kylejn Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 We've all heard the rumors that Apple is considering a move to Intel after being dissatisfied with the IBM's production rates on the PowerPC chips. However, there may actually be a shred of truth in all of this: NOTE: Bold added by me. Apple Ships Its Longhorn on ScheduleAt 6:00 pm tonight, Apple Stores around the country will begin selling Apple's next generation version of Mac OS X, codenamed Tiger. In case you were off visiting remote areas of Burma for the last year and a half, Tiger offers many of the features that Microsoft promises in Longhorn, but it delivers them today. Sadly, Tiger doesn't run on standard Intel hardware, but if the rumors we heard at WinHEC are true, it may soon: In addition to the Microsoft evangelist who told us that Apple was moving to Intel, we later heard that an Intel engineer was claiming that Intel-compatible versions of Tiger were now running in the company's Santa Clara labs. True or bogus, what the heck: Rumors like this are just fun. Source: WinInfo Short Links Pretty interesting stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rix Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 Im gonna sound like a major noob here..but will this be all x86 CPU's or just Custom Apple Intel CPU's? Edit:\\ Heh, didn't read it fully, Guess Not :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liquid Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 Id sure hope so. If OSX truely moved to x86, I would switch from windows in a heart beat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Another_Paul Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 It just takes one copy to get leaked for all non Intel/Apple employees to try their hand at Tiger on x86 hardware :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emel Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 I dont think they would do that.. atleast not on standard CPU.. but if people find a way to run it.. then I will *try* it.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 Id sure hope so. If OSX truely moved to x86, I would switch from windows in a heart beat. 585848866[/snapback] i think I would switch also, or dual boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b mitchell Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 I would switch, but I dont see it happening. Apple will switch to x86 the same day they let you put music you bought somewhere other than iTunes on an iPod. They know they have a hold on the mac hardware market, and with their sales on a steady stream, I dont see why they would stop it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoXY Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 . . . I think they're not talking about running 10.4 on a PC, I think they are talking about running 10.4 on a INTEL MADE chip for the Mac hardware platform.... or is it?....:huh: I fell like I don't know english... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b mitchell Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 Im getting confused too. Can someone lay out, in plain english, what this would mean in the end? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyyPunk Veteran Posted April 29, 2005 Veteran Share Posted April 29, 2005 I would assume they mean tiger running on a CISC chip, not RISC (different, incompatible architectures), produced by Intel... sigh...if only Windows could be compiled to CISC...all would be well in the world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giga Veteran Posted April 29, 2005 Veteran Share Posted April 29, 2005 Maybe it's because of the laptops? Getting a G5 in a thin PB is pretty hard compared to what the Pentium Ms can do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eminem213486 Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 welcome to driver nightmare.. i honestly thing apple hasnt done this before bc of all the issues with hardware. i frankly dont see it as true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrp04 Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 maybe osx on an intel power pc chip??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpGreen Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 i honestly don't think that Apple would switch to X86 purely because of all the money they make off of the current powerpc platform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoXY Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 maybe osx on an intel power pc chip??? 585849007[/snapback] yeah...exactly...that's what I was trying to say...and I think that's also what the article is trying to say...I don't REALLY think Apple would start telling Intel to start making a chip for PC so PC users can run OSX on it...because think about the profit loss when people no longer by hardware from apple...Apple switcing chip making companies is not surprising, but...making chips that can be installed on PC and can run OSX...very unlikely... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdb815 Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 I thought the whole reason Apple moved to IBM is because Motorola wasn't able to make the chips fast enough, now the same is happening with IBM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IK47 Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 or how about dell and hp start putting powerpc in their computers and let consumers choose between mac or windows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpGreen Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 or how about dell and hp start putting powerpc in their computers and let consumers choose between mac or windows? 585849039[/snapback] i dont think this would happen for 2 reasons 1.) because it sounds too expensive and 2.) Dell and HP are PC makers...not MAC makers....lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SapUMBC Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 1. This would be another OS X all over again, as every piece of software out now for OS X would need to be recoded and recompiled because of the loss of AltiVec and the fact that it's a different CPU. 2. Marklar. Apple has always had a version of the Mac OS running on x86 hardware as a "Worst Case Scenario" safety net. Apple realizes the problems faced by moving from one CPU to another and I am fairly sure, at least under Steve Jobs' lead, they will not be moving to x86 anytime soon. Can we stop with the "Apple is moving to Intel" junk now? Please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Lyle Global Moderator Posted April 29, 2005 Global Moderator Share Posted April 29, 2005 umm.. i dont think so. just a rumor. BTW, i would NOT switch. don't quote me and start flame wars.. cause i dont wanna bother answering why... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac15 Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 Apple has had an Intel based OS X for years now... back a few years ago a friend of mine who worked for Nextbyte (Australia's biggest reseller) used to attend meetings with his boss and several other store owners. I used to get all sorts of "insider info" from him - I knew about the G4 iBooks, I knew the iTunes 4 icons was green and that it supported Rendezvous , and it was released late because it would crash when there was more than 5000 songs being shared. But the most exciting news I'd heard from him was that Mac OS X was run on a intel based machine and apparently it was "incredibly fast!". They had ported a Final Cut 3 to it and it was much faster than the PPC version (yes this happened some time ago). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyyPunk Veteran Posted April 29, 2005 Veteran Share Posted April 29, 2005 I think this is still being confused... Apple is NOT planning on moving OSX to the PC (x86) Apple MAY BE planning on switching the company that produces their processors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theyarecomingforyou Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 I can't imagine Apple ever switching to be just a software company, but that is not to say that they won't produce an x86 chipset for an Intel/AMD CPU - that way they'd still get money from the chipset and have control over the hardware. Then all you'd need would be Windows drivers for the chipset and you'd be able to dual boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Live Veteran Posted April 29, 2005 Veteran Share Posted April 29, 2005 I would assume they mean tiger running on a CISC chip, not RISC (different, incompatible architectures), produced by Intel... 585848990[/snapback] Ugh. The PowerPC 970 chips which Apple call "G5" are hardly any more RISC than a Pentium 4. RISC and CISC do not apply to x86 or PPC/Power these days, as both use a combination of RISC and CISC and parallel instruction computing designs. The architecture difference is that between x86 and PowerPC, not "CISC" and "RISC" specifically. Then there's also the issue of Endian-ness. sigh...if only Windows could be compiled to CISC...all would be well in the world Huh? You don't compile to CISC or RISC. You compile (usually) to assembly for the target machine. The most common Windows distributions are compiled for x86 - which has its roots in CISC systems. So if anything, Windows is already CISC targetted... kind of. Windows can also operate on several RISC systems. In the past there have been Alpha, MIPS (both RISC), and PowerPC (partially RISC). The Xbox 360 will feature a specialized version of Windows NT running on a Power chip. Compiling OS X for an Intel x86 chip is not terribly difficult, and Apple has surely done this before. The problems are: 1) Applications needs to be recompiled. All your old PPC Mac software won't work on an Intel chip (without some sort of emulation or VM). 2) Developers/Publishers have to get those new applications out to people, and distinguish between PPC and x86 versions. 3) If they abandon PPC altogether, there is little or no upgrade path for current users. 4) Apple would lose control of the hardware platform. This would mean a lot of work would have to go into supporting different chipsets/motherboards and hardware configurations. unless 4a) Apple includes some sort of hardware-level restriction so that their OS will only run on their systems. Alternatively, it's possible that Intel could be building a processor capable of PowerPC execution, if Apple has the license to that instruction set (I'm not too clear on who has that these days). Either way, it's not impossible, but it's difficult. It will be interesting to see how (and if) this develops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betasp Posted April 29, 2005 Share Posted April 29, 2005 It had been rumored for years there is an x86 mirror of OSX running in Apple's lab, up to date and eveything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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