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Apple Unveils New Pro Products
porcupine8 writes "As many had speculated, today Apple unveiled upgrades to their PowerBook and Power Mac lines (although no PowerBook G5). They also introduced a new professional photography application known as Aperture, rounding out their software lineup for creative professionals. Can't wait to find out what they announce next week!"
So the dual-core G5 finally arrived (with the top end machine having 2 of them), plus PCIe and 533MHz DDR2. I expected PCIe, but didn't expect DDR2. This is a very nice transition machine to wait for the Intel Macs.
:)
Things to note:
All nVidia videocards, now -- one of which is a Quadro FX 4500 for $1650. Nice knowin' ya, ATI, don't let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.
"In addition to the 16-lane graphics slot, the Power Mac G5 features three PCI Express expansion slots: two four-lane slots and one eight-lane slot. Each slot uses a standard connector that can accommodate a card of any size."
This mobo has better PCIe support than any other mobo I've heard about, by _far_. Crazy. 2 x4 slots and an x8? The new Fibre Channel Card seems to be an x4 PCIe, which is the first x4 card I've heard of. There are hardly any x1 cards, yet, either, and PCIe has been out quite a while.
Dual gigabit ethernet now, too, instead of just single. (they were just single before, right?)
The optional modem is now an external USB dongle style model, instead of an internal card. The end of an era. Good riddance.
I guess Apple finally stepped into the 'future.'
The bad:
Only SATA '1', no 'SATA2' (no such thing, really, but...).
Still only 2 internal HDs? C'mon - these are supposed to be workstations, Apple. Get with it.
I wants my internal RAID 10!
I'm definitely waiting for the Intel Macs, but for those who are opposed to the idea of an Intel Mac, these machines are about as sweet as one could ask for. The low-end PowerMac is now a 2gHz dual-core G5, which is pretty nice (and meets the recommended specs for their new application, Aperture, as long as you upgrade the hell out of the RAM).
As usual, the submission leaves out critical details.
The new Power Mac G5 highlights include dual core G5 processors (IBM PowerPC 970MP), PCI Express, DDR2 RAM, and dual gigabit ethernet on all models:
Single 2.0, single 2.3, or dual 2.5 GHz dual-core IBM PowerPC 970MP (G5) processor
1.0, 1.15, or 1.25 GHz frontside bus per processor
512MB PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM, expandable to 16GB
160GB or 250GB Serial ATA drive
16x dual layer CD-RW/DVD+/-RW SuperDrive
Three open PCI Express expansion slots: two four-lane slots and one eight-lane slot
NVIDIA GeForce 6600, 6600 LE, 7800 GT, or Quadro FX 4500 video
Dual gigabit ethernet
USB 2.0, FireWire 400 (IEEE-1394), FireWire 800 (IEEE-1394b)
AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Analog and optical digital audio in and out
Mighty Mouse (Two button scroll mouse)
The new PowerBook highlights include higher resolution screens, longer battery life, and standard SuperDrives:
1.67 GHz Freescale PowerPC 7458[1] (G4) processor, 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM, expandable to 2GB, 80GB or 120GB Ultra ATA/100 drive
8x dual layer CD-RW/DVD+/-RW SuperDrive
1440x960 (15") or 1680x1050 (17") resolution screen
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB DDR SDRAM and dual-link DVI (supports 30" display)
Gigabit ethernet, 56K V.92 modem, PC Card slot
USB 2.0, FireWire 400 (IEEE-1394), FireWire 800 (IEEE-1394b)
AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Illuminated keyboard
Analog and optical digital audio in and out
DVI/VGA/composite/S-Video out
Also new is the amazing pro photography software Aperture, as well as new lower pricing on Apple Displays.
I might as well send my writeup on last week's announcements as well, since the submission (and discussion) there were really light on info too...
---
iMac G5
A new, even thinner, iMac G5 with an integrated 640x480 iSight camera and integrated media center software called Front Row.
1.9 or 2.1 GHz IBM PowerPC 970fx (G5) processor
512MB PC2-4200 RAM, expandable to 2.5GB
160GB or 250GB Serial ATA drive
8x dual layer CD-RW/DVD+/-RW SuperDrive
ATI Radeon X600 Pro or XT PCI-Express video
Gigabit ethernet, USB 2.0, FireWire 400 (IEEE-1394)
AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
1/8" stereo audio or optical out, 1/8" line in
VGA/composite/S-Video out
Mighty Mouse (Two button scroll mouse)
The inclusion of PCI-Express and PC2-4200 RAM in the new iMac bodes well for the upcoming updates to the Power Macs and PowerBooks.
---
Front Row
Media center software currently only included with the iMac G5. Allows for seamless interface with music, movies, movie trailers, pictures, TV shows, and so on via either the iMac's screen or an external screen such as a projector or TV. Includes an infrared remote control. A demonstration of Front Row is available here.
It is likely that Front Row will make its way to other products in the near future, such as the Mac mini. It is only available for the iMac G5 "at this time", according to Apple.
The one feature of typical media centers that Front Row does not support is TV recording. But Apple seems to have a different idea for TV shows, as will be seen below. (However, TV recording can be accomplished with a wide variety of third party tuners.)
---
iPod (iPod video)
Apple introduced two new iPods to completely replace the existing "larger" iPods. The same height and width as the older i
Aperture is geared toward professional photographers. It allows you to work directly with RAW files (as well as many other file types). It is similar to Googles Picassa but on steroids. It doesnt look like it will compete with Photoshop though at this stage. It is more of a basic organization and editing program. It looks pretty slick but has some fairly hefty system requirements.
"Although, no PowerBook G5."
Were you asleep during the Intel announcement?
Everyone who actually thinks there will be G5 PowerBooks at this point, please stand up.
Crickets?
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Finally Apple has upped the resolution on their powerbooks to something more reasonable (at least, reasonable to me - other people have different requirements). Whoops, no, I tell a lie, its only on their 15" and 17" models. The 12" i^HpowerBook is still at 1024x768. If this had been equally increased, I'd be very happy. As it is, the form factor is perfect but the resolution just too limiting for it to be my standard road machine.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
An interesting surprise is the prerequisites. Based on http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs.html , Aperture requires a state-of-the-art mac:
Recommended System
* Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 or faster
* 2GB of RAM
* One of the following graphics cards:
o ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
o ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro
o NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL
o NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
o NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
* 5GB of disk space for application, templates, and tutorial
* DVD drive for installation
Probably they'll eventually offer a "light" version of Aperture, like they did with Final Cut and Logic Audio, other "Pro" software.
Animoog.org
A product in the same price-class as Photoshop CS, but not the same feature-class... I wonder how that'll fair in the market...
These are some of the most expandible workstations Apple has ever released. 16GB of RAM and a TB of storage makes a killer multimedia editing workstation all around. If you are weary of the Intel switchover, the time to buy is now. The workstations should hold you over well into the second and third revisions of Apple Intel hardware at least.
.... With all of these updates, the 12" PowerBook Specs are exactly the same as before this announcement (that is it uses DDR333 RAM, has NVIDIA Go5200 64MB video, etc.) with the exception of the DVD-RW drive being standard.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I hope next week they finally add something to itunes to monitor changes to a directory. thats all I really need at this point
Only the 2 x dual core top of the line model is an improvement over the mac it's replacing, the dual 2.7GHz.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Or are they using their own terms for prcedures and effects? I ask this because I used to work in darkrooms with film and I'm wondering how would I transition to digital.
On another note, I really miss using the chemicals, film, and paper. Digital still hasn't achieved the image quality of film - but it's getting there real quick! Sigh....
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
New Power Macs can take up to 16 GB DDR2 RAM, have PCI Express, and can power up to four 30" displays or eight 23" or 20" ones.
The thing that caught my eye was the addition of a second gigabit ethernet port. Dual gigabit ethernet ports means instant network rendering for Logic Node, XGrid, or any app that supports it. No expensive (given, these Macs are costly enough as is) gigabit router needed.
Aperture looks interesting, although it requires a more powerful machine than mine, just like Motion. Working with RAW data from start to finish sounds wicked. Not sure about US$499 wicked, but cool nonetheless.
For some reason, Apple offers an upgrade price on the product page, that links to the Motion 2 upgrade. Not really sure what's going on with that.
Some time ago Adobe announced they would no longer target the Mac first. I think you'll find this is Apple responding to a slap in the face from Adobe.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
"Your problem is that you didn't correctly set the aperture on your G5, which accounts for the bad results in Aperture on your G5. That's because aperture data isn't recorded in the Aperture suite, so creative professionals should use Creative Suite, and don't even think of swapping your iPod Photo for a G5 and the Zen player made by these guys, and be thankful that Creative doesn't make a sound card for the G5 either.
Who the hell hired Bjarne Stroustroup as a product marketing specialist, and why, dear, God, why, did he accept? :)
Apple monitors use DVI. But be careful; the 30" is only compatible with a handful of video cards.
All of the new displays use DVI. They haven't used ADC connections for awhile now. http://www.apple.com/displays/digital.html
Go to the Apple Store and look on the opening page. Near the bottom on the right hand side you'll see a red "Sale" tag. Click that and then scroll down about 2/5 the way down the page.
In general, this is where Apple sells over stock and refurbished machines. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell the difference, but whether refurbished or old stock, they come with the same warrantees. No, they don't really advertise these in proud, bold print accross the front page of the store, as they want to sell new machines, but they're there for the buying, if you know where to look.
In the past couple years, Apple has been releasing really great pro-level apps for music, video, and now photography. This is good, but what *I* really want is a competitor for MakeMusic's Finale, which is a professional-grade program for music notation (like Microsoft Word, but for musical scores).
Finale is actually really powerful (and expensive). It can do pretty much anything most people need for their notation. Unfortunately, it is the worst UI trainwreck I have ever encountered. It is lacking in a clear, simple, unified interface or an intuitive organization. Seemingly simple and basic options are buried deep in the mess. And the help files are almost worthless.
For example, instead of clicking notes in, you can use your keyboard to enter notes.
But I don't know what key does what.
So I go into the key map options, but I still can't find the default key map. It just allows me to create a custom key map.
I'm like 'okay the help files will learn me where the default or current key map is--or maybe even tell me WHAT it is!'
Nope. No search results for "key map" in the really outdated help software that comes with it (it looks like it is a port from OS 9).
This kind of stuff happens to me all the time. Apple, please release "Notes" or something! You could make a killing!
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
This is the first I heard of it, but when I was going to play around with the new pricing options, I noticed that the 30" display was $2499 instead of 3 grand. I'm pretty sure it was 3 grand a week ago.
Photoshop was created a long time ago, when no professional photographers were using digital cameras. It's feature set / interface is actually very cumbersome for people shooting large number of pictures on a professional basis.
With Aperture, Apple has spent a long time analyzing photographer's workflow, and design the app on top of it. It has just what is needed for pros, a clean workflow that includes:
- easy import of raw images
- easy way to see / search metadata
- non destructive editing
- project management
- easy backup of negatives (raw files)
- differentiation between masters (raw) and versions (treated images)
- easy export and soft color spoofing
- easy backup on masters and collections
I can't wait o get my hands on this one...
p.s.: Aperture is to iPhoto somewhat like Solaris is to windows 95...
A maxed-out PowerMac is now equivalent in cost to a semester of tuition at this particular private college.
Finale does have a competitor. It's called Sibelius. It's the standard in Europe - it's designed by *musicians*, not software engineers, and the UI is a godsend compared to Finale. Having just moved to states and been forced to use Finale, I have one piece of advice - get Sibelius. The simple reason Apple won't release a Finale competitor is that Sibelius always does a pretty good job.
Aperture is NOT a photoshop killer - if anything, its going to make Photoshop get back to what its good at - editing photos - and let it NOT be a photo organizer.
Aperture is built for the prosumer to professional photographer that laughs at 25,000 photos. I can easily shoot 3000 (and want to keep 500) in a single week at work, but there has never been a good way to DO that.
Aperture helps guys like me because when i shoot, say, 20 shots of a single moment at an event (a la, a football tackle, a guy hoisting a flag, etc) i really don't NEED 20 shots - i just want to get as many as possible so i can look thru the 20, find the best, and then (for some unknown reason) never want to delete the 19 others. iPhoto is a joke for this, of course, because i often could have row after row of pictures that were all pretty identical. I was about to go layout some cache on something to replace my iPhotoBuddy multi-library self organization setup i'm using now.
Instead of manually organizing thousands of photos in dozens of groups, Aperture does it all for me. It also helps out with batch processing that iPhoto+Photoshop couldn't do (because iPhoto does all its organizing in a bunch of weird subfolders) without making mass exports, then deleting the non-edited photos, etc.
Photoshop is still The premiere photo editing tool, but for making my livelihood livable and organized, to be able to grade, select, and throw out pictures (without deleting), to help make simple and fast output for customers to view online or to build USEFUL contact sheets, Aperture will save me untold hours of my life. Photoshop has has some sad organization tools - and the built in browser is just this side of Finder or XP's thumbnail view...
there's no multi-image review with simultaneous panning, no UI benefits from dual screens, no loop zooms on both open images and previews... none of that.
this is serious software - this is probably even a larger, more important jump from iPhoto than Final Cut is from iMovie...
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Has anyone else noticed that there is a software company called Aperture which makes a product called Aperture?
Didn't they have enough hassles with Apple Records?
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Well, this explains how they manage to compress a full episode of Lost overnight to H.264.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
The new Powerbooks offer no real advantage to their predecessors, besides a wider screen. I suspect many people will hold off their purchases on these laptops until Powerbooks ship with Intel processors (and a faster system bus). The PowerMac G5 dual core model has some great potential though. I'd get one if I could afford it. I also think Aperture has the makings of a solid pro app.
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
...Looks great - the tour is stunning, and the metaphor is a breath of fresh air. A loupe - a light table - the ability to see thumbnails and versions on the table while you work. Heads up displays that give you back your window. They've obviously talked to a lot pf photographers, many of whom are likely sick of the tunnel vision interface of just about every app, PS included - that makes them stop acting like a photographer. I'm in the same boat. I've recently gone back to my professional 35mm SLR outfit that cost me a whopping $600 back in the day, and does what I want, and can make archival 11x14 prints that blow you away.
Most affordable digital cameras a great for taking a picture of something that is rock solid and in no danger of moving and is under optimal lighting conditions. After two weddings as a guest just trying to shoot candids, I realize that there's very little art in using a current digital camera, that it mostly involves holding this small brick between you and something and trusting it to make a series of decisions you might not agree with all while making sure you just heard the right beep, saw the right LED and heard the right little ticky thingy. And I'm a geek.
I've decided to retire my series of cameras (3, 4, 5 MP - they were all supposed to be so much better than the last one...) or donate them or something, and hunker down until something on the order of the EOS and this level of image handling gets reasonable. By hunker down I mean shoot with real film and a flash that goes more than 10 feet and something like decent response time. All of which I have in a 20 year old Pentax outfit. yes, I know it's ten times the volume and weight when outfitted with a TTL flash and zoom and winder. Yes, I know that if I pay thru the nose now for the EOS and a G5 and Aperture I'll save all that money on film - but film is a dribbling expense. And yes I know the COLA on a $600 camera from the 1980s is probably on the order of an EOS today, but I can still get a comparable new 35mm setup for the same $600 today.
And honest to god - as with cell phones - it's not like I was wasting away and spent every hour before digital cameras wanting to take a picture and every five minutes wishing I could be making a phone call back in the era "BC" (before cellphones). (Ooooh! Then there's taking pictures with my phone! Or should I be calling people on my camera?! Wait, wait - if I could only email from my toaster...!)
For many instances, digital cameras are quick, cheap, and OK. Honestly, 99% of them should be compared to compact point and click cameras for actual performance - but the hype of their early days has failed to solidify
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Look at the Dells. Dell sells widescreen LCDs also, using the same Samsung panels as some of the Apples, and if you search for the deals you can get them for close to half the price of Apple. Plus they got a wide array of connectors on the back. I have a Dell 2005FPW and it's beautiful, it's a 20" 16x9 monitor with resolution of 1680x1050. Early ones supposedly had a backlight problem, but the one I bought a few months back is wonderful. And I got it for a bit over $400 delivered.
I'd say the difference between sluggish and snappy started when the
2.5 duals came out. You could sense a different that the 2.0s were
reasonably quick but the 2.5s' actually had snap.
And with each new version of OS X, the interface speed increased.
That is until Tiger where you can sense the window resizing/opening
was faster than that of Panther but other things were slower and the
beach ball returned for a lot of people.
I talk to many people with 2.5 duals who say that Panther under 2.5
dual was the fastest Mac OS X machine they experienced.
And if you had a better video card (i.e. ATI X800 versus ATI Radeons
below the 9600 XT) you would experience better performance. And a
faster drive also added "snap".
When 10.43 comes out, I'm hoping some of the speed has been restored.
But yeah, it does seem that to equal the old single user Mac OS
cooperative multitasking interface speed, you would need a nine
gigahertz quad cpu, quad core cpu.
Just a thought.
From the looks of it, Aperture is far more thought-out than Elements is. (Which, I guess, could also mean that half of the features are useless for those of us who are not professional photographers - it's a very niche product, and it's almost by definition not a direct Photoshop competitor.)
Automatic backup to a secondary drive, good metadata handling - which goes hand in hand with things like the "Smart Web Gallery" feature to automatically rebuild the pages where new photos come in that fit a special criteria, automatic stacking of batches of images (taken within x minutes of each other). However, I think that the biggest thing here is that Apple gets to use Core Image to do some fun stuff - you can make several versions of the same image by adding effects and doing things like cloning and patching, which all just adds up to an incremental 'recipe' of the changes and a lot of saved hard drive space (which I guess would add up if you were to make a lot of toy alternate RAW images).
Obviously I haven't tried it, and I'm not a professional photographer, but from having watched the tours, there seems to be an awful lot of "extra miles" that Apple have taken in a lot of the features, which I think will be what sets it apart from Elements more than the stereotypical "artists buy Apple" factor.
It's the easy RAW processing that is the unique selling proposition in Aperture. RAW processing has been in the past a binary-only kind of thing. Photoshop certainly doesn't have this kind of workflow. Yes, it has the features hidden in menus, but doesn't execute them like Aperture.
Native (whatever that means) RAW handling is also why the system requirements are high(ish).
Based on my experience, Apple should win far more creative users with this application. Many photographers working in digital use(d) Windows and Adobe certainly hasn't made anything like this.(yet)
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
One thing that is easily overlooked is the addition of an digital audio out jack on the 15" powerbook. With the 17" being just too big, this makes the Powerbook much more attractive as a desktop replacement if great audio quality is important to you.
The Quadro Pounder!!!!
How long until the 4-way mobos get shrunk down to fit an XServe? Would it have to expand to a 2U server to accomodate 4 procs, or would it be do-able in the current 1U form-factor?
Who did what now?
I'm able to get my Windows boot to work with a GeForce 6600 AGP at full resolution for the 23" Apple Cinema Display (1940x1200) but as of yet I have been unable to tweak my SuSe 9.3 to display any higher than 1600x1200.
YMMV and I'm no expert at configuring the necessary config files, but as of yet it doesn't appear that this particular combination (6600 + SuSe 9.3 + 23" Cinema Display) works to its full potential "out of the box".
Still, for development work at home 1600x1200 is pretty nice and, under windows, it's beautiful IMHO.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Apple has yet to grab "the middle class" market. Thats the price range from $1000-1500.00, what most consumers in that area expect to pay for a new Laptop. I'm very disappointed that Apple is still charging $2000-2400 for G4 powerbooks that are now a generation behind their desktops and priced more than a comparable Wintel notebook. At this price point looks like we'll be buying some more Mac Mini's and lugging the monitors arround, fun stuff.
No, only the 30" requires dual-link DVI. The 23" works fine on a regular DVI card.
Fortunately, there IS a way to tell the difference! Apple Certified = Refurbished: "Apple Certified Refurbished Products Listed below are great deals on Apple Certified Refurbished products." Sale = Overstock: "Apple Products on Sale All Apple products on Sale are temporarily out of stock. Please check back frequently for new savings opportunities from Apple."
This is totally non-sense. I shoot in the order of 20k photos a year, on average I use photoshop several hours a day (see http://silvernegative.com/ and I have looked at the Apple materials on Aperture.
I can assure you that Photoshop is not equivalent to Aperture. I would instead, say that Adobe Bridge is (which is a part of Adobe Photoshop CS2).
Many of the features present in Aperture are available in Photoshop's bridge (easy import of RAW, non-destructive editing, RAW processing). One of the great benefits of Aperture entering the market is healthy competion.
I will not, with what I have seen, replace photoshop with Aperture. Will I be happy using Aperture? Probably yes. Will I pay for it? US$500 is a lot of money for those extra features, and I will probably not buy it. But then again, I don't think that pro-am photographers are the intended market. We are more worried about buying glass than buying software to do our hobby.
Unless Aperture seriously competes with photoshop, it will end as a fringe application similar to Impress (who only Apple drones buy). There is already talk on the f-spot mailing list about Apereture features, so you might see them in a free software application soon.
I agree. Nothing like a good rig from the '80s or '90s using film. I'm just glad now that I stuck with 35mm instead of moving up to medium format. I am not a professional, so I don't have to deal with sending pictures across the globe instantly like a photojournalist. The closest digital camera that would allow me to take full advantage of my 15mm superwide is the Canon with the full frame sensor (due to "lens factor"). It costs more than my lens. And it is a different lens mount. Most digital cameras are good as polaroid point and shoots. If I was a pro Nikon user, I'd be pissed because Nikon has yet to make a digital SLR that will use existing Nikon lenses at their focal length. Most people don't want to spend money on a 15mm or 20mm lens to get an 18 or 24 out of it. Nikon is using this as a way to sell smaller lenses (we'll just call them "DX" lenses). Used to be, Nikon would brag that its lens mount is still compatible with older lenses. They still technically are, but you loose a portion of the frame. I mean, if your going to a smaller sensor area, and you are going to make a new set of lenses for this area, you might as well make a smaller lens mount. Because now you cannot use your new "DX" lenses with your 35mm film camera and you cannot use them if they ever make a "full frame" digital camera, so why are you making a new lens line with an old lens mount when they are practically incompatible? I really don't care, because I don't use Nikon. I think that they are losing the pro market anyway. Which is a shame, because Nikon really did make some good equipment. But I'm not here to start a Nikon/Canon/Olympus/etc. penis length match. Digital cameras are useful, they are handy, but they are not yet all things to all photographers. Long live chemistry.
This has nothing to do with adobe and photoshop.
This has everything to do with companies like Bibble Labs, Phase One, iView Multimedia who all make 'raw workflow' software.
For those of you who are new, or don't care, or don't use RAW workflow it's about the post processing that most enthusiast, semi-pro, and pros doin once the pictures are taken and before they're edited in Photoshop (if needed).
Photoshop has something included that has been showing up in the last few versions, they call it adobe camera raw but it is rasterized out of camera RAW and then you edit it like you would any other image.
What Aperture, and the others let you do is 'pre-process' your image to do lossless corrections to things such as white balance, color cast, cropping, etc. If you make any of these types of changes inside photoshop once you import in the RAW file you are doing it with data loss.
This is a step before photoshop, not a slap in the face and replacement.
This is condiments to the burger. The burger is much more filling than just the condiments, but the condiments aren't all that by itself
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
As others have said, that is a DVI connector.
You ought to be able to get a PC videocard with a DVI connector without too much difficulty.
If you go the 30" route, you'll need a special videocard... specifically one with "Dual-Link DVI" which basically means a newish nVidia Quadro, any ATi X1x00 series, or any newish FireGL. Check the specific model to be sure. This limitation applies to any monitor that gets above about 2048x1536 (I think that's the number)... it's a bandwidth issue.
If you're going 20" or 23" might I recommend at least considering the Dell 2005FPW (20") and 2405FPW (24").
As best I can tell, the panels are equivalent. They both have the same resolutions 20" = 1680x1050, 23 or 24" = 1920x1200. I can't tell if one has a better image than the other -- they look the same to me. Others will surely disagree.
But the Dells are cheaper. They start at $699 and $1199 instead of $799 and $1299. But, you can usually (such as right now) get nice discounts on the Dell...
DealMeIn.net has the 20" at $394 after a bunch of coupons right now. Until yesterday they had coupons to make the 24" $774, but that seems to have expired... it'll be back at some point.
Of course, Apple's pretty silver frame and stand is cooler than Dell's black one. But then, the power button on the Dell monitor turns off the monitor, whereas the power button on the Apple monitor confusingly turns off the computer it's connected to without turning off the monitor. (That may or may not happen on a PC... but it sure does on our powermac!)
Up to you, but these days I think the Dell is just as good for much less... anyway, hope I was helpful.
If you do not shoot 500 pictures or more at a family gathering "because you can"
... remind me never to ask you about your photos. Heck, if you shoot 500+ pics on a daily basis, you don't even see most of them. Or you meant 500+ once in a blue moon, when you play 'photographer'?
... wait, nevermind. Perhaps you didn't think someone could actually be using more than one camera (the horror!!!)
...
If you shoot 500+ pictures at one event because you can you're a monkey with a finger reflex, not a photographer. A photographer would only shoot as many pictures as needed.
If you do not have a camera body that costs over $1200
I can up your troll just fine - if your hasselblad doesn't have a digital back you are not doing pro digital photography (after all, that's what you're droning about with 'then you can't understand the difference between Aperture and Photoshop' 'cause Aperture is 'for photographers') Do you still qualify? Craftmanship is not a matter of the tool and conversely throwing money at pro photo gear does not a photographer make (they used to say philosophum non facit barba)
If you have absolutely no problem deleting pictures you've taken
So you keep all those 500+ pictures per event? That says something about your discerning ability
If you never take your memory card out of your camera
yep, 2x 20D (with USB2 connectors, so transfer time is not a big issue) loaded with 8GB cards (to fit about 900 RAW pics each) cannot possibly help you understand
If you use AOL's webmail to send people pictures of your dog
ah, indeed. I seem to have been wasting my time after all. You are absolutely right - pictures of your dog won't do at all. Now, pictures of your cat, on the other hand
How you got +5 Insightful is perhaps a testimony of how much apple section mods know about photography - because it certainly has no relevance for the 'insight' of your post.
Does anyone have specs on cooling? The previous Power Macintosh 2.7 required liquid cooling. Will the new dual core run cooler and require only fans?
Open the Display preferences (Under System Preferences) and select the options, you can have it just turn off the monitor if you want.
Dell does not do the same QA that Apple does with the displays, so though some may be from the same manufacturer the consistency is far different. Spend an hour digging around forums and consumer reports for repair records and the like, this becomes rather evident.
Also: the perks on the Dell displays, particularly the USB ports and the like are notoriously faulty. At one ~500-machine Dell installation with which I'm intimately familiar, far less than half of the Dell flat-panel monitors (don't know model #s offhand, unfortunately) have USB ports and media readers which work as advertised. Far less. They're just trash.
That said, I bought a Samsung display rather than an Apple. Lower cost, but far better quality than the Dells.
This is the PJ industry standard right now for organizing and culling high-volume takes.
http://www.camerabits.com/pages/PM4.html
And it's a lot less expensive than Aperture, especially if you take the ridiculous system requirements for Aperture into account.
iPhoto is terrible for this sort of work compared to software like Photo Mechanic, Extensis Portfolio, iView Media Pro, etc.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
DDR-2 does have lower power requirements, which is a win for laptops. More battery, and less heat. But I do agree it is likely, if anything, to degrade performance.
What Apple should have done is put in the 7448 core from Freescale. It is pin compatabile with the current 7447a and has a faster FSB (200MHz) as well as more cache and better power management. Along with other general core improvements.
Just to follow up my own question...
Alias updated their qualified hardware list, the document is dated Oct 4 but only appeared online today (Oct 20) so they've obviously been testing these machines internally for a while now.
Maya 7 now officially supports all the new Macs, and the nVidia 6600 and FX 4500. BUT there is no word on the 7800 yet. I called Alias tech support and they said that the quad processors are "supported but not optimized" whatever that means. I pressed them on the issue, they said they'd research it and get back to me. I suspect that this means that they still only support 2 processors and that Maya will run on a quad-G5 but with no speed advantage for the extra processors. But I can only guess at this, until I get better info.
I think we're going to get a lot of this sort of waffling until the quad G5s get into developer hands, although it is not a good sign when a developer obviously HAS the machines and has tested them but hasn't publicly committed to 4 processor support. And this is the crux of the issue, are developers going to support these last-generation quad-G5s or are they going to skip over them and put their resources into preparing for the Intel macs? It would be a shame if they didn't support the quads, as the performance looks like it will beat anything on the market. I guess time will tell. And there's not much time left on the G5s, so this could be a problem.