Most software isn't compiled with ICC; it is compiled with either gcc or Microsoft's Visual Studio compiler. Since the latter is not available for the Mac, the former is the compiler that can be tested on both platforms and represent the widest range of software available for both.
I think this depends upon what classification you fit the G5 into. Certainly it falls into the realm of a PC. The Xeon is definitely meant to be a workstation, so does it fall into the same category as a G5? In terms of raw power, the G5 and the Xeon workstations are certainly at some level of parity. But would you compare a hypothetical SUV that can run the quarter-mile in 13 seconds with a Camaro? Sure, for fun. But in the end, our hypothetical SUV doesn't compete with sports cars; it competes with other SUV's. So, does the G5 compete with Pentium 4's or Xeons? I think Pentium 4's. Since the Xeon isn't really a PC, that would put Apple comfortably in the position of having the fastest PC available.
Why bother? They could have done it back when Apple was making the same claims about the G4, and they could have literally hammered Apple's claims into the realm of geek humor. Why would they start now, when there's a chance that they would lose or at the very best, prove parity?
Mac OS X has been out for about 3 years now. Windows 9x/2000/XP has been out for 8. XP is a much more mature OS than Jaguar, though the development pace of OS X does make Microsoft look like cows chewing cud.
I really don't give a shit if Apple fudged their benchmarks on SPEC. I expect as much from them, AMD and Intel. I take those numbers with a grain of salt. However, it's difficult for me to believe that they could have fudged the systems to such an extent that the G5 is twice as fast in Photoshop and Mathematica. I don't care what the benchmark is, you can't have results like that without the chip actually being faster than the competition. At this point, it's just a matter of degree. Maybe the G5 is only 1.8x faster in Photoshop under ideal conditions in both tests; who knows? Do I care? No, because it'll be faster.
The guy from Wolfram Research made it clear that the G5 outclasses the Pentium 4 in the scientific computing arena to such an extent that it doesn't even compete with it anymore; it competes with high-end UNIX workstations (and beats them, too, apparently... but come on Apple; where's double-precision AltiVec?!). The audio tests were also very telling. While I'm a bit skeptical about the applications not being the same, I think it does say a lot about the audio capabilities of the G5 and what it can do with a scant 25% of its CPU power.
Bottom line, people are starting to try and eek out the edge on Mac vs. PC performance, and that's a good thing. With the G4, that was impossible because the G4 boxes were outclassed by such a huge margin by the x86 ones. Any way you look at it, these machines are competitive. And they run Mac OS X; the Pentium 4 does not. Therefore, I'll be buying the G5 next because I'll get competitive performance with the best OS on the planet.
He said there were over 100 new features. He covered maybe 7. I'd wait until the thing is shipped before pissing and moaning about how disappointing it is. Personally, the revamped Finder and new network code, along with AD integration are all key features for me and my school's network.
he just provided the guns, the get-away car, the combination to the vault, and the map of the exits.
"honest your honor... i had no idea those bad people would use the guns, maps, combination to the bank safe, and the get-away car i gave them to rob a bank."
Well then why are Microsoft and Apple getting off scott-free? Both provide search capabilities in their operating systems which can target specific files and search an entire LAN, which is precisely what Jesse's search engine does.
Of course there are legitimate uses for DeCSS. They're called set-top and Windows DVD players. Furthermore, what if I want to rip a DVD that has 40 seconds of non-fast-forwardable commercial trash a the beginning and burn just the movie's video track to a DVD-R?
It's called "creating a buzz," and if you think that such things are beyond marketing people, then no, you really don't understand marketing. This leak just happened to occur the night before the last day of stock trading of the week. What a coincidence. This was perfectly timed, and it sat up for a couple of minutes, just enough time for everyone to cap their screenshots. Let's see how Apple's stock performs today. Then when they deliver on Monday, they get a strong buy rating because confidence in them goes up.
DDR = double-pumped. The true bus speed is 1/4 the processor speed, and it sends signals on the high and low points of each cycle, so that doubles the effective speed, meaning 1/2.
Moron.
OK I can't believe the mac world is going gaga over these specs. The screenshot font, color and layout do NOT match that of anywhere else on the Apple site. Taking a look through the specs is also quite revealing
Actually, the font and bullets match those of Final Cut 4. In other words, Apple's site is getting a makeover on Monday.
- 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz or Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 Processors
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts. Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005. Bzzzt One point impossible
"G5" is a marketing name. Furthermore, IBM made it clear that the 970 would ship at speeds up to 1.8 GHz in the second quarter of 2003. That's the official word. However, according to Motorola, the MPC7455 tops out at 1 GHz, and yet Apple have 1.42 GHz chips.
- Up to 1GHz processor bus
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Intel isn't the be-all and end-all of CPU and FSB technology. The 970 has a scalable bus which runs at half the processor speed, meaning an 800 MHz bus for the 1.6 GHz model, 900 MHz for the 1.8 GHz model, and (gasp!) 1 GHz for the 2 GHz model. The real question is how the bus will work in the dual 2 GHz model.
- AGP 8X Pro graphics options from NVIDIA or ATI
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines. I highly doubt they'll be used. Half a point impossible
Apple jump back and forth between them.
- Three USB 2.0 ports
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
The latest towers already have USB 2.0 controllers that are just missing drivers. And a "long-standing habit"? USB 2.0 has been mainstream for a year-and-a-half.
- One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
Well let's see... because an editor might have FireWire 400 and 800 devices? Because there aren't that many FireWire 800 camera, so it's not really likely that anyone will need more than one for the foreseeable future?
- Optical and analog audio in and out
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
Since when are Macs just graphics boxes? Ever heard of CoreAudio? The audio subsystem that gives ultra-low latency for applications like Logic? Ever think that someone might want to send their working AC3 surround stream through to a receiver to test it out while mastering it in DVD Studio Pro or Logic?
In total, that's 4 and a half impossible features out of ten. If you're waiting on this machine, you'll be waiting a LONG time people.
I can see at least one PC user already has penis envy.
I'm conflicted. The open source advocate in my LOVES the idea of 10% of Microsoft sales to a government going to fund Open Source. The libertarian in me says this smells like governments interfering in with free market principles. HELP! I need a bunch of Slashdot users to tell me what to think!;)
The Libertarian part is right. A given corporation have every right to make their products comply with open standards or not comply with them. Of course, Microsoft are a convicted monopoly, so that makes things a little different. The government could just as easily enact a policy to not buy any product that either isn't compliant with the standards that govern that particular product's market or uses proprietary technology (i.e. don't buy Office because the file formats are closed). If any punishment was suitable for Microsoft, it would be forcing them to open up the Office file formats and all of their proprietary crap, like ActiveX.
Steve Jobs had an RDF amplifier when he negotiated the weak DRM with the RIAA.
"We will license weak DRM music... and a 233 MHz iMac is faster than a 3 GHz Pentium 4..."
Actually, we need to support emusic. iTunes is worse than the RIAA! 100% of their music is DRM protected and it forces you to buy into a VERY expensive music player (a Macintosh) to use it. BLECH.
Bullshit. It'll be on Windows by the end of the year, hence accessible to everyone. You may not like the iTunes Music Service, but it's a far better solution than what companies like Microsoft have in mind. The weak DRM on the AAC's downloaded from iTMS protect your personal use of the music. You can put them on an unlimited number of portable players, burn 10 CD's of the same playlist and stream to 3 Macs on your home LAN. That covers a lot of personal use ground quite nicely, and frankly I'm surprised that the RIAA went with that kind of scheme. My biggest complaint about iTMS is that I can't get higher bitrate rips.
I'll admit that this has happened in the past, and it is a sad state of affairs. However, speaking as a professional musician, I'd like to make it clear that in almost no way will a "One-Hit Wonder" artist ever make any money off of the sale of that hit, unless it's an enduring song which s/he personally owns the rights to. If the record companies get ahold of it, and they will, the artist will be screwed from day one.
The bottom line is that it can happen for an artist, but not for a scientist. After 17 years, even the most spectacular invention becomes public domain. Period. No one's funneled billions of dollars to successfully extend that period of time, whereas Disney is allowed to piss and moan about how making Mickey public domain will (gasp!) hurt their profits! Well no shit! Ya think? That's the whole point of the law! To force people to innovate so they can't live off one creation for the rest of their lives!
Why is it that abstract, intangible creations (like a cartoon character or music) get these kinds of breaks while an invention does not? Why can't a scientist or engineer live off the success of one breakthrough invention for the rest of his life? Because then nothing would get done. As a result of these ludicrous copyright extensions, we now have 90% shit coming out of the entertainment industry, because artists and actors can sit back and collect royalty checks every time their music or movies are shown, no matter how old.
It's time to stop this asinine preservation of copyright for all eternity. Make Mickey's sorry ass public domain and force Disney to come up with something new and original. I know this is a lot to ask of people who are supposed to be in the business of doing this in the first place, but there's got to be someone out there who has an idea that can rival Mickey Fucking Mouse in terms of artistic creative quality. He certainly isn't the apex of all cartoons.
It's a little ironic to think that musicians can live off the same one-hit-wonder for the rest of their natural lives, while a scientist could invent some sort of miracle device that does untold amounts of good for the entire human race (like, say, a lightbulb), as opposed to the artist, who only does good for his fans, can only live off of it for 17 years. Wow, nice priorities, there.
This is simply cruel and unusual. Now the RIAA is going after anyone who makes a search engine that could _possibly_ track down music files? And they don't even have to have a legal case! They can simply threaten to litigate poor college students into the ground and then demand their life savings in a case settlement! These bastards should be taken out and flogged. I hope these assholes go out of business in flaming wreckage from services like Kazaa. It's not less than they deserve.
It's a beta, you fucking idiot. It hasn't even reached v1.0 yet. Internet Explorer is on v6.0, and it still isn't fully CSS-1 compliant. Safari hasn't even reached v1.0, and it's more compliant with standards than Internet Explorer is at v6.0.
I swear, you fucking idiots have no clue how business works. Apple have just convinced the record industries to give them rights to distribute songs with a very minimal set of restrictions. Do you think that introducing software which became a P2P sharing service within a matter of weeks will do wonders for the business relationship?
Apple had to plug that hole as soon as possible, and anyone with any sort of business sense would tell you the same. So what if a dozen or so/.ers can't listen to music at work? The people who actually used that capability in iTunes in the first place (the "Connect to Shared Music Manually" function and entering a manually assigned host name or their IP address) are already well ahead of everyone else, and they'll find ways to stream their music legitimately. I shared my music library from my home machine using iTunes 3.0 well before 4.0 came out using AppleShare and the Library Import function.
This was a good, sound business decision. Apple decided that giving Mac users the key to creating the next P2P service on the platform would be detrimental to their relationship with the RIAA (who, like it or not, would have held Apple responsible had iTunes P2P ever gotten big), and therefore detrimental to their recently launched iTunes Music Service, which is in its infancy. Let's not even talk about how pissed the RIAA would have been had this capability carried over to the Windows version of iTunes. Apple was smart and plugged this hole before it started leaking too badly. Get it?
Like it or not, IE is current the de facto standard for web page compatibility. When you realize that 95% of the the people viewing your site are seeing it "incorrectly" I think it's time to re-evaluate what "correct" means in this context.
"Correct" means according to the spec, period. The spec was in place well before Microsoft ever came along and perverted it. The spec exists for the benefit of everyone and to promote competition. Naturally, since these two things are the antithesis of Microsoft's business philosophy, they won't follow the spec.
The fact that the ability to render a website correctly has become a competing point for web browsers is a testament to how bad things have gotten, and Microsoft is largely responsible. Are TV's judged on whether or not they can correctly decode a NTSC or PAL signal? NO! Web browsers are the only products I can think of that are judged on this basis. For the most part, ATi and nVidia cards render scenes correctly. Imagine a world where one of the cards is unable to render 50% of games incorrectly because the other card dominates the market with proprietary rendering schemes. The consumer loses because there is no more choice. Other products are judged on features and reliability, which are the same criteria any other product should be judged on. The only reason compatibility is a problem is because Microsoft is making it one so it can sell its products on that basis. Making compatibility a selling point opens the door for a total piece of shit, like Internet Explorer or Office, to become popular and monopolize the market. That is why we have standards: to prevent the kind of bullying Microsoft does to force people to use their products.
Gecko and KHTML all have their own quirks and bugs, and if they were as widely used as IE we'd see web designers railing against them just as loudly (minus that percentage that only complains when they can blame Microsoft.)
Ah yes, there are no legitimate complaints against Internet Explorer. Web designers trying to design standards-compliant pages are just mad because it's popular. Suuuuuure. The fact is that, if Gecko and KHTML were widely used, we'd be seeing utterly incredible advancements in web browsers because most websites would be designed to follow the W3C specs, because both KHTML and Gecko follow those specs.
Here's the scenario, in a world where Gecko and KHTML are dominant.
Both KHTML and Gecko follow W3C specs.
Most websites will be designed to follow W3C specs because of this.
Both KHTML and Gecko will render the majority of sites correctly.
Therefore, compatibility ceases to be a selling point, and features, like more intelligent ad-blocking and speed, become the main points for competition for the two engines.
The result? The consumer wins due to competition, which promotes advancement, and choice.
This build still doesn't remember inline spell-check settings between forms. I guess OmniGroup must have patented the super-secret algorithm to actually remember this settings or something. There's absolutely no excuse for this bug to have gone unfixed for two months. It's 1 minute of work, probably less.
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Most software isn't compiled with ICC; it is compiled with either gcc or Microsoft's Visual Studio compiler. Since the latter is not available for the Mac, the former is the compiler that can be tested on both platforms and represent the widest range of software available for both.
I think this depends upon what classification you fit the G5 into. Certainly it falls into the realm of a PC. The Xeon is definitely meant to be a workstation, so does it fall into the same category as a G5? In terms of raw power, the G5 and the Xeon workstations are certainly at some level of parity. But would you compare a hypothetical SUV that can run the quarter-mile in 13 seconds with a Camaro? Sure, for fun. But in the end, our hypothetical SUV doesn't compete with sports cars; it competes with other SUV's. So, does the G5 compete with Pentium 4's or Xeons? I think Pentium 4's. Since the Xeon isn't really a PC, that would put Apple comfortably in the position of having the fastest PC available.
Why bother? They could have done it back when Apple was making the same claims about the G4, and they could have literally hammered Apple's claims into the realm of geek humor. Why would they start now, when there's a chance that they would lose or at the very best, prove parity?
Mac OS X has been out for about 3 years now. Windows 9x/2000/XP has been out for 8. XP is a much more mature OS than Jaguar, though the development pace of OS X does make Microsoft look like cows chewing cud.
I really don't give a shit if Apple fudged their benchmarks on SPEC. I expect as much from them, AMD and Intel. I take those numbers with a grain of salt. However, it's difficult for me to believe that they could have fudged the systems to such an extent that the G5 is twice as fast in Photoshop and Mathematica. I don't care what the benchmark is, you can't have results like that without the chip actually being faster than the competition. At this point, it's just a matter of degree. Maybe the G5 is only 1.8x faster in Photoshop under ideal conditions in both tests; who knows? Do I care? No, because it'll be faster.
... but come on Apple; where's double-precision AltiVec?!). The audio tests were also very telling. While I'm a bit skeptical about the applications not being the same, I think it does say a lot about the audio capabilities of the G5 and what it can do with a scant 25% of its CPU power.
The guy from Wolfram Research made it clear that the G5 outclasses the Pentium 4 in the scientific computing arena to such an extent that it doesn't even compete with it anymore; it competes with high-end UNIX workstations (and beats them, too, apparently
Bottom line, people are starting to try and eek out the edge on Mac vs. PC performance, and that's a good thing. With the G4, that was impossible because the G4 boxes were outclassed by such a huge margin by the x86 ones. Any way you look at it, these machines are competitive. And they run Mac OS X; the Pentium 4 does not. Therefore, I'll be buying the G5 next because I'll get competitive performance with the best OS on the planet.
He said there were over 100 new features. He covered maybe 7. I'd wait until the thing is shipped before pissing and moaning about how disappointing it is. Personally, the revamped Finder and new network code, along with AD integration are all key features for me and my school's network.
Of course there are legitimate uses for DeCSS. They're called set-top and Windows DVD players. Furthermore, what if I want to rip a DVD that has 40 seconds of non-fast-forwardable commercial trash a the beginning and burn just the movie's video track to a DVD-R?
It's called "creating a buzz," and if you think that such things are beyond marketing people, then no, you really don't understand marketing. This leak just happened to occur the night before the last day of stock trading of the week. What a coincidence. This was perfectly timed, and it sat up for a couple of minutes, just enough time for everyone to cap their screenshots. Let's see how Apple's stock performs today. Then when they deliver on Monday, they get a strong buy rating because confidence in them goes up.
DDR = double-pumped. The true bus speed is 1/4 the processor speed, and it sends signals on the high and low points of each cycle, so that doubles the effective speed, meaning 1/2.
Moron.
Don't feel so badly. Sometimes it's fun watching a greater evil beat the fuck out of a lesser one.
Steve Jobs had an RDF amplifier when he negotiated the weak DRM with the RIAA. "We will license weak DRM music ... and a 233 MHz iMac is faster than a 3 GHz Pentium 4 ..."
Of course. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Why is it that abstract, intangible creations (like a cartoon character or music) get these kinds of breaks while an invention does not? Why can't a scientist or engineer live off the success of one breakthrough invention for the rest of his life? Because then nothing would get done. As a result of these ludicrous copyright extensions, we now have 90% shit coming out of the entertainment industry, because artists and actors can sit back and collect royalty checks every time their music or movies are shown, no matter how old.
It's time to stop this asinine preservation of copyright for all eternity. Make Mickey's sorry ass public domain and force Disney to come up with something new and original. I know this is a lot to ask of people who are supposed to be in the business of doing this in the first place, but there's got to be someone out there who has an idea that can rival Mickey Fucking Mouse in terms of artistic creative quality. He certainly isn't the apex of all cartoons.
It's a little ironic to think that musicians can live off the same one-hit-wonder for the rest of their natural lives, while a scientist could invent some sort of miracle device that does untold amounts of good for the entire human race (like, say, a lightbulb), as opposed to the artist, who only does good for his fans, can only live off of it for 17 years. Wow, nice priorities, there.
I'd recommend a word processor that can do RTF. If you can do all your stuff in plain text, then you won't have a problem using any RTF editors.
He's running a Marathon LAN party, hence all the computers will be Macs. They should have no problems talking to each other.
This is simply cruel and unusual. Now the RIAA is going after anyone who makes a search engine that could _possibly_ track down music files? And they don't even have to have a legal case! They can simply threaten to litigate poor college students into the ground and then demand their life savings in a case settlement! These bastards should be taken out and flogged. I hope these assholes go out of business in flaming wreckage from services like Kazaa. It's not less than they deserve.
It's a beta, you fucking idiot. It hasn't even reached v1.0 yet. Internet Explorer is on v6.0, and it still isn't fully CSS-1 compliant. Safari hasn't even reached v1.0, and it's more compliant with standards than Internet Explorer is at v6.0.
I swear, you fucking idiots have no clue how business works. Apple have just convinced the record industries to give them rights to distribute songs with a very minimal set of restrictions. Do you think that introducing software which became a P2P sharing service within a matter of weeks will do wonders for the business relationship?
Apple had to plug that hole as soon as possible, and anyone with any sort of business sense would tell you the same. So what if a dozen or so /.ers can't listen to music at work? The people who actually used that capability in iTunes in the first place (the "Connect to Shared Music Manually" function and entering a manually assigned host name or their IP address) are already well ahead of everyone else, and they'll find ways to stream their music legitimately. I shared my music library from my home machine using iTunes 3.0 well before 4.0 came out using AppleShare and the Library Import function.
This was a good, sound business decision. Apple decided that giving Mac users the key to creating the next P2P service on the platform would be detrimental to their relationship with the RIAA (who, like it or not, would have held Apple responsible had iTunes P2P ever gotten big), and therefore detrimental to their recently launched iTunes Music Service, which is in its infancy. Let's not even talk about how pissed the RIAA would have been had this capability carried over to the Windows version of iTunes. Apple was smart and plugged this hole before it started leaking too badly. Get it?
"Correct" means according to the spec, period. The spec was in place well before Microsoft ever came along and perverted it. The spec exists for the benefit of everyone and to promote competition. Naturally, since these two things are the antithesis of Microsoft's business philosophy, they won't follow the spec.
The fact that the ability to render a website correctly has become a competing point for web browsers is a testament to how bad things have gotten, and Microsoft is largely responsible. Are TV's judged on whether or not they can correctly decode a NTSC or PAL signal? NO! Web browsers are the only products I can think of that are judged on this basis. For the most part, ATi and nVidia cards render scenes correctly. Imagine a world where one of the cards is unable to render 50% of games incorrectly because the other card dominates the market with proprietary rendering schemes. The consumer loses because there is no more choice. Other products are judged on features and reliability, which are the same criteria any other product should be judged on. The only reason compatibility is a problem is because Microsoft is making it one so it can sell its products on that basis. Making compatibility a selling point opens the door for a total piece of shit, like Internet Explorer or Office, to become popular and monopolize the market. That is why we have standards: to prevent the kind of bullying Microsoft does to force people to use their products.
Ah yes, there are no legitimate complaints against Internet Explorer. Web designers trying to design standards-compliant pages are just mad because it's popular. Suuuuuure. The fact is that, if Gecko and KHTML were widely used, we'd be seeing utterly incredible advancements in web browsers because most websites would be designed to follow the W3C specs, because both KHTML and Gecko follow those specs.
Here's the scenario, in a world where Gecko and KHTML are dominant.
Both KHTML and Gecko follow W3C specs.
Most websites will be designed to follow W3C specs because of this.
Both KHTML and Gecko will render the majority of sites correctly.
Therefore, compatibility ceases to be a selling point, and features, like more intelligent ad-blocking and speed, become the main points for competition for the two engines.
The result? The consumer wins due to competition, which promotes advancement, and choice.
This build still doesn't remember inline spell-check settings between forms. I guess OmniGroup must have patented the super-secret algorithm to actually remember this settings or something. There's absolutely no excuse for this bug to have gone unfixed for two months. It's 1 minute of work, probably less.