http://www.simply.ca/products/images/iPod_Sept03_ad.jpg

xpost

I would love to see a clear laptop- that would be *awesome*!! Anyway, I'm glad they make their laptops white/titanium now; the old black powerbooks didn't look anywhere near as nice. This is my very first powerbook that I "personalized" late one night in college when I should have been studying:

http://www.wendyk.org/pb520.jpg

nothing with such stone cold modernist lines can jump the shark, it's like a van de rohe barcelona chair or a robin day sofa. The iMac on the other hand was far to baroque.

v.

http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/2041/b1159a0887ef83/www.apple.com/r/store/smallinfoblock/images/17_top_09122003.jpg

http://www.hollywoodlegends.com/images/ein-apple.jpg

x-post

It's interesting that everyone is concentrating on the jump-the-shark comment. I just threw that in at random. What I am more interested in, is: What is the next color palette of the Mac family going to be?

I think clear is a very interesting answer. Surely they will change their colors in the next few years, to make the machines that you are all typing on right now look redundant and declasse.

Bnw is right, part of this is sour grapes because my preppie powerbook that I love and that has seen me through grad school will probably be left behind by the developing Mac OS's in the next year or so. So we're really buying computers just to keep up with the new operating systems, not the other way around.

http://www.the-night.net/buffyvsdrac/images/Dracula008.jpg

Remember Felicity? The whole series was like an ad for Mac. What was it with the WB and Macs? Did they use Macs bc they were cool or were Macs cool bc they used them?

Does Rory have a Mac? I can't remember anyone on Gilmore Girls endorsing a computer...

I saw a re-run from the last season of DC and Joey had had a small milk white powerbook. I wonder why they chose that and not the tibook? To emphasize her small=town roots?

I think that now, sadly, the people who are thinking different are the people who are not buying Mac.

Yes, true, but you might want to read this, though.

If that's an idea that truly bothers you, that's fine. *nix continues to exist to this day partially because of that reason. I highly suggest that you take advantage of the old laptop and convert it to Linux and/or use the Unix base of OS X (if you have it on that one) to run *nix programs.

And before you say that they are too difficult to learn, I will disclose that I haven't learned them either. Yet. But that's my problem and your problem - you can't blame Apple, Microsoft, Dell, et al for wanting to make profits by selling the same item to the same consumer repeatedly. If you really wanted to be freed from that cycle badly enough, you would learn *nixes (assuming that you don't already).

v.

http://www.kodawarisan.com/ug/iBook/clear/cl600_2.jpg

http://www.tcf.ua.edu/TVCrit/Illustrations/Ch12/images/image008.jpg

Anyway, don't expect color schemes to change much in the medium term - especially on the laptops. The initial colored "toilet seat" iBooks were criticized a lot by the executive class because they were too cutesy-looking. Oddly enough, being "cutesy" and "easy to use" has always been a criticism of Macs and the Mac OS since day one - usually from the IT folks.

Silver hardware with blue LEDs is pretty much the design zeitgeist of the first half of the decade and that's not likely to change for awhile. However I do want a "gun metal" colored PowerBook. "professional-grade" whatever just doesn't cut it for me anymore, I want weapons-grade computing.

"If you're a bad guy and you want to frustrate law enforcement, use a Mac."

Maybe it happened when they de-colored the Apple?

http://www.chemie.uni-marburg.de/~becker/apple.gif

After the pop color explosion of the blueberries and tangerines, I think what we have now is attempt at sexy/bland.

Silver was hot/cool in the '90s--I think it is approaching has-been. I don't know, I haven't looked at any design mags lately. I'm not sure what the trend is right now.

http://www.sonyplaza.com/marimekko/img/top_main.jpg

Yes I'm too lazy to find an appropriate Mac thread for this question.

I remain by my prediction of iPod mini coloured iBooks.

i was in a similar position in school, though, where everything was PC--but I still relied on my mac--they crash less, are easier to fix/support and have all around less headaches.

You don't even need a computer geek - just network bandwidth. Everything is available on BitTorrent.

(xp)

xpost

MEN's MAC

You know, Mac's with beer can holders and condom drawers and, you know, GUY stuff. WITHOUT all the po-mo froo froo.

The whole current design aesthetic of Mac is sooooo handbag-house/fashion-show-catwalk.

Jobs Paul Gaultier indeed.

Ed: ok this is a good question cos I know no one with an iBook, wtf do they do and what is the difference between the two? Is the iBook anything like the iMac? Cos the iMac was a piece of shit and the reason why I didn't purchase another Mac those fateful years ago upon which I purchased this cursed Compaq.

MackDaddyntosh OG6

did i do something bad there by not google-proofing it?

(double-xp)

and ally no one said false friendship. go to a fucking 2600 meeting, there are people who *live* to do that kind of shit.

XPOST Orbit how the fuck are you helping anyone right now?

having used Apple's products for nigh on 23 years (Macintosh for ~20 now), I think the move to minimal design and colour schemes is a good one.. although white should go the way of beige. it gets dirty quickly, dates like Dan Flavin's artwork and is just a bit turtle necky.

it would be good if you could get hold of case parts to mod them yourself, without the end result looking like a Ravel model put together by a myoptic crack addict.

OS wise, the move to buy out NeXT was brilliant. *NIX base is the way to go, especially from Mac OS 9, which had so many layers of flakey code that it was like juggling with trifles when developing for it -> unstable, gooey and always likely to leave a mess on everything it touched. having the *NIX core has meant that a huge area of the professional market that Apple had lost (research science) to the *NIXes were able to come straight back with little or no learning curve.

the actual user experience in Aqua, the graphical layer above Darwin (the FreeBSD based *NIX core), is extremely well designed and very fluid in evolution. having used Mac OS X for the past ~3 years, I can assure that the current incarnation is sooo much better than it was at the start.

anyway. good products on all levels. somewhat blinkered approach to the marketing etc, but that's the pricve of being the most successful underdog computer hardware manufacturer in the past 20 years I guess.

flame on! ;)

xpost

most recent iBook are very little different to the lower end powerbooks, (marginally lower processor and bus speeds), they don't feature, bluetooth and airport as standard (internal bluetooth not even an option). The $500 difference between a 12" powerbook and a 12" iBook isn't worth it. The difference in power is marginal.

Powerbooks are for power users, not just for a word processor, email client and web browser.. etc.

Bear in mind I am still not feeling underpowered on a 3 and a half year old G3 500. I don't do any hardcore graphics work, will you?

Summary: Ed, I am no longer using complex graphical work. Basically the reason I am bemoaning my photoshop loss is because I hate the shit out of iPhoto, I mean like I wish I could melt the person who designed it kind of hate. So I'd like a photo editing program that is not iPhoto. But we're not talking like major work here. I also need MS Word, internet stuff (I need both a modem and a network port ATM), music stuff. Nothig really complex or difficult at all to be honest, the iBook can probably handle it if it's what you're saying. I hate 12" notebooks though, if anyone cares about my personal preferences. I don't use any sort of wireless internet and have no intention to do so, either (pretty much the only reason I want a laptop is because the size makes it easier to find a place in a small room or apartment for it, the only portability I might need is to take it on the Amtrak with me and write papers when it's that time of the semester).

xpost ok define a poweruser versus a wordprocessor/chat user because I'd like something that has the capability that, if I decided to start freelancing again, I can do something beyond just basic "Hi I'm a new computer user" stuff that made me want to kill the designer of the iMac.

Also, I bought the little USB bluetooth adapter for my iBook, it's not that big of a deal that it's external. I just plug it in when I'm home & want to to use it with my phone, then pull it out & toss it in the drawer when I'm done.

iBook will still be fine for photoshop work, it just won't be as fast, hell I know design studios still using beige G3s in the front line. I'd get some more RAM for it though, i'd recommend that for any mac, they are all pretty under specced in that department. OSX starts to work really well above 512Mb RAM.

iPhoto is terrible, I'm glad someone else agrees. "Photoshop Elements" sounds about right, I haven't really been using Photoshop to the best of my/its abilities for many years now...

haha to upgrade to that 60GB HD is only $45 anyway if you pick option 1 and then just upgrade it. I'm not going to but good lord, wtf?

The iBook is now turning out actually cheaper than the dell I was looking at.

Ally, are you getting an academic discount??

Anyway, my ibook came with Apple Works, which perfectly opens any Word or Excel files that my managers toss at me...

Absolutely, want me to send you a word document to prove it? Word processing wise you can have MS office, open office or Appleworks and deal with word documents.

(The only machine in my office that does crash is the one running XP pro, but it's probably a drive issue)

10.3 640Mb of RAM, apple has wisely not turned on any of the quartz extreme dohickies that would suck the life out of older machines. I will upgrade just as soon as the shoehorn a G5 into a 15" powerbook. (not a long time coming I would think, the power consumption figures for the new 90nm 970s are really good)

1. the G5 desktop models


2. the Powerbook (12" aluminium especially) models

rumour on though. :)

iBook will still be fine for photoshop work, it just won't be as fast, hell I know design studios still using beige G3s in the front line. I'd get some more RAM for it though, i'd recommend that for any mac, they are all pretty under specced in that department.

i think you are confusing Photshop with a layout app like Quark's XPress or Adobe's InDesign per chance? try opening a 20-40MB CMYK file and doing some retouching on the aforementioned iBook. I also know design studios using G3s.. but none of them do Photoshop work on them.

OSX starts to work really well above 512Mb RAM.

Hmmm, which reminds me of another wish: a digital camera that would send images -> laptop wirelessly. I am on a "get cables out of my life" kick these days, and that's one I really wish for.

'I also know design studios using G3s'

trust me, they value the tea making time when apply filters ;-)

G5 in a powerbook is a real possibility this year. With the new 90nm G5s, the 2.0Ghz part pumps out about 21W, a 1.4Ghz part would be somehwere around 10-12W. Well within the bounds of possibility for a laptop. Of course there are other issues, but I can guarantee that there will be a G5 laptop by the end of the year and probably much earlier.

Spencer, yes, I'd get an educational discount and also XP Pro is a pretty good system so I'm not surprised. My saga as to why I'm considering a switch back in full: Me, my mother and a friend of mine all purchased the same model of Compaq about four years ago now, it was top end at the time and on a very good deal so we just all got them during the exact same month. Worked pretty well for 3 and a half years for all of us. Then all of us started getting really weird ass problems, all during the same time last year. We all assumed virus and scanned and doctored and eventually rebuilt our systems multiple times and we were still experiencing all the same dodgy shit. I had the same problem once with my work computer (a Dell), which had a major meltdown while I was in the middle of an extremely complex program and the entire motherboard just went straight to hell and had to be replaced, so I tell everyone that maybe this is the issue. Eventually my mom gives up and takes in the computer to be repaired. The tech is completely not shocked and informs her that A) he's yet to see a Compaq not completely die at the four year mark, they seem to be built that way, ticking time bombs B) YOU CAN ONLY PURCHASE COMPAQ MOTHERBOARDS TO USE WITH COMPAQ COMPUTERS, AND INDEED PRETTY MUCH A LOT OF THE PARTS ARE COMPAQ ONLY, SO HELLO ENORMOUS EXPENSES.

Basically a huge draw to the PC is the there's not that weird proprietal thing that the Mac had such a stronghold on, only can use their techs and their parts and blah blah blah, you can basically put any old shit in a PC, right? This turns out to be completely untrue and it was more expensive to fix the Compaq than it would've been to have fixed a smiliar issue on a Mac.

And also more expensive than just buying a new computer, which my mom did and me and my friend are now in the process of attempting to do.

I hate the whole i-lexicology. iTunes, iBook, iPhoto, iMovie...iLife...it's so embarassing!

I would love it if they came out with iBooks in the mini iPod disco colors. The only thing is, they would get stale after a few months when Mac unleashed their new color scheme.

If they want us to buy a new computer every season, they better major decrease the price!

I just signed up for a free trial membership of iDisk (groan) because I want my files to be protected when this computer blows, and I have a public file, and it took Gareth forever to be able to put something in it. He had to download this Windows-based application, and then fine-tune it.

Beware iAlly, beware.

Also, this could just be jealousy, but I don't know if I like the kitchen-ware whites. NEW COLORS PLEASE. Or any colors. Or why can't they just use a cheaper silver finish to do up the ibook with?

Also, instead of a floppy, why don't you just send yourself email attachments?

So, yeah, to replace a motherboard on a regular desktop to be almost equitable in price to me just purchasing a new laptop is insane.

xpost: Ed it totally worked! Without any fuss at all. Holy shit, wow, they've really improved that a lot. This is terrific, terrific, cutting out purchasing the printer makes the Mac about 400x more attractive. Also your grades are fantastic! ;)

Thanks though, seriously! The test results were amazing, seriously. I'm kind of mind blown by that because, like I said, when I was at the newspaper trying to open Mac files on a PC was like stabbing yourself in the eye.

MWC GWU AMG LMP LMET MAIL DISC USAA IMDB DCP ILE AS /. WP YA AMZ ACWD

I do this routinely on my PowerBook. But I also have a GB of RAM in it.

I haven't seen them specifically on Torrent, but FD gets posted all the time to alt.binaries.mac.applications.

I wonder why you can't choose your iPod or your iBook in a "trend-setting color" . . .

It's not like any cell phones are using white hardware, why does Mac favor it?

http://www.macpoint.it/PICS/ARTICOLI/Panther-box200.jpg

But I'd just like to say I HAD MY FIRST APPLE BEFORE SOME OF YOU WERE EVEN BORN!!! Grrrrr.

I'd also like to say, don't order yours from J&R Computer World. They take WAAAAAYYYYYY too long to ship. 1-2 days? My ass! Knew I should have ordered it direct from Apple.

I'm excited for the San Francisco Apple store to finally open. They tore down an existing building and are building a new one custom for it.

Long and the short of it being that I'm moving this weekend but will have to spend Sunday night on the frigging floor of my old apt because Fed Ex claims they'll deliver it quite early on Monday, instead of by Friday, which is what the website promised when I paid for expedited shipping.

Re: the Taiwan thing, then they shouldn't say they can ship in the manner they claim on their website. If that had been clearly stated, then I wouldn't have A) paid extra B) would've had it shipped to new address. That all being said, even with all this fucking hassle, it's still faster than Dell could've shipped my computer FROM the United States, wtf?

The iPod is definately cool though. Just overkill for me.

that pink ibook was awesome too.

Sean, the words genius and bar do not belong together. (Plus the the dude there really couldn't answer my question.) My problem with the lecture hall is that while I am simply trying to mill around the store unbothered, I am bothered by a feisty presenter in apple T-shirt with a headset booming her information pitch all over the store. It creates a carnival-esque atmosphere that isn;t conduive to examining the new products.

New colors: the green is really bad, but not as bad as the beige though. I think the pink, blue and silver are ok.

Kate, don't worry, this is mostly jealousy on my part because I can't afford one of these one of these new "jumped-the-shark" items.

My family's first (and last for a long time) was a PC Junior. Did that model SUCK? Or did we just get a lemon?

I dont like laptops because you cant open them up and switch shit. Well, you can...but you know what im saying. I progressively cycle out old pieces...my macheen is everchanging.

I am remembering now how one of the old powerbooks from 1996ish (late model 5300??), in some versions, came with a clear plastic panel on the back of the screen which you could snap off & put your own custom decoration under & snap back on. It shipped with 4 or 5 printed pieces of paper to stick under there with various abstract patterns. A friend of mine had one & swapped the decoration almost daily, since it was just paper.

Did this ever happen???