The other shoe has finally dropped-- though it'll take over a year for it to hit the ground. It's no secret that Apple (meaning Steve Jobs) has been less than thrilled with OEM graphics chip supplier ATI for some time now. Between slow, crash-prone Mac drivers and some hefty technology lag when it comes to bringing new chipsets to our humble platform of choice, ATI already had a couple of strikes against it. That's when things got really ugly: ATI accidentally spilled the beans about some new Macs a couple of days before Steve was scheduled to unveil them at last July's Macworld Expo, thus spoiling the iCEO's big surprise. And we all know how much Steve loves his surprises-- and how painful his Nasty Spiny Vengeance can be.

Much was made (largely by us, naturally) about the ensuing disappearance of any trace of ATI's new RADEON chipset from Steve's keynote and the products on display at Apple's booth. Yes, it's possible that, in a snit-fit, Steve banished the RADEON to Mac limbo for a few more weeks as ATI's punishment for wrecking his fun. Of course, the more mundane explanation is that some last-minute show-stopper bugs cropped up in the RADEON and Steve had no choice but to surgically remove all references to it from his speech. Either way, things didn't bode well for ATI's future as Apple's sole GPU supplier. And when most of the new Power Macs surfaced six months later packing nVIDIA GeForce2 MX cards (with the RADEON relegated to "BTO option" status), rumors that ATI had "Buh-bye" tattooed on its forehead suddenly started to carry a whole lotta weight.

What AppleInsider claims (as faithful viewer and AtAT mainstay David Triska notes) is that, despite the fact that currently only three of Apple's fourteen stock Mac configurations ship with nVIDIA graphics instead of ATI technology, nVIDIA is in and ATI is being shown the door-- there's just a really long hallway to the exit, is all. Reportedly Apple (again, probably meaning Steve) would love to have every Mac running with nVIDIA chips right now, but unfortunately, changing GPUs mid-stream seems akin to turning an ocean liner around; it takes a while for anything to happen. Apple's having an easier time assimilating nVIDIA's desktop chips, hence the existing Power Macs and-- allegedly-- the imminent nVIDIA-powered iMacs. However, mobile chipsets are proving more challenging; the next PowerBook G4 revision will apparently include a new nVIDIA-friendly 4x AGP motherboard, so look for ATI to exit the PowerBook's good graces next winter-- but the iBook won't make the jump to nVIDIA until "sometime next year." No word on the Cube, but we'd have to guess it'll go nVIDIA sooner rather than later.

All told, assuming this whole nVIDIA switchover started sometime last July (if not earlier), it sounds like the transition will take well over a year and a half to complete. Say what you will about Steve, but the man sure is patient about exacting his revenge. Here's hoping nVIDIA doesn't go blabbing about unannounced Apple products three days before Macworld Expo San Francisco 2002, because switching to yet another supplier would be more slow-motion than we could handle.