Fran..., I kinda think that the above date shouldn't be considered "Early", but instead . . . at least "On Time". IBM said full production 2H '03, and extremely reliable sources have shown me that the 1st week in July is the actual target date for "Full Production". Which is before July 16th . . . I think.
I wouldn't be surprised to see an Apple Event between late May and Mid June. FWIW
It would be in Apple's best interest to generate some serious hype for this new architecture, and new 64 bit O/S.
How long do you think that Apple has had final design specs on the 970?
<snip>
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple has had 3 batches of 970 samples, that I know of (maybe more). The earliest batch dates back to early July '02 and the last batch being early January '03.
If there is a 970 announcement at MWNY, there better damn well be some Photoshop races...like the golden G3 days. I don't know anything about coding, bits, or how processors work, but I would assume that Photoshop, Final Cut, and software would have to be ported or rewritten for a 64 bit processor to take advantage of the speed right? Anyway, I'd love to be top dog again as a Mac user...Maybe they'll bring back the steamroller commericals
<strong>If there is a 970 announcement at MWNY, there better damn well be some Photoshop races...like the golden G3 days. I don't know anything about coding, bits, or how processors work, but I would assume that Photoshop, Final Cut, and software would have to be ported or rewritten for a 64 bit processor to take advantage of the speed right?</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, they wouldn't. The 970 runs 32-bit code at full speed. A recompile and some tweaking might buy another 5% or 10% if they're really lucky, but the apps you mention should fly when run in their current binary format. As far as I know, none of them rely heavily on 64-bit precision for their work. Any AltiVec-optimized routines should see a dramatic speedup.
The 970 is not a new platform, it's just a much better implementation of the same old PowerPC.
[quote]<strong>Anyway, I'd love to be top dog again as a Mac user...Maybe they'll bring back the steamroller commericals </strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe and maybe not. Apple won't just be back on the top end of the PC performance curve, they'll be doing something no-one else is doing: Moving to a 64-bit platform on the desktop. Now, I know the cautious thing to assume is that Apple will treat it as 32 bit for a while, but somehow I don't think they're going to do that. I don't know how they will, I just have the feeling that they intend to milk the 970 and the not inconsiderable technologies surrounding it for all they're worth, and they'll start as soon as they can.
That's not like steamrolling the competition, it's more like responding to your competition's ever-faster cars by building a commuter jet.
It's a difficult question whether they should announce Macs-970 early or not. It's obvious they should start shipping them right now! Well, the sooner, the better. If MacJedai knows what to say, we are, in fact, waiting for IBM rather than Apple. I suppose half a year is enough to develop a new chip set and design a new motherboard for PPC970. We want only mass production.
The 970 will not generate as much hype as the iMac did, so its the classic equation:
Will the pile of money gained on people waiting to buy a 970 instead of buying a Dell now fill the hole that will be digged by people who will wait on buying a 970 instead of a G4 now?
Since the above senario is more fatal for new moneyless companies than for someone like Apple and since PM sales are extremely low right now I say go ahead Apple. But remember to laugh at anyone suggesting that the 970 will go into a portable any time soon. Any hit on portable sales will be more devastating since they actually sell.
First: The iMac was a completly new product that really did not compete with the other Apple computers, so not may sales from other lins of Apple computers were "lost" to iMac. If they announce the 970 towers now to be shipping in August they might as well turn of the production of the towers and slow down the production of servers
Second: The iMac design did not go stale rapidly. For a CPU the clock is always ticking
The coolest thing they could do was to have a sort of low key introduction. Imagine a computer game show with Apple showing a bake of of DOOM III between the fastest Pentium 4 and powermac with dual 2.5 970 stoping all over the P4 not only in games but also mp3ripping video compression and what have you. For the mac freaks Apple do not need to make it big. If the 970 is as superior as it seems to be to the G4 the 970 in it self well cause a feeding frenzy of gargantuan proportions
But the time between introduction and delivery has to be short! Four years of frustration the G4 is enough!
Gotta agree on that. If they announce a PPC970 based machine three or four months early, they're only gonna lose money.
The reason to buy an iMac was style.
The reason to by a PowerMac 970 will be power.
No reason to take away sales from the G4s right now or too early, anyway.
I think the thought behind this thread is that you just want to finally hear where we're going from the G4. Believe me, Apple will tell us when the time has come.
Here's just a couple of thoughts, flame me or whatever but...
1. Intel will have trouble selling anything that is over 3.0ghz as WinXP crashes big style in machines that clock this or over. Whats more it's no small fix either, it will involve a re-write so big that it is only being looked at for the next version. MS have kept this very quiet but it has been spoken of on The Register and a few other places.
Time to giggle later this year? Oh yes!
2. This 970 thing...Whoever mentioned p*ssing off developers is right. Apple have to put them under NDA at the WWDC if there is to be any chance of software being optimized or even running under the new platform. This could be analagous to the 68k > PowerPC transition, quite a step. If no leaks come from WWDC about this then start panicking.
3. I have a feeling that the first G5 Powermacs might run concurrently with G4, with a crossover in the middle of the range.
Why?
Because the 64bit version of OS X will have a totally Cocoa version of the Finder and other key bits of the OS that have until now been Carbon.
What does this mean?
Well I think they won't even run OS 9 as a classic environment in the G5. It'll be X and only X. I'm pretty sute the reason that the Finder has not had a Cocoa rewrite is because Classic uses the OS X Finder instead of it's own and it has to be Carbon to acheive this.
The great thing here is that IBM talked about 1.4-1.8 to start, but they've cleared that nicely with 1.8-2.5 and with some huge FSB speeds the benches for 2.5 should once again be competitive (then add altivec and stir) Woo-hoo. I'm not unconvinced that they couldn't put a PPC 970 in a laptop. the 1.4 they announced has reasonable power consumption numbers. I say, they will put on in a 17" lapzilla (quite a while before it goes into any other laptop because the lapzilla is that kind of model. It's a '30's caddy, it wants a v-16. The rest of laptop lineup will wait especially the 12"PB and the iBooks (a long while in the case of the iBooks!)
<strong>Here's just a couple of thoughts, flame me or whatever but...
1. Intel will have trouble selling anything that is over 3.0ghz as WinXP crashes big style in machines that clock this or over. Whats more it's no small fix either, it will involve a re-write so big that it is only being looked at for the next version. MS have kept this very quiet but it has been spoken of on The Register and a few other places.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If true, that represents a real opportunity for Apple, Linux, BSD... hell, everybody.
[quote]<strong>3. I have a feeling that the first G5 Powermacs might run concurrently with G4, with a crossover in the middle of the range.
Why?
Because the 64bit version of OS X will have a totally Cocoa version of the Finder and other key bits of the OS that have until now been Carbon.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't see what about moving to a 64-bit PPC requires Cocoa or obsoletes Carbon. Carbon is not there just for Classic, nor is it going anywhere any time soon. It's part of the OS for the long haul.
If there's anything preventing Classic from running on the 970, I'm not aware of it.
Finder is Carbon partly just because (all else being equal, Carbon is a better choice than Cocoa for low-level system work), partly so that Classic can use it, and - I have heard - partly to help battletest Metrowerks' PowerPlant libraries for OS X.
Finder's problems cannot all be laid on the fact that it's a Carbon app. They would not all magically vanish if it became a Cocoa app. It will improve over time as CoreFoundation is completed, PowerPlant is improved (if what I have heard is correct), and the code is refined.
<strong>Gotta agree on that. If they announce a PPC970 based machine three or four months early, they're only gonna lose money.
The reason to buy an iMac was style.
The reason to by a PowerMac 970 will be power.
No reason to take away sales from the G4s right now or too early, anyway.
I think the thought behind this thread is that you just want to finally hear where we're going from the G4. Believe me, Apple will tell us when the time has come.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apparently u didn't see the logic. The powermac isn't making the money it should be cause the informed are waiting to see if this is true. Annoucning it early will have an impact on sales but on sales taht are already low as it is. Besides if appple was to do this i'm sure they would drop the price of current g4 and keep a low stock of them. They do plan ahead you know.
<strong>Here's just a couple of thoughts, flame me or whatever but...
1. Intel will have trouble selling anything that is over 3.0ghz as WinXP crashes big style in machines that clock this or over. Whats more it's no small fix either, it will involve a re-write so big that it is only being looked at for the next version. MS have kept this very quiet but it has been spoken of on The Register and a few other places.
There is precedence for this. Remember how Jobs unveiled the iMac in what, April, May? when it wasn't going to ship until August. Generated enormous interest and preorders. It would be way cool if he were to do it again for the 970s. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, but there was no current iMac at the time. It didn't technically replace anything, so it wasn't about to discourage people from buying powermacs - their profit-margin leading product.
I doubt Apple will announce the 970 until they are ready to ship machines - which likely means July. The current powermacs are still a good deal for the average power user who ISN't doing 3-d rendering or uncompressed, or high end post production. They're not likely to want to take a more serious hit than they already have by jumping the gun on an announcement. I can tell ya that they'll probably hype this one to no end. So expect hints, links and lots of drama before the summer...That will be the real sign if the 970's are coming: If Apple is playing all, 'you better not have a heart condition for this one folks', then I think we can be pretty sure they're revving us up for a big deal. If they're all quiet and non-descript, it might indicate that we're looking at another G4 bump before the Big Switch?
I also don't think we'll have the kind of lag time between announcement and shipping that we're used to. Something tells me they're going to get this one right and have them ready to go on time. We'll see...
<strong>I doubt Apple will announce the 970 until they are ready to ship machines</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think they will announce anything about a processor. They will announce it as the {pick-a-name} Powermac with IBM PPC 970, Velocity Engine II, lots-of-other-fancy-named-thing-a-ma-jigs that kind of thing.
Show how nice and fast it is, show how the case glows or whatever, and toute it as Apple innovation. Wicked fast! Wicked machine! They will probably have an IBM person on hand at whatever announcement they have, but I think the center of attention will be the machine, not the CPU. Let's face it, if they plopped a 970 on a G4-motherboard, it would be yawns all around. The wrappings really do matter and that is all Apple's yummy goodness.
[quote]I doubt Apple will announce the 970 until they are ready to ship machines - which likely means July.<hr></blockquote>
If they can have a Power Mac with the 970 out at Macworld New York, ready to ship, I'd be 'wowed'. But any longer than that, and they really have to at least announce them so they don't lose more customers.
If there's anything preventing Classic from running on the 970, I'm not aware of it.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey James,
I think you missed what I was trying to say...
I didn't mean Apple HAVE to go to Cocoa based Finder for the 970...
I meant that Apple will probably use the opportunity to move to it and to eliminate OS 9 from the Mac.
I agree that Carbon will be a part of the OS for some time, just that by recoding the Finder they kill 2 birds with one stone, firstly they will increase Finder performance, sorry but it will and secondly they get to push the fastest machines which we all want to OS X only to speed along the migration...
I didn't mean Apple HAVE to go to Cocoa based Finder for the 970...
I meant that Apple will probably use the opportunity to move to it and to eliminate OS 9 from the Mac.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They've already eliminated OS 9 from the Mac. Classic is hardly more of a drag on their hardware than the 68K emulator was during (and long after) the PPC transition. It uses OS X's Finder, VM, filesystem, hardware drivers, etc. It will be around for a while. If nothing else, the educational market will guarantee that.
[quote]<strong>I agree that Carbon will be a part of the OS for some time, just that by recoding the Finder they kill 2 birds with one stone, firstly they will increase Finder performance, sorry but it will and secondly they get to push the fastest machines which we all want to OS X only to speed along the migration...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Recoding Finder might well speed it up. Moving from Carbon to Cocoa? Sorry, but that won't improve performance, unless Apple makes changes that would have sped the code up anyway in the process of moving it over.
Neither the Carbon Finder nor Classic is inhibiting Apple from releasing the fastest hardware they can build. OS 9 was, but OS 9 is dead.
Comments
<strong>The stage: Macworld New York.
The date: July 16, 2003.
<snip>
[ 02-27-2003: Message edited by: Fran441 ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Fran..., I kinda think that the above date shouldn't be considered "Early", but instead . . . at least "On Time". IBM said full production 2H '03, and extremely reliable sources have shown me that the 1st week in July is the actual target date for "Full Production". Which is before July 16th . . . I think.
I wouldn't be surprised to see an Apple Event between late May and Mid June. FWIW
It would be in Apple's best interest to generate some serious hype for this new architecture, and new 64 bit O/S.
<strong>Couple of questions:
How long do you think that Apple has had final design specs on the 970?
<snip>
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple has had 3 batches of 970 samples, that I know of (maybe more). The earliest batch dates back to early July '02 and the last batch being early January '03.
<strong>If there is a 970 announcement at MWNY, there better damn well be some Photoshop races...like the golden G3 days. I don't know anything about coding, bits, or how processors work, but I would assume that Photoshop, Final Cut, and software would have to be ported or rewritten for a 64 bit processor to take advantage of the speed right?</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, they wouldn't. The 970 runs 32-bit code at full speed. A recompile and some tweaking might buy another 5% or 10% if they're really lucky, but the apps you mention should fly when run in their current binary format. As far as I know, none of them rely heavily on 64-bit precision for their work. Any AltiVec-optimized routines should see a dramatic speedup.
The 970 is not a new platform, it's just a much better implementation of the same old PowerPC.
[quote]<strong>Anyway, I'd love to be top dog again as a Mac user...Maybe they'll bring back the steamroller commericals
Maybe and maybe not. Apple won't just be back on the top end of the PC performance curve, they'll be doing something no-one else is doing: Moving to a 64-bit platform on the desktop. Now, I know the cautious thing to assume is that Apple will treat it as 32 bit for a while, but somehow I don't think they're going to do that. I don't know how they will, I just have the feeling that they intend to milk the 970 and the not inconsiderable technologies surrounding it for all they're worth, and they'll start as soon as they can.
That's not like steamrolling the competition, it's more like responding to your competition's ever-faster cars by building a commuter jet.
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>I do feel that hype is generally large already...!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh well that hype is there already
At those rumor-sites...
Will the pile of money gained on people waiting to buy a 970 instead of buying a Dell now fill the hole that will be digged by people who will wait on buying a 970 instead of a G4 now?
Since the above senario is more fatal for new moneyless companies than for someone like Apple and since PM sales are extremely low right now I say go ahead Apple. But remember to laugh at anyone suggesting that the 970 will go into a portable any time soon. Any hit on portable sales will be more devastating since they actually sell.
First: The iMac was a completly new product that really did not compete with the other Apple computers, so not may sales from other lins of Apple computers were "lost" to iMac. If they announce the 970 towers now to be shipping in August they might as well turn of the production of the towers and slow down the production of servers
Second: The iMac design did not go stale rapidly. For a CPU the clock is always ticking
The coolest thing they could do was to have a sort of low key introduction. Imagine a computer game show with Apple showing a bake of of DOOM III between the fastest Pentium 4 and powermac with dual 2.5 970 stoping all over the P4 not only in games but also mp3ripping video compression and what have you. For the mac freaks Apple do not need to make it big. If the 970 is as superior as it seems to be to the G4 the 970 in it self well cause a feeding frenzy of gargantuan proportions
But the time between introduction and delivery has to be short! Four years of frustration the G4 is enough!
The reason to buy an iMac was style.
The reason to by a PowerMac 970 will be power.
No reason to take away sales from the G4s right now or too early, anyway.
I think the thought behind this thread is that you just want to finally hear where we're going from the G4. Believe me, Apple will tell us when the time has come.
1. Intel will have trouble selling anything that is over 3.0ghz as WinXP crashes big style in machines that clock this or over. Whats more it's no small fix either, it will involve a re-write so big that it is only being looked at for the next version. MS have kept this very quiet but it has been spoken of on The Register and a few other places.
Time to giggle later this year? Oh yes!
2. This 970 thing...Whoever mentioned p*ssing off developers is right. Apple have to put them under NDA at the WWDC if there is to be any chance of software being optimized or even running under the new platform. This could be analagous to the 68k > PowerPC transition, quite a step. If no leaks come from WWDC about this then start panicking.
3. I have a feeling that the first G5 Powermacs might run concurrently with G4, with a crossover in the middle of the range.
Why?
Because the 64bit version of OS X will have a totally Cocoa version of the Finder and other key bits of the OS that have until now been Carbon.
What does this mean?
Well I think they won't even run OS 9 as a classic environment in the G5. It'll be X and only X. I'm pretty sute the reason that the Finder has not had a Cocoa rewrite is because Classic uses the OS X Finder instead of it's own and it has to be Carbon to acheive this.
Any thoughts people?
Rob
Gosh this was SO off topic!
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: robster ]</p>
<strong>Here's just a couple of thoughts, flame me or whatever but...
1. Intel will have trouble selling anything that is over 3.0ghz as WinXP crashes big style in machines that clock this or over. Whats more it's no small fix either, it will involve a re-write so big that it is only being looked at for the next version. MS have kept this very quiet but it has been spoken of on The Register and a few other places.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If true, that represents a real opportunity for Apple, Linux, BSD... hell, everybody.
[quote]<strong>3. I have a feeling that the first G5 Powermacs might run concurrently with G4, with a crossover in the middle of the range.
Why?
Because the 64bit version of OS X will have a totally Cocoa version of the Finder and other key bits of the OS that have until now been Carbon.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't see what about moving to a 64-bit PPC requires Cocoa or obsoletes Carbon. Carbon is not there just for Classic, nor is it going anywhere any time soon. It's part of the OS for the long haul.
If there's anything preventing Classic from running on the 970, I'm not aware of it.
Finder is Carbon partly just because (all else being equal, Carbon is a better choice than Cocoa for low-level system work), partly so that Classic can use it, and - I have heard - partly to help battletest Metrowerks' PowerPlant libraries for OS X.
Finder's problems cannot all be laid on the fact that it's a Carbon app. They would not all magically vanish if it became a Cocoa app. It will improve over time as CoreFoundation is completed, PowerPlant is improved (if what I have heard is correct), and the code is refined.
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>Gotta agree on that. If they announce a PPC970 based machine three or four months early, they're only gonna lose money.
The reason to buy an iMac was style.
The reason to by a PowerMac 970 will be power.
No reason to take away sales from the G4s right now or too early, anyway.
I think the thought behind this thread is that you just want to finally hear where we're going from the G4. Believe me, Apple will tell us when the time has come.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apparently u didn't see the logic. The powermac isn't making the money it should be cause the informed are waiting to see if this is true. Annoucning it early will have an impact on sales but on sales taht are already low as it is. Besides if appple was to do this i'm sure they would drop the price of current g4 and keep a low stock of them. They do plan ahead you know.
<strong>Here's just a couple of thoughts, flame me or whatever but...
1. Intel will have trouble selling anything that is over 3.0ghz as WinXP crashes big style in machines that clock this or over. Whats more it's no small fix either, it will involve a re-write so big that it is only being looked at for the next version. MS have kept this very quiet but it has been spoken of on The Register and a few other places.
Time to giggle later this year? Oh yes!
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: robster ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thats a known issue, an issue that can be fixed and is being fixed. I haven't heard taht it requires a full rewrite.
I also think 10.3 is being built with the 970 in mind. If of course if apple uses the 970
[ 02-28-2003: Message edited by: O and A ]</p>
<strong>
There is precedence for this. Remember how Jobs unveiled the iMac in what, April, May? when it wasn't going to ship until August. Generated enormous interest and preorders. It would be way cool if he were to do it again for the 970s.
Yeah, but there was no current iMac at the time. It didn't technically replace anything, so it wasn't about to discourage people from buying powermacs - their profit-margin leading product.
I doubt Apple will announce the 970 until they are ready to ship machines - which likely means July. The current powermacs are still a good deal for the average power user who ISN't doing 3-d rendering or uncompressed, or high end post production. They're not likely to want to take a more serious hit than they already have by jumping the gun on an announcement. I can tell ya that they'll probably hype this one to no end. So expect hints, links and lots of drama before the summer...That will be the real sign if the 970's are coming: If Apple is playing all, 'you better not have a heart condition for this one folks', then I think we can be pretty sure they're revving us up for a big deal. If they're all quiet and non-descript, it might indicate that we're looking at another G4 bump before the Big Switch?
I also don't think we'll have the kind of lag time between announcement and shipping that we're used to. Something tells me they're going to get this one right and have them ready to go on time. We'll see...
<strong>I doubt Apple will announce the 970 until they are ready to ship machines</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think they will announce anything about a processor. They will announce it as the {pick-a-name} Powermac with IBM PPC 970, Velocity Engine II, lots-of-other-fancy-named-thing-a-ma-jigs that kind of thing.
Show how nice and fast it is, show how the case glows or whatever, and toute it as Apple innovation. Wicked fast! Wicked machine! They will probably have an IBM person on hand at whatever announcement they have, but I think the center of attention will be the machine, not the CPU. Let's face it, if they plopped a 970 on a G4-motherboard, it would be yawns all around. The wrappings really do matter and that is all Apple's yummy goodness.
g
If they can have a Power Mac with the 970 out at Macworld New York, ready to ship, I'd be 'wowed'. But any longer than that, and they really have to at least announce them so they don't lose more customers.
<strong>
If there's anything preventing Classic from running on the 970, I'm not aware of it.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey James,
I think you missed what I was trying to say...
I didn't mean Apple HAVE to go to Cocoa based Finder for the 970...
I meant that Apple will probably use the opportunity to move to it and to eliminate OS 9 from the Mac.
I agree that Carbon will be a part of the OS for some time, just that by recoding the Finder they kill 2 birds with one stone, firstly they will increase Finder performance, sorry but it will and secondly they get to push the fastest machines which we all want to OS X only to speed along the migration...
<strong>
Hey James,
I think you missed what I was trying to say...
I didn't mean Apple HAVE to go to Cocoa based Finder for the 970...
I meant that Apple will probably use the opportunity to move to it and to eliminate OS 9 from the Mac.</strong><hr></blockquote>
They've already eliminated OS 9 from the Mac. Classic is hardly more of a drag on their hardware than the 68K emulator was during (and long after) the PPC transition. It uses OS X's Finder, VM, filesystem, hardware drivers, etc. It will be around for a while. If nothing else, the educational market will guarantee that.
[quote]<strong>I agree that Carbon will be a part of the OS for some time, just that by recoding the Finder they kill 2 birds with one stone, firstly they will increase Finder performance, sorry but it will and secondly they get to push the fastest machines which we all want to OS X only to speed along the migration...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Recoding Finder might well speed it up. Moving from Carbon to Cocoa? Sorry, but that won't improve performance, unless Apple makes changes that would have sped the code up anyway in the process of moving it over.
Neither the Carbon Finder nor Classic is inhibiting Apple from releasing the fastest hardware they can build. OS 9 was, but OS 9 is dead.