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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
[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?
That statement in the article was slightly off. 32MB of RAM is not enough for the iBook to take advantage of GPU-accelerated Core Image technologies. The Core Image system is designed to scale, and will revert to using Altivec instructions if the GPU is not up to par.
I'll agree that the systems should simply include 64MB of RAM, but I also expected more of the writers at a mac-centric site such as thinksecret.
The Radeon 9550 has the required technology to enable CoreImage entirely on the GPU.
The 32MB VRAM shouldn't be an issue - it might slow it down a bit, but that's all.
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.
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.
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 too upgraded my PowerBook to 128MB of VRAM in the BTO option, but you are sorely mistaken if you think this has much of an impact on performance in the case of your PowerBook. The amount of VRAM has an extremely small effect on performance of games unless in extreme situations. (playing modern games on a 32mb card, as opposed to a 16MB card of equal speed). Memory speed and core speed and pipelines etc are far far more influential in performance. I can guarentee you that my gaming experience on a 1.67Ghz PB with 128MB VRAM is almost exactly the same as on a 1.67Ghz PB with 64MB VRAM.
This guy are sick.
Atleast the Dell comes standard with expansion slots that allow you to upgrade the video card at any time.
Wrong -- cheap Dells (like the one linked) don't have an AGP slot. So you're stuck with the piss poor integrated graphics forever.
The Radeon 9200 was actually a big selling point for me. I know it's pretty slow compared to a lot of cards out there, but it sure as hell beats what you get on comparably priced branded PCs.
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
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.
* 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).