Final cut and osx on intel chips

Post by **Canis** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:05 pm

It would be nice if they made a dual processor G5/P4 combo that would be the best of both worlds.

Post by **Geebs** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:05 pm

Cool Blue wrote:Mark my words, Apple will be competing with Dell for top PC manufacturer in the world in ten years. In 15, Apple will own the PC market.

In which case the PC market will be Fucking Expensive.

I don't see this doing any good for their hardware sales in the next year, tho

Post by ***OptimusPrime*** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:07 pm

holy shit this will be interesting..

Post by **Geebs** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:08 pm

This just in: Apple to switch back to PPC in 2008

Post by **bag0shite** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:09 pm

Gonna be 2 years before the Power Mac line transitions, plus I'd guess support for a good time after that, then the line will be frozen, so you've got 3 years in it at least. There are obviously more PPC updates to come.

I think the deciding factor here has not necessarily been Mhz, but both IBM and Freescale/Moto's inability to deliver sufficient quantity of chips on time. Plus I'd guess Apple are small fry to m$ and Sony, thus Apple fearing they're gonna be even further down the queue. Intel can supply the quantity needed...

What I want to know is, what will stop Joe average computer user installing OSX on his PC? Will it be in the chip? Mobo? And how long before it's hacked...

Edit: Don't forget laptops. Latops have this year outsold desktops for the first time (or laptop sales growth by %age has outstripped Desktop sales growth %age). Probably the reason why Laptops will transition first. Then there's a nice set-top TIVO box with drm at chip level to consider...

Post by **Canis** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:18 pm

So much for RearPC, I guess...

Post by **SplishSplash** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:20 pm

Geebs wrote: I don't see this doing any good for their hardware sales in the next year, tho

No shit. Steve Jobs is a smart guy and all, but I hope he thought this through.
Maybe it would have been better to totally surprise everyone and announce the change when the new machines are ready and available.

Post by **Canis** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:23 pm

bag0shite wrote:Gonna be 2 years before the Power Mac line transitions, plus I'd guess support for a good time after that, then the line will be frozen, so you've got 3 years in it at least. There are obviously more PPC updates to come.

I think the deciding factor here has not necessarily been Mhz, but both IBM and Freescale/Moto's inability to deliver sufficient quantity of chips on time. Plus I'd guess Apple are small fry to m$ and Sony, thus Apple fearing they're gonna be even further down the queue. Intel can supply the quantity needed...

What I want to know is, what will stop Joe average computer user installing OSX on his PC? Will it be in the chip? Mobo? And how long before it's hacked...

Edit: Don't forget laptops. Latops have this year outsold desktops for the first time (or laptop sales growth by %age has outstripped Desktop sales growth %age). Probably the reason why Laptops will transition first. Then there's a nice set-top TIVO box with drm at chip level to consider...

I'm sure there will be enough of a proprietary hardware requirement in the OS so it will only run on Apple hardware. I bet it could be hacked to work on other machines, but it would be unstable and full of bugs. As for laptops, Apple's been limited to G4 processors...way behind the times IMO.

I'm at least pleased to know the G5 will be supported for another 3 years or so after it's phased out, so I've got another 4-5 years left on my machine. Still, I'd have liked to run it through the floor as I did with my last computer.

Post by **Canis** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:25 pm

SplishSplash wrote:
Geebs wrote: I don't see this doing any good for their hardware sales in the next year, tho
No shit. Steve Jobs is a smart guy and all, but I hope he thought this through.
Maybe it would have been better to totally surprise everyone and announce the change when the new machines are ready and available.

Nah, developers need to have at least a year to get their software up and running on the new hardware. A new machine out on the day of announcement wouldnt be bought, as people would be skeptical of the support behind it.

Post by **bag0shite** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:27 pm

*from the live feed*

[1:39 PM] (Jobs) Asked a long time developer (Theo Gray of Wolfram Research, the makers of Mathematica) to come out to Apple and work on Intel.

[1:41 PM] Mr. Gray is joking about getting "the most crazy calls from Apple," where Steve asked him on Wednesday night to come out to Apple and port Mathematica, one of the most complex apps on the planet to Intel by Monday.

[1:42 PM] According to Mr. Gray, it took two hours to do this port. "We're talking about 20 lines of code out of millions from a dead cold start where he didn't even know why he was going."

[1:43 PM] We're getting a demonstaration of Mathematica at work. It's quite impressive, of course, and it's working on an Intel Mac.

Post by **Canis** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:32 pm

The good thing from a business standpoint seems to be the code is quite portable between PPC and x86, given that Apple has worked hard to keep OS X running well on both platforms. I've always wondered why Apple has kept up an x86 port of Darwin. I used to think it would be a last resort effort in case the PPC died, but it's clear they've just kept options open, and have done it VERY well. Apple can smoothly switch between processors, since they've kept up development for both.

Post by **saturn** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:13 pm

holy shit, I went away for some taekwando training and I come home to see it's confirmed.

lol, I just bought my G4 powerbook end of april.....wonder what will happen in the next year.

Post by **Therac-26** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:16 pm

Can Apple survive for two years without selling any computers?

(See Osborne Effect.)

Post by **Turbanator** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:25 pm

why will apple not sell anything in the next 2 years? every piece of software they launch now and later will run on current machines, they will continue to support powerpc, and considering the power of the G5 (look at a recent article on anandtech comparing g5 processing to intel based), you'll see that when you buy a g5 based computer, you're getting more power than a pc anyway.

Sure Final cut will be on a Intel Based mac this time next year... but will this intel mac run it as fast as the g5?

Post by **Turbanator** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:26 pm

i've said it elsewhere, i'll say it here... launch a g5 powerbook and I will be one of the first to log into the apple website to place my order.

Post by **saturn** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:32 pm

but how long will software come out for PPC? Developers will chose the Intel-Mac architecture and forfeit a PowerPC version along the road. Smaller apps will also lose support from their programmers. The next two years will be a bad time to buy a Mac for sure.

Post by **Therac-26** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:32 pm

Turbanator wrote:i've said it elsewhere, i'll say it here... launch a g5 powerbook and I will be one of the first to log into the apple website to place my order.

I gather that the lack of a mobile G5 was one of the (several) reasons that they ditched IBM. IBM was also unable to deliver a 3.0 Ghz PPC for thier PowerMacs.

I imagine you'll see a Centrino Powerbook sooner than a G5 one.

As for the "not sell anything" -- would YOU buy an expensive, high-margin piece of computer hardware that has no future? I was willing to put up with the lack of performance in my new iMac, as I assumed that future optimizations in OSX would make things smoother -- now that PPC optimizations are a dead end for everyone involved in Mac development, then I can only assume that this is as good as it gets.

Post by **Turbanator** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:40 pm

you guys are overreacting like little girlies...

when you go and buy final cut studio pro hd super turbo edition 2 years from now, on launch day, it's hardly gonna say on the box "Requirements: Intel Mac, OS 11 etc". It'll say "OS 11". There is HARDLY ANY code changing required when moving apps from powerpc mac and intel mac, all software will still be released for both platforms, it doesn't make financial sense to miss out such a big market over a little bit of work. They ported mathmatica in 20 lines... jesus man... and it took 1 man less than 2 hours to find those 20 lines... do you know how complex mathmatica is?

Post by **saturn** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:43 pm

if it's so easy, why don't they port more games to the mac-ppc platform? Because it's not profitable for niche market (not that I miss them, nor that I don't have every piece of software for the mac that I need)

Post by **saturn** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:44 pm

damn, an universal Microsoft Office....will that mean that I can finally import Outlook PST files into Entourage? Guess not

Post by **Turbanator** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:47 pm

and you think your imac has a lack of performance...

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436
ironically, only posted the other day, x86 vs powerpc

so if you think os x is slow on your g5, wait till they release it on x86... OS X is pretty and artsy and stuff... all that takes resources... you think your machine is slow because of the hardware? hardly... its slow because of the bloatware in os x.... the bloatware you all enjoy and love...

Post by **Therac-26** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:48 pm

Turbanator wrote:you guys are overreacting like little girlies...

when you go and buy final cut studio pro hd super turbo edition 2 years from now, on launch day, it's hardly gonna say on the box "Requirements: Intel Mac, OS 11 etc". It'll say "OS 11". There is HARDLY ANY code changing required when moving apps from powerpc mac and intel mac, all software will still be released for both platforms, it doesn't make financial sense to miss out such a big market over a little bit of work. They ported mathmatica in 20 lines... jesus man... and it took 1 man less than 2 hours to find those 20 lines... do you know how complex mathmatica is?

To be fair, most of Mathematica is written in Mathematica. (see: Emacs).

I'm not complaining about software support, I'm complaining about performace -- I've been distinctly underwhelmed with the performace of a brand new 2Ghz G5. Knowing that this is as good as it will get in terms of performance on this G5 has pretty much sealed the deal for me. The thing is going back, restocking fee or no.

Besides, it has a green stuck pixel that annoys the fuck out of me.

Post by **Cool Blue** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:48 pm

Turbanator is so cruel.

Post by **Turbanator** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:51 pm

saturn wrote:if it's so easy, why don't they port more games to the mac-ppc platform? Because it's not profitable for niche market (not that I miss them, nor that I don't have every piece of software for the mac that I need)

you're missing the point...

your program an app designed for os x, you code for the os x libraries and the os x application layer... then APPLE do all the porting for the different computer architectures in OS X itself. Every release of every OS X operating system in the last 5 years has had a x86 port. The applications interact with the operating system and it interfaces with the hardware... which hardware it's interfacing with has little or no concern to the software itself. Does this make more sense and explain why games aren't released on os x?

Post by **saturn** » Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:52 pm

hmmm.....in the future, if I decide to buy an Intel-Powermac, will I have to pay for two licences to run a program on Intelmac and PowerPCmac? Yes of course, so I have to decide what version to get. Hmmmppppffffffffffff