Slashdot Mirror
Apple Announces New MacBook, Pro, Air
Steve Jobs just got through announcing new MacBook lines in Cupertino. The MacBook, the Pro, and the Air all got revved. The old line of plastic-body MacBooks drops in price by $100, to $999. The new MacBooks have a metal body and multi-touch trackpad, just like the new Pros. The Pro features two NVidia graphics chips. Quoting Jobs: "With the 9400M, you get 5 hours of battery life, with the 9600M GT you get four hours of battery life. You choose." In summary: "We're building both [MacBook and Pro] in a whole new way. From a slab of aluminum to a notebook. New graphics. New trackpad, the best we've ever built. And LED-backlit displays that are far brighter, instant on, far more environmentally responsible." They are shipping today and should be in stores tomorrow. Oh, and one more thing: Steve's blood pressure is 110/70.
And goodbye DVI.
Woot. I've been looking to get an upgrade to my MBP (1st gen). This means all the 'old' stock is going to get dropped into the refurb store or sold cheaply through other channels.
It's amazing how AAPL stock drops after an announcement.
Buy on rumor. sell on fact.
From what I've been reading on the liveblogs, these new notebooks are available in glossy screens only, even for the MBP. If that's the case, I think a lot of people will be pretty upset.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
One thing I'm surprised they did not announce (yet?) is a 3g wireless interface. As a satisfied iPhone+Macbook user already, that would be the only thing that might be compelling enough to get me to upgrade sooner.
I've used Linux for almost 10 years, and I want one. This is bad.
I really don't care if my macbook pro is made of a single block of aluminium or not. I do however care about non-glossy screens, and not having to lug around a connector for a mini display port. Both of these, however, seem to be a thing of the past. In addition, I think the black border around the screen is ugly as hell.
The new metal 13" macbook is very similar to the pro, just smaller. For a $700 price difference this new model is probably worth it if you don't mind it being a little smaller.
Developers: We can use your help.
You need to get over the fact that Apple, just like Linux, or Google will get a special treatment on Slashdot. These are products/brands that the typical slashdot reader are interested in. You will see that this "article", even if it is nothing more than a glorified press release, will get a large number of comments, justifying its place on the slashdot frontpage.
$999 laptop only 1gb of ram? at least it is ddr2 and gma video?
The new systems.
$150 to go from 2gb to 4gb of ddr3
Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter $29
Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter $99
Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter $29
A lot of money and technology, and most of these will just be used to run iTunes and a browser...
0.
no mouse buttons. what a joke.
The $1600 system should of had 128-256 of vram that does not use system ram and 4gb of ram.
I was hoping for it and it is finally there but just on the 2.4ghz version. IF I had to buy a laptop today that would be it. Or a cheaper MB air.
is a glass touchpad that much better?
I ahve an iphone but the only plus I see is that i can see an LCD through it...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Is anyone's interest peaked by the new dual video cards? Especially with OpenCL possibly being the 'next big thing'. I'd be very interested in Photoshop CS4 benchmarks too.
Second, is this the next big competitive 'edge' (now that everything is dual core). Apple was one of the first companies to put dual processors in consumer products. I remember debating between a Dual 800 MHz or a Single 866 when I went to college and ended up spending the extra on the dual. I swore to myself then that I'd never go back to a single processor. Now everything is dual core, dual processor, quad core, etc.
See the tech specs: http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html
--- What?
Or something? Not optimal, I know (and if you're forking out that kind of money, it's kind of wrong to have to resort to it), but is there anything you can put on a glossy screen to eliminate the glossiness?
I hate glossy screens on laptops - they look like shit and are impossible to use for long periods of time. I think I read that these are glass screens(?), so maybe it'll be less annoying than the plastic ones.
You're looking at the price of RAM from the Apple store, right? It's a ripoff, buy it from somewhere else and put it in yourself. Most Apple-fanboy forums will even give this advice, and it's easy enough that non-technical people don't have problems following the directions to upgrade their own RAM.
just listing also they dropped fire wire from the mac books.
And the entire trackpad is the button. It gives you more area on the trackpad and keeps you from hunting for that button. You can get multi-button support from software. And we've added some new four-finger gestures that are really nice.
I have a nice 2 finger gesture in response to that.
Failtastic in so many ways:
Please help metamoderate.
"Oh, and one more thing: Steve's blood pressure is 110/70."
I really doubt it. /Digs out meter. Mine goes from 112/65 to 120/75 in a normal day. It changes constantly ... noone has a "blood pressure".
He's just a baby anyway, 10 years younger than me. I'm probably in better shape but then I use Lunix exclusively, none of that evil DRM stuff to clog my arteries.
OK, my next OS X Notebook is probably going to be a Thinkpad.
I'll Pay Apple what they want for OS X, I'll buy a Mac Mini and not use it if that's what it takes to make my idiot conscience shut the **** up, but I've had it with Apple's passive-aggressive relationship with multi-button mice.
Fret not. An HDMI display can be driven easily with a DVI to HDMI cable, available cheaply from just about any consumer electronics store. Unless you're craving HDCP (DRM) support, you're not missing much by not having a HDMI port.
...
put it in yourself.
...
I'm just wondering if a RAM/HD upgrade will be as easily doable on these made-of-a-single-piece-of-sh^H^Haluminium MacBooks as on the old ones...
.sig: No such file or directory
And don't forget about the fact that besides the announcement at the conference today, we also got a Monday article and a Friday article on rumors on what would be announced at the conference, both on the front page.
Did they drop the 17"? not update it? or just not mention it....
Apple site currently crawling and serving up server errors. So I can't see if it's listed as a new product.
As it is still over 1 year old with THE SAME PRICE!
And it should have 128-256 of vram + 2-4gb of desktop ram with a 3.5 hd.
Start? As the saying goes, you must be new here. I'm sure at least some of these made fp:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/16/1246240&from=rss
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/30/1540203
http://mobile.slashdot.org/mobile/08/08/19/1222226.shtml
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/16/1246240&from=rss
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/04/1953225&from=rss
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/21/2036240&from=rss
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/12/0518244&from=rss
So, in answer to your question, nothing will change. We will continue to get whatever stories happen to be in the geek press posted to the front page (sometimes more than once!), and people with axes to grind will continue to whine that Slashdot is either giving too much attention to the target of their derision, or not enough to their platform of choice.
I don't care why you're posting AC
A: Steve: We're going all glass -- we won't offer another version.
I'm going all-Linux then. Thanks for the ride.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Ok, so first it was 1 finger, then 2, then 3, and now finally 4. What's next, fisting?
(Yes, I know I am a terrible person, why do you ask?)
I have a MacBook Pro that is less than a year old. It took a 3 foot drop on to padded carpet and the bottom case corner by the optical drive got bent. The machine works fine, just no use of the optical drive for me now since the fragile case bent. The drive itself works, it is just that every disk inserted and ejected gets a scratch on it now. Apple wants $610 to replace the bottom case pan. I think I'll be looking back to a non-Apple laptop running Linux the next time I'm in the market for a laptop. $2000 laptops shouldn't have such fragile cases. I've dropped many a laptop in my day and never had a case get bent.
I'm not so sure number of comments is a good metric of justification to be on the front page. By that rationale, everytime Slashdot posts some story about snake oil free energy (see e.g. this), and it gets 800 replies talking about how the article is total trash, Slashdot has no editorial standards, and that even the editors of /. apparently don't read or think about the articles before publishing, those posts justify their place on the frontpage too.
Of course, Slashdot continues to post all of this, and the ad money continues to flow in from all the commentators, so maybe you're right. Maybe traffic is the only metric that matters.
Because, at least Apple goes at great lengths to hype their new products. You won't report on the latest Lenovo notebook because their press release would be incredibly flat. Steve Jobs just knows how to make the most mundane upgrades sound exciting and newsworthy.
You just got troll'd!
The thing that bothers me is that the metallic body announcement is somehow the big headline on most of the news sites, while the announcements of trackpad changes and specs seem to take a backseat. It really emphasizes that Apple wants to appeal to style possibly even more than function.
I'm sure that angle works, as it's now "hip" to own Apple products, but it concerns me that we may start seeing more flash than substance in Apple product lines, which would be a big disappointment since they've been known to be innovators in functionality in the past.
From the Q&A:
According to the Apple Store, it already has a "New" flag, but the graphics card still is the old 8600M instead of the new 9600M.
A lot of people use their laptops as portable media players - watching movies on the couch, looking at pictures, etc. Glossy screens give the impression of better colors for that kind of use, so they're increasingly used in laptops in the consumer market.
I'm kinda disappointed to read about this, frankly. I'd at least like the option to not have one, cause they're fucking terrible.
Well there went my hope that they'd finally offer us two-buttons.
*sighs*
There is nothing I hate more than having to use a trackpad as a click-button. You try to move the cursor and open up half a dozen links accidentally.
I nearly sent back my Dell until we found drivers that let me turn that feature off. :(
Steve...YOUR A TWIT!!!
I agree with all of your points -- especially the glossy screens. Looks like I'll be holding on to my 17" MacbookPro until it dies (which will probably be sooner than I'd like due to the faulty bonding materials in the 8600M gfx chip :-( )
Ian Ameline
Should have had, you bloody idiot!! Chew some dough or something...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
www.dealram.com is where I've found all the ram currently in my Macs.
They moved the battery indicator to the computer case, instead of being part of the battery. That, together with the "new unibody enclosure", makes me wonder: Did they hard-wire the battery, as in iPods and other devices? Because, that would sort of suck!
11:03AM Q: You've put a lot of work into the new touchpad, do touchscreens not make sense?
A: Steve: so far it hasn't made a lot of sense to us.
I confess that I don't get this one. It seems like ever major manufacturer has at least one tablet or convertible. It there really that little call for the technology in the real world? I'd think that that class full of Macbook toting students would be well served by a tablet and the handwriting recognition that has already been in the OS for quite a while.
When is Apple going to start supporting 8GB of RAM in their laptops?
If that other notebook doesn't run Windows then yes.
the EeeePC, Dell9, and many other netbooks with Linux options made it to the front page.
It is only Windows notebooks that get ignored because they are frankly all the same.
Apple has come up with some interesting things like their power adapter and now this case.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Well, NASA thinks highly of redundancy to minimize the impact of component failure; I guess I can't blame Apple for doing the same thing, just in case...
Maybe it would work. I wouldn't try it on a plastic screen though - in case it doesn't work and you have to try and get it off.
No sig today...
Wow, Apple is smart.
They stick with NVidia GPUs, but give you two: when the first stops working you can switch to the backup.
They're so on it.
My completely serious answer to almost all of your complaints is that you should look at Lenovo's Thinkpad offerings.
If they ran OS X I'd have bought one 3 years ago.
The problem is that maybe 1% of the people buying Macbooks are buying them because they like the hardware. For the rest, Thinkpads aren't even an option.
Though the zero button mouse is REALLY making me rethink my attitude towards OSX86.
What happened to the White MacBook with 2GB RAM?
Why is Apple releasing new laptops right after the start of the school year (for most folks)?
* I've got MBP 17" now. I like it. They are dropping that size.
* I don't like the new "partial tapered" (their term) or "puffy" (my term) lid.
* I don't like the black bezel inside the lid. Match the whole case.
* I hate the fugly new keyboards that feel and look like IBM PCjr chicklet.
* I don't care if it's magnetic or a button to pop the lid.
* I don't care if there's a slot visible on the front.
* I don't like having to carry yet another kind of custom one-use rat tail to put my laptop on someone else's cheap VGA-style projector.
* I don't like losing a Firewire port. All the little RAID cabinets like Firewire.
* I do wish my MBP had heat sensors on the graphics system; the processor sensors are sometimes midrange while the graphics head is starting to exhibit heat-induced artifacts. When running clamshell I have to run it on top of a cooling tray device or crank the internal fans to 3000rpm.
* I do wish they'd fix the runaway-syslogd problem in Leopard. I have read all the howtos and forum lists, nothing but a 15min cronjob to kill it is helping.
* I do wish they'd fix the too-many-hd-resets problem in Leopard, if I leave the machine on overnight with little disk activity, my drive will reset itself to a state it won't spin up again. Everything RAM-resident runs, but more and more processes go zombie when the disk doesn't spin up.
With all this preoccupation about flash and gloss in the hardware, there is a growing list of software problems. Return to the basics.
[
The air looks cool, but don't sit on it or stuff it in a duffel bag...
No sig today...
"10:14 PT: "We discovered that if we started with a thick piece of aluminium and removed material to make physical features in the structure, we could make a much lighter but much stronger part."
Holy cow! Someone needs to let all the manufacturers in the world know this! Unless Apple didn't discover it at all.
Whale
AAPL has a Beta of 2.91 which means its price generally moves three times what the broader market does. Now check this chart showing AAPL compared to the S&P500: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?t=1d&s=AAPL&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=&c=%5EGSPC
You need to get over the fact that Apple, just like Linux, or Google will get a special treatment on Slashdot. These are products/brands that the typical slashdot reader are interested in. You will see that this "article", even if it is nothing more than a glorified press release, will get a large number of comments, justifying its place on the slashdot frontpage.
Slashdot nerds. For being such "smart" people, they sure are stupid with their money.
Apple is overpriced. Their service isn't worth the premium. The only thing you're buying is style.
But, that's just me. I guess that's why I have money now.
The billet aluminum construction allows Apple to have the case made from almost any competent CNC shop. Thought they were extruding the material to rough the size for savings, the dimension could also be cut from plate. This means that Apple is no longer stuck with a single-source for cases. Stamped and bent fussy parts and custom dies are not needed. Minor product changes, such as adding bosses/riser can be done on the fly.
The inside of the case could have been milled using a ball mill which would have introduced radii that would keep the thick/thin area transitions from failure when there is a fall.
In the future, they may be able to add more support for a tougher case. Still, I still would not want to drop a new Macbook pro.
The radius on the edge of the case should have a larger radius to be more comfortable, but also to minimize that sharp edge as a wear indicator. Ives is good, but like everyone else--not perfect, someone needs to know when and when not to question him.
The better graphic chip in the Macbook means that It can finally run graphic applications, and the change may have something to do with Nvidia Cuda support in applications such Photoshop--bearing down on product design. It also means that Macbooks may be able to run FinalCut, or have enough graphic power to play and edit home movies from their AVCHD digital camcorder.
I am saddened by the exclusion of a matte screen. While it is a personal preference, I feel that glossy screens do not work well in indoor/outdoor environments such as coffeeshops. To watch Apple's own product design videos, is to see the glare for yourself.
I am uncertain whether or not there is a interference coating on the screen. Adding a second piece of glass could add 5% transmission loss per service, meaning 10% if the glass is not interference coated. This means a brighr backlight setting, and the loss of batter life. The expansive glass on the screen goes close to the edges, meaning that a 3mm dent in the lid will probably shatter the cover glass. I reason that the older Macbook Pro would survive that damage, and the new ones would not.
Brenda Make
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
With a display port and the nVidia 9400m?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
is it just me or have they dropped the apple remote on both the macbook and macbook pros? can't see any mention of it in the tech specs, what's included in the box. i would be surprised if they moved away from this, it seems like the whole front row display software is built around it.
>we won't offer another version. Phil: You offset >the reflection by the brightness, and consumers >love it.
Of course they will.
It doesnt matter if you THINK you dont like reflection, you WILL love it THEIR way.
Its all about what the customers wants, eh?
Is it just me, or did they increase the bezel on the Macbook Pro by like 30-40%??
Before: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/MacBook_Pro.jpg
After: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/10/mbp05.jpg
I realize they are probably referring to 802.11n which is still in draft status, but come on... if a standard "doesn't exist", how the hell can you "engineer to" it? How about saying "Here at Apple, we're 100% compliant with standards we haven't even written yet... 'cause first we build the product, then we write the standard to match exactly what the product does!"
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I just came so hard I can't even feel my legs.
Only 2 usb and no firewire? That's a bit lame
You're looking at the price of RAM from the Apple store, right? It's a ripoff, buy it from somewhere else and put it in yourself. Most Apple-fanboy forums will even give this advice, and it's easy enough that non-technical people don't have problems following the directions to upgrade their own RAM.
And void your warranty in the process.
It's enough of an upgrade that I'd consider selling my macbook pro to buy a macbook (and that nifty new monitor)
Someone please tag this article as either !firewire or macbooklacksfirewire, please... Lack of FireWire is unacceptable, in my opinion.
Of course, if I were to replace my laptop now, I'd get a Pro anyways, cause that's what I currently have.
--Z
Has this changed recently? Because at least as recently as my 1st-gen Macbook Pro, upgrading the RAM on any Mac I've ever used doesn't void the warranty. Hell, the computer's instruction booklet shows you how do to it.
Are you adequate?
What possible advantage would Apple hardware give you over any other brand of laptop when you want to run Linux?
I would rather have seen them announce another 17" MacBook with the same style as the mid 2008 model but with all the hardware upgrades announced today (glass mouse pad included).
I don't care for the new look, really. I suppose it's all a matter of personal preference though.
Well there went my hope that they'd finally offer us two-buttons.
*sighs*
There is nothing I hate more than having to use a trackpad as a click-button. You try to move the cursor and open up half a dozen links accidentally.
I nearly sent back my Dell until we found drivers that let me turn that feature off. :(
Steve...YOUR A TWIT!!!
Is anyone else actually looking forward to the day that Steve Jobs retires? Every computer Apple now makes either looks like a hunk of metal and glass or a cheese grater; its brutalist architecture for the PC, and it's just as ugly on computers as it is on buildings.
It's also painfully obvious that he doesn't give a rat-fuck about what end users want; note the number of mouse buttons on the new laptops.
Jobs built, and then re-built, this company into what it is, but I'm tired of all the computer models being his personal art project. You can expect excellence in design from Apple without this depressing, Bauhaus case design that Apple seems addicted to now. We're getting German worker housing in a PC, and paying a premium for it. Apple computers used to be beautiful and original. I love my eMac... it's instantly recognizable as an Apple with its white plastic and round curves. Now all of Apple's computers are dark, gun-metal slabs. I seriously wonder if Jobs and Ive spend all their time shooting heroin and listening to Goth music in the dark now.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
But one thing is not even up for debate - Apple designs gorgeous, high quality hardware, and then also kicks ass in customer service if something goes wrong. They're willing to go the extra mile, I'm willing to pay more for it, because no other hardware manufacturer seems to really give a shit about their products. I spend several hours a day, each and every day, using my laptop. Quality matters in this case.
Intel Macs can. Oh, and so can PowerPC macs.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
But what does blood pressure have to do with his terminal brain cancer?
"Hopefully the MacBook trackpads are better. Sounds like they are. But the Mighty Mouse is just utterly horrible."
Yup. I use a Microsoft optical mouse with my Mac. The people at Apple have mouse issues, apparently.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
depends.
I have an older mobo that has to have DDR ECC.
78 Bucks a gig kit. The mobo is a real performer, but you want to run top, you pay for top.
I just went to pricewatch and couldn't find 2 gigs of DDR3 for under 100 bucks. the decent stuff was 140+
So I'm not seeing the "ripoff" there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Macs can boot from USB. Have been able to for a LONG TIME.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Sorry, but they are.
They are taking the existing Macbook which was offered for $1099 and lowering to $999. That's NO NEW TECH, just the same old Macbook with the horrible onboard graphics for a thousand smackers. Fine.
Then they are offering a higher class Macbook for $1299, which offers a graphics card that is already far surpassed by everything on the market. Looking at the price point, I can get myself a Gateway laptop with a 9800M, 4GB of RAM, big fat hard drive, faster processor, for about the same money. I can dual boot Ubuntu and Windows on it, and it will FLY. In fact, it actually will surpass the Macbook PRO for the same money. So you're talking about a $1000 premium (if not more) for the Macbook Pro to get a computer that is no better than something I can buy for about $800 (if I opt for a slower graphics card to match the 9600 the MBP comes with).
I like OS X. It's pretty. But unless it's video or audio editing, I don't have a specific need for a Mac over a PC/Linux dual boot. I can run my website on my Red Hat server (which I do), and use XP on my day-to-day. Aside from cutesy graphics and slick user interface, I don't think that it's worth a $1000 premium when I'm actually getting a more poor performing laptop for the money.
I'm sure I'll get modded down, but it is the truth. There's nothing a Mac can do that a PC or Ubuntu system can't do as well. Some Mac does better, but it's a function more of the software, than the platform.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Yeah, what the *&^@#$! is up with that? Can't they make ONE damn adapter that will pipe all/most of the signals through? I bought a mini -> regular dvi adapter and was rather disappointed to learn that you couldn't then stick a dvi -> vga adapter on there. The adapter didn't bother to pipe through the analog signals at the same time, even though they are there on the pins. Is there some technical reason why this is not possible, or are they just being cheap?
slowly you are being fed the tablet pc.
this comment will stay at 0, because the frog is being boiled too slowly for the frog community to understand my comments about the frog but:
1. The tablet can ONLY have a glass screen (like the iPhone). Matte isn't durable enough. That's why matte has disappeared.
2. The iPhone App Store is more than just a phone software store. Obviously.
3. You can't have a mouse button to click. Obviously.
4. You are being trained to use multitouch, a tablet technology.
We don't know how the tablet is going to look, but we're being fed it piece by piece.
Is it Quad Core and SSD yet? Hope NVidia is there for Apple warranty claims after they finish paying HP....
A matte screen reflect some of the directed light no matter what the angle, so you lose contrast in every case. With a glossy screen, the light is reflected only at certain angles, and unless you're at the wrong angle, the contrast is much better.
The video of the MacBook's manufacturing process is pretty cool. It's always a treat to see video of something that looks like it actually belongs in the 21st century.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
I have the matte finish Macbook Pro right now, but I've gone to glossy displays for all of my new LCD monitor purchases, and am now going to order a new MB Pro - glossy screen and all.
The only people I really hear throwing huge fits about this are the self-proclaimed "pro photography" set, who claim they can't do accurate color comparisons without their matte displays.
To them, I say:
1. You couldn't do them anyway on most LCD matte finish laptop screens, when they weren't even accurately displaying all 16.7 million colors in the spectrum at all.
2. If you're fighting the glare issue, you're working in sub-optimal conditions that aren't conducive to anything as tedious as color matching and photo touch-up work! Consider it your warning that you need to change your surroundings before continuing your work ... not a reason to get a different display.
And BTW, not all "glossy" displays are created equal, either. I recently tried out a glossy finish Acer 22" LCD panel that everyone describes as more of a "semi gloss" look.
The new thinkpads have become shit. I'm a big fan, but the T61 is the last thinkpad I'm getting. They're no longer built solidly.
Nope. You can change the RAM without voiding your warranty, as always, and you can upgrade the hard disc (it seems to be easily reachable as with the white and black macbooks) Roberto
They look nice. My two complaints are: no 1680x1050 resolution on the 15", and they start $150 more than the old ones at the Canadian Education store.
accessing/changing the ram on the previous MacBooks didn't void your warranty, so I wouldn't assume that it will void it on the new line either.
I got a nasty ding in one corner of my old Aluminum Powerbook, one time, when it fell off a table onto a concrete floor at a job site.
Truthfully though, there's no reason to believe that same impact wouldn't have caused a big crack in the plastic of a different laptop?
The machine still worked just fine afterwards, which was the critical thing. And with the advent of the mag-safe adapter plug, the situation that caused the fall in the first place would have been avoided.
Since then, I've owned 2 more aluminum Apple notebooks, and I've managed to keep them pretty much ding and scratch free. It's no different than the iPods, really. If you put them in a case whenever possible and treat them like the expensive piece of electronics gear they are, they'll serve you well and you'll keep them looking nice.
If you can't take better care of your stuff, you may want to look at those "Toughbook" laptops instead?
It seems a lot of people are upset with the glossy screens being the only option in the new MacBook models. I was a doubter myself but the glass displays on the iMac (20" and 24") are relatively glare free. The LED backlights are very bright and compensate for most of the glare. I have one right now next to a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW with a matte finish and the Samsung is actually showing more glare than the iMac.
What further surprises me even more is that the graphic design and photography faculty that I support have been requesting the glossy option on the MacBook Pro's for the last few years. The few I asked about it feel the display is better with color than the matte finish. Of course I'm sure what they really wish they could get is one of the pro LaCie or NEC monitors, but the MacBook Pro glossy displays seem to satisfy their needs on a laptop.
Jeez, did I got modded Troll on this by a Slashdot editor? What aspect of this is trolling, and who could be being trolled by it? I think I made a perfectly valid point on the concept of using the number of comments as a measure of worthiness to be on the front page.
Phil: You offset the reflection by the brightness, and consumers love it.
That's great, but people who actually have to *work* for a while on their machines will probably hate it.
I thoroughly hate it, so thoroughly that it was a complete dealbreaker for me on the MacBook and MacBook Air, so thoroughly that I very nearly hate Phil personally for that statement, so thoroughly that despite everything else I love about Apple products, if I can only get them with a glossy screen, I might not bother.
One of the great things about a notebook is you can turn it however you want!
That's true if the environment you're working in doesn't have any constraints on which way you're sitting, which is often not the case. And I don't want to spend time futzing around with avoiding glare. I have other things to do with this machine I've bought.
Tweet, tweet.
> Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter $29
>
> Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter $29
Best Buy sells each, 3rd party, for $15.
And having used one for the past year, the glare issue is really a red herring. I don't notice it.
That's great that it doesn't bother you, and I think it's fine that people who for whatever reason don't seem to mind glare can buy glossy screens, but the tone of your post is so dismissive of the genuine problems people have with glossy screens that it's bordering on insulting.
It's really hard to fathom that anyone who has actually used a glossy display for any serious amount of time wouldn't prefer it to a matte display.
For a bit over two months this year I was borrowing laptops while mine broke, including a MacBook. They had glossy screens. I absolutely hate them. I suppose you can argue that 2 months for 8-14 hours per day of use isn't a "serious amount of time", but you'd be wrong.
Tweet, tweet.
coming from?
Even the screen isn't that much of a leap. 1440x900? WHAT? You have to be kidding, if Dell did that at this price point they would be laughed out of the room.
As for the concerns with Glossy. Sorry, but I doubt serious graphics are done on ANY laptop screen. If your doing real graphics works you have large monitors if not two of them. The problem I have is that I cannot see any value in the Pro's over the base model, well I should say I can't see $1000 of value
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So the Macbook white (cheap one) has a firewire port, but the to macbook models do not. Weird.
HDMI has limited resolution compared to DisplayPort making it the inferior spec.
Many /. readers are college students, possibly in computer-related fields.
Enrolling to Student ADC ($100), and using the developer HW discount for a MacBook Pro ($1599), brings the total to $1699+taxes.
I do visual effects for film, i work in front of both my laptop and an array of different screens for 14 hrs a day on the regular. Glossy screens are just not acceptable for the calibration and perception standards required in these environments - sorry I wont be buying, and I already had my credit card to go. If they change it up I will be back on the shipping list, my 2cents
Dented and flexed cases in the AL Powerbooks and Macbook Pros are a pretty well known problem. Drop it just right onto concrete or tile, even from a pretty short height, and you might find yourself with a big dent or an unusable optical drive. This is an unfortunate side effect of using such thin, stamped AL for the case.
This is a big reason they redesigned the case. The 3-D milling allows very precise placement of material, which should produce a stiffer case for the same weight. But also take a look at how they designed the case. The bottom half used to be a single "tub" of aluminum, with a separate piece for the "deck." Now the sides are attached to the deck, with a separate piece for the very bottom surface. This creates stronger corners, and an easily-replacable bottom surface if a dent does occur.
Also, take a look at where they put the optical bay. This is one of the weakest parts of the structure because it's a big hole in the sidewall. Again, the milling should allow them to thicken the border of the disc port a bit, to stiffen it up. And it's placed directly over the battery, which is one of the strongest and most solid parts of the computer.
I think the new design should be a lot more resistant to stupid dings and expensive fixes.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
As to it appearing "brighter" - law of conservation of energy would seem to make that impossible. The same ammount of light coming from one will be the same as the ammount coming from another.
Except that the matte screens achieve the matte effect by placing a coating over the glossy surface that reduces light transmission.
I totally agree with the original poster. I originally bought a matte Macbook Pro as I do a lot of photography and had heard it was better. That died and I had to get an emergency replacement for a trip, the only option from the local store was glossy - and after the trip I realized I liked it so much more, I traded in. it was brighter (I was after all using the exact same Macbook Pro, just with a glossy screen instead of a matte - no LED lighting at the time) and I could see it easier working outdoors during the day.
You can add an anti-glare screen over a laptop screen if you must, but you can't take away a matte coating.
It's not like matte screens do not have glare too, they just have less. If glare is so crucial or bothersome then get a hood (which is what photographers do if they want to do any serious color work on a laptop, matte or no).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And having used one for the past year, the glare issue is really a red herring. I don't notice it. In fact I find the glossy screens more usable in sunlight conditions since they appear brighter than the matte. I actually find it really hard to believe your statement, "every end user I support hates the things" based on my experience. It's really hard to fathom that anyone who has actually used a glossy display for any serious amount of time wouldn't prefer it to a matte display.
Brave words Mr. Anonymous...
Every user I know hates glossy or has at best learned to cope with it.
Its kinda like having a disabled person in the family - you can't just get rid of them or replace them with a new model, you must learn how to live with their disability.
So, just as you would start learning sign language if someone in your family was deaf, you pick up some other skills.
You learn to sit away from windows or sources of light, you start wearing darker colors, you learn to precisely tilt the laptop with only your knees while watching video and scenes change rapidly, you gain greater sense of personal appearance from staring at yourself the whole time, you become more aware of your surroundings cause now you can see what is BEHIND you while you work...
While many of those skills would be very useful to a prospective assassin/spy - most common users find it kind of a burden.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
No serious colorimetric work is yet being done with LCDs
Well I'm a Very Serious Photographer With Color Managed Systems, and I can tell you you're full of hooey.
There are a number of Serious LCD monitors now, some with advanced features like wide gamuts, and good enough viewing angles so that you can move side to side within at least the range of the monitor and see no shift.
What you said might have been true about two years ago, but the industry has moved well beyond all Serious work being done on CRT's these days.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
See my earlier post
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I used one for about a week before I gave up on it, gave it to my wife, and went out and bought a $10 Logitech mouse which has worked perfectly ever since. The thing simply would not register right clicks when I wanted it to. Maybe it would if I kept using it. But honestly, spending weeks training my hand to use this mouse is not worth it compared to spending $10 on one that works properly from the start.
As for scrolling, one dimension is superior to zero dimensions, which is what my Mighty Mouse ended up having after a few months of use by my wife. When the scroll clit gets dirty it ceases to function, and the thing appears to be impervious to all known cleaning methods. So now the Mighty Mouse sits in a drawer and she uses a $10 USB scroll wheel mouse.
Like somebody pointed out you have to lift your left finger when doing a right click with the Mighty Mouse I do this instinctively but I can see how it would be irritating to somebody who doesn't. One has to marvel at what lengths Steve Jobs is willing to go to provide two button functionality without having to admit that his idea for a one button mouse simply sucked. That being said early Bluetooth Mighty Mice had problems with the button sensors. My first BT Mighty mouse had to be switched off and on each time the my MBP woke from sleep-mode because right clicking ceased working. Eventually some moron stole that mouse and against my better judgement I actually went and bought a second BT Mighty Mouse which has worked perfectly so far. I agree that the form factor of the Mighty Mouse not especially comfortable but it does make it easier to stow in a hardpack. I actually used to have a Logitech wireless mouse which I dumped because once in a while it would cause a kernel panic when I unplugged the USB dongle and because the because the trackball on the Mighty Mouse is quite frankly superior to Logitec's tilting scroll wheel.
It is quite easy to clean the Mighty Mouse's trackball, it is no more complicated than it was is clean old style mice that use rubber spheres rather than diodes to detect motion. Wash your hands thoroughly. Then mix a small amount of mildly soapy water, apply it sparingly to the Mighty Mouse's trackball using your finger and scroll the trackball about for a while. Then take a lint free cloth, turn the Mighty Mouse upside down and brush the cloth over the trackball until it is dry. This usually works for my tired old BT Mighty Mouse. It helps to repeat this at regular intervals every 4-6 weeks or so to prevent to much dirt from building up. To get rid of dust and grime that collects inside the trackball chamber simply turn the Mighty Mouse up-side-down and quickly brush your finger over the trackball for a few seconds.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Where I work we have 45 Macs. Of those 35 people have now switched to plain jane Logitech LX optical mice because the Apple mouse is so spectacularly bad. People get wrist cramps having permanently hold the left finger away when right clicking, the shape of the mouse is painful for many of them over time, and to top it all, the little scroll ball invariably gunks up with finger sweat and dirt after a while and you can only clean it so many times before the ball wears away and no longer maintains contact to the little slide wheels inside the mouse.
The Apple mouse is a terrible product, and its bluetooth pendant is even worse. the battery life is so bad that most people who have ehm and use them every day have to replace the batteries about once a month. I switched long ago to a Logitech LX-7 wireless which has used the same set of batteries for about 8 months.
I like Apple's products, and even own a Mac Pro tower myself, but I get really tired of people praising every thing Apple does simply because it's Apple.
You need to get over the fact that Apple, just like Linux, or Google will get a special treatment on Slashdot. These are products/brands that the typical slashdot reader are interested in.
In my experience brand loyal drones aren't typical - they're just more vocal, more obnoxious, and more willing to blatantly abuse their mod points. The Apple fans seem to be the most vocal and willing to make arguments that fly in the face of reality. Google supporters I just plain don't understand - Google does a pretty good web search engine and has bought usenet and mail services, but they don't do much else well. (Chrome is a joke for example!). Linux zealots just have all their brain power devoted to the technical so their social skills are on par with those of an anti-social 8 year old.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Jeez, did I got modded Troll on this by a Slashdot editor?
They're called moderators, and your post was hardly relevant to the article. Slashdot would probably be benefited by a robotic overlord reading comments aloud as much as youtube.
How the hell does this make any sense?
The whole POINT of Macs has been, in part, to enable Average Joe to do digital content creation. To let ordinary people do extraordinary things, with pictures, video, music, etc. Now you take the best-selling Mac ever and remove its ability to import video?
What the hell are they thinking?
+++ATH0
I checked my macbooks warranty and I didn't see anything in there about upgrades voiding it though obviously the upgrade components won't be covered.
They even included instructions for changing the ram in the user manual!
note: beware that the hard drive replacement instructions on apples site are incomplete, they tell you how to get the caddy out of the mac, what they don't tell you is that you need a small torx driver to get thr drive off the caddy.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
If you've seen the event then you may have seen the part where Ives mentioned that the thin aluminum shell in the old MBP is largely cosmetic, with most of the structure and stability coming from an internal frame.
The new MBP, OTOH, gets its strength from an external one-piece "uni-body" frame that's machined from a single slab of aluminum. I suspect that it will take a lot more abuse than its predecessor.
That said, I still prefer the fit and finish of aluminum over most of the plastic crap everyone else makes. You may have put a dent or two in yours, but a friend just had a plastic POS Sony snapped in half when someone leaned against her backpack.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
So, to summarize today's announcement:
1) No Quad core
2) No top-of-the-line graphics (1/4th the power of nVidia's top of the line mobile chip)
3) No 8G RAM option
4) No Blu-ray
5) The bad MB keyboard
6) The bad glossy MB screen
7) No DVI
8) Questionable trackpad
So, basically, no reason to buy the new crap Apple is selling, and every reason to find a good deal on a top of the line "old" MBP while they can still be had.
And, to add insult to injury: MacBook non-Pro has no Firewire at all.
What an utter disappointment. Apple used to lead the pack with their laptops two years ago. Now just about everyone makes better ones (specs), less expensively.
Rubbish just rubbish, it seems to me the 'pro glossy' crowd are convinced that the 'matte crowd' are a bunch of stuck up photo editing nitwits who should be photo editing on a desktop anyhow.
To that I respond that *I* and *EVERYONE* I know are regular users and every single one of them who have encountered a glossy display have also had precisely the same complaints I have, I DO NOT want to see myself in my damn screen constantly.
Perhaps you and others use consistently white web pages or applications all day but some of us actually look at dark web pages, dark movies or tv shows, terminal windows and don't need to see ourselves or do our makeup.
I work with several professional photographers as a consultant. I can assure you that glossy displays DO NOT work as well subjectively for most photographers and other artists using LCD displays. Some photographers still insist on using CRTs because of those subjective preferences.
You can bake the numbers all you want, but if the palette and contrast don't feel right for photographers - many of which started using Photoshop to work with Tango-scanned film images - they will not touch it. Consistency, not gimmicks, are key for these folks.
These are not gear queers running out to compare the specs on the newest whoosy-whatsit, but artists who are extremely picky about their equipment. Here's what they tell me they HATE about glossy displays:
-Extreme brightness on glossy displays = extreme contrast. It's harder to believe you're looking at a calibrated 2.2 gamma when your "superbrite" glossy LCD display has such a massive contrast ratio.
-Working in neutrally-painted, darkened rooms is optimal. When you turn these superbright LCDs down to achieve a reasonable brightness for a darkened room, the glare and reflections from the glossy panel are distracting. Turn it back up, and it takes you several seconds to a minute to see where you're going.
-The higher brightness leads to colors looking more saturated, which sells with consumers. Most pros I talk to HATE it. Photographers who rely on a muted palette and who work in color managed workflows can't tell what's going to roll out of their printer with displays like the iMac's glossy LED display - the colors seem too contrasty and saturated, so everything gets dialled down too far.
That's my experience. Pros hate these damned displays.
A bit low-key for one of these events. Steve seemed to expect woots and clapping at a few places that never came. Jonny Ive looked uncomfortable and a bit nervous and wearing a jacket three sizes too small; the other guy was a dull speaker. The hall was only half full and overall it was a pretty slow event.
On the other hand, the faster graphics chipsets are a relief - I'm developing some software that needs every ounce of GPU performance it can give!
Target disk mode is *not* possible over USB. You can boot modern Macs from USB drives, but this is not target disk mode.
Target disk mode is when you turn the entire computer into an enclosure for a hard drive with Firewire as the interface. Not possible at present using USB.
blog
Rant mode on.
Good God, hasn't anyone learned anything in the last 25 years since the abject failure of the IBM PC jr?
Chicklet keyboards are goddamn unusable. If you're a trained touch typist, you keep wanting to make sure your fingers are "centered" on these small keys, rather than simply assuming by normal finger position that you're typing correctly -- they completely slows you down.
Look, I *like* Apple's products, but Jobs cannot get out of his own way on product design, and he does this "90% brilliant/10% WTF?!" routine way too often.
Jobs should take a product 90 percent of the way in terms of its design, then let Apple engineers and internal end users determine the last 10 percent (i.e., they take the design away from him.) If they did this, then Apple would quit trying to foist off "futuristic" technology that Jobs thinks is aesthetically cool, and end up with something that works right out of the starting gate. (The original iMac round puck mouse, which was completely unusable, was one of the prime examples of this phenomenon, and even Jobs admitted that it was a mistake.)
Give me a real grown-up keyboard for my Macintosh, and quit designing things that might look good for a sci-fi movie but aren't usable in the real world. For my PC, I'm using a 15-year-old Northgate keyboard (I own 5 of them), which has mechanical switches and tactile feedback, and I can pound away on it (and get 90 words per minute) all day. On these stupid fucking Mac chicklet keyboards, my typing speed drops down in half or less.
End rant mode.
If you're computing from a fixed seating position you're probably sitting at a desk.
If you're sitting at a desk, it might be your desk, at which you could do all of those things, but it might not. It might be at the office you're visiting.
It might not be a desk. It might be a seat on a plane or train, sunlight coming in from a nearby window you don't control (and boy, if there's any setting in which you have almost no room to maneuver, it's on a plane in coach. And yet the Mac Book Air? Glossy only from day one.)
It might be the one of a small set of seats available to you at a conference room, or a lecture hall.
It might be a park bench, it might be on the couch in the living room facing the TV where you're sitting to be with your SO or family while they're watching it, and you're trying to work, but the sunset through the window behind the couch is causing a problem.
If you bought a laptop, the whole point is that you'd like to be able to move it around and use it anywhere. The constraints arbitrarily added by the glare off a glossy screen make it more difficult.
Tweet, tweet.
Consider it your warning that you need to change your surroundings before continuing your work ... not a reason to get a different display.
and here I was thinking people bought laptops so they could work anywhere they wanted
TIAEAE!
I think the most interesting thing to come out of this is what wasn't explicitly said. Jobs does not look like he is in good shape at the moment. He also made a point of having others within the company help him present. I think he is going to be giving up full-time work at Apple (whether voluntarily or not) sooner rather than later and he is now trying to present the company as being more than a one-man band. Whether or not investors believe that however is another matter.
HDMI has limited resolution compared to DisplayPort making it the inferior spec.
This is a VHS/Betamax argument - its irrelevant what the spec is or does - its what the market dictates...and its strongly hinting HDMI with a baseball bat.
Glossy screens are just not acceptable for the calibration and perception standards
Oh, come on. You seriously maintain that you cannot calibrate the color output of a glossy display? Do you even know what the only physical difference between the two is?
Let me inform you, since you probably do not. There is literally no difference in any of the elements which significantly affect the spectrum of the emitted light. In a LCD display, those would be the backlight, the LCD subpixel intensity filters, and the color filter. All these components are 100% identical between a glossy and non glossy display. The one and only different component is that a matte display has a surface roughening treatment (or coating) on the outermost glass layer to provide some scattering.
Scattering does two things, one desirable and one undesirable. The desirable part is that it greatly reduces the intensity of reflections of other things in a room (especially light sources). It's hard to see a reflected image when the light is reflected in a ton of different directions by the rough surface.
The undesirable part is that it does the same thing to the image being displayed. And that's why people like glossy displays: the colors can be much more saturated (matte displays have a bit of a whiteout effect) and the display is brighter given identical backlights (scattering sends a lot of the light output off in random directions).
DisplayPort is certainly not a typical shitty connector.
I hope to see one day nothing but DisplayPort; royalty-free, IIRC it's a fairly open design, and I'm not too sure if it has optional DRM (as it might be the deciding factor over HDMI). The fact that it's very capable is also good, as is the fact that it can go out to all formats (VGA/HDMI/DVI); although DVI can do that it's not royalty-free and this is closer to HDMI because I think it can even carry audio.
Agreed. And not just everytime there's a new model, but also everytime there's a rumour about something new, as has been the case with recent stories. We should be glad that for once, at least there's a story based on fact here ;) But yes, it's a slashvertisement.
or try to patent the process of water-blasting a block of aluminum...
"10:14 PT: "We discovered that if we started with a thick piece of aluminium and removed material to make physical features in the structure, we could make a much lighter but much stronger part. So that's how we make the palm rest of the MacBook air." He shows an image of an aluminum extrusion to show how the put it together. They create the "locating features," holes in the metal. Then rough cutting, a "noisy stage" where they remove large amounts of material quickly. Remove holes for key caps, and the trackpad. Then they blast it and anodize it."
I hope not, because watersaws and water blasters have been around for a LONG time. Applying that to make a laptop chassis is NOT innovative, novel, nor non-obvious. It's just a matter of marketing, snazziness, and money. Diving bells, diving suits, aircraft parts, and military vehicle parts as well as various medical and other types of instruments all can be made from parts cut, shaped or formed by water jets which can be much sharper in effect than using diamond saws or diamond-tipped drill bits.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question553.htm
However, i wonder exactly how they will recycle the stamped/water-blasted parts punched out for keys and the trackpad and hinge area. If they are a "green company" they should publicly account for how it's being recaptured for recycling.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
You need to get over the fact that Apple, just like Linux, or Google will get a special treatment on Slashdot. These are products/brands that the typical slashdot reader are interested in.
I suspect that there are many who prefer Windows or use it as their main OS. I'm not sure if there have been more recent polls, but in 2002, Windows usage was 47%, beating all other platforms. Whilst that may or may not have fallen, I'd be willing to bet it's still no. 1, and I find it highly unlikely it's been relegated to a niche interest.
Earlier this year, only 32% (36% if we include the "other" option) say they don't use Windows.
Like it or not, Windows PCs are a mainstream interest just as much as stories for any other platform.
As the other comment stated, "number of comments" is not a poor metric - especially as my post is counting towards that! And how do we know how many comments other articles will get, if they don't get posted?
I also note that the only article currently beating this article in terms of number of comments on the front page at the moment is "Windows 7 To Be Called ... Windows 7". It's tagged "!newsworthy" and "whocares", but according to you, at over 100 more comments than this story, it ought to be the most newsworthy story of the day, right?
It would be nice if OSX was sold and supported as a product separate from their hardware. I am using a macbook right now, the hardware is adaquate but the operating system is the reason I bought it. If apple had a hardware logo certification ala novel, a logo cert that actually meant something I would be more likely to continue using osx as my primary operating system on non apple hardware. Apple hardware has almost completely lost its draw for me. The RMA process is slow and clunky, their corporate hardware support is abysmal and their hardware has one of the highest failure rates (second only to sony vaio laptops) I have ever experienced. Hardly what I would consider worth the premium. On top of that there is the mousing options. For that much money I would expect to have a hardware interface that is intuitive. Removing all mouse buttons from the laptop is the exact opposite direction I was hoping they would take. So far I am unimpressed with this hardware revision. I hope the next iteration of OSX becomes a bigger selling point because the look and feel of the hardware is nowhere near worth the price.
I agree, the black border contrasts with the aluminum body in a way that makes me think "Dell". I don't like the look at all.
...Applying that to make a laptop chassis is NOT innovative....
Maybe that is your opinion, but I suspect it will be a long while, if ever, before you'll be able to buy a cheap Dell made that way. Apple didn't invent the portable music player or cell phone either. Still their iPods and iPhones are selling by the millions and Apple is laughing all the way to the bank. If you have some extra money, buy some Apple stock, because it WILL go up again. They have good products and many people will pay extra for good design.
All theory is gray
Once again, Apple fails on the screen resolution. 15" MBP, fancy new graphics, and the best they'll put into it is a 1440x900 screen? Buy a lenovo with an HD-res screen for half the cost, and get a faster processor to boot. Apple has stumbled this time.
Memory and Hard Drive replacements on the Macbook do NOT void your warrantee. Its user replaceable from the battery port.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
It struck me as odd that he talks about how some things are better for the environment, but one of the much-lauded advances is the "Brick" process, which, as Ars puts it, is a "manufacturing process that starts with a 2.5 pound slab of aluminum that is then whittled down to a . . . quarter of a pound."
Does this seem incredibly wasteful to anyone else?
http://www.tenjou.net/
Contrast has nothing what so ever do with gamma. A CRT has a contrast ratio in the 10000-100000:1 range.
Glossy LCDs use coatings which originated with CRTs. Its the same technology evolved. A CRT and a glossy LCD have similar glare properties. If you clients are having glare problems, they need to be using a hood.
Glossy screens are not any brighter than matte. Their contrast comes from having a better black-level, i.e., less diffuse glare from the environment. "Color saturation" is how much "white" is mixed into color. Matte screens have worse saturation because they mix in (diffuse) more environmental "white" light.
This point is the closest to being right. Glossy screens have a more different color-space relative to CYMK ink processes than matte screens. But any good software, such as photoshop, has the ability to highlight gamut errors. The remaining trouble is that the in gmaut color-space is compressed because the display's color-space is larger.
The real problem is that 8b/color channel is not enough for modern wide-gamut displays such those you can make using LED backlights and glossy anti-glare coatings. Photographers near universal failure to understand the technical situation and speak-up means that their needs are wholly under-represented, and many of the new color-professional wide-gamut products are unusable due the colorimetric distances being too far given 8b/color channel.
It's not because it's glossy, it's because glass is stronger then plastic. Same for the new trackpad.
I'm more interesting in finding out how apple are going to utilise all those extra gpus, how they're going to make it easy for developers to use this hardware in 10.6 and what sort of speed ups we might be able to extract from having basically 4 processing cores available in a laptop.
I used to agree with the slashdot crowd that glossy==bad, until I had to use a glossy screen on my work laptop.
The glossy screens give you a better contrast, at the cost of pretty bad reflections on the darker areas of your screen. While I agree that the reflection may be a huge problem for the professionals working with anything related to images, I think that glossy screens are a better fit for the professionals that mostly deal with text and numbers. The characters are usually black on white, so the increased contrast gives you increased legibility. The glare is a non-issue, since the background is white.
Duh, Apple is better, Linux is cheaper and Google is mostly free. What's the alternative, PCs and a Microsoft world? What's not interesting when compared to the mundane? Apple clearly makes the best notebooks, Linux has its place and the internet would not be what it is today if it weren't for Linux servers or Google.
I'd be surprised if the Apple connector supports HDCP, which makes it a pretty useless replacement for HDMI as no content such as bluray will ever work with it if it doesn't support HDMI's DRM. Oh, and HDMI can also carry audio. Just sayin'
Shame the MB doesn't have an Expresscard slot to add firewire. Does seem a major omission in a media laptop.
Uh-oh, he called customers "consumers". Peeved me right there.
Hey Phil of Apple, "Consumer" belongs to Economics theories. In any other area it is an insult. I'm happily a customer, a client, an end-user; please stick to those if you want to persuade me with your Marketing.
Either of the bottom corners can be configured for secondary click - so if anything, it's better than the current single click - http://www.macworld.com/article/136063/2008/10/macbook_first_look.html
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Don't good camcorders still use firewire? So then start up iMovie, plug in camcorder and and import the video.
Please read the post again. This is for you.
I wouldn't mind owning some of Apples products. I readily admit they by far outdo almost anything out there.
But, these are sexy machines, too:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/14/2391134.htm
http://www.mobilewhack.com/reviews/flybook_vm_laptop.html
http://gizmodo.com/5043374/samsung-x360-laptop-is-super-skinny
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
According to Apple, the new touchpad has software definable buttons for extra functionality, such as right-clicks.
Can you configure an area of the touchpad for middle clicks, as well? Can I finally get a decent laptop with a three button touchpad?
For a really good summary of the issues with glossy displays. These are exactly my concerns and problems with them (and many non-glossy LCDs that are just too bright).
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Where's the 17" mammoth? They can't extrude the aluminum slab that big? That's Apple's showpiece, and I'm really surprised it didn't make the cut. Does anyone know the scoop?
-Yim
People might have bought a laptop so they could "work anywhere they wanted" -- but that doesn't mean all environments are created equal.
I can technically work in a moving car, using my laptop, but it gives a lot of people motion sickness to do that for very long. Is that the laptop's fault?
The fact is, the new glossy displays on the 15" Macbook Pros can get very bright. People just receiving theirs are reporting they don't normally recommend even turning the brightness up more than about "5 clicks from the brightest setting". So it's certainly capable of things like using it outdoors in sunlight without the display totally washing out. That's something that wasn't even a possibility at all with many older laptops I've used.
It does make a kind of sense, though. Die-cast aluminum has a very different "feel" than forged/milled aluminum. Cast metal will have weird "grain" effects around all the little details, as well.
And, really - it's not like the case is a major cost driver for these products. The CPU, hard drive, and memory are probably 90% of the material costs. If the crazy milled aluminum case adds even $5 to the cost of the case, I'd be shocked.
In return for the insanely-complex manufacturing process, they get a case that's lighter, stronger, and has that special Apple "coolness".
Amen brother. Why is this Funny, BTW?
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
and all slashdot posters are people who use their computers intensively (e.g. programming) and for long periods. We can assume that slashdot users stare at their screens more, and need to get more detail from it reliably (as opposed to just watching a movie) in completely variable lighting conditions. I use my matte laptop for programming on a long bus ride, everyday, for example. We can conclude that a substantial number of serious, technology opinion-leader, computer users are going to hate the new Macbook Pro glossy-only policy, are going to be seriously p/o'd in fact. Bad move, Apple, specially if you are trying to get into business computing (more people who stare much more intensively at details on their screens for long periods in varying lighting conditions. This is just a stupid, backwards move. Clearly, the market wants a choice. Offer it or lose otherwise dedicated customers.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
23 years as a dedicated Mac evangelist and they remove Firewire from the only Mac portable I can afford, the MacBook. I was going to upgrade in April, when my work's sal-sac year started. Now I'll be considering a Dell or Toshiba hackintosh because I can get Firewire on one of those for AU$800 (compared to AU$2099) and a few hours on the torrents. Bastages.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Thanks, that answers my question.
As a counterargument, I'm not really sure if my shiny new monitor supports DisplayPort.
But it supports HDMI, and so does my laptop. And HDMI easily supports its max resolution and refresh rate.
And unlike DVI, there are no thumbscrews. Win!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
They'll put TWO graphics cards in the Pro that you can switch between, but took Firewire out of the new Macbook? When most (or at leas the last time I checked) video cameras still come with Firewire connections? It made sense for the Air, but not for the regular Macbook.
So....the problem is that photographers are too stupid to know what they're looking at?
Nice. I'll make sure to tell the photographers who have been making art for thirty years that they don't know what they're talking about.
Two of my clients are Apple "Pros", who have made their needs fully and widely known at Apple...when someone who isn't trying to promote Aperture is listening.
No. One. Gives. A. Shit. At Apple.
Some number larger than two of my clients are Canon Masters. Apple doesn't care. Canon recommends PCs. Where's Apple going with this glossy-only crap?
I can technically work in a moving car, using my laptop, but it gives a lot of people motion sickness to do that for very long. Is that the laptop's fault?
if you wanted to regularly work in moving cars, and some type of screen existed that prevented motion sickness when being using it in cars, would you a: opt for a laptop with that type of screen or b: Consider it your warning that you need to change your surroundings before continuing your work?
what kind of self-respecting engineering school lets the students out of the basement labs?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The new Macs aren't doing SLI at all and it seems the apple version of the "9400m" is just a 9100 with an apple sticker.
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2243
Looks like the reason they didn't upgrade the 17" MBP is because It already has a faster video card.
I haven't ever looked at one of those keyboards close up. I had always assumed they were stamped, rather than machined.