MacBook Pro Specs Leaked, iPad Event March 2

Stoobalou updates us on the various Apple rumors, saying, "Snaps of Apple's imminent update to the MacBook Pro range have been leaked, confirming most of the rumors doing the rounds." Light Peak looks like it will be called Thunderbolt. The 13" will feature 2.3ghz Dual Core i5s and 4 gigs of RAM. In addition to the MacBook Pro rumors, the iPad update rumors have been confirmed, with invitations going out to the formal announcement on March 2.

Comments

hmm

[rainmouse]

It seems everything Apple is working on is leaked and it really is becomming a tiresome marketting ploy, perhaps moreso because it seems to work.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

But...but...I need to know about everything Apple!!!

Oooooh. I just heard that Steve Jobs had a bowel movement! zOMG!!!!!1111eleventyone

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it's some marketing ploy from Apple also when we have photos of sick Steve Jobs in front of a cancer treatment facility.

It's also a marketing ploy when all the news site can't shut up about a smaller 6 inch iPad, and a "cloud iPhone that's half the size of iPhone" knowing full well it's bullshit.

And it's marketing ploy when random outlets report that iPad 2 will be late for months because of production issues.

Or maybe it's just that everyone can't stop reading about Apple, and therefore there's huge pressure for a leak to occur.

The reason leaks don't occur in Oracle or Computer Associates is, no one gives a damn. And leaks do occur at Microsoft and Adobe too, but again, no one gives a damn.

Re:hmm

[wandazulu]

What's interesting is that it seems Apple's product announcements are the only remaining tech that gets everyone talking, whether pro or against, people do talk about it. Dell might have released half a dozen new systems last week, but who'd know? I was in a tmobile store the other day and saw a number of Android-based handsets that I hadn't heard of. And even though I consider myself a geek, I have very little idea what the Xoom is, other than a Motorola tablet, and more to the point, why should I care?

I'm not saying that we should care about Apple product announcements, but Apple seems to be the only ones who can generate any significant buzz about whatever it is they're announcing.

Re:hmm

[Dzimas]

Apple's marketing strategy is brilliant. Unlike other companies, they don't release products with incomprehensible names like the KDH-4001. They don't have to address a myriad of OS compatibility issues (for example, A4-based devices are eligible for iOS updates, the older ones aren't). They have streamlined product lines -- one iPad, one iPod Touch, one Apple TV. By reducing choice, they reduce buyer confusion and uncertainty. A side-effect of this zen marketing approach is that it's easy for the press to write about their products. When a new iPad is introduced, we know ahead of time what to expect, with the addition of a few easy-to-explain doodads (camera! Another camera! Faster! Thinner!). That makes for good copy and makes technophobic users feel somewhat comfortable.

Re:hmm

[JustinOpinion]

I'm not saying that we should care about Apple product announcements, but Apple seems to be the only ones who can generate any significant buzz about whatever it is they're announcing.

The hype can get out of hand, but I think Apple more or less earns this exposure. The reason is Apple is one of the only companies that really puts effort into design.

Now, I say this despite not being much of a consumer of Apple products. My desktops (work and home) run Linux, though my laptop is a (4-year-old) Macbook Pro. But even though I have many reasons I don't like Apple products (lockin, etc.), I recognize the serious effort and skill they put into designing not just a product, but a successful user experience.

One of the reasons journalists and bloggers and design professionals and design enthusiasts all watch Apple closely is that they are one of the only companies that actually carries a design through to its full conclusion. Other manufacturers can, and do, come up with innovative ideas and the beginnings of a good design, but they all ultimately compromise on that design (usually for money). Think of something as simple as putting all those "Optimized for Windows" and "Intel inside" stickers on a laptop: I suspect those were not there in the original artist renderings; they are a corruption of the design. The crapware that is loaded is another corruption. Trying to get the price down to competitive levels requires all kinds of compromises in terms of build details, quality, etc. Edges don't meet quite flush because of some engineering or price constraint (not because it makes the device more pleasing to the user). UI elements are not very responsive because it would have taken too long to optimize that code. They don't worry about there being a subtle (but satisfying) 'click' when plugging-in a cable. And so on. (Note that I'm using "design" as shorthand for "design of the user experience"... obviously these companies have successfully engineered/designed products for a certain constraint-set.)

Apple makes its fair share of gaffes, and it's not obvious that all of their design choices are worth the premium costs. (Again, I mostly don't buy their stuff.) But as far as test cases to ponder, their products are the best around. One can really evaluate the pros and cons of a touch interface now that Apple put serious effort into designing a UI that is touch-centric (previously most touch interfaces were either crappy overlays on top of mousing UI (e.g. Windows tablets) or just terrible to begin win (e.g. a kiosk touch-UI)...).

So, in short, by having a focused vision and seeing it through to the end, they create products that are not ugly mixtures of compromises (where when things don't work you're left wondering if it's because it was a bad idea or poorly executed); their products are consistent and cohesive (so that you can evaluate a given design choice, and copy/improve/ignore it as needed in designing other products). Even if you don't like (and don't buy) their stuff, it's worth watching what they produce.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Because each one of us a human, and colour and various other aesthetic properties matters to nearly all humans. It might be fashionable in some parts of geek culture to outwardly reject such things but I suspect those who do are doing so against their nature.

2. A confident indivual doesn't care what choices in computing devices others make. Not even enough to compose a post deriding those choices.

3. "Worth the money" is entirely subjective. I won't argue that I have too much money, but most all of my friends prefer some Apple product over its competitors. Either the phone or the music player or one of the laptops. We all do this not for the reasons you believe, but with our eyes wide open to know exactly what it is we are buying, from the processor to memory to storage to colour. It isn't that we want or need to spend money to impress anyone. Quite the contrary: if there were something better we would simply buy it.

But regardless, your concern over how we spend our money falls on deaf ears. We didn't ask you before we made it and we certainly won't start now.

Re:hmm

[vlm]

Yeah, the Windows machine specs out nicer, but that doesn't mean much outside of test-bed environments, looking at performance from a clean install on a pristine new computer.

You cannot buy a pristine new windows laptop at this time. Only offered by Apple. Everything else is stuffed with bloatware by the manufacturer.

Re:hmm

[gstoddart]

Now the iPad update will probably have some feature that should have been released with the first generation but for whatever reason *cough* BUT TO MAKE PEOPLE BUY IT AGAIN *cough* was not included.

Ever read the "Mythical Man Month"? Nine women can't have a baby in a month, and you can't put every possible feature into a new product.

If every product waited to release until they could include all technologies it would ever have, well, we'd never actually see products due to all of the new stuff that gets built.

Like them or not, Apple releases a product that people are free to buy or not. And then, quite predictably, the ones that sell get near-annual refreshes to add features to them -- smaller, better, faster, more storage, touch screen. I've lost count of how many generations of each of the kinds of iPods there are.

And, really, Microsoft has been bragging about coming out with an iPad killer since about two weeks before the product launched. To the best of my knowledge, that doesn't exist yet.

At least Apple actually released something.

Re:hmm

[BlueStraggler]

3. As a techwhore, I know enough about Apple's products to realise they're not worth the money being asked for them, unless it was important to me that an electronic gadget needed to match the outfit I was wearing on that particular day.

You're obviously trolling, but seriously, where does this idiotic meme come from? Macbooks are white or unpainted. Meanwhile, over at Sony, the Vaio Fall Collection (this is no joke) are available in black, gold, glossy carbon, bordeaux red, sangria red, striped, wavy black, wavy white, arabesque black, arabesque gold, crocodile black, and crocodile pink. FUCKING. CROCODILE. PINK. So you're clearly an asshat who doesn't know the first thing about accessorizing your computer to your wardrobe, since you should obviously be running Win7 if you have to match your PC to your boots. And by the way, you'll pay as much or more for a Vaio as you will for a Macbook.

Oy

[tool462]

Can we stop calling them leaks and start calling them press releases? Nobody is fooled by this anymore.

Re:Not fiber?

[keytoe]

if i recall... they were also accused of the very same thing with usb on the original iMac in 1998. that really turned out dud decision...

I have a box full of various adapters that Apple forces me to buy every time they change display interconnect to the 'next best thing'. Between the computers changing ports and the display manufacturers trying to keep up, the permutations can become large. Those adapters are $25 each from Apple.

On the other hand, I can still plug in the same USB devices I did from 1998.

People have a legitimate gripe here.

Apple is silent, while other talk up nothing.

[mosb1000]

When Apple talks, it actually means something, unlike the empty promises made my other technology companies.

It's because Apple doesn't announce products months or years before they are released. They only announce them when they are sure they'll have a product to ship. All you hear from other companies is hyped up initial announcements followed by delays and retracted features. From Apple you hear about new products that will actually ship as promised. It's not because Apple is better at shipping quality products on schedule (though they are). It's because they don't go on blabbing about every new technology they have in the works years before a working prototype has even seen the light of day.

It's called industrial design

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not talking about color, we're talking about carrying half a kilo less than a similarly specced laptop, having a well thought out system of interchangeable plugs for the power adapter so you can easily bring it to another country, having a high quality LCD panel, having a backlit keyboard, having a solid aluminium enclosure that doesn't twist when you open the lid, having a computer that wakes from sleep in less than the time it takes to open the lid, having a power connector that automatically releases if you trip over the lead, having a nice wide trackpad that you can use gestures like two-finger tap for right click and two-finger drag to scroll. It's called industrial design. It's something people who have money are willing to pay for.