Intel Inside: It's a Mac.It's a PC?

By Jonathan Berohn

As I'm writing this, part of me still can't believe it's a bad dream. In case you missed the recent announcement, after years of holding out and holding itself up as the other option, Apple is embracing Intel.

Yes, you read that right. Starting sometime next year, Apple will no longer build machines that use the Power PC chip. They will instead use the same Intel hardware that PC makers use. Yes, a large part of the Apple difference is the software and the user interface. Apple promises that will remain the same. But the guts behind the GUI also helped differentiate Macs from the run of the mill PC. That advantage is simply going away.

The Upside

There is a rationale to Apple's seeming madness of course. Power PC development has stagnated of late, and IBM has yet to be able to produce a G5 chip that runs cool enough to use in a new generation of laptops. What this means, of course, is that that Apple's high end PowerBooks are starting to lag behind high end PC laptops. The switch will mean processor speed upgrades for Macs across the board, but especially the laptops. The switch doesn't seem to be all about performance, though. Industry reports indicate that IBM, tired of losing money on the Power PC franchise, asked Apple to kick in for some of the development costs. Let's hope the whole change in technology wasn't simply a case of Steve Jobs looking for the best deal. It is Apple, after all, who has been telling us for years that clock speed isn't the true measure of a computer's performance.

The Problems

The obvious question that jumps to mind with all of this is "what about compatibility?" Are all the Macs out there now simply destined for the scrap heap? Apple, of course, has tried to address this issue, assuring everyone that there will be no compatibility issues. This seems an awful lot like wishful thinking, but even if it does pan out, it ignores the big question of "what happens in the interim?"

Suppose you're a software developer thinking about porting a PC application to Mac. Are you likely to do this over the next year and half knowing that you'll have to create an entirely new version of your program to run on the new PC-based Macs? or are you more inclined to simply wait until the new Macs come out and build software specifically for them-if they happen to strike a chord with the market?

The long and short of it for consumers is also pretty straightforward. If you were thinking about upgrading or switching to Mac, you should really think twice about it in the short term. Why buy now if your computer will become obsolete next year? For that matter, Mac really has its work cut out for it now that it is no longer such a clear difference. As a Power PC-based machine it was a clear alternative. As an expensive PC? That remains to be seen.