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PowerMac Delays
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g5 powermacs, then imacs, then powerbooks
I doubt Apple would let a faster G5 in the iMac than what they include in their Pro lineup (the iMac would be the first to get updated... G5 Powerbooks are still a ways off... you will probably see a 1.5 GHz G4 Powerbook first). I also doubt they would introduce a 2 GHz or slower iMac G5 if they have 3 GHz coming out right around the corner. Hence I belive Powermacs, then iMacs... followed by Powerbooks probably at MWSF. Alternatively, Apple may very well have a stockpile of 2.2 or 2.4 GHz chips for iMacs and are simply waiting for the 3 GHz for the Powermacs so they can launch all at the same time (there was probably a very real delay and they figured it was too late for a mid-season refresh so they did not use these middle-of-the-road chips in the Powermacs).
invaLPsion said:
I doubt Apple would let a faster G5 in the iMac than what they include in their Pro lineup (the iMac would be the first to get updated... G5 Powerbooks are still a ways off... you will probably see a 1.5 GHz G4 Powerbook first). I also doubt they would introduce a 2 GHz or slower iMac G5 if they have 3 GHz coming out right around the corner. Hence I belive Powermacs, then iMacs... followed by Powerbooks probably at MWSF. Alternatively, Apple may very well have a stockpile of 2.2 or 2.4 GHz chips for iMacs and are simply waiting for the 3 GHz for the Powermacs so they can launch all at the same time (there was probably a very real delay and they figured it was too late for a mid-season refresh so they did not use these middle-of-the-road chips in the Powermacs).
I honestly think it's too late for an announcement of a speed bump before WWDC now. So I am just going to wait patiently (eye twitching uncontrollably) and spend the time painting the wall (You see!! It changes color when it dries! It never stays! I have to keep the wall wet!).[/QUOTE]
LOL you too...?
LOL you too...?
Apple australia has just extended its Power Mac Trade In Offer until the end of April, if that means anything to you guys.
http://www.apple.com.au/promo/tradeupg5/
and here is another
http://www.apple.com.au/promo/brilliant/
http://www.apple.com.au/promo/tradeupg5/
and here is another
http://www.apple.com.au/promo/brilliant/
If they are having cooling issues in that giant case, where the front and back are nearly entirely open, and there's nine fans, I will personally go kick their asses. They can get a 3.2gHz pentium to run in a 12x12 box just fine, with an overclocked 256MB graphics card and all this nonsense, and they're still a heck of a lot more quiet than my Dual 867. I'm talking counterstrike players here people.
all you people are maniacs who eat brains
I got my Dual 1.8 the day after thanksgiving last year. Never had a problem with it. No weird noises, no Rev. A problems, just no problems. Never had a freeze or a kernel panic. I even ran folding on it for weeks never a problem.
self abuse must be a ingrained problem with you guys - I see no reason why someone using a 500 Mhz G4 would wait for a Rev B unit considering the speed increase going from that box to a dual 1.8 or 2.0.
so, my conclusion is that you all are maniacs that eat brains. Tank you.
I got my Dual 1.8 the day after thanksgiving last year. Never had a problem with it. No weird noises, no Rev. A problems, just no problems. Never had a freeze or a kernel panic. I even ran folding on it for weeks never a problem.
self abuse must be a ingrained problem with you guys - I see no reason why someone using a 500 Mhz G4 would wait for a Rev B unit considering the speed increase going from that box to a dual 1.8 or 2.0.
so, my conclusion is that you all are maniacs that eat brains. Tank you.
Steve Jobs is very innovative, but that is where it stops . He already drove Apple into the ground once because of his lack of marketing skills. He has brought Apple back from the dead by charging a lot for the new products. His margins are very high. We, the Mac faithful, are paying the price. Most of the time he uses older technology and charges for current. When I purchased my G4, it had standard memory and an ATA 66 drive. The PC market was DDR memory and ATA 100. Now he sells the 4X dvd-rw and the PC is 8X. As the cost of these new technologies come down, you start seeing them in the Mac. I am on the School Board, so I qualify for an education discount. On the dual 1.8, this comes to about 10%. Check out Dell and Gateways education discount!
Look at Apple's customer service call center. The hours were drastically cut back years ago to save money, making it harder to contact them. Now that Apple is debt free, will Steve start being more customer friendly? How will Steve get new switchers? Were the old switchers actually switchers or just Mac people who left and came back? Will he push us away again with his destructive policies? There is a very loyal core of Apple customers, who by spending their hard earned dollars have brought Apple back from extinction. It woul be nice to see some sort of reward for us.
Don't get me wrong, I am an Apple supporter. Remember when Apple ruled the PC world, and an Apple II cost over 5,000 dollars? How much was an IBM? The Mac OS was far superior and more stable to the early Windows versions. The latest version of Windows is very stable and will get even better. I would hate to see the price of the new Power Macs start to chase customers away again!
Look at Apple's customer service call center. The hours were drastically cut back years ago to save money, making it harder to contact them. Now that Apple is debt free, will Steve start being more customer friendly? How will Steve get new switchers? Were the old switchers actually switchers or just Mac people who left and came back? Will he push us away again with his destructive policies? There is a very loyal core of Apple customers, who by spending their hard earned dollars have brought Apple back from extinction. It woul be nice to see some sort of reward for us.
Don't get me wrong, I am an Apple supporter. Remember when Apple ruled the PC world, and an Apple II cost over 5,000 dollars? How much was an IBM? The Mac OS was far superior and more stable to the early Windows versions. The latest version of Windows is very stable and will get even better. I would hate to see the price of the new Power Macs start to chase customers away again!
Macster389 said:
Actually, I would say he has the good sense to surround himself with a whole lot of innovators and creative types, including marketers. If he's so terrible at it, then explain the success of the iPod and iTMS, along with the climb in mac sales and the adoption of OS X.
Previously true, before the G5. It's top of the line, and even buying the parts yourself, a similarly complex system costs around $2000. That's without any discounts, assembly fees, or any other factor - just pure cost of components.
Apple started a number of trends, or got in early, at least. SATA is just taking off, but they were largely responsible for Firewire and USB going as far as they did.
At the moment, you get PC3200 (top of the line in normal industry), SATA (ditto), dual bank memory for dual processors (expensive and not common in PCs), high speed bridges that equal or exceed their counterparts (ditto), AGP 8x (industry standard), 802.11g (industry standard), and PCI-X (guess what?).
We are getting a reward, you know. Adjust $3000 for inflation, taking it back to 1982, and tell me that the Apple II you couldn't have bought with that money is at all as useful as the dual G5 you could buy with it now. Destructive policies, though? If anything, Jobs saved Apple from the wandering spiral of death it actually had been on before, and the current path is set to continue the recovery.
The Mac OS is still far superior to Windows, hands down, and to call Windows stable and expect it to improve on this hypothetical base that it's gained shows that you're basically trolling. I've never seen an OS crash as often, as hard, or as unrecoverably as Windows does, and I've been using computers since I was three years old. That trend has slowed slightly, but it is far from over.
thatwendigo said:
Interesting...
The very first computers I ever used were Macs. I could not stand Windows (at the time I think it was Windows 3)..I kept using Macs and everyone else had Windows 95, then 98...and I thought Windows still sucked.....
Then I got a G3 and Mac 9.2 and it crashed all the time. My office used Windows XP and it's a wonderful operating system. It was then I bought my first Windows machine, I've had it for a little over 2 years now and it has only crashed once.
About 6 months ago I got a Mac Powerbook with 10.2 and when Panther came out I updated to that. 10.2 crashed twice, and Panther has also crashed twice. If you honestly believe that XP is any less stable than OS X then you don't know what you're talking about. I'm saying this and I'm a huge fan of Apple. I'm buying a G5 and 23"HD Cinema display in a week or two (waiting for the new ones...but if they don't come out by NAB then I'm geting the current ones).
Is OSX an elegant OS? You bet. Do I like it? You bet. But the fact remains that Maya runs faster on Windows and Linux, Shake runs better and faster on Linux, in fact...just about everything runs faster on the other platforms...
but...I still love the Mac...which is why I am getting getting another...but I'm ont blinded by some religious OS fervor.
Meanwhile...I await the new Mac G5s....
kobiashi said:
I rarely crashed under 6, 7, 8, or 9, and when I did, it was pretty clearly badly written third-party code or my fault for tinkering with something. I did that a lot. Existing alongside Windows on a fairly constant basis (friends and school), I got to experience an awful lot more crashes away from home than I ever did there, even though I used the computer more at home than I used any machine anywhere else.
I've been using OS X since the public beta. You know how many times I've crashed, installed across my family's seven macs, and my own two. Since it debuted, I've experienced a grand total of five kernel panics across nine installs, each one an early adopted of the next version. I even had the developer release of Panther, and it never crashed on me.
By contrast, my roommate's XP box has had to be reinstalled five times since he got XP about a year ago, one of my coworkers had to reinstall it after he and I ran a driver disk for his wireless bridge (while the Airport in my iBook worked flawlessly from day one), and I constantly have to help other coworkers with driver issues, virii, and just about anything else that could go wrong in Windows. My dad's Panther box at work plays nicer on their corporate network than the Windows machiens do, and they're using things like ActiveDirctory!
So, no, I'm not clueless on what I'm talking about. I just don't break the OS as a matter of habit, and I see Windows go down, all around me, all the time. I could go into the problems my school had with their Wintel boxes, if you'd like...
Citation, please. This is a common claim, a common assumption, but one that is rarely backed up in any meaningful manner.
My religion, as you call it, is born of workflow, elegance, and ease of use. When Microsoft and AMD/Intel begin to approximate what I can do on a mac, I will take them seriously. Until then, they're possibly faster, but far less reliable or beneficial.
I have all kinds of rational reasons for my positions, and I am far from the typical "Apple Zealot." Take a look through my old posts, if you don't beleive it.
thatwendigo said:
Just a small point...any PC built out of a common-as-dirt nVidia nForce2 based motherboard has dual-channel DDR RAM. I built an Athlon-based system for a friend at least 12 months ago using an Asus nForce2 based board with dual channel RAM, and it was all priced squarely in the middle of the pack as far as motherboards went. I would say dual channel RAM is quite common in any enthusiast PC.
I also believe Mac OS X to be superior to Windows, but it's not because Windows crashes all the time. The only time I've seen Windows XP or Windows 2000 crash has been in the case of either a buggy hardware driver (stability restored when device removed), or in the case of faulty hardware (such as RAM). Core Windows stability is pretty good these days. Windows 95 isn't king anymore. Obviously I'm not talking about virus/spyware susceptibility or anything like that...I'm talking about core OS stability.
Seriously...in what circumstances have you seen Windows 2000/XP crashing "as often, as hard or as unrecoverably"? I'll bet it's a hardware issue.
oingoboingo said:
I'm not talking mere dual-channel, and you know it. I'm talking dual-bank, dual channel RAM on a dual processor motherboard, with four slots. There's a single board I've found for Xeons that has the same characteristics as Apple's, and it costs $380+ (depending on version) without processors. Mid-line Xeons are another ~$750, for a total of $1100 just for those two components.
I did mention driver issues as being one of my primary problems, when it comes to helping others. With my roommate's machine, I'd have to ask him, and since we don't live together anymore and don't speak... That would be a bit hard.
In all honesty, I'd be willing to bet that most of the issues I have to fix for others are the basis of Windows and user decay, a lack of maintenance, and some other issues... At the same time, my mom doesn't do any maintenance on her machines, and I don't have to fix the macs she owns except once in a rare while, and that's usually a defrag and a runthrough of Norton, Diskwarrior, or Techtool.However, I don't have these same issues on my computers. A cron, a defrag every six months or so, and I'm fine. I haven't hard crashed in almost two years, at this point. Two years. I don't personally know anyone with a Windows box who can say the same thing.
Apple //e said:
A hard crash is a lock-up that requires resetting the machine.
My computer is only ever powered down for long absences, system installs, and powerr outages/inclement weather. My iBook 600 hasn't been shut off for anything other than a system update or depleted battery. Ever.
thatwendigo said:
Sorry, my bad. I realised after I'd posted that you were talking about dual CPU boards too, not just single CPU systems. I just saw the dual channel RAM part.
I can't hold my hand on my heart and say for sure it's been two years, but I literally can't remember the last time that anyone in my office crashed their Windows 2000 box (IBM desktop systems, can't remember exact model name). Those office PCs get used for...well...Office, browser and e-mail functions. They're regularly swept for viruses by the automatic stuff that sysadmin have installed, and kept up to date with MS service packs, and of course the office LAN is properly firewalled. Of course, a badly maintained system is going to present more problems...viruses, spyware, and over-priviledged users messing around with system settings and changing hardware configs...they're all going to affect system stability. But in a well-run corporate environment, the Windows 2000/XP machines I've seen have been highly reliable. Stability certainly isn't the major weak point with Windows that it used to be.
The only time I've been able to hard crash my OS X systems (not including the faulty motherboard on my 1st G5, and intermittent not waking from sleep issues on the 12" PowerBook <sigh>) was with a self-compiled copy of MySQL 4. I compiled it, it tested OK, but when I started the MySQL daemon, OS X just froze. Hard. Couldn't even SSH in from my PowerBook.
thatwendigo said:
i shut down my win2k desktop about once a month...often because the electric co in my area suxs, and my ups is way unreliable (never buy a koblenz ups) but my 5 year old win 2k thinkpad 240x has been going strong for the past 2 years with just a "hibernate" or "standby" with an occasional "shut down"
my thinkpad does/cannot do anything more than office/internet/light pshop/2d acad
my parent´s old 266p2 and 1000p3 require anything more than a regular virusscan, adaware, and defrag
having used many platforms professionaly, i am bold enough to say:
" all computers suck.....they are all tools......the operator is more important than the machine.....no platform is superior to all others"
Macster389 said:
ow cum every author that's a newbie that write's a apple bashing trollfest insists on writing a version of this sentence somewhere in their post to re-assure us thats he's really on the up-and-up?
Come on D()()D . GeT HiP.
calculate corerctly!
i think it is wrong to think that annoucements should be in a 6 months periodical manner. there can be easily fluctuations of 2-3 months in those periodical announcements. in addation it is wrong to calculate the announcements but rather when the product is really available on the market.
this lead us to the nest problem of apple: the first delivery fiasco of the powermac g5. maybe it is that people forget quickly how long they waited for their powermacs but why do you want to apple announce aigain things they can deliver in 3 months?! apple meybe learned out of their faults. in is a good idea to announce products that will be immediately available to te market because this won't halter sells during an announcment-releasing period. example: the g5 announcement stopped almost all sells of g4. at this time it may also have been a good effect because like this more people switched to a new system rather than buy a system that is outdated in 3 months. but now it is different because the g5s that have to be soon available are just speedbumped g5s and apple don't want to see the current g5 sells to go down because everybody waits for the "announced but delivered in 10 weeks" g5s.
so what is the best strategy for apple?! produce as much as possble of the new units to fullfill the probable demand and announce the new g5s when they have build up a stock to deliver immediately to the customer! this has multiple positive effects: g5 sells don't go down because new products aren't direct concurrence to the old ones. customers aren't angry because of unfullfilled delivery dates. more credibility for apple because of good selling strategies and happy customers.
you hae to see thos g5 updates as an incremental update to mac os x 10.3: a new poduct line is announced 2-3 months before delivery to have preorders and check the demand of the product. a 10.3.3 update isn't announced but it will be there when it will be there. it will create its demand because it is available but there wasn't any demand before it was available (this is a good effect). so g5 updates will be here when they can be delivered and they won't be announced 3 months in advance.
also alle the speculations of hot processors can't be true because a 130nm powerpc970 @ 2ghz consumes 51 watts but a 90nm powerpc970fx @ 2ghz consumes 25 watts. in comparision a pentium 4 extreme @ 3ghz consumes 89 watts. in addition the powerpc970fx @ 2 ghz is uses in the xserves which have a much smaller enclosure and like so less cooling! the most evident explonation of the late g5 update is made by http://croquer.free.fr/ where all delays are based on product availability. firstly there were delays because of the graficscards and now there seems tto be a very big order by the us government. if apple has the strategy to build up a big stock before announcement this order can easily explain the delays.
all in all the roadmap is still ok for the 3ghz at the end of summer because you have to calculate productupdates by their availabilty on the market:
october 2003: g5 @ 2ghz
(7 months)
may 2004: g5 @ 2.6ghz
(5 months)
october 2004: g5 @ 3ghz
now let us look at the probable announcment to make: as the 3ghz g5 is just an update it won't be very important and there won't be an announcment at wwdc to not freeze the g5 sells. the next big announcement will be the powerbook g5 with the powerpc970fx at the wwdc with availability in october. to bridge now the long time up to october 2004 there will be a soon g4 update to the powerbooks.
so all this is theory but if you begin to cramble the rumors together you can deduct certain things because every rumor has some truth
i think it is wrong to think that annoucements should be in a 6 months periodical manner. there can be easily fluctuations of 2-3 months in those periodical announcements. in addation it is wrong to calculate the announcements but rather when the product is really available on the market.
this lead us to the nest problem of apple: the first delivery fiasco of the powermac g5. maybe it is that people forget quickly how long they waited for their powermacs but why do you want to apple announce aigain things they can deliver in 3 months?! apple meybe learned out of their faults. in is a good idea to announce products that will be immediately available to te market because this won't halter sells during an announcment-releasing period. example: the g5 announcement stopped almost all sells of g4. at this time it may also have been a good effect because like this more people switched to a new system rather than buy a system that is outdated in 3 months. but now it is different because the g5s that have to be soon available are just speedbumped g5s and apple don't want to see the current g5 sells to go down because everybody waits for the "announced but delivered in 10 weeks" g5s.
so what is the best strategy for apple?! produce as much as possble of the new units to fullfill the probable demand and announce the new g5s when they have build up a stock to deliver immediately to the customer! this has multiple positive effects: g5 sells don't go down because new products aren't direct concurrence to the old ones. customers aren't angry because of unfullfilled delivery dates. more credibility for apple because of good selling strategies and happy customers.
you hae to see thos g5 updates as an incremental update to mac os x 10.3: a new poduct line is announced 2-3 months before delivery to have preorders and check the demand of the product. a 10.3.3 update isn't announced but it will be there when it will be there. it will create its demand because it is available but there wasn't any demand before it was available (this is a good effect). so g5 updates will be here when they can be delivered and they won't be announced 3 months in advance.
also alle the speculations of hot processors can't be true because a 130nm powerpc970 @ 2ghz consumes 51 watts but a 90nm powerpc970fx @ 2ghz consumes 25 watts. in comparision a pentium 4 extreme @ 3ghz consumes 89 watts. in addition the powerpc970fx @ 2 ghz is uses in the xserves which have a much smaller enclosure and like so less cooling! the most evident explonation of the late g5 update is made by http://croquer.free.fr/ where all delays are based on product availability. firstly there were delays because of the graficscards and now there seems tto be a very big order by the us government. if apple has the strategy to build up a big stock before announcement this order can easily explain the delays.
all in all the roadmap is still ok for the 3ghz at the end of summer because you have to calculate productupdates by their availabilty on the market:
october 2003: g5 @ 2ghz
(7 months)
may 2004: g5 @ 2.6ghz
(5 months)
october 2004: g5 @ 3ghz
now let us look at the probable announcment to make: as the 3ghz g5 is just an update it won't be very important and there won't be an announcment at wwdc to not freeze the g5 sells. the next big announcement will be the powerbook g5 with the powerpc970fx at the wwdc with availability in october. to bridge now the long time up to october 2004 there will be a soon g4 update to the powerbooks.
so all this is theory but if you begin to cramble the rumors together you can deduct certain things because every rumor has some truth
thatwendigo said:I'm not talking mere dual-channel, and you know it. I'm talking dual-bank, dual channel RAM on a dual processor motherboard, with four slots. There's a single board I've found for Xeons that has the same characteristics as Apple's, and it costs $380+ (depending on version) without processors. Mid-line Xeons are another ~$750, for a total of $1100 just for those two components.
I did mention driver issues as being one of my primary problems, when it comes to helping others. With my roommate's machine, I'd have to ask him, and since we don't live together anymore and don't speak... That would be a bit hard.
However, I don't have these same issues on my computers. A cron, a defrag every six months or so, and I'm fine. I haven't hard crashed in almost two years, at this point. Two years. I don't personally know anyone with a Windows box who can say the same thing.
Sorry but my two windows xp boxes haven't crashed for at least 4 months since upgrading...and while they were on Win 98 (yup 98) we regularlly made it through 6 month stretches. Windows isn't as crash prone as people here make it out to be. It is more related to user error than anything else, but with a little bit of regular matenence your computer will be fine. (spyware on the other hand need more regular checks)
So stop lying, I have used PCs for 20 years, and had very few serious crashes that I can remember. My Win 98 Vaio notebook only crashed 2 times during its 4 years of use.
I didn't get a mac because My PCs were crashing constantly..I liked the superior multitasking.