All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Apple, Intel and ia64 Macs

ziggy on 2005-06-10T02:44:35

It seems like half the net this week is rambling on and on about Apple switching away from PowerPC to some Intel-based CPUs starting next year. I'll leave my pontifications off the table, since there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said before elsewhere. But I will highlight what John Gruber is saying over at Daring Fireball about why the Osborne Effect won't kill Apple:

Apple’s attitude is clear: we’ll take a couple of quarters of weak sales now, and make it up for next year when the new systems ship. With growing iPod revenue, it’s entirely possible that Mac sales could take a complete nosedive for the remainder of 2005 and Apple could remain profitable. (It’s also possible that we will see some outstanding price cuts on existing product lines in the coming months.)

Oz(zy) comments

pjm on 2005-06-10T04:56:16

That'd be "Osborne Effect"; not drug related, petulance related, or even dog related (as far as I know).

Paul (still eyeing off a 20" imac for home; aah, the small joy of having a consulting fund that has to be emptied by the end of the year...)

Re:Oz(zy) comments

ziggy on 2005-06-10T11:45:26

Whoops! FIxed. Thanks.

Switch isn't changing my purchases

jsmith on 2005-06-10T05:20:53

At this point, I see Apple as just another Unix vendor. As long as the software runs and meets expectations, then the underlying hardware really doesn't matter. Anything we get up until the switch will have full support anyway.

Re:

Aristotle on 2005-06-10T11:55:59

Yeah. I just wrote an entry about that and a lot more besides because I was getting tired of writing the same stuff over and over. Take a lot: On high hopes, misconceptions, and Apple on x86

So far I’ve not seen any speculation that wasn’t obviously bunk.

Re:

ziggy on 2005-06-10T12:33:58

So far I’ve not seen any speculation that wasn’t obviously bunk.
Yeah. I especially like the Going with Intel, because it has DRM Features On-Chip. Riiiiight. Apple decided to go with pretty much the only CPU that offers a CPU ID to make the iTunes store suck. And that was the consensus opinion of their brightest minds and their bestest hardware designers...

I hate to get all obvious-in-hindsight, but Steve explained everything in perfectly clear terms in his keynote: no 3GHz G5s, no G5 laptops, no more PPC. End of conspiracy.