nVidia Strikes Deal With Apple 100
Stefan MacGeek writes: "Nvidia, the manufacturer for 3D graphics chips has closed an OEM deal with Apple. Future Macs will use Nvidia graphics chips.
Nvidia has recently presented the GeForce 2 MX, their first chip suitable for use in Macs. It is not yet known if Nvidia will take over as Apple's main supplier of graphics chips from ATI. Source: The German computer news site Heise " Here's a link to the story itself, und wenn Sie Deutsch nicht können, continue your scavenger hunt at Babelfish. This sounds great for Macs and their users. One thing to keep in mind though: the article cautions that it's unclear whether nVidia chips will be installed as full-fledged video cards, or integrated as in previous Macintosh models. [Updated 8 July 3:00GMT by timothy] An alert Bethor points to this MacCentral story in which Nvidia denies the whole thing, claiming that such news is at least months in the future.
Appropriate (Score:2)
Re:NVidia goin schitzo on us?! (Score:1)
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Re:Why do they pick names like that? (Score:3)
Just because North America was (invaded? re-settled?) by people who were kicked out of England because their religious views were too strict doesn't mean that everything here is pervaded by religion.
Assuming that that was indeed the intent (which seems likely) then it seems likely that they wanted that association, as in, this is the card/company to envy. After all, they've been doing some useful things here that 3dfx hasn't been able to match - And don't even talk to me about S3 or ATI, though S3 Savage4Max is actually a halfway decent chip, unlike anything ATI has to offer. S3 can also almost manage to write drivers properly.
In other words, nvidia is the big kid on the block, at least for the moment. They want to get that point across in as many ways as possible. They are definitely the company to beat at the moment.
Deniance (Score:1)
envidia: The perfect name (Score:1)
Will Macs take over? (Score:1)
Re:How long until this gets into new macs? (Score:1)
iMovie needs ATI h'ware acceleration (Score:1)
Re:Helping Individuals and Organizations Succeed (Score:1)
Mike Kerley is another beneficiary of IT study. He leveraged Microsoft training to transition from his role as a file supervisor in a law office to a new career as an IT consultant. Mike regularly flexes his new knowledge in the vast realm of end-user support utilizing advanced terminology like "Ummm, I think ya need to re-boot that" and "It could be your caps-lock key". He has learned to wiggle printer cables, change ribbons, and lick the ends of RJ45 jacks to get them to talk. It's people like Mike that make up the IT infrastructure that holds it all together. We at spam central salute you Mike.
Re:iMac (Score:1)
Rev A iMacs had the mezzanine slot, which is what all those cards (there was SCSI, serial, and of course the Voodoo2) used. They removed it either on Rev B or shortly after Rev B was released.
You can actually attach a mezzanine slot yourself to everything up to 333Mhz iMac (Rev D). They didn't redesign the motherboard, just dropped the connector from the assembly. So buy it yourself, solder it on, and voila, you can have a Rage Pro + Voodoo2. Just, uh, make sure you have the necessary skill level.
Re:Dual head display for one (NS) (Score:1)
Though when it shipped various other companies (at least Matrox) were touting their PC cards, though they hadn't shipped yet.
Actually there may have been a Radius card back in NuBus days too... they were always doing wacky crap...
Or Apple could make it (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Well then, maybe you can explain to me why it is that the open source community gives Apple such an easy ride
That's a joke, right?
P.
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1, Offtopic)
by um... Lucas (lk@caralis.com) on Saturday July 08, @07:49AM PST (#42)
Certainly me and um...Lucas there aren't in agreement in our positions, but he certainly isn't anywhere near off-topic. This thread is about the relative importance of this announcement, even if the announcement is itself a little off.
Re:Is the GeForce really that better? (Score:1)
On my imac, with quake 3, i turn all the grafx completely down and run in 640x480. I usually get around 30fps (average), which is kinda playable, but it also looks terrible. (the rage 128 16bit color is so dithered and disgusting it usually makes me want to kill myself).
on my pc, quake 3 rarely drops below ninety frames a second, and i have ALL the grafx turned ALL the way up, and running in 800x600.
so to answer your question, yes, you are missing a lot. Apple needs to get rid of the disease that ATI is, and put nVidia chips in all their machines. ATI is even more pathetic than 3dfx, and that's pretty damn pathetic.
I knew this would happen... (Score:1)
-={(.Y.)}=-
Re:What's going on here? (Score:1)
Not that this applies to all union people, but I've had some - er - bad experiences...
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Trivial and widely available stuff. In fact, my Super 7 computer I put together in April '99 has 100mhz SDRAM, just like the latest Apple G4s. It has UDMA 33, just like the latest G4's, it has an Nvidia graphics card, which will blow away the G4s, even WITH the holy grail AltaVec. And it is only a trailing-edge super 7 system. What a Joke! Do you work at Apple? Hi-tek my fanny!
Translation: Not only can I not get the product name right, but I'll confuse the bumbling, ill-managed pre-Jobs Apple with the focussed, tightly-run Apple of today. They're still "beleaguered", aren't they?
OK, so you DO work at Apple. Apple needs to quicken their step a bit. They need to RELEASE that set-top box and look at more than their current safe products. They are behind the tek curve big time. They still, however, exclusively bundle that crappy ATI video card with their top-end G4s, and will not unbundle it, so Matrix clearly sees the light that very few are going to throw away their bundled video card to replace it with a G400.
A 38% year-over-year growth in units shipped? What's that?
Unfortunately, it is less than 5% of the market. Motorola needs a larger return on investment in order to justify the effort needed to pump up the G4 to competitive levels. Still don't believe me? Just stick around and watch.
I heard CompUSA, Sears, and other Mac retailers absolutely hate Apple!
Best Buy hates Apple. But my point was for YOU to try and sell Apples. Don't think you qualify? Nobody does anymore, except your bloated big corporate mega-stores.
blessings,
Re:Why do they pick names like that? (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:2)
The only reason apple killed off the clones was because the clones quite simply were not doing anything to expand the market. After years of hearing "If only they'ed allow clones, the cloners could go after the market segments that apple can't reach", so they opened up, licensed a few cloners, and then sat back for a year and a half and watched them gobble up their core markets. Since they didn't have to pay any R&D, they could undercut Apple and decided that was the easiest way to make money.
Before then, during then, and since then, Apple continutes to be one of the most trully innovative companies around. In general, if you sit back and watch, where Apple goes, the rest of the industry follows within a year or so... Now if apple wasn't there, who'd take the lead? Microsoft? no. There aren't any other contenders.
And as for the not-invented here syndrom... witness PCI, SDRAM, IDE drives, AGP, USB, etc. About the only real difference between mac hardware and PC hardware is the CPU and the chipset.
Rumors against ATI? (Score:1)
Is it another rumor to push down ATI's share price?
My opinion is, ATI is not the company producing the fastest graphic chips, but a company producing the most cost-effective graphic chips, and good in marketing to OEM. They suck in marketing their own company though, always affected by rumor.
NVIDIA only makes chips!!! (Score:1)
Re:Apple is doing good lately... (Score:1)
blessings,
Re:Why do they pick names like that? (Score:1)
Re:ot-ish: converting to the mac... (Score:1)
Not true? Then what about... (Score:1)
It's secure, but note the realm that it's in - /marketing/oem/. I'd say that this pretty much lends credence to the rumors that Apple has struck a deal with nVidia.
-asy
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
The clones were faster and cheaper, because they took apple designed hardware and software, used cheaper components and cases, and were able to use the faster chips earlier because they were selling in smaller quantities. That isn't open competition, and it wasn't a good idea. If Apple hadn't quit licensing the clones, they would be gone, and there would be no Mac platform at all. But maybe that's what you wanted.
Okay, so what was the last major innovation to come out of Apple? The over-bloated Quicktime format? See thru cases? What exactly have they innovated in the last 5 years? They did do up a spec for Firewire, then demanded licensing fees that pretty much assured little in the way of industry support.
Firewire is a pretty good example, and those licensing fees are now gone. (Which didn't go straight to Apple in the first place, but a consortium of firewire developers). And the iMac was a lot more than a see-through case - it was the first real legacy-free PC. Why is it the PC world can't get rid of ISA slots and serial ports? How about making wireless networking standard on every computer they make? And USB would still suck if it weren't for Apple creating the market by making it the only way to add peripherals to the iMac. Innovation is more than just creating a new technology.
They've got a GUI that's integrating Win95 features into it and call it innovating.
Which Win95 features are you speaking of? Contextual menus? That's the only thing I can think of. The Win95 task bar is basically the apple menu + a window bar, and I personally prefer the application menu on the MacOS. If you think that the dock in OS X is a ripoff of the task bar, you're a bit off - the dock existed in NeXTSTEP long before Win95, and Win95 got a lot of its stuff from there.
Can you get any more closed than Apple?
Have you checked out http://www.publicsource.apple.com [apple.com]? They are opening up a lot - the entire core of OS X is public source, and in a live CVS repository, as well as a cool crossplatform networking library, and their streaming video server. Don't tell me that this is their obligation because of the BSD heritage - the BSD license allows you to close the source, and the NeXT stuff was all closed.
Apple is a much different company now. Pretty much the entire board of directors has been replaced, and most of their upper management came from NeXT. I think you need to get over stuff from the past, and look at what they are doing today.
Re:Why do they pick names like that? (Score:1)
As in "We envision ourselves becoming Apple's chip provider"
Re:I don't like them. (Score:2)
But just think of ATI's fortunes suddenly turning if Apple switched to Nvidia for all their computers! Suddenly, ATI has ZERO market for their overpriced Mac cards. I've been watching 3dfx getting their toes wet with MacOS drivers for their cards, but with Apple bundling a card with every Mac, they won't continue developing their drivers for very long. Matrix was in the Mac video card game for a while (up to Millennium II), but dropped development when Apple did their exclusive bundling agreement.
Apple sealed their long-term fate in the desktop computer business when they killed the clones. They had warehouses of unsold (excellent but overbuilt and overpriced) 6500s. So for the short term, they kept more factories open, kept the price for Macs up and sold their 6500s, but long term they lost too much market share for them to be viable in the future.
Apple is at the mercy of Motorola for their G4. The economies of scale prevent this chip from competing with the I86s and Athlons. Motorola can't scale the mhz up on it given the volumne of sales.
So instead of Apple selling their high-end machines, and many clone companies selling many other Macs, AND APPLE SELLING MANY MORE COPIES OF ITS OS FOR $99 A POP, Apple is selling very few computers at a high profit margin, and very few copies of its OS at $99 a pop.
If any folks out there think Apple isn't greedy and arrogant, just try and become an Apple reseller!
blessings,
Video on the Logic Board vs. Graphics Card (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
I think we're stuck on this one. Of course, anyone can take a design that Apple made and do it cheaper, because they don't need to pay all the money that goes into Apple's R&D budget. If those companies had to actually go through all the steps that apple did in the first place, and finance it, they would have lost their "cheaper" advantage quickly.
As far as faster goes, yes they were faster, too. Apple's flaw in that category was that they were much bigger than the cloners and had suffered numerous supply shortages. Since the cloners had smaller markets, they could bring out faster systems than apple because they weren't expected to be able to satisfy the entire demand.
Okay, so what was the last major innovation to come out of Apple? The over-bloated Quicktime format? See thru cases? What exactly have they innovated in the last 5 years? They did do up a spec for Firewire, then demanded licensing fees that pretty much assured little in the way of industry support.
Like them or not, Apple was the one that introduced people to the idea that computers didn't need to be big boxes hidden under desks. Most of slashdot thinks it's absurd that anyone would want a colored computer, but the rest of the world obviously didn't. Witness the rush to knock-off the iMac's design. The second wave of iMac inspiration is arriving now with the so-called "legacy free" PC's. With their stylish casing, USB only expansion, and lack of floppy drives, etc they're obviously derived from the iMac original spirit.
The over-bloated Quicktime format?
I'd definetly NOT consider QuickTime to be bloated... Sorenson video is one of the most compact codec's available. Their player is without a doubt bloated, but that's hardly a file format. Anyone else can make a quicktime player, if they so desired.
They've got a GUI that's integrating Win95 features into it and call it innovating.
Windows 95 crudely stole from the Mac, so it's only fair that Apple take back some of the features that Microsoft actually got right, don't you think? Past that, I haven't played with OS X yet, so i can't say for sure, but from the screenshots and reviews I've read of it's interface, it's bringing an elegance that every other GUI is missing... Alpha channel support, anti-aliasing, etc... those aren't innovations, granted, but it's about time that they made their way into GUI's, since the average CPU spends so much of it's time idle anyways.
They've got this beautiful G4 processor that
Motorola provided them, and the darn things still run slower than an equivalent PIII with NT on them.
I've never heard that one before. G4's simply blow "speedier" Pentiums from the water. I guess you haven't used a Mac recently, or else you'd know. But of course you haven't, since you hate them so much.
The one time lead in graphics processing is LONG gone due to some really great cards on the PC side.
Tell that to the pre-press industry. Where's the color management in Windows or Linux? Non existant. Where's it in the Mac? ColorSync.
The network stack sucks, and won't talk to anything other than other Macs on a LAN without glitchy 3rd party support. Until OS X hits the streets you sure wouldn't want to use one as a server
even when OS X hits the streets, you still won't want to use one as a server. Mac's are CONSUMER platforms. Yes, the innards will be based on unix, but that's all. The Mac is all about making computing easier for users, not serving up lots of web pages.
even OS X has to rely upon FreeBSD's inovations.
Which innovations are those? It doesn't use a BSD kernel, just a BSD personality on top of the Mach kernel. Besides which, I'd hardly consider BSD, Linux, or any other Unix variant to be an innovative platform. The reason they're so stable is because they DON'T innovate. Take that in the most positive sense that you can, slashdot
I've also noticed that these true inovations have come from a far more open platform than Apple.
Make up your mind. First you bash Apple for having a not-invented-here problem, then I point out that they have indeed transitioned to basically industry standard parts, and then you bash them for using those parts? That makes no sense.
My original question still stands. Why is it that the open source community continues to think so fondly of a truly closed source mind set? Can you get any more closed than Apple?
Even without being as open as you'd like them to be, Apple really does fuel the industry with ideas, which is why they're liked around here, I think. If it's colored cases, cool UI's, or taking advantage of new hardware, Apple provides a vision that no one else possesses. They might not have the right ethics for the community, but they have a heart that everyone still endears themselves to.
Re:How long until this gets into new macs? (Score:3)
But there is no chance that NVidia products will be in the new boxes for at least four months (that is assuming the they have been secretly working with Apple behind the scenes already). NVidea just this week announced that their new MX cards (the only ones that would make sense) are hardware compatible with Macs (has to do with the color space... Microsoft made the wrong decision all those years ago, and went proprietary), they still do not have final drivers.
What I hope that will be announced at the keynote on this subjects is that the Apple store will start offering third party graphics cards (read: not ATI) as Build-To-Order options on the G4. This might be only as additional cards, or might (fingers crossed) be as replacements to the primary card. A simmilar option on the iMac is unlikely, as it would require that Apple move the graphics chip off the motherboard and onto its own PSB. This costs money, and how many of you already complain about $950 for a nice computer including monitor?
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Like them or not, Apple was the one that introduced people to the idea that computers didn't need to be big boxes hidden under desks. Most of slashdot thinks it's absurd that anyone would want a colored computer, but the rest of the world obviously didn't. Witness the rush to knock-off the iMac's design. The second wave of iMac inspiration is arriving now with the so-called "legacy free" PC's. With their stylish casing, USB only expansion, and lack of floppy drives, etc they're obviously derived from the iMac original spirit.
You can't be serious. I ask for a single innovation from Apple and the best you can come up with is making the case a fashion statement? This is market leadership in the computer industry? You're right, you'd never get such innovative ideas as grape, cherry, and tangerine out of Linux or Microsoft folks. Oh God, where would we be without Apple's leadership!?
I think we're stuck on this one. Of course, anyone can take a design that Apple made and do it cheaper, because they don't need to pay all the money that goes into Apple's R&D budget. If those companies had to actually go through all the steps that apple did in the first place, and finance it, they would have lost their "cheaper" advantage quickly.
By the very same logic we'd still be in the way back days of name brand only computers, with companies like Apple "telling" us what we need. Innovation through complete control of the platform. Again, if this were Microsoft we were talking about folks would be up in arms! Thankfully, Apple has proven themselves repeatedly to be incapable of actually taking any real market share.
There's a lot of folks here who feel very strongly about the concept of open source software. Oddly enough, I'm not exactly one of them. I consider myself a supporter, but that's the extent of my feelings for it. What I truly believe is critical to the future of the computer industry is the continuation of an open hardware platform where a number of different vendors can compete on their merits. Thousands of companies rely upon this model, as does the open source movement. Apple's entire business model is wrapped around this closed architecture, now matter what tid bits of software they may let loose. Apple does what's good for Apple, and if it means destroying a couple of dozen upstart companies what's the big deal right?
Hey, is anyone keeping tabs on how many companies Microsoft has spurred into existance and how many they've bullied out? I'd love to see how that compares to the same numbers for Apple.
If there was value to having Apple around the computer industry still yet, the entire industry would be enjoying their innovations. The truth is, other than flavors and forgetting to install a floppy drive, they have been lagging the PC platform for years now. Heck, would they even exist still if it weren't for Microsoft and Adobe supplying them with applications?
Re:Dual head display for one (NS) (Score:1)
Re:What Apple should do with NVidia (Score:1)
Re:Here's the proof (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
The clones were faster and cheaper, because they took apple designed hardware and software, used cheaper components and cases, and were able to use the faster chips earlier because they were selling in smaller quantities. That isn't open competition, and it wasn't a good idea. If Apple hadn't quit licensing the clones, they would be gone, and there would be no Mac platform at all. But maybe that's what you wanted.
That's just plain silly to say that had the 3rd party clone makers continued that there would be no Mac platform. By your logic, if IBM didn't continue to make the PC it wouldn't exist as a platform either. As we can obviously see, not only did the PC continue on, but it innovated at a rate far greater than what IBM would have been able to do alone. We had thousands of businesses employing millions of people created from opening that platform. Perhaps Apple wouldn't be able to compete in such an open market, as IBM found it couldn't. Big freaking deal, I couldn't care less about whether the big player continues to retain complete control over everything. Getting IBM away from the PC opened it way up to innovation they couldn't keep up with, just like Apple found out when they opened up. They couldn't compete, so instead they slammed the lid down on these companies that were taking the ball and really running with it.
In the end game, an open platform is great for the consumer, and the economy as a whole. A closed system is only good for the one that controls it.
And USB would still suck if it weren't for Apple creating the market by making it the only way to add peripherals to the iMac. Innovation is more than just creating a new technology.
USB was devleoped primarily by Intel and Microsoft, and whether or not it came in a cherry flavored package, we would be seeing this come to market anyhow. Innovation is more than just cutesy marketing.
Apple is a much different company now. Pretty much the entire board of directors has been replaced, and most of their upper management came from NeXT.
Great to hear it. So I suppose this means that identical hardware on the Mac platform will no longer be 1/3 more expensive than PC hardware. Gone are the days of price gouging their monopoly on the Motorola platform? Cool! You might make me a fan of that egomaniac Jobs yet.
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Is it? Think about what the reaction would be in Slashdot if the story that was posted was about Microsoft striking a deal with some OEM to bundle some hardware for them. Guarantee about half the postings would be theories on how MS is gunning for some other little company. If you hang around here any length of time you know what I'm talking about.
Furthermore, something along the lines of MS doing something with another company most likely wouldn't even have been posted on here. How many "Microsoft is doing something neat" stories do you see floating around here?
Apple gets into a possible deal with a vendor to supply video cards to their closed architecture, and the ooos, and ahhs kick into start with. Then the thread starts talking about the article itself. An MS article would have someone saying, "Everything they make is sh*t anyway, who cares?". There is an extreme difference in how one monopoly is treated versus the other.
Short answer, not a joke.
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
?
let's see...they make a bunch of fundamentally ordinary PCs (clear casing aside), which sell for inflated prices, bundled with a hopelessly obsolete operating system that would have been tossed out years ago if not for epic scale incompetence and stupidity on behalf of apple's management
hardware performance is consistently oversold, almost to the point of blatantly lying about it. as for innovation, the majority of apple's core hardware technology has been 'borrowed' from the intel world...PCI, USB, IDE, AGP...even that piece of shit ATI graphics controller chip.
this might all be OK if the goddamned things didn't cost about $1000 more than they're worth, and if steve jobs had his mouth stitched shut before each apple product launch.
thank you.
Re:Is the GeForce really that better? (Score:1)
UT runs great on my Powerbook G3 (with a Rage 128), so does Q3... and im sure it runs even better on a G4 desktop. Am I really missing something besides pretty benchmark numbers?
'King oath you are. You get at least twice the frame-rate for most apps going from a rage 128, and you lose the "snow" effect these cards have. I have one in my Inspiron 7500 and while it's great for a laptop, it ain't serious gaming material.
GfunknVidia == envious (Score:1)
Sounds right to me. Especially in light of this story. nVidia doesn't really need Apple as a customer, especially with the XBox sitting in their lap. But who's nVidia's #1 competitor? 3dfx. And they've been making lots of big claims about Mac support the past few months. It's mostly vapor, but enough to ire the folks at nVidia enough to make them want to do somehting to trump their archrivals.
But is it lucky? [penny-arcade.com]
Re:Is the GeForce really that better? (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:3)
Hooray for Pokey! (Score:1)
NVidia deal with Apple (Score:2)
This confirms Xbox!= game box, Xbox=Imac killer (Score:2)
1) Bring it home.
2) Plug it in.
3) Make it work.
Yes micros~1 is blabbing about games, but the box can run any software including a dialer and a browser.
___
Not true... (Score:2)
Re:Not true... (Score:1)
More information (Score:2)
How long until this gets into new macs? (Score:3)
Integrated? (Score:2)
Is the GeForce really that better? (Score:2)
Re:This confirms Xbox!= game box, Xbox=Imac killer (Score:1)
2) Plug it in.
3) Make it work
I've usually just ignored X-BOX comments and threads... but all I have to say is how many people are actually going to purchase an X-BOX? I've asked ALL of my friends wether or not they're going to, and all of them are for PS2. Who's going to want a system with little games when they could play ALL of their PSX titles on the PS2...
Oh welps... I learn more by not just plugging it and and making it work, but mainstream public wont. They'll just get aggrivated.
Here's food for thought... You think nVidia already has a deal with Apple, they're just shushing it until the X-Box is fully developed? nVidida is making out like a bandit if you think about it. Default card in the apple's, and their chipset in the X-Box. They're milking it from both companys.
Re:This confirms Xbox!= game box, Xbox=Imac killer (Score:4)
Re:Why do they pick names like that? (Score:1)
What Apple should do with NVidia (Score:2)
Re:Is the GeForce really that better? (Score:1)
ULTRIX!!!
P.S. Linux really sucks. No, seriously dude... IT REALLY BLOWS
Re:NVidia deal with Apple (Score:1)
Re:Apple is doing good lately... (Score:1)
Am I? Kind of funny I used my girlfriends computer to make an easy e-mail account. I'm known on /. as another username. Heh.
Thanks for making an ass out of yourself.
"This cat Shaft is a bad mother.." not "This cat shaft is a bad mother..."
Thanks for picking that out. I made a mistake. I'll admit to it. I forgot to read. Thanks for flaming it to make a point, when you could've used a constructive comment.
heh.
Re:ot-ish: converting to the mac... (Score:1)
My recomendation would be to find one of the old IXMicro TurboTV cards.. I relly like mine, and the picture is better than on my ATI RagePro TV viewer (I don't have the external pod verison, so I can't speak there either).
Re:This confirms Xbox!= game box, Xbox=Imac killer (Score:1)
NVidia goin schitzo on us?! (Score:1)
Re:Integrated? (Score:1)
Yes, they also have replaceable video cards. But, speaking from experience (I'm an AppleCare Certified Technician), I'd just like to say: "Replaceable yes, easy, no."
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Because with such a large market of people with all sorts of different needs, there's going to be many, many people out there with legacy peripherals. I still need a serial port to link my PC and my HP48 calculator.
Bull. USB took so long to take off in the PC market because there was no decent support for it until Windows 98. Sure, Win95 OSR2 had the USB supplement, but it was hard to find if it didn't come with your PC and OSR2 wasn't available on the shelves.
Re:Hooray for Pokey! (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Re:iMac (Score:1)
Re:This confirms Xbox!= game box, Xbox=Imac killer (Score:1)
This is a huge mistake!! (Score:2)
ATI has a long history of claiming obscene numbers for it's new cards and then delivering a mere fraction. Apple does the same thing with its PPC processors. The "g4 as supercomputer" is pretty comic as was the "100 MHz 604 will achieve 160 SPECint92".
On the good side, both Apple and ATI deliver excellent products for the casual user. The companies are really quite similar. I just wish they'd both stop claiming that their products compete well (at all) with high end hardware.
--Shoeboy
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Translation: I know squat about actual, currently shipping Apple products, but based on my 5 minutes with a Quadra years ago, I'll make sweeping generalizations. What are these USB & FireWire things people are talking about? Isn't that 70s technology? DVD-RAM? AltiVec? Positively neanderthal!
I've been watching 3dfx getting their toes wet with MacOS drivers for their cards, but with Apple bundling a card with every Mac, they won't continue developing their drivers for very long.
Translation: though second-guessing Apple's plans with simplistic assumptions has proven wildly off target every single time, I can safely say that 3dfx's public announcements about Mac support and this whole Voodoo 5 thing are a fad. Right?
Matrix was in the Mac video card game for a while (up to Millennium II), but dropped development when Apple did their exclusive bundling agreement.
Translation: Not only can I not get the product name right, but I'll confuse the bumbling, ill-managed pre-Jobs Apple with the focussed, tightly-run Apple of today. They're still "beleaguered", aren't they?
Apple sealed their long-term fate in the desktop computer business when they killed the clones.
Translation: I am *so* with the program. What is this iMac thing people are talking about? Boy, they're never going to sell more than 10,000 of those beach toys!
Apple is at the mercy of Motorola for their G4. The economies of scale prevent this chip from competing with the I86s and Athlons. Motorola can't scale the mhz up on it given the volumne of sales.
Translation: Not content to flaunt my ignorance on Apple's current product lineup or market position, I'll now post drivel about microprocessors I know even less about. Didn't IBM stop making G3s and bail on the G4? After all, mhz depends solely on "the volumne of sales", not irrelevant things like chip design, pipeline depth, or fabrication process. I'm so happy I sold my AAPL stock at that high of $22. What's a two-for-one split?
Apple is selling very few computers at a high profit margin, and very few copies of its OS at $99 a pop.
Translation: A 38% year-over-year growth in units shipped? What's that? Top-five spots in the consumer markets worldwide? Who knows? What's this OS X thing I hear about? Isn't X-Windows 20 years old? Too bad I flunked economics.
If any folks out there think Apple isn't greedy and arrogant, just try and become an Apple reseller!
Translation: How dare they be a for-profit and take pride in their work! The money-grubbing swine! I'll stick with noble charities like Microsoft & Sun. I heard CompUSA, Sears, and other Mac retailers absolutely hate Apple! In fact, they're clearing out their inventories of poorly-selling Macs in the next two weeks, before a big Apple announcement! Let's hope Apple is allowing cloning again and resurrecting the Lisa!
Re:Dual head display for one (NS) (Score:1)
BRTB
Re:Will Macs take over? (Score:1)
Re:Appropriate (or not...) (Score:1)
Re:Sprechen Sie Deutsch? (Score:1)
:)
Now that's different . . . an Ultrix fan . . . (Score:2)
After many years of reading alt.folklore.computers, I think that the nicest thing I've ever seen anyone say about it is that it wasn't VMS . . . or that one version of it wasn't as much a pain as another that shared nothing but the mname . . .
Since the SE (Score:2)
I had a 19" 1024x768 screen attached to my SE/30 in 1989, as a second display (and at the time, I was really more interested in mirroring, because I wanted to be able to turn the internal display towards my clients . .
hawk
History alert! Pilgrim Propoganda! (Score:2)
>re-settled?) by people who were kicked out of
>England because their religious views were too >strict
Uh, no. The pilgrims did *not* come seeking religious freedom, nor did they regard it as a virtue. They are about the most religiously intolerant group history has seen.
The puritans *were* allowed to do their own thing in England. However, they wanted to "purify" the church of England--that is, make the *rest* of the country comply with their beliefs. Yes, these are the people that made celebrating Christmas a criminal offense (seriously!).
They came to North America to establish a theocracy, which they weren't allowed to do in Europe.
Re:Found it (Score:1)
come now slashdot (Score:2)
My cynicism has been overruled both because of ongoing reports about this from Mac OS Rumors [macosrumors.com] and because Heise [heise.de] would be pretty stupid to put its reputation on the line for something like this if it wasn't verifiably true.
Apple is doing good lately... (Score:1)
They *might* be using nVidia as their stock video card?
How is this going to effect the X-BOX? They're supposed to be using nVidia too 'eh?
NVidia Secret Web Site? (Score:2)
Take a look at http://www.nvidia.com/apple [nvidia.com]. A password protected realm labeled "/marketing/oem"? It sounds like there might be some truth to the rumors after all.
Daniel
---
Re:Helping Individuals and Organizations Succeed (Score:1)
Here's the proof (Score:4)
It is not unusual for companies to deny any type of partnership until both parties are ready for an announcement. I would suspect that nvidia and Apple and are having serious contract negotiations.
Dual head display for one (NS) (Score:1)
ot-ish: converting to the mac... (Score:1)
Re:I don't like them. (Score:2)
The only reason apple killed off the clones was because the clones quite simply were not doing anything to expand the market. After years of hearing "If only they'ed allow clones, the cloners could go after the market segments that apple can't reach", so they opened up, licensed a few cloners, and then sat back for a year and a half and watched them gobble up their core markets. Since they didn't have to pay any R&D, they could undercut Apple and decided that was the easiest way to make money.
Your right, the clones were faster, cheaper, and Apple couldn't compete with them. In an open field, Apple can't compete. Instead they used their monopoly powers over that platform to stifle competitors to the point of bankruptcy. For Microsoft this would be considered illegal, but for Apple this is innovating!
Before then, during then, and since then, Apple continutes to be one of the most trully innovative companies around. In general, if you sit back and watch, where Apple goes, the rest of the industry follows within a year or so... Now if apple wasn't there, who'd take the lead? Microsoft? no. There aren't any other contenders.
Okay, so what was the last major innovation to come out of Apple? The over-bloated Quicktime format? See thru cases? What exactly have they innovated in the last 5 years? They did do up a spec for Firewire, then demanded licensing fees that pretty much assured little in the way of industry support.
What lead does Apple have in the computer industry? Seriously now, can you name one? They've got a GUI that's integrating Win95 features into it and call it innovating. They've got this beautiful G4 processor that Motorola provided them, and the darn things still run slower than an equivalent PIII with NT on them. The one time lead in graphics processing is LONG gone due to some really great cards on the PC side. The network stack sucks, and won't talk to anything other than other Macs on a LAN without glitchy 3rd party support. Until OS X hits the streets you sure wouldn't want to use one as a server, and even OS X has to rely upon FreeBSD's inovations. They're far more expensive than an equivalent Pentium platform, and certainly don't have the performance to justify the cost. Exactly how far back would the rest of the industry have to go to catch up to Apple?
And as for the not-invented here syndrom... witness PCI, SDRAM, IDE drives, AGP, USB, etc. About the only real difference between mac hardware and PC hardware is the CPU and the chipset.
Yes, I have noticed this. I've also noticed that these true inovations have come from a far more open platform than Apple.
My original question still stands. Why is it that the open source community continues to think so fondly of a truly closed source mind set? Can you get any more closed than Apple?
Re:uh (Score:1)
all i want from this machine (a personal one in my room) is IE, quake* (with accelarator), photoshop, mebe office/outlook and a TV card.
of which im not sure about anyhting regarding TV cards, but im sure theyre supported in some form...
Re:uh (Score:1)
This may not be so good. (Score:2)
I hope nVidia is free and open with the necessary information so that X acceleration for the new OEM Mac video will be as easy to set up as the current stuff.
John
More Info and Comments on MacSlash (Score:2)
--
Re:Why do they pick names like that? (Score:2)
No, they really named the car Nova. It's just the part about the Nova and Mexico that's an urban legend
Re:This confirms Xbox!= game box, Xbox=Imac killer (Score:1)
I was giving a more personal approach. Sorry for posting.
Re:This confirms Xbox!= game box, Xbox=Imac killer (Score:1)
For those of us living in colleges, yes it is a good reason. Why carry all these damned consoles around with us when we barely have any quater space as it is?
Re:I don't like them. (Score:1)
Re:History alert! Pilgrim Propoganda! (Score:1)
I know no one will ever read this, but... READ MY POST. I said that they were booted out of England because their religious views were too STRICT.
Please read before you post. I don't like to be misrepresented.
You weren't (Score:2)
Specifically, the *only* requirement placed on this group was that they receive Communion once per year in the Church of England. They left rather than comply; they weren't kicked out.
It wasn't about them being strict; they were otherwise allowed to do whatever they wanted among themselves.
hawk
Re:You weren't (Score:2)
I know this is an old line of questioning, and it's not likely to be seen, but...
Leaving because you're about to get a bootprint on your ass is virtually the same as being kicked out. You just don't get to be indignant, and you can maintain your pride.
Re:I don't like them. (Score:2)
When Apple had the opportunity to open the doors even a little bit to 3rd party hardware vendors, Steve and crew shut them down with licensing and legalities. First these idiots encourage 3rd party vendors, then leave them hanging out to dry in bankruptcy court. Not the first time Apple has left folks hanging out to dry, and certainly not the last.
So as to keep this in topic, do you really think that nVidia's support would even be newsworthy if there were still 3rd party manufacturers of Macs? Of course it wouldn't, because it would have been far more commonplace for 3rd party vendors to be supporting an open platform.
Apple has proved themselves to be every bit as bad, if not more so, as Microsoft in stifling competition. The only difference is, they executed their plans with incompetance, thus relegating themselves to a permanent niche market.
Again, I have to ask here, why is it that the open source community doesn't call these folks out as to what they are? Closed hardware, closed source software, and practically the inventors of the "not invented here, it must be crap" mentality. The only thing "open" about Apple is when they need to take from the open source community to get their next OS working with a network layer that doesn't suck eggs.
Why do they pick names like that? (Score:1)
I smell a dead rat here.
iMac (Score:3)
Some people did but an 8MB Voodoo2 card in the mezzanine slot of the Rev A iMacs...but thats not an option in iMacs made after...what...November of '98? Or was it in the flavored iMacs of Jan '99...I forget.