I will wait till July 17th to see what "really" happens. Then in August sometime, I will put in my order for a new PowerMac. Even if announced at MWNY, they still won't ship till August. Too many conflicting reports here. They can't all be right.
The purpose of the Crystal Clear Savings promo is to move monitors, not towers. Getting rid of the old tower inventory is just a bonus.
Hot new Power Macs will ship, if not announced in July, then in August. I am beginning to think that my own estimates may have been a tad on the low side.
The world will not end, the sky will not fall, and the sun will rise. Apple will continue to innovate, and will continue to exist. However, they will operate on a time cycle that is realistic, based upon real world production and development cycles, not the unrealistic expectations or demands of a few less mature followers, who want to be able to argue that their computer is the best. (Best at what????)
As the Register reported last winter, Motorola did begin shipping higher speed G4 7460/7470's last January in volume. That "began" Apple's final development cycle to build boxes around those chips. A reasonable final development and production cycle is 6 months minimum.
Some folks on this board are getting just too paranoid and too depressing. I think I will create a method to dispense vallium digitally, and then hook up IV's to all the rumor boards. This is really getting sad around here.
There is no conspiracy. Apple Computer (which is more than just Steve Jobs) really does have a business plan. That plan is working, even in a tough economy that is hitting all computer makers very hard. The odds of Apple's survival, is much higher than that of several other makers who are on the edge, including AMD.
Oh yeah, one last thing. Sometimes Life isn't fair or predictable. Deal with it!
<strong>Well, Apple left the Powermacs out of MWSF this year because...why? Because they wanted them OUT of the spotlight, because they are so pathetic that Jobs knows the press would hack them to shreds. So again at MWNY, Apple is keeping the Powermacs out of the spotlight, and quietly updating them later.
It could possibly mean that Apple has yet another Powermac update they are embarrased of.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Christ, you are stupid.
But you commit an even worse sin: you are dull, repetitive and boring.
A lot has been made of the 'Crystal Clear Saving' promotion re-introduced on July 8th running until 12 August with saving up to $550 ( as people have pointed out by spending a lot of money).
If this was a move by Apple to shift a large inventory of Powermacs then how come this offer has only been re-introduced in the USA? It is not available in the UK or the rest of Europe as of today 10/07 . Not sure for the rest of the world.
The reason why the current Powermac is not shifting is poor global sales for PC's generally plus the small speed bump last time round.
Most people who will be looking to but a Powermac will be holding off until after MWNY whatever offer is available like me. No matter what Apple do it is always the case that sales sag prior to the major shows traditionally. Therefore this new promotion, only available in the USA will not pursuade people to buy Powermacs until after MWNY 'if' no updates are announced and people can't wait another 4 weeks.
If you take the same arguement that announcement of upgrades are linked to promotions then going on the only Powermac offer currently running here there would be an announcement at the beginning of August!:
[quote]
Buy your new Power Mac between May 15th and July 31st, 2002, directly from the Apple Store. See Terms and Conditions <hr></blockquote>
The only 'Hot Deal' for Powermacs available in UK is the trade in your old Mac for up to £240 off.
Also if the iMac price is to be reduced as many say, then the price difference between thte high end 800MHZ G4 iMac and the low end 800MHZ G4 will disappear and with it little reason to but the Powermac G4 800 at all! It only makes sense if either of the following will happen at the same time:
1) Powermac prices for the current range are dropped by a similar amount.
2) Powermac gets speedbump to retain differential to the iMac.
If the iMac gets a 17 inch widescreen at the top end then there is still less reason to buy the low end G4.
Finally Apple need sales. If they have a new G4 case and motherboard model they wioll surely announce it next week even as if so often happens, it only ships 1-2 months later.
Continuing uncertainty about product rnage in Powermacs will only prolong consumer reticence to commit now only to regret the purchase in 4-6 weeks time.
I am sure Apple will announce an upgrade and run promotions on the current range at the same time. Pay a premium for thge new model or make a nice saving on the old.
With rare exceptions, being underwhelmed comes with the speculation territory. We crave a kind of hopeful certitude, and are usually disappointed. So right after the dual gigger is released, what do we do? We start speculating about new machines at NAB or WWDC or MWNY or (now) Paris Expo, Seybold, or somewhere in between, always banking on quasi-predictability. But even so-called business cycles are less cycles than squeezes?adaptations and movements in fits and starts, elastic responses to multiple factors like the economy, suppliers, one's own engineering successes or setbacks. There's little predictability in progress. Moore's law be damned. Look to evolutionary biology if you want the real story.
So let Macworld New York come and go or any other show for that matter. The main thing is the work?how good it is, not the power of the tool creating it, though admittedly good workers craves great tools.
I'm still waiting for greater tools here in Nashvegas and I'm sure you are too in Brisbanevegas or KCVegas or Madridvegas. One self-imposed rule for me, though: less speculation, more production.
Hey, at least the keynote stream should not to bad as this announcement has probably caused more than a few to blow off the keynote now that everyone knows whats going to happen.
Isn't the Ati R300 being released after the expo? And the next gen Nvidia chip soon after that? If the new Powermacs are being announced in august some time that might have something to do with it.
Anyway, the more the new Powermac is delayed the better it'll be when it's released.
<strong>The 2001 G4 733 and the 2002 GHz were available (off the shelf) about two months after they were announced, so whats new, PM in August means delivery in October which means MWSF2003, which means machines in April 2003, etc, etc, etc.....</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not entirely correct. Apple released the 2002 Quicksilvers on January 28, and they were available on demand the day of announcment. You could go down to an Apple Store and buy one that day. I ordered mine online and received it within a week due to unfortunate FedEx scheduling.
Anyway, the more the new Powermac is delayed the better it'll be when it's released.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This seems to be the consensus, but I beg to differ. The later it is released, the more it has a chance of already being outdated upon release. If we finally get DDR 266 when the rest of the industry has moved on to DDR 400, Apple will have missed the boat again.
God, some people are easy to please, but these are, by Apple's definition, pro hardware and as such they need to be on the cutting edge of technology, not barely catching up to the competition's cheapest consumer-level offerings. That's what the iMac is there for.
<strong>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.
But I will say this: If there is no new Powermac hardware I will be *VERY* upset, to say the least. I was upset LAST summer to see a minor update. NO update this MWNY would make me psychotic.
Why? If you know it's in the pipeline, and you know it will be out soon enough, then why does it bother you so much? PC Spec Envy? What is the problem, dude?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Because right now machines are stagnant. I have been using my Beige G3 for 4 years now, the past 2 have been simply being patient and waiting for the "new" G4s to come out. In the past year and a half there have been no major revisions to the G4. And they didn't warrent me spending carefully saved dollars on a new machine only to have it be inadiquate in a year or two.
[quote]<strong>
If he didn't, this would make THREE (3) consecutive Macworlds that no mention of Pro Towers was made. Why would Pros attend if not to see the machines they covet? Does Apple honestly expect Mr I-Don't-care-if-its-an-Apple-or-a-Dell-as-long-as-it-works to come to the expo? Fat chance. They need pros to go, and if they stop introing pro hardware at Macworlds, then I'll have to stop going. Why spend money registering and flying to it just to see and play with the "toys?" I can go to the Apple Store down the road and do that.
So be it. Like I said earlier, people go to Expose for a variety of reasons.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, the expos are Apple's marketing event for all of their products, and to go 3 Macworlds without anouncing (because they couldn't significantly upgrade) a new G4 at each is very dissapointing. The G4 tower, is what keeps Apple alive. The iMac and laptops are by no means profitless, but the tower is what keeps the Apple name competitive. To not anounce and upgrade that is absurd. And people WILL be comming out of the expo dissapointed, much as they did this January. Every one of these rumour sites predicted something, and Apple failed to show much of ANTHING. They fell flat on every count of the rumors, one of the main reasons I believe Apple is shunning rumor sites this time around.
-This is mainly posted to get some of my frustration out. I have been "waiting" for a decently upgraded G4 for almost 2 years now, another month won't hurt, it just pisses me off.
this actually wouldn't surprise me if inventory is as bad as rumors suggest.
i was talkign with a friend the other day, and, when you have a huge backlog of inventory, even if you are sitting on the next great computer that's 700% faster, bigger and better, the day you announce it, you may as well take all those el capitan quicksilver cases and make planters outta them for cupertino's campus, 'cause only those looking for firesale prices would buy 'em.
apple is in a serious bind here, and it's gonna take some wicked spin-control and management to figure out how to get out.
<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did they say that it would be released at that time?
Even MBU have said that they are working on IE6, but it won't be out until next year.
<strong>To not anounce and upgrade that is absurd. And people WILL be comming out of the expo dissapointed, much as they did this January.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Then don't expect to see Power Macs at Macworld Expos - even the first G4 wasn't introduced at a Macworld Expo.
Apple misinformation??? That's a very shady area for a publicly traded company to be in, I don't think so.
The reality is that Apple most likely doesn't have anything of significance. Recent media spats against 'rumors' belie that, they're acting like a company looking for people to blame because, if they really don't have significant updates ready, then they fully expect bad sales numbers to get even worse. An incremental update would at best produce, maybe, a 30-60 day spike in sales, maybe.
They just don't have the hardware technology in place for a high-end (high-priced) professional workstation (which is the price bracket and market of the PM offerings). It's not a question of waiting for the optimum time to release updates and it never has been. The optimum time to release product updates is the moment when cost and availablity permit, period. If new product won't light up the shelves during an economic flat spot, old (over-priced) product certainly won't do it either.
Something is not right with PPC, and Apple is paying dearly for it. PM is well behind. Ti, by nature of design/portability, acquits itself well enough performance wise, but it's too pricey and x86 offerings are slowly pulling away with faster hardware, comparable (perhaps better) build quality, and better pricing.
Xserve suggests that Apple has been readying DDR but can't get a decent pro (aka altivec plus fast FSB) PPC for it.
Mot, very briefly had a 1.1Ghz part listed on their pages, then, inexplicably, it dissapeared. a 1Ghz part was about $300 (it should be lower now), was it so much harder for them to go 1.1 that either the yields were crap (due to design problems a la 7400) or decent but very expensive?
If it's another design problem and NOT a fab problem, then they could be stuck again. Think about it, the 74xx has not transitioned to .13u, even the lowly G3 has managed that feat, could it be that despite the heat/energy advantages of such a move, design problems would limit the ability to produce chips that function much beyond 1Ghz ??? 84xx is on .13u, but the current offering isn't a desktop CPU part. They clearly can do .13u, but they can't seem to do it to 74xx <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> We have both a G3 and a G5 (after a fashion) on a .13u process, but not a G4. Be concerned -- this is a design with a history of stalled development.
Mot has said that G4 would continue to scale, but how far? How fast? And even if it's true the record of what has been SAID and what has been DONE (by both Mot and IBM) remains woefully divergent.
'Nothing good now' in no way points to 'something great later.' It could mean something better than what we have, but something late, and still just as far behind (if not more) the hardware curve.
If my analysis is true, their only hope is to innovate the snot out of consumer offerings and price them more agressively than ever before, possibly with new iDevice additions (iPod has been a neat little money-maker, ya know?) A return to original iMac price points, with 17" models @/under 1999, a beefier eMac spec including combo down to 999. An appliance priced iMacG3, faster iBooks (we know they have 100Mhz to give in their present config, possibly with a 133Mhz FSB -- they can handle up to 200)
And then, somekind of PRO BookE based PPC for the pro machines, possibly later on. It is however quite clear from iMac sales figures and the general mood of macdom buyers/suppliers/journos that it will no longer do to spec consumer offerings below a stagnating pro line-up. All you get from that is poor figures across BOTH line-ups. There's no more such thing as canibalizing, a sale is a sale, and without the appropriate offerings you won't get either the pro or the consumer sale, period.
Comments
The purpose of the Crystal Clear Savings promo is to move monitors, not towers. Getting rid of the old tower inventory is just a bonus.
Hot new Power Macs will ship, if not announced in July, then in August. I am beginning to think that my own estimates may have been a tad on the low side.
The world will not end, the sky will not fall, and the sun will rise. Apple will continue to innovate, and will continue to exist. However, they will operate on a time cycle that is realistic, based upon real world production and development cycles, not the unrealistic expectations or demands of a few less mature followers, who want to be able to argue that their computer is the best. (Best at what????)
As the Register reported last winter, Motorola did begin shipping higher speed G4 7460/7470's last January in volume. That "began" Apple's final development cycle to build boxes around those chips. A reasonable final development and production cycle is 6 months minimum.
Some folks on this board are getting just too paranoid and too depressing. I think I will create a method to dispense vallium digitally, and then hook up IV's to all the rumor boards. This is really getting sad around here.
There is no conspiracy. Apple Computer (which is more than just Steve Jobs) really does have a business plan. That plan is working, even in a tough economy that is hitting all computer makers very hard. The odds of Apple's survival, is much higher than that of several other makers who are on the edge, including AMD.
Oh yeah, one last thing. Sometimes Life isn't fair or predictable. Deal with it!
[ 07-10-2002: Message edited by: Shaktai ]</p>
<strong>Well, Apple left the Powermacs out of MWSF this year because...why? Because they wanted them OUT of the spotlight, because they are so pathetic that Jobs knows the press would hack them to shreds. So again at MWNY, Apple is keeping the Powermacs out of the spotlight, and quietly updating them later.
It could possibly mean that Apple has yet another Powermac update they are embarrased of.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Christ, you are stupid.
But you commit an even worse sin: you are dull, repetitive and boring.
ting5
1. The channel is clogged with stock. (Small chance this is the reason)
2. The new machines NEED Jaguar. This suggests large hardware changes and that can only be good news.
I don't mind waiting a month for new hardware if the changes are going to be significant improvements.
If this was a move by Apple to shift a large inventory of Powermacs then how come this offer has only been re-introduced in the USA? It is not available in the UK or the rest of Europe as of today 10/07 . Not sure for the rest of the world.
The reason why the current Powermac is not shifting is poor global sales for PC's generally plus the small speed bump last time round.
Most people who will be looking to but a Powermac will be holding off until after MWNY whatever offer is available like me. No matter what Apple do it is always the case that sales sag prior to the major shows traditionally. Therefore this new promotion, only available in the USA will not pursuade people to buy Powermacs until after MWNY 'if' no updates are announced and people can't wait another 4 weeks.
If you take the same arguement that announcement of upgrades are linked to promotions then going on the only Powermac offer currently running here there would be an announcement at the beginning of August!:
[quote]
Buy your new Power Mac between May 15th and July 31st, 2002, directly from the Apple Store. See Terms and Conditions <hr></blockquote>
The only 'Hot Deal' for Powermacs available in UK is the trade in your old Mac for up to £240 off.
Also if the iMac price is to be reduced as many say, then the price difference between thte high end 800MHZ G4 iMac and the low end 800MHZ G4 will disappear and with it little reason to but the Powermac G4 800 at all! It only makes sense if either of the following will happen at the same time:
1) Powermac prices for the current range are dropped by a similar amount.
2) Powermac gets speedbump to retain differential to the iMac.
If the iMac gets a 17 inch widescreen at the top end then there is still less reason to buy the low end G4.
Finally Apple need sales. If they have a new G4 case and motherboard model they wioll surely announce it next week even as if so often happens, it only ships 1-2 months later.
Continuing uncertainty about product rnage in Powermacs will only prolong consumer reticence to commit now only to regret the purchase in 4-6 weeks time.
I am sure Apple will announce an upgrade and run promotions on the current range at the same time. Pay a premium for thge new model or make a nice saving on the old.
So let Macworld New York come and go or any other show for that matter. The main thing is the work?how good it is, not the power of the tool creating it, though admittedly good workers craves great tools.
I'm still waiting for greater tools here in Nashvegas and I'm sure you are too in Brisbanevegas or KCVegas or Madridvegas. One self-imposed rule for me, though: less speculation, more production.
-----------------------------------------
Working and Waiting in the mid-South
Anyway, the more the new Powermac is delayed the better it'll be when it's released.
<strong>The 2001 G4 733 and the 2002 GHz were available (off the shelf) about two months after they were announced, so whats new, PM in August means delivery in October which means MWSF2003, which means machines in April 2003, etc, etc, etc.....</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not entirely correct. Apple released the 2002 Quicksilvers on January 28, and they were available on demand the day of announcment. You could go down to an Apple Store and buy one that day. I ordered mine online and received it within a week due to unfortunate FedEx scheduling.
<strong>
Add to the general confusion the info from macbidouille (translated):
"...it is not possible any more to place an order for G4 800, 933 and Bi 1Ghz directly at Apple. These machines are considered as obsolete..."
Any confirmation on that?</strong><hr></blockquote>
7/3 is the last time we received any PowerMacs and no new orders are being placed for those SKUs.
<strong>
Anyway, the more the new Powermac is delayed the better it'll be when it's released.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This seems to be the consensus, but I beg to differ. The later it is released, the more it has a chance of already being outdated upon release. If we finally get DDR 266 when the rest of the industry has moved on to DDR 400, Apple will have missed the boat again.
God, some people are easy to please, but these are, by Apple's definition, pro hardware and as such they need to be on the cutting edge of technology, not barely catching up to the competition's cheapest consumer-level offerings. That's what the iMac is there for.
<strong>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.
[ 07-09-2002: Message edited by: Blizaine ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Or it could mean that there will be two screen sizes on future iMacs and 15" won't be one of them.
<a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1040-942608.html?tag=fd_lede"; target="_blank">http://news.com.com/2100-1040-942608.html?tag=fd_lede</a>;
But I will say this: If there is no new Powermac hardware I will be *VERY* upset, to say the least. I was upset LAST summer to see a minor update. NO update this MWNY would make me psychotic.
Why? If you know it's in the pipeline, and you know it will be out soon enough, then why does it bother you so much? PC Spec Envy? What is the problem, dude?
<hr></blockquote></strong>
Because right now machines are stagnant. I have been using my Beige G3 for 4 years now, the past 2 have been simply being patient and waiting for the "new" G4s to come out. In the past year and a half there have been no major revisions to the G4. And they didn't warrent me spending carefully saved dollars on a new machine only to have it be inadiquate in a year or two.
[quote]<strong>
If he didn't, this would make THREE (3) consecutive Macworlds that no mention of Pro Towers was made. Why would Pros attend if not to see the machines they covet? Does Apple honestly expect Mr I-Don't-care-if-its-an-Apple-or-a-Dell-as-long-as-it-works to come to the expo? Fat chance. They need pros to go, and if they stop introing pro hardware at Macworlds, then I'll have to stop going. Why spend money registering and flying to it just to see and play with the "toys?" I can go to the Apple Store down the road and do that.
So be it. Like I said earlier, people go to Expose for a variety of reasons.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
No, the expos are Apple's marketing event for all of their products, and to go 3 Macworlds without anouncing (because they couldn't significantly upgrade) a new G4 at each is very dissapointing. The G4 tower, is what keeps Apple alive. The iMac and laptops are by no means profitless, but the tower is what keeps the Apple name competitive. To not anounce and upgrade that is absurd. And people WILL be comming out of the expo dissapointed, much as they did this January. Every one of these rumour sites predicted something, and Apple failed to show much of ANTHING. They fell flat on every count of the rumors, one of the main reasons I believe Apple is shunning rumor sites this time around.
-This is mainly posted to get some of my frustration out. I have been "waiting" for a decently upgraded G4 for almost 2 years now, another month won't hurt, it just pisses me off.
i was talkign with a friend the other day, and, when you have a huge backlog of inventory, even if you are sitting on the next great computer that's 700% faster, bigger and better, the day you announce it, you may as well take all those el capitan quicksilver cases and make planters outta them for cupertino's campus, 'cause only those looking for firesale prices would buy 'em.
apple is in a serious bind here, and it's gonna take some wicked spin-control and management to figure out how to get out.
<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did they say that it would be released at that time?
Even MBU have said that they are working on IE6, but it won't be out until next year.
<strong>To not anounce and upgrade that is absurd. And people WILL be comming out of the expo dissapointed, much as they did this January.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Then don't expect to see Power Macs at Macworld Expos - even the first G4 wasn't introduced at a Macworld Expo.
Apple misinformation??? That's a very shady area for a publicly traded company to be in, I don't think so.
The reality is that Apple most likely doesn't have anything of significance. Recent media spats against 'rumors' belie that, they're acting like a company looking for people to blame because, if they really don't have significant updates ready, then they fully expect bad sales numbers to get even worse. An incremental update would at best produce, maybe, a 30-60 day spike in sales, maybe.
They just don't have the hardware technology in place for a high-end (high-priced) professional workstation (which is the price bracket and market of the PM offerings). It's not a question of waiting for the optimum time to release updates and it never has been. The optimum time to release product updates is the moment when cost and availablity permit, period. If new product won't light up the shelves during an economic flat spot, old (over-priced) product certainly won't do it either.
Something is not right with PPC, and Apple is paying dearly for it. PM is well behind. Ti, by nature of design/portability, acquits itself well enough performance wise, but it's too pricey and x86 offerings are slowly pulling away with faster hardware, comparable (perhaps better) build quality, and better pricing.
Xserve suggests that Apple has been readying DDR but can't get a decent pro (aka altivec plus fast FSB) PPC for it.
Mot, very briefly had a 1.1Ghz part listed on their pages, then, inexplicably, it dissapeared. a 1Ghz part was about $300 (it should be lower now), was it so much harder for them to go 1.1 that either the yields were crap (due to design problems a la 7400) or decent but very expensive?
If it's another design problem and NOT a fab problem, then they could be stuck again. Think about it, the 74xx has not transitioned to .13u, even the lowly G3 has managed that feat, could it be that despite the heat/energy advantages of such a move, design problems would limit the ability to produce chips that function much beyond 1Ghz ??? 84xx is on .13u, but the current offering isn't a desktop CPU part. They clearly can do .13u, but they can't seem to do it to 74xx <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> We have both a G3 and a G5 (after a fashion) on a .13u process, but not a G4. Be concerned -- this is a design with a history of stalled development.
Mot has said that G4 would continue to scale, but how far? How fast? And even if it's true the record of what has been SAID and what has been DONE (by both Mot and IBM) remains woefully divergent.
'Nothing good now' in no way points to 'something great later.' It could mean something better than what we have, but something late, and still just as far behind (if not more) the hardware curve.
If my analysis is true, their only hope is to innovate the snot out of consumer offerings and price them more agressively than ever before, possibly with new iDevice additions (iPod has been a neat little money-maker, ya know?) A return to original iMac price points, with 17" models @/under 1999, a beefier eMac spec including combo down to 999. An appliance priced iMacG3, faster iBooks (we know they have 100Mhz to give in their present config, possibly with a 133Mhz FSB -- they can handle up to 200)
And then, somekind of PRO BookE based PPC for the pro machines, possibly later on. It is however quite clear from iMac sales figures and the general mood of macdom buyers/suppliers/journos that it will no longer do to spec consumer offerings below a stagnating pro line-up. All you get from that is poor figures across BOTH line-ups. There's no more such thing as canibalizing, a sale is a sale, and without the appropriate offerings you won't get either the pro or the consumer sale, period.
Let's see what happens.