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PPC 970 Powerbooks and Powermacs in Production?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'll-take-one dept.

Thadddius_Brinks writes "MacWispers.com is reporting here that apple is currently in production of a redesigned single processor PowerPC 970 Powermac system and a 15.4 inch Powerbook. They (MacWhispers.com) are also standing by their earlier claims about the speed of the new processor." This article consolidates many of the major rumors surrounding WWDC including the rumor of a new case for the Powermacs, but it raises the ultimate question: 17" Powerbook, or PPC 970 Powerbook?

94 of 492 comments (clear)

  1. SCOOP: PPC 990, "G6" on the Way now! by Shuh · · Score: 2, Funny

    You heard it here first! ;)


  2. WWDC? by Marco_polo · · Score: 2, Funny

    I saw that as WWJD.. then I said to myself
    "What would jobs do?"

    it's only fitting, all things considered!

    --
    I am the lord of the pun. Dance Knave!
  3. PPC 970 Powerbook by Krieger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Egads this would be wonderful. 64-bit laptops. While I suspect we'll get that from the Opteron, I suspect if Apple follows through with the PPC 970, it will be available and useable much sooner.

    Needless to say... drool!

    1. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by __past__ · · Score: 4, Informative
      Why wait for 64-bit laptops? Get yours today!

      OK, that might addmittedly not be for the same audience as a 64-bit powerbook, but still... drool indeed!

      --
      Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
    2. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by Tumbleweed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > Forget Opteron notebook, this is much better.

      Don't get too far out, now. The PPC970 isn't expected to be better than an Athlon64 at non-AltiVec tasks. (At least, comparing spec scores would suggest that. Also the Opteron & Athlon64 have an on-die memory controller, which the PPC970 lacks).

      I'll be in line for a dual-proc PPC970 PowerMac later this year, for sure, but it's not because I think it'll be the fastest thing on the block. I think the Athlon64 will have that title, though not by much.

    3. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by statusbar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "32 bits ought to be enough for anybody"

      right?

      BTW, a 64 bit processor means more than just the amount of ram you can stuff in it... Think virtual.

      --jeff++

      --
      ipv6 is my vpn
    4. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by Sandor+at+the+Zoo · · Score: 4, Informative
      Anyway, as I was going to bed last night, I got to wonder about the CRLF (DOS) vs CR (Unix) vs LF (Macs) incompatibility.

      You've got that backwards. Macs use the carriage return, decimal 13 (0x0D) as their line break character. Unix uses the line feed, decimal 10 (0x0A). DOS (and therefore Windows) uses the asinine CR-LF combination, which is also the standard marker for line and command endings in most text-based internet protocols, such as SMTP.

      For those youngsters not in the know, these "control" characters really did control things. On a paper teletype machine, a carriage return would move the print head back to the left side of the carriage. A line feed would advance the roller one line. The combination of the two would prepare the teletype for printing another line, so in a way Windows does it right.

      In reality, using two characters to mark an end of line is a major pain in the ass. I wish everyone would standardize on using just an LF.

    5. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by boola-boola · · Score: 2, Interesting
      An on-die memory controller isn't necessarily better, because it'll lock the processor to a certain memory bus, and you can't change the memory bus without changing the processor.

      ...and considering AMD's successive memory bus speed jumping lately, that might not be a good thing... ("266" MHz DDR -> "333" MHz DDR -> "400" MHz DDR, hmmmm.....)

    6. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by Tumbleweed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      True, but, memory speeds seem to be settling on 400MHz for now, and likely won't go much further in official speeds until DDRII (400 & 533MHz specs already, but 2x the bandwidth per pin per clock as DDR I). I don't see a big move to DDR II happening until next year, at the soonest, so I think we're safe for now. The PPC980 is rumoured to have an on-die memory controller, so you probably better just get used to it. :)

      Also note, with the Athlon64 & Opteron, you're not forced to use the on-die memory controller if your chipset has one, you can use it. The best of both worlds, though I don't know if the PPC980 will be like that or not (hell, the on-die controller on the PPC980 is still just a rumour).

      More importantly for Apple than just DDR 400 is whether they're going to go dual-channel or not, cuz if they're not, they're only going to get 3.2GB/s outta DDR 400, which is half of the FSB of the PPC970. I can see Apple doing that, as they always like to have an FSB bottleneck of some type, for some reason. I hope they do it right with the 970 machines, though.

    7. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by Phishpin · · Score: 3, Funny

      How bout in an automobile?

      "Those arn't pillows!

      --
      -phish
    8. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My thinkpad T21 takes it all.

      I once met Matthew Modine (the actor who plays the main character in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket"). I had with me my graphite iBook. Seeing it, he pulled his tangerine iBook from his bag. It had a HUUUUUUGE hole in the upper casing. Obviously I asked him "where did you get that". He said he was sitting in a restaurant and working on his laptop waiting for dinner. Waiter has lit a candle - and he didn't notice. He felt the smell of burning plastic, but he didn't think it's his own machine, being burned by a candle obscured by the lifted screen. The candle has burned through the whole plastic layer (quite thick, actually - it was my only opportunity to see it through) and reached the inner metal casing of the LCD screen.

      Needless to say, this iBook has survived this ordeal without any problem - with the only exception of a huge hole near the tangerine Apple. Think your Thinkpad could handle THIS? ;-)

    9. Re:PPC 970 Powerbook by tbone1 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I don't know that the 970 in the Powerbook will happen this soon. I recall a discussion on The Mac Observer about the towers being Apple's best money-makers. They have the highest margins, in terms of dollars and in percentage, of Apple's computer hardware. Tower sales have been lagging for a few years, so don't be surprised if there is a big push to sell the towers, particularly in the sense of "The 970 is available, but not in the consumer products and only in our desktop".

      Also, Quark has just announced that it is shipping for OS X any day now. Lack of a native version of Quark, along with a sluggish market in publishing, has kept a lot of the tower buyers (ie print shops, etc) from upgrading. Quark is ready to ship, and publishing seems to be on its way to recovery. Those are two big pushes on the demand side.

      Also, it would seem silly to have the 970 in the towers and not in the XServe, so expect them there as well; that would further reduce the supply side even further. In fact, I suspect that the 970 in the XServe might drive XServe sales higher, thus reducing the pool of 970s available for laptops.

      A 970 Powerbook will be here, just don't expect it within the next couple-three months.

      --

      The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
  4. No need to click, article text.. NOT a karma whore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    With the entire Mac world abuzz with (often conflicting) reports of the Apple transition to the IBM PowerPC 970 processor family, we have decided to report a summary of all that we know at this time... not from regurgitated rumors obtained from other web sites, but from our own OEM contacts in the Apple supply pipeline.

    We have no software information sources; all information we receive comes from people working in various positions in and around plants in Taiwan that actually supply parts or perform hardware assembly operations on Apple products. So, we have to leave the software speculation to sites such as Think Secret and, it now seems, eWeek.

    What we know at this point is as follows:

    - The IBM PPC 970 chips are now actually in volume production for only two specific end uses: IBM's own servers, and for Apple Computer.

    - The plant contracted for assembly of the new Power Mac is now actually manufacturing production Power Macs with single PPC 970 processors.

    - The plant contracted for assembly of the new 15.4-inch Powerbook has just now begun manufacturing production Powerbooks with the PPC 970 processor.

    - The new Power Mac has a sister model with a 2-processor motherboard that is not yet in actual production, but that could be put into production at any time.

    - The new Power Mac has a new case design with "metallic look plastics," and a front panel "mostly made with the same anodized aluminum surface" as the newest Powerbooks.

    - The new Power Mac retains "handles," though not in the same form as the current design.

    We have no sources or contacts within Apple Computer, so we cannot state that company's actual release plans for these products. However, we can say that both the new PPC 970 Power Mac and Powerbook will have substantial inventory already produced by the time of the upcoming WWDC keynote.

    In closing, we want to address the performance of the new PPC 970 machines, as we do have direct information on this topic, and we consider that information to be highly reliable. Despite the recent flurry of confusing claims published by eWeek and others, we stand by our report that the new Power Mac and Powerbook have overall performance approximately 1.25 to 1.5 times that of a similarly clocked G4 on non-Altivec optimized applications. On Altivec optimized tasks, these machines have as much as 2 to 2.5 times the through performance as a similarly clocked G4. Our understanding is that this performance is occurring using bone-stock OS X 10.2.6 on pre-production single processor PPC 970 machines... an OS rampant with Rob Malda's homosexuality and none of the optimization now being rumored as being needed for supporting the PPC 970's performance potential.

  5. Performance claims need clarification by John+Harrison · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It isn't clear from the last paragraph of the article if they are comparing a dual G4 to a single 970. The other option is a single G4 to a single 970. A dual 970 doesn't seem to be an option since they don't seem to be in production currently.

    Does anyone have any clarification on this? With the rumours that the 970 chip is actually less expensive for Apple than the G4 I was hoping for dual 970 boxes at price points similar to the current crop of PowerMacs.

    --
    Lasers Controlled Games!
    1. Re:Performance claims need clarification by Dylan+Zimmerman · · Score: 4, Informative

      They are comparing to a single G4. Due to the G4's bad architecture, putting two of them into a computer doesn't improve performance nearly as much as it should. IIRC, you only see roughly a 25%-50% improvement. Therefore, a single 970 is about on par with a dual G4 in integer based operations and it's much faster running Altivec code.

    2. Re:Performance claims need clarification by Kinniken · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Concerning performances, one thing which struck me out as difficult to believe is the claim of an x2-x2.5 speed increase for Altivec apps... According to ArsTechnica's report, Altivec implemantation in the 970 is supposed to be rather worse than in the G4 ; while Altivec apps will still gain from higher clock speed and faster memory increases, the claimed increase here seems rather unbelievable. Not that I wouldnt like to believe it, but mac rumor websites have been known to post unverified rumors to get hits ;-)

      --
      What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
    3. Re:Performance claims need clarification by Lank · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think the ArsTechnica report said that the implementation was supposed to be worse - just that it was more of a hack. Just because something is a hack doesn't necessarily mean it can't perform well. In fact, most hacks are done for none other than performance reasons.

      --
      Gotta get me one of these!
    4. Re:Performance claims need clarification by John+Harrison · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think that the increase in the bus could really help here. If you can keep feeding data through a slow altivec unit you will might get better performance than with a fast one that is starved for data.

      --
      Lasers Controlled Games!
    5. Re:Performance claims need clarification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Speaking as the owner of a dual G4... er, no. Code that's written to scale linearly scales pretty much linearly. The Maya renderer is a good example.

    6. Re:Performance claims need clarification by azav · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, from what I have heard, the duals "balance the drain". By that I mean that though you don't feel it being a load faster in day to day activities, you feel less of a slowdown when one process would bog the processor. - so overall, the entire system feels smoother - nere I say snappier.

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
    7. Re:Performance claims need clarification by bnenning · · Score: 2, Informative
      one thing which struck me out as difficult to believe is the claim of an x2-x2.5 speed increase for Altivec apps


      It will depend on the specific app. From what I've read, the 970's Altivec unit is slightly less advanced than that of the current G4, but it will have a *lot* more memory bandwidth. So the 970 won't be any faster per-cycle at RC5 (which fits entirely in cache), but could easily be significantly faster when processing large Photoshop images.

      --
      How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
    8. Re:Performance claims need clarification by hayden · · Score: 2, Informative
      They are comparing to a single G4.
      The values in the article were quoted against processors of equal clock speed. Rumour has it the PPC 970 is capable of much higher clock speeds than the G4.
      --
      Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
  6. My own bets by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1. That the 970's are being produced, but so far, there's still small numbers, so either only folks at the Developer's Conference will first crack, or you'll have to wait for a bit of time before you can actually get your hands on one (kind of like when the 12" and 17" first started shipping).

    2. The major OS Upgrade to 64 bits will happen in a few more months - either way, I expect that OS 10.3 will cost another $50 - $100 (depending on how they do it).

    3. The G3 iBook line will be slowly phased out, and replaced with G4 based systems.

    4. Dual processor systems by Christmas or so.

    5. iTunes for Windows sooner than we thought.

    6. Somewhere in this timeframe, new Xserves will start to appear with the 970 chip and the 64-bit server operating system (which should be interesting for folks running "big ass" database/graphical rendering farms.

    So either way, I'd say we'll "see" the devices, a few "first adopters" will play with them, pass judgement, Ars Techana [SIC] will write a big ass article on them, and "everybody else" will pick them up later.

    Hopefully somebody can convince Valve that Half Life 2 would really run rather nicely on these boxes so I don't have to spend money upgrading my old Wintel Game Box.

    --
    52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
    1. Re:My own bets by mrpuffypants · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, the 12" pbook was out pretty damn fast.....my parents picked one up about 2 weeks after macworld.

      the 17" just took about 2 months to fully ramp up production.

    2. Re:My own bets by Dylan+Zimmerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The 970 is already being produced en masse. Because of Apple's contract with IBM, they get a bunch of them pretty early.

      According to ThinkSecret, Panther is going to launch sometime in September. They also say that a special 64-bit version of Jaguar called 'Sméagol' is being built for the new PowerMacs (known internally as Q37). It could be finalized as early as WWDC. Why would they have a special version of Jaguar if they didn't have the 970's rolling off the production lines already? Seriously. If Apple thought that they couldn't get them to people quickly, they wouldn't bother recompiling the entire OS for them. They would just wait a month to release them. They don't want a repeat of the bad publicity they got as a result of the 17" slowness.

      Apple is moving away from Motorola chips entirely. IBM still makes the G3. In all likelihood, Apple is going to keep the G3 in the iBook and just start using IBM chips instead of Motorola ones.

      I sure hope so.

      Again, I really hope so. I've been itching to spend all of my money at the iTunes Music Store, but I don't have a Mac.

      I would imagine that the Xserves would use the real thing. The Power4 uses more power and produces more heat than the 970, but it also has an insane MTBF. Besides, you wouldn't need a dual Power4 since it's already two cores on a single die. Pretty cool design, really.

    3. Re:My own bets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
      "They also say that a special 64-bit version of Jaguar called 'Sméagol' is being built for the new PowerMacs (known internally as Q37)."

      oooh ... We wants it! ... my precious ...

    4. Re:My own bets by Halo1 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Have to disagree with you here - what does an Apple back end have to offer someone doing huge distributed computations that Linux or BSD on x86 (or Sparc, or anything else you care to name) except increased price and a single hardware supplier?
      Don't you also have a single hardware supplier if you go with Suns? Or with a lot of IBM boxes? XServe's are actually quite price-competitive in their market, especially due to their storage capacity and I/O throughput (disk network) combined with hot swappable drives and a 1U form factor. With a PPC970, the processing power could increase enough to make them quite competitive in that field as well (well, apart from in genetics, where thanks to altivec and extremely optimized code they already blow pretty much anything else out of the water, but that isn't possible for a lot of other server tasks of course).
      The Xserves will probably find a home in smallish companies who need a web server that is pretty reliable, or a DB server for a couple of hundred users at most.
      Even the current XServes can already handle a lot more than that. And if you didn't mean to imply they can't, then I don't understand your reasoning behind this. Too expensive = will only be used for small setups so their higer cost can be recouped even less?
      --
      Donate free food here
    5. Re:My own bets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Smeagol is not 64-bit Jaguar. It just has a few minor modifications for Jaguar to run on the new chipset supporting the 970. It's probably nothing more than Mac OS X 10.2.7.

      64-bit will have to wait until Panther.

    6. Re:My own bets by GlassHeart · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The 970 is already being produced en masse. Because of Apple's contract with IBM, they get a bunch of them pretty early.

      If I'm not utterly mistaken, the rumored contract has not been confirmed by Apple or IBM officially.

      In all likelihood, Apple is going to keep the G3 in the iBook and just start using IBM chips instead of Motorola ones.

      That would be silly. First of all, as stable as IBM is, it's always better to have more suppliers than not. Apple's current predicament is precisely because their sole high end CPU provider isn't very interested in them. Secondly, the G3 doesn't have an Altivec unit, and cannot take advantage of the G4 optimizations that this current situation has forced many software vendors to make.

      I find it far more likely that Apple retires the G3 soon, replacing it with low-end G4s on the iBook line. The PowerBooks could then either host high-end G4s, or move to the 970, depending on how quickly they can get it working. Put another way, who'd want to buy a G3 if Apple is retiring the G4?

    7. Re:My own bets by Dylan+Zimmerman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Good points.

      Eventually, they should upgrade the iBook (or more likely replace it with another model), but Final Cut Express is a $300 app. Not too many home users are willing to drop that kind of cash on a single program AND aren't willing to spend it on a better computer. Plus, I don't know too many people who do FCE level video editing at home in the first place. iMovie is powerful enough for the average home user editing video of the kids.

      Photoshop runs just fine on an iBook. Sure, the effects are faster on a better processor, but they're pretty snappy, even on the low-end iBooks. And that's the full version, not just Elements. I've tried Elements on my Windows computer, and it doesn't seem very different from the whole thing. A few filters and such aren't there, but the basic stuff certainly is. The average home user doesn't need most of the filters at all. When I was retouching digital photos for my mom, I just used the airbrush, dodge, burn, and the average sampling eyedropper. I was able to digitally shave people, remove red-eye, and even remove objects (for instance a mechanical pencil from my step-dad's pocket). I can't imagine a home user needing to do much more than that.

      Of course, some of the filters look cool, so they would want to use those. However, saying that those need to be fast is like saying that it is necessary that I be able to render 720*480 scenes in real-time. Sure, I do rendering as a hobby, but I know that it isn't supposed to be very fast without a huge render farm.

      I personally think that they aren't going to do anything with the iBook other than move it to Gobi, but later they will introduce a far more powerful laptop for home users. Possibly G4 based, but then again, possibly not. They could conceivably tack an Altivec unit onto the 750 and have quite a processor.

    8. Re:My own bets by GlassHeart · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I don't know too many people who do FCE level video editing at home in the first place. iMovie is powerful enough for the average home user editing video of the kids.

      There are really three classes of users here. There's the consumer, who indeed will probably be happy with a G3 and iMovie. There's the professional, who will demand the 970 be on the high end PowerBook, at least. There's also the pro-sumer (the folks who buy $1,000 video cameras that are too good for baby videos, but useless for professionals), who would want a G4 with Final Cut Express. So, ideally, Apple can ship three laptops, but they can also combine two of these classes into one laptop. Where we differ is which way Apple will classify this group in the middle.

      They could conceivably tack an Altivec unit onto the 750 and have quite a processor.

      Yes, that would satisfy the need that I identified in the meantime. The reason I guessed G4 iBook is mainly the fact that Apple already has it in the current crop of PowerBooks.

  7. G5 Powerbook? by spookysuicide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they release a 15" g5 powerbook, what would happen to sales of their 17" g4 powerbook? I don't believe apple would have a powerbook line with their midrange model having such a radically better architecture/processor then their high end model.

    --
    yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
  8. 40h bit, not 64 bit! by Thinkit3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Isn't much more elegant to use hexadecimal?

    --
    -Libertarian secular transhumanist
    1. Re:40h bit, not 64 bit! by TeknoHog · · Score: 5, Funny

      Agreed. It does look more 0x539 that way.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:40h bit, not 64 bit! by Drakonian · · Score: 5, Informative

      I will take this oppourtunity to gain easy karma and inform you that 0x539 is hexadecimal for "1337" which is hacker-speak for "elite".

      --
      Random is the New Order.
  9. Re:I'm wondering... by gwernol · · Score: 4, Informative

    Do you think the new "G5"s will sport new enclosures too..?

    The current design is long in the tooth to say the least and is highly associated with the G4 processor... yet I've heard nothing about new enclosures at all..

    Dude, RTFA:

    "- The new Power Mac has a new case design with "metallic look plastics," and a front panel "mostly made with the same anodized aluminum surface" as the newest Powerbooks."

    Its only one short page. Its not slashdotted (yet). How hard was that?

    --
    Sailing over the event horizon
  10. Mod parent up, please by Dylan+Zimmerman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Poor MacWhispers doesn't have a single ad on the linked site. Let's not destroy their servers when the article text is here.

  11. Shullbit by Graymalkin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would have believed 970 PowerMacs in production but definitely not 970 based Powerbooks. That goes double because there's even more rumors of 15" Powerbooks based on the G4 but all aluninumized waiting to be shipped to Apple's stores and other retailers. If you've noticed there's a dearth of 15" Powerbooks in stock anywhere that sells them.

    Besides June production doesn't mean a June release or even announcement date. Apple likes to build up stocks of computers before selling them. Building and shipping computers in the same month would be a ridiculous strain on their resources. As for a June announcement, see the Osborne computer company.

    WWDC isn't exactly a place Steve Jobs likes to announce hardware products, it is really the wrong venue for such announcements. MacWorld Expo is a much better place to do things like that and is only two months away. It's not really a secret Panther developer previews are going to be released at WWDC which will likely be SJ's keynote subject. MacOS and related software ought to be and typically is the subject of SJ's WWDC keynotes. Not hardware announcements.

    --
    I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
    1. Re:Shullbit by haunebu · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Apple likes to build up stocks of computers before selling them. Building and shipping computers in the same month would be a ridiculous strain on their resources.

      Er, no. Apple prides itself on having a low inventory (a couple of weeks, at the most) - all personal computer manufacturers do. If they had any more, they'd wind up in the December 2001 "5+ weeks of unsellable inventory" glut problem.

      WWDC isn't exactly a place Steve Jobs likes to announce hardware products, it is really the wrong venue for such announcements. MacWorld Expo is a much better place to do things like that and is only two months away.

      Except that Apple isn't going to be at MWNY this year.

      --

      Blue skies, Barthy Burgers, girls...

    2. Re:Shullbit by baka_boy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Most of the heavy-duty apps that Apple will want to demo on the new 64-bit hardware right off the bat, like Oracle, Maya, etc., should already be 64-bit clean, since most of them also run on SPARC, MIPS, and Alpha platforms which have been 64-bit for a long time. Normal consumer apps aren't really going to see much of a performance gain from native 64-bit execution; it's the increased clock speed, cache size, and memory bandwidth that's going to improve things there.

      Of course, Apple has already worked hard to support Altivec-optimized versions of common high-performance libraries like BLAS and OpenGL, so I would expect them to spend some time tuning those systems for 64-bit performance. And, of course, the required Photoshop plugins, in the hopes of reclaiming seemingly the only benchmark they really care about from the Wintel platform.

    3. Re:Shullbit by gamgee5273 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't forget: Jobs intro'd the original bondi blue iMac at WWDC five years ago. He will do hardware at WWDC if he thinks it is cool enough to show off.

    4. Re:Shullbit by Graymalkin · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't really see the 970 really requiring some massive software transition that the 68k-PowerPC transition required. The 970 and the G4 share the same ISA, the differences are microarchitectural. Developers will need access to the new systems to make sure their code is going to work but as long as they are writing their code properly the 64-bit ports shouldn't require more than a recompile. I think it makes more sense for SJ's keynote to talk about the direction Apple is moving with OSX and maybe even future software projects.

      --
      I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
  12. Re:I'm wondering... by JudgeFurious · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In another article on MacWhispers site (I believe) they mention information they've come across that appears to indicate a new enclosure will be used for the next PowerMac.

    Long on the tooth the current one is however it's still far more attractive (to me at least) than anything available on the PC side. In my opinion at least the mirrored drive door model was a mistake and the previous Quicksilver was the best looking of the bunch.

    The current one looks like someone gave a Quicksilver to some PC case-mod monkeys and they didn't know what to do with it so they glued a mirror to the front. It's the first one that looks like it's trying to be cool and the first one to (kind of) fail at it.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
  13. this makes sense by b17bmbr · · Score: 4, Informative

    apple is offering sweet $300 dollar rebates to students, and they have just dropped the price on many models like the powerbook. might be a good time to jump on one.

    --
    My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
    1. Re:this makes sense by b17bmbr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      so what if they need cash? like that makes a powerbook a piece of crap? maybe car dealerships are hard up for cash at the end of the year when they move out last year's models? oh yeah, dell is offering a $150 online rebate. wow, looks like dell is screwed.

      --
      My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
    2. Re:this makes sense by switcha · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Where have you been living (apart from Hazard County)? Apple's one of the most cash rich companies around. Tramping all over the SV, feeding rumors of buyouts and actually buying some heavy hitters (Shake, logic, etc.)

      Apple consistent history of rebates, is that it precedes new products.

      --
      You know what? ... A little club soda *did* get that out!
  14. MacWhispers... by evil+carrot · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm no fan of Jack Campbell and honestly do not believe anything his site spouts. The only time I ever hear anything about it is when (semi-)legitimate news sources pick up "scoops" from his site.

    To read more about how cool a guy he is, check out the MacTable report at Macintouch:

    http://www.macintouch.com/mactable.html

    --

    I am not who I say you are.
  15. From the past... by Nexum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, from past knowledge of how Apple has done things recently, I'd say...

    PPC 970 Single 1.4 Ghz shipping July.

    PPC 970 Duallies shipping within 4 weeks of the single.

    OSX 10.3 Late August... and I would bet my kidneys you WILL have to pay for it (~$129), but don't moan... apparently there is a LOT of new/improved stuff, and this is only the beginning as Apple have found that they can build on the code very easily *indeed* due to the quality and clenaliness of it... exactly the problem MS seems to have with Windows ATM.

    --

    This sig has been deprecated.
  16. Re:MacWhispers and Macrumors etc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Oh sure. Would that be the Thinksecret that, in 1999, predicted Apple was about to release an Intel version of the iMac that ran Windows?

    Or the one in June 2000 that predicted that Apple was about to drop the entire PowerMac line and just sell laptops and all-in-ones?

    Or the one in August 2001 that predicted Apple and AMD had collaborated on a "secret" CPU design code-named "Twostone", a 48 bit CPU with 16384 registers, that was going to replace the G3 and run it in emulation just as the PPCs had emulated the 68000?

    Or maybe the one that, in September 2002, predicted Apple was about to release a cordless phone, FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.

    I hardly would describe them as a dependable source of unfounded rumours.

  17. Re:No question by Graymalkin · · Score: 2, Funny

    Other than the 17" my friend has and the ones I've seen at two Apple stores and a Fry's I haven't heard of any 17" Powerbooks shipping.

    --
    I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
  18. Rumors, Rumors, Rumors by dhovis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I find it hard to know what to believe here. It seems a lock that Apple will introduce PPC970 based Macs at WWDC, but the question as to when they will be availble for shipment is something that is probably only known to his Steveness.

    As far as a PPC970 based Powerbook goes. I doubt it. The peak energy consumption is low enough, but I don't think it has any powersave features built in. The increased complexity of a whole new chip in a laptop...seems dubious.

    However, There is one thing that makes me think a Powerbook G5 might be released: Apple has not updated the 15" Powerbook since November, not even to bring it up to feature parity with the 12" and 17" models (Bluetooth, FW800, and DDR memory, Aluminum enclosure). It does make me think that maybe Apple has been waiting for the next major uprade to update the 15" models and switching to the PPC970 would certainly qualify.

    --

    --
    The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.

  19. Re:No need to click, article text.. NOT a karma wh by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 3, Funny

    "...an OS rampant with Rob Malda's homosexuality..."

    Hmmm...and this was posted as an Anon Coward. Trying to tell us something Taco?

    --
    Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
  20. You may have to buy an Intel machine anyway by yerricde · · Score: 2, Funny

    Show me how an Intel laptop with similar specs is cheaper. I dare you.

    Cost of Intel laptop: $1000. Half-Life license: $25.

    Cost of Mac laptop: $1000. Half-Life license: $25. Cost of Intel laptop to play Half-Life on because Half-Life doesn't work on Macs: $1000.

    s/Half-Life/any other Windows game whose copyright owner refuses to authorize a port to the Mac OS/g

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:You may have to buy an Intel machine anyway by kalidasa · · Score: 3, Funny

      Cost of Mac laptop: $1000. Half-Life license: $25. Cost of Intel laptop to play Half-Life on because Half-Life doesn't work on Macs: $1000

      Cost of a real life so you don't waste all of your time on a Pentium laptop playing Half-Life: Priceless.

  21. Mac rumor sites vs. Slashdot by Gizzmonic · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Slashdot is not a place for rumors.

    To top it off, the person who runs Macwhispers is completely morally bankrupt, and is most likely fabricating the entire story.

    I'd like to see some real competition for high performance CPUs as much as the next guy, but let's not lose our heads to con artists like this guy...we will know for sure in about 2 weeks ;)

    --
    (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
  22. Everyone seems to misunderstand MacWhispers by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everyone's immediate reaction to MacWhispers is always negative.

    "Oh, I'll believe it when I see it."

    Obviously. MacWhispers has given up on making release date predictions. You'll notice that they have *not* given a specific timeframe for the release of these machines. They have said that they are being built.

    So, now, when WWDC makes no mention of the 970, everyone will say "See! MacWhispers are a bunch of damn fools." and no one will remember, two months from now, when these machines surface, that it fits perfectly with MacWhispers' information.

    If you take them completely literally, they are a valuable source of information. They cannot divine the future, and they don't seem to be trying to do so, either.

    --

    There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    1. Re:Everyone seems to misunderstand MacWhispers by gorsh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But using this logic, they're always going to be right - everyone knows that Apple will most likely announce a PPC970 system at some point in the future.

      Predicting something that everyone knows will happen eventually is not so significant as correctly predicting *when* it will happen.

    2. Re:Everyone seems to misunderstand MacWhispers by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, they are both providing valuable information (the machines are in production) and they are providing verifiable information (they have a metalicized plastic enclosure and different handles).

      Predicting something that everyone knows will happen eventually is not so significant as correctly predicting *when* it will happen.

      Obviously. That is why everyone seems to be denying these nonexistant predictions. That doesn't change the fact that they are not making those predictions.

      Also, I'll point out that until recently, not everyone knew that these things were happening. For a long time, the only people saying that Apple was within a year of release was MacBidouille, a Portuguese (!) mac rumor website. MacWhispers clearly has a totally separate source, and this is valuable corroboration.

      All I'm saying is that MacWhispers is a fantastic addition to the Macintosh Rumors scene, and if people would only pay attention, they'd see the virtues. Every Mac rumors website begins in fan mode, and some of them improve. MacWhispers has improved a *lot*.

      Some of them get worse, and worse, and worse, and worse.

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  23. New Product Lineup by chia_monkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Without knowing exactly how many PPC 970 chips are being produced, it's tough to guess where they would go in Apple's lineup. If there are enough, it's safe to venture a guess that:

    1) PowerBook gets the yummy new PPC 970 chip (it IS the year of the laptop afterall)
    2) iBook then gets the current G4 chip. The last of the lineup using G3s finally gets the upgrade.
    3) iMac, eMac, PowerMac get new 970 chip because hey, we can't leave them out. Or can we? It's the year of the laptop...maybe let the masses go nuts over the laptops as they continue working on the new IBM chips and then blow the doors off when they're ready to be put in the desktop models.

    --

    "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
    1. Re:New Product Lineup by baka_boy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think the iBook, iMac, and eMac will all stay fairly close to their current specs for a while -- they're all selling fine in their intended channels, and the additional revenue to be made from upping them to 970s (or even G4, in the case of the iBook) really doesn't justify major hardware revisions until the excitement (and initial problems/patches/recalls that will inevitably follow the introduction of a new processor and system architecture) dies down.

      Personally, I'd be willing to be that the XServe and desktop lines get the new chip first, with the revised 15" PB still using a (prob. faster) G4 CPU. Until there's some support for processor speed scaling, 64-bit versions of important content production tools (Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, etc.), and a real reason to push the envelope (both in performance and cost), Apple will likely be happy to stay with the formula that has worked so well for the last few years.

      People who think that the Apple desktop line has become obsolete have probably never done much high-end uncompressed video, multitrack audio, or other hardware *and* software-intensive work on a Mac. You need PCI slots, support for fast disks (or RAID arrays), physical access to the machine for cable connects, etc., etc., none of which are really viable on a laptop device. Plus, that product line has definitely seen the least attention from Apple over the last couple of years; aside from minor internal tweaks, the G4 desktop you buy now is just a slightly faster version of the one you could get two full years ago.

  24. I doubt the speed predictions at least. by laertes · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Going from the Ars Technica article a while back, I don't buy the claims about the speed of the new chip.

    Specifically:

    On Altivec optimized tasks, these machines have as much as 2 to 2.5 times the through performance as a similarly clocked G4.

    Unlike the G4, where the AltiVec unit is integrated rather nicely into the issue unit, and can issue several types of vector instructions in parallel, the 970 can only do a permute in parallel with another instruction. Hence, for some tasks, I would expect the G4 to be almost twice as fast as a similarly clocked 970.

    They make a similar claim about the non-AltiVec speed, which I tend to believe. The compiler has to be a little smarter (but Apple did add a bunch of G4 optimizations to gcc anyway), but the 970 can do more per clock the the G4 can, under many circumstances. Not only can it have more instructions in-flight, but it has a much more advanced reordering unit than the G4.

    Oh yeah, and when did /. just copy over Apple rumor stories? </obligatory>

    --

    Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
    1. Re:I doubt the speed predictions at least. by gsfprez · · Score: 5, Insightful

      cache performance, bus performance increases.

      the real reason G4's don't perform is that they are usually waiting on data... the G4's may be fast and have great AltiVec, the whole issue of still running (essentially) PC133 memory is the bottleneck.. no matter how fast your CPU is, if you can't get it lots of data - not just the data in the L2 cache - its just gonna sit there.

      the 970 systems should, by any means, at least keep the CPU(s) busy. that alone will greatly enhance the performance of the new machines when doing things like 3D rendering, video transcoding, etc.

      Its like why my Powerbook rips mp3's from CD's at only 10x, while my slower desktop rips them at 14x... the desktop has a 52x CD-ROM drive and my Powerbook has a slow-as-ass Superdrive. I can't keep the machine busy because I can't get it the data. The bottleneck in that case is the CD read.

      In the G4's vs. the 970's discussion, the bottleneck is the pathetic (compared to Intel mobos) G4 motherboard because the mobo's running the 970's are all around faster.

      --
      guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
    2. Re:I doubt the speed predictions at least. by illumin8 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, but you aren't taking into account the FSB speed of the processor which is really choking the G4 right now. 167 mhz. is just not fast enough to feed the processor as fast as the Altivec unit can process instructions.

      The 1.8 ghz. PPC 970 should have a 900 mhz. FSB, fed by dual bank DDR400 (PC3200) memory it will really cook!

      --
      "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
    3. Re:I doubt the speed predictions at least. by stripes · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Unlike the G4, where the AltiVec unit is integrated rather nicely into the issue unit, and can issue several types of vector instructions in parallel, the 970 can only do a permute in parallel with another instruction. Hence, for some tasks, I would expect the G4 to be almost twice as fast as a similarly clocked 970.

      The Ars review used the CPU documentation to decide the 970's Altivec was slow. It might have missed something, like maybe the G4's Altivec is always memory starved and thus runs a 25% of it's maximum speed while the 970 has lots of memory bandwidth and thus while in thery is only 50% as fast as the G4's, that manages to be 2x what the G4 really does.

      Of corse it may well be slower (or merely "about the same"), because I'm not able to tell you how fast a CPU is from the pre-release docs either (I thought the TI SuperSPARC would be fast, and the P-II would be slow). Basically I'm saying "who can really tell here".

  25. Re:Yikes by JudgeFurious · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't looked but do you get an equal number of PC rumour sites if you go Googling for that?

    If not then you've got to ask yourself why is it that so many people care about what may or may not be coming along next from Apple and so few give the proverbial rats ass about the next offering from HP, Dell, or eMachines.

    Apple seems to have perfected getting attention to an art. You can love them or hate them but almost nobody ignores them. That kind of PR is priceless.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
  26. Re:SCOOP: PPC 990, "G6" on the Way now! by TheCrazyFinn · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's actually called the PPC980, and is due next year.

    Yes, the PPC980 is in the IBM roadmap, it's to the Power5 as the 970 is to the Power4.

    --
    "You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
  27. (Re)Stating the Obvious by buckhead_buddy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think that at this point it's quite obvious _something_ is in production, but that doesn't mean the time frame you can by an updated Mac is close at hand though.

    Major changes that effect developers will be announced at WWDC. It's likely that whatever new directions in CPUs, APIs, or Market segments will be announced there because developers will have to react to the news. That doesn't mean anything will be available for sale or even that we'll get the whole picture of what cases, prices, user interface changes, or iApps will be released. Not only don't developers need to know this stuff, but traditionally they've been a very conservative, non-spontaneous, purchasing crowd where such surprises would be wasted.

    People keep talking about having the whole Mac product line refreshed at WWDC and nonsense like that. My guess is far more conservative. We may get a timetable to expect new PowerMacs, but we probably aren't even going to see the new machines in final plastics.

    During the transition from 68000 to PowerPC, Apple bent over backwards to give developers access to emulators, test labs, and even loaned machines to big developers. But they didn't start commercially selling anything until eight or nine months after the WWDC announcements.

    I don't think Apple will wait quite that long to introduce new chips if such plans are really on the horizon, but I think there will be some non-trivial lag from WWDC to new consumer-marketed debut of new hardware.

  28. Next from Apple... by maggard · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Oh well yeah, now that all the rumors are in one place...

    OK, my predictions:

    • Apple will come out with a new motherboard design. It will feature HyperTransport architecture from AMD.
    • Even more support for multiple CPU's including multiple cores.
    • Serial ATA. Apple will implement it, probably find some clever way to take advantage of it for another radical system case.
    • USB 2.0. Sure Apple is unimpressed with it but the market demands it and it costs nothing more.
    • Updated standard graphics cards, probably from both nVidia & ATI.
    • Apple will continue to grossly overcharge for RAM. Then of course nearly every OEM also does so.
    • Continue to ship the 1-button/no-button mouse reasoning if folks want more buttons they can spend $10 for another mouse, the OS already supports the other buttons.
    • Include 802.11g antennas in all offerings.
    • Apple will do something with video. They've got all the components, now they'll do something different and dramatic like they did with audio.
    • Something new on the low-end, either a significant change to the eMac or a completely new design.
    • Apple will announce the next version of MacOS X but probably not ship it, or at least only release it as a beta.
    • Apple will make some sort of announcement regarding further office applications to compliment Keynote. These may or not be based on OpenOffice/StarOffice.
    • Lots more functionality included for MacOS X Server. Possibly a small-office/all-in-one/out-of-the-box solution.
    • A remote client for MacOS X.
    • Some sort of clustering.
    • Longshot - Some sort of Exchange/Outlook killer.
    • Longshot - Wireless webcam.
    • Longshot - Server blades.
    • Longshot - A built-in phone management system including universal inbox, menu options programmed graphically, fax management, etc.
    • Longshot - Dynamic DNS based off of .Mac accounts.
    --
    I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
    1. Re:Next from Apple... by phillymjs · · Score: 2, Informative

      Continue to ship the 1-button/no-button mouse reasoning if folks want more buttons they can spend $10 for another mouse, the OS already supports the other buttons.

      I think the days of the one-button mouse may be coming to an end, at least partially. Apple's consumer systems recently started shipping with new keyboards and mice. I don't remember if they did this with the keyboard, but what once said "Pro Mouse" on its underside now says just "Mouse." The only other discernible difference between the two are that Mouse lacks the 3-position click tension adjustment ring that Pro Mouse had. It stands to reason that new towers (what Apple considers their "pro" line) will ship with a new "Pro Mouse"-- and pros know what to do with multiple buttons and scroll wheels. Maybe Apple will really let loose and even unveil a new "Pro Keyboard" with extra programmable buttons or something.

      ~Philly

    2. Re:Next from Apple... by phillymjs · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Chill out, rabid fanboy!

      I was not slamming/mocking Apple for only shipping a single-button mouse. I'm typing this post on my G4. All I was saying is, based on their nomenclature changes they might be about to ship one with their new towers.

      ~Philly

  29. Memory bound by benwaggoner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Assuming you aren't memory bound. You've only got 166 Mbps TOTAL between the two processors, which well tuned AltiVec codec can saturate with a single processor, let alone two.

    --

    My video compression blog
  30. PC Rumours ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    "I haven't looked but do you get an equal number of PC rumour sites if you go Googling for that?"

    To determine what features will be on the leading edge PCs of the coming years, all you have to do is go to www.apple.com.

    Egads, I've turned into a troll!

  31. Re:MacWhispers and Macrumors etc by foniksonik · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I hardly would describe them as a dependable source of unfounded rumours."

    What are you trying to say, they are a great source of unfounded rumours! Not to mention dependable!

    --
    A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
  32. No 64-bit OS for some time - my prediction by gsfprez · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't get why its believed that Mac OS X has to be 64-bit to run on the 970. We've been told in numerous places (Ars, IBM's frickin website) that the 970 runs in 32-bit just fine.

    SO... that being said... my WWDC announcment predictions along with what Apple has already stated

    - New Macs with PPC 970
    - New PowerBook 15 with PPC 970 (the 15" PowerBook is the workhorse of the line, always will be, sorry)
    - Preview of Panther
    - Macintosh Roadmap Roadmap showing the future... and this is the big-ass news that everyone's been talking about.

    Roadmap steps will look something like this...

    July 2003:
    10.2.7 running on new 970-based Macs practically unmodified because the 970 handles 32-bit operation just totally fine. x.x.+1 updates between WWDC and October 2003. Developer-only release of 64-bit SDK which will not be ready for prime time, but will allow developers to make the swtich, if necessary (similar to Mac OS 9 -> Carbon transition)

    October 2003:
    10.3 release - all those cool updates in iApps, updates in performance and operation of Mac OS X UI that were shown at WWDC. Panther Will NOT BE a 64-Bit OS!! - why not? Does not need to be because there are no 64-bit apps! Where are the apps? They are still being worked on with the 64-bit SDK, see you at Mac World San Fran with first 64-bit apps.

    Jan 2004 (MWSF):
    10.3.5 release. Mac OS X will run 64-bit applications. Only apps that NEED to be recomplied 64-bit clean will be recompiled 64-bit clean (iChat, for example, does NOT need to be 64-bit). Finder will be first app to be 64-bit clean because it needs to be.

    beyond that, its non-speculateable.

    But i think that the real news at this WWDC is going to be the first major Macintosh Roadmap since we saw the Rhapsody one in 1997(8?). You will see where the Mac is going hardware-wise and software wise.

    Apple is going to push into the small-medium server market in a hard way.... 64-bit XServes which can run horkin Oracle databases, huge fileservers, and be the backbone of big-ass renderfarms... all with Mac OS X moron-simple UI and none of the pain of cost with Windows servers or admin headache of Linus servers? Puhlease... Apple is going to kick ass and move in where Intel and AMD are just simply lagging behind.

    (yes, half the guys in my wedding party have apple.com email addresses.. no, none of this information was gleaned from them.)

    --
    guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
  33. My predictions by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The PowerMac G5 will be announced at WWDC, based on the IBM PowerPC 970. The name of the machine will be "PowerMac G5" or "Power Macintosh G5", but Apple will also advertise the processor as the "IBM PowerPC 970 processor with Velocity Engine". It's 64-bit, and they'll hype that up as much as they can.

    The low-end (1.4GHz?) model will be available immediately, or within two weeks and Apple will be taking pre-orders. The mid-range and high-end (dual 1.6 and dual 1.8?) models will be shipping within a month after that. Photoshop comparisons with the latest Compaq PC will be mind-blowing, for the types of people who get excited about Photoshop performance. USB2, Bluetooth, FireWire 800 and 400 and Gigabit Ethernet will be standard features, with a slot for an Airport Extreme card.

    The Aluminum 15" PowerBook will be released. We will not see a PowerBook G5 before January '04 and maybe not until March '04.

    The PowerMac G5 will ship with a hacked version of Mac OS X 10.2, which will not be fully optimized to take advantage of the new processor. However, the PPC970 is designed to run 32-bit code just as well as 64-bit code, so it will still be amazingly fast. Anyone who buys a G5 will be entitled to a "free" ($29 S&H) upgrade to Mac OS X 10.3, which will ship in September for $129.

    The new OS will be 64-bit native, optimized for the PPC970, and compiled with gcc 3.3. Large chunks of the Finder will be rewritten for performance and better UI, and there will be a ton of little system-wide UI improvements (adding up to a significantly better experience). One convenient new feature will be support for multiple users being logged in locally at the same time, like Windows XP (go to a login screen without quitting all your apps, second person logs in, first person's apps stay running hidden in the background, can switch back and forth between users).

    Mac OS X 10.3 will include WebCore, Apple's Aquafied version of KHTML, available for any application to use. Safari will be the default browser. I suspect Internet Explorer will not be included, although of course you can download it from Microsoft. Help Viewer will be replaced (thank god) with a version that uses WebCore. Now that WebCore is available, it'll be possible for Apple to support PAC and WPAD for automatic proxy server discovery, although I don't know whether these features will make it into 10.3.

    Did I miss anything? We'll see how accurate my predictions are next month...

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    1. Re:My predictions by glowurm · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Losing my moderator status for this story and breaking my tradition of not posting inflammatory comments, I post reply because it's important for others to know that these are not YOUR predictions but the predictions of a number of rumor sites.

      My predictions: you will, next time you post something written by another party you'll give them credit. That, or you'll post an obstinate reply about how you're justified in posting these as your own thoughts. For some reason the bar scene in "Good Will Hunting" comes to mind - the one where Will confronts an ivy-league student for "cock-blocking" his buddy.

      Of course you could ignore this, or post a reply citing those sites you've plagiarized.

      I hope you do the right thing.

    2. Re:My predictions by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Many of my predictions are indeed based on a number of different rumor sites, but not copied directly. Some of the rumors I've read I disagree with, and some I agree with.

      For example, I think it was Mac OS Rumors that said the G5 will not be called the G5, and I disagree with them. This issue was also mentioned by As the Apple Turns, who said that according to AppleInsider, it would be called the PowerMac G5. I agree with them. That doesn't mean my prediction is based on theirs, merely that we both made the same prediction.

      The nature of the PPC970 chip, and that Apple will use it at all, is based largely on a couple of articles at ArsTechnica, but they didn't say anything about when it would ship.

      The 1.4, dual 1.6 and dual 1.8GHz clock speeds are consistent with Mac OS Rumors, although I'm sure I've seen other speeds suggested elsewhere. I believe I've heard 2GHz suggested, and I don't agree with that (not for WWDC). I forgot to mention pricing, but I predict the low-end and mid-range models will be $1499 and $1999 respectively; this is based on Apple's current pricing, not on any rumor site.

      USB2 support I heard somewhere, but don't remember where (it had to do with motherboard specs). Bluetooth, FireWire 800 and Airport Extreme are currently shipping features.

      I've heard about the 15" Aluminum PowerBook from a few sources I think. The PowerBook G5 has also been mentioned in multiple places including this Slashdot article, but I don't expect to see it until next year, possibly announced at MacWorld San Francisco but probably not.

      The G5 shipping with 10.2 was a possibility I had been considering, but was confirmed by ThinkSecret and eWEEK. Same source for gcc 3.3. Pricing is based on Apple's history.

      The multiple simultaneous users feature I heard from a few places quite some time ago; I don't remember where. Apple's WWDC material says Panther and WebCore will be demonstrated at WWDC; that's no secret. As for PAC and WPAD, I haven't seen that suggested anywhere.

      In any case, a rumor is "A piece of unverified information of uncertain origin usually spread by word of mouth." Many of my predictions are based on rumors. The sites I got the rumors from are mostly just passing on rumors they've heard. I don't feel that not citing sources was inappropriate, since these are MY predictions, BASED ON what many others have said, not simply a copy of someone else's predictions. I would expect others to be able to make similar predictions, based on overlapping sources.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  34. From past experience... by jriskin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ways of knowing Apple is going to release something.

    1. Supply chain starts drying up.

    2. Apple allows upgrade makers to catch up.

    On the supply chain i've heard conflicting rumors, but on the upgrade side both OWC and Powerlogix have now released 1.42Ghz upgrades, this matches the top of the line G4 desktops.

    So there is definitely SOMETHING coming, whether it is a new 970 based machine or simply speed bumped G4's only time will tell.

  35. Re:If they want to get our attention.... by Nexum · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mac had better come up with a dual processor Notebook.

    'Mac' would do bloody well to come up with *anything* considering it's a product name and not a company... have a lot of experience with Apple products do you?

    I am demoing a shoebox AVID field editor that has 2 P-4 processors

    I think you mean 2 P4 Xeon processors seeing as vanilla P4's are not SMP capable, and you are probably paying through the nose for this privilege, and it's likely not gonna be anywhere NEAR as portable as a notebook so you're not really comparing like for like are you?

    Current Apple notebooks compare rather well in both price and performance (and ALWAYS in functionality) to modern PC notebooks. Show me a PC notebook with dual processors? The performance delta is negligable on the notebook front, unless you're thinking about the companies who put desktop chips into their PC notebooks, and then you had BETTER be able to do your work a lot faster because you've got 15 mins of battery life on the thing. Show me a comparable machine with a 17 inch screen, 4.5 hour batt life, gigabit ethernet, superdrive, in an enclosure as portable as the Mac at a price not far from the Mac.

    MAC's used to be the thing for Video....

    Hmm, strange, I never knew that Media Access Control was so capable it could entirely take the diverse strains of Video PP. The abbreviation for the Macintosh platform is Mac, not MAC, this error really pisses off a lit of people and shows the poster as ignorant, someone in the industry would have known that I would have thought.

    it looks like they are starting to lose with the big companies moving away from them...

    What a gem of wisdom... you've wonderfully neglected to mention any of these companies you refer to... unless you mean your own, which judging from your post has never/rarely touched the Macintosh platform seriously.

    Go find somewhere else to post your FUD, Troll.

    -Nex

    --

    This sig has been deprecated.
  36. Re:64-bit laptop and gigabyte memory by bnenning · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It seems to me that one of the bigger draws of 64-bit computing is the ability to address much more memory than a 32-bit processor can.


    By far the biggest advantage of the 970 is simply that it's a much faster processor than the G4. If it were only 32 bits there would still be a good deal of anticipation. I doubt we'll see Powerbooks with 32 gigs of RAM anytime soon, but a PB 970 would still be a kickass machine.

    --
    How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
  37. Not Quite by coolmacdude · · Score: 2, Insightful

    using bone-stock OS X 10.2.6 on pre-production single processor PPC 970 machines...

    This statement casts doubt on the other claims of the article because it is simply not possible. A 970 Mac could not run stock 10.2.6 as it exists now because it doesn't include drivers for the 970, the new Hypertransport bus, or the new motherboard chipset. IBM stated that only minor changes would be necessary to operating system code for 970 support though, so my analysis is that there are two possibilities.
    Either a. the OS they are running isn't stock 10.2.6 but a modded version that is being called the same thing
    or b. there are no running 970 Macs as of yet so they aren't running any OS.

    --

    -You may license this sig for only $6.99.
  38. Great setup, but you forgot the punch line: by inertia187 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Banging your head against the shiny new Dell Inspiron 600m keyboard...priceless. There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Microsoft."

    --
    A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
  39. What we can expect by customjake · · Score: 4, Interesting
    There are doubts in my mind that Apple will use the WWDC as a launching pad for the new 970s. I do belive that Apple is currently in production of 970 machines, and plans to release them alongside Panther, whenever it releases...probably August. After all, why release an OS that's 64 bit if you don't have hardware to run 64 bit. The rest of the computer world is waiting for a viable 64 bit desktop system....there are other 64 bit processors out there.....

    I do belive that Apple will have some sort of 970 based machine for the developers to look at, as well as some benchmarks for us all to drool over.

    So what can we expect? Previewing Panther on a 970 based system, probably an update to the developer software (64 bit Project Builder), benchmarks of the 970, overview of 970 based hardware. Probably annouce a PPC 970 based Powerbook in the near future...END OF YEAR? Possibly a Naming change to hardware lineup, and Adjustable Displays

    What is less likely? Windows verison of iTunes, PPC 970s shipping, PPC 970 Powerbooks shipping, iCam,

    What is NOT going to happen? Apple PDA, Apple Cell phone,

    As for the whole product line being revamped, i don't think we'll see a whole new product line at WWDC, but i think that Apple is going to be moving all it's lines away from the G4/G3 based systems. I don't even see the iBooks being converted to G4 systems, as IBM's chip lineup is known to be 20-30% cheaper than Motorola's line...

    Instead of seeing G4s as the low end chips, i'd probably wager that IBMs will develop a PPC off of the 750 chip and this will probably replace the G3 systems. But i wouldn't expect to see a PPC 750 until you see a 980 in a powermac.... I think if Apple is going to IBM processors, it would be prudent that they went to an all IBM chip lineup.

  40. Re:So is this The End of 32-bit Apple OS by psyconaut · · Score: 3, Informative

    They wouldn't be supporting two operating system, it's the same operating system!

    64-bit PPC architecture can run 32-bit PPC code just fine as-is. Which is part of the reason that there are claims of stock MacOS X 10.2.6 being run on these PPC970 machines.

    -psy

  41. Re:You're right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple can waffle on about the Mhz myth all they want, but I don't see them REDUCING clock rates generation after generation.

    Pentium 4: 3 GHz

    Xeon: 2.6 GHz

    Pentium M: 1.6 GHz

    Itanium 2: 1 GHz

  42. Old Macs don't die, they just get non-Apple Unix by Radix42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...at least at our house. The old Performa is very happy with Debian, and the Umax dualie is good with NetBSD. And the iBook SE we used to have was mucho smooth under OpenBSD.
    Which flavor is best for your aged box that's not up to snuff for OS X depends on it's architecture and your needs/experience.
    Somebody posting about moving their older mac to YDL made me grin.

    We'll prolly wait on the 970 before buying another Mac. In the meantime our new cheap Intel mobo tower runs XP and Knoppix on the HD (reiser FS) just fine, on the metal or under VMware.

    But we won't be in the market for a new box (prolly laptop for Her Highness :-) until later this year, so we'll see what ends up being out there!

  43. Re:If they want to get our attention.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Cripes the guys can completely edit a spot in the field before they even return to the office! something that is currently impossible with any MAC based NLE system."

    Rubbish! More and more news gatheres are using miniDV ,DVCAM, type bits of equipment for collecting video footage. Plug one of those into any current Apple laptop and fire up Final Cut Pro and there you have one field based NLE that "lets you edit in the field before they return to the office". In someplaces with severe tfaffic congestion they do the edits on the way back to the office.

    Avid is just pissed 'cos their $100 000 turnkey edit systems are being outclassed by Apples $3000 bog std computer and Final Cut Pro solution.

    Quote I heard the other day from a video editor . "My Macintosh, Final Cut Pro and SDI Board give better results than this other place are getting on their $300 000 dollar system"

  44. Re:You're right by benwaggoner · · Score: 2, Informative

    The cache certainly helps a lot for stuff that can fit in the cache, but for "streaming" tasks, where data is read, processed, and output without being reused, you rapidly hit against memory bandwidth. Well optmized video code definitely runs out of cache quickly.

    --

    My video compression blog
  45. Re:So is this The End of 32-bit Apple OS by psyconaut · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, you're claiming that the 32- and 64-bit versions of Solaris, AIX and FreeBSD are entirely *different* operating systems? Because you're currently claiming that a 64-bit version of MacOS X is a seperate operating system.

    Adding a kernel profile for a PPC970 is *not* creating a new operating system. Adding 64-bit support in the OS is *not* creating a new operating system.

    And your claims that the underlying hardware is "different" are as valid as saying that a 486 and a Pentium are "different hardware". Granted, they're different chips, but they share fundamentally the same roots. Just like the current G4 and the PPC970. Remember that the PPC970 is 100% binary compatible from an instruction point of view and will run *any* G4 code without modification.

    -psy

  46. Re:Yikes by pi42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think PCs do get equal attention, but since all the parts in Dell's, HP's, etc. machines are all industry standard parts manufactured by other companies, the speculation isn't about their offerings but the offerings of their suppliers.

    There's a lot of speculation about AMD's chips, or new motherboard chipsets, or nVidia or ATI's new graphics cards -- probably just as much or more in total as that which surrounds Apple's products. Apple just has a lot of relative speculation surrounding it since it's the only provider for a particular platform.

  47. Re:You're right by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 4, Informative

    " well, I've read some moderately convincing arguments that - because of the low latency, 4GB/sec L3 cache that the current top end G4s sport - memory bandwidth is not the bottleneck that we'd all like to believe. It seems that the REAL bottleneck is simply the low clock speed and lack of integer and FP execution resources that the 7455 has available."

    The only problem with that argument is that the bus tops out whenever you're churning on a large dataset.. like video editing...

    There's no doubt that the L3 helps, but actual memory bandwidth would help a whole lot more.

  48. Jack Campbell by jackDuhRipper · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Holy crap - this whole discussion is en re a MacWhispers column written by a guy who's time and again (macTable; envestco, etc.) been proven to be so full of shit his eyes are brown.

    It wouldda been good to see evil carrot's post further up the thread ...

    If it is for real, great - considering the source, though, doesn't fill me with hope. The article was convincing with all the "inside scoop" from the part OEMs -

    Oh, well - I just bought a dual 867 anyway ...

  49. irony of IBM inside Apple by code4fude · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interesting that lost in this all, without comment, is the irony that IBM, which once represented all that was opposite to Apple and was its big nemesis, will now be the heart of the latest, greatest, user-friendly Apple computers, and that's viewed by the Apple community not just with anticipation and excitement, but with a sense of impeding vengeance, even, against ... what? Still, the IBM-compatible PC!

  50. Re:If they want to get our attention.... by jo_ham · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can do that with a Firewire-equipped camera and a PowerBook with Final Cut Pro on it.

    This is dependent on your production environment using DVCAM or (for low importance work) DV or MiniDV since all the pro DVCAM and consumer cameras have firewire ports. If the camera has an I/O firewire port (some have out only due to a silly tax law defining it as a VCR if it has external video inputs), then you can master back to DVCAM and have the tape ready before you even get back to the office.

    Nothing Apple makes at present has component inputs, for that you need Media 100i, which has a breakout box with assorted inputs including component, SDI, AES/EBU etc depending on how much you want to spend.

    We have a Media 100 system and a Final Cut Pro system. Both have strengths and weknesses, but for a program I can pick up for under £1000 and install and use on a Dual 450 G4 (our current FCP system), Final Cut Pro compares very favourably to Media 100.

    If you're using Betacam then you're limited to expensive NLE's anyway - either Media 100 or Avid, and I've found that I prefer using Media 100, even if it is a bit slow in the render department. The PPC970 should help there.