No, not me.
I was about to write about how the reactions to Apple’s switching to Intel are deeply irrational and emotional. If you don’t program in assembler, who cares what chip it is?
And yet, even to a non-Mac person like me, the PowerPC chip always had a strange allure… something vague about elegance of design, lots of registers, something stylish, cool even.
But at Ars Technica, John Siracusa has written something way better that what I was coming up with it, a deeply honest article about his feelings for the PowerPC.
Oh, I fully realize the market realities that conspire to make all of this x86 effort worthwhile, but this is about emotion, not reason. And if I didn’t give significant weight to my feelings when it comes to my platform choice, would I really have been a Mac user for the past 21 years?
And so I’ll tell you what I think: Macs look cool, that’s it. The GUI is identifical to Windows XP, but better looking. The PowerPC was a great sell – it’s just a chip, but people cared. Breaking up is hard to do. Move on.
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Aside from the tech details – how much hassle is it going to be to deal with two processor architectures at the same time and how fast will the emulation be – here’s a question: What part of Apple’s market share comes from the fact that Macs are perceived as different/alternative? How much of that perception will disappear with Macs running (more) mainstream chips? How much will this hurt sales?
Personally I think the “alternative” perception of the Mac has little to do with the PowerPC vs. x86 factor and more to do with the prepackaged hardware, different OS system (I am not a Mac user, but I have to disagree with your WinXP = OSX statement). I think the “alternative” nature of the Mac also has to do a lot with self-sustaining feedback: a lot of cool PEOPLE use Macs. “Brian Eno is a Mac user” is a way more powerful statement to a young musician than “Macs use Processor X”.
In theory (but probably not in practice) Apple using Intel processors would allow a Mac to run Windows (without an emulator) and a PC to run Mac OS. This raises the question: would a Mac user prefer Apple-designed hardware with Windows or a beige box running OSX?
For a long time Apple’s USP was its OS, but it has proved easier to imitate than the design aesthetic that began with the iMac. PCs are still bland or ugly. Of course, as computers get smaller (the latest iMac has no base unit) there will be less hardware to design, but that hasn’t stopped the iPod’s look trumping its competitors.
I don’t see Intel chips making any difference to perceptions of Mac cool, but the dual developments route will obviously be a problem for developers in the short term.