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It's A Titanium Happy Fest (3/30/01)
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We admit it: when the titanium PowerBook G4 first shipped, we were more than a little worried. Yes, it pulled in a truckload of rave reviews, but so did the Cube, and we all know how that went down. Just like the Cube, supplies of the PowerBook G4 were very constrained to start. And also just like the Cube, early PowerBook G4 models had a few "glitches"; instead of "flow lines" and spontaneous on-and-off behavior, the 'Books had battery contact trouble and a DVD-ROM drive that occasionally refused to spit out discs. We couldn't help but wonder if we were watching history repeat itself.
Well, our worries are over. Faithful viewer Neoyeti pointed out that CNET has an article on the PowerBook G4's first full month of availability, and the news is all good; in February, Apple's retail sales of laptop systems increased a whopping 31% year over year. To understand how huge that is, consider that notebook sales across the entire industry only grew 2.3% in the same time frame. In fact, this whole situation is straight out of a Twilight Zone episode, because not only did CNET run an article primarily about how well Apple is doing, but it also quoted an analyst (one Matt Sargent of ARS) as saying, "with the retail notebook market darker than expected, the one bright spot was Apple Computer." (Rod? Rod, is that you?)
Incidentally, if you're wondering how Apple's notebook sales performed on a month-to-month basis, February's numbers were up 23% from January. Furthermore, Apple's latest portable accounted for a full 16% of overall Mac sales. That means roughly one out of every six Macs sold last month was a wide-screen-sportin', slot-loadin', DVD-playing', drool-inducin' titanium sex machine. So apparently it is possible to offer a classy, design-heavy high-end computing device without it tanking like the Cube did. We feel much better now. Of course, before we can really relax, we're going to have to find out how Flower Power is selling...
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SceneLink (2959)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/30/01 episode: March 30, 2001: Could Apple really be trying to ditch the "i" in its product naming convention? Meanwhile, the PowerBook G4 propels Apple to the top of the year over year notebook sales growth charts, even as the company's veep of developer relations prepares to jump ship to work in the wacky world of cellular communications...
Other scenes from that episode: 2958: iDon't Know What To Call It (3/30/01) We fear change, and so these rumors that Apple is looking to jettison its whole iNaming convention fills us with dread. Faithful viewer dzhim informs us that the dirt-digging elves over at Mac OS Rumors claim to have gotten their mitts on "internal Apple documents" indicating that the era of iMacs, iBooks, iTools, iCards, iDisks, iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, iServices, iSchool, etc... 2960: Developer Developments (3/30/01) We continue to have fun with Mac OS X, its remaining "issues" notwithstanding. However, while we're still amazed at the way in which Classic does an admirable job of running lots of older software in a pretty darn transparent manner, we find ourselves itching for more software-- native software...
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