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  • Swad

    iMac Sales Not Leaping Ahead

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    ThinkSecret is reporting that sales of the new iMac have not been as high as Apple hoped.
     


    Apple's decision to unleash Intel-based Mac systems six months ahead of schedule is proving less successful than the company anticipated. Two weeks following the Macworld Expo San Francisco keynote, sources report that sales of the Intel-based iMac are lower than Apple expected, even taking into account the seasonal post-holiday sales dip, suggesting the 2006 transition to Intel may be more difficult than the company has expressed.
    I would have no problem with that assessment, except that they've been out for all of two weeks so far (and no MacBook has shipped yet). Keep in mind that the vast majority of computer users out there have no idea what it means to have an Intel processor as opposed to one from IBM. Few people besides some interested geeks (like most of us) really care about the architecture.
     
    The article does raise an interesting question about Apple’s relationship with its software developers.
     


    The earlier release of the Intel-based systems—"a little ahead of schedule," in the words of Apple CEO Steve Jobs—caught some developers off guard. Last June, Apple only told developers that the new Intel systems would begin shipping by June 2006, suggesting that they might have a year to convert their applications to Universal Binaries. Sources report that many prominent software developers have expressed their displeasure over the move to Apple management.
     
    Major software vendors like Adobe and Microsoft have been careful not to shed any light on when their popular and performance-critical programs will be ready as Universal Binaries. Both companies' products are extensively Carbonized—a result of Apple's transition to Mac OS X—which are far more difficult to convert to Universal Binaries than Cocoa applications written from the ground up for OS X.
    Should Apple have let their developers know ahead of time that January was the date? Some companies, like Quark, were able to release their apps at MacWorld. Whence Adobe and Microsoft?
  • Swad

    Intel (Errors) Inside

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    Welcome to the world of processors politics, or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the errors."
     
    It appears that Intel's new Core Duo - which was released less than a month ago - has errors out the wazoo serial port. Its errata documenation reveals 34 known issues with the processor. That averages out to almost an error and a half a day being discovered. Now, it's nothing new for processors to have errors; the Pentium 4 has 65 known errors. But those 65 have been accumulated over the life of the chip. Should be we concerned? Some think so.
     
    It makes one wonder if the Core Duo was rushed out of the gates at Intel. Should they be shipping such an error-prone chip? Worse yet, should Apple be using it?
  • Swad

    MacBook Pro Performance Analysis

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    Craig "The Guru" writes to us to share his benchmark analysis of a new MacBook Pro at MacWorld. Although we’ve seen several benchmarks for the new iMac, Craig is one of the first to test the preproduction MacBook’s abilities with several different benchmarks. His results seem legit… and he can’t be all that bad since he likes the Dandy Warhols. His findings?
     
    The overall results of this analysis indicate that Apple's new MacBook Pro is an improved machine in many ways. While some areas are yet to be examined, it is safe to say that the new MacBook is Apple's fastest laptop yet.
     
    Thanks for the great info, Craig!
  • Swad

    How Much Does an iMac Really Cost?

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    To be honest, stories like this BusinessWeek article "Is the New iMac a Cash Machine?" are always a little hard to accept - ya know, the ones where industry analysts dissect a new computer to determine manufacturing costs, etc. It's especially hard to gauge when you're dealing with Steve Jobs, who could probably sell ice to Eskimos... or at least get cheapo prices from Intel. But, nonetheless, here are the findings:
     
    Silicon Valley research firm iSuppli conducted a teardown analysis of the $1,299 17-inch iMac containing the Intel chip. Researchers use such analysis to estimate how much a computer maker pays for components and what profit may be wrung from sales. It costs Apple $898 to assemble the iMac before loading it with software and packing it in a box, iSuppli says.
     
    The most expensive component in the iMac is the Intel Core Duo processor. Apple's paying about $265 apiece for the chip, iSuppli estimates. "We made a conservative guess that Apple is getting a 10% discount on that chip," says Andrew Rassweiler, manager of iSuppli's teardown team. "But Apple is Apple. It's such a tough negotiator, that discount could be higher."
     
    Two other Intel-made chips, which sit between the Intel Core Duo and other systems in the computer, cost $14 and $31, respectively, iSuppli says. That makes Intel's total silicon content in the new machine worth about $310, or more than one-third of the cost of materials, using the researcher's estimates.
     
    But how does that compare to the last PowerPC-based iMac G5, released just last October? Comparisons, it turns out, are tricky. First, Apple rarely sheds any light on the costs of components it buys from its suppliers -- and those suppliers rarely talk about the prices they charge their customers.
     
    Some analysts suggest that Apple might have been paying less than $100 for the IBM single-core PowerPC 970 chip that went into the final iMac G5, which would imply an increase in materials cost of more than $200 per unit.
     
    "I don't know how much Apple pays for that IBM chip, but you can bet it's absurdly low," Nathan Brookwood, head of market researcher Insight64. "Apple has this crazy idea that it shouldn't have to pay as much as everyone else. And whatever it's paying for the IBM chip, I'm sure it's paying more for the Intel chip."
  • sHARD>>
    The folks at ArsTechnica have gotten their hands on a new 17" iMac Core Duo and run it through it's paces. During their review, they tried their hand at answering one question we've all been pondering: Can the new Intel based Apple machines run Windows? It seems no, for now.
     
    "In the 36 hours I've had this machine, I've spent a fair amount of time scouring the Internet looking for clues on how to get Windows installed. Unfortunately, I came up empty, and due to time constraints I wasn't able to spend the time I wanted to trying to hack the iMac."
     
    While it may be theoretically possible, it seems that no one can quite figure out how to use the new EFI-based system - yet. While this doesn't rule out the possibility of current generation Windows XP, it could be awhile before users are able to take a good look at the new machines and figure out just how to do it. As for the future? Windows Vista is slated to support EFI, so unless Apple has instated a bootlock, which they deny, all should be groovy in the Windows world.
     
    Check out the Windows booting attempt, or just read the full article on ArsTechnica.
  • Swad

    Behold, Firefox for Intel Cometh!

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    Mozilla dev Josh Aas (I wonder how many times he was teased as a child about that last name) has announced that the official version of Firefox for Intel will be arriving this March. The holdup? A few "minor bugs" with Java and Flash.
     
    I know many web developers who would argue that Java and Flash are neither "features" nor "minor bugs."
  • Swad

    User Experiences With New iMacs

    By Swad, in OSx86,

    We've gotten some feedback from those who have been using the new iMacs, and all of it (so far) has been resoundingly good.
     
    Don writes to give us a taste of the speed of the UI. Granted, these Quicktime videos (UI, Booting) were taken with his cell phone, but they do give sense of the iMac's speed as well as Don's love for resizing browser windows. Is it just me, or have I seen hacked OSx86 machines boot faster than this one?
     
    Also in the mail is a letter from Dennis telling us, "I wanted to provide some feedback as there have been numerous folks asking about dual booting installing xp by holding the c key. I can confirm that the c key does not working OSX just boots up. I havent tried much else as i received bought it last night but i can confirm that this thing is extremely FAST. I ran a few high def videos at full screen and compared with a powerbook G4, intel 3.4ghz PC and the imac 2.0 core duo. the imac was flawless - i could even drag the high def video around the screen really fast without disrupting the video. The powerbook choked and the pc hung up a bit - my pc has a geforce 7800 gt video card also. I am extremely happy with it!"
     
    Thanks for the letters, guys. Are you getting a new iMac? Have you already gotten one? Let us know your thoughts and impressions!
  • Swad
    We’ve received some information regarding Apple's newest portable, the MacBook Pro, and with it a hidden message for would-be hackers. We were made privy to a text dump from the System Profiler of one of the new MacBooks and, naturally, couldn’t wait to sort through its contents. What we didn’t expect to see was a warning from Apple to those that would hack OS X, presumably to those wanting it to run on beige-box PCs:
     
    --------------------------------------------------
     
    _name
    Dont Steal Mac OS X
    [...]
    Copyright © 2006 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.
     
    The purpose of this Apple software is to protect Apple copyrighted
    materials from unauthorized copying and use. You may not copy, modify,
    reverse engineer, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense,
    transfer or redistribute this file, in whole or in part. If you have
    obtained a copy of this Apple software and do not have a valid license
    from Apple Computer to use it, please immediately destroy or delete it
    from your computer.
     
    --------------------------------------------------
     
    The most interesting part of this message? It’s placement, found in /System/Library/Extensions/Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext Despite being a lighthearted jab at hackers, it seems that Apple is taking the pirating of the new OSx86 seriously, since the same kext is not found in the PPC version of 10.4.4. Is this simply a hidden message for the interested parties, or is it a new tounge-in-cheek implementation of OS X’s TPM security? Details are sketchy at this point… watch this space for more news as we get it.
     
    [Digg this Article]
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