New Macs will run Windows!

[tarannau]

True but irrelevant to 99% of users seeing as it costs £2300, which is about 3 times what most people spend on a PC. Besides, haven't apple just very publicly admitted that the G5 architechture is a huge steaming turd?

You know Tom, you're a tiresome troll with a distinct penchant for conveniently reductive arguments and ludicrously inaccurate misrepresentations.

Apple have published some very limited benchmarks that show the Intel chips in the best possible light in certain situations- big surprise. At no point have they admitted that the 'G5 architecture is a huge steaming turd'.

Indeed, unless those geeky folk at Arstechnica and loads of researchers are wrong, the G5 remains one of the most highly efficient chips.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Oh, I see. No, not heard of anything like that... and it sounds like a bad idea for Apple.

Why?

 

[tarannau]

Well, if Windows apps run natively in OSX then there's the moot issue of why some firms would particularly want to write OSX specific applications given the marketshare.

Similarly, as touched on above, running Windows apps natively would lead to all sort of inconsistencies and dilute the OSX experience. Programs that are structured differently, using Windows style menus and interfaces - running contrary to the way OSX works. It'd be a dogs dinner of a solution, particularly given the current elegance of OSX

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Well, if Windows apps run natively in OSX then there's the moot issue of why some firms would particularly want to write OSX specific applications given the marketshare.

Similarly, as touched on above, running Windows apps natively would lead to all sort of inconsistencies and dilute the OSX experience. Programs that are structured differently, using Windows style menus and interfaces - running contrary to the way OSX works. It'd be a dogs dinner of a solution, particularly given the current elegance of OSX

But why is no native software being made such a big deal (I'm a PC owner so don't really care about the future of Apple btw!)?

Also, what do people think of the other stuff announced by Jobbo yesterday?

 

[tom k&e]

You know Tom, you're a tiresome troll with a distinct penchant for conveniently reductive arguments and ludicrously inaccurate misrepresentations.

Why thank you. This mac intel malarky has provided the biggest opportunity for anti mac trolling for years, and I was honing my skills on slashdot just last night.

Apple have published some very limited benchmarks that show the Intel chips in the best possible light in certain situations- big surprise. At no point have they admitted that the 'G5 architecture is a huge steaming turd'.

What, like that the new powerbook is twice at fast in final cut pro?

Indeed, unless those geeky folk at Arstechnica and loads of researchers are wrong, the G5 remains one of the most highly efficient chips.

Care to give some links? All I could find was this, comparing the g5 quad to a space heater.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/12/29/2244

 

[Crispy]

But why is no native software being made such a big deal (I'm a PC owner so don't really care about the future of Apple btw!)?

Also, what do people think of the other stuff announced by Jobbo yesterday?

Imagine all your windows XP applications looking and behaving like windows 3.1 applications. Horrible interface, bad fonts, weird window management and so on. Now time that by 10 and that's how icky running windows apps in OSX would be. Not nice. Btw, apple cares about the future of apple, so they are not going to go out of their way to let this happen. The DarWine project should get things up to speed for major windows apps, but don't expect full compatibility, ever.

The seperate rumour is of 'Yellow Box' for OSX. This is a hangover from NextStep (which is what OSX is based on), where a set of windows libraries was planned to let NextStep developers compile for Windows just by ticking a box at compile. It never happened, but it's not outside the realms of possiblity for OSX. There was a rumour that apple had the tech and already had safari running on windows. I'm disinclined to believe it myself.

As for the other new apple stuff - iWeb looks like fun - If I had a mac I think I'd splash out on a .mac account. Net access to my calendar, contacts and photos, combined with one-click photo publishing, is a great package.

 

[jæd]

Also, what do people think of the other stuff announced by Jobbo yesterday?

Well... Kind of been looking at the MacBook specs on the Apple website and it looks like a strange beast. There's no modem and the screen resolution has been downgraded from the Powerbook... And the DVD drive is slower...

So right at the moment I'm still happy with my 12" Powerbook I bought a few months ago. The MacBook doesn't seem to be as general purpose, which is what I was looking for in a laptop... I also wanted a small form factor. I wonder if they will bring out a 12" version...

 

[e-fluent]

Does it mean you can run MACOSX on a PC now? If it was a throw up between MACOSX and Ubuntu I'd probably go for MACOSX all things considered. Still think MAc hardware is a luxery though.

 

[Crispy]

Does it mean you can run MACOSX on a PC now? If it was a throw up between MACOSX and Ubuntu I'd probably go for MACOSX all things considered. Still think MAc hardware is a luxery though.

Yes, you should be able to - but it will be a hack. You'll probably have to buy a new machine in order to get the best compatibility, and your installation (and update) process will be at the whim of a likely ongoing battle between apple and the hackers.

It chouldn't require much effort though. No more thatn your average Linux shindig

 

[tom k&e]

Yes, you should be able to - but it will be a hack. You'll probably have to buy a new machine in order to get the best compatibility, and your installation (and update) process will be at the whim of a likely ongoing battle between apple and the hackers.

It chouldn't require much effort though. No more thatn your average Linux shindig

I think we can safely say that osx for x86 is going to be more hassle than just chucking in a knoppix live cd.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Excellent, guess i'm back with the fruity people for my next laptop.

Even if it will be around 3 years down the line

 

[Crispy]

I think we can safely say that osx for x86 is going to be more hassle than just chucking in a knoppix live cd.

Ok, scratch that. No worse than your average Linux kernel compile

 

[jæd]

Does it mean you can run MACOSX on a PC now? If it was a throw up between MACOSX and Ubuntu I'd probably go for MACOSX all things considered. Still think MAc hardware is a luxery though.

For a while I installed Ubuntu on my old iBook... While it was a *lot* faster than OS X it was generally bitch to install stuff (eg wireless drivers). Oh, and returning from sleep wasn't 100% reliable. Which is why I'm sticking with OS X as a laptop os and Ubuntu/Debian for my desktop.

 

[jæd]

Looks like they won't run Windows:

I tried to boot from a Windows XP installer CD. No dice. I then tried booting from a Vista installer DVD (Build 5270). Again, no dice. When holding down the Option key, the only icon that appeared was for the iMac's internal hard drive. Holding down the D key to try to force booting off of the optical drive failed as well. With the Vista DVD, the optical drive churned a bit and the iMac hesitated as though it were contemplating whether it wanted to boot the foreign OS. Soon afterwards, the familiar gray Apple logo appeared on screen and Mac OS X finished booting.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/imac-coreduo.ars

 

[tom k&e]

Looks like they won't run Windows:


http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/imac-coreduo.ars

Does the current vista build even have the EFI bootloader yet?

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Looks like they won't run Windows:


http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/imac-coreduo.ars

Looks like they don't run windows at the moment, using beta software not desinged for the chipset or cpu.

 

[tom k&e]

Looks like they don't run windows at the moment, using beta software not desinged for the chipset or cpu.

But will microsoft write the support in for such a niche product? Maybe just to piss off apple

 

[Bob_the_lost]

But will microsoft write the support in for such a niche product? Maybe just to piss off apple

Yeah, they'd love to relegate apple to a upmarket dell competitor.

 

[ovaltina]

i thought i read somewhere that microsoft had bought up a load of apple's shares, think it was a year ago? can't remember exactly but i thought it was 49 % or something? if so this move makes sense for MS

 

[jæd]

Looks like they don't run windows at the moment, using beta software not desinged for the chipset or cpu.

Yep, but I can't see why you'd want to to have to reboot and run Windows. I'm just waiting to see if you can recompile WINE or similar and run windows. Windows will be finished if you can... If you set it up right (or cheat with Crossover) then running Microsoft Office for Windows in Linux is fun.

If you can do the same with OS X on Intel, why would you bother buying a copy of Vista...?

 

[tom k&e]

Yep, but I can't see why you'd want to to have to reboot and run Windows. I'm just waiting to see if you can recompile WINE or similar and run windows. Windows will be finished if you can...

No it won't. Wine dosen't run enough programs, and apple hardware is still overpriced.

 

[Crispy]

No it won't. Wine dosen't run enough programs, and apple hardware is still overpriced.

Well, I keep seeing articles where they spec up a laptop from another manufacturer to the same spec as an apple and come out with around the same price. Maybe a bit higher, but that's probably worth it for the design and OSX.

 

[jæd]

Well, I keep seeing articles where they spec up a laptop from another manufacturer to the same spec as an apple and come out with around the same price. Maybe a bit higher, but that's probably worth it for the design and OSX.

Yes... How many non-Apple laptops have the integrated remote control that the MacBook has (handy for presentations...?) and I've only seen web cams in the case on Sony laptops... And they aren't cheap.

 

[Iam]

Meanwhile, the iMacs would require you tack on the price of an equivalent quality TFT onto your PC.

The hardware isn't that expensive.

 

[jarhood]

Windows is user friendly and there are lot of applications and programs for it. Apple MaC is a good OS is your editing Videos and Audio but it not cheep. Linux is great if you know how to use it. I have all three.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Windows is user friendly and there are lot of applications and programs for it. Apple MaC is a good OS is your editing Videos and Audio but it not cheep. Linux is great if you know how to use it. I have all three.

And for some reason you think you're special

 

[jæd]

Windows is user friendly and there are lot of applications and programs for it. Apple MaC is a good OS is your editing Videos and Audio but it not cheep. Linux is great if you know how to use it. I have all three.

Do they all run on the same laptop/iMac...?

 

[Crispy]

Update: It's quite a bit more tricky than at first thought. The short version is: PCs use BIOS to boot from. The new Macs use EFI. Until someone emulates BIOS in EFI, or something similar - there wil be no native Windows on Mac. You can run it in virtualPC or whatever, just fine though.

 

[tom k&e]

Update: It's quite a bit more tricky than at first thought. The short version is: PCs use BIOS to boot from. The new Macs use EFI. Until someone emulates BIOS in EFI, or something similar - there wil be no native Windows on Mac. You can run it in virtualPC or whatever, just fine though.

But Vista has EFI support...

 

[DG55]

Update: It's quite a bit more tricky than at first thought. The short version is: PCs use BIOS to boot from. The new Macs use EFI. Until someone emulates BIOS in EFI, or something similar - there wil be no native Windows on Mac. You can run it in virtualPC or whatever, just fine though.

Doh. Looks like somone hasnt read up on it.