“What an ungrateful bunch you are. This week Apple began its transition to Intel processors six months ahead of schedule, and all you can do is carp. Don’t you know you’re supposed to swoon over every shiny new piece of kit? It’s an odd moment. After years of lagging behind in the speed race, Apple will next month ship a PowerBook that overnight offers a dramatic doubling of performance for ordinary tasks, such as loading pages in Safari. The SPEC benchmarks Apple quotes are 4.5x faster for integer performance and 5.2x faster on floating point tests. Out goes the bottleneck bus, pegged at 167Mhz for so long, replaced by a 667Mhz bus – that’s 4x faster. And the Radeon X1600 brings Apple right up to date,” Andrew Orlowski writes for The Register.
So why, as the barman said to the horse, the long face? The catch of course is that only software that has been compiled into a ‘Universal Binary’, containing a native x86 executable, will benefit from the speed bump,” Orlowski writes. “And what Apple giveth, Apple taketh away.”
Orlowski details the list of questionable things that we all know so well by now: the lack of the FireWire 800 port, the slower, less capable DVD burner, the missing battery performance information, and asks, “So did Apple launch the MacBook too soon? Apple didn’t really have much choice. Shrewd pro buyers have been snapping up G4 and G5 based Macs as an hedge against a bumpy migration to x86. This has forestalled any anticipated ‘Osborne Effect’ to date. In March 2001, Apple unleashed the first Mac OS X, one that was far from ready for prime time. It couldn’t wait any longer – and a real product, no matter how deficient, convinces the market of one’s intentions. The early launch of the MacBook gives Apple’s ISVs a strong incentive to accelerate their plans to introduce x86 native software. They can’t blame Apple for lagging, now.”
Full article here.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple MacBook Pro, ExpressCard and EVDO – January 14, 2006
Report: key products missing from Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote due to Intel Core Duo supply issues – January 12, 2006
O’Grady: Apple’s new MacBook Pro raises a lot of questions – January 11, 2006
My three beefs with the Powerbook are the obvious dvd burner, battery info, and the video isn’t exactly state-of-the-art. Otherwise it’s fine. And now I’m sure people will start flaming me because I said something negative about Apple.
To answer the question in the headline, time will tell. From what I remember, going from those Motorola 68K processors to PowerPC was a little bumpy, but not bad. You just have to give a little time for the software developers to catch up.
The only thing that is going to suck is that even though Rosetta will be able to run PPC code on the new Intel machines, I will be “forced” to upgrade my software to be fully compatible with the new processors. However, I think the increased productivity gained by having a faster machine will be able to justify the cost.
MDN has the right take on this, it is still a battle, but one that will have great rewards. New hardware and software soon!
@Ray – Flame
Okay, how’s that?
A Fatwa is in effect against Ray, God willing. Death to the infidels!
Ray, I’m not going to flame you… but, The powerbooks are still available for sale.
The MacBook Pro didn’t just completely replace their entire PowerBook line, at the Apple Store, both are still available. So this isn’t as much a technical issue as one of marketing and positioning.
I can’t quite figure out what they’re thinking atm. It seems as though they don’t want the MacBook Pro to cannibalize PowerBook sales… for now. My guess is that 6 months from now, there will be no more powerbooks, there will be a 17″ MacBook Pro. The FW800 and DualLayer DVD burners will both be in the 2 MacBook Pro models.
What’s the big deal? It’s a transition.
Windows XPee was absolutely launched prematurely and never fixed. Why not point that out too dip sh*t!
Yes, the switch to PPC was a little bumpy, but i expect this transition to be smother (although not without some bumps, like the FW800 and DVD issues).
With the PPC transition, what hurt the most was the 68K emulator’s lack of efficiency, particularly when switching between PPC and 68K code, and vice versa (Rosetta doesn’t appear to suffer the same performance issues), and the fact most of the OS was still in 68K code, which is not the case this time around. These two differences will be huge. It wasn’t until the G3’s that the PPC’s actually felt faster than the 68K’s to me. I’m not convinced the Intel chips will outperform the G5’s like Steve’s RDF implies, but i don’t expect the Intel processors to be hobbled to the same degree as the PPC’s were at first.
I do think the MacBook Pro may be a rushed product, but suspect the new iMac is probably ready for prime time (as well as any first Intel Mac will be). People will always complain about a lack of native software, but in truth, quite a bit is already native. If there’s a key app you use which isn’t ready, then you might feel the transition is occurring too soon, but you know what? No one is forcing you to buy a new Intel Mac right away. And there are some software developers who will drag their feet no matter what, so the sooner the first Intel Mac’s hit the street, the more incentive developers have to quit stalling and get their app’s going.
Even though the MacBook Pro may seem a bit rushed, that is precisely the product which most needs the Intel chips. High end G5’s have more than enough horse power to satisfy most; it’s the lackluster G4 portables where the biggest bottlenecks and pent-up demand is to be found.
Just my 2¢ worth. YMMV.
From the article: “It’s an odd moment. After years of lagging behind in the speed race, Apple will next month ship a PowerBook that overnight offers a dramatic doubling of performance for ordinary tasks, such as loading pages in Safari. The SPEC benchmarks Apple quotes are 4.5x faster for integer performance and 5.2x faster on floating point tests. Out goes the bottleneck bus, pegged at 167Mhz for so long, replaced by a 667Mhz bus – that’s 4x faster. And the Radeon X1600 brings Apple right up to date.
So why, as the barman said to the horse, the long face?
The catch of course is that only software that has been compiled into a ‘Universal Binary’, containing a native x86 executable, will benefit from the speed bump.”
And it’s a big catch. Since the software running through Rosetta will take an even bigger hit then not-quite-optimized x86 code, Yonah’s performance needed to be be off the charts. But most of the reviews I’ve read have said these units are just good, solid dual core machines in that regard. And we didn’t need Intel for that. Even if these Jobs-optimized performance quotes are right for the Mac Book Pro, you could have had all that plus better battery life, plus FW800, plus a better DVD burner, if Apple had simply used the dual core G4. No transition necessary.
Blame Apple for “lagging”? No. They’re not just keeping up with the Jones’s, they ARE the Jone’s now. But blame them for lying – about how great Yonah would be, and how it would revolutionize their line-up? You bet. As much as the Macintel’s are better in some ways to the ‘prior PPC art’, it’s only because Apple decided not to use the best of what was/is available for that art. It makes the whole transition look specious, based on how it was sold particularly, and now everyone is finally realizing they’ll have to pay (literally) a software performance penalty to boot.
Call it ungrateful if you wish. I call it non-RDF influenced realism.
I learned my lesson with transition to both PowerPC and MacOSX….wait, be patient, wait some more….keep waiting, wait. Okay now is the time to buy…whoops, something new coming out…wait, wait….
Personally I think an early release works to Apples benefit in the end. They offer us a product that has room for improvement. Right now they can take a list of complaints (strait from here on MDN and other forums) get the feedback from the true mac zealots, and then give us what we want later on. Also as was already pointed out, the developers are now the front lines. Its up to them what the future is going to hold as well. Lets just sit back, bitch about what we want, and see what happens eh.
Greg Nacu writes: “I can’t quite figure out what they’re thinking atm. It seems as though they don’t want the MacBook Pro to cannibalize PowerBook sales… for now. My guess is that 6 months from now, there will be no more powerbooks, there will be a 17″ MacBook Pro. The FW800 and DualLayer DVD burners will both be in the 2 MacBook Pro models. ”
Apparently the low power variant of the Core Duo chip used in the MacBook Pro is scarce, so with limited supply it appears Apple chose only one PowerBook model to transition. There may have been other factors too, but this appears to be the prime factor at play. Choosing the middle model to transition would seem to make sense from a marketing perspective. I think when the CPU supply increases, we’ll see the rest of the PowerBook line transition to MacBook Pro.
MW: Probably, as in that’s probably what will happen.
Odyssey67 – I have similar feelings regarding this.
Steve has ordered up megadoses of kool-aid for us all to swallow….
Steve´s going Intel for one thing – to sell more videos and music…but he forgot to demo the big bang minimac, et al delivery system at MacWorld. Why? Who knows…but it smells like not good news and gives Microsoft, Google and others time to catch up.
All that counts now is does a system deliver and protect video and music adequately for the average consumer. What % of the market really needs a faster, more powerful computer??? is the thinking.
MacTypeDude – so how many MacBooks have you ordered???
My biggest (though ultimately trivial, I guess) gripe about the new PowerBook is that they didn’t redesign the case. Yes, the existing alu look is a nice design – but surely it would have been to Apple’s benefit to have a complete rebranding of the model, to go with the new name and chip… Out with the old, in with new sort of thing. As it is, it feels like a sort of half-way house solution to me…
It seems like the macbook is targeted more for people who currently aren’t currently mac-users (like myself). I run linux on the desktop, and XP only when I absolutely have to (games). But especially for the laptop, I would like a mainstream OS. The Macbook fits in very nicely.
Sure, it doesn’t have firewire, a slower DVD drive, less pixels, perhaps crappier battery life, and require repurchase for current Mac users. However, none of these really affect me. It’s *still* better than what I would get if I bought a windoze laptop.
Why the Macbook instead of the Powerbook for me? Well, however much I dislike Windows, it’s nice to know it’s an option if I need it. Also, Linux has been ported to the PowerPC for sometime, I am much more familiar with the 8086 distros.
I am a bit worried about the battery life, but that is usually the price of a faster processor.
Odyssey67 sez Apple is lying because the comparison between Yonah and “prior art” is unfair, because Apple did not use the best of prior art: dual core G4 chips. Sorry, that’s just silly. It’s not a lie to say that what you are introducing is better than what you had. Inasmuch as the comparison is not a “hidden” comparison–in fact, it is completely out in the open–it is the opposite of a lie. You may not like Steve’s spin, but so what. I am typing this message on a G4 1.67 15-inch PB. In a few weeks, my MacBook Pro will arrive and it will run EVERYTHING I care about natively: the system, Safari, Mail, iLife, and iWork. And based on what I saw at MacWorld, those things fly. That’s why I plunked down my credit card, even though my PCMCIA cards won’t work with the new Book. Again, this is the opposite of specious, because for me, and probably a few others, this will be a real live, dramatic improvement. For some software, there will be a transition period. So what? Seriously, so what? That’s not new in any change of this magnitude, and given the performance of Rosetta, it looks like it won’t even be that bad. Do I wish the PB could have gotten much faster last year? Sure, but it didn’t. You are actually the one distorting reality, because you are arguing that the current PB crop should be better already. Okay, so what? It is what it is. Claiming that Yonah should be compared to chips that could have been put in a PB but never were is the RDF. Worse, your argument suggests that the rest of us should have been happy to keep our future tied to Motorola or IBM. No thanks. Jobs already made that mistake once, and he clearly was not going to get stuck with it again.
When such decisions get made, there will always be transitional issues such as Photoshop not being ready for Universal Binary yet. So, people who rely on PS might not want to bite just yet, and they’ll probably have more choices later. That’s not a bad thing. And also, there will always be some new chip for IBM or Moto just around the corner that Apple could have waited for. Just a few weeks ago, that was the rumor, remember, that Apple was going to keep using PPC chips for some models for yesars to come. So, sure, we could have hoped that Apple would release a dual core G4 laptop, but that would have simply delayed further the transition of the PB line to the Intel chips that seem at the laptop level to offer a brighter future.
P.S. Your arguments about the DVD burner, FW800, and better battery life are completely specious. The first two are merely peripheral factors, not related to the chip, but to design decisions Apple made. As for battery life, we don’t actually know that a dual core G4 would have had better battery life, do we, since we don’t yet have the specs on the new one. For that matter, we don’t know that the current G4 chip battery life would have been any better either. Out of those 3 items, only FW800 is the true differential. If you need it, your choice is obvious: buy a current PB. They’re still selling them. Or share your view with Apple. But please, the accusation of “lying.” Sorry, it doesn’t sell.
Yoyodyne, it has Firewire 400, just not 800. Jobs “cliams” battery life is in the same range as current PBs, but I have to disagre that faster chips mean worse battery life. All things being equal, maybe, [i.e., clocking up the same chip]. But all things aren’t equal here. Not just different chips, updated peripherals, different motherboard, and hey, probably even a different battery. Just like when I stepped up from my TiBook to my first AlBook, battery life overall seemed betetr with a faster machine. As for repurchase, so far, everyone of my software developers that has released a UB, has done it for free. And since iLife is already on the MacBook Pro, I don’t have to “repurchase” that. I did upgrade to iWork 06 Family Edition, because I wanted Keynote 3 on all my Macs.
It is a different battery technology. They haven’t released the battery life because they aren’t quite sure what it is yet, not because they’re hiding something.
Queezie says: “Steve´s going Intel for one thing – to sell more videos and music … but he forgot to demo the big bang minimac, et al delivery system at MacWorld. Why? Who knows…but it smells like not good news and gives Microsoft, Google and others time to catch up.”
I’m mystified about this too – Intel offers Apple absolutely nothing if they don’t take advantage of all that Viiv stuff. I said the day of the keynote that I thought the April 1st reference was a clue of a more significant announcement to come. I think it definitely should be, but as you say it’s still not a good game plan. This whole video-distro segment of the industry is moving awfully fast – much quicker than audio did, when Apple caught everyone napping. They can’t count on that this time.
“All that counts now is does a system deliver and protect video and music adequately for the average consumer. What % of the market really needs a faster, more powerful computer??? is the thinking.”
Right – the TPM/DRM aspect of this is huge. I mean, certainly Mac book will be fast compared to the last PB, but not compared to what could have been under the CPUs Freescale’s had for almost a year now (both dual and single e600 cores). But with all these feature ‘deletions’, in a way it’s not just ‘who needs a better cpu’; it’s also who needs the features they’ve built their businesses around, or decent battery life, or what have you. It seems its all expendable, at the alter of Protected Video.
Actually, the fatalist in me wonders if we won’t see any multi-media stuff at all this year. Instead Apple (and all the PCers too) may wait until these TPM’d machines get more market penetration, before releasing the Viiv based stuff full bore. It would certainly make it easier to claim to the non-DRM’d Old Schoolers that they can’t have the video ‘goods’ until they ‘side-grade’!
Gotta hate fatalism.
fw800: maybe this can be blamed on the intel chipset? The expresscard slot (34 mm wide) is plenty fast for some vendor to come along and do dual FW800 ports. I saw a vendor holding an expresscard with dual SATA ports at the Apple booth yesterday (Firmtek.com)
DVD drive: they moved from 12mm to 9mm. This is a wierd design decision.. they wanted to make the laptop thinner, but couldn’t find a 9mm dual layer dvd burner?
My gut feeling is that Apple rushed this one out, in order to give themselves a little breathing room. The next iteration of MacBook Pro (aside from the obvious 12″ and 17″ models that’ll be like this 15″) should reveal their true intentions. This week was about evolution & speed.
And it’s a big catch. Since the software running through Rosetta will take an even bigger hit then not-quite-optimized x86 code, Yonah’s performance needed to be be off the charts. But most of the reviews I’ve read have said these units are just good, solid dual core machines in that regard. And we didn’t need Intel for that. Even if these Jobs-optimized performance quotes are right for the Mac Book Pro, you could have had all that plus better battery life, plus FW800, plus a better DVD burner, if Apple had simply used the dual core G4. No transition necessary.
You forget the fact that Freescale (as admitted in interview) was not interested in improving the G4 line further. So what, a dual G4 would be OK for a while, then the need for a new model would arise and apple would once again be screwed. IBM was also not focused on the G5 line-up. That was a dead end too, even though one or two newer models could still be produced. So, no, the transition WAS necessary.
But blame them for lying – about how great Yonah would be, and how it would revolutionize their line-up? You bet. As much as the Macintel’s are better in some ways to the ‘prior PPC art’, it’s only because Apple decided not to use the best of what was/is available for that art.
Where you under a rock? The “best of what available” was AT BEST a dead end, with only 1-2 half arsed models up the road. Motorola was screwed. IBM didn’t care. We don’t have to believe apple on this (no reason why we shouldn’t): a top Freescale/IBM guy admitted it.
Call it ungrateful if you wish. I call it non-RDF influenced realism.
No it is plain old idiocy.
Oddysy67 says: “Intel offers Apple absolutely nothing if they don’t take advantage of all that Viiv stuff.” Are you kidding? Um… dual core, higher clock speeds, lower energy consumption. Plus a better road map. I can’t believe some of the sh*t people make up on this board.
Poppycock:
My bad on the firewire. My main point, though, was even with the all the bad things that people have pointed out about the new Macbook, it still seems like a really good thing (*especially* having never owned a Mac before) to me. I’m counting down the days until mine arrives (ordered it the second day — one day grace period is always good).
You are correct that faster processor doesn’t necessitate lower battery life, as there are many factors involved — especially considering that it’s *entirely* different HW. However, without looking up the figures, I’m going to guess the Dual Core has way more transistors. The more transistors usually means more energy spent (you need to keep them in the on/off states). Of course, better batteries, etc. can help keep the battery life up there.
Anyways, I would love if it could actually run for 5 hours. I’ll still be happy with 3 hours. My last laptop (now nearly 7(!?) years old [a Dell 450Mhz Celeron) had at best 2 hours.
Some clarifications:
The X1600 graphics is state of the art. Sure, the X1800 is coming out soon, but both are modern graphics cards.
VIIV is just branding of an all Intel chip solution. Don’t tell me Intel has already found the next “megahertz myth” and people are believing it already.
Personally, I think the new Macbooks are a great first step. Your laptop just 4-5 faster. It’s all good…