Apple to be Intel's "Show Pony?"

Rhonda Ascierto of the Computer Business Review reports about the newfound lovefest between Apple and Intel in the article, "Apple may be Intel show pony." Ascierto quotes IDC analyst Roger Kay: "Apple could be become the showcase for Intel's technology." I think Kay is on to something.

Apple already has practically cornered the digital music market by "getting it right." But another frontier is on the horizon: digital video...and no one has gotten it right yet either. If Apple - powered by Intel technology - were do for digital video what it has done for digital music, a new giant in the entertainment business could be born.

Now Steve Jobs has said more than once that watching video on the tiny screen of an iPod is not the experience people want. But what if Apple produced a device that's as small as an iPod with the capability of a consumer "digital hub?" Want to listen to music? Use the device as a stand alone player or feed it through your home stereo system. Want to watch the latest release of a new movie? Just hook the device up to your home TV system. If you're on the go, just watch the movie on the built-in screen or project it on the wall. A true portable digital device for all occasions!

Intel technology is closer to making this happen than IBM or Motorola and Apple saw the writing on the wall. If you think about it, it's amazing it took Apple this long to make the switch. In 1998 I talked about the promising future of the PowerPC chip in the article, "The Second Coming the of Macintosh." There's some great technology in the PowerPC chipset, but when it comes to portability and power consumption, Intel has leaped ahead big time.

The bottom line is Apple had little choice to do what it did. It will be exciting to see what the most innovative computer and software maker in the world will do with this opportunity in years to come. There will be bumps along this conversion, but with Apple encouraging developers to produce both PowerPC and Intel versions of their apps for the foreseeable future, there should be little compatibility concerns for current and future Mac users.

Tim Yarbrough
MacDoor Editor