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MWSF Announcement Details?

G5 eMac: Maybe... kinda doubt it though for this expo. I can see this one coming out in April/May with a revised iBook

PowerBooks: I thought the DualCore G4's were ready and willing to go??? Someone had posted that they weren't ready. I thought they had been ready since like October?

Even if they keep the original G4's here's what I think about the posting, I think it would be the best thing they ever did to that line if they cleaned up the line and stopped offering 5 different models. 3 models are perfect. One system for each screen size. Clean, Elegant and sophisticated like Apple has come to be known as.

Keynote: No Duh. We all think we saw KN2 on the screen at the Apple/U2 iPod convention anyways....

QuickTime NG: Not sure about this before Tiger comes out. Star Wars is BOGUS, unless what they mean is you can save the TEASER Trailer from the web with this new QT. Batman would be cool. $19 is N-I-C-E though.

Here's what I think people are forgetting about.....

iLife '05: Makes sense.... iLife '04 came out this time last year. Why name it iLife '04 if you aren't planning on an iLife '05?????
There will be new features in iMovie and iPhoto, especially iPhoto to take advantage of the iPod Photo. iTunes will get updated too. I think available Feb 2005

iPod Flash: Already making 'em. Gotta announce it sometime!

iPod Mini ver 2.0: Ditto

Apple Works 7.0 or a Microsoft Office Killer app: Been rumored for a while now. Gotta be getting close to done sometime.

.Mac: Cheaper and included FREE with all new consumer Macs (ibooks, imacs, emacs) for one year. (digging REALLY deep in my ass to pull that one out) 😀
 
KindredMAC said:
PowerBooks: I thought the DualCore G4's were ready and willing to go??? Someone had posted that they weren't ready. I thought they had been ready since like October?

Even if they keep the original G4's here's what I think about the posting, I think it would be the best thing they ever did to that line if they cleaned up the line and stopped offering 5 different models. 3 models are perfect. One system for each screen size. Clean, Elegant and sophisticated like Apple has come to be known as.
Click to expand...

dual core g4's were announced in october, not in production yet as far as we know.
 
dalamarian said:
I am a prospective PBook buyer, my background has been primarily linux at home and Windows in the work place.

A lot of points have been brought up about the lag in Pbook hardware and the number of vulnerabilities in Windows etc etc as arguments for both sides.

What I'd like to say is that I consider myself a true "power user", as such I am not worried about the plauge of patches and spyware because they are not a problem for me (either because of running linux or I just have automated processes / common sense to avoid vulnerabilities). But being a power user, I want ease of use AND power because of how much of my life is spent on the bloody laptop.

Quite simply, the Power Book isn't there yet. In general, I have been very unimpressed with Apple hardware till the G5 processor came out. And quite frankly, the G5 processor is still not the top dog in the market. However, that IS a sacrifice I am willing to make to get the rest of the benefits that go with being an Apple laptop owner. I will not sacrifice down to the levels of a G4 processor. To be quite honest, I am not sure if a dual core G4 will appease me. Just seems like a stop gap or bandaid rather than a true solution.

The opinion I always had of the pbook was "yes it is expensive, but it is a luxury you want to pay for" Just not yet for me..

ok there are my ramblings. incoherent at best 🙂
Click to expand...

Well, you make good points. Especially since you are a potential switcher. I think it boils down to the ease of use that OS X delivers for your daily routine. That translates into "speed." It really does. Although I have played devil's advocate on the G4 vs. G5 issue in the PB line, I do agree a G5 PowerBook would be an instant sale from me.

Let's face it-- the iBook is just fine for the people who want to stick with the G4. The G5 _does_ need to be in the PowerBook sometime soon. If they release a 1.67 GHz G4 I'd be happy, but a 1.67 GHz G5 would be a no brainer. I'm curious if the performance would be that much greater, though. The G5 thrives in environments where bandwidth and power are abundant.

Your thoughts?
 
Ups85 said:
Third, I really think there will be some sort of hardware device released. What about an airport express with photo capability? What would be really cool would be if they put a wireless chip in the iPod, so you could play music and photos on your stereo and tv without having to go back to your computer. That would be the perfect answer to the media center.
Click to expand...

that would be great. there is this talk of a remote for AEx, but they already have one - the iPod. all they have to do is get it working. an Aex attched to every stereo in the house - just take your iPod to the room and away you go. they really have to do this.

i'm not so bothered about the whole PB thing - only had ours for a year, and would expect it to last another few yet - by them i'm sure i'll be able to upgrade to a shiny new G6 PB!

iLife 05 would be nice, as its something i use a lot - perhaps some new DVD themes, and more control over the ken burns effects in iMovie. just day to day stuff really, and i'll be happy.

Iain
 
MSWF Powermac updates...please...

Here is my personal opinion on what will happen at MWSF, based on what I would do an a manager and how marketing and timing could play a large role in this...

For starters...

I have a strong feeling that come MWSF, Apple will announce an official release date for Tiger. The only other large scale opportunity to announce such an important thing would be the next Macworld, which is unlikely since is occurs past the "first half of 2005" estimate that Apple has given us. MWSF is an ideal largescale platform to announce this. The announcement will begin a usual "OS X countdown" and buzz will begin to form again around Apple. The timing is correct too: iMac G5 buzz will be dying down, so the next logical step to intice people with Mac is Tiger.

With the announcement of the new OS, excitement will be in the air. I think Apple will also announce an updated Powermac at this point, possibly with the dual 3 ghz chips promised a while ago, and updated architecture. These powermacs will use faster DDR, and include PCI express. In other words, it will be the perfect power machine for the new power OS. It seems like it would help for Apple to release such an update now to give time for people to order it, production, etc.

What else? What else...obviously the new mini and flash iPods. iLife '05 is a given, I think, as is Keynote...o yes, the Powerbooks.

Look, Powerbook G5 ain't ready. They had a difficult enough time with the iMac and heat issues, and I really would be (pleasantly) shocked if the g5 laptop was ready. The way I see it is this...it'll either be the powermac, or the powerbook. Apple needs to address it's pro users at this Macworld, cause they've left them in the dark for a bit. It won't be both. Since Powermac is WAY more likely and feasible...and because I am waiting until they DO update the powermacs until I get one...I'm going with the Powermac.

As for the .7 something increase in ghz for the Powerbooks and a lower price...the price would have to be much lower, or the speed increase way higher...why waste Keynote time wowing a massive audience with a pointless, incremental increase? iBook did that without any presentation. SO, again...Powermacs need love.

Questions or comments, please? If I missed something or am obviously wrong please lemme know...I really want a Powermac update... 🙂
 
Isn't it a little unusual that here we are just a few weeks away from one of the biggest Mac conventions and we have no reliable information/rumours on new computer hardware? It's all iTunes iTunes and iPods.....sooooo boring.

Maybe something REALLY big is comeing out and Apple have managed to keep it secret 😉
 
MacSA said:
Isn't it a little unusual that here we are just a few weeks away from one of the biggest Mac conventions and we have no reliable information/rumours on new computer hardware? It's all iTunes iTunes and iPods.....sooooo boring.

Maybe something REALLY big is coming out and Apple have managed to keep it secret 😉
Click to expand...

Steve always seems to announcement that is unexpected. Apple is just very good at keeping secrets. Look at all the design ideas for the G5 iMac.
 
AppleWorks 6 is completely outdated. PowerBook G4 is underpowered.
Those two products need to be updated. No more 100 or 200 MHz speed bumps on PowerBooks either every six, seven months. That's sad. Apple needs to start focusing more on their computers now.
 
carlos700 said:
AppleWorks 6 is completely outdated. PowerBook G4 is underpowered.
Those two products need to be updated. No more 100 or 200 MHz speed bumps on PowerBooks either every six, seven months. That's sad. Apple needs to start focusing more on their computers now.
Click to expand...

Coming from someone who only has a 700 Mhz G4, you are sorely mistaken. I have an iMac G4 800 Mhz, and a Powerbook G4 1.3 Ghz. A world of difference that can't be accounted for in terms of Mhz exist between those two machines. I think Apple added some other things that made this 17" Powerbook a lot more powerful than my old iMac. And that old iMac has 768 MB of RAM. I thought I was satisfied with its performance until I got this machine. I'd say some things appear to run as many as three times faster. And the Powerbook only has 512 MB of RAM. Just because your 700 Mhz G4 seems slow at certain things doesn't mean they haven't improved the G4 that much since then. And if you are having speed issues with Mac OS X, please check this FAQ:

http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html
 
gopher said:
Coming from someone who only has a 700 Mhz G4, you are sorely mistaken. I have an iMac G4 800 Mhz, and a Powerbook G4 1.3 Ghz. A world of difference that can't be accounted for in terms of Mhz exist between those two machines. I think Apple added some other things that made this 17" Powerbook a lot more powerful than my old iMac. And that old iMac has 768 MB of RAM. I thought I was satisfied with its performance until I got this machine. I'd say some things appear to run as many as three times faster. And the Powerbook only has 512 MB of RAM. Just because your 700 Mhz G4 seems slow at certain things doesn't mean they haven't improved the G4 that much since then. And if you are having speed issues with Mac OS X, please check this FAQ:

http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html
Click to expand...

First off, I know the G4 has been updated since. But that isn't my point. The fact that PC Notebooks have far more features than the PowerBook G4 does for the same price is hurting PowerBook G4 sales. In addition, PC Notebooks have 256 MB Video Cards, Dual Hard Drives, 1920-by-1200 Resolution Displays, faster processors, and 8X DVD Burners. The PowerBook G4 is quite fast -it just needs more standard features than it currently has.
 
Speed?

All this hype about the powerbook G5 and complaints about OS X speed from those running older machines.

Any "power user" number one requirement is multitasking ability, which is the main benefit of OS X. Linux is also stellar in this regard, but certainly there is virtually zero user time spent maintaining aspects of the Mac OS drivers, builds, etc. so tack that onto the "speed" equation, unless your time ain't worth dirt.

Debaters wax on about the speed of AMD compared to the G5, but how much is mentioned about entire task completion over the course of a day, weeks, and months? Sure a Photoshop filter may execute faster per second on an Athlon, but it still takes a minute to regain control of the menus in XP where it's not an issue in X. Speed is how rapidly assignments are checked off per hour, day, and week -- not per second.

The G4 spanks the G5 with unoptimized code, which is most of it out there right now. Add to that a handicapped laptop system bus compared to a desktop, lower mHz chips, and increased power dithering -- why the desire for a mobile G5 just on the face of it...marketing?? The only sexy draw would be 64bit linux, but that's just flashy hubris unless manipulating the local Oracle database or crunching Protein models.

Certainly, pure G5 application code catapults performance into the stratosphere, but the waiting game is never-ending. I do believe that the fence-sitters are blown away after the purchase of a Powerbook and do not look back -- a glow that lasts long enough to purchase the next generation.

Higher res screens are required for any Powerbook update, though. The OS X interface is large enough to handle it, especially those massive finder window bezels. The current offerings are lacking.

Lets see: Mac OS, Unix, Linux, and XP all running on one G4 Powerbook -- The Holy Grail of computing.
 
mugwump said:
The G4 spanks the G5 with unoptimized code, which is most of it out there right now. Add to that a handicapped laptop system bus compared to a desktop, lower mHz chips, and increased power dithering -- why the desire for a mobile G5 just on the face of it...marketing??
Click to expand...

I often hear people talk about this handicapped system bus. Would it possible for Apple to simply up the bus speed with the next rev? If so, what kind of performance boost would we see? Finally, why would they cripple it in the first place? I can see the logic behind electronically limiting a sports car's top speed (for lack of a better analogy) but I don't see it here. Maybe they've been waiting 'til they were in a crunch (i.e. now) before pulling that ace out of their sleeve.

Squire
 
Why wasn't the PBook updated with the iBook???

I really do not believe that Apple will give us such a minor update on the PowerBooks. It's been said many times before... If they were going to do that, then they would have done it quietly along with the iBook not so long ago.

The gap between the iBook and PowerBook is now ridiculous (closed) and Apple need to reclaim their mobile-pro market by making the PowerBook stand out again as a professional mobile tool.

If they are going to upgrade the PowerBook line, I can't help but think that they have the G5 up their sleeve (ready to announce in Jan and ship 2 months later anyway)!

I can't remember who it was from Apple who recently said 'The G5 PowerBooks are not as far off as you think'.

Can anybody find this?

IF IT IS A G4 Upgrade though, I would expect:
1.7/1.8Ghz G4 with slightly faster Bus speeds, 80Gb 5400rpm as standard, 8x DVD-R (Dual Layer won't happen unless PowerMacs get it) and maybe even a new display with a bit of a design update.

Not long now anyway 😉
 
wacky, but old, idea

Anyone think Apple will release an emulator which will be stand alone or part of OSX?

I know it is way out of the box, but they can't be happy about MS having them in the corner with this. And it's not like releasing a competitor to Office which would anger M$ greatly.

Just trying to get out of the box...
 
Pringolian said:
I really do not believe that Apple will give us such a minor update on the PowerBooks. It's been said many times before... If they were going to do that, then they would have done it quietly along with the iBook not so long ago.

The gap between the iBook and PowerBook is now ridiculous (closed) and Apple need to reclaim their mobile-pro market by making the PowerBook stand out again as a professional mobile tool.

If they are going to upgrade the PowerBook line, I can't help but think that they have the G5 up their sleeve (ready to announce in Jan and ship 2 months later anyway)!

I can't remember who it was from Apple who recently said 'The G5 PowerBooks are not as far off as you think'.

Can anybody find this?

IF IT IS A G4 Upgrade though, I would expect:
1.7/1.8Ghz G4 with slightly faster Bus speeds, 80Gb 5400rpm as standard, 8x DVD-R (Dual Layer won't happen unless PowerMacs get it) and maybe even a new display with a bit of a design update.

Not long now anyway 😉
Click to expand...

The reason why they didn't update the PBs is simple: They didn't have the necessary components. They didn't have new CPUs, the new new 100 GB hard drives were not ready either. So they just couldn't release new PBs in October. I expect new G4s with speeds up to 1.67/1.7 GHz, 100 GB HDs plus new GPUs (Radeon 9800?).
 
PowerBook G5 1.6Ghz and 1.8Ghz???

That makes sense... I don't think many people will be very happy with the new specs though! I'm currently using the PBook G4 1.5Ghz (17")

I think they need to make that G5 switch pretty soon for the release of Tiger 10.4 and so on...

I dont know, I'm confused. Lets see what happens in January....

😕
 
Slightly bigger G5 PowerBooks?

Another thing I was thinking about... Do you think Steve would comission a G5 PowerBook with a bigger case? It wouldn't necessarily be that much heavier and with Ives on the team, it would still be carefully designed so it impresses us all.

I can't help but think that they could release a PowerBook G5 that is 1 and a half inches thick just like the time he released a G5 Tower that was absolutely massive and pretty basic looking in comparison to the older G4's. There is absolutely nothing that states they have to get it into a 1" enclosure right now! As long as Steve and Jon Ive made a little blag promo ad for the website/TV like they did with the iMac then they would get away with it very very easily 😉

Also if Apple were to do this it would give them longer to figure out how to get it into a smaller enclosure for a 2nd revision about 6-8 months later (dual core?)... That would make their 2nd revision look like an even more impressive achievement when it arrived.

It's Just a thought
Now which one of you is going to shoot me down... 😛
 
Macrumors said:
An anonymous submission today points to some possible releases at MWSF in January:
Click to expand...

I do have the scoop.

The G5 generates too much heat, and requires too much power. But people want their PowerBook G5 anyway.

Apple can't release something that doesn't look stylish. But they need a way bigger case (for heat) and a way bigger battery (to keep the G5 running more than a few minutes).

So, the only option is the following...

Introducing: The 20" PowerBook G5! The biggest laptop on earth!


Ok, you can go back to real comments now. 😀
 
Hold Up......

Wo.....

I mentioned nothing along those lines 😛

I seem to remember mentioning that with Jonathan Ive anything is possible and he really could make the thing work in terms of design!

1.5" is not the biggest laptop in the world, still smaller than most PC laptops. Also, Apple have been working on this for a long, long time!!!

They have been testing new batteries, liquid cooling and G5 processors in old G4 cases at Cupertino for absolutely ages (the stories have been leaking left, right and center).

I'm pretty confident they could run a 1.6Ghz - 1.8Ghz in a new stylish 1.5" enclosure by March 2005 and I was just sharing my thoughts on the fact 😀

I definately do not think this is impossible or an implausable idea
We are talking about Apple here
😉
 
Pringolian said:
Wo.....

I mentioned nothing along those lines 😛
Click to expand...

Bah, I'd still rather see a huge 20" PowerBook. Now THAT would be impressive! 😀

What I'd want, though, is more something around a 8" iBook mini... Not a PDA, but a palm-sized laptop (sub-notebook?).

Widescreen 8" LCD (800x480 or 1024x600, no idea what's available right now), G3/700 with Altivec (doesn't IBM have one of those? In any case, it needs to have the absolute minimum for iLife' 05, nobody's going to expect this little laptop to actually breeze through the apps, especially iMovie), 256MB on-board (max 768MB or 1.25GB?), 40 to 80GB HD (same HD as regular iPod to keep the laptop smaller?), headphones out, line out and S-Video out built-in without any external adapter needed (to use as a portable media player), one or two USB 2.0, one Firewire 800, wireless (802.11b, no need for 802.11g on such a thing?). To keep it small, it has no CD drive and no touchpad, but does have a touch-screen (could even twist 360 degrees to use as a tablet, perhaps? At this size it would actually be usable as a "tablet", IMO). Priced to compete with the extreme high-end Pocket PCs.

Say hello to iBook mini, your portable iLife.
Only 499$US.

Hey, anything's possible for the next MWSF, right?
 
This is going to be dumb question but...

Are we sure with complete certainty there won't be any updates to the iBook at MWSF? I'm trying to decide whether to get my iBook before MWSF (like tomorrow) or after MWSF (Jan 11.). I don't want there to be a heck of surprise last minute that would make me regret buying the iBook now. I'm not interested in PB because the iBook seems like much better deal, especially for students headed to college in the fall (i.e. me).
 
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