It’s Official
The Steve has just announced at the WWDC that Apple is indeed switching to Intel, because IBM simply cannot deliver–can’t give us 3 GHz in the PowerMac, can’t put a G5 into a PowerBook (tell me about it). What he also said was that Apple has been compiling OS X on Intel chips for five years now, and the Tiger presentation he is giving the audience as he speaks is a Pentium 4. Even though they can work Apple software on Pentiums today, the transition will go as reported in the press, from June 2006 to June 2007. Nevertheless, both IBM and Intel processors will be supported for “a long time to come,” undoubtedly making a lot of people happy that they will not be forced to switch.
As for how long developers will have to work to port their programs to Intel chips, Jobs is claiming that it just takes a few hours, using Mathematica as an example. The app apparently is very complex with millions of lines of code… but only 20 or so had to be changed for the app to work. The question is, will all apps be so easy to change?
Apple will add two points: first, an emulation mode called “Rosetta” that will allow all PPC software to work transparently on Intel Macs (Mactels?), and new software written in Fat Binary, able to run on both PPC and Intel chips. This is all very, very familiar to those of us who followed through the Motorola-to-IBM, 680×0-to-PPC transition some time back.
Even Microsoft is in: an Apple press release quotes a Microsoft exec as saying that they will develop a fat binary version of Microsoft Office for the Mac–a surprise to me, I had heard that they stopped developing that particular suite for the Mac platform.
interesting: no mention of .Mac despite the coincidental blackout; no mention of whether or not Intel will vary its chips specifically for Apple or if Apple will use off-the-shelf Pentiums; no mention of Transitive (probably they’re just not using them); no mention of whether Windows would run on Macs; no mention of using Windows apps more easily in OS X/Intel.
Sounds to me like there’s a lot of stuff going unsaid…
All of this, of course, leaves me in a tough spot. It seems rather apparent that I will not be getting a G5 PowerBook, or even a dual-core G4 or Freescale PowerBook. Probably nothing but minor-speed-bump G4s until the Big Switch is made. It is not even certain that a Pentium PowerBook will be released in 2006, it could take as long as two years for it to come around. And I’m stuck here with an 800 MHz PowerBook. Which means I can get a new PowerBook with a slow chip and be stuck with that for another 3 years… or I can suffer with a slow CPU for as long as 2 more years and get one of the new Pentium PowerBooks as soon as they come out.
It’ll take a bit of thinking about, but I’ve already figured a few things out. First, I don’t think I’ll want to be using a 5-year-old PowerBook. And second, new computer designs often have bugs that don’t get smoothed out until a few revisions down the line. If I get a PowerBook now, then it will probably be ready for a replacement model at just about the time when Pentium PowerBooks have gotten their kinks worked out.
I think I’ll start taking a look at what’s out there…
Another note: OS X version 10.5 will be called “Leopard,” and will be out by late 2006 or early 2007–around the same time Longhorn is scheduled. That should be a challenge to Microsoft; Apple has gotten their releases out fairly regularly and on-time, while Longhorn has suffered serious delays (even though they cut out two of the biggest new features so they could release it earlier).
A big issue is weather or not the new intel Mac OS will run on the regular Win Xp hardware. If so, Apple can try to make more money selling software for that hardware, and less money selling hardware. Whether or not the benefit is greater than the cost is not known, yet I’m sure the Apple people are looking at that. The tricky thing for them is not calculating those numbers for 2006, yet for the 20yrs after 2006.
Intel MacOs will probably run on the standard intel chips (processors and support ic’s) in order to minimize cost.
Apple can very easily add something to the Mac hardware motherboard that is needed by intel Mac OS, that keeps folks from running intel Mac OS on Win Xp hardware; if they want.
In other words, a Pentium ic from Intel, and another little ic on the Mac motherboard will enable them to protect their hardware revenue; if they want.
This could be a very clever move on Apple’s part to increase their hardware marketshare without alienating Microsoft. If future Macs can run both Windows and the Mac OS but PCs can only run Windows, a larger number of users will be drawn to the Mac hardware (especially if Macs get a bit cheaper because of the Intel chips). I think this may be part of Apple’s ultimate goal, particularly since this has been in the works for so long (and pre-dates the chip problems with the G5s).
Since Microsoft doesn’t have a vested interest in restricting Windows sales to any specific PC manufacturer, they aren’t about to put up any roadblocks to Windows running on Intel-based Macs. In fact, they have every reason to do what they can to get Windows to run on Macs as any Mac user wanting to run it will have to buy a (rather expensive) commercial version of Windows.
The potential big losers will be companies like Dell. The only risk for Apple (and given the loyalty of Mac users, it’s not a big one) is that Mac users will get comfortable enough with Windows to just go for a cheap PC next time they purchase a new machine.
The other potential losers are loyal Mac users. Every time Apple makes an appeal to woo PC users, they have to give up something they love about the Mac OS as well as endure a period of adjustment which includes instability and kludginess with the OS and/or apps.
It does seem clear from reports that the Mactel OS will not run on generic PCs, which I think is a mistake; but what’s to keep PC vendors from making PCs that run both Mac OS and Windows? (Actual question; I’m sure Apple will try to fight off the clones, as Jobs did several years ago; but will he be successful this time?)
I agree that an Intel Mac capable of running both Mac OS and Windows will be a potential killer product; but isn’t there more in it for Apple to sell 100 million OSs than a much smaller number of computers?
I don’t see Dell or others being hurt by this; they’ll still have the incredible variety and incredible bargains, along with the ability to manufacture on demand all over the world.
wataru
I’m guessing that, legally, not just any computer manufacturer can make Mac-compatible machines. They’d have to have some sort of agreement with Apple (hence the reason Power Computing’s short-lived Mac clones, which were licensed, could be stopped). I doubt Apple has anything to fear from others making machines capable of running both Windows and the Mac OS.
As for Apple selling “millions of copies of their OS”, Apple makes most of their profit off of hardware and have the highest profit margins in the computer industry for their hardware. There’s a lot more money in getting PC users to buy Apple hardware than in getting them to buy Apple software, particularly when it’s so easy to pirate software and Apple doesn’t use activation (especially when using PCs where peer-to-peer file sharing is far more popular and efficient than it is on Macs).
Given the main target of the Mac Mini (PC users who want to dabble in Macs but don’t want to spend a lot of money), I’m fairly certain this may be another step toward getting more Apple hardware into PC users hands (though probably not the final one). And, if they can keep prices under control, I’m sure it’ll work if the situation with the Mini is any indication. A great many PC users who weren’t tempted by Macs before are buying Minis or at least seriously considering one.
If Macs that’ll run both Windows and the Mac OS are made and more people buy Macs as a result (a very likely situation as long as the Mac prices don’t go up), someone is going to lose sales. It doesn’t matter how much variety Dell has or how many over-rated bargains they offer (I’ve looked at Dell’s bargains and they’re almost always for stripped down machines which aren’t very cheap by the time you add a decent amount of RAM, DVD drivers, etc.), they will lose some sales, particularly to power users and those with more sophisticated computer knowledge. Dell sells a lot of bargains to the type of people who don’t know enough about computers to understand that 512 MB of RAM isn’t enough to make the machine run very well.