PowerPC = best at the time because IBM was a researchy CPU engineering powerhouse, but then got outclassed by Intel. AMD forced Intel to release its 1 GHz CPU a

PowerPC = best at the time because IBM was a researchy CPU engineering powerhouse, but then got outclassed by Intel. AMD forced Intel to release its 1 GHz CPU a year ahead of schedule and generally pushed x86 ahead of PPC. Apple/ARM = best now, because Apple's vast capital from iPhone success has allowed it to build a world-class CPU engineering team from scratch. Building the end products at the same company gives them integration that can't be matched by other companies.