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Apple Announces New iBooks
vasqzr writes "Apple has announced new iBooks. New features include G4 processor up to 1.33GHz, built-in wireless networking capability, a DVD-burning SuperDrive and up to 1.25GB of memory. G5 PowerBooks can only be closer...They also show a single processor 1.8GHz G5 PowerMac desktop for $1,499"
I'm not sure if I'm the only one to notice this now, but I haven't seen it before. While I was browsing the store, I saw an Apple Price Matching ad... Apple is now going to Price Match all resellers on hardware and software.
Price Match details and FAQ
I usually only see the resellers selling for $3 or $4 less on most products though, so not sure how much this will help sales. Where Apple seems to maybe get bitten on this is when resellers are bundling printers and other items with big hardware purchases.
Also, with the new 1.2GHz iBook with 256MB RAM, 30GB drive, and 802.11g wireless coming in at $899 (education), and the eMacs and iMac G5s coming in at $599 and $1099 (education), respectively, I fail to see how people continue to say Macs are too expensive. Even Walt Mossberg notes "If you tried to match the specs of the base iMac G5 in a traditional Dell tower, you'd also pay more. A Dell Dimension 4600, with the best processor, Windows XP Pro, the best 17-inch flat-panel monitor, a CD recorder and the same graphics card, costs $7 more than the 17-inch iMac. And it's much bulkier and uglier."
They didn't just redesign the site, they're now offering different products - I ordered an iBook a few weeks ago and they have changed my order to reflect this change, which is nice since I'm now getting a faster processor and a bigger hard drive for the same price.
Lighter, more professional looking*, better FSB, possibility to go and haggle for a lower price due to the new ibook being so close in perf? :). Oh, and the PB is slightly smaller in every dimension. Note that i only made the comparison for the 12.1" models, some points may not apply on larger ones.
More built-ins: 802.11g, BT, larger HD. More video RAM, which i guess is more important with Quartz. Better case (aluminium > plastic
*That was actually important for my Corpo sister. She can't go on a board meeting with a shiny, cutesy iBook.
Try Corewar @ www.koth.org - rec.games.corewar
Actually, I have had experience with both single and dual processor G4 and G5 machines, and the speed boost is no small deal
I was skeptical at first too, given that on Windows machines I am used to an intensive application sucking up all of one processor and just letting the other take care of mouse clicks in the GUI. However, with Apple software, and actaully a lot of non-apple software I have found that it thread very, very well, and utilizes both processors to their maximum almost all of the time during an intensive process.
Just a FYI that I have noticed working with these in the past
Unless you do this:
l
http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.htm
This works well, is incredibly easy to do, and can be reverted at any time.
Apple still cripples the iBook with mirrored-only video. No desktop spanning. The Radeon chipsets they use do support it, but Apple reserves that feature for the Powerbooks.
:-)
I've no idea why they continue do it, but it's easily worked around.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
a a recently graduated film student, I can attest that the Powerbook is the way to go. Much faster, more robust, larger screen area, and the ability to have monitor spanning really make the Powerbook the way to go. I've seen and used both in action, and while the iBook functions for stuff like iMovie, When you get into Final Cut Pro, Motion, After Effects, and Photoshop (all needed in film school) the Powerbook really is the only useable solution. Editing a movie on Final Cut Pro on an iBook is an exercise in tedium and patience.
This graphics card is soon very obsolete by Apple's standards, because it won't support the upcoming Core Image technology which is part of 10.4 Tiger, scheduled to be out pretty soon as far as the lifetime of the iBook is concerned. Core Image is damn cool, and this little puppy will be left in the dust.
Why not just run ALL of the software you want ("OpenOffice (with good fonts), AbiWord, The GIMP, XMMS, mplayer / vlc / firefox / gaim / several window managers") in OS X itself?
.bashrc so you can start X apps from the Apple Terminal application.
Install the X11 server from apple. Then go to fink.sourceforge.net. Install fink.
Then type things like "fink install bundle-gnome", "fink install gimp". "fink install windowmaker". OpenOffice distributes a binary for OSX www.openoffice.org
In X11 preferences menu, set to Full Screen. Now you can run any window manager you like, full screen, command-option-A will swap you back to your normal OS X desktop. Set your xinitrc files to load the wm you want, and/or start gnome, etc...
Another handy hint: add the line "export DISPLAY=:0.0" to your
Best of both worlds!
-Spyky
Then let me break it down for you, since this is apparently so difficult.
The processors that Apple dubbed the "G4" are various iterations of the Motorola 74xx core. Targetted at the embedded and low-power draw computing markets, originally, the highly efficient design was very competitive with anything else in the same price bracket for a while.
When Motorla spun off their semiconductor division, it took the name Freescale and began to ally itself with other technology firms. Right now, Freescale, Phillips, and STMicroelectronics are sharing fabrication space in a facility they built in France. This site, known as Crolles2, is intended to be a next-generation workhorse and research lab, where they can apply the lessons learned from the failing and lagging Motorola line. They'd had successfuly 90nm test runs as early as 2003, with engineering samples being produces in 2004, and a plan to start the sampling process for 65nm in 2005.
The product line for Freescale is one of legacy - older Motorla cores like the 74xx series, the 603e, and others - and some new designs. Among the new designs are the e300 and e500 embedded systems chips (shipping now), and the e600 and e700 designs. The first appearance of the once-e600 will be the MPC9461D, which is a dual-core enhanced 74xx chip that will have two 128-bit AltiVec SIMD units, 1 MB of L2 cache per processor, on-die memory control and access to DDR2 (up to 667mhz), four on-die MACs for networking, encryption protocol support on the chip, and the ability to scale past 1.5ghz (the current high-end for 74xx cores).
As a stepping stone between the present and the future, Freescale is revising the existing MPC7447A processor. Breaking from the traditional upper limit of 167mhz on the MPX system bus, they're offering it at 200mhz on the bus, with a jump in core frequency to 1.8ghz. This compares to the previous high-end chips, the MPC7447A and older 7445/7455, with higher clocks and system access ability but lower power draw.
There... Just as geeky, but now more informative.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke
Apple chose Broadcom wireless chips because those were the first pre-802.11g chips available, and Apple stays with the same wireless chip vendor for an entire generation. Maybe when Apple moves to pre-802.11n they'll choose a more open vendor (assuming such a thing still exists).
Apple should decide whether they want Linux users using their hardware (and the resulting money) or whether having total control of their platform and product is more important to them. They can't have it both ways.
That is correct; Apple doesn't care about Linux. How much clearer do you want them to be?
The number of PowerBook Linux users is so small that you discredit yourself by threatening to switch to another platform.
My 12" 800Mhz iBook G4 (which I'm using right now, by the way) gets at least 4 hours of battery life.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
four versions of the 1150. The low end one kind of matches what the guy in the parent thread said (I don't know what kind of 1100 your girlfriend has):
-No S Video
-No Radeon 9200 (i.e. integrated shit video)
-No combo drive for the $999 one
-No firewire
-No PCMCIA
FYI, wireless was debuted by Apple in an *iBook*. That's right, the first machine shipped by Apple to have AirPort was an iBook so no it's not a recent change. I am yet to see more than an hour and a half hours of life from any PC non-Centrino laptop (the bricks with two batteries not counted). Your girlfriend has one hell of a laptop there for $999.