Apples with Intel Inside

[switcharoo]

I've been hearing where Apple was considering the switch and yet wondering why they were waiting so long. This article in AARP may explain some aspects
of the trade off from swithching from IBM processors to
those of Intel.

www.aarp.org/learntech/computers/comp_news/apples_with_intel_inside.html

So the O/S is in the offing.....and with "Rosetta"(which will allow Windows software to run unmodified on these Intel Mac's) a Windows user may be able to STILL use his windows software programs. But will it still generate
the performance of earlier Mac's? Or will it be the next big thing to market a plethora of new Apple
hardware items?

[tigertonytigger]

Moving from the power pc chip to intel is a interesting move. Some loyal apple lovers are going to hate it and some are going to love it. I called someone I know who works for IBM and asked if they are upset with the move and they aren't all that upset. They still use the chips in many of there servers and now x-box 360 is going to be using it in there systems. Kind of interesting when you think of it, Bill Gates is needing something that Steve Jobs has been using for years (again). I think apples sales are going to hurt because most people aren't going to buy something that they know is going out the door in a year. I think in the end it will be good because I have faith that Steve is thinking 5-10 years down the road and something big is going to happen. One thing that is going to be suck is that when pc programs are able to work in a mac there is going to be a lot of crappy software to go through like now on the pc.

[djsmiley]

More that likely there are multitudes of reasons why they've been waiting so long to make the switch. One of the biggest perhaps is brand loyalty. Apple has always had scores of die hard users and fans of their computers since their inception, most notably since the Apple II line was introduced way back in the early 80's. Apple has almost always been viewed as the underdog, and by announcing the switch the Intel chipset they risked alienating these long time fans that have always stuck by Apple, even through the dreaded Gil Amelio days. Even though the change had been rumored for months I know that I for one was always skeptical that they would indeed make the jump, and was quite shocked when the announcement did finally come about.

Another reason is that Apple has long hoped that the PowerPC chip would be able to compete with Intel's x86 chips and those of AMD's for years to come. Back when Apple partnered up with both Motorola and IBM to co-create the PowerPC they came up with a chip at the time that was much more efficient and arguably more powerful than what Intel had at the time. But sadly in the last couple of years nothing has really been improved with the G4/G5 lineup of processors. Most notably of course has been the speed barrier that they had come up against. Steve Jobs had grown so impatient with IBM about the lack of any real improvement while Intel had made some nice strides in not only speed but also power management of their chips that he decided that Apple could no longer wait to make the switch.

I agree that it's going to be very interesting in the next couple of years. I think the AARP article had it wrong about having to recode OSX to work with Intel chipsets. It was rumored back when OSX first came out that Apple was going to eventually release a Wintel version of it. And I believe that I read in one of the Intel switch articles that Apple had indeed already ported OSX to work on Intel based machines a couple of years back in preparation for a possible future switch. After all, having a Unix based core would make the recoding process much easier than having to recode OS9.

I sincerely hope that the switch will make hardware for Macs much cheaper than it currently is. I don't think I'm the only one that hates having to pay 3 or 4 times as much for a Mac video card, for example, than the equivalent card for a PC. I also hope that the price of the Macs themselves will be a lot more affordable, because doing so could potentially draw more people to make the switch to the Mac platform. Especially if they are able to keep the reliability and ease-of-use that Macs have always been known for. And having the possibility of having a plethora of new software to use with Macs through the use of Rosetta doesn't hurt either.

I guess all we can do is play the wait and see game and watch where the chips fall.