Mactels On The Horizon
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NOTE: This is an old blog entry from over two years ago. 
Holy crap! Apple is switching to Intel processors! Didn't see that one coming, and even with all the reliable rumors that were coming out a few days before Apple's yearly World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) where the official announcement was made, I still found it hard to believe. Intel! While there really aren't too many choices out there for CPUs that Apple can use to build computers, one thing the Apple community seems to pride itself on is that Macs are not based on "inferior" Intel processors.
This is probably one of the biggest changes Apple has ever undertaken and one that has many ramifications for Apple down the road. I have little doubt that hackers will figure out how get OS X to run on commodity Intel boxes, like the ones you can get from Dell for a few hundred dollars, or put together yourself using parts bought online or at your favorite screwdriver shop. When this happens, it will allow anyone to test OS X and get a taste of the kool-aid that Mac users have been drinking for several years now. Will it cause people to switch? Some, maybe, but then, what will "switching" mean? Buying an Intel-based Macintosh, when they can already run OS X on their existing Intel box?
It's always possible that Apple will be able to lock down OS X pretty tightly to their new Intel-based computers. And I don't doubt that they'll try. So this may stop the average person from running OS X alongside their Windows desktop. But it's unlikely to stop the hackers and those who have an insatiable desire to try out OS X but don't want to pay the high price of admission (although, admittedly, that price has come down since the release of the Mac Mini).
I've been using Macs now full-time for nearly two-years, having purchased a G5 shortly after they were available. I have owned Macs in the past (and have some older machines, such as a G4 PowerMac), but until OS X came along, I didn't use them very seriously. These days, I'm able to run just about everything I need on the Mac, and am happier doing so. The exceptions are things like my EPROM programmer, which requires a Windows application. Pretty much the only other thing I use PCs for is for games, one of the weakest aspects of the Macintosh. Some companies, such as Blizzard, are good about releasing Mac versions of their games (for instance,World of Warcraft, which comes in a hybrid Windows/OS X package), but most others don't regard the Mac as a serious games market.
I've always liked the design of Motorola's and the Power PC consortium's chips over Intel's designs, and I'm sure many Macheads feel the same. But I'm also willing to accept that IBM, following in the footsteps of Motorola, made promises to Apple that they simply could not deliver on, and Apple would be hurting soon if they did not act. Their Powerbook line is already suffering from Apple's inability to shoehorn a G5 into laptop form, and with the powerful and power-miserly Pentium M, the Powerbooks are already looking long in the tooth. My guess (although more obvious than anything else) is that Apple will first use Intel parts to help prop up their aging laptops, as the current G5 desktops are running at 2.7Ghz, which is respectable for the time being.
I don't believe this transition will be too difficult for end users, since Apple is making it relatively easy for most apps to be compiled for the Intel version of OS X, and those apps that aren't "fixed" in time can run via Rosetta, which lets PowerPC apps run on Intel boxes, without too severe a performance penalty. However, applications that require machine-specific code to squeeze every ounce of performance out of the machine, such as games, are going to be a big headache for developers. Because these developers will have to ensure their games run properly not just on PowerPC boxes, but also Intel-based Macs. That could mean writing assembly code TWICE, for vastly different chip architectures.
However, headaches aside, this could also see game developers taking the Mac more seriously, as less work may need to be done to get a game running on an Intel-based system. We could see games coming out for the Mac that require an Intel-based Mac. What would be ideal is for Microsoft to port DirectX to OS X. If this happened, it would be a huge boon for gamers using Macs. I'm not going to hold my breath, but makes me wonder if Microsoft has already done this for their Xbox 360 development systems, which run on dual CPU PowerMac G5s (since the Xbox 360 itself is built around a three-core PowerPC part). Again, could be very interesting to see what evolves over time.
While some Mac users have taken this switch over to Intel fairly negatively, I'm mostly indifferent. I'm fairly confident that Apple has carefully thought this through, even with Steve Jobs' visibly rash demeanor. If this change means we'll get faster Macs on a more frequent basis, and especially more powerful Mac laptops, I'm all for it. If it also means that down the road more games will be ported to the Mac, even better. And ideally, if I can run Windows apps (through something like Virtual PC) at "native" speed (as opposed to the snail's pace that Virtual PC runs at now), I'll be thrilled.
I'm optimistic that this will be a good change for Apple in the long term, but it'll be a bumpy road for several years while Apple phases out their PowerPC-based computers. Since it'll be a while before we can even buy Intel-based Macs, I'm not going to spend much time worrying about it. And I don't have any legacy Mac applications I need to worry about porting to Intel OS X, so I won't lose any sleep over that.
I'm just along for the ride.
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