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by masklinn 5838 days ago
> Both handhelds and desktops have been increasing in resolution, and decreasing in cost, for years.

That's not entirely correct. 24" at 1920x1200 and 30" at 2560x1600 is something that's been there for years, and these days laptops are regressing rather than progressing: in 2005 I had colleagues with 15" laptops in 1920x1200, these days the majority seems to be 16/9 screens in stupid resolutions (1366x768 seems really common these days in entry-level laptops)

> Never is a mighty long time!

My never stands for the Macbooks, and probably the iPad as well. By the time we reach the ability to create such densities with acceptable yields on panes bigger than 10 inches, the current names will long have been retired.
1 comments
Retric 5838 days ago
Company's rarely change the name of a well liked product. Consider a 1976 Honda accord vs a 2010 Honda accord. They are vary different cars targeting different markets but as long as people think product X = quality the name tends to stick around.

(1976 68hp ) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/1977-1982...

(2010 177-hp to 271-hp on a v6) http://automobiles.honda.com/accord-sedan/exterior.aspx

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philwelch 5837 days ago
On the other hand, consider PowerBook--a strong brand since the early 90's that was still phased out.
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pohl 5837 days ago
Having been named after the PowerPC architecture probably accounts for that one.
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philwelch 5837 days ago
No, that's the Power Mac. The PowerBook predates the PowerPC by years--the first PowerBook was in 1991, and the first PowerPC-based PowerBook was in 1995, while the first Power Mac was in 1994.
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pohl 5837 days ago
You're right, the first was released in October of 1991. But look at what else Apple joined in the same month:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM_alliance

Looks to me like they were just establishing the brand in advance of the first chip.

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philwelch 5837 days ago
That makes absolutely no sense--the "Power Macintosh" wasn't unveiled until the PowerPC chips were actually shipping, because the brand denoted the presence of the new processor. Why would you name a computer brand after a processor it doesn't have? It's like calling a 386-based 486-era laptop a "Penta" because you anticipate that future versions of it years in the future will have Pentium processors.
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