Apple's Almost Netbook

Withholding Judgment on the iPad

I've reached a major decision. I am not going to write about the iPad under I get my sweaty hands on one, which is not going to be for four more weeks. I stopped in the local Apple Store (an hour's drive away) the other day and got the word. They won't see one until the end of March, and they are not getting any earlier iPads to play with.

There's a real reason that I need to touch the iPad: the virtual keyboard. Mr. Mike, our in-house computer repairman, feels that because Apple is marketing a separate keyboard with an attached dock for the iPad, it is admitting that the virtual keyboard will not work for extended typing. I don't know. I want to see if I can use the virtual keyboard to type a column, so I am reserving my thoughts on the usability of the iPad until I can use one.

There is one thing I'd like to talk about concerning the iPad: User interface. Keyboards are an input device that predates the personal computer. When Apple introduced the mouse with the Lisa in 1983, it was the start of introducing a different way for users to interact with computers. The iPod touch continued this tradition, and the iPad scales up the iPod's gesture-based interface.

Apple has expanded the touch pads of its notebooks to allow users to use a gesture interface, and nowadays when I am using my Pismo PowerBook on the Internet, I catch myself wanting to use the "pinch" and "tap" features.

Now that the iPad has almost arrived, it extends Apple's changes to how we interact with our computers. Will we be able to substitute a touch interface instead of resorting to a physical keyboard? We'll have the answer in a month.

Apple's Almost Netbook

It may well be all moot anyway. We have been replacing damaged G4 iBooks in our school with the white MacBooks. Mr. Mike has also been fixing the more salvageable G4s to extend their lives and save us some greenbacks. One of the computers we were going to give up on was a 12" PowerBook G4.

You knew that I was going to offer to see what I could do to try to bring it back from the dead. Predictable, I suppose.

If - and I say if - I can bring the old PowerBook back, I will have the Holy Grail of the Mac universe: a Mac netbook.*

Yeah, you heard me.

Long before the current Windows netbook craze, Apple made a subcompact notebook computer that measures 10.9" x 8.6" x 1.18" and weighs 4.6 lb.

Not only would this give me another unusual Mac to use, but I could also install Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" on it and compare that with the OS X 10.4 "Tiger" install on my Pismo. (I am joining the modern world - just at my own speed.)

Finally, I could also see if a small size factor makes that much of a difference. Is the netbook a passing fad? Inquiring minds will want to know.

Beat to Pieces

Now for the bad news. This PowerBook was issued to the Athletic department. I don't want to generalize, but perhaps it should have been covered with Nerf™ material first. The corner where the battery lives is mangled from some sort of impact (perhaps some sort of training accident?). Tape was used to secure the battery. There are a couple of other indentations, coffee stains, and a missing key on the keyboard.

Would it start? Well, yes, it would boot up!

Of course, the screen was as dark and murky as a House committee meeting. That's why it was abandoned.

Fortunately, I discovered a 12" display screen from an iBook, so all I have to do is take the screen out of the PowerBook, replace the screen, and then button the whole thing back up again. Of course, the whole computer has to be take apart to get the display off. Then I'll have to take the display apart and swap the screen with the new (relatively) screen.

I'll keep you posted.

* Editor's note: There is no strict definition for a netbook. Although the first netbook had a tiny 8.9" x 6.5" footprint, a minuscule 7" display, and weighed just two pounds, netbooks have become larger over the years to accommodate bigger displays, higher capacity batteries, and more useful - closer to standard size - keyboards. Nowadays a netbook is more likely to have a 10.1" display, a 10.3" x 7.2" footprint, and weigh 2.5 to 3.0 lb. Netbooks are typified as being small, light, cheap, having shrunken keyboards, having no provision for an internal optical drive, and using single-core CPUs at clock speeds (typically 1.6 GHz) that nobody would choose for a real notebook.

In terms of size, the 12" PowerBook comes close. In terms of weight, not hardly. It also has a full sized keyboard, a more practical screen size, and was not designed to be cheap - prices started at $1,500. CPU speeds were only a step behind the 15" PowerBook, although by today's standards even the fastest 12" PowerBook can barely keep up with a $300 netbook in overall processing power.