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WWDC - One Day More... Final Thoughts
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Meaning OS X rocks. Fine. We already knew that. That's why we're here.
Doesn't prove jack about the hardware. If you want to objectively compare hardware, you need a controlled test environment, like one app at a time etc.Wouldn't it be nice to have decent hardware, so the Mac could be fast in both situations, single and multi-app? If you think your Mac is fast now, imagine how nice it will be to be running on hardware that doesn't suck.
I don't think so. On the PC side you can buy a screaming fast machine that does 99% of what you need for the latest games for $1200 or thereabouts. I'm talking about Dell here (remember that poster a few weeks back who got a 3ghz/800fsb/ATI9800/1gig for $1200). IMO most gamers on the PC side stick to that price range. People who are really into games build their own, and it often ends up cheaper than even that.
Indeed. Why is that? Because......<drumroll>........new mac hardware hasn't been getting much faster! If PC's were as slow on the acceleration curve as Macs, they would hold their value too. It's all just sand and metal after all.
Assuming the G5 leaks are correct and there will be PPC 970 PowerMacs on monday, I think the probability of PPC 970 Powerbooks hinges on two factors?
First, the availability of chips from IBM, obviously.
Second, what Apple want's their notebook lineup to look like. The old 15" book is obviously a hole in the lineup. If they fill this with a new aluminum G4, then they risk loosing sales based on expectations of some future G5 powerbook (similar to the problem they have now with desktops), but maintain two clearly differentiated notebook lines (iBook and Powerbook). Does apple think people'd snatch up a new G4 if a G5 powerbook is a few quarters away?
A G5 Powerbook, on the other hand, makes the lineup messy and confusing. Which Powerbook is supposed to be the top of the line the 17" G4 or the 15" G5? The 17 " G4 would end up orphaned; I think its sales would suffer. Having a third category of notebook (G5 notebooks) also muddies the differentiation between the PowerBook and iBook.
I'm waiting to see. The introduction of the 12" G4, price drops and the pending introductions of 64-bit Macs have made me come around in the last six months from being convinced I was going to buy a Dell laptop to being 80% convinced that the 12" G4 is the right notebook for me, but its still not clear what's going to work out to be the best choice for a lap top I expect to use for another two years. If they come out with a G5 Powrbook I'll buy that, spending more but knowing I'm somewhat future-proofed by getting the next-gen chip. Since the G5 is going to make any G4 laptop closer to obsolecense I'd stick with the cheapest, the 12".
First, the availability of chips from IBM, obviously.
Second, what Apple want's their notebook lineup to look like. The old 15" book is obviously a hole in the lineup. If they fill this with a new aluminum G4, then they risk loosing sales based on expectations of some future G5 powerbook (similar to the problem they have now with desktops), but maintain two clearly differentiated notebook lines (iBook and Powerbook). Does apple think people'd snatch up a new G4 if a G5 powerbook is a few quarters away?
A G5 Powerbook, on the other hand, makes the lineup messy and confusing. Which Powerbook is supposed to be the top of the line the 17" G4 or the 15" G5? The 17 " G4 would end up orphaned; I think its sales would suffer. Having a third category of notebook (G5 notebooks) also muddies the differentiation between the PowerBook and iBook.
I'm waiting to see. The introduction of the 12" G4, price drops and the pending introductions of 64-bit Macs have made me come around in the last six months from being convinced I was going to buy a Dell laptop to being 80% convinced that the 12" G4 is the right notebook for me, but its still not clear what's going to work out to be the best choice for a lap top I expect to use for another two years. If they come out with a G5 Powrbook I'll buy that, spending more but knowing I'm somewhat future-proofed by getting the next-gen chip. Since the G5 is going to make any G4 laptop closer to obsolecense I'd stick with the cheapest, the 12".
Fine, but having two processors doesn't necessarily help latency either, if each of them is less than half as fast as the single. How many processes are active at any given time? Putting in an extra processor is not going to remove context switching. We're not removing latency by multiprocessing, we're just reducing it...but then again, a faster processor also reduces latency. So we're back to a simple "who's faster, overall".
Who cares if it's on the motherboard? Being on the mobo just means I am forced to pay for something even if I don't need it. How is that good? Takes up less slots? LOL, yeah, we would have to be concerned about that if our ONLY hardware choice provided 3-4 slots. Hmm, this is ringing bells, where have I run across that before? If we had a little choice, maybe we could pick up a board that had the number of slots we need for the task.
My take on Monday
3 to 4 different Power Mac G5
Low end available now, high end by August.
New Powerbook will have a built in camera - only a G4 though.
Steve will start off with an iApp update then go into OSX.3..
Finish with G5
(hopefully he says he will be at the grand opening of the Chicago Apple Store, I am driving from Iowa to see it!)
3 to 4 different Power Mac G5
Low end available now, high end by August.
New Powerbook will have a built in camera - only a G4 though.
Steve will start off with an iApp update then go into OSX.3..
Finish with G5
(hopefully he says he will be at the grand opening of the Chicago Apple Store, I am driving from Iowa to see it!)
what???
kinda off subject (sorry) but everyone's on this board. i dont know if anyone else has already addressed this, so feel free to make fun of me if they have. in the desktop screenshot of panther.....in the lower left hand corner how is the clock open but its not in the dock? makes no since. im getting a headache
kinda off subject (sorry) but everyone's on this board. i dont know if anyone else has already addressed this, so feel free to make fun of me if they have. in the desktop screenshot of panther.....in the lower left hand corner how is the clock open but its not in the dock? makes no since. im getting a headache
Re: Does everyone drive neons and hyundais?
It all depends what you like and how much it is worth. It's not a crime against nature, no one is saying that. There's nothing wrong with making slow, overpriced hardware that looks nice, if there are people who want that. I and others are arguing against the claim that Macs are as fast as price-equivalent PCs.
It all depends what you like and how much it is worth.
It's not a crime against nature, no one is saying that. There's nothing wrong with making slow, overpriced hardware that looks nice, if there are people who want that. I and others are arguing against the claim that Macs are as fast as price-equivalent PCs.Okay, here's a quick quiz. Which is the top of the line BMW, the M3, M5, or 750? Depends on your needs, their is no "right" answer. If the 970 hits the 15" before the others, then people who need mobility and speed (developers, wandering renderers, et cetera) will buy it. People who crave screen real estate but don't need the speed as much may stick with the 17". Now, if the 15" gets a decent resolution for a change, that may change as well, but you can't just not redesign one model because it may hurt others (again, keep with the car comparisons .. few companies redo the whole line at once).
Personally, I would pay (quite a lot actually) for a 15" notebook with a 1.2ghz 970 and a decent memory capacity (prefer 2gb) because I do a lot of large system compilation. When you're looking at moving from 60 minutes to 30 minutes for a clean system build, that makes a pretty significant difference. I have no need for the physical real estate of the 17", and don't want the bulk, so that will never be my top of the line powerbook no matter what the processor is.
Honestly though, I wouldn't mind a nice fast workstation in the office with a 12" powerbook for the road if I could get a slightly better resolution, say in the 1280X1024 range, a gig of memory, and a 50% or so faster processor. But those are my requirements, not necessarily those of anyone else.
-Richard
Re: Re: Does everyone drive neons and hyundais?
-Richard
Agreed. And a camaro is faster than (or can easily be made faster than) a BMW M3. What many people are arguing, however, is not that Macs are faster for the price (they're not), but that for them there are other benefits beside speed that they consider worth paying for. Quality, the user experience, et cetera. Heck, dollar for dollar a Honda Accord is cheaper than an Audi 1.8t, (and the Honda is a very popular car), yet despite the fact that its slower and smaller the Audi has a lot of fans. Why? Not everything is obvious from reading a list of specifications, that's why.Originally posted by soggywulf
It all depends what you like and how much it is worth.
-Richard
You folks who are all bent out of shape about hardware specs apparently have very little knowledge about how computers work. Because hardware is all fine and dandy, but it doesn't DO anything -- software does. And if your software is garbage and your hardware rocks, you are still in trouble. This is what we call the HORRIBLY TWISTED WORLD OF WINDOWS! One little glitch and the whole thing goes down. Tell me, what makes a faster computer -- the latest specs, or never having to waste your time rebooting? Eh?
The rest of us are happy and thankful to be living in the future, thank you very much. My 4 year old G4 450 Sawtooth runs OS X like a champ, never EVER crashes, in fact barely has any probelms at all -- and keeps getting FASTER every time the operating system gets updated. Compare THAT to the Windows world! Show me a machine that shipped with Windows 98 that is now running XP, and runs XP just as well as it ran 98. PUH-LEEZE.
Hardware spec obsessees -- please go away, or at least limit your blathering to forums particularly set up to keep your weirdness away from the rest of us. Thank you.
Oh, and to the APPLE IS DOOOOOMED crowd, get a clue. Apple will never go anywhere -- nobody else wants to put down cash for R+D, after all. They'll let Apple do the R+D for the industry. They certainly don't have the innovative minds of the sort Apple employs, designing the future of computing. Firewire, wireless networking, etc. -- you tell me we would even be messing with that stuff today if not for Apple.
The rest of us are happy and thankful to be living in the future, thank you very much. My 4 year old G4 450 Sawtooth runs OS X like a champ, never EVER crashes, in fact barely has any probelms at all -- and keeps getting FASTER every time the operating system gets updated. Compare THAT to the Windows world! Show me a machine that shipped with Windows 98 that is now running XP, and runs XP just as well as it ran 98. PUH-LEEZE.
Hardware spec obsessees -- please go away, or at least limit your blathering to forums particularly set up to keep your weirdness away from the rest of us. Thank you.
Oh, and to the APPLE IS DOOOOOMED crowd, get a clue. Apple will never go anywhere -- nobody else wants to put down cash for R+D, after all. They'll let Apple do the R+D for the industry. They certainly don't have the innovative minds of the sort Apple employs, designing the future of computing. Firewire, wireless networking, etc. -- you tell me we would even be messing with that stuff today if not for Apple.
Re: what???
I don't see this in the screenshot I have. Can you post a link to the image and explain it better? Thanks.
I don't see this in the screenshot I have. Can you post a link to the image and explain it better? Thanks.
Yes, it does. By definition. If you've got two processors and task N is running on processor 0, when you (the user) switch to task M it will begin running on processor 1. That's processor affinity. When you switch back to task N again, the code and data for that task will still be sitting there in processor 0's cache. No context switch.
In the real world, you see this in things like I/O threads that run uninterrupted on a single CPU while events are handled on the other CPU.
Lots. But Darwin distinguishes between processes that are running and processes that are runnable. A process that's waiting on disk I/O, for example, is not runnable, and therefore requires no CPU cycles. (In technical terms, its PID is never placed in the run queue by the scheduler.) The actual number of runnable processes on your system is reflected by the load average, which shows you the average length of your run queue over a given interval. My "uptime" shows that my load averages are 0.32, 0.28, 0.10. (That's 1, 5, and 15 minute averages.) And that's with iTunes running constantly, and Mail.app polling for new mail every minute. In other words, the number of runnable tasks on the computer is quite low, so the benefit gained from a second processor is very high.
No, it doesn't. Faster processors do not necessarily mean faster RAM or bigger caches, and that's where context switching kills you. When you're running a single process in a tight loop, your data and code are all snug in the cache. When you switch out of that loop, the processor has to fetch data and code from all the way out in main memory, which takes *forever* in these terms. So the faster processor you're so amped about just sits there waiting.
Technically that's true, but do you have any idea what it costs Apple to add FireWire 400 to a G4 system? Pennies. FireWire 800 is somewhat more expensive, but it's still under a buck. A Hypertransport-based system will be even cheaper because they'll be able to use off-the-shelf HT bridge ASICs instead of having to integrate it directly into the north bridge. So yes, you're paying for something you don't need. You're paying about a dime for it. As opposed to having to buy it as an add-in card, install it, and hope that it works.
Oh, my dear Lord. Suddenly it's 1985 again. I'm starting to get the impression, "Soggywulf," that you're just trolling for argument here.
High end gamers don't buy $1200 pcs. That is why AlienWare and Falcon NW can continue to profit.
Originally posted by Shadowfax
boy, macBandit, i thought you would know better to get into one of those PC v. Mac arguments in the news forum
this stuff is all rather fuzzy, i think, talking about performances and comparisons and such to get you to value/price comparisons. careful guys.
Yeah well you know sometimes we all break down. With so many trolls around I just couldn't help myself when I saw others failing to deliver a decent counterpoint. I usually ignor trolls unless there are a bunch of people responding without stating a solid counterpoint.
I usually don't post on the boards this close to a product release because of the immense amount of bickering and trolling but I just broke down this time and did.
Re: Re: what???
OK, I uploaded an image that shows u what im talking about. look in the lower left hand corner. BTW, this is kinda wierd, i ment to write clock in photoshop but instead got dock because of my sloppy writing.....lol
OK, I uploaded an image that shows u what im talking about. look in the lower left hand corner. BTW, this is kinda wierd, i ment to write clock in photoshop but instead got dock because of my sloppy writing.....lol
Latency vs. Speed
I think that its time for a quick analogy about latency vs. speed.
Think airplanes. Which is faster, an F-16 or a 747? If you're talking about pure speed, getting one thing done (or moving one person) the fastest, the F-16 wins hands down. Now let's say that you're trying to move, say, 200 people across the country. All of a sudden the 747 is the "faster" choice.
A single, faster processor is exactly what you want if you're doing primarily one task. These days, most apps (games included) are multithreaded, but in the real world even a multithreaded app often has one main execution bottleneck, and benefits from a single faster processor. If you're doing many things, having the multiple processors generally works better. This would include, for example, doing some background movie rendering while playing the game (simply "running the OS" and having email checking turned on won't make much of a difference). This is why servers generally perform better with more processors, even if they're slower, because overall load handling is more important than the speed of any one task completing.
In a workstation environment, where you're mainly interactive, having a 2nd processor can help somewhat just by offloading OS intensive tasks. It makes the apparent latency a lot less, and allows for some background work (playing MP3s, etc) to occur without impacting your primary task much. All modern Macs benefit from this with Quartz Extreme offloading much of the GUI work to the GPU. Over two processors in a single-user workstation really won't help much unless you're doing a lot of mostly unrelated background activities (which include things like high-res rendering where the images can be broken into multiple portions for work, but not a lot of common activities). Most computer work still has one or two key processes, some light background work (even in Word you have saving, printing, spell checking, etc), and a lot of waiting on the user.
As a side note, I still have a couple of old PCs -- 2-way PII-300s -- that stayed useful much longer than they might otherwise have done because of their apparent responsiveness. When asked to perform any particular single task quickly, however (like a compile) they show their age immediately.
-Richard
I think that its time for a quick analogy about latency vs. speed.
Think airplanes. Which is faster, an F-16 or a 747? If you're talking about pure speed, getting one thing done (or moving one person) the fastest, the F-16 wins hands down. Now let's say that you're trying to move, say, 200 people across the country. All of a sudden the 747 is the "faster" choice.
A single, faster processor is exactly what you want if you're doing primarily one task. These days, most apps (games included) are multithreaded, but in the real world even a multithreaded app often has one main execution bottleneck, and benefits from a single faster processor. If you're doing many things, having the multiple processors generally works better. This would include, for example, doing some background movie rendering while playing the game (simply "running the OS" and having email checking turned on won't make much of a difference). This is why servers generally perform better with more processors, even if they're slower, because overall load handling is more important than the speed of any one task completing.
In a workstation environment, where you're mainly interactive, having a 2nd processor can help somewhat just by offloading OS intensive tasks. It makes the apparent latency a lot less, and allows for some background work (playing MP3s, etc) to occur without impacting your primary task much. All modern Macs benefit from this with Quartz Extreme offloading much of the GUI work to the GPU. Over two processors in a single-user workstation really won't help much unless you're doing a lot of mostly unrelated background activities (which include things like high-res rendering where the images can be broken into multiple portions for work, but not a lot of common activities). Most computer work still has one or two key processes, some light background work (even in Word you have saving, printing, spell checking, etc), and a lot of waiting on the user.
As a side note, I still have a couple of old PCs -- 2-way PII-300s -- that stayed useful much longer than they might otherwise have done because of their apparent responsiveness. When asked to perform any particular single task quickly, however (like a compile) they show their age immediately.
-Richard
Quicktime of new G5?
Don't know if this has any basis in reality, but if not, apple should look into it!
Most likely done just for fun, but very cool!
Don't know how long this link will last!
http://digitalstudios.geneva-link.com/movies/Film-enya.html
It's just plain cool whatever it is!
Don't know if this has any basis in reality, but if not, apple should look into it!
Most likely done just for fun, but very cool!
Don't know how long this link will last!
http://digitalstudios.geneva-link.com/movies/Film-enya.html
It's just plain cool whatever it is!
Re: Re: Re: what???
Hmmm, that's weird. Though are you sure it's a clock? I mean I see the AM. But as I remember, the clock in 10.2 looks quite different. That to me looks like some X-windows app (in which case it would *not* appear in the dock...even in 10.2).
Hmmm, that's weird. Though are you sure it's a clock? I mean I see the AM. But as I remember, the clock in 10.2 looks quite different. That to me looks like some X-windows app (in which case it would *not* appear in the dock...even in 10.2).
Re: Re: Re: Re: what???
acually that's exactly how the clock looks in 10.2 even down to the AM and PM......because when its am it shows on the top, PM, it shows on the bottom of that top bar
acually that's exactly how the clock looks in 10.2 even down to the AM and PM......because when its am it shows on the top, PM, it shows on the bottom of that top bar
Re: Quicktime of new G5?
Of course, don't forget to check out the main page, which has this (brutally babelfished translation) disclaimer:
-Richard
Why stop there? Check out http://digitalstudios.geneva-link.com/index2.html there's a whole faked apple page on it. Renders, of course, where a real one would have actual product, and not the best crafted, but a fun diversion nonetheless.
Of course, don't forget to check out the main page, which has this (brutally babelfished translation) disclaimer:
In other words, "We know its a copyright violation, and possibly confusing, please ignore that fact. Oh, and if you release something like it, we will claim that it was our idea.
-Richard
Re: Ashami's predictions
Everyhting else I totally agree, except Steve is wearing black turtleneck.
Hmm, they call it wisful thinking ;-)
Everyhting else I totally agree, except Steve is wearing black turtleneck.
Hmm, they call it wisful thinking ;-)
Re: Quicktime of new G5?
That would be absolutely sweet. The only thing is that the display is completely vertical. It needs to be adjustable and then it would be perfect.
Back in May I was __very__ skeptical about these PPC970-shipping at WWDC rumors. At that time I was predicting that there would be __no__ PPC970-based product introduction at WWDC. I went so far as to say that it would be unlikely for Apple to even provide details on any future PPC970 products.
Well, now that almost every Mac fanatic and rumor site seems to believe that the PPC970 __will__ ship at WWDC I'm beginning to change my sentiments. So here is what I predict.
Apple will lay out a roadmap for transition to the PPC970. IBM will be there to talk about the PPC970 __and__ beyond (higher clock speeds, PPC980, etc.). I think Apple has decided to do this because sales of the existing G4 PowerMacs have fallen so far that they believe that they have little to lose by pre-announcing the next generation of PowerMac (i.e. the PPC970-based G5 product). Apple is probably also seeing more and more publishing and graphics professionals switching to Intel and AMD products, and this worries them (as it should, since once converted to Windows it will be very difficult to get them back). So, given the latter, Apple is going to provide a detailed and long-term plan to bring performance back to the PowerMac product line.
I am, however, still skeptical that PPC970-based products will actually ship at WWDC. I'm fairly certain that there will be hardware demonstrations during the keynote and there may also be some discussions about the architecture of the new G5 PowerMacs. But, I don't see any of these products actually shipping at WWDC (or __immediately__ after). Thus, I expect that G5's won't actually be available until much later this year.
As far as the "leaked" G5 PowerMac specs that appeared briefly on the Apple Store, I'm still convinced that these were fake. Whether this was a hack or an inside prank that went wrong or something else I don't know. In any case, when the new G5 PowerMacs __first__ appear I don't expect them to exactly match what was on the Apple Store (i.e. expect something a lot more conservative). I also believe that the prices on any dual G5 will be pretty high, with the top-end configuration running significantly over $4000 (U.S.).
The most optimistic possibility that I can see is that Apple pre-announces PPC970-based PowerMacs at 1.4GHz, 1.6GHz (dual?), and 1.8GHz (dual?) and that limited availability on these machines should begin sometime in August or September.
There will also be some good software demos (new iChat probably a given) and I expect that Panther (obviously) will remain the major focus at WWDC
And finally, I'm still hoping that we will see a new 15" PowerBook at WWDC. It will be G4 based and offer improved graphics/display, Firewire 800, Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, and perhaps USB 2.0.
Well, now that almost every Mac fanatic and rumor site seems to believe that the PPC970 __will__ ship at WWDC I'm beginning to change my sentiments. So here is what I predict.
Apple will lay out a roadmap for transition to the PPC970. IBM will be there to talk about the PPC970 __and__ beyond (higher clock speeds, PPC980, etc.). I think Apple has decided to do this because sales of the existing G4 PowerMacs have fallen so far that they believe that they have little to lose by pre-announcing the next generation of PowerMac (i.e. the PPC970-based G5 product). Apple is probably also seeing more and more publishing and graphics professionals switching to Intel and AMD products, and this worries them (as it should, since once converted to Windows it will be very difficult to get them back). So, given the latter, Apple is going to provide a detailed and long-term plan to bring performance back to the PowerMac product line.
I am, however, still skeptical that PPC970-based products will actually ship at WWDC. I'm fairly certain that there will be hardware demonstrations during the keynote and there may also be some discussions about the architecture of the new G5 PowerMacs. But, I don't see any of these products actually shipping at WWDC (or __immediately__ after). Thus, I expect that G5's won't actually be available until much later this year.
As far as the "leaked" G5 PowerMac specs that appeared briefly on the Apple Store, I'm still convinced that these were fake. Whether this was a hack or an inside prank that went wrong or something else I don't know. In any case, when the new G5 PowerMacs __first__ appear I don't expect them to exactly match what was on the Apple Store (i.e. expect something a lot more conservative). I also believe that the prices on any dual G5 will be pretty high, with the top-end configuration running significantly over $4000 (U.S.).
The most optimistic possibility that I can see is that Apple pre-announces PPC970-based PowerMacs at 1.4GHz, 1.6GHz (dual?), and 1.8GHz (dual?) and that limited availability on these machines should begin sometime in August or September.
There will also be some good software demos (new iChat probably a given) and I expect that Panther (obviously) will remain the major focus at WWDC
And finally, I'm still hoping that we will see a new 15" PowerBook at WWDC. It will be G4 based and offer improved graphics/display, Firewire 800, Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, and perhaps USB 2.0.