The Switch to IntelToday, we don't think much of our Macs running on Intel processors, but the transition to Intel was announced only 11 years ago, at WWDC 2005.
Rumors had been mounting that Apple was frustrated with the PowerPC chips it had been using. At the heart of the problem was the PowerBook, as Charles Moore points out:
In November 2003, David Russell, Apple's director of product marketing for portables and wireless, told Computerworld that Apple would someday like to offer a PowerBook G5. "We certainly want to do that," he said, "But it's going to be a while. We think the G4 has a very long life in the PowerBook." The main obstacle in getting a G5 processor into a portable was the need to keep the processor cool, Russell said. "Have you looked at the inside of the G5 tower?"
In fact, the PowerMac case was radically redesigned to accommodate the G5's massive thermal needs. The tower has numerous computer-controlled fans and four separate thermal zones to keep things cool and quiet. All of...
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The Switch to Intel
