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Widescreen iBook?
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solvs said:
I scale the font sizes for readability. This is still a "real estate win" over a lower resolution display for two reasons.
1. Photo viewing/editing on the higher resolution display is much better (your 5MPixel photo can be shown as a 1MPixel window, not as a 1/2 MPixel window)
2. Toolbars, buttons, window borders etc are relatively smaller, and therefore there's more room for text and pictures.
AidenShaw said:
More pixels is not automatically better. There are two ways to achieve more pixels, increase the screen size or decrease the pixel size. If you increase the screen that is good, at some point the size gets too big to carry around. The other way is reduce pixel size. So of course you can cram more into the same space so either the things you are looking are getting smaller, which is fine for those with great and perfect eye site. or you just wasting pixels to scale back up.
At some point making a pixel size smaller does not made a noticeable different to the human eye. At some point you can not longer distinguish one pixel to the next. they tend to blur together. Apple has always known this and focus on where to put money, more pixels which has diminishing return or somewhere else.
They should at least improve the resolution on the 14 inch model. Actually they should improve the resolution on pretty much every model.
Back to the subject of the article, there is no way Apple is placing any orders with any manufactures 6 months ahead of time let along a year ahead of time for a new product. Designs are not finalized until the 3 to 4 months prior to public announcement. Apple would never tell a CM more than 3 or 4 months ahead of time of a new product and what the specs where of that product. I know Apple still uses US based PCB houses and the such for all prototypes and these companies have no asian counter part.
I would say all we are seeing here is two asia companies flexing their muscles saying they have more business than the other and just through Apples name out since it would get them visibility. Oh BTW it will not get them in trouble with Apple if what they say does not relate to a real product. Notice, Apple only gets upset when real information gets out not speculation and made up information.
I would say all we are seeing here is two asia companies flexing their muscles saying they have more business than the other and just through Apples name out since it would get them visibility. Oh BTW it will not get them in trouble with Apple if what they say does not relate to a real product. Notice, Apple only gets upset when real information gets out not speculation and made up information.
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Yes, but you can only adjust your desktop/folder icons and the size/text of names in the finder. What about menus, save, close, and title bars? OS X currently has no way to adjust those aspects. Apple would need to incorporate a preference pane to control those features, similar to the advanced portion of display properties in Windows.
On the larger LCDs, it's not as big of a problem. However, on a 12" iBook/Powerbook screen it will be.
Nahh
"swissmann
They should at least improve the resolution on the 14 inch model. Actually they should improve the resolution on pretty much every model."
I just got my dad a 14 in ibook and i love the look of the screen, and with his eye sight now going a little down hill, it works great for him. His 14" works out pretty perfect for him while my 15" looks pretty snazzy and i cant picture it any other way.
"swissmann
They should at least improve the resolution on the 14 inch model. Actually they should improve the resolution on pretty much every model."
I just got my dad a 14 in ibook and i love the look of the screen, and with his eye sight now going a little down hill, it works great for him. His 14" works out pretty perfect for him while my 15" looks pretty snazzy and i cant picture it any other way.
easy to prove your point isn't always true
Why are 96 dpi displays deemed acceptable, yet a $99 inkjet printer has 1440 dpi ???? (e.g. Epson R200)
Of course there's a point of diminishing returns, but current LCDs (except perhaps for this one) are laughably far away from that point.
Maestro64 said:
- Look at 5 MPixel photograph full screen on two different 14" displays - one 1024x768 and the other 1400x1050. There's a phenomenal difference in clarity.
- Look at a full screen PDF file (select "fit to page") with or without font smoothing - again a huge difference in the crispness of the letters.
Why are 96 dpi displays deemed acceptable, yet a $99 inkjet printer has 1440 dpi ???? (e.g. Epson R200)
Of course there's a point of diminishing returns, but current LCDs (except perhaps for this one) are laughably far away from that point.
i honestly cant stand widescreen books......my dad just got a 15in widescreen dell and even tho the res may be higher...its surely way harder to look at then my 14 ibook...maybe its just MY eyes but i can definetly notice it for me...after he got it he said the best words ever..."I should have gotten the same book as you" so now he says when G5 book comes, he will switch... 
AidenShaw said:
For one most current display rendering systems do not scale up what they render as the screen DPI increases so was you see on the screen gets smaller and smaller. Printers however don't do that (at least not normally) instead they build the same size image for 150 DPI output as they do for 1440 DPI output with the later using more pixels to add visual clarity to what they render.
So that goes against simply packing more and more pixels into the same screen dimensions.
Two it isn't cheap yet to product things like 300 DPI displays.
Of course Mac OS X from the beginning, thanks to Quartz, was designed to not have this issue in it core windowing / rendering system. Windows is gaining a similar shift in windowing / rendering in the future (on of the features outlined for Longhorn) and yes Windows does have some aspects shoehorned in today but they aren't well supported and friendly across applications, etc.
Apple hasn't exposed / leveraged the inherent ability that Quartz has to do this for displays (a few technical reasons exist for this as well as getting developers to do the right thing so they don't prevent it from working).
I have seen rumors for Tiger in this space (I will not confirm nor deny them since I am under NDA).
BornAgainMac said:
IMO the problem with Apple's laptop displays is not their quality. It is their insufficient backlight. They had to make a trade off between a very bright crisp looking display(quality backlight) and the thinness of their laptops.
Personally I would much rather trade back 1/8 inch in display thickness for a better backlight.
screen
i would be much more interested in an improved screen quality than size or aspect
i have seen a new type of screen on many laptops in stores, it seems to me that they are usually sony or toshiba, which has come flashy name. it looks so much better than all the other screens around that its like night and day. they are glassy and very bright, and look more clear and less grainy. if apple wants to keep a competitive edge in the market despite their high prices, i think they really should invest in some of these displays
i would be much more interested in an improved screen quality than size or aspect
i have seen a new type of screen on many laptops in stores, it seems to me that they are usually sony or toshiba, which has come flashy name. it looks so much better than all the other screens around that its like night and day. they are glassy and very bright, and look more clear and less grainy. if apple wants to keep a competitive edge in the market despite their high prices, i think they really should invest in some of these displays
Open a Finder window, make sure you view as Icons (cmd-1), then choose View -> Show View Options (cmd-J), and you can change icons and font size, for that window OR globally for all windows...joshuawaire said:
For everything else, here's an idea: Don't increase the resolution...
solvs said:
Huh!? The pixels are about the same size on both models. They don't get smaller on the 17". Those two models have different (native) resolutions.
Sound awsome, but Apple is getting closer and closer to making the iBook like the PowerBook, not really a smart move for business.
JzzTrump22 said:
This could be the time for my "iBook mini" idea.
After all, they DID take my "headless, keyboard-less and mouse-less" idea and made the Mac mini...
Let's continue with the smaller-sized, optical-less iBook mini.
G4/1.25 GHz, 512MB on-board (1 free memory slot, or even no upgrade at all), 40GB 2.5" 4200RPM HD, ~7" widescreen LCD (1024x600 ?), 802.11g built-in, optionnal BlueTooth. Perhaps even touch screen (but still has a small keyboard). Use IBM's TrackPoint and ditch the touchpad (I prefer TrackPoint, and it requires less room than a TouchPad, could be the only way to make an iBook mini).
Edit: oups, "1024x800" isn't widescreen at all, I meant "1024x600". Or 1280x800 like someone said below.
I like this rumor. I think two new iBooks, a 14" and a 12", both at 1280 x 768 would be awesome. You'd have a choice, like now, of small or big pixels. Both would be wide screens and the 12" could become very compact, similar to Dell's new X1.
To those who are worried; so what if iBooks are starting to catch up with PowerBooks? Two iBook sales is likely more profitable than one PowerBook sale. Sell what is popular and don't hold them back!
To those who are worried; so what if iBooks are starting to catch up with PowerBooks? Two iBook sales is likely more profitable than one PowerBook sale. Sell what is popular and don't hold them back!
Yvan256 said:
Would it have a keyboard? 7" screen wouldn't make much sense with a keyboard that you could type on.