Please don't call it a Macintosh

Homunqlus, I thought you'd be above crying "fire!"

fjdouse: I do build my own computers. And I've both experienced Windows and Linux. Linux is stable but lacking. I'm sure I could find things if I combed deep, but I'm not an open source or unix guru. I'm a typical end user. Well, I build my own comps, but thats not hard. So windows it is. Its easier, and common. And I didnt like it either. Buggy, unstable, slow, much malware. Changing to Firefox from IE helped some, but not enough. So I bought a Powerbook. Two main reason: the features and OSX. Plus its pretty and light, but thats another story. I like this, its my favorite computer yet, but its still unable to play games. Except a few slow ports of old games.

Switching to Intel is not the end of the world. While the chip maker is Intel, which some dont like, mainly because of its connections to Windows, but some because of how they handle things, there's a difference. They're not going to slip a P4 into a pretty case and call it a mac. Most likely, it will be a new chip, better designed than the Pentiums, and mostly unable to load Windows. Virtual PC may work much better, but getting Windows itself on it will take alot of work that the average user cant do. Getting OSX on a regular PC will probably be even harder and may even require mucking around with the motherboard. Only dedicated people will get it to work, and then it will lack the stability of a mac running OSX. If they're that desperate for OSX, let them be. Chances are they were going to get a pirated copy anyway.
 
Sorry to rock your world, but if Apple becomes a PC maker and Windows runs on it albeit with a bit of effort, THEN it is inevitable that OSX will be running on Dells etc.
ok. we know the dev machines use a phoenix bios. but i can't imagine apple moving BACKWARDS from OpenFirmware to a BIOS.

now. tell me where you are going to buy a motherboard that has OpenFirmware on it??

better yet. f^%k openfirmware. tell me who is going to write the kernel extensions and device drivers to make OSX run on your piece of shit dell you seem to love so much.

sure you can run OSX in a vm. i can stick leather seats into a 1950's crapbox car. doesn't make it any better to use.

Linus Trovaldus doesn't use a G5 for the OS does he? he uses it for the outstanding hardware. a CPU change wont alter the build quality.
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Cat said:
"An Intel CPU will never be as robust or as strong as the G5 is. Fact."

Well, indeed. :rolleyes: Could you somehow give any reasons for this bold statement? The G5 is a quick hack, an adapted POWER processor with Altivec grafted on.
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I can give you one very good reason to believe this for the near (next couple years) future... Apple isn't putting the first Intel processors in their high end systems.

If the Intel processors were so much faster than the G5, then we would be seeing a top-down transition plan... which we aren't. What we have is a bottom-up transition, which means that Intel has promised Apple that by 2007 they'll have something that can replace the G5.

People are taking an emotional view of this, but this is the logic of the situation... Intel has nothing short term, but something up their sleeve for a couple years out.

Apple's high end desktops are going to remain driven by the G5 until 2007, that is not saying much for the Intel processors in the mid to low end models that are going to be delivered first.

The G4 is really the first processor on the chopping block, and the only one that can currently be replaced with some form of benefit.
 
Pengu said:
ok. we know the dev machines use a phoenix bios. but i can't imagine apple moving BACKWARDS from OpenFirmware to a BIOS.

now. tell me where you are going to buy a motherboard that has OpenFirmware on it??
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I'm sure I've read somewhere that OF won't be used, but the point is irrelevant. I'm probably wrong.

Pengu said:
better yet. f^%k openfirmware. tell me who is going to write the kernel extensions and device drivers to make OSX run on your piece of shit dell you seem to love so much.

sure you can run OSX in a vm. i can stick leather seats into a 1950's crapbox car. doesn't make it any better to use.
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OK, immature use of useless expletives aside, calm yourself. If PearPC's creators can create an environment for OSX in software, they (or someone similar) can do an even easier job once OSX is native to Intel. In fact the only thing which really makes PearPC non-viable right now is the fact it has to emulate the PowerPC chip, take that out of the equation and use the x86 in the host PC and you'll have pretty good execution speeds. Good enough for many, who won't give a stuff what hardware they are running as long as they can use OSX as well.

Pengu said:
Linus Trovaldus doesn't use a G5 for the OS does he? he uses it for the outstanding hardware. a CPU change wont alter the build quality.
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Let's see what he will be using after 2007/8. Anyway, build quality? A PC is just a PC, anyone who is above user-level knows that. I can build a better PC myself than most manufacturers. The OS running on it makes it stable provided the hardware is reliable.
 
I found very interesting article from website. It have information about future of PowerMac and Powerbook. Check it.

Introduction

Now that the shock from the Apple-Intel announcement has had some time to set in, it's time to take a look at what this means for the Mac platform in the near- and long-term future. I've tried to make the present article a complement to John Siracusa's article on the transition, which means that I cover different ground and I address a few of the questions that he raised. Specifically, this article is focused on the CPU hardware part of the Apple-to-Intel transition picture, with some thoughts at the end on what it all means. Because I've saved my more general remarks on the significance of the transition for the article's conclusion, we can dive right into the technical details first.

Read More:
http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars
 
Interesting, doesn't answer the point I've been asking, as to whether this means Apple will be just a PC maker.

I actually one of the comments posted was quite apt... "but you know, the mac *has* lost it's mojo."

Although it raised something which I've not seen mentioned yet (I may have just missed it). The iMac which is currently a 64bit G5, right? will become a 32bit Intel? People wanting a 64bit PowerBook aren't going to get one are they? 64bit Intels are quite far down the roadmap compared with the current PowerPCs, or am I wrong?

Anyway the original premise of this thread, that Apple should abandon the name Mac, I am finding myself in agreement with. If Apple are going to make PCs, they aren't Macs... and I really, really won't want one. Such a shame, I'm beginning to fear we will get PCs in the future from Apple, not those wonderful machines with a mystique as the article mentioned, which can generate such loyalty, ripping out the processor could rip the very soul out of the Mac.
 
nah, its still a mac.

g4s need to be gotten rid of. and i have faith that intel will far outdo the g5 by 2007. so i'm not worried at all.
 
What I do find amusing is how we now have the "unquestioning" Mac fans who are now saying how good Intel is and how bad PowerPC is. A few months ago, this was heresy and the complete opposite was true, spouting statistics and benchmarks and roadmaps. Now a complete flip.

Is it because Steve Jobs says so? I find it hypocritical in the least.
 
all we are doing here is trying to guess what the future holds, and we are basing so many opinions on 1 simple fact: Apple will be using intel in the future. thats it. The bottom line is that we dont know what these two companies have in the pipeline. We dont know whether you will be able to buy osx on pcs, or run native windows on a mac. All I recommend we do is enjoy what we have in the present, top class os, and great hardware, from a really top class company. WAIT to see what happens in the future, everyone stop freaking out!
 
fjdouse said:
What I do find amusing is how we now have the "unquestioning" Mac fans who are now saying how good Intel is and how bad PowerPC is. A few months ago, this was heresy and the complete opposite was true, spouting statistics and benchmarks and roadmaps. Now a complete flip.
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Well, you can't look in my direction for that one... I still think the PowerPC 970 series is a great chip.

I have always liked IBM's processors and was unhappy when Apple went with Motorola's G4 and tied everything to Altivec. I was happy when Apple went back top IBM with the G5 but found it questionable to still be tied to Altivec (as it is something that IBM has never shown much interest in).

On the other hand, I've never had any problems using any processor (I'm not a processor bigot). I have systems using the following processors:
MC 68030
MC 68040
MC 68LC040
PPC 601
PPC 603e
PPC 604e
PPC 750
MPC 7410
Pentium
MIPS R3000
MIPS R4600sc
MIPS R4400sc
MicroSPARC​
On the other hand, I will not use Windows (or any Microsoft products). So this move doesn't effect me in any way other than Apple moving away from the processor company I like the best.

And I don't think Intel has anything today that can replace the G5. We'll see what happens in 2007.
 
have faith, i was scraced too( still am a little),but if intels road map happens it schould be good, if it does not then im not sure where we are.We need to see that ibm said 3ghz pm, not there, G5 pb, not there. Jobs had a good reason to switch It intel,IBM stop doing what the said what the would do, hopeful intel can give apple what it needs, if not lets go back to ppc. I like ppc more but if its not going to make a good computer we need intel( or the best chip out there). im ready to try it ,if Jobs is, 2 out of 2 of the big change(os9 to osx, and the Motorola MC to PPC went well, this one might too. Time will tell, i'll be with apple for ever, and if apple dies, i'll try linux
 
um. someone tell me where S. Jobs said they will replace the PowerMacs with Intels last??
 
didn't... although the power consumption/performance slide comparing PowerPC to Intel chips does suggest that the powerbook line (which needed a proc change/upgrade the most) will be the first to move to intel.
 
Yep. Also if you look at it this way: The PowerPC G4 is long overdue for a replacement, whereas the G5 certainly has a bit more life in it. FreeScale might provide Apple with a dual core part, but even then, the Pentium M (and evolutions of that) will run cooler. So the iBook/Mac mini/PowerBook/eMac will probably get those.

intel is moving the desktop/server processors towards using a Pentium M base, too, but this will take a bit longer. But that'll end up in PowerMacs and Xserves towards the end of 2006 and 2007, be dual core and X86-64, which'd fit a G5 replacement.
 
Another good data point is that the developer stuff for intel is all 32 bit. I cannot believe that they would take as big of a step back from the 64 bit stuff on the PowerMac. "Sorry you can only have 4 GB of memory" won't cut it.

Once the low end has moved over then we can look into moving to the newer intel 64 bit processors that are scheduled to be coming out toward the end of the transition period.
 
Lycander said:
One last thing: you'd be very naive if you think Linux and various OSS software is developed by amatuers. Many OSS programmers are employed by companies like IBM, heck even RedHat trades stock in the public market. And if it weren't for OSS developers, we wouldn't have FreeBSD, Mach, and even the work done on Darwin.

Do you like Safari web browser? *cough* KHTML which was made by OSS programmers. I could go on.
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the definition of amateur is, simply, someone who works for free. no one gets paid for most linux, and the fact there is no one system only introduces instability. it is amateur. i apologise for the "rubbish" statement. it's not rubbish, but i do feel it's not finished, and it's not a fully-viable OS replacement yet. because there is very little software for it that appears to be past what a normal company would pass for beta. "MacOS is the worst operating system in the world, except for all of the others"

So my argument that it would be silly to discount the Mac, which is the most accomplished consumer computer in the world, just on the premise that some windows users will get hold of it, or that the chip isn't as strong as PPC. it's stronger, in some areas. they can fit a very good one in a laptop, for example. there's a future for apple and intel.

there isn't a future for IBM and apple. i said, when the 360 was announced as using PPC, and then the PlayStation 3, that IBM (famous for a short supply) was going to have alot of work on their hands. sony and microsoft have bottomless pockets. apple was never going to be front of the queue at IBM with that kind of competition.

wait and see, and decide in 2007 if the switch is detrimental to apple. people are dimissing this change before they've even heard the whole story. we have so little to go on.

don't forget that apple has always gone in this direction at heart. IBM was apples biggest rival in the 80's. then they sold their soul to the enemy by using IBM chips for a decade. and the Mac OS, which was the individuality of the mac died in the last transition, replaced with a nicely skinned UNIX
 
lurk said:
Another good data point is that the developer stuff for intel is all 32 bit. I cannot believe that they would take as big of a step back from the 64 bit stuff on the PowerMac. "Sorry you can only have 4 GB of memory" won't cut it.

Once the low end has moved over then we can look into moving to the newer intel 64 bit processors that are scheduled to be coming out toward the end of the transition period.
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Yeah I've been thinking about that, I'm sure I've raised the issue and nobody has addressed it.

I guess we'll have to pretend that Apple never did have 'the worlds first' 64 bit desktop machine after all (although I've had a 64bit Sun sat here for years), along with ah-hem AltiVec.



@Lt Major Burns (is that a joke?, if not sorry ;-) )
Interesting observation about OSX as a skinned UNIX, as a UNIX professional I'd say OSX is the best UNIX out there and something Mac users should take great pride in, I know I do. As for your idea of what an amateur is, I completely disagree, I have done much work professionally without a fee, doesn't make me an amateur. Stating that software produced by open source is basically unfinished and amateur really shows that you do not really understand it at all. But, what do I know about UNIX and Linux, with my qualifications and the fact I've been using Linux since you were probably nine years old ;-) But this is hijacking the thread and OT, perhaps that would be better discussed in a new thread.
 
Is it REALLY this hard to understand that the processors which will be used in iMacs/PowerMacs/Xserve _will_ have the 64bit extensions, because Apple's talking about June 2006, not "next month"?
 
Maybe they don't know what "roadmap" means. The change is to ensure that Macs are top notch "for the next ten years.."

Nothing about the announcements means that we should all of a sudden feel the G5 machines aren't top notch now.

I wonder if the iWhiners have actually seen the keynote. In one year the intel will be three times more powerful per watt than the ppc will be in one year. It's all about what each company will be able to deliver down the "road". Computer development is not like life. Life is about today, computing is about tomorrow
 
I haven't a problem with the roadmap or even the switch, I can even see it as being the best thing ever. My own doubts/fears are about the type of machine made, which the iBlind don't seem to see or care about.
 
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