Some people are dancing around the issue here. If the relative value of consumer vs pro offerings seems too weigh too heavily on the consumer side tht certainly does say something is wrong at Apple. That something is the utterly abysmal state of PPC affairs. They're tied to a CPU that won't allow them to make competitive PRO machines much longer (if at all).
They've also taken to engaging the (rumor) press/fan zines etc... They're showing signs of a company that doesn't believe it will be able to sell product, as though they're anticipating huge dissapointment. Just like that silly '10 on 10' or 'thank the development teams' nonsense that Steve pulled out of his ass the last time he had nothing to show.
I hope Apple is forced to scrap a huge surplus of all models of 'Mac.' Maybe then they'd finally drop the arrogance that makes them think we'll just buy any underspec'd-overpriced machine they put out simply cause it looks cool and says Apple.
Fvck that! I wanna see Stevie crying like a baby as the audience just looks around, as every attempt to fish for applause is met with stone faced silence, as specs and prices are openly booed by keynote attendees.
Enough Bvllshit Already: give us real macs at great prices or get lost.
I think Apple should just discontinue the Powermac line until the G5 is ready. They aren't going to sell many Powermacs as long as they are "Powered" by the same CPUs as are in the iMac. (Ok, not really the same, but the same "G" designation).
Think about it, Steve is ready to walk offstage, says, "one more thing,", and everyone leans in to hear what they are sure will be the new G5 Powermac intro:
"One more thing about Powermacs. Everyone's so excited about the G5 powermac that they aren't buying because of the anticipation. So Apple decided to do something about it."
Steve pauses, let's the drama build, then sputters on like the champ salesman he is:
"Apple are going to discontinue the Powermac G4 lineup. That's right, you aren't buying them, so we listened and stopped making them. So I'd like to introduce the Powermac G5, with an estimated shipping date of September, 2003. Get your orders in now because we expect a constrained supply until mid-2004."
Well folks, the Aug 12 date is a clear indication of a new product to ship by then. Regardless of many recent BS articles, there will certainly be a revamped PM. Probably not a G5 system, but certainly a much faster PM. Apple has had more than enough time to put together such a machine. Failure to do so, is far too much an indication and admition of a severe failure in strategy by adhering to the Motorola's products.
if the only reasoning why TS and CNET are "confirming" that there will be no updates due to the Aug 12 expiry, that is reaching pretty far... notice how the promotion states specifically WHICH models are eligible for the rebates and for WHICH amounts...
Buy a 800MHz Power Mac G4 and an Apple Studio Display, Apple Cinema Display, or Apple Cinema HD Display and receive $300 back via mail-in rebate.
? Buy an 933MHz Power Mac G4 and an Apple Studio Display, Apple Cinema Display, or Apple Cinema HD Display and receive $400 back via mail-in rebate.
? Buy a dual processor 1GHz Power Mac G4 and an Apple Studio Display, Apple Cinema Display, or Apple Cinema HD Display and receive $500 via mail-in rebate.
there is absolutely no reason why new machines can't be introduced with only the older models getting the rebates until sold out...
and quite possibly, the older models will be discounted in the special deals section even further once new models hit...
I for one am waiting for a blast from the past to chime in his opinions on what's going on at Apple... it was always interesting reading...
It seems like it might make more sense (for Apple anyway) to keep the leftover current machines at the current price points and then intro the new iron at he old $1699 $2499 and $3499 price points. The price difference and the promo might actually make for a meaningful price delta between the two without slicing too much out of Apple's bottom line.
Like every Apple veteran I'm bummed over this news from Think Secret. But I'm not going to sell all my Apple equipment and switch to Linux or Windows.
I think everyone is upset because the last 2 years of MWNY brought horrible annoucements. Let's see we got Dual 450 / 500's / 867 and Dual 800's and now what a 17" iMac. But, MWSF always seems to get the goodies....I guarantee MWSF will be the launching pad for G5 when it's ready. C'mon for once can MWNY get some decent stuff.
As for Think Secret being accurate. ... how about the awesome rumor on Explorer 6. That's right, it was supposed to be totatly on par with the PC version, render everything correctly, be small, fast and a totally new rewritten mac version. Well, they were right, there was an update - version 5.2. Let's see, same bugs, just as slow, and oh the big new feature was utilizing Quartz. If you ask me, they were right on with that one.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that everyone missed the real bombshell in Nick's article:
[quote]our sources confirm Apple will probably announce new G4 towers in three different speeds in excess of 1.2GHz in a special product announcement next month. (emphasis mine)<hr></blockquote>
Maybe and maybe not. This is rumor, after all. But I still have trouble believing that nobody seems to have caught it.
I speculated a while back that it would make more sense for Apple to delay the introduction of the PowerMac until Jaguar's ready and the big high-end video chipsets are out and a few other things have fallen into place. MWNY is a consumer show. The lineup sounds great for a consumer show. We all might doze off as Jobs covers Jaguar and .Mac and whatever else, but consumers will see this is what I can do with my computer, and this is how easy it is. And that's what they care about.
I'm neither surprised nor more than mildly disappointed. We might be a bit jaded about 10.2 by now, but consider the people who don't scour the Mac Web every day for news: 10.2 will be the first OS X to really, unapologetically be the next generation of the Macintosh. Everything points to this being its coming of age release. Considering that the OS is what the consumer interacts with, and iApps and .Mac services will be what they use, this is really big news for consumers.
I don't think the next PowerMacs will get a mere press release, either. The last ones got introduced that way because they were the same thing, only better. There will be a special event to show off everything the new hardware/software combo is capable of in the professional space.
If Steve does indeed say this then I will do all if not at least one of the following.
1. I will start a chant "RESIGN, RESIGN, RESIGN!!!" then boo hideously at him and try and force my way onto the stage.
2. If I should reach the stage then I wll run down Steve and crack a 17 studio display over his head and drag him by the feet to the middle of the stage and rip off his black mock turttleneck, tie his hands with it and punch him a few times. Upon doing this I will drop my pants and spew urine onto his horrified face and head. At this pont I am most positive that Phil Schiller will come out and try to save Steve but I will use his excess flub as a heatsink for the out-of-control G4 processors. He will be fried, right there on the stage by the heat of a G4, the rabid mac fans will gorge his flesh.
3. At this time the entire ammount of show goers will accompany me onstage encircling Steve and a "Fight Club Esque" scene will break out. I will hold Steve to the floor and make him release the new G4's but oh no, he will go straight for the G5 because of this dire situation. Steve is now in a panic and all of the things Rubenstein said would happen are unfolding before his very bloody eyes. The announcement of iTunes 3 didnt suffice and the "oh and one more thing" about iMovie 2.5 could not hold back the embittered and ferocious mac fans.
4. Steve is finished. Steve is taken outside onto the streets of New York and barbecued on a spit over a trash can with homeless singers which are the recievers of this Silicon Valley Legends Meat.
5. Apple is run by someone with testicals as Cheryl Vedoe steps in as CEO.
Apple promotions in the last 3 months have pretty much covered all Powermacs, all iBooks, and all TiBooks, along with some, but not all of the iMacs.
In the past, the promotions have been a pretty good barometer of upcoming products. They allow the channel to clear but it's unlikely that Apple is revving the whole family in the next 3 months.
A few weeks ago I mentioned there was a certain desperation on the part of Apple, and I think this is a reflection of that. Recently .edu was given a deal to buy blocks of TiBook 800s (25 machines) for about $2500 each. That's unusual for a new machine. They are working very hard to move product right now, and the evidence is that it isn't working very well.
Certainly Apple has gotten caught with too much product in the channel, and they're now using their usual measures to fix that. The pro hardware will be especially hard to move due to the presence of 1GHz G4 upgrades out there. Short of the dual gig box, most of the rest of the line can be replicated from older hardware.
One possibility is that Apple did stuff the channel to get out of last quarter in one piece and hopes to release enough new product this quarter to cover the price protection their going to have to eat from retailers. Pro hardware will kill them, but the iMac can probably be salvaged by price cuts, even with higher-end iMacs introduced. The key is shipping early in the quarter.
Maybe with a substantial speed-bump in the PowerMac line could Apple justify bumping most of the products to kick-start sales.
The new PowerMac will be announced/demoed @ MWNY2002...
And first available to purchase off the show floor (Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X v4.5 bundles will be available from the Alias|wavefront booth!) @ Siggraph 2002 coming up in August, live from San Antonio, TX...
And NAB2003 should be exciting, with Apple showing off their 'soup-to-nuts' digital production suite of software...
PowerMac G5 Workstation
Dual IBM PowerPC G5 CPUs @ 1.3GHz
64bit (native 32bit compatible)
512KB on-die 1:1 L2 cache per CPU
4MB backside 2:1 L3 cache per CPU
RapidIO interconnect from CPUs to DDR FSB, DDR SDRAM, HyperTransport connection (to AGP 8x slot), and nForce-derived unified North/Southbridge controller
8GB DDR SDRAM (8 @ 1GB DIMMs)
Dual ATA133 interfaces (hardware RAID implemented in system controller; supports 4 devices)
Four (4) 120GB ATA133 HDDs (RAID Level 0 / Striped; 7,200rpm; 8MB cache per HDD)
Single ATA100 interface (supports 2 devices)
SuperDrive2 optical drive
CD-R/RW optical drive
AGP Pro110 8x graphics slot (feed via HyperTransport connection to RapidIO interconnect)
Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet (6"x8"; USB2 standard; BlueTooth module optional)
Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X v4.5
Adobe Photoshop v7.0
Apple Media Tools (Edit/Composite/DVD/DAW/Compose)
[obligatory rant]
Apple, buy Maya from SGI/A|w... License RenderMan from Pixar, and integrate it as Maya's highly optimized/tweaked default renderer...
[/obligatory rant]
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
Well, it's no surprise that everyone has their panties in a bunch that new PowerMacs may or may not ship at MWNY. Of course, Apple has (yes, honest to goodness they have) pre-announced products with ship dates about a month out, so...
On the other hand, if, as Nick suggests, Apple plans on having a separate PowerMac announcement a month later, then what's the harm? Seems like a separate announcement = bigger news by itself. But this is as much of an assumption as Nick's report.
This is good. Beat down expectations because they're usually ridiculously high just before the Expo anyway. Maybe for once people won't get all pissy 5 minutes after the keynote? Nah.... 100% chance that won't happen.
[quote]Originally posted by Yet Another Registration:
<strong>2) A big push behind the biggest marketshare steal since the Pepsi Challenge. Suddenly, it's not just a Coke (Windows) world.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh, the irony of that one!
added:
Sorry, Amorph, I missed your post! Perfectly stated as usual.
Why do I feel like I am the only one that thinks apple won't release a 17" iMac anytime soon?
They only released the iMacG4 like 6 months ago. It has been chewing away the PM sales ever since... It doesn't make since for Apple to give it 17" at this point in the game...
Another problem I have with this rumor is that it originated from one of the Asian(?) manufacturing plants and the original 'rumor' stated that they were preparing to manufacture 17" and 19" iMacs... I'm sorry but this (in my mind) can mean 1 of 2 things: 1) Dude who said it had no clue, or 2) Bad translation.
My guess of MWNY still stands:
-New PM: 1Ghz, 1.2Ghz Dual, 1.4Ghz Dual at current prices... (all PC2100)
-New Displays (Rebate only good with old displays and old Macs)
-Jagwire demo?ed, RELEASED and shipping on all new Macs
-iPods - $100 reduction on both models
-iNteract - Video Conferencing app with both MPEG4 and h.323 support
Man, who cares whether new towers come out in July, August, September or December. Whatever happened to the "power" in Power Macs? I get the feeling that after Jobs came back, the hardware engineers got stuffed in a basement closet. That's boring to Jobs... he doesn't want to hear it or think about it.
Now it's all about plastics, J. Ivey, Aqua, retail stores, and HIGH margins (oh, yeah, and insider trading too). The botique Apple of 1985 has returned.
<strong>I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that everyone missed the real bombshell in Nick's article</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ooh! Ooh! Mr. Kotter! I saw it!
There's been some increasing scuttlebutt suggesting that new PowerMacs might actually make it to 1.5 Ghz on the next revision. Assuming they stick with the "bottom becomes the top" routine, I think we'd see a high end of at least 1.33 Ghz, with 1.4 or even 1.5 not too unlikely. A 1.4 Ghz model would represent a significant performance increase, particularly on a more up-to-date motherboard. I don't really care that no new PMs are coming next week; the machines to follow next month should be pretty sweet. Not G5 sweet, but sweet.
<strong>Some people are dancing around the issue here. If the relative value of consumer vs pro offerings seems too weigh too heavily on the consumer side tht certainly does say something is wrong at Apple.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Or that the timing is a bit off. Consider this a different way:
Mot demonstrates in mid 2001 that they can finally deliver the goods on G4 during 2002 - DDR and speeds up to 2GHZ.
Apple makes the decision that it's time to depreciate the G3 and brings out the G4 iMac, much to everyones surprise. At 800MHz everyone realizes that the Powermacs must get bumped soon for the very reasons that you state above, and Apple has every intention of doing this. Something gets a bit cocked-up on the dev of the new box (as Moki has already suggested) - probably dealing with G4/DDR issues, so Apple ships Xserve that gently steps clear of the problem.
The problem gets sorted out early-mid 2002 and Apple is now confident it can ship the beast, but why ship in a shit market with 10.1.5 when Jaguar is coming soon after, and might bring a stronger market with it. June, July, August are usually dogs for sales, and besides eMac and Xserve are targetted at the usually strong .edu market. Apple pushes Powermac back a touch, maybe gets a new graphics option in the deal, and turns the screws on Jag so that when the machines ship, they'll kick ass.
Apple did say they'd innovate out of this mess, and I don't think they would say such a thing in a conference call if they weren't ready to back it up in some way.
Now, I also don't think Apple would push the G4 into the consumer line if they didn't think the Pro line was ready to move up as well. Apple could have put an 800MHz G3 in the LCD iMac instead, we know they exist, and all would have been just fine.
All the signs do point to a really significant Powermac improvement. Whether it meets everyone's expectations is a different matter, but I think the clear gap between pro and consumer will be reasserted soon. I'm also reasonably sure that Apple feels that the Powermac and Jag need to ship concurrently. It benefits both products to do so.
Channel sources warned that Apple's inventory of Power Macs has been building in recent weeks, despite three sales promotions launched since April. The release of faster Power Macs in January and of Adobe Photoshop in April failed to increase sales as expected, in part because of the slow economy, say analysts. <hr></blockquote>
Yeah, the way to fight a sales slump in "high-end" workstations that use memory technologies that are outdated for even budget consumer solutions from the competition is to keep them on the market for even longer. Yes...
That's a pretty full show. No earth-shattering announcements, but, as some have noted, it would build on Apple's successful "switch" campaign.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Speaking of, I'd expect to hear quite a lot about all the former Windows users supposedly showing up at the Apple stores in the last month. If Jobs has some good news in this regard, that would be a hell of a lot more important for Apple than bumped PowerMacs.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled pessimism.
Comments
They've also taken to engaging the (rumor) press/fan zines etc... They're showing signs of a company that doesn't believe it will be able to sell product, as though they're anticipating huge dissapointment. Just like that silly '10 on 10' or 'thank the development teams' nonsense that Steve pulled out of his ass the last time he had nothing to show.
I hope Apple is forced to scrap a huge surplus of all models of 'Mac.' Maybe then they'd finally drop the arrogance that makes them think we'll just buy any underspec'd-overpriced machine they put out simply cause it looks cool and says Apple.
Fvck that! I wanna see Stevie crying like a baby as the audience just looks around, as every attempt to fish for applause is met with stone faced silence, as specs and prices are openly booed by keynote attendees.
Enough Bvllshit Already: give us real macs at great prices or get lost.
Think about it, Steve is ready to walk offstage, says, "one more thing,", and everyone leans in to hear what they are sure will be the new G5 Powermac intro:
"One more thing about Powermacs. Everyone's so excited about the G5 powermac that they aren't buying because of the anticipation. So Apple decided to do something about it."
Steve pauses, let's the drama build, then sputters on like the champ salesman he is:
"Apple are going to discontinue the Powermac G4 lineup. That's right, you aren't buying them, so we listened and stopped making them. So I'd like to introduce the Powermac G5, with an estimated shipping date of September, 2003. Get your orders in now because we expect a constrained supply until mid-2004."
"We'll go over the specs at MWSF. That's all!"
Buy a 800MHz Power Mac G4 and an Apple Studio Display, Apple Cinema Display, or Apple Cinema HD Display and receive $300 back via mail-in rebate.
? Buy an 933MHz Power Mac G4 and an Apple Studio Display, Apple Cinema Display, or Apple Cinema HD Display and receive $400 back via mail-in rebate.
? Buy a dual processor 1GHz Power Mac G4 and an Apple Studio Display, Apple Cinema Display, or Apple Cinema HD Display and receive $500 via mail-in rebate.
there is absolutely no reason why new machines can't be introduced with only the older models getting the rebates until sold out...
and quite possibly, the older models will be discounted in the special deals section even further once new models hit...
I for one am waiting for a blast from the past to chime in his opinions on what's going on at Apple... it was always interesting reading...
<a href="http://www.pelagius.com/AppleRecon/"; target="_blank">http://www.pelagius.com/AppleRecon/</a>;
<strong>there is absolutely no reason why new machines can't be introduced with only the older models getting the rebates until sold out...
and quite possibly, the older models will be discounted in the special deals section even further once new models hit...
I for one am waiting for a blast from the past to chime in his opinions on what's going on at Apple... it was always interesting reading...
<a href="http://www.pelagius.com/AppleRecon/"; target="_blank">http://www.pelagius.com/AppleRecon/</a></strong><hr></blockquote>;
It seems like it might make more sense (for Apple anyway) to keep the leftover current machines at the current price points and then intro the new iron at he old $1699 $2499 and $3499 price points. The price difference and the promo might actually make for a meaningful price delta between the two without slicing too much out of Apple's bottom line.
I think everyone is upset because the last 2 years of MWNY brought horrible annoucements. Let's see we got Dual 450 / 500's / 867 and Dual 800's and now what a 17" iMac. But, MWSF always seems to get the goodies....I guarantee MWSF will be the launching pad for G5 when it's ready. C'mon for once can MWNY get some decent stuff.
As for Think Secret being accurate. ... how about the awesome rumor on Explorer 6. That's right, it was supposed to be totatly on par with the PC version, render everything correctly, be small, fast and a totally new rewritten mac version. Well, they were right, there was an update - version 5.2. Let's see, same bugs, just as slow, and oh the big new feature was utilizing Quartz. If you ask me, they were right on with that one.
Let's hope Apple delivers @ MWNY
[quote]our sources confirm Apple will probably announce new G4 towers in three different speeds in excess of 1.2GHz in a special product announcement next month. (emphasis mine)<hr></blockquote>
Maybe and maybe not. This is rumor, after all. But I still have trouble believing that nobody seems to have caught it.
I speculated a while back that it would make more sense for Apple to delay the introduction of the PowerMac until Jaguar's ready and the big high-end video chipsets are out and a few other things have fallen into place. MWNY is a consumer show. The lineup sounds great for a consumer show. We all might doze off as Jobs covers Jaguar and .Mac and whatever else, but consumers will see this is what I can do with my computer, and this is how easy it is. And that's what they care about.
I'm neither surprised nor more than mildly disappointed. We might be a bit jaded about 10.2 by now, but consider the people who don't scour the Mac Web every day for news: 10.2 will be the first OS X to really, unapologetically be the next generation of the Macintosh. Everything points to this being its coming of age release. Considering that the OS is what the consumer interacts with, and iApps and .Mac services will be what they use, this is really big news for consumers.
I don't think the next PowerMacs will get a mere press release, either. The last ones got introduced that way because they were the same thing, only better. There will be a special event to show off everything the new hardware/software combo is capable of in the professional space.
[ 07-09-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
If Steve does indeed say this then I will do all if not at least one of the following.
1. I will start a chant "RESIGN, RESIGN, RESIGN!!!" then boo hideously at him and try and force my way onto the stage.
2. If I should reach the stage then I wll run down Steve and crack a 17 studio display over his head and drag him by the feet to the middle of the stage and rip off his black mock turttleneck, tie his hands with it and punch him a few times. Upon doing this I will drop my pants and spew urine onto his horrified face and head. At this pont I am most positive that Phil Schiller will come out and try to save Steve but I will use his excess flub as a heatsink for the out-of-control G4 processors. He will be fried, right there on the stage by the heat of a G4, the rabid mac fans will gorge his flesh.
3. At this time the entire ammount of show goers will accompany me onstage encircling Steve and a "Fight Club Esque" scene will break out. I will hold Steve to the floor and make him release the new G4's but oh no, he will go straight for the G5 because of this dire situation. Steve is now in a panic and all of the things Rubenstein said would happen are unfolding before his very bloody eyes. The announcement of iTunes 3 didnt suffice and the "oh and one more thing" about iMovie 2.5 could not hold back the embittered and ferocious mac fans.
4. Steve is finished. Steve is taken outside onto the streets of New York and barbecued on a spit over a trash can with homeless singers which are the recievers of this Silicon Valley Legends Meat.
5. Apple is run by someone with testicals as Cheryl Vedoe steps in as CEO.
Apple promotions in the last 3 months have pretty much covered all Powermacs, all iBooks, and all TiBooks, along with some, but not all of the iMacs.
In the past, the promotions have been a pretty good barometer of upcoming products. They allow the channel to clear but it's unlikely that Apple is revving the whole family in the next 3 months.
A few weeks ago I mentioned there was a certain desperation on the part of Apple, and I think this is a reflection of that. Recently .edu was given a deal to buy blocks of TiBook 800s (25 machines) for about $2500 each. That's unusual for a new machine. They are working very hard to move product right now, and the evidence is that it isn't working very well.
Certainly Apple has gotten caught with too much product in the channel, and they're now using their usual measures to fix that. The pro hardware will be especially hard to move due to the presence of 1GHz G4 upgrades out there. Short of the dual gig box, most of the rest of the line can be replicated from older hardware.
One possibility is that Apple did stuff the channel to get out of last quarter in one piece and hopes to release enough new product this quarter to cover the price protection their going to have to eat from retailers. Pro hardware will kill them, but the iMac can probably be salvaged by price cuts, even with higher-end iMacs introduced. The key is shipping early in the quarter.
Maybe with a substantial speed-bump in the PowerMac line could Apple justify bumping most of the products to kick-start sales.
The RDF will get cranked up PAST ELEVEN...!
The new PowerMac will be announced/demoed @ MWNY2002...
And first available to purchase off the show floor (Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X v4.5 bundles will be available from the Alias|wavefront booth!) @ Siggraph 2002 coming up in August, live from San Antonio, TX...
And NAB2003 should be exciting, with Apple showing off their 'soup-to-nuts' digital production suite of software...
PowerMac G5 Workstation
Dual IBM PowerPC G5 CPUs @ 1.3GHz
64bit (native 32bit compatible)
512KB on-die 1:1 L2 cache per CPU
4MB backside 2:1 L3 cache per CPU
RapidIO interconnect from CPUs to DDR FSB, DDR SDRAM, HyperTransport connection (to AGP 8x slot), and nForce-derived unified North/Southbridge controller
8GB DDR SDRAM (8 @ 1GB DIMMs)
Dual ATA133 interfaces (hardware RAID implemented in system controller; supports 4 devices)
Four (4) 120GB ATA133 HDDs (RAID Level 0 / Striped; 7,200rpm; 8MB cache per HDD)
Single ATA100 interface (supports 2 devices)
SuperDrive2 optical drive
CD-R/RW optical drive
AGP Pro110 8x graphics slot (feed via HyperTransport connection to RapidIO interconnect)
nVidia/Apple Quartz Extreme OpenGL card (512MB DDR RAM; dual NV30 GPUs; dual ADC ports)
Two (2) Apple Cinema HD Displays (23"/1920x1200/32bit)
Four (4) PCI-X expansion slots (dual busses; two slots per bus)
Four (4) FireWire2 ports (800Mbps; 2 ports in front/2 ports in back)
Four (2) USB2 ports (480Mbps; 2 ports in front/2 ports in back)
10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet; RJ45 port
Airport2
BlueTooth
Keyboard (USB2 standard/BlueTooth optional)
Mouse (USB2 standard/BlueTooth optional; three-button optional)
Mac OS X v10.2 (JagWire) standard
harman/kardon 7.1 powered speakers/subwoofer (THX-certified; FireWire2 I/O breakout box)
Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet (6"x8"; USB2 standard; BlueTooth module optional)
Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X v4.5
Adobe Photoshop v7.0
Apple Media Tools (Edit/Composite/DVD/DAW/Compose)
[obligatory rant]
Apple, buy Maya from SGI/A|w... License RenderMan from Pixar, and integrate it as Maya's highly optimized/tweaked default renderer...
[/obligatory rant]
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> Maya Unlimited for Mac OS X <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
[ 07-09-2002: Message edited by: MacRonin ]</p>
On the other hand, if, as Nick suggests, Apple plans on having a separate PowerMac announcement a month later, then what's the harm? Seems like a separate announcement = bigger news by itself. But this is as much of an assumption as Nick's report.
This is good. Beat down expectations because they're usually ridiculously high just before the Expo anyway. Maybe for once people won't get all pissy 5 minutes after the keynote? Nah.... 100% chance that won't happen.
[quote]Originally posted by Yet Another Registration:
<strong>2) A big push behind the biggest marketshare steal since the Pepsi Challenge. Suddenly, it's not just a Coke (Windows) world.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh, the irony of that one!
added:
Sorry, Amorph, I missed your post! Perfectly stated as usual.
[ 07-09-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
They only released the iMacG4 like 6 months ago. It has been chewing away the PM sales ever since... It doesn't make since for Apple to give it 17" at this point in the game...
Another problem I have with this rumor is that it originated from one of the Asian(?) manufacturing plants and the original 'rumor' stated that they were preparing to manufacture 17" and 19" iMacs... I'm sorry but this (in my mind) can mean 1 of 2 things: 1) Dude who said it had no clue, or 2) Bad translation.
My guess of MWNY still stands:
-New PM: 1Ghz, 1.2Ghz Dual, 1.4Ghz Dual at current prices... (all PC2100)
-New Displays (Rebate only good with old displays and old Macs)
-Jagwire demo?ed, RELEASED and shipping on all new Macs
-iPods - $100 reduction on both models
-iNteract - Video Conferencing app with both MPEG4 and h.323 support
[ 07-09-2002: Message edited by: Blizaine ]</p>
Now it's all about plastics, J. Ivey, Aqua, retail stores, and HIGH margins (oh, yeah, and insider trading too). The botique Apple of 1985 has returned.
Just kidding! It's really Motorola's fault.
<strong>I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that everyone missed the real bombshell in Nick's article</strong><hr></blockquote>
Ooh! Ooh! Mr. Kotter! I saw it!
There's been some increasing scuttlebutt suggesting that new PowerMacs might actually make it to 1.5 Ghz on the next revision. Assuming they stick with the "bottom becomes the top" routine, I think we'd see a high end of at least 1.33 Ghz, with 1.4 or even 1.5 not too unlikely. A 1.4 Ghz model would represent a significant performance increase, particularly on a more up-to-date motherboard. I don't really care that no new PMs are coming next week; the machines to follow next month should be pretty sweet. Not G5 sweet, but sweet.
Consider:
- speedbumped 17" iMacs would be pretty neat
- Jaguar should consume much of Steve's keynote
- in keeping with the show's emerging consumer slant, we would most likely see other iApps and iGadgets
That's a pretty full show. No earth-shattering announcements, but, as some have noted, it would build on Apple's successful "switch" campaign.
Finally, the crucial days between Steve's keynote and the middle of August may be needed to ready the Power Macs we're clamouring for.
I'll take awesome Power Macs in August over "meh" Power Macs this month. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
<strong>Some people are dancing around the issue here. If the relative value of consumer vs pro offerings seems too weigh too heavily on the consumer side tht certainly does say something is wrong at Apple.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Or that the timing is a bit off. Consider this a different way:
Mot demonstrates in mid 2001 that they can finally deliver the goods on G4 during 2002 - DDR and speeds up to 2GHZ.
Apple makes the decision that it's time to depreciate the G3 and brings out the G4 iMac, much to everyones surprise. At 800MHz everyone realizes that the Powermacs must get bumped soon for the very reasons that you state above, and Apple has every intention of doing this. Something gets a bit cocked-up on the dev of the new box (as Moki has already suggested) - probably dealing with G4/DDR issues, so Apple ships Xserve that gently steps clear of the problem.
The problem gets sorted out early-mid 2002 and Apple is now confident it can ship the beast, but why ship in a shit market with 10.1.5 when Jaguar is coming soon after, and might bring a stronger market with it. June, July, August are usually dogs for sales, and besides eMac and Xserve are targetted at the usually strong .edu market. Apple pushes Powermac back a touch, maybe gets a new graphics option in the deal, and turns the screws on Jag so that when the machines ship, they'll kick ass.
Apple did say they'd innovate out of this mess, and I don't think they would say such a thing in a conference call if they weren't ready to back it up in some way.
Now, I also don't think Apple would push the G4 into the consumer line if they didn't think the Pro line was ready to move up as well. Apple could have put an 800MHz G3 in the LCD iMac instead, we know they exist, and all would have been just fine.
All the signs do point to a really significant Powermac improvement. Whether it meets everyone's expectations is a different matter, but I think the clear gap between pro and consumer will be reasserted soon. I'm also reasonably sure that Apple feels that the Powermac and Jag need to ship concurrently. It benefits both products to do so.
Channel sources warned that Apple's inventory of Power Macs has been building in recent weeks, despite three sales promotions launched since April. The release of faster Power Macs in January and of Adobe Photoshop in April failed to increase sales as expected, in part because of the slow economy, say analysts. <hr></blockquote>
Yeah, the way to fight a sales slump in "high-end" workstations that use memory technologies that are outdated for even budget consumer solutions from the competition is to keep them on the market for even longer. Yes...
Way to go Apple.
<strong>
That's a pretty full show. No earth-shattering announcements, but, as some have noted, it would build on Apple's successful "switch" campaign.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Speaking of, I'd expect to hear quite a lot about all the former Windows users supposedly showing up at the Apple stores in the last month. If Jobs has some good news in this regard, that would be a hell of a lot more important for Apple than bumped PowerMacs.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled pessimism.