Is the PowerBook G5 a Stillborn?


Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer may not have sounded the much-mooted PowerBook G5's death-knell, but in Apple's Q1 '05 financials reported by IGM earlier, Oppenheimer indicated that the PB G5 was a serious "challenge", AppleInsider reports.

As is well known, the G5 processor generates significant heat, although it is possible to cool a standalone, relatively thin G5 computer, like the iMac.

Oppenheimer pronounced a PowerBook G5 the "mother of all thermal challenges." As AppleInsider notes the CFO "stopped short of saying a PowerBook G5 was out of the question."

Apple sold 152,000 PowerBooks in its most recent quarter, down 27% on the year-ago quarter.

Analysis: Which means the PowerBook requires an update: where is it? True, a speed-bump, predicted by AppleInsider recently, would have been drowned among the MWSF announcements.

But the PB G5 could be dead. Buried. R.I.P. Too hard basket. Fact is, Apple could produce one tomorrow. But could it work reliably? Remember how hot early G4 PBs got? Too hot with all that titanium. How many mobos could melt and CPUs fail before angry customers destroyed any positive PR spin Apple could produce from a PB G5?

Remember the PowerBook 5300? Apple had to rip it off the market before it wound up in customers' hands (Sony had screwed up the battery software, so it risked catching fire). Took years to live that one down. The flakey (white) iBook G3s' logic boards haven't hurt its popularity - fortunately. But the PC-centric media would just love a PB G5 recall.

So Apple is right to be cautious and wait. If it ever happens, that is.