I'm saying that they haven't because they haven't figured how to do it in a way that delivers a big payoff.
Well, I'm guessing the Cube was the misfire in that direction.
But they're already doing it with the iMac. Take away the £350 screen on the 24 incher. Put in a 8800GT and a Quad core and Apple still get away with £50 more profit!
They are already doing it.
I don't need a laptop mini.
I don't need a cube-laptop.
I'd take a laptop iMac with a better gpu. If they could fit a 7600 gt? Why not a 8800GT? OR GTS?
I don't want a MacTV.
Between the mini, imac, macbook and macbook pro? They've four machines in their laptop line. 5 if you include the Apple TV...
Roll the Mini into the Apple TV.
Give us a box. A pretty. Box. With a choice. Of a few motherboards. A few GPUs. (Hell, there are only two GPU vendors out there in PC land anyhow...) A choice of Conroes. You have a killer Mid-tower/cube/PC gamer switcher/non-imac/whatever you want to call it thingy that APple will 'never' do because they can't make a profit tower.
Since when have we known Apple not make a profit on anything in the last ten years? The reason for the lack of mid-tower probably has more to do with Steve Jobs than anyone. And after reading Cringley 'Empires' book for the zillionth time I can only guess strongly this is the most likely answer.
That would be because they were offering slower or the same hardware with no benefits for a higher price. They know how to make the same hardware much better now as they have a strong customer service rep, you can run Windows, the hardware prices are sort of competitive, OS X is a good system, they have some great exclusive industry standard software and nicely designed and quiet computers. In no way does any of that preclude targeting the largest user base by building a mini version of the Mac Pro.
As for release dates, if Apple do maintain the same Mac Pro price points then surely that means 8 cores across the board. This also means the gap between the iMac and Mac Pro will widen enormously. So I'd say they either offer a cheaper single quad on the low end, which should close the gap down and that can be released any time soon or they hold off until mobile Penryn and then upgrade the entire lineup and have a whole Penryn Macworld event.
I hope it's the former as the Mac Pro isn't good value right now and in another 2 months, it will look quite pathetic.
Yes. Pathetic. Shame. Magnificently designed chassis. Great industry leading CPUs...what's up with the rest of it? ...Hmmm. Dreams of an iMac. Y'know, I've been waiting 8 years to be included in Apple's market(s). My nose is big enough...why can't they hit me?
I may just get an iMac and wait for Nehalem. The iMac runs City of Heroes ok in native resolution...so...but with Macworld 08 is close......bah....
Well, I'm guessing the Cube was the misfire in that direction.
Good guess.
Quote:
But they're already doing it with the iMac. Take away the £350 screen on the 24 incher. Put in a 8800GT and a Quad core and Apple still get away with £50 more profit!
Ah, but you're missing the holistic viewpoint. The value is in the integration of the screen and the slim packaging. There is nothing else to compare the iMac to that is precisely comparable (well, perhaps this week Dell's new XPS all-in-one comes close) so they get away with nice margins.
The component numbers you're quoting sound suspicious to me. I think Apple probably gets the screen cheaper than you state, and the GPU and quad cores (including chipset & associated motherboard) cost more.
Quote:
thingy that Apple will 'never' do because they can't make a profit tower
Never say never. I'm saying they will want to do it with a decidedly "Apple" spin on it. Or perhaps they won't put much spin on it, but will offer it like Dell does... only via their online BTO store.
Quote:
Since when have we known Apple not make a profit on anything in the last ten years? The reason for the lack of mid-tower probably has more to do with Steve Jobs than anyone.
I suppose this is where we disagree. They've been making profits on (almost) everything because they have been choosing their strategies carefully and acting from their strengths. If that's what Jobs brought to Apple we ought to be happy for it. If somebody put a compelling strategic plan for the mini-tower (or whatever) in front of him, he would do it.
I'm skeptical as well. I'm not sure if it makes as much sense to dump 32 bit until maybe 2015.
Why dump 32 bit applications ever? 64 bits is not needed to execute CPU instructions, right? The benefit of 64 bits is to address a great deal of memory, both real and virtual. So not being 64 bit just means the application is limited in what it can do.
If what I'm saying is wrong, please give an explanation it detail. If I'm making a fool of myself, I'd like to learn something from it at least.
The component numbers you're quoting sound suspicious to me. I think Apple probably gets the screen cheaper than you state, and the GPU and quad cores (including chipset & associated motherboard) cost more.
Nothing suspicious about them. Check yourself at Microdirect or any other vendor store. And there's nothing suspicious about the price comparison between Conroe and Xeons. Har.
The Quad intel cpu is dirt cheap. And Apple would get them cheaper. (*Prods.)
Just like they get their 24 inchers...cheaper*.
Just like they'd get their gpus cheaper...
GT? £150. Quad? £180?
24 inch monitor? My mate paid £350 for his.
Shrugs. Principle? If they're making a Mac Pro at £1500? It's incredulous that you can suggest that £1000-£1495 is a market they can't make money in.
I'm sure Programmer could have said the same thing of the mini before it arrived? Or the iMac? Before Apple had a computer under a grand...people said:'Apple don't do..blah...blah...cheap.' But the iMac by that definition is a nice kind of cheap... by long historical Apple comparisons.
Holostic? Shrugs. Apple had a quad grid. It's gone Programmer. You need to move on.
They now have 3 desktop products. 2 of which are laptops in disguise... Mini. iMac. And they broke it originally, with Cube. Said he.
They have 2 laptops. But I'm getting the feeling. What? A sub notebook before long?
iPhone. iPod.
Shrugs again. We have these?
Every piece of kit Apple makes money on.
The iMac is 'too cold'. The Mac Pro 'too hot' (re-too much, too big...just 'too.). Goldilocks and there are plenty of us want a desktop product is 'just right'. And I'd vouch there are more Goldilocks buyers than Mini or ATV or Mac Pro buyers.
Because the price/perf' buck would say: 'Yes. Here's my gran. Now hand over that Mid-tower.'
Why dump 32 bit applications ever? 64 bits is not needed to execute CPU instructions, right? The benefit of 64 bits is to address a great deal of memory, both real and virtual. So not being 64 bit just means the application is limited in what it can do.
If what I'm saying is wrong, please give an explanation it detail. If I'm making a fool of myself, I'd like to learn something from it at least.
That's a legitimate question. I don't fully know, but if Apple feels that maintaining the 32 bit compatibility is costing them excess development time, then they might decide to let it go. It's more clear cut with Classic compatibility, making it run on Intel machines was probably not seen to be worthwhile, having done its job of making the transition to OS X easier. I think there's less in the way with respect to supporting 32 bit.
Already, I hear that Leopard's 64 bit frameworks have several of capabilities not available for 32 bit, the larger memory addressing notwithstanding. I'm not an Obj. C / Cocoa programmer, so I don't understand the details on why Obj. C 2 has special features for 64 bit.
While apple and other developers were figuring out the Obj-c 2.0 framework, they decided it would be beneficial for speed and ease of development to make some of the features 64bit only. I wish the movies they had on ADC was available to the general public. They explained it clearly at the leopard tech talk, but I didn't really care at the time as I was there for other purposes. It is still explained in the Objective-c 2.0 session talks. If you can get your hands on it... take a look.
Either way, yes 64bit can address more memory than 32bit. That isn't the only advantage. It can access more at a time, has larger registers to hold more data INSIDE the cpu. There are other speed advantages than just getting access to MORE ram.
Already, I hear that Leopard's 64 bit frameworks have several of capabilities not available for 32 bit, the larger memory addressing notwithstanding. I'm not an Obj. C / Cocoa programmer, so I don't understand the details on why Obj. C 2 has special features for 64 bit.
Since the 64-bit Obj-C environment did not yet exist, Apple had the luxury of defining it and incorporating all the lessons learned from living with the existing 32-bit ObjC environment. These new "special features" are the result. They aren't especially earthshaking, and some of them are purely about performance... but amount to relatively small pieces of the overall performance picture. Still, every little bit helps.
In my testing on Intel Core 2 chips the performance difference in practice between 32-bit and 64-bit is about 10-20%... in favour of the 32-bit environment. This is primarily due to the increased size of memory addresses and the larger stack frame size to be saved on function calls and context switches. More memory puts more pressure on the machine's caches. Most code doesn't use (and therefore doesn't benefit) from 64-bit math, nor >4 GB of address space... code that does is likely to perform better in 64-bit mode.
I expect 32-bit mode to be around for a very long time.
In my testing on Intel Core 2 chips the performance difference in practice between 32-bit and 64-bit is about 10-20%... in favour of the 32-bit environment. This is primarily due to the increased size of memory addresses and the larger stack frame size to be saved on function calls and context switches. More memory puts more pressure on the machine's caches. Most code doesn't use (and therefore doesn't benefit) from 64-bit math, nor >4 GB of address space... code that does is likely to perform better in 64-bit mode.
I knew that was true with most RISC systems, but I thought that doubling the registers was going to mostly counteract the memory issue for x86-64.
I knew that was true with most RISC systems, but I thought that doubling the registers was going to mostly counteract the memory issue for x86-64.
It no doubt does help counteract it a little, but in "typical" object-oriented code it doesn't seem to help significantly -- too many function calls, not enough in-register state. As I said, some pieces of code will benefit greatly, but overall it is a net loss of 10-20%. Unless you really need the huge amount of memory, you don't want to pay for the big pointers.
And Apple likewise with the aforementioned GPU and CPU. Talk about being blinded by yer own logic.
Except that Intel publishes a "price in quantity" list that gives us a pretty accurate idea of what these things cost.
Quote:
I hope to see you eating the Mid-Tower with Cranberry sauce if Apple ever releases one...
Sorry, ain't going to happen. The eating, that is. If you bothered to read my series of replies you would see that I talking about why Apple hasn't released one, not predicting what they will do. All sorts of things could happen that change the picture and cause Apple to drop a machine into this market space that everyone seems to be craving. If I were to speculate, I'd expect that such a machine would have a unique Apple spin to it, or it would be BTO-only (i.e. the Dell model, as I've mentioned twice before). Hardly going out on a predictive limb.
Comments
Not to mention extra drive bays, PCI slots and dual-link DVI. Comparing an iMac to a Mac Pro is like comparing a one-man band to a symphony orchestra.
That's about the best analogy I've seen. May this analogy relegate all car analogs to the dust bin.
I'm saying that they haven't because they haven't figured how to do it in a way that delivers a big payoff.
Well, I'm guessing the Cube was the misfire in that direction.
But they're already doing it with the iMac. Take away the £350 screen on the 24 incher. Put in a 8800GT and a Quad core and Apple still get away with £50 more profit!
They are already doing it.
I don't need a laptop mini.
I don't need a cube-laptop.
I'd take a laptop iMac with a better gpu. If they could fit a 7600 gt? Why not a 8800GT? OR GTS?
I don't want a MacTV.
Between the mini, imac, macbook and macbook pro? They've four machines in their laptop line. 5 if you include the Apple TV...
Roll the Mini into the Apple TV.
Give us a box. A pretty. Box. With a choice. Of a few motherboards. A few GPUs. (Hell, there are only two GPU vendors out there in PC land anyhow...) A choice of Conroes. You have a killer Mid-tower/cube/PC gamer switcher/non-imac/whatever you want to call it thingy that APple will 'never' do because they can't make a profit tower.
Since when have we known Apple not make a profit on anything in the last ten years? The reason for the lack of mid-tower probably has more to do with Steve Jobs than anyone. And after reading Cringley 'Empires' book for the zillionth time I can only guess strongly this is the most likely answer.
Lemon Bon Bon.
'bout time, I'd say.
*Sticks Programmer's fringe back on.
Lemon Bon Bon.
That would be because they were offering slower or the same hardware with no benefits for a higher price. They know how to make the same hardware much better now as they have a strong customer service rep, you can run Windows, the hardware prices are sort of competitive, OS X is a good system, they have some great exclusive industry standard software and nicely designed and quiet computers. In no way does any of that preclude targeting the largest user base by building a mini version of the Mac Pro.
As for release dates, if Apple do maintain the same Mac Pro price points then surely that means 8 cores across the board. This also means the gap between the iMac and Mac Pro will widen enormously. So I'd say they either offer a cheaper single quad on the low end, which should close the gap down and that can be released any time soon or they hold off until mobile Penryn and then upgrade the entire lineup and have a whole Penryn Macworld event.
I hope it's the former as the Mac Pro isn't good value right now and in another 2 months, it will look quite pathetic.
Yes. Pathetic. Shame. Magnificently designed chassis. Great industry leading CPUs...what's up with the rest of it? ...Hmmm. Dreams of an iMac. Y'know, I've been waiting 8 years to be included in Apple's market(s). My nose is big enough...why can't they hit me?
I may just get an iMac and wait for Nehalem. The iMac runs City of Heroes ok in native resolution...so...but with Macworld 08 is close......bah....
Lemon Bon Bon.
I'd take a laptop iMac with a better gpu. If they could fit a 7600 gt? Why not a 8800GT? OR GTS
Power requirements and heat most likely. 7600gt is a cooler less power hungry card. They can only fit so big of a PS in that small ass case.
Well, I'm guessing the Cube was the misfire in that direction.
Good guess.
But they're already doing it with the iMac. Take away the £350 screen on the 24 incher. Put in a 8800GT and a Quad core and Apple still get away with £50 more profit!
Ah, but you're missing the holistic viewpoint. The value is in the integration of the screen and the slim packaging. There is nothing else to compare the iMac to that is precisely comparable (well, perhaps this week Dell's new XPS all-in-one comes close) so they get away with nice margins.
The component numbers you're quoting sound suspicious to me. I think Apple probably gets the screen cheaper than you state, and the GPU and quad cores (including chipset & associated motherboard) cost more.
thingy that Apple will 'never' do because they can't make a profit tower
Never say never. I'm saying they will want to do it with a decidedly "Apple" spin on it. Or perhaps they won't put much spin on it, but will offer it like Dell does... only via their online BTO store.
Since when have we known Apple not make a profit on anything in the last ten years? The reason for the lack of mid-tower probably has more to do with Steve Jobs than anyone.
I suppose this is where we disagree. They've been making profits on (almost) everything because they have been choosing their strategies carefully and acting from their strengths. If that's what Jobs brought to Apple we ought to be happy for it. If somebody put a compelling strategic plan for the mini-tower (or whatever) in front of him, he would do it.
I remember Jobs' statement about aluminium being the "pro" look... which is what confuses me: Why is it on an iMac, an entry-level desktop machine?
-Clive
Because there is a new "Pro Look" coming?
If Adobe doesn't release 64 bit by the next release of OS X 10.6 don't expect any of their applications to run.
By then OS X 10.6 will focus on 64 bit only applications. That gives Adobe roughly 18 months to get it done.
Don't be ridiculous. Apple kept OS9 computability for years and years and you think they will just dump 32 bit apps? No Way...
Don't be ridiculous. Apple kept OS9 computability for years and years and you think they will just dump 32 bit apps? No Way...
I'm skeptical as well. I'm not sure if it makes as much sense to dump 32 bit until maybe 2015.
I'm skeptical as well. I'm not sure if it makes as much sense to dump 32 bit until maybe 2015.
Why dump 32 bit applications ever? 64 bits is not needed to execute CPU instructions, right? The benefit of 64 bits is to address a great deal of memory, both real and virtual. So not being 64 bit just means the application is limited in what it can do.
If what I'm saying is wrong, please give an explanation it detail. If I'm making a fool of myself, I'd like to learn something from it at least.
The component numbers you're quoting sound suspicious to me. I think Apple probably gets the screen cheaper than you state, and the GPU and quad cores (including chipset & associated motherboard) cost more.
Nothing suspicious about them. Check yourself at Microdirect or any other vendor store. And there's nothing suspicious about the price comparison between Conroe and Xeons. Har.
The Quad intel cpu is dirt cheap. And Apple would get them cheaper. (*Prods.)
Just like they get their 24 inchers...cheaper*.
Just like they'd get their gpus cheaper...
GT? £150. Quad? £180?
24 inch monitor? My mate paid £350 for his.
Shrugs. Principle? If they're making a Mac Pro at £1500? It's incredulous that you can suggest that £1000-£1495 is a market they can't make money in.
I'm sure Programmer could have said the same thing of the mini before it arrived? Or the iMac? Before Apple had a computer under a grand...people said:'Apple don't do..blah...blah...cheap.' But the iMac by that definition is a nice kind of cheap... by long historical Apple comparisons.
Holostic? Shrugs. Apple had a quad grid. It's gone Programmer. You need to move on.
They now have 3 desktop products. 2 of which are laptops in disguise... Mini. iMac. And they broke it originally, with Cube. Said he.
They have 2 laptops. But I'm getting the feeling. What? A sub notebook before long?
iPhone. iPod.
Shrugs again. We have these?
Every piece of kit Apple makes money on.
The iMac is 'too cold'. The Mac Pro 'too hot' (re-too much, too big...just 'too.). Goldilocks and there are plenty of us want a desktop product is 'just right'. And I'd vouch there are more Goldilocks buyers than Mini or ATV or Mac Pro buyers.
Because the price/perf' buck would say: 'Yes. Here's my gran. Now hand over that Mid-tower.'
Lemon Bon Bon.
Why dump 32 bit applications ever? 64 bits is not needed to execute CPU instructions, right? The benefit of 64 bits is to address a great deal of memory, both real and virtual. So not being 64 bit just means the application is limited in what it can do.
If what I'm saying is wrong, please give an explanation it detail. If I'm making a fool of myself, I'd like to learn something from it at least.
That's a legitimate question. I don't fully know, but if Apple feels that maintaining the 32 bit compatibility is costing them excess development time, then they might decide to let it go. It's more clear cut with Classic compatibility, making it run on Intel machines was probably not seen to be worthwhile, having done its job of making the transition to OS X easier. I think there's less in the way with respect to supporting 32 bit.
Already, I hear that Leopard's 64 bit frameworks have several of capabilities not available for 32 bit, the larger memory addressing notwithstanding. I'm not an Obj. C / Cocoa programmer, so I don't understand the details on why Obj. C 2 has special features for 64 bit.
Either way, yes 64bit can address more memory than 32bit. That isn't the only advantage. It can access more at a time, has larger registers to hold more data INSIDE the cpu. There are other speed advantages than just getting access to MORE ram.
Already, I hear that Leopard's 64 bit frameworks have several of capabilities not available for 32 bit, the larger memory addressing notwithstanding. I'm not an Obj. C / Cocoa programmer, so I don't understand the details on why Obj. C 2 has special features for 64 bit.
Since the 64-bit Obj-C environment did not yet exist, Apple had the luxury of defining it and incorporating all the lessons learned from living with the existing 32-bit ObjC environment. These new "special features" are the result. They aren't especially earthshaking, and some of them are purely about performance... but amount to relatively small pieces of the overall performance picture. Still, every little bit helps.
In my testing on Intel Core 2 chips the performance difference in practice between 32-bit and 64-bit is about 10-20%... in favour of the 32-bit environment. This is primarily due to the increased size of memory addresses and the larger stack frame size to be saved on function calls and context switches. More memory puts more pressure on the machine's caches. Most code doesn't use (and therefore doesn't benefit) from 64-bit math, nor >4 GB of address space... code that does is likely to perform better in 64-bit mode.
I expect 32-bit mode to be around for a very long time.
24 inch monitor? My mate paid £350 for his.
That's what I'm getting at -- Apple probably gets a better price than your mate by a fair margin.
In my testing on Intel Core 2 chips the performance difference in practice between 32-bit and 64-bit is about 10-20%... in favour of the 32-bit environment. This is primarily due to the increased size of memory addresses and the larger stack frame size to be saved on function calls and context switches. More memory puts more pressure on the machine's caches. Most code doesn't use (and therefore doesn't benefit) from 64-bit math, nor >4 GB of address space... code that does is likely to perform better in 64-bit mode.
I knew that was true with most RISC systems, but I thought that doubling the registers was going to mostly counteract the memory issue for x86-64.
MC: The last Mac Pro updates only introduced an 8-Core Mac Pro, leaving the rest of the line untouched since August 2006
August 2006 ? Comon apple, i need a new mac pro, you are in the IT business, not in the antiques business, UPGRADE YOUR MAC PRO'S FASTER!!!
I knew that was true with most RISC systems, but I thought that doubling the registers was going to mostly counteract the memory issue for x86-64.
It no doubt does help counteract it a little, but in "typical" object-oriented code it doesn't seem to help significantly -- too many function calls, not enough in-register state. As I said, some pieces of code will benefit greatly, but overall it is a net loss of 10-20%. Unless you really need the huge amount of memory, you don't want to pay for the big pointers.
That's what I'm getting at -- Apple probably gets a better price than your mate by a fair margin.
And Apple likewise with the aforementioned GPU and CPU. Talk about being blinded by yer own logic.
I hope to see you eating the Mid-Tower with Cranberry sauce if Apple ever releases one...
Lemon Bon Bon.
And Apple likewise with the aforementioned GPU and CPU. Talk about being blinded by yer own logic.
Except that Intel publishes a "price in quantity" list that gives us a pretty accurate idea of what these things cost.
I hope to see you eating the Mid-Tower with Cranberry sauce if Apple ever releases one...
Sorry, ain't going to happen. The eating, that is. If you bothered to read my series of replies you would see that I talking about why Apple hasn't released one, not predicting what they will do. All sorts of things could happen that change the picture and cause Apple to drop a machine into this market space that everyone seems to be craving. If I were to speculate, I'd expect that such a machine would have a unique Apple spin to it, or it would be BTO-only (i.e. the Dell model, as I've mentioned twice before). Hardly going out on a predictive limb.