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  • Swad
    Technically this isn't news about OSx86, but it is about specific graphics for the OS, so I'm putting it here.
     
    We're hosting our first annual OSx86 Art Contest! If you're good with graphics, submit your best boot screens, wallpapers, and icons to our Art Box. Next Tuesday, we'll let you know who the winners are - winning pieces will be named the Official OSx86 Project Graphics!
     
    This contest is open to everyone! The deadline for submission is Monday, September 5. Good luck!
  • Swad

    The Future of Apple

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    There’s been a lot of talk recently about the new partnership between Apple and Intel. Although this story is pretty old, today's announcement of the next generation of Intel chips has many Mac fans wondering what's ahead. These new chips from Intel almost certainly represent the pool from which Apple will draw their first production MacIntels.
     
    The Apple-Intel partnership is symbiotic relationship in its fullest sense - Apple gets the low-wattage chips it (supposedly) desires and Intel locks in another major IT player. But it seems to me that there is more than just watts and cents behind this deal. There is an incredibly unpredictable variable in this equation - the mind of Steve Jobs.
     
    Kick in your Reality Distortion Field jamming devices.
     
    Here's the future of Apple.
     
    Dvorak had it partially right. Apple will eventually open up their OS and make it seem like it was forced to do so by the mobs of geeks installing pirated versions on the PCs. But is this the sole reason for the switch from IBM?
     
    Apple is evolving. The success of the iPod + iTunes has shown that the magic of Apple engineering extends farther than the PC. But I think Jobs is steering the company in a new direction, one in which creates a hybrid of a Sony/Microsoft business model.
     
    While the Microsoft might be a little more obvious, perhaps you’re wondering where Sony enters the equation. As a tech company, Sony known for it’s high-end computers and personal electronics. If they were both using the same OS, I think Apple and Sony would be considered direct competitors. But they’re not. Yet.
     
    That’s where the Microsoft model comes in. By licensing its operating system and software, Apple stands to make substantial inroads into domains it has previously not known. Witness the rise of iTunes. Add video support (to run on, you guessed it, Intel hardware) and iMedia becomes the content leader for years to come. The same values that have made iTunes so popular – simplicity, ease of use, advanced features – will also serve Apple when they release OS X for x86 PCs. But it won’t stop there. I think the time is coming when Apple will begin to sell more of its software, such as the iLife suite, and in doing so become a legitimate rival to software powerhouses such as Microsoft.
     
    Its hardware business, which has been lauded so often as the sole lifeline of Cupertino, will take a page out of the Sony book – if you want great hardware (even if some of it is proprietary), come to us. Apple then says, hey, if your grandmother can’t afford one of our machines, buy her a Dell with our licensed operating system and software. While you're at it, buy one of our CE devices as well. Apple makes money both ways, and the revenue from the millions of people (like me) who will now use OS X but were previously too poor to buy a Mac will easily compensate for any possible lost hardware revenue. If there would be any loss at all.
     
    So Apple becomes like Sony for hardware and Microsoft for software and OS. In my opinion, it will work. It hasn’t been done before, but that’s ok. Maybe it’s time to truly “Think Different.”
  • Swad
    According to this Macworld article, "ATI Technologies Inc. on Friday introduced the Radeon 9600 Pro PC & Mac Edition, its first AGP graphics card designed to work with both Macs and Windows-based PCs. The new card is available for a suggested retail price of US$199.
     
    This is the first graphics card that ATI has released for both Macintosh and Windows computers. The same card will work with an AGP-equipped Mac and Windows PC out of the same box, so Mac users can simply hunt for the best price rather than relying on Mac-specific stock from an Apple parts vendor."
     
    Personally, I think that this can only be the start of a larger trend within the industry - building more products to be cross platform. The introduction of an MacIntel will only hasten this transition, as it should become easier for hardware and software companies to tweak their pre-existing products into something that will work on both systems.
  • learning_bird
    MacBidouille.com, who was the first great Mac oriented site to report on August 10th the successful efforts of getting OSXx86 for all of us, received a letter from Apple lawyers to delete the links to videos they had showing an intel laptop booting Mac OS X x86, which they did.
     
    Is Apple awakening or is just a small gesture to show they tried to combat the spreading of OSXx86, although they're delighted with this? What do you think?
     
    Links:
    www.macbidouille.com ( french )
    www.hardmac.com ( the english version site which still doesn't has the news )
  • Swad

    Build Your Own Mac for $199

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    While it was always possible (although costly and time consuming) to cobble together a PowerPC Mac from old and new parts, hardly anyone did it. Now that Apple has introduced OS X for Intel processors, however, it’s conceivable that you could soon be building your own Mac from scratch.
     
    One user, CEpeep, shopped around and found everything you’d need to build your own Intel Mac for under $200 - no rebates, no refurbs. Sure, the case is a little ghetto, it's got a 20 gig hard drive, and it’s no Millennium Falcon in terms of speed, but it runs Quartz Extreme and everything else that Tiger x86 requires. Most of us could actually build one for less with a few spare parts we have lying around…well…actually all over.
     
    Obviously, there are still many reasons why you’ll want to buy a true Mac – Apple quality and support, the current lack of a legal x86 OS X, etc. But it’s interesting to think that the days of the do-it-yourself Mac may be just around the corner.
     
    The list:
    Case $9.95: http://www.buypcdirect.com/product.asp?pf_id=cas-ge-lp600
    Motherboard $52.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16813157075
    Processor $60.77: http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=CELE-315BX&src=fr
    512 RAM $38.00: http://store.yahoo.com/pcmemory-stores/25pc26stoemf.html
    20 Gigabyte HD $25.95: http://www.etech4sale.com/hardware/partinfo-id-1852.html
    DVD Drive $12.00: http://www.compuvest.com/Description.jsp?iid=107882
     
    Total: $199.66
  • Swad
    It appears that Apple hasn't quite made up their mind about SSE3 yet. Or at least, they're not done with the Intel version of OS X.
     
    Those who have studied the new x86 version of the OS have reported that the necessity for SSE3 in the GUI has been established as fact. However, as this Apple document on the Intel transition states, "SSE3 is an optional hardware feature on MacOS X for Intel. If you wish to use SSE3 features, you must detect them first, similar to how you are required to check for AltiVec." The paper goes on to reveal that, "SSE is not available in any format for MacOS X for PowerPC and AltiVec is not available for MacOS X for Intel. When writing code for Universal Binaries to run on MacOS X, you should conditionalize your code using appropriate symbols like __VEC__ and __SSE2__ to prevent the compiler from seeing vector code for unsupported architectures for each fork of the universal binary."
     
    So, will the "official" version of Tiger on Intel be optimized for SSE2 as well?
  • sportman
    CodeWeavers has announced that they will provide CrossOver Office for the Mac. This means a great deal for all new and old users of the operating system. Ofcourse this will be for the intel line of apple machines. Now the possiblity of running ppc, linux and windows applications all under one OS is now a reality. Many gamers are hoping for the same to happen with the popular linux application cedega. Cedega is a variation of Wine which allows directx games to run on non windows x86 operating systems.
     
    ---sportman
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