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The G4 and Apple's Second Coming
Anyone who's been anywhere near true computer geeks soon comes to realize that the driving ethic behind the Internet isn't pornography, technology or money-making. It's not even freedom.
It's the yen for cool stuff - designing it, programming it, acquiring it or trying it out.
This week, Apple unveiled its Mac G4 series, somewhat exaggeratedly described as the world's first supercomputer for the desktop, with TV spots that show a G4 being encircled by Army tanks while an announcer points out that this is the first personal computer so powerful that it's been declared a military weapon (translation: the federal government has declared certain technologies off-limits to specific foreign governments, including Iran and China, because of potential military applications).
Don't worry about the Pentium chip, adds the announcer. "It's harmless."
You could practically hear countless geeks and nerds inhale sharply and breathe heavily. Judging from Web chatter on tech sites from C-Net to Linux World to Slashdot, the G4 was an instant smash. Geeks are forever on the prowl for the coolest, fastest, most powerful new thing, and the G4, clearly, is it.
In America, corporations often become cultural or even political symbols that transcend the products they make. IBM, AT&T, Ford, Linux - all are icons as much as manufacturers, programs or communications giants.
With the possible exception of Bill Gates's Microsoft, no company embodies a particular corporate approach to the digital world more than Apple Computers; no individual personifies a corporate view more than Steve Jobs.
From the early days of the boom, Gates and Jobs have been the yin and yang of the computer world: Gates is intrinsically corporate, rapacious and big, ferociously competitive, monomaniacally focused, Jobs straight out of the alternative entrepeneurial wing that saw computing as a wondrously liberating tool.
His buddy Steve Wozniak grasped almost instantly that this philosophy was unlikely to withstand the looming capitalist assault on the computer industry and bailed out. Jobs was driven from Apple, but stayed in the game, before a desperately failing company asked him back.
In conventional financial terms, Gates was by miles the more successful, becoming the global poster boy for the Long Boom and the world's richest man.
Jobs, always more quixotic and, if such a thing is possible, even more egotistical than Gates, positioned Apple as the anti-IBM, and the anti-Microsoft, each, at different times, versions of the same thing. In so doing, he created a company that brought millions (including me) into networked computing. But in a corporate sense, he fell far behind and out of grace.
Now it seems the wheel has turned again. If there's an ideology at the heart of computing, it's to be forever on the lookout for the coolest, fastest, most powerful thing. The G4 clearly, is it.
At least for a while.
Apple has been enjoying a remarkable renaissance with the runaway success of the iMac, the G3 desktop and Powerbook series, and, more recently, the iBook. The G4, from early accounts, is an impressive accomplishment, an unprecedently powerful desktop machine that costs little more than the too-cutesy, candy-colored iMacs. Because it is new and powerful, it is cool. Because it is cool, they will come.
Although substantially more powerful than the G3s they will replace, the G4's price increments are the same: $1,599 for a Mac with a 400-megahertz processor; $2,499 for 450 MH available in September, and $3,499 for 500 MH, available in October.
The G4's microprocessor, co-developed by Apple, IBM and Motorola, uses a circuit called the velocity engine, (similar to the vector processors used in supercomputers), that allows it to process 128 bits of information per cycle, compared with 32 or 64 bits in most processors. It can, according to Jobs, tackle tasks, from encrypting Net messages to processing digital video, that are beyond most ordinary PC's.
Apple's engineers and designers have again radically changed public perceptions of computing, offering machines for non-computing professionals as well as loyal Mac-adherents that are colorful, portable, powerful, easy, and/or cheerful, depending on one's tastes.
Apple has always had the strange distinction of being uncool and cool simultaneously. To legions of professionals - writers, artists, designers - the Apple was a godsend, permitting creative work while eliminating the sometimes nightmarish process of struggling with computer mechanics. To geekdom's macho wing, Apples are for ignorant wimps who use graphic interfaces to avoid ever really coming to understand how computing works. For years, no self-respecting geek would be caught dead on a Mac.
Now the G4 signals the return of an Apple Age, or at least Round Two of the original Apple Age, though it's significance may be more metaphorical than real. The new Apple doesn't allow us to think differently so much as it enables us to compute more simply and powerfully, two very different ideas. For some years, Apple alone offered individuals an alternative to corporatism. Now that mantle belongs more to the open source and free software movements. (A telling example of the new, greedier Apple ideology is that the G4 was deliberately built so that owners of the new G3 can't upgrade to it - they have to buy a new one. Doesn't sound like very different thinking after all).
The irony of the Apple story, especially for people like me, is that these machines made it possible for us to use computers, but kept us perennially ignorant about how they really worked. In my own case, this was a mixed blessing. (For the past year, I've been struggling to learn and use Linux, in many ways the antithesis of the Apple experience. It's been rough, but I'm close. I have a working Linux computer and am getting lessons in how to use it. More on that later.)
The G4 is the crowning achievement to date of the Jobs-engineered Apple comeback, because he's not only created a machine the wusses will love; he's pounded the macho geeks at their own game and exposed behemoths like IBM and Microsoft for the clunky and unimaginative entities that they are.
For all that, apart from the fact that Jobs has calmed down considerably and sports a graying beard, this second Apple Age is sadly different from the first one. Mac made its national debut (remember the famous anti-IBM ad?) during the 80s. The computer was presented as an anti-Orwellian device, a revolutionary affirmation of individual creative spirit versus corporate domination.
The Macintosh, Jobs was saying, wasn't about technology, but creativity. It wasn't about big business, but about individual aspiration. Accurate or not, lots of people fell for the line, and the Apple brought part of an entire wary generation into computing. Even the most severely technically-impaired were able to approach computing and participate.
The new Apple Age is more consumer-oriented and profit-driven, and far less honest and idealistic. You have to wonder: Is the G4 really necessary? Do people actually need a desktop that's classified as a military weapon? Or portable computers that resemble translucent toilet seats? Will this generation of Apple computers, like the first, keep affluent computer users happy, more powerful and even more ignorant?
The good news is that the resurgence of Apple is a rebuke to the way big corporations do - or don't - think. No board of directors or mega-company with squadrons of vice-presidents would have come up with the G4, or with anything like the iMac.
Apple's comeback invokes the long-ago days when companies reflected the stubborn, idiosyncratic visions of individuals, instead of the tepid, amorphous conglomerates that dominate new and old media.
If Apple may no longer lay claim to its anti-Orwellian ideological roots - always personified more by Wozniak than Jobs anyway -- it has made computing fun and accessible again, and has provided consumers with more real choices and alternatives.
For that alone, the second coming deserves to be hailed.
It's still difficult to upgrade and loaded with proprietary hardware.
Difficult to upgrade? What have you been smoking? With the possible exception of a total motherboard replacement, the G4 (and its B&W G3 ancestry) is quite possibly the easiest-to-upgrade machine I've ever seen in every aspect.
As for "loaded with proprietary hardware" I'd watch what you're saying. Pretty much every single thing on that motherboard is now an open standard: Ultra-ATA for hard drives, PCI and AGP for cards, standard PC100 memory (or is it PC133 now?), USB and Firewire for peripherals, 10/100 Ethernet for networking, OpenFirmware for booting (yes, OpenFirmware is itself an open standard; check FirmWorks if you don't believe me), and so on. I should, by the way, note that the G4 AGP no longer has a proprietary Mac ROM on the motherboard anymore (the PCI graphics still do, as they use the legacy Yosemite motherboard rather than Sawtooth, but even the ROM's on these no longer contain any OS-level code). Proprietary hardware? Perhaps one or two things still, but don't even think of calling it "loaded" anymore.
The power user demands a machine that he/she can not only be proud of when it first comes out, but can remain potent for years to come (through upgrades to both operating system and hardware).
True, very true. I don't think you'll argue that the G4 isn't a machine to be proud of when first purchased. Now, look to the studies. It's been shown that Macs have a much longer useful life than any other desktop computer (indeed, usually double or triple that of the average PC in a given establishment); I have a seven-year-old machine at home which now has a G3 processor, a good amount of RAM, great storage space, and so on and so forth. Not only that, but it is still running all the latest software out there. In other words, Macs can and do remain potent for years to come, years longer than even most PC's, through upgrades of software and hardware, just as you said.
The G4 is aiming for the geek market, but just doesn't have the features that would make it attractive for more than a few months.
And what, pray tell, are those "features"? I don't see any glaring lack, except possibly that I'd like a couple more PCI slots and there are ways around even that problem.
By attempting to appeal to higher-end users but not changing its hardware strategy to one of modularity and maximum control, Apple will find that it has sown the seeds of bitter resentment.
Not changing its hardware strategy to one of modularity and maximum control? Perhaps we're on different wavelengths. The G4, as I see it, appears to be just about as "modular" as any PC I've ever seen (sure, there's the mobo issue, but that's the only problem I've seen and considering the way Mac upgrades tend to run this problem is actually quite minor). As for "maximum control" I don't see any real trouble in this area here either. Looks to me like I can dictate more or less exactly what does and doesn't go into my machine.
You did a good job of describing what the average power-user wants. Trouble is, the Mac fits your description perfectly. That's rather countrtproductive to your argument, which is thereby reduced to the level of "Macs suck because they're Macs" (since you have no arguments to support your claim). Perhaps you should actually look into these machines, rather than refer to 10-year-old FUD which hasn't been true for quite some time now.
What folks are forgetting is that this is the one, sole fact that we have. We do not know Apple's motivation. We do not know if it is permanent. However, just about everyone has gone completely mental, accusing Apple of sabotage, threatening class-action lawsuits, and acting like a bunch of rabidly paranoid conspiracy theorists.
Now, worst case, it may have been expressly for the purpose of never allowing B&W G3 owners to pop in a G4 CPU. I highly doubt Apple is this stupid. They may be much more Microsoftian than in the early 80's, but Jobs' Apple ain't dumb. Third-party upgrade manufacturers are already working on getting around the block, and there have been scattered reports of success. Apple ends up in a situation where they don't just lose, but lose big time. I don't think so.
One of the things glossed over in recent months have been stability issues with the G4 and the new "Sawtooth" (the real new G4, with the 2X AGP and the MaxBus memory management chipset) architecture. This is why there's sizable delays on Sawtooth G4 models: they aren't ready yet! It makes sense to me that Apple would not want the bad press of G4 instability right before their introduction, thus the firmware block. When things are ok, then a new firmware update can be released which will remove the block.
This is simply rampant speculation. But I urge everyone else out there to engage those 8lbs of grey matter wedged between their foreheads before they run out and find a lawyer to go sue Apple. I do have problems with the fact that Apple didn't bother to tell anyone about the G4 block in the firmware update, and I'm not excusing them for that. This block can be removed by Apple at any time with a new firmware upgrade.
good read, but it's a little bit on the side of repeating what the 'buzz' in the real world has been for a while - the iMac and Steve got on the cover of time, now with the iBook and the G4 full spreads in other glossies are appearing - that's not the kind of stuff you see when a new pentium is introduced... why? because, IMHO, apple has always build COMPUTERS, not COMPUTER PATRS - they could design the ibook from the beginning to have a low-power chip, a built-in handle, and an antenna - why? because they designed the whole thing and had to rely on no one else for critical components (they still relied on the engineers and manufacturers, obviously)... the mainstream consumer wintel world is stuck with, well. windows, and intel... kinda limiting, huh? (go powerpc, go linux...)
/. fans will be able to run the coolest hardware with the coolest OS (be it WHATEVER flavor of unix or linux you want, that's not what this post is about)
:>
anyway, how do we REALLY see the resurgence? the sales! people LOVE the iMac, and perhaps more importantly, EVERYONE recognizes it, and EVERYONE knows who built it... i have one on my desk in the office here at Rutgers, in a residence hall, and it never ceases to get compliments
so, why the sudden spurt of belief in apple now that the G4 is out? probably because it signals all the technological merit that the PowerPC really represents... When Tom's Hardware is comparing 10% different rendering times between an Athlon and Dual Celeron, here comes a piece of APPLE hardware that whups them both - exotic, fresh, and it has a cool case - who wouldnt want one on their desk?
and one issue not mentioned: soon, the G4 will run a full BSD unix - so even Unix heads and
also, one issue: individual creativity? it took more than a few people to design the 7400 (G4 chip), and a LARGE crew to do the system - you can't hack together a complex beast like that in the same way Steve and Steve did the Apple 1... and AFAIK, Apple has a board, with plenty of hot-shots from much less flexible computer firms sitting on it... so what is apple's resurgence due to, in my opinion? they got back to their original goals: produce powerful, affordable, easy to use computers that REDEFINE how we can use them... With their last few products, they have done excellently, and the world has taken notice... may they continue to do so for a long time, as JonKatz says, i want the cool toys
Apple deserves credit for acting on what has been so obvious for so long, and that is computers are intimidating. Apple has borrowed from other industries (cars, consumer electronics) and carefully crafted a warm and fuzzy way to sell computers. That does not make them technically superior, just more easily marketable.
Well, Amelio sure as hell wasn't listening to the customers.
Jobs came in and made many many cuts of some rather good-sounding projects. He cut dead wood and still brought out great products that the consumers loved. I seriously doubt that they could have done that without Jobs. If Apple produced the iMac and kept all the other things that were really dragging them down, it wouldn't have had nearly the impact.
Listening to customers is the best way to get them to buy your products, of course, and Jobs did that (really, anyone could have done that, but he did) but to make a company profitable (especially one in the not-so-savory condition Apple was in), you need more than that.
The Happy Blues Man
The Happy Blues Man
I accept on blind faith that Cincinatti exists.
Let's face it: Apple is cool because it has CULTURE. Microsoft has no culture. Not even corporate culture. It exists solely as a money making machine. Apple makes a cutlural statement, a leap into the imaginations of its users.
From everything I've seen, Jobs is an evil bastard, even more so than Gates. But he's a bastard in the right way. He really beleives that by giving people 'insanely great' technology, he can change the world. Of course it is a world and culture that HE envisions, but at least it is something more than more and more money.
The best thing that could happen is when OSX really gets going that geeks will be attracted to it (Anyone ever used a NeXT machine? Weren't they just THE COOLEST?). Then, between a real OS like OSX, a movement like Linux and OpenSource, and real technology like the G4 instead of X86, we'll do what Jobs envisioned: change the world.
So the new Apple Renaissance is simply a revival of culture in Apple, a thing they have missed since Jobs the Conqueror left (dang he can do a great keynote, can't he?)
Of course, it won't be in Jobs' image, but the geeks....
I think the point that most authors miss about Apple is that they make computing fun, not cool or hip. When the G4 came out, countless geeks didn't say, "Ooo, I want an Apple," they said, "Ooo, I want a G4, cause I try and put Linux or something that will really take advantage of it on it." Geeks think the chip is cool, not the machine. Where Apple's success now lies (and it's evident by their marketing campaign and their product line) is in the fun of using a computer. Compare Apple's commercials to that of Microsoft or Sun. Apple uses music from the Beatles and touts ease-of-use and the funny little quirks of their machines. MS and Sun tout business applications and corporate development and how to use the computer for balancing the bank statement of a cow farm in Idaho or Wyoming or something. Which is more fun? Who are the majority of computer buyers (not Slashdotters)? And companies are noticing. They're copying the case designs, but really, that's only half of it. Apple has this image that their marketers, Katz almost points out, has created. G4s and tanks is serious stuff, but Apple says, "Hey, look, we're fun. We got a supercomputer here, but it ain't military, it's fun." And when consumers (not hard-core users) start up their new fun Apple, they find what really is a rather fun GUI to use, especially now that it's more stable.
Many people would say that having a bunch of consumers start using an Apple would be a bad thing, that they're not seeing how computing really is, but aren't they? I mean, they're hopping on the 'Net where invariably, they're going to learn about computing and general and the philosophies (open-source, closed-source, ie. alternatives) associated there-in and they'll be doing it in a comfortable environment that screams this isn't a work machine, this is a play machine, so have fun. Apple's always been good at that (I remember when my father got his first Mac in 1984), but now they have that image and the success only follows naturally.