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Looking Ahead to Tiger, Powerbook G5s
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet is running a preview of Apple's newest version of OSX, Tiger, after Jobs said it was still on track for a q2 2005 release (long before Longhorn...)." And an anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that Powerbook G5s will ship in Q2 2005."
New technology for the silicon, Underclocking to reduce power consumption, a couple other things can be done... I have no idea which they are using, but it is possible. Look at the Pentium M or centrino for an example.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
You don't have to pay for updates to the OS- but each major revision like OS X 10.3, OS X 10.4 costs $129.00.
They keep you up-to-date with the version of the OS your computer comes with.
It's a waiting game.
I'm prepared to wait for the next batch of Power book to come along before I part with $AUD4,000 for a 15" PB.
The iBook's were refreshed some time ago so hopefully it won't be too long now.
I can't wait to say goodbye to my shitty overheated Dell D600 - avoid them at all costs. The harddrives geneated too much heat (your hand gets really hot), AND at my work we have at least replaced 30 batteries out of 300 units.
Tiger will run on G3 - G5. There were still iBooks shipping less than 2 years ago that still had G3 processors. Apple's window for supported machines is normaly about 4 - 5 years so I would find it hard to believe that apple would leave those G3 and G4 out in the cold.. Not to mention that only like 10% of Mac owners have a G5.
Oh wait was this a troll. Damn I bit...
That is usually for macs bought after tiger is released and the computer you bought comes with panther.
"The Register is reporting that Powerbook G5s will ship in Q2 2005."
Actually the Register said:
So claim sources close to Taiwan's contract manufacturers, DigiTimes reports.
Which makes this more of a glorified rumor than anything else. Of course if it is true I'll be first in line to buy a G5 PowerBook come Q2 2005 and judging from what is being written about cooling problems I will also be able to fry bacon and eggs on it.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Unless you bought it just before the new version was released (a few months), in which case they offer a $20 upgrade. I got my upgrade to Panther this way. The upgrades are irritating if you wish to do a reinstall, since you need to reinstall the earlier version then run the upgrade, but they are a lot cheaper than the full version.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It will run just as well, if not better, than Panther runs on it right now.
Hardware T&L or not, Tiger has many many optimizations for all hardware.
No, Mac OS X 10.3 and below are strictly 32-bit. They run on a 64-big G5 processor by virtue of the fact that the 64-bit PowerPC is 100% compatible with 32-bit code.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
..irelies on a miniturised Reality Distortion Field which diverts the hot air into the Marketing division.
A less sarcastic answer - it has to be a proc. revision or variant which lowers power demand. In a portable, waste heat is wasted battery life. Apple laptops excel at battery life/ management - I would be amazed if that got tossed just to get to market.
Mac mini has a ATI Radeon 9200 card with 32MB video RAM. Not a great card, but not too shabby. Plus Apple does a really good job at making things look really pretty with even the most minimal hardware. OSX has historially run better/faster on the same hardware each new release. So I'd expect Tiger to run even better on Mac Mini than Panther (the current default OS). Strange I know, but Apple is a strange company.
Little Bricklets
After reading TFA, I don't think that we will have G5 laptops anytime within the first half of this year.
/. so of course!
It states that sources close to the Taiwan manufacturer claim they will ship. Aren't these the same sources that have been promising a Tablet Macintosh?
It also states that there are the known heat problems, Apple saying it won't happen, and has a link to a more likely higher speed 90nm G4 (MPC7448) to be used in the newer models. This doesn't even factor in the fact that a G5 PowerBook would likely have been mentioned at the conference. It even suggests that the quoted source has made a typo!
Is this hype that we should be reading on the front page? It's
Every single version of Mac OS X has run faster than the previous version on identical hardware. If you had some old iBook that barely managed with the Public Beta, it got marginally better with 10.0, was usable with 10.1, was decent with 10.2, and is now pretty good with 10.3. There's no reason to expect this trend to stop. Yes, Tiger will take advantage of high-end video hardware more than any previous version of Mac OS X, but it will probably also be quite a bit faster than Panther even on low-end hardware.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Almost every 64-bit processor out there is made with the assumption that 32-bit processes will also have to be run.
There is no speed hit for running 32-bit apps on CPUs like the G5 or Athlon64.
Panther has some minor tweaks to certain libraries to allow for 64-bit memory addressing, etc., but the majority of the system (almost all of it) is 32-bit.
Tiger will be the same way.
Apple has a developer note pretty much saying "don't make 64-bit apps unless you absolutely must deal with >2GB RAM".
Granted I guess I couldn't really validate buying an Apple system when I already have several very nice x86 Linux boxes and I am going to be using the Linux boxes more anyway, but.... I can validate getting an Apple PowerBook. I had one last year and loved having it. The wifi just worked and bla cool bla shiny bla. Anyway so I probably wont be buying a mini (no real need at this time), but I was really hoping for some price change on the PowerBook. Waited the past four months, but alas no change this week. So I was going to pick one up next week, but now more credulant (than just dihard mac wishes) of the G5 in the PowerBooks? Should I wait 6 months or ....
-Benjamin Meyer
P.S. Along the same lines started about two years ago I noticed that more and more Linux developers have PowerBooks even if they don't have Apple desktop box's.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
hey don't exactly have a blazing processor, and they will likely act sluggish if the touted features of Tiger are actually as power/graphics hungry as the ZDNet article kinda mentions
I suspect it will run Tiger better than it does Panther. Every OS X release since the beta has run faster, not slower. In one case new features were added that required a minimum amount of video RAM to be functional. The system still runs better than it did with the old version, just some of the pretty graphics are toned down. Basically what I am trying to say is, yes it will almost certainly run tiger, yes tiger will run better than panther, and maybe you will be able to run all of the new features.
The info comes from a chart and memo about upcoming "PowerBook G5" and "iBook G5" computers to be produced by a contact manufacturer of Apple's for Q2 2005. That is the first grain of salt.
The second is that on Apple's fiscal calendar, it is *currently* Q2, 2005. So if the rumor is true, Apple has less than three months to release a computer which just yesterday was touted in their conference call as "the mother of all thermal challenges... (not) any time soon".
The third is that the PowerBook sales have been slipping because of a lack of advantage over the iBook, and historically, the iBook processor is a generation behind the PowerBook for as long as possible.
Conclusion? This rumor was just a typo. We will be seeing updated PowerBooks and iBooks released near the end of Q2 (in March) but it is very unlikely that the PB will have a G5 under the hood, and impossible that the iBook will.
Move along folks.
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The core of the OS yes.
But you wont get Aqua or any other special features apple puts in there like spotlight, core image, and whatnot.
DigiTimes is NOT a reliable source. They often have information wrong. They said Apple would have 15.4" wide laptops - they remained from the titanium to the aluminum enclosures at 15.2"
They also stated that the 12" PowerBooks would pick up key illumination - none yet.
They also have said something about Tablet Macs in production.
Other problems with the chart. Quanta is also making the Mac Mini - not Foxconn. As far as I know Foxconn just makes cables and circuit boards.
As someone mentioned - it was clearly stated that one of Apple's biggest challeges EVER is the PowerBook G5 thermal issues, but they continued to hint that we WILL see one this year.
I imagine PowerBooks go to 1.75Ghz first THEN we see a 1.8Ghz and a 2.0 Ghz G5 released next to 2.75 and 3.0Ghz G5 desktops.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
screen resolution/shape
dual monitor (spanning) support
DVI video out
Bus/Chip speed
RAM Slots
Software bundle (i.e. Tony Hawk vs. Quickbooks)
And they'd be right.
Apple was working on non-folder groupings of data they called "piles" in the early 1990s.
"a pile is a loose grouping of documents. Its visual representation is an overlay of all the documents within the pile, one on top of the other, rotated to varying degrees. In other words, a pile on the desktop looked just like a pile on your real desktop."
The BeOS took this a step further (the ability to create/maintain piles automatically with a search).
more info
The trend in Tiger is moving towards Smart . iPhoto has Smart Albums. Finder has Smart Folders. Mail has smart Folders. Address Book has Smart Groups. Probably a bunch that I've missed.
Some third-party developers have already taken it to heart. NewsFire recently added Smart Feeds, which combine news items from different feeds based on criteria - every news item from the last 3 hours containing the word iPod, say. And Colloquy's developer is working on adding Smart Channels, combining messages from any IRC channels you're currently a part of.
It's most definitely a good trend. This shit is cool.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Apple also denied having an eye on the sub-$800 PC market. During the previous conference call (October '04) they said "We don't think we can make a lot of money there."
Here's the source for the UNIX corse of OS X: http://opendarwin.org/
But, as the other reponce noted, the GUI and some of the Apps are closed.
.\.\att Clare
PPC970FX dissipates only 39W max, 24.5W typical, well within what is acceptable for a laptop. Heck the Pentium M at 1.5 Ghz and above dissipates 21W typical with no max given by the Intel spec sheet.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
There are so many over-simplifications implied in your statement that the only real answer to your question is: No, that isn't it.
Just a small selection:
Longhorn is seeing quite a bit of change, but is not being built from the ground up. That would force them to toss out all old code and programs, and that is not something Microsoft is about to do. Longhorn will mark the biggest loss of compatibility with old programs in Windows history, but it is not going to be anything like what a "ground up" rewrite would cause.
MacOS X does have a BSD-ish layer in it, but much of MacOS X (and the programs on top) is not necessarily built on top of that layer. It is a very complex topic. The better statement would be: MacOS X was built on top of NeXT OS, which derived much of its base from *BSD (mostly FreeBSD 3.x, but some OpenBSD).
Your indication that Tiger is not a ground-up re-write is correct. The huge plumbing changes have already happened in MacOS X, but Tiger is going to add some major "core" changes. These include major re-writes of the text handling system, graphics systems (multiple layers and APIs), and the addition of a number of other system services (CoreData and Spotlight for instance). Many of these core changes are to further Apple's developments into areas that are being touted as major improvements in Longhorn. I am not commenting on who will have the better implementation, just on the broad areas of what they are implementing.
I still haven't upgraded from the 512 that my G4 came with, and it really seems to do just fine running Mail, Camino, iTunes, Word, AIM/Yahoo/BitchX and MT-NewsWatcher all at once - the hard drive actually goes to sleep quite often. It does start to thrash if I try and run VPC on top of all of that, but for anything you'd want to use a mini for, a half a gig ($75 extra?) should be plenty.
Oh, and a 1.25GHz G4 isn't exactly NOT blazing...no, it's not as fast as a P4 3.6, but again, for anything you'd want to use a mini for, it's more than adequate.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
There is no column view while doing a Spotlight search -- this makes sense, because there's no heirarchy to traverse.
The column view is still there when using the Finder to just browse, though.
Beyond "hey, search," the Apple and Microsoft approaches couldn't be more different.
The Microsoft approach called for a massive SQL database to store all filesystem data, making every search of the filesystem, from a directory listing up, a database query. I think I read somewhere that this approach was subsequently dropped in favor of something else, but I don't know that for sure.
The Apple approach is much more lightweight, which is undoubtedly why they're able to ship years before Microsoft. Spotlight consists of a metadata server program with a database back-end (I don't remember whether it's actually SQLite or some other way of storing the data) and and an extensible metadata importer. When a file is closed, the metadata importer program gets a notification to re-import the metadata for that file. If a plug-in exists for that file's type, the importer passes the file's path to it and gets a data structure of metadata attributes back.
So you see, Apple's approach is completely different from Microsoft's. Which means, apart from the fact that both companies noticed a nail and started working on hammers, there's really no reason to talk about anybody copying anybody.
Actually, you can get around this. Install the old OS. Then boot the upgrade CDs. Once you get to the dialog about choosing the disc you want to install to, format that disc. You're already inside the install well enough to 'qualify' as being valid, but you can peform a full install w/o going through the upgrade or leaving old unnecessary data.
What are you talking about? H.264 (aka AVC) is an open standard. Apple is not the only one who implents this standard. In fact, Apple is quite slow. Here's a short list of available encoders:
Sorenson Squeeze 4, MainConcept H.264 Encoder, Nero Digital AVC, Hdot264, x264, etc....
And when you look how bad the quality of Apple's MPEG-4 ASP is (compared to XviD, DivX,...), I wouldn't bet that Apple AVC will be so great either.
If you want to encode on Mac I guess that Sorenson Squeeze 4 is currently the best sollution. According to the latest codec comparison on Doom9.net NeroDigital AVC is the best codec (Sorenson was not tested).
Performance is, of course, a function of the task that is running. I don't know how to answer your specific question, but there is a general comparison of the G4 and G5 here that may be of some interest.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
The price for education/government is US$69.
Also, many large institutions, such as the University of Wisconsin System, have an even cheaper deal: we sell full versions of Mac OS X to faculty staff and students for $49.
Departmental/institutional purchasers can obtain a license for the latest version of Mac OS X for a period of 3 years for $69; in other words, they are licensed to run any full upgrades of Mac OS X for free for three years, at which time they have a permanent license for whatever the latest version is at that time.
Same for Mac OS X Server: unlimited is $499 (instead of $999), and 10-client (10-client applies ONLY to AppleShare file sharing clients; everything else is unlimited in every way) is $249 (instead of $499). Users can also, for the same price as that particular version of OS X Server, purchase a maintenance contract which gives them the latest version of OS X Server for free for the next three years.
This three year deal usually equates into getting two more updates to the OS for nothing. So it's not always just "$129".
I just bought a Powerbook G4, so you can expect the G5 announcement any day now.
Unless you really needed the PB now that was a stupid thing to do. Always check MacRumors Buyer's Guide before buying.
"Nobody needs more than 640KB of memory - Bill Gates"
Even if the G4 is faster than the G5 at the same clock speed, there are lots of reasons to go with a G5. Not the least of which is that the G4 doesn't run at as high a clock speed as the G5. 1.5 vs. 1.8 is one thing, 1.5 vs. 2.5 is something else entirely. Realistically, the G5 blows the G4 out of the water. The G5 is a 64-bit processor, although the utility of that in a laptop is pretty questionable. I think the big win with the G5 is that you're no longer stuck with the G4's antiquated FSB. Right now there is little reason to run a G4 at 2GHz because the memory bandwidth available to it is so low.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
They mention that Setup Assistant will be able to (future tense) migrate all of your settings to a new computer like XP does now (sometimes). Bullshit. It's here and it works now, ZDnet.
This guy is way out there
... the Mac Mini has a G4
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
here's an update that allows you to use a Serial Mouse with your Etch-A-Sketch!
sorry, OT....I'll take my lumps.
I like microcars
The iBook and Powerbook *do* currently have the same class processor (G4). Powerbook has: Audio line-in, much better screen resolution, faster bus speed, backlit keyboard (not on the 12 incher though), internal bluetooth, firewire 800, etc. iBook is 1024 X 768 video and lacks a lot of nice features, but it's still a great laptop if you don't need all the bells and whistles.
Apple on occasion will allow users to obtain a free version a major update if they bought the computer within a certain timeframe. For instance, when the PowerMac G5 were first introduced only 10.2 was available and 10.3 was due later. So, when panther was released, powermac G5 customers got a "free" ($20 for shipping) upgrade CD.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
There are so many over-simplifications implied in your statement that the only real answer to your question is: No, that isn't it.
I'll take over simplifications before incorrect details, any day.
MacOS X does have a BSD-ish layer in it, but much of MacOS X (and the programs on top) is not necessarily built on top of that layer.
Huh? The OSX kernel is based on the Mach kernel with parts of FreeBSD kernels ported in to that. The traditional UNIX userspace utilities are mostly BSD derived.
It is a very complex topic.
Well thank bloody Christ we have you explaining it, hey!
The better statement would be: MacOS X was built on top of NeXT OS, which derived much of its base from *BSD (mostly FreeBSD 3.x, but some OpenBSD).
NeXT OS, first released in 1989 (thats nineteen EIGHTY nine) with the last release in 1995 had some of its base from OpenBSD, which was not first released October 1996?
Riiiiiightttt...
"Read" this, it has pretty pictures.
I have a pre-release version of Tiger (no, you can't have it, my lawyer isn't tougher than Steve's) that's working quite well on a 4-year-old 500Mhz G4. Spotlight and Dashboard are both quite peppy. The mini is a whole lot faster than that old G4. How many 4-year-old x86's can run Longwait, er, Longhorn?
Apple's kind of seen the error of their ways with Safari after taking a beating from web developers.
From what I understand (sorry, no links available), they will continue to update the WebCore engine under 10.3 to match 10.4. The only stuff you'll need 10.4 for are the RSS features.
Apple is one step ahead of you: Tiger will be bundled with Tiger.
Boy, these code names are getting confusing.
Mac mini has a ATI Radeon 9200 card with 32MB video RAM. Not a great card, but not too shabby. Plus Apple does a really good job at making things look really pretty with even the most minimal hardware. OSX has historially run better/faster on the same hardware each new release. So I'd expect Tiger to run even better on Mac Mini than Panther (the current default OS).
From what I've read, the 9200 doesn't support shaders 2.0, so coreimage won't be able to use it for acceleration, thereby assuring you'll miss out on a lot of the graphical goodness that tiger is supposed to bring. Ofcourse, you'll likely still have a faster and better looking system, so I'm not arguing with that, just saying that there won't be that much visual improvement from going to tiger on a mac mini.
I'm still buying a mini though. I don't care that much about how flashy the gui effects are.
Incidentally, longhorn will require a shaders 2.0 card too for the graphical tricks, and likely when X.org gets support for that kind of gui acceleration, they'll have the same minimum requirement.
By putting a G4 rather than a G5 in the mini. So the answer is "they didn't."
That is absolutely INCORRECT. You cannot perform an erase and install from an UPGRADE disc... period.
You CAN erase the disc from Disk Utility (Installer menu > Open Disk Utility), but you cannot then install the OS onto an empty hard drive.
Upgrade discs also do not allow you to select "Archive & Install" or "Erase & Install" because they lack the "Options" button. You can only upgrade from an existing version of Mac OS X on that particular hard drive.
Actualy windows does. While paid updates are farther away from each other, they cost ~3x as much or more. And the mac OS includes free updates too. Since I got panther last year, I've received 7 updates, all of which have fixed things and or added some sort of functionality that was missing. I havne't had to pay for a single one of them.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Linux on x86 is better supported than on PPC. However, once you are running the OS, you will not see much difference. PPC is more stable hardware, but LinuxPPC is not as stable as x86 Linux. (it's kinda a wash).
Try using yellowdog linux. It's a redhat clone for Macs. It seems to be the most on top of macintosh hardware support. Debian and some of the others support macs, but that support is lumped into their philosophy of porting to any hardware platform (including old Amigas and MIPS). Yellowdog is the only one with a narrow focus on Linux for PPC.
Or you can run OSX and Virtual PC. I have SLES 9 and Fedora Core2 running in virtual instances. (Been trying to get Solaris x86 up, but it's a pain). As far as swapping out harddrives? Do you plan on doing this often. Seems that it's not that common of a thing to do, but I am sure there are instructions you can google for when the time comes.
Good Luck.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
DigiTimes reported that that both the PowerBook and iBook G5 will be released in Q2. This is rather unlikely, as Apple has historically released new "Power" models at least one full quarter before releasing corresponding "i" models (for example the PowerMac G5 was released on June 9 while the iMac G5 was not released until August 31).
Also, fifty-three minutes into Apple's conference call discussing Q1 2005 financial results last Wednesday, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations Tim Cook said, "let me be clear on this one, it would be the mother of all thermal challenges to do what you are suggesting," when asked about releasing a PowerBook 5G in Q2 or Q3.
If anyone could meet "the mother of all thermal challenges," it would be Apple, who has designed innovative cooling systems for the PowerMac and iMac G5, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.
| Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
A lot has been said on the topic, and quite a few folks seem to be under the impression that, because OS X has had a rapid upgrade cycle that this is going to continue. I tend to think that the rate of upgrades is going to slow. OS X is getting to be where Apple wants it. They are starting to look real closely at attracting users from Windows, and it's becoming more important to offer a stable-appearing feature set, for both users and developers.
Those who cautioned against buying before a release date for Tiger should also be listened to - that's good advice. Wait a bit, I think there is going to be another upgrade cycle soon (eMacs at least, and possibly 'Books), see what Apple does with Tiger, and buy once they've announced. But while you're waiting, go play around at an Apple Store or CompUSA or somesuch, make sure you really want to make the purchase.
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
I think that is wrong. It also doesn't save you the pain in the ass of installing the old OS again. There's a better way around this; the install disk is actually a full install disk but it has an app that checks what's installed and won't let you install unless it deems conditions correct. Fortunately you can delete the app and burn a new fully installable OSX CD by following the instructions here, near the end of the thread (but before all the pr0n links).
According to ThinkSecret (who has a better track record with predicting future mac products) claims that only a modest PB update is imminent. Also, with the advent of dual core processors from Fresscale (due in later this year), Apple engineers have another ace up their sleeve. They could move the PowerBooks in that direction with Jobs hyping the first dual processor notebooks. In any rate, I don't see Apple using G5's this year in the PowerBook because of Apple's own contraints. They have to live up to the standard of today's PB. The notebooks can't be more than a 1" thick, can't weigh more than current models, can't last 1-2hours on battery power, and most important can't cause testicular burns. In essence, they can't live by the standards of Wintel OEM's (Dell, HP, Gateway, Alienware, etc)
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Apple has gone down on record as saying they know their MPEG-4 (and it's not even ASP) codec isn't the best out there, and that all of their efforts have been concentrated on h.264 practically the whole time.
You can convert the upgrade CD (you only need to do the first disk) to a full install CD using this procedure:
m l
http://www.funmac.com/archive/index.php/t-13.ht
This procedure is for an older OS X but AFAIK it still works on newer versions.