Macintosh rumors

[JeffBarnett]

MacWorld is 4 days away, and Apple just ended a big promotion involving G4's last week. So...

G5's?

New G4's?

Invading and colonizing a small country?

What have you heard?

[Justin]

Talk on slashdot leans toward a new set of g4's in a month or so. Then no G5's till those have lived out their usefulness. But who knows...

I'm interested to see what happens with Logic, whether it will remain as is or will it get a serious makover into iLogic or some new product only based on the core components of logic.

[JeffBarnett]

The current G4 promos end August 12th. Widespread rumor is that we'll see new G4s on the 13th.

[JeffBarnett]

Latest rumor I've heard is:
New, faster G4s in January (These will be OSX-only - won't run OS9).
G5s in 2003, Q2

But it's just a rumor...

[TeeCee]

Nobody commented on the Marklar rumor. Although I guess it might be more than a rumor. Mac OS on the PC platform.

Apple's Marklar at eWeek

[Justin]

Yeah, I've heard of it but since Apple has apparently always had a pc-compatible version of their OS kept up to date for inhouse purposes (it evolved into NeXt) I didn't mention it. People have been rumoring the launch of the PC MacOS for years, but to no avail. Since Apple has started to focus more on producing high-end software, this could make sense though.

Sun has also been rumored to be pursuing a Java-centric OS derived from Solaris for the PC. They've made vague statements about it before, but it's becoming more frequent as of late.

If you really like to keep up on rumors like this take to reading www.slashdot.org and www.theregus.com (or www.theregister.com if you're in Europe).

[cmchamp]

I'd be hip in the new G5's if it werent' for one thing. If I remember corretly, their instruction path is longer, causing more audio latency, and having to clock them faster to keep up in processes/second with the G4's. I don't have a problem with OSX only versions of the new Macs, but I am a bit leary that ProTools and MOTU have waited so long to get OSX verisons of their software going. MOTU is supposed to be releasing DP3.1 for OSX by the end of the year, but since they announced it in July, I'm not holding my breath yet.

[Justin]

I know a lot of people were kind of shocked that Apple is shipping OSX only macs starting in January, but really it seems a good move on their part as far as getting software vendors to become compliant with X. Now that there is a scary deadline floating out there maybe some of the software companies will start pushing X versions of their products into the market sooner.

We can hope.

[cmchamp]

I guess I'm a bit leary of them being pushed (software companies) into getting OSX versions going. You get pushed, your R&D budget get's tight, you start cutting conrers, you release buggy software. I can't afford buggy software. That's why I use a Mac and not a Windows machine!

[Justin]

Yeah, that's why I say "we can hope".

Either way, I think we needed the push, too many software companies were putting off the jump into X. It's been out over a year, it's stable. Many just weren't embracing it because of the hurdle of working on a UNIX core. It's kind of like the move from win3.11 to win95. I think as long as machines were shipping w/ the dual boot 9 & X, lots of people were content to stay w/ os9. If it's not broken, don't fix it I guess was the mentality. Regardless there are going to be speedbumps in the transition, but hopefully we can get over them and enjoy the new features.

[cmchamp]

Hey Justin:
I know it seems like OSX has been out forever, but to my knowledge, the Core Audio implimentation wasn't complete till 10.2 was seeded and released. I think that's why MOTU could beta DP3.1 at the NAMM show, but couldn't release the full version till Dec or Jan.
Yeah, probalby 80-90% of OSX was ready with the release of 10.1, after the public beta period, but the audio part had been plain jayne, just get by, till 10.2. I think that's why the new machines can handle 24bit audio in and out and supposedly have 5.1 capability (if you provide your own USB or FireWire solution to getting it out!).

[DAS]

Digi has now shown an OS X version of Pro Tools. MOTU says their's will be ready by the end of the year. Emagic is obviously already there. Everybody knows there's a good chance that OS 9 is dead as of next year. I think they are really hustling to get it right. We'll know more in a month or two as I expect our MOTU friends to be in here by then doing a demo of it. The OS X core components (AudioUnits, CoreAudio, CoreMIDI, etc.) are reportedly really robust, fast, and easy to program around. I think we're as ready as we'll ever be to move on.

[cmchamp]

I think the 'core' components are what you say, DAS, but I think it was the UNIX core that MOTU is especially having difficulty with. Wasn't DP3.1 for OSX demoed at the last NAMM show? Anyway, apparently MOTU has some quirks to get worked out with the new MDD's also as there are a few posts at the Apple Discussion Groups regarding the 324 card and the 2408's not working properly, loosing sync, etc.
I honestly believe Apple has dropped the ball with the MDD's not having all the bugs worked out before release.

[DAS]

Well, everyone is having some trouble with the UNIX aspect. That's to be expected, but in the end it should be much better. Of course, the deadline is swiftly approaching. I've had discussions with the folks at MOTU and I'm confident they'll be ready though. Apple probably could have done a better job bringing things along, which is easy to say from our point of view. There are so many details to what they've tackled I'm not surprised at all to see some bugs that need to be worked out. I keep thinking back to Windows95, which was a huge undertaking for Microsoft. Things were screwed up for many months - nothing worked in music for nearly a year after it was on the shelves (allegedly complete). XP has been much, much better, and they deserve credit for that. This is Apple's first time at really turning their OS on its ear (so to speak), and is arguably as big of an undertaking (in terms of difficulty, not impact) as both of those Windows projects. In the end, however, people are going to drag their feet unless the issue is forced. Apple is doing the right thing by forcing the issue. We simply have to move on.