Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Sun 5th Jun 2005 22:11 UTC
After News.com's Friday report that Apple is moving to Intel/x86, the respected publication Wall Street Journal and now NYTimes threw their reputation behind the rumor. Many people still remain skeptical, but I personally believe that the time is right for Apple to switch to x86-64, for two main reasons:
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Porting of OSX to x86 either 32bit or 64bit does not mean simplification for the software designers.
1) Driver architecture model should be adjusted not only to the platform but also to the OS.
2) Apple will be needed to supply the relevant APIs to the third party software designers. I do not think the companies that do not collaborate with Apple nowdays will gamble on it. Microsoft supplies software designers with perfect tools. Apple is many levels bellow MS.
3) DirectX counterpart is not designed for MAC, this will significantly retard game development
4) Popularity of Windows is not only a lot of software and games, but also wide hardware support. Apple cannot afford to support wide spectrum of hardware. Locked-in hardware supply decreases option. I do not think that people will be satisfied with clones of MAC.
Of course, eye-candy craving people will be inspired to get x86 based MAC, but they will frustrate quite quickly.
Another thing, actually switch of OSX to x86 will overthrow it to a Linux evolution path, similar to Linux 4-5 years ago
Btw, did anybody test Darwin for x86. It is complete crap. I really wanted to run it on several PII computers with configurations pointed out in the manual.... disaster....
So, I think Steve Jobs is blinded with its mass-media popularity and he is gambling, but this case he is pulling a wrong card...