“Should you purchase a Macintosh with a PowerPC microprocessor between now and when the switchover is final? The answer: a definite yes! For the next few years, including even after the x86 machines are introduced, you will get more for your money by purchasing a desktop Mac with a PowerPC processor. As Apple can now offer only slower portables, buying a new portable PowerBook with an Intel chip might give you a much faster machine. For portables, we will have to wait to see what’s introduced,” Allan Warner writes for Geek.com. Warner then looks at why you should purchase a desktop Macintosh with a PowerPC microprocessor.
Then Warner asks, “Will Apple still be selling Macs in, say, 2008?”
“I doubt it,” Warner writes. “It looks to me like Apple will be going out of the desktop computer and, possibly, the portable hardware business, evolving instead into being mainly a software company.”
“Apple’s future operating systems will, in some way, work on any of the newer Intel x86 chips, which means just about any computer, even if Apple attempts to stop that from happening. The market will devise methods that allow the average person to overcome Apple’s restrictions. If you don’t believe this, you’re naïve. It’s doable technically and is an attractive economic reality. Steve Jobs is not stupid; I believe that he understands what will happen, and might even be planning it,” Warner writes. “Apple will sell computers as long as it can earn a very good return. However, soon it will compete with the Dells, Gateways, and Lenovos of the world, which sell commodity computers. Apple wants to unseat Microsoft, and Mr. Jobs thinks that he might be able to do it–but that means only high-profit hardware or no hardware at all.”
Warner thinks that the changeover to Intel-based Macs will cause a marked drop in Mac market share and cause developers to stop writing Mac applications. Warner writes, “The only solution is to place the Mac OS on a hell of a lot of Windows machines, and fast.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The crystal balls are out in force today. What do you think of the prediction?
“The news business abhors a vacuum and will therefore create anything to fulfill its need to suck.” – MacDailyNews
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Would Apple ever switch to Microsoft Windows? – June 22, 2005
As the FUD turns
You don’t bet the farm on switching processor vendors to get OUT of hardware.
Pooey!
The software may be the soul of the computer, but the hardware is the body. Soul-body=dead.
Think about it.
The profit (and cash flow) that Apple makes off its hardware justifies it staying in the hardware game. We cannot rely on the Dells and HPs of the world to innovate. That is, and has consistently been the role of Apple. I feel that Apple’s movement into a Mactel architecture will help speed up that innovation.
Or at least I hope so..
If Apple was forced to support the cheap hardware that windows does it to would crash painfully.
Nope Apple sells the whole product, of course witht he switch to intel I fully expect aother switch by 2010. As Apple has to drop intel for more power effecient, and faster processors.
x86 is far from either.
If these people were so good at seeing the future, why did so many of them predict the death of Apple in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990,1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004? They were wrong all those years before … they’re wrong now.
Who says Apple wants to unseat Windows? To me that implies “Put MS out of business”, which I think would be a bad idea.
Aside from that, Apple won’t be competing directly with the Wintel crowd, because those systems don’t run OS X. Oh, someone will make an abstraction layer that will allow OS X to run in Windows, but Apple will fight it and corporations won’t adopt it.
No, people will buy Macs, but they’ll buy more because Windows will likely run on them too. You can have your eye-candy, stability, productivity, and games too.
Apple to get out of the hardware business? I want to see proof that they are contiplating that on any level. Apple makes fantastic products where they are needed. As long as Apple is innovating they will make digital devices and computing hardware. Bank on it.
Maybe His Steveness does want to beat Microsoft in desktop sales, but he’s not going to do it at the cost of losing control over half of the magical solution. Hardware AND software make the magical solution. Has the term “vertical market” fallen out of the tech dictionary? I hardly hear it anymore. Apple is not Microsoft. Apple is Apple. I wish so called analyist would stop trying to fit Apple into the MS mold.
Microsoft will flounder for a few more years. They might shed large chuncks of their business. After that and a management shake-up they will be back. The tide will flow back and forth. It is the nature of humanity.
Intel based Macs are going to come out before 2006. Jobs is trying to make conservative predictions.
Mini Mactel before Christmas.
They are ALWAYS sounding the “Death Knell” for Apple. This sounds like another one. Adaptation…is what survival at the top is all about. Thats what ol’ Steve I-don’t-like-to-be-hugged Jobs is all about.
Andrew
hiproductions.com
Opinions are like assholes: everybody’s got one. Why are we acting like this moron’s opinion even matters?
MDN: please stop treating the ramblings of dumbass bloggers as legitimate news.
I predict Apple will continue to sell hardware. In fact, there will be a quantum shift in our expectations of home computing devices and Apple will have a lot to do with the change. This is a fun company– it’s alive and interesting because it periodically changes the rules.
Things are just starting to get interesting.
I agree with R.
The industry has become mundane. Apple is at the forefront of a much needed shake-up.
And I agree with Justified because he agrees with me!
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Is there something funny in the geek analyst water cooler today?
sorry but i fail to see whats changed for apple to supposedly die, so what their using a new architecture? they’ve done that before biiiiig deal
mac os x will only run on a computer deemed worthy by one company APPLE! and may let hp rebrand them like with the ipod, but that will be as far as it goes
agreed with the others this is pure FUD, i can tell that the apple switch has the potential to turn the whole industry on its head. running the best operating system and their old system on the same machine leaves a good impression i think, esp if you don’t have to reboot the machine……something no doubt apple are working on
I could see it happening. (After the Intel thing, I could see ANYTHING happening LOL!)
Apple has usually went its own way unless there was something else that would do the job just as good. That was the case with ADB2 versus USB. Although ADB2 would have been REALLY cool, USB did 80 to 90 percent of the same thing and was cross-platform. The same can be said for the proprietary video connectors on older Apple monitors that have been swapped for industry standard DVI.
If Microsoft finally ships something that offers 90 percent of what OSX of whatever version is offering, it wouldn’t surprise me if they went that way. Of course, the BIG question is when would Microsoft ever get that good?
Mac operating system on Intel will show the industry and those paying attention that Mac isn’t so obscure after all — that there is, indeed, something other than Windows.
OS X aside, not many of the average consumers are willing to pay the Apple design tax on otherwise commodity hardware.
As an example, take Apple wireless access points. Sure, it looks cool, but the Airport Extreme fails in both price and features (i.e. 4 LAN ports) compared to typical Linksys or D-Link offerings. People are not paying $200 for 802.11g when they can get 802.11g for $49.
One of the advantages of the PowerPC was that it WAS (rightly or wrongly) regarded as a better architecture. Now that the same hardware is in a Dell, Gateway, etc., Apple loses a perceived advantage of superior architecture. Like it or not, that was a selling point, and it is now gone.
And from a security perspective, XP SP2 & Longhorn just have to be “good enough” to keep consumers seated behind a Microsoft OS. Unless Apple can undercut Dell or HP pricing, which is highly unlikely based on their volume, this Intel mess will make little difference to marketshare.
It seems that the real question is this: If Apple didn’t buy NeXT, would Jobs have unseated Microsoft with the x86 version of the software? Would NeXT have still been in business at this time? Who Apple Macs be running BeOS and compete against NeXT? Perhaps in a parallel universe. It seems to me that it would be beneficial for Apple to have continued with the PowerPC in all high end platforms and simply use the Intel processors for the “i” end. Who’s to say that the future G4 dual processors wouldn’t be ideal for the portables. Apple/Jobs is definitely not stupid and they must have some brilliant ideas up their collective sleeves. Only time will tell, however it would be painful in my view for Apple to abandon the PPC in the heavy iron such as the xServe and PowerMac. Why couldn’t a Cell processor be used in tandemn with the G5 to push the heavy metal into the stratosphere?
WRONG!!!!! Apple Computer Inc. is the company name for a reason. It designs and builds computers of its own making. The difference between Apple and the PC vendors is Apple also makes its own software for it’s computers which is why Apple’s computers work better than anything out there. Steve Job’s already made it clear that Apple is going to be introducing more PowerPC Macs and then start introducing Intel Macs. How does this represent Apple being a software only company? Didn’t any of these writers actually read or watch Steve during the WWDC?
Also I will be buying a new PowerPC iMac in August contrary to all the malarkey that no one will be buying for the next year and a half. Where do these writers get this garbage from?
I don’t think the Power PC was considered to be better than the offerings from Intel or AMD. Seems to me that those guys had a steady consistant pace of speed increases while the Power PC went in big leaps every four years. I prefer the steady pace myself. Whenever I use a PC speed is the one thing that I don’t complain about.
I think this transition is going to be great for Apple. Apples design strength is unchalleged, and will remain unchallenged. That means they will always have a succesful computer business, even if they license OS X. And if they License OS X, watch out…
he was dropped on his head as a child. The software makes the Mac hardware better, and you can make more money on hardware over software. Software also seems to work better when its for a specially designed set of hardware which Apple is good at. iTunes is the only application that should ever be ported to other platforms.
There is ABSOLUTELY no way that Apple, the HARDWARE computer company, will stop making hardware. Mac OS is created ONLY as the brains of their OWN computer – PERIOD!
The friggin’ PC numb-nuts are so brainwashed into thinking that the world MUST have totally separate OS companies and hardware companies that they are totally missing the REAL beauty of Apple’s design – they make the WHOLE widget!!!
The fact that Apple has decided to change CPUs is incredibly insignificant. And to think that two computers having the same CPU chip have the same total computer architecture is completely ludicrous. Apple has and still does DESIGN THEIR OWN CONTROLLER CHIP!! They can very easily add a tiny DRM circuit in those chips (if it’s not there already after 5 years of Intel functionality) making them the only hardware capable of running Mac OS. I am quite sure Steve and his buddies are very aware of the financial disasters that would happen to they hardware sales if Mac OS X were able to run on any other third-party system. I am sure they were even aware of this should someone make a Power PC computer (which exist in the hundreds of thousand sand not one can run Mac OS X).
As long as these lame excuses for a tech editor keep spewing their trash through Microsoft-colored goggles, they will NEVER understand Apple’s way of doing things.
I am MUCH more interested in how Leopard will tear Longhorn to shreds because that battle will cause noticeable changes in the computer industry. This whole CPU chip change is totally insignificant!
I dont get it–half time these applesauce intoxicated drones are whining about how its the OS –yeah right now that Jobs is putting INTEL inside the only thing APPLE has is the OS—and the only way now to compete
against MICROSOFT is by selling the OE and software. MAC hardware can only exist in some niche—APPLE threw in the hardware towel and in so doing it really knifed its base in the back—presumably it did this to compete against Microsoft. ITS A SHAME!!!! The dual 65’s are the best
machines on the market and probably will be until APPLE stops making them. Apple–to be fair–needs to do something to keep these machines viable after these new jingle inside machines come out. I hate to end this this way but–to this date—no matter how good the operating system—no one has succeeded in doing any damage to microsoft–Apple is on a course to be a foot note in computer history–people will go back to saying what they said about Apple just a few years ago–they will remark upon how nice he operating system was and too bad it didnt catch on. What Im saying is that Apple really cant compete with Dell in the cheap fungible computer market–it only existed because it was better than Dell and unique in the market–Apple will have to give up everything Apple to comptere with Dell–so it will leave that Market to Dell==Apple has to figure out a way to get enough of its OS into Dell s and Compaq s to matter–this really is a crummy business plan–Unless Mac has a time machine or something that will oblige all humans to switch to OSX–its over—Its like the king of sea beaching himself. More applesauce please.
Dear Lisa,
Don’t hog that joint. Pass it on over.
If you believe this drivel then have I got a rumor for you!! Sony are getting out of the games-station market.
Apple are switching to Intel to STAY COMPETITIVE in the hardware market.