MacRumors WWDC 2005 Live Keynote Coverage

[BrandonKea]

Good question.

I suspect any request from Apple for a slightly faster G5 (2.75GHz! Yay!) devlierd from IBM will be met with a resounding F*** Y**. I guess multi-core G4s was a pipe dream.

It's like Apple was dating around, and found something better in Intel, but left all it's stuff at IBM's.

 

[mcgarry]

...heh, and you all were waiting for the PowerBook G5, lol...

I almost want to start a poll for all those waiting for the inevitable NEXT TUESDAY!!!! Now, do they buy a G4, buy a PC, or keep on keepin' on?

 

[BrandonKea]

I almost want to start a poll for all those waiting for the inevitable NEXT TUESDAY!!!! Now, do they buy a G4, buy a PC, or keep on keepin' on?

What's this "Next Tuesday" you speak of?

 

[mcgarry]

Steve stated on CNBC today that we have not seen the last of the PPCs, yet. In fact, he said there were more PowerPC products coming in the pipeline. It goes without saying that the iBook and Powerbook will get a speed bump and I would say it's fairly likely that come Paris next fall we will see the PowerMacs bumped up as well.

oooooooooooooooh! a SPEED BUMP! SCORE!!!!!!!!!! That will be fun.

 

[DeepIn2U]

1st nice concise post, love it.

I will try to get through this based on these grounds:

• OS X must only run on Intel based Macs, not x86 PCs. Otherwise, Apple hardware is dead and useless as we've all stated. Clones almost killed Apple in the 90s.

However Intel has leaked cpu's that werent supposed to get to market many times before, whats to say 5 million batches of Apples cpu's get to consumers hands??

• Apple needs to somehow make native x86 OS X apps run on PPC after the transition, otherwise, you're leaving thousands of loyal PPC (that don't want to have to buy a new Intel based Mac right away) in the cold.

But for how long will we see G5 cpu @ *Ghz support for certain upcoming apps - especially the Pro lineup?

• I don't want XP or Longhorn on my Mac (dual boot, whatever)... Some would say this is okay, but I don't like that idea at all.

I'm with you here; but another distrubing thought comes to mind. How will this affect Linux based offerings? Yellow Dog, Fedora Core, and Suse are pretty popular in some country's. Whats to stop the open-source development goodies that go into every iteration of OS X go into those OS' 1st, and out-install OS X?

• Lower prices - Apple can no longer justify that much of a higher price for basically the same hardware as a Dell that "could" run OS X. However, with this, comes more Mac sales (which you all seem to think is such a peachy thing), which means larger user-base, thus more potential for hackers to screw up our machines. I'd like to think that the security of OS X will keep this from happening.

And if lower sales of Apple units results, you know their only hope is to go completely software entity.

• When I do buy an Intel based Mac summer of next year to replace my G4, I want everything to be pretty much the same. Same super secure OS, same great looking computer, same great applications, same great overall performance, and same great integration of hardware and software/OS. The latter seems like the hardest, as I'm sure there will be plenty of kinks throughout the transition.

It actually might not be that bad, however the perception of potential customers would be not to purchase until revision B - like it is already but in serious LOST Sales potential.

If the above are all followed, I have no issues with the transition whatsoever. If Jobs says PPC and the G5 have no real future, I do believe him. If Intel can give Macs faster speeds, and better anything, awesome. Just don't take away things that make my Mac a Mac.

Well other than the OS your Mac is hardly even a Mac now. Jobs said they'll still be PPC G5's in the pipeline for now. What if IBM pulls a golden EGG and extremly fertile Hen outta its hat and really makes big strides in the short term for Apple, is this deal with Intel iron-clad, can Apple avoid the transition?

In the meantime, I do see Apple sales falling, as no one wants an obsolete system. Sure, Joe Shmoe won't really know, but when he starts reading about how much PPC based Macs are obsolete in the next year or two, his views will be bound to change.

For right now Apple better make some serious discounts in the next qtr for their hardware; and seriously retrain their sales reps on how to still be successful with current and >1 yr upcoming hardware. Do sales reps in Apple corporate stores work on commission? What is gonna happen to their livelyhoods in the short-term; they gotta eat & pay bills too. I dont feel too bad that I dont work for an Apple store. But I can assure you that I'm gonna build up some good contacts for the last iteration of the PowerMac when G5's are discountinued.

 

[mcgarry]

What's this "Next Tuesday" you speak of?

merely a reference to the repeated "___[insert Mac product here]___ is coming next Tuesday!" postings often found on these boards. More titillation than truth, more jest than journalism, in more ways than one, but they proved particularly prolific proclaiming possible pending PowerBooks of the G5 persuasion.

 

[3Dmaker]

Steve stated on CNBC today that we have not seen the last of the PPCs, yet. In fact, he said there were more PowerPC products coming in the pipeline. It goes without saying that the iBook and Powerbook will get a speed bump and I would say it's fairly likely that come Paris next fall we will see the PowerMacs bumped up as well.

I hope so. Sooner than that would be even better, since I was holding off purchasing a new Mac until the "Quad's" come out. I wonder if there's any possibility of Apple realesing the quads almost immediately. Kind of a "and here's an update to ease the shock of our Intel announcement. See, we haven't abandoned you" thing.

Thanks,
3Dmaker

 

[woolfgang]

My concerns aremany, but first is, I do video editing with a dual processor. I've worked High end single P4 and they don't have as fast a rendering speed as a dual G5. Are we going to have access to dual systems. I understand you can have dual Xeon, but not Pentium. I hate this.

 

[ariel]

Apple WWDC 2005 Keynote Address

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc05/

Apple WWDC 2005 Keynote Address

WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) is Apple’s most important annual event for hardware and software developers to receive in-depth information and instruction from Apple's technical architects and engineers.
Keynote address will be available for viewing today.

 

[whooleytoo]

I think one of the main reasons they opted for Intel over AMD must be stability. Motorola wasn't delivering on a successor to the G4, IBM promised, but couldn't/didn't deliver on it's initial performance promises, now Apple doesn't want to get burnt again. Someone with the resources of Intel whose primary market is the desktop processor market, aren't going to let themselves fall behind.

Besides, once the transition to Intel happens, moving to AMD would be a trivial change. (Hell, we've been on every other hardware platform, let's go for a full house!)

 

[efoto]

I suspect any request from Apple for a slightly faster G5 (2.75GHz! Yay!) devlierd from IBM will be met with a resounding F*** Y**. I guess multi-core G4s was a pipe dream.

It's like Apple was dating around, and found something better in Intel, but left all it's stuff at IBM's.

LOL, what a wonderful similie, I love it!
So now Apple must make the trek back over to IBM, explain where it has been. Apple being the honest person it is will tell the truth, explaining it's whore-like activities of late and state "I am leaving you for someone else" and IBM will do something rash as she *cough* always does.

 

[AlBDamned]

OK here's my take:

I just put my Powerbook right next to my girlfriends Windows laptop. I squint my eyes, all seems hazy, they're both silver, with nice big-ish 15" inch screens, all is pretty similar. But, then, I open the lids and the Apple on the top-side starts shining brightly. I notice the big plastic clips sticking out from the underside of the windows laptop lid as opposed to my magnetic switch, the black keys and all the stickers compared to the sleek silver layout of the PB. Then I hook up with OSX 10.3 and smile at how much nicer I KNOW it is from XP, then I notice the sheer SIZE of the windows beast. It's massive and pretty horrible next to my Powerbook. But, we're both on google and they look identical (obviously Safari and Explorer look different), and I think: "hmmmm, what's the difference here. They've just swapped to Intel, but will that change the look of the PB, OSX and the shining Apple on the flip-side?"

No. It won't. A switch to Intel is for the company. It represents the best opportunity available. If not Intel, or AMD (there is little difference if you're honest), then what? leave the PPC range to fester and die - cos that would make all Apple fans happy for sure. This decision is for the best. It's maybe not ideal –*few things are - but it's for the best. A few billion dollars of investment and several thousand brains, employees and opinions says so. Y

 

[efoto]

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc05/

Apple WWDC 2005 Keynote Address

WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) is Apple’s most important annual event for hardware and software developers to receive in-depth information and instruction from Apple's technical architects and engineers.
Keynote address will be available for viewing today.

I look at that picture of SJ sitting there infront a nice Cinema Display and iSight and I just start to think whats the point anymore? I mean, if we are going to have these changes to soil our beauties, why spend big bucks on iSights and Cinema Displays when we can buy $10 webcams and $400 20" LCDs?

I know I'm upset so this is probably rash, but until this all boils down to just salt in my wounds I won't be happy. Even then, salt in a wound seems painful so I probably won't be happy then either....today was just bad all around. Here I was hoping for good things and now it seems I'll have a cat up my ars in the next year....what happened?

Edit: This may be completely rash and off-base, but I'm sitting here computing on 10.3.9 and I WAS excited to get Tiger, but I find myself less than happy to head home and dish out cash and pay for a new operating system when it seems things are bound to change. I realize that its a long time off, and perhaps the changes will even take place on Tiger...but I feel like my enthusiasm for the product (Apple in general) is just gone or at least severely reduced. Anyone else feel the same way?

If it weren't for the fact that there are no sensible alternatives....I'd be gone for a week or two at least....thankfully there is nothing else which will force me to stay put and see what Jobs has coming next.

 

[Awimoway]

I have a feeling the processor that Apple will use isn't even announced yet. If Apple wanted to, they could release intel based Macs in a couple of months. They're waiting for something.

Sweet mother of Murgatroyd, I hope not. If that's true, then Apple is just repeating the exact same mistake they made with Motorola and IBM.

 

[ariel]

Another question... is this gartner guy right?

I'm curious about this statement from a yahoo news story:

"The switch to Intel chips will be expensive, complicated and could cost Apple some of its share of the global PC market, analysts have said.

"It could cost hundreds of millions (of dollars) of re-engineering. It's not easy work. It's deep work at the base of the (software) kernel," said analyst Brian Gammage at research group Gartner."

Steve said that they've had a version of OS X on intel for 5 years - so how can this be "not easy work"? Isn't most of the work already done???

Clueless in St. louis

oh - here's the original story link:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=580&e=3&u=/nm/20050606/bs_nm/tech_apple_intel_dc

 

[ariel]

I know I'm upset so this is probably rash, but until this all boils down to just salt in my wounds I won't be happy. Even then, salt in a wound seems painful so I probably won't be happy then either....today was just bad all around. Here I was hoping for good things and now it seems I'll have a cat up my ars in the next year....what happened?
...
If it weren't for the fact that there are no sensible alternatives....I'd be gone for a week or two at least....thankfully there is nothing else which will force me to stay put and see what Jobs has coming next.

This is not a change to anything you know externally as a mac! It is a "simple" CPU change - it doesn't mean you can run OS X on the $400 cheapie Wal-mart box. You still have apple products and apple quality

it is just a different chip inside!

 

[swissmann]

Thanks for all you do. MacRumors rocks!

 

[robogobo]

relax, enough drama already!

Hey, i bet if they never told you they were making a switch to a different processor manufacturer, you'd never know it. Calm down everybody! When the PPC came out there was a grumble and then a sigh of relief. If the new processor is called the G6, and i can have a powerbook that doesn't double as a space heater, then hooray for Apple. Why is everybody so sure that were gonna be running OSX on a x86 chip? It's not like IBM took some electric typewriter in the 90's and said "um, here Apple, try this". They gave Apple a custom, superior processor. Intel is going to surely provide a better, faster, cleaner processor, or else Apple wouldn't be making the move. Have a little Faith!

 

[mac-er]

Sweet mother of Murgatroyd, I hope not. If that's true, then Apple is just repeating the exact same mistake they made with Motorola and IBM.

I will be concerned if Intel develops a special chip for the Mac...the Mactanium.

On a bonus side, I think this will really help Apple compete with the average user.

The average user looks at a 3.7GHz Pentium versus a 1.8GHz G5, and will think the Mac is slower....no matter what you tell them (because they don't understand computers).

 

[age234]

How to watch the keynote?

This has probably been posted, but I can't wade through 25 pages right now.

I went to http://stream.apple.akadns.net/, but it's asking me for a username and password. What is this?

 

[gibbay]

after the initial weeping...

Like most of you, when I first heard the news, I was shocked and appalled at what I was hearing, but as it started to sink in I adjusted, and I realized that this was not necessarily the end of Apple. For one thing, the fact that there have been emulator programs like Virtual PC out for so long to allow stuff like Windows on PPC’s and MacOS on Wintel chips shows that there is a viable interest in having cross platform operating system availability. In my own personal case, I recently got a mini, and I’m going to be getting a PB soon, but I still planned on keeping my old PC for those one or two small programs that don’t have Mac versions out there. If Macs are going to be using Intel chips, and they are like the x86 architecture, than it would mean I could finally get rid of that noisy, slow and oversized box and do everything on my Macs. That is of course assuming that the new Intel Macs are going to be x86 based.
However, even though the Intel chip that SJ used in the demo was a Pentium 4, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the new Mac systems will be Pentiums. After all, the PPC’s were designed and manufactured by IBM, which was a PC company before the PPC’s. The G-lines have all been run on chips by a former PC-only company. IBM was working with Apple on the G-lines, but they were still Macs; why should we immediately assume that when we switch the name IBM with Intel that everything will be different? I think that what we have here is the same as the transition from Motorola to IBM, but as SJ said in the Keynote, it’ll be easier for everyone because most of the hard work has been done beforehand.
The main thing I think we all need to keep in mind is this: Apple is Apple is Apple. Apple has not developed the CPU’s for the Mac for a very long time, and even though Intel is seen to be the same company as MS, the same used to be true for IBM (anybody remember Windows 1.0 or the OS/2 Warp OS’s?). Not only that, but IBM still makes PC’s for Windows, and if they could make separate and specialised high-quality machines, why can’t Intel make separate and specialised chips?

 

[tjwett]

the big message at the keynote for developers was "GET ON XCODE, NOW". ok, but what about the devs and apps that don't, presumably because they can't. CodeWarrior etc. in particular the pro music apps out there. i don't think many of them use XCode because it is not the ideal environment for them. i'm not a programmer but i believe things like realtime DSP and such use a lot more lower level code than something your typical app. i wonder how these apps will be effected.

 

[whooleytoo]

I'm curious about this statement from a yahoo news story:

"The switch to Intel chips will be expensive, complicated and could cost Apple some of its share of the global PC market, analysts have said.

"It could cost hundreds of millions (of dollars) of re-engineering. It's not easy work. It's deep work at the base of the (software) kernel," said analyst Brian Gammage at research group Gartner."

Steve said that they've had a version of OS X on intel for 5 years - so how can this be "not easy work"? Isn't most of the work already done???

I think he's well wide of the mark. OSX, as you say, is up and running on Intel, and has been from some time. There certainly will need to be some changes made in Apple application code, and a hell of a lot of testing done, but that's pretty much it on the software side.

After all, the most platform-dependent code is going to be the kernel, which is in Darwin. Which - surprise surprise - Apple have have had an Intel build of for quite a while now. Now we know why!

 

[efoto]

The main thing I think we all need to keep in mind is this: Apple is Apple is Apple. Apple has not developed the CPU’s for the Mac for a very long time, and even though Intel is seen to be the same company as MS, the same used to be true for IBM (anybody remember Windows 1.0 or the OS/2 Warp OS’s?). Not only that, but IBM still makes PC’s for Windows, and if they could make separate and specialised high-quality machines, why can’t Intel make separate and specialised chips?

This is what I had a huge issue with on initial resposne as well, since I was so used to grouping Intel with M$ since they are like brother and sister. The truth is that Intel is Intel, just as Apple is Apple and the joint forces to provide a better Mac does not neccesarily mean Apple is selling out (they could be, but I don't see it). The more I read about this, and the more Apple says it seems more and more that this was not only required for greater performance but preferred for easier and more compatible computing. I think in 1.5 to 2 years we will all forget about this and still be using Macs, along with another 20% of the market that SJ just won over by switching himself.

 

[wdlove]

The fact that Apple used Motorola and switched to IBM in the '90's. Not noticeable problems to our beloved Mac occurred. Now we have Steve at the helm to lead us through this change.