It IS all about bragging rights. Why do we care which College football team is #1? Will it help bring peace to the Middle East or cure AIDS? Why do people wrap themselves up in a sports team and live or die with its wins and losses? Does anyone believe that sitting on a couch 800 miles from the actual contest has any actual bearing on the outcome? And yet when our team wins, we strut around as though we were personally responsible for the victory. Why? Bragging rights, nothing else.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Exactly. Which is why I hope Apple & IBM kiss and make up. Lots.
Some of what IBM is doing is exceedingly interesting. Their research into supercomputers uses 'nodes' of Power4 chips... which people keep saying are 98% assembly compatible or so. And on their big iron machines IBM keeps tweaking how 'virtual Linux Servers' work. One physical box running 20 (or lots more) of virtual servers.
Even just as a technology demonstration running 200+ copies of Darwin on Deep Blue to beat the SNOT out of RC5 or something would keep us in braggin rights for a looong loong time
The key to getting to 'massively parallel' computing is that very first step - make everything threaded if it makes any sense at all. The step from one CPU to two is the toughest step. And... Apple seems to have done that across the entire board.
pscates, those were a couple of great posts. I also have a 400mhz iMac DV and a 17" G4 iMac and it does absolutely everything I need it too and then some. It is a joy to use. Sometimes I wonder what it is that people do that the new dual 1.25ghz G4's are just too slow for. I think the new PM revisions are pretty damn good. I know there are some "power users" out there who need gobs of processing power but they are in the same boat as "speed freaks". Quite simply, the nature of computers is that whatever model you buy, no matter how fast it is or how cutting edge, will be replaced by something faster, better and cheaper within 6-12 months. Everyone knows this but many still search for that elusive holy grail of computers. Buy what you want/need when you want/need it. Then enjoy it.
How about this, apple needed to test a design idea with the public while clearing G4 processors. The new processors are coming, they wil use come in 2's and will be fast. Somone earlier in this thread explained how HW takes longer to come by and nobody is in the lead forever. Apple is making smart steps to becoming more profitable. 4-5months with a new product clearing G4's and seeing how people react to dual instead of single sounds reasonable.
A handwriting specialist looked at steve jobs hand writing yesterday, along with other ceo's, and said how steve likes to be in control...would steve let apple be bested by PC world? NO apple is making changes, inside and out to set themselves up, this takes time, dont fret, the day will come when apple is in the lead (never like it was but like it will be...that kinda makes sense)
Like I said, stuff comes out when it's ready. The is no time in the industry to sit on a product, when cost and availibility allows, you ship. The only concessions would be slight adjustments to synchronize with the major buying seasons (academic and X-mas)
The only way to break the buy/wait cycle is to utterly deflate it by updating everything at a much faster pace than Apple has been keeping. Apple has however had a little trouble getting a fast pace of CPU dev. But they could still do it. Bump the RAM, bump the storage, optical speeds, Video-cards, screen resolutions, L3 caches... But Apple doesn't like this, they start off with a nice high margin product and towards the end of that revs life they let it reach an INSANE margin. When have Apple offering ever been adjusted to reflect falling component costs? Never. At the least they could spec improved components as prices fall. But no, the original iMacs kept their ATI (or derviations thereof) for nearly their entire life. The now somewhat anemic 20GB of the iBook has not been quietly bumped nor has the price been dropped to reflect the fall in 2.5" prices.
Trying to purposely avoid Expos is ridiculous if you're not going to CONTINUALLY update. There's no use throwing away the free publicity aswell.
As myahmac pointed out, the devaluation schedule for products in the electronics world moves a lot quicker than Apple seems to want to admit. It's in the psychology of the buyer, after a couple of months, we expect updates. The rest of the PC industry seems to be able to do this -- often by intro'ing some new models at the top and moving selected models down the price ladder.
If Apple wants to sell at a more steady pace, they have to update at a more steady pace. If their product line-up doesn't allow for that, then they have to modify it so that it does.
<strong>Maybe Steve Jobs should start a Mac Cult (iCult) complete with secret language so that the fanatics can have their own religion. Steve can promise all the members that if they bow down and worship him (and buy enough Apple gear) that they'll go to a heaven loaded with amazing Apple supercomputers that gleam in 20 dimensions and totally blow away anything in existence. </strong><hr></blockquote>
The next new Mac is gonna be all new, legacy NOTHING...!
Now, sit back, you bunch of friggin' flamers, I mean the NeXT NEW MAC..., not the just released one, or the next few upgrades of it...
New main logic board, with ALL the bells, whistles, acronyms, buzzwords, you name it...
New IBM POWER4 trickledown PowerPC G5 CPU... Dual cores to start, AND Dual CPUs...! Yeah, that adds up to four (4) cores...
New chassis, new design, new colors... (DARK!)
New Apple Design multi-button mouse, BTO...
Dual core - Single CPU in the PowerBook, iMac & eMac... (eventual phaseout of eMac with substantial drop in pricing for LCDs, which leads to good all around pricing for the entire Apple LCD lineup...)
IBM Sahara+VMX in the iBooks... And a tremendous price reduction on these, with a HUGE saturation for educational usage... Could become as regular as a spiral bound notebook in the next ten years... Heck, could replace it! What with the tablet-modeand Inkwell...
And finally, my Apple branded set top DVD/DDR (uh, that's Digital Disc Recorder, duh...) entertainment device...
Mmmm, gotta get back to that reefer thread...!
Oh yeah, Apple is gonna buy Maya from Alias|wavefront... (they will do fine with StudioTools)
The G5 doesn't even have to be a moto chip. Let's say IBM adds an alitvec-like feature to the G3, and bumps it up to 1.5 ghz...Apple will take it and call it the G5, because it would look stupid going from a G4 tower to a G3 tower, regardless of how fast the new G3 is.
<strong>Quite simply, the nature of computers is that whatever model you buy, no matter how fast it is or how cutting edge, will be replaced by something faster, better and cheaper within 6-12 months.</strong><hr></blockquote>
ppfffttt.... if you use an Apple Computer, unfortunately there are no gaurantees
<strong>The G5 doesn't even have to be a moto chip. Let's say IBM adds an alitvec-like feature to the G3, and bumps it up to 1.5 ghz...Apple will take it and call it the G5, because it would look stupid going from a G4 tower to a G3 tower, regardless of how fast the new G3 is.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM indirectly announced a "G5" type chip, 64 bits with AltiVec like SIMD and based on Power4 technology. It is being presented on October 15, which is likely their formal announcement of it. We have the agenda now.
I say they announce that East Fishkill is ramping up for production on October 15th, and Apple announces the new IBM G5s at MWSF2003...
Everyone who has an order in for the Dual 1.25GHz G4 PowerMacs call to cancel their order on October 15th, and Apple says 'so sorry, just shipped out the door...! so sorry!'
Folks come here and bitch...
MWSF2003 rolls around, the new G5s are stunningly beautiful, and the fastest desktop on the planet to the nth degree...
Anyone seriously believe Apple would pump all that money and all that talent into the Apple Stores if they were not planning some product to sell in them that would bring people in. The Switch campaign has done a lot of stirring the pot; the iMac LCDs have been great in that regard, but it is the digital hub thing--the cameras, both video and still, the music, and the like that are usually mobbed in the NYC-NJ areas.
The 15" 17" upgrade frustrated some of us initial iMac LCD buyers, but then we're having fun with our G4 machine combo drives for a lot less. In ended up buying a Sony videocam and a Canon G2 digital still camera and an iPod when I had not thought to do so before, so it works. Earlier, I had my Canon scanners and a slide scanner, but hardly used them. Now I went out and bought a new HP OfficeJet to so Apple is moving other people's product too.
<strong>MWSF2003 rolls around, the new G5s are stunningly beautiful, and the fastest desktop on the planet to the nth degree...</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple is using a "G5" from any manufacturer (MOT, IBM, AMD, whomever) at MacWorld/SF, I'll eat my hat... and my hat is nasty from jogging wearing it...
Now, where's 9.5 Apple promised? they probably have 1 or 2 guys hidden at some forgotten corner working on it...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did they promise a 9.5 ???
IIRC Steve said, at some point, that 9.2 wasa the end of the road for Classic.
Then I heard speculation that 9.5 was to be a version that ran only in classic under X, you wouldn't boot into it, more of a legacy software safety net than anything else.
If Apple is using a "G5" from any manufacturer (MOT, IBM, AMD, whomever) at MacWorld/SF, I'll eat my hat... and my hat is nasty from jogging wearing it... </strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you're about right Moki, it looks like Apple made it's bed with IBM and was hoping the 7470 would tide them over until they could make the switch; then, whammo! either the 7470 wasn't ready in time or the mobo that could take advantage of it was too buggy, so they went with something less abitious as a hold over, but kept the snazzy new extra cooling 7470 case to add to the percieved value (while they stock up on whatever 7470's moto can schmuck out from their dirty fabs) ... I mean, what else could they do?
I feel for Apple, but guys, think of yourselves first ... Apple's got 4 billion + ... and you? You're probably still living in your parents basement ... if you need a computer NOW! Then ****, then buy the tower, Jaguar is a kick-ass OS and you'll be able to do incredible things - Apple's done great things with their systems.
But don't be an ass about it; I'd avoid the "macho-tax" in the high end machine since it almost certainly represents a higher hit on the time vs value loss curve than even the biggest computer speed-geek can justify without serious blushing; it's really only for companies that need absolutely all the MHz they can muster, and won't care much when in 4 months, something comes out twice as fast ...
... but you will if you ever want to move out of the basement, and ya know something', going on a date is a lot nicer when you've got a car.
Apple's just one of your priorities, it's all about perspective baby ... groovy ...
(Apple dealers and their representatives may have cause to disagree)
Comments
<strong>
It IS all about bragging rights. Why do we care which College football team is #1? Will it help bring peace to the Middle East or cure AIDS? Why do people wrap themselves up in a sports team and live or die with its wins and losses? Does anyone believe that sitting on a couch 800 miles from the actual contest has any actual bearing on the outcome? And yet when our team wins, we strut around as though we were personally responsible for the victory. Why? Bragging rights, nothing else.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Exactly. Which is why I hope Apple & IBM kiss and make up. Lots.
Some of what IBM is doing is exceedingly interesting. Their research into supercomputers uses 'nodes' of Power4 chips... which people keep saying are 98% assembly compatible or so. And on their big iron machines IBM keeps tweaking how 'virtual Linux Servers' work. One physical box running 20 (or lots more) of virtual servers.
Even just as a technology demonstration running 200+ copies of Darwin on Deep Blue to beat the SNOT out of RC5 or something would keep us in braggin rights for a looong loong time
The key to getting to 'massively parallel' computing is that very first step - make everything threaded if it makes any sense at all. The step from one CPU to two is the toughest step. And... Apple seems to have done that across the entire board.
<a href="http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/08/Anunbelievablekludge.shtml"; target="_blank">http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/08/Anunbelievablekludge.shtml</a>;
In short there is no new G4 after the 7455, moto is out.
I really hope 2GHz POWER4MX or 1GHz+ 750FXe with VMX are coming.
A handwriting specialist looked at steve jobs hand writing yesterday, along with other ceo's, and said how steve likes to be in control...would steve let apple be bested by PC world? NO apple is making changes, inside and out to set themselves up, this takes time, dont fret, the day will come when apple is in the lead (never like it was but like it will be...that kinda makes sense)
The only way to break the buy/wait cycle is to utterly deflate it by updating everything at a much faster pace than Apple has been keeping. Apple has however had a little trouble getting a fast pace of CPU dev. But they could still do it. Bump the RAM, bump the storage, optical speeds, Video-cards, screen resolutions, L3 caches... But Apple doesn't like this, they start off with a nice high margin product and towards the end of that revs life they let it reach an INSANE margin. When have Apple offering ever been adjusted to reflect falling component costs? Never. At the least they could spec improved components as prices fall. But no, the original iMacs kept their ATI (or derviations thereof) for nearly their entire life. The now somewhat anemic 20GB of the iBook has not been quietly bumped nor has the price been dropped to reflect the fall in 2.5" prices.
Trying to purposely avoid Expos is ridiculous if you're not going to CONTINUALLY update. There's no use throwing away the free publicity aswell.
As myahmac pointed out, the devaluation schedule for products in the electronics world moves a lot quicker than Apple seems to want to admit. It's in the psychology of the buyer, after a couple of months, we expect updates. The rest of the PC industry seems to be able to do this -- often by intro'ing some new models at the top and moving selected models down the price ladder.
If Apple wants to sell at a more steady pace, they have to update at a more steady pace. If their product line-up doesn't allow for that, then they have to modify it so that it does.
<strong>Maybe Steve Jobs should start a Mac Cult (iCult) complete with secret language so that the fanatics can have their own religion. Steve can promise all the members that if they bow down and worship him (and buy enough Apple gear) that they'll go to a heaven loaded with amazing Apple supercomputers that gleam in 20 dimensions and totally blow away anything in existence. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Isn't that in the next release of .mac?
The next new Mac is gonna be all new, legacy NOTHING...!
Now, sit back, you bunch of friggin' flamers, I mean the NeXT NEW MAC..., not the just released one, or the next few upgrades of it...
New main logic board, with ALL the bells, whistles, acronyms, buzzwords, you name it...
New IBM POWER4 trickledown PowerPC G5 CPU... Dual cores to start, AND Dual CPUs...! Yeah, that adds up to four (4) cores...
New chassis, new design, new colors... (DARK!)
New Apple Design multi-button mouse, BTO...
Dual core - Single CPU in the PowerBook, iMac & eMac... (eventual phaseout of eMac with substantial drop in pricing for LCDs, which leads to good all around pricing for the entire Apple LCD lineup...)
IBM Sahara+VMX in the iBooks... And a tremendous price reduction on these, with a HUGE saturation for educational usage... Could become as regular as a spiral bound notebook in the next ten years... Heck, could replace it! What with the tablet-modeand Inkwell...
And finally, my Apple branded set top DVD/DDR (uh, that's Digital Disc Recorder, duh...) entertainment device...
Mmmm, gotta get back to that reefer thread...!
Oh yeah, Apple is gonna buy Maya from Alias|wavefront... (they will do fine with StudioTools)
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
[ 08-15-2002: Message edited by: MacRonin ]</p>
[ 08-15-2002: Message edited by: MacRonin ]</p>
-Mike
<strong>Quite simply, the nature of computers is that whatever model you buy, no matter how fast it is or how cutting edge, will be replaced by something faster, better and cheaper within 6-12 months.</strong><hr></blockquote>
ppfffttt.... if you use an Apple Computer, unfortunately there are no gaurantees
[ 08-15-2002: Message edited by: keston ]</p>
<strong>The G5 doesn't even have to be a moto chip. Let's say IBM adds an alitvec-like feature to the G3, and bumps it up to 1.5 ghz...Apple will take it and call it the G5, because it would look stupid going from a G4 tower to a G3 tower, regardless of how fast the new G3 is.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM indirectly announced a "G5" type chip, 64 bits with AltiVec like SIMD and based on Power4 technology. It is being presented on October 15, which is likely their formal announcement of it. We have the agenda now.
Everyone who has an order in for the Dual 1.25GHz G4 PowerMacs call to cancel their order on October 15th, and Apple says 'so sorry, just shipped out the door...! so sorry!'
Folks come here and bitch...
MWSF2003 rolls around, the new G5s are stunningly beautiful, and the fastest desktop on the planet to the nth degree...
The 15" 17" upgrade frustrated some of us initial iMac LCD buyers, but then we're having fun with our G4 machine combo drives for a lot less. In ended up buying a Sony videocam and a Canon G2 digital still camera and an iPod when I had not thought to do so before, so it works. Earlier, I had my Canon scanners and a slide scanner, but hardly used them. Now I went out and bought a new HP OfficeJet to so Apple is moving other people's product too.
<strong>MWSF2003 rolls around, the new G5s are stunningly beautiful, and the fastest desktop on the planet to the nth degree...</strong><hr></blockquote>
If Apple is using a "G5" from any manufacturer (MOT, IBM, AMD, whomever) at MacWorld/SF, I'll eat my hat... and my hat is nasty from jogging wearing it...
You're fuggin' up my fantasies...
;^p
<strong>
LOL That machine served it's purpose...</strong><hr></blockquote>
... true, true, ... gouge as much as possible until you can release a machine twice as fast in three months at the same price.
Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as a bad time to buy a computer.
Sincerely
Once burned, twice yadda yadda yadda ...
<strong>
Now, where's 9.5 Apple promised? they probably have 1 or 2 guys hidden at some forgotten corner working on it...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did they promise a 9.5 ???
IIRC Steve said, at some point, that 9.2 wasa the end of the road for Classic.
Then I heard speculation that 9.5 was to be a version that ran only in classic under X, you wouldn't boot into it, more of a legacy software safety net than anything else.
hmmm...
<strong>
If Apple is using a "G5" from any manufacturer (MOT, IBM, AMD, whomever) at MacWorld/SF, I'll eat my hat... and my hat is nasty from jogging wearing it...
I think you're about right Moki, it looks like Apple made it's bed with IBM and was hoping the 7470 would tide them over until they could make the switch; then, whammo! either the 7470 wasn't ready in time or the mobo that could take advantage of it was too buggy, so they went with something less abitious as a hold over, but kept the snazzy new extra cooling 7470 case to add to the percieved value (while they stock up on whatever 7470's moto can schmuck out from their dirty fabs) ... I mean, what else could they do?
I feel for Apple, but guys, think of yourselves first ... Apple's got 4 billion + ... and you? You're probably still living in your parents basement ... if you need a computer NOW! Then ****, then buy the tower, Jaguar is a kick-ass OS and you'll be able to do incredible things - Apple's done great things with their systems.
But don't be an ass about it; I'd avoid the "macho-tax" in the high end machine since it almost certainly represents a higher hit on the time vs value loss curve than even the biggest computer speed-geek can justify without serious blushing; it's really only for companies that need absolutely all the MHz they can muster, and won't care much when in 4 months, something comes out twice as fast ...
... but you will if you ever want to move out of the basement, and ya know something', going on a date is a lot nicer when you've got a car.
Apple's just one of your priorities, it's all about perspective baby ... groovy ...
(Apple dealers and their representatives may have cause to disagree)
<strong>
I *did* expect it to be, unfortunately I'm still waiting for reality to catch up.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Me too! I don't know which OS X other people are using but mine is lightyears away from Win2k in terms of stability.
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