Mr. Kheit makes some interesting points, but then I consider this: Who is just a lawyer and a columnist, and who is the CEO of one of the few computer companies still showing a profit???

hmmm...I guess I know which horse I'm betting on.

This would be an "Osbourne effect" situation if there was a compelling reason to hold off on purchasing, like the new computers would immediately be wildly better than the current machines. I see no indication of that.

What we have seen is a steady erosion of the high-end Mac sales because the processor speeds have lagged behind. If there is any hubris floating around here, it's on the IBM side. They probably felt they had Jobs by the scruff of the neck, and so they could stiff him on his chips while landing mondo contracts with Microsoft, Nintendon, and Sony. It would appear that they have broken a series of promises for Apple, and as a result we are a year behind schedule for high-end machines.

A hissy fit is a spontaneous outburst. Designing every build of OS X to run on Intel for the last five years is anything but spontaneous. Jobs gave IBM several years to get their act together, and they dropped the ball.

On the other hand, since the universal binaries will work on both platforms, if IBM does figure out how to actually make the chips that Macs need to be competitive, nothing prevents Apple from keeping those in the lineup.

Besides, at this stage in the game, who cares anymore? We can already play Quake at frame-rates faster than the eye can perceive, render Photoshop and After Effects faster than we ever dreamed, edit HD in iMovie, and generally do anything we want except create Pixar films at home. What I care about is the OS, and increasing the programs that run on it.

I just bought my first new Mac in eight years, a beautiful 20" iMac. It will be a great computer for years, regardless of what chip powers new ones next year. I don't regret buying it for a moment, and would still have bought it knowing the new chips are coming. It's been a long, long time since Jobs' NeXT mistake, and his track record since returning to Apple has been incredibly positive. I don't see any reason to think this will turn out poorly, especially with Intel's support. Yeah, I would have preferred AMD, but then again, in a couple of years, who knows? Apple has the chipmakers on notice that if you don't deliver, you're toast.

Hold on...I thought Intel already is doing the dual-core processing.

As for timing, you're correct that it most likely will slow sales significantly. However, if you're convinced that you need to change your chipset, what other choice do you have? Surprise the developers the day it's released? Or do you keep the choice of going with potentially another Motorola experience of seeing Intel and AMD create much faster chips.

IBM, with all it's R&D, cannot create a G5 chip to put in a PowerBook or iBook. Think that hasn't hurt sales? Look at the numbers! How many people are waiting for the G5 PowerBook before making a purchase?

IBM has promise for sure. Time will tell if this is a blunder or a stroke of genius. But Intel has Dual Core, and they have 64-bit technology.

"Cell and multicore PowerPC products coming from IBM seem a heck of a lot more promising..."

What is that statement based on? Cell has been touted as the next great processor.....by its makers. Remember SONY bragging about how much better and faster the PS2 was going to be, that your mind will melt from all the polygons. Meh....it fell WAY WAY short of expectations...

Go ahead. Don't buy a Mac in the next 12 or 18 months. Wait for the new ones. Make the prices drop. In the meantime I'll be outfitting my studio with a whole new round of PPC based Macs. I'd only buy one in that time normally, but with the kind of market you're describing I'll just have to outfit everyone I know with one of those $49 Macs.

And you know what? They'll function at least as well as the one I'm using today.


- Jon

Jobs may be known for getting upset and making rash decisions (ie. banning books from Apple stores), but I am not sure who is to blame for Apple's switch.

IBM sold its computing division to a Chinese company.

IBM has had many problems delivering G5 chips.

There has been no real advancements in the p970. The 2.0 -> 2.7 Ghz was squeezed out by Apple by cooling tricks and not by IBM.

IBM may have told Apple, "you are not a priority." Or perhaps IBM is selling the rest of their Chip manufacturing and going 100% into consulting.

Face it, IBM is not stable. IBM bought PWC, and PWC took over internally and making IBM into a consulting firm.

You may have a grudge against Jobs, but Apple and Jobs may not have had a choice in the matter.

There seems to be a lot of promise in the further evolution of the IBM and Freescale PPC chips. It may have been worth holding out a bit longer.

Who will be making the next generation PPC computers in 2007 and for which OS? Will the PPC base shrink to a specialist niche with custom machines running Yellow Dog? Will Apple allow Mac OS X to be ported to these non-Mac Power PCs – that is if Freescale and IBM decide not abandon their respective roadmaps as a result of Jobs' pronouncement?

hey Bryan,

your own writer has predicted the death of Apple!

Please add your own editor/writer to the Death Knell.

Quote

Guest wrote:
hey Bryan,

your own writer has predicted the death of Apple!

Please add your own editor/writer to the Death Knell.

I didn't see any prediction of the death of Apple. All that was said is that it was not a smart move and can hurt Apple sales until the new platform is released.

The future will revolve heavily around mobile devices - both computers like Macs and specialized computers like iPods and even tablets. Preferably but not necessarily having the whole family using a common OS. The trend to mobile devices has started already. And where are the IBM processors to drive this? Nowhere. Has anyone talked about using PPC in portable game consoles, as opposed to "living-room"?

Regarding multi-core, it's been rumored that Apple has had such a chip from IBM since last year. If so, then obviously, there is some problem that has prevented Apple from delivering a product. (Do note that MS and Sony have announced but have yet to deliver a product around IBM multi-core.) And might it be that such a product has no future at higher-speeds given the heat issues?

Maybe Jobs should've said that Apple is adding product lines using Intel chips and its future will include products using both CPU families for the foreseeable future. And leave it at that. Then a year from now say that they will discontinue any new development on the PPC side.

But giving Apple its due not to badmouth or reveal more about IBM than necessary, there is definitely something there that has made it clear to them that continuing on the PPC side is a very low probability. Yes, sales will be hurt in this next year, but that might be the price to pay for integrity.

If you realize you need to switch CPUs in a general purpose computer, what do you do?

1. Show that today's software will run acceptably on the new-CPU-product.
2. Have an OS version that runs decently on the new-CPU-product.
3. Give developers the tools to create software for new-CPU-product.
4. Have a new-CPU-product for developers to use to test software.
5. Ask developers to start releasing software for both CPU products.
6. Indicate that the old-CPU-product will be supported by the OS for years to come and ask developers to do the same for their software.
7. Start selling a new-CPU-product today?

Apple did all of the above except 7. Kheit faults Apple for not releasing an Intel Mac today with iLife and iWork. But wouldn't developers have felt abused?

So how long should they wait to release an Intel Mac? I think 11-12 months is too long. Maybe 6 months is good. Maybe Apple has contingency plans to release earlier if current sales drop too much, but the preference is to release a better-engineered version later, conditions permitting.

Maybe Apple has some other products (iPod division) that they believe could tide them through the next year?

You can doubt Steve Jobs all you want but there is tangible evidence of the failure of the Apple IBM alliance. Steve Jobs was told there would be 3 GHz G5s in a years time which means IBM told him they would be available in less than a year. Back even a year ago Steve Jobs was optimistic about the PPC roadmap and made a comment to that effect. But since then, no low power G5 for laptops and still not even close to 3 GHz. Add to that the fact that IBM announces two 3+ GHz processors for companies that are not Apple and you can see how this happened.

Fundamentally Apple had no choice. This is probably the best of several bad choices. The worst thing that Apple could do is keep waiting with no roadmap in the hopes that IBM gets around to them. That is a business disaster. So, this is bad for Apple's bottom line but they had little choice in my opinion.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I've been reading a lot of the forums as well as the articles covering the switch. The only thing that makes any sense of this to me is that IBM just wasn't willing to play ball with Apple and are once again protecting their own server (computer) turf. It is a large center of profit for them and the way that OSX was developing together with Apples X-Serves, supercomputers and grid computing had to scare the **** out of them.

It's going to be a tough year for Apple stockholders. Each quarter will be worse than the last with one lame excuse after another. I think Steve's RDF machine may be running out of gas.

Well I've just down-graded from a relatively high-spec PC to a Mac Mini, and I'm not too worried - it's the design and software I went for over raw power that I wasn't using. So long as the software and data works, I'm happy, and I've every confidence it will. I don't think most domestic consumers will be too bothered, as most think of Mac and PC more like formats than having a technical understanding of what an O/S or CPU instruction set is - and providing it's like going from Playstation1 to Playstation 2, they'll be happy.

I think I'd feel fine with the iMac as well - it's not the sort of purchase where you're going to go 'well, I'll hold out until 2007 for the Intel version', because even then it's going to be a behind the curve machine.

On the other hand, if I was a small video-editing practice, who'd been thinking of going for a top-end PowerMac, and had just held off to see what was announced today - I'd definitely be thinking, can we make do? Plus, while I bet 90% of the apps I use will be simple XCode recompilations, the Pro apps are the ones that have been most optimised towards PowerPC chips - although likes of Adobe and other dual-chip vendors will be well ahead as should have optimised x86 libraries already . . . given that the timescale is Mini first, PowerMac last, I guess that's being taken into account (it's the only logical explanation - it's the high-end users who are crying out for faster CPU's, not those of us happy with a G4 and a nice display) - I mean imagine if the benchmarks showed an x86 PowerMac was slower at running Photoshop than a Wintel machine of same clockspeed.

It just seems weird that as soon as the rest of the world has seen the merits of the Power architecture, from Bill to Linus, Apple are abandoning it, when maybe the logical thing to do would be to hedge your bets for a while and do a Sun - brand and O/S over CPU. But as the move is not just for x86 but Intel specifically, I suspect that isn't an option. Shame, I was really looking forward to being able to stick a few more Cell chips in just like adding memory.

Now, I wonder how Jonathan Ives is going to feel about having that Intel Inside sticker on the front of his lovely white boxes. And let's hope we don't suffer the constant whir of fans.

I doubt Apple will release a x86 version of OS X to the public.

Don't get me wrong. Jobs said OS X will run on "Intel" chips.

That does not mean that they will be x86 based chips. Apple will have a say on what the cpu will be. What features and number of cores. If Apple wanted to release a x86 version, they would have done so today.

I predict the Intel chip Jobs mentioned will be a new chip which gets rid of legacy x86 crap so it can run faster and more efficient. Microsoft has mandated that the CPU's be 100% x86 compliant. Apple does not have that restriction.

Also, Jobs is not stupid to allow OS X to run on x86 or worse allow Longhorn to run on Mactel chips.

If you remember, he TOLD everyone to switch to Xcode. And when you compile a drop down box allows you to compile to FAT binaries. There is nothing to prevent Jobs to switch the compiler to compile to the new Mactel chip rather than a x86 chip.

Think about why he went out of his way twice to state he wants all the developer computers back. Most likely he will quietly give the developers the NEW computers to do a final compile, but they won't be x86 chips.

just my 2 cents...

I think the point here is that Apple is trying to get people used to the idea of the operating system being pretty independent of the hardware. I don't think people quite recognise yet what a great opportunity this could be for Apple.

Someone brings out a fantastic new architecture for a chip (Cell I'm looking at you) and all Apple as to do is add another compile option to xcode and that's it! Apple can go with whatever is fastest at the time. Now beat that Windows! And if the apps won't compile properly, then this Rosetta thing should be no trouble to the end user either. Apple doesn't have to ditch PPC, they can quite happily run 2 separate chips in their product lines now.

Oh, and don't forget what this is going to do for 2 open source projects: Mac on Linux and Wine. Wine should be fairly easy on the whole to get going under OS X on Intel, and I bet it won't be too long after the release till the Mac on Linux guys manage to get OS X running on a fairly generic x86 architecture.

Quote

RealityCheck wrote:
It's going to be a tough year for Apple stockholders. Each quarter will be worse than the last with one lame excuse after another. I think Steve's RDF machine may be running out of gas.

If Apple stock doesn't sink are you going to admit that you were wrong?

John, Drudge linked to a report today that said that laptop sales have finally surpassed dekstops. Right now, Intel is delivering laptop chips that are almost twice as fast as Freescale's. The real issues there are power and heat, which Intel seems to think it can fix as it moves to 65nm. Even now, power and heat in Intel's Centrino parts are workable in a laptop. Not so with the G5.

On the software side... If developers maintain confidence in the Mac platform, there will be plenty of new PPC apps for the next year and then some. Those apps will continue to run on MacTel boxes. Developers may start shipping fat binaries, depending on what development environment and technologies they are using now. Cross-platform developers are probably the biggest mixed bag. My hunch is that CodeWarrior is dead in the water and that REALbasic will make the jump relatively quickly and painlessly. I still don't like being locked into the OS vendor's development tools (XCode), but in this case, if you arleady are, the transition will be painless.

There is, of course, an interesting and unexplored possibility that the reality of transition may bring. Apple may, if IBM takes this as a wake-up call, decide to straddle the x86/PPC divide for the long haul. Clearly, consumer and laptop machines will go to Intel. But workstations may stay PPC. And we may see that Rosarito thingy run x86 binaries on PPC. Apple would be in an ideal position with IBM and Intel competing for the high end. The big, quick loser in this deal is Freescale. No hope for them. They've got a year because Apple's laptops are just so freakin gorgeous we can overlook speed, but not another day .

… but then, let's not forget this is the Devil's advocate …

Once you have universal binaries up and running, who's to say that you HAVE to discontinue PPC development. If IBM gets it's "stuff" together, or has some incredible PPC breakthrough, Apple is ideally situated to move back or keep both.

That probably won't happen though for the following reason (but it's always nice to have a fall-back position). If you're a new computer buyer in 2007, here's two scenarios for you. SCENARIO #1: you buy an Apple/Intel. You get a well designed box, it's got the most modern 64 bit OS out there (Leopard), it's immune to viruses, and given that Apple designs some custom chips (they currently have have a much higher front side bus than any PC machine for instance) it may even be the fastest Intel machine you can buy. And then for another $200 dollars you can add Windows to that machine and dual-boot. SCENARIO #2: for about the same money you buy a Dell. Fairly shoddy, might have Longhorn but even if it does, backwards XP compatibility will probably mean it still has virus problems, may not be as fast as the Apple/Intel with custom hardware, and can't dual-boot. Which are you going to buy? No contest.

And regarding the Cell, it was never envisioned as a main CPU anyway as I understand it. Perhaps Apple could use it as a sub-proccessor to do h.264 decoding?

The time to do this is now. Hardware sales will inevitably take a dip in the year ahead, but NOW Apple is insulated by having 6.5 billion dollars in the bank. And NOW, Apple is no longer solely a computer company. It has a second revenue stream with the iPod to hold them over. Plus it's starting to make real money from iTMS sales as well. Apple folks are loyal (some would say to a fault). How successful do you think Microsoft would be if Longhorn wasn't backwards compatible with XP? If they said, "Man were having all sorts of security problems, let's just chuck our codebase and start from scratch with Longhorn". They could never do that. But that's what Apple did with OS X. And it worked because 1) they had OS 9 emulation and 2) because Apple folks are loyal. Microsoft folks are not that loyal. The hard transition for Apple has already taken place.

The computer is the operating system and software, not the CPU. I bought an iBook (500Mhz G3) when 10.1 came out. If it had been a choice between XP or OS 9, I would have gone Wintel. I chose Apple because it has the best Operating System, I couldn't care less what CPU that OS is running on.

And on the topic of hardware sales, I'm kind of amused by these people running around saying the sky is falling. If you buy a new Apple tomorrow, it's going to be supported until it's not a viable computer anyway. Re-read that last sentence: by the time the next "killer app" comes out and you need new hardware to run it, you will have had to buy a new computer and programs anyway. If that's 2 years from now, you're still supported. If it's 5 years from now, give your head a shake. Did you really think you were going to be wirelessly streaming 3D high definition holography on your 5 year old machine? So you buy the new G86 Apple laptop (that runs for 8 hours on a charge) and keep your old G4 Mac mini for web-surfing (aaah the web. Software that runs on any CPU. What a concept!).

To sum up: 2 year transition. Think about it. That's only the timeframe back to Jaguar. That seems like Yesterday!! And in the mean time, no real downside other than somewhat slow machines compared to the competition. And we were going to have to live with those slow machines going forward if NONE OF THIS HAD HAPPENED!

No worries about the stock price for me.

I bought under $15 and sold over $80.

So if the price goes below $15 again guess what I'm going to do.

With your "great insight" I would be anticipating you making a killing on the market. Have you gone short on AAPL in a bit way yet? Put your money where your mouth is?

Mac and iPod are stronger than ever. This switch has been thought about for over 5 years - just in case.

And if you haven't noticed, PPC is not more promising if it can't be put in a Laptop - which is taking over marketshare on PC's.

I must admit - I was wrong - this was REALLY thought out, and all will be fine.

RC just predicted another AAPL stock dive. Time to buy some shares, folks!

One thing this announcment definately was not was a hissy fit. The classic example of that is when ATI pre-announced a product and revealed the next release of the computer. Within months NVidia became a supplier of video cards to Apple in pre-configured machines. This was the end result of two building PPC issues: The inability to deliver speed increases on schedule (3 GHz is now 1 year late), and a low power portable compatible chip not anywhere in the roadmap. The former is mostly prestiege, but the latter is where the future growth in computers is.

As to the annoucment timing, this is the WorldWide DEVELOPER CONFERENCE. This is where you tell the people who make the software, without which your computer is a door stop, where you are taking the platform. Last year they talked about Tiger, delivered this year. This year they talked about switching to Intel (a much larger changeover) for delivery late next year. Now Apple does now have to spell out explicitly to "Ma, Pa, and the Corporate Clueless" (stolen from <http://securityawareness.blogspot.com/>) that if they buy a computer today Apple will still support it with the next revisions of their OS and Applications and they have to at least get the major software vendors to do the same.

I've asked three people today since the announcement if they would go on and buy a Mac in the next year, and they all said yes to buying iMacs or Mac minis. I was surprised! They all said they are satisfied 10.5 Leopard and even 10.6 and iLife (and updates) will continue to run on it, so the Mac will be usable through the end of 2009 (or 4.5 years). They said by 2009, it's more likely that they would buy a new Mac because the old one would be too slow for new capabilities rather than current software no longer working.

I think Apple needs to be ready to combat the FUD that will be coming soon by making the case that its current or new PPC Macs will be supported by its software through the rest of the decade. That didn't come out so clearly to me in the keynote.

OK, I was really, really hoping for the unthinkable - an unbundle from tightly controlled software/hardware. Yeah, that's right, OSX in the wild on your Dad's INTC box today.

Failing that, a no excuses dual boot MacTel box (maybe that happens but I have read elsewhere the chip will not be pure but a "variant" chip sold only to Apple from INTC. why does that strike me as dangerous and dumb?)

Anyway, the big deal here might be purely psychological. A feeling that if AAPL is going INTC then perhaps I ought to rethink my choice of machine too. And all this as Longhorn [which does not suck as massively as some complain] arrives on fully 64 bit multicores at leas from AMD...

The final irony may be indeed that the IBM design now adopted for xBox (was it the fact these hit 3.2GHz and Apple got none that pissed off Steve?) may end up supporting Windows without much effort.

Hmmm...

This kills me, but I also know part of the problem WHY Apple switched. I found out today before announcement when I asked a Vice President at IBM whether the rumors were true that Apple was leaving the IBM partnership.

His response?

What rumors.

'nuff said. Apparently, they don't read the writing on the wall, the ceiling, the Internet, the billboards, or anywhere else.

I still think going with Intel is a mistake. Years of bashing the "Wintel" world and suddenly you jump into bed with the enemy?

Sounds like a move the UN would make.

Lawyer or no, Mr. Kheit, your comments on the business and technology aspects of this announcement are right on in every respect. Let me add three additional points:
1. I'd like to think Mr. Jobs has, indeed, learned from the past. Laying the ground work over the last five years to enable easy translation by developers shows a remarkable amount of foresight and perseverence. Announcing early is essential if developers are to have applications ready when the new machines are available.
2. On the other hand, if Rosetta really works, why not ship x86 machines with it right now and let the native applications follow when they may? Apparently at least Mathematica already runs natively and it could be sold to you and me as soon as they could produce new CDs. The fact that they didn't take this route is an indication Rosetta is not ready for prime time and will not be for some time to come.
3. I for one will hold off buying a new machine until the dust settles. I lived through both the 68k and OS 9 transitions and don't look forward to living through another. Apple may have planned for a dip in sales since I remember seeing recently that they had a lot of cash on their balance sheet and Wall Street types were beginning to wonder what they were going to use it for. Now we know.

is something the automotive, consumer electronics and technology industries deal with constantly. So what?

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Jonkun227 wrote:
Go ahead. Don't buy a Mac in the next 12 or 18 months. Wait for the new ones. Make the prices drop. In the meantime I'll be outfitting my studio with a whole new round of PPC based Macs. I'd only buy one in that time normally, but with the kind of market you're describing I'll just have to outfit everyone I know with one of those $49 Macs.

And you know what? They'll function at least as well as the one I'm using today.


- Jon

Save one for me.

#@!$ Classic, move on.

The problem I see with all this is that almost everyone from the school caretaker through to industry analysts (not claiming which are more reliable) have stated that the next 18 months was going to be THE TIME when Apple can really push mac hardware sales.

Almost as an aside many above appear to accept that the next year or more is likely to be a hard time to expand the platform (perhaps even hold its ground). Can anyone tell me how this is good timing to make this annoucement then? Strikes me that it is almost the worst possible time. This sniffs of panic to me, or at best a forced move. Steve may well claim that OSX on Intel has been a long term project yeah but we all knew that even classic ran on Intel in labs so this does not prove that this is a well thought out and carefull decision, it was a contingency plan.

Strikes me more likely that they simply had little choice. either IBM couldn't, wouldnt or through pressure from other customers (guess who) deliberately held back G5 development. The crucial factor I believe, as others have mentioned is the laptop problem. This has forced the issue. After all wouldn't it have been far better to have done this 2 or even 1 year ago? Or in one or 2 years time for that matter when a run at getting Tiger adopted by switchers could have taken advanyage of all the good press (who will remember that now) instead of raising the second hurdle as it had just cleared the first. Can you just see the PC salesmen's reaction now as the buyer asks about that cute mini in the corner?

This may well have been necessary but don't let's take this as a well planned move, because it can't be remotely marketed as an asset unless 1) Rosseta as its name suggests truly is the digital version of perpetual motion and 2) Intel has some unknown ace up its sleeve in chip design.
As a designer who knows full well that OSX from classic was/still isnt an easy move (hey can anyone actually make Central European fonts work properly in it yet? indeed some fonts at all) I will remain cynical about the first. As for the second I am unaware of Intel ever being particularly secret about its road map especially when the opposition look to be so far ahead in practice and it needs a boost. AMD would indeed have been a more logical choice its even taken IBM technology and made it work but then Apple could hardly upset the big player and potentially screw itself to yet another small player even if it has better technology can it. It has to ally with Intel and hope it can use superior AMD chips later perhaps.

For the first time in years I presumed that we had a stable and predictable platform for the forseeable future. That feeling has lasted precisely 2 months for me and I for one will take anything that Steve Jobs says about the ease of the transformation with a pinch of salt, based on his previous record and based on my contention that this is not proved to be a move of real choice. Long term it may be the right one but I am a bit angry that I am continually lokking at long term developments rather than the actuallty that I need to keep me in business. I will stick with Apple but to be honest I will, unless some of these continually promised great new products/developments/technology actually start to happen in the real world more often than these upheavals, be a somewhat estranged member of the family staying because the alternative is worse rather than because I feel any great love anymore for a sometimes frustrating but generally joyous experience. Whether Jonathan Ives stays a family member uch longer will tell us a whole lot more about the real potentiual of this move of course.

Has anyone thought about the possibility of being able to port Windows/x86 software onto Mac OS when the transition is made? I don't know if this would be possible, but if so it would be very interesting. I'm sure it would open up a hell of a lot of software to Mac users.

One of my biggest gripes is some software that I use in Windows does not have a Mac equivalent, and it's stopping me from making a full switch.

I still believe Apple will keep the Mac closed so you have to run their software with their hardware though. But more applications for MacOS is never a bad thing.

Both AMD and Intel already offer dual/multi core processors.

Quote

Tiger wrote:
This kills me, but I also know part of the problem WHY Apple switched. I found out today before announcement when I asked a Vice President at IBM whether the rumors were true that Apple was leaving the IBM partnership.

His response?

What rumors.

'nuff said. Apparently, they don't read the writing on the wall, the ceiling, the Internet, the billboards, or anywhere else.

I still think going with Intel is a mistake. Years of bashing the "Wintel" world and suddenly you jump into bed with the enemy?

Sounds like a move the UN would make.

If Max OS X runs better and offers more choices for the consumers and businesses then why should having Intel as the processor stop that?

I think having Apple Mac OS X run on Intel is an excellent opportunity to make the x86 platform more viable and bring more innovation to the fore.

Don't forget, x86 could mean AMD too!

First, Metrowerks was dead two years ago and any developers that haven't already moved to xCode for development were practicing willful ignorance.

Second, the majority of people who are buying Macs now don't care what chip is in the machine. If they're coming over after experiencing the iPod then they are hoping for a new computing experience and Apple surely still has that.

It's only the developers that are effected at this time. Next year, once Apple has some new Intel-based machines in the market, then we'll probably see a real drop in PPC-based machine sales. Until the switch sinks into the common marketplace, the sales drop will probably be minimal.

. . . We used deride windows users on their stinky interface, lol then we went and did some funny things with our OS. Now we made fun of Intel and now. . .lol. Maybe its kinda like.. when in Rome. . .

I think Apple is finally ready to take on MS, feature for feature. You can't get into the enterprise having to purchase new hardware. Price competitive MAC intel boxes are a way to let enterprises segway into a MAC environment, while still supporting windows only apps. With hardware in place that could run MAC software apps, you will see enterprises start demand applications not M$ specific. I can't see any other way to seed the enterprise demand side of the equation for MAC OS and Apple software. I bought Virtual PC, but it's not enterprise ready, still much too slow.

The future is in notebook, subnotebook wireless. Look at the growth numbers. Homes are going to be wireless, it's too cheap today to think it won't continue to expand. IBM absolutely isn't cutting the mustard in those markets.

I've already seen the first potential switchers say "I'm glad I didn't just buy a Mac mini. I'd be screwed when the Intel Macs come out and software/support for the thing immediately disappears."

It doesn't matter that this probably isn't true. People will believe it, and they won't buy PPC Macs. Regardless of Jobs' happy talk, he has to be figuring on a near-total loss of Mac sales for 12 months.

All of these discussions are ignoring a critical fact: which mac is to be the first to be released in a year as an Intel mac - the mac mini!
I've been waiting 2 years already for those 3 gHz machines Jobs promised, and now he tells me the mini will be the FIRST to be released as an Intel? I'm not the only one who's been waiting for the promised new high end mac. Every company that uses macs to do any kind of multimedia has seen the wintel alternatives get faster and faster, while Jobs promises the wait will be worth it. Guess what folks - to a company for whom time is money, a faster computer is all that matters. The operating system may be great, and the viruses may be non existant (so far), but the bottom line is MONEY.
Now Apple tells me the mini is their first priority. Guess why? Because Jobs plans a Tivo clone in the next mini so he can do to films what he's already done to music with the iPod. Why do you think that if you've installed QT 7 when you try to download a movie trailer it launches iTunes?
Apple is already making nearly half of it's revenue from people buying iPods and downloading music. How much priority do you think they'll give that new, high end mac when Apple has 75% of the movie download market and Tivo/mini's are selling like the iPod is today?
Unfortunately, Jobs has already answered that question. The high end machine we've already waited 2 years for will be out LAST!!! That's in June 2007, which means it probably won't actually start shipping until December (if we're lucky). That first machine will probably have a few problems, so maybe some will wait for the next iteration. We're talking mid 2008 now, folks! That's 5 - 6 years of waiting for companies that HAVE to have the fastest machines possible! Not to mention the power home users like me that also form the foundation of Apple's loyal customer base.
How many loyal customers will Apple lose? Sure - you guys who are happy with your beige G3s, iMacs and mac minis may keep buying G5s that we all know will be obsolete (and unsupported - remember the clones?) in a few years, but those are not the high profit machines that Apple needs to survive and grow their market share. Apple's market share right now is maybe 3%!!!
I haven't even touched on the obvious face that NO COMPANY will give away a new version of software that now has code for both processors! We're talking about major software upgrade costs, too. I've been keeping up with every OSX upgrade, but guess what? Almost every major name software package I own has CHARGED me for a new version because the old WON'T RUN ON THE NEW OS!!! They're gonna LOVE Apple when this 'transition' happens. MAJOR PROFITS, folks.
I couldn't care less about Intel inside macs. Apple SHOULD have dumped Motorola AND IBM years ago! I just think asking the power users that have already waited so long to wait another 2+ years is insane! Apple - 6 months is plenty of time to come up with a SCREAMING high end Intel mac. Don't make us wait any longer, because we just might not...

IBM couldn't make 3 Ghz. Are you prepared to wait another 2 years for them? Either is Steve. The mini is first because it uses single processors that can't generate much heat. The future trend in computing is laptops, which is basically what a mini is. Apple has been waiting to make faster laptops longer than they have for 3 Ghz, which is why it will be first. Plus the high end machines will still have some room to grow. I still think dual-core G5's are coming. And the high-end apps are all Altivect enabled which will be harder to replace. I think some of the high-end people can wait a little longer (I'm not saying they'll like it) because they are committed to Final Cut Pro now, and can't switch to Windows.

It simply amazes me that people have so pidgeon holed Mac with PowerPC. Or the similar "Anything but Intel" argument is based on misunderstanding what are Apple's real market objectives. Roadmaps are only as good as the road builders... bottom line IBM has no portable chip roadmap and AMD does not have as solid a portable line-up as Intel. This is absolutley crucial to Apple's future. Marketing messages are not gospel... yes we liked the marketing from Apple that showed us how great the PPC was... because the alternative was to tell the truth, which is antithetical to what marketing is about. The truth is the top of the line g5 is now barely competitive with Intel (Intel not just AMD) with no roadmap...

The g4 in the laptops is positively pathetic in comparison to the Pentium M. The only people buying these systems before this announcement were the Mac faithful and a few switchers. I love my 1.5 ghz PowerBook, but I sure wish it had a faster processor. Changing from PPC to Intel means that when I go to upgrade in a year or two Apple should have a portable that is measure for measure, the same in performance as any PC maker. I don't have to make excuses or show how for what I explicitly do the Mac is as fast or faster. The differentiator is the OS, which is what made buying slower Mac hardware always an acceptable trade off. Mac is not PPC... the PPC is just another part in a system that is already made from mostly PC compatible hardware.

The other issue is IBM has moved on to the Cell and the simple fact here is... that the Cell is different than the g5. Apple would need to get developers to rework their apps for the Cell so it really was a more level choice than everyone is assuming. There was no easy rodamap for Apple to make that would allow their developers to have an easy path. I do credit Steve with not taking IBM to task in public... he has learned from the past.

The Osbourne effect and NextStep comparisons are not accurately applied here... if anything the announcement that 3ghz PPC would arrive within a year was more Osbournean and IBM is to thank for that becoming an issue now. One could equally claim that Bill Gates preannouncement of Longhorn features is more Osbournean. Yet I don't hear many people ascribing that as the major factor in MS declining revenues.

NextStep simply never had the base that Apple does both in customers and developers. NextStep never caught on period. There simply was no way for NextStep to compete against the MS juggernaught and the Mac faithful stayed with the Mac rather than follow Steve at that point as Adobe and Quark were not about to port their apps to Next.

So please, as analysts and pundits seek the spin on this, keep in mind that Mac is not PPC and never was. It is about the total hardware design and a great OS experience. What is inside only really matters to those of us who have to deal with it... developers. And Apple has gone out of their way to make sure the developers get what they need to continue to be successful on the Mac. That's why they announced this at the Developer's conference. If developer's for Mac applications really want to see their products die... just keep pushing Apple to stick with only PPC.

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Anonymous wrote:
IBM couldn't make 3 Ghz. Are you prepared to wait another 2 years for them? Either is Steve. The mini is first because it uses single processors that can't generate much heat. The future trend in computing is laptops, which is basically what a mini is. Apple has been waiting to make faster laptops longer than they have for 3 Ghz, which is why it will be first. Plus the high end machines will still have some room to grow. I still think dual-core G5's are coming. And the high-end apps are all Altivect enabled which will be harder to replace. I think some of the high-end people can wait a little longer (I'm not saying they'll like it) because they are committed to Final Cut Pro now, and can't switch to Windows.

Yup, I think we'll see the G4's all replaced first. I also think you're right about the G5's having room to grow. Everyone's acting like Steve admitted that the G5 is dead in the water, but truth is that he was talking about the long-term future. For the next year you'll continue to see new G5 products come out that will imporve on what we have now.

It's the G4 that will start to fall futher and further behind so you'll see Intel Minis, eMacs, and laptops before the higher-end computers get them

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Guest wrote:
Can anyone tell me how this is good timing to make this annoucement then?

As I said above in "This is great people":
The time to do this is now. Hardware sales will inevitably take a dip in the year ahead, but NOW Apple is insulated by having 6.5 billion dollars in the bank. And NOW, Apple is no longer solely a computer company. It has a second revenue stream with the iPod to hold them over. Plus it's starting to make real money from iTMS sales as well. Apple folks are loyal (some would say to a fault). How successful do you think Microsoft would be if Longhorn wasn't backwards compatible with XP? If they said, "Man were having all sorts of security problems, let's just chuck our codebase and start from scratch with Longhorn". They could never do that. But that's what Apple did with OS X. And it worked because 1) they had OS 9 emulation and 2) because Apple folks are loyal. Microsoft folks are not that loyal. The hard transition for Apple has already taken place.

Obviousley, there IS no good time to switch but what was the alternative? Languish for another 2 years until business slowly fades away? The other problem is that people aren't thinking long-term. Steve is thinking about what's best for the next 20 years, not the next 2. IBM was increasingly becoming a service and servers company (Hello, hey where'd the IBM PC's go?). Apple on the other hand is increasingly becoming a consumer electronics company, which means it would be nice to have a relationship with someone who makes lots of imbedded chips and small handheld processors.

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Guest wrote:
.... Steve may well claim that OSX on Intel has been a long term project yeah but we all knew that even classic ran on Intel in labs so this does not prove that this is a well thought out and carefull decision, it was a contingency plan.

Strikes me more likely that they simply had little choice. either IBM couldn't, wouldnt or through pressure from other customers (guess who) deliberately held back G5 development. The crucial factor I believe, as others have mentioned is the laptop problem. This has forced the issue. After all wouldn't it have been far better to have done this 2 or even 1 year ago? ....

This may well have been necessary but don't let's take this as a well planned move, because it can't be remotely marketed as an asset unless 1) Rosseta as its name suggests truly is the digital version of perpetual motion and 2) Intel has some unknown ace up its sleeve in chip design.
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AMD would indeed have been a more logical choice its even taken IBM technology and made it work but then Apple could hardly upset the big player and potentially screw itself to yet another small player even if it has better technology can it. It has to ally with Intel and hope it can use superior AMD chips later perhaps

I think you are right on the money here! I wonder if more people will see through Steve's BS field here. Everyone is taking his "5 years of development" as evidence of a 5 year plan. I call BS here! NeXTSTEP was running on Intel when they started porting it to PPC. It cost them nothing, or close to it, to keep pressing the compile for Intel button all along, but it does not show any care or thought in actually executing this move. I agree with the previous poster. Something about this move was pushed and harried.

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Guest wrote:
IBM couldn't make 3 Ghz. Are you prepared to wait another 2 years for them? Either is Steve. The mini is first because it uses single processors that can't generate much heat. The future trend in computing is laptops, which is basically what a mini is. Apple has been waiting to make faster laptops longer than they have for 3 Ghz, which is why it will be first. Plus the high end machines will still have some room to grow. I still think dual-core G5's are coming. And the high-end apps are all Altivect enabled which will be harder to replace. I think some of the high-end people can wait a little longer (I'm not saying they'll like it) because they are committed to Final Cut Pro now, and can't switch to Windows.

Who's going to buy G5's, dual core or not, knowing that newer Intel powered macs are coming? And let's not forget that Altivec doesn't work on Intel, so plan on future revisions of software not having it, unless you believe the software companies will invest their time upgrading code for a dead end machine...
I'd bet Apple will sell next to none of these new G5 machines over the next 2 years, and that's exactly my point - what will that do to their market share?
I want to know why it will take 2+ years to upgrade the high end machines to Intel when Jobs had OSX running on one at the WWDC. And don't start talking about lining up a manufacturer, designing the boards, etc. 2+ years is a long time! It didn't take the mac clone makers that long, and they had to deal with a lot of non-standard (for pc) stuff.

I put off buying umtil after the keynote, was hopimg for new hardware. This is a major disappointment. The PPC switch took two years, the OSX switch 3-4 to get it right, now this. Very frustratimg for the loyal few who have been here since the beginning. The Koolaid is gone.

the delay is terrible, they better get some Intel machines out the door ASAP. A year, UGH! I can't say that enough, ASAP. They've spent five years recompiling the software for Intel, but they don't have a machine designed, at ALL? come on, this is a panic-y move.

I think the processor switch is a great idea and in the long run will get more people to buy their machines, but as someone who has also been through all the changes from NextStep 1.0a, to OS X now, this is painful. I would not plunk down hard earned money for a PPC machine.

Apple is far stronger than NeXT ever was, especially with the iPod, they'll make it through I am sure, but gosh, couldn't they plan it a little better?