New Portables?

[arn]

Spymac reports that new portables may be in the works before MacWorld NY:

According to Apple insiders, an updated Power Book and iBook line may make an appearance before the middle of June.

 

[BeerDrinker29]

That's great

I also believe the new portables will be out before NY.. there is no way Apple will neglect the ed market.

... but the magic question is: When will the iBooks get G4s? I have a hunch it wont be till 2003

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I remember this rumor being discussed right after MWTokyo. Especially the Apple employee promotion part. I'm betting new versions of one of the portables will be seen in WWDC, with availability sometime soon after. That's only a month away!

 

[Matthé]

FINALLY!!

I've been waiting for a 1Ghz Powerbook
give it to me!

 

[mcrain]

I'm with you Matthe. I'm going to jump off the rat infested PC ship once a new Tibook (or whatever the new powerbook will be called) comes out.

 

[clonenode]

There is nothing special about Apple Employees getting $200-300 off a computer. The discounts are typically 25%.

 

[Macmaniac]

Portables

This is some good news. Lets hope they go 1ghz on TiBook!
I want to work for apple some day.

 

[swessels]

I'd like to see Apple bump the Ti up a couple of notches by including any or all of these:
- higher resolution display. I need more on-screen real estate. The screen doesn't have to get bigger, just denser.
- superdrive
- 1.0 GHz or better
- please, please, please FIX the Airport wireless range for the Ti. I have a first generation 500 MHz Ti with Airport and it gets about 60% the range that my wife's PowerBook Pizmo does on our home network.

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

Originally posted by clonenode
There is nothing special about Apple Employees getting $200-300 off a computer. The discounts are typically 25%.

not true.

typical discounts are 30-40%

also apple will not typically sell to employees for certain items. currently no imacs. apple has dumped ibooks and powerbooks on the employees at amazing discounts. this happened before mwt. but these discounts are for apple employees. not just some apple store employee.

 

[rjsweb]

Airport Reception

swessels,

I'm not 100% sure, because I don't have any personal experience, but I am very sure that Apple has fixed this in the new generation (Jan. combo drive release) of the G4 PowerBook.

My boss has one that is about 3 months old, and the AirPort "windows" are made of a new, totally different material than the first-generation G4.

Can anyone with one of these newer PowerBooks confirm this? We don't have wireless access in our building, so we can't test it out to confirm.

rjsweb

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Re: Airport Reception

Originally posted by rjsweb
swessels,

I'm not 100% sure, because I don't have any personal experience, but I am very sure that Apple has fixed this in the new generation (Jan. combo drive release) of the G4 PowerBook.

I have a November built TiPB, and I've not had any problem with the range at home or at the office.

 

[swessels]

I like hearing that maybe the wireless range problem has been solved. I wonder if there's an upgrade?

I think you have to take care when saying you are not seeing a problem with AirPort range unless you have a benchmark for comparison. If we didn't have the PowerBook Pismo here at home to compare I wouldn't have noticed how much worse the reception is on my Ti.

It could be a problem that's been resolved by Apple. This Ti is one of the first ones manufactured last year (and it's still really a cool box to develop on).

- Steve

 

[mischief]

EESH!

Lets just clear this up:

Apple employees get:

A 15% discount except once a year they get a 25% discount.

All models are available once the channel is full.That is: the Employees are the last in line.

Prices get MUCH BETTER only once a model is in it's last month of production. Once a product is out of production (even by a few days) they get DIRT CHEAP for Apple and Apple retailer employees.

 

[segastyle]

wireless range

i don't think it has been fixed. my brother purchased a 550 combo powerbook within the last month from an apple store and the wireless signal seems to be about half that of my ibook.

 

[johnpaul191]

um...... spymac?

sorry, but you have to remember these are the fine people that brought you the iWalk.

i think spymac has gotten a little better, but still. anyone can guess Apple will be tweaking pretty much everything *soon*. they seem to be working on a 5 month cycle these days. the question is will they upgrade portables in July, or the desktop machine. really there is time for a speedbump or minor revision before MWNYC. remember the jump to 1,000mghz was a very low key upgrade. they just udated the website and let people realize it. more recent rumors say the new desktops won't be till august (odd in itself.... maybe shown at NYC, but not shipping for a few weeks like the G4 imac?). i don't see them releasing a G4 ibook till desktop goes to G5, but then again who knows. the rumored G4 7500 series chip will show up this year and that would free up production of the other G4 chips for the other machines. the G4 does a decent job a running in a laptop (energy draw and heat).

 

[clonenode]

Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon


not true.

typical discounts are 30-40%

also apple will not typically sell to employees for certain items. currently no imacs. apple has dumped ibooks and powerbooks on the employees at amazing discounts. this happened before mwt. but these discounts are for apple employees. not just some apple store employee.

Where are you getting your information? I have FIRST-HAND knowledge about Apple Employee discounts. Even Q Promos (Quarterly Promos) don't come close to 40%. The best has been the 50% off they got on the iPod (and that was to just purchase one and only one).

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Re: wireless range

Originally posted by segastyle
i don't think it has been fixed. my brother purchased a 550 combo powerbook within the last month from an apple store and the wireless signal seems to be about half that of my ibook.

Since I don't have a iBook for comparison, I can't verify my results. It was just based on other peoples laptop performance. Maybe it has to do with the airport card inside a metal (Titanium) shell. Although if the antenna is connected in anyway to the case, it ends up becoming an antenna.

Any have an specs on this?

 

[segastyle]

my thoughts were along those lines. possibly the titanium shell. possibly the placement of the card? it's on the bottom of the tibook but on top under the keyboard on an ibook.

it's actually a little frustrating for thir household because of the distance between everyone's computers. someone htough of actually trying th link two airports to one another wireless to spread the ocnnection, but i don't know if that can even be done.

 

[Curiousstrngmint]

I certainly hope they upgrade

Well, I certainly hope they upgrade the titanium before July, because I'm leaving for college in September and I don't want my powerbook to get here August 31.

 

[Jookbox]

Re: Re: wireless range

Originally posted by dukestreet


Since I don't have a iBook for comparison, I can't verify my results. It was just based on other peoples laptop performance. Maybe it has to do with the airport card inside a metal (Titanium) shell. Although if the antenna is connected in anyway to the case, it ends up becoming an antenna.

Any have an specs on this?

it has everything to do with the titanium shell. this material unfortunately blocks signals, although you would think it would help.

 

[mischief]

Actually..................

The Titanium shell has less to do with it than you would think.

The card itself is not the antenna. The antenna is in the framing of the monitor. Those little indentations along the sides are to better expose the antennas. What's more pertinent is the environment and whether or not it's just several machines or several machines with a base station.

The in-machine cards have inherently less range than a base station. The Portables have less power to spare to boost their signal.

In answer to earlier questions: Yes. 802.11b can be "daisy chained" as each tranciever acts as a (limited) switch/router.

To really take advantage of Airport you must take environment into consideration. Anything (like re-enforced concrete) that block or deadens RF will lessen the range. Add to this standard RF interference from local AM radio stations.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Re: Actually..................

Originally posted by mischief
The card itself is not the antenna. The antenna is in the framing of the monitor. Those little indentations along the sides are to better expose the antennas.

I looked for indentations on the monitor, didn't find any. Where exactly are you talking about?

 

[mischief]

Whoops.......my bad!

I was thinking iBook.

The TiBook's dents are at the near edges of the main body along the sides.

You can see them quite clearly in Apple's QTVR.

 

[krossfyter]

its spymac. come on.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by krossfyter
its spymac. come on.

But even though all things SpyMac should be considered questionable, its still sometimes worthy of speculation.

The indents on the TiPB aren't dents at all, but clear plastic windows. To allow the rf signal to get out. That's where the problem might be. The limited space for the signal to communicate in the TiPB compared to the unobstructed antenna in the iBook.