simon.hibbs said:
With you so far, but I don't think Core 2 Duo is realy all that much of a big deal for Apple in the grand scheme of things. It's a small speed bump, with 64 bit as a bonus extra.
Well, for the Merom, you get about 20% performance for the same clock speed as well as slightly improved power usage. With the Conroe, the change is much more noticable, providing 40% more performance, while using 40% less power than the Pentium D.
The Core 2 Duo models also sport these cheesy Intel-named features. (Translation in parenthesis)
- Intel® Wide Dynamic Execution (Widens the execution core by 33% and adds Macro-fusion to combine x86 instructions)
- Intel® Intelligent Power Capability (better SpeedStep technology)
- Intel® Advanced Smart Cache (refined, faster cache design)
- Intel® Smart Memory Access (lower latency memory access)
- Intel® Advanced Digital Media Boost (do SSE instructions in one cycle)
The Core 2 is basically a refinement of everything in Yonah. For Merom, it's a modest increase, but for the Conroe, there will be a bigger difference.
simon.hibbs said:
I don't believe any of this. The intel MacBook Pros just came out,
Announced in January, released in February, speed bumped in May. I'm in the market for a MBP, so I hope they update it soon.
simon.hibbs said:
Why screw aroud with a proven design, when there's absolutely no need.
I'm thinking they'll make minor changes, like make the top bezel thinner, as it's a little wider right now for the camera, and change the case slightly if necessary to accomodate a dual-layer burner. And please, give back the FW800 and add another USB port!
As far as features go, It'd be neat to offer 802.11N (probably not because the spec isn't final yet, though I don't think G was final when they made Airport Extreme) and maybe a bumped GPU also.
simon.hibbs said:
The same goes for the iMac, it's a great design. They had a chance to rev the designs when they moved to intel and chose not to.
I think what Apple has been doing by keeping most of their models with virtually the same look with the switch to Intel is to create a sense of continuity with the PPC Macs.
They might change the case to be more accessable (I think that was lost somewhere in the G5 era) and to loose some of the blank white space below the screen (It doesn't bother me, but I've heard people say it does a bit).
Just minor refinements because, yes I agree, it is a great design. It kinda reminds me of a futuristic original Macintosh.
Oh, and maybe they'll have it in black.
simon.hibbs said:
As for movie download, it's possible but I think it would be a premature move. Further expansion of their TV show range is much more likely as it fits the casual listening/watching pattern of iPod owners.
Well, when Apple does it (I do say when because there is a ton of evidence pointing that way), they will change the iPod to make it more feasable for people to watch full-length movies on it...with a widescreen touch display, and maybe crank up the output resolution so it's decent for watching on TV. Then throw in Bluetooth for remote control and wireless audio streaming.