Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Is iPod News still considered Mac News?
A funny thing happened on the way to iPod domination: it stopped becoming a Mac product. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not that the iPod doesn't work with the Mac anymore; it's as fully functional as ever. It's just that, at this point, somewhere around eighty percent of iPod users are Windows users. And for that matter, the majority of iTunes users are probably Windows users as well. And here in my own little world, three out of every four visitors to the iPod Garage is now using some version of Windows.
Seems hard to believe that the iPod was merely a Macintosh peripheral just three years ago. Of course, the entire iPod universe has existed for just a shade under four. It's like I told a reporter yesterday: within the iPod universe, anything longer than a year is considered an eternity. But I got to wondering today, with all the big headlines out of Apple, ranging from new iPod models, to iPod shuffle price cuts, to iPod firmware updates, to a new version of iTunes. And I had to ask myself: is any of this really Mac News?
And you know, I had a bit of trouble coming up with an answer.
When the iPod first came on the scene, various Mac sites mostly treated it as if it were just another part of the Macintosh universe, and with 100 percent of iPod users being Mac users, it more or less made sense. After Apple opened the iPod to Windows, and as the iPod user base began to shift heavily toward Windows, most of the Mac sites continued to cover the iPod as if it were a part of the Mac scene. Part of it was, I'm sure, just habit; they'd already grown accustomed to doing so. But I think there's more to it, and I think it has a little something to do with the rather massive popularity of the iPod. All a "Mac site" has to do to make itself instantly quasi-relevant outside of the Mac user base is to pay regular attention to the iPod: visting Windows users will focus in on the iPod stuff and ignore the Mac stuff, while resident Mac users who don't have an interest in the iPod will excuse the iPod stuff because, after all, it's fully relevant to Apple.
But I often wonder how readers of such Mac sites look upon the iPod coverage, which sometimes seems a bit implanted just for the sake of having it there. You know, when a "Mac News" site posts a story announcing the launch of a new third-party iPod case. Is this Mac news? Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily knocking them for doing it. I just wonder what Mac-using readers think of it when they see it. Because if I were a Mac user without an iPod, I think I just might get put off by the overfocus on the iPod. But then again, it's tough to say, since I'm obviously not in that position.
Last year I faced the issue internally myself, as I found myself spending at least as much time on billpalmer.net writing about the iPod as I did the Mac. I didn't like the idea of trying to juggle the two things on one site, so I launched the iPod Garage as an iPod-only site, kept billpalmer.net as a Mac-only blog, and the rest is history.
Or so I thought.
When MacMischief had its first serious launch earlier this year, with its theme being a "Mac News" site, we struggled a bit about how much or how little to cover the iPod when the story didn't specifically relate to the Mac. But since iPod Garage wasn't set up to do up-to-the-minute news, it seemed logical to use MacMischief to do both Mac news and iPod news. But that was never the intention of MacMischief. And to me, the iPod news stories on MacMischief feel like some kind of interruption to me. It's one thing when there's a major announcement such as new iPods, the kind of news that only comes once or twice a year at most. But I said, I've struggled with it, because I really didn't have anywhere else to put my iPod news -- until now.
Some regular readers are aware that the iPod Garage has been in the process of having its guts ripped out and replaced with a customized dynamic php-based infrastructure that will allow for not just the daily commentary and reviews, but also up-to-the minute news stories, reader comments, and the whole shebang. It's soon (really soon), just a couple of sunrises away, for that matter. In fact, the new version of the site has been up and running in simulation for the past two days now, and even though no one's been able to see it, we've been publishing all the columns and reviews there each day. And for that matter, we've been posting up-to-the-minute news, for no one to read I guess, so we could push the new system hard enough to identify any of the remaining larger glitches.
The new iPod Garage is just a few days away from officially seeing daylight, and in fact, if you want to take a look right now, you can see it right here. Read the news, post comments, do whatever you want with it. Just keep in mind that it's still pre-beta, things aren't supposed to be perfect yet, and you're not really supposed to be there. Don't tell the new webmaster I let you in early; he's still in the trenches working feverishly on the finishing touches. But feel free to prounce around the new digs and get comfortable with them. I have a feeling some of you are going to be spening a lot of time there soon enough.
The thing is, though, now that I've got iPod Garage as my primary iPod news outlet, I'm unsure as to just how much or how little "iPod news" to post to MacMischief. I'd actually like to hear from some of you on this, in terms of what actually qualifies as "Mac news"...and whether the fact that you are or aren't an iPod user had anything to do with your verdict. Y'all know how to reach me.
A funny thing happened on the way to iPod domination: it stopped becoming a Mac product. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not that the iPod doesn't work with the Mac anymore; it's as fully functional as ever. It's just that, at this point, somewhere around eighty percent of iPod users are Windows users. And for that matter, the majority of iTunes users are probably Windows users as well. And here in my own little world, three out of every four visitors to the iPod Garage is now using some version of Windows.
Seems hard to believe that the iPod was merely a Macintosh peripheral just three years ago. Of course, the entire iPod universe has existed for just a shade under four. It's like I told a reporter yesterday: within the iPod universe, anything longer than a year is considered an eternity. But I got to wondering today, with all the big headlines out of Apple, ranging from new iPod models, to iPod shuffle price cuts, to iPod firmware updates, to a new version of iTunes. And I had to ask myself: is any of this really Mac News?
And you know, I had a bit of trouble coming up with an answer.
When the iPod first came on the scene, various Mac sites mostly treated it as if it were just another part of the Macintosh universe, and with 100 percent of iPod users being Mac users, it more or less made sense. After Apple opened the iPod to Windows, and as the iPod user base began to shift heavily toward Windows, most of the Mac sites continued to cover the iPod as if it were a part of the Mac scene. Part of it was, I'm sure, just habit; they'd already grown accustomed to doing so. But I think there's more to it, and I think it has a little something to do with the rather massive popularity of the iPod. All a "Mac site" has to do to make itself instantly quasi-relevant outside of the Mac user base is to pay regular attention to the iPod: visting Windows users will focus in on the iPod stuff and ignore the Mac stuff, while resident Mac users who don't have an interest in the iPod will excuse the iPod stuff because, after all, it's fully relevant to Apple.
But I often wonder how readers of such Mac sites look upon the iPod coverage, which sometimes seems a bit implanted just for the sake of having it there. You know, when a "Mac News" site posts a story announcing the launch of a new third-party iPod case. Is this Mac news? Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily knocking them for doing it. I just wonder what Mac-using readers think of it when they see it. Because if I were a Mac user without an iPod, I think I just might get put off by the overfocus on the iPod. But then again, it's tough to say, since I'm obviously not in that position.
Last year I faced the issue internally myself, as I found myself spending at least as much time on billpalmer.net writing about the iPod as I did the Mac. I didn't like the idea of trying to juggle the two things on one site, so I launched the iPod Garage as an iPod-only site, kept billpalmer.net as a Mac-only blog, and the rest is history.
Or so I thought.
When MacMischief had its first serious launch earlier this year, with its theme being a "Mac News" site, we struggled a bit about how much or how little to cover the iPod when the story didn't specifically relate to the Mac. But since iPod Garage wasn't set up to do up-to-the-minute news, it seemed logical to use MacMischief to do both Mac news and iPod news. But that was never the intention of MacMischief. And to me, the iPod news stories on MacMischief feel like some kind of interruption to me. It's one thing when there's a major announcement such as new iPods, the kind of news that only comes once or twice a year at most. But I said, I've struggled with it, because I really didn't have anywhere else to put my iPod news -- until now.
Some regular readers are aware that the iPod Garage has been in the process of having its guts ripped out and replaced with a customized dynamic php-based infrastructure that will allow for not just the daily commentary and reviews, but also up-to-the minute news stories, reader comments, and the whole shebang. It's soon (really soon), just a couple of sunrises away, for that matter. In fact, the new version of the site has been up and running in simulation for the past two days now, and even though no one's been able to see it, we've been publishing all the columns and reviews there each day. And for that matter, we've been posting up-to-the-minute news, for no one to read I guess, so we could push the new system hard enough to identify any of the remaining larger glitches.
The new iPod Garage is just a few days away from officially seeing daylight, and in fact, if you want to take a look right now, you can see it right here. Read the news, post comments, do whatever you want with it. Just keep in mind that it's still pre-beta, things aren't supposed to be perfect yet, and you're not really supposed to be there. Don't tell the new webmaster I let you in early; he's still in the trenches working feverishly on the finishing touches. But feel free to prounce around the new digs and get comfortable with them. I have a feeling some of you are going to be spening a lot of time there soon enough.
The thing is, though, now that I've got iPod Garage as my primary iPod news outlet, I'm unsure as to just how much or how little "iPod news" to post to MacMischief. I'd actually like to hear from some of you on this, in terms of what actually qualifies as "Mac news"...and whether the fact that you are or aren't an iPod user had anything to do with your verdict. Y'all know how to reach me.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Something doesn't add up with this July 7th thing
Anyone else see something not quite right with the above? Oh Lordy, where to even begin.
It's probably the worst-kept secret in the Apple universe that new products will be announced sooner than later, in no small part due to the fact that Steve Jobs himself has already shown off parts of the as-yet not officially announced iTunes 4.9. The impending major upgrade to iTunes lends itself to the idea that Fifth Generation iPods are on their way, especially considering that it's been just the right amount of time since the Fourth Generation models first showed their face. Couple that with the fact that the iBook is so ripe for an upgrade that it's got this faint strawberry smell no one wants to talk about, and the fact that the iBook can't really be updated without the PowerBook being updated along with it, and you're potentially looking at a whole slew of product announcements, some bigger than others, that could come crashing through the deafening silence that we've been staring in the face since the Intel-Mac bombshell dropped.
So the buzz that Apple is sending out invitations to members of the media for an upcoming event more or less makes sense. Steve used his entire previous built-in grand stage just for the Intel thing, and he doesn't have another such stage waiting for him for awhile, so it only makes sense that he's holding his own event for this next round of announcements. And for what it's worth, July 7th sounds about right. It's just far enough removed from WWDC that his announcements won't quite be a full one hundred percent in the shadow of the Intel thing.
But what we've got, apparently, is a French-based Mac-related website claiming that it and other French publications have been invited by Apple to an event that might be taking place on July 7th, but might also be taking place sometime between now and then. Apparently, the invitees who get to attend are the ones who successfully guess which day it's actually being held on. Furthermore, no one is allowed to know where the event is going to take place. I suppose they have to guess the location as well. It almost sounds like one of those kooky radio contests in which the rules are so convoluted that no one can win by design except for the DJ's brother, who just happened to guess the correct date, time, and venue with no help from his family connections.
And to top it all off, although there is no indication that the event is being held in Europe (and why would it be?), it would appear that the only media folks being invited are those in France.
Are you still following all this? Good, then you can clue me in, because I got lost somewhere in the last paragraph.
If nothing else, the fact that this ridiculous scattershot nonsense passes for Apple rumors these days, only serves to demonstrate just what an effective job Apple has done of (mostly) silencing those sites that try to make a living by giving away Apple's trade secrets to anyone who cares to spend the time reading them. Good for Apple. But I guess it means that going forward, our total collective knowledge of what's coming from Apple boils down to some French journalists trying to show up for an Apple product announcement on a random day at an undisclosed location.
Hey, whatever works.
I guess it's time for MacMischief to return from hiatus, as the circus is officially back in town. Just don't ask anyone how many rings it has or where it's being held.
Hello French publication,
You and a number of other French publications (but no American publications) are cordially invited to an upcoming Apple event, which will take place on or before July 7th at an undisclosed location. See you there, and be sure to be on time!
Thanks,
Apple
Anyone else see something not quite right with the above? Oh Lordy, where to even begin.
It's probably the worst-kept secret in the Apple universe that new products will be announced sooner than later, in no small part due to the fact that Steve Jobs himself has already shown off parts of the as-yet not officially announced iTunes 4.9. The impending major upgrade to iTunes lends itself to the idea that Fifth Generation iPods are on their way, especially considering that it's been just the right amount of time since the Fourth Generation models first showed their face. Couple that with the fact that the iBook is so ripe for an upgrade that it's got this faint strawberry smell no one wants to talk about, and the fact that the iBook can't really be updated without the PowerBook being updated along with it, and you're potentially looking at a whole slew of product announcements, some bigger than others, that could come crashing through the deafening silence that we've been staring in the face since the Intel-Mac bombshell dropped.
So the buzz that Apple is sending out invitations to members of the media for an upcoming event more or less makes sense. Steve used his entire previous built-in grand stage just for the Intel thing, and he doesn't have another such stage waiting for him for awhile, so it only makes sense that he's holding his own event for this next round of announcements. And for what it's worth, July 7th sounds about right. It's just far enough removed from WWDC that his announcements won't quite be a full one hundred percent in the shadow of the Intel thing.
But what we've got, apparently, is a French-based Mac-related website claiming that it and other French publications have been invited by Apple to an event that might be taking place on July 7th, but might also be taking place sometime between now and then. Apparently, the invitees who get to attend are the ones who successfully guess which day it's actually being held on. Furthermore, no one is allowed to know where the event is going to take place. I suppose they have to guess the location as well. It almost sounds like one of those kooky radio contests in which the rules are so convoluted that no one can win by design except for the DJ's brother, who just happened to guess the correct date, time, and venue with no help from his family connections.
And to top it all off, although there is no indication that the event is being held in Europe (and why would it be?), it would appear that the only media folks being invited are those in France.
Are you still following all this? Good, then you can clue me in, because I got lost somewhere in the last paragraph.
If nothing else, the fact that this ridiculous scattershot nonsense passes for Apple rumors these days, only serves to demonstrate just what an effective job Apple has done of (mostly) silencing those sites that try to make a living by giving away Apple's trade secrets to anyone who cares to spend the time reading them. Good for Apple. But I guess it means that going forward, our total collective knowledge of what's coming from Apple boils down to some French journalists trying to show up for an Apple product announcement on a random day at an undisclosed location.
Hey, whatever works.
I guess it's time for MacMischief to return from hiatus, as the circus is officially back in town. Just don't ask anyone how many rings it has or where it's being held.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
All quiet on the Macintosh front
It's been almost deceptively quiet lately here in the Macintosh universe. Steve Jobs' most recent Keynote, typically the source of most Mac Web discussion for the several months that follow, contained just one topic: the move to Intel processors. And while it was a bombsell, perhaps the biggest single piece of news out of Apple since the launch of MacOS X itself, it's not happening for another year, and there's only so much talking one can do about something that isn't even close to happening. MacOS X Tiger has been a fantastic upgrade, but again, there's only so much talking you can do about it; at this point, new MacOS X releases are less about revolution and more about evolution. Don't get me wrong, that's actually a good thing, it's a matter of Apple recognizing that it's got things mostly right and being mature enough not to change certain things just for the sake of change. But it also leaves precious little to discuss and debate.
Beyond Intel and Tiger, you have to go back another six months to find any Mac-related announcements or initiatives that were more than simple speed bumps of existing products. In fact, it's gotten so deafeningly quiet that I put MacMischief on hiatus this week...not because the staff was unavailable, but because there was nothing worthwhile to report.
Which isn't to say that nothing is going on within Apple's Mac division; it's just that we're not hearing about it. With next year's move to Intel now public knowledge, the onus is on Apple more than ever to give us compelling reasons not to wait for Intel-based models, so you'd better believe Apple has some great new Mac-related stuff coming between now and then. The iBook is now eight months old; the PowerBook six. Both are just about due for updates, and something tells me that this time, due to the whole new world we're looking at, we'll see more than simple speed bumps. While I doubt we'll see completely new enclosures, I expect we'll see significantly more bang for the buck -- whether that means more bang, less buck, or a mixture of both, we'll just have to wait and see.
But it's always quietest just before the noise, and I don't think it'll be too much longer now.
It's been almost deceptively quiet lately here in the Macintosh universe. Steve Jobs' most recent Keynote, typically the source of most Mac Web discussion for the several months that follow, contained just one topic: the move to Intel processors. And while it was a bombsell, perhaps the biggest single piece of news out of Apple since the launch of MacOS X itself, it's not happening for another year, and there's only so much talking one can do about something that isn't even close to happening. MacOS X Tiger has been a fantastic upgrade, but again, there's only so much talking you can do about it; at this point, new MacOS X releases are less about revolution and more about evolution. Don't get me wrong, that's actually a good thing, it's a matter of Apple recognizing that it's got things mostly right and being mature enough not to change certain things just for the sake of change. But it also leaves precious little to discuss and debate.
Beyond Intel and Tiger, you have to go back another six months to find any Mac-related announcements or initiatives that were more than simple speed bumps of existing products. In fact, it's gotten so deafeningly quiet that I put MacMischief on hiatus this week...not because the staff was unavailable, but because there was nothing worthwhile to report.
Which isn't to say that nothing is going on within Apple's Mac division; it's just that we're not hearing about it. With next year's move to Intel now public knowledge, the onus is on Apple more than ever to give us compelling reasons not to wait for Intel-based models, so you'd better believe Apple has some great new Mac-related stuff coming between now and then. The iBook is now eight months old; the PowerBook six. Both are just about due for updates, and something tells me that this time, due to the whole new world we're looking at, we'll see more than simple speed bumps. While I doubt we'll see completely new enclosures, I expect we'll see significantly more bang for the buck -- whether that means more bang, less buck, or a mixture of both, we'll just have to wait and see.
But it's always quietest just before the noise, and I don't think it'll be too much longer now.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Macworld Boston: is there still such a thing?
Anyone hear anything out of Boston lately?
I had honestly forgotten that there was still a summer Macworld Expo until IDG called me this week, trying to sell booth space to LoadPod. There's no way on earth, of course, that I'm going to drop five grand to exhibit at such a diminutive expo. But it did get me thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, I should attend the event as a member of the media. You get in free, you get expo-wide access, so why not? And although IDG has tightened up the requirements for media credentials over the past few years, I doubt I'd have a problem. If MacMischief won't get me in the door, then iPod Garage certainly will.
I attended the summer Macworld Expo every year from 1999 to 2002, and loved it every time..but they were all in New York City. I stopped attending when IDG annouced that they were inexplicably moving the thing to Boston, effectively committing suicide by moving to a town they knew Apple didn't consider to be large enough to bother showing up for. I didn't bother to attend that last New York-based Expo in 2003, and neither did anyone else. "Macworld Creative Pro" or whatever they called it in an attempt to gloss over the fact that Apple wasn't going to be there. It never even occurred to me to consider going to Boston last year, and come to think of it, I don't think I'll be attending this year either. If I'm going to head up north this summer for a week-long getaway, it'll be to New York City -- expo or no expo.
As far as Macworld Expo, I guess I'll just do what most folks do -- wait until January for a "real" Macworld Expo...and freeze my tail off in San Francisco.
Anyone hear anything out of Boston lately?
I had honestly forgotten that there was still a summer Macworld Expo until IDG called me this week, trying to sell booth space to LoadPod. There's no way on earth, of course, that I'm going to drop five grand to exhibit at such a diminutive expo. But it did get me thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, I should attend the event as a member of the media. You get in free, you get expo-wide access, so why not? And although IDG has tightened up the requirements for media credentials over the past few years, I doubt I'd have a problem. If MacMischief won't get me in the door, then iPod Garage certainly will.
I attended the summer Macworld Expo every year from 1999 to 2002, and loved it every time..but they were all in New York City. I stopped attending when IDG annouced that they were inexplicably moving the thing to Boston, effectively committing suicide by moving to a town they knew Apple didn't consider to be large enough to bother showing up for. I didn't bother to attend that last New York-based Expo in 2003, and neither did anyone else. "Macworld Creative Pro" or whatever they called it in an attempt to gloss over the fact that Apple wasn't going to be there. It never even occurred to me to consider going to Boston last year, and come to think of it, I don't think I'll be attending this year either. If I'm going to head up north this summer for a week-long getaway, it'll be to New York City -- expo or no expo.
As far as Macworld Expo, I guess I'll just do what most folks do -- wait until January for a "real" Macworld Expo...and freeze my tail off in San Francisco.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Intel overclocking and cheaper, simpler Macs
It's nice to see that the tide of reader feedback has continued to shift over the past few months back toward more thoughtful communication. Not that there aren't stilll some whoppers. But for every infantile "nanny nanny boo boo stick your head in doo doo" email, there's a good thought-provoking one like this:
Well, it's an interesting thought. But I don't think the secret to Apple's continued (and accelerated) marketshare growth through Intel chips is all that difficult to figure out. For years there's been internal debate among Mac users about whether Apple could sell significantly cheaper PowerPC-based Macs without having to give up what makes a Mac so great in the first place, and with the Mac mini we finally saw just how much of an awful abomination the results can be when Apple starts lopping off essential components just to artificially drive the price down. But with Intel-based Macs, I think we just might see significantly lower prices on legitimate Mac models, possibly across the board.
Of course, deeper, further-out-there theories abound regarding Apple's move to Intel. There's all this left-field speculation out there right now about Apple licensing MacOS X to Dell, or Apple selling MacOS X as a retail product for use on current Windows PCs, but at this point all of it is mere filler on a slow news day, way too far out there to be worth serious discussion until after we learn a whole lot more about Apple's plans in that direction (if indeed they have any at all, and there's no reason to believe at this point that they do).
To answer your question about over-clocking: from a perception standpoint, I don't think Apple (or anyone other brand name computer manufacturer) could get away with selling computers with significantly overclocked chips. What you've basically got is Intel saying "this is the most you can safely crank up this here processor" by assigning each chip a Mhz/Ghz rating, and then you'd have Apple coming along and saying "nah, we've gonna crank it even higher, 'cause we've got more fans and stuff". Far too many real-world folks would be too afraid to buy such a machine. From the standpoint of a non-geek, it would be not unlike walking into a car dealership and the salesman says "we've attached this here can of nitro, but no really, it's safe...".
What I think is more likely is a new PowerMac minitower enclosure with a radically simplified internal design, since the nine fans and such will no longer be needed. In other words, Apple can now sell a mostly-empty tower just like every other computer maker, which should presumably cost Apple a whole lot less, meaning that the end result should be cheaper prices for us.
Let me bring it down to a consumer level: the G5 iMac would probably sell twice as many units (at least) if it started at $999 instead of $1299. You've got to figure a good deal of the iMac's current cost is due to the massively intricate design required to keep the G5 from cooking the whole two-inch-deep enclosure, which probably includes a whole lot of customized parts that Apple has to have made just for the iMac. Now imagine the iMac with the exact same external look, but with insides that are a whole lot simpler because there's no longer the G5 heat to deal with. Sure, it might take Apple's engineers a year or more to completely redesign the internals of the iMac (thus the one to two year wait for Intel-based models), but you have to figure that, once the redesign costs are out of the way, the machine just might be able to be built cheaply enough that it could sell at $999 or less. Plus, there'd presumably never be a shortage of Macs again, unless you think Intel is suddenly going to stop taking personal computer processors seriously.
And that, I believe, is how the Intel deal brings us even larger marketshare growth than we've been seeing: full availability and significantly cheaper prices. Sometimes there's rocket science involved with high-tech shifts such as these, but I don't believe that this is one of those times.
It's nice to see that the tide of reader feedback has continued to shift over the past few months back toward more thoughtful communication. Not that there aren't stilll some whoppers. But for every infantile "nanny nanny boo boo stick your head in doo doo" email, there's a good thought-provoking one like this:
"I haven't seen anyone mention this but I thought it might be interesting. Since Apple had to use such advanced cooling techniques in the G5 Powermacs, couldn't they overclock the chips they get from Intel without overheating them? In this way, couldn't Apple have the fastest computers around even though they have the same chips as everyone else?"
Well, it's an interesting thought. But I don't think the secret to Apple's continued (and accelerated) marketshare growth through Intel chips is all that difficult to figure out. For years there's been internal debate among Mac users about whether Apple could sell significantly cheaper PowerPC-based Macs without having to give up what makes a Mac so great in the first place, and with the Mac mini we finally saw just how much of an awful abomination the results can be when Apple starts lopping off essential components just to artificially drive the price down. But with Intel-based Macs, I think we just might see significantly lower prices on legitimate Mac models, possibly across the board.
Of course, deeper, further-out-there theories abound regarding Apple's move to Intel. There's all this left-field speculation out there right now about Apple licensing MacOS X to Dell, or Apple selling MacOS X as a retail product for use on current Windows PCs, but at this point all of it is mere filler on a slow news day, way too far out there to be worth serious discussion until after we learn a whole lot more about Apple's plans in that direction (if indeed they have any at all, and there's no reason to believe at this point that they do).
To answer your question about over-clocking: from a perception standpoint, I don't think Apple (or anyone other brand name computer manufacturer) could get away with selling computers with significantly overclocked chips. What you've basically got is Intel saying "this is the most you can safely crank up this here processor" by assigning each chip a Mhz/Ghz rating, and then you'd have Apple coming along and saying "nah, we've gonna crank it even higher, 'cause we've got more fans and stuff". Far too many real-world folks would be too afraid to buy such a machine. From the standpoint of a non-geek, it would be not unlike walking into a car dealership and the salesman says "we've attached this here can of nitro, but no really, it's safe...".
What I think is more likely is a new PowerMac minitower enclosure with a radically simplified internal design, since the nine fans and such will no longer be needed. In other words, Apple can now sell a mostly-empty tower just like every other computer maker, which should presumably cost Apple a whole lot less, meaning that the end result should be cheaper prices for us.
Let me bring it down to a consumer level: the G5 iMac would probably sell twice as many units (at least) if it started at $999 instead of $1299. You've got to figure a good deal of the iMac's current cost is due to the massively intricate design required to keep the G5 from cooking the whole two-inch-deep enclosure, which probably includes a whole lot of customized parts that Apple has to have made just for the iMac. Now imagine the iMac with the exact same external look, but with insides that are a whole lot simpler because there's no longer the G5 heat to deal with. Sure, it might take Apple's engineers a year or more to completely redesign the internals of the iMac (thus the one to two year wait for Intel-based models), but you have to figure that, once the redesign costs are out of the way, the machine just might be able to be built cheaply enough that it could sell at $999 or less. Plus, there'd presumably never be a shortage of Macs again, unless you think Intel is suddenly going to stop taking personal computer processors seriously.
And that, I believe, is how the Intel deal brings us even larger marketshare growth than we've been seeing: full availability and significantly cheaper prices. Sometimes there's rocket science involved with high-tech shifts such as these, but I don't believe that this is one of those times.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Apple going Intel: I say bring it on
Alright, I'm sold. Let's do this. Things are going to be just fine, and this isn't even a big deal.
Well, actually, it's a great big huge deal, perhaps the mother of all deals... but only within Apple's headquarters. After watching Steve Jobs' Keynote just now, it's clear that there's been a massive amount of both planning and work involed on this, some of it going as far back as five years. But the fact that Apple is treating this internally as a huge deal is the reason why we end users won't have to. Even developers appear to be mostly off the hook here, as the ones who want to participate will apparently barely have to lift a finger, and the ones who want to be lazy (or have already been discontinued) will literally not have to do anything at all, thanks to whatever this "Rosetta" thing is. I don't know what it is, I don't know what it does, and frankly, I don't care, as long as the end result is that I can walk up to an Intel-based Mac and start using it without even knowing that there's an Intel inside.
The only downside here is that we have to wait for one to two years to get our hands on an Intel-based version of our favorite Mac model, depending on which model that happens to be. I suspect that a whole lot of users are questioning right now whether they shouldn't just hold off until that time before buying their next Mac, even if they had previously been planning on upgrading in the near future.
I fell into that trap for about fifteen minutes this morning, thinking that there was no way I was going to plunk down two grand on a G4 PowerBook, knowing that now, the G4 is not only the wrong processor family, it's the wrong platform. The reasoning is, of course, that the last thing you want to do is invest money into a platform that the developers of your favorite software are about to start moving away from. But the more I think about it, in yesterday's paradigm, developers would have been moving away from the G4 in favor of the G5 anyway, and now they're simply moving away from the G4 in favor of the Pentium. So my situation hasn't changed at all. Yesterday, the next-gen laptop I want was a long way away, and today, it still is. But at least now we have some kind of a legitimate road map for getting there, instead of the phony buried treasure map that IBM's been sticking us with for the past two years. So for the future, it's a good move. And it doesn't affect my present one way or the other. I'm going to go ahead and buy a G4 PowerBook as soon as it suits me. One to two years from now, when the first Pentium PowerBook rolls out, I'll consider upgrading to it at that time.
I was also briefly thinking that perhaps this was a matter of Apple having to screw Mac desktop users in order to give Mac laptop users a brighter future, and you really couldn't blame Apple if it had made such a move. After all, laptops now sell faster than desktops, and this is particularly true in Apple's case. But after thinking through every scenario I can think of, I don't see any Mac users getting screwed here. I don't think there's anyone who should put off their impending purchase of a new Mac just because of this announcement. For instance, my mother, who just bought a G5 iMac last month? Nothing's changed. A year and a half from now, Apple will move away from the G5 iMac in favor of the Pentium iMac, but it's right about the time that Apple would have hypothetically moving the iMac to a G6 processor anyway.
So no one's getting screwed here. Developers have a long time to do a small amount of work that they can opt out of doing anyway, IBM is losing business but doesn't seem to care, Intel is gaining business and appears to love the fact that it's doing so. And you can believe that whatever deal Apple has struck with Intel, it doesn't allow for Apple getting screwed over the way it did by IBM. How do I know? For one thing, if we've seen one thing out of Steve Jobs it's that he consistently learns from his mistakes. But it goes beyond that. When Apple was trying to bail out of Motorola, it was desperate to find a solution before things got even worse, and the whole world knew it, leaving Apple in the worst kind of bargaining position possible: IBM knew that Apple had no other choice. Apple presumably got a weak deal as a result, and we've all seen how that worked out.
But here in 2005, it's a different story. Apple didn't have to do this right now. And that's why this was the best possible time to do it. You don't wait until after it starts raining to fix that hole in the roof. If you know storm season is coming, you do it on the sunniest day possible, far enough in advance that you leave yourself all the time you need to make sure you do it right. Over the next two years, Apple's engineers will redesign the internals of every single Macintosh model on the market to accommodate the whole new game it's now playing. But as a user, you won't have to do a thing.
If you're feeling any apprehension about Apple moving to Intel, it probably has more to do with the symbolic nature of the idea than any real expectation of a substantial downside. I say bring it on, and I suggest you do the same.
Alright, I'm sold. Let's do this. Things are going to be just fine, and this isn't even a big deal.
Well, actually, it's a great big huge deal, perhaps the mother of all deals... but only within Apple's headquarters. After watching Steve Jobs' Keynote just now, it's clear that there's been a massive amount of both planning and work involed on this, some of it going as far back as five years. But the fact that Apple is treating this internally as a huge deal is the reason why we end users won't have to. Even developers appear to be mostly off the hook here, as the ones who want to participate will apparently barely have to lift a finger, and the ones who want to be lazy (or have already been discontinued) will literally not have to do anything at all, thanks to whatever this "Rosetta" thing is. I don't know what it is, I don't know what it does, and frankly, I don't care, as long as the end result is that I can walk up to an Intel-based Mac and start using it without even knowing that there's an Intel inside.
The only downside here is that we have to wait for one to two years to get our hands on an Intel-based version of our favorite Mac model, depending on which model that happens to be. I suspect that a whole lot of users are questioning right now whether they shouldn't just hold off until that time before buying their next Mac, even if they had previously been planning on upgrading in the near future.
I fell into that trap for about fifteen minutes this morning, thinking that there was no way I was going to plunk down two grand on a G4 PowerBook, knowing that now, the G4 is not only the wrong processor family, it's the wrong platform. The reasoning is, of course, that the last thing you want to do is invest money into a platform that the developers of your favorite software are about to start moving away from. But the more I think about it, in yesterday's paradigm, developers would have been moving away from the G4 in favor of the G5 anyway, and now they're simply moving away from the G4 in favor of the Pentium. So my situation hasn't changed at all. Yesterday, the next-gen laptop I want was a long way away, and today, it still is. But at least now we have some kind of a legitimate road map for getting there, instead of the phony buried treasure map that IBM's been sticking us with for the past two years. So for the future, it's a good move. And it doesn't affect my present one way or the other. I'm going to go ahead and buy a G4 PowerBook as soon as it suits me. One to two years from now, when the first Pentium PowerBook rolls out, I'll consider upgrading to it at that time.
I was also briefly thinking that perhaps this was a matter of Apple having to screw Mac desktop users in order to give Mac laptop users a brighter future, and you really couldn't blame Apple if it had made such a move. After all, laptops now sell faster than desktops, and this is particularly true in Apple's case. But after thinking through every scenario I can think of, I don't see any Mac users getting screwed here. I don't think there's anyone who should put off their impending purchase of a new Mac just because of this announcement. For instance, my mother, who just bought a G5 iMac last month? Nothing's changed. A year and a half from now, Apple will move away from the G5 iMac in favor of the Pentium iMac, but it's right about the time that Apple would have hypothetically moving the iMac to a G6 processor anyway.
So no one's getting screwed here. Developers have a long time to do a small amount of work that they can opt out of doing anyway, IBM is losing business but doesn't seem to care, Intel is gaining business and appears to love the fact that it's doing so. And you can believe that whatever deal Apple has struck with Intel, it doesn't allow for Apple getting screwed over the way it did by IBM. How do I know? For one thing, if we've seen one thing out of Steve Jobs it's that he consistently learns from his mistakes. But it goes beyond that. When Apple was trying to bail out of Motorola, it was desperate to find a solution before things got even worse, and the whole world knew it, leaving Apple in the worst kind of bargaining position possible: IBM knew that Apple had no other choice. Apple presumably got a weak deal as a result, and we've all seen how that worked out.
But here in 2005, it's a different story. Apple didn't have to do this right now. And that's why this was the best possible time to do it. You don't wait until after it starts raining to fix that hole in the roof. If you know storm season is coming, you do it on the sunniest day possible, far enough in advance that you leave yourself all the time you need to make sure you do it right. Over the next two years, Apple's engineers will redesign the internals of every single Macintosh model on the market to accommodate the whole new game it's now playing. But as a user, you won't have to do a thing.
If you're feeling any apprehension about Apple moving to Intel, it probably has more to do with the symbolic nature of the idea than any real expectation of a substantial downside. I say bring it on, and I suggest you do the same.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
One last word on the emulation thing
It's been brought to my attention that I haven't really said anything about the emulation technology from the "Apple moving to Pentium to sell movie downloads" story that's supposed to make the whole thing possible. I would think that for such a move to even be something Apple would even consider, then such technology would have to not only in place and ready to go, but a big part of tomorrow's announcements. And WWDC is a developers gathering, after all, so if there's a place to do it, then WWDC is it. It's just that with the emulation thing having come from apparently the same anonymous source as the movie download thing, we're talking about someone with some bad information or who tried to piece together two items that didn't have anything to do with each other.
I think the odds of Apple moving to an Intel-produced PowerPC are fairly decent, Apple moving to an Intel Pentium are fairly remote, and Apple launching a movie download service are fairly absurd. But if the second one happens, then I hope there's some way-cool emulation involved
Bottom line: I don't necessarily think moving to the Pentium in and of itself would be necessarily insane, and a movie download store might not even be a total failure; the only true insanity would lie in the latter being the primary reason that the former happened.
Ah well, we'll all get a collective clue in twelve hours.
It's been brought to my attention that I haven't really said anything about the emulation technology from the "Apple moving to Pentium to sell movie downloads" story that's supposed to make the whole thing possible. I would think that for such a move to even be something Apple would even consider, then such technology would have to not only in place and ready to go, but a big part of tomorrow's announcements. And WWDC is a developers gathering, after all, so if there's a place to do it, then WWDC is it. It's just that with the emulation thing having come from apparently the same anonymous source as the movie download thing, we're talking about someone with some bad information or who tried to piece together two items that didn't have anything to do with each other.
I think the odds of Apple moving to an Intel-produced PowerPC are fairly decent, Apple moving to an Intel Pentium are fairly remote, and Apple launching a movie download service are fairly absurd. But if the second one happens, then I hope there's some way-cool emulation involved
Bottom line: I don't necessarily think moving to the Pentium in and of itself would be necessarily insane, and a movie download store might not even be a total failure; the only true insanity would lie in the latter being the primary reason that the former happened.
Ah well, we'll all get a collective clue in twelve hours.
Apple moving to the Pentium to sell movie downloads is the most insane thing I've ever heard
The notion of Apple moving the Mac to Intel Pentium processors sounds insane enough on its own, right? Well, just wait to you hear the supposed reason why:
Wired Magazine seems to think that not only will Apple start shipping all Macs with Pentium processors, but it will do so because it wants to sell movie downloads and Hollywood will only allow it to happen if Apple switches to Pentium processors with Digital Rights Management embedded into them.
I'll give you a good twenty minutes or so to stop laughing.
Leander Kahney has a track record of writing some pretty good Mac-related stuff for Wired over the years, but this most recent article of his is simply the most insane thing I've ever heard in all the years that I've been following the Macintosh universe. Not stupid, mind you, but insane.
But I don't have to tell you that. An "iTunes Movie Store" would be a niche that would, at best, be worth only a fraction of the iTunes Music Store. Why? No video iPod. And that's because a video iPod would, at best, be an even smaller niche than the movie store would. So what we're talking about here, if we're to believe this hooey, is that Apple is going to drag its entire Macintosh lineup, which is still responsible for the majority of the company's revenue, through the muck of a transition to a whole different kind of processor just so Apple can then sell movie downloads to Mac users. In contrast, Apple would have no trouble selling movie downloads to Windows users, of course, because Windows users are all already using the Hollywood-approved Pentium-D processors.
Except that they aren't. Or at least ninety-nine percent of them aren't, anyway. How many Windows computers with Pentium-D chips have been sold so far? How many in the next year or two? How many hundreds of millions would have to be sold before even, let's say, a fourth of all the Windows computers out there had Pentium-D chips in them?
And we're supposed to believe that only those folks would be "allowed" to buy movie downloads? I guess everyone else out there would be left with no choice but to steal them. Let's not forget that unlike illegal music downloads, the idea of illegally downloading a movie is still an extremely rarified concept among the general populace (if you're the type who "everyone you know" is currently downloading movies, then you really need to get out more, because you've insulated yourself so thoroughly with the geekiest of geeks that you should probably just stop reading now).
Hollywood can't be stupid enough to go and popularize the idea of movie downloads, only to then limit the market to such a tiny fraction of the public that everyone else, upon finding out that they've been shut out of legal downloads, would then naturally look into the concept of illegal downloads, thus popularizing them to the point where Hollywood would finally have a piracy problem to the level that it currently only pretends to have.
An Apple-backed movie download service that was limited to people with Pentium-D processors in their computers would do Hollywood far more harm than good. And for Apple's part, it would be taking a small niche market and then limiting the market to even smaller niche within that niche. So the idea of a "Pentium-D only" movie store would just be stupid all around for everyone involved. But the idea of Apple moving to Intel just to be allowed to make the above mistake would just surreal.
For all we know, Apple might announce tomorrow that it's moving to Pentium processors, and there might even be actual, legitimate reasons out there for the move. If Steve decides he's making such a move, then I'll certainly listen to what he has to say about it before trying to send him down a river, as most other Mac users will likely want to. It's not necessarily an automatic mistake, like the Mac mini was. But when it comes to possible legitimate reasons for such a move, this movie download nonsense certainly isn't one of them. Apple moving all Macs to Pentuim chips just to sell movie downloads would be not unlike walking fifteen miles in the rain, past three other stores that sell the same item, just to buy something that you didn't even really want in the first place. If that's not the definition of insanity, I don't know what is.
Oh, and one more thing...even if Apple were to switch to the Pentium-D just so Macs would have processors with Digital Rights Management built into them, and even if over the next several years there are in fact enough new computers sold to the point where the Pentium-D became commonplace, what would happen to someone who bought a new Windows PC that contained a processor from, say, AMD?
I suppose AMD could just add Digital Rights Management to their current processor designs. But come to think of it, wouldn't that same trick work for Apple and its current processors as well?
The notion of Apple moving the Mac to Intel Pentium processors sounds insane enough on its own, right? Well, just wait to you hear the supposed reason why:
Wired Magazine seems to think that not only will Apple start shipping all Macs with Pentium processors, but it will do so because it wants to sell movie downloads and Hollywood will only allow it to happen if Apple switches to Pentium processors with Digital Rights Management embedded into them.
I'll give you a good twenty minutes or so to stop laughing.
Leander Kahney has a track record of writing some pretty good Mac-related stuff for Wired over the years, but this most recent article of his is simply the most insane thing I've ever heard in all the years that I've been following the Macintosh universe. Not stupid, mind you, but insane.
But I don't have to tell you that. An "iTunes Movie Store" would be a niche that would, at best, be worth only a fraction of the iTunes Music Store. Why? No video iPod. And that's because a video iPod would, at best, be an even smaller niche than the movie store would. So what we're talking about here, if we're to believe this hooey, is that Apple is going to drag its entire Macintosh lineup, which is still responsible for the majority of the company's revenue, through the muck of a transition to a whole different kind of processor just so Apple can then sell movie downloads to Mac users. In contrast, Apple would have no trouble selling movie downloads to Windows users, of course, because Windows users are all already using the Hollywood-approved Pentium-D processors.
Except that they aren't. Or at least ninety-nine percent of them aren't, anyway. How many Windows computers with Pentium-D chips have been sold so far? How many in the next year or two? How many hundreds of millions would have to be sold before even, let's say, a fourth of all the Windows computers out there had Pentium-D chips in them?
And we're supposed to believe that only those folks would be "allowed" to buy movie downloads? I guess everyone else out there would be left with no choice but to steal them. Let's not forget that unlike illegal music downloads, the idea of illegally downloading a movie is still an extremely rarified concept among the general populace (if you're the type who "everyone you know" is currently downloading movies, then you really need to get out more, because you've insulated yourself so thoroughly with the geekiest of geeks that you should probably just stop reading now).
Hollywood can't be stupid enough to go and popularize the idea of movie downloads, only to then limit the market to such a tiny fraction of the public that everyone else, upon finding out that they've been shut out of legal downloads, would then naturally look into the concept of illegal downloads, thus popularizing them to the point where Hollywood would finally have a piracy problem to the level that it currently only pretends to have.
An Apple-backed movie download service that was limited to people with Pentium-D processors in their computers would do Hollywood far more harm than good. And for Apple's part, it would be taking a small niche market and then limiting the market to even smaller niche within that niche. So the idea of a "Pentium-D only" movie store would just be stupid all around for everyone involved. But the idea of Apple moving to Intel just to be allowed to make the above mistake would just surreal.
For all we know, Apple might announce tomorrow that it's moving to Pentium processors, and there might even be actual, legitimate reasons out there for the move. If Steve decides he's making such a move, then I'll certainly listen to what he has to say about it before trying to send him down a river, as most other Mac users will likely want to. It's not necessarily an automatic mistake, like the Mac mini was. But when it comes to possible legitimate reasons for such a move, this movie download nonsense certainly isn't one of them. Apple moving all Macs to Pentuim chips just to sell movie downloads would be not unlike walking fifteen miles in the rain, past three other stores that sell the same item, just to buy something that you didn't even really want in the first place. If that's not the definition of insanity, I don't know what is.
Oh, and one more thing...even if Apple were to switch to the Pentium-D just so Macs would have processors with Digital Rights Management built into them, and even if over the next several years there are in fact enough new computers sold to the point where the Pentium-D became commonplace, what would happen to someone who bought a new Windows PC that contained a processor from, say, AMD?
I suppose AMD could just add Digital Rights Management to their current processor designs. But come to think of it, wouldn't that same trick work for Apple and its current processors as well?
Friday, June 03, 2005
Well, I guess we have to take this Intel thing seriously now
It was more or less ignorable up until this point. Despite a whirlwind of rumors, and Intel's senior management even stating openly that they'll never give up on the idea, all this talk of Apple moving to Intel processors was just a bunch of downstream fodder -- until now. CNET, you see, is reporting it as a done deal.
Now CNET is not exactly a bastion of accuracy and respectability, and in fact, strangely enough, CNET was once (and may still be) part-owned by Intel, which just makes it weird that CNET is the one who appears to be "breaking" the story. But with CNET coverage comes widespread attention (their story will likely run verbatim in the NY Times tomorrow), and so this will now be the topic that fills nearly every inch of every relevant website and column space for the next forty-eight hours, both within and without the Mac web itself. So let's play along, shall we?
Most folks hear the phrase "Mac on Intel" and they immediately assume that you're talking about putting Intel's current x86-based processors, the same ones used in Windows PCs, into Macs. Is that doable? Sure. But would it be pretty? Not by a long shot. You're talking about taking not only MacOS X, but every piece of software you use, and throwing it onto a processor architecture that none of it has been optimized for. It has nothing to do with compatibility, Mac-Windows, or any of the other nonsense that folks can't seem to keep their minds away from whenever the words "Mac" and "Intel" appear in the same sentence. What this is actually about is the fact that while Windows (and the Windows versions of applications) have been written specifically over the years to take advantage of the x86 processor, MacOS X (and the Mac versions of applications) have been written specifically to take advantage of the PowerPC processors that Macs have run on for the better part of the past decade.
Well, it's more complicated than that, but that's the general idea. It shouldn't be surprising that you'd take massive initial speed hits across the board. And that's a really bad thing, considering Apple's only reason to move to x86 processors would be to gain speed, not lose it. You're talking about a complete re-write of MacOS X, from the ground up, if you want it to perform acceptably fast. Rumor has it that Apple already has this in its back rooms and keeps it maintained and fully up-to-date. But is it really feasible for Apple to release an alternate version of Tiger just weeks after launching it in the first place? This, it would seem, would be the absolute worst time to be talking of changing processors. Of course, the CNET story says that it's not going to begin happening for another full year, so I suppose it's possible that Apple is planning on releasing an x86-based MacOS 10.5 system in mid-2006, but it just seems weird to be announcing such a move on the heels of the Tiger release.
And the MacOS is just the start. We're talking about applications that you use every day, many of which Apple does not make and thus has no control over, possibly becoming absolute kludges on an x86 architecture...and worse, some of them perhaps not working at all. Sure, third parties would have a full year to re-optimize the next Mac version of their applications for x86, but considering just how long it took some of these clowns to move from OS 9 to OS X, a year doesn't seem like hardly enough time.
In fact, when I think of living through a transition from PowerPC Macs to x86 Macs, only one word comes to mind: ugly. Ugly enough to make the transition from Classic to OS X look like a walk in the park. Ugly enough that I can't imagine it, and frankly, don't want to.
And I don't think it'll happen.
Here's what I think will: Apple has been trying for years now to find a company that will actually take it seriously when it comes to producing PowerPC processors in large enough quanitities. Motorola was so awful that Apple once went eighteen months without being able to raise its top of the line Megahertz, so Apple instead looked to IBM to procude the G5, and there was much partying and celebration over the fact that IBM was taking the PowerPC so seriously and that there was some new trillion dollar fabbing plant and what-not. But it turns out that while IBM has in fact taken the PowerPC processor seriously, it just hasn't taken Apple seriously. Microsoft needs G5's for use in the xBox, IBM trips over itself to make it happen. Apple needs G5's for use in Macs, IBM says sorry, we just can't seem to build many of them.
It would seem that IBM played Apple for a fool, using its deal with Apple as bait to sell the PowerPC architecture to bigger fish who wanted it, with no real intention of giving Apple what it actually needed. And of course, it would appear to be approaching the point where it's time for Apple to look elsewhere. Apple doesn't need to change to a new kind of processor, it just needs to find a company that's willing to take serious the task of producing the kind of processor Apple is already using.
So the logical next step is for Apple to get its PowerPC processors from Intel. Yeah, you heard me right.
Of course, Intel doesn't make PowerPC processors, but that one minor detail could be overlooked if Intel were to simply begin making them. Is that even possible? Well, Intel more or less invented the chip industry, so from a technical standpoint, there's little standing in the way. The real question is whether Intel would be allowed to. Apple didn't choose Motorola and IBM as its previous suppliers by picking them randomly out of a hat; as it turns out, the PowerPC architecture is owned jointly by -- you guessed it -- Apple, Motorola, and IBM.
So could Apple license the PowerPC to Intel without needing the permission of the other two companies? That's probably something for a lawyer to answer. Motorola's so damn aloof and stupid that Apple could probably license the PowerPC to Intel without Motorola even figuring out what was going on for another decade or so -- but seriously, I don't think Motorola would much care. For one thing, Motorola's chip unit was spun off into its own company, Freescale, and for another, Freescale probably has no expectation of ever getting Apple back as a customer anyway, considering how awful it was the last time around. So this leaves IBM in the way, and considering how heinously IBM has screwed Apple so far, you have to figure IBM must be in violation of some agreement or promise somewhere down the line, and giving Apple permission to license the PowerPC to Intel might be a good way for IBM not to get sued.
So why would Intel want to go to the trouble of building a processor just for Apple and no one else? Just ask Intel: "We will never give up on Apple, we covet them as a design win." Intel made that statement yesterday, by the way. And the implication is Intel simply wants to be able to brag that its chips are used within Apple computers. You know, the one brand of computer that for the past twenty years has avoided Intel chips like the plague, finally embracing them, giving Intel the power to claim that it has more or less conquered the entire computing universe. If reaching that goal means the "Intel chips" being used in Macs are the same ole PowerPC chips that Apple has used forever, then so be it. The Windows-using world will only hear that "Apple has switched to Intel" and won't even hear, much less understand, the fact that it's more or less a facade.
And besides, if the PowerPC architecture is as profitable as IBM seems to think it is, then for all we know Intel might be wanting to break into the larger PowerPC market. Do you think Microsoft would sleep better at night getting the PowerPC chips for its xBox from IBM or Intel? It could be that for all of Intel's recent courting of Apple, much of it might have to do with the fact that Apple presumably holds the keys to get Intel into the PowerPC game. Let's face it, the PowerPC has always been the better processor, it's just that it's always been produced by companies that do a lousy job with it.
The x86 processor has been dead technology for so long it's a rotting corpse. Think about what all the PowerPC could become, for both Intel and Apple, if placed in the hands of Intel. It could be that Macs will start coming with "Intel Inside" sitckers on them, and the only thing it'll signify is a change in brand name. If the Apple-Intel rumor is true, then as wacky as it sounds, this is my best guess as to what it actually means. Anything else would just be...ugly.
It was more or less ignorable up until this point. Despite a whirlwind of rumors, and Intel's senior management even stating openly that they'll never give up on the idea, all this talk of Apple moving to Intel processors was just a bunch of downstream fodder -- until now. CNET, you see, is reporting it as a done deal.
Now CNET is not exactly a bastion of accuracy and respectability, and in fact, strangely enough, CNET was once (and may still be) part-owned by Intel, which just makes it weird that CNET is the one who appears to be "breaking" the story. But with CNET coverage comes widespread attention (their story will likely run verbatim in the NY Times tomorrow), and so this will now be the topic that fills nearly every inch of every relevant website and column space for the next forty-eight hours, both within and without the Mac web itself. So let's play along, shall we?
Most folks hear the phrase "Mac on Intel" and they immediately assume that you're talking about putting Intel's current x86-based processors, the same ones used in Windows PCs, into Macs. Is that doable? Sure. But would it be pretty? Not by a long shot. You're talking about taking not only MacOS X, but every piece of software you use, and throwing it onto a processor architecture that none of it has been optimized for. It has nothing to do with compatibility, Mac-Windows, or any of the other nonsense that folks can't seem to keep their minds away from whenever the words "Mac" and "Intel" appear in the same sentence. What this is actually about is the fact that while Windows (and the Windows versions of applications) have been written specifically over the years to take advantage of the x86 processor, MacOS X (and the Mac versions of applications) have been written specifically to take advantage of the PowerPC processors that Macs have run on for the better part of the past decade.
Well, it's more complicated than that, but that's the general idea. It shouldn't be surprising that you'd take massive initial speed hits across the board. And that's a really bad thing, considering Apple's only reason to move to x86 processors would be to gain speed, not lose it. You're talking about a complete re-write of MacOS X, from the ground up, if you want it to perform acceptably fast. Rumor has it that Apple already has this in its back rooms and keeps it maintained and fully up-to-date. But is it really feasible for Apple to release an alternate version of Tiger just weeks after launching it in the first place? This, it would seem, would be the absolute worst time to be talking of changing processors. Of course, the CNET story says that it's not going to begin happening for another full year, so I suppose it's possible that Apple is planning on releasing an x86-based MacOS 10.5 system in mid-2006, but it just seems weird to be announcing such a move on the heels of the Tiger release.
And the MacOS is just the start. We're talking about applications that you use every day, many of which Apple does not make and thus has no control over, possibly becoming absolute kludges on an x86 architecture...and worse, some of them perhaps not working at all. Sure, third parties would have a full year to re-optimize the next Mac version of their applications for x86, but considering just how long it took some of these clowns to move from OS 9 to OS X, a year doesn't seem like hardly enough time.
In fact, when I think of living through a transition from PowerPC Macs to x86 Macs, only one word comes to mind: ugly. Ugly enough to make the transition from Classic to OS X look like a walk in the park. Ugly enough that I can't imagine it, and frankly, don't want to.
And I don't think it'll happen.
Here's what I think will: Apple has been trying for years now to find a company that will actually take it seriously when it comes to producing PowerPC processors in large enough quanitities. Motorola was so awful that Apple once went eighteen months without being able to raise its top of the line Megahertz, so Apple instead looked to IBM to procude the G5, and there was much partying and celebration over the fact that IBM was taking the PowerPC so seriously and that there was some new trillion dollar fabbing plant and what-not. But it turns out that while IBM has in fact taken the PowerPC processor seriously, it just hasn't taken Apple seriously. Microsoft needs G5's for use in the xBox, IBM trips over itself to make it happen. Apple needs G5's for use in Macs, IBM says sorry, we just can't seem to build many of them.
It would seem that IBM played Apple for a fool, using its deal with Apple as bait to sell the PowerPC architecture to bigger fish who wanted it, with no real intention of giving Apple what it actually needed. And of course, it would appear to be approaching the point where it's time for Apple to look elsewhere. Apple doesn't need to change to a new kind of processor, it just needs to find a company that's willing to take serious the task of producing the kind of processor Apple is already using.
So the logical next step is for Apple to get its PowerPC processors from Intel. Yeah, you heard me right.
Of course, Intel doesn't make PowerPC processors, but that one minor detail could be overlooked if Intel were to simply begin making them. Is that even possible? Well, Intel more or less invented the chip industry, so from a technical standpoint, there's little standing in the way. The real question is whether Intel would be allowed to. Apple didn't choose Motorola and IBM as its previous suppliers by picking them randomly out of a hat; as it turns out, the PowerPC architecture is owned jointly by -- you guessed it -- Apple, Motorola, and IBM.
So could Apple license the PowerPC to Intel without needing the permission of the other two companies? That's probably something for a lawyer to answer. Motorola's so damn aloof and stupid that Apple could probably license the PowerPC to Intel without Motorola even figuring out what was going on for another decade or so -- but seriously, I don't think Motorola would much care. For one thing, Motorola's chip unit was spun off into its own company, Freescale, and for another, Freescale probably has no expectation of ever getting Apple back as a customer anyway, considering how awful it was the last time around. So this leaves IBM in the way, and considering how heinously IBM has screwed Apple so far, you have to figure IBM must be in violation of some agreement or promise somewhere down the line, and giving Apple permission to license the PowerPC to Intel might be a good way for IBM not to get sued.
So why would Intel want to go to the trouble of building a processor just for Apple and no one else? Just ask Intel: "We will never give up on Apple, we covet them as a design win." Intel made that statement yesterday, by the way. And the implication is Intel simply wants to be able to brag that its chips are used within Apple computers. You know, the one brand of computer that for the past twenty years has avoided Intel chips like the plague, finally embracing them, giving Intel the power to claim that it has more or less conquered the entire computing universe. If reaching that goal means the "Intel chips" being used in Macs are the same ole PowerPC chips that Apple has used forever, then so be it. The Windows-using world will only hear that "Apple has switched to Intel" and won't even hear, much less understand, the fact that it's more or less a facade.
And besides, if the PowerPC architecture is as profitable as IBM seems to think it is, then for all we know Intel might be wanting to break into the larger PowerPC market. Do you think Microsoft would sleep better at night getting the PowerPC chips for its xBox from IBM or Intel? It could be that for all of Intel's recent courting of Apple, much of it might have to do with the fact that Apple presumably holds the keys to get Intel into the PowerPC game. Let's face it, the PowerPC has always been the better processor, it's just that it's always been produced by companies that do a lousy job with it.
The x86 processor has been dead technology for so long it's a rotting corpse. Think about what all the PowerPC could become, for both Intel and Apple, if placed in the hands of Intel. It could be that Macs will start coming with "Intel Inside" sitckers on them, and the only thing it'll signify is a change in brand name. If the Apple-Intel rumor is true, then as wacky as it sounds, this is my best guess as to what it actually means. Anything else would just be...ugly.
Processor family compromises: the future is not now
Bill Davies makes the case in his MUG newsletter that not all of Apple's current hardware offerings are suited to handle HD:
"What do I mean when I say Tiger-compliant? There seem to be two things at work here: TigerÕs CoreImage technology and Quicktime7. For both of those to shine, you need a killer graphics card in your machine. The new operating system technologies are offloading more and more tasks to the graphics card. If yours is not up to snuff, you donÕt get all the features of these technologies."
The larger point he goes on to make, though, is not about the graphics card but about the processor. Bottom line is, if you don't have a G5 processor in your rig, your HD dreams are sunk:
"So, if you were the type of person who was going to want HD playback of DVD content, then the Mac mini, the iBook, and the Powerbook would be scratched off your list, because HD playback requires a G5. IÕll bet that made your shopping a whole lot easier, huh?"
I could point out that this is yet another case of a Mac geek being so deeply insulated inside the geek bubble that he forgot the eMac even exists, but that's already obvious to the ninety-nine percent of the world who isn't trapped in that bubble. Is it bad news or what when a Mac User Group leader doesn't know the eMac exists?
But we'll let it slide and instead point out that the man is not without a point, and one that I cringe at people's lack of understanding every time they try to compare a G5-based Mac to a G4-based Mac simply by looking at the Megahertz of the machine. In reality, to an extent at least, Megahertz is the last feature you should look at when buying a computer, Mac or PC for that matter. It's meaningless if you don't know the processor family, and it's still somewhat meaningless when you do. In the past I've pointed out that all G3-based laptops are more or less irrelevant at this point, while G4-based laptops with the same exact Megahertz are usually still good if not great for most tasks...and I've opined that the difference in relevance between the G5 and the G4 will end up being at least as big as the difference between the G4 and the G3. Some folks have responded by claiming that the only reason the G4 ended up being so much more relevant than the G3 is because the G3 wasn't designed with OS X in mind. But what those folks seem to miss is that innovation and design doesn't just stop when you reach the G4 or any other plateau -- there are always going to be new technological advancements, always new functionalities, and they're always going to be designed for the current processor family, not for some Megahertz range.
Davies oversimplifies things when he suggests crossing all of Apple's laptop models off your shopping list. At this point HD is just an obscure niche that down the road may or may not end up having any relevance at all. So unless you're planning on doing HD-related tasks right away or sometime soon, it's a lousy reason for a mobile user to give up on the portability of a laptop. Oh, you're dead sure that HD will be the future of everything? Try telling that to the folks who spent thousands to buy high-end Macs with DVD-RAM drives built in a few years ago. No, that's not a typo, there actually was such a thing as DVD-RAM, and for about fifteen minutes it was once thought to be the future of computing as well. Here in 2005, most folks don't know it ever existed.
So if you're a laptop user, don't give up your portability just because some new acronym might or might someday mean something to you. If you're ready to buy a Mac laptop, then go ahead and buy it...but I would suggest waiting until after Monday. For all we know Steve already has great news waiting for us, and the whole discussion is moot.
And yeah, if you're wondering, I've more or less decided to go for a new fifteen inch PowerBook within the next few months, G5 processor or not. It may end up not being a good long-term investment, but at this point I'm not interested in compromising down to a twelve inch iBook screen for my main machine...and I can't wait forever for the "mobile G5" thing to (maybe) happen. At this point, my only real internal debate is whether to consider springing for the seventeen inch model, as I have to figure out whether having a screen that large is worth having to carry around a machine that large.
Of course, if Steve gives us a hot-rodded new PowerBook on Monday, it would make my purchase a whole lot easier. See what happens, I suppose.
Bill Davies makes the case in his MUG newsletter that not all of Apple's current hardware offerings are suited to handle HD:
"What do I mean when I say Tiger-compliant? There seem to be two things at work here: TigerÕs CoreImage technology and Quicktime7. For both of those to shine, you need a killer graphics card in your machine. The new operating system technologies are offloading more and more tasks to the graphics card. If yours is not up to snuff, you donÕt get all the features of these technologies."
The larger point he goes on to make, though, is not about the graphics card but about the processor. Bottom line is, if you don't have a G5 processor in your rig, your HD dreams are sunk:
"So, if you were the type of person who was going to want HD playback of DVD content, then the Mac mini, the iBook, and the Powerbook would be scratched off your list, because HD playback requires a G5. IÕll bet that made your shopping a whole lot easier, huh?"
I could point out that this is yet another case of a Mac geek being so deeply insulated inside the geek bubble that he forgot the eMac even exists, but that's already obvious to the ninety-nine percent of the world who isn't trapped in that bubble. Is it bad news or what when a Mac User Group leader doesn't know the eMac exists?
But we'll let it slide and instead point out that the man is not without a point, and one that I cringe at people's lack of understanding every time they try to compare a G5-based Mac to a G4-based Mac simply by looking at the Megahertz of the machine. In reality, to an extent at least, Megahertz is the last feature you should look at when buying a computer, Mac or PC for that matter. It's meaningless if you don't know the processor family, and it's still somewhat meaningless when you do. In the past I've pointed out that all G3-based laptops are more or less irrelevant at this point, while G4-based laptops with the same exact Megahertz are usually still good if not great for most tasks...and I've opined that the difference in relevance between the G5 and the G4 will end up being at least as big as the difference between the G4 and the G3. Some folks have responded by claiming that the only reason the G4 ended up being so much more relevant than the G3 is because the G3 wasn't designed with OS X in mind. But what those folks seem to miss is that innovation and design doesn't just stop when you reach the G4 or any other plateau -- there are always going to be new technological advancements, always new functionalities, and they're always going to be designed for the current processor family, not for some Megahertz range.
Davies oversimplifies things when he suggests crossing all of Apple's laptop models off your shopping list. At this point HD is just an obscure niche that down the road may or may not end up having any relevance at all. So unless you're planning on doing HD-related tasks right away or sometime soon, it's a lousy reason for a mobile user to give up on the portability of a laptop. Oh, you're dead sure that HD will be the future of everything? Try telling that to the folks who spent thousands to buy high-end Macs with DVD-RAM drives built in a few years ago. No, that's not a typo, there actually was such a thing as DVD-RAM, and for about fifteen minutes it was once thought to be the future of computing as well. Here in 2005, most folks don't know it ever existed.
So if you're a laptop user, don't give up your portability just because some new acronym might or might someday mean something to you. If you're ready to buy a Mac laptop, then go ahead and buy it...but I would suggest waiting until after Monday. For all we know Steve already has great news waiting for us, and the whole discussion is moot.
And yeah, if you're wondering, I've more or less decided to go for a new fifteen inch PowerBook within the next few months, G5 processor or not. It may end up not being a good long-term investment, but at this point I'm not interested in compromising down to a twelve inch iBook screen for my main machine...and I can't wait forever for the "mobile G5" thing to (maybe) happen. At this point, my only real internal debate is whether to consider springing for the seventeen inch model, as I have to figure out whether having a screen that large is worth having to carry around a machine that large.
Of course, if Steve gives us a hot-rodded new PowerBook on Monday, it would make my purchase a whole lot easier. See what happens, I suppose.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Running and Spunning, part 2
- My mother callled me yesterday just to brag about how fast her new G5 iMac is. Well, that, and she couldn't figure out how to remove Dashboard widgets from the screen (hmm, I vaguely remember pointing out in my initial review of Tiger that this was going to be a problem for a lot of users), but mainly just to brag about how fast her G5 iMac is. I don't know if that makes me more want to run out and grab myself a new G4 PowerBook, or less. The thought of something faster? Yippee. The thought of another G4 laptop? Meh. Come on Steve, give me something to chew on next week at WWDC.
- How much of a piece of crap is Dreamweaver? The spell-check function not only flagged "blogging" as not being a word today, it suggested that I should instead use the word "logging" in its place. Alright, maybe this isn't a fair criticism, seeing as how "blogging" is a fairly new word and MX 2004 is more than a year old now, but gee whiz, Dreamweaver is just an awful, awful piece of software. I'm fortunate in that I can generally grab the basic concept of a piece of software and get it more or less doing what I want it to, whether it be consumer-level or pro, fairly quickly. But three years and two books later, I'm still wrestling with Dreamweaver on a daily basis, just trying to get it to act like a real app. I guess there's no such a book that make a piece of software not crappy.
- Thank goodness Adobe is buying Macromedia. Adobe does some pretty stupid things as a company on a fairly regular basis, and it's entirely Adobe's fault that the original version of MacOS X was held up for nearly two years before it was finally released, but at least Adobe knows how to make functional software that isn't just a game of "Where's Waldo" when it comes to finding features, with so many bugs that you have to watch where you walk. The kicker, of course, is that prior to hearing of the buyout, I was considering switching to Adobe's web design software. Macromedia's Dreamweaver has about 85 percent of the web design market while Adobe's own GoLive (or whatever it's called, it's that obscure) has a bit less. So unless its ego gets the best of it, Adobe will probably keep the Dreamweaver name around and officially kill off its own product. Best case scenario: the next version of Dreamweaver looks a whole lot more like GoLive than it does Dreamweaver (in other words, Dreamweaver finally becomes a functional product instead of a turd). Worst case scenario: Adobe kills off GoLive and doesn't fix what's fundamentally wrong with Dreamweaver (in which case I'll likely take a good long look at alternatives such as Freeway).
- Even though I've already got the greatest staff in the world, the iPod Garage family is looking to get even larger. This time, we're looking to add a comedian to our staff of weekly columnists. No, not "comedian" in the sense that he's running around Headquarters putting whoopee cushions on our chairs. "Comedian" in the sense that he (she? it?) can write a weekly column that's one part informative and two parts funny. If you think that might be you, you can find out more here.
- I've changed my mind, and I'm now going to keep using the word "Spunning" until someone does write in about it.
- Come to think of it, I wonder what Dreamweaver's spell-check would think of the word "Spunning"? Knowing Dreamweaver, it would probably suggest that I use "logging" instead.
- My mother callled me yesterday just to brag about how fast her new G5 iMac is. Well, that, and she couldn't figure out how to remove Dashboard widgets from the screen (hmm, I vaguely remember pointing out in my initial review of Tiger that this was going to be a problem for a lot of users), but mainly just to brag about how fast her G5 iMac is. I don't know if that makes me more want to run out and grab myself a new G4 PowerBook, or less. The thought of something faster? Yippee. The thought of another G4 laptop? Meh. Come on Steve, give me something to chew on next week at WWDC.
- How much of a piece of crap is Dreamweaver? The spell-check function not only flagged "blogging" as not being a word today, it suggested that I should instead use the word "logging" in its place. Alright, maybe this isn't a fair criticism, seeing as how "blogging" is a fairly new word and MX 2004 is more than a year old now, but gee whiz, Dreamweaver is just an awful, awful piece of software. I'm fortunate in that I can generally grab the basic concept of a piece of software and get it more or less doing what I want it to, whether it be consumer-level or pro, fairly quickly. But three years and two books later, I'm still wrestling with Dreamweaver on a daily basis, just trying to get it to act like a real app. I guess there's no such a book that make a piece of software not crappy.
- Thank goodness Adobe is buying Macromedia. Adobe does some pretty stupid things as a company on a fairly regular basis, and it's entirely Adobe's fault that the original version of MacOS X was held up for nearly two years before it was finally released, but at least Adobe knows how to make functional software that isn't just a game of "Where's Waldo" when it comes to finding features, with so many bugs that you have to watch where you walk. The kicker, of course, is that prior to hearing of the buyout, I was considering switching to Adobe's web design software. Macromedia's Dreamweaver has about 85 percent of the web design market while Adobe's own GoLive (or whatever it's called, it's that obscure) has a bit less. So unless its ego gets the best of it, Adobe will probably keep the Dreamweaver name around and officially kill off its own product. Best case scenario: the next version of Dreamweaver looks a whole lot more like GoLive than it does Dreamweaver (in other words, Dreamweaver finally becomes a functional product instead of a turd). Worst case scenario: Adobe kills off GoLive and doesn't fix what's fundamentally wrong with Dreamweaver (in which case I'll likely take a good long look at alternatives such as Freeway).
- Even though I've already got the greatest staff in the world, the iPod Garage family is looking to get even larger. This time, we're looking to add a comedian to our staff of weekly columnists. No, not "comedian" in the sense that he's running around Headquarters putting whoopee cushions on our chairs. "Comedian" in the sense that he (she? it?) can write a weekly column that's one part informative and two parts funny. If you think that might be you, you can find out more here.
- I've changed my mind, and I'm now going to keep using the word "Spunning" until someone does write in about it.
- Come to think of it, I wonder what Dreamweaver's spell-check would think of the word "Spunning"? Knowing Dreamweaver, it would probably suggest that I use "logging" instead.
