The news was full today of Apple chest-pounding about the next release of OS X, and the new boxes built around the G5 AKA PPC 970, which does look to be one hot mama of a chip. But I just wanted to give (in one case ironic) thanks to Apple for two specific recent moves.
802.11g, Mmm Tasty · First of all, a few days ago they shipped a new firmware download for the Airport Extreme WiFi (802.11g) base station. This has two wonderful effects: first of all, instead of randomly going offline every hour or so, it now only checks out maybe once a day. Still damn irritating, but bearable.
Secondly, despite the braindead design of this TiBook (vestigial antenna inside a metal case, D’oh), the Airport’s range now extends out onto the back porch. (This in fact is the first ongoing essay published from there). Neato.
Big Money-Saver · The announcements today notably failed to include the much-rumored PPC970-based 15" PowerBook replacement. Let me see, I’ve got this pretty decent computer with a getting-flaky screen and a badly-designed and fragile case that is starting to feel real slow in the face of five-megapixel JPEGs. If they’d shipped a 64-bit 1.2GHz replacement with a sensible aluminium case and a bigger screen and so on, well I just woulda had to buy one. So that’s US$3000 or so that I get to keep for a while longer.
