Apple may have managed to massage a G5 processor into the new iMac, but that doesn’t mean the company is ready to unveil a PowerBook with the same chip. Apple said it was able to cool the G5 in the new iMac, which is only two inches thick, with an air intake hole near the speakers at the bottom of the machine and by the use of three fans — one near the hard drive, one near the chip and another as by the power supply.
Read MoreGreg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of hardware product marketing, told the BBC today that a PowerBook using the PowerPC G5 processor is still a long way off. “The G5 is part of our long term processor roadmap, but it will be some time before that processor will be in a notebook,” he said. As previously reported, Apple engineers are working on reducing the heat generated by the chip before it can be incorporated into the laptops.
Read More– All of the key components for Apple to produce a PowerBook G5 appear to be ready, and Mac users should expect to see the new laptop no later than this summer, Peter Glaskowsky, analyst with Instat/MDR and editor of the Microprocessor Report, told MacMinute. He noted that the IBM PowerPC 970FX—which is used in the Xserve G5—offers basic power-consumption features needed for a portable machine.
Read MoreDave Russell, director of product marketing for portables and wireless at Apple, recently discussed the possibility of a PowerBook G5 with ComputerWorld: “We certainly want to do that,” he said. “But it’s going to be a while. We think the G4 has a very long life in the PowerBook.” He echoed that the main hurdle in getting a G5 processor into a laptop is the need to keep the processor cool. Read More
Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, told Macworld UK that the possibility of a PowerBook G5 was simply “an issue of good, solid engineering.” He said, however, that the current crop of G5 processors are designed for desktops, and that a cooler-running version of the processor would be needed for a PowerBook. But Rubinstein did point out that a few years ago, no one thought it would be possible to get a G4 processor in a PowerBook. Read More
