Apple to move Mac to Intel

[ktinkel]

According to a June 3 report on C|Net, Apple is “to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips,” beginning in mid-2006 (Mac Mini) and continuing through mid-2007 with the high-end Mac models.

Steve Jobs is expected to make the announcement at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, which opens in S.F. on Monday. If he does so, it will confirm rumors that have been around for a couple of weeks.

As a Mac user, the whole notion of another major shift leaves me feeling weary. All I have is questions. I have to assume that such a change would force major rewrites to optimize apps for the new platform.

For the design community, what about workflow? What about established practices for passing files across platforms and on to prepress and printing systems? Oy.

Would it mean that Macs could then run any OS: Mac, Unix, Linux, and Windows? Then why would application developers bother with any of those except the dominant one?

Anyway, interesting, if not entirely pleasant news. Too bad it wasn’t dated April 1 instead of June 3 …