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Leaked: ****** Info!

I will cede that this _could_ have been a hack, but I _highly_ doubt it.

Fact 1: Akamai --
That image is served by Akamai, which has to receive images ahead of time. I know this because I'm a web designer and work next to the main guy who deals with Akamai at my work. That lead time can be significant, because the changes need to propogate to several servers.

Fact 2: Web Design Practices --
Even if this isn't the final graphic, that doesn't make it a hoax. The specs could be wrong, or even just misspelled, but hear me out. Every web designer works on production machines before pushing "live." The process of pushing live is almost always done by a human. If a production graphic which hadn't gone through QA or had simply been in-progress got pushed live, they would roll-back to a know state that they did not have a problem. That would explain why the whole store went offline for a short while, while they rolled back.

It's not a hoax, unless it's a fantastic one. It's simply a mistake. It could mean the specs are correct, but perhaps a mix up here and there. It could also be the web designer just put in bogus specs, as filler, to test the visual layout. That graphic got accidentally sent to Akamai.
 
Re: Re: Re: i'm thinking hack

Originally posted by ant_s
Take a look atthe Apple UK Store here - they spell it Power Mac G4.

No, I didn't realise that until today, either 🙂


Let's hope these specs are true, even if only in part...

Monday will let us know
Click to expand...



plese note that the powerbook is spelled PowerBook....no space
there is noe step 1 wording in choose your powerbook G4 and it is all green type.

actually all the other products have the green type and no step 1. so that "hack" or mistake, i believe was real
 
Re: Re: i'm thinking hack

Originally posted by tYNS
I must agree... This is a HAck ..

The BIGGEST clue is the fact they spelt POWER MAC incorrectly.

It is spelt as PowerMac G4 ... Not Power Mac G4 ... (missing the space)..

Another thing. If they put all that effort into redoing the apparent G5 spec list why did they not rename the Header graphic as "Choose your Power Mac G5"

where did the "Step One" go?

I think whoever did this was in a rush.. and ended up missing key elements to make it truly real. hyphens beside the points? apple never does this..

But the PowerMac missing a space between the name is the key validator to this scam.
Click to expand...

Go check out the Apple store. There is no Step One. Anywhere.

Also, "PowerMac" is how it's spelled on the G4 desktop page. In green. That graphic wasn't changed.

Could be a hoax, but not because of these reasons.

edited 11:44am PST to fix a typo
 
If I were going to hack the apple store and have some fun with the rumor mongers, I would have done darn near everything on that page - selection buttons, prices, the whole nine yards.

To me, this just looks like a simple workflow SNAFU. I expect these machines to be real.
 
Does anyone know what the real machine looks like????? The squatty MDD looks like crap in my opinion. Please tell me thats not it. Yea the specs are jamming but if they are going to continue with that same MDD look that will suck!
 
Dig a little deeper

1.6,1.8, 2.0 wow... good stuff


Is the 1 Ghz processor bus, just for the processor or is it the system bus?

I wonder what speed the 8GB of RAM will be.. Will these be Dual Channel DDR and at what speed?

Fast Serial ATA will these be fast 7400 RPM drives or Fast 10,000 RPM drives?

PCI or PCI-X slots.. are PCI-X backwards compatible or will you have to make that choice before your purchase?

Optical and Analog is finally here.. I wonder if they're going to include a surround sound? That would be easy to do with Optical out.
 
Mac Central is still alive with info

On Yahoo News - MacCentral section - here is the full article!
This may be old news to a few but I spent all moring trying to get the low down - I hope this helps others - right now I'm seeing which account will provide the funds to buy!

Iriejedi!

Technology - MacCentral
Apple reportedly posts G5 specs on Web site
Fri Jun 20, 2:44 AM ET

Add Technology - MacCentral to My Yahoo!

By Jim Dalrymple MacCentral

For a brief time on Thursday night, Apple Computer Inc. reportedly posted information on its Web site detailing the company's next generation computer, known as the G5. While the information has since been removed, the company wasn't quick enough as Mac enthusiasts and Web sites across the Web captured images of the pages.

_

The specs posted to the company's Web site list the G5 as being available in three speeds: 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz and a dual 2GHz with up to a 1GHz processor bus; up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM; Fast Serial ATA hard drives; AGP 8X Pro graphics options from Nvidia or ATI; three PCI or PCI-X expansion slots; three USB 2.0 ports; one FireWire 800 and two FireWire 400 ports; and optical and analog audio in and out.


The machines will reportedly also be Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme ready when they ship to consumers.


A new desktop machine based on IBM's 970 processor was anticipated during company CEO Steve Jobs (news - web sites)' opening keynote of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. The conference opens Monday June 23 with Jobs addressing developers and press at 10:00 am.


Originally slated for May 19-23, 2003 in San Jose, the conference was moved to June 23-27 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in order to provide developers with a more complete preview release of Panther, the next major release of Mac OS X (news - web sites).


Contacted by MacCentral, Apple had no comment.
 
A hack? Be serious.

For the first time in known memory, someone succeeded in violating Apple's secure webserver and making changes to their content.

Why now? Why this? If you were able to hack Apple's website, wouldn't you want to accomplish something more significant than just getting a bunch of macnuts to go crazy? This hacking comes with federal criminal penalties; wouldn't you want to at least figure out a few ways to make some money from this activity before the FBI carted you away?

So, either some internet genius has breached a high level of security to commit a serious federal crime ...

or somebody screwed up.

A brilliant criminal ...

or simple human error.

I can't wait to see these great new boxes!
 
A theory

So we all know that Steve is a master of spin. These specs are not too far out of what's been going through the rumor mill lately, so suppose they're true. Apple "accidentally" puts them up, long enough to get them noticed. We're all in a frenzy talking about them, we can't talk about anything else but whether this is real. Then on Monday _boom_, this is just a small piece of the announcement.

It would be like - to steal from people earlier reference Nigel - we're all jamming on the rumors with our expectations at ten, and where can we go? Steve will take is to eleven.

THAT would be exciting.

Now I have no idea what's coming (devices? software?) but I bet it's better than just this.
 
Originally posted by Frobozz
I will cede that this _could_ have been a hack, but I _highly_ doubt it.

Fact 2: Web Design Practices --
Even if this isn't the final graphic, that doesn't make it a hoax. The specs could be wrong, or even just misspelled, but hear me out. Every web designer works on production machines before pushing "live." The process of pushing live is almost always done by a human. If a production graphic which hadn't gone through QA or had simply been in-progress got pushed live, they would roll-back to a know state that they did not have a problem. That would explain why the whole store went offline for a short while, while they rolled back.

It's not a hoax, unless it's a fantastic one. It's simply a mistake. It could mean the specs are correct, but perhaps a mix up here and there. It could also be the web designer just put in bogus specs, as filler, to test the visual layout. That graphic got accidentally sent to Akamai.
Click to expand...

This is the best explanation I've seen for it not being a "hack," but also points to the possibility that the specs are, in fact, wrong. If it is just a rough mock-up for the web guy/gal to test the visual layout, it's very off style-wise from the rest of the site (wrong color for headline font, wrong color for body copy font, wrong size for body copy font, wrong messaging for a store headline -- almost everything is inconsistent with the style employed across the rest of the store). So, if he/she got all that wrong, it's easy to think he/she got the rest wrong, as well, i.e., the features, and, possibly just threw in features as place-holders, as you suggested.

But then, do they really have someone that careless working on such an essential page for their big, new product? Or maybe the poor guy's just really tired from updating all those pages for all the new product announcements Apple's been gearing up for. Who's behind it all? A poor, overworked schlub with zero design sense and an itchy trigger finger for pushing the graphic live? Or a daring hacker dude stirring things up to get us all in a tizzy? Or... something else? I suppose another possibility is that it was hacked by someone who knew the actual specs, but failed to adequately duplicate Apple's marketing communications style.

The reason those "leaked" specs seem authentic is because a) they were on the Apple site and b) we want them to be. But that graphic was also the only thing inconsistent, stylistically, with the entire Apple site -- the only one! -- which still makes it very very very suspect and unreliable in my book.
 
If true -

True or not - just the thought of a 1 gig Bus is WAY MORE EXCITING than the release of the new Harry Potter book!

😎
 
or...

... Or I can almost hear Steve yelling at IBM people today, "One of our SOB f****** posted the f****** spec last night, we need a new show stopper this Monday, give us 2.5GHz chips by then, I don't f****** care you people will not eat or sleep for next 3 days, we f****** need them RIGHT NOW D*** IT!"
 
And I was just funnin' when I suggested Apple should jump on PCI-X early and trump Wintel.

One plus of being small, you can shift gears a lot faster.
 
Detailed Analysis

THE CASE IN FAVOR OF IT BEING A HACK:

The font is definitely different as is the format.

The font used in the leak is Lucida Grande at 10pt. The font Apple uses for the PowerMac G4, the iMac and the eMac are all Myriad at 10pt.

As a quick hack, it's conceivable that someone didn't know what the right font was, so they just made something that looked good...perhaps better. It's easy to believe something isn't forged if it looks better than the original.

The text also isn't bolded and faded consistently with the other graphics for the PowerMac G4, iMac and eMac. Again, as a quick hack job, trying to match the fade and bolding would be very difficult, so instead of trying to match the fade and bolding it would be easier to just make it look good. It really should be noted that it is very inconsistent with the page and other pages. The first line should be bold and the subsequent lines should be faded...or if it was text, it should be plain. The text in the graphic matches nothing.

More telling is that the graphic is a different size. Given the space of where the graphic is located, it's understandable that the graphic could be a different size, but here's the problem. The current graphics for the PowerMac G4, the iMac and the eMac are all 229x190 while the leaked/hacked graphic is 266x176.

This could be done by someone grabbing the graphic, altering it and then selecting just the area needed. I can understand making the graphic wider to accommodate the width of the processor line, but then why make the graphic shorter? This especially doesn't make sense that there would be room for extra lines...lines that include things like SuperDrive and cache information. Additional suspicion is raised by the fact that the leaked graphic is cropped exactly to the limits of the text, while the other graphics in the template are of the fixed size leaving lots of white space.

Wasn't Apple recently having DNS problems? I recall the site was down recently...could be related to a hack.

Also, the image is being served by Akami. This means that someone may have been able to have swapped this particular image, but none of the other HTML.

Shouldn't the PCI slots be listed as "Three PCI/PCI-X slots" or just "PCI-X" slots. It's like listing "USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 ports"?

In addition to not mentioning SuperDrive and cache, shouldn't they have listed "Up to X Fast Serial ATA hard drives"?

If it was just a mistakenly posted graphic, why did they shut the site down instead of just replacing the graphic?

INCONCLUSIVE:
8GB of DDR SDRAM. This seems low, but it could be based on the amount of RAM currently available to fill the slots. Apple has done this both ways before...listed the max amount currently available and listed the max amount allowed by machine. It seems to me like they would list the max amount allowed by machine, and then footnote it somewhere that it requires modules not yet available and Panther, etc...

While the hyphens don't fit with the template of this page or others, they are used as bullet points in some new graphics...see QuarkXPress 6 at http://Store.Apple.Com

THE CASE IN FAVOR OF IT BEING REAL:
It's possible some new person/intern was asked to create graphics and didn't really know what they were doing in terms of designing to Apple's templates or guidelines and then accidentally made the graphic live.

It's also possible that the information is real, but it was leaked intentionally by someone at Apple or a hacker. Likewise the information could be incorrect but it was mistakenly uploaded...in other words a designer was working on a new design and made up the specs and then accidentally uploaded the image.

Self-confession... I was working on a major Website (one of the top-tens). One day, I accidentally accessed an old script used for updating the site from the staging to the live server. The problem is that the script pulled from an archived version of the staging server that was like 6 months old. I realized the version was wrong, but through a weird combination of keystrokes, I ended up activating the script in such a way to replace the entire site! Believe me, that was a very fun call to the system administrator that night.

So ya, a single image being incorrectly updated...I could see that happening, but that's just me.

CONCLUSION:
I'm still working hard on this case. I'm taking the weekend off and will post a definitive conclusion on Monday😉
 
it's possible there are real specs, but not for the next round of machines. maybe they're working on graphics _that_ far ahead.
 
Preemptive Strike

Now, someone may have touched on this, but I don't feel like reading all 10 pages of posts.
IIRC, Intel is unveiling their 3.2Ghz P4 on Monday as well. I tend to think the G5 running rampant on the Friday before will overshadow anything Intel now has to say.
I hope the G5 thing is true. Doesn't really matter to me yet as I cannot afford a new machine yet anyway. By the time I can, though, lookout! I'll have a Wintel killer yet. 🙂
 
I, for one, think the specs are real.

Imagine a Dual 2GHz PPC970 with 1GHz FSB, piped into a dual-channel memory controller with 4GB of DDR400 on each channel. Then throw in a Radeon 9800 and a 120GB 7200RPM S-ATA hard drive. And of course, HyperTransport ties it all together. Then imagine running a 64-bit optimized OS on top of it. NO legacy components. Thing thing is going to fly.

I'd love to see Steve bring out the old Intel snail advertisement at WWDC.
 
pipe dream perhaps?

is pci-x backwards compatible with pci cards?

i'd ask the same about s-ata but i saw someone said that you can get a go between bridge for like 30 bucks...
 
Assuming real hardware is coming from WWDC, what time will the AppleStore go down for the real updates? Doesn't this usually start several hours before the announcement?
 
Go check out the Apple store. There is no Step One. Anywhere.
Click to expand...

wait, we already knew there was no step three, and now this. that only leaves us with step 2. could this be the missing piece of the puzzle for world domination??

step 1: steal underpants
step 2: customize your mac
step 3: profit!

and actually, there is a step one when selecting powermac g4s. at least there is now.
 
Let me be the first to say this sucks. I mean, no PowerBooks! No 2.5GHz 970s! I bet they aren't even going to be shipping the 2.0GHz ones for a few weeks! And they're so ugly Apple won't dare leak a photo of the machines on their website!

🙂

I also must say that I'd often argued that the half-CPU-frequency bus thing was a misunderstanding ... I guess I was wrong on that one though! This makes speed-bumping harder in theory, but it's nice to get a 1GHz FSB right out of the gates!

And PCI-X, and S-ATA (which might not offer much in terms of performance but sure makes case internals more tidy and keeps air flowing throughout making cooling an easier thing ...) ... I love it, and hope this is what we'll see come Monday!

New hardware, new software ... this is going to be a jam-packed keynote (and I'm going to be there!)
 
Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
pipe dream perhaps?

is pci-x backwards compatible with pci cards?

i'd ask the same about s-ata but i saw someone said that you can get a go between bridge for like 30 bucks...
Click to expand...

PCI-X cards can fit and function in standard PCI slots and PCI cards can be installed in PCI-X slots
 
Originally posted by clonenode
I say it was a controlled leak, to get more buzz going. Notice that no photo was realeased. Why the only specs... because to Apple, it's the looks more than the tech specs. that will set this thing apart. The tech specs are all mostly catch-up to the PC world.
Click to expand...

I disagree. If they wanted an intentional leak, they would have posted the photo, not the specs. It would have gotten people all gushing in anticipation and excitement, but still not knowing what was in the darn things. EVERYONE would tune in Monday, completely attentive to find out what kind of machines these really were.

As it is, now we all know. So it'll look a little different from the current towers, but big deal. I'm sure it'll look good, and I'm curious, but I already know what it has inside. Some people may just casually read news to confirm that these are indeed the specs, but not pay nearly so much attention to the whole keynote (remember, they want to talk a lot about Panther, and possibly other new products they have up their sleeves). It denies Steve the awesome power of his "And one more thing..." Everyone will be thinking "Yeah yeah, we know, just show us what it looks like and let us out of here so we can go play with them." If they had leaked only the picture instead, then everyone would be waiting in rapt attention to find out just what these babies can do.

It's kind of the opposite of the iMac. If the specs of that had been leaked early, but no photos, it would have been no big deal. People would have said, "well yeah, that makes sense, they're finally putting a G4 in it." Everyone would have assumed it would be like what the eMac is (didn't exist at that point). People would have been blown away seeing it for the first time at the Stevenote. But instead Time Canada screwed up and really pissed off Steve.

I just feel bad for the web techie (and possibly manager?? there's an open req on jobs.apple.com for this) who got fired over this.
 
hmmm... i think this is something true... but yea... i would have figured that apple would have put a picture instead of the specs... but then again.. woah.... a dual 2 gighertz!!!!!! can't wait for the pb's to get like that... By the way... a few days ago (i think tuesday), i went to www.macmall.com and went to the accelerator section, and there was a link that said 2ghz accelerators, but there was nothing in the link. so i think these are real, unless someone decided to hack macmall and everywhere else... they are off now so don't bother checking it.
 
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