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Massive WWDC Rumor Roundup

Posted by michael on from the slobber-slobber-drool-drool dept.

An anonymous reader writes "MacRumors.com posted a massive rumor roundup of all the major rumors surrounding Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference which starts next week. There's been talk of 970 PowerMacs, PowerBooks and Panther... seems like the biggest uncertainty is whether or not 970 PowerMacs will ship or not."

8 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. PowerMacs wont ship by interdigitate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i think the biggest doubt is weather the 15inch powerbooks will ship and not the powermacs. The rumors on the 15inch powerbook are pointing in different directions with some people saying they are boxed and ready to be shipped while other people are saying they just went into production...

    --


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    12" ibook, G3 700, 640MB RAM, 20GB HD
  2. Mac OS X Panther still a mystery by iJed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its amazing how little information has got out on Mac OS X Panther (10.3). This is what Apple is claiming WWDC is about and next to no information on this new OS version has been leaked. Last year, with Jaguar (OS 10.2), there were screens on ThinkSecret and a rundown on many of the new features but with Panther there is next to nothing. All there really is is speculation on piles and even this information is highly doubtful. It seems Apple has finally blocked the rumor channels. :-(

  3. Re:to be or not to be by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't believe you were modded up for that. Apple can quite happily continue for several years taking losses, given the amount of money they have. In fact, they're a profitable company, so that isn't an issue. Their consumer and portable lines are doing well, as is the music related stuff. Talk of Apple disappearing is ridiculous. People will be disappointed, yes, but they're going to ship the 970s some time this year and most people who wantone will wait a few more months if necessary.

  4. Re:Rumours... by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 5, Insightful
    1) - 1.5*1.5 = 2.25, not 2.5

    2) - Dual rpocessors give a 70% speed increase at best. Few programs are optimised for them so the biggest benefit you get is when running multiple programs, so going with a 30% increase would be a tad more realistc.

    3) - If you really wanted to be conservative, you should be taking the 1.4, rather than the 1.8.

    4) - This gives a 'conservative' estimate of 1.4*2.25*1.3 = 4 Ghz roughly (before anyone objets that this is too high, read my next paragraph).

    5) - If you think that even your 'conservative' numbers hold for every situation and that speed is limited purely by the CPU speed, then you can't make any sense of what is important about the 970. The extra speed is nice. It should put us on a par with P4s again. It's new bus architecture and better ability to further scale the speed that are going to make the real difference however. It's when you realise that we can start using faster memory, aren't starving the chips of data and can speed the chip up more than once (or twice if we're really lucky) a year that you'll see why this is important. anyone remember the fiuasco with the 500 MHz G4s? How long were we stuck with them as the top end? That, in my mind, is the turning point where we gave the speed crown to Intel and Motorola gave up.

  5. Re:Serial ATA by JonathanBoyd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is a massive existing market for parallel ATA. All the computers with parallel aren't going to disappear overnight when someone starts shipping serial. It'l be a few years before the market for parallel decreases sufficiently for your worries to be relevant.

  6. Re:It's a Developer Conference by hype7 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    While new Macs, new iApps, and new user interface trinkets could debut here or at any other Apple event, this is the only time of year Apple really focuses on making geeky, developer relevant announcements. I hope this WWDC doesn't disappoint in that regard.

    Also relevant; it seems that the Apple VP in charge of hardware is going to be headlining at the new MacWorld Expo in July.

    Now, that could mean one of three things:
    1. He's going to be doing an extended demo of hardware that was released at WWDC
    2. He's going to announce the hardware at MW; unlikely if this is the 970s everyone's been predicting (Job's would do that), or
    3. He's going to announce that the 970s demo'd at WWDC are to be released.

    I choose 1.

    -- james
  7. about the 970 by Enrico+Pulatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If for some reason Apple doesn't have a 970 machine ready or to be announced at WWDC, all hell is gonna break loose. The underground hype is ridiculous at this point. Every 4th day I see a new story posted somewhere about how Apple must be using the 970 chip. It's all vaporware until they show us a box. People are so paranoid to purchase new machines from Apple for fear of being left out in the cold. Not that Apple actively discourages this though, but at this stage in the game, what can they possibly do to stop the 970 expectation short of actually producing a box?

  8. Most hardware stocks NOT depeleted at Apple Store by King+Babar · · Score: 4, Insightful
    For what it's worth, I just checked online at the Apple Store, and pretty much *everything* was listed as shipping on the same day. It is possible that the Apple has emptied the distributors' channels and is holding the remaining inventory, but I would not be very sure about this.

    Interestingly, what *wasn't* shipping the same day were two versions of the XServe (not the low-end model or the cluster unit, but the other two). Those were listed as 3-5 days. I haven't done this drill recently, so I don't know how unusual this is for the XServe.

    In any case, it might be worthwhile "pinging" the Apple Store this week for the appearance of PowerMac shortages. right now, I don 't see any.

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    Babar