Intel gear is around the corner

[forge]

I think about whether the hassle of switching to PC would be worth the extra CPU, but in the end I'm happy with the software I have that isn't on PC.

My rule of thumb has always been that if you have to think about it, and it isn't a clear decision to make, then it probably isn't worth it. Besides, learning new hardware and a new operating system at the same time seems like altogether too much work. Perhaps there will be more reasons for people to switch to OS X, or to XP when the Intel hardware shows up, but only if the hardware allows you to install both OSs. I question this, as having a 'gateway' product that swings both ways seems a little out of the Apple style, but on the other hand, if they can get me to bite on the hardware again, while having the freedom to use my XP software if I boot into it... they could always get me hooked and lock me out later .

actually this I dont get really - especially if you've used one or other in the past it's EASY for anyone who knows anything about computers to get used to one or the other. Especially because the programs you are running are the same, aside from the Apple key vs ctrl and where osx keeps the prefs there really arent too many things that would unhinge you.

I think it makes alot of sense to have both, my missus ended up with the powerbook because a G3 900 wouldnt cut it for me, but believe me I tried, there are enough things I like about OSX and enough mac only apps to get me interested - for one the copy of metasynth bundle I still have sitting there (before they did the OSX build) - which is the most irritating story because I couldnt get my sound card to work under OS9 and now they've finally updated MS I cant afford the upgrade (pretty dark really, everyone else in the know universe has put out an OSX update you didnt have to pay for, I understand why, I'm just pissed because I wont have it any time soon....

[forge]

Err... I don't see MS making any effort to let Windows run on anything but x86-compatible, either....BLAH FUCKETY BLAH BLAH......
-Paws

I'd rather buy windows (which incidentally is always included with laptop) than a whole computer!!

I know what you're saying paws about the appliance thing, but that suggests they only want people who know as much about them as using a toaster, which is simply NOT alot of their users. People like to tweek and configure, ESPECIALLY if they are placing high demands on their machines.

I dont care what anyone says, there is no justification for depriving their users of adequate power to keep up with modern demands AND denying them the choice to still take the OS they're used to and run it on hardware tht does cut it. They could have done it, they just havent.

If I could have bought a power book with all the same specs as this one but with OSX etc for the same price at the time I would have. I even looked at the old G4 iMacs and considered it because they were same price, but they were 1GHz, half the ram, less ports AND alot bigger and less portable than a laptop.....pathetic, but it looked very fancy! I got an athlon 2200 15 inch Laptop with 512, 64graphics, FW, USB2...blah blah blah

BTW This argument is pretty much exclusively about laptops because that's the direction it's all gone in and that's where they're most behind, but given the only real comparison was the iBook for the price and I think they were probably still on the 800mHz model is ridiculous.

Yeah sure, horses for courses, might not need that power etc etc, but I do, I use alot of plug-ins and like live to run smoothly. So why was I excluded from the mac universe?

That's why I was pissed of with them.

[Machinesworking]

It's been years since the G4 could trash a P3, and AMD would have the same sort of supply problems that IBM and Motorola experienced trying to keep up with A¢'s demand, so Intel are the natural choice,

Actually this is a huge misconception. Why do you think IBM/Moto had a 'hard time' keeping up with chip demand? There wasn't any. Apple places an order for x chips at y price. If they need more they need to place another order. If they don't like the deal that they were getting for the next shipment, they suddenly were screaming that there wasn't enough supply and IBM/Moto couldn't keep up. It isn't like IBM/Moto are going to sit on extra chips that nobody else wants but Apple. I just always have found this kind of funny. Stating that AMD couldn't keep up with a high demand from Apple is just goofy. The most likely reason that Apple went with Intel over AMD has nothing to do with supply, and more to do with discounts given to chips. I would be willing to bet that Apple was more interested in the amount they could mark up the value of the chips over any amount of supply, brand recognition or any other factor.

The reason that Apple has been sitting on both a Power PC and a x86 build of OS X for years? I probably couldn't say, but my best guess would be that they were waiting for the right deal to come along. I had gotten a chance to play with a very early development build of the x86 version back before OS X was OS X, and back then it was 'just another UNIX'. Perhaps now that it has matured into a much more mature and stable product it can now stand on it's own two feet.

All I know is what I've been told by a friend of mine who works for Apple, and has for about 15 years now. Where you are getting your information? I don't know? but I do know that it doesn't seem likely that Apple would slow down sales of new machines simply to bargain a better price per chip from IBM. Sorry, but that sounds like a pissy rumor. the fact that you're hypothesizing that A¢ are doing it just to "mark up the value of the chips"....... uh why? they don't sell chips? Apple has always had pretty standard set prices for their machines, why would they have to justify it?

[Machinesworking]

I dont care what anyone says, there is no justification for depriving their users of adequate power to keep up with modern demands AND denying them the choice to still take the OS they're used to and run it on hardware tht does cut it. They could have done it, they just havent.

OK now I'm confused, what makes you think Apple wanted to sell chips that weren't as fast as AMD/Intel chips?

A little secret here, a friend of mine works at Apple HQ. I think a major reason for the dropping of IBM in favor of Intel was simply that Jobs promised people a 3Ghz G5 chip, three years ago! IBM could not, and still hasn't delivered. Jobs bragged that Apple would deliver a dual 3ghz machine two years ago!

The fact that it took Apple this long to dump IBM/Motorola? Who knows? I know they don't want you or anybody thinking they are rip off artists that sell overpriced slug bait machines.

Another point, PPC's have had better straight number crunching routines, ( pipeline stuff? dunno?) why photoshop tests would come out looking a lot more equal than real time stuff like audio. I think Apple was counting on PPC architecture to improve, but IBM and Motorola simply don't have the motivation to put out fast chips that AMD and intel have.

[Angstrom]

RE: platform switch.

As far as I understood it.

intel's business & profit is based on faster, lower power chips for the x86 architecture.

IBMs business is based on many things, but the least of these was supplying PPC chips to Apple.

Despite what you might think, in comparisson to IBMs other clients, Apple were a very small account. Apple have a notoriously infuriating 'stop-start' ordering strategy with their chip suppliers. which doesnt really work if it's a custom chip. The small account meant no bargaining ability to force IBM to supply a steady stream of custom low power fast chips.

obviously Apples profit strategies surround home and portable media devices thse days, much more than "personal computers". Most industry futurologists would predict that "personal computers" (typwriter and screen) for day-to-day tasks will blend into the background furniture over the next few years. Sure, content creators like us may use a 'computer' , Joe Public will use a 'media station'. The mac-mini and imac are simply first gen 'home media stations' which integrate with your 'portable media station' and a tie-in media provision service.

That market requires a steady flow of bulk cheap chips & hardware. not stop-start flow of custom chips.

That left Steve Jobbs and Apple no-where to go but to Intel architecture and take advantage of the same economies of scale that their competitors do.

[hambone1]

As illogical and insensible as it is, Apple is not about speed, value for money, or tweakability. You'll get far more of that with a PC.

It's all about that glowing Apple logo. If you don't understand it, you never will, and it's not worth arguing about.

Just use what works for you.

[forge]

As illogical and insensible as it is, Apple is not about speed, value for money, or tweakability. You'll get far more of that with a PC.

It's all about that glowing Apple logo. If you don't understand it, you never will, and it's not worth arguing about.

Just use what works for you.

that reminds me of "a bugs life" when one mosquito is heading for the zapper and the other one is saying "come back, dont go to the light.." and the other was saying "but..it's so..beautiful..." and got zapped.....

[forge]

....
A little secret here, a friend of mine works at Apple HQ. I think a major reason for the dropping of IBM in favor of Intel was simply that Jobs promised people a 3Ghz G5 chip, three years ago! IBM could not, and still hasn't delivered. Jobs bragged that Apple would deliver a dual 3ghz machine two years ago!
....

could be the case, I dont know, but if IBM were really lagging so far behind and causing problems for Apple, surely they could have got out of it - IBM not upholding their part of the deal etc....I dont know, something just feels not right, I just find it hard to believe they couldnt have done more

obviously Apples profit strategies surround home and portable media devices thse days, much more than "personal computers". Most industry futurologists would predict that "personal computers" (typwriter and screen) for day-to-day tasks will blend into the background furniture over the next few years. Sure, content creators like us may use a 'computer' , Joe Public will use a 'media station'. The mac-mini and imac are simply first gen 'home media stations' which integrate with your 'portable media station' and a tie-in media provision service.

see this would tie in with what Paws said about the toaster/appliance thing - so maybe that's where I'm pissed, fine, iPod et al is all cool and an obvious revenue generator but like you said "creators like us" are the ones who miss out, this is my gripe because I am one.

[hambone1]

I have to use a PC to control my video cameras (no Mac software, don't want to run Virtual PC). I completely formatted the drive, installed a brand-new fresh XP, and logged onto the internet for 5 minutes just to download the camera control software.

The PC ground to a halt with spyware, adware, malware, whateverware.

I reformatted the drive, put a new XP on, downloaded the camera software on a Mac and passed it across the network to the PC! It works great now. That PC will never see the internet again. All it's used for is camera control.

I'd say PC users are more likely to get zapped unless they incur the hassle and cost of continuous virus protection.

No intention on starting a platform war here. Just discussion about the pros and cons of both.

[forge]

I have to use a PC to control my video cameras (no Mac software, don't want to run Virtual PC). I completely formatted the drive, installed a brand-new fresh XP, and logged onto the internet for 5 minutes just to download the camera control software.

The PC ground to a halt with spyware, adware, malware, whateverware.

I reformatted the drive, put a new XP on, downloaded the camera software on a Mac and passed it across the network to the PC! It works great now. That PC will never see the internet again. All it's used for is camera control.

I'd say PC users are more likely to get zapped unless they incur the hassle and cost of continuous virus protection.

No intention on starting a platform war here. Just discussion about the pros and cons of both.

nah, you just have to install the virus stuff BEFORE you go online, from then on there will be no problem.

[jeskola]

As illogical and insensible as it is, Apple is not about speed, value for money, or tweakability. You'll get far more of that with a PC.

It's all about that glowing Apple logo. If you don't understand it, you never will, and it's not worth arguing about.

Just use what works for you.

that reminds me of "a bugs life" when one mosquito is heading for the zapper and the other one is saying "come back, dont go to the light.." and the other was saying "but..it's so..beautiful..." and got zapped.....

what happened to the multi coloured apple - i prefered that!!

[Machinesworking]

....
A little secret here, a friend of mine works at Apple HQ. I think a major reason for the dropping of IBM in favor of Intel was simply that Jobs promised people a 3Ghz G5 chip, three years ago! IBM could not, and still hasn't delivered. Jobs bragged that Apple would deliver a dual 3ghz machine two years ago!
....

could be the case, I dont know, but if IBM were really lagging so far behind and causing problems for Apple, surely they could have got out of it - IBM not upholding their part of the deal etc....I dont know, something just feels not right, I just find it hard to believe they couldnt have done more

Somebody else mentioned that Apple have only so much weight to push development, and fast power efficient chips are not at IBM or Motorola's top concerns in chip design. Motorola even went as far as to publicly state that speed wasn't their primary concern. What I think it boils down to is the Centrino and chips like it, fast, small, and capable of fitting into a powerbook.
Intel and AMD have a vested interest in making the fastest, least power hungry chip they can, and the competition doesn't care. Motorola are all about embedded chips with super low failure rates, not speed. Apple and power PC chips were the only real competitor in the desktop market, and not big enough of a demand to merit the development cost obviously.
I would think that these companies would try to make Apple and the mac an example of their superiority over the competition, but my guess is years of intense rivalry has honed AMD and Intel into unbeatable forces in PC chip development.

Basically IBM make a G5, AMD makes a 64 bit chip a month later, and Intel makes a laptop chip that's just as fast as either!
Anyway off to work...............

[hellospiral]

I've just bought a new (old?) powerbook g4....! Why? Don't know why....Probably because it's beautiful, but, a few times ago I've seen 'mouse on mars' playng live in my country with 2 powerbooks.
They did an incredible live set! (and I thought: on that obsolete machine!?)
If they use this oid powerbook getting that upshots, i'm sure that it will be enough to me.
Or not?

[noisetonepause]

I just got a Macintosh Classic today. They was about to throw it out at Uni, but I went "Look!" and pointed in the opposite direction, then grabbed it and ran (well, almost).

It's got an 8 MHz processor, 4 megs of RAM and runs MacOS 6.07, a single tasking OS (that's one app at a time, can you imagine?). This was apparently laughable compared to PC-compatibles back when it was built in 1991 but they still sold bucket loads. Why? Cos it looks cool, it's fool proof, it's quite portable, and the OS is (was) amazing and it was cheap too (it's basically an iMac, then). And it did everything people expected computers to do at the time (mine has Word 5 on it!). If you want the best music making machine there is, a Mac might never be the correct choice. If you want a great computer for doing what computers also do, it's the first and only one IMHO..

Anyways - now I can get out all my old floppy disks with games on them and go nostalgic (used to have an LC, which is a classic without the screen). I had to bring it back to my parents' to get a compatible keyboard and mouse and my mum said I looked like someone seeing a child taking her first steps when I booted it... She repeatedly asked me what I was going to use it for. What a stupid question! It's a piece of technological history...

The reasons for this post? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you have Macs...

-Paws

[gomi]

Err... I don't see MS making any effort to let Windows run on anything but x86-compatible, either. And all other hardware manufacturers design their stuff exclusively for Windows and even have the cheek to force you to pay for it when you buy their stuff. To me that's all of the cons and none of the pros.

nt4 could be compiled for whatever you want..

also remember that the xbox360 is actually a modified PPC chip (3 G5 chips
running at a total speed of 5.4ghz) so yes, they can compile their
junk for whatever they want.