Apple Goes x86?!?
Well, the big news today is that Apple Computer have decided to switch from PowerPC to x86 for their CPUs. Quite frankly, this makes no sense to me, for I cannot see an advantage and yet can see many disadvantages.
I used to be a very big Macintosh fan years ago; in fact, nearly all of my college friends now use Macs. Eventually, though, I realised first of all that not all command lines are created equal (see Unix); that freedom trumps other concerns (see GNU/Linux); and that Apple has lost its once-vaunted user interface skills (see OS X). I had, however, been considering the purchase of an iBook in order to get some nifty Linux hardware.
That’s part of why this is so confusing. The x86 is an ugly architecture. Why switch to it? It has much less room for growth than PowerPC.
Don’t Apple realise that no-one will buy a Mac for the next two years? This announcement end-of-lifes all their hardware in one fell swoop.
I predict that this will cause yet another wave of Mac developers to quit the fold; this is one change too many. First 68K->PowerPC, then Classic->OS X, and now this: it’s clear that an investment in apple technology is building on ever-shifting sand.
Lastly, I don’t care what sort of hardware goofiness Apple get up to: within a matter of months after the release of x86 Mac OS X, it will be possible to run it on Windows and/or Linux. If it’s on the same architecture, it’s easy to emulate whatever hardware DRM they care to implement.
So Apple is giving up a technical advantage, drastically cutting revenue, losing developers and losing its platform dominance. Why, again?
This is turning into a recap of the NeXT saga…
