Apple raised the bar Monday for some 175 independent retailers to stay as Specialist dealers and achieve certain discounts on products and equipment. The announcements will make it more difficult for dealers to stay as certified Apple resellers without sacrificing the sale of high-profit, third-party hardware and software and giving up valuable customer contact information Apple could use to entice consumers to buy direct. In the meantime, Apple discusses G5 Powerbook and why it is not its time yet.
Apple Downplays Dealers; Discusses G5 Powerbook
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why don’t they consider just running the G5 at a lower clock? and why can you get a P4 3.2 GHz which pumps the heat like crazy into a laptop but not the G5 which has a lower wattage and displacement?
is it that Apple wants to make the system as quiet as possible?
who knows…maybe when IBM moves the the .9 die size that will reduce the heat enough that a 2 GHz G5 laptop will run cool enough to run quietly.
apple shot itself in the foot by ‘squeezing’ the dealers
I don’t know about that. Apple might be looking at it like this:
they want high quality service for those places that represent Apple. so they put higher requirements on them to guarantee this service level. I also think that APple sees the dealers as less of a necessity now that they have their machines in CompUSA and BestBuy and thy are opening Apple stores all over the place.
I think the G5 powerbook will happen sooner then later. Of course he is going to make it sound like its far off. If he said they would be coming soon enough then G4 powerbook sales would tank.
I really don’t like people pointing to the cooling in the G5’s and saying thats the problem in getting it in a laptop. Apple simply is in the same boat as other makers have been for years. You can’t put a desktop cpu in a laptop. They will have to make a scaled back G5, underclocked and a smaller fab size. If they are going to hit 3ghz by august, then they are probably using a smaller die size, take that, run it at 1.8ghz and they are good to go. No one should expect a full 970 dropped in there.
Also a G5 has many fans for many things. Far as I can tell there is only one fan for each CPU. And it is designed around noise constrants. They could make it smaller and still make it fit. I also don’t think a G5 is putting out any more heat then a athlon, AMD64, or P4. All of those have made it into laptops of some form. And Demonstration units for the AMD64s. If they really have to they can always look into thinks like water cooling to heat exchangers on the backsize of the LCD and such.
Apple can’t sit on G5 laptops for long. People are expecting them, people are holding off getting a powerbook with a G5 in mind. And simple other laptops are going to move past them in performance by a large amount. I think most are expecting them Feb 04. I don’t think apple wants it to be like the cruel joke of a wait for the G5 Powermacs.
Will IBM ever sell the 970 (G5) to customers directly as a rankmount server? I think what VT has done is great but why go through Apple (middle-man) when you can go directly to the supplier (IBM)…
Has anyone actually got any information about PPC 970 heat dissipation in Apple’s G5 towers. According to IBM pdf and some other info that I saw before actual G5 launch think that it should have been much better than P4 @ the same clock speed. Then I see these new G5 towers, designed primarily with heat dissipation in mind(lot of fans,3 wind tunnel design of case and wonder that maybe G5 dissipates much more heat than current Pentium 4’s ???!!!
When did Bill Gates buy Apple??? Or is Apple adopting M$ business tactics???
Totally unfair to the delears!!! And no, i dont work for a dealer..
it can’t put out that much heat, becasue the heat issue is the main reason Microsoft has decided to use PPC 970 chips in their up coming XBox 2.
Apple is biting the hand that feeds it again [isn’t it always the case lately] The VARs are the ones who get out there and sell stuff, not apple. I suppose Apple thinks it can go solo like Dell or gateway [they really do have the volume of Dell, WOW that’s a lot of computers!] and they do OK without “sharing” the cut. What they are doing is trying to get more product sold by having dealers cut their margins while Apple doesn’t. I haven’t heard of Apple having fixed Minimum pricing…I suppose a retailer could bundle the required software at less than apple store in order to make their sales? But then you have the supply problem…which is really an apple problem. It speaks poorly of a company to put the fourtunes of those who sell your stuff for a living beneath their own ambitions…That’s extremely poor customer service.
This always seems to be the case with apple. Just when things start looking like they are going to be a great company, stuff like this starts up. I work at a small business [completely not computer related] and this is atrocious behavior on apple’s part. Bad enough that I wouldn’t consider buying from them because of it…Sure this behavior is fine for MS and fiends, but I’m supposed to “Think Diffentely” about apple and “switch” to a better way of doing things….not if they keep copying the same-old same-old. They don’t have the guts [$$$} to back it up!
The G5s are actually quite low in heat disapation. Not bad at all. The primary problem here is that they have already set the bar to high with their thin and light notebooks with long battery life. If you look at the PC notebooks with Athalons and P4s in them, they are all either clunckier, heavier, and/or hotter, or they are just slower(or at least not much faster). Now, thats not without exceptions of course, but its true for the most part.
They could put G5s in powerbooks today, but they wouldn’t look much like powerbooks anymore.
Ever been in one? No products or old products. Only a very few can move enough product to make it worth Apple’s time.
Actually, the reason they have so many fans is more about keeping it quiet, unlike AMDs and P4s. If you had seen the keynote, the average specified noise level was 35dbA for the entire 9 Fans, which is pretty cool (no pun intended). Apple PCs ARE used a lot in music studios and the like, where silence is golden.
Will IBM ever sell the 970 (G5) to customers directly as a rankmount server? I think what VT has done is great but why go through Apple (middle-man) when you can go directly to the supplier (IBM)…
the g4 aibook, got very hot, to the point where it becomes intolerable to even use on your legs. So i don’t think they did such a great job with heat issues on the aibook.
what model?
the 15 and 17 inch ones are fine.
the first gen 12 in had heat problems, but now, the ones I have played with in the apple store are no hotter than my HP pavilion laptop.
I personally work for a small (6-8 employee) Apple Specialist as an Apple Certified Laptop/Desktop tech/ Salesman and this really sucks ass for me. We provide prolly some of the best and most knowledgeable services to our area. The are two Apple Stores nearby and people come to us for help with their new machines and problems. (and as some of you know, there hasn’t been the best track record with Apple Hardware as of late) We provide services Apple Stores can’t, personal business thats friendly and helpful. This threatens a core of our business and are already struggling as it is to stay afloat with the already terrible restrictions and control put on independant dealers.. I think some business like ours do not get the respect it deserves…
Signed,
A loyal OSNews reader affected by this bullsh**
Have you ever been in an Apple store?
I have been in both that are in my area, and these guys (and gals) are the most knowledgeable people I have ever encountered in a PC store. light years more knowledgeable than any kid in compUSA or Best Buy. and they have a really good personality. when I built my first PC, I went to a local small shop, and I can tell you, I never went back. the guys in there acted like I was a bother, and seems more annoyed by my questions about some of the new tech like USB (this was a while ago…around 1997) I never went back.
the folks in the apple store know everything about those machines, and they are just fun to chat with…that is why they are such nice stores, when you are talking with them, they make you feel like you are the only customer in the store, and they can answer all your questions (well the new ones are a bit slower until they learn everything)
while I am sure your store is a good store, I think you are mischaracterizing the Apple stores.
I do periodically go to Apple Store for fun, cause I am also a nerd at heart and before I worked at this place I was lined up with everyone else at the Apple Store for the opening of Jaguar, but since I’ve learned the signifigance of a VAR. Not all reseller stores are great I know for fact (cause I know of a few that suck myself). (digressing..) But the people at the Apple Store are friendly and smart.. but.. this squeeze they are putting on small companies like mine is almost an injustice and makes me lose some respect for a company that i’ve spent more than a few years of my life defending/evangilizing and selling thier product. You’d think they’d also respect how they got to where they were..
Every Apple store I have been to has lousy customer service. Whoever runs them should be fired. Screwing over your retail partners makes no sense. Oh but they are still going to support CompUsa which is one of the most hated stores on the internet. You know these decisions are straight from Steve Jobs. I can just hear him saying “Fuck em”. These quality control problems with the 15″ and the Dual G5’s (I have one) are just ridiculous. I actually went and looked at the Alienware site tonight thinking at least I can get some control over my hardware.
This issue has come up time and time again. At 1.2GHz the G5 only dissipates 19W of power, while comparatively the 867MHz G4 in the 12″ Aluminum Powerbook dissipates 18.5. Only when ramped up to 1.8GHz, the heat dissipation becomes 42W, which is why a G5 desktop requires such a cooling system.
(power dissipation figures for the G5 come from from page 14 of this document: http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A1387A29AC1…)
Especially with the new cooling architecture being used on the G4 iBooks, there is no compelling technical reason why Apple couldn’t release a G5 Powerbook at 1.2GHz or more.
From the laptop article:
He also noted that all three PowerBooks now have digital video interactive (DVI) video out, unlike the iBook, and offer monitor spanning. The iBook will only mirror what’s on the screen when connected to an external monitor.
Holy macaroni. Had no idea about that one… I’m using dual monitors with my Pismo right now and would never want to go back to one single display.
Last I checked the vast majority of Apple sales come from their web site, not stores of any kind. Wasn’t the point of the retail chain first to be brand recognition and then to drive sales to the site? Seems like I read that somewhere. Kind of a two play move, like iTMS selling more iPods.
“the folks in the apple store know everything about those machines,”
well think about it. There isn’t to many mac models to know much about with Macs. And the guts of them are almost all the same. And there is nice information given to them from Apple. Makes things simple. Now compair that to the bizzilion of possibilities with wintel boxes. A person can come in with any number of questions they have no good way to answer.
Look at it this way, if you were going to work at a PC store, which would you rather do, a Apple store, or a Wintel Shop? Which one is going to make for a simpiler life for you.
On a differant note,
Yes most of apple sales are from the web, but guess what. Without a store they would be screwed. People need to at least play with a Mac in person before they buy one. Without stores this would be very hard. Macs arn’t everywhere like wintel boxes. So no one is going to just buy one off the web if they have never played with a mac. If not for apple stores apple would suffer. They are more for advertising then anything else. But once you do get to mess with a mac, and know them. Then you will just buy one from the web without thinking.
the sales staff at a store should still know as much about the models they sell as the people at an apple store know about their boxes.
especially considering the stores like compUSA and best Buy carry 3 or 4 vendors and all the models have the same guts. all the differs are the numbers.
but you get crap service from these people and they talk in vague terms about the compters…I once heard a guy try to sell a Mac at a compUSA say to the customer’s question about if the machine is good for video editing. he said “oh man…this box kicks ass for that stuff. this..this is just a great box”
what kind of crap is that!!!
no, there is not that much “shear amount of possibilities” in the OEM market for PCs, they are all the same.
Anytime a company ‘downplays’ its dealer network its not a good thing.
Its nice to see apple giving back to all of the small mac shops that hung in there during the dark ages.
Nothing like a good ol’ screw job.
What people seem to be missing is that the 970 only works as part of a package, and that package includes a pretty substantial system controller to keep it fed. This chip has a memory controller, PCI-X bus controller, hypertransport controller, etc. My guess is that all that capacity doesn’t come for free in terms of heat/power consumption. Then there are the various high throughput chips that communicate with the system controller.
That said, the fact that Apple’s having IBM fab the system controller with the same process tech as the 970 indicates they want to keep it pretty cutting edge, meaning its power/heat issues will drop in parallel with the 970 as IBM improves their process tech. Bodes well for putting it in laptops.
Cheers,
JT
When did Bill Gates buy Apple??? Or is Apple adopting M$ business tactics???
Apple has always behaved at _least_ as badly as Microsoft has. They’ve just a) got more loyal customers and b) affect a much smaller chunk of people with their bastardry.
The iBooks can probably be hacked to work with dual display. Certainly the older models could, as the feature was present in hardware and simply disabled by the software.
If the display adapter in the iBook is capable of running dual displays, chances are pretty high someone will figure out how to do it.
Indeed, this webpage – http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html – would suggest it’s already been done.
First, with the IBook with a G4, there’s got to be something coming soon.
Secondly, as a Java developer, I would rather have a dual-core G4, then a single G5, in a 17″ laptop.
So, I hope apple will have an interum release with the help of Motorola. I Know: Hell would have to freese over, again.
But,
Apple sells Windows Itunes.
Microsoft will use the PPC from IBM in XBox.
So, this could be the season of frigid temperatures in hell.
I don’t know about the US, but over here in France the VARS suck. They are an embarassement to Apple. They’re normally dingy little shops with boxes piled all over the place, bits of circuit board, miscalanous rubbish and not least of all, no apple product.
Might as well order from the apple store rather than go to these places. I remember when the ethernet port on my old lombard blew up. The guy in the shop insisted on upgrading from mac os 9.1 to 9.1.2 to verify the problem was hardware. I already had verified that and I just wanted to buy an PCMIA ethernet card. He then tried to charge me both a ridiculous price for the card and for upgrading my machine!!
In another store they took 3 months to reimburse me for a dodgy memory card.
The third store I went to to buy memory initially refused to let me install the memory in the shop, after the fiasco of the dody memory I didn’t want to part with my cash until I verified it. Finally a different salesperson allowed me to do it and explained the other guy was in a bad mood. Great professionalism.
It’s not one or two either. The only store that present Apple professionally here in France is called FNAC and they are largest electronics chain in France and Europe. If your VARS are even halfway as bad as the store here, then I understand why Jobs wants to get rid of them.
John.
Canadian VARs (Quebec City and Montreal) I know are not much better. Very few products on display, bullshit talking salespeople, absolutely clueless about Darwin, UNIX and the other OSX core technologies.
My University store has tremendous personnel on the other hand and I have received stellar service so far, hope they keep those.
The third store I went to to buy memory initially refused to let me install the memory in the shop,
Yup. I had the same sort of experience with the backup battery in my PB. I removed it myself, came into the store with it in my hand, and told them I needed a new one. I got the runaround and they insisted on installing it for me. In the end, they tried to charge more than they’d said (for the “installation”) in the beginning. I told them to forget it and take their battery back but, happily, they caved.
I think one of the problems with the G5 is not so much the processors but the northbridge chip ( i think it’s known as the U3 chip) and all the other high bandwidth buses. On my Dual the processors only reach 40degrees celsius. The U3 chip reaches 53degrees celcius.
FYI. The Power Mac G5 uses two fans per CPU and heat sink module. One in front and one in the back. Of course that means four fans in the dual 2GHz model, just for the CPU heat zone. At 130nm detail rules currently in use, there is quite a bit of heat when these CPUs run at full speed. Copper heat sinks would have been more efficient, but still too large for a laptop. At 90nm, which have been sampled from IBM, there will be less heat and lower power usage. In conjunction with liquid cooling in slender channels on top, a laptop is possible. Perhaps not quite so thin as current models. We’ll see by 2Q 2004 I think.