Apple Updates at MacWorld 253
fishboy writes "There are updates to apple's product line and, most significantly, a significant update to OS X-- 10.1 that features improved performance, dvd support and a seamless client for windows-based networking." Here is coverage
of the keynote from
macnn.com and info about OSX.1
on apple's site (quicktime required to read much beyond the homepage). Looks like wireless setup might be fixed up (hazah!) but mainly those speed improvements are needed.
Re:No wall-mounts? No DDR mobos? No... (Score:2)
I've been wondering about Athlons too... probably because Intel is a much more well-known brand. I haven't see any Athlons that are as much faster than an equivalently-clocked Pentium than the G4 is (30-100%), so it wouldn't change the outcome of the contest.
Re:Wallstreet is irrational (Score:2)
Re:From the keynote (Score:2)
Split-adjusted, The share price got to ~$75, and is now around $20.
Of course, split-adjusted, M$ bought that stock for about $5-7. Everyone likes a 300% profit.
Don Negro
Re:Odd choice of comparison... (Score:2)
That depends a lot. Does "ripping" include encoding as mp3 or ogg/vorbis? Is a fast encoder, or a super high quality VBR encoder? Oh, and does your actual reading program just suck data off the drive once, or does it do it multiple times (like CD paranoia) to make sure there are no skips (or to get a good shot at correcting them at least)?
Oh, and how many CD readers do you have?
Make sure you use the same version of gcc. For example the OSX version will use pre-compiled headers (possibly slowing it down the first time you run it on something with a lot of headers...or maybe speeding it up as the system headers are precompiled). The mainline gcc hasn't picked these changes up for various reasons (the large one being it only works for C and Objective C, not C++, not Java, nor...)
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
There is a Cocoa (or maybe Carbon) version sort of limping along. There doesn't seem to be much info on it though, which is too bad because while I don't really need the GIMP I have written some GTK+ apps that I would like to port to OSX... and if the GIMP was ported by re-targeting the GTK+ toolkit (which seems reasonable) then that would help me a whole whole lot...
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
You do know that there are professionals that couldn't give a squat about print work, don't you? Some people do web work, even now after the Great Crash. Some people do video work (well, they would be mad to use the gimp frame by frame, but...).
There are even professionals that don't do color balancing for their prints, they may take and touch up someone's picture, but then they send it out for printing just like they did for wet prints. Go look at the digital photographers forums if you doubt me, many are saying it is more economical to let a regular color lab do that part of the work (granted, that is a item of perpetual debate, much like vi vs. emacs is for Unix programmers...)
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
Actually I find the GIMP much better to use then Adobe's PhotoDelux. The only thing PhotoDelux has that GIMP lacks is a usable smart selection (auto trace) tool. GIMP has one, but last time I tried to use it it didn't work very well. There are several touch up jobs I have done almost identical work on similar pictures under each tool, and the GIMP was much better, in part because GIMP has multiple levels of undo while Adobe saves that feature for the professional products.
I will admit that GIMP lacks any of the "guided tour" items like the step-by-step "trick perspective" or "make a lame-o frame" items that PhotoDelux has, but all the real features are there.
Plus I can tell you 100% for sure, GIMP is way easier to use then doing the equivalent tricks in a wet lab. It really sucks to not only have no undo, but for it to take 4 to 10 minutes per try at dodging, plus costing you $0.50 of paper each time you try (or more for good fiber prints...).
I doubt GIMP can stand up to PhotoShop Elements let alone the full-strength PhotoShop though.
Re:New IMac? (Score:2)
Are we sure the bigger form factor is easier to manufacture? I mean you will have to do some styling, which will eat up some of the savings of not having hinges. Also bigger is more material, not less. You might be able to save a little by using less rugged plastic/rubber bits.
But you get custom motherboard engineering anyway, it is a Mac after all, it's not like they can call 15 shops in Asia and ask to see completed designs (granted that is Steve's fault for killing the clones).
How is the video cheaper? Or the sound? Or the network? I thought they were the same between the iMac and iBook (actually better speakers on the iMac). I know the network is the same (built in 10/100, and 56K modem, both have a slot for the 802.11, and an antenna for the 802.11, but neither have a 802.11 in the base cost).
So I don't see $299 of savings. Unless the battery itself costs almost $200! Plus I really think if you bring out a iMac with a LCD about the same size as the iBook it it has to cost a lot lot less because the iBook will be so much more tempting... (same expendability on both systems, same smallish screen, why not go for the one that can play movies on the airplane?)
Re:Samba client! (Score:2)
Define "supported". FreeBSD now has Boris Popov's smbfs [butya.kz] in the CVS tree [freebsd.org], for example; it looks as if it's been MFC'ed, so it's at least in -stable.
There's also an SMB client and server available for MacOS Classic from Thursby Software [thursby.com].
No, it hasn't. Heck, I think that one of the earliest SMB clients servers was an SMB implementation for Xenix (yeah, the version of UNIX that those people [microsoft.com] did, a long time ago) from Intel, called OpenNet or something such as that, and, as already indicated, there already exist SMB file system clients (i.e., transparent clients, not FTP-like clients) for FreeBSD and MacOS classic.
Yes, there *will* be DVD playback (Score:2)
Mac OS X 10.1 will include Apple's DVD Player. Steve did a demo in the keynote (tho it crashed once). When it ships in September, G4 systems running OS X will be able to play DVDs. The new iMacs, however, won't.
The reason they have "no way to playback DVDs" has nothing to do with Mac OS X, gdb, Apple's software engineering failures, or anything along these lines. There's one reason, and one reason alone, why they can't do it:
They don't ship with a DVD drive. Simple, huh?
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Thursby Software, R.I.P. (Score:2)
Which means likely death to Thursby, makers of DAVE, the most popular SMB/CIFS client for MacOS. Maybe their Mac OS X port--now in open beta--will ship with some features or performance advantages that will keep it in some niche. Say, Active Directory integration or much better filetype mapping. Not likely though. I'm surprised they didn't see this coming. I guess nobody at Thursby has used a Unix-family OS that can run smbmount. If they had, they might have cashed out the company and gone into EOL support mode while they found something else to do.
Re:$999? What the hell is Apple thinking? (Score:2)
They did bump up the memory, but considering how cheap RAM is nowadays, that's hardly even a consideration.
Apple isn't going away even if this one move doesn't work out. Apple's making their real money on notebooks and G4 desktops anyway. They have enough cash so they should be able to survive this round of product updates, but I think in September they'll really need to make some good announcements.
Like I said in a prevous message, it's not like Mac users have any particularly appealing options in the other camp, unless it's a SGI Octane on eBay. Pity I couldn't afford the software licenses.
D
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You shouldn't be THAT unhappy, then - (Score:2)
I really love being able to use my MacOS X system to do geeky Unix stuff and mainstream graphics stuff, so that keeps me a pretty much committed Mac user; where else is there to go that has so much potential?
D
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Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
However, you must recognize that the learning curve for most graphics software is a vertical cliff, so when totally different graphics apps come up, they are not as rapidly taken in by the biz as one might hope.
Also, remember that once you've bought Photoshop, you can get $200 updates, and that's not too significant a sum for people making major bucks with it. Heck, these are the people who buy the 500mhz Titanium G4 notebooks ($3,500) and the dual 800mhz G4 towers ($3,500).
I've found that as I grow older and richer, I find myself more and more ready to pay money to the nice folks at Apple and Adobe for their stuff. It's not free, true, but it's been refined over a long period of time by professionals who really know what they're doing.
Please bear with me; I don't mean that as insulting to the Gimp team, who have done a fantastic job. But Photoshop encompass decades (literally!) of graphic arts experience, and has been refined through decades of use. It's difficult for someone without similar advantages to create a product that will be accepted by the graphic arts community.
There are also a lot of issues surrounding the Gimp's use of RGB colour, although they don't affect me specifically. Few people who do professional prepress work could do anything with the Gimp.
Hope that aids in understanding.
D
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Re:Very disappointed... (Score:3)
And Puma certainly looks awesome from what I could see. So chill out. I know it would have been nice to see 300ghz G7s unexpectedly introduced, but think how lousy that would make you feel about your current Mac
I just hope September brings with it cool new hardware. But I suppose since there's no new hardware of significance this month, it's time to buy the Cinema Display I've always wanted
D
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Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:3)
Before today, they sold the dual 533 at a price point below the single 733, most likely because MacOS 9 made the 733 work more consistently for all Mac software, while the dual 533 was better for MacOS X users and Photoshop/Final Cut Pro addicts. It was still ironic then to see the fastest machine in many applications $1,000 cheaper than the top-line system.
Today, because of the gathering acceptance of MacOS X, we see more logical pricing. You're probably right about the dual 800s versus the single 866 - but in that case, I sure wish the dual 800s weren't $1,000 more expensive than the 866. True, you get 128mb more RAM, but that's something like $20 on the open market nowadays.
I'm afraid Apple milks the pocketbooks of the people with giant egos who want the latest, greatest and fastest, with products like the Titanium PowerBook 500 ($1,000 more expensive than the only slightly slower 400) and the G4 dual 800 ($1,000 more expensive than the 866). Unfortunately, people like me with big egos are all too likely to succumb
D
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New Macs and Puma (Score:5)
The good news is that the Puma upgrade to MacOS X looks like it will be awesome, with the speed gremlins totally vanquished.
More good news is that it looks like most of the vital vendors are fully on target to release OSX applications. We had demos from Adobe, Quark, a few game people Microsoft, and so on. (I must confess that the Microsoft Office demo was surprisingly cool). There will be no lack of software for OSX.
Except Photoshop, which was conspicuous by its absence in the Adobe demo. Looks like Adobe is coming out with the first upgrades for software in markets with genuine competition (Illustrator has Freehand, InDesign has Quark, and GoLive has a few million competitors). Photoshop, well, is Photoshop. Nuff said
The iMacs were all but unchanged. The adventures in plastic moulding are all gone; Indigo, Snow and Graphite return. There was a decent speed bump and CD R/W throughout the line, but nothing that would really thrill as far as I could see.
The new PowerMacs were significant improvements over the old ones, but nothing to make me run over to the store and replace my dual G4/450 straight away. The 733 is now at the bottom of the line, which is a nice bump from the older 466-odd models. The 867 is also nice but less than one would hope. But what's with dual 800s? Why not dual 867s? Surely availability can't be a major problem with the 867s in the mainstream of the line.
All in all, it looked like most of the great stuff was in the future. It's time to go back to bed, snore and dream of September and MacOS 10.1. Then, we Mac fans should have something to rave about.
"The sun comes out, tomorrow
Come September, we'd better see some changes or
D
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Re:Wallstreet is irrational (Score:2)
Maybe Apple should have Steve cryogenicly frozen while they're still doing well. They could stay out of trouble but still have him around if they get into a jam again.
Note: nothing against Apple here. Before I was shown the Free Software Way, I owned all sorts of their products;all of the ][s at one time or another, a Powerbook, even a Lisa(!).
Re:I'm tired of defending Apple (Score:4)
I've been very happy with my machines. They've been painless in terms of both OS and hardware (I've upgraded the CPU and memory added 2nd video card... all easy). It seems a lot of thought was put into the machines. I had a quantum harddrive I added fail (twice actually, the one covered under warrenty failed too...), but the original IBM drive is still ticking 5+ years later.
The machines aren't cheap, but they last a long time, and save me lots of time and hassle, and after working with computers all day (HPUX) and fixing some friends windows pc's they work great.
OS-Xs unix underpinnings make the decision easier (I can perl and grep!!!)
The old machines make good LinuxPPC servers too!
Re:Very disappointed...whatever (Score:2)
WC4 Mac was also pretty damn cool. Just wish I could have talked Origin into letting me keep the Power Mac 9500 I was testing it on...darnit.
Re:$999? What the hell is Apple thinking? (Score:2)
In other Apple news... (Score:2)
taking a cue from VW's new Beetle S (Sport Edition), the iMac is getting beefed up suspension, a more agressive aerodynamic kit and an additional 20 horsepower.
it will be available with manual or automatic transmission and come in paisely, plaid or courderoy.
...dave
Re:Odd choice of comparison... (Score:2)
That's not a good comparison, unless most of what you do is compile. IIRC, compiling for RISC processors (i.e., the G4) is more work than compiling for CISC processors (x86). In other words, even though you're compiling the same program, the Mac has a harder task. Try copying a CD track to AIFF or WAV on your hard drive, then time ripping from that. That gives you a good measure of HD speed, general IO, memory speed, and processor speed. Of course, make sure your Mac has a ripper optimized for AltiVec (and a similarly optimized version on the PC).
Re:Wallstreet is irrational (Score:4)
Profit doesn't drive stock prices. Success doesn't drive stock prices. Expectations drive stock prices, and when profit and success do not meet expectations, then the stock price will fall. Expectations are usually based on a company's predictions for that quarter, so in this case, Apple probably fell on its own sword.
On a side note, I would love an G4 Powerbook or iBook with MacOS X if a) the price weren't so high, or b) the hardware requirements didn't make the price so high. A pretty box and a pretty interface don't matter if you can't afford either. That is why, IMHO, Apple has not been able to penetrate the market.
Apple's cease-and-desist tactics have also made them less than endearing to me. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
Whine (Score:2)
Re:No wall-mounts? No DDR mobos? No... (Score:2)
If you take any of the apple laptops today and turn the screen brightness to off, any sufficient external light source still allows you to see it. Working outside on a sunny day, you might as well turn it off, since the backlighting provides almost no benefit.
Probably the LCDs are not designed to capture and reflect light as well as the gameboy, but if you want to save battery and have the lighting for it, just turn your display 'off'. I do it all the time (500MHz Pismo).
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's stock (Score:2)
If you take a look at the intraday chart for that day, you can see that the stock started dropping right at the start of the keynote (9:30 AM ET) and stopped dropping about an hour later (I can assume this is when he stopped talking.) The stock pretty much stayed level the rest of the day.
I will never understand the craziness of the stock market.
Dipstick! (Score:2)
1. Right. A wall-mount is useless when you're sitting in your bed with a keyboard in your lap unless the screen is at least 36". 56", if you, y'know, code or do something with text. How many people spend the majority of their day with their face less than five feet from a wall, anyway? If you think the cinema display is pricey, well, try forking over the cost of a 56" plasma screen.
2. I can't contest that, because I haven't done the reading. My boss uses an Athlon gigahertz with 768 megs of RAM. I have a G4 733 with 256 of RAM. He boots faster. I beat him to a bloody, oozing, wimpering PULP in photoshop and video rendering. Oh, and stability. I rebooted my G4 sometime last week, and he went down about seven times today.
3. My Pismo batteries last four hours, and I can hold two. My friend's Dell laptop (PIII 600 or close) goes maybe two and a half. The power PC chip runs a hell of a lot cooler than the x86 could ever hope to- Apple already has the lead here, and removing the backlight is going to please one person- you. You obviously haven't used a gameboy under conditions other than optimal, have you?
4. I laugh. You think that 15" iMac monitor is too small? A single 15" touchscreen goes for about 1,200$ these days, if you want it to pull 1024x768. Compare to 100$ for a keyboard and mouse, and 200$ for a half-decent, mid-sized monitor. Touchscreens are practically worthless for anything other than kiosks- ever try to right click? Click and drag? Set up file permissions or networking? And name me one person that can talk intelligibly faster than he can type legibly.... (no, not SPELL correctly, just get the point across).
This is ridiculous- flamebate trying to struggle into the ill-fitting suit of a well-founded argument.
9.2 released (Score:5)
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
Assuming the 800 costs $100 (Apple's cost), the 877 would cost around $150 each, but 2 800s would only cost $200, instead of $300 for 2 877s.
I think this is totally reasonable and definately smart for Apple. For people that can take advantage of the dual processors, the 77 mhz speed increase would be utterly overwhelmed by the speed bonus of the extra CPU.
What interested me was that the last the that Apple sold dual CPU machines (the 450), they positioned them, price-wise, BENEATH the 500mhz, single-CPU model.
Re:still no DVD playback (Score:2)
I'm not really sure why real-time kernel issues would factor into the performance, since they managed to port Quicktime over (though, granted, it's slower than it was in OS9).
Re:Very disappointed... (Score:2)
I've been working with Puma for a while now (NDAed, of course), and there are a few issues that Apple apparently considered show-stoppers that other companies would ship with and fix later (M$ service packs, anyone?)
As a Mac developer for a company that has a very close relationship with Apple, I like getting bleeding edge OS builds usually only hours after they are done. As an Apple/Mac user since the very beginning, I like knowing that when they do ship, it's working product.
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$999? What the hell is Apple thinking? (Score:2)
I don't necessarily need or want a flat-panel iMac, but raising the entry bar like that is going to get them slaughtered in the market. Especially the education market. Where's the incentive to keep buying iMacs if the price keeps going up?
A lot of speculation has it that the price increase is to prepare people for the costs of the eventual flat-panel model, so that Apple can say "See? It's the same price as our previous ones!" Well, that's great, but I think I'd be happier with cheaper models now to ensure a steady revenue stream so that there'll be a flat-panel iMac later....
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The wall is too far away (Score:2)
Try backing away 2 feet from your screen and see if you like working that way. I wouldn't.
Re:Mac Libs (Score:2)
Re:Very disappointed... (Score:2)
> the only reason that the G4 was faster than
> the Intel 1.8Ghz machine. Put linux on both and
> compile a kernel and lets see who is faster.
The G4 is kicking the P4's ass in modern computing tasks like encryption, encoding, graphics, music and audio, and video. Software MPEG-2 encoding is at 1x on the Mac platform now. That is all you need to know.
Note that the Mac that won the tests today was only the middle model of the PowerMac line. There is a faster one than that as well.
Which is faster: a 500MHz Alpha or a 1000MHz PIII? The Alpha is 10x the chip of a PIII. Comparing MHz alone is useless. Apple is shipping machines that are very, very fast. There are a lot of people out there who are very happy with the work that these fast Macs are enabling them to do. iDVD 2.0 does the MPEG-2 software encoding in the background while you set up your DVD's menus. This is powerful stuff.
Re:Very disappointed...whatever (Score:2)
> no DVD or combo drive in ANY model. Bit of a
> disappointment there.
You are talking about iMacs, but the original poster was talking about PowerMacs. The PowerMac models, go CD-RW, DVD-RW/CD-RW, DVD-RW/CD-RW. These aren't "combo" drives, but "SuperDrives"
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
Imagine you are recommending an open-source DR-DOS as a replacement for Mac OS X
I can't wait until the GIMP is a Cocoa app, though. If it has a standard Aqua UI (just as important as working with standard file types), it will be useful to a lot of people, especially in schools and other settings where budgets are tight and people want to make Web graphics. I hope the developers are also going to use QuickTime to give the GIMP the ability to open and save all the various file types.
Re:Apple still makes best tower case by far (Score:2)
Re:Apple still makes best tower case by far (Score:2)
Lots of Macs out there in music and audio, and in video, with all their slots loaded, and multiple FireWire and USB devices attached as well. Now that I think of it, the power supply in my PowerMac is also powering the Cinema Display. Must be adequate for the task.
It is a nice enclosure. It never feels like you're opening up the machine to "service" it
I would like to see all manufacturers take such signature looks with their hardware. SGI, IBM, and Apple do a good job of this. You can recognize their stuff quite easily from a distance. You have to put your glasses on to tell most other stuff apart. I mean, you are going to make a lot of boxes anyway, so take a chance on making something new and beautiful.
Re:Livid. (Score:2)
I think it's hard to complain about paying $129 for OS X part I and $20 for OS X part II. Software almost always goes alpha, beta, point-zero, point-one. The point-zero can be thought of as "beta for the users" if you like. It is necessary to get the software out into the real world in order to get feedback from users so you can include that feedback in point-one.
Re:Java support? (Score:2)
MacSlash Has More And Better Coverage (Score:3)
MacSlash will be updating throughout the expo. Check us out and discuss your thoughts.
Re:OS X 10.1 not until September (Score:3)
lets see, 10 of the most popular mac programs are now ported to run natively on OSX.
"All three Power Mac G4 models feature 256K L2 cache per processor, running at full processor speed (you can imagine how well this plays out with the dual 800MHz Power Mac G4). In addition, the 867MHz system has 2MB of L3 backside cache running at one-fourth the processor speed and the dual 800MHz Power Mac G4 has hefty 2MB backside L3 cache per processor, for a total of 4MB."
and, OSX.1 was delayed 2 months, NOT OSX. OSX has been out, as has OSX Server.
oh, and they still posted a profit, albeit a smaller one, while many of their competitors are losing hefty amounts of money in this erstwhile economy.
yea, nothing special.
quicktime required?? (Score:2)
quicktime is not required to get much past the homepage on apple's site.
why the bias? because quicktime hasn't been ported to platform x for god knows what finanical reasons? sure, if you want to see spinning pictures of the new g4 or their recent ads you'll need the plug-in and quicktime. but you'll need that for any rich content.
slashdot has something truly uncomfortable up its ass and i think that the coverage of items would be significantly improved if it were removed.
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
Photoshop, well, is Photoshop. Nuff said :-(.
I can agree with you to a point... but Photoshop is at least $600, depending on which package/deal you buy it with.
The Gimp is making great strides in not only catching up - but surpassing Photoshop by running as a Cocoa app in OS X [macgimp.org]. More information can be found at macgimp.org [macgimp.org].
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
The number of people who could use Gimp for professional pre-press work is way closer to zero than you think. There are a handful of features (e.g. CMYK support and color matching) that Photoshop has and Gimp doesn't, that are absolutely necessary for pre-press work.
And unlike Windows, a very significant number of Mac Photoshop users are those professionals who need these features. Then consider that 95% of professional graphic designers are Mac users, and that there are probably fewer open source Mac developers than there are open source OS/2 developers (!!!), all I can say is that for the foreseeable future, Gimp on Mac is little more than a curiosity.
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Lord Nimon
Samba client! (Score:5)
Networking is also more compatible: Mac OS X version 10.1 now includes the ability to connect to AFP servers over AppleTalk making it easier to integrate Mac OS X into legacy networks with older AppleShare servers and Windows NT servers. We've also added support to natively connect to Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Unix-based SAMBA file servers with the built-in SMB client. These servers appear right in the Finder like any other file server. This makes Mac OS X fluent in all of today's network languages.
Now I can connect to my company's Windows network without extra software! This will be very important for those wanting to move from Windows to the Mac without buying extra software.
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James Hromadka
Re:Very disappointed... (Score:2)
Re:Very disappointed...whatever (Score:3)
1)Like I said, there are no new apps out that are not crash test dummy betas. You backed up my point, thanks. Preview releases and promises of future releases don't cut it after MacWorld SF. Jobs said, "MWNYC will be the Mac OS X app show". Well if you count Betas as release software, I guess you have a point
2) Try to go to the Apple Store, order a new PowerMac G4 and have it delivered this month. Ain't gonna happen. As for iMacs, Apple is shooting itself in the foot for bumping the price up. One expects a speed bumped machine to be the same price as last year's model. That has been the model since the first iMac.
3) As much as I would like to think the short pipeline in my Dual 500 G4 makes my machine fast, outside of Photoshop and Media Cleaner Pro, I do not feel like I am driving a HotRod compared to a 1Ghz+ x86 box.
Re:Very disappointed... (Score:2)
Those G4s come with nVidia GeForce2 cards, BTW.
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Re:$999? What the hell is Apple thinking? (Score:3)
None of the most-recent iMacs played DVDs, either. At least now all of them include CD-RW drives.
Check out their educational pricing: There is an entry-level iMac at $849. You used to have to go up to the $1200 iMac for CD-RW, now the $999 ($949 education price) model has it. 20Gig drive in the entry-level iMac now, also.
I agree with you here. You'd figure they could sell the iMacs as loss-leaders at this point since they are bound to have recouped the R&D costs. $600 sounds like a good price to hook the masses with.
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Re:From the keynote (Score:2)
Of course, the only problem was that Microsoft had to hold onto the stock for 5 years. Apple popped up over $150, but then plummeted again to their current level of around $20. Still, I think MS bought when the share price was $11-14, and I think Apple even had a stock split since then, so MS still would have made out like bandits (well, assuming that Apple doesn't tank by next year).
Re:Links. (Score:2)
Re: trade-turd (Score:3)
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
Supply issues probably. They released the dual 500 instead of a dual 733 last time because, as Steve said at the keynote, if we did dual 733 we wouldn't have enough processors to ship units within a few months. Apple probably has access, or perhaps they can manufacture, more 800 today as opposed to 867.
Re:Video of the Keynote? (Score:2)
Steve Jobs Tantrum (Score:4)
Steve: Just got to turn your camera on. [pause]
Steve: Alright. [stares at the camera]
[Someone in the front row says something.]
Yeah, I need some help out here, it's technical. My camera's not turning on.
[Same guy.]
Steve: What's that? I did slide it in like that. It's not turning on. Here. [throws the camera offstage at the guy]
[Crowd goes ooh - some applause, some laughter, bit of nervous tension.]
Steve: We'll let an expert see if he can turn it on. Hopefully he can. Shall I show you, uh... Got it on?
[Guy says something about batteries.]
Steve: Batteries have to go back in from me throwing it. Sorry.
Steve Jobs's Mistakes (Score:2)
The other I noticed happened during IBM's presentation... the guy demonstrating it couldn't get the "Double Size" command to work while playing a quicktime movie.
Did anyone else catch any others?
Re:Video of the Keynote? (Score:3)
camera helper (Score:2)
I belive said helper is now flipping burgers at a Cupertino McDonalds...
Re:No wall-mounts? No DDR mobos? No... (Score:2)
I don't think most people want their monitor that far away. My desk is 36" deep. My 21" monitor's glass is about 18" from the front edge. I am not going to be able to use my display at 1600x1200 if it is twice as far away. I'd have to reduce the resolution, and that ain't gonna happen!
Re:Wallstreet is irrational (Score:2)
The entry model iBook is $1299. That's not too bad. Seems to compare well to Wintel laptops.
Re:Wallstreet is irrational (Score:2)
I HAVE a 400MHz G3 laptop, and I'd agree that the performance is "less than stellar." It's only GUI operations though -- disk access, networking, number crunching -- all very fast.
The story is that the Finder itself in OSX is some non-native kludge, and when it is rewritten from the ground up the perceived speed of the OS should shoot up. But we'll see.
There's also a lot of talk that OSX isn't optimized for any but the most recent video cards, so everyone with those ATI Rage chips is suffering without ANY video acceleration at ALL.
But yeah, it does feel slow.
Re:Wallstreet is irrational (Score:2)
When the actual announcement happens, the wild speculation ends and prices fall back down to Earth.
Therefore, if you choose to ignore the previous price hikes, it always looks like a company's value tanked right after an announcement. The truth is that ownership of shares just transfered back from speculators to investors.
Re:DVD playback (Score:2)
I don't think I am going very far out on a limb when I predict that the CD-R in the new line of iMacs will probably be replaced by DVD/CD-R "combo" drives, like the one in some iBooks, by January (at least as an option).
Odd choice of comparison... (Score:2)
Ripping CD's has more to do with media speed than the CPU. The standard CD drives that ship in Apple's are otnay ootay astfay, compared to the better after-market players.
For a more fair comparison, try something like this:
How fast does each machine compile the same program using gcc? (Mac OS X and pretty much all distro's of Linux ship with it, so it is an easy test to run).
Re:Very disappointed...whatever (Score:3)
I'll tell you what, I will gladly trade you my 1.2 GHz PC for your Dual 500 G4. Then you can feel like you are "driving a HotRod", and we will both be happy.
Dev TimeTable (Score:2)
Although I wonder how many of thos apps are main strem items vs noname smalltime utilities.
Sounds promising. Which reminds me, how is the BSD Ports conversion going? that would be very nice to have done, but an awful lot of those items are not exactly high priority consumer items.
Then there is this item that gives me mixed feelings:
Kevin Browne from Microsoft [...] took the stage to talk about Microsoft Office for Mac OS X. He said the OS X version of Excel is the best version of the software Microsoft has shipped for any platform.
But then, it is not a perfect world.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Mac Libs (Score:5)
Aw, fuck it, I'll switch to _________ [Yellow Dog / LinuxPPC / WinXP]. That will show those _________ [derisive term for corporate types] in Cupertino. Just as soon as it supports _________ [fancy Mac feature that nobody uses] and has a better user interface than Mac OS _________ [6, 7, 8, 9, X]. Watch out, Steve, you're going to lose a _________ [number > 10] year Apple loyalist!
I'm tired of defending Apple (Score:2)
With the clones eliminated, Apple has returned to their price gouging ways.
Additionally, since Motorola can't deliver dramatically faster G4s, Apple is now crippling the low end to avoid making the high end look bad. The new iBook, for example, is a nice computer. It contains the same video hardware as the TiBook. But Apple has crippled the video on the iBook, so it won't do anything higher than 1024 x 768 on an external display, and also can't do dual displays. Of course, the TiBook can - for $2500.
Apple's price/performance ratio is now so terrible that you can buy a NICE PC laptop for the price of the cheapest G4 tower.
For a while, they were telling us a G4 was as fast as a Pentium III at twice the clockspeed. Fair enough. Are they now going to start saying they're 3 times as fast? That's what they'd have to claim to make the computer look competitive.
The cheapo iMac is not for me. No expandability, I need PCI slots, and I already have a nice monitor. What computer does Apple have for me? The entry level G4 tower is $1700, featuring their slowest G4, a pokey hard drive and bus, and not enough memory to run OSX effectively. Want a video card upgrade? The GeForce3 is a $300 UPGRADE (note: not outright, that's the UPGRADE price), a total joke.
Do any other Mac fans feel completely frustrated with Apple right now?
Re:New Macs and Puma (Score:2)
Professional print layout and design requires the user to work in the CMYK color space instead of RBG. The Gimp does not support this, so even if you used it, you would still have to go to Photoshop eventually before you went to press.
Re:It's the CD-RW (Score:2)
Re:Wallstreet is irrational (Score:2)
And worst, the video on the machine is CRIPPLED. It's the same ATI video hardware used in the $2500 TiBook. Should be great, right? Wrong. Apple INTENTIONALLY disabled dual display, and also limited the video out to external displays to a measly 1024 x 768. (The card can do 1600 x 1200, no problem). This is totally lame.
Compare the iBook to the Dell Inspiron 4000... it doesn't do well. And the iBook is probably the MOST price competitive computer that Apple has, the other lines are all much worse! The G4 tower pricing is a cruel joke.
Re:I'm tired of defending Apple (Score:2)
I'm willing to pay, say, $200 more than a PC to get a better case, quality motherboard and memory, etc. But not $1000.
I've always felt that if they halved their prices, they would sell twice as many machines. Bring back the clones!
Re:New IMac? (Score:2)
Flat LCD panels are $349 at Fry's. A huge OEM like Apple must be able to get those for about $200!
Re:New IMac? (Score:2)
I don't really care about the iMac and it's screen anyway. What I want is the iMac, add 3 PCI slots, subtract the monitor and put it in a tower case. They could sell it for $800. Why won't they? They'd rather have the entry level G4 be $1699!
Re: trade-turd (Score:2)
I guess "the rest of us" now means people who earn $70k a year.
Sony is a premium brand, but they also deliver a good value. My boss just bought an awesome Sony laptop - $1400. Pentium III 800, huge drive, 14" screen, DVD, etc. Extremely competitive, and it still says "sony" on it.
Re:Apples and Oranges... Really... (Score:2)
Do you have any stats to show that Apple motherboards are worth $500-$600? I don't even know if it's POSSIBLE to spend that much on an x86 motherboard. If you could, for that much money, I'm sure it would be a dual processor, server class board, lots of slots, probably onboard SCSI and 2 ethernet ports at that price. Made by a quality manufacturer, like Abit, no junk. And I bet it's less than $600, too, I'm just to lazy too check pricewatch. I'm sure someone else can back me up with actual specs and pricing.
Re:I'm tired of defending Apple (Score:2)
Er, okay. Look, I like the TiBook alot, but there's no way I'd call it "competitive" with PC laptops. At a starting price of $2500 it's definitely up there on the 'botique' shelf. If they lost the fancy, one of a kind widescreen LCD, they could probably sell a lower end model for $1500 - but they won't.
The new iBook is really nice, too. Bad news is they've crippled it, probably to avoid taking sales away from the Ti. You can only get 1024x768 on the video out, (Even though the chipset can do 1600x1200, Apple broke it on purpose) and it also won't do dual display like the TiBook and most PC laptops.
No PC Card slots is also a big minus for me - that's the primary way to expand a laptop, and it's important, because on a portable, you don't have alot of options. (Yes, you can hook up a lot of stuff with FireWire - but it's not future proof - a PC Card slot lets me add ANY interface that comes out in the next, say, 3 or 4 years.
Everyone marvels at how small the iBook is - no shit, because it's lacking a regular video out port, PC card slot, and connector for port replicator. That stuff takes up space, and it's not so hard to imagine a Dell Inspiron 4000 being the same size if they took away half the computers expansion capabilities!
Yes, the iBook has FireWire - my boss just bought a new Sony - also a 'name' brand, it has FireWire, 900mhz Pentium III, DVD, etc., etc. $1300. I've seen the story a hundred times. Even if you spot the iBook the claimed 2:1 processor speed advantage (500mhz mac = 1Ghz PC), the Sony destroys that iBook.
Like I've said in previous posts, I like Apple and the MacOS. But since the demise of the clones, their pricing is getting worse, worse, and worse. In the clone era the lowend G4 tower would have been $999 - about what I bought my PowerMac 7200/90 for when it was the low end of the line. It compared nicely to my roomates Pentium 90 and I felt good about that purchase. The price/performance ratio is just not there for Apple right now. Maybe that's Motorola fault, I don't know. But the situation smells.
If Apple can sell the lowend iMac for $799, why can't they take out the CRT, put in 3 PCI slots and a faster G3 and sell me a tower for $799. I think the answer is they could, they just won't.
Re:I'm tired of defending Apple (Score:2)
Please note this laptop is cheaper than Apple's CHEAPEST tower, contains built in FireWire, built in display (The Mac has none), similar expandability options (2 PC card slots), a BETTER (if you can believe that - it is!) video card. And oh, did I mention this is a PORTABLE?
Order one up with Windows 2000, you won't regret it. Easily the best OS ever for laptops, and I usually hate MS junk, so that's saying something.
Re:I'm tired of defending Fools (Score:2)
The Dell Inspiron 8000 mentioned above IS available with the GeForce2Go (you can choose ATI OR Nvidia) - in fact, it is the only Dell that is available with the nvidia card. Go back and read it again.
Re: trade-turd (Score:4)
Apple will never sell a computer for $500 in order to gain marketshare. That would make too much sense.
It's the CD-RW (Score:2)
Re:Samba client! (Score:2)
Re:Very disappointed... (Score:2)
I guess you're not always right. ;-)
Re:still no DVD playback (Score:2)
Re:Samba client! (Score:2)
Re:OS X 10.1 not until September (Score:2)
Who ARE Apple's competitors? We always talk about "their competition" -- and there's plenty of O/S competition, hardware competition, et al, but no one offers what they do in one compete package -- so I guess there's no business competition
Re:No wall-mounts? No DDR mobos? No... (Score:2)
What does Dance Dance Revolution have to do with system speed?
----
still no DVD playback (Score:3)
I pointed out [slashdot.org] here on /. back in March that the lack of DVD playback in the original Mac OS X release was very curious given the Apple DVD marketing push, since if the operating system was up to DVD playback, it should require little more than a utility program to provide it. I speculated that this implied a deeper system problem which would take significantly longer to fix, possibly something related to non-real-time process scheduling. This suggestion was greeted with a mixture of disbelief and exasperation.
At this point, it looks like my speculation has been validated. The reason DVD playback is not yet available for Mac OS X is not simply because the program wasn't finished in time, but because it has proven difficult to implement on the Darwin kernel.
The remaining questions, given that it is being reported that DVD playback was still flaky during today's demo, are whether the new, extra-slipped September ship date for the feature is realistic, and whether the fix for the problem is robust enough to deal with new applications that will require steady high-bandwidth real-time data delivery.
Tim
Re:still no DVD playback (Score:3)
So I'm not sure what your point is.
Tim
Additional keynote coverage (Score:3)
Links. (Score:5)
MacCentral:
Keynote [macworld.com]
Mac OS X.I [macworld.com]
iDVD 2 [macworld.com]
New iMacs [macworld.com]
New G4s [macworld.com]
New Apple Stores [macworld.com]
The Register:
Hardware [theregister.co.uk]
Software [theregister.co.uk]
News.Com [cnet.com]
Macintouch [macintouch.com]
Low End Mac [lowendmac.com]
And lastly:
Apple's Official News [apple.com]
--Volrath50
Give it time... (Score:3)
I sympathize with all of the people who were disappointed with Steve's keynote this morning. I too was expecting a new iMac. I too was expecting DVD playback for OS X. I too was expecting... well, something interesting and new. The lack of any major announcements is understandable, though.
Remember folks, the economy has crapped out. Consumer spending is down. Corporate spending is way down. People just aren't spending the money to get the latest toys anymore. Just look at SUV sales recently. In a weak macroeconomic environment new product releases are a major risk. They have to do R&D, marketing, retool their manufacturing, etc., all of which cost big money.
Frankly, I'm amazed that Apple has managed to turn a profit over the last two quarters. They've already released several major new products this year (Ti Powerbook, iBook, OS X). They've also just launched their massive retail initiative. Apple has a lot on its' plate right now, and I think that their CFO wants to sit tight and not rock the boat anymore than they have to. When the economy picks up and people have the cash to go get the latest greatest flat-panel iMac (or whatever), then we'll see some big announcements from Apple.
Meanwhile, I'll be content with continued refinements on a kick-ass product line. The SteveNote wasn't so bad. Warcraft III on a dual 800 G4 running a superfast OS X seems pretty darn cool to me.
stall for time! (Score:3)
but if you watched the keynote (or catch the rebroadcast), you'll notice that things started to slow pretty hard during the iDVD demo, in particular. my money says steve was waiting for someone to show up, and he got the signal to stall for time from someone offstage. so, there's the demo, then the return to the digital camera (come on...like anyone at macworld doesn't know how it works...), then re-running the old commercials, along with one new one...my guess is he used that time to run offstage and find out what the deal was.
he essentially came back onstage right after the commercials, did a tiny bit more, re-hashed, and asked for a round of applause. that was it after he came back onstage from the commercial break.
so i think something went seriously wrong (a box didn't arrive, or a person maybe); steve stalled for time, hoping to make the announcement, but then found out when he went offstage that it was going to be impossible today. you could see he was disappointed when he came back onstage there at the end.
next guess: watch the next media event. i'm betting whatever wanted to be shown off today finds its way to that. hopefully on time.
this is, of course, pure conjecture.
Wallstreet is irrational (Score:4)
That tells me only one thing: Wall Street is completely irrational.
Okay, two things: Wall Street is completely irrational and the success of a company should never be judged by its current stock price.
Re:Very disappointed...whatever (Score:5)
There are no apps (unless you count the crash test dummy betas)
Um, VPC is almost ready, the preview is downloadable today (very important for me), the new Illustrator is very cool as well as the web integration of Quark totally rocks, WCIII is on shedule for simultaneous release, Word looks good. Even if these don't ship today, at least they are progressed far enough that they look very good in a presentation. I'm pretty happy with the software announcements so far.
On the hardware side, one big YAWN! Speed bumped PowerMac G4s that you can't order and receive for another month. Nothing new in the notebook area and the iMacs are getting pretty lame -- only a RAM boost and a price increase
Well, you are wrong. Plain and simple.
I'm dissapointed that UMA 2 with DDR didn't make it but the high end mac is now the lowest model, and the dual 800MHz model is a huge jump over a single 733MHz at the top of the line.
Not shipping? Um, did you watch the same keynote? 733 and 867 ship today... dual 800's in a couple weeks (august).
Now as for you claim of increased prices (the bit you are truely wrong about), I told the boss to hold off on buying 4 Macs till the conference. For $300 LESS per machine we now get 200MHz faster processor, double the memory, and a CDR/DVD drive instead of a regular DVD. We even get a free inkjet printer with every machine... And this is more expensive in what way?
The really lame part of the hardware demo was Apple's hardware guru telling us, "Mhz doesn't matter" /. ? I thought this site was for tech people.
Why do you bother reading
Since when has MHz been a good indicator of overall performance? What's faster, a 1GHz Athlon or a 1GHz PIII? What's faster, a 1.2 GHz Athlon or a 1.5 GHz P4? (in almost every benchmark the Athlon is faster). Now for different instruction sets, what's faster... a 800 MHz 21364 Alpha, a 1GHz PIII, or a 1.8 GHz Pentium IV? The Alpha's FP performance smokes the other chips. The SpecFP scores for the new Alphas are truely staggering, so much so that Intel feels the need to kill them off within the next couple years, hence the buyout of the Alpha from Compaq.
Is is so hard to believe that the G4, with Altivec and a short pipeline can't outperform a chip clocked twice as fast in A/V and compression benchmarks? Especially when the opponent is routinely smoked by other i386 chips that are 50-60% slower in clock speed? Do you deny that a 20 stage pipeline is little more than a 'trick' to push clock speeds up? Why not crank up the core voltage too and just ship them overclocked from the factory (I think they did this too... or was that AMD... might have been the failed 1.13 GHz P3... someone tried it).
Re:Very disappointed...whatever (Score:5)
Um, software companies can't magically have their products finish development on the same day. It just doesn't work that way. I consider a product annoucement that is within a couple weeks to be a release when it's at an event such as this.
Not wanting to spend too much time, here is what I've found in just about 2 minutes.
If they are planning release dates a month or less in the future, they are probably in Final Candidate state... they still need time to press and ship CDs after all.
I'm sure I could find more if I had more time... More vendors will make their announcements over the course of the show anyway.
2) Try to go to the Apple Store, order a new PowerMac G4 and have it delivered this month. ;-) To be fair, I did go back and try the 867 and it did list 3-4 weeks ship time. I _believe_ this to be an error since that would push it's ship time back to the same frame as the Dual 800. Jobs made a point to indicate that the low and middle would ship now, and the dual in August.
I actually did. The ship date for the 733 model is 2 days! Not too bad if you ask me. That would be this month by the way.
I wouldn't be suprised if those ship times are based on how long it actually takes to ships a product. Since the 733 has been shipping, it would have an accurate figure (e.g. SAP queries the order database to make an estimate on the last weeks orders and posts that to the Apple Store page...). Since the 867 was just announced, there can't be an accurate ship time since they haven't shipped one yet. I would _guess_ that the ship time on the middle model will change drasticly within a week. Call Apple and ask if you need to know for sure.
3) As much as I would like to think the short pipeline in my Dual 500 G4 makes my machine fast, outside of Photoshop and Media Cleaner Pro, I do not feel like I am driving a HotRod compared to a 1Ghz+ x86 box.
This probably has something to do with the slow Aqua interface (poor finder performance). OSX 10.1 should fix this... this is a software issue, not a hardware issue. The fact that these machines DO routinely trounce much higher clocked x86 machines in A/V benchmarks, and in apache benchmarks (for Darwin running Apache, not for OSX) goes to show that the claims of Apple, though skewed tword Apple's core customers tasks, are valid. (wow, nice run on sentence huh?). You original assertion was that the "MHz doesn't matter" thing was dumb. I still claim that it is an important point, supported by many different platforms (Alpha's are good examples, though I don't consider the G4 an Alpha killer by any means).