Will product updates become more frequent with Intel?

[Cheap-Chopstix]

Another thing is... with apple goin Intel and intel being known to come out with new faster processors on the market more quickly, will upgrading macs be as simple as upgrading a PC... no more buying all new hardware... need a new cpu just drop the latest intel 4.8ghz or 5.0ghz. I can see this being really possible, unless Apple puts tight controll and some sort of lock on CPU's. An upgradeable Powermac makes me want to drool.

 

[jsw]

I'd be very surprised if Apple produced hardware that allowed you to easily upgrade the CPU. They make their $$ on hardware, and they have a captive market. I suspect, to get that new Intel CPU, you'd need to buy a new Mac.

But we'll see what 3rd party solutions present themselves....

 

[Jigglelicious]

It could be possible - as long as the BIOS/Firmware correctly supports the greater CPU speed. However, Apple has a habit of soldering their CPU's down for some reason, possibly to stop this exact scenario from occurring.

 

[Cheap-Chopstix]

If they didn't allow upgrades like that then would they update the lines much more quickly instead of the typical 6 months to even like 10 month update periods... to like 3 month - 6 months... thats alot of hardware to be whipping out for Apple that is. I work at a big box electronics store and we are always clearing out older computer models that are only 3 and sometimes 2 months old with newer updated versions. (HP, Sony, Toshiba, Etc.). It would be odd if Apple would wait 6 to 8 months to refresh their lines when everyone else in the PC world has already gotten much faster processors in their boxes... considering they will be using similar cpus. This would probably be more of a concern for graphic designers / high end users where any bit of performance increase is appreciated but they still are a chunk of Apple's market.