Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side

Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side

Reply #30 – June 09, 2005, 01:10:47 PM

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f I can remember right, Apple Cpu's process everything in 32 bit chunks even though they are "64bit". But they do two at a time? Doesn't there big speed boost come from processing on every second clock cycle unlike a PC at every fourth clock cycle? I'm not a Apple muncher so I don't know.

Full specs on the current G5 architecture is here:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/architecture.html

I think the answer is in there somewhere.

, the more I look at it, the more I'm going to miss that elegant G5 setup. That will suck. However, if anyone can engineer a box that's both beautiful and functional, it will be from the engineers at Apple. They'll work some magic.

Yeah, that was the quote from the Apple VP I referred to above. Now that the announcement is official, I guess there have been signs pointing toward this all the way:

- Several quotes from Apple's VP about it being a 'monumental' task fitting a G5 processor in a laptop. There was never any kind of resolution offered.
- Microsoft's lackluster support for VirtualPC. They were SIX MONTHS behind the last OS X upgrade. Just biding their time because they knew this was on the horizon, maybe...?
- Apple's very non-chalant product releases in the last year. Again, they may have known the end was coming, but they still have to sell product.

A lot of people have also speculated that this move was driven in large part by pros in the movie industry. Right now there is a sharp divide amongst video editors as to the better software: Adobe Premiere (which now runs only on Pentium-based PC's) or Apple's Final Cut Pro (running only on Macs). Most of the major films you've seen in the last 2-3 years have been edited completely using FCP. IIRC, one of the last scenes filmed for "SW: Attack of the Clones" was finished by the associate producer using a Powerbook on the beach on vacation! Anyway, now that everyone will be using the same processors, it's likely that editing software debate will heat up even more, since updates and new features can be cross-platform. In short, it won't matter which computer you run, just your preference in software. In that industry I'm sure it will be a boon. I'm still not sure about desktop publishing and high-end Photoshop users.

Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side

Reply #31 – June 09, 2005, 01:17:24 PM

Another Mac transition article.. I think this guy is also a Mac user:

http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars

Looks like the Yonah core is 32 bit to start.. but for your laptops/etc., sounds like they're only 32 bit now anyway. I'm sure Yonah's successor will migrate to 64 bit.

Oh well.. that's what happens when ya switch to an architecture undergoing a significant transition. x86-64 is a potentially huge leap for the architecture. Once the transitional mess is cleaned up, things should be good.

'boink'.

Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side

Reply #32 – June 09, 2005, 05:36:41 PM

I would imagine Apple's "No Mac OS on a non-Mac computer" policy will be hackked and universally ignored, just like Microsoft's anti-piracy attempts. If a hacker wants to run it, it will be run, and typical hacker ego will have the hack public within moments of being hacked. It'll probable be along the same lines as Dell's anti-piracy bit - if you don't have a Dell BIOS you can't run the Windows install disc that comes with a Dell. AKAIK that attempt is only effective for causal users...

As I said earlier, I think Apple is being very, very stupid for not offering their OS to anyone with a PC. Microsoft got very rich doing just that...