Apple slides up to Intel
While there are dozens of more important things out there, I figured that I'd discuss this one briefly before I really got into the meat of my work today. Apple has announced that the next generation of Macs will be on an Intel platform. I'm not sure I'm happy about this thought, but well, there are some possible good things coming out of it.
The good: Well, I can see where it might become possible to buy the OS to put on non-Apple-built machines. It'll become like some linux variants, where there is a list of "this hardware works" and anything else is at your own risk. It would make having a MacOS X network a little cheaper. There may be other good things, but this is the big one I'm noticing.
The "speed" that Apple is touting doesn't really impress me, since they've always touted greater speeds with each version of new processor that they've gotten from anyone. Thus, this news is neutral to me. After all, I doubt they'd be hyping that you get the same speeds as a PC with similar chips.
The bad: First, I'm an old Mac addict. I joined on the Mac brigade back in 1992 with the Classic II. It took until 1997 for me to even get off of System 7.5.1 and get a color Mac. I loved that little box. I was depressed when I got the G3 because SCSI was no longer standard and OS 8 did not play well with all the System 7.5 software that I had. All those peripherals suddenly required a card. (Now this isn't as big of a deal because I have USB peripherals, but still. I have a bunch of external SCSI drives and the like, which are now just left for use with the ancient machines.)
Then I got my G4 which has OS X 10.4 on it. I praised this update, even if it did kill all my software all over again, because I like having the unix base. I saw this as a good thing because it meant that there might be more converts to the Mac and it might bring even more freeware and shareware into the mix. Indeed, I've got some GNU apps running. Also, I find the switch from 7.5 to 8 was a lot more painful than 8 to 10 was. (Nevermind that my Mac laptop is still on System 7.5. Hah.)
This talk of OS brings me to my real problem with it. I'm not sure how much I trust this idea that Rosetta will make everything okay. Sure, it will be a few years before I get one of the Intel-based ones, unless I get a laptop, but I don't want to see things get buggy on the Mac because they are having to write patches for the G4/G5s and are trying to redo everything again for the new batch. Similarly, I don't want to see the next OS drop the G4 and G5 processors from the supported list. Another thing I don't want to see is that when I do upgrade to a new machine, that suddenly my software gets all wonky because everyone coded for the older architecture.
Do I really need my Mac to be like my PC, where software dies on the new OS for no discernable reason? No. No, I don't. I have games on the PC that I can't play without digging out a copy of Windows 95 because XP will not play them properly; not even in compatibility mode. I liked that my Mac was different. I liked that it wasn't all the same crap. I liked that they started by using the best stuff. I didn't mind paying extra because the damned thing worked without my having to tinker with it. I knew that the pieces would just work. I had a pretty case, a little Apple sticker, and I didn't have to deal with as many "reboots for no apparent reason"... With this in mind, I view this news warily and I hope that I don't watch the Mac take a downturn for this decision.
The good: Well, I can see where it might become possible to buy the OS to put on non-Apple-built machines. It'll become like some linux variants, where there is a list of "this hardware works" and anything else is at your own risk. It would make having a MacOS X network a little cheaper. There may be other good things, but this is the big one I'm noticing.
The "speed" that Apple is touting doesn't really impress me, since they've always touted greater speeds with each version of new processor that they've gotten from anyone. Thus, this news is neutral to me. After all, I doubt they'd be hyping that you get the same speeds as a PC with similar chips.
The bad: First, I'm an old Mac addict. I joined on the Mac brigade back in 1992 with the Classic II. It took until 1997 for me to even get off of System 7.5.1 and get a color Mac. I loved that little box. I was depressed when I got the G3 because SCSI was no longer standard and OS 8 did not play well with all the System 7.5 software that I had. All those peripherals suddenly required a card. (Now this isn't as big of a deal because I have USB peripherals, but still. I have a bunch of external SCSI drives and the like, which are now just left for use with the ancient machines.)
Then I got my G4 which has OS X 10.4 on it. I praised this update, even if it did kill all my software all over again, because I like having the unix base. I saw this as a good thing because it meant that there might be more converts to the Mac and it might bring even more freeware and shareware into the mix. Indeed, I've got some GNU apps running. Also, I find the switch from 7.5 to 8 was a lot more painful than 8 to 10 was. (Nevermind that my Mac laptop is still on System 7.5. Hah.)
This talk of OS brings me to my real problem with it. I'm not sure how much I trust this idea that Rosetta will make everything okay. Sure, it will be a few years before I get one of the Intel-based ones, unless I get a laptop, but I don't want to see things get buggy on the Mac because they are having to write patches for the G4/G5s and are trying to redo everything again for the new batch. Similarly, I don't want to see the next OS drop the G4 and G5 processors from the supported list. Another thing I don't want to see is that when I do upgrade to a new machine, that suddenly my software gets all wonky because everyone coded for the older architecture.
Do I really need my Mac to be like my PC, where software dies on the new OS for no discernable reason? No. No, I don't. I have games on the PC that I can't play without digging out a copy of Windows 95 because XP will not play them properly; not even in compatibility mode. I liked that my Mac was different. I liked that it wasn't all the same crap. I liked that they started by using the best stuff. I didn't mind paying extra because the damned thing worked without my having to tinker with it. I knew that the pieces would just work. I had a pretty case, a little Apple sticker, and I didn't have to deal with as many "reboots for no apparent reason"... With this in mind, I view this news warily and I hope that I don't watch the Mac take a downturn for this decision.