The Subnotebook

[fryke]

*nod*. can only agree.

[chornbe]

Originally Posted by Lt Major Burns

the fact they are running windows and are made by sony just shows that the hardware is there for apple to utilise, but that they need to exercise their magic on it. imagine the vaio's size, and level of technology, but apple taking it one step further to replce the 12" pb. which at the moment, is shite. the vaio is just a very good example of innovation hampered by wintel domination

I think I disagree. Innovation and commercial viability are almost never a guaranteed sure thing. Sony, Apple and Microsoft are all in biz to make money.

Sony is providing a hardware platform.

If Microsoft _OR_ Apple were in a position and of a mind to innovate, either one step up. Obviously, neither is. You can *not* discount Apple's cool products, shiny interface and user-friendly nature. You can *not* discount Microsoft's *apparent* dominance in the market place.

If Apple wanted to innovate and thought the mini Viao was viable, they would spend some time compiling and tweaking their OS core to run on Intel. If Sony thought there was a market, they would build a PPC version of the system. If Microsoft thought there was a market, they would licensce Darwin (or some ther open source OS) and get with Apple to make it happen.

Can we all just step back from the Apple/Wintel wars for just a sec and remember something... it was the consumers who made Windows what it is today. It's not like Gates woke up one morning and said, "Today is the day I take over the world" and *poof* there it was. Remember, Windows went thru' many, many revisions and releases before it found the market viability that Apple, NeXT, Unix and many others never really did.

And looking around at the the computer landscape you can see it's been an excercise in evolution for far, far longer than in revolution (or innovation).

I think we've reached "maintenance mode" in the current computing model. The next big innovation will be in *true* universal voice recognition and/or 3d interfacing and perhaps visual gesture recognition (a la Minority Report). Separation of the visual interface (GUI) and gearing processing more towards universal interfacing (GUI, Voice, Gestures, ...) is the next logical step.

$.02

[Lt Major Burns]

you misunderstand!

the vaio shouldn't run macos. ever. it's just not an apple mac! it's technically very good, way ahead on the gadgetery, but the aesthetics let it down - it's just not very ergonomic - the powerbooks at the moment look so clean, because it was an ethic to keep it clean - no doors, flaps, or hooks to catch on something. the bottom is perfectly smooth, as is the top.

what i was saying was not a mac/xp war, just that the technology of the pBooks market rivals is leaving them for dust - when the g4 powerbooks came out, they were revolutionary! noone had seen any laptop this thin or small, so smooth and just very high quality. full of the latest technology and designed with everything in mind. even more so with the g3 powerbook (wallstreets?). sh*t, that was so revolutionary, intel laptops were copying the design almost shamelessly for about 6/7 years!

and now, the powerbooks look tired. a design that's been out longer than any other apple hardware at the moment. the technology is there to be innovative again, in the way apple is known so well for, they just need to unleash the new powerbooks. that vaio i used just as an example of what the rivals are doing, and that it's making the pbooks look stupid. i want a laptop, but i'll be damned if i buy a current powerbook.... too expensive for a 5 year old laptop.

http://www.macintouch.com/pbg4review.html

[fryke]

I think you're deep inside that reality distortion field. Nobody copied the PB G3's design, really.

On the other hand: I don't think the PB's design (the Alubooks) feels old. What I'm talking about, what this thread is about, is that I'd want Apple to do a subnotebook.

[RacerX]

Apple didn't even copy the PowerBook G3... the design was bad for business.

Take my PowerBook (Wallstreet) as an example. It takes almost no time at all for me to replace RAM and the hard drive, I was able to add a second hard drive and replaced the CD-ROM expansion bay module with a CD-RW one. Add on top of that, the processor was a daughter card that could be replaced whole with a newer processor (a G4/500 in my case).

I'll tell you, Apple isn't sitting back looking at someone like me who is still using a system from September 1998 with any form of pride... they are looking at me as lost revenue. Which they should... I would have bought a new system long ago had I not been able to nurse this one as long as I have.

And I think Apple realized this early on with the PowerBook G3s, which was why they took the iBook design in a completely different direction (as in almost completely unserviceable by the end user). That move didn't hurt Apple, in fact it helped. When a hard drive on a iBook or PowerBook G4 isn't large enough any more, people sell their old systems and buy new ones. Why, because it is less expensive (and less trouble) to just move to a new system.


As for the need for a subnotebook... yeah, I sort of see it (though to a degree I think both the 12" PowerBooks and iBooks serve this area).

I was in need for a small computer for school a few months ago. As I'm not rolling in cash, I looked closely at my needs and ended up with a PowerBook Duo 2300c (about $90US for both the PowerBook and maxing out the RAM). With an old system like that I was able to get older (but still very functional) software for my needs (Mathematica for $50US and Theorist for $35US) along with a ton of software I already had.

I have no idea what you guys were thinking a new subnotebook would run, but if I had to buy the current versions of my math software (Mathematica would have run me $1800US and LiveMath, aka Theorist, $300US) it would have been out of the question.

I was thinking about a 2400c, but the fact that I could have installed Rhapsody on it would have been too much of a distraction from my school work. I realized this was a problem with both my PowerBook G3 (Mac OS X) and ThinkPad (Rhapsody/OPENSTEP), which is why I needed a system that could keep me on task... which the 2300c (Mac OS 8.6) does quite nicely.

[fryke]

Well: Specific purposes aside, I'm thinking that the subnotebook should cater to the widest audience possible. So it _should_ run everything. Of course its size and screen resolution might limit its use for highend graphics and video (unless you attach another display at work, for example).

MY personal need is a veeeeery little typewriter.

[Ceroc Addict]

Originally Posted by fryke

MY personal need is a veeeeery little typewriter.

Same with me, except I'd prefer a typewriter so tiny that I could keep it in my pocket with me all the time (and it'd be great if it could play MPEG4 video as well ).

i.e. Really a Newton II with a built in thumboard (and a full size keyboard accessory), rather than a 10" PB, but I'll take anything I can get.

Kap

[chornbe]

hmm... I'm picturing a device (geared towards writers/editors/etc) that is an unfoldable keyboard (a la the Palm external keyboard) that has a very small lcd screen for a few lines of text and has media slots for the modern media cards (compact flash, mem stick, SD, etc). That should work out to be a $99 device at the absolute most.