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Apple Disabling 3rd Party CPU Upgrades? (Updated)
mrwiz writes "According to this article at Appleinsider, it looks like Apple may be removing the upgradability of processors even further with their next generation logicboards, codenamed "Shark", by moving the boot ROM off of the logicboard and onto their processor daughter cards. "
Update: 09/07 07:56 by CT : The Happy Blues Man writes "MacOS Rumors has an update on the "trojan" firmware upgrade for Blue & White G3s. It seems that even in Apple itself, the issue was hotly contested and the proponents' reason was to stop 3rd parties from shipping G4 upgrades before Apple's G4s were shipping. Apple sources have confirmed a fix will be available. " Update: 09/07 08:54 by H :I've been told by numerous people that this is NOT true-more to follow.
www.macosrumors.com has a slightly different version of events. Of course, they are only talking about Sawtooth not Shark, but it sounds like the recent controversy has changed Apple's attitude a little.
Oh, and as far as MacOSRumors vs. AppleInsider, AppleInsider has long been known to spout garbage, and you can tell it's garbage when it damages Apple's image. They do it to make it look like they're scooping the other rumors sites. IIRC, they got horrendously burned on the Apple Media Player (AMP) story, which turned out to be an Apple Corporate ruse to root out leaks. AppleInsider ends up with more ad revenue that way, but they have the reputation among Mac rumors site watchers of being somewhat irresponsible with their reporting.
I hit both sites regularly, but I trust MacOSRumors more, and I think true insider sources trust them more too.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
About the only time you can count on anything from AppleInsider anymore is when it has screenshots (the one thing it does better than MOSR).
It's sad. Back in the days when it was MacNN Reality, it was quite good. Now, I rarely trust what it says without a picture.
What happened? Sun Microsystems wasn't interested in protecting DEC's products and took over their market. DEC should have known better, they'd pulled a similar trick on IBM years before.
Here's Apple boosting PC sales by alienating its own customers. Mac customers have seen how easy it is to get a new motherboard and CPU for your PC. Their faith has made Apple a success again, and this is how they are paid back? If I were an Apple customer, I'd be losing faith about now.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
I think Apple will do the right thing, under Steve Jobs they have been one of the few companies willing to change things, because of user input. and I think that their track record on reversing stupid decisions supports my hope.
1. iMac originally supposed to have a 33.6 modem, changed to 56K when users complained
2. Opened source several key technologies
3. When their Open Source license was deemed too restrictive they changed it
4. They tried to charge $1 a port for Firewire, but then formed a patent pool with Intel, Sony, Compaq, Philps and others, and changed the fee to $.25 per system, unlimited ports.
5. Have made an effort too hold and in fact reduce the price on every system, introduced under Steve jobs, no they are still not as cheap as X86 systems, and probably will not be unless they can start to claim 20%+ market share, because the economies of scale are not there for them.
(please do not bring up promises made pre Steve Jobs aka Scully and the other dumb asses) and yes I know that they have screwed people around on OS X for Intel and free/low cost yellow box licensing, but the conspiracy side of me thinks that more of the blame lies with the Microsoft Office for the Mac deal. 150 Million bucks does not HELP save a multibillon dollar company, but having M$ Office does. Also Steve's cutting of the clones, Newton and things like Open Doc I believe was necessary. Apple it seems was like an old house the foundation was still good, but the upper floors were rotten. So just like a renovator Steve had to to tear it down to the foundation which is, easy to use multimedia computers, not cool but expensive handhelds. True sometimes good wood gets torn down too, but this is the price you pay for a renovation. And since I am rambling, the clones will probably return, once OS X is out and the Mac only needs a open standard Open Firmware to boot, the first time around Apple had to do so much design work on the boards, for the clone makers and it was not getting enough money to support the R & D for and entire industry. Just look a the motherboard for a StarMax 3000, its got Apple Computer silk screened on it not Motorola.
Check out Mac OS Rumors. The article for today (9/7) mentions that they are working on the firmware patch to the G3's mentioned on AppleInsider, but also that the decision to put it there in the first place was very controversial and was mainly intended to insure that 3rd-party processor upgrade makers didn't beat them to the market with a G4. Still not very nice, but not as ogre-like as forever baring G3 owners from upgrading. Plus the G4s themselves are easily processor upgradable for future SMP cards. It may not be as bad as AppleInsider makes it out to be. Plus, this is just an early prototype. The earlier Sawtooth prototypes also had the boot ROM on the processor daughtercard rather than the motherboard as it is currently.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I don't see all the shock that is being expressed over the lastest move by Apple. Apple does like other people making money from their product, without first taking a really nice cut of it. They have done this from the begining and will continue to do this until the end. Whenever that may be. (Hopefully not too soon) Not letting you you upgrade your system to the latest and the great equipment out on the market has always been around in computers, Apple just likes to take it one step further. They always had.
When Intel decides that it would be fun to change the voltage on the board for the Pentium III, so you can't bring your 350 PII to a new level of Quaking, there was really no uproar. Why should Apple's move be that much different.
Basically, if computers companies don't create a cut-off point, how are they going to get everyone to buy they newest products every year or so. I'm not saying that it is fair, but I guess that I have become too desensitized towards corperate computer practices.
Technology's a battle between companies producing more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots
Everyone chill your nuts, I can picture apple loyalists going on murderous rampages, slaughtering helpless sheep and launching their innards at Apple HQ.
THIS IS A RUMOR! There is nothing announced yet, and no one outside of apple and its tight ring of beta testers has seen this machine yet. Also, one of the main selling lines in the past for Macs have been that they last 25% longer than wintel machines because of upgradeability. Why would they change this?
Most importantly people, look at the competing Mac rumors site Macosrumors.com, they claim that the boot rom is not on the daughtercard but on the mainboard as it should be, and it is all confused. Realize that these sites sensationalize and sometimes probably make up the rumors they post. They have seen all the commotion over the boot ROM patch and this site has found a way to stir it up even more and get hundreds of thousands of more hits by getting posted here on Slashdot.
To Rob - have we had enough Apple stories for one day?? I mean I love Apple but this is starting to become a little overkill. Also this story was a little out of line, it is a malicious rumor that is probably not true.
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." --Saul Belloe
Why is it a blunder to get into a niche market as education? Their blunder was to not capitalize on their strength(education) and grow outwards as students moved up through the school system, into college, and into the business world.
And about firewire: as far as I can tell, they didn't make it proprietary, they just charged a $1 per port(it is now, I've heard, $0.25 per machine) fee for it's use. And it is far from dead, as Sony, a large, well entrenched, and savvy consumer products giant, has been putting firewire (called iLink) into every single product than can, from camcorders, VCRs, TVs, etc. Don't tell me that there is a smaller market for consumer electronics than PCs/iMacs! So firewire isn't dead and it isn't going to disappear, especially as lots of other consumer giants are using firewire for storage, consumer products, PC peripherals, etc.
And about backwards compatibility: they didn't do anything to make their CPUs non-backwards compatible. They released a patch to make their B&W G3s not-forward compatible, and there are rumors that they will be releasing a patch in the near future to fix that.
A lot of general hype, mis-information, and bad press is floating around.
Even I may be guilty of spreading some, so please correct me if I am wrong! But be careful of spreading more rumors and buzz or hype.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I'm not sure I believe that Apple has *ultimately* decided to disable G4 upgrades from B&W G3 machines. I hear rumors that they are going to fix it, especially after this uproar.
I'm not sure how Apple took this one step further than anyone else... Intel released the PPro socket8, then(ostensibly to cut costs) went to the PII Socket1, then(again, to cut costs) went to the Celeron PPGA Socket370, and will in the future migrate the PIII to the flipchip Socket370.
Now since there aren't any clones for any of these chips(barring Athlon's use of the socket1), I'd imagine Intel does the same thing to force purchases of new motherboards, memory, and CPUs all at once. So you're right in that this isn't a new tactic.
What's amazing is that even with this problem, there still exists the ability/possibility of B&W G3 owners upgrading to G4s and beige G3s upgrading to G4s.
Thats as if I had the chance/option to upgrade my PPro to a Celeron or PIII.
So Apple still wins, I think.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*