“Intel announced Tuesday that its new line of chips will be built into more than 230 new laptop computers coming in 2006, making them much better at running music, movies and other digital media,” Dean Takahashi reports for The Mercury News. “But it wouldn’t say a word about whether that includes the laptop creating the most buzz, expected from its new marquee customer, Apple Computer. The new laptops are based on Intel’s new Napa platform that will enable the biggest upgrade in two years for portable technology. An Apple laptop with the technology could address the pent-up demand among the Macintosh faithful who have been disappointed with Apple laptops that run on Power PC chips. Apple said this year it would switch to Intel by mid-2006.”
“The Napa-based computers have a microprocessor chip, dubbed Yonah, that has two processing brains on a single chip. It is Intel’s first dual-core laptop microprocessor and can perform 30 percent to 68 percent faster on software programs compared with single-core chips,” Takahashi reports. “Napa computers will also be as much as 30 percent smaller and consume 28 percent less battery power than current Intel-based laptops, said Keith Kressen, an Intel mobile marketing director.
Full article, including info about Intel’s “Viiv” efforts, here.
Just a note that the “Macintosh faithful” we know have not been disappointed with Apple laptops that run on Power PC chips. We and they are disappointed that Motorola (Freescale) and IBM just couldn’t do with the PowerPC processor what their roadmaps promised. Mainly, we wanted a PowerBook G5 before Apple’s June announcement of the transition to Intel-based Macs. The processor brand or type isn’t important, just that it functions well, can offer high-performance speed at the top-of-the-line (we do want to be the fastest or among the fastest at least), and can run Mac OS X and Mac OS X applications. We’d hazard a guess that it’s the Mac operating system combined with the Mac software that’s most important to Mac users, not the name stamped on the chip inside Macs.
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Not disappointed here. Dual 2.0 G5
Snap!
MDN wrote: Just a note that the “Macintosh faithful” we know have not been disappointed with Apple laptops that run on Power PC chips.
Maybe not a “Macintosh faithful” user myself… but rather a power user with deadlines, using multiple platforms to get work done (I use XP in addition to OSX).
Powerbooks are disappointly slow and underpowered, especially at their specific price levels… there someone came out and said it.
MDN wrote: Just a note that the “Macintosh faithful” we know have not been disappointed with Apple laptops that run on Power PC chips.
Maybe not a “Macintosh faithful” user myself… but rather a power user with deadlines, using multiple platforms to get work done (I use XP in addition to OSX).
Powerbooks are disappointly slow and underpowered, especially at their specific price levels… there someone came out and said it.
MDN wrote: Just a note that the “Macintosh faithful” we know have not been disappointed with Apple laptops that run on Power PC chips.
Maybe not a “Macintosh faithful” user myself… but rather a power user with deadlines, using multiple platforms to get work done (I use XP in addition to OSX).
Powerbooks are disappointly slow and underpowered, especially at their specific price levels… there someone came out and said it.
MDN wrote: Just a note that the “Macintosh faithful” we know have not been disappointed with Apple laptops that run on Power PC chips.
Maybe not a “Macintosh faithful” user myself… but rather a power user with deadlines, using multiple platforms to get work done (I use XP in addition to OSX).
Powerbooks are disappointly slow and underpowered, especially at their specific price levels… there someone came out and said it.
Is Yonah a 64-bit processor?
What if Apple announces that the x86 version of OSX isn’t quite ready? They are still ironing out Rosetta which seems pretty important if you ask me. What if instead we get a G5 Powerbook? What if the mini gets to be a first-round Intel testbed?
IBM announced days after Apple’s Intel announcement that they have a 15 Watt G5 for the Powerbook. That would be good enough wouldn’t it? Now if Intel can match that with two cores then I’d say Steve Jobs made a good gamble.
If the only reason to go to Intel is for Windows compatibility then Apple will likely have MANY more converts, but I’m still not convinced the Intel platform is going to be the best. Time will tell. I just wish Apple would build machines based on both platforms concurrently as a policy. I know there will be G4/G5 machines with Intel in the mix, but “as a policy” is the term I’m focussing on.
I think both the G4 and G5 have features the Intel chips won’t. G5 has hypertransport for huge memory bandwidth. G4 is very low cost and low wattage. It seems to make sense for the Intel chip to be used in Powerbooks and G4 in iBooks. G5 and other Intel chips should go in the PowerMac.
While we’re at it, the Powerbook 12 should go to 13″ widescreen and the iBook should stay with a 12″ and 14″ form factor in my opinion. There’ve been rumors of a 13″ iBook, but if Apple consolidates all iBook models into a single 13″ form and gets rid of the Powerbook 12, road warrior programmers like me are going to be pissed. I need the features of my very portable Powerbook. I would not like to have to tote a 15″ Powerbook. Tried it. I’ll take my 12″ ‘Book thanks. 13″ would be ok too. Especially if widescreen.
iBook owners that I know like the 4:3 aspect ratio. It good for web pages. Widescreen is good for technical programs with lots of tools. Please keep the iBook as it is. You can make the case tougher though. Forget carbon. How about rubber? How about a slightly more reinforced screen backplane and a rubberized coating?
They’re back!!
” I use Mac and PC and Macs are crap AND there are no viruses for Windows..it’s just Mac users badmouthing Windows”
Gimme a break.
That 15 watt G5 is actually slower for most tasks than the G4 that is in the powerbooks now.
Dual-core G4 might be the next step for iBooks? Or Powerbooks? Seems like dual-core G4 might be better than a low-power G5 for laptops…
I’m not sure how Apple intends to maintain the split consumer/professional laptop lines with the Intel CPU transition…
For grt bout a duel-core G4 chip, that will never happen.
duel-core G5 laptop, also not gonna happen.
What Intel chip Apple will put in their laptops is the only question.
IBM & freescale when it comes for processor chips is out when it comes to laptops. They had their chance
For grt bout a duel-core G4 chip, that will never happen.
duel-core G5 laptop, also not gonna happen.
What Intel chip Apple will put in their laptops is the only question.
IBM & freescale when it comes for processor chips is out when it comes to laptops. They had their chance
For grt bout a duel-core G4 chip, that will never happen.
duel-core G5 laptop, also not gonna happen.
What Intel chip Apple will put in their laptops is the only question.
IBM & freescale when it comes for processor chips is out when it comes to laptops. They had their chance
For grt bout a duel-core G4 chip, that will never happen.
duel-core G5 laptop, also not gonna happen.
What Intel chip Apple will put in their laptops is the only question.
IBM & freescale when it comes for processor chips is out when it comes to laptops. They had their chance
I have been highly disappointed in Apple PowerBook performance. I don’t give a crap whose fault it is that they are slow – I just care that they are slow. I’m looking forward to a new YonahBook in 2006.
This article is pretty FUBAR. It talks about a “Napa chip”, when obviously it means “chipset”, and then devotes the majority of the article to ViiV anyway. Gee, thanks for nothin’. Plus, it makes the grand claim that Napa helps boost multimedia performance, but then gives no examples, and no insight as to how that’s even possible. The probable truth is that Napa is nothing more than Intel’s new marketing name for their Yonah/DRM package (like Centrino was for the Pentium M/wireless package). In which case, multimedia performance won’t be ‘enhanced’ as much as it will be ‘monitored’. Can’t have you actually manipulating data with that data manipulating computer of yours!
BTW – Dual core G4 has been available for a while – if Apple was going to use it, the last PowerBook revision would have been the time. The old single core G4 does most things as well as the old Dothan can, and killed it on multimedia, at much lower clockspeeds. The newest G4s are even on par in terms of energy consumption. Yonah does add multimedia performance (better FPU & the addition of SSE3), keeps about the same power consumption (only a little worse, with higher clockspeeds and a second core), and of course adds another core. Yet recent tests have not been kind to Yonah regardless of these upgrades.
Given how competitive the old G4 already was, an even faster (1.8-2Ghz) dual core G4 would be much too close in performance for Apple to risk making them available alongside of any Macintel laptop. Too many people would inevitably ask ‘So what was the point of all this again?’
And there’d be no honest answer that didn’t include ‘Well, we couldn’t get all these video content deals until we got in bed with Intel and their more restrictive DRM technologies. Enjoy!’ Better to lay smoke, and claim IBM and Freeescale can’t chew gum and walk straight. Most people will believe anything Jobs says, and the rest can be classified as the wearers of Tinfoil hats!
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“Not disappointed here. Dual 2.0 G5
Snap!”
WORD.
I just had to sit down and tell all 4 of the G5 cores in my new Quad that I’m not disappointed in them, I’m very proud of them and the work we’ve been doing together and that we’re going to be together for a long time.
Not been ‘disappointed’ yet on my almost 3-year-old 12″ PB. If I had any real comments that weren’t 100% positive I’d talk about hard drive size (especially with a 25GB iTunes library) and battery life, but there’s never too much of either. And performance-wise, it’ll still do basics for another 3 years, if they don’t mess with the OS too badly after the Intel switch.
Regarding size in new PBooks, I would maybe accept a 13 or 14 inch widescreen as the small model, but not larger than that. The small form factor is way too useful for quite a large part of the market (including me). Could do with a little less weight, or perhaps take the extra space for additional battery capacity or hard drive space.
As far as I know, Apple been working on the x86 version of their OS for more than 5 years. Why wouldn’t it be ready. People don’t know what’s going on in his private labs.
If Apple Computer plans on switching to Intel-based processors, why are people still referring to a so-called PowerBook G5?
Apple should drop the processor type from the name of all of their computers: iBook, PowerBook, iMac, PowerMac, Mac mini.
Or will they do something crazy like introduce the new Intel-based processor Apple boxes with a completely different name? It would be a bold move to name the new line something other than Macintosh.
Apple should drop the processor type from the name of all of their computers: iBook, PowerBook, iMac, PowerMac, Mac mini.
Weirdest idea I’ve ever heard. Think about it.
here’s running at 1.5GHz PB…2 gigs of ram and a 5400 rpm drive (yeah yeah, they offer the 7200 rpm drive now) and i dont notice it ever running ‘slow’. just because the processor says 1.5 GHz? compared to 2.5 Ghz or whatever you can get in in a PC laptop? everyone knows PPC chips are WAY faster than pentiums…even centrinos. and its the ram that makes the most notable difference anyway. just upgrade your ram and you will notice a lot of improvement. worked for me, i never see the beachball (and i do a lot of stuff too! movie editing, playing UT04, etc). at any given time i have at least 13~14 apps open…
who says PBs are slow..?
I wish most of you people weren’t so partisan, including MDN. It discredits the other good things you all have to say.
Clearly sales of Apple laptops are a concern. A few years ago Apple led the industry in % sales of laptops verses desktops, now it trails by a long, long way. It’s % sales of laptops have actually DECREASED, while the rest of the industry has increased and surpassed Apple. These are shocking statistics which blind prejudice cannot deny.
One reason…G4.
I am a Powermac user, so in some respects it doesn’t concern me, but as a member of the Mac faithful, it does.
WORD: Wise, as in wise up!
BradT:
iBook has been selling like hotcakes, though Powerbook sales have slowed. Yet overall, Apple still sells more laptops than desktops, and overall sales numbers are up. So, while laptops may not be selling as fast as before, your implication that there’s a major problem doesn’t really pan out.
Besides, the reason why laptop sales have slowed at all is directly related to the Intel announcement itself, coupled with Apple not utilizing the latest G4s Freescale has to offer (as opposed to their using IBM’s best G5s for desktops, which have seen stronger sales growth). For the former, its understandable that people expecting a major technology shift will tend to wait for it (only the iBook’s low price/high value has kept it chugging along despite that). Yet that’s obviously a consequence of Apple’s decision to switch – if they’d never announced such a thing, they’d likely not seen a sales drop if and until the G4 clearly WAS being outclassed. For the latter, while its also understandable that Apple doesn’t want to invest in a CPU architecture its abandoning (thus also giving no one reason to be excited about their highend G4 offerings anymore), it however would be a mistake to equate the stagnation of Apple’s USE of G4 in laptops with stagnation of G4 itself.
Example:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=DRPPCDUALCORE
The MPC8641D (G4) CPU – 1.8Ghz, dual core, 1MB L2 cache per core, 667Mhz system bus, DDR2 support, integrated memory controller … hmmm. Looks pretty good to me! Even Yonah doesn’t have an integrated memory controller (though Athlon’s do). Considering how lackluster Yonah has been doing in recent tests, can you seriously think this latest G4 offering wouldn’t have created a huge market push for Apple, both in comparison to the single core G4s they’re using now as well as Yonah?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not claiming that even this latest G4 is everybit as advanced as Yonah in every catagory (Yonah probably is still marginally more energy efficient), or that Freescale ever will invest nearly as much as Intel does in their CPUs. What I am saying is that they don’t have to match Intel/Yonah dollar-foor-dollar or tick-for-tick in order to get comparible to superior performance, but for the vast majority of people that’s ok. In short, G4 more than does the job, and people would have kept buying laptops based on them at the same rates as before, if Apple hadn’t telegraphed that soon they’d no longer be selling them.