After years of trying to get people to switch to Macs from Intel-based computers, Apple Computer itself has switched.
CEO Steve Jobs announced on Monday that Apple will gradually shift its Mac line to Intel-based chips over the next two years. The move confirms a timetable first reported by CNET News.com.
Jobs' announcement formed the centrepiece of a keynote speech to Mac programmers attending the company's annual Worldwide Developer Conference here. The conference, expected to draw some 3,800 attendees this year, is a traditional venue for Apple product launches.
In his speech, Jobs revealed that Apple has been developing all versions of OS X since its inception to run on Intel and PowerPC chips.
"Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life for the past five years," he said.
The move to Intel marks a tectonic shift for Apple, which has used processors from IBM and Motorola (now Freescale Semiconductor) throughout the life of the Mac. However, the company has changed architectures before, shifting in the 1990s from Motorola's 68000 family of chips to the PowerPC architecture jointly developed by IBM and Motorola.
Jobs also noted the significant effort required earlier this decade when Apple moved from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. Although the operating systems are only a digit apart, he noted that the move to a Unix-based system was a major shift. "This was a brain transplant," Jobs said.
The CEO showed a demo of the Tiger operating system on an Intel-based machine, saying, "We've been running on an Intel system all morning."
Apple's new core
As for why Apple was making the shift, Jobs pointed both to past problems and to the PowerPC road map, which he said won't deliver enough performance at the low-power usages needed for powerful notebooks.
Two years ago at the same conference, Jobs introduced the first G5-based Power Macs and promised developers that the company would have a 3GHz PowerMac within 12 months. The company still doesn't have a machine that fast. "We haven't been able to deliver," he said. Nor has Apple been able to introduce a G5-based laptop -- something Jobs said "I think a lot of you would like."
Things weren't looking better in the coming months, Jobs said, saying that IBM's PowerPC road map would only deliver about a fifth the performance per watt as a comparable Intel chip.
Jobs said there are a lot of products Apple envisions for the coming years, but "we don't know how to build them with the future PowerPC road map."
Jobs added that most of the necessary OS work has been done, but developers will have to do some work to make their applications work on Intel-based machines.
Talkback
AAAAAARGHH!!!!
NOOOOOO!!!!!!
It's the end of the world!!!
Does this mean my next Mac will have a stupid 'Intel Inside' sticker on it?
Ah well, as long as they don't stick any Celeron's in there, I'll survive.
to be honest, apple should ditch the mac and just stick to selling their OS as an alternative to windows. It would be better for them in the long run.
Who the hell needs or wants a mac nowadays and what can they do that an intel machine cant?
In reply to myles 'the programmer's previous post': Who the hell needs or wants a mac nowadays and what can they do that an intel machine cant?
This must be the most stupid comment ever. Millions want a Mac, and haven't you heard that they actually work better than anything out there. Being a programmer, have you ever used X Code?
I can only gather from your ignorance, that you haven't ever really used a Mac!
If Apple are going to code OSX to work with their own Intel-based Macs, what's to stop everyone buying just the software and sticking it on their existing Intel PCs?
Apple say that all their machines will be Intel-based by the end of 2007, but I think it far more likely that OSX will be Microsoft-based by then and Apple will be just another notch on (Wild) Bill's acquisition handle.
There are presently four (count 'em : four) FABs in the world that can make 90nm or 65nm processors with 300 million transistors.
Intel owns 3 of them!!!
IBM hitched its wagon to the Games console manufacturers... so this was bount to happen if Apple is to keep the faithfull happy
I'm holding my Intel Stock!!
You know, I've never really been interested in Mac's until recently, always been a Windows (looks at self in disgust) boy, then a Linux boy but when I saw OS X and particularly Aqua I must admit, I was impressed, so if Apple were to release OS X for Intel, not just Intel Mac's I'd certainly buy, I just love building my own machine, from scratch, thanks very much. Oh and I agree with *Anonymous* I sure hope they don't chuck an Intel Inside sticker on it, or a celeron for that matter.