[Mallrat]

love the way the ibook looks in ICE BOOK form.

Wel actually I really like the first wave.. the one I have is actually silver, not pure white as they look now.

But overall, they got the shape right. The calmshell was cool when it first came out, but the lastest ibooks and Powerbooks are just such great machines.

can they really top themselves?

I know they can, and that makes me excited.

I'm just worried that one day the chips will be so hot, you can't even type. G3 is the perfect chip becuase it doesnt' get to hot.

G4 in a 12 notebook is too hot. On the TI is seems fine.

If they can find a way to make the chips run cooler, but faster.... didn't intel do that with their chips?

A 13 inch screen would be nice...

I really don't like the way the 14 inch look now... they could make those look so much better.

But I love the connectors on the side and the one the screen hinge leans back.

the nice big trackpad... Overall jUst a great machine.

Great, great, great.

[The Placid Casual]

Nice to hear some praise on the site!!

I have to agree, for what it is designed for, the iBook is near perfect.

However that doesn't help public perception chip wise...

It needs a G4, but as you say, the current enclosure can't take it hence the Alu 12"... it is a difficult dilema for sure. It has not been helped by Motorola! (again!)

If they had the G4 down to a 0.9 process like the G5 will soon be, a 1Ghz G4 in an iBook would be perfect both performance and heat wise... Instead we are stuck 2 revisions behind at 0.18, with 0.13 still not released!!

No matter how good the Mohave chips are, having a G3 in the name will do the range no good at all... it pain me to say it, but the Powermacs have escaped the Moto trap, but the iBook is still firmly entwined in the debacle...

As for form factor, I agree, it is good. However as a clamshell and Ti owner I can see room for improvement...

For example, the clamshell's handle were perfect for education usage, and they were also much, much more durable...

As for ports on the side, I'm also not convinced... it looks much neater with them hidden behind a panel on the back like the Ti. if you have loads of peripherals, or type with your hand over the edge of the machine (lie me!) if they are on the side they can cause real hassle...

Other then that, they are as you say excellent machines.

Superb.

[Scooterboy]

I'll go even farther in praise and agree that the iBook is damn near as perfect a mobile computer can be, in design, build quality and performance for the price. I find the ports on the side to be ideal, as I'm often plugging and unplugging peripherals and headphones and having them on the side makes this so easy. Seeing how Motorola is being consistent as ever with low chip yields, and that IBM is pushing G3 performance far beyond what most have predicted, keeping the iBook on IBM's G3 is a good decision. IBM's roadmap and yeilds of their PPC 750 G3's are better for the top selling iBooks than Motorola's delayed roadmap and inconsistent yields of G4's. If Motorola can't get their new G4's out and in sufficient quantities for the new PowerBooks, how can they produce enough G4's for iBooks?

I hope that Apple will update the iBooks with the new 1.1 GHz 750GX G3 soon, and with the 200 MHz system bus the new G3's can accomodate. This would be a stellar performing iBook.
G4's are limited to a max system bus speed of 133 MHz or 167 MHz. Apple needs to get the G5 (and it's blazing fast, one half of processor speed Front Side Bus) into the PowerBooks pronto. Then Apple won't have to delay product launches or fail to meet expectations due to Motorola dropping the ball, a ball which IBM seems better suited to carry.

[MSME]

It needs a G4

Why? So the iBook line can be in the same predicament the PB is in now? -- we're already seeing a trickle-down effect from that anyway. Apple needs to cut ties with Moto as soon as possible so we're not stuck with periods of 10 months or more between product updates (i.e. current 15" PB, iMac).

No matter how good the Mohave chips are, having a G3 in the name will do the range no good at all...

If performance is good, I doubt the majority the majority of potential buyers will have a huge problem with the name. Certainly the info on the Mojave is speculative at the very best, but I'd rather have a VMX G3 produced by IBM than a Motorola G4. As long as a machine does what I need it to do, I'm not going to lose sleep over what kind of processor it has.

Of course I'm not saying that the iBook doesn't need a faster processor and FSB, etc. I do hate the fact that I can't buy certain apps and use them on my iBook (Soundtrack, iDVD to name a couple). Apple definitely needs to produce an iBook that can take full advantage of iLife. I just hope Motorola isn't their means for creating faster iBooks.

[khufuu]

It needs what every other Apple computer needs -- a higher bus speed.

The only other things would be L3 cache and a bit more vram.

[arnette]

I agree with Scooterboy.

And MSME... the iBook (consumer line) needs to take full advantage of iLife and the other Apple branded software.

Here's hoping a suped-up G3 is in the works. I think we all know how good the G4 turned out to be.

[Nerozwei]

Originally posted by khufuu:
It needs what every other Apple computer needs -- a higher bus speed.

The only other things would be L3 cache and a bit more vram.

Well... almost every other Apple. The G5 has a decent range of bus speeds

[khufuu]

Originally posted by Nerozwei:
Well... almost every other Apple. The G5 has a decent range of bus speeds

I was going to say that, but, because I don't like wordy posts, I decided that I wouldn't; just for brevity's sake...ya know.

I re-read Scooter's post and am kind of surprised that bus speed is limited to 167 for the G4's. I find that amazing.

But he's right, if the new iBook got the bus speed up to 200 that would be excellent!! Right now I'm thinking of getting a new 15" pBook when they come out but would rather stay in the iBook arena because of the low heat.

[MSME]

Today's installment at MacOSRumors is sort of interesting. They seem to think that Apple will continue with the G3 for a while to come:

eventually it will surpass the G4 in most areas including memory bandwidth, AltiVec support, clock speeds particularly taking into account performance-per-clock-cycle, temperature/power drain relative to performance, etc.

I hope that will allow future iBooks to run apps that require a G4 processor.

My question is, how much different is a G3+Altivec than a G4 -- would apple try to market such a G3 as "G4"?

[Sosa]

I'm intrigued by the idea of IBM improving the G3 chip to surpass the G4. I just hope Apple doesn't hold back on adopting the latest G3s just to make the G4 look good in the Powerbooks. People talk about Apple doing this all the time and I'm still incredelous about it.

Balancing the interest of a faster professional line of laptops against the need to sell the highest performance computers you can to minimize the gap with the PC competition, it seems to me the latter should win.

Regardling the alleged purposeful delay of new G3 improvements, check out IBM's technical site for the 750FX chip. Back in 2001 they announced it would scale up to 1ghz at 200mhz system bus. If you check out the latest article "Toward a 200 MHz System Bus for the PowerPC 750FX" it is dated 8/8/2003. So it seems that only now is IBM / Apple able to produce the newer bus. If this is true then there has been no conscious delay of G3 performance.

I too would rather have an advanced IBM G3 than a Motorola G4. However I disagree with those that argue Apple should abandon Motorola. From a business perspective it would be dangerous for Apple to rely on one company to produce all of its chips. IBM would have too much influence over Apple and perhaps charge higher prices. If Motorola goes then Apple still needs a backup chip supplier.

PS The article mentioned above discusses a 200mhz system bus for a dual processor 750fx G3. Anyone see dual G3 iBooks in the future?

PPS: Another article on the 750GX states it will start production in Dec 2003. Does this mean we will have an iBook 1.1 ghz @ 200mhz bus announcement in Nov?

[MSME]

From a business perspective it would be dangerous for Apple to rely on one company to produce all of its chips. IBM would have too much influence over Apple and perhaps charge higher prices.

Hey, there's always Intel I can't remember where, but I was reading yet another (lame) 'Apple to go x86' rumor last week.

[Luca Rescigno]

My iBook is too slow for my tastes (I'm not even a very demanding user), so I'm selling it.

But I still think it's a near-perfect design. All it needs is a faster chip and faster bus speed (I don't see why they don't put it on a 133 MHz bus...).

[khufuu]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
My iBook is too slow for my tastes (I'm not even a very demanding user), so I'm selling it.

But I still think it's a near-perfect design. All it needs is a faster chip and faster bus speed (I don't see why they don't put it on a 133 MHz bus...).

I find myself in a similar situation. For that reason I may take a close look at the new pBooks when they come out.