Aluminum MacBook and MacBook Pros Spotted?

[iMacmatician]

Hard copies are infinitely superior imho no internet means your finished and work stops ? I believe you are in the minority most people especially in the work environment burn discs i know i do.

External drive?

The brick thing has some merits but i'd always sacrifice slimness for power. What's wrong with big strong and sturdy crammed with power ? I for one and am not so vain or fashion conscious to put slimness high on spec list. Slim equals heat equals death and a performance hit. Come on Steve bulk up !

Removing an optical drive can either:

1. Make the notebook thinner and lighter for similar components
2. Deliver better components for a similar size notebook

It's #2 I'm looking for. Dual HDs, a bigger battery, and a cheaper and hotter CPU (power draw offset by better cooling and bigger battery) is what I want.

You and many, many, many others. I still don't think it will happen. They will have the Pro model and Macbook separate. They might look similar, but that's it.

Just because the looks are the same, doesn't mean that the two lines will be merged. The real question is:

• Will they be merged in name only? Or,
• Will the major distinction between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro be the names?

I hate to state the obvious, but if this is what you want Apple makes this product, its called the Macbook Air. If you want an optical drive and ports you buy a Macbook or a Macbook Pro.

Maybe some of us want a Mac without an optical drive but is more powerful than a MacBook Air.

If the put any less ports on the new MBP's, I'll be looking elsewhere when it's time to update my lappy. The current MBP's have a very bare minimum of ports as it is.

It looks like the new notebooks are resembling the MacBook Air in more ways than one...

 

[Bryanj026]

you don't since apple will be smart enough to make easy to use
like they always do

there is probably a button you push that brings up the dock when you need it. also with a glass track pad what other things can you do..?

 

[Loge]

We "need" all the speed we can get. I don't merely use my MBP on the go, but also when I get there.
Apple has quite the margins to take from to spend the extra few bucks on fw3200. Hell, they have saved a few pennies from using crappy fw chips for ages.

The 2008 MBPs don't use crappy FW chips; that was the mid-2007 Santa Rosa models (I think).

 

[puffnstuff]

"the thinnest Macbook ever."

Haha I when I posted my predictions in another thread I said the same thing. I bet thats what Steve Jobs is going to say. No wait I guarantee it..

 

[CTYankee]

Boooo to no FW400. At least give us more than 1 FW port. I have a FW800 hard drive that I sometimes use and my ACD that is always plugged in to the FW400 so I can use my FW CF card reader and some other swappable FW400 devices. The FW800 drive is turned on and off as needed and sometimes not even here. So no FW400 makes things a bit more difficult to get attached if we've got just one FW800 port.

And there better be a FW400 adapter with that Macbook Pro, no way I will be OK with buying an adapter.

 

[jojo13]

Haha I when I posted my predictions in another thread I said the same thing. I bet thats what Steve Jobs is going to say. No wait I guarantee it..

he already said it -_-

 

[puffnstuff]

he already said it -_-

he did? when?

 

[Tosser]

there is probably a button you push that brings up the dock when you need it. also with a glass track pad what other things can you do..?

I'm not targeting you in particular – you just happen to be the last in a row who goes on about how Apple is all about making it easy. And all of you are talking about how "neat" it would be to have dock in the trackpad, and then you go on about how it would need some sort of button to lock it so it doesn't launch apps when it shouldn't – in effect suggesting one should lock and unlock the trackpad constantly in order to use it.
And you somehow figure this is better than having the dock as we know it set on autohide?

 

[jojo13]

he did? when?

are you serious???????
macworld

 

[Tosser]

The 2008 MBPs don't use crappy FW chips; that was the mid-2007 Santa Rosa models (I think).

Are you sure they reintroduced a proper firewire controller?

 

[Stridder44]

Disappointing if there isn't more to it. If aluminum casing makes the masses celebrate then anything will.

Well what were you expecting? You can't be surprised by this. Any idiot can look at the rest of the Mac lineup and assume the new notebooks will take on the same look. With Apple, this is true with both UI and hardware.

My only beef is why (if it's even true) they'd remove the wirefire 400 port. I mean I guess I could see the logic behind it, seeing as how Firewire 800 is faster and USB 2 is kinda almost as fast as Firewire 400. This might be kind of an incentive to manufacturers to adopt Firewire 800, because if I remember correctly doesn't Firewire 3200 (or whatever the next spec of Firewire is called) also have the same port as Firewire 800?

 

[BarryBrown]

Spotted laptops?

Aluminum MacBook and MacBook Pros Spotted?

Surely they're taking this Leopard thing a bit too far...

 

[swagi]

Thanx for the mockups

The display in the touchpad looks interesting. It would work if the glass on it was matte so it doesn't reflect the main screen and your finger does not stick like on the iPhone (try dragging your finger on the iPhone glass at a flat angle... it sticks).

The dock on the trackpad would be weird though... how does it know if you want to tap something on the bottom of the main display or open an app from the dock? How do pros (who love having lots of icons in the dock) cope with the small space? I don't use the one finger tap on my Macbook at all, I use the button. So you could just make one finger taps to interact with what's displayed on the trackpad.

It could make sense for full screen applications so the HUD or inspector is displayed on the trackpad. For instance, you're watching a video in Quicktime and you have the controls on the trackpad, dimmed to not distract from the actual video. Or you could assign a widget to the trackpad, imagine tile game or webclip. Or how about trackpad Growl?

All the above are mockups!!!!

And sorry to rain on your parade...

There is basically no, and I mean it actually that way, no use for it.

I dont see the point in using an 'inspector' on the trackpad, I have to look ad, while I could just use...errr...my Apple remote in iTunes or Quicktime. Or maybe (while I'm taking my hands to the trackpad) use nifty keyboard shortcuts instead.

All your mockups, sorry, just prove the point. A glass trackpad is just for bragging. Nothing else.

I'm with you on multitouch trackpads. They add some more usability.

But I don't see the point of having a second GUI to interact with that completely disturbs my view concentration.

 

[tiguk]

I'm not targeting you in particular – you just happen to be the last in a row who goes on about how Apple is all about making it easy. And all of you are talking about how "neat" it would be to have dock in the trackpad, and then you go on about how it would need some sort of button to lock it so it doesn't launch apps when it shouldn't – in effect suggesting one should lock and unlock the trackpad constantly in order to use it.
And you somehow figure this is better than having the dock as we know it set on autohide?

Is it really that hard to imagine the dock being on autohide and using a gesture to unhide? I dunno, off the top of my head - two fingers resting at the bottom of the trackpad for a second? It doesn't seem like a big deal to me and I can imagine several advantages to having this sort of interactive trackpad, can't you?

Actually, I personally think it would be too expensive to implement right now, but who knows what the future may hold?

 

[Tosser]

Is it really that hard to imagine the dock being on autohide and using a gesture to unhide? I dunno, off the top of my head - two fingers resting at the bottom of the trackpad for a second? It doesn't seem like a big deal to me and I can imagine several advantages to having this sort of interactive trackpad, can't you?

Nope – it seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, introducing complexity along with it.

 

[iMacmatician]

Please, PLEASE let there be a 14" or 15" MB. Not the MBP, just the normal MB.

If they go to 16:9 (which 9 to 5 mac has been saying), then we may see a 14" MacBook with a slightly higher resolution than the current one (1280*800 -> 1366*768).

The Mac Book release has been delayed because of the economic crisis.

By how much?

I agree. I think MWSF will be about the redesigned Mac Pro (or at least bumped to Nehalem), and possible iMacs as well.

I think we will see iMacs in November, Mac Pros in Q1 2009 (not MWSF) and a (mini-)tablet, iLife '09, and iWork '09 in MWSF.

Also, that would imply that they are ditching the Mac Pro and making it into an iMac. Not happening.

The MacBooks and MacBook Pros would have similar (or at least not very different) looks, design, and size. The iMacs and Mac Pros are very different in those three categories.

 

[Jelite]

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1920

The angle of the dock is wrong in relation to the touchpad.

 

[Tosser]

By how much?

Until the tax payers bail them out

 

[PeterKG]

Is This the New Macbook Pro?

It sure looks like it!

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/09/25/is-this-the-new-macbook-pro-2/

***Update. I should look before I post. Late as usual.

 

[headfuzz]

Extra space? We're talking thin, as in "the thinnest Macbook ever." There is no such thing as "extra" space in Steve Jobs' universe.

MacWorld San Francisco 2009: Steve has delivered the keynote and looks out at the crowd and says

"...and just NONE more thing"

Steve pulls out an empty hand from his back pocket

"The Mac Quantum. The thinnest Mac we've ever made. It's so thin it exists solely on the theoretical level - we're not even entirely sure it exists! Cool huh?

Frontier technology like this requires frontier manufacturing. We've moved on from our previous manufacturing partners in Taiwan and China, as their facilities simply could not cope with the levels of thin we at Apple were demanding.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Mac Quantum is manufactured using brand new materials at our brand new plant on the French and Swiss border: CERN. We're working in partnership with CERN to smash hadrons together to produce the technological marvel you don't see here.

To keep the software on par with the hardware we've completely rewritten the OS to the point where we feel it's worthy of the empirical nature that the Mac Quantum is going to take the market by: Mac Quantum runs The Emperor's New OS X!

If you all reach under your seats you'll find several million units for you each to take home with you."

Raucous whooping, applause and cheering as Steve exits stage left

 

[vegfarandi]

If they remove the I/O port, how will I connect my Xerox monitor?

 

[tiguk]

Nope – it seems to be a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, introducing complexity along with it.

You could easily have said the same about multitouch gestures rather than good old point and click.

 

[Chic0]

i find it funny how peeps can already hate the glass trackpad that these new laptops may have, but no one actually knows how they will work. No one knows

- how actions/icons will be invoked.
- whether or not the display will be configurable
- how apple will implement it

people are entitled to their opinions, but an informed opinion surely cannot be made until we actually find out exactly what it can do.

just my 2p worth.

 

[tiguk]

i find it funny how peeps can already hate the glass trackpad that these new laptops may have, but no one actually knows how they will work. No one knows

- how actions/icons will be invoked.
- whether or not the display will be configurable
- how apple will implement it

people are entitled to their opinions, but an informed opinion surely cannot be made until we actually find out exactly what it can do.

just my 2p worth.

Couldn't agree more.

Anyway, resistance is futile, apparently.

 

[i3iz]

can someone confirm whether or not you can boot off an external drive using FW800?

the thing about the MBA is it has no FW ports at all, so you can't boot off an external drive.

why would you want to do this, you may ask? for troubleshooting purposes. if your laptop's hd crashes, you can boot if off an external drive via FW.

AFAIK, you can't do it via USB.

IDK if FW800 works.

FW800 works just as well as FW400 for booting (i.e. it works splendidly).

Booting from FW800 is buggy and not-reliable. Which doesn't make sense because FW400 is amazing. I have several drives that are external and have both ports and several macs that have both ports and FW800 does not boot quickly or work as well. It is possible, but not as reliable as 400.

If it is backwards compatible w/ 400 then this should be moot.