Slashdot Mirror
Apple Confirms G5 Based iMac to Ship in September
evn writes "Apple Insider and Yahoo News are carrying stories about Apple's 3rd quarter report including confirmation of a G5 iMac during Apple's webcast conference call to discuss the filing: 'IBM's manufacturing problems have also impacted our next generation iMac. We normally don't talk about unannounced products but we feel you need to know about the current situation. The new iMac is based on the G5 processor. We could not secure the necessary supply of G5 processors to launch our new iMac on schedule: and as we indicated a few weeks ago, we now plan to announce and ship it in september.' Apple made $61 million dollars profit on $2.01 billion dollars in Q3/04 and had the highest CPU shipments in three and a half years."
Cooling issues are at the heart. For those who did not catch it, Apple unloaded on IBM today during the Q3 conference call for delays. IBM promises to have its wafer problems fixed by Q1.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
Learn to read a balance sheet. Really. Profits are reported AFTER the R&D expense is taken out.
$61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
This will probably give you Accounting 101 flash backs but your R&D is an EXPENSE which is subtracted from your Gross Revenues, along with all other expenses, which gets you net profits.
Repeat after me: Profits =/= R&D
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
If you're really in such a hurry, you could lift a finger to try to speed things up.
I just went to www.apple.com/store and clicked through the configurator for the 3 featured G5 configs. No changes, just Select->Continue->Continue from the store main page to get to the shopping cart where there's a ship time estimate.
The dual 1.8GHz: 3-5 business days.
The dual 2GHz: 3-5 business days.
The dual 2.5GHz: 4-6 weeks.
Changing the configuration delays things a bit, but not much. I took the dual-2.0GHz G5 and maxed out the RAM, HD, and video card options, and now it says 7-10 business days.
It looks to me like only the dual 2.5GHz G5 is in short supply (not surprising since it's probably the one that IBM is having the hardest time making the CPU for, though that's just my speculation). The other models aren't. Cancel your order for a dual 2.5 and get a 1.8 or 2.0 dual G5 instead, and tweak the config to your heart's content. Or, if you really really need that 2.5, wait. If you're in a tearing hurry, you could probably walk into an Apple retail store and walk out with one the same day.
Alternatively, you could buy your G5 from MacWarehouse or Outpost.com. Some of them will add RAM and stuff for you; others might not. Outpost.com says they can ship the dual 1.8 and dual 2.0 same-day. CDW says they have dual-1.6 G5's also available same day. This is right on their search results page. I didn't even pick up the phone to find this out. I searched for "G5" on Outpost.com, and MacWarehouse had a link to the closeout 1.6GHz model on their home page.
Using C|Net shopper to find the best price on a dual 2.0GHz G5 shows a list of merchants in which every single one claims to have this model in stock now.
This took me about 10 minutes of surfing to find out. Maybe you should spend a few minutes yourself since it's your computer order?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I hope they don't count a dual G5 as 2 "CPUs" in their sales report. Talk about a way to skew numbers. Technically it would count as 2 cpus, but it would be very easy for Apple if they had a bum quarter, to switch the units from "computers" to "cpus" so they could double the numbers on all their dual processor stuff.
IBM recently announced *nix servers based on Power5, which makes me wonder if some of the resource going towards G5s got diverted to P5s. They're certainly not the same chip, but the similar foundation probably means they're produced in the same plant.
Apple made $61 million dollars profit on $2.01 billion dollars in Q3/04 and had the highest CPU shipments in three and a half years
That's a miniscule amount when you look at the profits of just about any other tech company. $61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
R&D costs are, well, costs. Profit is what you're left with after you've paid your costs. Like R&D.
According to AAPL's SEC filings, it spends about $120 million every 3 months on R&D (or about 480 million dollars per year).
Dell spent LESS than that, at $464 million for R&D, even though their turnover is 6 times Apple's, and their profit is $3 billion. Relative to Dell, Apple spends wild amounts of money on R&D.
Of course, all that pales in comparison with IBM's $5 billion R&D budget, but then, IBM is also in the business of researching things that Apple uses in its products, like the G5 processor for example (hard to miss that one, really..)
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
No need for Linux to do that, you can already run an X-Windows server under Mac OS X and do the same deal as you would with Linux. I've done remote connections using just this setup and it works perfectly.
Sapere aude!
Did you even bother listening to the conference call? They have been adding to the cash reserve constantly given that they have no debt.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
just like powermac has always been very expensive and headless
The G3 All-In-One basically became the iMac.
The 20th Anniversary Macintosh could also be thought of as a relative of the modern LCD-equipped iMac.
Others to look at would be the Performa/Power Mac 5000 series.
Apple's been making all-in-ones since long before the iMac. The first Macintosh systems were AiO models.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
They don't and they never have.
CPU = unit = complete system in their finical lingo.
The G4 cube was a low end mac with out a monitor... It didn't do too well...
Go figure.
By reading this sig, you agree to be bound by all terms and conditions I choose.
I'm wondering if there's any chance of seeing an iMac with a no-monitor option.
Absolutely. And something that'll be nice about the version without a monitor is that you'll have some extra expansion options. Looks like a nice machine.
There's a picture right here.
From Eweek:
IBM is developing the "Cell" processor for future entertainment consoles sold by Sony Corp.; the processor used by the "Xenon," Microsoft Corp.'s next-generation Xbox; as well as the "Revolution," Nintendo Ltd.'s next-generation console. IBM has already shipped more than 10 million PowerPCs to Nintendo for use in the current GameCube, each a 485MHz derivative of the G3 called the "Gekko."
Operating expenses:
Research and development
3 moths ended 3/27/2004 - $123,000,000
3 moths ended 3/29/2003 - $119,000,000
6 moths ended 3/27/2004 - $242,000,000
6 moths ended 3/29/2003 - $240,200,000
And last quarter's profit was $46 million with revenue for the quarter was $1.909 billion $4.6 billion in cash and no debt
"This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!
I've had the exact opposite problem. My Dell Inspiron 4000 purchased in 1999 is still chugging along without any problems at all. The only thing I've replaced was the battery since it no longer holds a charge. On the other hand, my 800MHz G3 iBook which I purchased in November 2002 has been shipped back to Apple for major repairs twice now (first was the major logic board fiasco, second was a flaky backlight when opening the iBook lid more than 30 degrees) as well as having a power brick fail and have to be replaced. Thank god I purchaed the 3 year Applecare warranty or I would've been shit out of luck. The logic board failed in 11 months (October 2003) and they've extended the logic board replacement program for this faulty product line, but the backlight problems didn't start until March 2004, well out of the original 1 year warranty period. So basically my one and only foray into the world of Macintoshes has left me with a very disgusted feeling. You can say I just had bad luck and got a lemon and I'd agree.. that happens, but it makes me seriously reconsider spending another $2000 on a new Powerbook or desktop system when I know what a pain in the ass the current system has proved to be. Who knows, I will probably still buy a 12" Powerbook when the time comes to replace this box, but the IBM Thinkpads are looking nicer and nicer these days and are much more powerful and cheaper. Oh well.
Sorry the link isn't formatted well, but check this out: http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0, ,4126_3482_23,00.html
The e700 series is what I was talking about, which is two generations in the future. It's not like IBM is standing still, though. By the time freescale's 64 bit cpu is out (at 3.0+, btw), they may have a true mobile G5 available. If everything goes according to plan (cross your fingers), apple should have some options, at the very least, which is never a bad thing.
The AIM (Apple IBM Moto) Alliance
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
who actually owns the ppc arch designs?
Motorola and IBM own the PowerPC architechture. It was jointly developed. Apple did have some say in the design, but nothing significant.
Apple will never get into the chip design and manufactureing bussiness. It is well beyond their expertise. In much the same way that building a spaceship is beyond Apple's expertise.
Part of Apple's problems with the PowerPC and Motorola was because Apple was not a big enough customer. When the PowerPC workstation market failed to take off Motorola became more interested in the embedded processor PowerPC lines then workstation processors. Over a decade ago the theory was that IBM, Apple, and other companies would want to make workstations and servers with the PowerPC chip that Motorola would make. It was hoped that there would be enough smaller manufacturers and demand for the PowerPC to keep prices down. Of the three companies only Apple relied on the PowerPC. IBM was making workstations with both Intel, and PowerPC. Motorola had many other bussiness lines. When the other computer makers did not show up there wasn't enough demand for faster PowerPCs to keep Motorola interested. IBM made a number of machines based on the PowerPC but eventually lost interest when it was clear that WinNT 4.0 on Intel was going to win on the workstation.
It is easy to look back now and say that Apple made a mistake. But at the time the situation wasn't clear. Intel was having a hard time with what would become the Pentium. There was alot of doom and gloom that the i386 architecture could not scale. MS wasn't not yet entrenched on the desktop. MS had also said that their workstation/server OS, WinNT, would be ported to PowerPC, along with Alpha, MIPS, and Intel[1]. PowerPC really did look like the way of the future. It is a shame PowerPC didn't catch on. It is a great architechture.
[1] The Windows NT kernel is actually quite nice, and was designed with portability in mind. Windows NT 4.0 supported Alpha, PowerPC, MIPS and Intel. Alpha support survived to ServicePack 6. PowerPC and MIPS support was dropped earlier.
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh &story=Tell_Adam_Hes_An_Asshole.txt
http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html
For a bit more on "Osborne"
120chars for a sig is teh suck
Sorry to disappoint you, but this info from AppleInsider indicates that the iMac will still be an all-in-one.
The IBM issue is the move to 90nm. All the x86 type chips are hitting a wall with the move to this process too. PowerPCs have actually been increasing their speed at a lot faster rate than x86s recently. They are a better chip, which is why all 3 next gen consoles, including Microsoft XBox Next will be using Power PC chips. Yes Apple have got a short term supply issue, but it's far less of an issue than moving to an inferior chip architecture would be.
Funny how anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.
You're absolutely right about that, but it does build up as you hear more and more of the same. Here's mine...Since 1984, I've owned six Macs, and six PCs. I still have all of the Macs except my original 128k, and every one of them have worked flawlessly, never a breakdown, never needed to reload the OS. Of the PCs, I've also never had a breakdown (well, my CD drive seems to be on the fritz lately), but have had to reload Windows on three occasions.
Just another day in Paradise
Where did you get that idea from? Apple don't publish the split in sales between eMacs and iMacs. eMacs are obvisouly popular in education - that's what the were originally intended for. But I'd be very surprised if they outsold iMacs to the consumer.
Come on, that's a little disingenuous isn't it?
'Box shifting' is a much smaller proportion of Apple's R&D than Dell's. Apple are:
Client & Server OS designers/developers, usability engineers.
Application developers (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Final Cut Express/Pro/HD, Shake, Motion, iCal, iChat, iSync, Safari, GarageBand, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Pro Tools, Soundtrack, Filemaker, AppleWorks, Keynote)
Codec & media creators (Quicktime, QTSS, Pixlet),
Web services provider (.Mac), plus web development provider (WebObjects).
Developer tools creator & platform maintainer (Xcode, plus Obj-C, etc)
Technology developer (Firewire, ZeroConf)
Accessory designer/provider (iSight, Airport Extreme/Express)
Media device developer + distributor (iPod, iPod Mini, iTunes Music Store).
Now, I've got nothing against Dell whatsoever, and I don't wish to belittle the work they put in to their server solutions and their desktop systems. But the scope of their business is nothing compared to Apple's line of software, hardware and services, many of which are entirely in-house creations.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/200406180 24759.html
Total BS. SEC rules forbid companies giving preferential information to some shareholders and not others. Apple do not break down those figures, and a trawl of Yahoo Finance would not locate them Mr Troll.
Apple has replaced stuff out of waranty for me too. Of course, the service used to be better. A few years ago, you could call apple and get almost anything fixed without much of a fuss at all. Now you do need all your paperwork, but if you have all your paperwork, it's completely painless. New iPod had a bad drive, 15 minute phone call and the new one is in the mail, with a prepaid box to ship the defective one back. Old power adapter shorts due to bad design (and a little abuse on my end), 30 minutes later (allowing for 10 minutes of confusion over the model of computer) and a new one is in the mail, with a box to send the faulty one back. All free of charge, and all painless.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984