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The Odds at Macworld
Moby Cock writes "Jason O'Grady has posted the odds on what is to be announced at the Macworld Expo beginning next week. Coming in at 100:1 is OS X 10.5 and even money on a new and sexy Intel Mac Minis and iBooks. Gentlemen, start your credit cards."
You can always tell which rumors are true by the rapid-fire Apple lawsuits to the websites responsible.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I have no problem paying $.99 for a song, but i will pay no more. This happens and I will be looking other places for my music for my iPod. They have to pay none of the traditional distribution costs of CD's, so they shouldn't even be the price they are now. you want to be greedy, i'll look elsewhere.
O'Grady writes :"Hopefully it'll be the PowerBook nano I've been dreaming of. Unfortunately, it's not likely as the pro software (Final Cut, Creative Suite, etc.) isn't universal binary yet. Rosetta emulation isn't fun folks. Odds: 50-1."
So, basically, he's saying that because a certain segment of the userbase will be waiting a little while, EVERYONE should wait?
If Apple doesn't ship Intel Powerbooks now, these users are going to be waiting, because they certainly aren't going to buy G4 powerbooks unless they absolutely have to. If Apple does ship Intel Powerbooks now, these users are going to be waiting for their apps to be shipped as Universal binaries.
So, given that these customers are ogoing to be waiting either way, why shouldn't Apple get hardware on the market to serve the customers who *can* buy now? Customers for whom XCode is their main app, not Photoshop or Final Cut.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
Oh, man, that's gotta hurt the Mac zealots even more than the switch to intel. Apple hiring *PC laptop designers* to build the next Powerbook.
I think Mac zelots (arguably myself included) are more enamored with the OS than the hardware. My gripe with PC manufactures out there is a lot of shoddy support, bottom-of-the-barrel parts, and bulky/ugly laptop design and only a handfull of gems.
Yes, a sexy new Intel based mac mini seems likely, but in light of that why are they only giving 10:1 odds on an iLife/Frontrow upgrade? It seems the new mini would be the perfect platform to add PVR functionality to, but with no upgrades/additions to iLife, it seems the new minis would move from a killer living room appliance to a minor curiousity...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Interesting speculation, but a lot of it just doesn't quite add up.
-The AirPort "Ultra" would "be able to stream video to your TV - in High Definition". Where is all this HD content coming from? Not from the iTMS, not from DVDs. Assuming this AirPort is running 802.11g, streaming HD content is iffy at best. Apple is known for making things easy. I don't see how this could possibly fly as a consumer product. Maybe in another year or two, with faster WiFi and more HD content.
-Jason reckons that the Intel PowerBooks won't be released because (despite all the engineering done) not all the pro software is written yet for Intel, and Rosetta emulation just isn't fun. But then his #1 prediction is for Intel iBooks? Doesn't make sense to me.
-Why are iLife & iWork updates so unlikely (10% and 4% odds, respectively)? Unless Apple is just willing to let this software die (unlikely given relations with Microsoft), this is practically a given. Maybe not until summer, but the odds of an announcement or mention are more likely on the order of 50% - 75%, IMO.
Sorry, I'm just not buying it. Guess I'll wait until next week to find out for sure.
The Buddha would tell us that anyone who goes on about Buddhaism for more than two sentences is to be ignored because they do not get it.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I just dont think Apple is going to make a DVR to actually compete with Tivo. Let alone "defeat it in one fell swoop!!#!11111!!!".
Might they make DVR software for say, college kids and such? With a little dongle for cable input? Sure. But this would hardly make any waves in the DVR market.
I don't buy the "hits" so the songs I'd purchase would probably come out cheaper than $.99.
That sound you hear in the background is thousands of executives worldwide laughing at your naiveté.
Apple's productivity suite will get upgrades to Pages and Keynote with the possible addition of a modern Office-killing spreadsheet application (rumored to be called "Numbers" or "Sheets"). If it reads and writes Excel files the Apple spreadsheet will be the final nail is Microsoft Office's coffin. Microsoft will waste no time in announcing the end of support for Office for the Mac if this happens.
And then Apple can kiss all of its corporate sales goodbye. Nope, not gonna happen. Maybe a light-duty, somewhat-compatible spreadsheet for people to make little lists with, but Apple knows it will lose more in corporate hardware sales than it can ever make back with their little $99-a-pop suite.
Besides, if there's one thing we have learned, it's that 100% compatibility with MS Office file formats is impossible. Can OOo do it? Can Quark or InDesign perfectly import Word docs? Hell, do MS Office for Mac and Win perfectly read each others' files? No, no, and no.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
OS X has supported multiple buttons and scroll wheels natively since its very first release, as the OS's event architecture was originally designed to accommodate Next's three-button mouse. Apple continued to develop the multi-button support under OS X despite shipping a single-button mouse. Most OS X applications (Cocoa, Carbon, and even Java) have always automatically taken advantage of the OS-level support for scroll wheels and right-clicking for basic tasks (e.g. copy, cut, paste) without doing anything, plus OS X developers routinely add additional contextual menus and other types of support for modern mice. I don't know a single OS X developer who routinely uses a single button mouse, and I've met a good number of them. On top of that, I believe that the Mighty Mouse's buttons are fully customizable in the System Preferences (not sure on that - I still use an old Logitech mouse on my Mac)
OS X applications never require a multi-button mouse, but they almost universally support them.