Apple Announces New Aluminum MacBooks

[NT1440]

Well, am gonna give you the answer. It is Apple who forces me. And you will see why.

Years ago, i dont know if you were then a macuser, mac users had the right of choice between lots of models. We, mac users, invested not only money but mostly our time and effort to explore Mac OS and MacOS compatible software. We can't switch easily to windows either cos we hate them and because we are dependent on Apple, since we are using Apple's software for years (or mac compatible software anyway).

Srry but I have to stop you right there.

First, just to get it out of the way, I dont currently own a mac (I will when I have the funds).

Moving on, the underlined is just ludicrous. If your productivity relies on doing something, you damn well better find a way to do it. Apple is NOT the only way to get things done as there are many alternative programs for windows and linux that will get whatever you need done (save for certain things on linux). You cant say you are trapped using macs simply because you hate windows. If you NEED to get something done (say for your job) hating windows shouldnt be a factor because if you need it you need it.

All Ive been trying to say is that as much as you feel trapped, there ARE alternatives. They may require effort or a change but they are there. You are in no way a slave to apple products.

Edit: I should probably state that none of my posts are meant to be taken offensefully by you, im trying to make things clear, not belittle you.

 

[piraeus7]

Well then you should have thought of that before investing in the mac platform, you knew it was a closed platform but went ahead into it and now whine when they don't release the hardware at the price you want. If you are concerned with choice you shouldn't be investing in the mac platform.

A mac user knows that by entering that mac realm he expects to have a closed platform in his disposal, with all problems and advantages the closed platform implies. During past times, however, when there was an absolute hardware incompatibility with pcs (even mice, modems and printers were incompatible) mac users had more freedom to customise their own system or to get a system closer to their needs. They were paying money in order to get the best hardware and the best OS at the same time. Till 1997 mac OS was the best comercial OS.

It is Apple that has changed. They dont provide us the (by far) best hardware as they did before. They dont offer an elementary customisation and flexibility. So, after having been «faithful» to Apple for lots of years someone could feal cheated with their shift. Thing that is really painful and cause complaints.

 

[localoid]

... If you NEED to get something done (say for your job) hating windows shouldnt be a factor because if you need it you need it. ...

Hating Windows. Not a factor? Some feelings just can't be totally repressed and trying to do so probably would lead to health problems ("Recent reports have linked a repressing personality to a higher risk for asthma, high blood pressure and overall ill health.")

I use Windows for some few things I need to do for clients, and trust me -- I do hate encountering the many different sorts of Windows annoyances.

It's a very common and natural reaction for many people.

 

[piraeus7]

Well then you should have thought of that before investing in the mac platform, you knew it was a closed platform but went ahead into it and now whine when they don't release the hardware at the price you want. If you are concerned with choice you shouldn't be investing in the mac platform.

Srry but I have to stop you right there.

First, just to get it out of the way, I dont currently own a mac (I will when I have the funds).

Moving on, the underlined is just ludicrous. If your productivity relies on doing something, you damn well better find a way to do it. Apple is NOT the only way to get things done as there are many alternative programs for windows and linux that will get whatever you need done (save for certain things on linux). You cant say you are trapped using macs simply because you hate windows. If you NEED to get something done (say for your job) hating windows shouldnt be a factor because if you need it you need it.

All Ive been trying to say is that as much as you feel trapped, there ARE alternatives. They may require effort or a change but they are there. You are in no way a slave to apple products.

Edit: I should probably state that none of my posts are meant to be taken offensefully by you, im trying to make things clear, not belittle you.

It is not as simple as it seems to be. First macusers were generally the creative users. «Multimedia» was a word known only to Amiga, Atari and mac users for about a decade. You won't find something really good as Final Cut pro, Illustrator, Photoshop, Maya, Archicad, etc in Linux. Linux is a fantastic OS for other purposes, though. Of course, most of programs above are available in windows. But again, not all. And even if you get, say, everything you need in windows world then u will have their stupid interface, instability and viruses and of course bad value for money. Designers, Photographers, multimedia masters, musicians, typographers, visual artists, architects, engineers and scientists were those who made Apple thriving and a rigid company throughout difficult times with their money, support and faith to their initial principles. And of course they do consist not a marginal group in society.

Hope now you can see why there aren't actually alternatives and a long term macuser is badly dependent on Apple. It is not like cars, you dont like Audi, ok you get a Volvo. This is the way things work in pcs; you can choose between Lenovo for example or HP.

The only revolutionary OSes that could be alternative to Apple OS were AmigaOS and BeOS. If they were both in life now, Apple would be more human. Because Apple wouldn't be a monopoly.

 

[piraeus7]

By the way, people who hate windows do it not for the sake of hating something but for having at least one good reason... Just imagine when there are two or three of them...

 

[NT1440]

Hating Windows. Not a factor? Some feelings just can't be totally repressed and trying to do so probably would lead to health problems ("Recent reports have linked a repressing personality to a higher risk for asthma, high blood pressure and overall ill health.")

I use Windows for some few things I need to do for clients, and trust me -- I do hate encountering the many different sorts of Windows annoyances.

It's a very common and natural reaction for many people.

You kinda just backed my point up a little. For your job you obviously NEED to use windows, so theres another option for you. You may hate it, but if you NEED it you need it.

I personally hate windows with a passion and am waiting for the funds for a new macbook

posted from a 2008 toshiba satellite running (constantly crashing) Vista SP1

 

[editguy]

Are they lying and saying that your getting the best specs immaginable? nope.

.

Oh, but the implications are there. Just look at the PC vs Mac ads. The Mac is perfect. It provides everything you need. It just works (except, for me, without firewire it doesn't). The PC is a piece of junk.

When you advertise like that you're implying that your product is superior in every way to the competitor.
I've been using Macs since 1984. As opposed to many people here, I also use PC's . I'm a computer agnostic. I have no problems using Vista (since SP1). I use it and OSX productively everday. I see computers as tools and I use whichever tool is best for a particular job, or delivers the software I need. You're implying that if you don't like what a company has done that you have no right to complain. That is ludicrous. Obviously the company can choose to ignore your compalints. Companies do that at their own risk, based on an assessment of how widespread the discontentment is. But if a company ignores consumer complaints long enough and often enough (not just one issue, but many), they won't have to listen to them any longer because they will no longer exist. It may take many years, but it will happen. And in financially uncertain times such as these, companies show only ignorance and arrogance when they give flippant answers to widespread complaints. The history of corporate America is littered with the remains of companies that refused to listen to the wants and needs of their customers.

 

[Chaos123x]

A consumer laptop should be $500-$700

The $999 laptop is pushing it but is not over the line.


But $1299 for a starter consumer laptop? LOL what is apple thinking? You can get a windows laptop with waaaay more features and better specs for cheaper and just put hackintosh on it.

$1299 should have pro features like express card, firewire, and dedicated graphics.

Either that or reduce the price to $999 when the White macbook stock sells out.

I bet the metal case costs more than the components inside the damn thing.

 

[NT1440]

Oh, but the implications are there. Just look at the PC vs Mac ads. The Mac is perfect. It provides everything you need. It just works (except, for me, without firewire it doesn't). The PC is a piece of junk.

You know, correct me if Im wrong, but the mac vs pc ads refer almost exclusively to vista. If thats true then the ads are about OS's not hardware. In fact the only time I even see/hear hardware is at the end when an imac is pictured.

Just because you personally read too much into the ads doesnt mean thats what they are.

and, when was the last time "it just works" was part of their advertising? (i personally have never seen it, but tbh i havent been paying attention that long)

 

[ajpl]

Well then you should have thought of that before investing in the mac platform, you knew it was a closed platform but went ahead into it and now whine when they don't release the hardware at the price you want. If you are concerned with choice you shouldn't be investing in the mac platform.

Price has nothing to do with it, try and pay attention, there's a god boy.
Did it ever occur to you that I may need software that is Mac only?
Or maybe I hated Windows?
Or wanted to use a platformthat virus writers ignored?
Or that I worked somewhere that used mac products?
Or...etc etc
No you just make snide and ignorant comments to try and denigrate others to make you feel good. But all you do is illustrate how little you know.

You have nothing contructive to say and just come on here to slag other people off it would appear.

 

[ajpl]

Hackintosh?

There are many options out there to get things done, some just require more work than others. You arent by any means forced to buy one product or another.

Not true. Hackintosh is available to those who want to be IT people. I've wasted too much time in the past doing that sort of tiresome crap. I just want to use the software, not try and work out how to get it working. The whole point of using OSX is not to go down that route.

You could buy that nifty usb thing that makes any computer run OSX as well...

What thing is that?

 

[iEdd]

EFI-X. It uses an internal USB port to make a stock Leopard disk work without hacks, provided you use supported hardware. I dunno if I am allowed to link to it, but it's easy to find more info on it.

 

[piraeus7]

A consumer laptop should be $500-$700

The $999 laptop is pushing it but is not over the line.


But $1299 for a starter consumer laptop? LOL what is apple thinking? You can get a windows laptop with waaaay more features and better specs for cheaper and just put hackintosh on it.

$1299 should have pro features like express card, firewire, and dedicated graphics.

Either that or reduce the price to $999 when the White macbook stock sells out.

I bet the metal case costs more than the components inside the damn thing.

You are absolutely right. Talking about the metal frame you mentioned keep in mind that Titanium powerbooks were cheaper than the new alu ones. Titanium is far more pricey than aluminum. Therefore, the new design is just a big excuse. In macrumors site i read also that Apple is making 3 times more profit than competitors, once i will get the link i will quote it.

 

[Rassybat]

A consumer laptop should be $500-$700

The $999 laptop is pushing it but is not over the line.


But $1299 for a starter consumer laptop? LOL what is apple thinking? You can get a windows laptop with waaaay more features and better specs for cheaper and just put hackintosh on it.

$1299 should have pro features like express card, firewire, and dedicated graphics.

Either that or reduce the price to $999 when the White macbook stock sells out.

I bet the metal case costs more than the components inside the damn thing.

This post pretty much sums up why the new Macbooks are a lousy choice for upgraders and ESPECIALLY for people thinking about jumping ship to Mac.

1. Firstly, $1,300.00 is an insane price to ask for an entry entry level notebook...especially if said notebook lacks basic things like a non-glossy screen or firewire. Or rather, the choice to include or remove said features. (can't really customize.) If Apple decided to keep the old whitebook indefinitely as an even lower end option, I guess that would be "ok" but I really think they are just getting rid of old inventory.

2. Even though it lacks a discreet graphics and has only a 2.0 ghz CPU, it's OVERKILL for a lot of people who just need a mobile computing solution for email, word processing, chatting and listening to music. You know, like....oh I dunno....college students? Who are notorious for being broke. You think they're going to buy this $1,300.00 Mercedes notebook on a limited budget when they can get something of similar specs for like 1/3 of the price? Has Apple lost touch with the college crowd?

3. Can I whine about the screen again? Are all the coffee shops in California really DARK? Because sunlight and bright LED lamps makes any laptop with a glossy screen a pain to use. Even worse....outside at a bistro or something!

4. And finally, and this is just a personal opinion feel free to disregard, it's ugly. Ugly as the Toshibas and those HP things.

Apple doesn't want to be in the lower end notebook market. I don't know why, but this fewer featured, more expensive laptop line seems to make that perfectly clear. And that's sad.

 

[piraeus7]

This post pretty much sums up why the new Macbooks are a lousy choice for upgraders and ESPECIALLY for people thinking about jumping ship to Mac.

1. Firstly, $1,300.00 is an insane price to ask for an entry entry level notebook...especially if said notebook lacks basic things like a non-glossy screen or firewire. Or rather, the choice to include or remove said features. (can't really customize.) If Apple decided to keep the old whitebook indefinitely as an even lower end option, I guess that would be "ok" but I really think they are just getting rid of old inventory.

2. Even though it lacks a discreet graphics and has only a 2.0 ghz CPU, it's OVERKILL for a lot of people who just need a mobile computing solution for email, word processing, chatting and listening to music. You know, like....oh I dunno....college students? Who are notorious for being broke. You think they're going to buy this $1,300.00 Mercedes notebook on a limited budget when they can get something of similar specs for like 1/3 of the price? Has Apple lost touch with the college crowd?

3. Can I whine about the screen again? Are all the coffee shops in California really DARK? Because sunlight and bright LED lamps makes any laptop with a glossy screen a pain to use. Even worse....outside at a bistro or something!

4. And finally, and this is just a personal opinion feel free to disregard, it's ugly. Ugly as the Toshibas and those HP things.

Apple doesn't want to be in the lower end notebook market. I don't know why, but this fewer featured, more expensive laptop line seems to make that perfectly clear. And that's sad.

I certainly agree with you. I would like to support further our opinion against Apple negative policy and recent products with the following argument:

MacOS X costs $129 in US and $170 (€129) in Europe. This is the cost of the Operating system by Apple at their stores. Of course when someone buys a new machine the cost of the OS X is incorporated and «hidden» within the machine, but the same happens more or less in the pc world. The cheapest new alu macbook pro costs $1299 (about $1580 or €1199 in Europe). If we just subtract the amount for getting the license of OS X, that is $129, then speaking only in terms of hardware the entry-level alu macbook should cost $1170 in US. My goodness!

$1170 for such a machine is at least an exaggeration (for me is a paradox, a bad joke). It is a direct attack to our intelligence and pocket of course. It is an «insult». Keep in mind also how much more expensive Apple products are out of US (i never though understood why, since the production line is not in America anymore but in China and other countries of Asia where salaries are really very low. Furthermore, transportation costs of Apple products made in China (or Malaysia) to America, to Europe or Australia, Asia, etc are the same).

Then you will see why people are protesting and demand better prices from Apple. Because there are the margins of further price reductions. It would be better for Jobs and the rest of the share holders of Apple to have less millions of $$$ as profit.

Apple's «audience» is not anyomore the creative pros, creative amateurs and students at it was in 90's. It is clear that now Apple is addressing to rich people only. It is frustrating to see how arrogant they are against students, too.

 

[Fast Shadow]

As far as price point goes - everyone who demanded aluminum Macbooks has only themselves to blame. Aluminum is a much more expensive material than plastic. Especially if they're milling cases from solid blocks.

 

[blueheron]

Chip question?

In lieu of the new Macbook, I bought a refurb 2.5 MBP from the Apple store last week and am so happy - fast, stable, beautiful. Data Migration through the Firewire - sweet - fast - saved at least a grand. Now this might not be the proper forum for this question and I apologize if I offend, but I know that Nvidia was having video problems with the 8600 chip. Banding and whatnot. How do I know if my refurb chip has been replaced? Customer service couldn't/wouldn't tell me. I had heard that everything through september was suspect. Do they replace before they are sent out or do they wait for mine to break down?

Robert

It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Joseph Stalin

 

[Eric S.]

As far as price point goes - everyone who demanded aluminum Macbooks has only themselves to blame. Aluminum is a much more expensive material than plastic. Especially if they're milling cases from solid blocks.

As this whole FireWire discussion shows, Apple doesn't respond to "demands" from its customers. Apple decides what design decisions and price points make the most sense based on profit motives and it acts accordingly.

 

[gwangung]

As this whole FireWire discussion shows, Apple doesn't respond to "demands" from its customers. Apple decides what design decisions and price points make the most sense based on profit motives and it acts accordingly.

Which is....how different from any other company?????

 

[Eric S.]

Which is....how different from any other company?????

Did I say it was different than any other company?

 

[Adamo]

Thing is, I would be getting a new MacBook if they'd bothered to keep it in. It makes business sense to push people to the higher model, but not when I can't afford to or the size is prohibitive - I have a camcorder and external HDD which I need the Firewire port for. Now, off to search for how to make myself one of those cheap Macs..

 

[ajpl]

EFI-X. It uses an internal USB port to make a stock Leopard disk work without hacks, provided you use supported hardware. I dunno if I am allowed to link to it, but it's easy to find more info on it.

Sounds intriguing. Though it looks like the sort of thing you would have to buy and then see if it actually works in properly on the machine you want.

It's like Boot camp, Parallels and Fusion. "Use Windows just as if you were on a PC", but they don't mention there are drivers missing, only one core works, the memory is limited, FW isn't supported... etc.

 

[localoid]

Sounds intriguing. Though it looks like the sort of thing you would have to buy and then see if it actually works in properly on the machine you want.

It's like Boot camp, Parallels and Fusion. "Use Windows just as if you were on a PC", but they don't mention there are drivers missing, only one core works, the memory is limited, FW isn't supported... etc.

You've misunderstood the info on the product.

It's not "like Parallels or Fusion". You're running [whatever] OS native.

EMI is simulated/emulated. It's a way to boot into [whatever] OS.

 

[sfh]

efxi

You've misunderstood the info on the product.

It's not "like Parallels or Fusion". You're running [whatever] OS native.

EMI is simulated/emulated. It's a way to boot into [whatever] OS.

ibelieve I read somehere that FireWire is not supported though

 

[ajpl]

You've misunderstood the info on the product.

It's not "like Parallels or Fusion". You're running [whatever] OS native.

EMI is simulated/emulated. It's a way to boot into [whatever] OS.

No I've not misunderstood how it works. You can run XP or Vista natively on a Mac, yet there are still problems like how much RAM is seen. Running OSX on a Sony laptop may mostly function, but I bet there will be some gremlins with regard to hardware functionality.
I just do not believe most claims made of computers anymore. Leopard claims to be stable and bug free!! I wish.