There’s a bit of kerfuffle over a minor business report on DigiTimes that lists Apple manufacturer Asustek shipping iBooks and Powerbooks in Q2 of 2005 with G5 processors. There are a few reasons why this report is less-than-likely. The IBM 970FX processor, which Apple brands the ‘G5,’ is a pretty hot processors—cool compared to a P4, maybe, but certainly troublesome for a vendor who prefers their laptops to operated with no fans spinning at all. Also, Freescale is currently taping-out designs on their dual-core G4-class chip, the MPC8641D, a processor that many have hoped to see inside the next generation of Apple laptops, even though it appears the single-core MPC7448 is the more likely choice. Lastly, Apple has never updated the iBook line with a faster processor at the same time as the Powerbook. The new Powerbooks will get G5s long before the iBooks will.
On the other hand, there is one thing niggling bit in all this, which is that many people expected Apple to update the Powerbook and iBook line at MacWorld—with a speed bump if nothing else. The long delay could mean they are working out the kinks of putting a new processor into their machines, but that still doesn’t mean it will be a G5.
Apple said to ship PowerBook G5 in Q2 2005 [TheRegister]
