Titanium Power Books

Umm... They already did.





Do you mean use titanium for the next revision?

 

No, it's the one before the aluminium 'Books. I've got no idea why they changed over to aluminium though because I was watching Ives (Apple design guru) introduce the titanium PowerBooks on an official Apple film clip the other day and he went into some reasonably elaborate details as to why titanium was the best metal for laptops and how it's much more appropriate than aluminium. It's weird. Maybe it's just a cost thing...

 

Problem with the Titanium PowerBook G4 is it tops out at 1GHz and uses slow PC133 Memory. Plus, the aging ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000/7500 in the Titanium PowerBook G4 graphics card is not supported by CoreImage.

 

Yeah, of course the specs are going to be worse because they're much older machines. But just out of interest, why did Apple switch to aluminium from titanium?

 

Look at apple-history.com for more info on the previous generations of powerbooks. The titanium design was very pretty, although it had its own limitations... like the hinges break, I understand, on a lot of those powerbooks. I guess they could use Ti in a more similar design to the current Al PBs... Magnesium seems to be a good option too....

 

Yeah thanks, but their site's gone awfully slow for me today.

Do you know if they've got any info regarding the reason for the switch to aluminium? It just caught my attention the other day watching this Ives video since Apple seemed to herald the advantages of titanium over aluminium so specifically.

 

Haha, that link was directed at the OP, not you, Jew.

But I don't think Apple makes a general policy of explaining why they make switches... too much discussion would impair the reality distortion field!

Actually, if anyone has an answer to that, I'm curious too.... There must be a lot of old speculation floating around the web from when the Albooks bowed.

 

Haha, my bad.

Actually, I've spent the last few minutes or so looking for any speculation but no luck. I actually thought the Mac-History page would have the answers but I've been having the worst luck with it today. It just doesn't seem to want to work.

It all brings back some very fresh memories of:

Followed closely by:

 

Titanium PBs had paint chipping issues. With the anodized aluminium, you got a pretty product that was also lightweight. It was also something you didn't need to paint.

 

I kind of wish apple would go back to the pismo days of black plastic. My thinkpad is 10 times stronger and more durable than my powerbook is. Plastic is just better for computers. Better wifi range, less dings and scratches etc....

 

the rumor i believed was that the titanium was worse for wifi range than aluminium (and of course Al is cheaper than Ti).

Hard to confirm however, since all Ti pbs I have used have .b and the Al have .g wifi cards.

thumb

 

titanium is a softer metal and while it will scratch less, it will break easier and sort of bend easier than aluminum, that is why apple stopped using titanium, aluminum is a stronger and more heat conducting metal than titanium and was better for the higher speed and heat g4 chips which came out at speeds above 1ghz.

 

Titanium is a metal almost as strong as steel, yet light as aluminium, it is abundant, and expensive as hell... The pb's never had a great deal of it in them, more of just a cool name.

 

I think titanium sounds better then aluminum. Reminds me of Aluminum foil.... Titanium sounds like NASA-ish...What about carbon fiber or even better diamonds. All the rappers will get it because it's "bling bling"

 

being a welder. i know that some aluminums and alloys of aluminum are very nice to work with. the problem with titanium, is it's elastic memory. it likes to stay in the shape it was before it was bent "flat". so that is why alot of the sharp bends on the old ti book where replaced with plastic. aluminum on the other hand has no elastic memory so it can be pressed into and shape and stay pressed. much less annoying for manufacturing. the problem isnt using aluminum, it's the type of aluminum being used. there are high strength, marine grade, aneild so on and so on. and as far as my knowledge goes for magnesium, it sucks.