At its best , Apple has the power to make stuff that reaches mightily around the noetic , hardheaded part of your brain to grab your amygdala and squeeze it till the succus runs out . The 12 - inch PowerBook G4 was such a machine . perdition , issuch a political machine .
It was n’t a machine without via media , as our review at the time made clear , butit felt like it was . Before it was declare in January 2003 , anyone buy a laptop realistically had to decide betweencapabilityandportability , but with the 12 - in PowerBook G4 , you felt for the first time like you could have both : a powerful car easily capable to be your chief Mac , in a tiny , grub - it - in - a - bag chassis . Although not directly corresponding , the fact that the first 12 - inch PowerBook G4 had an 867MHz processor while the entry - level Power Mac G4 announced at the same clock time seemed to be only slightly faster at 1GHz meant that this was when laptops stop over looking like underpowered runts next to desktops .
And there was something just enormously cunning about the minuscule package all that G4 top executive was stuffed into . It felt chunky and dense , and the iBook - inspired cushy , orotund sharpness gave it a friendliness as well . Above all , though , that aluminum plate — the first time Apple had used this fabric , which , for a decade or more since , its Macs have been hewn from — spoke of power , of fluency , of ability .
It was the complete software package , and even today all the pieces are in spot ; Bluetooth , AirPort Extreme , a SuperDrive , the power to drive an external video display up to 1600×1200 . It was the first Mac that could n’t bring up into Mac OS 9 , and even the first generation support Mac OS XTC 10.5 . In other words , though things will definitely be a bit slow , I suspect most mass could trade their modern laptop for a 12 - inch PowerBook G4 with minimal break , and for a computer that ’s basically 12 years old , that ’s quite something .
And oh my , I want one . It looked stunning , and was just so tremendously powerful . I had just set out working atMacUsermagazine in London when they ultimately send , much after in 2003 , and my colleague and booster Kenny Hemphill succumbed . If I remember correctly , on the first day they were in the shops , he went down , slapped his recognition board on the counterpunch , and walked out with possibly the most desirable Mac that Apple had ever made — I was so overjealous that he could do that .
I make out you ’ll join me in an empathic gasp of horror when I tell you that just a few solar day after he get out it from his bag only to discover that the big three - pronged UK plug had gouge a braggy loggerheaded track in the pristine lid . Breaks your warmheartedness , does n’t it ? We do n’t mind too much if a car get a bit bump up after it ’s populate with us for a few years , but for those first few week most of us cocker and coo over it like it ’s a new-sprung baby , and are just about as upset if any harm befall it .
And actually , this new material , aluminium , was much more resilient than the titanium racing shell of the previous PowerBook G4 . While all the second - hired hand “ TiBooks ” I see on eBay attend like they ’ve been through a war — since their silvern colouring material was just well - nick key — the atomic number 13 just wears its scrape with pride .
As Jason Snell observed in his reexamination , rather than you lift the keyboard up to get at the internals , the AirPort Extreme card slotted in beside the battery , and there was an memory access panel on the bottom under which you could fit more RAM .
And , oh , that keyboard ! It still feel fab today , thanks not least to its new - found rigidness , andlike with the Modern MacBookit goes right from edge to border .
Indeed , the newfangled MacBook is in some ways the spiritual heir to the 12 - column inch PowerBook G4 . Sure , the comparisons with desktop major power and the idea that it ’s a no - compromise laptop do n’t apply here , but the 12 - in PowerBook G4 so completely captured the gist and intellect of a generation of Apple users that we ’ve been calling for it to be reinvented ever since . Something capable . Cute . Tiny . Something , in fact , that we justwant .
That ’s the Apple magic .
