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Apple Unveils New Macbook
Several readers have written in to mention that Apple has released the new Macbook on their site. Yahoo! has details from the press release: "With prices starting at just $1,099, the MacBook lineup includes three models: a 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz MacBook in a newly designed, sleek white enclosure and a 2.0 GHz MacBook in a stunning new black enclosure. The new MacBook offers performance up to five times faster than the iBook and up to four times faster than the 12-inch PowerBook with a completely new system architecture including a 667 MHz front-side bus and 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory expandable to 2GB."
anyone notice that now its 2x256 and not 1x512?
This new laptop is much closer to the MacBook Pro than I expected. I thought they might only do Core Solo processors, to create more distinction between the two levels.
I had been planning on getting the 15 or 17" Pro, but looking at the specs on these - and the price, I might go for the MacBook.
The biggest difference I see is the display resolution.. 1280x800, like the older PowerBooks.
So, apparently, for no extra charge, you can now get a glossy screen on the MacBook Pro. Can anyone explain to me why you would want a glossy screen? It just seems like it would make the glare rediculous.
Decided I'd browse over to Dell and see how big the "Apple premium" is sitting right now.
...So the Apple premium now stands at -$340, close as I can figure.
Dell Inspiron E1405:
14.1" screen (1280x800)
Core Duo 1.83
1 GB RAM (can't get 512)
80 GB HD
Total cost: $1540
MacBook:
13.3" screen (1280x800)
Core Duo 1.83
512 MB RAM
80 GB HD
built-in Webcam
Total cost: $1100
The only reason I said "anytime soon" was because I knew someone would say "well, FireWire isn't going to around *forever*". Of course it's not. All standards change, and some are supplanted by others.
But when the iPods dropped FireWire, everyone took that as some kind of "hint" that Apple was "backing away" from FireWire, shunning the standard, and quietly putting it to sleep/death. No. That is not the case. It wasn't then, and it isn't now.
The iPods dropped FireWire likely because of a technical/marketing/cost decision. Most iPod purchasers were (and are) Windows PC owners, almost all of whom don't have FireWire, but DO have USB, and most USB 2.0. All of Apple's machines for the last few years also had USB 2.0 (and at least have USB, since 1998). If one interface had to go for standardize chipset and sizing/cost concerns, it seems pretty clear which one it was to be.
Of course, many people took that as a sign that Apple was getting rid of FireWire completely. There was no basis, however, to make that assumption.
As I've said before:
While specific features of future Macintosh computers cannot be predicted, FireWire is an critical protocol that has come to be relied upon. Some important factors to note:
- FireWire usage across the industry is increasing, not decreasing
- FireWire is featured on all currently shipping Intel-based Macs
- FireWire is required for Target Disk Mode, a critical feature that many administrators and the Migration Assistant depend on; USB is not supported for these tasks
- FireWire is increasingly used as the interface of choice on modern digital video and audio equipment
- Since July 2005, all HD cable set top boxes are mandated by the FCC to come with a "functional IEEE-1394 [FireWire] port"
- FireWire is the primary (and often only) transport mechanism used by all digital video (DV) and high definition digitial video (HDV) cameras and decks
- Application software and features on every Mac, like iMovie, iDVD, and the SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW), depend on FireWire to import video into the computer via DV
For these reasons, it makes no sense that FireWire would have been abandoned now, nor will it be in the near future. *Someday* will machines ship without FireWire? Yeah, and someday they'll ship without USB, too. These standards will die just like everything else does, eventually. Did USB "win" in the mainstream desktop peripheral connectivity war? Yes, of course it did. Long ago. Unfortunately, just because USB and FireWire appeared to compete in some common areas (like desktop storage), the perception was that they were completely competitive standards, and that's not true. Technically, FireWire and USB are a lot different. Could USB be expanded to subsume at least some of the functionality of FireWire? Could a future iteration of USB provide some of the hostless or multi-host peer capabilities of FireWire? Could a universal DV-over-USB standard be adopted? Sure, to all of them. But FireWire is here now, and is used for all of these tasks.
Apple didn't go out of its way to keep FireWire just so the Intel transition was "less disruptive". It keep FireWire because customers need and want it, and its products and product features depend upon it. Apple isn't the only one keeping FireWire alive. It's used all over the industry. All of Apple's computing products will have it for quite some time, and there's no logical or technical reason to believe otherwise.
Apple's web site indicates this new model has a stunning glossy screen. Am I the only one that hates these new glossy screens. They reflect glare and just look bad. The screen on the MacBook Pro isn't glossy. Why does the MacBook need a glossy screen?
You must never fly coach.
I've got a 12" iBook, and on a typical Boeing aircraft, if the person in front of me puts their seat back, I can *just barely* have the iBook open, sitting on the front lip of the tray table.
If my laptop screen was one inch taller, it would be pretty much impossible to use in most of the cheap seats of a plane. I would have to always arrive early and request an exit-row seat.
That's one reason why I think the wide-screen laptops are an awesome idea. More screen real estate, less height when it's open.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Upgrading the white MacBook to an 80GB drive only costs $50. What's the extra $150 for?