Apple October 2008 Notebook Media Event Coverage

[leo.andres.21]

Am I the only one that thinks the MacBook updates are awesome? It's beautiful and has everything I wanted, backlit keyboard and far better GPU!

probably not, i also think it's beautiful lol
way more beautiful than my current Inspiron 1520
but i just bought this thing last year so my parents won't buy me anything this year....

 

[H. Flower]

I feel your pain. I use FireWire for getting video off the DV camcorder, recording from our cable box, networking to my Mini (it's noticably faster than 100mbps ethernet), and using my FW-only DVD burner. Now my upgrade price for a new Apple notebook that meets my needs has gone from $1099 yesterday to $1599 today, not counting the new bag I'd need to carry the larger machine around, the new adapter I'd need to connect all my FW gadgets to the FW800 port, the other new adapter I'd need to connect to my HDMI TV....

Actually, I suppose I could get the $999 base MB or a refurb - they'd still be an improvement over my 1.6 CD. But it's a bit disappointing to be left out of the aluminum future. What's really weird to me is that most consumer DV camcorders can only deliver video to a computer over FireWire, so the new Macbooks will be useless for iMovie users. Why would Apple release a new notebook that cannot run one of its flagship consumer apps?

Now that the lines between macbook and pros have been blurred, they needed to create a differentiating feature between them - and they chose firewire.

Its a creepy move.

 

[KilljoyPBN]

macworld this year will be focused on apple's new hdtv with built in apple tv. i'm surprised we saw anything to do with computers this year.

Makes me wonder what the 17" update will be. But then again I think 17" may be a little big for my student and hobby photog needs.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Add the tax for your state, then plug it into XE, the 1299 MB will not come to £950...

I though VAT was 17.5% in the UK?!
Different taxes = different prices.

YouTube'rs don't really have an issue, but those of us with $5000++ videocams using mini-DV, and creating BROADCAST QUALITY video STILL need the firewire option.

Well... you still have it!
If you can afford $5000++ cams, you can afford the relatively small additional price for the Pro MacBook, not? And that's exactly what Apple wants you to do.

Uh huh, that's why Sony's Z1 and V1 pro HDV camcorders are DV.
Sony clearly like to be backward thinking and non-proactive.

Not all mac users are imovie munchkins.

That's what the MBP is for.
(I don't know what "munchkins" are, though. Will have to look it up...)

 

[Eric2]

Apple no longer care about Pro users. Shame

Guess they will be making all the Cinema displays Glossy soon

 

[BenRoethig]

You can use 400 to 800 adapter cables though. The WD My Book Studio 2 supplies one as it dispensed with the FW400 ports in favour of eSATA. Of more concern is the the Macbook which has no firewire option and no expresscard slot, either. What is the point of iMovie now on that machine?

Some cameras use USB now.

Most, if not all of the newer models are USB. If you have an older model camera though, you're SOL.

 

[g00k]

speaking of quality...
this gen mbp has non at all
no matte display
ugly black bezel and keyboard
only 2usb, no hdmi
so where is the quality?

 

[starkruzr]

You're a newbie, apparently. Have you missed the point that Apple doesn't do "value", i.e. "cheap"? They also don't do bleeding edge graphics chips. It's the quality of the machine and the user experience. If value was the overriding need, you'd be driving a 15 year-old Geo Metro, right?

Er, point of order: The new MBP HAS a bleeding-edge graphics chip.

 

[KilljoyPBN]

speaking of quality...
this gen mbp has non at all
no matte display
ugly black bezel and keyboard
only 2usb, no hdmi
so where is the quality?

Those have nothing to do with quality. Features would be the term.

 

[Rassybat]

I will get told to go buy a Dell, I'm sure, but I will say this anyway: Worst. Update. Ever.

No matter what marketing lingo Apple throws out there this was still a primarily cosmetic update. The only backside update to this is the graphics, and the FSB (with the switch to DDR3 accompanying it predictably).

What makes it even more ridiculous is that this still leaves them at the rear of the pack where consumer laptops are concerned spec-wise. I can get a dual core system with a faster clockspeed, more RAM, better graphics (discreet, not integrated), and more storage options for far less. I can do less than half of the cost of a MacBook if I use my company's buying discounts for employees. Tack on the extra $200 Apple is charging for an aluminum case and glass track pad and I can get a portable workstation for the same cost.

Don't even get me started on the MBP.

Oh, and if you want to connect your shiny new laptop to an external monitor BESIDES the new 24" they introduced, well hell, you'll have to shell out for the corresponding adapter as well! They could have been decent enough to at least include the Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter with the machines.

Apple has been slowly sliding into what I can only describe as the Microsoft Trap. They're starting to believe their own hype and it's getting dangerous. They actually had the guts to unveil these machines with a massive price hike right in the middle of financial chaos.

So all I have to say is that until Apple has regained their common sense and the sense of function AND aesthetic that made their hardware so desirable I will be relying on my Dell that so many of you scorn, especially now that I'm successfully running Leopard on it.

Apple needs to pull their collective head out of their collective @$$.

Agreed.

The pricing on these new notebooks just aren't competitive. I'm very frustrated and disappointed that apple refuses to be more agressive in the $500.00-$1,000.00 price bracket for laptops. Instead, Apple raises the price even more for the entry level models up to $1300 (for the macbooks). What the HECK, man??

The new computers are slick, don't get me wrong. But this was a really bad update. I'm probably going to keep my 17 inch iMac as my desktop computer and consider getting an HP or Dell for a portable machine.

 

[galstaph]

Makes me wonder what the 17" update will be. But then again I think 17" may be a little big for my student and hobby photog needs.

17's are a little bigger (but not much really), but nicer for the extra space and higher resolution
I wouldn't trade mine for a 15.4 any day.. a mac pro maybe....
but I still love my 12" ibook as well

 

[gollum]

I'm real curious how easy it is to upgrade RAM and hard drive in the new laptops.

 

[pointycollars]

Q: Concern about the glossy screens. Are you going to offer another option?
A: Steve: We're going all glass -- we won't offer another version. Phil: You offset the reflection by the brightness, and consumers love it. One of the great things about a notebook is you can turn it however you want!

This is the worst of the lot... I thought the whole point of the Macbook Pro was that it wasn't a consumer machine but a 'pro' machine? As a photographer and designer how the hell is a super-contrasty, over saturated piece of 'glass' going to help me?

Find me a single professional who thinks this glossy piece of sh*t really is going to enhance their work... Afterall, it's about ACCURATE colour reproduction!

Ultra-contrasty color, no FW400, and the new 24" display will probably be glass, too - since Stevie said they were going "all glass". Obviously they are losing sight of their hardcore professional users. I'm wondering whether I should be so stuck on Mac OSX or start considering the jump to Windows to get a more professional setup. Yick.

 

[looking4anotebo]

why are all only talking about video and audio professionals about the matte display?
i own a mbp and i prefer a matte display because i can work anywhere with it.
glossy is a no go for me and i am not a professional just a normal student

I prefer matte because it's easier on the eyes. If I spent 5-6 hours a day looking at a glossy screen, I would have frequent eye strain and headaches.

 

[g00k]

arent features kinda like quality here?
if not than apple doesnt have more quality than any other manufracter.
its just a piece of alu the rest are features...

 

[ElBerserko]

All glossy screens is a deal breaker. No reality distortion field is going to change that. Looks like I am sticking with desktops and non-apple displays. I really do not like the black border styling they have going. It seems to be a throwback to the old Mac CRTs that had ridiculously large black margins on the screens. My 5 year old PowerBook G4 looks better than these new models.

 

[AppliedMicro]

What's really weird to me is that most consumer DV camcorders can only deliver video to a computer over FireWire

I am pretty much a noob on this.
But I checked this out on the canon site yesterday.

Lots of new consumer camcorders don't have FireWire anymore.
Most of them, actually.
At least the "hot" new ones that manufacturer seem to be pushing.
The light and "thin" variety (notice the common theme with Apple products).

So while your old consumer camcorder might only work via FireWire, you can easily get a new one, which doesn't come with FireWire at at. Also, I think many people ("the iMovie munchkins") are using their pocket-size still cams for iMovie, rather than dedicated bulky camcorders. So not many need FireWire.

 

[badgerman]

I though VAT was 17.5% in the UK?!
Different taxes = different prices.

Well... you still have it!

It is, but the prices in the store always include tax hence all (!) we pay is £949.99 bargain.

 

[Bampei]

If you can afford $5000++ cams, you can afford the relatively small additional price for the Pro MacBook, not? And that's exactly what Apple wants you to do.

That's what the MBP is for.

You missed the point. I DO use the MBP and the new ones have eliminated one of the firewire ports (the 400). That causes a tremendous problem because daisy chaining mixed 400 and 800 peripherals to a single 800 port can cause some instability and other problems, not the least of which is that my Firewire 400 hard drives, my video cameras, and my UDMA reader do NOT have daisy chaining capability at all. That means that in order to use the peripherals, I'll have to be constantly switching cables... rather than being able to have everything hooked up at one time.

At the very LEAST... Apple should have included TWO firewire 800 ports on the MBP. One just ain't gonna cut the mustard!

 

[benzslrpee]

the company still has to make money, no? once you lower the price it's always harder to raise it without raising hell among consumers. they'll probably drop the price later on down the road.

it's just business unfortunately.

Agreed.

The pricing on these new notebooks just aren't competitive. I'm very frustrated and disappointed that apple refuses to be more agressive in the $500.00-$1,000.00 price bracket for laptops. Instead, Apple raises the price even more for the entry level models up to $1300 (for the macbooks). What the HECK, man??

The new computers are slick, don't get me wrong. But this was a really bad update. I'm probably going to keep my 17 inch iMac as my desktop computer and consider getting an HP or Dell for a portable machine.

 

[pointycollars]

I prefer matte because it's easier on the eyes. If I spent 5-6 hours a day looking at a glossy screen, I would have frequent eye strain and headaches.

Yep. I think the comment about "it's a laptop, you can position it any way you want!" is ludicrous, because what if you're in a room where you just can't avoid a reflection?

 

[whakojacko]

Some people are, but you have to understand that the situation is very different from MacOSX...

With Vista, the *only* thing you get by switching to 64 bits is that you get the ability to use more than 3.5Gb as a whole and more than 2 Gb per application. And that's all, there is no performance gain at all, because there was no performance loss by staying 32 bits. If you don't have 4 Gb RAM or more, and if you don't use applications that can benefit from more than 2 Gb, you have no reason to switch to 64 bits. That's because the applications and the OS each exist in their own 2 Gb address space, so switching between the application (custom code) and the OS (API calls) has no extra cost.
As a result, there is little incentive to switch to Vista 64, very few people actually have 4 Gb of RAM. So, most people do not bother.

On MacOSX, a different architecture was chosen. The applications are not limited to 2 Gb in 32 bits, they can go all the way to 4 Gb. The tradeoff is that the address space is not shared. The OS gets the full 32 bits address space. And each application also gets it. So, whenever you have to switch between the OS and the application, and this happens quite often, you have to do a full context switch: save the stack, save the CPU state, switch, do whatever you had to do, restore the CPU state, restore the state. This is quite costly, even if the benefit is more potential RAM per application.
As a result, switching to 64 bits on MacOSX came with what seemed like a noticeable gain in performance - actually, this is seen from the wrong end, you're only recovering what you had lost due to the architecture choice.
So, for MacOSX users, there is a very real benefit from going 64 bits.

This explains the difference in the shift between the 32 and 64 bits version. On MacOSX, people made the move as fast as they could, because they could gain a lot in the process. On Windows, people only do it when they actually need it, because it's pointless otherwise. The Windows world will shift en masse when 4 Gb becomes the norm...

umm what? 64bit instructions certainly do give some performance increase in several applications, regardless of the OS.
And Yes, Vista 64bit is liked considerably more. My hunch is that its because the 32-64 switch made driver developers put in (at least a little bit) more work to port drivers, and thus fixing a few bugs they didnt care to fix/know about before.

As per the MBP: underwhelmed, a few comments
1. Nothing on Hybrid SLI at all. In the MBP, is the integrated just disabled? If it can switch on the fly or use both, thats huge
2. The display: not only glossy, but crappy resolution. I type this on my FANTASTIC matte 15" 1600x1200 S-IPS for my T60p. Some dont like high-res screens, but a lot of us do. Why isnt this at least a way overpriced option?
3. New Macbooks definitely too expensive
4. Case is most definitely badass.
5. Mini-displayport, wtf? The normal connector is small enough as-is (usb sized). I feel they like going out of their way to sell you overpriced accessories. Nice to see this switch though

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[Carniphage]

Ultra-contrasty color, no FW400, and the new 24" display will probably be glass, too - since Stevie said they were going "all glass". Obviously they are losing sight of their hardcore professional users. I'm wondering whether I should be so stuck on Mac OSX or start considering the jump to Windows to get a more professional setup. Yick.

Any hardcore professional user should be using a calibrated monitor in a dark room. Not a frigging laptop.

C.

 

[KilljoyPBN]

Yep. I think the comment about "it's a laptop, you can position it any way you want!" is ludicrous, because what if you're in a room where you just can't avoid a reflection?

Haha yeah that would be awkward in lecture with stadium seating having to forcibly stare at all the people behind you and them all being able to stare right back.

 

[surfdog_2005]

I'm real curious how easy it is to upgrade RAM and hard drive in the new laptops.

Upgrading RAM is easy. Don't order from Apple. Get it from a 3rd party and install yourself. Takes about a minute.