Posted on 06/07/2005 7:23:06 PM PDT by Happy2BMe
SAN FRANCISCO - After two decades of touting its Macintosh as a superior alternative to PCs based on Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft Corp. software, Apple Computer Inc. announced plans to switch the Mac to the same Intel chips that have powered Windows-based machines for years.
The deal, which has long been rumored, will help Apple better compete with the performance - and potentially the price - of Windows PCs. Still, Apple will continue to build its own computers and says it won't be licensing its software to other PC vendors.
Speaking to thousands of software developers Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the move was driven by the fact that its current chip suppliers - IBM Corp. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc., the former semiconductor unit of Motorola - could not promise the same horsepower and power efficiency as Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company.
Intel, on the other hand, has plans to make its chips more powerful without dramatically increasing electricity demands. That's critically important for notebook computers, which now rival desktops in U.S. sales
Jobs revealed that Apple has been working on the move for at least five years, creating two versions of its Mac OS X operating system for both the current Mac chips and those built by Intel. He said the transition will start by mid-2006, with the entire Mac product line switched by the end of 2007.
Calming fears that Apple's switch would ignite a revolt among its most important software programmers, Jobs was joined on stage by two major developers - Adobe Systems Inc. and Microsoft. Both announced that they would support Macs running the existing and new hardware.
Might be worth considering a Mac this time around.....
I feel a mightly BOO-YAH coming on.
Rumor is that Apple switched to Intel for the coming hardwired copyright protection. - I'll stick with AMD Thank You!
well... Lexmark lost their case. =) Implications for Intel and the UberDRM Reischtag und Cyber Crystalnacht(read about it on Groklaw.net)
I have a G4 dual. As a webmaster, I still use OS 9 because of the all software installed for the web. My OS X Tiger is used making DVD using iLife 5. I still do most all graphic work on 9 and by saving to an external drive I can still open it on X. I refuse to purchase all the software I would need for X because of the cost. (Around $2500 or more) Here is my concern, adding a dual X system, how in the hell will it work and still use OS 9? What a mess.
But mac hardware is so superior to what's in PC's!!!!
Intel chips are running cooler at faster speeds. Kind of a shame, since I believe the PowerPC architecture is superior..
Based on what I've heard, you'll be SOL. There's to be no support for 68k code on the x86 Macs, nor any support for MacOS 9.
It is, but it's not relevant. No one was or is willing to invest sufficient money in either PPC chip development or manufacturing capability to effectively compete against Intel for desktop CPUs. Super computers, very-high-end workstations and embedded processors are another matter, however.
I used to love the MAC back then. The only thing I like about it today is that it does not have Bill Gates name stamped on it and those huge LCD monitors they use are to die for.
The good news is, VirtualPC will now be able to run Windows applications on MacOS X just about as fast as they run natively on Windows.
The bad news is that software developers will have much less reason to offer MacOS-specific versions of their software, since Mac owners can just use VirtualPC to run the software.
Quite true. The only guys who worry are those who write compilers, since no one really messes much with Assembly language. I cut my teeth on the 6502, and was drooling at the prospect of getting at the NS32032, perhaps the sweetest cpu, machine language wise, of all time, but from a practical standpoint, the PPC is to Intel, what Betamax was to VHS.
Doesn't mean his dual G4 is suddenly going to stop working - if it's doing what it needs to do, keep it going. I see no reason to believe that x86 Macs will suddenly stop supporting network shares, so use the G4 and save your work to a shared drive.
:~)
(Atari's Jack Tramiel loved it.)
> The bad news is that software developers will have much less reason to offer MacOS-specific versions of their software, since Mac owners can just use VirtualPC to run the software.
Software applications have always, and always will, rule the computer world.
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