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If that was true and if that meant that the the intel PB is far away may be it means that we could see a nice G5 PB still? :rolleyes:
 
seriously...
The hardware engineers are HARDWARE ENGINEERS. This is just another design problem that tey need to overcome. They have clear parameters, and have to accomodate them. They're not like the SOFTWARE engineers who had to convert to a whole different way of programming (which they reportedly did a long time ago). All they have to do is work with it like they did with any given PPC chip or portable they were designing for. Sure it's a little bigger challenge, but I personally think they're up to not having thermal problems.
 
well

Apparently Apple's Industrial Design Team is having trouble designing a symmetrical PowerBook that can still look good with a plethora of "Intel" stickers all over it. THAT'S what the SONY guys are for.
 
eva01 said:
well this is just for their powerbook (hopefully) which means they may already have a design for the iBooks.

Of course they already have a design for the iBooks. They've just updated them!
 
CubaTBird said:
ex-sony vaio engineer's? hrm....... i don't think so... sounds way to hasty on apple's part...
A lot of people seem to be missing something:

Just because they work for Sony doesn't mean they are incompetent.
 
Sogo said:
I just want to throw this out there.

If the consumer line is upgraded to intel chips first, then wouldnt that mean that the consumer line is better than the pro line? Is'nt the point of switching to intel; to have better proccessors?

Just wanted to throw that out.

Expect a lot of speed problems the first year of mactel and very very fast G5 setups.

The transition won't be complete until mid 2008 i'm afraid. Maybe they'll even keep G5 and Intel side by side so forcing developers to support both platforms. From now on Apple is free to choose PPC or Intel whichever is better or cheaper. Apple promised us the intel red box in '97 just for this purpose but it apparently needed more time than first anticipated. It's a unique position apple is in, perfect for imbedded PPC's and fast intel desktops. I see a bright future before us :D
 
LethalWolfe said:
Quote:
"i am sure a normal forward-thinking company (especially Apple) has planned for this surely 2 years ago."

So when Jobs announced a 3ghz G5 2yrs ago he was completely full of crap 'cause he had already decided to ditch IBM for Intel?

Steve promised red box windows support on intel macs way back in 1997 but nobody believed him. :p
http://www.pelagius.com/AppleRecon/mactel.html
http://www.pelagius.com/AppleRecon/sleeping.html
hey, this guy even used the term mactel in 97 :D
A good visionary read this is.
 
LaMerVipere said:
EEK, yeah sure, if you like horrible battery life and outdated overpriced hardware.
Hmm, are you talking about Sony or Apple?

Most laptop manufacturers face these issues. Even my 15" 1.67Ghz Powerbook was too hot to keep on my lap at full power, and the battery life was about 3 hours - about the same as a 'mid portable' PC laptop. The Sony 'S' series costs about the same as the Powerbook, is lighter (less than 2kg), has a newer graphics card (PCI Express), longer battery life, faster CPU, twice the memory as standard, a bigger hard drive (Serial ATA too), a dual layer DVD drive, better screen, etc etc, and you say they use outdated hardware?

Doesn't leave Apple in a very good position does it?
 
This might sound silly, but I've been talking to a bunch of PC people, techies and executives lately. That's not the silly part. i don't like to get in the Mac vs. PC thing, I just want my OSX. But it seems that a lot of people in the PC world are very nervous about what Apple could accomplish in the near future. I said this to a guy I know who works at Dell, and he said that's the feeling he gets from where he works.
 
Or maybe Apple's going to bring out a new µMac (MicroMac) that is going to be positioned below the MacMini for gaming, simple web browsing, email, etc. Full OSX but optimized for gaming and cheap. Sony does have a bit of experience with gaming... :)
 
AidenShaw said:
We've virtually de-listed VAIO laptops from our list of laptops - way too many quality problems with them.

But then, considering the number of bugs in Tiger (and the rapid 10.4.1, 10.4.2, 10.4.3) maybe Apple's decided to "think different" about quality.

Our Dell's might not look as exciting as the VAIOs, but they spend more time with their owners....

The Dell laptop I have had from work for the last two year is a LOUSY machine that has been sent back to Atlanta twice for rebuilds (motherboard) and has had 3 visits to my house for screen and top issues. NEVER again anything Dell.
 
woolfgang said:
This might sound silly, but I've been talking to a bunch of PC people, techies and executives lately. That's not the silly part. i don't like to get in the Mac vs. PC thing, I just want my OSX. But it seems that a lot of people in the PC world are very nervous about what Apple could accomplish in the near future. I said this to a guy I know who works at Dell, and he said that's the feeling he gets from where he works.
Perception, speculation and subjectivity aside, I've had more straight up questions from my VAIO, dellard and windows world friends than snide remarks the past few weeks.
X
 
It's probably been said already, but I can see the merits of this rumor. Powerbooks used to be the laptops to have, without question. They are still a very high quality product, but IBMs inability to stay ahead of Intel and AMD has let the rest of the pack catch up, so to speak.

I hope the between now and 2007, the Powerbook line can improve its processing power enough to remain competitive. Even if Apple hires the people it wants right now, the results will not be seen for a few years, maybe less. Either way, it is nice to see (as the rumor suggests) that Apple is investing in the R&D that will put Powerbooks back on top. I don't imagine these developers are going to come cheaply. Good job Apple.
 
the air will be thick with irony at the end of sept when i have $3000+ sitting in waiting for a rev a powerbok.

i am a college student and as such have simply lusted after up to date hardware for as long as i knew how to.
 
Good discussion... but I think people might be misunderstanding one of my points.

I think that people who buy Apples next year are going to want Macintels. I don't think anyone can look around at the posts on this site and see how many people are positively drooling for an Intel Mac (I'm definitely one of them) and not understand this.

So the issue here is not which chip is more powerful -- it's which chip is going to be driving the sales next year. That chip is going to be the Intel chip. If Apple puts it in the prosumer machines, they'll likely have bugs, perhaps genuine problems. If Apple puts it in their consumer machines, the sales of prosumer machines will grind to an absolute halt. Apple's profit margins will drop and stockholders will be angry.

Everyone on this site knows that Apple has pulled some sneaky **** in the past. Jobs' responsibility is to the stockholders, and if he makes fifty million by releasing buggy prosumer boxes, he'll do it -- as long as it's more than the thirty million he'd make by releasing consumer boxes that'd cannibalize prosumer sales.

I think it's that simple -- Apple will release immature Power lines because the alternative is to minimize their profit margin in a year that could be Apple's biggest ever. Apple's going to try to make this an absolutely huge year for the Mac, and they're going to do this not by creating reliable machines, but by maximizing their profit. And that means the first machines to switch will be prosumer.

It's not about the relative strengths of the chips -- it's about the demand, and the profit on a Powerbook compared to the profit of a Mac mini.

I hope that I am reading correctly and that people genuinely misunderstood me -- I don't want to be tedious. Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse.
 
lilstewart92 said:
This is great. Sony Knowledge + Apple Knowledge= AWESOME.

so true

of the non mac related companies out there, i like silicon graphics, sun, alien computing, and sony, though the latter two use microsoft windows

i think sony, with it's deep pockets and vast knowledge due to its huge employee and ex-employee base, should be a good source for potential apple engineers or business partners for apple

as for industrial design, sony is sometimes right up there with apple
 
jefhatfield said:
as for industrial design, sony is sometimes right up there with apple

I agree. Although I'm not always a fan of Sony' s products (depends which products, some are good, some aren't!) I have always like their designs, and I think their Vaio design is actually quite slick - right up there with the PowerBook if you ask me. I think this will be a good thing for Apple (if the rumor is true!)
 
Design what?

They're talking about mobo design, right? I mean, Apple doesn't want Sony designers forming the outside of a powerbook I would think.

Hopefully they're not stealing engineers FROM Sony...thats a pretty dirty move and actually illegal. Former engineers from Sony however...I guess that could be helpful. I always thought Apple engineers were geniuses who knew everything, but I guess this just proves how complex the underlying electronics really is.
 
lilstewart92 said:
This is great. Sony Knowledge + Apple Knowledge= AWESOME.

Sony Knowledge, AWESOME?

Excuse me. Maybe in some other areas but in Computing? If I would hear that the Apple hires former IBM Thinkpad engineers, I would probably be positive, but Vaio...
 
Macrumors said:
.., they are reportedly recruiting ex-Sony VAIO engineers to pull together a team

Since IBM decided to get rid of the Thinkpad division, there should be a number of awesome engineers that could really give the Powerbooks the boost it needs. I would IMMEDIATELY buy an Apple Thinkbook ;-) Apple Vaios? No thanks...
 
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