Just you wait… HAL is only about 25 years late to the game…
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Hindsight is a wonderful thing; the early (32-bit!) days of MacIntel
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Just you wait… HAL is only about 25 years late to the game…
It was, literally, the only computer for which “Blinkenlights” was a stated feature.
I had one of the CoreDuo minis, my first Mac ever that didn't have a 68k-series processor, and in retrospect Apple did ditch support for it pretty early. By the time I would have been getting salty about that, however, they had released the 2009 13" MBP which was just an amazing laptop even if there were many complaints that it wasn't a "real pro" laptop. I held on to the Mini until probably 2015 or so, though by the end it only had a few very specific things it did.
The 2009 13-inch MBP held its own just fine. Folks who grouse that the 13-inch MBP wasn’t a “real MBP” are the people who a) associate it with the 2008 unibody MacBook (which was kind of an off-move by Apple) and b) think its smaller form factor precluded its versatility in professional-use settings. (With exception owed to the presence of the ExpressCard slot in the 17-inch models and the late 2008 15-inch MBP, that’s mostly unfounded.)
The case for dismissing the 13-inch MBP as a “pro” model (what, you can’t get paid doing work on a 13-inch MBP?, c’mon) is especially specious once Thunderbolt was added in with the 2011 and 2012 13-inch models (making the addition of an eGPU feasible and quick to do).
From someone who remembers the PowerPC to Intel transition (and still has a soft spot for PowerPC) I think it's also important to remember that the switch to Intel already catapulted the power of new Macs (using the term "power" nebulously here, but my point stands) well ahead of PowerPC Macs. Wherever Apple initially "landed" at the transition was relative leaps-and-bounds ahead of where they'd been before.
Similar to what we've seen with Apple Silicon now.
Similar to what we've seen with Apple Silicon now.
I agree the 32bit Core Duo was a misfit in the lineup. The desktop PPCs were already 64bit at Apple, and the wait was on for a 64bit laptop.
I wouldn't discount the possibility that part of it was Job's personality. I think he'd had enough of PowerPC and Motorola in particular and likely threw a tantrum one day declaring that Mot was dead to him. Anyone remember Jobs announcing the Motorola ROKR around that same time? That was a man forced to eat his... whatever the equivalent to Brussels sprouts are for a vegan...
There were in depth discussion with Intel (Intel had agreed to customize certain parts for Apple and to give them early access to some), so Apple certainly knew the roadmap. Given the turmoil at Intel at the time, particularly around the 64bit scramble, the 64bit parts likely slipped. There's no way Jobs was going back to Motorola for another generation, and I don't think they could wait any longer-- the G4 had obviously stalled out and the G5 was way too hot.
I wouldn't discount the possibility that part of it was Job's personality. I think he'd had enough of PowerPC and Motorola in particular and likely threw a tantrum one day declaring that Mot was dead to him. Anyone remember Jobs announcing the Motorola ROKR around that same time? That was a man forced to eat his... whatever the equivalent to Brussels sprouts are for a vegan...
There were in depth discussion with Intel (Intel had agreed to customize certain parts for Apple and to give them early access to some), so Apple certainly knew the roadmap. Given the turmoil at Intel at the time, particularly around the 64bit scramble, the 64bit parts likely slipped. There's no way Jobs was going back to Motorola for another generation, and I don't think they could wait any longer-- the G4 had obviously stalled out and the G5 was way too hot.
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I long to pick up that brief, sold for about five minutes version of the 32-bit M1 Mac mini. 🤣
Razzing aside, the transition to Intel would have helped Apple’s case had Apple stuck to their originally announced plan at WWDC 2005, to make the transition during the 2006–2007 window and not nine months sooner, in January 2006. This would have given the transition a much bigger punch as the 32-bit PowerBook/iBook G4s got their short run with Apollo 8/7448 CPUs reaching 2GHz (or maybe just a tick higher, at 2.16GHz), followed by, immediately, the Core 2 Duo 64-bit Intel CPUs taking over.
For Apple to have gone from single-core, 32-bit, directly to multicore 64-bit, for the consumer/pro laptops and the Mac mini/iMac, would have left a lot less ambiguity and a lot less headache for consumers who’d end up being caught in the middle, unable to move their 32-bit Intel Macs beyond 10.6.8 or 10.7.5. On this, Apple rushed it a bit too ferociously. (Besides, whomestest amongst us would not have loved a chance at tinkering with OEM 7448-equipped Macs)?
But since we’re on the topic of that transition: I felt then — and I still feel now — it was a bigger picture mistake for the company to have re-branded the iBook as the “MacBook” and PowerBook as the “MacBook Pro”. Having a bezel with “iBook C2D” or “PowerBook i7” would have made things abundantly clear as to what powered the laptop within, and it could have, years on, avoided naming train wrecks like “MacBook Pro M1 Pro”.
A lot of hay's been made about the weakness of GMA 950 in the early-gen Intel Macs, and while there's no doubt that it was poor for anything except very low-end gaming and basic tasks, I still maintain that it was surprisingly good at running games from GOG using CrossOver or Wineskin, provided people dialed down their expectations accordingly. I was even able to get games like TRON 2.0, XIII and the original Night Dive releases of Turok and System Shock Enhanced Edition to work really well (before ND updated those games' version of the KEX engine to require DX10+).
With regards to the PPC-Intel transition, I think that for a lot of mainstream end users (especially the people who bought white MacBooks, like me originally) the 32-bit vs. 64-bit issue didn't really make as huge a difference as people thought, especially if they were upgrading from iBooks (as I did). Unless they were genuinely tech savvy, in my experience folks didn't even upgrade the OS on their Core Duo MacBooks past whatever they came bundled with. Plus it's hard to look past the fact that the 74xx/744x platform really was lagging behind Intel's Centrino platform. Even with the Xserve-derived system architecture behind it, the G4 was still hamstrung by a dated processor bus. Despite the limitations of the Core Duo, it still outperformed the G4 by a vast margin.
With regards to the PPC-Intel transition, I think that for a lot of mainstream end users (especially the people who bought white MacBooks, like me originally) the 32-bit vs. 64-bit issue didn't really make as huge a difference as people thought, especially if they were upgrading from iBooks (as I did). Unless they were genuinely tech savvy, in my experience folks didn't even upgrade the OS on their Core Duo MacBooks past whatever they came bundled with. Plus it's hard to look past the fact that the 74xx/744x platform really was lagging behind Intel's Centrino platform. Even with the Xserve-derived system architecture behind it, the G4 was still hamstrung by a dated processor bus. Despite the limitations of the Core Duo, it still outperformed the G4 by a vast margin.
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It's worth noting that Motorola had been a headache for Apple since 1999 when they were unable to deliver the promised G4 clocks and Apple had to speed dump the first Power Mac G4s by 50 MHz on each SKU. And then the reason IBM was roped in to spin POWER4 into the 970/G5 was because Apple pointed to the contracts in the AIM Alliance and how Motorola was basically not living up to their end of the bargain anymore. Moto also announced in 2003 they were spinning off the semiconductor side into Freescale, which probably further accelerated the break there.
And then IBM wasn't able to deliver as promised because the G5 followed the same mistakes that Intel had with Netburst - high clocks and long pipelines were a dead-end at the time.
And yes, the G4 was six years, going on seven years old when they finally put out Core Duo products. While the G4e was a definite boost over the original G4, it was still showing its age pretty badly, with slow bus speeds to boot. Yes, Intel was quad-pumping, but even with that an 800MHz frontside bus was going to walk all over the 1:10 bus speeds on the G4s. (the iMac G5 was at least 1:3, and the PMG5 was 1:2)
The problem with 32 bit Intel wasn’t performance, it was support. For reasons that make sense, Apple wasn’t motivated to support it very long.
Freescale did have some interesting things coming with their e600 technology. The MPC8641D was a dual core CPU with a FSB running at half the CPU clock speed (same as the G5) finally shaking that 167MHz BUS that just hung on too long. Their dual core 1.5GHz CPU with a 768MHz FSB would have been an interesting comparison to the Core Duo. Since the G5 already had dual core 970MP from IBM, if Apple had liked what Freescale was doing, I think there is a chance the Intel switch might have been delayed, or maybe never happened. Like you said, Moto had dropped the ball before, they probably weren't going to get many passes. And the 2004 press releases about e600 basically stated that 2006 would maybe be as early as we'd see dual core "G4" systems. My guess is Intel was much closer to ship date, offered Apple a chance to be one of the first to tout the Core Duo, and also eliminate the need to deal with 2 CPU suppliers between IBM and Freescale.
And Jobs had nothing to do with the PowerPC transition. He had spoken before that he thought NeXT and Apple should be open to running on any architecture. PPC was also basically the last holdover from the Spindler era and an Apple Computer he wasn't a part of. Even his choice to drop the PowerBook and PowerMac brands seemed like a like more than just a chance to put "Mac" in the name of each product, but also a final cleansing of naming conventions he didn't have a part in.
He certainly had a part in the iBook’s name, as with the iMac.
This often left me pondering why the iMac wasn’t re-named the MacDesk. (And lest anyone question that naming convention, none of y’all dudes reading this understand how so many women facepalmed HARD when Steve announced how the name of the tablet would be the “iPad”.)
I have to facepalm, again, for just how bad that move was. 🤦♀️
The “iPad” sketch was produced around 2007, well before Steve’s, ahem, reveal.
EDIT to add: If Steve-o had an issue with “Power” being from the Sculley era (not the Spindler or Amelio eras), then it’s kind of a surprise to look back and realize Steve also dropped “Macintosh” — his creation — as the product line. There’s not a science to this.
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Agreed that quite a lot of people probably kept their Macs at the OS version supplied with them, especially since OS X upgrades were actually a little pricey back then, something I'd completely forgotten until your post. I was glad when I bought my MBP because it was one of the ones that came with the computer-specific 10.5 discs and also a generic 10.6 disc that could be used to upgrade any Mac, including my Core Duo Mini.
The Core Duo users really weren't handicapped that much in comparison to early Core 2 Duos.
2006-2008 C2Ds (pre-unibody) were stuck with crappy graphics anyways, and could address 3 or 6GB RAM at most due to chipset limitations.
They were better off with Snow Leopard anyways.
When Lion came, the Core Duos were discontinued but you really wanted to have a multitouch trackpad and beefier graphics by then.
Putting out 32-bit Intels was much more of an hassle for Apple than for the end user.
Also let's think about how awesome would've been for Aluminum G4 Powerbooks to rock Pentium M CPUs if Apple switched earlier... total devastation for the PC front.
That was kind of an avoidable product, I wonder what made him do that considering how bitter he had become towards Motorola for a very long time by then.
The PowerBook name wasn't even tied to PowerPC: we all know that the product line started with 68k processors.
Maybe Steve just disliked it due to being a very successful project being born under the Sculley era.
PowerBook i7? Steve would never have done it. That would've been the equivalent of putting an Intel sticker on it.
Coming from the guy that rebranded "AirPort" the WiFi standard and "SuperDrive" the DVD-RW tech.... not a chance.
Regardless of it, I'm silently praying for the PowerBook name to be revived when Apple will finally decide to make an hybrid Mac/iPad device.
Remember folks, you heard it here first.
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Steve: “This phone is really cool… the first phone that is iTunes-ready…”
The dude wasn’t known for 100 per cent product-naming consistency.
Also, fun fact: AirPort, in Japan, was branded as AirMac.
You say words, but all I hear is silliness… < /cat_face >
Yes, but would also have looked silly. "See-too-dee"... no thanks. If they had stuck to the old names, omitting the CPU altogether would have been much better.
Same here, for some reason the name sounds generic to my ears. And the "Pro" suffix... doesn't really ring with me. (The workstation version of Windows 2000 is called "Professional" but since there is no "non-professional" (home) version it's kinda redundant.)
Never mind the sheer number of, well, amateurs who think they’re suddenly “pro”-whatever when they pull out a MBP…
…fam, that ain’t the flex you think it is, especially with those Silicon models…
Perhaps so, but when I pull a Mac Pro out of a lawn bag people know that I am a pro. Because at least then, the feat of the bag is a 'Pro' move itself. The power comes with me.
Also around that same time there was the HP iPod debacle.
Apple made some weird weird moves in 04-05…
That wasn't even the weirdest of the moves, Steve wanted to sell iPods and had an excellent opinion of HP, ever since he was a kid and Apple wasn't even a thing.
A lot weirder were its attempts to make, in turn, Dell and Sony sell their computers with OSX on it.
Moreover, at first, in 1998, Apple Rhapsody OS (OSX-to-be) was supposed to run on both PPC and X86, and on PPC you would have the option to run MacOS apps (Blue Box), while on X86 you could run Windows apps (Red Box).
As we know, Rhapsody became OSX 10.0 on PPC only, Blue Box became Classic environment, and Red Box was aborted altogether.
Today we remember Steve for killing the Mac clone market, but Apple was in such bad shape in 1998, and IBM/Motorola would continue to screw him so many times over, that it could've gone either way, really.
My impression is that Apple at that time lived and died by the Mac's success on the market because it was its only product, so they had to be ready with plans B, C and D if things went dire.
Steve actually hit the real homerun by selling the iPod and music on iTunes, and since Apple became profitable with that, the Mac could sleep a lot easier as an independent platform thanks to it.
Rhapsody first became Mac OS X Server 1.0/1.2 on PPC only (1999/2000).
The real smash was making the iPod usable with Windows/PCs too. Back in 2005 or so many people I knew had an iPod. But nobody I knew had a Mac or was interested in getting one.