PowerBook Updates Imminent?

Mac_Freak said:

This may not be the upgrade that we were hopping for but for sure the year 2006 is going to be one hell of a year.

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I think that is a given. Lets see:

1. Betaing of Leopard....
2. iBook x86 trans....
3. PowerBook x86 trans...
4. Mac Mini x86 trans....
5. Maybe an iMac x86 trans....maybe.
6. PPC Dual core PowerMac if not this year, or this MONTH!, then definitely next.
7. A high possibility of a video iPod in some form or another.

2006 could very well be the biggest year Apple has ever had when it comes to hardware releases. And I'm NOT talking speedbumps...I'm talking full fledged updates.

i almost bought that 17" powerbook on saturday night at the apple store. i am so glad my gut instinct said "NO, DON'T DO IT!".

i am feeling a lot better about all of this... =)

Any chance they would add those new glass like laptop screens? (what are they called?) I must admit those screens look sweet! A 'power'book should move to those screens.

Brian

new powerbooks in Austin,Texas?

I was visiting the Compusa in Austin on saturday 09/17 looking for open box powerbooks on sale. The manager told me to come back in 3 or 4 wks as they would be receiving upgraded powerbooks and clearing out current line. I've dealt with this person for several years and feel he was probably accurate. I guess we will find out.

SiliconAddict said:

I think that is a given. Lets see:

1. Betaing of Leopard....
2. iBook x86 trans....
3. PowerBook x86 trans...
4. Mac Mini x86 trans....
5. Maybe an iMac x86 trans....maybe.
6. PPC Dual core PowerMac if not this year, or this MONTH!, then definitely next.
7. A high possibility of a video iPod in some form or another.

2006 could very well be the biggest year Apple has ever had when it comes to hardware releases. And I'm NOT talking speedbumps...I'm talking full fledged updates.

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Absolutely - it will be a fun, exciting year. As you say, actual updates, not 100 MHz speed bump "updates".

aegisdesign said:

Aside from the fact PCI-E and SATA is of almost no benefit in a laptop, the bridge chip is already sorted.

http://www.tundra.com/Products/PowerPC/Tsi108/index.cfm

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Well maybe not in a PowerBook with its bandwidth starved FSB but for the rest of the mobile PC line in the world with their ever increasing FSB's it will benefit a laptop from the standpoint of the GPU. And we won't even talk about ExpressCard and the benefits a laptop will have with PCI-E and this next generation of PCMCIA.
As for SATA. Well what is there to say about SATA? There hasn't been a massive increase from IDE to SATA but it doesn't change the fact that any system that has it basicly future proofs itself to a certain extent. Specifically 3 years from now when HD performance does start to increase across SATA and most new drives ARE SATA a laptop user can simply drop a new HD in their system.

And finally for the link provided. Interesting. However as others have stated this would require Apple to create a new chipset from almost scratch for a product that may have a lifespan of anywhere from 4 months to 14 months. That and does Apple really have the resources to work on Mac Mini x86, PowerBook x86, iBook x86 and a new PPC chipset all at the same time and even if they did would it be cost beneficial for them considering, again, this system's lifespan would be anywhere from 4 months to 14 months.
Too many questions. Not enough clues to answer them.

I would be skeptical of PB getting much of a bump.

I do thing that they will release something new though...perhaps a decent upgrade to the PM line.

I dont think it matters that Steve is not there. I think he pulled out cause he did that big music event a couple of weeks ago, and can likely only do so many presentations.

cube said:

They don't need to redesign to use the 7448. That's the point.

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So potentially you could swap the processor in the existing powerbooks?

no wonder steve cancelled his keynote, maybe too ashame of the upgrades... well this means we will have a new powerbook....

Just Page Two It!

A little speedbump sounds reasonable as we await "the real thing," but late '06 for Intel PBs?

Apple is far from immune to manufacturing/components-supply issues, but Yonah will be faster than current Pentium Ms, which in turn are faster than G4s. Yonah is a DUAL-core laptop chip, available early next year. Apple will want that chip in a laptop--there's no sense in waiting for a late-2006 chip. (I'm discounting the remote chance of Freescale/IBM having some amazing 64-bit laptop chip that makes Apple want to stay PPC until 64-bit Merom comes out. It's just too unlikely a scenario for me.)

So if Apple WANTS a YonahBook, why couldn't I--mean they--have it?

They've been working on OS X on Intel for years. They have certainly not ignored the hardware side in that time. Especially not leading up to this year's June WWDC announcement. And laptops are the most urgent driving need FOR the change. So they'll have had a whole year--probably more--to design an Intel PowerBook by early 06.

This is the company that went from "initial discussion" to "shipping" on the iPod nano in 9 months. They can certainly take a PowerBook from "early design/engineering work" to "shipping" in 15 months.

Or they could fail--some exotic component or design feature might prove problematic and cause delays. But fail as far as mid-late 2006? Seems unlikely. Even more unlikely that Apple would give up on a YonahBook this early even if there ARE problems.

Stella said:

So potentially you could swap the processor in the existing powerbooks?

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If the processor isn't mounted onto the PCB but onto a daughter card, yes.

You won't get the 200MHz FSB, but you'll get the 1MB L2 and lower power consumption.

Unless the 166MHz Apple Northbridge isn't compatible, of course.

Dothan wouldn't make sense for mid 2006

Macrumors said:

Also reported is that Intel PowerBooks are not expected until mid-to-late 2006.

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In the PPC970MP thread, I said that I expect the first MacIntels in January.

Apple is telling its developers that the first ones will be Dothan-based - which would be an odd decision if the date is mid-to-late 2006. Yonah will be out in volume by then, so handicapping the first systems by telling developers to code for Dothan wouldn't make sense.

On the other hand, if the message to developers changes to say "code for Yonah" - then mid-to-late 2006 would be indicated.

Frobozz said:

It is also worth noting that the price on a refurbished PowerBook is $100 less than it was early last week.

Updates are imminent.

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Heh I stated that in another thread and no one believed the theory.

SiliconAddict said:

Freescale dual cores weren't expected to sample until fall of '05. That is SAMPLE. Not ship. And a dual core would not be a drop in solution so a chipset redesign would be in order. I can believe with relative ease that the PowerMac is going dual core. PowerBooks...less so.

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Ho, i didn't know that . You may be right on this.

Your the one who is distorting the facts!

MrSugar said:

I don't know why you think it will be slow. Supposedly Rosetta is the real deal. All reports I have read about Rosetta and its emulation say it's extremely fast, in fact, they don't even call it emulation.

While I don't entirely disagree with your post, simply because the intel jump is a big jump to take, I think your facts seem a bit off. There is a good chance that intel powerbooks, even running rosetta, may run current PPC programs just as fast, or faster, even though they are emulating it.

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Rosetta is targeted to emulate at G3 800 mhz performance. Most developers whom I trust tell me that this seems about right with what they have seen so far.

Rosetta can't handle Alti-Vec enabled code. Therefore software that requires a G4 processor won't run at all or it will run crippled without Alti-vec.

Third, many scientific, video, audio, graphics, and modelling software packages that pros commonly use won't have a native x86 version of their software available for quite sometime.

I think an early release of the PB on intel would be a mistake. Unless the PB user is content to run just OS X, iLife, and safari, they are going to be disappointed with their purchase.

This isn't like the OS 9 to OS X transition because then you could configure a dual boot machine, one boot mode would be native OS 9 and the other native OS X 10.0. Then when problems arose in OS X or classic emulation you could just reboot into OS 9 native to run troubled software.

Not such luck this time. If it doesn't work in rosetta your screwed until an x86 native version comes out, possibly a 2 year wait. Some software may never make the transition at all.

paperinacup said:

Heh I stated that in another thread and no one believed the theory.

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For the record, I think you and I are right. I'm certain that every other time updates were released, refurbished unit prices dropped about a week prior. You can set your watch to it. Now, if I just had some hard data to follow that up ...

Whether they update or not, those prices should come down a bit (if only for the reason that I need a new PB).

Oh no not this madness again, here comes another 500 page thread about a powerbook that will never come. I am getting so sick of these rumors. The real powerbook fireworks are not coming until 2006.

This is a great post.

yamabushi said:

If you have a lot of software it might be a good idea to go ahead and buy this updated powerbook regardless of its specs. Why? Because PPC emulation is slow on current Intel hardware. If you jump on the first Intel based Powerbook nine months to a year from now you may be dissapointed when using any OSX software released before 2006.

Emulating PPC hardware will probably become more efficient and Intel hardware will become more powerful in the future. I think it may be a long time before emulated PPC hardware will pass up native hardware for most tasks.

New* software released a year from now will likely run fast on Intel hardware released a year from now. But, the same software will still run fine on currently available PPC hardware.

If you usually buy a new laptop every two to three years, then I would suggest that this next revision would be the perfect time to buy. In two years Apple might be releasing the second or third revision of the Intel Powerbook. At that time the transition will be at its midpoint and there will be more Intel OSX software available. Hardware perfomance and emulation efficiency will probably have improved enough to make the transition less painful.

For many users I think the next Powerbook revision will offer the best overall performance for the next few years. Buy it.

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yamabushi, you are dead on with this post. Hopefully the next PB upgrade will be a decent one because this will be the book to buy for most pro users.

Mac_Freak said:

This may not be the upgrade that we were hopping for but for sure the year 2006 is going to be one hell of a year.

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That's what they were saying about 2005 in late 2004.

Everyone was expecting 3 Ghz PM and G5 PB, look what happened.

I think that everyone is going to be severly disappointed at the snails pace of the Intel transition and fewer intel based macs will be introduced in 2006 than people here expect.

Remember Steve first mentioned the switch at a developers conference in June. He said that the 'FIRST' Intel based mac would be in the market at this same time next year. It was also widely reported an sort of confirmed by Apple that the low-end consumer end would be first to transition (ie Mac Mini). This makes sense since most consumers would be content with only x86 native OSX and iLife apps.

Apple could easily drop the current Pentium-M into a Mac Mini by June 2006.

has something changed since the Intel announcment back in June/July or whenever it was earlier this year? I thought Steve said the first Intel machines would not be released until AT LEAST June of 2006?

I am reading an Dell advertisement in an Norwegian newspaper right now. I think the current price/specs on the powerbooks is anemic compared to Dell. If it was only price performance I would choose Dell, I think. But because of software, I feel home on OS X etcetc, the totalt price is higher on a PC system. And I need a portable, I want a second screen (not mirroring). thinking about a iMac 20inch. which has the performance, but is not portable.

Still. I think that Apple cant afford to lag behind on portables as it does right know. They should either cut price or put in some other stuff until the machines is as fast as they should be.

Erland

Is it just me or does the PowerBook's future look grim until they start releasing Intel PowerBooks? There isn't much more they can offer as far as speed bumps and features. Maybe lower pricing and better bundles?

AidenShaw said:

... Yonah will be out in volume by then...

...if the message to developers changes to say "code for Yonah" - then mid-to-late 2006 would be indicated.

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I see forum postings and articles alike, claiming everything from "Yonah ready by end of 2005" to "Yonah not available in quantity until late 2006."

Who's right? Just wondering, what are your reasons for thinking Yonah can't be ready early in 2006?

Most articles seem to expect Merom by late 2006--and Yonah much sooner. I'm also led to believe that Intel WILL have quantity available at launch.

I wish all these rumours would at least 'agree'. So far it just seems like ramblings... "Such and such a person who works at such and such a place knows this guy that has a friend who's cousin works for this place that knows people from Apple that say there are new PowerBooks coming! YAY!"...

If all the rumours ive seen so far had come true, then we would have Dual Core PowerBook G5's running Intel Processors , Dual PowerMac G5's with PCI-express - iBooks with 'widescreens' and iMac G6's running god knows what (some hybrid super-duper PPC and x86 CPU probably).

Maybe its just me thats fed up with seeing ""OMFG _ _ _ _ _ release imminent!"" as headlines. Then nothing comes of it.


On another note, IntelMac's by January? And what exactley are they going to run when they get here? Wouldnt it be better if Apple waited for software that is compatible with the x86 to ship to some degree (because they can compile for both yes so its invisible to any user buying it) before spiting out new hardware. I would expect one last PPC update - not to see a jump accross to intel chips instantley from the G4.... just my opinion though.