I have the same skepticism, but frankly it makes sense. IBM is going to have enough problems keeping all three nex-gen video game console systems supplied. Not only does Apple not want to compete with that; there has been little to no headway made in making the G5 laptop friendly. Of course, they can't migrate just their notebook line of computers onto a different processor; the only hope is to migrate all computers to a chipset that will allow them to continue to make quality notebook computers.

I'm not, however, fully convinced that these will be x86 processors. If they are, then we're in for another price hike. Xeons, the only setups that come close to the dual G5s for us content creators, are cost-prohibitive.

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What implications does this have to someone with current mac. Would this make a powerPC mac obselete when they move to this?

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Current Macintoshes would not become obsolete any faster than they would have already. This is a longer-term thing. Mac developers would be shipping fat binaries for years, just like they did in the PowerPC transition. It's entirely conceivable that Apple would chose to keep some product PowerPC-based indefinitely.

The only fact that might make current hardware obsolete is that Intel chips tend to be so much faster than PowerPC chips these days, that your Macintosh's performance may suddenly suffer by comparison, especially for you laptop users. But it won't get any less capable than it is right now.

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This is a tough pill to swallow. I just sold my PC and bought a mini. I can't believe that this is going to be a smooth move if it is in fact really happening.

Consider: most processors are moving toward 64bit and dual-core capabilities. Intel's solution is very spendy. They could have at least gone to Opterons which are more powerful according to most benchmarks. Those and Athlon64's in the "value" line.

I'm just not too thrilled about moving to Intel - part of the attraction of the Mac is that it is on a NON-X86 processor and less able to be exploited by common malware. (Yes the Operating System has a lot to do with the security too, I know).

Anyway. We'll see. If his "Steveness" (I love that bit) declares it is so, I figure I'll crap a ton of bricks big enough for a modest cathedral and then start planning my next Mac purchase for 2007!

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This bothers me as I just recently bought a powerbook 12".. on my tight budget I wouldn't be able to afford a new powerbook until 2010 :P

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i agree they probly wont be x86 based.. otherwise what is stopping me from getting a cheap ass dell and putting my fatty Mac OS X 10.5 "mountain lion" on the damn thing.

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My wife and I were kicking the pieces around tonight and together, bouncing ideas off of one another, we came up with a pretty compelling reason as to why this may indeed happen.

1. MSFT has never been more vulnerable in their desktop OS history than they are now. Their security issues with malware/virii/etc. (whether real or perceived) have many folks looking for an alternative, both consumers and businesses.
2. We've seen news/rumors of many of the big OEMs courting Apple to port OS X to x86. Why? Because x86 hardware in itself is pretty damn reliable and MTBF for components is low. OEMs they want an OS alternative because their tech support operations are being overwhelmed by Microsoft OS problems.
3. Rumors today surfaced that Longhorn has now slipped to mid 2007 (2 years late and counting). Follow this with the end of mainstream support for Windows 2000 in June of this year.
4. Due to #2 & #3 above, many of the x86 OEMs aren't happy with MSFT b/c a) MSFT is driving their cost of business up (due to current security situation) and b) MSFT isn't doing anything to spur net new x86 OEM hardware sales as they coast into on of their longest/ugliest periods ever between OS releases.
5. Couple this with the fact that many of the real juicy reasons folks would want to move to Longhorn (think WinFS and many other pulled features) have vaporized and it looks like MSFT could, for the first time in a LONG time, have a stillborn OS on their hands.

All these factors align to this being a great time in the history of computing for Apple to break out of their smaller, established niche` to make a volume play.

And remember, in the Valley, people don't forget ;) Bill rubbed Steve's nose in it once before and you'd better believe that Steve would love to return the favor if given the chance. That chance may very well be right now.

PS - I worked for MSFT for many years, left at the beginning of this year, and switched to Mac :)

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MARKLAR!!! didnt i mention it before here???im to lazy to go back into the datails of what i already said...

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I think Steve is right on the money. I think Apple might just do it -- to attack Microsoft. They might see Microsoft as vulnerable right now, with Internet Explorer usage dropping (all the way to 95%), Google hitting them with punches, and Longhorn being late coming in. I think this is more about Microsoft than about IBM, the more I think about it.

I could really see this going down.

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Maybe, just maybe, Apple will release another OS for Intel processors based on Darwin.

This will be a new OS rather than change production from IBM chips to Intel chips.

Apple hardware will still be as before, but people like Sony and HP can now switch from Windows to MacOS for Intel.

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I honestly dont see it happening.

After the trauma of going from OS 9 to OS X with re-dev work and upgrades etc it doesnt seem like a smart move just as your core OS is gaining popularity, getting great reviews from the press and is generally considered the best OS around at the moment, to throw it all in and go "we're changing processor, everyone grab your XCode and start re-deving"

Aside from that Intel CPU's arnt all that great, I'd put greater stock in this RUMOUR if Apple had been "seen" talking to AMD

Apple are probably just using or going to use an Intel chipset in one of their related product. And besides, I cant but help but think this is all a clever smoke and mirrors affair: while we're all obsessing about Apple moving to INTEL CPU's - what are they working on?

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This is just not going to happen. IBM has some great chips coming down the line, what does Intel have? Hell Microsoft even jumped ship on them with the xbox 360. This was no small step for Microsoft, now most of the previous games for the Xbox won't work on the new system and as we all know Microsoft would never put themselves at the disadvantage unless they had no choice.

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Sk8rCai is right... Apple doesn't want to make a big change again like 9 to X... They'll loose a lot of support.

[rant]
I seem to think we hear one of these rumors EVERY year. LET IT GO PEOPLE there will NEVER be OSX for your PC's and apple wont switch to x86. LET IT GO PLEASE!!!
[/rant]

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I think maybe intel will be used in a new product, like an iPod Video or something else. Not in the actual Macs.

Although if there were a port to x86-64 that would mean more OS X users = more hardware & software support, so I wouldn't mind, as long as my new iMac stays nice and quick until at least '07 when I could upgrade.

Maybe there will be 2 versions of OS X, one for x86-64 cpus and one for multi-core PPC cpus. No matter what happens, I don't think Apple will completely abandon the PPC architecture completely.

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I personally think it is a good move for Apple. I am obviously not a consumer analyst nor a economic advisor of any sort. I am writing this as a software engineer with personal reasons and interests. So please don't fire back if any.

Apple has been kind of isolated from PC business in a sense for about last decade or so. Isolated, but still maintaining their pace - so they did quite well. Perhaps, waiting about 15 or so years for developers to mainstream their products to Apple's primary CPU architecture. Partially, this has been successful, but on the other side, partially not-successful.

Now by moving to x86 architecture where most of the business is (Unix, Linux, Windows...) then perhaps porting to one another would be easier than previously possible. This opens up a great opportunity for Apple in some areas. Great software from vast developers that are already programming in x86.

As a software engineer, I look for compatibility and flexibility. That means, a piece of code I write should be easily portable to one another's operating systems. Whether it'd be Linux to Windows or Windows to Mac OS X. Currently, porting can be achieve from Windows to MAX OS X, but not all the time. It needs constant revisions and etc. Now, if MAC OS X was built on x86 architecture, what different would it make to any other linux or unix operating system. Overall, at its core is the unix kernel and thus, just by switching the environment of the programming (say to Gtk to MAC OS X), not only porting is acheive quite easily, but optimisations could also be made quite easily.

Two thumbs up for Apple, if they do make the switch. I am more than happy to welcome MAC OS X into x86 architecture.

On the hardware side, Supercharged and easily modifiable MAC HARDWARE. Have you ever dreamt of it?

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what about cell processors that IBM are developing? there's some good features currently being worked on PPC processors, i cannot see apple switching to intel, though apple has surprised us in the past.

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May be not. May be Apple contact with Intel is talking about OSX on Intel, it makes sense to announce such thing in WWDC while Apple usually focus on software in WWDC.

(Sorry about my poor English)

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I've said this before, Apple + Intel just make a new version of PPC. Apple do not want to see Mac OS X on a PC because... most PCs are ugly... look at an iMac G5.. then a DeLL Dimension, which one do you want sitting on your desktop?

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I've said this before, Apple + Intel just make a new version of PPC. Apple do not want to see Mac OS X on a PC because... most PCs are ugly... look at an iMac G5.. then a DeLL Dimension, which one do you want sitting on your desktop?

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Honest to pete. Why on earth would Apple take a giant step BACKWARDS??? The PowerPC chip is a totally different architecture. that's why is is (a) faster, (b) runs cooler, and (c) basically has outperformed ANYthing Intel has come up with since the PPC chip was introduced.

This reminds me of how uninformed comsumers and sales people can be when, way back when Apple announced the PowerPC, a local business owner informed a friend of mine that Apple was officially "dead" as the PowerPC would drive a stake through its heart. bwahahahahaha.

Get a grip folks. This belongs over in the gossip column not the real news section.

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