Editorial - Macrimination 
Come On Apple, Give Us the Juice
By Steve Sobek - Contributing Editor
There once was a time when Apple could poke fun at Intel and put a Pentium II on the back of a snail. But for the last couple of
years, Cupertino has spent more time on the defensive by trying to
dispel what it calls the
Megahertz Myth. As I've detailed in this
column before, Intel's chips have reached upwards of 3 Gigahertz,
while the mightiest G4 reaches a mere 1.42 Gigahertz.
Of course, a chip's clock speed is not everything. But sometimes that
brand-new PC your friend has -- while inelegant -- sometimes seems a bit
zippier than that G4 you've got running OS X. And as I've detailed
before, Adobe went so far as to reproduce a test done by Digital
Producer Magazine showing Dell boxes with 3 Gigahertz Pentiums
outperforming 1.25 Gigahertz dual-processor Power Macs on Photoshop
tests. More on that Adobe test in a minute.
But there could be salvation on the way -- even though the folks at
Apple have kept their lips characteristically sealed about the
possibility. There are
reports of the IBM 970 64-bit PowerPC chip all over the Net, a chip
that Ars
Technica's Jon "Hannibal" Stokes has said "was made with Apple in
mind as the primary customer."
According to Stokes: "I believe that Apple is poised for a huge
overhaul of its hardware line based on this processor and a renewed
relationship with IBM. I'm finally convinced that Apple's days of
wandering in the wilderness with Motorola are over, and that personal
computer users will be able to see the Mac as a real option again in
terms of desktop, and not just portable, performance."
Alex Salkever of BusinessWeek Online also has said
that "for Apple, [the IBM 970] means a quick injection of speed and
power." In the article, Salkever unfortunately said that IBM would not
confirm that the chip was being built specifically for Apple, but said
the chips would work on the Mac platform.
After so long trailing behind the x86 world, Apple needs the shot in
the arm. It's hard to believe that with all of the strides the company
has made in the last several years, and the surprises it has revealed,
that Stevie J. & Co. don't realize the need for Apple to become more
competitive with the processors it offers in its machines. Especially
since Apple has chosen to position itself as a leader in what it has
coined the "digital hub" market. Working with video uses a lot of
computing power. Faster processors would put Apple in an even better
position.
Whether it's this summer or next year, Apple will announce the
change. I don't have a special source to confirm to you that the IBM 970
will be our saviour. But the 970 or something like it will have to come
or Apple will finally start to whither as the critics have always
predicted.
Now, back to that Adobe test comparing the G4 to the Intel chip. It
seems that the
link has been removed and now shuttles you to Adobe's digital video
products page instead of the test that made Apple look so bad.
Either Stevie J. got to Adobe's executives, or maybe Adobe knows
something about the future of Apple that we don't yet?
Steve Sobek is a journalist and Webmaster of United Mac. Reach him at ssobek@stevesobek.net.
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