Repeat after me: you'll be running Logic on a faster PowerBook G4, not G5, in 2005. But that may not a bad thing.
There's just no convincing some people. It's not enough that top Apple
brass told financial analysts as recently as Wednesday 1/12 not to
expect a PowerBook G5 in the near future. The moment Cupertino makes an
order with its manufacturer for a new model, the rumor mill immediately
assumes this means the imminent arrival of the PB G5.
Not so, say all the Mac rumor sites (including those being, ahem, sued
by Apple for leaking trade secrets) — yes, a new model is coming, but based on a G4-class processor. Ironically, far from being able to crank out a G5, it sounds like Apple's still suffering chip shortages of a newer G4.
But wait a minute — who needs the rumor mill here? I could have told
you that. Based on past Apple behavior, a safe bet is to expect a speed
bump PowerBook G4 (higher clock speed, minor enhancements) in the next
few months and a more major revision by fall, though more likely
featuring a G4 than a G5.
The big question is, why does everyone think they need a G5, from a
digital audio perspective (or any other)? Apple and IBM had long been
skeptical about the ability of the G5-class chip to work in a laptop
version, in contrast to the G4 which from the beginning was intended
for low-power, low heat-generation applications. Keep in mind, too,
desktop G5s benefit not only from the chip, but from the architecture
of the whole machine. New, faster G4s, despite the name, could match or
excel the current G5s in performance in the near future, and if we're
really lucky a much-predicted dual-core G4 could be a huge boon to
audio. (More so, possibly, than a G5 laptop.) 64-bit hasn't yet
delivered big performance gains for laptop audio on either Mac or
Windows.
Yes, for digital audio it'd be nice to see Apple's laptop
price-performance ratio coming closer to the PC. But because Apple is a
single vendor, these gains are often delivered
generation-to-generation, and there's no question you'll see a new
PowerBook generation this year. Who cares what the chip is called?
Let's hope it delivers enough drool-worthy performance to put us all
deeper into debt. Again.