Apple Marketing Hypes New PowerMacs

Wacky_Wookie was only one of many who wrote in with a mention of Apple's "leak" of specifications for a new line of PowerMacs to be dubbed "G5", apparently running the new PowerPC 970 CPUs. No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing. :) Update by J : In case those linked sites get taken down too, try MacNN.

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay for Apple! Now we might finally see some machines that not only kick the PCs butt performance-wise, but annihilate it. Stylish and functional... ewww!

Re:Yay!

[Kurt Russell]

Yay for Apple! Now we might finally see some machines that not only kick the PCs butt performance-wise, but annihilate it. Stylish and functional

You need to get out more.

Ah, naming

[Faust7]

The new desktops will indeed be branded 'G5'.

Man, I couldn't be more shocked if the next version of Windows was called 2004 or 2005. What will they think of next? ;)

this is ala the iMac

[customs]

Remember the iMac flat panel introduction? Time Canada posted the news story to their website early monday morning, according to their normal news cycle...containing the story of the iMac FP with lots of fun pictures.

I can see it now in the keynote: "As some of you MAY have already heard (insert laughter) we have....(insert product announcements)"

whooo.

adam

Re:Well then...

[nattt]

Actually, the real specs seem slightly better than the rumours indicated. The real killer punch will be if they're cheaper than the current power macs.

Expansion port

[Zayin]

Expansion will be provided by three "PCI or PCI-X" slots, and - for the first time on a Mac - USB 2.0 ports, of which there are three.

To avoid any consumer confusion, Apple also stated that the USB 2.0 ports, previously called USB 1.1, were not "high speed" USB 2.0, but rather "ordinary" USB 2.0 (USB 1.1). The PCI slot will also be rebranded to PCI-X due to high customer demand for PCI-X slots. To make this clear, they also announced plans to rebrand the PCI-X slot as "PCI-X ultra high speed" and the PCI slot to "PCI high-speed". USB 2.0 ultra-mega-super-high speed expansion ports (previously called USB 2.0 high-speed) were also rumored.

Re:Well then...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just payed off my apple loan two days ago. I am doomed to be in debt.

Leak and marketting

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing. :)

Oooh, now thanks to Michael, I understand those devious marketdroids. Silly me, I thought the halloween document [opensource.org] was a real leak, or at least a fake, but now I understand why Microsoft's image and sales have sky-rocketed since its release : it's because their marketing department released it on purpose !

Re:My analysis of why this is fake.

[TheRaven64]

Yeah, except the current G4s have USB 2.0 hardware onboard, Apple just restricted it to USB 1.1 operation.

No, according to the USB forum I think you'll find that they restricted it to UBS 2.0 (Full Speed)

I can see Steve Jobs in the Web department...

[shatfield]

Jobs:
You.. You are FIRED...
and YOU! You are SOOO FIRED!
and you... you too are very VERY FIRED!

Guy:
But.. I wasn't even HERE yesterday!

Jobs:
I don't care! You are FIRED!

Re:Expansion port

[Trurl's Machine]

One can only hope the G5 will not be some sort of rebranded G3... :-)

Re:Apple's New G5

[TheRaven64]

Well, as soon as they leak the specs on the G5 PowerBooks, I might be getting a new laptop.

Really? I think I'll wait until they actually release the hardware...

Mockup G5 Pictures

[williwilli]

check out these pictures [sejus.com]

and download some music or something while you are there! ;)

earth2willi.com [earth2willi.com]

Better Article Title

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple Lone Gunmens the G5 Announcement

Re:Well then...

[the uNF cola]

Oh yes you can /student loan :)

Re:Well then...

[leifm]

Not being able to afford it(apple products) is better than getting it and having to sell it because you are broke as hell. So hey, you are still ahead of me:)

Re:I wasn't persuaded all that much...

[Doktor Memory]

Er, I've heard some dumb excuses from MIS managers for not allowing Macs on the corporate LAN before, but...viruses? VIRUSES?

I can only imagine what they meant was "That machine doesn't have enough viruses on it."

Akamai Accidents happen.

[KFury]

I bet Jobs shit his pants.

The reason this was posted too soon..

[wfberg]

Apple are using the new kit internally, in the web site department. And it's just too damn fast!

Re:New Mac

[11223]

Last I checked, the local Apple store had precisely 0 shelves of PC software. Must not be any PC software on the market!

Re:Insane speed!

[messiuh]

Dual prcessors arent cumulative, but thanks for playing!

Get the T-shirts for WWDC!

[Erik K. Veland]

Be the guy in the audience to get a camera trown at you by wearing the G5-specs T-shirts [cafeshops.com] !

This will get modd-ed down...

[Ghengis]

Can you imagine...

a beowulf cluster of these?

reminds me of slashdot of old..

[fliptout]

When Sengan used to post.. Now there was a real asshat :D

Re:G5 name is taken....

[Junks Jerzey]

The G5 name has been taken by Canon's sweet new 5 megapixel camera. They had the G1, G2, G3 and now the G5.

Oh, come on. This is like a fanboy writing in to tell a science fiction author that another book had a character named Abraxas.

Re:New Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait till I can have a 64-bit desktop machine

Is this because you actually run an application that can benefit from a 64-bit processor, or because you are compensating?

I'm not planning on upgrading

[Dark Paladin]

At least - not yet. I just don't have a reason too.

Specs look great. The only thing that might change my mind is a port of these 4 very, very important productivity applications:

Half-Life 2 - used to train new employees in how to survive a natural accident.
Doom III - used to train marines how to survive an unnatural accident.
Deus Ex II - used to inform people on the use of nanotechnology.
Thief III - a history lesson on how Victorian England might have evolved if magic was real and steam-driven robots worked.

Obviously, these very important production apps would require the power that the P970 can bring. (Oh, I'm sure they'd run on my current G4 867/Geforce 4 MX, but who wants to take a chance?)

Re:This will get modd-ed down...

[rampant mac]

"Can you imagine...

a beowulf cluster of these?"

We are sorry to inform you that the creation of a "beowulf cluster" does not conform to Steve's reality distortion field and we request all topics concerning beowulf clustering to cease and desist.

Thank you,

Apple Legal

Re:Yay!

[indead]

For $2400 I got an AMD system that completely trounced the highest end Mac in every single way.

"... Except, for some reason, I couldn't get Final Cut Pro to run very well. I'm not sure why."

Re:Well then...

[Eccles]

The G5 cost almost half as much as the G5 [...] Moderation is a waste of time.

True, since there's no "-1, Confused" option...

Re:My analysis of why this is fake.

[Masque]

No question it's a complete forgery. I mean, seriously, no floppy drive?! Windows hasn't yet reached this. Impossible!

Space Nuts

[teamhasnoi]

I can just see Jobs screaming at some poor web tech, 'I said "Lunch", not "Launch"!!'

One more example of how real life follows early 80s Satuday morning Sid and Marty Kroft shows.

Re:Could a competitor have hacked the site?

[T40 Dude]

http://www.2khappyware.com/ibox/

Re:Well then...

[mbourgon]

Well, yeah... putting 8 gig of RAM in _anything_ will up the price...

Its still pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

I want the names of the people who would buy this. They must be sterlized so they can't breed.

Not that they could get a date, but something weird could happen to some poor hapless girl in a hot tub.

Re:To spell it out: the specs

[suwain_2]

But when you say USB 2.0... Do you mean "Full" or "High Speed"? :)

Re:No! LUDICROUS SPEED!!!!

[bigmase521]

They Went Plaid!!!

Well if you're going to quote Spaceballs and expect to get modded funny,for God Sakes man don't botch the quote!!

it's "They've gone to plaid!"

'cos they don't use IIS.

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said.

Let this be a lesson

[Sloppy]

See what happens when you use graphic files to display text?

Re:Well then...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because he meant a G5 full-speed will be half the price of a G5 high-speed.

New Mac Complaints

[Srsen]

Just to get the jump on the Mac-bashers, here's the new list of allowed Mac complaints:

1. Stupid slow screens are a bottleneck. They don't refresh fast enough to keep up with the system. What were those morons at Apple thinking?

2. STILL no liquid helium cooling system?? Come on Apple, this isn't 1997!

3. Big deal. By 2008 you'll be able to get a comparable Dell box for half the price.

4. No floppy, no sale.

5. Still doesn't support my Chinese Xiondiangdong BKPDX-145 scanner.

6. Apple is dying.

7. I actually liked the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. I miss it.

8. It's so fast that I now have time to do other things. Then I discovered I don't have anything else to do.

Re:I can see Steve Jobs in the Web department...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs: I'm sorry, but your fired!!!

Guy: But I don't really work here..

Jobs: That's what makes this so hard....

(sik Seinfield...)

You forgot Beleaguered....

[Llywelyn]

>6. Apple is dying

That should be:
6. Beleaguered Apple is Dying.

No Apple Criticism is complete without it!

Re:Mistake

[MisterSquid]

Hm. You might be right about the quote. I was thinking of _Matrix Reloaded_, not the original, the part just before Burly Brawl. Wish I had a link. In any case, your assertion that my mistake (such as it may be) has something to do with my mouth is juvenile.

Re:How do I know?

[Jucius Maximus]

"P.S. Any one know of a company who wants to hire a Mac Geek and buy a G5 for their new employee??"

After this leak, I expect that there might be an opening at Apple... ;-)

Re:Can you imagine...

[nacturation]

... but would SCO sue for infringement? -1; Offtopic :)

Re:No, it certainly wasn't intentional

[ChadN]

That's it. This article finally put me over the top with being fed up with michael. He is a prick of the world. I'm so glad he deigns to give us mere mortals lessons on marketing, since he clearly has what it takes to "understand" it.

Hey, michael, maybe "understanding marketing" is just the latest sign that you are in fact evil, and should kill yourself. Meanwhile, I'll form my own opinions, since I think I'm intelligent enough to do so. But, when I need a marketing lesson, I'll drop you a line for your insight.

Rant over, troll-mod away. But, all the other posters who've commented on michael's jack-assery over the years, have a point. michael himself finally convinced me they do.

Re:I wasn't persuaded all that much...

[Anonymous Coward]

The best one I saw was -- true story -- at my wife's work, the PC techs made the poor graphic designer dialup on a modem to check his email. Everyone else (using Windows) was on a fast network. Their reason? "Macs can't network. They don't have ethernet." Fucking blew me away.

I got the last laugh, though, one day when I was visiting and the tech guys were in the room. I asked them if it would be ok if I tried to see if the Mac could be connected to the network. They laughed and said, "Sure, but it won't work!" I plugged it in, and they said, "No, that's the modem, see, it won't work." I then reminded them that the modem was still plugged in, I hadn't done anything to it. Heh. They said, "Well, it still won't work." So I pulled out the phone cord to show that it was definitely not dialed up, and proceed to load the internal home page in the web browser. "Oh, it must be cached from when it was last dialed up. You haven't even done any network settings (because the Mac can't do that)." I wonder if they've heard of DHCP? And nevermind that this was the INTERNAL home page, something the graphic guy could never get to on his Mac from an external dialup account. They didn't quite seem to get this point...

So anyway I went out and browsed the internet, checking a few sites like Yahoo and Google News that have timely updated content. They still insisted it wasn't "really" on the network. Something else must explain it. So finally I went to Finder, Connect to Server, and browsed the Windows shares on the network. Their jaws dropped, blew their little minds. And the graphic designer guy was getting pissed to find out he could have been on the network all this time. Apparently he used to wait hours to transfer huge graphic files over the modem.

Of course, management at the place is clueless, and they commended the PC techs for finding an ingenious "solution" to save the cost of the dialup account. What a fucking joke. Unfortunately, the whole world is like this with few exceptions.

Port...schmort!

[Zhe Mappel]

Who needs 'em? I shall be enjoying these games this fall on my PC in 32-bit color with all the trimmings.

My Mac, on the other hand...well, it's for annoyances like making a living. ;-)

Re:Mac vs Pc flame wars

[porkchop_d_clown]

You think they're passionate now?

Pfft. Kids today. Why when I was young, the Amiganauts would strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up in front of Bill Gates! Now *that* was a flame war!

Re:Yay!

[Surlyboi]

Of course, Apple don't publish G4 SPEC figures do they. I wonder why?

Possibly because on the off-chance that the G5 kicks the
crap out of whatever Intel throws at it, the number of Intel
fanbois shitting bricks while simultaneously flailing for
some other statistic to prove their chipset is better might
throw the Earth off its axis?

It could happen....

Re:New Mac Complaints

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Macs are tough to upgrade. No question about it.

No shit! I was, like, trying to add memory to my QuickSilver G4, so I got out my screw driver, and I was looking all over that damn case, going like, "Where the fuck do I put this?" There were like no screws and stuff. WTF?? You can't even open the case with a screwdriver? That sucks!

Apple, give us a REAL computer this time!