... and we did not see anything new indeed! Just the same old shite in Aluminium alloy (1GHz was not really cool in January, but old) and a little speedbump (iBook 800 -> 900).
Where's my year of the laptop ... or was that year of the crap-talk?
Apple is starting to piss me off. Release the damm powerbook books already. If they don't release an updated 15 inch before school starts il be very pissed off. Trying to force students to clear there channel and buy the outdated stuff then release a faster version in like 2 months so that the student's newly purchase laptops are obsolete and have no resale value. I know sooo many (4 to be exact people who have like 5 grand in scholarship money and REALLY want a update 15inch, but like me they are switchers and find it hard to justify apples prices for outdated hardware. For Christs sake apple release new 15 inch powerbooks!
Apple is starting to piss me off too. It will effectively be over half a year since they've updated their line. The average for updates to the pro line of portables was 140 days. Apple has now crossed over 180 days since they've updated, and no signs are in sight.
It's not that they can't do it, it's that they won't push to make it happen. They've done the math, and it works better for them (and Job's ego) to have a big splashy event in Paris in the fall. Students, you're out of freaking luck, because by the time these new things ship, it'll be waay into term. It looks like the Berklee School of Music is going to have to wait AGAIN to let students know what they need to buy for the fall semester. Or they may just go with what's available right now.
So those who think it's no big deal that Apple decided to starve us, and then appear generous by presenting us with a bagged lunch in the fall, buy the powerbook now, and we'll talk again when the new ones are released.
its more a matter of principle. i read in some other thread an analogy with cars. you don't pay top dolar for a model when a new version is a month away. and the 15 inch, while a beautiful laptop, is outdated compared to its siblings and the pc laptop world. Honestly I would perfer a 12 inch but 1024 by 768 is PATHETIC and pretty much puts Photoshop or Any other creative program out of the question cause the freakin toolbars or UI is gona take up 50% of your screen real estate. (if i hear one more zealot tell me that a lower resolution is better im gona snap). and if its a matter of *need* students don't need more than a simple dell. I *want* a powerful unix machine that I will be able to do anything current on.
Well, there is nothing wrong with wanting something - of course no one has to justify a comp purchase. Heck, if you can afford it, get it.
That said:
The car analogy suffers a bit because car companies have to release their new models each year to fulfill expectations. Computer companies release new models according to tech advances and a host of other factors. If advances have been regular in the past, they needn't necessarily be so in the future. Perhaps oversupply of TiBooks or parts is a genuine issue.....
Also, while I take your point about photoshop, I think Apple would respond by saying that that is the sort of app that LapZilla is designed for, and that the vast majority of students require the type of functionality (WP, email, browser) that an iBook has in abundance.
Thats the one thing that bothers me about apple. Its probable a consequence of their small market share, but I really don't like how you they have to hold back some systems (g3s!) so that it *fits* their product scheme. A high resolution 12 inch screen IS possible and not rare at all in the PC world, but they don't offer it because it would cut sales of their 17 inch. I don't know why other companies don't have to do this. I just want the best laptop I don't care how it fits into their product tree.
Whats worse is that for some things these arn't just niche extras (like screen res) but stuff like dual mointors on ibook that you had to hack to work. Its like a car manufacturer not offering air conditioning on a lowermodel car even though everybody else does because it will hurt the sales of their massive suv with air conditioning. Just let me buy what i want for crying out loud.
I agree that it is frustrating. I think they do it because they want to steer people to the products with the best margins, which I believe are the more expensive ones.
The Wintel world *cannot* do this sort of intentional crippling because competition is so fierce - a wintel manufacturer knows that if s/he doesn't offer a bare bones config with the best possible specs, someone else will and his/her company will lose sales.
Apple, with so many legacy customers, worries less about this. The very fact that you are not rushing out to buy a Dell instead strengthens their position.
Oh, and all I got is a G3....don't be too hard on them!
What exactly is it that the current line of PowerBooks can't do, that students need?
Last them for the full 4 years of college? Without FireWire 800, Bluetooth, and AirPort extreme, the old Titanium PowerBook G4 will be obsolete at least 9 months earlier than a new Aluminum 15-inch PowerBook G4 will be.
When I started college in 1994, I passed up the B/W PowerBook 1xx package deal, waited a few months, and bought the new passive-matrix color PowerBook 520c, which lasted me through the remaining 3.5 years of college.
But these days, even Macs become obsolete more quickly. A personal computer, i.e. your own instead of a shared one in a lab, is also more important than it was 10 years ago.
Apple needs to get out new 15-inch PowerBooks yesterday!
My Lombard has gotten me through Freshman, Sophomore and Junior year with no problem. Senior year seems unlikely to pose a problem. The only significant upgrade I have done is to add a 3rd party WiFi card to take advantage of the campus wireless network - nice, but far from a necessity. Bluetooth on campus? Maybe in a few years. Buy a dongle if yuo have to have it. FW 800? For what? My papers average about 60k.
Most students need a Word Processor, e-mail and a browser. Sure, some have high end reqs, but i would venture that they constitute a small minority.
Where's my year of the laptop ... or was that year of the crap-talk?
I am SO FRICKIN sick and tired of hearing this same effing line in what seems like the millionth laptop thread posted in FH over the past few months.. Lemme ask you one stupid question that EVERYONE should already know the answer to...
When Steve Jobs make that 'silly effing over the top comment' at MWSF was he talking about?
A. The Laptops that were just being announced that day?
B. Some future laptop that wasn't ready for sale?
Use your brains here folks will ya?!?!
THAT COMMENT WAS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE 2003 MWSF LAPTOPS!
Steve would NEVER hype 'some future laptop' at the same time he was intro-ing a laptop line that was just made available for sale...
I agree that it is frustrating. I think they do it because they want to steer people to the products with the best margins, which I believe are the more expensive ones.
The Wintel world *cannot* do this sort of intentional crippling because competition is so fierce - a wintel manufacturer knows that if s/he doesn't offer a bare bones config with the best possible specs, someone else will and his/her company will lose sales.
Apple, with so many legacy customers, worries less about this. The very fact that you are not rushing out to buy a Dell instead strengthens their position.
this is exactly what apple does, and this works for apples business model, [ie: high margin niche player] - but in the grand scheme of things, apple does indeed compete with Dell, and a lot of people DO run over to Dell after looking at Apple's offerings.
Oh, it's the year of the laptop alright. Not the year of the PowerBook or iBook, that's for sure, but PC laptops sure are making some great leaps - increased battery life and power, integrated wireless networking, light weight... all thanks to the Centrino chip. Now, I haven't used a Centrino notebook, but I expect they're fairly good computers if they've been getting such positive reviews from various websites. Still, to most people, Apple has made token advances in the laptop market while Wintel has made some giant leaps. And it's really true, too... a 100 MHz speed bump for iBooks, some price cuts, a few new technologies, and the introduction of two new screen sizes at existing clock speeds isn't really outstanding. Especially now that laptop sales have eclipsed desktop sales, it's important that Apple gets their sh*t together and works to take advantage of the market. BEFORE the school buying season starts.
no by g3s i mean that they don't let them up the mhz cause crapy motorola can't keep up with ibm
Right, which is why the IBM G3 will require 12 months and a die shrink beyond the MPC7455 in order to cross the GHz barrier.
Sorry, no sale. The 900MHz 750fx in the current iBook is running just as fast as its 5 stage pipeline can carry it. It's not designed for high MHz, nor for all-out performance, and it's not being held back in order to make Motorola look good.
As for "the year of the laptop," if notebooks indeed account for 50% of Apple's sales at year's end, then Steve's definition of "the year of the laptop" is satisfied. If the last market share breakdown I saw is correct, Apple's share of the overall notebook market is 6-7% and growing, so they must be doing something right.
DaveGee makes a good point: Steve's comment was based on the sales figures he had just mentioned. It really shouldn't be taken as.....what?.....a road map. Come on, that was never his intention.
Edit: So, Amorph, what is keeping the iBooks back - just the PowerBooks being relatively slow?
Keep in mind that the 7457 - the G4 chip which Apple will likely need to push the G4 past 1 GHz in portables - will at best be ready for the third quarter, which extends until the end of September. They may not have a PowerBook update simply because the hardware isn't ready yet. That and I'm sure that they want the G5 to get centre-stage for a little bit longer (even if it's just for a week or two after the MacWorld expo).
I honestly think that the "year of the notebook" statement Jobs made at MWSF was as much a covering tactic as anything else. It gave people the impression that there wouldn't be a PowerMac G5 anytime soon, so they could either buy the laptop they thought they always wanted, or else believe that buying a new PowerMac G4 was "safe" for the foreseeable future. I still feel sorry for the people who bought a dual-1.42 GHz G4 shortly before the WWDC keynote.
For how long did the Powerbook line now top a 1GHz speed?
It's amazing.
no, it's not amazing because:
1.) it's just 8 months, it's nothing to whine about.
the powerbook topped out for 20 months on 500Mhz (from february 2000 - october 2001)
2.) apple is, just like us, waiting (and working on) technology in progress...
"let them slam a pin compatable 7457 in the powerbook and we can go on with our lifes..." they would if they could, but there isn't any, or not enough to sell.
so, apple has to wait.
maybe apple wants to kick the greatest marketing trick since the P4, the centrino chipset. straight from the bucket it was lifted on, by creating an even bigger leap in power by introducing new powerbooks with a big shinney G5 logo on the bottem.
even then apple has to wait for .9nm G5 processors from ibm.
Comments
Originally posted by haunebu
shaddup ya whiner...
For how long did the Powerbook line now top a 1GHz speed?
It's amazing.
Apple is starting to piss me off. Release the damm powerbook books already. If they don't release an updated 15 inch before school starts il be very pissed off. Trying to force students to clear there channel and buy the outdated stuff then release a faster version in like 2 months so that the student's newly purchase laptops are obsolete and have no resale value. I know sooo many (4 to be exact
It's not that they can't do it, it's that they won't push to make it happen. They've done the math, and it works better for them (and Job's ego) to have a big splashy event in Paris in the fall. Students, you're out of freaking luck, because by the time these new things ship, it'll be waay into term. It looks like the Berklee School of Music is going to have to wait AGAIN to let students know what they need to buy for the fall semester. Or they may just go with what's available right now.
So those who think it's no big deal that Apple decided to starve us, and then appear generous by presenting us with a bagged lunch in the fall, buy the powerbook now, and we'll talk again when the new ones are released.
its more a matter of principle. i read in some other thread an analogy with cars. you don't pay top dolar for a model when a new version is a month away. and the 15 inch, while a beautiful laptop, is outdated compared to its siblings and the pc laptop world. Honestly I would perfer a 12 inch but 1024 by 768 is PATHETIC and pretty much puts Photoshop or Any other creative program out of the question cause the freakin toolbars or UI is gona take up 50% of your screen real estate. (if i hear one more zealot tell me that a lower resolution is better im gona snap). and if its a matter of *need* students don't need more than a simple dell. I *want* a powerful unix machine that I will be able to do anything current on.
That said:
The car analogy suffers a bit because car companies have to release their new models each year to fulfill expectations. Computer companies release new models according to tech advances and a host of other factors. If advances have been regular in the past, they needn't necessarily be so in the future. Perhaps oversupply of TiBooks or parts is a genuine issue.....
Also, while I take your point about photoshop, I think Apple would respond by saying that that is the sort of app that LapZilla is designed for, and that the vast majority of students require the type of functionality (WP, email, browser) that an iBook has in abundance.
Thats the one thing that bothers me about apple. Its probable a consequence of their small market share, but I really don't like how you they have to hold back some systems (g3s!) so that it *fits* their product scheme. A high resolution 12 inch screen IS possible and not rare at all in the PC world, but they don't offer it because it would cut sales of their 17 inch. I don't know why other companies don't have to do this. I just want the best laptop I don't care how it fits into their product tree.
Whats worse is that for some things these arn't just niche extras (like screen res) but stuff like dual mointors on ibook that you had to hack to work. Its like a car manufacturer not offering air conditioning on a lowermodel car even though everybody else does because it will hurt the sales of their massive suv with air conditioning. Just let me buy what i want for crying out loud.
</rant>
The Wintel world *cannot* do this sort of intentional crippling because competition is so fierce - a wintel manufacturer knows that if s/he doesn't offer a bare bones config with the best possible specs, someone else will and his/her company will lose sales.
Apple, with so many legacy customers, worries less about this. The very fact that you are not rushing out to buy a Dell instead strengthens their position.
Oh, and all I got is a G3....don't be too hard on them!
Originally posted by jouster
What exactly is it that the current line of PowerBooks can't do, that students need?
Last them for the full 4 years of college? Without FireWire 800, Bluetooth, and AirPort extreme, the old Titanium PowerBook G4 will be obsolete at least 9 months earlier than a new Aluminum 15-inch PowerBook G4 will be.
When I started college in 1994, I passed up the B/W PowerBook 1xx package deal, waited a few months, and bought the new passive-matrix color PowerBook 520c, which lasted me through the remaining 3.5 years of college.
But these days, even Macs become obsolete more quickly. A personal computer, i.e. your own instead of a shared one in a lab, is also more important than it was 10 years ago.
Apple needs to get out new 15-inch PowerBooks yesterday!
Escher
Most students need a Word Processor, e-mail and a browser. Sure, some have high end reqs, but i would venture that they constitute a small minority.
Originally posted by BNOYHTUAWB
Where's my year of the laptop ... or was that year of the crap-talk?
I am SO FRICKIN sick and tired of hearing this same effing line in what seems like the millionth laptop thread posted in FH over the past few months.. Lemme ask you one stupid question that EVERYONE should already know the answer to...
When Steve Jobs make that 'silly effing over the top comment' at MWSF was he talking about?
A. The Laptops that were just being announced that day?
B. Some future laptop that wasn't ready for sale?
Use your brains here folks will ya?!?!
THAT COMMENT WAS SPECIFICALLY FOR THE 2003 MWSF LAPTOPS!
Steve would NEVER hype 'some future laptop' at the same time he was intro-ing a laptop line that was just made available for sale...
Hope this helps.... but I'm sure it wont...
Dave
Originally posted by jouster
I agree that it is frustrating. I think they do it because they want to steer people to the products with the best margins, which I believe are the more expensive ones.
The Wintel world *cannot* do this sort of intentional crippling because competition is so fierce - a wintel manufacturer knows that if s/he doesn't offer a bare bones config with the best possible specs, someone else will and his/her company will lose sales.
Apple, with so many legacy customers, worries less about this. The very fact that you are not rushing out to buy a Dell instead strengthens their position.
this is exactly what apple does, and this works for apples business model, [ie: high margin niche player] - but in the grand scheme of things, apple does indeed compete with Dell, and a lot of people DO run over to Dell after looking at Apple's offerings.
Originally posted by recondite
no by g3s i mean that they don't let them up the mhz cause crapy motorola can't keep up with ibm
Right, which is why the IBM G3 will require 12 months and a die shrink beyond the MPC7455 in order to cross the GHz barrier.
Sorry, no sale. The 900MHz 750fx in the current iBook is running just as fast as its 5 stage pipeline can carry it. It's not designed for high MHz, nor for all-out performance, and it's not being held back in order to make Motorola look good.
As for "the year of the laptop," if notebooks indeed account for 50% of Apple's sales at year's end, then Steve's definition of "the year of the laptop" is satisfied. If the last market share breakdown I saw is correct, Apple's share of the overall notebook market is 6-7% and growing, so they must be doing something right.
Edit: So, Amorph, what is keeping the iBooks back - just the PowerBooks being relatively slow?
I honestly think that the "year of the notebook" statement Jobs made at MWSF was as much a covering tactic as anything else. It gave people the impression that there wouldn't be a PowerMac G5 anytime soon, so they could either buy the laptop they thought they always wanted, or else believe that buying a new PowerMac G4 was "safe" for the foreseeable future. I still feel sorry for the people who bought a dual-1.42 GHz G4 shortly before the WWDC keynote.
Originally posted by BNOYHTUAWB
For how long did the Powerbook line now top a 1GHz speed?
It's amazing.
no, it's not amazing because:
1.) it's just 8 months, it's nothing to whine about.
the powerbook topped out for 20 months on 500Mhz (from february 2000 - october 2001)
2.) apple is, just like us, waiting (and working on) technology in progress...
"let them slam a pin compatable 7457 in the powerbook and we can go on with our lifes..." they would if they could, but there isn't any, or not enough to sell.
so, apple has to wait.
maybe apple wants to kick the greatest marketing trick since the P4, the centrino chipset. straight from the bucket it was lifted on, by creating an even bigger leap in power by introducing new powerbooks with a big shinney G5 logo on the bottem.
even then apple has to wait for .9nm G5 processors from ibm.
so relax,