Thursday, February 02, 2006

If the new iMac looks and acts much like its predecessor, why did Apple go to all the trouble of changing to Intel? Because the PowerPC-based systems had nowhere to go. The performance of the G5 chip in the iMac and, even more so, the G4 in PowerBook laptops, couldn't increase much without a major redesign. And their maker, IBM (IBM) Microelectronics, was unwilling to underwrite that. By contrast, Intel's Core Duo is the first design in a new generation of processors that has lots of growing room. Apple is now well-positioned to handle the ever more demanding media applications that are coming. The MacBook will probably show more impressive performance gains than the iMac because PowerBooks today are actually relative weaklings.