Mac Whispers, who's credibility is now increased, has posted this whopper of a story. The ENTIRE Apple product line (Powerbooks, Xserves and even iMac)s will go G5 by Christmas.
"June 20, 2003
Out On A Limb: Our WWDC Predictions
This past week has been interesting to us, as we have made a specific effort to touch base one last time with as many of our OEM channel contacts as possible, prior to Monday's WWDC keynote. Our goal was to get a more specific sense of what the people actually working in and around Apple's production operations believe is coming insofar as new products, when those products will appear, and the performance levels to expect. At the risk of a huge blow to our already tenuous credibility, we have chosen to publish those very surprising findings.
What we have discovered is a pool of manufacturing personnel in Apple's behind the scenes operations that is convinced that the bulk of the common-wisdom based predictions recently appearing about Apple's upcoming product releases is wrong. The consensus we found is that all of the published predictions are completely too conservative... way, way, strikingly, preposterously too conservative. If all, or even most of the bits of information we gleaned this week are true, what we will see next week, and during the next 30 to 45-days thereafter will turn not only the Apple community, but the entire PC world on their heads.
The PowerPC 970
Speeds are faster than the 1.4Ghz to 1.8GHz range that has been most commonly mentioned... perhaps, much, much faster. The product list ready or very nearly ready to release around PowerPC 970 processors is longer than previously believed... perhaps much, much longer. And, the aggressiveness with which Apple is approaching the PowerPC 970 transition is being more intensely and more competently pursued than has been believed. In other words, the whispers from Taiwan are all in unison telling one specific story: the PowerPC 970 platform is ready now... across the Apple board.
We still have not been able to get anyone to provide details on specific hardware products; in fact, we have been told that Apple has very assertively passed the word to all suppliers to "keep their mouths shut" about PowerPC 970 related activity. But, there is a general mood of enthusiasm and almost giddy excitement widespread among the many companies doing the work to bring us this new hardware. They say that it would be very difficult to over-predict how suddenly the entire Apple world is going to be scaled up to a pretty startling new level of performance.
The Prediction
We believe that the complete Power Macintosh G5 line is ready to bring to market, today. We also believe that not only is the 15.4-inch Powerbook ready to go, but that both the 17 and 12-inch variants are much, much closer to seeing daylight in new PPC 970 trim than anyone would have believed. We have been told that the Xserve PPC 970 versions have been completed. And, we heard a credible assertion just yesterday that the iMac platform is "within only weeks" of seeing a move to the PPC 970, as well.
In all, the word on our wire is that Apple has been even busier and more successful than our most fanciful, optimistic thinking would have previously allowed us to believe. The PowerPC 970 transition is not going to come as a protracted series of minor trickles, stretched out over a 12 to 18-month period; it is coming in a dizzying, mad rush, between now and Christmas. And, it all starts Monday, with Steve Jobs' 2-hour keynote address at the Worldwide Developers Conference.
Prepare to be amazed."
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