The Advantages and Disadvantages of Buying a Mac Now
Since Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be switching to Intel CPU’s over the next two years, this subject has been swirling around in the back of my mind. While I still believe that the switch to Intel will not be as painless as Jobs was leading people to believe, I’m not as worried about it as I once was. I also am not as leery as I was about recommending to friends and family looking at Macs to go ahead and buy one. Here’s why.
Software for the current generations of Macs will be released for at least the next two years. After that, there will be a slow trickle off, yielding at least one to two years of additional software life to a current machine. (This will be during the era of dual-coded, i.e., Intel and PowerPC, applications.) So, at worst, if you buy a Mac now, I suspect that buying new software will not become a problem for three to four years. That’s a short life-span for most Mac users but about average for most PC users.
Really, if you’re happy with the software you’ve got and your current machine’s performance, you'll continue to use them until something forces you to upgrade. By that time, Intel compiled Apple software would more than likely be available. If software developers do the “switch” smartly, you’ll be able to "upgrade" PowerPC applications to Intel applications at the same or an only slightly increased cost from what it would normally cost you to upgrade a PPC application.
If you move now to “lock down” your PowerPC based system and software by the time the Intel move surfaces, you’ll set yourself to run for three or four years, anyway. During that time, you'll enjoy all the things that current Macs are famous for. Your Intel based friends will have to start worrying about viruses and worms, but you won’t. (Hackers aren’t going to waste their time going after a shrinking market segment. But they will go after the Intel base. I’m not seeing Jobs shout “Bring them on!”; but then he’s smarter than that, even though he didn’t finish college.)
The sad and bad part about buying a desktop Mac now is that you’ll be getting a 64 bit CPU for which a true 64 bit Apple operating system will never exist. Tiger is the closest you’ll come, and it's only got a little 46 bit functionality. Details about Apple’s next operating system, Leopard, are not available; but it’s likely to be aimed at the new Intel crowd rather than the aging PowerPC bunch. It’s conceivable that Apple might release versions of the OS that will run on both chips, and that would breath new life into older PowerPC systems (assuming they’re powerful enough to run it). But I would not count on any G4 systems being able to run Leopard. In effect, the move to Intel will take the G4 CPU down the road of the dodo. The G5 will last a little while longer; but it, too,will find itself becoming extinct and an object of passionate discussion at computer geekfests on the web and elsewhere.
Software for the current generations of Macs will be released for at least the next two years. After that, there will be a slow trickle off, yielding at least one to two years of additional software life to a current machine. (This will be during the era of dual-coded, i.e., Intel and PowerPC, applications.) So, at worst, if you buy a Mac now, I suspect that buying new software will not become a problem for three to four years. That’s a short life-span for most Mac users but about average for most PC users.
Really, if you’re happy with the software you’ve got and your current machine’s performance, you'll continue to use them until something forces you to upgrade. By that time, Intel compiled Apple software would more than likely be available. If software developers do the “switch” smartly, you’ll be able to "upgrade" PowerPC applications to Intel applications at the same or an only slightly increased cost from what it would normally cost you to upgrade a PPC application.
If you move now to “lock down” your PowerPC based system and software by the time the Intel move surfaces, you’ll set yourself to run for three or four years, anyway. During that time, you'll enjoy all the things that current Macs are famous for. Your Intel based friends will have to start worrying about viruses and worms, but you won’t. (Hackers aren’t going to waste their time going after a shrinking market segment. But they will go after the Intel base. I’m not seeing Jobs shout “Bring them on!”; but then he’s smarter than that, even though he didn’t finish college.)
The sad and bad part about buying a desktop Mac now is that you’ll be getting a 64 bit CPU for which a true 64 bit Apple operating system will never exist. Tiger is the closest you’ll come, and it's only got a little 46 bit functionality. Details about Apple’s next operating system, Leopard, are not available; but it’s likely to be aimed at the new Intel crowd rather than the aging PowerPC bunch. It’s conceivable that Apple might release versions of the OS that will run on both chips, and that would breath new life into older PowerPC systems (assuming they’re powerful enough to run it). But I would not count on any G4 systems being able to run Leopard. In effect, the move to Intel will take the G4 CPU down the road of the dodo. The G5 will last a little while longer; but it, too,will find itself becoming extinct and an object of passionate discussion at computer geekfests on the web and elsewhere.
posted by Andy Foster at
5:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home