Talk:PowerBook

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the PowerBook article.
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Would there be any forseeable difficulties in replacing the PowerPC of a 12in powerbook g4 (Albook) with the Duo?

Yes, very very many difficulties. The structure of the two systems is entirely different -- I won't say that it's not going to happen, but it upgrade packages would be too complex and not economical. --TangentIdea 02:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I thought the OS would run natively on with the Duo?
Yes, but they had to rewrite the system with x86 native code. --TangentIdea 16:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

And installing that system onto a powerbook would be impossible?

Is the OP talking about replacing the chip in an existing PowerBook, or about Apple putting Duos in the 12" case? The first can't be done (you need a new logic board to support a different processor architecture) and Apple may be working on the second. The OS will likely run on either architecture, seeing as 10.4.4 is currently available for both PowerPC and Intel iMacs. MFNickster 21:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

"...of the 1995-1996 time period where the company teetered on the brink of death." Seems a bit opinionated to me. Apple wasn't doing well but I wouldn't say it was teetering on the brink of death.

If anyone wonders why the PowerBook G4 17inch picture was removed, please open the image and take a look at the screen in the picture. It's something hand-drawn on the screen. Do some "invert colors" if you don't see it yet. I may be wrong but ... Dent 18:20, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Needs to be de-biased:
The current Powerbook runs at 800Mhz G4, and sports a DVI port and a huge, high res display. Even the new 667 is freakin awesome! --Ellmist

Here's my translation: The current PowerBook G4 processor runs up to 800 mHz. The display has a resolution of 1280x854, but a DVI port exists. --Ellmist

Anyone against changing the g4 pb pic for this one: 12inch g4?
/Jørgen Adam

There exists a short article about the PowerBook G4. Perhaps split off the PB G4 from PowerBook#PowerBook_G4 into there, or merge that here? -- Christopherlin 09:12, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The image at the bottom is captioned correctly, but the name is "G4iBook.jpeg" (in big huge letters on the top of the page, if you click on it for a closer look). Can we change this, so it's not misleading? It's a PowerBook G4, not an iBook G4.

Contents

[edit] Changed to British English?

User:193.15.190.221 has changed the article from American to British English... Is this not erroneous, as the article is about a product from an American company...? --hooverbag 11:55, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

This seems to be a sort of passive-aggressive war played by a few Wikipedians (although I have no idea if User:193.15.190.221 falls into that category or not). Me, I'd support reverting the article to American English for precisely the reason you mention. I don't go around changing, say, ICL's article to American English and, in turn, don't expect people to go around changing Apple-related articles to British English. The Wiki standard is to leave the prevailing sub-language selection as it was unless there's good reason to change it.
Atlant 13:32, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If you're talking about aluminium/aluminum, I don't think its a case of British English/US English, but rather IUPAC/non-standard terminology. Both IUPAC and wikipedia use aluminium, and it should stay that way for all articles unless there is a compelling reason otherwise. StuartH 00:46, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I don't recall if this was in regards to alumin[i]um or not, but even if it is, I will still stand my ground: show me one piece of Apple American marketing collateral that specifies "aluminium" and we can talk about changing to that. But I have never heard an American speaker. whether speaking colloquially or technically, use "aluminium" nor have I ever seen it printed on American periodic tables.
Atlant 11:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Looking at the page, it seems it isn't really confined to aluminium, words like colour are used as well, where I think US spellings are appropriate - but I don't think the preferred spelling of the governing international chemical organisation, in an international encyclopedia, for a company recognised internationally falls into that category. StuartH 09:56, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
It does (fall into the debatable category) if Apple calls it "Aluminum" rather than "Aluminium".
Atlant 12:14, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
That would certainly be the case if the word appeared in a product name, but when describing the product, "aluminium" is a term that I believe conforms more to a neutral point of view. I'm not really sure what the Wikipedia policy is here - whether or not the fact that a company is based in the U.S. overrides the more accepted spelling might need to be clarified. StuartH 05:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Aluminum is the very word that Apple uses to describe the aluminum powerbooks (as well as all the coordinating accessories). Go to their principal web site and search for "Aluminum".
Atlant 12:20, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Just for the record, only the aluminium article needs to use the spelling aluminium, per the discussions on talk:aluminium. All other articles are free to use whatever spelling the original author of the article used, so long as the spelling system used in the article remains consistent. See for example aluminum can. The first contributor to use a dialect specific word in was in this edit: [1]. Then, in March, an anonymous user changed all the spellings to British English without explanation [2]. In this article, given that both the original spelling used was aluminum and that is the spelling used by the maker of the product in question and the article is about a topic which is American in origin, therefore Wikipedia policies support preference of the spelling aluminum over aluminium in this article. I am reverting all the spellings in this article back to American English to correspond to Wikipedia policy regarding changing spellings to different national varieties. Nohat 16:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Isn't it kinda circular reasoning to use as an example something that you reverted from the international spelling less than two weeks ago? The Manual of Style also says that if one phrase is regarded as correct, it is to be preferred, and original spellings are to be used only if "all else fails". Perhaps there needs to be some more formal policy when it comes to names of elements? StuartH 02:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
The policy on the matter is clear, and there is little lenience for people arbitrarily changing American to British spellings. I don't see any legimitate reason to use a decidedly non-American spelling on a article that is about a decidedly American topic. There does not need to be a more formal policy when it comes to the spelling of elements, or anything else. We just have to learn to live with the fact that some articles will have British spellings, other articles will have American spellings, a few articles will have Canadian or Australian or New Zealand or South African or Indian spellings, and that's that. Nohat 02:59, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Okay, policies I've seen seem to limit the preference for IUPAC conventions to scientific articles, aluminum is fair enough here. StuartH 01:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
"All the 500 series featured active-matrix LCD displays [all models had color screen options if so desired]" - this is incorrect.

Not all of the 500-series 'books had active matrix displays. Only the 540, 540c (and 550c in asia) had TFT displays. Even more so, the 500-series did not introduce active matrix displays to the Powerbook line...the 170 did. Somebody should correct the article as it is currently inaccurate.


The fact is, the worls uses the term "aluminium". The only people that don't are North Americans. Now, when using the name that apple gave the product, "Aluminum" is correct, since that's what Apple call it, in North America. Although if you have a quick shufty at www.apple.com/uk/powerbook, you'll clearly see them using the international spelling instead. I can accept using the 'aluminum' term for the products name, since APple are an American company, and in America, that's what it's called. But for descriptive terms, it should be "Aluminium" since this is after all, english wikipedia, not US English wikipedia. The rest of the world mostly uses the correct name for aluminium, including IUPAC, who are the biggest and most authorative viewpoint on chemistry in the world. In the interests of removing national bias in this article, it should be aluminium, since this is the international english spelling, as opposed to the US English spelling. 81.101.125.190 08:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
There might be cause to use the international spelling, even if the article was originally written to an American standard and there is no compelling reason to change it. I just want to point out that using the American spelling is not 'bias' and it is not 'incorrect.' MFNickster 14:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PowerBook isn't dead yet, is it?

The article currently indicates that the PowerBook is out of production. Is this based on any evidence?

I have not heard of PowerBooks being End-of-Lifed. Currently, there is no way to buy a 12" or 17" pro laptop from Apple except to buy a PowerBook. And there's nothing on the Apple Store or the Apple PowerBook page to indicate that they are out of production.

Some people may be of the opinion that Apple is not actively manufacturing PowerBooks anymore, but is that actually known, or just a guess?

Apple's press release says that the MacBook Pro is "up to four times faster than the product it replaces, the PowerBook G4." That obviously means that the 15" PB G4 is going away, and it's probably safe to assume that the other sizes will follow suit, but there's no need for speculation. The article can simply state that the MacBook Pro is replacing the 15" PowerBook, and not comment on the 12" and 17" PowerBooks until they are officially retired.
Another interesting thought - does the 'Pro' in MacBook Pro imply that the iBooks will be replaced by (non-pro) MacBooks? MFNickster 05:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. I've changed it to reflect the reality. As for the iBook becoming the MacBook (non-Pro), there's a ton of speculation about that here. Enjoy! Epastore 14:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to remove the speculative aspects regarding the decommission of the 12 and 17 powerbooks until official sources come forward. --DDG 22:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline visual issues

The Timeline image is extremely hard to read, ironically, using Apple standard gamma, because the distinction between the colours on it are hard to make out. It looks okay under PC gamma, but could probably be a bit easier to distinguish.

[edit] is/was

"The PowerBook is a line of Apple Macintosh laptop computers manufactured and sold by Apple Computer between 1991 and 2006".

This sentence is semantically and factually correct, no matter how far into the future it is read. I know it's tempting to say that the PowerBook was a line of laptops... but the phrasing here is intentional: PowerBooks do indeed still exist; it's the fact that they are no longer manufactured and sold by Apple that is something we characterise as being in the past, by employing the past tense on those specific activities, not the product as a whole. PowerBooks are still a line of Apple Macintosh laptop computers... that hasn't changed. In short, "it is something that was". Warrens 06:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If there's continuing disagreement, we could always use an alternative like "The name PowerBook refers to a line of Apple Macintosh laptop computers..." MFNickster 15:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
That works too. Another alternative is, "Powerbook is the name of a line of..."; we use that kind of wording on some of the operating system articles. Warrens 15:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portable section

With the PowerBook no longer being Apple's current portable line, I think the Portable section is now entirely too prominent. Thoughts? --Steven Fisher 21:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't do a very good job explaining this. The Apple's pre-PowerBook laptop section seems to be a concession to "Hey, maybe they're really after details on the portable, but the PowerBook is Apple's current model and the only thing they know." Given that this is no longer true, I think the section needs to be scaled back or possibly removed. (As an aside, the idea that the Portable is a laptop is somewhat misguided.) --Steven Fisher 21:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introducing FW800

Are the G4 PowerBooks the first ones introducing the FireWire 800 port? I think there should be something about that in your article.

Thanks :) --Asorka 10:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Defective Battery Section

This is very temporal, and will lose relevance and interest with time. I don't think it is encyclopedic. Proposal: delete it. Life.temp (talk) 14:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)