Caution, Conspiracy Theories at Work
by Mitch Stone, the Accidental Expert
It's become a personal MacWorld ritual.
On the afternoon when I push off from San Francisco to return to places less exotic, I duck into Blondie's Pizza on Powell Street for a huge slice of extra cheesy. Sprinkling on a generous dose of red pepper flakes, I spend my final few moments in the city considering the lessons of another bygone Expo.
This year, I must admit, my pizza pondering left me feeling more than a little unfulfilled. Uncle Steve's "one more thing" announcement was so widely anticipated, that even as he was showing off the new Intel-powered Macs, I had a difficult time stifling a yawn. A misquote of Ronald Reagan kept running uncontrollably through my head: "If you've seen one Mac, you've seen them all."
Trust me, you don't want that.
But in fact, that seemed to be precisely the message Apple wanted us to take away. The new iMac with an Intel processor looks exactly like its G5 sibling, and works like one, too. Nothing to see here, move along, Steve seemed to be telling us. Move along I did, barely pausing before the newly-minted Macs on the show floor.
Determined not to go away from MacWorld with the hollow feeling that only cheese pizza could fulfill, I reflected on some of the spicier rumors that didn't play out. Perennially, one of the most interesting things about MacWorld is hunting the dog that didn't bark — and more than the usual number remained muzzled this year.
My quest led me inexorably to a pair of conspiracy theories, which I have conveniently labeled numerically.
Conspiracy Theory Numero Uno: iWork
Everyone seemed to notice the off-handed way Steve announced the newest version of iWork. But who in the world knows why this release was given such short shift? Surely, Steve could have deducted a bit of the time he spent telling us something we already knew about Aperture, to telling us something we didn't know about the newest versions of Pages and Keynote.
Oh yes, I know why. Her name is Roz, and she works for that big company up north. I don't mean to pick on Roz Ho, but rehearsed as she was to within an inch of her life, she did drop the vital clue that sustains my imagined cabal: Five more years of Microsoft Office for the Mac.
Now you're probably thinking what I'm thinking, as well you should. Did Apple's rumored spreadsheet addition to iWork '06 vanish into another five years of promised Office development? Is Microsoft worried about the iWork suite becoming too sweet?
I think so. Sometimes you don't need to see the horses being traded, you can smell them. This is one of those times.
Conspiracy Theory Numero Dos: "Darwine" Goes Apple
I've always harbored a sneaking suspicion about the Intel transition which can't be backed up with a single, hard fact. But since this is the time-tested basis for all really good conspiracy theories, I feel no shame in advancing it.
As we know, Apple codeveloped an Intel version of OSX from the very start. But they kept it way off the record until Steve was ready to pull this rabbit out of his magic hat. I see another really huge bunny lurking in the wings. That rabbit is a Windows program interpreter for OSX.
Running Windows programs on x86 Linux is already possible, with the assistance of the Open Source WINE interpreter. The same problem on the Mac platform is being tackled by the all-volunteer Darwine project, the largest barrier apparently being the Mac's PowerPC guts. But as of January 10, 2006, that hurdle is no more.
For as long as Apple has been developing OSX for Intel, I find it inconceivable that Apple's engineers aren't already running Windows applications in Intel OSX. Apple is clever enough to know, if they don't offer this feature elegantly integrated into OSX, that the Open Source community will implement it their own way.
So the way I look at it, either Apple rolls this functionality into OSX, or they reserve it for another one of those stinky horse-trades with you-know-who.
Think about it. I did. With red pepper flakes on top.
16 January 2006 |
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