Now we have new PowerMacs - what about the PowerBook?
Now that we have seen substantial upgrades on the PM line, and smaller on the eMac - what do you think is a probable time for the next rev. TiBooks to appear?
Sometime September? Or around the 24th?
(edit: God Darnit - first post with this reg. and I mess up the group. Oh, I guess some nice Mod will fix it
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[ 08-13-2002: Message edited by: anr ]</p>
Sometime September? Or around the 24th?
(edit: God Darnit - first post with this reg. and I mess up the group. Oh, I guess some nice Mod will fix it
)[ 08-13-2002: Message edited by: anr ]</p>
Comments
Anyway, there is a good chance for the week of Seybold and Apple Expo.
I doubt that they'll be thrilling updates, but mere bumps. Tibooks with different colors would nice.
Screed
[ 08-13-2002: Message edited by: sCreeD ]</p>
But seriously folks. Last update end of April, my guess is speed bumps in October/November and a more substantial upgrade next spring. Since the last upgrade was fairly extensive I think there'll be a minor revision before another major one.
boring
In April '03, new 167Mhz fsb Xserve-style mobo with 1 GHz/1.16 GHz, DDR, integrated bluetooth, more RAM, more HD, more pixels, smae price, same case.
In fall '03, I suspect we get "The MAJOR Revision" to the IBM chip family and a new case with all sorts of new stuff.
Jet
<strong>My bet would be Oct/Nov with 800/933 G4's and a superdrive that needs to be plugged in to the wall when burning DVD's. More RAM, more HD, video card upgrade, more pixels, same price, same case.
In April '03, new 167Mhz fsb Xserve-style mobo with 1 GHz/1.16 GHz, DDR, integrated bluetooth, more RAM, more HD, more pixels, smae price, same case.
In fall '03, I suspect we get "The MAJOR Revision" to the IBM chip family and a new case with all sorts of new stuff.
Jet</strong><hr></blockquote>
This actually doesn't sound too far off, although Apple usually saves its major mobo and case revisions for the beginning of the year. I say around 933 and some hard drive bumps for the fall - *maybe* a new video card, but the current screen/radeon seem to perform admirably and will carry 10.2 well. Jan/Feb will be DDR/1+GHz/64MB graphics/bluetooth. I really want to say Superdrive, but judging by rumors history something is telling me that Apple won't be able to deliver until MWNY, or at the very least by pre-announcing a month or two @ MWSF, and only in the high-end model. Then another bump in the fall, maybe letting the superdrive trickle down to the low-end PB, and a major case revision the following spring.
I don't see miniaturization technology advancing enough to warrant a case change for the PB as soon as next year. Apple usually doesn't change their PB cases just for the hell of it, there'd have to be some advantage and I think the Titaniums are still pretty damn smart/sexy machines as they are. Right now they can barely get a SuperDrive in there, let alone shave off a couple of inches. In another year and a half maybe - a year's probably cutting it too close.
-S
It's that bloody slot load! Get rid of it once and for all and we'll all be better off.
The other thing is battery life. Any mobile DVD-RW slution will almost surely require AC operation.
This one just earlier than others...
sooooo.....
Screw you all.
What about dual procs in the TiBook?
I seem to remember another thread a while ago about this. Somebody (I forget who) saw a spot on the mobo for another proc, or thought they did... or something. Anyway, now that the pro desktop line has gone completely dual, does that change the outlook for the pro portable?
<strong>Trying to swerve back on course...
What about dual procs in the TiBook?
I seem to remember another thread a while ago about this. Somebody (I forget who) saw a spot on the mobo for another proc, or thought they did... or something. Anyway, now that the pro desktop line has gone completely dual, does that change the outlook for the pro portable?</strong><hr></blockquote>
in theory i think it'd be wicked crazy k3wl to have a dual proc LT. butt it would also be wicked crazy hot. they'd have to include a refrigerator or something to cool it down. i don't think apple really wants to include kitchen appliances with its digital lifestyle appliances. i mean seriously, would you buy a portable computer if you had to port it inside a refrigerator? i don't think i would. imagine the commercials they'd do. some jerk mixing a cd, cutting a movie on his powerbook on an airplane, but instead of being in a seat, he's sitting inside a refrigerator. it would kinda suck. i don't wanna lug around a refrigerator.
But from what I've learned about CPU's the DP laptop idea seems more reasonable than it might otherwise appear at first blush.
Hold you breath for this, but a DP laptop could carry two distinct advantages: Price, and heat/efficiency.
Now before you laugh you heads off consider the following.
An 800Mhz G4 costs about 100 (maybe a bit less) a 1.25Ghz G4 is in the $400 range. Two heads are cheaper than one!
The faster you make any one chip the hotter it gets. This relationship isn't fixed. To make a chip a little faster you need to make it more than a little hotter. One very fast but also very hot chip needs to be cooled agressively to spread the heat throughout a chassis (thereby dissapating it). Two slightly slower chips would each be much cooler. If carefully chosen, they would, together, dissapate about the same or slightly more total watts, but the surface temperature of each would be much lower and easier to dissapate through a chassis. But you have to do it twice. Lower temp over a bigger area versus higher temp over a smaller area -- ideally you could balance them out.
If carefully chosen and laid out it is *possible* to have dual 800's in the space of a single 1250 and have them not consume more power or dissapate more overall heat.
The question is, how hard would it be to do and KEEP doing. Once you do it, you don't want to go back to singles at some point down the line.
I believe the marketing angle would be a staggering coup. There is NO fast x86 part you could even consider for such a deployment, even in a huge desktop replacement. Apple could concievably do it in a laptop only slightly thicker than the current Ti:
IF you could get a DP Titanium, would you really care if it was .2" thicker or weighed an extra .5 or 1 lb ???
A DP800 Titanium @ 1.25" thick and 6.4 lbs? YES PLEASE.
That spot was the system controller. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Matsu is right, a DP laptop would be a huge marketing advantage and I myself would love one -- except that it seems everyone is still obsessed with processor speed speed SPEED! to the exclusion of everything else. (Look at the reaction to the new Power Macs.) If Apple kept the Ti at 800MHz, but made it a duallie, there would be screaming and rending of garments. "Apple has 1.25GHz chips! Why are they not in the PowerBooks?! I'm not buying until the PowerBook is a dual 1.25!"
I can't see them NOT selling them by the boat-load to every corner of the portable A/V market, and high-end 2-d print/publication, even mobile 3-D -- such as it is there wouldn't be any significant X86 competition in the laptop space.
<strong>IF you could get a DP Titanium, would you really care if it was .2" thicker or weighed an extra .5 or 1 lb ???</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, in my opinion, the current TiBook is too thin. I recently purchased an iBook. I was looking for a current, portable Mac. In weighing the various factors between getting an iBook or a TiBook, of course price was the key point. However, another negative on the Ti side (again, this is my opinion - if you own a Ti, I'm very happy for you) was the perceived (by me!) fragility, caused mostly by its (lack of) thickness. There is a lower limit to a laptop's thickness. Just because you can go thinner, doesn't always mean you should. The current Ti design has gone beyond my thinness limit. So, as for the dual DP, thicker would definitely be fine in my eyes... plus, they could abandon the slot-loading optical and put a superdrive in there.
As for weight, no, I wouldn't care if they had to add a half or full pound to do DP. It's pretty light right now. Another pound wouldn't be too bad, in my opinion.
<strong>It's NOT the thickness that keeps superdrives out of TiBooks. Look how easy it is to make variously thick iPod's, just change the bottom casting, easy! Everything else stays the same save for a deeper pan (to borrow an automotive analogue)
It's that bloody slot load! Get rid of it once and for all and we'll all be better off.
The other thing is battery life. Any mobile DVD-RW slution will almost surely require AC operation.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I personally love the slot loading drives. they are not problemati as far as their function goes, and they save space and look cool. They dont hinder the surroundings the way trays to. If the Titaniums go back to trays, i wouldnt buy it. As a matter of fact the only thing holding me back from the iMac2s is the tray.
They handle all media better, and it's easier to implement a force/manual eject on them.
The latter, especially, is no trifling matter what with the confluence of both recent copy-protection schemes and upcoming schemes of more malignant purpose.
They have to make it ALL trays and each tray needs a manual force eject button. Record lables and movie houses don't give a flying fig about your computer, they'll just as soon freeze your drive and fry your roms if given half a chance -- and US congress seems to want to give them that chance.
Discs on a Laptop shouldn't eject to the front of a machine anyway. Slot or tray, in close quarters the front load requires you to push or tilt the machine away from you. They ought to eject to the side as they do in the iBook. A closed tray is no more vulnerable than a slot load, if you drop your book hard enough to mess up a closed tray, you'd likely do damage to a slot loader as well.
Another plus for a notebook style tray is that it could (if appropriately designed) be removed at will and substituted with a second battery.
This says nothing to the fact that a tray loader is the prefered style for virtually every drive manufacturer and new speeds and burners are always available in tray form first. Putting a slot loader in an iMac would be pure retrograde -- style over functionality.