Mac on Intel: Roundup and Reactions

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, ***Apple|http://www.apple.com/*** has ***announced|http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.html*** that they will be transitioning the processors in their Macintosh computers from ***IBM|http://www.ibm.com/***’s PowerPC to ***Intel|http://www.intel.com/*** chips. This transition will start with low-end models by June of 2006, and high-end models by June of 2007. The technology world, Macintosh devotees in particular, has been quite shaken up by this announcement. I’d like to round up some of the coverage, and add a few of my own thoughts.

First, here is a roundup of news and blog postings from around the web:

News Outlets
***MacWorld Editor’s Notes: A First Reaction|http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/06/intelinstant/index.php?lsrc=mwrss***
***MacWorld Editor’s Notes: Considering Intel|http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/06/intel/index.php?lsrc=mwrss***
***MacWorld: Apple faithful learning to like oranges|http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/07/oranges/index.php?lsrc=mwrss***
***MacWorld: Editor’s Notes: Keynote winners and losers|http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/06/wwdckeynote/index.php?lsrc=mwrss***
***Ars Technica: It’s true: Apple switching to Intel x86 CPU line beginning next year|http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050606-4974.html***
***Ars Technica: Picking up the pieces: John Siracusa mourns the Power PC|http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050607.ars***
***MacFixit: Ted Landau: For better or worse, we are all in for a headache|http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050606145053232***
***MacFixit: Apple not pursuing 64-bit processors?|http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050607081920942***

Blogosphere
***Frasier Speirs: Mac OS x86|http://fraserspeirs.livejournal.com/892648.html***
***Will Farnham: MacIntel|http://pulchersentio.prwdot.org/002588.html***
***John Gruber: Bombs Away|http://daringfireball.net/2005/06/bombs_away***
***John Gruber: Classic Not Supported on Intel-based Macs|http://daringfireball.net/2005/06/classic_not_supported***
***Adriaan Tijsseling: i am dumb|http://blog.kung-foo.tv/archives/001411.php***
***Robert Ellis: Hell Froze Over: Apple Adopts Intel|http://www.futurosity.com/index.php?id=122***
***Robert Ellis: Apple-Intel Aftermath|http://www.futurosity.com/index.php?id=124***
***TUAW: Editorial, first thoughts|http://www.tuaw.com/2005/06/06/editorial-apple-on-intel/***
***TUAW: The Day After WWDC Headache|http://www.tuaw.com/2005/06/07/the-day-after-wwdc-headache/***
***Pete Prodoehl: Apple + Intel = Yawn|http://rasterweb.net/raster/2005/06/07/apple-intel-yawn/***
***Erik J. Barzeski: QotD: Intel|http://nslog.com/archives/2005/06/08/qotd_intel.php***

My Take
I’d heard the rumors a while before the official announcement was made, so it didn’t come as a complete shock to me. Nonetheless, I was at first a bit disappointed. After all, Apple has spent so much time in the past ten years hyping the PowerPC processor over Intel’s offerings. They’ve devoted considerable effort into debunking the “megahertz myth” — that just because an Intel processor may have a greater GHz rating than a PowerPC doesn’t mean it is faster. Thanks to technologies such as RISC and AltiVec, and the advanced pipelining features in the G5, PowerPC processors have trounced Intel processors of the same speeds. When I bought a Mac, I bought it both because it ran the Mac OS, which I consider to be the world’s best desktop operating system, but also because it ran on a PowerPC processor, which I still consider to be the world’s best desktop CPU.

But IBM just hasn’t been delivering on its promises of faster PowerPC chips. Apple is trying to compete with PC makers whose Intel processors are, after much hard work, as fast or faster than PowerPC processors. So Apple is leveling the playing field. With the move to Intel processors, Apple is eliminating one major tactical advantage that the competition had: the ability to go to Intel for lots and lots of really fast processors, and the ability to rely on Intel to keep increasing their processor speeds. Intel is far more committed to the desktop processor market than IBM ever was; one need only look at the minimal impact that losing the Apple contract will have on IBM’s sales. I think we can count on Intel to produce powerful, efficient processors for Apple’s use.

Some people are concerned that users might be able to run the Mac OS on commodity WinTel machines.. Dells, Gateways, and the like. If this was a widespread possibility, it would effectively eliminate Apple’s hardware business. I don’t think this will be the case. Sure, the Mac OS will run on Apple machines with Intel processors inside. But Apple is likely to build custom components and custom operating system hooks that will tie the OS to Apple’s hardware. People will surely write software that might allow commodity PC’s to emulate some of the Apple-specific hardware features, but I don’t think any more people would attempt this sort of solution than, say, the number of people who use Linux on a Mac, or the number of people who run some sort of Mac emulator on their PCs. Yes, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I don’t doubt that people will figure out how to get around it. But we certainly won’t see every PC user running out, buying Mac OS X, and hacking their machine to get it to run. It just won’t happen. In short, I don’t think this switch to Intel will make it any easier to run Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware than it is today.

Another concern is that this transition will be difficult for users and developers. Though I’m not a developer of Apple software per se, I do follow the development community fairly closely. And from what I can tell, this transition will probably be one of the easiest transitions Mac users have ever experienced. My primary reason is this: Apple has been working on this for five years. Every single build of Mac OS X, and every build of every application they’ve released sine Mac OS X, has been mandated to compile on both Intel and PowerPC platforms. So not only have they had the time to make sure that their OS and all of their base Apple software will run on both platforms, but they’ve had plenty of time to develop the tools and strategies developers will need to get switched over. Apple has done as much as they possibly can to ensure a smooth transition. The OS is ready, the hardware, for the most part, is ready, the tools are ready, and with their announcement on Monday, they took the next and most critical step: they handed all of this over to the third-party developers. Now the developers have a year to make sure that their apps will compile and run both on PowerPC and Pentium processors. Heck, they can even get an actual Intel Mac to test things out on (though they’ll have to return it by 2006, when the first Intel Mac is released). Some of the larger developers have already been working with Apple on the transition: Microsoft and Adobe to name a few. So their software is more than likely just about ready to go. I’m sure there will be a few glitches here and there with third party developers who haven’t gotten their code up to speed, or really old apps that don’t run (as John Gruber noted with respect to Classic aps). But for the most part, this will be smooth sailing.

(We’ll see how things stand come 2006, and I’ll eat my words if necessary… but I don’t think I’ll need to.)

Finally, on a personal note, here’s the impact this will have on me directly. I currently own two Macintosh computers, both of which are already rather dated. One is a ***PowerBook G3/400 FW|http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g3/stats/powerbook_g3_400_fw.html*** (aka “Pismo”), and the other is a ***PowerMac G4/450|http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_450.html*** (aka “Sawtooth”). The Sawtooth was introduced in August 1999, and the Pismo was introduced in February 2000. So right now, I have machines that are 5-6 years old. I can only hope that they don’t fail on me before the Intel Macs are released, because I would hate to buy a non-Intel Mac, only to have it be obsolete within a year. The Sawtooth I think will hold up pretty well. It doesn’t move around very much and rarely sustains any impact. Its case design permits heat to dissipate more readily, so it isn’t in as much danger of overheating as the Pismo. And unlike the Pismo, it doesn’t contain a built-in monitor, keyboard, or pointing device, so if any of those things fail, they can be replaced with (relatively) cheap commodity parts. The Pismo, on the other hand, is at a bit more risk. It’s small, easily damaged, and has a great number of proprietary integrated parts. Thankfully, I have some previous experience (***1|http://prwdot.org/archives/001587.html***, ***2|http://prwdot.org/archives/001592.html***) tearing the Pismo apart, but I’d rather not… it’s a tedious process, the replacements parts are not easy to come by, and they are not cheap.

So here’s to hoping that my current Macs stay in good working condition at least for another year. Will I buy an Intel Mac when the time comes to replace them? Of course I will! What other choice is there, really?

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