2006 'Books Could Be Worth Waiting For - Plus PowerBook Mystique Mailbag
by Charles W. Moore
This week, TechNewsWorld's Rob Enderle posted a fascinating prognostication of what's coming next year in New Apple hardware. Rob's predictions cover the entire Mac computer range, but of course I found his focus on iBooks and PowerBooks especially intriguing. I have no idea what Rob's source of intelligence is in making these predictions, whether insider leaks, educated guesswork, or a combination of both, but if he's right, it may well be worth hunkering down to wait for making your next system upgrade.
I encourage you to check out Rob Enderle's entire article (after you finish reading this column of course), but I'm going to comment here on just his portable-related forecasts.
iBook
First up, Enderle says that the age of any color you like as long as it's white is drawing to a close. That would be great. I mean, it's not that I don't like white iBooks. I still find mine easy on the eyes after three years of looking at it. I might still even opt to buy a white one if additional colors were available. To I love white stuff. But it's great to have choice. Rob thinks that black is a sure thing (a la the iPod and nano) and projects that other colors will be available too, perhaps even in custom configurations.
Apple certainly has lots experience in making colorful computers, as with the "fruit color" and earth tones" iMacs (not to mention the just-a-bit-too-colorful iMac "Flower Power" and "Blue Dalmatian"), and the original clamshell iBooks were available in Blueberry, Tangerine, Graphite, Indigo, and Key Lime, although my guess would be that the next generation of colored iBooks will have its own particular new palette.
With the prospect of the first black iBook, something I would dearly love to see is a "tuxedo" or "Steinway" model, with a black case any white keyboard and trackpad. In practical terms, that would be stupid, since the 'board and 'pad are primary contact services highly subject to soiling, but it would look wicked cool. Actually, I think I recall that somebody hacked together a "Steinway Pismo" using an iBook keyboard as a few years back.
Enderle also predicts that the iBooks will have 12 inch and 14 inch widescreens, which echos reports in the Asian IT enterprise press last spring that contracts had been awarded for production of widescreen iBooks. I expect this is a safe prediction, and it should give the new iBooks a more modern look, similar to this HP machine (only more elegant). Whether it's more useful remains to be seen. Personally, I usually chafe for more vertical rather than horizontal screen real estate.
Rob Enderle's most controversial prediction is that Apple will begin a phase-out of optical (CD/DVD) drives, perhaps beginning with the next generation iBooks, substituting more iPod/flash memory integration.
"As Apple has been first to move to 3.5-inch floppies and then away from them we are expecting Apple to be the first to move aggressively away from optical drives to other alternatives. Some of those alternatives will be the more integrated use of iPods, other flash-based devices, and an updated iTunes.....We are anticipating that many of Apple's laptop products will simply no longer have an optical drive of any kind but instead will have a multiple format flash reader slot and an iPod docking port. When docked, future iPods will have access to some notebook functions and be usable as a secondary display."
To me, this sounds bizarre. There is so much stuff stored and distributed on optical disks, that eliminating built-in support for them seems like an outlandish notion -- far more radical than dropping the floppy drive on the iMac was back in 1998. How would software applications, operating systems and upgrades, and so forth be distributed? What about the vast amounts of data most users have archived on CDs and DVDs? Personally, I find it hard to imagine that the optical drive's days are numbered.
And before anyone suggests that online distribution could take up the slack, I'll point out that roughly half of Internet users in the US have broadband, so the other half is still on dial-up, and many folks who would have broadband if they could (me, for instance) have no local access to broadband service. Someday, maybe, but near-universal broadband access is years away even in affluent economies. And not everyone has a recent iPod with a monster hard drive, either. Mine is a first generation, five gigabyte unit, and of course plenty of users don't have any iPod.
Enderle's final prediction for the iBook is price cuts to as low as $850 at the entry-level to about $1200 for the top of the line 14-inch model. I expect that's a good ballpark guess.
Lower prices coupled with presumed speed increases, color choice, widescreens, and a the first completely new form factor in more than five years could be a formula worth waiting for, although from my perspective, they had better still have optical drives.
PowerBooks
For Apple's professional portables, Rob Enderle is also predicting some style changes in finish, possibly darker metallics. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple dip into the color palette for the PowerBooks as well, although likely more conservative tones than will be offered with the iBooks. Don't rule out to return of black PowerBooks as well.
Another of Rob's predictions is a 19-inch PowerBook, which would surely be the mother of all desktop substitute laptops. Samsung already offers a 19-incher, so this isn't a far-fetched idea.
However, I would say that Apple is currently weakest in the compact rather than the monster size category. Neither the 12-inch PowerBook or 12-inch iBook is really lightweight, ultra-compact machine. The availability of 12 inch or 13 inch widescreens will be some help, and Apple really does need a professional subcompact laptop.
On the performance side, Enderle speculates that 2006 may witness the release of Apple's first dual-processor dual-core laptop. That will presumably require Intel's delivery on its promise of higher-performance, low power consumption portable CPUs, which it is reportedly having some difficulty accomplishing, but it would be great to see PowerBooks back leading the laptop alpha pack in power and performance.
Another prediction is LED screen backlights, which is also quite plausible with recent advances in LED lighting technology. LED backlights should also lower power consumption significantly, and be longer-lasting than traditional backlight tubes.
Rob predicts that PowerBooks well continue to be equipped with optical drives "possibly" through 2007. I certainly hope so, and indeed that all Macs will have optical drives for the foreseeable future. Biometrics and/or soft-token security systems are likely new features says Enderle.
Enderle projects that 2006 PowerBook prices will pick up where iBook prices leave off, at about $1,200, and top out in the neighborhood of $2,500 for that that big 19-incher, which, if it plays out in reality, would seem to indicate more price cuts from the just-lowered current PowerBook price points.
In summary, these predictions seem entirely plausible across the board, (except for the optical drive thing) and could very well paint a reasonably accurate picture all what we Apple portable aficionados will be offered next year. The abiding conundrum of course is whether it's going to be compelling enough to wait for, especially if, as with my own circumstance, one is already due or overdue for a system upgrade.
the iBook revisions in July and the new PowerBooks unveiled last week are very attractive at current prices and their enhanced level of specifications. They have the advantage of being highly developed and hopefully thoroughly debugged products, and will be able to run your library of PowerPC Mac software natively for years to come. On the downside, they are all lagging in the processor speed and system bus speed departments, have dated form factors (especially the iBook) and those who buy now all or in the next few months maybe risking some sharp pangs of buyer remorse come next June.
PowerBook Mystique Mailbag
17" PowerBook Benchmarks
From MJB (Forwarded by Steve Hildreth)
I find your latest article on G4 vs G5 PBs 'very' interesting. Especially since I'm using a 1 GHz 17" PB with 167 MHz bus and 256KB L2 & 1GB L3 cache. Your article suggests that Apple's PBs have been stuck at 167 MHz bus-ceiling for some time. Which sounds good and bad. Good because I invested in 17" G4 PB that might still role along side the new PBs, and, bad because like any Mac enthusiast we have a need for speed (tongue in cheek).
Anyway, I have a couple of questions which may lead to even more questions from other Apple users. 1- How much faster are the new PBs vs my aging 1 Ghz 17" G4 PB? 2- Is there a hack to bump up my 1GHz G4 PB to say 1.4 GHz especially since it has that 'extra' 1 GHz L3 cache that hasn't been around for some time now?
All the best,
Hi MJB;
Nominally, the latest 17-inch PowerBook is 1.67 times faster than your one GHz model, at the stand CPU speed, which of course is not the whole story. Things like bus speed (as you noted) and hard drive speed play a role. The your machine comes with a 5400 RPM hard drive, why yours probably has a 4200 RPM unit if it's still the original drive
As you can see if you check it out, there is a fairly dramatic performance improvement with the faster machine, although at different percentages for different tasks.
This bakeoff between current models also may be helpful because the scratch machine is a one GHz desktop Mac:
http://macspeedzone.com/html/hardware/machine/comparison/portable/powerbook/index.shtml
To the best of mine knowledge, there are no processor upgrades available for any of aluminum PowerBooks. However, is possible that sometime in the future a company like Daystar might offer an upgrade product similar to the ones they make for Titanium PowerBooks. However, I expect by that time you will have moved on.
Charles
mjb