Apple–Intel architecture

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The Apple–Intel architecture, or Mactel, is an unofficial name used for

Mac transition to Intel processors
PowerPC Architecture Universal binary Boot Camp Rosetta Developer Transition Kit
v t e

Technologies

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Background

Apple uses a

On April 5, 2006, Apple made available for download a public

• System Management Controller is a custom Apple chip that controls various functions of the computer related to power management, including handling the power button, management of battery and thermal sensors, among others.^[7] It also plays a part in the protection scheme deployed to restrict booting macOS to Apple hardware (see Digital Rights Management below). Intel-based Mac doesn't implement TPM.
• Laptop input devices. Early
  I2C,^[12]
  may also be used.
• Additional custom hardware may include a GMUX chip that controls GPU switching,^[13] non-compliant implementations of solid-state storage^[14] and non-standard configurations of HD Audio subsystem.^[15]
• Prt Sc), some of which may require software remapping to achieve the desired function.^[16] Compact and laptop keyboards from Apple also lack some keys considered essential on PCs, such as the forward Delete key, although some of them are accessible through the Fn key.^[17]
• Boot process. All Intel-based Macs have been using some version of
  OEM partners to use UEFI boot process on PCs,^[19]
  which made the differences smaller. However, Apple's version of EFI also includes some custom extensions that are utilized during regular macOS boot process, which include the following:
  • Drivers for the
    EFI System Partition is thus not used or necessary for regular macOS boot process.^[18]
  • Rudimentary pre-boot GUI framework, including support for image drawing, mouse cursor and events. This is used by FileVault 2 to present the login screen before loading the operating system.^[21]
  • Other non-standard EFI services for managing various firmware features such as the computer's
    NVRAM and boot arguments.^[22]

Some of these differences can pose as obstacles both to running macOS on non-Apple hardware and booting alternative operating systems on Mac computers – Apple only provides drivers for its custom hardware for macOS and Microsoft Windows (as part of Boot Camp); drivers for other operating systems such as Linux need to be written by third parties, usually volunteer free software enthusiasts.

Digital rights management

After the initial announcement of first Intel-based Mac hardware configurations, reporting a Trusted Platform Module among system components, it was believed that the TPM is responsible for handling the DRM protection. It was later proven to not be the case. The keys are actually contained within the System Management Controller, a component exclusive to Apple computers, and can be easily retrieved from it.^[25] These two 32-byte keys form a human-readable ASCII string copyrighted by Apple,^[26] establishing another possible line of legal defence against prospective clone makers.

Virtualization

The processors found in Intel Macs support

The first virtualization software for Intel Macs was Parallels Desktop for Mac, released in June 2006.^[27] The Parallels virtualization products allow users to use installations of Windows XP and later in a virtualized mode while running macOS. VirtualBox is another piece of virtualization software originally from Innotek (now Oracle Corporation), which had a first public beta release for Mac OS X in April 2007.^[28] It supports VT-x and can run multiple other guest operating systems, including Windows XP and later. It is available free of charge under either a proprietary license or the GPL.^[29]

VMware also offers a Mac virtualization product competing with Parallels called Fusion, released August 2007.^[30] VMware's virtualization product also allows users to use installations of Windows XP and later under macOS.

Regardless of the product used, there are inherent limitations and performance penalties in using a virtualized guest OS versus the native macOS or booting an alternative OS solution offered via Boot Camp.

See also

• Mac transition to Intel processors

References and notes