Apple Hedges Its Bet on New Intel Chips

Corrado writes "The Mercury News is reporting that Apple is still planning to use PowerPC chips well into 2008 for its low end and portable systems. Does this increase the "warm fuzzes" for the Intel move? More information from TheStreet and lots more links from Google News."

Support?

[Oculus Habent]

Has anyone ever heard of support? Apple may need the occasional extra lot of processors for years to come to support their existing support contracts.

killjoy.

[tubbtubb]

Of course, but you're missing the point.

This is a perfect opportunity to blather on with uninformed speculation, rumors, pipe dreams of dual core Antaries laptops, etc. . .

Re:killjoy.

[JabberWokky]

I heard that Future Crew were designing the GPU, and the manufacture would be done by Infinium Labs. Of course, the next version of the OS, codenamed Sabretooth, will be written by 3D Realms.

--
Evan

Re:Support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I know what "support" is. After all, my company pays a whole lot of money to have Microsoft tell us to call Dell, and Dell tell us to call Microsoft...

Re:Support?

[robyannetta]

And if Michael Dell has his way, he'll soon be telling you to call Apple.

But don't hold your breath.

Re:Support?

[Saven Marek]

> Has anyone ever heard of support? Apple may need the
> occasional extra lot of processors for years to come to support
> their existing support contracts.

That is one possibility. What is annoying is that the slashdot summary says this:

The Mercury News is reporting that Apple is still planning to use PowerPC chips well into 2008 for its low end and portable systems.

when the article actually says this:

Freescale agreed to supply PowerPC microprocessors for orders placed through Dec. 31, 2008 -- a year beyond Apple's planned transition to the Intel chips.

and from apple & freescale itself:

"Freescale (is) to fill any orders Apple places over the next three years. Apple is under no obligation to purchase Freescale microprocessors other than work in progress that was in place at the time the agreement was executed."

So suddenly "freescale is bound to fill any orders apple may or may not need to place over the next 3 years" becomes "Apple will be making G4 laptops until 2008"

Rubbish as spculation gets piled on top of speculation. It stinks something bad when basic reporting gets errors confounded one upon top of another

Re:Support?

[Elbereth]

Don't worry. They'll correct the summary when the dupe is posted later tonight.

Re:Support?

[/ASCII]

The most amusing thing is that while the Slashdot summary is speculative, the headline is 100% correct.

Isn't the norm that the headline should be a catchy, speculative blurb, and that most of the actual article is a retraction of the claims from the headline?

What?

[doormat]

Steve said low end items were the first to go (mini, iBook, etc). What the hell are they talking about.

Re:What?

[waynelorentz]

Haven't you heard? Low end is the new high end. Or perhaps it's a particularly strong lobe of the Reality Distortion Field caused by atmospheric disturbances.

Re:What?

[mrchaotica]

They're talking about spare parts for existing PPC models, probably.

no need to panic...

[boomerny]

Apple is just covering their bases. This is merely a safeguard, not an indication that the move is behind schedule.

Re:no need to panic...

[mattyohe]

Exactly.. People are still buying computers with a 3 year coverage of apple care... They are indeed covering bases...

come on down!

[itomato]

They need a piece of news to keep people interested in PPC Apple products.

Been to Fry's since the announcement? No electricity in the air.. Just a bunch of high-priced, under-equipped machinery.

Those G4 iBooks won't sell themselves, especially not when they are presumed to be the last of the breed. Who wants that?

Re:no need to panic...

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

what are you talking about? supporting 2 different platforms is as easy as clicking a check box with xcode.

and if you can't be bothered to even do that, transparent emulation will take care of it for your users.

Re:no need to panic...

[altan]

If you went to the trouble of optimizing your scientific/engineering/math/multimedia processing application to use Altivec, not only is it going to be a pain to port it to use vDSP or direct SSE instructions; Rosetta won't even run Altivec code.

Altivec transition not such a big deal

[diamondsw]

If you went to the pain of adding Altivec enhancements by hand, then you're probably going to have no problem recoding them for Intel's SSE and such. Most major products are cross-platform and have this code written already, and most minor products just used compiler optimizations. Either the hard work is already done, or Intel will do it for them, gratis.

And as I said elsewhere, nearly every program has a G3 codepath, so Rosetta will run them just fine. Those that really got a significant boost from the G4 will be hurt the hardest, so those will be the ones you upgrade first to Intel native versions. Since such apps clearly have made an investment in the platform and have a need for speed, they're also the most likely to be ready first.

Nearly all applications have a G3 code path

[diamondsw]

Thanks to G3's holding down the low-end of Apple's line for so long, nearly every app on the market has a G3 code path (otherwise you'd be dumping an awful lot of relatively recent iBooks, iMacs, eMacs, etc). Rosetta simulates a G3; the application will simply take the G3 instruction path and run fine, just a tad slower. Emulating a vector instruction set like that across platforms would have been hell, and likely slower than the G3 codepath in the first place.

Only applications that are G4-only will have any trouble (damn few outside of Apple, and theirs are already Intel optimized).

Re:no need to panic...

[AKAImBatman]

Having to develop two parallel code branches for years to come?

As long as developers haven't relied on something inherent in the chip (e.g. endianess), there should be no need to maintain separate code branches. All that will happen is that the compiler will produce multi-platform or "fat" binaries. This shouldn't impact most existing code in any way, shape, or form.

fat binaries forever . .

[tubbtubb]

Why doesn't apple just continue to use both architectures?

Re:fat binaries forever . .

[remahl]

That is more than a rumor. That is exactly what the Xcode that was released on the day of the announcement back in July does.

Re:fat binaries forever . .

[prockcore]

everybody will be writing software compatible with both platforms with no extra effort.

Yeah, because if PPC Linux has shown us anything, it's that architecture changes are trivial. Oh wait. No it doesn't. It's not as simple as a recompile. Minor bugs crop up when you take a piece of software and compile it on a different architecture, even if the host OS doesn't change.

XCode can't magically correct any endian assumptions your code makes. Your apps will need to be tested on both platforms.

Can if you use the right libraries

[SuperKendall]

XCode can't magically correct any endian assumptions your code makes.

If you use the right libraries endian issues are automatically corrected.

So basically all you need for testing is one PPC mac and one Intel Mac. But when you get to the point where both work, it's pretty easy to maintain the endian compatibilty going forward (as long as you remeber to keep using thr right libraries) which is what makes years of dual proc support not such a big deal.

Re:Can if you use the right libraries

[Paul Jakma]

If you use the right libraries endian issues are automatically corrected.

No, not at all. Particularly for any software which implements networking protocols (other than character strings based protocols like HTTP), you'll get bugs porting from big-endian software (which don't per se need to use htonX(), as the byte order is the same), to little-endian. Other things will break, where a programmer manipulates data naively. Little-endian systems tend to discourage such naivety pretty quickly, simply cause litt

Re:How about this?

[JHromadka]

It was done already. There was a Mac 10 years ago that had a daughterboard with an Intel processor. It was nice to be able to switch between OS 7.5 and Windows 3.1 with a keystroke and not be using emulation.

Warranty

[Rainbird98]

This has nothing to do with the change over to Intel. Apple needs to support the warranty its existing base of G4 Macs for at least three years.

Developer perspective on Apple porting strategy...

[bstarrfield]

Entirely outside the ADC NDA...

If you take a look at Apple's developer tools [apple.com] - specifically, XCode 2.1 and above, you'll find that building binaries for both platforms is fairly easy. I think that Apple not only wanted to allow developers to build binaries for Intel and PPC, but to allow itself some time for the transition. Apple hasn't locked itself into a position where it must switch to Intel on a certain date. This is a good thing.

Really, if we can consider Mac OS X as simply OpenStep 4 (or whatever), then the CPU - to a very large extant - becomes just another part of the machine. With the exception of low level hardware driver experts, do you really care what bridge / Firewire / USB chip is used? Think the same way about the CPU, and you have Apple's apparent perspective on using Intel chips - the OS is fairly independant from the CPU, the developer tools can target multiple platforms, and consumers really won't have too much to worry about.

Re:Developer perspective on Apple porting strategy

[morgan_greywolf]

That's not what the deal is. Apple isn't hedging its bets. From the various articles: " Apple Computer Inc. said it has an option to keep buying microprocessors from Freescale Semiconductor Inc., three months after saying Macs will switch to Intel Corp. chips next year." Apple has negotiated for an option to buy the processors, and there is no set number of processors they will buy. Freescale just agreed to supply whatever Apple orders for the next three years. Apple could order 0. Apple could order

Re:Developer perspective on Apple porting strategy

[ArbitraryConstant]

"If you take a look at Apple's developer tools - specifically, XCode 2.1 and above, you'll find that building binaries for both platforms is fairly easy."

If you don't feel the need to do testing on both binaries...

Hello bloat

[wiredlogic]

So presumably we will again have an extended transitional period where Mac binaries have x86 and PPC code rolled together. I wonder how big an OS X Office install will be now.

Re:Hello bloat

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I would expect that software makers should provide universal binaries for several years because the Macs currently being sold still need updated software from time to time. It would be silly for the third party publishers would require a switch to a new machine arch just to use the latest version.

Maybe the smarter installers will install only the necessary binaries.

Re:Hello bloat

[hunterx11]

Hard disk space is cheap. RAM is less cheap, but having twice as much code and then only loading half of it into RAM doesn't increase bloat at all.

Re:Hello bloat

[nsayer]

twice as much code

Actually, since we're talking about CISC vs RISC architectures, you should find that the x86 binaries will be a bit smaller than the PPC ones. So perhaps the code portions will wind up being 175% the original size. But a sizable portion of a typical Cocoa app consist of the NIBs and other non-executable resources, so you might find that a fat executable may take only an additional 50% or maybe even 25% on the disk.

Of course all of this applies only to Cocoa (will they even support Carbon-based Intel binaries? I believe they've already said they won't support Classic on Intel). Java apps won't care at all what CPU is running them.

Re:Hello bloat

[dgatwood]

Carbon != Classic. Classic is an environment for running old apps that were never made fully Carbon compliant. Carbon apps run natively without that virtualization environment.

And yes, Carbon-based binaries are supported. Did you think Photoshop was magically rewritten in Cocoa for the demo? :-D

Re:Hello bloat

[justforaday]

Hey codemonkeys, here's a fun project for you. Put together a couple of fat-strippers - progs that'll remove either the PPC or x86 code from fat binaries.

Re:Hello bloat

[TheRaven64]

Here's one:

#!/bin/sh
ditto --arch i386 $1

That wasn't too hard, was it? Of course, fat binaries will only add a tiny bit to most programs, since the non-executable resources for most pieces of software are significantly larger than the executable portions.

Re:Hello bloat

[Halo1]

Of course, fat binaries will only add a tiny bit to most programs, since the non-executable resources for most pieces of software are significantly larger than the executable portions.

I'm quite doubtful about whether only the executable part is duplicated, as the input of lipo is two stand-alone binaries (unless it performs optimizations splitting the data in identical parts -like strings- and different parts -like integer constants- and then relocating the hell out of both binaries).

and another

[fracai]

lipo -remove i386

fat strippers? no thanks!

[bongoras]

No thanks, if I want to see fat strippers I'll go here: http://www.bigburlesque.com/home.html [bigburlesque.com]

Fat strippers? this way please.....

[PureCreditor]

> deltree /y C:\Windows
> _

Re:Hello bloat

[mrchaotica]

I wonder how big an OS X Office install will be now.

Not much bigger, because the actual binary is only a tiny fraction of the install. Most of the space is taken up with other stuff like images and templates and whatnot.

Re:Hello bloat

[lokedhs]

In my Office 2004 install on my Mac the Microsoft Word file is 17069566. That's about 16 MB. This means that at worst, Word will use about 16 more MB on disc. Not RAM mind you.

In fact, the size is probably smaller since only the TEXT segment is going to be duplicated. However, I'm not sure how to check this for a PEF executable.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Support issue(s) ahead?

[bad_outlook]

Will this be a problem for support? They'll now have to support this much more hardware, and will have to have a fork of their OS X code; or will all code be done for Intel procs now, and 'just work (tm)' via the rosetta on powerpc procs? I think they'd have to do this, but still, I think it's going to taint the marketing a bit. Still, this hasn't been done before, and it's in sits like this that Apple usually does well. As long as production can keep up...

Re:Support issue(s) ahead?

[XxtraLarGe]

or will all code be done for Intel procs now, and 'just work (tm)' via the rosetta on powerpc procs?

I think you might have that reversed. Most Devs don'te even have a Mactel to work on. I'm sure most current stuff will still be compiled for PowerPC, and then run on Intel via Rosetta.

Re:Support issue(s) ahead?

[hunterx11]

OS X has always run on x86 and PPC--it is no more "forked" than NetBSD.

Re:Support issue(s) ahead?

[mihalis]

Will this be a problem for support? They'll now have to support this much more hardware, and will have to have a fork of their OS X code; or will all code be done for Intel procs now, and 'just work (tm)' via the rosetta on powerpc procs?

I doubt very much there is a fork in OS X. Much more likely they keep the code that absolutely must know things like sizeof and endianness to an absolute minimum, and just use utility routines to convert architecture dependent data formats to platform independent formats

Really?

[TheRaven64]

I've not R'd TFA (reg required, and all that), but this sounds a lot like the news on Think Secret [thinksecret.com] a few days ago. In short, they have signed a deal whereby FreeScale are required to supply PowerPC chips to Apple until 2008, but Apple are not required to buy them.

Apple have stated that the low end will switch to Intel first, so I don't really know what the basis for this `story' is. It seems much more likely that, if they are extending their purchasing options for G4s to 2008, they will stop selling G4s at the end of this year. This would then give them a supply of G4s to use in replacements until the end of the 3-year AppleCare period for the last G4 units sold.

Good, because

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, because I just plain don't want an Intel chip. I don't care if it's the future of Apple's support, I want to keep buying PPC as long as I possibly can. I don't care if you think I'm crazy or stupid. Personally I just have a whole bunch of personal Altivec code and I don't want to have to rewrite it.

Posted as AC because every time I express that I do not want to be forced to use Intel chips in order to continue using OS X, I get screamed at for being a "zealot". I find it a bit funny that disagreeing with Apple gets you branded as an Apple Zealot now, but there it is.

Re:Good, because

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, it's so hard to stand out and be different when Apple moves to using a mainstream CPU.

I suggest you die your hair purple or wear a shirt with a crazy logo to assert your individuality now.

Ahahaha.

This is not news

[MouseR]

Apple did say the transition would take a couple of years.

It's obvious that after the Intel bomb shell they dropped that they now need to secure supplies of current processors until the entire line has moved onto Intel.

This is common sense. (But you don't have to expect this from news sites that report, even, that Apple might be back-tracking on the Intel switch.)

Registration-Free Link to article

[autojive]

Google Link [google.com] and just click on the url that shows up on that page. Worked for me :)

That doesn't make intuitive sense...

[soft_guy]

Intel has made their whole company strategy around low power high performance chips. That was the stated reason for moving to Intel. Therefore, I would think that Portables would be the first thing to move. For example, there is no G5 portable and we've been waiting a long time for a portable with a better chip than the G4. My powerBook is getting long in the tooth, but I won't replace it with another G4 powerBook - what would be the point? - unless it quit working.

The G5 desktops are still very fast and I could see staying with PPC there for a while, but not on portables.

Re:That doesn't make intuitive sense...

[jellomizer]

I think they were talking about the iBooks other then the power books. If my Powerbook died right now I would probably just save some cash and switch to an iBook. But if they were a G5 or Intel based PowerBook I would go with that. The Power Book line is starting to really drag.

Realities of a Manufacturer

[standards]

When an auto manufacturer ships a new engine, they don't immediately halt production of the old ones that it is destined to supplant. A phased transition is simply a reality of the manufacturing business.

Apple doesn't have to rush out an entire new line of units in one big bang. Good engineering and facility planning take time.

Re:Realities of a Manufacturer

[Anonymous Coward]

According to slashdot conventional wisdom, all car analogies suck.
Therefore, your post sucks.
Just kidding.

Lawsuits and Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, for like no money, they've secured access to a chip. If they hadn't, they'd be liable to lawsuits for not securing chips in case there is a problem with the transition. CYA material, plain and simple.

Supply for support

[Novajo]

Apple has to support current computers with their Applecare program. Applesinsider has discussed that these go into 2008. So really, this is probably nothing more than the winding down period.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1248 [appleinsider.com]

Superb

[ericdfields]

This is welcoming news to a new Powerbook owner. I needed a highly portable laptop for this upcoming semester (and into the future), and have wanted a Mac since OS X 10.0, but I was cautious about purchasing an apple product knowing that the future was headed toward intel. No one really knows how long they will keep support and software coming for PPC systems, but eventually, they will be phased out. I know people who have had their G3 and earlier Apple laptops and can still run newer software, oftentimes i

Much longer

[SuperKendall]

Apple will support PPC macs in OS X probably about seven years after the last one is sold.

That's based on older models that OS X supports today, every release it seems like back support from OS releases is about five to seven years.

We know that not all mac will switch at once, say high-end Intel macs start coming out the year after next. That's 2007, which means there will be solid PPC support from Apple until at least 2012.

WHat about software vendors? Well you can imagine they would have strong motivation to keep software working well on PPC macs until the percentage of Intel macs is a lot higher than PPC macs. But that will take some time, so I think in the end you'll see universal binaries from just about all Mac software makers until at least 2012 - and it costs them nothing to keep making the universal binaries if they decided to drop testing support for PPC versions, which could extend it out longer.

In short, buy the powerbook.

Wrong

[andyring]

No, Apple does not plan to keep using G4s in the lower-end stuff. It'd make no sense. Apple is likely securing this contract so they have a supply of G4 chips for product repairs for the next three years, as AppleCare is a 3-year agreement.

Slightly OT

[TubeSteak]

But I'd like to give the /. ed's kudos for including a link to google news.

Its amazing how most news articles will not give you the full story, or worse, you get their slanted version of events.

Reading multiple articles (not something /.'ers are likely to do since we can't even get them to RTFA) lets you get all the facts so you can draw your own conclusions.

Just my 2 pennies

PowerPc, Cell and Intel

[rawwa.venoise]

Apple is not only extending the line for compatibility. If the Cell proves to be a sucesefull processor i think Apple will probably look into IBM for a nice chip contract. This way, what Apple is trying to secretly doing is to decide wich chip will target the high segment and wich one will remains for lower budget machines. Just my 2cts

Makes Sense

[blueZhift]

This move makes sense from the standpoint of smoothing the transition to Intel chips. It may mean additional challenges for Apple's support personnel, but the bottom line is that Apple's typical customer doesn't care what chips are in the box as long as Macs act like Macs and iPods act like iPods, etc... Apple managed the transition to PPC pretty well, so there is a good chance that they'll be okay going to Intel, afterall, there isn't any big rush to do this that I've heard about.

Re:Makes Sense

[aduzik]

What is impressive, however, is that when the first PPCs came out, they actually ran a 680x0 version of the Mac OS -- mainly because no PPC version existed. The whole OS ran in a dynamic recompiler, which is like an emulator, but it actually translates the non-native code into native code on the fly so it can reuse the portions already translated.

Plus, remember that when the PPC Macs first came out, there was literally no software for them, and Apple had an installed base of millions of 680x0 Macs to supp

Portables?

[nurb432]

Was that not the entire point of switching? That Jobs was not pleased with the PPC options for portables?

And what does he mean by 'low end' ? Does that mean as better PPC chips come out ( like the G6 ) they will just be ignored?

This whole thing is rather confusing now.

Personally, im glad to see the PPC will still be around in Apple products for a while longer, but gheesh, lets make a decision and stick with it...

Reducing the Osbourne effect.

[.tardo.]

My initial reaction to this was... Hmmm, maybe I can go ahead and make the plunge to buy that new G4 iBook

But has anyone thought that this may have only been done to generate that very reaction. I have been holding out on purchasing an Apple because of the upcoming Intel switch. I will, again, have to wait to see what Apple is going to do...

Note that the agreement does not require Apple to buy any addtional G4 chips

Apple is the best computer I almost bought!

Caveat Emptor, I say.

Apple's 64-bit Intel roadmap takes longer...

[Been on TV]

Well, this is not so much about Apple hedging its bets, as it is about timing. A lot of folks anticipate an announcment of new hardware at MWSF in January. It ain't gonna happen!

Having now seen last weeks Intel announcement, it makes me believe it is unlikely they will launch Intel based Macs with 32-bit processors. Both iMac, Pro Mac and XServe are already 64-bit and they will stay that way. Anything else would be seen as a complete failure by the market.

For the mini and portables, the picture is a bit more tricky. From what I can gather from the latest announcements from IBM and Freescale, what I think will happen is that Apple will introduce a mini with a dual core processor from IBM perhaps even in September at MacWorld Paris, and follow up with similar announcements for the rest of the product line. Exception is of course the portables where they for thermal reasons have to stay at G4 until the switch to Intel, hence the agreement with Freescale.

I have a little more detail about this in an article [andwest.com] I wrote a couple of days ago.

There is no 64-bit Intel roadmap from Apple...

[kuwan]

You can read what I've written about this here:

Why we won't see a G5 PowerBook/iBook... [slashdot.org]
Re:Why we won't see a G5 PowerBook/iBook... [slashdot.org]

You might also want to check out Apple's Universal Binary Programming Guidelines. [apple.com] Note the section titled Conventions (emphasis mine):

The term x86 is a generic term used in some parts of this book to refer to the class of microprocessors manufactured by Intel. This book uses the term x86 as a synonym for IA-32 (Intel Architecture 32-bit).

Apple has only give developers an IA

Apple //e card: support or final death strike

[buckhead_buddy]

Apple used to make and sell an Apple //e emulation card for 680x0 macs with PDS slots when they were trying to transition schools and final hold-outs clinging to old Apple II hardware to something they were more willing to produce and support.

It appears likely that having a chip supply would allow Apple to make a G5 plugin card for new Intel Macs if some high powered hold-outs demanded G5's remain available.

I see no concern about purchasing chips for a tech Apple claims it's dumping. It actually makes i

Conspiracy theory

[coinreturn]

1. Produce an Intel version of OS-X
2. Make a pretend announcement to change over to Intel
3. Leak the Intel version of OS-X
4. Let Windoze users salivate over OS-X.
5. Change back to PPC.
6. Windoze users buy PPC Macs.
7. PROFIT!!!

Apple CYA

[Capt_Troy]

This story is just an artifact from the announcement that Apple contracted Freescale until 2008 to provide processors. This may be simply a CYA manuver in case something goes south with the intel deal (be it delays etc).

So I'm not sure that this means you won't get your portables until 2008, just that Apple has a backup plan in case, with intel portables in 2008 as a longest possible estimate.

-T.

One thing you can read from this

[Enrique1218]

Apple will be transitioning all their G4 product beginning in 2006. They contract Frescale till the end of 2008, which 3 years - the length of a typical applecare extended contract. So, I guess they only intend to sell these systems till the end of this year. Given the recent announcements of Intel processor lineup, I guess Apple will release new Powerbook, iBook, and mac mini's along side Intels release of dual-core and single Yonahs.

Much more thoughtful take

[Fuzzle]

Ars [arstechnica.com] has a much more thorough and thoughtful take from someone who actually follows Apple and has some common sense.

Re:All or nothing

[multiplexo]

much better this point would be mute.

I think you mean the point would be "moot". Based upon the stuff that Intel has been announcing lately I'm looking forward to an Intel based Macintosh and I'm not too worried about this.

Re:All or nothing

[hunterx11]

No, the point is "moo." You know, like a cow's opinion: it doesn't matter.

Moof!

[littleghoti]

Clarus says Moof!

Re:Moof!

[shawnce]

Clarus x86 says fooM!

Re:Moof!

[AnonymousKev]

> Clarus x86 says fooM!

Now that's funny! I wish I had mod points.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:All or nothing

[moonbender]

Heh. I googled and landed on a web site that came up earlier today or yesterday in the context of "begging the question". Anyway, here's what their article [worldwidewords.org] says: "The mute spelling is a development that has come about because moot is now a fossil word, usually encountered only in this phrase; there is an understandable tendency to convert the unknown into the known, and mute seems to fit the new meaning rather better. But its wrong." But read the whole article for an amusing ethymological note.

Of course as

Re:All or nothing

[E-Lad]

The contract into 2008 is likely because Apple needs current and future PPC processors to fulfill support agreements.

You didn't actually think that Apple would cut off PPC users the moment that the last Mac model is moved to Intel, did you?

Re:All or nothing

[MightyMartian]

I think Apple's justification for these sorts of statements is to try to convince the skeptical elements of its current user base. When it was first announced, some die-hard Mac users were moaning about Apple's move to x86 as if someone had just announced that Armageddon was coming. Clearly Apple wants to grow its business, but it doesn't want to lose what's already there.

Frankly I think it's very good news, and I do think Apple stands to benefit greatly from using the same CPU as is running Windows and the majority of Linux boxes.

Re:They won't change from PPC

[Dominatus]

Heat? What the hell

The number one reason you havent seen a G5 laptop is heat issues. I don't see any problems running newer and newer x86 CPUs in laptops.

Hell the G5 towers need to be *water* cooled.

Furthermore, while the CISC/RISC business is correct every single report Ive read about the dev OSX86 machines (which are just regular P4s) are that they boot faster, perform faster, and are overall considerably faster than a G5.

Drop the argument, even Apple realizes it's dead.

Re:They won't change from PPC

[altan]

The Pentium M [wikipedia.org] is lower voltage and has a lower power dissipation than the current line of mobile G4s [wikipedia.org]. I too wish the PowerPC would continue, because it seems like a really elegant architecture, but Intel currently has the PowerPC beat in terms of mobile efficiency.

Re:They won't change from PPC

[Junks Jerzey]

PPC is one of the best platforms ever for both sound, gfx and of course heat production.

Is this based on more than just personal feelings about the architecture? Honestly, I like the PPC. It's a great implementation of the classic RISC principles: lots of registers, simple and fast instructions, no hardware stack, etc. But, really, this is just geeky fawning over a pretty design. The x86 is certainly ugly in some ways, mostly in terms of the huge legacy instruction set, but it's not so bad overall. Having hardware stack support is very nice. The limited number of registers makes function call overhead very low. If you disassemble code for typical PPC applications, you may see dozens of instructions for entering and leaving a function. And with each of those instructions being 4 bytes, that's a big deal in terms of instruction cache usage. So it's not entirely clear that in the modern world a classic RISC architecture is better.

Re:They won't change from PPC

[Junks Jerzey]

Your example is not a good one. I disassemble x86 code and see instructions pushing parameters onto the stack. I disassemble PPC code and see instructions moving parameters into registers. How good is x86 with functions that have a large amount of local storage and a large number of parameters?

You're talking about the caller. I'm talking about what happens in the function that you're calling. On the x86, the return address is pushed on the stack as part of the "call" instruction (and popped as part of "re

Re:They won't change from PPC

[0xABADC0DA]

Except the PPC has instructions to save multiple registers at once to memory. So you can save registers 3-8 to the stack in one 32-bit instruction. I assume the compilers you are using do not do this for parameters because it's faster not to. Much like x86 xor'ing a register with itself instead of setting it to zero.

So I would question what kind of functions these are that you say are takin 20+ instructions. But also, ultimately performance has little to do with the overhead of functions since the vast

Re:Apple Finally Gets What's Funny About...

[TheRaven64]

People may laugh when you say `Intel' and `Roadmap' together, but they don't laugh nearly as hard as when you say `Freescale' and `Roadmap' together. I remember these guys promising 3.6GHz+ G6 chips being ready by 2002 back in the late '90s. Next to them, Intel roadmaps look positively reliable...

Re:Power Efficiency?

[/ASCII]

Well, this contract is with Freescale, i.e. Motorola, who make the G4. The G4 is a pretty energy efficient processor, unlike IBMs G5. So the question here is how on earth are the going to make anybody buy a computer, portable or otherwise, powerd by a G4 in 2008?

Re:Power Efficiency?

[lokedhs]

The article said nothing about quantities.

I can see several uses: Future portable products (video player?) and spare parts. There will still be PowerBooks under AppleCare service contracts in 2008.

Re:Power Efficiency?

[bahamat]

...and spare parts. There will still be PowerBooks under AppleCare service contracts in 2008

You hit the nail on the head. In fact, Apple's plans are to phase out the PPC by 2007, that means they will have PPC chips under AppleCare at least until 2010, and I'm sure they'll have many out of warranty repairs for many years to come after that.

Anybody who tries to twist this into "Apple isn't so sure about Intel" is just fooling themselves.

Re:Power Efficiency?

[jasonditz]

If they're cheap enough I might buy one... I've got assloads of PPC software and am very skeptical of the ability to run them (well) emulated on an x86.

Re:Power Efficiency?

[Trillan]

What we know is Apple has secured a line of PowerPC chips into 2008. However, Apple has no commitment to buy. It being for Powerbook, etc is pure speculation on the part of the contributor and contradictory to the keynote.

Re:Power Efficiency?

[netwiz]

Dude, I gotta call bullshit on your numbers. The 970FX most definitely does not dissipate 28watt at peak. Maybe at 50% idle, with the clock throttled back to 66%. The PM also has half the main-memory latency of the G5, and roughly double the integer performance.

Furthermore, Apple isn't interested in sticking Intel's current lineup in their products, they're interested in the next-gen hardware, the ones that provide roughly triple the computing performance at lower power. Did you see some of the pics from last week's IDF? 9 watts for the lower-power laptop parts, with performance to match almost anything the 970 ever did save very well-scheduled and hand-tuned FP and AltiVec algorithms, something that devs don't even have to screw with (mostly) on the x86 side, as Intel's compilers smoke the hell out of anything on the PPC side.

P4M???

[charnov]

The P4M is pretty much gone. Everything shifted to the Pentium-M a while ago with Apple looking to the the Merom for their Intel generation computers. The Merom is dual core @ 35W max with 1-2W nominal @ 65nm. I'm not a rah-rah Intel kind of guy (I own stock in AMD), but they really got something with this next line if they can deliver on their 65nm process.

Re:finally experienced why...

[javaxman]

mac laptop so she could run something that was mac-only. That thing is HOT. Heated up the whole damn room.

You've obviously never used a Pentium-based laptop. There is a reason [theregister.co.uk] why Apple is going to use the newer, cooler, mobile chips [tomshardware.com] rather than Pentium chips.

Of course, it's really speculation that Apple is going to use those newer chips, but given that the timeframes for the chips' introduction and Apple's switch, it's not a big stretch...

Apple laptops can get warm, though, especially the newer, higher-clockrate ones. They're clearly pushing those G4s pretty hard. Oddly enough, though, there are no stories of Mac users burning themselves on their laptops...

Re:Does it HAVE to be x86

[saddino]

Clearly, it does.

Between the 83 occurences of "x86" in Apple's Universal Binary Programming Guidelines and the x86 chip architecture in the Development Transition Kits, how could it not be an x86 chip?

Anyway, I thought the speculation was over now that Intel has revealed its roadmap [macsimumnews.com].

Re:Watch the Mac fanatics twist and turn

[sribe]

his has been going on since Apple was late with color displays ("The Mac doesn't need color. It has resolution"), through the day Jobs bowed down to Gates on the big screen...

Apple supported large high-resolution color displays before Windows 2.0 even shipped. Look it up. Yes, the original Mac was B&W. But starting with the Mac II the platform held a huge lead in color graphics support for years and years.

Re:Watch the Mac fanatics twist and turn

[pammon]

>For example, many Mac users still run Microsoft Office
>on the Mac. Microsoft isn't obligated to offer that on
>x86 for the Mac, now that the five year deal has expired.

Why did Microsoft come on stage at the Keynote and publicly promise to offer Office/x86 then?

> This is more about keeping options open in
> case the Intel transition doesn't come off.

I don't think you can know that now.