Intel-Based Macs May Run Windows

Published on June 22, 2005 By Island Dog In Personal Computing

Maybe I should wait on buying a Mac.

Apple's decision to abandon IBM PowerPC chips in favor of processors from Intel raises the possibility of new, affordable Apple computers that could boot both Mac OS X and Windows.

"Apple will not do anything to prevent it," says Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director with Jupiter Research in New York. (Today, Macs can run Windows only on a sluggish x86 emulator called Virtual PC.)

Link

Comments

PurrBall

on Jun 23, 2005

But, the Mactel wont be compatible with MacBM software until its proted I thought.

JesseJ

on Jun 23, 2005

All new Mac software that comes out after the Intel-based Macs start getting made will be dual Intel/PowerPC compatible. All software packages/installers will contain binaries for both Intel and PowerPC. If you buy a Mac now, you should be able to upgrade it to Leopard in the future since Leopard discs will contain both an Intel version and a PowerPC version on the same disc and be able to use the newest Mac software. The only reason to wait for a Intel-based Mac would be if you are planning to dual-boot Windows and MacOS assuming that Microsoft includes drivers for Mac motherboards with Windows or makes an edition of Windows designed to be installed and used on Intel-based Macs. The current version of Windows XP is not quite compatible with the current development version of Intel-based Macs. I don't know how long Mac software will dual support Intel and PowerPC before phasing out PowerPC support. My guess would be five years since that is usually the number of years that companies support their legacy products before ending support.

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