Apple Rumors - WWDC Thread - Panther/G5 (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Larkin]

Any Apple users care to discuss the big rumors floating around before WWDC?

For starters:

- New PowerMac G5 is rumored to be released at the Worldwide Developer's Conference. Supposedly a new smaller case with no transparent plastic. Graphite with less noticeable handles. Of course, it will have the new "G5" processor...

- G5 Processor - otherwise known as the 64-bit IBM 970. Apple will dump Motorola in favor of IBM. I'm no engineer but from what I've read, this chip will allow the Mac to speed up most everything on the board. Memory access, system bus, possible quad processors, etc.

- And how can you have a 64-bit processor without a 64-bit OS? MacOS X 10.3 (Panther) will also rear its head at WWDC.

- Quark XPress 6 for X has been finally announced.

- One interesting rumor is that Filemaker has been brought back in house at Apple where presumably it will join in with the stealth Office-type package Apple is working on...

I'm kicking myself for not going to WWDC.

 

[Nate Public]

Patrick,

I certainly have heard all the same rumours. Although, I thought there was to be one last Motorola chip before the 970's? Dunno.

There is a small design shop within my responsibilities at work ... we migrated to InDesign (Adobe) because we couldn't wait to use OS X. Honestly, I don't think anyone [here] misses Quark. It is not my forte, but Quark waiting so long to release ... and their track record for bugs, do not bode well for this release.

We also use Filemaker heavily. Nice little program, I just hope Apple doesn't over-price their office product. Using Appleworks, anyone? I doubt it.

Don't kick to hard, WWDC isn't cheap. Especially when someone will post all the cool information the day-of, anyway!!!

In relation to HTF, there are quite a few folks waiting for these 970's - but only because they anticipate the G4's coming down to a reasonable price. New machines for Final Cut Pro 4!

My two cents,
Peace,

Nate

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Nate - I would think Apple would bundle its Office app with new machines and price it modestly for boxed product. Apple is more than fair for its software prices. Filemaker, on the other hand, charges too much for nominal feature upgrades.

As for WWDC, now that Apple nixed Macworld NYC, I have nowhere to go for my annual summer conference. I'll stop by this year at MWNY but its more of a graphics show now...

 

[Camp]

Although, I thought there was to be one last Motorola chip before the 970's? Dunno.

I read a rumor of a souped up G3 with current G4-like performance. It was speculated it would be the new iBook processor. However, the stuff I've been reading recently leads me to believe Apple will dump Motorola across the board over the next several months. IBM's 970 (& 980) will be in everything by this time next year.

There are also a lot of rumors claiming Apple will soon (as in this Summer) release a 15.4" aluminum PowerBook with the 970. The 12" & 17" PowerBooks have been designed while the current 15" is still the same titanium design that's been around for a while. Shipping at the Apple online store has slipped from a few days to several weeks on these models further adding to the speculation that a replacement model is about to be announced.

The coolest (and most "out there") rumor of late is of the Apple tablet. Supposedly it's a 10" touch screen tablet with no built-in drives. It's intended to be an inexpensive extension to your desktop. You walk around your home with the tablet accessing files on your Mac, surfing the net (via your Mac), controlling the playback of audio files (via your Mac hooked up to your stereo). It will have handwriting recognition but no keyboard. There was a supposed leak of a photo of a box called "Pal" which may or may not be this product.

In any event, I'm very excited...this between XP & Longhorn period is Apple's best chance to make some noise. Panther's successor will be ready just as Longhorn begins shipping...perfect for Apple to stay one (or more) generations ahead.

 

[Joseph S]

Woohoo! Another OS release that doesn't have to address crashing problems.

2003 Crashes:
PBG4 - 1
PM Dual 500 - 0 (0 for 2002 too)
HTPC - 1 per day avg with the recently famous ATI enabled BSOD

Unfortunately, Apple needs to create an IE compatibility plug-in for the OS thanks to all these inept programmers at key companies. There are too many sites like Kaplan's professional testing that don't work with any other browser properly. It is nearly impossible to view embedded WMP and Real Media thanks to these IE "hooks" and the lack of a WMP that actually plays WMP.

Another major issue is the POS Apple DVD Player. If I could output 5.1 with the CoolDVD kit in OS 8.1, then why can't I do it with OS X.3??? Please fire "Cary Dean" and the rest of these folks standing in the way of reaching 1997.

Final major issue:
WE NEED FIRMWARE UPGRADE APP FRAMEWORKS THAT WORK IN OS X!!!!!!!! ("This updater will not work in Classic, you must boot in OS 9.") This is one of the remaining OS 9 gimmicks left for a company that sells only a few machines that actually boot OS 9.

I sure hope Apple packages FMP and a vastly improved Appleworks. There is nothing more insane than spending hours on the crappy bullets system in Word and PowerPoint.

If they get new machines out now I'll be sure to pick up a Rev 2 model this fall. Otherwise MWSF will likely be my next tower purchase time. It's also time for a 12" PB revision. The 17" laptops are huge and in many cases the 15" will be too big for many as well. Now that the heat issues are solved in my PBG4 12, I don't see why they couldn't up it to gigabit ethernet, DVI out, a better graphics chip, and 2x DVD-R for a little bit more. USB 2 Drivers for the USB 2 chip would help too.

Although I don't have the time for games, it is nice to see the games coming back to OS 9 levels at least and updates for popular OS 9 games to run natively in OS X.

A usable Tablet Mac would need USB/Firewire for AV in/outputs, IR/Bluetooth for remote interaction, and 802.11g so that they could function as wireless clients for a Video and Audio distribution. Perhaps, a lite model with only 802.11g or b and IR as a remote device. Then again, I don't see this one happening.

For the Developers:
Alsoft - We need a defragger, but DiskWarrior 3 is finally here and working.

Connectix"Soft" - You "virtually" killed the king of processor eating apps, :frowning: "Virtual PC." It is not usable on my PB, yet Remote Desktop with 802.11b speeds operates fluidly. They(Microsoft) are offering $20 off on an upgrade this month($79) and there is no way I could even justify a $35 purchase for a VPC upgrade. Nothing better than that to signal the death of a product and the end of innovation of the former Connectix employees. RamDoubler, SpeedDoubler, Virtual Game Station, and VPC all had their uses. Now, they're as dead as the Halo Demo on OS X Beta.

Roxio - we need a bootcd-ish capability in Toast Titanium now.

Anyone else - How about 3rd party drivers for all these new HDTV decoder cards? Many outfits actually produce the HDTV on Macs and yet have no means to watch the .ts or ATSC broadcasts.

 

[DonRoeber]

I always get a kick out of all these rumour sites right before an Apple event. Since WWDC is a place for Apple to communicate with it's software and driver developers, I think it'll be focused almost entirely on Panther, and maybe a few other applications (Office Suite, Safari). I expect Panther to be Apple's biggest step yet to being a Microsoft Free OS, we'll see how it goes. Panther should be widely available this fall, judging by past trends.

I don't expect much in the way of hardware at WWDC. Apple has been getting away from releasing hardware at conferences, instead just promoting them on their website and in the media. Although I've got no hard facts, I get the feeling that the G5 chips aren't yet ready, although I'd be surprised if they weren't ready and shipping in a new PowerMac by the fall. I expect to see minor upgrades in the iBooks and iMac this summer. With the recent price drop in on all of the Powerbooks, there may be upgrades coming to that line too... I'd sure like the 12" powerbook to have all of the features of the 17" one.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Don -- It appears to me that the PowerPC 970 is a stone cold lock for announcement at WWDC. Remember, Macworld NY is done AND WWDC was postponed a month. Something big is in the works. The 970 announcement needs to happen at WWDC. What would developers think about a 64-bit OS with no 64-bit processor? This is Jobs chance to sell them on the new direction they will need to be going so they can deliver 64-bit apps by the fall. The Panther and 970 announcements go hand in hand.

The Pro PowerMac line is in great need of a major upgrade across the board. There are just too many converging rumors to discredit this. the G5 will finally be able to utilize the DDR RAM and faster bus speeds. The processor has been holding Apple back on truly moving to the next level. There are many many sources which are claiming that the 970 Macs are already in full production while the channel seems to be drying up of G4's. I'd guess that only the pro line will move to 970 immediately with other models to follow suit down the line.

 

[Camp]

In closing, we want to address the performance of the new PPC 970 machines, as we do have direct information on this topic, and we consider that information to be highly reliable. Despite the recent flurry of confusing claims published by eWeek and others, we stand by our report that the new Power Mac and Powerbook have overall performance approximately 1.25 to 1.5 times that of a similarly clocked G4 on non-Altivec optimized applications. On Altivec optimized tasks, these machines have as much as 2 to 2.5 times the through performance as a similarly clocked G4. Our understanding is that this performance is occurring using bone-stock OS X 10.2.6 on pre-production single processor PPC 970 machines... an OS with none of the optimization now being rumored as being needed for supporting the PPC 970's performance potential.

Wow...Here's hoping there's some truth to that.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Here's another one - NY Post reports that iTunes for Windows is due at months end. Hmm. Just in time for a certain conference.

 

[Camp]

Wow! That would be a pretty huge shock considering they had ads on Monster.com for the Windows version of iTunes just a month ago. I'm sure a port doesn't take too long but that seems awful fast. Kind of makes me wonder if the Monster ads were really for some other Windows project.

 

[DonRoeber]

Hrm, you're right. Reading more about Panther leads me to believe that the 970 may be available Real Soon Now. Neato. The rest of my coworkers just got new G4 PowerMacs, but I held off, since I didn't need it right away. Maybe I'll get one of the new ones in a month or two

 

[Michael*K]

Unfortunately I won't be at WWDC this year. :frowning: But one of my co-workers IS attending which means I'll be using the evaluation copy of Panther in less than two weeks. New hardware would be a nice surprise. The 15-inch PowerBooks are long in the tooth and in dire need of an upgrade. Since we're replacing 80% of the hardware in out office (about 300 machines), our I.S. director has been none too happy with the 15" delays. He's basically ordering the Titaniums now on an as-needed basis in the hopes that a 15" revision is in the pipeline. In our meeting with our account reps, they seemed genuinely embarrassed why the machines hadn't been updated to fit in with the the 12 and 17-inch line yet. On a more positive note, our downtown Apple Store is due to open in less than a month.

 

[Joseph S]

Not a rumor,

IE has officially joined the ranks of OS 9. The OS X edition of IE had better be a closed casket. What a shock, Microsoft with all their resources and "innovative develpers" is unable to compete with the likes of Apple, Omni Group, Camino, Mozilla,...

What a joke. Hopefully, this will force developers to finally fix their html coding practices. WMP hasn't been updated in 1.5 years and doesn't work and barely installs on some machines. IE hasn't been updated for the most part in 3 years. What are all these hooks they just can seem to find in the OS? All they need to do is ask for our password with the installer, open the keychain, and upload all our personal info to their server.

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/...6/13/explorer/

Edit:

ALSO NOT A RUMOR!!! You can now record HDTV via FIREWIRE and STBs in Jag-wire!!!! Wooohoooooo!!!

Link to AVS Thread

Now all we need is a HDTV .atsc stream editor and player. (and to fire the Apple DVD team. ) Looks like a possible replacement for my HiPix in the near future.

 

[Camp]

I don't get all the press the Explorer thing has gotten. Five years ago web browsers were still a big deal. New releases actually mattered if you wanted to view the newest websites. Today the browser is one of the most basic elements on my system. Nothing really new has been done for some time. Safari is just fine, why does it matter if IE won't be around anymore?

WMP hasn't been updated in 1.5 years and doesn't work

Huh? WMP 9 is great. What does this have to do with Explorer though?

 

[Joseph S]

Comprehensive List of Codecs Supported

Audio Codecs
Microsoft Windows Media Audio codec versions 1.0, 2.0, 7, and 8
G.726 codec

Video Codecs
Microsoft Windows Media Video codec versions 7 and 8
Microsoft Windows Media Screen codec versions 7 and 8
Microsoft MPEG-4 codec version 2.0 and 3.0
ISO MPEG-4 video codec version 1.0

That would be the "comprehensive" list and that also doesn't mean the video playback of supported codecs is adequate and it isn't. Note it doesn't support WMP 9. It also doesn't support embedded web media. There is no "internet plug-in" that you can use for the other browsers either. It took them 14 months just to fix the installer so it worked on Jaguar while their own linked support newsgroup promoted a third party kracked installer. You have to jump through about 15 steps to steal urls from embedded sites for material like NHL and NFL broadcasts. That is completely unacceptable and there are no other options.

 

[Camp]

Oh, I thought you were talking about the WinXP version of WMP (but I guess you figured that out )

I agree these codecs should be available to Apple users but I disagee that Microsoft is the bad guy here. It's a business and they're supporting their platform. It's not Microsoft's responsibility to support these codecs on an Apple platform. Apple needs to license and support these codecs and get aggressive with site/content providers to offer OS X alternatives. I'd love to see the WMV high-def codecs run on OS X.

Companies are just stingy with support for codecs. iPod and iTunes can only play AAC, MP3 (not counting uncompressed formats). Developers need to overcome this bad limitation and start supporting everything (downloadable plug-ins are acceptable, IMO).

 

[Patrick Larkin]

New stuff:

- Reports indicate that supplies of PowerMac G4's and 15" Powerbooks are drying up usually implies upcoming revisions.

- Mystery boxes have been showing up at Apple stores with instructions that they are not to be opened until Monday afternoon.

- Rumors that Apple is interested in acquiring Roxio, maker of Toast (Mac) and EZ CD Creator on Peecee.

- My favorite rumors are that Apple has been courting high end Unix application developers and users to get more specialized apps (usually scientific and high end graphics) ported to OS X. This goes along with the rumors that Apple is developing the "XStation" or a high powered XServe for the desktop. Shwing! The idea is to go into companies where engineers and scientists use a Unix workstation (like a Sun) and a Windows PC and selling the idea of running Unix apps and office apps on one box - a Mac.

 

[Michael*K]

I can vouch for the fact that the 15" PowerBooks are drying up. We need about 75 of them and the two resellers that we deal with have both said there are less than 700 machines in the inventory channel right now.

Oh yeah...the downtown Apple Store opens here June 27. Woo-hoo!!

 

[Joseph S]

Airport Extreme*

*Now with "Interference Robustness"

Edit:

Did Apple just pull a Time Magazine on themselves? People are now showing pics of the Apple Store listing G5 specs!!

1.6GHz, 1.8GHz, 2.0Ghz Dual G5 Processors
Up to 1GHz 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 and Airport Extreme ready
Optical and analog audio in and out

Ok, Why Optical??? Rev 2 should be fantastic!!!

Link to akamai info

 

[Kelley_B]

I can say that those specs are pretty much right online to what I was told by someone who worked on a part of the PowerMac G5.