widescreen ibook will look like this

[panda]

why widescreen 12"?

Why exactly is wide screen better than the normal 4:3 screen? I mean I know it's wider, but at the same time you loose in height at the same size between wide screen and 4:3.

a widescreen equivalent of the 12" in pb or ibook seems a fine idea.
and i agree with the 2 posters (jared kipe and other), who point out the benefits of widescreenin terms of how the eyes see and the mind visualises. that is also the notion between the widescreen format as applied to movies.

agreed, that movies would make far better use of the screen area in a widescreen.


it is however questionable as to the other benefits, as there is one mathematical fact, that is often overlooked. as the ratio increases, the surface area decreases. in other words as a square is compressed to a rectangle, the surface area decreases for the same diagonal (or perimeter for that matter). eventually eventually creating a rectangle with almot no surface area.

therefore, unless the diagonal size of the screen is increased, a 12" ibook widescreen would have less surface area on the screen than our present one.

this is an issue that is independant od screen resolution (pixel size).

personally i would welcome a ca 13" widescreen, but would be hesitant should it be 'only' a 12" screen.

a widescreen 13" would be only fractionally wider than the current 12", might be slightly narrower, but would have about the same sreen area.

we're talking big retooling costs here, of course, which is why it will probably not happen until the whole line(s) is/are changed.

one last thing... on any new form factor... please, please, please, keep the ingeneous hinge! pretty please?!?

https://forums.macrumors.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=1347103#

 

[jimjiminyjim]

the only thing that's stopping me from wanting a 14" iBook, is the resolution. it is only 1024x768. if they made it 14" widescreen, with 1152x768, i would jump in line right then and there.

agreed. at this point, I'm not even considering a 14 inch ibook. If this purely speculative rumor did turn out to be true, I'd definitely consider shelling out a little extra.

 

[Abstract]

Yeah, but it might mean that Apple sells less 15" PBs if the 14" iBook offers so much for so much less $$$. Heck, I'd consider getting a 15" PB as my next laptop purchase, but not if they had a 14" widescreen. I say keep the iBook line as it is, and make the ENTIRE Powerbook like widescreen.

However, I'd agree that a 13" PB would be fine. It doesn't have to be 12". Sony makes a 13" that looks good.
And yes, I agree that it'll probably happen in the next big Powerbook line introduction. It won't happen in a measly speed-bump update.

 

[dotdotdot]

iBooks won't get widescreen because I thought Apple was trying to make the powerbook much better than the iBook - the latest iBook updates put it close to the PowerBook for most features - until the 12" powerbook goes widescreen for like 6 months, no iBook widescreen will be used...

WideScreen 12" PowerBook, come before October/November so I can GET ONE!

 

[mleok]

For what I do, which is using the typesetting language LaTeX, it is nice to have the ability to display two pages on the screen, one with the source code, and the other with the compiled result. This turns out to be a huge productivity boost.

Indeed, although my 17" 1280x1024 screen has more pixels than my 15" 1280x854 Powerbook, I find that the screen area is more productively used in the widescreen aspect ratio of the Powerbook.

 

[AstroManLuca]

iBooks won't get widescreen because I thought Apple was trying to make the powerbook much better than the iBook - the latest iBook updates put it close to the PowerBook for most features - until the 12" powerbook goes widescreen for like 6 months, no iBook widescreen will be used...

WideScreen 12" PowerBook, come before October/November so I can GET ONE!

Didn't you see what I proposed, though? People buy 15" and 17" PowerBooks for the power and awesome widescreen display. The 12" is for power and portability. A 14" widescreen iBook would be a lot less portable than the 12" PowerBook, and it won't have as good a screen as the 15"/17" models (although the screen will still be very nice). So it won't compete with either - it will fill a gap in Apple's product line.