Slashdot Mirror
Intel PowerBook Rumor Mill
catdriver writes "AppleInsider has an article guessing about Apple's new Intel portable offerings in early 2006. 'With the initiation of the Intel Power Mac project last month, all five of Apple's Intel Macintosh projects are now said to be underway and moving at an exhaustive, yet fruitful pace. It should come as no surprise that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is reportedly leading the charge, with his heart set on making 2006 the next 1984.' With Mac OS X for x86 now catching up to its PPC sibling, is Apple ready to take the plunge?"
I am sure that there have been some issues, that I have written about before, notably the porting of hand coded Altivec instruction sets to equivalent Intel specific instructions. However, the code bases between Intel and PPC have been pretty close to one another going back to the NeXTstep days. You do remember that NeXTstep ran on Intel, right? At any rate, the next step, no pun intended :-), should be interesting indeed. I am hoping for additional professional plans that Intel specific chips should allow, particularly at the subnotebook (or even Newton formfactor) level. I have been travelling more and even the 12in Powerbook, which has been the best laptop I've ever owned, is starting to be cumbersome.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Hmm, I wonder what Orwell would think about that.
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
I've been considering a laptop as my next upgrade, since it will use less power, have wireless built in, and be quieter than my desktop with 3 hard drives in it. It will work better as my entertainment center, if it has a TV capture device in it. And I need to upgrade my P-P-P-Powerbook anyway, the screen is cracked.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
So what does this article say really? Apple's Intel based laptops "may" come out in April-May next year? Yawn.
It's not even a wild-ass guess that may become true, nor rampant speculation on something unlikely and unannounced. We all know Intel Powerbooks are coming, just not precisely when. This is just another educated guess within that timeframe.
Wake me when they have something substantive. Though by the time they have anything substantive, it'll be just a few days before the release or at the release anyway.
You know, the girl with the sledgehammer breaking that giant screen with Big Brother in it. (I wonder if they'll make a similar commercial now. Hmmmm.... )
No shit, Spotlight.
If Conan can make 2005 the next 2000, anything can happen.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Yonah is scheduled to arrive in January 2006, and will be followed in Q3/2006 by "Merom".
Most "Yonah" models are dual core, but a low-end model with only one core will be available. Apple will most likely opt to use the dual core "Yonah".
Merom will add 64 bits - yes, Yonah is 32 bits only.
Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
No, wrong logic. The fact that IBM could not pump out enough PPCs and could not keep down the G5 power consumption (getting too hot) was what prompted Jobs to switch to intel.
It has been speculated in many places that one of the main reasons Intel was chosen over AMD was mobile CPUs. Notebooks is one area where Apple is far behind PCs in terms of perceived performance. While servers and desktops have received new generations of PowerPC chips, the notebooks still use G4s. Although they've been updated, they're still G4s. It would stand to reason that this would be a main area of focus for Steve Jobs and Apple once the change had been made.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I personally don't like OSX, but LOVE the Apple hardware. I would be interested in purchasing a Titanium (x86) and putting Windows and Linux on it. I odn't believe I'm alone with that opinion either.
First glance you may say, good for apple, they still get the money. However, what that starts to do is move mindshare for apple to a premium hardware supplier, not a platform supplier.
I believe there are many people that will consider doing this, and I think this could hurt OSX. This move could put Apple (overtime) going Head to Head with Dell not MS.
No, the reason there are no G5 Powerbooks is that the mobile G5s came out too late and are too slow. Keep in mind that any G5 based laptop computer would max out at nearly 1GHz slower than the fastest Pentium-M and Turion 64 laptops, yet have similar IPC.
I've no plans to buy PC or Mac hardware until I see the value proposition Apple offers in its future products. I am all Mac PowerPC now, but I keep eyeing those cheap Wintel boxes (today it is $299.00 after mail in rebate for an HP with 15" LCD). Hard to resist a bargain.
I don't need new hardware, but if the Mactels allow me to run PC application via Wine or some other software, I'll go for it real fast.
What I would really like to is have one drive boot into MacOS and another with an alternative OS. I would like the Apple computer to boot any PC OS. I don't care if Mac OS X never boots on standard PC hardware.
Mostly I am just curios as to how Apple will engineer these machines.
Change is good.
Insightful?! Wtf! How about bleeding-frigging-obvious. Don't waste your mod points on this crap I wrote.
Most importantly, Altivec, while really fast, only support single precision computations. This is sufficient for improving multimedia playback, applying image filters on photos or compressing music, but lacking for high-precision computations. SSE supports double precision, a big improvement for the scientific market.
I think it means...
"We're tired, but guess what... I got Quake3 to run at 120fps"
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
The Intel Powerbooks have to be first, they've gone from being top of the line to average, performance wise, relative to PCs, though their design and build quality is still the best. eg. my C laptop has had a high res screen for well over two years, and Apple has only just caught up on that.
It's the flagship line for Apple, the most visible (non iPod) member of it's product range, and is probably the driver for most iBook sales as well (for the people who can't afford the real thing). So of course it'll be the first to go Intel. iBooks follow, naturally. Powermacs and xServes will be last - Pro users have a much bigger investment in software and peripherials so will be slower to move anyway. And the mini? Probably somewhere inbetween, and not far behind the iBooks.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Um, you do realize that you said you didn't want mods to waste their points, and yet you call for your own post to be modded down, therefore wasting the mods points. I thought your post was perfectly fine meself ;)
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
Why does Apple still want to control the hardware? Why don't they just port to Intel and let vendors sell Intel machinces with licensed versions of Mac OS. It'll be cheaper.
Because they then control the drivers and save themselves from the driver compatibility hell that Microsoft has been going through for years. One crappy driver reduces the "experience of Macintosh," and that is not something Jobs would want to do.
So, we have a few groups of people here:
1. Current OS X users.
They will almost invariable switch to the new Intel-based macs. I would say that most of them don't even know or care what chipset they are running on.
2. New OS X users.
These are people who will now be enticed to switch, because of the Intel move, that otherwise wouldn't have been. Perhaps they were waiting for the extra performance that Apple can offer in a laptop now that they have Intel processors. Perhaps they like that they can recompile their x86 specific programs on Macs now. (Yay! SBCL w/ Threading on OS X!? Dare I dream!?!?)
3. New Mac Hardware users (but not OS X)
This is the group you seem to be in. You want the Mac hardware, but don't care for the OS. I can't say I agree with you, but that's beside the point.
So, Apple will have all the people they have now (group 1), some new folks (group 2) and some additional hardware sales to people who are going to install Linux or Windows or BSD or something on the box (group 3).
Do you seiously believe that group 3 is big enough compared to the combined sizes of groups 1 and 2 that it will do anything other than add more to Apple's bottom-line? You aren't going to affect Apple's image unless group 3 is BIG or astonishingly well publisized.
Besides, even if group 3 were very large, we are talking about people who are buying the Hardware for the Hardware's sake. Because it's high-quality, attractive hardware. This could NEVER put them into direct competition with Dell. Dell is all about volumes. High volumes at low prices. Apple is EXACTLY the opposite. If Apple were buying the cheapest parts at the highest volumes to crank out machines as quickly and cheaply as possible, then group 3 wouldn't exist.
Well, those are my thoughts. You know the drill. Grain of sand and what-not.
Justin Dubs
Breathless journalists are always demaning another "1984" from Apple. Well I've got news for you: there won't be any more 1984a in the computer industry. it's too mature And especially not this. Apple changes the guts (to Intel) in a way that has no actual effect on the user interface and this is supposed to be like 1984 how? Idiot.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
Because they're largely a hardware company? I mean, why does Dell still want control over their hardware? Why don't they just package their Dell restore CD to work on other vendor's machines? It'll be cheaper, right?
Only cheaper != more profit. In order to sell their OS as their primary business, they'd need to make it support an ungodly number of weird hardware configurations, and probably raise the price of OSX a whole lot just to stay profitable. Plus, then they'd need to worry much more about piracy. When you're a hardware company, you don't need to worry too much about people downloading your product.
I have NEVER seen that kind of emphasis put on this transition. Way more emphasis was placed on the 68k to PPC transition and the OS 9 to OS X transition. I don't recall reading anywhere that this transition would be the evolutionary step the synopsis makes it out to be.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I really don't think there are many who are considering buying a mac just to install windows or linux on it. Anyway if it were linux that you want on your mac, it's already readily available, in a number of distros.
And your argument that this will "move mindshare for apple to a premium hardware supplier, not a platform supplier." Doesn't really make much sense either, because if apple does manage to gain mindshare as a premium hardware vendor, they would happily go up against Dell, as apple has much better profit margins than dell. (Remember, your argument is people already are ok with spending more for apple hardware... why would that change if over time if the mindshare that they are a premium hardware maker is growing?)
Anyway in this day of many cheap linux boxen replacing 1 expensive Sun or any of the older 'premium hardware' vendors, I don't think apple really expects to be increasing it's profit margins on the computer hardware side, the handwriting is on the wall, profit margins for computers will continue to slide. By switching to intel they will gain some economy of scale, but more importantly, if and when the profit margins on computer hardware become too slim, Apple will will already have the safety net option of just licensing OS X to Dell or HP to build boxes for them, or they could just release OS X as software only and sell it to anyone with the right x86 box.
This move to intel could hurt apple for a number of reasons, but not because people might buy the hardware to install something besides OS X on it.
There is a flaw in that logic as far as I can see. People who are going to buy Apple hardware just to run another OS on it are going to be in addition to the people who are are going to buy it just for the OS, not instead of. It doesn't really matter why you buy a Mac, it only matters that you buy a Mac. That way the company will say "we'll keep doing what we're doing with the OS and the other people will still buy our products anyway." Also, I think there will only be a small number of people who will do this as most people are not geeks like us. Also, there will be a percent of that number who will buy a Mac thinking they will probably buy it just to replace the Mac OS but then use it for a little while and decide to stick with it. Overall I can only see the move to x86 growing the Mac OS mindshare, not reducing it. The only real way I can see the move reducing the Mac OS mindshare is if programmers say to themselves "both mac and windows users can now run our program as as a windows only program since Mac users will be able to dual boot or run windows programs natively some other way now, so we are no longer going to release our programs for Mac." But I doubt that will happen either.
The problem with that scenario is that Apple won't offer support for Windows on Macs, or Linux on Macs. So that rules out any users who might want support, e.g. business and educational institutions. I can't see many normal home users either forking out for a mac, then forking out again for a copy of windows XP, downloading drivers if needed etc. It might be 1% of users (i.e. you if you're reading this) who have got the time and interest for that. And are you really going to go to all that trouble to install windows???
Don't forget as well, that virtual PC will truely *fly* under OS X on intel - it takes away most of the requirements for emulation, so if you need windows stuff, that'll be the way to do it, it won't suck performance wise like it does now.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
1) Where is the profit in letting vendors sell Intel machines with Mac OS X?
Right now for a $1k system they might get $100 profit. If they license OS X for $30, they might get $20 profit (being optimistic here). So if they sold $1.6b Macs last quarter, and have 10% margins (they actually have reported 9.6%), they made $160m; if they license overnight, they'll have to sell 80m copies to make the same amount of profit. Only 177m PCs were shipped last year, so they'd have to take HUGE chunks of the market in order to make a transition profitable.
News article about shipment last year.
So it's not good enough that shipping OS X for Intel is cheaper; it has to be profitable. Microsoft is profitable because they got $30 or so for every PC shipped last year, or $5b in OS licenses last year.
2) Why do they want a bigger share? They only need to make more money, and that doesn't necessarily equate to bigger share. As I outlined about, $100 per PC vs $20 per PC requires an overnight 5x increase in shipment.
If Apple wants to lower prices, they still have lots of things they can do:
a) strip out components: Compare a Mac mini to an XBox 360 or PS3
b) use cheaper components
c) increase process efficiencies
None of those things have anything to do with adopting OS X for Intel en masse.
GPL Deconstructed
Not sure where the "Is Apple ready to take the plunge?" tag came from. Of *course* Apple is ready to take the plunge. They've already announced the switch to x86 processors, and they even gave a specific time frame (2006). It's not like there's any real question here.
Looks like the 12 inch Powerbook is disappearing from the lineup as well (and the 12" ibook is set to become a 13"). It hasn't had a proper update in ages, so the writing's on the wall, but it's a shame, and leaves Apple without a mini-notebook style product. Unless they've got something under wraps...
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Drat, you meddling cad! You uncovered my dastardly plot you did. ;-)
Apple has consistently positioned itself as a "boutique" computer manufacturer rather than a low-end manufacturer. It has always been graphic designers, digital sound/video editors, and technology aficionados that have bought Macs. Steve Jobs has no real interest in that changing, although he has touched on the mid-range market with the mini. Dell sells a lot of cheap computers with a small profit margin on each (focus on quantity for profitability). Apple sells fewer high end computers, with a high profit margin on each. I really don't think of them as competing for many of the same people.
> Why does Apple still want to control the hardware? Why don't they just port to Intel and let vendors sell Intel machinces with licensed versions of Mac OS. It'll be cheaper.
1. Because Apple is a Hardware and Software Business, unlike Microsoft. 80% of Apple's profits come from their hardware.
2. Increased development and debugging time to try and make it run on a vast selection of hardware which in turns makes it buggier, slower, and more driver failure prone.
3. Apple doesn't like the idea of Mac OS X, which is beautiful, running on ugly ass hardware.
4. Apple doesn't want to have to try and support everything under the sun, which is what Microsoft tries to do, but often never goes well.
5. Apple doesn't have any form of anti-piracy software in any of their current builds of the consumer level OS. Only the Server editions get that.
6. People would pirate OS X and take a huge chunk out of that measily 20% of their profit intake, take into consideration that already 80% of their profits would be gone, because of supporting other computers.
> I've often heard it said that Apple has priced itself out of the market. If they want a bigger market share they'll need to take advantage of cheaper prices that come through competition. My guess is that if Apple is allowing only specific hardware to run their OS it'll envitably be more expensive.
And those people that say such stuff are about as bright as a lightbulb in a closed fridge. Steve has repeatly said they have no interest in garnering a huge marketshare. They are happy with what they want. Take into consideration what would happen if all of a sudden they had a huge marketshare.
1. Suddenly troubleshooting and technical help services would have to multiply in their size exponentially to keep up with the market mass.
2. Suddenly they'd have to start supporting every piece of hardware under the sun that Windows does, because customers will whine.
3. Suddenly the OS will have a lot more attention from the cracker community, yeah cracker, not hacker. While OS X and all *nix systems are far superior in their security model than Windows, its still not crackproof.
I'd also like to point out if you looked at any of Sony, VoodooPC, Alienware, or other vendors... outside of that discount bargin crap stuff like Dell. You'll see that Apple's hardware is more than reasonable pricing.
I doubt that prices will rise. One of the biggest reasons Apple went with Intel is because Intel is the 800lb gorilla of the market. They can give HUGE discounts on their CPUs that AMD and IBM/MOTOROLA/FREESCALE just can't match. Not because of some "performance lead on the competition." Anyone that can put 1 and 1 together knows AMD clobbers Intel in the gaming, 64-bit, server, and price market.
Right now there is virtually no difference in hardware between OS X and the average run of the mill PC. Outside of the processor and motherboard, which will soon not be there at all. I'm pretty confident that the prices will either stay at their current level or drop down a bit.
Why does Apple still want to control the hardware?
Off the top of my head: One, because they make a good profit on the hardware. Two, because the limited hardware choices simplify OS development, and allow them to make the overall package more reliable.
I've often heard it said that Apple has priced itself out of the market.
This is business, not sports. Just because you're not the top dog doesn't mean you "lost the game". Apple is a niche company in the PC market, and they seem pretty comfortable in that position. 3% marketshare (or whatever it is) doesn't sound like much, but don't forget, it's 3% of a very large number. Apple has been making shitloads of money for the last five years, and will continue to do so in the near future.
Except we're talking about laptops, and not many people I know add internal hardware to their laptops. The vendor is unlikely to sell a laptop that doesn't "just work".
Point taken. Nevertheless Jobs will want to keep control of the total experience, which he can't do on Dell's crappy laptops. You still end up having to maintain drivers and compatibility across mutliple vendors and what not, and it just isn't worth it.
In particular, there's no point getting pro-level Mactels into the wild unless Office and Creative Suite are ready to go Intel-native. Maybe MS and Adobe have quietly moved into high gear on the conversion. But last I read, Adobe was thinking late 2006 to get its Carbon-based apps ready for market.
No pro user will rely on Rosetta. On the other hand, one would assume Apple with have its iWork and iLife suites flipped, along with the applications which come with OS X. That will allow home users to make the switch in fairly short order. I'm sure the rumored widescreen iBooks will sell well right out of the box.
But a Mactel Powerbook makes no sense without pro applications. If Apple is really pushing advance release, they must have convinced their major software partners to get a move on.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
1) Where is the profit in letting vendors sell Intel machines with Mac OS X? ... Right now for a $1k system they might get $100 profit
Yes, but when the price of a 'premium' computer falls to $500 (and it will soon), then they are looking at a $50 profit, then a $30 profit, etc etc. [I remember the days when Apple cleared $1000 profit on each Mac sold.]
If they license OS X for $30, they might get $20 profit
And they might sell two OS upgrades for $100 profit each, plus iLife upgrades, plus a higher potential in iPod and other "digital lifestyle" sales.
I think your numbers make sense now, but within a year or two I could easily see software overtaking hardware as the profit center for Apple, and that means they'll probably start licencing the OS in a limited fashion.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
> Will it cost more than a Dell running Windows?
Probably, but how much time can I save by using a Mac instead, and how much is that time worth?
The Intel Powerbooks have to be first [...] Powermacs and xServes will be last - Pro users have a much bigger investment in software and peripherials so will be slower to move anyway.
So, pro users will be slowest to move, and thus the last targeted for transition, and the first thing to change will be the PowerBooks, which are targeted at pro users? Your logic has some internal consistency issues.
Oh well....I suppose it will be a good thing to NOT buy the first generation of Intel Mac's, there is bound to be some minor engineering issues to be worked out.
3. Apple doesn't like the idea of Mac OS X, which is beautiful, running on ugly ass hardware.
I always laugh at people who say things like this. Apple is out to make money, and they have been successful in carving out a niche market where they sell an OS tied to their hardware, so that's the way it's going to continue. But if tomorrow the winds changed and it would be more profitable to license their OS to other vendors, they would do it. Just like how they switched from PPC to x86.
Besides, if they didn't want their OS running on "ugly ass" hardware, how do you explain the eMac?
Craploads of RAM and HD space
Running the latest version of OSX
Running any version of Windows and Linux in VM spaces
Just reduced my development test machines from four to one
I've currently got six separate machines. My main development box (Suse 9.3), my game box (WinXP), and my four test machines for compatability testing ( WinXP, Win2k on cheap beige boxen, Suse9.3 on a decent IBM Thinkpad, OSX on a MacMini ). Reduce my test machines down to one machine that's also my portable. Lowers my power bill, more desk space, and a portable I can do ANYTHING on (from development, to BF2/Civ4)
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Apple is a hardware vendor. Apple only makes OS X because it makes easier to sell Apple hardware.
I love Apple and OS X but forced to run Windows because I consider anything above 3 lbs a brick destined to stay behind at home. Are subnotebooks THAT unpopular that they are almost completely ignored by American manufacturers? Do I really need a 12" screen to run 1024x768 when 10.4 will do just fine. Oh well, I may have to end up installing a cracked copy on a vaio.
I suppose Apple will want to have the "1st Dual Core Laptop" and the only way that's gonna happen is with Intel.
AMD is knocking the socks off the current Intel dual core chips but the second generation of those chips is ready for imminent release. The first generation of those Intel Dual Core chips are not keeping with the power usage that Apple wants and needs. Apple would most likely be going for the second generation of Intel Dual Core chips. Until then they are running Quad PowerMac G5's which will hold over the die-hards until they can do the same with Intel chips. I've seen a screenshot showing a Quad Intel box running OS X so they are probably already prototyping the next generation of Intel chips. We've also got Quad Intel 1U XServes to look forward to. Fantastic for Application Servers and Database Clusters. Then we've got SATA-II Disk Arrays most likely in the works as well.
If Apple pulls this switch-over off the right way, and slams the competition in the process, then it will change a great many minds. FreeBSD 6 just shipped and the next iteration of Mac OS X will most likely ship with it and the kernel will be optimized for the Intel dual core chips. An exciting time for Apple and a worrying time for Microsoft and Dell.
VMWare will most likely be able to run natively under an Intel chipset and you will finally be able to run WinXP or dare I say even Win2k3 in a virtual machine as well as you can run it under Linux today. It's an exciting time to be an Apple true believer...
hell, if i had mod points, i would mod up your 'mod parent down' post. so there, ha-ha!
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
Ghz are not directly comparable between different processor architectures, and PowerPC has tended to deliver faster chips at the same Mhz as x86. I think they now could do a Powerbook G5, they've just chosen not to because of the Intel project. That said, G5s have always been power hungry so there may have been battery issues.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
Last I checked, the eMac wasn't ugly. Sure, it still used a CRT, but it was much more well-designed than your common IBM PC setup having the computer, monitor, and speakers as seperate items. The eMac is/was targeted at educational institutions (hence the e), where it's a huge bonus to have a one-piece system when you're installing 30 or more computers in a lab. Reduces cable nightmare. So for its target audience, the eMac was a very elegant machine, and I still don't think it's that ugly, but I guess that's a matter of opinion.
The eMac was recently ditched, most likely because the iMac now can serve the same purpose; I also read somewhere that the case for the eMac was the most expensive part of the computer to manufacture, so it was also likely getting to the point of not being very profitable anymore.
Disclaimer: I have drunk the Apple Kool-Aid, and will be receiving my first Mac (PowerMac G5, thanks) sometime in the near future.
``I don't need new hardware, but if the Mactels allow me to run PC application via Wine or some other software, I'll go for it real fast.''
Duh! I can't believe I missed that. Of course, one of the great advantages of OS X running on x86 hardware is that Apple can bundle WINE and users can run Windows applications at full speed. Imagine the possibilities: Aqua's acclaimed GUI, most of the great Unix software, and all the popular Windows applications, all in one OS. Could switching ever be more attractive?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Would one be able to finally compile cedega under an intel-running OS-X system to play games so that people can stop bitching about the lack of games running on Macs?
First of all, Apple is actively competing against MS in a way that even surprises many Mac fanatics, for example by releasing Pages in addition to Keynote. Apple losing MS Office would not be very good for their business. While in a somewhat different segment, the media player competition between Apple and MS is also quite fierce.
Secondly, Linux does not pose any major threat against MS and Apple at this time. Granted, MS loses users to Linux but Apple is stealing Linux users to OSX. I fail to see what MS has to contribute here.
Consider if you said that about Ferrari or BMW. They have high priced product, and they certainly sell a lower volume than companies that focus on cheap product that has a large market share. Their business sense is generally not questioned; they have a loyal customer base who is willing to pay for their brand. Even items with the Ferrari and BMW logo like jackets and... well... laptops sell well.
Apple is a brand associated with high quality products. Thus they do not compete on price, but rather on perceived quality.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Another reason is possibly because AMD doesn't make their own motherboards.
Having the team who works on the motherboards having lunch with the guys who work on the latest chip is a plus for the customer.
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
Where is the profit in letting vendors sell Intel machines with Mac OS X?
Same place the profit is for Microsoft letting vendors sell Windows on Intel machines. No?
1) Where is the profit in letting vendors sell Intel machines with Mac OS X?
Right now for a $1k system they might get $100 profit.
Apple's gross margin is 28%. That $1000 system is probably earning the company $200-$250 - a bit more if you bought it directly. It's why Dell has been stumbling a bit more. With single-digit margin and much of their sales volume in the $500 range, they need to move 4-5x as many systems to make the same profit as Apple. Now, they do that quite nicely, but any missteps are felt pretty strongly.
The magnitude of the change from hw to sw is really quite massive.
The reason is that Intel-based Macs will be able to run Windows. Think about that. Apple is now competing not just against Microsoft as a platform supplier, but against Dell as a hardware supplier for Windows. People who had platform-reliance reasons for not going Mac (for instance, real estate agents...there aren't any MLS apps on Mac) suddenly don't have them anymore. There is the great possibility of running Windows applications virtually in OS X (a recently reported Apple patent makes references to doing this), so you might not even have to dual-boot. And gamers will be able to play Half-Life 2.
:)
By going Intel, Macs finally have a foot in the door. They're already growing in marketshare this year, so just think of what could happen when they're suddenly able to run Windows, the most dominant operating system in the world. Imagine the reliable hardware that is the PowerMac running Exchange in a business's server room. You get the idea now?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Ghz are not directly comparable between different processor architectures...
...and PowerPC has tended to deliver faster chips at the same Mhz as x86.
That's right, but...
Nope; the Opteron and Pentium M are faster per clock than the 970 in most tasks.
put the following in order and win a prize!
1) port an operating system from x86 to powerpc (or do it concurrently)
2) release proprietary boxes using new operating system.
3) watch competitor sell os only that run on generic boxes. (wait, couldn't I install nt3.51 on powerpc?)
4) take os and port it (back) to x86 (it was always there anyway)
5) offer a (relatively) virusless experience for the HUGE install base of x86 users for (I'll bet a dollar) very cheap. christmas '07's big gift for mom? an osx install disk that sniffs everything, converts everything, and puts in almost back for her.
6) linger with the x86 support for a few years, while the PA Semi boxes (oh please oh please oh please let it be true) roll out of cupertino for a couple hundred bucks. goodbye big heater boxes, all boxes are small now.
7) insert favorite company that apple takes away from here.
8) oh, and one more thing.
the best beer is always the local - uncle arnold
Automator lets you design your own tasks and actions.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Apple currently offers iBooks with either a standard 12- or 14-inch screen, but looks poised to introduce a completely new model built around (what appears to be) a 13-inch widescreen. Whether the company will offer other iBook models or standardize around the new widescreen model remains unknown.
I never understood this widescreen frenzy that's going on these days. On a computer, widescreen is much less useful than on a TV. High-screen, that would be handy, because then you can see more of the document you are typing. But why anyone would want a widescreen laptop is beyond me.
-- Cheers!
Microsoft is a monopoly with massive legacy lock-in. Apple doesn't have that advantage.
Because Apple is a Hardware and Software Business, unlike Microsoft. 80% of Apple's profits come from their hardware.
Well said. You've hit the nail on the head. If Microsoft is any indication, that's not where the profits lie. There's a lot more money to be made in selling your OS than there is in selling hardware. Apple has a great OS. Way better than Windows (IMHO). Perhaps the only reason Macs aren't more popular is because of price. Even if Apple wants to control the hardware. There's no reason Macs should cost more than PCs. There's nothing inherently more costly in Mac arhitecture over PC architecture. Is there? I'm not really sure about any of this. Just asking that's all.
In particular, the writer clearly thinks "exhaustive" (thorough, complete) is a synonym for "exhausting" (tiring). See eg this link.
Short answer: The reason there is no G5 Powerbook is the same as why Dell isn't selling Xeon laptops.
Rant answer:
"G5" alphabetically follows "G4," but that does not automatically mean that a given processor architecture, hidden behind a simplistic marketing name, is appropriate for all uses.
The designation of G3/G4/G5 were arbitrary marketing simplifications for consumers. Each G# referred to a family of chips, some of which are appropriate for mobile, some of which aren't. Demanding a "G5 Powerbook" is one of the simplest knee jerk, ignorant battle cries I've heard in a while. Apple could have called the latest rev of Powerbooks the "G5 series" and been done with it.
Hell why not play like Netscape (or iTunes) and skip 5.0 entirely, and call the current band of anemic Powerbooks G6?
WHO THE FUCK CARES WHAT NUMBER IS ASSIGNED TO A MODEL?
Silly answer:
Having the current PowerMac G5 CPU bolted onto a PowerBook would provide 30 minutes of lap scorching fun.
Yes, because we know doing things the way we're used to is the most efficient way of doing them. Geez.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
since it will be intel, if you could run "windows live" or maybe dual boot, i guess it would be pointless but?
a) strip out components
What is there left to strip out? All of Apple's machines ship pretty bare-bones (512MB of RAM, etc), aside from the optical drive.
b) use cheaper components
Again, what could they make cheaper? My PowerMac uses Kingston RAM and the absolute cheapest 250GB SATA drive you can find. It uses a sub-$100 graphics card (on a $2700 machine). Yeah, they could use a cheaper case, but then the thing would be a Dell outside as well as inside.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
If the Apple X86 portables are dual core - which they should be - they will still be up against PC portables which will have been in the market longer. It will be interesting indeed to see where (K)Ubuntu and Novell/SuSE have got to by April next year.
I am currently getting good results beta testing - sorry- Windows XP 64 bit as a host for VMWare 5.5 on AMD64 and I expect to get just as good results when 5.5 goes release and gets installed on Linux. Much as I like my OS X boxes, I'm finding it increasingly hard to understand what compelling extra features I would get for my money from an Apple X86 laptop.
Pining for the fjords
Ghz are not directly comparable between different processor architectures, and PowerPC has tended to deliver faster chips at the same Mhz as x86.
Not for the G5. Remember, the G5 is a long-pipeline design like the P4. According to my own benchmarks, my 2.3 GHz G5 is about as fast as a 1.6 GHz Opteron in integer and as a 2.0 GHz Opteron in floating-point. That means that a 1.5 GHz G5 won't be a match for the slowest Pentium-M.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
No. As I said, "if they license overnight, they'll have to sell 80m copies to make the same amount of profit. Only 177m PCs were shipped last year"
Why do you think they could successfully license to the top 3 manufacturers that sell over 50% of the systems in the world? AMD can't even get Dell to ship Opteron servers! Or Apple would have to get successfully licensed to the next 10 manufacturers that sell the remaining 50% of the systems.
If they can't do either, there's no profit incentive for Apple to license is there?
GPL Deconstructed
Why do you think the price of a "premium" computer will fall below $500 any time soon? As long as Apple can produce premium computers above $500, won't they stay that way? The real art here is in figuring out what makes a computer "premium" right?
But there is another aspect; if Apple can produce a "premium" computer below $500 (and $500 is pretty affordable) why would anyone who could afford it choose anything else? Right now Apple has a "premium" MP3 player below $500 that's wiping the floor; there are cheaper MP3 players, but no one intentionally buys cheap-people choose to buy value! If that value is fashion, performance, functionality, or price, then so be it, and at least iPods have displayed that value does not mean "cheapest mp3 player". Perhaps we will see Apple licensing the OS, but I'm not sure that's necessary as people continue to buy iPods and upgrade their PCs to Macs.
GPL Deconstructed
Personally, I don't see any logic in taking a stable, fast, robust, stylish piece of hardware and ruining it with bloated, insecure, unstable software like Windows.
<OffTopic level="slight">Sure, real-estate agents will be better supported, but personally I think MLS has been quite negligent in their support of their customers. I've been to many real-estate offices to run anitvirus and antispyware sweeps, and invariably there is a computer or two that are so infested there is little to do but reformat. If I were an MLS higher-up, I would have long ago at least made code policy to support ease of porting and called for research of possible OS alternatives.</OffTopic>
The real battle (IMHO) will be OSX available for installations on those Dells and nearly any other generic PC. Watch the better OS begin to dominate, and watch Mr. Gates and Mr. Ballmer struggle to actually innovate up some stability, functionality, and security without the bloat before that monopoly crumbles.
No conformist ever made history.
Yes, because using some fuck-up development environment that requires 4GB RAM, 2 CPU's and plenty of fast SATA's to use "comfortably" is such a smart way to go. (sarcasm mine)
Well, if there's nothing else to strip out, they can start integrating the bluetooth, firewire, 802.11, modem, and wifi all into a single chip, instead of one per.
Then you'd have:
CPU + integrated memory controller
GPU
accessory
All on the motherboard.
GPL Deconstructed
Of course no one else got your joke and moderated you down as a troll. Lamers.
What I was trying to say was that Apple has nothing to gain by trying to push out Linux. If anything, they have a lot to lose if that were to happen.
there are a few problems in my mind with having that type of design. the first is that upgradability is lower since it's hard to take the thing apart to get to the hd/cdrom and it can't have that many slots for expansion. you're also stuck with the same monitor for the life of the machine -- which is the second problem. if the screen dies, the computer is dead. imagine if someone scratched one...
Dell. Apple's fortunes are rising, and Dell is fading. Kick em while their down.
Dell has done a good job in many ways, but for some reason it couldn't excite people like Apple. They just couldn't make their computers sexy, they couldn't make people talk endlessly about what Jobs and Apple would do next.
Job's move to Intel is such a wicked move. It removes one big reason for Dell users to stay with Dell: Windows compatibility.
photosMy Photostream
> Why do you think the price of a "premium" computer will fall below $500 any time soon?
Because business desktops are already falling below $500.
I think you make a good point that as computers become ridiclously cheap, it's a lot easier for Apple to sell more 'premium' machines on style points and consumer trinket value. However, even with their traditional high margins, the hardware profits are going to get thinner, so to remain a hardware-based business, they would need to greatly increase their hardware sales (like say double their marketshare). Whether that's possible with a purely consumer-based strategy is a good question.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
i think it's a bit more complicated than that. apple is as much a software company as they are a hardware company. yes, some people buy macs because of the superior hardware, but the main reason is the software. mac os x != dell restore cd
The CEO of Adobe and the manager of the Mac division of Microsoft were both at the Apple event in person, to assure everyone that they have committed to making universal binary (PPC and Intel) versions of all of their Mac products. I watched the keynote, it was cool seeing those people standing beside Steve Jobs.
Go Intel Haifa!
-phozz
So far, Apple has officially said that they will do nothing to prevent Windows from booting on their systems, just that they won't be supporting it. Granted a lack of a BIOS may put a damper on things, but it's too early to know just yet.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
1. The eMac is not dead. Apple still sells it, but only to educational institutes.
2. eMacs practically last forever. One of my old roommates bought one over 4 years ago, it still runs without a hitch.
If he's using Intel, then 1984 would be advanced technology. Intel: the longest running joke in computing.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
> I always laugh at people who say things like this. Apple is out to make money, and they have been successful in carving out a niche market where they sell an OS tied to their hardware, so that's the way it's going to continue. But if tomorrow the winds changed and it would be more profitable to license their OS to other vendors, they would do it. Just like how they switched from PPC to x86.
Quit acting as if Apple was like every other business out there. Its not. They have always done things their way. If Apple was really out for the money they would of raised prices on the iTMS, which might I add, makes barely anything. If they were in it for the money they wouldn't be offering free replacements or upgrades to hardware and software like they do now.
What do you mean "if it were more profitable to license their OS to other vendors, they would do it? It already would be. Look at Microsoft, thats all they do and look how filthy stinking rich they are for doing it, along with pulling unethical business tactics. Of course Apple would make an arse load of money through licensing. But they aren't doing that now. The switch from PPC to x86 has not made them any profit. I don't know where you got the idea that they did. They moved to x86 because they were sick and tired of IBM's tired and overused excuses as to why they can't get the G5 to that target GHz that was originally promised. How many years is it now that they've missed that 3GHz mark?
Stop trying to label Apple as "any other business."
> Besides, if they didn't want their OS running on "ugly ass" hardware, how do you explain the eMac?
Ugly by whose definition? Just yours? I think the eMac is still a nice looking and well developed educational machine.
Secondly, Linux does not pose any major threat against MS and Apple at this time. Granted, MS loses users to Linux but Apple is stealing Linux users to OSX. I fail to see what MS has to contribute here.
Apple considers Linux to be a bigger threat to their business than Windows is. This is why you won't see things like iTunes for Linux - Apple doesn't want Linux to become too popular.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The height of the laptop is the limiting factor for whether it can be used on an airplane in coach. Once you're at max height, the only place to go is wide.
I've got a 17" PowerBook, and if I'm going to work on the plane, I need to get a 1st class upgrade, or at least exit row or bulkhead.
My video compression blog
No real argument from me, except to say that if you can take the B/I/U software like Windows and run it its own little window, VMWare like, while the rest of the system is chugging along with OS X goodness, you're 3 steps closer to nirvana.
Windows isn't going away, but being able to keep it available and in its own sandbox could be a useful transition mechanism.
No more 12" PowerBook? Dammit. It was the only Apple notebook I really had any interest in.
And I was looking forward to a 12" Yonah-based PowerBook too...
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
I assumed that the reader knew that the Pentium-M is faster, clock-for clock, than the Opteron in integer and slower than the Opteron in FP. It's something that your average Slashdot reader commenting on a CPU thread should know about.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Alas, I can't find it, but somebody who works at Apple said so in a Slashdot post awhile back. Not that this necessarily proves anything, but it doesn't really seem that extraordinary.
Microsoft has a monopoly. They're in a league of their own. You can't compete against Windows directly. You can, however, work to loosen their stranglehold on the market, and make it possible for more people to switch to alternatives. Apple sells one of those alternatives, but they compete directly against other alternatives. Users switching from Windows to Linux is good for Apple because it means there are more users in the market Apple competes in (the market for alternatives to Windows), but Linux is still a threat to Apple because it means Apple has some serious competition in the alternative-to-Windows market.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
With a price point that sits it more closely to the iBook than a PowerBook, the 12" is by far one of the most popular Apple machine that I've seen.
The main reason is that it gives you the 5+ hours battery life and the size of many PC-based subnotebooks which are twice the price. I seriously doubt that it'd vanish from their lineup without replacement.
However, it also had the best battery life out of the lot (until recently). Titanium G4 1GHz was spec'd at 5 hours and I'd pull 4.5 with screen down to lowest brightness and CPU on reduced. 12" PowerBook claims 5 hours and I can pull 5 and a half with screen on low brightness and CPU in reduced - bluetooth off but airport ON. 15"? THey claimed 4.5. With screen backlight on lowest, bluetooth and wireless off and proc in reduced mode, I get 3.5 hours. I get 4 hours with screen backlight OFF.
New 15" gives me the correct 5.5 hours battery life from the tests I did on Friday but I can't bring myself to upgrade (crossgrade?) from a 1.5GHz superdrive machine.
I know it is a bit offtopic but this one has been warming my gray matter.
1) Is it possible for Apple to go back to PPC after they go x86?
2) If it is a possibility, what is the risk to x86 developers who plan to port their windo*s apps to OSX-86?
JsD
So I read the original comment a few times, and don't get where he said that laptops (even powerbooks) are targeted at Pro users - only that it is the flagship, which is true.
To me the whole thing is very consistant - Laptop improvement for the masses, and some Pro users willing to live a bit on the edge. The whole of the Pro market last.
The switchover has been helped a huge amount by Apple making Pro software that has gained pretty good adoption across the industry - Final Cut Pro for video, some app for sound I forget the name of, and soon Aperture for photographers. That will help make the transition a lot more palletable since all the Pro Apple apps are for sure going to support the x86 at launch.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, they aren't as much a software company as they are a hardware company. Yes, they make software. Yes, the software is good. However, last I heard, their most profitable products (by far) were their computers (hardware) and iPods (hardware). I doubt the OSX sales come close to covering what they spend producing it. As far as Apple's marketing goes, the OS and hardware are all one unit, and selling OSX along with their computers is like when they sell the ease of the iPod interface to go with the iPod. Yes, it's the reason people buy their hardware, but they make the money off of selling the hardware, not off of selling the ease.
Because the regular keys would have to be off-center to fit the numeric keypad on one side (and as the laptop sits centered on your lap, you would then have to shift your hands to one side to type normally which is a bad typing position).
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
My primary work machine (which costs less than any half decent laptop you can buy) is a desktop class system with 4 GB of ram, 2 CPU's, plenty of fast SATA drive space and a comfortable keyboard and mouse.
So what? You'll be able to get all of that with a Mactel Powerbook if it's a dual core, with the possible exception of the 4 gigs of ram. You can plug your mouse, keyboard and monitor into your laptop just fine...in fact some companies made docks for those periphreals so you could plug them in at the same time. You can buy external RAIDS for Firewire 800, or you can use the gigabit ethernet to connect to a fileserver.
Since Apple is moving to Intel, does this mean you'll be able to run Be OS on a Mac again? :)
thanks. i was wondering about the whole 'grain of sand' thing." i thought is was "To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower..." which didn't really make sense.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Widescreen provides more room for palettes and sidebars, which are major part of the UI in pretty much any creative program. They were originally designed to sit on top of the canvas, and some people still use them that way. But more often they are just stuck to one edge of the screen, and on a normal-aspect monitor they can limit the width of the canvas.
As an example, my 14" iBook, at its highest resolution setting, cannot fit both an 800 pixel-width canvas and the Photoshop or Dreamweaver sidebars on the monitor at the same time. There is a small but annoying side-scroll bar for the canvas in both programs.
On the Mac, even Word uses palettes, so a wider screen view would benefit most everyone.
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.
Or perhaps IBM refused to bend over and open their cheeks to Jobs after winning big with all three next-gen console manufacturers, and he threw a hissy-fit. This is I think more probably than Intel magically producing a low wattage 64-bit multi core CPU for Apple, despite a history of marginally performant chips whose waste heat can be used to run an enameling kiln.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
When companies claim they could release something amazing when they're actually making a piece of crap like Paxville, it's a pretty sure bet that they're lying. After all, not getting their clocks cleaned by AMD in terms of both performance, power consumption, and suitability for things like blade servers is a pretty good definition of something that is definitely in Intel's best interest!
NB: Apple may indeed be using Yonah for prototype Macs (although I've seen no definitive evidence for this). But there's a big difference between producing a few reference CPUs that may not operate at full clock-speed, and large production runs of finished examples. Intel have been forced to withdraw more than one new CPU model shortly after production because of insurmountable problems, and they're unlikely to want that to happen by prematurely releasing Yonah to manufacturing. Hence Paxville, an obvious kludge that they hope will stop a rising tide of corporate data-centers selecting AMD-based solutions for long enough to get a properly designed CPU out of the door.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
From the moment the intel announcement was made, Jobs and Apple have emphasized that the first machines that'll get moved over will be lower-end, consumer boxes. They've badly needed to bump the portable lineup higher, having been stuck in the G4s. He talked (in interesting terms) about performance per watt in that keynote, not about speed running photoshop filters. So the first wave of new machines is manifestly not going to be aimed at the "pro" users you're talking about, and Jobs has said so, several times.
(I still think this could kill Apple. The thing that almost killed them in 1993-4-5 was a long absence of an Apple presence in the laptap market, and then the execrable quality of the PB5300 [the first PPC model] when it did finally come out. Apple lost a market "space" it had just owned. Jobs is trying to plug that gap before it recurs, this time on his watch -- but the sort of thing you're talking about still does matter to home users. Combined with this long interregnum in which I'm not exactly inclined to replace the family lampshade iMac at home because I want to see those first consumer machines, a subpar laptop lineup could do serious damage to the company's stock. They're trying to ride the iMac wave long enough to do it right.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
It doesn't say that in the original comment. It's just a fact.
Well if you're going to ridicule a poster you could at least include a note to the effect that it relies on your interpretation of facts.
In what universe are Powerbooks targeted only at "Pro" users? What does that even mean? They are simply targeted at users who perhaps want to use a laptop to the exclusion of a desktop. That means many students, and a lot of home users who in no way can be considered "pro" users. Yes the Powerbooks include features "Pro" users enjoy, but they are not the sole domain of Pro users in the same way PowerMacs are. For one thing, they are not powerful enough.
iBooks are targeted at people who want laptops where price is the most important factor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dangerous times these be.</FUD>
---k--
</stupid>
My company is planning to buy all Apples in the next desktop refresh, because they can run OSX, WinXP/Vista, and Linux.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
faster than a PowerPC based Mac? As I understand it, the slowdown in performance isn't necessarily from the CPU, but in the way the OSX kernel is designed, which is a hybrid micro/monolithic-kernel. Not that long ago, Anandtech published performance figures too for Linux vs OSX on the serverside, and largely threading issues were blamed for performance. IIRC, there's multiple levels of API's before you get to the 'fast' threads - forgot what they're called on OSX, which slow the threads down on OSX vs Linux. Will switching to a new CPU necessarily give any performance benefits at all over the old PPC CPUs?
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
At first, I thought this was a reference to DRM features and George Orwell's famous book.
-Uberhund
We are talking about economies of scale here both in terms of hardware and software costs. Mac machines ship with OS X and a lot of bundled software. The price of that software is factored into the price of the hardware.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.