Follow up on my last post about Apple switching to Intel chips

One of the readers of this blog commented about the rumored switch like this

" I think they will come out with a tablet PC using Intel XScale chips. It would be bad if they make an announcement that they are switching to Intel platform coz' then nobody would buy anything untill they actually come out with something. If they do come out with a machine right away then they won't have any programs that run on it. But, for a tablet PC you don't need that many programs, not like people are going to use it for Adobe Photoshop. So, they can start selling this and indicating to the developers that they start porting their applications to x86, leading to a smooth transition... But well, all this is just a guess."

I'm more inclined to think Apple will be moving their mobile products like an "iTablet" or a "PowerTablet" to an Intel Platform. Even if they do an announcement, I dont think its going to happen until next year or even later. The main problem Apple has is that the PowerPC processor is just not suitable for those kinds of devices because of the heat the processors generate, and IBM does'nt have the business incentive to make that happen given the low volumes of computers, Apple ships.

Having said that, the situation might change by next year. Both Sony and Microsoft are coming out with new consoles. The Playstation 3 has the new Cell processor developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba. The XBox 360 has the a new processor developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft. Both of the these processors are based on PowerPC technology. So there is a chance that the Apple will announce that it will be building new Macs on the Cell to take advantage of low-power consumption of the Cell processor. These consoles are definitely going to sell and give IBM the sufficient volumes to make the necessary enhancements to the processors that Apple needs.

In any case, I think Apple is in a much stronger position now with its OS than it was 10 years ago when it switched from 680x0 processors to the the PowerPC processors. Given the BSD core of the Mac it should'nt be too hard to move to any processor. I read somewhere that original OS on which the Mac OS X is based is the NeXT operating system which was originally running on an Intel platform when it was acquired by Apple. And internally they have versions of the OS X on an Intel machine.

The Apple WWDC will be happening soon, and hopefully everything will be cleared up soon.