No Keynote at Apple Expo Paris

[Frobozz]

Not as gloomy as some paint it

My god, from the sounds of some of you, you expect Apple to shoe-horn in a faster processor that doesn't exist. Do you think Apple can't sell machines right now? They had their highest volume of computer shipments since 1997 in Q1. They beat that AGAIN in Q2, to ship the largest raw number of laptops in the company's history.

Dispite the doom and gloom going around, Apple will be fine. Their market share is UP to nearly 4% of desktops now. It was at 2.5% about a year and a half ago. It's going up daily. Things aren't as bleak as some of you paint it.

Apple needs high performance per watt-- at least in a laptop. Steve obviously knew of Intel's major architecture change from Netburst ahead of time. Now, it looks like Apple will reap the rewards. We will have a nice Pentium M Yonah in PowerBooks in Q1 or Q2 2006. In the meantime it looks like a ~1.8 GHz G4 7448. (Obviously I base this on rumor but I think most would agree with this.)

If some of you are interested, you'll see that OS X is the cause of a lot of the perceived slowdown. ArsTechnica has a great article on this now. Their article is focused on server applications (primarily MySQL), but it goes to point on some strengths and weaknesses of OS X and the PowerPC 970fx.

I'm in the market for an Apple laptop. I have a 1.67 GHz 15" / 2GB RAM / 128mb VRAM / 100GB HD to test. My brother has it. It works great! I know faster is better for pro apps but for most everything else it's a superb machine. I'd like to wait for the Intel Rev. A PB, but I may pick up one of these on the cheap, and wait out the Intel transition to Rev. B/C.

 

[oskar]

anyone seeing this on apple.com RIGHT NOW?? 19:39 GMT

??

Is this the suprise? what about the phone?

EDIT: Just looked at it again. OK, obviously it's a fake. I suppose it's a joke then.

I registered just so I could post this - because this bothers me.

I need a laptop and have been holding out for a PB desperately. I DON'T CARE that the cpu is locked at 1.67 GHz. I really don't. But no one seems to focus on the fact that there are other parts of a laptop that COULD being updated.

Put in a new screen. Put in a new video card. THESE things are available today to apple. Just put in something so that it doesn't seem like I would drop 2 grand on something which hasn't been updated in a year.

And surely this makes sense from Apple's support standpoint. Surely they don't want 6 new things in their intel laptops for support's sake.

I think Apple doesn't do this because if they put 128 video memory (for example) in laptops now, then it would be the bare minimum for its laptop in the future. Of course Apple could sell PowerBooks with 1GB RAM included, but when (and if) new PowerBooks came out with only 512, everybody would be complaining. Including BTO options in the same model is not a very wise move IMO (like they did with the Mac mini). They should update everything, starting with the processor. Maybe that's why we might actually see the 1.7GHz PowerBook...

 

[Goliath]

All this talk of the Paris keynote being cancelled could just be a smoke screen to stop rumour sites from spoiling Apple's announcements!

So next week when someone posts a story of some new suped duper fangled Apple product it won't gain as much news or credibility- then Steve Jobs turns up at the expo and BANG.....ONE MORE THING!!!!

 

[oskar]

You can't really compare sales of Windows vs OS X because OS X is sold exclusively to a much smaller user base. If the playing field were leveled and both Windows and OS X would run on the same hardware I think you'd see quite a battle. If Apple would have licenced OS X back in 2002 and pushed it along-side the iPod I think we'd have a different computing world today. Microsoft has pretty much spent the past 4 years trying to patch it's security flaws and shed it's image as an evil corporate empire. Meanwhile, Apple has seen it's image shine like never before and put out some rather compelling products along the way. I've always maintained that with some actual marketing, OS X would be the OS of choice for most consumers. It's almost outright neglect for them not to advertise iLife and OS X in the mainstream media avenues. I certainly hope they aren't going to wait until Vista arrives to try and make that advertising push.

I wasn't really trying to compare the two (although I kind of did ). My point was actually that Vista looks a lot better than previous Microsoft OSes. If many believed XP was a copy (or tried to be) of OS X. You should look at Vista. It's getting quite closer to being a copy. That's why I think the x86 OS X pirating is going nowhere.

This cancellation, along with the very odd one-day mac mini "test drive", marks the 2nd sudden marketing event cancellation by Apple in the last week. I wonder if the two are related? There must be some sudden change in planning from up high.

I believe it hasn't been confirmed if there was actually a keynote ever scheduled by Apple, and if they did cancel it or just clarified that there was never one planned for Apple Expo Paris.

 

[descartes92]

Correction

I believe it hasn't been confirmed if there was actually a keynote ever scheduled by Apple, and if they did cancel it or just clarified that there was never one planned for Apple Expo Paris.

You're wrong on this point:

(1) Badges for the keynote were issued.
(2) A venue (different from the main Expo event) had been booked.
(3) The cancellation mentions this other venue: "There will not be a formal keynote presentation at this year's Apple Expo at Palais des Congrès". (The Expo is elsewhere: Porte de Versailles.)

 

[SiliconAddict]

Computers are dead.

Hmmm Don't tell my iPod that. It would get pissed because it would never get another feeding of songs ever again. *pets his iPod* Its alright honey. The bad man was just kidding. Here have a "Best of Tears for Fear" track off of iTMS

 

[alexeismertin]

List please. Other then the 3Ghz G5 I can't think of anything. Oh you are blowing hot air...sorry...continue on.

hello hot air fanatic mac apologist

Year of Laptop
Year of HD
3Ghz PM
Great PPC products
No Mhz Myth (we hate intel now we love intel)
OSX Tiger (crashy beta crap)
Intel Transition is easy (Adobe says differently)

.. and the last point is why SJ not doing a keynote sucks - not to reiterate Apple moving to Intel but to reassure developers, show them some X86 transitions, just help the suckers that keep apple afloat!!!

 

[VanNess]

The top ten reasons why Steve Jobs backed out of the Paris Expo keynote speech...

10) Got an email from the Gap store saying the shipping date for his online order for "one black mock turtleneck shirt" was being delayed for three weeks

9) French started using "Quicktime" as slang for sex

8) "Whack-a-Gates" video game championship tournament same day as expo keynote

7) Expo organizers asked him if he could pause every 60 seconds so audience members could finish typing into their translator widget

6) Sudden cancellation of new iPod mini color, "Lemon"

5) Spotlight can't find his keynote speech

4) They still keep asking him when Copland is going to be released

3) Two keynotes in the same month for a measly one dollar annual salary? You must be joking...

2) Still hung over from the party those Intel guys threw

And the number one reason why Steve Jobs backed out of the Paris Expo keynote speech...

1) Ask Phil Schiller...

 

[alexeismertin]

5) Spotlight can't find his keynote speech

This is the one!

 

[IEatApples]

Just wondering... When Apple is about to release a new computer, doesn't the retail stores get the product some days in advance so they are able to start selling immediately? If so, anyone on MR currently working at such a store and have heard anything?

Just wondering...

 

[jettredmont]

After Adobe's announcement that a native version of Creative Suite with Photoshop probably wouldn't be available for a Mac-Intel until mid 2007 and the fact that the Adobe President stated that " Steve makes it sound like the transition will be easy but in reality it isn't easy at all, in fact it is going to be very difficult." It kind of sounds like it may be a long while before pro apps are available and who wants to pay thousands for new hardware only to run key software through an emulator.

Keep in mind that Adobe has been ... well, I can't decide between "tempermental" and "pissy" ... in the past, and certainly have their collective hands full just trying to get Macromedia under their belts. They compete directly with Apple in several areas, and they apparently know of a "Pro" level photo app Apple is developing (at least, they guess Apple is developing it, 'cause they've been polling people to see if they'd buy pro photo tools from Apple or stick with Photoshop). All of this makes them significantly more likely to take a conservative tact than a competitive/risky tact. Being able to blame a lack of innovation on Apple is pure icing on the cake.

As a developer, I can say they have some valid points. Testing is the hard part here, not development. I'd hope that Adobe's Mac and Windows Photoshop code bases share a whole hell of a lot of common code; moving the Intel-specific stuff over into the Mac compile should be easy (note: I've never seen Adobe's codebase, so I can't say for sure, and I know that Photoshop is likely to have many kludge skeletons still sitting in there, but I can hope that they have their act somewhat together ). However, there is always a trade-off between opportunity and risk, and Adobe's statement is that they are going to take this 100% risk-averse, which sounds more like sour grapes than a true attempt to compete in the marketplace.

If Apple truly does have a "pro" photo app in the offing, Adobe just gave it an in. Obviously, nothing will replace Photoshop in the PS industry, but all those people buying up copies of PS Elements and the like aren't likely to buy something that will only run in "emulation" mode (esp as Adobe doesn't offer upgrade paths on their consumer lines).

 

[ZorPrime]

please, shut up. you may very well want to go to the dark side of the moon, and should that happen you'd still complain you cannot see the sun anymore. powerbooks and powermacs are very worthy of the power title; i'm currently using a (relatively) old 1.25GHz powerbook for professional music production, and it works wery well. surely i could use some more power, but that is always the case. what is more important is that i can stress the system to +90% cpu loads for +12 hours a day if i need to.

eat that rant, sucker

and you are?

the benchmarks of your 1.25Ghz PB are good for what you do (DJ?). I don't know any acousticians using 1.25GHz or 1.67GHz PowerBooks in aerospace. hmmm... lack of "Power"? PowerMacs, as they stand today, are worthy of the "Power" title. PowerBooks... that's another story. I'm looking for something more than what you use your PB for.

Keep rockin'!

 

[psycho bob]

so? that tells nothing about the product they're going to release for general public. of course xcode is 32bit right now, as the developer boxes in fact use a 32bit pentium inside. but that tells nothing about the real product, because the whole purpose of those rental developer boxes is to get developers SWITCHING TO XCODE -- and once that transition is completed, apple can add whatever architechture support to the xcode and do the switching work for the developers. majority of software will just run.

point being, the first intel mac apple SELLS might just as well be a custom-made fantasy-land 128bit RISC intel cpu. if software has been developed with xcode, it will compile against that fantasy cpu after xcode update just fine.

get it?

apple has said to switch to intel, but that's all we know. everything else is speculation.

The release of the developer boxes has nothing to with xcode specifically. A PPC mac can compile x86 code using the latest version of xcode. The developer boxes are aimed at giving 3rd party software makers like Adobe something to test with. Personally I see it as being rather pointless at this stage as Apple themselves have said they will continue PPC support thus forcing most other makers to do the same. Most software over the coming years will be hybrids to run on both types of machine. Most major software developers will not use xcode to compile, just as now most will use specialised ones like IBM's XL.

We do know that the Intel macs will be x86/x84 based, why else ship a developer box in that config it wouldn't get you anywhere. Apple stated they had continually developed x86 along with PPC they made no mention of any other chip types and I cannot see Intel starting to make something else just for Apple. Intel do make over CPU's but the whole reason for moving from PPC was to get faster development and hopefully more speed for general applications. Going to an obscure CPU will not give Apple that. Apple could have gone and used a pure POWER 5 design which would have given a lot of power and multiple cores before anyone else but costs, heat and price would have been far too high. Just because something exists does not mean it can be used (although I wish they had in this case).

People need to stop knocking Powerbooks, they are solid feature packed machines that do a job dependably and quickly. Could they be faster yes would I swap mine for anything else no way. Sony do indeed make some very nice computers but having used two of their recent machines in the last few months alongside my Powerbook it still ain't a mac. The actual design sucks regardless of how it looks. The 17in VAIO feels plastic and cheap, the software comes on the internal hard drive with no disks (I hate that), spec isn't all that amazing, disk drive still uses a fragile and cheap draw (PC companies use slot loaders!), xbrite technology is a joke it looks all glossy and bright but reflects and washes out badly in everyday conditions, ports have silly floppy doors to cover them, trackpad is appalling, it is heavy, power adaptor is huge (something so simple yet only Apple get it right, this is important when travelling), it is heavy, it just ain't a mac. I'M NO MAC FANBOY, I know my Powerbook could be a lot better (CPU, GPU, disk drive (DL), more ports) but I also realise that as a whole it is the best laptop available.

 

[jettredmont]

That chart is not adjusted for the split.
I bought some MS stock in 2001 for $23 just as the chart shows. It split and I doubled my shares. Now it is at 27. Those stock values of $35 were pre-split, it spit in 2003 and now is at $27. Therefore to adjust for the split todays $27 is equivalent to $54 in 2000 which is about a 50% gain compred to $35.

Umm, sorry buddy, but if you bought for $23 pre-split it musta been from a guy in a trenchcoat.

Look at the MSFT/APPL comparison over 5 years:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5y&s=MSFT&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=aapl

Note that Yahoo reports MSFT as having LOST ~20% over that time, and, with a recent kick in the pants, Apple has GAINED about 50%. Also note that there is no "spike" to "+100%" as you'd expect if this was not adjusting for splits (pre-split Apple was around $80, right? Today it is around $45. So if today is +50% then pre-split would be up close to +100%, which isn't there).

Geeze. You act as though Yahoo finance doesn't understand stock splitting!

 

[psycho bob]

Why not just release an Intel mac now? Use the Pentium M and shove it in a Powerbook. If Rosetta is as good as Apple have made out then it will work fine. 10.4 was supposedly up and running for Intel already so isn't exactly a beta release any more then the PPC version was and most of the iLife apps will have been done already.

Just get on with it, Apple is going nowhere. The switch will be hugely complicated as it is. I honestly feel Apple have dropped the ball on this, they've talked bull for the last few years slated the opposition and now go running to them like they've loved them all along. I think things will get a lot worse before we see an improvement. As it stands we already have many rumours flying about centering on x86 piracy a problem they have never really had to face before. They have iPod patent issues, computers they won't update even with available technology and major software vendors like Adobe not exactly being reassuring about the transition period.

 

[SiliconAddict]

hello hot air fanatic mac apologist

Ha. That’s rich. Apple apologist. Do a search on my posts. I’m hardly an apple fanatic. In point of fact there are some people on the board who would adamantly disagree with you on that point. If I bitch about Apple its based on legit reasons not claptrap such as this….

Year of Laptop

Jobs was talking about laptops outpacing desktop sales. Duh.

Year of HD

H.264 which came out in Tiger and is making its way over to Windows in Quicktime. Not to mention HD support in the iLife. Next.

3Ghz PM

As I pointed out.

Great PPC products

Nice way to take it out of context. The exact quote was

“The most important reasons are that as we look ahead, though we may have great products right now, and we've got some great PowerPC product still yet to come”

Show me where in there it said they would be bring anything else out in 2005. For all we know Jobs was talking Dual core PowerMacs in 2006. Next.

No Mhz Myth (we hate intel now we love intel)

The simple fact is Intel is finally getting their **** together NOW. Why do you think the PowerMacs are going to be one of the last products to be updated in 2007? Its because, like it or not the P4 sucks like a black hole. AMD is not an option because of limited production plants. 3 year ago you were seeing P3 chips outperforming the P4 because of the craptastic nature of the P4 with its netburst crap. It took 5 year for Intel to clue into the fact that the P6 architecture is a HELL of a lot more scalable then what the Pentium 4 is running on.

OSX Tiger (crashy beta crap)

Yah because Windows XP when it came out was oh so stable. Please *****. I’m a techNET subscriber and our in house developers are premier MSDN customers. We get access to MS alpha builds all the time and we are some of the first people to nab their gold master builds before it hits the OEMs. Shall I really go into what a nightmare XP was prior to SP1 and SP2? I will tell you this right now I’m sitting about three doors down from the group of programmers that inhabit this office and you can NOT begin to get a clue as to what tirades some of them went on when dealing with XP prior to SP1 and .NET in XP. HA.
OS X Tiger may have shipped too early but show me where the Windows marketing juggernaut throws any less BS around?

Intel Transition is easy (Adobe says differently)

Yah because Adobe knows all about the inner workings of Apple.
The fact remains that Apple has the OS pretty much done. You don’t ship an OS to your developers if you aren’t pretty bloody secure in the knowledge of its stability. Its now simply a matter of converting their internal apps over. Oh and providing the necessary tools to their developers which they better do soon or they…oops. Wait. My bad. They already have.

.. and the last point is why SJ not doing a keynote sucks - not to reiterate Apple moving to Intel but to reassure developers, show them some X86 transitions, just help the suckers that keep apple afloat!!!

English speak not well you do. Maybe if you would stop foaming at the mouth for a second and think before you type, it might help a bit. “show them some X86 transitions. Hmm show them what? Code?
“You can see here where we are using SSE3 extensions in this code.” Apple Expo is a consumer event. Or maybe you want to see FCP running? Oh joy. No new features. Just touting that fact that its running on X86. weee. Here’s a though. Maybe they will demo those apps when the launch of X86 hardware actually NEARS. We have at minimum 5 months before an X86 system will debut and realistically it won’t be with Mac Minis or eMacs. Maybe PowerBooks but that is a total tossup at this point. Those could debut at MWSF or WWDC.

Move on troll. Move on.

 

[AidenShaw]

it must not be....

If Rosetta is as good as Apple have made out then it will work fine.

On the other hand, if Rosetta is mostly hype then Apple need to wait for the apps to be recompiled, re-optimized and tested.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Why not just release an Intel mac now? Use the Pentium M and shove it in a Powerbook. If Rosetta is as good as Apple have made out then it will work fine. 10.4 was supposedly up and running for Intel already so isn't exactly a beta release any more then the PPC version was and most of the iLife apps will have been done already.

Because Apple knows they will catch hell from the developers if they release an X86 product 3-4 months after making the announcement. 6 months fine. 1 year? Even better. But 3-4 months? No and even Rosetta is going to be able to only do at best 80% speed of PPC. That certainly is NOTHING to crow about. Rosetta is a fallback for software that isn’t converted by the time they launch the hardware. It’s a crutch not a turbo wheelchair. Apple knows this and is why they will most likely give their developers a LARGE leeway with getting their wares out.

 

[oskar]

hello hot air fanatic mac apologist

Year of Laptop
Year of HD
3Ghz PM
Great PPC products
No Mhz Myth (we hate intel now we love intel)
OSX Tiger (crashy beta crap)
Intel Transition is easy (Adobe says differently)

.. and the last point is why SJ not doing a keynote sucks - not to reiterate Apple moving to Intel but to reassure developers, show them some X86 transitions, just help the suckers that keep apple afloat!!!

Huh? You should check people's previous posts before calling them things like "hot air fanatic mac apologist". But let me respond...

Year of Laptop
That year Apple was focusing sales on laptops and they did sale more than they previously had. It didn't mean nothing more.

Year of HD
iMovie HD, DVDSP with HD DVD burning, FCP 5 with the best HDV editting on ANY platform, H.264, many other small improvements with HD.

3Ghz PM
Yes. Steve publicly admitted this one and is part of the Intel switch.

Great PPC products
The year isn't over yet, we don't know what we might see. Anyway one person's perception on what is great and what's not is different from any others.

No Mhz Myth (we hate intel now we love intel)
The MHz myth was true and is still true to a certain extent. The MHz myth simply says that what matters is the processor not the GHz it runs at. A G4 500 Mhz is faster than a G3 500 MHz, things like that. (I don't want to make newer comparisons).

OSX Tiger (crashy beta crap)
That's your lousy opinion, and is not any type of lie made by Apple.

Intel Transition is easy (Adobe says differently)
For some developers. You can't expect for one of the most competitive products which is usually used for benchmarking systems is going to be written for a distinct architecture in a few days or weeks.

Sounds more like you're just trying to find something to complain about. Let's wait at least until after Apple Expo Paris before coming to so many negative conclusions, please.

EDIT: Oops, too late...

 

[SiliconAddict]

On the other hand, if Rosetta is mostly hype then Apple need to wait for the apps to be recompiled, re-optimized and tested.

If you consider how fast Photoshop and Word opened at WWDC, I don't think its hype. The key to Rosetta is going to be having gobs and gobs of RAM. 2GB as minimum I'm betting to get solid performance off of it.

 

[jaw04005]

I don't care what Apple says about Rosetta. Emulation NEVER performs as well (speed/stability) than the real thing. A 20% hit with Adobe Creative Suite will make a HUGE difference in the time needed to process a workload for a newspaper, magazine, etc.

I'm sure its a fine product, but the only reason Apple is hyping Rosetta is because they know that many niche applications (font managers, proprietary database software, various plugins, in-house apps, etc) won't be ready in time for the Intel announcement (if at all).

Although, I'm more worried that Apple is going to move to completely to Intel-based integrated graphics than Rosetta.

 

[FF_productions]

WHAT!

I had to come home to this? Does this mean no Dual-Cores??

 

[jaw04005]

If you consider how fast Photoshop and Word opened at WWDC, I don't think its hype. The key to Rosetta is going to be having gobs and gobs of RAM. 2GB as minimum I'm betting to get solid performance off of it.

Let's hope Rosetta continues to get optimized. Apple just now started shipping products with 512MB of memory built-in, it will be awhile before they get around to shipping 1GB much less 2GB with each system.

 

[psycho bob]

Because Apple knows they will catch hell from the developers if they release an X86 product 3-4 months after making the announcement. 6 months fine. 1 year? Even better. But 3-4 months? No and even Rosetta is going to be able to only do at best 80% speed of PPC. That certainly is NOTHING to crow about. Rosetta is a fallback for software that isn’t converted by the time they launch the hardware. It’s a crutch not a turbo wheelchair. Apple knows this and is why they will most likely give their developers a LARGE leeway with getting their wares out.

I don't see why developers would really care, it doesn't effect them. There software will still work it is Apple who are in dire straits. What good is mac software if the mac platform has gone under? Even if Rosetta only offers 80% performance the use of 2.1GHz Pentium M chips would still give better performance from what we've seen then the current G4's. If Apple released an Intel Powerbook now, packed it with top technologies and put it at an attractive price it would sell. Pro's may need further proof before investing but even a brief look on boards like this shows a lot of Powerbook owners don't use Pro apps anyway. So the ability to run Windows and have future compatability and also knowing when x86 apps appear that you will get a big speed boost are all huge incentives.

Right now the first Intel machines are going to be a Hail Mary pass using your logic. Not only will a buyer invest £1500 in a mac but then they will have to invest many times that in Pro software. Trust me many pros will be using Rosetta. Rosetta will not be like classic it will be essential in the beginning.

 

[50548]

hello hot air fanatic mac apologist

Year of Laptop
Year of HD
3Ghz PM
Great PPC products
No Mhz Myth (we hate intel now we love intel)
OSX Tiger (crashy beta crap)
Intel Transition is easy (Adobe says differently)

.. and the last point is why SJ not doing a keynote sucks - not to reiterate Apple moving to Intel but to reassure developers, show them some X86 transitions, just help the suckers that keep apple afloat!!!

Cut the crap and shut up, PC lover...

1 - Year of laptop - that promise was fulfilled with iBooks and PBs;
2 - Year of HD - never heard of the Apple Video Suite?
3 - 3GHz - kind of promise, but it was IBM that failed, not Apple;
4 - Great PPC - this can happen until mid-2006, so hang on;
5 - MHz Myth - even Intel acknowledges that, so shut up;
6 - Tiger - the best SO in the world, period. And I've never had any problems since 10.4.0;
7 - Adobe says crap, most other companies said it's much simpler than other transitions...

So stop smoking crack...or start visiting Thurrott's site, not MacRumors.