Intel iMac Sales Sluggish?

[pgwalsh]

Simply shows that you never wrote a single line of Code. 7 months to port a huge software from carbon (c based) to cocoa (objective-c/Java) is not simple. over that there are lots of very minute things like threading issues, libraries, even application control flow, retraining of the people, quality testing and what not?. More over they have to replan (especially for the future) as to what else apple might pull out of their ass the next corner. More over intel will go full 64 bit in 6 months + half of tiger (BSD part) is 64 bit, the UI is 32 bit!

Question: What would be easier for a company. Take your Windows x86 based app and port it to OSX on x86 or port your PPC OSX to OSX x86? Take into account that it was developed in C or C++.

 

[Hattig]

Simply shows that you never wrote a single line of Code. 7 months to port a huge software from carbon (c based) to cocoa (objective-c/Java) is not simple. over that there are lots of very minute things like threading issues, libraries, even application control flow, retraining of the people, quality testing and what not? More over they have to replan (especially for the future) as to what else apple might pull out of their ass the next corner. More over intel will go full 64 bit in 6 months + half of tiger (BSD part) is 64 bit, the UI is 32 bit!

I agree totally.

Of course that's not saying a complete rewrite of the GUI front end of Photoshop wouldn't be good in terms of having a fresh interface codebase instead of X years of cruft, tweaks, fixes, bandaging, etc.

However his point could be read as 'Adobe have had 5 years to move to the proper interface library for Mac OS X, so git thar boy!'.

 

[alep85]

I still can't believe this, totally. How can something be on the top selling list at Amazon and NOT be selling well?! I think ThinkSecret needs to get its **** straight, I know a LOT of people who have waited to buy a MacBook/Intel-based desktop Mac, and now that that day is here, they have taken advantage of the opportunity. Even IF the developers haven't all completed Universal Binaries! Nuff said

 

[Maxx Power]

I still can't believe this, totally. How can something be on the top selling list at Amazon and NOT be selling well?! I think ThinkSecret needs to get its **** straight, I know a LOT of people who have waited to buy a MacBook/Intel-based desktop Mac, and now that that day is here, they have taken advantage of the opportunity. Even IF the developers haven't all completed Universal Binaries! Nuff said

Maybe the greedy directors at Apple set their revenue expectations bar a bit too high, you think ?

 

[Hattig]

Question: What would be easier for a company. Take your Windows x86 based app and port it to OSX on x86 or port your PPC OSX to OSX x86? Take into account that it was developed in C or C++.

In both cases the interface library you were using is not available on the new platform.

Quick Port: PowerPC applications that use only Mac OS X libraries.
Slow Port: PowerPC applications that used the compatibility libraries.

IIRC Mac OS X natively uses a modern enhanced pretty version of the Nextstep UI for its toolkit (so much so that Nextstep/Openstep applications often compile on Mac OS X without a problem).

And lets not get onto PowerPC applications that used lots of Altivec, which would have to be rewritten in SSE. Of course, this shouldn't be an issue for Photoshop, as it exists for an x86 target anyway.

 

[kingtj]

Secrecy and Apple decisions....

Actually, it appears to me that Apple was well aware of some of these problems. I can't see any other logical explanation for transitioning the iMac G5 first.

1. It's a *consumer* Mac, hence not a model Apple would expect a lot of flack from its customers from over "Pro" apps not being immediately ready to run on it.

2. iMac buyers are less likely to be aware of new product introductions than buyers of most other Mac systems. Therefore, it helps minimize the "bitterness" of buying a PPC model, only to find out it's "outdated" weeks afterwards. Traditionally, iMacs have been sold to people who aren't extremely computer "savvy". It's the computer you give grandma and grandpa for Xmas so they can learn how to do email and not run into virus and spyware issues. It's the machine you get for the office, so the secretaries can type their papers and use 1 or 2 special applications on it all day long.

IMHO, Apple would have rather stuck with this same philosophy and transitioned the iBooks before the Powerbooks too - except that would have left them in the awkward position of having no "better notebook" to offer than the new iBook. Let's see.... Universal binary versions of "Pro" apps available in March. Macbook Pro delayed on shipping until near the end of Feb. Coincidence, or maybe a little more purposeful than you think?

This is the major pitfall of Apple's complete nondisclosure policy of leaving both consumer and developer in the dark about upcoming products. You leave Joe Imac buyer in the dark and he buys an imac for christmas, then is completely pissed that his new toy is obsolete within days.

But much more importantly, you leave software developers in the dark as well in order to keep this veil of secrecy and keep current stock moving. The result is that absolutely no native apps are availible at the Intel Imac launch. Rosetta emulation of Adobe apps is pitiful, and no Apple pro apps are emulated at all.

The secrecy really bit apple in the butt this time.

 

[plinden]

I'd also throw out there that a lot of this is due to the fact that prices for these things hasn't dropped a penny.

The promise of Intel led many to believe (myself included) that hardware costs would go down and Apple could compensate to be more competitive with beige-box powerhouses like Dell.

God almighty <shakes head, then bangs it off the table> ... the new iMac is incredibly competitive with Dells - even the previous G5 iMac was. Sure, you can get a $500 Dell, but when you load it up to make it usable and comparable to the iMac, the Dell ends up MORE EXPENSIVE.

Go to the Dell website and try it, why don't you?

 

[nagromme]

Maybe the greedy directors at Apple set their revenue expectations bar a bit too high, you think ?

Where's the evidence for that?

God almighty <shakes head, then bangs it off the table> ... the new iMac is incredibly competitive with Dells - even the previous G5 iMac was. Sure, you can get a $500 Dell, but when you load it up to make it usable and comparable to the iMac, the Dell ends up MORE EXPENSIVE.

Go to the Dell website and try it, why don't you?

Watch the head! But yes, very true. So many people repeat "Dells are cheaper!" (disregarding Dell's higher failure rate even) but they never actually compare the whole package and all the specs. They pick one or two specs and use them to say two machines are comparable, while ignoring all the other specs that make a difference.

I will agree though with the people who are surprised about the outgoing PowerBooks and iMacs not seeing a price drop. I guess Apple's waiting to see how the market reacts, but I'd really have expected those models to drop.

 

[pgwalsh]

In both cases the interface library you were using is not available on the new platform.

That was obvious oversight in my question.. haha

I'm now wondering how Intel's compiler will play into this.

 

[JoshH]

If sales are sluggish, my iMac orders just got their shipping dates pushed back to March

I hope Apple wasn't expecting anything more than "sluggish" sales. What would they ship?

 

[guffman]

I'd guess there are about a zillion people thinking just like me. I'd like to buy a new Macintosh but...

(1) I will NOT buy one that can't run Apple's and other's high end applications in native mode. I'd be nuts to spend a couple grand on a machine that runs Photoshop at 1/2 speed and can't run Final Cut at all

(2) I'd be nuts to buy a discontinued G5 powered machine when Steve himself said it will be replaced by the end of 2006.

So what do I do? Nothing now. I wait and buy an Intel Mac AFTER the universal binaries are shipping

I'd guess that 90% of Apple's customersare thinking like me. If Apple were smart they have some SERIOUS disconts durring this transitin period. I'd expect the G4 based products to be like 30% off now and 50% off by year end Who would buy a G4 knowing that in a few months they can get the Intel version at the same price?

Why would it be nuts to order your MBP now, and pick up a copy of FCP when it's released just a couple weeks later. The MBP isn't shipping until mid-febuary anyway...

 

[budugu]

That was obvious oversight in my question.. haha

I'm now wondering how Intel's compiler will play into this.

Intel compilers have been *exclusive* even in x86 world, i.e., you have to pay for it (anywhere from 500 -5000$ depends). Intel compilers are there for only C,C++ and Fotran. Most of Cocoa and mac os X native language is objective 'C' and intel has no intention of making one for it either. So you will be stuck with the modded GCC version for apple anyway. Intel was instrumental in getting OpenMP out (and now relevant because of multicore machines), GCC does not support OpenMP (or has a lousy implimentation). Well Objective C does not even support any kind of multi-threading. Now if you want your app to be multi-threaded you have to use some vague C libraries and you are back to square one. Those libs will be last to be ported.

 

[bankshot]

Another thing I don't quite understand: Why is Carbon so much harder to translate than Cocoa? I though the Carbon APIs were available for Intel just like they are on the PPC. Isn't the real problem the endianess, which applies to both Carbon and Cocoa?

I'll bet it's because most Carbon applications are still developed using CodeWarrior. The developers can continue using Carbon under OS X / Intel, but they have to transition from CodeWarrior to Xcode. Switching compilers and development environments is not necessarily an easy task. Could take months for a large app. And only then can they begin worrying about the rest of the porting issues.

 

[Maxx Power]

Where's the evidence for that?

Well, they would by definition have to if they are expecting growth and expansion.

 

[bankshot]

And why is it substantial? Because they're using Carbon. Why are they using carbon? Because they did not want to make a complete transition to OSX. Hell, the G5 has been out since 2003 and all Adobe has done towards addressing the G5 is release a patch...that patch was just rolled into CS and CS2. I know it must be a god awful thing to do, but maybe Adobe and MS should rewrite their friggin apps, instead of shoehorning them into the next technology.

The hardware is no longer holding computers back, the software is.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Carbon is as much OS X as Cocoa is. It's just another toolkit choice, with both advantages over Cocoa and disadvantages. I seriously don't get the segment of the Mac community that seems to think Cocoa automatically makes apps 1000 times better, and Carbon is total crap. Give me a break.

Why should Adobe or MS spend years (that's right, apps that big would likely take years to port properly) to port to Cocoa when there's absolutely no net benefit? None.

The real issue in the Intel transition for Carbon apps is probably migrating from CodeWarrior to Xcode, as I just posted in another reply.

 

[Krevnik]

Simply shows that you never wrote a single line of Code. 7 months to port a huge software from carbon (c based) to cocoa (objective-c/Java) is not simple. over that there are lots of very minute things like threading issues, libraries, even application control flow, retraining of the people, quality testing and what not?. More over they have to replan (especially for the future) as to what else apple might pull out of their ass the next corner. More over intel will go full 64 bit in 6 months + half of tiger (BSD part) is 64 bit, the UI is 32 bit!

I write code for a living and this post is exaggerated, IMO.

The thing is, Carbon still exists, and the article was really just BS'ing. The real issue is converting from CodeWarrior to XCode. You have two different compilers which both have their own quirks. Trying to bring a huge app with custom Altivec code (in Photoshop's case), and a bunch of patches/etc which address problems/quirks of a compiler to another compiler isn't easy. Adobe and others don't have to port to Cocoa, and my suggestion is: don't. For those that don't know, Carbon isn't going anywhere anytime soon, the Cocoa libs are even dependant on bits of it!

QA, compiler differences, retraining, yes... these are the blockers. Retraining an entire team from CodeWarrior to XCode isn't fun. I have worked with both compilers, and if you are firmly entrenched in CW's way of doing things, you have a lot of pain ahead in learning XCode. At least PowerPlant lives on in XCode as a library/framework you can use, making the transistion nicer.

As for the transition to 32, and back to 64... well, we already face this pain as it is. We already have both chip types running in the current line which isn't fun as it is, but with the new 64-bit chips being proper x86-64 chips, it won't be much different than it is now. The problem on the Windows side is that they have a lot of weird crufty stuff which creates some interesting incompatibilities with their way of running applications and the like. Apple's plans on how to handle a mixed environment/etc are already on the table and in use, so this isn't as big a deal as made out to be.

 

[ericmooreart]

Never go 1.0

Sluggish sales are not suprising. Why drop big bucks on a version 1.0 machine. I did with the first g4, (yikes) with pci graphics and (sawtooth) with agp graphics came out less then 2 months later. (My 400mhz yikes is still kicking by the way. Bought it in 1999)

I really think Apple should have came out with the intel mac mini first and perhaps an intel imac. Let suckers like me test the water! . I've been waiting for the intel mini since June. Had my money in hand the day of MW San Fran. When it comes out then I'll buy. After that my next big purchase will be June or September

 

[Krevnik]

Well Objective C does not even support any kind of multi-threading. Now if you want your app to be multi-threaded you have to use some vague C libraries and you are back to square one. Those libs will be last to be ported.

Huh? NSThread anyone? NSTask? Cocoa has quite a bit of nice front-ends to the threading system, just like Carbon does.

Just because you CAN use the POSIX thread libs, doesn't mean you are forced to. We actually have three ways to do multithreading on OS X from pretty much any application: POSIX, Carbon (MacOS-style) and Cocoa (NeXT-style). To top it off, all three are part of the OS, well documented, and native.

 

[MrCrowbar]

I agree the normal iMac buyer won't tell the difference between the g5 and the CD (Corde Duo) iMac. He would ask a guy in the shop and be told the CD runs iLife way faster. Comparing the prices of both, the customer would opt for the CD wondering why there's still a G5 iMac. Thus for users upgrading from an iPod, the CD-iMac is just right.

Personally, I'm waiting for the 12" MacBookPro on April fool's day. I'd love to see it 1" thick with an iSight built in. Rumors say the 12" is not on the roadmap for the pro books (ProBook & iBook would be good names when you think of it), but I just hope those rumors are wrong.

If you are a person that need the big apps (either you are one of those, or you are a troll), you might want to wait for the next Intel mashines. I suppose we will be surprised on April 1st with neat new products and pro apps (Photoshop, Logic...). Office will take some time, but who needs performance when using office anyway. And maybe on the shipping day of the MacBookPro, Apple will say: "The prototype works now, we also got the official batteries. Come and buy the 12" 15" and 17" models." Apple had to show the MacBook Pro at MWSF to make pressure on the software makers.

Just my 2 cents

 

[sehix]

This is the major pitfall of Apple's complete nondisclosure policy of leaving both consumer and developer in the dark about upcoming products. You leave Joe Imac buyer in the dark and he buys an imac for christmas, then is completely pissed that his new toy is obsolete within days.

Apple has a history over *how* many years of announcing new products in January at MWSF?

Anyone buying a new Mac of any sort during the quarter preceding MWSF should not be surprised to be laughed at if they complain about Apple announcing a replacement for the machine they just paid for.

"Secrecy"? Not pre-announcing specific machines/specs, sure. That would be a remarkably stupid thing for a computer company to do, unless they think that killing their own sales is a Good Thing(tm).

Surprising anyone with a room-temperature or better IQ by announcing new products in January? Nope.

But much more importantly, you leave software developers in the dark as well in order to keep this veil of secrecy and keep current stock moving. The result is that absolutely no native apps are availible at the Intel Imac launch.

Odd. I have several applications that were universal binaries *before* the new iMac and MacBook were announced. At the launch, it appears that all the bundled applications with the intel version of 10.4.4 are also native.

Someone hasn't been doing their homework.

Rosetta emulation of Adobe apps is pitiful, and no Apple pro apps are emulated at all.

Most Adobe applications work on the new iMac as well as or better than they do on this 12" PowerBook right now.

Moving *all* of Apple's current software to universal binary form is a lot of work. Waiting about eight weeks to get the pro (read lowest-volume) applications too is pretty good. The rest of the bunch are pretty much already done at Apple.

The secrecy really bit apple in the butt this time.

Right.

This is shaping up to be one of the quickest, and slickest, major transistions in Apple history, if not in computer industry history.

 

[sehix]

I'd guess there are about a zillion people thinking just like me. I'd like to buy a new Macintosh but...

(1) I will NOT buy one that can't run Apple's and other's high end applications in native mode. I'd be nuts to spend a couple grand on a machine that runs Photoshop at 1/2 speed and can't run Final Cut at all

If you order *right now*, you'll probably have to wait all of two or three weeks to run Apple's pro apps on your shiny new machine.

Who knows when Adobe will catch up? I'm not sure Adobe knows, and it is Adobe's problem, not Apple's.

 

[sehix]

My 17-inch iMac Core Duo arrives today.

I also hate that I have to buy a computer with a display.

Who held a knife to your throat and forced you to buy a new computer?

I think you may have a legal case here...

Wait.

No, oddly enough, you *chose* to buy a new computer.

If that's a problem, you have nobody to blame but your own self.

 

[fahlman]

Carbon

Adobe, who I think makes the best applications when you compare them to the competing applications, and Microsoft should have made the transition from Carbon to Cocoa a couple of years ago, but have continued to take the easy way out. If they would have made the move to Cocoa with their last revisions then the current switch to universal binaries would be greatly simplified. I am anti-Quark, but I hope that they take advantage of every API Apple has built in to OS X (Core Image, Spotlight, etc) and puts InDesign to shame!

 

[MattyP]

Hardly a surprise

Okay, one more post about the whole "why buy now when we all know there is more to come" thread. But really, why buy now when we all know there is more to come!?

A more interesting part of the story also on Think Secret is that there is a shortage of chips being shipped from Intel, and that that allegedly this is why the 17" Mac Book pro wasn't unveiled at Macworld... Who knows if this is true or not, but apparently we have not seen the full range of Yonah chips. I think I will wait a little while longer to replace my trusty Powerbook.
-BTW, I ordered an IntelImac 17" (for my employer) it should arrive tomorrow!

 

[BakedBeans]

huge waits.... sluggish

sounds like crap to me