TiBook Wi-Fi Range Hack: New Card

eggboard writes "Apple likes the profit margins on its internal AirPort card (still $100 three years after introduction), but the Faraday cage that is the Titanium PowerBook keeps the AirPort card and the TiBook's internal antenna from achieving the same range as the plastic-cased white dual-USB iBooks. Wired News reports today on Cliff Skolnick et al's hack, which is simply to use a 200 mW PC Card coupled with OS X-compatible drivers. The cost winds up less than an AirPort Card, and you can get a model with an external antenna jack, too."

Comments

How does it affect battery life?

[burgburgburg]

If the new card is pumping out 200 milliwatts of radio signal as opposed to the usual 30- to 100-milliwatt range of most 802.11b cards, what is the hit on battery life?

Re:in other news

[XorNand]

I don't know about the new iMacs, but the older candy-colored ones had a standard power cord. They are translucent with multicolored wires (like the iMac they came with). I'm using one on my PC right now, in fact. Just another one of those little details that Apple is known for. How many PC vendors would bother with custom made power cords?

Wired and Macs

[CoffeeJedi]

Why is it that almost every other day Wired has an article about Mac-users doing something wacky. I thought maybe it was because alot of Mac users out there were doing really interesting things like the guy who totes all the old Macs around to raves and sets up old school game LANs. But now I wonder... does Wired report every time a Mac user picks his nose? Some of their past stories were a little questionable, but this one is downright stupid. And I love the title "Mac Toters Push Wireless Bounds", wow, look at me, according to Wired I must be pushing the boundaries of my coffee, I'm ADDING SUGAR.
I love my Mac, and I enjoy reading about other Mac users and their quirks, but come on Wired, keep a sense of reality here. Wired is about CULTURE, not technology. The past articles were always about the personalities using Macs to do unique things, but this one reads like a survey review of WiFi cards out of MacAddict.

Re:Crappy airport

[pauljlucas]

It is still only 10 base while all the desktop units are gigabit.

First, 802.11b is 11 Mbit, not 10. Second, an Airport card in a desktop G4 is still 11 Mbit.

Who still uses 10bit? No artissts I know. They all hook up with 100 base cable.

OK, so you're really not talking about Gbit, you're talking about 100 Mbit. And wired ethernet, not wireless.

Apple is supposed to be an innovator not the lazy company that lets its technolgy rot as every other manufactuer comes out with their own system that has much greater speed capibility.

Apple isn't in the wireless chipset business. They don't make, research, or innovate their own wireless cards any more than they make, research, or innovate hard disks, flat panel displays, modems, or most of the other commodity hardware they use. They buy/license the hardware and technology from other vendors. By the way, Lucent makes the Airport cards for Apple.

Apple needs to be compatible with other wireless networks where PCs can connect. They can't simply have their own proprietary wireless standard just because it's faster. Apple isn't Microsoft: they can't pull the same kind of crap that MS does with their own proprietary standards.

Apple needs to put out a wireless Gigabit aiport and cards for the extreame [sic] price they are charging.

Wireless gigabit doesn't exist. There is, however, 802.11a and 802.11g that offer more bandwidth. Unforunately, the market hasn't decided which of these two incompatible standards to settle on. 802.11g is slower, but backwards compatible with 802.11b. My bet is that Apple will eventually go with that one. But the market penetration of non-802.11b wireless is currently insignificant.

Extreme price? The Airport card is $99 which is about $40-$50 cheaper than 3rd party 802.11b cards.

You really have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Cheaper, but you lose stability

[FyRE666]

Try using the NVidia drivers with a GF2 sometime, it may not crash today, or tomorrow, but eventually... The only time I've seen linux crash has been through driver/hardware problems...