@mrlinux
No - they would change if it benefitted the user. They are brave enough to make changes that put them out of step with other manufacturers and to lead and innovate.
They have changed their processors twice in the Mac range.
1. 68000 series
2. PowerPC Series
3. Intel x86
When they transitioned from 68000 to PowerPC they also changed the OS from using Pascal style function calls to C style function calls, and did this in stages. They made both of these changes transparent to the user - and even managed to make them fairly transparent to the software. If you realise that this means every API call in every application was suddenly passing all it's parameters backwards to any updated API function, and this worked seamlessly, you will realise that they are very good at transitions.
If you also realise that every OS up until 10.6 has been compatible with the PowerPC series of processors which use a completely different instruction set, and this means many, many years of supporting the old processors.
OS X 10.6 takes advantage of the newer processors and therefore providing compatibility for it is probably not a good idea. 10 years life is fair enough for legacy hardware.
And if you realise that during this time they transitioned from Mac OS to Unix, and provided compatibility for the old OS under Unix, and even a legacy code development path to allow slow transitions of the code base to the new OS for developers who did not have the resources to shift their code (Such as poor little Adobe).
If you also realise that OS X 10.5 introduced 64-bit computing silently and in a single version of the OS (i.e. you do not buy a special 64-bit pack) and this introduced no incompatibility for the user.
If you also realise that 10.6 shifts the kernel to 64-bit, but is switchable between 32 and 64 bit so that developers have time to port drivers to 64 bit without locking the user out or making them decide which version to buy. Comparing that with Windows where you choose to buy 64-bit in the hope your drivers will work, and if you choose 32-bit your apps will run in 32-bit as well.
So Apple has been quite good with their 2 processor changes - keep the user up with the latest with minimal interruption and 10 year legacy support, and give the user new OSes with legacy support at the same time.
What Apple does do is not put full size Monitor ports on their computers - but then what should they put? VGA? that's being phased out? DVI - well many people still use VGA!!! HDMI - well that's probably the future but not many PC monitors use it yet!!!
So Apple puts something small, robust and capable of accepting adaptors for VGA, DVI or HDMI - and this requires the user to buy an adaptor at extra cost.
When it comes to headphone sockets, Apple chose 3.5mm, they could have used 2.5mm like many other mobile devices, or they could have used a proprietary connector like Sony-Ericsson. Instead they chose 3.5mm which was a wise choice - based probably on the device's development path as a music player.
I cannot see Apple changing from this unless it means a benefit to the user - and one which would probably get howls of 'insane' by many on these blogs.
Remember when Apple dropped 3.5" floppies? (which they invented) Many, many calls of 'Steve jobs is a lunatic, everyone needs 3.5" floppies'
Where are 3.5" floppies now?
So it is unlikely that Apple will drop 3.5mm miniplugs with the expectation that the replacement will require an adaptor. They will do this only because they expect their new choice to be the future. And they are most often right. And they will incite screams of protest from the short sighted.
@JM1981
Yes - PPCs were excellent processors.
I miss them.
What happened is that the innovation stopped due to lack of money from the partners in the project, also the cost was kept too high.
But the irony of those days when Macs and IBM servers were using the same processor - and the IBM desktops were using the inferior Intel chips.
When IBM PCs were Wintel and not IBM. So an 'IBM compatible' even from IBM was in fact not IBM compatible at all.
The high end of IBM servers was 'Power' - the smaller servers and the workstations were 'PowerPC' and the lowly desktops were Pentium. So I was using the same processrs as IBM Workstations and Servers - seems a wise choice doesn't it?
PowerPC macs still outperform many newer PCs running Windows for most tasks. They are certainly more responsive even with OS X 10.4 as long as they have more than 256MB of RAM.
So yes a fine processor - wish IBM had kept up their work on it and had kept the price affordable - unfortunately Intel got ahead of them.
As for his point: flipping between AMD and Intel is not changing the instruction set completely.
Intel and AMD processors will run 90% of the same code.
The 68000 and the PowerPC require completely different code, nothing is the same.
The PowerPC and the Intel x86 instruction sets also are different completely.
So to transition from Intel to AMD is in many cases no change at all.
To transition between Apple's Mac processor choices meant changing everything. The amazing thing is how little the user has had to worry about it.
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