Question: now that the 1.5 GHz Pentium 4 is allegedly shipping, well ahead of its official launch date, how much longer do you suppose Apple will wait for Motorola to close the PowerPC-x86 clock speed gap before the company jumps ship completely? Answer: well, what time is it now? Ha ha ha! Oh, we just slay us! But seriously, folks, if you're really wondering when Uncle Steve may throw the switch and mandate a mass Mac migration to x86-based chips, a watch may not be the most appropriate instrument to use-- try a calendar instead. And we don't mean next year's.

What we're getting at, people, is that despite Steve's scripted earnings report assurance that Apple was "working with Motorola" to get clock speeds higher (by which we assume that Motorola was working on the actual clock speeds, while Apple fueled the effort with a healthy combination of blackmail and threats of physical violence), rumor has it that Apple's been working on an exit strategy for months now. You've all heard the "Mac OS X on Intel" rumors before, and with good reason: since Mac OS X is based heavily on NeXTSTEP, and NeXTSTEP already ran on Intel, there's no particular reason to doubt that Apple has continued to keep x86-compatible builds current in its top secret underground bunkers.

Well, faithful viewer Mike Norris has another gallon of gas to throw on the fire. He pointed us towards an interesting tidbit over at Ars Technica, in which the author claims that a programmer friend of his was recently aggressively recruited by Apple as manpower for the Mac OS X on Intel project. And this time we're not talking about a half-hearted port of only the core OS, either-- "he claims they're porting the whole thing, Aqua and all, to x86, and that they're in the process right now of hiring people to do so." Gadzooks! If that's true, then it sounds like it might be more than just a "break glass in case of emergency" backup plan to be used on the off-chance that Motorola is swallowed up into the bowels of the planet or something. It's starting to sound like the wheels of an x86 shift are already in motion. Will future Macs have Intel Inside?

Sure, it'd be a monstrous effort to get an entire community of Mac users (not to mention the developers) to switch to a new and completely binary-incompatible chipset, but hey, Apple did it before with the PowerPC. As Ars Technica points out, a 2 GHz Pentium 4 (which The Register now claims may ship as early as January) might well run PowerPC software at an acceptable speed purely in emulation. Technically, while it'd be a bit of a wrench, it's not inconceivable for Apple to throw the PowerPC out the window and snuggle up to the long-despised Pentium instead.

Here's why we doubt it'll happen: can you imagine a Pentium 4-based Cube? Fanless our Aunt Fanny-- the thing would have to be almost all fan to keep the thing from burning a hole straight through the desk on which it sits. Besides that, if the Pentium IIIs we've seen are any indication, we wouldn't be surprised if a Pentium 4 didn't even physically fit in an eight-inch Cube, what with being the size of a Buick or whatever. Megahertz gap, shmegahertz gap; unless he absolutely has to, Steve's not about to ditch style and elegance for clock speed any more than he's likely to take public speaking lessons from Bill Gates. But if you believe Ars Technica's story, the fact that Apple's keeping a Plan B simmering on the back burner speaks volumes about the company's confidence-- lack thereof-- in Motorola's ability to close the gap. And if Intel's too bitter to swallow, there's always AMD...

It's déjà vu all over again! Let's set the stage for this eerily familiar-sounding scenario, shall we? Last month, the Wall Street Journal broke the story that, in terms of sales volume, Apple was no longer king of the education hill, having been toppled by the upstart Dell. Yes, it had finally happened; according to numbers published by the Dataquest Gartner Group, Apple's sales to schools had slipped to the point where learning institutions were buying more Dells than Macs. Needless to say, it was not a pretty sight.

But hold up-- as faithful viewer Andrew was kind enough to point out, MacCentral recently published some comments by an Apple Higher Education account executive that throw Dataquest's numbers into a doubtful light. Dataquest claims that Dell captured 15.1% of the education market, while Apple ranked only a 12.5% slice of the pie, but apparently that's not the whole story. Jamie Moyer, the aforementioned account exec, claims that Dataquest's most recent numbers utterly neglect to acknowledge Apple's direct sales into that market-- which, when combined with the sales that Dataquest does count, puts Apple's overall education market share at somewhere around the 31% mark. In other words, Apple's still tops in education (unless Dataquest also forgot about a slew of Dell's sales, too).

Have you figured out why this all sounds so familiar? Well, it might be because almost the exact same thing happened about a year ago. First Dell issued a press release crowing about how it had finally toppled Apple from the education throne. The numbers it cited? Why, Dataquest's, of course. Then Apple said "hold the phone," countering with its own press release which accused Dell of neglecting to include Apple's direct sales into the calculations, which led to its premature touchdown boogie, when in fact Apple was still number one. The difference between these two scenarios? Well, the press releases themselves, we suppose, and about a year on the calendar. In other words, not freaking much.

So did Dataquest make the same mistake twice? If Jamie Moyer is right, then it sure looks that way. Tsk, tsk... a fundamental inability to learn from one's mistakes. Sounds like Dataquest's number crunchers all went to schools who bought Dells instead of Macs. Ooooooo, BURN!!

If at first you don't succeed, wait a month, and then quick, try something else! It's no secret that Apple's been having a rough time selling PowerBooks over the past few months, and the reasons why are numerous and sundry. For one thing, rumors have been flying about a PowerBook G4 coming "any day now" seemingly since Carson still hosted the Tonight Show; that keeps the "wait and see-ers" from plunking down any cash. Another factor is the refreshed iBook product line; now that a $1799 iBook Special Edition has most of the more important features present on the PowerBook (FireWire, DVD-ROM, video-out for presentations), it's been tough for many people to justify shelling out a sizeable wad of extra cash for the "professional" model. And never underestimate the importance of packaging. While the new iBooks are spiffy and crisp-looking, the current PowerBook chassis hasn't really changed its (admittedly classic) basic-black look in two and a half years.

So, in an attempt to boost the PowerBook's sagging sales, Apple instituted a $200 rebate program: anyone who buys a PowerBook by the end of the year can get a couple of Benjamins back by mail. Sure, it's not quite the same thing as saving two hundred bucks at checkout time, but hey, it's better than nothing. Or is it? Maybe not, since the promotion's been running for a month now, and evidently the PowerBooks still aren't flying off the shelves. We don't know that for a fact, but we see little other explanation for Apple's sudden decision to slash the list price of the 500 MHz PowerBook from $3499 to $2999. That's right, $2999. And better yet, the rebate still applies, so your net cost on a 500 MHz Pismo is a mere $2799-- assuming you pay list price. A little digging around can get you one for the low, low price of just $2624, as the PowerBook Zone notes.

The question now is, will this substantial price drop be enough to entice the public into snapping up 500 MHz PowerBooks like they're going out of style? Good question-- because they probably are going out of style. Only the thickest individuals will miss the implications of first the rebate with its end-of-year time limit and then this huge price reduction: Apple is obviously trying to clear out its inventory in preparation for new models due to arrive, we'd assume, right after the first of the year. Gee, if only there were a huge Mac-centric trade show scheduled for right around then that would serve as a natural venue for the introduction of new PowerBooks. Yeah, you get the picture. So what we'll be interested to see is whether the "wait and see-ers" will be able to resist buying a yummy 500 MHz Pismo for such a bargain-basement price, even knowing that something spiffier is just around the corner. And the eternal struggle continues...