Apple has a long history of spinning on a dime. A couple of years back, for example, they tossed out a best-selling design for the iPod nano and introduced an all-new version. Almost any other company on the planet would have pushed the existing configuration until well past its prime and even beyond.

Upgrades over the years to the iMac line have thrown away the mold, and delivered very different and often unexpected case designs. Take a look at the pear-shaped original, its successor with the articulated arm and lamp-style base, and the current iteration, which is basically a slimline computer display that just happens to have a powerful personal computer inside.

Whatever you thought about the Cube, it was surely a pace-setting product that I said, at the time, belonged in a museum. Today, it is considered a failed product, but one where Apple tested and prodded and tried to deliver something that was as much a work of art as a functional computing appliance.

No, I haven’t forgotten how the Cube resembles its NeXT-based forebear.

Even after the Cube died, Apple couldn’t let go. The Mac mini is essentially regarded as resembling half a Cube, and its slim rectangular case was also extended to the AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, and even Apple TV.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

I suppose I’m lucky, though I’m also broke. You see the Steinberg family recently completed its migration to Intel processors this year, and we’ll be paying the monthly credit card bills for several years as a result. However, it also means that we’ll be able to run Snow Leopard when it ships, whenever it ships.

Now to be perfectly fair, Apple did not officially acknowledge the system requirements, but a few screen shots posted from a developer’s release protected by NDA clearly omit any reference to the PowerPC. The Night Owl’s sources basically confirm those reports, although, to be fair, it’s always possible PowerPC support will ultimately be restored before OS 10.6 (Apple apparently isn’t using the word “Mac” anymore these days) ships.

On the other hand, before you prepare your petitions, maybe you want to look over this situation a little more carefully. You see, Snow Leopard isn’t meant to be a feature release, though businesses will appreciate the native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007. Instead, it’s supposedly a slimming and performance enhancement upgrade, and one way to trim the code is to ditch support for a bunch of older hardware utilizing a different processor platform. That also simplifies the testing process, which speeds up the development process.

Another significant point is the fact that Snow Leopard’s biggest performance boosts will impact multicore processors and the most powerful graphic chips. To be fair, only a small number of Power Mac G5s had multicore, and that was only in the latter stage of its production run. Sure, others had twin processors, and I suppose that would help somewhat, though Apple doesn’t mention the number of chips. Also, Apple has been becoming better and better in providing more robust graphics hardware with the Intel transition.

As far as the millions of owners of a G4 Mac that runs Leopard are concerned, they will probably not benefit much, or at all, from Snow Leopard. Yes, there are two processor models, but we’re talking multicore here. So does it really make sense for Apple to spend development dollars for an aging and discontinued platform?

Indeed, the key to Snow Leopard is the name, which implies something that builds upon Leopard, and thus you can understand where Apple is going. At the same time I feel bad for the people who will not be able to upgrade — unless Apple changes its mind of course — but with a year or more before 10.6 arrives, one hopes you’ll have time to save your cash or clean your credit lines so you can afford a new Mac.

And if you can’t, remember that Leopard will offer pretty much all of the features of Snow Leopard — absent the enhanced Exchange Support — and that includes Spaces and Time Machine. What’s more, I’m sure Apple will still churn out 10.5 maintenance updates for quite some time.

The other possible sore spot is the new pricing strategy for the iPhone 3G. Apple claims the price was cut in half, and that’s true for the 8GB $199 version, compared to the former price of $399. The percentages are off with the 16GB model, which is $100 more.

However, AT&T quickly let the other shoe drop, pointing out that you’ll have to also buy a 3G data plan, which is $10 per month more than the 2.5G or EDGE version. Over the minimum required two-year contract, that’s the equivalent of giving them $240 to save $200. As far as credit card interest rates go, that’s not so bad, but you can’t say the iPhone 3G is really cheaper on the long haul. At the same time, though, the lower initial purpose price is going to attract a lot more customers and even make the $99 BlackBerry handsets look a whole lot less inviting.

It’s also clear that Apple did a little cost cutting to shave the retail price. Plastic casings are somewhat less expensive than metal, and one hopes the new design will be reasonably robust and will survive rigorous wear and tear in a similarly friendly fashion. The loss of the docking station is also a sensible cost saving measure, since that accessory costs $49 separately. Then again, is this something you really need? I’ve yet to use mine, really.

In addition, Apple ignored user requests for a higher resolution camera. It’s still two megapixels, and going to three or four and perhaps adding flash capability would combine to increase the bill of materials. Whatever it takes, but they’ll still make a lot more money on the long haul, since they’ll be churning out more units for ultimate sale in 70 countries.

In fact, the financial and tech analysts are already speculating that Apple’s promise to sell 10 million by the end of 2008 is probably far too conservative.

The other irritating factor is that activation will take you a lot longer. You won’t be able to do it in the comfort of your home or office, using iTunes. Apple is going to fight hard to stop people from unlocking their iPhone 3Gs, and one way to do that is to require in-store activation. It also means the lines will be longer, as you’ll have to endure a 10 minute process.

My plan is to go to the local AT&T factory store, since it’s not as apt to be as crowded as an Apple Store during the early days of the iPhone 3G’s release.

Yes, I do plan to buy one, even if I have to restart my two-year pact with AT&T.

You know that this year’s WWDC was designed first and foremost to be an iPhone event. That’s why you didn’t hear much about Snow Leopard, Mac OS 10.6, which has features that are of more interest to developers than the rest of us. In fact, most of the information about Snow Leopard was provided under Apple’s typically rigorous nondisclosure agreement, and only a brief press release and some online highlights were actually revealed in public.

For the same reason, it makes a lot of sense that the rumors of a major refashioning of the MacBook didn’t come to pass. This wasn’t the venue for introducing a brand new consumer note-book computer. Besides, the newest Intel chipsets aren’t even available yet, so if there is going to be a big change, in case structure and otherwise, it won’t happen for another month or two, in time for the back-to-school season.

The other rumor, this one the silliest of the batch, spoke of a Mac Fusion, some sort of development environment that would be designed for working on the Mac OS, Windows and Linux on the very same box. But you can do that now, so I fail to see the upside.

Apple has, though, real products in its catalog that it seldom mentions anymore. The most obvious is the Mac mini, whose case design inspired the AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule and, of course, Apple TV. But, beyond a minor processor update last year, this unsung hero of the Mac lineup hasn’t been mentioned one bit, and this is quite unfortunate.

You see, the Mac mini is a terrific switcher’s computer. At $599 or $799, plus the necessary RAM upgrade, you can use your existing display and input devices, more or less. Although it has note-book-based internals, meaning a rather pokey hard drive, performance is actually quite decent for the most part. While you won’t see much in the way of gaming performance, the sort of tasks the home or small business user routinely requires of a personal computer can be handled quite well, thank you.

Sure it may seem pricey in comparison with those $399 and $499 Windows boxes that are available at the discount superstores, but Apple provides a lot more value, and even those on a budget ought to seriously consider a mini instead.

Unfortunately, Apple’s entry-level box is perennially placed on the endangered species list, with the suggestion that it’ll either be replaced, or quietly discontinued. I hope not, but if Apple is using sales performance as a guide for what to build and what to cancel, maybe they’d sell more minis if they’d spend a few dollars promoting them.

The other neglected product is Apple’s display line. It hasn’t changed in several years, except for some minor performance improvements and a lower price. But none of the three displays Apple builds are really competitive when you calculate the cost. You can, for example, get a great 24-inch display from Dell for less than $500. Apple’s equivalent, the 23-inch HD Display, is $899.

Sure, Apple’s brush aluminum case is prettier. But is that worth an extra $400? Not to me, and maybe not to others unless your design sensibilities and checkbook allow you buy the more expensive product.

What’s surprising to me is that Apple has been pretty much ignoring its display line. I mean, they surely sell enough Mac Pros to warrant providing the complete package, and what about the Mac mini? Since ditching the proprietary ADC display scheme, any HD Display is perfectly suited to the Windows market too. But then again, the Windows user knows they can get cheaper — and sometimes better products — elsewhere.

Myself, I stick with my trusty 30-inch Dell display.

Even more troubling is the fact that, taken just for its display component, today’s iMac actually impresses you as being sleeker and nicer to look at. It also seems somewhat thinner than the standalone display, and that indicates that the latter is long overdue for a refresh.

In fact, if you didn’t see an Apple display in one of their stores or in the online catalog, you might never even know Apple had such products to begin with.

Now I don’t pretend to know their future product plans, and the rumor sites are, at best, only partly right. However, it would be unfortunate if Apple were to dispatch the Mac mini and HD Display to their final resting places. Both products have plenty of mileage left, so long as there’s the proper degree of redesign and enhancement.

And maybe, just maybe, with a few dollars spent for a decent ad campaign.

In Mac OS X’s relatively brief history, it was a sure thing that each new version would be replete with whizzy new features in addition to the normal range of under-the-hood enhancements. This all reached a peak with 10.5, where Apple boasted over 300 new or improved features.

However, Leopard’s stability appears to be a mixed bag. While my experiences are, by and large, extremely favorable, you don’t have to spend much time with Google to locate a spate of complaints about one thing or another. In fact, there are reports that a 10.5.4 update is being rushed out soon to address problems created by 10.5.3.

So far all the speculation about 10.6 had it that it will carry the baggage of another few hundred new features, but Apple has taken a different tack. Snow Leopard is meant to be a leaner, meaner beast, and compelling new features are few. The one that seems most significant for the business user is native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007, which will allow Mail, Address Book and iCal to be full citizens in that environment.

That is largely an extension of the capabilities arriving soon in iPhone 2.0 in the wake of Apple’s licensing of Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology. In fact, you have to wonder whether there’s as much of a need for Office for the Mac now that one of its key features is becoming a part of Mac OS X, and file translation of Office documents works fairly well in iWork ’08.

Now maybe Microsoft realizes this, but if they can sell more hugely-expensive Exchange packages to businesses who are embracing Macs and iPhones in increasing numbers, they may still gain decent profits from the experience.

The one sour note for Microsoft, however, is that Apple is going to be incorporating its push technology not just in the cloud, with its new MobileMe service, but in Snow Leopard Server. It won’t cost a dime extra, which means that something to match Exchange’s industrial-strength groupware capabilities will be available from Apple for a far lower price, just by buying its server operating system. That, by the way, comes free (with unlimited seats to boot) with the purchase of an Xserve.

In Apple’s brief information on the client version of Snow Leopard, they also talk of enhanced support for multicore processors, which means that those super-powerful 8-core Mac Pro workstations will have more to do when you’re engaged in heavy-duty number crunching. Right now, the performance boost from these Intel Xeon processors isn’t as high as you might expect, and is sometimes barely perceptible. Of course developers will have to do their part to harness these enhanced capabilities.

Rounding out the lineup is OpenCL, which will offload more processing chores to your Mac’s graphics chip, and QuickTime X, said to be a major rewrite and streamlining of Apple’s multimedia technology.

Although developers who attend the WWDC are being given a Snow Leopard preview, the details are under the usual confidentiality agreements, and thus you’ll get mostly snippets about what’s happening. It’s still an open question, for example, whether 10.6 will retain support for PowerPC Macs, although it’s likely you’ll still have Rosetta to run older applications on Intel models.

Right now, Snow Leopard is due in “about a year,” meaning roughly the summer of 2009, perhaps to coincide with the next WWDC. However, there’s enough wiggle room to extend that date to the fall, or even a Macworld 2010 debut.

If it’s Intel-only, it’ll deliver great benefits to Apple, because they can strip the binaries of PowerPC code and make the files a whole lot slimmer. No more 450MB updates. They can also work harder to optimize performance and even exorcise a whole lot more bugs a lot faster, because they’ll be able to do their Q&A testing on fewer models.

As for PowerPC users, in the middle of 2009 there will be a lot more Intel Macs in use than those still running boxes with the older chips, and the youngest legacy models will be at least three years old. That’s timeframe is a little light in terms of Apple’s previous policies, and it might be a controversial move if it’s followed. Should Snow Leopard slip to early 2010, though, the psychological impact won’t be near as serious.

However, since 10.6 will be largely a bug fix and enhancement release, I dare say Apple shouldn’t assume they can get away with charging the full $129 retail price for a copy. Unlike a feature upgrade, it should have at most a token charge, say $19 or, at worst, $39, for a copy for existing 10.5 users. Only those upgrading from scratch would have to pay the full retail price.

Even better, I really think Apple would do right by its customers to make 10.6 a free download. That would certainly be a welcome gift, particularly for those who have embraced Mac OS X through bad times and good for so many years. It’s not as if Apple’s profits would suffer seriously, and it would make great PR.

Windows 7? What’s that?