At last, a real choice in operating systems and apps
At last, a real choice in operating systems and apps
Everyone has heard the news by now that Apple will move to an x86-based platform next year. The news reverberates in many places. Although Apple’s defection exposes weakness in IBM’s processor process (which may impact on Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony), more importantly it demonstrates Apple’s bravery in putting its corporate ego aside to do the right thing and possibly the best thing for the company and its shareholders.
But no less important, the move also gives Apple an opportunity to prove to the world what it and its customers have been saying about it being a superior OS and UI experience. We’ve never heard anyone say they didn’t like the look and feel of an Apple. And the OS X is considered one of the finest triumphs of Apple ever. It’s two years ahead of Microsoft’s Longhorn and probably a major prototype for a lot of Longhorn ideas. And it’s shipping now.
Apple has been experimenting with x86 processors for some time, and in fact Steve Jobs revealed what has been rumored for years that a secret team inside Apple has had Apple OSes running on x86 for over five years. OS X was developed as much on x86 hardware as it was on PowerPC. SO if Apple wanted to, they could have offered OS X to the x86 world a year ago. However, Leopard the new x86 version of OS X will not come out until 2006 – about the same time Longhorn comes out.
Now, there’s no reason for them not to offer their OS, and when they do it will be the first serious competition Microsoft has faced. Much more so than Linux because OS X runs on the desktop and brings with it a suite of applications – popular applications, whereas Linux doesn’t.
After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that." However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.
Sounds like a make nice and don't scare the bear statement to me.
Apple’s OS X has been cross platform by design and compiled to both processor types since the beginning. And big endian and little endian is no big deal. IBM proved that the transition from big endian to little endian is an easy translation with the original PowerPC which was originally developed for little endian platforms. Given all the GHz power in today’s machines, the translation comes virtually free.
As Steve Jobs said at Apple Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, “More than the software more than the hardware, the soul of the Mac is the OS.”
This will also attract more applications to the Mac. All Apple applications will have to be re-ported and complied, but Apple has had the tools for some time to do that and even Microsoft said all of its Apple apps will be translated.
However, once Apple goes to x86 they can’t avoid clones (like AOpen’s miniMac, a Pentium M-based mini PC, codenamed Pandora.)
And Apple will have to be careful to manage the possible Osborne effect. The company says next year we’ll see the first Mac with x86, and the transition will be complete by 2007.
It does raise some interesting marketing issues however, will Apple use an “Intel Inside” logo on Mac? There could be some serious style issues here if they do.
