Rosetta, baby!
Ideally, IBM would have met the challenge and the secret double life of Apple would've been moot. They didn't. Apple has to move forward.
Certainly this is not ideal, but with every upgrade in power that Intel enjoys (and the world starts using) the further and further Apple lags behind due to IBM's inability to get it's act together. Apple has waited (very patiently, I might add) for IBM to produce the types of chips that would compete with Intel for 5 long years. IBM just hasn't been able to. Apple has no other choice but to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to bring the Apple computer a better end product.
"Rosetta" sounds wonderful and will help the transition immensly... this way, users won't have to worry about their existing software working. Will it be as good as software compiled specifically for the new IntelMacs? No. But it'll be running on faster Macs using the new chip so, I believe that performance will still be as good as people are experiencing now on current Macs and will only be better once they've upgraded to software written specifically for the new chip.
Jobs also discussed a new technology called Rosetta, that he described as "a dynamic binary translator." "It runs existing PowerPC applications on the Intel platform", he said. Jobs described Rosetta as lightweight, and said "its nothing like Classic." - Macworld.com
I'll stop here for a second to clarify something that I didn't understand when I first read this on macworld.com. Since then, I've seen the Keynote and know what Steve was really saying here. Number #1, Steve's description of "Lightweight" is in the context of not being CODE-INTENSIVE or something that has to be started up like Classic, currently. I thought at first that it meant that it "lightweight" as in "not as good." This just isn't the case...
It works in the background and is something that the end-user is not even aware of. It's not bloated from a RAM standpoint: it's "lightweight". Classic is a bit cumbersome at times. It's RAM-intensive.
Jobs demonstrated Rosetta by running Microsoft Office applications, Quicken and Photoshop CS 2 all unmodified PowerPC-binary versions, unlike Mathematica on the new Intel-based hardware.
So that is Rosetta, Jobs concluded. These PowerPC apps just run. And thats what were going to have for our users, because every app isnt going to be there for our users on day one. - Macworld.com
I saw the Keynote. The PowerPC apps ran great. I don't really forsee some huge deal. In most cases, for those companies creating their apps already with Xcode, this is going to be a breeze.
What I don't like is how (1) this will affect Mac sales. Obviously people "in the know" will wait. I know I am now, unless I come across and extremely good deal. (2) "Think Different" is going to be used by ******s as a punchline for all types of "we-told-you-so" people. (3) Stock... how will this affect Apple with the leary folks. Hopefully, people wll just behind Apple and say "well, they've got to do something." It's obvious that Apple is superior in Hardware design and Software design. Now with an even playing field with processors, there's no telling what Apple might do.
What I love (completely) is that OS X Leopard will be out about the same time as MS Longhorn. Tiger's great (some bugs, but great) -- but what will Leopard be like? Talk about throwing an even bigger monkey wrench into Microsoft's plans.
All in all, I am glad. We need faster PowerBooks and Towers. This will only help the Mac Community.
Lastly, this isn't a "Move to the Dark Side". Macs will be very difficult for all but the most sauvy to every run Windows on. And Mac can make damn sure that its OS won't be able to run on anything other than a Mac. Those that are trying to drum up some sort of "Jobs is the Anti-Christ" can just stop it right now. The rest of us are not buying it. I've never seen "Newbie" more on this Forum than in the last few days. Stop trying to cause trouble and go peddle your Troll Stew somewhere else.
