I got it wrong -- it really is an x86 Mac that Jobs is announcing

Tags: Apple, Intel, IBM, Marketing

OK, it appears I got it wrong. But given all the speculation of the last few days, it is nice to know the actual facts. Here is what Steve Jobs is announcing today:

• Apple is migrating away from Power PC processors to Intel. Jobs just got fed up with the slow upgrade cycle and IBM's inability to deliver high-performance, reasonable power consumption procesors.


• The first Intel-powered Macs will be in June 2006. The first ones come out next year, and they plan to have the whole product line converted by June 2007. That gives developers a lot of time to change over, especially since it is mostly just a recompile. But there's an open question of how Steve avoids the Osborne effect of this changeover killing existing product lines.


• Emulation gets Apple over the transition hump. Just as with the transition to PowerPC, Apple will use an emulator called Rosetta to keep old apps working on the new architecture.

More after we've had a chance to hear all the details.