so this January apple has been getting people to pay exactly the same price for an obsolete model. nice. so if i was someone making a living (say designing) using macs, now i'm faced with the slower (because of rosetta) imac core duo, or the powermac g5 tower which may be beyond my needs/budget... or an underpowered g4 laptop, or slower (because of rosetta) macbook pro. this along with (understandably) no specific timeline for Universal adobe, macromedia, microsoft office software, the core tools for people that use a mac for work.

i understand that there are lots of counter arguments to my bitchin' above (feel free to mention them) but certainly this is the bitter end of the bittersweet transition to intel, no?

that said, i empathise with apple's position and hope it truly is able to mitigate the risks and dissapointments of the transition while maximising the fun, easy to use, and exhilarating bits of Mac use. hmmm

Are these the PowerPC or the Intel models?

Apple needs to clear out these G5's as soon as possible. And they seem to be doing it in great proportions. Our local retail store is clearing out 17" G5/iSights for $899 (cdn$).

Of course, we here know that G5's will still work extremely well for years to come, but the general public doesn't. The sooner the mixed message of having two processors, the better.

Thankfully most see a familiar name in Intel and automatically buy that thinking they can run Windows on it.

But really, people are looking at this from the standpoint of the G5 being obsolete when that's not the case at all. I bought a new G5 the sunday before MacWorld, not expecting at all they'd update a product the updated less than 6 months earlier. What did I lose in the transition??? 1) Dual Core computing power, 2) Faster bus speed, 3) Higher powered graphics card. What did I gain? 1) I got a new computer at a fair price that still replaces my G4, lovingly called "The Brontosaurus". 2) I'm not crippled using Adobe and Office through rosetta 3) Ican still play Unreal Tournament 2004 (and it looks DAMN good on the iMac).

I thought about taking the G5 back and getting the Core Duo model, but I decided against it primarily because of having to use rosetta until UB's come out, and then, I'm a college student! Would Adobe or MS charge me for the UB? I don't know ... probably so, meaning I couldn't afford it anyway.

For some people, the G5 is going to be perfect and get them through the next few years. I'll be sad to see the G5 go, but it's for the better. I only wish apple didn't rush the iMac to market. Now Steve has to deal with the people trying to disprove his benchmark claims and people upset that certain things aren't running as well. They should have waited until a few more people were on board with UB's. In any case, I'm glad the switch came and it makes you wonder ... is hell just a little bit colder???