My original post was simply a question.
No it wasn't. It was a classic troll.
You PRESUME there's been a "delay" when in fact you have NO evidence to present that this is so.
As others have pointed out (and anyone with any sort of business sense would know), Apple (like most companies) tends to refresh their product lines NOT the moment they can get their hands on NewFangled WhizzyDoodle A6108, but when their previous version starts to drop off in sales.
Sometimes this means that Apple is a bit AHEAD of the game, like when the original iMac came out with no "legacy" ports (which caused a huge uproar but didn't stop it becoming a hit), and sometimes (more often) being quite a bit behind the bleeding edge (their USB2 adoption was pretty slow, for example).
PC companies tend to try and grab the new technologies very quickly (often without bothering to check on how well they will work in the field) because new hardware features are pretty much all they have to offer. They don't make software and they can't really distinguish themselves from each other (since they all buy from exactly the same stack of chinese components).
So your initial premise contains a FALSE assumption, and as soon as someone tried to point this out, you went troll. Which may well have been your original intent.
We're not "defending" Apple. We're pointing out the reality of Apple's special place in the market. Yes, Apple does "compete" against PC makers for the unwashed masses. But they also DON'T compete against them, particularly with the base. Just as there are people (crazy people) who would never EVER look at anything that didn't run Windows, so there are millions and millions of people (like me) who wouldn't run anything other than Mac OS X (at least until something clearly superior came along, which seems incredibly unlikely).
As CORRECTLY pointed out, if you are a fan of Mac OS X or Apple's hardware designs or both (since they are intended to work together), your sole supplier is Apple. Most people, once they "buy into the Apple ecosystem" tend to stay there. So those customers are (largely) not eligible to be "competed to" by PC manufacturers anymore.
Apple is a forward thinking company that has always embraced technological advances.
Forward thinking, yes. Mindlessly grabbing the latest technology for the sheer sake of doing so, not so much. Just as an example: how many PCs come with some kind of Blu-Ray burner these days? Not all of them, of course, but quite a few. But Apple shows NO sign of being in a hurry to get them included as standard equipment.
but simply to ask others for their opinion of Apples upcoming refresh, and when they thought it might happen.
Well why couldn't you have asked it that way, instead of becoming argumentative?
The simple answer is that nobody here knows, but given some of the signs in the supply chain I would guess it would happen pretty soon. I've certainly been telling people thinking of buying a new laptop to hold on for a month, because I genuinely think it will happen within that timeframe. But I can't guarantee it.
For future reference, when asking speculative questions, try not to lard them up with presuppositions and strawmen. You will probably get more direct answers that way.
Don't need quad-core processors for that.
