PowerBook to gain iSight, iBook to go widescreen in 2006

[Koodauw]

This is really good news. I think there are a lot of people who have been wait to buy the next version of the PB, and have been for quiet some time. The soon this comes, the better.

Dual-core Pentium-M sounds really cool. I know ill be in line as soon as I can.

I do hope they keep the 12'' around though, I have owned 2 of them and love them. I think it has been to good of a seller Apple to let this product go.

 

[lordmac]

I don't think so for three reasons:

1. Too expensive
2. not realiable enough
3. too limiting in size

I have been thinking about these dilemmas with using flash. Now i don't know if this is even remotely feasible, but could they say put a couple of those nand flash modules in there for 4 gigs of space and just have the os and start up files installed on them and then also have a Hard-drive for everything else. Giving u the really fast boot times but also making it not super expensive and still have a sizable amount of space for file storage. I can't imagine a couple of flash modules would take up much space and certainly with this samsung deal, apple isn't paying to much for them. Any-thoughts on this idea, i for one think it would be pretty cool and I don't think to hard to do.

 

[generik]

Poor attempt? Geez, what are you comparing it with in the PC world? A Dell? Puhleeze. Speed is not the end all, be all. Never was. To say that it is denigrates all the other attributes of the Mac platform.

Yeaah.. at least a Dell has a better display, one that doesn't display pinstripes over everything

And what's with the flickering screens some users got?

"Oh, they are an artistic representation of fireworks.. life.. energy!" - Steve (didn't really say it)

 

[Ramsos]

How about making a practical and beautiful laptop out of the 12" or 13" models. I would like one with 6+ hours of real life use, and I think it is totally possible w/ today's technology. We can eliminate the CD/DVD drive which will free up lots of space for a larger battery. Lets also eliminate the modem port, I mean who uses this anymore. While we are at it, eliminate the ethernet port. There are so many hotspots now, I can't imagine needing one. We can also elimnate firewire ports and just have two or three USB2 ports. That is it; just three USB2 and a video out port. That is all we need.

I could not disagree more with that, Firewire is of major importance on a powerbook to a person like myself, USB2 is fine for my ipod but speaking as a video editor Firewire is a must. I really love the fact that my current Powerbook and 2 firewire ports, I use one for my deck and 1 for my firewire hard drive. I realize that there is really only one firewire bus in the powerbook but this set up works great for me. FIREWIRE MUST STAY.

Try to observe what you do on your next business trip/meeting and you'll know what I mean.

Cinch

Actaully you just made another point for me about keeping firewire. I use my Powerbook for editing on the road too. I found my self using final cut pro on the airplane on the way back from Miami in July. I would not give up firewire for more battery life. I'm all for more battery life too though. What ever happened to the Fuel Cell rumors.

 

[Super Dave]

I really hope Rosetta is faster than it is now. But can anyone who follows chipsets answer me this:

Will April/May '06 Intel chips be faster than the current PowerPC PowerBooks enough that even 60% of their speed (the approximate emulation speed of Rosetta if I recall correctly) will be faster than the PowerBook? Maybe this is an impossible question.

I'm hoping that Apple has a "secret Rosetta" that's really much faster and they're just not showing it to the developer community so they won't be lazy in porting to Intel architecture.

David

PS - Anyone notice the "Architecture" entry by apps in column view in the 10.4.3 Finder. Intel's coming. And fast.

 

[Warbrain]

I really hope Rosetta is faster than it is now. But can anyone who follows chipsets answer me this:

Will April/May '06 Intel chips be faster than the current PowerPC PowerBooks enough that even 60% of their speed (the approximate emulation speed of Rosetta if I recall correctly) will be faster than the PowerBook? Maybe this is an impossible question.

I'm hoping that Apple has a "secret Rosetta" that's really much faster and they're just not showing it to the developer community so they won't be lazy in porting to Intel architecture.

David

PS - Anyone notice the "Architecture" entry by apps in column view in the 10.4.3 Finder. Intel's coming. And fast.

I see the Architecture section in the info window, but not in column view. Good find, nevertheless. I can't wait to see how hot the Intel Macs will look.

But I'll always love my PPC.

 

[balamw]

Actually, all you need for HD resolution is a display that is capable of 720 lines of horizontal resolution.

Exactly what I meant 720p not 1080i. 1280x720 minimum.

B

 

[aswitcher]

Well good to see Apple will be putting the PBs back on the map with some new tricks as well as a decent processor.

I wonder if the rumoured Front Row remote comes as a keyring

I seriously wonder if Apple adopt HDMI over DVI because of its smaller (not an engineer here ok) apparent size and ability to use adaptors for DVI...

What about new wireless standards as well. Apple always lead the way with that stuff, I wonder if they will adopt UWB or 802.11n or was that 802.16

 

[Peace]

I really hope Rosetta is faster than it is now. But can anyone who follows chipsets answer me this:

Will April/May '06 Intel chips be faster than the current PowerPC PowerBooks enough that even 60% of their speed (the approximate emulation speed of Rosetta if I recall correctly) will be faster than the PowerBook? Maybe this is an impossible question.

I'm hoping that Apple has a "secret Rosetta" that's really much faster and they're just not showing it to the developer community so they won't be lazy in porting to Intel architecture.

David

PS - Anyone notice the "Architecture" entry by apps in column view in the 10.4.3 Finder. Intel's coming. And fast.

I've heard folks saying some PPC apps run faster through Rosetta on the OSX86 platform than the app runs native on the PPC chip.
Perhaps porting has been a much smoother transition than earlier anticipated.

 

[snoboardguy21]

Just curious, for all you guys who are so adamant about how ancient the PPC G4 is. I fully understand and anticipate the Intel switch, but I just wonder what apps you guys are running that makes you think the current G4 is so old and wasted. I run Photoshop pretty extensively with very high res images on my 1.33GHz iBook with its measly 133MHz bus, 32MB of video RAM, and 768MB of RAM. Mind you this is also on a 4200 rpm hdd. Even the most ehaustive and intricate filters only take about 10 seconds for a HUGE image. From using my classmates Powerbooks, they're quite a bit faster. Now let's take the recent rev. PBs. A 1.67GHz processor with, for the sake of example, 1GB of RAM and the new 7200 rpm hdd with 128MB video RAM and the slightly faster 167MHz bus. That's quite the difference even from my iBook. Even if these new Intel machines are the improvement we're all hoping for, I'd hardly call the PPC a bad processor that wasn't any good after 2001.
Please don't get me wrong, I cannot wait for a new Powerbook that outperforms all the Windoze machines on paper. I just hope they don't use that silly camera/latch thing. I absolutely love the look of the current Mac line, and I hope they don't change things too much just for some new processors. Heck, if they make the thing any thinner, won't it snap in half??

 

[EricNau]

I have been thinking about these dilemmas with using flash. Now i don't know if this is even remotely feasible, but could they say put a couple of those nand flash modules in there for 4 gigs of space and just have the os and start up files installed on them and then also have a Hard-drive for everything else. Giving u the really fast boot times but also making it not super expensive and still have a sizable amount of space for file storage. I can't imagine a couple of flash modules would take up much space and certainly with this samsung deal, apple isn't paying to much for them. Any-thoughts on this idea, i for one think it would be pretty cool and I don't think to hard to do.

I'm not sure I see the point. Faster boot-up times? It isn't worth it, especially since it isn't that slow right now. (Less than a minute, right?)
Flash just isn't reliable enough, they can fail without warning (as anything can, but with flash it is common). If the OS and startup files were on it then you have no computer.

 

[Capt Underpants]

I'm not sure I see the point. Faster boot-up times? It isn't worth it, especially since it isn't that slow right now. (Less than a minute, right?)
Flash just isn't reliable enough, they can fail without warning (as anything can, but with flash it is common). If the OS and startup files were on it then you have no computer.

I'd love to boot my computer up in 10 seconds. Right now my PB takes 1.5 minutes to boot up, and it is hell.

 

[jeffcorbets]

The worst news for me is that iSight would be built-in to the PowerBook display. I would hope that they would have a version without the camera, because having the camera is unacceptable to my workplace, and thus unacceptable to me.

For anyone who uses their PowerBook for technical or engineering work, most places do not allow devices that can take an image on the premises. I could not even have the machine in my car in the parking lot, let alone actually take it into a building - not exactly what you want in a portable computer...

Hopefully they would not make it as hard to acquire a no-camera version as, say, Palm and Sprint do with the Treos.

~Jeff Corbets

 

[wizard]

I really hope Rosetta is faster than it is now. But can anyone who follows chipsets answer me this:

Will April/May '06 Intel chips be faster than the current PowerPC PowerBooks enough that even 60% of their speed (the approximate emulation speed of Rosetta if I recall correctly) will be faster than the PowerBook? Maybe this is an impossible question.

I'm cetain that Apple can get emulation ot the point where it will match current PPC hardware. That is the limited emulation that we know about at this time, that is no AltVec. Since the 60% is an estimated average I expect to see some apps do very well.

I suspect though that things will be very good in Intel land. First the Intel project has ben shadowing PPC development so a good portion of the OS is already there. Those part that aren't there should port easily due to the *nix base of OS/X. So from the perspective of Apple supplied software I don't expect to see a lot of emulation at all.

As to third party software, anything that makes use of AltVec will be an issue likely require an upgrade or an alternative application. In effect zero possibility of running the application unless it has fall back routines.

In a sense your question is impossible. First specific applications may not run at all. Second we don't know at the moment what the exact configuraiton will be hardware wise. My gut feeling is that the should see hardware that is extremely fast with integer operations thus making emulation when used very nice. But integer performance is only part of the issue so it depends on apps. A 4X improvement in integer performance though is a real possibility.

I'm hoping that Apple has a "secret Rosetta" that's really much faster and they're just not showing it to the developer community so they won't be lazy in porting to Intel architecture.

Read above. It is my understanding that Rosetta is only a partial solution. Some applicaitons will have to be ported or not offerred for Intel hardware. There is a real possibility that a favored applicaiton will not run at all.

David

PS - Anyone notice the "Architecture" entry by apps in column view in the 10.4.3 Finder. Intel's coming. And fast.

Yes it is coming. It is unfortunate that PPC never had an agressive manufacutre behind it. It is funny that I've seen no mention of AMD chips, they are probably to constrained to be able to handle a customer like Apple though.

Dave

 

[EricNau]

I'd love to boot my computer up in 10 seconds. Right now my PB takes 1.5 minutes to boot up, and it is hell.

That'd be nice, but I doubt Apple would think it was worth the extra money or space. I also don't think it would reduce it to 10 seconds (maybe down from 1.5 min to 45 seconds or something).

 

[Capt Underpants]

regarding the speed of Macs...

It depends what "speed" you are talking about, if it is the overall speed of the computer, Macs are much faster. If you are talking about Clock Speed, then Apple has always been slower, but clock speed is nearly useless unless comparing two processors of the same type (ie: P4 1.2 GHz : P4 1.8 GHz). (aka: Megahertz Myth)

Disregarding clock speed, PC laptops with Pentium M chips outperform Apple's G4 laptops.

I don't know what's up on the desktop side of things with this new quad G5, but it seems like the dual core athlons could definitely compete with todays G5's, and probably beat them.

 

[EricNau]

The worst news for me is that iSight would be built-in to the PowerBook display. I would hope that they would have a version without the camera, because having the camera is unacceptable to my workplace, and thus unacceptable to me.

For anyone who uses their PowerBook for technical or engineering work, most places do not allow devices that can take an image on the premises. I could not even have the machine in my car in the parking lot, let alone actually take it into a building - not exactly what you want in a portable computer...

Hopefully they would not make it as hard to acquire a no-camera version as, say, Palm and Sprint do with the Treos.

~Jeff Corbets

I had never thought about that, it is a very god point.
Apple would know about this stuff, I'm sure they have very strict rules also.

Disregarding clock speed, PC laptops with Pentium M chips outperform Apple's G4 laptops.

I don't know what's up on the desktop side of things with this new quad G5, but it seems like the dual core athlons could definitely compete with todays G5's, and probably beat them.

I don't know. I'm thinking it would be pretty hard to beat the Quad though.

 

[Capt Underpants]

I don't know. I'm thinking it would be pretty hard to beat the Quad though.

I agree that the quad is on another level, but it seems that for every other Apple processor, the PC world has a better alternative.

I was trying to find the information regarding the NAND flash in powerbooks, but I couldn't. It's 1:30 in the morning, though.

 

[aafuss1]

I guess if Apple moves to the Pentium M, would the PB's
AE/BT 2.0 modules need a redesign or use a standard 2915ABG/3945BG and rebrand that asAirport Extreme. Intel seems to be pushing WiMax-which Apple should equally support, if they want to (Intel has a WiMax IC already), and use nVIDA graphics (a lot like with the new G5's- an all nVIDA GPU lineup), and SATA . 802.11 may have to wait.

I'm cetain that Apple can get emulation ot the point where it will match current PPC hardware. That is the limited emulation that we know about at this time, that is no AltVec. Since the 60% is an estimated average I expect to see some apps do very well.

I suspect though that things will be very good in Intel land. First the Intel project has ben shadowing PPC development so a good portion of the OS is already there. Those part that aren't there should port easily due to the *nix base of OS/X. So from the perspective of Apple supplied software I don't expect to see a lot of emulation at all.

As to third party software, anything that makes use of AltVec will be an issue likely require an upgrade or an alternative application. In effect zero possibility of running the application unless it has fall back routines.

In a sense your question is impossible. First specific applications may not run at all. Second we don't know at the moment what the exact configuraiton will be hardware wise. My gut feeling is that the should see hardware that is extremely fast with integer operations thus making emulation when used very nice. But integer performance is only part of the issue so it depends on apps. A 4X improvement in integer performance though is a real possibility.

Read above. It is my understanding that Rosetta is only a partial solution. Some applicaitons will have to be ported or not offerred for Intel hardware. There is a real possibility that a favored applicaiton will not run at all.


Yes it is coming. It is unfortunate that PPC never had an agressive manufacutre behind it. It is funny that I've seen no mention of AMD chips, they are probably to constrained to be able to handle a customer like Apple though.

Dave

I'm guessing:
-Logic-Version 8 very soon (late January to early March release date), Intel and DC ready version in say a paid v 8.1 upgrade
Final Cut Studio-V 2.0 at NAB, Intel ready maybe

 

[dylomel]

i want an isight pb! !!

 

[wizard]

Just curious, for all you guys who are so adamant about how ancient the PPC G4 is.

Because it is. That and the replacements for the current G4 are not yet out in numbers. Plus the high integration dual core device doesn't evne have a feature set usefull to a general purpose computer maker.

I fully understand and anticipate the Intel switch, but I just wonder what apps you guys are running that makes you think the current G4 is so old and wasted. I run Photoshop pretty extensively with very high res images on my 1.33GHz iBook with its measly 133MHz bus, 32MB of video RAM, and 768MB of RAM. Mind you this is also on a 4200 rpm hdd. Even the most ehaustive and intricate filters only take about 10 seconds for a HUGE image.

So you find that metric usefull, doesn't mean much to the market at large. With the Intel hardware Apple has the chance to offer more balanced performance. Now there is the very real possibility that soem of the AltVec optimised filters will not translate well to Intel hardware. That might be a problem for your specific usage, but it is likely that your older machine will be outperformed on the new hardware.

Mind you we really don't know how well Yonah has been enhanced with respect to vector operations. We can only hope that Intel has moved the hardware forward with respect ot vector operations. In any event it is a given that some of those other hadware features you mentioned will be greatly eclipsed by the new intel hardware.

From using my classmates Powerbooks, they're quite a bit faster. Now let's take the recent rev. PBs. A 1.67GHz processor with, for the sake of example, 1GB of RAM and the new 7200 rpm hdd with 128MB video RAM and the slightly faster 167MHz bus. That's quite the difference even from my iBook. Even if these new Intel machines are the improvement we're all hoping for, I'd hardly call the PPC a bad processor that wasn't any good after 2001.

You really are missing the boat as far as what I've gotten out of this thread. It is not that the processor isn't any good it is simply that it hasn't gone anywhere after three years. In case your wondering NO I don't think a 300MHz giain means anything at all over that time frame.

What we will gain is a processor that has dramatically better integer performance. That combined with improved vecotr operaitons and the implimentation of the latest technology means that Apple can offer hardware that is appealling to a broad range of cusotmers. Frankly trotting out filter performnace figures is just a way to mask all the weak points that the present portable have. There is more to PC usage than just filter performance!

Please don't get me wrong, I cannot wait for a new Powerbook that outperforms all the Windoze machines on paper.

Unfortunately that is not likely to ever happen with Apple now using Intel hardware. At best a better OS will (might) offer a little more performnace but that is about it.

I just hope they don't use that silly camera/latch thing. I absolutely love the look of the current Mac line, and I hope they don't change things too much just for some new processors. Heck, if they make the thing any thinner, won't it snap in half??

Wel innovation requires change. No way to get around that.

On the other hand I'm with many on this board with respect to the built in camera. That is not good at all for the work place where often photographic hardware of any type is forbidden. That would mean never taking the machine into work - maybe not a bad idea after all

Durability is important ot me also. What I'd really like to see is Apple offering a single machine hardened like Panasonics ToughBook line. That would make for a nice machine to cart around.

Dave

 

[aafuss1]

The eMac, even it's education-only now could still see minor/major revisions in future , even a Intel-based and PCI-E model, to please educators next year-they may be quitely announced

 

[EricNau]

The worst news for me is that iSight would be built-in to the PowerBook display. I would hope that they would have a version without the camera, because having the camera is unacceptable to my workplace, and thus unacceptable to me.

For anyone who uses their PowerBook for technical or engineering work, most places do not allow devices that can take an image on the premises. I could not even have the machine in my car in the parking lot, let alone actually take it into a building - not exactly what you want in a portable computer...

Hopefully they would not make it as hard to acquire a no-camera version as, say, Palm and Sprint do with the Treos.

~Jeff Corbets

Maybe it could be a BTO option and like wit car companies if you don't get it, they just leave it out (and fill it in with a plastic plug).

 

[wizard]

Yeah one thing that maybe I didn't point out to well, is that if people are using specific software packages that use AltVec, that they need to undestand where their vendor is with the switch over. I could see some packages taking a very long road porting wise.

The issue is that engineers may have trouble eeking out the smae sort of vector peroformance that many apps currently enjoy. This of course is dependant on how well the exact Intel chip Apple uses handles vector operations. Since I don't worry to much about those sorts of apps it doesn't mean much to me.

By the way there has been much talk aobut Yonah in the iBook. Is it to crazy to think that maybe Apple will go with Dothan here. Yeah the chip is a bit old, but it is a proven piece of hardware. It is probably a matter of time frames and availability.

Dave

I'm guessing:
-Logic-Version 8 very soon (late January to early March release date), Intel and DC ready version in say a paid v 8.1 upgrade
Final Cut Studio-V 2.0 at NAB, Intel ready maybe

 

[SiliconAddict]

*Drools uncontrollably*