| Home > Technology > Those imminent Intel-powered iBook rumours... razor thin or chunkier, AsusTek shows it can do both. |
| Those imminent Intel-powered iBook rumours... razor thin or chunkier, AsusTek shows it can do both. | | Date Created: 29 Dec, 2005, 02:53 AM |
 Reports have now been appearing in the Mac-oriented media pointing to the imminent arrival of new Intel-powered Apple notebooks.
I'm still not certain of the wisdom of predicting Apple will leap six months ahead of its purported timeline, but as with the 5G iPod, Apple doesn't always stick to its own publicly-stated briefings: "They ARE looking in the right places after all" (a reference to the U2 iPod media gathering a year ago where a video iPod didn't make sense according to Steve Jobs).
This week we've see reports of Asian notebook makers receiving the gong for the production of Apple's pro and domestic line up.
In particular, my attention was taken by reports that AsusTek would be one of the manufacturers.
Here in Australia, the Asus range of laptops has been aggressively marketed and achieving good acceptance for their design and pricing since their introduction a year ago.
Certainly they have pioneered in the Wintel domain the manufacture of accessible, well-made and very thin notebooks whose industrial design in that domain rival leaders like IBM/Lenovo and their ThinkPads, and Sony with its Vaio.
The models attracting the most attention are their very thin notebooks. Says their marketing director, Sunny Han: "If you compare us with HP and Dell, we still belong to the small potatoes....We focus on niche marketing, to niche people."
Now doesn't that sound like AsusTek at least in part understands Apple's DNA? It's history with Apple goes back a long way, and they already manufacture current Apple products, such as the iBook G4 and iPod Shuffle.
The current range of Asus notebooks shows them to be as thin as Apple's current range of Powerbooks, yet still full-featured in quality. Just like the Titanium G4 Powerbooks of 2001 set the trend for laptop design - and the Windows world has yet to catch up its original clean design carried over to current Aluminium models - AsusTek is capable of making razor-thin full-feature models.
The questions I have are these: Is Apple ready to release iBooks earlier than the much-spoken timeline of mid-2006? My guess is, if their development schedule allows for it, they have done the quality assurance due diligence, the Intel chips are in bountiful supply, then they will.
And secondly, will it be a razor-thin iBook, in the knowledge that AsusTek has the manufacturing prowess to succeed? Is such a domestic model, and especially one destined to be a huge seller in educational sectors, desirable? If it is to be razor-thin, then what design parameters might we see in the Powerbook range to differentiate it?
AsusTek also makes chunkier 13.3" Wintel models, mind you, so perhaps its ability to manufacturer razor-thin models, while laudable and attractive in their own right, is a red herring.
But there is no doubt in my mind that any new iBook which is Intel powered will need to be radically different in design to set it apart from current G4 models.
Expect more rumours and even purported pictures to emerge in the next two weeks in the leadup to Macworld.
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