| Tuesday, September 16, 2003 |
11:13 - There's the missing sibling
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/
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That's more like it. The TiBook is dead; long live the new PowerBook family.
Nothing especially new, except for FireWire 800, USB 2.0 High-Speed Enhanced Mode XP (The Fast Kind™), AirPort Extreme, SuperDrives across the board, DVI out, the backlit keyboard available on more models, and built-in Bluetooth. It's a teeny bit thicker than the old one (1.1" thick), but it's aluminum, so stiffness and AirPort range should both be improved. (Titanium was an interesting idea, but I'm sure it caused more trouble than it was worth. Boy, I heard some stories about the travails Apple had to go through to figure out how to machine the cases. Titanium doesn't exactly stamp or roll easily.)
But they also seem to have taken the opportunity to introduce wireless Bluetooth-based keyboards and mice.
These new Bluetooth-based peripherals use adaptive frequency hopping to give you reliable wireless performance from a range of up to 30 feet, and offer secure 128-bit, over-the-air encryption — keeping sensitive information safe while you’re typing it.
Nice. I can't see it being useful to me, and I'm still leery of input devices that require batteries; but the encryption is a good thing, as is the Bluetooth-- laggy input has always been a problem with the traditional radio-based devices. And I'm sure the wireless mouse especially will be of interest to laptop users; Apple's mice (and those sold by third-parties, too, like Macally) are notorious for their short cords, and having the USB plugs on the left side of the laptops isn't a great design choice if you're right-handed and want to use a mouse.
Maybe it'll quiet those people who said "it seems absurd that Apple didn't use a wireless keyboard and mouse" in the iMac when it was released last January.
Nah.
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