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MacWorld MacBook Only a Prototype?
mahju writes "Hard Mac is reporting that Apple's, unoffical, response in Paris to the the lack of information on battery life, is that the MacBook Pro that were demoed at Mac World SF are only prototypes and the final versions are still under development.
"
Um, how on earth is this news?
Anyone at Macworld 13 days ago could see that the MacBook Pro units on display didn't have proper serial numbers, and it was no secret that they were development units. "Prototypes" is probably a little overboard, but yeah, they were not final, shipping production units.
Considering that it has always been known that the MacBook Pro wouldn't be shipping for another month or so, and was in fact represented as such, is it any surprise that units displayed a month and a half before the unit started shipping wouldn't yet, well, you know, be shipping units?
Now if Apple rolls out iTimeMachine at some point in the future, I'll consider eating my words.
This would also explain why:
...
1. Only the 15 inch model was released (not the 12 or 17 inch version)
2. You can still buy the entire range of G4 laptops
3. The release date was February whilst the iMac was immediately available.
Makes sense - I think apple wanted to make a splash at MacWorld and the laptop wasn't quite ready yet.
I wouldn't be surprised if the entire MacBook range actually ships simultaneously, even if they are announced separately.
Of course, they were announcing six months ahead of schedule, so they aren't really that far behind. And at least my shiny new (1 year old) power book doesn't quite feel outdated just yet
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
In "Holy Grail"..
LAUNCELOT: Look, my liege!
ARTHUR: Camelot!
GALAHAD: Camelot!
LAUNCELOT: Camelot!
PATSY: It's only a model.
ARTHUR: Shhh!
...and darned disappointing, at that. Even as a Wintel type, I liked having Apple push for an even-higher-speed Firewire spec, in the hopes that it would filter down to the rest of the world eventually. That they're giving up now and going with strictly hardware Intel can provide... well, it's a disappointment.
That the units are prototypes -- yes, I agree, no real suprise there.
...that hasn't already been explained.
Makes sense - I think apple wanted to make a splash at MacWorld and the laptop wasn't quite ready yet.
And they've done this with other products so many times at other Macworld and WWDC keynotes that I've lost track.
I guess I'm just at a loss for how this is possibly interesting, considering it's kind of obvious that they weren't shipping units, considering they're not, well, shipping yet, and because Apple has preannounced products myriad times before.
Apple... introduce a machine before it's ready to ship? That never happens! I'm shocked. And appalled. How dare they!
;)
*looks at my mini... aww that was obviously released immediately*
All my sarcasm being said and done, I don't think anybody looked at the 15" MacBook (god I hate that name) and thought it was anything beyond a rush job. Probably a very good machine, and something I'd buy if I had the money, but it's nothing earth shattering in terms of design or anything like that - it just *shouts* "we needed to do something about our powerbooks, and we needed to get as many x86 boxes out as soon as possible."
Oh, and "we wanted to spite the rumors sites"
-Daniel
I'm not a manufacturing expert, but I would think that taking a machine from prototype to production would be more than a month's work. If they're still in development, then I would expect the shipping models to be *much* later than a month late.
The assembly line has to be geared up before any production can take place. How long does that take after the design is finalised?
I can't see how a model could still be in development and yet ship as a completed unit in a month.
Another possibility is that while they are ready to ship, the battery life doesn't look too good, and rather than admit that the MacBook is a step back in that respect, they are holding back till they can come up with a new way to measure battery life that will make it look respectable.
Did Steve Jobs tell the crowd it was only a prototype and that they would did not have anything they would be able to ship? Was it implied they were ready to move on with Intel laptops?
If he did not then this is news. Vaporware can come from anyone, if Apple starts playing that game then they deserve the same treatment.
Being Apple does not earn one a pass.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If you were at Macworld, and had a chance to check out the MacBook Pro, the fact that putting them to sleep, or removing the battery would lock up the machines was a dead giveaway that they were pre-production units. Not to mention the fact that all the Apple staff on hand were telling attendees, "These are not shipping units, they are pre-production models." According to one Apple employee, the machines were still undergoing battery testing, hence why no one had any information on battery life.
FW is a great spec - both in 400 & 800 varieties. It's FAST - we all know that. However, Intel was smart with USB. Beyond bundling it with all their boards, I mean. They made USB2 the same connector and backwards compatible with USB1.1. I assume that there was simply no way to do that with FW800/400, but that's what is killing it. It's simply too hard to include 2 different connectors on one board, especially when the 2nd connector (800) is totally incompatible with anything previous, there's no demand for it (that's faster than most devices could run) and there's few devices out that would run on it, even if they are fast enough.
Those connectors needed to be backwards compatible.
-Daniel
Now if Apple rolls out iTimeMachine at some point in the future, I'll consider eating my words.
Actually the iTimeMachine was rolled out already, several times in the past and then back to the future.
It has that power.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This is standard procedure for Apple. Other vendors do it too, but Apple is a bit worse.
Way back in the pre-Carly days, when HP did engineering, I found HP to be the only vendor for which it was always seemed to be true that if you saw a glossy ad for an interesting product, you could order it and get it delivered. Everyone else played the game of announcing what they hoped would be ready soon and crossing their fingers.
The most egregious Steveism of this kind I can remember occurred in the year that they announced the first G4 PowerMacs. (The G4 processor included the "Altivec" instruction extensions which could produce dramatic speedups in applications specially coded to take advantage of them).
It was in the early fall of 1999, the rumor sites had reported--accurately, it eventually transpired--that Apple was having trouble with their new motherboards and "the G4's" wouldn't ship until calendar 2000.
Steve talked about the G4 processor and repeatedly referred to "these machines." He then proceeded to demonstrate a unit that had a redesigned motherboard ("Sawtooth") with a faster bus, faster video chips, and many other speedups. With an implied smirk at the rumor sites, he said "and these machines are shipping NOW."
The only thing was, the machines that were shipping "now" were not the machines he had just demonstrated, but a machine that used a "Yikes!" motherboard, essentially the previous motherboard with minimal modifications to allow incorporation of a G4 processor. So, his words were literally true (machines with G4 processors were shipping now), but somewhat misleading... they weren't the "machines" he was showing... and performance was broadly comparable to the previous generation of machines, except in a very few applications (Photoshop) that took advantage of Altivec.
Of course, everyone remembers the initial introduction of the Mac... when the machine he unveiled on the stage spoke, using the MacInTalk speech synthesizer... although MacInTalk would not run in the 128K Macs that Apple was actually shipping.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
There was a video floating around where Jobs is showing the Macbook to Andy Grove and Paul Otellini. They're at the Apple booth in Macworld. In that video, Jobs doesn't hem and haw when Grove asks "how long does the battery last?" Jobs says "about the same" which I assume he means "about the same as the G4."
An irony about the video is Otellini looks ghastly ill while Jobs and Grove, who have both survived cancer, look the picture of health. Perhaps it was the lighting or perhaps Otellini needs to hit the gym.
FireWire 800 is backwards compatible electronically with FireWire 400, but everyone who sells adaptors charges an insane amount for them (a FW800->400 cable cost about three times as much as a three-port FW800 card last time I looked). I wouldn't say there is 'no demand'. I have a couple of LaCie disks that are chained together with FW800. They connect to my PowerBook via a single FW800 cable, and it is noticeably faster than using FW400 (which they support, but only by limiting me to a single disk, since they only have one FW400 port). If they had included a FW800->400 convertor for each FW800 port though, I agree that would have been better.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The bigest prototype in this Intelswitch is Apple pushing 32bit X86 as if it was a new architecture with years of room ahead of it.
Everyone else is moving away from 32 bit x86 in favour of 64bit. Apple will soon have another big switch to lookforward too. My guess is x86-32 on Apple will be VERY short and buying one of these Macbooks will in the long run a pretty bad choice if you intend to run Macintosh software on it.
Wow! The put the name of the French version of the site in the IPA on the English version! Shame it'll only help the three of us English speakers who know it :)
Look out!
according to this article at Gizmodo, the MacBook Pro arrives Feb 15..
dont know about yall but i'm keeping my hopes high whether it's true or not!
Its dual core, and the battery life couldnt be any worse than the current G4's even if its just a little better, that would be enough for me!
The original Jobs Mac demo didn't use MacInTalk, it actually used a very early Mac port of Mark Barton's Software Automatic Mouth. SAM ran fine on 64K Apple II systems, and my guess is the Mac version worked ok with 128K. The reason the original Mac demo took up so much RAM is because of its fancy graphics running from RAM. Not too shabby for being written in a few days and they probably could have made it work on a 128K Mac by having it load each segment of the demo graphics from disk as needed.
Speak takes up 36 KB of disk space and can talk quite well on a 128K Mac. Give it a whirl.
Browsing the usenet, I see several comments from Mac 128K users that have played with MacInTalk, so it seems to work with that limited RAM. Perhaps the final released version of MacInTalk was a further optimized version of the SAM port?
There have been many suggestions that Steve's keynote at the Expo wasn't the one that he really intended to give as other things had to be withdrawn at the last moment.
So instead of a new Mac mini, video download service and new iPod shuffle, were the gaps left in the keynote filled with a very leisurely stroll through iLife 06 and a preview of the forthcoming MacBook ?
The MacBook certainly comes across as being a product that wasn't originally intended to be announced at that time.
I knew there was something wrong the minute I pulled the power plug on a MacBook at MacWorld. The Apple employee kept trying to plug it back in. I wanted to read what the estimated battery life would be (it displays right on the screen). I told him that I knew this wasn't a final number, but that I wanted to see what it would estimate. I left the cord out for a minute until the reading settled...
It said 2:37 minutes on a full charge.
Then someone invited us to an iSight videoconference and it dropped to 1:50 (still on a full charge).
The employee didn't tell me that these were pre-production, but he did say the unit was still under testing, including all the thermals that control the fan, and that that would really eat battery. He also said that the screen was much brighter and that would eat more power (and he's right, I had my 1.5Ghz PowerBook with me and took it out for comparison. The MacBook looked almost two times brighter to the eye).
I feel pretty confident that they'll get good battery life in the final unit, but it was odd how they skirted the issue instead of simply announcing that these models weren't good predictors of battery life (all the forums were FILLED with just this topic, and even this story carries it forward, where if they had addressed it, the question would be settled--just wait, it will come).
They could of just used a FW800 jack - you can run 400's on the bus, but the bus then clocks down to 400 across the bus in your chain.
Parent is correct - FW 400 plugs into an 800 jack and throttles down just fine.
Well, When the dupe appears on here in a month or so, please tell us how it is and if you have/haven't recieved it. We're all dying to find out, but unlike you aren't blessed with the $2-2.5k.
-=JML=-
Hard to say as it obviously isn't shipping yet, but Apple used to mention this capability in the specs... MacBook, not so much...
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
You could use a FW400 hub. I have one that connects to my PB. I have my old Gen3 iPod hooked up to it, as well as a cable for the video camera. I also use a FW800 hub for my two external 250GB LaCie drives. I use a USB2 hub for the Gen5 iPod and my wireless mouse, with 2 ports left open (one of which will be for the imminent digital camera).
There's a $19US donggle that adapts DVI to s-video.
A ppleStore?productLearnMore=M9267G/A
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/
...that the name "MacBook Pro" is also only a prototype...
Signature.
Remember ADB-Apple desktop bus; this was the "ultimate" connection for desktop devices (ones that were slower and didn't need SCSI). It was used for mice and I think one or two vendors had ADB modem.
Rule of thumbs: 1) don't trust proprietary hardware standards
2) Wait until a standard is picked up by Wintel machines before investing heavily in devices
Tom's Hardware reports that Intel Yonah processor prototypes have energy consumption problems. HardMac also points to this article, by the way... This can explain why Intel and Apple are delaying the availability of the MacBook Pro (ugly, ugly name, bad)
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The Intel Macs should have excellent virtualization given their chips. Does anybody know what the plans are for VMware, Virtual PC, QEMU/Qvm86, and/or Xen on the new Macs?
No news here. The display units were the first run to shake out the production line, just like when they showed the first 17" and 12" PowerBooks.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The MacBook Pro Rev A is probably not a good buy because of these reasons: - 32 bit x86, which will be replaced in near future - Rosetta is necessary for most application, which makes the old PowerBooks better for most usage - There are battery issues, maybe others we don't know about I believe it is better to wait for a rev B, so they have better time to fix the problems and port the applications. Have a nice day :-)
So... if they haven't gone into manufacture yet, there's still time to change the name back to something sensible, right? Right?
Nail on the head there. That was the suspicious detail. The elements of the press that are actually still reporting (as opposed to parroting press releases with a smidge of blog-level speculation or spin like the whinging about the MacBook name) did mention the omission, too. That whiff was in the air.
We have good reason to be skeptical about the first generation of these laptops. The PowerBook 5300 wasn't under Jobs, but it was the first laptop with the new PPC chip back in the day -- and it was rushed to market because Apple's former hegemony in the portable market had crashed due to a lack of models for a couple of years. The 5300 was a lemon. There's history here.
Steve J's keynote sure seems to have rushed the MacBook announcement. He wanted to promote the availability (orderability) of both models during the speech, and he did it even if they weren't ready. Simple as that. And maybe he should get called on it.
(But I'd still be in line to buy one once they're out. Rrr. RDF, RDF.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
2:30 or 1:50... estimated how?
They take a look at how many mA/h are left in the battery, how much the machine has to do at the moment and apply a magic formula to come up with the number, IIRC. Without that formula (which they don't have if they're still testing battery life), the time displayed will be bogus. It would have been more interesting to know if the estimate dropped at a rate of a second per (real time) second, of more or of less than that. If it showed 2:30 for a couple of minutes... need I say more?
Of Apple doing something like this was the Macintosh office. They advertised at the superbowl in 1985 for a new Office server deal...that never shipped. The idea was that the server would run the laser writer while the macs hooked to the server, standard stuff really. The Mac office never made it to market but it did serve as the basis of the MacII.
Watch the Ad! Amusing.
I have a MacBook on order. My 3.5 year old Powerbook has been needing an upgrade for about 9 months, but its been hard to justify $3k + 1 week configuring a new machine for only a 50% speed up. So there I was in limbo. Is this the PERFECT Mac laptop? Absolutely not, but its a shipping Intel laptop, "6 months early."
:)
Look at the Intel line-up. They offer an iMac and a MacBook on Intel, AND EVERYTHING on PowerPC. The video guys have been howling that the MacBook isn't perfect for them without FW800... Well guess what, Rev A isn't for you.
The pro-graphics/pro-video crowd isn't going to migrate until software has native support... Rosetta won't cut it for them, even Steve Jobs SAID SO in the KEYNOTE... that's an anti-sell.
However, they needed to get Intel machines out the door. Dev machines are great for big partners who wanted to get an early start, but until hardware ships, you can't QA your product. Your developers COULD have ported the code as needed over the past 6 months, but how do you QA a product without the release version.
This is a KEY release... 1) developers now have to get their asses in gear and finish the migration, because Intel gear is here. 2) development houses have shipping hardware to test against, and 3) developers have real gear to work with.
So many Mac developers carry Powerbooks. Having the iMac and MacBook gives developers machines to work on and QA teams machines to test on. The PowerMac hasn't been upgrades and won't for a while... Why? Until Adobe/Macromedia, Quark, and Apple's pro-divisions upgrade their software, there is no reason for pros to migrate. Also, the dual-dual G5s are REALLY REALLY fast, and compete with the top end of the Intel world. Until Intel ships their 64-bit versions of these chips, there isn't a reason to switch.
I wouldn't be overly shocked if FW800 goes away (with addon cards for those with the gear), but until a USB 3 can provide the bandwidth, the video guys aren't going to be happy. However, I also wouldn't be shocked at a MacBook rev in 6 months, introducing the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, with the former being mostly stock Intel to replace the iBook, and the latter having the high end gear that the video guys need.
However, I need a MacBook NOW. All my internal applications are currently PPC only, and we need to start the transition. As our apps are for internal use, it didn't seem important to rush the job with the dev machines, we figured Rev A gets us going, and with Rev B of the Intel machines, we'll switch. We already migrated our internal machines from iMacs (in the G4 era) to Mac Minis w/ Apple Monitors, so that if we decide to NOT support dual-platforms, we can cheaply forklift each station at $500/station.
But no shipping Intel hardware means nobody doing the ports and QAs that you video guys want done BEFORE YOUR hardware is released.
Remember, those of us that program for OS X need to get our machines BEFORE YOU, or there is NO SOFTWARE for you to run on your new video machines.
Alex
This late in the day, the hardware for manufacture will be final. However, the final hardware may not have been what Apple actually showed, but perhaps the final hardware was due back a couple of days after Mac World. The protos that we saw may be a couple of months old.
Also, I imagine that the software guys will need to put a bit of work into the powersaving features of the CPU, turning off a core, speedstep, etc. I also wouldn't be surprised to see OSX releases soon after MacBook ship that improve the battery life.
Damnit - I wanted my nick to be "WouldIPutMYRealNameOnSlashdot"
I wonder how much real-word testing they do to develop the magic formula and how much the magic formula takes into account the actual usage of the machine during its current session.
It would be nice if the magic formula took into account the actual history of the machine in question, kind of a battery consumption/usage log that was more personalized about how the specific user actually uses it.
I was able to run some real-world benchmarks on the preproduction MacBooks at MacWorld and wrote this MacBook Pro Performance Analysis. I compared the new laptops to previous G4/G5 systems and found that the new MacBooks are indeed faster than most previous systems. Nobody expected the old G4 PowerBook to come out on top but I was surprised how well the new Core Duo performed.
Check out BARTsmart BART Widget, the best BART schedule widget for Mac OS X.
Maybe they can stay prototypes (think of it like the Google eternal betas) until they can get true 64-bit processors in them, rather than the current 32-bit CPU's currently shown. Does Apple really want to be supporting a 32-bit Intel OSX for the next however many years?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If one of the interfaces on your triple-interface HD is SATA, then you are better off with the choice apple made - because an ExpressCard SATA card is going to be much faster than Firewire 800.
If pretty much the only thing people were using Firewire 800 for was discs then why not replace that standard with a much faster alternative?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So let see? The MacBook comes out in February, yet in January they are still demo'ing a non-final prototype. Now, it's either me or it's rather worrying that they don't have a finalised model to demo one month before release. At the very least, they should have a proven and 'hammered' production to demonstrate a month prior to release. And really.. they shouldn't be making changes.. any changes ..in that final month before roll-out, because that would leave you with a very small window in which to test and debug. I suppose the nano was initially a bit of "no-no," for the very same reason. I respect the engineers at Apple, but perhaps not so much in this particular case.
How about measuring it in half-seconds? This way not only do you get twice as many of them, but with the current generation so bad in math they'll take the bigger number at face value.
Soon to follow can be iTunes prices expressed in double-cents. Buy this latest release for only 79 double-cents. That will make the music industry ecstatic as well!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wasn't Altivec the Velocity Engine in those days?
the machines that were shipping "now" were not the machines he had just demonstrated, but a machine that used a "Yikes!" motherboard
Didn't realize that Steve was showing off his benchmark machine? You know, the one that runs Apple benchmarks faster than anyone else can ever achieve.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
apparently not as good as the other iSights... people doing custom motion tracking, etc., are having trouble with these and they weren't with the firewire version. lots of the controls are simply not available.
See how the card slot is no longer a CardBus slot, but an ExpressCard slot? CardBus was PCI-based, ExpressCard is PCIe-based. The old laptops used PCI, and the new ones use PCIe.
It is my belief that there just isn't a PCIe-based FW800 interface chip available yet.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
One important point that is missed in the Firewire debate is that I am not surprised Apple dropped it. They are switching to a new hardware platform and it would make most sense to stay as 'vanilla' to the intel chip/technology as possible to avoid potential issues. That just makes plain sense. I would not be surprised to see apple tack on apple specific technology in later revisions once they have the platfrom pat down. But if what this article says is true - I wouldn't expect my MacBook Pro to ship on the currently stated Feb 15th, since testing, revision, re-manufacture, re-test of a complete machine with all the factors involved would take several weeks (ie once the line has been set up and producing some test units - these would be stress tested for some time befor they go online with production)
1. Develop protoype
2. Demo prototype
3. ?
4. Profit
Isn't this, what every, hardware, and, software company has always, done?
-- SIGFPE
From a newsweek article article
After his keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs spoke to Newsweek's Steven Levy
Levy: How is battery life with the MacBook?
Jobs: About the same--this with a dual processor! Each processor is as fast as a G5, and the battery life will be the same as [the previous PowerBook's] G4.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10853916/site/newswee
For what its worth, digital camera companies send out "review" copies pre-production cameras. Usually close to the final production version with some problems that usually get ironed out.
insert rimshot here.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I disagree. I did some work for a medical device designer and the firmware and low-level software routines that control cooling, backlighting, and CPU sleep states is tricky stuff. The hardware might be fully-baked, but the firmware that controls all the stuff might need final tweaking, and that would have a HUGE impact on power consumption. Apple doesn't want to give you the numbers from their 'full-speed, full-fan, both-cores-on' firmware revision because they probably look really bad. The final result will hopefully be much better.
Also, if the machines are shipping in a month, the hardware is almost definitely fully-baked by now. The machines might even be coming out of the factory already, but the aforementioned tweaks might go into a firmware load that happens before they're boxed up and shipped.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I know that a lot of people have older PowerBooks (Like under 1ghz) that are iching to upgrade. But getting Rev 1 of the MacBook would only lead to disapointment and fustration. Although Apple tends to be better then most at Rev 1, products, there are often a lot of things that customers want that are not in it, I say if you are 500mhz (I am at 667mhz) or faster Wait another year, let apple Polish out any of the issues, Let apps like Photoshop, VirtualPC, Office, and Apples Pro-Apps get ported to intel, and go threw proper testing, wait for OS X 10.5 to be released. Save up your money now and spend it one full sweep to get the best of what you need all at once, Plus you will be getting free things like OS X 10.5, iLife 07, Better Pro specs. Perhaps Windows Vista will be released so you could possibly duel boot.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Shhh... You're doing Apple Marketing's job for them--for free. ;-)
The Apple DVI to Video Adapter is designed to work with the DVI port on the Mac mini and Power Mac G5 systems only.
Video out (versus VGA) is something that isn't in the DVI spec, so it is a proprietary extension by Apple. It is very possible that they didn't have enough time to customize the chipset. The Mac Book specs include this hopeful line:
DVI to VGA adapter included (other adapters sold separately)
but so far, I have seen nothing announced and under Mac Book accessories, nothing is listed.
I guess we'll see when the product is actually released... it's also worthy to note that the macbook ships with a DVI to VGA adaptor itself
For the Spec:
Video Built-in iSight Camera, DVI, VGA (DVI to VGA adapter included)
I predicted that one of the first casualties of the Intel-Apple relationship would be Firewire since Intel has fought Firewire in favor of their standard, USB--despite its inferiority in I/O overhead. So I have written a few times in various forums that the Intel relationship with Apple would see increased pressure on Apple to give in and result in a gradual abandonment of Firewire. Many people vehemently disagreed with me. However, we are now seeing the first evidence that I may, unfortunately, be right. Buried in the news about the Macbook Pro was this: "The disappearance of FW800 has also been discussed: Apple said it would have required them toi build a specific FW800 card (Intel does not support it), and that they had no plans for it". If the lack of glue chip support doomed Firewire 800 on the laptops, then might it not doom it on the desktop systems of the future as well since Intel's glue chips will be just as important there as well? Surely Apple is not going to use up a PCI-X slot just for a Firewire 800 card at an added price. I have not seen anything from Apple guarranteeing Firewire support for the future unless I missed it. So I think this may be the beginning of the end for Firewire. I am sure Intel will produce the next generation of USB chips at the 800 speed or better and with Firewire stuck at 400, that will be the death knell for it. I'll be betting that way though I don't like it.
It was announced today that the MacBook Pro, upon its release next month, will be obsolete!
I think the cost involved here is the Cost of admitting that despite announcing the shift to Intel over 6 months ago, Intel still doesn't have a suitable 64-bit chip available is too high. So they push these hobbled machines out now with Apple logos hoping nobody makes a big thing about the return to 32-bit computing in the newest machines.
Or maybe they think that 32-bit core + 32-bit core = 64-bit processing. I'm sure Steve believes he could sell that one.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If you read the specs that the press release gives, it says "DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately)", so I'd guess that the store simply hasn't updated everything yet. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jan/10macbook pro.html
I figure the release model will take us back to the days of the Luggable Portable -- like a KayPro or Compaq 'Sewing Machine' machine. Most of the space and weight will be the automobile battery.
Model 2 will come with a Segway -- wheels and a handle -- along with the screen and keyboard.
Ultimate in portable computing -- gets rid of your car! Self-transportable, and carries the user too. Like a magic carpet.
I was one of those who bought the latest PowerPC powerbook (15" widescreen) a week before Christmas. When new laptops came out, I was really itching to return mine and get a brand new one instead. Why? Mostly due to the hype...
Once I learned more about the new MacBook Pro, I started to question this update:
Why did they remove Firewire 800? To you this may sound silly, but to somebody who has to move digital pictures here and there, this was kinda useful. Most of my pictures are either in RAW or TIFF; therefore, I did benefit from Firewire 800.
What about that modem? Nobody uses modems anymore. Yet, at least 3-4 times a year I end up at a skiing camp or somewhere w/o broadband but with a phone line. Since my provider offers me free dial-up with my DSL service, I keep a connection profile just in case. Without a m things won't be bad; just less convenient :(
No dual dvd burning? Same thing. If you like to take many digital pix, then you have to love anything that offers large capacity. Taking dual layer burning away won't cause millions deaths, but still :)
Overall, I was upset by the initial quality of my laptop (G4) as well. It came with a dead battery and although Apple shipped me a new one overnight, it was not as cool as getting a fully working laptop. Considering the price, PowerBooks (and MacBook Pros) should have much better quality. Thanks,
"I think the cost involved here is the Cost of admitting that despite announcing the shift to Intel over 6 months ago, Intel still doesn't have a suitable 64-bit chip available is too high. So they push these hobbled machines out now with Apple logos"
All of their options would have had a cost. This one had the smallest.
"hoping nobody makes a big thing about the return to 32-bit computing in the newest machines."
The laptops were never 64-bit, and iMacs were never capable of 64-bit computing in a way helpful to desktop users. The apps that would have mattered (Photoshop etc) were waiting for Apple to release 64-bit versions of their graphical libraries, so except for a few niche products that also had 32-bit support, there's really no benefit.
At the end of the day, Apple would not have been able to launch with a 64-bit OS even if they had 64-bit hardware because it simply wasn't ready. They would have been stuck with legacy support regardless. Even after they move to 64-bit, most applications will stay 32-bit if only to support computers running Tiger. No one is denying that it's a 32-bit system or that that's not ideal, but Apple could not have escaped that fate except by sacrificing sales that are much more important to them.
They're a for-profit company. Don't expect them to give up that much money over a feature people are obviously not that worked up about.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Errr, yeah, because it isn't as if x86-64 doesn't give you any advantages beyond more memory addressing.... like say, more registers or anything is it?!
e atures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD64#Architecture_F
I do think Apple would have been better served going to x86-64, as I suspect there stay in 32-bit x86 will be a fairly short lived affair.
Hopefully this will mean they will include more than 2 USB ports, eliminate the use of adapters (integrate all the sound i/o into the case), introduce the faster Core Duo processors (2 and 2.16ghz) and include a memory card reader (standard on all PC laptops these days). Not to mention that whole superdrive thing...
The day they released this I went searching all over the site thinking I was crazy because I couldn't find the battery life. I'm happy to have my sanity back.
Anyone at Macworld 13 days ago...
Aaaaand the rest of us?
You are probably doing your little superiority dance and revel in the opportunity, misplaced as it is, to show just how smart you are.
Of course you really are a dick with nothing useful to add, but because you seem like a fanboi you got mod points. Enjoy them, you don't deserve them.
I've had FireWire 800 on my computer since I bought a PowerBook in February of 2003. I wouldn't know if it even works, though, because it's the one port on the machine that I've never even touched.
At MacWorld I was told they were "pre-production" not prototypes.
I was playing with one of the MacBook Pro's at MacWorld. It was end of day, Wed. Each machine had at least one handler there, hovering, interacting with you at all times. Feeling underneath, the back left and back right of the bottom was really hot. WAY hot, too hot, I could only keep my hands there a few seconds. Geeky thin skinned hands, sure, but I'd still not put it on my lap!
The Apple guy there said that "these are *pre-production* units, they still have to tweak the power handling and heat issues..." He went on to say that they had been running all day, the surface was not great (heat reflecting more than absorbing), and that they have more than a month to work this out.
Even with fabulous power management, and better heat dissipation, there's a lot of heat to deal with. Apple's engineers have their hands full. You can only do so much in a "pre-production" unit.
Ah, cool, I hadn't seen that. I looked all over the site for the Mac Book when it came out trying to find an answer for that (and trying to find numbers on battery life), but I couldn't find anything. I never thought I'd learn something from reading a press release. It wasn't a deal breaker for me, but I do use it for time to time. It would make sense for them to include this, but with the rush to get these out, who knows.
Thanks again for the info.
I have a 1.42Ghz iBook and Apple's estimated time remaining is usually very pessimistic. It will say I have 5:30 left and the battery will last another 6-6 1/2 hours before getting dangerously low. I bet individual batteries and usage differs enough that Apple gives a worst-case estimate. It would be better for the estimate to be pessimistic than optimistic, like a car's fuel gauge. I'm going to guess that the MacBooks will last around 4-5 hours, like the Powerbooks they're meant to replace.
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
At first, the "MacBook" didn't sit well with me, either. But in the big picture, this is the year that Apple begins really pushing the Mac as a serious PC alternative, and they wanted to get the "Mac" out front in all their products. Notice how their TV ad also emphasizes the "Mac" name. Not a bad idea from the marketing perspective.
Altivec was Motorola's trade name for the expanded instruction set, which Apple marketed as the Velocity Engine. IBM called Altivec VMX (when it was incorporated in the 970), but Altivec is the name that stuck and it's what everyone uses when referring to the technology.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
And at the same time, most motherboards (Intel included?) still include parallel ports and floppy connectors - even on micro-ATX motherboards, where space is at a premium. (???)
So you don't need any special cables or converters, but you will be limited to FW400 speeds.
A Call for Open Standards
You may be right. I have not actually tested them in this configuration. I tried, in the past, connecting the drive to the computer via FW800 and then connecting a camera to the FW400 port on the drive, and the computer did not see the camera. It may be that chaining only works in one direction, or that there was some other problem.
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