Mac transition to Intel processors
[a] The change was announced at the 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) by then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who said Apple would gradually stop using PowerPC microprocessors supplied by Freescale (formerly Motorola) and IBM.
[2] Apple's initial press release originally outlined that the move would begin by June 2006, with completion slated by early 2008 – the transition had proceeded faster than anticipated.
Tim Cook, then Apple's Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations, said during an earnings call that putting a G5 in a PowerBook was "the mother of all thermal challenges".
[8] In addition, there were reports that IBM officials had concerns over the profitability of a low-volume business, which caused tensions with Apple and its desires for a wide variety of PowerPC processors.
However, Dell declined when Jobs insisted that the company license the operating system for every PC it ships, regardless of whether or not the user wanted to use Mac OS.
[12] In 2001, Jobs and then Sony president Kunitake Andō reportedly had a meeting to discuss the possibility of running Apple's operating system on its Vaio computers.
[13] In 2002, it was reported that Apple had more than a dozen software engineers tasked to a project code-named "Marklar," with a mission to steadily work on maintaining X86-compatible builds of Mac OS X.
[14] It was noted in 2003 by IBM in an article published to its intranet that Apple felt a transition to Intel would present massive software changes that it wanted to avoid.
[16] News reports of an impending announcement by Apple to transition to Intel processors surfaced in early June 2005,[9] close to that year's WWDC.
[7] Meanwhile, pricing disputes with IBM, in addition to a desire by Apple to give its computer the ability to run Microsoft Windows, were reportedly factors for the switch as well.
[2][17] At the time, a research director for Ovum Ltd. called the move "risky" and "foolish", noting that Intel's innovation in processor design is overshadowed by both AMD and IBM.
[20] Apple had created the world's first consumer 64-bit desktop computer with its G5 based line-up; however, the first Intel-based Macs included only Intel Core Duo processors, which were 32-bit.
[28] Analysis of financial data suggests that the Osborne Effect did not materialize, with sales for Macs growing by 19% and 37% in the two quarters following March 2006.
[31] In the years prior to Apple's announcement of the transition, it was noted that there was a debate over the difference of endianness between Intel and non-Intel processors, as well as the merits of each CPU architecture.
[21] On January 10, Apple unveiled an Intel-based iMac,[34] as well as a 15-inch MacBook Pro laptop, which replaced the similarly sized PowerBook.
[38] On May 16, a replacement for the iBook, called MacBook, was announced, thus completing the transition of Apple's laptop line to Intel processors.
