Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac Mini to Launch at Macworld San Francisco?

nickinVictoria said:
Apple wanted to demo the new graphics engine which now uses the gpu instead of the cpu.
Click to expand...

Non sequitur.

Actually the os is bsd has been since NeXtStep days..... they just add new frameworks, kernel adjustments and an interface. This is how they are able to sell the os as being mature.
Click to expand...

The OS is Mac OS X 10.5, i.e., Leopard. It's based on BSD but Apple has made a ton of additions and modifications. Each version of OS X builds on the previous ones. Tiger was completely mature when it was replaced by Leopard, which is only now reaching maturity.

Very clear as in what they want the investors to know. You have to read between the lines.
Click to expand...

And reading between the lines, it was clear that Jobs' decison not to participate was partly based on his health, and additionally on Apple's desire to downplay tradeshows.

Jobs initially said his health was none of any ones business. If it was not for the investors the general public would have never known. Furthermore, investors have a legal right to inquire as to the health of a business (Mngt). If something went wrong then Apple could have been liable for a fair chunk of change.
Click to expand...

Very debatable statements. In fact there's been a ton of debate here already if you look through some of the recent threads.

Well they don't have a monopoly on the media, just look at the news feeds.
Click to expand...

The point was that Apple has a monopoly on news coverage during MWSF.

I asked Apple that question a few years ago when they had a product that allowed the apple binaries to load up in Windows NT. A killer product at the time but they would not release it due to the market ability to retain a message. At that time it was Apple is profitable..... that is all they cared about at the time.
Click to expand...

This has what to do with anything?

I am sure you have read past employees experiences of working at Apple. They are the R&D for the computer world.
Click to expand...

Excuse me? I believe there is R&D going on elsewhere as well.

They have lots of things they could release..... but they don't want to do it on someone else schedule or have to deal with the groan and moans of the investors shorting the stock post MacWorld.

The way I see it or another way to look at this is to think about having a party. You get to have all your friends over or you could invite all these people who don't really know you but it would be very good to know. Apple can always go back and book a booth at MacWorld, everyone adores them.

Finally.... it is all about optics and strategic planning, not the mini I want to buy but the positioning of Apple in respect to everything else.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid I'm not grasping the relevance of any of these statements.

Also, you should learn how to use the quote button.
 
Non sequitur.
I am not going to go back and connect the dots, sorry...


The OS is Mac OS X 10.5, i.e., Leopard. It's based on BSD but Apple has made a ton of additions and modifications. Each version of OS X builds on the previous ones. Tiger was completely mature when it was replaced by Leopard, which is only now reaching maturity.

I am guessing when you reread you comment you will see that Apple makes "additions and modifications" to the OS. But "additions and modifications" do not boot into an OS, but what is started with (BSD) does... just boot bsd and look how similar the boot up is to OSX. I guess the copyright thing of Berkley University would help too. You have to differentiate between the os and the pretty stuff.... Pretty stuff is Apple and the guts are BSD.


And reading between the lines, it was clear that Jobs' decison not to participate was partly based on his health, and additionally on Apple's desire to downplay tradeshows.

Nothing is clear, don't you get it.... it is on a what do you need to know basis. Surely you cant be so believing in every news feed or press release. You used the word "partly", Apple says it is because of his health he is not doing the Keynote.... are you changing? It is ok if you are.

Very debatable statements. In fact there's been a ton of debate here already if you look through some of the recent threads.

That's right, debatable.... and debate it is.... I believe there are other factors. You believe in, and I am guessing press releases and news feeds? I have seen countless times on the strategic manipulation of the media and its readers, to believe so easily.


The point was that Apple has a monopoly on news coverage during MWSF.


That may be your point but the world is bigger then Santa Cruz or MWSF and news coverage from MWSF is so small in comparison to the other coverage. Think Bigger! What message do you want to get out and be heard. That is all it is really about.

This has what to do with anything?


i was just trying to share an Apple product experience & how things get released. More importantly why things don't get released due to factors that include optics, media messaging and strategic planning. I am guessing that it wasn't relevant to you. Reminds me of another great apple product called distributed objects. Oh well, you are probably right, this has nothing to do with anything.


Excuse me? I believe there is R&D going on elsewhere as well.


You can argue with Andy Grove about the above.... Apple has been on the forefront of R&D for decades. Companies are just drooling at their next great thing so they can make some serious cash in windows and elsewhere.... Sure others have R&D, in some cases only for the tax reasons, but historically Apple has been the R&D for the computer industry. There is nothing to debate on this, sorry.


I'm afraid I'm not grasping the relevance of any of these statements.


unlucky

Also, you should learn how to use the quote button.


You should add something to your point of view, stay off the personal and add something.... you and I both don't know the exact reasons. Your stance is to discount what I add. Personally, it sounds rather closed. Disagree all you want state your opinions and add something. You can't be wrong.... Well maybe the OS part not being based on BSD, but you are from the old Apple days based on System (some number goes in here).... so how would you know better. How could we agree any way, I liked the Amiga better then the older Apple computers you once used.

Cheers
 
nickinVictoria said:
You can argue with Andy Grove about the above.... Apple has been on the forefront of R&D for decades. Companies are just drooling at their next great thing so they can make some serious cash in windows and elsewhere.... Sure others have R&D, in some cases only for the tax reasons, but historically Apple has been the R&D for the computer industry. There is nothing to debate on this, sorry.
Click to expand...

Well you should be sorry; what a crazy thing to say. You're denigrating the work of thousands of computer professionals who don't work for either Apple or Intel. For the past 30 years Apple has been a leader in elegant user interface design and sexy consumer products, but they have been a follower in most serious computer technologies. In processor development Apple pushed PowerPC (until they abandoned it), but the work was done by IBM and Motorola, while equivalent processor development was done by a number of other companies. In bus technology Apple pushed NuBus (until it was eclipsed by PCI), but the work was done at MIT and commercially by Western Digital. And where has Apple led the computer industry in network development, or storage technology, or multiprocessor systems, I/O chip development, or any other hardware area?

In OS development Apple was very late to the Unix world (except for the aborted attempt to roll their own version in the '80s, AUX, which was not supported by Apple management), in contrast to a number of companies and research institutions who were using Unix to advance the state of the art operating system. Instead Apple stuck with classic MacOS long after it had become creaky even for personal computing. And when they did switch to Unix, as you yourself pointed out, they chose BSD, the open source product of a generation of Unix programmers, as the underpinning. Apple today, as I said, excels in user interface design (although some would argue they "borrowed" the original Mac GUI from Xerox PARC), but they still trail badly in areas such as multiprocessor performance (I'm not talking 4 or 8 cores, but 64 or 256), fault tolerance, or telecommunications software. And there are numerous computing areas Apple has barely ventured into or not at all; for example, their first attempt at cloud computing was a stumble at best.

Macs have a solid minority of the personal computing market based on their superior user interface (and little else these days, given that they are now basically standard PCs in snazzy packages). But Apple is not even a blip in the business computing world.
 
Eric S. said:
Well you should be sorry; what a crazy thing to say. You're denigrating the work of thousands of computer professionals who don't work for either Apple or Intel. For the past 30 years Apple has been a leader in elegant user interface design and sexy consumer products, but they have been a follower in most serious computer technologies. In processor development Apple pushed PowerPC (until they abandoned it), but the work was done by IBM and Motorola, while equivalent processor development was done by a number of other companies. In bus technology Apple pushed NuBus (until it was eclipsed by PCI), but the work was done at MIT and commercially by Western Digital. And where has Apple led the computer industry in network development, or storage technology, or multiprocessor systems, I/O chip development, or any other hardware area?

In OS development Apple was very late to the Unix world (except for the aborted attempt to roll their own version in the '80s, AUX, which was not supported by Apple management), in contrast to a number of companies and research institutions who were using Unix to advance the state of the art operating system. Instead Apple stuck with classic MacOS long after it had become creaky even for personal computing. And when they did switch to Unix, as you yourself pointed out, they chose BSD, the open source product of a generation of Unix programmers, as the underpinning. Apple today, as I said, excels in user interface design (although some would argue they "borrowed" the original Mac GUI from Xerox PARC), but they still trail badly in areas such as multiprocessor performance (I'm not talking 4 or 8 cores, but 64 or 256), fault tolerance, or telecommunications software. And there are numerous computing areas Apple has barely ventured into or not at all; for example, their first attempt at cloud computing was a stumble at best.

Macs have a solid minority of the personal computing market based on their superior user interface (and little else these days, given that they are now basically standard PCs in snazzy packages). But Apple is not even a blip in the business computing world.
Click to expand...

Great Post!

Firstly, I don't want to take anything away from the R&D done in other companies or R&D done anywhere else in the world. Yes you are right the amount of R&D done outside of Apple is greater then what Apple does it self. I wouldn't even hedge to bet the percentages.

But where you need to offer some slack in your point is, where can you do R&D or (your point) take advantage of others R&D, and have a group of early adopters willing to buy it? That is where I get my drooling point from. When Apple does the R&D or takes advantage of others R&D, brings the product to market, everyone is watching. Just look at the iPhone, mouse, floppy disk, GUI and so on. Hence my point of R&D for the industry.

Finally, here in Canada we have a few places that are a dream to marketers. They know so much about the market place; population, demographics and so on, they test their ideas at those places. I believe that Apple is in a similar position. First thought that came to my mind was the WWW done on NextStep and then moved to the other Operating systems. But a more Apple experience would be, the current craze of the iPhone. I give Apple full credit for doing all the R&D but they really only put existing pieces together. It was a smash hit. Now everyone, is going to copy their product, design and ease of use. Phones as we know it will change. Will Apple control the market place, probably not. I believe they on and just barely control the download type music. Great R&D, grab a tissue to wipe the drool if you have anything to do with the phone market.

Maybe it is hard to swallow, but Apple is the R&D darling of the industry. They don't produce the most R&D, they often don't do the initial R&D (like an IBM or MIT) but they do the as you said the, "snazzy package" R&D.

Now can I have my mini with the gpu doing the graphics, I loved the idea of cpu doing the postscript, in fact I loved the whole concept of an imaging model based on postscript. (Printing, display & storage) It seems like the rest of the industry didn't catch on and choose off-loading graphic intensive operation to the graphics card. So lets do it better, provide a framework to take advantage of the gpu idle power. That is right 10.6. Not only does 10.6 do that but they also do multiple CPU's right. Neither windows or mac did it effectively (compared to Sun & others). The API's that I have heard about finally takes advantage of having 2 or more cpu's. Rejoice as developers will not need to be rocket scientists to finally take advantage of multiple threads and multiple CPU's. 10.6 will be released at Dev World. The Mac Mini, Apple TV will have a spring release once the drivers and new frameworks can be altered to work with the new hardware. Too bad they are behind in 10.6 or we would have seen Jobs on stage doing his one more thing.

Cheers, enjoyed your post. I am out of here till next year! Think Big and Believe (actually better pray) Obama can clean up the mess.
 
nickinVictoria said:
Cheers, enjoyed your post. I am out of here till next year! Think Big and Believe (actually better pray) Obama can clean up the mess.
Click to expand...

Yeah,Nancy Pelosi,Barney Frank,and HArry Reid have left him a hell of a mess that's for sure.
 
MrSEC said:
Yeah,Nancy Pelosi,Barney Frank,and HArry Reid have left him a hell of a mess that's for sure.
Click to expand...

You seem to have forgot 8 years of Bush, Cheney, and a Republican controlled house and senate.

But then again you must watch Fox News.
 
"TUAW believes that the Mac mini will indeed see an update at Macworld San Francisco next week. Rumors of a Mac mini update have been ongoing with most expectations pointing to Macworld.

TUAW's report is light on details but expects at least two major changes..."


...FAIL:D
 
darklighter said:
You seem to have forgot 8 years of Bush, Cheney, and a Republican controlled house and senate.

But then again you must watch Fox News.
Click to expand...

The Democrats gained a majority in both the House and Senate in November of 2006 (Swept the General Election)

But then again you must watch MSNBC.
 
Music_Producer said:
The economy already started collapsing in early 2006 btw, and no one but the American consumer is responsible for it.
Click to expand...

The American consumer is the only prop the American economy has left. If China didn't need Americans to buy all the crud it produces, it would have pulled its loans to the bankrupt American government long ago, and the 1930s Depression would look like a stroll in the park.

Now to get back at least somewhat on-topic, if an iMac refresh doesn't happen pretty soon it's not going to happen until late '09 when the Core i7 chips are ready. Otherwise development and marketing schedules will be forced too close together.
 
Surely with all the talk of collapsing economies Apple would be more than wise to invest in a decent 'low end' desktop for the masses , cannot believe they haven't brought out a new Mini yet ,WTF ....shame on you Apple!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back