Keynote/Rumor Wrapup

[MacRumors]

Well, the biggest news is the speed-bump of the PowerMac G4. Overall, rumors regarding the G4 speed bumps were relatively accurate - and even exact specs posted 1-2 days ago on various message boards. Of course, it was impossible at that time to distiguish the real specs vs the fake ones. A consistent rumor though, was that 733mhz would become low end. This is pretty remarkable, as the 733mhz was introduced as the high end machine only in January.

As well, the new G4 Case was accurately depicted in the leaked photos from MacOSX.org -- despite claims by many that these were "obviously photoshop-ed images".

Finally, the ever-elusive LCD iMac and Apple Handheld... these rumors will most certainly make a comeback in MacWorlds to come.

 

[Martino]

About the G4:

There are two covers over the removable media bays. Upper: CD, I understand that, you push the eject key on the keyboard, tray comes out, pushes lid down, and then you can place a CD in it. Just like I have here, but I also have a button on the lid itself. In case my keyboard isn't plugged or doesn't work.

I guess the lower one is for Zips. Right now I can shove one in whenever I like. How is that going to be in the new G4's? Are those lids just going to be removed?

 

[Drama Queen]

You all created your own misery here. In case most of you just woke up from a coma, the economy isn't very healthy right now. What sane person (or company) would over-extend themself financially in these market conditions?

Most of you need a life, and have WAY too much time on your hands to fabricate these little stories and pipe dreams. It's all about hype with you people. Bunch of media whores. You're probably the same people (the ONLY people) who actually tune in to, and believe the American news. It's always MORE, or BIGGER, or FASTER, or WORSE THAN WE PRVIOUSLY THOUGHT! In reality it's just normalness with a stucco facade. Maybe that's the real dissapointment here. Maybe some of you don't have enough excitement in you own daily lives. I have some design to finish....

Good day

 

[marco114]

OS 9.2?

What about 9.2 (Moonlight)? WTF?

 

[ThomasB]

Education Discount

Educators can get a PowerMac G4 533 for $1148

"533MHz PowerPC G4
1MB L2 backside cache
128MB SDRAM memory
40GB Ultra ATA drive
CD-ROM drive
Rage 128 Pro w/16MB RAM
Gigabit Ethernet"

or a 500 Mhz iMac for $849

"500MHz
PowerPC G3
512K L2 cache @ 200MHz
64MB SDRAM
20GB Ultra ATA drive
CD-ROM Drive
RAGE 128 Pro w/8MB
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
56K fax modem
15-inch display
(13.8-inch VIS)
2 USB & 2 FireWire ports "

It's a good time to be an educator.

 

[t^3]

Those are just 'old' Macs with a lowered price, need I remind everyone.

 

[Merlion]

DDR

WHERE THE HELL IS DDR?

 

[jefhatfield]

OVER PREDICTED

I did expect more on the hardware side, like 900+ MHz or 1 GHz G4s, and I kind of hoped for a slightly faster iMac speedbump and not such a high $999.00 entry level for the 500 MHz iMac. There were no new colors for the iBook nor TiBook.

But what made this MacWorld as good as any other were the ten companies who made OSX app announcements. Sure it would be nice to have a dual 800 MHz G4, but for the first time, it was the software that got me excited...and I'm a hardware techie who waits for major speedbumps and/or new processors!

OSX, though slow in the beginning (like Windows 2000), is now gaining steam at last!

 

[Percula]

Apple Needed More Today

I know, and saw in great detail today, the megahertz myth. However, as an average consumer, who looks to these pages for information on what is coming available so I don't buy an "older" model, I was hoping for more from the Expo today. I realize that PowerMacs are better, faster, and easier to use, but most people do not. They look at speed, storage, and compatibility when purchasing a computer. However, the more people who decide not to buy Macs, or do not even consider them because they appear slower, the less software and devices there will be for the rest of us. Us long term Mac users have always had to wait, and wait, and wait some more for everything on our Macs. It is time for that to stop. All of the current computers should have been bumped today. Why? Because three years ago when I bought my Wallstreet laptop, the top speed was 300 mhz, and today the bottom line is only at 500mhz. I know there is a G4 now, but again the average person barely knows what RAM is. If this was not an issue for Apple, why did they spend so much time today discussing the megahertz myth? I think that the iBooks should at least be at 600 - 700 mhz, 20 GB minimum HD, and 128 minimum RAM. Powerbook G4 should definetly have moved to a DVD/CDRW combo drive at the very least, with SuperDrive as an option or on the higher end. Don't they advertise making movies on the road? What good is it to make a movie and put on a CD ROM disc, ordinary people can't view them. It only makes sense that if you are going to market a product for professionals that it has professional options to it. Apple needs to stop being so secretive and start allowing more options to their customers. Options please, secrets don't. Why not have more processors to choose from, so a consumer can get exactly what they want? I'm sure that Apple can not do this because they are a smaller company and that could raise prices in the long run; but they still need to add more. I have been watching Apple very closely for the last few years, reading all the news and rumors, but nothing has really changed. The speeds have been bumped a little, HD a bit more, and RAM a little, but we should be over the 1GHZ mark by now. Potential iMac buyers really got the shaft today. Remember, original iMac buyers (like my sister) bought iMacs on 8/16/98 or something, and are ready to buy new ones this year as they were ready to move up. With todays announcements, why upgrade? An entry level iMac like the ones that they bought in 98 are only twice as fast, with a few more options. These kind of people don't know what firewire is, so why push that so far, concentrate on what those people want in a computer, Internet, email, and applications. But wait, if these people buy iMacs, then they will eventually have to move to OSX. But wait, OSX runs terrible on the G3s I've seen, so I guess they are screwed again. I know OS 10.1 will be better, but wasn't steve running all those apps. on a dual 800 G4 or something. That is somewhat misleading to the G3 owners and potential buyers. Lastly, PowerMac G4. This was the only somewhat satisfactory news of the day. I think the speed enhancements were nice, but 1 GHZ should have been reached. Plus, if they are pushing OSX with all its wonders, shouldn't they be pushing more dual processors? They did announce one, but it will cost you an arm and a leg and then some. I think they have great products and great ideas, but it is like anither guy on these boards said earlier, "I'm sick of them telling us it will be available tomorrow". Tomorrow they will fall further behind and have less potential buyers.

 

[Xistor]

Where the hell the DDR RAM is...

Weird rumors about DDR RAM being used in place of regular memory aside, there is 64 MB of DDR RAM directly accessible to the graphics engine that needs it on the NVidia 3 graphics card....

(From the Apple website.. and I quote...)

"Play your cards right
To start with, you can get your Power Mac G4 with either of three blazingly fast graphics cards: The NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB of SDRAM (preinstalled in the AGP 4X graphics slot on the 733MHz and the 867MHz Power Mac G4), the NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics card with TwinView and 64MB of SDRAM (preinstalled in the AGP 4X graphics slot on the dual 800MHz Power Mac G4 model) and the NVIDIA GeForce3 graphics processing unit (GPU) with 64MB of DDR RAM (available as a build-to-order option from the Apple Store)."

 

[idoru1135]

Drama Queen

You are in a glass house-
Careful with that rock Eugene...

 

[menoinjun]

The GeForce3 comes with DDR Ram right on the actual card. The system ram is completely seperate. That's why I bought a Radeon instead of the GeFrorce2MX with my dual 533. It also has DDR Ram, not to mention a better chipset. Actually, I think that I bought my G4 at just the right time...I want dual processors, and dont want to shell out
$3400 for it!! I don't know what apple is thinking, but an extra grand for two slower chips??? No way. I know that the computer is faster overall, but I don't see sales hiting a very high mark for that system

pete

 

[arn]

On the dual?

I think the Dual will be their best selling system. (without the superdrive, though).

arn

 

[Pants]

DDR is a bandwidth thing - a dual chipped 800 would benefit no end from DDR and a faster bus speed.



heres a joke I just received from apple in their newsletter....
"....Updating our iMac family to make iMac both faster and less expensive"

uhh....

 

[Pants]

actually, on second thoughts, is this like Apples idea of a free software upgrade - "only $19.99!"

 

[Xistor]

Dual 800 VS. theoretical dual 867

The dual 800 model, like the previous dual 533 is really designed primarily for video and heavy graphics manipulation where the dual processor advantage weighs is more noticable. It should run Final Cut Pro 59% faster than on the dual 800 than the 867 given that it runs it 70% faster than the single 733 did. That's why the extra $1000.. Probably also chip yields are better at 800 than at 867 and the best guess is that the performance gain of a dual 867 versus a dual 800 wouldn't be enough to justify an even stiffer price increase.

The dual 800 runs at 50% higher clockspeed than a dual 533, but according to Apple only acheives 20% faster realworld results than the dual 533 running FCP. Since a dual 867 which runs at only 8.4% faster clockspeed than the dual 800, theoretically that would only result in a net gain of only 3.4% actual speed over the dual 800 running FCP.. Probably not worth commanding a few hundred dollars more per unit or whatever it would work out to for those extra 66.6 MHz.

The dual 800 MHz isn't targetted for the average consumer pricewise. I suspect that's also the reason why Apple put the SuperDrive also on the 867 model because it would create a more consumer priced high-end product which is capable of running their more consumer-targetted iDVD program which only works with the SuperDrive (whereas any serious professional isn't going to use iDVD, they will use DVD Studio Pro which supports more than just the internal SuperDrive for output as well as more than just 6 buttons per menu).

 

[Xistor]

$19.95

Pants:

When they said free, they were probably talking about updating to 10.1 through a Software Update download as opposed to requesting new discs. The $19.95 is of course only if you call Apple to have them ship you new discs.. there's no mechanism for charging through Software Update! (thank goodness... SHH! QUIET! Don't give them any "innovative" ideas on that end!) :O

 

[leatherankh]

Not as disappointed as some

Hey,

I have to admit, while there were some things that I had hoped for that didn't show up, I don't think that MWNY keynote was as big of a flop as most people. I really didn't think that an LCD iMac would come out now (I've been predicting next March),I didn't think a gigahertz g4 was ready yet, and they were barely able to get a 500 g4 into the TiBook without melting something, so I knew that wouldn't get bumped. The only thing that I really hoped for and didn't see was ComboDrives as build-to-order options on the towers or the iMacs or both. God knows Steve has seen the demand for the ComboDrive iBooks, so it would make sense to offer those to a wider market. DDR RAM and 200 MHz system bus would be nice, but I think that is another March event. All in all, it wasn't last March, with its TiBooks and Superdrives and OSX. It was a nice Evolution step, rather than a Revolution step.
This makes a lot of sense to me, since Apple is the one of the only tech companies to beat their profit-per-share predictions this quarter, but just barely. The computer market is about as stable as a jello mold right now, and to take huge leaps and bounds every quarter is asking to fall flat. Apple is still trying to get over the Cube fiasco (great idea if the iMac didnt already exist), so it makes sense all around to play this time a little more conservative. god knows it must have galled Jobs, since he loves pomp and pageantry and the limelight so very much. Just wait til march, folks. You'll be pleased.

L

 

[menoinjun]

Xistor-

I dont see your logic. How is the dual 800 running at a 50% higher clock speed than the dual 533...and how on earth could a single processor 867 run ANY percent faster at FCP than the dual 800? Even on 9.1, FCP takes advantage of the dual processors enough to make it substantially faster than the 867. That's why I have a 533 instead of an older 733 superdrive model. I needed speed over the DVD burning capabilities. The dual processor makes up A LOT over a single faster processor.

-Pete

You know what...forget this whole post except the very first and second sentences...i didnt see "theoretical dual 867's) sorry

 

[Pants]

Xistor..

teh dual 800 exists because as I understand it looking at teh moto spec sheets, teh 866 (867? - c'mon... ) doesnt have teh full multiprocessing capability.

I really am stumped by this - a blazing SMP aware os, and a dearth of machines to run it on.....

Im also hearing rumors here in the uk that 10.1 IS only to be available on a CD....

 

[Pants]

THE !! DAMN YOU THE!!!


teh.

phat fingers.