"The PowerBook Was A Sign Of, Well, Power...." - Plus PowerBook Mystique Mailbag
by Charles W. Moore
In a posting last week , blogger Alex Hutton wrote:
".....Most deep-geeks I know now use an Apple. Maybe not as their daily driver when forced by work to use a Windows machine, but two CSO's I know have admitted to me when I've opened my Powerbook in front of them "Oh, I'll never buy anything else with my own money". Powerbook adoption is also inevitable due to the status symbol factor. It's like a friend that chartered the adoption of OS X in a big ol' chemical company told me, "when I opened my PowerBook up in a meeting for the first time, it was uncomfortable, because it was like having a key to the executive washroom - everyone thought that the PowerBook was a sign of, well, power - those who were upwardly mobile got PowerBooks and the rest of you saps are stuck with crappy plastic Dell boxes."
Ah, the PowerBook Mystique at work! I'll concede that there are a few interesting and attractive PC laptops, for example the Acer Ferrari Athlon 64 unit that regular readers of this column know I'm a vicarious admirer of, and I always thought the higher-end IBM ThinkPads had panache (it'll be interesting to see how they fare design-wise under Lenovo's corporate umbrella). But nothing else is a PowerBook.
It's fascinating that even with the youngest PowerBook model well past its introduction date's second anniversary, and the other two models pushing three, the PowerBook still looks not only contemporary but avant garde, making those "crappy plastic Dell boxes" Alex Hutton referred to, some of which are newer designs than the aging PowerBooks. look dowdy and old-fashioned by comparison. I guess with computers, as with fine tailored clothing, good taste never goes out of style.
And of course, no PC laptop (at least officially) supports the Mac OS, which is the quintessence of good taste, not to mention a generally superior user experience in operating systems. In both industrial design and OS functionality, the PowerBook, even though it's lagging more than a bit in raw computing power these days, remains both substantively, and as a status symbol, far ahead of the Windows PC competition.
Which is not to imply that they're perfect, For one thing, plastic housings may look "crappy" in contrast with the PowerBook's swish anodized aluminum, but from a functional perspective, especially in the context of ruggedness, high-strength polycarbonate plastic like that used by Dell (or for that matter Apple's own iBooks) is arguably a superior material. I would say that Apple does a better job of making its plastic laptops look elegant than most PC makers, and I hope that the new, Intel-powered iBooks continue to be housed in polycarbonate. Indeed, I would love to see Apple revert to plastic cases for the MacIntel PowerBooks as well, although I'm not terribly optimistic about that.
Which is too bad. I've been told by prospective PowerBook buyers that they are hesitant to take the plunge due to concerns about ruggedness, and I'm obliged to concede that they have a point. While the metal PowerBooks look spectacular when they are brand new, they can become battered and seedy looking alarmingly quickly. This was particularly true of the titanium models, which had a painted finish over their titanium skin. This aspect is considerably improved with the aluminum models, which have an anodized finish that doesn't rely on coatings which can chip, wear, and flake off with even moderately harsh treatment or ordinary wear and tear, especially in areas like the palm rests and the corners of the case.
Metal, unlike plastic, also dents, and can warp due to heat exposure. This has been an issue with some metal PowerBooks, even to the extent of causing latching malfunctions. And if you ever drop your laptop, you're almost certainly going to fare better with a plastic case than a metal one. A few years ago, my son tripped over the power adapter cord of his PowerBook G3 Lombard which was resting on a chair. The computer flew across the room and landed on the floor. The cord connector was mangled, but aside from that there was no visible damage, and the PowerBook was still giving its third owner good service three years later, at which point I lost track of it.
Speaking of G3 PowerBooks, my own 2000 Pismo still looks brand new, and my 1998 WallStreet almost as good. They've been treated kindly, but they have been used extensively. Of course they're both black, which helps I think. Now that Apple has expanded the iPod and iPod nano color palette to include black, there is cause for optimism that new black laptops might be in the offing as well. Personally, I find the white and metallic motif of Apple's current portables, very attractive, but perhaps there is a too much of a good thing dynamic in play, and I think providing a choice of black would pay off handsomely in sales. The black nanos are handily outselling the white ones.
The iPods are plastic, and the color issue could be argued as another point in favor of going back to plastic PowerBook cases, but black anodizing of aluminum is also possible.
Whatever Apple decides to do along these lines, we can rest assured that the PowerBook mystique will remain operative an intact when the MacIntel 'Books are rolled out next year, with cutting edge performance to match their out in front industrial design. The new PowerBooks will not only be a "sign of power" for the image conscious, the power will be back, and maybe sooner than we had expected.
I don't usually dwell on rumors in this space, but there are some floating around the Web this week that are just too juicy to ignore, and not just on the usual rumor sites. One source of exciting scuttlebutt was financial analyst Benjamin A. Reitzes of UBS Investment Research, whom Forbes cites saying that Apple may be ready to launch lower-end Intel-based Macs earlier than its original June 2006 target, with the possibility of an Intel-based Mac Mini at Macworld.
And then there's a detailed prognostication by Kasper Jade of that more customary fount of rumor, AppleInsider. Kasper says that according to AppleInsider's shadowy but "extremely reliable" sources, there will be both new PowerBooks and new iBooks rolled out in the first half of 2006, with Intel iBooks coming in time for next year's K-12 educational spring buying season. But the real bombshell, if the "sources" aren't just blowing smoke, is that Apple's first Intel-based 15-inch PowerBook will debut even earlier than that, carrying over many of the design elements of the current PowerPC aluminum model, but about 20- to 25-percent thinner. Yikes! Didn't think they could make them any thinner. Doesn't sound like a return to plastic cases is in the offing, alas. Other tidbits predicted are that the 12-inch PowerBook will be dropped from the lineup entirely, at least temporarily, (in which case I would expect that there will be a new iBook model soon to take up the slack, perhaps with a 13 inch widescreen according to Appleinsider) and a new Intel-based 17-inch PowerBook to come along several months later.
I stress that these are rumors, and obviously will not be confirmed by Apple until it's time to actually release the new products, but it all does make good logical sense. After the last PowerBook updates were released last month with no processor enhancements or other major performance improvements, I've been scratching my head trying to figure out how Apple was going to make it to next summer with no upper end speed bump since January, 2005. It also has been looking like the 12-inch PowerBook is close to end of life, since it was virtually ignored in the latest round of refreshments.
However if this current crop of rumors has substance, it would become explicable. Maybe we aren't going to have to wait till next summer after all.
PowerBook Mystique Mailbag
Re: iBooks w/o optical drives
From Oliver Starkey
Hi Charles,
We will know in about eight months, I guess.
Overall, I think that flash media are compelling. It must be cheaper to make and sell computers without optical drives. That has to have some weight with the whole industry. I feel it is entirely in character for Apple to spearhead a move like this.
Good luck on your download. You know, in not too much time, you will be in a minority. I would think Apple is counting on that with its foray into video.
O. S.
Hi Oliver;
Perhaps considerably sooner than that if the rumor mills this week are right.
I don't doubt that you're right about computers without optical drives being cheaper. they would also, in my opinion, be crippled.
I also don't dispute that broadband is the future. It's just perhaps five years in the future where I live, or so I'm told. I think I read somewhere last week that a slim majority of Internet users in the US now have broadband, but that means that nearly half still don't, and I would guess that in most parts of the world a substantial majority are still using dial-up. If Apple has mass market ambitions, it would be highly counterproductive to sell machines without optical drives on the premise of the Internet being an adequate substitute.
I did get the OS 10.4.3 update down. It took just short of 12 hours on my second attempt (the first one crapped out).
Charles
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