The Sad Story of the Long-Promised 3 GHz Power Mac G5 ⇥ 512pixels.net

With just a few days to go until WWDC, Stephen Hackett chronicled the history of the mythical 3 GHz Power Mac G5, previewed at the conference over twenty years ago:

The heat generated by the G5 would become an issue later on, but first we need to talk about Steve Jobs broke a fundamental rule of Apple:

We don’t comment on future products.

The Power Mac G5 was before my time as a Mac user, but I remember the otherworldly impression it made on me. I am no Mac historian, but it still feels to me like it began a distinct era of flagship Macs that were both powerful and relatively accessible — the inflation-adjusted price of the best G5 spec, without build-to-order upgrades, is nearly $2,000 less than the base price of today’s Mac Pro.