“It’s unclear to me how many free passes the hyperbolic Steve Jobs gets, but clearly he’s reaching the end of his allotment: Last year, he promised a 3 GHz G5 by June 30, but this week, Apple upgraded the G5 line to 1.8 GHz and 2 GHz dual processor models, with a third model, sporting a liquid-cooled 2.5 GHz processor due ‘in July’ (if we can believe that claim). So 3 GHz isn’t happening anytime soon,” Paul Thurrott writes for Paul Thurrott’s Internet-Nexus.
“…when I complain about Apple, this is pretty much the type of thing I’m talking about. There is a line between ‘promotion’ and ‘bald-faced lying,’ and Apple just crosses it a little too often for my tastes. For example, when the company writes, ‘now the Power Mac G5 offers dual processor models across the board at 1.8GHz, 2GHz and 2.5GHz, for a substantial speed boost at the top of the line,’ that’s an exageration, because the 2.5 GHz model is not available now at all, and given Apple’s history, might not meet its expected July release date as well. making that ‘substantial speed boost at the top of the line’ a little less compelling … now,” Thurrott writes.
“And when Jobs boasts about 3 GHz processors and 100 million iTunes downloads, well, that’s just irresponsible. I suspect shareholders are happy enough about the company’s other successes that they’re willing to overlook a few indiscretions. But that won’t always be the case and arguably should never be the case anyway,” Thurrott writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We agree with, and only with, what we’ve quoted from Paul Thurrott above. Now hell has really frozen over. Granted, we have to wait until June 23 to make sure Jobs doesn’t have any tricks up his sleeve, but it doesn’t look like it right now. This Thurrott article is exactly the type of thing SteveJack predicted would happen in his article “Apple CEO Jobs misses ‘3Ghz G5 within a year’ prediction by wide margin” – see link below.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Steve Jobs needs to stop making predictions he can’t hit – June 09, 2004
Apple CEO Jobs misses ‘3Ghz G5 within a year’ prediction by wide margin – June 09, 2004
Hey paul….where’s longhorn….. LOLOLOLOLOLOL
“There is a line between ‘promotion’ and ‘bald-faced lying,’ and Apple just crosses it a little too often for my tastes”
He’s made a career of lying.
Yeah, we’re upset. But why is this news? For months MDN has been predicting that there’d be no 3GHz until at least the end of summer, and has naysayed the type of talk that would hold Jobs feet to the fire. Why the change now?
MDN is going to agree with Thurrott?!?! No. Apple/Jobs has made some misstatements, but I challenge you to find a CEO that has been 100% accurate in their analysis of the future of their company. They are asked to provide a roadmap, and they do the best they can with the info they are provided.
Get off the high horse, MDN. You want Steve’s job – go apply for it. But armchair quarterbacking and 20/20 hindsight ain’t gonna get it for you.
M$FT, Longhorn 2006, ooops, 2007, ooops, 2008, oooops 2009
At least Apple doesn’t screw up it’s OS like M$ does…
Did Jobs miss it? Far as I can tell, there is still quite a few days until June 30th. Is it so hard to believe Apple might release a 4th horse to the stable to take a new place as the top end model? Adding a 4th machine that would be priced a few Benny’s above the current dual 2.5s wouldn’t cause people to quit buying the other models.
Just like we did with the numbers projections on the one year anniversary of iTMS, why don’t we just calm down and wait for a deadline to get here before qualifying it as a failure?
Steve Jobs a bald faced liar! WTF?! Jesus Christ, so there are difficult technical problems involved (man, that never happens in the high tech world!) give me a break (that includes you too MDN). Be glad Apple is making the world’s fastest computers and take a deep breath – the 3GHz will be out eventually – and the G5s will still crush the competition then…
Did anyone think perhaps Jobs released this minor upgrade now just to tell us in 3 weeks that the 3GHz G5 will ship in September, one year from the original? If we’re honest, their’s really only 1 new system here and it is quite possible for Jobs to add the dual 3GHz as the new top of the line.
S.J. should get at least as many free passes as B.G., don’t you think? If you don’t think, you’re an A.H.
Steve made those predictions because they were needed at the time. He needed a big splash, so he made one. Missed predictions are hardly ever noticed, and even when they are it’s only for a short time. We’ll all forget this prediction by the time Steve makes his next big announcement, which is why I’m sure there’s another announcement coming very shortly.
No, no 3ghz on June 30th. Article: http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/06/09/apple/index.php
“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.” – Tom Boger, Apple’s Director of Power Mac Product Marketing
I think lying is a bit strong – that implies that he knows they won’t be able to do something but says they will anyway. The correct term, in my humble opinion, is pathologically optimistic. I’m sure Steve really believes what he says but he’s unreasonably optimistic.
BTW, when I say “big splash”, that includes a lot of attitude manipulation. S.J. gave everyone a lot of hope for the future of Macintosh when he made that prediction, and that hope has survived the prediction’s failure.
Wow, really…didn’t see this coming! I know you agree MDN but give it a rest!
So what, no 3 GHz yet! It’ll be here soon enough.
Do you dopes really think that Jobs goes out there and make these predictions without some sort of assurance for his partners (i.e.: IBM & Pepsi) that the goals are very attainable???
We’ll have the Dual 3GHz by September then you can all just shut your yaps!
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.
Oh, by the way, let’s completely forget to mention the 2.5’s are LIQUID COOLED! Now, who was anticipating that? No kudos?
And one other thing, if you think about it, if we need liquid cooling for the 2.5’s then imagine how hot the 3’s are going to be. Maybe that’s why they’re not out yet!
I just want to point out that the dual 2.5Ghz G5 creams the 3.4Ghz Pentium 4 (almost twice the performance, see http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/) so I think freaking out the lack of a 3Ghz is much ado about nothing.
someone please tell me why thurrot gives a $hit WHAT apple does? i mean, he’s noted repeatedly as not liking macs etc etc–then why does he even CARE what Jobs says?? his whole apple obsession is pretty damned obvious–there’s not even a need to go to the link because his reaction to all things apple are entirely predictable–
Thurrott is just flapping his jaws, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like these misses are going to cost Steve his job.
One thing tho, the herky jerky upgrade announcements and then slow delivery probably do have an effect on whether people purchase these units. It used to be that pc ers would wait and wait because every six months was a light year’s advancement in speed and features. Finally hardware got so cheap that we really could afford to upgrade every year or so, and pc sales exploded. Macs aren’t in that class of commodity, and there are enough tales of woe around here about buying the latest, dearly, and then having the price rug pulled out from under to believe that this is a serious detriment to sales.
All these above $2k “new offerings” of course don’t address the biggest need, an entry level model that competes with wintels. Doesn’t seem to me that WWDC is the place for that announcement, and I think Steve has given up the headache of actually producing millions of computers, so it will be a long wait.
Where are the processors Intel promised last year Thurrott??
(Oh yeah, they cancelled those…shhh)
Where is XP Service Pack 2 huh??
And where is Longhorn??
Talk about liars…get it a rest hypocrite.
I am a little ticked off how misleading the new unit prices are. The 1.8 appears 500 dollars cheaper than before, but is downgraded to 256 ddram and to an 80gb hard drive, plus its given that i have to upgrade the video card to be truly happy with it, which puts it at pretty much the same price point it was at before.
Ye G5 is faster then pentium 4 in theory, bur are there any software that will actually acces the full potential of G5? if there is G5 would be the fastest but as macworls test show its on the line with the top pc model with dual xeon processors.
So inteal all software is compatible with 64 bit machine you might as well steak to 32 bit machine.
Speaking of lower-cost models, this article also states that G5 iMacs are also not on the horizon (which is a surprise to me) http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/06/09/apple/index.php
It seems that Jobs doesn’t have nearly as many free passes from Thurrot as Thurrot gives himself. All MDN is proving with this piece is that they agree with a hypocrit.
Keefe: “The 1.8 appears 500 dollars cheaper than before, but is downgraded to 256 ddram ” – Don’t forget it’s a dual processor…
the way I look at it it’s a 5 gightz 64 bit machine that beats a 6.4 gigahtz intel