Nov 16, 2005

Jobs Upgrading to Intel Chip This Spring?

Highly reliable sources are reporting that Mr. Jobs will once again be going under the knife in mid- or late-'06 in order to upgrade the CPU in his brain from a PowerPC 970 to one of the new ultra low power Pentium M-derived chips upcoming from Intel.

Years ago, in Spring '03, Steve Jobs participated in a top-secret program with IBM that installed a PowerPC G5 in his cerebral cortex, enhancing his Reality Distortion Field and giving him bionic mathematical abilities. The program, modeled on a similar idea from Motorola with its G4 that Jobs had declined, was successful.

Now, in the present, Jobs wishes to go with the times and upgrade his aging G5 with the latest and greatest from Intel, with sources reporting 64-bit support, SSE3, and dual cores all likely. Sources wouldn't say which chip it was exactly, however, citing Intel's long list of CPU code-names as too confusing to sort feature sets from.

One curious source asked us a perplexing question: Will Jobs be able to stay awake longer and have more energy since the new Pentium chips are significantly more power-efficient than the G5? Performance-per-watt is outstanding in the new Intel designs, but it really comes down to what chip he the surgeons install.

Nov 15, 2005

"Shere Khan" Due Spring '06

Rumors swirling around 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino have Apple developers abuzz. Mac OS X engineers, currently knee-deep in Mac OS X v10.4.4 development, are gearing up for what comes next. Due Spring '06, the next iteration of Tiger is coming — Mac OS X v10.4.5, code-named Shere Khan.

Shere Khan will be the most significant and wide-reaching Mac OS X update ever. Said to merge all of the post-10.4.3 and 10.4.4 updates into a single package, it will include synchronization with Intel builds, kernel optimizations, re-enablement of Quartz Extreme 2D, and AirPort and security updates.

New features to be introduced with Shere Khan are impressive: SafeSleep for all New World Macs that support Tiger, a new handJobs framework to support a major update to CockBand, and the first iteration of "The 'Burbs," Apple's code-name for its project to move Mac OS X from the CPU to support chips.

More reports suggest other, less-known technologies slated for inclusion in 10.4.5. Among these are support for the mysterious iDong port, a new framework and app to help Mac users get into the Mac scat scene, and Hentai support in the kernel to help migrate 5G iPod users over to penis-tentacled demons raping young girls.

Overall, Shere Khan will have profound effects on the Mac experience and will probably send the halo effect into critical mass, helping to escort the masses to the Mac. The probable release date is late April or early May of next year. Until then, visit back to get the latest on this king of Mac OS X updates!

Nov 14, 2005

Apple Moving Tasks to Network Adapter?

New enhancements in future Mac OS X updates — possibly to Tiger but definitely in Leopard — are finally utilizing the powerful gigabit network adapters found in most Macs with "The 'Burbs," Apple's code-name for the move of many, if not all, general CPU processing tasks over to the networking chip-sets.

Sources from Cupertino are excited about the switch, which they say is a natural progression Apple started with Quartz Extreme in Jaguar. Eventually Apple hopes to move all processing over to other chips in the system, freeing Mac OS X from its dependency on the CPU, one source said.

Apple reportedly wants to divest itself of CPU-dependance due to troubles in the past with maintaining processor supplies. Of note in Apple's rocky past were the switch from 68k to PowerPC in '94, the 500 MHz Fiasco in '99, and the Ninety Nanometer Speed-Bump that we're arguably still in the middle of.

Apple had to begin selling the Power Mac 9600 again at one point because the G3 had a piss-poor FPU and couldn't do multiprocessing. Apple's tired of being embarrassed by its CPU and wants Mac OS X running safely on network adapters, graphics cards, and sound chips than face any more ridicule, the same source said.

Other sources gave more insight to the performance Mac OS X would exhibit running on network adapters. It's comparable to running Tiger on a Power Mac 9500/120, a third-party developer shared with us on condition of anonymity. Slower than a retarded kid on morphine. But Apple will have it optimized by Leopard.

These are only the beginnings of tips and insight into the big move away from central processing units at Apple. With Leopard more than a year off, you can be sure Apple will have something special to pull out of its hat when it releases Mac OS X v10.5. Until then, we'll keep you posted on any news coming our way!