Face it, until MacIntel machines actually ship, everyone is just reading tea leaves. The Tea Leaf Reader of Record has a couple of useful clues here, though:
-- Confirmation from IBM that it wanted Apple to pay more for developing its chips. This supports the view that a key incentive for Apple to make the move was a better financial deal from Intel.
-- Analyst expectations that Apple will move to 64-bit Intel chips. Current processors handle 32 bits at once, 64-bit chips, as you would guess, chomp 64, thereby increasing computer performance. The technology is supposed to be the Next Big Thing in personal computers, but Intel's efforts have not be especially successful to date. Driving sales of 64-bit chips looks like Intel's motivation for courting Apple.
What's Really Behind the Apple-Intel Alliance - New York Times
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Thursday, June 09, 2005
A camera in your pocket
As a writer, I have never been fond of the old "a picture is worth a thousand words" thing. But, after all, the column was about digital photography.
These should illustrate a few of the points.
Here is the skyline of Boston shot from a balcony along the Charles River:
Lots of foreground, and not much of the skyline. So, let's crop the photo and blow it up, so we get a better look at the Citgo sign:
But as I said, eventually if you blow a digital image up too much, the picture breaks into individual pixels, which looks like this:
A camera with more megapixels helps you get higher quality blow-ups. This is the Canon SD-500 reviewed for the article:
Note the slight wedge shape and rounded edge on the left. That, says a Canon spokesperson, is to make room for the 7.1 megapixel sensor.
A smaller and less expensive alternative is the 5 megapixel SD-400. Note that it is perfectly rectangular:
These should illustrate a few of the points.
Here is the skyline of Boston shot from a balcony along the Charles River:
Lots of foreground, and not much of the skyline. So, let's crop the photo and blow it up, so we get a better look at the Citgo sign:
But as I said, eventually if you blow a digital image up too much, the picture breaks into individual pixels, which looks like this:
A camera with more megapixels helps you get higher quality blow-ups. This is the Canon SD-500 reviewed for the article:
Note the slight wedge shape and rounded edge on the left. That, says a Canon spokesperson, is to make room for the 7.1 megapixel sensor.
A smaller and less expensive alternative is the 5 megapixel SD-400. Note that it is perfectly rectangular:
Speaking of fried laps...
A little personal experience entered into my thoughts about Apple's processor needs. When shorts-wearing temperatures abruptly arrived in Massachusetts, I discovered that resting my PowerBook on bare skin was not a happy combination. A couple of "yelps" and "ouches" later, I was surfing the Web looking for a solution.
Found a good one, as it turned out. Rain Design in San Francisco (www.raindesigninc.com) makes a terrific lap stand called -- inevitably -- "iLap." It comes in sizes for 12, 14, 15, and 17 inch notebooks, as well as 15 and 17 inch widescreens. Prices range from $50-$70 -- it's not inexpensive, but sometimes you really do get what you pay for.
iLap is made of substantial aluminum stock, a sharp contrast from similar products I've tested that bend and crease at the slightest movement. At the back, iLap has a padded and hinged u-shaped arm at the back, which props your laptop up at an ergonomically correct angle. Used in your lap, the padded arm sits comfortably around your knee.
At the front, there's a thick, rounded cushion that does triple duty: cushions your lap, positions the keyboard properly with respect to your hands, and acts as a wrist rest. This will work well for most users, although if like me you are, ahem, waistline-challenged it may push your laptop a little too far from your body.
The cushion is attached with Velcro and can be detached to let you use the iLap on your desk. There are cheaper solutions for the desktop, though. To justify an investment in an iLap, your primary need should be as a lap desk for a laptop. Think of desk use as an added bonus.
As for me, I'm heading out to my patio and taking my iLap and PowerBook with me.
Found a good one, as it turned out. Rain Design in San Francisco (www.raindesigninc.com) makes a terrific lap stand called -- inevitably -- "iLap." It comes in sizes for 12, 14, 15, and 17 inch notebooks, as well as 15 and 17 inch widescreens. Prices range from $50-$70 -- it's not inexpensive, but sometimes you really do get what you pay for.
iLap is made of substantial aluminum stock, a sharp contrast from similar products I've tested that bend and crease at the slightest movement. At the back, iLap has a padded and hinged u-shaped arm at the back, which props your laptop up at an ergonomically correct angle. Used in your lap, the padded arm sits comfortably around your knee.
At the front, there's a thick, rounded cushion that does triple duty: cushions your lap, positions the keyboard properly with respect to your hands, and acts as a wrist rest. This will work well for most users, although if like me you are, ahem, waistline-challenged it may push your laptop a little too far from your body.
The cushion is attached with Velcro and can be detached to let you use the iLap on your desk. There are cheaper solutions for the desktop, though. To justify an investment in an iLap, your primary need should be as a lap desk for a laptop. Think of desk use as an added bonus.
As for me, I'm heading out to my patio and taking my iLap and PowerBook with me.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Why Macs will have Intel inside
Here's what the much-ballyhooed decision by Apple Computer to switch to Intel processors really means to you: future PowerBooks will be faster without scorching your lap.
There may also be quieter Mac desktops and an outside possibility that the price gap between Macs and Windows PCs may narrow. Moreover, you might want to think twice about buying a new Mac until the new hardware hits the market. But pretty much everything else is of concern only to the companies involved, their shareholders – and those of us who write about technology and always are pleased to get a new issue to cover.
Apple's decision on processors is an issue that truly can be said to have resulted in "heated debate."
Computers are like glorified toaster ovens: turn 'em on and they generate heat. Processors in particular gobble up energy, with heat as the inevitable byproduct. That heat, meanwhile, is an enemy of the circuitry and can cause operational glitches.
Hence when you look inside a desktop PC, you will find multiple cooling fans, heat sinks (metal devices that pull heat away from a component), and ducts to manage airflow. For notebooks, the problem is even more serious because there isn't room for all those heat-management components. Plus, high energy consumption in a laptop means battery life takes a big hit.
Heat is a particular concern to Apple because many of its best-selling desktops such as the iMac and Mac Mini use small form factors that make them more like notebooks. In addition, Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs famously disdains cooling fans because they are noisy and he wants Macs to be whisper quiet.
Apple's problem in a nutshell is that the PowerPC chips that drive its computers are too hot to handle.
While its leading desktops run IBM-produced "G5" (fifth generation of the Pocket PC) processors, the chip is too hot and too power draining to use in a notebook. So Apple's PowerBook and iBook notebooks are stuck with the older "G4" processors made by Freescale Semiconductor Inc., a Motorola spin-off. Even so, heat is such a problem, especially with the metal-cased PowerBook, that an entire category of computer accessories has grown up around the need to keep Mac laptops from frying users' laps.
Tim Cook, Apple's VP of worldwide sales and operations, was widely quoted earlier this year when he called a G5 PowerBook, "the mother of all thermal challenges." Given that Apple is paranoid about leaks of its product plans, it is clear in retrospect that the company was going public with its displeasure with IBM for not making a laptop-capable G5. According to published reports, IBM had little interest in doing so because the company is losing money on its Apple sales and is focusing its processor efforts on the more lucrative game console market.
If all that weren't enough, the whole rationale behind the PowerPC was that its design made it inherently faster than Intel architecture. But instead PowerPC chips have lagged behind Intel's in speed, forcing Apple to put two processors into its flagship Power Mac G5 desktops, which of course makes them run even hotter.
With neither IBM nor Motorola/Freescale interested in building a new processor to keep Apple's products competitive with Intel-powered units, Apple didn't have a lot of options other than to switch to Intel. (These being publicly traded corporations, it would be more correct to say that there was no interest on terms acceptable to both sides.) Some analysts have called this a risky move. Perhaps, but hardly less risky than trying to sell new PCs without new chips.
The transition to Intel processors is really much more of a marketing problem than a technical one. Apple's OS-X operating system is based on Unix, a corporate OS that is regularly used on Intel PCs. Moreover, Jobs confirmed that the company has already produced Intel-compatible OS-X versions. The company announced a utility called "Rosetta" (as in "Rosetta Stone") to allow software designed for the PowerPC to run on Intel Macs.
This still leaves Apple with three problems.
First, what kind of software support will the new platform get? Rosetta may or may not be adequate – often such utilities degrade system performance – and software vendors will need to rewrite their applications. Microsoft and Adobe, the two biggest vendors of Mac software, both announced that they will produce "MacIntel" versions of their products. But smaller companies may not be able to afford to do that. Mac's base of software developers already is much smaller than Window's, and this might not help. There could be counterbalancing gains, however, from Windows-Intel software manufacturers finding it easier to do Mac versions of their applications.
Second, the Mac mystique may take a hit. Already jokes are appearing on the Internet suggesting that Apple should change its slogan to "think not-so-different." In recent years much of the hardware in Macs such as video cards and expansion slots has moved to Wintel standards. With the adoption of Intel processors, an Apple box will be little different from a Wintel box. Apple will have to demonstrate that, with equal hardware, it still has advantages over Windows. Note, though, that the devil always is in the details – Apple and Intel did not specify what chips were involved in the deal, and it always is possible that Intel might whip up something special for its new customer.
Third, in the short term Apple faces the tough prospect of moving product that it has just declared obsolete. The first units are due to hit the market within a year, with full conversion by the end of 2006. Some current Mac users may rush to buy up the remaining PowerPC units either to protect their current investment in software or to be sure that they get a "real" Mac before they are all gone. Most users, though, will hesitate about investing in lame duck equipment.
My advice to consumers for now: wait and see.
All personal computers are obsolete the moment you buy them; it's the nature of the beast. Typically, you would expect a PC to keep up with performance standards for about two years and be adequate for most purposes one or two more years after that. The 18-month timetable for MacIntel falls far short of that. On the other hand, a platform shift such as this rarely goes perfectly and you rarely want to be the first kid on your block with new designs.
Neither Apple nor the major software vendors have disclosed any information about their upgrade paths and policies. Also it is hard to imagine that Apple will be able to avoid discounting the prices on existing hardware.
I don't see any huge danger that if you do buy a Mac now you will be stuck with unsupported hardware and software. But it's like when a car is in the last year of its run and is about to be replaced by a new model. You want to keep your eye out for the “Limited Edition” package or the “Special Incentive” offer to be sure you get the sweetest deal.
There may also be quieter Mac desktops and an outside possibility that the price gap between Macs and Windows PCs may narrow. Moreover, you might want to think twice about buying a new Mac until the new hardware hits the market. But pretty much everything else is of concern only to the companies involved, their shareholders – and those of us who write about technology and always are pleased to get a new issue to cover.Apple's decision on processors is an issue that truly can be said to have resulted in "heated debate."Computers are like glorified toaster ovens: turn 'em on and they generate heat. Processors in particular gobble up energy, with heat as the inevitable byproduct. That heat, meanwhile, is an enemy of the circuitry and can cause operational glitches.
Hence when you look inside a desktop PC, you will find multiple cooling fans, heat sinks (metal devices that pull heat away from a component), and ducts to manage airflow. For notebooks, the problem is even more serious because there isn't room for all those heat-management components. Plus, high energy consumption in a laptop means battery life takes a big hit.
Heat is a particular concern to Apple because many of its best-selling desktops such as the iMac and Mac Mini use small form factors that make them more like notebooks. In addition, Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs famously disdains cooling fans because they are noisy and he wants Macs to be whisper quiet.
Apple's problem in a nutshell is that the PowerPC chips that drive its computers are too hot to handle.
While its leading desktops run IBM-produced "G5" (fifth generation of the Pocket PC) processors, the chip is too hot and too power draining to use in a notebook. So Apple's PowerBook and iBook notebooks are stuck with the older "G4" processors made by Freescale Semiconductor Inc., a Motorola spin-off. Even so, heat is such a problem, especially with the metal-cased PowerBook, that an entire category of computer accessories has grown up around the need to keep Mac laptops from frying users' laps.
Tim Cook, Apple's VP of worldwide sales and operations, was widely quoted earlier this year when he called a G5 PowerBook, "the mother of all thermal challenges." Given that Apple is paranoid about leaks of its product plans, it is clear in retrospect that the company was going public with its displeasure with IBM for not making a laptop-capable G5. According to published reports, IBM had little interest in doing so because the company is losing money on its Apple sales and is focusing its processor efforts on the more lucrative game console market.
If all that weren't enough, the whole rationale behind the PowerPC was that its design made it inherently faster than Intel architecture. But instead PowerPC chips have lagged behind Intel's in speed, forcing Apple to put two processors into its flagship Power Mac G5 desktops, which of course makes them run even hotter.
With neither IBM nor Motorola/Freescale interested in building a new processor to keep Apple's products competitive with Intel-powered units, Apple didn't have a lot of options other than to switch to Intel. (These being publicly traded corporations, it would be more correct to say that there was no interest on terms acceptable to both sides.) Some analysts have called this a risky move. Perhaps, but hardly less risky than trying to sell new PCs without new chips.
The transition to Intel processors is really much more of a marketing problem than a technical one. Apple's OS-X operating system is based on Unix, a corporate OS that is regularly used on Intel PCs. Moreover, Jobs confirmed that the company has already produced Intel-compatible OS-X versions. The company announced a utility called "Rosetta" (as in "Rosetta Stone") to allow software designed for the PowerPC to run on Intel Macs.
This still leaves Apple with three problems.
First, what kind of software support will the new platform get? Rosetta may or may not be adequate – often such utilities degrade system performance – and software vendors will need to rewrite their applications. Microsoft and Adobe, the two biggest vendors of Mac software, both announced that they will produce "MacIntel" versions of their products. But smaller companies may not be able to afford to do that. Mac's base of software developers already is much smaller than Window's, and this might not help. There could be counterbalancing gains, however, from Windows-Intel software manufacturers finding it easier to do Mac versions of their applications.
Second, the Mac mystique may take a hit. Already jokes are appearing on the Internet suggesting that Apple should change its slogan to "think not-so-different." In recent years much of the hardware in Macs such as video cards and expansion slots has moved to Wintel standards. With the adoption of Intel processors, an Apple box will be little different from a Wintel box. Apple will have to demonstrate that, with equal hardware, it still has advantages over Windows. Note, though, that the devil always is in the details – Apple and Intel did not specify what chips were involved in the deal, and it always is possible that Intel might whip up something special for its new customer.
Third, in the short term Apple faces the tough prospect of moving product that it has just declared obsolete. The first units are due to hit the market within a year, with full conversion by the end of 2006. Some current Mac users may rush to buy up the remaining PowerPC units either to protect their current investment in software or to be sure that they get a "real" Mac before they are all gone. Most users, though, will hesitate about investing in lame duck equipment.
My advice to consumers for now: wait and see.
All personal computers are obsolete the moment you buy them; it's the nature of the beast. Typically, you would expect a PC to keep up with performance standards for about two years and be adequate for most purposes one or two more years after that. The 18-month timetable for MacIntel falls far short of that. On the other hand, a platform shift such as this rarely goes perfectly and you rarely want to be the first kid on your block with new designs.
Neither Apple nor the major software vendors have disclosed any information about their upgrade paths and policies. Also it is hard to imagine that Apple will be able to avoid discounting the prices on existing hardware.
I don't see any huge danger that if you do buy a Mac now you will be stuck with unsupported hardware and software. But it's like when a car is in the last year of its run and is about to be replaced by a new model. You want to keep your eye out for the “Limited Edition” package or the “Special Incentive” offer to be sure you get the sweetest deal.
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