[alex627]

Originally Posted by Maflynn

Except He's not the only one. For years we continued to hear of the superiority PPC, be it a G3/G4/G5. Intel along with M$ was lambasted and a lot of arrogant apple users looked down on intel. I've been a user of both for years. While I have a PC for work, I've been a apple user since the SE days.

While it is is similar to the 680x0 - powerpc days, its a little different too. More and more companies are less likely to port applications. Look at adobe, they've slowly dropped support of Macs over the years. How interested will they be to rework photoshop to run on a new platform. In a ideal world it would only take a recompile but we typically don't live in an ideal world.

as for me, I am upset, the G5 was supposed to be the future yet my investment went down the hopper. I know, that whole 5 year window jazz.

To be honest, I'll be seriously considering jumping ship and going to windows when the time comes to upgrade. If I need to transition over to a new platform, one that runs OSX or one the runs windows, I'll have to see which platform is the most cost effective.

Mike

I understand that the future is in question. But this is nothing new for Apple or any other corporation that is not an industry leader. I switched to Macintosh when the company was dying in 1996-97. I had pretty much used every platform except Macintosh until I came to the realization that, while I disagreed with Apple's "closed" platform, I was using an inferior software product. Once I began using the Mac I was realized that the alternative platforms needed to be supported and saved from Microsoft monopolization.

x86 hardware has only lagged Apple hardware for short periods of time over the last 10 years and consistently betters Apple's hardware soon after the introduction of new CPUs. Apple is continuously faced with CPUs that fall behind in speed and other pieces of technology that lags the WinTel world. Apple will not be able to maintain performance parity by relying on companies that are not committed to the platform. IBM has used Apple to support PowerPC development to a point where they could dominate the game industry.

Your G5 investment will not be much different from any other Apple investment. It will be 2 years before high-end Intel based Macs ship in any quantity. Apple can ill afford to anger and lose users by dumping support for PowerPC based Macs in the forseeable future. Just wait til you see Power Macs that have similar specs and similar prices to Windows based solutions.

If you want a self-fulfilling prophecy to come true then go to Windows en masse and watch the developers dump the platform. If you want Microsoft to rule your future then switch to Windows. You will then help to guarantee the end of meaningful or creative development of consumer oriented computing devices and software.

Or you can stick with Apple and help take on Microsoft and force the issue. If it was an issue of cost effectiveness you should have switched to Windows many years ago. In fact no home computer would have ever considered a Mac. They have never been cost effective. The issue is the future. If you don't care about innovation let Microsoft win and fire Steve Jobs and hire another beginning of the end CEO.

Adobe and other developers may actually be more likely to continue development for Intel based Macs rather than developing for 2 completely different architectures. We will actually see a competition based on operating systems. Apple's to Apple's comparisons.

Now we are REALLY going to take on Microsoft. They will have no where to hide. Of course Apple will have no excuses either.

Relax. Just stick it out.

and btw Steve is Apple's only hope. Believe me. Fire Steve and watch Apple die again. It'll happen much faster than last time.

[dlefebvre]

The reason I stuck to Apple for more than 15 years is for the OS, the machine and the user experience. I could not care less on what CPU OS X runs as long as it's OS X running on an Apple box. After all Apple users have gone through over the years, this is nothing. Apple made a bold move, but it's better than going through the excruciating Motorala experience all over again with IBM.

[t500]

Yeah, the change is good. Anyone recall how long apple was stuck at 400 - 550 MHZ with Motorola? Its seemed like forever. Hey maby Apple has thier sights on the Pentinum D. Not much faster than a P4 but a multi core processor is Apples Style.

[fritzair]

Originally Posted by osxisfun

your machine will be fine for at least 5 years IMO.

Fine if all you want is a browser and old slow software.
Compare anyones G3 to a G4 now double that, and along with new technology, you'll be drooling for an Intapple.


Later,
Fritz

[ideasculptor]

Folks, I think many around here are missing part of the point. Is apple a hardware copmany or a software company? The one place where PC users could agree, no matter what their OS preference, was that apple hardware kicked serious ass and was enormously drool-worthy compared to anything else out there. That is unlikely to change. So the question isn't whether you'll be able to run OS X on a Dell, but whether you'll be able to run Windows on a MacPC. If the transitive software that will come with OS X is all it is cracked up to be, operating system choice is going to almost moot when it comes to picking software. You will be able tol run windows software on os x WITHOUT running windows in a virtual environment. Meanwhile, apple's operating system and application software is still going ot be heads and shoulders better than most of what is available for windows. PLUS, I would imagine that any windows user that cares to invest in a copy of the transitive software for themselves will be able to run OS X binaries built for x86 within windows with a minimum of performance loss. The transitive website claims the abilty to bridge hardware and OS platforms, although they don't say how they will map things like Cocoa onto windows api calls, but assuming they do (and there is ample economic justification to do so), then this move by apple really takes desktop operating system out of the picture when choosing a hardware platform. And if consumers are able to be entirely agnostic about operating system choice, it isn't hard to imagine that an awful lot of consumers will be choosing powerbooks, powermacs, and mac minis for running their software, no matter what software platform they'll be using.

While apple has been making money on their operating systems of late, trading a small amount of profit on their operating system division for a big bunch of marketshare in their hardware division seems like a good choice to me. It sucks for us PPC mac users, but it is a huge win for x86 users who'd like mac hardware and/or software. They no longer have to buy new hardware, just some new software. And software is almost always cheaper than hardware. It does put the concept of a mac mini as a 2nd computer for wintel users to bed, since it will inevitably be possible to run OS X on any x86 hardware. The open source crowd will inevitably see to that, even if apple attempts to prevent it.

This could be an opportunity, if done right, for apple to really take a piece of the wintel pie. Plenty of MS users will switch to OS X if they don't have to buy new hardware, and plenty of wintel users who need to buy new hardware will surely consider apple hardware when making their decision.

--sam

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by ideasculptor

This could be an opportunity, if done right, for apple to really take a piece of the wintel pie. Plenty of MS users will switch to OS X if they don't have to buy new hardware, and plenty of wintel users who need to buy new hardware will surely consider apple hardware when making their decision.

--sam

OS X will never, ever be available for any other hardware than Apple machines. That's straight from the horse's mouth, as that's exactly what they've stated. It also seems fairly obvious also, because historically we all know that this is the way they want it.

Besides the processor chip, there are surely numerous hardware and architecture differences between an Apple Intel machine and a Dell Intel machine for example. If somebody ever manages to make it work, they still wouldn't be able to legally sell the machine I'm sure. Macs will still be Macs, and if ya wanna run OSX, well then you've gotta purchase the Mac hardware.

[kilmanjaro]

Originally Posted by PacHead

OS X will never, ever be available for any other hardware than Apple machines. That's straight from the horse's mouth, as that's exactly what they've stated. It also seems fairly obvious also, because historically we all know that this is the way they want it.

Besides the processor chip, there are surely numerous hardware and architecture differences between an Apple Intel machine and a Dell Intel machine for example. If somebody ever manages to make it work, they still wouldn't be able to legally sell the machine I'm sure. Macs will still be Macs, and if ya wanna run OSX, well then you've gotta purchase the Mac hardware.

While this is true, I doubt that Apple will make it impossible to load Windows on a Macintel. So, you could quite possibly still only have one machine for your Windows/Mac needs.

[PacHead]

And to the person wondering about their dual 2.7 G5............

Good god, get a grip man..........

Hell, my plan is to seek out a few kneejerking, panicking, regretful G5 owners, who are desperate to dump their boxes for cheap.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by kilmanjaro

While this is true, I doubt that Apple will make it impossible to load Windows on a Macintel. So, you could quite possibly still only have one machine for your Windows/Mac needs.

Yes, that's even better news for Mac users.

Why mess with VPC if you need it, when you can just use the original without emulating ?



I think windoze blows, but hell, I wouldn't mind playing some of the cool games they have.

[aristotles]

Give me your useless macs.

Honestly, you guys really need to grow up. If you judge the value of your computers based on what others have or what is around the corner, you really have major issues and should get some professional help.

Nobody should be buying Dual 2.7 G5's to use as toys.

Professional artists would not worry about stuff like this. Damn rich kids.

You are worrying about something two years away? I have news for you, if IBM had kept to its commitments, your 2.7 G5's would be just as slow two years from now compared to newer PPC based macs.

[DrBoar]

I really do not care about what CPU I have in the box. However, I am planning to replace my 5 year old G4 tower. But what will last me 5 years again? The G5 tower now a very good computer but also a dead end. Why would Apple spend money on a new motherboard with PCIe and support for dual core CPUs? And Why would IBM sell/develop faster 970 CPUs dual core and IMC?

The interesting thing is that OS X and win XP will meet on a level playing field. If one get slower framerates in DOOM or slower video compression then you can not blame different CPUs.

[rhombus]

I'm in the same situation. I'm running a 450Mhz DP G4 bought in 2000 and was going to replace it this year. If Intel PowerMacs won't be available until late 2007, then I suppose I going to have to get a G5, which is very annoying. I was going to buy an iBook too, but certainly not now.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by PacHead

And to the person wondering about their dual 2.7 G5............
Good god, get a grip man..........
Hell, my plan is to seek out a few kneejerking, panicking, regretful G5 owners, who are desperate to dump their boxes for cheap.

While I understand the emotion, I just discovered that my PowerMac Dual 2 GHz runs as fast as it did before the keynote, and it will do tomorrow as well.

Besides that, I think OS X will continue to run a secret life the coming five years, just in case Intel does not deliver

[DrBoar]

My G4 has a 1.2GHz G4 upgrade and a ATI8500 graphics card so an minimac or iBook will not really be much of an upgrade for that I need a iMac G5. But then that ATI 9600 will soon be to slow for games and there I am really needing a Tower.

My plan is to get a Dell box to run games and some other apps that the G4 will not (Half Life 2, WW II flight sims and some technical apps) The G4 will then be used for surfing, Office and other lighter stuff that need to be kept safe.

There is a risk that I during 2 years of using XP I learn to handle the weaknesses of XP and lose interest in the next OS X computer. I really hope that Apple can shorten this hardware limbo to much less than 2 years. One or two years of minor speed bumps of the PPC line up until the Intel comes along will not good. Now the G5 tower look good but next summer a >1500 dollar tower with no PCie and no dual core CPUs will look really really bad.

[unother]

Originally Posted by :XI:

And another thing, for us end users, the processor switch will be far less of a big deal than the switch from OS9 to OSX. Aside from updating your apps again. But you probably need to do that anyway, I know I do.

I just thought! With x86 in Macs we might even see XSI for OSX!

Don't forget, with Rosetta (nee QuickTransit) even that step is obviated for most all apps. Amazingly.

I'd like to throw in my two cents for the naysayers...

I think all of the anti-Intel (PPC's gonna fail) people need to consider this:

- OS X has always been capable of being available for Intel.

- PPC had not provided proper traction for Apple in the speed wars in ages.

- Apple's sales in the professional markets were declining dramatically over the last two years due to the failure to introduce significantly faster boxes (look at quarterly sales of G5s if you don't believe it).

- The iPod has become the primary revenue driver for Apple.

...based on these facts, a transition to Intel CPUs is a sort of "now or never" proposition. Furthermore: this is not a one-way street. From now on, MacOS X will be acknowledged as multi-platform (as was its progenitor); and with that in mind, Apple has opened the door to an end-game on Intel. Once OS X is available with Intel binaries, it would be trivial to begin licensing the OS to 3rd parties for re-sale. Thus beginning the potential erosion of MS market-share.

Remember that although Apple has good margins on its hardware, nothing is higher-margin then software. Jobs killed the clones before, but that was an internal clone market which merely ate Apple's hardware lunch without growing the platform. Apple is in a position where they can finally compete on a level platform with MS, especially as regards mindshare. No better time then to unveil the weapon they've had available since 1997.

Let's not forget that Steve was quoted in 1996 that Apple should milk the Mac until it gets in on the next big thing. Online distibution of media content is that big thing. I'm sure Apple is seeking to preserve the Macintosh platform at a minimum of fuss, and provide itself with the ability to continue growing its new cash-cows: iTunes+iPod, and the future iMovie...

[sniffer]

Originally Posted by rhombus

I'm in the same situation. I'm running a 450Mhz DP G4 bought in 2000 and was going to replace it this year. If Intel PowerMacs won't be available until late 2007, then I suppose I going to have to get a G5, which is very annoying. I was going to buy an iBook too, but certainly not now.

Heh. I don't see your complaints. How many years did you plan to be stuck on a iBook? 5? iBooks feels a bit outdated after three years, and for the next couple of years – PPCs might actually be the best alternative. Or if you are really cheap, you could just upgrade your existing machine and use it a year and a half and then buy the first iBook or PM with Intel inside on the marked. The transition would be painless for you. You'd be more worried if you just bought the fastest PM on the marked OTOH (for resell value, its relatively shortened life span etc)..

Me? I invested in new hardware last year, so I don't mind wait a couple of years for my next investment. *phew* Perhaps I could consider a mini mintel next year? Oh baby.

[rhombus]

Originally Posted by sniffer

Heh. I don't see your complaints. How many years did you plan to be stuck on a iBook? 5? iBooks feels a bit outdated after three years, and for the next couple of years – PPCs might actually be the best alternative. Or if you are really cheap, you could just upgrade your existing machine and use it a year and a half and then buy the first iBook or PM with Intel inside on the marked. The transition would be painless for you. You'd be more worried if you just bought the fastest PM on the marked OTOH (for resell value, its relatively shortened life span etc)..

Me? I invested in new hardware last year, so I don't mind wait a couple of years for my next investment. *phew* Perhaps I could consider a mini mintel next year? Oh baby.

What? I was going to buy a PowerMac this year to replace my 450mhz G4 and buy my first laptop, an iBook. No, I didn't plan to use a new iBook for 5 years, but if Intel iBooks are coming in 2006, then I'd prefer to buy one then. I'll still probably buy a new PowerMac, because I'm not going to use my current one for two more years-its getting too old already let in 2007.

[wtmcgee]

Originally Posted by PacHead

And to the person wondering about their dual 2.7 G5............

Good god, get a grip man..........

Hell, my plan is to seek out a few kneejerking, panicking, regretful G5 owners, who are desperate to dump their boxes for cheap.

Ditto, I'm scouring ebay and the forums to find someone who wants to dump a newish 12" or 15" powerbook because it is now useless.

[ILikeCheese]

I just don't get Apple's decision to use an intel chip. After moving to an operating system based on FreeBSD(a very close cousin to all flavors of linux), they are now moving to "generic" hardware.
So how could any sane customer justify paying an insane price for a mac when you could just buy any generic hardware and slap Linux in it and have basically the same thing.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by ILikeCheese

I just don't get Apple's decision to use an intel chip. After moving to an operating system based on FreeBSD(a very close cousin to all flavors of linux), they are now moving to "generic" hardware.
So how could any sane customer justify paying an insane price for a mac when you could just buy any generic hardware and slap Linux in it and have basically the same thing.

Mac OS X ‡ Linux

[ILikeCheese]

Mac OS X isn't linux per se, but it is a Unix compatible operating system, just as Linux is (which most can be downloaded for free, by the way). And as with all of the different Unixes out there, each company adds it's own proprietary software to the mix, creating a different look and feel.
So, in a way, if you really think about it, Apple is trying to turn itself into a type of Redhat(linux) that just happens to also sell hardware.

[polendo]

No , is not going to be useless.

But certainly enough an investment of that caliber would appreciate a longer support on hardware and possibly software. If it was me, I would sell it and buy the most inexpensive Mac you would like to use just to experience OS X.

regards

[Stupendous]

The following question is pertinent to actual Mac users:

Will software companies like Adobe, Quark, Microsoft and others, ever release new versions (Creative Suite 3, Xpress 7 or Office ???) compatible/compiled for powerpc ?

Common (business) sense says, no they won't. All of their future software releases will be for intel based Macs only.

A lot of people (those that buy the powermac workstations that cost big bucks) consider this to be a serious problem in (at least) the next 3 years.

[polendo]

Originally Posted by Stupendous

The following question is pertinent to actual Mac users:

Will software companies like Adobe, Quark, Microsoft and others, ever release new versions (Creative Suite 3, Xpress 7 or Office ???) compatible/compiled for powerpc ?

Common (business) sense says, no they won't. All of their future software releases will be for intel based Macs only.

A lot of people (those that buy the powermac workstations that cost big bucks) consider this to be a serious problem in (at least) the next 3 years.

Exactly my point. Couldn't have said it better.

[lou91940]

On the other hand, scanning a lot of PC forums seems to indicate that many PC users are positively giddy at the mere rumor of the possibility that they might be able to run Apples OSX on their Dells or Compaqs or whatevers. They seem excited by the possibility of, for them, increased competition with Windows. That part of the Apple/IBM divorce can't be bad.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Stupendous

The following question is pertinent to actual Mac users:

Will software companies like Adobe, Quark, Microsoft and others, ever release new versions (Creative Suite 3, Xpress 7 or Office ???) compatible/compiled for powerpc ?

Common (business) sense says, no they won't. All of their future software releases will be for intel based Macs only.

Common sense says, watch the keynote, and you'll find out that you're wrong.

The programs will ship on universal binaries. Both versions will be found on the same CD/DVD whatever. PPC will still be around for awhile.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by lou91940

On the other hand, scanning a lot of PC forums seems to indicate that many PC users are positively giddy at the mere rumor of the possibility that they might be able to run Apples OSX on their Dells or Compaqs or whatevers. They seem excited by the possibility of, for them, increased competition with Windows. That part of the Apple/IBM divorce can't be bad.

Screw the PC people. They may be all giddy about it, but it's not going to happen.

The day OSX runs on any PC is the day the Mac is dead. Apple will never allow it.

[deathandtaxes]

I know this is the powermac forum but no one here is stressing what Jobs did yesterday. HEAT! There's no way the G5 was ever going to make it into a laptop. 'Mother of all thermal challenges', or something like that. Apple now sells as many or more laptops as desktops, and the industry as a whole is going the same way. Apple is falling further and further behind with G4 chips. Where will they be a year from now? If they can't keep up in the laptop market, you can kiss your desktops goodbye too and we can all sit in front of Windoze boxes listening to iPods.

[Louis_SX]

I don't see why NOT to have PPC/x86 compiled apps for a long time to come; as long as Apple supports PPC and the architecture is quick enough to still get real work done, it's just checking a box in XCode 2.1, or at least, tha'ts what Stevie-J would have you believe. I don't think you'll see PPC support die the day an x86 Mac is shipped.

However, I DO expect Classic support to not exist on OS X86

[ArrogantBastard]

I joined this forum specifically because I'm digging around for the same answers as a few others. It sucks that some people have to be so arrogantly dramatic in their responses that his computer will explode immediately, because he raises a legitimate concern beyond just the functionality of the OS and Apple's willingness to support it. Sure, Apple kept on releasing security patches and upgrades to OS 9 up until relatively recently -- that doesn't mean anyone ELSE did so. I bought my 450 G4 the moment it was released, and only bought my dual 1.8 G5 a few months ago. That's what, five, six years of use? That's what I want out of this machine. While I'm sure APPLE will continue making a dual-chip OS, my biggest fear is losing all sorts of wonderful third-party apps as early as two years from now. Joe Schmoe eating a pizza at 3 a.m. and programming my favorite freeware and shareware apps won't be writing for the PPC anymore. How about Toast? How about Transmit? How about Netflix Freak? Or Firefox? Or divx and 3ivx codecs and Windows Media Player? Or BitTorrent and Limewire and Aquisition and MacTheRipper and DVD2OneX? Microsoft will dump the PPC first of the big boys, I'd imagine. Adobe won't be far behind. Three years from now, maybe four -- but I just simply can't imagine FIVE -- our machines will lose some serious functionality.

Trusting Apple to come through for us for five years is much less of an issue to me than trusting third-party software makers, from the big guns to the fly-by-nights, to make it much past the 2-1/2 we have left until Apple is 100% Intel.

[deathandtaxes]

Originally Posted by lou91940

On the other hand, scanning a lot of PC forums seems to indicate that many PC users are positively giddy at the mere rumor of the possibility that they might be able to run Apples OSX on their Dells or Compaqs or whatevers. They seem excited by the possibility of, for them, increased competition with Windows. That part of the Apple/IBM divorce can't be bad.

You don't really think that Jobs is ever going to let OSX run on a Dell, do you? If they were going to do that, why would they even need to make 'Macintel' boxes? They could just compile OSX to run on existing X86 boxes, become exclusively a software company, and go head to head with Microsoft. Obviously there's enough money to be made in software alone to make some folks quite rich. Is that going to happen? NO WAY! Apple will put some sort of proprietary lock on OSX so that it will only run on their hardware.

[Stupendous]

Originally Posted by PacHead

Common sense says, watch the keynote, and you'll find out that you're wrong.

The programs will ship on universal binaries. Both versions will be found on the same CD/DVD whatever. PPC will still be around for awhile.

Common sense also says, don't believe in everything you see or hear. Mr Jobs is a very smart business man and he knows this move is very risky in that Mac buyers most take his word, and not be based on facts.

PS older mac users don't forget the FAT binaries and how wonderful they were on 68k Macs.

[yaro]

The question I have is will the pc ATI and NVIDIA video cards work out of the box? Or do they have to be mac specific? How about pc perepherals, pci cards?

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by ILikeCheese

I just don't get Apple's decision to use an intel chip. After moving to an operating system based on FreeBSD(a very close cousin to all flavors of linux), they are now moving to "generic" hardware.

No, they are NOT moving to generic hardware.

"Generic" implies using another manufacturer's motherboard and chipsets that are engineered to work with a variety of different components.

The Intel based computers will have a CUSTOM motherboard MADE BY APPLE, and designed ONLY to work with specific components, many of which will be custom designed themselves. That's the way it is now with the PPC macs, and that's how it will be with the new ones.

[v.noir]

I imagine the insides of the new Macs to be very similar to the current models, minus the shiny "G5" etchings on the cooler though! They'll still use their own motherboards and components. It'd be interesting to see what those ADC Pentiums look like inside.

One thing that makes me wonder though is will Apple really use a Pentium 4 in their production machines? Two reasons: Dual-processors (thought that was just the Xeons?), and the highly advertised 64-bit capabilities of the G5 & Tiger. If they use P4's, maybe they could use a single dual-core model and spin it the right way with advertising (to most people, I think they'll still see it as one processor instead of the obvious two in the current G5's, and therefore inferior). But I don't think the P4's are 64-bit, right? Not that 64-bit has much impact on users right now, but from an advertising standpoint I think it's important to Apple. They go on enough about it at the moment on all the G5 pages, will they just throw that away and hope no-one notices? I assume Apple's OS X team have been compiling for x86-64 as well though. Can't wait to see what Apple does!

[owl1]

Wow I hope all of you that got new computer, well I hope it all works out for you guys. Good lucky

[Shaktai]

On the MacNN Early morning news. Maxon has announced they already have a Univeral Binary of Cinema 4D that will run on both Older Power PC's and Macs. That was pretty quick. I don't think there is going to be a major software issue with the transition over the next couple of years. Sounds like Apple has done a good job (5 years worth) of making sure it would be easy for developers to support both platforms. With the ease of making Universal binaries, there is not a significant problem for developers to support both platforms for several years. If it means increased sales, the developers will do it, as long as it does not mean a significant investment in time and resources.

I think Apple thought this one through carefully and planned for it. Today's Power Macs will continue to be useful for several years.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by Shaktai

On the MacNN Early morning news. Maxon has announced they already have a Univeral Binary of Cinema 4D that will run on both Older Power PC's and Macs. That was pretty quick. I don't think there is going to be a major software issue with the transition over the next couple of years. Sounds like Apple has done a good job (5 years worth) of making sure it would be easy for developers to support both platforms. With the ease of making Universal binaries, there is not a significant problem for developers to support both platforms for several years. If it means increased sales, the developers will do it, as long as it does not mean a significant investment in time and resources.

I think Apple thought this one through carefully and planned for it.

....ticking this box...thanks for givng me the weekend off...

[eddiecatflap]

i've been reading the latest posts and on reflection , i really think this IS a good thing for apple , in the long term anyway , just the next 12 months will be painful for us and them

but as has been mentioned , now ms have nowhere to hide

the battle will now be on level footing , and my money's on apple !

[jamil5454]

Originally Posted by aristotles

Give me your useless macs.

Honestly, you guys really need to grow up. If you judge the value of your computers based on what others have or what is around the corner, you really have major issues and should get some professional help.

Nobody should be buying Dual 2.7 G5's to use as toys.

Professional artists would not worry about stuff like this. Damn rich kids.

You are worrying about something two years away? I have news for you, if IBM had kept to its commitments, your 2.7 G5's would be just as slow two years from now compared to newer PPC based macs.

This is currently my problem. It's true - when you spend so much money on a computer that you don't need then you start having doubts as to whether it was worth it. I don't use my PowerMac for anything important yet, but it will encourage me to try to find work that will use it. I don't want it sitting in my dorm serving as a music/email/browser machine for four years.

But... it would be nice if we could run Windows on the new Apple Intel machines. You wouldn't need two machines anymore. I think in about two years Apple will really start taking off. Think about it - you can buy an Apple that can run OS X AND XP/Longhorn, or you can get a Dell that just runs Windows. Microsoft won't be able to compete anymore because Apple will be using the same platform, and Apple will piggyback off of Microsoft until game and business app developers start making their apps for OS X.

If Apple pulls this off correctly, their market share would increase to around 20-30% at least, and maybe two operating system would peacefully coexists on the same platform. The competition would drive prices down, and since OS X will running on Intel hardware, game developers will have an easier time porting their games to OS X.

Great times are ahead, but for now I need to make my PowerMac worth the purchase.

[zoetrope]

So what looked to me to be quite ominous and dire news last Friday evening and Saturday morning has now turned out to be quite positive and welcome news this fine Wednesday morning. Wow, what a differnce 96 hours can make, huh?

It appears now that I have a healthy month old newborn Power Mac DualG5 2.7Ghz and NOT a stillborn $3,000 hunk of legacy junk. Why? Because Apple will first put Intel chipsets inside their portables and consumer desktops in 2006 and then finish it off with their high end Power Macs in 2007. And all the while, those Intel Macs will be running either emulated software or univerisal "fat" binaries. Either way, this means I am now running for certain the most powerful Mac for the next two solid years. And I wouldn't even be able to say that had Apple actually maintained it's commitment to PowerPC. I expect to get a full five years of solid use out of this machine.

Thanks Apple!

Adobe just came out w/ CS2, I own the suite. I'm a multimedia designer. I have no issues putting my PM to use. And right now, it's got "teh snappy" all over it.