Stay the same? Don't you think they should become thinner, lighter & more powerful? And, if so, then won't that preclude the need for an 'ultra-slim' TiBook and a 'sub-notebook'?
[QUOTE][QB]1) Floppy drive bit the dust, no need to swap floppy and optical drives.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True. Good riddance to the floppy. When my work delivered my new Dull laptop to me, the first thing I did was swap out the floppy and insert the second battery.
[quote]<strong>2) Media bays are more expensive to put in a computer.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think that they are that much more expensive, and they add alot of options that are not present when all the devices are fixed inside the computer.
[quote]<strong>3) Battery lives went up, need for a second battery is much less.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not true. Battery technology is struggling to keep up with modern laptop specs. My aforementioned Dull has two batteries and struggles to last five hours under normal usage when it isn't plugged into a wall (5 hrs with screen dimmed, processor scaled back). I would love to have an iBook with a real battery life of seven hours.
[quote]<strong>4) Media bays requre more space than an integrated drive.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True, but they offer you much more in the way of options.
[quote]<strong>5) Media bays add another point for hardware failure, decreasing reliability and increasing long-term ownership costs.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Eh?? How are media bays any less reliable than a SCSI or firewire cable? They aren't very complex and I doubt that they are what breaks on a computer- they are largely very straightforward mechanical devices.
[quote]<strong>Personally, with all against them, I'm glad they were ditched. They were very useful once upon a time, not so much any more.
Justin</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, they haven't been ditched on the PC side. Thank Goodness! If they had been ditched, then my Dull would be stuck with a useless floppy drive instead of a useful second battery (making my Dull weigh in at a hefty ten pounds).
So, discussion is going pretty much where I thought it would go. If users watch DVD's alot, the idea of splitting off the CD drive is silly. If users burn CD's alot, the idea of splitting off the CD drive is silly. If users don't use their CD drives alot, the idea seems good. If users ever actually put their hands on a 2400c, the idea seems to be a dream come true.
Perhaps a different option would be to reconfigure the iBook line into two basic configurations. First of all, drop the 14 inch iBook. Given that its screen is the same resolution as the 12 inch iBook, I am mystified as to why Apple offers it. So, with the 14 inch iBook gone, I would propose two iBook models: slim and standard.
Standard is basically the current iBook with the DVD/CDRW drive built in. Nothing new here, except that it continues to have a 12 inch screen (as I said before, bon voyage to the 14 inch model).
Slim is a new iBook with a smaller form factor and an included external CD drive. Nothing fancy on this drive, it is just for reading in data. Slim has the same durable outer casing and the ability to upgrade its drive in the future.
Slim and standard ship for the same starting price, so the differentiation isn't along price, but configuration. Now don't say "Apple doesn't need to make yet another case design- it will raise their costs" because Apple IS currently making another case design- the 14 inch iBook.
How many people would be in favor of dropping the 14 inch iBook for a slimmer lighter 12 inch iBook? I know that I am in favor of this.
I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure you're talking about Apple portables, not Dell's or x86-based ones. My 700Mhz, 12.1" iBook has a battery life in real use of 3 hours, 45 minutes. My previous 400Mhz Lombard has a battery life of about 3 hours under typical use. Not to mention OS X tends to eat more power, and the rating I gave on my PowerBook was under OS 9.x. So, battery life on Apple portables is going up. To hell with the case melting, power hungry x86's.
A media bay is more complex than a firewire cable and port, it has to be to support a variety of hot pluggable devices. Also, there is more movement of pieces (inserting an entire drive as opposed to a cable) which increases wear and tear.
There's no reason at all to drop the optical. You need one, and if Apple does at least one thing well, that is to offer complete solutions for the consumer. There is no benefit to dropping the inetrnal optical drive. The combined weight and volume of a driveless machine plus the optical would certainly be higher than an all-in-one laptop. So, if you travel, two pieces will take up more space and weigh more than an equivalent all-in-one design. Look at designs by fujitsu and others, there's no need to lose the optical just to make the computer smaller.
The 14" makes a lot of sense because a lot of people prefer NOT TO SQUINT! Not everybody has perfect young eyes. I'm fairly young, and still my eyes are crap. I might actually buy a 12" model despite that (if I had another machine to use at my desk). Buying an external monitor for a machine that only spans (and doesn't even offer higher external resolution) seems like a waste. The 14" makes a decent desktop replacement for modest needs, and it more or less takes care of the need for a bigger external screen, at least at the budget end. iBooks really should offer a model with better display options. Ideally a DuoBook, a machine that doesn't do display spanning but provides CLOSED BOOK operation at higher than internal resolutions. You'd still only get ONE display against the TiBook's two displays, but you could at least drive a bigger monitor with that display.
This DuoBook should sit between the iBook and TiBook. Include a G4 and DVI-out but no have quite the RAM, L3, or HDD capacities of the TiBook. $1999.
Or they could just drop the Ti down to a more realistic 2199.
So, with the 14 inch iBook gone, I would propose two iBook models: slim and standard.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're splitting hairs of market share here. When you split the market, you lose economies of scale. Having a slimmer iBooks isn't going to get Apple a lot. The iBook is already not very thick, shaving it down to 1" or even 0.8" isn't going to cause VAIO owners to foam at the mouth.
I, for one, would never buy a portable without optical drive. However would you exchange data 'on the road' with a pc user who doesn't have ethernet? Use your combo drive. It's a good thing that the floppy's gone, but there has to be an alternative. Not everyone has internet-connections all over the place.
And this is only one argument in favor of optical drives. I remember my PB G3 with my SCSI cd-writer. The thing was small, and yet huge. I buy a portable computer to be mobile, but without all you need built-in, the notion 'portable' becomes very vague: you need a giant backpack to carry all your stuff around.
And oh yeah, I think you have to take into account that, especially in the case of the iBook, many people use it as 'only computer', which means they don't have a desktop mac sitting somewhere to do their more complicated work. For, who owns an iBook: mostly teens and students (or am I wrong?), who buy the iBook because of its price and its portability, but expect it to do everything a big computer can. And frankly, so do I.
Apple would NEVER sell the iBook (or even the PowerBook, I'm betting) without an optical drive.
The iBook's trump card and true claim to fame is that it is a COMPLETE, full-featured laptop that's attractive, nicely spec-ed and affordable.
You don't give up ANYTHING (or have to make an additional third-party purchase) when you get an iBook. Right out of the box, you get USB, FireWire, video-out, Ethernet, built-in modem, stereo speakers, your choice of optical drive, etc.
Apple would be completely stupid to go and ruin that wonderful hook/vibe.
We all know things will get smaller and thinner and lighter as time goes on (they always do, right?). I'm convinced that within a couple of years, there will be an iBook that will run rings around today's PowerBook. And the PowerBook will be in the high GHz range with features and specs we probably haven't even thought of right now.
We just passed the 3rd anniversary of the iBook last month. Look how far it has come! Processor speed, RAM, hard drive, graphics, screen resolution, FireWire, optical drives, sound, etc.
In 2-3 years from now, it'll be that same sort of massive improvement.
The iBook, IMO, is the one thing Apple is TOTALLY doing right these days, in terms of features, price, design, style, ruggedness, size, etc.
<strong>Apple would NEVER sell the iBook (or even the PowerBook, I'm betting) without an optical drive.
The iBook's trump card and true claim to fame is that it is a COMPLETE, full-featured laptop that's attractive, nicely spec-ed and affordable.
You don't give up ANYTHING (or have to make an additional third-party purchase) when you get an iBook. Right out of the box, you get USB, FireWire, video-out, Ethernet, built-in modem, stereo speakers, your choice of optical drive, etc.
Apple would be completely stupid to go and ruin that wonderful hook/vibe.
We all know things will get smaller and thinner and lighter as time goes on (they always do, right?). I'm convinced that within a couple of years, there will be an iBook that will run rings around today's PowerBook. And the PowerBook will be in the high GHz range with features and specs we probably haven't even thought of right now.
We just passed the 3rd anniversary of the iBook last month. Look how far it has come! Processor speed, RAM, hard drive, graphics, screen resolution, FireWire, optical drives, sound, etc.
In 2-3 years from now, it'll be that same sort of massive improvement.
The iBook, IMO, is the one thing Apple is TOTALLY doing right these days, in terms of features, price, design, style, ruggedness, size, etc.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't want to sound like a troll here, but the screen res only went from 800x600 to 1024x768.
Comments
<strong>The iBook should stay the same.
The PB should stay the same.
[ 08-22-2002: Message edited by: Addison ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Stay the same? Don't you think they should become thinner, lighter & more powerful? And, if so, then won't that preclude the need for an 'ultra-slim' TiBook and a 'sub-notebook'?
1) Floppy drive bit the dust, no need to swap floppy and optical drives.
2) Media bays are more expensive to put in a computer.
3) Battery lives went up, need for a second battery is much less.
4) Media bays requre more space than an integrated drive.
5) Media bays add another point for hardware failure, decreasing reliability and increasing long-term ownership costs.
Personally, with all against them, I'm glad they were ditched. They were very useful once upon a time, not so much any more.
Justin
<strong>You know why media bays went away?
[QUOTE][QB]1) Floppy drive bit the dust, no need to swap floppy and optical drives.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True. Good riddance to the floppy. When my work delivered my new Dull laptop to me, the first thing I did was swap out the floppy and insert the second battery.
[quote]<strong>2) Media bays are more expensive to put in a computer.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think that they are that much more expensive, and they add alot of options that are not present when all the devices are fixed inside the computer.
[quote]<strong>3) Battery lives went up, need for a second battery is much less.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not true. Battery technology is struggling to keep up with modern laptop specs. My aforementioned Dull has two batteries and struggles to last five hours under normal usage when it isn't plugged into a wall (5 hrs with screen dimmed, processor scaled back). I would love to have an iBook with a real battery life of seven hours.
[quote]<strong>4) Media bays requre more space than an integrated drive.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True, but they offer you much more in the way of options.
[quote]<strong>5) Media bays add another point for hardware failure, decreasing reliability and increasing long-term ownership costs.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Eh?? How are media bays any less reliable than a SCSI or firewire cable? They aren't very complex and I doubt that they are what breaks on a computer- they are largely very straightforward mechanical devices.
[quote]<strong>Personally, with all against them, I'm glad they were ditched. They were very useful once upon a time, not so much any more.
Justin</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, they haven't been ditched on the PC side. Thank Goodness! If they had been ditched, then my Dull would be stuck with a useless floppy drive instead of a useful second battery (making my Dull weigh in at a hefty ten pounds).
[ 08-22-2002: Message edited by: Yevgeny ]</p>
Perhaps a different option would be to reconfigure the iBook line into two basic configurations. First of all, drop the 14 inch iBook. Given that its screen is the same resolution as the 12 inch iBook, I am mystified as to why Apple offers it. So, with the 14 inch iBook gone, I would propose two iBook models: slim and standard.
Standard is basically the current iBook with the DVD/CDRW drive built in. Nothing new here, except that it continues to have a 12 inch screen (as I said before, bon voyage to the 14 inch model).
Slim is a new iBook with a smaller form factor and an included external CD drive. Nothing fancy on this drive, it is just for reading in data. Slim has the same durable outer casing and the ability to upgrade its drive in the future.
Slim and standard ship for the same starting price, so the differentiation isn't along price, but configuration. Now don't say "Apple doesn't need to make yet another case design- it will raise their costs" because Apple IS currently making another case design- the 14 inch iBook.
How many people would be in favor of dropping the 14 inch iBook for a slimmer lighter 12 inch iBook? I know that I am in favor of this.
[ 08-22-2002: Message edited by: Yevgeny ]</p>
A media bay is more complex than a firewire cable and port, it has to be to support a variety of hot pluggable devices. Also, there is more movement of pieces (inserting an entire drive as opposed to a cable) which increases wear and tear.
Justin
There's no reason at all to drop the optical. You need one, and if Apple does at least one thing well, that is to offer complete solutions for the consumer. There is no benefit to dropping the inetrnal optical drive. The combined weight and volume of a driveless machine plus the optical would certainly be higher than an all-in-one laptop. So, if you travel, two pieces will take up more space and weigh more than an equivalent all-in-one design. Look at designs by fujitsu and others, there's no need to lose the optical just to make the computer smaller.
The 14" makes a lot of sense because a lot of people prefer NOT TO SQUINT! Not everybody has perfect young eyes. I'm fairly young, and still my eyes are crap. I might actually buy a 12" model despite that (if I had another machine to use at my desk). Buying an external monitor for a machine that only spans (and doesn't even offer higher external resolution) seems like a waste. The 14" makes a decent desktop replacement for modest needs, and it more or less takes care of the need for a bigger external screen, at least at the budget end. iBooks really should offer a model with better display options. Ideally a DuoBook, a machine that doesn't do display spanning but provides CLOSED BOOK operation at higher than internal resolutions. You'd still only get ONE display against the TiBook's two displays, but you could at least drive a bigger monitor with that display.
This DuoBook should sit between the iBook and TiBook. Include a G4 and DVI-out but no have quite the RAM, L3, or HDD capacities of the TiBook. $1999.
Or they could just drop the Ti down to a more realistic 2199.
<strong>
So, with the 14 inch iBook gone, I would propose two iBook models: slim and standard.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're splitting hairs of market share here. When you split the market, you lose economies of scale. Having a slimmer iBooks isn't going to get Apple a lot. The iBook is already not very thick, shaving it down to 1" or even 0.8" isn't going to cause VAIO owners to foam at the mouth.
And this is only one argument in favor of optical drives. I remember my PB G3 with my SCSI cd-writer. The thing was small, and yet huge. I buy a portable computer to be mobile, but without all you need built-in, the notion 'portable' becomes very vague: you need a giant backpack to carry all your stuff around.
And oh yeah, I think you have to take into account that, especially in the case of the iBook, many people use it as 'only computer', which means they don't have a desktop mac sitting somewhere to do their more complicated work. For, who owns an iBook: mostly teens and students (or am I wrong?), who buy the iBook because of its price and its portability, but expect it to do everything a big computer can. And frankly, so do I.
<a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/morefeatures.html"; target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/morefeatures.html</a>;
The iBook's trump card and true claim to fame is that it is a COMPLETE, full-featured laptop that's attractive, nicely spec-ed and affordable.
You don't give up ANYTHING (or have to make an additional third-party purchase) when you get an iBook. Right out of the box, you get USB, FireWire, video-out, Ethernet, built-in modem, stereo speakers, your choice of optical drive, etc.
Apple would be completely stupid to go and ruin that wonderful hook/vibe.
We all know things will get smaller and thinner and lighter as time goes on (they always do, right?). I'm convinced that within a couple of years, there will be an iBook that will run rings around today's PowerBook. And the PowerBook will be in the high GHz range with features and specs we probably haven't even thought of right now.
We just passed the 3rd anniversary of the iBook last month. Look how far it has come! Processor speed, RAM, hard drive, graphics, screen resolution, FireWire, optical drives, sound, etc.
In 2-3 years from now, it'll be that same sort of massive improvement.
The iBook, IMO, is the one thing Apple is TOTALLY doing right these days, in terms of features, price, design, style, ruggedness, size, etc.
<strong>Apple would NEVER sell the iBook (or even the PowerBook, I'm betting) without an optical drive.
The iBook's trump card and true claim to fame is that it is a COMPLETE, full-featured laptop that's attractive, nicely spec-ed and affordable.
You don't give up ANYTHING (or have to make an additional third-party purchase) when you get an iBook. Right out of the box, you get USB, FireWire, video-out, Ethernet, built-in modem, stereo speakers, your choice of optical drive, etc.
Apple would be completely stupid to go and ruin that wonderful hook/vibe.
We all know things will get smaller and thinner and lighter as time goes on (they always do, right?). I'm convinced that within a couple of years, there will be an iBook that will run rings around today's PowerBook. And the PowerBook will be in the high GHz range with features and specs we probably haven't even thought of right now.
We just passed the 3rd anniversary of the iBook last month. Look how far it has come! Processor speed, RAM, hard drive, graphics, screen resolution, FireWire, optical drives, sound, etc.
In 2-3 years from now, it'll be that same sort of massive improvement.
The iBook, IMO, is the one thing Apple is TOTALLY doing right these days, in terms of features, price, design, style, ruggedness, size, etc.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't want to sound like a troll here, but the screen res only went from 800x600 to 1024x768.