Apple to re-enter the sub-notebook market - Page 6

Sorry, but the way things are going now, in a year or 2 you won't be able to buy a single Laptop anywhere without one unless you buy an Old Laptop off of eBay or something.

Sebastian

Edited to add... That I spoke too soon about Icubed desire for a laptop with no camera. I can see how it might easily be possible to work somewhere where a camera is forbidden by law, but where one would still desire to have a laptop.

Anyway... I'm still waiting on an estimate of when we might hear some official word of this laptop. How good is Appleinsider at pegging the times of these things usually? The article said that it was "ahead of schedule" for something around the time of WWDC, so do you think that we'll hear something in April or May?

Cheers

First off, the limit of SD Cards is 64 Giga BITS. 64 gigabits = 8 gigabytes. If they could fit 64 gigabytes into such a small package, I'm pretty sure they would be down at your local Best Buy/FutureShop/Fry's/whatever. If they could fit 64 gigabytes into such a small package, then the 100% flash drive (in 2.5" hard drive form factor) that was being touted around CES would have had more than 32 gigabytes in it. A 2.5" form factor is a lot of space to put chips into.

The thing that gets me is that you said in your earlier post that 64 gigabytes was the theoretical limit of SD Cards. For just a moment, let's pretend that it's true. Can you *really* tell me with a straight face that you believe at the end of 2007 there will be tiny chips capable of 128 gigabytes when there aren't even 8 gigabyte sd cards in heavy circulation (I believe that the iPod 8GB uses two 4GB chips, IIRC) ? Not only that, but that those 128 gigabyte chips will be affordable at the end of the year, when the 64 gigabyte chips aren't even existent at the beginning of the year?

Secondly, OS X does NOT install for 20GB on the drive. I have Tiger installed on 4 year old PowerBook with a 30GB hard drive. Do you *really* believe that OS X by itself takes up 2/3 of my drive? Do you really believe that Apple fits 20GB of system files onto a 4.4GB install DVD?

So I take it that the CIA will just have to settle for letting those laptops into their top secret areas? Give me a break. There are plenty of businesses that don't allow cell phones with cameras built-in to them right now. Do you really think that *NO ONE* is going to produce laptops without cameras? It would be stupid to make laptops that you couldn't sell to the government or businesses that want to protect their trade secrets....

Sure. Power isn't really much of a problem. The rare times you would need one of these, you should have power nearby. I don't expect to be installing an OS on the road.

I've about given up on Firewire. There are simply too many problems. Other than for camcorders, and some conveerters, I no longer use it at all.

I also find USB 2 to be slow, even for a fast optical drive.

I'm not saying that Apple should remove these other connectors, just add SATA E.

The point is that SATA E should be on ALL new computers, regardless of form factor (unless it's a palm sized device).

So, are you arguing that we should consolidate space or try to conserve resources?

What if his projector's mouse function doesn't support Bluetooth?

LED, and OLED are very different things.

NO ONE is thinking of making an LED screen. It's only good for backlighting. So, it's not either or.

Companies are not giving up on OLED lifetime. The main problem left is moisture sealing. Great strides have been made with OLED, but like any new tech, it can take time. It took plasma almost thirty years to go from small amber or green screens in military aircraft to the wall in full color, and large size, in your home.

The talk about an 8 or 10" iPod was a joke circulated quite a while ago, after Jobs brought it up, as a joke, at MacWorld, several years ago. It surfaces every so often.

What would be large? But, if whatever it is that you are talking about, would be large (I assume, compared to something without it), then, of course, it would also have increased in size.

Well, I certainly agree. I just hope they'll also upgrade their firmware to allow booting.

1) I thought I read something about Samsung making a 64 GB Flash Memory Chip, apparently I was wrong
2) When I opened up my Mac and turned it on, the Finder said there was only ~55 GB usable. This is an 80 GB HDD, which when you factor in the difference of 1000 MB to 1 GB on the Hardware Advertising level and 1024 on the OS level, probably knocks that down to 74 GB, though I didn't bother doing the math, I just know that there are also 74 GB HDDs which could probably be advertised as 80 GB like what a HDD manufacturer would normally do.
3) I admit to not knowing much about .pkg files, but if there is any form of compression then yes I think it could easily fit onto the install disc. I think most of that 20 GB probably goes to Hardware Drivers, Printer Drivers, and Languages. Either way, I don't care.

Sebastian

The point isn't whether we want this for work, though some might.

I have no real need for a laptop. But if one were small enough that I wouldn't mind carrying it around, I would likely get it. Right now, Apple has nothing that I would consider. 5.2 lbs is far too heavy to carry around just to have something to play around with. Two pounds or less would be.

It's really a new catagory for Apple.

My best friend is exactly who they are targeting with a sub-notebook. He is a consultant. He basically lives where ever the job is on the weekdays, and then gets plane tickets to where ever (within reason... I don't think that he can fly to Europe) for the weekend. He has to carry two laptops around with him. He has his work laptop, and his personal laptop. He is traveling all the time (flying back and forth to home on the weekends or whatever). People that travel this much are the target audience, not wide-eyed dreamers like Slewis (it's just easy to pick on him, because his ideas are the most 'out there'... I can easily say that the day such an Apple notebook comes out at least 50-100% of what Slewis wants won't be there). To these people a notebook that is lighter and more compact is exactly what they are looking for.

Look to the Sony Vaio G1/G11 (G1 = Japanese Model, G11 = Euro Model) for what this will be in the range of. It's a 12" (non-widescreen) laptop that is 1/2 the mass of the MacBook, and a supposedly sturdier case. It's about the dimensions of the old 12" PowerBook G4. A small, light laptop. As much as the MacBook is nice, it's also about the same weight as the MacBook Pro, which is larger. The 12" PowerBook G4 wins in dimensions and weight, which is why so many people want to see a Intel version of it.

I'm sure they will. After all we can boot from SATA now.

The point is that you won't see something that thin. The iPhone isn't that thin, what makes you think that a sub-notebook will be that thin? Your expectations are unrealistic. You can argue that it's possible all you want, but it doesn't make you any more right. Something that thin *might* be possible in the 3-5 year range. But that's only if a handful of technologies that are currently being developed don't turn into dead-ends or just go under.

Obviously, the popularity of this thread suggests that many people are very interested in such a device coming from Apple and wishing to discuss what form and specs it should take. Hopefully Steve will agree!

As to who it could be targeted at: business users like my wife are the most likely suspects. They travel frequently, often at a moment's notice, and often have to carry lots of other materials and sit in tiny airplane chairs for hours on end. More on this was presented by another poster.

Traveling teachers (I teach at 7 different locations in three cities) like myself are also a possibility. I could make progress on my next text, review the mindmaps I made for my next week of classes, file my student reports, watch a video from one of my classes; you get the idea. I have a Sony Clie Peg-UX50 which does this right now, but it is too small and (now) a bit slow, but does not handle the presentation. The subnotebook would allow me to present Keynotes in class without saving them to iPod first like I do now.

Some of my students are also a possibility. Yep: it would be plenty powerful enough for serious students who wish to take a good machine to class that would not take up too much space on their desks, yet allow them to take notes and make mindmaps of the class. It would also allow them to slip over to the library before basketball as the subnote could be stuck inside a duffle with other stuff, somewhere a MacBook doesn't fit. It would allow my advanced English students to prepare and make their biweekly presentations over coffee at Starbucks.

The 8 GB limit in current-generation SD cards is not imposed by technological limitations of Flash memory in general.

The particular communications protocol used to communicate between the host and the card's on-board memory controller introduces a theoretical upper limit, and that is 128 GB.

Introducing a SD card larger than 8 GB will depend on several factors, including market pressures, the and availability of SD device controllers which can decode the protocol and spit out wider address buses. Currently the market is more interested in taking current SD capacities and shrinking them down to the miniSD and microSD forms.

Note to Mods: perhaps you should rename this thread to "Possible Specs for the rumored Apple Subnotebook". The current title suggests that the thread is about Apple getting back into the market. That's what I'm interested in...the details about when I can get my hands on one. I fall into the category of biz traveller, and I'm just assuming that if they get back into this market, Apples gonna do it right (I mean look at the iPhone!!), so I don't need to read through 7 pages of wish-list speculation. I need the juicy details... somebody must know something about who's manufacturing it, when it'll be announced, etc. Isn't anybody in the CIA interested in having one of these? Surely somebody could do some digging!

I suppose I should just shut up and start a new thread... ;-)

Hey, didn't you read that reply somebody else wrote earlier in the thread? Get to the gym and "man up" if you're too much of a wimp to carry a 5-pound laptop, it said.

Personally, I don't need it down to 2 pounds. 3 would be fine. 3.5 about the upper limit for all-day carry. Anyone who says 5+ pounds is fine has never had to lug one on a shoulder for most of a day and is just talking through his hat.

Well, it's not new, but OK. I guess I can see the market for business travelers. To me though, there isn't a lot of difference between a 3lb 11" computer and one that is more fully featured and weighs 5 lbs. The only exception in my mind would be for those who take the train everyday or who fly frequently. But then again, if you're going to take a 1 week business trip, why not have a more fully featured machine to use at the hotel, at your meetings, etc?

Having read through all the posts on this thread, it is quite clear that there are a number of misconceptions about the existing ensemble of 3lb or less, ULV single and duo core ultra-light computers in the current marketplace and what they are capable of doing. I think this is because most who have posted here have never used one. There seems to be a "feeling" that they have only marginal low end capabilities, i.e., email, text editing, web browsing, etc. (Someone said they would not be usable for college students! Total BS!) Nothing could be farther from the truth. I'll explain shortly.

I'm a "mobile" professional/ consultant in the Pharmaceutical/Botech industry who travels quite a bit.

I have 3 computers:

1)\tA powerhouse souped up Mac Pro which I use for all my design, programming and creative at-home work
2)\tA 5.2 lb 13" Macbook,
3) \tA Sony Vaio TX 160, a 3 lb, 1.2 Ghz ULV, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD and "Superdrive-like ODD (i.e.the predecessor of the current Sony TX series)

I have used the Sony T160 in my work for 3 years. In addition to the aforementioned "low level" capabilities (MS Office, Firefox et al) , I currently have installed on my unit:

1)\t2 high power relational database programs: MS Access and 4th Dimension. My DBs are quite large approaching 50,000 records. Each has complex number-crunching scripts associated with them for DB queries, sorting and complex calculations (i.e. they require some computing horsepower in order to work within a reasonable timeframe). I use these DBs on all my business trips. While most of the hard core programming and design work is done at home, I can still do similiar stuff when called for when I'm at a client's place. Not as quickly but still doable. I usually go to the client with completed analyses and mostly use the display/output features of these programs.

2) \tSAS JMP--A Powerful statistical analysis program which includes Design of Experiments (DOE), ANOVA , sophisticated statistical analytic tools and complex graphing capabilities.

3)\tAdobe Acobat v 8-- I have a full copy of v5 and a trial version v8 to see if I want to upgrade.

4)\tAdobe Creative Suite 2--I am an amateur photographer and just recently downloaded a trial version of the program. I'm still a novice with CS2 but so far there's \tnothing I can't do with my T160.

I have other stuff but this will do for now. I have engineering colleagues who have ultra-lights with AutoCad installed. These notebooks are not toys with only low level capabilities! You can actually do productive high end business and "creative" work on them if you have to in the field.

In the windows world, there are many elegant, well designed, full featured 3lb or less notebooks in the $1500-$3000+ price range from Sony, Panasonic, LG, Asus, Fujitsu and others, even HP. Just take a trip to Dynamism.com to have a look see. Panasonic, Asus and LG have duo core units. Some of these come with ODD while others like the Asus U1F offers an external Blu-Ray burner. What they all lack and this is huge IMO, none can run OSX.

So with this as a backdrop, viz. ultralights are not just email/web/text editing toys and that there are many well designed, full featured units by well established companies available in the marketplace, what does Apple have to offer?

We know from Q4 data provided by IDC and Gartner that worldwide notebook sales are increasing rapidly and overtaking the desktop in unit sales.

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/articl...IDC&mode=print

Here are my views:

1) Apple could enter a very crowded ultra-light marketplace with a "conventional" 3lb notebook with standard technologies (ULV, keyboard, 1.8" HD, ODD, etc.) against strong competitors who have been entrenched in that shark-invested market for some time. And, though I'm sure Apple will bring a lot of "cool" to such a unit, others have serious clout in this regard. Sony, Fujitsu and LG make very stylish machines with a high "wow" factor. HP is on a mega-momemtum ride in the computer arena. So Apple would match their "cool" design plus OSX against some serious competition. How have they done so far in other categories in such competitions , i.e., conventional 5lb+ Pro laptops and the whole range of their desktop models? Good and improving slowly but still in the ~ 2-5% of worldwide market share. The Ipod halo effect has helped a little but has not provided an exponential leap forward.

2) If point one is reasonable, what else can Apple do to become successful as it enters this new market? Again, we have an example with the iPhone. Apple entered a very crowded, highly complex and competitive new market (mobile communications) with something brand new, not a conventional device with their stylish cool added on. We don't know if they'll succeed but we do know that they chose to introduce a whole new design--3 functions in one with no buttons-- and a smidgen of a great new technology.called Multi-Touch. (BTW, in contrast, when Apple entered the audio market with the Ipod, there was no dominant company and no entrenched dominant technology. It was essentially an open market waiting to be had for the taking with a breakthrough device and ingenious (& monopolistic) coordinate content provider mechanism--iTunes).

I think this argues for the case that Apple will enter the ultralight notebook market with something new to separate itself from the others and that something new is Multi-Touch. That is the one technology that Apple has that the Sonys, the Fujitsus, the Panasonics, the HPs, don't have now. I don't know what the first incarnation will be in notebooks. I have my own wish list for MT (posted in other threads on AI) but there are practicalities that I'm not informed enough about to know whether they are just naive speculations. Kolchak and others have made very persuasive arguments that such notebooks must have a conventional keyboard.

3) Finally, since I always like to come at a problem from a different direction (Think Different?), what if Apple doesn't produce a new ultra-light at all (now) BUT writes a software program that allows OSX to run natively and as fast on a wintel machine. I could then run OSX on that Sony TX or LG X1 that I have been lusting for! A reverse Parallels if you will. I have not thought through this enough yet regarding profitability, affect on global market share, a Vista/MS lockout etc,. But to me at least, it's an intriguing idea. In the mean time, Apple can further mature MT before it enters the market with its own ultra-light.

OSX doesn't run "natively and as fast on wintel machines" because Apple goes to great lenghts to prevent this. Apple has made it clear that its intentions are to keep OSX locked to its hardware as that is where it makes its profits. So unfortunately we will not see OSX running on on Sony's TX series.

But I do wish for small, sturdy, ultra-thin powerbook with multitouch-like features in the near future, although I do not think multitouch is that needed on a small laptop-style portable with a physical keyboard and trackpad.

MultiTouch and keyboards are not mutually exclusive. iGesture pads have been used for years on systems with keyboards. MultiTouch is far superior to single point trackpads. Apple took a small step forward when it brought two-finger scrolling to MacBook trackpads, but the full MT technology already provides a huge command set from your fingertips. However, I don't think MT would work very well in an ultralight's touchscreen. It works best if the surface is laying more or less horizontal, similar to a graphics tablet or the way one would hold an iPhone. With a near-vertical surface, it's too difficult to use all the fingers and thumb, instead requiring the wrist to be dorsally flexed.

drmoto,

Just curious, are there any references for "OSX doesn't run natively and as fast on wintel machines"?

Thanks.

Kolchak,

Can you think of any knockout engineering issues with my idea of a "pop-out" like iGestures panel from the space currently occupied by the ODD in a laptop?

Thanks.

I don't feel a challenge to my masculinity, as that poster obviously does.

My point, and this applies only to me, as I'm not attempting to speak for anyone else, is that I would buy one if it didn't impinge upon my daily routine. That could only happen if it were small, and light enough for me not to notice it, when I'm involved in something else.

If I carry it in an over the shoulder case, it will be out of my way, and I'm more likely to take it with me. If it's bigger, and heavier, then it will become annoying after a while, and I'm likely to leave it home.

So, that's my reasoning. I know over the years just how much bothers me, and as I get older (I really hate saying that!), I'm bothered more easily.

Remember, this isn't something I need.

Because, you're talking about business, and I've made the point clear that I'm not.

When we are talking business, then we are looking at a different world. If you have to carry, you do. The office won't care if it's 12 pounds, if they want you to have one, have one you will!

But, for personal use, where the machine is more of a dalliance than anything else, the smaller, and lighter, the better.

OS X does not run on Wintel machines without hacking. Even when you hack OS X to run on a Wintel, you still don't have graphics support unless you're using an identical card to one in a Mac. OS X without a graphics card is slow as molasses, because it's running the graphical desktop on the processor.

Driver support.

There are concrete and identifiable reasons why the underpinnings of Windows aren't that great (the registry, for one) and a big part of it is having to support 8000 million different possible computer configurations.

Now they could cut a deal with say Sony and run OS X just on Sony models or even on specific Sony models, but I doubt they want to support every possible Windows machine under the sun. Nor do I think they'll go that far anytime soon.

There are a few other reasons like Macs not using BIOS, but drivers is the big one. In the Windows world companies mostly write their own drivers for Microsoft but Windows still has to use them, and they usually suck. In Apple's case they usually have to write drivers for whatever they use (some exceptions) and so expanding the models they support means writing and supporting more drivers (software cost) as they're not big enough to compel companies to write drivers for them.

Sony has been producing the TX series for several years. At 1.25 kg., it is half the weight of a MacBook. This is all I want, but with the Mac OS. Oh, and the new ULV Core 2 Duo chips would be nice. But if Mac could produce this machine, with its 5 hour battery life, I would pay nearly any price.

*hehs* Was visiting New Zealand back in 04, and left my PB at a friends house, didn't figure this out till I went through the xray machine and found there wasn't a laptop in its case. Friend mailed it back to me in Colorado - 3 day trip. Something like 20% battery left.

Never having taken my iGesture pad apart (and not wanting to since it works flawlessly and I don't want to mess it up), I don't know how thick the actual working surface is. The iGesture is about 1/4 - 1/3" thick at the rim, not exactly superthin. Would I like it if Apple put it in? Hell, yeah! But I'm not holding my breath. Indeed, if they could put in the iGesture Numpad on the right side, it could give the dedicated cursor and numeric keypads many people have always wished laptops had, instead of forcing us to use the embedded numeric layout in the keyboard with its staggered keys.


That jibes with the experiences I've always had with my 12" PB. Four days of sleep would drain the battery, but I could keep it running by plugging it back in any time before then. Keeps me on my toes keeping it charged nowadays. Trying to see how long I can get the uptime counter going. It's at almost 400 days right now. (Okay, I really should install 10.4.8 and the latest security updates, but mess up my uptime? Never!)

These are the most reasonable, ship-this-summer specs in this thread. Thanks for returning us to reason, Rolo!

I see two options for an Apple product in the subnotebook space:

1) a current MacBook, trimmed to a more compact, sub-3 lbs size (like Rolo presents above), AND/OR

2) a combination of iPhone and MacBook features, akin to the eBook that Kormac used to discuss here; in other words, a device that is not a full-fledged Mac, but darn close and running OS X Lite like the iPhone.

My personal preference would be for option 1. But seeing the precedent that Apple has set with the iPod and iPhone, I think that option 2 is just as likely, if not more so.

That'd suit me fine. I'm a TV producer/director + I travel a lot and frequently have to rough it in small spaces on location. What I really want is a machine with something around this spec and a rugged, preferably rubberised, enclosure. The ibook polycarbonate enclosure is ok, but it still looks vulnerable to me - certainly more vulnerable than the old 2-tone clamshells (which were, in my opinion, still too big).

There's a huge potential market for a sub-notebook-sized, knock-resistant machine, not just amongst people who fly or train it a lot but people like me who work outdoors yet need ready access to documents and data: architects, builders, surveyors, landscapers... and students, who probably take their machines out doors more than anyone.

Right now, the closest you can get are Panasonics ruggedized notebook models. They are designed for jobsites where there will be spills, and drops off workbebenckes and tables.

The thing that suprised me actually is that the 17" PB is surprisingly rugged. I picked up mine right before I was deployed to Iraq in 03-04, and out of the dozen or so computers we brought with us (Including one toughbook) mine was the only one that made it back. Still works now in fact, though the USB ports are dead. Dusty Enviroment? Check. Various wet stuff dumped on? Check. Surived a humvee getting zapped with a IED? Check.. though the hinge on one side is a little ate up, and the plastic over the superdrive (Both Drives had to be replaced last year) was broke off, but hey. I'd say the PB survived the toughness test.

Now... to get a new logic board, or save up my pennies for a new MacBook Pro.

My thoughts are that if Apple do release a sub notebook, they will use a new enclosure material in order to make thinner and smaller and maintain strength. I think Apple will at least match Sony in size and weight if not better them.

Some people consider leaving out the optical drive to be ok but I just thought of something else. You can't boot from your system disc without an external drive. So what you say? Well, that's fine for OS X but Windows doesn't boot from external USB or firewire drives. I tried booting the installer CD in my external firewire drive and it was having none of it. Maybe it's dependent on the particular model of drive but still, it's flakey.

Another reason not to use Windows.

It may be a firmware thing, I don't know. I've seen Windows-based notebooks that do boot from an external optical drive. I think mine can but it's through a dock connector with an adapter that lets me put the drive module into it. I haven't needed it because it has a modular optical drive bay.