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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."
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.
it doesn't matter what you believe
it only matters what actually happens. and in the same situation before. Mac 68k to mac PPC the dual binaries stayed in place for years. even until 2001 seven years after ppc first started to come in there were still many 68k ppc FAT apps made for 68k macs.
when next was multiple cpu too the binaries across many platforms stayed in place for years.
what, is a developer going to go "oh there are 7% of mac users using intel macs now it's a year after they were introduced, let us drop PPC support even though it is 93% of our market. yeeeeeeah thats smart.
intel macs wont even contain a majority of macs until maybe 4 years after the changeover.
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.
There are tens of millions of PPC users. It would be completely illogical for companies to suddenly dump all PPC code just to market to (virtually) nobody with x86 macs. PPC support is not going to just disappear anytime soon.
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.
Well, let's assume they won't stay Intel/PowerPC for more than 5 years. So what? Your 2005 machine will have hard time running 2010 software anyway - Intel/PowerPC switch has nothing to do with it. You won't room "Doom III" or even MacOS 10.4 with all features on a '2000 iBook.
Why do I assume 5 years period? I estimate it from similar situation with 68k/PowerPC switch. The first PowerPC Macs were introduced in spring 1994. The last 68k Macs were discontinued in spring 1996. So it was two years of dual CPU hardware - and further two years when software ran on both CPUs (Apple dropped 68k support in MacOS in 1998). Mactels are not to be expected before 2006. This gives me this 1+2+2 formula. Of course, it's just a guess but the bottom line is that every platform is a dying platform - no matter what you buy now, it will be obsolete in 5 years, anyway...
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.
I've got my money ready. Do you?
As a matter of fact, I do. I lost interest in Apple desktops since discontinuation of iMac G3's. All Mac-branded desktops since then were just too loud for my taste (that included both iMac G4 and G5, they just changed from loud to even louder). Mac Mini again runs just whisper quiet, just as my G3 iBook. However, there's a rule of thumb that you should never purchase equipment that will be later described as "revision A" - so I keep on waiting for the first "rev. B" Mac Mini with my purchase. I just hope it will meet minimum requirements for Doom 3 (the original minis were just a bit too weak).
No. It's going to be a while before Intel-based Macs are available, and even longer before the glitches are worked out and fat binaries are available for most popular applications.
You can buy a PPC Mac today and enjoy the benefits of Mac OS X. It will be useful for a long time. I still know people who make productive use of 68K-based Macs, even though they are officially obsolete. It is going to take a long time for the PPC Macs to fade away.
If my Mac blew up today, I'd just buy a Mac mini to replace it. I'll worry about Intel-based Macs when they are available and I have a real need to replace my current Mac. If I want to run the latest games, I'll buy one of the new game consoles.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
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 $600, a new mac owner i will soon be...
Seriously. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Apple, but to have a /. article everytime Apple farts is pretty bad. Worse though is having a /. article everytime ThinkSecret thinks Apple is going to fart. (Followed of course by an article a day later confirming that yes Apple did infact fart.)
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Dell and MS marketing execs probably spend many a sleepless night trying to figure out how they can come up with something with nearly the same cost to value ratio.
How about they do something interesting? Apple's news is reported on /. because, rightly or wrongly, Apple is perceived as doing interesting new things, some of which fail and and some of which work. Dell doesn't do much new at all (and makes vast sums doing that, so I'm guessing they're happy in that position.)
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$tar -xvf
Apple doesn't need to upgrade the iBook line half as much as they need more powerful PowerBooks.
That "Fox-style journalism" has been spreading like wildfire lately. The CBS/Dan Rather fake National Guard documents and the Newsweek rumors of Korans going into the toilet were clearly brought on by a similar spate of discredited stories from Fox News that I can't seem to recall right now.
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.
Fact is that no company, be it Apple or 3rd parties wants to support two different architectures.
Don't video game companies do this every day?
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."