For Isus: What's Next For Mac After 20 Years?

[DudeAsInCool]

The Mac @ 20
What's Next?
Arik Hesseldahl, 12.22.03, 12:30 PM ET

NEW YORK - To own a Macintosh computer is to always watch over the horizon. No matter how much one loves a current system, it's hard not to be seized with material lust a few times a year when Apple Computer unleashes its latest iMac or PowerBook or other systems.

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Happy Birthday, Mac!Change is a constant in the Mac universe and getting ahead of it is tricky because Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) makes it a firm policy never to comment on future products until they're ready for release, nor does it ever address the huge number of rumors on Mac fan sites.

But by paying attention to the chips that Apple uses in its computers, especially those from its main supplier IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) it's not hard to make a reasonable guess at what the near future for the high end of the Mac platform looks like. In a word, it looks fast.

IBM is said to be ready to deliver a new version of its PowerPC processor to Apple by the end of this year, in time for a revision to the flagship PowerMac G5 line. The main improvement to the PowerPC chip, known internally at IBM as the PowerPC 970fx, will be a reduction of the features on the chip itself, from sizes of 130 nanometers to 90 nanometers. Shrinking the features on the chip allows it to consume less power even as it speeds up, making it easier to cool and easier to use.

Beyond 90 nanometers lie transitions to even more advanced manufacturing technologies. After the 90-nanometer process comes the 65-nanometer process in 2005 and 45-nanometers in 2007 or so. IBM is collaborating with several other chipmakers on that transition, including Advanced Micro Devices (nyse: AMD - news - people ), Germany's Infineon (nyse: IFX - news - people ) and Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor (nasdaq: CHTR - news - people ).

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has already gone on the record saying that the G5 computer will contain PowerPC chips that run at 3 GHz by the summer of 2004. A mid-step between the current systems, which top out with two chips running at 2 Ghz, and systems with chips as fast as 2.6 GHz would be a logical move come January, says Peter Glaskowsky, analyst with Instat/MDR, San Jose, Calif. and editor-in-chief of the influential newsletter Microprocessor Report.

"Speeds of 2.4 to 2.6 GHz would be consistent with exactly where I would expect them to be right now," Glaskowsky says.

But the clock speeds of the chips are only part of the story. Software programmers developing applications for the Mac will probably have new compiler technology available to them sometime in 2004. A compiler is a tool that converts high-level programming languages into the machine language specific to the chip itself. Currently programmers use an open-source compiler called gcc. An IBM compiler tailored to the PowerPC chips is already in the beta-testing phase, Glaskowsky says. Once it's released in its final form, software written to the Mac running on PowerMac G5 machines could speed up as much as 50%, he says.

Faster chips will also migrate to the Powerbook notebook line. There's a pretty good chance that a Powerbook G5 notebook will appear no later than the summer of 2004.

"There are no technical hurdles to producing a Powerbook G5. It could easily appear in January," Glaskowsky says.

The great benefit of the G5 generation of chips was supposed to be 64-bit computing, and that hasn't happened yet. Sixty-four bit computers can do several things better than their 32-bit forebears. Where 32-bit chips are limited to addressing only 2 gigabytes of memory, 64-bit chips can theoretically address thousands of gigabytes of memory, though Apple's G5 boxes are limited to 8 gigabytes. Secondly 64-bit chips can perform complex calculations in fewer steps than 32-bit chips.

So far Apple's machines can see all the memory, they can't yet do 64-bit calculations. Present it with a 64-bit calculation, and a Mac with a G5 chip still breaks it into two 32-bit pieces. That's because, Glaskowsky says, Apple doesn't have a 64-bit operating system. On the Windows platform Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) has built a version of its Windows XP operating system that runs on 64-chips from Advanced Micro Devices, but as yet it's only at the beta-testing stage. The 64-bit properties of Windows probably won't be complete until Longhorn, the code name of Microsoft's next major update, ships in 2006 he says.

For its part, Apple has yet to make any real noise about a 64-bit operating system for the G5. "It's two years away at least," Glaskowsky says.

Forbes.com

[nasrules]

I could have sworn there was a production version of Windows XP 64-bit Edition...

Anyway, as to the Mac. I guess it's like running an Athlon 64 with Windows XP. Everything's faster, but not as fast as the processor could make it with equivalent software.

I think I've been over this here, but I decided to go for a PC build rather than buying a Mac - the performance and compatability benefits outweigh Apple's OS and looks. Oh, and an equivalent PC is around half the price of any Apple desktop.

Personally, I'm hoping that Mac OS will eventually be available to standard PC platforms - those other than PowerPC. Macs can emulate Windows, why can't we emulate Macs?! In fact, emulation wouldn't be good enough for OSX, you'd need it to be standard installable!

/me drools at the thought of Mac OSXI!!!!

[tamarisk]

I guess anyone will be able to emulate MAC Os just like Linux can emulate certain apps of windows.

[d-koolest]

Don't Macs require different hardware? I thought that was why you have to emulate the PC hardware and then run windows on it when you use Virtual PC.

[isus]

Originally Posted by d-koolest

Don't Macs require different hardware? I thought that was why you have to emulate the PC hardware and then run windows on it when you use Virtual PC.

macs use different cpu's, that don't use x86 instructions...

anyway, sorry for not seeing this thread...

after 20 years, i foresee this:
apple continues with the ipod/itunes combo, supposedly a mini-ipod is coming.
powerbooks will get the g5 sometime in 2004.
powermac's will get to 3ghz and the wait for an application to open will once again be the fault of the slowass hard drive.
ibook's, emac's, and imac's will just continue on, getting speed bumps and continuing the technology
maybe a g5 cube will come... can't really estimate on that. it'd be nice, but...
no mac phone, mac pda, or mac tablet.
maybe a video ipod sooner or later. more likely later.
in general, apple will keep up the hefty spending on r&d and continue to make nice looking computers with tech on the outside, as well as under the hood.
osx will continue on, once the g4 is eol'd, osx will become totally 64-bit
the iapp's will continue on, getting more advanced features (mail, safari, and ichat av are the ones i'm watching)

the part i'm waiting for is the g5 powerbook. ibm has 90nm g5's that run past 2ghz and still consume only ~15w. that's a helluva lot of technology.