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No PowerBook Updates Before 2005
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obsess with mhz
I think a lot of us in here are obsess with mhz boost, still and in light of recent Intel announcement that they're not pursuing the 4 Ghz P4 chip. Are some mac users fool like so many other people by the Intel mhz marketing hype?
I'll be satisfy (for now) if Apple can give me a laptop that runs for ~5 hours day in and day out. I'll be happy when I don't have to carry the power cord with me during the day.
-chomo
I think a lot of us in here are obsess with mhz boost, still and in light of recent Intel announcement that they're not pursuing the 4 Ghz P4 chip. Are some mac users fool like so many other people by the Intel mhz marketing hype?
I'll be satisfy (for now) if Apple can give me a laptop that runs for ~5 hours day in and day out. I'll be happy when I don't have to carry the power cord with me during the day.
-chomo
Powerbook mystery
I have a 1.5ghz on order that is sitting at FedEx not 20 minutes away. It shipped from China yesterday. I made arrangements to pick it up and was told by FedEx that it cannot be released until October 25 (monday) at 10:30 am. Does this imply that I have an unannounced powerbook waiting for me at the shipping dock or some silly shipping issue?
I have a 1.5ghz on order that is sitting at FedEx not 20 minutes away. It shipped from China yesterday. I made arrangements to pick it up and was told by FedEx that it cannot be released until October 25 (monday) at 10:30 am. Does this imply that I have an unannounced powerbook waiting for me at the shipping dock or some silly shipping issue?
tiny bubbles said:I have a 1.5ghz on order that is sitting at FedEx not 20 minutes away. It shipped from China yesterday. I made arrangements to pick it up and was told by FedEx that it cannot be released until October 25 (monday) at 10:30 am. Does this imply that I have an unannounced powerbook waiting for me at the shipping dock or some silly shipping issue?
Could be anything, but still a bit weird.
tiny bubbles said:I have a 1.5ghz on order that is sitting at FedEx not 20 minutes away. It shipped from China yesterday. I made arrangements to pick it up and was told by FedEx that it cannot be released until October 25 (monday) at 10:30 am. Does this imply that I have an unannounced powerbook waiting for me at the shipping dock or some silly shipping issue?
LOL.
How frustrating?!
tiny bubbles said:I have a 1.5ghz on order that is sitting at FedEx not 20 minutes away. It shipped from China yesterday. I made arrangements to pick it up and was told by FedEx that it cannot be released until October 25 (monday) at 10:30 am. Does this imply that I have an unannounced powerbook waiting for me at the shipping dock or some silly shipping issue?
Perhaps if it came directly from China it has to wait a certain amount of time to clear customs or maybe mandated stay in quarintine for x number of days?
Powerbook mystery
Now FedEx is telling me it was put on a truck and will be delivered today.
No mystery machine, but at least I will have it for the weekend.
Now FedEx is telling me it was put on a truck and will be delivered today.
No mystery machine, but at least I will have it for the weekend.
People need to stop the whining. The iBooks are now a brilliant proposition but the PowerBooks are still good. They may price-drop them in a few weeks (that wouldn't be going against his word) and that would help sales.
But Apple cannot update the PowerBooks if there are NO new processors to put in them!!! However, nothing is really moving in the PC world either at the moment besides price drops, so it's not hurting Apple that much.
The other thing I can't understand is why people want to upgrade their machines so often. I bought this 12" PB a year ago now and I still expect it to last 4-5. So far it is going strong I don't think it to be slow in the slightest. I certainly wouldn't bother upgrading it to a newer version anytime soon. The same should go with all you owners of 15/17" PBs - the 1.25GHz/1.33/1.5GHz processors in them are fine for what you need. You paid a lot for those machines so just enjoy them and don't worry about what the current line is doing. If you do want to keep upgrading, you may as well be a little more behind but spend less money and get iBooks. For example, the new iBooks are as powerful as the 15/17" PBs were a year ago but yet they are less than half the price. So you can get one now, and then another one in a couple of years time for the same price as the next rev of 15/17" PB you are waiting for. Ok, so some of the feautres (mainly screen and graphics) are not as good on the iBook, but there are hacks to get around the screen spanning, etc.
But Apple cannot update the PowerBooks if there are NO new processors to put in them!!! However, nothing is really moving in the PC world either at the moment besides price drops, so it's not hurting Apple that much.
The other thing I can't understand is why people want to upgrade their machines so often. I bought this 12" PB a year ago now and I still expect it to last 4-5. So far it is going strong I don't think it to be slow in the slightest. I certainly wouldn't bother upgrading it to a newer version anytime soon. The same should go with all you owners of 15/17" PBs - the 1.25GHz/1.33/1.5GHz processors in them are fine for what you need. You paid a lot for those machines so just enjoy them and don't worry about what the current line is doing. If you do want to keep upgrading, you may as well be a little more behind but spend less money and get iBooks. For example, the new iBooks are as powerful as the 15/17" PBs were a year ago but yet they are less than half the price. So you can get one now, and then another one in a couple of years time for the same price as the next rev of 15/17" PB you are waiting for. Ok, so some of the feautres (mainly screen and graphics) are not as good on the iBook, but there are hacks to get around the screen spanning, etc.
thatwendigo said:
I suspect (well, hope is probably the better word here) that you are mostly dead on target, except for one small thing. I think it more likely that it will be the smaller PB that will be available last, as it's delayed release may encourage some people waiting on it to go for the more expensive 15" or 17" models that are shipping first.
G5Mobile, G4, G5...who really cares as long as it screams? The marketing folks will spin it to make it sound exciting to the masses, anyway.
I'm not rich like all of you. So, I'd be happy if they'd just drop the prices on the current lineup. Then I would get a 15" 1.5 PB before x-mas.
So, I'd be happy if they'd just drop the prices on the current lineup. Then I would get a 15" 1.5 PB before x-mas. 
Chomolungma said:I think a lot of us in here are obsess with mhz boost, still and in light of recent Intel announcement that they're not pursuing the 4 Ghz P4 chip. Are some mac users fool like so many other people by the Intel mhz marketing hype?
I'll be satisfy (for now) if Apple can give me a laptop that runs for ~5 hours day in and day out. I'll be happy when I don't have to carry the power cord with me during the day.
-chomo
The marketing hype on Mhz is once again taking advantage of our primitive notions of bigger things being better along with the firm definition of Mhz already imprinted to our minds after hours of commercial from TVs, radios, the internet, on and outside buses, magazines, bill boards, infront of you by the urinals, in your mail box, newspapers, sports podiums, gyms, T-shirts, posters, subways, telephones, outside of cups, grocery bags, vending machines, milk cartons, written on the sky......
Maxx Power said:
you forget product placement in movies. Be that as it may, I think your list can be expanded further.
-chomo
Bummer...
What a drag (although I didn't really expect them to update the Powerbooks anyway). To me, there's still a degree of crippling going on in the laptop line. Maybe just the iBooks. I would really like to see us at a level where we're getting the latest and greatest tech. Hopefully soon - I'm putting off a laptop purchase until we get a new processor (either a G5 or a dual core G4).
What a drag (although I didn't really expect them to update the Powerbooks anyway). To me, there's still a degree of crippling going on in the laptop line. Maybe just the iBooks. I would really like to see us at a level where we're getting the latest and greatest tech. Hopefully soon - I'm putting off a laptop purchase until we get a new processor (either a G5 or a dual core G4).
chukronos said:I'm not rich like all of you.
yah.. i'm a student, som ofcorse I'm stinkin rich..;-P
johnnyjibbs said:
I do agree with you, and I love the iBook. I don't know, the plain ol' G4 just seems so old to me. I know it's a great processor, but it's really been in a stalled state for some time (except for small speed bumps). Perhaps they can increase the functionality in some way to make it 'new' again, or rather, current. I just want to wait a bit longer for something all new in the laptop line, that's all. I'm bummed that I have to wait even longer - I think a lot of people feel this way.
thatwendigo said:Calling the e600 a G4 is like calling the Pentium M a Pentium 3. While there's a tiny sliver of truth to it, it's ignoring a whole huge bolus of information that you're leaving out.
The e600 cores, past the 7448, will be revamped and use new core logics and registers while maintaining compatibility with the G4e and overall PowerPC instruction set. They are faster, unencumbered by traditional front-side bus limitations, use better memeroy controllers, better support fabrics, and generally rock the boat in the same way that said Pentium M did. All of the major chipmakers are coming to face the truth - efficiency is key, not megahertz.
WWDC 2005
Steve: "Now, I know we told you that we'd not have a G5 in the PowerBook any time last year, and what we said was true. We all know IBM had some problems, and that promises were made that slipped... There were a lot of issues, some of them with heat and battery power, others with supply, and still others with basic design. It was a hard road, but I'm up here to tell you..."
Crowd starts to cheer, before he even gets the word out.
"We've done it."
Steve clicks his pointer, bringing up three spinning podiums with the new PowerBooks on them.
"I'd like to be the first to present to you, the new Apple PowerBook. Using new technology from Freescale, Apple, and IBM's partnership to develop the PowerPC, we've created a new chip specifically to bring you all the power that we could put into a portable. They have dual cores..." pause for cheers and applause "running at 1.6, 1.8, and 2 gigahertz, with fast DDR2 memory, 7200RPM drives, and a new 8x SuperDrive. In addition, thanks to the PCI Express bus that we've added to the PowerBooks, we're now loading them with modular graphics, starting at the nVidia 6600 Mobile and going up. These are the most expandable laptops we've ever offered, they're the fastest we've ever offered, and we're calling them the PowerBook G5M."
The audience is going wild.
"Oh, and one more thing... Shipping starts in September on the 12 inch and 15 inch models, with the 17 inch following in October."
There's just no way a 1.8ghz PowerBook is going to fit into a space that size, not without a ridiculously expensive and custom cooling system. Let me reiterate this, since it doesn't seem to have gotten through from my last post... The 1.8ghz 7448 is 10 watts, the 1.5+ghz MPC8461D is 22-24 watts, and the single 1.8ghz 970fx is 25.6watts. Unless the laws of physics are on vacation, the MPC8461D will slaughter the 970, especially with a crippled FSB.
End of story.
Then get a tower or find 3-4GB DIMMS. Applications like Motion will never run as well on a portable as on a dedicataed desktop machine, and that's not going to change anytime soon.
Look, you obviously have no understanding of what 64-bit computing is, how it works, or what it means, if you think it at all affects the general operating system or applications. When the label "64-bit" is applied to computers, it's talking about memory addressing and integer length in math, and that's it. Using 64-bit math and memory pointers will slow down most applications, rather than speeding them up, because you're unnecessarily moving larger hunks of data around.
I really wish this would get through to people. You'd think the megahertz myth had started all over again...
Right. Sure. Whatever.
If you don't see how the 8461 is more than a G4, then there's no point in even talking to you. Gee golly, look at all those Pentium 3 laptops that Intel's selling right now!
I ACTUALLY AGREE WITH YOU TO A CERTAIN EXTENT BUT...
I understand that 64-bit technology is just a way of addressing larger amounts of memory and so on; but you are completely crazy if you think portables are not going to use this amount of RAM v.soon and the new OS. Some creative industries employ people like me who can't live with a desktop - I need portability and I need to run Motion/future video apps on the move so I can edit anywhere in the world, whenever I need to. Apple do not create products that are limited to desktops forever... The portables always follow the desktops within a reasonable amount of time and 64-bit will be needed and soon (Tiger, video editing apps etc...! They are not going to say: Sod PowerBooks - only Desktops can use the 64-bit technology and all of the new expensive apps/OS (which need to address 4Gb memory) we have created are not going to be sold to our huge customer base with pro portable computers (I'M NOT AN IT GENIUS, BUT YOU ARE NOT EXACTLY A BUSINESS GENIUS). Apple have entered 64-bit technology and they need to follow it up with a 64-bit portable, they are working on key products that require 64-bit processing (END OF STORY)! You know they have been working on the G5 portable for a long time, I know they have huge heating problems BUT: They are world class engineers working with other world class companies (like cooligy and so on) to overcome these problems, what do you not understand?
God, WHY???
Everyone knows that clock for clock, the G4 can do just as well as a centrino based laptop. Even get close battery life, depending on the model. It is just that damn 133 mhz front side bus that has killed and will continue to kill the g4. Why in the hell has it taken 6 year to moto to make a G4 that finally has a faster frontside bus, which is still 9 months away.
I for one would not be suprised it the powerbooks completely missed out on the G5 movement and go to a G6 along side the Powermacs this summer. Think about it. We know that apple is working on the POWER5 - G6 chip. Given that it is a mulitcore processor, which would fit much better than a redisigned dualcore g4, and the fact apple has had a few years notice to work on it, I am sure it will happen. It just pisses me off that they got themselves into this mess. I know they ment to release a G5 powerbook, but did not imagine that the damn thing would be so hot.
Last rant, I almost hate the iPod. I love them and all, but I wonder if apple really cares if creative pros like us have to wait for a descent update since the iPod has doubled thier profits. I mean, what is a few lost Powermac/book sales in comparision to a few extra billion this year from the Pod-O. Apple could blow us away with an awesome G5 powerbook at 1.5 inch. I think we would all except that. Plus a dual layer dvd burner
Also, don't give me that crap that the current powerbooks are a good offering. We all know that they are half the speed of the PowerMac and the same price. I would rather go to the windows world for moble computing. Apple will rue the day that a decent emulator is made that will run almost clock for clock. Truth is, I want apple hardware, it is beautiful. But when it gets time to making a living, I will run os x on an AMD 4000+ and care less if apple suffers. I mean, they have the iPod....right.
(I am wearing a fire retardent suit, so let the flaming begin)
Everyone knows that clock for clock, the G4 can do just as well as a centrino based laptop. Even get close battery life, depending on the model. It is just that damn 133 mhz front side bus that has killed and will continue to kill the g4. Why in the hell has it taken 6 year to moto to make a G4 that finally has a faster frontside bus, which is still 9 months away.
I for one would not be suprised it the powerbooks completely missed out on the G5 movement and go to a G6 along side the Powermacs this summer. Think about it. We know that apple is working on the POWER5 - G6 chip. Given that it is a mulitcore processor, which would fit much better than a redisigned dualcore g4, and the fact apple has had a few years notice to work on it, I am sure it will happen. It just pisses me off that they got themselves into this mess. I know they ment to release a G5 powerbook, but did not imagine that the damn thing would be so hot.
Last rant, I almost hate the iPod. I love them and all, but I wonder if apple really cares if creative pros like us have to wait for a descent update since the iPod has doubled thier profits. I mean, what is a few lost Powermac/book sales in comparision to a few extra billion this year from the Pod-O. Apple could blow us away with an awesome G5 powerbook at 1.5 inch. I think we would all except that. Plus a dual layer dvd burner
Also, don't give me that crap that the current powerbooks are a good offering. We all know that they are half the speed of the PowerMac and the same price. I would rather go to the windows world for moble computing. Apple will rue the day that a decent emulator is made that will run almost clock for clock. Truth is, I want apple hardware, it is beautiful. But when it gets time to making a living, I will run os x on an AMD 4000+ and care less if apple suffers. I mean, they have the iPod....right.
(I am wearing a fire retardent suit, so let the flaming begin)
Metatron said:Everyone knows that clock for clock, the G4 can do just as well as a centrino based laptop. Even get close battery life, depending on the model. It is just that damn 133 mhz front side bus that has killed and will continue to kill the g4. Why in the hell has it taken 6 year to moto to make a G4 that finally has a faster frontside bus, which is still 9 months away.
I for one would not be suprised it the powerbooks completely missed out on the G5 movement and go to a G6 along side the Powermacs this summer. Think about it. We know that apple is working on the POWER5 - G6 chip. Given that it is a mulitcore processor, which would fit much better than a redisigned dualcore g4, and the fact apple has had a few years notice to work on it, I am sure it will happen. It just pisses me off that they got themselves into this mess. I know they ment to release a G5 powerbook, but did not imagine that the damn thing would be so hot.
Last rant, I almost hate the iPod. I love them and all, but I wonder if apple really cares if creative pros like us have to wait for a descent update since the iPod has doubled thier profits. I mean, what is a few lost Powermac/book sales in comparision to a few extra billion this year from the Pod-O. Apple could blow us away with an awesome G5 powerbook at 1.5 inch. I think we would all except that. Plus a dual layer dvd burner
Also, don't give me that crap that the current powerbooks are a good offering. We all know that they are half the speed of the PowerMac and the same price. I would rather go to the windows world for moble computing. Apple will rue the day that a decent emulator is made that will run almost clock for clock. Truth is, I want apple hardware, it is beautiful. But when it gets time to making a living, I will run os x on an AMD 4000+ and care less if apple suffers. I mean, they have the iPod....right.
(I am wearing a fire retardent suit, so let the flaming begin)
Interesting theory about the G6, that seriously has got to be a long way off? Surely? A bit harsh on the current PowerBooks (they are sort of a good offering). They run Final Cut Pro and so on (as long as you have a good ext.drive) - MOTO are ridiculous and Apple need a bit more guidance! As for emulation (there is a new emulator to run OS X on PC - check the news on this site!
METATRON
Interesting theory about the G6, that seriously has got to be a long way off? Surely? A bit harsh on the current PowerBooks (they are sort of a good offering). They run Final Cut Pro and so on (as long as you have a good ext.drive) - MOTO are ridiculous and Apple need a bit more guidance! As for emulation (there is a new emulator to run OS X on PC - check the news on this site!
Interesting theory about the G6, that seriously has got to be a long way off? Surely? A bit harsh on the current PowerBooks (they are sort of a good offering). They run Final Cut Pro and so on (as long as you have a good ext.drive) - MOTO are ridiculous and Apple need a bit more guidance! As for emulation (there is a new emulator to run OS X on PC - check the news on this site!
G6 PowerMacs/PowerBooks
Are 3 - 5Ghz G6 processors (if that's what they will call them) based on the PPC 980 really that close? If so - how will this work for the portable range? What speeds would they offer in the new PowerBooks and would they really skip a G5 PB to jump straight to this? Are they more efficient, cooler? I haven't heard too much regarding the G6 and I am v.interested.
Are 3 - 5Ghz G6 processors (if that's what they will call them) based on the PPC 980 really that close? If so - how will this work for the portable range? What speeds would they offer in the new PowerBooks and would they really skip a G5 PB to jump straight to this? Are they more efficient, cooler? I haven't heard too much regarding the G6 and I am v.interested.
Windows 64-bit has been out for over a year
Windows is already available as a true 64-bit operating system...
o Windows XP and Windows Server 64-bit for IA-64 is a released, shipping product - and has been for over a year. (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/ipf/default.mspx, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/evaluation/top5.mspx)
o XP and Server for AMD64/EM64T is available as a preview version, free download (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/evaluation/upgrade.mspx)
Windows has already "won" the 64-bit race, Apple is playing catch-up with Tiger.
________________
I don't agree, however, that 64-bit is essential for a laptop in the near future.
If your laptop has 4 GiB or less of RAM, you don't need 64-bit. You won't see laptops with 8 GiB for a few years.
Also, it will be rare to find an application that's "64-bit only" and suitable for a laptop. As long as most desktops are 32-bit, a company would be eliminating most of its potential market by going 64-bit only. (You might find 64-bit only server apps like databases.)
Dazabrit@yahoo. said:
Windows is already available as a true 64-bit operating system...
o Windows XP and Windows Server 64-bit for IA-64 is a released, shipping product - and has been for over a year. (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/64bit/ipf/default.mspx, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/evaluation/top5.mspx)
o XP and Server for AMD64/EM64T is available as a preview version, free download (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/evaluation/upgrade.mspx)
Windows has already "won" the 64-bit race, Apple is playing catch-up with Tiger.
________________
I don't agree, however, that 64-bit is essential for a laptop in the near future.
If your laptop has 4 GiB or less of RAM, you don't need 64-bit. You won't see laptops with 8 GiB for a few years.
Also, it will be rare to find an application that's "64-bit only" and suitable for a laptop. As long as most desktops are 32-bit, a company would be eliminating most of its potential market by going 64-bit only. (You might find 64-bit only server apps like databases.)
Referring to my comments in the iBook update rumor, at bottom....
I told you so.
Karmic justice. Enjoy your wait.
peace
I told you so.
Karmic justice. Enjoy your wait.
peace
Dazabrit@yahoo. said:
Stop. Just stop.
You don't need 64-bit addressing to go over 4 GB of RAM per process, and you don't need to significantly expand the pointers in order to handle the actual parceling of available resources. Oh, and I'm not at all crazy to think that portables aren't going to use this kind of RAM soon because the prices are laughably high and aren't likely to change. If you bother to investigate prices, you'll find that Kingston 1GB PC2700 SODIMMs are $350 a pop. That's more than twice as expensive as 512MB PC2700 SODIMMs, and it will only get worse as you go up in sizes.
The answer is a compromise of speed and capacity, using more efficient means to move data around. Just one of those is, GASP, the on-die memory controller that the MPC8461D has that the 970 lacks.
No.
Jesus Christ...
The power of the processor has nothing to do with its "bitness" and everything to do with its clockrate and I/O systems. If you remove the clock advantage and the bus bottleneck, the G4 will kill the 970 at most things, just as the Pentium M kills the Pentium 4. For quite some time, I've been advocating that the G5 is a stopgap, an ugly and hackneyed response to the problems that Motorola Semiconductors was suffering from. The benchmarks are bearing this out, especially in systems with lower clocks and limited bus speeds, where the older and "slower" G4 systems are keeping up fairly handily.
Also, if you're at all a serious professional, then you use the toll that does the best job. When it comes to serious graphics and sound work, that's not a laptop.
Nothing "requires" 64-bit processing, and you can do 64-bit math on an 8-bit processor if you really feel like it. It just takes some juggling and more clock cycles. However, people that have been bitten by the 64-Bit Bug seem to think that the speedup on the x86 side is merely a function of that label, when the truth is that AMD has cleverly hidden the fact that they cripple the 64-bit processors when not in 64-bit mode. They added registers that only turn on in that mode, even though they could function as 32-bit registers.
Meanwhile, the 970 has been running on all cylinders in either mode since day one. There is no additional speedup to be had from the bitness of applications.
Of course, you have to be an IT genius to read up on the subject and understand it...
Do you have any idea how long people have been working on all kinds of problems? Cold fusion comes to mind, just to name one. Having engineers on a task doesn't make it possible, any more than throwing money at a problem makes it solvable.
Don't try to lecture me about computers when you clearly have no grasp of the reality of the situation.
Metatron said:
Actually, no, we don't "know" that Apple is working on anything in particular. They're sort of famous for playing their research close to their chest, and we have absolutely no reason to believe that the Power5 is coming any sooner than any other chip that they might potentially use. There are a couple of problems with this mindset, and I came to realize them after advancing the same theories in the past.
1) The Power5, like the Power4, is a big iron chip that is intended for controlled environment deployment in major enterprise. As such, it's going to take enormous redesign to apply it to a desktop, let alone to a laptop, especially with the vast changes in architecture that were applied to the new core when it was developed. Remember, the original 970 took two years from when Apple spoke to IBM about it, and the Power5 is a new core that only came out this year, as opposed to the Power4 that's been around quite a bit longer.
2) The "redesigned G4" that you people keep attacking is a low power chip that pulls down less than a single core 970 does, while maintaining a far more impressive feature set. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a Power5-derived core would be cooler, though it might be faster when deployed in, say, a desktop.
3) Heat. Heat, heat, heat.
The iPod revenue is a drop in the bucket. Apple's hardware is making five to six times as much revenue, even in this last quarter, and they make a much higher profit margin off of computers than iPods. Don't confuse the two, and don't listen to the FUD about the iPod being the savior of Apple.
The iPod has yet to make a billion dollars, even with its phenomenal sales. Apple's computer lines, on the other hand, do.
Oh, and for this lovely little chestnut... Without Apple's hardware, there will be no OS X. To equal their hardware sales for Quarter 3 2004 alone, they'd have to sell almost 5 million new copies of OS X in just three months. Not even Windows XP has done that.
Longhorn and Tiger
Yeah I agree with most of this... Windows hasn't been a true 64-bit system for over a year - Longhorn is where it really starts later this year (or even 2006). They have borrowed aqua style interfaces from Mac and that should be quite interesting to see. I know Microsoft have had preview 64-bit releases (to be used for Longhorn) and I have tested one on my old 64-bit PC but that didnt excite me, I sold the PC soon after. Their 64-bit OS is designed to coincide with the 64-bit Pentium chip. G5/Tiger have a 12/36 month lead on Windows 64/P64 apparently (you can search for this, Steve Jobs commented on it himself).
I agree 4Gb is not necessarily needed right now, but this is about building a machine for the future, they have got to produce a 64-bit portable to run their new Tiger OS, surely. I have seen my needs rise dramatically over the last few years and I can see 8Gb RAM being pretty normal within a desktop over the next 12-18 months and the portables have got to follow sometime soon with 4Gb RAM. The video/graphics apps that I use are constantly improving and they need to run efficiently on the PowerBooks. I'm not sure about this whole thing, this debate is going crazy - I need to take some headache pills and come back to this later. Someone get Steve Jobs on the phone!
AidenShaw said:
Yeah I agree with most of this... Windows hasn't been a true 64-bit system for over a year - Longhorn is where it really starts later this year (or even 2006). They have borrowed aqua style interfaces from Mac and that should be quite interesting to see. I know Microsoft have had preview 64-bit releases (to be used for Longhorn) and I have tested one on my old 64-bit PC but that didnt excite me, I sold the PC soon after. Their 64-bit OS is designed to coincide with the 64-bit Pentium chip. G5/Tiger have a 12/36 month lead on Windows 64/P64 apparently (you can search for this, Steve Jobs commented on it himself).
I agree 4Gb is not necessarily needed right now, but this is about building a machine for the future, they have got to produce a 64-bit portable to run their new Tiger OS, surely. I have seen my needs rise dramatically over the last few years and I can see 8Gb RAM being pretty normal within a desktop over the next 12-18 months and the portables have got to follow sometime soon with 4Gb RAM. The video/graphics apps that I use are constantly improving and they need to run efficiently on the PowerBooks. I'm not sure about this whole thing, this debate is going crazy - I need to take some headache pills and come back to this later. Someone get Steve Jobs on the phone!