The Shape of Days

Welcome, Mac Daily News readers (and others, apparently, for as of Sunday morning this article has now been widely linked; the Internet works weekends, apparently). Thanks for dropping by. While you’re here, take a minute to check out some of the other top-quality blog product that I publish each and every day. Well, most days. Whenever I feel like it, really. Also, I do accept tips. Hint, hint. [Did you just seriously ask people to hit your tip jar in the context of a story that’s generated a hundred and thirty and counting “Sned me p1r4t3d \/\/4R3Z!!1!” e-mails? —Ed.] Eh. It’s worth a shot.

Item the first:

Apple is not staffed entirely by idiots. This is self-evident, and it’s important to what follows. Keep this in mind as we proceed.

Item the second:

The Intel-based Power Macintoshes that Apple is showing at their developer conference are based on an Intel motherboard, generic Intel graphics and off-the-shelf Pentium 4 CPUs. This information has just become public in the past few hours. (Comments I made to the contrary yesterday and on Monday were erroneous. The source who fed me that information has been sent to bed without any supper, and says to tell you he’s very sorry and that it won’t happen again.)

Item the third:

It’s safe to assume, given the timeframe, that the developer transition kits that Apple will ship within a couple of weeks will be fundamentally similar to, if not outright identical to, the Power Macs on display at the conference.

Item the fourth:

The Power Macs on display at the show run a one-off build of Mac OS X 10.4.1 that incorporates the few necessary changes that were required to get the operating system running on the Intel hardware. This build includes Apple’s bundled iLife ’05 suite of applications.

Item the fifth:

Because Intel’s LaGrande security technology is not yet incorporated into any shipping products, it’s safe to assume that it’s not present in these transition-kit computers.

Item the sixth:

Given items two through five, apart from the constraints introduced by hardware-software interfaces, there is nothing at all that prevents the version of Mac OS X that runs on the developer transition machines from running on any PC with compatible components.

Item the seventh:

Because the Intel version of Mac OS X that’s being distributed to developers is a one-off build, future software patches, including all-important security patches, will not install on top of it, making it totally useless to anybody who’s not a developer of Mac software.

Item the eighth:

Given items two through seven, I estimate that we’re down to a matter of hours before Mac OS X 10.4.1 for Intel hardware is available for download on Internet software piracy sites and peer-to-peer piracy networks. (Update: A reader who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous just demonstrated to me that the software is, in fact, already available on Internet software piracy sites.)

Item the ninth:

If I can think through this stuff, Apple’s management can think through this stuff. See item one.

Item the tenth:

This is the most awe-inspiring stealth marketing move I’ve ever seen.

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Think about it. Apple releases a developers-only preview release of Mac OS X for Intel. It’s a fully functional release of the operating system, not a beta or prerelease copy. It will work reliably, and it will run the vast majority of existing Mac applications unmodified via the Rosetta translation technology. But because this is a one-off developer release, it’s of very little value to computer owners. Future software updates, like the soon-to-be-released 10.4.2 update, won’t install. Existing Mac software will run, but it will run in translation, which means it will be frustratingly slow. But according to reports, Apple’s bundled iLife applications, major selling points for the Mac operating system, are already Intel-native and run at full speed.

Given Apple’s experiences with software piracy, particularly the rampant software piracy that spread developer builds of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger all over the Internet this past spring, Apple’s management from the top down knows full well that this developer preview will be in the hands of every kid with a cable modem within days of its release. Most of them will be able to install it on their own computers and run it and the full suite of iLife ’05 applications at full speed, and run most existing Mac software in translation.

As a result, Apple will give thousands, possibly millions, of people a taste of Mac OS X running full speed on their own PCs.

Apple’s giving their potential future customers a free taste, that’s what they’re doing. It’s a try-before-you-buy deal.

It’s possible that any one of the ten items above — well, except number one — is wrong either in detail or completely. It’s possible that I’m totally off-base here. But I don’t think so. I think there’s a possibility, a very real possibility, that I’m right about this. And that thought gives me the chills. In a good way.

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