I read cringely post and the underlying supposition is that there is a significant market out there of people wanting to switch away from windows... I use Linux and MacOs and in the last few years, I've hardly met anyone that was even interested in considering switching to whatever.

People don't care about OSes, they care about apps, and silly one at that. they care about Messenger, kazaa, and god know what else, and they care about finding all apps in the start menu, not in the application tab of finder or wherever other environment wants to put them.

So creating that market out of nowhere will be sooo expensive ! Think of the number of developpers that will have to be convinced to do a port to MacOsX in addition to the current OSX developpers ? And if Apple comes up with a large OEM scheme, I guess Microsoft will have to react.

If Cringely is right, then Jobs is really pushing his luck imho

AMD does not make motherboards. Intel does. If Apple decides to stop making hardware they can talk with Intel about producing OS X spec motherboards and offering them for sale. I'm guessing some of these motherboards would be Windows spec as well. If so then any boxmaker could make OS X/Windows boxes instead of just Windows boxes. They would deal with Intel and just pick and choose an appropriate motherboard. It would be very easy.

I do not know if Apple is planning to get out of the hardware business. In fact I do not think it's a good idea. But the move to Intel will make it easy for Apple do this if they want to.

Ars Technikas John Siracusa wrote a thoughtful paper about the switch:

http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050607.ars

--
But it was an old tradition that away over there stood the infinite loop,
from which at times superior processors took sail, never to return.

I looks like the Intel Powermac is really just a mini-ATX board in a G5 case. That's probably why they want them all back. ;)

Anyway, I went to a 3 hour lunch wth my local Apple rep yesterday, and we talked a lot about the Intel transition. He thinks the iBooks will be among the first to transition and they'll get Pentium M processors. He also sees a Windows layer (Wine environment) in the near future, but does not think dual booting (Longhorn/Leopard) will ever be supported by Apple... but probably made possible through 3rd party solutions. Overall, he said he's sad about the change, but thinks it will be positive. Still, he added, "when they roll out the last PPC-powered Macs... I'll be buying two."

I'Cringely and Coatroom forum comments...
 

I was really interested to hear comments on I Cringely's article. Saw that one at Ars Tech too.

We are incredibly sad about Steve's decision. Why? We just moved back to Apple from Win$Tel in late 2003. It has been a simply wonderful and incredible experience for us, nearly all GOOD!

We left Win$Tel mainly because we felt they really didn't give a damn about us.

They also made us feel stupid. Something was always breaking and support types essentially said we shouldn't be trying to support ourselves because we (they didn't say this, but we felt it) are incompetent and stupid. But we are not! We are customers!

Apple has a much more powerful OS than any lap-desk top system in its ease of use and its reliability.

Now, back to I Cringely. He seems to us to be finding $Value in what Apple and Intel want, doesn't he?

But do they want what I-We want?

Do you think they do? Did I Cringely impy that?

We tend to agree that MAC OS X will have better performance and performance growth with Intel than with IBM. We just thought that IBM was a better, customer oriented supplier. It seems they have fallen back into the old Bill Aker days: customers AND EMPLOYEES (edited all caps in after submission) be damned!

One final note which is just our local opinion: digital will be dead in fewer than two decades! Perhaps not hybrids, though...

From our perspective that imminent 'truth' trumps whatever I Cringely, Apple, Intel, and M$ do.

Thank you for reading,

Doug.

I think this is a really good move for Apple. The problem is that IBM screwed Apple. Apple wanted a G5 PowerBook and a 3.0Ghz G5 years ago. I am sure Apple said to IBM, look we want a PowerPC chip like this with these specs. IBM replies, look giving your market share and the all the R and D its gonna take, we just can't do that, but we can give you a lower grade chip. Apple took that as a slap in the face. What your not gonna give us what we want, cya we're out of here! So Apple had to turn else where, and the ideal place was Intel.

I don't think there's any chance of Apple releasing OS X on generic PC's. Jobs is (thankfully) too controlling. He wants to be in control of the entire user experience, including hardware.

If Apple allowed OS X to be installed on any generic computer, OS X would soon degenerate into Windows. There would be virtually no way of preventing X from becoming just as unstable, just as unreliable, and just as prone to hackers and viruses.

All the current speeds of G5s are simply overclocked 2.2GHz original. That's as fast as IBM could make them. 3 years, and 200MHz. :confused:

I share Linspire's Robertson disappointment. The switch won't mean a thing if they don't let Dell, Lenovo and John Doe install OSX on the machine they like, even if that means being careful with supported components and chipset in the first few months. Instead of which, it'll be just a Mac, with the same natural limitations of a closed platform.

I hope cringely is right.....

The switch isn't supposed to "mean a thing". In fact in a successful transition, you couldn't tell any difference between a Mac that has an Intel inside and one that has some other CPU chip. The innards shouldn't matter.
Of course being able to run Windows natively on a Mac would be quite useful, but I'm talking about the OS X side of things. The OS X experience should be the same no matter what chips are inside.

Your "Just a Mac" is my "It's a Mac!".
Your "natural limitations of a closed platform" is my "natural advantages of a well-designed and carefully controlled platform"

Re: "It’s a Mac!"
 

Hayne, that slight difference in attitude means a world of difference. So far Apple has been the undisputed master of inspiring attitude. Given a successful transition (and I’m very optimistic), they will have far more people thinking along those lines.

Apple is not just a brand. To use a marketing catchword: It is a love brand.

Or as you put it: "It's a Mac!"

I don't care about running windows or anything else on a Mac. The regret I have is that "the well designed and carefully controlled platform" also means that its reach will be just as limited as now.

It might be a profitable strategy for Apple, but it won't deliver anything to end users in terms of broader software and hardware support for OSX. It fact the transition will mean even less support whilst it happens.A more open platform strategy (and I am not talking running OSX on absolutely anything either) would have almost certainly delivered that.

I'm with ArcticStones: I'll bet that during the transition both "G" machines and "I" machines will be available, and I'll be very surprised if you can tell the difference without running a system profile, speed aside.

On a slightly allied note..... what do you think will last longest? G4 or G5?

If apple 'intel' the PB, PM and Imac first then the G5 chip would have had a very short life indeed and the G4 would live on! (for a bit)

If apple 'intel' the mini and the ibook first then the G4 is dead, but the speed ratio between the low end macs and the high end macs could be really close!

I wonder if apple will astonish everyone and simply roll out a complete intel line up as of next year?! and death both the PPC chips into history.

ps I am not trying to make a point, just thinking out loud. :D

Personally, I think the G4 will go first. The Mac mini, PowerBook, and iBooks will likely be replaced with Pentium M equivalents. I think the G5 will be around for a while. However, I think that we may see some new lower-priced server offerings (in addition to the G5 Xserve). Perhaps a Xeon-powered Server.

I think cameranerd74 (good name!) is correct in that the G4's will go first.

The mac magazine here in the UK, MacUser, published some benchmarks which showed that the P4 3.4GHz MacTel which was supplied to developers was quite a lot slower in actual number crunching when compared to a G5 iMac or dual 2.7G powermac G5.

Although it runs really HOT, the G5 does perform and will be around for a while (especially if apple can update their G5 ranges or drop their prices...)