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Well, it's gone better than I had imagined, but there are still downsides. Even today, the Power Mac G5 does not have a hands-down superior replacement. And that's not likely to change for another year or so when more apps are native.
As a desktop user, I'm still thinking "WHY???" Even with native apps, the speed of the Mac Pro is not much better than you would expect from a year's evolution of the G5.
You have to ask yourself, where would the PPC be now if Apple had not switched? We can assume we would have had faster G5s (possibly faster than the current Core 2 Duos). We probably also would have had dual-core G4s suitable for notebooks (the last roadmap I saw said they would be ready early this year, but I assume the project was stopped or at least slowed after Apple's switch announcement). Compare the Intel machines now to the PPC machines we probably would have had, and...I'm still not sure it was worth it. Of course, Apple knew what was in store for the PPC better than I ever will, I'll grant that.
I do expect the switch to have "paid for itself" in the next year or so. In the meantime, for laptop and Mini users, I'm pretty sure the Intel offerings beat what PPC systems we might have had by enough to justify it, even though they don't run PPC apps as well.
And I agree with the quality control statement. Something is seriously wrong there, and it's hurting Apple reputation.
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