[quote] what everyone seems to be overlooking, is that the difference between a G3 and a G4 in everyday applications is very little. The G4 is designed for pro multimedia creation and number-crunching.
Does the average iMac demographic do that? Of course not.
There are not enough apps that take advantage of the Altivec for the G4 to be introduced in the consumer line! <hr></blockquote>
You're putting the cart in front of the horse!
Of course there aren't enough apps for the G4 right now. That is precisely the reason for the iMac to get a G4. A G4 iMac would boost the installed Altivec user base tremendously, and this would provide incentive to developers to code for altivec.
The president of Macsoft is on record as saying that they will not code for altivec until the iMac has a G4--because a large portion of Mac game buyers are iMac users.
It is imperative that the iMac get a G4 soon. Otherwise developers will continue to ignore altivec. If the majority of Apple computers sold do not have altivec, then why should a developer spend extra time writing for it, when time is money?
Since OS X is coded to take advantage of altivec, this leads me to believe that Apple plans on using Altivec for a long time, and that it might show up in more of their product lines. Last year the Powerbook migrated to G4, so this year the iMac is next in line to move to the G4.
The towers don't even have to go G5 for the iMac to get a G4. The iMac had a G3 back when smurf towers were using G3s. If the Powermacs are clocked at 1.0, 1.13, 1.27 GHz, then the iMac could be clocked up to 1.0GHz no problem.
I will be surprised and disapointed if Apple doesn't put a G4 in the iMac by MWNY at the very latest. If they don't it is an utterly stupid move, from both a marketing and engineering viewpoint. The lack of a G4 in the iMac hurts ALL G4 owners, because fewer apps are coded for Altivec as long as there is no G4 iMac.
iDVD does require Altivec for encoding in a reasonable time. Otherwise it's something like 24 hours to encode an hour of MPEG2.</strong><hr></blockquote>
that's bull. Apple uses the lowest encoding rate possible thus making encoding times less but file sizes larger. that's why there was a 1hour limit with iDVD. it encoded at 9mb/sec. Commercial DVDs are around 4-5. Increasing the MPEG 2 encoder that comes with DVDSP to those rates takes a lot longer.
there is no reason a 800Mhz or faster G3 couldn't do it in a realistic amount of time.
<strong>what everyone seems to be overlooking, is that the difference between a G3 and a G4 in everyday applications is very little. The G4 is designed for pro multimedia creation and number-crunching.
Does the average iMac demographic do that? Of course not.
C.pres</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's just plain wrong. Enough iMacs are used with certain pro applications to make a real difference to the overall numbers. Many long time mac users who just can't afford a PowerMac, nonetheless like the platform enought to use FCP, Photoshop and Bryce on an iMac. While total newbies are a large part of the iMac demographic, so are quite experienced/advanced users.
<strong>Singular and plural? I do believe the convention is different for American and British standards.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not aware of differing standards between the US and Britain in this regard. In any case, I don't know how one could argue that a corporation should be used in the plural sense. A corporation is treated as an independent single person by the law:
From m-w.com:
a body formed and authorized by law to act as a single person although constituted by one or more persons and legally endowed with various rights and duties including the capacity of succession
A corporation is singular. Like flock of birds. The flock is flying south for the winter. Like a regiment. If someone said "the regiment isat half strength, you would understand that to mean it was missing half it's personnel.
If however someone said "the regiment are at half strength" you might think the bums were tired.
<strong>The entire iMac idea is not revolutionary anymore...I think the revolutionary aspect of it will be the Superdrive and G4 chip, which would rewrite the con/prosumer standard for chip speed and capability of chips in the industry.
The product will be revolutionary because.
* LCD Form Factor (VERY ELEGANT)
*G4 Processor
*Apple Superdrive and iDVD
*MAYBE A SURPRISE OR TWO.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Comments
iDVD does require Altivec for encoding in a reasonable time. Otherwise it's something like 24 hours to encode an hour of MPEG2.
Does the average iMac demographic do that? Of course not.
There are not enough apps that take advantage of the Altivec for the G4 to be introduced in the consumer line! <hr></blockquote>
You're putting the cart in front of the horse!
Of course there aren't enough apps for the G4 right now. That is precisely the reason for the iMac to get a G4. A G4 iMac would boost the installed Altivec user base tremendously, and this would provide incentive to developers to code for altivec.
The president of Macsoft is on record as saying that they will not code for altivec until the iMac has a G4--because a large portion of Mac game buyers are iMac users.
It is imperative that the iMac get a G4 soon. Otherwise developers will continue to ignore altivec. If the majority of Apple computers sold do not have altivec, then why should a developer spend extra time writing for it, when time is money?
Since OS X is coded to take advantage of altivec, this leads me to believe that Apple plans on using Altivec for a long time, and that it might show up in more of their product lines. Last year the Powerbook migrated to G4, so this year the iMac is next in line to move to the G4.
The towers don't even have to go G5 for the iMac to get a G4. The iMac had a G3 back when smurf towers were using G3s. If the Powermacs are clocked at 1.0, 1.13, 1.27 GHz, then the iMac could be clocked up to 1.0GHz no problem.
I will be surprised and disapointed if Apple doesn't put a G4 in the iMac by MWNY at the very latest. If they don't it is an utterly stupid move, from both a marketing and engineering viewpoint. The lack of a G4 in the iMac hurts ALL G4 owners, because fewer apps are coded for Altivec as long as there is no G4 iMac.
<strong>
iDVD does require Altivec for encoding in a reasonable time. Otherwise it's something like 24 hours to encode an hour of MPEG2.</strong><hr></blockquote>
that's bull. Apple uses the lowest encoding rate possible thus making encoding times less but file sizes larger. that's why there was a 1hour limit with iDVD. it encoded at 9mb/sec. Commercial DVDs are around 4-5. Increasing the MPEG 2 encoder that comes with DVDSP to those rates takes a lot longer.
there is no reason a 800Mhz or faster G3 couldn't do it in a realistic amount of time.
<strong>
there is no reason a 800Mhz or faster G3 couldn't do it in a realistic amount of time.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well maybe not, but murk is right about the 24 hours - that's almost a verbatim quote from Jobs' keynote address about the DVD.
[ 12-24-2001: Message edited by: ]</p>
<strong>what everyone seems to be overlooking, is that the difference between a G3 and a G4 in everyday applications is very little. The G4 is designed for pro multimedia creation and number-crunching.
Does the average iMac demographic do that? Of course not.
C.pres</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's just plain wrong. Enough iMacs are used with certain pro applications to make a real difference to the overall numbers. Many long time mac users who just can't afford a PowerMac, nonetheless like the platform enought to use FCP, Photoshop and Bryce on an iMac. While total newbies are a large part of the iMac demographic, so are quite experienced/advanced users.
<strong>
Well maybe not, but murk is right about the 24 hours - that's almost a verbatim quote from Jobs' keynote address about the DVD.
[ 12-24-2001: Message edited by: ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
uh no. Jobs was comparing it to some PC running at an unknown speed with an unknown codec, etc.
basically his little speech was bullshit. He didn't provide any basis for his claims.
The fact is, a Athlon encodes MPEG 2 as fast or faster than the G4 now.
24 hours..lol..
<strong>Singular and plural? I do believe the convention is different for American and British standards.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm not aware of differing standards between the US and Britain in this regard. In any case, I don't know how one could argue that a corporation should be used in the plural sense. A corporation is treated as an independent single person by the law:
From m-w.com:
a body formed and authorized by law to act as a single person although constituted by one or more persons and legally endowed with various rights and duties including the capacity of succession
If however someone said "the regiment are at half strength" you might think the bums were tired.
And it would be incorrect grammar.
<strong>The entire iMac idea is not revolutionary anymore...I think the revolutionary aspect of it will be the Superdrive and G4 chip, which would rewrite the con/prosumer standard for chip speed and capability of chips in the industry.
The product will be revolutionary because.
* LCD Form Factor (VERY ELEGANT)
*G4 Processor
*Apple Superdrive and iDVD
*MAYBE A SURPRISE OR TWO.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Nice job on this one, Macinstosh.