Is the 15inch AlPB really coming soon? - Page 6

Dear sirs,

(i haven´t posted since i bought my 12" PB, but i have read).

It seems to me that you are all trying to figure out if there will be a large revision at the Paris Expo, by concentrating on what the rumour-mills and sneak sites have to say. But the largest indicator of an upcoming revision (in my opinion), comes from Apples total silence.

Apple are always quiet about their revisions, i have a few friends working for Apple, and they do tell me that they have a lot of emphasis on keeping secrets regarding updates and so on.

So, add this to the embarresment suffered by Apple over the leaked G5 specs at the last Expo, and we have an Apple that are at "Zero Tolerance" over any kind of leakage on a G5 PB update (if there is one). And this correlates with what we see, (as in, not a single verifiable rumour or leaked tech spec).


This doesn´t prove anything, but we also know Steve Jobs has a handy knack for giving the Apple lovers what the want. And i am quite sure he has his ear to the ground in rumour sites like this. If he had no G5 up his sleeve, and he is being so secretive over what he has to reveal at Paris, he would know that everyone would be pissed off.

So, if there was no G5, there would be leaked specs, just like there has been with the next revision of the iMac. (we know everything about it before it´s even been announced).

Another point is that Apple like being first, wireless, LCD screens, USB, Firewire... the list goes on, innovation.

There has never been a time before when Apple have been so far behind in terms of CPU (up until the G5 announcment), and although they can kinda say they had the first 64 bit Workstation (sun microsystems... what??), They could definetly lay claim to the first 64 bit Laptop if they have a G5 PB. Unless they delay by a few weeks and then AMD will snatch it up with HP or Sony or someone. (And AMD need it to stay level in terms of tech with intel, they would have this as a high priority).

For my money, i would bet if Apple had a priority since they chose IBM and the G5, it would have been to get the G5 into PB´s. Another "first" would be theirs, and they would be thrown right back to the top in terms of speed and technology.


This is all supposition, but its as factual as reading a few mac rumour sites.

And its just looking at the situation from a different perspective.

That will never happen!

If a G5 Powerbook is announced in Paris that will ship 1 month after the event. You'd be stupid to laydown your cash on the soon to be out dated G4 Powerbook.

I know most mac owners see their purchase as an appreciable investment (they'll make money with it). But your Powerbook will lose almost half it's value in 1 month. Besides the life of the laptop will be shorter as more and more programs will optimize to the G5, you'll just want a "new" one...

I'm buy a G5 Powerbook or nothing! Paris baby, Paris!

Dr., you are going to be SO let down and disappointed. I'd suggest you rein in those "G5 PowerBook in Paris" thoughts just a tad...

I, too, believe that the next PowerBook is going to be a G4, whether it's the 7455B or the 7457. I'm buying whatever aluminzed 15-inch replacement is announced, G4 or G5.

I'm going to buy an Etch-A-Sketch, spray paint it silver and stick one of those white Apple logo stickers on it and call it done.

I'm just going to re-itterate something I've said a few posts ago. I received a brand new G4 15" 1Ghz PB on Thursday. It came from Taiwan. Not a warehouse in CA. This leads me to believe that they are still being run through production. 'Course it could mean that they didn't have any on hand and just decided to make a last batch for those who want the current one's. It's all speculation, but fact is I just got a new G4 15" PB from the Apple store and it got to me less than a week after I ordered it. It was not a 2 week Est ship. Yeah, I won't be happy if something comes out but I didn't have a choice. I needed this laptop to take overseas with me and I leave 2 days into the Paris Expo. ......

Oh .... my... I just realized that I am flying through Paris. I wonder if I could delay my connecting flight a day. Oh, that would rock. Business before pleasure. I'll just continue to dream that I could do something like that.

I'm not sure about G4 PB being a bust (though the G4 is), but I like my iBook. Getting an nice little iBook would be a good choice, just make sure yo upgrade the RAM ($34 will bring you up to a total of 384MB, see ramseeker).

I'm not sure about G4 PB being a bust (though the G4 is), but I like my iBook. Getting an nice little iBook would be a good choice, just make sure you upgrade the RAM ($34 will bring you up to a total of 384MB, see ramseeker).

How about new PowerBooks for Tuesday, Sept. 2nd? I mean it is the weekend, and this follows in the tradition of every weekend hoping, praying, and predicting new PowerBooks for the following Tuesday. I mean Monday is a holiday, Labor Day, and being the Tuesday after a holiday would be just perfect. We know the channel is dry. Think Secret says there was a last minute snag, and makes it sound like it could be any day now. So September 2nd it is. Heaven help me.

YES! It's about time!!!! I can't wait... Next Tuesday, Sept 2nd! It's going to be it! I have this feeling we're right this time...

Nice try buddy, but sarcasim is always good humor and a way to get all the newbie's to realize they are caught up in the hype!

Besides, my Magic Eight Ball says that All signs point to an Apple Expo release of the new G5 Powerbook.

Okay...first of all, the most likely date is the Paris expo, and that begins on the 16th.

Second of all...you are nothing more than a newbie yourself, and if you continue to start pointless threads, you will stay a newbie even when your postcount tops 2000.

And lastly, it won't be a G5 Powerbook. Obviously you haven't seen the G5's heatsink in real life. The think probably weighs more than a powerbook.

Let's be logical, kids.

Changes your last line to this... "This leads me to believe that they are being run through production for a second time after the production line was closed down."

Car manufacturers sometimes create mid year cars. Many times this is because the demand is high and the truly new cars have an unexpected snag in development. The PowerBook you received is one of the last that will be made. (A last batch of 5000 or so -
However many fit in a standard Tawainese shipping container.)

MSKR

Hey where has soulcrusher been? I bet he is in the witness protection program somewhere. Afraid we will hunt him down and give him a wedgie he would never forget.

BTW since the rumour mill has been soooooo successful of late Any truth to the rumour about the new PB be fabricated entirely out of marzipan? With of course a resolution independent os, and a 600 dpi screen

Hijacking things briefly, I've encountered this sentiment before and I'm in the dark about it -- could you explain why he G4 is a bust?

Please hear these small thoughts:



\ I've been reading this forum for a while now and we all seem to dream a lot. Nothing wrong with that, and most of the time we can even silently share these unearthly thoughts with fellow Marsians. But when senior members start trying too hard to convince me that there is no GOD, I can't but come to one conclusion . . . portable G5's will land On D-day, because they exist!

I get a migraine even thinking of that. Sorry, but my vision would drop five diopters in a week.

Because of CPU speed and AltiVec problems.
AltiVec can make things signifacantly faster when it's supported. But even 8 months after the G4 came out, many-most apps didn't support it, and every now and then the G4 was even slower! Still OS 9.2 (plenty of people still use it), Office & AppleWorks, and many other apps don't really support it. Also it was mostly meant for graphics, which means Office & AppleWorks + Servers + Quicken + Such&Such don't go much faster. Also, Apple went up to 500Mhz at the start. But Moto didn't ship and Apple substituted slower processors at the same price! Moto continued (and still continues) to have delays.

ryaxnb pretty much explains it above. It just seems like it's been one thing after another with the G4 since its introduction: long stalls in MHz increase, supply issues, that whole downgrade debacle at its initial intro, the apparent inability to get to anything much over the lower 1GHz mark (shouldn't we, on the whole, be knocking on the 2-2.5GHz door by now?).



So by "bust", I'm referring to all the above.

I think, in many ways, the G3 has been a nicer chip and seemingly lacking the headaches, delays and frustrations surrounding any and all G4-based Macs (LCD iMacs went an entire year with no increase, the G4s routinely seemed to peter out and get measley 1-2 ho-hum bumps a year...and do I even have to bring up the whole PowerBook thing?

The biggest complaint about the G4 is that the clock speed was not increased rapidly. Worse, it stalled out at 500MHz for some 18 months. Also, there is a bottleneck at the memory interface. Other than that the G4 is a very good CPU.

The power consumption is much less than that of any competing chip.

Altivec is wonderful. It clears a bottleneck when performing arithmetic on arrays of data. True, it wasn't used when first introduced, how could it? Altivec has been adopted by more and more applications. Certainly most Apple apps use it that could benefit from it - iTunes, iMovie, FCP. OS X itself uses it a lot.

I think the G3 is also a good CPU. I am not aware that the G3 ever had more than a slightly faster clock compared to the G4.

If Motorola had maintained steady progress on the G4 it might be up to about 2.5GHz by now and most of the people on these forums would think it was great. Instead the G4 is an also-ran.

Kickaha and Amorph couldn't moderate themselves out of a paper bag. Abdicate responsibility and succumb to idiocy. Two years of letting a member make personal attacks against others, then stepping aside when someone won't put up with it. Not only that but go ahead and shut down my posting priviledges but not the one making the attacks. Not even the common decency to abide by their warning (afer three days of absorbing personal attacks with no mods in sight), just shut my posting down and then say it might happen later if a certian line is crossed. Bullshit flag is flying, I won't abide by lying and coddling of liars who go off-site, create accounts differing in a single letter from my handle with the express purpose to decieve and then claim here that I did it. Everyone be warned, kim kap sol is a lying, deceitful poster.

Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.

Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.

How much are you charging? Do I get a discount if I provide my own stickers?

I think your post is the most informative so far, and probably closer to the truth.

Why do I read PB threads? Must be self loathing.

For those who are new to the thread I will summarise:

15" PB may or may not be released at Paris
15" PB may or may not have a G5 processor
H4wk hates the French
_alliance_ thinks H4wk is an idiot

Did I miss anything?

Probably Paris. Get a life till then.

IBM actually had the ability to do 1+ Ghz G3 processors for quite a bit longer than the G4 was able to do 1 Ghz. But Apple never bought those because a 1.5Ghz iBook would really make a 800Mhz PowerBook look bad.

I'm hardly an expert on this. I have heard stories about the fast G3s from IBM. Certainly Apple didn't use them, but as far as I know neither did anyone else. If they were available on the open market from IBM it seems they would have been used in various other products that use G3s. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this topic.

Doubtful, at the very least. The G3 has quite a short pipeline (compared to a P4/PPC970), so it would be expected to scale rather slowly. Until very recently, the G3 was on a very limited bus (I do not know if this still is true), so its throughput would be abysmal.
The G3 "Gobi" actually missed the predicted timeframe for release quite some months.

The "G3 is held back by the G4" is a myth, imho - but it is one that keeps replicating for about two years now.

This is a myth. The fact is that had IBM met their own expectations for the G3 "Sahara," the iBook would currently be running at 1GHz. It fell short. The G3s Apple uses have consistently been the fastest IBM can make.

There's no magic involved here. The G4 has a longer pipeline than the G3; otherwise, absent AltiVec, the two CPUs are quite similar. But because of the pipeline length, the G4 should clock higher. And so it does.

Neither architecture is designed to scale rapidly MHz-wise.

I think the G4 will make its departure from Apple's product line before the G3 does.

The fact that PowerBooks haven't been updated in up to 10 months means that either Apple has been secretly working on one with a low-end G5 processor, or more likely, Motorola can't get them the faster G4s Apple needs to make a revision. There is a contigent of people that think Apple is poised to update the PowerBooks to a G5 at Paris. As much I would like to see that happen, I don't think it's going to, and there are plenty of other people here who share my pessimism on that front.

The point that has been underlying all the discussion on new PowerBooks is that Apple would be better off doing something, than nothing. Nothing is all they have had to show thus far, and they better get the gravy train back on track.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Paris expo was the time for an update, but it would really make more sense to launch new PowerBooks this week. Most students looking at getting laptops are looking at getting them this particular week. A two-week delay would be small comfort even with immediate availability when they are launched. It would even make more sense to do the reverse: announce now and ship in a couple of weeks. At least then students could plan on the upgrade instead of buying something else prematurely and regretting it.

While I'm thinking about it, can you imagine what might happen if Apple doesn't even have PowerBooks to announce by the Apple Expo keynote? Jobs called 2003 the year of the notebook, and I don't think that he enjoys having his words undermined by suppliers (i.e. Motorola) and/or design problems.

In answer to this thread's question: yes, tomorrow.

I'm beginning to think the whole PowerBook line is passing into history, and the iBook will be updated to a faster G3, say 1.2GHz. Maybe there will be a G5 PowerBook late in 2004, but there's no way to make the existing hardware go any faster. Why update it?

How do you know? or are you just kidding?


Well they could at least add features to the smaller ones, make the 15" Al, increase graphics card, hard drive, ram capacity, make the screen better, add more ports(USB 2.0 comes to mind...) etc. the list goes on.

Whoa, know something?

I have said it really could be any day know, and tomorrow seems like it's as good a day as any of them.

Well, it is Tuesday tomorrow. Better keep track to see if the Apple store goes down RSN...

Yeah, and they coulda done it months ago for cryin' out loud.

Honestly, I'd be very happy with the following (bear in mind, I'm not your typical bloodthirsty spec whore and wild-ass "put a G5 in everything in sight!" kinda guy):

- Give the 15" the appearance, AirPort antenna placement, hinge, keyboard, RAM and AirPort card access of the 12" and 17" model (a huge improvement right there, just in terms of scratch resistance, AirPort reception, overall sturdiness, keyboard solidity, etc.).

This is pretty much a given...

- Second, make all three models as close as possible in features (in short, stop crippling the 12" with lack of DVI and L3 cache and make it every bit as powerful and full-featured as the 15" and 17" models are).

That's it. Beyond that, we know the speeds are going to be 1GHz-plus, all graphics will be at least 32MB (Quartz Extreme friendly), etc. Those are all fine for me. I, for one, am not expecting - or demanding - some pie-in-the-sky product like a G5 PowerBook, 128MB graphics, 1600x??? on a 15" screen, 4x SuperDrive, etc. so I won't be in the group of people possibly slitting their wrists on the day the PowerBooks are announced and they don't measure up to the predictions of some here (ahem...).

I'll be happy as a clam (downright thrilled, in fact) to have the opportunity to own a laptop 200-400MHz more than my current 800MHz G4 iMac, 1MB L3 cache, 64MB graphics, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth, 60-80GB hard drive, etc. all in a sexy, sleek package that can go anywhere.



I know that puts me in the minority here, but at least I won't be completely distraught in the coming weeks. I worry for some of you...

I agree. If something like this came out this week I'd buy it. But I'm sick of waiting!!! I just wish I didn't have to wait anymore. I bet they are gonna announce what you just described at Paris and then say that it's shipping next month, which in AppleSpeak means late November/December.

pscates i want the same computer you do..

sheesh id be happy with a 1.1ghz 15" in Aluminium

i'm sick of waiting also, almost bought a 17" today but i'll just keep on waiting grrrrrrr

If the educational sales are that important to Apple, and given that Mot wasn't able to upgrade the processor in due time, what could be withholding Apple to release a full featured 15'' with G4 speeds unchanged?

When Apple switched to IBM they did it for their whole high-end product range (The world's fastest desktop computer, but not the world's fastest portable?; I think not). Apple is ready and they would like everyone to be filled with awe. So I propose everyone on every board pledges that he/she finds it unlikely, if not impossible, that a portable G5 will be happening any time soon ... 8)

"I for one think putting a G5 in a portable is a ridiculous idea and couldn't be pulled off by Apple even if they wanted to!"

Refurbished 15" PowerBooks are back up on the "Special Deals" section of the Apple Store again. First time in 4-6 weeks.

I understand what he wrote, it's just that the GPU at that resolution would make the OS feel like heavy mollasses, with bad resising and everything.

(300 X ~12) (300 X ~9) = a lot more pixels than the current Cinema Display. I could be wrong in my math, but that's too much for a mobile GPU to process.