And what kind of a geek would I be if I didn't take note of yesterday's blockbuster announcement from Apple that they'll be switching the Macintosh line to Intel processors over the next few years? I'm surprised that I wasn't able to hear the screams of pain and anguish from Mac zealots everywhere; I'm sure that the revelation gave some of my more Mac-centric colleagues from Hamburg who are attending this week's WWDC more than they bargained for.
I'm sure that Apple can do it; after all, they've pulled off two major transitions before, when they switched from using Motorola 68K processors to the PowerPC family, and when they pulled everyone from using 'Classic' into OS X. And I'm sure that they'll be able to foist off the blame for any delays in the transition process onto third-party developers, just like last time [Mac Zealot: "But Steve showed a demo of Photoshop running on OS X two years ago!!!1!!1!!!! Why hasn't Adobe released OS X versions of all of their apps yet???? Steve said that porting would be easy!!!!!!!1!!! I'll bet that those greedy Adobe bastards are holding out so that everyone will switch to Windows because now Adobe hates the Mac -- and after all Steve did to help them get started back in 1985!!!!!!!" Hint for the zealots: It was a demo, folks. Demos are not reality -- and a lot of what might be said during a demo is not necessarily true.]
We'll have to see how the market reacts while things solidify, though. I probably should have sold that Apple stock a while back ...
For a Mac developer, the upside is that the switch might finally put a knife through the heart of Metrowerks Codewarrior, the most excreable excuse for a development environment that's ever overstayed its welcome on any platform. My heart is gladdened to see "This product is temporarily unavailable" appearing underneath the CW for Mac link on Metrowerks' desktop products page. (Yes, we still use CW. Yes, the PPC-to-Intel transition is only supposed to be a painless switcharoo if you're using Apple's XCode instead. Good thing that we pay hardcore Mac people to worry full time about making that switch!)
[And the disclaimer: Any opinions on the computer industry, other software publishers, or platform zealots that appear in this blog are solely my own and are not those of my employer.]
Posted by Kevin at June 7, 2005 12:33 PM