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PowerBooks & iBooks Get Speed Bumped
Currawong writes "Apple has, as rumors predicted, speed bumped its line of portables. The PowerBooks now come in 1.33 and 1.5Ghz G4 versions, including either NVidia 5200's or Radeon 9700 video hardware. The iBooks can now be had at 1 or 1.2Ghz with Radeon 9200 video included. All can be purchased at the Apple Store. This complements nicely the recent speed and feature increases on the eMac range."
Good news, I've been looking at getting a notebook for some time now and my little research indicated a superior battery life on Apple notebooks.
The prohibitive price is still a bottleneck for me though.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Guess now I will just have to wait for my carbon-fiber, dual G5 PowerBook with fold out twin displays and fuel cell technology battery with 12 hours of life that the rumor sites are talking about.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Why does Apple never drop the price of current hardware instead? I would love a 700mhz Powerbook for $600 or so (no thanks, refurbed units).
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
Can someone refresh my memory? How fast is a 1.5ghz Apple processor when converted into Intel ghz?
I have a year old powerbook and the new ones for the same deal I got have halk gigahertz speed improvement, 20 gig bigger hard drive, over twice the speed of dvd burn, faster wireless, faster firewire bluetooth and more. And it's the same price. That's quite an increase for a year. It's so cool to see yet so depressing at the same time.
Evolution or ID?
it is looking like Apple is going to keep the G4 around for low powered mobiles, just like the Pentium-M .
all that is needed is a 15 inch and 17 inch G5 model, I was hoping that it would be this summer, perhaps in the fall.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Is there any news available about if or when there are going to be G5 based laptops released?
I'm looking to get an Apple notebook in about 6 months but I don't want to have a big jump like the G4 to G5 be released a few months later when I could've gone without it for a little longer and then got the G5.
Is this a standard term to describe the process of increasing processor speed in a line of computers? If so it's very poorly thought out. A speedbump is normally something that is used to slow down motorists on a tretch of road. So I instinctively interpreted that as meaning that Apple had released a line with capped processor speeds!
I suspect that this is just the poster's own term to describe this. Oh well!
A little planning goes a long way...
Does anyone have any benchmark comparisons (3rd party comparisons, none of this "Apple-funded / Intel-funded" stuff) I'm a bit skeptical considering I bought a Dell laptop with 1.6Ghtz about 1.5 years ago.
This isn't considered to be a troll, I'm just wondering about the performance difference.
The real question (rumor?) floating around other mac-specific news sites is whether or not this is just to hold us over until the release of G5 notebooks sometime in the not to distant future (January?) A couple interesting threads:
Apple Insider
MacNN
Posting as directed.
That this is a video card for a low-end consumer laptop, not a 1337 game system, maybe?
seriously, if you are buying an apple laptop with the prospect of playing doom3 or half-life2 you are an idiot. I am not entirely sure if half-life2 is even slated for a mac release. In any case, for a laptop that you are using to do day to day stuff with, then a 5200 is a pretty decent card. If you honestly think you might use it for gaming get a laptop with a 9700. In both cases you are looking a mobile version of these cards which means you are getting a somewhat underpowered card to begin with.
Fear trumps hope and ignorance trumps both
Because dropping the price would kill their nice margins, and they wouldn't make as much money. Let's say it costs (pulling numbers out of thin air) $500 to build a $1500 laptop, and $200 to build a $800 laptop. Assuming they sell the same number of each, which are they going to want to sell? Of course, they'd probably sell more of the $800 laptop, but they'd have to sell a lot more to make it worthwhile...
You can usually find good deals on older hardware right around the time that they are about to announce a new model. They just don't offer it to everyone through the Apple Store. Instead, I usually see them advertised in the Mac User's Group store and places that other long time customers have a chance at them.
"speed bumping" is the act of bumping the speed up on a product line.
This has been in use for years.
So I have been looking at getting a 15" powerbook in the last few days and it's probably good I didn't do that. I noticed a few retailers started selling their models with price cuts a couple days ago -- now I know why. Anyhow, the base price of the new line is cheaper than the old line, which I find to be interesting.
My little sad piece of the internet: www.mtndewd
Ummm... i assume thats why they're offering the higher end video card - to those few dedicated mac gamers, or those who do graphics work. but they offer a lower end card so a general user doesn't have to pay for something they really don't need. this is, as far as i recall, the first time that apple has offred a video card option in its laptops.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
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Maybe if you get a Mac you won't have to drink so much...
Why does Apple never drop the price of current hardware instead? I would love a 700mhz Powerbook for $600 or so (no thanks, refurbed units).
The answer is simple really. Apple would like to maintain their products as objects of desire. Sexy bits of computer art that both inspire lust and allow us to accomplish our work easier and/or faster than ever before, making a difference. To lower the prices would reduce Apple computers to commodity items much like the rest of the Wintel world.
How many Dell, HP, Compaq, graybox etc.... hardware rollouts are greeted with the same kind of fervor that Apple computer hardware announcements inspire?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The 1.25 GHz eMac is a steal at 749$ with your college discount. Mine is serving me well, and it is a 1 GHz. If you hate the all-in-one design, there is some good news. While you won't get extra PCI slots, the eMac does have 4 channels of IDE (instead of two), can do display mirroring out-of-the-box (dual display with a little software hack). With a little work / modding, you could get past the all-in-one ness and have a pretty nice desktop.
If all-in-one is okay, then you should have no other complaints. The price is right for all the apps / great OS / great hardware. Besides, it's easier to move around than a monitor + box. That is important if you move from room to room every couple of semesters.
A caution to anyone who'd likely buy one of these new PowerBooks: may your lap beware!
I own one of the "older" 12" G4 PowerBooks (867 MHz), which I absolutely adore, but it has heat issues. The main heat venting location on the case (that I've found) is the bottom rear of the machine. This means that if you're sitting down with it on your lap and you're wearing shorts, prolonged use (3+ hours) may result in warming to the point of extreme skin discomfort. This isn't usually a problem, though it's something you become aware of after the first couple of times you accidentally scald yourself. With the increase in speed, however, the speedy processor would cause an even higher temperature level, barring a radical change to the way in which heat is vented (which is not apparent from the official specs).
Mercifully (in a way), a semi-recent update changed the fan kick-in temperature to a lower threshold, meaning less built-up heat but a lower battery life. Expect the batteries on the new PowerBooks to not quite last as long as they're listed as, though they'd probably last long enough as is. For a college student like me, just having them last through class so that I can go back to my dorm and plug in for the evening's homework is fine.
I'd still buy one (if I had the money and needed a new computer), though I'd be careful to do most of my work on a table.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
In keeping with a 50-year-old trend, the latest computers from [insert name here] are faster and more powerful than the previous generation. Wow. There's news.
And usually a troll is a mythical being that lives under bridges and eats people who pass by.
Terms and expressions can mean different things in different contexts.
This space intentionally left blank.
Part of the reason you cant directly compare is because of the processor achitecture. PowerPCs and x86 based processors have differing binaries/commands/structures/etcetera. Photoshop is one of the few products on both the Mac and Windows platform that is almost identical in code and function. You'll notice in comparison between the two platforms Photoshop is a common program used.
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
this is, as far as i recall, the first time that apple has offred a video card option in its laptops.
It is not an option. If you click on one of the links so generiously provided in the post, such as the PowerBooks link, you can see that the option is either get a 15" or 17" PowerBook with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 or a 12" PowerBook with an NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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The local CompUSA is trying to hawk a 500 MHz icebook for $1000... It's a loaded machine, too. 10 GB Hard Drive. CD Rom, 128 Megabytes of memory. And it runs 9.2.2 like a dream.
Because a benchmark of a modern FPS game is a terrible way to benchmark the processor since most of the work is dependant on video cards.
Here's is something from a post I made somewhere above concerning speed compairisons:
--------
I have the previous version of the 12" PowerBook running at 1ghz and it's noticably faster than my p4 1.5ghz. I'd rate it as feeling about the same as a 2.0ghz p4.
So I'd say the 1.5 would be about a 2.8 or 3.0ghz pentium.
While we're on this topic I'd like to point out that Macs feel much faster than they actually are because of the superb multi tasking and UI response under heavy load.
When I am encoding a video on my Windows machine I can't do anything else on my computer, if I try to click something it takes about 30 seconds for the menu to popup.
On the other hand, my Mac can have 20 apps running and encoding a video at the same time and the UI still responds beautifully.
This is why using a Mac is a great experience, you so rarely get frustrated at it because it just works.
----
FYI it has the same NVidia FX5200 the new ones have and it plays all the current games very well (Except the super high end FPS games like Ut2004...playable but not that enjoyable). Anyway, anyone who intends to do serious gaming on a laptop is a damn fool, even more so on a Mac laptop.
So on the offchance that you're not trolling:
- Fink isn't developed by Apple, and they have nothing to do with it, aside from some possible back channel help. However, it did not come "included" on your PowerBook, unless you bought it used.
- You can check for a more recent version of fink by: % sudo fink selfupdate
- You don't need to sell your hardware to update your software.
Hope this helps. Welcome to the Mac.--
$tar -xvf
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'Speed increase' is no better. If there's more speed, why is it in a crease?
Perhaps 'road hump' doesn't mean gettin' some in the car anymore.
I surely wish BMW would sell me a 2002 3-series instead of the improved 2005. I don't want to buy a used one, I just want to buy a new old one. I mean, surely they keep all those old parts around.
Dude, warehousing old graphics cards, HDs, etc costs money and would actually increase Apple's Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). If they then dropped prices, they would have slimmer margins in both directions (lower revenues, higher COGS).
I got my dad to buy a Apple refurb iBook and save $300. It works great, has no physicial defect and as far as I can tell, is identical to a new one with three $100 bills stuck in the DVD/CDR combo drive.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
resellers including smalldog.com and macmall.com often offer older models (ones that are totally gone from the apple store) for more reasonable prices.
Dunno if anyone else noticed this, but wireless networking is now STANDARD in the Powerbook line, while you have to spend the extra $100 to get the AirEx card in the iBooks.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
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why would I need to remember that?
why would the consumer need to remember that ooh macosx is unix based omg kewlor gimme gimme, especially when very few understand anything what 'unix' means if anything in this case?
when you're comparing them you should compare what can it do for you at what price.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This is a HUGE difference for me, since the stuff that I'm most interested in doing isn't so much CPU intensive as RAM intensive. I can live with just about anything, but under 1GB of RAM was a deal-killer on the iBooks.
For me, this changes everything.
I'd love a Corvette for 15 grand, but instead of just building the same thing every year the keep changing it. Those jerks.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Actually, the same thing happens with PeeCee/commodity hardware too; try and find a new 10GByte disc for 10GBP, or a new Celeron 500 for 5GBP. This is particularly annoying if you want to put together some ultra-cheap new machines (for an undemanding user such as Aunt Tilly, say) without resorting to the skankiest hardware out there (which is probably still more expensive than obsolete stuff would be, if it were still available).
--
The iBooks have had their memory limit raised to 1.25GB. Better still the soldered in chip is now 256MB instead of 128MB, this gives all the default configurations a free slot to upgrade with. This resolves what was for me, my biggest gripe about my G4 ibook.
You seem to be under the impression that Apple is a hardware company. They're not. They're a software company that makes its money from hardware sales. They're no different from Cisco, except they have a better user interface.
That this is a video card for a low-end consumer laptop, not a 1337 game system, maybe?
Hold on a minute there. One moment people here claim that all Apple hardware should be compared to medium or top-range PC stuff, and that this makes them reasonably good value for money. And then, when people do exactly that, it is suddenly unfair because the Apple is really a low-end system?
You cannot both have your cake and eat it. Either the 12" model is quite overpriced as a "low-end consumer" machine at $1600-$1800, or it's got a really shitty graphics card for a medium/high range machine.
Your sig is ironic.
:)
So your whole point is that your 64b Athlon computer is only good for games?
How about XSan? Motion? FCP? FCP HD? DVD SP? Shake? Logic? BLAST?
You forget that some people actually make money with their machines.
You also forget that for some people, especially those that earn something in the $40 to $50 an higher an hour range, time is money. Linux, BSD, and Windows is too expensive, and strangely enough, Macs, with their plug and play nature, are cheaper. Literally, if it takes me one day to set up something in Linux, and 10 minutes on my Mac, that's the difference between $500 spent/wasted and $10 spent. Over the course of a month, then, a Mac will have paid itself off.
Especially when you're talking about a $1,400 iBook. Make a DVD? Insert a disk, arrange the menus, and hit burn. 20 minutes later you're done. Make a movie? Plug in the camcorder, import video, arrange the video, and 30 minutes later you're done. Send the DVD off for replication, make 500 copies, and start on your next project.
GPL Deconstructed
Looking at the specs, it looks like the following have also changed on the iBook line:
- The default memory doesn't use up the expandable SO-DIMM slot anymore. This previously made upgrading the memory annoying because it was split into 128MB internal and 128MB in the slot, so you were forced to replace memory rather than just add.
- 512KB of L2 cache instead of 256KB.
I got a 1.0GHz iBook a few months ago, but I'm still happy. I wouldn't have waited just for these minor boosts. The SuperDrive may be an option now, but at that price ($280 extra CDN) I'd still rather get an external FireWire drive.
First a disclaimer: I am a Mac fanboy. I've got one, I love it and I reccomend it to everyone who's looking for a new computer.
But what the heck is with all the sexy nonsense? Since when did we start humping Macs and iPods?
"Sexy bits of computer art that both inspire lust..."
Lust?
Sure their products might be sleek and very well designed, but to call them sexy and lusty ALL the time? I'll take good ol' T&A over hardware any day.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
and your laptop has a 1.5 hour battery life, is 3 inches thick, and weights about 10 pounds.
yeah, that would be why no one cares about your laptops.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Search for "refurbished" at the Apple Store for great deals. These are usually returns, got a 1GHz G4 17" with 512MB RAM, 60GB drive, superdrive, Airport Extreme, etc., for $2300 there about two months back. In perfect condition, no less.
a laptop three times the cost that is not as feature rich
Not feature rich...?
Does that include the built in Bluetooth? DVD-burner? Thin size and quality design? Firewire 800? Optic Keyboard Sensory? Gigabit ethernet? Mac OS X? (incl. iLife, etc.) and long battery life?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
I use an IBM Thinkpad that's got a 14" screen with 1400x1050 resolution. That's more pixels than the 17" Powerbook on the same screen that Apple's only fitting 1280x854 (Powerbook) or 1024x768 (iBook) on.
I'd happily take a G4/500 with a Radeon 7500 if I could get decent resolution with it. I'm sure Sonnet will have a CPU upgrade for me when I need it, but it's a lot harder to upgrade the screen.
The crummy screens on Apple's current low-end lineup is why I'm upgrading my almost 10 year old Beige Powermac (upgraded to G4/466 and 768M RAM) instead of getting an eMac (17" screen, but it's a really ugly last-century shadow mask) or iMac (15", 1024x768) or a notebook. I don't need a red hot machine and I can't imagine giving up my 1280x1028 (up to 1600x1200, if I wanted) aperture grill display (a nice Trinitron clone by CTX, under $200) for the eMac or iBook...
Granted they're not the fastest cards available, but they're not absolubte rubbish for gaming.
:)
My current laptop (not a Mac) has a 64mb Geforce FX5200 Go. I've been using it over the last few weeks (combined with a Pentium M 1.5 and 512mb of PC2100 DDR) to play Farcry, which seems to be a pretty graphics intensive game.
I've got texture detail set on high with everything else set on either medium or low. The game may not be running at a hojillion frames per second, but it's completely playable with no annoying choppiness or lag.
Incidentally, my notebook's graphics card was advertised as being 64mb (128mb reserve.) Anyone know what this means? Can I buy a memory expansion card for it? There doesn't seem to be a BIOS option to dedicate it more memory.
Note: I have actually got the card overclocked to FX5600 Go clockspeeds, something I don't normally do, but it doesn't seem to be effecting temperature or stability in any noticable way, so I may as well take the bonus.
your ignorance.
I have both a dual 2.0 GHz G5 and a 1.25 GHz 15" PowerBook G4. The G5 is without a doubt faster, but for the typical user and his/her uses, it doesn't offer much. The G5 excells at video encoding and also compiles larger code bases much faster. However, for typical uses (web browsing, word processing, etc.) there is not much of a performance gain.
As for your two-button mouse argument: TRY IT! I figured I wouldn't like it much, but I find it to work out quite well. Now, I always have one hand on the keyboard, which makes me operate my computer much more quickly and efficiently. My experiences with Apple lead me to believe that if they are doing something, there is usually a damn good reason for it, and that reason is usually right.
So, instead of loudly proclaiming your ignorance and demand Apple do things your way, I suggest you open your mind to "thinking different" and begin to realize that things can be better than the way you've been ingrained to beleive.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
and all of a sudden, the computer was like BEEP BEEP BEEP. Now I have a Powerbook and crank out C&Ds in record time, with no crashes.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't really want a mouse built into my case like you're suggesting. Seems like it'd be pretty hard to roll around on my desk...
the coolest club on
Fast forward one year. "The G5 laptops are OUT?!?...."
(This is a repost of an old post of mine, but as relevant today as it was then...:)
The $200 laptop. Here's why:
For $1000, you can build 5 $200 laptops and sell them at $800. Gross $4000, net $3000.
For $1000, you can build 2 $500 laptops and sell them at $1500. Gross $3000, net $2000.
So, in your hypothetical case, you should determine demand on the lower-cost laptop, make enough to fill that demand completely, and then use the rest of your manufacturing capacity to make the high-end model.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The previous generation iBook 12" was slow (800MHz G4) and had a low RAM ceiling (640MB) with 256k L2 cache on-chip.
The iBook G4 12" announced today is no speed demon, but at 1GHz, it's fast enough for its target user (students/education professionals), and the 512k L2 cache certainly helps. With up to 1.25GB DDR RAM, the machine is basically identical to the previous generation 12" PowerBook.
Add an Airport Extreme card and upgrade the disk to a reasonable size (60GB), and you can get the machine for $1273. The 12" PowerBook, meanwhile, costs $1600 in more or less the same configuration.
Is there a really compelling reason to buy the 12" PowerBook if you're Joe Student? Doesn't seem like it. Graphics are nominally better, but the nVidia 5200 isn't so hot, is it? There's a 333MHz speed bump, which nobody will notice during normal use. Bluetooth is included, but you can add it to the iBook for $50 if you need it.
So I wonder if the current iBook rev. will take a bite out of PowerBook sales. There are few (if any) "must have" features on the PowerBook 12", and the current iBook speed and RAM capacity are finally on par with other modern machines.
My money would be on the iBook, I think.
At least he won't have to spend money on any more games.
*badum-tish*
"Lots of games, like... <mumble>Photoshop...</mumble>"
"Gee, a G4 is all you need, you don't need any more speed".
What do you, personally, need more speed for? The only thing I ever do that taxes my G4 is video editing and running VirtualPC. Everything else is more than fast enough. A G5 would probably help the video editing, but it's not something I do every day, and I'm happy to just set everything up and leave it doing the rendering while I'm asleep. VirtualPC is about PII 266 speed, and I don't really need it to be any faster (sure, it would be nice to run it at P4 speeds, but if I really needed to do much x86-specific stuff I'd have bought an x86 laptop).
The G4's FSB is only running at 167mhz. That's pathetic in 2004. Its why the G4 chip never seemed all that fast and why the G5 kills.
Right. I need a faster chipset, because that would, uh, use more power and drain the battery quicker. Oh, and make the machine hotter. Seriously, when was the last time you did anything on a laptop that was limited by FSB speed?
build a goddamned 2 button mouse into the case.
Have you ever actually tried using a trackpad with two buttons? I still haven't found one that's comfortable. The trackpad in the PowerBook is amazingly nice to use. Oh, and I have yet to encounter a Mac app that actually needed a second button.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I ordered a PowerBook 1.25ghz 15" SuperDrive on Friday. I awoke this morning to see that my order had been cancled, but re added. I was pretty confused until I saw this post on slashdot, and I checked some emails, and bam! They switched my order for me! Why do I think this wouldn't have happened with a company whose name begins with M and ends with -onopoly.
- When you're approved for an Apple/MBNA loan, they make a point of not mentioning what APR you actually GET- think 24%
- They don't send the paperwork on this loan for close to two months, so if you want to get on the ball and start making payments during the initial 6 mo. period- too bad!
All that being said, I actually order a 1GHz 15" PB when they were first released, then cancelled the order based on rumors of a redesign, and ended up ordering the 17" I'm on now. Just had to pay off the sleazy MBNA loan with a credit card (sigh).SS = "spec sheet"
The 15" and 17" PowerBooks include a single Type I & II PC Card slot, and always have. The iBooks don't have it as a means of feature differentiation from the PowerBook line. The 12" PowerBook doesn't have it for obvious reasons.
Of all the people I know with PowerBooks, absolutely none of them have ever used a PC Card in one. Why would you, when every PowerBook since about 1998 has had everything you'd add via PC Card already built-in?
The only thing I can think of anymore that someone might have a use for is a memory card reader-- but why buy a PC Card one and limit yourself when you can use a USB one on any computer?
~Philly
you must like having cards jutting out of the side of the laptop!
I know I don't. the PC Card slot isn't as useful on a 12" PB when you already have Bluetooth and 802.11g out of the box. what would you put in there that isn't either already handled by the PB or could be done through USB (such as hooking up a camera to transfer photos)?
I never knew so many people played games with Media Access Control IDs!
;)
perhaps you mean "Mac" as in Macintosh?
So, you're the one who was responsible for the last Matrix.
You know what?
Not only did they beef up the processor and videocard they also dropped the price by $500 (cdn)
Ahrm.
So why is it you need PCMCIA? Is the current Cardbus slot not sufficient? It's like PCMCIA, only much faster and with a wider bus.
Oh, and it's backwards compatible.
Let me guess -- didn't read the specs? I understand.
Checking out the new IBook on the Apple site I see some major changes that far outweigh the slight processor speed increase.
Memory now maxes out at 1.25 GB instead of 640MB.
Available Superdrive
Built in Airport Extreme in 1.2Ghz model
Downsides:
Still only Firewire 400
I think this makes these the best IBooks yet. It may just be time to upgrade. These are now the best values in the Apple lineup.
I'm not an actor, but I play one on tv.
Same reason there's no $199 ultra-low-end Apple product... margins. Compete right in the middle (or at least not the low end) of the bell curve, where the market supports better margins.
What do you want more -- an Apple and the OS X OS, or a cheap laptop? You can get a desktop eMac NEW for $799. That's a steal. Order one through a school and it's $50 cheaper.
Powerbook for $600? Ha. Not even an iBook.
MAYBE you can find a 700MHz iBook on eBay, used -- or dealmac.com -- for $600. I've seen 500MHz ibooks for sub-500 some months back. These systems are suitable for UNIX or Mac development, which is what I use mine for.
Refurbs are great if you have a warranty.
If you were happy with the product and the price you paid when you bought the iBook, then quit worrying about today and just accept that the timing happened the way it did. Take their $49 rebate and have a decent dinner with somebody.
There will ALWAYS be "better deals" after you buy. You can only worry about what things were like when you bought. If your reseller won't happen to help you as a courtesy, there's nothing you can do other than irritate yourself further with anger or worry. It's your choice whether you enjoy your new iBook or complain about something beyond your control.
Yeah, I just got mine in december...
Oh well, at least it's still cooler than the competition.
ibook12" annecdote:
I was complaining to my friend in a cafe the other day that when I use airport to download large files as well as listen to itunes, run word, Fire im, and a dozen other apps, my battery life only lasts for about 3 and a half hours instead of 5. He told me to go fuck myself because his computer lasts about half as long and most of that time is spent configuring his wireless card, then his computer froze up and he had to take out the battery to reboot it.
Man I wish I owned a wintel!
: )
You can play Halo though. My first generation 866MHz 12" plays halo fine on an external 19" monitor. You *might* be able to play doom 3 or half life 2 depending on how low you can set the video options.
... but I don't see G5s there until fall.
SJ at the release of the G5 stated clearly that they "IBM and Apple are today announcing that within 12 months we'll be at 3GHz". You can hear/see this yourself in the WWDC 2003 video at timecode 1:52:00
Unless things continue to go horribly wrong at IBM, that means the G5 will hit that mark in June.
Note that Steve stated they would be at that speed, not announcing that speed. I would expect, based on that statement, that such systems should be shipping by July at the latest.
At this point, I suspect that Apple will forgo any interim speed bump or upgrades for the PowerMac and is simply stockpiling the 3GHz processors in anticipation of a major buying spree once the new systems are released.
I recall speculation after the WWDC last year that Steve's statement might mean there would be no major updates until a year later. That speculation seemed to be dismissed quickly by most.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
A DVD burner without a reader is useless to me.
Are you saying you don't think a DVD burner can read DVDs? Are you saying you don't realize that set-top DVD players can be had for $35 at Kmart? Are you just afraid of the DVD standard because you love VHS so much?
No parallel or serial port? That means I'd have to throw out all of my hardware and buy new stuff.
What ghetto hardware do you have that needs parallel and serial ports?? You'd better say $30,000 medical-imaging systems or something, because unless your hardware is highly specialized (or essential for business but not produced in a modern version), you're at serious risk of being branded a silly Luddite. Personally, the last printer I bought that didn't have a USB port was the one I got in 1999. Next one was combo (USB+parallel) and thereafter, they're USB-only. Last serial device was an old Palm cradle (that's $30 to replace by the way, but my current Palm came with USB only.
iTunes? I've got Winamp. It's free.
I've got iTunes. It's free too. And it's better--it does everything the paid version of Winamp does (in terms of audio; QT does the video stuff), for free.
Silly troll.
Most peolpe don't want and/or need all of that stuff, and certainly don't want to pay for it.
Correction: Most people want or need most of that stuff, and obviously many are willing to pay for it. Some people want actual modern technology on their laptops! And the only thing Wintel laptops can offer that is cheaper than a similarly-outfitted PowerBook or iBook is CELERON! Sorry, that's unacceptable to me. Celeron is just plain pathetic and I will never own a Celeron-based machine of any kind. Celeron laptops are for people who want to say they have a laptop and who just want to get on the IntarWeb and run Kazaa in their dorm rooms. Real computers are a totally different market.
Perhaps my entire comment can just be summed up in a revision of yours:
I disagree completely. I have no need for a parallel or serial port. I need DVD authoring. A portable video-editing studio without DVD recording is useless to me. No FireWire or Bluetooth? That means I'd have to throw out half of my hardware and buy cheap, crappy stuff. Winamp Pro? I've got iTunes. It's free. The Apple laptops are full of actual modern technology that you (and obviously, not many others) are afraid to adopt. Cheap PC laptops are designed for those with a SERIOUS budget problem, and no real demands for performance. They have their niche, but that's all it is: a niche. Many people want or need a lot of those features, and clearly 711,000 people were willing to pay for it last quarter alone.
I don't suppose the screens on the 12" model have been updated? I remember hearing that the screen model used on the 12" Powerbook and the 12"/14" iBooks was a much lower quality screen than the 15"/17" powerbooks.
...and that's all there is to it.
(WARNING: this post has nothing to do with wanting a G5 Powerbook or complaining how a year and a half ago I bought a Powerbook and now Apple has upgraded them *again* and I am so mad. Thus, most people will want to skip this post.)
What do you think about the standard Airport Extreme (80211.g) and Bluetooth in the Powerbooks?
I think this is the most overlooked "new" item. Just as USB and Firewire were first standards on the Mac, is Apple again ushering in a new era of wireless connectivity by making these items standard?
When Intel released the Centreno and those wireless ads that went with them, I never heard it having much response. Is there a high demand for these wireless standards?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Apple laptops have ordinary Synaptic's touchpads. You just need a better driver. See here.
Voilá, scrolling areas and tap corners (==5 mouse buttons). Also a Windows-style acceleration mode, which IMO makes the whole touchpad much more useable.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Having said that, I *want* a G5, and IBM should figure out what's wrong with their Fishkill plant and start cranking those suckers out, but until then... I have to admit I can't think of a single *good* reason why I need anything faster than my old 800Mhz G4 flat-panel iMac... poor Apple, I probably won't be buying another computer until my 2-year-old demands his own computer... at which point he'll get the plenty-usable iMac. He probably won't need his own since he has his own login anyway... I won't have a new computer at home for years and years. They'll have G6s before I can justify buying a new machine.
for what purpose do you need something faster than a 2Ghz PentiumIII, in all seriousness ? No, enterprise server uses don't count here, I'm talking about home machines... fast enough to look at web pages, launch a word processor, and play some games is, well, fast enough. Anyone who says different is either trying to sell you something, or just trying to impress you with their l33t boXen ( since they can't get a girl to talk to them ).
My 800Mhz iMac is not only fast enough to do all of the above, it's also plenty fast at editing DV movies and authoring DVDs. These new machines would be even better, and portable as a bonus... what exactly were you claiming as the reason why you'd not buy a G4 laptop?? I'm not sure that reason makes sense, that's all I'm saying... don't get me wrong, I like PCs just fine, my *last* machine was an HP, but I'm not sure your dissing Apple is justifiable.
Gaming is now bigger than movies.
Is that why I'm buying a Powerbook in a few moths to use at college (for communications, as in radio/tv/film. As in video.)?
...and that's all there is to it.
My favorite possession of all time. I love it more than words can describe and do everything with it. From development in XCode, to Dreamweaver, to manage my music, surf via export extreme at no performance hit, to create music and now (with Final Cut Pro) edit video...check email, play games, and the list goes on and on. It is sexy and it is a work of art, both functional and aesthetic. I have a hard time believing that I could love a car this much...
-Tru
I should really clarify here. I'm not knocking Celeron machines and older Pentium/clones like yours for uses like that...I found a discarded Compaq Celeron-500-based machine in a "toaster" formfactor in my basement...and it is an awesome server!
Right now I'm looking into getting an old, old laptop with AC adapter for use as a server because they're quiet and i can hide it in the bottom drawer of my dresser and have a mailserver without leaving on that wind-tunnel of a PC (my Athlon box) all night, etc.
I think everything can be put to use, as you clearly appreciate too.
However, I think the real culprit here is the computer industry in general, which for no reason anyone can fathom insists on locating Caps Lock, the least used and most annoying key ever, in a very prominent position on the keyboard instead of where it belongs--in a distant city on another continent. ACTUALLY, I USE THE CAPS LOCK EVERY DAY WHEN I WRITE EMAILS AND POST MESSAGES. I FIND PEOPLE PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU SAY WHEN IT READS LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING.
You've taken a valid problem that only affects a very small number of users, and blown it way out of proportion.
>Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
It's a fairly safe argument that current Apple laptops are the among the most usable laptops ever made. Many, many articles have been written and awards given praising their excellent usability and design. They were specifically designed to run Apple's own Unix which ships preinstalled.
As far as I know there are no non-Unix operating systems that will run on directly on the hardware of current Apple laptops. (I'm lumping Linux in with Unix here.) I'm not 100% sure that somebody hasn't gotten AmigaOS or Be or something like that to run on current PB or iBook hardware, but even if they have, I doubt that there is even a single user in the whole wide world who uses anything like that as the primary OS on a current Apple laptop. It would be shocking indeed to find that they sold 157,000 PowerBooks and 217,000 iBooks last quarter if your claim that they were "effectively unusable" for all of their users were true.
>Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part.
No, it's a misunderstanding on your part, apparently reinforced by a single Apple employee who is either spreading incorrect information or whom you misunderstood. For Apple to ignore all Unix users would be to ignore all of their Mac OS X users.
>Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years.
Well, they must have ignored their A/UX users (I believe A/UX was discontinued about 9 years ago, which was when the AWS 95 was discontinued), and their Apple Network Server users as well (the ANS line was discontinued just over 7 years ago, and ran AIX), if your figure of 13 years is to be believed. I do agree that Apple is probably not paying a lot of attention to A/UX and Apple Network Server users lately.
In fact, all that your "more than 13 years" link shows is that there was somebody 13 years ago who wanted to remap his Mac's keyboard and didn't know how.
You make a huge leap in assuming that the majority of Unix users want their Ctrl and Caps Lock keys in the same place that you do, and that Apple's failure to reimplement their keyboard hardware interface proves that they are ignoring Unix users as a whole. The fact is, uControl fills this need for Mac OS X users.
If you have a genuine need to run OpenBSD or NetBSD on an Apple laptop, you could run it inside Bochs/WinTel or VirtualPC. I don't know of any good non-emulator virtualization layers for Mac OS X that are comparable to VMWare on x86; that is, ones that can run PPC on PPC without the overhead of emulation. (Panther has a Linux API compatibility layer, so it may be possible to compile User Mode Linux (which has been ported to PPC) so that you could run LinuxPPC on top of Mac OS X without emulation, but that doesn't get you OpenBSD or NetBSD.) However, since Mac OS X is Unix already, there isn't much need to run another PPC *nix on top of it, so I can understand why there don't seem to be any projects that provide this functionality. Likewise, I can see how Apple could be aware of the requirement that some users prefer that keyboard layout tweak, and could be satisfied with uControl + Mac OS X as the solution for that requirement. I'd like to hear what an Apple systems engineer or Apple Store "Genius" would have to say in response to your demand ("I want to run OpenBSD/NetBSD on one of your laptops instead of Mac OS X, so you have to re-engineer your keyboards to not use ADB anymore"). It would be pretty funny watching them try to be diplomatic in the face of such a request.
>How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X prog