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Apple: PowerBook G5 will be "mother of all thermal challenges"

LaMerVipere

LaMerVipere

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 19, 2004
971
1
Chicago
For Apple to produce a PowerBook equipped with a G5 processor will be the "mother of all thermal challenges," chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said during Apple's Q1 2005 conference call today. The likelihood of such a product emerging in the near future is increasingly looking grim.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=836

EEP. :(
 
indeed that is some bad news. i wonder if they have givin up on a "real" G5 yet, and started to design some sort of mobile version..

aethier
 
This is bad news but I'm not really surprised. It has been a long time since the first PowerMac G5 was released. If it was easy to put the same processor in a PowerBook, it would have happened by now. Since it has proved to be so difficult, I think it's time Apple starts thinking about alternative processors from freescale. What I don't understand is why a mobile G5 was not developed at IBM at the same time they were working on the desktop G5. Surely, Apple sells more PowerBooks than PowerMacs. So shouldn't that be their priority?
 
If you read on on apple insider it gave a previous quote about the sub $800 pc market from the same guy...

My predictions are that there is a major revision looming - however not to clog up the apple website they didnt launch the PB at MWSF - to maximise sales on the Mac MINI. We'll have a major revision in a matter of weeks.
 
I fully agree with jamdr - IBM should have produced two kinds of chips - and maybe they have and maybe there are major revisions on the way. The again maybe not. My guess is that we'll see something big PB-wise at WWDC or around the time when Tiger is released.
 
Another iBook G4, to replace another Pismo, looks more and more reasonable... :) It's gonna take a while before they'll put any new generation of processors in these little babies. I've always preferred the iBooks, not really needing the extra power of the PowerBooks. A bigger HD (100GB or even bigger) would be nice, though, so I'll wait a little while...
 
zebi_ said:
If you read on on apple insider it gave a previous quote about the sub $800 pc market from the same guy...

My predictions are that there is a major revision looming - however not to clog up the apple website they didnt launch the PB at MWSF - to maximise sales on the Mac MINI. We'll have a major revision in a matter of weeks.
Click to expand...

I hope you are right. :(
 
aricher said:
I fully agree with jamdr - IBM should have produced two kinds of chips - and maybe they have and maybe there are major revisions on the way. The again maybe not. My guess is that we'll see something big PB-wise at WWDC or around the time when Tiger is released.
Click to expand...

This is a great idea.
 
great idea...

aricher said:
I fully agree with jamdr - IBM should have produced two kinds of chips - and maybe they have and maybe there are major revisions on the way. The again maybe not. My guess is that we'll see something big PB-wise at WWDC or around the time when Tiger is released.
Click to expand...

thats a great idea... but nowhere near origional... my view is that they should always do this... mobile and desktop processing are two different beasts and they should be handled in different mannors...

with the pentium m about the step up to 2.4 ghz and the soon to be released AMD turion (64 bit mobile processor for ultraportables in the 1H2005), IBM or moterolla needs to develop a low voltage 64 bit mobile processor...
 
zebi_ said:
If you read on on apple insider it gave a previous quote about the sub $800 pc market from the same guy...

My predictions are that there is a major revision looming - however not to clog up the apple website they didnt launch the PB at MWSF - to maximise sales on the Mac MINI. We'll have a major revision in a matter of weeks.
Click to expand...

clearly you didn't listen to the quartly financial report broadcast (i did). AppleInsider post is a direct quote from Peter Oppennheimer himself (apple's CFO)
 
Odd that a money guy would answer a question in such a forboding, negative manner. He didn't even try to spin it.

I think if IBM were developing a mobile G5, we would have heard about it. They are pretty open about announcing where their processors are headed. They don't really play the Apple secrecy game.

I wonder if Apple has shot itself in the foot by assuming they'd find a workaround for the G5 in Powerbooks -- and now having nothing to offer in place of it.

The real problem is that the Powerbooks are pretty much perfect machines. The only way to improve on them at this point is to make the more powerful. Shaving another 1/16th of an inch and giving a minor boost to the G4's isn't exactly going to have consumers running out to their nearest Apple Store. Frankly, I'd still take one of the "old" ones. They're awesome.
 
lem0nayde said:
Odd that a money guy would answer a question in such a forboding, negative manner. He didn't even try to spin it.

I think if IBM were developing a mobile G5, we would have heard about it. They are pretty open about announcing where their processors are headed. They don't really play the Apple secrecy game.

I wonder if Apple has shot itself in the foot by assuming they'd find a workaround for the G5 in Powerbooks -- and now having nothing to offer in place of it.

The real problem is that the Powerbooks are pretty much perfect machines. The only way to improve on them at this point is to make the more powerful. Shaving another 1/16th of an inch and giving a minor boost to the G4's isn't exactly going to have consumers running out to their nearest Apple Store. Frankly, I'd still take one of the "old" ones. They're awesome.
Click to expand...

Yes, as it stands, the PowerBooks are still a formidable laptop. I think its much more likely the next versions of the PBs will have dual G4 Freescale chips that can be independantly turned off and on according to the mode of power.
 
lem0nayde said:
The real problem is that the Powerbooks are pretty much perfect machines. The only way to improve on them at this point is to make the more powerful. Shaving another 1/16th of an inch and giving a minor boost to the G4's isn't exactly going to have consumers running out to their nearest Apple Store. Frankly, I'd still take one of the "old" ones. They're awesome.
Click to expand...

Ummmm I'd have to dissagree. esp with the 12'' line. The 12'' shoudl get the features of its bigger siblings, FW800, backlight keyboard, etc. Better video Card? How about a higher resolution screen? A fair share have battery problems. You get the idea. There is always room for improvement.

For photoshop/video editing there isnt really all that much power in a PB. A new proc. would be a huge +, but Apple cant just pull one out of thin air.
 
lem0nayde said:
Odd that a money guy would answer a question in such a forboding, negative manner. He didn't even try to spin it.
Click to expand...

Unless Apple has one around the corner (unlikely as it may be) which would make Apple's engineers look like the geniuses they are.
 
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