BUY Apple!

Published on May 23, 2005 By Dr Guy In Personal Computing

Ok, just days ago I said dump their stock. But I guess the dump sign was a sign to them to do the right thing!

Yep! They are talking (talking mind you, not doing) of Porting OSX to Intel! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If they do, I am going to buy every share I can! Finally a real alternative to Windows! (I will refrain from the vulgar names for that platform).

If they do, I will be first in line to buy the latest!

Yeaaaaaa!!!!!!!!! About damn time!

Added June 6, 2005: It appears it will be the CPU! Intel Apple! Alright!

http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731398.html

Comments (Page 3)

Leauki

on May 25, 2005

"OS2 was fine. I used the latest, Warp 4, just a coupole of years ago. But as you indicate, it suffers from 2 faults. Poor support and no applications."

Indeed.

"Porting OSX to the Wintel platform would entail bringing all the applications that currently run on it."

Saying that the applications can be ported is easy. Getting companies to port them to a platform that has no guaranteed users is different. If a company has to choose between porting its Macintosh program to Mac OS x86 or simply marketing their Windows version to Mac OS x86 users (who can also run Windows), the company will do the latter. There is no incentive for companies to port to an untested platform and there is no incentive for users to buy a platform that doesn't have the application support of the next best platform.

And that assumes that all Mac applications are portable to x86, which very few of them are. 68k and all Classic applications, Carbon applications, Mach-O applications are not easily portable. And they make up the vast majority of Mac applications. Just to get this in perspective: Microsoft Office, Apple Works, iTunes, Mozilla are Carbon applications, OmniWeb (a Web browser) is a Cocoa application. OmniWeb is portable and did run on x86 before.

"Microsoft wins due to lies and great marketing."

No, they win because people buy their products and won't switch. No lie stops people from buying Macs, no great marketing on Microsoft's side made IBM equip OS/2 with a horrible installation problem and a flaky unstable GUI.

KeithMacDonald

on May 25, 2005

I have had nothing but bad experience with Macs. I WILL NEVER BE SUCKED INTO THE MACINTOSH VORTEX! Windows all the way...

(i gotta be the only person who thinks this way on this entire site, but I hate Mac, dislike Linux and love Windows!)

Dr Guy

on May 25, 2005

And that assumes that all Mac applications are portable to x86, which very few of them are. 68k and all Classic applications, Carbon applications, Mach-O applications are not easily portable.

The Assumption was OSX Applications. In that, there are enough where most Mac users no longer need to boot into classic. Either the application is now Native OSX, or the Vendor has said it aint going to happen.

Leauki

on May 25, 2005

"The Assumption was OSX Applications"

Define "OSX application". Most Mac OS X applications are Carbonized Macintosh applications and not portable. Porting them to x86 would not be much more trivial than porting to Windows. And since most Macintosh software vendors, and most probably all relevant Carbon Macintosh software vendors already have a Windows version available for x86, they are more likely to get Mac OS x86 users to dual-boot into Windows and use the existing Windows application rather than a ported Mac application.

Even assuming that all Cocoa (OpenStep) applications could be ported and would be ported, Mac OS x86 would still lack more than 90% of available Mac apps and dual-booting into Windows is just too cheap an alternative for users to create demand for Mac OS x86 applications.

Dr Guy

on May 25, 2005

No, they win because people buy their products and won't switch. No lie stops people from buying Macs, no great marketing on Microsoft's side made IBM equip OS/2 with a horrible installation problem and a flaky unstable GUI.

IBM Killed OS2. Period. But Microsoft lies about what it has ready to come out to hold off competition. They did it with Windows and with Office.

And the problem with the Mac is cost. That is why Windows has so much of hte market.

ghv

on May 25, 2005

I have AMD and it SUX

Leauki

on May 25, 2005

IBM killed OS/2 after OS/2 had already failed in the market. It was probably a very sound business decision. Either way, it's not Microsoft's superior marketing.

The problem with any operating system is cost. If Apple could not sell their own hardware, they could not afford to develop Mac OS X. Mac OS X development would not be cheaper because they'd have to support more hardware and make less money in a more competitive market.

kona0197

on May 25, 2005

Now, now, let us not get into an AMD vs Intel debate. This is about Apple, and Intel. I personally prefer INtel as I have had bad luck with AMD. but, YMMV

I'm so sorry to hear about that. but from all available sources it looks like AMD is ahead of Intel in many ways, the biggest two being price per CPU and performance.

Ever try an AMD 64 bit processor?

Oh and Citizen ghv - they don't suck. Far from it.

Anyhow back on topic...

TexasJoe

on May 25, 2005

Yes they are - compared to AMD processors.

on laptops no they ain't. Battery life-wise or performance-wise, Turions wallow in the mud. They don't yet match up with Intel Centrino platform that offers a comprehensive platform with the whole shebang (more interesting to laptop manufacturers)! Learn AMD, learn! Their only plus here is 64bit. That's about everything. I'm sorry to have you face the bitter truth!

mrbiotech

on May 25, 2005

Regardless, (bringing it back to the original topic)... the RISC architecture that Apple uses does pull in more floating point operations per second (FLOPS) than Intel processors. If Apple decides to go with The Cell processor technology (as rumor mills are prone to say) they could triple their existing capabilities.

Last I heard, AMD was licensing chip printing technique to Intel (at Intel's request). Seems AMD's got the edge on cramming transistors into the smallest space.

paxx

on May 26, 2005

As far as I know, the Cell architecture was developped by IBM. If Apple plans on going with it, it wouldn't make much sense to dump IBM in favour of Intel...

Mason Slim

on May 26, 2005

z3_gx_Design said:

I have had nothing but bad experience with Macs. I WILL NEVER BE SUCKED INTO THE MACINTOSH VORTEX! Windows all the way... (i gotta be the only person who thinks this way on this entire site...

No you're not.

I hate Mac, dislike Linux and love Windows!

I only love Windows.

Dr Guy

on May 26, 2005

Ever try an AMD 64 bit processor?

No, but that may bring me back! Salivating here......

Dr Guy

on May 26, 2005

The problem is that RISC is not really RISC and CISC is not really CISC. While there is an advantage, the truth is that the RISC has a bunch of CISC and the CISC has a bunch of RISC. In the end, the speed of RISC is faster, but then the programs are bulkier.

So that does not cut it. Nice for the PR stuff, but really not for the users.

And this is not about R vs C. But Apple on an Intel. And saddly, someone already said it will not come to be.

Damn.

mrbiotech

on May 26, 2005

Just a clarification, The Cell was a joint venture by Toshiba, Sony, and IBM as the new processor for the Sony Playstation 3. The technology has now been opened to others to use for internet appliances, server farms, and the like.

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