Gimlé

A lot of people have fond memories of the old Macintosh Pluses and SEs, the conceptual ancestors of the all-in-one iMac.

One thing that a lot of the same people also forget is that those machines were also the portables of their day, which sounds, considering the size and shape of the machines, completely false at the face of it.

But those machines have to be assessed in their proper context. At that time, those machines where the lightest, most portable and yet commonly available machines around.

Add the excellent user interface to the mix and you’ll realise why they were so popular for so long.

So Apple and mobility go back a long way.

Yesterday, it became obvious that mobility and mobile computer has become Apple’s primary focus.

A luggable desktop-replacement on the high-end. After that you have a slightly more portable desktop-replacement for those who do not have servants to carry their luggage. Then you have a ultra-portable full-featured notebook followed by the economy solution.

Whatever your mobile need, Apple is now almost guaranteed to have a solution.

It could be argued that this is by necessity, the PowerPC processors available today are rather anemic as desktop processors, a joke as workstation processors, but are excellent mobile processors. Power-efficient, fast enough for most mobile tasks and run at genital-friendly temperatures.

Maybe, but the mobility focus would be a smart move in any case.

A quick look at the state of computer-ownership at my local university reveals that almost everybody owns a desktop computer but only a fraction owns a laptop.

So you’ve got two markets, one is completely saturated with recent machines, the other is almost completely unsaturated.

If you were running a computer company which one would you focus on?

Baldur Bjarnason.
Clifton, Bristol.