Apple Switches to Intel

As a long-time Apple zealot (and former Apple employee, but that was a long time ago), my reaction to this is, well, mixed. But a lot of people have asked me what I think about it, so here goes. There are lots of issues to consider,

Why’d Apple do it?
It’s not cost. Apple pays less per unit for PowerPC chips than most vendors do for Intel chips. Issues with G5s in laptops and slow rate of speed increase for the G5 is probably the real culprit. There’s a certain irony here with the xbox moving to the PowerPC…

Can Apple pull it off?
Certainly, if any computer company knows how to manage such a transition, it’s Apple, having done it once on the hardware side before (68000 to PowerPC) and then on the software side (OS 9 to OS X). Based on that, and the fact that they’ve had OS X running on Intel hardware for some time now and the high-profile mentions of emulation and having MS and Adobe on board, I’m not worried about the technical handling of the transition. (Though I’m perturbed at the idea of a BIOS rather than Open Firmware.)

On the other hand, I’d be awfully tempted to sell Apple stock short for a while–how can they really expect to sell many machines for the next year? There’s no way Apple can sugar-coat this part that I will find credible.

The other issue I see is based on the bits I’ve read, Mac OS will still only run on Apple-branded hardware but it appears that Windows will also run on that hardware (and not vice-versa). Interesting, but I think the real potential problem is the issue for developers. This seriously impacts the testing effort (now have to test under 2 hardware architectures), and why develop a Mac version if all the Mac users out there can just run your Windows version? I don’t see this as a compelling argument for developing on the Mac.

The sky is falling!
Of course, the real fun will, of course, be seeing a certain segment of the Mac community give Chicken Little reactions, certain that this is the end. I’m sure the press will be declaring Apple’s death soon, for the umpteenth time. And, as per the past, I expect Apple to survive. Mac OS X is really pretty cool (something which could not be said for OS 9, which was usable enough but definitely not very cool) and Apple has another revenue stream (that whole iPod thing you may have heard of) which will help them get through this.

Still, as an 18-year Mac veteran (my first machine was a Mac Plus in 1987 and I’ve never switched, though I did spend some time in front of unix boxes in grad school), pairing with Intel just seems… wrong. As I said to my brother, it feels dirty. (Those evil wrong-endians! And I hate those stupid “Intel inside” stickers and the insipid Blue Man Group commercials.) More on the technical side, I am a bit perturbed by the abandonment of 64-bit processors and I’m not a little puzzled why Intel got the nod over AMD, but I would guess there’s more at play than we currently know.

The other concern I have is the dominant position this will give Intel. There’s something about a single company having a hold on both major desktop/laptop computing platforms which bothers me. Maybe that’s just my usual big-corporate paranoia but I don’t think so.

And, finally, where’s Beelzebub getting a winter coat? It must be really cold down there…

3 thoughts on “Apple Switches to Intel”

  2. I’ll betchya that Intel already has plans for a low power 64-bit processor that will help Apple get their battery life up and their heat problem down.

    Jobs probably jumped ship because IBM embarrassed him after he promised a 3GHz G5 that never happened. Don’t taunt happy fun Steve.

    IBM & Motorola hanged themselves by not delivering a processor that had the Mhz muscle to compete against AMD & Intel. Apple’s hardware is pretty good but it was getting left behind and there was no upgrade path in sight.

    Apple’s deal with Intel is not exclusive. Here’s the way I see it panning out:

    Spring 06: Apple releases new Intel-based iBooks/Powerbooks with better battery life and lower heat–that’s their meat and potatoes demographic ( behind the iPod).

    Summer 06: Apple releases new Dual or even Quadruple AMD Opteron-Based XServes and/or PowerMacs. iMacs have Intel P4s.

    I’d be surprised if they don’t. Apple’s deal with AMD will be secret. Intel will be happy to have the lion’s share of the product line and AMD will be happy to have the pro and enterprise end of the deal.

    It may be as late as September or October but I bet the announcments come by the July Macworld.

  3. Interesting theory, Couch Pundit. I have no doubt that whatever else happens, the laptops will be Intel; Apple desperately needs the battery life. (My guess is that the Mnis will have whatever the laptops have, since the Minis are essentially geometry-altered laptops without monitor and keyboard.) But the towers going AMD? Could happen, would be very interesting…

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