The biggest problem was Motorola/Freescale saw that their future was in embedded, not the (relative) high performance required for personal computing. So the chip provider for Apple's mobile lineup no longer was producing performant chips. Unfortunately, IBM's implementation of PPC led a dual life as a server/workstation and desktop chip meant that getting it's power consumption, heat profile and performance optimized for a mobile device was an extremely difficult proposition.
It would be interesting to see where we'd be if IBM had ensured Apple they could deliver a G5 laptop and had done so at a price and spec competitive with, or superior to, Intel.
> The biggest problem was Motorola/Freescale saw that their future was in embedded, not the (relative) high performance required for personal computing.
Ironically that's also the niche where PowerPC ended up when Apple dumped them :)
It would be interesting to see where we'd be if IBM had ensured Apple they could deliver a G5 laptop and had done so at a price and spec competitive with, or superior to, Intel.