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Apple Unveils MacBook Pro with Core 2 Duo
daveschroeder writes "Apple has just announced the upgraded MacBook Pro (15.4- and 17-inch models) with the Intel Core 2 Duo ("Merom") 64-bit dual core processor. The standard hard drive sizes have been increased, a FireWire 800 port has been added to all models (again, reaffirming that FireWire, and specifically FireWire 800, is not dead, and that Apple responded to customer requests to add it to the 15.4-inch model), and the optical drive is now dual-layer-write-capable on all models."
Also not mentioned is that 2gigs has been made the standard memory size with 1gig only available in the lowest model, with a 3gig option on the 17in version.
Can't wait to start selling these!!!! :-)
With warranty.
Merom is the mobile version, Conroe is the desktop version...
I hope they continue to support Target Disk Mode via Firewire 800, and even if they had a similar way of doing the same thing with USB would be nice - that feature has saved my ass an innumerable amount of times. It makes for a nice troubleshooting option and makes things like Carbon Copy Cloner possible... glad to hear that Apple is not sending FireWire the way of the floppy disk just yet.
JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP IRRIGATE
Apple has just announced the upgraded MacBook Pro (15.4- and 17-inch models) with the Intel Core 2 Duo ("Conroe") 64-bit dual core processor.
Screw that. I'm waiting for the MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo Twin Binary Pair featuring Extreme II Bifurcation technology.
I'm ordering mine today, another switch is about to take place
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Actually, the Core 2 Duo for laptops is code named "Merom" not "Conroe". "Conroe" is only for desktops. They are virtually identical except for power requirements.
Mac guy yesterday: why do you need a Core 2 Duo? Mac hardware is better that Dell and more expensive because it's better better better
Mac guy today: I've been waiting for months for Apple to release the Core 2 Duo, finally now I can buy the MacBook of my dreams -- the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro is the BEST COMPUTER EVER, EVER!
Windows guy: huh?
All intel mac models can be used with fink tools with no problem at all since almost day 0. There are some programs which refuse to compile (namely mplayer), but this is only a small minority.
In my iMac I am already using fontforge, xchat and gaim (although I have to admit that Adium is much much prettier)
Maybe it's just me, but this is the first I've heard of 2,5" HDs > 120 Gb...
Wow. Finally a laptop with enough storage space.
(/me being cursed with a company laptop with a way-too-small 20 Gb disk)
Was it OSX causing the problem, or was it the first Macbook Pro hardware?
TIA...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I wonder if they now ship with asbestos battery surrounds in case the battery pack explodes?
http://www.frenchgeek.com/
...viruses comes with it?
All of the previous MB/MBPs use Matsushita drives with extremely strict region control, and since I have a large collection of both R1 and R2 DVDs, this rules out a Mac for me. The Matsushita firmware will flat-out refuse to read a disc (even raw sectors) if the region doesn't match, so software tools like AnyDVD and DeCSS-based players like mplayer/VLC don't work. Also the drives' firmware code is encrypted and signed with high strength public-key crypto, which makes a RPC1 firmware hack virtually impossible (some hackers tried but gave up after multiple expensive mistakes because the drives brick themselves if any attempt to read or modify the firmware is made).
I'm most interested in finding out who makes the new 6x DL burner used in the 15" MBPs. If the new drives are NOT Matsushita then it looks like I'm getting a MBP... otherwise no way.
It's good to see 64-bit CPU's in their laptop range eventually, as there was never a G5 laptop this is the first 64bit Mac laptop. This will give me an excuse to upgrade my aging iBook. I will get a 17" model and keep the 14" iBook when I need something a bit more compact.
The 17" MacBook Pro has always had Firewire 800 but it's good to see it returning to the smaller models, I remember reading the reason for its disappearance was to do with space concerns on the smaller models rather than Apple deciding there was no future in Firewire 800.
I'd like once that Apple gave us some real benchmarks like 3DMark2006 which would give us a complete and objective view of their products performances. It would be also easier to compare with computers from other vendors.
I have an Acer Aspire 5100 here with a 1.7Ghz AMD Turion. Other than the speed differential, is the Intel chip any better than the AMD one? I have kind of lost track of the dizzying array of chips out there.
FireWire 800 was removed from the original MacBook Pro due to technical limitations... there wasn't sufficient space in the enclosure for it (it required an additional chip, as it's not supported by the main logic board). Remember that the original MBP was a rush job, only 6 months from the announcement of the Intel shift. Now Apple has had another 10 months to figure it out, and FW800 is back. So it's not quite accurate to say that they added it "due to customer request."
I was shopping for a new laptop recently and saw that the Dell Latitudes with Merom support up to 4 GB of memory (if you really wanna shell out that kind of money for a 2-GB SODIMM).
Any idea why the MBP only supports 3?
But does it run the entire MacOSX in 64bit mode? (Something the G5 newer really did).
Hey troll, those batteries were made by Sony, and they were used by Apple, and Toshiba, and Compaq, and... well, by most laptop manufacturers. Put the blame on the real manufacturer, Sony.
I've always been a critic of the premium that one has to pay to get an Apple. So when I saw this article, I was quick to go configure a Dell and point out just how much one can save over the Apple tax.
But it was 25 percent *more* (at least compared the $1999 MacBook). And you *still* have to waste your time reinstalling Windows to get rid of all the circus-ware that comes on the Dell.
It really is no wonder that someone is paying Gartner to try and coax Apple out of the PC business. They'd be idiots not to continue selling hardware.
More
has been Core 2 Duo capable for months and I could put one in if I wanted to do so
Yea.. you go find yourself a Core 2 Duo to drop in that Acer laptop of yours. I think Walmart sells them.
Unfortunately, they eliminated the option for a 7200 rpm drive. It's a significant performance hit, if you're doing something that's I/O bound on the hard drive.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Lithium fires aren't that dangerous. Just decompress the cargo bay and hang on to the laptop for dear life.
Yes, but will it run Windows?
*ducks*
The Apple hardware has something no other manufacturer offers - an OS X licence, also some people pay for the design too, others don't care.
But I want a machine I can run OS X and Linux on, I don't care about Windows, I only use that when I'm paid to (work... occaisionally). Any PC will run Linux, but only Apple hardware runs OSX.
While these new machines are very impressive indeed, and I'm glad to see that apple have been listening to customer demand^H^H^H requests for new features by adding firewire back in, I'm really surprised that there's no S-video support. I'm still using my old PowerBook G4 and I use s-video all the time; it's one of the main reasons (aside from the fact that I'm po') that I haven't made the dive and bought a MacBook or a MBP. Does this seem like a big deal to anyone else, or am I the only one who likes outputting to TV with relative ease?
Oh, and here's the spec sheet for the MBPs. Let me know if I just missed it and it's actually there.
I left my wallet in El Sigundo!
So you can run Windows programs from 1997, but you can't run Mac programs from 2004. Stupid.
More Misses (that I forgot)
#6- 3GB of RAM. Because 4GB is RIGHT OUT. And no "Pro" really needs that much. Photoshop in a Gig, baby! Real Pros do FinalCut in 512MB...because we can.
#7- No specifics on the type of LCD used. IPS? (No, no IPS 15.4 WXGA+ screens being produced, so far as I can find.) MVA? Prolly pretty much the same screen that Dell is using. Ho. Hum.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
The iMac and Mac Pro are now available with 750 GB drives.
I'm still waiting for a Conroe-based Mac.
iMacs use the laptop version of the chip, and Mac Pros use the server version. This leaves a pretty big gap for people in the market for something in the middle.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Yeah, and your Chevy Corsica gets you around just as well as a Corvette would!
You may all go to Hell and I will go to Texas - Davy Crockett
Are they EVER going to make Macs, which are supposedly the best graphics machines around, with decent resolutions? My Dell Inspiron has 1680x1050, now THAT'S useful!
Ok, so yeah the bump in processor speed, RAM, and all the rest is nice, but they don't have an option for 7200 RPM HD on the 15" models anymore.
Seriously the upgrade in my dell from a 5400RPM drive to 7200 increased speed at least 30-40%. In fact I was about to order a 15" powerbook last week, now I won't order one. 7200RPM laptop hard drives to me are like LCD desktop monitors: Once you get one you will never go back, the speed increase is noticeable. A 5400RPM hard drive is the bottleneck in a PC with 4.6GHZ of processing power, 667MHZ RAM bandwidth, etc. I'll have to re-assess my next laptop purchase.
With Apple, if you're currently enrolled in a College or University, you can get a fairly sizable discount on all their stuff. (Depending on what you order.)
I checked out the baseline MacBook Pro, and the price went from C$2,199 to C$1,999 with my discount.
Not that I can afford one, or anything right now, of course.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I tried to duplicate what you did, however this is what I got:
:)
Unable to connect
Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at configure.us.dell.com.
* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.
* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.
* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
Must run on dell hardware
I guess you have never taken a look at the Apple refurb store then. I saved $500 on my MacBook Pro and that put it under $1,500. Yes, it is a 15.4" and not a 17". But that is okay because I travel around a lot with mine and the 17" MacBook Pro was just too big.
I also physically compared the Apple 17" to the various Dell 17" offerings (easy to do since I live in Austin, TX). You mention the screen resolution as a distinguishing characteristic between the Dell your wife bought and the Apple 17". Let me mention another difference. I can fit two MacBook Pros in the same physical space of the Dell offerings (yes, there is a bit of exaggeration, but not much!). So, what is the value of a much smaller footprint for what is supposed to be a mobile computer? It's really anyones guess.
They took the 7200 RPM 100GB hdd away as an option on the 15"!!! That sucks!
Other than the screen size, the 15" has a 6x dual layer superdrive while the 17" has an 8x (big deal), and you can only get the 7200 rpm drive on the 17".
I guess they have to give some reason for people to buy a 17" over a 15".
Because they have a better way. This stopped me from getting a mac laptop for a long time - I hate external mice and modifier keys both. Now you have a silky smooth mousepad that supports one-finger-click for a left click, and two-finger-click for a right click. It makes an unbelievable amount of sense and works seamlessly. Combined with two-finger-scrolling and you have a really addictive system. And yes, I own an MB now and I'm eyeing the MBP as well, which would allow me to give the MB to my wife and toss out her Dell.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
My Mac Pro came with a mouse that a central little button that doubles as a 2 directional wheel. But theface of the mouse has two seperate pressue areas that can be set independently. Plus the side-pressure buttons. That's four seperate areas to press, meaing four sets of options, on my 'one button' mouse.
Anyone know of a good eSATA ExpressCard?
Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
Ambivilent- adj. pulled in two different directions simultaneously. You have all sorts of criticisms, but you also have comprehehnsive, detailed knowledge of the intricacies of Apple hardware specs. You open such a wide door for disagreement that it sounds downright trollish. I don't get the "idiot accountants" remark- who is being cheap and why are they idiots? Why do I bother?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
Everyone: Gah! Still only one mouse button!
Ha.. that gripe is now becoming obsolete. On a MB or MBP, put two fingers on the track-pad and press the 'single' mouse button. You will find this has the same effect as pressing the secondary button button on a WinDell or any other PC laptop. I don't know if this works on the PPC Macs. For the desktop Macs there is plenty of alternatives (Logitech, Macally) if you don't like the old one button Mac mouse or the Mighty Mouse. The latter incidentally includes a second and third and fourth mouse 'button' functionality but the ergonomics are not to everyones taste. I'll admit it took Apple much longer than it should have to remedy the 'missing second button' issue in it's product line, the two-fingers-on-the-trackpad feature on the Laptop line was especially long overdue since the old [Ctrl]+MouseClick was pretty awkward.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
OK, the specs on the new MacBooks look great; however, the price difference between my Dell E1505 Core2Duo and a similarly configured MacBook is $1000.
I'm interested in hearing from people who use both Linux and Mac extensively. The majority of people I've seen recommending either Linux or Mac don't seem to know either very well. So they end writing some bullshit statements about the capabilities/incapabilities of both that just look stupid. I think they read something on the Internet somewhere, maybe five years ago, and still think it's true.
Some of the questions I have:
1) Do I need to install Linux to make it useful? I.e., on a Windows machine I install Cygwin and lots of Unix-like tools such as bash, gvim, putty, perl.
2) What's the performance under Java like? On dual proccy machines (my Opteron, Core2Duo), Java screams. Can I expect the same performance under OSX?
3) How stable is it. Macs are traditionally easy to use, but as I've owned dozens of Macs (and used to sell them too) I can attest that they were not the most stable machines out there (up until the first OSX spin). But browsing the knowledge bases and user forums (the BEST place for info) I see lots of issues.
4) How much Free software is available? Can GNU/Open/Free programs be compiled easily and natively? I'd think because it's more consistent than the hundreds of Linux distros, this would be true...
5) How solid is the workmanship. Hey, I get mocked at work because of my Dell, but it was cheap and it's fast. That's usually all I need. My Thinkpad is better built, but the $600 price difference was not worth it. What makes the Mac worth the extra $1K?
6) How fast is it? Remember, I used to own lots of Macs. I know that the PowerPC Macs were not so fast in everyday usage as the equivalent Intel/AMD chips. If you quote some meaningless statistic and some Apple press release I will laugh at you because I used them on a daily basis for years. But Macs now have a new OS, new chips... On real world apps (Java, video, disk), how do they stack up?
7) How does the two-finger trackpad stack up against real buttons? I.e., it's software to emulate two physical buttons. I've not used it before. Any drawbacks?
I was really hoping for a 1920x1200 display on the 17 inch model this time around. That would allow displaying 1080p in native resolution, as well as the nice sharp small fonts that I crave.
Considering that graphic designers are a target user for Macs, I find it pretty stupid that Apple doesn't offer WUXGA. I am a coder and my next notebook will have a 17 inch WUXGA display, one way or another.
I've been holding off getting a new work laptop, waiting for the new Power^H^H^H^H^HMacBook Pros to come out, so I could get my OS X fix on someone else's tab, but I am disappointed to see there is still no 12" PowerBook replacement.
It's not a showstopper for me, because realistically a 15" vs a 12" notebook isn't a huge issue (heck, I might even get a 17"), but it would truly have been great to see a 12" PowerBook replacement that wasn't the redheaded stepchild the 12" was...
It's a shame to see there isn't a 7200rpm hard disk option. However, 2G of RAM *standard* is a bold (and welcome, given OS X's hunger for memory) move by Apple that makes up for it. On the downside, as has become ironically typical (from a company that stresses its graphically-oriented heritage and having the "first" mainstream OS that really took advantage of GPUs for acceleration) it's a shame to see weak video hardware on "Pro" hardware, with no faster BTO alternative.
It's just not in the box. $19 or so for an Apple DVI to S-video cable.A ppleStore?productLearnMore=M9267G/A
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/
Honestly, I never used the S-video port or cable. They probably figured it was something they could drop without many complaints.
I'm kinda curious as to how you calculated your prices, other than running with the lazy meme of how to compare prices. But what really threw me was your lauding the eSATA interface, something I've only heard nasty things about, especially about how it isn't hot-swappable and a real pain to connect/disconnect. Pray tell, where can you get a professional videocamera with eSATA but not Firewire?
The lack of a card reader may seem a pain, but those are slots in the case that could admit dust/dirt, as well as taking up real estate inside the case. Considering what they pack in there and how much care is given to make the layout not interfere with ventilation, I have no problem getting an el cheapo external cardreader.
Next time you critique the Apple laptops, though, I suggest you get rid of that huge chip on your shoulder. Your antagonism towards Apple is pretty blatant.
"You can get a 7200 rpm drive, its not a standard but its an option. But you have to drop down to 100GB. I think this reflects the manufacturers.
Apple no longer offers any 7200 rpm drive in the 15" MacBook Pros, at any capacity. It's not standard, and it's not offered as an option. The only place it's still available is in the 17" model.
Anyone who doesn't believe me is invited to check the Apple store.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
If Apple responded to its customers' requests, how come there are no left and right mouse buttons? It's still the single most annoying feature and you'd think it should be eliminated by now.
Apple actually has usability experts that test things. Thus, even if a bunch of people who will probably never buy Apple's claim they will if they have two buttons on the laptop, Apple holds off because it encourages both users and developers to break things. If developers are given two button mice as the standard configuration, they will develop with that in mind. Most developers will assume they know better than the user how they will use the extra mouse buttons, so they will assign functions to it, sometimes assigning function only to that control. (Just look at Windows software.) This means all the alternative interfaces break using that software (voice control, mice for the disabled, styluses, etc.). Power users, who often use a multi button mouse no longer have a button to assign to their own custom uses, since developers have taken over that button, and now need one more button on their mice, leading to three and four button mice and the situation getting worse from there.
For laptop users, they will train themselves to use the two buttons on the laptop, leading to a less efficient method. Place your hands on a laptop keyboard. Notice how whenever you're using the track pad you have a hand free, already on the key used for chording the functions of a second mouse button. It is actually less stressful on your hands to use just one button and you get things done more quickly, once you're used to it.
For these reasons Apple is unlikely to ever ship multi-button mice as the standard configuration. For desktops they will probably move to solutions like the mighty mouse, which is single button by default, but can enable multiple buttons. This is ideal for shared machines since power users can have a multi-button mouse while novice users can have a single button mouse, with no one being confused and without switching hardware. For laptop, however, I doubt Apple will enable such a solution, since it does lead to worse ergonomics and slower operation. They'd rather just have users learn the right way to do things.
If Apple responded to its customers' requests, how come there are no left and right mouse buttons? It's still the single most annoying feature and you'd think it should be eliminated by now.
But sometimes simpler is better, and in my understanding, that has been Apple's standpoint on this issue for a long time. I'm not saying that Apple's interface design is the be-all-end-all, but it beats the living daylights out of Windows' on a regular basis.
As an educator, I've seen the results of two-button mice in the hands of beginners and it's not pretty.
Nearly everyone I've talked to who laments about the lack of a two button mouse, in my experience, is actually looking for contextual menus, which is what the right mouse-button brings up on Windows. To get a contextual menu on the Mac, you hold the control key down when you click. It's oh-so-easy to do, but of course you have to know how to do it... the Mac interface, however, is designed to not REQUIRE contextual menus. If some action can only be done by a menu command, the menu command should appear in the menubar, where users expect to find menus. If it is also present in a contextual menu, that's a useful duplicity for slightly more advanced users.
I'm not saying two-button mice are bad... I have an IntelliMouse on my desktop at work and I love it. The most useful feature to me on that thing is the scroll wheel, but I appreciate the second button as well (though I actually have it programmed to double-click, which is more useful for me).
*sighs heavily and puts on flamesuit*
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
Hey Apple, where's the ultraportable laptop with max. 3lb weight?
You've shown with iPod nano that you can do wonders in small scale, but your laptops are not reflecting your capabilities in this regard. They are currently just waaayyy too big and heavy for everyday and everywhere portability. So no Mac switch for me.
With no graphics card upgrade, the big question on my mind is what the gaming benchmarks were like for the previous macbook pro. It is likely that this macbook pro will be GPU bound,
I've done the requisite googling and found nothing satisfying. Does anyone have any links to gaming benchmarks for the macbook pro? Under boot camp is fine using windows for gaming is tollerable, but OS X World of Warcraft would be great too.
---
I support spreading santorum
... and those viruses on those ipods were microsofts fault too.
Is it safe to buy a MacBook Pro now? Is this considered a version 2?
I've learned not to buy version 1 of an Apple product unless I want to get cut by the bleeding edge.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Circumcision is child abuse.
"Any PC will run Linux, but only Apple hardware runs OSX."
Not true. I have seen first hand OSX run on non Apple hardware. Granted it's not a legal license.
I'm a Windows user, but I think Apple laptops are great. However, I would never buy one until:
1-It ships with a 2-button mouse. When is Steve Jobs going to give up this obsession with a 1-button mouse. And, I don't care about "gestures". I want 2 mouse buttons.
2-WUXGA. If I'm going to lug a 17" laptop, I want WUXGA. I'm typing this from my Sony A690, and I'd never go back to anything less.
For the past couple of months, Apple has said that the new Xserve (with Xeon processors) will be available in October. October's almost gone. Does anyone know the scoop on this?
Just to clarify, they never took out Firewire - only Firewire 800. It's back now.
Other people noted the adaptor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First as noted they have the ability to have a virtual mouse button - this works better than WIndows laptops becuause you can 't accidentally press it and/or it's not hard to reach.
Secondly even without that having a single mouse button ON A LAPTOP is superiour because you simply use the modifier key "Control" to make the first mouse button act like the second. It's much easier to chord out the mouse press than it is to ifnd the always awkwardly placed second button on a laptop.
On a Mac dfesktop I always buy external mouse with more buttons, but it simply is not needed or wanted on a laptop.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
6) Merom will not support more than 3.15 G (the rest of the 4G address space is mapped to the bus and stuff). Adding a whole gig and be able to access only 15% or so is a big waste that Apple doesn't propose and rightly so.
#6- 3GB of RAM. Because 4GB is RIGHT OUT. And no "Pro" really needs that much. Photoshop in a Gig, baby! Real Pros do FinalCut in 512MB...because we can.
You mean unlike the Dell that lets you install 4GB but only uses 3.35 GB of it? Yeah that would be AWESOME!
#7- No specifics on the type of LCD used. IPS? (No, no IPS 15.4 WXGA+ screens being produced, so far as I can find.) MVA? Prolly pretty much the same screen that Dell is using. Ho. Hum.
Better quality than the Dell based on in-store assesments. Not sure though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
2) I find Java performance to be quite good. I played a Java-based flight simulator that ran great on my MacBook. But if there's a particular application that you want to try out, I'd say go to an Apple store if one is nearby and download it to the desktop and give it a whirl. They don't monitor that stuff too closely.
3) I work on a Windows machine most of the time, but my personal system is a MacBook, and I find the latter to be much more stable overall. I essentially never reboot it, unless there is a software update that requires it. I did have the RSS problem, but I'll detail that in the hardware question.
4) There's lots and lots of free (as in speech) software. Apple even has a download section dedicated to it: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_so urce/ . And since you've got Perl, etc., there are a lot of programs you can download and run without even having to recompile.
5) In general, I think workmanship is great. Easy access to parts, long-lasting and reliable systems. Problems do come up, but Apple's pretty good about fixing them. My old iBook is almost 6 years old, and it's my wife's main computer now, and works great. It did have to have the logic board replaced because of a video problem, but they took it and fixed it and returned it in three days without a hassle, even though it was officially out of warranty. My current MacBook has the RSS (random shutdown syndrome), and I just brought it in last night. My understanding is that they've resolved that, and if history is any indicator, I'll still be using this system in 4 years.
6) Speed is subjective, but basically, we're talking about the same hardware you might run windows on, so many--if not most--applications should run just the same. And if you want to run Windows, there's BootCamp, which lets you dual boot, or Parallels, which lets you run a virtual machine without the overhead of emulation. Lots of great reviews out there. Seach /. or google for more info.
7) The two finger trackpad is AWESOME. I mean, it's OK for the second button and all; much better for right-clicking than control-click, in my mind. But the key is two-finger scrolling. Once you're used to it, you'll feel like any laptop that doesn't support it is a toy. Two finger scrolling a pretty great jump forward in human-computer interface.
Hope this all helps!
The CB App. What's your 20?
I think whether or not your Core Duo 2 CPU has 64 bit support or not depends on which core it has - Conroe or Merom (Wikipedia mentions a couple of other types). Nothing on the Apple site seems to talk about the technical specifications on that much detail, sadly.
From what I can gather, the MacBook's are using Conroe's (which would explain why Apple arn't touting '64 bit support' in them), if that's true I would guess we may see Memron ones around MWSF (on Googling, a couple of other sites seem to be thinking that too).
Apple doesn't use those batteries in the Intel Macs. Got anything else?
"Sufferin' succotash."
Today is the first day in 15 years that I've gone out of my way to check out a Mac with any interest in purchasing. The price is still high, but you get a lot to go with that price tag. Being able to run Windows for work makes it actually worthwhile. Now if I can only figure out where to get the money to plunk down on that puppy...
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
#2- Mac "Pro" users finally get what every other major PC manufacturer has been giving their users for at least two (upwards of three) months: the Core 2. Christ Intel has been advertising the damn thing on TV!!!
It takes time to do things right.
#1- No eSATA support.
ExpressCard eSata? I guess you wouldn't know about them there fancy ExpressCard slots.
#2- No built-in media card reader support. Jeez, couldn't Apple be nice enough to toss in a $5 ExpressCard/34 4-in-1 adapter in the box? No, that would have compromised their already razor thin 28 point margins...
We already have those, why clutter up the box and my house with one I don't need? Why not include little plastic army men while you're at it, or perhaps a free travel size toothbrush! Besides anyone serious about it is going to get the FW800 Sandisk media reader. By not bundling, they leave the option for you the user to get a better solution. I guess you wouldn't know about better card readers though.
#3- No "Pro" class support options. Then again, no "Pro" user really appreciates On-Site, 3year support contracts...we're PROS! We'll fix it ourselves with a paperclip and chewing gum!
Apple store or free drop shipping of replacemnet parts. Who wants some loser who can hardly turn a PC on to come into your house? I guess you wouldn't know how great free drop shipping of parts is though.
#4- No competitively priced 15" model. Because the rest of the world selling those $1200 15" models are clueless...you really want a 13" screen. With a slower, generation-old CPU...and no expansion slot of any kind...and ho-hum GPU.
What market is a dirt cheap 15" that lacks all of the features of a Mac 15" (including a real video card) good for? But then I guess you wouldn't know about good laptops.
#5- No BTO 7200rpm drive option. Because Pros don't need that kind of performance...they just THINK DIFFERENT.
Real pros can add a drive. Though I agree it's odd they took it out as an option. The first one you almost hit on. But then I guess you wouldn't know about success, so you didn't realize how close you got to actually making a point.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That train has left the station. Time to move on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Need for speed. Most of us don't have enough patience for video editing as it is.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Okay, I'll bite. Post the full specs for your six month old Acer notebook along with price, and we'll see who's doing the "catching up" here.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the Slashdot mod system right now. Someone gets a +5 informative mod for unsubstantiated claims of Apple superiority, and I get modded 'Troll' for asking him where he got the numbers from.
Come on, people! I personally like Apple computers, but let's not call them cheaper when they're not!
I suppose we could sit around and listen to your whining instead.
I'm sure you're wrong. Stop trying to shoot from the hip, and actually read up on the issue.
The problem is that they're plugging a Merom (Core 2 Duo) into motherboards using the chipset for the original Core Duo (they are forwards-compatible), which is how Mac Mini owners have been upgrading to Meroms for several months now). The Core Duo is 32-bit, while the Merom supports 64-bit. However, the old chipset on the motherboard only supports 32-bit, which means only 32-bit addressing for RAM, which means 4GB maximum. Now, the reason for the 3-4GB discrepancy is the way PCI-e interfaces directly with the memory bus. So video card VRAM etc. eats into that first 1GB.
Apple HQ knows that people sorely need more RAM, but can't do anything about it until Intel provides them with a supply of new 64-bit chipsets specifically for Merom (Core 2 Duo). This won't be until approximately March 2007.
You can use two fingers for the right-click, or the Ctrl key. Plus, you don't need the right mouse button for the OS X interface.
In fact, the right mouse button is one of the worst inventions for the GUI in history. Every day, I deal with the eternal question "left click or right click?" When you tell someone to right-click something, they will ask you from that point forward which one to click.
"Sufferin' succotash."
that is all
Start Running Better Polls
...they had a 12" model MacBook Pro, my frequent traveling business associates and even my wife would buy one.
The 12" form factor is critical for travelers. And the MacBook is a poor substitute for the MacBook Pro.
Hundreds (no kidding, I work for a large company) of people I know dropped PowerBooks in favor of ultra-portable ThnkPads when Apple failed to deliver a 12" Intel MacBook Pro.
Sadly, the very few things that Apple needs to do in order to dominate the Enterprise space still escape that company. It's so close, yet shows no signs of making the correct moves.
I personally don't like the mice that Apple ships. I like the Macally mice with three buttons and a wheel. Works great and does exactly what you would expect.
So, in that sense, Apple does listen and support what people ask for. They just don't promote it by selling those kinds of mice themselves.
To get a contextual menu on the Mac, you hold the control key down when you click. It's oh-so-easy to do, but of course you have to know how to do it...
Not so good for the one-handed, no? It also requires you have a keyboard handy, where I can often get a lot done without ever touching a key if I have a multi-button mouse. Not everyone uses a computer while sitting at a desk, and indeed three of my four home computers are not in a desk-like setup.
That being said, the "desktop" Macs come with a Mighty Mouse, which supports multiple buttons if desired.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Hey, at least it made me laugh, and wasn't full of anger and misspellings :)
(Mac user)
Aperture is a good reason for lots of RAM. Photographers like as responsive an editing experience as possible. Aperture enables handling large numbers of camera raw photos, creating a very easy workflow. So while Aperture will run okay on a machine with 1GB of RAM, when you're working on a lot of photos and maybe also using Photoshop for editing you use up that RAM in a hurry.
Lots of photographers take laptops with them to their shoots. I suspect video editing is the same. Apple's laptops are geared in part to meet the needs of this market. I am kind of surprised by the slower drive speeds in these new machines.
But Saturday I gave up waiting and ordered a 2.0GHz MBP 15", and paid for a RAM upgrade to 1GB. If I could have upgraded to Firewire 800, I would have paid for that, too.
I am literally expecting DHL to ring the doorbell within the next hour to put it in my sweaty hands.
And now I read this.
You know, with respect to computer purchases I've learned to be happy by making the best choice among the options available at the time, but this really SUCKS. I don't even get ONE DAY of being on the top of the curve.
What a fucking buzzkill!
I can see the fnords!
Not so good for the one-handed, no?
True, but again the contextual menus are never *necessary* on the Mac, just convenient.
It also requires you have a keyboard handy
Which would be the case if you're on a laptop. I'm assuming the parent was complaining about the lack of a two-button mouse built in because he/she doesn't want to have to carry around an external two-button mouse.
Not everyone uses a computer while sitting at a desk, and indeed three of my four home computers are not in a desk-like setup.
I agree. We actually have a laptop atop the microwave in the kitchen, and there is no mouse-space there. But I think that a two-button mouse on a laptop would be ergonomically inconvenient, especially for beginners... the "tap the trackpad to click" feature I have enabled on my laptop (because it allows for a quiet mouse click in low-noise environments) drives my wife nuts, and I think having a right-button and a wrong-button would do the same.
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
I just got the older Macbook Pro. This is like emerging KDE on Gentoo, right about the time it finishes they release a newer version!!!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Probably because Slashdot readers recognize that when Apple comes out with a new model, there's usually some serious innovation involved. Dell, HP or Lenovo certainly innovate, just not as often and not as dramatically.
Actually this MacBook Pro is lower on the innovation scale than the last model, but it looks like a really good deal and a better value than the last model.
Maybe that's why.
Oh look at the shiny white thing...
Begging you pardon, this is a shiny silver thing.
Maybe they keep posting this stuff to try to get you to pay attention for a change.
Apple usually doesn't have full specs right away. Check back in a few days probably for what type of screen it uses.
I love my new Thinkpad X60. Core 2 Duo and 2 gigs of RAM, and it weighs less than 3lb. If Apple made something like this, I might consider them when it's time for an upgrade.
Things looks like it could do the job: http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/ - have not used it, so I can't confirm how well it works.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Yeah, because doing what Dell and Lenovo has already done is the one true mark of serious innovation. Won't you apple apologists give me a break? They make nice stuff and all, but as far as fancy new notebook hardware goes they're not market leaders.
And for what it's worth, I own a X60 tricked out with 4 gigs of RAM, so I'm not saying this because I'm too poor to buy an Apple and suffering from jealousy.
i love it....
parent is factually incorrect, and he admitted it when the error was pointed out, but he still got modded +5 informative
Anyway, I guess I'm wondering if anyone who regularly uses this feature has figured out how to fix this problem. I worked around it by not using two-finger scrolling, but I'd like to use it.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
I just priced out a E1505 with the exact same specs as the low-end macbook pro, and it was $1,358.
... whatever
You must be going to a different dell.com than the rest of us. I can't get "the exact same specs", or even similar, from an E1505.
Things that match:
- If I choose the same RAM, CPU speed, and video RAM, I get $1358 (same number as you)
Things that aren't quite "exactly the same":
- assume Windows Media Center is "exactly the same" as Mac OS X
- Dell has only the Radeon X1300, while the Mac has a Radeon X1600
- Dell has a 53 WHr Dell battery, the Mac's is 60 WHr battery
- the Dell is thicker and heavier
Then there are the things that the Dell just plain doesn't seem to have on this model for any price:
- DVI
- digital audio input and output
- Firewire-800
- gigabit ethernet
- Bluetooth (Dell says this is "optional" but I didn't see how to add it)
- built-in camera
- keyboard backlight and magnetic power connector (fun yet practical!)
What if I don't want iLife, iPhoto, etc... They shouldn't force me to pay $2000 for it. I'll take the hardware and download the freeware applications that I want.
Nobody's forcing you to buy anything. Or rather, if Apple is "forcing" you to pay for iLife, then Dell is "forcing" you to buy Windows.
In fact, for what you can get Mac OS X for separately ($200 for a family 5-pack) compared to Windows (a bit under $100 for the OEM version, last I checked), you're actually paying *less* for the software on a Mac than a Dell -- which makes sense, since you're getting so much more hardware.
No, I'm not a Mac owner, but finding a Dell with far fewer features than a Mac, and showing that it can be had for less money, is not evidence of Macs being more expensive for the same featureset. Try again.
Just because you can't get one, doesn't mean I can't. More to the point, at the current time I have no need of it - there would be little if any performance increase with the software I use. However, by the time my needs have grown to the point where I *do* actually need it - guess what? It'll be available to me.
Point is, there's nothing amazing here - just Apple lagging behind the tech curve like they always do.
My request.
Please stop making products that keep emitting sounds at pitches I can hear. It really makes my day worse having to deal with Macs that do this.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I work for a call center for Apple tech support. Just FYI, all you need is like an 8 digit number to log into the student discount page. they don't actually check the student number, just make sure it fits the length. Also, the employee discount for where I work is roughly the same as the student discount.
"Slashdot is like playboy, people don't read it for the articles."
There, fixed.
(I got this off a signature I read a few days ago)
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
What about firewire 800, a backlit keyboard and a built in webcam?
blah, blah, blah...
I would have said "I wish they had," except that Lenovo still doesn't have a new tablet (it's still a damn x43 (instead of x60), with a Pentium M!), so never mind. : (
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Um... click and hold seems to pop up the contextual menu for me without resorting to the keyboard.
blah, blah, blah...
How about the fact that Apple is the last company to bring a Core 2 Duo laptop?
Plenty of PC notebooks offer that and they all leave an Apple notebook in the dust for that application.
Not if you use Final Cut, they don't.
Without even getting into a Final Cut vs. Avid holy war over the relative merits of each, asking a video editor to change from FCP to Avid in order to save a few hundred bucks on hardware is ridiculous; the phrase "penny wise and pound foolish" comes to mind. A few hours of a good editor's time would more than make up for the difference in cost, and the retraining necessary to switch is going to be far more than that.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's about time for Apple to get on the 64-bit bandwagon with the rest of their line. I thought they were always supposed to be so cutting-edge.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wow, Mac fanboys are tooouuuchy... No wonder professional trolls choose the Mac community.
Of course this would come out not 1 month after I forked out over $2,500 for a mbp 2.16ghz... and of course apple won't let you upgrade anything you've already purchased.
Linux: When reboots are for upgrades.
Did anyone notice that only the high end 17" model is eligible to be configured with the 100GB 7200 RPM hard drive? This option is missing on the two 15" models.
That puts me in a quandry, as I really wanted the 15" model, but I wanted the 7200 rpm hard drive.
I thought for sure that when they started supporting 2GB memory chips, we would be able to put 2 2GB chips into our Mac Pros, giving us 4GB.
Why wouldn't this work, or would it?
The OS can surely handle it; Mac Pros can go up to 16GB. In fact, top on my current PowerMac G4 with 2GB RAM reports 17gb of virtual memory, so it seems like it's addressing more than even the total capacity of a Mac Pro.
Apple seems to have done pretty good with my wishlist on the new machine, except for one item. I was intrigued by the claim of better sound, thinking they might have added a tiny subwoofer like other notebooks have. Alas, this seems not to be the case, with the advertising just noting "stereo speakers". Anyone know if they were improved significantly?
D
"Seek times over the surface of the disk won't, but the average seek distance will dimminish and the likelihood that data will be found within the track or cylinder will increase. These effects reduce average seek times when you compare, say, the first 100GB of a 160GB drive to the entire 100GB of the 7200rpm option. That is the proper way to look at it since the OS, applications, and user data don't get bigger when the drive gets larger."
You've got it backwards. Your argument only holds if the filesystem allocates space at the start of the drive and works its way to the end without leaving gaps when it fact it is optimized to do precisely the opposite. Files are dispersed across the whole drive in order to give them room to grow without fragmenting them.
The only way your I/O can be guaranteed to remain within the first X percent of the disk is if you reduce the size of your partition accordingly, and this has other performance problems, since files will begin to fragment if the partition gets too full and this will happen sooner.
MacOS contains optimizations to put certain parts of the OS closer to the beginning of the drive, but these also benefit from higher RPMs, since the rotational latency is reduced.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
this hardware limitaion is the same no matter what os
Wouldn't the way to get past the 4GB limit be to just use a 64-bit arch and OS, which Merom is?
As far as I understand it, the 4GB limitation (which leads to the 3GB application maximum, since 1GB is mapped by the kernel) is basically inherent in 32-bit architectures. There are hacks, of which PAE is the largest, that allow the processor to address more than 4GB of RAM, but even then you can only have 4GB per process. (Or is it 3GB per process? I don't really understand that. It can't be more than 4, that's for sure.) The processor uses extended memory addresses when it is "talking" to the RAM, in order to use the stuff that's in excess of 4GB, but it translates those addresses into fake 32-bit addresses that it presents to running processes, so each one thinks that it's just got 4GB (or less) to itself.
PAE is basically just a hack that shoehorned a larger address space into a 32-bit architecture; if you're in 64-bit-land (as Mac OS X is), then there's no reason for PAE to exist. All processes running in 64-bit mode should see the whole address space and thus you ought to not only be able to address huge quantities of physical memory from the processor, you should be able to give 4+GB chunks to individual processes.
Apple saw this limit coming up and switched from 32 to 64 bits, at a time when a lot of people derided them for this. They took a step backward with the early Intel Macs, but now they're getting most of their product line back there. Even if it is technically a hardware limitation and not software that creates the 3GB/4GB limit, since Windows' lackluster support for 64-bit is one of the reasons why ia32 is still "standard," it should get some portion of the blame.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
And that makes the slightest difference today how?
So in general you think the workmanship is great even though the last 2 laptops from apple have had major problems requiring service? This is not normal. You make a good effort to rationlize the wasted dollars you've sent to Apple but deep down you cry just a little bit.
FYI, I use my (Yonah) Macbook Pro one-handed all the time. The track pad and keyboard are positioned such that I can hit the CTRL key with my pinky finger with my index finger on the trackpad and thumb on the button. This is not unusual for me. Though I have to admit, when I know I'm going to be sitting at a desk for some time working I will tend to whip out my Bluetooth mouse and put that on the table as well. Wow, costs me an extra 4 seconds to get that out of my bag too!!! :)
:)
On the flip-side, I have to say in user-interface design the two-fingered scrolling on the trackpad is the best damned advance in interaction I've seen in a LONG time. Even when I have a mouse connected, I tend to switch to the trackpad to scroll, especially when I have to scroll horizontally. Damn that high-resolution porn
Why nost just have two mouse-buttons instead of having workarounds like "put two fingers on the trackpad and click" or "push Ctrl and then click"? Why resort on awkward workarounds?
I don't regard it as a workaround but rather as an innovative alternative to the two button layout. In fact Apple's solution is in this case IMHO a pretty practical way of getting the secondary mouse button functionality and in my experience it works 100% reliably and is just as convenient as a secondary mouse button. I do realize it's not to everybody's taste to depart from the norm but then again I am not the kind of person who prefers one and only one exact style of keyboard/pointing-device. I know people who are so militant these things that they refuse to buy certain brands of laptop-computers because they don't like the pointing device or the keyboard layout. Personally I don't give a sh*t, I find it pretty easy to migrate from a regular keyboard to an ergonomic one (as long as the layout is a QWERTY variant) and from a Logitech mouse to an Apple Mighty Mouse, an IBM style Track-point, a regular Track-pad or even a Trackball. It never takes me more than an hour to get used to a new device although it would probably take me a few days to get used to a radically different keyboard layout like Dvorak but even that wouldn't bother me a bit.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
That works in Firefox links on the Mac for me, but not in iTunes or the Finder. If it were a general feature on Macs, I'd say that should be the optimal solution, minimal controls and a simple interface. (As an occasional Mac user in the past, I hated the control key as the option, simply because I would hit alt/cmd/shift until I finally hit control. I use the Mac more now, but never with a single button mouse.)
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It seems like there is no tag saying the MacBook Pro is using a 64-bit processor upfront. You'd they the apple marketing house would want to emphasize this. The only clue I could find was in their product line comparison page--The MacBook is a "Core Duo" and the MacBook Pro is a "Core 2 Duo". Is Jobs afraid of misleading customers by saying it's 64-bit? I thought OS X had software that could take advantage of the 64bit core ... Maybe it just means more memory though.
Oh well I'm no apple expert ... I can't even afford one.
AMEN, BROTHER.
Four buttons is entirely too many. He will get confused and wind up posting silly things to slashdot.
OK so apple has been listening to users, and finally seen the light and brought firewire back from the dead, but what about the modem
.....
the new mac book pros, look interesting, but why would apple not include an internal analog modem
and yes I know the argument, that everywhere has broadband/wireless etc, and that apple does "sell" an external USB modem.
well not everywhere has broadband, and wireless tends to be horribly expensive (well here anyway), so dialup is the only way to go when traveling
this reminds me of the bad old days when apple did not even include analog audio ports on the powerbooks, and how long did it take them to wake up to that one
I for one welcome our overpriced shiny overlords!
The Mighty Mouse is an appalling design. It has no actual buttons... the whole body rocks, and it's got pressure sensors on the sides and a capacitance sensor on the top, plus a teeny trackball.
1. It doesn't actually detect right-click. It detects "click with no finger on the left side".
2. The side buttons mean you can't pick the mouse up and move it during a long drag operation.
3. The "middle button versus wheel" problem, where you want to middle-click on something and you scroll, is ten times as bad with the tiny sensitive ball.
Just when I got comfortable with my MacBook Pro they release the next generation - and barely more expensive!
:-)
Anyone know how I can get my "old" MBP exchanged for one of these new sweeties?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"I agree. In fact, let's forget about the technology and focus on the actual information density, since that's what counts. For the same total capacity, a laptop drive has higher density than a desktop drive, so it should achieve equal performance with slower RPM"
This is incorrect because:
a) It ignores seeky workloads, where rotational latency is important.
b) It ignores the smaller diameter of the media, meaning the same RPM results in lower transfer speeds. Laptop drives don't achieve comparable transfer rates to desktop drives (which are over 70 mb/s sustained now).
c) A higher RPM drive with the same density increases would also increase in performance, retaining its lead. Are you assuming 7200 rpm laptop drives don't get perpendicular recording technology?
The technology has improved, but the same design tradeoffs still apply. Someone willing to sacrifice power and capacity for RPMs will get better performance. Apple should expose this decision to the user, since some will want one and some will want the other. Just because 5400 rpm laptop drives can match yesterday's 7200 rpm laptop drives by some metrics doesn't allow you to say "Well, technology is over. This is the point I was waiting for and improvements beyond this are useless."
Hardware is always too slow, and improvements are always welcome.
"Of course, you have to remember that larger disks have higher linear velocities for the same RPM? So why don't the pissing contestants use 5.25'' drives? I think it has something to do with seeking across cylinders, which is another point where laptop drives rule."
This is incorrect because it assumes laptop drives are optimized to spend the same amount of energy seeking as their desktop counterparts, which is incorrect. Something like, say, a 2.5" 10k RPM SAS drive has a good seek time, but that's a completely different animal than a laptop drive.
5400 laptop drive seek times are aroudn 12-13 ms, 7200 rpm laptop drive seek times are around 10-11 ms, and 7200 rpm desktop drives are around 8-10 ms. That's deffinitely a reason for wanting a a 7200 rpm laptop drive.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
you've ever used a Mac, you know control-click does the same thing as right click, but you almost never use it.
Control-click doesn't always do the same thing, and it CERTAINLY doesn't do the same thing in X11 based apps (like pretty much all the open source stuff). I only use control click by accident, when I lose track of which of the six modifiers Apple came up with to make up for their pig-headed reliance on the 1-button mouse I need to use, and hit control-click instead of shift/command/option/hold/double-click.
Where are the modems? Can't find them...
:-(
*sigh*
Why eliminate the modem?! It's bad enough I have to drag around a serial port dongle for router/switch configuring, now I need to drag around ANOTHER one for modem functionality? Hey Apple, why not eliminate the hard drive too, we could just run it off Firewire! Heck, drop the monitor too, will make it thinner...
Modems are essential for business. Broadband/wireless is not always available and the ability to send and receive faxes was quite nice on my PowerBoook...it's sad to see this drop off. But Apple seems to be changing quite a bit. The latest series of iPods show all the cost-cutting they are doing to increase profits. No more dock, no more foam pads for the headphones, no video cable, etc etc etc.
The 160 GB drive is the Hitachi Travelstar 5k160. This disk uses perpendicular recording technology which claims to produce 30% improved performance over older technology. According to one source, this technology increases both storage capacity (data density per unit area on a platter) and subsequent performance because more data can be moved within a given area no the platter. So, a 30% boost to a 5400 rpm system, all else being equal, would be about like having a 7020 rpm drive. This is pretty close to 7200 rpm if this logic holds.
Additionally, these drives consume less energy and run cooler. These are two other, very important to consider with a laptop. It will be interesting to see how the performance figures (including thermal performance and battery life) compare between these drive options on otherwise identical machines.
Get Perpendicular!
"This is pretty close to 7200 rpm if this logic holds. "
I don't that's a very good way to look at it, but it's a fact that greater data density means more bits flying under the head at the same spin speeds. This results in performance gains through both obvious and non-obvious mechanisms. I was simply pointing out the non-obvious ones.
Having benchamarked many, many drives in a previous lifetime as a RAID engineer, my rule of thumb is always go with the largest capacity drive. Obviously there's a limit to how much performance benefit it will give you compared to faster spindles, but I'm confident that the current generation 160GB will run with the older, faster 100GB and the extra 60GB will always get used. If I were Apple I would have dropped the option entirely.
The 15" Core 1 Duo MBP has 2 tweeters and 1 mid-range central speaker and the sound is pretty decent for a laptop. From the technical overview docs on Apple website I would imply that the 17" model has 4 tweeters, but I'm not 100% sure. It's probably the same for the new models.
Apple, being a vertical product vendor, must deal with user support as well as hardware design. They always design their hardware to minimize support issues. If they see that shipping with a single mouse button reduces user support costs by 5%, then it's a no-brainer. This also forces application developers to assume that the user only has a single mouse button, and to make their interface accessible to single-button mouse users. This has a side-effect of forcing Mac developers to lay out their functionality visually, so there there is no hidden functionality only accessible with right-clicking, or in the case of some *nix apps, even 3rd-button clicking. In turn, this makes all Mac apps easier to pick up by poking around the interface, at the expense of compatibility with apps designed to use multiple mouse buttons.
I actually think it has a positive influence on Mac application design, even if it pisses me off that I bought a useless 1-button mouse with my desktop that will be accompanying the packaging to the trash. For my MacBook Pro, the two-fingered scrolling and right-clicking is a perfectly elegant solution, that turns out to be much more practical from an ergonomic standpoint than a trackpad with two buttons. I wouldn't be bothered if they split the huge mouse button in two, and gave the user the option of assigning the right half to right-click, but I haven't run into a situation where the trackpad is a usable input method for the task (meaning not gaming or extensive pixel-pushing), but two-fingered clicking was impractical or more difficult than clicking the right-side button. In cases where a task requires extensive mousing and using multiple mouse buttons, a trackpad is going to be unusable anyways, so a 3rd party input device with multiple buttons is a perfect alternative.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
I'm not vhemontly anti-Dell, but screw them. They really aren't the best deal in town these days. MBPs were good a year ago, but a week ago they were obscenely overpriced. I'm glad to see them back in the game. In any case, I need a new laptop. I've just spent a LOT of time looking.
I use 17" and won't use anything less, so that cut out most things. Core 2 Duo or Turion X2 was a must. That cut out Apple until this announcement, but I went and compared some specs anyhow. The truth is, the MBP was way overdue for this upgrade. 120GB is barely over middle-of-the-road for a laptop HDD. Any "Professional" machine with less than 2GB of RAM is a joke. The procs were fast but 32-bit only. The video cards were... okay.
One thing that jumps out at me is that Apple (and Dell) just don't seem to take advantage of the larger case that comes with the larger b>display. For a year or two now, HP's 17" laptops come with things like a built-in numpad (in addition to full-size keyboard) and two hard drive bays. For a desktop replacement (without lugging an external HDD as well), dual bays is the capacity upgrade we've all been waiting for.
A lot of the great stuff that comes with Macs is no longer new or exclusive. The magsafe power adapter aside, pretty much everything hardware-wise except FireWire 800 (vs. 400) is available in PC laptops. ABG wireless, BlueTooth, built-in webcam, et al. Dual-layer DVD burners are a standard now, and even LightScribe is fairly common. A few laptops even have options for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray now (at a major premium, but hey... it's still under $2800...)
A new PC laptop can come with up to 512MB VRAM, 4GB RAM (for an absurd amount, but it can... 2GB is very common) hard drives up to 200GB/disk, all the Merom or Turion X2 goodness, TV tuner cards, 1680x1050 resolution, and more.
The crazy thing is you can get a HP dv9000 with dual HDD, 2GB system RAM, 512 MB VRAM, TV-Tuner card, Lightscribe dual-layer burner, ABG and Bluetooth, Webcam, 1680x1050 res on a 17" display, and a decent Core 2 Duo for... ~$2000. Knock off some of the options, and you can get a MBP-like system for close to $1600. It doesn't come with OS X... but it does come with Media Center, and if you buy it now the upgrade from Media Center to Vista Home Premium is minimal.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I just ordered my MacBook Pro 17" on the 20th. This morning I got an email from Apple with excellent news! Since my MacBook hadn't shipped yet, they were going to ship me the upgraded one at no additional cost!
:D
So many times I have heard stories about people buying Apple computers and then the day (or so) after they unpack it, Apple releases the upgraded model for the same cost.
I am sooooo stoked! Sure, the expected ship date is November 6th instead of October 25th, but who cares? Faster processor (2.33 vs 2.18) and 2GB of RAM vs 1GB. I didn't get a larger hard drive because I ordered the 100GB 7200 RPM drive which hasn't changed in the new model.
Gotta go now-still doing my Happy Dance
Here is (most of) the email from Apple:
Apple is excited to announce the availability of the new MacBook Pro, now
powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and delivering speeds up to 39%
faster than the previous MacBook Pro generation. Each new MacBook Pro also
features more memory and a larger hard drive -- all for the same price as the
previous model.
Learn more about the new MacBook Pro here:
.
Since your MacBook Pro has not shipped, we will upgrade your original order to
the new model.
You can view the configuration and status of your order by visiting our Order
Status website at . There is no need to
contact us unless you choose to change or cancel your order.
Thank you for choosing Apple.
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
Granted, they're targeted toward different uses, but the Macbook line appears very inexpensive compared to a ThinkPad X60s with selections as close as I could find: ThinkPad X60s: $2,070.00, and that's with Windows XP Home, Office, or any extended protection, service, or warranties.
That said, I'm quite happy with my 11 button trackball. :)
blah, blah, blah...
My monitor turns black everytime i play games. The monitor and system unit are still on but the screen is all black. I've tried updating my video card driver several times already. I've also installed additional fans on the system unit's casing. My video cards is an ATI Radeon 550XT.
The first "Superdrives" were Pioneers. The drive in my G5 tower registers as a Sony but is actually a rebadged Lite-On.
Looks cool and i like it. GoogleBay
"power users can have a multi-button mouse while novice users can have a single button mouse"
What, so a novice couldn't cope with to whole buttons? Apple are dumbing down their entire product range to cater to idiots who can only handlea single mouse button? Hmmmm
If the MacBook Pro is the top of the line Macintosh Laptop - why not use the top of the line mobile GPU from ATI ?
It's nice to have the faster CPU - but many serious MacBook users are all about Graphics/Photography/Video Production, they expect continual upgrades in graphics performance.
From the specifications listed on the AMD (formerly ATI) website, the X1800 XT has double the memory bandwidth, increased speed, four more pixel shaders, three more vertex shaders, and other updates.
ATI X1600 Specifications
ATI X1800 XT Specifications
I would think a stronger GPU would show a visible boost in performance, nicely complementing the Core 2 Duo CPU.
One good troll deserves another, cheers buddy
What, so a novice couldn't cope with to whole buttons?
Clicking the wrong mouse button is one of the most common problems tech support people have to deal with. Many users click the wrong one, or both at once hoping to to get the right result. Many don't even realize the buttons are supposed to be for different tasks.
Apple are dumbing down their entire product range to cater to idiots who can only handlea single mouse button?
Not at all. They're leaving the default simple for the simple or novice user and letting power users enable more functionality. Are you too stupid to figure out how to enable the extra buttons on the mighty mouse?
You have a point. People I know constantly double click things that only require a single click, or fail to tell the difference between the right and left button. People can be dumb.
I always use a Microsoft mouse on Apple machines, it may be the only thing they do much better than Apple!
Huh? Altering the kernel, for one?
/etc, etc.
.plist
You can do that. Get the source from OpenDarwin; since WWDC it's all open again.
How can I stop the menus from going into that bar and stay in the app? Why isn't the root tree easily accessible in Finder?
There are some awful hacks to do this if you're in Carbon, or it's easy in Java. Fitts Law says it's a bad idea. They got that one right.
Where are the normal Unix folders like
Finder...Go..Go to Folder (or cmd-shift-G)
(eh!)? Where are the text files for configuring applications?
locate
Why do program folders look like files, but behave kinda sorta like folders?
Ah, those are Bundles. They really are folders, but if you put certain flags in an XML file within the folder, it will behave as an atomic unit within the Finder, making it easy for users to manage the item without messing things up and enabling the Finder to do special things with that folder (e.g. launching an app is executing the binary in $appname/Contents/MacOS/$appname). Users can double-thunk on $appname instead while developers still get a handy way to organize application resources. Linux desktops should steal this idea.
Everytime I use OS X it feels kinda... empty.
Yeah, it's not for everybody. I like MacOS and I like Shaker furniture. That's probably not a coincidence.
Because preventing me from doing stupid things also prevents me from doing clever ones.
Most of the Cocoa-based apps have a defined mechanism for overloading any of the programs' methods, better than other OS's. All the OS-level stuff is user-scriptable, it's unix and the usual application of library preloading, kernel modules, etc. applies.
If you want to override something like Aqua or the Frameworks, that gets trickier, but most of it has well-defined API's. That enables stuff like a 3rd party VNC server, virtual desktops, Parallels, etc. You can't fix anything that's broken in those frameworks without replacing them and/or begging Apple to fix the issues. If Apple thinks "that's a feature" you're SOL. Linux gets this right, other than the fragmentation problem that can then result. Apple's big on avoiding that.
For most users it feels more refined and more productive than current linux desktop iterations. But I can run OSX alongside Fedora Core via Parallels or maybe VMWare eventually and get the best of both worlds, for when OSX pisses me off.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Totally different classes of machines (the X60s is half the weight!)
Do the same comparison with a ThinkPad T60p... right now I can configure almost the same spec except screen (14" SXGA+ 1400 x 1050 pixels on the ThinkPad v. 15.4"W 1440 x 900 pixel on the Apple) for $2284 v. $2499 for the MBP (oh yeah, add another $49 to the MBP if you need fax/modem)
I've been waiting for a MBP that isn't, well, possessed. Has the line been exorcised?
Newsflash: PCs come with a Windows XP license too!
Why is the OSX license so expensive?
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Where's my Core 2 Duo MacBook? What, are you saying I can't have both a fast, modern 64-bit CPU and a compact form factor? It's not like a Core 2 takes up more physical space than its predecessor (and nor does its supporting motherboard chipset).
I looked at Dell's website (today - Dell, of course, changes prices every day based on an arcane formula involving the phase of the moon and the price of eggs in China), and I couldn't quite match any of the three MacBook Pro configurations for the same money. I could always come close and end up with a machine that was ALMOST as nice (except for Windoze), but missing a feature or two. In the case of the 17 inch, the Dell was significantly more powerful (especially the GPU) , but much heavier and more expensive.
There are two ports on a MBP that I haven't seen on any non-Apple laptop. Those are FireWire 800 and Dual-Link DVI (single-link DVI is rare but not unheard of). For photographers and other creative types, those are very important ports! I'm not sure I've ever seen a full-size FireWire 400 port, either... I use both a 30 inch display and FW800 drives, so the Apple-only ports are critical to me. The price of 30 inch displays has fallen by 50% in 2006, so I'm sure they'll soon be much more common. FW800 will be replaced by eSATA or whatever else fairly soon, but I'm not seeing PC manufacturers putting those ports on, either.