eWeek article on Smeagol and Q37

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  • Reply 141 of 401
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Leonis

    Now I just have a thought



    Looks like Panther is going to be on schedule to be shipped in September.



    If 10.2.7 (for new PM) is like what eWeek said is delayed an won't be shipped until two months after WWDC....that means no PM until September



    Now the question is. Why ship 10.2.7 if Panther is shipping at the same time? What's the f*cking point?!



    I start to have a feeling that the info that eWeek get is already two to three months old.



    I think we at least will see an announcement in WWDC and shipment of the low end model two weeks after




    eWeek said 10.2.7 was to be released a couple of weeks not months of WWDC. I think mid-end of July or so we might see shipping 970s if we are lucky and get them early.
  • Reply 142 of 401
    foamyfoamy Posts: 55member
    Everyone seems to be basing their timeframes on Panther being released in Sept. What's the evidence for that? I know that historically the major updates have been in late September, but I don't remember SJ saying, like in previous years, that Panther will be released "This Summer."



    If you discount the idea that Panther will ship in September, then things make a lot more sense. Hypothetically speaking let's say Panther ships in time for Holiday sales. That means that Smeagol can be released in a resonable time frame after WWDC and it still makes sense to have a stopgap OS for new hardware; i.e it will be used for many months. It just makes no sense to invest the engineering resources into Smeagol, just to have it exist for a month or so. Releasing Smeagol in July and expecting Panther in Sept doesn't jive for me.



    My Guess:

    Smeagol and 970 PowerMacs in July/August.

    Panther and upgrades in Nov/Dec.(maybe MWSF).
  • Reply 143 of 401
    ensign pulverensign pulver Posts: 1,193member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by KidRed

    eWeek said 10.2.7 was to be released a couple of weeks not months of WWDC. I think mid-end of July or so we might see shipping 970s if we are lucky and get them early.



    I'm with you Kid. This whole thing has been misquoted and blown out of proportion. The whole point of Smeagol (whether it's delayed or not) is to run the G5s before Panther is available, otherwise they'd just wait to announce them until they ship with 10.3.



    Steve will announce and demo the entire line of new 970 based Power Mac G5s at WWDC. They will ship with Smeagol/10.2.7 at the end of July. Anyone who buys one will get a free upgrade to 10.3 when it comes out in September.



    We need to keep reminding ourselves that MWNY was canceled for a reason. WWDC was delayed and its venue changed for a reason. If no G5s are announced on the 23rd then G4 sales are going to suck even worse all summer anyway. Steve has to announce G5s now and worry about the shipping dates later. God knows he's done it before, and for less important products too.
  • Reply 144 of 401
    ensign pulverensign pulver Posts: 1,193member
    I'm surprised no one else has spotted this followup to the Mac Whispers WWDC article. It's a posting in the MacWhispers comments from Jack that further explains the article. He seems to think the performance issues suggested by eWeek are baseless. Sure hope he's right about the 15" Powerbook...





    "I am being extremely cautious about what I say and how I say it... mainly just retelling what I'm getting from guys who I know have given me solid data in the past. That said, I might do a speculation roundup this week, just rambling on about coulds, shoulds, mights, and what ifs... All I actually "know" with any degree of certainty is in this article.



    The Xserve motherboards are built elsewhere, as is the assembly done elsewhere. So, I have nobody I deal with who has information on that product at this time.



    And yes, the PPC 970 fully supports the precise same PowerPC instruction set that is supported by the G3 and G4, with zero "code optimizations" to make that basic level of functionality happen. ALL G3 and G4 compatible software, including all flavors of OS X and OS 9 (in Classic), will run just fine on the 970 systems. "Optimization" can improve basic performance a tweak here and there, but only very, very modestly.



    Yes, we are certain (as we can be, depending upon other people's word) about the 970 Powerbook 15.4-inch. At this time, we have zero information on the 12 and 17-inch variants... again, nobody to talk to (yet).



    Finally, the 980 migration is presently happening upstream from our sources... meaning no tangible activity has migrated down to the production floor anywhere... which is where we get our info."
  • Reply 145 of 401
    brunobruinbrunobruin Posts: 552member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver

    We need to keep reminding ourselves that MWNY was canceled for a reason.



    The only reason there was a change to MWNY (the show was renamed, not canceled) is that Apple got into a pissing match with IDG over plans to move the show to Boston.
  • Reply 146 of 401
    ensign pulverensign pulver Posts: 1,193member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BrunoBruin

    The only reason there was a change to MWNY (the show was renamed, not canceled) is that Apple got into a pissing match with IDG over plans to move the show to Boston.



    Did you notice how Apple's position during that whole "pissing match" was so ridiculous? The whole thing was a smokescreen to get out of supporting two trade shows. They didn't care about Boston vs. New York, they cared about control. Apple wants to go in house as much as possible for their announcements. WWDC is an inhouse event and was moved and relocated to accomodate that new role.



    And yes, MWNY was canceled. IDG can call their show whatever it wants, but without Apple's usual presence it ain't no MacWorld.
  • Reply 147 of 401
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver

    I'm surprised no one else has spotted this followup to the Mac Whispers WWDC article. It's a posting in the MacWhispers comments from Jack that further explains the article. He seems to think the performance issues suggested by eWeek are baseless. Sure hope he's right about the 15" Powerbook...





    The thing about that is, MacWhispers is claiming the specs for the 970 against same speed G4s, we know they are-1-2 times faster. What eWeek is saying is that Apple's goal was to get 10.2.7 to run at least as fast on the 970 as it would on a G4 considering it's not 64 yet. That's really no big deal or anything to lose more energy thinking about.
  • Reply 148 of 401
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver

    I'm with you Kid. This whole thing has been misquoted and blown out of proportion. The whole point of Smeagol (whether it's delayed or not) is to run the G5s before Panther is available, otherwise they'd just wait to announce them until they ship with 10.3.



    Steve will announce and demo the entire line of new 970 based Power Mac G5s at WWDC. They will ship with Smeagol/10.2.7 at the end of July. Anyone who buys one will get a free upgrade to 10.3 when it comes out in September.



    We need to keep reminding ourselves that MWNY was canceled for a reason. WWDC was delayed and its venue changed for a reason. If no G5s are announced on the 23rd then G4 sales are going to suck even worse all summer anyway. Steve has to announce G5s now and worry about the shipping dates later. God knows he's done it before, and for less important products too.




    Yep, I think it comes down to 2 scenarios.



    1) Original fall release of September (not because of usual updates but because Sept starts fall IIRC and IBM stated a fall release) along with fall release of Panther.



    2)IBM simply rocks, has the 970 almost ready to ship. Apple disses IDG, reschedules WWDC for announcement either at or few weeks later. Because of it's earlier then anticipated release, Apple needs to get an OS that will run on it so it can salvage towers sales ASAP. Enter Smeagol.



    So you have the pessimist and optimist view, however, there are a lot of interesting points that make the pessimistic view sound pretty damn reasonable.
  • Reply 149 of 401
    3.14163.1416 Posts: 120member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Powerdoc

    The chip is already in production



    Do we know this for certain? I haven't seen anything other than rumors that says that the 970 really is in production right now.



    I do believe 970s are very likely for WWDC, just trying to keep facts and rumors separated.
  • Reply 150 of 401
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Apple has to introduce the Power Mac G5 at WWDC. There is no other way around it. Apple has suffered more losses in the creative pro sector than they ever did in the dark years of '96-'97.



    It may be shipping in three days or three months, but they just have to introduce a machine.



    Barto
  • Reply 151 of 401
    joekjoek Posts: 93member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver



    And yes, the PPC 970 fully supports the precise same PowerPC instruction set that is supported by the G3 and G4, with zero "code optimizations" to make that basic level of functionality happen. ALL G3 and G4 compatible software, including all flavors of OS X and OS 9 (in Classic), will run just fine on the 970 systems. "Optimization" can improve basic performance a tweak here and there, but only very, very modestly.




    This is very wrong.



    He may just not be clear with this... but he's really talking about PowerMac 970s. (As OS 9/X couldn't run on a PowerPC 970 in isolation).



    ALL new hardware from Apple has required tweaked OS's to allow them to run... in the old days, called "enablers"... because there are slight changes to the hardware.



    With these machines, not only is the Processor new, but the subsystems are new. You will not be able to run OS 10.2.0 on the new PowerMacs.
  • Reply 152 of 401
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ensign Pulver

    I'm surprised no one else has spotted this followup to the Mac Whispers WWDC article. It's a posting in the MacWhispers comments from Jack that further explains the article. He seems to think the performance issues suggested by eWeek are baseless. Sure hope he's right about the 15" Powerbook...



    Matt Rothenberg has made mistakes before, but if it comes down to trusting him or Jack Campbell, my money's on Matt.



    Besides, "at least as fast as the G4" can simply mean that they're making sure it never runs any slower, except perhaps in a few pathological cases (in compute-bound cases, the 7455's AltiVec unit will outperform the 970's clock for clock). It doesn't mean that you could swap a 970 for a current G4 and the user would never notice.
  • Reply 153 of 401
    keyboardf12keyboardf12 Posts: 1,379member
    agreed.



    if you take it as "no matter what test you throw at it, the 970 , in a worst case, will be as fast as a g4 at the same megahertz as the 970. (of course in most other tests, it will be much faster.)"







    then it does not sound bad.
  • Reply 154 of 401
    keyboardf12keyboardf12 Posts: 1,379member
    New info from CNET:



    apple to use hypertransport
  • Reply 155 of 401
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    Everybody in the know on Apple's plans cannot all be 100% mum. If you follow the previous patterns, leaks will happen, and they will increase as we draw closer towards Monday, June 23rd.



    IIRC, Jaguar was released early. It was released on August 24th or something like that, wasn't it? Wasn't the stated reason WWDC was delayed because Apple said they want to demonstrate a more feature complete version of Panther? Apple wants attendees to be able to leave the conference with a preview release of Panther in their hands. Might this suggest that, like Jaguar, Panther may also be moving along quickly enough to be available in mid-August too? Therefore, Smeagol a stop-gap measure on 970s until Panther is done?



    When I was searching C|Net, I came accross this...



    Quote:

    [Apple] may also discuss plans to adopt IBM's PowerPC 970 processor, sources have suggested.



  • Reply 156 of 401
    mokimoki Posts: 551member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BrunoBruin

    The only reason there was a change to MWNY (the show was renamed, not canceled) is that Apple got into a pissing match with IDG over plans to move the show to Boston.



    Actually a good part of the reason is that Apple wants to spend their money in a way that isn't preaching to the choir so much.
  • Reply 157 of 401
    mokimoki Posts: 551member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by keyboardf12

    New info from CNET:



    apple to use hypertransport




    How strange, HyperTransport isn't supported by the G4!
  • Reply 158 of 401
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by moki

    How strange, HyperTransport isn't supported by the G4!



    You are pushing people to one corner and then to another corner Mr. Moki
  • Reply 159 of 401
    Quote:

    Originally posted by moki

    Actually a good part of the reason is that Apple wants to spend their money in a way that isn't preaching to the choir so much.



    Then why don't they keynote Comdex?
  • Reply 160 of 401
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,458member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by moki

    How strange, HyperTransport isn't supported by the G4!



    Of course there is no information about the 970 supporting HyperTransport either. Or is there something you want to share with us?



    (Moki, you still haven't responded to my list of 8 items, above).
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