Portable News
 PB Zone

 iMac News
 Daily iMac

 Forum
 MacDebate.com

 Gaming News
 Mac 3D Dot Com

 Mac OS X
 X Appeal

 
 Quotes

 
 

April 16th through 23rd Archives

Wednesday, April 23rd 2003 13:19 CDT

Griffin Debuts iFM Radio Accessory for iPod

We received the following press release from Griffin Technologies late yesterday:

NASHVILLE, TN - April 23, 2003. Griffin Technology Inc, innovator of exciting hardware and software products for the Mac and PC market, today unveiled iFM, the world's first FM radio for the iPod. The Griffin iFM adds an FM radio to the iPod in one integrated sharp package that utilizes the iPod's own remote for its controls. Settings include room for six preset stations, station scan up or down, volume control and muting as well as manual tuning. Whether traveling or jogging around the block, the iFM gives iPod users the ability to check the news, weather or listen to their favorite radio programs - in addition to their collection of music in their iPod. The iFM works with all iPods and requires the iPod wired remote control thatıs included with all currently shipping 10 and 20 GB iPods.

"The only thing missing from the near perfect iPod was a radio. The iFM adds this in a design that's so unique it has to be seen to be believed." said Paul Griffin, CEO Griffin Technology. "True, I have all the music I want in my iPod but if want to hear NPR or need a weather report its great to now have that option with my iPod and iFM."

The iFM connects directly to the iPod via its headphone jack. It then incorporates a clever design that actually imbeds the iPod's remote into the case of the iFM itself. When inserted, the two separate pieces appear to become one complete unit. Headphones plug into the remote as usual. The difference is the iPod remote is now captured within the iFM. The tiny iFM attaches to almost anything via a belt clip on the back, similar yet more versatile than the iPod's own remote clip. Powered by the iPod, no batteries are ever necessary.

Switched on, iFM disables the iPod's music and makes use of the remote's buttons for its own controls. Users interact with the radio via audio navigation. They can scan for available radio stations and save up to six presets that will kept in memory - even when iFM is disconnected and not in use. When iFM is switched off, the remote and the iPod return to their normal functions.

It costs $35 and is available for preorder on Griffin's website. We imagine they're announcing early to get ahead of the Apple music-related announcement on the 28th of this month.

iKlear for $7.50

Other World Computing has a 10 pack of iKlear cleaning cloths for your PowerBook or iBook priced at $7.50, the lowest price-per-unit we've seen.

20% Off at eBags.com

If you're in the market for a laptop bag, eBags.com is offering 20% off any purchase with no minimum requirement. Visit this DealNews article for the proper link to use and other eBags.com coupons.

Quick 17" Mini-Review

A reader has posted a mini-review of the 17" G4 PowerBook on his site here.

A Bit More on 15" and 17" PowerBook "Whining" Noises

Reader John notes:

For example, when I was viewing your website in Safari, the whine was there when the machine was "idle", but when I scroll up or down on the page (using either an arrow-key press or moving the scroll bar with the trackpad or even a mouse) the whining stops as long as the scrolling is happening. As soon as the scrolling stops, the whining resumes. This happens regardless of my hand position on the keyboard, trackpad button, mouse, etc. It's definitely related to movement on the screen. Other things that stop the whine are screen activities like the dock hiding/unhiding itself, plugging/unplugging the AC power jack, and disk activity.

I found that setting the Energy Saver processor usage to "Reduced" didn't eliminate the noise, but rather just made it softer. But going between "Highest" and "Reduced" definitely had a reproducible and obvious effect on the noise.

I'm pretty sensitive to similar noises, like TVs that have whining flyback transformers that others don't seem to notice, so I figured it was just me until I read your report. Perhaps the 17" sound is louder or more pronounced too, making it obvious to people that otherwise wouldn't detect the 15" whine.

For the record, my previous 15" TiBook (the 667MHz) didn't have this problem. My suspicion was that the more powerful ATI 3D card built into my current 15" TiBook was the source of the whining, but the 17" PowerBook has the totally different NVIDIA GeForce Go, so perhaps that's not it (or maybe that's what makes the problem more pronounced on the 17"?).

I'll be glad to hear any possible ways to mitigate or eliminate this noise without reducing processor speed, because it does get annoying sometimes when I'm in a quiet environment.

Also, reader Paul writes to remind us that with any Mac problem, the vast majority of users likely don't have the issue:

I've been reading all the stories about powerbook noise etc, and felt compelled to say that I have had my 17" (BTO-1Gb ram) for two weeks now, and have had no troubles whatsoever. It is a fantastic machine and makes my Powermac 867 with 1Gb ram seem slow. The impression one gets from reading the online news is that the 17" is fraught with troubling noise, but of course, those of us without troubles usually don't take the time to mention that all is ok.

In any case, we'll post any and all solutions we receive on this issue.

Monday, April 21st 2003 13:06 CDT

Apple Special Event on 28th

According to press invitations, Apple is hosting a special announcement event on the 28th in San Francisco. This is widely believed to be the official kickoff of a broad new music strategy for the company, possibly including new iPods, new iTunes, and a music download service encompassing the catalogs of all the major music labels. It should prove to be very interesting...

Tons More on 17" PowerBook Noise

A lot of readers responded to the 17" PowerBook noise complaints:

My 17" has them too. The static noise on mine is barely audible. I can only hear it when I get my ear up right next to it. I also have the fan noise. The sound can be described like a clacking or like it's brushing up against something. But so far in my 3 weeks of use the fan went on twice. But other than that it's an awesome machine!!

---

Yeah, I have the 17" noise problem too. I also had it somewhat on my 15" Ti 800. There are some posts on the MacNN PB Forum about this. Apple says it's normal.

---

just want to let you know: After waiting that long time for the PB to arrive (ordered 1/12 and got it 4/7), I was getting really upset when
1) the lid was not aligned and the latch was not working on one side
2) loud annoying popping sound from under the keybord, which is obviously a known issue from the internal powersupply with no fix available (according to apple support)
3) when the fan kicks in it is very loud, pulsating and sounds ugly like it would scratch somewhere. For a >3k PB at least not acceptable (I owned almost all PBs since the original Duo and none had so many flaws from the start)

---

I noticed the noise immediately when I received my computer. It would seem to be normal, but I would love to have a machine that didn't have the noise.

I have found that you can make it almost silent by choosing a setting that has the Processor Performance set to "Reduced" in the Energy Saver preference pane.

---

My PB17 does occasionally make a high-pitched whine noise from beneath the keyboard. Strangely, the noise seems to be related to what's happening on the display. It actually changes pitch as things happen on the display, for example, as a progress bar fills in.

---

Just a quick note to say that i had the same issue the other day, as you say, it happened with a heavy video demand. i honestly thought that the thing was going to explode or something, it is just that loud...... unbelievable really, in an otherwise fantastic PB.

---

I can make a high pitched, static noise come from the upper middle part of the keyboard on my powerbook. It happens when I run the vnc viewer app after it makes a successful connection to a Vnc server. It does not matter if I run the vnc viewer app in full screen or windowed mode, the noise happens and does not stop. It will break up a bit when you run a different app and use some cpu or disk on another process, but the noise never really quits.

This noise is quite disturbing. Other than that, I love my new Powerbook.

---

I guess I'm one of "1 or 2 per 100" and it is REALLY a pain (I have an external 20" Studio Display as well so I guess it overuses the graphics card). I came here to find how to disassemble the damned thing and find out what's wrong.

---

I also have the noise problem with my 17 inch-Powerbook. It goes away when the CPU is running at full speed or when I reduce the processor speed by the Energy Saver settings (with some loss of speed, of course).

---

If you're talking about the "sizzling sound" from under the keyboard, setting the Energy Saver settings (in System Preferences) to "Longest Battery Life" completely shut up the sizzling sound on my PB G4 17".

The "fix," if you want to call it that, is to change the setting in the energy saver control panel to the reduced processor performance level. We'll post an update if there's a permanent fix that doesn't degrade the machine's performance.

PB 17" Shipping Report

We thought it might help to include a shipping report for a customer that bought his PowerBook recently:

Just a shipping experience. I ordered my new 17" powerbook (with full 1Gig of ram) on April 4th and I received it today - April 18th. From the day I ordered it, they (Online Apple Education Store) quoted me "Three to Five weeks" and said it would ship "on or before May 9th".

Anyway, 2 weeks from order to arrival seemed very good to me. Maybe this is old news now and all orders are shipping fast - but they did significantly beat their stated estimate.