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iBooks and G3's

arn

arn

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Apr 9, 2001
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Maccentral quotes Dave Russell, Apple's director of consumer-education mobile products, on the state of the iBook. Of note, he hints that the G4 is not likely to appear in the iBook in the next iteration:

"As for what we're looking for in terms of an education-consumer portable, the G3 chip offers plenty of punch," Russell said. "The performance of the iBook is quite fine right now. The G3 chip doesn't draw much power, doesn't generate much heat and runs Mac OS X just fine. We think the G3 has a lot of life left in it. I don't know that the latest iBooks will be the last ones with G3 chips."
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2002/06/18/ibooks-and-g3s/
G3's and 10.2

Hi, well if you think about it, now 10.2 makes the GPU look after the graphical stuff, like transparencies, a G4 becomes less important as currently it's the altivec unit which does that. So, maybe a G3 is fine under 10.2?
Dave
 
Re: G3's and 10.2

Originally posted by dave_r_lee@mac.com
Hi, well if you think about it, now 10.2 makes the GPU look after the graphical stuff, like transparencies, a G4 becomes less important as currently it's the altivec unit which does that. So, maybe a G3 is fine under 10.2?
Dave
Click to expand...
You're right... but if you're doing photoshop type work you will still get a good increase with the G4.

I'd love a G4 iBook... even only 600 MHz or so... what a great little package. Oh well... :(
 
Still, the Apple dude didn't completely rule out the possibility of a G4 SE iBook. That's not something I'm hoping for though, since I already have a PB...
 
yeah very true, but then i'm not sure that the type of person who uses photoshop (professional, creative etc) will use an iBook, maybe a Powerbook? I suppose a G4 would be nice for those using iTunes a lot.
 
how sad..can we expect a 1GHz G3 for next time then? possibly when the Tibook goes to 1.2GHz G4 when the PowerMacs go 1.2+GHz G4's....<note. this is pure speculation>
 
Makes sense

It makes perfectly sense to keep the iBook on a G3 prosessor for a while. We now got the Sahara chip inside these little babies, and with 10.2 we'll see another performance boost. Remember. The new 700 MHz model is up to 35% faster than the old 600 MHz model, and that's without Jagwire!

Hmmm, seems like I just convinced myself into buying an iBook! :p
 
Even a cut down Radeon 7500 mobility with 16MB DDR would be a great addition to an iBook SE. The way I see it they can either upgrade the screen, the case, the MHz or the graphics chip. Myself, I'd like to see the graphics chip and MHz go up slightly for a Special Edition model.
 
Look, I have a G3 600 iBook, and it is fine for everything that I do. Not that I do not run Photoshop and graphic intensive applications very often. Now that being said, who would really want to run Photoshop on a 12.1 inch screen, or even a 14.1 for that matter when the resolution is only 124X768? The point is that the iBook is designed for schools, students, and home users that want a laptop. It is not designed for graphics professionals, and high end buisness users.
 
Word!

You pinned it B2TM!
I am a "creative" user and I´d like a tibook for that,
as a complement, while visiting clients etc.
An ibook would only be used for e-mail, writing
and internet. (Possibly even gaming, he, he…)
Where would one keep all palettes?

But the ibook is sure beautiful…
Maybe one for my girlfriend!?
 
Me, I'm an iBook user who would like to go Ti, but between the cost, heat and fan noise, I'm actually pretty happy w/ my tiny leetle amateur iBook.

Now if they could keep it at the same price and boost speed even more, then I may sell and get another one, but...

Remember when a G3 Pismo was the bomb?
Ah, memories....
:)
 
Really, the future that I would like to see for the iBook late in the year would be a 133MHZ bus with a 1GHZ Sahara. Take memory to 1Gig. Radeon 32MB. 30Gig standard and 40 and 60 available. This would allow it to do anything really.

Take the Ti to G4 1.2's. 2gigs with 266MHZ DDR. 64MB video etc. See, the iBook would do just fine, but that Ti would friggin smoke!
 
When the iBook was revised just shortly ago, I truely expected a 133Mhz system bus. Why they chose a 100MHz system bus is beyond me, considering that the FP iMac may be bumped to 133 at MWNY.

The jump to 133MHz would make a HUGE difference in operating OS X, as the faster access to the memory (which OS X uses a lot of) quickens even menu pull-downs (not to mention Quake framerates).
 
I think the point is that the iBook, and the G3 in general, has its place. It isnt for Photoshop or FCP-intensive use, but for iApps (excl. iDVD) it is great. Stick an 800+ MHz G3 on a 133 MHz bus with a Radeon 7500 and you'll have a whopper of an OS X machine.

The way I see it, if Apple can give performance that betters that available from PC consumer notebooks using a G3(which, we have previously show, it can), then why go to a G4? To raise the price just to give the appearance of a faster machine? Remember when Intel did that with the P4s that were actually SLOWER than the P3s of the same era? Remember how we Mac users said, "Stupid Intel!"??? Putting a G4 in the iBook just to have a G4 in the iBook is silly. When the G3 can no longer do the iBook justice, only then will it be G4 time
 
I bet Apple will have 800mhz and 900mhz models at MWNY, or sometime after. Maybe with a faster bus an better graphics card. The G3 won't be going anywhere until after the 1ghz G3 comes out, maybe at MWSF. The G3 has plenty of life in it, and Jaguar will help extend it. By staying with a G3 Apple can cut the price:)
 
Originally posted by SlowX
, but...

Remember when a G3 Pismo was the bomb?
Ah, memories....
:)
Click to expand...

Gotta tell ya, my Pismos still pretty hot. I run Final Cut 3 on it and use t as my mobile studio machine. Between it and my Elura, I'm free to roam. Its not usefull for full res DV, but the offline RT option is totaly viable, even with a dinky ten gigs of free drive space, thats almost five hours in RT land. I can save it down and do one final render at the end, which does take forever, or I can switch over to my desktop and recapture at my leisure.

The point of all this is that Apple has done a funy and wonderfull thing with this progeram, and I hope this will continue to happen.

iN fcp3, i HAVE A MORE VIABLE AND USEFULL PRODUCT ON AN OLDER MACHINE. Apple's new software takes less punch to be effective.

I love it.:D
 
This proves it...

Well, I think this settles it once and for all, we are NOT going to see a G5 at MWNY. There is no way that apple is going to be shipping G3's, G4's and G5's at the same time, and no way they are going to keep selling a two generation old chip...

Oh well, I didn't think we would see it this soon anyway.

--nw
 
Originally posted by rice_web
When the iBook was revised just shortly ago, I truely expected a 133Mhz system bus. Why they chose a 100MHz system bus is beyond me, considering that the FP iMac may be bumped to 133 at MWNY.

The jump to 133MHz would make a HUGE difference in operating OS X, as the faster access to the memory (which OS X uses a lot of) quickens even menu pull-downs (not to mention Quake framerates).
Click to expand...
If you want a 133MHz bus Apple laptop, it's the PowerBook G4 you're looking for. Let's remember that the PowerBook and the iBook are in different product categories, marketed to different users. Apple doesn't just arbitrarily pick this or that bus speed and go with it -- they intentionally have kept it down at 100MHz so as not to steal sales away from the PowerBook G4, which has a larger profit margin for the company. I am often surprised that people don't realize that there is forethought that goes into the specs and price of this machine vs. that in a company's lineup.

I have a DP G4 800 w/ GeForce 3 on my desktop and recently purchased a iBook 700. This iBook is plenty fast for most tasks. I've not yet felt that it has been at all sluggish, and I've only got 256MB of RAM in it at the moment. It even plays a decent game of Q3 at 1024x768.

The latest iBooks _are_ fast enough to run OS X _very_well_.



blakespot
 
Originally posted by Macmaniac
I bet Apple will have 800mhz and 900mhz models at MWNY, or sometime after. Maybe with a faster bus an better graphics card. The G3 won't be going anywhere until after the 1ghz G3 comes out, maybe at MWSF. The G3 has plenty of life in it, and Jaguar will help extend it. By staying with a G3 Apple can cut the price:)
Click to expand...

What is the micron size on the new G3 Sahara chips?
 
Speed improvements and G chips

I use 3 Macs w/ Os X, and I get along fine for the most part, but I would like to get a computer eventually which really bumps up the speed of things. My fastest Mac is a 500 MHz iBook, which runs okay, but it would be nice if apps started faster and other graphical elements such as windows dropping down were faster. On an 800 MHz new iMac I tried out, it was blazingly fast in comparison to my other computers. Perhaps if I land a nice job at the beginning of next year, I might get a new machine. If I do some extensive over-seas traveling, then I might look into trading in my current ibook (and perhaps my G4 tower) for a faster iBook...or maybe a lower-end Power Book. But, I'd probably want at least 600-800 MHz with 20 GB Hard drive. The 10 GB HD in my iBook just doesn't do it, and I realized that. Already I've come close to filling up the hard drive with downloads, movie clips, songs, and some programs I've written.

It seems to be pointing that the G5 won't make an appearance this year, or if it does, it won't be at MacWorld. Hopefully this summer won't be a downer. If Apple does have some tricks up its sleeves, then this might keep things interesting.
 
Remember this?

"No new hardware", that's what they say at MW Tokyo but we see new stuffs like PB G4 DVI and new iBook, Xserve, etc.

Nice spin... ^^
 
Re: Remember this?

Originally posted by oeyvind
"No new hardware", that's what they say at MW Tokyo but we see new stuffs like PB G4 DVI and new iBook, Xserve, etc.

Nice spin... ^^
Click to expand...

They said no new hardware (Macs) to be introduced AT MacWorld Tokyo. And they only introduced a new iPod.

The "no new hardware" comment wasn't meant to cover the rest of the year... just until MacWorld Tokyo.

"We're not planning to introduce any new CPUs at Macworld Tokyo, as a matter of fact, we're set for some months now," said Joswiak. "Having just updated all four product quadrants, it's really nonsensical to think we're about to update the quadrants again at Macworld Tokyo."
 
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