Apple dumps PowerPC for Intel Power

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Darth Garth

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Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.

Apple has used IBM's PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel's chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.

The announcement is expected Monday at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor.

http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM,+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731398.html?tag=nefd.lede

OS X on Intel .... the mind boggles.

I hope this is true.
 
Very interesting - I dont know whether I like the idea of a shift or not seeing as I'll have to have 2 versions of the same software to run on older and newer chips - then again if the prices come down enough as a result . . . . .

Have to ponder this news for a bit.
 
bwana said:
I'll have to have 2 versions of the same software to run on older and newer chips
Click to expand...

OS X has a concept of a "fat" binary where a single executable file (.app) can hold multiple images for different architectures.

NeXtstep the grandfather of OS X was always multi-platform (Intel,PA RISC,Motorola and PowerPC).
 
Then at the very least I'll have to buy new versions of the same software.
 
From the Scobleizer blog

Skeptics can't believe Apple is giving IBM the boot

Already I see skepticism from my readers behind Apple's move to Intel.

Make no mistake. This is a real story and I've gotten confirmation from people who know. I can't say more, though, cause I don't want Apple to sue me to find out my sources.

From what I hear, though, they have had a version of OSX running on Intel for a long time and are ready to go.

What does this all mean for Microsoft? Not sure yet. It sure will be interesting to watch this play out.

Some questions in my mind:

1) Is Apple going to give people a choice of Windows or OSX on their machines?

2) Will Apple lock out Windows from running on their machines?

3) What will the performance of OSX on Intel be like?

4) When will we see a Tablet PC from Apple? IBM's inability to get Apple high-performance, low heat, and low power chips played a part here. Now that Apple's going with Intel, will we see some innovative portable devices from Apple?

5) Will there be an OSX version that I could buy for my Tablet PC?

6) What will the stock market think? (It spanked Apple today because of a ThinkSecret report that iPod sales were going down -- at least that's what Bloomberg Radio was reporting to me on the way to the airport).

Is that the real reason Apple wanted to shut down ThinkSecret? They put out a report and Apple's stock tumbles about 5% in one day. Whew. The power of blogs.
 
IMO this isn't a bad move on Apple's part. As seen in the past IBM have been sluggish to release higher performance desktop PPC chips and the current Power970 chips are pushing their limits. The newer PPC architecture used in the Xbox 360 and Cell are not well suited to run general purpose operating systems so Apple is stuck in a corner. Adopting x86 would allow them to easily move to AMD if Intel put the squeeze on. I'm pretty sure though that Apple will still want to control hardware sales so expect them to prevent OS X from running on generic x86 hardware.
 
Would this mean the end of G5, G4 computers etc?

This sounds great - OS X on my Dell - I dream :p

Althoug I can see why Apple are hesitent to release it - people will stop buying Apple hardware because of the price factor - it will be very interesting to see how they do this - me wants :D
 
It would mean the end of the hardware they use in the G4 and G5, not sure if they will drop the G branding. Intel may be designing "custom" chips for Apple so that you're still tied to Apple hardware, so at this point I don't think you'll be running OS-X on your Dell ;)
 
Oh well - I don't like this [I better censor this] anyway - if it gets cheaper mabye, just mabye when I upgrade :D

But tibby.dude did say they have that version ....
 
Perdition said:
It would mean the end of the hardware they use in the G4 and G5, not sure if they will drop the G branding. Intel may be designing "custom" chips for Apple so that you're still tied to Apple hardware, so at this point I don't think you'll be running OS-X on your Dell ;)
Click to expand...

Apple don't use a BIOS but Open Firmware to bootstrap their machines.
Also they manufacture their own "southbridge" , so it would be easy for them to make sure OS X only boots on their branded machines.
 
I wonder if this has anything to do with microsoft using the PowerPC 970 chips in their xbox 360. Apple promised 3ghz 970's in the G5 ages ago and they've yet to materialize. Now IMB is going to supply the 3 x 3.2ghz chips Microsoft needs for each 360 towards the end of the year.

Still if Microsoft and Apple used the same chips it would certainly lead to lower prices.
 
hmmm...
i AM gonna be waiting to monday to find out :D
 
bwana said:
I wonder if this has anything to do with microsoft using the PowerPC 970 chips in their xbox 360. Apple promised 3ghz 970's in the G5 ages ago and they've yet to materialize. Now IMB is going to supply the 3 x 3.2ghz chips Microsoft needs for each 360 towards the end of the year.

Still if Microsoft and Apple used the same chips it would certainly lead to lower prices.
Click to expand...

They don't use PowerPC 970 chips in the Xbox, see halfway down the page:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars/3
 
They can, thing is Apple aren't handing over the huge wad of cash for R&D like MS did. It seems IBM are shifting away from generic desktop CPU's and moving focus to server and custom CPU's thus Apple have no real choice unless they invest in a custom design, going the Intel route is probably cheaper for them. Besides the Xbox CPU (even with 3 cores at 3.2) probably runs general OS and application code poorly, it just wasn't designed for that.
 
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