Low End Macs (Score 3, Interesting)

Given the effort IBM has gone to in order to make the 970 perfect for Apple, I'm left with little doubt that all high-end Macs will soon be powered by the 970. Motorola's last-ditch efforts to boost the G4 are simply too late to dissuade Apple from that course of action.

But the 970 will almost certainly be more expensive than the G4 at its introduction and possibly for some time afterward. Therefore, its probable that Apple is already planning to relegate its low-end offerings (iBook, eMac) to the G4 initially. These rumblings from Motorola are probably meant to persuade Apple to keep things that way for longer than it was perhaps already planning to. And if Motorola really does ramp the G4 to 3GHz in the near future (somehow I have my doubts about that) then they might just succeed.

In any case, I still believe that it is only a matter of time before the the Mac line is converted entirely to the 970. But what I want to know is this: will Motorola gain access to the 970 design specs because of the Apple-IBM-Motorola (AIM) PPC contracts. If so, will we see Motorola 970s in the future? I hope so; competition of this sort always benefits the consumer.