Apple

Apple to Switch to Intel Platform

There has been a lot of incessant yammering about Apple potentially shipping a Mac OS X version which runs on Intel hardware. This is the first article I’ve read which lists three good reasons why Apple won’t.

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9 Responses

  1. spigot 22 years ago

    FOLKS I’M REALLY STARTING TO THINK BLUE IS FOR ME!!!!

  2. Ryvar 22 years ago

    There are a couple of things about this article I don’t buy. First off is that a second major revision in the Apple world in four years would be a problem for app developers. Bull. Unless generic app development in OSX is so radically different from Windows that I cannot even fathom it – 99% of the code at the VERY least is programming language conventions + API calls to the operating system & supported/ported 3rd party APIs like OpenGL/SDL. I highly doubt that remaining 1% is going to kill anyone, especially with the glut of x86 coders serving coffee at Starbucks these days.

    Secondly, there’s the claim that Apple doesn’t want to shift to x86 because Microsoft would eat them alive. Ok, hold onto this because I’m about to get crazy here: #1, you’re telling me that people will shift away from easier to use? AOL has how many customers (or had how many before they trimmed costs too much)? Much more importantly – how about just porting OSX over to the x86 and having developers write the very minor amount of platform-specific code necessary twice. Madness, I know, but game developers coding for the PC have had to put up with writing specific code for SIMD, 3DNow, MMX, and generic processors for sometime now. Assuming these concepts translate AT ALL I’m trying to think of code that the overwhelming majority of your Win32, MFC, or VB apps use that necessitates giving a flying fuck about what platform is running it . . . and outside of the need to compile two versions of the executable I’m coming up with a gigantic nothing hanging in my face like an engorged prick.

    Countering the last point shouldn’t even be necessary, but here goes: COST. People want an AOL machine and they want it at the prices that pimply kid next door can put it together for. Moreover, if Intel’s Pentium 4 aka Giant Lump of Shit proved anything it’s that consumers judge performance solely by that amazing ‘2.4 GHZ FOR $999!!!!!’ at the top of the sales flyer. Sticking to these low clockspeeds might not hurt Apple’s performance that much from an objective vantagepoint, but it is cruficying them in the minds of the retards buying P4s and the demi-retards selling them by the dumptruckload.

    I’m an x86 user. I will be an x86 user until Palladium hits. Give me OSX on the x86. Give it to me now so I can leave this wretched hovel. Windows 2000 will only last me so long before everything is XP and .NET and the Palladium-enabled .Manjail. I want off this sinking ship and I swallowed the roophies on purpose so show me the way home, honey.

  3. Charles Stearns 22 years ago

    Even if Apple did ship an Intel based box you will never see a version of OS X that runs on a system not made by Apple. Apple is a hardware company, that is where their profit is. By controlling the hardware platform they are able to ensure a higher quality user experience, by developing and QAing on a limited range of hardware.

    Most user problems with XP or Win2K come not from the software but from the vast array of different hardware people run on. It’s just not possible to do extensive QA on all combinations of PC hardware available.

  4. Oksob 22 years ago

    Charles is wrong. Darwin has been ported to x86 – I don’t know if the port still works – but the point is that it’s been ported at some point and that you’re not necessarily right.

  5. niko 22 years ago

    Darwin can and does run on x86.

    I’ve heard Aqua was ported ages ago (when OSX was started) but I don’t know if this is true or not. If it is it’s probably horribly outdated.

  6. Charles 22 years ago

    I was not saying that OS X won’t run on an x86 based chip. I know about the Darwin port.

    My point was that it won’t run on a system not made by Apple. Though very unlikely, Apple could choose to build a system with an Intel chip. But they will never cannibalize their own hardware sales by shipping OS X that can run on any Intel hardware.

  7. zsazs 22 years ago

    Just moving to an Intel x86 platform doesn’t mean that the system will be able to run Windows and that Microsoft will eat Apple alive. In the early 80s there was a good number of Intel x86 computers that were absolutely incompatible with the IBM systems (The HP150 comes to mind.)

  8. Gary 22 years ago

    Nobody here remembers BeOS?

    If Apple puts OS X on Intel they become BeOS and die.

    If Apple puts out x86 hardware they become SGI and die.

    Jobs is not an idiot. I hope.

  9. Andrew Gale 22 years ago

    Somebody else summed it better than I ever will:

    “I’m an x86 user. I will be an x86 user until Palladium hits. Give me OSX on the x86. Give it to me now so I can leave this wretched hovel. Windows 2000 will only last me so long before everything is XP and .NET and the Palladium- enabled.”

    Nuff said.