Looking Ahead to Tiger, Powerbook G5s 524
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet is running a preview of Apple's newest version of OSX, Tiger, after Jobs said it was still on track for a q2 2005 release (long before Longhorn...)." And an anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that Powerbook G5s will ship in Q2 2005."
Too hot? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Funny)
The Rumors are coming! The Rumors are coming!!!!!
Re:Too hot? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not talking about "I disagree", I'm talking about posts that claim things that plainly aren't true, like "Apple is -already- making G5 laptops." That stuff tends to percolate up because moderators look at it and say "Wow. I didn't know that." without realizing that they didn't know it because the poster is
Re:Too hot? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Funny)
Powerbook G5! Not only does it have a 64-bit CPU, it makes you fried eggs [dailymail.co.uk] and barbequed sausages [theregister.co.uk] for breakfast! Automatically!
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Funny)
Chestnuts roasing on an open fire.....
But seriously I Hold my laptop on my legs (away from my nuts) but now Ive got an 802 preN Even that make me nervous I swear I feel em tingling only when the card is active, my wife says it because Ive got balls of steel and its the RF Interferance, maybe true but how long before the get roasted my em radiation....
Tin Foil? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too hot? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too hot? (Score:3, Funny)
Gold star for you (Score:4, Funny)
Easy, just have marketing gussy it up as a "feature", not a bug.
You get a gold star simply for using the phrase "gussy up" in a sentence.
PS Now you're on the trolley!
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Interesting)
huge thermal challenge (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a superfast Powerbook hit the market, I think it would only do good things for customers and Apple as a company. But it took about 2 years before Apple engineers figured out how to pack the G4 into a Powerbook. I'd love to eat crow about this rumor and be proven wrong, but I just don't see it.
Re:huge thermal challenge (Score:4, Interesting)
I now predict a new G5 PowerBook within 6 months for that very reason.
Re:huge thermal challenge (Score:3, Funny)
Easy... (Score:4, Informative)
A less sarcastic answer - it has to be a proc. revision or variant which lowers power demand. In a portable, waste heat is wasted battery life. Apple laptops excel at battery life/ management - I would be amazed if that got tossed just to get to market.
Re:Easy... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it would be a really bad idea to drop the battery life just to have a G5 in the
Re:Too hot? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too hot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Resolution (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, wasn't one of the promises of a PDF-based display manager that the entire system would be vector-based, not pixel-based, so resolution wasn't important? It's sad that I have more control over those things in Windows and Linux. Heck, the ultimate for that was OS/2. In OS/2 it was sort-of disturbing. When you changed the resolution nothing changed size, you just had higher/lower res icons, fonts, etc.
Anyhow, my eyes can handle higher than 100dpi without difficulty, afterall paper has much higher
Re:Too hot? (Score:4, Funny)
Just sync it to your desktop... it will automatically copy over the files you use the most!
Preview? (Score:3)
I've got the cash... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm prepared to wait for the next batch of Power book to come along before I part with $AUD4,000 for a 15" PB.
The iBook's were refreshed some time ago so hopefully it won't be too long now.
I can't wait to say goodbye to my shitty overheated Dell D600 - avoid them at all costs. The harddrives geneated too much heat (your hand gets really hot), AND at my work we have at least replaced 30 batteries out of 300 units.
Re:I've got the cash... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've got the cash... (Score:3, Informative)
Doing this gets me about 4-5 hours at a time.
They announced all this last year (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They announced all this last year (Score:4, Informative)
What are you talking about? H.264 (aka AVC) is an open standard. Apple is not the only one who implents this standard. In fact, Apple is quite slow. Here's a short list of available encoders:
Sorenson Squeeze 4 [sorenson.com], MainConcept H.264 Encoder [mainconcept.de], Nero Digital AVC [nero.com], Hdot264 [sourceforge.net], x264 [videolan.org], etc....
And when you look how bad the quality of Apple's MPEG-4 ASP is (compared to XviD, DivX,...), I wouldn't bet that Apple AVC will be so great either.
If you want to encode on Mac I guess that Sorenson Squeeze 4 is currently the best sollution. According to the latest codec comparison on Doom9.net NeroDigital AVC is the best codec (Sorenson was not tested).
Re:They announced all this last year (Score:3, Informative)
Who Cares about G5 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares about G5 (Score:5, Informative)
Even if the G4 is faster than the G5 at the same clock speed, there are lots of reasons to go with a G5. Not the least of which is that the G4 doesn't run at as high a clock speed as the G5. 1.5 vs. 1.8 is one thing, 1.5 vs. 2.5 is something else entirely. Realistically, the G5 blows the G4 out of the water. The G5 is a 64-bit processor, although the utility of that in a laptop is pretty questionable. I think the big win with the G5 is that you're no longer stuck with the G4's antiquated FSB. Right now there is little reason to run a G4 at 2GHz because the memory bandwidth available to it is so low.
Re:G4 faster at the same clock speed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:G4 faster at the same clock speed? (Score:5, Informative)
Performance is, of course, a function of the task that is running. I don't know how to answer your specific question, but there is a general comparison of the G4 and G5 here [apple.com] that may be of some interest.
Will ship? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the Register said:
So claim sources close to Taiwan's contract manufacturers, DigiTimes reports.
Which makes this more of a glorified rumor than anything else. Of course if it is true I'll be first in line to buy a G5 PowerBook come Q2 2005 and judging from what is being written about cooling problems I will also be able to fry bacon and eggs on it.
Smart Folders (Score:5, Interesting)
- I didn't spend much time using it
- I'm never that excited by new features until I learn their value through use over time.
That said, there is one new feature that really impressed me: Smart Folders. They are part of Spotlight [apple.com] and are very similar to Smart Playlists in iTunes. In essence they are "virtual folders" that you define using rules. I set one up to list all of my images. It works in conjunction with the indexing provided by Spotlight and seemed to be very fast. I think this one new feature will be the standout in the next release.Smart Folders? Smart EVERYTHING (Score:5, Informative)
Some third-party developers have already taken it to heart. NewsFire [newsfirex.com] recently added Smart Feeds, which combine news items from different feeds based on criteria - every news item from the last 3 hours containing the word iPod, say. And Colloquy [colloquy.info]'s developer is working on adding Smart Channels, combining messages from any IRC channels you're currently a part of.
It's most definitely a good trend. This shit is cool.
Re:Smart Folders (Score:5, Informative)
Apple was working on non-folder groupings of data they called "piles" in the early 1990s.
"a pile is a loose grouping of documents. Its visual representation is an overlay of all the documents within the pile, one on top of the other, rotated to varying degrees. In other words, a pile on the desktop looked just like a pile on your real desktop."
The BeOS took this a step further (the ability to create/maintain piles automatically with a search).
more info [osnews.com]
Re:Smart Folders (Score:4, Insightful)
While you're very right, I have to say the following:
1) who cares what the
2) not looking to bash MS per se, but just as Apple has this annoying shrowd of secrecy, MS has this annoying habit of announcing features years before production, and while baffled producers of same features flee the field, MS starts delaying and coming back on its word. A good example here is its new meta-data file system that now won't even be included in longhorn. What's different now as opposed to 10 years ago is that producers now say "Hey, deja vue, so go ahead Billy, do your worst, and meanwhile, look at this cool new search engine we built here..."
In short: even if MS announces something ahead of someone else, in my book that means dick. Walk your talk.
Re:Smart Folders (Score:3, Informative)
The Microsoft approach called for a massive SQL database to store all filesystem data, making every search of the filesystem, from a directory listing up, a database query. I think I read somewhere that this approach was subsequently dropped in favor of something else, but I don't know that for sure.
The Apple approach is much more lightweight, which is undoubtedly why they're able to ship years before Microsoft. Spotlight
Re:Smart Folders (Score:5, Insightful)
BeOS did that back in the 90's. And it Worked, and it was Good.
[end BeOS whoring]
Oh, and MS has been *trying* to do WinFS for what, a decade now? Good luck to them. They've got the brains, they've got the resources: but I suspect that by this point Windows is simply too HUGE and crufty now to really make something as significant as WinFS really integrate cleanly.
Again, good luck to MS.
Re:Smart Folders (Score:3, Interesting)
I can confirm the new Powerbooks... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I can confirm the new Powerbooks... (Score:4, Insightful)
You do have a point as far as technolust is fueled on the Mac side by Apple's desire to introduce new models in dramatic fashion. What's interesting, at least to me, is that since I switched to the Mac about five years ago I have become so much less desirous of new hardware. Sure I eagerly devour every detail of every Apple product announcement, but then I go back to my iMac and just enjoy it. It's far from the cutting edge to be sure. But I have become comfortable that the user experience is what I appreciate, not the raw power. My iMac G4 1GHz was superceded a little over a month after I bought it by a model with a 25% faster processor and a larger HD. But I didn't really care. I'm just
A different perspective than most here I imagine.
PB-G5 in 2Q 2005? Probably not. (Score:5, Informative)
It states that sources close to the Taiwan manufacturer claim they will ship. Aren't these the same sources that have been promising a Tablet Macintosh [theregister.co.uk]?
It also states that there are the known heat problems, Apple saying it won't happen, and has a link to a more likely higher speed 90nm G4 (MPC7448) to be used in the newer models. This doesn't even factor in the fact that a G5 PowerBook would likely have been mentioned at the conference. It even suggests that the quoted source has made a typo!
Is this hype that we should be reading on the front page? It's
I Seriously Doubt It Because ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I Seriously Doubt It Because ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I Seriously Doubt It Because ... (Score:3, Insightful)
PowerBooks & Apple (Score:3, Informative)
Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:3, Informative)
Boy, these code names are getting confusing.
A little clarification... (Score:5, Informative)
The info comes from a chart and memo about upcoming "PowerBook G5" and "iBook G5" computers to be produced by a contact manufacturer of Apple's for Q2 2005. That is the first grain of salt.
The second is that on Apple's fiscal calendar, it is *currently* Q2, 2005. So if the rumor is true, Apple has less than three months to release a computer which just yesterday was touted in their conference call as "the mother of all thermal challenges... (not) any time soon".
The third is that the PowerBook sales have been slipping because of a lack of advantage over the iBook, and historically, the iBook processor is a generation behind the PowerBook for as long as possible.
Conclusion? This rumor was just a typo. We will be seeing updated PowerBooks and iBooks released near the end of Q2 (in March) but it is very unlikely that the PB will have a G5 under the hood, and impossible that the iBook will.
Move along folks.
Digitimes not reliable (Score:5, Informative)
They also stated that the 12" PowerBooks would pick up key illumination - none yet.
They also have said something about Tablet Macs in production.
Other problems with the chart. Quanta is also making the Mac Mini - not Foxconn. As far as I know Foxconn just makes cables and circuit boards.
As someone mentioned - it was clearly stated that one of Apple's biggest challeges EVER is the PowerBook G5 thermal issues, but they continued to hint that we WILL see one this year.
I imagine PowerBooks go to 1.75Ghz first THEN we see a 1.8Ghz and a 2.0 Ghz G5 released next to 2.75 and 3.0Ghz G5 desktops.
java java java 1.5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember what Steve said
Developers Developers Developers.
Oh that was a different Steve, Dancing Steve?
Tiger commercial idea (Score:5, Funny)
Then, later, RedHat could make a competing commercial. Same thing happens, except after the tiger attack, a fat little penguin waddles up and eats the tiger.
--AC
G5 PBook - a third possibility exists: (Score:3, Funny)
So, basically, who knows what's going to happen?
3GHz or bust, I say.
Not. A. Chance. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if there were a PowerBook G5 on the way, and that's a big 'if' for H1... there's no way it would happen for the iBooks in that timeframe. None whatsoever. Everybody knows how Apple feels about their market segmentation.
Poor reporting by ZDNet (Score:5, Informative)
I'll Believe It... (Score:4, Funny)
eye candy (Score:5, Interesting)
PowerBook G5 in Q2 Unlikely (Score:3, Informative)
Also, fifty-three minutes into Apple's conference call [apple.com] discussing Q1 2005 financial results last Wednesday, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations Tim Cook said, "let me be clear on this one, it would be the mother of all thermal challenges to do what you are suggesting," when asked about releasing a PowerBook 5G in Q2 or Q3.
If anyone could meet "the mother of all thermal challenges," it would be Apple, who has designed innovative cooling systems for the PowerMac and iMac G5, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.
More than likely it will be just a G4 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:3, Insightful)
More importantly, will all the functionality of Tiger, e.g. CoreGraphics, works on a Mac Mini -- I'm guessing that one factor in choosing the 9200 was that it should at least let CoreGraphics run, if not especially fast.
FYI: CoreGraphics is a graphics library that transparently allows GPU acceleration of common image filtering functions (e.g. using pixel shad
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:3, Informative)
From what I've read, the 9200 doesn't support shaders 2.0, so coreimage won't be able to use it for acceleration, thereby assuring you'll miss
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:3, Interesting)
You're probably thinking of an onboard display.
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:5, Informative)
hey don't exactly have a blazing processor, and they will likely act sluggish if the touted features of Tiger are actually as power/graphics hungry as the ZDNet article kinda mentions
I suspect it will run Tiger better than it does Panther. Every OS X release since the beta has run faster, not slower. In one case new features were added that required a minimum amount of video RAM to be functional. The system still runs better than it did with the old version, just some of the pretty graphics are toned down. Basically what I am trying to say is, yes it will almost certainly run tiger, yes tiger will run better than panther, and maybe you will be able to run all of the new features.
You don't need a full gig for OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and a 1.25GHz G4 isn't exactly NOT blazing...no, it's not as fast as a P4 3.6, but again, for anything you'd want to use a mini for, it's more than adequate.
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you watch any of the tiger developer conference stuff from back in july (?) you'll see that Apple has done some serious optimization work for *all* Quartz graphics paths -- not just CoreImage. Stuff like bezier paths and text rendering being orders of magnitude faster even for software rendering.
Apple is not stupid. Every release of OS X has been significantly faster than the previou
Re:Mod me down if you must, but I have to know... (Score:3, Insightful)
People are too used to PC requirements. In particular, as someone else pointed out, OS X has been getting progressive
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
They keep you up-to-date with the version of the OS your computer comes with.
Re:Question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
mod parent down (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
Also, many large institutions, such as the University of Wisconsin System, have an even cheaper deal: we sell full versions of Mac OS X to faculty staff and students for $49.
Departmental/institutional purchasers can obtain a license for the latest version of Mac OS X for a period of 3 years for $69; in other words, they are licensed to run any full upgrades of Mac OS X for free for three years, at which time they have a permanent license for whatever the latest version is at that time.
Same for Mac OS X Server: unlimited is $499 (instead of $999), and 10-client (10-client applies ONLY to AppleShare file sharing clients; everything else is unlimited in every way) is $249 (instead of $499). Users can also, for the same price as that particular version of OS X Server, purchase a maintenance contract which gives them the latest version of OS X Server for free for the next three years.
This three year deal usually equates into getting two more updates to the OS for nothing. So it's not always just "$129".
Re:open source? (Score:3, Informative)
But you wont get Aqua or any other special features apple puts in there like spotlight, core image, and whatnot.
Re:open source? (Score:3, Informative)
But, as the other reponce noted, the GUI and some of the Apps are closed.
Re:Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Although the naming scheme is the same, Panther is it's own O.S.- some developers can write apps that function on both operating systems- but they don't have to.
Apple would have to maintain two very different versions of Safari. Safari on panther is a little different as Apple has split Safari from Webcore- leaving webcore available for any application to use.
Safari 1.0.3 does work, and it wouldn't be practical for Apple to support 2 versions of Safari on two different O.S.es. Firefox may be the best alternative to Safari.
Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)
From what I understand (sorry, no links available), they will continue to update the WebCore engine under 10.3 to match 10.4. The only stuff you'll need 10.4 for are the RSS features.
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
It is the time between releases that is called into question, not the difference in version numbers.
That is hilarious. The difference between two products is the time between their availability, not the qualitative differences between the products? So you can release the same thing every two years and it is OK to charge for it, but if you release radical new features every 6 months, they should be free. I think someone is smoking something.
Re:Question (Score:5, Funny)
Tiger hasn't been formally announced yet, so you will not get it for free(cheap) if you buy now.
So, in conclusion, wait until Tiger comes out.
No, wait!
Wait another 2 years for Lion.
And another 2 for Tabby.
And another...
On second thought, don't buy a Mac until Apple stops releasing OS X upgrades completely. That way you'll never have to buy another OS again!
You're much better off buying an Etch-A-Sketch. I hear there's no update coming for those ever.
but There IS an Etch-A-Sketch update! (Score:4, Informative)
here's an update [cornell.edu] that allows you to use a Serial Mouse with your Etch-A-Sketch!
sorry, OT....I'll take my lumps.
Re:Question (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:4, Informative)
Those who cautioned against buying before a release date for Tiger should also be listened to - that's good advice. Wait a bit, I think there is going to be another upgrade cycle soon (eMacs at least, and possibly 'Books), see what Apple does with Tiger, and buy once they've announced. But while you're waiting, go play around at an Apple Store or CompUSA or somesuch, make sure you really want to make the purchase.
(tig)
Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Will this be the default OS... (Score:5, Informative)
Tiger will run on G3 - G5. There were still iBooks shipping less than 2 years ago that still had G3 processors. Apple's window for supported machines is normaly about 4 - 5 years so I would find it hard to believe that apple would leave those G3 and G4 out in the cold.. Not to mention that only like 10% of Mac owners have a G5.
Oh wait was this a troll. Damn I bit...
Re:64bit is new in OS X Tiger?! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:64bit is new in OS X Tiger?! (Score:3, Informative)
There is no speed hit for running 32-bit apps on CPUs like the G5 or Athlon64.
Panther has some minor tweaks to certain libraries to allow for 64-bit memory addressing, etc., but the majority of the system (almost all of it) is 32-bit.
Tiger will be the same way.
Apple has a developer note pretty much saying "don't make 64-bit apps unless you absolutely must deal with >2GB RAM".
Re:Tiger (Score:5, Funny)
> sometime this summer.
Foolish consumer! Here's how Marketing dates work.
Summer 2005 means this: Sept 20, 2005, technically the last day of summer.
1H2005 means this: on June 30, 2005 at 11:59 PM, a single person somewhere in Iowa will get a copy of Tiger. All other copies will be "on backorder" or "shipping" which will arrive in September.
He might even get a stuffed tiger doll with an Apple logo on it in lieu of a copy of the software package. "Oh, yeah, we shipped Tiger to our first customer."
Or, they might rename the local high school's marathon track to "10.4", and force that person to do laps on the track on Sept 20. "Oh yes. Our first customer is running 10.4. No doubt about it."
This reminds me of an urban legend at a company I worked for. We had to ship some equipment out to a customer to make revenue at the end of the quarter. The customer wanted to make sure we quality checked it first. So they had someone physically pick up the hardware cards and dash through the Quality department's lab before sending it to the loading dock. The salesperson was then able to say, with a straight face and minimal snickering, "We ran the hardware through Quality before we shipped it."
Re:Tiger (Score:3, Funny)
Oooh! I am a single person somewhere in Iowa! Maybe it will be me!
Re:"Long before Longhorn" (Score:3, Interesting)
No, not really. The windows source code has been mutilated and expanded upon to the point where now it's millions of lines of spagetti code. I think it's taking so long to develop due to poor code documentation, imiagine all the MS programmers digging through millions of lines of code trying to find the source for the start button. Windows has not been built from the ground up since NT, and that was only with help from Big Blue.
I'm looking forward to Tiger, mainly because I think Apple just has better
Re:"Long before Longhorn" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what I thought.
Re:"Long before Longhorn" (Score:3, Informative)
Just a small selection:
Longhorn is seeing quite a bit of change, but is not being built from the ground up. That would force them to toss out all old code and programs, and that is not something Microsoft is about to do. Longhorn will mark the biggest loss of compatibility with old programs in Windows history, but it is not going to be anything like what a "ground up" rewrite w
Re:Both iBook and PowerBook G5? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Both iBook and PowerBook G5? (Score:3, Informative)
actually... (Score:3, Informative)