Thursday, November 10, 2005 |
18:40 - Any day now
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1884611,00.asp
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I-day is right around the corner, apparently:
Based on the availability of Intel hardware and its own software, analysts speculate the Apple-Intel systems could come out as soon as the second week of January, when the Macworld Conference and Expo arrives in San Francisco.
"It wouldn't shock me if Steve Jobs would have one of these models in January for Macworld," where he traditionally takes the stage for the opening keynote address, said Joe Wilcox, analyst with JupiterResearch.
Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., will officially launch its Napa platform, a collection of notebook chips that Apple has been widely expected to adopt at least in part, the week prior to Macworld.
Intel will use the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas—where its CEO, Paul Otellini, will give a keynote speech—to showcase Napa, which is essentially the latest version of its Centrino chip bundle for wireless notebooks, and to discuss its Viiv brand for home computers, sources familiar with its plans said.
Steve did say that the first Intel Macs would be available "by June"; the cynical would take that to mean they'd be released on May 31, but I've thought for some time now that January would be the perfect time to at least get one or two unobtrusive models out. We're all aching for next-generation PowerBooks; since the iMacs and Power Macs have recently been revved, it looks like the laptops are long due for some excitement.
Also, I like the tacit acknowledgment that Apple "might not use the Napa as a whole". Gee, y'think? I'll bet it's always rankled Steve that AirPort—first to market though it was—never really achieved the mindshare that Centrino's built-in 802.11 did. I know it always bugged me to see Centrino logos in airport terminals—"Log on with your Centrino-equipped laptop here!"—when I'd been doing exactly that for years with AirPort.
Ah well. If there's any lesson we're all learning from this Intel transition, it's how to swallow the bitter pills of reality.
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