The Internet is all abuzz over the first Intel-based Mac, the MacBook Pro, shown by Steve Jobs earlier this week at Macworld. Apple intends to transition their entire product line to Intel chips this year.

What's going to be interesting is to see what happens in the coming weeks and months as creative techie types manage to run Windows on these new Mac hardware. Apple has officially stated that they will not intentionally prevent Mac users from using Windows on their new Intel-based Macs. Already, industry insiders are probing the differences between Intel-Macs from Intel PCs and there's no shortage of folks already burning the midnight oil to figure out what it's going to take to get Windows XP to run on the new Mac hardware.

This is sure to open up some incredible design possibilities. PC makers have made strides in the past few years with boring beige boxes becoming all but extinct, but Apple's products have always had, if nothing else, a distinct aesthetic upper hand. In fact, Jonathan Ive, the design genius behind almost every piece of iconic Apple hardware (not the least of which includes the iPod), was recently named a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for his international achievement in the field of industrial design.

Maybe even more exciting is the prospect of seeing the Mac operating system, Unix-based OS X running on a commonly-available "PC" box, like the trusty eMachine, HP, or Dell or homebrew PC sitting under your desk. To be sure, this won't be simple at first, but I believe it will happen this year and I can't wait to see what shakes out when Mac and PC can be compared, dare I say it, "apples to apples."

An interesting angle some insiders see is that Apple's move to the Intel platform might turn out to be an incredibly sly manuever to dramatically expand Apple's fanbase. There's some compelling arguments that suggest that this is a strategic trojan horse that will put Macs in the hands of countless Windows-lovers hands who would've otherwise never touched one.

Labels: technology