Macintosh -- Will you buy one now or later?

[GuyJean]

Macworld coming..

CES coming..

Intel coming..

I'm COMING!!!..

Do I finally see a new computer in my future..?

GJ

[cstaylor]

You should... I've bought two Macs since we last discussed this over email.

How anyone can run FCP under Classic on a Wall Street is beyond me.

[GuyJean]

You should... I've bought two Macs since we last discussed this over email.

The good thing about being patient with computers is you always get a better product by waiting.. Then it depreciates.. And you're left wanting a new one.. A vicious cycle..

I have bought a new Mac since we talked.. But it's not my editing station.

How anyone can run FCP under Classic on a Wall Street is beyond me.

Hey. It's a Pismo! And still has a better variety of ports, along with being wireless, you'd likely find on most laptops these days..

It's slow, but very capable.. I have 3-120GB external drives for video and a 19" flatpanel for dual desktop.. Can't complain much, but I'm feeling the need for speed..

GJ

[drpepper]

You are a brave "Guy" indeed, you can't even do ichat video on that thing I couldn't imagine FCP... timing is everthing.

I bought at the aboslute best time for my current machine, as right afterwards Apple stagnated for over a year. Best buy I ever made (computer wise), my original first model dual 2Ghz G5, up until just a few months ago a dual 2Gig model was still offered, some 2 years after I bought mine. With the dual cores there has finally been an advance but I am still fine with my current machine for at least another year which I have not been able to say about my other previous machines (my first edition flatscreen imac is definately long in the tooth these days).

[cstaylor]

I've got a dual G5 as well, and I love it. It's the first generation case, so it's a little large compared with my older G4 Powermac, but X-code screams... I can finally program on it like I do on my PC (try something and see if it works without figuring out every problem ahead of time).

[GuyJean]

You are a brave "Guy" indeed, you can't even do ichat video on that thing I couldn't imagine FCP... timing is everthing.

I have no desire to iChat, so I don't think I'm missing anything.. It handles 'classic' FCP quite well, Photoshop isn't bad, and handles Dreamweaver better than my G4 OSX laptop.. It is getting old though.. But not bad for a 5-year-old machine.

I agree that timing is everything.. That's why I'm wondering if the first generation of Mactels is a smart idea..

GJ

[GuyJean]

Place your bets..

Macworld Expo Odds: What would you bet on?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=67

10. Mac OS X 10.5 - 100 to 1
9. Intel PowerBook - 50 to 1
8. iWork '06 - 25 to 1
7. iLife '06 - 10 to 1
6. Bluetooth remote control - 3 to 1
5. Price Increases for iTunes - 10 to 1
4. AirPort Ultra - 10 to 1
3. 1GB iPod nano - 3 to 2
2. Intel Mac mini - Even
1. Widescreen Intel iBook - Even

Hhhhhm.. Not much excites me.. Looks like it's back to surfing porn..

GJ

[cstaylor]

My bet is Intel iBook and release of 10.4.X for Intel.

[drpepper]

10.4 for intel?? I take it you mean a release open for installation on non-apples? I doubt we will see that for several years if ever from Apple (at least while Steve is in charge).

Intel inside for ibook and mini I think are very strong possibilities. They may also likely upgrade the "i" software as well since it has been a while.

The AirPort Ultra idea is nice but I doubt we will see that this time around I don't think they are ready yet.

[cstaylor]

10.4 for intel?? I take it you mean a release open for installation on non-apples?

No, I mean 10.4 running on new Intel iBooks.

[cstaylor]

I agree that timing is everything.. That's why I'm wondering if the first generation of Mactels is a smart idea..

They really aren't first generation. First-gen Intel machines are those developer's rigs that ADC members can borrow for a few hundred dollars.

[Skankster]

-
-
In a month or two I will buy the cheapest mac I can buy.
Then by summer the most expensive ones.

I am not only impressed by the things a Mac can do now but I also just want a different OS from what I use at work...

[mr. sparkle]

-
-
In a month or two I will buy the cheapest mac I can buy.
Then by summer the most expensive ones.

I am not only impressed by the things a Mac can do now but I also just want a different OS from what I use at work...

You may want to wait until Tuesday morning before you make any decisions.

[emperor]

price drop on iMac G5 20" to €1522 in Ireland (with education discount)

Intel iMac (with edu discount)
17" Eur 1,315
20" Eur 1,709

I want it cause my pc is always in use by other family members or windows is going flipmodesquad on me, and I had primarily bought my ibook for use in college cause the computers over there are never available.

The only apps I will use in Rosetta are Photoshop and Word:

Our standard Microsoft Word scrolling test ran at 48 percent of the speed it ran on the iMac G5; our standard battery of 14 Photoshop CS tasks ran at 45 percent of the G5's speed

but i want to offload about 16 minidv tapes worth onto hardrive and put them to dvd with some userfriendly editing software (and my ibook lacks the cpu power, harddrive space, & superdrive + my pc has them, but the software i have for it [Adobe Premier] dosent seem as user friendly as iMovie HD) and apparently iLife 06 runs faster on the intel-imac

i wont be playing any games on my mac, so the new graphics card dosent really come into play (although according to some accounts its actually a step down?)

maybe the talk of a quieter system might swing me to a 17" intellimac
(although it would be another e75 (making the total=1390) to upgrade the hardrive from 160 to 250, and the new constructions make it a bitch to swap them out yourself)

so silence and more futureproof? intel
or not so silent & more screen realestate for a little more money (+e130) G5

What are your opinions + recommendations?

[Charles]

Our standard Microsoft Word scrolling test ran at 48 percent of the speed it ran on the iMac G5

I have been hammering on people for years, any "benchmark" of MSWord scrolling is completely invalid. The scrolling routine includes a delay mechanism to slow down the scrolling speed so it does not run too fast to see. Without the delay loop, it would scroll to the bottom instantly. They delay loop is tuned to various CPUs and video displays, and hasn't been tuned for new machines (how could it be? They were released after the last MSWord release).
All the reports I've heard indicate that MSWord performance in Rosetta on Intel Macs is excellent. And just how much performance do you need? Word spends 99.9% of its runtime waiting for you to press the next key. Faster processors or better speed would just mean that Word waits more intensely for your next keypress.
If you just want to edit some videos using stuff like iMovie and iDVD, I would say go for the new Intel iMac now. All the iLife 06 apps are Intel native and have increased performance.
Photoshop performance will suck though, it's finely tuned to PPC and will take a big hit in Rosetta. I heard some users saying that it's usable for lower rez graphics like web/video resolutions but if you routinely do 20Mb images, you'll hate it. And you'll probably be waiting about a year before CS3 ships native.

And now I will let you in on the best kept secret on how to get the highest possible discount on Mac hardware. If you become a registered Apple Developer, and pay an annual fee ($500 IIRC) you can get a Developer's Discount on a limited number of Mac CPUs each year. You may not recoup the discount on lower end units like iMacs (I haven't priced this out on iMacs) but on almost any high end rig (like a quad G5) a CPU plus the developer subscription fee is way cheaper than any discount you'll ever get.

[Kuang_Grade]

I have one the early imac G5s and I think is pretty quiet...Only occationally do all three fans activate at the same time and it becomes noticable...when I first got it, it seemed noisy but then I realized that it was quieter than my old PC but that my PC was under my desk and that blocked alot of the fan noise. Since the imac fans are only about 14 inches from my ears, it seemed louder

As for the speed tests for word, look at the testing method...how often are you going to be scrolling through a 500 page document? While certainly programs going through rosetta are going to be slower, I don't know if most of the stuff the average Word user is going to be doing will be tremendously noticable...you know, 1.8 seconds vs. 2.1 seconds sort of stuff...Photoshop will likely be another matter though.

The big question here is when will the intel tweeked software come out and how much will it cost for existing users to upgrade. While futureproofing is something to keep in mind, the total final cost to actually use all that intel horsepower is the key issue (ie, which is more costly?....the drop in the resale value of the powerPC imac over time or the price of upgrading your current software to take advantage of intel imac.)

[Taro Toporific]

I have one the early imac G5s ...
The big question here is when will the intel tweeked software come out and how much will it cost for existing users to upgrade. While futureproofing is something to keep in mind, the total final cost to actually use all that intel horsepower is the key issue (ie, which is more costly?....the drop in the resale value of the powerPC imac over time...

Right now Intel-tweeked Photoshop is not available for the intelMac---that's a deal killer for my needs.

I figure to run my iMac G5 1.8GHz into the ground (4 years?) until I'm forced to buy a new intelMac because software won't run on the G5.
Why?
The resale value of the used computers in Japan poor. A two year old computer has very little value here.
The buy/trade-in price at SoftMap for my fully-loaded 1.5 year old, iMac G5 1.8GHz (20inch) is less than 80,000 yen (SoftMap's sell price with 1-year guarantee is 149,800 yen for a machine that cost me 240,00yen when it was new).

HINT: To anybody buying an intel-iMac...Get the graphics card upgrade if you plan to watch full-screen videos. The stock graphics card in my iMac G5 cannot keep up massive video loads of homebrew video in the fullscreen mode.

[GomiGirl]

1.5 year old, iMac G5 1.8GHz (20inch) is less than 80,000 yen. SoftMap's sell price with 1-year guarantee is 149,800 yen for a machine that cost me 240,00yen when it was new

Damn I might buy a second hand iMac G5 for home rather than try to resurrect the old G4 Blue Box with a 2gig hard drive on my desk for home.

Unless somebody wants to help me fit it out with a phat new hard-drive etc. I have only ever put together PC's before - all my macs have been used straight from the box.

[Taro Toporific]

... resurrect the old G4 Blue Box with a 2gig hard drive on my desk for home.
Unless somebody wants to help me fit it out with a phat new hard-drive etc..

Just go to Shibuya " "Genius Bar" and play gaijin damsel in distress. Ask for name of a plug-compatible 200-to-500 gig hard disk.

But actually, a flatscreen G5 iMac would make more room around your house rather than a funky G4.

An Apple-Refurbished iMac G5 1.8GHz/ 256MB/ 80GB/ SuperDrive/ 56K/ 17-inch is [SIZE="2"]only $799.00[/SIZE]
That's about half the price you would spend buying an upgraded hard disk from the Apple Store in Shibuya.

But I would not even consider the 17-inch --- I value my eyesight.
Refurbished iMac G5 17-inch 2GHz SuperDrive
512MB DDR400 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
ATI Radeon 9600
128MB DDR video memory $949.00

A new 20-inch iMac G5 was lowered to $1499, but the better deal is the 20-inch iMac Intel-Dual-core $1,698 which would give longer software life.

[GomiGirl]

I suppose I could always get my brother to fix one up from the spare parts we have lying around in this office aka mac graveyard.. but then I could be waiting until christmas as he takes a while to get around to things....

[Taro Toporific]

I suppose I could always get my brother to fix one up from the spare parts we have lying around in this office aka mac graveyard.. but then I could be waiting until christmas as he takes a while to get around to things....

Unplug and pull out the 2-gig hard disk in your old G4. Then take it over to your "mac graveyard" and find bigger capacity hard disk with the same plugs. Take home the bigger disk, plug it in, and fire it up and see what happens. If you hear it spin up but no boot up, use your System CD so you can reformat the hard disk to match your hardware and desired OS (Any OS X more than 6 months old should be fine).

[GomiGirl]

Ah yes but I also want to do some funky things like make a media server (for all our music, photos and movies) and also have a secure Wireless network for our laptops to use anywhere at home.

Might get a wireless card and switch it to broadcast rather than receive to sort that out though.

[emperor]

I was passing a shop yesterday and they had dropped the price of their imac G5 17"ers from €1399 to €1099 - couldnt resist a bargain!

the only catch is: that it came with ilife '05 instead of '06 - but i'll manage somehow..

maybe it just needs more ram asap - but its actually beachballing on me at times and to the extant that im thinking my ibook runs faster!?? (web-pages loading, opening files and docs)
& startup seems to take less time on the ibook WTF?

i was supposed to be keeping that money to put towards a motorbike to get me through the Dublin traffic... sigh

[Kuang_Grade]

the only catch is: that it came with ilife '05 instead of '06 - but i'll manage somehow..

I don't know what Apple does in the EU, but in most cases in the US you would be able to get upgrade disks to 06 for a nominal fee-$10 by faxing/mailing a form to Apple with a copy of the serial # and receipt.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/uptodate/

[American Oyaji]

Apple is a great company and a I really like them, but somebody did something really boneheaded.

I just went on there to look at the Mactel iMac, right?
well, the interactive pictures are all in Quicktime 7 which I can't run.
I get the broken filmstrip image.

I sent them feedback about it.

[emperor]

..you would be able to get upgrade disks to 06 for a nominal fee-$10 by faxing/mailing a form to Apple with a copy of the serial # and receipt.
http://www.apple.com/ilife/uptodate/

cool, sorted - it only costs €14 for Ireland & free shipping

I had seen a torrent of it, but it weighed in a 6GB+: aside from taking forever to d/l, id guess the subsequent updates might not sit well with a cracked copy

[mr. sparkle]

Ah yes but I also want to do some funky things like make a media server (for all our music, photos and movies) and also have a secure Wireless network for our laptops to use anywhere at home.

Might get a wireless card and switch it to broadcast rather than receive to sort that out though.

Gomi,
If it has a blue case, it is not a G4, it is indeed a G3. I run OS X Tiger 10.4.4 on my Blue and White G3 400 with around 768 RAM. It crashes from time to time when you overwork it. But for a little surf machine, number cruncher utility box - it's doing fine.

Recently, I put a new 120 GB HD in there, however keep in mind that your G3 only has a CD player, not a DVD player - so installing OS X will have to include a workaround. I worked around that by installing Tiger on a drive placed in a FireWire enclosure. I then took the drive out of the enclosure and swapped it with the older HD (in your case the 2 GB).

It is not AirPort ready, so I could've gone two routes: Get an Airport PCI card for the G3 or get an AirPort Extreme standalone Base Station. I chose the Base Station.

My DSL Router feeds the Base Station. From the Airport Base Station I have a USB cable going to my Printer for EZ network printing from all the devices being fed by the base station. I have the hardwire ethernet connection going from the Base Station to the G3. I have a PowerBook G4 going via AirPort to the Base Station. And my recent aquisition: a cheap ass PC now has it's wireless card, so I can be connected on the network and share files with my Macs.

My network does share media. No problem for your media server scenario Gomi. It just works....

[mr. sparkle]

Apple is a great company and a I really like them, but somebody did something really boneheaded.

I just went on there to look at the Mactel iMac, right?
well, the interactive pictures are all in Quicktime 7 which I can't run.
I get the broken filmstrip image.

I sent them feedback about it.

Say WOT?

Which computer cannot run QuickTime 7? Even my $280 PC runs QuickTime 7. If you have a computer so old that it won't run QuickTime 7, that definitely means it's time to upgrade pot'na.

[Charles]

Which computer cannot run QuickTime 7? Even my $280 PC runs QuickTime 7. If you have a computer so old that it won't run QuickTime 7, that definitely means it's time to upgrade pot'na.

The only really new feature in QT7 is the H.264 codec, which requires a fairly high spec CPU (IIRC a 1Ghz G4 or better) or a video iPod (which has custom circuits for H.264). QT7 itself should run, as long as you don't try to watch H.264 videos on a low end machine.

Anyway, I wrote a huge rant about current chip developments, but I guess I only hit Preview and not Submit, as it disappeared. Short version:

IBM took a Parthian Shot at Apple, they claimed they made a breakthrough in SSOI chip fabrication that will get the Power6 chip up to between 4 and 5Ghz within a year. Bullshit. IBM said the G5 would break 3Ghz within a year, and that was like 3 years ago, and they STILL haven't done it. IBM is still using 95nm fabs, they can't even get 65nm to work, while Intel is now successfully using 45nm. If IBM ships a 5Ghz Power6 chip suitable for desktop CPUs before Feb 13 2007, I will eat my shorts.
On the other hand, Intel just demoed a QUAD-CORE CPU chip (speed unspecified, presumably at around 3.7Ghz like their other top end chips). But that's not all, they demoed a machine with TWO Quad-core CPUs, for a total of EIGHT cores. Yow. THIS is what got Steve Jobs excited enough to move to Intel, MacOS X is optimized for multiple CPUs to a far greater degree than Windows. The quadcore Intel CPUs are projected to ship in quantity in early 2007, just in time for the forthcoming Pro Mac migration.

So I am sticking my neck out and making a bold prediction: At Macworld 2007, Apple will introduce the new Pro Mac line featuring quadcore Intel processors across the entire product line, with a top end CPU with dual quadcores! This will coincide with an announcement from Adobe of new versions of Photoshop and CS3. But wait, there's one more thing...

[American Oyaji]

Say WOT?

Which computer cannot run QuickTime 7? Even my $280 PC runs QuickTime 7. If you have a computer so old that it won't run QuickTime 7, that definitely means it's time to upgrade pot'na.

I'm on a beige G3 and I can't go any higher than 10.2.8.

I could upgrade my CPU, sure, but it's going to be cheaper to get a new Mac.

But my point is that I'm LOOKING to get a new machine and can't even see what I'm trying to get because thier using their latest tech on their website.