No way should Apple delay. Productivity — even for web and graphics professionals — doesn’t begin and end with Adobe apps. Even aside from Apple’s pro apps, the speed of web browsing, file searches, and general interaction with the machine is a huge part of the equation. To seal the deal, Parallels offers a cheap and wicked fast way for Mac professionals to do testing on Windows platforms, which is critical for web and multimedia work.

Considering the fact that a Mac Mini can already outperform my dual G5 in processor-intensive tasks, whatever Apple comes up with for the Mac Pro is going to blow it clear out of the water.

While Intel chips are a good fit for the consumer and laptop models, Apple should continue Universal Binary support and offer the most powerful processors for the Pro and Server machines, whether Intel/AMD, Power (check out PA Semi), Sparc, MIPS, Cell or the unknown.

Microsloth dropped the ball on multi-architeccture WinNT. Apple should tap into this opprortunity.

If the new Intel boxes are as fast as they say than yes, people should buy them and wait for CS3. I mean it might be worth working in emuation mode for a while. But keeping G5s in production is a good idea as well

I think Apple should skip the Intel desktop chips, which even with Woodcrest will
not be that great, and go with dual-core and quad-core Opterons instead. In the
desktop and server space, AMD’s lead is commanding, with better architectures.
Apple should be free to pick the best chips from both AMD and Intel, not tied
solely to Intel just for nostalgia’s sake.

Then keep a quad-core G5 in production for another year just to backstop
customers who need apps like Adobe’s that are still three or four quarters
out.

I think you’re right on the money. Apple needs to jump start their pro sales, but they’ve done the damage to themselves.

They always price the towers well above other models even when their performance starts to lag. In a repeat of the 604 to G3 transition in 1997 their mid-price machines are faster than their top end ones. The situation would be embarrasing for anyone other than arrogant Apple. To make matters even worse, the iMac supports Aperture whereas even the G5 Quad doesn’t because of the crap video card it ships with. When Aperture 1.1 came out Apple should have admitted their “Pro” machines aren’t and improved the stock video card to the 7800GT (without raising prices) while at the same time offering existing owners a chance to buy the 7800. Instead they offer nothing. Way to screw the cash cow Steve!

Apple has had years to get Rosetta working, I wouldn’t count on getting more than a few extra percentage points from further optimization. I firmly expect a G5 to remain on the price list until the end of the year to satisfy the Adobe users out there who don’t want to pay top dollar for emulated speed.

I also expect the XServe to remain G5 powered until a 64-bit Intel replacement and compatible version of OS X Server to be ready.

I see a few beat me to my comment.

At least one G5 should remain in production until Photoshop is Universal. Seems like common sense, I hope Apple agrees.

Prob. keep the Quad in production and replace the other G5s with the new Intel Mac Pros.

just my $0.02

Oh, Peter, it looks like the iBook G4 is still available in EDU channels.

Well, it’s a standard “chicken-or-the-egg” question.

I don’t think Apple will ditch the PowerMacs at WWDC like they did with the iBooks. But they might revamp the website and stick the PowerMacs in a corner someplace (so the website will prominently show all Intel machines, but there’ll be a link down at the bottom saying, “Still want a PowerMac? Click here”).

One interesting question will be the speed of the new Intel “Macintosh Pros” (I like that better than “Mac Pro”) compared with the PowerMac G5 Quad. It might be a good idea to cache Apple’s benchmark pages before WWDC just so we can do a before and after comparison… :^)

Agreed. The Power Mac G5s should be sold along with the new Mac Pros.

Heck, I wish Apple would make a powerbook with the Freescale dual core 8641D that has an onboard memory controller.

I can’t wait to see the specs of this chip.

– Mark

I think it makes sense for Apple to wait for Ethel Merman, Conroy, Woodstock, whatever the new Intel chips will be called, before they start replacing the G5 towers and to wait for 64-bits for the X-Serve if not the pro towers.

One more round of faster G5 Quads might not make them a ton of money, but would make a few folks happy and give them something to keep in the line for a while at least until Adobe gets CS3 done.

I think that the comment on Adobe being pressured to jump through some hoops to get CS3 out early may be very astute. It is amazing how quickly that a Mac only beta of Lightroom appeared after Aperture came out. Adobe is very competitive and is watching Apple closely. If Apple did another update to Aperture at the release of the Intel PowerMac they would not only sell lots of copies of Aperture, but Adobe would pull a groin muscle meeting the challenge. I can’t imagine they would only see Lightroom as the answer. They really don’t want to lose Photoshop sales to either Lightroom or Aperture.

The earlier the better. FCP for Intel should speed things up considerably for pros. And it just gives a bigger push for stragglers to make programs. Look what happened to Quark when they were tardy, Damn near destroyed them as a company. Obviously they have learned their lesson and are releasing Intel Quark probably on stage at WWDC. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adobe is there showing a demo of CS3 as well. And I believe the pent up demand should sell quite a few of these boxes.

Indeed, “Rosetta 2.0″ may be coming soon. Evidence pointing in this direction is “Boot Camp” and the general emulation history Apple has known, including Universal Binaries.

What I might hope, even expect, to see is a situation like the OS 9/OS X transition, where Apple switched their entire lineup to OS X-only booting — with the exception of one last-generation PowerMac kept around for people who had to use OS 9 software that wouldn’t run in Classic.

If Apple really cared about their customers, they should keep one PowerPC Powermac and XServe alongside the Intel models at least until the end of 2007 ( in the same way it was made with the last G4 Powermac ) so that the work of those businesses dependent on non Universal apps and plugins is not disturbed. Even better, make a small speed bump on those PowerPC machines.

But Apple is so entertained with their own marketing that many of us doubt that they care about their corporate ( small and large ) and edu clients.