I thought I’d vent a bit about the fact that there is still no Merom-based Apple laptop. I was foolishly hoping that Apple would silently roll out Merom-based MacBook/MacBook Pros along with all the other goodies today, but no such luck. I wonder if the Inquirer is right in saying that there will be no Merom-based Apple laptops this year due to limited supply of the chip from Intel. That’d be a bummer, since I need to purchase a new laptop soon, and I was hoping it would be a Merom-based Apple laptop. Oh well, I can still wait it out a little longer.

If memory serves, Apple has a worldwide market share ranging somewhere between 3 and 5% of all computers. However, the company’s recent moves will allow Apple to capture a good chunk of the consumer market (if it hasn’t already). On the other hand, I think that Apple will have a much harder time with the business market, which makes up a good chunk, if not the majority, of computer sales. Read More »

Just a quick thought on the relative performance of PowerPC Macs vs. Intel Macs. Recently, I had the opportunity to “acquire” a PowerPC-based iMac 17″ Flat-screen. For those who don’t have Apple’s iMac naming down cold (including yours truly), that is the G4-based iMac with the hemisphere base and the super-cool screen on the swivel arm (picture is available at the prior link). After installing an Airport Extreme card, I had the machine up and running on the home network. I promptly installed Firefox (since I’m not a Safari fan), and voila, I had a good-looking casual web browsing and email terminal functioning. Aesthetically, the machine is great. I especially love how easily the monitor can be moved on the swivel arm. However, I couldn’t help but notice how slow the machine is (it is a 1GHz PowerPC G4 box with 1 GB of memory).

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