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New iBook and Apple mini
shintaro writes "ThinkSecret reports that 'Apple delivers iBook, Mac mini updates July 26 - Apple updated its iBook and Mac mini lines Tuesday, increasing standard RAM across the board to 512MB and improving other specs. Missing from the iBook update was the long-rumored move to a widescreen model which unconfirmed reports had suggested might arrive with the revision.' "
The $599 Mac Mini is a great bargain. For just $100 more than the base unit, you get double the HD space, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a faster processor, but you give up the 56K modem (not a problem for most people). The $699 upgrade only adds a DVD±RW/CD-RW SuperDrive instead of the Combo drive (DVD/CD-RW) if you need to burn DVDs.
At last, 512Mb RAM in the Mac Mini - far and away the largest complaint about the happy little box. Apple may now have just invented a license to print money.
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
The higher end Mac Mini looks much better now. Adding in Bluetooth and Airport makes $599 look more reasonable, and $699 for a Superdrive model makes a good deal of sense.
:-(
It should have been this way from day 1.
Tim
I've also seen this rumor on another site ...
That's nice, but why link to ThinkSecret when Apple's iBook page has much more detailed information?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
From the article...
"The displays of both iBooks continue to feature native 1024x768 resolutions and are driven by an ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 with 32MB of video memory, not enough to take advantage of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's new Core Image technologies."
Why don't they start revising hardware so that it can actually use all the features of their great software?
Not new? It came out today, about an hour or so ago.
Oh, just woke up and found a drool puddle oozing out of my keyboard...
The Mini is a great little machine. Worth the money.
The iBook is a dead horse. OK, it's not horrible for $1000.00 but they could do better.
In fact their entire (oh! all six?) portable line is stale and going nowhere fast. Where are the innovations? The better screens? The tablet? (they practically led the way with HWR and it's in OSX as Ink). What about the built-in media reader? I like that feature on my M-In_Law's HP book.
On another topic but closely related, I can't wait to see how the Intel transition plays out and what new growth engines they'll introduce. I'd hate to think that Apple will continue to play so conservatively with their computer (designs, features, specs) because as it stands that's where they are.
As predicted by a fellow poster.
my blog
The iBook and Mac mini were the ones updated, and it's not so much a new Mac mini as a revision of the line. They're no quicker, just the higher end one loses its superdrive and gains airport+bluetooth as standard, and a newer more expensive higher-end one gets the superdrive back again, along with the 512MB default across the board.
The Mac minis are still 1.25GHz and 1.42GHz models.
the iBook 14 looks to be a better gain in value than others. It gets the powerbook scroller trackpad, powerbook motion sensor, new graphics card (as do all the others), 512MB RAM and bluetooth/airport as standard while also getting a decent price DROP.
Still, whether or not it's enough of a gain in value to keep the competing PC laptops away given their speed advantages now is something else entirely. Guess that comes down to how much OS X and iBook design is worth to a particular buyer.
Apple's core home-user base only really use the built-in apps and things like MS Office, all of which will be available for years on PPC. It's not like a Windows machne where the ending of support leaves you virus-prone and vulnerable. You can be sure that OSS projects like Firefox and OpenOffice will be available ad infinitum too.
I'm on the point of buying a used G4 powermac as my main machine,although I considered and rejected a Mac Mini (due to the lack of expansibility)
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Bluetooth and Airport become standard. 14" model gets a superdrive, both models get more RAM.
It's a substantial improvement all around.
Anyone that needs a new iBook.
Although the intel switch will be monumental for sure, there will certainly be a market for PPC macs for a while. regardless of whats coming a year from now, or even two years, people still need to upgrade. Of course it will suck when the new machines come out and blow these away but thats the way computers work.
I needed a laptop, and last month I bought a refurb iBook from Last rev (2 revs now). I know the intel machines are coming out, but when? Some people simply can't wait.
Even aside from that, I'm sure plenty of people will be clinging to PPC for a while, just like they do classic. Thats why apple kept one Classic bootable machine around for so long. People wanted and in some cases needed it, and it sold fairly well. And when the last PPC machine disappears from Apples site, it will make news on Slashdot just as the last Classic bootable Mac did.
Not for me. It's going to be at least 5 years before the intels get any kind of a foothold, and at least 8 before they get anywhere near the market share of the PPCs. 8 years for a $399 computer is a great buy.
I still do not understand the lack of more video RAM - this sucks because you can't take advantage of the 'Quartz Extreme', which whil it is some annyoning marketing, is *much* more reponsive on a PowerMac. That, plus the lack of screen Res of 1280x keeps me with my 2 year old 12.1" iBook - until I find a Thinkpad to run Linux.
bad_outlook
--
Is this vague enough for you?
My 14" NEC laptop had a conventional format an in an economy seat it couldnt be opened up because the top banged against the seat in front and if the guy pushed his seat back too fast... crunch, end of laptop hinge.
My 15" powerbook on the other hand fits with an inch to spare, which is much more convenient. At least for us young guys who get screwed when the company does it's travel budget allocation for the year.
Beep beep.
or something like that [grin] ...
But seriously, looks like a nice upgrade, although one wonders how long the lifespan will be, due to the chip switch to Intel/AMD.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This is clearly targeted for the students buying new computers in August and September.
It's all about dumping the last G4/G5 and gaining market share.
Although the intel switch will be monumental for sure,
The only thing monumental in the Intel switch is the feeling of disbelief and the gaping mouths of the most devout Mac fanbois who can't get used to the idea.
All it involves is: new motherboard (if not just more or less new CPU), recompile OSX, test, ship.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Quartz Extreme will work on these iBooks. That needs a 16Mb or greater AGP graphics adaptor, which the iBooks and Mac minis have. You're thinking of Core Image/Core Video.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0507ibookmacmini.h tml (not that you need a ThinkSecret article to tell you that there actually are updates...)
Also, the /. article summary fails to mention some important details--for example, there are now only two iBooks: 1.33GHz/Combo/30GB and 1.42GHz/Super/60GB. Additionally, there are now three Mac Minis with the same specs except 512 MB RAM standard, and AirPort+Bluetooth included on all but the $499 low-end model. Additionally, the 56k modem is actually not included on the two upper models unless you ask for it (add $29)! The ability to add a SuperDrive to a ComboDrive-standard model is also gone, but the new higher-end model helps; BetaNews reports this configuration, $699, would have cost $800 before.
Too bad I just bought an iMac. :)
R.Mo
Actually, now is a perfect time to buy. Many Mac users own their computers for 3+ years before even considering upgrading. Generally speaking, if you play the "wait and see" game with Apple hardware... you'll NEVER upgrade.
The pricing is very competitive. With the CPU bump, graphics card bump, RAM bump, Bluetooth bump, $999 is an amazing deal... for a Mac.
The 1024x768 screens, while certainly nothing to look down on, really need to be upgraded. Is it 96 pixels per inch now? Would increasing that be too expensive? (Not rhetorical; I'd like to know.)
Microsoft's font smoothing works only in the horizontal dimension and makes even small text look smooth and pleasing to the eye. Apple, on the other hand, tries to smooth things both vertically and horizontally. This looks fantastic at really big sizes, but at a normal size such as 12 point, horizontal bars (such as in "H" and "E" become gray and cause eyestrain.
I love Macs and hate to see Gates trumping them in something. But a higher-resolution, or better-smoothed, portable (iBook/PowerBook)screen would do wonders for readability.
Same people who buy cars even tho newer cars are just around the corner.
I don't know what it is with Apple and the VRAM. Every machine ships with about half of what you need to get any decent performance out of it. You're not going to be able to play many current games on them, much less any coming out in the next year. That has to be a disappointing experience to many people who are switching. When I ordered my 15" PowerBook earlier this year, I had to spend $300 just to upgrade it to the 128 MB video card. I really wish the VRAM was seperate a BTO option.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Not for me. It's going to be at least 5 years before the intels get any kind of a foothold, and at least 8 before they get anywhere near the market share of the PPCs. 8 years for a $399 computer is a great buy.
What are you talking about? 5 years before Intel gets a foothold? Within a year *most* new Macs will be Intel based. Most folks upgrade every 3 years; so within 3 years you will see mostly Intel Macs.
I am not even sure what "8 years for a $399 computer is a great buy." even means. There aren't any $399 Macs that I know of.
How are people leaping to the conclusion that when the x86 Macs come out that everything that's come before will all-of-a-sudden become obsolete?
You buy an iBook today, you can use it for years until the thing is too old to keep going...then you go out and buy a new one.
You know...just like any other computer out there. Software won't be a problem with Apple's developers plan with being able to compile both PPC and x86 into the same build.
Come on...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
After a wait this long (9 months?), and with the upcoming switch to intel, Apple really needed to make the iBook look like it is going to last 5 years if ordered today.
That resolution of 1024x768 (which was cool in 1997), and the non-CoreImage graphics card makes the thing look old at the day of introduction!
Did they not notice how other premium laptops (like sony and ibm) suddenly offer twice the punch at the same price? OS X alone will not sell iBooks, especially with some features not available at all.
"But I just bought an iBook two months ago! This just isn't fair!"
Even though the processors are unchanged (I think), I would have liked to have seen an upgrade on the hard drive RPM's. They're a sweet little system and that would have been a great addition.
The thing is though, I can't see how people would buy one now with this pending switch to Intel. I was going to buy a mini for my parents about a week before the switch and there weren't any in stock. Now with the news of the intel switch, I can't bring myself to get one. It will be very interesting to see what happens as the date draws nearer to the release of the intel mini's, since we could probably suspect a big sell off of PowerPC models. Just my $0.02.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
Just a clarification for your agrument: The mini is still bootable from classic, along with most of the laptops, so that day still hasn't come yet.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
[sarcasm]
Too bad they're going out of business any day now....
[/sarcasm]
True story:
"You know that Apple's going to be bought out by Microsoft eventually," my father told me.
I raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How do you figure that?"
"Well, they've only got 3% of the market, and now they've got a problem with iPod inventories building up. People just aren't buying enough iPods."
"Oh. Well, I know I'm getting Emily a 512 MB iPod Shuffle for Christmas, since she's started listening to her own music."
"I have one of those." He pulled into the parking lot at Best Buy. The task was to find a set of 801.11g XR transmitters. It seems that my sister was sucking down all of the bandwidth in the house with her stuff, so he wanted to keep her on the g (54 Mbps) while he coasted at g XR (108 Mbps), so he'd have priority on the downloads.
"Yeah, I remember." My father had received a free 512 MB iPod Shuffle for appearing at a CIO convention or something like that.
"I really like it, but I had to upgrade to the 1 GB Shuffle for more space."
I looked down at the dashboard, where his 60 GB iPod Photo sat in its iPod charger/radio transmitter. "This one's to hold more of my music," he said, changing the tracks from country to blues.
We went into Best Buy. It turned out they didn't have the router, but they did have iPods, of which he bought a 30 GB iPod Photo for my sister. "I got Deby one, and once I had Dejah use iTunes she bought some music, but it doesn't work on her Rio, so I had to get her one. I got Amber a Shuffle too not to long ago." Amber was my niece, his granddaughter.
Once we were home, he went into the back room for a bit and came out with his old iPod shuffle in a purple protector case. "Here - this is for Emily. I don't need it any more."
Emily, of course, was so excited and gave her Grandpa all the thanks in the world. Along with the shuffle came another two protector cases, a set of iPod socks made by Apple, then the dock adapter we had to get so it could be charged away from a computer.
"Gee, too bad that Apple's going out of business because they're not selling enough iPods," I mused.
"Well, Microsoft will just buy them out." Dad started inserted CD's into his laptop, ripping his entire collection to his hard drive to take with him on his portable music player. "Want to help your sister figure out her playlists in iTunes?"
"Ah - sure."
And that is how Emily got an iPod. And I learned that Apple may go out of business in the next bit - but odds are, my family alone will keep them floating for quite some time.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
One of the great things about Macs is that they hold their value so well, historically. They just keep on performing as the years go by. I've sold three Macs (Quadra 650, PPC 7500 and B/W G3 (Yosemite)), all when they were about three years old, all for $500-$600, or about 1/3 of the price I paid for them, making it easier to move up to the new models.
I'm thinking about moving from my G4/867 to a G5 (not sure I want to wait until the MacTel boxen come out), and I was thinking about the sales prospects when I realized that nobody in their right mind would spend $600.00 on a 3-year old G4 when they could have a mini which is almost twice as fast for the same cost.
So they've really changed the whole profile of the Mac economy, if there is such a thing. If it's harder to sell them, will it make a big difference to those thinking about buying them? I know it does to me. I wonder if the advantages associated with getting into that market for Apple outweigh the disadvantages of the "upsell" market for people like me, who are interested in hopping to near the top of the scale every 3 or so years.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Well, iirc Apple did leave a lot of 9 users out in the cold when OSX was released. That track record doesn't bode well for new apps supporting PPC architecture. Remember when MS started releasing Win9x-incompatible versions of MediaPlayer and Messenger? Apple can do the same, leaving the legacy users out in the cold.
Missing even more is a G5 processor. Yeah I know Power Book is their expensive -- excuse me, high performance -- line, but iBook is what's coming out now, not Power Books.
Would anyone have been willing to pay more for a lowest speed, low power G5 iBook, or is keeping iBook prices as low as possible paramount instead?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So the Mini has a Radeon 9200, whereas the iBook has a 9550? Does that mean the iBook has a better video card? I'd look it up, but video cards are such a jungle I figured it's easier to just ask.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I predict. The reason Apple didn't launch wide screen iBooks is because it would have been wasted investment. Power users who watch DVDs (in aircraft etc) use Powerbooks, not iBooks. And parents probably want their kids to use their iBooks to study, not be entertained. Anyway, if Sony can produce such amazingly compact yet feature laden portables as their current mini-laptop range, am sure Apple's next portable will be an ultra thin (Intel inside?) tablet with a very cleverly designed swivel touch screen and inkwell technologies. This will make it possible to use the machine in just about any configuration. PDA, office machine, artist's easel, data capture etc. Either way, I want an Apple PowerPad!
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Apple has really come a long way when the best snipe a PC partisan has got is "the equivalent Windows PC costs the same", rather than "costs half as much". Now Apple only has to work on the "equivalent" part - which is almost entirely perception. With the best brand recognition in the world, Apple probably already has that beat, except among Windows diehards.
--
make install -not war
The other thing I noticed is that clock speeds seem pretty much the same, which makes me think : hey, aren't these the same class of machines that are supposed to be switched to Intel first ? Need anyone wonder why ?
Slashdot is an "advertising portal" site these days. Linking to 2 year old articles with tons of banner ads all over them instead of the readily available printer friendly versions is becoming commonplace.
I had expected to see G4s going for under $500 very soon after the Mac mini came out, but it didn't happen. The price of G4s stayed steady, dropping no faster than they had been, until the Intel announcement.
Then they dropped like a bomb. I've been offered a dual G4/550 for $350, or a stripped G4/400 for $150. I wish the Mini had had that effect, because I was trying to get a cheap G4 a couple of months back and finally went for the Mini instead.
But your G4/867 (MDD, I assume)? It's got a faster hard drive than the Mini, it supports twice the RAM, it supports Core Graphics in the GPU with a Radeon 9600 or better video card. You can upgrade it (thanks to Sonnet and their pals) all the way to a dual 2 GHz G4. Depending on how you have it actually loaded, it could be quite comparable to a $600 Mini.
But not until the aftershocks of the Intel bomb settle down, I suspect.
But then I saw that Apple updated everything but the graphics chip. The Radeon 9200 isn't capable of doing the core graphics that requires a GPU and they left it in there. The mini is the only machine in their whole line (that I can see) that's incapable of doing core graphics. So sad because that was my tipping point for getting one.
Where is the Freescale MPC7448?
What in the hell have they been doing?
What took so long?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Apple did _NOT_ leave OS 9 users in the dust. That is a complete fabrication.
OS X had the classic environment, which you can still use in 10.4. Also OS X installs on just about any Mac sold in the last 5 years or so.
Maybe you consider only supporting people for 8 years after they bought their computer leaving them out in the cold, but I don't.
Can you even afford to fill a 60GB drive with music -- whether ripping your own @ $17/CD, or from iTunes @ .99/track?
Does 60GB of compressed music worth listening to even exist in the entire history of the recorded music of the world?
Will Sony give you payola to load JLo's "Get Right" on your iPod? Is it enough to make you listen to it too?
In the rest of your life will you be able to listen to all 60GB of music even once all the way through?
Enquiring minds blah blah blah...
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Bhwhaahahahahaha. No. It's Apple's core model with students, among others. If it is such a dead horse, why does it retain its market value rather well used? The only problem with iBooks was that whole effing logic board thing.
In fact their entire (oh! all six?) portable line is stale and going nowhere fast.
Is that why sales were up 75% overall, 35% on Macintosh systems (which are something like 2/3rds laptop computers) from last year?
Please help metamoderate.
By that statement I mean features beyond the base of a PowerMac.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
of a new product has a suspect track record. To wait for the Intel line - and a stable Intel line - could be a wait of a year or more.
THAT'S stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The other interesting bit in the Mac Mini announcements is this: you can configure a 1.4ghz PowerPC server (that runs Debian just fine, thank you) with 1 Gig of RAM for about US$740.00 And you can fit at least three in a 1U rack space, WITH power supplies. Previously, Apple had premium'ed that 1 GIG of RAM by almost 100%, so you were looking at about $950 for that same box.
You're right, the Radeon 9200 does not have all the functions needed for Core Image and Core Video. I figured that with Tiger out, they'd have upgraded the video. But I suppose any re-engineering for a better video chip is out of the question since they're probably working on intel-based units.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Are they going to be a lot faster? Are they going to be an entirely different design?
Everyone says "don't install software on the .0 release," and "don't buy first revisions of new hardware." Why are these the same people who are waiting so anxiously for the Intel macs, the ones that won't run most current OS X software without an emulation layer? If anything, getting the macs right before the intel switch would probably provide more bang for the buck.
But there's no reason to believe that iBooks are going to suddenly become power computers with the intel switch. Plenty of current Intel laptops in the 1.6-2.0 ghz range, and those chips are not nearly as powerful as the G4s.
There you go again, assuming that Apple purchasers are in their right mind. Just put it up on eBay and see what you're offered.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
widescreen isn't for dvds.
Me, for one. I just did - the $599 model.
And the upcoming x86 switch is exactly why I choose the mini. Before the x86 announcement, I had been planning to get a 20" iMac, but I decided that I didn't want to drop $2000 on and end-of-line product. The $600 I spent on the mini, however, is low enough for me to accept as a temporary system.
Maybe in a few years I'll get a more powerful x86 Mac and turn the mini into a media jukebox or some such thing. I'm sure I'll be able to find some use for it, if only to give away to a relative on a tighter budget. A few years of use is plenty for $600.
Actually, I'm waiting for it because although I need about 40 Mac Mini units, I really need to run FreeBSD on them instead of OSX (no, they aren't identical, I have reasons...), and having a split architecture isn't going to cut it, as when I build a binary once I need it to run on all 40+ units identically, not emulated. That means tons of extra work for me.
:(
So I wait.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Well didn't you know that when AMD came out with their 64-bit CPUs that nobody uses 32-bit anymore? Were you not aware that when Intel came out with the P4s that nobody uses a Pentium M^H3 anymore?
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
I have a Mac Mini, and the first thing I did after getting it was to crack it open and replace the 256MB DIMM with a 1GB DIMM. 1GB gives plenty of head room.
On my PowerBook, it came with 512MB, and it was sufficient for basic operation. But, if I had a few large apps open, things would slow down. Adding a 256MB DIMM to go to 768MB gave me much better performance.
It's such an incremental upgrade that you'd have to be a spec-pert to have any idea what's changed.
This weekend we get to buy everything without sales tax in Georgia. (Actually that may only be good for school-related items, I think clothes, computers, school supplies, etc) My sister's starting at georgia tech next month, and I convinced her to get an ibook. We've been looking at them for a month or so...the upgrade is actually very pleasing. For the same price the ram is upgraded, bigger hard drives, better optical drives, bluetooth built in, better video card, faster processor, the powerbook tilt sensor, and a new trackpad that scrolls when you use 2 fingers. It may be incremental, but if you were stewing about whether or not to buy bluetooth, or whether to pay apple's outrageous prices for ram or go buy a stick and put it in yourself...the upgrade is very welcome.
Of course, those classic machines can still very well work, use those old apps, and get the job done. They just won't be able to update.
But that doesn't make the machine useless. If anything, those machines have seen tons of support, what with the OS X releases supporting older machines that are really quite old and slow. It's just that it does nothing for that old, deprecated software.
If I remember right, the pricing used to be $899 for the low-end ibook model. Now it's $949. The mac mini pricing appears to be the same $20 off it was before.
Oh, and if you're going to use edu pricing on the minis, consider paying Apple for the 1GB ram upgrade, instead of doing it yourself. The premium looks to be about $30 over buying the memory from someone like Crucial, and you won't have a stick left over, but you won't have to crack the case and it'll all be under the same Apple warranty.
(What would you do with the leftover stick, anyway? I have a 256MB stick from my revA mini that I need to sell or find a use for, now. It's faster than the gig of DDR266 memory in my XP box, but if I stick it in the third slot, it will slow down even further, because this particular Nvidia chipset works fastest splitting the memory between two slots, not 1 or 3. And I haven't really seen that I run out of memory w/1GB in XP, anyway.)
I think you can still get quite a bite for it on Ebay. I've been shopping for a new/used powerbook and it amazes me to see how much people are paying for used powerbooks (Which makes it hard to get a good value!)
This is not an upgrade, its merely bundled discounts. The boxed configs for the original Mini's were impractical for normal people. It was either 499, 599, or 899(for the top end one). The two cheaper models did not have enough ram but the top end model had everything. Honestly, I'm glad they did not upgrade the video card on the mini. I just bought one 2 weeks ago(right outside of the 14-day return window) and I did not want to have to fight the apple store to take my mini back.
you forgot that iLife refuses to work on the older OSX versions.
Note that with the 1.25 G4 you can add the Superdrive as a BTO option for $100. Otherwise you have to jack all the way up to the $699 to get one; though the modem is an option on the 1.42's, the drive you get isn't.
;^)
More to the point, the *only* difference between the $599 and $699 is the Superdrive. They've changed a $100 BTO html SELECT box into a new level o' Mac.
Now if I can just get someone to let me upgrade their new Mini to a gig of RAM. I can save them about $100 and keep their Mini's 512 for my Athlon system... Any takers?
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
I've been planning to buy one as soon as this update was made. However, they don't seem to be available in Canada yet.
$17? Sounds like you need to shop around more for your CDs.
Even ignoring used CD stores ($5-$10), you can do a lot better than $17.
(Also, some of us have been buying CDs since the 1980s...if you buy one every couple of weeks for 20 years, that adds up.)
i too was wondering where those were. there has been a question if they were still too hot for a laptop. the fact is that there will not be a G5 ibook before a powerbook. at this point i doubt we will see a G5 portable at all, there are also some interesting new G4 chips coming that will tide things over. the theory is that the portables will be among the first to go Intel since they have been lagging the most. that thinking means they should be out in less than a year. maybe 1 more powerbook revision till then? possibly 2? i would guess those newer chips will be in the next powerbook revision.
the new G5 chips would maybe go into Xserves and iMacs where there is still some heat issues (though i doubt we will see a dual-processor imac soon). the towers could make nice use of them too, the fans are variable so the cooler the chips the quieter the machine.
How are people leaping to the conclusion that when the x86 Macs come out that everything that's come before will all-of-a-sudden become obsolete?
Because they will be obsolete. Here it is as simple as possible:
PPC = Old
Intel = New
While it is certainly true that you can buy a PPC Mac today, and it may be useful for many years and still be worth every penny - that doesn't change the fact that you are still buying into an obsolete platform that is being phased out (atleast for desktop computing).
"expansibility"?
"Will Sony give you payola to load JLo's "Get Right" on your iPod? Is it enough to make you listen to it too?"
So I'm not the only one who thinks "Get Right" is the worst piece of garbage since UB40's "Red, Red, Wine?" It took 15+ years to knock that song off my most hated song list but JLo managed to do it.
God, that song is f*cking irritating! Sony would have to pay me A LOT indeed! It's the kind of song that, years from now, will still have a novelty following... Like "Ice, Ice, Baby"... Unfortunately.
"Word to your mother"
Condoms!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Why are you compating a laptop computer's specs with that of a Power Mac? If you want to make comparisons, compare laptops at least. The Powerbook G4 starts around $1600 and seems pretty comparably equipped IIRC so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
That said, I agree with your point about Apple being in the image business, sort of. Apple has always made image a part of their "unique selling proposition", or the thing that makes their products stand out. Where I think we disagree is that Apple's image as a cutting-edge developer of first rate consumer electronics technology is well-deserved. Apple continually sets the bar in the PC industry, and people are almost always willing to part with a little more money to get something a little better engineered.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
I think you missed the "with a keyboard, mouse and monitor bit". I can get a box equivalent (hell, probably faster) than a mini for $250-$300 from Dell, but, like Apple, you have to add your own screen etc.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Most people upgrade a lot slower than every three years. I know plenty of Mac users still on B&W G3s, and tray-loading G3 iMacs. These are computers from 1999. Seven year old computers that are still in use, and their owners don't see a reason to upgrade. My parent's Dell is about five years old, and they are just now starting to think seriously of buying a new computer (a Mac mini, actually). My main computer is not showing signs of being long in the tooth yet, but it is only two years old. I haven't even thought about upgrading a single part on it.
/usr/games/fortune
My mind definitely wasn't thinking "stick [of ram]" when I read that the first time. I had to read it a few more times before it made sense.
It made me laugh the first time. Now you're just informative. Damn you!
An IBM spokesman was unable to comment on the availability of the new chips
Clear, Dark Skies
Well, according to iTunes, it would take me 29.4 days to listen to my 10,510 songs, taking up 54.92GB space on disk. Figure 8 hour days, and that's still only three months.
Just phoned the Seattle Apple store, which claims to be the largest in the north west US, and they don't have the new iBooks in stock and don't know when they will. This is pretty much how the iPod releases have happened, nothing in stock and you have to keep phoning if you want to find out when.
I think he means that in eight years Macs will be $399?
If it holds true as some people have said that the Intel move is good econonomics and will make the chips cheaper, then we should eventually see a $399 Mini.
Truth be told, though, most current intel vendors aren't putting out much for $399. Dell's $399 box isn't likely to do much for very long, if they're anything like the Dell's I've used. You can get a computer at Walmart for less than $400, but I wouldn't expect the average consumer to do much with it right out of the box. A mac, on the other hand, comes with enough software to do everything most people would want to- I do more with my Mac than i ever did with my PC, and I haven't bought a single piece of software. (Yeah, I downloaded some free stuff, and it all beats the crap out of the Windows versions I used to use.)
Even with the Intel macs around the corner, though, I'll probably be buying my girlfriend a mac mini or an ibook in August. Why? Because I want her to have a good machine for the fall semester, and I think that the G4 is still a big enough improvement over what she has now, and yeah, I expect it to be useful for years down the line even if we later buy a newer one.
I guess if I really loved her i'd buy her an iMac now and a Centrino powerbook next year... i think she'd rather have a ring.
You might want to consider installing Linux. FreeType has a very configurable font smoothing system integrated into X (but X is teh suck! blah blah blah -- not anymore).
From the KDE Control Center, you can, with a few clicks, indicate what kind of font smoothing you want.
Go to Control Center -> Fonts. Check the "Use anti-aliasing for fonts" box. The "Configure..." button becomes active. Click it.
You have the following options:
[ ] Exclude range [8.0pt] to [15.0pt] (if you want it to behave like (IIRC) Win2K, which only smoothes large fonts)
[ ] Use sub-pixel hinting (This is the ClearType-like feature) -> it has a combo where you can specify how are the subpixels of your LCD laid out -- just do some trial and error and see what looks best for you.
Hinting style: [None/Slight/Medium/Full] -> here you can adjust how "aggressive" you want font smoothing to be.
Easy, powerful and free!
The filesystem is the package manager
I really want to tie a Mac mini into my truck for iTunes+GPS+Road maps+802.11b .. partly for the geek factor (it's been awhile since I did something like this) and partly for it's usability (a large amount of racetracks I go to provide free 802.11b access to the Internet). But I have never seen a good GPS+Roadmap package for the Mac. Anyone have any recommendation?
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Now all I need is a wife.
More like a shot in the mouth The Mac Mini bukkakes now? What an upgrade!
My other sig is crap too
It's called slang, homie.
The CB App. What's your 20?
*most* new Macs
Really? That wasn't completley obvious. Most new macs, not most macs. It's going to be a while before most macs in use are Intel based. And whoop-dee-doo, I read wrong. $499, for a computer which you can use for (in my opinion) 8 years. The G3 which our family got 8 years is used by everyone but me.
Old != obsolete.
Obsolete = no longer in use or no longer useful.
Not to mention the fact that PPC Macs are still going to be produced for 2-3 more years, not even taking into account their useful lifetime once they've stopped being manufactured.
Does 60GB of compressed music worth listening to even exist in the entire history of the recorded music of the world?
Compression - that's the key. 60GB of uncompressed music is a mere 100 hours of stereo uncompressed music... and I've got more than 100 CDs. Quite a bit more, and I suspect most people do too, at this point.
(whether you want all of those hundred hours is a different story, but maybe 1/5 of the tracks are good, and you've got 500 albums... whatever)
As storage space gets larger, there's no need to compress down to your crappy-sounding 128kbps MP3s - put everything in ALE, or even WAV, and you've got plenty of music, sounding perfect, at your fingertips.
-T
expansibility
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
And don't forget the "free ipod mini after rebate" deal tacked on. I don't remember if that made the slashdot "headline", since it's a student only deal, but between that and the bump, it's definitely a good time, if not the best time, (at least for college students) to jump and buy an ibook.
The Powerbook lasted me five years because I don't do any heavy lifting at home, and the at the odd times I needed to use Photoshop I was alright with the slow speed. For most people, the daily things the do with a computer - email, web, Word -are easily done on older hardware and older operating systems. I have set up people still using OS9 with Mozilla 1.2.1 and they're perfectly happy.
So, I agree that it will be a while before Intel Macs get a real foothold. I intend to hold onto my G5 until the second or third revision of Intel-based Powermacs (let others be the gineau pigs) which means this machine will be my primary machine for three or four years, and it will have a useful life long after that.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
These are nice updates all around. I just bought the new iBook 12".
.
:))
Not only does it get 512 MB soldered onto the mobo (with one free RAM slot), it also gets that motion sensor for the HD, trackpad scrolling, and most importantly a fully Core Image compliant GPU, the Radeon 9550
Furthermore, since I'm an education customer, I get a free iPod mini. (They rebate the cost of an iPod mini if you buy a Mac at the same time, but you can buy either the iPod or the iPod mini. Note however, the Mac has to be on the same bill, and neither the Mac mini nor the eMac qualify for this killer deal. Luckily the iBook fully qualifies though.
This should last me quite nicely until the Intel 'Books come out. I'm hoping for either a widescreen 13" dual-core Pentium M Yonah PowerBook, or a 4:3 12" single-core Celeron M Yonah iBook, in the first half of 2006. Actually, the current G4 iBooks are so nice, I may just wait until version B of the Intel Macs come out. By that time the x86 binaries will be more common (and more mature), and Apple will have had time to work some of the hardware transition kinks out too.
The catch, of course, is whether or not anyone would really want to listen to all of that. I'll rip an entire album, but there's always those albums that you really just want 2-3 songs off of and will never listen to the rest.
Incidentally, so that I didn't get too close to filling up my iPod, all of my 90's "alternative" stuff I re-encoded down to 128 AAC to save about 2 gigs of space. About 30 albumsworth of stuff, I'd say.
So yes, it's quite easy for anyone who's into music and has been buying CDs for a while to fill up an iPod. My iPod will only provide about 10 straight days of music. Do you listen to more than 240hrs of music in a given, say, month?
The Mac Mini is for the market that wants a mac for cheap ... face it ...
... slap a G5 Motherboard in it ... buy my own video card and sound card etc etc.
... do you see them often ?
You don't buy a mac for cheap computing power, you buy it for the experience. The lack of driver issues, spyware and other common Windows based problems.
I built my Athlon64 for 800 bucks it has
A Clear Case
Athlon 64 3000+ (Winchester core) 939
1gb of Dual Channel DDR400 Memory
ATI Radeon 9600XT All-In-Wonder
160gb IDE Maxtor HDD
Plextor 716-A DVD Burner
The rest you see (the fancy lights and do'dads) I got off ebay.
It's PC's expandablity which makes it so cheap. I can buy one part retail and the other off some joe off the Street. If I couldn't of gotten some of those parts off ebay I would of payed WAY more then what I did. I got the powersupply for 10 bucks off ebay. I got the Fans for 4 bucks off ebay. I got the Thermaltake Hardcano 9 off my friend for 20 bucks. The lights in it (blacklight and the blue one) 10 bucks. All those savings add up and you get WAY more then what you pay for. I don't see a big market of macs in "pieces".
I can't go buy a case
Of course you could build a mac like that but
btw, the only pieces of that PC purchased retail was the Athlon 64 chip , the Asus A8v Motherboard and the RAM.
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
According to Apple's website:
Core Image-capable graphics cards include:
* ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
* ATI Radeon 9600, 9600 XT, 9650, 9800 XT, X800 XT
* nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200
* nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
* nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL
So how is that a fully Core Image compliant GPU on the new iBook?
And later on, if you want more power, you should be able to do a "Drop in replacement" of your processor with a dual core CPU.
Or if you wait long enough, a quad core.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
The only thing that stopped the Mac Mini from being the perfect living room machine was that it didn't have digital audio out. It already has full screen DVD playback through DVI; with the addition of digital audio out people could have a Mac Mini instead of a DVD player and not need to make any compromises and not have to mess around with third party solutions. It's a great pity that Apple have not rectified this glaring omission.
Having said that, close inspection of the new machines reveals that they don't seem to have changed the main board at all; it's the same processors and same video RAM as before. Still, it would be very nice if they would add the digital audio some day.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
How can you say that? You buy a mac today, use it for years, then get a new one. Does this mean as soon as an Intel Mac comes along all of a sudden the PPC box will stop working? NO, you keep going and work on it. When it gets old you go out and get a new one. By then the new one will be an Intel Mac.
So where is the obsolescence coming into factor? You're confusing this with a company that may be Mac based and they're switching to Windows next year...so therefore they won't be buying any new Mac hardware when they're moving to Windows. THEN the Mac would be obsolete for that company. But this isn't the case here. You get a machine...use it...when it's old you upgrade to a new machine.
It comes down to this, it's a Mac...it doesn't matter what the processor is, it's what's RUNNING the processor that counts. OSX. A person that doesn't read anything about Mac switching to Intel could walk into a Mac store and buy a Laptop today...use it for 3 or 4 years...then walk into a Mac store and buy a new Laptop. He'll be none the wiser as to it being a PPC in one and a x86 in the new one. At least this is what is SHOULD be like.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
In a portable? Taking up space, and adding a few ounces more to the total weight?
Sure, if I was a pro photographer. Or even a dedicated amateur. Or, heck, maybe if I even if I used my digital camera more than once a month.
As it is, I'd rather leave that at home.
Now, a third USB port...that I could use....
The last weekend in July is back to school tax free shopping in Georgia. Last year, I bought an eMac and the Apple store was crammed. People come from all over the South to save 7%.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Wait, things are much more responsive on their proffesional desktop line than their consumer laptops???!!!
Pass the joint, steve.
The key is to get something light, compact, cool running, good battery life, and yet still have good enough performance to be acceptable for most things. The goal is not by any means to have the fastest computer out there. Remember, if you really need the ultimate performance, you can always by a desktop. Or you could have just bought one of the current model PowerBooks instead of an iBook (though it's still not in the same ballpark as a high-end desktop). If you think about it, a 1.4GHz G4 with 3D acceleration standard, well, that's a pretty good machine for most things. Thinking back a few years, I developed commercial 3D games with desktops that were much lower powered than that. (For a real laugh, go back and look at what John Carmack used to develop Quake, remembering that Quake 1 was initially software rendering only.)
Realistically, the iBook is not a hardcore gaming machine. You're not going to find many PCs in the same price range that can play DOOM 3 with all the bells and whistles turned on either. And I'd argue that this is okay. High-end 3D games like this are a niche.
In terms of CoreImage, I think many people don't understand what it is. It is not QuartzExtreme. All 2D graphics are going through OpenGL on the iBook, so things will be snappy and take advantage of the GPU. CoreImage is about what are essentially Photoshop filters and special effects, not fundamental rendering. And being a fairly new OS X technology, it's not clear how much CoreImage is actually being used right now, or if it will come into its own in the future.
from the online Apple Store.
I code in Windows all day at work and just today I had to type in some accented characters and am seriously appalled that the basic Windows method has not changed literally since the PS/2 era in the 80's when I was in high school. The old alt-xxxx-release combo.
That said, there is now an easier way in Windows to do this, but it seems a bit like a hack, because it affects how you type in regular quote characters. Thus I still feel the Apple way is nicer.
See here for details on the methods in both OS'es.
Heh, that's funny -- I just got a 20" iMac because I know it won't be obsolete nearly as soon as the Mac Mini will be. Due to the x86 announcement, I wouldn't even consider buying a G4, but since the G5s are so much faster (and getting replaced last), they've still got a lot of life left in them.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
That's why I went for the 939. I can upgrade to a Athlon 64 FX or a *core replacement. Although at a 1000 dollar CAD pricetag ... I think im going to wait :/
Solosoft.org - Your Online Resource to Nothing
This was an interesting machine, until I got to the video out port. Not only do they not include a VGA or DVI port on the back, but they make you buy a dongle if you want video out to a monitor! That is really the only bad thing I have to say about this, as it will run Ubuntu! http://ubuntu.com/
That is because the Apple Store is a dynamically generated web service. It is served up via WebObjects and is linked directly to your current personal shopping session. There is a way to send pages, but you really can't use the links in your browser's URL field.
Viewing a DVD is a power-user requirement now? C'mon...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
In fact their entire (oh! all six?) portable line is stale and going nowhere fast.
Big reason for the intel switch, yes? Remember the whole "per watt" part of the keynote? Remember how Jobs specifically said the first intel chips would be in Mini-level consumer boxes and portables?
Personally I'm maybe going to consider an iBook as an interim measure and utility box to carry around. They aren't meant to be workhorse professional machines; they're consumer laptops, tons of kids have them for school. Argue the price point, okay, but people who're wanting wide screen models and so on just don't "get" the market niche. It's a computer for the counter space in your chem lab, and for handy digital media collections.
The trick Apple faces here is that when they bump iBooks up at all, the have to stay clear of the PowerBooks. The PB line isn't going to be seeing that big G5 moment now.
So you're right about the stale quality. It's all pretty reminiscent of the debacle back in the early 90s, when Apple lost what was a dominant position in laptops. They left the whole line to languish for a couple of years, and when they finally came out with a PPC portable it was the execrable, shoddy PB5300. It'd amaze me if Jobs didn't have that disaster in the front of his mind right now.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
On the mini. Bah. Come on Apple, even the Airport Express has such a thing (a combo jack).
This is a real killer for those wanting to use the Mini in their entertainment center.
Even if I wanted to switch to Mac's laptops, I will never do it until they make it with full keyboard, like I have now on my HP ZD8000 - I mean with normal numpad. I can't live with it... The curious point is, that there are only few 17" laptop models with normal numpad, although size of the laptop allows it easily. I think designers just don't want to work too much and simply copy&paste keyboard layout from 15" models :)
No, not true. If it were, why did my mac mini come with a OS9 install disc?
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
It's German. Some kind of zeitgeist uber-grammar.
audio/visual people are still a big market for the g4s... While the g5s are great systems, they are still quite expensive... In the world of audio recording/editing, expandability can be more important than speed... Having room for more than one hard disc, pci soundcards, and lots of ram can be more important than a small form factor (the slow HD on the mini is the real bottleneck for audio/visual work)... So there will always be a market for g4 power macs...
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Neither does Dashboard. So? Everyone knows that new features don't work in older versions of the OS. Safari can't function in OS 9, unless you make a crippled version for both. iLife has an older version of iMovie and iTunes and iDVD that functions in OS 9, it's not like they stopped functioning.
* Radeon 9600 graphics chip with a minimum of 64MB or anything that drives Quartz Extreme
I think this price range is possible
For those folks who want to pay extra for an elegant and intergrated PVR solution and not the more expensive EyeTV. An ATI Theater 550 Pro video processor with H.264 hardware encoding.
http://www.ati.com/products/theater550/index.html
With a new iLife software solution to easily record TV shows (TiVo) and does post processing of these recordings to a small H.264 file to build content for a future video iPod and for video podcasting (a.k.a vodcasting).
I meant Core Video/Image not Quartz Extreme. The 9200 already drives QE.
havent read the previous posts but drop in prices was inevitable.. they had to dispose the powerpc pieces to get themselves ready for intel.. well this might not be the case with mac lovers where they might cherish the last of the powerpc but economically speaking...
I'm kinda curious after the whole ThinkSecret leak earlier this year... is it possible that the rumor about the widescreen iBook was actually a spread internally by Apple, in the hopes of starting to identify the source of their leaks?
(Just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't mean there aren't forces aligning against me.)
--- -a- "I'd love to change the world, but it'd be easier if the universe exposed its API."
"Even aside from that, I'm sure plenty of people will be clinging to PPC for a while, just like they do classic. Thats why apple kept one Classic bootable machine around for so long. People wanted and in some cases needed it, and it sold fairly well."
We are only just now switching over our Production machines to OS X. Why such a slow transition? A lot of the software used in our workflow was not ported to OS X or was only recently ported. We had to test new software to replace the ones that didn't get ported and recreate our workflow.
Other issues slowing the transition include cost of hardware, software and training. For a home computer it's not a big deal, for a business it can be huge.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
"That doesn't cause the old software to suddenly stop working, though."
No it doesn't, but in the case of web browsers, the older browsers available on OS 9 can't properly display a lot of current websites.
We have a few older OS 9 iMacs that we are slowly having to replace (no they won't run OS X) because of this problem.
Another problem arises with USB capable cameras and printers that don't have OS 9 drivers.
So as a standalone computer, they still work fine, but their connectivity with peripherals and web just gets worse and worse.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
An old car can still drive on the same roads as a new one.
My friend just bough two Mac Mini's yesterday with the 512MB ram upgrade for $600 each. Today they are $100 cheaper. Gesh.
The above is not worth reading.
---k--
</stupid>
Yeah, there's definitely a new buying dymanic with the mini.
We expected mini sales to pick up when Tiger shipped given that it represents as much as 20% of the price of the total system if you bought a mini+Jag and then upgraded to Tiger later. While it's still the same $129 as it was 3 years ago for the OS upgrade, somehow the cost as a percentage of the system price seems to have an impact.
It works in reverse as well. If you had an old G4 and were thinking about getting iLife + Tiger, for not *that* much more you could just get a mini, so it should add to the unit churn for Apple. The mini isn't so much of a product that is expected to upsell to an iMac, rather it *is* the upsell from iLife+Tiger - more of an impulse move. I see a lot of users buying a mini every year to get the newest OS + bundled software, and handing down their old system to their spouse, kids, etc.
The other effect on the economy is that vendors are beginning to see the mini as the foundation for vertical solutions. We've already seen some medical office software ($2K range) bundle with a mini, and I expect you'll see more of this - prepackaged appliances. At only 3lbs with physically small packaging, it's not a stretch to see vendors preload and configure their vertical apps on the mini, repackage them, and resell to users - just plug it in and go. Smart vendors might even include a USB flash drive that the software saves configuration info on so that the mini can be hot-swapped as part of a service call.
It came with an OS 9 install disc so you could install OS 9. You can't boot from that installation, and you also can't boot from that disc.
With OS 9 installed, you can launch the "Classic Environment" which loads OS 9 within OS X. This allows you run most 'Classic' (OS 9) apps from within OS X.
You're not truly booting OS 9. The Classic Environment also can't directly address hardware, so there are some limitations. It'll work really well for most people. Try it out if you're curious.
Because some of us had 68000-based Macs when PowerPC was introduced, and watched as software quickly ceased to be available for mono 68K machines.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
What are you smoking?
A Pentium-M is a huge amount faster than a G4, and faster than a G5 also at many tasks.
The G4 is a Joke, and is currently a good 2 generations behind current x86 tech.
So is "gesundheit", but people still use it as slang for "bless you". Language, as a means of expression, is more like a waterfall and less like a statue. Changes come and changes go, and while you might not like all of them, you need not castigate others for using them. Even if the changes sound like language up with which you will not put, all due respect to Churchill.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Just because you are queer for Doc Ruby, doesn't mean I care.
--
make install -not war
Spend an extra $100 for this and get digital out. What, you think they should charge everybody extra money for something only 1% of their customers will ever use?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
> Software won't be a problem with Apple's developers plan with being able to compile both PPC and x86 into the same build.
Yeah right, and of course, and the upgrade of all your current PPC-only software to the version which support both PPC and x86 will be free (as in beer)?
Didn't think so too..
So there *is* a difference if you buy a PPC-Mac now and then upgrade to a x86-MAC, you'll have to pay for the upgrade of all your software.
Depending on the number of software you're using, this may or may not be a problem, but stop saying that 'there is no difference'!
Oh and since you replied you obviously care.
make install -not war is the GAYEST sig ever!
Just buy a new mac from Amazon.com. Always tax free, year round.
What is stupid is Apple not updating that tech specs page to remove the single-CPU PowerMac model. Maybe they still have it there because you can buy them refurbished? You sure can't buy them new, check the store. Only 3 models, no single-CPU model. I think that happened a while ago, is the really stupid thing.
The tech spec page does say the dual-CPU PowerMacs come with 512 MB, though.
You'd be surprised at how many people out there are using five- to eight-year-old machines and are still resisting upgrading. Walk into any Apple Store, and you've got a good chance at seeing an old G3 iMac or a clamshell iBook or a G4 Cube being worked on, still in working condition and doing everything its owner needs it to do
Users will upgrade more bloody often if Apple's margins are not so bloody high.
*ducks*
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Have they improved them? I've read many posts lamenting their poor performance? I did a search and saw different speeds, 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm? Either is better than 4200. Anyone know?
If you follow Cringely, you'll note that built-in wireless is a required piece of the puzzle needed to turn the mini into an inexpensive home computer/DVR/"iMovie" base station, broadcasting to AV-enabled AirPorts.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
It's such an incremental upgrade that you'd have to be a spec-pert to have any idea what's changed.
Not really. The bump to 512MB standard makes both much more useable out of the box...and it's a difference anybody who sat down at one would notice. Also, the inclusion of wireless on the 599 Mini standard is a noticable difference.
With the Minis they basically tried to add in all the features that people were choosing as add-on upgrades, thus making them more attractive as standard models...which is bound to help sales (I know I'll probably be picking one up now). It seems on the iBook they are trying to bridge the gap between the iBook and PowerBook line, making it a smoother transition in specs. All this will do, I think, is make it harder for students to choose between the 14" iBook and the 12" PowerBook.
Again, across the board these changes make the computers much more functional and much less of a "discount" option. Especially on the Mini. But why the hell did they pull the modem out (on two of the minis)?! Cheap basterds!
Why the hell is ThinkSecret linked, instead of Apple? With their (ThinkSecret's) reputation as of late, I assumed this was just another doubtful article, until I hit up Apple's homepage and saw the iBook banner.
"boxen" is not an example of living language. It's a pathetic attempt to sound cool. Creative distortions of vocabulary are only funny when done spontaneously---not when parroted by thousands of pubescents.
What are you talking about? 5 years before Intel gets a foothold? Within a year *most* new Macs will be Intel based. Most folks upgrade every 3 years; so within 3 years you will see mostly Intel Macs.
You mean most geeks...or maybe most companies. Most home users shoot for more like 5 years, if that. My stepdad just replaced a Pentium this last year. It was still doing everything he needed it to do. My mom also upgraded hers, but only because she was starting to do professional photography, and needed somthing with a little more muscle in Photoshop. I bought her her old computer in 1999. In my own house, my wife currently uses a computer bought in 1999, with only a memory upgrade (to 512MB) and a hard drive upgrade (40 gig, to hold music) under its belt. Generally, unless you're using them for gaming, you can easily squeeze 5-6 years of good usability out of a computer, with only minor upgrades. And plenty of people do.
So who's going to buy Macs right now? Probably me...I'll probably get my wife a new mini to celebrate landing her first "real" job. And I fully expect she'll be using it to browse the web, read email, and edit office documents for about 5 or 6 years. The only other option I'm really considering is picking up a cheap used G4 PowerMac of similar specs, for better upgradability.
To summarize: most home users are on longer upgrade cycles than geeks and corps. And from what I've heard (I'm new to the group), most Mac users are on even longer ones.
Check out http://www.apple.com/ibook/specs.html for the actual specs of the new iBooks including a 142MHz on the 14". The 12" remains at 133MHz. Another unreported option (by ThinkSecret and Slashdot) is the ability to BTO both iBook models with a 4200RPM 100GB HD (Sweet!).
I understand that Apple is having problems with G4 production and am okay with 1.42GHz CPU/142MHz BUS. I really like the standard Superdrive, 100GB HD (BTO), Airport Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, standard 512MB RAM, Scrolling Trackpad and Sudden Motion Sensor. I am quite disappointed at the lack of 64MB VRAM upgrade. I've got a 1GHz 14" iBook G4 with 32MB (early 2004 model) and was planning on exchanging (new + ebay old) this iBook for a new one but with 32MB VRAM i can't play games like DOOM 3, Desert Storm, and use full CoreImage functionality. There's no reason for me go through with it. I understand that 32MB VRAM is decent for Mac OS X/Windows/Linux to run more than properly but a laptop thats supposed to last at least 3 years (Applecare) should be outfitted with enough options to use/play most games/applications on the market currently. Mac OS X with CoreImage was released 3 months ago!
Guess I'm sticking with this laptop until the next release (possibly last before Intel switch).
Why not maximise the use of that storeage space?
.wav rip and a .wav converted to an MP3 using lame's "--preset standard" BR encoding?
I agree, 128kbps MP3s are rather pointless these days, but can you honestly tell me you can hear a difference between a pure
That's how I rip all my MP3s and I've done some (very unscientific) tests with a few people to see if they can tell the difference. No one can.
Now, lets not even get started on the better formats that are available (of course there is) because like it or not, MP3 is the defacto compressed audio standard.
I'd rather have my music compressed on my iPod, that way I can use the extra space for storing backups of my personal files.
Don't know this yet. If we look back on the 68000 to PPC years there were companies that allowed upgrades to the PPC code. The ones that didn't (such as Quark) were bullied in the Mac magazines of the day for not doing so. They didn't relent, but many companies did...though as you point out not all did.
We'll have to see how this all shakes out though, but I believe that it will come down to the different companies doing different things. I'm sure Apple will want this to go as smooth as possible.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Some people (inc me) are waiting to get the latest and badest G5, something very romantic about that, if it was a dual core G5 imac 20'' that would be incredible, although i suspect they won't put the dual core G5 on an imac..if they put it anywhere at all.
Mac toys and accessories blog
Am I the only one who wishes they made their laptops in black?
I was waiting for this update hoping that the iBook would get a bigger screen. My existing iBook is a venerable 600MHz model, and while it is actually really usable and is my workhorse, I need a bigger screen for occasional coding work.
I feel a bit let down since this to my mind is the main drawback of the iBook. Surely a bit more screen resolution is not unreasonable?
Well, not me. But anyway, I think, "slang" is the wrong word for it, as not every foreign word is automatically slang. Besides that, I am afraid you didn't realize, that my comment was just a joke.
"You" seems to be wrong, as you probably don't address me with these words but another poster.
Sure, the Mini isn't a big FPS frame rate monster, but 128MB of video RAM would at least make World of Warcraft, and other 3rd-person perspective 3D games I guess, run a little more smoothly. I'd probably buy one just for WoW if it didn't have the Frames Per Second of a 3-year old laptop.
Nothing .. thats the whole point of a slow rpm drive in a portable....
Right now I have a 40GB HD. 4GB is dedicated to a Debian Linux partition, around 512 to swap, and the rest ~32GB (after the 40GB =! 40GB thing) goes to Mac OS X.
- Tiger takes around 3GB,
- iLife another 2.5GB,
- MS Office X
.345GB,
- Xcode over 2GB,
- Route 66 (Canada & US) 2.4GB,
- a bit over 11GB so far
- any recent game Splinter Cell, Sims, etc. over 1GB, usually over 2GB.
- my legal MP3 collection 3.1GB
- 2 or 3 movies in 2CD XviD-AC3 format
- one DVD image
- and my 32GB partition is almost full
if it wasn't so damn hard (you have to almost take apart the whole laptop) and voiding your warranty, I'd upgrade to a 100GB ASAP.That thing can still boot OS 9, right? I'm sure you'll still find demand. Going price on eBay seems to be at about $600.
Oh well... guess we can't have it all. Is this another incentive to get the 12" PowerBook because, to be honest, with this upgrade I can't think of too many other reasons to shell out the extra $500 or so for one. Sure, the 12" has a better video card, but most people are going to need a lot more screen territory to make that worth it.
It looks like Apple's made choosing my next laptop a lot easier on me. I guess the only problem I'll have is telling my future iBook apart from my wife's.
Macintoshes hold their value so well because of the traditional macintosh market, not because they perform better longer. I had a fruit iMac and I currently have a B/W G3. Running OS X on the iMac was a torturous experience over all, and even on the B/W overclocked at 450Mhz, the iLife suite and iCal in particular is slow enough to be unusable.
I tried to "switch" to OS X a long time ago by buying used, but all that happened was I paid way too much for a crappy computer. Since then I have purchased a Mac Mini and the B/W is a Linux server, and it's working out great.
The fact that a mac mini sells new for only moderately more than a slowass G3 would deter most people, but I do wonder if it would deter a typical mac buyer, who is simply willing to pay more for less. On the other hand, they would still be buying a mac, so I could see what you say to be completely true.
Maybe it will bring used prices on ebay down to sane levels. People are bidding things to insane prices, and used newer Apples up to and over retail.
The Mac Mini is quite expandable.
It's just that it's expandable via 1394 and USB 2.0. There are several companion boxes designed to go below it now as hubs/ external hard disks.
The graphics are fixed, and you can only fit so much memory. But it is a bargain machine.
My old G4 has a wonderful case that opens easily. It's far easier to install a new card, more memory or an extra hard drive. I wish the PCs I have used had such an easy case to open. Those cases I have to open. On the other hand I only had to open my G4 case twice in over three years.
Why the switch at all I wonder?
If creating universal binaries is as easy as it seems why not just "add" Intel processors into the mix.
PPC G5s, Multi core whatever for desktops and Intel chips with the "performance per watt" required for Laptops.
Why doesn't Apple just state that they may use either Intel or PPC as best fits a given box?
I am of course basing this question on the assumption that it is only a minimal amount of work to create a Universal binary. This IS what apple is asserting.
Why not take advantage of the fact that sometimes PPC will be better and sometimes Intel will be better for a given task. They've been taking the effort to keep OSX developed for both platforms, why not continue with that ideal.
Then there would be no need for people to consider PPC "obsolete" and developers will just move over to developing Universal binaries.
Um, I have somewhere around 140GB of music, most of it 192kbps MP3. That's only been controlled by lack of effort most of the time, being unable to access Soulseek at school, and disk space. And I haven't had the chance to get to a library with music CDs and go to town on their collection since I bought a new hard drive.
Yeah, I listen to all of it, at least a few times, and I like to have it all available in case I want to listen to it again out of the blue (which happens frequently).
I work on and own both PC's and Mac's. A real price comparison of machines with similiar capabilities shows that Macs are no more expensive. The 299 dell is cheaper than any Mac because Apple doesn't make a machine that low end. You do get what you pay for. Compare these: Dell Dimension 3000 Pentium 4/winxppro/512mb/40gb/cdrw-dvd/no monitor/integrated audio/firewire/no speakers/usb keyboard & mouse/no wifi/no bluetooth = $687.00 Mac Mini ppc 1.25/osx tiger/512mb/40gb/cdrw-dvd/no monitor/integrated audio/firewire/no speakers/usb keyboard & mouse/no wifi/no bluetooth = $557.00 Gee wiz, the Mac is over $100 cheaper! So you can get a cheaper PC, but apples to apples (ugh) the Mac is actually less expensive. A few notes. having used G4,P4, and Celeron you must compare the G4 to the P4. The Celeron D is a pig I would not wish on anyone. I have a G4 1.5 and it performs equal to my P4 2.8HT. I also included xp Pro to compare to OSX. XP home is not the equal of OSX (frankly, neither is XP Pro but it comes closer).
Yup, boxen is German - for boxing. What's that got to do with it?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I bought a 12" iBook a year ago, it had a 1.07GHz CPU, but other than that was nearly identical to the brand new model. Mind you I'm glad my little notebook is not obsolete and that I have nothing to drool over, but how can this be good for Apple's bottom line?
What is wrong with Apple? a 25% increase in speed in 12 month (far less if you think of the 1.2GHz CPU of the following October) is simply pitiful. No increase in VRAM, no increase in pixel count even for the 14" model, 25% more in HD space doesn't make for a sexy machine. There is *still* no option for a DVD writer on the 12" model. That bluetooth is included by default now is good, but still this is not enough.
Very disappointing, especially after the rumours of a widescreen design.
I don't want a G5 in my Mac mini. Too hot, too little work-per-clock. I want a Freescale MPC8641.
Agree on the core-image capable GPU. The 9550 in the new iBook would do.
You two have the lamest feud evar.
No they don't; we do!