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Technology (Apple) Businesses Apple Technology

PPC 970 Powerbooks and Powermacs in Production? 492

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-take-one dept.
Thadddius_Brinks writes "MacWispers.com is reporting here that apple is currently in production of a redesigned single processor PowerPC 970 Powermac system and a 15.4 inch Powerbook. They (MacWhispers.com) are also standing by their earlier claims about the speed of the new processor." This article consolidates many of the major rumors surrounding WWDC including the rumor of a new case for the Powermacs, but it raises the ultimate question: 17" Powerbook, or PPC 970 Powerbook?
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PPC 970 Powerbooks and Powermacs in Production? More

PPC 970 Powerbooks and Powermacs in Production?

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  • You heard it here first! ;)


  • WWDC? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Marco_polo ( 160898 )
    I saw that as WWJD.. then I said to myself
    "What would jobs do?"

    it's only fitting, all things considered!

  • PPC 970 Powerbook (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Krieger ( 7750 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:10PM (#6184947) Homepage
    Egads this would be wonderful. 64-bit laptops. While I suspect we'll get that from the Opteron, I suspect if Apple follows through with the PPC 970, it will be available and useable much sooner.

    Needless to say... drool!
    • I suspect you won't be getting any Opteron notebooks. You'll likely have to wait for a mobile version of the Athlon64 before you'll see that. I'm betting you'll see PPC970 mobiles before Athlon64 mobiles, too. Just a guess, though.

    • Re:PPC 970 Powerbook (Score:5, Informative)

      by __past__ ( 542467 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:43PM (#6185287)
      Why wait for 64-bit laptops? Get yours today! [tadpolecomputing.com]

      OK, that might addmittedly not be for the same audience as a 64-bit powerbook, but still... drool indeed!

    • Re:PPC 970 Powerbook (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tbone1 ( 309237 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:57AM (#6189550) Homepage
      I don't know that the 970 in the Powerbook will happen this soon. I recall a discussion on The Mac Observer about the towers being Apple's best money-makers. They have the highest margins, in terms of dollars and in percentage, of Apple's computer hardware. Tower sales have been lagging for a few years, so don't be surprised if there is a big push to sell the towers, particularly in the sense of "The 970 is available, but not in the consumer products and only in our desktop".

      Also, Quark has just announced that it is shipping for OS X any day now. Lack of a native version of Quark, along with a sluggish market in publishing, has kept a lot of the tower buyers (ie print shops, etc) from upgrading. Quark is ready to ship, and publishing seems to be on its way to recovery. Those are two big pushes on the demand side.

      Also, it would seem silly to have the 970 in the towers and not in the XServe, so expect them there as well; that would further reduce the supply side even further. In fact, I suspect that the 970 in the XServe might drive XServe sales higher, thus reducing the pool of 970s available for laptops.

      A 970 Powerbook will be here, just don't expect it within the next couple-three months.

  • No need to click, article text.. NOT a karma whore (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With the entire Mac world abuzz with (often conflicting) reports of the Apple transition to the IBM PowerPC 970 processor family, we have decided to report a summary of all that we know at this time... not from regurgitated rumors obtained from other web sites, but from our own OEM contacts in the Apple supply pipeline.

    We have no software information sources; all information we receive comes from people working in various positions in and around plants in Taiwan that actually supply parts or perform hardwa
  • It isn't clear from the last paragraph of the article if they are comparing a dual G4 to a single 970. The other option is a single G4 to a single 970. A dual 970 doesn't seem to be an option since they don't seem to be in production currently.

    Does anyone have any clarification on this? With the rumours that the 970 chip is actually less expensive for Apple than the G4 I was hoping for dual 970 boxes at price points similar to the current crop of PowerMacs.

    • They are comparing to a single G4. Due to the G4's bad architecture, putting two of them into a computer doesn't improve performance nearly as much as it should. IIRC, you only see roughly a 25%-50% improvement. Therefore, a single 970 is about on par with a dual G4 in integer based operations and it's much faster running Altivec code.

      • Re:Performance claims need clarification (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Speaking as the owner of a dual G4... er, no. Code that's written to scale linearly scales pretty much linearly. The Maya renderer is a good example.

        • Memory bound (Score:5, Insightful)

          by benwaggoner ( 513209 ) <.ben.waggoner. .at. .microsoft.com.> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:57PM (#6185429) Homepage
          Assuming you aren't memory bound. You've only got 166 Mbps TOTAL between the two processors, which well tuned AltiVec codec can saturate with a single processor, let alone two.
      • They are comparing to a single G4.
        The values in the article were quoted against processors of equal clock speed. Rumour has it the PPC 970 is capable of much higher clock speeds than the G4.
    • Concerning performances, one thing which struck me out as difficult to believe is the claim of an x2-x2.5 speed increase for Altivec apps... According to ArsTechnica's report, Altivec implemantation in the 970 is supposed to be rather worse than in the G4 ; while Altivec apps will still gain from higher clock speed and faster memory increases, the claimed increase here seems rather unbelievable. Not that I wouldnt like to believe it, but mac rumor websites have been known to post unverified rumors to get hi

      • Re:Performance claims need clarification (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Lank ( 19922 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:32PM (#6185198)
        I don't think the ArsTechnica report said that the implementation was supposed to be worse - just that it was more of a hack. Just because something is a hack doesn't necessarily mean it can't perform well. In fact, most hacks are done for none other than performance reasons.
      • I think that the increase in the bus could really help here. If you can keep feeding data through a slow altivec unit you will might get better performance than with a fast one that is starved for data.
      • one thing which struck me out as difficult to believe is the claim of an x2-x2.5 speed increase for Altivec apps


        It will depend on the specific app. From what I've read, the 970's Altivec unit is slightly less advanced than that of the current G4, but it will have a *lot* more memory bandwidth. So the 970 won't be any faster per-cycle at RC5 (which fits entirely in cache), but could easily be significantly faster when processing large Photoshop images.

  • My own bets (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:13PM (#6184977) Homepage
    1. That the 970's are being produced, but so far, there's still small numbers, so either only folks at the Developer's Conference will first crack, or you'll have to wait for a bit of time before you can actually get your hands on one (kind of like when the 12" and 17" first started shipping).

    2. The major OS Upgrade to 64 bits will happen in a few more months - either way, I expect that OS 10.3 will cost another $50 - $100 (depending on how they do it).

    3. The G3 iBook line will be slowly phased out, and replaced with G4 based systems.

    4. Dual processor systems by Christmas or so.

    5. iTunes for Windows sooner than we thought.

    6. Somewhere in this timeframe, new Xserves will start to appear with the 970 chip and the 64-bit server operating system (which should be interesting for folks running "big ass" database/graphical rendering farms.

    So either way, I'd say we'll "see" the devices, a few "first adopters" will play with them, pass judgement, Ars Techana [SIC] will write a big ass article on them, and "everybody else" will pick them up later.

    Hopefully somebody can convince Valve that Half Life 2 would really run rather nicely on these boxes so I don't have to spend money upgrading my old Wintel Game Box.

    • Re:My own bets (Score:4, Informative)

      by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .stnapyffuprm.> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:15PM (#6185003)
      Actually, the 12" pbook was out pretty damn fast.....my parents picked one up about 2 weeks after macworld.

      the 17" just took about 2 months to fully ramp up production.

    • Re:My own bets (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Dylan Zimmerman ( 607218 ) <Bob_Zimmerman@myreal b o x . c om> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:34PM (#6185214)
      The 970 is already being produced en masse. Because of Apple's contract with IBM, they get a bunch of them pretty early.

      According to ThinkSecret, Panther is going to launch sometime in September. They also say that a special 64-bit version of Jaguar called 'Sméagol' is being built for the new PowerMacs (known internally as Q37). It could be finalized as early as WWDC. Why would they have a special version of Jaguar if they didn't have the 970's rolling off the production lines already? Seriously. If Apple thought that they couldn't get them to people quickly, they wouldn't bother recompiling the entire OS for them. They would just wait a month to release them. They don't want a repeat of the bad publicity they got as a result of the 17" slowness.

      Apple is moving away from Motorola chips entirely. IBM still makes the G3. In all likelihood, Apple is going to keep the G3 in the iBook and just start using IBM chips instead of Motorola ones.

      I sure hope so.

      Again, I really hope so. I've been itching to spend all of my money at the iTunes Music Store, but I don't have a Mac.

      I would imagine that the Xserves would use the real thing. The Power4 uses more power and produces more heat than the 970, but it also has an insane MTBF. Besides, you wouldn't need a dual Power4 since it's already two cores on a single die. Pretty cool design, really.

      • Re:My own bets (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "They also say that a special 64-bit version of Jaguar called 'Sméagol' is being built for the new PowerMacs (known internally as Q37)."

        oooh ... We wants it! ... my precious ...

      • Re:My own bets (Score:3, Interesting)

        by GlassHeart ( 579618 )
        The 970 is already being produced en masse. Because of Apple's contract with IBM, they get a bunch of them pretty early.

        If I'm not utterly mistaken, the rumored contract has not been confirmed by Apple or IBM officially.

        In all likelihood, Apple is going to keep the G3 in the iBook and just start using IBM chips instead of Motorola ones.

        That would be silly. First of all, as stable as IBM is, it's always better to have more suppliers than not. Apple's current predicament is precisely because their sol

  • G5 Powerbook? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spookysuicide ( 560912 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:13PM (#6184984) Homepage
    If they release a 15" g5 powerbook, what would happen to sales of their 17" g4 powerbook? I don't believe apple would have a powerbook line with their midrange model having such a radically better architecture/processor then their high end model.

  • 40h bit, not 64 bit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thinkit3 ( 671998 ) * on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:14PM (#6184988)
    Isn't much more elegant to use hexadecimal?

  • Shullbit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:16PM (#6185004)
    I would have believed 970 PowerMacs in production but definitely not 970 based Powerbooks. That goes double because there's even more rumors of 15" Powerbooks based on the G4 but all aluninumized waiting to be shipped to Apple's stores and other retailers. If you've noticed there's a dearth of 15" Powerbooks in stock anywhere that sells them.

    Besides June production doesn't mean a June release or even announcement date. Apple likes to build up stocks of computers before selling them. Building and shipping computers in the same month would be a ridiculous strain on their resources. As for a June announcement, see the Osborne computer company.

    WWDC isn't exactly a place Steve Jobs likes to announce hardware products, it is really the wrong venue for such announcements. MacWorld Expo is a much better place to do things like that and is only two months away. It's not really a secret Panther developer previews are going to be released at WWDC which will likely be SJ's keynote subject. MacOS and related software ought to be and typically is the subject of SJ's WWDC keynotes. Not hardware announcements.
    • Actually, I think WWDC does make some sense (if not complete sense) for this sort of hardware announcement.

      Afterall, Apple's really going to need their developers to start churning out 64bit code to really be able to justify/promote the new 64bit chips.

      • Re:Shullbit (Score:3, Informative)

        by baka_boy ( 171146 )
        Most of the heavy-duty apps that Apple will want to demo on the new 64-bit hardware right off the bat, like Oracle, Maya, etc., should already be 64-bit clean, since most of them also run on SPARC, MIPS, and Alpha platforms which have been 64-bit for a long time. Normal consumer apps aren't really going to see much of a performance gain from native 64-bit execution; it's the increased clock speed, cache size, and memory bandwidth that's going to improve things there.

        Of course, Apple has already worked hard

      • Re:Shullbit (Score:3, Informative)

        by Graymalkin ( 13732 )
        I don't really see the 970 really requiring some massive software transition that the 68k-PowerPC transition required. The 970 and the G4 share the same ISA, the differences are microarchitectural. Developers will need access to the new systems to make sure their code is going to work but as long as they are writing their code properly the 64-bit ports shouldn't require more than a recompile. I think it makes more sense for SJ's keynote to talk about the direction Apple is moving with OSX and maybe even fut

    • Re:Shullbit (Score:4, Interesting)

      by haunebu ( 16326 ) * on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:33PM (#6185212) Homepage
      Apple likes to build up stocks of computers before selling them. Building and shipping computers in the same month would be a ridiculous strain on their resources.

      Er, no. Apple prides itself on having a low inventory (a couple of weeks, at the most) - all personal computer manufacturers do. If they had any more, they'd wind up in the December 2001 "5+ weeks of unsellable inventory" glut problem.

      WWDC isn't exactly a place Steve Jobs likes to announce hardware products, it is really the wrong venue for such announcements. MacWorld Expo is a much better place to do things like that and is only two months away.

      Except that Apple isn't going to be at MWNY this year.

    • Re:Shullbit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gamgee5273 ( 410326 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:01PM (#6185480) Journal
      Don't forget: Jobs intro'd the original bondi blue iMac at WWDC five years ago. He will do hardware at WWDC if he thinks it is cool enough to show off.

  • this makes sense (Score:5, Informative)

    by b17bmbr ( 608864 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:16PM (#6185012)
    apple is offering sweet $300 dollar rebates to students [apple.com], and they have just dropped the price on many models like the powerbook. might be a good time to jump on one.
    • Yep, that's the same rebate they offered last year when I bought my Quicksilver, 2-3 months before they released the mirrored door PowerMacs. That, along with Apple demanding the removal of some information from a few rumors sites pretty much verifies something new will be coming out this summer (The rumors were all about the 970 BTW). Anytime Apple demands the removal of information it generally means it's true . . .

  • MacWhispers... (Score:5, Informative)

    by evil carrot ( 669874 ) <evilcarrot@lick a b l e .net> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:17PM (#6185024)
    I'm no fan of Jack Campbell and honestly do not believe anything his site spouts. The only time I ever hear anything about it is when (semi-)legitimate news sources pick up "scoops" from his site.

    To read more about how cool a guy he is, check out the MacTable report at Macintouch:

    http://www.macintouch.com/mactable.html [macintouch.com]
    • Mod parent up! After reading the letters Campbell sent in to Macintouch, I'm astounded that anyone takes this guy seriously.

    • Jack Campbell (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jackDuhRipper ( 67743 )
      Holy crap - this whole discussion is en re a MacWhispers column written by a guy who's time and again (macTable; envestco, etc.) been proven to be so full of shit his eyes are brown.

      It wouldda been good to see evil carrot's post further up the thread ...

      If it is for real, great - considering the source, though, doesn't fill me with hope. The article was convincing with all the "inside scoop" from the part OEMs -

      Oh, well - I just bought a dual 867 anyway ...

  • From the past... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nexum ( 516661 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:17PM (#6185026)
    Well, from past knowledge of how Apple has done things recently, I'd say...

    PPC 970 Single 1.4 Ghz shipping July.

    PPC 970 Duallies shipping within 4 weeks of the single.

    OSX 10.3 Late August... and I would bet my kidneys you WILL have to pay for it (~$129), but don't moan... apparently there is a LOT of new/improved stuff, and this is only the beginning as Apple have found that they can build on the code very easily *indeed* due to the quality and clenaliness of it... exactly the problem MS seems to have with Windows ATM.
  • Dammit, I want one. My poor lil outdated iBook..

    Well, on the plus side I should get at least another year out of my 'Book before it becomes a YDL 'Book. The only issue is: how does Apple think they're going to sell more iBooks with such an option out there? I mean, pretty soon G3s won't be supported by developers..

  • Rumors, Rumors, Rumors (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dhovis ( 303725 ) * on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:24PM (#6185103)

    I find it hard to know what to believe here. It seems a lock that Apple will introduce PPC970 based Macs at WWDC, but the question as to when they will be availble for shipment is something that is probably only known to his Steveness.

    As far as a PPC970 based Powerbook goes. I doubt it. The peak energy consumption is low enough, but I don't think it has any powersave features built in. The increased complexity of a whole new chip in a laptop...seems dubious.

    However, There is one thing that makes me think a Powerbook G5 might be released: Apple has not updated the 15" Powerbook since November, not even to bring it up to feature parity with the 12" and 17" models (Bluetooth, FW800, and DDR memory, Aluminum enclosure). It does make me think that maybe Apple has been waiting for the next major uprade to update the 15" models and switching to the PPC970 would certainly qualify.

  • Mac rumor sites vs. Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:25PM (#6185123) Homepage Journal
    Slashdot is not a place for rumors.

    To top it off, the person who runs Macwhispers is completely morally bankrupt, and is most likely fabricating the entire story.

    I'd like to see some real competition for high performance CPUs as much as the next guy, but let's not lose our heads to con artists like this guy...we will know for sure in about 2 weeks ;)
  • Everyone's immediate reaction to MacWhispers is always negative.

    "Oh, I'll believe it when I see it."

    Obviously. MacWhispers has given up on making release date predictions. You'll notice that they have *not* given a specific timeframe for the release of these machines. They have said that they are being built.

    So, now, when WWDC makes no mention of the 970, everyone will say "See! MacWhispers are a bunch of damn fools." and no one will remember, two months from now, when these machines surface, that it fits perfectly with MacWhispers' information.

    If you take them completely literally, they are a valuable source of information. They cannot divine the future, and they don't seem to be trying to do so, either.

    • Re:Everyone seems to misunderstand MacWhispers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gorsh ( 75930 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:56PM (#6185412)
      But using this logic, they're always going to be right - everyone knows that Apple will most likely announce a PPC970 system at some point in the future.

      Predicting something that everyone knows will happen eventually is not so significant as correctly predicting *when* it will happen.
      • No, they are both providing valuable information (the machines are in production) and they are providing verifiable information (they have a metalicized plastic enclosure and different handles).

        Predicting something that everyone knows will happen eventually is not so significant as correctly predicting *when* it will happen.

        Obviously. That is why everyone seems to be denying these nonexistant predictions. That doesn't change the fact that they are not making those predictions.

        Also, I'll point out that

  • New Product Lineup (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:26PM (#6185132) Journal
    Without knowing exactly how many PPC 970 chips are being produced, it's tough to guess where they would go in Apple's lineup. If there are enough, it's safe to venture a guess that:

    1) PowerBook gets the yummy new PPC 970 chip (it IS the year of the laptop afterall)
    2) iBook then gets the current G4 chip. The last of the lineup using G3s finally gets the upgrade.
    3) iMac, eMac, PowerMac get new 970 chip because hey, we can't leave them out. Or can we? It's the year of the laptop...maybe let the masses go nuts over the laptops as they continue working on the new IBM chips and then blow the doors off when they're ready to be put in the desktop models.

    • Re:New Product Lineup (Score:3, Interesting)

      by baka_boy ( 171146 )
      I think the iBook, iMac, and eMac will all stay fairly close to their current specs for a while -- they're all selling fine in their intended channels, and the additional revenue to be made from upping them to 970s (or even G4, in the case of the iBook) really doesn't justify major hardware revisions until the excitement (and initial problems/patches/recalls that will inevitably follow the introduction of a new processor and system architecture) dies down.

      Personally, I'd be willing to be that the XServe an

  • I doubt the speed predictions at least. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by laertes ( 4218 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:28PM (#6185149) Homepage
    Going from the Ars Technica article a while back, I don't buy the claims about the speed of the new chip.

    Specifically:

    On Altivec optimized tasks, these machines have as much as 2 to 2.5 times the through performance as a similarly clocked G4.

    Unlike the G4, where the AltiVec unit is integrated rather nicely into the issue unit, and can issue several types of vector instructions in parallel, the 970 can only do a permute in parallel with another instruction. Hence, for some tasks, I would expect the G4 to be almost twice as fast as a similarly clocked 970.

    They make a similar claim about the non-AltiVec speed, which I tend to believe. The compiler has to be a little smarter (but Apple did add a bunch of G4 optimizations to gcc anyway), but the 970 can do more per clock the the G4 can, under many circumstances. Not only can it have more instructions in-flight, but it has a much more advanced reordering unit than the G4.

    Oh yeah, and when did /. just copy over Apple rumor stories? </obligatory>

    • Re:I doubt the speed predictions at least. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gsfprez ( 27403 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:49PM (#6185334)
      cache performance, bus performance increases.

      the real reason G4's don't perform is that they are usually waiting on data... the G4's may be fast and have great AltiVec, the whole issue of still running (essentially) PC133 memory is the bottleneck.. no matter how fast your CPU is, if you can't get it lots of data - not just the data in the L2 cache - its just gonna sit there.

      the 970 systems should, by any means, at least keep the CPU(s) busy. that alone will greatly enhance the performance of the new machines when doing things like 3D rendering, video transcoding, etc.

      Its like why my Powerbook rips mp3's from CD's at only 10x, while my slower desktop rips them at 14x... the desktop has a 52x CD-ROM drive and my Powerbook has a slow-as-ass Superdrive. I can't keep the machine busy because I can't get it the data. The bottleneck in that case is the CD read.

      In the G4's vs. the 970's discussion, the bottleneck is the pathetic (compared to Intel mobos) G4 motherboard because the mobo's running the 970's are all around faster.

    • Re:I doubt the speed predictions at least. (Score:4, Informative)

      by illumin8 ( 148082 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:21PM (#6185692) Journal
      Yes, but you aren't taking into account the FSB speed of the processor which is really choking the G4 right now. 167 mhz. is just not fast enough to feed the processor as fast as the Altivec unit can process instructions.

      The 1.8 ghz. PPC 970 should have a 900 mhz. FSB, fed by dual bank DDR400 (PC3200) memory it will really cook!

    • Re:I doubt the speed predictions at least. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by stripes ( 3681 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:42PM (#6185899) Homepage Journal
      Unlike the G4, where the AltiVec unit is integrated rather nicely into the issue unit, and can issue several types of vector instructions in parallel, the 970 can only do a permute in parallel with another instruction. Hence, for some tasks, I would expect the G4 to be almost twice as fast as a similarly clocked 970.

      The Ars review used the CPU documentation to decide the 970's Altivec was slow. It might have missed something, like maybe the G4's Altivec is always memory starved and thus runs a 25% of it's maximum speed while the 970 has lots of memory bandwidth and thus while in thery is only 50% as fast as the G4's, that manages to be 2x what the G4 really does.

      Of corse it may well be slower (or merely "about the same"), because I'm not able to tell you how fast a CPU is from the pre-release docs either (I thought the TI SuperSPARC would be fast, and the P-II would be slow). Basically I'm saying "who can really tell here".

  • There is no way Apple would release a new notebook with a smaller screen than their brand new 17" Powerbook G4 that was just introdcued in January, and just started shipping in volume here in the last month or too.

    There is no way they'd release it. I'd be willing to believe a G4 Powerbook 15.4" and a Power PC 970 based Power Mac Tower. but no way they'd do that with the Powerbook at this time.

  • (Re)Stating the Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by buckhead_buddy ( 186384 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:41PM (#6185264)
    I think that at this point it's quite obvious _something_ is in production, but that doesn't mean the time frame you can by an updated Mac is close at hand though.

    Major changes that effect developers will be announced at WWDC. It's likely that whatever new directions in CPUs, APIs, or Market segments will be announced there because developers will have to react to the news. That doesn't mean anything will be available for sale or even that we'll get the whole picture of what cases, prices, user interface changes, or iApps will be released. Not only don't developers need to know this stuff, but traditionally they've been a very conservative, non-spontaneous, purchasing crowd where such surprises would be wasted.

    People keep talking about having the whole Mac product line refreshed at WWDC and nonsense like that. My guess is far more conservative. We may get a timetable to expect new PowerMacs, but we probably aren't even going to see the new machines in final plastics.

    During the transition from 68000 to PowerPC, Apple bent over backwards to give developers access to emulators, test labs, and even loaned machines to big developers. But they didn't start commercially selling anything until eight or nine months after the WWDC announcements.

    I don't think Apple will wait quite that long to introduce new chips if such plans are really on the horizon, but I think there will be some non-trivial lag from WWDC to new consumer-marketed debut of new hardware.

  • Next from Apple... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @03:46PM (#6185313) Homepage Journal
    Oh well yeah, now that all the rumors are in one place...

    OK, my predictions:

    • Apple will come out with a new motherboard design. It will feature HyperTransport architecture from AMD.
    • Even more support for multiple CPU's including multiple cores.
    • Serial ATA. Apple will implement it, probably find some clever way to take advantage of it for another radical system case.
    • USB 2.0. Sure Apple is unimpressed with it but the market demands it and it costs nothing more.
    • Updated standard graphics cards, probably from both nVidia & ATI.
    • Apple will continue to grossly overcharge for RAM. Then of course nearly every OEM also does so.
    • Continue to ship the 1-button/no-button mouse reasoning if folks want more buttons they can spend $10 for another mouse, the OS already supports the other buttons.
    • Include 802.11g antennas in all offerings.
    • Apple will do something with video. They've got all the components, now they'll do something different and dramatic like they did with audio.
    • Something new on the low-end, either a significant change to the eMac or a completely new design.
    • Apple will announce the next version of MacOS X but probably not ship it, or at least only release it as a beta.
    • Apple will make some sort of announcement regarding further office applications to compliment Keynote. These may or not be based on OpenOffice/StarOffice.
    • Lots more functionality included for MacOS X Server. Possibly a small-office/all-in-one/out-of-the-box solution.
    • A remote client for MacOS X.
    • Some sort of clustering.
    • Longshot - Some sort of Exchange/Outlook killer.
    • Longshot - Wireless webcam.
    • Longshot - Server blades.
    • Longshot - A built-in phone management system including universal inbox, menu options programmed graphically, fax management, etc.
    • Longshot - Dynamic DNS based off of .Mac accounts.
    • Continue to ship the 1-button/no-button mouse reasoning if folks want more buttons they can spend $10 for another mouse, the OS already supports the other buttons.

      I think the days of the one-button mouse may be coming to an end, at least partially. Apple's consumer systems recently started shipping with new keyboards and mice. I don't remember if they did this with the keyboard, but what once said "Pro Mouse" on its underside now says just "Mouse." The only other discernible difference between the two are

  • No 64-bit OS for some time - my prediction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gsfprez ( 27403 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:14PM (#6185633)
    I don't get why its believed that Mac OS X has to be 64-bit to run on the 970. We've been told in numerous places (Ars, IBM's frickin website) that the 970 runs in 32-bit just fine.

    SO... that being said... my WWDC announcment predictions along with what Apple has already stated

    - New Macs with PPC 970
    - New PowerBook 15 with PPC 970 (the 15" PowerBook is the workhorse of the line, always will be, sorry)
    - Preview of Panther
    - Macintosh Roadmap Roadmap showing the future... and this is the big-ass news that everyone's been talking about.

    Roadmap steps will look something like this...

    July 2003:
    10.2.7 running on new 970-based Macs practically unmodified because the 970 handles 32-bit operation just totally fine. x.x.+1 updates between WWDC and October 2003. Developer-only release of 64-bit SDK which will not be ready for prime time, but will allow developers to make the swtich, if necessary (similar to Mac OS 9 -> Carbon transition)

    October 2003:
    10.3 release - all those cool updates in iApps, updates in performance and operation of Mac OS X UI that were shown at WWDC. Panther Will NOT BE a 64-Bit OS!! - why not? Does not need to be because there are no 64-bit apps! Where are the apps? They are still being worked on with the 64-bit SDK, see you at Mac World San Fran with first 64-bit apps.

    Jan 2004 (MWSF):
    10.3.5 release. Mac OS X will run 64-bit applications. Only apps that NEED to be recomplied 64-bit clean will be recompiled 64-bit clean (iChat, for example, does NOT need to be 64-bit). Finder will be first app to be 64-bit clean because it needs to be.

    beyond that, its non-speculateable.

    But i think that the real news at this WWDC is going to be the first major Macintosh Roadmap since we saw the Rhapsody one in 1997(8?). You will see where the Mac is going hardware-wise and software wise.

    Apple is going to push into the small-medium server market in a hard way.... 64-bit XServes which can run horkin Oracle databases, huge fileservers, and be the backbone of big-ass renderfarms... all with Mac OS X moron-simple UI and none of the pain of cost with Windows servers or admin headache of Linus servers? Puhlease... Apple is going to kick ass and move in where Intel and AMD are just simply lagging behind.

    (yes, half the guys in my wedding party have apple.com email addresses.. no, none of this information was gleaned from them.)

  • My predictions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@NOsPaM.phroggy.com> on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:20PM (#6185680) Homepage
    The PowerMac G5 will be announced at WWDC, based on the IBM PowerPC 970. The name of the machine will be "PowerMac G5" or "Power Macintosh G5", but Apple will also advertise the processor as the "IBM PowerPC 970 processor with Velocity Engine". It's 64-bit, and they'll hype that up as much as they can.

    The low-end (1.4GHz?) model will be available immediately, or within two weeks and Apple will be taking pre-orders. The mid-range and high-end (dual 1.6 and dual 1.8?) models will be shipping within a month after that. Photoshop comparisons with the latest Compaq PC will be mind-blowing, for the types of people who get excited about Photoshop performance. USB2, Bluetooth, FireWire 800 and 400 and Gigabit Ethernet will be standard features, with a slot for an Airport Extreme card.

    The Aluminum 15" PowerBook will be released. We will not see a PowerBook G5 before January '04 and maybe not until March '04.

    The PowerMac G5 will ship with a hacked version of Mac OS X 10.2, which will not be fully optimized to take advantage of the new processor. However, the PPC970 is designed to run 32-bit code just as well as 64-bit code, so it will still be amazingly fast. Anyone who buys a G5 will be entitled to a "free" ($29 S&H) upgrade to Mac OS X 10.3, which will ship in September for $129.

    The new OS will be 64-bit native, optimized for the PPC970, and compiled with gcc 3.3. Large chunks of the Finder will be rewritten for performance and better UI, and there will be a ton of little system-wide UI improvements (adding up to a significantly better experience). One convenient new feature will be support for multiple users being logged in locally at the same time, like Windows XP (go to a login screen without quitting all your apps, second person logs in, first person's apps stay running hidden in the background, can switch back and forth between users).

    Mac OS X 10.3 will include WebCore, Apple's Aquafied version of KHTML, available for any application to use. Safari will be the default browser. I suspect Internet Explorer will not be included, although of course you can download it from Microsoft. Help Viewer will be replaced (thank god) with a version that uses WebCore. Now that WebCore is available, it'll be possible for Apple to support PAC and WPAD for automatic proxy server discovery, although I don't know whether these features will make it into 10.3.

    Did I miss anything? We'll see how accurate my predictions are next month...

  • From past experience... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jriskin ( 132491 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:25PM (#6185723) Homepage
    Ways of knowing Apple is going to release something.

    1. Supply chain starts drying up.

    2. Apple allows upgrade makers to catch up.

    On the supply chain i've heard conflicting rumors, but on the upgrade side both OWC and Powerlogix have now released 1.42Ghz upgrades, this matches the top of the line G4 desktops.

    So there is definitely SOMETHING coming, whether it is a new 970 based machine or simply speed bumped G4's only time will tell.

  • Not Quite (Score:3, Insightful)

    by coolmacdude ( 640605 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @04:47PM (#6185955) Homepage Journal
    using bone-stock OS X 10.2.6 on pre-production single processor PPC 970 machines...

    This statement casts doubt on the other claims of the article because it is simply not possible. A 970 Mac could not run stock 10.2.6 as it exists now because it doesn't include drivers for the 970, the new Hypertransport bus, or the new motherboard chipset. IBM stated that only minor changes would be necessary to operating system code for 970 support though, so my analysis is that there are two possibilities.
    Either a. the OS they are running isn't stock 10.2.6 but a modded version that is being called the same thing
    or b. there are no running 970 Macs as of yet so they aren't running any OS.

  • What we can expect (Score:4, Interesting)

    by customjake ( 662717 ) on Thursday June 12, 2003 @05:20PM (#6186240)
    There are doubts in my mind that Apple will use the WWDC as a launching pad for the new 970s. I do belive that Apple is currently in production of 970 machines, and plans to release them alongside Panther, whenever it releases...probably August. After all, why release an OS that's 64 bit if you don't have hardware to run 64 bit. The rest of the computer world is waiting for a viable 64 bit desktop system....there are other 64 bit processors out there.....

    I do belive that Apple will have some sort of 970 based machine for the developers to look at, as well as some benchmarks for us all to drool over.

    So what can we expect? Previewing Panther on a 970 based system, probably an update to the developer software (64 bit Project Builder), benchmarks of the 970, overview of 970 based hardware. Probably annouce a PPC 970 based Powerbook in the near future...END OF YEAR? Possibly a Naming change to hardware lineup, and Adjustable Displays

    What is less likely? Windows verison of iTunes, PPC 970s shipping, PPC 970 Powerbooks shipping, iCam,

    What is NOT going to happen? Apple PDA, Apple Cell phone,

    As for the whole product line being revamped, i don't think we'll see a whole new product line at WWDC, but i think that Apple is going to be moving all it's lines away from the G4/G3 based systems. I don't even see the iBooks being converted to G4 systems, as IBM's chip lineup is known to be 20-30% cheaper than Motorola's line...

    Instead of seeing G4s as the low end chips, i'd probably wager that IBMs will develop a PPC off of the 750 chip and this will probably replace the G3 systems. But i wouldn't expect to see a PPC 750 until you see a 980 in a powermac.... I think if Apple is going to IBM processors, it would be prudent that they went to an all IBM chip lineup.

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