8 years ago was before he returned to Apple.

However, I believe a decision to switch Mac hardware to x86 would have been a huge mistake at ANY point in the past and it would be absolutely absurd for Apple to ever make such a change in the future. x86 is inferior technology. PPC is better in so many ways. It would be stupid for Apple to spend millions in R&D to make the change to slower Mac systems.

You have to remember that it is not just a matter of whether or not the G5 is faster, but also about how the software is written. Apple has spent years optimizing OS X for the PPC architecture; every time that they have released a new version of OS X, it has been faster than the previous version. Even if there were a viable x86 processor that is faster than the G5 today, it would not be able to run OS X as well because of the level of PPC optimization in the code. Although Apple can compile OS X for an x86 chipset, it would take years to re-optimize the code for x86 to the same level that it has already been optimized for PPC. Then at that point, it would come down to which CPU was the fastest, but by that time we would have G6 processors and an even more highly PPC optimized version of OS X with distributive processing capabilities.


Apple should definitely develop and release a version of OS X for x86 hardware, but NOT as a replacement for the PPC version and NOT for some proprietary x86 based Apple computer. There is no point in trying to migrate PPC Mac users over to an inferior hardware platform. The purpose would be to migrate x86 Windows and Linux PC users over to the superior PPC Mac platform. There are a lot of businesses and individuals out there who are kind of locked in to the x86 hardware that they have already purchased. In order to get them to switch to Macs, they have to be convinced to invest in all new hardware and all new software all at the same time. That is a hard sell when they already have thousands invested in their current x86 hardware and software. However, if Apple were able to offer them the ability to transition more gracefully over time, then that would be more compelling. Thus Apple should introduce an x86 version of OS X so that these x86 users can first migrate their software over to OS X and then later move up to the PPC hardware.

Some people might think that releasing an x86 version of OS X could hurt Apple's PPC Mac sales, but they would be wrong. Only stupid people would go out to buy an x86 computer to run the x86 version of OS X instead of buying a PPC Mac with OS X. It would be impossible to buy an x86 PC and x86 OS X that would perform as well as an equivalently priced Mac. Right now yo

[my last post got truncated. here is the last paragraph in its entirety]
Some people might think that releasing an x86 version of OS X could hurt Apple's PPC Mac sales, but they would be wrong. Only stupid people would go out to buy an x86 computer to run the x86 version of OS X instead of buying a PPC Mac with OS X. It would be impossible to buy an x86 PC and x86 OS X that would perform as well as an equivalently priced Mac. Right now you can buy a 1.2Ghz G4 eMac with OS X preinstalled along with several apps for $799; there is no way that you could get a low end x86 PC that could run OS X as well as that eMac. It is not just because the 1.2Ghz G4 is a better processor than what you will find in a low end x86 PC. It is not just because the ATI Radeon 9200 with 32MB dedicated video memory is better than whatever shared memory video chipset the x86 PC uses. Although these hardware differences obviously guarantee that the eMac will run OS X better than a low end x86 PC, they are not the only advantages that the eMac provides. Apple specifically optimizes the eMac and OS X to perform at maximum; with the x86 PC and OS X, there will be less optimization and potentially some hardware driver compatibility issues. The eMac comes ready to go straight out of the box; the consumer would have to buy the x86 PC and OS X separately and install it. Of course there is also the issue of software availability. Not only would the eMac come with more OS X apps preinstalled than the self-installed OS X for the x86, but also there would be a whole lot more PPC native OS X software than there would be x86 native OS X software. Under these circumstances, you can be sure that any fool who would buy an x86 PC to run OS X, instead of a real Mac, was never going to be buying a Mac in the first place and thus Apple would not be losing a hardware sale.

You can port the OS kernel to an x86 architecture but then who does the drivers? Apple can probably port the drivers for hardware it specifies but for all the x86 platform combinations, are the hardware owners going to create drivers for OS X? I don't think so. They already have Windows drivers so why would they. This was one of the problems that Linux faced. Fortunately, they have developers that are willing to create drivers for just about any piece of hardware. I don't think that Apple, with OS X, has that same type of following. It is true that porting an application to a different CPU would not be that difficult but when you start adding in any access to varied hardware this is a whole different ballgame.

I thank you for your support...

troll! "I" work for a large government agency in both pc and mac support and your numbers aren't even close pal. In fact there are more old macs that are more stable than brand new pc's. go way.

You keep going on and on about how x86 is an inferior technology to PPC. Would you mind telling us from an architecural standpoint, why x86 is inferior to PPC?

You kept mentioning things like the entire "hardware platform" comparing a Mac to a comparably priced PC. Honestly, you can't do that. Not all PCs at one price point are built the same. There are a lot of different PC manufacturers with different design ideals. For example, some will go with integrated hardware, others won't.

Finding a $799 PC built around good hardware to be comparable to that eMac wouldn't be difficult. You just wouldn't buy it from somebody like Gateway or HP. Even Dell would be a far better choice as they don't generally use integrated hardware all that much on desktops.

I pretty much dislike Dells with a passion, but Dell is good at making fairly well spec'ed computers at a good price point because of their business model. Here's one more than comparable to an eMac:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&kc=6V520&l=en&oc=D46SO&s=dhs
Take the video card upgrade to an FX5200 and you're still under $800.

You answer your own question in a way, if you port OSX to x86 your potential market goes from 3% to 95%+ and with it the number of potential developers grows massively. Unlike the clones where Apple let anyone come after their already tiny share of the market, Apple would be going after the competitions MASSIVE market.

If anyone needs proof of the potential look at the growth in iPod sales since Apple released iTunes for Windows, look at the popularity of sites doing OSX themes for XP. Perhaps I'm being naive but I just know that Apple would sell OSX for x86 by the boat load. Forget about drivers, that will sort itself out in the long term, Microsoft don't write third party drivers, that isn't the OS manufacturers problem, it's the hardware vendors decision to go after a potential market. Another option is that Apple could always release a reference specification. You just know that HP would license the OS from them for a start, HP have had it with Microsoft, they are desperate for a way out, infact it seems to me that everyone except Dell is.

Fortune favors the brave, if it kills Apple hardware sales does it really matter, fact is Apple doesn't make a profit from hardware anyway, if they didn't have $4 Billion in the bank and iPod they would be running at a loss.

"if you port OSX to x86 your potential market goes from 3% to 95%+ and with it the number of potential developers grows massively."

Developers don't develop for hardware, they develop for the operating system. Ask IBM what happened to OS/2. Moving to X86 hardware would only expand the market if Apple could get USERS to move to OS X. Unless the users switched in droves, the developers would stay where the users are--with Windows.

Your comments would suggest that you think OSX would not be able to compete with Windows, is that what you think?

I'm not saying this is a sure thing but I've been a Mac user since the late eighties, I worked for Apple in the nineties and for as long as I can remember Apple and its users have spoke about growing market share, the facts speak for themselves though, year on year Apples share of the market as actually shrunk in real terms.

Don't get me wrong, it's actually of no consequence to me if Apple have 1% or 100% of the market, as long as Apple continues to exist and produce great software for me to use. It just seems like a waste of a great opportunity with so many people disillusioned with Windows.

I for one am glad that new iBooks are coming out... I'm ready to pick one up as soon as they arrive!

To the folks talking x86 and Intel/AMD: you are really wasting your time...

but, as long as you're having fun.

:-)

Apple doesn't make a profit from hardware?

I think you've got this absolutely backward. Apple's primary source of profit is without a doubt their Macintosh computers. iPod may sell more units, but they also have smaller margins and cost less than the Macs...

Switching to x86 or putting out an x86 version of Mac OS will NOT solve the world of problems out their with Windows computers...

You're one of those poor fools who dreams of buying a copy of Mac OS X at your local CompUSA and installing it on you P4 3.4 ghz system instead of Windows... its not going to happen. Want to know why?

#1... you WON'T attract developers to the mac by switching to x86. You make it sound like the big boys like Microsoft, Adobe, and Macromedia are completely ignoring Mac OS X for PowerPC. That is furthest from the truth. The Mac has a substantial amount of brand name commercial software developed for it. When people talk about the dearth of software for Mac, they usually mean smaller developers and shareware type stuff (which is vastly different now, if you've ever visited Versiontracker, you'd know that there is much more Mac OS X freeware and shareware developed than ever)...

Lets take that a company like Adobe, which has become less close to apple recently... They develop a PPC version of Adobe Photoshop for OS X, as well as an x86 version for Windows.

Now i'm expecting that because you want all of this to run on x86 hardware, either that Apple designs or just any generic ones, that you are going to EXPECT some sort of windows compatibility layer.

If Apple starts selling an x86 version of Mac OS X, Adobe for example would be asked to completely rewrite their Mac version... but they won't rewrite it. instead they'll kill the mac version of Photoshop completely and just sell to Mac x86 users the Windows version and tell them to run it on the windows compatibility layer...

By switching to x86, Apple runs the risk of total abandonment from its base developers... not just smaller developers, but huge ones like Adobe, Microsoft ( wouldn't Microsoft be PEEVED that Apple is going after their Windows platform on x86??? they no longer have a strategic contract you know, and could pull Office support at any time )

#2... running Mac OS X will be nowhere as nice on your PC than on a Mac. Windows has stability problems in huge part because its a bloody awfully written OS, but because it has to support a variable base of hardware... the Mac OS is such a nicer experience because the hardware (namely Mac hardware) is better designed, of higher quality, than the average PC. The Mac experience isn't JUST from software... its about both hardware and software. You may hate your mac computer and think its the slowest thing on earth, but the stability of the OS comes from the fact that Apple designs them both... take away the hardware, and y

you know what... Mac OS X on Intel hardware will be much more unstable.

#3... selling operating systems. You in part seem to suggest that you want Apple to become a pure software company. It doesn't work that way for any... how could they possibly make up for the revenue and the profits that they make from selling ~800000 macs in a quarter by selling an OS? even if scores of PC users buy a copy of Mac OS, how would that offset the hardware revenue that Apple would have been making? Granted Apple wouldn't have to spend as much R&D and the production costs of the computer, but still, only one company in the world can make a profit on selling operating systems... and that company is Microsoft... and that's because the have extensive licensing. Apple's is a completely different model, and to try to change Apple into Microsoft's model would be a disgrace.

So you worked at Apple in the 90s... I don't suppose you worked as an engineer there? or what? marketing?

The hardware vs hardware and OS vs OS arguments are moot - you're thinking like PC folks, people!
Architecturally, Macs are built better. No contest, because that's what Apple do. The machines are consumer devices, like a refrigerator - not a bunch of cobbled together components, but properly designed, well-balanced machines. Quartz is a fine example of this. Some PCs I've seen are the equivalent of putting a porsche engine in a tractor, or vice versa.
As for OS vs OS - who cares? It's just an OS. The point is that with a Mac you get a consumable - it just works. It has a clean interface and does what you expect. x86/Windows machines are not consumables - they stem from the geeks who put these things together with a soldering iron with whatever was available (sure, that's how Jobs & Woz started but they'd move on a bit from 1984. Andrew Dell was still soldering parts in 1992).
It amazes me the number of mac users who know comparatively so little about computing. It's a tribute to the ease of use of these machines - they shouldn't HAVE to know about the machines. Poor old PC users HAVE to get to know about their machines, whether they like it or not.
Bottom line: they're aiming at different markets. Sure there's significant overlap, but they're focussed in different directions. And long may it stay that way.

You asked whether or not Mac OS X can compete with Windows.

The answer is a resounding NO.

The problem isn't the quality of the OS... the Mac OS is much better designed that Windows... the problem is that Microsoft has made it so that absolutely no one could compete with them in the OS space...

Do you think that Microsoft makes most of their profits related to Windows by selling copies of Windows XP? I go into a Staples sometimes and i see a dusty copy of Windows XP Home and Professional for a few hundred dollars... it doesn't seem to be flying off the shelves.

Microsoft makes money from windows because they license it. Dell installs Windows on all their systems because they have a contract with Microsoft. So does HP, so does etc... In order to compete with Microsoft and make a business out of it, Apple has to sign contracts with each of those developers....

Contrary to what you say, HP won't be the first to switch. Why do you think that? HP would further shrink their marketshare by installing a default OS that won't run Windows applications 100% compatible...

If HP were truly unhappy with Windows and wanted out, why not start installing linux?

Linux is a good model here... they basically exist exactly in the space that you want Mac OS to exist... a Windows competitor on x86. Linux has the added juiciness that it is FREE... but look... how many of the major PC makers sell Linux desktop machines?!

And the Mac OS for x86... Apple will be spending a pretty penny to develop this... and so they CAN'T make it free as linux.... they'll have to charge.

So what will you have? you'll have Mac OS for x86... charging money per license... Linux for free, or Windows, the old mainstay... If Linux couldn't take a huge chunk out of the Windows marketshare, why do you think mac OS x will?

If anything, a Mac OS X on x86 will appeal to Linux geeks on x86... and you might even see OS X take away more marketshare from Linux... but against Windows, NO.

Face it. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. There are hundreds of technical problems as well as other problems like actually making a profit...

and another thing... do you seriously think that apple is prepared to handle from a support point of view the thousands upon thousands of incompatiblities that they'll run into? people installing Mac OS on ancient systems, etc...

And just to give you another shot across the bow...
Mac OS for x86 will not be compatible with ANY of today's mac software out there... and there is LOTS. www.versiontracker.com. ALL developers will have to at the very least recompile their programs...

You guys are wasting your time talking about porting OS X over.. hahahahahahahaha.

It will never happen.

Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. Users who fall in love with the OS must purchase their hardware. Plain and simple.

Now whether you think Apple should get out of the hardware business and go strictly software is a different discussion.

I am not sure at all what this has to do with new powerbooks and ibooks though. Are you guys blind? There is a forum here....

Chabig wrote: "Developers don't develop for hardware"

You are not a developer, are you?

"You PC whiner-trolls come here to spend your time?"

Only an insecure and self-persecuting Mac using idiot (yes, there are some Mac users who are idiots out there) would believe that anything that is not 100% pro-Apple that is uttered here must be by from a PC user who is soooo bored that he/she would come to Mac site and troll Mac boards. I am God forbids if Mac users have different opinions!!

As a happy Mac owner and someone who also spends a lot of time on a PC, I have got positive opinions about Windows and OS X.

You can buy a PC for less than a Mac, with Windows XP Professional installed. You can take it home and use it, nurture it, upgrade it, change it, model it, and reformat it as many times as you need to.

Or you can buy a Mac, take it home and use it, nurture it, explore it, understand it and leave it running for as long as you like.

The Mac offers a so much better experience. Its not just about the software - Mac OS X, iLife, .Mac and the great games that are bundled. Its not just about having the Internet running in 5 minutes and not being infected by a some sort of nasty within that time. Its not just about the grace of the machine that sits in front of you.

It's about the best quality build that you can spend your money on - and that's why the iPod is such a class-leader. Apple make things that look great and work.

Apple could port OS X to x86, and probably have the OS running in some poor Apple Employee's lab, but how does that fit into the PC world??

Think about the server products that are used in offices (and how OS X would integrate). Microsoft Back Office products have got things pretty much sown up. A lot of businesses have invested in Microsoft heavily and aren't about to change their OS because of better user experience with OS X. If they've got something that works for them, they'll keep using it.

Also remember that Microsoft owns a lot of shares in Apple.

People who want OS X on x86 are obviously people who thought an x86 machine is more of a bargain than a Mac. They got their printer and scanner bundled with 100 great software titles, free with their PC, which still cost less than a Mac, and the chances are that they can upgrade their processor in a year to the latest model for a small amount.

People who own a Mac realise that unless they want to play games all of the time, they don't need to upgrade for a few years. If they do enjoy playing computer games, they get a PS2 or an Xbox - they cost as much as a processor does for a PC! After a few years, their Mac will still be worth a reasonable amount so they can sell it rather than discarding it - quite often there's a needy relative trying to escape from the regular garbage that come from owning a PC.

What is great to see is the price of computers coming down. The eMac is a great computer at a price that competes to an equivalent decent PC. The upgrades that are coming could be really exciting, we might even see a few G5s in there. If we don't, expect prices to come down.

doesn't make it true.

From what I've seen OSX isn't quite as good as XP. Firstly, you need another hundred dollars worth of RAM just to make OSX *not slow* - then you'll need another hundred dollars worth of software to mimic the pre-installed WindowsXP apps. XP users can watch DVDs in full screen, etc.

I doubt that you'd see a lot of sales for a version of OSX than runs on x86. Most Windows users aren't dissatisfied - and those that *are* will typically blame their hardware. "Damned Gateway...next time I'm buying a Dell."

Be thankful that 3% of PC consumers actually care about the operating system.

... doesn't make it true either. Are you implying that you can't watch DVD's full screen on MacOS X? If you're going to make a point, try to find an example where you are correct. Simply hit Command-0 [video > enter full screen] when viewing to go full-screen.

Any other tidbits for us?

I see there are plenty of clueless PC trolls out today. How quaint.

This article, stating that the portables are still on G4 and not G5, makes you think they should have chose x86 as their chip??? ARE YOU BLIND?

Show me a PC laptop that can outperform a Mac laptop!

Go to Dell's website and configure the fastest portable you can. It's like 1.7ghz and load it with bells and whistles and it costs over $5000.00!!

I can get a Whopping 17" Powerbook with everything on it for a $1000 less than the one I configured at Dell!! I went to Alienware and configured a system that was much better than the dell and had a 16.1"screen and it was close to $4000 (pretty close to the price of the 17" Powerbook), BUT have you seen one of the Alienware's? They are huge heavy bricks. You nearly need a forklift to move them around.

If Apple was on x86 their laptops would be slower, hotter and suck down the batteries about 33% faster.

I sure am glad Apple didn't go x86. The trolls would be bashing them and have every right. As it is now they have no right.

There's a much higher margin on software than on hardware. If you're stuck with extra units at the end of a cycle, you don't have much capital investes in it (rather than with hardware, you have a lot of money tied up).

MS is a software company, and they're doing rather well.

Chabig wrote: "Developers don't develop for hardware"

You are not a developer, are you

I'm a developer, and developers DON'T develop for hardware. Otherwise all that Linux code would work out of the box on Windows systems. Sun would be chock full of users by going to x86. But none of that has happened. Why? Because the software is written for Windows, not for x86.

The problem is porting the Mac OS to x86 doesn't solve some of the switcher problems.

First, most of the hardware won't work without drivers, and the hardware makers would have to write drivers for OS X, their windows drivers won't work as is.

Second, developers still have to write the code, and if they aren't coding to OS X now, why would they on x86? Just because there might be more users (more people would have to switch before they'd start writing software). Windows software would require a good deal of rewrite (or usage of some windows API conversion tool).

Third, existing developers (including apple) would have to rewrite/update their code to work on x86. And this IS NOT just a recompile. Well, it is, if you stick with just writing to the API. But most programmers don't write to the API. They write assembler code here and there to maximize performance. They write code to work woth special characteristics of the processor. So, for example, all the Altivec code would have to be rewritten for Intel's SSE2, or whatever AMD has in their chip (which is different, by the way).

Fourth, new users have the same initial cost problems. None of their apps would run, because they're windows apps, not OS X apps. So they'd have to buy new versions of Office, or photoshop, or Quark, or whatever.

Fifth, forget MS Office. If apple went x86, MS Office X will be cancelled. And now that MS owns VPC, don't expect a VPC for OS X (which could work semi-well). Right there, half your customers are screwed.

Sixth, don't assume developers would release fat-apps for both platforms. Some would sell each individually, or charge you a small ($50-100) for the 'other' version.

Seventh, who says people will switch. The BeOS was supposedly this great OS, easy to use, etc, etc, etc (so much so everyone thought Apple should've bought/used that instead of NeXT), but no one leaped to that OS, even when it went to x86 AND they got deals to put it on new hardware (as did OS/2).

I think people who think this is some panacea to their Apple life don't see the big picture, they just see it as a way to get cheaper hardware.

If you look at Apple's current offerings, you can tell they have absolutely no desire to get in as standard business computers. Businesses aren't going to buy iMacs or eMacs in bulk (no replaceable parts makes IT work harder), and its hard to justify a large purchase of G5 machines for standard business use, as they're way too expensive. A less expandable/fancy G5, or more like the infamous headless-imac/emac is needed to get apple into the large busniess market. They apparently don't want that task, though.

BTW, a friend of mine just bought a Dell laptop. Speed doesn't seem to be great on this thing, but ignoring that, the case is thick (my closed iBook is a little taller than just the base part of the Dell), its got this whacked out kind-of blue cover (not the entire cover, just 90% of it), and the keyboard is just stupid. The tab key is the size of a regular character key, the Windows and the contextual menu button (whatever you call that) is in the upper right corner (yeah, why put the windows key in the place where its useful), the page up/down/home/end keys are to the right of the return/delete keys, so these keys which are normally on the right end of the keyboard aren't anymore), and, of course, most of the 'function' keys to do stuff like eject the CD, dim the screen or sound, all require the fn key.

And then, on top of that, it runs this OS which seems quite, well, annoying (you have to go into the registry to get MS Messenger to not run at all, and something is screwed up so Musicmatch and a couple of Dell apps won't uninstall.

Hmmm, maybe OS X on Intel wouldn't be bad...Naww, he'd never go for it, there's no games for the Mac compared to the PC (and I'm talking weird small-market turn-based war games, not just stupid-a**, dime-a-dozen shoot-em-ups like Quake or Doom or Unreal).

From what I've seen OSX isn't quite as good as XP. Firstly, you need another hundred dollars worth of RAM just to make OSX *not slow* - then you'll need another hundred dollars worth of software to mimic the pre-installed WindowsXP apps. XP users can watch DVDs in full screen, etc.

Not my experience. I have 10.3 running on a five-year-old iMac with a 400mhz G3 and 256 mb of RAM. Everything runs zippy quick, including the full-screen DVD. There are no pre-installed XP-style apps that I miss, but an XP user has nothing to match iMovie, iChat AV, iPhoto or iTunes. Sure, there are MS-style versions of these, but when you compare the two, it's pretty sad on the MS side.

"Third, existing developers (including apple) would have to rewrite/update their code to work on x86. And this IS NOT just a recompile. Well, it is, if you stick with just writing to the API. But most programmers don't write to the API. They write assembler code here and there to maximize performance. They write code to work woth special characteristics of the processor. So, for example, all the Altivec code would have to be rewritten for Intel's SSE2, or whatever AMD has in their chip (which is different, by the way)."

Any good OS these days really doesn't have much, if any, assembler code in it. I'd be willing to bet anything even remotely resembling Unix probably has little if any. Any SIMD optimizations are usually taken care of by the compiler and not the programmer, therefore there's no need for assembler code. For the record, AMD also uses SSE/SSE2. They do have 3Dnow!, but virtually no software uses that. So for all intents and purposes, they have the same extensions as Intel processors.

People b**** about OS X on old HW (

" People b**** about OS X on old HW "

I can see why too :) Trying to run Jaguar on an old Beige G3 is hard as h*** to do right. I still can't get it to run without crashing at least once during install and then as well during software update. Only Mac OS 9 runs without that kind of c*** going on with this machine...

If it's true, i'm going to buy a centrino. Sorry about that but I don't want to wait another half yr to get a pb g5.

Any good OS these days really doesn't have much, if any, assembler code in it. I'd be willing to bet anything even remotely resembling Unix probably has little if any. Any SIMD optimizations are usually taken care of by the compiler and not the programmer, therefore there's no need for assembler code. For the record, AMD also uses SSE/SSE2. They do have 3Dnow!, but virtually no software uses that. So for all intents and purposes, they have the same extensions as Intel processors.

I wasn't talking about OS specifically (although if you're looking for top performance in your OS, there'd be judicious use of assembler), I was talking about the apps (where, depending on the app, will use a lot of assembler where speed is an issue. As for vector code, the compiler may take care of some of that, but you have to code the stuff for the compiler to create the code. And all that is done knowing how the vector units work. The Intel SSE/SSE2 units work differently than Altivec (and I believe they have different size registers as well), so these parts would have to be dealt with differently as well.

...Which is actually slightly tuned good old Pentium Pro/PII/PIII. Why people are bashing G4 so hard, when Intel is selling -94 technology as high-end? And Intel roadmaps reveal, Netburst (P4, high clock speed) is to be abandoned in favor of Pentium M a.k.a tuned-up Pentium Pro, which is more G4-like (do more per clock cycle-architecture).

By the way, you can't call it "Centrino", unless it has Intel networking (mostly, 11mb Wifi, 802.11g/a in next quarter, more likely next year) and intel 855 chipset, which has worst integrated graphics ever seen (with SHARED memory).

At least Apple uses power (and temperature=silent) efficient G4 and decent graphics, be it ATI or nVidia. Apple hasn't used UMA since Performa x200/x300, which was disaster from performance point.

3DNow! from amd is actually doing well. Certain programs are optimized for it, mostly MPEGx encoders and they do have advantage over generic-command x86 software. SSE's are included because of compatiblity.

Altivec is really good vector unit, it just happens to do more in a clock cycle than its x86 counterparts. And G4 has shorter pipeline (7 stage versus Prescott 31), which is generally performance advantage but doesn't help gettin' high clockspeed.

" ...Which is actually slightly tuned good old Pentium Pro/PII/PIII. Why people are bashing G4 so hard, when Intel is selling -94 technology as high-end? And Intel roadmaps reveal, Netburst (P4, high clock speed) is to be abandoned in favor of Pentium M a.k.a tuned-up Pentium Pro, which is more G4-like (do more per clock cycle-architecture)."

The Pentium-M is more different than the P6 architecture than what you give it credit for. Read up a bit on it first.

"3DNow! from amd is actually doing well. Certain programs are optimized for it, mostly MPEGx encoders and they do have advantage over generic-command x86 software. SSE's are included because of compatiblity."

Not quite. A small handful of encoders doesn't constitute "doing well." There are far more SSE compatible programs than there are 3DNow! It's even hard to find any games or such apps that benefit that actually use 3DNow! extensions.

"Altivec is really good vector unit, it just happens to do more in a clock cycle than its x86 counterparts."

And with less precision. SSE/SSE2 can work with doubles, while, IIRC, Altivec can only work with floats. That's a part of why it's faster.

According to Arstechnica (www.arstechnica.com), Pentium M is surprisingly similar to old P6-core. According to same source and few others, PII and PIII are also very much like Pentium M. Pentium M has mainly improved branch-prediction, better micro-op-coding, larger cache, better mfg-process, but it's more like P6 than P4 (northwood/willamette/prescott).

According to Apple developer pages (http://developer.apple.com/hardware/ve/summary.html), Altivec has 32 separate registers, 128bit per register. SSE/SSE2 has only doubles. Original MMX was only INTEGER and shared registers with FPU and everyone knows that it's almost like cheating customers :) Altivec does better and 3DNow does better than MMX/SSE/SSE2, if properly implemented. SSE-series is not state-of-art-solution. Fact proven many times by arstechnica, anandtech, x-bitlabs etc.

"Altivec does better and 3DNow does better than MMX/SSE/SSE2, if properly implemented."

You do realize that SSE is capable of working on four chunks of data whereas the original 3DNow! was only capable of two? If I remember correctly, that's how it is. 3DNow! never did better because it wasn't capable.

"According to Arstechnica (www.arstechnica.com), Pentium M is surprisingly similar to old P6-core. According to same source and few others, PII and PIII are also very much like Pentium M. Pentium M has mainly improved branch-prediction, better micro-op-coding, larger cache, better mfg-process, but it's more like P6 than P4 (northwood/willamette/prescott)."

It was based on the P6, but a lot of it's design is new. The point was that it isn't all circa mid 90s technology like somebody here said.

Well, I did go back and read up some ArsTechnica again (it's been a while on some of those old articles). 3Dnow and SSE, according to Ars, differ very little. The big difference is the way each one was specifically implemented in each the P3 and the Athlon. Apparently, 3Dnow was implemented much better in the Athlon than SSE was in the P3. That doesn't mean one instruction extension was superior to the other. In fact, do remember how slow 3DNow was on the K6-2 :)

" You can port the OS kernel to an x86 architecture but then who does the drivers? Apple can probably port the drivers for hardware it specifies but for all the x86 platform combinations, are the hardware owners going to create drivers for OS X? . . . This was one of the problems that Linux faced. Fortunately, they have developers that are willing to create drivers for just about any piece of hardware."

Do you realize how easy it would be to convert a Linux hardware driver into an OS X hardware driver?