I've just taken the iMac in the kid's room for a spin after updating it to 10.3.6 (and installing VLC 0.8) and once again I must say, that these dot-updates really make the system snappier[tm] - especially the less-powered ones. It used to be that this machine (500MHz G3, 512MB RAM) could not play back DVD images (VIDEO_TS folders) or highly compressed Quicktime- or AVI-movies smoothly. We just accepted it as a fact - too little oomph, nothing to be done about it. Hey, as long as it runs the Blobbies Shape Challenge and Elmo's World ;-)

But meanhwile - and especially as of today - this little old machine is a (nearly) fully empowered multi-media centre - all due to optimization in software.

So with each iteration of OS X getting more efficient on the same hardware this means that people have less and less reason to swap their machines for newer ones. Instead, they seem to simply upgrade it - and install Panther. Of course, this is purely anecdotal, but nary a day passes at fuxdata without somebody buying RAM and a new hard drive for their sub-gigahertz G4 or their G3 powerbook, because they've heard - much to their surprise - that meanwhile their machine will run OS X rather nicely.

This may seem bad for Apple - afterall, their infameously loyal long-time customers are skipping hardware updates right and left. But apart from that (partially) justifying the no-update-buy-the-full-version-or-leave-it-policy that Apple is enforcing on its OS, this just means that the nonetheless increasing hardware sales are going to new users.

And since this optimization period is definitely finit (one wonders though, when they'll hit bottom or quit on their own) and even a Lombard is bound to break one day, it is only a matter of time until all those customers who are now skipping an upgrade will got out and by G5 powerbooks and Quad-G5 workstations (or whatever) - only to be joined shortly after by the switchers.

Of course, I may very well be wrong, but Google be my witness: I predict that in two years time, Apple hardware sales will reach a spike ;-)