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June 6, 2005
Apple Switching to Intel Chips
The rumors were rampant about this starting Friday afternoon when CNet and the WallStreet Journal released articles stating Apple would be making the switch from the IBM PowerPC to Intel based processors. At the WWDC Keynote speach this morning, Steve Jobs proved the rumors true and announced that Apple will be switching to Intel chips over the next two years. This is a very suprising switch to me (being the big Apple fan that I am). It just makes us Apple fanatics feel dirty...:)
No but really, here are my thoughts about the whole thing. My first though was, Apple just killed themselfs as a hardware company. It is great for consumers because we can all go out and buy a $600 PC and run Mac OS X on it. But wait, would Apple really let that happen? I don't think so. According to the Mac OS X ELUA, you are not allowed to run Mac OS X on anything other than Apple hardware. That means that even though Apple is switching to Intel chips, it doesn't mean they are going to sell a PC and slap an Apple sticker onto it. Most likely, they will still be running Open Firmware, not a standard BIOS on their machines. That right there will require you to buy a computer from Apple if you want to run OS X. Granted, in time, someone is going to figure out how to hack that and we will all run OS X happily on our PCs at home.
The other thing I don't like about all this is what they are doing to developers. They are forcing all developers for the Mac to starting thinking about the changes they will have to make to move from a Big Endian to a Little Endian processor. Granted that Apple has provided XCode that will "take care of it for you with little changes," but that means they are locking all the developers into their IDE. I'm also not thrilled about needing a bigger harddrive due to the "Universial Binaries" that bloat all application.
Also, what happened to all the 64-bit hype? The G5 is a 64-bit powerhouse! They didn't even make mention of the Itanium at the keynote. Do we not care about 64-bit processing and address spaces any more?? Very strange...
So who knows if this is going to be a good step for Apple or not. All I can tell you is that their sales for the rest of this year are going to fall to zero...Why would I buy a G5 today if they are going to move away from them by the beginning of next year?? Whatever...
*sigh*
P.S. Hey Apple...you should have at least went with AMD...I wouldn't feel quite as dirty then....;)
Posted by Andrew at June 6, 2005 4:54 PM
Comments
I, for one, don't think it's a great idea to move to an architecture which is - let's face it - closer to the end of life than the beginning. But there are a few things that have promise...
Laptops : G5s are too hot to have in a laptop in a form factor that we wouldn't find hideous. Intel has some good mobile chips and if you prefer laptops, there will be much better parity with the desktop counterparts.
Upgrades : I don't know how apple is going to get people to purchase new computers with minor speed updates. There surely will be a whole community dedicated to figuring out what is required, minus a trip to Fry's to pick up a few new CPUs, to update the machines yourself. This may make it a better option to buy the cheap machine, and do a custom CPU upgrade.
I'm thinking the big endian / little endian issue isn't really that big of a deal. Ok, so you might have to recompile to be native... So what? And I just don't trust people that write assembly code anyway. They're like DBAs wearing blue leisure suits. Crazy and stuck in the past.
I guess from my perspective it's really a mixed bag. This is the first major Apple announcement I can think of in recent memory that I haven't been excited about some aspect of, but I think Apple will continue "suck the least" for the foreseeable future.
Posted by: Brian Temple at June 6, 2005 6:05 PM
Ok, I'm confused...There are some good articles coming out about the development transition kits already and this article at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ says:
"The machines do not have Open Firmware. They use a Phoenix BIOS. That;s right, a Mac with a BIOS."
Then what is stopping us from loading OS X on my PC?????
Posted by: Andrew at June 8, 2005 12:36 PM