Make Your Own Transparent iBook

Blackstealth sent in linkage to an attractive and clever mod for the Apple iBook. The TronBook takes the idea of a transparent iBook and takes it a few steps further. I wish we'd see more laptop mods of this quality.

Comments

Picture Mirror...

[FyRE666]

Here for when the site inevitably goes down :-)

Pro shops?

[DataSquid]

Any chance someone has started doing this commercially, like these guys do for GBAs and the like? I'd like to get this done, but to source the parts and have the time/skill is a definite problem. Especially in the skill area. A friend of mine trashed his LCD trying something like this. I guess the paint ran off into the back or something.

RE:

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple produces transparent pre-production models of every product. Sort of a final debugging - that way, if a chip blows, or there's a stress on the plastic somewhere, it can be identified quite easily...they've been doing this for years...

plastic?

[AlaskanUnderachiever]

While I commend apple on both their design and marketing (who else could manage to sell "of course it's going to be more expensive now, you understand don't you?") I can't get over the fact that it's so plastic. I've had a few different laptops over the year and my favorites are invevitably the ones with metal exteriors. A device that's meant to be portable should be durable, and I'm afraid that while plastics have made great strides in impact resistance, for sheer maleability (sp?) of impact and ability to stay in one piece, alloys in use today still win hands down. I wanted an ibook. I lusted after one. Then I picked one up and played with it. No thank you sam. Give me something that's gonna survive daily duty in the back of a pack or the bottom of a briefcase.

Wow

[jaavaaguru]

That is so cool. It makes me wonder though, why Apple doesn't come up with designs like this themselves. yeah sure, they come up with a lot of original stuff and cool designs, but having more to choose from would surely be an advantage. The transparent cover over the hard drive and battery could do with being tinted blue - it's just a wee bit too clear I think. Wish I could afford an iBook to do this to :o)

Re:Wow

[crawling_chaos]

In the end, it comes down to economics. Every time Apple comes up with something interesting, there's a whole group of people who jump all over them for their prices being too high. If they had more choices, they'd be ordering parts in even smaller numbers and the prices would be even higher. They need to walk a fine line between having too many choices and being boring. I think Steve would rather die than be boring.

Re:Wow

[stripes]

If they had more choices, they'd be ordering parts in even smaller numbers and the prices would be even higher. They need to walk a fine line between having too many choices and being boring

Harley has a "factory custom" program. The dealers don't stock these bikes (or at least they don't expect to sell the ones they stock). They are not cheap (you pay for having custom body work). They are not common (many people may buy them, but very very few will buy their "custom" bike with the exact same set of options). The changes are all cosmetic. A factory custom bike isn't really cheaper then buying stock, and having a local shop do the mods (even though Harley saves by not putting on the original parts that they will just take off and replace).

So why do people buy them? Well it is simpler the finding a reputable skilled local body shop to do it, and you keep the warranty. There are some mods I would do to my TiBook (external antenna port, different color logo, maybe some other things) except I want to keep the warranty. I'm sure a lot of people would pay extra (and since they are already buying Apple, pay a lot extra for a custom, maybe not one of a kind, but could be the only one in the state set of mods).

Re:Wow

[stripes]

I thought the Harley custom program was largely a response to a thriving modification aftermarket. They essentially saw that the demand was there and moved in to take a piece of it.

According to the history channel at least a Harley VP was at a show and saw a bunch of people selling bike mod kits and a light bulb went off. The guy that did the "tron book" bought his kit at a show, so maybe all we need is the right VP going to the show :-)

There aren't very many mod shops for Powerbooks yet. If it becomes a viable business, it would make sense for Apple to try to grab a piece of that pie.

I have no idea how many or few mod shops there are for Apple's (or Wintel hardware). However there was an existing similar business (body shops) for bikes, but computer repair shops pretty much do wholesale part replacements, not repair. So I don't think there is a close enough shop to mutate. Also motorcycles had more interchangeable parts, so you could take some other companies chopper parts and put 'em on a Harley to get a low rider Harley. It would be hard to take a Viao shell and put it on an iBook... (or an iBook shell on a JetBook).

You are right though, if Apple waits for mod shops to become common then they know they have a sure thing. If they decide the demand is there before something proves that it is, well they could be wrong (they could also find out they are right years or decades before it is a "sure thing").

P.S. I think the 2 line laser etching on the iPods does sort of count as factory custom, but it is only on one (er, two) product(s), and only one option. Still it is a start. Or if it sells poorly, an end.

Re:And lose the magnesium cover?

[xTina]

The iBook doesn't have a magnesium cover but it does have a magnesium frame:

<snip>
That's why it's made of ultratough polycarbonate - the same material used in bulletproof glass - and has an internal magnesium frame for added strength.
</snip>

(from http://www.apple.com/ibook/)

Re:Transparent prototypes

[Draoi]

I can vouch for that, having worked there in diagnostic engineering. Early models were made in perspex as soon as the basic form was decided upon. The product design team used this to ensure that everything would fit in the final unit, that the airflow was going to work out, etc. Also, you could easily look through a unit and immediately know if it had a modem, the latest processor card, etc. Cool stuff. The *really* early units were made of of sawn-up sheets of perspex which had been glued and taped together. The components were glued or velcro'd into place & the whole box was about three times bigger than the normal product. I can recall the first TiBook looking like this in the lab .....

Another thing Apple does is colour their PCBs according to the design/manufacturing phase. EVT boards (engineering trials) were red, DVT boards (design trials) were blue & PVT/production were the standard green colour

Re:Does it come in black?

[jlower]

Get some plastic scratch remover if the surface isn't painted. It's a lot like rubbing compound for cars. You should be able to find it at bigger hardware stores.

I've used it to remove scratches from plexiglas aquariums. Takes some patience and elbow grease but it works.

Re:Two words.

[stripes]

Ummm TiBook?

The TiBook while it is very nice does have a few drawbacks. It is physically wider. As a more costly item it may be more of a theft target. Worst of all (to me) it has a whole lot less 802.11 range (the iBook and PowerBook G3 tends to have much better range then most PCMCIA 802.11 cards, the TiBook has somewhat worse range then 802.11 cards). There are a lot of good things about the TiBook though.

Easter...

[Jace of Fuse!]

Um! Doesn't this guy know you're supposed to paint EGGS on Easter, not APPLES!

Japanese imports

[jchristopher]

Mods for Apple laptops are apparently incredibly popular in Japan - they have all kinds of stuff like replacement colored light up keyboards, etc. Not just one-off mods, but actual production parts that you can buy at retail.

There are plenty of links to replacement keyboards and such for other Powerbooks like the Wallstreet, Pismo, etc, but for some reason, nothing has appeared yet for the IceBook. Anyone have any links to cool mods for it? A keyboard would go great with a paint mod.

Realistic here

[2nd Post!]

The iBook is covered in polycarbonate plastic. The same stuff they use in ultra hard shatter resistent eyeglasses and in bulletproof glass.

Unless you're carrying steel surgical instruments and diamond cutting blades in the bottom of your briefcase or in your backpack, the iBook will probably suffer, at most, cosmetic scratches from the run of the mill stuff.

Alloys will deform *and stay that way* where the polycarbonate will flex and return it's shape. The iBook itself has a polycarbonate shell, a magnesium frame (you wanted alloys? you got it), rubber mounting for the drives and other components, and it's got an extra sturdy hinge for the screen.

The only stronger laptop I can imagine would be the Panasonic ToughBooks. Everything else I've seen (even my Titanium PowerBook) pales in comparison to an iBook.

Re:Replacement Keyboards: Where???

[Cryptnotic]

Wow. That is terrible. I hope you forward this to Apple and maybe they can fix it. This would be a dealbreaker for me. For a desktop machine, you can easily plug in a Sun Type 6 USB UNIX layout keyboard, but for a laptop, there isn't really a whole lot you can do. And if you can't remap CapsLock, you're screwed.

I think the best option would be for Apple to offer a UNIX layout for their keyboards just like Sun does. They already build something like 30 different keyboards for different parts of the world. One more isn't going to kill them. In fact, it would probably be popular.

Cryptnotic