Macopinion

Tip for all Mac card game enthusiasts

Mac poker sites come in two forms. The first is the native Mac client, allowing you to download the poker software right onto your Mac OS and utilizes the same quality graphics and software as the Windows version. The second type of software to play poker on a Mac is the instant play version, which is compatible with Mac players using Java or Flash programming.

The Core 2 Duo Mac mini vs MacBook - A Value Comparison

In last week's The Road Warrior I parsed a value comparison between the new Aluminum & Glass iMac as a "desktop substitute substitute" computer vs the MacBook.

A reader with the Web-handle of ncbill wrote to say:

I think you missed a third option - the new Mac Mini.

With a Core 2 Duo revision and upgrade to a more usable (under 10.4) 1GB RAM standard, the Mac Mini has become the "headless MacBook"

I've been very happy with my C2D MacBook, which runs circles around my old 1.33 GHz Powerbook G4.

The new Mini is the bargain at the low end for those looking to replace an aging G3 or G4 system.

It allows us to recycle keyboard, mouse, monitor, and any external peripherals we are currently using (e.g. hard drives, DVD burner)

I know when the time comes to replace my second generation eMac G4 the C2D Mac Mini will be my choice.

Good point. I didn't miss it, and the thought occurred to me back when the mini was first introduced as a G4 unit that it might be a viable alternative for folks who use their laptops mainly as desktop substitute computers. Of course, like the iMac, the mini can’t qualify as a real portable because it has no internal battery power, but with a small power inverter that costs about 30 bucks you can be good to go anywhere, say any car or RV, where you have access to 12 volt power.

The Mac mini actually has a lot more in common with the MacBook than with its desktop Mac stablemates, being not so much a "headless iMac," as a stripped-down notebook without a display or battery. For instance, the mini shares with the MacBook a 667 MHz frontside bus in contrast to the iMac's 800 MHz bus, has laptop-type 5400 RPM 2.5” hard drive, a typical laptop array of I/O ports (only more of them), a laptop-style optical drive, and the mini CPU weighs a pound and a half less than the lightest notebook Apple ever made.

So, is the Mac mini a viable laptop substitute? It depends. Not if you need a really portable computer of course. In that case get a MacBook or MacBook Pro. However, for the past decade, increasing numbers of laptops have been purchased for use mainly as desktop substitute computers that spend most of their time plugged into AC power, and frequently with an external keyboard, mouse, and even an external monitor hooked up. For mostly desktop notebook users, the “transportable” Mac mini presents as an alternative to a ‘Book.

Now, personally, I wouldn’t want to be without a real, portable laptop, but I already have several. A mini would be an excellent compliment to serve as a general-purpose workstation that’s still doesn’t take up much space and can be relatively easily moved around.

As I related last week, I traveled down this road with a G4 Cube back in 2001, and discovered that while my idea I had sounded good in theory, in practice the Cube with its satellite speakers and speaker amplifier, humongous external power supply, plus a keyboard, mouse, and display, needed about as much desktop space as my SuperMac S-900 tower. The Mac mini is much more efficiently integrated with an internal speaker, an internal power supply, and will size up quite favorably compared with a notebook on a stand connected to an external keyboard and mouse.

For me, the principal deficiency of the mini he is the lack of battery power, not so much the lack of real portability, but because I live in a rural area where power outages are fairly common. This in addition to desktop real estate occupied, was one of the reasons why I never really got comfortable with the Cube as a workhorse computer. I had become accustomed to the PowerBook’s being able to cruise through power outages seamlessly, sometimes without my even noticing that there had been a power failure until the little lightning bolt charge indicator catches my eye.

The workaround would be some sort of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and/or the aforementioned power inverter and a 12 volt automotive battery or power pack to run the mini rig off of during power interruptions. With its 2.5-inch hard drive and an LCD display, the mini should be able to run for a good long time from a portable 12 volt power source.

The problem, as I see it, is value. An 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini starts at $599, and an Apple aluminum keyboard and Mighty Mouse sets you back $98, and Apple's least expensive Cinema Display (20") a whopping $599 - the same price as the base mini itself, so you're up to $1,296, nearly $200 more than the base MacBook which has a faster Core 2 Duo processor, pretty much the same other internal specs., plus a battery, but of course a smaller 13/3" display. But a mini rig with Apple peripherals also costs $96 more than even the base 20" iMac, which also has a 20" display and comes with a faster processor, a larger capacity faster hard drive, a real ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics processor unit with 128MB of dedicated video RAM, FireWire 800, and a SuperDrive. To get a SuperDrive with a mini, you have to go with the $799 2 GHz Core 2 Duo unit. True, you can do better than those prices by shopping around for a third-party keyboard, mouse, and display, but I'll stick with comparing Apples to Apples for the purposes of this article.

On the other hand, if you already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse (Apple or otherwise), as ncbill notes, the mini can be a sensible way to upgrade your system to Core 2 Duo performance.

That said, given Apple's evident indifference to the mini, the question is begged as to its future. Rumors of mini's demise proved exaggerated on August 7 when Apple quietly updated the mini with Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs at the time of the Alu-Glass iMac's release, without even a press release heralding the refresh, which will keep the tiniest Mac on life support for a while yet at least.

The mini's petite 2-inch-tall, 6.5-inch-square anodized aluminum form factor remained essentially unchanged, with the main difference from the previous version being the new Intel Core 2 Duo processors running at 1.83 or 2.0 GHz replacing the former 1.66 GHz or 1.83 GHz Core Duo units. Level 2 on-chip cache has been bumped from 2MB or 4MB. Even though the new CPUs only have a 8%-10% faster nominal clock speed, Apple says the updates make the Mac mini up to 39% faster on its benchmark scale compared with the preceding models, The Core 2 Duo chip is more efficient than the Core Duo, with a 128-bit SSE3 vector engine, which can handle twice the amount of data per cycle as the erstwhile Core Duo(64 bits), and the doubled Level 2 cache. Consequently, a real-world performance boost of 20% - 30 % should be achievable, so it's a substantial improvement over the previous models.

However, the mini's (and the MacBook"s) most serious performance compromise is its Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics support that that annexes up to 80 MB of the computer's system RAM for video support. This cost-reducing scheme, disparagingly referred to by some as "vampire video," results in comparatively pedestrian video performance.

Mac mini Build To Order options include 120 or 160 GB hard drives; Apple's Mighty Mouse and new super-thin aluminum keyboard (in either case wired or wireless). A freestanding modem will siphon another $49 from your wallet and eat up one of the USB ports. A$19 DVI to Video Adapter facilitates connecting the Mac mini to most TVs.

While the Core 2 Duo Mac mini is a respectable performer, especially compared with a MacBook, personally, I find it hard to make an economic case for buying a mini compared with a low-end iMac or even a MacBook unless you already have a good monitor and input devices and just want it for a CPU module upgrade. The mini doesn't really doesn't compete with its iMac sibling on a value per dollar basis if you have to buy a monitor and input devices.


Mac mini and 13" MacBook Specifications And Features Compared

Processor

Mac mini
1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2MB on-chip L2 cache
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4MB on-chip L2 cache

MacBook
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2MB on-chip L2 cache
2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4MB on-chip L2 cache

System Bus

Mac mini
667 MHz front-side system bus

MacBook
667 MHz front-side system bus

Memory Config and Support

Mac mini
1GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM on two SO-DIMMs; expandable to 2GB

MacBook
1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 2GB

Hard Drives (Standard)

Mac mini
80GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm
120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm

MacBook
80GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor
120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor

Optical Drives

Mac mini
Slot-loading Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW): reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed
or
Slot-loading SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW): writes DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL discs at up to 2.4x speed, writes DVD-R and DVD+R discs at up to 8x speed, writes DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs at up to 4x speed, reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed

MacBook
Slot-loading Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW): reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed
or
Slot-loading SuperDrive with double-layer read support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW): writes DVD-R and DVD+R discs at up to 4x speed, writes DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs at up to 4x speed, reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 10x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed

Display

Mac mini
none

MacBook
13.3-inch glossy widescreen TFT active-matrix liquid crystal display
1280 x 800 pixels

Graphics Support

Mac mini
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (annexes RAM from system memory for graphics support) - Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 944MB of system memory available

MacBook
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (annexes RAM from system memory for graphics support) - Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 944MB of system memory available

I/O Ports

Mac mini
One FireWire 400 port
Four USB 2.0 ports

MacBook
Two USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 400 port
Mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);

Video Out Support

Mac mini
DVI output; VGA output (using included adapter); S-video and composite video output

MacBook
Mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately)

Audio

Mac mini
Built-in speakers, combined optical digital audio input/audio line in, combined optical digital audio output/headphone out

MacBook
Built-in stereo speakers
Built-in omnidirectional microphone
Combined optical digital audio input/audio line in (minijack)
Combined optical digital audio output/headphone out (minijack)
Audio line in (minijack)

Ethernet

Mac mini
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)

MacBook
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)

Modem

Mac mini
None - Works with 56K V.92 Apple USB Modem (sold separately)

MacBook
None - Works with 56K V.92 Apple USB Modem (sold separately)

Wireless networking

Mac mini
Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi (802.11g)
Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module

MacBook
Built-in 54-Mbps AirPort Extreme wireless networking (based on 802.11g standard)
Built-in Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) up to 3 Mbps

Battery

Mac mini
None

MacBook
55-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery with integrated charge indicator

Size and Weight

Mac mini
Height: 5.08 cm (2 inches)
Width: 16.51 cm (6.5 inches)
Depth: 16.51 cm (6.5 inches)
Weight: 1.31 kg (2.9 pounds)


MacBook
Height: 1.08 inches (2.75 cm)
Width: 12.78 inches (32.5 cm)
Depth: 8.92 inches (22.7 cm)
Weight: 5.2 pounds (2.36 kg)

Bundled Software

iMac
Mac OS X v10.4.10 Tiger (includes Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Xcode Developer Tools)
iLife ’08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand), Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, iWork (30-day trial), and Apple Hardware Test
Front Row

MacBook
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger (includes Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Xcode Developer Tools)
iLife ’08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand), iWork '08 (30-day trial),
Big Bang Board Games, Comic Life, Omni Outliner, and Apple Hardware Test
Front Row
Photo Booth


***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

The Road Warrior Mailbag - September 4, 2007

MacBook vs iMac
Current iMac 20" User Report
New 20" iMac vs MacBook - A Value Comparison
iMac vs Macbook Optical Drives
New 20" iMac vs MacBook - Mac mini?
iMac review
New 20" iMac vs MacBook - Screen Resolutions
PowerBook 5300 Revisited



___

MacBook vs iMac

From Twig Gravely

I was pleased to come across your article, because I have often switched between new offerings of MacBooks and iMacs. I have a tough decision, in that I can't afford to have both. It either has to be a desktop or a laptop. And it always seems like I'm wishing I had one while in possession of the other.

My next to most recent machine was a loaded Core 2 Duo iMac, and I decided that it was the nicest Mac I'd ever had. But the itch came over me, and I decided I just had to have a notebook again, and the new MacBooks looked really nice. That's what I'm typing on right now, but already I'm looking at that beautiful aluminum and black iMac and wondering if I should flop yet again.

One thing, this MacBook doesn't seem to be near as snappy as my iMac was, and they had very close specs. I'm figuring that Leopard is going to want a little more out of the machine, that combined with the fantastic look of the new iMacs is really tempting me.

Another factor is the Applecare price difference between Apple's 'books and iMacs. To me the iMac is looking to be the better value, unless you absolutely have to have a notebook.

___

Hi Twig;

Thanks for your comment.

The primary reasons why your MacBook feels less lively than your erstwhile iMac is that it is.

The MacBook has that feebel Intel GMA 950 video support kludge as opposed to the iMac's real GPU with dedicated VRAM. The MacBook has a 5400 RPM HD, compared with 7200 RPM in the iMac. The new imacs also have an 800 Mhz friontside bus, although (I think) your former C2D imac had the same 667 frontside bus speed as the MacBook.

Power and value for money is the imac's advantage. It's disadvantage is the lack of battery-powered portability.

Charles

***

Current iMac 20" User Report

From Matthias Rönsberg

I was the first to buy the new iMac at my local Apple dealership, here in Madrid, Spain (Preordered, to be sure I wouldn´t miss out on the first batch - btw, excellent service, http://www.benotac.es delete the plug if it´s against your policy).

I bought the standard medium model (20", 2,4GHz) and will buy a 2GB SO-DIMM next. -thanks to menumeters, I can see how fast VM fills up, and accessing 2GB of swap files is a real drag.

Thats the family ´puter, replacing an aging (and too darn loud) eMac G4. My main workhorse is a G4 PowerBook, 1,25GHz.

The iMac´s glossy screen doesn´t bother me the least.

I didn´t find a downside yet (maybe aside from the remote not clinging to the side of the iMac.)

I simply love all aspects of the machine, it´s quiet, it´s fast (iPhoto with 2500 images is finally usable again), and I at least have a great screen, without reflections.

I´m not much of a road warrior (max two days per week travelling) and I guess, once the iPhone is available over here, I can do most stuff (i.e. email) with that little bugger, so I´ll probably hold off on any new laptop purchase - I might buy an iMac as my main office machine within a year though, keeping the laptop synchronzied for the ocasional roadtrip.

Thanks for your evaluation

Matt

___

Hi Matt;

Thanks for confirming my evaluation empirically. Glad to hear that it holds up.

I also agree about RAM and swapfiles. I have 1.5 GB in my G4 PowerBook and still wish I had more. Definitly minimum 2 GB in my next system.

Charles

***

New 20" iMac vs MacBook - A Value Comparison

From markomd

Funny, I just contemplated the same decision and decided on the mid-2007 2.16GB MacBook. Great little machine. You really can't go wrong either way.

Of course, it didn't hurt that I bought it refurbed from Apple and paid $1,099 + $169 for the three-year service plan. To tell you the truth, I own extra mice, extra keyboards, can place the laptop on a higher desk-shelf or plug in a larger monitor with no hassle at all. Best of all, it works wonderfully on battery and I can schlep it anywhere.

No complaints on my part. I already own 2 relatively recent iMacs (my daughters use them) and have the whole system linked in a high-speed wireless LAN with Airport.

So far as using a MacBook Pro for my primary computer is concerned, I consider the benefit/cost ratio unfavorable compared to the arrangement I already have. About the only other thing I may do is buy a 20" iMac refurbed or at academic cost (I'm a physician, my wife is a professor) and then I'll own the entire shebang for less than the cost of the top-end MacBook Pro.

Have fun either way.

___

Hi;

I'm in harmony with your reasoning. Love those refurbs, of which the PowerBook I'm typing on is one.

It's a tough decision, but as you say, pretty hard to go wrong either way.

Charles

***

iMac vs Macbook Optical Drives

From James Mol

Since you missed it at The Apple Store: all iMacs have the SuperDrive. Even the base model.

Jim

___

Hi Jim;

When you're right, you're right.

Don't know where ever I got the idea that the base Alu-Glass iMac had a combo drive.

Must have crossed wires checking spec. sheets of the previous model.

Thanks for the heads-up. I've corrected the article.

Charles

***

New 20" iMac vs MacBook - Mac mini?

Located at:
http://www.macopinion.com/index.php/site/comments/new_20_imac_vs_macbook_a_value_comparison/

From ncbill

I think you missed a third option - the new Mac Mini.

With a Core 2 Duo revision and upgrade to a more usable (under 10.4) 1GB RAM standard, the Mac Mini has become the "headless MacBook"

I've been very happy with my C2D MacBook, which runs circles around my old 1.33GHz Powerbook G4.

The new Mini is the bargain at the low end for those looking to replace an aging G3 or G4 system.

It allows us to recycle keyboard, mouse, monitor, and any external peripherals we are currently using (e.g. hard drives, DVD burner)

I know when the time comes to replace my second generation eMac G4 the C2D Mac Mini will be my choice.

___

Hi ncbill,

Good point. I didn't miss it. The thought occurred to me back when the mini was first introduced as a G4 unit that it might be a viable alternative for folks who use their laptops mainly as desktop substitute computers.

However, he Mac mini actually has a lot more in common with the MacBook than with its desktop Mac stablemates, being not so much a "headless iMac," as a stripped-down notebook without a display or battery. For instance, the mini shares with the MacBook a 667 MHz frontside bus in contrast to the iMac's 800 MHz bus, has laptop-type 5400 RPM 2.5" hard drive, a typical laptop array of I/O ports (only more of them), a laptop-style optical drive, and the mini CPU weighs a pound and a half less than the lightest notebook Apple ever made.

The problem, as I see it, is value. An 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini starts at $599, and an Apple aluminum keyboard and Mighty Mouse sets you back $98, and Apple's least expensive Cinema Display (20") a whopping $599 - the same price as the base mini itself, so you're up to $1,296, nearly $200 more than the base MacBook which has a faster Core 2 Duo processor, pretty much the same other internal specs., plus a battery, but of course a smaller 13/3" display. But a mini rig with Apple peripherals also costs $96 more than even the base 20" iMac, which also has a 20" display and comes with a faster processor, a larger capaciity faster hard drive, a real ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics processor unit with 128MB of dedicated video RAM, FireWire 800, and a SuperDrive. To get a SuperDrive with a mini, you have to go with the $799 2 GHz Core 2 Duo unit. True, you can do better than those prices by shopping around for a third-party keyboard, mouse, and display, but I'll stick with comparing Apples to Apples for now.

Personally, I find it hard to make an economic case for buying a mini compared with a low-end iMac or even a MacBook unless you already have a good monitor and input devices and just want it for a CPU module upgrade, which is of course what you;re suggesting.

Charles

***


iMac review

From David

The new iMacs strike as superb values. It seems that the screen itself has substantial value. But what if with that particular form factor, the screen could be used-just by itself-as a monitor for other computers. Now, Apple would be using its imagination and sell many more iMacs.

Sincerely,
David Stein

___

Hi David;

There is display-sharing software available. Perhaps Apple will make a freestanding Cinema Display model with the glass-covered glossy screen.

Charles

***

New 20" iMac vs MacBook - Screen Resolutions

From David C

My next computer will likely be an iMac 24", simply because I've come to appreciate the value of large screen real estate at a reasonable pixel size. The MacBook Pro 17" hi-res packs as many pixels as the iMac 24", but on-screen type looks positively tiny in comparison. While I can adapt to a small screen and tiny type, I think that exacts a productivity compromise that I'm no longer willing to endure. Also, I intend on using the iMac as a living room Mac, where its large screen will be great for watching DVDs, high def video and slideshows from my latest photo forays.

Though I like being able to pack a computer with me, it's also nice to have the computer tied to my workspace; so that coffee shops, dinner tables, bedrooms and camping trips don't get turned into geekspace. Still, in the best of worlds, I'd have a portable for when I need that and a large screen desktop for production work (or a large monitor to plug into the MacBook Pro?s DVI port.) But, it all comes down to price for me, and for the screen resolution that I want (1920 x 1200), going portable is an $1100 premium. Not a price I'm willing to pay and, a smaller screen to boot. I could, of course, go with a MacBook and hang an external monitor off of it, which is not a bad option, but that diminishes the all-in-one elegance of both the iMac and Macbooks.

As for the MacBook vs iMac, in addition to the comparisons you make, the MacBook has a 2GB memory maximum vs the iMac's 4GB and, besides a couple more USB ports, the iMac has a FireWire 800 port as well. Given the specs of the iMac, it compares more closely to the MacBook Pro than the MacBook, as regards both graphics card and available screen resolutions. The MacBook Pro has the edge with its dual link DVI port and the iMac counters with a larger, faster hard drive, so it's a wash features wise.

Since the iMac went LCD, I think it's been a very compelling option as an elegant, all-in-one desktop. While the iMac isn't truly portable, it lends itself well to schlepping around the home, particularly when the nifty safe sleep feature is employed. Safe sleep, available on all the Intel machines and some Powerbooks, will write RAM to disk, greatly speeding up booting after power down and restoring all applications, windows, etc. to their previous state.

___

Hi David;

I'm pretty much in agreement with your observations, although I think I could very happily get along with the 20" display iMac. After years of working on PowerBooks and iBooks, and adapting my work habits accordingly, even the modest resolution 1440 by 900 display in this older 17" G4 PowerBook seems huge to me.

You're right that performance-wise the iMac is more closely parallel with the MacBook Pro than the MacBook, but price-wise it's in the MacBook ballpark, making it a super-value (for somewhat different reasons) compared with either notebook, save for the fact it's not a notebook. I do cherish easy portability and battery power.

I did note the different memory ceilings in the specs. comparison section.

Charles

***

PowerBook 5300 Revisited

From: Abe Jellinek

Hi,

As the ex-owner of a PowerBook 190cs, I enjoyed your writings on the 5300. Those were dark days, though the laptops remained best-of-breed.

Anyway, I do not think the 5300 was the most expensive Apple laptop ever. The Mac Portable was more expensive, adjusted for inflation. It is actually pricier at an unadjusted MSRP if you checked the box for a hard disk. Perhaps "the 5300 was, and will now be, forever, the most expensive PowerBook."

I don't mean to quibble needlessly. I enjoyed looking up the Portable price. I had a shot at one a few years ago, but the hospital wouldn't let it out the door with "patient data." (1MB from 1983...ugh.)

Abe J

___

Hi Abe;

I think I was aware that the Mac Portable sold for the same nominal dollar value as the 5300ce, but the key qualifier in my statement was "laptop." Do you really consider the hulking 16 pound Mac Portable to be a laptop computer?

For the record, the most expensive Macs of all time were:

Mac IIfx - $9,870
Mac IIx - $9,300
Quadra 950 - $8,800
Mac IIci - $8,800
Quadra 900 - $8,500
Twentieth Anniversary Mac - $7,500
PowerBook 5300ce - $6,500
Mac SE/30 $6,500
Mac Portable - $6,500

And as you note, the optional hard drive would push the Portable's price up even more.

Charles



***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

New 20” iMac vs MacBook - A Value Comparison

I have to admit that the new aluminum iMac is the greatest temptation for me to try anther desktop computer for some time. The operative question is whether the iMac would be a viable laptop-as-desktop-substitute substitute? It depends. Not if you need a really portable computer even occasionally of course. In that case get a MacBook or a MacBook Pro.

However, over the past decade steadily increasing number of notebooks have been purchased for use mainly as desktop substitute computers that spend most of their time plugged into AC power, frequently with an external keyboard, mouse, and even an external monitor hooked up. My ‘Books sometimes go for weeks at a time without ever being called on to run on battery power. For mostly desktop laptop users like me, the iMac presents itself as a potential alternative to a ‘Book, at least for my main workstation computer.

Now, personally, I wouldn’t want to be without a real, portable computer, but I already have four of them - five if you count an old PowerBook 1400. An aluminum iMac could be an excellent compliment to serve as a general-purpose workstation that’s still doesn’t take up a whole lot of space and can be relatively easily moved around.

I’ve been down this road before, sort of. When the G4 Cube was unveiled in 2000, it immediately occurred to me that this new compact desktop Mac just might be a sensible alternative to my PowerBook. I did get a Cube several months later, but discovered that while my idea I had sounded good in theory, in practice the Cube with its satellite speakers and speaker amplifier, external power supply for which “brick” was more than just a metaphor, along with a keyboard, mouse, and display, needed about as much desktop space as my SuperMac S-900 tower. The iMac is much more efficiently integrated with internal speakers, an internal power supply, and will size up quite favorably compared with a notebook on a stand connected to an external keyboard and mouse, and I love that new aluminum Apple keyboard.

I love small computers. Compactness is the essential quality of a laptop -- even the mighty 17-inch PowerBooks and MacBook Pros.

For me, the principal deficiency of the iMac he is the lack of battery power, not so much the lack of real portability so long as I have my backup notebooks, but because I live in a rural area where power outages are fairly common, was one of the reasons why I never really got comfortable with the Cube as a workhorse computer. I had become accustomed to the PowerBook’s being able to cruise through power outages seamlessly, sometimes without my even noticing that there had been a power failure until the little lightning bolt charge indicator caught my eye.

The workaround would be some sort of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and/or power inverter and a 12 volt automotive battery or power pack to run the iMac off of during power interruptions.

I haven’t said much about the economics of this concept so far, so let’s take a look. The 20" AlGlass 2.0 GHz iMac starts at $1,199.00, 100 bucks more than a base 2.0 GHz MacBook, which isn't too far from being saw-off price wise since if you want to use the MacBook in comfortable desktop substitute mode, you’ll still need a keyboard and mouse, and a laptop stand. However, the iMac has a whopping 7" larger display with much higher resolution, a higher-performance "Santa Rosa series Core 2 Duo processor, a faster system bus, and better video support system with a real GPU instead of the MacBook's Mickey Mouse Intel GMA 950 "vampire video," and 170 GB more standard hard drive capacity in a real, 3.5" 7200 RPM desktop hard disk, and a standard SuperDrive.

Moving up a notch, the 2.4 GHz 20" iMac sells for $1,499.00, coming with an even larger 320 GB hard drive and a DVD-burning SuperDrive instead of the base model's combo drive, and a better video card with twice as much video memory. The upmarket 2.16 GHz MacBook goes for $1,299.00, and also includes a SuperDrive, but still only a 120 GB, 5400 RPM HD, and the GMA 950 video kludge.

ON the basis of specification and performance in desktop mode, it's not difficult to justify the iMac's slightly higher purchase price in either comparison.

In terms of appearance, my subjective evaluation is that it's pretty much a wash. Both machines are gorgeous, and photos really don't do them justice. Aesthetically, I would be happy with either. My initial and so far abiding impression of the aluminum & glass iMac is that Apple was going for an iPhone-ish look, and it does work, although not as convincingly as on the iPhone itself...However, there is more here than just styling as with all good design. The iMac's case is made from a single sheet of aluminum, with no seams or screws except for a single compartment on the bottom that provides easy access to the memory slots.

Alas, neither machine comes with an internal modem, so if you live beyond the reach of broadband as I do, you'll need to pony up another 50 bucks for Apple's external USB Modem.

So, has Moore lost the laptop faith? Not at all. As I said, if I were to be limited to owning just one computer, it would still definitely be a conventional laptop. However, the new iMac offers about as close to notebook virtues as we’ve seen yet in a desktop computer, and in some respects represents a crossover - its main shortcoming being the lack of battery backup.

20" iMac and 13" MacBook Specifications And Features Compared

Processor

20 iMacs
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

MacBook
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

System Bus

iMacs
800 MHz front-side system bus

MacBook
667 MHz front-side system bus

Memory Config and Support

iMacs
1GB (one SO-DIMM) of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory
Two SO-DIMM slots support up to 4GB

MacBook
1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 2GB

Hard Drives (Standard)

iMacs
250GB Serial ATA 7200-rpm hard drive
320GB Serial ATA 7200-rpm hard drive

MacBook
80GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor
120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor

Optical Drives

iMacs
Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
- Writes DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL discs at up to 4x speed
- Writes DVD-R and DVD+R discs at up to 8x speed
- Writes DVD-RW at up to 6x speed and DVD+RW discs at up to 8x speed
- Reads DVDs at up to 8x speed
- Writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed
- Writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed
- Reads CDs at up to 24x speed

MacBook
Slot-loading Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW): reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed
or
Slot-loading SuperDrive with double-layer read support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW): writes DVD-R and DVD+R discs at up to 4x speed, writes DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs at up to 4x speed, reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 10x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed

Display

20" iMacs
Built-in 20-inch glossy widescreen
1680 by 1050 pixels

MacBook
13.3-inch glossy widescreen TFT active-matrix liquid crystal display
1280 x 800 pixels

Graphics Support

iMacs
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB GDDR3 memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB GDDR3 memory

MacBook
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (annexes RAM from system memory for graphics support) - Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 944MB of system memory available

I/O Ports

iMacs
One FireWire 400 and one FireWire 800 port
Total of five USB 2.0 ports: three ports on computer, two ports on keyboard

MacBook
two USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 400 port

Video Out Support

iMac
Mini-DVI output port with support for DVI, VGA, S-video, and composite video connections via adapter

MacBook
Mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately)

Audio

iMac
Built-in stereo speakers
Internal 24-watt digital amplifier
Headphone/optical digital audio output (minijack)
Audio line in/optical digital audio input (minijack)
Built-in microphone


MacBook
Built-in stereo speakers
Built-in omnidirectional microphone
Combined optical digital audio input/audio line in (minijack)
Combined optical digital audio output/headphone out (minijack)
Audio line in (minijack)

Ethernet

iMac
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)

MacBook
Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)

Modem

iMac
None - Works with 56K V.92 Apple USB Modem (sold separately)

MacBook
None - Works with 56K V.92 Apple USB Modem (sold separately)

Wireless networking

iMac
Built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking (802.11n)2
Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module

MacBook
Built-in 54-Mbps AirPort Extreme wireless networking (based on 802.11g standard)
Built-in Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) up to 3 Mbps

Battery

iMac
None

MacBook
55-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery with integrated charge indicator

Size and Weight

iMac with 20-inch display
Height: 18.5 inches (46.9 cm)
Width: 19.1 inches (48.5 cm)
Depth: 7.4 inches (18.9 cm)
Weight: 20 pounds (9.1 kg)4

MacBook
Height: 1.08 inches (2.75 cm)
Width: 12.78 inches (32.5 cm)
Depth: 8.92 inches (22.7 cm)
Weight: 5.2 pounds (2.36 kg)

Bundled Software

iMac
Mac OS X v10.4.10 Tiger (includes Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Xcode Developer Tools)
iLife '08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand)
iWork '08 (30-day trial)
Front Row
Photo Booth

MacBook
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger (includes Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Xcode Developer Tools)
iLife ’08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand), iWork '08 (30-day trial),
Big Bang Board Games, Comic Life, Omni Outliner, and Apple Hardware Test
Front Row
Photo Booth



***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

The Road Warrior Mailbag - August 27, 2007

PowerBook 1400 RAM
Upgrading Pismo HD
Happy With Toshiba And Windows
Virtual PC on Mac...


___

PowerBook 1400 RAM

From Rick;

Charles,

I just got through reading your article on the PowerBook 1400 at:
http://www.lowendmac.com/misc/02/0520.html

I came across it because I just procured a near-mint condition PowerBook 1400cs/117. I say near-mint because I know the history of the machine, and I would wager it doesn't have 100 hours of use on it total. It's not as capable as my MacBook, and the passive matrix screen leaves a little bit to be desired, but boy, it sure looks and feels extremely sturdy compared to the modern Mac laptops.

Anyway, it came with 24MB of RAM, and I'd like to increase that amount to the maximum 64 that the 1400 allows. I looked at all the regular sources that I would check out for RAM, but none have listings for the PowerBook 1400. Do you know of any resources?

Thanks,
Rick

___

Hi Rick;

Sounds like a peach of a 1400.

The PowerBook Guy has:

PowerBook 1400 48MB RAM Upgrade Kit (New) Brand New PowerBook 1400 48MB RAM Upgrade Kit $119.95

For more information, visit:
http://www.powerbookguy.com/xcart/catalog/RAM-Cards-price0-p-1-c-547.html

Wegener Media lists for the 1400:

16mb single stackable card 25.00
24mb Single stackable card 69.00
32mb Single stackable card 89.00

For more information, visit:
http://www.wegenermedia.com/parts.htm

Hope this helps.

Charles







Upgrading Pismo HD

From Gordon;

Greetings,

I have a G3/500 Powerbook.

There is a constant whirring noise that is rather annoying. It's been there for as long as I can remember. I'm assuming that it is from the HD. So, I was thinking of putting in a bigger, quieter HD. The Scorpio from Western Digital is supposed to be very quiet, I understand.

Question is: How do I know if it will work? If not, what ones do work? I want to use it as a HD-based music server for my Hi-Fi so need one that is as quiet as possible.

I also, may be getting my sister's old G3/500 iBook. Same questions for that one, too. Any light you can shed on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Thank-you,
Gordon

___

Hi Gordon

Some hard drives tend to get noisy with age and use. Others are better in that department.

For both the Pismo and the iBook you need a 2.5" ATA (Not SATA) hard drive. Changing a drive in the Pismo is relatively easy. In the iBook, it is quite difficult.

The 20 GB Hitachi/IBM drive in my iBook has been excellent - still whisper quiet after 4 1/2 years of use. The Seagate 100 GB drive in one of my Pismos is also pretty quiet (both 4200 RPM units, but the 40 GB Toshiba 5400 RPM drive in my other Pismo is considerably louder, and was never really quiet from new.

I have no first-hand experience with the Western Digital Scorpio drives, but Other World Computing has one listed for the Pismo:

120.0GB Western Digital "Scorpio" 5400RPM 9.5MM SuperSlim ATA Notebook Drive with 8MB Data buffer - $77.99

More info on OWC's extensive selection of drives here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/2.5-Notebook/

Charles







Happy With Toshiba And Windows

From John

Charles:

I thought I'd give you an update after eight months of living on the dark side. I first fired up my Toshiba laptop in December 2006 and I haven't looked back since, though I was able to finally revive my iBook by doing a clean install of all of the system software.

My daughter is now using the iBook, mainly for browsing the Web and email. To put it simply, I love my Toshiba PC. No, it isn't as cute, and the software doesn't have that slick look, but the darn thing just works hard, and that is what I want from a computer. It is wonderful knowing that just about any software I could possibly want is available, and just about any problem has a huge user base that has already solved it.

My last few years with Apples seem to have been a near constant search for some software solution that didn't exist, or a search through endless forums trying to troubleshoot some obscure problem. I know that PCs aren't trouble free, but I love the fact that no matter where I am I'll have my choice of endless numbers of techs who can help, and they'll probably have on hand any hardware or software I might need. I can now go into Best Buy, Wal Mart, and Target and pick up bargain equipment and software. There are advantages to being part of the mainstream.

Yes, I know that I could now buy an Apple with an Intel chip so I could potentially run Apple and PC systems, but why bother with the complications and expense? I think Apple has declared its intentions pretty clearly - it is now a hardware company specializing in music and phones, and probably other neat consumer gadgetry. For me, I just want a computer that works and gets my work done, and PCs do that the best.

John

___

Hi John;

Thanks for the update. I'm happy for you that you are satisfied with the service you're getting from your Windows box. Different strokes, I guess.

Personally, I simply couldn't tolerate the angularity, ugliness, clunkiness, and "Microsoftiness" of Windows, to say nothing of the virus/malware onslaught which is virtually a non-issue on the Mac. If, Heaven forfend, Apple ever stopped developing OS X I would switch to Linux. Every time I get my hands on XP or Vista, I marvel that so many people put up with it.

I do have to vigorously disagree with your contentions that a) Apple has lost interest in the computer business, and b) that PCs get your work done better than Macs.

Just last week it was reported that Apple now has 17.6 percent of the notebook computer market and has vaulted past Gateway as the number 3 computer manufacturer behind Dell and HP, and that's without competing seriously in the enterprise market that represents a large proportion of those two companies' sales. Apple hasn't had personal computer market share like that since the early '90s. Certainly doesn't seem a sign that Apple is abandoning the computer market. Indeed, computers represented the lion's share of their profit in the last quarter.

It isn't for nothing that Macs consistently have the highest rate of user satisfaction in survey after survey, including those conducted by Windows PC-oriented magazines. "It just works" has certainly been my empirical experience over 15 years on the Mac.

Fair winds,
Charles

___

Happy With Toshiba And Windows

From John

Charles:

Thanks for the thoughtful response and all the help in the past. Unfortunately, myself and apparently 83% of the market seem to think PCs are more useful. The restarts when you install new software are annoying, but much less so than the frequent complete system freezes I've experienced with Apples. I can only recall maybe one or two freezes that required a restart on my PC in eight months, while on my Apples they were a daily occurence.

I think there are just Apple people and PC people. Some people wouldn't be caught dead in an ordinary Chevrolet, while that's what I drive because it gets me to work more reliably and definitely much more cheaply than my neighbor's Saab, which looks totally cool. When the Saab is working right it definitely would be a much more enjoyable drive than my Chevy. Similarly, when the Apple was working right it worked great - I loved it, but I don't love fiddling with obscure problems that nobody can solve, which seems to be the lot of Saab owners.

I'm happy there are choices. The world would be pretty dull if we only had one choice.

Cheers!

___

Hi John;

I have to say that you must have had the mother of all lemon experiences with your Mac(s?). Back in Mac OS Classic days, especially with Systems 7.x and 8.x, crashes were a drearily frequent occurrance, although I don't think worse than with the contemporaneous Windows versions. In my experience, OS 9 was a quantum improvement. I once went more than three months on my WallStreet PowerBook running OS 9.2.2 without a restart, and when it cmae only to install a new piece of software - not due to a crash or a freeze. That was with two or three hours of daily use throughout.

Since moving up to OS X on my production machines five years ago, I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of system freezes requiring a restart I've had, although I did get occasional kernel panics on my iBook associated with certain USB peripherals. That ended completely when I installed Tiger, and had pretty much petered out with the later builds of Panther. The only time this 17" G4 PowerBook I'm typing on has ever locked up was when connected via Target Disk Mode to another Mac that had a serious hardware disorder, which crashed and took them both down.

My production Mac runs 8-10 hours per day, I usually have 20 or more programs open, I test a lot of beta and alpha grade software, and I have all of my I/O ports plus a full USB hub connected to peripheral stuff most of the time. I restart every two or three weeks to clear the memory and empty the swapfiles. This performance has been the norm with my two Pismos, the iBook, and the 17" PowerBook.

If you were getting daily (or even weekly or monthly) hard crashes with a Mac, something was seriously wrong, perhaps a hardware issue. That is emphatically not typical Mac OS performance.

Since you were (at least most recently) using an iBook, I'm inclined to suspect you may have been afflicted with the dreaded iBook motherboard issue.

This week my wife's employer issued her with a Memorex USB thumb drive to transport work between work (where she is stuck with a Windoze PC) and her Mac at home. The instructions for installing Windows drivers takes up half the first page of the quickstart guide. The Mac instructions are one sentence: "No driver installation necessary." After the rigamarole the IT person at work instructed her was necessary just to safely eject the USB drive from the Windows box, with dire warnings about data loss if she deviated from the ritual, she could hardly believe it when I told her that all she had to do with the Mac was highlight the disk icon and select Eject from the menu.

As for cars, You're right about SAABs, but Macs aren't like SAABs. More like BMWs, or even Toyotas. I drive an ancient Toyota Camry. Like my Macs, it just works.

Charles






Virtual PC on Mac...

From Jim Dickey

Let me tell you of my latest Windoze experience!! I bought XP Pro SP 2 (whew!) to run the educational testing program my wife needs to use and installed it under Boot Camp on daughter's MacBook - good so far. 'Doze works great on it (if that can be said). I only installed ONE program on Windows and had to restart SIX times yesterday! Not counting the one time it froze requiring a forced restart!! Total of seven restarts in one day!! This was on a clean, fresh install, no internet connection, no worms, viruses, lizards, snakes, or other possible infections. I finally connected to the internet and installed the 36 required updates, and had to restart again! It completely baffles me how people can keep using that junque... When you actually use it, it is much worse than a Mac user can believe.

The infamous "right click" that EVERY Windows user I have talked to keeps saying the Mac doesn't have? Well, one of the about 15 ways to do a right click on the Mac running 'Doze is put two fingers on the track pad and then click... Mac simple and easy. Needless to say, it pained me deeply to have to buy M$ Windows just to run one program. Oh well, maybe it will give me a little more ammunition when trying to sell Macs to my 'Doze suffering friends.

Jim Dickey

***



cmoore@macopinion.com

Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

PowerBook 5300 Revisited

On August 25, 1996, Apple released its first PowerPC PowerBook - the 5300. To say that the 5300 was not quite an unqualified success would be an understatement. It holds the dual distinctions of being the most expensive Apple laptop ever (5300ce - $6,499) and the most reviled and ridiculed.

While the infamous spontaneous combustion of a 5300 was vastly overblown, and pales by comparison with Liithium Ion battery troubles in later notebook models, both Mac and PC, the mythology stuck to the 5300 like you-know-what to a blanket, even though the fire-prone Sony LiIon batteries were quickly recalled and replaced with completely dependable Nickel Metal Hydride units.

The 5300's real shortcomings were in other areas. It was dog-slow, cases cracked and power connector jacks came adrift. There were faulty motherboards. Apple finally offered a seven-year extended service program for the 5300.

However, I bought a 5300 (the base model with a greyscale display) and liked it. My daughter used it through high school and her first year of university. It still runs, and a couple of the photos below were taken recently. My first The Road Warrior column back in 1998 was about the PowerBook 5300, so I thought it would be appropriate to republish it today.

CM

___

PowerBook 5300 Revisited (First-ever The Road Warrior column - 1998)

By Charles W. Moore

I thought that a good topic to kick off The Road Warrior would be the machine I'm typing this column on - the PowerBook 5300 - which has been my workhorse computer for more than two years. Of course, I would love to have a new PowerBook G3 series machine like the ones I've had an opportunity to try out lately, but I still have a strong affection for my faithful 5300, which has done a superb job for me.

The 5300 had a tough act to follow when it debuted in the fall of 1995, superseding the enormously popular and solid-performing 68LC040 PowerBook 500 series. As Apple's first PowerPC laptop, there were high expectations for the 5300, and a general consensus soon developed that it fell somewhat short of the mark.

Even before the 5300 began shipping in quantity it suffered a major engineering setback and PR disaster. Originally designed to use lithium-ion (LiIon) batteries, Apple did a recall and switched to Nickel-Metal-Hydride cells after two of the Sony-made LiIon batteries caught fire. No consumer machines were damaged, but the switchover caused shipping delays and was a major embarrassment.

Then there were the faulty motherboards. Once the first 5300s were in the hands of consumers, several design and manufacturing flaws began to rear their ugly heads, including power and circuitry problems. For example, the 5300's power supply did not produce enough juice to run certain combinations of expansion-bay and PC Card accessories at the same time, and the control circuitry for reducing power consumption when the 5300 was in Sleep mode would itself sometimes go to sleep before completing its job. As a result, the fully charged 5300 would sleep for only four days instead of the usual eight to ten days.

Some 5300s would lock up when the reset button and the power-on keys were pressed. The workaround was to press reset and power-on again. Not all early 5300s were affected, and Apple quickly supplied replacement motherboards for those that were. A production line fix was also implemented, which cured the problem and later machines were not affected, but the PR damage was done. There were also problems with flimsy monitor screen hinges and power adapter plugs that broke on the early 5300s. These faults were also attended to by Apple with free repairs and an extended 7 year warranty on these items.

My personal suspicion is that at least some "motherboard problems" were actually software-related, as the MacOS 7.5.2 that shipped with the 5300s was very buggy. I had some frustrating stability problems with my late-in-the-production-run 5300 when it was new, but these diminished drastically when I installed MacOS 7.5.3, and even more with MacOS 7.5.5 -- both free upgrades from Apple. With MacOS 8.1, my 5300 became almost rock-stable, and I often go for several days without a restart. As I write this, I have 14 separate applications open, including Communicator 4.5 and Nisus Writer, all coexisting happily on 24 MB real RAM plus RAMDoubler set at 2x.

Aside from the quality troubles, the 5300 turned out to be disappointingly slow, even by the standards of three years ago. Available with either a 100 Mhz or a 117 Mhz PowerPC 603e processor, the 5300's 33Mhz internal bus and slow IDE hard drive gave it about the same speed as a 5200/75 desktop PowerMac. The 5300 is one machine on which Connectix's SpeedDoubler extension really improves performance.

On a more positive note, the 5300 was nearly one pound lighter and an inch less deep than its 500 series predecessor. Indeed, the 5300 looks like a sub-notebook when parked beside a G3 Series 'Book. This small footprint was accomplished partly by leaving out the 500's optional internal modem, built-in Ethernet, and stereo speakers, and its ability to carry two batteries. Instead, the 5300 had two PC card slots, and an IR port. The 5300's floppy drive lives in an expansion bay, and could be removed and replaced with a magneto-optical drive, a second hard drive, a zip drive or even a PC Card storage bin, which lightens the machine for carrying.

Regrettably, the expansion bay will not accommodate a CD-ROM drive, although Apple had tentatively floated the idea of a new 3.5" CD-ROM format. That idea went nowhere. Most expansion bay devices for the later 3400 and original G3 PowerBooks will work in the 5300's expansion bay except for the CD-ROM. The 5300's lack of CD-ROM support was a major mistake for Apple, not rectified until the PowerBook 1400 debuted more than a year later.

Some people were disappointed with the 5300's clean, but squared-off shape after the swoopy and flamboyant 500 PowerBooks. Personally, I think that the 5300 is one of the most attractive PowerBooks ever, and that its looks have stood the test of time well -- better than the 500s which are beginning to look a bit dated in my estimation. However, the original 5300 proportions didn't gracefully survive being "stretched" for the 3400 and original G3 PowerBook series, which look as ungainly as did the beautiful E-type Jaguar back in the '60s when it had nine inches grafted in to its original near-perfect proportions accommodate 2+2 seating.

The PowerBook 5300 was available in four models:

5300: Gray-scale 9.5" dual-scan passive matrix screen, 100 Mhz processor, 8 MB soldered RAM, 500 MB hard drive.

5300cs: 10.4" dual scan color passive matrix screen, 100 Mhz processor, 8 or 16 MB soldered RAM, 500 or 750 MB hard drive.

5300c: 10.4" active matrix screen, 100 Mhz processor, 8 or 16 MB soldered RAM, 500 or 750 MB hard drive.

5300ce: 10.4" active matrix screen, 117 Mhz processor, 32 MB soldered RAM, 1 MB or 1.1 MB hard drive.

Mine is the low-end gray-scale jobbie, which in some respects was an incredible value since it is identical to the much more expensive higher-end models in all respects except the configuration differences noted above. The grayscale model is also the fastest 5300, faster even than the higher clock speed 5300ce, thanks to the passive grayscale screen's modest processor demands.

However, price-independent, the c and ce models were and are of course the most desirable PowerBook 5300 models, with their bright and lovely -- although small by current standards -- 10.4" active matrix screens.

The 5300 was targeted as Apple's high-end PowerBook, and priced accordingly. The top-of-the-line 5300ce originally retailed for a whopping $6,499, while the middle-of-the-line 5300c/100 with 8MB of RAM and a 500MB listed at $3,699, while the16MB of RAM and a 750MB hard disk version went for $4,499. The passive matrix color 5300cs was $2,799, and the Grayscale base model $2,199.

A scan of reseller ads in the January 1999 MacWorld finds used and refurbished PowerBook 5300s selling from $595 - $695 for a grayscale or cs machine to $929 for a 5300ce. That means that the ce has depreciated a horrendous $5,570 dollars or 86 percent of its original cost in three years, while the grayscale 5300 has diminished in capital value only $1,604 or 72 percent at most. These are sobering figures, especially for people who like to buy high-end computers when they're new and hot. While the price spread between the low and high-end 5300s was once $4300, today it is only about $300. Buyers of low end PowerBooks would seem to enjoy the long-term value edge by quite a wide margin.

Would I recommend a 5300 at today's prices over, say, a 500 series 'Book as a machine for cash-strapped road warriors? Absolutely.

I really like my PowerBook 5300, and it's still my main workstation. I write on it, surf the Web on it, create and maintain Web pages with it, run my email list from it, send and receive faxes with it. In more than two years of intensive daily use, I haven't had one day's down time. It is a great computer in my experience.

Advantages over the not-very-much-cheaper (if at all) 500 series machines include the PowerPC processor, PC card support (I know that an optional PC Card bay was available for the 500s, but these are as rare as hens' teeth), bigger hard drives, the 5300's expansion bay, bigger color screens, IR support, and the fact that the 5300s are newer machines.

The downside? The 500s have built-in Ethernet and possibly internal modems (albeit 19.2 BPS), and stereo speakers.

A couple of other things to look out for if you're checking out used 5300s:

The trackpad button sometimes fails from heavy-handed use (this affects 3400s and original G3s too, which use the same button). It's a $2.50 part, but a bother to replace. I've had no problems with mine, and I prefer its positive touch to either the PB 500 or PB G3 Series trackpad buttons, whose action I find too light and too heavy respectively.

The 5300 keyboard is a bit clunky, especially compared with the beautiful keyboards on the PB 1400 and G3 Series. Mine has given no trouble, but I've heard reports of dead key problems on some 5300s. This is something easy to check on a used machine before purchase.

The 5300 is really slow by this year's standards, especially compared with the lightning-quick new G3 PowerBooks. Even the slowest G3 'Book is three to five times faster. However, for word-processing, email, web-surfing and many other common computing tasks it is more than adequate.

I would also encourage anyone looking for a lower-priced used PowerBook to consider a 1400. I'm beginning to see used 117 Mhz '50s in the $900 neighborhood, or a bit higher when equipped with CD-ROM drives. The 1400 is no speedster either -- even the 133 and 166 Mhz versions, but it has a bigger monitor screen, that beautiful keyboard (best of any PowerBook), CD-ROM support, an upgradeable processor (to G3 with Newer Technology or Vimage upgrade cards, and 1400s are very easy to work on.

However, if a 5300 is what you can afford and you don't need an internal CD-ROM in a laptop, find yourself a nice example and enjoy.

My pick would be a c or ce with at least a 750 MB hard drive and 24 Mb or more RAM.


***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

PhoneBook Anyone?

Last week it was reported that PDA sales are in the toilet, so to speak, presumably being squeezed by a market pincer movement of booming a notebook computer sales and the skyrocketing popularity of smartphones like the iPhone and Research In Motion's Blackberry.

According to Ars Technica's Nate Anderson, citing IDC statistics, between the second quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of 2007, PDAs sales decreased by an astonishing 43.5 percent worldwide. Anderson reports that Dell is spinning down its Axim line of PDAs, and Fujitsu-Siemens has announced that it is exiting the PDA business.

Maybe Steve Jobs was right about the Apple Newton after all, although it would seem that he bailed out of the PDA sector too early, missing its strongest sales years.

Anyway, it seems that he's like hitting the nail on they head squarely with the iPhone and continued emphasis on Mac notebooks, although there is still a yawning void in Apple's portable computer lineup that was created by the discontinuance of the 12-inch PowerBook last year.

Another Ars Technica report, this time by Ken Fisher, notes that "the real story in PC sales is the ascendancy of the notebook computer. From 2004 to 2005, desktop PC sales only grew 7.7 percent then stayed flat the next year with less than a percentage point of growth. During that same period, notebook sales grew 35.8 percent and 28.4 percent. In 2007, notebooks are expected to outpace desktops in terms of percentage growth by a factor of almost 5."

Personally, while I've always appreciated that the PDA concept, especially the Newton, had some attractive qualities, it always seemed to me that a used PowerBook offered a lot more bang for the same buck, although not of course the same level of convenient compactness. For example, I've began to see 867 MHz and 1 GHz 12-inch PowerBooks offered for about five hundred dollars.

Apple's short-lived eMate 300, a Newton-based hybrid device that combined PDA engineering and features with a laptop computer form factor attempted to bridge the gap, but was handicapped by the limitations of the Newton operating system, and was only on the market for a year or so before Jobs pulled the plug on the entire Newton platform.

The eMate 300 was packaged in a rugged translucent aquamarine and black clamshell case with a 480x320 16-shade grayscale backlit LCD touchscreen display that could be used either Newton PDA style with a stylus or laptop-style with a built-in conventional keyboard, and came bundled with a suite of built-in software applications including a word processor, draw program, spreadsheet, graphing calculator, address book, calendar functions. It could also run hundreds of applications that had been developed for Newton 2.0. The eMate 300 also had TCP/IP capabilities for Internet and email access. Measuring 12.0" x 11.4" x 2.1" and weighing in at four pounds, the eMate was heavier than the new subnotebook Apple is believed to be working on is anticipated to be if and when it materializes. The eMate was lighter, but not smaller than either the contemporaneous subnotebook PowerBook Duos and PowerBook 2400s, or the 12" PowerBooks and iBooks that followed. It was, however, a lot cheaper than any PowerBook available at the time, selling for US$800.00, although that price would put it in the high end of the low end (PC) notebooks today.

It is tantalizing to speculate what the eMate would have been like had it been able to run a stripped-down version of Mac OS X on a color display like the iPhone does. Indeed, the iPhone's technology could very conceivably serve has the basis for a convergence machine combining capabilities and the respective best features of laptop computers and the iPhone. PhoneBook anyone?

I have no idea whether Apple has something like this in mind or not, but the new iMac's styling indicates that Apple isn't averse to incorporating iPhone themes into its computer products. I'm pretty confident that there will be a subcompact Apple notebook by the next Macworld Expo, or possibly even in time for the pre-Christmas buying season. A product that could do everything, or at least most of what the iPhone can do, but with a real keyboard, a computer-size display, and more storage capacity should have a ton of appeal I think. The risk of course would be the cannibalizing iPhone sales, but I think sooner or later the world is going to move toward even greater device convergence, and why shouldn't Apple be in the vanguard?

Of course, a counter argument is that you if you already have a laptop, then the actual phone communications function can be handled by an inexpensive (or even free) cellphone, and a computer with WiFi will give you a a lot more satisfying Web experience than you can have on the iPhone's diminutive screen - cool as it is for a cellphone.

Whether it turns out to be a "PhoneBook" or a MacBook Pro mini or nano, I'm guessing that we will see a new, subcompact notebook (hopefully running cool enough that we can call it a laptop again) by MacWorld Expo '08 in January, and it wouldn't surprise me if they got one out the door in time for the pre-Chriistmas sales season.

Last week MacNN and others reported that Apple has patented a retractable notebook port system with I/O ports that close to conserve space but flip down to provide access when needed, thus conserving space by recessing the various port connections into the body of the laptop. "Mobile devices such as notebook computers are becoming increasingly thinner," Apple observes in its patent filing of April 17, 2007 but first published last Thursday. "As a result, connections systems need to be reduced in size to accommodate smaller form factors... For example, a notebook computer may have a highly tapered chassis shape." Sounds very interesting. The connection system sounds like it might be at least conceptually reminiscent of the old PowerBook Duo Mini Dock.

The rumor mills are also predicting that the new baby notebook will have NAND flash RAM data storage a la the iPod nano and iPhone rather than a conventional hard drive, and be equipped with a 13" widescreen display, probably with LED backlighting, as was recently introduced on the 15" MacBook Pro. So maybe no touchscreen this time, bit it will be interesting to see how many iPhone features cross over to the new 'Book.


***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

The Road Warrior Mailbag - Monday, August 20, 2007

Apple Certified Refurbished Products

From The Road Warrior Archive - Books, Tiger, And The Sounds of Silence

Apple Certified Refurbished Products

From Robert Morgan

Hi Charles,

I can echo your experiences with ACR. Bought a Macbook for my father from ACR this spring and it was completely indistinguishable from new. And in the last week, the kids bought one pink and one blue iPod Shuffle. Again, completely as-new, the only difference being the packaging. I'd definitely recommend Apple refurbished products to all my friends.

- Robert

___

Hi Robert;

Thanks for the report.

Some friends of mine (family) recently bought two ACR MacBooks and an ACR iPod shuffle, and the same story.

As new condition and flawless performance at a substantial saving.

Charles

From The Road Warrior Archive - Books, Tiger, And The Sounds of Silence

Another thin late August mailbag this week, so here's yet another selection from The Road Warrior Archive, originally posted on JUne 14, 2005.

Just to bring things up to date on the topic, the 80 GB Toshiba hard driev in my 17" G4 PowerBook and the 100 GB Seagate drive in my latest Pismo acquisition (both 4200 RPM units) are reasonably quiet, but the silence chanp in my fleet remains the 20 GB HD in my G3 iBook, even after more than 4 1/2 years of use.

The cooling fans in the 17-incher run more than ever under OS 10.4.10, while the fans in the iBook and Pismos haven been heard from in more than two years now, since about the time this article was written.Instaling a modified processor heat sheild (Daystar part) proved the charm for the G4 upgraded Pismo. My quest for silent computing continues.

CM

***


‘Books, Tiger, And The Sounds of Silence [Originally published June 14, 2005]

Silence is golden, and their relative quietness is one of the reasons I’m partial to laptop computers. I say “relative,” because there is a fairly wide sonic range in my experience.

My first laptop, a PowerBook 5300, was pretty quiet. You were certainly aware that the 500 MB hard drive was spinning, but it made a not really unpleasant sound, and never got much more noisier with age and use. The 1 GB drive in an old PowerBook 1400 we picked up three years ago that my wife uses has similar audible characteristics.

Not so the 2 gigabyte IBM hard drive in my next PowerBook - a WallStreet. It was tolerably quiet when new, but quickly deteriorated in that department, and was pretty cacophonous by the time the machine was eighteen months old. Identical PowerBooks owned by my son and nephew manifested the same phenomenon, so it doesn’t seem to have been an isolated defective drive. The drive itself continued to work fine until I replaced it with a 10 GB Toshiba, which was whisper-quiet when new, but likewise became noisy after a few months of use. That drive is still in the computer, and still going strong, but I find the racket annoying.

My Pismo PowerBook came with a 20 gigabyte hard drive, also a Toshiba, and it remained satisfyingly quiet, even less intrusive than the little hard drives in the 5300 and 1400 had been. However, in March, 2004, I replaced the 20 GB unit with a 40 GB, 5400 RPM Toshiba, which was louder than I like from the get-go, and is not improving with age.

The most silent of my personal fleet of laptops (they’re all still around) is the 20 GB IBM/Hitachi drive in my G3 iBook, which is barely audible, and hasn’t gotten any noisier in 29 months of use. It’s not quite as quiet as the 5300 was running off a RAM disk (i.e.: dead silent save for keyboard clicking), but it’s close. Even closer is the 40 GB drive (I’m guessing it’s also probably an IBM) in the two-year-old 1 GHz 12-inch PowerBook of my friend Michael.

While my ideal remains completely silent computing (perhaps plasma drives someday?), these two 12-inch ‘Books are very satisfactorily quiet, and a salute to the IBM/Hitachi engineers who have succeeded in making them so. I can’t fault the Toshiba drives for dependability, but they’re definitely noisy critters by comparison.

Happily, laptop hard drive manufacturers are evidently placing more emphasis on quietness these days. Western Digital recently announced a new WD Scorpio line of 5400 RPM hard drives which it claims to be the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market, as well as having power consumption specifications similar to slower 4200 RPM drives, allowing longer battery life and increased overall reliability. The Scorpio’s quietness is thanks to Western Digital’s proprietary WhisperDrive technology with SoftSeek algorithms.

The WD Scorpio is available in 40, 60, and 80 GB capacities with either 2MB or 8MB buffer caches. The top of the line 80 GB Scorpio with 8 MB Cache lists for $179.99.

For more information, visit:
http://www.wdc.com/en/index.asp?Language=en

Another laptop hard drive with a reputation for quietness in the Hitachi Travelstar 80GN 4200rpm, ATA-6 hard disk drive available in capacities from 20 GB to 80 GB.

One of the quietest laptop hard drives available, the Hitachi Travelstar 80GN incorporates state-of-the-art Drive Noise Suppression System (DNSS) technology and Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) motor technology for exceptional idle and operating acoustic performance

For more information, visit:
http://www.hitachigst.com/

The other laptop noisemakers are cooling fans. The PowerBooks 5300 and 1400 have no fans, so it’s not an issue with them, and really had never been one with any of my laptops until I had G4 processor installed in the Pismo. More on that in a moment. The problem with making silent computers, of course, is that the more powerful processor chips become, the hotter they tend to run, and you have to cool them somehow.

The WallStreet has a fan, but the only times it ever came on in use over the past seven years were just prior to and during the original processor chip overheating and burning out back in August, 2002. The fan has never spun up since I replaced the processor card.

I assume that the iBook, a 700 MHz G3, has a cooling fan, but it has never cut in even once in 29 months. The Pismo’s fan was also uniformly silent until the G4 upgrade, and over the first 16 months of use since then it cut in less than half a dozen times, nearly all of them during hot summer weather. It sure is loud, though. The processor upgrade vendor, Daystar, retrofitted me with a replacement copper heat sink, replacing the his most original composite one.

Unfortunately, after I installed OS X 10.4 Tiger three weeks ago, the Pismo’s fan began spinning up as much as three or four times a day, and weather really hasn’t been that warm here yet. Daystar’s Gary Dailey says he has noticed that Tiger is putting more stress on the CPUs of the older systems, and that he assumes this is due to the lack of a suitable GPU for offloading the Core Image and Core Graphics calls.

That was something I was apprehensive about before installing Tiger, and a bit discouraging, but the solution seems to have been installing Daystar’s latest version 3.4 of their XLR8 MAChSpeed Control, CPU performance software, which incorporates incorporates a variety of tools for CPU/Cache configuration, profiling, testing and compatibility. At this writing, the Pismo’s fan has been quiet for more than nearly two weeks, even in long sessions with the processor working hard, leaving only that raucous Toshiba hard drive disturbing the sounds of silence. I can’t say for sure, but it seems as if the XLR8 MAChSpeed Control optimization helps the machine run cooler.

Speaking of which, another Tiger-related audible intrusion is the Spotlight search feature’s obsessive indexing of saved content. Spotlight is cool, but it does add another element of noise creation.

If your ‘Book’s fan has been cycling more frequently than you prefer (for me that means cycling at all), then the XLR8 MAChSpeed Control might be worth trying, even if you don’t have a processor upgrade. The software supports all single CPU G3, G4 and G5 systems and upgrade cards within Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X.

MAChSpeed Control is sold in versions for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and combo packages, and is a relatively inexpensive utility, priced as follows:

MAChSpeed Control - OSX 3.4 $ 16.95

MAChSpeed Control - OS9 2.8 $ 9.95

MAChSpeed Control - OSX/OS9 3.4/ 2.8 $ 19.95

Include Postage Paid CD - $ 24.95

Additional information on Daystar Technology and XLR8 can be found via the Daystar website at:
http://daystartechnology.com/about/
and
http://daystartechnology.com/news/


CM


***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

The Road Warrior Review - Apple Certified Refurbished iPod nano 2GB

I'm becoming a big fan of Apple Certified Refurbished products. Eighteen months ago, I purchased an ACR 17" PowerBook G4, which has proved to be a flawless performer as my number one production machine since then. Last fall we bought my daughter an ACR iPod mini, which has likewise been a completely satisfactory purchase, so a few weeks ago when I wanted to buy my wife an iPod for her birthday, my first shopping stop was The Apple Store's Refurbished iPod page, where I found Certified Refurbished silver iPod nano 2 GB units offered for a friendly $99, or CAN$105 - a very decent discount off the new price of US$149.00 for this model. I stopped shopping and ordered one.



Although I ordered from the Apple Canada online Apple Store, the unit was shipped from California, and delivered to my door for free, which made the purchase experience convenient and painless.

The nano came in Apple's no-frills plain brown cardboard ACR packaging, and when opened was indistinguishable from a new unit, wrapped in plastic protective film with no cosmetic flaws and the packet of cables, etc. presumably brand new as well.
Having never bought a new iPod, I had no frame of reference to compare the ACR packaging first-hand with the fancier new product box, but there was certainly nothing to complain about.

Included were a set of Apple earbuds, a USB connector cable, an iPod dock adapter, and a very minimal quick start sheet of instructions, as well as even a couple of white Apple logo decals. Nothing second-class about it so long as you don't mind the brown cardboard box.

The little nano worked just fine too. The bright little 1.5" color display is very bright and attractive compared with the monochrome display in my old 1st Gen 5 GB iPod, and the size difference between the two machines is so striking, it's almost amusing. The original iPod seemed amazingly small for what it did back in 2001, but the nano at 3.5" x 1.6" x 0.26" and featherweight 1.41 ounce heft is in a whole 'nother dimension of compactness.

That makes it extremely convenient to carry, and I'm always fascinated by miniature devices. However the downside is that bright and sharp though it is, that nano color display is pretty tiny, especially for displaying pictures.

I also find the nano's proportionately sized skin capacitance actuated control console awkwardly small. I would probably get used to it, but I have to say that I'm partial to the big (?) ol' mechanical clickwheel and control buttons on my dinosaur iPod.

On the other hand, I'm convinced already that solid state flash memory makes particularly good sense in an iPod. With my old 'Pod, I'm always uneasily conscious that there is a mechanical hard drive spinning inside when the unit is operating, with the inevitability of normal wear and the potential for a head crash. The nano, conversely, feels reassuringly solid, as it of course is with its anodized aluminum case and NAND flash memory with no internal moving parts.

This nano has less than half the capacity of even my old 5-Gig unit, but I don't anticipate that my wife will run out of space anytime soon. I loaded up her favorite (mostly classical) albums and used up less than three-quarters of the 2 GB capacity. Indeed, I still have about a gig and a half of free space left on my iPod's 5 GB HD. Photo storage would of course burn up storage space fast, but I don't see the nano as being especially well-suited as a slideshow machine anyway.

And if you want more storage capacity with the nano's tiny form factor and solid state memory, up to 8 GB is available, for $249.00, which is still less than half what my 5 GB 'Pod sold for back in '01.

The nano's battery charges very quickly (Apple says it charges to 80 percent capacity in just an hour and a half), and up to 24 hours of battery life is claimed.

I found setting up the iPod (I wanted to present it to my wife loaded up with her favorite music and ready to go out of the box) slick and easy, at least after I got past the roadblock of iTunes compatibility. I had been happily getting along with iTunes 4, which supports my old iPod just fine, but the nano requires iTunes 7 or later. Bummer. As regular The Road Warrior readers may recall, I'm stuck with a very slow (26,400 bps throughput on good days) rural dialup connection, and iTunes 7.0.3 is a 34 MB download.... which crapped out when it was about three-quarters completed (about 5 hours in). Sigh.

Then it dawned on me that a friend had included a copy of the iTunes 7.0 installer on a burned CD with one of the OS 10.4 updates he'd mailed me a while back, so I was in business in a few minutes once I twigged to that.

An aside; I'm not that smitten with iTunes 7. It works fine with both iPods, but seems to have lost the capability of playing my MIDI file collection which worked just fine with iTunes 4. Uber-bummer.

I do miss FireWire connectivity. I understand the reasons why Apple has dropped FireWire support on the iPod, but I still consider it superior to USB 2.0. Incidentally, while the iPod nano doesn't officially support USB 1.1, the unit will charge from a USB 1.1 port, and can transfer files that way as well, albeit very slowly.

Anyway, my wife is delighted with her new iPod, and I'm a bit envious, although my old 'Pod still serves my requirements satisfactorily. When I do get around to replacing it, will I go with a nano? I'm still on the fence about that. I love the compactness and just plain coolness of the nano form factor, and I expect I would get used to the undersized controls. I like the flash memory too except for the limited capacity. Not a problem for music for my purposes, but having my photo collection on an iPod appeals, and I would want a bigger display and larger than 8GB storage capacity for that purpose.

Whichever way I go, I'm pretty sure it will be an Apple Certified Refurbished unit.

If you're not familiar with Apple's Certified Refurbished products, here are the broad strokes. Apple Certified Refurbished Products are pre-owned Apple products that undergo Apple's stringent refurbishment process prior to being offered for sale. These products have been returned under Apple's Return and Refund Policies. While only some units are returned due to technical issues, all units undergo the full quality refurbishment process.

Each Apple Certified Refurbished Product:

* is fully tested (including full burn-in testing).
* is refurbished with replacement parts for any defective modules identified in testing.
* is put through a thorough cleaning process and inspection.
* is repackaged (including appropriate manuals, cables, new boxes, etc.).
* includes the operating software originally shipped with the unit and the custom software offered with that system. See each products "Learn More" for more details.
* is given a new refurbished part number and serial number.
* is placed into a Final QA inspection prior to being added to sellable refurbished stock.

Refurbishment procedures follow the same basic technical guidelines as Apple's Finished Goods testing procedures, and ACR Products are covered by the same 12-month Apple warranty that applies to new Apple products, and are also eligible for extended AppleCare coverage up to two years from purchase (three years for Mac products).

iPod nano System requirements:
• USB 2.0 port
• Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later
• iTunes 7
• Internet connection

Product Details

• Model Refurbished iPod nano


• Storage and song capacity 2GB (500 songs)


• Battery life Up to 24 hours of music playback; up to 5 hours of slideshows with music


• Display 1.5-inch (diagonal) color LCD with LED backlight


• Ports Dock connector, stereo minijack


• Connectivity USB through dock connector


• Charge time About 3 hours (1.5-hour fast charge to 80% capacity)


• Audio support AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF


• Photo support Syncs iPod-viewable photos in JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PSD (Mac only) and PNG formats


• Size (in inches) 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.26 inches


• Weight 1.41 ounces


• Included accessories Earphones, USB cable, dock adapter

For more information, visit:
http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/



***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

From The Road Warrior Archive - Goldilocks, Aristotle, And The Three PowerBook Form Factors

No The Road Warrior Mailbag this week because there were no reader questions or comments. It's high summer, August is nearly half-over, and the outdoors beckons. I've been sneaking off to the beach myself.

In lieu of a Mailbag, here's another selection from The Road Warrior Archive, this on first published on March 28, 2000.

With the debut of the new aluminum & glass iMac last week, and the iPhone phenomenon, the main topic of discussion in this column still has topicl relevance seven+ years later. There is also some speculation about the then unreleased G4 PowerBook (Pismo was state of the art at the time) ans some ruminations on buying refurbished. The Apple Certified Refurbished experience has improved a lot since then, and these days I'm an unequivocal fan of buying refurbished.

CM

***

Goldilocks, Aristotle, And The Three PowerBook Form Factors

(Originally Published in The Road Warrior, March 28, 2000)

Actually there are only two PowerBook form factors these days, which is what I want to talk about in this column. Should Apple make a smaller (and maybe even a bigger) 'Book?

In the childrens' story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks visits the bruin family's home while they are out and engages in a comparison selection process of determining sort of an Aristotelian "golden mean" in terms of chair size, porridge temperature, and so on.

Aristotle argued that the highest good must be rational action which is distinguished by avoidance of extremes and maintenance of balance, ergo: analytical constructs like:

too much - just enough (golden mean) - too little
cowardice - courage - rash/foolish
servility - friendliness - surlyness
miserliness - generosity - extravagance

Or, as Goldilocks observed, chairs and beds could be:
too big - just right - too small
and porridge could be:
too hot - just right - too cold

The golden mean paradigm works very well for many things, although concepts like justice, for instance, do not fit it well. An excess of justice is not possible, and advocating "moderation in all things" can be problematical if "all things" include qualities like honesty, kindness, and virtue.

Goldilocks was an Aristotelian, and so, apparently is Steve Jobs when it comes to portable computers, since Apple has settled on a sort of size and weight "golden mean" in the six to seven pound range -- not the biggest laptops on the market, and certainly not the smallest, but basically one size fits all. As with virtue and justice, I don't think Aristotle's golden mean applies very well as the last word in PowerBook form factors.

What sparked this philosophical reverie was an email from regular Road Warrior reader Luis Vincent, who recently sold his iBook and replaced it with an iMac and possibly a Palm III.

Luis notes that "The iMac's faster hard drive and higher screen resolution seems to outperform the iBook in PhotoShop work by a considerable margin. I very much like the iBook but for one thing: weight. This takes us to the hole in Apple production: the iPalm some of us want become reality

"I've been trying the Palm lately, and I like it even more with each use. You can download the complete works of H.G. Wells to read on the road -- my brother did it! -- and read/type your email when needed on the train, the bus or sitting on a rock at the top of the mountain. And the Graffiti works better than I thought, only slow in comparison with keyboards for touch typist. A bit disturbing is the poor support for USB Macs; more expensive than Wintels or legacy-serial-ports-Macs because you need to buy a separate interface."

The Palm is a great little number -- sort of like a Mac Plus running System 6 in a handheld form factor, and as Luis notes, rumors persist about a possible iPalm offering from Apple. Which would be great, but it would not plug the other hole that has been gaping in Apple's portable lineup since the PowerBook 2400c was discontinued -- a small, lightweight, but reasonably full-featured laptop for serious road warriors. The iBook, as Luis discovered, is simply too heavy and bulky for lugging around comfortably on a regular basis. It's even larger and heavier than its "big" brother, Pismo. Both if these computers are really more like portable desktop replacements than "notebook" analogs., while the Wintel world has a mouth-watering selection of sleek, ultrathin, PC subnotebooks that sell like crazy.

If course, the downside of these little beauties is the sobering reality of Windows inside, but with several of the Linux versions becoming more and more user-friendly, and new Linux software like Corel's WordPerfect 2000 Office suite available, the "slim" PC notebooks become more compelling, even for longtime Mac-heads.

At Apple's Stockholders' meeting in early 1999, Steve Jobs noted that: "We're always trying to build lighter laptops, but we're pulled in some different directions." Mr. Jobs allowed then that ultimately there might be three distinct laptop markets: one for a low-cost consumer model, one for professionals who want a full-featured model that can do everything; and one for "digital road warriors who just want something light so they can get e-mail in their hotel rooms."

Apple has two of those bases nicely covered, but the third is still wide open. Admittedly, if an "iPalm" is in the offing, it would technically meet Mr. Jobs' "something light so they can get e-mail in their hotel rooms," description, although I think that what a lot of potential PowerBook customers would prefer is an "eBook" ("executive PowerBook") more along the lines of the thin PC notebooks.

At the other end of the size and weight spectrum, last week reader Jason Cobb wrote:

"Regarding the thread about smaller laptops. I guess that's great for many people, but personally, I'd like to see a larger format laptop from Apple. I think a Cinema display would fold over a full size extended keyboard quite nicely. I really hate simple tiny keyboards, and I need all the screen real estate I can get for non-linear editing apps. Plus there would be more space for batteries, expansions, etc. Yes, it would be heavier and not as compact, but that's a trade off I could happily live with. And imagine how great DVD movies would look on a 16:9 aspect ratio display on your laptop!"

In The Road Warrior Mailbag, I replied:

Larger form factor laptop? Fascinating idea. Sort of like a modernized Mac Portable. The caveat here would be the cost of a large screen LCD versus the limited market for such a machine.

"Perhaps more apropos would be a small desktop CPU unit in the tradition of the old LC III/LC 475/Quadra 605 coupled to a standard KB and an LCD monitor. The G4 tower is cool, but awfully bulky."

However, in thinking more about this interesting idea over the past week, it has occurred to me that a great, big PowerBook like that would actually be ideal for the sort of use I put my 'Books to for the most part -- if I could afford one. I really like small laptops, but in practical terms, I really don't lug mine around much, so a machine with a big screen and an extended keyboard would make sense.

When I ran this idea past my PowerBook guru son, Tristan, he noted that I had missed an important point in my reply to Jason Cobb -- that a smaller desktop CPU doesn't address the issue of self-contained portability. He thought that the gonzo PowerBook idea was great, and suggested that including a built-in graphics tablet (possibly integrated with the trackpad?) would also be a cool idea as well.

Now let's see; 22 inch cinema display, 105 key keyboard, graphics tablet, say -- a G4 750 MHz processor, some PCI slots, and a battery large enough to power all this stuff; I expect that we might be looking at the PowerBook 5300ce losing its status as the most expensive PowerBook ever. I'll bet they could sell enough of these to make it worth their while, though.

On the other hand, I imagine that Goldilocks and Aristotle might find such a machine falling outside the golden mean.

***

The PowerBook G4 Speculation Mill Cranks Up

Turning to other matters, the rumor mill is turning out some very early scuttlebutt about the next PowerBook, which I would be very surprised to see introduced before MacWorld San Francisco next January

In his ZDNet column last week, go2Mac.com's Jason O'Grady suggests that Pismo's successor may be named "Mercury," or "PowerBook 2000" and should -- yes folks -- be equipped with a G4 processor. The new 'Book may also feature an enhanced touchpad with pen-based input and mappable hot spots to trigger scripts or macros. Jason also speculates that the new PowerBook may also have a luminous keyboard similar to Timex's IndiGlo technology, which will sound like a gimmick only if you have never tried hunt and peck typing in the dark.

The G4 processor for portables will not be the same unit used in desktop machines, but rather something more analogous to the PPC 603e relative to the bigger, more powerful desktop-only 601 and 604 chips.

However, it's very early days yet as far the G4 Powerbook is concerned, and I expect that Pismo will be state of the art in PowerBooks for nine more months. I also think that a faster G3 chip might make better sense as the next PowerBook's processor rather than a G4, but what do I know?

Refurb Ruminations

From time to time in this column I have advocated refurbished higher-end PowerBooks as a value alternative to buying a new entry-level machine. I still think this makes sense, but a recent article by PowerBook Central's Stephen Hildreth, reviewing reader refurb-purchase experiences, indicates that if you're buying a refurb unit, even if it's an Apple-refurbished machine, it pays too be cautious.

Dispatches from the refurb. front include:

• A WallStreet G3 250 (13.3 inch model) with the four screws that hold the display assembly in place missing and six bad pixels that would randomly appear and vanish. There were also visible scratches on the case, and the ports "looked as though they had been previously abused by a busy multimedia agency. The screws were replaced by an authorized dealer, but the bad pixels, which were located in the center 50% of the screen, were said to be within spec. The customer eventually opted to return the PowerBook to the vendor for a refund, since there were no exchange units in stock, which the reader cites as the biggest problem with refurb units. "If there's something wrong with the computer that fate deals you, you're probably out of luck, depending on the [limited] supply and your merchant's return policy."

• Another PowerBook Central reader ordered a PowerBook G3 300/CD but received a 292. When he called the supplier to complain, they tried to tell him that the 292 was really a 300 . He eventually opted to keep 292, since 300s were out of stock, giving hope for gaming because the 292 cannot switch resolutions.

• A reader I ordered a refurbished G3 300, but when it arrived it read G3 266 on the bottom and had a couple scratches on the case. There was a 300 MHz processor and 8 gigabyte hard drive inside -- possibly a machine cobbled together from 300 guts and a 266 case. The customer returned the mongrel 'Book "with some difficulty."

• A supposedly Apple-refurbed PowerBook G3 300 DVD laptop arrived with the DVD PC card missing. The reseller said it was Apple's responsibility. Apple told the customer they had no record of the serial number of that computer, and had not refurbed this laptop, and there was no warranty on this machine. There were also dead pixels which could not be massaged out. The reseller then told him that the machine had been rebuilt FOR APPLE by Pinacor, and that he should call them. Pinacor informed them that they do not refurb for Apple, and that it is the reseller's obligation to call Pinacor, which does not deal with retail customers directly.

Things deteriorated into bad comedy from there. After two emails and three phone calls, a young reseller's rep called and assured him that the "missing product would be sent ASAP." When asked which product he was referring, the rep admitted he didn't know. Three days later, the rep told the customer he had given his resignation notice, and that he would call in a couple of days as a courtesy. He never called. The customer returned the PowerBook and ate the shipping and insurance cost.

I wouldn't let these bad experiences of others completely dissuade me from looking for refurbished PowerBook bargains, but I would suggest getting a clear undertaking from the reseller about return policies and warranties up front, and be prepared to walk away if you're not satisfied with what you hear. Caveat emptor.

***

cmoore@macopinion.com

Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

My Big Al PowerBook At 18 Months

The Apple Certified Refurbished 17" PowerBook G4 1.33 MHz I bought in February, 2006 is now 18 months old (in its service life); half-life for the average computer as a front-line machine, and historically, I've found that the 18 month mark tends to be about when the itch to upgrade systems begins to set in. However, not this time.

As regular readers know, I love my Pismo PowerBooks, of which I now own two, but I have to say that this big 17" machine is simply the best computer I've ever owned. I only which everything in life worked this well and was as trouble-free, and so far the upgrade itch is staying dormant. I'm in no hurry to move on.

I'm certainly more than happy and content with my decision 18 months ago to buy one more PowerPC 'Book rather than taking the plunge with a then just-introduced MacBook Pro, consistent with my "never buy Version 1/Revision A of anything conviction, and I ended up ordering a refurbished 1.33 GHz 17-inch PowerBook from TechRestore.

I had admired the Big Al PowerBook from the day Steve Jobs unveiled it at MacWorld Expo, 2004, and indeed currently the Intel 'Book that tempts me the most is the 17" MacBook Pro, but this 1.33 MHz PPC machine has not disappointed, and has been a more satisfactory ride than I had dared hope when I bought it.

At the time, another factor tipping the scales in favor of the 17-incher was Daystar's announcement of 1.92 and 2.0 GHz G4 processor upgrades for most 17-inch and 15-inch aluminum PowerBook models, which would provide a fallback if the stock, 1.33 GHz processor proved too lazy for my needs, but in service it hasn't. It's of course partly relative to what you're used to, and even a 1.33 GHz G4 represented a quantum leap forward in performance from the 700 MHz G3 iBook that preceded the BigAl as my production workhorse, and 18 months on I am still quite satisfied with the level of performance it offers. While more speed is always nice to have, I don't find myself waiting for the BigAl very often. My main computing speed bottleneck is my Internet connection - which provides 26,400 bps connections on good days. The latest word is that broadband should reach us here by sometime in 2009.

Actually, the PowerBook's internal modem was another reason I chose it instead of a modemless MacBook Pro. While a USB modem dongle is available for the MBP, it adds another CAN$70 to the purchase price and hogs a precious USB port, as well as being much less elegant than a built-in modem for folks like me who remain stuck in the dial-up slow lane of the information highway.

The still impressive roster of standard features on the 1.33 GHz Big Al has proved more than adequate for my needs, and then some, although I did get TechRestore to install a 1 GB RAM expansion stick, bringing the total memory up to 1.5 gigabytes, and if I were doing it today, I think I would go for the full 2 GB that is supported. I still find the 'Book slowing down due to pageouts after two or three days of uptime. I wish OS X had some provision for flushing the swapfile cache and clearing the memory without having to logout or reboot.

Speaking of uptime, I'm currently running OS X 10.4.10 on the PowerBook, and I went for nearly three weeks of production work on the initial 10.4.10 bootup without a restart. This version of Tiger has proved troublesome for some users (mainly on MacIntels) but it's the smoothest Tiger version yet on my BigAl.

Aside from the modest 512 megabytes of RAM soldered to its motherboard, the 1.33 GHz Big Al came pretty sumptuously equipped, with a RADEON 9600 graphics processor and 64 megabytes of video RAM, an 80 gigabyte hard drive, a SuperDrive, gigabit Ethernet, built-in Bluetooth, 802.11g wireless, FireWire 400 and 800, and USB 2.0. And of course there is that glorious, 1440-by-900 display. That resolution is nothing to get up in the night and write home about these days, and is now standard on the 15" MacBook Pro, but I've found it luxuriously expansive after years of working with 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600 Apple laptop displays.

This computer I got from TechRestore last year was an Apple Certified Refurbished unit in Apple's excellent ACR packaging (note: not all TechRestore refurbs are ACR units), complete with a new serial number, and it looked like a brand new machine, with no evident wear or cosmetic flaws. Indeed when I ran a battery check, it only showed a couple of charge cycles logged, so I guess it was essentially unused.

I liked the feel of the glossy-finished anodized aluminum Palm rests better than I thought I would, and this 'Book looks spectacular. I've gotten used to having the extra display space, but I have to say that it's the need for less scrolling rather than the width that appeals to me most. All that extra screen real-estate requires a fair bit of body English to navigate around. On any Mac laptop I routinely turn the trackpad tracking speed up to the maximum, and I've installed the third-party MouseZoom utility up to about 3x OS X's maximum mouse tracking speed, which helps.

The keyboard is very nice, although not quite as good as the superb one in my old PowerBook G3 Series WallStreet, and I'm not sure I even like it better than the keyboard in the Pismo. I was pleased that the trackpad button has a fairly light and positive action, compared with the heavy-effort ones in the WallStreet and Pismo , but the trackpad itself is not that great. Again, the WallStreet's is the best, and the Pismo edges the Big Als in this department as well.

I like having all of the I/0 ports on the sides of the computer, which I had already gotten used to with my iBook. The Big Al has them split up between opposite sides of the machine, and having a USB port on the right-hand side makes connecting short-corded mice less of a problem for right-handers. I do prefer a side-loading optical drives, and the front-loader in 15-inch and 17-inch PowerBooks gets obstructed by some laptop stands, such as my beloved Laptop Laidback, but in practice that hasn't been really much of an issue. I don't use optical disks that much, and the Pismos have an 8x and 4x SuperDrive expansion bay modules respectively, so I do most of my disk-burning on them anyway.

The 80 GB, 4,200 RPM hard drive, a Toshiba unit, is reasonably quiet, although louder than the all-but inaudible IBM drive in the iBook and the also quiet 100 GB Seagate unit in my "newest" Pismo, and has proved plenty commodious for my present needs and well into the future. I still have about 30 GB free.

The 17-inch PowerBook's size is both a strength and a shortcoming. It of course facilitates the big display, but also makes the package a bit bulky and heavy for serious road warrioring duty. I prefer the 12-inch iBook or PowerBook form factor in that context. The one inch thick dimension does make the 17-incher less cumbersome than it might otherwise be, and since this one is mostly used in desktop substitute mode, the scale tips toward having the extra screen real estate and less cramped confines for the Internal bits which theoretically at least should let them run cooler. I have been able to use the BigAl reasonably comfortably in the car with it perched on the Waterfield Racer X case I carry it in, but the iBook is much better suited to literal on-the-road road warrioring

Over 18 months, the 17" PowerBook has been virtually flawless in performance, with still zero problems to report. If a computer ever epitomized the old Apple "It just works!" slogan, this is it. Upgrading through several versions of OS 10.4 Tiger to the current OS 10.4.10 has been painless with no issues or problems encountered. This experience vindicates my decision to go with another PPC 'Book. I have little patience with or time for dealing with bugs and hardware problems, and this 'Book simply hasn't presented me with any.

My main, and virtually only complaint is heat, which of course is not a unique issue to this machine. the Big Al runs a lot hotter that I was used to with the Pismo and iBook, and the cooling fan cuts in fairly frequently, especially after a couple of days or more of uptime without a restart. This area is one that hasn't improved with the most recent Tiger builds, and I daresay the fan runs a bit more frequently since about version 10.4.9. The swapfile activity seems to heat up the internals. Objectively, at least in comparison with temperatures in the Intel 'Books, this 1.33 GHz G4 unit doesn't run all that hot - usually in the low-mid 50s Celsius. The cooling fan cuts in at 58.5° and switches back off at about 54°. The temperature comes down quite quickly once the fan is blowing, but it's a constant cycling routine that I find annoying. I hate fan noise. I keep the AlBook on a Road Tools Podium CoolPad most of the time, which I assume helps. A Targus Chillmat, which has its own (much quieter) cooling fans definitely makes the PowerBook run cooler, but I can't usually spare a USB port to plug it in (yes, I have a powered hub).

The issue I noted in my 12-month BigAl report, a strange "busy-noise" - sort of a crackling/rustling sound that seems to be coming from the area under the right-hand back of the keyboard, seems to have been addressed by the OSD 10.4.10 update.

So, any regrets that I didn't go with an Intel 'Book last year? None at all. My next system upgrade will almost certainly a MacIntel, although if I didn't already have this unit, I would find the 1.67GHz 17-inch PowerBooks TechRestore currently has posted at $1,399.99 very tempting. The early-production issues many early-adopters experienced with the first generation MacBooks and MacBook Pros would drive me nuts, and I'm still not ready to give up on Classic Mode for a couple of utilities for which I haven't found satisfactory OS X native equivalents. I really needed a faster computer by last February, and the refurbished Big Al has filled the bill nicely and economically, without the necessity of a cold-turkey shift to MacIntel and having to kiss Classic Mode abruptly goodbye, and with the welcome bonus of all those top-of-the-line PowerBook features. If I hadn't been running such aged hardware, I probably would have continued to ride it out until the Revision B MacBook Pros and MacBooks were available, refurbished (which they are now) but the timing of the MacIntel revolution caught me a bit flat-footed.

The BigAl has also convinced me that refurbished computers can be an excellent value for the money.

My advice 18 months later? There are still some pretty attractive deals available on refurbished PPC 'Books, and I've seen Apple Certified Refurbished 1.67 GHz 17" PowerBooks offered as cheaply as $1,299.00.

On the other hand, for someone contemplating the purchase of their first Apple laptop, the equation is more complicated. If you have no substantial investment in Power PC software, my recommendation would be to go MacIntel, which is the future, and it won't be long before PowerPC holdouts begin to be shut out of cool new software developments, something that has to be balanced against being shut out of cool older software that hasn't been taken universal binary or Intel-native. Everyone will have to make their own determination about that.

Meanwhile, I am now convinced that the 17-inch PowerBook is unquestionably one of the greatest Apple portables ever. I was skeptical that anything could top the dependable, trouble-free performance I've had from my Pismo PowerBook and the G3 iBook over the past seven years, but if this big AlBook can sustain the sterling standard of service it's given me over the past 18 months, it's on track to be my "best ever" Mac. It's everything I had dared hope for and more, and it could be this time next year before I make another move. We'll see how Leopard leaps on the old BigAL.

And my dream machine is now a 17" MacBook Pro. If and when I get one, I can only hope that it's as good as this PowerBook.


***



cmoore@macopinion.com


Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

The Road Warrior Mailbag - August 6, 2007

Jaguar question
re: Finessing The Computer Depreciation Game
Finessing The Computer Depreciation Game
Finessing Computer Depreciation
A Question and A MacObservation

___

Jaguar question

Hello Charles,

Greetings from down under. Hope this finds you well.

I have a question for you about OSX 10.2. Do you think that it is still a viable OS. I have a copy of 10.2.3 that I was thinking of putting on a clamshell 466 and an iBook 500 dual USB. The biggest issue was finding a decent browser for this OS. The only current one I have managed to find is Firefox. Do you know what is the most reliable/stable version of 10.2 ?

Also, does 10.2 take up less disk space than 10.3 ? and how do you rate 10.2 against 10.3 ? Both machines have measly 10 gig HD's with 384 RAM , so less is definitely better !

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards

Clive

___

Hi Clive;

OS 10.2 Jaguar is still a very capable operating system, although many newer applications have stopped supporting it.

However, if you don't have need of one of them, Jaguar can still do a good job for you, although I am more partial to OS 10.3 for older, slower systems that will supportn it because it's significantly faster, has more features, enjoys much broader application support, and if I recall correctly doesn't require a whole lot more hard disk space.

That said, a bird in the hand.....

Since you already have a 10.2 installer, by all means go for it. Should run just fine on your iBooks (but add some more RAM if you can manage it). I do suggest that you also download the OS 10.2.8 Combo updater (free) from Apple's software support site, as that it the defining version and there are quite a few third-party applications that cut off support at lower than 10.2.8.

Charles

***

Re: Jaguar question

From Clive Stuart

Thanks very much for that Charles. I installed 10.2.3 on my sisters clamshell 466. She was previously using 9.2.2 and thinks she has a new computer! She's very impressed with the look of it. I have put the latest version of Firefox on so that is a big improvement on Internet Explorer for 9.2.

I'm using 10.3.9 on my Pismo and it is terrific. The only issue I have is the modem clock on the taskbar. When you click "connect" It takes about 3 go's to get it to respond. Have you come across this issue before ?

best regards

Clive

___

Hi Clive;

Glad the Jaguar install went well. Don't forget to download the OS 10.2.8 Combo updater and bring it up to the ultimate Jaguar spec.

As for the Pismo menubar modem issue, both of my Pismos get frequent "misfires" when activating the modem. My abiding suspicion is that Apple didn't place a whole lot of emphasis on optimizing modem performance in OS X, and of course they no longer ship internal modems in new Macs. OS 9 modem response is much more refined.

However, it always works with a couple or three tries. Seems no better or worse in Tiger than it was in Panther.

Charles

***

re: Finessing The Computer Depreciation Game

From Dave Barnes

Charles,

You wrote: "The prospect of $5,000 or more in equity value evaporating as soon as I drive it off the dealer's lot is a powerful deterrent." That is just plain wrongheaded.

This article makes the point.

Driving the Lemon Myth Off the Lot
"In fact, the widespread perception that a new car loses substantial value as soon as a buyer drives it off the lot is really just a myth, as we shall see."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290898,00.html

Dave

___

Hi Dave;

I'm a fan of FOX News and a BIG fan of John Lott, but I'm unconvinced by his argument in this instance.

What I would suggest is buying a new car, driving it for a day or two, then attempting to trade it in or sell it and get your cost of purchase back. While $5,000 is a convenient round number, and maybe closer to reality here in Canada where the average new vehicle goes for about CAN$30,000 as opposed to somewhat less in dollar value in the U.S., I'm strongly convinced that you will drop equity by a number in the $thousands at least. Keep the car for six months and you'll be down by a lot more, unless it happens to be a model in high demand and short supply, in which case you might make money.

Getting back to my central point, I've owned more than 50 automobiles over the past 40 years, all of them purchased used, and I've suffered relatively little from depreciation. Concrete examples:

1973 Dodge Polara, purchased for $1,000, driven 18 months, ad received $900 on a trade-in allowance.

1977 Dodge D-100 pickup, purchased for $3,200, driven for six years and received $1,200 as a trade-in allowance.

Current vehicle, 1990 Toyota Camry, purchased for $2,400, driven (so far) nine years, estimated residual value $1,500.

Incidentally the total repairs for these three vehicles cumulatively during a 16 plus years of use would be well under $1,000 total.

Charles

***

Finessing The Computer Depreciation Game

From Robert Morgan

Hi Charles, enjoyed your article this week.

I agree with all your conclusions but would like to make one point that you didn't address. If you make your living using computers, the original cost and the ongoing depreciation is absolutely miniscule compared to the equipment you'd need to buy in most other professions. With that in mind, it's hard to argue against buying new and having the latest and greatest, when one will be using the computer every minute of every working day.

Having said that, and having followed that practice for a long time, I find that I don't need to replace my Rev A Macbook Pro, bought the first day they were announced. It's just too good. With a big Cinema display, bluetooth keyboard & mouse, for the first time ever I don't miss having a dedicated desktop.

- Robert

___

Hi Robert;

Thanks for your comment.

I probably average 10 hours per day (or more - gak!) on my Macs, but so far I'm entirely satisfied working on a 1.33 GHz G4 PowerBook. In fact I usually put in 2-3 hours daily on my 550 MHz G4 upfraded Pismo,

My criterion for system upgrades is when I'm beginning to be significantly slowed down by my computer. With my preceding number 1 production Mac, a 700 MHz iBook, the tipping point was at about 2.5-3 years. I'm just closing on 18 months with this PowerBook (purchased refurbished), and have no complaints so far about performance, although I probably won't make it past the three -year mark before finally moving up to an Intel 'Book.

Charles

***

Finessing Computer Depreciation

From cdonovan

It's great to see a smart user realizing the value in sitting out that first year or two of massive depreciation. Obviously, there is a whole cottage industry built up around selling used PCs, laptops and IT hardware. My firm sells $$,$$$,$$$s inused servers to clients that don't want to pay full price to Sun, HP or IBM on the enterprise level. These aren't just small businesses buying used gear either, Fortune500s rampantly buy used equipment, too.

Like you, I like the latest model for my main work PC, but for home and the kids, I buy something a year or two older and save.

cdonovan
http://www.vibrant.com
http://www.vibrant.com/used-servers.php

***

A Question and A MacObservation

Dear Mr. Moore;

Recently, I have come into a deeper understanding of the sacrifice Christ made for us, and I have to ask directly - are you 'Born Again'?

O.K., now that's out off my chest, here's my Mac-related iQuestion;
My wife LOVES watching this T.V. Show called 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'. I've noticed whenever they feature a laptop, suspiciously looks like an Apple TiBook. Doubtless because of the fear of camera-glare, they obscure the Mac Logo. Are there copyright legalities or just REFUSAL to give Macs credit?

Thank You Mr. Moore!

With love in Christ,
Anthony Connors

___

Hi Anthony;

First, to answer your question, short answer is yes, since I was 19, which was 37 years ago. I've been a member of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, which is part of the international Traditional Anglican Communion, since 1994. You can find out more about the TAC here, if you're interested:
http://www.acahome.org/tac/index.htm

For a longer answer, please check out this column I posted on Applelinks in April, 2001:
http://www.applelinks.com/mooresviews/credo.shtml

Some of the links no longer work, alas.

As to Apple products on T.V., Apple has been very successful with product placement over the years, such as in Felicity, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, Home Improvement, and countless other shows, on which the Apple logo has been prominently displayed.

However, I have noted the phenomenon you mention with Mac laptops and disguised Apple logos. I'm inclined to think it's not anti-Apple sentiment, but just a decision on the part of the director or producer to downplay display of product branding. I expect they would do the same with PC machines' logos.

There would be no copyright issue with the Apple logo being visible, because Apple deliberately makes sure that it is on every Mac 'Book.

In the Wikipedia entry on product placement, it is noted:

"...Apple Computer frequently places its products in films and on television, where they therefore seem much more common than in most real-world offices and homes. Apple has stated that it does not pay for product placement, though executives will not say how their products get into movies and onto TV. The most plausible argument may be that Apple computers appear to be more visually appealing than ordinary PCs. (Notably, recognizable Apple products have appeared in newspaper comic strips, including Opus, Baby Blues, Non Sequitur, and FoxTrot, even though paid placement in comics is all but unknown.) In a twist on traditional product placement, Hewlett-Packard computers now appear exclusively as part of photo layouts in the IKEA catalog in addition to placing plastic models of its computers in IKEA stores, having taken over Apple's position in the Swedish furniture retailer's promotional materials several years ago. Hewlett-Packard also put their computers in the US production of The Office, though it is likely that this was a purposeful choice, since offices rarely have Macintosh computers."

You might also find this Washington Post article interesting
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401670.html

Charles

*** cmoore@macopinion.com

Provisionally, you can access The Road Warrior Archive to Jan. 16, 2006 by clicking here.

Note: Letters to The Road Warrior may or may not be published in The Road Warrior Mailbag at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context.

If you would prefer that your message not appear in The Road Warrior Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published.

CM

Criticizing Criticisms, Part 5 of 5

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

No third party apps!
This is one of the biggest iPhone complaints, but notice it comes from developers and power users, not consumers. Most consumers never add anything to their phones, not even a ringtone. Few bother with third party software. (Smartphone users are a different category, so I'm not talking about them.)

Apple's argument is that cell phones are different from computers and need to be extremely reliable. A rogue program that takes down the phone could be disastrous. (Steve Jobs even implied a program could take down AT&T's network, which is a stretch. Though maybe a deliberate attempt to do that could be possible -- i.e. via a virus that attacks the network.)

So for now Apple is only going to allow third party development via mobile Safari -- web apps. This has infuriated and frustrated the development community. They have been wanting to make iPod apps for years and Apple never allowed that, and now Apple's blocking iPhone apps?

However, the biggest advantage of the iPhone for Apple is that it is based on Mac OS X. This not only gives Apple a robust foundation, but it really means that the iPhone is a way of expanding the Apple market. First their was Mac, then there was iPod, and now there's iPhone. We've all heard about the huge accessory market for the iPod, and Apple benefits tremendously when companies make their products iPod compatible as it reinforces the dominate product. Apple now has the chance to extend that same dominance into a new market. With accessories -- and eventually software -- the iPhone could be larger than the Mac market.

Thus I believe that Apple will allow third party development. But Apple is going to do this cautiously. It will not happen right away. First Apple wants to get the product out there, get people using it, get an update or two out to fix any issues and stabilize the platform, and then we'll see some kind of developer program announced. One theory is that it won't happen until after the 3G and other versions of iPhone are released. Others think -- or hope -- Apple's just waiting until Leopard is out, because iPhone development might be contingent upon certain Leopard features. (There are some indications that iPhone's OS is be a version of Leopard, which would explain why Leopard's engineers had to delay it to work on the iPhone.)

What form that developer program will take, we don't know. It could be an extremely limited program where only a handful of companies pay big licensing bucks (millions) to be allowed into Apple's inner iPhone circle. Or it could be broader, where companies sign up to sell programs via iTunes (similar to iPod games) and Apple tests and certifies the programs. Apple would keep a percentage of the sale price for the service. Or perhaps it'll be open so that anyone can create programs, like on other mobile platforms. Who knows?

While I am tremendously excited about the long-term potential of the iPhone, I'm already impressed with what's available already via mobile Safari. First off, many small applications already exist as websites. For instance, when my mom got her iPhone she had just gotten back from France and was asking me about the conversion rate of Euros to dollars. I could have used a widget on my Mac, but instead I turned to the iPhone. I knew it didn't have a built-in conversion widget (yet) so I went to Google and found a conversion website and bookmarked it. Now when she needs to convert funds, she can just bring it up. Not as convenient as a built-in app and it requires Internet access to function, but still useful.

Dozens of cool iPhone applets and games are already available, and there are thousands of iPhone-optimized websites and portals. The phone's only been out a month -- just imagine what the iPhone platform will look like in a year!

So the bottom line is that third party apps are not crucial for the iPhone, not yet. They are important -- vital, even -- for making the iPhone a true third platform for Apple. But it's also important that Apple controls the process and doesn't allow the iPhone to become the wild west like the horrible Windows marketplace.

No wireless syncing!
I've heard a few pundits complain about this one and it's got me scratching my head. Now there are two types of wireless syncing. The first makes no sense to me: syncing music and photos wirelessly, buying iTunes music, etc. Why on earth would I want to do that?

First, if I buy music, I can do that on my computer. An iPhone's useless without a computer (just like an iPod), so it's not like a regular phone that operates on its own. The computer is much more appropriate for complex tasks like buying music, and it's more secure, too. Second, music and photos are large -- gigabytes worth -- so why would I want to sync that stuff wirelessly? I need to plug it in to charge it anyway, so it's not a big deal. Wireless updating is complicated to do right and I only see it benefiting a handful of users.

On the other hand, there's another kind of wireless syncing: real-time updating of calendar and contact information. Wouldn't it be great if any time you made a change to your schedule on your main computer it was instantly reflected on your iPhone? This automatic sync would happen over WiFi or Edge -- whatever connection your phone has available.

A good example of this is my aunt, who's a consultant who is pretty much constantly on the road. My uncle is sort of her manager, and sets up her schedule, books her flights, arranges her hotels, etc. But he's at home making changing to her schedule on the home computer. It would be really neat if that stuff automatically updated on her phone wherever she was.

I can see many businesses where this kind of relationship happens (one person on the road, another at the office). Apparently some other smartphone products support this, and for those people and iPhone won't cut it right now.

But I bet this is coming. It might be via .Mac or some other method, but I bet Apple's working on it.

In the meantime, there are online calendars you can use, or there's email. It's not ideal, but if this isn't a must-have feature, the iPhone's got plenty of ways to work around this limitation.

Conclusion
The iPhone as it is today is not for everyone -- that should be expected. It's brand new. If it doesn't meet your needs because you need a particular feature then don't buy it. What I resent are journalists and pundits who try to tell the public that no one should buy it because of this or that limitation. That's just wrong. The iPhone may not do everything yet, but it does the main things most people want it to do -- and it's just going to get better.

macopinion@designwrite.com

Criticizing Criticisms, Part 4 of 5

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

There's no spam filter on the email.
There's no filtering of any kind on the iPhone, let alone spam filtering. I wish it did as I love automatic sorting of my emails into folders, but it's not that big a deal. I get hundreds of emails a day to my various accounts but I don't want to deal with all those on my iPhone anyway, so it makes more sense to me to set up a separate email account and forward just the most critical to the iPhone. By doing that I can use my desktop's spam filtering and reduce the number of emails I end up with on my iPhone.

Besides, most people don't get that many emails. This is the kind of thing that only effects power users, and those are exactly the kind of people who know how to set up additional email accounts and other workarounds. Not a deal-breaker.

There's no search within the contacts list.
I've heard of business users who have thousands of contacts on their phones. Finding a particular person can be awkward since the iPhone only lets you jump to names starting with a particular letter. This is not a big deal with only a few hundred people as that might mean you only have 10 or 20 names in each alphabetical letter to look through. But if you have thousands of contacts, that could mean hundreds of names that begin with "S," for instance. That's a lot to scroll through to find the right person.

Still, this is not a problem that will effect most people, who have a reasonable number of contacts. I'm confident Apple will add a simple searching system in an update, but in the meantime, it's not going to bother the majority of iPhone users. Also, iPhone does support contact groups -- so you could set up smaller subsets of contacts (i.e. family and friends, categories of business contacts, etc.) which would help reduce the number of contacts you have to browse through to find someone.

There's no video recording.
This falls under the "nice to have but not essential" category in my mind. But then, I've never even had a cameraphone, let alone a vidphone, so what do I know. But I seriously doubt the lack of video recording would stop someone from buying an iPhone.

It's also possible that this is a feature Apple could add with a software update. After all, video's merely a sequence of still photos. But the quality may not be very good if the iPhone's camera is not really designed for video recording (though rumor has it that the iPhone's camera is very similar to the iSight camera in most Macs), but either way I wouldn't exactly be planning to use the iPhone for your next home movie.

Office documents are read-only!
Before the iPhone launched the world was horrified to think that the iPhone couldn't even read Word files. Then, when it was revealed that it could, people started complaining that it couldn't edit them! Where does it stop?

Do you really want to be editing complicated desktop files on your handheld device? Okay, sure, in a pinch it might be nice to make a correction or addition, so I can see the long-term value, but I can also see why Apple left that functionality out of iPhone 1.0. Perhaps it'll come from Apple or from a third-party down the road, but for right now I don't think enough people see Office editing as a critical feature. Certainly regular people aren't too concerned. Smartphone users might see this as a deal-breaker, but then the iPhone isn't targeting traditional smartphones -- it's focusing on the broader consumer market.

I can't use my iPhone as a modem!
First all the complainers moan about the slow speeds of Edge, then they complain because they can't use the iPhone's Edge connection with their laptop! One reporter wrote that he didn't like having to pay extra for Internet at hotels and liked being able to use his cell phone as a modem.

I must not stay at expensive enough hotels. When I travel, I make it a policy to only stay at places with free WiFi (often a Motel 6 or the local equivalent). If they don't have it, I don't stay, it's as simple as that. I was shocked to learn that some pricey hotels actually charge extra for Internet service. I wouldn't stand for that. That's ridiculous.

I can see how an iPhone-as-modem would be useful in a pinch, but I imagine this is low-priority for Apple. I'm not surprised it didn't make the 1.0 release. AT&T might not be too happy about it either as they might think it's abusing their network. I wouldn't hold your breath for this, but it might be added in the future.

In the meantime, there are hacks to allow this. Right now they are rather complicated, but like all hacks, there will eventually be a simple way to enable this even if Apple doesn't officially support it.

But iPhone doesn't run Program X, which my current Smartphone does and I have to be able to run that program!
Come on, it's unfair to compare the brand new iPhone, out for a month, against long-standing smartphones that have been around for years with tons of software. Those phones all started out with no software, too. Obviously the iPhone will get better and better. Give it a chance. Don't bash it just because it's not as mature as existing phones.

macopinion@designwrite.com

Criticizing Criticisms, Part 3 of 5

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

The iPhone's battery is built-in and can't be replaced by the user. The whole phone must be sent to Apple for an $80 replacement!
Another ridiculous issue. People have griped about this with iPods for years and it hasn't effected sales. Apple choses to go this route for reasons of design and form factor. A removable battery complicates a device's case considerably as it has to have a clasp and the battery itself needs to plug into a connector. An iPhone would have to be thicker to accommodate a user-replaceable battery.

As long as the original battery is well-built and the iPhone gets decent battery life, why is this a problem? For iPods, third parties have come up with simple home-replacement kits that are under $20 -- and there are services that will replace your battery for you for a reasonable fee (much cheaper than Apple's plan). I'm sure these same companies will offer similar products and services for the iPhone. It's nothing we have to be worried about right now as Apple has stated that during the phone's one year warranty the battery will be replaced for free if it holds less than an 80% charge.

Even if you fully drain and charge your iPhone every single day (highly unlikely), the battery's supposed to last for 400 full cycles, which is more than a year (and "last" means that it holds at least 80% of a charge, not that it dies completely after the 400 cycles). If you just trickle charge your iPhone, topping it off as it needs it, that does not count as a full charge. Therefore I would guess heavy users might need a full charge 3-4 times a week -- which is about two years.

If you're worried about the battery being a problem in that second year, you can check out Apple's AppleCare extended warranty for the iPhone. For just $69 (less than a battery replacement through Apple) your iPhone's battery is covered for two years. However, it is worth reading the fine print in the legal documentation, as the battery will only be replaced for free under AppleCare if it holds less than 50% of a charge (not the 80% of the one year warranty).

If that's not enough, get one of the many battery packs offered for iPods. These packs hold regular 9-volt or AA batteries and attach via the iPod dock connector. Most work with the iPhone and extend the phone's battery significantly -- certainly enough for a critical phone call or three. You can also use just about any of the iPod charging systems on the market to charge your phone in a car or from a laptop computer.

Most critics have been positive about the iPhone's battery life -- it lasts much longer than most predicted. (I only need to recharge mine every two or three days, and I do a lot of WiFi web surfing on the thing.) Yeah, having to deal with a sealed battery is annoying -- but it's not that big a deal. Apple even offers an iPhone rental (for $29) for you to use while yours is being fixed. And since your iPhone's entire contents are backed up when you sync and can easily be restored to the rental, the loaner phone is exactly like your own! (A temporary phone an alternative is to use your iPhone SIM card in your original AT&T cell phone, if you had one. It won't have your contacts or other information, but should work on AT&T's network for making and receiving calls.)

8GB isn't enough storage!
Perhaps for you it isn't. Everyone's media needs are different. Judging from the sales of Apple's iPods, however, with lower capacity memory-based units outselling the hard drive ones, most people are happy to make the less-storage-smaller-device trade-off. I have a 30GB iPod and I don't have enough media to fill it. While it's nice to have that extra space for expansion, I really don't need 700 hours of music at a time. I simply created a few iPhone smart playlists that copy over my all-time favorites and a few random songs to the iPhone and I'm golden. In fact, I probably would have been fine with just 4GB -- but I opted for the 8GB because the cost difference was negligible and I figured the resale value of the smaller model would be considerably less in the long run.

You can't add memory to the iPhone -- there's no expansion slot!
You know, expansion slots are one of those things that sound great but few people actually use. Most people either never add memory to their phones or they buy a memory card and fill the slot and never remove the card. In either case the slot is not really being used as a slot. That is, the removable card isn't being used as sort of a floppy disk for moving data around. Perhaps a handful of power users do swap cards, but most people don't. So how is that different from buying an iPhone with a preset amount of memory?

Memory card fans like to say that with an expansion slot they can buy just the amount of memory they want instead of being limited to preset amounts defined by the manufacturer. But come on: is there really any cost advantage to being able to choose between .5GB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 6GB, or 8GB compared to 4GB or 8GB with the iPhone? Do we really need all those confusing choices?

The real reason phone manufacturers put in memory slots is so they can lowball the amount of memory in the phone and cut their costs. They ship phones with paltry amounts of memory, like 32MB or 64MB -- and expect you to stick in a GB card. But of course the cost of that card is never included in pricing comparisons, so their phone looks cheaper than one like the iPhone that has the memory built-in.

Another problem with phones with low memory is that since most people don't bother upgrading -- either out of ignorance, fear, or cheapness -- the phone's performance suffers. The phone's software must be written to work with the tiny amount of built-in memory as you cannot assume the user will add more. Apple, by knowing all iPhones have at least 4GB, is free to create much more powerful software without worrying that users have not expanded the memory as they should have.

The bottom line is that while a few people would like an expansion slot, the vast majority of people would never use it -- so why include it just for those few that are technical enough to deal with memory cards?

The iPhone's headphone jack is recessed! It's the end of the world!
Oh come on -- you bought an iPhone and can't afford $7 for an adapter? Big whoop. I don't know why this is even a complaint: I'd choose the iPhone's sleek design and form factor over a non-recessed headphone jack any day.

Yeah, I do think Apple should have just included a free adapter with the phone. It would have eliminated this one source of complaints and it would have been less frustrating to people who didn't know about this limitation until they got their iPhone home and tried to use their own headphones with it and found out they couldn't.

I cannot live without custom ringtones.
I'll admit that the lack of custom ringtones does surprise me. While I understand that 1.0 products won't have everything, this obvious ommision seems a little odd.

However, considering that ringtones are usually sold and are big business for cell phone companies, I imagine Apple is having to wade through a lot of negotiations over how ringtones on the iPhone are handled. Will you be able to buy ringtones on the iTunes Store? (This strikes me as the most likely scenario.) Will you be able to turn existing songs into ringtones? (Perhaps for a fee or via a hack, but unlikely as a free option.)

I'm sure this is coming in the first iPhone software update. However, it's not exactly the end of the world that iPhone 1.0 doesn't support it. I mean, come on -- just a few years ago you only had one ring choice and you liked it.

For the brave or impatient of you, there already are hacks to add your own ringtones, and even software programs to do this for you. Another non-issue.

macopinion@designwrite.com

Criticizing Criticisms, Part 2 of 5

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

AT&T sucks.
I can't argue with this one. My past experiences with the company have not been good, though I must confess my recent dealings have been remarkably positive. Perhaps the company has changed. I don't know. But honestly, I don't think AT&T is much different from any other wireless company. They are all greedy, behemoth corporations with massive bureaucracy who treat customers as necessary evils, not what keeps them in business. Everyone I know complains about their wireless company, but for most switching is pointless because the others are just as bad.

It's also vital to remember that the United States is a huge country and service -- including customer service -- varies considerably depending on where you live. I happen to live in an area with good AT&T coverage, which probably translates into lots of AT&T service centers (there's one just fifteen minutes from me), which means better customer service.

I get annoyed when I read a review that rips the iPhone because AT&T coverage in the reporter's area sucks. No doubt AT&T's working on expanding their coverage, but the reality is that as large as the company is, it's not the end-all, and no single company can cover everywhere. I would advise any potential iPhone buyer to check AT&T's coverage in their area prior to making an iPhone switch. But don't blame iPhone for AT&T's limitations.

Edge is slow.
Everyone's been harping on the fact that the iPhone uses AT&T's slower Edge network instead of a fast 3G network. This is nonsense.

First, remember that Edge has a much wider coverage -- 3G is only available in a few places in the United States right now. What good does 3G hardware do you if the network doesn't exist where you want to use it?

Slow is relative. For me, with no cellular Internet at all prior to iPhone, Edge is surprisingly decent. It downloads email and Google maps works fine. Safari's a little pokey, but I just avoid photo-heavy sites and use "mobile" versions of websites if they are available.

Remember, you don't use an iPhone the same way you'd use an Internet capable laptop: you won't be downloading huge files or even web surfing the same way. Most iPhone Internet access is quick web look-ups or emailing, for which Edge is more than capable.

For me, just the ability to use the Internet anywhere is mind-boggling. Already I've used Google Maps for traffic information, checked movie showtimes while I was near a theatre and had some free time, found restaurants, and more. As a diabetic, having access to CalorieKing.com in my hand is empowering -- now I can research calories and carbohydrates online when I'm at the restaurant and trying to decide what's healthy to order!

Besides, iPhone supports WiFi, which is gobs faster than any 3G network. I use my iPhone all the time on my home WiFi network -- it's great for reading news websites while watching TV. And I've been surprised at the number of places that have free WiFi. Many don't even advertise it, but it's there if you look.

If nothing else, I can use Edge to find the nearest free WiFi location!

Granted, those who are accustomed to living on their Internet smartphones may not like Edge, but the honest truth is that for the vast majority of people out there, Edge is sufficient and will enhance their lives. Edge is not ideal, but it's far better than nothing.

I don't like the tone of many reviews that seem to think Edge cripples the iPhone and makes it useless. It does not. In the future when iPhone is available with 3G support and 3G networks are widespread, Edge will seem primitive. But for now, iPhone with Edge is still a step forward.

The iPhone virtual keyboard is awkward and severely limits the iPhone audience.
Really? I don't find it so. But then I'm used to trying to type letters in with a numeric keypad and the iPhone's beautiful keyboard is heaven in comparison. I suppose if you're used to a hard keyboard like those on smartphones the iPhone soft keyboard takes getting used to, but it's really easy to use. A few minutes of practice and most are getting along fine.

The iPhone's soft keyboard is not necessarily the fastest way to enter text, but is speed the primary concern of most people? I don't think it is. For power users, yes, for heavy texters and teens, maybe. But for regular people? No. Regular people just want simple and easy, and the iPhone succeeds in that category. Most regular people won't do more than enter a few bits of text at a time: type a sentence in an email, type a URL or a search term in Google, etc. Regular people are not going to try to write novels on this thing, believe me.

Yet the interesting thing is that once you get used to the iPhone keyboard, I bet you could write a novel on it. It learns your habits and gets better, so the more you type the better it is at guessing what you meant and fixing your mistakes.

Besides, the whole point of the iPhone is that all the buttons are created via software: the keyboard will just get better! While I can see that the keyboard may make a few people hesitate, the vast majority of people won't think of it as a problem. It's really a non-issue.

The full Internet? There's no Flash! There's no Java! It's useless!
Okay, even smartphone experts have agreed that the web browsing experience on the iPhone is second to none. Yes, it currently does not support Flash (or Java), but is that really such a big deal?

The biggest use of Flash on the Internet is video, primarily YouTube. But YouTube videos do work on the iPhone, if they are in the right format (and Google is converting all their videos to the superior H.264 codec).

As for other uses of Flash, I'm not convinced it's such a big deal. Most Flash stuff is just eye-candy and it shouldn't be a requirement. Even for desktop computers I'm extremely critical of websites that only offer Flash versions. For sites that offer non-Flash versions, the iPhone will work fine for those. And sites that don't -- well it's their loss. They're the ones giving up the hits. I can't imagine there are that many critical sites (i.e. non-entertainment) that depend on Flash. At any rate, this is something that may be fixed with a software update if enough people demand it, so it's a non-issue for me.

As for Java, well, Java apps usually suck. They don't really act like native apps and they aren't very fast. While it might be nice to have a programming environment on the iPhone, I'm not convinced Java is the answer.

macopinion@designwrite.com