Will There Be New PowerBooks At Macworld, And Will They Be G5s?
By Charles W. Moore
Now that we're halfway through December and heading into Christmas Week with no PowerBook upgrades this fall, it's looking extremely likely that there will be a big announcement that Macworld Expo next month. We're overdue.
The last major PowerBook introduction was way back in September, 2003, with the 15-inch Aluminum PowerBook was rolled out that Macworld Expo Paris, at which time the 12 inch and 17-inch PowerBooks received their first speed bump. The entire line was speed bumped to be present 1.33 and 1.5 GHz configurations last April.
In the normal scheme of things, we could have expected another speed bump in October or November, which the G4 iBooks got but the PowerBooks didn't, which strongly indicates that Apple is not planning to carry on very far into the new year without major revisions worthy of a trade show announcement.
When Steve Jobs takes the stage at San Francisco, the 12 inch and 17-inch PowerBooks will be exactly two years old, and still visually indistinguishable from the ones he unveiled there in 2003.
So, it seems like a logical deduction that we will see some new PowerBooks at Macworld. The big conundrum is will they be G5 powered? Some optimistic prognosticators contend that Apple has G5 'Books ready to go, and maybe that is the case, but I doubt it. Others are hedging, suggesting that Apple could preview announce G5 PowerBooks at San Francisco for shipping somewhere during the first quarter of 2005. Still others are predicting that the earliest we will see G5 PowerBooks will be April or May. I'm inclined to agree with the latter camp, but I have no crystal ball.
The problem Apple faces is that there is so much pent-up expectation of a G5 PowerBook, that if all Jobs can unveil a Macworld is another round of G4 speed bumps there will be considerable disappointment. On the other hand, if they announce new G5 'Books but can't ship them until February or March, in the meantime sales of the current models are going to nosedive. Rock and a hard place.
A third alternative would be to make no Macworld PowerBook announcements at all. I'm reminded a bit of 1999/2000, when many PowerBook pundits were confidently predicting all through December and early January that the Pismo would be released at Macworld San Francisco. It didn't happen, and it was more than a month later that Macworld Tokyo that the Pismo finally rolled out, but ready to ship. Which, IMHO, is preferable to a pre-release announcement followed by a lengthy frustrating wait.
Of course, it's a rough analogy. In January, 2000, the Lombard G3 Series PowerBook had only been in production for eight months, and the Pismo, while a major revamp internally, shared an almost identical form factor with the Lombard.
Personally, I would rather see the PowerBook line rejuvenated with some faster G4 chips next month rather than have Apple rush a G5 'Book into production before it's ready for the real world. Freescale reportedly has 1.8 GHz and 2 GHz G4s ready to go, and that would make a nice upgrade.
Of course, we may get both. The G5, whenever it does make its entrance, is going to be a high-end premium machine for at least the first while, and I expect that there will be G4 PowerBooks for some considerable time yet, especially the 12-inch models. iBooks are not going to be G5 powered anytime soon either.
It will be fascinating to see how Apple addresses the issues of heat and power consumption with a G5 portable. The desktop G5s have required very sophisticated cooling system engineering to keep the torrid G5 CPU from frying itself and other internal componentry, but battery life is not an issue with desktops. It would seem that a G5 for portables will need to be detuned substantially in order to work tolerably well in the cramped confines of a PowerBook case.
Speaking of which, as we noted, the 12 inch and 17-inch PowerBooks especially are getting a bit long in the tooth, although at Macworld they will be still eight months shy of the Titanium PowerBook's record production run for PowerBook form factors of 32 months. And Apple has been sticking with laptop case designs a lot longer than they used to. The current iBook case design is now 42 1/2 months old and counting.
It would be reasonable to imagine that Apple might not want to unleash something as revolutionary a G5 PowerBook without having a spectacular new form factor in which to show it off, but that may not be the case, so to speak. The original G3 PowerBook in 1997 -- arguably as much a leap forward performance wise as a G5 PowerBook will be -- was virtually indistinguishable from the 603e PowerBook 3400. And as noted before, the PowerBook 2000 Pismo, which incorporated an all-new 100 MHz system bus motherboard design and FireWire, was the spitting image of the previous Lombard model. As one who is not especially enchanted by the looks of any of the aluminum PowerBook models, I would relish a change, but I'm doubtful that we will see a radical departure for at least the first generation of G5 PowerBooks.
So, there are plenty of imponderables at this stage. If I were in the market for a new system right now, I would definitely wait to see what Mr. Jobs brings forth at San Francisco before making a move. If there is a preview announcement but no product to ship, prices on current machines should soften substantially if any remain available. Remember that Apple went for several months earlier this year with no iMac product shipping at all.
Personally, I would opt for the speed-bumped G4 over a new and untried G5, even when the latter finally becomes available. I'm partial to mature engineering, and buyers of the first examples of any new laptop design become de facto late beta testers, often paying handsomely for the privilege. The G4 has plenty enough poke for most of us for a long time yet.
On the other hand, if you are into stuff like portable video, audio, prepress, or high-end graphics work, you can never have too much power, and a G5 PowerBook should be right up your alley. There are also the folks who like to live at the bleeding edge of technological advance, and will buy PowerBook G5s on that bases when they arrive. Hey, go for it! I'm very grateful that there is somebody willing to shake the early production bugs out.
I suppose I should wind up these musings with some sort of Macworld prediction, so. here goes:
1. No G5 PowerBook release; possibly an announcement with delivery slated for later in the winter or in the spring.
2. PowerBook speed bumps highly probable. Look for 1.8 GHz - 2 GHz G4 at the high end. If this materializes, there will likely be some other tweaking and specification refinements.
3. No radical new form factor changes -- either for G4 or G5 machines.
4. No iBook changes at all.
But what do I know?