David Sudjiman

From Apple fans point of view, it could be really surprising to hear Apple’s plan to use Intel CPU for its next computer.

Now, I have something to tell you today. Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life for the past five years. There have been rumors to this effect, but this is Apple’s campus in Cupertino. Let’s zoom in on it and that building right there. We’ve had teams doing the just-in-case scenario. And our rules have been that our designs for OS X must be processor-independent and that every project must be built for both the PowerPC and Intel processors. And so today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for both PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years.

Just in case. So Mac OS X is cross-platform by design, right from the very beginning. So Mac OS X is singing on Intel processors and I’d just like to show you right now. As a matter of fact…as a mater of fact this system I’ve been using right here…Let’s go have a look. Let’s go have a look here. So we’ve been running on an Intel system all morning and let me just go, you know, do a few simple things. Baseball, you know, boom, all the normal stuff just works. Let’s go back to these Dashboard Widgets that we just brought up, there they are and, you know, we can even–let’s see here, you know–go find a calendar event here. Very simple! Let me go show you mail. There is mail right here. Safari, here is the new Widget stuff, way to find some new widgets, boom, on Apple.com. Let me show you iPhoto, loading in 4,000 photos, here we are. And let me go ahead and play you a movie. Here it is, let me get rid of this. Here is a movie trailer here. All right, enough of that. So this is Mac OS X
running on Intel processors.

I have an intention to buy a 12 inch iBook or PowerBook from Apple because my interest is to have a very mobile computer to do my activities. It is not a 14 inch laptop which I consider to big to carry or a PDA with folded keyboard that I think it would not be a good comfortable way to type. I need a real computer to be on my side. Finally, while doing the search for the appropriate laptop, googling, this 12 inch Apple laptop will be my next laptop.

The main reason is obvious, it is a 12 inch notebook. Smaller than any other notebooks on the market which only provide 14 inch minimum. This definitely will fit nicely on a smaller bag even with sleeve. The other reason is that this laptop is not an Intel laptop (nor AMD nor Cyrix nor whatever its name) nor a Microsoft Windows one. I need to give another try on a different horizon.

However, Apple laptops are not a perfect choice either. The heat problem, which Apple laptops produce, I consider very annoying. It could even damage the LCD if you trying to close the LCD screen.

On a contrary, Intel CPU has lower power per performance compared to PowerPC CPU. So it will reduce the heat. Intel CPU still remain mystery on how Apple will do the trick to make an exclusive hardware for the next Apple laptop.

For my future PowerBook, which on will it be?