The Joy of iBooks

There are two iBooks in our family. My stepson uses my old iBook G4 for anything he has to write and an Android tablet or his iPhone for everything else. His iBook’s power cable failed, so I gave him the cable from my iBook G3, which was my first Mac. From that point on, my ancient iBook G3 became a doorstop, as my steppie lives 20 miles away. 

That was six months ago. I missed the iBook. I have an old iMac and a newer MacBook, but the iBook has a charm of its own. So over Christmas, I ordered a cheap replacement power cable from Ebay as well as a battery. Hoping to use it as a spare laptop for holidays, days out, watching DVDs or a bit of light writing. It should last well with a new battery. Hopefully it'll still boot! I have great confidence in it, though. 

And it was my first Mac. Why not enjoy your first Mac for as long as you can? 

There’s more on my old iBook G3 elsewhere on G345. 

How to buy a Mac

Before you read any further - the following opinions are opinions and only that. Don't buy anything based on my advice alone. And now, duly warned, read on...


In my opinion, there are four ways to buy a Mac. Broadly speaking, these are as follows.

• Buy a new Mac. 
• Buy a recent, used Mac or one that is being sold off due to a new model. 
• But a used Mac that that's a few years old. 
• Buy an old Mac. 

Some thoughts on each method.

Buying a new Mac

Make sure the Mac has been replaced recently. There's nothing as annoying as seeing the model you bought last week replaced by a faster model.
Some Macs can be upgraded by the user; others can't. If you can't personally upgrade the memory on the Mac you're buying (MacBook Air, iMac 21.5"), max it out when you buy it.

A Recent/Replaced Mac

This has its advantages, especially if it's a refurb from the Apple Store. However, Macs do not depreciate quickly and the price of a two year old Mac might prompt you to consider buying a new one. Not least because you get a one year guarantee (or sometimes two years if you buy from John Lewis in the UK). Usually a recent Mac will be able to run the latest OS X operating system and a couple of more in the future. This can also be a good way to get features that are not otherwise available - MacBooks that can be upgraded, for example.

A Used Mac

This might be a Mac that is 4-7 years old. In 2013, that includes early Intel Macs, like the Pro, the MacBook and others. These all run Snow Leopard and some will run Lion. Few will run Mountain Lion and at this point, nobody knows much about OS X 10.9. Note that many early Intel Macs don't support more than 2-3GB of ram, so don't plan on running dozens of apps on one. Having said that, Snow Leopard runs like a rocket on many of these machines, especially if you do a clean install, as I did.

An Old Mac

Here, we're talking about any Mac from 1984 onwards. There are too many to consider, but I would make some suggestions.

If you want a Mac that will play well with any other machines (including current ones), printers and a wifi network, look for a Power PC Mac that will run OS X 10.4 and has Firewire and Airport - which will be most of them. Many of these machines - iBooks, original iMac G3s and others - only have USB 1.1, so Firewire's useful for backups and moving large files around. And Airport's useful for wifi.  Dropbox will also run on older PowerPC Macs, so long as they are running Tiger. Some apps, like Evernote, need Leopard. It's worth auditing your needs before buying a PowerPC Mac. Getting one that can run 10.5 Leopard (fast G4s and all G5s) could make a difference.

If you want to try something older, try a Mac Classic. These were a budget option in their day and Apple sold lots of them. They're not especially popular with buyers - they don't have Ethernet as standard for one thing - but they're cheap and, in my experience, reliable.

There are lots of other options. Spend some time on Ebay to see what's for sale.

Yay for Snow Leopard!

Okay, okay. It's not a PowerPC Mac operating system but it runs PPC software, so be nice. Anyway, it's a good story.

I have a 2006 Core2Duo iMac which is maxed out at 3gb of ram - technically, 4GB of ram, but the motherboard can only see three of them. I bought the iMac new, with Tiger installed. Over the years, I added Leopard, then Snow Leopard, then Lion. By the time I got to Lion, the iMac was feeling slow. After a few weeks, I wiped it and reinstalled Snow Leopard. And had a shock. With a clean install of Snow Leopard (the first time I'd ever wiped the machine clean since purchase), my iMac was way faster than it had been under Snow Leopard previously. It was like having two processors. I assume that going from 10.4 to 10.5 to 10.6 and adding all sorts of odd software over the years must have kept adding stuff that clogged the machine up somehow.

On the basis that there's no point being stupid if you don't show it, I upgraded to Lion again to see what that might be like. In fairness, it was better than it had been. But a year later, I've bitten the bullet and reverted to 10.6.8 again.

Why? Well, Lion demands 2gb of ram and the iMac only has three. So with Lion, the iMac has 1.5x recommended ram, which isn't much. Meanwhile, Snow Leopard only needs 1gb ram,  so on 10.6, the iMac has 3x recommended ram. I got tired of suffering a slow machine. I was thinking of selling it, but on a whim and because I had a day free, I decided to reinsall 10.6 just to see if it would help.

Simply put, with 10.6.8, this is a different Mac. The whole machine feels snappier - maybe as quick as a well-specced i5. Safari 5 starts with one bounce sometimes. I was clearing out a Firewire drive the other day (old backups from when the iMac was running 10.7, mostly) and when I emptied the Trash, I had over a million files to delete. Over a million files! I switched on Activity Monitor to see how Finder would cope with this and memory use barely moved. Snow Leopard uses about one gig of RAM from rest. I still had almost 2gb free, although I was running Safari and a couple of other apps as well.

After changing down from Lion, most of my apps still work on Snow Leopard: iWork, MS Office 2011, Evernote, Dropbox, Virtual Box and others. Safari 6 is Lion-only but having said that, there have been two Safari 5 updates in 2013 so far. Longterm support is one issue with Snow Leopard but nothing lasts forever. And when I want a new browser, Firefox will probably support Snow Leopard for some time to come. Indeed, TenFourFox - which is keeping older PowerPC-based Macs up to date with PowerPC builds of Firefox - ought to work as well, as 10.6 will run PowerPC apps.

The other problem is iCloud, which doesn't work on Snow Leopard. I've had iCloud email so long that I have a .mac email address and I also have an iPhone. So on the iMac I get my mail via iCloud.com. The speed's acceptable. In fairness, iCloud.com runs slowly but reliably in my iBook G4 so it shouldn't surprise me. I just wish there was a way to access bookmarks on the site. The whole iCloud thing has been a fiasco for Snow Leopard users but that's another post.

Apart from the speed, the other thing I love about Snow Leopard is having proper fat scrollbars that I can grab with the mouse. I have an old black Apple Pro Mouse that doesn't do anything clever, but I like the look (and it cost a lot at the time), so I like scrollbars that work like, well, scrollbars should work.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the change back to 10.6. It's made the iMac feel like a current machine again. It's fun to use again, which is good when you're trying to do any sort of creative work. It's no fun struggling with a slow machine. I should easily get another three years out of the iMac, which will bring it up to its tenth birthday - and all thanks to Snow Leopard and 3gb of ram.

TenFourKit

WebKit is an open source web browser engine. WebKit is also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the engine that's used by Safari, Dashboard, Mail, and many other OS X applications.

A very nice team of people have started compiling Webkit for Mac OS X Tiger. What this means is that while Tiger's newest version of Safari (4.1.3, dated 18 November 2010) will never be upgraded, Safari 4.1.3's Webkit engine can be the latest version. I'm sitting here on an eleven year old dual-USB iBook G3 which runs Tiger fairly well. I may have an old browser, but I have the latest browser engine.

You can pick up the latest Webkit for Tiger here. Once installed, it will appear in your Applications folder under the name "Webkit", with a Safari icon. I don't know exactly how it works, but it feels a little snappier. And anything that makes an iBook feel snappier is a Good Thing.

Well done, TenFourKit people!

iBook G3 versus iBook G4

I've had both. It's pretty close in some ways.

The iBook G4

• Speedier than the G3 model.
• The G4s can take more ram. 
• Almost all iBook G4s can run Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard. 
• There's a much wide range of software that still works on Leopard (newer browsers, iLife, iWork '09, Evernote…).
• There's a patch that enables iBook G4s to run external screens at resolutions up to 1680x1050. This isn't supported but it seems popular and worked without a hitch on my iBook G4. 
• USB2.
• Wifi: WPA and WPA2. 

The iBook G3

• The G3s cost maybe 25-50% less. 
• The model you see might just seem better than other iBooks. 
• If you're not buying it for web-browsing, you mightn't notice much of a difference. Text editing is text editing. 
• Dropbox is supported, so it can sync with other machines in useful ways. 

Judgement Day

If I really had to choose, I'd buy a G4, because I like to have Leopard, the G4s are a bit snappier and MacTubes gives access to most of Youtube and some other flash sites. And you can hack the graphics cards on some iBook G4s so that they run external displays at up to 1680x1050. That's the same as a 2006 20" Intel iMac.

Apple have a great iBook comparison page if you'd like to know more and Low End Mac has a lot of tech summaries and articles as well.

Living with an iBook G3

Ever wondered how old/cheap a Mac you need to buy to get the real Mac Experience? My suggestion: a dual-USB iBook G3.

My one dates from 2002. I still use it occasionally. It's quite capable in some areas. I've maxed the ram up to the full 640MB and it's running Tiger 10.4.11. It's a useful machine if you choose your software carefully. There's plenty of software and some of it is even current, including at least two browsers. And it's so cheap that you wouldn't mind losing it. Let's have a look.

Things to like

Design. The minimalistic white look is really appealing and seems to keep its pristine  look for a long time. The iBooks are pretty silent (in contrast to my MacBook, which always seems to be humming or whirring quietly to itself). The 4:3 screen (1024 x 768) is a nice shape for writing. Getting at the ram slots and the Airport card is a 5 minute job.  They're not cold to the touch, unlike the MacBook, which always feels cold in winter.

Things not to like

The USB ports are on the left side, which makes attaching an external mouse a little awkward. The iBook G3's maximum ram is 640MB. The processor gets overloaded by most browsers. It rarely feels quick online.

Other downsides? USB 1.1. Moving anything through USB 1.1 takes a while. However, it's quicker than Bluetooth and there are two ports. If you have a high quality camera (10 megapixels and up) and you take a lot of photos, be prepared to wait. Ditto anything else that needs USB. Syncing a recent iPod or iPhone won't work work without USB2. Check the specification of your iOS device for compatibility. Don't forget, though - you can use Firewire 400.

Lastly, it doesn't support WPA2, so if you use wifi, your router will need to be set to WPA/WPA2, if it's not already.

What software will it run? 

Using the Web

An iBook G3 with Tiger 10.4.11 will run the latest versions of TenFourFox and Camino. A hot tip is to make your browser self-identify as a mobile browser, which will then cause many websites to serve you up the mobile "lite" versions; there are plugins for this. This tip is great for reading newspapers and for sites like Facebook as well. As browsers tend to grab most of the G3 processor, though, don't plan on doing much else when you go online.

Email

Email works okay, but there's no iCloud support obviously, apart from the usual hacks to get iCloud email. iCloud.com takes forever; don't bother. Logging into Google can be slow too. I've heard that Google uses a lot of Javascript.

Writing

I mostly use TextEdit in ascii mode for initial work. Keeping the drafts in ascii means there's full compatibility with my other Macs using Dropbox. Yes, Dropbox works on iBook G3s with Tiger, as do Simplenote apps like Notational Velocity, which is excellent. LibreOffice and NeoOffice are sloooww. The originally-supplied AppleWorks 6 (wordprocessor, spreadsheet, database, presentation, drawing and painting tools) runs well. Appleworks looks old but it's fast on this machine (perhaps because of the maxed-out RAM), deceptively powerful and files can be exported to older MS Office formats or printed to PDF, same as anything else. Older versions of MS Office should work. There are some standalone word-processors (Bean and older versions of Nisus Writer Express, among others). Older versions of MySQL and FileMaker should run, if you need a powerful database and the AppleWorks database is quite useful for basic work. SQLite also works.

Multimedia 

iLife '04 was the last version to fully support the G3, so far as I know. I haven't tried it. DVDs play well, although the built-in speakers are not great (headphones are way better, as are powered external speakers). This is assuming your iBook has a DVD drive, which mine does; but not all do. iTunes 8.2.1 is still available for download and mostly works. It doesn't display the iTunes Store but you can search it successfully.

Networking and Connectivity

The iBook has an ethernet port. It also does wifi, using original Airport (wifi) card which only supports 802.11b and, as mentioned, offers WPA-level security but not WPA2. There's even a dialup modem. The USB 1.1 ports really limit syncing and connecting, but at least there are two of them. There's no Bluetooth either, although a dongle might work.

However, the iBook has a FireWire 400 port - I've connected an old miniDV Sony HandyCam and external Firewire hard drives and everything worked fine.

You can hook up a VGA screen via a VGA adapter but only up to 1024x768 and there's no screen spanning (unlike the G4, which has a hack).

Alternative Interfaces

This is a Mac OS X machine but it's worth noting that there are two other interfaces and therefore software options.

There's a Terminal app in the Utilities folder, offering a pretty standard bash command line. Terminal apps run well: it's a highly capable little Unix box for anyone who likes command line Unix without installing Linux somewhere. You can try classic Unix tools like top, head, tail, cat, emacs, pico and vi. You can install  classic Unix terminal apps like pine and lynx.

You can install an X11 server to run for graphical Unix software. Apache is preinstalled and Tiger comes with gcc, Perl and Python as well as Applescript and Xcode.

As it's a G3 mac, the iBook will also run Mac OS 9, if you want to see what 1990s Macs looked like.

What won't it run? 

Anything that needs a G4 and/or Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". Anything designed purely for Intel. So, no App Store, Microsoft Office 2008 or 2011, Kindle, Evernote or Google Chrome. There are plenty of old Mac games online, but with only 8MB of video ram, this machine will never fly. Later G3 iBooks had 16MB of video ram and the last ones had 32mb, same as the iBook G4.

Flash-based sites won't work. You can forget about HD video and even miniDV can be a bit jumpy. Quicktime's not great. To be fair, the iBook G4 is also generally very poor at flash too, but the G4 will run the very awesome Mactubes, which gives the iBook G4 excellent access to Youtube and some other flash sites.

Support

Keyboards, memory, batteries and power units are all commonly available on Ebay and elsewhere. Airport cards for wifi are harder to find now. It helps that the iBook G3's successor, the iBook G4, used many of the same parts (excluding the Airport card).

Is an old iBook G3 worth buying, or upgrading, in 2013?

White dual-USB iBook G3s with twelve-inch screens sell online in the UK for about £50-150, depending on vendor, model, condition, software and specification; fourteen inch iBooks sell for a small premium although screen resolution is the same. If you already have an old dual-USB iBook, you can push the RAM up to 512MB or 640Mb and add Tiger cheaply for £100-120. That's half the price of a netbook. However, that's probably only worth it if you already own an iBook or see a good deal on Ebay. It's probably cheaper to buy one that's already been upgraded. Watch the deals for a few weeks and see what comes up. Get a feel for the market. Go for the fastest G3 you can find. The newer ones have better specs.

If you can afford it, aim for a machine with Tiger and at least 512MB of ram. If you're forced to choose between an average machine with Tiger or one with extra RAM, buy the one with Tiger, especially if the seller is supplying the discs. Tiger discs for PowerPC are expensive and hard to find; RAM isn't. And lastly, Tiger only comes on a DVD. So if you're buying, go for an iBook with a DVD drive. There are workarounds, but none is easy for a beginner.

Taking iBooks apart (for example, to change the hard disk) is an extremely time-consuming process for engineers and is uneconomic. However, adding RAM and/or a wifi card are both easily done in about five minutes.

In sum...

Don't expect a MacBook Pro. For basic writing and email, simple web-browsing and music/DVDs, a G3 is still usable. There's still a wide variety of software. It's a Mac with some limitations, but it's still a useable Mac for many purposes and for very little money.

G345. What's this?

An occasional blog that will focus on using PowerPC Macs for creative purposes.