Steve Jobs at Paris

[SiliconAddict]

Keep the faith...

Originally posted by xtekdiver
For Steve Jobs to announce a minor update to the G4 PB, at this late date, would be simply embarrassing. Jobs goes for the spotlight, the headlines, the total "wow" factor. I believe he will announce a lower MHz G5 Powerbook at Paris. It is the year of the Laptop after all. But what am I going to do about VPC?😕

Well the question is has Jobs done the Apple Expo in Paris in the past? If no I would say this is a PowerBook 15" release.

I'm betting that he wanted to announce the 15" at WWDC but Moto screwed up once again. This could be the makeup presentation. As for G5. Heh I wish. Honestly my money is on next spring. This isn’t about being embarrassed or not. This is to get to any school kids holding out and for the X-mas season. As much as I want a G5 to show up; unless Apple has been working on it in parallel with the Power Mac it ain’t going to be ready. I think even Jobs knows at this point they can’t afford to mess up any products they release. Releasing a G5 at this point would probably end up being a rush job and would probably end up being a disaster. Laptop designs aren’t created overnight and certainly they aren’t created from the ground up, like a G5 would be, in 4 months.
The updated G4s are going to be a stop gap to hold people over until a G5 can be released.

Of course my mileage will very with speculation. *shrugs* I’ll leave a bit of hope. But there isn’t much.

PS- We are forgetting the ultimate reason they can’t release a G5 PowerBook. I don’t have the 3 grand I need to get it yet. 😀 By March I should be good. March will definitely be the release date. 😀 😉

 

[NavyIntel007]

It's probably euro itunes. Maybe announcing Panther is ahead of schedule. Maybe even a surprise itunes for windows beta or something.

I don't think it will be hardware though.

 

[hose this!]

Originally posted by jxyama
while i can't say much in concrete terms, i find it hard to believe your p3 with 256 mb ram with xp pro wouldn't be "much" slower than 867 g4. there's a lot of room for subjective judgement there... i would think xp pro with just 256 mb would be quite sluggish, regardless of comparing to 867.

regardless, as i wrote before, i don't think there's much incentive for apple to let a g5 pb eat into the sales of g5 PM. just not yet. if apple were to dumb down the g5 in PB so it won't compete against the PM, then is there still a point to using g5 in a PB to begin with?

instead of thinking "what's technically possible," we need to ask "what makes the best business sense for apple" because that's how apple (and any other business) operates.

No, really. It irks my friend to no end that m old lappy can keep up with his. I'm not saying G4 PBs are crap as a rule of thumb - I'm saying for THE MONEY they are. I don't mind paying a premium for better OS, better design, etc. so long as the performance is comparable.

As for what makes business sense, do you really think Apple would devote this much time and energy on something that's not going to win over a lot of buyers? Especially after the school buying season where people who HAVE to buy PBs already have? A speed-bumped 15" in a new shell isn't going to win over a lot of users, especially savvy power users who need speed in their machines - and PowerBooks are supposed to be for power users. I guarantee you there are a lot of would-be switchers out there who would make the leap but only if it's a G5 PB later next month.

People are falling all over themselves to buy G5s. Do you think Apple thinks people will do the same for a speed-bumped G4 PB? That's like saying G4 PMs bumped up to 1.7 GHz would have been hot sellers. 😀

 

[AidenShaw]

You can already buy 64-bit notebooks

Originally posted by centauratlas
Steve wants to be the one to announce the "world's first 64-bit laptop" (in all sizes). That is a no-brainer. ;-)

"No Brain" is right - Tadpole has been shipping 64-bit Alpha and SPARC notebook systems for many years.

Go to their website (http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/exec.php?p=prod-note) and pick up a 64-bit UltraSPARC with 4GiB of RAM - today.

Jobs won't be honest if he claims "first" 64-bit notebook, but then honesty isn't exactly a foundation of a Stevenote. The RDF and all, you know....

 

[cb911]

big deal. so Steve Jobs is going to announce that Panther is shipping.

and why does everyone now think that the updated PowerBooks will come at Paris? Apple is just going to make another few thousand TiBooks and that'll be it for the year. then they will release the G5 PowerBooks when they're produced with the 90nm process in 2004. 🙄 what were you expecting?

 

[Mac User Canada]

tower vs laptop sales

There seems to be a large body of opinion that G5 laptop sales would eat in to G5 tower sales.

With similarly processored machines, towers will always be more powerful than laptops and portability will always come at the expense of a performance hit.

If you want raw processing power you will always purchase a tower or a rack mount.

If you want portability you will always purchase a laptop.

I suggest that these are two separate markets and that the overlap between them is not as large as is being suggested.

Therefore I don't feel that a G5 laptop would eat heavily into G5 tower sales.

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by jxyama
have you seen the 12" pb disassembled? there are two slots (1 on mobo, 1 ext) for RAM and there really isn't much more room. to get 2 gigs on two SODIMM RAM, you'd need close to (if not over) $1000...

Why 2 gigs of RAM? Get 1 gig, then. The G5 does not need 2 gigs of RAM to be faster, as you seem to be implying. The additional speed comes from having much greater memory throughput than a G4 system. They can easily fit two slots, which is needed for the dual-bank configuration.

Originally posted by jxyama
i never said there's no market for a faster laptop. i said there's not much of a viable market for "as fast as a desktop but at twice the price" laptop at $4,000 range.

Why does it have to be $4000? Why can't it be price competitive with similar-performing wintel laptops? Just because machines were priced highly in the past, does not mean they have to be overpriced now.

Originally posted by jxyama
i personally think apple would be better served focusing on g5 PM for now...

I think Apple is a big enough company to have separate teams and engineer two products simultaneously. They have had a ton of time to design a G5 laptop.

 

[soggywulf]

Re: tower vs laptop sales

Originally posted by Mac User Canada
With similarly processored machines, towers will always be more powerful than laptops and portability will always come at the expense of a performance hit.

If you want raw processing power you will always purchase a tower or a rack mount.

If you want portability you will always purchase a laptop.

I suggest that these are two separate markets and that the overlap between them is not as large as is being suggested.

Therefore I don't feel that a G5 laptop would eat heavily into G5 tower sales.

Yes, I agree. Not releasing G5 laptops for the purported reason that it would eat PM sales is silly.

 

[daRAT]

My prediction ....


Everyone here will be bitterly dissapointed, and will lament on thier frustration in some 400 posts, all saying the same thing ;]

Anyone wanna bet money on this :>

 

[nagromme]

64-bit laptops

To put those Tadpole Solaris laptops into perspective... here are some details on the UltraBookIIi:

Battery life: 30 to 60 minutes.

Charge time: 6-7 hours while computer is on, 2.5 hours otherwise

Weight: 8.5 lbs. with battery

Size: 2.3 in. x 12.84 in. x 11.66 in.
(almost THREE times the volume of the 15" TiBook; more than double the volume of the 17" AlBook)

ATI Rage LT graphics

14.1" 1024x768 display, only 260 thousand colors (or up to a 17" external display)

400MHz UltraSPARC-IIi

20 or 30 GB HD (can swap out battery and graphics card for more drive space)

256 MB RAM (expandable to 1024 MB)

Solaris OS and StarOffice

Expansion: cardbus, ethernet and legacy ports: SCSI, parallel, serial, floppy

No wireless, no USB, no Firewire

NO optical drive--but fear not, they sell an external kit as an accessory:

No pricing given for that model. The SparcLE sounds a bit better--15.1" screen available, and internal CD-ROM or Combo drive. WiFi, up to 80 GB HD and 2 GB RAM. Still bigger and heavier than any PowerBook, still no Firewire. Starts at $3000 for the bottom-end 440 Mhz with 1024x768 14.1" display and CD-ROM.

In short... these are not practical laptop choices by most standards--they are TRUE niche products. I don't think Apple will have much trouble phrasing their claims around these models, when PowerBooks go 64-bit.

 

[daRAT]

Oh, anyone wanting to give away thier "crappy" G4 PB, please send it my way. I'll write you a very nice thank you note 😛

 

[reedm007]

Re: Re: tower vs laptop sales

Originally posted by soggywulf
Yes, I agree. Not releasing G5 laptops for the purported reason that it would eat PM sales is silly.

By the logic quoted above "if you want power, purchase a laptop" and "if you want portability, purchase a laptop" then it sounds like you expect the PowerBook to lag well behind the PowerMac.

If the PowerBook is upped to a G5, it would seem its speed is quite close to the PowerMac which, in my book, could cause issues with PowerMac G5 sales.

For example, from my own experience, I want a laptop. I love portability. But I do love the advanced architecture and speed of a G5. Thus, as it stands, I'm debating whether or not to buy a G5 Tower. If a G5 PowerBook came out, I would definitely not buy a tower, I'd buy a PowerBook.

However, as it stands, I may end up buying a G5 simply because I want the power. But when a G5 PowerBook comes out, I'll want that too.

What do they risk waiting 2 months before releasing a PowerBook, all technical issues aside? Will it "piss us" off enough to jump ship and not buy the Mac? I'm not so sure.

So I think you may be wrong. I don't think there's a "laptop" camp and a "desktop" camp, and you either belong to one or the other. I personally own an iBook and a G3 tower, and I think there are a decent number of people who might be that way. I'm not saying I don't want a PowerBook G5 right now, however. I just don't think it will happen.

Of course, I don't think it will happen for technical reasons, as I explained above. So this conversation is somewhat irrelevant. 🙂

 

[panphage]

Originally posted by soggywulf
Why 2 gigs of RAM? Get 1 gig, then. The G5 does not need 2 gigs of RAM to be faster, as you seem to be implying. The additional speed comes from having much greater memory throughput than a G4 system. They can easily fit two slots, which is needed for the dual-bank configuration.

Originally posted by jxyama
i personally think apple would be better served focusing on g5 PM for now...

I think Apple is a big enough company to have separate teams and engineer two products simultaneously. They have had a ton of time to design a G5 laptop.
I think Apple is a big enough company to have separate teams and engineer two products simultaneously. They have had a ton of time to design a G5 laptop.

Good points, soggywulf, this is the "G5 theory" I was talking about in my first post in this thread. You do not have to pack tons of memory into the G5 for it to be faster, it has greatly faster bandwidth everywhere in the system, and bandwidth is what the G4 NEEDED, way more than the G4 needed higher frequencies.

And apple has been at this for 3-5 years, developing the G5. This is the industries finest R&D department bar none. Why did apple just stop innovating the G4 for 5 years? Because all their architecture geniuses were working in the four or five G5 teams. Yes, four or five. A few tower teams, a few laptop teams. Read Insanely Great, you will see how apple does it. They are always working on several new products, when one is clearly a winner, they cancel the others and focus on the future. I have no doubt at all they were designing a mobile G5 architecture at the exact same time as the G5 tower architecture. IBM has planned on putting the 970 into high-density blades all along, that convinces me that the 970 has what it takes to fit into a portable.

 

[panphage]

Re: Re: Re: tower vs laptop sales

Originally posted by reedm007
By the logic quoted above "if you want power, purchase a laptop" and "if you want portability, purchase a laptop" then it sounds like you expect the PowerBook to lag well behind the PowerMac.

If the PowerBook is upped to a G5, it would seem its speed is quite close to the PowerMac which, in my book, could cause issues with PowerMac G5 sales.

I think the G5 will be a totally different situation from the G4. I really don't expect (after reading the updated Ars Technica review of the 970) apple to toss a 1.4GHz 970 with a 700Mhz system bus into a portable. I think they will choke back the bus to a figure that still beats the pants off the G4's meager 133 while not killing the heat and battery life. So yeah, the G5 powerbook will not be as fast as the G5 towers. This was not the case with the G4, where the powerbooks were extremely close to the same performance of the towers due to the entire architecture being choked by slow bus speeds.

Originally posted by reedm007
So I think you may be wrong. I don't think there's a "laptop" camp and a "desktop" camp, and you either belong to one or the other. I personally own an iBook and a G3 tower, and I think there are a decent number of people who might be that way. I'm not saying I don't want a PowerBook G5 right now, however. I just don't think it will happen.
[/B]

In the "real world" (Intel 🙂 ), there are portable and desktop camps. Most people want a desktop, because they destroy the laptops for performance. People want the best rig for gaming and prick-waving. In the apple world, we have become accustomed to late, shoddy ports of most games, the games aren't driving us. We DO want prick-waving rights, but as noted above, there hasn't been that much of a difference in the G4 world. We could make up for the minor differences with a "but mine's only 1-inch thick and get's 5 hours battery life. And it's SHINEY!" 😀

 

[rjwill246]

Originally posted by panphage
[B----that convinces me that the 970 has what it takes to fit into a portable. [/B]

Of course it does and it will and there won't be 9 bloody fans either. As I posted before, internally Apple says NO Panther until ?? Jan. next year. Fine! I can live with that. But anything other than a G5 PBs will make them a laughing stock... derision will know NO bounds.
Apple really needs to get with ONE processor across all lines. They are not Dell... no one looks at Dell and says "Wow! You don't have the fastest processor in the universe on all your machines. Shame on you!" Apple, poor buggers, are lambasted unless they have the best processor in the universe... and while I know that otherwise is true, the REST of them will demand G5s, so Apple needs to do it! And, as an exception, since no-one expects a lot from them, the iBooks could all be G4s and bloody beautiful they would be,too. Thus and all, they have to get G5s into all the PBs and all incarnations of their boxes, save the iBooks, otherwise some miserable little s*it will take them to task, write horrible reviews (Dvorak comes to mind---YUK!!!!) and there you go again! APPLE! For once listen to your audience... make ONLY the best, bide your time and SCREAM OUT to the world that OS X really rules... and mean it!

 

[sneakerpimp]

Hello Macfans... Welcome to the Real.

** insert sound of thunder **

In my hand I have a blue pill and a red pill.

You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake up in your bed and you only know of 1 Ghz Powerbooks. You are happy and you buy one plus you get a crappy Lexmark printer.

You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

There you will find promises of G5s that you can hold with one hand, FW 800, USB2 and a crappy Lexmark printer.

Remember that all I am offering is you wait. And stew. Oh yea, and wait some more. Nothing more.

So what's it going to be people?

love, sneakerpimp - the red pill poppin' mac fanatic

 

[AllenPSU]

Originally posted by nagromme
What iPod deal ends this Wed? I thought the current laptop deals ($200 off iPod--for education--and $100 off printer) ran through Sept. 27, not Aug 27... ?

I've got to be wrong... happily that is. I must have wrote it down wrong. I was bent on buying the new laptop before the deal ran out. Maybe I can wait Apple out a little longer! :-D

 

[soggywulf]

Re: Re: Re: tower vs laptop sales

Originally posted by reedm007
If the PowerBook is upped to a G5, it would seem its speed is quite close to the PowerMac which, in my book, could cause issues with PowerMac G5 sales.

It won't be as fast as the powermacs. We're talking 1.2 GHz, 500-600 MHz bus, slower graphics hardware, less RAM capacity, and of course less expandability. These are definitely separate markets, as pointed out by Mac User Canada.

Originally posted by reedm007
What do they risk waiting 2 months before releasing a PowerBook, all technical issues aside? Will it "piss us" off enough to jump ship and not buy the Mac? I'm not so sure.

That is indeed a problem. Apple knows it can do whatever it wants, and we will pay full price for it. Recipe for disaster, long term.

Originally posted by reedm007
Of course, I don't think it will happen for technical reasons, as I explained above.

I have been browsing these boards for some time, and I have not yet seen any substantiated technical evidence that a G5 powerbook is not possible today. On the contrary, there is quite a bit of technical information that suggests that the G5 laptop is quite doable, today.

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by rjwill246
Apple really needs to get with ONE processor across all lines. They are not Dell... no one looks at Dell and says "Wow! You don't have the fastest processor in the universe on all your machines. Shame on you!" Apple, poor buggers, are lambasted unless they have the best processor in the universe...

No, not necessarily. There are two parts to this--price and performance. There's nothing wrong with a G4 laptop--as long as it is priced appropriately.

 

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by sneakerpimp
USB2 and a crappy Lexmark printer.

LOL 🙂

 

[reedm007]

Re: Re: Re: Re: tower vs laptop sales

Originally posted by soggywulf
I have been browsing these boards for some time, and I have not yet seen any substantiated technical evidence that a G5 powerbook is not possible today. On the contrary, there is quite a bit of technical information that suggests that the G5 laptop is quite doable, today.

Okay well I understand from a technical standpoint that putting a G5 in a laptop is technically feasible. The things I've seen posted suggest this as well. But, now let's look at practicality of this technical implementation, and the r&d time it takes to put new architecture into a box such as a PowerBook.

In order for Apple to be able to ship a G5 in a PowerBook today, I believe they would have had to be designing this essentially for the past year. Given the fact that these powerBooks came out in January, I'm just not sure that's the case. We're talking a complete overhaul internally, and that takes time, research, and money.

So, you never know, but it's not as if Apple could slap a G5 in a laptop in 3 months and ship it. There are enough changes under the hood that need to happen that it takes a significant amount of time to get working. And Apple won't ship an unfinished product. They can't afford to.

 

[jxyama]

one of the greatest power of 64 bit g5 is the fact it can address more memory. all i'm saying is, why release a product into a market where one of the best feature of it can't be taken advantage of in reasonable terms?

who here hasn't read about 12/17" powerbook users lamenting the fact g4 as is can't optimally handle DDR RAM? it's DDR but doesn't double the data rate because of g4 memory addressing bottleneck. and many people lament about this.

if g5 pb is released and configured such that reasonably affordable max. memory is 1 gb, people will complain that they are being charged too much for features that aren't exactly affordable/accessible...

anyway, i'm done. there are two camps: g5 powerbook is coming soon and g5 powerbook won't be coming for a while, stick to g4 powerbook camp. so that's that...

 

[panphage]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: tower vs laptop sales

Originally posted by reedm007
Okay well I understand from a technical standpoint that putting a G5 in a laptop is technically feasible. The things I've seen posted suggest this as well. But, now let's look at practicality of this technical implementation, and the r&d time it takes to put new architecture into a box such as a PowerBook.

In order for Apple to be able to ship a G5 in a PowerBook today, I believe they would have had to be designing this essentially for the past year. Given the fact that these powerBooks came out in January, I'm just not sure that's the case. We're talking a complete overhaul internally, and that takes time, research, and money.

So, you never know, but it's not as if Apple could slap a G5 in a laptop in 3 months and ship it. There are enough changes under the hood that need to happen that it takes a significant amount of time to get working. And Apple won't ship an unfinished product. They can't afford to.

I have GOT to find that article. I read it about a week before the intro of the G5, the thesis was that apple's G4 R&D had all but disappeared about five years ago, when the Motorolla "G5" project was cancelled. The author claimed that all Apple's R&D might was focused on bringing the 970 to market, as apple clearly couldn't count on motorolla. (I think what was going on is that people weren't sure that moto wanted to continue to develop microprocessors at all, let alone desktop versions.) The powerbooks haven't seen a great deal of innovation in that same time period. I think it's entirely possible that Apple has had a team working on the mobile G5 all the while. I don't know if you think this is possible as well or not. I want to believe it, and it does make sense. What do you think?

 

[AidenShaw]

It'll still be a lie if Apple claims "first 64-bit laptops"

Originally posted by nagromme
I don't think Apple will have much trouble phrasing their claims around these models, when PowerBooks go 64-bit.

Apple won't bother with subtle wordsmithing - they'll go with the "big lie". They did it with the Power Mac G5, why not expect Stevie to lie about a PPC970 'book?

The Lord God Jobs claimed that the Power Mac G5 was the "first 64-bit desktop", when in fact Digital and Sun and HP had been shipping far smaller 64-bit systems for nearly a decade.

Will the LGJ claim "best battery life for a 64-bit laptop"? LOL. He'll smile and utter the bald-faced lie "first 64-bit laptop", and the sheeple will cheer.... MMWTV.

How on Earth can you even claim that the Power Mac G5 is a desktop anyway - that case is really, really big! It's only a "desktop" because you put the monitor on your desk!

 

[spice weasel]

I would love to see a shiny, new PB G5 announced at Paris, if not sooner, but I just don't see it happening. If Apple had one ready for release, why not announce it back at WWDC? It's not like the G5 towers shipped right away, so Steve could have announced it and then made everyone wait to get one. I see little reason why Apple would wait until mid-September to announce a G5 PB, thereby loosing out on the back to school crowd (and yes, we all know that very few if any students would actually need a G5, but I think a fair number would scrape up the cash somehow for one). Of course, it is possible that Apple was still working out some last minute details that kept them from announcing a G5 PB back at WWDC.

Has Paris ever been a venue for major hardware releases? This is not a rhetorical question -- I'm asking because I don't know.

Lastly, there seem to be a fair number of people who believe that simply because Apple wants to release a PB G5, they therefore will release one in the next few weeks. I fail to see how A follows B here. Putting a G5 in a PB requires more engineering than putting a G4 in one did -- the G5 system architecture is vastly different from the G4, much more so than the G4 was/is from the G3. And look how long it took to come up with the first TiBook.

Are PB G5's possible at Paris? Yes, I suppose. Probable? Not likely.

Anyway, I'm hoping they announce a PB G6 at Paris. After all, the line hasn't had a revision in almost 10 months -- plenty of time to design a new case, mobo, chip, etc. for a G6. And if they don't release one, I'm gonna be pissed and buy me a big ole' brick of a Dell. That'll show Steve. 😛

Whatever.