AC Adapter: PowerBook vs. MacBook Pro

Update, January 15 2008:  I've heard about problems with the Magsafe connectors.  Just to let you know, I haven't had a tick of trouble.  Zero heating, zero fraying, nothing that would be a leading indicator of trouble to come.  I take care to grasp the body of the connector, of course (no yanking on the wire), but it seems pretty durable.  

Original:

Three adapters have arrived.  

Stated capacity:  85W, up from 65W

Appearance:  Identical

Size:  The new ones are about 10% taller and wider, maybe 5% thicker.  In other words, barely larger.

Weight:  Not perceptibly heavier.

This gives four adapters, the normal portion.  

>  1 for backpack

>  1 for work desk

>  1 for home, downstairs

>  1 for home, upstairs.

Batteries: PowerBook vs. MacBook Pro

Two new batteries for the yet-to-arrive MacBook Pro are on my desk.  They are flatter and wider than the PowerBook batteries, so they must be using something other than the classic 18650 Li-ion cells.  Maybe Li-polymer?  Similar brushed-Al look, and the same wonderful power meter (push the flat button and one to five green LED's on the battery face light for four seconds, depending on state of charge).

Labeled Capacity:  Now 60WH, up from 40WH

Weight:  Now 0.95 pound, up from 0.70 pound (postage scale, .05 lb resolution)

Voltage:  Still 10.8V

This gives three packs total, which is my normal traveling complement to accommodate long plane flights with no power jack (the situation encountered more often than not).

PowerBook to MacBook Pro: Transition Coming

The elements necessary to change from the current 1.25GHz PowerBook, 160GB HDD/2GB DRAM, to a new 2.4GHz MacBook Pro, Core2Duo, 250GB HDD/2GB DRAM, have been ordered.  Updates will come as they do.  Since this involves swapping out the entire laptop-related personal infrastructure, this comprises a number of parts.

Post-1.1.1 iPhone status

Things change.  In this case, an adventurous upgrade to 1.1.1 resulted in a bricking of the iPhone, although most user experience indicated that it would leave a usable (but application-free) phone as long as the SIM wasn't unlocked.  Apparently one of the applications touched the third rail and what remained was a $599 art piece.  

Let's define "brick."  A brieked iPhone is not completely nonfunctional.  A bricked iPhone is actually an iPhone with its function set stripped down from at least a dozen to only two functions:  an entry screen that times out (and features a photo of the earth, a lovely planet while it lasts), and a slider that sends you to "Emergency Call."  Emergency Call is the second screen, with a 12-key touchpad and a "call" button that I haven't had the courage to press.  But you can enter digits, and erase them, and enter more.  Eeyore and the Useful Pot, putting digits in and taking them out again.  

The reliability of operation in this mode is evidence to me that this was a deliberate choice by Apple, not the accidental damage their PR implied.  It always works perfectly, just with many fewer functions.   That's not consistent with "we don't know what may happen," which usually yields flickering pixels, dead screens, clicking speakers, or just permanent, irreversible silence.  I usually don't have much problem with Apple's positions on things, but this bit of spurious pomposity, this seemingly deliberate vandalism, is beneath them.  I hope that the decision process by which it was allowed to occur is corrected and not allowed to repeat.

But, anyway:  it's still useful for showing people.  I took this elegant monolith to Denmark, and the amount of interest, even with almost nothing working, was surprising.  They were trying to hold it, playing with those digits, talking about everything they could see and feel. 

Since this happened, there has been a lot of progress with unbrickers, and I've got it back to a reasonably working state.  It no longer syncs reliably with the PowerBook, which has always had dodgy USB interoperability even with my old iPod, but it does sync with a Mac Mini, so I think this is most likely an issue with the laptop.  

Time to move to the next phase in the master plan...