The Electric

This might be one of the few times that a Windows guy like me can look at a Mac and just thank goodness I didn’t buy one

Long the secret envy of Windows folks like myself for their ease in producing professional quality multimedia as well as ‘just working’, I’ve always looked at the Mac with bitterness.

First there is the smugness of Apple and then there are their business practices that are worse than those at Microsoft.

So on the eve of Apple shanking of yet another business partner, in this case IBM, as they move to Intel chips, Mac users now must face the fact the Apple took their eye off the ball and you as their customers are about to pay.

Because while they were busy selling iPods and ripping off shareware ideas for Tiger, Intel along with AMD and Microsoft cracked the 64bit dual processor nut.

These chips are basically two very fast (by about twice the speed) computers in one. Already Industrial Light and Magic switched to these chips running a beta version of Windows XP64 to crunch effects for War of the Worlds and Episode 3. Now that power is available to Windows folks at the end of this month in a new computer with all the bells and whistles for about $2000.

Now here’s the rub for Apple folks:

Apple has 0 experience with 64 bit OS development and the current OS is based on 32 bit open source. So unless Apple does what Microsoft did and sell both 32 and 64 bit versions of the OS, you’re going to see a new Mac OS that won’t work for your Mac. BTW Microsoft has had 3 years of 64 bit development

Here’s the other kicker. The intel chips stink, bad, their just a notch above their current high end 32 bit chips. Their so bad that their major competitor, AMD (who’s chips ILM used) doubled the price on their 64bit dual core.

So when Steve gives you a peak into the Mac future, remember to start saving now.