Why the Powerbook should be the first Intel Mac

etto72etto72
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
The powerbook is a fantastic laptop always used in a large number by pro graphic designer and pro photographer.

We all know that just recently Apple announced ?Aperture?, their first pro post production tool for photographer, and it is recommended to run it on a ?Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 or faster???

The actual line of Powerbook is far away to perform this software good enoughl!.... so more than any other Mac product line the powerbook need to be drastically speed -up

I do not see any need for the rest of the line, the iMac with his G5 performs very well, the mini and the iBook do not need to be faster for the use that they are aim to , so it is clear that the PW are the one to be soon changed, if not??.could you imagine a mini or a ibook performing faster than this exclusive machine??!!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,438member
    good post but the mini and ibook could be faster as well.
  • Reply 2 of 15
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    good post but the mini and ibook could be faster as well.



    Yes, they could be, but their performance is more or less OK for a consumer machine at this price point. However, this is not the case for the Powerbook. "Arte antiqua" are the words coming in my tongue right now .
  • Reply 3 of 15
    kenaustuskenaustus Posts: 924member
    Apple will release Mactels when their designated chips are released by Intel. If the dual core Yonah is the first released then Apple the Macs that are destined to have the dual core (the iMac and PB) will be released first.
  • Reply 4 of 15
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,563member
    It would be nice to have better performance in a PowerBook, however, performance is not the only thing to consider. Much of the pro software (InDesign, Quark, PhotoShop and others) will not be released anytime soon. Also, it would not be wise to test the new platform with a mission critical piece of hardware. Why lead with your chin?



    Just speculation on my part, I think that the Mac Mini will go Intel first. This will give Apple a chance to see the new OS running in the field on a few hundred thousand machines for a few months at least before coming out with PowerBooks.



    I understand the desire of fans to see new product. However, this is a hugely important transition for Apple and it really needs to go smoothly. If this introduces some sort of AppleScript bug which means a magazine doesn't make its deadline, or if a colorsync bug unique to the Intel platform screws up the photos for a big advertising house that could be a huge setback for Apple. Better they take their time and do this in stages but do it successfully. It wouldn't bother me a bit if they waited to release the PowerBooks in the fall of 2006 or even at MWSF 2007 with the Merom chip.
  • Reply 5 of 15
    needanewmacneedanewmac Posts: 37member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by PB

    Yes, they could be, but their performance is more or less OK for a consumer machine at this price point. However, this is not the case for the Powerbook. "Arte antiqua" are the words coming in my tongue right now .



    Got to agree with you on that one. The iMac a consumer machine is probably somewhere between 20 to 30 per cent faster than a pro PowerBook. Not putting down the PowerBook, there nice machines, but they are outdated.
  • Reply 6 of 15
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    The Powerbooks and iBooks are so slow no one will notice if they put an Intel chip in them....
  • Reply 7 of 15
    kenaustuskenaustus Posts: 924member
    While some of the pro apps (especially in the graphics area) will not be ready in January there are going to be a lot that are ready. All Apple apps have been written for years to be ready for this transition so that is not a problem. The key app for business users would be Office and that will be running under Rosetta. If Rosetta works at 80% then a PB Mactel will have to have a 25% increase in speed in order for Office to appear the same speed. I don't think that is a problem for business users like me. It might not be a problem in the graphics business IF the buyers know that there will be something faster within the year.



    I still believe that Apple will go with the Yonah chips as they are released by Intel and duals are going to be first - and they won't go into a Mac mini or iBook.
  • Reply 8 of 15
    benroethigbenroethig Posts: 2,782member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Bigc

    The Powerbooks and iBooks are so slow no one will notice if they put an Intel chip in them....



    Sad but true.
  • Reply 9 of 15
    admactaniumadmactanium Posts: 812member
    i believe the mac mini should be the first to go. the price point is low enough that a lot of people might buy it just out of curiosity's sake. you'd have a much larger batch of buyers from which to gather information about bugs. and its position in the line-up means that no professionals would buy it with the expectation that their graphics apps would need to work on it.
  • Reply 10 of 15
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Perhaps the one that gets finished first should be released first. It isn't like they're purposely not working on one or the other simply because one "deserves" it more.



    I'm sure that apple's engineers are working overtime on intel versions of all their computers and plan on releasing them ASAP.



    Just like the infamous G5 powerbook... it isn't vaporware for any reason other than the engineers couldn't make it work within their given constraints.
  • Reply 11 of 15
    belzebuthbelzebuth Posts: 24member
    but only dual core yonah will be available in january. so the step will be to big for the mac mini compare to ibook and Pbook...

    i still beleive that all the G4-based computer will switch between january and march.
  • Reply 12 of 15
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    That is the exact assertion that I find completely ludicrous.



    Apple isn't keeping their desktops slow just so that laptops seem faster. As soon as faster computers are done and ready for release... they are released.
  • Reply 13 of 15
    chevaliermalfetchevaliermalfet Posts: 470member
    DFiler:



    Apple does in fact have a history of keeping back (slightly) or speeding up (slightly) development to keep things like iMac/PowerBook performance differentials reasonable, or to milk an advance in clock speed. I do however agree that it is not the case now.



    As far as Intel PowerBooks I'm very skeptical. I suspect we will see Apple wait for Merom for two reasons: One, when Pros get the hardware and software in their hands the early adopting consumers (whether they know that they are or not) will allow Apple some time to make sure it's actually a professional environment to work in. Two, People that use highly optimized graphics applications (the bread and butter of PB users) will see their OS speed up considerably but the graphics apps slow down considerably more. I don't for a moment believe that when editing large documents in photoshop or video effects in After Effects that we will see only a 30% slowdown. The G3 emulation will really take their toll on the actual getting work done part of using a powerbook, as opposed to the just tinkering about aspect that will see a 20-30% degradation. Between that and the half-hearted multithreading support in many apps I suspect Yonah based machines won't be that much faster if at all than their PPC equivalents. Possibly even slower for many things.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    To be more specific, apple has differentiated products in the same line by only enabling some features in the higher end models. Yet that is a far strech from asserting that Apple would deliberately let an entire category of products languish. That just doesn't happen.



    Differentiate within a product line in order to increase margins on the high end? Yes

    Hold back desktops so that they don't seem too fast in comparison to laptops? No



    The desktop hardware team isn't twiddling their thumbs for fear of being faster than the laptops. The same goes for the portable team. They haven't been told to purposely make slow hardware in comparison to non-portables.
  • Reply 15 of 15
    mmmpiemmmpie Posts: 628member
    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26062



    The Inq has published a price list for Yonah cpus. This is the chip that everyone anticipates going into Intel Macs. There is no indication of what quantity is involved, and Im sure Apple will get them cheaper ( but probably not Dell cheap ).



    The cheapest Yonah ( single core ) is $209. That is a big chunk of the price of a Mac Mini.



    Dual cores run up over $600.



    While we all think that Intel will arrive in the consumer lines first, the reality may be that Yonah is just too expensive for that, and its the Powerbooks that will get the love first. In the case of the powerbooks, even though they are 'pro' machines they are so slow that a dual core Yonah would be able to run apps in Rosetta without seeming to be any worse. The iMac is also a likely candidate. It isnt fast enough ( 2.1 v 2.13 dual core ) that it would really impact a lot of users.
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