PowerMacs and PowerBooks Delays?

[kcmac]

"And, a perfect counter-example that shows what a Windows person might consider to be a stupid thing about OS X:

On Windows, I eject a compact flash card by wrong-clicking and selecting "eject" from the context menu.

On OS X why do I have to delete the drive by dragging it to the trash? Shouldn't that delete the files on the drive?[/QUOTE]"

If you right click in OS X you get a contextural menu. Select "Eject drive". Or you can click on the eject icon while in the finder.

Yeah, that is stupid all right.

 

[hayesk]

"And, a perfect counter-example that shows what a Windows person might consider to be a stupid thing about OS X:

On Windows, I eject a compact flash card by wrong-clicking and selecting "eject" from the context menu.

On OS X why do I have to delete the drive by dragging it to the trash? Shouldn't that delete the files on the drive?

If you right click in OS X you get a contextural menu. Select "Eject drive". Or you can click on the eject icon while in the finder.

Yeah, that is stupid all right.

Not only that, the trash can changes to an eject symbol. There's no way the user would think it will delete anything because there is no trash can to see as long as a removable disk or card is selected.

 

[AidenShaw]

...various...

Thanks for setting the record straight - it sounds like OS X has made the eject process more intuitive since the last time I had to eject a CD on a Mac.

I don't know if I like the idea of the trash icon changing based on context though.... That seems like a confusing bit of interface design.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

On Windows, I eject a compact flash card by wrong-clicking and selecting "eject" from the context menu.

On OS X why do I have to delete the drive by dragging it to the trash? Shouldn't that delete the files on the drive?

Note you don't actually drag to the trash, it turns to an eject symbol the moment you start to move it. Same as when burning CDs. I think it is very intuitive.

Actually I have a USB key and it NEVER ejects properly from Windows - whether that be our old family Win 98 computer with driver installed, new Windows XP home computer or the Windows XP Professsional uni networked computers. When you eject, you get a complicated dialogue box with 3 options to shut down. Never know which one so I try the top one and press stop. It always tells me it can't because the drive is in use, even when nothing else is open, and so I always have to yank the drive out without "safely removing hardware". Sure, it hasn't resulted in any data loss, but it's a pain. In OS X, eject via dragging to the trash, contextual menu or Finder sidebar works like magic with no dialog boxes or anything. 😉

Well anyway, not to get into OS X vs Windows XP wars again, back on topic..

I think Apple is doing the right sort of thing at the moment. Sure, they appear to be focusing mainly on iPods but I think we will gradually start to see the fruits of this labour in Mac sales. I do agree though that we need more Mac adverts, particualrly just ones that show off the hardware and OS X. I haven't seen anything in Britain since the G5 adverts were banned last September or so, apart from the occasional iPod advert.

Reagarding updates.. I'm sure we'll get something in the next week or so. Or even today, although I think hope is fading...

EDIT: sorry AidenShaw, seems like a dozen or so people before me posted all this! 😀

 

[hughdogg]

Amen! I have been complaining about Apple's focus on iTMS and iPods for a couple of months now. Since the Super Bowl the front page of Apple.com was the Pepsi promotion for three weeks. Right up until the week before the mini launch. Now it has been the mini since. Apple is becoming a Digital Music company. It is fast approaching six months since they have offered a new computer (the G4 iBook). While I am sure that Apple is making money, I don't think this the best thing for loyal Apple customers.

They are focusing on digital music because it is an emerging market with a huge potential upside. Unlike the PC market, which has become a saturated commodity market (thanks to Dell). Apple isn't going to make huge inroads in the PC market because most people don't care about the usability experience, most users just want to get e-mail and browse some web sites, and any box will do for that. Think about it, when you go to buy something that is a commodity, do you always consider price as a bigger factor...of course you do. That is why people go to Costco or Sam's...you save what, a little bit, but is it worth the hassle of the long lines, and the membership fees? Like it or not, computers have become commodities, and most people shop for them that way.

Apple is known to create products that cost a little more, but offer far better usability and ownership experiences. When you start thinking about it in relative costs, it is easier for someone to pay $50-$100 more for an iPod then to pay $300-$500 more for a computer (basic Dell vs. Emac for example - and yes we all know they cost about the same with comparable specs, but the low sticker price of the Dell attracts people). Most people don't have lots of free cash to throw at a computer purchase, especially when they consider it a commodity, then can however find the extra $50 bucks to get an iPod.

Another thing that troubles me about all these posts, was that one of the reasons I switched to the Mac was that you didn't need to buy new hardware to still have a good experience (unlike the Windows world, when every new version basically requires a new computer). I've got a G3 iMac that is humming along nicely in Panther, and other then adding some RAM, I haven't had to do anything to it. I'll get a new computer probably within the next 6 months, and mostly because I want a superdrive. Yet a lot of folks on these boards are all over Apple about the G4's, and where are the G5 powerbooks, etc. I'll guarantee you that for most users (not graphics pro's) a new Powerbook or PowerMac is plenty powerful and fast for their needs. I'd rather have Apple continue their tradition of good products with great ownership experiences, and getting products right first, than rushing them to market to satisfy a relatively small market of power hungry users. I know it sucks if your one of those users, but a company can only satisfy so many niche markets...

Cheers, and oh...so no new Powerbooks on Tuesday? 🙂

 

[pjkelnhofer]

Well, I'm a sucker that just bought 2 mini iPods. I also buy probably $10 of songs a month, sometimes more, at the iTMS. I don't think Apple is going down the wrong path at all. They're doing exactly what they need to do in order to increase market share. They will sell more computers if they are sucessful, but this is how they increase their mind share.

I didn't say anything about iPod being for suckers. I don't have the money to spend on one. As far as, iPods increasing market share for Macs. We keep hearing that, but has Apple or anyone presented evidence that Mac market share has increased over the past year (since the iPod started dominating the digital music player market)? I don't think that Apple is going down the wrong path financially for them, but those of us wanting new computers are being forgotten.

 

[Kermit]

Honestly, I am expection the next revision PowerMacs to carry G5:s at 3Gz. That could very well be why Apple hasn't released them yet. They haven't gotten significant quanteties from IBM that clock at that speed yet. Look at the last release, mostly everyone bought the top-of-the-line machine. That will probably continue to be true for all those holding out for Rev. B:s.

 

[jettredmont]

Dont forget that powerbook will not have the same number of fans as the Xserve. As for the 90nm, as I said before they are more difficult to cool due to the smaller contact area hence even though they dissipate less heat they will run at higher core temperatures. The solution is to use bigger heatsinks or faster fans hence this could be one of the reasons for the delays though I would of thought Apple would have it sorted allready if they wanted faster CPUS.

There is no 60nm its 65nm, the cooling problem is much worse here.

The size of the heat sink determines the surface area of heat transfer (and, hence, the effectiveness of dissipation given a particular wind velocity and temperature). A smaller chip will not require a larger heat sink.

The real challenge in a smaller chip's heat transfer is twofold:

1) The smaller a chip is the less local any heat dissipation is. In other words, heat dissipatingfrom the ALU will affect the L1 cache, etc. Larger chips mitigate this somewhat, allowing each unit to generate a fairly large amount of heat without affecting the heat budget for other units (this is more than compensated for by the reduction in heat dissipation due to smaller interconnects, however).

2) The smaller chip has to transfer a lot more heat per surface area to the heat sink. Thus, the thermal gel layer has to be supurb, and the heat sink material itself needs to be able to conduct the heat away from the source well. No "cheap" heat sinks and gels here!

That having been said, I don't think that this is really a huge issue here. One can see that it will eventually be an issue, but I haven't heard rumblings that this is a "hard" problem for the engineers involved.

 

[jettredmont]

The standard cooler will run the CPU at 65 Degrees C when idle and roughly 75 when under load thats damn hot considering the use of a heatsink that big and a fan thats as load as a jet engine (45-55db's). Really you liquid cool the b##stard and run in in silence I say, like I said air-cooling is dead. Apple is concerned with the noise I think.

Liquid cooling moves the heat around inside the case to a more opportune area, and solves an air-flow problem, allowing heat generators to be closer to each other and still properly cooled. However, you still need fans to get the heat out of the case. Basic laws of thermodynamics are very hard to circumvent!

 

[pgwalsh]

Honestly, I am expection the next revision PowerMacs to carry G5:s at 3Gz. That could very well be why Apple hasn't released them yet. They haven't gotten significant quanteties from IBM that clock at that speed yet. Look at the last release, mostly everyone bought the top-of-the-line machine. That will probably continue to be true for all those holding out for Rev. B:s.

This could be the case, but I doubt it. If you have a 2.2 Ghz through 2.8 Ghz part you should release them when available. Thinking that you're not going to release lower power machines until you biggest machine is ready seems like a backwards way of thinking. Move the products as soon as they're ready. If that means they have a release every 3 months then great.

 

[jettredmont]

Nice thought but marketable suicide! What use would a powermac be if you could have the same performance as a portable!?!

Ummm ... Does Apple care if you buy a PowerBook instead of a PowerMac? No. Their market doesn't suffer. Their overall market share doesn't suffer. Their overall usage share doesn't suffer.

Apple would gladly sell you a PowerMac in the form factor of a wrist watch if it could sell as many units at the same profit margins it currently enjoys. This wouldn't me market suicide; it would be leading a market revolution.

That having been said, the fundamental problems with the laptop form factor will continue to make it cheaper to produce high-end desktops instead of laptops: heat and power consumption are the primary demons here, and with significantly lower heat/power budgets you can't have the same screamingly-fact processors and busses in the laptop form factor as in the desktop. If Apple could shrink the current G5 architecture/specs to a laptop form factor, then for less cost they could boost the specs on the desktop to as always blow the laptop specs out of the water.

This is just a fact of life: laptops will always have less "power" than their desk-ridden brethren. On the other hand, eventually the market will adjust such that the portability factor is more important to the majority of us than the incremental power differential. Certain market segments have already made this switch: my wife wouldn't dream of leaving the couch to surf the web and write her English term papers. However, for some of us there's not a chance of this happening anytime soon: if a desktop saves me 10% on my compile times I can't afford to work on a laptop; if a desktop display gives me 2000 pixels across, I can't afford to shrink down to 1024 across.

 

[MrSugar]

Wow, pretty much the entire lineup is overpriced and outdated. The newest machines, the iBook G4, is now 5 months old. The PowerMacs are 7 months old and were announced 9 months ago, an eternity in the computing world. Look for sales to be in the toilet this quarter. Virtually everything they have released since the G5 was announced has been underwhelming and overpriced. Their insane focus on the low to no margin iTune music store and iPod mini make no sense when they could be promoting the G5s more heavily. They probably have to sell 20 iPods and 5000 songs to make when they do off of 1 DP 2 GHz machine. I think Jobs' ego is starting to run Apple into the ground again.

Ha, no. Trust me, 100,000 pre ordered Ipod Mini's is going to bring in plenty of profit. Plus you have to realize the majority of Apple consumers ARE NOT ON THIS FORUM, most of them don't keep up with the product updates like we do here. They buy a computer when they need to, and the truth is the current lineup appeals to most people just fine.

Have to think of things from another perspective sometimes.

 

[jettredmont]

Those numbers are absolutely crap, or your source has VERY bad cooling! I am into PC Overclocking, so I know that ideally you want about 40degrees C for a stock machine, 50 for a little hot, and 60 for extreme hot. Any hotter you are really hurting your CPU.

Those numbers are absolutely crap too. 60C and you're hurting the CPU? Come on! My Athlon MP's are rated to work at up to 95C, so I seriously dont see how 60C is a problem.

There is a MASSIVE difference between the ambient air temperature inside your case and the temperature on the chip itself. 40 Celsius is ... ummm ... 96F, for our US brethren. That's hot, but certainly not far enough beyond your average ambient outside-the-case temperature to be a realistic target for even in-the-case temperature. It is *definitely* not a valid target for on-the-chip temperature readings. Likewise, if you let the inside-case temp reach 90C (167F), then your Athlon either left this plane of existence some time ago, or is running probably closer to 120C or so.

It all depends on where you're reading your temps.

 

[MrSugar]

Honestly, I am expection the next revision PowerMacs to carry G5:s at 3Gz. That could very well be why Apple hasn't released them yet. They haven't gotten significant quanteties from IBM that clock at that speed yet. Look at the last release, mostly everyone bought the top-of-the-line machine. That will probably continue to be true for all those holding out for Rev. B:s.

The announced reports say the new 90nm FX has gone to 2.5 though.. not 3. I think you are going to be very disapointed, they would have to move the the next Gen chip to get 3ghz, it just isn't going to happen.

 

[jettredmont]

Well, if they're having trouble keeping those GIANT G5 cases cool enough, there's no chance of us getting a G5 PowerBook anytime soon. Not unless the new PowerBook is made out of frozen nitrogen.

Just my opinion, though.

Ooooh ... there's an idea!

Ditch trying to get heat out of the case entirely. Have the user buy blocks of liquid nitrogen at their corner drugstore (your corner drugstore sells liquid nitrogen, right?) along with their fuel cell refills. One fuel cell refill correlates to one liquid nitrogen block. Then use a liquid-based cooling pipe to transfer the CPU heat to the nitrogen block, and emit room temerature, harmless nitrogen from the cheese grater backside!

The coolest, quietest laptop ever made!

We could even partner up with Igloo corp to market nitrogen-transporting supplies! This could work!!!

 

[jettredmont]

For what it's worth, on XP it's usually "Start->Shutdown <return>", since the "list" defaults to the last action chosen.

Umm, no, that's only on Win2k.

XP offers three buttons (no drop-down list) and a "Cancel" button. While "return" does do whatever the last time was, there is no visual indication of this, so 99%+ of all XP users reach for their mouse and hit the button they want.

You need to lighten up - "different" doesn't mean "wrong" or "bad".... XP has some good ideas, and some bad, and some that are just different. Same with OS X.


And, a perfect counter-example that shows what a Windows person might consider to be a stupid thing about OS X:

On Windows, I eject a compact flash card by wrong-clicking and selecting "eject" from the context menu.

On OS X why do I have to delete the drive by dragging it to the trash? Shouldn't that delete the files on the drive?

Good point, bad example. On Panther, you right-click the drive and select Eject, OR click on the little "Eject" button (same symbol that's been on ejectable drives and VCRs and CD players and tape decks before them all for well over 30 years) next to the drive name/icon.

[Edit: I should have known with another page of posts to go that this would have been said a half dozen times already ... sorry 🙂 ]

 

[macmunch]

Hi

I think I know why they wait for PowerMac release !!!

Its not the PC version Radeon9800XT or 9600XT its because of PCI Express !

In mid march is the worlds biggest Computer Fair the Cebit here in Germany.

ATI and NVIDIA already said that they will show of PCI Express cards there ...

So thats the point Apple waits for the PCI express version of the 9800XT or even the new R420. Its also predicted that the new cards will be available in late march or early april ... So we will see PCI express PowerMacs 😀

 

[AidenShaw]

is the Xserve G5 shipping in quantity yet?

Honestly, I am expection the next revision PowerMacs to carry G5:s at 3Gz. That could very well be why Apple hasn't released them yet.

There seems to be quite a wait for a G5 Xserve.... Are they even shipping yet?

I tried a number of web searches, but didn't find any that said that an Xserve G5 had arrived. Xserve G5 hands-on reviews are hard to find as well.

Perhaps supplies of the PPC970FX are constrained at all speed levels?

 

[AidenShaw]

Umm, no, that's only on Win2k.

XP offers three buttons (no drop-down list) and a "Cancel" button. While "return" does do whatever the last time was, there is no visual indication of this, so 99%+ of all XP users reach for their mouse and hit the button they want.

XP uses the Win2K behaviour if standard user/password login is selected. Since this is the norm in the business world, I'm 88.38217% sure that your 99%+ figure is inaccurate.

Good point, bad example. On Panther, you right-click...

What was it like on 9.0, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2? Is this new behaviour, or old?

And, how can you wrong-click with Apple hardware? The mouse has no buttons! 😱

 

[clr900]

XP uses the Win2K behaviour if standard user/password login is selected. Since this is the norm in the business world, I'm 88.38217% sure that your 99%+ figure is inaccurate.





What was it like on 9.0, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2? Is this new behaviour, or old?

And, how can you wrong-click with Apple hardware? The mouse has no buttons! 😱

....You absolutely can't buy a mouse made by anyone else but apple because obviously apple hardware is not compatible with anything.

 

[allpar]

Not to get back to the subject or anything but the processor is probably the least of their heat worries with the Powerbooks. Have you considered that the bus will go from under 200 MHz to at least 800 MHz? And perhaps Apple did not work hard enough to get their bridges and other chips cool / power efficient enough. CPU is only one piece of the puzzle.

 

[mvc]

What was it like on 9.0, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2? Is this new behaviour, or old?

And, how can you wrong-click with Apple hardware? The mouse has no buttons! 😱

Eject definitely wasn't like this under 9.0, changed in 10, AFAIK right from the start.

Rearding the 2 button mouse, Apple has given way here and there to improved PC style UI changes, but only grudgingly - Steve may resist selling a Apple branded 2 button mouse, but 3rd Party ones work correctly straight out of the box, the OS detects and employs them correctly, scroll wheel and all, once again only under 10.

Now if only we could get that cool XP crayon-box look, we'd have all the GUI advantages 😉

 

[army_guy]

Liquid cooling moves the heat around inside the case to a more opportune area, and solves an air-flow problem, allowing heat generators to be closer to each other and still properly cooled. However, you still need fans to get the heat out of the case. Basic laws of thermodynamics are very hard to circumvent!

Of coarse you need fans but depending on your radiator your not gona be using numersous 45db 80mm fans but a couple 120mm each at 15-25db depending on the fan. The point that Iam trying to make is that liquid cooling will get you lower temperatures without the noise no mater how big or how loud that HSF combination of an air-cooler will be.

 

[invaLPsion]

Hi

I think I know why they wait for PowerMac release !!!

Its not the PC version Radeon9800XT or 9600XT its because of PCI Express !

In mid march is the worlds biggest Computer Fair the Cebit here in Germany.

ATI and NVIDIA already said that they will show of PCI Express cards there ...

So thats the point Apple waits for the PCI express version of the 9800XT or even the new R420. Its also predicted that the new cards will be available in late march or early april ... So we will see PCI express PowerMacs 😀

Do you think a dual G5 with a PCI-express graphics card will be able to beat a 3.2P4 AGP 8x computer at game load times and gaming?

 

[invaLPsion]

Honestly, I am expection the next revision PowerMacs to carry G5:s at 3Gz. That could very well be why Apple hasn't released them yet. They haven't gotten significant quanteties from IBM that clock at that speed yet. Look at the last release, mostly everyone bought the top-of-the-line machine. That will probably continue to be true for all those holding out for Rev. B:s.

You are absolutely right, the next G5s will top out at 3 GHz and at least 2.8GHz.