Seems like everyone's talking about the rumors about Apple hooking up with Intel (Dave Winer has as good a collection of articles as anyone). I feel compelled to play along, so here's how it looks to me:
There seems to be some consensus that developers aren't going to be real crazy about a major shift from PPC to x86 (if in fact, that's what's in the works). There's also some concern that users won't want to purchase all new software, and that a shift like this could kill hardware sales until the new architecture is established. I can't speak to the software developer side, since I don't know all the details of what might go into a switch to a new CPU, but the other two pieces I can touch on.
My mother just purchased a new iMac, replacing her old graphite one. As far as I know, she has never made any significant software purchases. The computer comes with pretty much everything she needs to get on the Internet, write letters, etc. The only thing she's installed herself that I know of have been printer drivers and AOL. I don't know how many people fit that same consumer type, but I suspect there are a fair amount who do. For them, the CPU doesn't matter one bit, and software upgrades are not an issue, since they wouldn't be transferring anything from one computer to another beyond personal files.
For someone like myself, who does have significant investment in software, the announcement of a new architecture might cause some concern. However, I'm not sure that I would wait to purchase a new machine. In fact, the change might cause me to make an earlier purchase so that I can stay with the software I have a little longer (I'm currently using an Aluminum PowerBook and a dual G4 PowerMac).
There's also concern about whether such a change would put Apple at risk of losing hardware sales. This strikes me as uninformed speculation. There's no way in hell that Apple's going to do something that will open up competition for hardware with Dell, et al. If Apple's going to make any kind of switch to Intel, it will be to improve the performance of Apple hardware, not suddenly make it possible to run OS X on any generic piece of PC hardware out there.
I suspect, however, that all of this may be too simplistic a view of what Apple's got in mind. Who's to say that they have to necessarily be talking about a straight shift from one CPU to another? Two thoughts: 1) Once upon a time you used to be able to get add-on cards for your mac that would give you an x86 processor. As far as I know, no one is currently selling this type of card anymore. 2) Tiger lets software harness the computing power of your graphics card. So here's an idea-- what if Apple and Intel have cooked up something that incorporates both a PowerPC and Intel CPU into the same computer? This could have two benefits. First, it would let folks run Windows on Mac computers with native performance. Second, in the same way that Tiger lets software harness the GPU, perhaps the next operating system will let OS X harness the power of both the main PPC chip and the extra Intel chip. This might attract more buyers from the Windows world, while not putting Mac sales in jeopardy. Of course, I'm not an engineer so for all I know this is a totally wack idea...
Posted by Jason at June 5, 2005 12:00 PM