[minnes]

I was just reading overviews of the new iBook and Powerbooks
I can't help but agree that this is likely a stopgap upgrade, here's why.
No press event was called. If Apple spies hadnt leaked to rumour sites, we wouldn't have known it was gonna happen.
No new form factor, this the 4 incarnation of the Powerbook , and about the same for the iBook, they have changed little in 2 years. No new proccessors, except for the Radeon 9000 and the slot superdrive, these are the same old stuff, just bumped up a little. No new hard drive sizes that I can tell, the PB still maxes out at 60, the base ram is about the same too. The bus is the same on both, not 133 and 167. Bluetooth is still external, and don't you think airport should included in all the Powerbook line, and maybe the highend iBook?
Also as nice as the iBook is, don't you agree the G3 is getting long in the tooth?
If only some of Apple's line supports Altivec then that's kind of a crappy deal for some. Compressing or decoding or crfunching on a G3 is dreamatically slower than a lower Mhz G4 .
So to sum up, I think the new books are great, but next year they will be much more than just a speedbump. Of course if you need a new laptop Mac these would do the job admirably, they are faster and cheaper than last revision.

I wonder what January will bring, new Powermacs and iMacs? Or who knows what.
Comments
Mark

 

[MacDoc]

I'd do it bit by bit but I think you are dead wrong across the board.

A proven form factor works well - rather a 4th gen than a first gen - ask all those REV A B&W owners.
The value increases were excellent - better features, lower cost.
G3's have a long life yet - they run cool and most users use 3% of the processing speed they have and many programs, even if Altivec enabled have only a few operations that take full advantage. The G3 runs much cooler.
The video improvements and good caches are very important to X transition - I just can't possibly see what is to criticize - and believe me I'm the first to call a spade a spade on this kind of stuff.
You get get good value as you go up the line with no "rip off" price points for top models as has happened in the past... I fully expected the Suprdrive model to top $5k - nope.
The tough part was the lack of product for so long and what to do with an 800 that was $5k and now is worth ???
If they do the towers the same way, quieter, get the bottlenecks out..hey this is going to be a heck of January show. The towers are certainly transition and they had to, as a single jump would lead to the kind of nonsense that went on Beige Gossamer motherboard to B&W Yosemite motherboards that still have never been stabilized by firmware updates.
I think Apple is refining it's entire line and doing it well. The when a 64 bit architecture and a big gun of a chip comes the platform and softwre will be ready. My 2¢ worth

 

[minnes]

Mac Doc

Im being the Devil's advocate here, Im not disappointed with the new books , I just can't help but agree that the next rev will be dramatically different than this one.
I cant believe Apple will keep the TiBook the way it is for a 3rd straight year, it's never been done before.
I am mixed about the G3, it has some good points you mentioned but then when will the G4 filter down through the consumer line? Apple is reported to say similer things like the G4 has a long life ahead of it to.. Does this mean another year of Pro G4 and consumer G3?
Although most consumer apps work just fine on 300mhz G3, I have never heard someone complain their computer was too fast!
We've had seven years of CPU Marketing from Intel, Apple etc convincing everyone to upgrade, then when Apple cant get faster upgrades, they tell us Mhz don't matter. I think it's somewhere in between.
It takes my 800mhz G4 an hour to compress 15 minutes of video, I bet it would be 2 hours or more on the newsest iBook.
You see Im trying to decide if I want to trade in for a portable and dont want to give up any speed form my flat iMac, I just dont think the iBook is their yet and it would be about 3600 for the lowend Powerbook.
I am concerned about the durability of the TiBook, I've heard of people having damaged the case just by resting their hands on the case.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw some thoughts out there to see what happens.
When january comes I will decide what my upgrade will be a new highend flat iMac or a lowend TiBook, Im sure I will be happy with either.
Mark

 

[PosterBoy]

The question I want answered is "Will these machines boot OS 9?"

Steve said that "as of January all new Macs wont boot OS 9". That sounds to me like a date for the end of the plan, not the beginning.

I don't know if they are a stopgap upgrade though. Keeping in mind that there was no special press event for the last upgrade to the TiBooks, the iBooks or the PowerMacs. Then again, I suppose that all of those upgrades could be viewed as stopgaps. I think the problem is that most everyone is waiting for a G5 or something else big from Apple, and until then any upgrade that happens will be a stopgap.

--PB

 

[minnes]

Kosh
True every update is an evolution, but when the flat iMac came out it was revolutionary! I still love having my screen on an arm that I move to suit me.
the current update is a good one and come January the whole line should be updated. Except the old crt iMac and emac should be kept mostly the same for education, price is most important there.
If they could move LCD iMacs to 133 bus and bump the graphics, Mhz , hard disk, and maybe the L2/3 cache up a bit, it will still be a fanatastic modern machine.
The powermac case is another excellent design, that I would keep the same, just change the guts.
By the way, I have read rumours that 9.3 and 10.3 will come out next year and 9.3 will be an updated classic , non bootable and more closely bound in to 10.3, with several components removed from 9 because that component will now be built into 10.
I see 2003 as a year where 10 is becoming the more mature most used mac system. I wish I knew what the future will bring
sorry for rambling
Mark

 

[Kosh]

All I seem to hear lately is that word "stopgap". Apple upgrades their computers approximately every 6 months. Every upgrade is a step ahead. This upgrade, Apple made quite a few changes to the Powerbook... a few that they've announced such as the increase in Mhz, the new video chip and video RAM, and the Superdrive. There are a few reports that there are a few unannounced improvements such as better cooling and a better paint job (have to wait to see if it peels), a brighter screen (due to a better backlight), and a better battery. You can't just leap 4 generations ahead, you have to make 1 step at a time. If you want to call each of those steps a stopgap, so be it. But isn't the next generation a stopgap to something even better? People just label things stopgap because it hasn't got what they want, like bluetooth, or a faster bus or a faster CPU...

By the way the PowerMacs have been through how many generations with the current general tower design? That case has been around since 1999, but it's still a great design.

 

[used to be jwoodget]

minnes, Jobs has made it clear that Apple won't be making a big deal about hardware at the expos. Although Jobs may be wrong on many things, I think its about time to dissociate product launches from shows. It causes huge supply and demand inequities. In fact, I would hope Apple moves to a continuous improvement (like.... Dell

) model rather than the stupid automobile manufacturer-inspired Model Year. Add Bluetooth when available, etc. Indeed, there have been motherboard revs that occur without any announcement (only the techs know). This is also true of the Superdrives built into the iMacs.

And I totally agree with macdoc about these machines being more than a stop gap. In the US, the psychological impact of getting a laptop out under $999 is a significant change and these models aren't stripped down compared to their forebears. As for the Powerbooks, not one of the rumour sites was anywhere close to predicting the three way advances of a 1 GHz processor, slot superdrive and Radeon 9000 64 Mb graphics. All without a price increase!

There may well be a case rev next year (maybe to include a touch sensitive, rotatable tablet screen to take advantage of InkWell), but the Titanium is still a hot form factor and my guess is that any case changes for the next rev will be cosmetic.