June 6, 2005
Intel: Not Just for Crappy Windows Machines Anymore
Confirming rumors that have been circulating, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced at the World Wide Developer's Conference today that Apple's future hardware will feature chips made by Intel. Jobs said that the switch should occur by the end of 2006, when Apple expects to release the next version of its OS, 10.5. (As part of the announcement, we also got to find out that 10.5 is codenamed Leopard, though since the logo for the current release, 10.4 Tiger, doesn't sport the fur pattern like 10.2 Jaguar or even the coordinated color of 10.3 Panther, who cares what animal it is?)
Of course it's all over Technorati. Trying to dispel the kind of hand-wringing usually reserved for anytime George Lucas futzes with the original Star Wars trilogy, Jobs let us in on another little secret: Apple's been compiling all the versions of OS X on Intel-based machines for the past five years. Apparently Apple wasn't happy with either the heat or the slowness of IBM's G5 chips, so it's turning to Intel for x486 chips. But don't worry: Jobs assures us that non-Mac Intel-based machines will not be able to run OS X, learning from its massive mistake from the mid-90s.
Anyway, the best news of all is that Apple's ads will now feature the Blue Man Group. Rock on!
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Intel has not been "just for crappy Windows machines" since at least 1991.
Thanks to Pear PC, Intel boxes can already run OS X. In fact, someone even installed it on an Xboxen.
i heard that when they finally, officially announced this at the convention, the engineers nearly wept.
Just to follow up, what I really find interesting, is that blogs reported this as rumor for ages (which, in internet terms, means about a week), and then CNet confirmed it before WWDC with inside sources.
But, um, I haven't heard about any suits attacking CNet for publishing 'trade secrets' like PowerPage, Apple Insider and Think Secret were. Granted, signs indicate that apellate judges are critical of the prosecution in Apple v. Does. But my point is, in this case, it seems they're happy to have the publicity, but if you don't publicize rumors within Apple's hype timeframe, or are big enough to have your own lawyers, woe be to you.