[Ti] What is this going to do to Apple, and its laptops?

[Obrecht, Jerry A]

>>
Well, there will be a difference. Apple updated its wireless line with  
Airport Extreme (802.11g). Do you need to change the laptop? nope,  
change the card and use the new standard. You are now instead a  
centrino user. In a couple of years a new standard comes out for  
wireless which allows you to get more (speed, bandwidth, whatever): do  
you change card? Nope, you have to change laptop.

Although the idea might seem Intel-ligent, centrino has the technology  
hardwired in the chip: you can't upgrade but changing mother board.  
 From the customer perspective I'd see reasons to worry my hardware  
could become obsolete or unable to use new services in the future by  
design.
<<
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Doubt that there will be much of a worry about obsolescence, as obsolescence is a given in the computer industry.  

The Apple Airport 802.11b cards can't be swapped out for the Airport Extreme cards, so us early Apple laptop users can't upgrade to Extreme.  The problem is in the Card to System Buss interface.  But, hopefully, the Airport Extreme will be upgradeable to future standards.

Perhaps the safe bet is to invest in a wireless PCCard, which can be replaced very easy, and have a fairly standard interface (and gives the TiBook much more range).

Jerry