Apple Computer keeps making the moves. The Music Store and svelte iPod updates hit the mark dead center. So much for Apple Computer’s agreement with Apple Records to keep out of the music industry back when Jobs and Woz settled on a name for their company.

Apple Computer keeps making the moves. The Music Store and svelte iPod updates hit the mark dead center. So much for Apple Computer’s agreement with Apple Records to keep out of the music industry back when Jobs and Woz settled on a name for their company.
It has been product, product, product all through this tech-centric recession. On both the software and hardware fronts, Apple has positioned itself for selling into an economic recovery. The retail stores, LCD screens, slim PowerBooks and OS-X — it’s all in place — with one glaring exception.
Pro users have been disappointed by Apple’s reliance on a near bankrupt Motorola produced processor in a pro tower that is positively ancient. Just bring on Quark for X and the IBM 970 and everything is in place for a sell-a-thon. Apple can leapfrog Intel, which is at the end stage of development for the Pentium and USB 2, while there is plenty of room to grow with the PowerPC and Firewire.
IBM can carry Apple into the 64 bit future much better than Wintel boxes with expensive and bloated Itanium processors. Apple servers should be “insanely great” with 970′s. Price/performance will set a new standard. All of the griping about OS-X eyecandy overtaxing even the quickest G4′s will disappear once performance improves. It’s blue skies ahead even if the downturn does linger, because Apple still has a war chest in the form of cash reserves.