Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update Improves Battery Life on 'Hackintosh' Netbooks?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/14/mac-os-x-10-5-7-update-improves-battery-life-on-hackintosh-netbooks/)

Wired summarizes (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/apple-os-x-update-gives-battery-boost-to-hackintoshes/) some surprising experiences of users who have hacked their MSI Wind netbooks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_Netbook) to run Mac OS X. These so called "hackintoshes" when updated to Mac OS X 10.5.7 have experienced dramatic boosts in battery effeciency. Reports from the MSI Wind forums are claiming a boost up to 33%, from 3 hr 45 min to a shade over five hours, using a six-cell 4400 mAh battery.

The writer, Dalton63841, has tested this to make sure it’s not just over-optimistic reporting by the OS. Another poster is also seeing a boost from three and a half to four and a half hours. The reports suggest that Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.7 contain added optimizations for Intel's Atom processor and associated hardware. This, of course, is prompting speculation that support for such configurations may hint at new Apple notebooks based on similar netbook designs.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a netbook with a possible release this year.

Article Link: Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update Improves Battery Life on 'Hackintosh' Netbooks? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/14/mac-os-x-10-5-7-update-improves-battery-life-on-hackintosh-netbooks/)

[amac4me]

Bring on the Apple netbook or whatever Apple wants to call it! On a side note, will the improved battery performance add fuel to the MSI Wind Hackintosh efforts?

[stownsend3]

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.

[Scarlet Fever]

A HackBook Nano is looking more and more attractive, but I'm gonna wait to see what WWDC has to offer before I get a Lenovo S10.

[gibbz]

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.

It is MacRumors.com :rolleyes:

I would never say never.

[Airforcekid]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

[BRLawyer]

Especially when everybody sees that those netbook sales are falling down the drain now...it was just a ridiculous fad to cater to people that feel like working in tiny screens with a tiny keyboard...only Apple is able to reinvent this concept as it did with the iPod and the iPhone; and it's NOT gonna happen now, because they know how ridiculous margins are for these crappy products.

[Eidorian]

I don't think there are going to be any special Atom strings in the 10.5.7 package given the length of time we've had to study it.

Surprise me.

[SeaneyC]

Well that's great, Apple improves battery life on hackbooks, yet my Air now seems to consistently run hotter and hence shorter life. Cheers very much!

*grumble grumble snow leopard better not be like this grumble grumble*

[flopticalcube]

I don't think there are going to be any special Atom strings in the 10.5.7 package given the length of time we've had to study it.

Surprise me.
More likely an unintended consequence of something else in the power management code.

[Michael73]

Unless a netbook by apple is in the offing in the next couple of months, I doubt the conclusion. Most likely anything of this type that would be released by Apple would be post SL or if the rumors about a 3G connection are true, maybe the device would have the iPhone OS 3.0 as a platform.

[t0mat0]

Do we have more than 2 posters to actually corroborate this?! Front page news?!
Macrumors quoting Wired quoting a forum thread of 10 posts, with 2 people saying they're seeing something.
(Dalton63841, jacobus) I'm not dissing them, but don't we need a few more people to check this?

[Eidorian]

More likely an unintended consequence of something else in the power management code.I haven't noticed any gains in my Macbook's battery life since 10.5.7.

[Beric]

Someone in the Apple computer lab has a hackintosh . . .

They realize there's inefficiencies, and notice a subtle bug in the code affecting those atom processors, and so they submit a bug fix to the OS 10.5.7 release code fixing the bug. It's a minor thing, but does no harm to anything else. And they benefit with better battery life.

[mandoman]

Why optimize Leopard for atom processor unless a netbook were coming sooner rather than later? I would have expected a netbook to arrive with Snow Leopard.

[mandoman]

Slow news day...

Do we have more than 2 posters to actually corroborate this?! Front page news?!
Macrumors quoting Wired quoting a forum thread of 10 posts, with 2 people saying they're seeing something.
(Dalton63841, jacobus) I'm not dissing them, but don't we need a few more people to check this?

[t0mat0]

Why optimize Leopard for atom processor unless a netbook were coming sooner rather than later? I would have expected a netbook to arrive with Snow Leopard.

So a potential intentional improvement of power efficiency, specifically for Atom chips, or similar ULV chips?

Agree mandoman - but if it's a slow news day, at least you could do something like 9to5mac, and update the story with some backstory, flesh it out a bit and give it some more credibility...

Are there any Ion based Hackintoshes? Might be worth checking out that too.

[Beric]

Slow news day...

This rumor is just as good as any other Apple netbook rumor we've had in the past. :confused:

[Ade-iMac-177]

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

[VanMac]

Regardless of Apple releasing a netbook, improved power management is always a plus.

[milo]

Especially when everybody sees that those netbook sales are falling down the drain now...

Link?

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

Except that wouldn't work because all the old macs would not have that chip. And it could still probably be hacked around pretty easily. What do you care if somebody runs a hackintosh?

[Santa Rosa]

If this is any indication that Apple is going to release a "netbook" one thing is guaranteed. It will be the most expensive "netbook" on the market.

Might still buy one though! lol :rolleyes: :D

[Eminemdrdre00]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

OS X runs beautifully on an Atom processor with 1 gig of RAM.

[Lesser Evets]

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.

Words that will be eaten well and whole.

Of course, it could turn out to be a tablet instead of a "book" but this product is most likely coming this year.

[dagamer34]

Extra Atom support would probably be for a hardware update to the AppleTV line than anything else. It's hardware is 1.5 years old and it can't do 1080p.

[8CoreWhore]

Why would Apple optimize Leopard for Atom based computer when it would run Snow Leopard? --- Or would it?

[troller]

After 8 months using my macbook I can't use the 1920x1200 Resolution anymore with my HP w2408h and it seems that more people have this problem. WTF ??????

[Bevz]

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

If someone has bought a legitimate copy of leopard what does it matter if they try and instal it on an MSI Wind? Surely that's not hurting anyone?

[NinjaHERO]

This should mean a good battery life on the tablet that we all think is coming. It's the closest apple might get to the netbook. Although with netbook sales going thru the roof it still wouldn't shock me to see an apple netbook.

[zap2]

Of course....right as I was ready to buy a Dell Mini 10v for hackintoshing

Guess I'll keep waiting out the storm!

[milo]

Why would Apple optimize Leopard for Atom based computer when it would run Snow Leopard? --- Or would it?

I assume that certain improvements go into both 10.5.x and 10.6.

[flopticalcube]

I haven't noticed any gains in my Macbook's battery life since 10.5.7.
I just checked mine and it does seem to have given me an extra 45 minutes. At least that is what its reporting. Probably just a random blip.

[twoodcc]

interesting. i really hope apple does release a netbook with a touch screen

[Eidorian]

Link?Well...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217500002&subSection=All+Stories

[Spock]

Extra Atom support would probably be for a hardware update to the AppleTV line than anything else. It's hardware is 1.5 years old and it can't do 1080p.

Im not sure if the current Atom chip can handle 1080p so well either can it? I wouldn't mind a 12 inch MacBook Air with a dual-core Atom under $899

[Bevz]

It may just be a completely unexpected (and unplanned) consequence of apple optimising the power management code in leopard.
However, if it is deliberate it means they're building or prototyping something that uses an intel atom... That would be interesting... I don't believe the netbook rumours but I believe the tablet ones, and this would suggest they would be planning to run (or have played around with running) OSX 10.5.7 on it! Now that would be cool ;) a lot of assumptions, but hey that's what forums on rumour sites are for... I'm keeping my fingers crossed ;)

[localoid]

I haven't noticed any gains in my Macbook's battery life since 10.5.7.

I haven't seen any improvement on my Macbook either, but remember that real Macs use EFI for power management while a Hackintosh has to use other methods, some of which aren't exactly pretty and some of the power management hacks don't always work 100%.

This info regarding the posting in a forum that the article refers to is too sketchy at this point in time to be given much credibility. For all we know the better battery life might be due to something like SpeedStep suddenly beginning to work properly after the 10.5.7 update on this guy's machine.

[FoxyKaye]

I've been mostly content to carry around some form of Apple 'book, be it iBook, PowerBook, MacBook or MB Pro (depending on whatever I check out from work). But I have to confess that after lunking around a hot, heavy, MacBook Pro during a conference while we were having a 90+ degree heat wave got me to really envy the folks with the eePCs and such. And despite the availability of far more superior systems through work, I still find myself traveling with my 12" iBook for basic tasks (Terminal doesn't need a C2D processor, neither does Word, ARD, or Firefox).

So if Apple released a netbook this summer, I'd be very, very, interested.

[macduke]

After 8 months using my macbook I can't use the 1920x1200 Resolution anymore with my HP w2408h and it seems that more people have this problem. WTF ??????

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090512221023108 (http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090512221023108)

Scroll down to "Display Resolutions are Incorrect"

That should fix your monitor problems with 10.5.7.

[mandoman]

Of course....right as I was ready to buy a Dell Mini 10v for hackintoshing

Guess I'll keep waiting out the storm!

Dell 10v with 945GSE is new I guess? Maybe no one was buying the regular dell 10 because you can't hackintosh it (integrated graphics 500), so they brought out the 10v. Interesting...

[milo]

Well...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217500002&subSection=All+Stories

Well...

Thanks for the link, but not working here.

Dell 10v with 945GSE is new I guess? Maybe no one was buying the regular dell 10 because you can't hackintosh it (integrated graphics 500), so they brought out the 10v. Interesting...

Probably more that the old mini 10 had worse specs than the 9, such as a slower processor.

[DELLsFan]

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

I'll just add my thoughts to the chorus so far: WTF are you so dead set against Hackintoshes? Because Apple is? Pfffft. :rolleyes:

I salute you eggheads who have mastered the art of putting Mac OS X on different hardware. IMO, the more exposure to what really is possible, the better. It's Mac OS X I love. The hardware comes and goes ... and my opinion is: I'd rather see more options than fewer.

:apple:

[yashiro]

Didn't the original hacks involve removing some intel kexts related to power optimisation in order to increase performance?

If said modules are re-added then the hackintoshes might gain battery life at the expense of benchmarked performance.

[winterspan]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

Exactly. I refuse to go back in time by 4 years just to have a cheap netbook. I'm much more interested in Intel's "CULV" line-up which are reduced cost versions of their Core 2 Duo ULV (ultra-low-voltage) chips.

I can see Apple loving the Atom platform for how thin and lightweight they would be able to make a computer. But hopefully if they do indeed use Atom for a small notebook or tablet, they tell Intel to go to hell and they use the dual-core version. Intel's licensing is the only reason why all the crappy netbooks on the market use a single-core atom --- i.e. they don't want to cannibalize their far more profitable lower-end Core 2/Celeron chips

[milo]

Exactly. I refuse to go back in time by 4 years just to have a cheap netbook. I'm much more interested in Intel's "CULV" line-up which are reduced cost versions of their Core 2 Duo ULV (ultra-low-voltage) chips.

I can see Apple loving the Atom platform for how thin and lightweight they would be able to make a computer. But hopefully if they do indeed use Atom for a small notebook or tablet, they tell Intel to go to hell and they use the dual-core version. Intel's licensing is the only reason why all the crappy netbooks on the market use a single-core atom --- i.e. they don't want to cannibalize their far more profitable lower-end Core 2/Celeron chips

Are the core 2/celeron variants able to get the same battery life? And the same tiny form factors, with proper cooling? Cost isn't the only factor here.

[cubedweller]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

Clearly you haven't used OS X running on an Intel Atom processor then. I have no lag on my Dell Mini 9 running 10.5.7 -- in fact, for most of my uses, it is much faster than my 2.4GHz MacBook Pro.

[Eidorian]

Well...

Thanks for the link, but not working here.The link works fine here and on several other machines.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13690&Itemid=1

[iPoodOverZune]

I'll just add my thoughts to the chorus so far: WTF are you so dead set against Hackintoshes? Because Apple is? Pfffft. :rolleyes:

I salute you eggheads who have mastered the art of putting Mac OS X on different hardware. IMO, the more exposure to what really is possible, the better. It's Mac OS X I love. The hardware comes and goes ... and my opinion is: I'd rather see more options than fewer.

:apple:

Touche!

It looks like either they are just fanatics or working for Apple and surely there must be some that are sour grapes variety who could not build a hackintosh on their own and would cry out of jealousy/anger. I bet if you build one for them, they will stop crying and will also know what most of us, who have built one, talk about and rave about.

It shouldn't be your problem these hackintoshes are built. That is Apple's! Let them handle it if they cannot satisfy the customer requirement, for eg: a Mac Desktop (not the workstation variety of >2500) which is not an iMac. I just build a Mac 3.0 GHz Intel dual core E5200, overclocked 256 mb 720mhz 8600GT, 4 gb RAM, 640 GB WD, for mere $450 (with shipping charges and all of the necessary componenets). And I bet it will beat the heck out of your mini or even the base model iMac (with less than half that price). It works well and can upgrade too (with minimal caution). I understand Apple needs margins as well, but as long as Apple does not bring a choice for Mac Desktop (with full upgradability) at a starting price of at least ~700, I will keep hackintoshing.

(And don't harp too much about custom chipset by Apple and all. After observing this community for about two years, I can tell you they will break it whatever comes their way. Just like with efi emulator, drivers for tons of different GPUs and all, it will be a matter of time before a work around will be found)

[gmcalpin]

Extra Atom support would probably be for a hardware update to the AppleTV line than anything else. It's hardware is 1.5 years old and it can't do 1080p.
But AppleTV doesn't run OSX, so why might this have anything to do with that?

[bedifferent]

I'll just add my thoughts to the chorus so far: WTF are you so dead set against Hackintoshes? Because Apple is? Pfffft. :rolleyes:

I salute you eggheads who have mastered the art of putting Mac OS X on different hardware. IMO, the more exposure to what really is possible, the better. It's Mac OS X I love. The hardware comes and goes ... and my opinion is: I'd rather see more options than fewer.

:apple:

I agree, the OS makes the real difference. However, I still love the look and feel of Apple's industrial designing and will gladly pay the premium. On the other hand, the premium for the Mac Pro systems doesn't seem worth it (unless the Intel Neh. processors are relatively on par). As workstations are most often hidden under desks, I would rather build a comparable system and with the extra cash purchase purchase a nice 30" display (or two). Although I know Dell makes nice displays, I still love the aesthetics of the Aluminum Cinema displays.

Hey Dells, I got your PM, I haven't had the chance in writing back yet. I'll shoot you a response later tonight. :)

[drsmithy]

Clearly you haven't used OS X running on an Intel Atom processor then. I have no lag on my Dell Mini 9 running 10.5.7 -- in fact, for most of my uses, it is much faster than my 2.4GHz MacBook Pro.

Then there's something seriously wrong with your MBP. The procesor in it is *at least* 5x faster than the Atom, and that's before accounting for the dramatically faster video hardware.

Atom CPUs are _slow_. They're basically nothing more than a turbocharged Pentium MMX (yes, without even a 'II') on a big fat FSB.

[cubedweller]

But AppleTV doesn't run OSX, so why might this have anything to do with that?

Sure it does. It runs a slimmed down version of Tiger (10.4), if I'm not mistaken.

[redrabbit]

Especially when everybody sees that those netbook sales are falling down the drain now...it was just a ridiculous fad to cater to people that feel like working in tiny screens with a tiny keyboard...only Apple is able to reinvent this concept as it did with the iPod and the iPhone; and it's NOT gonna happen now, because they know how ridiculous margins are for these crappy products.

Bummer! I wish I had known sales are "falling down the drain" since I just sold my MBP to pick up an Asus eee 1000HE! 10" is more than enough for simple browsing and note taking (do you have a similar issue with the iPhone's relatively small screen, as well then?). And you can't beat the 9.5 hour battery life it gets! Right now, I love this thing but am glad I have someone like you to tell me how bad these netbooks are and correct my opinion!

[peepboon]

oooo... amazing news :D - perhaps they released it to see if it would actually work on hackintosh netbooks so that they themselves can confirm that it will be a good choice for their own :apple: Netbook?

[Eriamjh1138@DAN]

With 10.5.7, my CD MBP is reporting 2:44 to 3hours of battery life . It seems to be higher than normal (about 2:30 typical). My battery is a year old. I guess I'm going to use it to see.

As for Hackintoshes, wouldn't my 1.83Ghz CD spank any netbook? I think I'll keep it.

[thejadedmonkey]

Apple doesn't improve on hardware they don't make without reason. I see this as Apple subtly admitting that they don't have a product for that market segment, and helping those who chose to go the hackintosh route by optomizing drivers for them.

[wizard]

This is what came to my mind right off the bat. An engineer invoked in OS/X development found a bug that was impacting his hackintosh.

Someone in the Apple computer lab has a hackintosh . . .

They realize there's inefficiencies, and notice a subtle bug in the code affecting those atom processors, and so they submit a bug fix to the OS 10.5.7 release code fixing the bug. It's a minor thing, but does no harm to anything else. And they benefit with better battery life.

I do wonder if anybody has bothered to look for ATOM specific code inSnow Leopard. Frankly I'd be very surprised but the chip could find use in Apple TV. That is about the only thing it is good for with respect to Apples lineup.

Dave

[kcmac]

I don't know about anyone else, but I have an old battery. Lasts for about 45 minutes tops. After the update, Coconutbattery showed that my battery was all of a sudden like new.

However, when the battery percentage in the menubar hit 65% my battery went dead.....

I think its a glitch.

12" PB 867.

[amac4me]

Extra Atom support would probably be for a hardware update to the AppleTV line than anything else. It's hardware is 1.5 years old and it can't do 1080p.

I've been holding out for a while now ... I really want to get an AppleTV but want a new model. Hopefully Apple has new ones in the near future.

[DELLsFan]

I agree, the OS makes the real difference. However, I still love the look and feel of Apple's industrial designing and will gladly pay the premium. On the other hand, the premium for the Mac Pro systems doesn't seem worth it (unless the Intel Neh. processors are relatively on par). As workstations are most often hidden under desks, I would rather build a comparable system and with the extra cash purchase purchase a nice 30" display (or two). Although I know Dell makes nice displays, I still love the aesthetics of the Aluminum Cinema displays.

Hey Dells, I got your PM, I haven't had the chance in writing back yet. I'll shoot you a response later tonight. :)

Oh I wish I could feel and share the love in those Cinema displays. The price tags just make the Baby Jesus cry, I'm sorry to say. No really - I checked. ;)

Thanks for your PM in advance. /salute

[code4fun]

Adding support for the Atom platform can only mean Apple has a netbook/tablet of its own coming. Way cool! Can't wait for the announcement although I'm hoping it will be ARM based that can crush the Kindle. :)

[redrabbit]

Adding support for the Atom platform can only mean Apple has a netbook/tablet of its own coming. Way cool! Can't wait for the announcement although I'm hoping it will be ARM based that can crush the Kindle. :)

Unless it has an e-ink display, it would be no where near as good as the Kindle for reading books. And who said anything about adding support for Intel Atom? I think you misinterpreted the article.

[cubedweller]

Then there's something seriously wrong with your MBP. The procesor in it is *at least* 5x faster than the Atom, and that's before accounting for the dramatically faster video hardware.

Atom CPUs are _slow_. They're basically nothing more than a turbocharged Pentium MMX (yes, without even a 'II') on a big fat FSB.

Uh.... no. My MBP runs perfectly fine. The reason why the Mini9 performs so well is due in large part to the SSD. Applications load almost immediately. Much faster than with a standard platter hard drive, as in the MBP. When I had my 32GB RunCore connected to my MBP, it ran amazingly fast, very similar to how it runs in the Mini9.

I was careful with the way I worded my statement: I said "for most of my uses" and I meant that. Yes, if I'm ripping MP3's or converting video I will use my MBP at it definitely has more processing power. But for average use (e.g. web browsing, email, chat, etc.) the Mini9 performs as well, if not better, than my MBP. For these tasks you do not need lots of processing power.

I've used every variety of Mac available -- and my mini9 will hold its own against any of them for everyday usage.

[jjahshik32]

Wow very suspicious concerning the optimization for atom processors. Now I'm 100% sure that we'll see an apple netbook.

[dolphin842]

But AppleTV doesn't run OSX, so why might this have anything to do with that?
Sure it does. It runs a slimmed down version of Tiger (10.4), if I'm not mistaken.

Indeed it does. Incidentally, that's why the hacked 'AppleTV for Mac' software only works on Tiger.

Im not sure if the current Atom chip can handle 1080p so well either can it? I wouldn't mind a 12 inch MacBook Air with a dual-core Atom under $899

An Atom-powered AppleTV would likely get an assist from the graphics chip (just like the current AppleTV). This would work for netbooks as well, provided they use an appropriate platform such as nVidia's Ion chipset, which includes a GPU that can decode HD. GPU-assisted decoding can already be seen in the current MacBook (Pro).

If I were Apple, though, I'd look into the next-gen ARM chips for a future AppleTV (or, as past rumors suggested, just dock the next-gen iPhone).

[Beric]

This is what came to my mind right off the bat. An engineer invoked in OS/X development found a bug that was impacting his hackintosh.



I do wonder if anybody has bothered to look for ATOM specific code inSnow Leopard. Frankly I'd be very surprised but the chip could find use in Apple TV. That is about the only thing it is good for with respect to Apples lineup.

Dave

Yup. I think it's far more likely that someone in Apple was in on this, than that there's actually going to be an Apple netbook. Just a few lines of code and you have better battery life. If I were an Apple engineer, why would I not do it?

[Rocketman]

Yup. I think it's far more likely that someone in Apple was in on this, than that there's actually going to be an Apple netbook. Just a few lines of code and you have better battery life. If I were an Apple engineer, why would I not do it?

I think there is more "corporate control" of code than that.

Rocketman

[dolphin842]

Yup. I think it's far more likely that someone in Apple was in on this, than that there's actually going to be an Apple netbook. Just a few lines of code and you have better battery life. If I were an Apple engineer, why would I not do it?

I would imagine that every specific patch of the OS X code is carefully and deliberately considered before being incorporated... I find it hard to believe how something like this would make it through? I would also imagine that there might be consequences of an engineer modifying OS X for the specific purpose of supporting/enhancing an unapproved piece of hardware. Who's to say such a modification wouldn't have other effects, or just add to the general complication/bloat of the software?

All of this is to say I'm not sure that it's so easy to explain away the performance benefits as an engineer's pet project.

[Beric]

I think there is more "corporate control" of code than that.

Rocketman

Would it not be equally easy to find a "valid" reason for doing it?

[Powerbooky]

Do we have more than 2 posters to actually corroborate this?! Front page news?!
Macrumors quoting Wired quoting a forum thread of 10 posts, with 2 people saying they're seeing something.
(Dalton63841, jacobus) I'm not dissing them, but don't we need a few more people to check this?

Indeed.

btw... are there any new rumors about the PowerPC G6 cpu's?
:p

[Keness]

Im not sure if the current Atom chip can handle 1080p so well either can it? I wouldn't mind a 12 inch MacBook Air with a dual-core Atom under $899

The Z500-series Atoms can handle 1080p, but good drivers would be needed. The Windows drivers are "not ideal" and the linux drivers don't really even exist, as I understand it. The Z500-series is more common in embedded devices and such, rather than netbooks which use the N270 a lot. The N270, with its companion chips, can't decode 1080p fast enough, but it is cheaper.

One nice thing is that if Apple WERE to use the Z500-series in a product, they would probably take care of making their own OS X driver. That chip actually has very impressive video capabilities, but it is completely wasted due to the lack of drivers on the platforms it is currently used.

[Keness]

Apple doesn't improve on hardware they don't make without reason. I see this as Apple subtly admitting that they don't have a product for that market segment, and helping those who chose to go the hackintosh route by optomizing drivers for them.

That would be very... unlike them. Not that I'm saying they're evil or anything, that's not for this discussion, but I just can't see then dedicating the low-level programming time (no trivial amount of time either, I wouldn't imagine) for the kind of reason you describe. It just doesn't strike me as an idea that would even register within 100 miles of their radar.

As others have said, I would suspect it is either (1) because there is an Atom-based device in the future (AppleTV does seem possible.) or (2) the optimizations were basically unintentional "gravy" which tagged along with some other optimizations they implemented.

[peepboon]

Erm, anyone who knows a lot about hardware, any chance u can give a guess on what hardware Apple would probably use? Firstly, it has to be able to run the up and coming Snow Leopard i guess

[fuziwuzi]

After 8 months using my macbook I can't use the 1920x1200 Resolution anymore with my HP w2408h and it seems that more people have this problem. WTF ??????

are you sure u don't just need to turn off "mirror display"

*i dun't know why i am even replying to a person called troll -__-*

[fpnc]

I just installed 10.5.7 on my MacBook and now everything is working a lot faster and I've been running on the battery for 8 hours straight!

YMMV. :rolleyes:

[Mackan]

Great, can they also go on and improve the battery life in Windows for their MacBooks? Basically, provide power management drivers, please? Because I am tired of Apple advertising Windows support via Boot Camp, yet they forget to mention your battery life will suck donkey balls because that's how they want it.

[fpnc]

are you sure u don't just need to turn off "mirror display"

*i dun't know why i am even replying to a person called troll -__-*
Actually, there are a lot of reports concerning problems with display resolutions after the 10.5.7 update. However, it seems that most of them involve displays that are connected over HDMI. In fact, it looks like Apple is detecting (correctly or incorrectly) that a display is running over HDMI and then assumes that it must be an HDTV and so then limits the maximum resolution to 1080p (1920x1080).

In any case, they've definitely done something to the way they handle HDTVs and this may have had consequences for users who are attached to third-party displays.

[Pugpuppydude]

iTabby!

[leonstafford]

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

wow, you are a narc...

can we put DRM in our toothbrushes, too?

FTW, use a hackintosh!

[zman911]

Extra Atom support would probably be for a hardware update to the AppleTV line than anything else. It's hardware is 1.5 years old and it can't do 1080p.

That's a great assumption and I could see that being the case if it weren't for one thing. Isn't 1080p a little taxing for an atom processor? The Apple TV will need one heck of a GPU if it hopes to really offer a 1080p experience on Apple TV.

(See link: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-atom-gn40-blu-ray,7243.html)

It is also worth noting the Apple TV does not currently use an atom processor.

(See link: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/03/28/whats_inside_an_apple_tv_tear_down_reveals_almost_all.html)

[BohoTrash]

Im not sure if the current Atom chip can handle 1080p so well either can it? I wouldn't mind a 12 inch MacBook Air with a dual-core Atom under $899

Oh man. I've been so non-plussed about the idea of a netbook, but all of a sudden a 12 inch Air is looking, well, kind of tasty!

[peepboon]

to think about it... why will it use touchscreen? The only reason which i can think of is that it wont use a keyboard/mouse. But the USB ports or bluetooth will support the bluetooth mouse... as a mouse would be needed for programs such as Photoshop, etc.

Or perhaps the keyboard would be virtual and there will be a clip on bluetooth one? It would be annoying when ur fingers get in the way during editing...

[Monty1]

wow detective great connection really!

[contractcooker]

Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.

i dont understand why some people want to police other people.

[gkarris]

That's a great assumption and I could see that being the case if it weren't for one thing. Isn't 1080p a little taxing for an atom processor? The Apple TV will need one heck of a GPU if it hopes to really offer a 1080p experience on Apple TV.

nVidia Ion for the Intel Atom is your friend...

http://www.nvidia.com/object/sff_ion.html

[Eidorian]

nVidia Ion for the Intel Atom is your friend...

http://www.nvidia.com/object/sff_ion.htmlYeah it's amazing that many people still look to decode video on the CPU alone. Then again that's all that Apple gives us.

[shyataroo]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

I ran 10.4.x on a iMac G3 @ 450Mhz and it didn't lag one bit (it just took forever to launch applications)

[peepboon]

lol... perhaps it will be a stripped version of OSX? :S

[MacFly123]

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.

Yes, very interesting.

I am a bit confused about this one though, because I think a product in the netbook category could happen, but more along the lines of the tablet, however, I am almost certain that the tablet would run the iPhone OS with the App Store. But it does add sense to why 10.5.7 took so long.

I dunno :confused: Any thoughts people?

[bbrosemer]

So people think ... apple is optimizing 10.5.7 for Atom processors ... If they are doing that it is for reasons I will get to in a minute ... Why would they do this ... if they are planing on releasing a netbook it will almost 99% without a doubt ship with 10.6 ... not 10.5 ... I have not heard of it being popular for Mac users to downgrade say from my mac shipped with Leopard let's install Tiger for fun ... I think it sadly is 100x more likely that this was intentional if and only if ... Leopard owners get free upgrades to 10.6 then I could see this being a real possibility , the last explanation I believe someone said was that apple would be shipping a stripped OSX to the Netbooks ... also I could see that as possible but ... really how stripped, or just flat out licensing a stripped down version of OSX to netbooks ... once again not a reality ... I think the main reason that apple did this if be it intentional was atom chips will be in some upcoming unit be it an apple TV or whatever ... and apple wanted to see the response from netbook users about performance improvements, especially knowing that if a hackintosh see upgrades then a mac should too if they focus on a specific hardware set ...

[designgeek]

I'm with Eidorian, flopticalcube, t0mat0, and may others on this.
1st: why front page?
2nd: why would there be a string for the atoms in Leopard with WWDC a few weeks away when any netbook that would possibly be would come out? And wouldn't it ship with SL unless SL isn't expected to ship until December? (which it won't)

If anything my guess would be improved power management that happens to greatly improve hackbook battery life where it was supposed to slightly improve power use on macbook (pro/air). All said I'm not inclined to believe this particular take on the netbook rumor. There may be one in the future but I doubt this is a sign.

[chedda]

let's not forget apple's special relationship with intel perhaps they are working on something specific like they did with the air ?

[zeromeus]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/14/mac-os-x-10-5-7-update-improves-battery-life-on-hackintosh-netbooks/)

Wired summarizes (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/apple-os-x-update-gives-battery-boost-to-hackintoshes/) some surprising experiences of users who have hacked their MSI Wind netbooks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_Netbook) to run Mac OS X. These so called "hackintoshes" when updated to Mac OS X 10.5.7 have experienced dramatic boosts in battery effeciency. The reports suggest that Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.7 contain added optimizations for Intel's Atom processor and associated hardware. This, of course, is prompting speculation that support for such configurations may hint at new Apple notebooks based on similar netbook designs.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a netbook with a possible release this year.

Article Link: Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update Improves Battery Life on 'Hackintosh' Netbooks? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/14/mac-os-x-10-5-7-update-improves-battery-life-on-hackintosh-netbooks/)

It would run SNOW LEOPARD, not 10.5.7. Therefore, I don't think the reason behind the improved battery life has anything to do with an Atom based netbook.

It just so happens that 10.5.7 makes everything run more smoothly making the system having to correct less errors thereby reducing CPU, memory, and other hardware usage and increase battery life.

Therefore, I don't believe this improved battery life on the hackintoshes has anything to do with the Atom processor.

[Stridder44]

Interesting stuff, but just what we don't need... more pointless rumors about an apple product that just isn't going to happen.


Prepare to eat your words.

[Thex1138]

Sooo... Apple improves power efficiency for the hackintosh clan... I think not!

The Third Reckoning of Apple-Jobs is iTouch;
With the recent hirings for hardware, software, the recent flurry of patents 2008 and the apparent recent bulk 10 inch screen orders one would think Lazarus Jobs' is striding the surface of his Macbook Touch project at a more accelerated pace and spinning up the Apple FTL for a Touchbook future...

Stay Tuned.

[iMaggot]

Looks like the new update fix hackintoshes and broke real Macs lol.

[product26]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

snow leopard...

[aleksandra.]

Well that's great, Apple improves battery life on hackbooks, yet my Air now seems to consistently run hotter and hence shorter life. Cheers very much!

*grumble grumble snow leopard better not be like this grumble grumble*

... my Air seems to run slightly cooler with 10.5.7 - like 2-3 C less.

(I have a rev. B.)

[hiimamac]

[QUOTE=Ade-iMac-177;7616586]Cool. Let's hope we see an Atom powered Mac. I hope has collected all the chip manufacturers so that it can make a chip for all the new macs they make so that OS X will not boot unless it detects this chip. Hopefully this will stop Hackintoshes.[/QUOTE
Applemdoesng care. Especiallybsine most hack users end up buying a real mac and you can't beat building a $700 sysem that runs close too a
Mac pro for video and rendering. The pros shloud have bee i7 machines anyway

[gojira]

I haven't tested the battery life on my 2.6Ghz MacBook Pro, but 10.5.7 FINALLY fixed the sleep problem I've been having since 10.5.5!

I use an external 1920 x 1200 monitor and whe I would wake the system from sleep, the internal MBP display would go dark after 5 or 10 seconds. At first I was restarting, thinking it might be a video circuit problem. Once I tried hitting the screen brightness keys and it the MBP monitor worked fine.

The first time I woke my system after applying the 10.5.7 update the MBP's monitor stayed on! FINALLY!

As for hackintoshes, if someone wants to trust their work and data to unsupported hardware, fine. Just don't cry when something goes wrong.

I want a full size screen, keyboard and well designed and build gear, so those teensy weensy netbook POS boxes have zero appeal for me.

[bogg]

Yeah it's amazing that many people still look to decode video on the CPU alone. Then again that's all that Apple gives us.

My MB Unibody decodes h264 in GPU...

[gojira]

Oh man. I've been so non-plussed about the idea of a netbook, but all of a sudden a 12 inch Air is looking, well, kind of tasty!

The MB Air's 13" display is a great size and not too much of a compromise.

If Apple would shrink the width of the bezel around the MacBook Air's display to say 1/4", it would make the entire thing MUCH smaller and more appealing.

Chopping a few hundred bucks of the price and adding a FireWire 800 port would help, too.

[wHo_tHe]

I am looking forward to installing 10.5.7 on my MSI Wind MacBook.

I will tell you this much, the Wind is the cheapest Mac I've ever owned, and quite possibly my favorite, despite some ergonomic shortcomings Apple could easily engineer away.

My own hope is that Apple's Netbook will be "all-screen" -- essentially four LCD/OLED panels that open and close like a book. Add some haptics and we've got ourselves a party.

[dazcox5181]

Returned my Advent 4211 (same as Wind but PCWorld UK own branding) to OSX yesterday because I heard about this and...
...nothing...squat...no improvement whatsoever, so I'm taking these reports with a pinch of salt for now.

Whilst I'd love an 'official' apple netbook apples pricing usually puts it out of my reach, I'm not spending £500+ on a netbook unless it does something really special...actually, damn, knowing apple it will :(

[Master Chief]

But AppleTV doesn't run OSX, so why might this have anything to do with that?

Now imagine that Apple Inc is actually working on a replacement... one with a new remote control running iPhone OS 3.0 (touch screen) and a new CPU.

p.s. I do happen to know someone (the same guy who blogged about the OS X 10.5.7 release a day before anyone else got it) who is working on a new Apple device (as in writing software for it) due to be released later this year.

[Marx55]

Apple, bring the Mac netbook (or Mac tablet), but with 400 g or less and capable of opening NATIVE Keynote and PowerPoint presentations. Because even the MacBook Air is too large and heavy!

[iansilv]

I would say this is pretty serious confirmation that Intel's atom and Nvidia's ion are going in to a tablet of some sort. The battery increase is the evidence there.

I would also say that the product will be announced at wwdc- as if it was not going to be there would be no reason to include the extra code affecting the batteries in the 10.5.7 release- they could have just waited for snow leopard or dropped 10.5.8 later.

I also think this means it will be running OSX and not the iPhone OS, which is nice.

Hmmm... maybe that iProd dock will be the dock for the tablet to let it connect to a full-size monitor... hmmm.... furthermore hmmm....

[preservative]

Atom!

[iansilv]

nVidia Ion for the Intel Atom is your friend...

http://www.nvidia.com/object/sff_ion.html

gkarris FTW!

Like, seriously- everyone needs to be looking in the direction of ion.

[cecemf]

Maybe for a futur :apple: TV !!!

[Tommeh]

I also own one of these netbooks with OSX installed and I noticed some improvement also. Don't know if I would expect any Atom-Mac however, Apple always shared the non-interest with current Atom netbooks describing them as poorly spec'd with crappy keyboards etc.

[iansilv]

With the emphasis being placed on the crappy keyboard part of the equation...

[talkingfuture]

All this talk of a Mac Netbook sounds so promising. I'd love a 10 inch ish Air to go with my iMac. I think I would prefer that to the mythical table when I start to think of the practicalities of actually using the thing.

[hiimamac]

I am looking forward to installing 10.5.7 on my MSI Wind MacBook.

I will tell you this much, the Wind is the cheapest Mac I've ever owned, and quite possibly my favorite, despite some ergonomic shortcomings Apple could easily engineer away.

My own hope is that Apple's Netbook will be "all-screen" -- essentially four LCD/OLED panels that open and close like a book. Add some haptics and we've got ourselves a party.

Now that's a thought. Add oled, thatbis very apple, then charge $2500, very apple. LOL.

[Evangelion]

Especially when everybody sees that those netbook sales are falling down the drain now.

No they aren't:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/164268/netbook_shipments_jump.html

"IDC last week said worldwide netbook shipments went up sevenfold to roughly 4.5 million during the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same quarter last year."

Yeah, going down the drain indeed :rolleyes:

it was just a ridiculous fad to cater to people that feel like working in tiny screens with a tiny keyboard...only Apple is able to reinvent this concept as it did with the iPod and the iPhone; and it's NOT gonna happen now, because they know how ridiculous margins are for these crappy products.

There are lots and lots of people getting good use from those computers as we sepak, so how could they be "crappy"? Sure, they might noit be as good as a MacBook, but their cost is 1/3 of a MacBook, and they are small enough to be carried all the time. The positive qualities of a MacBook do not matter, if the computer is in your study, and you are sitting in a cafe, now do they? The best computer you can have, is the computer that is available to you.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

This is almost like winning the lottery for those with these types of hackintoshes. They just got a pleasant surprise.

[Chupa Chupa]

Especially when everybody sees that those netbook sales are falling down the drain now...it was just a ridiculous fad to cater to people that feel like working in tiny screens with a tiny keyboard...only Apple is able to reinvent this concept as it did with the iPod and the iPhone; and it's NOT gonna happen now, because they know how ridiculous margins are for these crappy products.

You got a cite to back up your claim that netbook sales are falling? Personally every netbook sales article I've read lately is positive like this one in InformationWeek:http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217500002&subSection=All+Stories. Facts, man. Gimme some facts, and not the ones you pulled from your backside.

From what I'm seeing netbooks are not a fad, they are a solid segment of the laptop market, much like roadsters are in the auto market. No, they are not for everyone, but they are for enough for companies to justify making them.

Personally I have a Lenovo S10. The keyboard IS horrendous, but the rest of the machine is just fine. They are certainly good enough to go on the web and edit a short memo just like the machines are designed to do. In fact when I go on short biz trips I take my S10 instead of my MBP b/c it's lighter and easier to use on a plane.

Now if you want a less than stellar product then take a look at the MBA. Not only it is overpriced for what it is, is has 1 USB port. A $1800-2300 laptop with ONE USB port and a weak processor. Come on. We both know Apple can do better than that, and, hopefull it will.

[cecemf]

Wish one of the Dell mini 10, MSI wind or Lenovo S10 is the best for Mac OSX Leopard ?

[sneeks]

Wish one of the Dell mini 10, MSI wind or Lenovo S10 is the best for Mac OSX Leopard ?

The Dell Mini 10v which has just been released should support OS X but until one is delivered nobody knows for sure. Note the original Mini 10 does not support OS X. The Mini 9 runs it perfectly.

[cecemf]

The Dell Mini 10v which has just been released should support OS X but until one is delivered nobody knows for sure. Note the original Mini 10 does not support OS X. The Mini 9 runs it perfectly.

Cool, what's the difference with 10 and 10v ?

[headfuzz]

The Mini 9 runs it perfectly.

Yes it does :D

Which reminds me, must find some room in my sig for my Hackbook Nano ;)

As far as Atom optimization goes, I doubt it's explicitly there in 10.5.7, unless Apple plan on releasing something at WWDC and don't believe enough changes will have been made in time to warrant releasing 10.5.8 by then...

Regardless, I'll be intrigued to see how much of a longevity boost 10.5.7 will give my Mini 9 :cool:

[lazyrighteye]

Of course....right as I was ready to buy a Dell Mini 10v for hackintoshing

Guess I'll keep waiting out the storm!

Your patience shall be rewarded.

[layte]

My MB Unibody decodes h264 in GPU...

Only the very latest model Mac's do. My SR MBP with the self cooking 8600GT does not, even though it is fully capable of doing so, and when booted into Vista it manages to do that very task.

[preservative]

The Dell Mini 10v which has just been released should support OS X but until one is delivered nobody knows for sure. Note the original Mini 10 does not support OS X. The Mini 9 runs it perfectly.

Yeah but the 10v loses all the best bits. Dell should have sold the Mini 10 with a gma950 in the first place.

[buckyballs]

Extra Atom support would probably be for a hardware update to the AppleTV line than anything else. It's hardware is 1.5 years old and it can't do 1080p.

Yes, but isn't nVidia's Ion platform powered by Atom? AFAIK it also uses the 9400M chipset/GPU, which we know Apple's quite fond of. Also, we're pretty sure that Apple not only have engineering samples of Ion, but have for quite some time.

I'd agree it was for AppleTV though, since better power management not only improves battery life on portables, but it makes them run cooler on all devices

And to the person who asked about the power management code, you could have a look, since Apple makes it open source

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/PowerManagement/PowerManagement-158.10/

[BayouTiger]

Of the three, I think the Wind is great because of the online community surrounding it. I got one just to use for work. I turn on control systems with my laptop and I was tired of having my $3k+ 17" MBP on jobsites. My Wind serves this purpose perfectly and with the 2Gb and 320 drive it runs OSX flawlessly. I just need the 6 cell battery.

[vettori]

I'd like to see a touchscreen tablet with 8" to 10" screen, wifi and 3g networks, capable of running all iPhone apps and eventually regular mac osx apps.

If the price is right, think about the potential... :)

[sneeks]

Cool, what's the difference with 10 and 10v ?

Several small differences but the 10v has a change of graphics card which is the main step required for OS X support.

If you can cope with the Mini 9 then I'd highly recommend it, probably the best netbook to install OS X onto without running into problems. Everything works.

[deadfish]

I have a mini9 with os x and I ran it last night for the first time off the grid and it seemed like I had 1-2 additional hours with 10.7- I didn't time it, but it was significant. I love my mini9, I run windows on it via virtualbox. Things do slow down a bit if you open a ton of apps at once, but overall it's a wonderful machine. It's powerful enough that I sold my MBP two weeks ago and I'm now using the mini9 as a full replacement for that machine. At home I landscape with a 22" HD monitor and use an bluetooth mouse and keyboard with it.

[TraceyS/FL]

Several small differences but the 10v has a change of graphics card which is the main step required for OS X support.

If you can cope with the Mini 9 then I'd highly recommend it, probably the best netbook to install OS X onto without running into problems. Everything works.

I have a mini9 with os x and I ran it last night for the first time off the grid and it seemed like I had 1-2 additional hours with 10.7- I didn't time it, but it was significant. I love my mini9, I run windows on it via virtualbox. Things do slow down a bit if you open a ton of apps at once, but overall it's a wonderful machine. It's powerful enough that I sold my MBP two weeks ago and I'm now using the mini9 as a full replacement for that machine. At home I landscape with a 22" HD monitor and use an bluetooth mouse and keyboard with it.

I'm facing needing to do something along this lines for my DD. I hate that i "have" to too..... but anyway...

WOuld the 10v be easier if i waited a few months? My timeline is probably summer - unless the iBook totally dies before then. The size is perfect for her at 12", so i'm not sure she will like going down. I guess I should take her to the store somewhere and check the sizing of them out.

And, will i be able to continue to buy the mini9? that is another worry - that the "easy" route goes away.... just call it, "Tracey Luck" - because mine has stunk lately.

[sneeks]

WOuld the 10v be easier if i waited a few months?

And, will i be able to continue to buy the mini9? that is another worry - that the "easy" route goes away.... just call it, "Tracey Luck" - because mine has stunk lately.

There have been rumours recently that the Mini 9 is nearing the end of its life cycle but no official news. The Mini 10v certainly looks like it will support OS X and we will hopefully know in the next couple of weeks when they start to be delivered. I don't know if anyone has confirmed that you can upgrade from the default 1GB RAM.

[TraceyS/FL]

There have been rumours recently that the Mini 9 is nearing the end of its life cycle but no official news. The Mini 10v certainly looks like it will support OS X and we will hopefully know in the next couple of weeks when they start to be delivered. I don't know if anyone has confirmed that you can upgrade from the default 1GB RAM.

Thanks - i'll keep an ear open then!

[starkruzr]

Just wanted to add to the chorus of "my Dell Mini 9 is awesome under OS X!" folks. Upgraded to 10.5.7 the other day and everything went smoothly, but I haven't tested the battery yet.

It's curious to me that OS X runs more smoothly than any other OS on this machine; I've tried XP, Win7, and Ubuntu NBR on it and it is slicker and smoother than all of them. This combined with the 10.5.7 battery improvements reported makes me thing Apple is working on an Atom-powered machine.

I would almost certainly sell my DM9 and buy an Apple netbook if they came out with one. Time will tell...

[cecemf]

Several small differences but the 10v has a change of graphics card which is the main step required for OS X support.

If you can cope with the Mini 9 then I'd highly recommend it, probably the best netbook to install OS X onto without running into problems. Everything works.

Cool thanks !

shame that the 10v we can't change the screen for an HD one ! or change the batterie to 6cells !

[headfuzz]

After my initial excitement I realised that although I've got 8Gb of expansion in the SD card slot, my SSD only has 200Mb odd free and not the 1.3 Gb (:eek:) required by the 10.5.7 update, d'oh! :rolleyes:

Guess I'll be buying either the 16Gb or 32Gb Runcore SSD come payday then :)

[michael.lauden]

I have a mini9 with os x and I ran it last night for the first time off the grid and it seemed like I had 1-2 additional hours with 10.7- I didn't time it, but it was significant. I love my mini9, I run windows on it via virtualbox. Things do slow down a bit if you open a ton of apps at once, but overall it's a wonderful machine. It's powerful enough that I sold my MBP two weeks ago and I'm now using the mini9 as a full replacement for that machine. At home I landscape with a 22" HD monitor and use an bluetooth mouse and keyboard with it.

wow you have 10.7???

[TraceyS/FL]

Cool thanks !

shame that the 10v we can't change the screen for an HD one ! or change the batterie to 6cells !

That was an option for me when i built one last night to see pricing. It was cheap too. Maybe just a US thing? (i'll attach a screen shot).

The big thing for me was the fact that i could get a regular drive in the 10v. I"m tired of juggling the 10gb on the iBook now, and like the 120gb much better. The 8gb option means daily shuffling of files... teh 120 has the ability to load a week at a time.

[BRLawyer]

Link?



Here.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21836309

[madmaxmedia]

Wish one of the Dell mini 10, MSI wind or Lenovo S10 is the best for Mac OSX Leopard ?

The Samsung (I think NC10?) is also a good budget choice. Compatibility seems just as good as the MSI, plus it comes with 6 cell battery-

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=137314

[madmaxmedia]

The best computer you can have, is the computer that is available to you.

Also, the best computer you can have, is the computer you can afford.

[j26]

Wired summarizes some surprising experiences of users who have hacked their MSI Wind netbooks to run Mac OS X. These so called "hackintoshes" when updated to Mac OS X 10.5.7 have experienced dramatic boosts in battery effeciency.

http://www.biker.ie/forum/images/smilies/clap.gifhttp://www.biker.ie/forum/images/smilies/clap.gifhttp://www.biker.ie/forum/images/smilies/clap.gif

Can't wait to get home to try it out!!

[BRLawyer]

You got a cite to back up your claim that netbook sales are falling? Personally every netbook sales article I've read lately is positive like this one in InformationWeek:http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217500002&subSection=All+Stories. Facts, man. Gimme some facts, and not the ones you pulled from your backside.

From what I'm seeing netbooks are not a fad, they are a solid segment of the laptop market, much like roadsters are in the auto market. No, they are not for everyone, but they are for enough for companies to justify making them.

Personally I have a Lenovo S10. The keyboard IS horrendous, but the rest of the machine is just fine. They are certainly good enough to go on the web and edit a short memo just like the machines are designed to do. In fact when I go on short biz trips I take my S10 instead of my MBP b/c it's lighter and easier to use on a plane.

Now if you want a less than stellar product then take a look at the MBA. Not only it is overpriced for what it is, is has 1 USB port. A $1800-2300 laptop with ONE USB port and a weak processor. Come on. We both know Apple can do better than that, and, hopefull it will.

I am definitely going for an MBA in the next couple of months, as many others are...it's the BEST machine in its niche, and its design is unmatched by any other inferior PC maker. Nobody cares if it has 1 USB, this is not the point for an MBA buyer...it's about thinness, beauty, reasonable power and portability without squinting your eyes. A 10" screen and a keyboard smaller than my hand won't do for replacing my iBook, sorry.

The point is: netbooks have had a "successful" year strictly because of the crisis. Apple doesn't cater to the poor; it has always targeted the middle/upper-end of the market. So yeah, if you wanna discuss market shares, it's clear that the beleaguered PC makers have their artificial unit numbers to show...what they don't tell you is the ridiculously low margins they are getting from those sales.

Besides, apart from a few nice models from Sony, the netbook pack is full of crap, both quality- and performance-wise. If/when Apple enters this market, it's gonna be with something that redefines the sector, just like the iPhone...in fact, it's funny to see comparisons with the iPhone - this means that a single smartphone with a genius OS, touchscreen and Apps already covers almost every need you might justify for a piss-poor netbook.

And the final nail in the coffin: once the economy rebounds, NO ONE is gonna look for those makeshift computers apart from specific developing markets that look ONLY for prices...in fact, even NOW makers are already considering bigger screens and all, given that people's demands are not at all covered by current models.

Wait and see until netbooks disappear between newer iPhones (and similar smartphones) and updated superthin MBAs...:cool:

[TraceyS/FL]

And the final nail in the coffin: once the economy rebounds, NO ONE is gonna look for those makeshift computers apart from specific developing markets that look ONLY for prices...in fact, even NOW makers are already considering bigger screens and all, given that people's demands are not at all covered by current models.
:

Actually, i'm looking for something in the $3-500 range from Apple for younger students. Something that parents would feel comfy buying to get them thru High school, before springing for a nicer laptop to take to college.

You know, the "hook them while they are young" type of marketing. I have 3 kids - all of which have school needs for some sort of netbook type machine. I don't need to spend $899 each on them.... $300 is more doable. So i can really have ONE new Mac for 3 kids to share or 3 netbooks... i'd rather it be 3 Apple products bought over the next 2 years.

i won't hold my breath.

So while i am "poor" - for me, i want the ease of use, and stability and controls of the Mac platform... hence the need to consider hacking something. For the first time in my life.

[Scottsdale]

I dont care for Atom it seems like a step backwards for Apple maybe a Dual core Atom processor but single plus OSX seems like it would lag a lot!

To me backwards is recommending someone with a rev B MBA trade it for an original MBA. That is a BIG step backwards. Seems to me an overheated Merom 20W CPU, experiencing core shutdown and locking up, while playing HD video, inside of an Air case would "lag a lot!"

LMAO

Sorry, couldn't resist after your other post about the MBA recommendation.

[Evangelion]

Here.

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21836309

Actually, if you read that link, you will notice that they say NOTHING regarding sales of netbooks. Not a thing. I fail to see why you posted that link at all.



The point is: netbooks have had a "successful" year strictly because of the crisis.

Another mistake. Netbooks sold well even before the crisis. The financial meltdown started in october, netbooks we selling like crazy even before october.

Besides, apart from a few nice models from Sony, the netbook pack is full of crap, both quality- and performance-wise.

You can't ask for much for 300-400 bucks. Sure, they might be crap when compared to computers that cost three times as much. Did you really expect them to be equivalent in specs and build-quality?

in fact, it's funny to see comparisons with the iPhone - this means that a single smartphone with a genius OS, touchscreen and Apps already covers almost every need you might justify for a piss-poor netbook.

It does not.

And the final nail in the coffin: once the economy rebounds, NO ONE is gonna look for those makeshift computers apart from specific developing markets that look ONLY for prices

They were selling well before the crisis, why wouldn't they sell well after the crisis as well?

in fact, even NOW makers are already considering bigger screens and all, given that people's demands are not at all covered by current models.

So you are saying that netbooks are a failure because the current models do not fulfill the needs of every single consumer? Uh, OK....

Macs are a failure as well, since they don't fulfill the needs of every single consumer either.

Wait and see until netbooks disappear between newer iPhones (and similar smartphones) and updated superthin MBAs...:cool:

Smartphones do not do the same things as netbooks do, and MBA costs about 4-5 times as much.

And I bet that if Apple released a MAcBook mini, you would be all over it, telling us how great it is. Only reason you are flaming netbooks is because Apple does not offer one. IF they did, you would think that betbooks are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[madmaxmedia]

Besides, the build quality on the better (but still inexpensive) netbooks isn't so bad at all.

At least their hinges don't break, nor do they need 3rd party coolbook software. ;)

[Evolesque]

I agree with madmax,

the hp 2140 hd is a great example of quality for price, cept maybe the odd trackpad. Oh well you can't win them all.

[sneeks]

My Mini 9 is reporting a additional 1.5 hours of remaining battery when fully charged with 10.5.7, it will now last for 4.5 hours which I'm very happy with.

[BRLawyer]

Actually, if you read that link, you will notice that they say NOTHING regarding sales of netbooks. Not a thing. I fail to see why you posted that link at all.

It's clear as crystal:

Intel's shipments of Atom processors for mini-notebook PCs (which Intel calls "Netbooks") declined –33% in 1Q09 compared to 4Q08, indicating the mini-notebook OEMs held significant inventory of Atom processors coming into the new year. IDC estimates that the inexpensive Atom processors for mini-notebook PC represented 21% of Intel's mobile PC processor shipments in 1Q09 and 6.5% of Intel's mobile PC processor revenues in 1Q09.

Another mistake. Netbooks sold well even before the crisis. The financial meltdown started in october, netbooks we selling like crazy even before october.

WRONG. It's obvious that netbook sales soared with the crisis:

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3818416

Or this, from a well-known research firm:

The market watchers speculate as the economy betters in terms of growth, the netbook sales will dip and people will move toward other options. It is highly speculated that global netbook shipment growth will decelerate to 39.6% from this year. That slowdown will continue at least until 2013, when the growth rate is expected to be 13.1%.

You can't ask for much for 300-400 bucks. Sure, they might be crap when compared to computers that cost three times as much. Did you really expect them to be equivalent in specs and build-quality?

No, and that's why I am glad Apple doesn't sell them. Because if they did, they would be selling crap, too.

They were selling well before the crisis, why wouldn't they sell well after the crisis as well?

Because once the crisis is overcome, people are gonna choose "better" or "best", instead of simply "cheap".

So you are saying that netbooks are a failure because the current models do not fulfill the needs of every single consumer? Uh, OK....

Macs are a failure as well, since they don't fulfill the needs of every single consumer either.

You're not doing a good job in interpreting what I say. Of course they have a market, but this market does NOT equate Apple's market for notebooks. Cannibalization ONLY occurs because more people have less money now.

Smartphones do not do the same things as netbooks do, and MBA costs about 4-5 times as much.

And I bet that if Apple released a MAcBook mini, you would be all over it, telling us how great it is. Only reason you are flaming netbooks is because Apple does not offer one. IF they did, you would think that betbooks are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

No, I would buy it because at such moment Apple would have REINVENTED a market that is full of crap right now...remember phones before the iPhone? No? What about media players before the iPod? That's exactly what's gonna happen once the iPad is launched. Besides, even the 12" G4 PB is better than any of those piss-poor plastic paperweights from Eee and Dell.

[madmaxmedia]

Apple's opportunity in this market would not be to sell a $300 or $400 netbook. They don't compete on price with other product tiers, why would they here?

If Apple wanted to offer a Mac product to compete against the low-end netbooks, they would do something for $500 to $600. Some of that would be profit margin, and the rest would go into build quality. Some of the existing netbooks really aren't that bad from build-quality standpoint, another $40 in COGS upgrades would do wonders.

Apple would probably be first in line for updated Intel CPU and Nvidia Ion platform/GPU as well. And frankly existing netbooks run OS X pretty well already.

Finally, it's nice to be able to have the option of a speedy 320GB 7200RPM 2.5" hard drive in a netbook, vs. more expensive 120GB 4200RPM in a MBA.

I'm not saying that Apple must do a netbook, or even if it is best strategically. But to just point at the cheapest Asus models and go "Apple doesn't do that" doesn't make sense either. Computer hardware has reached the point where netbook internals can run OS X pretty well (the standard GPU is the GMA 950, which should ring a bell with MacBook owners, many of whom paid $1299 for a computer with that GPU and are still happily using it today.)

And finally, Apple hardware is not the end-all be-all by any means either. I definitely prefer Macs myself, but I'm not blind to the many issues previous Macs have had (not worse than PC makers, but issues nonetheless.) You can't buy a Mac notebook with a decent screen for under $1000. That's an issue for many people. If Apple chooses, they can address a wider segment without totally eating their profit margin.

[madmaxmedia]

No, I would buy it because at such moment Apple would have REINVENTED a market that is full of crap right now...remember phones before the iPhone? No? What about media players before the iPod? That's exactly what's gonna happen once the iPad is launched. Besides, even the 12" G4 PB is better than any of those piss-poor plastic paperweights from Eee and Dell.

I would totally dig on a 12" PB, even older one with lower clockspeed, except for the low RAM ceiling.

[localoid]

My Mini 9 is reporting a additional 1.5 hours of remaining battery when fully charged with 10.5.7, it will now last for 4.5 hours which I'm very happy with.

I'm curious. What kernel are your running? (Run uname -a in Terminal to reveal kernel name/version information.)

[sneeks]

I'm curious. What kernel are your running? (Run uname -a in Terminal to reveal kernel name/version information.)

Darwin Kernel Version 9.7.0

[localoid]

Darwin Kernel Version 9.7.0

Thanks. Another question. Is speedstep working on your machine? (Running sysctl -a | grep kern.cputhrottle in Terminal shows results if it is.)

Kernel 9.7.0 was part of the 10.5.7 update, which is the kernel the guy on the MSI forum that saw the battery life improvement reported he was running. I was just interested to see if there's a pattern to these reports re: improved battery life.

Anyone running a different kernel see any sort of battery life change?

[sneeks]

Thanks. Another question. Is speedstep working on your machine? (Running sysctl -a | grep kern.cputhrottle in Terminal shows results if it is.)

Kernel 9.7.0 was part of the 10.5.7 update, which is the kernel the guy on the MSI forum that saw the battery life improvement reported he was running. I was just interested to see if there's a pattern to these reports re: improved battery life.

Anyone running a different kernel see any sort of battery life change?

Running that command returns kern.exec: unknown type returned

[localoid]

Running that command returns kern.exec: unknown type returned

Ok, speedstep apparently isn't working then.

Do you have a AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext (probably with a April 1, 2009 date) in your /System/Library/Extensions folder that's not disabled by a "disabler" or a secondary extension?

[sneeks]

Ok, speedstep apparently isn't working then.

Do you have a AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext (probably with a April 1, 2009 date) in your /System/Library/Extensions folder that's not disabled by a "disabler" or a secondary extension?

I do have that file but with a October 10, 2007 date.

[SpitzerCR]

apple makes things better... including your personal life.. its true:rolleyes:

[localoid]

It's clear as crystal:

Intel's shipments of Atom processors for mini-notebook PCs (which Intel calls "Netbooks") declined –33% in 1Q09 compared to 4Q08, indicating the mini-notebook OEMs held significant inventory of Atom processors coming into the new year.

However...

IDC reported (http://www.pcworld.com/article/164268/netbook_shipments_jump.html) in late-April that worldwide netbook shipments went up sevenfold to roughly 4.5 million during the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same quarter last year.

[milo]

The link works fine here and on several other machines.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13690&Itemid=1

Original link working now and thanks for this new one...but neither of these articles says that netbook sales are going down the drain.

[Eidorian]

Original link working now and thanks for this new one...but neither of these articles says that netbook sales are going down the drain.That's the joke.

[SpitzerCR]

im missing the funny...:confused:

[elgruga]

Well that's great, Apple improves battery life on hackbooks, yet my Air now seems to consistently run hotter and hence shorter life. Cheers very much!


My Air seems to have added about one hour to its battery life since I upgraded to 10.5.7.........!

[Evangelion]

It's clear as crystal:

Intel's shipments of Atom processors for mini-notebook PCs (which Intel calls "Netbooks") declined –33% in 1Q09 compared to 4Q08, indicating the mini-notebook OEMs held significant inventory of Atom processors coming into the new year. IDC estimates that the inexpensive Atom processors for mini-notebook PC represented 21% of Intel's mobile PC processor shipments in 1Q09 and 6.5% of Intel's mobile PC processor revenues in 1Q09.

Do you have problems with reading-comprehension or something? Let me spell it out for you:

"indicating the mini-notebook OEMs held significant inventory of Atom processors coming into the new year."

In plain English: OEMs stuffed their inventories with Atoms in Q4, so they had less of a need to buy them in Q1. And if you actually checked reports about sles of netbooks, as opposed to sales of Atom-CPU's, you would see growth. IDC (the research-company you cited) says that sales of netbooks grew sevenfold in Q1, the same quarter when sales of Atoms went down.

WRONG. It's obvious that netbook sales soared with the crisis:

They were soaring even before crisis. Just about every OEM was introducing netbooks long before the crisis.

Or this, from a well-known research firm:

So the economic crisis is causing the growth in netbooks to slow down? Well duh! Fact remains that the sales-growth is still above typical notebooks.

Because once the crisis is overcome, people are gonna choose "better" or "best", instead of simply "cheap".

They were buying netbooks even before the crisis.....

[hiimamac]

The MB Air's 13" display is a great size and not too much of a compromise.

If Apple would shrink the width of the bezel around the MacBook Air's display to say 1/4", it would make the entire thing MUCH smaller and more appealing.

Chopping a few hundred bucks of the price and adding a FireWire 800 port would help, too.

Unless Jobs has an awakening, Apple will NEVER EVER EVER EVER release a laptop with dedicated GPU and FireWire, regardless of battery life due to Apple marketing tactics that fear the smallest user base, the pro video/audio user base, would buy the cheaper unit. Apple will always force the user to spend upward of $2000 dollars.

Heck, even on the latest MacBook with better gpu, they removed 1394 it has nothing to do with size. Some people are so naive.

A few years ago the MacBook was reported to run aperture and final cut and benchmarked at 171% openGL, yet you could still not play 3D games, regardless, apple then releases another gma which brought the benchmark down to 70%. And for what? You couldn't play games on it. It was to stop pro users from using it for pro apps. How sleezy is that. I mean, I could see if they did that to hack users but to cripple the machine for one if the most loyal and fan base that kept them afloat while AMD and intel leaped the PPC, is an insult.

End rant.

[funkboy]

There are two platforms in which I can see Apple using Atom (or, more specifically, ION; it's not for nothing that ION has exactly the same chipset as the current MacBooks):

- Next iteration of AppleTV (if they do it)

- A tablet computer, positioned between the iPhone and MacBook. Hopefully they would do something more than just a "big iPhone".

[DELLsFan]

...Cannibalization ONLY occurs because more people have less money now... Besides, even the 12" G4 PB is better than any of those piss-poor plastic paperweights from Eee and Dell.

You sound pretty sure of yourself here. I have a few thousand dollars burning a hole in my pocket mainly because I'm waiting for the Back-to-School promotion coming soon. I'd planned to get a Mac Pro and Macbook or Macbook Pro.

I'm really fascinated by the Hackintosh community and their relative successes in getting Mac OS X to work on other hardware. Instead of the Macbook, I am actually considering purchasing the Dell Mini 10v and hacking it with Leopard - since this computer was going to be my "tote around everywhere when I'm not encoding" note/net-book.

Would kinda give my forum name new purpose, wouldn't it? :cool:

:apple:

[headfuzz]

OS X runs beautifully on an Atom processor with 1 gig of RAM.

+1

(posted from an Atom based Dell Mini 9 with 1Gb RAM running OS X beautifully :D)

[wizard]

+1

(posted from an Atom based Dell Mini 9 with 1Gb RAM running OS X beautifully :D)

While Atom is far from perfect I think many miss some of it's better qualities. One of those is SMT which gives the platform a bit more performance. It is not something that can be dismissed considering todays multitasking OSes and multithreaded app.

It certainly isn't as good as todays SMP platforms but is nothing to sneeze at either.

Given all of that I'd still be shocked to find this to be an indication of coming Atom based products. I'm still leaning towards ARM and an iPhone OS variant. If for no other reason than really long run times on batteries. That and it expands the iPhone platform in a positive way.


Dave

[P40L VX]

Very strange one, but my Intel macbook decided to die about 2 months ago and would only run on the power supply, it wouldn't run on battery. I took it to my local Apple store and they advised it needed a new logic board. As I only use the machine at home for surfing I decided against replacing the board due to the total replacement cost being huge!.

I have updated to 10.5.7 the other day and have continued to run the MB on the power supply. As It's a Sunday morning (where I am) and I'm a bit tired I booted the MB up this morning and forgot to turn the power supply on and noticed at boot the the battery icon was working again. Low and behold the MB will boot and works on battery again, very very strange and random.

The only thing I could think of was this story re the battery, I am very skeptical that this could be linked to the resolution of my issue. Who cares though, it's working again and I've save a couple of hundreed ££'s :)

[offwidafairies]

My Air seems to have added about one hour to its battery life since I upgraded to 10.5.7.........!

so jealous!

and what is MSI?

[ikramerica]

Well that's great, Apple improves battery life on hackbooks, yet my Air now seems to consistently run hotter and hence shorter life. Cheers very much!

*grumble grumble snow leopard better not be like this grumble grumble*

Go back to 10.5.6. I did, after my MBP wouldn't sleep correctly and had shorter battery life. And ran hotter.

10.5.7 is a mess for Apple portables. But at least hackintoshes work better.

It also screwed up final cut pro, again, bringing back the permissions error that doesn't allow people to exchange a project because the disks you are using are not owned by the same administrator. had to create a user on my machine that had the same short name as my partner's machine in order to edit the project.

10.5.7 was not ready for prime time. Should have spent more time testing it. :(

[Adam Young]

Ok, I've bought me a Dell mini to test the waters for a possible Mac netbook. Is it worth any amount of money?

For me: NO (I mean NO as in "useless overhyped piece of plastic"). I own a Macbook (black) and an iPhone 3G which I both use every single day. Both serve me extremely well for the purpose I need 'm for. The Dell mini tries to fill a gap where there is no gap. The screen is to tiny for its purpose; the keys are waaaay to small; the trackpad is jittery and unbalanced; the mouse buttons are unuseable; the battery holds a charge for just 2 hours, and the whole thing just looks like a Vtech toy.

Sound too negative? Well, Leopard runs like a charm, but this is of no consequence. If you want to actually use this thing as a computer, you'll need to attach a monitor; a keyboard and a mouse. And why not buy an iMac then.

Netbooks are gimmicks, and luckily Apple is aware of it!

B.T.W. Anyone interested in buying a 3 weeks old Dell mini 9 BTO (1.6GHz Atom, 16GB SSD, 1GB mem, BT, 1.3M camera, Win XP Home) with an Apple sticker on the back :)?

[Evangelion]

Netbooks are gimmicks, and luckily Apple is aware of it!

That's just your opinion. I would like a computer that I could take with me, that I could use as a dumbing-ground for pictures from my camera and with I could type some text with. If I went Apple-route, I would be looking at 1000e laptop. If I went netbook-route, I would be spending 300-400e. And the netbook would be a lot more mobile. And I would be hesitant to take 1000e worth of computer to me where-ever I go, as opposed to taking computer that is worth 30-40% of that. If the machine gets few bruises, I wouldn't really care. Damaging a 1000e laptop would be a whole different matter.

You complained about "small screen and cramped keyboard". Dell Mini 9 is known for those qualities. You bought a netbook that has smaller than average screen (normal size these days is 10" screen) and keyboard, and then complain that it has too small screen and keyboard, and then basically claim that all netbooks have too small keyboards and screens?

Besides, the screen and keyboard on the iPhone/touch is even more cramped. When I type with an iPhone, I can see maybe two lines of text. I fail to see why people whine about the keyboards on netbooks, while the keyboard on iPhone is even smaller. Some netbook-keyboards are good enough for touch-typing, can you do that with the iPhone?

[nookster]

Very strange one, but my Intel macbook decided to die about 2 months ago and would only run on the power supply, it wouldn't run on battery. I took it to my local Apple store and they advised it needed a new logic board. As I only use the machine at home for surfing I decided against replacing the board due to the total replacement cost being huge!.

...I booted the MB up this morning and forgot to turn the power supply on and noticed at boot the the battery icon was working again. Low and behold the MB will boot and works on battery again, very very strange and random.

Great CS there :rolleyes: A new mobo loosely translates into "we haven't a ****ing clue, but we'll take your money anyway".

[iansilv]

Do you have problems with reading-comprehension or something? Let me spell it out for you:

"indicating the mini-notebook OEMs held significant inventory of Atom processors coming into the new year."

In plain English: OEMs stuffed their inventories with Atoms in Q4, so they had less of a need to buy them in Q1. And if you actually checked reports about sles of netbooks, as opposed to sales of Atom-CPU's, you would see growth. IDC (the research-company you cited) says that sales of netbooks grew sevenfold in Q1, the same quarter when sales of Atoms went down.

Yeah! Idiot! Stupidhead! Stupid macforums poster with stupid incorrect information who is an idiot!

You know, this forum, more than any other forum I have ever read has an incredible number of self-righteous a-holes talking down to people and spewing petty crap.

[nookster]

Besides, the screen and keyboard on the iPhone/touch is even more cramped. When I type with an iPhone, I can see maybe two lines of text. I fail to see why people whine about the keyboards on netbooks, while the keyboard on iPhone is even smaller. Some netbook-keyboards are good enough for touch-typing, can you do that with the iPhone?

Yep. Some perspective against the 'full size' Apple wireless effort. To be fair, my netbook is a 'big' 10" beast. Was going to put my hand in shot, they look HUGE in front of all these keyboards.

Updated to 10.5.7, no real difference in the battery that I can tell, but it's running very nicely (as usual).

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2497/p1000951i.jpg

[Eidorian]

I just checked mine and it does seem to have given me an extra 45 minutes. At least that is what its reporting. Probably just a random blip.After a bit more experience with the battery under 10.5.7 I've noticed an extra 30 minutes now.

[madmaxmedia]

10.5.7 was not ready for prime time. Should have spent more time testing it. :(

They were probably too focused on improving netbook battery life performance... ;)

[mikmas]

That's just your opinion. I would like a computer that I could take with me, that I could use as a dumbing-ground for pictures from my camera and with I could type some text with. If I went Apple-route, I would be looking at 1000e laptop. If I went netbook-route, I would be spending 300-400e. And the netbook would be a lot more mobile.

I'm with you on that. We have 4 Macs in the house and I have lugged around an iBook for long enough to welcome netbooks with open (and tired) arms.

After more than 15 years of 'Mac only' purchases I have recently acquired a Samsung NC10 and it now runs XP and OSX with equal ease and to be honest there is no way I would have considered replacing the iBook with even the cheapest MacBook - simply because in the weight, size and price battle there is no real contest. And yes, I have an iPod Touch, - but that's really a cute games machine cum video jukebox and not really an alternative.

Having had time to look at the build of the Samsung there is also no real contest - and I speak as someone who has stripped the iBook down enough times (and a fair few Mac desktops including the Minis) to know the ins and outs of the Apple design architecture.

Apple make good kit but they ain't infallible and this is why I now put up with awkward keyboard layouts and not so elegant mice rather than use any of their peripherals anymore - I've had enough failures in that overpriced department to put me off permanently.