The other day, David Biedny, a regular featured guest on The Tech Night Owl LIVE, wrote about his meeting with the product manager for Apple’s new photo retouching application, Aperture. Now there’s nothing unique about talking with an Apple executive during a new product introduction, but this time, the reference to his name, “Joseph Schorr,” the Senior Product Marketing Manager, brought back memories.

As many long-time Mac users will recall, Schorr used to be a regular writer for Macworld, and he was co-author, along with David Pogue, of the original “Mac Secrets.” But he has since moved on to holding executive positions with software companies, and the last time I talked with him, he worked for Extensis. As I said, a small world indeed.

I began to wonder just how many people I’ve known in another life have since become part of Apple. Take Jeffrey Robbin, for example. I first heard from this extremely talented software developer years ago when I became a beta tester for something he called “Conflict Catcher and other Innovative Utilities.” Of this collection, only Conflict Catcher survived and it was one of the best ways to manage this pesky system extensions under the Classic Mac OS. Over the years, Jeff worked on other applications, as co-author of a game, Spaceways 2000 and a jukebox application, SoundJam.

I still remember my son, Grayson, having a long phone conversation with Jeff about problems he was having mastering that game.

Now we begin to approach the present day. Several years ago, Apple acquired the rights to SoundJam from its publisher, Casady & Greene, and Jeff joined Apple as the lead programmer of iTunes. The rest is history. Although Apple doesn’t put its programming team front and center at media events, it’s generally known that Jeff heads up the crew that works on both iTunes and the iPod. In fact, you can find him mentioned, in passing, in that article in Time magazine describing Apple’s unique product development cycle.

“When he generously introduces you to the guy who runs Apple’s iTunes development team, Jobs makes it clear that you’re welcome to meet him but you can’t print his name. Jobs doesn’t want competitors poaching his talent. ‘You can mention his first name but not his last name,’ Jobs says. ‘How’s that?’ It’ll have to do. The guy’s name, by the way, is Jeff.”

All right, the cat is out of the bag, but in all fairness to Jeff, his last name has been revealed in previous articles. Perhaps the corporate headhunters have been bothering him, though, I wouldn’t want to add to his misery. Let’s just say that he’s a credit to Apple and I continue to wish him the best. But whenever I launch iTunes, I wonder just what particular components were personally coded by Jeff or if he just sits back and lets others handle the dirty work these days.

Of course, Apple has a staff of thousands, and I couldn’t begin to speculate how many I’ve known over the years at previous positions. But the point of this exercise is the fact that this company doesn’t just consist of Steve Jobs and a bunch of lackeys. The brilliant products that have taken the technology world by storm are the work of many extremely talented people. Sure Jobs has the unique talent of marshalling his troops to delivering excellence, but without the people to back him up, his visions would go unrealized.

On the radio show, I’ve used the term “Stepford staff” to describe employees who function in lock step with Jobs, and I’m probably making fun of his statement that the people at Apple who don’t get it are the first to leave. But it’s not that simple. In the scheme of things, Apple Computer is a fairly small company. Its Mac OS X team, for example, is dwarfed by Microsoft, yet is somehow able to deliver compelling operating system releases many times faster.

I suppose one could explain that, in part, by the greater complexity of the Windows environment and the fact that Microsoft must ensure compatibility with thousands upon thousands of third party PC boxes, but it’s not that simple. And the vision of Steve Jobs cracking the whip to browbeat his cowering staff to do his bidding is far too simplistic. The people who work at Apple must, above all, have the talent to deliver the goods. Otherwise, Steve Jobs wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance of maintaining Apple’s position as the envy of the technology industry.

So Steve Jobs must be credited with one more talent, and that’s to hire the right people. And that’s one magnificent achievement.

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You have to feel bad for Apple, really. Steve Jobs and his loyal crew are abandoning Freescale Semiconductor and IBM chips and moving to Intel to get faster, more power efficient parts. At the same time, the show must go on. It can’t stop updating existing products, even if it has to use more creative means to figure out how to distinguish them from older versions.

The biggest dilemma was no doubt the PowerBook. If you bought one on Tuesday, the fastest model would have a 1.67GHz G4. As of the new model introduction on Wednesday, it still topped out at 1.67GHz. So what’s the big deal? Well, Apple’s clever product engineers still found a way to make the same seem different. Please no puns! The most noticeable difference is the screen size. Yes, they still range from 12 to 17 inches, but the desktop area is more expansive on the two larger models. The 17-inch sports “1680-by-1050 pixel resolution — 36 percent more than the previous generation—and the 15-inch PowerBook with a 1440-by-960 pixel resolution — 26 percent more than the previous generation. Ideal for business and creative professionals, the new 15- and 17-inch PowerBooks make reading text and viewing images even easier with brighter displays — up to 46 percent brighter on the 17-inch model. The 15- and 17-inch PowerBooks also provide up to an additional hour of battery life to get even more work done while on the road.”

What Apple didn’t provide was a set of reading glasses for folks who are over 25. More screen real estate naturally means smaller text, closer to what you find on a Windows notebook. Sure, you can change the resolution to compensate, but the picture is never as sharp as the native resolution. Finder and other application settings can be tweaked or larger letters, but I’ll await some face time with the new models before rendering a final judgment. That extra battery life, however, is a real plus, but don’t expect up to 5.5 hours as Apple claims, unless you just plan to stare at your new PowerBook’s screen and not do anything else.

Overall, however, the improvements seem enough to goose PowerBook sales for a while, although I’m sure Apple is aching to get some Intel chips inside to realize some genuine speed gains.

On the other hand, the Power Mac did earn a healthy performance boost, even if you do have to explain to some skeptics why a 2.5GHz model is more powerful than the previous 2.7GHz version. And there’s no mention of the need for liquid cooling, thank goodness! The updated line, based on specs alone, seems a far more credible contender in the workstation arena, particularly if you are willing to spend an arm and a leg for superior graphics. You see, when the original Power Mac G5 appeared in 2003, I contacted Dell and HP about a shootout with their workstations. Dell agreed, and then declined, but HP came up to bat with a product that was over two grand more expensive.

How did HP explain the price disparity? Well, both the Power Mac and the HP had dual processors. But HP claimed that its desktop entry offered workstation rather than consumer-level graphics, which it said would yield an important advantage for content creators. Apple has continued to provide what some regard as consumer-oriented graphics cards although the critics don’t seem to have made much of an issue about it. But clearly a slower dual-core processor versus a faster single core one isn’t enough to boost performance significantly, so Apple is offering an upgrade to the workstation-class NVIDIA QUADRO FX 4500, which adds over $1600 to your purchase price. This monster card fills two PCI Express slots, and can support a pair of 30-inch Apple HD Cinema Displays.

Oh yes, PCI Express, which provides much faster performance than previous expansion slot schemes. Apple also lets you install up to 16GB of 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM. The faster memory will also eke superior number crunching capabilities. Twin gigabit Ethernet ports make the boxes more suited to render farms, which makes them more attractive to movie special effects people.

All told, Apple can make some very compelling arguments as to why the new Power Macs smoke the older models. But before you wonder why the top-of-the-line got a higher price, $3,299, start equipping a Windows workstation with similar equipment, including a pair of dual core Intel Xeons, and see where the figures top out. For example, I started out with a Dell Precision 670. The “Enhanced” version has a base price of $1,818. But start customizing it to approach the Power Mac G5 Quad, and the picture changes considerably. I got to $4,834 without a the extra gigabit Ethernet port and FireWire or much extra software. If you’re interested in checking my figures, bear in mind that Dell’s site is a moving target, and prices and configurations may vary depending on where you enter the site and, perhaps, which offer is in effect that particular hour.

Comparing prices on Apple hardware with its Windows-based competition is, however, an old argument, as is comparing performance. In fact, Apple hasn’t bothered. It’s speed claims use older Power Macs for benchmarks rather than a Dell or an HP.

From my little corner of the universe, the newest Power Mac line as a major step in the transition to Intel. The subsystems seem to be in place, and now I’m curious to see how things will fare for the main event. Will Apple introduce a new form factor, or just pop the Intel chip and associated components inside the very same box, just to show us all that it was no big deal after all.

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