Slashdot Mirror
New Apples Next Week
Vicissidude writes "CNN/Money reports: 'Apple may be gearing up to unveil a new slate of mini-Macs and may also release updated versions of its popular iBook laptop computers as early as next Tuesday, according to unconfirmed reports on a Web site that tracks Apple.' The Web site Think Secret reported three new Mac mini and two new iBook part numbers have appeared in Apple's retail database, indicating that new models are imminent. Apple would neither confirm nor deny the reports. The new mini models will be priced at $499, $599 and $699, with new iBooks priced at $999 and $1,299, according to the original story at Think Secret."
Unless these are Intel machines, I won't buy. Sorry, I don't want to invest in a dying platform. I'm no Intel fan (more an AMD fan, and I loved the PowerPC), but buying a Gx Mac now is thrown away money. Whatever Steve says, I don't believe that binaries will stay Intel/PowerPC for very long.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
first sdm
Increased memory, check.
Slight CPU jump, check.
Updated graphics card, check.
Looking back at all the posts lamenting how everyone and their grandma would buy a Mini if only it had slightly higher specs, apple should be seeing a whole lot of purchases from the slashdot crowd.
I've got my money ready. Do you?
Or is that a bit too soon?
are they the new 970 released by IBM two weeks ago?
"to unveil a new slate of mini-Macs..."
They're called a "Mac mini" not a "mini-mac".
-Imidazole
Hilarious Office Prank!
It's modern marketing miracle.
Apple updates it's retail databases, the news gets spread from one end of the web to the other.
Dell and MS marketing execs probably spend many a sleepless night trying to figure out how they can come up with something with nearly the same cost to value ratio.
If they're smart, they'll put eSATA ports on the new Mac Minis for attaching external storage. Yes, you can put attach external storage thru the usb2 and firewire ports but requiring usb and firewire bridgeboards on the external drives ups the cost of external storage considerably. What would be really cool is some kind of modular external storage device that the Mac Mini would connect directly to and get rid of the inboard disk drive and replace it with flash memory instead.
Is what Fox-style journalism has done to the news world? CNN no longer does its own reporting and relies on rumors posted on the web site of a university student? Granted, Think Secret has been amazing accurate, so much so that Apple has sued them, but it is after all a rumor site run by a university student. CNN pays reporters to investigate stories, they shouldn't be reporting them from rumor sites without additional facts to corroborate them.
Mac Mini not far behind
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
How is the above flamebait?
Apple is unlike any other tech company in the way news of it's new products gets spread.
.. since $500 for an annual developer subscription just to get the right to buy a $1000 intel mac is a bit steep. I'll make it back in sales by reassuring people about my games' upgrade path, but i love my mini and would just like the same thing with an Intel.
Ball matching game for MacOS X: http://www.funpause.com/atlantis/
that they won't buy a Mac now because next year Macs will have x86 CPU.
Ok, but the x86 Mac + Rosetta will be able to run PPC software smothly?
If no, the new Mac will have to wait a little to have their software base enlarged.
Obviously, if Rosetta works very well...
Since when is quoting rumor site reporting. It may well be true we'll see updates from Apple next week, since it has been a while since the last updates, but to call quoting Think Secret reporting shows how little CNN has to do with journalism. The other evidence of the death of journalism at CNN is seen in their cheeleading of Bush as he led America into the war crime that is the war in Iraq.
Have they changed that awful hard drive yet?
OK, so i'm an apple fanboi, but one with some perspective i'd like to think. But, I'm fed up with Apple advertising machines with too little RAM as standard, combo drives instead of SuperDrives as standard, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth as extras, etc. I know it reduces the sticker price for their advertising, but once you add on these extras, which lets face it are pretty much standard on most portables these days, the price is a hell of a lot higher - almost double when looking at the Mac mini.
Apple should be pushing the minimal spec upwards, not stripping everything off so that it can get it's headlines saying *Mac's are now affordable*
The kind of people who are prepared to put down the cash for a Mac are prepared to pay that bit extra, but walking into a store thinking you're going to spend £350 to get a machine that does everything you've heard about and find out that it's actually closer to £500 or £600 (can't be arsed to check the exact prices atm), is disappointing. It makes me think of Dell and other company's tactics. If you know from the start you're looking at almost double that then you can budget for it easier.
I took a friend and their kids to the Apple store and they came out wanting a Mac mini because they thought that it was under £350. Once I'd factored in the SuperDrive (for making DVD's), Airport (for using it in the bedroom upstairs) - because you can't fit it yourself and bluetooth because if you're having the Airport installed you might as well and all kids these days have Bluetooth capable phones and some extra RAM as 256 Mb just isn't enough, it was a *LOT* more. I opted for a good 3rd party TFT display from elsewhere (19" TFT for £179), as Apple seem to think that plonking down £550 for their entry level display is fine for everyone. I'm glad that they reduced the price of the keyboards after the mini came out. I had to buy one for my Powerbook for nearly £50, now they're about £20 i think.
So, to wrap up my rant, up the minimum spec and put the price up *a bit* to make up for it. removing the need for build to order for simple and very popular options should have some benefits of scale to reduce the need to gouge everyone for a bit a ram, a modern optical drive and some wireless comms, or at least make it easier for people to actally install or swap out these components like most PC vendors do.
That's funny. The newly potent Apple "gears up". What was the term for Apple when it took them ten years to adopt a true demand-page VM and non-cooperative multitasking, which they were "geared up" to promise the whole while? And all those years they "geared up" to tell us that the first truly compelling Apple computer system would be Unix on Intel? The most powerful gears at Apple are the ones that power their reality-distortion fog machine. There's a scene in the Truman Show where Truman finally clues in that the same cars are going around and around on a preprogrammed loop. That's how I feel about the Apple bandwagon. Except lately the upmarket Ladas have been replaced with downmarket Lexes. It's an improvement, I admit. Still, there's something about the Apple Corporation that causes me to make funny noises while drawing strange pictures in the bathroom mirror.
If any of those Mini-Macs have full-size 3.5" hard drives in them, I'm buying.
I'm going to have a guess and say the new iBook is going to be sub-notebook size - or smaller. Most Apple iBooks I have seen happen to be pretty big and wide, and a small more portable sub-notebook sized Mac would be pretty cool I think.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Mini-me Me-mini Eenie mini minie moe
This rumor has been on ThinkSecret for a week.
CNN quotes it and suddenly it's worth listening to?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
What happened to my /.?
Achille Talon
Hop!
from Aspyr:
Minimum System Requirements
Doom 3 runs on any iMac G5, or any Mac that meets the requirements below
# Operating System: Mac OS X 10.3.8 or later
# CPU Processor: PowerPC G4/G5 or later
# CPU Speed: 1.5GHz or faster
# Memory: 512 MB or higher
# Hard Disk Space: 2.0GB free disk space
# Video Card (ATI): Radeon 9600 or better
# Video Card (NVidia): GeForce FX5200 or better
# Video Memory (VRam): 64 MB
# Media Required: DVD Drive
Recommended System Requirements
Doom 3 runs best on a Power Mac G5 2.0 GHz or faster
# CPU Processor:PowerPC G5
# CPU Speed:2.0GHz or faster
# Video RAM:128MB
Don't think a mini will be there anytime soon...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
I really would like to buy an iBook, maybe even a Powerbook. But I refuse to as Apple are too bloody arrogant to add a second mouse button!
Most Mac users admit that the OS now fully supports this, and on a desktop it's easy to plug a better mouse in. But a laptop touch pad isn't upgradeable! And carrying a mouse everywhere isn't a great option
I wouldn't buy one of the new Intel macs until they've been out for two years. Who wants a brand new platform that isn't entirely supported yet?
The first intel mac won't be out until next year. That means I wouldn't buy an intel mac until three years from now.... which is of course when I'd feel like buying a new computer anyway.
The last PPC machines Apple makes are going to be classics. Completely perfected machines, all the bugs worked out, run today's software for the next five to ten years.
But then, I'm a mac user. We actually use our computers to get work done. The theoretical value of the total market availability isn't as important to me as whether I turn out my work today. If it were, I wouldn't be on a Mac in the first place.
They're called a "Mac mini" not a "mini-mac".
Watch me not care.
you realize the reason developers can get the intel based Mac today is so that when you, the consumer, gets one it will run your software. if Apple released it Tuesday there will be a lot of software not working. i think a lot of people would be pissed if they bought a new Mac and the only software it could run were most of the stock Apple apps and maybe firefox. granted that is all a lot of people use, but still. even the companies that are "ready" for the switch have not released the software to the public yet.
Hopefully these mac minis will be a step up from the current offering... i would be interested in an available dual layer dvd+-rw. a bit more proc power, another 256megs of ram, and bigger hard disk would be nice upgrades too, but to me the dual layer drive is key. if i can configure a mac mini w/ the drive for under $600, a new mac owner i will soon be...
Developer 1: Hey, did you hear Apple is using INTEL processors now?
Developer 2: Really? Wow, maybe our programs will be easy enough to port now. We never bothered before.
Developer 1: Yeah. Even though we use window APIs there are some solutions that make porting much easier. All you really have to do is make the interface mac-like, and it turns out apple has a tool called Interface Builder that makes that a cinch.
Developer 2: Of course we make games, so all that involves is a full screen and keyboard control. Sweet.
Developer 1: Hmm. Only problem is our program won't be compatible on legacy macs.
Developer 2: Who cares, it's too much trouble to port to any non-intel mac. We'll just skip them and work for the next generation.
Developer 1: You're right, we'll just put a notice in the requirements about intel processor macs required. Ha Ha! Fragged you bitch!
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Something really bugs me on just about 2 out of 5 posts regarding Apples future with this platform.
Poster after poster suggests somehow Apple is going to scrap support for the PowerPC based Macs after one years time. Gimme a break!
Do you honestly think that they will make this move?
Just because they are moving to Intel doesnt mean that support from Apple and developers is going to stop. Even if the box survives past 3-4 years, you will be looking to upgrade anyway, or install Linux.
I plan on getting whatever processor Mac later this year. I don't really care what processor it's on because IMO, I think its about the platform not the processor.
One things for sure, I will not be looking into purchasing Microsoft's Longhorn or Monte Criso or whatever they call it.
Nothing will be junked. PPC is still a cool architecture, and likely to stay that way.
I'm gonna buy this new Mac mini and sell my iBook G4 for it (it's a slow 800 machine).
When Intel Macs finally come out starting a year from now we'll have to see how well they do price/performancewise.
Most users won't notice the CPU architecture anyway, and most binaries will end up being PPC+x86.
Seriously. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Apple, but to have a /. article everytime Apple farts is pretty bad. Worse though is having a /. article everytime ThinkSecret thinks Apple is going to fart. (Followed of course by an article a day later confirming that yes Apple did infact fart.)
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Get some oranges and some bananas while you're at it.
On that contrary, a lot of Macs are kept for 5 years, even more. Even if after 3 years new software won't run amazingly on it, the software that was good enough for you before is still going to run on it.
Most people seem to junk their PC after 2 or 3 years, or pass them on to relatives. Part of this is the issue with 'Windows Slowdown'.
Considering that Mac OS X has been getting faster with each revision, and more optimised and efficient too, I reckon that a Mac is a good investment. I know that 10.5 and 10.6 will most likely run great on any Mac that is more than 1GHz, possibly without some GPU effects, but otherwise with all the features. I'm sure that there are people running 10.4 on 500MHz or lower G4 machines.
Try running Longhorn on a 500MHz machine in 2006, or whenever it comes out. Windows XP drags on this 2.66GHz Celeron P4 Dell I'm using at my girlfriend's mother's.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/ 20/1750238&tid=180&tid=3
Making it come from CNN doesn't make it new (it references ThinkSecret).
Zonk gets the title of most dupes. He should work for world of warcraft or something.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
If the machine costs $4000 - $5000, yeah we can start debating whether one should worry about fat-binaries carrying the PPC platform forward. After all, a high priced machine should meet the demands of software x years down the road. But if you're buying a mini or a iBook, you pretty much have said that you are not interested in forward demands because, regardless of processor manufacturer, they are the low end of the power range.
Just to be clear, high end machines have future proofing as part of the price, low end do not. This is true whether you build it yourself, buy it from Dell, or pick it up at the Apple Store.
In the low end case the issue then becomes, whether your current software will be supported going forward. Go read any book on sales and marketing. Existing customers are more valuable than new customers because they require less outlay. In short, fat-binaries for existing software makes a lot of sense, and those companies who don't produce them probably are on very shakey management to begin with. In future, your mini or iBook will be supported or not, but not on the basis of its CPU.
Buying PPC on the low end, today, is still a safe choice.
Apple has always, and apparently still is taken with selling hardware that will only last two years at most.
I guess all those people who get five years or more out of their Macs must be hallucinating, then?
I bought a Power Mac 7600 in 1996, and it was my primary machine until 2002. Over the years I added RAM and a USB card and threw a G3 upgrade into it, but it was still a viable machine when I replaced it, except from the standpoint of being able to run OS X-- I needed a more recent model to do that. I'm a consultant, so I wanted a machine that would run it as my clients would see it, not with some third-party hack to get it working.
The 7600 was replaced with a used G4/733 from 2001, and that one was just fine until I bought the G5 I'm using now (yes, I only got 2 years out of the G4 as my primary Mac, but it was only ever intended to tide me over until the G5s came out). The G4 is now in my office running Tiger like a champ, and I expect this G5 to last me until nearly 2010.
Apple already successfully managed a CPU transition back in the 90s, and they did it without instantly obsoleting anyone's computer. I have no doubt that this one will go just as well. Mac applications that are written for the Intel processors can be compiled for the PPC by clicking a checkbox, so there's no additional effort or expense required for developers to support both architectures-- and with 5 years worth of PPC-based Macs out in the world (not counting the PPC Macs that can't run the current incarnation of OS X), they'd be crazy to not do so for at least the next five years.
~Philly
It would be completely illogical for companies to suddenly dump all PPC code just to market to (virtually) nobody with x86 macs.
The computer industry as a whole hasn't been so logical the past few years. This industry is no longer really driven by science and sense anymore, but rather by emotion and marketing.
Up until very recently, my main Mac was an original 266MHz Powermac G3 (vintage 1998ish). It sort of died, so now I am using my father's first generation Powerbook G4.
Dell and MS marketing execs probably spend many a sleepless night trying to figure out how they can come up with something with nearly the same cost to value ratio.
How about they do something interesting? Apple's news is reported on /. because, rightly or wrongly, Apple is perceived as doing interesting new things, some of which fail and and some of which work. Dell doesn't do much new at all (and makes vast sums doing that, so I'm guessing they're happy in that position.)
--
$tar -xvf
Apple doesn't need to upgrade the iBook line half as much as they need more powerful PowerBooks.
A dupe of a subject that never should have been posted in the first place. I know it may be hard to appreciate in this day and age, but rumors aren't news. Report new 'ware when it comes out.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
My big question is whether new versions of software, the so-called FAT binaries will run at 100% speed on the PPC architecture. Somehow in the back of my mind I see potential slow-downs which may devalue buying a PPC computer now and keeping it into the Intel transition.
Let's say you got the $500 model and ran it for 3 years. That's approx $170/year.
Now, assuming that you run your PC 24/7 and your electricty costs 10c/kWh, and your PC consumes 200W on average (which is about right when you factor in how inneficent PSUs on most PCs are), you are looking at about $130/year in extra electricity vs the Mini which consumes 50W or so you are looking at an overall cost of $40/year.
If you could sell the Mini after 2-3 years for $100 or so, you could basically get it for free...
What is PPC code?
Very few applications are processor specific. *Very* few. It's been a long time since people did much assembly in a consumer app. Most modern code, especially on a system like OS X, is byte-order safe.
The few things which have been worth tuning PPC code for are programs like Photoshop. That code is written. There isn't going to be some killer new app you MUST run next year that's entirely in x86 assembly.
Stop concentrating on hypothetical apps. Start concentrating on whether the machine does a job for the period of the investment. Three years? No problem.
This is easy enough to achieve.
2 E16827130034
2 E16817155217
2 E16820145485
Get the cheapest Mini. 499.
Go to www.newegg.com.
Add a Toshiba DL dvd-r drive: 39.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
Add an external firewire/USB2 enclosure: 35.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
For sanity add 512MB crucial memory: 42.68
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
Check out and assemble.
Total Price: $617.66
Having ltbarcly to guide you in the right direction? Priceless.
(use 256mb dimm from mini in linux experimental box)
This is actually better than the superdrive, and anytime you want the latest and greatest optical drive you only have to scrounge up enough green to purchase the OEM version to put in your enclosure.
Even better than that is that you can use this drive on any computer you have, which is perfect. The only downside is that it is sortof bulky so it might not replace a superdrive for a powerbook, but for a mini you would have to be one anal dork to care.
I'm using this exact setup right now and it works perfectly.
As an added bonus you can use the external enclosure with ata hd's as well.
I think you will see Intel iBooks as soon as the Intel PowerMacs come out.
Near term the G5 can compete with desktop Intel processors. It was the fact that IBM couldn't deliver power efficient CPUs that really pushed Apple over the edge.
I think you will see the big software manufacturers with binary updates available as soon as the Intel Macs ship. And I think that the processors being used in these new Macs will be so fast that emulation won't matter much.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
How do you like them Apples?
Once I'd factored in the SuperDrive (for making DVD's), Airport (for using it in the bedroom upstairs) - because you can't fit it yourself and bluetooth because if you're having the Airport installed you might as well and all kids these days have Bluetooth capable phones and some extra RAM as 256 Mb just isn't enough, it was a *LOT* more.
I got an external DVD burner that was DL-capable for less than the superdrive upgrade. Wifi and Bluetooth are available USB, and you're still better off drilling a hole in the floor and running a cable upstairs than using Wifi. The only non-optional upgrade for the Mini, really, is the extra 256M of RAM. That should be in the base unit... but since it's about a 10% price difference that's no biggy.
Personally, I think Apple should bring back the slab. Something like the NeXT slab or the Performa 475, but bigger than the Mini. An eMac without the monitor. Big enough for a 3.5" drive and two RAM slots, and maybe one PCI-Express slot for video. Stick it in between the Mini and the iMac in price.
> Try running Longhorn on a 500MHz machine in 2006, or whenever it comes out.
Intel released its 500Mhz Processor in 1999. By the time longhorn comes out, it will be at least 7 years old.
I don't have the energy to repeat what 'Slazar' said earlier...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
i am pretty sure the 14" models actually outsell the 12". i don't think Apple releases such specific info like that. granted the 14" machines are faster (more room for cooling?).
the 12" powerbooks are missing a lot of features of the bigger models so it is hard to compare the models and say it is just popularity of screen size.
*if* the ibooks really go wide screen that will make quite a change to the dimensions. remember the G4 iMacs? when they made the 17" widescreen, it was the same height of the 15" but just a little wider.
i like the size my 12" ibook. if something was the same width but not as deep, i would like that too. i think one major size constraint issue is the keyboard. Apple portable keyboards are all the same size. unless they really made a major change, then that's the width we will have.
yeah, it's kind of silly, but i don't think i would have even thought of going internal drive to external enclosure.
cheaper, and I can use it on my PCs as well.
yeah. i will go that route after all!
Will that drive work with iDVD though? Does it qualify as a 'SuperDrive'?
Apple seem to have that a bit nailed down, as another poster has pointed out. That's kind of annoying.
(I mean, if you think about it, having DVD authoring software that refuses to work unless you're using a particular model of DVD drive is a bit 1999, really, isn't it? I'm still not sure why they do this - do they subsidise iDVD development from the money they make selling SuperDrives?)
I agree with you... 'who gives a shit about you building a new fucking athlon xp pc tomorrow'... hey, you said it, not me...
More importantly, if you could care less about Apple's roadmap, why did you bother clicking on the article, let alone post a comment?
Some people do care about what Apple has in the pipeline -- 'tho the article is no doubt lame-rumor-site-repostings. How insecure do you have to be to waste your time posting about how much you don't care about something. I don't go bad-mouthing the 'Apache' articles because I could set-up an MS ISS server tomorrow...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
"Just to be clear, high end machines have future proofing as part of the price, low end do not."
Depends on how you look at it -- I'd say that low end machines have more futureproofing, because of their price.
Say you have $2000 to spend on a computer. You can buy a high-end machine that's so fast that it will still be high-end in a year, and still reasonably fast after a few years.
Alternatively, you can buy the Mac Mini for $500, and put the remaining $1500 in a bank account. The low-end machine is within a few tens of percent of the performance of any other modern computer.
Then in 2-3 years time, you take another $500 chunk of that money, and buy a new low-end mac. So you have a computer that's faster than buying a $1000 one to start with would have been.
Repeat every 2-3 years. After a decade, you're still running a brand-new machine with the latest processor, while the person who spent that $2000 up-front has a machine that was obsolete 5 years ago.
Obviously that's not a true comparison, because someone spending $2000 on a computer typically spends an additional $200 per year keeping it up-to-date. So there's an equation to maximise performance over time for a given amount of money, but the "future-proof" solution definitely isn't spending it all at once
Do you have a cray mainframe set up to run your word processing applications?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Yes and sort of.
.iso image in addition to burning straight to the DVD. You can then burn that .iso using disk copy, or even transfer it to another computer that might happen to have a DVD-R drive.
.iso feature shows that Apple is probably catching on to the fact that many people are unhappy with that solution.
Patch Burn is a tiny, simple app that will allow OS X to work with almost any non-supported DVD-R drive. It's free, just download it, run it once, and you're done.
Assuming you don't want to go with patch burn, the new version of iDVD supports outputting an
The only reason Apple really does this with iDVD is compatability issues. I'm not sure about the current revisions, but Superdrives have always been Pioneer DVR-XXX series drives with Apple-designed firmware. I guess Apple was just really keen on maintaining the "experience" by guaranteeing that a DVD drive WOULD work with iDVD. Patch burn has always been a simple way around it, but the introduction of the
you're an idiot. Go away. You're bothering the adults.
dammit! I hate it when I make typos while I'm being a pedant!
You are simply embracing and promoting one of the oldest rules on the net. It's older than slashdot, older than the public Internet, it goes back to the earliest days of Usenet. It's called the spelling rule: every spelling flame must have at least one spelling misteak or grammatical error.
Don't be upset, be proud, it's a grand tradition you're following.
Bluetooth and WiFi are not standard on other machines (think Dell). DVD-writers are not standard on other machines. Gobs of RAM isn't standard on other machines, although I would say on average you do get more than 256MB standard, 512MB is probably more normal as a base configuration on Apple's competitors.
Apple does offer *really good* video cards too. Apple offers the X800XT and 6800 GT video cards. They don't offer the 6800 Ultra, but I have to say, as an owner of a 6800 Ultra myself, I'm not sure I find that a big deal. I sure don't recommend any of my friends buy 6800 Ultras, even when it was the top of the line. It's just too hot, too expensive and too loud.
I do agree completely about your iDVD complaint. Now that iDVD costs money (part of iLife), it should support drives that didn't come specifically from Apple. I understood that when it was bundled in with machines, but now it should support 3rd party burners on par with bundled burners.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Remember that PowerPC compiled binaries will run quite well under Rosetta on the Intel Macs.
With the sole exception of games, which won't run at all under the Intel Macs because of AltiVec optimizations (Rosetta does not emulate AltiVec), all PowerPC programs will run on the Intel Macs AND the VAST installed user base. Further, Apple will continue selling PowerPC Macs until well into 2007 by their own statements. Any developer (outside of games developers) who dropped PowerPC before 2007-2008 would be a blithering idiot, cutting themselves out of a huge userbase.
(But I'm not getting one) Unless these are hydrogen power cars. I won't buy. I don't want to invest in a dying platform. I'm no Hydrogen fan (more an ethanol fan, and I loved the unleaded gas), but buying a Gas Car now is thrown away money. Whatever Steve says, I don't believe that binaries will stay Hydrogen/Gas for very long.
Hmm. I define value as features/cost.
Your statement would be cost*features/cost.
That evaluates to features.
So you're saying that MS Marketing execs spend many sleepless nights trying to figure out how they can come up with something with nearly the same features as Apple?
They've long since solved that problem- they just steal Apple's ideas and mirror thier moves...
The word "slate" had me thinking for a moment that Apple was finally introducing a tablet-format portable.
Ah well, I can dream.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Now THATS flamebait.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't hear about that, or if they do, they just overlook it as some obscure platform that no-one uses. I really wonder why Apple's advertising is so slack... They're missing out on informing a large percent of the population.
Isn't the "not checked by default" box the one that says to compile for x86? So by default it compiles for PowerPC, and you can turn on x86 compilation if you want?
PowerPC systems will work for a long, long time. At least as long as the usable life of anything you can buy in the next year.
Cheers.
But can you find dual layer blanks for less than five bucks a piece anywhere?
--
watch funny commercials
Being that macs have already switched architectures before and there was support for a long, long time, we can be pretty sure it's not nearly as dire as you imply. Past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. PPC software will be available for a long, long, time.
Cheers.
Perhaps the submitter had recently been watching an Austin Powers movie...
I was looking onto the site that tracks Apple release schedules, and did anyone else notice PowerBooks are due for an upgrade? Not anywhere near as badly as iBooks, but still within two weeks of the average update cycle. I wonder if they will have some enhancements too Tuesday if it does take place?
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Sure, on a spindle of at least 10 or 15, i've seen them for as little as $3.50 a piece.
in fact - a quick check @ newegg.com shows $52, shipped for a 15 piece memorex spindle w/ no annoying m.i.r.s.
but, it's not like i'd buy many of them right now, anyway. i'd like to have the capability for the occassional use now, and have the functionality for the future when prices are much lower.
i remember paying over $5 per CD-R at one time, but it didn't keep me from wanting the technology available in my home, it just made me more selective with what i burned to disc.
I'm on a recent model G5 iMac and I bought 2gigs or RAM to slip into the poor beast because I never want to have a system that thrashes.
Nothing is more detrimental to the health of my machine than suddenly going from running at RAM speed to crawling at disk speed.
Seriously, Macs have always been under chipped in this respect.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
When your iBook died, did it make a sound like this: "Beep beep beep"?
Did you lose a paper that you were working on for school? Was it a really good paper, too?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The point was that Longhorn (or vista, whatever) is supposed to be the first MS competition for Tiger.
It's not about "will there still be _some_ compatible apps in 5 years", but about "can I be sure that every new app release in the next 5 years will be compatible with my PowerPC processor?". And you can't. That's why the grandparent, me an many many other people will wait until we can buy intel machines.
Isn't the "not checked by default" box the one that says to compile for x86? So by default it compiles for PowerPC, and you can turn on x86 compilation if you want?
Not quite. The default for builds in Xcode is to build for the architecture of the machine you're running on. So on PowerPC-based Macs, it defaults to PPC on and x86 off. On an Intel Mac, it would default to x86 on and PPC off.
Still, it's braindead simple to make most apps universal. Check the box and you're done, whether you're building on an Intel Mac or a PPC Mac.
I completely agree with you -- PowerPC systems will be actively supported for a long, long time. As a developer, it's incredibly trivial for me to support both platforms. And given the lifespan of the typical Mac, you have to support both platforms because a huge chunk of the potential customer base will on PPC for several years to come.
My prediction for the iBook:
Wide screen form factor. 13" as the main model. Ultra small 8" model (branded as iBook mini?).
Completely new enclosure - a scaled up iPod mini style case. Available in all the iPod mini colors.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Sidetrack, a cheap shareware app, replaces the trackpad firmware on mac laptops... to be WAY better than a simple 2-button trackpad.
You can left click, right click, vertical/horizontal scroll, and access expose/dashboard all from the current iBook/PowerBook trackpad. It is an indispensable addition to any Mac laptop. One can argue that Apple should have this firmware standard, but until they do, Sidetrack is the way to go.
My Beige G3 has been going since '98 or so. It's even running 10.3, and with a cheap G4 upgrade, it doesn't run too badly.
I added a powerbook in 2002, although I could have waited another year if I wanted to. The powerbook is now 3 years old, and I'm really not thinking replacement until next year. (whether I go with the last PPC powerbook or wait for the intel transition to sort itself out is another question)
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Time to wait some weeks and then watch the price of G4s fall down on ebay, Dammm, I am thinking of making my very own G4 cluster!
12" iBooks don't have DVD burner ("super drive") option. 12" PowerBooks do. For those of us that need a DVD burner and portability (and with the amount of photos I take with my camera, I do, since I shoot RAW), a Powerbook's the only option. I have a feeling that's about to change with these upgrades, though.
My apartment could use a new heater. The old powerbook could only keep one room warm. An upgrade will probably warm the whole place... And, yes, I love Powerbooks, so back off already ;)
The mac mini is so close to being the perfect small computer. It is too bad that it has been artificially crippled to upsell the higher end machines. The mac mini lacks a line-in or mic, 5.1 sound, and the Radeon 9000 was a poor choice compared to the 9200. The minimal audio is particularly annoying as the chip probably supports those features it was just a matter of wireing it up. Sure the audio can be upgraded with a USB device but it is an unecessary expense, and the $59 quoted above is 10% the cost of the computer.
Apple has used the same tactic with the ibook. There are just enough little differences to encourage the sale of a powerbook. It is good marketing, but it is annoying and expensive for the consumer.
Nope. Apple needs to do more here, methinks. The 12" iBook is just too close to the 12" PowerBook.
Depending on who you believe, sales of the Mac Mini run about 30-40,000 units a month. How many Mac minis did Apple sell last quarter? Nothing there to keep anyone awake.
I have a machine I purchased in early 2002. It replaced a machine I bought in 1997. That machine from 1997 continued to run until I sold it 3rd party in 2004, and I am sure it is still running today. If you wanted to you could run OS X on it, however it requires a 3rd party hack. But OS 9 for someone who hasn't had need to upgrade their software (much like you haven't had need of upgrading your OS) still works just fine. In fact I often wished that I still had that machine for a certain software that I still haven't found a real replacement for yet (and will not work in classic).
As a matter of fact I purchased one of the first PPC machines back in 1995, and it is still in use by the person I sold it to. That is definitely 10 years old, but no it does not run OS X, but the tools that person uses were not upgraded enough for X for it to make sense for him to upgrade.
The only reason I dream of upgrading today is simply for portability. I would love to have a laptop, and while newer machines can do tasks with a bit more spunk than my current machine, it certainly does handle what I need it to do.
Shawn's Tech Articles
Well, "I have a friend" who would be fired if he posted to this website, and he points out that Apple retail stores just switched out their window displays, and the new ones have nothing to do with any new products. The displays include a library table with the curent lineup of laptops on it.
To me this is a rumor-killer.
They're mini, they're Macs, therefore they're mini-Macs. Your criticism is really no different to pulling somebody up for mentioning a McDonald's burger. "It's not a burger, it's a Big Mac!"
OMG!!!
.. KICK ASS!!
.. or maybe "Fart Mini". Yeah.. kids will love it.
Apple's totally gonna FART next week!
Awesome!!!!!!!111111
I bet it's gonna smell like flowers. Or maybe that smell that comes out of the box when you buy a new powerbook
Apple ROCKS IT!
I'm SOOO gonna buy an Apple Fart. I hope they come in a bottle. A can would be cool too, but that's what Dell would do. Maybe next week after Apple's announcement, LOL!
I'm guesssing the name's "iFart"
OMG!!!! I. Can't. Wait.
I'm always hearing rumors of new stuff coming out, and I waited until the Intel announcement to consider a new machine. My situation was that my wife had a 3 year old Thinkpad she was complaining about. Viruses, service packs, adware, stuff I was wasting time on and couldn't keep up with.
While waiting for the June announcements, I finally put Linux on the Thinkpad because, get this, she feels that Tux is really cute. She was much happier, but then I realized that that Thinkpad is really, really old. Its display is getting dim, it's inherently slow, not as much under Linux, but still slow. She uses it in the living room all the time for email, websurfing, and watching dvds. It stutters sometimes while playing DVDs, even under Linux. (VLC sometimes barfs under Linux, although she reports that it's better than she had under windows. Who knows if she's just trying to make me feel good about spending a day hunting down config files when I switched it to Linux.)
So after the June announcements, I realized that there wouldn't be any really different Apple machines for a year.
So finally I just drove to the nearest Apple store two weeks ago and took a 20" iMac G5 home. It had Bluetooth and Airport as a promo, although I was prepared to pay extra because she liked the no wires thing.
She loves this machine and allows it in the living room, which speaks well for its appearance. The kinds of things she does will be supported for YEARS after Apple goes Intel. In fact, my main concern about waiting to replace the Thinkpad was that the first Apple Intel machines will be too rough around the edges. I like the fact that the iMac G5 has been out for a while and probably has had time to work through assembly problems, heating problems.
In summary, for my case, replacing a slow computer suffering from dim display with something that seems to make her happy, makes a lot more sense than waiting for an Intel chip that I'd probably appreciate more than she would.
If it wouldn't run the latest OS the it was not viable. That's why I run Linux now. I can still run FC4 on a dual PII 450 and get very comparable performance to a Pentium 4 running Windows XP Pro.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If only they could find a chip to put in with lower power requirements in the performance range they need...
That would be the MPC8641 and MPC8641D, the high end e600 models from Freescale, which will be sampling this year and should be ready for production long before Apple could manage any major change like switching to a different processor architecture.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely that Apple will use this new chipset and will instead hold off any significant powerbook upgrade for another year. They may produce a slightly faster powerbook using the low-end e600 since it won't require a complete logic board redesign like the high-end models would.
As a Mac developer, I can tell you now that I'm developing using Tiger on a 533MHz PowerMac G4, and that other (testing & personal) machines in the office are running Tiger on 450MHz PowerMacs. I've got a 450MHz Cube that's been running anything I throw at it since I bought the thing in September 2000 (although the GPU died recently). Oh, and the testing machine on my desk is a 350MHz G3 iMac, which also runs Tiger happily.
Granted, they don't show all the funky graphical CoreImage/CoreVideo stuff in Tiger, but they're five year old machines, or more importantly, they're using five-year-old graphics cards. I could update the GPUs to get that stuff working.
Macs keep going quite a long time. And while there are certain features of new Mac OS X versions which benefit from newer, faster hardware, the majority of the new features are just software, which will pretty much run everywhere. Being able to type a function name into Spotlight and have it give me a list of all headers, source files, PDF & HTML documentation files relating to that function within ten seconds is marvellous, especially since it'll rank the results by relevance. New hardware doe sthe same thing in under a second, but that's just added convenience. Getting the list at all is the important bit, regardless of the amount of time.
-Q
I'm pretty sure Steve specifically said that the low end systems would go first.
I thought I remembered that but I couldn't find the quote.
It would be nice if someone would dig it up and put it to rest one way or the other.
and you can't fit many xterms in that.
i was never sure mini was such a great deal. For $650 you get from apple a refurbished 1.25/G4/Combo emac with a built in monitor (and the ability to connect to a second monitor for the bigger desktop, space enough to put a fast hard drive inside (say 250MB/7200RPM, easily and cheaply upgradeable optical drive to fast super for example, with keyboard and mouse included. Performance w/o any upgrades mentioned above indistinguishable from mini. All for only 150 extra. Much bigger package though.
" How long until the Intel machines come out? "
Probably 1Q 06 for the new PB's. They're the creakiest thing in the line at this point, and its pretty well established this will be the first boxes upgraded.
My money is in my pocket until a new architecture PB arrives.
"No. It's going to be a while before Intel-based Macs are available"
January
/. and then tell everybody you'd rather use old computers because...you're comfortable with them.
Well, new Intel Macs will be available 1Q06, so we're all but done with July...
August
September
October
November
December
Wow...6 months... Most of you fan boys will still be on payment 4 and a the new Intel Macs will be out.
Then what will you do... come on
Then you'll make fun of your dad because he doesn't use cellphones because he's not comfortable with them.
I find irony fun!
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I bought a PPC 7100 when it first came out - this was one of the first generation PPCs and I figured, latest and greatest, right? Well it was about a year before it was easy to find software natively written for PPC -- a lot of the stuff ran in emulation and was actually slower than it was on my 68k mac at work (a Quadra I believe). The computer served me well after that but in the interim I kicked myself a big for not waiting until the PPC platform was more tried and true. So when the G3s first came out I bought one of the last generation of 604 computers (this was in the cloning days so it was a Power Tower Pro 225). A lean mean machine even today, at the time I was pleased with the choice as I heard about all kinds of problems people were having with the new architecture. Of course the G3 platform was nothing to sneeze at but when G4s came out I was glad I had waited. I'm hoping I can convince my work to buy me a new iBook G4 and I will be very happy to use it for a few years while all you guinea pigs snap up the latest and greatest intel-based Macs.
Anyone have any idea if they will be different, other than say, bigger hard disk?
Not Free SF Reader
It's a no-brainer that Apple is going to upgrade the video cards on the Mac mini. After the release of Tiger they started upgrading video cards on all of their lines to something more decent (most likely to be able to actually use the fancy Core Video feature) but the Mac mini was left untouched, still bearing a piss-poor 32MB Radeon 9200 to this day.
Regardless of whether PPC will still be supported in the life of the machine, I still want and will wait for an intel mac laptop. With all the noise about compatibility and developer support nobody likes to mention the simple fact that an intel based mac laptop would run significantly longer/cooler and be a lot more powerful than the current crop of G4 based laptops. (167MHz system bus. Seriously! 167MHz?!) Hell, Apple doesn't even need to put in a lot of R&D to get the gain. The G4 in the laptop is so antiquated at this point that any new intel mac laptop (even an older pentium M) would kick the living crap out of a G4.
What's the average battery time for a powerbook last time I checked? Maybe 3.5 hours? How about a Pentium M centrino? >6 hours; for better performance no less! This is why I will not buy a PPC iBook.
---k--
</stupid>
Ah, the wonders of Apple upgrades. Instead of buying a £400 graphics card I can buy a £500 computer and still have another complete computer spare to put in my study/studio/cinema room for Reason 3.0 and DVD playing. New Mac mini, here I come!
Gadgetoid.com - Gadgets & Games Journalism
The future will tell, but my bet is that it won't be true. PCC will be dropped like a hot stone.
I'd say that it depends on how they each sale, if PPC sales are strong then software developers won't want to give up that market. Though I don't know that they are I'm hoping Intel based Powerbooks will be released or at least announced by January as I plan on getting a Powerbook then and am hoping this will drive down the price on G4 Powerbooks. Then again if the prices of Intel based Powerbooks are low enough I might get one of them instead, I'd have to see how they compare.
FalconShould there be a Law?
All serious PPC development has ground to a complete halt. Anyone who says differently is either delusional or trying to keep people from leaving the platform.
Here's what developers had to say about the move to Universal Binaries.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Adobe's pretty good at dropping support quickly too. Try using a newer digital camera and importing raw files into Photoshop. Whoops, gotta buy CS2!
Adobe can't be blamed for supporting new digital cameras in old versions of Photoshop, the raw file formats for different cameras including new ones are different. And in the case of Nikon the raw file for the N2H is proprietary, a photogapher has to use Nikon's software for the raw files it generates, and their software is sloooow! I've heard many photographers say they wish Nikon would open up their format. If I recall right two or three months back there was an article here on /. about it... Here it is,
Adobe Blasts Nikon's Closed File Format
FalconShould there be a Law?
My money is in my pocket until a new architecture PB arrives.
I'm hoping new Intel Powerbooks come out in the first quarter of '06. I'm planning on getting a Powerbook then and expect the new ones will drive the costs of G4 Powerbooks down. But before I get one I'd like to compare the performance of the two, if the new ones have much better performance and aren't much more expensive I may get one instead of a G4 PB.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So the plural is "Macs mini," like "attorneys general" or Burger King's "Whoppers junior."
Would you buy a car run on gasoline?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Add to this, there's NOTHING HAPPENING on the software front that is requiring new hardware. In 1996-8 the internet pushed a new wave of hardware buying, since 16mb 75mhz Pentium Is weren't up to the task of browsing the web. This killer app led to a new hardware "baby boom" that was predictable to the slashdot crowd. So what's on the horizon now to drive a new wave of hardware upgrades? VRML? Dead. Nasty Virii? Doesn't affect Macs. Anything else?
There's two problems I have with this. If software development drove cpu/computer design then TRS80's Apple I, IMSAI, Osborne, and other microprocessors wouldn't of been built. Sometimes hardware comes first then software. Then who's to say what the next "killer app" will be? Whoever does could very well end up very wealthy. I'd imagine it could be related to Internet 2
It also ignores Moore's Law
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm hoping I can convince my work to buy me a new iBook G4 and I will be very happy to use it for a few years while all you guinea pigs snap up the latest and greatest intel-based Macs.
I hope to get a Powerbook in January and hoping MacTel Powerbooks prices will be released if not the laptops themself then. This is for two reasons, first I'd think the release of the new Powerbooks will drive the price of G4 Powerbooks down. I'd also like to compare the price/performance between the two. If the p/p of the MacTels are better I might get one.
FalconShould there be a Law?
No, but it's my experience that PC (laptop) hardware has been much more reliable.
I got a PC laptop and was able to use only for about three months. See one day I was going in from my car with the laptop in a shoulder bag and because it had rained a little earlier the pavement was a little slippery and obviously I slipped and the corner of the bag hit the road, it was at most a three foot drop. When I got inside I open it open and the LCD was cracked so I called tech support and told them how the LCD was. Even though I got an extended warranty with it they said the LCD wasn't covered. They knew the model of it as you had to give them the serial number of the unit and I asked how much it would cost to fix. The tech said it would be up to $1200 (2/3 of the price I paid), she wouldn't give me a definite price otherwise. Never again! The next tyme I get a laptop I will either make sure the LCD is covered or I will buy coverage for it. But I will never again buy a PC from Gateway! And that was the fourth one I bought from them.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You have a user ID in the 500K range, and you're asking what happened to Slashdot? Ha. Back in my day...
I'm going to take my cane and hobble on back inside. Mutter mutter.