The specs you gave look nice and realistic, but you left out the one thing that would really make the iBooks shine, and that is a faster system bus and memory. If the PowerBooks do get a G5 the system bus would go to at least 266MHz, which means the iBooks can leave the 133MHz bus with PC2100 memory behind and move up to a 167MHz bus with PC2700 memory. This would give new iBook owners the power of the current PowerBook without all the "extras" (i.e. FireWire 800, S-Video, Audio In, DVI, etc.).
I'm not saying a powerbook g5 won't happen in that time frame, but a 10"? You're taking one of the hottest cpu's (even the 970gx will be hot) and sticking it in a form factor smaller than the 12" powerbook. The 12" powerbook gets hot... have you had one on your lap? It's not comfortable if you are wearing shorts.
I still fail to see a demand for a 10" laptop. Who would want such a beast? Especially with a g5?
I'm not surprised. OGL 2.0 has been absolutely glacial. If Microsoft has kicked butt anywhere it's here with DirectX pretty much eating OGL's lunch. It's a shame really.
Well, sort of. GLSL is currently a lot more advanced than HLSL, which is why it's unsupported. Microsoft and nVidia chose the route of getting a simpler, but supportable shading language while still reserving a few keywords to expand upon it later. Microsoft definately has the right idea on this IMO... when we DO get full GLSL support, it's gonna be a pain figuring out which cards support it and which don't.
Really, OGL just picked the wrong things to promote to the core for the 2.0 spec. GLSL isn't ready yet, but framebuffer objects are pretty important and still I think in ext status (of course, waiting to promote those would've held up the spec even more...)
I'm not saying a powerbook g5 won't happen in that time frame, but a 10"? You're taking one of the hottest cpu's (even the 970gx will be hot) and sticking it in a form factor smaller than the 12" powerbook. The 12" powerbook gets hot... have you had one on your lap? It's not comfortable if you are wearing shorts.
I still fail to see a demand for a 10" laptop. Who would want such a beast? Especially with a g5?
Yeah, I guess that is asking a bit much.
My reasoning about the 10.6" Powerbook is first, that there are already such laptops available, and secondly, that the small Powerbook should be the ultimate portable computer. The whole point is to have something that takes up as little space as possible, and can be used for things that don't require a mondo screen, such as email, writing, data entry/analysis, and presentations.
If you're going to own ONE computer, then the 10.6" Powerbook isn't for you. But if you already have a few Macs and need something portable, then such a tiny laptop would rock.
Could Apple cram all that stuff inside a tiny laptop? Well the laptop would have to be wide enough to house a full-sized keyboard, but it wouldn't be very deep. I saw a photo of a 10.6" laptop and the widescreen display worked well with a full keyboard. Apple do seem to be quite good at miniaturization, for example the G4 Powerbook, the Cube, and the Mini are all engineered to fit lots of components into a tiny space. You're probably right that Apple couldn't build a 10.6" Powerbook with a "G5" unless IBM debuted an amazingly low-power variant of the PPC 970, but that doesn't mean we can't dream!
I'm hoping for a new Airport Express with some new features, because I might be able to afford that as opposed to the laptops etc and also think my dad might like to keep it plugged into the printer here when I go to uni.
I'd love to be able to connect a USB hub and my external drives and set them up as network drives. Just for the ability of not being tied down with wires to my very portable 12" PB. Maybe (just maybe) some kind of video out also.
I think the AE could replace all of those ports (except the power, if you consider that a port) down the sides of PBs some day... (Except the power)
But really... how much smaller do we need to get than the 12" powerbook? That thing is TINY!
Sony's 10.6" widescreen is 10.7" x 8.1".
Apple's 12" PowerBook is 10.9" x 8.6".
Not a great deal smaller, not even a quarter-inch less wide. The LCD screen becomes widescreen, so the width won't decrease much, but the depth does by one-half inch.
It is also 3.04lbs versus the PowerBooks 4.6lbs. That is where a lot of the difference comes in. I'd replace my aging 867MHz 12" PowerBook with one in a snap.
I'm sorry, but wouldn't it make far more sense to have a 10" ibook then a powerbook? That would be like taking a corvette engine and dropping it into a civic. The heat will be ridiculous, as many of you have pointed out even the G4 12" gets hotter then it should for a laptop, and if they wanted to make an ultra compact, probably without an optical drive, wouldn't they want it to have a battery life of more then 2 - 2.5 hours?
I would look forward to a 10.3" 3 lbs 1.2ghz G4 ibook, more so because then I could charge it at night like my cell phone, PDA, iPod, GBA SP, etc.
A 1+ghz 10" ibook would be all i'd need. I wouldnt need to do any heavy lifting with it, just itunes, email, word processing, powering airtunes, iphoto, etc. bring it on!
on the other hand, a quad 2.8 with 16 ram slots and 4 internal bays and the new PCI in a new Tower would also be fine, I'll have both...
... I would look forward to a 10.3" 3 lbs 1.2ghz G4 ibook, more so because then I could charge it at night like my cell phone, PDA, iPod, GBA SP, etc.
I'd expect it would be in the PowerBook line, because small components are more expensive. Perhaps they'd revive the Duo name. The processor might even be 1GHz or slower, maybe a 900MHz G3 even, because power consumption is critical; probably no optical drive (or maybe a 80cm only?).
The subnote has been discussed to death in other threads already; the conclusion is that, while they are popular in Japan, the market is very small, and Apple's unlikely to go there.
Comments
July is the month for the developpers and in september in Paris Apple will showcase the new dual core whatever machines.
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
Warning: LONG.
How about a laptop shakedown at WWDC? ...etc.
iBooks
The specs you gave look nice and realistic, but you left out the one thing that would really make the iBooks shine, and that is a faster system bus and memory. If the PowerBooks do get a G5 the system bus would go to at least 266MHz, which means the iBooks can leave the 133MHz bus with PC2100 memory behind and move up to a 167MHz bus with PC2700 memory. This would give new iBook owners the power of the current PowerBook without all the "extras" (i.e. FireWire 800, S-Video, Audio In, DVI, etc.).
PowerBooks
The hard drives will be SATA, not Ultra.
I still fail to see a demand for a 10" laptop. Who would want such a beast? Especially with a g5?
Originally posted by hmurchison
I'm not surprised. OGL 2.0 has been absolutely glacial. If Microsoft has kicked butt anywhere it's here with DirectX pretty much eating OGL's lunch. It's a shame really.
Well, sort of. GLSL is currently a lot more advanced than HLSL, which is why it's unsupported. Microsoft and nVidia chose the route of getting a simpler, but supportable shading language while still reserving a few keywords to expand upon it later. Microsoft definately has the right idea on this IMO... when we DO get full GLSL support, it's gonna be a pain figuring out which cards support it and which don't.
Really, OGL just picked the wrong things to promote to the core for the 2.0 spec. GLSL isn't ready yet, but framebuffer objects are pretty important and still I think in ext status (of course, waiting to promote those would've held up the spec even more...)
That's design-by-committee, though.
$2999
2.2 GHz dual-core G5 (PPC 970mp)
20" widescreen, 1920 x 1200
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 with 256MB of DDR SDRAM and dual-link DVI
120GB HD, 7200 rpm
Superdrive [/B]
If one of these comes out, I'll place my order on a heartbeat!
I just don't think there is out there a 120GB HD at 7200rpm. The biggest HD I have seen so far was 80GB at 7200rpm.
Also because this laptop is so big I think there is room for a possible 2nd hard drive slot. That would be really cool!
Originally posted by emig647
I'm not saying a powerbook g5 won't happen in that time frame, but a 10"? You're taking one of the hottest cpu's (even the 970gx will be hot) and sticking it in a form factor smaller than the 12" powerbook. The 12" powerbook gets hot... have you had one on your lap? It's not comfortable if you are wearing shorts.
I still fail to see a demand for a 10" laptop. Who would want such a beast? Especially with a g5?
Yeah, I guess that is asking a bit much.
My reasoning about the 10.6" Powerbook is first, that there are already such laptops available, and secondly, that the small Powerbook should be the ultimate portable computer. The whole point is to have something that takes up as little space as possible, and can be used for things that don't require a mondo screen, such as email, writing, data entry/analysis, and presentations.
If you're going to own ONE computer, then the 10.6" Powerbook isn't for you. But if you already have a few Macs and need something portable, then such a tiny laptop would rock.
Could Apple cram all that stuff inside a tiny laptop? Well the laptop would have to be wide enough to house a full-sized keyboard, but it wouldn't be very deep. I saw a photo of a 10.6" laptop and the widescreen display worked well with a full keyboard. Apple do seem to be quite good at miniaturization, for example the G4 Powerbook, the Cube, and the Mini are all engineered to fit lots of components into a tiny space. You're probably right that Apple couldn't build a 10.6" Powerbook with a "G5" unless IBM debuted an amazingly low-power variant of the PPC 970, but that doesn't mean we can't dream!
But really... how much smaller do we need to get than the 12" powerbook? That thing is TINY!
Powerbooks G5 or mini Powermac G5
iTunes Phone Motorola/Apple
Just Speculating. But I wait for something New!What is New?
The question will be answered by Steve....So Wait
Powerbooks G5 or mini Powermac G5
iTunes Phone Motorola/Apple
Just Speculating. But I wait something New!What is New?
The question will be answered by Steve....So Wait
I'd love to be able to connect a USB hub and my external drives and set them up as network drives. Just for the ability of not being tied down with wires to my very portable 12" PB. Maybe (just maybe) some kind of video out also.
I think the AE could replace all of those ports (except the power, if you consider that a port) down the sides of PBs some day... (Except the power)
Originally posted by emig647
Yes we can dream
But really... how much smaller do we need to get than the 12" powerbook? That thing is TINY!
Sony's 10.6" widescreen is 10.7" x 8.1".
Apple's 12" PowerBook is 10.9" x 8.6".
Not a great deal smaller, not even a quarter-inch less wide. The LCD screen becomes widescreen, so the width won't decrease much, but the depth does by one-half inch.
It is also 3.04lbs versus the PowerBooks 4.6lbs. That is where a lot of the difference comes in. I'd replace my aging 867MHz 12" PowerBook with one in a snap.
I would look forward to a 10.3" 3 lbs 1.2ghz G4 ibook, more so because then I could charge it at night like my cell phone, PDA, iPod, GBA SP, etc.
on the other hand, a quad 2.8 with 16 ram slots and 4 internal bays and the new PCI in a new Tower would also be fine, I'll have both...
Originally posted by Dr. J
... I would look forward to a 10.3" 3 lbs 1.2ghz G4 ibook, more so because then I could charge it at night like my cell phone, PDA, iPod, GBA SP, etc.
I'd expect it would be in the PowerBook line, because small components are more expensive. Perhaps they'd revive the Duo name. The processor might even be 1GHz or slower, maybe a 900MHz G3 even, because power consumption is critical; probably no optical drive (or maybe a 80cm only?).
The subnote has been discussed to death in other threads already; the conclusion is that, while they are popular in Japan, the market is very small, and Apple's unlikely to go there.
Originally posted by TednDi
3 days to all things digital
What's in 3 days?
Originally posted by storer
I say either:
Updated PowerBooks
or
Updated iBooks.
I hope for the latter!
Oh and one more thing!
iBook socks
Maybe not, how about some sorta two button mouse thingy?
Originally posted by onlooker
What's in 3 days?