I also think that the author is ignoring a significant advantage to having access to inexpensive, multi-core processors, which is that even if most of your tasks don't parallelize well, modern OS's run a LOT of tasks concurrently, out of necessity.
I think that he is also ignoring the fact that there are quite a few software shops out there that are working on paralellizing their software (e.g. Valve, Mental Images, Adobe, Project:Messiah Group, PIXAR, etc).
Another missed point is that most people don't actually have a real need for more computing power than a Pentium4 or AthlonXP, let alone a Penryn or a quad-core CPU. Quad-core (or more) PC's are overkill even for most software developers. Most of the people buying MacPros with 8 cores aren't writing software, they're editing and encoding video, large photographs, rendering large CG projects, compositing... the sort of thing that drives most markets: content.
The real issue here is, IMO, the lack of a "killer app" to convince the average user to WANT a multi-core system.
From one of my other commenters:
Multicore is definitely over-promised. I agree with what you wrote and recommend what Donald Knuth had to say on this topic:(http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856)
"I might as well flame a bit about my personal unhappiness with the current trend toward multicore architecture. To me, it looks more or less like the hardware designers have run out of ideas, and that they’re trying to pass the blame for the future demise of Moore’s Law to the software writers by giving us machines that work faster only on a few key benchmarks!"
I just want to share with you that when I read the title, I thought you meant something like "The false expectations Apple is setting with Snow Leopard."
After I read the article, I came away with the thought that what you were saying is "The false hopes people are clinging to when they read about Snow Leopard."
This leads to two obvious questions. First, why exactly does Apple get singled out here? As I see it, the CPU vendors are the ones pushing multicore; OS developers are simply trying to make the best lemonade they can from the lemons that are stalled core speeds.
Second, what the hell is this "core thread" Hank talks about? Re-entrant, SMP-capable OS kernels have been around for a long time. If the major commercial OS vendors are just now getting around to implementing such scalability, fine; that doesn't mean the problem is unsolvable, though.