Apple's Press Release

[i_wolf]

My sister has FCP and DVDSP on her laptop and I asked her if they cause her the slightest bit of bother. She just moved from FCP 4.5 to FCP 5 and has not had the slightest kernel panic or machine crash at all on either Panther or Tiger.
The only time I have seen a kernel panic myself was when new ram was installed in a Powerbook, but the Powerbook didn't like it for whatever reason. Very picky it would seem.
Asked crucial for a different stick and all was well. I noticed though that the original stick was double sided and the replacement stick was single sided.
I would also agree with the prior poster that I have found Windows 2000 to be a far more stable OS than XP.

Personally I use an IBM Thinkpad running FBSD Probably the best laptop I have ever owned. Fantastic build quality , fast and light.

[MikieV]

GCC does a really poor job at making Altivec optimised code. I was frankly surprised to learn that Apple used GCC to compile its OS if this was the case.

While they distribute GCC because it is free, and cross-platform [which is suddenly significant], I doubt Apple is using it in-house.

I seem to remember that the original G5s didn't show as much of a performance gain over the G4s as people had been expecting.

Then IBM released an optimizing compiler [I can't remember if it was for PPC in general, or specifically for the G5]. Apple re-compiled applications like Final Cut Pro, and got the performace-boost people had been expecting.

For that reason, I believe Apple uses the IBM compiler for their own software, while promoting GCC for "the masses".

I would also be surprised if Intel hasn't provided their compiler to Apple - for the OS and Apps which have been released to developers [if it wasn't already being used on the Windows versions of iTunes and Quicktime].

[vitualis]

Intel most certainly would be encouraging Apple to use the Intel compiler. From what I understand, most of Mac OS X (for PPC) is compiled with GCC.

Regards.

[MikieV]

Intel most certainly would be encouraging Apple to use the Intel compiler. From what I understand, most of Mac OS X (for PPC) is compiled with GCC.

Regards.

Then I share your surprise, if GCC's altivec code is lacking.

But, since they have been cross-compiling for both platforms all this time, sticking with GCC might have taken precedence over Altivec optimization - in the long view of the "just in case" scenario.

[thoughton]

XP crashes a lot, OS X is stable. OS X is slow, XP is fast. Pentium is fast, PowerPC is slow. OS X has several ways to do the same thing, XP doesnt. OS X is beautiful, XP is fugly. Steve Jobs is big and manly, Bill Gates is a reedy wimp. Gates is the richest man in history, Steve Jobs' annual salary is one dollar. My penis is bigger than your penis. What a useless discussion (dare I even call it that?) this has been

PS The one and only reason Apple jumped to Intel was the Pentium M's vast superiority over anything from IBM. Even though it is an FT500 company, Apple is so tiny compared to IBM there was never any pressure on Big Blue to produce the goods. Switching to Intel solves that problem. Also Steve is still mad at IBM for making him look like an idiot over the 3GHz promise :P

[mhar4]

I personally don't care if my computer runs on hamsters as long as it will run OS X.

Now we're talking. Hamsters - the computer hardware of the future. Incredible roadmap, so long as you don't run over them while you're driving along that road.

[smearbrick1]

I personally don't care if my computer runs on hamsters as long as it will run OS X.

Now we're talking. Hamsters - the computer hardware of the future. Incredible roadmap, so long as you don't run over them while you're driving along that road.

The great thing about Hamsters is that they are really cheap and require very little care. Sure you'll have to line the bottom of your pc case with cedar chips and fill his little water bottle, but ultimately, the cost savings definately outweigh the alternatives (such as mice, ferrets, rabbits - they're just lazy). Just think how fast those hamsters reproduce. Wow!!! You could have enough Hamsters to keep you going for at least a couple years. Or you could combine the Hamster power and boost your processing power to speeds that are unheard of now.

[offline]

I think you are overlooking the future of open source
solutions like Guniea Pigs. They might not be as
compact or as cheap to run, but they are just as
powerful a platform for launchiing us all into
the 22nd Century.

They also don't suffer from the duct tape bug.

[lordsmurf]

Or kittens. Just as small, a lot faster, and they are very abundant, easy to replace when one wears out.

[vitualis]

Switching to Intel solves that problem. :P

Well, in the short to medium term only. Apple compared to Intel is not too different from Apple compared to IBM. Tiny.

Intel is interested in making consumer level CPUs because of the PC market. HP/Compaq or Dell has much more leverage over Intel than Apple will.

Regards.

[pchan]

Apple has 1.8% of global market share. This has technically no leverage on supply chain whatsoever. With the exception of Intel and Dell, most pc hardware makers make pittance. IBM has thrown the towel. HP continues to struggle. Apple should just forget about the hardware and only sell OS. Just IP and couple of cents per cd rom. Avoid carrying $M of dead hardware inventory.

[thoughton]

Switching to Intel solves that problem. :P

Well, in the short to medium term only. Apple compared to Intel is not too different from Apple compared to IBM. Tiny.

You are cunningly avoiding the fact that IBM made processors for Apple that no one else used. By switching to Intel Apple joins the dozens of other PC makers (thus they are no longer a tiny customer) who all put pressure on Intel to improve their CPUs.

[thoughton]

Apple has 1.8% of global market share. This has technically no leverage on supply chain whatsoever. With the exception of Intel and Dell, most pc hardware makers make pittance. IBM has thrown the towel. HP continues to struggle. Apple should just forget about the hardware and only sell OS. Just IP and couple of cents per cd rom. Avoid carrying $M of dead hardware inventory.

I want some of what you're smoking With the recently introduced hardware like the Mac Mini and assorted iPods, you still think Apple should get out of the hardware business?

[DereX888]

Apple has 1.8% of global market share. This has technically no leverage on supply chain whatsoever. With the exception of Intel and Dell, most pc hardware makers make pittance. IBM has thrown the towel. HP continues to struggle. Apple should just forget about the hardware and only sell OS. Just IP and couple of cents per cd rom. Avoid carrying $M of dead hardware inventory.

I want some of what you're smoking With the recently introduced hardware like the Mac Mini and assorted iPods, you still think Apple should get out of the hardware business?

I think he meant PC hardware business, which all of it - including all 'popular" (in a movies maybe ) big Macs, mini macs etc - all of them, what totals to astounding 1.8% of the market
IMO if apple wants to continue selling gaypods - let'em, at least thats one somewhat popular line of product (as opposite to their "popular" computers lol)

[vitualis]

You are cunningly avoiding the fact that IBM made processors for Apple that no one else used. By switching to Intel Apple joins the dozens of other PC makers (thus they are no longer a tiny customer) who all put pressure on Intel to improve their CPUs.

??? As I recall, my next paragraph opened with...

Intel is interested in making consumer level CPUs because of the PC market.

In fact, none of the PC makers put much pressure on Intel to do anything. Do you think Intel will give Dell a second thought if they demanded a "special Dell-only CPU"? No.

Intel's drive to improve their CPUs is in part from competition from AMD and in part competition against their own OLDER CPUs. If they want to continue making money by selling CPUs, they have to give a compelling reason for people to upgrade.

Regards.

[thoughton]

In fact, none of the PC makers put much pressure on Intel to do anything. Do you think Intel will give Dell a second thought if they demanded a "special Dell-only CPU"? No.

Intel's drive to improve their CPUs is in part from competition from AMD and in part competition against their own OLDER CPUs. If they want to continue making money by selling CPUs, they have to give a compelling reason for people to upgrade.

Regards.

Buddy, I'm not going to argue with you anymore. You don't seem to be listening.

And you can say 'in fact' as much as you like, that doesn't actually make it fact, it is merely your opinion.

[thoughton]

I think he meant PC hardware business, which all of it - including all 'popular" (in a movies maybe ) big Macs, mini macs etc - all of them, what totals to astounding 1.8% of the market
IMO if apple wants to continue selling gaypods - let'em, at least thats one somewhat popular line of product (as opposite to their "popular" computers lol)

Do you happen to know how Apple ranks if you rank PC makers individually? Do you know what Gateway's worldwide market share is? How about Acer? Or Alienware? I do Suddenly Apple's share aint too bad.

And your 'gaypod' comment was really mature.

[pchan]

Apple shipped 1.07M units vs Global PC shipment of 50.375M units in 1Q05.

http://www.gartner.com/press_releases/asset_125124_11.html

[vitualis]

Exactly. Of the CPUs that IBM shipped, how many were for Apple? An absolutely tiny proportion. This is why IBM doesn't care all that much that Apple is going to stop sourcing them for CPUs.

There is no real change with Apple going for Intel. As a customer for Intel, Apple is small... VERY small. The idea that Apple on its own can generate any particular pressure on Intel is ludicrous. Yes, as a whole, the branded PC makers COULD put pressure on Intel but as a group, they don't and they haven't. The most that Dell does is now and then threaten Intel with the "we are considering AMD CPUs" stick to get better prices. HP/Compaq already use AMD CPUs in some of their systems.

Considering that Apple unlike any other PC manufacturer are going to hardware lock themselves to some degree, they can't just jump ship and use AMD CPU based systems either -- thus they have even LESS leverage than your average PC maker. Is Steve Jobs going to stand up next year and say that they are going back to the PPC platform? Highly unlikely and if he did, it would be corporate suicide.

Regards.

[DereX888]

I think he meant PC hardware business, which all of it - including all 'popular" (in a movies maybe ) big Macs, mini macs etc - all of them, what totals to astounding 1.8% of the market
IMO if apple wants to continue selling gaypods - let'em, at least thats one somewhat popular line of product (as opposite to their "popular" computers lol)

Do you happen to know how Apple ranks if you rank PC makers individually? Do you know what Gateway's worldwide market share is? How about Acer? Or Alienware? I do Suddenly Apple's share aint too bad.

And your 'gaypod' comment was really mature.

I don't know, and I don't care, and so sholdn't you - because be it Acer, Alienware, HP, Gateway (or any other 'brand') theyre all the same, while Apple is NOT (at least until they jumped ships).
Furthermore - what do you want to prove comparing i.e. Acer to Gateway to Apple? Its only Apple who used to use different chip architecture, and their 'popularity' was in the amount of 1.8% of the market, ditto. In this regard what comparison between 'makers' of PCs with same architecture chips would prove? Accept the facts, Apple has thrown in the towel and gave up. While years ago the market share was about 70:20 (IIRC) there still was hope. But they lost 90:1.8 (intel's chip architecture is ~90% of the market now), end of game, end of topic.

As to name 'gaypod' - I happened to work often in the "gay area" of my city. Almost every gay i see walking and listening to music is using an ipod, while in the "normal environment" ipod's are as rare as Macs among PCs. Hence the name gaypod - and theres nothing immature about it. Simple observation of facts

[pchan]

I work for company that supply Apple the cpu. So, we use MAC in the office. Software is very limited except desktop publishing. It took me quite awhile to get Autocad on MAC. The last MAC that I used was Quadra running on 68000 chip. Then we switched to Win NT and never look back.

NONE of the Window UI can come close to the MAC. NONE ! Yes, not even XP.

[willrob]

If the Mactel [a name that Apple registered on the day of the annoucement, by the way] can run the giant libary of PC applications, games, etc, then it will be a big boon for Mac users. But it might prove the death knell for Mac developers, many of whom until now had exclusive market share for thier niche products. In the PC world there could be a dozen similar products.

I think Apple will do whatever necessary to preserve its uniqueness; that is, they may put chips on the motherboard that will prevent Windows from running on their hardware; and conversely make sure that the MacOS can't run on a Dell. And if it's all encrypted, it cojuld take years for even a clever hacker to thawrt it. Just consider Pioneer's encrypted firmware for the DVD-R 109, which so far, at least in the Mac world, can't be updated except through an application Pioneer wrote for one of its VARs. Firmwware—and thgis is what Apple would implement—can be very difficult to crack.

[vitualis]

Unfortunately for Apple, it is not in their best interests to lock out PC software on a Mac though one can see a point in making it difficult to natively install Windows. The problem remains that the Apple scene is somewhat lacking in the breadth of software that is available.

Even now, a lot of people/institutions that use Mac OS, still have one or two critical (insofar as work productivity) programs that do not have a native version for Mac OS. In these situations, emulation (usually with VirtualPC) becomes a necessity. One would assume that with the move to the x86 architecture, this process would become more efficient.

Regards.

[willrob]

The developers who have the "kit" machines from Apple have been able to install Windows with no problem. But these machines are not meant to be the prototype of the final versions; merely for testing. I belive ThinkSecret.com had an article about it recenly.