Apple Releases the MacBook Pro

[nataku]

I have to be honest, the Intel iMacs shocked me. I really didn't see it coming! As for the Powerb.... errr.. MacBook I couldn't be happier! I am definitely getting one ASAP! Although I did feel quite sad that they took out Dual layer Superdrives and S-video output. Oh well. I guess it's there to keep prices the same. Also, Steve didn't mention anything about battery life. I wonder why... I have seen some battery performance figures from ArsTechnica and they said that the battery, on full charge, read 3:03 hours. I'm not surprised because this is a pre-production model anyway. Plus, the drivers are probably not optimized yet. Wifi was also turned on and they were set to Best Performance mode. So the battery would really get affected. I just hope that Steve's failure to mention battery life doesn't mean to what I fear.

 

[firsttube]

battery life

I called 1-800-MY APPLE and asked about the new MacBook's battery life. I was told "Around 6 hours, but I'm not really sure... Let me check with one of my co-workers." she then put me on hold for about 10 mins. After coming back to the phone she said "I'm being told 5 hours." I asked her where she got that figure from, and she said "That's just what one of my co-workers told me." So that's that, you heard it from the horse's mouth... well the horse's co-worker's mouth, anyway.


Phil

 

[SuperThread]

So you would rather have that honkin' big metal tube straddling the top of your PowerBook instead? Yeah, that's a lot more functional and practical...

Actually, I'd like *nothing* on top of my PowerBook, and an even bevel around the edges.

 

[RONIN1138]

This happened before

Well, I'm a little disappointed. This might seem trivial but the biggest negative is that it has the same design as the old line. I mean, this is a ground breaking shift for Apple and all they did was switch the chip out and add an iSight. No way I'm going to spend that kind of money if people don't know what I have.

And for those of you that say its all about the perforance, it's NOT> If it were you and I wouldn't be on a MAC site at all.

I was hoping for a 17" powerbook with a new design.

Any ideas on when we might see a 17" version? Since the MacBook looks the same as the PB's, would the different sizes also have to look the same?

The more I think about it, the more I think I'm going to pick up a used 17" machine to tide me over for 2 years and then when the blazing machines come out with a NEW design, I can make the jump then.

Thoughts?

Anyone have a gently used i7" PB for sale?

ev

I just bought a 17" with 1 gig of ram. I waited years for a new Powerbook.
This same crap happened to me after I bought my G3 Powerbook. Anyway
your oosting makes me feel better about keeping it for a few years. Thanks!
Maybe I'll get an iMac for home.

 

[digitalbiker]

Well, in the US you pretty much can connect from anywhere with wifi. I mean, aren't all McDonalds access points now? And there's a starbucks every 20 ft. Besides, here in L.A. you don't even need that. Just walk around a bit and you'll find some unprotected wifi router you can leech off of. My nintendo ds found 6 wireless networks, 4 of which were open. Funny thing was it didn't find mine... I forgot that I had it hidden

Come on, Do you ever leave LA?

The rest of the US is hit and miss with Broadband. Most of the US does not have WiFi.

Major cities have wifi yes. But most of the US is rural and most of the US lacks broadband and/or wifi.

Not all McDonlads, Not all starbucks. Only those that are in big cities. PB's are for traveling, connecting on the road. There are phone lines nearly everywhere but wifi and/or broadband, Give Me a Break!

 

[SiliconAddict]

Stupid idea, but since the new Apple laptop uses SerialATA, is it possible that the reason why there is no Dual Layer burner is because one does not exist for the form-factor/interface?

that's what I'm thinking. tradeoff I guess. Wonder if I can get it upgraded through 3rd party later?

 

[SiliconAddict]

I called 1-800-MY APPLE and asked about the new MacBook's battery life. I was told "Around 6 hours, but I'm not really sure... Let me check with one of my co-workers." she then put me on hold for about 10 mins. After coming back to the phone she said "I'm being told 5 hours." I asked her where she got that figure from, and she said "That's just what one of my co-workers told me." So that's that, you heard it from the horse's mouth... well the horse's co-worker's mouth, anyway.


Phil

I HIGHLY doubt Apple has told anyone anything in regards to battery life. they are still tweaking the BIOS/OS/Battery Firmware. That is prob the main reason they don't have anything on their site yet. It would be stupid to post something if a simple tweak here a tweak there could change that by 10%. So your Apple store reps and phone support reps are prob pulling these numbers out of thin air.

 

[zync]

But less disconcerting when you realize that doing so is extremely commonplace in ANY product from ANY manufacturer.

Here we have Apple backing off on a few small specs, while leaping forward massively in general. Nothing unusual about that really.

There are little things (having to tote a modem, in my case) that sound disappointing. Until you put them up against the BIG things

Unfortunately Apple has been one of the few that doesn't do that; unfortunately, Apple is supposed to be different. Remember Think Different? What happened to that?

What differentiates a MacBook from an offering from Sony? Sure we have OS X, but then again Sony has screens with nearly twice the resolution. It just doesn't seem like we have anything different anymore. We used to have a totally different processor architecture, we used to have FW800, we used to be the only group with 802.11g standard. We had DVD burning, we just seemed to have it all. We were privileged then. That was less than two years ago. Now x86 books have all of that, and now we share processors. It's not like Intel only sells to Apple. That was the one thing I was scared of when Apple announced this switch, and I hoped that they'd be good enough to deal around it somehow. After all these years of Apple wanting us to switch it feels like THEY have switched. It's just not the same anymore, and I don't think it ever will be.

Does this mean I'll stop being a Mac user, no. Though it may be way overpriced compared to the competition, it still works better. Does it have the same "mystic" as was said earlier? Sadly, no.

 

[firsttube]

I HIGHLY doubt Apple has told anyone anything in regards to battery life. they are still tweaking the BIOS/OS/Battery Firmware. That is prob the main reason they don't have anything on their site yet. It would be stupid to post something if a simple tweak here a tweak there could change that by 10%. So your Apple store reps and phone support reps are prob pulling these numbers out of thin air.

I know, hence the ... I was on hold for 10 mins.



Phil

 

[ericschmerick]

This is the weirdest thread I've ever read.

I have to admit, I've read quite a number of "gee I'm disappointed that Apple is switching to Intel for <whatever reason>" threads, but now that's it's really happening it seems there are a huge number of Apple users finally sharing their true thoughts about the switch.

I guess when I decided to switch two years ago from windows because I liked the look / feel of the OS, and the usability / experience of the OS and key applications (and also, I guess, because I was bored with winxp), I did so for uncommon (in the Mac community) reasons?

Reading many of today's posts would leave one with the impression that Macs are great primarily because they are different! What a strange concept. I stopped doing things just to impress others with my differentness around the age of 14. Most of my adult decisions have based utility, and sometimes pure internal fun.

I enjoy the look / feel of the Mac, and the Mac OS. I like the fact that when I close the lid on the PB, and re-open it, it wakes in 2 seconds. I like widgets. I like how iPhoto, iMovie, FC Express, and Keynote work. I like the fact that the OS includes PHP, MySQL, and Apache, and that I can do webdev in a very unix-like environment without having to kludge together a bunch of questionable win32-builds of these tools. I like all the cool animations, the taskbar, everything about OSX (it's pretty, darnit).

I HATE the fact that what I do in PS CS on my PB takes me 100% longer and is 200% more frustrating than doing it on my (prety darn old 2GHZ Athlon) windows machine. I found the PB to be JUST BARELY acceptable as a desktop replacement, but once I was hooked, I couldn't give it up.

If the MacBook Pro has all the positive attributes listed above, and is 400% faster than my 1.25 AL PB, then it's a no-brainer that this is a GOOD THING as far as I'm concerned.

Surely the "I'm sad because it isn't different enough" crowd only represents a tiny minority of the ~15M mac purchasers from the last few years.

I bought a 1.83 at about 5PM Pacific. Apple store says it's shipping around Feb 15. Can't wait. Anyone who's bummed about not being different anymore can buy my 1.25 PB - I suppose 4x slower counts as "differentness". Though, you might have to put a sticker on it to that effect so others will continue to be impresseed with, if nothing else, your colossal patience.

EE

 

[macidiot]

Come on, Do you ever leave LA?

The rest of the US is hit and miss with Broadband. Most of the US does not have WiFi.

Major cities have wifi yes. But most of the US is rural and most of the US lacks broadband and/or wifi.

Not all McDonlads, Not all starbucks. Only those that are in big cities. PB's are for traveling, connecting on the road. There are phone lines nearly everywhere but wifi and/or broadband, Give Me a Break!

well my internal map of the US is: the northeast, the west coast, Florida, Chicago, and Texas. Oh, and Denver, for skiing. And those places have broadband and wifi. Everything else, to quote some other posts in this thread... bfe.

On a more serious note, Apple has almost zero presence in the rural areas you talk about. Apple's primary computer markets are California and the northeast. It makes no sense developing for someone in rural Arkansas or Kansas(no offense meant to people from there, well except Kansas... you people are retarded. Two words: intelligent design ). It does make a lot of sense developing for someone in L.A. or NYC. There is a reason there are more Apple stores around me than I can spit at. And virtually none in the middle of the country...

The reality is this computer and most computers from Apple (and most other products from other premium brands) are targeted to people on the coasts. Who happen to have broadband/wifi access readily available. Its not fair, but thats the way it is.

 

[macidiot]

top 3 headlines...

Just had to throw this out there...

The top 3 headlines from Reuters: Technology in my rss feed...


Apple debuts Intel iMac after record sales

Microsoft warns of critical Windows security flaws

Levi Strauss debuts iPod-ready jeans



Nice job Microsoft

 

[Grokgod]

OK what is really important

I actually read this entire thread~ Whew

Jobs changed the name because he wanted MAC in the name.

I can understand why, its called Branding.
I think that the Powermac will remain Powermacs cause it has MAC in it.

This is a great update cause ... its much faster.
Pure and simple the need for speed for a MBP is crucial.

So its all good except for figuring out if this beast will run HOT or not?
Will it blast with all fans on?

I am surprised that posts from people on other websites, that have seen the MBP give so little attention to these issues.

I want to know if the fans were on and if the top of the damn alutray was hot as all the previous units.

TIA

 

[zync]

This is the weirdest thread I've ever read.

I have to admit, I've read quite a number of "gee I'm disappointed that Apple is switching to Intel for <whatever reason>" threads, but now that's it's really happening it seems there are a huge number of Apple users finally sharing their true thoughts about the switch.

I guess when I decided to switch two years ago from windows because I liked the look / feel of the OS, and the usability / experience of the OS and key applications (and also, I guess, because I was bored with winxp), I did so for uncommon (in the Mac community) reasons?

Reading many of today's posts would leave one with the impression that Macs are great primarily because they are different! What a strange concept. I stopped doing things just to impress others with my differentness around the age of 14. Most of my adult decisions have based utility, and sometimes pure internal fun.

I enjoy the look / feel of the Mac, and the Mac OS. I like the fact that when I close the lid on the PB, and re-open it, it wakes in 2 seconds. I like widgets. I like how iPhoto, iMovie, FC Express, and Keynote work. I like the fact that the OS includes PHP, MySQL, and Apache, and that I can do webdev in a very unix-like environment without having to kludge together a bunch of questionable win32-builds of these tools. I like all the cool animations, the taskbar, everything about OSX (it's pretty, darnit).

I HATE the fact that what I do in PS CS on my PB takes me 100% longer and is 200% more frustrating than doing it on my (prety darn old 2GHZ Athlon) windows machine. I found the PB to be JUST BARELY acceptable as a desktop replacement, but once I was hooked, I couldn't give it up.

If the MacBook Pro has all the positive attributes listed above, and is 400% faster than my 1.25 AL PB, then it's a no-brainer that this is a GOOD THING as far as I'm concerned.

Surely the "I'm sad because it isn't different enough" crowd only represents a tiny minority of the ~15M mac purchasers from the last few years.

I bought a 1.83 at about 5PM Pacific. Apple store says it's shipping around Feb 15. Can't wait. Anyone who's bummed about not being different anymore can buy my 1.25 PB - I suppose 4x slower counts as "differentness". Though, you might have to put a sticker on it to that effect so others will continue to be impresseed with, if nothing else, your colossal patience.

EE

My PowerBook has always been faster than my windows box, sorry. Differentness in that sense isn't because we're trying to stand out from the crowd, different is everything that's related to Apple's philosophy. Different is how the computer works, it's efficient and it just works. That's what's different.

The fact is that this processor is available for any developer to tinker with. Apple doesn't have a special contract with Intel. Differentiation is how you set yourself apart from the competition so that you sell better than they do, but with the same processor and reducing technology you used to, and still would, have over the competition you're not differentiating yourself. I hope above all other hopes that Apple doesn't become just another x86 producing company using Linux over Windows. (Yes I realize OS X is NOT a Linux distro but it's a comparison)

Also, I didn't notice before that the LCD bezel wasn't even....I'm sorry, that's just fugly. Did they fire Ives or something? WTF!?

 

[macosxuser01]

will apple get ride of powermac's in like summer or will apple update them to intel processors?

And why are people like "it does not feel like apple anymore" "i wish they would stick to powerpc"

PowerPC eats electricity like no other. has anyone touch a Xbox 360 after an hour of playing it? its hot!

would u like powerbook g5 in your lap, i would if it was a cold cold night in the middle of january

 

[Jimmieboy]

Now all i need is Leopard.

 

[zync]

will apple get ride of powermac's in like summer or will apple update them to intel processors?

And why are people like "it does not feel like apple anymore" "i wish they would stick to powerpc"

PowerPC eats electricity like no other. has anyone touch a Xbox 360 after an hour of playing it? its hot!

would u like powerbook g5 in your lap, i would if it was a cold cold night in the middle of january

It doesn't feel like Apple anymore because it's no longer different from the competition. The only thing you can't get somewhere else besides the case is OS X. Yeah OS X rocks and I wouldn't use anything else, but it's really different now. I'm not trying to say that I hate Apple, that I don't like an increase in power, or that I won't continue to buy Apple, I'm saying that, as someone else said before me, Apple has lost it's mystique.

Also, my G4 has really not been that hot, sorry. Also, as far as I have seen clock for clock PowerPC is faster than x86, and only recently has the difference in wattage performance been noticeable.

 

[arn]

I'd like to please ask people to take some time to contribute to the Guide pages on these new products.

[guide]MacBook Pro[/guide]
[guide]iWork '06[/guide]
[guide]iLife '06[/guide]
[guide]Intel iMac[/guide]

These pages are editable by anyone.

 

[mikeplokta]

Rubbish? It's INSANE

$1999 in the US, £1779 in the UK. That's over $3100 according to xe.com.

My credit card's going back to bed too, particularly with nothing smaller than a 15.4" model - that's too big for a portable IMHO. Roll on the MacBook Amateur...

You're comparing the low-end model in US$ with the high-end model in £. And you're forgetting that the US price does not include sales tax while the UK price does include VAT. The correct comparison is to take $1999, add 17.5% and then compare with £1429. And at current conversion rates it would be £1334, so the premium is actually less than £100.

 

[sw1tcher]

will apple get ride of powermac's in like summer or will apple update them to intel processors?

According to the Keynote, Apple will transition all their Macs to Intel processors by the end of this year. As for getting rid of the G5 PowerMacs, not going to happen yet IMO.

My guess is Apple will continue to sell it alongside the Intel-base PM to give customers a choice since many people are heavily invested in PPC software and won't want to have to upgrade everything at once. That's why Apple's still selling the PowerBook alongside the MacBook Pro, and the G5 iMac alongside the Intel iMac.

Plus, we may still see updated G5 PM's (and iMacs?) later in the year. Jobs did say at WWDC '05 that they still have some great PowerPC products in the pipeline that they haven't yet introduced.

If there's any truth to the "more PowerPC products in the pipeline" thing, I wonder if this could mean that we'll also see updates to the PowerBook, maybe with an updated Freescale chip or something? Apple does have a contract with them for the next few years still, right?

 

[lvnmacs]

A little shaky!

I don't really know what to expect on the new Intel machines. I have Final Cut Studio (Academic), and I don't know if I am eligible for the $49 exchange program. I'm still waiting for further reviews from "MacRumors" members, etc. before I take the plunge!

 

[Evangelion]

The machines have few problems (like single-layer DVD-drive), but overall, they are fantastic ! I adore the current PowerBooks, and I love the fact that they kept the design mostly identical. There's no need to change things for the sake of changing them, IMO.

Related to FW800.... Many of you are complaining because it was dropped. But are ANY of you actually using FW800? I mean, using it such a way that the extra bandwidth is really needed and noticeable? No, external HD's don't count, they can't even saturate FW400, let alone 800!

 

[50548]

You evidently don't agree with freedom of speech.

Nope, I just find it stupid to see people complaining on features that are either:

- obsolete;

- useless.

As of now, most (childish) complaints have been on:

- name of the notebook - even though it uses TWO obvious keywords: Mac and Notebook, need I say more? If it had MacIntel, IntelBook or whatever, you would be crying even louder...at least Jobs keeps up the Mac name in the line.

- FW800 - again and again, FW800 is all but DEAD. And FW400 is STILL there, even though most pundits were saying that Apple would dump it forever. FW devices can be easily daisy-chained without any loss in performance, but seems like you're getting the PC "I want a behemoth with all ports" syndrome.

- Resolution - with 67% more brightness and widescreen, that's what most users were asking for. I remember those blabla comparisons with Sony Vaios et al.; now that you have it, you complain that the MB has "lower" resolution, with some hundred fewer pixels, although the GPU is MUCH better...go figure.

- No modem - it's funny that most of you guys come and say "we all have HDTV and we want the future"...when Apple shows you the future, you back away. Show me ONE good hotel which still uses modem connection. Besides, for those RARE cases you can still buy a cheapo modem from Apple. I've never used the modem on my iMac G5, and only use my iBook's modem when I am in my parents' countryside house. Floppy is dead, modem is dead...face it.

- DL RW - Serious, I yet have to see one person using it. I have DL writer on my iMac and I can't even find the discs for it on papershops. DVD writing is, so far, more than enough, and I fully understand Apple for not cramming inside every crappy feature for sake of energy/heat/space.

Every other feature is at the same level or better than previous PBs, with a TON of performance increase...not much else to ask, really, unless you start comparing Macs with those "desktop replacements" out there...well, some of you already started that, sadly.

Last question for the geniuses: Show me one branded PC notebook which has FW800. Thank you very much.

 

[zync]

The machines have few problems (like single-layer DVD-drive), but overall, they are fantastic ! I adore the current PowerBooks, and I love the fact that they kept the design mostly identical. There's no need to change things for the sake of changing them, IMO.

Related to FW800.... Many of you are complaining because it was dropped. But are ANY of you actually using FW800? I mean, using it such a way that the extra bandwidth is really needed and noticeable? No, external HD's don't count, they can't even saturate FW400, let alone 800!

Firewire HDs count a hell of a lot when you're trying to run files through FCP on it thank you very much. And while we're at it my FW800 gets well over 50MB/s which is over the limit of the most efficient FW400 in existence.

Also, considering that there are HD cameras that have FW800 interfaces it becomes really important to professionals in the field.

We're not saying the computer sucks, we're saying it's LACKING. It's not lacking speed, it's lacking features we were used to having on "outdated" models.

 

[Evangelion]

I do not believe it is an Intel board inside the system, plus apple used thier own chip set and controllers around the processor. Apple is only buying the processor not all the bus controls and such since many other mac features would not work.

One of the reasons why Apple chose Intel, is that they can provide them with the total package. Procerros, chipsets and MoBo's (if needed/wanted)