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Even though the rumors were flowing over the weekend I was still stunned at yesterday's news that Apple is dropping IBM (and their G5 processor,) and beginning a 2 year transition to Intel x86 chips.
According to Jobs, IBM couldn't deliver the speed, and more importantly couldn't deliver the speed at low power that Apple needs to make the kind of small form factor very quiet machines it loves to make.
Here are a few of my initial thoughts:
For the average end user this makes little real difference. The Mac experience is primarily the experience of the Mac OS, and that isn't going to change.
Most present applications will run unmodified on the new machines thanks to a software emulation layer. Apple is very good at this sort of thing. Still, it's clear they are hoping that developers will do a little bit of work to recompile their apps to take full advantage of the new architecture. Adobe has announced full support which is very important to the Mac community.
You won't be able to buy OS X and run it on a Dell (or any other generic x86 machine.) The Mac OS X will continue to run exclusively on Apple hardware.
Although they won't be officially supporting it, Apple VP Phil Schiller stated that they won't do anything technical to preclude you from running Windows (or, one presumes, Linux) on the new Apple hardware. This might have some interesting benefits for Apple's "switcher" efforts. Now a windows person can buy a Mac and have the ability to switch back to Windows if they don't like it.
This moves seems to confirm that the Cell processor (variations of which will drive the Sony Playstation III and the new Microsoft XBox,) is not a viable desktop processor (or else, presumably, Apple would have stayed with IBM and that future.)
There could be something more here than meets the eye. It is at least possible that the switch to Intel has something to do with Hollywood and DRM. We know there is DRM in these new Intel chips. So possibly Jobs is trying to work out something like the iTunes music store for movies with Hollywood, and they simply won't do it unless it runs on these Intel chips. This is pure speculation at this point, but maybe something to keep in mind.
I shudder to think of what this is going to do to sales of present Macintosh computers, especially going into the Christmas season when the first of the new machines will be right around the corner (shipping early 2006.)
For me personally this greatly complicates the already complicated decision I need to make regarding my next server. I can't wait for the new machines (which I'd love to do since being able to wipe the Mac OS and install Linux on x86 is exactly the fall back position I would be most happy with.) But do I really want to drop (for me) a huge amount of money on a last generation G5 server? Is that really a machine I will be happy with in 4 or 5 years. My provisional answer is no, which would cause me to just buy an x86 now and run Linux.
But like I said, I don't think this is really a big deal for the average user. The software is going to stay the same. The Mac will still be the Mac even with Intel inside.