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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."
Not having a Mac Mini or Tiger to test with, I can answer with an unsubstantiated yes!
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.
Easy, just have marketing gussy it up as a "feature", not a bug.
Powerbook G5! Not only does it have a 64-bit CPU, it makes you fried eggs and barbequed sausages for breakfast! Automatically!
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
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...
It could be that they are using the new freescale dual core G4 chipsets with on die memory controllers and 1mb L2 cache. They are supposed to be really really good with power consumption too.
If Freescale continues to improve the speed and heat dissipation of the G4 the way they have been, who cares if its a G4 or G5. G4 is faster at the same clock speed. So whats the difference between a 1.5Ghz G4 and a 1.8Ghz G5? I think it would be much more productive for Applie to differentiate the powerbook line from the ibook line by putting one of those swanky new dual core G4's in it. Hey, whatd'ya know. The new G4's should be available 2nd quarter.
"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
- I didn't spend much time using it
- I'm never that excited by new features until I learn their value through use over time.
That said, there is one new feature that really impressed me: Smart Folders. They are part of Spotlight and are very similar to Smart Playlists in iTunes. In essence they are "virtual folders" that you define using rules. I set one up to list all of my images. It works in conjunction with the indexing provided by Spotlight and seemed to be very fast. I think this one new feature will be the standout in the next release.My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
I just bought a Powerbook G4, so you can expect the G5 announcement any day now.
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!
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
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Once I get one of these and put Java 1.5 on it, I'll have some sweet Tiger-on-Tiger action.
Yeah or TOASTED NUTS , depending on where you actually use your laptop....
Chestnuts roasing on an open fire.....
But seriously I Hold my laptop on my legs (away from my nuts) but now Ive got an 802 preN Even that make me nervous I swear I feel em tingling only when the card is active, my wife says it because Ive got balls of steel and its the RF Interferance, maybe true but how long before the get roasted my em radiation....
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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If you buy a Mac or Panther AFTER THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF A RELEASE DATE, you will get Tiger for $20.
Tiger hasn't been formally announced yet, so you will not get it for free(cheap) if you buy now.
So, in conclusion, wait until Tiger comes out.
No, wait!
Wait another 2 years for Lion.
And another 2 for Tabby.
And another...
On second thought, don't buy a Mac until Apple stops releasing OS X upgrades completely. That way you'll never have to buy another OS again!
You're much better off buying an Etch-A-Sketch. I hear there's no update coming for those ever.
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
Apple isn't going to release java 1.5 until tiger. Disapointing, considering its been out for 4-5 months now. Even though tiger seems like its worth the upgrade anyway , I wish they wouldn't make java tied into the upgrade.
Remember what Steve said
Developers Developers Developers.
Oh that was a different Steve, Dancing Steve?
> not a very solid release date and could perhaps mean
> sometime this summer.
Foolish consumer! Here's how Marketing dates work.
Summer 2005 means this: Sept 20, 2005, technically the last day of summer.
1H2005 means this: on June 30, 2005 at 11:59 PM, a single person somewhere in Iowa will get a copy of Tiger. All other copies will be "on backorder" or "shipping" which will arrive in September.
He might even get a stuffed tiger doll with an Apple logo on it in lieu of a copy of the software package. "Oh, yeah, we shipped Tiger to our first customer."
Or, they might rename the local high school's marathon track to "10.4", and force that person to do laps on the track on Sept 20. "Oh yes. Our first customer is running 10.4. No doubt about it."
This reminds me of an urban legend at a company I worked for. We had to ship some equipment out to a customer to make revenue at the end of the quarter. The customer wanted to make sure we quality checked it first. So they had someone physically pick up the hardware cards and dash through the Quality department's lab before sending it to the loading dock. The salesperson was then able to say, with a straight face and minimal snickering, "We ran the hardware through Quality before we shipped it."
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
It'll also act as a birth control device if you leave it on your lap too long. Some people might be into that.
I'm envisioning a longhorn cow grazing stupidly in a field. A tiger sneaks up and noisily devours it.
Then, later, RedHat could make a competing commercial. Same thing happens, except after the tiger attack, a fat little penguin waddles up and eats the tiger.
--AC
One data point: Apple employees get an email about once a quarter with things they can buy at a discount - informally called "qpromo". The current qpromo is selling off all sizes of Powerbooks. Generally, qpromo is used to sell off something that's about to be upgraded or revved. For example, I bought my 15" titanium Powerbook through qpromo, and a month or two later they brought out a titanium Powerbook with a higher screen resolution and a faster processor. The next time titanium Powerbooks appeared on qpromo was just before it was replaced by the aluminium 15" Powerbook. The presence of all sizes of Powerbooks in qpromo hints strongly at either a speed rev or a totally new processor.
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
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.
Your point being what, that Apple knows how to plan ahead and design their architecture for longevity, extensibility and reuse, while Microsoft's stuff is so crappy that they have to throw it all out every few years and start over?
That's what I thought.
This space intentionally left blank.
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
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.
I'll believe that there are G5 PowerBooks when I see a damn "Free G5 PowerBooks!" ad-scam link in someone's sig.
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".
It does have to do with fixes found in panther that were not in jaguar- they are not just minor fixes, and they affect many aspects of the OS. There are API fixes as well.
Although the naming scheme is the same, Panther is it's own O.S.- some developers can write apps that function on both operating systems- but they don't have to.
Apple would have to maintain two very different versions of Safari. Safari on panther is a little different as Apple has split Safari from Webcore- leaving webcore available for any application to use.
Safari 1.0.3 does work, and it wouldn't be practical for Apple to support 2 versions of Safari on two different O.S.es. Firefox may be the best alternative to Safari.
They said 1 if by Keynote, 2 if by website!
The Rumors are coming! The Rumors are coming!!!!!
moo.
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
When Apple files the lawsuits... : )
mbbac