Intel Powerbook and iMac in January?

[sjphoto]

Perfect Timing

Have a G5, 23" Cinema Display, which I love, sold my TI Book, have
$7,500.00 sitting in the bank was looking to replace my TI book was
in the Apple store at least 3 times looked at several PowerBooks left
with a couple of ipod video's. Something kept me from purchasing
a PowerBook to replace the old one, then a day after I game the closest
to buying a new PowerBook, but did not pull the trigger i heard the news
about the new intel PowerBook and really got excited. I live in San
Francisco and MacWorld is in my backyard, I attend every year with
my 2 son's, DJ 7 years old, eMac and Zane 13, ibook. I think this will
be our best MacWorld ever. Life is good.

 

[ksz]

Life is good.

I have never attended a MacWorld keynote. SJ is less than an hour from SF and I've attended MacWorld only once. But I'll plan to attend this January.

BTW, life is what you make of it. Some know how to enjoy it and some don't. Seems like you're in the first camp!

 

[tny]

Probably see Mac mini and portables first

I seriously doubt that the iMac will be one of the first systems updated. I'm guessing that Yonah will be going into the machines that currently sport a G4 (the iBook, the PowerBook, and the mini), as Yonah is a 32-bit processor. I don't think they'll replace the G5s with 32-bit processors (maybe Merom will go into the iMac, even though Merom is a notebook processor). Merom might replace Yonah in the PowerBook. Apparently Intel has a quad-core design under development?

 

[shawnce]

I just don't see anything other then consumer grade systems going Intel in 1Q06. I also exclude the iMac given the recent update (unless Apple just doesn't care about recovering cost of the chip set).

The reason I exclude pro systems (PowerBook, etc.) is that likely many professional applications (including a few of Apple's) will not be ready with Intel native versions in 1H06 (unless some companies are just blowing smoke). I think Apple would hold off until a little later as result and to let the consumer system prepare the market by showing how well they work for Mac OS X and with native applications (I believe all of the Apple iLife applications could be ready in 1Q06, and many many of the small vendor 3rd party apps will be ready, lots already are).

Of course in general I personally still doubt they will release any Intel systems in 1Q06... 2Q06 yes, but additional detail in rumors may start to change my opinion.

It will be interesting to see how ready game vendors are...

 

[Baenshu]

Man I hope this is true. I have been holding off on the laptop buying for awhile now and it hurts cause I really need one right now. But just can't commit to buying one of the current ones knowing Intels are right around the corner.

I keep thinking, speculating... what are they going to call the Pro Towers? Can't really use G6!

 

[bigandy]

Besides, remember that Apple does not have to worry and invest on development of the logic board. Intel does it. Apple will use Intel logic boards on Mactels.

So apple just makes the case design, the OS and little more. That can speed up new Mac releses tremendously.

Expect to see new Mac models every few months once Mactel tales over on 2006. As in the PC-Windoze world.

A new bright future is ahead. And the possibility to dual or triple booting as Mac-Win-Linux is fantastic and will sell many many many Mactels around the world. I only hope that one could switch between OSes without rebooting the whole system. Much as Classic woks now, but a full native speed, of course.

not going to happen. apple WILL NOT use standard logic boards, for one reason - it'd be impossible, and i mean completely impossible to stop mainstream piracy. that's the reason so many copies of OS X x86 have been downloaded, because the developer version uses a standard intel board, making piracy easier - due to the lack of customised, apple only, components.

 

[sephirot]

Bravo 840quadra

Anyway...

What I thought the MacMini was rumored to be the first to get updated?
Now its the iMac??

Why!? that means the new version would have the shortest lifespan ever. It's just got DDR2 and PCI-express... and a speed-bump to last all of 3 months?

These rumors are getting daft.

Sources familiar with Apple's Intel plans now believe the Mac maker is striving to complete its transition to Intel chips in the by the fall of 2006, several months ahead of schedule.

Hmmmmm.... why exactley?

Probably because the Intel chips Apple wants to use are half a year ahead of time?

Naaah. Bwah ha ha ha!

 

[bigandy]

I keep thinking, speculating... what are they going to call the Pro Towers? Can't really use G6!

why not? unless i'm very much mistaken, G5 and suchlike are apple terms, and it is talking generations of processor families. so it could be...

but G6, to me, doesn't sound so great...

 

[manu chao]

oh, you poor souls clinching your brand new Powerbooks. have you already forgotten the TITANIUM POWERBOOK HISTORY? DANG! I got my first Mac, a super-loaded GHz Tibook, in November of 2003, literally days after they were announced. and that was actually a reasonable upgrade--you know, they sped up the processor some 'n' stuff.

You must mean November 2002, since that is when I got my TiBook as well (and I literally ordered it two days before the announcement but since they had run out of the old models at that moment already I got the new one).

 

[Peace]

There was a reason Powerbooks wern't bumped up in October..
This rumor shows why.
The machines are ready imho..Only waiting on the software to get moved over..

Jobs said some apps would take "months" to recompile on Intel..
Well by the time January rolls around those "months" will have come and gone.

I think we will see Intel iMacs and Powerbooks alongside the PPC models.

 

[Beck446]

I've read like half of this thread and nobody has given the correct explanation for why this rumor is true: the powerbooks and imacs cost more than the mini or ibooks. More profits.

 

[dongmin]

have some perspective, look at Apple's history

If there's one thing we should have learned by now, it is that Apple's strategy is definitely not as predictable as we think it is!

This AppleInsider report is absolute junk. Pure speculation, and a bad one at that. Apple will NOT dump the PPC iMac 3 months after they've redesigned the motherboard and redesigned the case. And the iMac happens to be one of their best sellers.

Take a gander at everymac.com. Apple likes to milk existing designs as long as possible. Every design has lasted at least a couple iterations. People talk about how Apple released the 12" & 17" PBs a couple months after they updated the 15" PB, but those were introducing completely new products; they weren't replacements for the old one. Likewise, don't worry about the brand spanking new iMac being replaced 3 months after its release. Makes NOOOOO sense whatsoever.

Of course, the PB is a completely different story...

 

[denial]

I've read like half of this thread and nobody has given the correct explanation for why this rumor is true: the powerbooks and imacs cost more than the mini or ibooks. More profits.

But surely you would have to factor in the "loss" of sales of ibooks and minis if that was true. There would be a huge downturn in sales of those models.

 

[dlastmango]

ANy Battery Life improvements

Do you think the batteries would last longer with the Intel Chips or is it basically the same on power consumption. Talking powerbooks or iBooks of course.

Thanks
Chris

 

[applekid]

I was hoping to see a Mac Mini revision with Front Row at MWSF... I don't care if there's Intel chips inside those Macs, as long as it doesn't get in the way of my plans for a graphics design setup.

Will Intel Macs have little to no trouble with current hardware drivers? I'd assume things would be okay because it's more of an OS thing...

 

[RichP]

Not to come across as an ignorant Apple Fanboy, but do you REALLY think Apple and Steve Jobs are going to release new equipment that is slower and doesnt perform better than what they currently offer.

Im fully confident the Intel release is going to be a significant performance increase in speed and power efficiency, and the release is not going to be without ALOT of the big software players bringing out their apps the same day as the Intel machines are annouced.

I think we will see new powerbooks and imacs this winter/spring. Powerbook will be a new design toting all the efficiencies and speed intel is bringing to the table, and the imacs will just get some new internals, proving the intel switch is a great thing (powerbook) but nothing alien (new imac).

And PA Semiconductor? Pipedream. That would be a verydangerous move for Apple to make. Like posted, companies like transmeta have come and gone. Granted, its totally feasible they will come out with this chip, but waiting for something that is two years out is risky. (Realize Apple is on a tight timeframe; the iPod halo and fanfare is going to start to wane in a year or two as we see more personal device convergence)

 

[stephenli]

I would go for it. The G5 is a fast processor. If they switch to Intel this soon it could actually slow things down. The only bad thing is that shiny new iMac would be an orphan and it would be hard to give away when the new ones come out and all people have on their mind is..Intel...Intel...Intel.

agree!!!! i am very satisfy on my dual 2.7ghz at work
and yet even thinking of purchasing a new iMac G5 for home

but....how come u guys seems to have no burden on Power PC apps?
Rosetta wont run current apps well, and we have to invest in new software while intel mac arrives.....

 

[stephenli]

I've read like half of this thread and nobody has given the correct explanation for why this rumor is true: the powerbooks and imacs cost more than the mini or ibooks. More profits.

ha? nobody knows the profit margin of apple products.
"cost more" is not equal to "more profit"
sorry but lets pick up an Economics textbook.....

 

[hyperpasta]

iMac???

Powerbook, sure. It's the Mac that stands to benfit the most from the transition. Imagine: A 15" Widescreen Powerbook in Dual 1.8 and Dual 2.0 configurations. Thin, sexy, aluminum goodness. Who cares if it was just updated: the update measured a 2.3/10 on the Richter scale. Oooooh, high-res screens (totally necessary but still not excting).

But the iMac? It was also just updated, but in a big way. I bet that Apple will wait and wow us with a super-thin 23" Intel iMac (Maybe Dual 2.3) sometime later in 2006.

The Mac mini should also switch ASAP, and get Front Row (in an earlier post I suggested it could get a white plastic stripe on the lower half of the case for housing the IR receiver). It COULD be accompanied by new higher-quality displays with built-in iSights, which WILL come eventually. Apple should take its iPod ad budget and switch it to the Mac for teh first half of the year.

The iBook can switch over anytime before April.

The PowerMac will switch over last.

The eMac should be replaced by a stripped-down educational iMac.

 

[digitalmatty]

$$$$

so what's the price diff going to be between ppc and intel? pricier or cheaper? What do you guys think? Lower price point to intice people to buy the Intels, and jack the prices in Rev. B's? Or keep it high?

 

[denial]

so what's the price diff going to be between ppc and intel? pricier or cheaper? What do you guys think? Lower price point to intice people to buy the Intels, and jack the prices in Rev. B's? Or keep it high?

I would doubt higher. Just from a marketing point of view that would be a slight negative. About the same kind of price range.

 

[Baenshu]

why not? unless i'm very much mistaken, G5 and suchlike are apple terms, and it is talking generations of processor families. so it could be...

but G6, to me, doesn't sound so great...

Thats really more what I meant... they could use it, but it just would't seem to fit. I would think they would just come up with a whole new name and design.

 

[bigrustyjc]

Doesn't make sense to me

I just don't see anything other then consumer grade systems going Intel in 1Q06. I also exclude the iMac given the recent update (unless Apple just doesn't care about recovering cost of the chip set).

The reason I exclude pro systems (PowerBook, etc.) is that likely many professional applications (including a few of Apple's) will not be ready with Intel native versions in 1H06 (unless some companies are just blowing smoke). I think Apple would hold off until a little later as result and to let the consumer system prepare the market by showing how well they work for Mac OS X and with native applications (I believe all of the Apple iLife applications could be ready in 1Q06, and many many of the small vendor 3rd party apps will be ready, lots already are).

Of course in general I personally still doubt they will release any Intel systems in 1Q06... 2Q06 yes, but additional detail in rumors may start to change my opinion.

It will be interesting to see how ready game vendors are...

I completely agree with you here. Why would apple release a new Powerbook first when pro users are the target audience of the powerbooks. Why make the pro-users who do the most critical computing on their powerbooks beta testers? It doesn't make sense.

I followed all of the rumors on the forums leading up to the latest PB release last month. It seemed like the general feeling was that the PB would most likely NOT be first Mac to go to Intel because of the lack of native software support, etc. It's funny to me that the common opinion on this thread is that the powerbook will be the first to go Intel.

Things just don't add up to me to have Apple make their top of the line, pro laptop be the first to go to Intel with all of the issues that come with a first revision of a major architectural change.

 

[Mitch1984]

So, Apple is about to launch Intel based hardware as early as January? Has anyone even thought that this may be academic if the OS is not ready yet? As of now, both are at 10.4.3 as far as features go, but spend even a second at the relevant forums and you can see that there is still a lot of work to do to get OS X86 ready for the market. iTunes is rumoured to have been ported to Intel, but apart from iPhoto, the rest of the iApps are still PPC, to say nothing of the rest of Apple's stable of applications.

I heard most apple apps are dual binarys at the moment.

 

[mdavey]

why not? ... G5 ... are apple terms

Fascinating point. Given that G5 is 64bit architecture and G4 is 32bit, and that the 64bit Intel chips that Apple want to use probably aren't going to be ready for January - what will they replace first and what would they call it?

I assumed that they would replace the G4-based products first (iBook, PowerBook and Mac mini) as they seem the slowest and would benefit most from a cheaper bill of materials. But that would require either calling the new processor F5, G6 or G4+.

I can't see them going for G6 - that would suggest that the new range outperforms the existing PowerMac products which probably won't be true and probably would negatively impact sales of the G5 products.

I would have thought G4+ would be rather confusing as it is a completely different architecture and doesn't seem Apple's style. Similarly labels such as G4.2 or gIV.

Unless Apple revamps the G5 products first and calls the new 64bit processor G7 (leaving G6 free for the consumer range). But those in the know seem to think that the 64bit processors are unlikey to be ready for mass-market within the next 4 months.

So the Apple Intel consumer processor range will be F5 then (because F is less than G). Or something completely different. And if they go for F5, what will they call the replacement for G5?