A major UK reseller may have inadvertently pre-announced Apple's intention to migrate the iBook consumer notebook line to the G4 processor. Dabs' latest computer magazine off-the-page sales advert refers to a "iBook G4". The machine is equipped with a 500MHz processor, 60GB hard drive, 256MB of memory and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive. It also sports a 15in display, the ad says. The price for the machine is £859 ($1408) excluding sales tax.
The iBook currently ships with a G3-class processor, the IBM PowerPC 750FX, in 800MHz and 900MHz versions. It is the only member of Apple computing product line not based on a G4-class CPU or above. Dropping back to 500MHz may seem as a retrograde step. While the G4 is faster than a G3, clock for clock, it's unlikely that a 500MHz G4 will match a 900MHz G3.
In any case, with the PowerBook line now at 1GHz or more, would Apple want to risk shipping a machine with a lower clock speed than previous iBooks? For all it likes to talk about the megahertz myth, enough consumers still use it as a rule of thumb to measure performance and may balk at an apparent reduction from 900MHz to 500MHz.
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News source: The Reg
