Video of Apple Xserve Introduction

red5 writes "Apple has posted a video (QuickTime only, of course) of the Xserve introduction."

Girlfriend in a coma

[hoggy]

Skip to 1:28:40 for the fabulous line from Steve Jobs in reply to a question about Apple's previous bizarre attempts at getting into the server market:

I wasn't here when Apple did a lot of those earlier [...] server exploration [...] I look at that as a dream when, you know, Apple was in a coma.

Re:

[account_deleted]

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Re:Server in a coma

[jmcmurry]

I had a demo unit of the Apple Network Server 500 under my desk for a while, and I remember how much fun it was to turn it on with the key. Turning on computers with keys was new to me then. I thought it was like starting a sports car.

As I recall, it was loud like a sports car, too.

I used it to telnet to other stuff, making it the most expensive VT100(-ish) terminal I've ever seen.

But the hardware was pretty cool.

Back on topic, anyone catch the guy from Genentech talking about running Blast in a "massively parallel fashion", then going back and saying "well I can't say we're massive at this point, but we're parallel"?

Maybe they'll make a big XServe if the little one works out?

quicktime pro

[stoffel]

You need QT 5 Pro to view it in a resolution where you can actualy see Steve...

Apple does this more often. Also some hi-res trailers are only downloadable with the Pro version.

Are QT sales not what they expected?

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Re:quicktime pro

[red5]

Apple does this more often. Also some hi-res trailers are only downloadable with the Pro version.

I know like the trailers on the the starwars site for example.
I'm just wondering if I buy QT5 Pro.
What happens when they launch QT6 (Already announced).

Re:quicktime pro

[cappadocius]

I'm just wondering if I buy QT5 Pro. What happens when they launch QT6 (Already announced).

You are really just buying a key to unlock features of quicktime that already exist in the program (ever try looking around inside the program with ResEdit on the classic OSes? You can see what I mean). In the past, the same key would transfer with the upgrade. I doubt apple will change that practice.

Re:quicktime pro

[rjung2k]

In the past, Apple's Quicktime Pro keys are good for one full upgrade of Quicktime. When I bought my key for QTPro3, I could install QT4 and get the Pro features as well. It wasn't until QT5 came out that I had to re-purchase the key again.

Re:quicktime pro

[Van Halen]

I bought QT Pro 4 and was forced to buy again for QT 5. I was able to use all the Pro features of the QT 5 betas, but not when the final release came out. I don't recall, but the policy was something like if you had bought the previous version within a certain time period, only then the upgrade was free.

This actually forced me to downgrade to QT 4 until a lot of the movie trailers started coming out in 5 only or had major sound problems in 4. Finally I gave in and paid again (yeah, I'm a sucker).

If I didn't have QT Pro now and didn't need it urgently, I'd wait for QT 6 to come out just to be safe.

Re:quicktime pro

[red5]

I bought it just last weekend.
So I'm a little worried.
What exactly is the use of pro?
I just bought it becaus I'm tired of not being able to watch the larger size videos.

Yes I'm a bigger sucker :)

Re:quicktime pro

[Alex Thorpe]

I use QT Pro mainly to save movies out of the browser plug-in, and to use the Present Movie feature in the player, which does wonderful full screen playback even with 320x200 MPEG files. There's also some video editing features that I've never used.

Re:quicktime pro

[Tug3]

In my opinion this policy of Apple s*cks big time!

I personally use Quicktime only to view net-videos. For all editing and other stuff I use other software. The 42+ euros just for better resolution is just not worth it! This really is yet an other example of money-hungry-sales-oriented-idiocy. All Apple is doing is shooting it's own foot - again!

This kind of policy only turns people away from Quicktime to competing (free) viewers, or to use pirated versions of Quicktime Pro! I cannot see how this is in the interests of Apple?

Personally I usually just skip the videos that require Quicktime Pro. I wouldn't bother to use a pirated version, and certainly am not willing to pay the 42 euros for it. - After all I'm not going to miss out on anything important...

Re:quicktime pro

[Srsen]

I believe that Apple's defense of the charge is that it offsets the costs of the bandwith they are paying for to host the trailers. If 10 million people are downloading the Star Wars trailer off their site, that costs them something.

Whether that justifies the price they charge, I won't debate, but that is, at least in part, the reason for the charge. Hey, they're a business. There is no moral reason thay should not charge to provide you with something of value.

Chimera used instead of IE

[Schemer]

I was pretty suprised when I noticed that not only was Phil Shiller not using IE for his Xserve demos durin this introduction, but he was using Chimera [mozdev.org] instead! This was pretty brave considering that chimera is only at version 0.28 ;-)

<conspiracy theory>Could this mean that Apple may dump IE in the future in favor of chimera once it's finished?</conspiracy theory>

Go Chimera! Go Phil! Go Steve!

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[blakespot]

I've been playing with Chimera on my dual G4 800. It is amazingly solid for a "pre-Beta" browser. For those unaware, Chimera is a Cocoa [apple.com] port of the Mozilla source. As such, it beneftis from all the robustness of OS X's truly native and incredibly robust development environment.

Chimera, as it evolves, will arguably be the Mozilla incarnation to use. Yet another amazing gemstone of technology made possible my Apple and Mac OS X.

blakespot -- iPodHacks.com [ipodhacks.com]

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[usr122122121]

This was pretty brave considering that chimera is only at version 0.28 ;-)

I'm assuming you meant 0.2.8 not 0.28... Even so, according to the Chimera Site [mozdev.org] the latest available build is 0.2.7...

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[tb3]

You gotta think at this point that IE is the weak link in the chain. Darwin is solid, OS X is solid, but IE is a major security hazard, at least in reputation. The only security notice I've gotten through Software Update has been and IE patch.

Of course, for demos like this, Chimera just looks better, 'cos it's got anti-aliased fonts and native widgets.

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[Bob The Cowboy]

Crikey, I just tried that page, and development is hauling ass! it has a 2-5 day release cycle!

go Chimera!

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[l-ascorbic]

Chimera is certainly getting very slick, and was recently moved into the Mozilla CVS tree.
I'm not sure how long it's been like this, or how significant it is, but the but livepage.apple.com is now pointing to home.netscape.com. Of course, IE is still the default browser, but when you open it the first time it takes you to netscape.

Buddhist

[dragonfrog]

He gets his hotdog, and hands the man a $10 bill. He waits a moment, but nothing is forthcoming. "Where is my change?" asks the buddhist. "Change must come from within." answers the hotdog seller.

Re:Buddhist

[Pronoun54]

Q: What did the Buddhist say to the Hot Dog vendor? A: Make me one with everything Saw it on Dr. Katz

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[foniksonik]

Personally I've been using Mozilla RC2 for the last couple of days over Chimera.. no disrespect, but it is still in beta (majorly).

Once you activate the http1.1 and pipelining preferences in Mozilla you will see Chimera like performance albeit w/o the lovely Aqua theme (I've switched to AlumiteX via 'Themer: Anche' myself... lovin' it). Mozilla still has a few bugs as well but for overall UE it now rates above Chimera... we'll see what the future holds.

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[foniksonik]

Oh yeah and I haven't touched IE for anything since Mozilla RC2... which is a huge hurdle I've been looking to overcome. Flash integration isn't perfected as yet but everything else seems on par or much better... ie: rendering big /. posts is at least ten times faster in Mozilla than in IE.

Microsoft MacBU has said that a major upgrade is in the works for IE on Mac though, sooo ya never know.

Re:Chimera used instead of IE

[mbbac]

Are you sure it was Chimera? I thought I remembered him using OmniWeb as the browser during the demo. Whoever is wrong between us, it's an acceptable mistake because they do look similar.

I'd check it out right now except that I am at work.

The Future?

[lsn95r]

Mac with OS X, IMHO, would be the perfect computing platform (TM) -- a result of the convergence of many core technologies (GUI, Unix ports etc etc) of the past 20 years, since the first "personal computer" (opinions may differ which was "the" first PC ...) Unfortunately, I see this as the end of the road as well (because it's perfect!) How about this: the "micro" computer 10 years from now will have (realistically) 1000 times more computing power made possible by having multiple processor unit on the same chip and multiple chip on the same motherboard. (Or any innovation other than flat 2D motherboard?) But who's going to be THE company capable of doing all this (think about the complexity in managing 1000 processors fighting for an unknown amount of memory)? My bet is still IBM, like it or not, the parent of the ubiquitous PC as we know it today ... (Is this an anticlimax to the debut of Star Wars Episode II or what? We are only talking about *1000* times more computing power in your average *beige* box??)"

The question conserning jaguar

[cuyler]

I think it was a bad decision that say that people that would buy an Xserve would also have to buy Jaguar when it came out. The Xserve is due in June, Jaguar in August.

It seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot. If I was to order 40 Xserves that wouldn't arrive to June and then have to pay $1500 (Canadian) for each server in two months to get it to the updated OS then I would wait the two months and get jaguar bundled with the Xserve.

Am I missing something besides the fact that the only people that would buy it between June and August are the ones that really need the Xserves (they likely would already have another system - say with dell - in place) or the people that don't mind eating up such a large bill in two months.

Re:The question conserning jaguar

[dragonfrog]

Errm. Surely, they can't make you promise to buy something from them later, can they?

Anyway, the things come with the OS license already. As Steve was so pleased to point out, the competition offers more expensive, inferior servers without the software licenses.