The slow redemption of Intel Mac

Apple invited everybody to Macworld Conference & Expo for the early launch of its first Intel-based Macs. Reporters, analysts, bloggers, technologists, and show attendees filled the keynote ballroom.

Oddly, developers weren’t on the invite list. Apple rolled out Intel-based Macs to a consumer-dominated crowd. People who will buy iMacs just to play DVDs and the commercial Mac developers responsible for the Mac’s success learned at the same moment that iMac would ship six months early.

Apple’s decision to rush iMac and MacBook Pro to market did not create an emergency for ISVs. Apple advised them to have their goods ready in July (the 20-million-or-so-strong Mac installed base wasn’t going anywhere and still had money to spend), so they stayed on target for July or sometime in the second half of the year.

That explains, in part, why Intel Macs landed in January and February with a half-page catalog of Universal Binary (running native on both PowerPC and Intel) applications. Apple’s own developers bloodied themselves to deliver a Universal version of Apple’s platform-defining Final Cut Studio just three and a half months after iMac’s release. This also explains why early adopters of Intel Macs are running the bulk of their applications on Rosetta, which translates PowerPC code to Intel code at run time, with far less speed and far more resource overhead than on PowerBook G4.

And this explains why I’ve waited until now to review systems that shipped three and four months ago. The formula of a fabulous platform with a dearth of native apps is a familiar one, and I’ve learned to let it play out before dispensing buying advice.

A series of events quickly raised iMac and MacBook Pro to commercial relevance and led to my decision to tone down my Rosetta rhetoric (I strongly dislike Rosetta and the need for it) and pull the trigger on this review.

First, Apple released Logic Pro 7, the digital audio workstation component of Apple’s market-leading Pro Apps for creative professionals, as a Universal Binary. Logic Pro takes everything a PowerPC can dish out, so the fact that it ported and ran well on Intel impressed me.

Shortly thereafter, Intel made its OS X C++ and Fortran compilers, along with Performance Primitives and math kernel libraries, available through an open public beta program. Intel’s tools separate the commercial coders from the journeymen in Windows and Linux, and they’ll do likewise in OS X.

Next came a flurry of applications: In late March, Apple delivered a Universal Binary of Final Cut Studio, the HD video, film, sound, graphics, and DVD suite that is the cornerstone of its Pro Apps. In early April came Boot Camp, Apple’s surprise dual-boot solution for Windows compatibility. And most recently, the Mac's Remote Desktop 3 network management console shipped with Universal support and tons of essential new features.

It took Apple until April to do what it should have done first: Prove to developers and users that the most demanding of existing Mac apps can be ported to Intel, given the right tools (which exist only now). Developers will be energized by this, and we’ll see a second launch of Intel Mac, this one sponsored by ISVs, in the second half of 2006.

So consider January a dress rehearsal. Now that the Mac ecosystem is reseeding on the Intel side of the fence, and Boot Camp can fluff out the Mac app catalog better than Rosetta, the Intel Mac relaunch is well worth attending. And it wouldn’t hurt if you planned to get there a little early.