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"

Comments

Example

[daveschroeder]

$150 - Reasonable Athlon64 processor
$100 - Motherboard
$100 - Radeon 9600-class video card
$50 - Case and power supply
$60 - 80GB SATA drive
$30 - 256MB RAM
-----
$490

So you're telling me that this machine is *comparable* to a Power Mac G5? If you don't care about quality assurance, support, dealing with a single vendor, survey-proven reliability, industrial design, or anything else relating to Apple hardware and specifically the Power Mac G5, great...build your own box. But if you CARE about any of those things, you're automatically talking about someone like Dell, and any Dell machine under $1000 is most certainly nowhere near in the same class of construction as a Power Mac G5.

And perhaps you missed Walt Mossberg's recent column (http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20040923.html) where he says:

"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."

Of course, you can change a million different options and everything is up for debate, but this idea that "Macs are so expensive" - especially in an institutional setting when TCO is considered - is very, very tired.

Knoppix-like Linux for iBook?

[timothy]

I like my iBook's hardware; it's survived enough abuse over the past 3 (or is it 4?) years to make replacing the expensive battery earlier this year worth it, rather than the sort of reluctant decision that it would be if I ever decided to replace the battery in my Toshiba, in which the PCMCIA slots have grown flaky ... and Yes, I know my iBook doesn't even have PCMCIA slots to *go* flaky ;)

When I travel, I prefer the iBook because it's small/light, has a better keyboard than most laptops (though nothing like an IBM's, sadly), and gets good battery life.

However, when I'm near an outlet at least, I prefer my Toshiba laptop or other intel-type machine just because I like the gigantic rafts of software that come with a typical Linux distro, I like auto-raise windows (is there any way to do this with OS X?) and virtual desktops (again -- maybe they exist for OS X, but I don't see built-in to the OS ...), and I happen to like blackbox/fluxbox, WindowMaker, Gnome and KDE a lot, and I use all of them as my mood dictates. (Others, too.) OS X is nice, and familiarity is nice, but since there's change going on in different directions aesthetically and in supposedly well-reasoned user-interface decisions, I like to switch around and see what's up in the free-GUI world.

Also, though I understand it to be a nice application, I don't use iTunes (though I have used it) and don't at this date own an iPod (though I might one day). I am not a big fan of the iTunes interface -- many people like it, and I'll call it better than most interfaces but just not my thing. When I pop in a CD, it used to annoy me that iTunes would load rather than a simpler CD player app. So I'm perhaps not the typical OS X users :)

So:

Is there any current live Linux CD that will a) work spiffily - wireless, sound, sleep, keyboard controls for brightness and sound - on all current macs, or even all G3/G4 current macs? and b) serve as an easy installer, the way Knoppix or Mepis (or a bunch of others) will on x86?

Something that comes with OpenOffice (with good fonts), AbiWord, The GIMP, XMMS, mplayer / vlc / firefox / gaim / several window managers would be good. Yes, I know some if not all of these are available for OS X, but only piecemeal afaik.

I'm not knocking OS X: it's a very nice OS. I like it. However, I'd rather have a Linux desktop in general (I like the underlying software as well as the application software to be Free, for one thing, and for another thing, there's no accounting for taste), and I'm lazy. I've tried -- last year sometime -- the Gentoo PPC live CD, which was slow and IMO buggy on my iBook, and took googling just to find out how to reach X. There's been a PPC knoppix version, but I don't see any versions newer than July 2003. (Which might be OK, I have not yet tried that on my iBook.)

Since the iBook hardware (and Apple hardware in general) is pretty stable (not to say "limited" :)), I'd think it would be easier to find a good Live CD-installer than it is, esp. considering how very well Mepis/Knoppix work.

timothy

p.s. Really, I've read the flames on this topic before, so you can just say "FLAME" if you want; I'll get your meaning, and you'll save your wrists. I like OS X and do not demand that Live CD-Installers exist, but I am hopeful and curious.

Re:Bus speed nitpick...

[prototypical]

Actually, unless I missed a press release somewhere, the 200mhz bus isn't a factor until Freescale rolls out the MPC7448 chip sometime in the near future. That's the one that's ridiculously low power (Freescale claims 10 watts at 1.8ghz), with pin-compatibility to the older parts and the upgraded bus. These are likely MPC7445 or MPC7447A parts, which are slower, hotter, and not manufactured at 90nm like the new offerings will be.

I expect to see the 7448 as an incremental update to the PowerBooks, until apple can stick the MPC8461D dual-cores in their place later next year. Apple is, as usual, playing their cards close to their chest, but anyone that's been paying attention to Freescale's moves knows that Crolles2 is online and rolling out parts from the production lines. They've got functional 90nm production, the last I heard, and are working on tooling for samples at 65nm in 2005.

Re:Price Matching now?

[Jesus_666]

Yup. I ordered an 12" iBook a few days ago. Now I got a mail from Apple saying that they've upgraded my order to the new iBook with "similar or better" features. Which means that in my case the 60 GB HDD magically grew by 20 GB and I still pay almost 200 Euros less.

Up until this point my experiance with ordering from Apple has been pleasant. Now I'm absolutely positive that buying a Mac was a good idea.

Re:Price Matching now?

[jht]

They don't forbid selling below a price - that's illegal. What they do, though, is set a "minimum advertised price" for the product, and withhold advertising and co-op fund support if you break it.

Which is why resellers advertise bundles at the listed MAP - it gets them around the requirement and still lets them undersell in a way that passes Apple's muster.