Apple Marketing Hypes New PowerMacs 1022
Wacky_Wookie was only one of many who wrote in with a mention of Apple's "leak" of specifications for a new line of PowerMacs to be dubbed "G5", apparently running the new PowerPC 970 CPUs. No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing. :) Update by J : In case those linked sites get taken down too, try
MacNN.
Well then... (Score:4, Insightful)
And I still can't afford it...
Re:Well then... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well then... (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well then... (Score:4, Funny)
mac prices (Score:4, Informative)
macs *usually* fall into a pricing structure and somewhat stay the same after updates. it's not like these (if they are real) will be stacked on top of the current machine's prices and start at $4,000..... the G4 some poor citizen buys today will be dropped in price by hundreds of dollars monday if these show up. sometimes they sort of shift up and down a step according to conditions of the market. For example, for a long time there has been an emac/imac right at or around $999. I guess this pricing method is what caused their price protection deal where if you buy a machine and the price officially drops in 2 or 4 weeks (depends on who you ask?) they will refund the change.
Re:Well then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well then... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well then... (Score:3, Funny)
New Mac (Score:5, Interesting)
$$$$$$$$Money (Score:3, Interesting)
The main reason that I'll be waiting for is the ability to be able to put together a pretty good system for $600. I love MacOS, but until they go after the low end, there are a lot of us who will keep dual-booting linux (or BSD) and wi
Re:$$$$$$$$Money (Score:5, Insightful)
And Ill wait to buy a Ferrari when they have one thats less than $20,000. Apple doesnt go for the low end because it doesnt have to, and it couldnt gaurentee the quality its got if it did. You get what you pay for.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:New Mac (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nope--no CAD software (Score:5, Informative)
None to be found anywhere. [architosh.com]
Certainly no links to be found about Mac CAD. [thearchitectureroom.com]
What a shame.
Re:Nope--no CAD software (Score:5, Insightful)
There may be some hope though with WWDC next week. I heard rumblings that science and engineering (CAD/CAE) developers may be targeted because of their UNIX heritage. I know that last year I was told that Apple was targeting biotech first, and that they would evaluate where to go next. I made noise with a few managers at Apple, that in the companies that I had worked, engineering charted the course for the rest of the IT policies to follow. Most of this was because of the intensive hardware and software demands of running high-end CAD software.
One of those listed (Pro/E) has released a Linux version in cooperation with HP. With Apple's new machines and the fact that they have the largest installed base of UNIX (don't care what the Open Group says), there may be a few ISV's which may be persuaded to port to OS X.
I know that in the shops that I've worked in and or managed, the high-end stuff (Pro/E, I-deas, etc.) just doesn't work well enough on Windows to be valuable. The midrange stuff (Solidworks, SolidEdge, Mechanical Desktop) only exists on Windows, and can't touch the high-end stuff for utility. Apple could woo the high-end over, and open a can of whoop ass on Microsoft on the CAD front.
We'll have to just wait and see.
-- Len
Re:New Mac (Score:5, Informative)
http://osx.freshmeat.net/
True, not all of the 28,888 projects on freshmeat run on Mac OS X. But the OS X-specific section continues to grow, and many *nix applications have been ported or simply work already.
Re:New Mac (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a natural law of the universe that Apple must be behind Wintel. Prior to the G4 debacle Macs were very competitive, and depending on the prices and performance of the G5 systems they may be again very soon.
Re:New Mac (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh sure. So the legendary Apple marketing machine will whip up a hyped frenzy in its followers. But other than being in the running again, nothing will have really changed.
Well, nothing at all, except for the fact that Macs might be faster than practically anything out there now, as opposed to before, when they were definitely not.
Home users care nothing for 'vendor independence', etc. They usually just buy the cheapest machine that has the specs they want.
The *really* big news is that a huge chunk of the geek-set here on Slashdot will soon have a really, really compelling alternative to any high-end PC workstation. If the IBM chip scales up fast, Apple is looking very well positioned to displace a few SGI and Sun machines in certain situations.
Think about it - almost everyone on here drools over Mac OS X - rightly so - but they had problems with the slower bus/clock speeds on the G4s (whether justified or not; I still suspect a lot of these goons screaming for speed just want it for Doom 3). With 64bit dual-Ghz high-speed-bus Macs, you will see an even larger migration of those Unix geeks to the Mac. Something I look forward to.
I'm not an Apple apologist by any means - I use the big 3 platforms pretty regularly - but let's give credit where its due, huh?
Re:New Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
Not at all. That is, in fact, my point. I think the RDF gets modded down pretty fast. Slashdot is a tough crowd. Facts are paramount. You don't have any "points" you just put forth an opinion.
You can't seem to help taking a swipe. It's tiresome.... And yet I keep getting modded up for it! You know what is really tiresome?
That you keep getting modded up for it? +5 'I agree'. Look, I'm not trying to start a war here. But there are other opinions. I do respect yours but you need to back it up every so often.
Why is this news? There has been plenty of competition in the high end workstation space for years. Oh right, I forgot. This is Apple. Their cases glow in the dark. Of course it's news.
THAT is what I am talking about. You know when AMD comes out with a new Opteron I don't go all frothy, I think, "That's cool." Apple comes out with a new chip and its "ooh, Apple, they glow, they blow." You just illustrated my point beautifully.
Think about it - almost everyone on here drools over Mac OS X...I hate to burst your bubble, but no they don't.
No worries. They do. I see it every day. People love love love OS X. Maybe you don't. Thats' fine. But its evident all over Slashdot.
Classic Mac apologism at work.
Fuck off. "Classic Mac troll at work." See how that goes?
I was merely intimating that many PC - and Mac - people yell about speed they don't need, but merely want. Nothing wrong with that per se but I get sick of people saying computers aren't 'fast enough'. Practically all of them are fast enough by practically anyone's standards. It was just an observation, it's not a platform 'apology'. If anything you are dodging the issue.
This does of course lead to the question of why you look forward to it. You look forward to it, because you have made a large (almost certainly personal) investment in the platform.
It's true that I have a Mac at home, not at work. It's true that I want them to hang around because they seem to be the only ones innovating at times. But, again, stop telling me what I think. You've dodged the issue once again and are dancing on the periphery of an ad hominem.
Clearly, this is the type of thinking that keeps Microsoft in the top spot, keeps IE dominating the web in the face of superior free alternatives etc. You want people to use Macs, despite the fact that this ultimately profits only Apple...
Clearly not. I just want people to stop pissing on Apple - strike that, any companuy, for stupid political reasons. That's it.
Re:New Mac (Score:4, Insightful)
I always make sure that all of the software I purchase is compatible with that of a convicted monopolist [microsoft.com]!
[end snide commentary]
Vendor independence? From whom? Microsoft [microsoft.com] or Intel [intel.com]? Multiple distribution channels does not correspond to vendor independance.
Macminute took down the specs screenshot (Score:5, Informative)
Also more on the story here [thinksecret.com].
huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense, anyone who has half a clue is fully aware that Apple is particularly fascist and litigious regarding details of product launches leaking out. In particular, Steve Jobs simply loves the "wow" he gets from the audience by completely surprising them. In this case, few people actually expected DUAL 2Ghz PPC970 (G5) configurations available. Now, people are going to be less surprised on Monday.
Surely Michael is welcome to tell us how much he understands marketing and what products has he actually marketed, and we can see how much his credentials stack up against someone in charge of Apple and Pixar.
Re:huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes a monumental amount of incompetence to leak a single page accidently on a site as mission critical as Apple's. The company would have at least one staging server, if not more. They'd have people double checking everything. When I worked at Dyson, every upload to the live site had me quaking in my boots, even after the three times I checked the stage server to make sure everything was working A-OK
Ah, naming (Score:5, Funny)
Man, I couldn't be more shocked if the next version of Windows was called 2004 or 2005. What will they think of next?
To spell it out: the specs (Score:5, Informative)
* Up to 1 Ghz processor bus (!!)
* Up to 8 GB of DDR SDRAM
* Fast Serial ATA hard drives
* AGP 8X Pro graphics options from NVIDIA or ATI
* Three PCI or PCI-X expansion slots
* Three USB 2.0 ports
* One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
* Bluetooth & Airport Extreme ready
* Optical and analog audio in and out
Quite a leap from the current dual 1.42Ghz G4 boxes, with a 166Mhz bus...
Re:To spell it out: the specs (Score:3, Funny)
mmmmm, NUMA! (Score:5, Interesting)
Would these be CHRP (common hardware ref. platform) compliant? Or has apple abandoned that? Cuz then you could run MacOS, or Linux, or AIX all native on the same box.
Re:mmmmm, NUMA! (Score:5, Insightful)
this is ala the iMac (Score:4, Funny)
I can see it now in the keynote: "As some of you MAY have already heard (insert laughter) we have....(insert product announcements)"
whooo.
adam
Expansion port (Score:5, Funny)
Expansion will be provided by three "PCI or PCI-X" slots, and - for the first time on a Mac - USB 2.0 ports, of which there are three.
To avoid any consumer confusion, Apple also stated that the USB 2.0 ports, previously called USB 1.1, were not "high speed" USB 2.0, but rather "ordinary" USB 2.0 (USB 1.1). The PCI slot will also be rebranded to PCI-X due to high customer demand for PCI-X slots. To make this clear, they also announced plans to rebrand the PCI-X slot as "PCI-X ultra high speed" and the PCI slot to "PCI high-speed". USB 2.0 ultra-mega-super-high speed expansion ports (previously called USB 2.0 high-speed) were also rumored.
Re:Expansion port (Score:5, Funny)
A little history lesson... (Score:5, Informative)
* ATI leaks news of updated PowerMac G4s (and summarily gets poor product placement in them afterwards, with Apple favoring Nvidia for years to come)
* Time Canada posts story of new flat-panel iMac before paper issue even hits the streets.
I'm sure there have been more, but those seem to be the most important.
This one will go down as probably the most significant leak in quite a while.
Leak and marketting (Score:4, Funny)
Oooh, now thanks to Michael, I understand those devious marketdroids. Silly me, I thought the halloween document [opensource.org] was a real leak, or at least a fake, but now I understand why Microsoft's image and sales have sky-rocketed since its release : it's because their marketing department released it on purpose !
G5 name is taken.... (Score:3, Informative)
Otherwise, with those specs, it's about time. When it does come out, it will at least give Intel/AMD a run for the money (remember, the 64 bit stuff will be out by then), instead of eating their dust.
Re:G5 name is taken.... (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC, that was Apple's defense when they announced Mac OS 9.0 and Microware (makers of OS-9) took issue with it.
~Philly
Re:G5 name is taken.... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, come on. This is like a fanboy writing in to tell a science fiction author that another book had a character named Abraxas.
I can see Steve Jobs in the Web department... (Score:4, Funny)
You.. You are FIRED...
and YOU! You are SOOO FIRED!
and you... you too are very VERY FIRED!
Guy:
But.. I wasn't even HERE yesterday!
Jobs:
I don't care! You are FIRED!
For more credibility... (Score:5, Informative)
Insane speed! (Score:3, Interesting)
Two 970's at 2 GHz with bus bandwith! Earlier (leaked) numbers of tests put the 970 at between 1.5 and 2.5 times as fast as a pentium 4. That makes these machines the equivalent of a 6-10 GHz machine. Now of course, we'll have to wait and see and two procs are not doubly as efficient as one but great news this would be nonetheless.
Oh yeah.
Re:Insane speed! (Score:4, Informative)
Almost. The dual 2GHz G5 would be like a 6-10 GHz Pentium 4.
Quite honestly, this would be true of any dual 2GHz UltraSPARC III, Itanium 2, or recent Alpha (if these CPUs ran that that clock rate). If you extrapolate the numbers at spec.org, the Pentium 4 looks really weak by comparison (e.g., the Alpha fp-rate numbers blew me away--it's really too bad HP is marketing the Itanic). Even the often-slammed UltraSPARC III is a fp-rate monster (it just lags in the integer stuff).
Akamai Accidents happen. (Score:5, Funny)
The reason this was posted too soon.. (Score:5, Funny)
Understanding (Score:3, Insightful)
And anyone who thinks these specs would be deliberately leaked three days before a "Stevenote" doesn't understand Apple.
Get the T-shirts for WWDC! (Score:5, Funny)
Expensive "strategic" leak (Score:5, Insightful)
Understanding Marketing? (Score:5, Insightful)
And whomever would write something like that about an internal Apple leak doesn't understand Steve Jobs.
I'm sure heads rolled on this one...especially if they're to be officially announced on Monday at WWDC (which is likely).
Don't believe it. (Score:5, Interesting)
While I'd love to believe that Apple is soon coming out with 970 based machines, these two items in particular are the Joe Slashdot wet-dream wishlist items. Apple will go with the same drives you can get in an Xserve today, and I'd be pretty surprised if the jumped on board PCI-X. The fact is, someone not related to Apple just sat at their keyboard, and tried to make a spec which seemed believable yet got all the Joe Slashdot Apple fanboys hot-and-bothered.
Furthermore, as I'm sure has been mentioned before, this is absolutely not how Apple's marketing engine works. They keep the upcoming hardware stricktly under wraps to discourage the wait-until-the-next-machine-comes-out mentality. They are a profitable company, and they'd like to keep it that way. The way for them to do this is to entice you to buy a machine today.
Re:Don't believe it. (Score:3, Insightful)
2) There is no need for a non-server system to have removable drives. The new pro systems will not have "the same drives you can get in an Xserve today."
3) The Xserve already has a PCI-X slot.
4) "Someone not related to Apple['s website store]" would not have access to the location this image file was found. It was on an Akamai server. This actually showed up on the Apple Store. I saw it with my own eyes
I'm not planning on upgrading (Score:5, Funny)
Specs look great. The only thing that might change my mind is a port of these 4 very, very important productivity applications:
Half-Life 2 - used to train new employees in how to survive a natural accident.
Doom III - used to train marines how to survive an unnatural accident.
Deus Ex II - used to inform people on the use of nanotechnology.
Thief III - a history lesson on how Victorian England might have evolved if magic was real and steam-driven robots worked.
Obviously, these very important production apps would require the power that the P970 can bring. (Oh, I'm sure they'd run on my current G4 867/Geforce 4 MX, but who wants to take a chance?)
No, it certainly wasn't intentional (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing.
No offense, Michael, but you pretty clearly don't understand marketing. There's no way this was intentional.
Why? Let's assume you have a big event coming up, with one big piece of news everyone is waiting for (in this case, G5s) and lots of other, smaller items that you want to talk about (Panther, whatever other goodies they have hidden). Remember, that big piece of news is the lure to get everyone watching the rest of the show.
So why on Earth would you spill the beans beforehand on your big item, so that some people would have gotten the info they wanted and will now not tune in to see the rest of it?
It's also media suicide! If the mainstream press reports today "Apple is announcing G5s," then they won't have the same level of "big news" to report on Monday, and reports of all the other stuff Apple desperately wants people to know about (like the goodies of Panther and their carefully-worded spin on the advantages of 64-bit-ness) won't get the same headline "punch" because the big cat's out of the bag. And Apple is a past master at manipulating the press, so they would never consciously make that kind of mistake.
Lastly, if they were going to deliberately leak it, why would they leak only specs (which geeks care about) and not something like a spec-free marketing piece written about the G5 which would get people quoting their words on its goodness, but still keep prospective buyers tuned in for the details? Again, not a smart move.
In sum, this was pretty clearly an actual goof by a (newly unemployed) Apple web tech. I trust the Slashdot staff to know their s**t about a variety of things ... but oh dear God is marketing NOT one of them.
Re:No, it certainly wasn't intentional (Score:4, Interesting)
They "leak" these specs out and it generates a huge buzz, especially when they send out cease and desists to the major rumors sites. I think Apple has actually learned how to use the rumor sites to help them generate buzz. They play these leak then cease and desist games knowing it will make people even more curious about what else was NOT leaked out, or will be more likely to watch the show just to see the new machines in action.
This will ensure a very large number of people watch their broadcast of the show. This means developers as well, ones who may not have watched this otherwise (i.e. PC software developers) but are now intrigued by this new machine buzz. It means they will see, along with the new machines being confirmed, Apple's demo of OS X 10.3, which is what Apple really wants them to see. After all, OS X is Apple's future as much as new hardware is and if they can get these guys to sit through a presentation on OS X and how easy it is to develop while watiting to see what new iron Apple has out, they might get the hint of "Wow, OS X is really cool! Along with this new hardware these guys will be going places! I think I'll get one of these and see how easy it will be to port my software over to this amazing platform".
It will also draw PC user eyeballs as well, and they will also see how cool OS X is compared to Windows. So in a way, this could well be a ploy to glue more eyeballs on the screen and fill people with marketing about OS X along with the new machines they are now so curious about.
Re:No, it certainly wasn't intentional (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, michael, maybe "understanding marketing" is just the latest sign that you are in fact evil, and should kill yourself. Meanwhile, I'll form my own opinions, since I think I'm intelligent enough to do so. But, when I need a marketing lesson, I'll drop you a line for your insight.
Rant over, troll-mod away. But, all the other posters who've commented on michael's jack-assery over the years, have a point. michael himself finally convinced me they do.
excellent, Smithers (Score:3, Interesting)
1) What do they look like?
and the performance-relevant one:
2) Is it dual-channel DDR, or did Apple pull an Apple and make it single-channel? This is critical, as they do NOT want these things bandwidth-starved like Macs have traditionally been.
The hope meter is waaaaay up today, though.
Space Nuts (Score:5, Funny)
One more example of how real life follows early 80s Satuday morning Sid and Marty Kroft shows.
Why could this NOT have been a hack/crack? (Score:3, Interesting)
The world's fastest personal computer. (Score:4, Insightful)
"The world's fastest personal computer." Now, as David Letterman likes to say, that's something.
Apple hasn't been able to claim anything like that, with anything like a straight face, in a long, long time. The implication is that there will be a convincing display of this CPU prowess, and not just Jon Rubenstein talking about the length of his pipe, either. And I would bet it will involve something other than just Photoshop.
The speed perception issue has been holding Apple and OS X back - if the developers and then the tech are convinced this hobble has been removed from the camel's back legs, it will be a huge deal.
Love - the delusion that one woman differs from another. [H.L. Mencken]
New Mac Complaints (Score:4, Funny)
1. Stupid slow screens are a bottleneck. They don't refresh fast enough to keep up with the system. What were those morons at Apple thinking?
2. STILL no liquid helium cooling system?? Come on Apple, this isn't 1997!
3. Big deal. By 2008 you'll be able to get a comparable Dell box for half the price.
4. No floppy, no sale.
5. Still doesn't support my Chinese Xiondiangdong BKPDX-145 scanner.
6. Apple is dying.
7. I actually liked the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. I miss it.
8. It's so fast that I now have time to do other things. Then I discovered I don't have anything else to do.
You forgot Beleaguered.... (Score:5, Funny)
That should be:
6. Beleaguered Apple is Dying.
No Apple Criticism is complete without it!
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
You need to get out more.
Mockup G5 Pictures (Score:4, Funny)
and download some music or something while you are there!
earth2willi.com [earth2willi.com]
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
I can't wait to grab one of these new Apples - good work Apple & IBM, I say!
Re:Yay! (Score:3, Funny)
"... Except, for some reason, I couldn't get Final Cut Pro to run very well. I'm not sure why."
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
The PPC970 wit its Power4 core, clocked at 1.6GHz completely trashes a 3GHz P4. Faster bus, faster integer, and completely outclasses the P4 for FPU and SIMD.
And it looks like Apple's going to ship a dual 2.0 GHz. This ain't your grandma's G4 (In fact, at the same clock, it looks like the PPC970 has a 1.5x or more advantage for integer and 2-2.5x advantage for FPU/SIMD over the G4, and the G4 is, clock-for-clock, the fastest CPU currently in the desktop and laptop market, it's only real disadvantages are low clock speed and the slow system bus, both of which are problems the PPC970 doesn't have).
Remember that Athlon is only clocked a couple of hundred MHz faster than the 970, and isn't nearly as fast, clock-for-clock.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just realized that the new Power Macs would be the RS-6000 wannabe workstation for people who couldn't afford the real deal.
Both the Apple and IBM machines now have 64-bit Power 4-derived CPUs, gigabytes of RAM, decent graphics, etc. The IBM machine will certainly stand out as the workstation that overdosed on steroids, and the new Power Mac will be better suited to those who value moderation in all things.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, you want to compare 32bit P4s to 64bit 970s? Why, because you're really in the market for a 32 bit processor and need to distort everything into a P4=center of the universe worldview. Grow up. Something new is coming. It will likely run rings around Itanium. It *may* run rings around the P4s for stock 32bit applications and will very likely beat it when comparing code that's similarly optimized for the two chips.
Let's see it unveiled and let's see the benchmarks then let the chip wars begin again!
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:5, Informative)
the posted specs went far beyond the expectations of...anyone.
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:3, Insightful)
G5 is a marketing name and not a chip name. They can happily call the PPC 970 anything they want and G5 kind of makes sence.
The PPC 970 requires a bus speed half that of the processor speed hence the 1Ghz bus on the 2Ghz model. That would be achievable using HyperTransport.
And saying something it not real due to their use of the words one and two instead of the numeral ? Please.
Parent is deluded (Score:4, Interesting)
Revealing indeed, but not of what you think.
- 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz or Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 Processors
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts. Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005. Bzzzt One point impossible
G5 = branding. And IBM have 2.5 GHz chips in their roadmap for 2004 (in the new blades) so 2 GHz in 2003 isn't that odd.
- Up to 1GHz processor bus
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Read the specs of the PPC 970, freely available all over the internet. The bus runs at 1/2 the processor speed, hence 2 GHz is 1GHz bus. Even the 1.8 GHz chips, which are definitely announced by IBM for other products, have 900 MHz buses.
- Up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM
This one is acceptable
- Fast Serial ATA hard drives
This is also possible
- AGP 8X Pro graphics options from NVIDIA or ATI
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines. I highly doubt they'll be used. Half a point impossible
They're not "phasing out" anything; at the time they introduced the latest powermacs, ATI simply had better cards available.
- Three USB 2.0 ports
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
The current MDD powermacs already have USB 2.0. That the next models should also have it is not surprising in the least.
- One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
Because FW800 is not backwards compatible. The connector is physically different. They have to stick with 400 for now.
- Bluetooth & AirPort Extreme ready
Likely
- Optical and analog audio in and out
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
This one does puzzle me slightly, but Apple don't consider their machines "graphics machines". Macs are all-purpose. It's no fault of Apple if they are pigeonholed by others as "only for graphics". Also, even if they were "graphics machines," video editing kind of requires sound...
In total, that's 4 and a half impossible features out of ten. If you're waiting on this machine, you'll be waiting a LONG time
I make that 0 impossible features, and one odd one. Come Monday, you will be feeling very silly.
Re:Parent is deluded (Score:4, Informative)
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
This one does puzzle me slightly, but Apple don't consider their machines "graphics machines". Macs are all-purpose. It's no fault of Apple if they are pigeonholed by others as "only for graphics". Also, even if they were "graphics machines," video editing kind of requires sound..."
Not only that, but unless you've been living in a hole, you'd know that within the last year, Apple has purchased Logic [apple.com]. This computer would compliment that nicely.
They're not pigonholed for just graphics (Score:5, Informative)
There are many uses in non-consumer audio for optical i/o. I mean, shit, my cheap little Shuttle Spacewalker has a coinnector card for optical audio. For them to include it now is obviously smart since we know they're also targeting more musicians (specifically dj's) now as well as graphics people.
Frankly, this guys 'impossible' post is a lot of bullshit for many reasons listed above and throughout.
I now must find a way to ditch my PB G4 1ghz. G5, here I come! *drools*
Re:Parent is deluded (Score:3, Informative)
Yes it is backwards compatible. It does use an improved connector, but I believe they currently ship 800/400 adapters with all of their Macs that have 800 on them. The reason to still have 400 on it is that it typically hasn't been maxxed out yet and the iPod still has a 400 connector on one end.
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
Yeah, except the current G4s have USB 2.0 hardware onboard, [slashdot.org] Apple just restricted it to USB 1.1 operation.
- One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
Oh, yeah? That's what's shipping in the current G4: 2 FW400, and 1 FW800. Since 800 is rather new, people will be more likely to need more 400 ports for their existing devices-- plus it would be dumb to make someone have to 'waste' an 800 port on a 400 device. For now, 2 of the older standard makes sense.
- Bluetooth & AirPort Extreme ready
Likely
Again, thank you, Captain Obvious-- since this is how current G4s are shipping.
~Philly
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:4, Funny)
No, according to the USB forum I think you'll find that they restricted it to UBS 2.0 (Full Speed)
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:3, Insightful)
G4/G5 is a branding thing, or at the very least a processor family classification. The G4's are PPC74**'s, such as the 7450 in my PB. Apple would go with the term "G5" if only from a branding perspective.
Don't take this as truth, bu
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:3, Interesting)
geez, and the pentium iii wasn't much of an upgrade over the pentium II, right? it could be just a name used for marketing. maybe they want to avoid a situation where a ppc970 seems as awkward a mouthful to say as "Pentium II celeron".
I will concede to you on the 2ghz.. that was a suprise to me as well.
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, you can still think it's a fake (it's quite possible, I don't know), but your arguments sound quite unconvincing to me.
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:5, Informative)
a lot of G4's shipped with just. plain. awful sound cards. this is welcome news.
Maybe, maybe not. (Score:5, Informative)
Newsflash, kiddo: neither Motorola nor IBM sell a CPU called the "G4". "G4" was a "marchitechture" term coined by Apple in the spirit of Motorola's internal "G3" codename for the PPC750. The chip inside any "PowerMac G4" is some flavor of a Motorola PowerPC 7400, no matter what Apple calls it.
You can pretty much bet the farm that Apple will call every varient of the PPC970 they ship a "PowerPC G5".
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible.
Ahem. [hypertransport.org] ("1ghz" is probably apple marketing-speak, but it's always been known that the PPC970 will have a stupidly fast FSB -- Intel isn't the only company that can innovate in this field, eh?)
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines.
Simply and 100% wrong. Apple has been doing pretty much exactly the same thing for the last three years on this front: providing whichever of the two offered them the best OEM pricing as the default configuration, and offering the other as a build-to-order option. They will continue to do this.
Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0
Here, you may be correct, but there are two issues that may force them to start shipping "USB 2.0" connectors: first, the USB consortium has recently declared [theinquirer.net] that all USB ports are "USB 2.0" (yes, this is weird and stupid), and secondly it's actually getting a bit difficult to source USB controllers that only support the 1.0/1.1 specs.
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
FW400 and FW800 use different connectors, and there are not yet many FW800 products on the market. This is called "covering your bets" and "not pissing off your customers". BTW, 1x FW800 and 2x FW400 is also the configuration on the 17" AlBook, so they've already shipped one machine in exactly this "impossible" configuration.
optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking.
No, it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about. Do you have any idea how many macs are used in audio production? Are you aware that Apple sells their own high-end audio composition program [apple.com]? The only surprise about a PowerMac with optical TOSlink is that they didn't do it years ago.
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:5, Informative)
Bzzt. Wrong.
G3 and G4 are both Apple marketing terms, not CPU specifications from IBM or Moto.
IBM was expecting low yields of the 2ghz chip but it was always on the roadmap for this year... or have you not been paying attention?
I'm writing this on a Powerbook G4, not a Powerbook 7450 (PPC 7450 is Motos term for the cpu running this beastie).
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Bzzt. Wrong. One word for you:
Hypertransport.org
The FSB runs at half the clockspeed of the CPU. A dual 2ghz 970 would have FSB of 1ghz.
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
The current G4s ship with USB 2.0 chipsets. Firewire and USB2 are NOT in competition. THey have different applications. If you don't belive me, then I ask you to point to a USB2 uncompressed SDI interface? Oh. YOu can't? Shit.
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
My dual 1.4ghz G4 has a FW800 port and two FW400s. FW800 is a different physical interface than FW400. I'm sure the chipset is also slightlly more expensive.
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
Marketing has always made a habit of playing with grammar.
Macs are not just graphics machine. In fact, the dual 1.4ghz mentioned above is primarily an audio workstation. It has digital audio out already on board.
Optical in/out is a surprise, but not unlikely - it has its advantages.
This is accurate. Like it or not. Apple is back in town where it belongs - on the top.
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:3, Informative)
Wow let's take this one point at a time...
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts. Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005. Bzzzt One point impossible
Errr... From a marketing perspective G5 is better then 970, it's also consistant with how Apple have named PPC processors in the past, so Bzzzt minnus one for you Plus one for Apple.
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Wow! I don't know where to begin
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of your analysis is negated by looking at Apple's marjeting house style a bit more closely.
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
Apple uses words for numbers less then 10 all over the place. This is generally considered good style in old-fashioned publishing circles (that is, those who believe they exist to create something that people will read, rather than someth
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry bob. I was on the Apple web site last night and caught this before even it appeared on the rumor sites. I even have a screen snapshot of the entire window.
This is genuine material. The entire page spoke of the current G4 line, but the small quick spec list next to a G4 machine photo actually listed the new G5 specs.
Now, is it a genuine mistake? I would tend to believe so, as Jobs is really pissy about keeping
Optical Audio == mLAN (Score:5, Informative)
mLAN essentially allows the transfer of all audio-related signals - be they MIDI, audio, whatever - over 1 firewire cable.
yamaha press release, mlan, 2000 [yamaha.com] [opens in new window]
Now, why would Apple release a G5-based PPC with a dedicated mLAN port? I think Apple's hiring of Doug Wyatt - the guy who invented MIDI Timecode at Opcode - as well as Apple's aquisition of eMagic - in addition to their collaboration with Yamaha on the mLAN spec - would give Apple every incentive to put an 'mLAN' port on the back of their computer, even if it is only another firewire port.
Keep in mind that OSX has MIDI capability built-in - unlike any other OS. ALso, with the addition of a simple mLAN port, Apple can now state that their PPC is music-production ready right out of the box.
Doug Wyatt hired by apple [xmidi.com]
eMagic Corporate info [emagic.de]
Re:Optical Audio == mLAN (Score:4, Informative)
A dedicated "mLAN port" makes no sense. It's a FireWire port, why confuse the issue? Just put a third FireWire port on and be done with it.
Yamaha's mLAN is currently only a specification for connection management; FireWire audio specs are covered by various standards organizations (though many were originally developed at Yamaha as part of mLAN). MIDI is covered in the FireWire audio specs as well.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My analysis of why this is fake. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I can see why they'd want to keep 400s. The 800 connector is different from the standard 400 cable, and even with the availability of adapters to convert from 400->800, it's still easier for them to simply include 400s on the computer so people who buy it can plug their devices in as soon as they assemble the computer, rather than having to go out and buy a special cable just to use their cameras, etc.
Re:Yes... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a mac fan, and I would have had no clue whatsoever that the G5 was on the way, had it not been for this..
It seems as "leaks" theese days are becomming more and more frequent.. At least the ones that gets people excited.
And why not, it's a great way of getting peoples attention, because everyone wants to see other peoples "misstakes". And if your hear about something secret leaking out of a big company, and then beeing removed a few minutes later, your gonna read about it. And most likley hear about the product in question at the same time.
Re:powerbooks (Score:5, Interesting)
:)
Re:I wasn't persuaded all that much... (Score:5, Funny)
I can only imagine what they meant was "That machine doesn't have enough viruses on it."
Re:This will get modd-ed down... (Score:3, Funny)
a beowulf cluster of these?"
We are sorry to inform you that the creation of a "beowulf cluster" does not conform to Steve's reality distortion field and we request all topics concerning beowulf clustering to cease and desist.
Thank you,
Apple Legal
Re:PCI-X ??? Already ??? (Score:3, Informative)
You're looking at PCI-X 2.0, which will run at 266/533MHz (and higher) when it's released. The PCI-X 1.0 spec (66/133MHz) is not as insanely fast as 2.0 or Express, but it has the slight advantage of being already in use [google.com].
Re:Too Good To Be True (Score:3, Insightful)
I tend to agree with the idea that it was an intentional "leak", since nothing posted was totally unexpected. Apple *had* to know that everyone was wanting 970s. If they have them, leaking some specs increases the fervor without giving too much away.
Live Broadcast at apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc03 (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc03/
Re:Live Broadcast at apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc0 (Score:3, Informative)
That will not be a live broadcast.
Apple will run a loop of the broadcast starting a few hours after the live presention is over.
Re:Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
What is a"site" ? No, "sites" don't do that. However, overworked, stressed frazzled code monkeys who are trying to build and test a site in advance of a major product announcement in 3 days can easily put an image in the wrong folder.
Re:Mac vs Pc flame wars (Score:5, Funny)
Pfft. Kids today. Why when I was young, the Amiganauts would strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up in front of Bill Gates! Now *that* was a flame war!
Re:Specs may be fake according to Dutch website (Score:4, Insightful)
And you can observe that what Apple was likely trying to do was to update the interface to the store slightly. First: instead of something such as "Step 1: choose your iMac," you now just get "Choose your iMac." Once you do choose your particular system, the buttons are also noticeably different: they're all flat, solid-colour buttons.
Knowing that these changes have been made, we can easily use Occam's Razor: the simplest answer is that Apple unintentionally posted the specs image while they were in the middle of testing and updating other content. There's no sinister conspiracy involving disgruntled employees or clever hackers.