Will You Stick with Apple, After the Switch?

caseykoons writes "While I understand the /. crowd is likely to be biased, I am curious. Has Apple's decision to switch to Intel Chips lost the company some of its old supporters? I have used Macs since I grew up, was a loyal 'Mac Evangelist' back in the '90's, but the company's decision and the recent connection to Trust Computing have had me wondering if I will stick with the old Apple from now on. What are your thoughts?"

Comments

What "recent connection to Trusted Computing?"

[mTor]

You're just repeating unsubstantiated rumors. Please, provide us with some evidence that Apple will fully implement TC.

Also, I don't know anyone who runs anything but OS X on their Macs and Apple's Schiller has stated many times that you'll be able to run Windows XP on your machine (but they won't support it) so I don't see how TC makes any difference to me. I don't care about Linux (that's why I run OS X).

Why would I switch?

[nerdsv650]

Why would I switch away form Apple? The answer lies in why I switched to Macs in the first place. Terrific integration between well designed hardware and an OS which is robust, performant, familiar (I'm a BSD user since BSD 2.8), available (mostly) in source, pretty, and most importantly, just works.

Is a substantial amount of this going to change when the CPU changes? Not likely. I've been running Darwin on a PC for some time now, just to get a feel for it and all seems well in all regards (OK, it's not yet pretty).

Will I switch? Only if Apple messes up big time. All indications are that I'll be replacing whatever hardware will need replacing with whatever Apple happens to be offering at the time I decide I need to replace.

-michael

Survey: Switch attracts 6X more than it repels

[KH2002]

Forbes.com had an article about a comprehensive consumer survey conducted by S.G. Cowen & Co. in June. 1,443 households were surveyed.

"Some pundits had speculated that Apple would lose Mac market share while it transitions from IBM's PowerPC chip to Intel's Pentium. But 16% of the responders said the decision by Steve Jobs' team to switch to Intel made them more likely to consider buying Macs. Only 2.7% said they were "less likely" to buy a Mac because of the switch."

So according to this survey (and it was a pretty big survey), the switch is 6X more likely to encourage Mac purchases than to discourage them.

Of course the civilian population reacts differently than Slashdot readers...

Yes will stick

[DVant]

I run a media production studio in Melbourne and we have a healthy mix of hardware. We Have a couple of generic Windows Boxes for day-to-day work, a debian based server, two G5 workstations and a powerbook. The reason I have always used Apple is the Hardware/Software integration and the (albeit recent: 4-years or so) quality software. Most of our visualization for film and TV work is done on the G5's without a hitch, but thats down to tight SW/HW integration and nothing more. Apple don't tend to give a toss what their customers want or like most of the time, but if you've used most big name hardware this is nothing new. Sony is a wonderful example of this too. We have far less day to day hassles with the G5's than we do with the WinXP boxes, but maybe thats just us, or that we chose bad with the hardware in the Win boxes. Either way, the intel switch will likely make little difference to us.

Re:Software...

[daviddennis]

Adobe and even Apple charged for the upgraded versions that transitioned to native MacOS X. You paid for the version of Photoshop that upgraded, and you paid for the version of Final Cut Pro that upgraded.

But you did get a lot of cool features. I don't remember too many complaints, more a mad thundering rush of credit cards escaping wallets and being taken out for a spin.

D

Re:It's all about OSX..

[HTH NE1]

There have been 5-6 processor changes in the history of Apple.

Apple: 6502, 65c02, 65c816

Macintosh: 68000, 68020, 68030, 68040

PowerMac: 601, 604, G3, G4, G5

That's two major changes in the past (three if you count the Mac OS X compatibility break between the 604 and G3). Should I have counted the processors used in the Newton and iPod? Or NeXT?

Mactel: Pentium 4

And there ends the run of the 6's/G's that harkened back to the original Apple I price of $666.66, unless Jobs gets Intel to relabel the processors for Apple for the production model.

And shouldn't such a major processor change also entail a model name change?