MacOs 10.5 (Leopard) will run on Intels!

[riffer]

As rumored, Steve Jobs announced today at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference that the Macintosh will make a transition to Intel processors.

Jobs reviewed the two previous major transitions, from Motorola 680x0 processors to the PowerPC in 1994 thru 1996 (before Steve Jobs was back at the helm), and from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X in 2001 through 2003. Saying "It's time for a third transition," he explained that the need for the change was more than just the inability to deliver a 3.0GHz Power Mac, as he promised 2 years ago, but that Intel offers increased performance AND reduced power consumption ("Intel chips runs cooler"), a critical factor for PowerBooks, and an exceptional "roadmap" into 2006 and beyond.

He said that Mac OS X has been living a secret double life for the past five years and gave a demonstration. The design for Mac OS X has always been processor independent and cross-platform capable by design. The technology to let existing PowerPC applications run on Intel is named Rosetta and performs dynamic translation transparent to users.

Mac OS on Intel is to be given to developers (ADC "Select" and "Premier" members) now and to customers "this time next year." The transition will be completed in less than 2 years, by the end of 2007. Dashboard widgets, scripts, and Java programs do not need porting. With Xcode 2.1 (out today and distributed at the Keynote), developers can make a "tweak" and recompile for Cocoa applications, and port Carbon applications in a matter of weeks. Mathematica was ported in 2 days, although the porting team had direct support from Apple. A universal version of MS Office is coming. Photoshop and its plug-ins run with typical performance but take longer to load.

All demonstrations during the Keynote were performed on a 3.6GHz Pentium 4, to the surprise of many in the audience.

originally posted on www.macrumors.com

[Skunk]

Mmmm, have to put off updating my hardware again...
I assume Apple will still make hardware, just with Intel inside?
Or you could buy an 'UglyBox'™ down the road and use that?

All good - either way.

[bugjuice]

watched the QT WWDC stream at work (sshhhhh don't tell the boss).. and was a bit taken back by all that. And, they've been making sure OSX has always been able to run Intel processors as a backup, not just the new upcoming OSXs. So you can start at 10.0 and run it on a new 'Intel' mac, in theory. Must admit, feel a bit cheated in a way, but if that's the best way forward, then bring it on..

The attachment is a screen shot of the mac on show. It was also hidden the whole time too. Only the big-ass screen, K&M were on the desk. They are selling Intel 'developer G5s' at US$999 to selected companies to help the software companies transition between CPUs.

Apparently you can't just grab any Winbox and shove OSX on it, still won't work that way. Apple will start selling Intel macs around this time next year, or so they hope. It's mainly cos IBM chips get too hot and can't R&D quick enough, so Apple have jumped ship. Jobs' demonstrated that the Intel chips have the potential to be 30 times quicker at least. Which is pretty quick when you have a quick OS to boot (sorry, bad pun). The new stuff should still be sexy tho, altho no one knows if they'll be called 'G6's or something new..

**Attachment may disturb some mac users**

[k14]

So does that mean u can run osx on a normal pc now?? Well one with an intel processor, or would it work with an amd aswell?

[bugjuice]

So does that mean u can run osx on a normal pc now?? Well one with an intel processor, or would it work with an amd aswell?

nope, they still need Mac machines to run on, it's just the CPU that's Intel, not the rest of it. Sounds it, but it isn't as simple as that. OSX has always been able to run Intel (now we've been told), but it's still the rest of the system that the OS takes advantage of, not just the CPU, so no.. 'fraid not

[k14]

So (and Im not taking the piss or anything) why is this big news?? Hasn't the cpu's in apples always been made by external companies anyway? Does it matter if they change to intel? Or am I missing something?

[Biff]

So (and Im not taking the piss or anything) why is this big news?? Hasn't the cpu's in apples always been made by IBM? Does it matter if they change to intel? Or am I missing something?

It matters from a cost perspective, in that Intel manufacture shit loads of x86 processors, so the manufacturing cost of Macs should fall significantly.

IBM appear to want to concentrate on manufacturing chipsets for the next generation X box and Playstations,hence their reluctance to up the manufacturing capacity of Mac processors.

OSX will work on Intel chips, but not along with the other Windoze chipsets.

Long live Apple, at the expense of Miroshaft says I.

[John]

Heh, the comedy - I was going to post this yesterday, but thought no one would be interested (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl...&tid=179&tid=3)

It was an inevitable happening.

[k14]

It matters from a cost perspective, in that Intel manufacture shit loads of x86 processors, so the manufacturing cost of Macs should fall significantly.

IBM appear to want to concentrate on manufacturing chipsets for the next generation X box and Playstations,hence their reluctance to up the manufacturing capacity of Mac processors.

OSX will work on Intel chips, but not along with the other Windoze chipsets.

Long live Apple, at the expense of Miroshaft says I.

Yeah makes sense, I should think about things before asking stupid questions next time.

And I'm sorry to tell ya but "Microshaft" will be around for alot longer than u and I. Its a bit of a necessary evil.

[Biff]

And I'm sorry to tell ya but "Microshaft" will be around for alot longer than u and I.

Funnily enough I found my ols ZX Spectrum and some software cassettes over the weekend. Several of the games I had were made by Microsoft. Ahhh the good ole days. Where 1K was all that was required for day to day arsing about and a 16K RAM pack meant you were sooooooooo cool.

Its a bit of a necessary evil.

Like the HP?

[James Deuce]

I don't understand - I've been running FreeBSD on Intel (& AMD) PCs for years. How is this news?

[John]

I don't understand - I've been running FreeBSD on Intel (& AMD) PCs for years. How is this news?

oh now thats class, give this man all your green.

[Biff]

I don't understand - I've been running FreeBSD on Intel (& AMD) PCs for years. How is this news?

Seriously? As a primary OS on a desktop and not a server? How are you finding it?

[riffer]

Seriously? As a primary OS on a desktop and not a server? How are you finding it?

phooey. FreeBSD does not Aqua and Darwin make. Anyway the macs run BSD, not Free BSD.

Try Pear out for size in the meantime if you're feeling particularly geekish

[Big Dave]

Throughout the apple-wintel war, us maccies were told that RISC architecture was the open path and the way of enlightenment and ever increasing power. The wintel way would eventually lead to motherboard meltdowns due to the heat the chip created and an ultimately finite number of transistors - the closed path. Then they worked out how to refrigerate them eh.

Just goes to show........something or other.
My OS 9.2 G4 and PS6 and quark 4 and dremweaver 3 all work just fine.

I'm spending the upgrade money on a '67 Monaro.