This week, Freescale (former Motorola's processors division), announced the upcoming release of the MPC7448 PowerPC G4 processor (see specs here) which will be available by October 2005.

The new PowerPC G4 chip will consume less power and will be able to run in higher clock speeds. It's nothing dramatic in terms of performance though as the new chip could reach about 1.8Ghz of top speed.

This chip was announced last year and was supposed to ship in the first quarter of 2005 but didn't, Apple had to use the MPC7447A which currently tops at 1.66Ghz. On late 2004, MacosXrumors had suggested two scenarios (plan A and plan B) so it looks like Apple was forced to go with the plan B. However it's likely that the new chip will eventually be used in the next speed-bump of the Powerbook line.

So is there still any hope that Apple releases a Powerbook based on the PowerPC 970 (aka G5) one day? I would say that the answer is "it's not true!".