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New PowerBooks, Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse
no_demons writes "This morning Apple iCEO Steve Jobs gave the keynote at the Apple Expo in Paris. The whole PowerBook line up got an upgrade, with the 15" model now sporting the much rumoured goods (1.25GHz, backlit keyboard, bluetooth, Airport Extreme), available from today. Apple also announced a new wireless keyboard and mouse."
Is it just me, or does the new wireless keyboard looks a lot like the old "Cassie" keyboard prototype? (white, almost frameless)
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-Sid
OK. I switched (back) to Apple this year (in Feb) for many reasons, one of which was innovation.
Where's the innovation here? The mouse *still* has only one button (yeah, go ahead, start the button wars flame game) and, while the mouse has rechargable batteries, neither the kbd or mouse has a "dock" to plug in to so they can be recharged easily.
And, at ~140.00USD MSRP (more if you don't have a bluetooth-disabled Mac) for the Apple combo, it seems like the Logitech bundle would be a better choice.
Since Apple used bluetooth, they could have at least done something extra with the kbd (like add a mini-tablet area or speakers or *something*).
I sincerely hope this isn't the beginning of a (bad) trend.
Mind the gap...
The notes say the keyboard uses encryption. I'm a little curious how the key is shared between the keyboard and the computer? At first I thought it might use a standard USB cable to connect to the computer and maybe charge rechargeable batteries, (seems like a good idea!) but it does say "no cables". Maybe you have to type a key in that's presented on the setup control panel? Although I suppose it could be exchanging keys with PGP or other public key technology.
It'd also be a nice touch if they'd have put USB ports on the keyboard, that could "tunnel" through the bluetooth back to the computer. Sure it's slow, but if you happen to have some other peripherals like a touchpad or multibutton mouse etc., that'd be a nice way to deal with some of the cord issues while maintaining compatibility with existing non-bluetooth peripherals.
Kudos to Apple though on a bluetooth optical mouse + bluetooth enabled laptop. I don't use an external mouse on my powerbook, but I can see this as "one less cable to plug in" when getting the 'book out of the bag. As it is, when I arrive home I plug in my speakers, ethernet (yes, I have 802 but cable is faster), firewire (for my pod), and power.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
>overpriced, plain and simple
A commodity is only overpriced if one of two things is true:
1) It does not sell.
2) You have reliable evidence that a lower price point would have increased your earnings (note I did not say "unit sales").
We don't know if these things will sell yet. Simply.
In absence of evidence whether they will sell at *this* price point, we *certainly* don't have evidence that they would make more money by selling it at a lower price point.
You think they are overpriced? Don't buy them. For me personally it wouldn't matter whether they sold them at $20,000 or $5+S&H: I don't have a use for them.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Probably not because of the secure channel, but it's pretty much a given that someone will make some drivers for it. Watch versiontracker - sounds like a new project for Jonas Salling who made the3 ever so useful Salling Clicker for the t68i phone.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Actually the Pro Keyboard I got with my Powermac G4 THREE years ago has a seperate island for those keys. Apple's keyboards have had a standard layout for a while now.
"Apple has made setting up Bluetooth devices as simple as turning them on and clicking through an intuitive setup assistant. The mouse and keyboard are no exception: The new combined Keyboard and Mouse system preference panel includes a Bluetooth tab that lets you set up your new wireless mouse and keyboard in a snap."
does this not bring into mind the classic x86 BIOS message "Error 5: keyboard not FOUND. [press F1 to continue]"
seriously though, wireless USB protocol keyboards frighten me due to your keystrokes being transmitted in "plain sight." how is bluetooth and the 128-bit encryption any different? are there plans to allow a single bluetooth keyboard to work with many different computers (i.e. for administration just hit a switch on the device and you can flip to a different channel or something).
sure, use this wireless keyboard, wireless mouse, but to get either working initially we're gonna have to require that you use mental psychokinetic rays for dialog navigation. i'm sure somebody has the real scoop on this
so what it is?
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
When the old 12" powerbook came out, a major issue of contention was that the G4 was losing a significant chunk of its performance advantage over the G3, because it didn't have the 1 meg of L3 cache (google cache link) that the rest of the powerbook line came with.
My first thought about these updates was "maybe apple has finally put some L3 cache in the 12" model!" But when I went to check it out, they had removed every mention of L3 cache on their pages. I doubt that they took the cache OUT of the larger models, so is this just an attempt at obfuscation by no longer mentioning the cache, or did they finally equalize the chipset?
Did anyone else notice that the stock 80 GB HD is 4200 RPM - almost 30% slower than the 80 GB 5400 RPM HD Option(+$125)?
Is this lame? How much does it matter performance-wise?
The mouse requires lithium AAs, which are insanely expensive ($2.50 each, compared to maybe $0.30 for Alkalines), and not widely available (very few manufacturers are making these). Lithium AAs have a higher voltage than alkalines (1.8v vs. 1.5v), and NiMH rechargables are even lower (1.2-1.3v) so the chances of rechargables working well is VERY slim.
You won't see the G5 in a laptop for quite a while, maybe never. IBM is working on building a G3 with parts of the G5 SIMD logic (or compatible logic). What you'll see is that the G4 as we know it, the 7XXX series, will die. The 750+SIMD and the 970 will be Apple's chips.
Remember that the G5 comes from the Power4, which was NEVER designed to be a low-power/low-heat CPU, it will NEVER be as suitable for laptop use as the 750-series will. Even with a major die-shrink and voltage drop, the G5 will STILL put out much more heat than the G4 did, and even that was too much.
Don't worry though, I'm sure IBM will be using a lot of what they developed for the G5 in the 'mojave' G3s. They might even be marketed as G4s or G5-mobiles because they will have roughly the same features.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I will quote my favourite MS Story here:
...nothing. No dialogs, no driver installs. Then suddenly, a new icon on the screen! A Bluetooth icon. It worked. Flawlessly. It communicated with my Sony Ericsson t68i AND the Microsoft mouse.
---snip---
Let me tell you the wonderful story of the Microsoft Bluetooth Mouse. I got hold of one of these right after Christmas and went home to try it out. As I was putting the CD in the computer, I noticed that i said "MS XP only". I was running 2000 at the time (Now running RedHat 8). OK, so I couldn't use the Bluetooth device on my computer without paying additional MS tax.
OK, so I gave it to a friends girlfriend who had XP on the computer. She couldn't install it, so I went up to her to install the device. I put the CD in the machine and was told that I needed XP SP1 to do this. Fuckin' L. OK. The XP SP1 CD was included was after 30 minutes, it was installed on her computer. Reboot, and try the Bluetooth driver CD again. It seemed to install something but it soon told me that since I did not use the English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Chinese, Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish or Swedish language, the drivers could not be installed. (She had Norwegian installed) DAMN IT!
After the failed attempt to get the Microsoft product to work on another Microsoft product, I went to my mother to have a look at her new iBook. I though that just for kicks, I could put the MS Bluetooth dongle in the Mac USB port. So I did, and...
Go figure.
---snip---
I also attended an MS press conference this Monday, where they presented some new stuff. The only thing new about it all was the fact that the scroll wheel tilted sideways as well as scrolled. It was annoying as hell, and the only use I could imagine was for use in Excel spreadsheets, but none of the computers I treid had Excel installed on them.
The rest of the press conference was embarassing, it was just a collection of ripped off ideas like Bluetooth PAN integration (Available in Q2 2004 with Windows SP2) and a new chip in the optical mice, that make them last 6 months on two AAs. Just as long as my Logitech optical, that is.