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"It is a business decision for Apple to make nice with Intel, but I don’t have to like it."

Funny, he spends the first half of of his column making swipes at IBM, which just happens to manufacture the current chips used in the Mac. So why is it so heretical that Apple move to Intel, given that IBM has been dragging its arse on upgrades, particularly for low-power chips, and has thus placed Apple at an emerging competitive disadvantage in laptop performance? Don't get me wrong, I love the current PowerBook, but it's (still) a G4 for a reason.

And obviously the guy is totally clueless about one of the signature benefits of Unix: only kernel-level code modules need to change to adapt to different hardware environments. This is why Linux runs on pritnear everything-- some geek has sat down and ginned up a kernel for that platform.

Moving to an open-source Unix-based platform was a brilliant move on Apple's part. Among other things, it means they can do MacOS on whatever hardware they want. And it'll still be a Mac.

"I paid $3,400 for that first system, and that was in 1987 dollars. We’re talking real money, folks. There was not much software for the Macintosh, but Mac-Draw and MacPaint made ordinary people into (drum roll, please!) MacArtists. The word processing program was known as—what else?—MacWrite, and it set the standard for a decade."

At that time, I was building my own PC clones for under $1,000 and running Wordstar or Word Perfect (WP 5.0 for DOS was the best ever). They worked great. I didn't even try Windows until version 3.0. The DOS machines did the work they were designed to do for a third the price of a Mac. I think that pretty much explains the failure of Mac to gain market share.

What a stupid article. The guy is b1tching and moaning about something that he wouldn't even notice if he wasn't told about it. Did he similarly whine when Macs moved from 68k to PowerPC? No, he's just mad because they're moving to a processor that the "bad" side uses. He also has some Apple marketing hyperbole bouncing around in his head: "If you watched the Apple commercials, you know that it was registered as a national defense secret or something like that. That is one reason this switcheroo is so bewildering." Whatever.. like this guy would ever notice the difference in performance running Microsoft Word or whatever.. I take that back.. If he's using a powerbook, he'll notice that a Pentium-M powerbook runs faster, cooler, and has better battery life

I've long wondered how hard would it be to make Mac programs run in Linux or BSD, since it is only BSD with a different GUI. Won't this put Apple more directly competition with a free OS?

In the long run it seems they must be considering licensing the OS to others and switching to mainly software and entertainment. They used to have that "more powerful processor, better software" thing going now all they have left is the software.

Ipods are riding high right now but the competition is heating up and the day will come when there is the inevitable reaction to this success and Ipods will no longer considered to be "cool" by the hip yoot market, and their share will plummet. Have you seen the new Creative 20gb that is only slightly larger than their Micro 6gb player? Apple will to have to come out with an expanded mini pretty soon.

What in the world is wrong with the whiney idiot who wrote this article? When the announcement first came that Apple was going to transition to Intel chips, I was a bit worried ... until I looked at the transition roadmap, and at the long-range advantages that it will give the Mac OS in the future.

Firstly, while the G5 is an excellent chip right now, and truly does outperform an Intel chip with 2x the GHz, this is really the very top capacity of the G5 chip that IBM will produce. They simply don't want to carry the chip further for the price that Apple is willing to pay. So, the "future roadmap" with PowerPC chips is not nearly as positive as it will be on the Intel side of the ledger in subsequent years. This does not invalidate the superiority of the PowerPC chip's abilities of the past ... they were excellent in their day. They're excellent NOW. But their future is limited.

Secondly, software written for the PowerPC chip will easily and seamlessly work in OS X on an Intel-based computer with the use of Rosetta for translation function ... and there is no humanly perceptible (or significant) slow-down of function. In other words, the MS Office and Adobe Creative Suite software that makes up the heart of my publishing business' operations will work just fine on the new generation of Intel-based Macs. AND, the producers of this software will be writing upgrade versions of their Apps that will run on EITHER platform. Hence, there is no loss of software and the upgrade path over time is well-established.

Thirdly -- and this could be big -- there is solid reason to expect that OS X on Intel may very well be capable (using a Windows-to-Mac version of Rosetta code auto-translator) of running Windows-based software ... and will run it better, cleaner, and faster than XP or (whistling in the dark) Longhorn. Yes, that's right ... the day may well come when Windows users will be able to run any/all Windows software through the Mac OS X interface.

Some Windows users might ask "why would we want to do that?" Well ... the interface war has, without a question, been won ... and Mac won it. Answer this one question and you'll see what I mean: Which OS has, over time, become more like the other one? Think about the evolution of PC OSs ... DOS to Windows 3.0, to 98, to 2000, ME, XP, etc. Each step in the evolution of Windows has been to make it MORE like the dynamic GUI that is present in the Mac OS. Why go with a virus/spy/maulware plagued imitation OS when you can run with the benchmark that Windows is trying to copy, and do so without all the other annoying problems that Windows brings with it?

I use Macs at work and at home. I've used the Mac OS and Apple computers since BEFORE the advent of the Mac ... I cut my teeth with Basic an Fortran programming on the Apple II and Apple IIc before moving to Mac in 1986. Since then I've owned many different generations of the Mac, up to my current G4 Powerbook and G5 desktop computers. I have also used, and own, several Wintel machines over the years, and my current one is running XP (a laptop) which I use for various projects and purposes. I do NOT use the windows unit on the internet ... my macs are infinitely safer. And, I much prefer to use the Mac OS X interface for my daily needs; there's very little I can't do on my Macs that I can on my Windows laptop. I just like having access to both platforms. And, it would appear, Apple is about to make that even more easier with it's future generations of computers.