New PowerPC Mac Users Left Behind in Apple-Intel PactNew PowerPC Mac Users Left Behind in Apple-Intel Pact

Now that Apple Computer Inc. has unveiled notebooks and iMacs running on Intel Corp. chips, consumers who bought the slower PowerBook G4 or iMac G5 during the holiday shopping season may feel like they dropped a lot of cash for a dinosaur. But analysts say not to fret; the older machines still have some advantages.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was less than sensitive to new customers when he unveiled the new products at Macworld in San Francisco Tuesday, touting the fact that the Intel-based MacBook Pro was as much as five times faster than the PowerBook and the new iMac was twice as fast as the G5 system.

"From a latest and greatest perspective, some customers might be feeling bah humbug about their Christmas purchases," Joe Wilcox, analyst for JupiterResearch, said.

Oddly, it wasn't too long ago that Jobs was saying how the PowerPC chips running the older models outperformed Intel processors. In October, just two months before Macworld, Apple unveiled a new Power Mac G5 desktop line that included one with two dual-core PowerPC processors, which are made by IBM and Motorola's spin-off Freescale Semiconductor.

Given the recent focus on the G5 Mac, consumers, like some analysts, probably felt safe in assuming the first Intel-based machines wouldn't ship until the middle of this year, particularly since Jobs said that was the plan at the company's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco in June 2005. Jobs also said the company planned to use Intel chips in all its Macs by the end of 2007.

Nevertheless, being caught off guard by a product upgrade isn't new in the technology industry, which can't always be trusted to follow timetables.

"This is a pretty common problem in the technology world," Richard Shim, an analyst for International Data Corp., said. "This is one of those unfortunate cases where consumers were caught in-between the change."

However, people who recently bought the older machines have no reason to be disappointed, despite the introduction of faster Intel computers, Toni Duboise, desktop analyst for Current Analysis, said.

"It doesn't make the technology obsolete," Duboise said. "The G5s are absolutely beautiful in terms of performance and design. They're still very viable and fully functional machines."

The speed boost Apple claims for the Intel-based notebook and iMac is also relative to the software being used and how the consumer is using the computer. For normal chores such as surfing the Internet, word processing, email, playing music or showing photos, it's unlikely they'll be any noticeable change in performance between the old and new machines.

"The system they bought is still going to be good for what they planned to use it for," Shim said. "The system isn't worth any less just because a new model is out."

Indeed, Apple hasn't lowered the price of PowerBooks and iMac G5s, despite the introduction of the new machines. A PowerPC G4 with a 15-inch screen still costs $1,999, which is the starting price of the MacBook Pro. Both the Intel-based iMac and the iMac G5 start at $1,299.

Also, most software makers will need at least a year to ship Intel versions of their software, which means a lot more applications will be available for awhile for PowerPC machines. In addition, those people forced to use emulation technology to run older software on the Intel machines probably won't be able to reap the advantages of the speed boost until native applications are available, Wilcox said.

"Emulation is slower, sometimes much slower, than applications that run natively," Wilcox said.

Apple hasn't said how many PowerBook G4s or iMac G5s were sold in the fourth quarter, but the numbers are probably significant. Jobs said at Macworld that revenues in the quarter were up 63 percent to $5.7 billion from $3.49 billion in the same period a year ago. The latest number was more than analyst and Apple projections. Of course, a sizable portion of those revenues probably came from the 14 million iPods sold in the quarter.

Anyway, the transition to a new chip platform is unlikely to shake the love of the Mac faithful who kept Apple alive during the lean years before the iPod, which now commands three-fourths of the market for portable media players.

"The vast majority of Apple buyers are still Mac loyalists, and I don't think you're going to find too many people who are going to take Apple to the mat," Duboise said. "They may be angry for a little while, but it won't last long."