In his latest column for BusinessWeek, Charles Haddad says that Apple’s future growth won’t be based on Mac sales — but on its iPod instead. “I don’t care how fast the new Power Mac G5 is — or isn’t (if you believe the critics). Apple’s future doesn’t ride on the speed of its Macs. In fact, Apple’s future doesn’t ride with Macs at all anymore,” writes Haddad. “What I am saying is that Apple is at one of the most important turning points in its history. It stands at the threshold of crossing over from cult favorite to household name… Apple is making this crossing on the slender back of its little iPod. This portable digital-music player is at the cusp of doing for music what the original Apple did for computing in the late 1970s: setting the standard as the mass market for these players starts taking off.”