New and Noteworthy: Apple/Intel speculation round-up, Transitive?; Ground Rules for the Windows-Mac War

Apple/Intel speculation round-up Several publications are offering their perspective on speculation that Apple will announce a partnership with Intel today, during the first day of Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) in San Francisco.

Apple to use Transitive technology? An excerpt from the Transitive Web site states "Transitive expects to announce that a second computer OEM will deploy products enabled by its technology during the 1st half of 2005 and that others will deploy QuickTransit before the end of the year. Unfortunately, strict confidentiality obligations prevent us from discussing these relationships in any detail."

Transitive's technology allows code written for PowerPC processors to be run on x86 and Itanium platforms.

What's Right About the PowerPC? Writing for eWeek, David Morgenstern says "The only certain bet is that on Monday morning, CEO Steve Jobs will take the stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco and pitch developers (again) on the goodness of the company's recently released 'Tiger' version of Mac OS X. Everything else is speculation." More.

Hollywood Orders: Apple Wed Intel Wired News, meanwhile, speculates that the Apple/Intel alliance may be fueled by digital movie ambitions. Leander Kahney writes "At first, it was just too hard to believe, and I dismissed it as nonsense, but two serious news organizations are reporting it as a done deal (News.com and WSJ), and on Sunday morning a couple of things fell into place making it look a lot more plausible. I guess Apple will move to Intel, and they're relying on a fast, seamless emulator to do it." More.

A 'chesslike gambit' The New York Times calls a potential partnership between Apple and Intel "a chesslike gambit in a broader industry turf war that pits the traditional personal computer industry against an emerging world of consumer electronics focused on the digital home." More.

Some advantage, lots of risk CNET, which originally reported confirmation of plans between Intel and Apple, says the deal holds some advantage, and lots of risk. Michael Kanellos writes: "If Apple did port its OS and other applications so that the software would run on Intel chips, it opens the possibility that hackers and clone manufacturers could assemble their own Mac PCs with cheap, generic hardware and store-bought copies of Apple's software." More.

Escape from Big Blue? In his Ziff Davis blog, Matthew Rothenberg questions the reasoning behind such a dramatic shift "The question for me is what would motivate a wholesale move now. IBM is proceeding at a decent clip with its processor development (on the PowerPC, Cell and Power server fronts), and Apple is gaining at least modest market share. Apple's third-party developers have toiled for half a decade on Mac OS X for PowerPC; asking them to make another sea change for Intel-based apps seems like a tall order. And what will happen to PowerPC Mac sales over the next year-plus if the end of line is indeed looming?" More.

Why Apple Won't Embrace Intel A Forbes article doubts validity of currently circulation rumors: "Reports of Apple Computer shifting to building its computers with Intel chips, moving away from using chips made by IBM and Freescale Semiconductor, usually surface around the time Apple is close to making an important change in its system. So the latest round of speculation on Monday suggested that once again Apple is close to making the leap to the Intel camp. And though such a change is still not likely to happen, the emergence of such tales say more about Apple's unhappiness with IBM than any intention to switch to another chip maker." More.

Ground Rules for the Windows-Macintosh War David Pogue says the Mac-Windows OS war is "especially pointless, protracted, and winnerless." Pogue writes "There will always be people on each side who are every bit as rabid and un-convincible as those in any other religious war. Still, I'd like to suggest, as a starting point of civility, a few pointers for participants in the O.S. war. Consider it one man's version of, 'Can't we all just get along?' More.

Previously on MacFixIt:

• Mac OS X 10.4.1 (#12): More on freezes in full-screen mode; More problems for AFP-created files: Can't set file attributes
• Entourage 2004: Intego NetBarrier causing Attachment corruption?
• QuickTime 7.0.1 (#4): Lost sound after installing? Try launching GarageBand

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