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agreed

This is why I like MDN. They are not Apple cheerleaders (all the time) and will call them on mistakes when Apple makes them (yes, even Apple makes mistakes). I agree Jobs should shut his yap. What's he going to predict next, that Kerry will win the U.S. Presidency?

In other words:

Don't let your mouth write checks that your @ss can't cash.

I agree 100% with SteveJack on this.

yep, announcing that 3.0 GHz machine has done a big deal of harm!

Jobs shouldn’t make such bold predictions – but the 2ghz G5 was only announced in June. Steve Jack makes the claim the 2.0 ghz was available last June, it didn’t actually ship to the masses until Oct.

Considering that the G5 didn't ship until September, you're not comparing apples to apples, here. You should either compare announced products as of June 23, in which case the margin is narrower than you imply -- 500 MHz, rather than 1 GHz, or wait until the anniversary of the ship date of the G5, in which case we still don't know.

That having been said, Steve is forgetting the golden rule of "under promise and over deliver".

The FIRST day of Summer is June 21st, not June 9th. You can now get the 2nd Gen 2.0 Dual machine for $500 less than last year with a better optical drive and cooling system. What is the problem, it is surely not Steve Jobs. The PowerMacintosh G5 is a very capable machine and the problem is a bunch of people who are more concerned with specs than real performance. If they truly needed additional speed they would have bought a G5 6-9 months ago. By Spetember Apple will announce 3.0 gHz CPUs and will meet his stated goal.

SJ was trying to assure the Mac crowd that would not have another Motorola on our hands who refuses to put any effort in improving their products. SJ has run into what he hates the most, problem which he cannot control. IBM yield issues, Toshiba mini hard drive production issues, Pepsi crappy promotion issues. Other company f-ups make SJ look like an idiot. SJ should not make promises that OTHER companies have to keep.

Actually this is a big IBM screw-up, Apple is just taking the blame.

apparently they ran into a heat dissipation problem getting to that speed, hence the work done on a new cooling system. perhaps, after this system proves itself, we'll see higher speeds?

Sorry all you whiners but discounting the 2.5 GHz coming in a few weeks is very self-serving in your arguments. If your going to bash Apple at least try and appear unbiased!

Also, you all fail to mention that in the same time that Apple is only increasing it's speed by 25% the Intel world increasded from 3.2 GHz to 3.4GHz or just over 6% and cancelled a whole product line! It's not Jobs' fault that the tranistion to 90nm has been hard for the whole industry.

These big promises, road-maps are something that are always moved as we move closer to the deadline. I agree with the fact of "never to over-promise" and disppoint later.

But, if you look at any machine, you will always see such a thing as same machine being sold for a reduced price, but how much is the time difference is the question? Yesterday, you would have bought the high-end Mac for $2999, today you are buying a mid-range Mac with better processor for $2599. That's the business market.

The Fact of the matter is that his prediction of 3ghz killed PowerMac sales and that is why they still have a glut of 2ghz chips. My guess is that they have 3ghz, but in typical Apple mis-step fashion it isn't being rushed to market..

Buffy,

Can you point to any link where IBM made a statement that they will have 3.0 GHz processor by one year? No. When they did not make that statement, how can Jobs make that statement?

Remember how Apple reacted to the Toshiba announcement? Is what Jobs did to IBM any different from what Toshiba did to Apple?

hi... For that one person or two that really feel they have to have top of the line... go spend 10 thousand at SGI for their machine... really do u see anybody else releasing any products better than Apple whether its hardware or software.. Or even any product that even comes close to what Apple is offering the consumer market... read the bar tests Apple is still faster than any pc product out there..

I hope Jobs will come with an answer why they don't have a dual 3 GHz.

Well, Apple probably __does___ have PM's running at 3GHz right now, they just haven't mass produced them for the public. Hell, they probably have a 4 gig under test conditions.

But is the 12 month quote correct? Didn't Jobs say "end of summer", i.e., September 21, 2004?

Personally, I don't care about 3gigs vs. 2.6gigs - I'm just waiting for rev. b. and will buy whatever's at the top. I'm more concerned about the G5 powerbook - I need to update my systems now, but I won't buy last year's chip.

MacWorld article:
It's actually quite simple," said Boger. "When we made that prediction, we just didn't realize the challenges moving to 90 nanometer would present. It turned out to be a much bigger challenge than anyone expected."

"All-in-all, no we are not getting to 3GHz anytime soon, but what we are announcing today is a very significant upgrade in performance and its something that are customers will be very happy with."

THEY DIDNT UNDERSTAND THE CHALLENGES!!!????

IT guy: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc03/

Im going to watch the keynote now, but I believe that right after SJ, the IBM pres came out and said the same thing, Ill give you a quote either way.

If only a Intel box could run OS X, I would have my 3 GHz then.

quit whinning already--3ghz will get here when it gets here. Some of you act like you NEED 3 ghz G5 RIGHT THIS INSTANT. Acting like a bunch of babies--get over it--Jobs doesn't make these processors by hand y'know, ibm told him they would be that far along in the footprint when Jobs announced this--this aint all on jobs--it's mainly ibm's manu flubs.

JadisOne

You'd have 3 GHz but you'd be a lot slower.

Who cares. It's not like Intel is doing any better these days. I'm sure Jobs was assured at the time by IBM that they would reach 3GHz by this summer but they failed. Either way, a 2.5GHz Dual G5 is no slouch and is a hell of a lot better than the top of the line just one year ago (Dual 1.42GHz G4). I personally don't understand what all of the whining is about. Just enjoy your new G5s and if you don't like what Apple is doing, then by all means go by a Wintel machine and see how much you like working with that crap...

Is it not crystal clear to everyone that, prediction or not, Apple has continued to make products that are far superior than anything else out there? Do you think anyone in the consumer market cares that Apple didn't sell 100 Million tunes as quickly as they said they would? Did someone out there avoid buying an iPod because a missed prediction? If you care about potshots being taken by the PC using media, don't waste your time. We should be concerned when Apple stops making awesome products. A dual 2.5 GHz liquid-cooled beast was just released today - stop the madness. This should be a great day. The last thing we need is the Mac media to fuel the negative flames.

Now, admitting that Apple had a PDA all-ready to go and not releasing it .... that just hurts my heart.

I'd like to thank all of you at MDN, as well as the readers of MDN, for letting me know exactly what I'm doing wrong at this company. Yeah, you're right. Most business leaders are not so bold and never make mistakes. Bill Gates never makes such bold predictions that never come true.

Why don't you people shut the F**K up and go back to your day job of serving Slurpees, and leave the thinking to those that can do it???

Hmmmm - thinking back to wwdc 2003 and not knowing what we know today, Steve's prediction of 3GHz in 12 months probably seemed like a good strategy. He needed to build industry confidence that Apple was no longer stalled on processor speeds. In hind-sight though, we see that the prediction might have bolstered industry confidence but also slowed sales of the 2GHz G5 because people were holding out for the 3GHz machine that was only a year away.

The one thing working in our favor is that both Apple and IBM are highly motivated to keep cranking up the clock speed's and performance of these chips.

First day of summer?

June 24th is Midsummers day, since the calendar was corrected it should now be June 21st (the longest day). Like Christmas day is the shortest day allowing for the calendar correction (Christ was actually born in April according to majority scientific opinion). These dates are historical 'quarter days'. When seasons start is always up for debate, the BBC weather dept say summer is June - Aug, autumn Sept - Nov etc.

There is grey here, not black and white. As pointed out by others the shipping date of the 2GHz G5 was several months after the announcement. There are possibilities Steve Jobs could meet his deadline, depending on the interpretation. A new 'super pro' top end system announced June 23rd (or even at WWDC perhaps), a 'we have the chips' announcement, speed bumps in October to 3 GHz, all would meet some interpretation of "within twelve months". Steve did not say "we will be shipping 3Ghz within twelve months".

It's all premature, see what happens a year less a day from the announcement date, WWDC, and a year less a day from the shipping date before getting too upset.

<<Last year's top-of-the-line Power Mac G5 (June 2003), with a suggested retail price of $2,999, featured:
- Dual 2.0 GHz 64-bit PowerPC G5>>

Wrong. This machine was not available in June 2003, it didn't become available until late September 2003. In June 2003, the top-of-the-line Power Mac was a Dual 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4. In one calendar year (July '03 to July '04 -- what you could actually buy in stores) Apple has gone from a top-end Dual 1.42 GHz G4 to a Dual 2.5 GHz G5. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

"THEY DIDNT UNDERSTAND THE CHALLENGES!!!????"

I think they underestimated the problems that would occur. As did the industry. Note that both Intel AND IBM have had problems with 90nm chip yields, and AMD has not even announced for my knowledge) a 90nm chip yet.

While this 3 GHz "fiasco" will make Apple look bad, I doubt Steve would have made a prediction without any confidence in his statement. He probably wishes he didn't say it, but he didn't have a crystal ball that said "It will be difficult to get to 3 GHz".

Also, we can look at this situation with a 'glass half-full' POV: One year ago, the fastest Mac that was known about was a DP 1.42 GHz G4 with a 167 MHz SHARED system bus, and an architecture that couldn't properly handle DDR memory. One year later, the fastest Mac to public knowledge is a DP 2.5 GHz G5 with DUAL INDEPENDENT 1.25 GHz FSB, and DUAL CHANNEL DDR 400 MHz memory.

When you look at it this way, it can really bring a smile to your face. The processor clock speed has increased by MORE THAN 1 GHz, and our bus speed has increased over 7 fold.

Even though I still wish that Apple would have been able to hit their 3 GHz target, I still think this is NOTHING to be ashamed of.

Now only if the mainstream media (ie: CNET) would see it this way.

Well I'm happy... I ordered a dual 1.8 gig together with the 23" Cinema display from apple on the 25th of May.. they have made their excuses as to why it couldn't be shipped... and today I find out why.. I'm going to be upgraded to a 2 gig machine.. although the customer services guy told me there might be another delay as rumours of a new display could be announced soon... has anybody heard anything about this and if so when it might happen?

Great, I look like Im complaining about what their offering. I personally would live a dual 1.8. Im just responding to the article, SJ doesnt pull this stuff outta his ass, hes assured things like "3ghz in a year" by IBM and they didnt deliver, as pepsi and toshiba didnt deliver. Hes gotta stop predicting things he cant control. I watched the WWDC video and the IBM exec never states that he would get to 3 ghz. but you tell me SJ just mad that up? Is the G5 the first chip from IBM in 90nm?

"No. When they did not make that statement, how can Jobs make that statement?" - IT guy

Because normally, it's Apple that makes announcements. Apple didn't like it when ATI announced their graphic chip and Toshiba announced 60GB HD. For better or for worse, that's what Apple has got to do to avoid the recurrence of inventory nightmare years ago. As partners, Motorola and IBM do give Apple the courtesy to announce processor speeds too. Have you heard the announcement for the 2.5GHz chip from IBM yet?

This is clearly the same 2.0ghz part from the Xserve that is overclocked to hell to 2.5Ghz. Sure, IBM will stamp it as a 2.5ghz part, but it really isn't. The liquic cooling isn't for quiet. It's for the overclocking.

THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM. IBM cannot get it's crap together to put out parts. The only difference between Motorola and IBM now is that back then, liquid cooling wasn't an option.

Moreover, their liquid cooling is designed by an idiot. Closed loop for 2 processors!!?!? Duh. One of the processors is going to pour HOT water on the other. So one processor will always be running hotter than the other. This has lame ass hack spelled all over it.

I'm worried again for Apple's processor and machine design again.

Finally this machine, beyond making the entry level headless mac prohibitively expensive, is NOT suitable for a lot of pros. It's a fully HUGE tower and it still cannot have more than 2 hard drives and one optical drive. Pathetic.

The only thing that is good about all of this is they announced it before WWDC, because it's such a complete miserable dissappointment, it would have been a big downer. Kudos to Apple's marketing for playing that right to get this crap news out of the way beforehand.

Expect G5 sales to stay relatively crappy.

I agree.
It looks if Steve Jobs is bluffing.

Steve Jobs on June 23, 2003 said precisely, "Within 12 months, we will be at 3GHz."

Forget about trying to move the deadline, folks. The deadline is June 23, 2004.

Maybe Jobs meant humans will have 3GHz CPUs by June 23, 2004, but not G5 CPUs? Stop apologizing for Jobs - he screwed the pooch here.

I'm still sick of hearing about the 100million song goal touted as a prediction. IT WAS NOT A PREDICTION, IT WAS A GOAL. It was set part way through the year. The original GOAL was 1 million songs, and, oh yeah, they beat that goal before setting the higher one. Sorry, but to compare the 100 million song thing to the 3ghz prediction is lame.

And Rob is right, if you're going to talk about what's in the store now, you've got to compare it to what was in the store then. So Jobs missed a prediction. Apple/IBM have done WAY better than Apple/Motorola. Keep some level of perspective.

Al, I know. I just wanted to complain. The new G5 looks to be pretty impressive. Glad they bumped the speed and fixed some noise issues. Although, compared to other computer manufactures, the perception is Apple never can meet clock speeds and timetables.

Arrogant Mac Guy

Where did you get your engineering degree? You don't have the faintest idea what your talking about, do you? Closed loop efficiency cannot be calculated by looking at a diagram and reading specs. Processors on the same wafer can clock safely at several different speeds.

You are talking out of the wrong orifice.

Idiot, Apple didn't release the dual 2Ghz on June 23rd,2003. They announced it and then released it at the end of August,2003. Really, it wasn't till mid september that mass shipments started.

Fix your article with the facts. If Apple does ship the dual 2.5 in July, it will be two months sooner than they shipped the dual 2GHz.

Arrogant MacGuy, this is a new 970fx chip running at 2.5Ghz, not some overclocked part as you state. Go and actually read the white paper for the new G5 where it clearly states it is using 90nm SOI for the 2.5Ghz G5.
Since you cannot even get your facts straight, one should believe your comment about a lame ass hack regarding the liquid cooling.

MacTech. It's the same part as in the xserve that runs at 2ghz. you go read it.

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2004/03/20040323093026.shtml

So why don you get your lame a$$ sh*t straight. Moron.

I have to agree with Steve Jack. Steve Jobs should not make predictions that can turn successes into less than positive PR. That said, he is doing a great job with leading Apple to more and more innovation. I'll bet that he has learned his lesson from this and the iTunes 100 million remark and will be more circumspect in the future.

Jobs is right is making such predictions, he knows that gives the iLemmings a whole year to crow about "just you wait and we'll beat Intel yet" whereas after the disappointing truth makes itself apparent, it will only take a month to forget that you were lied to again.

To get a Life:

". . .you all fail to mention that in the same time that Apple is only increasing it's speed by 25% the Intel world increasded from 3.2 GHz to 3.4GHz or just over 6% and cancelled a whole product line!"

Yeah but he PROMISED 3.0 and by this time I think it should have arrived. This is just a'little' speed bump, nothing to write home about. Wake me up when the 3.0's come out.

Yep, only MDN and MacNET EVER take on Apple, the rest just suck up.

To be honest, this is not Apple's fault, but the complaint by the writer is NOT hitting 3Ghz, it's making the claim that Apple WILL hit it. Yes, it DOES make Apple look like it doesn't know what its doing.

Personally, I'm happy with my 6-month-old Dual 2Ghz, I would like Apple to deliver a 64-bit OS though. It's been a year since the 64-bit was announced, how about giving us a 64-bit OS to go along with it. I imagine my G5 would be much quicker than it is.

"This is clearly the same 2.0ghz part from the Xserve that is overclocked to hell to 2.5Ghz. Sure, IBM will stamp it as a 2.5ghz part, but it really isn't. The liquic cooling isn't for quiet. It's for the overclocking."

I agree with the above statement. I believe that Apple is overclocking the hell out of these processors by using liquid cooling, in turn saying the cooling is for noise related issues. If what I believe is true, then IBM is having a hell of a hard time getting faster yields from itis procs.

Nothing new .... always, always overpromising, underdelivering and when they do deliver, its late. Airport Express will not ship in July, I guarantee.

But none of this matters, cause nobody is going to buy a PC piece of crap. And when all this late stuff finally does come, its magnificient.

Only thing to do ....... suffer.

predictions drive technology, you fools, even if they are missed.

remember the 'man on teh moon' or 'air travel' predictions?

moo.

I swear that some of the posters on here must be some of the world's most ignorant lifeforms on the planet. Even slime mold knows there is more than one dimension.

Clock Speed - Clock Speed - Clock Speed - Clock Speed
Y'all are sounding like 1990's Wintel zombies.

If you are able to engage the other 99.99% of your brain, you would know that the G5 PPC is much much more than the clock speed. It also handles "up to 215 in-flight instructions. A wide instruction window with 12 discrete processing units enables the PowerPC G5 to contain up to 215 in-flight instructions simultaneously — 71 percent more than the 126 instructions in a Pentium 4."

In addition, the "dual PowerPC G5 systems get twice the bandwidth (20GB per second), because each processor has a dedicated frontside bus. Large caches and instruction preparation in the processor maximize performance as instructions are dispatched into the execution core and data is loaded into the registers." [ref: PowerPCG5_WP_06092004.pdf]

Clock Speed is nothing more than RPM in an automobile engine. It is totally useless, especially when comparing two dissimilar configurations. What's the efficiency of the engine? What kind of transmission is attached? What's the diameter of the driving wheels? We can sit and yammer about one or two particular specs until we turn to dust, but it's when it's actually taken out on the track when the results are shown.

With the Wintel lunar probe quickly falling out of orbit, ready to crash land on the moon, Steve and Co. has taken the computer industry and us far beyond to Mars, and y'all are bitchin' about the landing site. If y'all don't send Steve an email congratulating him on his recent successes, y'all are nothin' but a bunch of ungrateful whiners.

To: Arrogant Mac Guy-HACK PROBLEM!

I strongly disagree with everything you said but one thing in particular was so incredibly stupid that I have to speak up. Maybe YOU would design a liquid cooling system that would route the hot water from the first processor directly over the second, but Apple wouldn't. Why would you assume this anyway? Don't you think they would direct the cool water from the heat exchanger over both processors in parallel? You are no doubt one of those people who are chronic complainers -- even when you have no facts you get your jollies by bitchin about something.

I hope you really don't own a Mac.

RICHARD. It's been described as a closed loop flow and the picture apple supplies. Look here:

http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

Otherwise it's cool that you disagree. Variaty (of opinions) is the spice of life.