I had been keeping a watchful eye on the developments in the Apple world ever since Steve Jobs’ revamped company revealed the first fruity iMacs in the mid-90s. Mac OS 8 and 9 never really appealed to me, and Windows ran all my games and software, so I never thought about making a switch any time soon. Then one day I met Unix for the first time in my life.
Part I: The path to Apple
The Unix I met was Linux, Red Hat Linux 6, to be precise. Learned Linux on Red Hat
6.0 for a few months, then went on to Slackware Linux and then to the BSDs
and Solaris. Although I ran one flavor or derivative of Unix or the other ever
since I learned Linux, my main OS had always been Windows, mainly
because of games and some programs that I needed. My favorite operating
system has always been FreeBSD, though. Then came Mac OS X, and I said
to myself, “a BSD with the world’s most beautiful GUI, what more could I
want?” Despite the urge to get a Mac with OS X, I kept on using my x86 and
UltraSPARC hardware. At one time, I had 8 computers running at the same
time in my small studio apartment with operating systems ranging from
Windows 2000 Pro to Slackware Linux to all three free BSDs and Solaris
8/9 SPARC. I learned a great deal about the different versions of Unix by
exploring all *nixes that I had installed on my personal network, but I soon
got tired of it. I sold all the excess hardware and kept a Windows computer
and a FreeBSD server.
Then one day, a friend wanted to sell a used 500Mhz G3 iBook and the price
was affordable, so I bought it. The iBook came with Jaguar and it ran
decently. I played with it for about a month and really loved it, but then I
decided to sell it for the lack of a good office suite other than AppleWorks.
There was no sign of OpenOffice.Org for the Mac and I could not afford
Microsoft Office. I purchased a Dell Latitude CPxJ 650 with the money I got
from the iBook sale. When I opened the box and picked the Dell laptop up,
my heart sank. The build quality was terrible. It was a big, heavy, noisy
plastic monstrosity of a laptop that was running Windows 98SE. I was
feeling really stupid at that time and the Dell went on eBay very soon
thereafter. But it did not stop there; the laptop bug had bitten me. I looked
around desperately for another laptop and after hearing some good words
about a friend’s ThinkPad, I got myself a refurbished T21 off of eBay. A
MUCH better laptop than the Dell, I used the T21 for a while. Dual-booting
Windows XP and FreeBSD, I was happy, until a design flaw in the
ThinkPad started to cause system crashes and disk corruption. I upgraded the
hard drive of the T21 to a faster 5400RPM model with a whopping 16MB of
cache. The new hard drive ran hotter than the original one, but the problem
was that the memory in the ThinkPad T21 was located directly above the hard
drive, and when the hard drive heated up, it used to heat the RAM with it,
and that caused crashes. I ran hardware diagnostic utilities and it crashed
while testing the RAM; then I let the machine cool off before I resumed
testing, and guess what? The memory passed the tests with flying colors
when the system was not running hot. Despite these problems, I kept on
using the T21 while at the same time actively searching for a replacement
laptop. My first consideration was an R series ThinkPad. The R series
ThinkPads are relatively cheap; they are also of a slightly higher build
quality than the $600 Dell plastic monsters. My second choice (second
choice because of the price) was the 12″ PowerBook, but the cost prohibited
its purchase. Just as I was about to lose hope, Apple released new iBooks
with G4 CPUs. It was a no-brainer as far as I was concerned. Small, light,
high quality, slot-loading CDRW/DVD combo drive equipped, AirPort
Extreme (WiFi 802.11g) capable laptop that comes with Mac OS X 10.3
Panther, the BSD derivative with perhaps the most visually appealing
computer user interface in the world. I placed an order with Apple and they
gave me a shipping date, but when that shipping date arrived, they pushed
the shipping date further back by another seven days, so I cancelled my
Apple Sore order and picked a 12″ iBook G4 from a local Apple reseller.
Part II: iBook G4 Review
As most Mac followers are aware, the iBook G4 does not look much different
than the older G3 based white iBooks that succeeded the clamshell variety. I
will, however, point out the few differences between the G3 500Mhz iBook
I had, the G3 models I’ve seen at different stores and this new 12″ G4 one.
1. Slot loading drive instead of the tray loading kind.
2. Opaque off-white keyboard instead of the semi translucent bright
white one on the G3. I don’t know whether the opaque keyboard is
specific to the new G4s or has already been introduced in the G3 line,
but I think even the feel of the keyboard on the G4 is different. The
keys feel more solid and there is not much “bounce” in the keyboard,
as was the case in my old iBook.
3. The gap under the LCD now says ‘iBook G4’ instead of just ‘iBook.’
Just a small cosmetic change, but worth mentioning, nevertheless.
Other than the above physical changes, the iBooks have not changed in
appearance.
A lot of people probably are wondering if the iBook G4s are faster than their
G3 predecessors. I cannot answer this question and back the answer up with
benchmarks, as I don’t have a G3 iBook to pit against my G4 iBook, but I
can testify to the fact that after playing around with G3 iBooks of different
speeds, ranging from 500Mhz to 900Mhz, I can safely say that the new
iBook ‘feels’ considerably and noticeably faster than any other iBook that
I’ve tried. Panther has most certainly helped the better speed and
responsiveness of the G4 iBooks, but attributing the speed gains of the G4
iBooks solely to Panther is neither fair nor smart. Apple has given quite a
few enhancements to the G4 iBook line. Following is an outline of the
hardware upgrades that the iBook G4 received:
1. PowerPC G4 CPUs with speeds of 800Mhz (12″), 933Mhz and
1.0Ghz (both 14″). CPU cache is 256KB, compared to 512KB that
came with the G3 iBooks’ CPUs, but that should hardly be a cause for
concern. Apple has confirmed that the CPU in the new iBooks is
indeed a real G4 with Velocity Engine and not just an enhanced G3.
2. A system bus of 133Mhz.
3. The iBook G4 now comes with 256MB standard, 640MB Max capacity PC2100 DDR266 RAM. I
wish the max was 1GB, but I guess Apple needs to keep a distance
between iBooks and PoweBooks. Also, I wish the minimum RAM
was 128MB because I upgraded to 640MB after I purchased the
iBook and now the 128MB SODIMM that came with the iBook is
wasting away.
4. ATI Radeon 9200 AGP 4x with 32MB DDR video RAM. Decent
gaming performance at 1024×768 in Quake III.
5. Airport Extreme and Bluetooth ready.
6. Slot loading CDRW/DVD combo drive is now part of the base model
standard. Kind of noisy, but not annoying or unbearable.
The iBook can be attached to an external monitor using the included
VGA cable, but the iBook can only do mirroring and not spanning of the
desktop. You can also connect the iBook to a TV using the optional
composite S-Video cable.
Value:
With a 5+ hour battery life (possibly 6 hours), the iBook is a mobile user’s dream
come true. The 12″ iBook is light and slim and can fit into even small book
bags. With internal wireless card and antenna, there are no PCMCIA WiFi
card antennas sticking out of the side of the iBook. Apple has added a large
WiFi antenna to the back of the LCD screen in the iBooks, not only does this
measure enhance signal strength, it also hides the antenna gracefully. If an
x86 laptop with such qualities is sought, one can easily expect to spend at
least close to $2000 USD on a laptop with an Intel Centrino CPU. Pentium 4
M and Mobile Athlon XP based laptops are not very mobile due to their
power-hungry and excessive heat producing nature. Batteries are drained
within a matter of half an hour and not only that, they run very hot, hot
enough to require three fans and they still burn your lap. The iBook is also
the quietest laptop I have used to date. The only thing that I can hear while
using it is myself breathing and typing. Another plus point is the inclusion of
Panther with the package. So a laptop with all these qualities, starting at
$1099 is worth every penny, and more.
First Apple Problems:
The only problem that I’ve had since I bought the iBook G4 was related to
the recent patches that Apple released for Panther. I applied the two early
security patches before they became part of the 10.3.1 package. After I
applied the patches, the iBook would not sleep properly. Once I closed the
lid, opening it back up would mean booting from a shutdown state! Then it
got worse, it would not even wake up from sleep. I got worried and
rummaged around google.com and apple.com, looking for a solution. A
friend who already owns a G3 iBook also helped me with finding the
solution, which was to reset the PMU (Power Management Unit) by pressing
a key combination. I did that, turned the iBook on and thankfully it booted
up and the sleeping problems went away after that.
Conclusion:
If you love Unix, and need a laptop that is light, durable, high-quality, quiet,
has a long battery life, comes with OSX 10.3 Panther and is sheer eye-candy
inside and out, then the new iBook G4 is the way to go. My only wish is that
Apple should have increased the RAM capacity from 640MB to 1GB, but
640MB is also more than enough for almost everything one would use the
iBook for.
More pictures of my iBook here.
About the author:
My name is Assad Khan, I am 23 years old and I love
Unix, networking, computer hardware and photography.
This is a worthless review. All he does is tell us about the computers that he used to own. Can you say: self-indulgent?
nice story, now you just need to make the video and you are all set.
No really, funnies apart i liked your “experience” change, but you miss or you try to be naive regarding one point.
Whomever had tried Freebsd or any other sort of BSDs(net open etc) and or a “purity” distro linux like slackware, debian gentoo or any other where you need to put the hands in the mass and get dirty, will not change so easy his OSe. Call it for desktop or server.
Why ? for me would be like cutting my legs, the freedom the power of choice, all gone! You are now tied to one box, where you spent some bucks ($$$) and you ask, “now what? whats left to set or do?” the answer is nothing! Everything is set for you. Thats bad? hell no. If you feel confortable with that. But “PCing” will always be much more fun, theres the constant setuping you need to do, theres the choice to buy the extreme lateste video card, theres the memory upgrading etc (yeah i know you are on a lap), its a never end of experience and battles to be won.
I thank you your experience but its more directed for WINDOWs users that wanna try a safe UNIX enviroment, even safer than some linux “Mainstream distros”. easy reading too
regards
I disagree. I think its important to show that he has experience in these other areas. All to often we hear hardware/software comparisons from people who have an extremely limited scope of whats out there.
By showing that he has a wealth of experience in Windows, BSD (all varients) and OS X, and that he chose OS X inthe end, we know that the opinions expressed are that of a well informed individual.
I thought the review to be very insightful and a good read.
But thats is bull. All my PC laptops all easily work through 2 hours unplugged, heat and all. However 2.5 hours is the most I expect any of them to be good for.
“Whomever had tried Freebsd or any other sort of BSDs(net open etc) and or a “purity” distro linux like slackware, debian gentoo or any other where you need to put the hands in the mass and get dirty, will not change so easy his OSe. Call it for desktop or server.”
In my experience (as with many others as I’ve come to learn) individuals that tread through these OS waters have long since gotten past the romantic side associated with digging through unrefined operating systems and instead want the best tool for the job to get whatever it is they are doing… done.
“Why ? for me would be like cutting my legs, the freedom the power of choice, all gone!”
I dont see how you can come to that point. If you run OS X, you still have choice. You can run multiple types of hardware software and operating systems.
“You are now tied to one box”
One, computer company perhaps, but one box… no. As long as that single computer company is the best product for the job, who cares if its only one company that makes it. This fact can also be look at as an advantage… soemthing whcih many of us often overlook.
“you ask, “now what? whats left to set or do?” the answer is nothing! Everything is set for you.”
You make it sound like you can unset these things. OS X is as flexible in that capasity as it is refined.
“Thats bad? hell no. If you feel confortable with that.”
Don’t get locked into the oft-held misconception that you’re working on “a car with the hood welded shut”, an analogy that is often mis-associaed with Mac hardware and software.
“But “PCing” will always be much more fun, theres the constant setuping you need to do”
Asside from the “build-it-yourself- aspect, owning a Mac doesn;t dont preclude you from that joy a single bit. As a matter of fact, because the hardware and software is as integrated as it is, I was able to take my “setting-up-fun” to new heights. An example oif this includes wireless jukeboxes scattered throughout the house… all auto discovered with rendezvous.
“theres the choice to buy the extreme lateste video card”
You can do the same for Mac hardware as well. Although you can’t swap parts within Apple’s all-in-one units… the same is not true with Apple’s pro towers.
“theres the memory upgrading etc”
Are you suggesting that you can’t upgrade memory on a Mac? if so, you’re wrong about this as well.
“I thank you your experience but its more directed for WINDOWs users that wanna try a safe UNIX enviroment, even safer than some linux “Mainstream distros”. easy reading too”
Thank you for your response, but it appears as if your insight aboutthe Macintosh and Apple is misguided. I believe this article is indeed directed at people like yourself
Anyone have one of these? How is the battery life?
I have a 12″ PB G4… (battery life ought to be the same) and it gets approximately 5-6 hours of on and off battery-only use or 3-4 hours of continual use.
It is great fun to have machine to mess with, try things that you have to fight to make work, knowing that you can reformat it and start over, etc. And this guy has that, he has a BSD server and a windows box. His ibook is the system that he can store stuff he doesn’t want to lose and he knows can count on it. I am sort of the same way, except my laptop is an IBM 600E running W2K. I keep the pictures of my kids on there, important documents, etc and I have three other boxes for playing with Linux, games, or whatever else. Having a laptop like this does preclude him from doing the stuff you are talking about on another box.
Even though Apple doesn’t support it, you can add a 1 GB of memory to the new iBooks. This place has them…
http://www.transintl.com/store/category.cfm?Category=2443
Although they’re a little expensive at $449… But it can be done!
I have a 12″ PB G4… (battery life ought to be the same) and it gets approximately 5-6 hours of on and off battery-only use or 3-4 hours of continual use.
Battery life on a 14″ G4 iBook should be longer than on the 12″ PB. The 12″ PB has a 47 W-hour battery. The 14″ iBook has a 61 W-hour battery (that’s over 25% more). Yes, the screen is larger and the processor faster on the iBook but the rest of the power consumption should be similar.
It seems to me that the 933MHz 14″ iBook is a better deal than the 1GHz one. I configured two identical systems (max ram, hd, airport, bluetooth, applecare) for education and came up with:
933MHz: $1696
1GHz: $1851
Is the extra 77MHz worth an extra $151? I doubt it.
Can anyone else see any differences between the two 14″ models?
i’m always surprised whenever i read those normal-guy reviews, one is just more insipid than the next to anybody who has bothered going to the maker’s site and read half a page of specs..
I too have a 12″ iBook G4, and have not experienced any problems with it whatsoever. (I got it with the Airport Extreme and Bluetooth, but the Bluetooth is off for now to conserve battery life.) I regularly use it around campus, and with the Airport Extreme, I still get consistently 4.5-5 hours of life. I imagine were I to turn Airport off that number would increase. Great little machine (and a big step up from the 333MHz Lombard I had before).
— Rob
All the recent “switcher” stories have a common theme. The people are now using Macs because they like Unix. They don’t really like or understand the Mac OS. Those of us who have used Mac OS since the early days know what made Mac special. It wasn’t just the fact that you can now run Unix commands through the terminal. As far as I’m concerned, Steve Jobs can shove his bastardized Mac OS. It is not a true Mac OS.
I’d like to pipe up as an experience *nix user. I’ve been thinking really hard about getting a 12″ Powerbook G4. After having been through the experience of messing around with configurations and stuff under the hood, it would be nice to have stuff the “just works”.
I know that people have been working very hard to make GNU/Linux more user friendly. I will still use some flavor of Linux as my main OS. However, it would be nice to not have to double check my wireless settings every time I go between work and home.
I think Apple is gaining some market share from *nix users because IBM, Dell and HP dropped the ball. I’m running Red Hat on a Thinkpad now but I would have preferred to buy it with the hardware configured and without paying the Microsoft tax. For my next laptop, I don’t want to spend a weekend getting everything up and running, I want to spend an hour or two customizing the environment, that’s it.
One comment about user reviews, I like them. Rather than nitpick about what they choose to talk about or forget to mention, I enjoy the perspective of a real world user. I get more out of the reactions of someone who is actually using something than the guy trying to fill 6 column inches by lunch time.
“The iBook can be attached to an external monitor using the included VGA cable, but the iBook can only do mirroring and not spanning of the desktop. You can also connect the iBook to a TV using the optional composite S-Video cable.”
That’s right, but according to http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html, applying a simple firmware patch allows you to use the desktop spanning functionalities of MacOS X.
well, thats your point of view that goes in line with the article, and i could be here counterattacking what you said , and we would be here just throwing arguments against each other for the rest of our lifes.
even so, i just want to pick this line and give a last comment on this
Thank you for your response, but it appears as if your insight aboutthe Macintosh and Apple is misguided. I believe this article is indeed directed at people like yourself
Apple is in this world for more than 10 years, why that will happen now, if didnt happen before? because they changed their core to an Unix derivated?
Main goal of apple with the switch to macosx and Darwin freebsd’s core based was not to attrack current unix users but to change their development and economical growth.
Old macos was getting a pita to use, and not keeping pace with latest market technologies. Just see how arcane was getting the Internet experience for mac users.
In my opinion this move was great, in a presepctive view, and since they support the FLOSS community on a sense, using some sort of my beloved freebsd, paying programmers, auditing code(1 patch not bad at all), releasing 3rd party software for BSD (?!) and lobbying (we all hope Apple show their face for BSD if SCO moves forward) its a respectable decission. But even so that doesnt mean that we all will run to buy one.
And why is that? BECAUSE you lose the drill to setup/use an unix system that suites your only needs, and not the needs of a solo Company, as you said well in your post before.
“ah but Apple gives you choices, …see you can even use x86 mems for upgrading, or you have tcsh just right there to punch like a real monkey!!”
CAll it Hardware limitation or software, i dont care, theres a tie that you cant get release from, and that is enough.
Macosx is a stable env for someone that is willing to try a windows alternative or to try a safe unix variant. I “doubt” that many will came out from an unix background and do the _total switch_ as the article is pretending on a sense to show.
Honestly,
If you like computers, why are you not buying a mac? Keep the PC. Two is better than one. Then you can stop all the discomfort every time someone says the mac is better at this or that. You’ll have a mac too.
the difference between 933 and 1000 mhz is actually 67 mhz, not 77
Whomever had tried Freebsd or any other sort of BSDs(net open etc) and or a “purity” distro linux like slackware, debian gentoo or any other where you need to put the hands in the mass and get dirty, will not change so easy his OSe. Call it for desktop or server.
Why ? for me would be like cutting my legs, the freedom the power of choice, all gone! You are now tied to one box, where you spent some bucks ($$$) and you ask, “now what? whats left to set or do?” the answer is nothing! Everything is set for you. Thats bad? hell no. If you feel confortable with that. But “PCing” will always be much more fun, theres the constant setuping you need to do, theres the choice to buy the extreme lateste video card, theres the memory upgrading etc (yeah i know you are on a lap), its a never end of experience and battles to be won.
I think you are mistaken. I’ve been a Unix user and sysadmin for 8 years, a computer user for 25 years. I’ve run Solaris, AIX, Irix, all the BSD’s, and umpteen flavors of Linux (including your “purity” distros). I ran Linux as my exclusive desktop OS for 5 years.
I am now an Apple owner, and MacOS X devotee.
Your appraisal of what an experienced Unix user would want from a system is patently wrong, in my estimation. An experienced Unix user wants stability, reliability, power. An experienced Unix user wants to spend his time getting work done on his computer, not servicing his computer.
I challenge that is the novice, not the expert, for whom getting a video card to work under X, or an NFS filesystem to properly mount, or a modem to successfully dial out – is a victory. For the expert, who has plowed that field time and time before, it is a nuisance and a distraction from the true goal – that of getting work done.
I find that MacOS X is all about getting work done. The system has been designed properly and integrated well with the underlying hardware. The user is not required to take valuable time configuring hardware that should work out of the box. The user interface is designed to maximize usability and productivity. The architecture is built on rock-solid Unix underpinnings, providing the stability and reliability that experienced Unix sysadmins have come to expect from their systems.
Is MacOS X a solution for all computing needs? No. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. My servers, firewall, and several special purpose boxes run FreeBSD, because I find FreeBSD on commodity x86 hardware is a much better cost:value proposition than MacOS X on an XServe. My video-on-demand station in the living room is an x86 mini-PC running SuSE Linux, not so much due to cost, but form factor.
But on the desktop, where the rubber meets the road, MacOS X shines as a highly productive OS. And appreciation of that elegance of design does not demote one to the ranks of the Unix neophytes, or worse – Windows lusers.
As far as I’m concerned, Steve Jobs can shove his bastardized Mac OS. It is not a true Mac OS.
And they would have sold far fewer Macs, relegating Apple to an even tinier, more insignificant place in the market. Thank *god* Jobs came back and brought some sense to the company.
Those of us who have used Mac OS since the early days know what made Mac special.
Care to enlighten us as to what made Mac special?
Main goal of apple with the switch to macosx and Darwin freebsd’s core based was not to attrack current unix users but to change their development and economical growth.”
Apple is in fact using OS X’s unix roots as a means to market their operating system to Unix users AND to change their development and economic growth.
“Old macos was getting a pita to use, and not keeping pace with latest market technologies. Just see how arcane was getting the Internet experience for mac users.”
Apple had also been working towards the goal of revamping the code base of its old operating system. It spent years and gobs of money to do this. When the task proved too difficult, and too time consuming, Apple purchased the assets of another operating system… hence the roots of OS X in Unix. Regarding the internet experience… Mac users internet experience was not inferior in those days (although you may have a small point towards the end of OS 9’s lifetime0
“…But even so that doesnt mean that we all will run to buy one.”
I didn;t say that you should all go and buy one… What I was eluding to was that you should not disqualify Apple from your purchising decisons based on the arguments that were presented… as most of them didn;t hold any merit.
“And why is that? BECAUSE you lose the drill to setup/use an unix system that suites your only needs, and not the needs of a solo Company, as you said well in your post before.”
So you’re suggesting that Mac’s be omited from your purchasing decision because they come shipped to you read to use? That’s ludicrous. What I think you’re getting at (although not expressing it quite so eloquently) is that a Mac shouldn’t be purchased because you can’t fine tune the system. If that’s the case, then I would respond, “If your needs are so refined and so far outside the needs of even the most demanding consumers or professionals that you can’t do with a Macintosh what you can on a PC by custom refining the hardware… then you are correct. A PC would should be the only option to consider. However, Im confident that you will find that these needs a re very few and far between.
“CAll it Hardware limitation or software, i dont care, theres a tie that you cant get release from, and that is enough.”
Apple doesn;t limit hardware. They limit configurability at the purchase point.
“Macosx is a stable env for someone that is willing to try a windows alternative or to try a safe unix variant. I “doubt” that many will came out from an unix background and do the _total switch_ as the article is pretending on a sense to show.”
You’re wrong. Many do and have been doing since OS X’s release.
the difference between 933 and 1000 mhz is actually 67 mhz, not 77
Don’t mind my math skills….I’m just an engineer!
Still, that’s pretty startling isn’t it! $151 for that minor difference hardly seems worth it.
Those who think Mac OS X on Apple hardware can’t be tweaked or fine tuned are the sorts who don’t RTFMs or do research… just take a look at sites like http://www.macosxhints.com and browse the thousands of arcane UNIX and not-so-well-known Mac hacks to tweak an OSX setup the way you want it.. everything from Postfix and Apache tweaks to AppleScripts controlling shell scripts.
I’m disappointed that some people discount Apple after just one look at their offering, and not actually using the end product and exploring its potential. The Macintosh community is very active and far-reaching. Heck, I think most people who are afraid to get a Mac don’t realize how many actually buy one and are thrilled by their choice.
All the recent “switcher” stories have a common theme. The people are now using Macs because they like Unix. They don’t really like or understand the Mac OS. Those of us who have used Mac OS since the early days know what made Mac special. It wasn’t just the fact that you can now run Unix commands through the terminal. As far as I’m concerned, Steve Jobs can shove his bastardized Mac OS. It is not a true Mac OS.
On the contrary I understood mac OS just fine thats why i personally stayed away from Macs. Sorry but Mac OS was crap IMHO until Mac OS X arrived. The specialness that you are talking about is the few people that actually used Macs back in the day the elitists mainly who bought the Myth that macs are best for Graphic design and such. Now that OS X has openend up a whole new user base your mad becasue its not as hip to be a Mac user.
I bought a Powerbook becasue i felt it was time; now that pather was released and OS X is finally becoming really really good instead of just good. I have never been more pleased with a Hardware/OS platform ever and plan on buying a Desktop Mac for all my serious computing needs and relegating my Wintel box to games only. For those still thinking about a Mac with OS X they are very impressive machines and i would recommend them to anyone and everyone.
He never explained how he is coping with an MSO like product. Has OO.o made enough progress now for his taste?
I’m still waiting for a good review between the iBook and the G4 iBook, and although this gave some details, I still haven’t decided if the G4 iBook is for me, or if I should buy myself an iBook off of Ebay.
My thoughts exactly! There comes a time that futzing with evey little item in an OS just becomes work and is not cool anymore. Its refreshing to have things just work with OS X and still have the huge amount of power that sits under the nice clean GUI.
“On the contrary I understood mac OS just fine thats why i personally stayed away from Macs.”
May I ask what specifically compelled you to stay away from them?
“Sorry but Mac OS was crap IMHO until Mac OS X arrived.”
I (as I’m sure would many many) vehemently disagree. Mac OS has always been an extremely refined operating system. Although that refinement was less apparent in the last operating system before OS X’s release (OS 9) is remained a testament to usability. The fact that OS X was such a massive jump forward does not imply that OS 9 was so far behind, but rather… that OS X is that much far ahead.
“The specialness that you are talking about is the few people that actually used Macs back in the day the elitists mainly who bought the Myth that macs are best for Graphic design and such.”
Those that made Mac purchases earlier on and even through today didn’t make their purchasing decisions based on an elitist mentality, but rather, because it was the best tool for the job. That was ESPECIALLY apparent in the desktop publishing and graphic design fields where the Mac had even greater unique advantages.
“Now that OS X has openend up a whole new user base your mad becasue its not as hip to be a Mac user.”
I wont speak for the other individual, but I don’t feel uncomfortable saying that its just as hip… if not even more so to be a Mac user today that it ever has been. Those that protest the transition are doing so not because a whole new group of people were introduced to our club… (as you imply) but rather because these are the people that are against change… no matter of it benefits them or not.
the author said the two things I like the new ibook most: slot-load drive and the hidden WiFi.
Also the author told us his experience so that we know he is not just a random moron and the computer is the first that he owns. And also it tells the story when you are looking for an affordable notebook with nice hardware, then ibook is a top choice. I seriously did this myself, and can find no laptop in comparable features and size and price.
I like Unix and Linux too, but sometimes it just take TOO much time to configure it, compile stuff and fix problems. And OS X is just right in on that side, though it is NOT very unix like in philosophy any more. But hey, I still can go into the console and write shell script, use my favorite commands with flags and all those! But of course if you want to change a icq.conf file in /etc then maybe you are out of luck.
“Macosx is a stable env for someone that is willing to try a windows alternative or to try a safe unix variant. I “doubt” that many will came out from an unix background and do the _total switch_ as the article is pretending on a sense to show.”
It seems that a lot of arguments are ‘all or nothing’ types.
There is a strong mix of both types of ‘switchers’.
If you’ve read Oreillys web site or been to a dev con, there’s a lot of Unix developers switching or rather- adding.
for me main problem about all iBooks and 12″ PowerBook is that they lack of PCMCIA card bay. this makes them useless for me. and that’s why i use 15″ PowerBook
Have you guys ever though that different processor bus speeds might be involved in the difference too.
I’m a friend of the author’s and probably one of the reasons he opted to get one of the new ibooks ( I bragged up my ibook quite often ).
He and I have been comparing our ibooks for the past week or so and have come up with a few differences, but more similarities.
If you’re doing video or a lot of graphic editing work it will likely be worthwhile to get the G4 for Altivec and the faster RAM.
If you play games on your ibook you might want it for the better 3D video.
If you want to access a fileserver with fast wireless you might want it for Airport extreme.
But if you just want a laptop for email , web , IM , word processing/spreadsheet , music , perhaps a bit of programming ( mmm , python ) and for your digital photography … the older G3 ibooks are just fine!
My G3 800Mhz is within 10% of his brand new 800Mhz G4 with DDR RAM in the majority of things we threw at it ( we didn’t encode any video , that’s a foregone conclusion ).
That being said , I still want one of the new G4 ibooks , but I’ve only had my G3 for 8 months , it may well last me another couple years. But I can dream !
Would you like to see a screen shot of my battery meter saying 5:54 and sometimes higher on a full charge? Dont think that is not a real time, it’s totally acurate.
The 12″ G4 iBook @ 1024×768 vs the 14″ G4 iBook @ 1024×768. What is the point in the 14″ model? Am I missing something? I’d assume that the 14″ is just washed out. Am I wrong? There is no more screen “real estate” on the 14″ model, is there? Can someone tell me a benefit in the 14″ related to it’s screen? I don’t see one, and if there isn’t one I’ll cross the 14″ off my list. That will leave me either the 12″ G4 iBook or the 12″ G4 PB.
Thanks…
Erik
Thanks for the review. The release of this ibook co-incided with me having some of the most serious feelings of fatigue with Linux as a desktop to date. If i had the dosh I think I’d be getting one of these. Nice to read a review from a writer that i feel like i could relate to.
the 14″ ibooks have a couple advantages.
Bigger screen is one ( if you wear glasses you may well be very happy to have a bigger screen , even if the resolution is no better )
The other is better battery live , the bigger chassis of the 14″ has room for a bigger battery . This is why the 12″ is rated for 5 hours and the 14″ is rated for 6 hours.
If it’s not enough of a difference for you to worry about , then congratulations , you’ll save yourself some money !
( when i purchased my ibook the 12″ was also limited in that you couldn’t have the combo drive, happily that’s no longer the case , the bottom end ibook has the combo drive as well )
And a gain 12″ has no GIGABIT ETHERNET !!!!
:(((
There is one, under the keyboard !!!
Based upon Blaine Lupulack’s post, I fall into the email/word proc/spreadsheet category and could get myself an inexpensive iBook from eBay instead of the G4 version. Can anyone comment on how something like a 600MHz G3 iBook stuffed with RAM would handle Virtual PC w/XP Pro (only on occasion) to handle 1 or 2 specialized, mundane Win32 apps I need? I can also afford Office v.X (*smirks*) and would use it intensively every day.
Blaine,
I’m really hung-up on this “bigger screen” thing. Explain further please. How is the 14″ bigger? What is bigger? If it is 1024×768 isn’t it the same size? If I have a spreadsheet with 200 rows and 50 columns aren’t I gonna see the same amount of that spread sheet on both machines?
Thanks…
Erik
“I like the PPC platform but I don’t like OsX, mainly cuz its performance deficeincy on a given hardware.”
I’ve run the current version of YDL on an iMac 333. MacOSX 10.3 is a much better performer and packed with more features than YDL.
With Panther the performance issues is less of an issue. MacOSX is GUI heavy but performs fine on even slow G3s. Should MacOSX be faster? Absoloutely and with the way Apple is going I think we will see MacOSX getting faster even while features are added.
<snip>
I’m really hung-up on this “bigger screen” thing. Explain further please. How is the 14″ bigger? What is bigger? If it is 1024×768 isn’t it the same size? If I have a spreadsheet with 200 rows and 50 columns aren’t I gonna see the same amount of that spread sheet on both machines?
Thanks…
Erik <snip>
Ever seen someone who wears glasses have to move a book / magazine closer or further away from their eyes so they could see it clearly ? The bigger screen enables people with less-than-perfect sight to easily see it at normal arms length. Nothing more than that.
I suppose you could put a big reading magnifier in front of the screen of a 12″ as well , but it could get in the way of typing
If you’re gonna buy a used iBook from ebay make sure that the model you buy has at least 16MB of video RAM!
Any less and you won’t get the benefit of Quartz Extreme ( which uses your 3D video hardware to accelerate desktop actions ) and things will feel sloooowwwww !
I believe the 600Mhz dual USB had 16MB , but earlier than that you may be out of luck there.
I’m really hung-up on this “bigger screen” thing. Explain further please. How is the 14″ bigger? What is bigger? If it is 1024×768 isn’t it the same size? If I have a spreadsheet with 200 rows and 50 columns aren’t I gonna see the same amount of that spread sheet on both machines?
Same resolution (1024×768) but the pixels are bigger, usefull if your eyes are getting older 🙂
“All the recent “switcher” stories have a common theme. The people are now using Macs because they like Unix. They don’t really like or understand the Mac OS. Those of us who have used Mac OS since the early days know what made Mac special. It wasn’t just the fact that you can now run Unix commands through the terminal. As far as I’m concerned, Steve Jobs can shove his bastardized Mac OS. It is not a true Mac OS”
As someone who used Mac OS since the early days, I have to say that although it was not a bad OS to use, it definitely had limitations. What can I say, I don’t miss having to reboot my system when a single application had to be forced quit. I like to be able to switch applications when one is busy.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love the classic Mac OS, but it is more of a nostalgic love at this point.
I enjoyed it, easy reading and learned a thing or two.
Though it may not be a commonly known fact, dual screen support (real screen spanning – not mirroring) is possible on most newer iBooks.
I have long enabled this on my 800 Mhz iBook G3 to allow me to run my 19″ external monitor at 1280×1024 at the office.
You can read all about it here:
http://www.rutemoeller.com/mp/ibook/ibook_e.html
If you have an iBook (or even an iMac), this is one thing you won’t want to miss!
If OsX is a GUI based on BSd, it should be compare with KDE/Gnome [GUI’s that can run on a BSD] not with FreeBSD or NetBSD or Linux.
No way. OS X is not just based on BSD. And “based on” doesn’t mean “runs on top of”. OS X has its own graphics subsystems, its own programming APIs, many frameworks never seen by any Linux, Unix, or BSD, a GUI which is fully integrated with the OS, and much, much more.
It should not be compared to a windowing system.
“If OsX is a GUI based on BSd, it should be compare with KDE/Gnome [GUI’s that can run on a BSD] not with FreeBSD or NetBSD or Linux.”
OS X isn’t simply a GUI based on BSD, but a GUI sitting onto top of a mixture of BSD and Mach kernels both of which make up what we know as Darwin.
Darwin does not use a pure microkernel approach but rather a hybrid between microkernal and monolithic. Here’s a quote from http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~lking/mach.html:
“Mach 3.0 was originally conceived as a simple, extensible, communications microkernel. It is capable of running standalone, with other traditional operating system services such as I/O, file systems, and networking stacks running as user-mode servers. ”
“However, in Mac OS X, Mach is linked with other kernel components into a single kernel address space. This is primarily for performance; it is much faster to make a direct call between linked components than it is to send messages or do RPC between separate tasks. This modular structure results in a more robust and extensible system than a large, purely monolithic kernel would allow, without the performance penalty of a pure microkernel. ”
I suggest that interested parties (especially Mr. Querú Hunter) noodle about on Apples website and read about the Darwin core. They would find that the Darwin architecture is a rather elegant mixture of design philosophies that combine the best of both microkernel and mononlithic approaches.
i couldn’t find it on the web, so could someone please the dimensions of the 12″ ? i’ve got a tablet pc and i love being able to put it into my backpack and not cart it around as seperate luggage. smaller screen size is a benefit sometimes! the battery life is impressive too. if only i could flip the screen around and use it like a tablet then i’d have one already… now its still under consideration
How long does it take to boot OSX 10.3 on an ibook 800mhz?
this author and i seem to have a lot in common. time spent with different operating systems on different hardware. i guess i’ve never used solaris on my sparc though. i even have an old powercomputing clone that was my main machine for two years. after which i switch to the cheaper x86 arch.
i recently caught the apple laptop fever. i purchased a 12″ powerbook. what can i say, i love it. this is the best computer i have ever owned, and i am now thinking how i can rearrange my computer because i am no longer dedicated to my amd-xp gentoo box. when i’m at home, i just plug in the second display and voila, i have much more workspace.
while i did not have much experience with os x until panther was released, i do want to point out that os x has grown considerably since it was first released. from 10.0 to 10.1 to jaguar to panther, each release has strengthened the OS. from adding network protocols, to making the interface more powerful, os x is now a beautiful operating system.
i’ve long since heard the rants and complaints from what i like to call ‘OS snobs’, and the comments above include some of these people. as long as i have been a computer user, i have always been curious about the operating systems i wasn’t running. while i was a mainly linux user, and even currently, i still like to install new distributions to see what they have to offer. the only reason i have yet to put linux on my powerbook is there is currently no opensource support for airport extreme. when this changes, you can bet i will be using the 7GB partition i saved.
i was confused at first when my powerbook showed up from its flight from taiwan. it only had one apple disk included with it. then i discovered it was a dvd. awesome.
In real world, high power computing OsX can’t touch Linux:
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/37935.htm
Eye candy never translates into speed(.)
Very interesting information. Absolutely irrelevant, but interesting nonetheless.
I think you can find what you are looking for here:
http://www.apple.com/ibook/specs.html
I read that submission to TPC-H. I am not sure why the linux world is ranting about this. Even on the list this cluster of 4 nodes with 4 cpus each ranks 5th.
Also I think this is more of an itanium 2 or Oracle benchmark than linux.
Oracle tries to do most of the work and tries to keep the OS interaction to a minimum anyway.
Hunter why are you posting this crap here?
No one doubts that Linux can scale so I don’t know why you are posting this “no eye candy garbage”
The VT SuperCluster run headless and its the fastest supercomputer in academia, the scond fastest SC in the US and third in the world. Thats not too bad of a showing first time on the charts. How you like them apples?
So what does the author uses for WP now (one of his previous objections to using a Mac)? AbiWord on X11? TextEdit?
This is still one area OS X is weak in (except for MS Word); something that I suspect Apple will address verrrrry soon.
I would like to see Apple buy out Wordperfect Mac from Corel. Either that or refine Appleworks from its existing code base.
Apple should include AppleWorks on PowerBook and PowerMac systems.
When I checked this morning, I saw Open Office available for OS X. IMO, I don’t think Apple wants to rock the boat too much with MS and come up with a replacement for Office. Although if they came up with an Entourage X replacement that didn’t rely upon Outlook Web Access to access Exchange server calendars, I wouldn’t mind. Shared calendars are an unavoidable fact of life for me.
“Another example in which eye candy is not desired but rather high power computing and Linux is chosen for the task. So says NASA: “
Considering the fact that OS X’s GUI is ofset to the graphics processor, (rather than being done in hardware) OS X’s GUI would tax the hardware even LESS than the example you provided.
Now stop trolling and go back under your bridge.
fully integrated (read: non-x11) word processor for OS X that isn’t limited. I really with gobe would port to OS X soon, then id be in MS-free heaven.
Have you tried Ragtime? It’s quite an integrated office suite. There is a free version for non commercial use.
“In real world, high power computing OsX can’t touch Linux:”
Both operating systems are roughly equal in performance
“Eye candy never translates into speed(.)”
No it doesn’t, but nobody said it does. OS X’s UI doesn’t impair the OSes speed either.
“Another example in which eye candy is not desired but rather high power computing and Linux is chosen for the task.”
In examples where eye candy slows down the computer… sure it is not preferred, but OS X’s UI (which is not eye candy mind you) doesn’t tax the processor anyways… it offsets all the graphics to the GPI
As usual, an extremely important information (from april 2003) delivered by the absolutely not obsessed Querú Hunter (who seems to have the mission to show a blind and deaf and above all dumb world how OS X is bad), soon to be called Fluoxetine Hydrochloride Hunter (Prozac hunter to make it short).
I dunno about that. Most people that I know that really love computers, don’t really switch anything. They add more computers. Example: Here, we have 7 computers of various types, all x86 ( I like OSX, but it’s far too expensive for what I wanna use it for, and I know enough about *nix to make any x86 do the same things ( aside from a bit of proprietary software here and there). I mostly use *nix in a server configuration, to run my website, email server, IRC server, DNS, etc. I’ve used computers since 1986 ( IBM XT clones, gotta love em ). There’s a reality that many choose to ignore ( or maybe their unaware of ), that ” Many of the more experienced users out there buy complex systems such as x86 systems because they want to be able to freely hack / program / script/ alter their machine for their own purposes.” I for one, am one of these people. Over half of the services I run on Linux are custom compiles, because I wanted to build in a feature here, or remove one there. Now, I did play around with OSX a bit a few weeks ago, and I do like the feel of it… however…I ketp finding myself using tools on it that aren’t readily apparent, such as BASH ( rather than the default, TCSH). What can I say? To me, BASH is better, but I say use what gets the job done.
And on that note, if simple, clean elegance in a preconfigured machine works for you, then it may be what you need. Some of us need more. Not everyone uses their systems for common user end tasks ( developers ). IMHO, If I pick up a Mac, I’m not going to run OSX. No, more likely I’ll run linux on it, because it is less archaic than unix. Granted, great things have been done with FreeBSD, but I ask that before you dispute this, look up the release notes of the current BSDs and compare that to the current Linux releases out there. Linux has so many more people working in R&D that its racing ahead of everything else in terms of growth ( and I’m not talking the kinda growth that B.Gates talks about in his speeches… we all know that’s crap…most ppl take on Windows because it’s forced on them with Prefab purchases, and WinXP Pro is the 1st windows-done-right… but then again… this is just my opinion… I could be wrong.
Who says you cannot get rid of the eye candy?
1- Go to the login screen.
2- Press alt+Right arrow
3- Press return. The list of users turns into a login/password box.
4- Type >console in the login and press return.
Cool! Now you are in true unix mode!
That’s why I like OSX so much. “Easy to learn, difficult to master.” You can work without worrying about anything, but also get your hands dirty with the unix stuff.