Apple Unveils New Pro Products 590
porcupine8 writes "As many had speculated, today Apple unveiled upgrades to their PowerBook and Power Mac lines (although no PowerBook G5). They also introduced a new professional photography application known as Aperture, rounding out their software lineup for creative professionals. Can't wait to find out what they announce next week!"
my take on the new PowerMacs (Score:5, Informative)
Things to note:
All nVidia videocards, now -- one of which is a Quadro FX 4500 for $1650. Nice knowin' ya, ATI, don't let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.
"In addition to the 16-lane graphics slot, the Power Mac G5 features three PCI Express expansion slots: two four-lane slots and one eight-lane slot. Each slot uses a standard connector that can accommodate a card of any size."
This mobo has better PCIe support than any other mobo I've heard about, by _far_. Crazy. 2 x4 slots and an x8? The new Fibre Channel Card seems to be an x4 PCIe, which is the first x4 card I've heard of. There are hardly any x1 cards, yet, either, and PCIe has been out quite a while.
Dual gigabit ethernet now, too, instead of just single. (they were just single before, right?)
The optional modem is now an external USB dongle style model, instead of an internal card. The end of an era. Good riddance.
I guess Apple finally stepped into the 'future.'
The bad:
Only SATA '1', no 'SATA2' (no such thing, really, but...).
Still only 2 internal HDs? C'mon - these are supposed to be workstations, Apple. Get with it.
I wants my internal RAID 10!
I'm definitely waiting for the Intel Macs, but for those who are opposed to the idea of an Intel Mac, these machines are about as sweet as one could ask for. The low-end PowerMac is now a 2gHz dual-core G5, which is pretty nice (and meets the recommended specs for their new application, Aperture, as long as you upgrade the hell out of the RAM).
Details (Score:5, Informative)
The new Power Mac G5 [apple.com] highlights include dual core G5 processors [apple.com] (IBM PowerPC 970MP [com.com]), PCI Express [apple.com], DDR2 RAM, and dual gigabit ethernet on all models:
Single 2.0, single 2.3, or dual 2.5 GHz dual-core IBM PowerPC 970MP (G5) processor
1.0, 1.15, or 1.25 GHz frontside bus per processor
512MB PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM, expandable to 16GB
160GB or 250GB Serial ATA drive
16x dual layer CD-RW/DVD+/-RW SuperDrive
Three open PCI Express expansion slots: two four-lane slots and one eight-lane slot
NVIDIA GeForce 6600, 6600 LE, 7800 GT, or Quadro FX 4500 video
Dual gigabit ethernet
USB 2.0, FireWire 400 (IEEE-1394), FireWire 800 (IEEE-1394b)
AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Analog and optical digital audio in and out
Mighty Mouse (Two button scroll mouse)
The new PowerBook [apple.com] highlights include higher resolution screens, longer battery life, and standard SuperDrives:
1.67 GHz Freescale PowerPC 7458[1] (G4) processor, 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM, expandable to 2GB, 80GB or 120GB Ultra ATA/100 drive
8x dual layer CD-RW/DVD+/-RW SuperDrive
1440x960 (15") or 1680x1050 (17") resolution screen
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB DDR SDRAM and dual-link DVI (supports 30" display)
Gigabit ethernet, 56K V.92 modem, PC Card slot
USB 2.0, FireWire 400 (IEEE-1394), FireWire 800 (IEEE-1394b)
AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Illuminated keyboard
Analog and optical digital audio in and out
DVI/VGA/composite/S-Video out
Also new is the amazing pro photography software Aperture [apple.com], as well as new lower pricing on Apple Displays [apple.com].
I might as well send my writeup on last week's announcements as well, since the submission (and discussion) there were really light on info too...
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iMac G5 [apple.com]
A new, even thinner, iMac G5 with an integrated 640x480 iSight camera and integrated media center software called Front Row.
1.9 or 2.1 GHz IBM PowerPC 970fx (G5) processor
512MB PC2-4200 RAM, expandable to 2.5GB
160GB or 250GB Serial ATA drive
8x dual layer CD-RW/DVD+/-RW SuperDrive
ATI Radeon X600 Pro or XT PCI-Express video
Gigabit ethernet, USB 2.0, FireWire 400 (IEEE-1394)
AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
1/8" stereo audio or optical out, 1/8" line in
VGA/composite/S-Video out
Mighty Mouse (Two button scroll mouse)
The inclusion of PCI-Express and PC2-4200 RAM in the new iMac bodes well for the upcoming updates to the Power Macs and PowerBooks.
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Front Row [apple.com]
Media center software currently only included with the iMac G5. Allows for seamless interface with music, movies, movie trailers, pictures, TV shows, and so on via either the iMac's screen or an external screen such as a projector or TV. Includes an infrared remote control. A demonstration of Front Row is available here [apple.com].
It is likely that Front Row will make its way to other products in the near future, such as the Mac mini. It is only available for the iMac G5 "at this time", according to Apple.
The one feature of typical media centers that Front Row does not support is TV recording. But Apple seems to have a different idea for TV shows, as will be seen below. (However, TV recording can be accomplished with a wide variety of third party tuners.)
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iPod (iPod video) [apple.com]
Apple introduced two new iPods to completely replace the existing "larger" iPods. The same height and width as the older i
Aperture info (Score:5, Informative)
Re:my take on the new PowerMacs (Score:1, Informative)
Yes.
It should be noted that..... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apple displays (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmmm, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple displays (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Price? (Score:5, Informative)
Go to the Apple Store [apple.com] and look on the opening page. Near the bottom on the right hand side you'll see a red "Sale" tag. Click that and then scroll down about 2/5 the way down the page.
In general, this is where Apple sells over stock and refurbished machines. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell the difference, but whether refurbished or old stock, they come with the same warrantees. No, they don't really advertise these in proud, bold print accross the front page of the store, as they want to sell new machines, but they're there for the buying, if you know where to look.
Re:my take on the new PowerMacs (Score:5, Informative)
...except that the new iMac, introduced just a week ago, uses ATI Radeon X600 and X600 XT PCI Express graphics.
;-)
They're not all the way out of the door yet.
30" display price drop (Score:3, Informative)
This is the first I heard of it, but when I was going to play around with the new pricing options, I noticed that the 30" display was $2499 instead of 3 grand. I'm pretty sure it was 3 grand a week ago.
Re:The time to buy is now for PowerMac G5 (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It should be noted that..... (Score:3, Informative)
...it's called Sibelius (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Aperture prerequisites (Score:3, Informative)
Either way, I think we're all agreed that Aperture _really_ wants some hefty hardware to do it's thang, which shouldn't be surprising considering how much data it needs to move around to do what it does. Can't wait to try it out at an Apple store when it's released -- the Apple store says shipping in 6-8 weeks.
I'd not want to run this thing on the minimum specs, but I bet one could squeak by pretty easily without the hefty videocard as long as you have the memory and something near the CPU power required (dual 1.8s would likely be more than fine, especially if you have 2GB RAM).
Re:Details (Score:4, Informative)
1.) Get a price adjustment, or
2.) "Return" it, after all it's still within the return period, right? (assuming it is); then, re-buy it
Re:Powerbook Resolution (Score:5, Informative)
Recently, most Apple screens hovered around 100 dpi except for the 14 inch iBook. dpi on monitors continues to increase, and operating systems are having a hard time keeping up. Windows XP and OS X Tiger don't scale overly well currently. Both have the underpinnings to do it, and show signs that Vista/Leopard will do a much better job.
Printers are also widly varried, though a direct dpi compairson can't be made since a computer monitor can display many colors with one pixel, where as a printer is limited to usually 4 or so colors per pixel. More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dpi [wikipedia.org]
Aperture is to Photoshop what FC is to AE (Score:5, Informative)
Aperture is built for the prosumer to professional photographer that laughs at 25,000 photos. I can easily shoot 3000 (and want to keep 500) in a single week at work, but there has never been a good way to DO that.
Aperture helps guys like me because when i shoot, say, 20 shots of a single moment at an event (a la, a football tackle, a guy hoisting a flag, etc) i really don't NEED 20 shots - i just want to get as many as possible so i can look thru the 20, find the best, and then (for some unknown reason) never want to delete the 19 others. iPhoto is a joke for this, of course, because i often could have row after row of pictures that were all pretty identical. I was about to go layout some cache on something to replace my iPhotoBuddy multi-library self organization setup i'm using now.
Instead of manually organizing thousands of photos in dozens of groups, Aperture does it all for me. It also helps out with batch processing that iPhoto+Photoshop couldn't do (because iPhoto does all its organizing in a bunch of weird subfolders) without making mass exports, then deleting the non-edited photos, etc.
Photoshop is still The premiere photo editing tool, but for making my livelihood livable and organized, to be able to grade, select, and throw out pictures (without deleting), to help make simple and fast output for customers to view online or to build USEFUL contact sheets, Aperture will save me untold hours of my life. Photoshop has has some sad organization tools - and the built in browser is just this side of Finder or XP's thumbnail view...
there's no multi-image review with simultaneous panning, no UI benefits from dual screens, no loop zooms on both open images and previews... none of that.
this is serious software - this is probably even a larger, more important jump from iPhoto than Final Cut is from iMovie...
Re:my take on the new PowerMacs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:my take on the new PowerMacs (Score:5, Informative)
Woo. NVidia is making all the cards in the PowerMacs. ATI is still making the graphics chip in the iMacs, the Mac Mini, and all the laptops except the 12 inch Powerbook.
Apple has used products from both sides and continues to do so. Nothing changed here. NVidia lost the iMac, and ATI lost the PowerMac.
Re:No PowerBook G5 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No PowerBook G5 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Aperture info (Score:2, Informative)
b. "With its Spot tool, Aperture provides one-click, nondestructive removal of spots, dust, and blemishes. For more serious anomalies, Aperture packs a Patch tool. It can easily clone pixels from one area to another, and it offers precise controls (for softness, radius, opacity, and angle), letting you create perfect, seamless blends." (http://www.apple.com/aperture/process/ [apple.com])
c. Couldn't find it either
Look at the default metadata categories that it offers - EXIF, IPTC, Photo Specs, Photojournalism, Stock Metadata, Wedding. It looks like Apple is aiming at the photographer who goes back to the hotel after a day of shooting, chooses his 80-90 shots he wants, does quick touch-ups on a dozen or so and sends them off to an editor or wire service to pick which one to run. It can be Photoshopped later if it needs to be.
Optical audio out! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:...it's called Sibelius (Score:2, Informative)
With that being said, I agree that finale is a mess sometimes. I really just wish they wouldn't push themselves for a yearly release. 2005b was in my experience the most stable finale release in some time, and another bug fix upgrade this year would have made it even better. Instead, they send out finale 2006 disks that erase your application support folder. Goodbye, address book! Plus heaps of bugs - it's faster overall, but until they come out with 2006a I'm back to using 2k5.
P.
Re:Powerbook Resolution (Score:5, Informative)
Let's get some terminology straight beforehand
pixel = smallest uniquely controllable element on a screen
point = unit for font measurement
dot = smallest uniquely controllable visual element of anything (printer, screen, etc.)
inch = unit for linear measurement; equal to 2.54cm
The original Mac was designed so that 1pixel=1dot=1point=1/72 of an inch. Software, displays, and printers all agreed to this. Worked well in '84.
Today, on, say, a 12" PowerBook, 1pixel=1point=1/106 of an inch on the screen.
But in the software, 1pixel=1point=1/72". Still. To this day.
The difference between 1/106 and 1/72 is exactly the problem that the resolution-independent UIs in Leopard/Vista are attempting to solve.
Re:Loving the Dual Core Hype (Score:4, Informative)
http://media.99mac.se/g5_dualcore/ [99mac.se]
Re:Aperture info (Score:2, Informative)
Tech specs: http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs.html [apple.com]
Quicktime tours: http://www.apple.com/aperture/quicktours/ [apple.com]
Screenshots: http://www.apple.com/aperture/gallery/ [apple.com]
It looks like the answers might be:
a) no (I don't see any evidence of overlays. For experimenting, instead of working on a layer it just keeps every version you've created, like a version-control system)
b) yes (Dust, spot, blemish, red-eye, patch tools, and Lift and Stamp tool to copy and paste adjustments)
c) Doesn't say, but they definitely are pushing the RAW support hard, so probably yes
It looks like the real power of this app is workflow, not necessarily per-image features. The "stacking", tools, loupe, "lightboard" UI, integration with Automator (MacOS X's system-wide scripting), and similar attention to workflow issues. The Automator support seems like it could be especially interesting, since you can control many applications and integrate them with a Aperture workflow, and create a single script for photo operations, file, network transfer, searches, etc.
It seems more like an iPhoto-on-steroids, and something you'd want to add to a Photoshop-like app, rather than something that could replace the creative content creation apps.
Re:Apple displays (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Price? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Aperture prerequisites (Score:2, Informative)
Re: 30" display price drop (Score:2, Informative)
They did. From AppleInsider:
Apple reduces Cinema Display pricing
Oct 19 - 3:00 pm EST Along with the introduction of new PowerBooks and Power Macs on Wednesday, Apple reduced pricing on its Cinema Display line [apple.com], lowering the cost of the 23-inch model by $200 and the 30-inch version by $500. The 23-inch model now costs $1300 and sports a native resolution of 1920 x 1200. The 30-inch display -- which requires an ATI Radeon 9650, Radeon X850 XT or NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT DDL Card -- now sells for $2500. The 30-inch model has a resolution of 2560 x 1600. No changes were made to the company's 20-inch display, which sells for $800 and offers a 1680 x 1050 optimal resolution. All three displays are VESA mount compatible and feature 2 USB ports and 2 FireWire 400 ports.
Re:Loving the Dual Core Hype (Score:5, Informative)
It's not particularly hard as an Apple developer to take advantage of highly optimized and MP-aware code. Apple provides a very cool framework on every mac called "Accelerate.framework" (you can find it in /System/Library/Frameworks). This framework is very easy to use (from a C standpoint) compared to competitors and offers MP-aware, Altivec-Aware code. What's even wilder is that on the intel macs, apple can bind Accelerate.framework in the same way. Using this framework, you can make fast code and reduce migration woes.
Far from being a weird apple invention, Apple basically optimized BLAS and LINPACK very tightly to the Mac OS X platform and then exposed via C-apis. They also built some higher level manipulations (as well as part of CoreImage and CoreAudio, from my understanding) on top of these basis, along with other heavily-optimized-and-profiled utilities.
Re:Apple displays (Score:5, Informative)
You ought to be able to get a PC videocard with a DVI connector without too much difficulty.
If you go the 30" route, you'll need a special videocard... specifically one with "Dual-Link DVI" which basically means a newish nVidia Quadro, any ATi X1x00 series, or any newish FireGL. Check the specific model to be sure. This limitation applies to any monitor that gets above about 2048x1536 (I think that's the number)... it's a bandwidth issue.
If you're going 20" or 23" might I recommend at least considering the Dell 2005FPW (20") and 2405FPW (24").
As best I can tell, the panels are equivalent. They both have the same resolutions 20" = 1680x1050, 23 or 24" = 1920x1200. I can't tell if one has a better image than the other -- they look the same to me. Others will surely disagree.
But the Dells are cheaper. They start at $699 and $1199 instead of $799 and $1299. But, you can usually (such as right now) get nice discounts on the Dell...
DealMeIn.net has the 20" at $394 after a bunch of coupons right now. Until yesterday they had coupons to make the 24" $774, but that seems to have expired... it'll be back at some point.
Of course, Apple's pretty silver frame and stand is cooler than Dell's black one. But then, the power button on the Dell monitor turns off the monitor, whereas the power button on the Apple monitor confusingly turns off the computer it's connected to without turning off the monitor. (That may or may not happen on a PC... but it sure does on our powermac!)
Up to you, but these days I think the Dell is just as good for much less... anyway, hope I was helpful.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Powerbook Resolution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple displays (Score:2, Informative)
Open the Display preferences (Under System Preferences) and select the options, you can have it just turn off the monitor if you want.
Re:Loving the Dual Core Hype (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Next Week (Score:2, Informative)
Use a Folder Action Script to automagically add and delete stuff from iTunes if you want "watched folders". Go here for some documentation. [apple.com]
Re:Powerbook Resolution (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Aperture info (Score:4, Informative)
First off, comparing it to picasa is heresy. The target audiences are COMPLETELY different, and Picasa lacks many of the features geared twoard pro photographers. The tools for comparing several shots at once is definitely a boon to pro photographers as is the speed at which the program operates.
This program is not meant to replace photoshop by any means. Apple openly acknowledges that PS is the king of image post-processing. aperture is inttended to work alongside photoshop as a means of processing RAW images. The type of manipulations that are performed while in RAW are completely different than those that you'd normally use in a program like photoshop or picasa. Cloning/healing/patch are distinctly post-processing operations that modify the content of the image itself. What aperture does is modify the manner in which the image is diasplayed (ie. it changes how it interprets sensor data to boost saturation, exposure, reduce noise, etc.).
It can be compared most easily to Adobe Bridge or Camera RAW. Camera RAW works fairly nicely with photoshop for processing small batches of images, but is cumbersome for processing large jobs. Bridge is a complement to camera RAW in that it provides an interface for organizing photos ala. iPhoto. What aperture aims to do is to intergrate the two into one seamless program. Many pro photographers use iPhoto and the likes to organize photos, simply because it's very easy to use despite lacking some major features.
By non-destructive, I'm pretty sure apple means that they save a set of 'instructions' as to how you've modified the photo, instead of modifying the photo itself.
I'm not saying the proram is any good. I've never used it, and I don't think anyone else here has. All I'm saying is that it looks fairly unique thus far. There's really nothing quite like it on the market (save for some of the super-high-end tools from extensis and the like)
I predict that apple's next move will be to expand aperture or add another program to compete directly with photoshop. You can tell apple's nervious of adobe's loyalty to their platform. As much as I love Photoshop, I'd love to see some real competition.
Save some money and take a look at Photo Mechanic (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.camerabits.com/pages/PM4.html [camerabits.com]
And it's a lot less expensive than Aperture, especially if you take the ridiculous system requirements for Aperture into account.
iPhoto is terrible for this sort of work compared to software like Photo Mechanic, Extensis Portfolio, iView Media Pro, etc.
Re:my take on the new PowerMacs (Score:3, Informative)
There's a lot of PCI cards still in use for pro-audio work -- all the "big" Pro Tools systems run off PCI, for a start -- not to mention accelerators like UAD-1, Powercore etc.. if Magma (or somebody) don't come out with a PCIe-to-PCI bridge and external enclosure, these things won't fly for pro audio.
Re:QuadG5 power user questions... (Score:3, Informative)
Alias updated their qualified hardware list, the document is dated Oct 4 but only appeared online today (Oct 20) so they've obviously been testing these machines internally for a while now.
Maya 7 now officially supports all the new Macs, and the nVidia 6600 and FX 4500. BUT there is no word on the 7800 yet. I called Alias tech support and they said that the quad processors are "supported but not optimized" whatever that means. I pressed them on the issue, they said they'd research it and get back to me. I suspect that this means that they still only support 2 processors and that Maya will run on a quad-G5 but with no speed advantage for the extra processors. But I can only guess at this, until I get better info.
I think we're going to get a lot of this sort of waffling until the quad G5s get into developer hands, although it is not a good sign when a developer obviously HAS the machines and has tested them but hasn't publicly committed to 4 processor support. And this is the crux of the issue, are developers going to support these last-generation quad-G5s or are they going to skip over them and put their resources into preparing for the Intel macs? It would be a shame if they didn't support the quads, as the performance looks like it will beat anything on the market. I guess time will tell. And there's not much time left on the G5s, so this could be a problem.