Why did apple give the new ibooks so little press?

[RLB]

I can't understand why apple didn't update their splash page to feature the new ibooks. The new software has been up there for over 2 weeks. In addition, there was relatively little press. Why the subtlety?

 

[FattyMembrane]

there's nothing new about the ibooks, the just received a small speed increase.

 

[dstorey]

I can only guess that cause of the powerBook 12" that the iBook was very limited in how much uit could be updated and this it had pretty lame upgrade and thus would be kinda slightly embarrasing to have a 900Mhz lG3 on the main splash....and it doesn''t even have aiport extreme, whats that about? Surely it would be cheaper to change the motherboard and phase out the production of airport base stations and cards....unless 970 is coming out very soon and thus the wouldnt have a shelf life long enough on a redesigned iBook to justify the cost. I would think that if everything doesn't go 970 and say the ibook and eMac stay pre 970 then the iBook would get the powerBook 12" mother board.

 

[rainman::|:|]

why in the name of god would a consumer need AE (in apple's view of consumers/pros anyway)... it's entirely pointless, if you want more bandwidth than you'll use, go buy a powerbook or a 3rd party 802.11g adaptor...

sorry for the rant

there was no (need for) signifigant updates to the ibook except for speed, hyping that would make apple seem a tad ...excitable...

pnw

 

[barkmonster]

Maybe a fuss would have drawn too much attention to the fact they're OS 9 bootable!

I believe Airport Extreme requires OS X so limiting it systems that only boot OS X is another way for Apple to show yet more benefits of OS X over OS 9 for the average user.

 

[Eniregnat]

Dell and the like make similar changes and don't hype them.
In the Apple world it's always big, but I agree, to have too much press would be overkill. Also, the 28th is marked as a release date for some bigger stuff. This is rumor, but well supported. I don't think that Apple wants to cry wolf, or to cry like the now defunct Osborn Computers once did.

 

[mmmdreg]

Wouldn't it be the fact that the 12" PBook is now 867MHz while the iBook reaches 900MHz, providing competition. The average consumer would opt for the iBook no doubt as they have no need of AE and perhaps have no idea about the G4 Altivec'ing etc. (which won't be much use in web browsing etc. anyway)

 

[beatle888]

Originally posted by paulwhannel
why in the name of god would a consumer need AE (in apple's view of consumers/pros anyway)... it's entirely pointless, if you want more bandwidth than you'll use, go buy a powerbook or a 3rd party 802.11g adaptor...

i dont agree with that. so according to your logic standard airport should satisfiy all bandwith requirements for a consumer? i dont think so. we arent even near the point to where more would be excessive.

 

[bennetsaysargh]

iBook is an average consumer laptop. Airport Extreme in it wouldn't be useful (at least right now). Also, I think it is a lack of support for Airport Extreme and Bluetooth in OS 9 that also amde these features not in this update to the line. 6 months from now, when everything goes 970, the iBook will remain a G4 as they did when everything went to the G4. Also, maybe they didn't want to make a big deal about it bacause it was just a speed bump and another Hard Drive option.

April 28th will bring many "surprises".