Filed under: Apple Corporate, Rumors, PowerBook
VAIO designers working on x86 PowerBooks
Maybe Sony's marketing people knew something we didn't after all. Engadget is reporting today that as part of Apple's push to get Intel PowerBooks to market, they've been poaching from the VAIO team. Apparently, the boys in Cupertino have hired a Japanese headhunting firm to round up as many current and ex-VAIO engineers as possible, as quickly as possible. As Peter points out in the article, there's a certain method to this madness: Sony helped Apple design the first PowerBook 16 years ago.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ed Shull said 3:40PM on 11-08-2005
The VAIO's are nice looking machines, but I would rather see a Powerbook tablet option than something that looks like a VAIO.
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Bruce M. said 3:43PM on 11-08-2005
I'm very excited about what's coming to Apple's laptops ... mostly smaller form-factors. I love my 12" Powerbook, but it's starting to feel really heavy compared to some of the PC laptops I've seen lately. And the screen on my Powerbook is starting to seem very dim. My only big concern is that Sony laptops are pieces of crap when it comes to reliability -- my friend's died in a year and just out of warranty, and Sony basically abandoned her. She now owns a 12" Powerbook and is very happy. My dream Powerbook will have a 13" widescreen format, much higher resolution and brighter screen, at least a 160 gigabyte hard drive, boot into multiple OS's, have 2 gigs of RAM and a multicore processor, built in iSight camera, and a PCMCIA slot for adding high speed wireless (unless Apple builds it in) and ideally will also be a media PC with included front-row 2.0 and a built-in television tuner / digitizer.
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steve said 1:24PM on 11-09-2005
Ed Shull: All PowerBooks and iBooks have builtin high speed wireless.
I like the idea Apple seeking a way to improve an already excellent product in the PowerBook
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Jay Savage said 1:43PM on 11-09-2005
steve:
News to me. AirPort is single-band 802.11g, 54Mbps max. You can hardly buy one of those cards for a PC anymore. Everyone is selling dual-band solutions that use two 802.11g channels simultaneous to achieve throughput of 108Mbps. At least that's the theory. The additional overhead means you're not likely to see anything much over 90 in most cases, but still.
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bobby said 5:17PM on 11-20-2005
Way off. dual band doesn't work much better than the single because of the interferance in the 11 channel band. There is to much overlap and therefor lost packets galore. Add to that the fact that most people with cable modems can't even hit these kinds of speeds wired. These high speeds are really only needed for server intensive network traffic. therefore 802.11g is fine.
Further, you aren't gonna find a media center laptop. that just doesn't make sense. you'd have to make all those connections everytime you set it up, i suppose you could use a dock, but in that case why wouldn't you just run ethernet to the dock.
all in all, that kind of wireless bandwidth is just rediculously unnecessary.
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Adam said 4:58PM on 11-10-2005
NOOOOOO! VAIO LAPTOPS ARE BRICKS WITH CRAP BATTERIES AND PRODUCE FAR TOO MUCH NOISE AND HEAT!!!!!! THIS IS WRONG!
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Nikoniko said 11:13PM on 11-11-2005
Tony is probably confusing Sony with Pioneer. Pioneer released rebranded Mac clones provided to them by Motorola and StarMax. Or maybe he's thinking of the Sony Trinitron technology used in Macintosh monitors.
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Eugene said 1:05AM on 11-14-2005
I hardly see a difference between my 1.25 ghz G4 laptop over it's 802.11G connection side by side to my 1 ghz DP-G4 tower which is hardwired to my cable modem.
At minimum both computers have the same 10/100/1GB ethernet connection. The at the minimum the network might give me 3 -6 mb through my cable modem If i notice anything it might be how fast a video begins playing or some multi-gigabyte download comes through a tad faster on the tower but we're talking a mere seconds, just not that significant. In theory both computers max out the broadband 3 (or greater) MB/sec bandwidth.
Higher speed renditions of 802.11 wireless networks may make a difference if your laptop is connected through a highspeed wireless LAN/WAN router and you frequently transfer seriously large files, maybe. But my expereince has shown me that we're talking bleeding edge of technology where we the consumer do the bleeding, i doubt the reliability of these higher speed claims to be more than marginally better.
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Tony C said 8:33AM on 11-15-2005
By "high speed wireless", I think Bruce M might be referring to EVDO, EDGE or whatever else is on the horizon -- true nationwide high speed wireless connectivity, not localized WiFi.
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Reid Sorenson said 11:06AM on 11-15-2005
Why are all the little linky things for the Weblogs Inc. Network at the bottom of these pages linking to really old stories? This one's from July 30!
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Jonathan Finney said 4:35AM on 11-16-2005
If anyone has used the 12" and 10.6" Vaios, I'm sure your just as excited as me.
I have owned the TR1 - TR3A and both have been VERY solid computers.
I just may wait the x505 and see what the new powerbook will be like.
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The Guy who likes Linux said 1:43AM on 11-23-2005
I think that it is not a very good idea for Apple to go with the VAIO team, (They VAIO guys have nice ideas, but they seem uncabable of carrying through with them) I also prefer the design of the current Pwbook and iBooks. I am even typing this message on a 5 year old PowerBook G3 running Debian! It is more solid than my school one which is the Toshiba (Toshista in my mind) A100...
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Malcolm Brenner said 3:48PM on 11-29-2005
Apple headhunting Sony designers?... OK by me, I guess, just as long as they don't follow Sony's lead on customer service. Apple has some of the best. Their CS people talked me through some sticky problems with my iBook.
Sony's is located in North Elbonia, and you're lucky if you get someone who speaks something remotely resembling English. I am investigating buying an HD video camera, and while Sony makes a very good and innovative product, their rotten customer service is a big factor in this purchase.
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Hawthorne said 4:41PM on 7-30-2005
As long as they don't learn how to design a reliable x86 notebook from Sony, I'm okay with this. Sony's notebooks are beautiful, but they're fragile, in my experience. What's needed is something with the look of a VIAO and the guts of a ThinkPad.
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Tony said 8:53PM on 7-30-2005
Sony used to make Mac clones too, so there is probably some good institutional knowledge to tap into there.
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fra said 11:52PM on 7-30-2005
Is Ive and his team too busy working on anything else?
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Felix said 5:20AM on 7-31-2005
Not really surprised to hear Apple and Sony in this one. IMHO, these companies are the only ones to make nicely designed notebooks.
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arkowi said 9:38AM on 7-31-2005
I love sonys designs for the most part. This is a great coffee table book, that I have on my coffee table. It's becoming slightly dated, as it ends with their designs for the playstation and the 16 mb memory stick, but the real interesting stuff such as their design arcs of TVs and CD players is amazing.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789302624/qid=1122816923/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_ur_2_1/103-2232234-5543000
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andy said 2:28PM on 7-31-2005
This makes me happy, if it's true. The Vaios are the only PC I would buy... if I were to buy a PC, that is :)
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H2ORANGE said 6:27PM on 7-31-2005
Naturally, this would excite any mac user as we value form almost as much as function. I can't wait to see what this team comes up with and hope it's soming we've not considered before.
That being said, I can't help but cringe at the idea that even more people who know even less about Macs will be nodding at me and acting as though they're veterans simply because they dropped some new change on a new toy. Know what I mean?
I was one of the first to have the Treo 600... many of us were. Weren't those the days...? Once Palm bought Handspring, EVERYONE had to have one so now EVERYONE either has the 600 or the 6shittty. If you speak to the owners, they don't even know what they're doing half the time... they're just proud to floss their $600 phone.
I'm all for the new, but won't be so quick to return the nod...
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