TigerTel: Intel+Tiger at Apple Developer Conference? (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Nope. The big hang up with games is DirectX, which presumably still won't be available for MacOS.

In terms of removing compatibility conflicts among the personal computer market, though, I view this as a very good thing. I doubt Mac'll make much in-roads though, because many people still hate the operating system and the cost of having Apple's support and confirmed compatibility is that you ability to adapt is severely limited.

 

[Joseph S]

Cost of Apple support? We had one Mac main support guy and one interloafer for an entire university with 40% Macs, 10% Nix, 50% Windows boxes across campus labs and classrooms plus whatever was in the dorms and staff offices. Got paid to browse the web as "research" to fill out the hours because we had nothing to do other than test a few rollout apps before green lighting them or adding Windows apps to the keyserver and Y2K DBs. There were about 12 Windows guys, 1 Nix, and a bunch of Net/Campus color printing guys. The only people worried about the cost of Apple support are the 20 guys about to fired because they're not needed anymore.

 

[Patrick_S]

This is why Apple will never be anything more then a bit player in the computer industry.

Two decades ago Jobs failed to realize that the true money is in software and not hardware and so it still goes.

Don't get me wrong I like Apple products and I'm still going to get a mini any day now but over all Wintel units just offer a better value for the money.

 

[Scott L]

Well part of the reason Macs are supposedly so much more stable and trouble-free than your run of the mill PC is because Apple controls the hardware. Mac geeks correct me if I'm wrong but they know just about every possible configuration of hardware you can run OSX on.

You do have a point though, I'm not sure if keeping OSX on Macs is the best business decision, but I guess this means Apple doesn't have to worry about making their superior OS work reliably on a $300 Dell.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I think it is...they got a great price on Intel chips; they can deliver a more powerful laptop which is the most important PC segment; they get access to more software titles and eases future title development; and they get more production volume and speed than IBM can deliver in PowerPC.

I love my G5 iMac but this looks like some clever strategy on Apple's part.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I would look at it differently (think different!)....Jobs realizes the real money is in creating new markets where you can dominate, or in the case of iPod creating new simpler and cooler user experiences that bring out real productivity from the computer. Look at the hugely dominant market share of both iPods and iTunes (430 million song downloads!).

I'm sure Steve is sitting around his mansion thinking "Okay, so how do we make it possible to do the same for movies? How can Pixar and Intel help reach that goal?"

He may also be thinking "What company could help me build the consumer electronics of the future?" Intel baby. We know they want to move beyond just computers as well.

By the way, Apple's hardware carries great margins and Wall Street analysts expect an improvement there from an estimated 10-20% price drop in future Macs due to lower prices on Intel chips. The PowerPC is expensive compared to Intel.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

That would seem to me to be a misguided goal. People don't watch films on a jog or on their way to the library. It requires too much of an investment in time. We've had the technology for Video on Demand for years now, yet it's never taken off. People like to have ownership over their content; the iPod gives them that ownership even when the content lacks a permenant medium. I don't see a movie iPod taking off in a similar manner.

 

[Patrick_S]

Sometimes I do but when it comes to business I prefer to Think Intelligently.

 

[Joseph S]

So you would rather .08 a share over the past three years compared to the fistfuls you got from Apple or Pixar stock??? I don't think so. Job's companies all earned money and he gained without even taking a salary. Your numbers for Gates and the dividend are incorrect on the inflated side. Gates has also lost about $50 billion these past few years. What's to stop the trend? Pauper by 2010.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Because I have a task bar My monitor is plenty big enough; I just like being able to focus on a single given program at a time.

 

[Craig S]

Interesting decision by Apple, and I believe the correct one. Lost in the Apple-to-Intel furor of the past few days was the news that for the first time laptops outsold desktops in a calendar month. Given the inability of IBM to solve the heat problems that are keeping the G5 out of their portables Jobs had to do something to keep up in this expanding market. I'd be very surprised if the first Intel-based Apple that arrives in stores next year is not a laptop (I guess they won't be able to call them PowerBooks any more). The other speculation I've read is that the 2006 iteration of the Mac mini will be Intel-based (but the mini is really just a laptop without display and keyboard anyway).

There's a lot of speculation on what this will do to Mac sales for the next two years while the transition is happening. Funny, it hasn't put a damper on my lust for a G5 iMac to replace my Mac mini (which has turned out to be too underpowered for my tastes).

 

[Thomas Newton]

Apple called their Mac notebooks PowerBooks before the PowerPC existed, back when it was "Motorola 680x0 Inside". I don't think they'll abandon the name.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I don't believe anything in technology is firmly established or mature. We heard this around the time laptops hit the scene but laptops have been a runaway segment of growth for the business. Hooking up with Intel will allow Apple to get better performance per watt and offer cheaper, better, faster PowerBooks.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I finally got around to installing Tiger today. Man this thing is smoking fast. The new Safari browser is twice as fast and it only took 37 minutes to install.

I already have my dshboard widgets installed...time to download some more.

 

[Joseph S]

Apparently it takes 5 minutes for a clean install if you copy the DVD to a local drive...

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I just ran it from the drive and it worked fine. It does take some time for the initial indexing of Spotlight but that thing really zooms along to the results.

What is also impressive is that I have between a 7 and 8 second boot time from startup.

 

[Craig S]

Not nearly as fast on my Mini. :frowning:

Which is one of the reasons why I ordered a 20" 2 Ghz Rev B iMac yesterday!

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Congratulations Craig. That's a terrific machine...been testing them at the Apple Store...I may upgrade in the Fall when the do the next revision. I really want a PowerMac so I may do that instead.

The new iMacs have a lot of options that I had to pay for on my machine such as Airport Extreme and 512 RAM. I find the biggest performance boost has been Tiger though. I will double my RAM soon.

 

[Craig S]

My iMac arrived today... man, this machine is a work of art.

Right after I transferred the stuff from my Mini (really nice option there) and made sure everything was working I shut it down and stuffed 2 GB of RAM in it. Now this is the Mac experience everybody's been talking about! The Mini is a nice little machine, and if I had been content to stick it in the corner and have it just serve up music & photos (as was my original intent) it would have been fine, but I found myself wanting to play with it more & more, and the performance just wasn't up to snuff, especially when it came to apps like GarageBand. I think the 4200 RPM hard drive had a lot to do with that.

But so far the iMac just sings. Tiger's a heck of a lot more impressive with the 128MB video card.
Yeah, I think these Rev B G5 iMacs are a screaming bargain.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Congratulations!

Post a picture when you have a chance...I would love to see it. Do you have Clear Dock? This is a cool little app that really improves the look imho.

I would also recommend the Matias Pro keyboard...it's a big step over the crummy Apple keyboard.

You should have one fast machine with 2gb of ram.