Apple to Ditch IBM PowerPC for Intel

[firstadopter]

News.com is <a href="http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731398.html?tag=nefd.lede">reporting</a> Apple will switch processor companies from IBM PowerPC to Intel Pentium chips. Sources said it will be announced on Monday at the Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco. Currently Apple has 1.8% marketshare of the worldwide PC market. A move to Intel is very risky, but potentially could help the company offer more price/performance competitive products. However Apple may face itself fighting off hackers who may find a way to run OS X on cheap OEM PCs. <Br><br>Whatever the case, if true the resale value of my Mac Mini and iBook has just plummeted. Moreover who is going to buy an expensive Mac in the short-term if a new one that runs the newer software is coming in a 1-2 years. The source said an Intel based Mac Mini is due in mid-2006 and a PowerMac in mid-2007.

[Leica]

I was very surprised by this Apple announcement. With IBM behind the super-computer like Cell processor, why would Apple do this??? Surely Intel x86 is ancient technology going back 20+ years!!!

[firstadopter]

Probably cuz IBM is dragging their feet on desktop and laptop CPUs and can't seem to break the 3ghz barrier.

And then all of sudden breaks the 3ghz barrier for the consoles. Kind of messed up.

I'm kind of upset because I just switched to the Mac Platform like 3-4 months ago. Now it looks like I'll have to wait for all the software that I've gotten used to to be re-released on Mac OS X x86 in a year or two.

Argh.

[Nick!]

The x86 architecture may be old but it's not like it hasn't been infused with ideas from RISC designs along the way. And regardless, the x86 market has the whole economy of scale effect that PowerPC doesn't have. And it's demonstratedly better on the laptop, which is where things are generally going... look how well laptops are selling compared to desktops these days. PowerBook users must be FUSTRATED waiting for faster chips.

I also don't see Cell getting much of a large deployment beyond the PS3. Sure, it will show up in some electronics here and there, but by and large irrelevant in doing anything revolutionary. (I'd LOVE to be proven wrong, but I don't see it, just because something is TECHNICALLY cool doesn't mean it works out in the real world).

I don't think it would take that long for most of the major apps to ship with x86 and PowerPC binaries in the same Application Bundle (IIRC, bundles already support different platform binaries) if Apple provides good tools. Apple changed CPU architectures before and people survived. They have some experience with that.

By and large, I am excited by this news. Even if it annoys a few people here and there (Every change Apple makes does with those 'hardcore' folks), I can't fathom it having anything but a net gain for Apple. It would benefit EVERYONE (including Windows users) to have Windows marketshare cut back a bit.

[firstadopter]

Don't get me wrong, it's the right strategic move for Apple in the long term. Although in the short-term, no-one in their right mind would buy a high end Mac . I'm just annoyed because it wasn't an easy task switching all my workflow and apps over to the Mac, now I'll have to switch again and wait for all the apps to be revised to run on x86 OS X in a year or two.

And trust me there are going to be some bumps and bruises along the way. If I knew this was coming, I probably would of just stayed on the PC for the medium term.

[Nick!]

Agreed! Macs are generally like that anyhow. You buy a Mac then suddenly there's some big new thing, the prices all fall and you're like "If I only waited..."... I might have bought a Mac mini instead of an iBook when I did, if I had known. But I totally dig that it mucks with resale value more than anything else to make the ARCHITECTURE obsolete. Still, in the short term, you'll still find wacky eBay buyers who won't think about those things.

I doubt it would take long to see many programs recompiled, but it would be those 1 or 2 that weren't that would be the bugger.

There's some people still convinced there's some misinterpreting going on and Intel is just going to be producing PowerPC chips. Or just Apple using ARM processors in a tablet. Boring!

I guess we'll find out tommorrow!

[firstadopter]

Well you have the Wall St. Journal, NY Times, and News.com all confirmed the switch with their industry sources. I think it's pretty much a sure thing.

[Nick!]

Well dang, it's real.

"Jobs demonstrated Rosetta by running Microsoft Office applications, Quicken and Photoshop CS 2 -- all unmodified PowerPC-binary versions, unlike Mathematica -- on the new Intel-based hardware."

That solves the lack of hardware part of the question. Rosetta sounds too good to be true.

Laughter that they've been doing Keynotes on Intel for a while ;D