Question about Apple's move to Intel

[sir_captain]

http://news.com.com/Apple+throws+the+switch%2C+aligns+with+Intel/2100-7341_3-5733756.html?tag=nl

Does this switch signal an admission that Apple's hardware was not nearly as fantastic as they and their afficionados have been claiming all these years?

And are we going to be able to dual-boot to Windows or OSX a year from now? I'm a dedicated PC user, but I have to admit, that would be pretty cool.

[LoZoccolo]

1. I think it sucks.

It's probably got something to do with trying to make the hardware cheaper to sell more mediocre machines rather than fewer high-end machines. It's like, how Chevy probably makes more than BMW.

[sir_captain]

2. I don't think Chevy makes very much money

I dunno--did you watch Jobs' presentation? He said within a year, Intel's chips would generate 5x more computing power/watt than PowerPC. And AMD is even further ahead.

I really think this is good for everyone.

[LoZoccolo]

11. I imagine a lot of graphics software written for the Mac...

...was designed to take advantage of the greater floating-point performance of the PPC, as well as sound software. What happens to all that now?

[sir_captain]

12. Ah, well, here's the thing

I read an article recently that tested the FPU's on the G5 and all the various x86 flavors and found that the G5 trailed really significantly...so I don't think it'll be much of a problem.

[realisticphish]

3. it wasnt apple hardware

it was IBM hardware. and it will be a cold day in hell before either company allows a dual-boot

[sir_captain]

5. Semantics

Apple doesn't really make any of that stuff, obviously. But it was the hardware that Apple used, and which has always been touted by Mac addicts as being superior.

Jobs specifically said that Apple's Intel-based machines will be able to have Windows running on them. The real question is whether OSX will run on a non-Apple branded machine.

[realisticphish]

7. if it supports unix

then perhaps

[sir_captain]

8. If what supports unix?

x86 machines? They've supported unix longer than PowerPC has existed...

[realisticphish]

9. true

i dunno; in any case, i'd like to be able to boot OSX on a "windows" machine, simply for the expandability

[sir_captain]

10. yeah, exactly

that would be cool

[ikojo]

4. I think it means new programs will no longer be

backward compatible with earlier version of the Mac OS.

[sir_captain]

6. Apparently

there are going to be dual-binaries that support both the PowerPC and x86 platforms. But yeah, it's going to be confusing.