Two of the Stupidest Comments About the Apple - Intel Deal, Ever.

I was surfing the forums over at www.macdailynews.com and while browsing away I read a couple of comments responding to the MacIntel deal, one of which shows a total lack of knowledge and the other is so irritatingly incorrect it’s keeping me awake. No seriously, I read it at 23:00 and its now 2:00 in the morning, and unless I write this now, I’m not going to sleep tonight. I hope that the authors themselves, or anyone who agrees with them reads this, so that they can stop spreading total crap on forum message boards.

The first comment reads like this,
“Customers don´t want to have to buy new software and hardware every two years...”,
courtesy of a character called ‘Handsdown’. OK. So what is this meant to mean exactly, that because Apple is shifting to Intel processors we are all going to have to chuck our current hardware? Im going to help you out here: No, it doesn’t. First, lets assume that you have just bought a brand new Mac today (lucky hypothetical bugger that you are). I assume what our friend here thinks, is that because Apple’s shift to Intel will be completed by 2007, this computer will be obsolete by then and that any software coming out after that date will then require an Intel Mac, hence “every two years”. The obvious shootdown to this stupid logic would be to point out that software is going to be written in universal binaries that support both the PPC and x86 platforms for years to come. Why wouldn’t it, its a checkbox option in XCode for Gods sake. But ignoring this point for a second, did ‘Handsdown’ seriously think that overnight, software developers would drop support for 99% of their market? Most of the Macs in use in 2007 are going to be PPC, and will prbably be the majority for a long time to come. Is it likely that software developers are going refuse to sell their software to these people? Well if they do, it’s their funeral.

The second comment, and it pains me to read it again now, is in fact a response to the first comment above. The little gem reads,
“Agreed, especially now that it'll be the same chips as in a Dell. Apple will put commodity hardware in a fancy case and charge a premium for it. Wintel users will continue to scoff as they will still have to buy in to proprietary Apple hardware to run OS X. This is going nowhere”.
We have someone called ‘Macintels’ to thank for this one. I’m going to break this one down in stages to analyse the stupidity step by step.
First, yes Intel do make chips for Dell, that is correct. Does anyone care? No. Firstly, we have no confirmation on what chip the first Macs will be shipping with anyway. It may be one of Intel’s new processors which will appear in the Mac first as a showcase. It may even be specifically designed for the Mac, (allowing Intel to trash all the useless CISC relics its forced to tac onto its chips, and create something much more slick) with Dell and the Intel crowd wishing they could join the party. Secondly, its only a processor, and whatever computer it is in, its what it processes that matters (ie Dells process Windows, Macs process OSX).
The next ‘point’ is that somehow this is going to lead to Apple putting out “commodity hardware”. How is this so? I find it hard to believe that Apple is going to stop designing its own boards, but even if it does, provided the new MacIntels works like the Powerbook I’m writing this on, what do I care what’s inside? And yes this Powerbook does have a “fancy case” which I probably paid a “premium” for. But why would I mind this, because its clear for all to see that my Aluminium case with immaculate build quality and fantastic durability (it looks like the day I bought it) COST MORE to manufacture in the first place, than Dells oh so fetching black plastic (which is cracked or broken within a year of purchase). And the fact my Powerbook is so well built, etc precludes it from being commodity hardware in the first place. (I’m ignoring of course that this joker is wrong about Apple’s hardware costing more than a comparative Dell in the first place anyway).
Next, apparently us Mac users are the butt of some joke that only Windows users get. When oh when will people learn that part of the reason the Mac is so superior, is that Apple control the whole widget. Its NOT a bad thing. And quite frankly given that Apple makes the BEST hardware in the industry anyway, why am I supposed to be upset about being ‘locked in’? Even if Apple hardware ran only Windows, and OSX never existed, I would still be buying their computers for the build quality. And the fact that they make OSX just makes the whole package doubly more appealing.
Finally we hear “its all going nowhere”. Right. Hmmmm. So Apple shifting to Intel because IBM couldn’t deliver faster or cooler chips (and tried to shaft Apple for more money) is standing still is it? This deal will result in faster Macs and much better Laptops with better battery life and cooler chips, not to mention that I’d guess we will be seeing some implementation of WiMAX sooner than most in the industry. Yep, its all going nowhere. There will be the potential for droves of switchers because for the first time Windows applications will run on Macs at full speed. Thats clearly not a step forward either. I could go on, but I’m too tired, but there are many many more reasons why this is a step forward, obviously all elusive to the joker who wrote the post.

Well, thats my rant over. To be honest this is probably an over reaction. But its so annoying when ignorant people post things to try and spread FUD. Gets right up my nose. Anyway, I’m going to bed now. I’ll have a more constructive post ready to put up soon.

Comments

[Bastian]

I know the story. Thanks for the advice… truly. I’ll fix your angle in my groups’ adversaries. My guess is that any and all argument will be mute. I could offer to purchase the computers myself, but the response would be the same, sadly. They (my MIS) are stuck in, I would guess about 1997.

[g]

I wonder how difficult it is for ignorant people like "Sulis" is to understand the obvious. Previously, you could make a point that PPC is not exactly comparable to x86 just by running biased benchmarks. Now that Macs run on the same CPU architecture, it will be easy to surpass even the most powerful future Mac, simply by installing a faster Pentium or getting a much more powerful AMD processor for a fraction of the cost. Your neighbour can build a faster (speaking of hardware) machine with parts from next door’s computer shop – Dell, HP et al will beat the hell out of Mactels by introducing “new” machines every month. Apple can’t keep up with that lifecycle.

It’s not the software or the hardware; it’s the business model. Apple has chosen long ago to do it all alone. It lost the market-share war but gained a couple of loyal followers – these people wanted superiority at all levels: Software/OS, Hardware/CPU, Design, Support etc. No wonder why some feel alarmed by the current trend.

[Sulis]

Posted by Bastian: My group had plans on purchasing 8 new Macs until the announcement of the switch; now, we cannot get a single purchase (FUD!). I cannot be alone in this sad unfolding story. I’m a little worried.

Yes, this is FUD at its finest. The fact is that the present Macs are by far the best way of achieving the best OSX performance over the next 3 years. You really wouldn't want to be getting the Rev1 MacTels, Rosetta may well make your legacy apps run less than optimally, and only a moron wouldn't code for PPC compatibility with new apps in the first 2 years. I don't expect we'll see massive speed bumps in the PPC now. So buy those Macs now!

[Randy B.]

Well, my turn to rant against ignorance - right in these comments. To "g" above, please tell me how OS X will be slower when run on identical-to-Wintel-chips. Please - I really want to know. I think many would agree that Unix is a cleaner code base than Windows. I don't think speed will be an issue - and is this not why Apple made the change?

To "john", well, you've talked your way into a corner. Let's see, OS X will run on any modern box, but Apple's hardware sales won't suffer for this? Huh? Do you really believe this? (and if so, I'd like to see your financials...) Do you really think Apple will let you run OS X on just any machine? Let's see, Apple's margins are around 28% for a $2500 machine, versus selling OS X at $129. I'll take the hardware profits, thank you. While I do feel Apple will have increased profits from software I believe those will be generated from increased Apple hardware sales.
My bet is that Apple won't make the clone mistake again, and if they do decide to get out of the hardware business it will be more tightly controlled than the last time.

[g]

Jobs always wanted options. That's not only ironic but insulting too, since he never offered options to his customers, nor will he ever do.

Expect Apple selling locked x86 boxes in premium prices. And while PPC was faster in some cases or at least difficult/invalid to judge against a different CPU architecture, now Jobs will have a hard time explaining why Mactels are slower by all accounts (and more expensive) to the competition. The market share that Apple will target in the future didn't seem to care about MacOSX superiority in the first place, why should they do it now ?

Apple can't win against OEMs like Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, etc or selfmade PCs. It surely can't follow their lifecycle and can't let unauthorized people to upgrade the CPU every month. Worse, expect AMD-based computers and workstations to trash Apple's offerings pretty bad while being half the price.

[Doug Petrosky]

A couple points, first one that is more on point with your discussion. You said that Apple will continue to support the PowerPC systems for some time to come and I actually think you are correct but I'm not so trusting that I don't see a possible abandonment. Best bet is that OS X 10.5 will fully support PowerPC chips but that may be your last OS upgrade. This means you may not be able to run the newest OS on what could be as new as 3 year old hardware. Worse yet if you purchase a new system May of 06 you are looking at the possibility of being abandoned by the OS on a 2 year old system. I personally believe Apple should make a commitment to supporting at least one OS past Leopard on PowerPC.

Now even though I think Apple will fully support PowerPC for a few years, I'm less confident that other developers will bother. Sure a Cocoa application will easily compile to ether hardware but where are you going to spend time performance tuning?

You see the installed base being much larger for PowerPC for some time to come when from Apple's last numbers there are about 12.5 Million OS X users (consider this the installed base you are talking about). Apple normally ships about 4 Million systems a year. Assuming that this year will be light by about half and that most of those sales will come back to apple as pent up demand, That means in June 2006 you will have about 15 Million OS X users. June 2007 sees 21 Million users 6 million of which are running x86.

So if developers are even looking a year ahead when thinking about new software you are looking at close to a 50:50 split than a 90:10 like you suggest.

But all of that is only of minor interest. The real question is why will Apple still sell PowerPC systems by the end of 2006 and who would buy them? The transition will be over once most software is migrated and that should be by June 2006 at the latest. Now it is possible that Rosetta will still suck by then but if that's the case Apple has bigger problems. It is also the case that big software companies will still be working on their applications on into 2007 (which makes me wonder why the Intel Mac Lease for developers ends at the end of 06)?

My guess? This is all a huge ruse. Apple will be ready to fully switch before the end of 2006 and may actually have systems ready for the end of this year or start of 06. Steve can say how the conversion of applications has gone better than expected and announce new systems early. This makes the transition look like it is doing better than expected. The side benefit is that vendors went into panic mode to get software ready and users not willing to wait 1-2 years for a new system will still buy the current crop of PowerPC systems.

Someone tell me why the switch will not start sooner and be finished by the end of 2006 at the latest?

[Bastian]

I love my trusty Macs. Oh what would I do without them?… Probably crawl into a cave where there is no 802.11g and electricity, so that I could find peace from the world that forces me to use Windows. Unfortunately, FUD works. In my workplace, I’m responsible for maintaining 10 Macs in a very Windows-centric environment; this news has had my MIS in a frenzy to dump my Macs (this is really just an excuse for what this group wanted all along). I believe that this scenario will be played out over and over for the next 2 years just for this reason alone (the transition that is, not just because of supporting 2 static platforms). Believe me, I want Apple to survive and prosper over the next few years. But it will be a swim upstream like never seen.

My group had plans on purchasing 8 new Macs until the announcement of the switch; now, we cannot get a single purchase (FUD!). I cannot be alone in this sad unfolding story. I’m a little worried. I agree with the article but I’m still worried.

[john]

First, very well said, very intuitive and very true. While Mac-zealots may cringe at the idea of an Intel Mac, Mac-realists and true Apple fans are excited at the prospects of this monumental plan. Make no mistake, Apple is gunning for Microsoft and OS X will be installable on any modern x86 box. Jobs learned the "software is where the money's at" lesson the hard way and now that he has the software he's going to cash it in. IBM makes the worlds finest microprocessors (Power 5, and Blue Gene-L for example) but they have little financial interest in downsizing these expensive parts for use in desktop PC's. The Power 4 provided the PPC 970 parts and they are formidable chips. But, as Job's made everyone painfully aware, IBM just isn't putting enough emphasis on low priced derivatives of their high-end silicon because it doesn't earn them much money. By switching to x86, Apple has a choice of many parts forged in a brutally competitive market with many chips that are now eclipsing the PPC 970. The road will be rocky but the potential rewards are massive. Apple will continue to make the finest hardware and I don't believe these sales will suffer. It's OS X, iLife, iWork, Final Cut etc etc etc that will form the foundation of a new very competitive software company the likes of which none has seen since Windows 3.1.

[Simon Vargas]

BRAVO!!!

My feeling exactly, keep writing man, keep writing!

[Weili Wang]

Very well said!