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Apple Punishes ATI For Leaking The Cube?
Ruddy writes: "According to this
story at InsideMacGames and an even juicier
one at AppleInsider, graphics card company ATi leaked sacred knowledge
about Apple's soon to be unveiled products (the new G4 Cubes) in advance of the MacWorld announcements yesterday, effectively stealing some of Steve Jobs' coveted keynote thunder.
The leaked info spread quickly over the Web during the peak
of rumor-Cube-mania. In retaliation the Fearless leader apparently
then pulled the plug on the Radeon's
rollout at MacWorld, all but publicly spanking ATi for its indiscretions
and replacing the Cube's flashy Radeon card with the more mundane and
stale Rage 128 Pro (talk about spite and noses!)." This story just keeps cracking me up.
Step back and listen to yourself. The whole notion that Apple pulled the Radeon is ludicrous:
- The Radeon JUST CAME OUT -- you can't even buy one yet; they'd at least have ramped up production by now (and have a bunch sitting around) if they were planning on putting them in the Cube. Not to mention that Apple would need at least a bit of time to make sure the drivers work with MacOS 9.
- The Cube has NO FANS. The Radeon DOES. The Cube was built to dissapate heat using convection and this requires using COOL components; a 64MB card doesn't qualify -- you may NEVER be able to put a heat monster in the thing without modifying the case.
- The Radeon would make an appearance in the most expensive Macs first. Apple always does this with the highest tech.
I think this whole story is ridiculous.The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
For what it's worth, here's a picture of the Cube's innards, with the Rage 128 card exposed:
http://www.go2mac.com/image.cfm?image=images/shows /MWNY2k/wednesday_2/cube_guts2.jpg
Can it be swapped for a Radeon? There's no point in me engaging in idle speculation--just judge for yourself. Eventually, Apple will post developer specifications and clarify exactly how the card's connected to the motherboard.
Hint: the first word refers to a male bovine. Get a grip, people! For starters, Radeon cards for Mac will not be ready until September -- two months from now. So there is NO way they were supposed to be in the Cube, which is on sale now.
It's perfectly believable that Jobs was planning to let ATI show off Radeon during his Keynote, then snubbed them for leaks. Steve is known to be a vindictive SOB. But that's just one f***ing speech, 10 minutes of PR, not a complete shift of manufacturing!
Even if he wanted to, there is no way that Apple's Board of Directors would let Steve purposefully weaken the product line out of spite. Remember, they're answerable to the shareholders, and no matter how it looks on stage, Apple is not a one man corporation.I am a PC weenie too, but I think some people are really giving Apple an unfair shake in not catching up on facts. As far as untested hardware, and Apple staying in a "safe zone" I say Phooey.
As for Jobs, he is a jerk that gets things done. It is highly doubtful that he "spanked" ATi other than omitting them from the keynote. The radeons will not be ready next month. End of story.
That said, I can see where Apple is falling behind. The need to:
Even this proprietary connection can be good, save for the fact Apple will have a solution "next month" for those who just want to buy a monitor for an older G3 or G4. It is all relative. It really is apples and oranges
Lowmag.net
I don't think Apple computers are intended for the more technical users. For nearly a decade computer companies have tried to break out of the tech segment and sell to the moms, dads, grandparents and other non-computer users out there.
Apple got the artsie types, but couldn't get to the real non-computer users until the iMac.
What everyone complains as overly cute is non-threatening. Not just the all-in-one or the colors (ask Dell and Gateway about that) but the MacOS is generally easier for a newbie to use and the case of the iMac and the cube look friendly.
Look at the numbers of iMac users who have never owned a computer and you will understand Apple's resurrections. They are finally selling to the lost (and largest) market segment.
The computer industry will never truly understand the iMac (and Apple in general) because the industry is filled with technical users who could never really appreciate the appeal of a harmless, non-threatening computer.
There is no retaliatory muster here. Apple did not announce a RADEON system BECAUSE RADEON's AREN'T SHIPPING IN QUANITY. Apple decided to avoid last years criticism of announcing product not yet ready to ship (the 500 MHz G4). Also, the revised motherboard with a 4X AGP isn't quite ready -- so why rush, when you won't be able to meet demand?
Any normal 2x AGP card WILL fit inside the CUBE, such as a 3Dfx VOODOO 5. The ATI Pro plays Quake III & Unreal Tournament quite well, thank you.
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He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Actually... yes, but only if Apple repositions the desktop G4 into a higher market. If you look at the option configurations in the Apple Store you'll notice that the only single processor tower G4 is a 450MHz, without the option of a single 500 MHz G4. I think Apple is just getting the "creative" (publishing, video, etc.) market primed for a quick jump to MacOS X when it's released. Right now, the dual G4s will buy you some speed in Photoshop and a few other applications. (Premiere and AfterEffects support multiprocessor under MacOS 9 and, iirc, some Illustrator operations will do the multi thing---for those huge ass boolean operations.) Now take carbonized "creative market" apps and throw them onto a dual G4 running MacOS X. Doh! What does one have? Lots of power, lots of speed.
;-)
The way I see it, the Cube is meant to fill the niche between first time buyes (iMacinites) and the über power hungry creative set. The tower G4 pricing has changed very little, other than increased bang for the buck over the previous series, but you'll notice the iMac pricing is slipping lower and lower. US$800 for an entry level iMac? Wait till September/October and you'll see that drop to $700, if not $650. Apple's creating a huge gap in their price range between the iMacs and the tower G4s.What fills that huge gap: The Cube.
O' course, I could be wrong... I just want two of the new 17" CRTs on my desktop
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I don't buy this. Why? Because it doesn't make sense really. I don't think ATI is in a position where they are seriously hurt if Apple doesn't ship their card. It seems to me that Apple is shooting its own foot (in terms of performance) for going with a lesser card. So why would they do that? It seems to me, they would use the other card because its cheaper. Besides, did Jobs really lose that much thunder? I mean, if anything people were waiting to see if the stuff was real or not.... you know, maybe even made people want to hear his keynote to see what was going on.
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This is just complete bullshit (much like the last "leaked Cube" story was - I'm really starting to lose my faith in these rumor sites) and here's why:
When Apple, or Dell, or Compaq, or any one of 100 other big PC manufacturers, picks a component for their system, it's not the same process as Joe Blow going over to Tom's Hardware, reading about the fastest thing on the market, and then ordering one of them. No. Graphics cards and the like are rigorously tested for hundreds and hundreds of hours to ensure a.) compatibility and b.) stability. Often times the overall design of the computer is influenced by the chip itself; if it kicks out too much heat it will be oriented a certain way, or the airflow in the case will be rearranged to accomodate it, etcetera. In addition, a lot of possible scenarios are thrown at the completed machine to make sure it's not going to crash. Building a mass produced PC (or Mac) is a lot more of a science than most of us who consider it erector set engineering give it credit for. A very obvious case would be the iMac, but even for G4's and G3's, a lot more thought goes into them besides slamming together a bunch of components and praying for the best.
With that in mind, I hope you see how utterly impossible this story is. Jobs cannot simply switch out the graphics chip without seriously delaying the product and causing massive engineering and supply headaches.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
The cube is supposed to be silent. It has no internal fan. The Redeon requires a fan to keep it cool. Thus, there never were plans to put the Raedon in the Cube. Most likely the announcement was for a Raedon option for the high end Imacs. Someone misquoted the origional stoies for dramatic effect. Stating to be more and more common here at /. read yesterdays nVidia game cheater story. Another misquote. ASUS modified the drivers for cheating---NOT nVidia.
So wait, let me see if I get this right.
ATI leaks a rumor of the G4 Cube, and Apple spanks them by not releasing their chip which they have obviously taken great amounts of time an money to integrate into their new product.
They replaced an entire Video system in one week.
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Obviously the writed of this completely rediculous article has not worked anywhere near electronics design and manufacture.
One week to change an entire chipset? You have got to be yanking my noodle!
Rami James
Guy with more clue than that.
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rJames.org - illustration
Sorry to say it, but I will always view Apple computers as cut-rate, yes anestheically pleasing, computers. Cut-rate in the means that it just will never been quite as good as something you could spend less to build...
The trailer-park hotrodder says the same thing about his homebuilt dragster. You know what? Doesn't stop people buying Miatas.
Pretty much any computer out there is good enough right now to handle 85% of what any consumer level user would ever conceive of doing with it. In two years this will be 100%. Therefore style will become the competitive advantage for the vast majority of the market.
To go back to the car metaphor, everyone here is like the blacksmith-cum-artisans of the early days, used to performance being a matter of some concern in one's choice of car, sagely congratulating each other on their wisdom in denigrating that silly assembly-line thing that idiot Ford was thinking he could make something of.
I take my family Christmas dinners as an example. Computers had never been mentioned up until the last two years. In both of the last two the grande dames of clan Curylo have gone on at length about their new iMacs and how they got the drapes to match and found the right color for the seat cushion and yadayadayada.
You laugh, yes. But these are consumers and that is the future of the consumer computer market. Deal.
That's as may be, and it's understood the Rage128 is not a 'super accelerator' chip like a Ge or maybe a Radeon. But there are some important issues including one that _nobody_ seems to be picking up on:
- If you were going to get a Radeon and go for total peak performance, you would get a full size dual G4, not an 8" cube. Why would you _get_ The Cube if you wanted performance over all else? It's another consumer/prosumer form factor, not a horsepower monster design. Get the full size dual G4- lots of extra space for goodies in that, plenty of fans and cooling etc.
- Nobody ever mentions this. Do GeForces have quickdraw and Quicktime acceleration? Rage128s do. I picked up one recently, after the prices came well down, and the QT acceleration is real and very effective. Quickdraw acceleration is part of what makes those Photoshop scores perform so well- the Mac screen redraw gets accelerated by the 128 card while the PC relies on the poor 'ol CPU for everything. If you are working with prepress graphics at huge resolutions this becomes a constant, in-your-face issue, and the Rage128 addresses it. I think very few PC cards accelerate Color Quickdraw
;)
Add that up plus the relatively humble cooling requirements of a Rage128 and it doesn't suck. Its _game_ performance sucks compared with the latest and greatest, but here's a secret from a mac geek who dabbles in programming- all Mac cards _but_ ATI suck for OpenGL! You just cannot get OpenGL to work properly on a Mac 3dfx card even though they can get better framerate- and Glide is kind of fading away. The Voodoo3 uses some very ugly hacks to come up with a render-in-a-window mode: not a problem with the 'suckier' ATI. I run X-Plane (killer flightsim- now only $79!) and changing from voodoo2 to ATI128 was huge- not only did all of Austin Meyer's OpenGL tricks (from 'city lights' overlays to the airplanes' landing light) suddenly work perfectly and look great, but the sim immediately got better framerate IN 32 BIT than it ever got from the Voodoo in 16. This is not entirely because of the Voodoo- it's because X-Plane uses OpenGL and the ATI supports it directly, the Voodoo2 (which has a comparable max framerate with the 128) had to go through Mesa...Apple was not cutting off its nose to spite its
face. The Mac Radeons weren't going to be available
until September anyway. What was cut off was ATI's
participation in the PR event, not ATI's participation in the Mac market, and that is at
least an arguably reasonable sanction for "spilling
the beans" about the PR event in the first place.
Apple has a huge impact across the computer industry in terms of exposure and recognition. You dont have to like Apple to know alot about that company. Little could be said of it's competitors7.
One proof to this is Slashdot. Macs aren't a Linux machine per say (though it does run it quite well), and yet, Apple gets more press on Slashdot than any single Intel-based hardware company, including strictly-Linux vendors like VA Research (or do they sell non-Linux setups?).
So, when ATI was originally invited onto the Big Stage at one of the most coveted Mac events (and thus before the entire industry), it was granted a huge favor. Apple doesn't have top care about ATI. No more than it should about IBM that supplies hard drives into most of their machines.
But instead of taking this humbly, ATI's invlated heads went off to blow away some of the punch lines Apple (aka, Steve) need to keep the crowd alive, by pre-anouncing products that were up until this point just rumors.
Keeping the faithful crowd happy is what saved Apple.
For sure, Radeon will ship in the Cubes within 2 months from now. You can bet that, since the machine is already up for order, there are actually quite a few already in the pipeline that have the Radeon cards inside.
Thought for the launch, ATI got what it deserved: no chance for the spotlight, for having shadowed Steve's spotlight.
Apple was never planning to ship Radeons in the cubes. Think of it, they change the entire graphics chipset inside of two days? Yeah, right. What ATI was announcing was the rollout of add-on cards that they would sell.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
If they really wanted to punish ATI they would have went with a different card entirely, 3DFX and NVIDIA would have bent over backwards to score a deal like that.
It's more likely that ATI wasn't sure they could get the Radeon out before the release or the final design stages so instead offered technology that they know works.
If Apple did make a concious decision in the short amount of time, putting a lower performing video card into their new product would only make them look the fools.
Although when I did see that the Rage 128 pro card was going to be used I wondered why they didn't go with others. The only reason I can come up with is that they don't want to put something that might fail and make them look bad. Whatever their reason I bet they'll offer new systems with a Radeon, 3DFX or NVIDIA card installed within the next few months, definiatly before christmas.
I'm a PC whore. I've touched Macs twice in my life, and it gave me goosebumps. Nevertheless I can acknowledge that Macs are top quality systems designed for reliability and ease of use, and that's a big plus for all these "Hi I'm Bob and this is my first web page" idiots that have somehow learned to reproduce like rats. Apple is dedicated to selling only tried and tested hardware, and their reputation of quality is strong enough to warrant the higher purchase prices comparatively with PC's.
Now with this nice little Stevey Jobsey plot twist, everybody's quick to jump on the trigger and label him as an obsessive compulsive transexual nutcase. Well some of that is probably true, but think about it just a minute : ATI's Radeon is brand spanking new, hasn't even hit the shelves here in Canada yet. It is my personal guess that maybe Apple isn't so sure about shipping with Radeon boards yet, simply because the product is not yet mature enough to live up to Apple's reputation. I'm guessing they were still unsure about shipping Radeon so early, and alleging that ATI played an important suit-licking card too quickly is what tipped the scales in favor of reliability, hence the older, proven ATI Rage 128. ATI isn't losing a market-threatening wad of cash here, let's face it : it's Apple. They make less cash selling whole systems than ATI makes selling only video cards in the same fiscal quarter.
The real motor behind this brisk decision is probably just good old fashioned Apple P.R. Anyone who's worked on phone support would understand the difference between an ignorant on a PC, and an ignorant on a Mac. The PC guy will yell at you in frustration, whereas the Mac guy will be more calm and listening. They listen to phone techs, they listen to their Mac dealer, they listen to Steve Jobs as if he were a god, because he gives out the image that his company "Cares" for their customers more than the others. That illusion is what keeps Apple safe from the rabid competition that's hemorraging everyone else.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Read the article... the card was pulled from the spotlight at the show and ATI was pulled from the keynote. When the Radeon is ready to go (09/2000) it will ship with the computers. They wouldn't damage their product to spite ATI but still put another ATI board in there. It's simple: Steve thought ATI stole some of his thunder with their leak, so he declined to give any to them at the Expo.
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