I wanted to add to the rumour pot that the Apple Web Store is currently down and being 'refreshed'.
Hmmm... could mean nothing.
Hmmm... could mean nothing.
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iMac G4 no longer?
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Phinius said:
A lot of people are pointing to the long lead time on xServes as an indication that chips are still in short supply. Maybe IBM is supplying them in adequate volumes and Apple's lines are busy making new iMacs and PMs ready to ship at announcement at the expense of the xServe which is a low volume product.
I think Apple will announce and ship new G5 iMacs and PMs. They know the long delays between upgrades is hurting them big time and if they don't, the press will absolutely slam them.
Well Im either going to get one of the new iMacs with a G5 or one of the new Powerbooks (12") with superdrive. Im excited to see what it looks like!
~Shard~ said:
Who says Apple didn´t have plans to introduce a new-chip iMac earlier? I´m sure they planned a rev. B PowerMac earlier but due to the yield problems had to postpone or cancel these. The yield problems probably came as a surprise to both companies, causing Apple to alter their plans for product announcements. Wether IBM is in big trouble because of it I don´t know, but the G4 iMac sure is.
Phinius said:
Apart from that vague Freescale roadmap, I see no indication as to whether or when a dual-core G4 will ermerge.
I wouldn't even be surprised if the G5 (or G6) goes dual-core quite some time before the G4.
The only advantage the G4 has is its lower power consumption. In that respect a dual or dual-core G4 consuming about the same as a single G5 could outperform it.
A thought... why would Apple get rid of the current iMac form? It works.
The current PowerMac form has been around for 20 plus years, the current laptop form has been around for over 15 years, the current eMac form has been around since the first iMac (6 years).
The current iMac form is less than 2 & 1/2 years old. As an all-in-one form, there's never been anything better - Mac or Wintel.
When it was realeased it was seen not as an evolution but a revolution. It is a design that still ahead of its time. As costs come down, especially the cost of LCDs and miniaturized components, it will become more cost competitive.
I can't see Apple dropping this design after so much time and money to develop it. It's way too early for Apple to "cut their losses" on it.
The current PowerMac form has been around for 20 plus years, the current laptop form has been around for over 15 years, the current eMac form has been around since the first iMac (6 years).
The current iMac form is less than 2 & 1/2 years old. As an all-in-one form, there's never been anything better - Mac or Wintel.
When it was realeased it was seen not as an evolution but a revolution. It is a design that still ahead of its time. As costs come down, especially the cost of LCDs and miniaturized components, it will become more cost competitive.
I can't see Apple dropping this design after so much time and money to develop it. It's way too early for Apple to "cut their losses" on it.
This is what i think, forget the cute little basketball and build a aggressive looking and colorful base around a 1.4,1.6.1.8 or perhaps 2.0 G5. Everyone just cant seem accept the idea that a imac may be designed around the 970. 970 production was no problem. who says Apple has to have a itsy bitsy base? not me. enlarge and spread out that base add 1 fan for sucking and 1 for blowing as powermac and in goes the 970. Im sure they had plenty of 970s left over since the G5s was introduced. Perhaps the 970fx was ment for powerbook/xserve and not imac. perhaps 970 was planned for imac right from the start but apple couldnt release it until powermac got bumped up. I just dont see a all new design built around non ddr capable G4. I really find in ironic so many people are crying for last place G4 as if they want slow computers? old and slow doesnt sell computers as G4 has proven for many years. I think a lot of people just dont want a new system that makes their current one look stale. This just what apple needs for sales, a new Imac that makes sure the current G4s look stale(which they are) so everyone goes out and buys a new imac.aswitcher said:
putting a 1.5 G4 into a all new machine would only bring severe criticism onto Apple in this day of 1 gig busses,full use ddr,powerful video systems and everything else. it would be a dissapointment and Apple wouldnt be getting my money and marketshare would continue the G4 slide 
Too pessimistic!
The iMac would have been updated by now if it were just a G4 upgrade - see the eMac! The G5 iMac will be here (or announced) this month. My prediction - updated PowerMac G5s announced this week, updated iMac's and ? at WWDC.
(And of course I've never been wrong before... )
ifjake said:
The iMac would have been updated by now if it were just a G4 upgrade - see the eMac! The G5 iMac will be here (or announced) this month. My prediction - updated PowerMac G5s announced this week, updated iMac's and ? at WWDC.
(And of course I've never been wrong before...
)
Dont Hurt Me said:putting a 1.5 G4 into a all new machine would only bring severe criticism onto Apple in this day of 1 gig busses,full use ddr,powerful video systems and everything else. it would be a dissapointment and Apple wouldnt be getting my money and marketshare would continue the G4 slide
Amen brother. Introducing another G4 Imac would be an unmitigated PR disaster. I know that the G4 is perfectly sufficient for 90% of layperson computing, but video editors, garageband users and (dare I say it) gamers want and need more.
I think that it is time for Apple to release a prosumer model based on a G5 processor but more easily upgradeable in terms of RAM an HD, maybe grfx card too. Maybe it is time that the iMac died. It's been around long enough and served it's purpose. Lets move on.
we didn't think they could put a 20" screen on the iMac, and they did.
we didn't think they would have the G5 ready, and they did.
so i'm expecting a big surprise at WWDC. although i still think there will be an iMac G5, to see it would still surprise me.
we didn't think they would have the G5 ready, and they did.
so i'm expecting a big surprise at WWDC. although i still think there will be an iMac G5, to see it would still surprise me.
Dont Hurt Me said:
I find that quite amusing. So you are looking forward to Apple installing slow, outdated, G5 chips in an iMac. Reality check. The current dual 2 Ghz G5 is slower than top of the line Pentiums in most benchmarks (conducted by Macworld magazine). A 1.4, 1.6., or 1.8 single processor, single core, G5 would be a joke. This is the only reason that I support the introduction of a dual core G4 in both the iMac an PB lines. Its very much on Motorollas published roadmap. It would be orders of magnitude faster than the suggested G5. I find it amusing that you assume that people want to continue seeing Apple make G4's so that they can feel better about their current computers. I can afford to upgrade multiple times a year, so this isn't a concern for me. I just want to see Apple use the best product for the job at hand. In the case of the PB and iMac, it would be foolish not to use the new G4's (if indeed Motorolla releases them on skedule.)
you took the words out of my mouth, nmk doesnt seem to fathom that why the whole industry moved on we were saddled with G4 for years that showed little to no progress and this happened more then once with poor old G4. nmk i still would rather have last years G5 then this years G4Belly-laughs said:
Dreamware is nice but its hard to build machines around dreamware and sell them. what has moto done this past year? the year before? not squat so how the heck you get people to buy new machines if there is no progress? G4 is a joke or what did Steve call it? a Tonka truck, we dont need tonka trucks we need a sportscar if Apple is going to ask sportcar prices.
oh and say the pentium 3 is faster than the 4 (not true but pretend)nmk said:
if a mom or kid comes up with money in there hand they want what "seems newer" the pentium 4. now the g4 is old dual-core is nowhere to be found and the g5 screams look at me i am new!~!!!!
Dont Hurt Me said:you took the words out of my mouth, nmk doesnt seem to fathom that why the whole industry moved on we were saddled with G4 for years that showed little to no progress and this happened more then once with poor old G4. nmk i still would rather have last years G5 then this years G4
No, it's certainly not dreamware. The processor is simply not out yet. I suppose any G5 faster than 2.0 Ghz is also dreamware. Using your logic, we shouldn't expect G5's faster than 2.0 Ghz anytime soon either. You seem to be missing the fact that the G4 of which I'm speaking is an annonced processor. Its production is much more certain than the ghost IBM 975's and 980's that people seem to put so much faith in on these boards. Quite frankly, you better hope that Motorolla starts delevering these processors, becuase if Apple is forced to use low clockspeed G5's in all their products other than the PM, the situation will be the same as it was in the past.
I do fathom that Motorolla kept Apple back for the last few years. However, that is the past and things can always change. You don't seem to fathom that IBMs track record in its first year is not particularly stellar either.
rdowns said:
Apple stated in the last quarterly meeting with financial analysts that the reason for the delays in shipping Xservers has all to do with IBM and not with the manufacture of the product from Apples side. But Apple has also stated that they expect to catch up with Xserve backorders by the end of June. I would expect that Apple could announce updated PowerMacs this month with the slowest model available in a couple of weeks thereafter and the highest speed model available in August, which is similar to what happened last year.
IBM has been improvements in chip yields for the 970FX, much is not something that is done all at once, it takes months of steady progression towards meeting the yield goals.
All of the iMac and displays on Apples website are ready for immediate delivery, which in essense means there is a good supply of the current models and you can also conclude that there is no replacement imminent.
All of the PowerMac models, however, have a ship date of 6-10 days, which means that a replacement is arriving very soon and the amount of days before shipment strongly indicates a major change to the line. If it was simply a bump up in processor speed, then Apple would have little, if any shipment delays to display on the online store.
If moto did come out with a dual core G4 running at 2.0 and had a bus of at least 400 mhz and could use ddr to its fullest then i would say great, its about time you guys did something, but they arent producing them right now and imac is way way overdue for a cpu better then current G4 so what does that leave apple? either a 970 imac or a 970fx imac and both of those cpu's are being made. Moto may have plans for this but history shows moto/freescale has a poor poor and very poor record of implementing anything. I have no faith in Moto after year after year of nothing and more nothing. If i was to put my finger on the one thing that has hurt Mac more then anything the past 3 years it would be its last place G4.
manu chao said:
A dual-core G4 got the green light from Motorola last year and that it why dual-core appears on the roadmap for the 600e model. Motorolas chief technology officer mentioned in a interview in June 2003 that a test PowerPC 90-nm chip would take place in the summer and you could expect that this would go into production about a year later. That would mean the summer of 2004.
Here's the link to that interview:
http://www.siliconstrategies.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10802061
and a summary of some of that interview:
http://www.siliconstrategies.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10802058
The e600 will take the G4 to 2GHz simply due to moving to the smaller 90-nm process size. The improvements that come along with that will be a onboard memory controller, much faster bus speeds, RapidIO (similar to Hypertransport) and the ability to utilize DDR and DDR-2 memory.
What basis do you have to form that opinion? Putting two G5 processors together on a 90-nm process size would make a rather hot running chip and the die size would be on the large size. I'd expect the possibility of a dual-core G5 arriving when IBM moves it to the 65-nm process size no sooner than the second half of 2005.
That's a rather big advantage when it comes to moving to a dual-core chip.
Intel decided to not release the Tejas version of Pentium 4 because of its high power use and the ability to replace it with a dual-core Pentium-M. This comparison has a lot of similiarities to the G4 versus the G5. The G4 can move to a dual-core much sooner than the G5 due to lower power use. Having two lower speed processors on a chip can have speed advantagies over a faster single processor.
To take that a bit further, IBM is making the Blue Gene supercomputer from thousands of lowly 500MHz PowerPC processors. Why on earth would they do that? Because you can get a lot more slower speed processors in a small space than you can power hungry higher speed mono-processors.
Phinius said:
I don't agree with you there. The fact that iMacs and displays are ready for immediate delivery only means that Apple still has a certain number of them in stocks. Secondly, I'd think that demand for those is not too high right now. If they still had enough iMacs to sell/or wanted to continue selling them for the time being, why would they tell their resellers not to expect any further shipments? Apple clearly wants to make sure resellers get rid of the current iMacs. Besides, regardless of the question if we'll see a G5 iMac anytime soon, iMacs are due for a new revision as they're bad value in comparision with the recently updated eMacs. The same applies to the displays.
Dont Hurt Me said:
Everyone? I like how you speak in generalities. Everyone? You mean every single person on this website? Everyone?
Then you would complain about how bad Apples engineering is because of the excessive sucking and blowing sounds you hear coming from the iMac.
There will be a supply of 130-nm 970 chips when the PowerMac is soon moved to the faster 970FX chips. It could very well be that Apple will use those 100,000+ per month production of 970 chips to make a G5 iMac and the slower 970FX chips could be used for the PowerBook. Then when the Power5 derived 9XX PowerPC chips arrive, the iMac could move to the 970FX. Then again, Apple may be waiting for the 90-nm G4 to arrive in order to update the iMac. Apple has several options to go with on this.
I don't either and Motorola should be producing a DDR and DDR-2 capable G4 very shortly.
Did you whine and complain like this when Intel used the Pentium III as the basis for the Pentium-M? How dare Intel update that old, tired and last place Pentium III, and then have the gaul to make it for notebook computers. How dare they use a processor that only runs up to 1.7GHz! Well the nerve of those people!
jwdawso said:
There has to be an adequate supply of faster chips in order to do that. The 1.5GHz G4 has only been out a short while and its obvious that the first product that Apple would want it in would be the higher priced PowerBook models, rather the less expensive iMac.
Dont Hurt Me said:
Let's see, Motorola in the second quarter of this year produced a 1.5GHz G4 that has about 15% higher frequency than the previous 1.3GHz topend model. Compare that to the top speed of 1.7GHz that Intel got with the Pentium-M on the same process size.
Last year Motorola moved the G4 up to 1.3GHz from the previous years 1GHz. That's a 30% boost in frequency.
And for the second half of 2004 Motorola will boost the G4 frequency to 2GHz.
Your absolutely right, Motorola hasn't done squat and neither has Intel recently with notebook computers I reckon.