Leopard At Macworld San Francisco? Intel and iTV (Viiv)?

[millar876]

slightly off topic but....

... am i the only person in the world to see the pointlessness in so called media center macs/pcs having a tv card? i thaught the point of a media center was to allow you to hook up your computer to a TV and easily use it from accross the room. my point is this... if your computer is connected to a TV why have a TV-card in the computer, that makes about as much sence to me as buying a truck to put your car into so you can drive to work. i get that people want to record tv programs BUT all you need for that is a capture card with NO tuning abilities at all. SCART has enough pins and the capability to do video out along the same cable as video in and most tv's have video out ports that can be set to output whatever source you want. just my oppinion.

 

[johngordon]

... am i the only person in the world to see the pointlessness in so called media center macs/pcs having a tv card? i thaught the point of a media center was to allow you to hook up your computer to a TV and easily use it from accross the room. my point is this... if your computer is connected to a TV why have a TV-card in the computer, that makes about as much sence to me as buying a truck to put your car into so you can drive to work. i get that people want to record tv programs BUT all you need for that is a capture card with NO tuning abilities at all. SCART has enough pins and the capability to do video out along the same cable as video in and most tv's have video out ports that can be set to output whatever source you want. just my oppinion.

Nope - I agree with you.

I do a lot of DVDs in iDVD, and being able to preview them on tv will be really useful.

I never got around to getting airtunes, because you still need to control the music from the computer - but if I can use iTV to hook my iTunes library up to my main hi-fi, and remotely be able to control the music, through Front Row on our tv, then that's cool too.

If we want to show slideshows, to do it on the tv, rather than sat around the mac, again through FR, then i'm sold.

Or watching the music trailers on the tv.

TV itself is totally taken care of by our cable PVR box - but viewing or listening to computer content on the tv, remotely using FR is pretty much what I'd be after - it does what it says on the tin - it takes your computer media from the computer, and places it firmly in the living room.

Iain

 

[OdduWon]

.. i thought the point of a media center was to allow you to hook up your computer to a TV and easily use it from accross the room. my point is this... if your computer is connected to a TV why have a TV-card in the computer, that makes about as much sence to me as buying a truck to put your car into so you can drive to work. i get that people want to record tv programs BUT all you need for that is a capture card with NO tuning abilities at all. SCART has enough pins and the capability to do video out along the same cable as video in and most tv's have video out ports that can be set to output whatever source you want. just my oppinion.

Agreed media center would imply the center of media dispersment. so if no tv output, not a center. Also it"s funny that in 1999 my school had some of the early g4 desktops, and they had cables to hook them up to the tv to show outlines. like a $12 or less kind of cable. Now i go into bestbuy, or even the Mac Superstore in slo and ask for the computer to tv cable and they look at me like i;m odd.
But seriously though the cable box is a waste of space, a computer could do it and offer a better experience. reading some of the menus from the cable box is difficult and counter intuitive. If the new mac mini is to be the new media center it has compitetion. Wii, Psm , and 360.. lol 360. These products will provide a media experience thats better than M$mc. I don't think itv is a media center it is a hub. Apple shouold push the mini into the portable media center harder and market it as the portable PC game box. If there was a better GPU in there it would be the star of the LAN party. Add the ability to split a large HD screen in to areas for players, or a connection and stand for the iPod cinema and you have a portable gaming machine capable of serving up one tasty media experience, the apple way

 

[MacQuest]

This guy is an unknown, hence page2.

WHAT?!!!

Enderle used to be a Windows fanboy...what has changed?

EXACTLY!

Enderle is a bonehead. He is one of the "Holy Trinity" of Apple bashing, winBlows [wannabe] pundits.

Dvorak and Thurrott round out that threesome of morons.

I remember Enderle's article from almost 3 years ago where he talked about how Apple couldn't make a computer as stylish as his red Acer Ferrari laptop and that it was sooo cool because it made a Ferrari engine noise when it booted up.



For a good laugh, and to expose Enderle for the KNOWN joke that he is in the Mac community, I'll link to an article referencing those statements from AtAT [As the Apple Turns] and includes classic quotes like these:

(regarding his red Ferrari Acer notebook referenced in the AtAT article linked below)

(It's) "the only notebook in the world to sport the patented Ferrari-Red colour." . . . (It has a) "classy strip of grey bordering the keyboard."..."When I walk into a room with this baby, even the Apple users join the throngs of admirers." . . . "One impressive piece of execution is that when you fire the machine up it plays a WAV file of a Ferrari race car revving its engine. That alone is worth the relatively low $1,899 price of admission."

In the linked post from February of '04, AtAT describes Rob Enderle as a "a very visible Apple-hostile analyst".

This guy is an unknown? I think not.

Enjoy!

http://204.68.168.161/scene/?id=4503

 

[inkhead]

Anybody who thinks Leopard is getting release in January has a head full of rocks.

I'll bet ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY, that Leopard will not be released before, or anytime DURING the month of January.

If it were being released in January that would mean that the builds Apple is releasing to us right now would actually run things, and not look EXACTLY like tiger, with a mix of 10.1, and hard freeze entire suites of test machines.

LOL. Leopard is months, and months off from release. March is going to be a HARD date to make, and at this rate if they pull it off in March, with the feature set they are showing off people are going to be yawning. And this is coming from a select developer who attended probably 60 sessions on leopard.

Boring stuff so far.

 

[inkhead]

Hmm.. maybe you just never used .mac but there were exclusive widgets for .mac users released. It was just the fact that they sucked....

Leopard doesn't have any really good secrets in store, I can promise you that.

...and the exclusive .Mac widgets.

-Squire

 

[Squire]

Hmm.. maybe you just never used .mac but there were exclusive widgets for .mac users released. It was just the fact that they sucked....

What were they? Apple kept promoting the exclusive .mac widgets on their .mac site that were on the way but later, even the promotional banner disappeared. This is the first time I've ever heard of them becoming reality.

-Squire

<edit> I did a little search on "exclusive .mac widgets" and it appears I'm not the only one who missed their dramatic arrival.

From ThinkSecret (Sept/05):
Missing from today's .Mac update are the "exclusive .Mac widgets" that Apple briefly promised customers in early August. The widgets, sources inside Apple have told Think Secret, were being developed by an intern primarily on his own time with Apple never really throwing its weight behind the project.

From Macsimum News (Sept/06):

DAG Says:
Apple promised .Mac renewers exclusive .Mac widgets with the arrival of Tiger. Well, we are up to v10.4.7 and I have .Mac and have yet to see one exclusive or.Mac specific widget.

From Mac Recon (Sept/06):

Vaporware? No, I’m not talking about Duke Nukem Forever — I’m referring to those exclusive .Mac widgets Apple promised since the release of Tiger. So… where are they? I can get more vaporware in just about any other place.

 

[Thunderbird]

Anybody who thinks Leopard is getting release in January has a head full of rocks.

ok, my head is full of rocks

I'll bet ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY, that Leopard will not be released before, or anytime DURING the month of January.

I'll bet you an apple it is (i.e. the actual fruit)

If it were being released in January that would mean that the builds Apple is releasing to us right now would actually run things, and not look EXACTLY like tiger, with a mix of 10.1, and hard freeze entire suites of test machines.

But we can all still dream, can't we? Besides, if Leopard isn't going to be released at MWSF, what then is going to be the BIG announcement that usually occurs at that time of year? 8 core Mac Pro?

LOL. Leopard is months, and months off from release. March is going to be a HARD date to make, and at this rate if they pull it off in March, with the feature set they are showing off people are going to be yawning. And this is coming from a select developer who attended probably 60 sessions on leopard.

Boring stuff so far.

I can't wait until next summer....!!!

 

[adrianblaine]

... am i the only person in the world to see the pointlessness in so called media center macs/pcs having a tv card? i thaught the point of a media center was to allow you to hook up your computer to a TV and easily use it from accross the room. my point is this... if your computer is connected to a TV why have a TV-card in the computer, that makes about as much sence to me as buying a truck to put your car into so you can drive to work. i get that people want to record tv programs BUT all you need for that is a capture card with NO tuning abilities at all. SCART has enough pins and the capability to do video out along the same cable as video in and most tv's have video out ports that can be set to output whatever source you want. just my oppinion.

I saw that a couple people agreed with your comment so I thought I'd take the other side of the argument.

Sure, a media center PC is made to hook up to a TV. And that right there is why it is not working. Who wants to put a freaking huge Dell or HP in their living room? Some people might do it, but every media center edition PC I've seen in people's houses are right where their last computer was. Most don't even use it for the pictures/music/TV. My mom recorded shows for a little while and she said it was a big pain. iTV is the missing link in my opinion. You can still keep your media on your computer and watch/listen to stuff from your TV without the computer being in the room. I know Macs and iTV lack the TV recording capability, but with iTunes that wouldn't go over very well would it?

It would be cool to be able to stream your actual desktop to the TV wirelessly someday, but if you want to hook a TV up to your computer to use as a second monitor, get a laptop with a long cord or buy a second TV to put near your computer. I think the whole "computer hooked up to a TV" craze would have taken place if it hadn't been for the laptop. I'd rather sit in the living room with my laptop surfing the internet WHILE watching the big screen TV.

 

[wmmk]

Hello friends.

First off, does anybody else find it hilarious that there are HP ads promoing the latest HP systems that run Windows?

I have no idea what you're talking about...

Let's have our own competition - the best description of Viiv gets a packet of biscuits!

nothing. whatsoever.

Dvorak and Thurrott round out that threesome of morons.

To be quite honest, Thurrot isn't all that biased. Sure, his site is called Paul Thurrot's Super Site for windows, but he has criticed m$ and commended apple when it's fair to do so, which I greatly admire.

 

[Am3822]

A noob question

I've just read (in news.bbc.co.uk) that Microsoft will launch Vista on 30 November (for corporate clients, mind you). Does this have any effect on Apple's Leopard plans?

 

[peharri]

I've just read (in news.bbc.co.uk) that Microsoft will launch Vista on 30 November (for corporate clients, mind you). Does this have any effect on Apple's Leopard plans?

Probably not, no. Remember, Leopard's arrival sometime next year has been known for a while, longer than Vista being pushed back until late 2006, early 2007 (depending on customer type.)

Leopard needs to come out after Vista anyway, given it uses Vista's kernel.

(Heh. My moment of triumph.)

 

[SiliconAddict]

I would be so happy if "Leopard" was released at next year's Macworld. That would be so awesome of them and it would definitely kill some of Vista's launch hype.

Doubtful. MS is spending aprox 900 million on marketing. You thought you were sick of campaign ads. You ain't seen nothing yet. You won't be be able to hock a loogie without hitting a Vista ad. Or if you do you will run out of spit well before you run out of ads.

 

[SiliconAddict]

I've just read (in news.bbc.co.uk) that Microsoft will launch Vista on 30 November (for corporate clients, mind you). Does this have any effect on Apple's Leopard plans?

Vista is released Nov 30's for OEM's (Dell, Gateway, Tosh, etc) and corp customers. In both cases there are probably a few months of tweaking the desktop\laptop image and testing compatibility with preloaded apps. MS is sending this out this early so companies can start getting their crap together for rollout even though I don't know of a single corp client even remotely interested in Vista. There are still large corp clients of ours that are only now rolling out XP.

 

[lorductape]

keyword: May

 

[Anonymous Freak]

... am i the only person in the world to see the pointlessness in so called media center macs/pcs having a tv card? i thaught the point of a media center was to allow you to hook up your computer to a TV and easily use it from accross the room. my point is this... if your computer is connected to a TV why have a TV-card in the computer, that makes about as much sence to me as buying a truck to put your car into so you can drive to work. i get that people want to record tv programs BUT all you need for that is a capture card with NO tuning abilities at all. SCART has enough pins and the capability to do video out along the same cable as video in and most tv's have video out ports that can be set to output whatever source you want. just my oppinion.

You put a TV card in your Media PC so that it can record TV shows for you, like a TiVo.

OR... You have a TV card because your computer *IS* your TV. Such as in a dorm room, where having both a TV and a computer would seem a waste of space. Having just a TV as your computer's monitor would make productivity apps hard, but having just a computer monitor isn't as bad. I had ATI's original TV tuner card back in college in 1996, and it was great not to need a dedicated TV in a cramped dorm room.

And I knew one person who had a MacTV. (It was a little out of date at the time, but it wasn't the most out-of-date computer in the dorms by a long shot.) Starting with the PowerPC Performas, running until the iMac, Apple offered a TV tuner card as an option on almost all of their 'Consumer' computers.

 

[barnaby]

I don’t see Leopard ready in January. Possibly in March for the French show but more likely for WWDC if it is heal at it’s usual time. They want to make sure that it hits the floor running and with the leat amount of problems.

Also I think that this is the time table for hardware reasons. I will explain.

At this time both the Mac Mini and the MacBook will run Leopard in 32 bit mode not 64. This will limit what can be done on those platforms with Leopard.

I think that Apple will want all of it’s hardware to work with Leopard in 64 bit mode so they can show off what loepard can do.

In order to do this Apple will have to wait for the next version of Core 2 Duo. According to Intel that is due about April 2007 along with the corresponding chip sets. This will allow the iMac and the MacBook Pro to be shipped with the new chip sets and the Mac Mini and MacBook to get the current chip set.
Also the next version of the woodcrest chip set will be out.

All of the new chips will probably have SSE 4. This will be a close equialent to the velocity engine from the G4, better than the one on the G5, and I doubt the MS has developed Vista with that in mind. They will probably wait for their first service pack.

Core 2 Duo supports 64 bit mode; i.e. IA32e mode.
Core Duo does not.

Leopard will have to be compatible with PPC 32, 64 and Intel 32, 64.
They're not going to be turning people away yet. Eventually they'll turn their backs on everything but 64-bit Intel hardware but that won't be for awhile.

Both PPC and Intel in 64 bit mode can run 32bit code natively. Migrating from 32bit OS internals to 64bit OS internals is a difficult transition. Especially when you need to keep a 32bit version working as well.

To the average end user, and therefore to Jobs' keynote, there is very little to "show" about the difference between 32bit and 64bit. It's not going to be a visual difference. Rather an under-the-hood difference aimed at high-end users.

Finally, there is nothing stopping Macbook and MacMini to ship with Core2Duos in parallel with MBPs and Minis. We saw that in the CoreDuo and G4 timeframes where they all used similar chips. Moreso, in order to drop PPC and 32bit intel from QA earlier, they'll want to have 64bit Intel as soon as they can.

OS X will come out after Vista so they can steal their limelight. Apple wants to be taken as a serious contender.

 

[dernhelm]

I call bunk. While this may be a dream of the mac-faithful, it is totally unlikely to be true.

 

[peharri]

Return of MacPaint?

I think the #1 feature of Leopard should be a bitmap painting program. It's been too long since the Mac came with anything similar. Maybe they could get Dan Silva to port the Amiga's Deluxe Paint to Mac OS X.

That'd be awesome.

 

[elppa]

Apple still may be able to beat them to market.

As Norse Son said, Apple beat them to market when they released Tiger.

 

[cherfizzle]

cant wait for leopard.. i wonder what those "top secret" features are going to be.
those 40 and 50 inch displays i doubt that, thats a little too big even if they do come out theres no way i would ever get one seeing as tey would be so expensive..

 

[GregA]

Another argument for not seeing Leopard at MWSF is that Apple will want people to buy iLife AND a Leopard upgrade. Easier if Apple doesn't ask us to buy both on the same day.

i think we may see leopard at MWSF because iTv is the secret part of leopard.

You may be right that they are integrated. I don't know. But iTV is due by the end of Q1 - ie before March 31... so maybe both will be later than MWSF.

 

[xVeinx]

iTV has competition...

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4845

It appears that microsoft is introducing support for iTV-like functions in it's XBOX 360 gaming system. I also noticed an MS advertisement for office for Mac. Looks like they realize that they have a problem ...

Edit: Add the link for the MS ad:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/go/promotions/default.aspx?WT.mc_id=c0710310116bhn02c0100

 

[crees!]

Edit: Add the link for the MS ad:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/go/promotions/default.aspx?WT.mc_id=c0710310116bhn02c0100

Offer ends January 16, 2007

So should we expect an update to Office around MWSF?

 

[ffakr]

Enderle is an idiot

I hope I'm not simply repeating something that's already settled but Enderle is an idiot. He rarely if ever has any idea re: what he's talking about. He's about as relevant as Dvorak except Dvorak occasionally get's lucky with a 10 year old prediction (the Intel move) even if it's totally coincidental.
Enderle is another one of those dumbasses who has been predicting Apple's demise for a Decade.

I can't go into detail about the Developer Builds because of NDA but they are no where near ready for release. Leopard looks like a very good, very solid update but it's not ready. They're making some big changes under the hood.. some of which weren't even available in time for WWDC. Some of the features publicly demo'ed at WWDC (and later web-cast to the public) were just recently included in Developer Builds.

Leopard is coming out in the Spring. Anyone who tells you differently isn't evaluating Leopard (or they're an idiot like Enderle). To Apple's credit.. they might be able to strike around the public release of Vista.. at least pretty close. Remember, Vista is shipping to corporate clients in December (so they can evaluate it for 6-9 months and not deploy it during that time) but it won't ship to regular customers till early 2007 on the current schedule.

sorry I can't give you more details but rules-is-rules.
ffakr.