|
==Hurdles Associated with the Move==
===PsychologicalReaction to the change===
AppleThe hasannouncement benefitedof greatlythe amongswitch itscame useras communitya fromshock theto [[psychology]]many ofin "[[Thinkthe Different|thinkingMac different]]."community; Manymany Apple users have enjoyed the ready availability of a consumer desktop that was completely separated from the "[[Wintel]]" alliance, and ads claiming the PowerPC architecture as superior hadhave been a key part of Apple advertising for many years. With that separation gone, many longtime Mac users have expressed fear about Apple's future, and whether Apple's [[brand identity]] will be preserved. Some of the fears expressed include
* forced usage of the [[Intel Inside]] marketing campaign, including the [[decal]]s and [[jingle]]; ▼* concerns about the quality and performance of Intel's [[chipset]]s;
* concerns about the x86 [[instructionarchitecture set]]itself, and whether it will affect system stabilityperformance and application quality;
* the possibility of Windows and Windows applications running natively on Macs; and
* the early announcement of the change causing an [[Osborne effect]].; and
▲* forcedIntel usageforcing ofApple to use the [[Intel Inside]] marketing campaignbranding, including the [[decal]]s and [[jingle]] ;.
===Hardware oriented===
Intel is seen among the Macintosh community as being a purveyor of hot-running chips. Apple themselves mocked the Pentium range in their "Burning Bunnies" advertisements of the late 1990s, and the [[Pentium 4]] needs large amounts of power and cooling to operate, making it unsuitable for laptops and small PCs. However, the [[Pentium M]] chips, which were designed for laptop use, run much cooler than the Pentium 4, and Apple is expected to use these CPUs first.
Finally, the relative "goodness" of the x86 architecture has been discussed. Critics of the switch say that x86 was a poor choice because of its lack of hardware [[register]]s compared to the PowerPC, the awkwardness of the x86 [[instruction set]], and the lack of [[AltiVec]]. Proponents have responded by saying that the x86 architecture has evolved greatly since the original 8086 was introduced, and that CPUs in general have combined [[RISC]] and [[CISC]] philosophies in their internal designs for some time, making the distinction obsolete; they also point out that improvements to [[SSE]] that can completely replace [[AltiVec]] are coming, and that most programmers rarely deal with x86's peculiarities now because the [[compiler]] does the work. Also, 64-bit capability was not mentioned in Apple's initial developer notes, which has worried some observers; it has since been indicated that the Pentium 4 in the developer machines has [[EM64T]] capability, and that all of the Intel chips due out by the time the Power Mac line switches over will be 64-bit. Apple has not yet released any plans for 64-bit Intel machines, though the capability will be there.
===Existing applications===
Classic will not be supported on the x86 architecture. This means that older Mac software will not run, which some users running older applications (such as [[QuarkXPress]] 4 and 5) have objected to.
==FutureSee also==
It seems as of this writing that the transition is fully away from PowerPC although internal builds of these may proceed as have Intel builds for the last five years. Apple has shown that it likes to have processor options and will act on them if the business case seems appropriate. Within the same department, builds should also include those for AMD, as well as SPARC and even [[Cell (microprocessor)|Cell]].
AMD was the obvious and in many opinions preferable choice for Apple. There are good reasons for even the most ardent detractor to grudgingly admit the benefits of x86 but those same ardent individuals are unlikely to accept Intel at all. AMD has the performance crown and with new production facilities can meet Apple's volume requirements. Moreover since they do not supply the entire platform, there would be less anxiety among the Apple customer base about the loss of identity. AMD were selected by [[Sun Microsystems]] to power their recent workstation range and Sun's technical demographic is not dissimilar to Apple's.
However, Sun is not a laptop vendor and AMD does not appear to offer laptop specification chips of the same calibre as Intel. They are also still bound to IBM's apparently failing process technology. Apple may pursue a dual-supplier strategy with AMD in the future to enable those Wintel detractors to once again adopt the platform.
Cell does sport a general-purpose PowerPC core as well as the multiple [[SIMD]] cores and while is not intended as a workstation chip has been recently demonstrated powering a Linux environment. This required significant effort to establish however. Finally Itanium has not been a market success and would arguably not improve the Xserve line's penetration if adopted.
Not counting Itanium, the roadmap for Intel in the immediate future suggested by [http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars Ars Technica] includes "[[Pentium M|Yonah]]" (a dual-core Pentium-M successor with a 65nm process), "[[Pentium M|Sossaman]]" (a desktop version of Yonah) and "[[Pentium M|Conroe]]" (another desktop Pentium-M successor, and [[64-bit]]). None of these processors have been confirmed for Apple at this stage. It is likely that laptop and lower-end machines will be revised first as they are most in need of refresh in comparison to the market as a whole. High-end machines will be revised last as the current G5 is still very competitive and an Intel alternative would not appear to add a great deal of performance.
Less realistically, it is possible that Apple is using this hardware change in order to rekindle previous opportunities to license the operating system. Other than Apple no major vendor sold a desktop PowerPC based system. Now it is possible that Apple will select certain hardware suppliers to increase the roll-out of OS X without simply unbundling the operating system and rekindling the "clone wars." As an existing hardware partner for the [[iPod]], [[Hewlett Packard]] seems a plausible choice.
Alternatively Apple could license Sun Microsystems to bring the OS to AMD processors. Apple already has a deep relationship with Sun through Java. Apple has licensed this and related technologies for some time and Sun have incorporated certain desktop Java recommendations from Apple into the source base. [http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan/20050605 Most recently] [[Jonathan I. Schwartz|Jonathan Schwartz]] of Sun has even dared suggest [[OpenSolaris]] as an alternative kernel for Mac OS X instead of [[XNU]], a move that for many long-time operating system watchers, would bring together the best of all worlds.
== See also ==
* [[Star Trek project]]
| 