[Alantis]

Would you rather buy the last PowerPC Mac or the first Intel Mac?

etc.. Are you unshore about software for powerpc mac and how long it will
last?
Explain your answer in 500 words or less.????

Alantis
Base

[Link]

That depends entirely on what the intel macs are like.

Openfirmware, firewire still on them, apple boards.. I might consider an intel one.. even if it's not as good as a nice g4 machine..

BIOS, stock intel boards.. forget it.

[Randman]

I'd prefer a rev b Mactel. Let them work out any bugs.

[crooner]

Randman said it. Good luck to the many who will tread the bleeding edge buying a rev. A Mactel. Me? I've spent enough time on the edge and that’s why I bought my dual 2.7GHz G5 now. This monster will last me until all the bugs are out of the Mactels.
Remember, this is a MAJOR transition. Bigger than the one from 68K to PowerPC. There will be a lot of adjusting and growing pains that I, for one, don't feel like dealing with out of the gate.

Don’t get me wrong... I'm not a Mactel naysayer. I think this was the right move for Apple and will pay off in the short term as well as the long.
The way I see it, this isn’t a two or three or five year plan on Jobs' part to just get faster, cooler and more scalable processors into the Mac. And it’s more than adopting DRM technology that will open the doors for an Apple movie store. It *is* all these things but more so, in the grand scheme, I truly believe that this is a ten to twenty year plan on the part of Steve-o to obliterate Gates.
He wants the history books to read that Steve Jobs was the father of modern computing. He doesn't want Gates' name in on the page and this is his first step in trying to make this a reality.
Can he do it? I don’t know. It’s gonna be a tough road to hoe. But if anyone can, it's Jobs. One way or another, we as Mac faithful have an interesting time ahead.

[Link]

I don't buy into the "Rev B" theory, sometimes it's true, and just as often it's not:

*My Bro's iMac G4 was a "Rev A" and that's the single most reliable mac I've ever managed. To this day it hasn't had a single problem
*The QS only had 2 revs, mine had a bunch of problems but none of them were related to it being a "rev a"
*My mom's G5 was a rev C technically, and it has a huge SMU problem that affects that whole revision of powermac.

The only one that "proves" that is the powerbook I have, nice solid machine too

[Leonard]

None of the above - since I have a Power Mac G5 DP2.5 and I upgrade about every 3 years, but performance increases are slowing down, I'll probably wait and see how the first generation of Intel Macs do and maybe pick up the 2nd or 3rd generation Intel Power Mac.

[Salty]

I'll be buying a low end powermac in a few months, likely a Dual 2 unless they come out with something faster and a 20 inch Cinema. At which point I will wait till I can buy a PowerBook after at least a year of Intel in em, to update my PowerBook which at that point will prolly be pretty old, and then a few years after that I'll probably get a PowerMac to replace the PowerMac I'm buying. Of course this is assuming I can afford anything after the initial Power Mac and display .
But I'd rather be on the end of the PPC range than at the front of the x86 range. Not because I have some deep hatred of Intel or anything like that. Simply because I want to give them a chance to see how things go. And I know that a lot of Mac apps are highly optomoized for Altivec and what not already. So give it a few years and we'll be seeing apps optomized for x86, that's likely when I'll start thinking of a new machine. But really, right now I just want to have a laptop and desktop setup that looks awesome together and will allow me to make anyone who sees it druel and want a Mac deep in their soul

[leperkuhn]

i was consering buying a g5 tower, but i'm holding off now for an intel box. i've been saying this needs to happen for years.

why? I want to dual boot w/ windows. (i'm a web developer, need to see how things look in IE). even better will be a windows emulator for intel mac.

[budster101]

By the time they come out with the PowerBook version, I'll be ready to buy a Rev. A. just like the one I own now. No problems. Knock on wood.

Looking forward to it.

[G5man]

I would rather buy a rev B intel PowerBook to garantee no problems in rev A

[budster101]

I'm more adventurous than you are.

[Todd Madson]

I already put paid to a new G5 so that's my answer.

[Maflynn]

One word for you - Revision A, especially one that has such a sweeping change. There's no way I want to be on the bleeding edge.

too many variables and issues that can crop up in a design, that I feel waiting would be the prudent action.

Mike

[jtice]

I just bought a G5 Dual 2.0. My G4 is almost 4 years old and way past due for a clean reinstall and a thorough clean up. When I do that it takes a lot of hours over a couple of months to get everything just as I want it and I couldn't see any point in putting all that effort into an older machine. So I ordered the lower end G5, which is a way better machine for relatively modest outlay. It may be two years before we see the Mactels shipping and it may be three or more before I'm ready to take the leap. It fits my 3-4 year upgrade cycle and I needed a good machine in the meantime, so it made sense to me.

[Eriamjh]

Rev A and Rev B design and manufacturing issues aside, I'm more inclined to try to span the switch by not buying any model that bridges that transition. I'd get a G5 now and use it as long as possible. I'd avoid buying a new Intel model as it may not be well implemented (like the first Powerbook G3, Kanga, that had support dropped so fast you could hear it hit the ground).

The first G3 didn't have good Firewire support. The first G4 was a kludge (Yikes!) of the G3. The first Powerbook G4 was Pismo-like with a "just" new case and a G4 chip (same video chip, not much a performance boost). The Quicksilver G4s seem to have the longest life so far (what with faster upgrades STILL coming out and AGP2-4X).

Of course, there is no way to know what will happen. It seems that in the PC world, nothing EVER changes. Most mobo's still come with serial and parallel ports even though very few things still use them (except automotive development systems and programmers). But in the Mac world, stuff changes fairly fast and when Apple drops something, it drops it hard (ADB, Floppies, SCSI ports, etc.).

Otherwise, the old rule stands: by the computer when you need it.

Don't catch "upgrade-itis" it can be harmful to your wallet and leave you financially disfigured.

[SirCastor]

I'm shooting for a second-revision Powerbook after the intel chips come. I consider myself fortunate to have purchased a G4 AGP, which I've found to be very upgradable. I'm stocking it up and asking it to pull me through the next few years.

[Tarcat]

Anyone have any idea when these macs will be coming out? my 5 year old G4 is dying slowly. more problems everyday. i'd like an intel mac, but i can't hold out indefinitly.

[Lateralus]

Doesn't look like the Intel Power Macs are going to hit until sometime in 2007, possibly later.

And chalk up another vote for a final PowerPC Power Mac.

[osxisfun]

2006. (late)

[SirCastor]

Originally Posted by Tarcat

Anyone have any idea when these macs will be coming out? my 5 year old G4 is dying slowly. more problems everyday. i'd like an intel mac, but i can't hold out indefinitly.

Mine's that old, but I'm gonna ride it through the transition rather than buy a new machine. As I've noted elsewhere, I think my next is going to be a 2nd rev Intel PowerBook, which I expect about late 2008.

[Alantis]

what about software for powerpc? how long will it last ???? are u unshore about it?

[SirCastor]

I expect that most companies will take advantage of the dual-compiling option presented in the Developer tools. There's no reason really not to. That being the case, we'll have PPC software for another 5 or 10 years. Some developers may choose not to compile PPC when we get further along for things such as speed, but We should be in pretty good shape for a while.

[homgran]

Originally Posted by Alantis

Explain your answer in 500 words or less.

What are you, an English teacher?

All joking aside, I would be more inclined to buy the final G5-powered Mac instead of a rev-A Intel for the following reasons:

1) It will be a thoroughly tried and tested system which [in theory] should be as reliable as you're going to get. No kinks in the hardware, no hassle.

2) It'll be the most powerful PPC Mac ever built. Ever. And this means you'll never have that "if only I'd waited a few months more" feeling we all get when the next revision comes out... because there won't be a next revision.


-Matt

[SirCastor]

Originally Posted by homgran

2) It'll be the most powerful PPC Mac ever built. Ever. And this means you'll never have that "if only I'd waited a few months more" feeling we all get when the next revision comes out... because there won't be a next revision.

I'm not sure I agree. I can't help but approach human nature and wonder if they're saying "C'mon guys. Let's just get this one out the door. Sooner this is done, the sooner we can all start focusing on the good stuff."

On the other hand, they may be the other school, and say "This is our last chance to make the best machine in the world, before we have to switch."

Either way, you're right about not having to worry about waiting a few months more for a better PPC machine.