what to do
I was planning on buying a Mac this summer... a dual-G5 PowerMac, to be specific. It would be reasonably good for a year, and then the first x86-based Macs would be out; in a year and a half, most Macs would be transitioned away from the G5, and in two years, G5s like mine would constitute an architecture Apple no longer sold (but 'supported'). I was hoping to buy a system that would last me a good three to four years.
For comparison, I bought my 500MHz G3 iBook in 2001, and I'd probably still be satisfied with the performance of a G4/867 PowerMac if I'd bought one then; I'd expect - prior to yesterday's announcement - an iMac G5 to last three years easy, which would seemingly put a system with twice the horse power and more internal expansion to four years, definitely. How much do y'all think that has changed with the announcement? I'm tempted to pass on a Mac entirely for now, and go back into my WindowMaker cave on OpenBSD until the dust settles...
edit: and I've got to say, Apple ought to start offering discounts on PowerPC... that would cinch it for me.
edit the second: Please don't advise me on why I don't want a Mac at all, or why I don't want to run Window Maker when I'm not running OS X. You're wrong.
For comparison, I bought my 500MHz G3 iBook in 2001, and I'd probably still be satisfied with the performance of a G4/867 PowerMac if I'd bought one then; I'd expect - prior to yesterday's announcement - an iMac G5 to last three years easy, which would seemingly put a system with twice the horse power and more internal expansion to four years, definitely. How much do y'all think that has changed with the announcement? I'm tempted to pass on a Mac entirely for now, and go back into my WindowMaker cave on OpenBSD until the dust settles...
edit: and I've got to say, Apple ought to start offering discounts on PowerPC... that would cinch it for me.
edit the second: Please don't advise me on why I don't want a Mac at all, or why I don't want to run Window Maker when I'm not running OS X. You're wrong.