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Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes
Phil Schiller delivered the keynote at MacWorld, the first after the Steve Jobs era of keynotes. Here is Engadget's live blog. The big news, predicted by many rumor sites, was the introduction of the unibody 17" MacBook Pro. As rumored, the battery is not removable, but it's claimed to provide 8 hours of battery life (7 hours with the discrete graphics): "3x the charges and lifespan of the industry standard." $2,799, 2.66 GHz and 4 GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, shipping at the end of January. There is a battery exchange program, and there is an option for a matte display. The other big news is that iTunes is going DRM-free: 8M songs today, all 10+M by the end of March. Song pricing will be flexible, as the studios have been demanding; the lowest song price is $0.69. Apple also introduced the beta of a Google Docs-like service, iWork.com.
I was really hoping to see an updated Mac Mini.
--- Tao
What are people going to whine about now?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
3x the charges and lifespan of the industry standard
This is a completely unfalsifiable statement. A Mac user wouldn't be caught dead with this model once the new 17.1" Macbook Pro comes out in six months. No one really knows how long any Apple product "could" last.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Come on, it isn't that hard to make a user removeable battery. Just do it -- people want it. It is a freaking laptop!
I'm glad to see Apple stepping away from a massive release of new products every January. While it was exciting from a geek perspective, it was awfully timed. Introducing a slate of cool new gadgets just after Christmas was a marketing nightmare for Apple - hundreds of thousands of new iPod owners would be upset to learn that their new player was suddenly "last year's model," and many other Apple enthusiasts would simply put off their purchases until after the Christmas season in anticipation of "one more thing" in January. That can't have been good news for retailers who ramp up inventory in the months leading up to xmas. Now, Apple has more control over their release cycle. They can keep their products under wrap until they're ready to unveil them to the world, and can stagger releases for maximum coverage.
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THL phish sticks
I simply cannot fathom why Apple keeps making these things without a number pad. If I'm going to lug around the weight of a 17" I feel like a proper keyboard with keypad is a must, especially since almost all of the other brands have no trouble fitting one in.
The weight on this thing is mighty impressive though, I'm not familiar with any 17" laptop that is only 6.6 lbs. Of course, I'm not sure if it's worth the trade-off of not having a removable battery.
Should have better video then 9600m for a $2700+ system come on other laptops have SLI at that price.
And $1200 to go from 4gb to 8gb?
I hope apple has a big Superbowl ad to show off the other new hardware.
You know, its pretty fashionable to argue these days that CEOs are just like everyone else, interchangeable parts that you can just get rid of. Steve Jobs isn't one of them, and I don't think Bill Gates was either, for that matter.
But, in the case of Steve Jobs, the dude could walk out onto a stage, show you a product, and you would think, wow, that's really brilliant.
Regardless of how Shiller is, he's not the guy that founded Apple, beat developers into the ground trying to make a product better. Sometimes took the company into the ground chasing after a vision but a lot of times made a mountain of money chasing after the same.
You can't get the same vision from somebody who runs as a company as you can get from the guy that founded it. Even for CEOs, its just a job, but for founders, its a vision, and I'm going to miss the Apple of Jobs old, even as I miss the Microsoft of Gates the Evil.
This is my sig.
Two semi-glaring points:
-What about TV show and movie purchases? What level of DRM can be expected there (I don't know level of DRM applies now, so feel free to call me a clod who's talking out of an orifice other than stdout ). The verbiage seems to very carefully mention "songs" only, no other iTunes available media.
-What about my current iTunes song library? Will the DRM magically disappear with my next update? Do I need to download my library again, (and thereby lose the totally pointless play count next to my songs? What will I do? That's how I keep score damnit!)
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Still, it's a step in the right direction, and I applaud the people over at Amazon (and everyone else selling music without DRM) for doing it first. Without that step, I'm willing to bet that Apple would have stayed with DRM on their music catalog. It looks like part of Defective By Design's Anti-DRM wishlist came true.
That said, Apple is also now charging if you want to get rid of your DRM (which means upgrading to 256 kbps tracks). From Apple.com:
Yes, just $0.30 per song to get rid of the crap that we forced on you in the first place. Awful.
In other news, I was getting my updates from MacRumorsLive.com, when their feed was cracked by 4Chan. The site crashed half-way through the keynote. Here are some screen caps for anyone interested:
http://www.realfx.com/images/macrumorslive_pwned.jpg
http://www.realfx.com/images/macrumorslive_pwned2.jpg
http://www.realfx.com/images/macrumorslive_pwned3.jpg
Well, with all Apple computers...it is best to buy them with minimal RAM, and put it in yourself from 3rd party purchase. Apple has pretty much always been a rip off when having them to upgrade the ram.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
This article says you can do so for a fee http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1711 but when I tried for my two purchased albums, it did not work crapping out with some "product has changed" error message. It reportedly worked back when they first introduced DRM-free tracks, so maybe it is a temporary problem as things get retooled.
One is that you do save some space by integrating the battery. There is a non trivial amount of extra material for making it removable since it had to be in it's own enclosure and such. So one could claim that is was done to either decrease size, or to increase capacity (by having larger cells).
The other is that this makes the device much more disposable. Apple is in the hardware market, they make their money on buying new gadgets. It would be best for them if people viewed the gadgets as disposable and simply tossed them after a few years.
32G? Isn't last year's 3G-compatible iPhone good enough?
The CB App. What's your 20?
If you want to upgrade your old purchases to DRM-free status, though, you can pay the "upgrade" price.
I bought three albums on iTunes this past weekend. At least one of them is DRM-laden. Colour me unimpressed, but I'm not really surprised. I don't have rose-coloured glasses on when it comes to Apple. I sometimes use iTunes when it's 3:00 a.m. and I'm hankering for new music. I fire up the Bands Under the Radar podcast and poke around until something catches my fancy. They made it convenient, so I put up with the conversion process to other drm-free formats.
"It's also easy to upgrade your iTunes library to iTunes Plus. You don't have to buy the song or album again. Just pay the 30 per song upgrade price. (Music video upgrades are 60 and entire albums can be upgraded for 30 percent of the album price.)"
They're ditching DRM. That's pro-consumer. What you're saying is that they are going to have to charge what the studios want to charge (ie, more). That's not anti-consumer enough to balance out the goodness factor of allowing people to actually play the music they buy on any device they own (which has kept me from using ITMS thus far).
I'm sorry you don't like higher prices. But you finally own what you buy. If you're still concerned about ITMS's prices, you really shouldn't have been using them in the first place as they've always been outrageously expensive.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I have seen this same problem as well, but its worht noting that the current batch of MacBook Pros apparently require the battery to be in place even if they are plugged into the wall because they cant pull enough power through the wall wart for peak performance and need the battery there for when power demands go up.
So while you do have a good point its quite possible that, even if the battery were removable, you wouldn't be able to operate without it.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
My Libretto was rated for 8 hours with the fat battery pack, but I never got more than 5-6 hours. That was still enough to keep me from having to join the tethered geeks near the wall at conferences, but only because I had two batteries and could leave one charging in my room... then swap it out at the lunch break and before the evening sessions.
Not to mention that you don't want to risk a non-removable "iBattery" turning into something like this like my original Macbook Pro's did.
Because with Apple the AirPort Express is your "dock", as most of what you're asking for can already be done wirelessly. Plug your speakers and your printer into your Express, and you're good to go the second you set your notebook down.
Use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. No wires. Do Time Machine backups to Time Capsule. No wires. Actual, physical wires are so... '80s.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Sure the tracks are going DRM free, but will iTunes still prevent me from copying music from my iPod to a new iTunes library? It's incredibly annoying to me that any time I move PCs or operating systems that I can't easily move songs off of my iPod. The tracks may be DRM free all the way through, but it still exists if I can't move my library as I see fit.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Well for one, the battery compartment takes space. External shielding takes up space. Most of all, the battery has to be a certain shape to fit into and out of a laptop .
Take a look at any laptop battery. They can't be the footprint of the entire laptop because there would be no way to install it. They have to be brick shaped. By making the battery non-removable, the battery can be optimizied to take as much space internally as it needs. If you at the MacBook Air, you'd see that 2/3s of the internal space of the machine is battery. You can't do that with a removable battery.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
They stated it can be charged 1000 times. That means if you use your laptop every day you will need a new one in 2.7 years.
if you use it every day, including saturdays and sundays, FOR 8 HOURS A DAY, then in 2.7 years, the battery will be down to an 80% charge or 6.4 hours. Which is longer than your current 5 hour battery lasts.
I seriously doubt many users use a computer 7 days a week, soley on batteries for 8 hours a day!
finally you can replace the battery. There's just no simple pop-out mechanism. But unscrewing the case once in the life of a computer is not a big deal.
Additionally Apple care will cover the battery for 3 years-- that's not something you get on most warantee contracts.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How does the fact that it is not removeable affect its shape by 40%?
Here's a hypothetical cross section:
Traditional Laptop:
Laptop Case - Battery Case - Battery Cells - Battery Case - Laptop Case
1mm + 1m + 3mm + 1mm + 1mm
MBP:
Latop Case - Battery Cells - Laptop Case
1mm + 3mm + 1mm
Overall thickness reduced by 2mm. The "Battery" part is reduced from 5mm to 3mm, saving 40%, by not having to give the battery a redundant plastic shell.
The only way I could see that happening is if the battery was the size of a watch battery. After all, all you need to do to make a battery removeable is install some contacts (which would have to exist in some form or another anyways) and a latch mechanism (which could be just a simple screw).
Not really a valid example. Comparing the can requirements of a 1 volt battery that delivers milliamps to a 10-14Volt 1-3amp battery. The much larger and more powerful battery needs more insulation and rigidity etc to prevent it from shorting out, catching fire, exploding, etc. In the MBP this is taken care of by the laptop case. In a removable battery, the battery has to have its own suitable enclosure.
Remember "40%" may seem like a lot, but we're talking about a laptop that's only a dozen mm thick. Removing a couple mm thickness from a single part is a BIG deal.
Most of the news reports are not getting the complete picture. Apple have posted a dedicated battery page that talks about it in more detail. Here's the paragraph that expands on the 1000 charge info:
So it's not 1000 recharges and then throw it away!
While the music itself is now DRM-free, it is still inaccessible to non Windows/Mac users. I realize that we Linux-only households are few and far between, but as a cross-platform version of iTunes already exists, why not make a version for Linux too?
While they're at it, could they just move the store entirely to the web, and let me access it with a normal browser since I don't need to 'activate' the downloaded music at all anymore?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Installing your own RAM doesn't void the warranty. (Unless you break your computer while doing it, in which case it does.)
Are you adequate?