The New PowerBooks, iLife, and Pros and Cons of Safari

- 2003.01.10

You've probably read about what was released at Macworld Expo. I wasn't really expecting any of this. I was expecting an updated iMac and some sort of new iPod. I think, however, what we ended up getting is better.

12" PowerBook

The 12.1" PowerBook is fabulous. This is exactly what I - and probably many others - have been hoping Apple would produce. Something small and light, yet with all the power of the G4 processor. This is a great computer for college students who need power and portability. It's also nice that Apple offers this without the SuperDrive by default, since I suspect most users won't need it.

17" PowerBook

This one puzzles me. The idea is nice, but I think that a 17" screen in a laptop is a bit impractical. This seems to be a "keeping up with the Joneses" sort of product - now that PC laptops have 16" screens, Apple has to have a 17" screen on theirs. I do think that this model has some other great features, though. The automatic sensor for screen brightness and the keyboard backlight are excellent ideas. Recent IBMs include a light that shines on the keyboard to illuminate it, but I think Apple's solution is better - and definitely much more elegant. The faster FireWire is nice to have, too.

iLife

Apparently Apple has a thing for charging its customers for software that was once free. Of course, I'm not complaining too much about this one. It's only $49, and you not only get an updated version of iMovie (which used to cost that much by itself), but iDVD also as well as iPhoto and iTunes on the same disc. The only iApp I really use is iTunes, and that's still a free download, so I don't think I'll be buying this bundle. But for someone who makes extensive use of iMovie and/or iDVD, I think it's not a bad deal.

Safari

This is the last thing I expected from Apple. It's been a while since I've used an Apple browser (the last one was the failed Cyberdog), and this one's got some potential. There are some bugs that need to be fixed first, however.

The toolbar buttons are too small, and the back and forward buttons too close to the window controls. I've closed or miniaturized the window by accident several times when attempting to click the back button. Apple needs to offer an option in preferences to make the size of the buttons larger. Text labels would also be nice.

The other complaint: I can't import bookmarks from OmniWeb or Netscape. This is a big issue for me, since I have several hundred bookmarks all sorted into folders in OmniWeb, and I'm not about to go and enter them all manually into Safari.

The speed claims are also exaggerated. Yes, it's faster than IE, but not by too much. It just loads pages differently. IE often loads pages by displaying them as it loads, Safari loads it and displays the finished page, more like the way Netscape works.

Safari also has issues displaying some sites properly. For example, the BBC News page (screen captures below) looks awful if you try to scroll down. Why? It has scrolling text at the top of the page that seems to stay on the screen as you move the page down.

Safari may be the fastest Mac browser, but I find that IE on Windows is almost twice as fast. I think that Safari really has potential and am looking forward to using the final version when it comes out. I am also looking forward to see what Microsoft will release in response, now that it has some serious competition on the Mac platform.

Overall the Macworld announcements were pretty pleasing. I'm especially anxious to see the sales figures on that 12" PowerBook. I have a feeling it's really going to do well.

The only thing that disappointed me is that there were no PowerBook speed bumps. Now, I know that Apple isn't going to want to increase the speed on their laptop when their desktops top off at 1.25 GHz, but PC notebooks are getting faster and faster - and Apple is definitely behind in the speed game.

Unfortunately, the days of Apple having the fastest laptop on the planet (3400) are over, but the G4's other features offer some compelling reasons to buy it instead of a PC notebook.