SAN FRANCISCO -- The news that Apple Computer is switching to Intel has not been met with wailing and gnashing of teeth, as many had predicted, nor did any Mac fans throw themselves in front of a trolley car.
The unlikely announcement of Apple's new choice of chip supplier, which is the tech equivalent of Kerry endorsing Bush, was greeted with measured optimism, a couple of concerns and a lot of unanswered questions.
For the most part, developers here at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference 2005 appeared willing to give Apple and CEO Steve Jobs the benefit of the doubt. Some of this goodwill stems from the company's track record with previous transitions, first from 680x0 processors to PowerPC chips, and then from Mac OS 9 to OS X.
Mike Matas, president of Delicious Library, said he was utterly unconcerned by the switch to Intel chips.
"If it's fast and it fits in my laptop, that's good for me," he said.
Matas said he was also intrigued by the idea of running Windows on a Mac laptop, though there's been no indication from Apple that would be possible. Nor was there any hint that current Intel-based computers would run forthcoming versions of OS X.
Jim Wintermyre, a developer from Universal Audio in Santa Cruz, California, said Apple is doing the right thing by moving away from IBM.
"It just seemed like (Apple wasn't) going to get where they wanted -- laptops with G5 chips -- or the speed they wanted, with PowerPC chips," he said.
For others, the optimism was tempered by the reality that it's far too early to tell if Apple will successfully pull off the transition.
"I suppose it depends on some of the details," said Ian Caven, a developer with Lowry Digital Images. "It would be a good thing if it does the things it says, (like) increasing the performance."
During his speech, Jobs told the crowd of several thousand programmers that translating software from one platform to another would be quick and simple for those employing Apple's XCode, a programming environment.
To demonstrate, Jobs said he contacted Wolfram Research last Wednesday evening. Wolfram -- the publisher of a gigantic and fiendishly complex math environment called Mathematica -- flew out a single engineer the following day with code for a future version of the software. "This is not a little toy app -- it's a beast," said Wolfram co-founder Theo Gray, who joined Jobs onstage. "But not to worry -- (he) put a little tick in this checkbox (in Apple's XCode programming tool) ... and two hours later, he had a copy of Mathematica running. Two hours."
Gray said the transition -- in which only 20 lines of programming code had to be changed -- was far simpler than when Mathematica was translated from OS 9 to OS X. But he warned that the changeover might not be so easy for all applications. "Your mileage may vary," he said. According to Jobs, most software developed in XCode should be translated in a few days or weeks.
But Jobs also said that it was not clear how hard the process would be for those using Metrowerks, a competing programming tool.
And some developers here said they feel a little left behind.
"I was kind of disappointed to hear him dissing Metrowerks," said David Opstad, a typographic engineer at Monotype Imaging, "because Metrowerks saved Apple's bacon when Apple switched to PowerPC."
Further, Opstad said, many people still find Metrowerks easier to use than XCode, which he said is often a little too complex.
Some developers of Windows applications said the Apple-Intel partnership would likely make it easier for them to write software for the Mac.
Deanna Ricardo, a software engineer at Lexmark Research and Development Corp., said the move is advantageous for developers like her because "the architecture is not new compared to the PowerPC. We're more familiar with the Intel architecture."
Grady Haynes, a computer science student at the University of Texas, said that from what he saw of Jobs' keynote and demonstration, the switch to the Intel platform is likely to be seamless for users. And that's important, he said.
"You don't want to be forcing them, when they go to the store, to decide whether they want an Intel version or a PowerPC version," Haynes said. "That would be bad."
To ease the transition for users, many of whom have invested heavily in Mac software, Jobs showed off a new system called Rosetta, which will allow software written for PowerPC processors to run unchanged on future Intel-based Macs.
Jobs said Rosetta -- which may or may not be based on Transitive's QuickTransit emulator -- was "awesome technology" that will be "totally transparent" to users as it works. Launch any Mac software written for the PowerPC, and Rosetta translates it on the fly.
"These PowerPC apps just run," said Jobs.
But some cautioned that Rosetta shouldn't be viewed as a long-term solution.
"It sounds interesting, and looks impressive," said Lowry Digital's Caven. But "it's only a stopgap. Clearly, the future will be to port to the Intel platform by building entirely new versions of applications."
But Stefan Kanngiesser, a programmer with DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart, Germany, said he wishes Apple would stick with PowerPC chips.
"I prefer PowerPC for AltiVec (a hardware accelerator for number-intensive operations)," he said. "It works very well and is very fast. I don't think Intel will be as good for scientific operations."
