July 18, 2001

8:18 AM

That's it.No earth-shattering news, no new enclosures, nothing to phone your friends about (unless an unreleased iDVD2, boring-looking [but spiffy] new G4s and an OSX update 2 months away floats your boat). Apple CEO Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote leaves everyone just a bit disappointed.
posted by Marquis (31 comments total)

Well, maybe not everyone. The people who care about those unimportant things such as excellent hardware and software innovations are probably pretty jazzed. Those of us who are superficial, enjoying the unveiling of TiBooks over dual-processors, well... where are those flatscreen imacs? Stupid rumour sites with the hype and the build-up and the let-down.
posted by Marquis at 8:26 AM on July 18, 2001

Check it out at, er, uh, here.
posted by hijinx at 8:28 AM on July 18, 2001

I loved the quick Computer Architecture 101 lesson by Professor Rubinstein about the "Megahertz Myth" though. It's only disappointing if you believe rumor sites.
posted by gyc at 8:29 AM on July 18, 2001

A 867 mhz G4 tower with a 60 gig drive, DVD burning superdrive, GEForce 2MX, and gigabit ethernet for $2500 isn't exciting? Get real...
posted by machaus at 9:17 AM on July 18, 2001

Those new G4's are boring looking?

I'm sorry, but that's the coolest looking machine I've ever seen. Makes me want to ditch my current G4 due to it's cosmetic inferiority.

And Dual 800mhz processors!? That's just insane. Video editing on that machine would be a dream.

Still, those flat screen iMacs would have been super nifty.
posted by aladfar at 9:32 AM on July 18, 2001

One more thing: Anyone know what that HAL 9000 looking thing is on the front of the box? It's in the same place where the current power button is (on previous G4 macgines), but it seems awfully large.
posted by aladfar at 9:41 AM on July 18, 2001

Methinks it's a speaker. Looks like the button/object setup from top-down is: drive, drive, power, reset, programmer, speaker.
posted by hijinx at 9:47 AM on July 18, 2001

Of course it's a speaker! The old school G4 has one in the same place (only it's not nearly as cool looking). It's been so long since I used it that I'd forgotten about it.
posted by aladfar at 9:59 AM on July 18, 2001

Whoa there. Apple finally shipped a *dual processor G4*? That's extremely cool. Maybe - as with CD-ROMs and USB - this will be just the kick the computer industry needs to finally start making multiprocessor machines standard equipment on the desktop. Odds are pretty good that, one year from now, everybody will have multiprocessor boxes, and two years from now everybody will have forgotten that Apple started it. That *is* big news, my friend.

In a completely unrelated coincidence, I just yesterday finally let go of my old dual 604e box. Only 200 MHz each, but get 'em both running and the machine could outrun a G3...

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:08 AM on July 18, 2001

I suppose I must aim my disappointment at the false hopes garnered from those infamous rumour sites. Consider my hand slapped.

The biggest disappointment was simply that the announcement seemed to be a rote upgrade. Run-of-the-mill updates to products, just as we would expect every six months to any reputable contemporary product line. I didn't see anything that shifted my paradigm.

Dual-processor G3s were announced last year. Is the change from dual-processor G3 to G4 such a major tech epiphany as that? That it will leave the rest of the industry shaking? I'm hardly a bithead, so if you could talk down to me, I'd appreciate it.
posted by Marquis at 10:18 AM on July 18, 2001

I think everyone who's bitching about the keynote address should be forced to buy one of the Cubes.
posted by solistrato at 10:29 AM on July 18, 2001

Hey, be careful. I'd love a cube.
posted by jragon at 10:44 AM on July 18, 2001

Dual-processor G3s were announced last year.

Apple has never made a dual-processor G3, actually. The chip's architecture did not really lend itself to multi-processor applications.

Apple made a dual 500 G4, then a dual 533 G4 (got one), and now a dual 800 G4. Their previous dual-proc machines used 604e processors.
posted by kindall at 10:48 AM on July 18, 2001

They also made a dual 450 at the same time as the dual 500. Those were released at last year's MWNY.
posted by ry at 10:59 AM on July 18, 2001

Apple's current big experiment is their retail push. Separately, I think it would be stupid to release killer new technology in the midst of a technology recession. Stop dissing Apple and be happy that something not MSBorg is doing pretty well.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:22 AM on July 18, 2001

Apple finally shipped a *dual processor G4*?

The dual G4's were released at last years MacWorld NY-- when they couldn't get any faster G4's, they just added a second one... for the same price.
posted by andrewraff at 11:31 AM on July 18, 2001

Excited? Well, yeah...but I also can't help feeling slightly depressed whenever I read about new releases, 'cuz it's one more cool item that makes what I already have that much more obsolete. sigh...
posted by mapalm at 12:09 PM on July 18, 2001

Investigation shows I'm not alone. But tears? I mean honestly.
posted by Marquis at 12:39 PM on July 18, 2001

Oh, the heck with OS X and faster iMacs...where's my jet pack, moon cities, hovercraft, and ray gun I was promised decades ago by science magazines?! Damn it.
posted by sassone at 12:56 PM on July 18, 2001

I thought that the announcement of OS X 10.1 was rather cool. Judging from what was demoed, it appears to be a significant improvement in performance. And it will be a free upgrade. I think he said it will be released in september.

Problem is I don't use OS X since Adobe and Macromedia still haven't released anything for it. Macromedia was not even in Steve's top 10 list and Adobe didn't even mention Photoshop. This is progressing slowly. Good thing I am so happy with 9.1

I bought a 450 G4 in January when they were released. If I had waited till now (which I could not have done anyway), I could have a 760 Mhz for the same price! Oh well.

I like the new G4 colors. I liked the MHz Myth explained. But overall it was boring because they spent too much time talking about software and the apple store, commercials, etc. That was what made it boring and seem disappointing I thought.

-Daser
posted by daser at 1:16 PM on July 18, 2001

Mars, Apple wasn't first with duallies on the desktop. One of the reasons why was that their OS (9) didn't support duallies, though certain specific apps could use a second one if it was present. It wasn't until OSX came out that SMP was fully supported by a Mac OS.

SMP has been present in Win2K from its first release and you've been able to get dually P3's for more than a year. And any application running in Win2K which is threaded will automatically use both CPUs, without the app-programmers having to do anything special.

Duallies on the desktop didn't take off not because it wasn't available but because there wasn't any need, and thus it was too expensive. Most users don't require that much power. Where you're going to see it mostly is in power freaks (like me) and on engineering desks. Normal users don't even need a 1 GHz P3 (let alone my 1.4 GHz Athlon). Oh, and you can now get a dually Athlon 1.4G which will crush those silly Macs in a fair speed test.

(Apple didn't have the GeForce 3 first, either. It's amazing how many things Apple didn't have first.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 1:25 PM on July 18, 2001

It doesn't necessarily matter who makes it first (unless there's a lawsuit involved); it matters who popularizes it and makes it usable.

Example: Nissan and Chrysler. Nissan invented the driver's side sliding door on the minivan. They came up with it and implemented it on the Nissan Quest, first. Then, Chrysler came around and did the same thing with the Voyager/ Caravan/ T&C. Nowadays, in many peoples' minds Chrysler came up with the idea. Why? They made it popular. Nissan couldn't, and didn't.

So, while dual CPU systems have been around for a while now, Apple's got a chance to bring it down to Everyperson's Level. Given the push of DVD authoring, that horsepower is needed.

I say give it four to five years.
posted by hijinx at 1:48 PM on July 18, 2001

SMP has been around for x86 ever since at least the PPro. I remember ~5 years ago a developer I knew getting excited because he was getting a dual processor PPro .
posted by gyc at 2:09 PM on July 18, 2001

SMP has been around for x86 ever since at least the PPro. I remember ~5 years ago a developer I knew getting excited because he was getting a dual processor PPro.

And at the same time I could have bought a quad processor MacOS compatible Daystar Genesis, so what's your point?
posted by RevGreg at 5:20 PM on July 18, 2001

I thought that the announcement of OS X 10.1 was rather cool. Judging from what was demoed, it appears to be a significant improvement in performance. And it will be a free upgrade. I think he said it will be released in september.

10.1 looks like it will be cool, but it's neither here nor free: "Mac OS 10.1 is due in September as a $19.95 update through Apple's Mac OS Up-to-Date program for existing owners of the operating system, which will retail for $129." from the Macintouch website.

I really don't mind paying for an update. I use Mac OS X daily and find it to be a huge improvement.
posted by mother at 5:54 PM on July 18, 2001

mother: That directly contradicts Jobs' saying that it'll be a free update to OS X users. That, I distinctly remember from the keynote.
posted by hijinx at 6:57 PM on July 18, 2001

The $19.95 is for a new CD. The download will probably be in the 70MB range, but it'll be free.
posted by kindall at 7:29 PM on July 18, 2001

"Dually" is totally not a word. Okay, it may be an adjective, but it is definitely not a noun.
posted by jjg at 10:20 PM on July 18, 2001

Er, I mean adverb. Still not a noun, however.
posted by jjg at 10:35 PM on July 18, 2001

Yes. As a noun, it should be spelled "dualie."
posted by kindall at 10:58 PM on July 18, 2001

"Problem is I don't use OS X since Adobe and Macromedia still haven't released anything for it."

what about freehand 10?
posted by sawks at 8:25 AM on July 20, 2001