Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 17 Aug 2005 14:25:39 GMT
The Mac Observer has a report from an investment analyst predicting near-future Apple hardware upgrades:
- The PowerMac G5 will be upgraded with dual-core 970MP chips, giving Apple effectively a quad-processor system at the top of their line.
- The PowerBook will be upgraded to around 2 GHz, using the 7448 that I discussed last week.
- The PowerBook will get a HD screen.
- The Mac mini will get a G5.
- The iPod mini will get a color screen.
- There will be a video iPod.
Some of this seems pretty obvious–the color iPod mini has been rumored for almost a year, and it’s a pretty obvious direction for Apple. I don’t think anyone doubts that it’ll happen, it’s just a question of when. Similarly, the dual-core PowerMac G5 is Apple’s only available upgrade path for the G5 systems–if they’re going to upgrade them at all before they get dropped for Intel systems, then Apple’s going to use the 970MP.
The PowerBook upgrades are a bit more of a mystery to me. I can see a simple upgrade that swaps the current 7447 CPU for a 7448–they’re basically pin-compatible. The 7448 has a slightly faster FSB, which will help since the G4 suffers from a painfully slow bus, but it’s basically just a continuation of the current G4 line. The problem is that several rumors say that the PB G4 is moving to DDR2 memory, and that confuses me. It suggests that Apple’s building a new north bridge, which seems kind of expensive for a product that will only be on the market for 9-12 months.
The DDR2 change would make perfect sense if Apple was really swapping the current 7447 for a MPC8641 and using the MPC8641’s on-chip DDR2 controller, but as far as I can tell, the MPC8641 isn’t supposed to ship in quantity until early next year.
Engadget hinted last week that the DDR2 move was really a power-saving move, not a performance move. Since moving to DDR2 wouldn’t help performance a whole lot when even PC2100 RAM is faster then the 7448’s FSB, power savings make as much sense as anything. I don’t know enough about laptop power budgets to know if dropping 5W on the CPU and a few more Watts on the memory is enough to really extend the laptop’s battery life by a significant margin, but it suggests that Apple may be aiming for 6-7 hours, rather then the current 4-5 hours that most PowerBooks currently get.
Back to the rumored Mac mini G5–I can’t see this happening at all:
- Cost. The G5 is supposed to cost more. The Mac mini is Apple’s most price-sensitive Mac. Even a $50 price bump would probably be unacceptable.
- Cooling. The dinky little Mac mini case has many of the same cooling problems that G5-based laptops would face. Battery life isn’t an issue, but getting rid of 30W of waste heat is.
- Lineup. If Apple speeds up the mini, then it’ll have to either drop the eMac or upgrade it too. It could also cannibalize iMac and iBook sales. Those wouldn’t be a big deal if Apple could upgrade either model and get more performance, but they’re basically stuck with both of them. I guess they could build a dual-core iMac G5, but they have cooling problems with the iMac, and adding a hotter CPU probably wouldn’t help with that.
I don’t know about the video iPod–I can see a 5th generation iPod that’s capable of playing videos on the 2” display while still being optimized for audio playback, but I have a harder time seeing Apple producing an iPod with a huge display. I don’t feel really strongly either way, I guess.
Finally, on the x86 upgrade question–I’ve been wondering which Apple model will be the first to be switched, and when it’ll happen. Apple said that consumer systems would be first, and that’ll happen sometime in 2006. My personal guess would be the iMac in March or so–it’s Apple’s most distinctive system, and it would appeal to users even as a stylish Windows box. It’s not really going to be fast or cheap enough to kill PowerMac G5 sales, so that’s a safe move for Apple. The Mac mini and iBook are the two other consumer options, but I can’t see either one being part of the first wave of upgrades–they’d kill sales of the PowerMac and PowerBook. So I expect that we’ll see systems upgraded in roughly this order: iMac, PowerMac, PowerBook, Mac mini, iBook.
Posted in Mac stuff | Tags apple, dualcore, powerbook, predictions, rumors | 2 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:24:53 GMT
The Inquirer reports that Intel’s Tukwila chip is going to have an on-board memory controller, just like all of AMD’s newer chips. Tukwila is a multi-core Itanium, and is due sometime in 2007; the Inquirer suggests that Xeons will probably get on-board memory controllers in the same basic timeframe, simply because this will let Intel use the same controller chips for both Xeon and Itanium systems.
Assuming that the rumor is true (and considering how well AMD’s on-board controller works, I’d be surprised if it’s not), Intel will probably end up putting 4-6 FB-DIMM channels per CPU; since each channel’s good for around 10 GB/sec, a dual-chip system could potentially have 120 GB/sec in memory bandwidth. Even better, it’d be possible to build a high-capacity server with 48 DIMM sockets spread over the 12 channels; with 4 GB DIMMs, that’s 192 GB in a relatively simple box.
This assumes that multi-CPU systems remain common; given the way that multiple core systems are progressing, I’m not sure that there will really be a market for commodity multiple-CPU-chip systems after 2007 or so–if you can get 8 cores on a single chip, why would you pay the complexity cost of adding more chips, except for really high-end stuff? Even today, compare the cost and performance of an Athlon 64 x2 vs a system with 2 single-core Opteron 2xx chips–the Opteron system will have a bit more memory bandwidth, but they’ll have similar performance on a lot of workloads and an Athlon 64 x2 with cheap motherboard will be cheaper then most dual-CPU Opteron motherbards, never mind the CPUs.
Dual-CPU systems have been the bread and butter of the PC server world for the last 5-7 years, but I doubt that they have more then another two years to go before they fade into the sunset. Personally, I’d much rather manage a handful of single-chip 8-core clustered, virtualized (where virtual environments can migrate between physical systems under explicit admin control) systems then a smaller number of 2-4 CPU 16-32 core systems.
Posted in Computer Hardware | Tags amd, fsb, hardware, intel, memorycontroller, predictions | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 02 May 2005 20:22:43 GMT
I’ve been thinking a bit about what Apple’s going to do as a followup for Tiger. Assuming that Apple sticks with an 18-month cycle for 10.5 (“Lion”?), then we’ll be getting our hands on it slightly before Longhorn’s release date. Given that, it’s pretty clear that Apple is already thinking about what they want in 10.5 so they can trump Microsoft’s Longhorn offerings in the media. More then any previous release of OS X, I expect this one to be flashy; if Tiger was really an attempt to revamp the developer core of OS X, then I expect 10.5 to focus on the user experience.
A few things that I expect to see:
Improved metadata support. Just like Jon Siracusa has been saying, metadata is important. With Spotlight, we now have a framework for searching and storing file metadata. With 10.5, I expect to see the ability to tag files with specific metadata tags, like project name, priority, status, and so on. This is a feature that was pulled from Longhorn because of time constraints; Apple should be able to jump way ahead of Windows without a lot of work in this area.
Networkable Spotlight. Right now, Spotlight only works on local filesystems. Adding network support for Spotlight searching (and all of the other metadata that goes with it) will finally give people a decent reason to buy OS X servers.
A Finder replacement. Once we have the new metadata engine, we’re going to need a UI for managing it. I’m not sure if Apple will simply provide us with “Finder 2.0,” or if they’ll produce a radical new file manager and then provide users with the ability to revert to the old finder if they don’t want to upgrade. Either way, if Apple finishes their metadata back-end, then the Finder really needs to be updated to match. Since Apple hasn’t really put much work into the Finder since 10.0, and there are boatloads of customer complaints about the current Finder, I think it’s time for it to get re-written from the ground up, with the new version centered around metadata and searching.
More syncing and disconnected support. Windows has supported disconnected operation on network shares for years. That way, you can have a network share for some project, but have Windows maintain a local cache so you can still edit documents while you’re on a plane or otherwise unable to connect to the network. It’s a great feature, and Apple doesn’t have anything even vaguely like this right now.
Full 64-bit support. With Tiger, Apple has some support building 64-bit applications, but you can’t use any of the UI frameworks from 64-bit apps. I fully expect 10.5 to provide equal support for all current APIs from 32- or 64-bit code, and I expect that Xcode will have simple support for building “fat” 32/64 applications. If Apple leaves 64-bit apps out in the cold, then they’re giving Microsoft a big opening, and we’ll see claims that OS X isn’t “a real 64-bit operating system.” By 2007, at least 80% of new PCs and Macs will come with 64-bit CPUs; even if most apps won’t need to support 64-bit address spaces, it’d be a major mistake not to give developers the tools that they need to build 64-bit apps.
Resolution-independant displays. Right now, most UI elements are sized in pixels; that works great when all monitors have roughly the same DPI, but it falls down horribly when displays range from 72 to 300 DPI. Switching from a 100 DPI display to a 200 DPI display currently means that all of your UI elements (menu bar, window decorations, icons) shrink to half of their current size. Tiger has the ability to change this hidden inside the developer tools, but most apps have a hard time dealing with it right now; by the time 10.5 rolls around, I expect the OS to automatically adjust the UI size based on the DPI of the output device; this will let us have HD-resolution displays on 15-inch PowerBooks without needing to ship a magnifying glass with every new laptop.
Posted in Mac stuff | Tags macosx, metadata, predictions, spotlight, tiger | 2 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 04 Mar 2005 20:44:33 GMT
A couple very interesting thing have been happening with the SciFi Network’s new Battlestar Galactica series. I enjoyed the original when I was young, but that was back when I thought that The Dukes of Hazard was cool, so I don’t trust my judgment on shows from the late 70’s anymore.
I haven’t really had time to watch much of the new show (I’m somewhere in the middle of episode #2 right now), but it seems promising. I’m not sure which way they’re going–will it end up being pretentious navel-gazing, a halfway-decent space opera, a philosophy lesson set in space, a hard sci-fi war story, or what?–but it hadn’t scared me off yet.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the show is its producers aren’t treating it like a traditional TV show on a traditional network. Instead, they’re taking a number of steps to interact with their audience that are largely unprecedented. First, the SciFi Network has made the first episode available online. This is something that I was speculating about late last year, but I’m surprised to see SciFi actually making the first episode available.
Second, the show’s executive producer has started releasing show commentary as a podcast, also available from SciFi’s website. This isn’t very different from the director’s commentary that a lot of special-edition DVDs and LaserDiscs have had for years, but this is the first TV series that I’ve ever seen with a commentary track.
The producers of Battlestar Galactica seem to be making a concerted effort to interact with their fans, rather then hiding behind the usual corporate facade. Battlestar Galactica is probably the perfect show for this sort of treatment–it’s a high-publicity show from a small-ish cable channel, it’s one of the few science fiction shows on TV today, and science fiction fans are about as vocal and well-connected as any group you’re likely to find. Witness the fan-funded attempts to continue Farscape and Star Trek: Enterprise after they were cancelled. So anything that the SciFi network can do to draw more viewers and build a community around Galactica will probably pay off handsomely for them over time.
I’m surprised that there isn’t a Battlestar Galactica blog yet. Oh, wait–there is.
If the show does well, we’ll probably see similar efforts from other studios over the next few years–downloadable episodes, actual commentary from producers and directors, and honest attempts to interact with fans. We’ll also get more cynical attempts to cash in on the concept and canned publicity stunts that are supposed to look fashionably cutting-edge, but will largely just be embarrassing for everyone involved.
Posted in Blog stuff | Tags battlestargalactica, entertainment, predictions, tv | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Wed, 22 Sep 2004 22:59:14 GMT
Since all of the big Photokina camera announcements seem to be out (Canon 1Ds, Nikon D2X, Fuji S3, and a couple thousand point-and-shoots), I figure it’s time for me to post my list of what I’d like to see the camera industry provide. I’ve been thinking about most of these for years. In that time, I’ve seen new cameras come and go, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of real innovation, particularly in the DSLR space, where all of the manufacturer’s effort has been focused on image size and speed.
None of these ideas are mind-bogglingly fantastic; some of them are admittedly a bit marginal. Some of them may well be bad ideas–I’d be amazed if at least some of these haven’t been tried out in the labs and found wanting. I haven’t seen any of these discussed widely online, though, so I figured I should probably share them.
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Posted in Photography | Tags bluetooth, flash, photography, predictions | no comments
