Mactels are a scheme

Z

zoranb

Registered
Here are some fast thoughts, with little thinking and knowledge i had this morning

Why did Jobs announce something (Mactels) a year before?
What will happen to the PPC sales until the new Mactels are out? Will everyone wait for them and stop purchasing the old stuff?
Has anyone thought that maybe he let it out on the open so some guys (hackers) could do his "dirty" work for him. Prepare the cracked OSX version for PC.
And what if MacOSX works on pcs (some in this forum said it would be bad for Apple) i think thats great for Apple, she is just following Bills footsteps with Winxp and MSOffice - easy to crack, everyone has it, MS rulez all over the globe. If OSX works on pcs that would surelly cut a share for Apple out of Bills pie.
But then again im still sleepy from this morning wake up!
 
Quite a few threads about this, aren't there. Hm. But let me answer your very first question: Because the developers need to make the transition before the first user.
 
zoranb said:
Why did Jobs announce something (Mactels) a year before?
Click to expand...
Like Fryke said, developers need time. If Apple waited until they were ready to ship before they announced the switch, then the systems would be the joke of the industry for a long time, because there wouldn't be any third-party software that would run natively on them.[/quote]

What will happen to the PPC sales until the new Mactels are out? Will everyone wait for them and stop purchasing the old stuff?
Click to expand...
A lot of laptop users probably are holding off. The pro users won't be (probably), because the G5 towers will (probably) remain on the high end until 2007. I don't think this is much worse than with normal updates. There are always people who hold out for the "next big thing". Some people have been holding out for a PowerBook G5 for a year. I don't think it's a huge issue.

Has anyone thought that maybe he let it out on the open so some guys (hackers) could do his "dirty" work for him. Prepare the cracked OSX version for PC.
Click to expand...
Not sure what you mean. If Apple wanted to release it for any ol' PC, I don't think they'd need help from hackers on the technical aspect. It's possible, however, that Apple intended for the hacking to happen in a way to guage interest and create buzz in the Wintel world. But I don't think there's any real reason to believe such a theory....*shrug*

And what if MacOSX works on pcs (some in this forum said it would be bad for Apple) i think thats great for Apple, she is just following Bills footsteps with Winxp and MSOffice - easy to crack, everyone has it, MS rulez all over the globe. If OSX works on pcs that would surelly cut a share for Apple out of Bills pie.
Click to expand...
Anything's possible, I suppose. The big arguments against this are A) Most of Apple's revenue comes from their hardware sales, and B) right now Apple doesn't need to spend the time and resources supporting every hardware configuration on the planet.

The last time Apple licensed the Mac OS, the company almost went under. Apple killed the clones when Jobs came back, and that's when they started becoming successful again. Opening the OS to regular PCs would certainly increase the number of people using the Mac OS, but......so what? Apple doesn't really care how many people use the Mac OS. If they can make more money with fewer users, then that's what they have to do.

Again, anything's possible. But Apple would really need to rework their business model, and I dunno if they do/should have any interest in doing that.
 
Apple has said that they have been working on Mac OS X for Intel parallel to the development for Mac OS X on the PowerPC. Jobs admitted it at WWDC earlier this year, and a great place to deliver that message since it's the developers that need to know first hand.

As for the PowerPC, consider that right now it's a mature platform for Mac OS. For this reason many will continue to buy the current stock of Apple Macs. Remember that when Apple switched from 68K processors to PowerPC many people still bought the 68040/68LC040 Macs because they had been tested and the OS at the time had a lot of native 68K code. Many of the first gen PPC machines had to do a lot of emulation in 68K for the available software and weren't running natively. This wasn't the case until Mac OS 8.5 came out, which totally removed support for 68K processors and had more code optimized for PPC.

This is what will probably happne with the switch from PPC to Intel. However, I think Apple has done a better job this time around giving the developers time to prepare for the switch.

Also, Apple just made a deal with Freescale Semiconductor (the PowerPC people from Motorola) for supplies of G4 processors until 2008. So the support for the PPC will remain for a long time.
 
AFAIK, Mac OS 8.5 (and even OS 9) still contained some emulated code. And developers knew of the PowerPC switch before the first generation of PowerMacs came out, too. But I think those older transitions (68K to PPC and Mac OS to Mac OS X) took far too long. If you think about it: Mac OS X Server was the first PowerPC native operating system Apple came out with (for customers, I mean). Before that, there always remained the feeling that some things could be faster if all of the 68K code was replaced. And Mac OS X took quite a long time to grow up, too. I personally switched to OS X as my full-time OS at 10.0.x, but my working colleagues only did so at 10.1.x or 10.2.x, some of my friends held on to OS 9 until 10.3 came out and - good thing for them - waited for 10.3.2 to come out before they actually installed the beast.

I really hope that this transition will be quicker. My PowerBook isn't very old yet, and I quite surely won't upgrade to another PowerPC PowerBook. Whether the PowerBooks with intel processors come out in June 2006 or March 2007: My PB G4 will do until then. If I wanna be extra-careful, I'll get an intel Mac mini at first to get my feet wet, i.e. test the OS on intel, Rosetta-emulated applications etc. I don't mind if Photoshop takes a second longer to load if it actually _runs_ fast (I'll have it open all day long, anyway...). If Photoshop isn't native on intel Macs when the PowerBooks come out, I'll have to see about Rosetta - or wait.
But for owners of older PowerBook G4 models - for example a nice 1 GHz 17" PowerBook - a dual core PB G4 or even a PB G5 might look pretty good. And why not: Apple's going to support the older hardware with newer operating systems and software for quite some time. Look at what Tiger still supports: There are people who're running Tiger on those old colourful iMacs, although Apple hasn't built them since early 2002. For all we know, the PowerPC Macs will be supported by OS X and Apple's software until 2010 or later. And even that _number_ sounds like Science Fiction to me.

Apple certainly has to get the message across more clearly that PPC Macs won't die the instant the first intel Mac comes out. They'll do that, for example, by telling people that Leopard will be optimized for G4, G5 and intel processors and will run just fine on G3 Macs as long as they have USB and FireWire ports. Or something along the line of that. They'll do so by releasing Universal Binaries of all their new software.

But the most important thing right now for people to grasp (and Apple to tell): For consumers, the transition starts in June 2006. If you need a computer by X-Mas 2005, you should take a good look at what Apple has to offer. Those will be good computers, and they'll be fine for years to come. Just as always.

As for the "Apple wanted to let hackers use OS X on their plain vanilla PC hardware": Can be true or wrong, doesn't matter much. It's a developer version and come June 2006 (or shortly thereafter), we'll know how they intend (if so) to protect their OS from being run on anyX86-hardware. 'til then: It's fun for some people to play with the real Mac OS on their PCs. I hear not much software can actually be installed an run on such boxes, so there's not much harm done. People who really enjoy Mac OS X might buy a Mac mini or two or an iBook. That's good for Apple.
 
nixgeek said:
Also, Apple just made a deal with Freescale Semiconductor (the PowerPC people from Motorola) for supplies of G4 processors until 2008. So the support for the PPC will remain for a long time.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't this just be the case of having parts available for the machines already out there?
 
Naah -- Apple wouldn't secure a deal with Freescale solely to provide service parts for their current machines. Besides, Steve Jobs said himself that there are still some great PowerPC machines in their lineup.

It seems as though some people are expecting ALL future machines to be Intel-based since Jobs made the announcement (and that no PowerPC machines will be updated with PowerPC processors), but that simply isn't the case. This isn't a "switch" -- it's a transition, meaning there will be a period of time where both PowerPC and Intel Macintosh computers are sold at the same time. Even after the first Intel-based Macintosh comes out, Apple will probably still be updating other PowerPC-based Macintosh computers to faster and better PowerPC processors. Remember: the transition will take at least 2 years.
 
Actually, about 1.5 years, from June 2006 to the end of 2007, according to Steve Jobs. But yes: Since products are usually updated about every 6-9 months, we'd see PPC Macs coming out even after June 2006.
 
fryke said:
AFAIK, Mac OS 8.5 (and even OS 9) still contained some emulated code.
Click to expand...

I thought this was only to allow for older 68K apps to be executed in OS 8.5 and up, hence the reason to exclude 68K machines. You can't even install 8.5 and up unless the machine has a PowerPC upgrade.
 
One thing didn't exclude the other. While some things (like hardware-drivers) were finally replaced with a PPC version, other stuff still depended on the ability to execute 68020 code (the processor that was emulated by the PPC chips). But I could be wrong about how much of the code and when was replaced etc. Also: Apple wanted people to buy newer machines more quickly, so that's one reason older machines weren't supported by the OS anymore. And the 68K/PPC switch certainly was a better 'requirement' than FW ports. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top