by Eolake Stobblehouse

I am writing this on a cafe in Copenhagen, as one should when reviewing a portable computer. All right, admittedly it does not have to be in Copenhagen, but ideally it should be:)

I have only had the "IceBook" for a few days, so this will not be an extensive review. But already I can say this: I like it a lot. It is small, light, and handy, and it is dang good looking. I will say the same as I did when I got my Cube, that it just feels good. I think that Apple Computer has done a great amount in recent years for the quality of computer hardware. (Software too for that matter.) I got my first Mac in 1995, a Powermac 7200, and the feel and quality of that machine is simply not in any way comparable to the machines in recent years. It was basically just a utilarian metal box, like most computers.

They say that god is in the details. Well, that is surely true, but I think that god (or whatever name you care to give to quality or other positive characteristics) is even more so in The Whole.

The thing is that if you put a lot of attention and effort into the details, but have never considered the Whole, then the thing is just never going to work. And this of course is true no matter if you are talking about a computer, a painting, a book, a house, a project, or whatever. Making thousands of parts all work well together takes a lot of considering. And it takes the ability to consider the details and the Whole all at the same time, which is the greatest trick of all, and possibly the big difference between the dillitante and the master.

Both the details (like the excellent screen and the most silent hard disk I have (not) heard) and the whole of the iBook work well together. It is telling that Jobs felt compelled to mention at the release press conference that Apple had been "working on it for a while" (I would guess a year and a half at least). It takes time and effort to make such a beautiful integrated object.

One detail worth mentioning, partly because it is one of the less obvious ones, is the trackpad. I have been the happy owner of a Lombard G3 Apple PowerBook from 1999 (the fastest model, 400Hhz) for two years, and it is a great machine. One thing I liked to do, though, was to bring a mouse along whenever I wanted to do some work on which required me to use a pointing device more than occasionally. To my big surprise, this is not the case with the iBook, with this machine the trackpad operation is much more effortless, and I use it almost as easily as a mouse (with which I have had much more practice). In other words, Apple has somehow managed to design a new trackpad which is so much easier and smoother to use that it makes all the difference to me. And the thing is that I had no idea that the old one was not as good as it could get. Probably nobody else did either, until Apple dicided to spend money and time doing research on the subject, and came up with a big and nice trackpad (with a big and very soft click button), which is just very effortless to use.

Similarly the screen's hinge. It is a very pretty, solid industrial-like block-hinge, which nevertheless looks good. And it puts the screen a bit lower and further away, which is great. And the keyboard really nice for me, the best laptop keyboard I have tried. Which is saying something considering the small size of the machine and the large size of my hands.

My point is that Apple, like other great inventors, don't just improve things that people are complaining about. They put new things in the world, they don't just work on what is already there. Before Apple put a computer on the market in 1984 with a picture screen with windows and a mouse-like thingy to move things around with, nobody was asking for something like that! Practically nobody on the planet had any idea that something like could even exist, much less be desirable. In a similar vein, there is an interesting story about the invention of the minivan (source: Guy Kawasaki's book Rules for Revelutionaries): It was tough getting anybody interested in building a thing like that, because there was absolutely no demand for one. Never had any single letter arrived to the car manufacturors which asked for something in between a normal family car and a van. And still when the minivan arrived on the market it filled a big need, and it has been a stable on the market and the streets ever since.

Scientists predict. Artists create.

- Stobblehouse