It'll have to be like the AMD proc that can handle 64 and 32 bit both natively, and be able to run 32 bit apps, of course.

Apple always has "pent up demand" (that's one of the phrases that are required when writing a dead tree article abou the company or their products). Another thing they always have is an excess of rumors, mostly utter BS.

We'll see. I doubt I'll upgrade for it, though. I'm already using a 500mhz G3, and it's fine for what I do with it... surf the web, check email, and show websites to clients along with the whiz-bang aqua interface to show how sophisticated I am and how great their websites look. :-)

-Posted by JC on June 10, 2003 12:40 PM

Oh I learned long ago not to believe the hype and rumors. Lets see they said the iMac would be $400, Apple would switch to Intel, and that Apple would go out of business and be gobbled by Microsoft, Sun, or Dell if you believe all the rumors.

-Posted by Jake of 8bitjoystick.com on June 10, 2003 12:53 PM

Indeed, there are many obnoxious rumors out there. IMHO, there is a critical mass of rumors on this hardware release to make me belive it.

The thing is, the rumors span from IBM, to Apple's, Thothoutsourcer (Foxconn) back to Apple. And, there have been many similar reports about this subject, and none of them seem to contradict other rumors. Instead, the rumor puzzle is coming into view.

If these things do come out, I'll probably be a buyer later this year (when 64 bit OSX is avail). I have a 550 mhz tiBook for work, and it's way to slow. I typically have all of these apps open at the same time: Photoshop, Illustrator, BBEdit, 3 web browsers, an mp3 player, Mail, Terminal, Adium, and sometimes Toast.

With the new baby in hand, iMovie and iDVD have become a couple of killer apps for me, and those sorts of apps require some good power.

To answer JC's question about 32 bit and 64 bit compatability, from what I understand, 32bit is emulated and is roughly equal in terms of speed.

-Posted by Dan on June 10, 2003 01:12 PM

i just had to try using a custom icon... kick ass feature Dan...

on topic: I've still got at least another 2 years of life in my old iBook, and need to replace my 1998 iMac, thus a new G5 would be cool...

hopefully, Apple can get more software ported to X for corporate use too...

-Posted by john on June 11, 2003 01:01 AM

Great, so Apple is gonna get a new processor and upgrade the OS - what does that mean for the people who are upgrading their versions of Quark to the new version that took FOREVER to be released? Are we gonna have to wait another 40 years before the next version of Quark comes out? Oh, I hope not...

Of course, I'm still using a 300MHz PIII at home. The killer apps for me are HTML IDEs (ColdFusion Studio 4.5 mainly) and word processing apps. Sure, there are things that tax my processor but I'm not really pushing the envelope with anything I do so during this upgrade cycle I'm expecting a jump in performance, but will I need it? All a matter of perception and Apple has always done a great job of making products that not only look attractive but are perceived as attractive so I think the rumors help them out as they build up consumer anticipation.

-Posted by Anthony on June 12, 2003 06:51 PM