id software's CEO Todd Hollenshead met up with Kikizo for an interview recently, and the conversation turned, as often seems to do with id nowadays, to gaming on the Mac. Hollenshead was confronted with what his peers Gabe Newell (of Valve), and id's John Carmack had previously said about Apple, and he agreed that while "the Apple guys would probably frown to hear me" say so, it's true: Apple has stepped up on gaming before, and never "followed through" with their support.
He doesn't paint an extremely dark picture -- he says that Apple did send engineers this time to promise their support for the future, and that developing on Intel architecture makes things much easier than dealing with the "weird PowerPC" setup. And in Apple's defense, we've seen more support for gaming out of them, both on the Mac and on the iPhone and iPod, than ever before.
But so far, it's all talk on Apple's part, and we have yet to see indie games on the App Store and working day 0 releases from id and EA. Hopefully, Apple's following through this time, and those things are right around the corner.
If you think Firefox could run a little faster on your Mac, then you might want to download one of BeatnikPad's custom builds of Firefox 3. "Minefield" (previously known as BonEcho for pre-3.0 releases) is Neil Lee's custom build of Firefox. He is currently offering custom builds for:
Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for Intel
Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for PowerPC G5
Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for PowerPC G4
Neil Lee has been offering custom builds of Firefox for many years now. They can make Firefox run a bit faster and smoother on older Macs. You can download them for free (though donations are accepted) from the BeatnikPad website.
Along with the 10.5.4 update, Apple has just released Security Update 2008-004 for users of Mac OS X Tiger (10.4). According to Apple, the update "is recommended for all [Mac OS X Tiger (10.4)] users and improves the security of Mac OS X." You can download this update for the following systems:
The update is available through Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or by downloading the installer packages by clicking the links above for your system. Apple has provided a support article for more details on this update.
Intel has decided that for its own employees, Windows Vista just won't cut the mustard. According to the New York Times, "Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista."
Ouch. Intel's IT staff arrived at their decision after a lengthy cost-benefit analysis.
Intel has 80,000 employees worldwide, and could be seen as a bellwether for large companies still on the fence about upgrading to Vista. Since Microsoft has been a tight partner with Intel for years, it remains to be seen what kind of pressure Intel will get from top Microsoft management.
Speaking of Intel, The Register is reporting that the chipmaker is preparing three, next-generation processors based on its "Nehalem" architecture, with the fastest topping out at 3.2 GHz. Each processor has four cores with eight processing threads.
The chip architecture, codenamed "Bloomfield," is targeted mostly at gamers. This is purely speculation, of course, but Apple's mid-range high-end desktops could be good candidates for the chips as well.
Intel anticipates the processors will be available in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Fortune has an interesting article detailing how Apple and Intel are fast on the way to becoming best buds. Apparently Intel has been more willing to accommodate Apple than some of its other customers, as demonstrated by the MacBook Air. It seems that in the design phase of the Air Apple went to Intel with the processor spec they wanted and the response was "'We don't have that,' or 'We have that on a roadmap 3-4 years from now,'" but after digging around Intel realized that they had a processor concept on the shelf that "had been put on the back burner after PC makers gave it a ho-hum reception." So they revamped it slightly and delivered it to Apple within a year. And the Air was just the beginning with several "equally aggressive" projects in the pipeline for the two companies. In short, it seems like the relationship is good for both partners, with Apple making demands that push the technology forward and Intel responding in ways that look to benefit the larger PC industry as a whole.
Was it a slip of the tongue? ZDNet.de reports that Intel Germany CEO Hannes Schwaderer, speaking at an Intel 40th anniversary event at Munich's BMW World, confirmed that there is an iPhone that will be using Intel's new Atom processor. The new device is "slightly larger" than the current iPhone, raising speculation that this new member of the iPhone family may be the long-rumored Apple mini-tablet with a 720 x 480 display.
What do YOU think about Herr Schwaderer's comments and the rumored mini-tablet? Take our poll! A big thank-you hug to Erica Sadun for the poll answers!
As we noted earlier this week Apple purchased of the chip design firm P. A. Semi and speculation has been rampant about what it all means. Well the Journal is reporting that Jobs spoke recently about Apple's relationship with Intel saying: "We have a great partnership with Intel. We expect that to continue forever." He further suggested that the acquisition was mainly to improve chips to go in portable devices and dismissed speculation about a return to the Power PC platform (the technology on which P. A. Semi's designs are based).
As noted by some of our tipsters last night and published today on Ars and MacRumors, a company called Psystar (site currently down, for legal or technical reasons, who can say?) is offering to sell you a $399 "OpenMac" Core 2 Duo minitower that is ready to run Leopard, and for $554 you can get it with a retail copy of Mac OS X preinstalled. With specs blowing well past the base Mini configuration and the expandability of a tower config, such a machine would be appealing to hobbyists and developers... exactly the sort of folks who would be likely to rolltheirown.
The concept of the Hackintosh, while appealing from a technical standpoint and certainly a draw for the budget-minded, always seems to fall down for me when it comes to software updates (you can't), compatibility (it's not), and support (there ain't none). If a central value proposition of Mac OS X and the Macintosh ecosystem is that the OS and the hardware are designed in parallel to work as seamlessly as possible and provide an optimized user experience, then what does a homebrew clone get you but bragging rights and a degree of aggravation? Sure, getting an Asus eee booted into Leopard is pretty cool -- but having owned a legitimate Mac clone back in the Power Computing days, I can vouch for the fact that there's no substitute for the real thing. Thanks Roberto
A MacRumors post suggests that the recently released, "Intel-only" iPhone SDK works on PowerPC Macs as well. According to the post, it worked fine on a iBook G4 running Mac OS X Leopard. The post did go on to say that Xcode displayed an error message upon trying to build a project, saying that the "target architecture does not match." Errors like these are to be expected, but at least those PowerPC-using developers can start to develop for the iPhone. There is no word yet on how the $99 digital certificate will work on the PowerPC Macs.
The Inquirer isn't just counting their chickens before they hatch -- they're counting all the feathers, the chicken feet, and even the eggs of those chickens, too. When we first heard that the slide you see above (reportedly from a CeBit presentation from Intel) apparently meant that Apple was going to put an Intel x86 "Moorestown" processor in the iPhone, we did a double take, and then a triple take (how is the iPhone not the one labeled "Premium Smartphone?"), and then we said, "they're kidding, right?"
But no, apparently they weren't: Apple Insider has jumped on the x86Phone bandwagon as well (granted, they originally jumped in December of last year). It took Apple about ten years to decide to switch its computer line to Intel chips, but if you're willing to believe the reasoning on this one (and personally, I'm not), it's only going to take a tenth of that to decide that the iPhone needs an x86 chip, too.
MacNewsWorld has a pretty good in-depth overview up about Mac gaming: where it's at and where it's headed. The basic story is that the three things that have historically held Mac gaming back behind PCs (the technology differences, the OS, and the smaller installed base) are slowly disappearing. With Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel, the introduction of Boot Camp and increasingly easy development in OS X, and the growing popularity of the platform, gaming is actually bigger on the Mac than it's ever been.
But there is still a huge obstacle, and that is DirectX. Though there are ways around it (Freeverse actually mentions the Unity engine in the article), many developers are stuck developing in DirectX, and that leaves the Mac platform out of the loop. And there really isn't anything comparable to it in OS X, either. Graphics hardware remains a problem, but that just harkens back to the biggest problem of getting games on the Mac: support from Apple. Some developers say that there aren't games on the Mac because Steve doesn't want them there, and until Apple shows evidence to the contrary, PC will always be the gamers' platform of choice.
The World's Thinnest Laptop will soon have competition. Macworld is reporting that (at least) two unnamed manufacturers intend to use the tiny Intel chip that powers the MacBook Air.
Steve Jobs made a big deal about it at this month's Macworld Expo keynote address. The chip uses Intel's 965GMS chipset, and has a footprint 60% smaller than comparable Merom processors. The MacBook Air ships with either a 1.6Ghz or a 1.8GHz version.
While other manufacturers will target the MacBook Air's size, they'll have trouble beating its good looks. Sure, many have complained about its lack of Firewire or what have you, but no one denies its beauty. Johnny Ive knows what he's doing.
While VMware's OS X virtualization offering is described as a 'technology preview' (translation: still too buggy for beta), the team at Parallels is beta-ready with the new Parallels Server product, allowing you to virtualize OS X Server alongside your Windows, Windows Server and Linux VMs. The server version from 'Big Red' also features experimental support for Intel's VT-d directed I/O capability (present on the newest Mac Pro and XServe machines), lightweight and 'bare metal/headless' hypervisor modes, and 2-way SMP multicore in a VM (expected to support 4-way SMP in the final version).
Feel the power of this mostly operational virtualization station in our brief video demo with Parallels marketing lead Ben Rudolph (video after the jump). Pricing and availability on Parallels Server aren't announced yet but as soon as they are we'll let you know.
Update: Commenters have suggested that 'too buggy for beta' was an unfair characterization of VMware's demo, and they're probably right -- I did not mean to diminish the incredible efforts of developers at VMware, who like the Parallels crew have been working very hard on this. Also suggested was the notion that Parallels Server beta is an inferior offering and it can't install an unmodified copy of Leopard Server (as VMware's demo did -- the video linked on Regis' blog was shot by me :-). I can't vouch for the install process, but I can say that the Parallels instance of X Server worked as expected when I had hands-on time with it. Parallels is not new, corporately, to the challenge of enterprise virtualization; the Virtuozzo product line is both reliable and well-regarded, and the engineering talent behind those products is now collaborating on the Parallels Server work.
Since the Mac Pros announced earlier today are using the "Harpertown" desktop version of the chip, it should be no surprise that Intel's Penryn family of processors are shipping and in use, as announced at CES yesterday. The full suite of chips includes 16 devices, including four for server use, seven desktop parts and five for mobile devices or laptops.
With premium laptop vendors Sony, Lenovo & Toshiba announcing products built around the new Core 2 Duo parts, it would be downright shocking if next week's Stevenote did not feature at least one Apple portable sporting the new and improved 45nm processors. With the desktop and server bumps out of the way a week ahead of time (and who can remember the last time that happened?) the way is clear for plenty of excitement a week from now.
id software's CEO Todd Hollenshead met up with Kikizo for an interview recently, and the conversation turned, as often seems to do with id nowadays, to gaming on the Mac. Hollenshead was confronted with what his peers Gabe Newell (of Valve), and id's John Carmack had previously said about Apple, and he agreed that while "the Apple guys would probably frown to hear me" say so, it's true: Apple has stepped up on gaming before, and never "followed through" with their support.
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