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New iBook and Apple mini
shintaro writes "ThinkSecret reports that 'Apple delivers iBook, Mac mini updates July 26 - Apple updated its iBook and Mac mini lines Tuesday, increasing standard RAM across the board to 512MB and improving other specs. Missing from the iBook update was the long-rumored move to a widescreen model which unconfirmed reports had suggested might arrive with the revision.' "
That's nice, but why link to ThinkSecret when Apple's iBook page has much more detailed information?
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
It's a good deal compared to powerbooks; going from the 12" combo-drive to super-drive model costs you $200.
Yea, but they still don't have 64MB of Video RAM on the Mac Minis.
Why can't they just bump it up to 64MB so that it can support all the nice graphical effects of the dashboard?!?
How much could it possibly cost to do this paltry upgrade?
Quartz Extreme will work on these iBooks. That needs a 16Mb or greater AGP graphics adaptor, which the iBooks and Mac minis have. You're thinking of Core Image/Core Video.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
The 1024x768 screens, while certainly nothing to look down on, really need to be upgraded. Is it 96 pixels per inch now? Would increasing that be too expensive? (Not rhetorical; I'd like to know.)
Microsoft's font smoothing works only in the horizontal dimension and makes even small text look smooth and pleasing to the eye. Apple, on the other hand, tries to smooth things both vertically and horizontally. This looks fantastic at really big sizes, but at a normal size such as 12 point, horizontal bars (such as in "H" and "E" become gray and cause eyestrain.
I love Macs and hate to see Gates trumping them in something. But a higher-resolution, or better-smoothed, portable (iBook/PowerBook)screen would do wonders for readability.
Not for me. It's going to be at least 5 years before the intels get any kind of a foothold, and at least 8 before they get anywhere near the market share of the PPCs. 8 years for a $399 computer is a great buy.
What are you talking about? 5 years before Intel gets a foothold? Within a year *most* new Macs will be Intel based. Most folks upgrade every 3 years; so within 3 years you will see mostly Intel Macs.
I am not even sure what "8 years for a $399 computer is a great buy." even means. There aren't any $399 Macs that I know of.
The best bargain is getting the $599 model off ebay. I got mine new in box for $500 (the same model from apple would have been over 600 with tax). I'm a little miffed that I got one before they put 512 RAM as standard (OSX isn't worth running with 256), but cracking open the mini and upgrading the RAM wasn't that hard (just search for mac mini service manual and you get the apple manual for dealers that explains everything).
That statement in the article was slightly off. 32MB of RAM is not enough for the iBook to take advantage of GPU-accelerated Core Image technologies. The Core Image system is designed to scale, and will revert to using Altivec instructions if the GPU is not up to par.
I'll agree that the systems should simply include 64MB of RAM, but I also expected more of the writers at a mac-centric site such as thinksecret.
The Radeon 9550 has the required technology to enable CoreImage entirely on the GPU.
The 32MB VRAM shouldn't be an issue - it might slow it down a bit, but that's all.
Apple did _NOT_ leave OS 9 users in the dust. That is a complete fabrication.
OS X had the classic environment, which you can still use in 10.4. Also OS X installs on just about any Mac sold in the last 5 years or so.
Maybe you consider only supporting people for 8 years after they bought their computer leaving them out in the cold, but I don't.
not sure I want to wait until the MacTel boxen come out
In English, the plural form of box is "boxes," you sad, sad man.
9550 is basically an underclocked 9600
Apple no longer makes a single CPU Power Mac. And, all Power Macs have 512MB standard.
Core Image, which is responsible for the gooey eye candy, requires a programmable GPU but doesn't have a specific memory requirement. My powerbook only has 32MB VRAM, but can handle the "ripple effect" just fine (which is overrated IMHO).
I agree, though, that they should have included at least a GeForce FX Go 5200 and that the Radeon 9200 is underpowered. All in all, though, the mini is still a good deal.
Here's a list of Mac compatible cards that can handle Core Image:
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Radeon 9600, 9600 XT, 9650, 9800 XT, X800 XT
nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL
Simply bumping the VRAM to 64mb wouldn't do much of anything. The parts of core-image (mainly the ripple effect) that don't work on the mini don't work because of the chipset; the Radeon 9200 (a derivative of the radeon 8500). I own a mini and while a diff gfx card would be nice, the 9200 is still fast enough to play quake3 (only mac game I own).
Don't let the mini's gfx card scare you off. There aren't that many mac games and the 9200 does a fine job on stuff like Expose (and the dashboard ripple effect isn't that cool).
The only thing wrong with the mini (that I can tell) is that the VGA output isn't at proper voltages and the color quality suffers a little. If you have the mini hooked up to a DVI monitor the color should be just fine.
expansibility
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
And don't forget the "free ipod mini after rebate" deal tacked on. I don't remember if that made the slashdot "headline", since it's a student only deal, but between that and the bump, it's definitely a good time, if not the best time, (at least for college students) to jump and buy an ibook.
The mini supports 1920x1200 displays, both vga and dvi. Your Dell 20" is 1680x1050 pixels. Other people are already using the dell 20" with the mini.
Finally, extra RAM won't make a difference for video because, unlike many low end PCs, the mini doesn't steal ram to do video. It has real vram (though only 32mb)
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
The newest PowerPC from Freescale, the MPC7448, is supposed to reach full production in October, so these machines are still reusing once more the MPC7447.
If I remember properly this chip was first introduced in October... 2003... rounding nicely two years for Freescale to port the design from 130nm to 90nm. Apple has had to live with the same CPU for over two years (minis, powerbooks, ibooks, emacs... a large bit of its product line!!)
And people still wonder why Apple is switching to Intel.
The only thing that stopped the Mac Mini from being the perfect living room machine was that it didn't have digital audio out. It already has full screen DVD playback through DVI; with the addition of digital audio out people could have a Mac Mini instead of a DVD player and not need to make any compromises and not have to mess around with third party solutions. It's a great pity that Apple have not rectified this glaring omission.
Having said that, close inspection of the new machines reveals that they don't seem to have changed the main board at all; it's the same processors and same video RAM as before. Still, it would be very nice if they would add the digital audio some day.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
Atleast the Dell comes standard with expansion slots that allow you to upgrade the video card at any time.
Wrong -- cheap Dells (like the one linked) don't have an AGP slot. So you're stuck with the piss poor integrated graphics forever.
The Radeon 9200 was actually a big selling point for me. I know it's pretty slow compared to a lot of cards out there, but it sure as hell beats what you get on comparably priced branded PCs.
That's what happens when Apple doesn't retroactively update every one of their webpages after a quiet product release.
The 9550 is a full-fledged programmable GPU, compatible with CoreImage when you go by its specification.
It IS possible that Apple could be assholes and disable GPU-accelerated CoreImage features for this card, but I see no reason for them to do so.
Exactly. For those who are never going to open the box, the real performance has increased far more than a hard drive or processor upgrade...
The key is to get something light, compact, cool running, good battery life, and yet still have good enough performance to be acceptable for most things. The goal is not by any means to have the fastest computer out there. Remember, if you really need the ultimate performance, you can always by a desktop. Or you could have just bought one of the current model PowerBooks instead of an iBook (though it's still not in the same ballpark as a high-end desktop). If you think about it, a 1.4GHz G4 with 3D acceleration standard, well, that's a pretty good machine for most things. Thinking back a few years, I developed commercial 3D games with desktops that were much lower powered than that. (For a real laugh, go back and look at what John Carmack used to develop Quake, remembering that Quake 1 was initially software rendering only.)
Realistically, the iBook is not a hardcore gaming machine. You're not going to find many PCs in the same price range that can play DOOM 3 with all the bells and whistles turned on either. And I'd argue that this is okay. High-end 3D games like this are a niche.
In terms of CoreImage, I think many people don't understand what it is. It is not QuartzExtreme. All 2D graphics are going through OpenGL on the iBook, so things will be snappy and take advantage of the GPU. CoreImage is about what are essentially Photoshop filters and special effects, not fundamental rendering. And being a fairly new OS X technology, it's not clear how much CoreImage is actually being used right now, or if it will come into its own in the future.
the mac mini can support the 23 inch Cinema Display. Do you need more pixels that that?
This sig kills fascists.
Almost certainly. I tend to think of the Radeon 9200 as comparable to the GeForce FX 5200, although the latter does support Core Image.
The first Google hit for ati 9550 is a DriverHeaven review, which someone mentioned on one of the rumor site forums. It shows the 9550 soundly beating the 5200 in every benchmark.
The 9550 continues Apple's tradition of shipping bottom-of-the-barrel video cards, but at least the iBook has a dedicated 3D card, unlike some value notebooks.
Not the newest "comparably priced branded PCs" like the HP Pavilion a1010y and the Compaq Presario SR1010Z. They use the same integrated graphics (Intel GMA 900) that's working so well in Apple's Intel developer Macs. Quartz seems to work very well sharing system and video memory through PCI Express.
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Here, Bluetooth up until just, really, a few months ago, was just for headsets. Sure, some laptops came with it, but they wouldn't even sync up with your phones in many cases. Not to mention that it has been more expensive in the US for longer.
In talking with my EU buddies, the whole wireless thing caught on there quickly and held firm, bringing prices down a lot faster. Wireless routers are still $70 around here unless you happen to find a rebate.
Those wifi 802.11g dongles are just now in the $20 price range. 8 months ago, they were all over $40. My girlfriend settled on an 802.11b dongle because it was $25. Now the 802.11g ones are cheaper. So yes, prices were higher for longer in the US, and are now starting to come in line more with what you find in the EU.
One of the few times where you europeans actually got cheaper prices before us on computer tech ;D
More to the point, the *only* difference between the $599 and $699 is the Superdrive. They've changed a $100 BTO html SELECT box into a new level o' Mac.
The reason Apple did this is for their retail stores. When most consumers walk in to buy a computer, they want it right now, not 4-6 weeks later after it's been built to order in China and shipped to them. Having a low-end consumer model with a DVD burner in it is a necessity if they want to target the consumer. Remember, most people buying a mini are probably buying one for the first time, and are not the type of people to spend more than 1 minute thinking about the configuration and pricing/building it online. They just know that they want a computer that they can edit their home movies on.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
The Radeon 9200 (OpenGL 1.3, DirectX 8.1) is actually an updated Radeon 8500 and is comparable to the GeForce 3. ATI just re-used their previous generation's high end technology into their low end product. The GeForce FX 5200 (OpenGL 1.4, DirectX 9) is comparable (in features) to the Radeon 9550, but slower.
although the latter does support Core Image.
Core Image seems to require an OpenGL 1.4 GPU, which is probably why it requires a GeForce FX 5200 or Radeon 9600 minimum. Even though the 9550 is not listed among the supported GPUs, I think it should work since it's just a slower version of the 9600.
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It's a good deal compared to powerbooks; going from the 12" combo-drive to super-drive model costs you $200.
Except with the Mini upgrade, you're only upgrading the optical drive (for $100). With the Powerbook upgrade, you're also adding 20 more gig of HD space (for $200). Still not a good price:value ratio, but not as bad as you were making out.
For reference, you pay $150 on a 12" Combo-drive machine to go from 60GB to 100GB, so on the Super-drive model you probably are just paying $100 for the super-drive, and $100 for the hard drive.
Though to me, $100 for 20GB of hard drive space is the very definition of diminishing returns. Bleh.