Tripping with the New iBook

We are carrying one of our new iBooks on a business trip across country by air. This means about 5 hours in the air, plenty of time to do some work if we can get our iBook open in coach and the battery lives up to its billing. We will also be using its modem over the telephone systems of several hotels. In addition, we are making a couple of presentations so we've packed it up in the small Targus carry case, in which we normally carry our PowerBook 2000, along with an InFocus LP130 mini digital projector and an AirPort Base Station. The three together with their AC adapters, cables and case weigh nearly 15 pounds, quite a bit more than the 9 pounds with the PowerBook and its supporting gear. Surprisingly they all fit neatly in the PowerBook's modest Targus nylon case.

How about the "5-hour" battery? We're testing it running Mac OS X 10.0.4. Max OS X through version 10.0.3 had a ravenous appetite for battery juice during sleep with some PowerBooks, our 2000 (Pismo) was one. We don't know if the new iBook was one since we never tried it. We unplugged our iBook and put it to sleep as we left for the airport--the Battery Monitor app said it was fully charged and read 4:55, nearly 5 hours. When we popped it open on the airplane, a little over three hours later, the app read 4:47 after the hard drive spun down so very little juice was lost during sleep. After 90 minute's use (reading some previously downloaded email and typing some correspondence with frequent saves) and with the screen brightness set on the last notch before going blank, the Battery Monitor said 2:25 was left. It is unlikely that the battery will hold out for five hours if we're to believe Mac OS X's Battery Monitor which we actually find to be a bit flaky. After two hours use the Battery Monitor read 1:47, after two and a half hours it read 1:06, at three hours 0:42 and at three and a half hours 0.18 so we put the iBook to sleep just to see if it would make it in sleep mode for another 5 hours. It did. In fact, after we opened the lid and the hard drive stopped spinning, the battery app read 0.21, more than when we put it to sleep.

What about the size? Fortunately we did not get a middle seat on our flight, in our case a fully loaded 757, as in the iBook commercial. We got our usual aisle seat so that at least one elbow can extend beyond the imaginary DMZ line on each arm rest. The new iBook fits nicely on this aircraft's mini tray. It is a bit deeper front to back than our trusty 2400c, our normal traveling companion, but it fit. It could also be opened when the seat in front was reclined all the way. We would have thanked the gentleman in front of us who kept it all the way back for the entire flight, including during the meal service, for supplying the acid test but we were afraid that we might come through as being as truly grateful for his totally voluntary participation as we actually felt.

The other useful aspect of its size is the iBook's thickness ... er thinness? We always had to put away our 2" thick 2400c to use the tray during the meal service--our legs are too, er thick, to hold it on our lap and open the tray over it. However, the iBook is thin enough to do so with a little extra space to spare the top from getting scratched by the underside of the tray. We still put a blanket over it to be sure. Since it bowed up at the middle hinge we also put a blanket over the tray to keep the bottom of the iBook from getting scratched up. We couldn't use our CoolPad because it raised the screen just a bit too high to fit under the reclined seat back in front of us.

All's well so far, so how about the modem? When we got to our hotel we connected the iBook to the phone and called the local number of our ISP. We got a "56K" connection on the first try and pulled down the email that had accumulated since leaving for the airport some 10 hours previously.

We stopped at Apple's headquarters off De Anza Blvd in Cupertino and spent some time at The Company Store looking at merchandise and trying to pick up some hints on the possible coming of a new iMac. We got some of the former but none of the latter. If a new iMac is coming, Steve Jobs runs a pretty tight ship. No inventory to check up on either since they don't sell hardware there. We hope the Cube is not EOL'd. We are sure it will eventually catch on if modernized and kept in the right price structure, i.e. well below the towers and on par with the iMacs. Even Steve Wozniak, Apple's co-founder turned educator, is claimed in articles about MacHack last week on several web sites to have described the Cube as we have--the best desktop computer ever.

We think that the new iBook may well be the best consumer laptop computer ever.