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MacBook Announcement Expected on Tuesday
wwhsgrad2002 writes "Both ThinkSecret and Apple Insider are reporting that Apple could hold a press conference as early as Tuesday, May 9th, to announce their new line of MacBooks. The laptop will be the Intel-based successor to the company's popular iBook line. The 13.3-inch widescreen MacBook is expected to sport Core Duo processors from Intel Corp and pack novelties such as a completely magnetic latching system, built in iSight video camera, and MagSafe power adapter. Additionally, each MacBook is expected to come bundled with Apple's Front Row and PhotoBooth software applications. A coding glitch with Apple's Web site has all but confirmed the MacBook moniker for the new consumer laptop."
Cheers,
Ian
Please, don't put some toilet video card in the macbook. I'm looking at you Intel Integrated.
If you're going after the college kids market AT ALL, the macbook has to be able to game at least most of the time.
--- Do you believe in the day?
Why would they time it to be the same day as Nintendo's press conference on Tuesday?
I understand that they're different markets, but all eyes are going to be on Nintendo that day. They could easily put it off a week and get 100% of the attention.
And by floppies, of course, I am referring to your testicles. Be very careful when snapping your mac book shut if you aren't wearing pants.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
... and on this Tuesday Apple made announcement that they will announce on Saturday the date of the next announcement about their laptop.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
If you had your testicles in between the keyboard and the lid when you shut the machine, then I'd be very worried.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
It would be nice if Apple was less focused on the US car driving market and considered releasing a sub-notebook (<0.9kg) for those of us that walk, fly, and/or use public transit, and need to always carry around a computer. I have desktop computers with large displays at home and work, so I don't need to lug around a monstrosity, when I need a computer during commute and when traveling, just something small that easily fits in my purse.
As a frequent business traveler, I have been buying and using small Intel based Japanese sub-notebooks for 8 years, and would love to buy a Apple notebook that can run MacOSX, especially now that I can use bootcamp to multiboot other OS's as well. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Maybe Apple should licence an OQO or similar sized device and port their OS to it, if they aren't interested in building a sub-notebook from scratch.
... then we don't have to guess.
Do those two names strike anyone else as a bit silly? I wish Apple had kept the PowerBook name.
First, Apple needs to get schools looking at these models for next year. If the company waits much later, schools are already going to make plans based on existing models.
Second, I doubt Apple thinks it will be upstaged in ANY way by Nintendo -- and I think that judgment will be correct. Many gamers and geeks will be paying attention to Nintendo's announcement, but an Apple announcement will greatly upstage it in terms of media attention, IMO.
David
By virtue of its name the MacBook is a low-end version of the Pro. Fair enough, but the specs are pretty much going to be identical to the Pro version I guess, except with a lower end GFX card, less storage, smaller screen, slower CPU. I've suddenly stopped finding Apple hardware releases interesting.
... is a Hardware fetishist. The specs of the MacBook Pro vs the lower end MacBook will not be all that much different than those of the G4 PowerBook were when compared to the old iBook line. The MacBook [Pro] still holds it's own when compared to the vast majority of PC laptops available on the market today in terms of innovative design. With a handful of exceptions the competitors still look like bricks by comparison which was already true when they were compared to the G4 PowerBooks three years ago. Not that the Hardware is the most attractive part of Apple computers anyway it's the OS, it's ease of use and the various specialist applications that the Macintosh platform excels at... and lets not forget the complete absence (so far) of malware.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Print outs.
The pro line is called the MacBook Pro, so the consumer line is called the MacBook. I expect the Intel towers, if they ever appear, to be called the Mac, MacTower, MacPC, or the like. They do seem to be moving away from the brand of 'power' to the brand of book.
As far as the screen size, the industry does seen to be standardizing on the 13.3 screen as the small entrant. In terms of cost, this is probably the best choice for the entry level portable. What is interesting is that this probably means that we will see a consolodation of the iBook and Powerbook into a Macbook. The MacBook will be a compromise dimension betwen 12 and 15 inches, while the pro models will be 15 and 17 inches.
Which also leaves the 12" models in limbo. These are really a perfect size, and if the 12" PowerBooks are ever $800 dollars I may buy one, as we are unlikely to see such a machine again. I wonder how long Apple is going to produce PowerPC based macines, which is, really to ask, how long until the PowerMacs are replaced. Or is Apple just going to produce laptops and media centers, and leave the pro image editing to the MS crowd? I shudder to think.
In any case, we will see what happens over the next few day and the next year. Certainly Apple has plenty of time to pull an rabbit out of it's hat since we won't see big PC sales until christmas of 2007 when MS vista will be ready for prime time.
Oh, the joys of life. Perhaps I will get a PowerMac G5 yet, even if they slurp electricity like it is water.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I have an old G3 iBook, and it's too big. To get me to buy another portable they need to offer something comparable to a Sony VAIO 505 in form factor. Or preferably, a tablet Mac, but I doubt Steve's biases will let that happen.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Religious war? More like a troll. Try giving some examples to support your opinion. Good for design and that's about it? What rock have you been hiding under? I know a TON of scientists who are using macs, because OS X has the ability to run all the UNIX tools we are accustomed to, but they have an easy to use interface and all the business type software that's missing from a linux machine. Plus, being able to drop into an apple store in any major city to get help when your video out isn't working and you have to give that powerpoint presentation tomorrow is a nice bonus.
The whole "they don't have the software" argument has been dead for a long time - the only markets where OS X software isn't up to par with windows are niche ones - specialized proprietary software with a small user base, or things like games. As much as it might shock some people, most people don't buy their computers to play games.
Come on, if you're going to bash macs, update your talking points. 1998 called, it wants its troll back.
Cause the PC laptop offerings have heads spinning? Please.
Or because there's no tablet (hint- they won't do it until they get it right - after two PC stumbles, who can blame them)?
Or because the Apple market has held its own and continues to build eas of use and value? Count me in.
Case in point. My wife just bought the latest Acer which has the touted features of:
- brightview screen (a shiny piece of plastic that produces glare and fingerprints at an astounding rate)
- constant light for the bluetooth status (thanks - eats batteries)
- constant light for the wifi status (ditto batteries)
- constant light for the battery, num lock, cap lock (all of which are mirrored in the taskbar anyway)
- three USB ports Woohoo! One more than an iBook!
- a four cell battery which is an eight cell battery with four cells torn out. Honestly, you can squeeze the case and feel where the missing cells are supposed to be.
- 2.5 hour battery life if you spring for the 8 cell battery separately.
- Speed. It's a 2.something, if I turn off all the fancy XP graphics under system performance, it can almost keep up with my 1.33 iBook for general use with a few apps open.
- software. none. after loading her up with picasa and itunes, whenever something mildly novel comes up, she shuts the lid and asks me to do it on the iBook. And she knows how to work a PC - she does it all day at her job. She's a wiz at office + access, but for real world stuff, the integration just isn't there - they made this point in one of the new apple ads - and it's about time.
I'd rather spend my time getting the work done than figuring out the workaround or forking over the license fee for getting it done on a PC.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
You see, the key to Apple was product differentiation. I don't think people really understand what Apple has taken on when it moved to Intel.
Essentially it's moved its entire product lifecycle up a gear. You'll see newer, faster Apples appearing much more frequently than you used to, because Intel release interim speedbump chips throughout the year - maybe as many as 5 or 6. For Apple, this is a good thing.
But, Intel also releases a new platform technology every year or so, so when Yonah's successor Merom is released, Apple has no choice but to do the same, otherwise it has a marketing dilemma of people doing a like-for-like speed comparison between a Yonah Mac and a Merom PC.
Now, we know that comparing Macs to PCs is apples and oranges, but Joe Public doesn't know that and would possibly plump for a fast new Dell over what on paper looks like a slower, older Mac.
The other downside is that by keeping up with Intel releases, Apples are going to date a lot faster. In a year, the 15" Macbook Pro will be a slow Macbook Pro assuming Apple keep up with Intel. Now it may not be slow to use as OSX software doesn't seem to bloat as fast as PC stuff, but it could potentially cause confusion for new buyers.
The bottom line is that essentially, Apple have rescinded some of their control over their product line development. While they can innovate on peripheral elements such as illuminated screens, magnetic power cords and the like, the core of their machine is now owned by Intel and they are going to have a much tougher time exhibiting the kind of product differentiation that they have been able to in the past.
It is in fact a great example of name: as one stated elsewhere, one of the issues Apple had in the past was that upon reaching the Apple Store website people would see Powerbooks and their extremely high prices, and not necessarily notice the ibooks. Here, when the potential customer sees Macbook Pro for $2k, either he goes "great, i'll take 5" or he sees the Pro, considers that he is not one and deduces by himself that there may be a non-pro line more fit to his wallet.
Customer Confusion? Not a snowball's chance in hell, and "Pro" suffixes are extremely common and well understood by the public: it's better, more powerful, more featured, but it's also much more expensive.
And nowadays you only need 3 letters to say all that.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
I work at Apple and can confirm that there will be Intel processors in this line-up of notebooks. Hope this valuable information helps.
Full Tilt
"Pro" does not mean "bigger screen." I want a 12" or 13" laptop (actually, I'd take a 10" or 11" laptop if it was superhighrez), but I also want non-integrated graphics, backlit keyboard, gigabit ethernet, lots of video out options, and so on.
The most important feature in a laptop is portability. I don't want a fucking iBook. I want the smallest fully-featured PowerBook imaginable, and, ideally, I want it to have 1600x1200 even on a 12" screen (OK, perhaps that's hyperbole. But 1280x1024 at minimum. Fuck 1024x768.)
Why can't Apple just make it happen? I don't want to lug around a 15" machine just to get all the real features.
Um, Apple always outsourced their CPUs. Motorola/Freescale made the G3s and 4s, and IBM made the G5s. Before that Motorola made the 680x0s. Apple was a member of the PowerPC alliance and got some input that way, but Motorola and IBM made the chips. The extent of Apple's pull was revealed when IBM didn't produce a notebook G5 or even keep up with Steve's processor speed promises, and Motorola stagnated on the G4.
You seem to think that the processor makes a Mac. It doesn't. Apple may well keep up with Intel speed bumps but that doesn't mean they have to make a big product announcement every time. Apple commonly tweaks their product lines with little or no fanfare and their real innovation has always been outside the processor.
Rosetta chip? What?
The myth that they are 'design' machines really needs to die. Maybe back in the late 80s, when the only WYSIWYG DTP software available was on the Mac, but the Adobe, Macromedia and Quark software used by most 'design' types has long been designed / developed in a cross-platform way. By numbers, there is more design software on the PC.
I don't really think there is a lot that makes the Mac an inherently better platform for 'design' - or rather, I don't think there is anything that makes the Mac a better platform for design that doesn't ALSO apply to other fields.
As for software support in general - as a software developer who uses both PCs and Macs, I've not found myself stuck for anything. I use different programs on both machines, but you can achieve the same functionality on both platforms. Sometimes I find myself cursing not having Expose, Xylescope, native PDF support or the Omni apps on the PC. Sometimes, as with Oracle XE, the problem is in the other direction.
If you're not a troll, I'd suggest developing a bit of curiosity towards the systems you use, and a bit of flexibility with your tools - it could pay dividends for your career.
'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh
Actually, it's not a Rosetta chip. It's a Rosetta stone. For some reason, Apple decided to put a small engraved stone inside every Intel Mac. This stone is read by a very tiny scribe that lives inside the computer and translates instructions on the fly for the processor. The scribe gets bored after a couple of hours, hence the inclusion of the iSight camera on top of the screen of most of their new models to allow him to get a view of the outside world, like a periscope, and the lackluster performance of the Mac mini: the scribe can see nearly nothing, which makes him angry. He has to move to the IR receiver for the remote control to watch something else than a hard drive or his personal stone.
Well, even MacBook Con would be better than the MacBook Wii.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.