[url=http://www.arstechnica.com/etc/mac/index.html]click to read[/url]
I must say he covered the year fairly well…but as with most mac related things I read at Ars there are some technical errors and differences in opinion.
Most notable is his comments on G4 clock in the Powerbooks. As the old 7455b hit 1417 MHz in the towers, I am certain that the new 74[b]4[/b]7 can do 1500 MHz (note that none of apples current G4 machines use the 74[b]5[/b]7 as none of them require the L3 cache tags). The main issue with going to 1.5 GHz is power consumption. The 1417 7455b ran much hotter than it’s 1250 and 1 GHz counterparts due to higher core voltage. Higher voltage in the chip=higher gate currents…and power is current squared times resistance…so heat can increase greatly with a small increase in current. If Apple did the “intel” thing and just threw a bigass fan/heatsink in their laptops we’d have seen 1500 MHz (or more) this year. However they instead target battery life and form factor. It is worthwhile to note also that the G4 at 1.33 GHz romps most centrino based laptops.
I also find issue with his comments on iMac video performance. Most PCs in the 1000 dollar and lower range come with integrated graphics (usually Intel Extreme or something of the sort). The iMac came with 32 meg GF2/4MX graphics minimum. And that was more than enough for the G4 800 it had. I’d say Apple has done a good job matching graphics peroformance to system (chipset and CPU) performance. A headless 600 dollar mac will never happen. It doesn’t fit Apple’s business model and would do nothing to grow their userbase or bottom line.
The author also makes an overly big deal about the phasing out of the G3 processor (iBook). G3 900 machines perform very nearly on the same level as the new G4 800 ones, and the G3 900 750FX was a much lower power chip. I was actually sad to see it go.
All the bitching about the iLife suite costing 50 bucks is rediculous too. iDVD cost 50 bucks before…and now you get iDVD for 50 bucks and all the other apps on CD (and DVD). I bought “iLife” and iDVD has been more than worth the 50 bucks I paid.
As for the noisy MDD machines of late 2002-2003…well…do a job search for thermal engineer at [url=http://jobs.apple.com]Apple[/url]…looks like they’re hiring.
With those gripes in mind…give the article a read.