I find it interesting that so few of you are complaining because Snow Leopard pretty much signals the end of the PowerPC. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, because that venerable processor family seldom realized its full potential, particularly in the latter days.

Take the G4. Do you recall when Steve Jobs boasted that you’d have a “supercomputer on your desktop”? The original version was supposed to sport 400MHz, but got downgraded to 350MHz because of production issues with the faster chips. The G5 was supposed to hit the magic 3GHz barrier a year after its release, but that day came and went with only modest speed boosts. The hoped for PowerBook G5 was a dream, unless you craved something that would double as a broiler.

But even in 1994, when the PowerPC was first launched, it took a while to realize its promised speed improvements. For one thing, most of the Mac OS was still coded for 68K Macs, and thus had to operate in emulation. The same held true for many of your favorite apps, so for a year or two it all seemed like a step backwards.

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Whenever Apple releases a new product, folks will sacrifice one of these gadgets in order to dissemble the component parts and attempt to determine their identity and cost. On the basis of this information, and a few educated guesses, we’re supposed to know exactly how much Apple really spent on each unit.

Recently, for example, it was claimed that the $599 Mac mini carries a component and manufacturing price tag of $376.20. This may not seem so large a figure, but when you factor in the price of shipping along with distributor and dealer markups, well maybe Apple isn’t making such a huge profit on this particular model. Assuming the figures are accurate — and I’ll get to that in a moment — the use of mobile parts for a tiny desktop is blamed for the high cost to make one.

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Not being in an absolute rush to get an iPhone 3GS, I opted to simply order one from Apple’s online store after I got confirmation that I could upgrade without paying an early termination or conversion ransom to AT&T. The order was officially placed on June 23rd for the black 16GB version.

Why not 32GB? Well, largely because I don’t use my white 3G to store video content, and I can certainly fit the relevant portion of my music library within 16GB, so I opted to save my money. Besides, I’ll probably end up upgrading again next year, assuming AT&T allows it.

When I placed the order, I was quoted a shipping delay of two to four business days. But on June 25th, I get a strange email stating: “Our records indicate that we were unable to obtain approval from AT&T to complete your recent iPhone purchase. As a result, we have canceled your iPhone order.”

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Well, the pricing for buying Windows 7 has been officially announced, in case anyone cares. Understand that Apple has already informed users of Mac OS X Leopard that they can upgrade to Snow Leopard for a mere $29. Since most of the Intel-based Mac user base is using 10.5, you can regard that as, essentially, the main upgrade package.

For those still using Tiger, you are forced to buy Snow Leopard in a bundle that includes iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09, but the increase in price above buying those two application suites separately is actually a mere $11. Such a deal!

Add to this the fact that Microsoft has been busy attacking Apple with this ubiquitous Laptop Hunter ads, both online and on TV, in which a fake buyer picks a PC over a Mac because it’s cheaper.  Now you regular readers know that I find those spots to be obnoxious and boring, and their deceit over selecting models that don’t fulfill the would-be purchaser’s stated needs is just overwhelming. Indeed, now that Apple has reduced the price of most of its notebooks, other than the basic white MacBook, the insinuation of higher prices for Macs is even more misleading.

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