Tao of Mac

Jul 26th 2005 · 2 min read

Nearly Halfway There

Getting back to speed at work, which means some homework and some forced relaxation (lest I find myself staring at PDFs near midnight). Not much in terms of news, either (and most of what I picked up is, as always, only visible through RecentChanges or the "Bliki" feed), so I've only got two topics today:

iBook, Refreshes

It turns out that, despite all the rumors didn't announce widescreen iBooks (only speed bumps), and didn't deliver big changes on the either. Instead, we get more wireless options (including Bluetooth 2.0, which will be very useful next year), beefier PowerPC CPUs, improved trackpads, and the Sudden Motion Sensor.

Not bad overall - if my iBook hadn't been repairable, I would probably pick up one of these (if they were available in Portugal anytime soon, of course), instead of waiting for the next year's Intel variants.

"Must get these in the shops for Christmas"

(Bond to Q in Moonraker, referring to the wrist dart gun)

I also noticed loads of press on the Motorola/Q, which is interesting considering:

  • the lack of -related announcements, and
  • the fact that the Q is slated for "early 2006" at an as-yet-unquoted price.

I had originally mistaken the Q for an iPAQ-like , but it turns out to be yet another variant on the smartphone platform - which may also raise some issues regarding application compatibility.

I like the port on the side, as well as the mini-SD and the thumbwheel, even though I haven't yet caught a decent picture of the right side of the device. But, with the sort of backlit screen it appears to have, I think there is zero hope of the battery outlasting my 7290's one-charge-per-week rating.

"If you're Q, does that make him R?"

(Bond to Q in The World is Not Enough, referring to John Cleese's character)

Given the current emphasis on -like gizmos (like this, via Gizmodo), my personal feeling is that Motorola will take so long to actually deliver the Q that someone else will step up to the platter.

They are, of course, free to prove me wrong on this, but it's been a year since I started my little hobby page, and more prosaic stuff like the A1000 (and the A910, which was upstaged by the Q) took a long time to come out...

Still, it's an interesting option for enterprise e-mail - truth be told, I haven't seen a lot of people talking about the new "pseudo-push" solution with any enthusiasm, since it relies on layer 0 SMS messages sent by the server (which works, but only up to a point).