Today at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, Steve Jobs confirmed in a landmark keynote speech, what we've all been wondering about for years: Apple will have Intel inside.
Jobs commented that that "Intel offers a better roadmap for the markets that Apple services", and that IBM, long time chip-maker for the Mac, could not keep pace with market demands.
In order to illustrate how easy this transition will be in terms of applications, Jobs demonstrated Intel-compiled OS X apps running on an Intel-based Mac. Jobs emphasized that it will be "easy" to tweak apps for use with the chipmaker that has long been reviled by Mac users.
"Rosetta" will allow PowerPC compiled apps to work on an Intel Mac. It's completely transparent, according to Jobs, and does not require a separate emulation environment.
Expect the first commercially-available Intel based Macs to show up in June, 2006.
No word yet on exactly how AMD fits into the picture, or whether generic Intel architectures will be able to run OS X. The latter might be achieved more easily than some might think, however.
Full keynote coverage here: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Alternatives are always good (?). I am all for more competition - it serves to boost product development and competitiveness (pricing, value, specs, etc.). It is the monopolies that have no motivation to serve the customer (usually). There is no reason for them to do things differently/better -- the monopoly cannot increase it's user base, it already has everyone using their product.
Apple Moves to Intel: A Done Deal
