It definitely looks like it could happen. It would be nice to have other options available on PC other than Windows and Linux.

Furthermore, I am suprised it has taken this long for this to happen. Apple cannont continue to operate on a decreasing market share with the cost of their high end systems. Apple says they only make money off of their hardware and make nothing off of software.

When the Intel chips are used, then I suspect we will start seeing more Apple software that will be compatible with PCs. While it would be nice to be able to learn FCP and DVDSP4 on PC without having to spend $3k on a G5 dual system, one has to wonder how much of a speed hit Apple will take as they have marketed the PowerProcessors as the fastest available.

Interesting times ahead thats for sure.

Hmmm.... Since OS/X is warmed over FreeBSD.....

If you want to do DVDSP, then all you need is a mini. Pop in a 512K or 1Gig stick, maybe 80 Gig HD version, and possibly FireWire DVD burner, and you're there. Let Vegas do the heavy lifiting, rendering the AC3 and m2v.

It's extremely unlikely that Apple will replace the PowerPC chips with Intel ditto.

Think about the amount of code they would have to rewrite for a very different architecture.

They would have to spend years just to get back to where they are now, and they would still have to maintain their existing codebase for the current CPU architecture.

Ditto for all the other companies selling Apple software...

There are two possibilities:

1. They could be looking to buy peripheral chips from Intel, as a high volume supplier.

2. They are just using the Intel negotiations as leverage when negotiating prices with IBM for the next generation Power5 CPUs (note that G5 computers use Power4 CPUs).

Btw, a recent review on DMN showed that a single dual-core P4 beat a dual G5 in many benchmarks (AE mostly)...

The word I am getting is that IBM is the one who is forcing the issue because they are tired of having to produce such a small amount of processors that is turning out not to be very cost effective anymore for IBM.

Apple will have NO choice but to replace PowerPC chips if they cant convince IBM to continue producing them. Macs are on the decline and have been. It makes perfect sense ro Apple to venture out and try to maximize more return for their company. PCs will deliver all the revenue they would ever need to stay in business.

IBM makes Power5 chips (which are not the current CPUs in the G5s) whether Apple buys any or not. They use them for their servers.

Intel would seem to be to much "me-too" for Apple. They would probably prefer AMD, because of the superior Opteron architecture, a smaller company to deal with, and the added boutique feel that they need to justify their high computer pricing.

Actually, this makes total sense. Apple starts writing code for x86 processors, then in a few years they start selling just O/S and software, and perhaps continue to make "specialty" high end computers, but then suddenly people can buy a $300 eMachine at Best Buy and install, say, Apple's OS 15 and then Apple suddenly has new people to sell software to... and then Microsoft suddenly has a little threat.

In some ways Apple is the envy of the computer world, slick, stylish hardward, but yet few people want to pony up and buy their over priced machines. I want to learn and own FCP, I really do, but I don't want to spend 2-3K on a machine that is about the same speed as any old plain Intel/Amd machine that can be had for under a grand.

Sega did this when they eventually conceded defeat in the console market to Sony PS2. Now Sega sells software to Xbox, Nintendo, and Sony. I bet they make more money now and have tons more customers.

This could be cool, I have no love of Windows and would buy a Mac OS in heartbeat if I could run it on a -$1,000 machine.

price doesn't even make any sence... SGI still makes $10k work stations that sell & they make much higher $$$ servers that still sell.

The IBM chip's aren't crap: Apple has been using them for years along with Nintendo, and MS & Sony switched to IBM for their console chips.

It may be a way to get IBM to sell to them anyway, but I'd say Intel is looking to find a computer manufacture that has no competition hardware wise, & that would be apple. Only Apple makes Mac's, there's no Mac compatibles like PC's & Mac people already willingly pay a higher price them PC users & thus Intel could sell overpriced Intel chips to them.

But, it's also possible Intel is starting to make RISC chips. That would require almost no code change for Apple.

Instead of Apple using Itel Chips i wold prefer that Microsoft could make a version of Windows that could run in Apple PC with PowerPC bases CPU then i could get apple parts from the web and build a cheap G5 PC and use Windows progrmas there with the power of the PowerPC CPU.

That would only require little code change if Intel's RISC chips were code compatible with the PowerPC chips. This is not a given, especially considering Intel's history. Just because a chip is RISC doesn't mean it uses the same instruction set as other RISC chips.

I won't believe it until it's officially announced... Speculation as of now..

Wow! This could get really interesting - If it turns out to be true I imagine a lot of the "hard core" mac fans will just be horrified. I guess "Mac vs PC" benchmarks will be a lot simpler though :)

only if they use the same CPU's that PC's use. But I'd expect mac to still come out ahead. Most programs on Unix run faster then Windows. hte G5's are much more advanced then the x86 CPU's intel makes, I just don't see Steve saying "Lets use the 1980 tech in our computers instead of this late 1990's/early 2000 tech. That's the right business move!"

But is IS steve jobs. :)

Despite all the hoopla about Mac's advanced CPU design they're still slower than the Intel offering. RISC architecture as far as I know hasn't delivered what it promised. Sure their dies look prettier but as someone else once said many of the operations that a CPU has to perform are ugly, you can have ugly silicon or ugly microcode. It would seem that ugly silicon is faster.
I'm not saying the x86 is a good CPU design but from what I can see it's biggest problem is kludge built upon kludge in order to maintain backwards compatibility. I'd guess the Intel boffins would love to have a clean slate to start from but somehow I don't think we'll see that anytime soon, can you imagine the landfill if all the worlds PCs were replaced in the space of a few years!
One other thing, I think Apple seriously missed the boat with PCI-E, that opens up a lot more possibilities in the world of video, that alone could be a reason for Apple to jump ship.
Bob.

The news articles have been saying that Apple would shift the low-end models in mid-2006 and the High-end models in Mid-2007.

Assuming they're still looking at a FreeBSD based system I suppose this might allow them to do things like leverage more of the existing BSD and Linux developement as well as perhaps run Windows apps under Wine.

Also, since they're looking at CPUs that are a year out they're probably looking at roadmaps and deciding that things like dual core will be good for them.

Sure, this means that in two years FCP will be running on Intel chips. But it won't be running under windows. You're going to need a bootloader to switch between the OS's, or perhaps there will even be a way to switch between OS's that are actually running.

If this comes to pass, what does it mean for Vegas? Maybe nothing, since Vegas and FCP will still be separated by an OS. But perhaps if other NLE vendors on the PC side start to at least consider making sure they run under Wine then Vegas should follow, or lead.

The strategy for Apple will be to make it easy for Wintel developers to migrate to Mactel, but not the other way around.

Rob Mack

I don't care much about running Vegas on an overpriced Mac but Vegas for Linux would be interesting. And a better way to break the Microsoft grip, methinks...

And I really don't care what Apple does, I will continue running my applications on an Intel microprocessor using a Microsoft OS. This combination has worked exceptionally well for me for years. I see nothing on the horizon that will cause me to jump ship.

John

This morning's update with a little bit more perspective, from 48 minutes ago:
News from AP.

They said that Steve Jobs was expected to make an announcement about this today at a conference for software developers.

Call it a hunch but its going to happen. While I would love to learn FCP5 and DVDSP4 in case a need ever arises but I dont see myself ever leaving Vegas for it. Maybe use in conjunction to compliment but never replace.

edit:

10:25 am Apple is going to Intel chips officially. "We've been through many transistions. 680x0 to PowerPC, Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. Today we begin a third transition. It's true; We are switching to Intel."

10:27 am Why are we switching to Intel? Intel offers great performance. Intel offers great power consumption. The transition will take a few years, but it will be worth it. We want to be making the best computer for the customer going forward.

10:29 am June 2006 Macs will ship with Intel processors. By 2007, the transition will almost be complete.

10:31 am We face two challenges. The first, is Mac OS X on Intel. We've been maintaining Mac OS X on Intel AND PPC, secretly, for the past 5 years, just in case.
10:32 am This entire last half hour the keynote has been running on an Intel box running Mac OS X.

10:34 am Development machines will be in the hands of developers soon. Video playing explaining how to compile for Intel. Widgets, Scripts, Java, all already work...Cocoa programs need but a small tweak. Carbon programs will take a couple of weeks.

10:36 am We're releasing XCode 2.1. It can compile a Universal Binary (FAT binary). Available to everybody at registration desk following the keynote. Developers applauded Steve when he said that both processors would be supported for a long time to come.

10:38 am Mathematica 5 for Mac OS X was ported to Intel last week...in just two hours. Working version in 20 hours. A couple dozen lines of code had to be changed.

10:46 am While most software is just a recompile away, some will remain PPC-only. For that, there's Rosetta. Binary instruction translation, in real time. Runs PowerPC code on Intel-baesd Macs. Transparent to users. Pretty fast. Jobs demos Rosetta used to run PowerPC macs on Intel-based Macs. Jobs shows Microsoft Excel/Word running on Intel-based Mac (without any porting and/or recompiling). Jobs also shows Photoshop CS2 with all plugins that are translated and run on Intel-based Mac without significant speed decrease.

10:48 am A developer transition kit is being released. Just for developers. It's a 3.64 GHz Pentium 4 in a Power Mac enclosure. Select and Premier members only, for $999 (rental). Order today; available in two weeks.

10:52 am Launch of Microsoft Office 2004 was best product launch for Mac OS X. New version of Messenger due for Macs in the next few months. Additionally, a new update for Exchange users. MacBU commits to delivering a "Universal Binary" for Microsoft Office. Jobs also invites Bruce Chizen of Adobe on stage to talk about Intel-based Mac transition. Adobe says it is committed bringing its applications to Intel-based Macs.

Also today Quicktime 7 Preview for Windows. H.264 AVC encoding to the masses.

Also, I can now admit that I knew that they were switching to Intel chips but I was bound by NDA and am now released from NDA.

I am stil under NDA for other things regarding timeframes of applications to be ported to the intel instruction sets.

Lets just say interesting times are ahead. Apple hopes to do for the movie industry what it did for Itunes.. Infer the meaning of that one.

I think I found the reason why Jobs is doing this in a book I just finished reading: "iCon Steve Jobs - The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business" (just released):

"...With his new focus on software, the next battle that Steve wants to win has come into sharp focus. There is one company on earth that controls software. It is led be the man who stole Apple's crown jewels twenty years ago, and Steve has not forgotten. Now it is Apple, not Microsoft, that has the buzz and the bounce.
...
Steve has come to understand that the combination of software and content are what make Apple special."

The numbers are telling: Apple makes more money (profit) off iPods than G5s. There is no reasonable way they can get enough volume on G5 or its proprietary successors to sustain a "world empire."

The margins on FCP and their other software are far better of course, and they have some very cool products including the new Soundtrack Pro that I hope Sony takes a look at before pegging the next version of SoundForge. Soundtrack Pro is a very impressive product!

They will continue to make "BMWs" for a while of course, but it won't be where they put most of their development budget...

They certainly have a chance to clobber Microsoft at this time. MS seems to have become quite ossified recently, with no improvement in sight.

Jobs shows Microsoft Excel/Word running on Intel-based Mac (without any porting and/or recompiling). Jobs also shows Photoshop CS2 with all plugins that are translated and run on Intel-based Mac without significant speed decrease.

Hmmmm. Methinks most of us have been running those applications (or their previous versions) natively on Intel chips for over a decade now. Part of me wants to just lean back and say, "so?" with a big *shrug*.

Until I read the subhead, I thought they meant, iCon, like "I con" than "icon". That first meaning is completely different than the second.