Are we 100% sure there even IS a 15" aluminum PowerBook waiting in the wings? I mean we've had Jack from Macwhispers being shown to be totally full of it.
FWIW, Jack's the only one I'm seeing that the moment predicting a continuation of the TiBook.
If that doesn't pretty much guarantee 15" AlBooks by August, I don't know what will ;-)
Are we 100% sure there even IS a 15" aluminum PowerBook waiting in the wings?
I'm not 100% sure Steve Jobs won't have a mental breakdown tomorrow, drop all computers from the Apple line-up, and start trying to sell Firewire 800-equipped musical gas grills.
But come, on. You're letting your impatience get the better of your good judgement. Of course the 15" is going to be updated to Aluminum -- in both the sense of the casing material and the feature set. The advantages of Aluminum as a casing material, both for better heat dissipation and for avoiding all of the problems people had with paint-covered Titanium, are clear. And while the next 15" might not get all of the features of the 17", it's certainly going to get at least every improvement the 12" has over the current 15". Anything else in the next update would be crazy.
The only question is when. Why isn't the most likely explanation satisfactory? That we've simply been waiting for faster G4s that don't use up too much power and generate too much heat?
Apple doesn't want to issue a new 15" that's the same speed as the old 15". Is that really so hard to accept?
Apple doesn't want to issue a battery-eating, lap-burning 15" based on over-1GHz versions of the current G4, the 7455. Is that really so hard to accept?
Apple has to wait for the 7457, because it's the only reasonable chip for the job. Is that hard to accept?
The waiting itself may be hard to accept, but it's not that mysterious, and certainly not cause thinking Apple is planning something stupid.
Well, yeah...NOW. But he was also the boldest and loudest of the "970 PowerBooks at WWDC!!!" brigade, so he's obviously going the other way a bit to balance it all out: "Uh yes...Titanium PowerBooks 'til the end of the decade. And they're sporting G3s!"
Shetline, why don't you go back through the 49 pages of this thread - and the countless other "aluminum 15" PowerBook" threads I've participated in and contributed to and THEN tell me what's what.
I think I know more than you're giving me credit for, and I fully realize all the things you point out.
I was just wondering aloud, playing devil's advocate, etc.
I'm well aware of the benefits of a newer, cooler-running/energy-saving PowerBook, Motorola's role in this, the desire for this model, the wait, Apple's rock-and-a-hard place position (again), etc.
You don't have to explain it to me like I'm 7. I've said all those things you state already, pretty much.
I would've put good money on the 15" PowerBook being "aluminated" 2-3 months ago! Here we are, heading toward the tail-end of summer and "nope...not yet!".
RPM isn't the be-all, end-all measure of HDD performance. It's possible for a 4200RPM drive to beat a 5400RPM drive under some common uses - it depends on exactly which models you're comparing, and what uses you're subjecting them to. The usual tradeoff is that slower drives can pack data more densely (because of the slower rotation), but they have higher latency (because of the slower rotation).
Certainly, battery life is a major issue. Slower HDDs also tend to be quieter and cheaper.
For the first point you are right, the 4200 rpm HD of my powerbook is certainly faster than my 9 GB UW SCSCI of my G3 333 at 7200 rpm. However i made a comparison at equal density of plate, with basically means equal generation.
That's why i just bought an external HD 200 GB FW 800 from La Cie for my powerbook.
over on mac rumors, there's a prediction out of nowhere that new powerbooks will actually appear tomorrow: friday 25th. posters havestarted asking for sources
I read the post and it was just some guy wondering out loud. he said right in the opening statement that he has no inside info. The thing that makes the most sense is what the poster who showed the release dates for past powerbooks. They worked out to about nine months, so around end of august or sept given the historical precedent. I also agree with pscate's analysis maybe the form factor will stay. There is nothing inherently wrong with titanium as the material in the PB. The airport reception was improved by putting the antenna in the screen in effect raisng it a higher and increasing the overall gain not by making it out of aluminum ( aluminum may have better transmission properties but I would bet it ain't much). The paint issue has been largely resovled mine is over a year old with no problems. My speculation is that the went to aluminum for the cost savings in both raw material and manufacture. A personal anecdote: A group of us once decided to have a special fitting for our gear made out of titanium rather than stock tool steel. Aluminum was not considered strong enough. So a friend got a bid for the machining of about an 8 oz piece of solid titanium. The cost he gave was about $6000 for ten. We agreed to the price and he made them. When they were delivered the machinist said he would never do another run for us again because the material was so tough that is ruined his milling bits and he wound up losing money on the deal.
It makes sense to build it out of aluminum only if Apple doesn't have a jillion titanium cases in the warehouse.
Wow, I certainly hope Apple is not milling the cases out of solid pieces of Ti! Reminds you of those old cartoons where they put tree trunks on lathes and trimmed them down to one tooth pick each.
Aluminum is better for a lot of reasons. Ti would be desired only if there was some real strong need for one of its properties. The puzzle is why it was chosen in the first place. Was it driven by the engineers or by Jonathon Ives?
Aluminum is better for a lot of reasons. Ti would be desired only if there was some real strong need for one of its properties. The puzzle is why it was chosen in the first place. Was it driven by the engineers or by Jonathon Ives?
My guess is that they theorized Ti's rigidity would lend a feel of solidity to the powerbook that aluminum would not. In the final analysis, aluminum is very strong and lightweight, and recently has become much more affordable with worldwide capacity increasing. Certainly at the time, titanium was very sexy. Hell, it still is.
OK, everyone. This is the last confimation I needed.
Today I went to FNAC in a Europe country.
I was looking for a 12" combo. They told me that their stock have 2 machines and that there were in other stores of FNAC.
After this, the employee told me that after this two been sold that no more like this actual ones would come into their stores. He said that the machine is going out of be out of line in the market.
Then I asked if their will be a similar model after their stock run out of 12" combos. I got the information that this current model is being discontinued and that very soon, during August/September there will be a revised 12" combo. And this also means a revision in the laptop line of Apple.
So, everyone old your horses. If you could wait a few more weeks just do it. And to confirm this information, every reseller in this Europe country are saying that after the machines they have in stock, this current computers with this specs wont came again.
I also agree with pscate's analysis maybe the form factor will stay.
Pscates gets on to me for taking him too seriously about his musing out loud that the 15" would remain Titanium, when I disagreed with that... and here's someone again taking pscates seriously, but agreeing with what apparently wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
I won't rehash what's been said already many times in this thread. Suffice to say that while I don't know how much longer we'll have to wait for a new 15", there will be a new 15" (as opposed to speculation that Apple would drop that size), and when it appears it will be aluminum.
I hate to come off sounding so fiercely dogmatic about something for which I have no special inside information, but even with what little is publicly known it seems horrendously unlikely that the 15" will be dropped, or that it will stay Titanium. All such speculation appears to be merely the product of boredom and frustration with the long wait.
Have I again made a mistake by taking taliesin too seriously too?
OK, everyone. This is the last confimation I needed.
Today I went to FNAC in a Europe country.
I was looking for a 12" combo. They told me that their stock have 2 machines and that there were in other stores of FNAC.
After this, the employee told me that after this two been sold that no more like this actual ones would come into their stores. He said that the machine is going out of be out of line in the market.
Then I asked if their will be a similar model after their stock run out of 12" combos. I got the information that this current model is being discontinued and that very soon, during August/September there will be a revised 12" combo. And this also means a revision in the laptop line of Apple.
So, everyone old your horses. If you could wait a few more weeks just do it. And to confirm this information, every reseller in this Europe country are saying that after the machines they have in stock, this current computers with this specs wont came again.
The long awaited PowerBook revision is very near,
jdl
First of all, did this really need to be posted in three threads? Only one of which was particularly active, though I suspect this might bring back to life at least one more PowerBook thread. But anyway, I digress from that point and what I would say is that, so what? Other stores have been out of stock or saying that they're discontinued for a while now. I had a reseller tell me that they knew that they were going to have a new 15" PowerBook with a higher resolution screen by this time. Guess what? They don't have it.
Plus there is still the fact that if they release a new model, the prices are going to go up, so I don't think it's appropriate to say everyone should wait. Especially if Apple is waiting for the supply to dry up before releasing the new one, since if everyone waits, not only will they pay more for speed bumps that may or may not make any actual difference to a lot of users, which for some people is a major issue, but it could cause Apple to wait longer for the supply to sell out. Ok, that last point might be a bit of a stretch, but I still wouldn't advise everyone to hold off on purchases because of this piece of information.
1:: about the hold, it is just for those that an in doubt of should I wait or not and that don't have problems with the increase of price.
2:: of course that if people dont buy the actual ones, more later we will have other machines.
3:: From my point of view and considering all the info I've been gathering, Apple will still make an affordable 12" even though a new 12" may come with more features, so this means that you could still buy the 12" rev. B at 867 when the updates came or the 1GHz 12" with betters sepcs.
4:: Finally, the previous post was just my opinion. I didnt saw any rule that I could not publish the same message in three different threads. And I think this forums are kinda a free, aren't they?
1:: about the hold, it is just for those that an in doubt of should I wait or not and that don't have problems with the increase of price.
2:: of course that if people dont buy the actual ones, more later we will have other machines.
3:: From my point of view and considering all the info I've been gathering, Apple will still make an affordable 12" even though a new 12" may come with more features, so this means that you could still buy the 12" rev. B at 867 when the updates came or the 1GHz 12" with betters sepcs.
4:: Finally, the previous post was just my opinion. I didnt saw any rule that I could not publish the same message in three different threads. And I think this forums are kinda a free, aren't they?
Take care,
jdl
I didn't say it was against the rules, but there've been several dupe threads on PowerBooks, and duplicates (messages or threads) are generally at the very least bad ettiquette. I'd much rather have one PowerBook thread than three that won't die.
What do you base point three on? When Apple releases a new model they almost always include price increases to get back to around the same point as the last revisions started at, correct? So say goodbye to any price drops that have hit the 12", and if the features are much more exciting than the current version (i.e. 64 mb video card, DVI out, back-lit keyboard, higher resolution, L3 cache) I'm fairly sure that the price point would start higher than the previous model. People keep saying Apple needs to make the 12" more "Pro", but if they do, then it's going to have more of a pro price. The 12" isn't cheaper than the 15" because of the size of the case - it's the features (included aiport, 1ghz chip, l3 cache, dvi out, improved video card, etc). I expect either a marginal improvement and a marginal price jump or a serious improvement and a serious price jump.
Aluminum is better for a lot of reasons. Ti would be desired only if there was some real strong need for one of its properties. The puzzle is why it was chosen in the first place. Was it driven by the engineers or by Jonathon Ives?
Time for those Plutonium Power Books. No battery at all, saves on space and leaves room for a bay and has a back-lit everything! It is a little weighty for its size though....
Time for those Plutonium Power Books. No battery at all, saves on space and leaves room for a bay and has a back-lit everything! It is a little weighty for its size though....
Hmm... laptop fission? And people think the 12" gets hot. I wonder if the weight of the laptop would exceed critical mass? Even if it doesn't though if you forego the lead apron while computing I think your laptop might outlive you!
The airport reception was improved by putting the antenna in the screen in effect raisng it a higher and increasing the overall gain not by making it out of aluminum ( aluminum may have better transmission properties but I would bet it ain't much).
Titanium effectively blocks AirPort signals. Aluminum, on the other hand, makes an effective antenna. It's not an accident that the aluminum 'Books suddenly got reception as good as the iBook's.
Quote:
The paint issue has been largely resovled mine is over a year old with no problems. My speculation is that the went to aluminum for the cost savings in both raw material and manufacture. A personal anecdote: A group of us once decided to have a special fitting for our gear made out of titanium rather than stock tool steel. Aluminum was not considered strong enough. So a friend got a bid for the machining of about an 8 oz piece of solid titanium.
Casting and machining titanium are prohibitive, which is why Apple doesn't do either. The cases for the TiBook are stamped from sheets.
Critical mass is around 1 Kg and the 12" weights 2 Kg when made of Al. So, quite likely it would go boom.
Well, keep in mind, it is very important how the mass is distributed. A sphere has a lower critical mass than a laptop case. Plus a lot of that weight comes from things other than the case. They might be able to keep it under critical mass.
Comments
Originally posted by pscates
Are we 100% sure there even IS a 15" aluminum PowerBook waiting in the wings? I mean we've had Jack from Macwhispers being shown to be totally full of it.
FWIW, Jack's the only one I'm seeing that the moment predicting a continuation of the TiBook.
If that doesn't pretty much guarantee 15" AlBooks by August, I don't know what will ;-)
Originally posted by pscates
Are we 100% sure there even IS a 15" aluminum PowerBook waiting in the wings?
I'm not 100% sure Steve Jobs won't have a mental breakdown tomorrow, drop all computers from the Apple line-up, and start trying to sell Firewire 800-equipped musical gas grills.
But come, on. You're letting your impatience get the better of your good judgement. Of course the 15" is going to be updated to Aluminum -- in both the sense of the casing material and the feature set. The advantages of Aluminum as a casing material, both for better heat dissipation and for avoiding all of the problems people had with paint-covered Titanium, are clear. And while the next 15" might not get all of the features of the 17", it's certainly going to get at least every improvement the 12" has over the current 15". Anything else in the next update would be crazy.
The only question is when. Why isn't the most likely explanation satisfactory? That we've simply been waiting for faster G4s that don't use up too much power and generate too much heat?
Apple doesn't want to issue a new 15" that's the same speed as the old 15". Is that really so hard to accept?
Apple doesn't want to issue a battery-eating, lap-burning 15" based on over-1GHz versions of the current G4, the 7455. Is that really so hard to accept?
Apple has to wait for the 7457, because it's the only reasonable chip for the job. Is that hard to accept?
The waiting itself may be hard to accept, but it's not that mysterious, and certainly not cause thinking Apple is planning something stupid.
I think I know more than you're giving me credit for, and I fully realize all the things you point out.
I was just wondering aloud, playing devil's advocate, etc.
I'm well aware of the benefits of a newer, cooler-running/energy-saving PowerBook, Motorola's role in this, the desire for this model, the wait, Apple's rock-and-a-hard place position (again), etc.
You don't have to explain it to me like I'm 7. I've said all those things you state already, pretty much.
I would've put good money on the 15" PowerBook being "aluminated" 2-3 months ago! Here we are, heading toward the tail-end of summer and "nope...not yet!".
Originally posted by Amorph
RPM isn't the be-all, end-all measure of HDD performance. It's possible for a 4200RPM drive to beat a 5400RPM drive under some common uses - it depends on exactly which models you're comparing, and what uses you're subjecting them to. The usual tradeoff is that slower drives can pack data more densely (because of the slower rotation), but they have higher latency (because of the slower rotation).
Certainly, battery life is a major issue. Slower HDDs also tend to be quieter and cheaper.
For the first point you are right, the 4200 rpm HD of my powerbook is certainly faster than my 9 GB UW SCSCI of my G3 333 at 7200 rpm. However i made a comparison at equal density of plate, with basically means equal generation.
That's why i just bought an external HD 200 GB FW 800 from La Cie for my powerbook.
Originally posted by McLaptop
over on mac rumors, there's a prediction out of nowhere that new powerbooks will actually appear tomorrow: friday 25th. posters havestarted asking for sources
I read the post and it was just some guy wondering out loud. he said right in the opening statement that he has no inside info. The thing that makes the most sense is what the poster who showed the release dates for past powerbooks. They worked out to about nine months, so around end of august or sept given the historical precedent. I also agree with pscate's analysis maybe the form factor will stay. There is nothing inherently wrong with titanium as the material in the PB. The airport reception was improved by putting the antenna in the screen in effect raisng it a higher and increasing the overall gain not by making it out of aluminum ( aluminum may have better transmission properties but I would bet it ain't much). The paint issue has been largely resovled mine is over a year old with no problems. My speculation is that the went to aluminum for the cost savings in both raw material and manufacture. A personal anecdote:
It makes sense to build it out of aluminum only if Apple doesn't have a jillion titanium cases in the warehouse.
Aluminum is better for a lot of reasons. Ti would be desired only if there was some real strong need for one of its properties. The puzzle is why it was chosen in the first place. Was it driven by the engineers or by Jonathon Ives?
Originally posted by neutrino23
Aluminum is better for a lot of reasons. Ti would be desired only if there was some real strong need for one of its properties. The puzzle is why it was chosen in the first place. Was it driven by the engineers or by Jonathon Ives?
My guess is that they theorized Ti's rigidity would lend a feel of solidity to the powerbook that aluminum would not. In the final analysis, aluminum is very strong and lightweight, and recently has become much more affordable with worldwide capacity increasing. Certainly at the time, titanium was very sexy. Hell, it still is.
Today I went to FNAC in a Europe country.
I was looking for a 12" combo. They told me that their stock have 2 machines and that there were in other stores of FNAC.
After this, the employee told me that after this two been sold that no more like this actual ones would come into their stores. He said that the machine is going out of be out of line in the market.
Then I asked if their will be a similar model after their stock run out of 12" combos. I got the information that this current model is being discontinued and that very soon, during August/September there will be a revised 12" combo. And this also means a revision in the laptop line of Apple.
So, everyone old your horses. If you could wait a few more weeks just do it. And to confirm this information, every reseller in this Europe country are saying that after the machines they have in stock, this current computers with this specs wont came again.
The long awaited PowerBook revision is very near,
jdl
Originally posted by taliesin
I also agree with pscate's analysis maybe the form factor will stay.
Pscates gets on to me for taking him too seriously about his musing out loud that the 15" would remain Titanium, when I disagreed with that... and here's someone again taking pscates seriously, but agreeing with what apparently wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
I won't rehash what's been said already many times in this thread. Suffice to say that while I don't know how much longer we'll have to wait for a new 15", there will be a new 15" (as opposed to speculation that Apple would drop that size), and when it appears it will be aluminum.
I hate to come off sounding so fiercely dogmatic about something for which I have no special inside information, but even with what little is publicly known it seems horrendously unlikely that the 15" will be dropped, or that it will stay Titanium. All such speculation appears to be merely the product of boredom and frustration with the long wait.
Have I again made a mistake by taking taliesin too seriously too?
Originally posted by jdl
OK, everyone. This is the last confimation I needed.
Today I went to FNAC in a Europe country.
I was looking for a 12" combo. They told me that their stock have 2 machines and that there were in other stores of FNAC.
After this, the employee told me that after this two been sold that no more like this actual ones would come into their stores. He said that the machine is going out of be out of line in the market.
Then I asked if their will be a similar model after their stock run out of 12" combos. I got the information that this current model is being discontinued and that very soon, during August/September there will be a revised 12" combo. And this also means a revision in the laptop line of Apple.
So, everyone old your horses. If you could wait a few more weeks just do it. And to confirm this information, every reseller in this Europe country are saying that after the machines they have in stock, this current computers with this specs wont came again.
The long awaited PowerBook revision is very near,
jdl
First of all, did this really need to be posted in three threads? Only one of which was particularly active, though I suspect this might bring back to life at least one more PowerBook thread. But anyway, I digress from that point and what I would say is that, so what? Other stores have been out of stock or saying that they're discontinued for a while now. I had a reseller tell me that they knew that they were going to have a new 15" PowerBook with a higher resolution screen by this time. Guess what? They don't have it.
Plus there is still the fact that if they release a new model, the prices are going to go up, so I don't think it's appropriate to say everyone should wait. Especially if Apple is waiting for the supply to dry up before releasing the new one, since if everyone waits, not only will they pay more for speed bumps that may or may not make any actual difference to a lot of users, which for some people is a major issue, but it could cause Apple to wait longer for the supply to sell out. Ok, that last point might be a bit of a stretch, but I still wouldn't advise everyone to hold off on purchases because of this piece of information.
2:: of course that if people dont buy the actual ones, more later we will have other machines.
3:: From my point of view and considering all the info I've been gathering, Apple will still make an affordable 12" even though a new 12" may come with more features, so this means that you could still buy the 12" rev. B at 867 when the updates came or the 1GHz 12" with betters sepcs.
4:: Finally, the previous post was just my opinion. I didnt saw any rule that I could not publish the same message in three different threads. And I think this forums are kinda a free, aren't they?
Take care,
jdl
Originally posted by jdl
1:: about the hold, it is just for those that an in doubt of should I wait or not and that don't have problems with the increase of price.
2:: of course that if people dont buy the actual ones, more later we will have other machines.
3:: From my point of view and considering all the info I've been gathering, Apple will still make an affordable 12" even though a new 12" may come with more features, so this means that you could still buy the 12" rev. B at 867 when the updates came or the 1GHz 12" with betters sepcs.
4:: Finally, the previous post was just my opinion. I didnt saw any rule that I could not publish the same message in three different threads. And I think this forums are kinda a free, aren't they?
Take care,
jdl
I didn't say it was against the rules, but there've been several dupe threads on PowerBooks, and duplicates (messages or threads) are generally at the very least bad ettiquette. I'd much rather have one PowerBook thread than three that won't die.
What do you base point three on? When Apple releases a new model they almost always include price increases to get back to around the same point as the last revisions started at, correct? So say goodbye to any price drops that have hit the 12", and if the features are much more exciting than the current version (i.e. 64 mb video card, DVI out, back-lit keyboard, higher resolution, L3 cache) I'm fairly sure that the price point would start higher than the previous model. People keep saying Apple needs to make the 12" more "Pro", but if they do, then it's going to have more of a pro price. The 12" isn't cheaper than the 15" because of the size of the case - it's the features (included aiport, 1ghz chip, l3 cache, dvi out, improved video card, etc). I expect either a marginal improvement and a marginal price jump or a serious improvement and a serious price jump.
Originally posted by neutrino23
{snip}
Aluminum is better for a lot of reasons. Ti would be desired only if there was some real strong need for one of its properties. The puzzle is why it was chosen in the first place. Was it driven by the engineers or by Jonathon Ives?
Time for those Plutonium Power Books. No battery at all, saves on space and leaves room for a bay and has a back-lit everything! It is a little weighty for its size though....
Originally posted by Cubit
Time for those Plutonium Power Books. No battery at all, saves on space and leaves room for a bay and has a back-lit everything! It is a little weighty for its size though....
Hmm... laptop fission? And people think the 12" gets hot. I wonder if the weight of the laptop would exceed critical mass? Even if it doesn't though if you forego the lead apron while computing I think your laptop might outlive you!
Originally posted by Delphiki
Hmm... laptop fission? And people think the 12" gets hot. I wonder if the weight of the laptop would exceed critical mass?
One PluBook by itself will be fine. You just have to be careful not to stack one on top of another.
Oh, and you might get a little flak from those uptight security folk when you try to bring your PluBook with you on your next flight.
Originally posted by Delphiki
I wonder if the weight of the laptop would exceed critical mass?
Critical mass is around 1 Kg and the 12" weights 2 Kg when made of Al. So, quite likely it would go boom.
Originally posted by taliesin
The airport reception was improved by putting the antenna in the screen in effect raisng it a higher and increasing the overall gain not by making it out of aluminum ( aluminum may have better transmission properties but I would bet it ain't much).
Titanium effectively blocks AirPort signals. Aluminum, on the other hand, makes an effective antenna. It's not an accident that the aluminum 'Books suddenly got reception as good as the iBook's.
The paint issue has been largely resovled mine is over a year old with no problems. My speculation is that the went to aluminum for the cost savings in both raw material and manufacture. A personal anecdote:
Casting and machining titanium are prohibitive, which is why Apple doesn't do either. The cases for the TiBook are stamped from sheets.
Originally posted by Smircle
Critical mass is around 1 Kg and the 12" weights 2 Kg when made of Al. So, quite likely it would go boom.
Well, keep in mind, it is very important how the mass is distributed. A sphere has a lower critical mass than a laptop case. Plus a lot of that weight comes from things other than the case. They might be able to keep it under critical mass.