Here’s where it pays off to be a late adopter. Not that I wouldn’t want to snap up a dual 2GHz PowerMac G5 right this moment; it’s simply not time yet for me to get another desktop. I have that particular goodie slated for next year sometime. But that schedule might help me quite a bit. After languishing in up-to-1.4GHz G4 heck for quite some time, the 2GHz G5 was a big jump–but a bigger jump (in GHz, though maybe not percentages) is just around the corner. Apple has reportedly just acquired 3GHz PPC 980 chips to play with, and the next big processor jump is due within a year–one of the biggest, quickest turnovers in processor speed for some time. That’ll be the one I go for. By then, one might hope the G5 will have the major kinks worked out, though there might be some problems going from the 970 to the 980.

Apple seems to be speeding up in general. People were surprised enough when the iMac went G4, but the iBook? Now people are talking about the iMac going G5 in the near future (that’s a time-sensitive link)–maybe even January, maybe even a 1.8 GHz G5 chip. Yikes. This suggests that Apple is more willing to replace generations of chips more quickly than in the past–meaning faster Macs sooner, but also disappointed users as their recently-purchased marvels getting outdated even faster.

I’ve grown quite used to this myself. Seven years ago, I bought a just-released 120MHz Power Mac 6300, only four months before the 200MHz Power Mac 6400 model was released–for a lower price. And my present 800MHz 15-inch Powerbook G4–which cost me $3,200 last year–is nice and all, but today a 1.33 GHz 17-inch model is available for $200 less. Obsolescence is the norm, you just have to live with it.

As for Macs in general, people are beginning to see more and more reason to buy. While desktop sales have, in the G4 days, been waning, the G5s promise to snatch back much of that market share–like Mac laptops have done, shooting up to a 7% market share recently. People are beginning to see that Macs are cheaper–laptops immediately, and desktops in the long run. Mac speed is also getting favorable press, as several institutions are now choosing G5s to link together in supercomputer clusters, including 1,100 G5 Macs in a supercluster at Virginia Tech which will become the world’s 3rd-fastest supercomputer when finished.

Panther is also contributing to Mac success, getting rave reviews in the press. Even IT developers, notoriously disdainful of Macs, seem to starting to like it as Panther allows for easier interoperability with Windows networks, and developers see more to attract as well. And as Microsoft gets even tighter with its limitations in the name of security while proving porous in actual security itself, and as it hikes licensing fees and threatens to force large buyers to pay even more under new payment schemes, the Mac OS, based on UNIX, and requiring less maintenance and training, is beginning to look better and better.

Time will tell.