1) Motorola has stated that it will cease the production-development of G4's.
2) Apple will probably sue Motorola, so it would be difficult to have any kind of cooperation.
3) It would be a mistake for Apple to have both 32 and 64bit processors! If Apple contnue to have 32bit CPUs the software developers will also stay on 32bits and will never take advantage of the 64bit processor.
4) The G4 as well as the G3 are already slow! It wouldn't make any difference to go from a G3 to G4. Have a look at the cheapest PeeCee laptops... even those are powerfull.
5) It is good to diiferantiate between the iBook and Powerbook but not necesarilly in terms of CPU speeds.
My view is that, all the Macs have to go the 64bit way. How they will differentiate? Answer is through speed and cache memory. Something like the Pentium4 and the Celeron... both based on the same core.
The ibooks should start with a minimum of 256 DDR RAM, a cut version of PPC970, definately USB2 and Firewire 400 or 800, as well as built-in bluetooth. They should also increase the number of USB ports and have an option for Airport Extreme.
If they want to stop loosing market share, they should move FAST, REALLY FAST.
Okay, that's fine. Again, you're missing the point. The above is NOT a specific "wish list" of specs or really specific numbers, speeds, etc.
It's a rough outline to show, using kinda present day parts/features, etc. how I'D differentiate the lines. It's an overall, "big picture" thing...NOT a spec/feature-fest.
Getting the resolution right on a 14" widescreen might be an issue. I suppose you could use a screen with the 12" iBook's dot pitch, but then you basically have a white PowerBook. It might fit a sort of "prosumer" niche.
When the iBook goes OS X only, FW 800, Bluetooth and Airport Extreme are gimmes. The only reason they're not on the iBooks now is that the iBook is still using an OS 9 bootable motherboard.
I expect that a fairly major foray into education is awaiting the G4 iBook, given Steve's expressed belief that multimedia creation is the future of learning, that video is the language that today's kids speak. Once they can all run iMovie and iDVD on the notebooks on their desks, and film and edit and burn field trips, look out.
JohnGR the Greek: Beyond the specifics that pscates was intentionally avoiding, I agree the cpu speed should NEVER be a way of seperating consumer and pro computer lines. The price of cpu's just isn't that big of a differentiator in my opinion. Obviously expandibility; screen res and all of the mobo differences required are the real differences.
pscates and Escher: One thing that I do believe as a reason for a wide-screen iBook is the fact that the iBook is supposed to be a portable iMac and we do have a widescreen iMac, so whatever makes the desktop experience of the two as compatible as possible is worth the attempt, in my opinion, as long as the price is okay ... and it should be since Apple is buying lots of those screens.
For some reason, I've ALWAYS (okay, for a year or so now) had a massive hankerin' for a cool widescreen iBook. I've stated here on a couple of occasions that my dream computer from Apple would be the guts/specs/features of the G4 PowerBook (specifically the 17" model, with all the goodies) housed inside the rugged, "can take a knock or two" glossy white styling of the iBook.
A perfect marriage, IMO: brawn, brains AND beauty (I've always dug the glossy plastics of the iStuff over the grays, silvers and metallics of the pro gear, so, to me, that's the "beauty" part).
The PERFECT, dream computer, for me, would be a 15" widescreen iBook: take the size of the upcoming aluminum 15" PowerBook (screen size and resolution), fill it with all the cool stuff of the 17" model (FireWire 800, lighted keyboard, slot-loading drive, USB port on the right side, AirPort Extreme, a honkin' graphics card, etc.) and wrap it all up in glossy white plastic (with the same framing and hard-drive encasing of the iBook because I'm...well, I'm a klutz...and it's bound to get dropped at some point).
Top it off with a 100GB hard drive, 1GB RAM and the fastest SuperDrive possible (4x DVD burning, 24 or 32x CD-R burning, etc.)
Oh yeah, one more thing: the Apple logo would be orange (like on the colored iMacs) and - along with the keyboard - softly begins to glow as the surrounding lighting dims. Now tell me that ain't a bitchin' laptop!
What else would a fella need? Even if it weighed 6-8lbs., I wouldn't even give a crap because that's still WAY more luggable than any iMac or eMac I'm aware of.
Apple should have, like Fender and other guitar makers, a custom shop! Where people with money and ideas for a "dream Mac" can turn to to make it happen. Granted, I don't have any money. But if I DID...
Apple should have, like Fender and other guitar makers, a custom shop! Where people with money and ideas for a "dream Mac" can turn to to make it happen. Granted, I don't have any money. But if I DID...
Well, if you can find a way to make a computer as simple as a solid body guitar with a bolt-on neck, you'll have your custom shop (and a lot of money).
They might be able to implement some sort of "mass customization." They're actually passing by a great opportunity with the TiBook, since Titanium anodizes into a wide area of beautiful, vivid colors. They also have all the work they did on getting uniform color in transparent plastic, molding it into lenses, and including patterns (for the Threat to Geek Masculinity iMacs).
They probably never got to the point where they could efficiently make those variations on demand, though, and there's always been a lot of price pressure on the iMac, which encourages homogeneity. The kind of snap-on plastic bits that you see on some other products is too tawdry and flimsy to be Apple's style, so that's out (yes, I'm aware that Apple has done something like that before, but not this Apple).
It would be really cool to be able to take your TiBook in, have the paint stripped, and get it anodized by a jeweler, then sealed in a clearcoat. I'm sure the Japanese have already done it by the hundreds.
The fact that the 12" PowerBook has FW800 and DVI but Apple didn't put the physical ports there angers me. Also USB2 might be there (?). I mean Apple get over it and put ports on the right, who cares if it doesn't look cool.
The fact that the 12" PowerBook has FW800 and DVI but Apple didn't put the physical ports there angers me.
Is that true, Aquatic? Where did you find out about that? I'm particularly intrigued by the potential for DVI on the 12-inch PowerBook.
Of course, with all the recent 970-related rumors on MacBidouille, I might have to wait for the PPC 970-based Rev.C of the 12-incher, rather than go for the still G4-based Rev.B this fall.
I'd heard that stuff as well...and it's exactly the kind of stuff I talk about above, earlier in this thread. Taking what could be an AMAZING 12" PowerBook and intentionally leaving off MUCH desired features that the "serious" PowerBook-buying customer would want.
Like I said, I don't think anyone would balk at paying $2000 for a 12" aluminum PowerBook if it had FireWire 800, the illuminated keyboard, DVI/ADC capabilities, etc.
The $999-$1799 range is nicely represented by the iBooks and so it's kinda foolish (and annoying) IMO to cripple the 12" PowerBook just to get it down to high-end iBook territory. Clogs the line, overlaps the products, causes confusion with consumer buyers and pisses off the pro buyers.
I'd buy the 12" PowerBook TOMORROW if I felt like it wasn't hampered and a "kinda sorta" little brother to the 15" and 17". The ONLY "hit" I'd want to take on buying the 12" PowerBook would be the screen size. Every other feature should be present.
Let the iBooks take care of the sub-$2000 market and pack the 12" PowerBook with the proper goodies.
Here's the problem, and it isn't that the PB12 has moved slightly down market, it's that the iBook has to start to move down market aswell.
Apple's laptops have been the only models to consistently present at least one or two decent values in the past. Apple, however, has been less than committed advancing the price end of the price performance equation. That's not been to serious in the past. Nothing could really touch the iBook at the price, and the PB's have been variously good deals or "good enough" deals, though they have never been affordable (untill the 12.)
But all this is changing. Apple laptops, once favored even among PC users (for their mobile needs), are finally facing real competition from Wintelon notebooks. 2 years ago, budget X86 laptops were a joke, no longer. For the price of the iBook, and decent entry level x86 will supply a 14 or 15" screen and a combo drive with comparable spec CPU/video performance. The iBook still has the heart of people who like a compact machine, but Wintel has made up a lot of ground, and they are starting into the familiar territory where they present a better spec sheet at a lower price. They aren't so great as "mobile" machines in many cases, but again, the budget buyer has been shown to favor a desktop replacement, and most market research indicates they are more than willing to sacrifice travel weight and battery life to get a bigger screen and a lower price.
So, while Apple still has, IMHO, the better solution for the mobile user, they don't have the most saleable solution. A familiar situation for them. iBooks are stilll appealing, but their enormous sales success was due directly to their good price relative to X86. For once, you could easily say a mac was the better bottom line deal. The iBook won sales because it was better at the same price, or even cheaper in some cases. That's not true anymore, and sales will begin to fall off unless the iBook gets cheaper, not neccessarily faster, though it needs a bigger screen at the price. They need to drop about 200-300 over the next year and a half if they want to keep up with the entry level Wintel X86 notebooks. People didn't buy iBooks for OSX, or .mac, or iApps, they bought them for the price. Once that advantage disappears, so will the sales.
The iBook must move down market. That's why there's a 1799 PB, because the iBook has to get even cheaper over the next year.
The PB12 is fine, should've included the missing features, but didn't probably because the 15" was not yet positioned to get them. With I/O, and video advantages (supported spanning), lighter weight and a slimmer sexier case, and significant CPU advantages over the iBooks, it is more than just a high-end iBook.
In 12 months time, when the iBook looks pretty much like the PB12 currently does, then 12"PB will seem slightly out of place.
That's why I say Apple will slot a newly styled (slimmer) 14" iBook into the current 12" prices, that will re-enforce the bargain appeal of the iBook and make you pay a portability premium for the 12"PB.
Does Apple have the balls to make a 799 bargain G3 iBook? They made a semi-reasonable eMac bottom end, and X86 notebooks are dropping into that range, iDunno...
Pscates, I think you'll ge a G4 class iBook with a 14" screen, a combo, and a GREAT price, in about 12 months, mebbe even a superdrive special edition.
4. Make the iBook SE widescreen 15" wide. I think a 14" widescreen loses too much vertical real estate. It's okay to have overlap with the 15" PBook because as you point out, it's standard equipment will make for plenty of seperation.
Doodling around tonight and drew this. It's to scale (CD, which is 4.75" round, is in scale to the other dimensions shown. I think a 14" widescreen could be pretty cool. The body, as illustrated, would be just 13" across and just under 9" tall. The screen itself would be 7.5" tall and 11.875 - just shy of one foot - wide. It's a 16:10 thing.
As far as resolution, remember when the Titanium G4 PowerBook first came out? It was, if I recall correctly, something like 1152x768. It eventually got bumped to its current 1280x854, but the first one (1152x768) would probably work on something this size. I remember that it was kinda "big" and horsey-looking on the 15" and I thought it looked MUCH better at the current 1280 one.
I think it would be pretty cool! Students, travelers, people like me, etc.
Just a quick doodle to show/think about some dimensions. Don't get hung up on the speakers, CD slot placement, trackpad, etc. It ain't that kind of drawing.
Just a note: I calculated that a 13.3" Widescreen (1152x768 ) would have almost the exact same number of pixels per inch as on current Apple displays, and also it would have the same dimensions as the current 12" iBook except wider (no deeper/taller). Much like the 14.1" Pismo to the 15.2" Titanium, the screen gained no vertical size, only horizontal size - both physically and pixel-wise.
EDIT: However, I think a 14.1" wide w/ 1152x768 would be more visually pleasing, and larger/better for DVDs. I think a 13.3" wouldn't be enough of an upgrade from the 12.1" to be worth it.
Doodling around tonight and drew this. It's to scale (CD, which is 4.75" round, is in scale to the other dimensions shown. I think a 14" widescreen could be pretty cool.
Nice job, pscates! It looks like a widescreen iBook is not a bad idea after all. To me, the excellent values embodied in Apple's consumer lines are quite amazing. This widescreen iBook would fit well.
When it came to replacing my PowerBook 2400c two years ago, I chose the great-value iBook/500/CD-ROM over a PowerBook. Now I'm looking to replace my age-old Rev.A iMac with a PowerMac (or a Wintel PC) desktop, but the eMac/1Ghz/SuperDrive is awfully tempting at the $1150 academic price. I'm planning on buying a Rev.B 12-inch PowerBook this fall, but I know I'll be terribly tempted to go for a then-current iBook. I expect that the iBooks will continue to offer what we really need, plus a little bit more (e.g. brilliant design, the 12" iBook's compact size, a potential future widescreen), for a great value.
Pscates, it looks like you chose a 16:10 aspect ratio, but quoted 3:2 resolutions. 768 really is the minimum height, so at the shape you used the width would have to be at least 1228. Probably then 1280x800 is the most likely candidate for the screen res. 1152 wide would make the screen a little too short, unless you used 3:2 instead of 16:10.
And yeah, that looks like one hot model, I'd buy one.
Yeah, you're right, Matsu. Missed the numbers by a little, didn't I?
I was fooling around in Photoshop, using the "scale together" image size box to check various ratios, resolutions, etc.
It dawned on me only last night that there IS a difference betwen the iMac/17" widescreen ratio and that used on the various ADC and 15" PowerBook. That's probably where I was getting fuzzy. But yes, 768 MINIMUM height on the 14" model above. Then whtever the horizontal figure comes out to be...1200 and something, like you said.
Now that Mockup is just too good to drift out of activity so soon. Look at it, same depth as the 12" just a tad wider, would anyone really miss the 12 if this was the replacement? I don't think so. I wonder if the bezel couldn't be made a bit slimmer, with the lid a bit thicker than the Al/Ti lids, it might be strong enough to support a thinner bezel and still adequately protect the LCD. Also, if this thing gets guts pretty much liek the current PB12, that leaves some extra space down the flanks of the machine for a nice honking big battery, and also to make the base a touch thinner, as less internal stuff needs to be stacked, I'd look for it overall to come in a touch thinner than the current iBooks, and a touch thicker than PB 12. Not much to play with in that range, but I'd even venture that the travel weight split the difference between the current 12 and 14, 5.5lbs, same dimensions as Pscates proposed.
I took a photo of a 12" iBook from the PR section of Apple's site. I placed my iBook body into Photoshop (added some gradients beforehand in Illustrator, just to flesh it out). I cut the screen from the 12" iBook - 1024x768 - photo, pasted it into its own layer. Then isolated the menu and dock (layer via cut), scaled up the blue background to fill the screen area of my 14" widescreen iBook and took the left and right sides of the menu and flung them out to the far edges (cloning white menu space in between).
Did ANY of that make any sense?
Oh well, I knew what I was after and how to do it...
Anyway, here's the results. A little more fleshed-out and accurate. 768 vertical resolution/height has been determined...it's the same as the 12" iBook. Just wider (1200 and something?)...
Comments
1) Motorola has stated that it will cease the production-development of G4's.
2) Apple will probably sue Motorola, so it would be difficult to have any kind of cooperation.
3) It would be a mistake for Apple to have both 32 and 64bit processors! If Apple contnue to have 32bit CPUs the software developers will also stay on 32bits and will never take advantage of the 64bit processor.
4) The G4 as well as the G3 are already slow! It wouldn't make any difference to go from a G3 to G4. Have a look at the cheapest PeeCee laptops... even those are powerfull.
5) It is good to diiferantiate between the iBook and Powerbook but not necesarilly in terms of CPU speeds.
My view is that, all the Macs have to go the 64bit way. How they will differentiate? Answer is through speed and cache memory. Something like the Pentium4 and the Celeron... both based on the same core.
The ibooks should start with a minimum of 256 DDR RAM, a cut version of PPC970, definately USB2 and Firewire 400 or 800, as well as built-in bluetooth. They should also increase the number of USB ports and have an option for Airport Extreme.
If they want to stop loosing market share, they should move FAST, REALLY FAST.
It's a rough outline to show, using kinda present day parts/features, etc. how I'D differentiate the lines. It's an overall, "big picture" thing...NOT a spec/feature-fest.
Third time now...
g
Getting the resolution right on a 14" widescreen might be an issue. I suppose you could use a screen with the 12" iBook's dot pitch, but then you basically have a white PowerBook. It might fit a sort of "prosumer" niche.
When the iBook goes OS X only, FW 800, Bluetooth and Airport Extreme are gimmes. The only reason they're not on the iBooks now is that the iBook is still using an OS 9 bootable motherboard.
I expect that a fairly major foray into education is awaiting the G4 iBook, given Steve's expressed belief that multimedia creation is the future of learning, that video is the language that today's kids speak. Once they can all run iMovie and iDVD on the notebooks on their desks, and film and edit and burn field trips, look out.
pscates and Escher: One thing that I do believe as a reason for a wide-screen iBook is the fact that the iBook is supposed to be a portable iMac and we do have a widescreen iMac, so whatever makes the desktop experience of the two as compatible as possible is worth the attempt, in my opinion, as long as the price is okay ... and it should be since Apple is buying lots of those screens.
For some reason, I've ALWAYS (okay, for a year or so now) had a massive hankerin' for a cool widescreen iBook. I've stated here on a couple of occasions that my dream computer from Apple would be the guts/specs/features of the G4 PowerBook (specifically the 17" model, with all the goodies) housed inside the rugged, "can take a knock or two" glossy white styling of the iBook.
A perfect marriage, IMO: brawn, brains AND beauty (I've always dug the glossy plastics of the iStuff over the grays, silvers and metallics of the pro gear, so, to me, that's the "beauty" part).
The PERFECT, dream computer, for me, would be a 15" widescreen iBook: take the size of the upcoming aluminum 15" PowerBook (screen size and resolution), fill it with all the cool stuff of the 17" model (FireWire 800, lighted keyboard, slot-loading drive, USB port on the right side, AirPort Extreme, a honkin' graphics card, etc.) and wrap it all up in glossy white plastic (with the same framing and hard-drive encasing of the iBook because I'm...well, I'm a klutz...and it's bound to get dropped at some point).
Top it off with a 100GB hard drive, 1GB RAM and the fastest SuperDrive possible (4x DVD burning, 24 or 32x CD-R burning, etc.)
Oh yeah, one more thing: the Apple logo would be orange (like on the colored iMacs) and - along with the keyboard - softly begins to glow as the surrounding lighting dims. Now tell me that ain't a bitchin' laptop!
What else would a fella need? Even if it weighed 6-8lbs., I wouldn't even give a crap because that's still WAY more luggable than any iMac or eMac I'm aware of.
Apple should have, like Fender and other guitar makers, a custom shop! Where people with money and ideas for a "dream Mac" can turn to to make it happen. Granted, I don't have any money. But if I DID...
Originally posted by pscates
Apple should have, like Fender and other guitar makers, a custom shop! Where people with money and ideas for a "dream Mac" can turn to to make it happen. Granted, I don't have any money. But if I DID...
Well, if you can find a way to make a computer as simple as a solid body guitar with a bolt-on neck, you'll have your custom shop (and a lot of money).
They might be able to implement some sort of "mass customization." They're actually passing by a great opportunity with the TiBook, since Titanium anodizes into a wide area of beautiful, vivid colors. They also have all the work they did on getting uniform color in transparent plastic, molding it into lenses, and including patterns (for the Threat to Geek Masculinity iMacs).
They probably never got to the point where they could efficiently make those variations on demand, though, and there's always been a lot of price pressure on the iMac, which encourages homogeneity. The kind of snap-on plastic bits that you see on some other products is too tawdry and flimsy to be Apple's style, so that's out (yes, I'm aware that Apple has done something like that before, but not this Apple).
It would be really cool to be able to take your TiBook in, have the paint stripped, and get it anodized by a jeweler, then sealed in a clearcoat. I'm sure the Japanese have already done it by the hundreds.
And illuminated keyboard for the 12" yes please.
Originally posted by Aquatic
The fact that the 12" PowerBook has FW800 and DVI but Apple didn't put the physical ports there angers me.
Is that true, Aquatic? Where did you find out about that? I'm particularly intrigued by the potential for DVI on the 12-inch PowerBook.
Of course, with all the recent 970-related rumors on MacBidouille, I might have to wait for the PPC 970-based Rev.C of the 12-incher, rather than go for the still G4-based Rev.B this fall.
Escher
Like I said, I don't think anyone would balk at paying $2000 for a 12" aluminum PowerBook if it had FireWire 800, the illuminated keyboard, DVI/ADC capabilities, etc.
The $999-$1799 range is nicely represented by the iBooks and so it's kinda foolish (and annoying) IMO to cripple the 12" PowerBook just to get it down to high-end iBook territory. Clogs the line, overlaps the products, causes confusion with consumer buyers and pisses off the pro buyers.
I'd buy the 12" PowerBook TOMORROW if I felt like it wasn't hampered and a "kinda sorta" little brother to the 15" and 17". The ONLY "hit" I'd want to take on buying the 12" PowerBook would be the screen size. Every other feature should be present.
Let the iBooks take care of the sub-$2000 market and pack the 12" PowerBook with the proper goodies.
Originally posted by pscates
[B]The ONLY "hit" I'd want to take on buying the 12" PowerBook would be the screen size. Every other feature should be present.[B]
THAT is the whole thing in a nutshell. Also if the 12" doesn't need as big of a graphic chip, etc.
Apple's laptops have been the only models to consistently present at least one or two decent values in the past. Apple, however, has been less than committed advancing the price end of the price performance equation. That's not been to serious in the past. Nothing could really touch the iBook at the price, and the PB's have been variously good deals or "good enough" deals, though they have never been affordable (untill the 12.)
But all this is changing. Apple laptops, once favored even among PC users (for their mobile needs), are finally facing real competition from Wintelon notebooks. 2 years ago, budget X86 laptops were a joke, no longer. For the price of the iBook, and decent entry level x86 will supply a 14 or 15" screen and a combo drive with comparable spec CPU/video performance. The iBook still has the heart of people who like a compact machine, but Wintel has made up a lot of ground, and they are starting into the familiar territory where they present a better spec sheet at a lower price. They aren't so great as "mobile" machines in many cases, but again, the budget buyer has been shown to favor a desktop replacement, and most market research indicates they are more than willing to sacrifice travel weight and battery life to get a bigger screen and a lower price.
So, while Apple still has, IMHO, the better solution for the mobile user, they don't have the most saleable solution. A familiar situation for them. iBooks are stilll appealing, but their enormous sales success was due directly to their good price relative to X86. For once, you could easily say a mac was the better bottom line deal. The iBook won sales because it was better at the same price, or even cheaper in some cases. That's not true anymore, and sales will begin to fall off unless the iBook gets cheaper, not neccessarily faster, though it needs a bigger screen at the price. They need to drop about 200-300 over the next year and a half if they want to keep up with the entry level Wintel X86 notebooks. People didn't buy iBooks for OSX, or .mac, or iApps, they bought them for the price. Once that advantage disappears, so will the sales.
The iBook must move down market. That's why there's a 1799 PB, because the iBook has to get even cheaper over the next year.
The PB12 is fine, should've included the missing features, but didn't probably because the 15" was not yet positioned to get them. With I/O, and video advantages (supported spanning), lighter weight and a slimmer sexier case, and significant CPU advantages over the iBooks, it is more than just a high-end iBook.
In 12 months time, when the iBook looks pretty much like the PB12 currently does, then 12"PB will seem slightly out of place.
That's why I say Apple will slot a newly styled (slimmer) 14" iBook into the current 12" prices, that will re-enforce the bargain appeal of the iBook and make you pay a portability premium for the 12"PB.
Does Apple have the balls to make a 799 bargain G3 iBook? They made a semi-reasonable eMac bottom end, and X86 notebooks are dropping into that range, iDunno...
Pscates, I think you'll ge a G4 class iBook with a 14" screen, a combo, and a GREAT price, in about 12 months, mebbe even a superdrive special edition.
Originally posted by MacGregor
Okay, pscates, I love your line-up...
But I would change:
4. Make the iBook SE widescreen 15" wide. I think a 14" widescreen loses too much vertical real estate. It's okay to have overlap with the 15" PBook because as you point out, it's standard equipment will make for plenty of seperation.
Doodling around tonight and drew this. It's to scale (CD, which is 4.75" round, is in scale to the other dimensions shown. I think a 14" widescreen could be pretty cool. The body, as illustrated, would be just 13" across and just under 9" tall. The screen itself would be 7.5" tall and 11.875 - just shy of one foot - wide. It's a 16:10 thing.
As far as resolution, remember when the Titanium G4 PowerBook first came out? It was, if I recall correctly, something like 1152x768. It eventually got bumped to its current 1280x854, but the first one (1152x768) would probably work on something this size. I remember that it was kinda "big" and horsey-looking on the 15" and I thought it looked MUCH better at the current 1280 one.
I think it would be pretty cool! Students, travelers, people like me, etc.
Just a quick doodle to show/think about some dimensions. Don't get hung up on the speakers, CD slot placement, trackpad, etc. It ain't that kind of drawing.
EDIT: However, I think a 14.1" wide w/ 1152x768 would be more visually pleasing, and larger/better for DVDs. I think a 13.3" wouldn't be enough of an upgrade from the 12.1" to be worth it.
Originally posted by pscates
Doodling around tonight and drew this. It's to scale (CD, which is 4.75" round, is in scale to the other dimensions shown. I think a 14" widescreen could be pretty cool.
Nice job, pscates! It looks like a widescreen iBook is not a bad idea after all. To me, the excellent values embodied in Apple's consumer lines are quite amazing. This widescreen iBook would fit well.
When it came to replacing my PowerBook 2400c two years ago, I chose the great-value iBook/500/CD-ROM over a PowerBook. Now I'm looking to replace my age-old Rev.A iMac with a PowerMac (or a Wintel PC) desktop, but the eMac/1Ghz/SuperDrive is awfully tempting at the $1150 academic price. I'm planning on buying a Rev.B 12-inch PowerBook this fall, but I know I'll be terribly tempted to go for a then-current iBook. I expect that the iBooks will continue to offer what we really need, plus a little bit more (e.g. brilliant design, the 12" iBook's compact size, a potential future widescreen), for a great value.
Escher
And yeah, that looks like one hot model, I'd buy one.
I was fooling around in Photoshop, using the "scale together" image size box to check various ratios, resolutions, etc.
It dawned on me only last night that there IS a difference betwen the iMac/17" widescreen ratio and that used on the various ADC and 15" PowerBook. That's probably where I was getting fuzzy. But yes, 768 MINIMUM height on the 14" model above. Then whtever the horizontal figure comes out to be...1200 and something, like you said.
I was up late.
I took a photo of a 12" iBook from the PR section of Apple's site. I placed my iBook body into Photoshop (added some gradients beforehand in Illustrator, just to flesh it out). I cut the screen from the 12" iBook - 1024x768 - photo, pasted it into its own layer. Then isolated the menu and dock (layer via cut), scaled up the blue background to fill the screen area of my 14" widescreen iBook and took the left and right sides of the menu and flung them out to the far edges (cloning white menu space in between).
Did ANY of that make any sense?
Oh well, I knew what I was after and how to do it...
Anyway, here's the results. A little more fleshed-out and accurate. 768 vertical resolution/height has been determined...it's the same as the 12" iBook. Just wider (1200 and something?)...
Now, more than ever, I want one!