Aug 10, 2000

Don't worry about the speed race. Mac Speeds, don't worry for now.

Recently, more articles are appearing that are showing greater concern for the speed race Apple is losing. Dismal iMac speed bumps, a G4 processor that hasn't moved for nearly a year. Mac users who have shown great patience for speed increases to arrive are finally becoming a bit worse for wear following the recent MacWorld showings. It is indeed unfortunate to be in such a situation.

The fault of it all probably lies in Apple. Someone in Apple probably pushed the release of the G4 chip too quickly, can we guess whom? The G3 chip which was escalating well was shelved for the promising G4 chip. Unfortunately, and who knows how this error was made in a hall of great engineers of Motorola, the G4 chip contained such a short processing bit set that it made escalating it's speeds certainly uncomfortable. The new technology of the G4 apparently excited someone at Apple so badly that it came premature. Now Motorola engineers are cutting every engineering corner, pushing every circuit, tweaking every setting, to make the current G4 get up to speeds around 700 MHz. It may be the most iffy chip ever to come out of their corridors. In the meantime, and strange enough, is the development of the G4+ chip, or as some of us like to call it, the G4 as it should have been the first time. The G4+ won't have the shortcomings of the current G4, it will be fanless, and should boast a comfortable 700 MHz chip. The G4 was great for initial looks and advertising, but it is becoming sore too quick. To add insult to injury, (and I'm not sure of this but it is being said by other Mac users) if the G3 development was continued and not cut back on, we would see decent G3 speeds by now.

And why don't I think the we should worry about speed increases? Simple, we don't want the G4 again. Sometimes the gee whiz factor of advertising gets in the way of proper development. Apple may have really needed a G4 for advertising back in September '99, now they just need to make sure that a decent G4+ hits the market by the time OS X comes out. IMHO. Stitch time now, Mac users are patient, and get into steady development.