Mac on Intel

[aquila]

What are your opinions on this shift?
I'm personally surprised to say the least. I always found PowerPC to be a great platform, Microsoft (XBox) and Sony (Playstation) think so too and now Apple changes its mind. Strange...

[rob]

I'm very shocked as well.

Although I'm a PC person, I think that Mac is making a mistake. If they want to go Intel, they need to go open all the way (ie. selling their OS as a direct competitor to Windows, so it will run on nearly any motherboard, CPU, etc.). However, they'll probably just make a propritary motherboard design and use an Intel chip. This is silly in my opinion. The only thing they'll achive with that is force all their developers to change platforms.. again :(

Mac should have done this 10 years ago. Since they didn't, I'm afraid it would be a mistake for them to do it now.

Rob

[GnuVince]

I think it's a good move: IBM hasn't been able to deliver the merchandise, so it was Apple's best play to move to the number one chip maker.

And about OS X not running on all PC's, here's why they don't do it:
1. Can't assure the same integration that makes Macs so hot to use
2. Their revenue comes from hardware, not from software. If you allow anyone to just download OS X from KaZaA and install it on a computer they bought from K-Mart, Apple will rapidly sink.

[rob]

Hardware nowadays is a commodity. IBM figured that out quite a while ago. If Apple's business plan centers around their hardware, people will just by the cheaper hardware (as they already have) that is open in architecture. People hate being locked in.

In that same breath, PC people would love to see the MacOS for the PC. With activation like Window's, it would prevent someone from downloading it off of a p2p network and running it. MacOS for PC would sell, I would imagine, quite well.

[steve_d555]

Cheaper Laptops, :D

But besides that, I've heard that they will use propietary hardware and not allow running of Windows on their PC's. Plus, I'm sure a week or so after it comes out it will be hacked to run on top of any PC system as Darwin is open source.

@rob: It is very easy to get around Window's activation nowadays with all the cracks (not that I have :p ).

[rob]

It is very easy to get around Window's activation nowadays with all the cracks (not that I have :p ).

Yea I know its fairly easy, if you know how. Alot of average Joe users out there don't tho. Apple would make their money.

Propritary Intel hardware.. how silly IMHO :) Prevent from running Windows on it.. why? Oh well..

Rob

[mserms]

I'm pretty happy about it, just because there is a chance (even if it's only a chance) I'll be able to get OSX running on my Laptop sometime.

To be honest, I really dislike the operating system, but it would be very useful for testing applications and web sites.

Actually, just thought of another reason I'm happy about it - I get to wind up my Mac mate who has been telling me how crap Intel processors are for the last few years. It's pretty fun seeing him change opinion so radically :)

[rob]

Hehe.. yes I know some Mac people that will have to do a measured amount of crow eating on the Intel processor thing :)

Rob