Widescreen iBooks?

[Sol]

Stable OS X

The stability UNIX gives Mac OS X is far from what Windows can ever achieve.

I agree that OS X is more stable than Windows. It is great to have the option of a mature 64-bit OS that can address more than the 8 GB that a PowerMac can host. I am sure that PCs can be tweaked to perform admirably but Windows can attract some big problems for your work-flow and besides, OS X is relaxing in a way.

 

[ftaok]

If they add 256 pixels to the width of a 1024x768 and call it "wide screen" - that's good.

If they subtract 154 pixels from the height of a 1024x768 and call it "wide screen" - that's bad.

I like more pixels... I'd rather have the 1280x1024 4x3 than a 1280x768 widescreen. But I'd also rather have a 1600x1024 widescreen than the 1280x1024.

More pixels....and smaller pixels. Apple tends to use huge pixels, and that makes for poor resolution imaging.

Incidentally, 1280x1024 is not a very good resolution for LCDs. To get this resolution, you'd either have to make rectangular pixels or have a 5:4 screen. 1280x960 is the correct 4:3 resolution (used by the eMacs). Take a look at some native 1280x1024 LCDs and you'll notice that the shape is "odd" looking.

Whatever Apple does with the iBook, it's likely that they'll keep the the ppi to between 100 and 110, or so. Assuming they use a 15:10 ratio, the likely resolution would be 1280x854 (like the PB15). At 110 ppi, the screen size is 14", which is one of the rumored sizes. At 13.3" (which is a common widescreen LCD size), the ppi is 115. For reference, the 12" iBook has a ppi of 106 and the 15" PB has a ppi of ~100.

Personally, I'm guessing 13.3" and a res of 1280x854. The 12" PB gets dropped and the 15" PB gets a bigger 15.4" screen with (1440x960) and the 17" PB gets 1600x1024. Just wild guesses.

 

[AidenShaw]

...and besides, OS X is relaxing in a way.

Now, honestly, here's a good reason for *you* to switch. Not trying to justify any claim of objective "superiority", but a simple subjective preference. That was the question I asked the other poster - since s/he wanted to switch in spite of reservations about the features of the Apple systems.

I agree that OS X is more stable than Windows. It is great to have the option of a mature 64-bit OS that can address more than the 8 GB that a PowerMac can host.

"Mature 64-bit"??? OSX is a bit of an infant in the 64-bit department (no GUI or Cocoa support, for example) even though the basic core design is 30 or more years old.

I'll have to tell a few of my Windows machines that they're unstable and can't support memory....

Uptime:                    39 days 22 hours 15 minutes 56 seconds
Kernel version:            Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Multiprocessor Free
Processors:                4
Processor speed:           2.2 GHz
Processor type:            AMD Opteron (tm) Processor 848

Physical memory:           24408 MB

 

[dernhelm]

Personally, I'm guessing 13.3" and a res of 1280x854. The 12" PB gets dropped and the 15" PB gets a bigger 15.4" screen with (1440x960) and the 17" PB gets 1600x1024. Just wild guesses.

You know, I just bought a 17"PB despite the fact that the screen couldn't get to 1600x1024. I hmm'd and haw'd for quite a while over that one issue. And as ut turns out, it has been less of an issue than I thought it might be (I actually like the screen OK), but that's still the one thing that I would change if I could. So I for one hope your prediction comes true.

 

[Little Endian]

I am betting the ibook and PowerBook will be getting one last PowerPC G4 upgrade before the intel switch. The ibook needs to be updated now and naturally the PowerBook will be updated at the same time or within a few weeks of the ibook. I doubt Apple will release Intel based notebooks this year because if they do they will have to do it in the next three months in time for the holiday season. I highly doubt that Apple would be able to have any intel based macs shipping in Volume to meet demand for this Holiday season.

ibook will be upgraded with a top speed G4 running at about 1.42-1.5 Ghz

Power Book will see an update with the single cored G4 7448 which may top out at 1.8-2Ghz with a 200Mhz FSB and 1MB of L2 Cache. Sure it is'nt on the G5 or Pentium M level of performance but double the L2 Cache with slightly faster FSB and Corespeed and we could see a nice 33% boost in speed over the current high end 1.67Ghz G4 7447A

Even if Apple Could ship intel based portables as early as Jan 2006 after the holidays we will still see another G4 based upgrade. Apple would be crazy to go into the 2005 Holiday season with what will be a year old + ibook and 9 month old PowerBook.

 

[bodeh6]

There are going to be NO Intel based Macs this year at all. Look for the first to come out some time around February to June of 2006.

 

[fredwards]

Update in specs, or an update to get rid of the really dated white plastic look?



The obvious question then is "why switch", if you can get so much more for the same price in a WinTel laptop?

PPC is officially dead according to the Lord God Jobs, so that can't be a reason. Malware - no big deal, just run Norton and any of the free spyware tools.

OS X is "prettier", perhaps - but only the guys at "Queer Eye..." would choose a tool because of the eye-candy in the GUI.

So why, inquiring minds want to know, why you'd want to spend more for less, just to have a Mac....

Because the mac just works. I've been using a mac alot over the past year at school and at my friends etc and it feels like its designed more in tune with what i want to do. I love how easy it is to install and uninstall things and how accessible everything is as well. I KNOW that based upon the specs u can get MUCH more performace out of an apple system over a windows system because it is an extremelyefficient OS.

All I am saying is that for the price and for what you get in terms of hardware, I just think it is hard for alot of people to justify buying the ibook as it is (UNLESS THEY ARE MAC USERS).

EDIT* and with regards to your Queer Eye statement. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure almost anyone would prefer a sleek looking GUI versus an ugly one and even then I dont see how that affects the topic in any way!!

 

[RAF++]

OMG

I am really staring to get desperate. I feel like Apple is not caring about macusers who actually have to earn money with their machines anymore. For 2 years now, all Apple is talking about is iPod, iPod, iPod, iTunes, fancy shiny lifestyle-stuff. The last iBook was outdated when it was released a year ago. And I am not only talking about processorspeed, same with the graphiccard, RAM and Harddisk was also very mediocre... Same problem with the Powerbooks... Same problem with the Powermacs... The only interesting product Apple released in the last two years was the macmini (because it's very cheap and small), which we use as fileserver now. I really hope, Apple is going to remember their professional clients soon... I know this is a little off-topic, but I think, the way Apple it treating the iBook-line is very typical for how this company has changed during the last few years ...

 

[AP_piano295]

Anyone here notice that Mac users tend to be better students? (maybe this is due to the inability to play games)

More likely it is because the macs are premium machines so the well to do and usually fairly intelligent family (USUALLY) would own one any shmow can afford a pc these days they cost like nothing... also macs are known for being the democratic machine (NO POLITICAL ARGUMENTS PLEASE JUST STATING A POSSIBILITY) and after these last elections it was noticed that the 13 states with the highest average SAT scores all voted democrat Virginia breaking that trend...

 

[peharri]

More likely it is because the macs are premium machines so the well to do and usually fairly intelligent family (USUALLY) would own one any shmow can afford a pc these days they cost like nothing... also macs are known for being the democratic machine (NO POLITICAL ARGUMENTS PLEASE JUST STATING A POSSIBILITY) and after these last elections it was noticed that the 13 states with the highest average SAT scores all voted democrat Virginia breaking that trend...

I don't think this is true. Rush Limbaugh uses one. Slashdot's "pudge", the editor of the Apple section there, is a well known Republican who has stood for various minor posts in the Republican Party. His blog is fairly clear on what he stands for:

http://slashdot.org/~pudge/journal/

I don't think there's any political allegance that traditionally goes with Macs. Al Gore may be on the Apple board, but Mac users themselves encompass a wide spectrum of political views.

 

[page3]

Far too much 'Apple MUST update the iBook' posts on here Its supposed to be an entry level machine and was only upgraded 9 months ago. Its got plenty of life in it still.

My Mother just got her first portable today - the 12" 1.2 G4 iBook. She's thrilled with it. It's perfect for her as an entry level machine. She doesn't need (or want) more speed, bigger screen etc. The software suite it comes with (Tiger, iLife 05 etc) is new, interesting, powerful and useful to her. This is what the iBook range is all about. Reliable, fun and easy to use computing that's good value too.

Enjoy your iBook, I know she is.

 

[Deepdale]

Far too much 'Apple MUST update the iBook' posts on here Its supposed to be an entry level machine and was only upgraded 9 months ago. Its got plenty of life in it still.

My Mother just got her first portable today - the 12" 1.2 G4 iBook. She's thrilled with it. It's perfect for her as an entry level machine. She doesn't need (or want) more speed, bigger screen etc. The software suite it comes with (Tiger, iLife 05 etc) is new, interesting, powerful and useful to her. This is what the iBook range is all about. Reliable, fun and easy to use computing that's good value too.

Enjoy your iBook, I know she is.

Allow me to thank you for a perfectly sensible post ... they tend to be rare sightings in the midst of endless update fever.

 

[alex_ant]

Incidentally, 1280x1024 is not a very good resolution for LCDs. To get this resolution, you'd either have to make rectangular pixels or have a 5:4 screen. 1280x960 is the correct 4:3 resolution (used by the eMacs). Take a look at some native 1280x1024 LCDs and you'll notice that the shape is "odd" looking.

Most 17" 1280x1024 LCDs ARE 5:4 and have square pixels. I don't know where you got the idea that they were 4:3 or if you just assumed they were, but the Dell 1704FPT is definitely 5:4 and manufacturers would have to be total idiots to make a screen with rectangular pixels.

 

[aldo]

Far too much 'Apple MUST update the iBook' posts on here Its supposed to be an entry level machine and was only upgraded 9 months ago. Its got plenty of life in it still.

My Mother just got her first portable today - the 12" 1.2 G4 iBook. She's thrilled with it. It's perfect for her as an entry level machine. She doesn't need (or want) more speed, bigger screen etc. The software suite it comes with (Tiger, iLife 05 etc) is new, interesting, powerful and useful to her. This is what the iBook range is all about. Reliable, fun and easy to use computing that's good value too.

Enjoy your iBook, I know she is.

Sorry, but you are wrong. The trouble is that the iBook is now at a premium pricepoint for laptops. Never before has the gulf between iBook hardware and PC laptop hardware been so big, along with the price gap.

For the price of a £699 iBook I can get a machine that's twice as good in all areas apart from the screen, in the PC laptop world - 60GB HDD vs 30GB on the ibook, 1.8GHz Pentium-M vs 1.2GHz G4 (P-M is much faster clockspeed for clockspeed than a G4, that's why apple is switching to it), 512MB ram and a DVD-RW instead of a DVD/CD-RW combo.

The price? £399. Nearly half the price for twice the features.

Would I buy it? No. OSX has me totally hooked.

Consider that when the iBook G4 was last bumped, the difference with the PC world was negligible - maybe £50-£100 saving. Now it's huge.

 

[bodeh6]

The above poster has a point. Apple Laptops, both the iBook and Powerbook are currently using parts that have been available to the PC laptop market for at least 1.5 to 2 years. Apple needs to shape up if they want to compete. This fact however will not stop me for getting my PB this fall.

 

[MacSA]

For the price of a £699 iBook I can get a machine that's twice as good in all areas apart from the screen, in the PC laptop world - 60GB HDD vs 30GB on the ibook, 1.8GHz Pentium-M vs 1.2GHz G4 (P-M is much faster clockspeed for clockspeed than a G4, that's why apple is switching to it), 512MB ram and a DVD-RW instead of a DVD/CD-RW combo.

The price? £399. Nearly half the price for twice the features.

£399 for all of that? Care to provide a link to it?

 

[page3]

£399 might buy you a 'PC' but not with the build quality, design (not just looks but functionality), software suite, Operating System (with support, remember OEM Windows doesn't give you support) and just plain old 'niceness' of the iBook.

This all means a lot to a 60 year old - Mhz does not - it is only so fast she can word process, browse the web, write emails, listen to CD's, manage digital camera photos, chat with friends abroad, catalogue her books, watch DVD's...as I said before - all the things she desperately tried to do with a Windows box, but failed to. She's loving it - and at the end of the day isn't that the whole point?

 

[cr2sh]

£399 might buy you a 'PC' but not with the build quality, design (not just looks but functionality), software suite, Operating System (with support, remember OEM Windows doesn't give you support) and just plain old 'niceness' of the iBook.

This all means a lot to a 60 year old - Mhz does not - it is only so fast she can word process, browse the web, write emails, listen to CD's, manage digital camera photos, chat with friends abroad, catalogue her books, watch DVD's...as I said before - all the things she desperately tried to do with a Windows box, but failed to. She's loving it - and at the end of the day isn't that the whole point?

Eh... maybe. But last night when I was browsing in the local circular ads... I found an avdert for the new Lance Armostrong laptop being sold by HP.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=329226&pfp=cat3

This 14", widescreen laptop is in the same price range as the ibook.. comes with a gig of ram, a 100gb harddrive, dual layer dvd burner... and supports cancer research.

Sure sure, Apple has an ease of use but this LA machine is at an amazing price / performance ratio... if I were in the laptop market I'd consider it very seriously.

 

[cwoloszynski]

Long-term Apple planning

I think that we need to all think about how Apple is going to lay out the next 6 months of products to understand their plans.

When they announce the first Intel boxes, I expect that they'll want to hit a homerun with that product. It will have to be sexy. To me, that seems to argue for Apple to wait for the Yonah dual cores and ship something big in April-May of 2006. Updating the iBook with a M70 would not be sexy enough without cannibalizing their PB sales. Likewise, I don't see a Mac mini with an Intel processor until they have a sexy box out.

I could see them doing a PowerMac as the first update, but I think that the roadmap from Intel pushes that too far out (to use the M processor series), so I vote for a PB Yonah as the first machine out.

So, I expect that we'll see a nice bump for the iBook and the Mac mini, both using PPC processors. I hope that they are improved with better video support to allow these boxes to re-code HD DVD content (to be bought on iTMS) down to something that can be viewed on a iPod screen and play this content back and tie into a HD monitor.

That would allow the video plans (music videos first, then whatever content they can get rights to) to start to feed into the home market.



P.S. My first post here.

 

[ph0rce]

£399 might buy you a 'PC' but not with the build quality, design (not just looks but functionality), software suite, Operating System (with support, remember OEM Windows doesn't give you support) and just plain old 'niceness' of the iBook.

This all means a lot to a 60 year old - Mhz does not - it is only so fast she can word process, browse the web, write emails, listen to CD's, manage digital camera photos, chat with friends abroad, catalogue her books, watch DVD's...as I said before - all the things she desperately tried to do with a Windows box, but failed to.

She's loving it - and at the end of the day isn't that the whole point?

exerlent comment, but an update would be good. every one wants more speed, come on, and if its cheaper... everyones happy

 

[AP_piano295]

I don't think this is true. Rush Limbaugh uses one. Slashdot's "pudge", the editor of the Apple section there, is a well known Republican who has stood for various minor posts in the Republican Party. His blog is fairly clear on what he stands for:

http://slashdot.org/~pudge/journal/

I don't think there's any political allegance that traditionally goes with Macs. Al Gore may be on the Apple board, but Mac users themselves encompass a wide spectrum of political views.

I know that Jobs is a well known Democrat and taking note of the people I know who are mac users all of these are democrats while my republican friends tend twards anti mac.. of course I do know a number of democrats that are mac haters aswell.

PS:still not taking a political side here just stating personal observations

 

[digitalbiker]

I just don't buy this logic

Both the WallStreet Journal and Cnet were the first to report the switch for Apple to Intel from official news releases prior to WWDC2005. In those releases it was stated that Apple would transition slowly starting with the "consumer line" (most likely Mac mini).

I think even Apple still realizes that most of the PB & PMac users are professionals who use professional software for supporting themselves. This means a power user not only has to take into consideration hardware but also software. To run Alti-vec Pro Software adequately will require native pro intel apps. An Intel PB first release would sell to non-power users then flop with pros not wanting to shell out big bucks for software.

On the other hand, a majority of the mac mini and ibook users probably only use OSX, ilife apps, and various low demand software. An intel ibook or and intel mac mini would not require a huge reinvestment of software dollars and would work great for most users immediately. Therefore the first big sales success will be a low cost intel mac mini and a new sleek look intel ibook.

It just makes sense. Also Yonah will be desired for PB and Yonah is "anticipated" to be release sometime in the 1st half 2006. No one knows for sure, not even intel right now. Low Power Pentium-M is available now. This gives Apple plenty of time to get ibook and mac mini ready for bug-free first release to the masses. Apple will not risk first release on potentially late or low supply Yonah.

 

[robinmurphy]

7 Days?

I just spotted that the shipping time for iBooks has gone up to 7 Days on the UK Apple store - is this a sign of an imminant update?

 

[cwoloszynski]

Not like Steve has never led us astray before....

Both the WallStreet Journal and Cnet were the first to report the switch for Apple to Intel from official news releases prior to WWDC2005. In those releases it was stated that Apple would transition slowly starting with the "consumer line" (most likely Mac mini).

From my read on this, if Apple releases an Intel produce in the consumer space, the performance will quickly cannibalize the prosumer devices. Apple cannot afford to cannibalize itself in the move to Intel.

An iBook with an M70 will whip a PB machine. How will Apple maintain any product distinction?

I can see a Mac mini as an initial system, as it does not cannibalize anything else. All the other updates will be planned to minimize cannibalization. The iBook and PB are prime examples where the transition is most needed; I'd expect them at the same time. I read 'prosumer' later as mostly focused on the Power Mac, where the Intel roadmap is weak for another 9 months (dual core, dual processor M processors).

You need to read between the lines when Jobs speaks. Consumer here may have only meant the mini will be first, and the Power Mac last. The laptops will be synchronized in their transition to avoid cannibalization. You read it here first .

 

[Websnapx2]

Could it be?

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