Apple Releases PowerBooks and iBooks

[mxpiazza]

yeah, don't put much stock in xbench scores run by random people... trust them from good sources who know what they're doing and how to get the most out of the test as it is intended.

the FSB is still restrictive at 167 mhz, but with all the other upgrades, the new books will show significant score increases on a more closely regulated test.

 

[dnoonan]

Made it to Anchorage

Those of you on the "flight of the PowerBook," my PB17 left Anchorage at 2:17 p.m. (presumably local).

 

[kaylee]

I wish Apple would make Applecare 20% or more cheaper if bought with a new machine. PC friend of mine freaked out today when told him my Applecare was $540 AUD, reduced from $599 ($399 USD) so a 33% markup for software!

Ditto for Microsoft office, it should be OEM option and priced accordingly. $598 ($349 USD) so a 23% markup for software!


Apple's already dear enough.

i know this is probably too late now, but if you are eligible for student/education discount from Apple, you get 3 years of warranty thrown in with any new Apple computer in Australia.

 

[aswitcher]

i know this is probably too late now, but if you are eligible for student/education discount from Apple, you get 3 years of warranty thrown in with any new Apple computer in Australia.

I didn't know that but it wouldn't have helped anyway

I know Mac would be switchers who will be interested in that though.

 

[raiste]

Those of you on the "flight of the PowerBook," my PB17 left Anchorage at 2:17 p.m. (presumably local).

I wonder if it is a different flight or different cargo box because my Fedex tracking only says that it arrived in Anchorage at 12:36pm?

Does anybody else have the same message?

 

[kbonnel]

Mine says it arrived in Alaska at 12:36pm....

 

[Apple of my eye]

I can't wait any longer!!!!

My 15" w/ 128vram also shows Alaska @1236 ( looks like a Monday delivery to California )

 

[cibit]

Mine still says open and i ordered mine mid day monday too. I order a 15" with 128 vram and 80gb hd. I think possibly the people who ordered them in california or on the west coast may get theres first.

 

[dnoonan]

My PB17 came into Anchorage at 12:36, just like everyone else's. But it didn't stay long, heading back out a few hours later.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, because my tracking info on fedex.com still says "by 12:00 p.m. 4/28." That's right. Wednesday. And I paid for the 2 day shipping!?! I think it's just an error, but it's been giving me pause all day.

(Incidentally, is it me or does Fedex.com only deal with Safari grudgingly? For me Safari chokes up a little--I get about a minute of beach-ball after each page reload. It behaves normally with Explorer.)

--dnoonan.

 

[raiste]

My Fedex page now says (at 4:58pm) " Left FedEx Sort Facility" - Anchorage. Hmmm...

 

[kbonnel]

My Fedex page now says (at 4:58pm) " Left FedEx Sort Facility" - Anchorage. Hmmm...

Mine too.......!!!!!!

 

[DaveClarkOne]

Wha happened??

My PB17 came into Anchorage at 12:36, just like everyone else's. But it didn't stay long, heading back out a few hours later.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, because my tracking info on fedex.com still says "by 12:00 p.m. 4/28." That's right. Wednesday. And I paid for the 2 day shipping!?! I think it's just an error, but it's been giving me pause all day.

(Incidentally, is it me or does Fedex.com only deal with Safari grudgingly? For me Safari chokes up a little--I get about a minute of beach-ball after each page reload. It behaves normally with Explorer.)

I get the beach ball as well. The curious thing is that my PB left Anchorage and is back in Shanhai at 9pm. My expected deliverly is 4/28 as well however. Wha happened?

 

[darkwing]

My PB17 came into Anchorage at 12:36, just like everyone else's. But it didn't stay long, heading back out a few hours later.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, because my tracking info on fedex.com still says "by 12:00 p.m. 4/28." That's right. Wednesday. And I paid for the 2 day shipping!?! I think it's just an error, but it's been giving me pause all day.

(Incidentally, is it me or does Fedex.com only deal with Safari grudgingly? For me Safari chokes up a little--I get about a minute of beach-ball after each page reload. It behaves normally with Explorer.)

--dnoonan.

Mine does that too. What's really funny is that you can't use MBNA's website to make a payment on your apple loan anymore. It doesn't recognize safari. So the lone bank to provide apple loans has a website that doesn't work with the apple browser. You jump through all the hoops and then it gives you a version error when you get to the payment page.

Steve

 

[dnoonan]

I get the beach ball as well. The curious thing is that my PB left Anchorage and is back in Shanhai at 9pm. My expected deliverly is 4/28 as well however. Wha happened?

I've got a theory on the Shanghai thing: The Fedex site gives all times in whatever the local time zone is. So the Shanghai 9 p.m. 4/28 was actually last night--Thursday night/early Friday morning--by mainland U.S. standards. But the website isn't smart enough to adjust the presentation order in real time. It's just sorting by the reported date.

I'm pretty sure your Powerbook isn't going back to Shanghai. That's just where it was last night, and the website isn't giving you the steps in the right order. Does that make sense?

--dnoonan.

 

[raiste]

My PB17 came into Anchorage at 12:36, just like everyone else's. But it didn't stay long, heading back out a few hours later... The curious thing is that my PB left Anchorage and is back in Shanhai at 9pm. My expected deliverly is 4/28 as well however. Wha happened?

I think that the fact the plane is not only coming back across time zones, but also that it crossed the International Date Line has the times messed up in that column.

Too bad Fedex can't make the dates and times reference to a single time zone.

 

[mxpiazza]

My PB17 came into Anchorage at 12:36, just like everyone else's. But it didn't stay long, heading back out a few hours later.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, because my tracking info on fedex.com still says "by 12:00 p.m. 4/28." That's right. Wednesday. And I paid for the 2 day shipping!?! I think it's just an error, but it's been giving me pause all day.

(Incidentally, is it me or does Fedex.com only deal with Safari grudgingly? For me Safari chokes up a little--I get about a minute of beach-ball after each page reload. It behaves normally with Explorer.)

I get the beach ball as well. The curious thing is that my PB left Anchorage and is back in Shanhai at 9pm. My expected deliverly is 4/28 as well however. Wha happened?

they use local times... since shanghai is so far east, that was the local time there it was shipped at, so it's not like it went back to shanghai or anything like that, don't worry about it.

mine also left anchorage at 4:58... i'd assume that now that we're in the US, we'll be on different planes going to different regional sort facilities and what not, so don't get all upset if someone else's book leaves a sort facility and yours dosen't!

 

[DaveClarkOne]

I'm pretty sure your Powerbook isn't going back to Shanghai. That's just where it was last night, and the website isn't giving you the steps in the right order. Does that make sense?

Thanks. I'm reassured. That would have been the fastest recall of an Apple product in memory! Now if I can just deflate that beach ball when FedEx wants to play with it...(am using Safari)

 

[kbonnel]

they use local times... since shanghai is so far east, that was the local time there it was shipped at, so it's not like it went back to shanghai or anything like that, don't worry about it.

mine also left anchorage at 4:58... i'd assume that now that we're in the US, we'll be on different planes going to different regional sort facilities and what not, so don't get all upset if someone else's book leaves a sort facility and yours dosen't!

I think that everybody's PB's will end up in the same place, and then shipped out. My pick, Indianapolis (sp)... From there, it splits up.

 

[jaw04005]

I think that the fact the plane is not only coming back across time zones, but also that it crossed the International Date Line has the times messed up in that column.

Too bad Fedex can't make the dates and times reference to a single time zone.

Mine says it was at the Alaska sort facility, but now its arrived back at the Shanghai sort facility. LOL. Maybe somebody forgot to unload the cargo

Either way, I used the "Free" shipping and mine will arrive on Monday shipped via FedEx Priority International. For the people that ordered overnight and two-day delivery, you should know better--Apple always ships newly released products (whether that was Panther, iLife, or hardware) to everyone at the same time, no matter what shipping preference the customer originally selected. I would calling Apple and demanding the $10-$20 back!

Josh

 

[iomatic]

grr

man. that kind of blows; the fact that your 17", which was supposed to ship in May, is already shipped, and my 12" order is still Open. WTF? The Apple Store rep. said it could just be a different billing/shipping (work), and everything else looks good (Apple Loan). Edu-- someone else ordered this way here and got theirs already. I'm on the West Coast; I don't know what to make of it.

Did you use an Apple Loan?

Cripes. this sucks (for me).

Mine does that too. What's really funny is that you can't use MBNA's website to make a payment on your apple loan anymore. It doesn't recognize safari. ...

Steve

 

[invaLPsion]

Cripes. this sucks (for me).

Hey, mine hasn't shipped either.

On another note, what are you all going to use your powerbooks for?

I am going to use mine for AIM, iTunes, internet, Final Cut Express, Gaming (Warcraft 3, Myth 2, UT2K4, and Call Of Duty mostly) and showing off to my PC using friends who all have desktops.

Unfortunately, I don't know how well my powerbook will do in our loading contests. (We always see whose comp loads the map the fastest in War3) I hope I don't get last place! (Lowest competition is 1.3 centrino 256 ram and 1.7 P4 and 2.4 P4; highest is OC'd 3.2GHz P4 9800XT)

 

[Invizzible]

Concerning the xbench scores - I wouldn't trust xbench at all if I were you. I have a 1.4 Ghz processor upgrade (from Gigadesigns) in my G4 Powermac. It has a 256k L2 cache running at processor speed, and a 2Mb L3 cache that runs slower (I can't remember exactly how much slower). Xbench tells me that my L2 cache is running at only 700Mhz and my L3 is going at 4.17 Ghz!! I wrote to Gigadesigns and told them, and they responded by saying they were already aware of the inaccuracies with xbench and have told the xbench people.

 

[jaw04005]

Thanks. I'm reassured. That would have been the fastest recall of an Apple product in memory! Now if I can just deflate that beach ball when FedEx wants to play with it...(am using Safari)

OMG, I have been battling the same issue with FedEx's website for the past two weeks. I thought maybe there was some error with my Javascript... anyways I just keep having to force quit Safari--that becomes very annoying.

 

[dgoss]

FedEx beach ball

Glad to see I'm not the only one! I would have loved to have read that earlier before I spent 45 minutes searching "safari hang fedex" etc. and then reinstalling Safari, trashing plists for Safari and flash, etc. In the end all is the same for me but at least now I know it isn't something corrupted on my end...

Those who are sweating the FedEx I think your machines will arrive Monday (Tuesday latest) - they seem to be very conservative with the estimates, a good thing. Be happy that you're not in the reseller queue for BTO - I am thinking that I have at best an extra four days - I'll probably get hung up with NEXT weekend while you're all enjoying those shiny new PBs!

Enjoy - I'm looking forward to the first PB 17" BTO posts!

d.

PS - question - do those of you who are doing marginal upgrades (from TiBook, earlier AlBook) do clean installs of all your apps or do a clone of your drive via Firewire target mode. I'm thinking about seizing the opportunity to do some housecleaning but OS X is so good about staying healthy that I'm not sure if I relish the work with 100 apps on my machine!

 

[|_wise_|]

deal clencher?

Originally Posted by kaylee
i know this is probably too late now, but if you are eligible for student/education discount from Apple, you get 3 years of warranty thrown in with any new Apple computer in Australia.


I didn't know that but it wouldn't have helped anyway

I know Mac would be switchers who will be interested in that though.

ok...i have been soooo close to ordering a 12" iook 60gb w airport (then buying 512mb ram from elsewhere).

This (additional applecare) would defiantely make the deal for me!! Do you have any information on this? Is it just if you buy in an apple store or does it apply online too? Does it automatically get upgraded or do i have to apply or something.

I (sadly) have been following every post in these threads since sunday, i fell in love with OS X last week after never liking mac's that much.

I have an ibm r32 1.6ghz /512mb/20gb notebook from work at the moment, but am almost definately going to get an ibook for home/uni..

only problem now is i think i have read almost everything on the web about ibooks/apple/ os x since monday...i just cant wait....

also with regards to the wireless routers...i bought a netgear WGR614 last week and it was really bad...every hour or so the wirelss connectiopn would drop out completely and i had to reset the router physcially for it to work.

took it back and got a D link 624+ which has been fantastic, definately can recommend.

one last question...(sorry for the disjointed post), anyone know any good ram providers in Sydney/Australia?

Thanks