If the new 15 has a new mobo, then it is going to be a very long time until we get a 970 powerbook. If the new 15 is the same mobo, then a 970 is near(er).
I'm rambling. Why is my code profiler so slow?
I agree If there is a new mobo then the new G5 is further off than I would like. But my guess if they were designing new mobo for the G5 Powermacs they are doing the same for the PB line. I can't see them spending any large amount of money designing a new mobo for a new G4 chip (unless they plan to move it to the iBook down the road).
I think Apple just doesn't want to piss off Motorola while they are still invested in their G4. The two CPUs that do/will come from IBM are the G3 and the G5. I remember hearing a while back that IBM could really push ahead with the G3 in speed, except Mot couldn't pull through with their speeds and thus you don't want to market a lower performance CPU with higher clock rates even if it doesn't perform faster. A lot of buyers just look at the numbers, 800 versus 900 versus 1000, etc.
IBM is a MUCH, MUCH more driven company than Mot ever seems to have been, at least in the computing area. And I think it would be possible to launch a G5 Powerbook by sometime mid-late October and be shipping by sometime in December. I don't think the heat factor is as huge a problem as we think if used in a portable-type design. Lets just look at the desktop, I'd imagine the most heat comes from the drives, high-performance graphics card options, dual CPUs and the interconnect system, and 8-RAM slots with large capacity modules. A powerbook would use a lower-energy system, 2 RAM slots capable of 512MB-1GB each, and a slightly less agressive graphics system, not to mention the portable drives will produce less heat as well.
I think we are overplaying the heat factor and stepping aside the marketing standpoint. Apple needs to play catch up to what buyers are used to with the PC machines to stay competitive. They have done this starting with the PMG5 and will move next to the PB, then on to the iMac while likely bringing the iBook to a G4 or something similar ASAP making a complete transition away from Mot by the end of 2004. Mot has been dragging them down with less capabilities and drive to move Apple's products forward which help the industry innovate. It takes competition to innovate less we think of that also.
On a last side note, with the scuffle going on over IBM and the AIX OS they use and call their own, too bad Apple and IBM don't get together to produce a killer combo, IBM technology, Apple OS that's has a great & easy OS for all to use, you don't have to be trained to use it. They could use an Apple-like hardware spec on the low-end, with full power, POWER4 machines up the line making great cost effectiveness. Also, many of the great engineering apps available for AIX would potentially be ported and make the availability to Mac users, oh and you could even run those powerful apps in a portable environment, can't do that currently with any other UNIX-type machine other than Apple OS X machines and one Sparc portable I think made by Tadpole. Just a little idea that would be awesome to be realised. I wouldn't want to see them lose their Windows machines though as the XP/2000/NT-type market is big and IBM is a respected player there. It would be the best of both worlds.
BTW, I am holding out with my iMacG4-800-Superdrive until the G5 Powerbook is out also. Ordering as soon as it's released. I think Apple will see the urgency with hopefully a renewed interest in the platform with the new PMG5.
"IBM is a MUCH, MUCH more driven company than Mot ever seems to have been, at least in the computing area. "
That's only been true for last couple of years. Motorola WAS an incredible company. They lost interest in the chip and didn't want to invest billions once the economy tanked.
I think they lost interest during the last days of the G3, the G4 didn't have the steam it could have if designed by IBM IMO. 3-5 years is a LONG time in the computer industry.
Then click on the video link called "New G5 out performs Windows PC". Ironically, you have to deal with a bunch of M$ Windows ads in the video, damn you Gates!
*melodramatic* "The G4 is dead to me" *melodramatic*
Seriously, the G4 is a fine notebook chip. I expect at least 1 more iteration of PBs to have these. But....I personally won't buy another PB until it contains a G5. Also, if a G5 notebook is truly 6-12 months away...can we expect a new enclosure as well? One you can slice your fingers on, if you know what I mean. \
"IBM is a MUCH, MUCH more driven company than Mot ever seems to have been, at least in the computing area. "
That's only been true for last couple of years. Motorola WAS an incredible company. They lost interest in the chip and didn't want to invest billions once the economy tanked.
Yep, IBM has been very very lazy in the past. Also, moto started spending WAY TOO MUCH money when the economy was great and kept hanging on to those dreams once it got sour. WHere are thos satellites now?
Meh, in any event, when the economy turns to crap, that's the time to invest, if you've got the cash and the stones. Wanna guess what fishkill might have cost during the last great days of the bull?
Apple, lauded as genius for their turnaround, might have been a fortunate beneficiary of circumstance when the other shoe dropped. When the economy was storming, they were in horrible shape, and so they didn't have the money to spend on a thousand and one bad and vastly overpriced investments. So while others bought into plans with neary the slightest foundation in business reality, APPL bought nothing, not 'cause they didn't want to i'd guess.
Now when things went to crap, Apple picked up nice strategic investments in software and media back end, made money, got a nice bank balance, etc etc...
I wonder, with a couple months to go before the introducion of the PowerMac, whether the other products (Powerbook, iMac) will not also be updated to use the 970 in subsequent announcements to ship at the same time.
Seems to me to be a good way to maintain interest from this point until that.
Then click on the video link called "New G5 out performs Windows PC". Ironically, you have to deal with a bunch of M$ Windows ads in the video, damn you Gates!
Yes I know about those interviews. Does Apple come out and say, this is what we are going to do this year, end of story. A big fat NO here. There is a lot of competition out there lest we think of it, Apple is realy fighting for the multimedia content area where both Windows and Linux have made big in-roads, not to mention many other markets they are concerned about. The less the competitors know, the less they can prepare for, giving Apple or the manufacturer whomever it may be a chance. Did they say flat out, we're coming out with the PM G5 just before it was out, no, they didn't comment to the effect of IBM and Apple working together IIRC. There are likely to be a lot of things happening we don't know about which will benefit us sooner than later. I think with working closely with IBM which is very dedicated to the PPC platform, things will happen sooner than later and the platform will take off much faster, starting at 2GHz, perhaps scaling to 2.4GHz within 3-5 months and so on, unlike the previous scenario, 733, many months later, 800, many months later 933, and so on. I think this new ability to scale and improve the hardware will make things happen much faster, not to mention IBM has had better manufacturing for some time and the engineering resources are far greater. The new IBM is just a whole lot better. We'll find that out in a hurry I think.
I think we'll see some serious modifications to the PB line by the holidays. At latest, a real display of a G5 notebook at MWSF 2004. It may not ship until March, but it will be there by then.
If the new 15 has a new mobo, then it is going to be a very long time until we get a 970 powerbook. If the new 15 is the same mobo, then a 970 is near(er).
Why would the new 15 have a new motherboard unless it had the 970? If it's not a G5, it will either use the current G4 on the current motherboard, or the 7457 which is pin-compatible with the current motherboard.
My guess: we're waiting for the 15 because Apple is waiting for the 7457 from Moto, and that chip will also go into the next revision of the 12 and 17.
Yes, to summarily agree with some: heat is not as big an issue as we'd like to think. Apple could very well put a 970 in a PowerBook now, albeit with less of the razzle-dazzle technology to accompany it. It would still be incredible. But let's let the Power Mac give the new chip a run first, then the PowerBook. With the soon-coming die shrink, we'll have faster PMs and PBs by the beginning of next year. And like Steve himself said, "And this is only the FIRST six months!"
Something in me wants to think we'll not see a re-designed 15"-er until the G5 lands in it. People are still buying the TiBooks. They're not slugs.
But the pragmatic something in me knows that we'll see a 15" AlBook come out very soon with a G4 inside, intended to exhaust supplies of existing 7455 chips. The 7457 confuses me; I've heard it's been canned; I've heard it's on track. What to think?
I hope it's canned, gives Apple motivation!
It was awesome for Apple to give us a peek at the fab process for the G5 in the keynote, eh? Amazing stuff!!
The problem with having one more version of a G4 Powerbook is what features can you add to it to make it desirable?
The top of the line currently reaches 1Ghz. How much more can they overclock this? Will prospective buyers be jazzed about a speed bumped 1.25 GHz machine when they know a 1.6 G5 is potentially around the corner?
The 7457 confuses me; I've heard it's been canned; I've heard it's on track. What to think?
I'm digging around on Moto's site and from their promotional PDFs it sounds like the 7457 may be in or near production. One sheet (last modified February 17, 2003) says production 2Q of 2003. 0.13 process, SOII, 512K on-chip L2.
Speeds up to 1.3GHz and a bus up to 200MHz. I'd buy a PowerBook with that.
I think the rumor was that the 7457-RM was canned.
Anyone remembers how long G4 towers were around, before the first TiBook was released ?
The answer's upthread: 16 months or so.
However, they didn't just stuff a G4 into an existing PowerBook. The titanium case was an engineering nightmare. Just look at the number of revisions it took them to get it right.
The issues probably have more to do with the total amount of work necessary to ready an all-new laptop motherboard, squeeze out decently cool operation and good battery life, and either wrap it into the current case or whip up a new one (I don't really see them making it any thinner, though...).
Even though low-voltage CPUs are premium products, I don't see that as an obstacle: The PowerBook has always had the best margin of any Apple line.
Does anyone know what happened to Belle? Last I remember (in December), she was getting up in the wee hours of the morning to take her medications. I like to think that she left AI because her work and NDA made it impossible. OTOH, I fear that cancer took her from us. If only there were a way to determine whether she is alright. \
Back on topic: With Greg Jozwiak's comments to MacCentral, there's no way we're going to see a PowerBook G5 this year. In fact, I suspect that even MWSF or Spring 2004 may be too early. I predict that we will see .9 process PPC 970 chips across the PowerBook line (12-, 15-, and 17-inch), but not until WWDC 2004 a year from now.
But the pragmatic something in me knows that we'll see a 15" AlBook come out very soon with a G4 inside, intended to exhaust supplies of existing 7455 chips. The 7457 confuses me; I've heard it's been canned; I've heard it's on track. What to think?
I hope it's canned, gives Apple motivation!
Perhaps this would indeed provide some painful motivation, of the cattle prod kind, but lack of the 7457 could be very troublesome for Apple. Without it, a lot of Apple's current product line could stagnate while waiting for major motherboard redesigns and lower power versions of the G5. It would be difficult to stagger new product introduction if many needed updates were held up for a long time, after which many updates might be bursting to get out of the door at the same time.
As I'd said in this thread, I think the 7457 (which I'm thinking of as a "G4+") could help smooth out the update paths for the whole Mac lineup over the next year or so.
I doubt that Apple has any huge inventory of 7455s to burn through. If they're smart, they warehouse only a small inventory of parts and order the bulk of their materials on a just-in-time basis. Contrary to the idea of using new 15" AlBooks to use up old 7455s, I think it's more likely that 15" AlBooks are being held up waiting for the 7457.
Consider the following:
1) For heat and power reasons, 1 GHz might be the fastest Apple would want to push the 7455 in a portable device.
2) Apple is not likely to issue an update of the 15" that doesn't include a speed boost. I can't think of a time when Apple issued a major form-factor change without a speed increase at the same time.
3) The 7457 would provide a way to get a speed boost, while perhaps even improving battery life at the same time, as a simple drop-in replacement for the existing 7455.
2) Apple is not likely to issue an update of the 15" that doesn't include a speed boost. I can't think of a time when Apple issued a major form-factor change without a speed increase at the same time.
Amorph, I really though that the Powermacs had the best margins. I don't see how there could be more profit in a 12"PB than a 1.6Ghz G5 and certainly not any of the previous gen G4's. LCD and battery and all sorts of miniaturization penalties to pay in a book. I think that the 15" superdrive and 17" probably do pull in a nice margin though.
Judging by edu discounts, I wouldn't be sure. None of the PM's nor the 15" or 17" PB's have a really great percentage discounted. The 12 OTOH, does, so who knows? I may be completely off, or Apple is just unwilling to make too much of an edu discount for students who they'd rather have buy consumer stuff? The 15" must be on the outs though, becuase the recent edu prices have been pretty nice.
Can't wait to see what the Canadian G5 edu prices are like.
Comments
Power Mac G4 = September 1999
PowerBook G4 = January 2001
In early-ish 2002, Apple said "the G4 isn't going anywhere"
12-18 months later... it's gone in Power Macs.
The G4 will probably disappear from iMacs much faster (because it doesn't really have a future) than usual, however.
Barto
Originally posted by Yevgeny
Here is the test:
If the new 15 has a new mobo, then it is going to be a very long time until we get a 970 powerbook. If the new 15 is the same mobo, then a 970 is near(er).
I'm rambling. Why is my code profiler so slow?
I agree If there is a new mobo then the new G5 is further off than I would like. But my guess if they were designing new mobo for the G5 Powermacs they are doing the same for the PB line. I can't see them spending any large amount of money designing a new mobo for a new G4 chip (unless they plan to move it to the iBook down the road).
IBM is a MUCH, MUCH more driven company than Mot ever seems to have been, at least in the computing area. And I think it would be possible to launch a G5 Powerbook by sometime mid-late October and be shipping by sometime in December. I don't think the heat factor is as huge a problem as we think if used in a portable-type design. Lets just look at the desktop, I'd imagine the most heat comes from the drives, high-performance graphics card options, dual CPUs and the interconnect system, and 8-RAM slots with large capacity modules. A powerbook would use a lower-energy system, 2 RAM slots capable of 512MB-1GB each, and a slightly less agressive graphics system, not to mention the portable drives will produce less heat as well.
I think we are overplaying the heat factor and stepping aside the marketing standpoint. Apple needs to play catch up to what buyers are used to with the PC machines to stay competitive. They have done this starting with the PMG5 and will move next to the PB, then on to the iMac while likely bringing the iBook to a G4 or something similar ASAP making a complete transition away from Mot by the end of 2004. Mot has been dragging them down with less capabilities and drive to move Apple's products forward which help the industry innovate. It takes competition to innovate less we think of that also.
On a last side note, with the scuffle going on over IBM and the AIX OS they use and call their own, too bad Apple and IBM don't get together to produce a killer combo, IBM technology, Apple OS that's has a great & easy OS for all to use, you don't have to be trained to use it. They could use an Apple-like hardware spec on the low-end, with full power, POWER4 machines up the line making great cost effectiveness. Also, many of the great engineering apps available for AIX would potentially be ported and make the availability to Mac users, oh and you could even run those powerful apps in a portable environment, can't do that currently with any other UNIX-type machine other than Apple OS X machines and one Sparc portable I think made by Tadpole. Just a little idea that would be awesome to be realised. I wouldn't want to see them lose their Windows machines though as the XP/2000/NT-type market is big and IBM is a respected player there. It would be the best of both worlds.
BTW, I am holding out with my iMacG4-800-Superdrive until the G5 Powerbook is out also. Ordering as soon as it's released. I think Apple will see the urgency with hopefully a renewed interest in the platform with the new PMG5.
That's only been true for last couple of years. Motorola WAS an incredible company. They lost interest in the chip and didn't want to invest billions once the economy tanked.
Go here: http://news.com.com/2009-1042_3-1020...g=fd_lede1_hed
Then click on the video link called "New G5 out performs Windows PC". Ironically, you have to deal with a bunch of M$ Windows ads in the video, damn you Gates!
Seriously, the G4 is a fine notebook chip. I expect at least 1 more iteration of PBs to have these. But....I personally won't buy another PB until it contains a G5. Also, if a G5 notebook is truly 6-12 months away...can we expect a new enclosure as well? One you can slice your fingers on, if you know what I mean.
Originally posted by SDW2001
"IBM is a MUCH, MUCH more driven company than Mot ever seems to have been, at least in the computing area. "
That's only been true for last couple of years. Motorola WAS an incredible company. They lost interest in the chip and didn't want to invest billions once the economy tanked.
Yep, IBM has been very very lazy in the past. Also, moto started spending WAY TOO MUCH money when the economy was great and kept hanging on to those dreams once it got sour. WHere are thos satellites now?
Meh, in any event, when the economy turns to crap, that's the time to invest, if you've got the cash and the stones. Wanna guess what fishkill might have cost during the last great days of the bull?
Apple, lauded as genius for their turnaround, might have been a fortunate beneficiary of circumstance when the other shoe dropped. When the economy was storming, they were in horrible shape, and so they didn't have the money to spend on a thousand and one bad and vastly overpriced investments. So while others bought into plans with neary the slightest foundation in business reality, APPL bought nothing, not 'cause they didn't want to i'd guess.
Now when things went to crap, Apple picked up nice strategic investments in software and media back end, made money, got a nice bank balance, etc etc...
Seems to me to be a good way to maintain interest from this point until that.
Originally posted by filmmaker2002
According to Greg Joswiak who talked to David Coursey at www.news.com, there will be no G5 Powerbook for quite a while. Well now I'm pissed off.
Go here: http://news.com.com/2009-1042_3-1020...g=fd_lede1_hed
Then click on the video link called "New G5 out performs Windows PC". Ironically, you have to deal with a bunch of M$ Windows ads in the video, damn you Gates!
Yes I know about those interviews. Does Apple come out and say, this is what we are going to do this year, end of story. A big fat NO here. There is a lot of competition out there lest we think of it, Apple is realy fighting for the multimedia content area where both Windows and Linux have made big in-roads, not to mention many other markets they are concerned about. The less the competitors know, the less they can prepare for, giving Apple or the manufacturer whomever it may be a chance. Did they say flat out, we're coming out with the PM G5 just before it was out, no, they didn't comment to the effect of IBM and Apple working together IIRC. There are likely to be a lot of things happening we don't know about which will benefit us sooner than later. I think with working closely with IBM which is very dedicated to the PPC platform, things will happen sooner than later and the platform will take off much faster, starting at 2GHz, perhaps scaling to 2.4GHz within 3-5 months and so on, unlike the previous scenario, 733, many months later, 800, many months later 933, and so on. I think this new ability to scale and improve the hardware will make things happen much faster, not to mention IBM has had better manufacturing for some time and the engineering resources are far greater. The new IBM is just a whole lot better. We'll find that out in a hurry I think.
I think we'll see some serious modifications to the PB line by the holidays. At latest, a real display of a G5 notebook at MWSF 2004. It may not ship until March, but it will be there by then.
Originally posted by Yevgeny
If the new 15 has a new mobo, then it is going to be a very long time until we get a 970 powerbook. If the new 15 is the same mobo, then a 970 is near(er).
Why would the new 15 have a new motherboard unless it had the 970? If it's not a G5, it will either use the current G4 on the current motherboard, or the 7457 which is pin-compatible with the current motherboard.
My guess: we're waiting for the 15 because Apple is waiting for the 7457 from Moto, and that chip will also go into the next revision of the 12 and 17.
you see the fans they had on that sucker? i'd love to see 9 cooling fans on my powerbook. oh, wait, no i wouldn't.
Something in me wants to think we'll not see a re-designed 15"-er until the G5 lands in it. People are still buying the TiBooks. They're not slugs.
But the pragmatic something in me knows that we'll see a 15" AlBook come out very soon with a G4 inside, intended to exhaust supplies of existing 7455 chips. The 7457 confuses me; I've heard it's been canned; I've heard it's on track. What to think?
I hope it's canned, gives Apple motivation!
It was awesome for Apple to give us a peek at the fab process for the G5 in the keynote, eh? Amazing stuff!!
The top of the line currently reaches 1Ghz. How much more can they overclock this? Will prospective buyers be jazzed about a speed bumped 1.25 GHz machine when they know a 1.6 G5 is potentially around the corner?
Originally posted by fred_lj
The 7457 confuses me; I've heard it's been canned; I've heard it's on track. What to think?
I'm digging around on Moto's site and from their promotional PDFs it sounds like the 7457 may be in or near production. One sheet (last modified February 17, 2003) says production 2Q of 2003. 0.13 process, SOII, 512K on-chip L2.
Speeds up to 1.3GHz and a bus up to 200MHz. I'd buy a PowerBook with that.
I think the rumor was that the 7457-RM was canned.
Originally posted by crooked spoon
Anyone remembers how long G4 towers were around, before the first TiBook was released ?
The answer's upthread: 16 months or so.
However, they didn't just stuff a G4 into an existing PowerBook. The titanium case was an engineering nightmare. Just look at the number of revisions it took them to get it right.
The issues probably have more to do with the total amount of work necessary to ready an all-new laptop motherboard, squeeze out decently cool operation and good battery life, and either wrap it into the current case or whip up a new one (I don't really see them making it any thinner, though...).
Even though low-voltage CPUs are premium products, I don't see that as an obstacle: The PowerBook has always had the best margin of any Apple line.
Originally posted by 709
/me pines for Belle.../
Originally posted by Powerdoc
You are not alone
Does anyone know what happened to Belle? Last I remember (in December), she was getting up in the wee hours of the morning to take her medications. I like to think that she left AI because her work and NDA made it impossible. OTOH, I fear that cancer took her from us.
Back on topic: With Greg Jozwiak's comments to MacCentral, there's no way we're going to see a PowerBook G5 this year. In fact, I suspect that even MWSF or Spring 2004 may be too early. I predict that we will see .9 process PPC 970 chips across the PowerBook line (12-, 15-, and 17-inch), but not until WWDC 2004 a year from now.
Escher
Originally posted by fred_lj
But the pragmatic something in me knows that we'll see a 15" AlBook come out very soon with a G4 inside, intended to exhaust supplies of existing 7455 chips. The 7457 confuses me; I've heard it's been canned; I've heard it's on track. What to think?
I hope it's canned, gives Apple motivation!
Perhaps this would indeed provide some painful motivation, of the cattle prod kind, but lack of the 7457 could be very troublesome for Apple. Without it, a lot of Apple's current product line could stagnate while waiting for major motherboard redesigns and lower power versions of the G5. It would be difficult to stagger new product introduction if many needed updates were held up for a long time, after which many updates might be bursting to get out of the door at the same time.
As I'd said in this thread, I think the 7457 (which I'm thinking of as a "G4+") could help smooth out the update paths for the whole Mac lineup over the next year or so.
I doubt that Apple has any huge inventory of 7455s to burn through. If they're smart, they warehouse only a small inventory of parts and order the bulk of their materials on a just-in-time basis. Contrary to the idea of using new 15" AlBooks to use up old 7455s, I think it's more likely that 15" AlBooks are being held up waiting for the 7457.
Consider the following:
1) For heat and power reasons, 1 GHz might be the fastest Apple would want to push the 7455 in a portable device.
2) Apple is not likely to issue an update of the 15" that doesn't include a speed boost. I can't think of a time when Apple issued a major form-factor change without a speed increase at the same time.
3) The 7457 would provide a way to get a speed boost, while perhaps even improving battery life at the same time, as a simple drop-in replacement for the existing 7455.
Originally posted by shetline
2) Apple is not likely to issue an update of the 15" that doesn't include a speed boost. I can't think of a time when Apple issued a major form-factor change without a speed increase at the same time.
eh, heard of the 17" LapZilla?
Judging by edu discounts, I wouldn't be sure. None of the PM's nor the 15" or 17" PB's have a really great percentage discounted. The 12 OTOH, does, so who knows? I may be completely off, or Apple is just unwilling to make too much of an edu discount for students who they'd rather have buy consumer stuff? The 15" must be on the outs though, becuase the recent edu prices have been pretty nice.
Can't wait to see what the Canadian G5 edu prices are like.