A Basket Full of Apple News

active8or writes "During hit keynote at MacWorld San Fransico, Steve Jobs introduced the new tools from Apple. One, iDVD was a very powerful tool for making DVDs at home, and iTunes a powerfull MP3 and music ripping, writing, playing environment....for free. This seems to follow their new "killer apps" strategy. In addition, a 733 MHz G4 was introduced, and the entire line got a update. ". The new powerbook looks awesome (if only it had 3 mouse buttons).

Comments

Re:Give it a rest

[Throw Away Account]

Apple made a good marketing choice in comparing it to the Vaio. Let's instead compare the $2,599 G4 PowerBook to a customized P!!! Dell Inspiron, $2,598...

Okay, now both have 128 MB RAM, the processor speeds are 400 vs. 800, both have 10 GB disks, both have DVDs, and both have Ethernet (the Dell on a PC Card). The screens are 15.0" for the Dell vs. 15.2" for the Apple. The Inspiron has twice the video RAM.

So, overall, pretty equivalent machines, for identical prices.

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[mihalis]

I started a thread about this on comp.arch if anyone is still interested.

Don't forget the visualizer, one of the best parts

[supercookie]

So, iTunes has lots of great practical stuff. I even liked the radio tuner, it worked pretty well for me. BUT... you've totally left the visualizer out of your review! In the "just for the heck of it, really adds nothing to the functionality but is really cool" category, the visualizer wins hands down. If it were just a CD player with the visualizer added in, it would still be worthwhile. Now, I can see the music...

Re:Give it a rest

[Hermione Granger]

I beg to differ in relation to USB Overdrive. It might be a cool bit of software, but after spending $50 on a mouse, I'd expect it to come with software on a CD or something. For us slow modem users, downloading yet _another_ bit of shareware, then having to spend half the price of the mouse to register it is a waste of time and money. 'Nuff said.
--
"Stop it, Ford," he said. "You're turning into a penguin."

Yes it is, sorta

[chainsaw1]

You are correct in that the MacOS is not SMP aware, but applications run under MacOS can be compiled that way. Adobe Photoshop is the best known example. There is a SMP library in the Extensions folder that did this as far back as MacOS 8 or 8.1. I've heard it's a pain to do, but do-able. I think distributed.net clients for MacOS can use the other CPU also (though you wouldn't probably buy a 2nd CPU to get your rc5-64 rate up).

Also, who says your going to run MacOS? LinuxPPC will recognize and use the other CPU, as will BeOS PPC (though Apple has not been kind about supplying details regarding the new Mac's, see their web page for details). LinuxPPC also let users access slave IDE drives before the MacOS could as well--it's handy for recognizing other devices that are not supported under MacOS (tape drives, Windows PCI cards, etc.).

Re:Yes it is, sorta

[jafac]

OS X *is* MP, kinda.

If it's a BSD program,
or if it's a Cocoa (OPENSTEP) program,

or if it's a Carbon program written to the MP library (other Carbon apps will NOT be MP aware),

or if it's a Classic program (99% of the software available for OS X right now) - we still don't know if MP library is supported under Classic. . . if so, then same limitations as Carbon, but if not, Photoshop, even WITH MP libs won't be MP aware on OS X in the classic environment, until Adobe releases this carbon port of Photoshop (which was supposedly done in two weeks by an intern two years ago - where is it now?)

Re:Yes it is, sorta

[frogstomper]

Classic was not in the list of API sets I was talking about. The essential point of my post is that Carbon apps are not "less pre-emptive" than Cocoa or BSD apps.

Re:Yes it is, sorta

[gig]

> until Adobe releases this carbon port of Photoshop
> (which was supposedly done in two weeks by an
> intern two years ago - where is it now?)

Photoshop will probably ship the same day as OS X ... kind of like the way the Cincinnati Reds used to always open the baseball season. It will be the first big product release, and it will give all those Photoshop-all-day-long Macs out there a good reason to want to run OS X right away.

The two-week update of Photoshop was what was required to get a demo up and running on Mac OS X ... that's pretty good, considering how incomplete Carbon was at that time, and how different the two operating systems are.

Re:Yes it is, sorta

[frogstomper]

OS X *is* MP, kinda.

If it's a BSD program, or if it's a Cocoa (OPENSTEP) program,

or if it's a Carbon program written to the MP library (other Carbon apps will NOT be MP aware),

For all these categories the situation is the same: programs are pre-emtively multi-tasked over all processors with respect to each other; individual programs are threaded if they explicitly spawn threads.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[Jeffrey Baker]

Eh, those of us who use Unix with XFree86 can just use the program "xclipboard" to create arbitrary numbers of different clipboards, save their content to disk, and edit them in place before pasting.

Re:*&(&@$ deceptive benchmarks!

[Pemdas]

A worthy reply, unlike the general "But we SAW it's faster". I'm glad to see someone is actually thinking about the stats being thrown at them, instead of accepting what you want to hear blindly.

Let's take something from a IBM's site, just for fun:

IBM PPC Benchmarks

SpecINT 95 is the geometric mean 10 different benchmarks, including a GCC compilation benchmark, a GO-playing program, a LISP interpreter, and database core, some PERL code...in other words, it's a pretty wide spectrum of performance, and is really *THE* number to talk about in terms of integer performance. It's not perfect, but it's a benchmark from an independent source, and measures a wide variety of metrics. SpecFP is a similarly structured suite stressing floating point performance.

The chart is a bit old, topping out with the 750 @ 500 Mhz. The numbers given are 23.8Int/14.5Fp.

From SPEC's own site, you can see a 550Mhz Athlon scores about 25Int/20.6FP

So the cores are roughly on par in a clock-for-clock basis. Since I can't find any numbers for the new 766Mhz PPC, I'll assume it scales linearly (This is generous), and say it goes to roughly 32Int/22Fp. a 1 Ghz Athlon (which isn't even the top of the line anymore) rates 42.9/29.4.

This isn't, of course, complete system performance. It says nothing about IO speed, hard storage speed, etc. but I'll be a monkey's uncle if Photoshop is anything other than CPU or memory bound.

Apple is being deceptive. Plain and simple. They've chosen a nonrepresentative benchmark to portray the PPC as faster despite the clock disadvantage, and that's just not true.

God damn you Apple ..

[SirFlakey]

for bringing out more sexy hardware... this makes my PowerBook g3/400 look so .. so ...old.

Damned..now I will have to mortgage my brother to buy this stuff.
--

anti-environment apple

[Sebastopol]

Titanium Chassis?
"Power to Burn"?

Apple has always been a vehicle for pseudointellectuals (and trendy artists) to strut elitism through material possessions. Now Apple is blatantly reflecting the rash overconsumption of Americans. A titanium chassis? What a waste of a rare metal. "Power to Burn"? Ironic at a time when the west coast is suffering an energy crisis brought on by their own greed and glut. I know he is referring to CPU processing power, but it just smacks of gluttony: we've got sooo much power we can just waste it and waste it and waste it...

I wonder of the ultrahip mac zealots paid any mind to this contradiction?


---

Re:anti-environment apple

[be-fan]

I wonder if enviro-natzi's will ever realize that while environmentalism is a noble goal (I'm a big environmentalist myself) it can only be accomplished through human oriented
measures. Like it or not, you can't shut the characteristics of humantiy out when trying to find a solution for a problem. Humans are human, and people will not regress to a lower
quality of life in order to do *anything* Bitch all you want about the declining social and environmental mores of society, nothing will get done unless you take the right
approach. The idea is to do your part, and get other people to do their parts. Keep progressing, don't force things on people that aren't ready for it, and eventually you'll realize
that the problem is gone. Same thing with feminatzism and ethnonatzism. Shutting out the basic flaws of people in order to promote a self-righteous and radical agenda simply
doesn't work. It would be nice if we could deal with these problems instantly, but we can't. It took a thousand years for democracy to firmly establish itself in the world (it still
isn't everywhere yet) and it took hundreds of years for slavery to die out. Humans progress, but they do it slowly. Just do your part and let the system work.

Re:anti-environment apple

[Chris Johnson]

Titanium as Cheap as Aluminum? -slashdot.org

Maybe Jobs is more hip to genuine scientific innovation than you ;)

Re:anti-environment apple

[Jeffrey Baker]

I sympathize with your views that these things are wasteful. I don't know why they can't just make the case out of a more common metal, or a plastic. I believe that they just think titanium looks neat-o, so they use it. Some people are wasteful.

However I think you are way off the mark on your power comments. The PowerBook and most other laptops practically sip electrical power. That is, they don't use a significant amount. If you want to go off on someone, try your neighbor who leaves the lights all over his house and his television on all the time, your friend who runs his dishwashing machine half-empty, the guy with the RWD Canyonero that contains more metal than 100,000,000 PowerBooks ever will, and people who hose off their driveway instead of using a broom. I think you can find a more worthy inefficiency target than people who use PowerBook computers.

Re:anti-environment apple

[frinkster]

Apple was going for the lightest laptop that it could get. Titanium has a high strength - to - weight ratio, so it deserves consideration. If you read some of the info, you will see that it uses a carbon fiber frame to increase strenght and rigidity. My guess is that Apple used as little titanium per laptop as possible.

Also, Apple is anything but anti-environment. Check out Apple's environment site. Read some of the case studies. Bottom line - Apple is probably the most environmental-friendly computer company on the Earth. All of their computers exceed Energy Star requirements, and are designed to be easily disasembled and recycled. A very interesting case study is their PowerMac G4 (161 KB).

Re:anti-environment apple

[frogstomper]

I wasn't talking about power consumption of the CPU, just the overtones of the statement itself irked me.

Ah. You mean that a superficially subjectively environmentally-hostile attitude is Evil, but superficial environmentally-hostile lifestyles are merely human nature? Or is this only true if the pecieved attitude in question is displayed by Apple?

Re:anti-environment apple

[Sebastopol]

Yes yes. x86 machines are hot hot hot, and the G4 cube doesn't even have a fan! When will we ever see THAT on x86. But I wasn't talking about power consumption of the CPU, just the overtones of the statement itself irked me.

---

Re:anti-environment apple

[JimmT]

Sorry, I had to reply to the comment regarding our president. I will probably be marked offtopic. Anyway, in the US we are a nation of STATES. The poeple are represented by thier elected STATE officials. The president is elected by the majority of the STATES, which are designated POINTS, electorial points to be exact. With that siad, the PEOPLE, did elect the PRESIDENT. Read our constition and study our history before you judge our REPUBLIC, not DEMACRACY. Thank you, Jim

Re:anti-environment apple

[Sebastopol]

I'm making all three of those statements. The attitidue is evil because its existence justifies the 'human nature' response. I feel messages like this are dangerous. Like Sherwin Williams' "Cover the Earth" logo, with a can of paint covering the globe. To me, that's a dangerous message to people who don't take the time to think objectively. The same goes for the shameless promotion of SUVs and high-power yet inefficient engines. There's a huge market for glamorizing waste exploited all over the place.

Now on to Apple. First, as stated by another post, Apple is very energy star compliant. Credentials: I have always been a fan of Apple, and learned on an early //e. Now I work for an x86-centric company, and have used PC's since the early 80's because I couldn't afford a Mac. Yet I've always considered Apple to be a thinktank leftist artistic movement in the corporate PC environment. I know, I know, Apple is trying to make a profit just like everyone else, but they've always been so upper-class about it, where IBM, Dell, Gateway, etc, all seem so lo-brow. To see Apple try to cater to lowbrow markets is what bothered me. "Think Different" is intellectually, environmentally and politically significant (albeit grammatically incorrect). "Power to Burn" is so WWF.


---

Re:anti-environment apple

[be-fan]

A) The people all over the world behave that way. The Americans don't have a monopoly on wasteful behavior. For example, people in China dump waste into the Yellow river. People in India do the same thing to the Ganges. People in developing contries waste natural gas through poor training (and laziness, it takes a while to light a gas stove.) If they could afford it, Europeans and Asians would waste just as much as Americans do. If you don't believe me, then go to Bankok, Thailand. You'd think you were in LA, sans the tight air-control standards. (BTW, I'm not talking out my ass, I've *lived* in these places)

B) Don't get *me* started on democracy. There is a reason for the electrol college which you stupid populists don't seem to get. (BTW, I'm a rabid democrat.) The electrol college assures that the majority does not totally outweight the minority. Do you really think that the politicians would give a damn about the jews in Florida if it weren't for the electrol college? How about blacks, arabs, and other minorites? Of course not! If it was just population, then they'd only be playing up to the white majority. The debate over majority rule was settled two hundred years ago during the first few presidencies. A general concensus was made (by politicians *far* more qualified than Hilary Clinton) that while the majority did in fact control the country, their power had to be kept in check to protect minority rights. The whole American democracy is based on checks and balances (and if you jaded Americans think that the US democracy is overrated and corrupted, try living in Asia or parts of Europe...) Well, welcome to one of these checks.

Re:anti-environment apple

[be-fan]

a) people, probably so (try to talk about environment to anyone in Scandinavia though). governments, nope. US government is trying to buy its quota of pollution from poorer countries, instead of complying with international treaties. Check out environmental policies in more environmentally advanced European countries (pretty much the entire EU).
>>>>>>>>>>>
We're not a dictatorship, the government can't just *force* everyone to comply. The people have to choose to do so, and like the people of India, China, and parts of Europe, they don't want to.

b)nothing a good 2-turn system could not solve
>>>>>>>>>>>
You heard it here folks. A crucial problem of the US democracy was solved by a one-liner from an AC that wasn't even capitalized and punctuated correctly!

Re:You call this responsible buying?

[boinger]

People who want the newest fastest coolest best always pay a premium. If you choose to, then, that's your fault. I bought a 9500 when they were NEW. Does that make it a Good Deal? No. But, it's over 5 years old and it still holds its own - I can still out-photoshop a 2-year-old PC!

Re:An improvement.

[el_munkie]

Furthermore, even if this G4 is a supercomputer as the ads say, it crashes a helluva lot more than my old Cray.

No...

[pb]

They're just as far behind. Use this formula:

Apple_Max_Mhz*2 ~= x86_Max_Mhz

...sounds about right to me.

Never mind that Joe Average generally doesn't need nearly that much power for all the things he really needs to do. Any home computer sold in the past 15 years can easily do word processing and spreadsheets, even a Pentium 133 plays mp3's with some cycles left to spare, and unless you're still using that 386, your modem is the bottleneck in browsing the web, not your processor, no matter what Intel tells you...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Re:No...

[gudacmacattacq]

yeah but how many dumb-nuts out there are buying 1ghz HP pavilions at Best buy when all they are going to do with it is spread email viruses and gamble away the kids college money @ DLJ? You dont need 1Ghz to process style sheets.

Re:What about MacOS 9.1?!?!?!?

[po_boy]

Where's 9.1?!!? Did Steve forget about something? Apple fsck'd up the ROM files for all the new G4's so they're not compatible with the older models, AND the newest G4 (with the purple button) ROM is unstable! So are we supposed to sit around until March 24th with flaky computers?!?!? sheesh!

This page lists three ways to get it.

BTW: your "?" and "!" keys seem to be flaking out and repeating themselves unnecessarily.

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[Neuracnu Coyote]

*BUT* who can say how well the authoring software will cope with fancy menus, anamorphic video, alternate sound and text tracks, etc.

An excellent point. After all, what's a DVD without some kind of DVD Digest / menu system? iDVD comes with it's own, basic menu authoring system. Each screen can have 6 items (including folders, which can hold 6 more items, ad nausium). Great for basic usage.

The key here is basic. This will come bundled with the SuperDrive, just like iMovie came with the iMacs. But, if you want to get fancy at all, they also have a complete dvd authoring utility (DVD Studio Pro 1.0) which the pro can purchase for a mere $999 to make all the great stuff you see coming from the studios. Just like you can purchase Final Cut Pro 1.2.5 for $999 for regular QT files.

All in all, I was impressed with the basic functionality of both iDVD and iTunes. The PC coule really use something like this. But, then again, if Microsoft controlled all the hardware, I'm sure you'd see some pretty nifty stuff along these lines as well.

Logo is right-side up on the Laptop!

[phishtaper]

Got to love that!

Re:Right on

[Schnedt Microne]

Are you sure you're on the right site? There are lots of Unix people here. My understanding is that the X Window System provides for three mouse buttons as the default. Various programs, such as xfig, rely on the third mouse button for some of their drawing functions. If you only have a two button mouse you configure X to do chording.

What are you rambling on about Microsoft and two button mice for?

The real story is OS X

[code_rage]

IMHO -- the real Apple story of 2001 will be OS X. As several stories on /. have noted, OS X has been / can be ported to other hardware. While I doubt that Apple will ever go to purely commodity hardware, they may throw in the towel on PowerPC eventually if the vendors cannot provide price/performance parity with x86. Look for a fork in the road in Apple's future: to continue or abandon PPC. OS X will give Apple the ability to exploit that decision when the time comes.

If they eventually do abandon PPC then they might build their own systems based on x86 or SPARC CPUs, but add some whiz-bang interfaces which commodity vendors might not provide. Consider Apple's leadership on USB & Firewire as such an idea.

For now, I'm impressed with the Ti-PowerBook. Maybe they can get a product placement in the next 007 movie (world's first bulletproof laptop). My only complaint is that the profile is rectangular, instead of an airfoil shape!

Re:Price to Performance

[Pemdas]

We use several "sawtooth" (AGP-based PowerMac G4 towers) at work for video editing. Couple DVCAM decks with IEEE1394 "firewire" cards for interface, using FinalCutPro and MediaCleanerPro. For editing work and encoding (to Soresonson 2.0 and MPEG-1) our G4s keep up with a 1.something GHz Dell that was recently purchased. Price to performance ratio looks fine to me. Especially since the G4s seem to be more stable than our Win2K boxes for video work. For $3000 a box can be configured at store.apple.comm that includes the combo CDRW/DVD-R drive. That's a real DVD-R! Price to performance blows away pretty much everything else.

What's your point? Want a cheap, but still fast, box to run Linux? Want to run linux or windows period? Use x86, that's what it's made for.

I'm not a zealot that thinks Apple has no place anywhere...certainly, there are still niches where Apple products make sense. It sounds like your site is one of them.

BUT, if Apple wants to play in the personal computer market, they need to stop trying to BS people into believing Macs are faster than they are, and really compete in terms of price, performance, and features. They're last big financial coups have come as a result of slick industrial design, not core computing compentencies.

OS X looks like a step in the right direction, but they've got a long ways to go before they're competitive in most arenas.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[A. Aria]

Actually, I wait until the even newer system comes out and get a computer for a really incredible price.

The newest of *anything* costs too much. I just got a digital camera that's nearly a year old, so the price came down. (Actually, normally I'd wait until spring until the new line came out, but in this case I just really needed a camera...)

If the system won't hold up to waiting that long -- then I'm not going to buy it, expensive or not.

Sorry. I'm not an "early-adopter". I'm the wait-and-pay-a-reasonable-price-for-it.

-AA

Re:clock rate

[um... Lucas]

But they don't talk about their "super computer performace" or "pentium destroying" stuff at all when referring to iMacs, so far as i've seen... They only talk about that in reference to the G4's which are the only machines graphics professionals look at... The line of the iMac is that it's a consumers machine, that's pretty fast, really good looking, and very easy to set up and use... for instance, a search on the iMac homepage yields no references to the Pentium whatsoever...

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Zoltar]

Uh.... Apple is an innovator????? Uh... they used to be but I think those days are long gone. I'm not sure you can even get by with the "make a better product" statement anymore. Lets face it, Apple has been behind the curve for years now and they are in catch-up mode, not in industry leader/innovator mode.

But alas, I like Apple and I like Macs too, but I've never bought into the ease of use / brilliant gui / user friendly stuff that gets repeated over and over. I think that ease of use is directly related to what you are used to. I think that gnome under Linux is real easy use but that's probably because it's what I use on a daily basis.

Settle down, now . . .

[WiseWeasel]

Struck a nerve, have I? A representative of the Trackpad Consortium, no doubt . . . Like I said, get a trackball for space concerns, there are some nice compact ones for that very purpose. Simma down, na!

titanium

[Sebastopol]

Titanium. How odd. I wonder if it can stop a 9mm slug, or if it will cause problems in airport security?
---

webobjects.

[gagganator]

wow, it would seem webobjects now runs on mosx (thats mac os x, pronounced "mo' sex")

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[Mzilikazi]

C'mon, a 1 button mouse is not very usefull. Even most Mac Zealots will agree that Apple needs a better mouse

This Mac Zealot* agrees, which is why he dropped $20 on a nice Kensington 3 button mouse with scroll wheel. As much as I love it, I think it's going to be replaced with a similar optical mouse very soon.

The extra buttons are quite handy, and Apple's use of contextual menus is excellent (though not as well known as those of Windows). Frankly, I've always felt that the Apple mice were pretty bad throughout the ages, regardless of the number of buttons. Much better mice can be found for very reasonable prices--it's worth it for your wrists and your sanity.

*Does being a Mac Zealot mean that I have swords of blue psionic flame weapons on either hand? (Obligatory StarCraft reference) ;)

Re:An improvement.

[el_munkie]

I agree that the new optical mouse suck. The pivot for the clicker is also too far back, and it makes clicking unfomfortable. Though I don't like their OSs, Microsoft makes one hell of a mouse. I have the five button+ wheel optical mouse, and I cannot imagine anything better. It is great for FPS games, I can assign almost every important command to the mouse, and just use the arrow keys on the keyboard.

Re:MAC OS ISN'T MP!

[iMacGuy]

Mac OSes 8 & 9 are MP. But you have to use special APIs for preemptive tasking, and it can't run 68K code. Apparently, large parts of the Mac OS are in 68K code AND APPLE PROGRAMMERS ARE LAZY ____HEADS AND DIDN'T BOTHER TO UPDATE IT!!!

Combo CDRW/DVD-R

[green pizza]

Not to mention that one new option for the G4 Desktop (and standard on high-end prebuilts) is the "SuperDrive"... a single-tray, multiple-laser drive that basicly combines CDRW and DVD-R. Yes kids, real DVD-R, play it in your consumer $150 DVD deck. Apple sells DVD-R blanks for $10 at store.apple.com. Probably can find them cheaper elsewhere.

Re:More info

[11223]

Does anybody know why they removed the Schwe slot? Did they just figure that your memory is allocated better in OS X so you don't need the Schwe slot?

MacOS is part-MP, Linux for PPC and Darwin are MP.

[Angelwrath]

"That 533 will sit idle all the time if you load OS9 on it. Wanna wait 6 months for OS X?"

Incorrect - Darwin and Linux for PPC are MP-capable right now, in addition to half a dozen of the most important MacOS apps. Focussing specifically on MacOS 9's MP capabilities, the most important apps for the PowerMac's target market (content creators) are MP capable, and nobody would buy an MP system if they were not going to utilize those apps, and both of the processors. There are plenty of ways to utilize the MP systems right now. Shoot, even the available OSX Public Beta supports MP.

So there is no waste of money or CPU even today; you will get MP performance from the MP systems, and perhaps even OpenBSD will deliver MP performance on the new PMac 533MP, if OpenBSD gets support for the new systems soon.

Re:Now THIS is what we like to see...

[Golias]

That said, I'd still like to see a subnotebook one of these days, as PowerBook Duos are not always easy to find

I have an old Duo. It weighs over 4 pounds. The Titanium Powerbook weighs about five and a half pounds. Seems like a good trade-off for about triple the battery life and about triple the screen size.

Second, more slots in the G4.

The new G4 has been bumped up from 3 PCI slots to 5, and the PCI bus has been improved. I am, however, a bit ambivalent about returning to single-processordom

If you buy the 533 G4, you can get a second CPU for $300.

Looks like you got all your wishes.

Neat looking screensaver iTunes

[demaria]

Don't forget that neat iTunes screensaver thing. Really cool looking.

Re:Powerbook G4

[dellisny]

Is anyone else dissapointed by the new Powerbook's resolution?

Apple's specs says the new Powerbook G4 will have 1152x768 pixel resolution. A screen that size should support more than that. No?

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Wakko Warner]

yes, Apple is an innovator. they come out with a lot of "industry firsts,

Like protected memory and pre-emptive multitasking?

if you want these features that are only available on Macs today, you pay for it.

I can't think of a single thing that's only available on a Mac, besides perhaps an eye-poppingly high price tag.

- A.P.

--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.

Also Nvida Geoforce replaces ATI in some models

[acomj]

I wonder how long till geoforce imacs...

Selling on ebay??

[mcdade]

I know there are no lists on there yet, but i was thinking of buying one of those Super sweet powerbooks and then trying to offload it on ebay, similar to the PS2 fiasco. We have all seen the apple supply problems, so chances are that they won't have enough supply to meet demand, and they will be backlogged for months, so someone will pay a nice increase to get it ASAP.... but i don't really have the $3700 to gamble on that

plus my vaio still gets the job done.. ;)

I've been using a three button mouse forever

[rwm311]

I hate to break it to you, but the day I installed LinuxPPC on my G3 I went out and bought a cheapo Kensington three button scrolling mouse. I've been using it with no problem now for several years.

This argument is such a sign of unintelligence. If you've ever used an Apple G[34] then you would know they're USB, and just about any USB mouse/keyboard works on it with no problem.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it :).

rwm

Re:I've been using a three button mouse forever

[rwm311]

Yeah, the whopping $20 really broke my wallet. Perhaps you script kiddies (note the stress on the word "kiddie") and trolls (very short, and usually young and stupid, people) should get jobs. :)

rwm

AGP 4X and nVidia GFX

[green pizza]

PowerMac G4 also got an upgrade to AGP 4X and nVidia Geforce 2 MX is standard on the higher end configurations. ATi Rage 128 Pro is standard on the lowest, and Radeon is an option. Lots to choose from, but where is the nVidia Geforce 2 GTS, GTS Pro, GTS Ultra, and nVidia Quadro cards? Especially with Alias-Wavefront Maya 3.0 coming out for Mac soon.

Re:AGP 4X and nVidia GFX

[CapnRob]

For CAD and 3D modeling applications, a GeForce2MX is about as fast as a full-bore GeForce2 - the extra power of the 2 is in multitexturing, which you don't need if you're working in wireframe. Also, DDR is not automatically faster than SDR - you can get a DDR 2MX, for instance ... it just has a 64-bit wide memory bus instead of 128 bit. This isn't a situation where we can say that the DDR Radeon is automatically faster than the SDR GeForce. Plus, I have a *lot* more faith in nvidia's driver authoring team than ATI's.

Re:AGP 4X and nVidia GFX

[willy_me]

The interesting thing is that the Radeon option (32meg DDR) costs the same as the nVidia (MX 32meg SDRAM.) Wouldn't the Radeon be a lot faster then the crippled nVidia? (Crippled by the fact it's using SDRAM while also not being their fastest chip.)

Oh well, but to answer your question: Mac support wasn't designed into the nVidia chips you mentioned. Only the most recent MX chipset has Mac support. Expect their forthcoming chips to also support Macs.

A bit off topic here, why do I all the sudden have the ability to moderate? I mean one second I don't and the next I do. Not that I mind - it just comes as a bit of a suprise. ;)

Willy

Re:AGP 4X and nVidia GFX

[Afrosheen]

You post, you get to moderate.

Re:No talk of OS X as server

[Angelwrath]

OSX commercial will include Apache and should have options for the full BSD layer, so in terms of its server capbilities it will be formidable for the hardware Apple wants it to run on. And if that doesn't work, you can grab Darwin, which has been code synched with the OSX commercial release (OSX is feature-frozen now), so you'll be able to serve from Apache on Darwin, and with any other server apps that will run on Darwin.

Good news today... major drool for that new PBook.

Give it a rest

[MouseR]

If only it had 3 mouse buttons.

You got both hands on the frickin' keyboard anyhow.

Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.

Re:Give it a rest

[Taos]

This GUI does not need a third button, or even a second button. Get over it.

Not so fast there sparky. We plugged one of those Microsoft optical mice (with like 4000 buttons and a small easy bake oven underneath) into our new G4 with OSX PB and it's amazing how much of the stuff works with it. Sure, the right mouse button works (as it did in Classic if I remember correctly), but start using the programs that come with it like their mail app, and the wheel works as well. Ironic how the only program on there that doesn't work with the wheel is Internet Explorer.

Re:Give it a rest

[Gilmoure]

Try FinderPop. It's a control panel that brings up Mac contextual menus by holding down a click on something. You don't need a second button or holding down a key combo at all. Just hope there's a way to work it in OSX and I wish it could be implimented in LinuxPPC.

Re:Give it a rest

[johnnyb]

I'm on a LinuxPPC box with a mouse with one button. I actually like it better. I've got Middle-Click mapped to F1, and right-click to F2. It works out very well.

Re:Give it a rest

[Golias]

Not so fast yourself, spunky. If you had read my response to connorbd before ripping into my post, you would have seen that I am the proud owner of the very same tons-o'-buttons mouse. Yes, it's spiffy... but no, it is not needed. As I said in that reply, I am thinking of picking up an new Apple mouse for my tower and plugging the MS mouse into my PC, where I actually need the buttons.

Re:Give it a rest

[penguinboy]

Many people in Apple's target market aren't suited to 2+ button mice. Its not really a valid criticism -- Apple's serving Apple customers.

Apple's also serving fewer customers than they could be. There are two reasons I would never buy a PowerBook - the single mouse button (sure, you can plug in an external mouse, but that's limited to where a flat surface is available) and the fact that they only offer a touchpad. If Apple offered more options, they could have more customers.

Re:Give it a rest

[sharkey]

It's what you're used to, I guess. Me, personally, I broke down and bought an M$ Optical Intellimouse right after Xmas. (Needed my serial port for new camcorder. Couldn't justify the extra $30 for the Explorer model, though.) The thumb and pinkie have me hooked, can't wait to get them working in X. They are so convenient that I find myself at work trying to navigate using my plain Intellimouse which doesn't have them! IMO, the more the merrier!

--

Re:Give it a rest

[Aaron]

its so easy to look around in an FPS game using a trackpad. NOT. Some of us NEEEEEEEEED a friggin external USB mouse. Can you say "Intellimouse"?
--
Though I use a Macintosh, I am not a mac-bigot. I just hate Windoze.

Re:Give it a rest

[tak amalak]

I need 2 hands to type the word 'the'. What's your point?
--

Re:Give it a rest

[xrx4]

I thought that I would mention that there are three button mice out there for macs like this nifty little Logitech mouse that's a real cost-effective way of getting 2 more buttons. You MacOS X followers will be interested to know that the scrolly button also works in cocoa applications!

Re:Give it a rest

[misterye]

I have to agree. I've been a Mac user since '84 (I use Windoze 2000 boxes and PPCLinux as well).

I do a lot of education of adult first-time computer users (including a doctor who didn't even know what a mouse was). I usually set them up with Macs. It has been my experience that the MacOS interface is definetly the best for first-time users to grasp, the computers are easy to setup, and troubleshooting over the phone is a breeze.

I initially made the mistake of replacing the single button mice with nice three-button scroll wheel mice from Logitech. I sat in horror after showing the people what the buttons do, the increase in productivity, etc, and then turn around and watch them try to open files by clicking on the scroll wheel. As far as they were concerned all the buttons should do exactly what they needed that button to do at the time. Switched them all back to single button mice, no complaint since. On top of that, the new Apple optical is a beautiful piece of technology.

In my experience, most first-time adult computer users usually barely grasp how to turn the damn things on, much less the difference between two mouse buttons. So Apple's sticking to one-button mice, especially considering the amount of first time users they are targetting with the iMac, is perfectly understandable.

Now if they'd just make a nice three-button for those sweet new G4's...

Re:Give it a rest

[sarhjinian]

Come on, I think people are intelligent enough these days to be able to deal with more than one mouse button

Many people in Apple's target market aren't suited to 2+ button mice. Its not really a valid criticism -- Apple's serving Apple customers.
The operating system supports (sort of) two button mice, so its not really that limiting. Many applications don't support Apple's method of accessing the second mouse button (Microsoft, Netscape, ahem!) but that's not really Apple's fault -- if the developers don't want to use the system's services, that's their choice. OS X should do a better job of this, but if someone (Microsoft, Netscape) decides to write their apps with their own proprietary input handling and menu routines, Apple can't really be blamed.
I'm actually glad they stick to one button mice. Do end-user support for Windows and the MacOS and just try to explain right-click to someone over the phone. Its much nicer to just say "Hold down the control key and press the mouse button on..."

Re:Give it a rest

[phutureboy]

Just outta curiousity, how does one map mouse clicks to function keys? Or for that matter, anything to function keys? Are you using GNOME, KDE or Other? I have found no way to do it in KDE.

--

Re:Give it a rest

[cronio]

but see, then you need 2 hands to click a button

Re:Give it a rest

[MrDolby]

I think all mice should have at least 5 buttons. One for each finger, or at least 4 buttons and a wheel for the middle finger. Make the back of the mouse tall enough for the user to support the palm on. Plus, It would be extremely difficult to play counterstrike with one mouse button.

Re:Give it a rest

[MochaMan]

Not only that, but my PC USB mouse works fine on my Powerbook G3, so I'm sure it's the same for the new ones. Hey, and if you're gonna be running Debian Linux on that baby, any of the more recent 2.2 and 2.4 kernels allow you to set modifier keys for your mouse clicks anyway... I've got Right-Ctrl and Right-Alt (Right-Option) as mine, which, on a Powerbook translates to Fn-Left-Ctrl and Fn-Left-Alt. Not nearly as big a nuisance as you'd think, I find it easier than using a three-button trackpad, since my thumb doesn't have to slide way over to the left side.

Re:Give it a rest

[TWR]

The operating system supports (sort of) two button mice, so its not really that limiting. Many applications don't support Apple's method of accessing the second mouse button (Microsoft, Netscape, ahem!) but that's not really Apple's fault -- if the developers don't want to use the system's services, that's their choice.

I'm not sure what you mean. I've been using my two-button wheel mouse with my iMac for a year. Right button is mapped (via USB Overdrive) to control-click. Works everywhere, including in MSIE and Netscape. The wheel just works beautifully in all apps (as a wheel, third mouse button, and clicked-up/clicked-down).

This might be due to the fact that USB Overdrive is without a doubt the coolest bit of shareware around. Now that Apple is in a licensing mood, it should be rolled into the Classic OS ASAP...

-jon

Re:Give it a rest

[Golias]

it'd be a crime to only have one mouse button on a UNIX box.

Alas, it was once thought to be a crime for a UNIX user to think they even needed a mouse at all.

It's not a Gnome box, or even an X-Windows box... it's an OS X box. This GUI does not need a third button, or even a second button. Get over it.

Re:Give it a rest

[TobyWong]

Hey from the sounds of it you should have all of your digits surgically removed except for one thumb because hey, who needs more than that? You will still be able to perform all the functions you are used to including sticking your thumb up your ass.

Re:Give it a rest

[elmegil]

Yah, it's so easy to look around in an FPS game using keyboard strokes. NOT. Some of us NEEED our three buttons to frag our opponents!

Re:Give it a rest

[willy_me]

OSX support HID devices so all of your USB multibutton mice with scroll wheels will work fine, I know mine does. The single button is for those "simple" users who don't want to learn about computers and keep on making the "what button do I press" mistake with Windows. And for your information, these people are the majority.

As it is often said, "keep it simple stupid" - this is exactly whay Apple is doing for their customers. (Mind you, a BTO option would be a nice.)

Willy

Re:Give it a rest

[gojix]

which would be cool by me, if you could navigate with the keyboard on a Mac.

Re:Give it a rest

[AnarchoFreak_00]

One point I'd like to make about this whole mouse button things is that it has nothing to do with how efficent either OS is. Remember, In macOS, you hold down one of the keys (usaly control) instead of using the right mouse button.

So all this talk about MacOS being more effecint, or Win is have more features is really irrelivent, cause they really have the same way of doing it, just that way you click it in a differnt way.

Still, I prefere 2 mouse buttons and a wheel button.

If people had the same way about keyboards, my argument would be more obvious. "Hey, why don't we make the keyboard more simpler, and easier to use by removing 1/2 the keys". Reducsing buttons dosen't immediatly make something more easier to use.

Re:Give it a rest

[mrfiddlehead]

Many people in Apple's target market aren't suited to 2+ button mice. Its not really a valid criticism -- Apple's serving Apple customers.

Which is just another dumbfuck reason why Apple is doomed, regardless of the flurry of activity that follows Jobs periodic announcements.

I know dozens of previous apple users who just got fed up waiting for something to happen at apple. Now they've discovered, because they aren't idiots, that they can be just as productive in a Windoze environment or Linux/FreeBSD/etc.

BOFG

Re:Give it a rest

[johnnyb]

You have to do it in X itself. I don't remember offhand how I did it, if I remember I'll look at it when I get to work.

Re:Give it a rest

[gig]

If only it had 3 mouse buttons.

Compare the PowerBook G4 and the Sony VAIO, here:

PowerBook G4 Specifications

The PowerBook outclasses the VAIO badly. It's thinner, can take many times more RAM, has AirPort, Ethernet, FireWire, slot-load DVD, more cache, 3 hours more battery life, and the full-speed 500MHz G4 chip easily kills a 650MHz "mobile" (stripped and slowed down) PII. Also, the design is much better, construction looks better, and you get pure titanium instead of a magnesium alloy. The only thing the VAIO has is that it's $50 cheaper, and 2 pounds lighter. Once you add an external modem/ethernet PC card and external CD/DVD drive to the VAIO, you lose the price and pounds advantage completely.

Now, after looking at the above, how can a reasonable person say "if only it had ...". I wouldn't mind if he said "too bad I use x86 Linux and don't want to switch to LinuxPPC or Mac OS X" ... or "too bad nobody is making x86 notebooks with these kinds of features". Too bad it doesn't have 3 mouse buttons. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Played with one at Macworld today ... the wide screen is really nice, and it makes it very small front-to-back ... much easier to fit into a bag or carry under your arm. Nice. Runs cool and quiet, too, and you can pop-up the keyboard to put in more RAM ... takes only a few seconds. Beautiful technology in every respect. It is solid like a brick ... not flimsy or cheap in any way.

Mac OS X is all that's missing, and it's only about 10 weeks away (March 24).

Re:Give it a rest

[Grahf666]

If you can play a fps game well on a trackpad, then I envy you. Most people just plug in an external mouse to play games.

533s ARE MP!

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Before it gets flying too thick, take a look at buying a 533 G4 for $2199 and adding a SECOND processor for a lousy $300, from the Apple Store as a "Build to Order" option. Total=$2499, including 128 RAM, 40 G HD, CD-R/W, Nvidia Card, and Gig-E.

Re:533s ARE MP!

[frogstomper]

Too bad you can't take advantage of the MP unless you are running OS X which doesn't come out until March. ;)

*sigh*

Yes, you can. A lot of things don't, but you can. If, for instance, you work with Cinema 4D and Photoshop, 2 533s is a pretty good deal.

Re:533s ARE MP!

[daviddennis]

This seems unnecessarily shortsighted - March is only 2.5 months from now, and come that time, you'll kick yourself for not getting the MP system.

But The Register points out that the March intro date for OSX seems "suspicously" close to MacWorld NYC and the NEXT traditional Mac intro date. They speculate that we'll get multi-processor 733mhz machines then, so it would probably be best to wait until then to get your system if at all possible.

I have one of the G4/450 systems running dual boot MacOS 9 and X and I'm extremely pleased with it.

D

----

Re:533s ARE MP!

[Gilmoure]

Too bad you can't take advantage of the MP unless you are running OS X which doesn't come out until March. ;) Every Mac analyst I know recommends a faster single processor over a dual system because:

MacOS 8 and 9 all come with a multiprocessing extension (Apple CPU Plugins in the Multiprocessing folder in the Extensions folder). This extension does not provide true SMP but it does allow threads to be spread across multiprocessors. Any app that is written to correctly utilize threads per Apple spec will receive some benefit from multiprocessors. So yes, buy a multiprocessor Mac now and enjoy it. You're not 'waisting' it waiting for OSX.

Re:533s ARE MP!

[gig]

Multiprocessing enabled: Premiere, Cubase, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Media Cleaner Pro, QuickTime, Unity DS-1, Lightwave, SoundJam ... there are more, including one or two more just from Adobe. These are all very powerful, very popular apps. There are lots of smaller and shareware apps that do, too ... supporting multiprocessing has been recommended for years on Mac OS, and some developers have just done so quietly.

And geez ... Mac OS X is 10 weeks away, and a beta is available right now.

Re:533s ARE MP!

[ShieldWolf]

Too bad you can't take advantage of the MP unless you are running OS X which doesn't come out until March. ;)

Every Mac analyst I know recommends a faster single processor over a dual system because:

a)virtually NO applications take advantage of the second processor
b) and the OS hardly does either. ;)

-Shieldwolf

Re:So what about the encryption keys ....

[ahknight]

DVDs do not have to be encrypted. You can have unencrypted video, it's just that RIAA prefers to encrypt the crap they produce.
--

Apple does it again!!

[5H071M3]

Good bye sony, this G4 rocks my world, can't wait to get one.

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[Techno_Jesus]

I think his comment was a piece of sarcasm... It sure sounds like a rave to me...

-Aaron

Re:Am I the only one having this problem?

[gbooker]

I get the same thing. Then when I started to used the command line version of ftp, I discovered that the nlist command works. I am in passive mode if it makes any difference. I am downloading the update right now.

Re:Looks like the DVD-CCA's worst nightmare

[drinkypoo]

a couple of things: it should be noted that Apple will be selling blank DVD media (that will play in commercial players) for $10/each. that's amazing. secondly, i really hope it's possible to burn region-free DVDs. i don't want region coding infecting the movies i create.

Step one: Get a DVD player which is multi-region. There are lots of them now.
Step two: Use DeCSS to rip the mpeg 2 data from your other DVD. Who cares if it's illegal? Not I, said the fly.
Step three: Convert to the proper format (please god, don't let them require quicktime) and make your DVD.

usa only.

[gagganator]

i noticed steve said very slowly as if to get it right: now you can burn for the 10 million dvd players in the usa

me thinks it is region usa only

Re:usa only.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, I checked with an Apple rep. and he confirmed that the DVDs are region free. I have to check about the CSS stuff.

Too bad for Apple

[Gepard]

RANT

Why is everyone so impressed with this new PowerBook G4? I personally find it immensely disappointing. Video? Same old ATI Rage 128 crap. Maximum resolution? 1152x768. A genuine, great improvement over their old limit of 1024x768. Other than that, all they changed was the CPU and the form factor. Sure, the titanium case is cool. It's also nice that it's pretty slim. But quite honestly, IMO the G3 PowerBooks look better. As for the CPU: well, two years after the release of the G4, it's nice to see it going into portables! Wasn't the G4 the CPU with the ultralow power consumption? Shouldn't that have made it easier to get a laptop to market quickly?

Now, let's compare this powerbook with a real x86 laptop. The VAIO Jobs compares the G4 powerbook to is a very cheaply-made piece of trash with a known unreliability record. Let's look instead at the IBM ThinkPad T21. Display size: G4 wins with 15". Unfortunately, screen size doesn't mean better screen real estate. The T21 is capable of 1400x1050 resolution, which translates into far more practical use. In terms of size, the thinkpad is lighter at 4.5 lbs, though slightly thicker at 1.3". More to the point, the T21 was on the market for about two months now, and the T series in general (which is almost identical) was in production for the last seven or eight months. I bought a T20 this summer after getting sick of waiting for apple to get their act together with a new laptop. (And I should of course mention that it runs Linux way better than it runs Windows :) )

Bottom line? The PowerBook G4 is a disappointing laptop. Had they pushed this out the door a year ago, it'd have been awesome. Now the competition is way ahead. Notice how Jobs was pushing all the iTunes and iMovie software on people: that's because the hardware just plain sucks. Oh, and it isn't shipping with OS X? What a shame. So now it's what, three years late? Apple's market is shrinking, even among diehard fans and OS X is probably the last thing that could propel Apple's market and mindshare forward as they offer the first genuine mainstream OS that doesn't suck.

Re:Too bad for Apple

[enkidu]

Of course, when you get the 1400x1050 screen the weight jumps up to 5.2 pounds, which makes the weight difference <.2 pounds..., the price also jumps to $3899 with Win98 ($3999 with W2000). In terms of battery life, the PowerBook creams the ThinkPad despite the hefty screen size.

Due to my preference for more pixels, I think the PowerBook provides better value at the lower price point, while the IBM hits the sweet spot at the higher price point.

There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[alprazolam]

ok i'm being lazy but is the idvd menuing stuff open at all? it sounds like a great place to have a standard.

Those DVD-R/CD-RW drives

[Ryu2]

Any idea of when they (Pioneer?) will be releasing them on the market (not just to OEMs)? This seriously rocks -- DVD-R for $995 (according to news.com), especially considering that the previous cheapest one was ~$5000 or so.

Re:Mac OS X Server (and Aqua)

[bnenning]

But a GUI running on a server is just chewing up clock cycles, and any server that's worth using shouldn't be looked at that much any way, so the GUI is just unnecessary weight. And from all the reports, the Aqua OS is a lot of weight.

Sorry, this is wrong on multiple counts. First, Aqua or any other GUI takes essentially zero CPU time if you're not actively using it. For example, the iMac behind me is running Mac OS X Beta with a (transparent) terminal window running top. dnetc is using 98% of the CPU, Window Manager is using 0.6%. Second, Aqua is not mandatory. You can drop to a text console and do everything from there, or telnet or ssh in.

Apple should be spending time making an OS X server that actually lets you remotely administrate the server, with an optional GUI in case you can't

Which is exactly what they did.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Schnedt Microne]

If I'm going to pay Apple prices, why wouldn't I buy a Sparc or an Alpha instead?

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[stripes]

Steve Jobs claims that the MPEG-2 (encoding) CODEC that iDVD and DVD Studio Pro use is "much faster than any other". He claims that most other software encoders for MPEG-2 run at about a 20:1 ratio, while the CODEC Apple has can encode at about a 2:1 ratio on a G4... that is, 30 minutes of video can be encoded into MPEG-2 format in about 60 minutes.

The Sun ULTRA2 (or maybe ULTRA1?) can do two NTSC size MPEG2 streams at once using the "VIS extensions" (which are a bit like AltiVec, SSE/SSE2/3DNow/all the other SIMD extensions). I don't know if that includes an audio track, or disk I/O. The ULTRA2 is many years old and no longer sold by Sun. I assume the newer systems can do a way better job.

Note: the Ultra2 may not be all that fast, but I think the PDIST (or PDIFF?) instruction is extreamly MPEG2-codec-centric and helps make up a lot of ground in this benchmark.

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[meloneg]

If PacMan had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to electronic music

Um. I am sitting in a darkened office (none of us likes having the overhead flourescents on), I've got a skittles dispenser on my desk and I'm listening to an MP3. Oh yeah, cube-land does kind of resemble the PacMan maze.

Are you sure PacMan didn't affest us?

Re:mad props to you

[gagganator]

actually, if steves one os strategy is to be believed, os x server is the same as mosx with smb, webobjects, etc tossed on. so we should be able to buy mosx and add webobjects separately

Re:*&(&@$ deceptive benchmarks!

[Pemdas]

OK, I hate it when people complain about moderation to their comments, but I have to say...

THIS IS NOT FLAMEBAIT!

It's a criticism of the deceptive practices Apple is currently using in marketing.

Is Apple joining Linux as one of the "untouchable negatives" on Slashdot? Say something negative about it, and you're on your way to moderation heck, 'cause you're obviously on the wrong side. :)

Thank you.

Re: If it only had 3 mouse buttons

[connorbd]

Point being that (as I mention in another post) MacOS is not a one-button interface, but Apple keeps designing their mice as if it is. Ctrl-Click is a pain. Right-click -- I do it on my system without even thinking about it.

/Brian

Re:wow....

[Darchmare]

If you think Apple has problems now, just imagine the problems they'd have if they catered to those who ask for - no, demand - software for free.

(and yes, I know the different between 'free' and 'Free' in opensource/free-software parlance)

Apple is a business. If you can provide them with a good reason to see you as a viable market, I'm sure they'd be happy to consider it. Until then, they're not going to waste developer resources while there's more important work to be done.

- Jeff A. Campbell

Re:If only...

[Schnedt Microne]

Ummm, how do I 'chord' one mouse button?

More SMP in the future.

[willy_me]

The lack of SMP machines is because of Motorola not being able to supply enough G4 chips. If Motorola gets their act together then more SMP options should start showing up again. Apple just wants to avoid the bad press associated with not being able to deliver what they promise. (ie, delivering lots of fast G4 chips)

Willy

Re:So what about the encryption keys ....

[Tava]

DVD does not _require_ encription, encripted DVD content requires decription. If you feed non encripted DVDs to a player it should just play it. As for region coding, I think that a DVD can be not coded, or that there is an "everywhere" code, but I am not totally sure about that...

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[jonfromspace]

I stand corrected... For kids, a 1 button mouse is IDEAL!
um.. I done, you can stop reading...

Re:heh...

[mcmonkey]

Why would you buy a hard disk from Apple?

Because Mac OS updates will trash non-apple drives.

Remember that?

... oh damn, this means I will need to upgrade:wq

[kipling]

:wq

Re:Making Friends With the MPAA -- NOT!

[brakzilla]

Since you mentioned sony.. I think its funny seeing how companies are constantly battling their revenue sources against each other. Hmm should we make money off of software and the hardware to use the software.. or should we make money off blank media and the hardware needed to pirate software??? Why not both!!!

The money that is being lost to piracy is surely being made back with the revenues of cd writers and blank media. Its a beautiful cycle! .. If there was ever one thing the consumer was never given the ability to do, its to create his or her own media. We are into the 21st and we dont even have a convenient way to make our own paper! There's always going to be a business in media. Always :D

Re:It's not really that bad.

[stilwebm]

Most of us would rather have that 22" LCD than a 24" CRT. That accounts for a huge chunk of the price difference.

Re:So?

[Wakko Warner]

350 MHz is adequate on anything if all you're doing is looking at webpages.

- A.P.

--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.

Re:clock rate

[Darchmare]

---
No matter how much Apple benchmarks Photoshop, it's still not a significant metric of overall system performance.
---

It's significant when half of Apple's target market spends most of their day in an Altivec-enhanced Photoshop, don't you think?


- Jeff A. Campbell

Re:So what about the encryption keys ....

[Apotsy]

Yes, there is a "region zero" code for DVDs which is playable anywhere. The recent re-release of Carl Sagan's Cosmos on DVD uses this code. I sure hope iDVD will allow you to pick that as your region code when burning a DVD.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[SPYvSPY]

Ok, ok. It's 95 on a 333 PII. I guess it's just me and this crummy laptop that my office gives me. It's the only Windoze box I use, thank god.

Re: If it only had 3 mouse buttons

[imneuromancer]

THat's why you buy a 4-button+wheelmouse MS optical (or a logitech) after you but the machine. The one-button mouse is a DEFAULT mouse that you then upgrade depending on your need. The purpose of the design is to make it SIMPLE and POWERFUL at the same time, and then allow the idea to scale up from there.

In other words, allowing one-button mousing is the bst UI because it scales from the REALLy simple (instead of having to explain right-clicks you just have one button for newbies) to advanced (MS mouse with all of the buttons mapped to commands).

The thing I hate about Linux people is that they will go out and buy the newest piece of wiz-bang hardware, but won't think to buy a fscking mouse!

If this does not revive Apple, nothing will

[twitter]

This is a cool bunch of stuff, and should blow MS out of the water. Think about trying to get all of that for the average PC, and how much it would end up costing, and how it would break in a year. Yes, the average home user wants to something to plug into the stereo, the TV, and acts like a video phone. Jobs has got it right.

I'm tempted to get one of these myself. If it lives up to the hype, I will finally be able to eliminate Windows and free up all that disk space. It promises to do all the things I've kept windows around for, but better and all that disk space would be nice as an export directory. Though this is not a substitute for Free software, I'm tempted.

Re:heh...

[interactive_civilian]

I agree...I was just pointing out my dream configuration as it would cost ordered straight from the apple store...

More realistically, I would probably only order the most scaled down system that I could from Apple and then buy all of the hard-drive, memory, etc. upgrades from somewhere else...

And that would probably easilly cut a couple of thousand dollars from the price...

But it is still all hopeless dreaming because I am a poor, recent-college-graduate w/ student loans to pay off... *grin*

well, duh!

[Scudsucker]

Now, once you've selected every possible option, and loaded this potentially-yours Apple with all the goodies that make these machines so great, look at the price.

And this is different from Dell, Gateway, Compaq, IBM et all? OF COURSE ITS GOING TO BE EXPENSIVE IF YOU SELECT EVERY OPTION!

Re:So?

[gudacmacattacq]

well yeah, but thats why apple has the iMac for well under $1100. What i am saying is any idiot that knows about HW/SW lines knows that 350mhz on a mac is more than adequate for looking at web pages.

Re:Will Steve Jobs save us from The Corporation?

[MadAhab]

I have to agree with you - although, if you pay attention to euphemisms and the behavior of the MPAA, it's "Will Steve Jobs stop The Syndicate?"

I can almost see Jack Valenti pulling at the neck of his black turtleneck/grey wool blazer combo.

The best part is that by marketing it primarily as the way to make your home movies, he's already set the stage of the battle with MPAA et al in a very favorable configuration for him.

Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[Eccles]

C'mon, a 1 button mouse is not very useful.

Actually, the Apple mouse is a *great* mouse for kids, who rarely need anything other than the left button. I've been considering buying one for the PC for my young'ns. Never heard Apple mention this, though.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[SPYvSPY]

Interesting. Thanks for the info. I'll try your suggestions.

Re:clock rate

[um... Lucas]

Except photoshop is the Mac's "killer application". There exists a huge market of users who buy macs specificcally because of photoshops ptimization on that platform. Yes, Adobe doesn't spend nearly the time on the Wintel version as it does on the mac version optimizing routines and such, but what does that have to do with the fact that the Mac trounces the fastest available Intel machine, which happens to be running at more than twice its' speed?

The price differntial between the Ultimate mac and a Dell Dimension 8100 configured as evenly as possible (1.5 GHz P4, 256 MB PC800 RDRAM, 60 GB hard drive, 12x CDRW - not DVD, and Firewire), both without monitors is $713.

The dell, discounting any other costs, is paid for in 55 hours of photoshop work (at $50/hr)

The mac, is paid for in 46 hours of photoshop work, assuming it's at least 33% faster.

So really, even though the sticker price is more, the mac ends up costing less in the long run, because it pays for itself quicker and generates money at a faster rate than the "cheaper" dell...

Re:Any news on nVidia after-market?

[11223]

Umm... nVidia has no plans right now, but you can get an nVidia...err...3dfx Voodoo 5 for the Mac in PCI version. That should be sufficient.

Re:the thing about Mac mice

[Golias]

At home I use the Microsoft all-the-buttons-we-could-fit-on-the-damed-thing mouse on my old G3 tower, and I have grown accustomed to using it. When we got a new Mac at my office, I wondered if I should pick up a multi-button mouse, but I decided to give the new clear "no button" mouse a try. I was stunned at how much I did not miss the other buttons. Contextual menus are not the life-blood of the Mac OS the way they are in windows, and the Mac GUI text handling is actually a little nicer (IMHO) than the Gnome "middle-click" pasting method.

Now I'm actually tempted to pick up another one of these new Apple mice for my home system, and move the MS optical button-cluster mouse over to my PC.

Apple say no CSS

[QuantumFlux]

Apple's Tech Info Library (http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n24 940) says,

"Note: In compliance with the MPAA, DVD-R discs with CSS-encrypted video data cannot be read."

Re:Apple say no CSS

[gabuzo]

Note: In compliance with the MPAA, DVD-R discs with CSS-encrypted video data cannot be read.

I'm not sure that this is a software restriction from Apple. I remember to read somewhere (sorry, don't remember where) that the blank DVD media will have to have the CSS key location preblanked.

Re:Apple say no CSS

[Spruitje]

"Note: In compliance with the MPAA, DVD-R discs with CSS-encrypted video data cannot be read."


Just a question of aplying DeCSS.
So, after all it is possible to rip a DVD.
And what about New-Zealand?

iTunes

[fifthcent]

Anyone tried out the apple's new iTunes yet? The radio tuner part is really cool. Unfortunately, i think that its lacking some major 'genres,' with hip-hop / rap foremost on the list... but other than that, its pretty cool :)

Re:Powerbook G4

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Pythagorean theorem gives a screen roughly 8.3 x 12.5 inches (for a 15" diagonal and 3/2 aspect ratio). That's 92 dpi. Whaddya want?

Re:Mac OS X Server (and Aqua)

[zephc]

really, instead of just letting the server hang out with the GUI running, the GUI is for ease of configuration, after which you can drop back out to the login screen and use >console and go into text-only mode :) (or just log out and leave it there)

------

Re:What about MacOS 9.1?!?!?!?

[otis wildflower]

ASU is slashdotted :(
Your Working Boy,

Yes but...

[Gorimek]

You can watch either standard on computer screens all over the world.

But for playing it on a consumer DVD player it needs to be in the frame rate (25/30) and line number (~600/~500) of the TV it's playing it on.

When sending your baby movies to the grand parents, you'll certainly have to consider whether they're in NTSC or PAL parts of the world.

Interestingly, the PAL world is futher divided by PAL-SECAM, which is used in France and a few other places. It has a different color encoding scheme, and maybe also audio difference (don't remember). But since the frame rate and line numbers are the same, both formats use the same discs. The players put out the different signals.

Re:Yes but...

[CJF]

SECAM is nothing to do with PAL, it has a different number of lines (circa 800) and a different colour encoding scheme. You might be confused by the fact that video tapes and other things are sometimes marked as `PAL/SECAM' compatible. This does not mean that SECAM is a form of PAL.

The PAL world _is_ divided, but only by different audio sub-band offsets when transmitted on analogue UHF, e.g. when moving between Germany and the UK you typically have to get a TV engineer to alter your TV/Video tuner's audio offset, otherwise you cannot get sound and picture at the same time. NICAM sound is another matter...

Re:clock rate

[NoOneSpecial]

(1) G4 multiprocessor with Altivec are supported by Photoshop and Illustrator.

(2) This added power to these apps have allowed us in the advertising industry to do amazing things. Two years ago, a 11x17 CMYK 300+ DPI image was a pain in the ass - Every move was calculated, mistakes cost hours. Now, my G4-dual 500 (with 640 mb of ram - never forget the memory) allows me to acctually work on an image. This has raised client expectation, and now I routinly get request to change the cellular phone that a model is holding on a 48" X 64" display.

(3) Mac OS9 is terrible. But this is changing. OsX looks cool, runs fast - even on the G3 test machine I am running it on at work - and is the easiest to use bsd system I've ever seen.

Re:Looks like the DVD-CCA's worst nightmare

[Cirvam]

easy to make a bit by bit copy if the reader will let you... dd if=/dev/ of=/home/dvdrips

Re:the thing about Mac mice

[penguinboy]

the Gnome "middle-click" pasting method.

That's a concept from X Windows, not GNOME. Personally, I prefer the highlight to copy, middle click to paste method.

Re:Now THIS is what we like to see...

[connorbd]

-But the Duo has the advantage of being... small. The Ti Powerbook is nice, but it's a freakin' diving board.
-But 533 is the *only* standard MP configuration. Chip supply problems are a logical explanation, though.
-I was acknowledging the extra slots, not asking for them.

/Brian

Re:Interesting...

[Orbital Sander]

Important Note: Power Mac G4 and PowerBook G4 computers introduced in January 2001 are not compatible with Mac OS X Public Beta.

By the time these actually hit the shelves, we will so load them up with the MacOS X release.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Jezz]

I did. I am going to get a PowerBook, I just got a new job (working with WebObjects {programming - I'm not getting paid to surf!}) and this new laptop looks neeto. As I looked at it, all I could think of was the beach scene in 2010 where the guy is typing on a Apple IIc and thought - yep that G4 PowerBook would work perfectly there - with OS X of course. I like the simple look, and did anyone else notice that they turned the Apple logo round so with the lid open it's the right way up for the guy sitting opposite? That Steve thinks of everything! Anybody know if it still lights up? (Kinda looks like it does) All I need now is Mac OS X, and WebObjects for same. Oh and some DVDs to watch on this sukka. Oh nearly forgot Q3A for it.

Slim profile not possible with plastic

[code_rage]

I'm not a materials engineer, but I suspect that Ti was not an afterthought or an adornment. The new PowerBook would be a very different machine were it made of different materials. The 15 inch LCD needs a strong material to support it, and if they used plastic or steel then the case would be far thicker. The market wants a thin and light laptop. You can get there with Ti, not with plastic.

Also, why is it wasteful to make the case out of Ti? Metal is far easier to recycle than plastic. (It may require more energy to produce however.)

Here is a perspective by Jobs on energy efficiency: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive//4.02/jobs.html ?pg=8&topic=. Kinda long-winded, but it gives a perspective on St Steven's thinking.

Re:The new laptop

[Jeffrey Baker]

Your thinkpad a21p also weighs 7.5 pounds, and does not have built-in ethernet. I love my built-in ethernet on my Vaio z505. Ethernet is rpetty much required these days: anyone who doesn't have it built into their laptop computer is going to have to shell out for a cardbus card to get it. The PowerBook (and the vaio) are also jammed full of industry-standard ports like infrared, ieee-1394, and USB.

You're speaking of the FireBox 400

[FreeUser]

The product is called the "FireBox 400" from Procomp and is reviewed here at tom's hardware. It allows you to connect any ATA IDE device to a firewire bus ... very cool.

Titanium Powerbook HD?

[Lord_Breetai]

Why is there a $500 price difference between the 10GB HD option and the 30 GB HD option?

Seems a bit steep to me.

Re:Titanium Powerbook HD?

[Apotsy]

Yeah, Apple really gets people on the hard disk and memory. I always go into the build-to-order and maximize processor/video, while minimizing memory/harddisk. I'd rather upgrade those things later at reasonable prices using generic brands.

Although I think the reason for the high price in this case may be due to the ultra-low profile aspect of the HDDs that go into the new Powerbook. According to this page this thing is actually smaller than a Sony VAIO! Getting a 30 GB drive into that kind of space is probably not too cheap.

Re:You call this responsible buying?

[soellman]

ugh.

Do you understand that Apple created the Macintosh market, and frankly, cannot survive without it? Apple is a hardware company, and you fault it for cutting off greedy clone manufacturers who contributed neither to the exorbitant research and development costs nor the marketing costs of the proprietary platform (you'll be hard pressed to find another company that spends as much relatively than apple on r&d), as was stipulated in the clone contracts? Get your facts straight before you start 'Assuming.'

Jobs is being far less 'Ruthless' than the industry analysts. The Macintosh market IS apple's, don't you forget it. Just as Irix is SGI's market. Just as Solaris/sparc is Sun's market. Of course, for better or worse; but in Apple's case, for the consumer, I think for better.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[SPYvSPY]

Your points are undoubtedly valid. I cannot argue with that.

Re:clock rate

[isaac_akira]

compare a seti run on the 733 and the p4 1500. Guess who'll win.

Yeah, I make all my purchasing decisions based on how fast SETI runs as opposed to a *useful*, bread & butter app like Photoshop.

Obviously every app uses the processor (and other parts of the computer) in different ways, so they will all go at different speeds on diff platforms. But Photoshop is really a pretty good reference app, since it really pressures the hardware (Photoshop users ALWAYS end up waiting, no matter how fast the machine) and it's used by so many people (as opposed to 3d apps, which also stress the hardware). There are many people out there who just use Photoshop all day, so if you show them you can make it go faster, they're interested.

Most of the other apps people use a lot (Office, browsers, e-mail, etc) don't max out the processor anyway, and run fast enough on ANY computer that was sold in the last 3-4 years. Most people won't notice a window opening in .01 seconds as opposed to .1 seconds, even if one is TEN times faster. And they then spend most of their time reading or writing in that window anyway.

Really only 533MHz

[Gorimek]

While Jobs announced 667 and 733 MHz machines, they will not be available until "February". In the special world that is Steve Jobs keynotes "right now" have been known to mean "in three months, if you're lucky", so what "February" really means in this case is anybodys guess.

Only the 466 and 533MHz are actually possible to buy "now".

Re:MAC OS ISN'T MP!

[SPYvSPY]

More like two and a half months.

Re:Any news on nVidia after-market?

[tak amalak]

check www.xlr8yourmac.com. They have a Q & A with the guy from nVidea. To answer your question, the card will only be AGP.
--

Re:3 buttons? It looks like its got only 1!

[pressman]

Um, click and hold contextual menus? Ever tried using the ctrl key while pressing on a window? I don't understand all this multiple mouse button madness! Having a single button mouse forces me to use the keyboard a great deal more and I'm way faster with keystrokes than with a lumbering mouse for simple commands. I've got a 3 button mouse on my Dell here at work at I never use the other 2 buttons because I've bothered to take the time to learn how to use the keyboard shortcuts. Ugh! If only I could somehow move my cursor around with my eyes and never use a freaking mouse again, I'd be a happy camper!

The new Thinkpad and X

[daviddennis]

How well does it run X?

My 770Z with the 1280x1024 screen has a fantastic display, but it's a bit sluggish to move windows around.

Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything but another ThinkPad. I wish the powerbooks had pointing sticks instead of those horrid touchpad things. I always wind up activating them by accident, ugh.

D

----

Re:doubt it

[crayz]

Aww screw it. I've seen pretty good looking DVDs that have ~4 gigs of data. If you feel like taking the time, you could just rip a DVD, re-encode it down to a lower quality(but still damn good) and burn it. There you go, pirated DVDs for all. This is gonna kick ass.

Re:What about MacOS 9.1?!?!?!?

[tarkap]

Sorry about that.. in the heat of the (brainwashed) moment I became overwhelmed with IRC kiddie-like excitement (due to just having read the Unternet crisis story) and let loose on the punctuation. I swear it'll never happen again! (until the next MacWorld)...

Re:No talk of OS X as server

[frogstomper]

OS X will ship with Apache. There's a simple GUI (under the name of "personal web sharing" or some such) which appears to allow each user to enable/disable sharing of a folder (inferred from pics on Apple's site). Presumably more advanced GUIs will be written by third parties, and of course the fiddling-with-files interface is still there.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[OwnedByTwoCats]

yes, Apple is an innovator. they come out with a lot of "industry firsts,

Like protected memory and pre-emptive multitasking?

What do 1970s timesharing technologies have to do with Apple's innovations?

if you want these features that are only available on Macs today, you pay for it.

I can't think of a single thing that's only available on a Mac, besides perhaps an eye-poppingly high price tag.

iMovie 2, iTunes, no-hassle connection with digital cameras and other firewire peripherals, iTools.

Re:Making Friends With the MPAA -- NOT!

[Compuser]

Most movies go for $20. If your burn success
rate it 1 of 2 you'd be better advised to buy
movies. I'd say this pricing makes piracy
marginally economical but just that. Still,
once the movie piracy gets like for CDs, it
might be attractive.

Faster Apples

[gordzilla]

I'm not an Apple user, but it's nice to see Apple finally getting the G4 a bit more upto par with AMD/Intel speeds (after all Joe Average buys more often than not on the machines MHZ value). Hopefully this will give AMD and Intel a bit more competition and lower prices even further.

Re:Faster Apples

[Bongo]

Apple tried to do this today by comparing performance between a 733MHz Power Mac system and a 1.5GHz Pentium 4. The Mac won handily. Naturally, Apple probably chose the operations that made the Mac look best, but that still implies a G4 is comparible to a Pentium with, say, 1.5 times the MHz.

Also to note, Jobs implied that iDVD was only possible because of AltiVec. He said that usually software encoding takes 24 hours to encode a one hour MPEG2 video. Using AltiVec, they're doing it in just 2.

If this is 'true', then the usual criticism that Apple has picked a few specifically favourable benchmarks -- and hence the only thing macs are faster at is a few Photoshop filters, and encoding DVDs -- then that criticism begins to sound a bit lame.

It would be a little bit like someone sitting in a Rolls, being overtaken by a Ferrari, paw pawing the Ferrari because it's 'only good at speed'.

But let me be reminded that I know nothing about highly optimised encoding of DVD on similarly priced x86 chips... maybe they can do the same, I dunno.

Re:Faster Apples

[spitzak]

Apple should put a divide-by-2 on the clock input. Magically the chip is twice as fast! You could even try a divide-by-4 but that may not be believed by the public.

Seriously, wasn't there a time when chip makers actually did this to make their chips look faster?

Re:Faster Apples

[Bongo]

24 hours to encode 1 hour of DVD is utterly ridiculous.

How long does it take then?

Re:Faster Apples

[Decimal]

Apple tried to do this today by comparing performance between a 733MHz Power Mac system and a 1.5GHz Pentium 4. The Mac won handily. Naturally, Apple probably chose the operations that made the Mac look best, but that still implies a G4 is comparible to a Pentium with, say, 1.5 times the MHz

How'd it hold up against the Thunderbird? Running anything other than Windows?

Re:Faster Apples

[Azreaphel]

I used to be a Mac user(now I write code for the Dark Side), and am still a big suporter. The thing you have to realize, is that MHz means SQUAT. They are entirely different chip desings, a 500Mhz G4 easily out-performs a 700-800MHz PIII.

Re:Faster Apples

[Bearpaw]

I'm not an Apple user, but it's nice to see Apple finally getting the G4 a bit more upto par with AMD/Intel speeds (after all Joe Average buys more often than not on the machines MHZ value). Hopefully this will give AMD and Intel a bit more competition and lower prices even further.

That'll only happen if Apple can get it through Joe Average's thick skull that actual performance is only partly a function of MHz. This might be a little easier than it would have been if Intel hadn't shot itself in the foot with the Pentium-4.

(No offence meant to anyone out there named Joe Average.)

Re:Faster Apples

[gudacmacattacq]

You dont need 1.2 Ghz to surf the web or use MSWerd. I mean the fastest AS/400 I have worked on only ran at 350Mhz. I that maching was used to process 10's or millions of telecom bills in 12-hour spans. Its not a race to beat the clock. Its a race to design a better OS and a pure HW line.

Re:Faster Apples

[Wordman]

That'll only happen if Apple can get it through Joe Average's thick skull that actual performance is only partly a function of MHz.

Apple tried to do this today by comparing performance between a 733MHz Power Mac system and a 1.5GHz Pentium 4. The Mac won handily. Naturally, Apple probably chose the operations that made the Mac look best, but that still implies a G4 is comparible to a Pentium with, say, 1.5 times the MHz.

Re:clock rate

[KillerKane]

Read this.

http://www.lowendmac.com/musings/g4vp3.shtml

Re:heh...

[TWR]

Because Mac OS updates will trash non-apple drives.

Bzzzt!!!

I've been replacing hard drives in my Macs since 1993; I put a whopping 120MB hard drive in my SE/30 to replace the factory-installed 40MB.

A few years ago, I replaced the factory-installed 1GB hard drive in my PowerBook 1400 with a 3GB hard drive.

Sometime this year, I'll probably replace the 10GB hard drive in my iMac with an 80GB hard drive (or I'll use one of those recently announced ATA/100-to-FireWire cases).

Spread your anti-Apple FUD somewhere else.

-jon

Re:heh...

[IronChef]

> Because Mac OS updates will trash non-apple drives.

Can you provide specific examples? Recent or not.

Steve Jobs is such a psycho!

[boinger]

That said, I think he is one of the most admirable CEOs (well, iCEOs) around. He's brought Apple around to be the company that I fell in love with back in the pre-Gil era, and then some. OSX is very exciting...I don't think it's going to stand the computer world as a whole on it's ear, but it definitely is already having impact on Unix community, and for those of us who are cross-overs (Mac and Unix), this is a very exciting time (and I make that squinchy face like Tank in the Matrix).

I'm just glad I don't work for Sir Steve. He's just a little to militant for me - I think he'd kill me. I'll just reap the benefits of his psychoses from the consumer end.

Re:Steve Jobs is such a psycho!

[Ingerod]

Sort of beside the point, but ahe actually dropped the "i" moniker to the CEO title last year.

Re:URL link in story?

[Ingerod]

...or just try www.apple.com. :)

BTW, I'm just trying out iTunes, and despite the silly name it's amazingly good!

Although I'm not an apple

[DeafDumbBlind]

The DVD recorder is damn cool. Nice that the systems ship with 256 MB of RAM, now if they only came with a nice 1.2 Ghz Tbird. Maybe when OS X ships.

Re:Although I'm not an apple

[gig]

You want to replace a 7 watt 733MHz G4 chip that you could hide in your hand, with a 50 watt 1.2GHz monster that is a little faster for some tasks and a lot slower for others? You understand that Apple's towers have one little fan that turns itself off when it's not needed, right?

Titanium...I'm not impressed

[Overzeetop]

Titanium is so...well...80s. I'll be impressed when I can pick up one of these babies made of Beryllium-Aluminum. TWICE as stiff (which means oh-so-much more than strength) and HALF the density of Ti. It might even make the high price justified ;-)

Re:Beautiful PowerBook and Price Cuts - no surpris

[frogstomper]

It looks like the old standard Mac keyboard, without the keypad. (Full-size keys, except the F and arrow keys which are half-sized). It doesn't run across the whole width becuase the screen is very wide for a portable.

Toys

[TheLittleVoices]

I was kinda wishing steve would tape a few G4 Powerbooks under the seat like he did with the clear optical mice last time. I liked how he had "Sex" to describe it. I guess they are reaching out to another group of people....

Re:*&(&@$ deceptive benchmarks!

[NoOneSpecial]

The 750 is not the G4. It does not have the Altivec enhancements. Dual processors are an affordable option for the G4. Photoshop uses multiple processors extensivly. Apple is not drafting phony benchmarks, just carefully selected ones. Check out SoundJam's altivec-enhanced MP3 encoder - I have never seen anything faster.

dvd-r is great but...

[memph1st0]

it seems that you need the $3499 model to get it. its not even available as a choice to upgrade in the custom configurations of the other models...

MeMpHiStO

Re:dvd-r is great but...

[TheInternet]

it seems that you need the $3499 model to get it. its not even available as a choice to upgrade in the custom configurations of the other models...

This is because the drives are quite scarce right now. This technology will eventually filter its way down to the other product lines, as DVD and FireWire did.

- Scott

--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu

1000 MP3's...

[artemis67]

Steve mentioned having 1000 MP3's on his computer...hmm, hope there were no federal law enforcement officers in the audience. I can just see them confiscating that brand spankin' new G4/733.

Too bad he didn't rip a few Metallica CD's and pass 'em out! :-)

Re:Powerbook G4

[willy_me]

4 grand for their "loaded" model. Only has 256mb RAM but that's easy to upgrade. The addition of firewire on the Mac really helps out, it greatly simplifies adding additional IDE devices. Also includes an extra Lithium battery + charger. Most people don't care about floppy drives anymore, they're used so infrequently that external drives are just fine.

I'm usually quite unimpressed with Apple prices but this new Powerbook look pretty damn good compared to that IBM.

Willy

Not an option for PowerBooks... :(

[TomatoMan]

This drive is awesome. And the new PowerBooks are awesome. If only the CDRW/DVD-R drive were available as an option on the PowerBooks - even as an external for more dough... perhaps a pipe dream, but I'm now very torn between the killer desktop with the drive and the sleek PB's without it.

TomatoMan

Re:Not an option for PowerBooks... :(

[InstantCool]

I'd be surprised if they came out with a new drive like that and it slim enough to fit into that ultra thin case design. I guess we'll have to wait 4-5 months.
--

Re:Not an option for PowerBooks... :(

[willy_me]

Just stick it in an external firewire/IDE case. One should be able to purchase it for clones in the next few months. Read the article on tomshardware.com to learn more about the firewire/ide case. It's listed under storage. Also works great with a PC laptop and a firewire PCMCIA card.

Willy

Re:No talk of OS X as server

[Schnedt Microne]

Jordan K. Hubbard was recently interviewed and commented how sublimed it was to see GNU Emacs running on a Mac.

GNU Emacs has run on the Macintosh OS for years. I ran it on an SE/30 awhile back. Of course that SE/30 has now had an OS upgrade and runs NetBSD, so obviously it now runs GNU Emacs even better.

Installing Emacs on a classic Mac even gives you a access to A rudimentary command line. -X-shell opens up a command prompt shell in an emacs window, and gives you a few built in commands to traverse around the directories on a classic Mac hard drive (ls, cd, etc.).

Attention, Everyone!

[Electric Angst]

Everyone, please, calm down and listen!

I know all of this stuff seems amazing. In fact, most of it really is. What you need to understand, though, is that your 'oohs' and 'ahhs' are not your own.

You are currently under the power of Steve Job's mind-control marketing skillz.!

Now, there is only one way to possibly get out of this situation before Steve has you drinking Kool-Aid and chanting about the glory of NeXT.

First, go to the Apple Store. Now, pick out one of the super-hype systems that amaze you so much.

Play with it.

Configure it.

Now, once you've selected every possible option, and loaded this potentially-yours Apple with all the goodies that make these machines so great, look at the price.

There you go, you're back to normal. These systems are damn cool, but it's probably time to pass...

(Oh, btw... I am an Apple owner and user, so please keep the flaming down...)
--

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Che Guevarra]

You definetly SHOULD buy the Sparc or the Alpha, that way you can join future Apple threads and totally rule.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Noer]

Umm... one thing that's available only on a Mac:

iDVD. If you don't think it's cool, watch the keynote stream. It's friggin amazing. And you can get that on a $3500 system. In time, that SUperdrive will probably be available on much cheaper Macs. Sure, that drive could be put in a PC, but there's no software out there remotely like iDVD yet.

As for other things, well, Mac OS X, for one ;-)

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Che Guevarra]

You head over to Sam's club and look at the prices, I'll be at the Apple store drooling.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[gig]

> (Oh, btw... I am an Apple owner and user, so
> please keep the flaming down...)

I never flame people, but you are an idiot. Go and find me the competition for the high-end Power Mac. There isn't any. Nobody else is offering a $3500 all-in-one solution for making DVD's, let alone one that also makes CD's in the same drive. Nobody else is offering to bump you up to pro DVD making software for only $995. People have been spending $5,000-$10,000 per seat for DVD-authoring workstations.

Even without the SuperDrive, there is so much extra shit in one of these PowerMacs that you just don't get on the PC ... built-in antennae and AirPort, FireWire, booting from USB and FireWire drives, faster PCI bus, mobo on the door, 1.5 GB RAM capacity, one little fan.

Just because you think the PowerMac is too expensive for you to do email with doesn't mean it's too expensive. Apple has iMacs and iBooks for Web and email and such. iBooks are a steal ... 6 hour battery life, wireless, etc. Go get one if that has the right combination of features and economy for you. Or spend $1500 on a beige box with three fans that crashes Windows spectacularly.

Check out the prices on Suns, SGI's, and HP and IBM's workstations. I'm not comparing Macs to those, just asking whether things like the SuperDrive and Mac OS X might merit a place somewhere between those and a generic PC.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[iso]

well a few people have already responded, but a few that i can think of from the last couple of years would be: firewire and usb standard (usb was going nowhere under wintel), consumer level video editing, standard and trivially simple wireless networking, an intuitive and consistant user interface, drag-and-drop integrated CD burning, personal DVD authoring, and hey, how about bringing a full-powered UNIX operating system to consumers (something Linux, after all the hype still can't seem to come close to doing).

perhaps they're not the innovations that are important to you but that doesn't make them any less valid. but Apple is consistantly one of the first to bring new technologies (especially those that bring more integration) to the computer industry. meanwhile the PC world is happy to sit back and be painfully backwards compatible, scared of any new standard and eventually implement whatever sticks around the longest. Apple takes a good technology and runs with it.

everybody's saying the PC industry is dying off -- they're seeing a slowdown in growth. why? because the major players are too chickenshit to actually implement anything novel. they sit back and take whatever Microsoft feeds them, and it's in Microsoft's best interests not to change anything. Apple's not always right, but i feel quite frankly that they're doing a hell of a lot more to progress the PC industry than any other group out there, including Linux.

so yes, Apple innovates. and this example of being able to author your own DVDs to play in consumer level DVD players, is an apple innovation. and if it's important to you, you'll pay the "innovation premium."

- j

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[supabeast!]

"Now, once you've selected every possible option, and loaded this potentially-yours Apple with all the goodies that make these machines so great, look at the price."

You have that right. The last time I put together an Apple machine I would consider worth buying, it was over 2000 USD more than I spent on my ultra-high end PC.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[iso]

Now, once you've selected every possible option, and loaded this potentially-yours Apple with all the goodies that make these machines so great, look at the price.

yes, Apple is an innovator. they come out with a lot of "industry firsts," and as a whole system, make a better product for many markets. if you want these features that are only available on Macs today, you pay for it. if you don't mind waiting until PCs eventually catch up, don't pay for it.

i don't see how what you've said is particularly novel. for the people who want/need these features and abilities, they pay for them. it's that simple.

- j

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Incongruity]

Even without the SuperDrive, there is so much extra shit in one of these PowerMacs that you just don't get on the PC ... built-in antennae and AirPort, FireWire, booting from USB and FireWire drives, faster PCI bus, mobo on the door, 1.5 GB RAM capacity, one little fan. There is a WONDERFUL point hidden in there... the motherboard on the door...the simple fact of the matter is that the Apple case design is AMAZING. I work with Dell's latest offerings, as well as with Apple's and a few of Gateway's. Anyone who has had to do anything like adding RAM, swaping drives or installing PCI cards into one of Dell's machines and into a G4 knows how much more useable and well designed Apple's enclosures are. This in itself is worth some money.

Re:Attention, Everyone!

[Zoltar]

Who marked this as flambait/troll ??????

Good grief - this man speaketh the truth. Boy, I remember when your typical slashdotter had a clue

Re:ntsc or pal?

[MonkeyBoy]

That's true, DVD uses MPEG2, MPEG2 is 720x480 for widescreen movies.

I'm not sure what resolution they do in "fullscreen" movies though. Certainly higher resolution than MPEG1 (352x240 & 352x2...60? 288? NTSC & PAL, respectively).

However, due to massive sleep deprivation, I can't remember if the PAL aspect ratio is 4:3 or something else... probably 4:3 and just more resolution. So either the fullscreen resolution is higher than both PAL & NTSC, then 'dithered' down in the tuner, or it stretches up NTSC the same way. Yeah, not damn likely on the latter...

If only...

[Black Parrot]

If only it had 3 mouse buttons.

What's the problem? Lots of XF86 users emulate three buttons with two. Just add another layer of emulation: emulate two buttons with one, and then emulate three buttons with the two.

--

Re:If only...

[Black Parrot]

> Ummm, how do I 'chord' one mouse button?

Sorry; I was trying to be witty.

Slashdot need a moderation "-1, tried to be funny and wasn't".

--

Re:If only...

[SquadBoy]

There already is 3 button emulation for the 1 button mouse. It is just a pain in the arse. On a desktop though you can put a trackball on it and be happy.

Links

[green pizza]

Apple

New PowerBook G4

Updated PowerMac G4

iDVD

DVD Studio Pro

iTunes

Re:Links

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, you are the most content free karma-whore I have ever seen. Jesus Christ on a fucked up crutch. If I had the ability I would mod you down to -5 fucking clueless idiot.

Are people really too stupid to find "apple.com" with their chosen extension? If you get modded up I will have no choice but to track down the moderators (all of them) and have them shot in the town square.

So?

[Wakko Warner]

Did you see the price of the 733 MHz G4? $3500! The average consumer will look at the price, probably throw up, then walk across CompUSA to the PC section where they'll find 800 and 900 MHz x86-based systems for well under $1500.

- A.P.

--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.

Re:So?

[tonywong]

The 733 comes with the DVD Superdrive, which alone retails for $3899. So $3500 is quite a deal right now especially since iDVD is so cool. Of course, give it a few months and the drive will be a couple of hundred, but if you need to live on the bleeding edge...

Re:So?

[Ravendon]

"but until they cut the shit and let me buy a machine straight up without a bunch of silly multimedia software that I have no use for..." The multimedia "shit" is free. How does that figure into the price? As for reasonable price, what price would you deem sufficiently low for the technology you get? $1000? How about $2000? I figure that you get what you pay for.

Re:So?

[gig]

Change "Apple" in your post to "Sun", and change "multimedia" to "enterprise management". Now, see how much sense it really makes.

Mac OS X comes out in three months, and the new version of Mac OS 9 that came out today (9.0 became 9.1) is so unexciting to everybody in the Mac community that it didn't even merit a mention in the Steve Jobs keynote. Don't you think that represents a factor that might mitigate against positive sales performance? It's not that people aren't willing to pay what Apple's asking, it's just that everybody and their brother is hanging on as long as they can for the start of this new era for the Mac.

I mean, did you rush out and buy a Windows NT 4 Service Pack 5 machine just three months before Windows 2000 shipped? Did you grab a new Windows 3.1 machine in April of 1995? Nobody wants to buy a machine and then upgrade the OS to a dramatically different version only a few months later.

Re:So?

[Lowdown]

really? i didn't know AMD made systems. i'm sure that Duron looks really cool just sitting there on you desk but is it really functional?

Re:The Clock is Back

[iso]

it's a nice little addition, but i think the best part of all the Aqua changes was that it showed Apple actually listened to the user feedback. that's a very good thing.

some animations of the changes can be found at the recently updated MacOS X Theatre.

my favourite change is that it appears the dock can be moved to the right or left side of the screen! i'm a litle surprised Apple didn't make this available through a option+click+drag, but i guess they want to shield all those newbie users from dramatic changes to the interface :). at any rate, it's nice that it's available as a hack from the terminal. the dock on the right will make it feel more like Windowmaker/NeXTStep and that's good news to me! :)

- j

Re:Beautiful PowerBook and Price Cuts - no surpris

[Jezz]

Heh, I don't think anyone at Apple really expected the suits to buy those Key Lime iBooks. It's more a student thing I guess.

As you say most was pretty unsurprising. But that G4 PowerBook is pretty funky - as a new Mac user (since Mac OS X Server) this is great. I'll also be doing a lot of travelling and living in "digs" so I couldn't be more pleased with the PowerBook.

Does anyone have a close-up of the keyboard? Is it like the old one? Any ideas as to why it doesn't run across the whole body? (the speaker could have been moved)

correction:

[Schnedt Microne]

the above should read (esc)-X-shell

Re:Powerbook G4

[willy_me]

Sorry, that was an AC adapter not an external charger. Willy

Steve does it again.

[juuri]

Maybe this time it will stick... most of you guys prolly don't recall but when NeXT machines first came out they had Magneto Optical disks on them.

At the time these were like 3-5k drives... but somehow Steve managed to confuse someone into selling them to him cheap enough to make them standard on Cubes. Now it looks as though he has done it again with DVD-RW. Hopefully this time it will stick around...

Re:The Clock is Back

[frogstomper]

my favourite change is that it appears the dock can be moved to the right or left side of the screen!

What? Where'd you get that?

Re:So's the Apple in the left hand corner!

[frogstomper]

No, no control strip. They're trying to cram it into the dock (yes, that too) by allowing system preference panels to be docked and have custom menus.

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[Neuracnu Coyote]

ok i'm being lazy but is the idvd menuing stuff open at all? it sounds like a great place to have a standard

Considering it works in all DVD players, I'm assuming the software complies with current DVD menu standards. But I seriously doubt it's open.

You can't have everything.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[sethgecko]

ummm... windows 3.1 runs reall fast on a 486. you must mean windows 95/98. 3.1 was very small, very fast. terrible interface, but very fast.

Re:So what about the encryption keys ....

[junkman]

It should.
The region coding is an OPTION for the content creator/distributor, who would like to control the realease of his or her own product.
Presumably, you don't really care if you're baby videos are watched by some uncle stuck in the Amazon.

Re:clock rate

[NotAnotherReboot]

It has been known for awhile that a 1.5 GHz Pentium III isn't twice as fast as a 750 Mhz Pentium III. No real surprise there. Ok, so as for the "demonstartion." As far as it goes, yes, very impressive with the Adobe application. However, does it "kick the butt" out of the Pentium 4 in every single test. Definitely not. Yes, the architectures are different. The G4 is a CISC processor to my knowledge, and the P4 is a RISC processor. So, that's all fine and dandy..but when you get down to it, the CISC processor WILL dominate a few things in specific. However, overall the RISC processor will perform well in more applications/games/etc. Therefore, the G4 doesn't kick the butt out of a P4 in general. I'd be willing to say the P4 would dominate in most other categories. I hope I was all technically correct, if I wasn't, feel free to fix me up. :)

you make no sense.

[gagganator]

the only points you make in the t21s favour are that it has a ridiculously high resolution (no one is going to run a screen that small at 1400x1050), it is lighter (less than a pound), and a previous series has proven itself on the market for seven or eight months (so? the previous version of the pb g4 has proven itself on the market for almost 3 _years_)

now look at what the powerbook g4 has over the t21: a g4 with vector processing unit (no, no other laptop comes close), _five_ hour battery, firewire, 15" widescreen, just 1 inch thick!

i can understand you feel foolish for just getting the t21 and need to reassure yourself, but there is always ebay. and oh, the powerbook g4 will run os x better than your t21 ever will!

Watch the keynote

[GPS Pilot]

Fire up your QuickTime Player, hit Command-U or control-U, and paste in this URL:
http://stream.apple.akadns.net/keynote_010901_ref. mov

The quality of the streaming video is much better if you use QuickTime 5 PR2 (get it at apple.com/quicktime/preview).

Re:Watch the keynote

[Speare]

Link given (http://stream.apple.akadns.net/keynote_010901_ref . mov) was broken due to the magic of "spacedot," that lazy perl code that adds rand om sp a ces to lon g wor ds, as if mySQL or Perl or HTML really had such wordwrapping limits.

Fixed:
http://stream.apple.akadns.net/keynote_010901_ref. mov

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[plastik55]

For those who complain about the "inability to replace" with the middle mouse, I will have to point out (yet again) that the X behavior is exactly the same as the much-lauded "drag and drop" except you don't have to hold the damn mouse button down as you move to the drop site.

First of all, "Drag and drop" doesn't mess with your clipboard, so the X behavior is NOT the same.

Secondly, talking about "drag and drop" in response to the "inability to replace" criticism is apples and orages, to put it nicely. MacOS and Windows provide drag and drop IN ADDITION to, and INDEPENDENT OF the clipboard. Whereas in UNIX desktops, if you select some text in your word processor, it automatically erases whatever was in the clipboard. I think the point you were trying to make is that drag and drop, and the X clipboard are so close in functionality that they are mutually exclusive. WhereasMacOS and Windows provide two different mechanisms that are useful in different ways, increasing the usability of the system.

The lesson is this. Say that "copy and paste" is a wrench, and "drag and drop" is a pair of pliers. Bear with me... Both tools are similar. You can turn a nut, poorly, with a pair of pliers, and you can bend a sheet of metal, poorly, with a wrench. (that is to say, any task involving movign around text can be accomplished, after a fashion, with either mechanism.) But you're much more productive if you have access to both tools. If the tools are independent (as in MacOS and Windows) you can accomplish more complicated things, like (metaphorically speaking) holding one end of something with the pliers while turning the other end with a wrench. (or keeping a couple of important sentences in the clipboard while rearranging other sentences using drag-and-drop.) What X gives you is a monstrous "multi-tool" with a wrench on one end and a pliers on the other, made so that you can't use both at the same time. (or, while you try to move sentences around with drag and drop, your clipboard disappears. Useful, that.)

As for "having to hold the mouse button down," well, it's not hard to map one of your plethora of mouse buttons to a drag-lock. "Mechanisms, not policy," remember?

iAmSickOfI

[RoninM]

iAmSickOfI. iBlameJobs 'eIsResponsibleForIt. iAmRemindedOfHungarianNotation, 'eShouldBeShotForThis. iNeedMy iGun.

e, i, e, i, oh fuck off.

Re:iAmSickOfI

[RoninM]

It's $3.25, thanks. I go for the higher grade stuff.

Re:iAmSickOfI

[gkbarr]

Nice to see that the $3 crack isn't reserved for just the moderators... or should I say iCrack.
Hey, now that's pretty catchy.

--G Barr
Damn it feels good to be a Mac guy.

Mouse buttons...

[Omar]

(if only it had 3 mouse buttons)
It took long enough to get 2 mouse buttons... I wouldn't be holding my breath for 3 :)

Re:heh...

[NoOneSpecial]

Trashed?

Do you mean a third party drive didn't work in your Mac? I have never had this problem. (In fact -- I have had several Maxtor drives die that came from apple. I replaced them with IBM drives, and they worked much better).

Or do you mean 'trashed' in that it was Mac-only after it was used in the apple? Is a drive trashed if fdisk can't delete it? I had an Ex-NT drive that was 'trashed' in this manner. In fact, by this definition, everything but Win95 'trashes' a drive (Win98 uses FAT32 which has problems on Win95 machines).

So's the Apple in the left hand corner!

[MsGeek]

Ooh! An Apple in the left hand corner, where Goddess intended it to be. Could this be the return of the Apple Menu??? Could it be????

It would be nice if they had the control strip back, and the trashcan where it's supposed to be, and drives on the desktop, but I suppose I'm asking too much.

Looks like the DVD-CCA's worst nightmare

[Argyle]

With an affordable DVD burner, you don't even need DeCSS.

You can do a track by track clone of a DVD and get a perfect copy if you have a DVD player and burner in the same system.

Netflix + new Pioneer Superdrive = big DVD library. Wait until you are buying DVD blanks on spindles like we do with CDRs.

I predict the first lawsuit will be filed within a month.
-----

Re:Looks like the DVD-CCA's worst nightmare

[suzerain]

secondly, i really hope it's possible to burn region-free DVDs. i don't want region coding infecting the movies i create.

Well, this is not a definitive answer, but I watched the keynote, and Mr. Jobs was very careful to say that you can "watch your DVD on any of the 10 million consumer-grade DVD players in the United States". I don't know if that limiter was intentional or not.

However, the professional version can surely encode DVDs in any format.

This is all based on technology Apple acquired from Astarte several months ago, BTW. (And iMusic is based on technology acquired from Casady & Greene and Radialogic merged into one.)

Re:Looks like the DVD-CCA's worst nightmare

[iso]

You can do a track by track clone of a DVD and get a perfect copy if you have a DVD player and burner in the same system.

well no, not exactly. by the looks of things, i'm not really sure there is a way to do a track-by-track copy of a DVD. as far as i know there's no "ripping" option to make an image of a DVD, and from what i've seen, there's no "burn from image" option on these new Macs.

while it would be possible to "rip" the video stream and re-encode it to a new DVD, you'd be without the DVD menu, or any of the extras that ship on DVDs these days. not to mention the fact that this would be an extremely long procedure, and not worth it to most people.

i imagine the real "danger" would be from people downloading DiV/Xs from the net, converting them to Quicktime, and then burning them to iDVD. still not ideal, as you only get the "bare movie," but probably good enough for most casual pirates.

still, unless i'm reading all of this wrong, there's no way to make bit-for-bit copies of DVDs using this drive. this could all change in the future however, as it seems that the only thing holding it back is the availability of proper software.

a couple of things: it should be noted that Apple will be selling blank DVD media (that will play in commercial players) for $10/each. that's amazing. secondly, i really hope it's possible to burn region-free DVDs. i don't want region coding infecting the movies i create.

- j

Re:Looks like the DVD-CCA's worst nightmare

[Erasmus Darwin]

With an affordable DVD burner, you don't even need DeCSS.

First, that doesn't address the issue of region coding. A byte-for-byte copy of a disk from another region is going to be just as unplayable in a standard, region-based player.

Second, I believe that burned DVDs have a lower capacity than commercially pressed DVDs. According to the first hit on "DVD burner" in google, it appears that the DVD-R specs are just for burning a single-side/single-layer, giving 4.7 gigs of storage. Certainly worth drooling over, but not enough for massive movie piracy.

Re:OSX updates buried in the gee-whiz hardware new

[frogstomper]

The apple menu isn't back. There's a new menu with an apple icon as its title, bit it's not the apple menu, it's a system-wide command menu.

No talk of OS X as server

[shadowplay]

I didn't notice any mention of the underlying FreeBSD based server achitecture during the broadcast today on TechTV. I do wonder how much server will remain behind the client-centric GUI. Will this be something to replace our Linux/XFree setup?

Re:No talk of OS X as server

[softweyr]

I didn't notice any mention of the underlying FreeBSD based server achitecture during the broadcast today on TechTV. I do wonder how much server will remain behind the client-centric GUI. Will this be something to replace our Linux/XFree setup?

It's all still in there. Jordan K. Hubbard was recently interviewed and commented how sublimed it was to see GNU Emacs running on a Mac. Apache builds and installs -- I think it's included in the Public Beta. XF86 4.02 compiles on Darwin, the Open Source version of the operating system (minus the stunning Aqua user interface).

As OS X gets out and forms more of a developer community, bring over UNIX applications from FreeBSD (and Linux) will advance. Imagine an inexpensive, reliable computer like the iMac with the lovely GUI for family members and FreeBSD's 4500+ UNIX applications, stellar networking, and a reliable OS under the hood.

I already got an iMac for my father, maybe it's time to get me one too.

Also...

[artemis67]

He showed that OS 9 (9.1?) and OS X will be be able to burn CD-R/CD-RW's directly from the Finder. When you insert a blank CD-R, it is mounted on the desktop, and you can drag files and folders to it. It doesn't actually rip the CD until you go to unmount it.

Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[green pizza]

Steve Jobs claims that the MPEG-2 (encoding) CODEC that iDVD and DVD Studio Pro use is "much faster than any other". He claims that most other software encoders for MPEG-2 run at about a 20:1 ratio, while the CODEC Apple has can encode at about a 2:1 ratio on a G4... that is, 30 minutes of video can be encoded into MPEG-2 format in about 60 minutes.

That's fine and dandy, but how fast are other software encoders out there? Are they really as slow as 20:1? Perhaps they're even faster than Apple's 2:1 claim? Curious.

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[mihalis]

The Sun ULTRA2 (or maybe ULTRA1?) can do two NTSC size MPEG2 streams at once using the "VIS extensions" (which are a bit like AltiVec, SSE/SSE2/3DNow/all the other SIMD extensions). I don't know if that includes an audio track, or disk I/O. The ULTRA2 is many years old and no longer sold by Sun. I assume the newer systems can do a way better job.

Note: the Ultra2 may not be all that fast, but I think the PDIST (or PDIFF?) instruction is extreamly MPEG2-codec-centric and helps make up a lot of ground in this benchmark.

Aren't you thinking of MPEG2 _decoding_? Ultra 1s ran at, what, 167MHz, something like that? Ultra 2s maxed out at something like 300MHz. I seriously doubt a 300MHz UltraSPARC II is about 4X faster than a Motorola "G4".

The only cpu in the UltraSPARC II days that could do real-time MPEG2 encoding was the Alpha 21264, let alone two streams.

Correct me if I'm wrong :)

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[gig]

Isn't that a hardware solution that you're talking about, though? The point he made in the keynote was that running this stuff in software can take many more hours. Keep in mind that this is a consumer-level software product. He's not talking about their pro level product, there.

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[Ma'at]

Sony's top-of-the-line encoder runs at about 3:1 time to compress, but that's for variable-bit-rate encoding. If Apple's encoder was benchmarked at a fixed-rate encode, 2:1 is very possible. The problem is that a feature length film done at a fixed rate encode will end up looking like crap if you want to get it on a DVD. Fixed-rate encoding set to high quality will be fine for a half hour program, but getting a quality encode on a big file takes a long time.

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[stripes]

Aren't you thinking of MPEG2 _decoding_? Ultra 1s ran at, what, 167MHz, something like that? Ultra 2s maxed out at something like 300MHz. I seriously doubt a 300MHz UltraSPARC II is about 4X faster than a Motorola "G4".

I think it is encode speed, but I can't find my "VIS Propaganda Manual" anywhere. I'm pretty sure the pixel-distance instruction that does the work of about 40 other instructions in a single cycle and most of the work a macro block needs made it a whole whole whole lot faster.

I'll look for the thing when I get back to work, it may be on my bookshelf there. If it wern't for the fact that I know the pixel distance instruction is useless to a decoder I would doubt my memory.

To Job's credit Sun did such a stunningly poor job of selling that feature, that iDVD on the Mac years later still looks stunning. Even to me :-)

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[Refrag]

DVD Studio Pro does allow you to use other, potentially hardware, encoders instead of Apple's if you choose. I'm not sure if iDVD does this or not.


Refrag

Re:Question about Apple's MPEG-2 CODEC

[iso]

Perhaps they're even faster than Apple's 2:1 claim? Curious.

possibly, but the Apple encoder is highly Altivec enhanced. after you get through all the Marketing hype surrounding Apple products, Altivec is still a very impressive technology (albeit a Motorola technology, not Apple).

remember, the G4 completely wipes the floor with a Pentium 4 ... when the applications are Altivec enhanced. this is one of those cases where i imagine the G4 really would outperform a top-of-the-line Pentium, as something like encoding MPEG-2 is pretty much what Altivec is designed for.

- j

Re:Gigabit Ethernet

[Detritus]

1000BASE-T creates a 250 megabit full duplex channel on each of the four pairs of wire in a CAT-5 cable. The nodes on each end of the cable transmit and receive in the same frequency band. They use hybrids and echo cancellation, much like a high-speed modem, to separate the transmitted signal from the received signal. A 3COM paper on the subject is available here.

doubt it

[Gorimek]

Apple sells the same systems all over the world and goes to great lengths to see that it works everywhere. Besides, the main application is (supposedly, at least) as a medium for your home movies.

You'll probably have to pick NTSC or PAL though. Or have both side by side.

And it only writes 4.7 Gig, which is about 1 hour of video.

The iDvd info pages are up now.

Powerbook G4

[apirkle]

Some of the specs on the new Powerbook...

• 1" thick titanium case (13.5x9.5x1)
• Weighs 5.3 pounds
• 5 hour battery life
• 400 or 500 MHz PowerPC G4
• 15.2-inch diagonal widescreen (3:2 ratio) display
• Slot-loading DVD drive
• Up to 1GB of RAM
• Up to 30GB of disk space
• Built-in Airport antenna

With the full release of OS X just around the corner (March 24 I hear), this thing is looking really nice - the uberlaptop. Light, decent battery life, sleek, powerful - and with OS X, it's even UNIX. Plus, who doesn't want a portable widescreen DVD player?

Re:Powerbook G4

[gig]

The IBM runs half speed on batteries, too, doesn't it? Is the 4.5 a typo? On an Intel notebook? I think you mean 2.5. Is the IBM really only an inch thick? The VAIO is thicker than that.

Apple's notebook prices are usually fantastic. The battery life is way up there, the CPU's are the same as the desktop models and run full speed, and they can always take a large amount of RAM. Also, AirPort is fantastic, and having the antennae inside the box is the only way to go.

Re:Powerbook G4

[Afterimage]

Uh, there's no floppy drive. I had my grubby hands on one for a little while today. and there's no room for one... And yes, that screen is very sveet.

There is, however, a Type III PC card on the left side.

clock rate

[GPS Pilot]

I eagerly await the day when people realize clock rate means nothing when comparing different processor architectures. If you watched the keynote, you saw a G4 733 MHz kick the butt of a Pentium 4 1500 MHz. You can't explain that away with technobabble... why do you even try?

Re:clock rate

[the gnat]

Most of the other apps people use a lot (Office, browsers, e-mail, etc) don't max out the processor anyway, and run fast enough on ANY computer that was sold in the last 3-4 years.

Like, duh. The dual PIII-933 with 1GB RAM at the desk behind me isn't much better at web browsing than the old PPro-200 I took home, considering what it cost. And last year I was using a SPARCStation LX for web browsing and X. Even with Solaris, it wasn't much slower than the iMac I had before that, or the PPro. Sure, compiling with gcc is a bitch- but Joe Average or Joe Photoshop does that how often? [frankly, not having it crash every ten minutes was well worth the speed loss]

This is all on the same field as the "why buy Sun or SGI when you can get a PC and put Linux on it" argument. If I want to run Linux, I'll get a PC (which I did); I doubt it'll hold up nearly as well as my SPARCstation (almost 9 years old). If I want to run an innovative, intuitive first-class graphical OS on a machine that'll have good shelf life, I'll buy a Mac sometime after March 24th. Or perhaps finally buy one of those used SGI Indigo2s on Usenet. :)

Apple has three core user groups- graphics/publishing pros, people who want simplicity and ease of use above all else, and Mac fanatics. Their machines are perfect for all of these people. Sure, their current OS is ass, but some of the other apps easily make up for this in pitching Macs to the public. And I don't see anyone coming out with an OS as well-conceived as OS X- it's not perfect, and I wouldn't use it as a web server, but I'd rather use that than the Linux workstation I have now.

Re:clock rate

[frogenstein]

Have you ever looked at the fine print in PPC benchmarking from apple? 98% of the time it's photoshop. Why? Because there is a special instruction set (Altivec) that speeds up some operations significantly... No matter how much Apple benchmarks Photoshop, it's still not a significant metric of overall system performance.

So What? PhotoShop and other apps that use AltiVec acceleration are the applications most likely to use and need a lot of processing power. They are also the applications that Mac Users make there money on and are most sensitive about the performance of. Office productivity apps and text editors hardly need to be run on high performance applications but FinalCut Pro, Photoshop, Premiere, Avid, etc. etc. etc. do - it is perfectly valid to use applications of that type, the ones Mac users most care about, as the best benchmarks of system performance.

They don't quote industry-standard SPEC numbers. STREAM?

And I have never billed a client for running SPEC or STREAM benchmarks on my computer. My computers performance on those benchmarks is only tenuously related to my computing needs - Photoshop benchmarks on the other hand have a direct 1:1 relationship to my productivity and is perhaps the ONLY benchmark that really matters to the target market for the PowerMac G4.

Re:clock rate

[Pemdas]

If you watched the keynote, you saw a G4 733 MHz kick the butt of a Pentium 4 1500 MHz. You can't explain that away with technobabble... why do you even try?

If you let me pick the benchmark, I'll happily show you a 333 Mhz PII beating up on a 733Mhz PPC. Have you ever looked at the fine print in PPC benchmarking from apple? 98% of the time it's photoshop. Why? Because there is a special instruction set (Altivec) that speeds up some operations significantly.

They don't quote industry-standard SPEC numbers. STREAM? Nope. No matter how much Apple benchmarks Photoshop, it's still not a significant metric of overall system performance.

As I see it, the only reason such benchmarking works is because people WANT to believe Apple is faster

Megahertz is certainly not everything. But it's also not nothing, especially when the microarchitectural aggressiveness of the cores being compared are similar, as they are in this case.

Re:clock rate

[rhavyn]

The photoshop argument is fine and dandy except Apple is targeting iMacs and iBooks and all that towards people who will never use Photoshop. If all your machine is really good at is Photoshop (and albeit, I know that isn't true, but Apple's benchmarks certainly make it look that way) then you shouldn't be targetting it at people who don't use Photoshop.

Re:clock rate

[zhensel]

In photoshop. Yes, clock is hardly everything, but a p4 1500 will undoubtedly whip a 733 g4 in post everything with the exception of a photoshop tuned specifically for an operating system/processor that is made almost entirely for that type of application. No one ever said that wintel machines were better for Photoshop. Hell, even though the g4 is great at it, compare a seti run on the 733 and the p4 1500. Guess who'll win. At equal clocks the g4 would blow the competition away (so yes, clock isn't everything), but at less than half the rate, it just isn't going to match up in most areas.

Beautiful PowerBook and Price Cuts - no surprises

[nellardo]

Well, the rumors on the new PowerBook were dead on. Even so, the machine is impressive - a lot of stuff in a small space. And elegant - executives will happily tote this around when they wouldn't touch a lime green iBook.

The price cuts were also no big surprise - of course the audience cheered, but the press had been giving Apple a beating for the past month or so about soft sales. "Soft Sales? Price Cut!" Apple had already been doing it in the form of rebates.

Even March for OS X was no surprise - CNET called it "late", but that's pretty much what people have been expecting.

Steve always gives a good show, though.

Price?

[joeytsai]

You brought up the price, and I'm always interested in how similar the prices are for comparable hardware.

Using each website's respective "build your system", and trying to find the common components:

apple.com
Dual 533Mhz PowerPC G4, 128MB SDRAM, 40GB Ultra ATA, no monitor, no zip, CD-RW, 32MB DDR Radeon, no multi-head, no scsi, 56K modem, speakers, no airport, 3yr AppleCare. $2807.00

dell.com "Dimension 8100 Limited Edition"
Pentium 4 1.3 Ghz, 40GB UltraAtA, 128 MB RDRAM, no monitor, 3yrs Parts and Labor, 32MB DDR Radeon, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, no zip, SoundBlaster 64, speakers, 56K modem. $1768.00

valinux.com "StartX MP"
Dual Pentium III 800Mhz, 128MB ECC SDRAM, 41GB, no scsi, no raid, 40x CD-ROM, 32 MB Matrox G400, Ensoniq AudioPCI, 56K modem, EEPro 10/100 Ethernet, "Total Linux Coverage" (whatever that is), Yahmaha speakers. $2396.00

Notes: The Dell is a uniprocessor. The Dell gives you a DVD-ROM. Dell also gives you a year of internet access. I'm guessing Apple gives you a soundcard. valinux fores you to have an ethernet card (can't put quantity to 0). valinux doesn't provide an obvious way to add a DVD/CD-RW option.

Re:Price?

[tak amalak]

Actually ethernet is 10/100/1000 on the Mac. Not much of a difference now, but it is forward thinking. Also, the Apple motherboard has 4 64bit PCI slots.
--

Re:Price?

[gig]

The gigabit ethernet is plenty useful now, if you move huge files around, like a lot of Apple's customers. Apple has had gigabit ethernet standard for quite a while because people asked for it.

The Mac can also take 1.5 GB of RAM and boot from any fixed or removable disk attached to the system through SCSI, ATA, FireWire, or USB. The PCI bus is over 200Mbs, suitable for high-bandwidth video-editing cards. It has 2 FireWire ports, comes with iMovie, iTunes, an optical mouse, and analog and digital display connectors. The fan inside the box turns itself off when the box gets cool enough, like during sleep. It wakes up completely in one second when running Mac OS X. The CPU daughtercard is upgradable (for real). The motherboard is on the drop-down door, so it's easy to get at it and put in RAM or an AirPort card. Oh yeah, it has antennae inside the box and a slot for a $99 AirPort card that turns the box into a wireless client or a base station for other machines. Pretty good-looking boxes, too.

Re:Price?

[chancycat]

Nobody today argues that Apple competes on price. Their prices are considered by the majority of their purchasers to be reasonable, considering the "design/quality/fun/classiness/ease-of-use" AND the fundimental OS+processing power.

Anyone wanting a fast CPU and memory who doesn't care about the look of their box on or under their desk or the GUI, should choose a x86 PC for less money. Apple and the majority of Apple supporters will not argue this.

Also, your post didn't mention the gigabit ethernet feature of the Mac vs. the PCs.

Re:Price?

[frogstomper]

I'm guessing Apple gives you a soundcard.

On-board sound, no card. (This is true of essentially all Macs.)

valinux fores you to have an ethernet card (can't put quantity to 0).

Apple also forces you to have an ethernet interface (again, no slot usage). Oh, and it's 10/100/GB.

Re:Glad to be a Mac user...not glad to be poor.

[Jezz]

Yes - The clock is back in the bar. (getting drunk perhaps?)

Re:An improvement.

[frogstomper]

Commoditizing computers is taking longer than expected, but it will be done. I think Apple's attemts are better than Microsofts. It's a lesser-of-two-evils thing.

Dual G4's look cool.

[Kid Zero]

I have a acquaintance in the publishing biz who just got a dual-G4 machine. I *think* he's running OSX on it, and did load rc5 to benchmark it. something like 4mil keys/sec per processor.

Considering my lousy machine makes maybe 400k per sec, I'm in awe.


-----------------------------
1,2,3,4 Moderation has to Go!

More info

[MotownAvi]

A few interesting points:

• The new PowerMacs come with CD-RW drives (as expected), except for the 733Mhz one which comes with a "SuperDrive" combo CD-RW/DVD-R (not to be confused with the "SuperDrive" high-density floppy drive). The top three models also come with the nVidia GeForce2 MX card, but a Radeon is available as an option.
• OS X is going to be in stores on March 24 (don't have any idea what that date is), and going to be preinstalled on Macs in the summer. The Apple menu is back on the left side of the menubar, and holds general system-wide stuff. It's not configurable. Folders in the dock, when you click and hold, pop up menus of their contents. The buttons in the header in Finder windows are configurable. If the buttons are shown, opening a folder replaces the existing contents; if the buttons are hidden, a new folder is spawned. There is a new widget on the right side of the title bar of windows for toggling the buttons. A status bar ("2 items, 7.9 GB free") is togglable separately.
• iTunes (which Jobs accidentally called "iMusic" once) is a mix of SoundJam MP and Radialogic's CD Master. Plays and rips CDs, burns CDs, for free. Go get it from your iDisk.
• iDVD is quite interesting. It encodes MPEG2 video at half-realtime, and provides a slick, idiot-proof way to build DVDs. The options for menus are varied but limited, and in the demo there always seemed to be an Apple logo in the corner (ugh). There is a pro version of it called DVD Studio Pro, but it wasn't demoed. This is obviously derived from Apple's acquisition of Astarte's software.
• The Titanium PowerBook is sweet. Widescreen LCD, slot-loading DVD drive, G4. Whoo whee!

Avi

Re:More info

[drinkypoo]

The new PowerMacs come with CD-RW drives (as expected), except for the 733Mhz one which comes with a "SuperDrive" combo CD-RW/DVD-R (not to be confused with the "SuperDrive" high-density floppy drive).

Right, and not to be confused with 3M's Superdisk technology (AKA LS-120) or with Ferrari Supercars, or with the comic book character Superman...

Re:More info

[Ma'at]

OS X is going to be in stores on March 24 (don't have any idea what that date is)

March 24th is my birthday, that's what it is!! Whoo-hoo, thank you Uncle Steve!

-Maat

Re:More info

[tak amalak]

Also, no DVD with the systems that only have CD-RW. That could be considered a minus but the lus of having a CD-RW outweighs it. Also, you get an extra 64bit PCI slot with AGP-4 but you get one less DIMM slot (3 total). It's all about trade offs. One other thing I noticed is the motherboard PCB and heatsink is much smaller than before.

Things that stayed the same:

Gb Ethernet (expected)

U-DMA ATA/66 (I was surprised by this one)

--

Re:An improvement.

[el_munkie]

As for the integration of modern interfaces, I acknowledged that in my comment. Yes, Apple has done a good job with PnP devices, certainly much better than the x86 architecture people have.

With the speed of the OS, yes it is a Beta version. I think that we can both agree that the animations and graphical excesses in OSX will take up quite a few cycles. I do not see how they can justify wasting as much time on meaningless eye-candy. A computer is a tool, not a television, and if the GUI hampers the tool, then the computer is hobbled. Do you really need to see the icons in the dock dance up and down after a program start?

Finally, the Motorola chips are more effecient in terms of work. done per cycle. I would love to get a PPC box and slap linux on it, but I will stick to x86 for now thank you.

In short, I do not like what Apple is doing to computers. The most important choice you make when you buy a box is not the decision between Key Lime or Strawberry "Flavors". My dad, a computer illiterate, was almost suckered into buying one, before I explained to him that he was gonna need more than 32Mb of RAM and 4 Gb of HD space to run photoshop properly. Increasing the superficiality and illiteracy of the masses does nothing to help computers out.

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[fluffhead]

I remember back when the original Mac "superdrive" was a 1.44 MB auto-inject/eject floppy drive that would read and write Mac and PC format HD floppies (it was "super" compared to the 400/800KB DD Mac-only drives that were its predecessors). Now we get 4.7GB per disc - super-schweet! You've come a long way, baby...

My only caveat - does the DVD authoring include CSS-free and region-free options? Can you rip & copy DVD's with it? I'd hate for something this cool to be locked into the MPAA's riduculous regime....

#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak

Re:iTunes--a review

[artemis67]

One other thing about iTunes that knocked my socks off--it never skips a beat. I was working in QuarkXPress today with iTunes streaming a jazz station in the background; things like launching QXP and printing a large, graphics-intensive document, two tasks that are guaranteed to bring ANY background task to a screeching halt under OS 9, didn't even cause iTunes to hiccup.

Re:An improvement.

[Graymalkin]

Why the fuck would you give your computer illiterate dad Photoshop? Besides which if you don't like Apple's don't fucking buy them. Maybe to you a computer is "a tool" but to a good deal of people it is just another part of a home entertainment idea. Most end users shouldn't even be exposed to the complexities of computers that X forces on them. Macs are excellent for people who don't care. Computers are around to do things for people, not the other way around.

Steve rules

[WickedClean]

Steve Jobs is so much cooler than Bill Gates. I think Jobs would actually kick your ass if you called him a dork, while Gates would just mouth off about how he is not/has never been/and doesn't see how he could be a dork.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[neko the frog]

For those of us who use Unix an Linux with mice that have three, or more, buttons, the third button is very useful. Just highlight something then middle click and it pastes. That on top of the, what is now standard in GUIs, ^C (or ^X) and ^V you have two clipboards. It can become very useful very quickly.

the problem is that it's pretty inconvenient for cut-and-replace; for example, if you copy a url and want to open it in an already existing netscape window, you have to hilight the url currently in netscape, delete, and then use kclipboard or similar clipboard manager to get back the clipping you had before, and that's somewhat irritating. i much prefer ^c/x/v, but that's just personal prefs, i guess.

Apple Display Connection or VGA

[logiceight]

Does anyonw know if these new G4s come with Apple Display Connections or VGA? I could not find that info anywhere on apples site

Re:Apple Display Connection or VGA

[Afterimage]

Visual exam shows the Ti PBG4 has the following ports:
1 firewire
2 USB
1 VGA
1 SVideo
1 PCMCIA slot (behind a very spiffy grill, and the release button looks like it was lathed from Ti.)

All except the PCMCIA card are protected by a 1 to 2 mm Li hinged door.

Scroll wheels are indespensible

[LameBrain]

i've been using Macs for 15 years and PCs for about 2. i now consider the scroll wheel indespensible.

it is silly to argue against such a useful and timesaving enhancement to the UI. not everything that comes from MS is automatically flawed and evil.

if apple doesn't support scroll wheels and multi button mice natively in OS X, then they are making a huge mistake, IMO. they will not be able to maintain their UI advantage if they ignore such useful innovations.

Re:Scroll wheels are indespensible

[larkost]

MacOS X PB supports both scroll wheels and two button mice right now. I can be absolutely sure because I am using a Kensington 4 button mouse with a scroll wheel right now on my MacOS X PB system, and both work beautifully in all my coccoa apps (Coccoa apps inherit scrolling behavior from the Appkit frameworks, Carbon Apps have to build it themselves, or inherit it from some other framework) There has been a push on the Darwin side to include a third, or more, mousebutton events system-wide.. and this will automatically be folded into the MacOS X project.

Re:Scroll wheels are indespensible

[Moofie]

What does "support natively" mean? My multi-button Mac mouse (a Kensington Thinking Mouse with four buttons) does whatever I tell it to, in whatever application I tell it to.

It's not silly to argue against useful and timesaving enhancements to the UI if they are confusing and can exacerbate RSI. I don't have RSI, and I don't find the scroll wheel confusing, but I know many users with one or both of those problems. People who want multi-button mice can add them.

Gigabit Ethernet

[green pizza]

Is there such a thing as full-duplex gigabit ethernet? Since all tower G4s have GigE, it would be mighty cool to connect to together via a crossover cable at GigE Full Duplex. Can't afford an 8-port GigE switch quite yet.

Re:Backtracking...

[Noer]

Actually, the answer is the unmentioned 3rd possibility, if the new machines are anything like the previous (current before today) machines:

There's a proprietary connector on the motherboard, into which plugs a daughterboard with one or two processors (depending on the system). Thus, you can't just ADD a processor, but you could swap your single-CPU board for a dual-CPU board. I'm assuming Apple hasn't done anything TRULY thoughtful and given us a free ZIF socket to drop a 2nd G4 into, but at least it IS upgradeable... however, Apple has the benefit you mentioned of manufacturing all G4 motherboards the same, and simply dropping different daughtercards into them.

What I find fascinating is that on Apple's web site, buried in the specs, is the fact that the 667 (c'mon, shoulda been 666!) MHz and 733MHz G4s are somewhat DIFFERENT from the 466 and 533 :)

The 466 and 533, like the older 350, 400, 450, 500 G4s, have 1MB of backside L2 cache at 1/2 the CPU speed.

The new 667 and 733 have 256KB of on-chip L2 cache at full CPU speed (like the P4) but ALSO 1MB of backside L3 cache at 1/3 CPU speed. Thus, these are the newer G4s (G4e/G4+????) with onchip cache. That makes me wonder, do they have dual Altivec units?? If so, software that's compiled right might get an even further boost on these. It remains to be seen what these new chips really are (once they ship).

Glad to be a Mac user...not glad to be poor.

[interactive_civilian]

Wow!

I am highly impressed with all of this new stuff. Speed bumped G4s (about time), DVD-R/CD-RW, some cool new software...

Not to mention 5 hours of battery life!!! And Titanium (anyone want to hammer some nails? *grin*)

Ok...this is all pretty cool stuff. Just wish I could afford it! Seems like most, if not all of the new stuff is aimed at either the super rich, or the ultra-professionals that can benefit from this sort of thing. Not too many home users can afford or are willing to pay the $3499 for the only system that allows home DVD authoring.

Now, for some gripes: how about a G3 cube for under $1k? New iBooks perhaps with better resolution? Better servers to handle the /. like effect of thousands of users trying to simulatneously download OS 9.1 update?

Apple has done some really cool things so far with the new stuff at MWSF, but it seems mostly aimed at the returning Mac User. When combining price and performance (mainly price), it doesn't seem like they have done much to try to convert WIntel users.

On a slightly different note, it is nice to see that they listened to feedback about OS X and implemented some of the demands of the public. Of course, we'll have to wait untill March to find out just how much it has improved. By the way, I didn't quite catch this: anyone know if they put the clock back on the menu bar or not?

Ok...I'm going to stop now because this post is all over the place...guess I'm just too excited.

Re:Glad to be a Mac user...not glad to be poor.

[bcrowell]

I'm writing this on my wife's iMac...if you want a cheap machine that does a lot for the money, the iMac is still the bomb.

OK, I too lust for a cube instead of my G4, but then I take a cold shower and the feeling passes.

One thing people should keep in mind when they discuss prices of Macs is that it's always inaccurate to compare with Windoze boxes. With a Mac, you're always getting 24-bit color, sound input and output, and, of course, the world's best and most mature GUI. Nearly all Macs come with video input (used to be those coax connector thingamies, now I guess it's a different interface). All this was true back when a "multimedia" PC meant that it had a CD-ROM drive and 8-bit color. The cheapest PCs are still the ones that lack all these extras.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews

Re:It's not really that bad.

[SPYvSPY]

I think you have succesfully proven nothing. Thanks for trying. If you built that contraption, do you honestly think that each component maufacturer is going to warrant their piece? No, IAAL, and I can tell you that a common exception for warranty coverage is "combination with other devices", believe it or not.

Will your jury-rigged, Rube Golberg-esque mousetrap have DVD authoring? Will it have an integrated tool for ripping, managing and burning CD's that is remotely as elegant as iTunes? Will your heap of wires and ugly beige tincans be able to run FinalCut Pro?

Didn't think so. You can probably heat your apartment with that furnace-like bucket-o-bolts and run exciting *nux programs all day and night long. Seriously, your box might be a good server, but it doesn't interest me at all.

Re:yeah, but didn't he cave to amazon

[HerrNewton]

Do we have to go through this again? What's cheaper: Fighting a court battle or paying a licensing fee? Prolly the licensing fee. Multi-billion corporations are rightly hesitant to place themselves into a legal struggle over a cause, no matter how just that cause is. Apple needs to keep an eye on its bottom line and stock price, and getting into a pissing contest with Amazon.com wouldn't have helped that.

----

wow....

[heldlikesound]

I'm thrilled, Apple is at the forefront of innovation and the future of computing has never looked so interesting or empowering. I've always been an Apple freak, today I not ashamed of that. OSX looks to be the OS to beat this upcoming decade in terms of stability AND ease of use. And for multimedia NOBODY comes close to Apple these days. They may have problems, but they see the future and are paving a road towards REAL convergence between camera, home theater, MP3 players and the like. Steve even referenced Linux users and the Open Source movement in a positive way today, you won't hear the Borg do that! It feels like 1984 all over again.

Stephen

(And don't get me started on the titanium powerbook. If you don't have the money, don't even look at them, you'll go rob a bank or something illegal (but understandable).

Re:wow....

[Graymalkin]

Pay for it fucko. Apple makes alot of money selling Quicktime for a paltry 30$. Linux zealots scream for software to be free if not sourced. If you convince a company those millions of users will pay for the software they will make it.

Re:wow....

[plastik55]

Apple gives the Quicktime player away to everyone in order to entice them to buy the $30 unlocked version. Why not follow the same strategy with Linux?

Re:wow....

[Graymalkin]

Because they are assuming no one will pay for the Linux version. Lots of people pay for the unlocked version of Quicktime which makes it profitable. Linux users are by far historically against paying for any set of 1's and 0's stored on their hard drives. If you pay for it they will develop it. Which is why I originally said you need to convince Apple people will indeed pay for the Linux port of Quicktime in order for them to develop it. Porting it will cost a fair deal of money (there is alot to port) as well as more licensing fees they'll need to pay for CODECs.

But Steve *is* Hollywood.

[Gorimek]

As CEO of Pixar and semi-major player in Disney Movies Steve is part of Hollywood, and probably even a member of RIAA.

So that would make any attempts to subvert their interest intriguing. But there's probably a catch in the fine print.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[frinkster]

Since this an Apple news item, I think I should reply. I have an MS Intellimouse Explorer and to work with OS 9, I needed to download drivers from MS (why didn't they just put them on the CD it came with?). On OS X PB, I didn't need drivers for it to work, though not all apps support the scroll wheel. I use OmniWeb instead of IE on OS X because OmniWeb works with the wheel. And I agree, now that I've used a wheel mouse, there is no going back.

BTW, the two side buttons don't work in OS X.

Re:URL link in story?

[Smitty825]

ummm...how about try just about any Mac site you can think of:

Mac Slash (they even use Slash!)

Xlr8yourMac

Macintouch

...and don't forget the "big" news sites like:

News.com

and

MacWeek

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[Xerithane]

In response to point #2 - I never used a scroll wheel and resented them because they always felt intrusive and annoying sitting there in the center of the bloody mouse.

I finally decided about 3 months ago to try actually getting one of them to work (I only have unix systems) and after about 20 minutes had it working quite well using imwheel.

Now, not only does this work on web pages but it gets bound with the PageUp/PageDown so it's very handy with tons and tons of other applications (IRC, terms, editors, hell.. I even have used it with vi)

Now I'm stuck buying damn wheel mice because I found them to be very useful - you sound like you really haven't used them that much, or given them a fair chance - I know this because I used to sound just like you, before I got used to them.

ntsc or pal?

[gagganator]

arent those standards for analog tv? i dont think that has anything to do with the way the dvd is burnt. prob only an issue for player to tv transmission

Re:ntsc or pal?

[Apotsy]

The resolution is 720x480 always. It's just that the pixels are considered square or non-square depending on whether the video has a bit set indicating 16:9. If you try to show 16:9 video on a 4:3 display, it's up to the player to scale it down and add letterbox borders to make it fit.

Re:*&(&@$ deceptive benchmarks!

[l-ascorbic]

Is Apple joining Linux as one of the "untouchable negatives" on Slashdot?

I certainly hope so. Saint Steve of Cupertino is the iGod of computing. And don't argue.

MPEG 4 DVD = 6 or 7 movies

[NigelJohnstone]

If you ripped the DVD into MPEG4 format, you could put a selection of movies on a single DVD for watching on long boring trips.
Or maybe a full StarTrek season.

Just a suggestion if anyone has some coding time on their hands.

Re:iTunes--a review

[berniecase]

What's missing? Support for my CD burner would be nice.

Don't you fret. Jobs said that as soon as they can develop and test them, plugins for the most popular burners will be available for download from Apple's site for iTunes.

--Bernie

Re:Interesting...

[BrentN]

Probably because they ship with OS 9.1, which is not compatible with the OSX PB

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[J.C.B.]

I doubt that you'll be able to copy DVDs easily with this. The MPAA requires everyone that licenses CSS to disallow access to the decoded movie. You won't be able to rip DVDs with Apple's software, but this really isn't Apple's fault. They'd be in deep legal shit if they did.

Re:An improvement.

[el_munkie]

My dad is a professional photographer, photoshop is a nessecity. Even if computers are just an entertainment center to some people, they should still give a rats ass about what is inside them. Woudld anyone, car enthusiast or not, buy a car when they don't know what milage it gets, or what type of engine is under the hood? Of course not. If you are gonna invest more than a few hundred bucks in a product, you should have a rudimentary understanding of what is inside it and how it works. Shielding people from the complexities of an OS will not help either. When stuff goes wrong, they need to know why and how it can be fixed.

Powermac's are cool!... but so is cash.

[cbwsdot]

*dons flame-retardant suit*
shipping included in all items: abit vp6: $160
pentium 3 @ 933(x2): $600
gigabit ethernet: $275
512mb RAM (2x256) @133: $160
dvd-r: $375
cdrw (8x4x32x): $125
all-in-wonder radeon ddr: $250
soundblaster live!: $150
modem (non-winmodem): $62
60gb ata hdd: $208
sony trinitotron 17": $ 242
total: $4400...(whoops thats the total for an eqivalent (almost) powerpc)
the real total is $2600.
Ill think I'll ill use the 1800 left to eat for about 6 months.

--

heh...

[interactive_civilian]

Only $10,047 for my dream setup:
the High end 733MHz G4 system w/ DVD-R
1.5GB RAM
120GB HD space total
22" Flat Panel
GeForce 2 MX
Airport (the cheapest thing I picked)

ahhh...a boy can dream, can't he?

Re:heh...

[Electric Angst]

Damn, only $10,047

The one I wanted was $13,956. Of course, I went for the dual 533mhz and the three 32gig drives...
--

Re:heh...

[larkost]

<p>I think he is getting confused, remembering that the Apple standard drivers don't always want to install onto unrecognized hardware (Apple's way of protecting themselves from being held responsible for hardware/driver interactions that they don't test for).</p>

<p>I have run into more situations where I had to use a mac to rescue a drive that a PC had 'trashed'. In more than a few cases I was able to get a mac to read data off a problematic or virus infected PC hard drive. Didn't even have to worry about any sort of virus infecting my work computer. Even had a case where the power failed on an NT box in the middle of a low-level format and NT wouldn't touch the drive. Apple's disk tool looked at it, told me it was 'unreadable' and then offered to format it. A couple of hours later (low level format + zero all data), the NT box was happy with it's reformatted drive.</p>

Re:heh...

[crayz]

Considering that Apple doesn't make hard drives, that is really quite unfortunate.

Re:heh...

[TWR]

Why would you buy RAM and hard disk from Apple? I can kinda understand getting the flat panel, as it is far prettier (and according to all the reviews I've seen, simply better) than all the other flat panels out there. But if you want to cut $4K off the price...

-jon

Re:heh...

[firewort]

please. like fdisk is a good example of a capable program.

use Ranish Partition Manager.
if that doesn't get it, use debug to really wipe it.

A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close

Re:Making Friends With the MPAA -- NOT!

[lizrd]

From my standpoint $10 still qualifys as a high cost of media deterrent. I can buy most movies that have been out more than a month or two for $12-15 at Best Buy. Why would I rent a DVD at a cost of $3.50 so that I could burn it onto a $10 DVD blank? Despite the "perfect digital transfer" I've saved $2 at best, don't have the case or chapter guide and have the movie on media that scratches more easily. Sounds to me like playing by the rules is still the better choice to me.
_____________

Interesting...

[Siqnal 11]

Important Note: Power Mac G4 and PowerBook G4 computers introduced in January 2001 are not compatible with Mac OS X Public Beta.

--

Re:Interesting...

[kck]

Untrue,

The computers themselves are compatible, it's the OS (OS 9.1) which is not. If you install 9.04 on these machines, you can run Beta.

Will Steve Jobs save us from The Corporation?

[Akardam]

The first thing that struck me when I read the article was the iDVD and iTunes bit. I did a double take.

Steve Jobs is not as dumb as a lot of people say he looks. Not only is he including tools, standard, to manipulate two of today's more popular media formats, but he's doing what very few other major computer manufacturers are not... not bowing to the interests of Holywood (at least that we know of, and there's no reason, given Apple's past track record, that they would). You can bet your asses that the MPAA & RIAA aren't happy with this.

And for that, I have to congradulate him.

iTunes--a review

[tbo]

Here's my brief review of iTunes. I'm comparing it (indirectly) to other Mac MP3 players, such as SoundJam, Audion, and MACAST (formely MacAmp).

iTunes kicks ass.

Functionally, it has more cool features than most other MP3 players. The CD burning ability is really great and intuitive (just build a playlist, and hit the Burn CD button), but it unfortunately does not support my CD burner (Ricoh 7060A). The interface is very pretty, although some people may miss skin support. I haven't checked the quality of iTunes-encoded MP3s, but all the right options are there, and it of course automatically gets track info from CDDB when ripping songs from CDs.

Its "Browse" button organizes MP3s in a heirarchial fashion by Artist, Album, and Song, in a manner I haven't seen in other MP3 players.

What's missing? Support for my CD burner would be nice. It would also be good if ID3 tag info could be edited directly in the playlist window, instead of by opening a "Get Info" window for the song. Other than that, a great first version.

Re:iTunes--a review

[11223]

Hrmn. I've found a PC software program that does all of this. It's called... (drumroll please...) BeOS 5. It'll burn discs from MP3's, encode your MP3's, allow you to extend their attributes and sort them any way you please, etc., etc.

And, the interface is nice too.

Re:iTunes--a review

[MotownAvi]

Ah, but iTunes is based heavily on SoundJam MP, which, according to AppleInsider, Apple bought, programmer and all. (Yes, it's a rumors site, but playing with iTunes easily confirms it.) So the good performance and quality are mostly inherited from SJMP.

Which probably means the end of the line for SoundJam, which is a shame because iTunes can't use skins, and it's not loading the SJ visualization plug-ins even though it has a folder for them.

Avi

Re:iTunes--a review

[AnarchoFreak_00]

I had a look at the site, and it looks really good (I'm not on a mac at the moment). But one thing i could help noticeing was the fact that it didn't have any dort of jog/suttle/slider conrtol to navagate in songs quickly. Is there an option to have one? As I think it's pretty much a standard (and extreamy useful) thing to have one any sort of media play nowdays.

notes

[Refrag]

You can see the notes I took at my homepage and Drop.


Refrag

Re:MacOS is part-MP, Linux for PPC and Darwin are

[drinkypoo]

So there is no waste of money or CPU even today; you will get MP performance from the MP systems, and perhaps even OpenBSD will deliver MP performance on the new PMac 533MP, if OpenBSD gets support for the new systems soon.

OpenBSD does not include SMP support on x86 systems; Does it include SMP support on PowerPC? They do say they support at least one of the dual-ppc systems, but they didn't say if they did SMP on it on the port page.

Re:It's not really that bad.

[Bilestoad]

There would be NO question about the 22" Cinema Display being the better monitor except for the proprietary connector. I don't care much about the price, when you get to that level you stop counting anyway.

The Cinema Display can only be used with a Mac.

The 24" CRT can display your Mac, your PC, your Sun, your TV, your DVD, your older Mac, and anything else you like.

Price to Performance

[green pizza]

We use several "sawtooth" (AGP-based PowerMac G4 towers) at work for video editing. Couple DVCAM decks with IEEE1394 "firewire" cards for interface, using FinalCutPro and MediaCleanerPro. For editing work and encoding (to Soresonson 2.0 and MPEG-1) our G4s keep up with a 1.something GHz Dell that was recently purchased. Price to performance ratio looks fine to me. Especially since the G4s seem to be more stable than our Win2K boxes for video work. For $3000 a box can be configured at store.apple.comm that includes the combo CDRW/DVD-R drive. That's a real DVD-R! Price to performance blows away pretty much everything else.

What's your point? Want a cheap, but still fast, box to run Linux? Want to run linux or windows period? Use x86, that's what it's made for.

Re:Price to Performance

[bmeteor]

I was really hoping to see something done to the iMacs. Apparently, IBM has been really pushing the mhz in their in house G3's but due to politics between the two PPC makers, the mhz is kept at the low level it is.

Now that I think about it, IBM hit 1 ghz about a year before Intel or AMD touched it. keep in mind this is an integer only embedded chip. Still it was based on the PPC.

I for one, think that Apple should propose a two pronged PPC strategy. Push the Hz with the IBM g3's as a general purpose processor, and add more altivec units to the g4 to accomodate to the vertical market of media creation.

On the packaging level, having a cd-r should have been part of the last revision to the imacs. Otherwise they are gorgeous machines.

Still, I agree with you on the consumer marketing. They really sat on their laurels with their machines. While they were wainting for Motorola to come up with decent production levels for the g4, they really could have been adding value to the iMac, which is becoming a tired design.

The towers are a real sign that Apple is listening to its customers. I mean, they added another pci slot, moved the graphics to nvidia, and added dvd-r and cd-r. The powerbook titanium hopefully appeals to the business user, although they should try a MS Office promotion with it.

Re:An improvement.

[cpt kangarooski]

I didn't say that the clear optical mouse sucked - just that the xy sensor was too far back. It ought to be about 1cm from the front of the mouse.

I haven't had trouble with the button pivot, but there is an adjustment wheel for the tension of the pivot which might help you out.

As for MS's mice, I'm not a fan. All of the current generation of opticals (unsurprisingly - they're all based on the same HP technology) skip at critical times in FPS games. But more importantly, the MS mice are generally too large, too heavy, and too right-handed for my tastes.

But, to each his own!

Re:Mac OS 9.1

[chrischow]

OSX PUBLIC BETA is the key, one presumes that the OSX full release in a few months time will be compat w/ 9.1

Mouse buttons

[markbark]

Actually, the Apple mouse has FOUR buttons..... they just hide three of them on the keyboard.(grin)

1. click
2. shift-click
3. control-click
4. command-click

Bugger all mice anyway... get one of the ridiculously programmable Kensington trackballs

Re:Mac OS is BSD. Its MP and its out in March.

[gig]

The Darwin kernel is a modified Mach 3.0 kernel, with SMP.

Re:Mac OS 9.1

[HongPong]

Mac OS 9.1 was also released, but it wasn't mentioned at the keynote. Got to Apple's Mac OS 9 page and see for yourselves!

Your link is no good. Instead try this one. :)

In the trenches, searching for MWSF answers...

[tenzig_112]

Jobs promises a fiscal year while not profitable, at least less suicide-inducing: "Where 2000 was a year of blackness and dispair, 2001 will be one of bleakness and dissapointment."

Play the shell game and help us find OSX.

Full MWSF Coverage

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[larkost]

I posted a similar response above, but... the reason that scrolling works in some apps and not others is that some are Coccoa apps (scrolling works automaticlly as it is a part of the development frameworks, you have to turn it off if you don't want it in the appropriate widgets), and that the others are Carbon apps. In Carbon you have to build in this functionality, just like you have to in MacOS 9 or Windows, and that part of the I/O API was a little slow in comming out (understandable, other things were more important). This just points out how nice a development environment Coccoa/ProjectBuilder/InterfaceBuilder is!

New OS X Theater

[jaysones]

Apple updated the OS X movie gallery at this address. If you didn't like Aqua before, check this out. I simply can't wait until March. Who wants to break in?

Titanium isn't rare, just hard to work with...

[cirby]

Titanium is common enough that it's used as an ingredient in paint. It's just harder to get the pure metal. With modern techniques, it's just like really tough aluminum.

Re:Titanium isn't rare, just hard to work with...

[anomalousCoward]

"Titanium is common enough that it's used as an ingredient in paint. " Titanium dioxide is also a common ingredient in suntan lotion.

Apple has already copied MS's contextual menus

[LameBrain]

which was a good idea in my opinion. hold the ctrl key and click an icon in the Finder and you get a handy little menu. the only difference between Mac and Windows is that you can do the same thing in Windows with one hand whereas the Mac requires you to use both hands to get to the same menu.

Re:Apple has already copied MS's contextual menus

[11223]

Except that it makes sense on the macintosh - remember the whole "verb" thing that went into the design... verbs with the left hand, manipulation with the right? Your "verb" is "context", your manipulation is "click". Easy. Just like hitting Apple-Q with the mouse in the right hand.

It's not really that bad.

[SPYvSPY]

As long as I can remember, my dream computer has cost about 10 grand. I'm glad it's still true. Also, look at that configuation. That's a kickass box, dude.

Re:It's not really that bad.

[frogstomper]

I can build a much better system for $3000 less (not including DVD-R, so unless the DVD-R in their system costs $3000 it's a rip off).

But it does.

Apple will NEVER own the majority of the market.

So?

Seriously, where is it written that their goal is to dominate the market? The goal is to turn a profit. Great products are a side benefit.

Re:It's not really that bad.

[daviddennis]

The actual price of the Apple Cinema Display is $3,999.

That being said, fans of slick and elegant design, both within the systems themselves and in the operating system software and applications aren't going to be impressed with your system. After all, it has to run Windows, Linux or BeOS; all three simply do not have the sleek elegance of the Mac operating system. (Be comes close but has virtually no applications).

The only operating system I like better than MacOS X is SGI, and unfortunately the software's too expensive. Better Photoshop on the Mac (especially with MacOS X versions coming out) than a four-version old Photoshop on SGI.

In all honesty, I think people focus too much of on money. In my view, the elegance makes Macs well worth the extra dough.

D

----

Re:It's not really that bad.

[firewort]

the cinema display can be used on things other than a mac. First buy the belkin adc-dvi-d cable.

Second, install a dvi-d equipped video card. (I have a number nine card in my box at work with this output.)

viola (that's french) :}

A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close

Re:It's not really that bad.

[Bilestoad]

I have read that this cable works, but only in a few resolutions - also that the reason is because the Cinema Display expects some configuration information from the video card that Apple ship.

What resolutions and color depths do you get?

Re:It's not really that bad.

[ovidus naso]

viola (that's french) :}

Voila (now THAT is french).

Re:*&(&@$ deceptive benchmarks!

[NetCurl]

You speak of these Benchmarks and ask Apple to just give up. I've heard and read of the merits of both architectures. Can you please provide all of us with some real proof (and not just propaganda mixed with mindless drivel) as to how they are "falling way behind."

I understand that their clock rates aren't on the ball (Apple's chips are made by motorolla and IBM, lay the blame where it is deserved), but I wouldn't say that the G4 chips as well as the RISC arch. are "falling way behind."

Re:Beautiful PowerBook and Price Cuts - no surpris

[chuqui]

> Even March for OS X was no surprise - CNET called it "late",

CNET's attitude is "if it's not bad news, it's not news".

If Genentech announced they'd solved world hunger and the common cold, CNET would report that they'd failed to cure the flu and it cost too much.

The new laptop

[jayhawk88]

From the Apple page.

Just 1 inch thick and weighing a mere 5.3 pounds, the PowerBook G4 is a heavyweight in an ultralight body-the world's first notebook computer made of 99.5% pure grade CP1 (meaning commercially pure) titanium.

It's nice to see that Apple has taken a cue from the rest of the marketing world, and decided to try and convince us that titanium is the next cure for cancer/solution to world hunger/answer to all your spiritual questions.

But my God, that laptop does look sweet. It's interesting, though, that it takes Apple to give us a "wide screen" laptop like this. I wonder how long before we start seeing Dell's and IBM's like this?

Multi-button mouse? Say hello USB

[Leden]

Two things:
* there are many different USB mice on the market that you can just plug in to any new Mac. Where is the problem; if you need it that bad, go and buy one.
* for the PowerBook, you would buy an external mouse for long periods of use anyway surely? I find an external mouse is a necessity while using my work laptop.

For the record, I've used a 4 button Kensington mouse with my Mac for years. When PC owners sit down to use it, I've got to teach them how it all works! :)

This is a job for SuperStapler!

[Graymalkin]

Hopefully these next two quarters Apple will kick some serious ass against its competitors. In my skewed perception of the world I think out of most other contenders they offer the best OEM package you could ask a computer company for. They've got beaucoup RAM and hard drive space, really fast processors (dispite a low clock speed compared to Intel and AMD processors), and all the built-in extras you need for just about anything. To boot you even have the option of making your box a dual 533 machine. I bet in a few months Newer and Sonnet will come out with dual processor upgrade cards for older G4 Macs. One thing I wish Apple would emphasize is its support for delveopers. The ADC provides beaucoup resources for anyone wanting to develop MacOS software. They ought to also make some inroads into putting Mac programming into the classroom. A good deal of schools teach C on Windows and Unix but I've never heard of any using Macs (although there probably are some). The disadvantage to the ADC is it can be fairly expensive (Select membership is 500 bones). I think they ought to offer a public version of their student membership (which is 99 bones). One thing Apple users miss out on is the amount of little pieces of software (good IRC, FTP, or NNTP clients for instance) that users of other platforms take for granted.

Re:This is a job for SuperStapler!

[shandrew]

One thing Apple users miss out on is the amount of little pieces of software (good IRC, FTP, or NNTP clients for instance) that users of other platforms take for granted.

Although there certainly is not the quantity of IRC/FTP/NNTP clients as there are for windows, the quality of FTP and NNTP clients for MacOS are far superior to that of Windows. I've used most of the ones available for windows and Mac, and I've found Fetch and Anarchie (Mac only programs) to be the best FTP clients, and Newswatcher and its variants (Mac only) to be by far the best GUI newsreader. A big reason I keep my mac around is that I can't get similarly-capable programs on other platforms. I'm not so sure about a GUI IRC client; i haven't tried any in a while.

For command line, MacOS X runs emacs/gnus, trn, slrn, ncftp, lynx, IRCII just fine.

Re:*&(&@$ deceptive benchmarks!

[frogenstein]

The only benchmark I saw during the demo was the only one that is *not* deceptive; the actual application mac users need processing speed for. Now the demo could have been rigged and I am sure on most other applications a PeeCee would bury the mac. But Photoshop is the main reason Mac users upgrade and if photoshop is the "deceptive" benchmark that Macs are designed to "cheat" on - more power to 'em!

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[spitzak]

Actually I think it is pretty common that the same X clipboard is used both for the middle-click and the ^X,^C,^V.

For those who complain about the "inability to replace" with the middle mouse, I will have to point out (yet again) that the X behavior is exactly the same as the much-lauded "drag and drop" except you don't have to hold the damn mouse button down as you move to the drop site. If you don't believe me, please think about it more carefully... What you are actually complaining about is also a limitation of "drag and drop", which is even worse. At least X lets you rearrange the windows to locate the drop site!

What about MacOS 9.1?!?!?!?

[tarkap]

Where's 9.1?!!? Did Steve forget about something? Apple fsck'd up the ROM files for all the new G4's so they're not compatible with the older models, AND the newest G4 (with the purple button) ROM is unstable! So are we supposed to sit around until March 24th with flaky computers?!?!? sheesh!

Titanium Powerbook

[Fervent]

To defend against people throwing things at you during office meetings. Since, considering you are carrying a Mac, will probably happen. :)

Re:Titanium Powerbook

[gig]

PowerBooks are very popular with business users, which is why they never got colors and all the other lines did, at least temporarily. The 5 hour battery, true desktop speed, and the nice styling are very attractive. I don't know how PC notebook users get all their work done on two hours of battery life ... it sounds like a drag.

733 MHz G4, Titanium PB, more

[YoungYoda]

Sorry for the self-promotion, but there's full coverage including live keynote news, impressions of the keynote, and a PB G4 vs Sony Vaio comparison, at http://www.themacjunkie.com.

That's the iDVD limit, not the drive limit

[green pizza]

Apple has crippled the free/consumer iDVD app to support just 1 hour of video per DVD-R disc. The full DVD Studio Pro package from Apple ($995, same cost as Final Cut Pro) does not have this limit.

How do you get past this sorta crippleware crap? Write letters. Boycott. Use linux DVD solutions. Whatever it takes. No one is forcing you to buy a G4 with a DVD-R drive and forcing you to use iDVD.

Re:That's the iDVD limit, not the drive limit

[DCMonkey]

Yeah, I saw that on their page and wondered if they are compressing the video less to give a boost to the encoding performance.

Re:An improvement.

[gig]

> when they should be focusing on speed
> and reliability.

Speed ... OS 9 is not getting any faster when it has only three months of service left as the current OS ... OS X Public Beta is not performance-tuned ... it's a beta.

Reliabilitiy ... OS 9 is not getting any more reliable when it has only three months of service left as the current OS ... OS X Public Beta is obscenely reliable already.

Yes, Mac OS 9 is stretched to the breaking point. So, what? Mac OS X is 10 weeks away and runs more Mac OS 9 apps than Windows 2000 runs Windows 98 apps. Plus, there are lots of updated apps coming.

Also, to say that Apple's only innovation is candy colors is really ignorant. All of their computers have AirPort and built-in antennae, optical mouses, no fans except in the tower (which has one little one that turns off when cool), more than twice the notebook battery life of their nearest competitor, the biggest shipping LCD display, numerous industrial design awards ... not just for the looks, but also for things like the fact that all Macs have easy-open doors for users to install RAM, even the notebooks (the keyboard pops-up).

Geez, they also invented pull-down menus, drag and drop, overlapping windows ... introduced the first CD-ROM, first CD-R/DVD-R combo, first consumer UNIX, invented FireWire, open sourced the core of their commercial OS (where is Windows, where is OS/2?).

AND, what if their only innovation was candy colors? I read an article from the head of some plastics association who said that Apple had driven the plastics industry forward by creating translucent, transparent, textured, colored, and intricately-shaped plastics. That's a great innovation ... these devices that surround us are getting better-looking.

Give them a break already ...

"and make your DVD"

[yerricde]

How do you know that the "and make your DVD" step won't re-introduce region coding?
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Re:"and make your DVD"

[blibbler]

You have to ask it to add it... even if you had to region encode it, you can have more than one region set, so I don't see any reason to not have it open to all regions anyway, or at least all used regions.

Re:"and make your DVD"

[drinkypoo]

How do you know that the "and make your DVD" step won't re-introduce region coding?

I don't. However, I think it's unlikely that it will do so without asking you. Here's why:

1. There are non-region-encoded DVDs on the market today; Most of them are porn.
2. Region coding is only added by publishers who are concerned about where their media is sold. It's a licensing gimmick.
3. Apple may be known for doing things for you, but this is extreme even for them.

Even if it does, you can remake them for any region you like, which should be sufficiently unrestrictive. Also, anyone who buys a DVD player which will not play DVDs of any region has gotten what they deserve for not doing their research and thinking about their purchase.

Re:Mac OS 9.1

[fifthcent]

I was looking at the tech notes for the 9.1 update and apparently its purpose is "to support today's Mac OS 9 customers transition for tomorrow's Mac OS X customers..." but later on, it states that "The Mac OS X Public Beta and Mac OS 9.1 are not compatible. If you install Mac OS 9.1, the Classic environment in the Mac OS X Public Beta will no longer function." Is it me, or does this seem contradictory? It's intended to ease the transition to OS X from OS 9, but for those who have already changed over to the Public Beta the Classic will stop working... whatever.

Re:Not interesting. Obvious.

[Siqnal 11]

So, in your world new hardware is expected to run the Beta software which came out before it did?
No, but I do think it's interesting, which is why the subject line says "Interesting..."

Duh.
Fuck you.

--

Now THIS is what we like to see...

[connorbd]

First off, Titanium. You gotta love the Titanium -- it's probably going to look more dated more quickly than any other laptop design ever, but it's thoroughly sweet. That said, I'd still like to see a subnotebook one of these days, as PowerBook Duos are not always easy to find (and none of them can run OS X). But it is too slick for words.

Second, more slots in the G4. I have a PowerMac 6500. It's a great computer, but you do wind up feeling the limitation of 2 slots (!) pretty quickly. They say three isn't enough either; the multimedia people that have always been the primary power users on the Mac platform are loving it already, I'm sure. I am, however, a bit ambivalent about returning to single-processordom -- Apple was setting a very useful precedent with the MP systems and it's a bit disheartening to see them going back on it. Yes, the door is open, but it doesn't make much sense to make a standard feature like that optional.

As for being able to create your own DVDs... hot DAMN! An open-source way of doing it would be nice, but just to have the power at all is a thing of great beauty. iTunes is pretty sweet as well, and I applaud Apple for including it.

So I like what I see -- now if they'd just loosen the strings a little...

/Brian

Re:Mac OS is BSD. Its MP and its out in March.

[BJH]

A couple of corrections:

1) Darwin is based on FreeBSD, which has just recently started integrating MP (giant kernel lock in 4.x, fine-grained locking in 5.x), so any MP in Darwin is likely to be an Apple-developed extension.

2) OpenBSD doesn't have MP.

Re:[sniff sniff] smells like Trolls, but...

[MadAhab]

Or, relentlessly re-educate users by constantly trumpeting how fast you are. That's the thinking behind calling the G4 a "supercomputer."

Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.

You don't count, Halfy.

[Bill Fuckin' Gates]

You don't have any legs.


See you in hell,
Bill Fuckin' Gates®.

OSX updates buried in the gee-whiz hardware news

[bluecalix]

Buried in the (deserved) hype surrounding the new hardware is the OSX improvements. Airport and printing support is fixed. The apple menu is back. The dock is now resizable and has a hierarchical pop up feature. The os9 finder is sortof back, with it's multiple windows (if you want it).

An improvement.

[el_munkie]

I am currently using one of the newer dual processor G4s, with all the trimmings, clear optical mouse, keyboard, etc. I have never liked Apples, but I do have to use them at work. I have always seen them as candy colored pieces of crap that are targeted at first time computer buyers. Up until recently, the only innovation coming out of this company has been external eye-candy.
I have toyed with OSX Beta, and my impression was that it was, well, slow. The machine it was on, another dual processor G4, was more than capable of handling the GUI, but everything took a painfully long time. Sure the screen looked purdy, but I would rather not spend so much time staring at it.
However, I do appreciate their use of dual processors, and Firewire. I believe that their use of these technologies brought them to PCs. And we have one of those gigantic flatscreens in our office, it is powered by one cord, and contains a USB hub. That is cool too.
I am afraid that Apple is focusing too much on making their machines pretty, when they should be focusing on speed and reliability. it is just like the hockey puck mouse inflicted on Mac-heads: its focus was on aesthetics, not ergnomics, and though it was nice to look at, it was hell to use.

Re:An improvement.

[cpt kangarooski]

Oh, I don't know - I liked the iPuck very much. True, you couldn't rest your hand on it, but the roller was effectively farther towards the front of the mouse. (where it belongs)

Currently I'm using the new buttonless mouse. The damn sensor is too far back (it ought to be trivially easy to have it at the front tip, those dorks) but I don't have to worry about sliding my mousepad all over, or getting cruft into it.

As always though, the thing isn't chained to the computer. People should carefully investigate mice, keyboards and monitors and choose for comfort; after all, those are the parts of the computer that you use the most.

Not surprised...

[green pizza]

The OS X Public Beta has been out for awhile now... and the updated PowerMac G4 and all-new PowerBook G4 are both based on some significantly updated hardware. Just wait for an update from Apple... or at the least, wait for OS X final to ship. I really doubt this is a sign that OS X won't ever run on these machines.

Re:Backtracking...

[stripes]

Seems they've dropped their line about multiprocessors, since the only model that ships with them is the 533 MHz model. I can't seem to find any information on if they include an empty socket or not for the other configurations...

As far as I could tell from the two hour long quicktime they all have slots for a second CPU, but jobs didn't think supply would match demand on the faster CPUs and they are not offering the second CPU except thruough channel partners (read "very expensave").

He also seemed to say the G4 PB wasn't actually available until the end of the month. Which sucks because I want to return my G3 one right now for the G4 :-)

Of corse the G4 one also says it won't run OSX-PB2, so I may have to wait two months for the real relase...

sweetness - BSD OS-X Titanium

[johnrpenner]

a release date for OS-X, aqua, faster G4s, a one inch thick powerbook with a 1152 x 780 screen, lots of power, and absolutely beautiful and functional design. a free OS-9.1 update for existing users, an MP3 ripper and DVD writers... and you listened: finder windows and apple menu are back. thank you.

if you could still make the apple menu work so that what you put into an actual directory would show up there (a system-wide user configurable launch menu is still necessary at a basic level). other than that...

once again - well done apple.

:)

--
the eye is created by the light, for the light (goethe)

Re:Backtracking...

[Ruddydude]

Jobs said demand for the high end the models is expected to be too high for them to be available for MP configs yet. He said if you want a 667 or 733 in Feb, better order it now.

Re:MacOS is part-MP, Linux for PPC and Darwin are

[Angelwrath]

Actually, you may be right. I had thought that OpenBSD had SMP support - FreeBSD has it, but there is no port of FreeBSD to PPC.

Time for a hack!

Apples: not just eye candy, and some on OS X pb

[drstatgeek]

Don't like the dancing icons? Try turning them off in the Dock Preferences. Don't like the way the Finder works? Change your prefs. (Ok, granted, there needs to be a way to turn off the minimizing animation. But heck, it, too, has a function: so the newbies can see where their windows go.)

This is a beta OS compiled with debug code. So it is going to be quite slow. In fact, the incremental release to OS X pb (cryptically called "Build 2E14") offers quite a bit of performance improvement. The final release should be even better, when the debug stuff is stripped out.

Oh, yeah, if you don't like the eye candy of the iBook (and no one says you have to), go for the pro model Powerbook G4. Yep, they're expensive, but a price-feature comparison is very favorable for the PB G4.

Oh, and by the way, lest you think Apple's only innovation is colors, look up from your C:> prompt and consider this:

- Quicktime, which has been around for a decade, enabled applications to work with several image/audio/video formats with ease (as opposed to having to incorporate several different image libraries, or even worse, have image apps be incompatible)
- Without Apple's foresight and marketing, USB would be rotting in the crypts of obscure RFC documents
- Similarly with wireless
- Apple has a patent on Firewire
- The combination of Firewire and iMovie brought video editing within the reach of a large audience

If you need Windows, go out and use Windows. If you need Linux, go out and use Linux. Or OS/2 or Amiga/OS or even VMS. Nobody cares. But before making a sweeping statement that some company or other has no innovation (even MS has their innovations, though I don't care for the direction their innovation is taking), read your history books.

Re:Apples: not just eye candy, and some on OS X pb

[drstatgeek]

Oops ...
"- same for wireless"
should be
"- same for IEEE 802.11/DSSS"
if anyone cares.

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[Ranger Nik]

you can bet the MPAA and RIAA and all the other old monopolies are really pissed at apple right now.

even the dumbest idiot can copy CDs with these new tools. i don't think ripping DVDs was mentioned - e.g. it's probably not supported. but the recording features sure make copying a lot easier.

to sum it up:
- copying CDs got as easy as tying your shoe
- copying DVDs got a lot easier.

you can bet they are pissed! hehehehe....

But I LIKED aqua the way it was!

[firewort]

I liked aqua the way it was!

It wasn't mac classic, it was something new, a hybrid between *nix and mac, and better than any of the themes I had on my linux boxen...

I'm not sure... if the PB doesn't break in March, I may just keep using it, debug code and all.

A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close

Making Friends With the MPAA -- NOT!

[SteveM]

As part of the announcements, Apple will be selling blank DVD-Rs for $10 each. One of the arguments against DVD piracy has been the high cost of blank media. Poof!

So can I put a DVD in one machine, send via ethernet to another with a superdrive and make a copy?

Think we'll ever see something like this in a Sony?

Steve M

Re:SPEC and the G4

[Pemdas]

to put it simply, when an application is optimized for the G4, it wollops the Pentium III.

This is exactly the myth Apple is trying to force down your throat, and you're eagerly swallowing.

Altivec is a specialized instruction set that speeds up vector ops. To claim that a benchmark is not valid because it's not "altivec-enhanced" is roughly equivalent to saying "Oh, I didn't hand-optimize that application is assembly language for this platform, so it's not a valid benchmark"

One of the things spec tests is compiler performance, because compiler performance is an integral part of system performance. If you haven't got compilers that generate good, fast code for high level language constructs, you're dead in the water as a platform.

I'd bet there are some fp loops that altivec (or MMX on X86, MDMX on MIPS, MVI on Alpha, etc) could speed up significantly. Possibly an order of magnitude or more. I'll even give you that, of the so called "media instruction extensions" across the various architectures, altivec is the cleanest, most flexible, and most useful. But the fact of the matter is, those code paths are the rare exception, not the rule. System performance is not measured by hand-tuned inner assembly loops, except in ultra-specialized cases.

Even for people that work in photoshop 90% of the time, I would guess the benefits to be marginal at best. The things that Jobs loves to show off are the filters/wide pass tools which make use of the vectorized ops, but is it anyone's job (even an ultra-specialized graphic designer) to sit around all day applying filters to very large images?

Altivec is no magic bullet. It's a specialization, very useful for a narrow scope of probles, that speeds up some kinds of vectorized ops when the programmer devotes (usually a great deal of) extra time to optimize special cases. Don't fall into the trap of believing it's some revolutionary innovation by Motorola that's misunderstood/unused by most programmers coding for the platform.

Mac OS is BSD. Its MP and its out in March.

[crovira]

What 6 months? Count along with me:
1) January,
2) February,
3) March.

Its not all of March, its March 24th, and part of January's already gone. Its like 2 1/2 months.

As for not being MP, they're selling dual processor and OS X is based on Darwin which is Open BSD which IS MP. And Carbonized apps will be able to use MP in MP machines.

As cool as the Titanium notebook is, it isn't likely to be MP anymore than the Sony Vaio.

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[snStarter]

The short answer: you don't have access to that region of the DVD where CSS and region information is stored.

The superdrive will also only record 1 hour of MPEG2 onto the DVD: only one layer. I'm not sure if this is a function of the Panasonic mechanism.

It's my opinion that this is the equivalent of the LaserWriter for publishing video: now you have an output format that is of equal quality to the source so we're back to WYSIWYG in video for real.

I think this is a BIG product for Apple.

"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows...

[SPYvSPY]

1. Seemingly interminable wait while the redundant (albeit proximate) contextual menu loads and (finally) appears.

2. Scrolling. Also redundant and not terribly accurate either. I never use it.

Is it just me or are both these features available via a single mouse button?

I have used a three button ThinkPad for two years now and never, ever hit the damn scroll button. I'm not kidding about the right-click, either. The damn thing takes so long to appear, I often wonder if it's doing anything at all. It sucks.

no

[crayz]

That *is* the pioneer drive. However Apple did it, they got it a hell of a lot cheaper than Pioneer sells it. I doubt Apple's gonna sell it separate, so until someone else does, Apple is selling a computer with the drive cheaper than the drive itself.

Methinks all those people saying Macs are overpriced are eating crow because of that one(wait, I'm one of those people)

Price to Performance Thoughts...

[green pizza]

Looking thru the thread I see two camps... the Mac folks that are cheering and the anti-Mac folks that are saying Apple is way behind and time to get rid of any sort of benchmarks. I use practically every platform out there and really only use macs for video work (we have several sawtooth G4s at work for editing). To be totally honest, the only time I have ever seen a PC be faster for such work is with "slim" editing packages that look to be designed for performance only. Premiere (ugh, is it *still* around?), Avid, and many other full packages run equally fast or even a bit slower (especially for encoding) on ~1 GHz PCs than they do on a 500 MHz G4. Provided you have enough RAM and aren't crippled with a slow or small drive.

There are certain things I don't even consider when looking at a Mac.... games for example. I'm thrilled to see Apple using nVidia graphics, but I still wouldn't buy a Mac for games. It's fun to launch Quake3 and play a quick deathmatch on the G4s over lunch at work. The G4s and their Rage 128 play it pretty well at 640x480, but it's sure no Geforce2 on a PC. Ditto for these "MS Word Scrolling Tests" that a lot of the professional magazines do. I can't recall any time I've scrolled more than 2 or three pages at full standard scroll speed. I usually page down, drag the scroll thumb way down, jump to page x, or search.

Benchmarks these days are silly. Buy the best machine for the job. Dunno what machine that is? Ask around and read some professional level magazines. Have some machines demoed to you.

Personally, want a linux box? Get x86 or Alpha. Want a huge nutty server? Get a Sun or SGI. Want games? Get a console or a PC. Want Video? Get a G4 (or an SGI Octane2 or Onyx2/Onyx3000 if you want to do uncompressed 1080i HDTV). Get over the benchmarks.

Mac OS 9.1

[Shadow Knight]

Mac OS 9.1 was also released, but it wasn't mentioned at the keynote. Got to Apple's Mac OS 9 page and see for yourselves!

Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity

Re:Mac OS 9.1

[Buran]

I've been trying. The bloody thing doesn't work, and I need to see if this fixes an ethernet G4 in the G4 I'm typing this on. Apple needs to get their heads out of the sand and actually allow you to download the software they spent the entire morning hyping. Mirrors, please.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[jonfromspace]

1. Seemingly interminable wait while the redundant (albeit proximate) contextual menu loads and (finally) appears.

A long wait? Hmm... you've got some issues... (or your runing win 98/ME/2k with 32 MB of ram)try defragging, or install tweak UI and REMOVE all the usless (to you) functions from the context menu. That will speed it up tons

2. Scrolling. Also redundant and not terribly accurate either. I never use it.

This is just silly. the scroll wheel is great, especially for Web browsing. You can also set the # of lines you wish to scroll in the Control Panel. This should solve the accuracy problem.

C'mon, a 1 button mouse is not very usefull. Even most Mac Zealots will agree that Apple needs a better mouse.

um.. I done, you can stop reading...

***Quicktime Pro for FREE***

[min0r_threat]

Try this: Registered to: PPC Organisation: BUG Number: 48F7-A869-FC3C-41E4-1234 Register that in Quicktime and away you go. (Only works on a Mac).

You won't copy a movie DVD like this

[snStarter]

The Superdrive is a single-layer drive. It also uses one of the proper subsets of DVD formatting and, as such, only records 60 minutes of video to the DVD.

The CSS and Region layers cannot be written by the software and possibly the hardware.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[spitzak]

Try thinking a little. That is exactly what I am saying, you dummy!

"Middle mouse button paste" (and the automatic selection->copy) of X is exactly the same as Drag and Drop! EXACTLY!

Therefore, a proper implementation would merge this behavior with any drag and drop behavior and use the same buffer. While a seperate buffer should be used for the ^X^V cut/paste operations.

Unfortunately there are a lot of X programs (my own stuff included) that use the same buffer for the middle mouse click and for the ^X^C. This is what my original message was about, and it is a problem. However too many people seem to think the middle-mouse stuff is cut/paste and should be seperate from drag & drop, when in fact they are identical and the original X behavior, while cut & paste is the "new" stuff for X. Unfortunately event the drag & drop standards for X have fallen into this so that the only compatable thing to do is have THREE buffers (selection, "clipboard", and "drag and drop"). Very few programs use the SELECTION buffer as well (many of them consider it more drag & drop than the clipboard, too), forcing the same buffer to be used if you want ^X^C to work between programs.

Right on

[bcrowell]

More than one mouse button is a joke. The people at MS who decided to design their GUI around a many-button mouse were the same losers who gave Word the talking paperclip and the default set of control panels that looks like the cockpit of a fighter jet.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews

bzzt, still need DeCSS

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, but the portion of the disc where the encryption keys are stored is pre-burned with zeros on the DVD-R blanks. You have to decrypt with DeCSS or something similar and then burn the unencrypted data.

Re:bzzt, still need DeCSS

[zhensel]

And how long until some enterprising player in the blank industry decides not to pre-burn that section of the disc? Can you say instant 1000% jump in sales :) ... that is unless pioneer or someone patented and licensed out the process to make blanks.

So?

[supabeast!]

"This seems to follow their new "killer apps" strategy."

Good for them. Now how about the /. guys stop reguritating all of Apple's marketing hype until they start selling machines that will not cost more than most people are willing to pay.

I am all for Apple, and they certainly have Microsoft beat when it comes to innovation, but until they cut the shit and let me buy a machine straight up without a bunch of silly multimedia software that I have no use for, at a reasonable price, I am sticking with AMD.

They are optional.

[Johnny Mnemonic]

The 533s have a second processor option--add one for $300, at the Apple Store. That makes a DP 533=$2499, with all the other goodies, like a 133Mhz bus, CD-R/W, iMusic, and iMovie.

Get a mouse

[WiseWeasel]

So you get a USB mouse with as many buttons as you need (or get a trackball for space concerns). You can't do any serious mousing with a trackpad anyways. That's what everyone else does...

iTunes v SoundJam MP

[gkbarr]

With a full 4 hours of iTunes under my belt I can honestly say that I've gone through just about every nook and cranny of Apple's new multi-purpose music app. Being a long-time SoundJam user here's a quick list of pros and cons.

Pros
Very nice layout, especially the library.
Search and browse functions are great for those of us with multiple Gigs of MP3s.
Radio Tuner section is nice (if you have the bandwidth.)

Cons
No alarm clock function (one of SJ's best features.)
Burning software not compatible with older 3rd party CDRs.
No skins = typical Apple Platinum look... blah!
No mixing function. C'mon Apple, everyone wants to be like Oakie.

Considering this is v1.0 it's a very good piece of software. I look forward to seeing the updates as they are released in the coming months.

--G Barr
Damn it feels good to be a Mac guy.

Backtracking...

[um... Lucas]

Seems they've dropped their line about multiprocessors, since the only model that ships with them is the 533 MHz model. I can't seem to find any information on if they include an empty socket or not for the other configurations... I'd hope so, because honestly, it seems cheaper if they'ed just manufacture all G4 motherboards with two sockets rather than having to have two separate lines of motherboards in their assembling plants...

Past that, though... I want one. Either a powerbook G4, or powermac G4... If it turns out to be the powerbook, though, i'll advise myself to hold off a few month, lest any kinks arise...

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[cpt kangarooski]

Steve was pointing out (and demonstrated) putting a burned DVD into a generic standalone player.

And since it'll accept any QT file, it ought to be easy to rip dvd movies. *BUT* who can say how well the authoring software will cope with fancy menus, anamorphic video, alternate sound and text tracks, etc.

If I had the cash, I'd be willing to take a chance on it though.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[Eponymous, Showered]

In a highly scientific test, I measured the speed that my right-click menu comes up running netscape 4.75 on this PIII/733: Goddamn fast. So fast, it happens before I finish pushing the button all the way down. You must be running Windows 3.1 on a 486, G.

Seriously

[WiseWeasel]

All their software download servers are down, I can't get iTunes or OS9.1 . . .

Any news on nVidia after-market?

[MattHaffner]

I've got a B&W G3 with the stock R128 and a V3 card in it now. I'd love to replace both with a PCI Geforce2 w/ DVD. Any news from the expo about nVidia or their remarketers selling cards outside of the box?

mh

Troll???

[Electric Angst]

Why in the world would this me marked as a troll? Was it because I spely 'skills' with a 'z'?

Ah well, so much for a sense of humor...


--

Re:OSX updates buried in the gee-whiz hardware new

[tono]

The dock has always been resizable and you could always turn on multiple windows in the OS X finder, although why you would want to is beyond me.

T-Itanium

[TalShiar00]

It's so nice to see that Apple and Intel use the same marketing company. Check out: http://www.my-pants.org/itanium/

Re:MAC OS ISN'T MP!

[iMacGuy]

As of Mac OS 9.0, you couldn't even draw something in a window in a preemptive task without the task shutting down. And they are partially lazy, because they could have made more of it native instead of emulating it.Right now, about all you can do in a preemptive task is communicate with other tasks,allocate memory, and do file operations and Open Transport(TCP/IP)

Caveat empeur...

[gkbarr]

To boot you even have the option of making your box a dual 533 machine.

Ah, but isn't this just Apple's way of cleaning house of it's older 100-MHz based mobos? History shows us that Apple has done the same thing in the past when upgrading their product lines. Note that the extra processor costs only $300. I somewhat doubt that Apple has a brand new 133-MHz MP board that they are offering only in the dual 533 class.

--G Barr
Damn it feels good to be a Mac guy.

Re:Uninformed Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Titanium isn't rare!

"Titanium is the fourth most abundant metal in the earths crust." -- www.titanium.org

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[plastik55]

"Middle mouse button paste" (and the automatic selection->copy) of X is exactly the same as Drag and Drop! EXACTLY!

Yelling it doesn't make it so. I just opened up my text editor, selected a paragraph, and DRAGGED it above another paragraph. The two paragraphs switched locations. I tried the same in emacs using hte middle-button buffer. Now I have two copies of the paragraph I selected. That's EXACTLY the same? Unfortunately there are a lot of X programs (my own stuff included) that use the same buffer for the middle mouse click and for the ^X^C.

So even in your own programs, which implement ^C^V, when I select something it erases my ^C clipboard buffer. That's DIFFERENT BEHAVIOR from what drag&drop does.

Your proposed solution is all right, but until things work that way, don't go around screaming that everyhting is "exactly the same," because it isn't.

Not interesting. Obvious.

[ehintz]

Important Note: Power Mac G4 and PowerBook G4 computers introduced in January 2001 are not compatible with Mac OS X Public Beta.

So, in your world new hardware is expected to run the Beta software which came out before it did? Duh. OSXPB was released months before these machines, and by the time they hit the streets X will be close behind if not first. Why the hell would Apple spend one iota of energy making thier HW compatible with a prerelease Beta? Newsflash: they don't run MacOS 7.1 either. Pity. 7.1 was stable as hell.

Use some common sense folks. It goes a long way...

Regards,

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[Frymaster]

the irony here is that i waded through the download-frenzy to get 2.4.0 so i could so i could use my apple-branded, no-button, all-optical clear mouse on my linux laptop.... only to find that gnome with one button is unusable (really, i could have figgured that out if i'd put some thought into it first...)

the point is: macOS is designed for one button mice. Winders is designed for 9buttons/3wheels/2levers/1footpedal mice. linux gui-makers fell into the the "more-is-better" mentality somewhere after that.

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[mab]

All I do is select the URL click on the current URL in netscpe with left hand hit crtl+u which clears the input box the middle button to paste in the new URL
Netscape and mozilla seem to use most of the bash crtl+ commands

So what about the encryption keys ....

[taniwha]

So the superdrive lets YOU create DVDs .... anyone know how they do that? are some of the DVD 'secret's compromised by this? :-)

Re:So what about the encryption keys ....

[taniwha]

but it's claimed to be able to create DVD movies that canb be played in consumer DVD players .... my question was "how do they handle the DVD encryption of the bits they put on the media" not "how do they put the bits on the media" which is self evident

You call this responsible buying?

[Bonker]

Having worked in a Mac-friendly environment for quite a while, I have to say that saying that Steve is a wacko and then saying that you like the way his products turn out is a little irresponsible.

For the last several years, Apple has made several blunders, usually as much at their customer's expense as their own. Many of these 'blunders' were marketing or pricing attempts that are aimed directly at asserting Apple's control over the Macintosh market. First and foremost of these in my mind is Apple's rather ruthless elimination of the Apple Clones. This is a direct result of Job's 'Militant' and 'Psychotic' nature. As much as I like MacOS and as much as I'd truly *like* to have an iBook or a new G4 server, I will not spend my hardware money to support a company that engages in these sorts of business practices. (MS is even worse, but I don't have to buy un-upgradeable hardware from Redmond.)

yeah, but didn't he cave to amazon

[protein folder]

for the lame-ass one-click shopping patent?

----

The Clock is Back

[SteveM]

The picture here shows the clock in the menu bar.

Steve M

3 buttons? It looks like its got only 1!

[CritterNYC]

Look at the pictures on the website. In particular the DVD shot and the Quicktime VR image. One big, honkin button underneath the touch pad.

Stupid click-and-hold context menus.

the thing about Mac mice

[connorbd]

Actually, I can't speak much for OS X, but since OS 8 the Mac has been a de facto 2-button system. You can still get by with one button, and most apps don't really take advantage of it, but one of the first things I did when I got OS 8 was to toss my Apple mouse and buy a MacAlly 2-button (still in use two CPUs later). I am in no great rush to get a USB card so I can use one of the new Apple mice; they're one of the nicest and most incredibly stylish mice I've ever seen (and I have a soft spot for the early "bar-of-soap" ADB mice -- still use one on my SE/30), but they're simply flat-out wrong for the post-7.x MacOS.

When I do get a new Mac, it will be with great regret that I toss the optical mouse ($60 down the drain if you buy it new, y'know :-( ) and replace it with another MacAlly (no Intellimouse for me; too damn big on top of being an M$ product), but the MacOS is not a one-button system and hasn't been for something like four years now.

/Brian

new os x server.

[gagganator]

it would seem they have silently released a new version of os x server that is the same rev as mac os x

see this page

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[styopa]

1) A second clipboard.

For those of us who use Unix an Linux with mice that have three, or more, buttons, the third button is very useful. Just highlight something then middle click and it pastes. That on top of the, what is now standard in GUIs, ^C (or ^X) and ^V you have two clipboards. It can become very useful very quickly.

Also if you use Enlightenment then each of the three buttons displays a different menu, each equally useful.

Frankly, I have ideas for what the fourth button on my Logitec Mouseman+ should do but I just don't have the skill to implement it, yet.

Although quite a bit can be done with one mouse button I would rather just right click on something to bring up a menu rather than click, hold, and then drag in order to get the same menu with just one button. To each his/her own though.

iTunes on iDisk

[WiseWeasel]

Actually, I found the installer for iTunes on my iDisk. Load yours to get the installer. . . As for OS 9.1 update . . .

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[spitzak]

I think the *actual* drag & drop requires this move behavior, because the user "cancels" the drag by releasing when the mouse points at the selected region. Only move would result in the desired no-op behavior in this case, and from my work on Drag&Drop I have found this more reliable and consistent to program than a "detect if the user is still pointing at the selection" type of cancel behavior.

Because middle-mouse click allows the user to cancel by not doing the paste at all, this move behavior is not necessary. I actually think a copy behavior would be more useful and consistent (since that is what is done between programs). Middle-mouse also allows the user to select, delete, and then paste, allowing drag&drop to do either a copy or a move by the user's choice.

As you point out, there are big problems with the same buffer being used for middle-mouse drag&drop and cut/paste, as selecting something wipes out the users cut, since in middle-mouse terms the user has just started a drag. In Windows drag&drop this is not a problem because click that starts a drag is not needed to edit text otherwise, and I suspect Windows users would never notice if drag & drop replaced the clipboard contents.

Unfortunately through historical failure to notice that middle-mouse click is different from cut/paste, we are probably stuck on X with the same buffer used for both.

BUT, I do think a single buffer could be used, if it was not changed when a selection is done (or the drag is started), but rather when the focus exits the buffer, (or even better it should change at the moment the middle-mouse/"drop" is done but this cannot be done on either Windows or X). I am working on implementing this behavior in fltk right now.

Re:MAC OS ISN'T MP!

[Frymaster]

AND APPLE PROGRAMMERS ARE LAZY ____HEADS

do you have a crack habit? back in, what, 94, apple changed the hardware architecture completely. the os programmers emulated every aspect of m68k in the ppc versions of the os up until 8.1... now they've got a completely re-engineered os with two new api sets plus a backwards compatibility solution for the old os...

Re:Combo CDRW/DVD-R "SuperDrive"

[gig]

There's absolutely nothing about iDVD that couldn't have been done by Compaq on Windows. Compaq is supposed to be offering the SuperDrive as a $995 option in a few months. Compare their solution to Apple's ... I can almost see what the software will look like right now ... like something from Creative Labs, no doubt, with a too-busy interface.

Apple is first in this because they took steps to create the software and offer the drive first. Nobody else even knew what "home DVD's" would look like. Apple are not even taking advantage of Mac OS X, yet. All this stuff runs on Mac OS 9, for now. Sometimes you just have to say "he shoots ... he scores".

SPEC and the G4

[bmeteor]

I see your point, but there is a slight problem with it. The SPEC Benchmark is not written for altivec, and therefore can't qualify as a legitimate benchmark for the G4.

First, I'm assuming here, as I haven't seen the code ($500!), but I highly doubt that the code is written to take advantage of the G4. My main hypothesis is that in order to take advantage of altivec, and concurrently the full potential of the G4, the code must be written with vector types. Check out this example from Apple's dev site. I highly doubt that SPEC writes using Altivec C, as other CPU's don't have vector execution units and don't need vector types. If my hypothesis is correct, then the SPEC is moot for comparing PPC's to x86's.

The assumption you make that it would scale linearly is hasty at best, however. One of the metrics on the SPECfp is computational fluid dynamics or 178.galgel.
If you'll check out this study by NASA on this same subject, you'll see that the benefits would be much more impressive. An excerpt from the abstract:

In limited cases where AltiVec acceleration was available and tested under FORTRAN, the G4 showed a clear advantage with 4-7X greater performance and a 5-8X greater cost effectiveness than all other workstation systems evaluated.

I found the link at the bottom of this page. slashcode isn't rendering my html

It's a very rewarding article, including a comparison between the Cray and G4 vector schemes. But what's important here is the question of deception. Since SPEC is basically useless to the advantages of the G4, the only cross platform benchmark that is possible is the real time tests. Also considering that the G4 is designed from the ground up to be a vertical market processor, that is, designed specifically with apple as the #1 buyer, I don't think the photoshop tests are deceptive at all. They are rightly geared for its audience. It might seem deceptive to the general public, but for the people who those machines are geared for, it is not deceptive at all.

to put it simply, when an application is optimized for the G4, it wollops the Pentium III.

Re:What a lie

[Ma'at]

Not that anyone is reading this thread any more, but I do DVD authoring for a living. Real time is fine for fixed rate encodes, but variable bit rate encoding (which is needed to get a feature onto a DVD) takes time and expensive hard/software. Apple gives this stuff away and it runs on an $800 iMac.

And as regards your comment that "This is one place the Windows PC platform is way ahead of the Mac", you might want to check your sources. Avid has had real time encoding on a Mac-based system for ten years, and at broadcast, on-line quality for four. The Mac is still the dominant platform in most video houses, and that probably isn't going to change any time soon.

Ma'at

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Unix...

[l-ascorbic]

In Mac OS, you can command-click a URL in any text to open it.

Sorry, that's incorrect

[Gorimek]

Here is one page explaining the formats
http://www.alkenmrs.com/video/standards.html

You're right in that there are 7 subbranches of PAL, but SECAM is as I described it. Is uses 625 lines and 50Hz just like PAL.

Re:meanwhile..

[pressman]

...apple's stock continues to plunge. Uh...... Sorry, I actually made money on AAPL today. I don't know ehere you're getting your information, but you might want to look elsewhere!

OS X on Intel

[donux]

Anyone else obsessed with mountain bikes? Titanium is hellishly expensive to produce and to work with - it seems weird that Apple would standardise on Ti for their portables. The entry-level (because 'low-end' seems inappropriate) Ti PowerBook is only $600 over last year's black G3 machine, but $2600 is a lot for an entry level portable, compared to, say Dell ($1099).

1. Is this a precursor to Mac OsX on Intel (the entry level machine) with the Apple branded models representing the 'premium range' for users willing to shell out more for a Ti case, a decent processor or just an integrated OS/HW pair?

2. Could Apple BSD license the OS and reorganise around a support/HW revenue stream?

3. Could someone would just free the damn Sorenson codec already?

Am I the only one having this problem?

[interactive_civilian]

At first, it was denying my anonymous login. Then it allowed it, but it won't list the directories...
InterArchy Output:
200 PORT command successful.
LIST
550 /bin/ls: Resource temporarily unavailable.
QUIT

Guess that either the surver is overloaded or they don't want anyone coming in the side door...Anyone else having this problem?

Re:"Advantages" of three-button mice under Windows

[Elendur]

I don't know if it affects specifically those menus, but if you install TweakUI (hidden in the tools directory or something like that on the 98 CD or downloadable) you'll find that there's a default delay on menus popping up and you can remove it. I recommend removing that as well as all menu and window animations. Everything will feel much zippier. I'm not sure the delay affects the right click menus though.

Mac OS X Server

[mandelbaum]

something else unannounced...the new Mac OS X Server with Aqua...Looks neat...

http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/

-aaron

Re:Mac OS X Server (and Aqua)

[MintSlice]

Eeaagads! Will people never learn.

Sheesh, people are starting to really to question the need to have a GUI on you server at all. And then Apple goes and sticks Aqua on there server. I know it's consistant across their product line. I know that some people think it looks good. But a GUI running on a server is just chewing up clock cycles, and any server that's worth using shouldn't be looked at that much any way, so the GUI is just unnecessary weight. And from all the reports, the Aqua OS is a lot of weight.

Apple should be spending time making an OS X server that actually lets you remotely administrate the server, with an optional GUI in case you can't, instead of inserting a GUI that just munches up clock cycles.

[sniff sniff] smells like Trolls, but...

[AstynaxX]

Perhaps some folks realize that clock rate is not the end all and be all, but there are two problems with your high and mighty comment:

1. Clock rate DOES have SOME influence. Put a 200 mHz ANYTHING [486, 586, PowerPC, etc.] up against a GHz beast. Mr. Gig wins. Also, on non optimized/non optimizable instructions, being able to do more raw instructions per second does help out a good bit.

2. Here's the big one: Joe Average computer user doesn't know CPU architecture enough to save his life. He only sees the numbers: 733 vs. 1500. This is the same simple mindedness Intel is hoping to carry the P4 past the T-bird[which, if you read the benchmarks around the net, and even in print mags, keeps right up with Intel's finest despite being 300 MHz behind]. Also, Joe Average can do division, a la 733/$3000 vs. 1500/$2800. So, if Apple wants to catch up in the market, it MUST catch up in the clock and/or drasticly reduce the painful prices.

-={(Astynax)}=-

you're not the only one.

[WiseWeasel]

Yep, their FTP site is DOWN. It might be to priviledge ones with special accounts or something, but the populace has no access to the FTP server...

Completely honest

[macdaddy]

Honestly, I'm right-handed and I keep my left hand at the left side of my keyboard the whole time. It never leaves there unless it's stuffing food in my mouth. All the contextual menus (right-click in M$ world) is completely accessible by pressing the Control key while clicking the mouse. Easy huh? If I have a file or directory that I want to copy to a different place on the same drive I hold down the Option key while dragging it to it's new loocation (which will also let you navigate through your drive without letting up on the mouse button). Shift-clicking, Apple-Tab (alt-tab), Esc, Apple-letterKey for the assorted normal key commands, they are all right there. With one mouse button and my left hand placed on the left side of my keyboard I can do all of that stuff. Lefty mousers still have all the modifier keys on the right side so they get most of the same benefit. It's amazing simple. The Apple and Option keys also do hundreds of other little tricks and tasks at certain times. Master those or learn a few common ones and you're on you hit the super-ease-of-use mark quickly.

Now one quick mention on ergonomics. 2-3 buttons mice are actually less ergonomically friendly. Think about it. When you start getting quick with 2+ buttons mice you don't use your pointer finger for all the keys. You'll use your middle finger (or ring finger for the people with smaller hands). You pointer finger is still up in the air or at least barely touching the mouse, ready for the next click. What that means is you are no longer resting your hand on the back of your mouse. You're now having to pull upwards on your hand, causing stress at the wrist (your wrist moves better downwards than upwards, assuming your palm is down). A one button mouse uses just one finger to click, allowing the rest of you hand to sit at rest. Apple's optical mouse (Pro Mouse) makes the whole front surface of the mouse a big button, allowing you ro press down whereever you feel more comfortable. It actually makes sense. Now that aside, I would love a good mouse with 2-3 buttons for Quake and UT! :-)

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