Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

29 Sep 00

No need for hysteria over G4 Plus, Apple

Seriously folks, the news this week about the G4 Plus processor running at 750 MHz and being ready in about nine months is no reason for this degree of alarm. And for a number of good reasons.

First off, the date is naturally over conservative. Both Apple and Moto don't want to repeat the past again. It is very likely the case we will see that chip sooner than expected.

Second, as PC Magazine just confirmed in a review of the G4 MP 500, the G4 chip itself is a superior performer, MHz to MHz, over any Intel architecture. Don't believe us or Apple, go read the article yourself! One way to speed up performance a lot on the Mac these days is to fix some bottle necks on the motherboard architecture and to provide options for and ship must faster graphics cards (BTO). Be confident come January we will see some of these changes (along with a G4 PowerBook!).

And lastly, the focus is clearly on Mac OS X and its rollout party early next year. And so far the beta has won rave reviews for its stability and its stunning graphics. Come on folks, stability and preemptive multiprocessing is what we have been asking for for years now. Years! And it's here now and its looking great! Really great.

Mac OS X is also going to go places the old Mac OS never really could. It's going to go into outerspace, going to help us unravel the mysteries of DNA. And help us find a cure for cancer. In short, OS X has been tailor made for science. And science wants it.

The positive news coming forward over the next year will be huge. There are a lot of great things happening on the Mac. So let's just relax and put things into proper perspective. As Steve said, we have "hit a speed bump". So has the whole industry! It's natural Apple would be affected too.

As for the next G4 Plus chip? What do we really know besides MHz? For all we know the chip could be a monster. Right?