And since everyone else is saying it… here’s my “Apple on Intel” story. From April 2000
Here’s the beginning of what I wrote for The Independent’s Network page (as it was) - and, get this, it was 10 April 2000. So you think you were early with the Intel story…?
Late last week, Apple Computer released an operating system product that runs on PowerPC chips. And also Intel chips. Intriguing, isn’t it, that the company which has from its inception used Motorola processors should be writing software to run on the chips that normally run Windows - and, increasingly, Linux.What it might mean is that in a few years from now you’ll be able to buy PCs which run Apple’s next-generation operating system, MacOS X. You might even be able to buy just the operating system and run it on your present PC.
More likely, you could buy an iMac in the future and discover somewhere in the small print that it had an Intel or AMD chip powering it, rather than a Motorola/IBM PowerPC chip. Not that you’d notice any difference.
For a moment let’s leave the question of “Why?” and deal with the question of “How?” The product released last week is Darwin 1.0, and Apple calls it the “operating system core” of MacOS X, due for release (on PowerPC chips) later this summer.
Give me a spare hour or so and I’ll mark it up… but not tonight.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- Credit where it's due (again) (6 June 2005; score: 68.56%)
- Apple's Tiger debuts April 29: was I close enough? (12 April 2005; score: 66.35%)
- How close is Tiger? Not *that* close, actually - here's the maths: late April do ya? (1 April 2005; score: 58.45%)
![[Valid RSS]](wp-includes/images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
June 7th, 2005 at 10:41 am
Heh!
Yah. Small print. Twenty-foot high letters on the screen at WWDC. Back to the runes, Nostradamus :)
June 8th, 2005 at 10:31 am
not been much discussion on this topic yet, and I would have thought we’d have loads!
Are we all too speechless?
My take on it - it’s basically a very good thing - esp for portable and media areas (low-power, wi-max, dualcore etc), and that Apple has a very clever execution plan for getting all of us there. However, I continue to be amazed at the numbers of people (fans even) who have woken up and suddenly discovered their computer is now suddenly a “dog” when compared with a Pentium, that Apple is now selling uncompetitive machines or that somehow while they needed a machine tomorrow, they might just wait 2 years! I do not believe this. A current Powerbook is more than a match for a current Pentium-based equivalent dollar-for-dollar.
This is about the future, and we should be pleased that a hard decision has been taken which will make that future more reasonable for most of us fans, and that the pain in getting there won’t really fall on the consumer.
However, Apple’s risk in this is the (irrational) drop in sales that will result while the transition happens and that indeed this will be a 2 year effect. I’m not sure even a dual core Powermac G5 or even a PowerbookG5 in the interim would solve this problem.
Me? I’m getting an increase in RAM!
Ian
June 8th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Yeah, RAM is where it’s at. Processors are for losers :)
The only thing I’m a bit worried about that I haven’t seen discussed is the science market. I thought scientists were quite enjoying the PPC/Unix combo of the Mac (cos the PPC is quite good at crunching sciencey numbers, or something?)
Now, aren’t scientists the sort of chaps who would have written their own, quite low-level programs to do stuff?
Won’t these need to be re-written to run on Mactels?
Or am I just confused?
June 9th, 2005 at 9:16 am
slight OT
but i had a dream last night about going into an computer shop and looking through the book section. I noticed the guy next to me was purposefully hiding all of the copies of ‘iCon’ behind copies of ‘Extreme Router Configurations’ or some such.
At some point I realised it was El Presidente Jobs himself.
So my question was ‘Blimey Steve how many emails did you get after that little announcement (the MacIntel linkup)?’
Strangely enough he turned a funny shade of red and exited stage left at high speed!
That’s when i knew it was a dream because he didn’t argue!
(Pass the Kool Aid and make ritual observances in the direction of Cupertino.)
Does the processor change make any real difference to the majority of users, apart from seizing the geek agenda once more…Longhorn what’s that? and given slippage won’t Redmond be pushing that at the same time as highend MacIntel systems come on stream?
Will
June 9th, 2005 at 10:00 am
Quite possibly, Will. And quite possibly around the same time that Leopard comes out. Woo baby! Looking forward to the sparks flying there.
June 14th, 2005 at 8:35 am
i saw this http://appleintelfaq.com/
It looked like a pretty good summary to a layman like me, no obvious ‘holes’ in the points being made.
will
June 14th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
Although it did neglect to mention that OS 9 (’Classic’) apps won’t run on Intel-based Macs.
June 15th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
Have I missed something? There seems to be a general assumption (reflected in the website that Will links to, for example) that Apple will be using x86 chips. However, that is not confirmed by Apple’s or Intel’s press releases.
Is it not possible that the Apple line of Intel chips (even if derived from the current x86 family) will be different enough from the current Pentium & co. to make them uniquely Mac chips? (I assume that (a) the development time required and (b) the fact that development machines appear to exist already would point away from a completely new design.
June 15th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
Apple will be using x86 chips; Jobs said his presentation was done on a Pentium 4, and the hardware that Apple is loaning developers for some ruinous amount is a Pentium system.
What the company will do, of course, is add its own proprietary chips to the systems which it won’t let be copied. (In the US, the DMCA has force. Rest of the world, hmm… reverse-engineering could be interesting.) That will distinguish them from your common or garden Windows systems.