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WWDC04-official prediction/countdown thread.... (merged)


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WWDC04-official prediction/countdown thread.... (merged)
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Paul
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: New York City
 
2004-06-08, 17:49

you all know the drill, we have 20 days left...

My predictions:

1. HUGE 10.4 demo:

This is going to take up the bulk of the keynote... Things like "piles" and major enhancements to address book, ical, isync, mail, and the finder (think lots of metadata)

Developers will get access to the builds after the keynote but the GM version will probably be a ways off (near November/December).
$129, but the retail box includes an extra 3 months of .Mac free...

2. Hardware: G5s... assuming they don't get released before the show
Dual 2.5, 2.0 and single 1.8 on low end... dual core 3.0 (975) will be announced late summer...

3. New Displays... 17", 20", 23", and 30" all wide-screen, aluminum, small bezel. Wildcard: an apple projector...

iMacs, while in desperate need of an update will not see the G5 until sometime after WWDC...

any iPod related announcements will be made at the Media Event in London on the 15th...

What do you all think?

1215/234215 (top .51875%)
People really have got to stop thinking there is only one operating system, one economic system, one religion, and one business model. -EvilTwinSkippy (/.)
  quote
Wickers
is not a kind of basket
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2004-06-08, 18:21

I think...

I think. . .


I CAN'T TAKE IT!! ! OMG!1!!one!!!

I need tension relief.
  quote
Quagmire
meh
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2004-06-08, 18:31

Ok, I think the trc is gone for a while. Back on topic...

Powermac G5
all duals
2.4 Ghz G5
512 MB Ram
ati 9600
160 GB HD

2.7 Ghz G5
512 MB ram
ati 9800
250 GB HD

3.0 Ghz G5
768 MB ram
ati 9800
250 GB HD
price range of $1799-$2699

Imac
goes G5
same speeds of current G5's but, in single processors

1.6 Ghz
256 MB ram
ati 9200
120 GB HD

1.8 Ghz
512 MB ram
ati 9600
160 GB HD

2.0 Ghz
512 MB ram
ati 9600
160 GB HD
price range $1099-$1899


Tiger
translucent windows when not in use for a while
redesign of safari
Expose 2.0
ichat av I believe 3.0 can support multiple audio chats while in a chat room or just talking to different buddies

giggity
  quote
Zodiac
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Join Date: May 2004
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2004-06-08, 19:06

How about something like an eBook? Perhaps at the same specs as the previous iBook with a curvy design and a price range of 600-1000 US.

edit- Newton!
  quote
Quagmire
meh
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2004-06-08, 19:36

Quote:
Originally Posted by zodiac
How about something like an eBook? Perhaps at the same specs as the previous iBook with a curvy design and a price range of 600-1000 US.

edit- Newton!
I mentioned an ebook back at .com. Maybe it could sport an IBM G3. It would be a great educational notebook. Great performance and so cheap if get ruined it wouold be easy to replace. For the design, I agree with zodiac that it should have the basic design of the early ibooks. Larger screen and more options then the original. It would be an early ibook on steroids.

giggity
  quote
HOM
The Elderâ„¢
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2004-06-10, 23:26

Originally posted elsewhere.
Quote:
I don't think the question is whether there is going to be a redesigned G5 iMac at WWDC. The right question is:

Is it going to be beyond the rumor sites, way beyond?



I've been thinking about the "WWDC is a developer conference" thing and I now feel confident that Apple doesn't care. WWDC's keynote just replaces MacWorld NYC's keynote. The sessions will still all be focused on Tiger and the other uber geek stuff, but the keynote is for the rest of us.

Now all that remains up in the air in my mind is what are the specs going to be and what it will look like.

As for specs, we can infer some basic numbers. First of all it will be a single processor G5. Now that the PowerMac line is all duals, there won't be any overlap. As for ram, the baseline system won't have more than 256, but it will come with 512 on the high end system. Most likely as two 256 chips to save costs. Hard drive has got to be 80 on the low end and 160 on the mid and highs. Graphics card is going to be the ATI 9600 with 64 on the low and mid, but 128 on the high end. The reason that Apple is going to ship better graphics cards with the iMac than the PowerMac is because Apple is going to announce a new push for gamers. Traditional Apple pro customers only need the graphics card to power two high res displays. Any of the cards that Apple ships with the PM will do that just fine. Think back to the last time Apple made a push for game developers. When the slot loading iMacs were introduced they had the same ATI 128 cards, albeit with half the RAM. So what does this all look like?

$1299
1.6 GHz G5
256 MB RAM
64 MB ATI 9600
80GB HDD
15" LCD
Standard assortment of I/O

$1599
1.8 GHz G5
256 MB RAM
160GB HDD
64 MB ATI 9600
17" LCD
Standard assortment of I/O

$1999
2.0 GHz G5
512 MB RAM
160 GB HDD
128 MB ATI 9600
20" LCD
Standard assortment of I/O

I don't think that any of these guesses are unreasonable or unrealistic. If my reasoning doesn't make any sense, let me know and I can try and explain it better.

I am in no way going to the dark side and joining the ranks of spec whores. I just think this is a natural progression of the iMac line. Nothing outrageous about these specs and Apple gets to maintain the price points that they seem comfortable with.

I would also assume that the iMac will not have SATA or the current RAM used in the PowerMacs. This will of course lead to thousands of spec whores bemoaning the iMac as a rip off and crippled, but alas, Apple needs to maintain margins and a clear separation between iMac and PowerMac.

Last thing, I swear. It would not surprise me at all to see optical audio out included with the iMac.

As for what it looks like, Mr. pscates, that's up to you.
  quote
windowsblowsass
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2004-06-10, 23:49

it makes sense to release products at a developers conference how do they develop if theres nothing to develp on hmmm
  quote
Moogs
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2004-06-10, 23:54

Well, the only things left that are long overdue for an overhaul are new ACDs and the iMac. The Apple guy commented negatively on the liklihood of seeing a new G5 iMac anytime soon... and I suspect the monitors will show up sooner than that (can't base a keynote on a monitor... no matter how cool they are).

Therefore, "X-Serve G5 now available with the new faster 2.5GHz chips... simply amazing." That's a developer targeted product as well so... there ya have it.

...into the light of a dark black night.
  quote
LudwigVan
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2004-06-11, 07:37

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul
My predictions:

1. HUGE 10.4 demo:

This is going to take up the bulk of the keynote... Things like [url=http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42308&highlight=piles]"piles...
My completely uninformed opinion is that there will be no "piles" per se in Tiger, but perhaps an allusion to the concept as the next step in Exposé's evolution.

Perhaps.
  quote
Ryan
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2004-06-11, 12:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by zodiac
How about something like an eBook? Perhaps at the same specs as the previous iBook with a curvy design and a price range of 600-1000 US.

edit- Newton!
I don't think we'd see any consumer machines at WWDC.
  quote
Zodiac
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Join Date: May 2004
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2004-06-11, 14:46

Meh. It's just a thought. But it WOULD sell well.

about the newton.

If it comes out, here are my thoughts.

500mhz G4 processor
128mb ram
OSX lite
2.5" color screen biult in airport
15gb harddrive

all for a hefty price of $599

Founder of the Applenova Folding Team
  quote
Wickers
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2004-06-11, 16:30

I don't get it.

Everytime someone here even thinks handheld, everyone jumps to G3 or G4 with desktop specs.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Why you might ask?

You have to be able to hold it in your hand, that's why. Just because the G4 is old, and 15 gigs is not a lot does NOT mean it's small compaired to modern hardware. Unlike humans, hardware does not shrink when it ages.

You have to build a handheld from ground up, not from OSX down. So lets axe the OSX on a diet plan right now.

Start with something senseable for Christ sake. Like the target user:

A professional, on the move, that needs an organizer and mobile computing device that can fit in his hand. He does not want a hefty Laptop if he is just going across town for a meeting. Nor does he want a Palm Pilot because it is to under powered for what he need. He is an Apple user or Unix Admin.

With that down, let's get a hardware platform:

The handheld needs to be light, really light. Batteries account for most of the weight in todays handhelds and laptops so there is where we will start. To keep batteries from weighing down the user, we will use less of them. Which brings us to our first major point for hardware selection: Low power consuming parts.

How low? VERY low. The lower the better. So lets take a look at the current standards in embedded low power hardware. Humm... we have some chips from moto, intel, amd, ibm, transmeta, arm and via. Now lets axe the ones that need cooling beyond what we can fit in a handheld (remember this is a hand device). So that takes out ibm/moto's G3 and G4, transmeta, amd's geode, and via's eden. There are countless options to take into consideration but I feel that something arm based would do the trick. Don't get scared when I say arm, they are not x86 chips but it's not like Apple does not use x86 chips in their products anyway (think AirPort base station). Why do I think are is the way to go? Very low power comsumpsion with great performance/watt compaired to other offerings.

Ok so we have an Arm chip. Now which one? This one

It's a multi core processer that keeps power consumption down to 0.57mW/MHz. . . and much more then powerfull enough for today's handheld based media applications.

Ram takes a lot of power to use... so we will need to keep this down too. 128 is a bit overkill, so let's say 96 megs. The system should fit within 30 megs, that leaves the rest for running apps and cache space (this is a media device).

USB ports, two of them. One for an optional keyboard, and the other to connect devices. Devices include external hard/optical drives, iPod, cameras, and scanners. Pretty much any USB device including other handhelds (handheld to handheld syncing and data access)

Flash Memory. 256 megs of it. The system will be compressed and loaded into RAM at boot so we can save space there as well as make the OS feel snappy. The rest of the space will be reserved for apps and personal data storage. You can extend the Flash based memory by popping in a CF card...

Oh ya, CF card slot. Seen as a block device to the hand held.

I went with Flash because a hard drive would consume to much power. ("but the iPod-mini has one and it runs fine" -- if you are thinking this, let me assure you that the perposed 15gig hard drive would be also costly and you can't expect to get away with a huge pricetag)

Pen based navigation.

Ok well this brings us to Software.
First off, it will have the Aqua look and feel, but it will not be based on Darwin or OSX.

It has to be small, so we will start with a slimmed down kernel.
NetBSD has a port to the arm32 platform, so we can start with BSD, or Linux.

I'm gonna say Linux, because of media compatibility.

DSL has a desktop OS in under 50 megs. So I got some ideas from them.
Mini window server, X11 based.
Various libraries for media apps.
These will be covered by the GPL so Apple will offer the source code in some directory of the CDs that the handheld comes with.
On top of this Apple will write a new tool set for developing apps and Quicktime libraries. The interface will be compleatly written by Apple as well as every base app (minus the Terminal and various networking tools)

That about raps it up...

no sig, how's that for being a rebel!
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HOM
The Elderâ„¢
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2004-06-11, 18:11

Um, \/\/ickes, you do realize that Apple is already sitting on a pen based, ARM running (Apple used to own a large chunk of ARM), multithreaded, multitasking, color supporting OS with thousands of software titles right?



Seriously, you've just described a MessagePad 2100.

But as much as I would love to see an Apple PDA it's not going to happen. There is not a large enough market for a high end, and lets not kid ourselves if Apple makes it it would be high end, PDA. On the low end the Palm Zire fills all the needs of a person that requires a digital calendar and address book. On the high end, those devices are going to be swallowed by smartphones that provide an always on internet connection. Also, if Apple does not ship it with an OSX compatible OS you lose out on one of the most important features, namely .doc and .xls support. No MS Office support = no adoption.

You've described the hardware requirements, but lets look at software for a moment. As I mentioned, to have any business support, you need .doc and .xls support. Period. There needs to be email support, but as the BlackBerry and Treos have shown, mobile email is much better handled with a thumb board and not a pen. Even still the PDA would need access to corporate email systems, i.e. Exchange. And it would need to compete with the BB's wonderful push based email system.

If it's going to have an always on connection, it's going to need an IM client. As with email, this task is best completed with a thumb board and not a pen.

A web browser is another must have feature, but as Steve has said at least a million times he hates the idea of Internet Jr. systemy. I've used 320x240 screens and the web is doable, but not pleasant unless you're browsing PDA designed pages which leads to Internet Jr. experiences. In order to do usable web you need a 640x480 screen. At that resolution you need a large screen that will suck a batter dry. 800x600 would be better, but unlikely in a palm sized form factor. But if you add a screen of that size and resolution, the accompanying keyboard will fall into that nether region when it's too big to be used by your thumbs, but too small to be used for touch typing. A medium sized keyboard has been the death of literally dozens of PDA devices.

I guess what I'm to say is that there are lots of problems with the PDA concept that have been worked on for 20 years. It's unlikely that Apple could overcome these hurdles to make a device that would satisfy enough people to make it worthwhile, even if I'd buy 4 just to get the ball rolling.

CARTHAGO DELENDA EST

¡Viva La Revolucion!
  quote
Wickers
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2004-06-11, 19:02

Wait, hold on.

Apple has an arm based PDA project? I take it that it got scraped? To bad if it did.

There are many open source projects that handle .doc and .xls formats. I use them daily. So what if Apple would have to lean heavily on the open source community, it would give them a better image given that they abide by the GPL.

And as for the email access, Apple would be aiming the device at Mac and Unix users, if someone wants to buy one that needs access to his exchange service then he can look at third party apps.

IM clients are easy, once again just take some GPL code and mod it to work with the handheld. Take a look at Gaim or aMSN. There are plenty others too.

The screen does not have to be big, not at all. This is a media and organization device, not a webpad. Connecting to a network is a must but browsing the web is not something you would buy a handheld for. Mind you the option will be there, but it is just used if nothing else is available. Also of note is that instead of cramming everything into one small space, why not span it out and you just scroll over any area of a page with your nav keys. The spaned desktop would be about 800x600, and only accessable on the application level, if the app calls for it.

Lastly as for the keyboard. I like the idea of an external USB keyboard. You can buy a compact "handheld" based one or use your apple pro keyboard if you are at home. As for on board key entry, not only will the pen based input be available, (and I have used this method for about two years now, once you get the hang of it you can really write fast, I almost can write at my normal writing speed (non-cursive)) but a small mini pad of keys similar to the text based messaging devices that his the streets a while ago.

Further thinking as also brought this up to my attention. Apple does some pretty innovative stuff, so what can it bring to the PDA market? The answer:

A new formfactor. PDAs are ugly, and crippled by their currnt formfactor. Apple can do so much more then the standard rectangle.

no sig, how's that for being a rebel!
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Quagmire
meh
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2004-06-11, 21:19

Quote:
Originally Posted by \/\/ickes
Wait, hold on.

Apple has an arm based PDA project? I take it that it got scraped? To bad if it did.

Further thinking as also brought this up to my attention. Apple does some pretty innovative stuff, so what can it bring to the PDA market? The answer:

A new formfactor. PDAs are ugly, and crippled by their currnt formfactor. Apple can do so much more then the standard rectangle.
It was scraped. I think the Sony Cleia or whatever the name was, influenced apple to cancel the project. If a big comany which is making more then apple has to cancel a product, it shows that the product wasn't making money at all. But, what I see it only delayed apple's PDA delivery. I think it could still happen and the market will present it self with the opportunity for apple to release the PDA.

giggity
  quote
HOM
The Elderâ„¢
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2004-06-11, 23:09

Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertaker
It was scraped. I think the Sony Cleia or whatever the name was, influenced apple to cancel the project. If a big comany which is making more then apple has to cancel a product, it shows that the product wasn't making money at all. But, what I see it only delayed apple's PDA delivery. I think it could still happen and the market will present it self with the opportunity for apple to release the PDA.




  quote
HOM
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2004-06-11, 23:31

\/\/ickes, yes Apple had an ARM based PDA project. It was called MessagePad. However you might remember it as Newton.


I'm not sure that a GPL'ed PDA is any better than a Cocoa PDA. And based on some people's thoughts, it's a negative. Also I'm not convinced that a PDA running all the software you mentioned would be any 'lighter' than an OSX based one.

I'm not sure if you've even owned a PDA, I'm not saying that in a negative or derogatory way at all, but you don't seem to understand the basic functionality. Today on any device above a few hundred dollars, which is the space that Apple would be competing in, communication and messaging is the top priority. People that need email only devices are buying BlackBerrys left and right. It really is an amazing portable email system. To compete with this an Apple PDA has to offer more. This is what smart phones are offering.

This is the only area that is showing growth right now in the PDA world. For instance, Palm One sold ~550,000 Treo 600s last quarter. This represented the majority of Palm's profits, but not revenue. This was also the largest single quarter for any smartphone device. Apple sold almost 1,000,000 iPods in that same time. My point is that the only area showing growth is always on connected PDAs. Also to your idea that a connected device would not provide web access is just ridiculous. Web browsing is vital to communications. But if you're going to have web it leads to the issues that I described. Email and IMing needs a small thumb board. Web needs a big screen. There seems no elegant way to combine the two. Unlike the iPod, which was a market waiting for Apple's engineering and design to step into, PDAs have been around for more then 20 years. Billions of dollars have been spent in this time to try and solve the problems I've described and nobody, including Apple, has been able to do it.

I've been watching this space since its inception. I used my MessagePad 2100 exclusively, not touching my Moto Mac clone, for 18 months. There is not magic recipe for PDAs. A dash of power consumption, a hwr engine, full blown desktop apps, fast text entry, always on internet connection, ect ect ect, is not only not feasible, but adding some required features directly takes away from other ones.

CARTHAGO DELENDA EST

¡Viva La Revolucion!
  quote
Wickers
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Join Date: May 2004
 
2004-06-12, 02:20

Ok, maybe I was going overboard with the specs and features.

I have a PDA, a Palm m125. It has served me well but lately is has been a paper weight because my ex-girlfriend (girlfriend at the time) knocked the cradle off my desk breaking the connection. When I went to replace it, they wanted like 50 bucks American for the new cradle. Needless to say, I was reluctdent to shell out the cash. I mean, while the PDA was great, my main use for it was as a toy, and I figured that I'd get more work done without it. Now I use it to store notes jotted by stylus and phone numbers, to later be recopied to my PC by hand. I wrote an entire history presentation on that little thing... it was great when I used it for other things then games.

The software I pointed out could fit in the space restrictions given by the handheld formfactor. The main point is that you are building from the ground up. Things can be changed and redone, rebuilt and altered all while building a system from the ground up. What I learned in my programming course is that planning and building in a logical order is the key to a good program. You lose this logical order and build model when you try and slim down such a large system such as Darwin. Besides you would need to port Darwin to Arm anyway, so why not just start fresh?

If you have a PC at home, or at work. I highly suggest taking a look at this:
Damn Small Linux (DSL)
It is an entire OS in under 50 megs. A live CD that has an app for most things. It achieves this by using compressed images on the live CD, and very well hand picked software.

Oh and as for the PDA Apple had... I know about the Newton, I have never seen one in person but they look cool. I thought you were referring to another PDA project, something a little more modern.

IMO, I always thought Sony's PDAs were the best I have ever seen. Very well done, and I love the extras they add above PalmOS. Their style and design was top notch and blew almost everything Palm and HandSpring (at the time) did. If Apple ever breaks into the PDA market again, then I hope they will be as eye-catching.

no sig, how's that for being a rebel!
  quote
Mac+
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2004-06-12, 21:30

What about a bluetooth iPod to control iTunes 4.6, which can play music over AirTunes now? Or is that a given?
  quote
psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2004-06-12, 23:27

I bet we'll get displays a week from now (June 22/23/24), something funky with an "i" at WWDC (and Tiger...raaaawwrrrr!) and then a cup of soup and a chicken salad sandwich going into mid-July.

iSaid it. Silver lode.
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torifile
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2004-06-13, 00:06

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0
and then a cup of soup and a chicken salad sandwich going into mid-July.
Steve's a vegan, so I bet it's a tofurkey sandwich
  quote
DMBand0026
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2004-06-13, 00:44

I'm gonna say the displays will be the one more thing thing.

The new 20, 23, and 30 inch cinema displays.

Without ADC!
  quote
Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2004-06-13, 01:47

I merged the two prediction threads and eliminated a couple of totally nonsensical posts in the process. The predictions forum is now just a little more streamlined
  quote
Paul
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2004-06-20, 00:26

8 Days, 11 Hours, 34 Minutes...

one more week...
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DMBand0026
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2004-06-20, 00:45

I can't wait that long. Someone get Steve on the phone!
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oldmacfan
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2004-06-20, 02:24

Quote:
Originally Posted by DMBand0026
I can't wait that long. Someone get Steve on the phone!

Yes, can I help you.
  quote
DMBand0026
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2004-06-20, 02:33

Quote:
Originally Posted by oldmacfan
Yes, can I help you.
[ot]

You're the dude from Minooka, right?
That's the name of my band.

[/ot]


And you wish you were Steve.
  quote
propellerhead
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2004-06-20, 09:28

I'm too lazy to check the official WWDC site and I don't even know if Apple has said anything about it yet...but will there be a live webcast or will I again have to resort to IRC to get the info live?
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propellerhead
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2004-06-20, 09:28

Quote:
Originally Posted by DMBand0026
And you wish you were Steve.
Everyone wishes they were Steve.
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oldmacfan
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2004-06-20, 10:15

Quote:
Originally Posted by DMBand0026
[ot]

You're the dude from Minooka, right?
That's the name of my band.

[/ot]


And you wish you were Steve.
Mokena, my friend. Minooka is just down the street.
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