The PowerBook Mystique - More Than The Feel Of Quality
by Charles W. Moore
Last week. oreillynet's Francois Joseph de Kermadec posted a commentary in which he proposed
"A few years ago, using a Mac was an act of faith: every newspaper and magazine was claiming Linux would take over the market in a matter of months, that Windows mobile would simply make it impossible to use a telephone without relying on Microsoft software and that the low-end MP3/USB drives combo would make anything else outdated.
Somehow, though, people kept using their Macs, they kept using Open BSD on handhelds, some even switched to these platforms or embarked in even more esoteric choices. The iPod was at the time at the beginning of its career and started to be followed by an enthusiastic crowd… Why?.....
"Things fell into place when I sat up an IBM laptop for someone last week — a someone who has since switched to the Mac, a mere 3 days later — and realized that, despite the high-end designation of that machine, I still didn't want to use it. It somehow, felt wrong, felt cheap. The plastics were nice indeed, the thing was not too poorly designed overall and I couldn't really find anything wrong with it but it just didn't click. The OS? Well, seeing an IBM boot screen followed by an Intel Inside one, then a DOS prompt and finally a Windows logo didn't give a feeling of high consistency either — kinda like when you buy a jacket and realize that all the pieces are sewn together in different ways that won't last past cocktail hour....."
You can read the entire essay here:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7147
Interestingly, a friend of mine related a remarkably similar anecdote to me around the same time I read Franois' essay. This person is a veteran Mac aficionado who currently has an iMac and a Power Mac tower. He has been musing for some time about getting a laptop, and his daughter, who works for IBM, supplied him with a ThinkPad to try out. No sale. My friend says that the PC laptop running Windows "just doesn't feel right." He doesn't like it, and has decided to return the computer to his daughter, and wait until he can see his way clear to buy an iBook or PowerBook.
I know the feeling. However appealing some PC boxes can be (and there are some nice ones) they're just not the same. I don't suppose it necessarily has to do entirely with objective material and build quality. After all, in terms of laptops, Apples are built in the same factory in Taiwan as Dells, ThinkPads, and other high-end PC brands. IBM is not a name one reflexively associates with cheapness or shoddy quality, although it remains to be seen whether their reputation will be maintained now that the IBM PC operation has been sold lock stock and barrel to China's Lenovo.
However, Apple computers, and especially Apple laptops, have always exuded an aura of quality and luxury, even the models that occasionally have had quality issues.
Something I like to call "the PowerBook mystique," from which derives the name of this column series, and encompasses iBooks as well, which I consider to be entry-level PowerBooks in every sense of the word other than name, and arguably more worthy examples of the PowerBook aura than certain actual PowerBooks of the past have been, such as the rugged but underpowered and connectivity-challenged PowerBook 150, or, I suppose, even the PowerBook 5300, which is arguably the Apple laptop with the worst reputation ever (and ironically, the most expensive PowerBook ever sold in its top-end “ce” configuration).
Nevertheless, I loved mine from the moment I opened the box and started it up. it gives off the same vibe that I get from a Rolleiflex camera or a Mercedes-Benz automobile. It's not just objective quality, which I have to concede was somewhat compromised in the PowerBook 5300. The most appropriate descriptive is "elegant." It's the way the whole package hangs together in integrated harmony.
Consequently even the 150 and 5300 could be sweet machines. My old 5300, purchased new in 1996, still works, although it hasn't been in active service for more than two years now. It was my front-line production computer for three years, and then became my daughter's computer through high school and her first semester of University. Both of us still regard it affectionately, and I think its physical dimensions (very similar to the 12-inch iBook except for thickness) are just about ideal for a laptop.
It has been the same with all of my other Apple laptops, which have been functionally a lot better machines that the old 5300, and require no excuses or apologies. Even my entry-level 12-inch iBook, the cheapest portable that Apple offers, has that same rarified elegance about it. Some people may quibble about the the mediocre keyboard or the fact that the battery doesn't intersect the case with how shall we say? Germanic precision. Such quibbles miss the point. It's the overall effect that impresses, at least for me.
Reliability is certainly part of the mystique. My iBook hasn't missed a beat in long hours of intensive use over the past 29 months. If ever a computer epitomized the old "it just works" Apple slogan, this little 'Book is it.
However, the quintessential PowerBook mystique is probably best exemplified by the G3 Series fraternal triplets, known in the vernacular as the WallStreet, Lombard, and Pismo. These computers had no-apologies desktop substitute power, adequately large displays for production use, the most comprehensive array of ports and connectivity options of any Apple laptops ever, and the wonderful removable device expansion bay feature, which I truly wish Apple could find a way to restore in today's PowerBooks.
Enhancing their essential goodness, the G3 Series ‘Books are relatively easy to open up for upgrades or repairs, and processor-upgradable, with their CPU mounted on a pull-out daughtercard rather than soldered to the motherboard as it is in current PowerBooks and all iBooks. Adding RAM, or even replacing a hard drive, amounts to a ten minute task with these machines, which are also admirably rugged.
However, the contemporary crop of PowerBooks and iBooks have plenteous helpings of the PowerBook mystique. They are of course the most powerful ‘Books ever, arguably the most spectacular-looking, and available with luxurious widescreens on the two high-end models. Yes, they’re more expensive than you can get a PC laptop for with similar (and in the case of processor clock speed — higher) specifications, but the raw numbers don't take into account the PowerBook mystique, or the Apple ‘Books’ "it just works" quality and ability to typically keep on "just working" long after contemporaneous PC laptops have been consigned to the boneyard.
For example, my own Pismo, built in October, 2000, and purchased used, is still a perfectly adequate production platform for my purposes as it approaches its fifth anniversary. It has admittedly been tweaked and upgraded with a 550 MHz G4 processor, a larger hard drive, a SuperDrive, and a FireWire 800 adapter, but the point is that its superb basic design and build quality have made it worth upgrading. It has been a flawless performer with zero problems throughout my ownership, and runs Apple's latest OS X 10.4 Tiger very nicely. A video accelerator upgrade reportedly in the works for the Pismo by one of the upgrade vendors would be icing on the cake.
But even a box-stock Pismo supports OS X Tiger, and is still a remarkably capable computer for any everyday word processing, email, Web surfing, digital photo editing, and so forth.
The Titanium PowerBook, notwithstanding its sexy looks and widescreen displays, has not proved as rugged and trouble-free as the G3 series ‘Books, but the Aluminum PowerBooks seem to be back on track. Both the little 12-inch model and the Big 17-incher have manifested no major widespread problem areas other than the recent battery recall affecting some models. The "white spots" display problem that afflicted some early 15-inch PowerBooks has been dealt with. All of the aluminum PowerBooks have plenty of PowerBook mystique.
As do, IMHO, pretty well all of the iBooks. The original, 300 MHz clamshell iBooks were a bit lightweight in the power, hard drive, and connectivity departments (analogous to the PowerBook 150 mentioned above), but all iBooks from the Paris revision clamshells (FireWire and 366 MHz or 466 MHz G3 CPUs) forward have been more than worthy exemplars of the PowerBook mystique.
Apple 'Books are one of those felicitous tools that bring a smile to your face, and make work with them a pleasure. You can save a few bucks by substituting a PC laptop, but to do so exemplifies Oscar Wilde's epigram about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar would have understood the PowerBook mystique.