iBooks on Tuesday...

[mcrain]

Re: ok, Don't Belittle the "consumer"

Originally posted by GeorgeC97
I'm a med student.

What year? My wife graduates on Sunday and becomes Dr. instead of just Mrs. Where are you going to school? Any questions for someone who's been there, done that, I'd be happy to pass along.

Back onto topic, the best thing apple could do is release an ibook with a g5 in it. WHAT you say, a G5, they couldn't put that in a consumer computer first.

I'd say, imagine how you'd all wet your pants if an ibook with a g5 came out and steve said to just wait till you see what he's unveiling at MWNY for the pros.

 

[ftaok]

re-iteration

1. An updated iBook will have a 100mhz bus across the board. If we are to have G4s, then we'll get 500, 550, 600, 650, etc. There will be no 533 or 667s, as these would require a 133 bus.

2. I agree with Barkmonster that G4s don't pose much of a cost issue. They've been putting these suckers into so many Macs, that the economies of scale have taken over.

3. Everyone who's clamoring over the Sahara G3 is misguided. Does anyone know if these G3s are pin compatible with the current 750cx? Does anyone know how much these cost?

4. The cost of redesigning the motherboard is neglible. If they bring out a G4 iBook on Tuesday, that means that they've been working on it since at least last December (or so).

4a. If they were to use a Sahara G3 to it's fullest potential (200mhz bus), wouldn't that require a redesigned mobo as well? Think about that.

5. A 650 G4 in an iBook is not faster than a 667 G4 in the TiBook. The bus and video card have a lot to do with it.

6. I don't think that putting in a 16MB Radeon into the iBook is a bad idea. It separates the i and the Ti. Plus it should be able to run QE.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[Tokyo]

Let's all get a grip here: the G3 is not crippled under Jaguar, despite the impression caused by the Radeon/32MB VRAM specs given at the WWDC. Just because that one out of ten main upgrade points isn't optimized for current iBooks doesn't mean the iBook will be glacial. Pay attention to the many reports that clearly state that Jaguar runs much better on G3s than 10.1.x.

I fully agree with the above notes that the G4 would be too much--high costs and new architecture. And remember, not everything depends on AltiVec. The G3 is not the Pentium II, it is more like the Pentium III, still with some life left. I mean, fer cryin' out loud, the P2?? Like I said, get a grip.

The G3 is not a cripple. Pump up the performance by 100MHz, get the system bus up to 100MHz, give it a Radeon graphics chip with enough VRAM to take at least some advantage of QE, and you have a pretty darned respectable machine for a low price. It's not the TiBook, but then that's why you pay so much less for it. For an average consumer not running Photoshop and not obsessed with ultra speed, it runs great. We have an iBook 500 at my office and it does everything we need, including digital video.


Tokyo

 

[arn]

Re: Re: ok, Don't Belittle the "consumer"

Originally posted by mcrain


What year? My wife graduates on Sunday and becomes Dr. instead of just Mrs. Where are you going to school? Any questions for someone who's been there, done that, I'd be happy to pass along.

not to take this off topic... but where's your wife doing residency?

arn

 

[drastik]

Re: Re: What's the point?

Originally posted by Backtothemac


I couldn't disagree more. My iBook 600 with 384 ram runs very well. In fact I am very happy with its performance, and from what I hear from people that are developers, and have x.2 say that it is better even without QE being optimized

B2TM is dead on again, my G3/400 runs X woderfully wiht half a gig. Its no quick silver but it works great on the road and almost as well when its plugged into my old seventeen inch studio monitor. I wouldn't kill the G3 yet. I think the 12" screen is a great option too.

If you take the idea the a 12" is cheaper than a 14", you can just speand the extra cash on on an outside display.

 

[ftaok]

Originally posted by Tokyo
Let's all get a grip here: the G3 is not crippled under Jaguar, despite the impression caused by the Radeon/32MB VRAM specs given at the WWDC. Just because that one out of ten main upgrade points isn't optimized for current iBooks doesn't mean the iBook will be glacial. Pay attention to the many reports that clearly state that Jaguar runs much better on G3s than 10.1.x.

Agreed!

I fully agree with the above notes that the G4 would be too much--high costs and new architecture. And remember, not everything depends on AltiVec. The G3 is not the Pentium II, it is more like the Pentium III, still with some life left. I mean, fer cryin' out loud, the P2?? Like I said, get a grip.

OK, not everything depends on Altivec, but the system is optimized for it. We need Altivec on the iBook. And I don't agree that the G4 would cost significantly more than a G3. Apple has been buying so many G4s, that they probably get a great price. Now, if they were to go G3, then they'd be buying a whole lot less of them, so maybe they don't get a discount.

The G3 is not a cripple. Pump up the performance by 100MHz, get the system bus up to 100MHz, give it a Radeon graphics chip with enough VRAM to take at least some advantage of QE, and you have a pretty darned respectable machine for a low price. It's not the TiBook, but then that's why you pay so much less for it. For an average consumer not running Photoshop and not obsessed with ultra speed, it runs great. We have an iBook 500 at my office and it does everything we need, including digital video.

The system bus is already at 100mhz. I agree that the video card will get bumped. Oh yeah, even consumers are obsessed with speed.

 

[Tommy!]

I definetly agree with the fact that Apple needs to have G4+ processors across the board to see good performance with osx and encourage users to switch permanently. I also agree with ftaok's predictions. I think that iBook really needs a G4 and probably will have one, if not this time most def. next time. And I can't say this enough, but similar processor speeds in the consumer and pro models is no big deal! Look at the iMac and Powermac right now. They are pretty close. And those who do not know the difference between the processors in pro and consumer machines should have the consumer machines anyway. They would spend less and be happy to know that their machines run at a similar clock speed to the more expensive machines.

by the way... is macworld going to be any fun at all? They've released everything! Does anyone think an imac speed bump will happed at mwny? I think that imacs will be pushed to 900-1000 MHz for the top end. I dont even have a powermac guess.

 

[Moxiemike]

Remember...

One thing to keep in mind here is that when the iBook was released it was released at 500 Mhz in May of 2001. The TiBook at that point was a g4 at 500 at the high end, 400 at the low end. And no one really wet their pants about perceived speed differences. If you enter the iBook at 550 g4 as has been said and take it up to maybe a 600 or 650 g4, no one is gonna mind. The pros know why they buy a Ti.....

I think the idea of 16mb of VRAM isn't a bad idea. What everyone seems to forget is that QE RECOMMENDS 32mb of Vram. It WILL work on an AGP card that has 16..... so that's what I think we'll see.

I do think they need to bump the RAM up to 256 in maybe the second model only. If the low end appeals primarily to education, then I think they'll be ok with 128, as much of edu is still stuck in os9 land.

Now, as for iBook SE, I think we're onto something. Here's what i think the break could be:

550 G4/128/20/CD-RW/12" - $1099
600 G4/256/30/Combo/12" - $1399
650 G4/256/30/Combo/12" - $1599
650 G4/256/40/Combo/14" - $1799 (SE?)

All 100mhz bus, 16mb video card (supported by QE)

The extra price you pay (700 bucks) for the TiBook is easily justified by the 667 G4, 133 bus, 1mb backside cache (maybe the iBook has 256 like the iMac) and the 32 mb video card. and the gigabit ethernet.

As far as motherboard issues go, didn't apple just mod a G3 motherboard for the inital G4 350s? Could they not do that again? You'd get altivec performance as well as QE...and G4!

Am I on target or no?

 

[badika]

G4s and 32MB Vid Mem are minimums for esales

It's entertaining, although perplexing, to see how many of you don't want Apple to move forward in their hardware. G4 is a forward migration. OSX and iApps are optimized for it. OSX will continue to be optimized for higher end hardware, not (legacy) G3 hardware. Consumers use iApps, pros can and do updgrade from iApps. There are major differences between the TiBook and iBook, and even a novice pro can see the tool he needs. The Ti's gear, and especially its L3 cache, will always keep their G4s ahead of similar Ghz iBook G4s.

More important than all this hot air, is the fact that Apple's market position in total education sales has recently fallen dramatically from 37% in '99 to just 25% this year(tied with Dell, but not tied against the Wintel faction) The eMac was designed to fight this issue from a hardware front. 700MhzG4 32MB vid ram, 17inch screen and under $1,000. If Apple's salesforce has had any say in this rumored update, the specs of the new iBook will come close to the eMac.

So, all you "keep the G3's" and "let's not make another wow product to woo our fleeing customers" should offer our e-sales force some advice on how to hawk your dream iBook. Because, if you're right, they're going to need it.

 

[Backtothemac]

OMG!!!!

Look I don't know what it will take for some of you to understand, but we would ALL love to have a G4 iBook. The fact is that it is was too expensive of a processor to put in the iBook. The iBook is a consumer laptop, and will be. The G5, now that will change the G4 status in the iBook.

Period!

 

[billiam0878]

eBook

So we've got the PowerMac/PowerBook, the iMac/iBook and the lonely little eMac-- how about an eBook? Here are what I think could be possible specs for an updated iBook and an eBook:

eBook:

$1099: 12.1-inch Screen, 600 MHz G3, 20 GB, 128MB RAM, CD-ROM
$1299" 12.1-inch Screen, 600 MHz G3, 20 GB, 256MB RAM, COMBO

iBook:

$1299: 14.1-inch Screen, 600 MHz G3, 20 GB, 128 MB RAM, CD-ROM
$1499: 14.1-inch Screen, 600 MHz G3, 20 GB, 256 MB RAM, COMBO
$1799: 14.1-inch Screen, 700 MHz G3, 30 GB, 256 MB RAM, COMBO

Just an idea, your thoughts?

Thanks
Bill

 

[Falleron]

Here is my prediction. NO G4's!!

G3 600 + 700Mhz (possibly even 800Mhz)
256Mb RAM (needed for OSX)
Same screen sizes (Higher resolution on 14" model)
16Mb Graphics
20 / 30Gb HD
100Mhz Bus

This is what we will get, a small speed bump. Then, in august time (when OSX.2 is out there will be a major bump to a G4). Then, TiBook will be up Ghz speeds.

 

[ftaok]

Says who????

Originally posted by Backtothemac
OMG!!!!

Look I don't know what it will take for some of you to understand, but we would ALL love to have a G4 iBook. The fact is that it is was too expensive of a processor to put in the iBook. The iBook is a consumer laptop, and will be. The G5, now that will change the G4 status in the iBook.

Period!

Who says that the G4 is too expensive for the iBook? Here's a fact, if Apple were to use an 800+ mhz G3, they'd be using the brand new 750fx, not the tried and true 750cx. As of today, no one has used the 750fx, for whatever reason.

Can anyone here tell me that Apple can get 750fx G3s significantly cheaper than they can get the G4s (the ones in the iMac and older TiBooks)? Here's something to chew on. If Apple goes 750fx on iBooks, then they'd be buying x number of 750fx (x=number of iBooks shipped). If Apple goes G4, then they'd be buying x+y+z number of G4 (y=number of iMacs shipped, z=number of eMacs shipped).

Hey, I'm no business major, but even I can see that there's a huge potential savings there just from buying in bulk. NEW RUMOR - Apple is shopping at Costco.

 

[Backtothemac]

Re: Says who????

Originally posted by ftaok
Who says that the G4 is too expensive for the iBook? Here's a fact, if Apple were to use an 800+ mhz G3, they'd be using the brand new 750fx, not the tried and true 750cx. As of today, no one has used the 750fx, for whatever reason.

Can anyone here tell me that Apple can get 750fx G3s significantly cheaper than they can get the G4s (the ones in the iMac and older TiBooks)? Here's something to chew on. If Apple goes 750fx on iBooks, then they'd be buying x number of 750fx (x=number of iBooks shipped). If Apple goes G4, then they'd be buying x+y+z number of G4 (y=number of iMacs shipped, z=number of eMacs shipped).

Hey, I'm no business major, but even I can see that there's a huge potential savings there just from buying in bulk. NEW RUMOR - Apple is shopping at Costco.

WTF? Ok, never mind the logic here, but yes a G4 is much, much more expensive than a G3. Actually I am hearing that the G4 may appear in the SE, other than that it will be G3 accross the board, because that is all the iBook NEEDS is the G3.

 

[King Cobra]

Now I do not want to get into a flame war, flame battle, or box social (LOL) but I thought that since G3 speeds at or above 1000MHz were hard to achieve, the prices of these G3s are high. I am saying this, because I know I saw some guys arguing about it somewhere on the forums, but I cannot remember where.

So, eventually, in some years time, when the overall processor speed averages 1000 to 1200MHz, the prices of fast G3s may not descend. So the iBook will have to gain a G4 processor, even if it needs to be at the same speed as the G3s it used to have.
__________________

Any time is a great time for iPod.

 

[ftaok]

Re: Re: Says who????

Originally posted by Backtothemac
WTF? Ok, never mind the logic here, but yes a G4 is much, much more expensive than a G3. Actually I am hearing that the G4 may appear in the SE, other than that it will be G3 accross the board, because that is all the iBook NEEDS is the G3.

OK, I know that the 750cx is cheap. But most of the G3 people are clamoring for the 750fx (the one that goes to 1Ghz). How much do these cost? Keep in mind that Apple would only be buying these for the iBooks and nothing else.

The G4s that I'm thinking that Apple would be using for the iBook would be the ones that they use in the LCD iMac and eMac. Looking at that, Apple would be purchasing about 3x as many "lo-end" G4s as they would the "hi-end" G3. I'm not saying that the G4 would be cheaper than the G3. I'm just asking whether the G3 would be significantly cheaper than the G4.