So how many users is Apple going to piss off by cutting $1200 in one price cut. No way. The low end PowerMac will be a single processor.
I agree with the conclusion, but not the reasoning. It's a fact of life that CPUs are constantly improving, and holding back to not "piss off" customers who bought earlier is an excellent way to make sure you won't have many future customers. That said, I think the low end will be a single processor for product differentiation. Apple's "good, better, best" strategy has worked well; the low end is for price-sensitive buyers, the midrange is the best value per dollar, and the high end is for those who want top performance at any price. (This is why the G5 lineup was a bit screwy until they made the 1.8 a dual; the high end was also the best price/performance deal).
what a load of crap. in march 1998 the powerbook clocked 292Mhz with a 83Mhz bus and the tower clocked 300Mhz with a 66Mhz bus. i don't know which one was faster but they where the fastest pc's available at that time.
it was 1.5 years before the G4 and 2 years before things starting to hurt and almost 3 years before apple came out with a G4 pb. the fact that the windows laptop offering sucked bigtime allowed the powerbook to catch up. something the powermac couldn't before the G5.
Techinically you are right, but not quite. There were no new powermacs released in 1998, while the powerbook at 300 was released in August. Not long after in Jan 99 the Blue and White G3's came out, at up to 450. They were much better than the powerbook. So you get a short period where the powerbook approached the powermac in capability, but it didnt last long.
Apple has had a LOT of catching up to do when it comes to getting over the Moto FlusterCluck. The G4 was, and remains, a dead end processor. Now that we are on the RIGHT track with IBM, we should be seeing better bumps, and I think more bumps than before.
We finally have the opportunity to have a Pro system that will smoke Wintel again. So things are going to move fast. Now that we have a scalable and promising chip in the 970, progress and bumps are going to be better and more frequent.
I think we'll finally get to see all of those places that a stalled, crappy processor from a stalled, crappy company could not take us. Having talked to my brother at Moto, they are as disappointed in the G4 as we are, by and large. Many are Mac users and realized about 18-24 months ago that the G4 just wasn't going to be able to hack it. Motorola, for those who hadn't heard, is in the process of spinning off its semiconductor manufacturing division- even Moto knows their PC chip operation could knock a buzzard off a manure truck. <adjusts belt buckle>
Anyway...progress is gonna be quicker than we all are used to. Let's quit whining about how fast the upgrades are happening and enjoy them. Apple is not making your fast machine slow by releasing new hardware, it is making progress toward making your next Mac - making your next computer that much faster.
Xlr8 hints that new Power Macs may not be introduced before end of March:
Quote:
G4 Trade-in Program for G5s?
"Here's a tip - don't expect new G5's before 3/26/2004. Apple Oz (Australia) have just introduced a trade up program - they give buyers A$1000.00 (appx. $775 US) tradein for a G4 (no specific model mentioned) on a new G5, The program starts today and ends 3/26/2004 so I'm guessing the new G5's are released 3/27/2004 or soon thereafter."
Comments
Originally posted by Dave K.
So how many users is Apple going to piss off by cutting $1200 in one price cut. No way. The low end PowerMac will be a single processor.
I agree with the conclusion, but not the reasoning. It's a fact of life that CPUs are constantly improving, and holding back to not "piss off" customers who bought earlier is an excellent way to make sure you won't have many future customers. That said, I think the low end will be a single processor for product differentiation. Apple's "good, better, best" strategy has worked well; the low end is for price-sensitive buyers, the midrange is the best value per dollar, and the high end is for those who want top performance at any price. (This is why the G5 lineup was a bit screwy until they made the 1.8 a dual; the high end was also the best price/performance deal).
Originally posted by gar
what a load of crap. in march 1998 the powerbook clocked 292Mhz with a 83Mhz bus and the tower clocked 300Mhz with a 66Mhz bus. i don't know which one was faster but they where the fastest pc's available at that time.
it was 1.5 years before the G4 and 2 years before things starting to hurt and almost 3 years before apple came out with a G4 pb. the fact that the windows laptop offering sucked bigtime allowed the powerbook to catch up. something the powermac couldn't before the G5.
Techinically you are right, but not quite. There were no new powermacs released in 1998, while the powerbook at 300 was released in August. Not long after in Jan 99 the Blue and White G3's came out, at up to 450. They were much better than the powerbook. So you get a short period where the powerbook approached the powermac in capability, but it didnt last long.
Ref: www.apple-history.com
I think it is fair to say that:
a) people dont expect laptops to be _AS_ fast as desktops.
b) most people are quite happy with how fast laptops are.
( ie: they get no benefit from fast desktops ).
Apple has had a LOT of catching up to do when it comes to getting over the Moto FlusterCluck. The G4 was, and remains, a dead end processor. Now that we are on the RIGHT track with IBM, we should be seeing better bumps, and I think more bumps than before.
We finally have the opportunity to have a Pro system that will smoke Wintel again. So things are going to move fast. Now that we have a scalable and promising chip in the 970, progress and bumps are going to be better and more frequent.
I think we'll finally get to see all of those places that a stalled, crappy processor from a stalled, crappy company could not take us. Having talked to my brother at Moto, they are as disappointed in the G4 as we are, by and large. Many are Mac users and realized about 18-24 months ago that the G4 just wasn't going to be able to hack it. Motorola, for those who hadn't heard, is in the process of spinning off its semiconductor manufacturing division- even Moto knows their PC chip operation could knock a buzzard off a manure truck. <adjusts belt buckle>
Anyway...progress is gonna be quicker than we all are used to. Let's quit whining about how fast the upgrades are happening and enjoy them. Apple is not making your fast machine slow by releasing new hardware, it is making progress toward making your next Mac - making your next computer that much faster.
G4 Trade-in Program for G5s?
"Here's a tip - don't expect new G5's before 3/26/2004. Apple Oz (Australia) have just introduced a trade up program - they give buyers A$1000.00 (appx. $775 US) tradein for a G4 (no specific model mentioned) on a new G5, The program starts today and ends 3/26/2004 so I'm guessing the new G5's are released 3/27/2004 or soon thereafter."
Can anyone enlighten us more?