“Apple’s startling announcement that it will begin a transition away from PowerPC chips to Intel-made processors has left Mac fans’ heads spinning, and not just because a former ‘enemy’ of the Mac is now counted among its allies. Many details about the transition are unclear or flat-out missing — after all, Apple said it won’t be shipping any Intel-based Macs until next year. And let’s be honest — computer chips are not exactly the simplest topic under the sun,” Jason Snell writes for Macworld. “To help you sort out this situation, here’s what you need to know about the Apple-Intel announcement — in the form of frequently-asked questions.”
Three of Snell’s Q&A’s have come up often here on MDN recently:
Will any PC be able to run Mac OS X for Intel?
Apple says no. Our guess is that some enterprising hacker may be able to get it to work, but we’d expect that if anyone can get OS X to run on PC hardware, it will be a laborious process, and the end result may not be a particularly stable system. You certainly won’t be able to go out, buy OS X, stick the install DVD in a Dell PC, and have it just work. Apple intends Mac OS X to only run on Apple hardware.
Will my Intel-based Mac be able to run Windows?
It seems likely, although Apple won’t support it. Someone will probably figure a way to install Windows on a Mac system so that you can choose to boot into either OS X or Windows. In addition, consider a future version of Virtual PC that lets you run PC applications at full speed, on a window within your Mac (or on a second monitor). There are some intriguing possibilities here for Mac users who must use Windows applications some of the time.
But if all Macs one day will be able to run Windows, won’t application developers stop creating Mac versions of their programs?
It’s possible, but not very likely. Mac users are Mac users because they want to run software in the Mac interface. The large software companies that publish programs on the Mac understand that, and so do the small Mac developers who are making the coolest OS X apps around. I’d tell you that the middle-range developers with a flagging commitment to the Mac would be the ones most worth worrying about, but honestly, the Mac OS X transition already shook most of them out of the Mac market.
Snell full article is very much worth reading as it answers just about any question you might have about Apple’s Intel move. Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve come to the conclusion that Apple’s move to Intel could benefit Apple’s hardware business in a major way, especially if new Macs are capable of running both Mac OS X and Windows natively (no emulation like Virtual PC). The average (Windows-only) person would be much more likely to buy a Mac and sample Mac OS X and less likely to buy a box assembled by, say, Dell or Gateway, that would be limited to only running Windows. And, once people sample Mac OS X and can compare it to Windows side-by-side, they usually become Mac users. Apple will not allow Mac OS X to run on generic PCs without a licensing deal in place. In other words, people won’t be able to buy Mac OS X and load it on their generic Dell PCs, but they would be able to buy Windows and load it on their Macs. This is potentially a big problem for the Windows-dependent box assemblers like Dell and the rest. Why buy a Dell when you can get two (or more: Linux, etc.) computers for the price of one with a Mac?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Why buy a Dell when Apple ‘Macintel’ computers will run both Mac OS X and Windows? – June 08, 2005
Windows users who try Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger might not want to go back – June 07, 2005
I think that most software will be made for Windows and X86 since porting will be so much easier due to a common processor. Besides, OS X would make applications look and work better than Windows. Compared to where Apple is today with Spotlight, Dashboard, HD Video, etc Microsoft has fallen behind.
Why not stop developement on Windows. It’s insecure, virus ridden, trojan infected, spyware hacked OS. There won’t be any measurable improvements even when they release Longhorn 2 years from now. Apple already has the best personal computer operating system in the world. It’s safe, secure, stable, no viruses and spyware. It can run any software that Windows could only without the constant fear of being hacked or infected.
So this arguement is moot as far as developers are concerned. There are enough Mac users in the home and business that developers can earn a decent living. And now the Mac is outselling the PC so now more than ever developers can make even more money as consumers see how frustrating windows can get.
Chomper said: “Ummm, if it’s not as cheap as Dell, it won’t outsell Dell. Good luck.”
It has been demonstrated time and time again for several years that when configuring machines from Dell and Apple feature for feature, the pricing is very similar if not favorable to Apple. (I’s assuming that Chomper means “inexpensive” rather than “cheap” as Macs are never “cheap”.
No where is this more apparent than in the laptop category. Apple makes a much better quality machine for the price than Dell hands down. While it is a bit difficult to do a head-to-head based on features, there is one laptop from each company which can be directly compared to each other.
The challenge comes in finding a well rounded pro laptop from Dell. Turns out, they don’t have one. I recently looked in vain for a 15″ widescreen notebook from Dell with DVI, Firewire (1394), and a Pentium M CPU. I simply do not understand how any serious player in the laptop market can get away without offering a mid-priced, lightweight, pro laptop in the 15″ size category. Maybe a Dell aficionado can point one out but I couldn’t find one.
However, Dell DOES have a machine that has Firewire (though not FW800 like Apple offers) and DVI but it only comes in the big ugly brick known as the 17″ Inspirion XPS Gen 2. It is only a 2ghz machine (so it is not going to be as fast as the G4 1.67 G4 found in the 17″ Powerbook.) but it is pretty comparable otherwise.
Both machines are in the $2800 range and I defy anyone to claim that the plastic Dell is a better quality piece of hardware than the Powerbook. Yes, the Dell IS cheaper, but not less expensive.
In the desktop category it is similarly hard to find anything from Dell as elegant and full-featured as the machines offered by Apple. The tedium of just trying to find worthwhile info from Dell’s site on the laptop front keeps me from doing a direct cost comparison of desktops tonight. I’ll leave that to others. That said, every year for the last 3 years, my academic computing department did these cost comparisions and never found the Dells to be less money when configured the same as the Macs.
Turns out, HP does compete better than Dell and ultimately we started buying HP machines for those Win users who had to run Word Perfect or some such thing. Dell was never that enticing, price wise for the average user and most of those faculty were moved to the less expensive iMac line.
Cheers,
B
M$ should sell a “Windows Services for MacOS” – sort of an “OS-Lite” – and let people run on Macs. Its a product. They make $. What do they care. Let Apple do the heavy OS lifting.
Goodbye Dell
Goodbye Windows software
Goodbye Microsoft
fare thee well……………………………..
Beeblebrox,
The average user says: I’ve got $600 in my pocket. I want a computer with everything on it. (box, peripherals, screen, as much as will fit into that $600)
Show me that $600 Mac… The mini is a step in the right direction, but add peripherals and the likes and you zoom past that $600.
Macs, by nature, are high-end systems and consumers, by nature, are, on average (or rather, median), low-end buyers.
Would I like to drive in a Rolls? I would, but even if I had the money for a Rolls, I’d sooner spend it on a cheap Taiwanese car and have enough left to buy another one and make a good downpayment on a house. Because that Taiwanese car runs, too. Not as well or as comfy as the Rolls, but it gets me where I want to.
You may be overestimating the budget most people are willing to spend on a computer. The added value of he Mac experience does not entice them to spend more.
Once the Mac experience can be had for the same amount of money (‘as cheap as’), we can kiss Windows goodbye. Provided that making the Mac ‘cheap’ does not ruin the experience. That might prove to be Apples biggest challenge for the mid-term future.
@ Possibilities:
Tx very much for posting the same thing I’ve been saying since Tuesday.
Boot OS X, run pretty much all the versions of Windows (!), Linux, even Solaris in a window, all using VMWare’s ACE product.
If you are a science/technical employee or a heavily science-based company, why in the name of all that’s holy would you choose a platform that forces you to boot a horrendously insecure, discredited OS (and then pretty much tries to prevent you from running anything else) against the option of booting into a secure, stable OS which takes a laissez-faire attitude to you using other environments.
I know cost is a big driver in these things, having worked – to my eternal damnation – on the project that migrated BP’s Mac user base to Windows 95 and then onwards to Windows 2000, but I’ll be monitoring the gossip to see if the Macintel switch causes the tide to flow the other way, or at least starts the conversation.
(Banging head against wall)
To BobC, about OS/2
There’s a big difference between then and now. Then, there was not a clear advantage to using OS/2 over Windows. Now, everyone knows about the security problems in Windows, virii, zombies, etc. I think people will jump at a PC that can run all their old Windows programs without having to constantly update their virus checkers, spyware programs, etc.
Hybrid,
Even if what you were saying was true (and I believe the facts do not bear out your case given the fact that laptops, even inexpensive ones, outsell desktops in this country), read what I wrote again. By your logic no one would buy Dell either. Since quite a few Dell products are similar in price to the Apple line and actually have lower quality and less features then no one should be buying Dell either.
My primary point is that all of the comments in this and other threads where people are saying “why should I buy a Mac now that it will run Wndows? I can just buy a Dell.” To which I say, fine, go out and buy a more expensive crappy piece of hardware if you want. Personally, I’ll stick with the primo hardware from Cupertino that just happens to be of similar or sometimes even lower price than Dell.
-B
P.S. I would say that, for the most part, Macs cannot be compared to a Rolls Royce. That would be more like a Cray or something. A Mac is like a Toyota (including the PowerMac/Lexus). The Dell like a Ford, Toshiba like your Taiwanese car. (Don’t we all love the computer=car analogy!
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RR Cook,
You make a good point when you make a distinction between “running Windows” and “running Windows APPLICATIONS”.
-D
I am now left wondering to what car one of my self-built low end crappy systems (as opposed to several self-built high end ninja PCs) would compare? A hotrod built from stock parts or something? 😀
The car analogy, it’s so annoying and yet so enticing to use
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Err… That was not a post by Beeble, but my me, meant to be adressed to Beeble.
An accident with a failing anti-conception device and a timemachine, or how was that again?