From today’s San Fransisco Chronicle. This is for my Haas Mac fans and the Webmaster in Stillwater

Intel inside — so what?
Few really care — or understand — what’s inside anything
David Lazarus

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Macworld Expo came to a close at San Francisco’s Moscone Center on Friday, leaving an awestruck world to ponder the glory and the greatness of Apple Computer uniting with chipmaker Intel — a corporate tie-up that publications worldwide hailed as “historic.”

To which I say: Get over it.

It’s a computer, for goodness sake, a plastic box that does lots of really cool things. Does it matter any longer how it does them?

Who cares if the box has bits and pieces made by Intel or IBM or Samsung or any one of thousands of other electronics manufacturers?

Reality check: You pick up a phone and you get a dial tone. Do you honestly care how this happens?

Even more miraculous, you place a bag of kernels in a microwave oven and you get popcorn, without any visible heat source. Can you even begin to understand the physics of that? Do you really want to?

A computer’s no different.

I stopped by the Apple Store near Union Square on Friday. I wanted to see what others had to say about our supposed love affair with tech.

I found Kris Caberto, an 18-year-old student, fooling around with a sleek iMac computer. I asked if she cares what kind of chip the machine contains.

“Not really,” Caberto replied with a shrug. “A computer’s a computer. As long as it works, right?”

But she’s not a true Macolyte. So I put the same question to Christine Kimball, who runs a video-editing company in Utah and is a true believer in the cult of Apple.

“They’re faster and more efficient,” she said of Macs with Intel chips.

But computers are supposed to be fast and efficient, and they’re supposed to be getting faster and more efficient all the time.

Kimball thought for a moment.

“Essentially,” she said, “it’s satisfying to have Intel inside. It’s taking two things that used to be enemies and making them one.”

Mac enthusiasts are perfectly comfortable with squishy talk like this. For them, it’s not about circuits and wires. It’s about an emotional connection with the box.

“There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about Macs,” observed Harris Schwartz, who runs a San Francisco marketing firm. “That’s very important.”

And indeed, there is something inexplicably French about the Mac. It’s a cool device (but not as cool as it thinks it is).

Still, does it really matter what’s under the plastic?

“No,” answered Karen Van der Meulen, who works for biotech giant Genentech and is a confessed gadget nut. “It’s like a car. As long as it works well, and as long as it’s safe, I’m a happy camper.”

That’s what I’m saying. When it comes to tech, it’s not the how, not anymore. It’s the what.

I wandered outside the Apple Store and across the street to the Virgin Megastore. I found Brian Lowe, the administrator of a San Francisco law firm, shopping for a DVD.

I asked if he could tell me how a DVD works.

“No,” Lowe admitted. “But I don’t need to know that any more than I need to know how my computer works.”

I also found Marie Hill, a flight attendant from England, shopping for CDs. She told me she buys about a half-dozen CDs every month. Does she know how a CD works?

“Nobody’s ever told me,” Hill said.

Does it matter?

“Not as long as I can hear the music.”

Outside the store, I bumped into Officer Gary Constantine of the San Francisco Police Department. He had one of those fancy police radios clipped to the shoulder of his uniform.

Could Constantine tell me how it works?

“The mechanics of it? No,” he replied. “I just know that it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s a valuable tool of the trade. The only thing that’s important is that the battery is full.”

At the Marriott Hotel on Fourth Street, I encountered concierge Alan Weiss busily working the phone on behalf of guests. Perhaps he could tell me how a phone works.

“You pick it up and dial,” he offered helpfully.

Yes, but how does it work?

Weiss considered for a moment. “It’s a mystery of life,” he decided. “It just works.”

I finally made my way to Macworld Expo at Moscone Center. Surely there’d be people there who could make a case for why anyone should give two hoots about tech nowadays.

The first person I met upon entering was Kelly Vaughn, a slim blonde in skin-tight workout duds (who graced The Chronicle’s front page this week as part of our and other papers’ glowing coverage of Macworld Expo).

Vaughn was helping demonstrate accessories for the iPod that you can use at the gym.

I put it to her directly: Why should anyone get worked up about the prospect of Macs containing Intel chips?

“Oh, it’s a really big deal!” Vaughn exclaimed. “I mean, PCs have Intel chips. So this is important, right? It’s like the future of computing!”

A slightly more informed perspective was offered by Rio Sabadicci, a San Diego software developer who’s been test-driving an Intel-powered Mac for the past few months.

“You can’t tell the difference,” he said of the new Mac versus the old Mac.

So does it matter what’s inside the box?

“No,” Sabadicci said. “Not as long as it works.”

But that’s not to say I had trouble finding Mac Daddies (and Mamas) who were more than happy to gush about their favorite piece of hardware.

“There’s a great joy in the peace that comes with Intel joining Apple,” said Elizabeth Carney, a San Francisco nutritionist who said she’s into tech because she’s “really interested in using the Web and podcasts to help people know more about their lifestyle.”

Apple and Intel coming together is “a beacon of hope for the planet,” Carney said. She was only half-joking.

I tried to get some official comment from Apple. There were hundreds of black-shirted Apple employees prowling around Macworld Expo. But not one was authorized to speak for the company.

So I called Apple’s Cupertino headquarters on my cell phone (how does that work?) and left a voice message (!) with a spokesman to get back to me with an explanation of why anyone should care about what kind of chip a Mac has inside it.

The spokesman called me back later to say that he couldn’t address this issue and that it was probably going to be difficult to find a senior executive who could answer my question.

Even Apple, I guess, is getting over tech.

On my way out of the conference hall, I met 10-year-old Cambria Loose, who was exploring Macworld Expo with her mom because she’s got a new iPod and it’s totally cool.

I asked if she knew how her iPod works.

“It’s got all the little chips in it,” Loose said.

Right. But how does it work?

“I don’t know,” Loose said.

Then her face brightened. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “If it works, it’s fine.”

David Lazarus’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Send tips or feedback to [email protected].