Intel Macs: No Windows, and SLOW old software.

20 Jan

Just an update to my earlier post about the new Intel-based macs it turns out that although software that’s been recompiled to run on intel chips does run faster, any old software (which has to run in an emulation layer) runs at less than half speed according to Mac World. They’re not even testing any of the software that would have taken real advantage of the 64bits in OS X on the PowerPC processors … so some applications are going to be even worse.

Also, BetaNews finally explained once and for all that Macs will not run WindowsXP as people were hoping, because the new Apple machines use EFI instead of BIOS (EFI is Intel’s next generation BIOS), and only 64bit Windows supports EFI, but the new Macs are not 64bit … got all that? Anyway, it doesn’t work, so don’t bother trying. Word is, Windows Vista should have EFI support in all versions, including the 32bit version … so if you can wait until then … maybe you could …

Honestly, I don’t know why Apple can’t just make their stupid OS run on generic Intel-compatible hardware so we could just install it on a nice 64bit Athlon. Now that would rev their performance numbers …

By Joel 'Jaykul' Bennett
Tagged as:
- Huddled Masses

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Comments2006-01-20+05%3A54%3A28Joel+%27Jaykul%27+Bennett for "Intel Macs: No Windows, and SLOW old software."

Niteworkr January 25th, 2006 at 5:04 pm 1

Now…why would Apple want to make there OS run on a generic beige box? That was such a dumb comment that I’m not even going to comment on. Eventually, some company will write some type of software that will act as a middleman between EFI and a BIOS based OS. Probably within the next few months…I’m sure somebody is working on it. As to their performance numbers, that has less to do with Apple and more to do with people who don’t know the difference. It sure doesn’t have anything to do with the elegance, ease of use, stability or security of Windows. Vista is probably not going to be much better than any previous versions…unless of course MS copies the Mac OS some more.
Jaykul January 27th, 2006 at 2:02 pm 2
Well, I can only think of two reasons for OSX to run on generic Intel hardware:
1. Price
2. Performance
It would be so easy to do … the real question is, WHY NOT? (Can you hear the cash box jingling?) Of course, I keep forgetting Apple’s not about speed, and it’s not about cost. It’s about some sort of weird status symbol, it’s about pretty whiteness, it’s about branding … and sometimes, it’s about usability.

And there’s not going to BE any middlemand to BIOSes because there’s just no point in doing such a thing … Microsoft may release an EFI capable version of Windows XP 32 bit, if Intel’s going to start making 32 bit platforms using EFI ... but honestly, I think everyone wanting to run Windows on a Mac is just going to have to wait for either Vista, or a 64 bit Mac.
eikonos January 27th, 2006 at 5:37 pm 3

Obviously there won’t be any EFI->BIOS bridge since that would be a huge amount of work. What will happen is that Vista supports EFI. XP probably won’t since there is no econimic incentive for MS to add a feature like EFI support to their old operating systems.

As for running OSX on generic hardware, the reason it won’t happen is that there’s no economic incentive for Apple to add generic hardware support to OSX. Adding drivers and a HAL for all the different types of OEM IBM hardware would be a huge, expensive task and the extra sales of OSX just won’t pay for that. It makes as much sense as MS adding PPC support to Windows.

Apple does have a strong brand, but MS spends more money and effort on marketing. The difference is that Apple’s marketing is more consistent and focused.
I can honestly say that my interest in OSX was in no way related to any sort of status symbol. Perhaps that’s an incentive for some people, but I can’t see how that makes the hardware any less reliable or the software any less useable. Of course OSX isn’t for everyone, but my experience has been that the design behind the OS is far, far more consistent and useful than the aging frankenstein monster that is NT/9x/DOS.
Xcited1 March 19th, 2006 at 9:43 pm 4

As of March 17, you can dual-boot a Macintel box with Windows XP SP2. There is a special boot loader that you need but it works! For more info you can download the MacBreak podcast with Leo Laporte talking about how it is done. You can also check out http://www.onmac.net or engadget.com.

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Intel Macs: No Windows, and SLOW old software.