I've been thinking about it and have come down to a few thoughts:
To begin, there's been a lot of talk about the mysterious new powermac models, 7,2 (or was it 7,3?) and 8,1. According to a few rumor sites, people on the forums at such speculate that because 8,1 is an even number, it will most definately be an imac.
That would be a welcome addition, a g5 imac could be nice, powerful, and maybe even inexpensive.
OTOH, there's the cool new PowerMac G5... and like the MDD days, perhaps the G5 1.6-2ghz models will have exhausted an entire design cycle, giving these new beasts a new logic board, and perhaps even a slightly redesigned (But not necessarily), case -- after all a LOT happens in one year and after all that time without something terribly significant (while dual 3ghz processors would be more than enough), I'm pretty sure we'll see some other things as well:
To be quick, two things that have made it into the PC industry (albeit very slowly), during this hiatus of updates are DDR2 and PCI Express. While PCI express is a bit of a jump, it's always a good thing I think, and to be frank, DDR2 in a G5 would be a necessity now that it's available, as the G5 processors will use all the bandwidth they can get their hands on.
What else to hope for? Dual layer superdrives and the new video offerings from nvidia, maybe even more case expandability, and HOPEFULLY the availability of 10krpm hard drives.
Admittedly, that's a lot to ask in a year, but the G5 was introduced to be the cutting edge, and I do hope apple continues that trend. While many have held their doubts about the dual 3ghz coming out, I still think it's a possibility even if with a delayed shipping date.
Speaking of shipping, there's also this one small thing that I believe bugs many: The fact the default configurations tend to have such um.. sketchy video cards.. a $3000 machine with a radeon 9600? It's not even an XT radeon or anything >_<
Perhaps making BTO available at physical apple stores where when you order the machine they get the machine out, add in the parts, and sell it to you, or selling the stock machines with the 'ultimate' config by default would be good. While doing an expensive stock machine might freak some people out, these are top end boxes.
Personally I don't think you'd get many complaints from say, a $3400 PowerMac G5 that comes with Radeon X800, large hard drive, dual layer DVD burner (single layer optional for less), and at least 1gb of DDR2 ram.
Then again, it's all speculation of course. Personally *I* would like to see a second drive bay brought back, though who knows.
There's my 2 cents
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