Pismo PowerBooks May Not Be Ready for Prime Time

Apple's next-generation PowerBook G3, code-named Pismo, was originally scheduled to be completed no later than the 20th of December and was to then immediately hit the production lines in Quanta's Taiwan facility. Pismo was to be the only one of the major product announcements at January's Macworld Expo that would be readily available upon introduction.

A number of rumors from early December question this schedule, claiming, among other things, that a wide variety of the faster, final-staged prototype units had been met with heating issues that were actually deforming the bottom of the PowerBook's casing, among other things. Other sources working on the project are simply reporting that the hardware is just not finalized yet and will most likely not go final for at least another 30 days.

Eventually, Pismo will be manufactured in 400MHz and 500MHz configurations, sources said. Both configurations will sport a new 100MHz system bus on a logic-board based on Apple's brand new Single Common Unified Motherboard architecture. Pismo is the last of Apple's four major product points to be updated to the new standard.

Aboard Pismo will be dual stacked independent 12Mbps USB ports and dual side-by-side 400Mbps FireWire ports, which will replace SCSI onboard. VGA and SVideo out, a 56K Modem, 10/100BaseT Ethernet, and mini-audio ports will also be standard. An AirPort compatibility card slot can be found under Pismo's translucent keyboard, while the antennas for the wireless technology are wrapped around the brim of the unit's display module. A 4Mbps IrDA port is also rumored to remain on the next-generation PowerBook.

Each unit will feature an ATI Rage 128 Graphics Card and either 64 or 128MB of SDRAM. 4x DVD-ROM Drives will also be standard, capable of playing full-screen DVD-Video on Pismo's 14.1-inch Thin Film Transistor active-matrix display. A single PC Card slot will feature support for one Type I or Type II card, or a Zoom Video PC Card. Volume and display function keys remain on the keyboard and not on its chassis.

Pismo will also feature a much-improved stereo speaker system, and is rumored to run quieter than its predecessor. Some sources even claim that the new portable will ship with the absence of an internal cooling fan, bringing the noise level of the units down by several decibels.

Prototypes of Pismo have been seen in both charcoal black and a new translucent configuration. According to sources, Apple seeded a number of prototypes in almost fully-translucent graphite panels with a few textured portions for gripping. The graphite translucents used in these models is of the same grade used in the iMac DV Special Edition, sources said. These units also feature the white Apple logo (which is still positioned upside down). When illuminated, the light from the logo also makes the surrounding translucent graphite portions glow. "You have to see these to believe them," one source said.

According to one source, there was a slight chance that Apple would consider shipping this translucent graphite industrial design on the high-end PowerBooks (leaving the low-end to ship in charcoal), but the chances of this have become increasingly unlikely. All Pismo casing designs feature a no-latch mechanism, similar to that of the iBook, that will snap and hold the portable shut when closed. Units are also said to wake up from sleep automatically when opened.

Pismo's casing does not feature a built-in handle, but instead sources noted that there is an improved grip area with a curved indentation made to fit the user's hand. This will allow the user to more easily grasp and wrap the hand around the unit when it is being carried.

Since Pismo is based on the Apple's new Single Common Unified Architecture, Apple sources are reporting that they are seeing incredible battery life on these new units featuring just a single battery. The PowerBooks will also be several ounces lighter than the current models, but their overall size will not be much of an improvement.

Being that Pismo production was supposed to begin last week and has yet to take place, it is unclear whether Apple will choose to introduce these new units at Macworld Expo. Apple's PowerBook sales are currently in a very sorry state. Respected Apple analysts claim that Apple will have sold only 70,000 units by the end of the current quarter — 140,000 units less than Apple's top-selling iBook, and 580,000 units less than their revolutionary iMac personal computer. So Apple may choose to preview the units in order to begin taking pre-orders.

Either way, the introduction of these new units is very "up in the air."