Apple has registered the name Mactel for the new x86 Macs, which sounds too much like a Mac clone. The name reminds me of the Mactell XB 203/DT, a clone based on the Tanzania motherboard, very similar to a Motorola Starmax 3000. I had one before my B&W G3.
Macintosh
Report states developer version of OS X runs on any Intel machine
Via Mac Net Journal: The Shape Of Days reports that the Intel version of Mac OS X will run on any standard PC.
This can be a very good thing. A lot of people are fed up with Windows and hungry for something better. If Mac OS X can compete with Windows on the same hardware, I’m sure a lot of people would switch. It could be a real threat to Windows when people try it and find that it actually is better, and they don’t have to buy a new machine to run it.
Apple will most likely prevent it from running on standard PCs, but that’s very short-sighted. As long as people will have to buy a new machine to run OS X, its market share will always be limited. A good strategy for Apple would be to build the same elegant hardware they’re building now and sell it at a slight premium over standard PCs. At the same time they can sell OS X to other PC users. The people who appreciate the elegance of Apple hardware will continue to buy Macs and it may win over some new users. At the same time, the masses who just want a cheap PC but are disgusted with Windows, will buy OS X to run on their PCs. When people see that OS X is superior to Windows on the same hardware, it will seriously cut into Windows’ market share.
Mac x86 porting
Although I don’t have the x86 development system, I’ve been using XCode 2.1. For one of my projects, I was able to convert to x86 in less than 15 minutes. I simply opened the project in XCode 2.1, selected the 10.4 universal SDK, chose intel & ppc architectures, and made sure it was using GCC 4.0. I got lots of errors because GCC 4.0 is a lot more fussy about pointer conversions, so I temporarily eliminated them with the option “Treat nonconformant code errors as warnings”.
It compiled and when I examine the binary, it’s identified as ‘Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures’. Of course I can’t actually test it on an x86 machine. I also haven’t attempted to deal with any endian issues, since the application deals with binary data.
This is a pretty good indication that developing for the Intel macs will be painless.
It's the end of the world as we know it
Hell froze over today. The Apple/Intel rumors were true after all and this is the beginning of the end for Apple. They’re on a roll now with Mac sales increasing and their market share up. With this announcement, everyone will immediately stop buying Macs since the new x86 systems won’t be available until next year (the Osborne Effect). If Apple survives this, it will be a miracle.
Rumors
I’m willing to bet WSJ & CNet will have egg on their face tomorrow. Both are convinced that Apple will announce tomorrow that they’re switching to Intel.
Here’s why I think they’re wrong: It would be suicidal for Apple. Apple is on the upswing now, the PPC architecture is gaining support with Sony’s Cell processor and the XBOX 360’s CPU, which are based on modified PowerPC cores. Microsoft even uses G5s to develop software for the XBOX 360. A few years ago, this might have made sense, but now it doesn’t. If Apple announced a transition starting in 2006, everyone would immediately stop buying Macs. They’d have a hard time rebuilding their momentum.
Remember, x86 family CPUs aren’t Intel’s only product and the Mac isn’t Apple’s only product. Some possibilities might be a port of OS X to x86, which is possible since Darwin already works on x86, while still selling PowerPC based Macs. Maybe Intel will license the PPC architecture and produce PPC chips, which is very likely, or maybe Apple will announce another product (PDA? Media player?) based on some Intel chip, maybe StrongARM rather than x86.
Kernel Panic
I just had my first kernel panic since upgrading to Tiger. There was nothing mysterious about this one. It was a result of ejecting a CF card in iPhoto after importing photos and removing the card before the system fully unmounted it even though it was already gone from iPhoto. For anyone interested, see the extended entry for a backtrace.
Dashboard
Am I the only one who likes Dashboard the way it works now? I’ve seen a lot of criticism about the widgets being on a separate screen rather than being visible all the time like Konfabulator. Well, that’s exactly why I like Dashboard and why I didn’t use Konfabulator or any similar utilities. I hate clutter on my screen and I don’t want lots of widgets taking up room. I’d rather have them stay out of my way until I actually want to use them and then go away when I’m done.
Computer woes
I got my Tiger upgrade today. My upgrade experience is detailed here, but that was the least of my trouble.
My LCD display, which I’m using with my Linux box, died. This is the first time I’ve had one die, but it is my oldest LCD display. Luckily I still have my old CRT, which flickers very badly. Before I swapped monitors I shut down the linux box. It’s been running for 77 days without a reboot until now. When I rebooted it, I found that none of my Macs could mount the nfs share. In fact none of my other machines could see it, although it could see everything else. I realized that Firestarter was enabled at startup and the settings were too restrictive, blocking all incoming connections. Once I fixed it, everything worked again.
Tiger Upgrade
My Tiger upgrade should arrive tomorrow. Since I’ve been running the developer seed for a few weeks, I plan to completely back up my PowerBook, do an erase install, and restore my home directory and applications from the backupo drive.
Conflict of interest
A news item was submitted to MacMegasite announcing a new release of a product that competes with Computrace. Even though the site has no connection with Absolute Software and doesn’t represent the company or their products, I can’t allow it to be used to promote competing products.