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Apple's Subnotebook 'Delayed' Until Late 2007/Early 2008?
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Really? I didn't realise that either. I was playing with one at a store today and it felt really plastic. Ah well! I prefer the MBP's anyway
I agree, that was the point I was trying to make before. I don't think SR would make much of a difference if implemented in a MBP, it could be worth it to a MB sure.
But see we are also talking about completely different operating systems. Windows, and certainly Vista, needs a bloated fully loaded pc for the "Ultimate" version (or what ever the heck it's called). OS X on the other hand doesn't. I think regardless of the introduction of Intel to Macs we're still talking apples to oranges in some way.
SR is a lot more then just better graphics. MBP would benefit from SR (for example it should be able to support 4 GiB, if not more, of RAM).
according to apple their shell is polycarbonate, hence more resistant to dents than aluminium
Yeah, I was going to respond to this also, but then, I thought to myself, "
" and decided not to. 
All announced products, being the essential difference. This subnotebook is nothing but a rumor. Notice that "delayed" is in quotes in the subject heading.
Yes, I do believe I am aware of the current year.
I think the "new Apple" is focused on component cost. Apple had everything needed for a clovertown 8-way when they were released by Intel in 10-06, but did not release the 8-way until 4-07. That sounds precisely like Intel's price reduction timeframe.
In terms of flash, Apple has major contracts with substantial prepayments with at least three suppliers.
I think the new Apple is timing price reductions on component parts to determine when to release new products so they can:
1. Stay within a pricepoint marketing has determined works.
2. Have a relatively long lifecycle of the product by being at the "center of the" leading edge, rather than at the "bleeding edge" as they have often been in the past.
It also results in the second price drop of the parts happening in mid product cycle, thus juicing margins and profits.
Hence the talk about 500m 4 gigabit flash units rather than 250m 8's or 125m 16's. The price per gigabit is MUCH lower than the others. So we might see a subnotebook or larger iPhone form factor device (ATNN) with perhaps 2-4 flash units installed. Maybe even a micro-drive at 120GB.
Wouldn't a display on both interior faces of the clamshell be cool?
Rocketman
I refer to an old post:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/255429/
In terms of flash, Apple has major contracts with substantial prepayments with at least three suppliers.
I think the new Apple is timing price reductions on component parts to determine when to release new products so they can:
1. Stay within a pricepoint marketing has determined works.
2. Have a relatively long lifecycle of the product by being at the "center of the" leading edge, rather than at the "bleeding edge" as they have often been in the past.
It also results in the second price drop of the parts happening in mid product cycle, thus juicing margins and profits.
Hence the talk about 500m 4 gigabit flash units rather than 250m 8's or 125m 16's. The price per gigabit is MUCH lower than the others. So we might see a subnotebook or larger iPhone form factor device (ATNN) with perhaps 2-4 flash units installed. Maybe even a micro-drive at 120GB.
Wouldn't a display on both interior faces of the clamshell be cool?
Rocketman
I refer to an old post:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/255429/
I wouldnt rush out and get the first gen (maybe even 2nd) of an apple subnotebook due to the limitation of writes to the memory and quality of the memory.
In a gadget such as iPhone or iPod, I can understand the use of NAND Flash. In an actual laptop I can see the benefits, but not sure I would want to risk it. As a complete hard drive replacement...No Primarily used as a read only cache , then maybe.
My desision would of course come down to HOW the memory was being used IN and BY the system.
(to quote Wikipedia)
"Another limitation is that flash memory has a finite number of erase-write cycles (most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand 1 million programming cycles). This effect is partially offset by some chip firmware or file system drivers by counting the writes and dynamically remapping the blocks in order to spread the write operations between the sectors. This technique is called wear levelling. Another mechanism is to perform write verification and remapping to spare sectors in case of write failure, which is named bad block management (BBM)."
1 million seems like a lot, but it isnt.
"The error-correcting and detecting checksum will typically correct an error where one bit per 256 bytes is incorrect. When this happens, the block is marked bad in a logical block allocation table, and its undamaged contents are copied to a new block and the logical block allocation table is altered accordingly. If more than one bit in the memory is corrupted, the contents are partly lost, i.e. it is no longer possible to reconstruct the original contents.
Most NAND devices are shipped from the factory with some bad blocks which are typically identified and marked according to a specified bad block marking strategy. By allowing some bad blocks, the manfacturers achieve far higher yields than would be possible if all blocks were tested good. This significantly reduces NAND flash costs and increases the size of the parts.
The first error-free physical block (block 0) is always guaranteed to be readable and free from errors. Hence, all vital pointers for partitioning and bad block management for the device must be located inside this block (typically a pointer to the bad block tables etc). If the device is used for booting a system, this block may contain the master boot record."
Id wait to see reports on the Flakiness factor, before any purchase of a laptop.
like I said before, My desision would of course come down to HOW the memory was being used IN and BY the system.
In a gadget such as iPhone or iPod, I can understand the use of NAND Flash. In an actual laptop I can see the benefits, but not sure I would want to risk it. As a complete hard drive replacement...No Primarily used as a read only cache , then maybe.
My desision would of course come down to HOW the memory was being used IN and BY the system.
(to quote Wikipedia)
"Another limitation is that flash memory has a finite number of erase-write cycles (most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand 1 million programming cycles). This effect is partially offset by some chip firmware or file system drivers by counting the writes and dynamically remapping the blocks in order to spread the write operations between the sectors. This technique is called wear levelling. Another mechanism is to perform write verification and remapping to spare sectors in case of write failure, which is named bad block management (BBM)."
1 million seems like a lot, but it isnt.
"The error-correcting and detecting checksum will typically correct an error where one bit per 256 bytes is incorrect. When this happens, the block is marked bad in a logical block allocation table, and its undamaged contents are copied to a new block and the logical block allocation table is altered accordingly. If more than one bit in the memory is corrupted, the contents are partly lost, i.e. it is no longer possible to reconstruct the original contents.
Most NAND devices are shipped from the factory with some bad blocks which are typically identified and marked according to a specified bad block marking strategy. By allowing some bad blocks, the manfacturers achieve far higher yields than would be possible if all blocks were tested good. This significantly reduces NAND flash costs and increases the size of the parts.
The first error-free physical block (block 0) is always guaranteed to be readable and free from errors. Hence, all vital pointers for partitioning and bad block management for the device must be located inside this block (typically a pointer to the bad block tables etc). If the device is used for booting a system, this block may contain the master boot record."
Id wait to see reports on the Flakiness factor, before any purchase of a laptop.
like I said before, My desision would of course come down to HOW the memory was being used IN and BY the system.
This is true, also waiting for 10.5 means they can leave out the optical drive, by the time 10.6 is released you'll be able to download it from Apple direct, they let you get Xcode now which is 920MB so the whole OS should be possible in a couple of years.
I'm going to get an SR mbp when they come out, but SR incorporates some flash ram, which makes me a little hesitant. But I'm going to make an assumption that intel wouldn't release a product with known major issues.
Well, let me clarify. I can see a definite "grain" on both the glossy and matte finish MBP screens. Most people don't notice it, but it really bothers me, to the point where my eyes become extremely fatigued and I get a headache. I've compared the screen to a 12-inch PowerBook screen, a 15-inch Ti PowerBook screen, a MacBook screen and my finacee's 17-inch MBP screen. All of these screens are much more clear, without the grain.
I'm not the only one who notices:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/251352/
It could be my eyes. They could be extra sensitive to this grain as a result of my glasses/prescription or some other factor. But for me, the grain is really apparent (on both finishes) and it causes focusing problems that make the computer difficult to use, for me anyway. Oh, and I have had my eyes checked recently.
I prefer the MacBook screen, but the plastic wouldn't age well with me because I work on my laptop for about 12 hours a day.
Idiocy from MacRumors
A rumor about a product with a rumored rollout date and a rumor that the rumored product won't meet the rumored rollout date and now its a 'fact' that the product is late.
MacRumors, you are clueless idiots. Cut the goddamn crap. Who the **** ever said the product was promised at any point in history.
And worse, the board is full of asswipes crying like babies that 'Apple is late again'.
Grow the **** up.
A rumor about a product with a rumored rollout date and a rumor that the rumored product won't meet the rumored rollout date and now its a 'fact' that the product is late.
MacRumors, you are clueless idiots. Cut the goddamn crap. Who the **** ever said the product was promised at any point in history.
And worse, the board is full of asswipes crying like babies that 'Apple is late again'.
Grow the **** up.
Actually, it is. If you write at 10 MB/sec continuously, no interruption, forever, how long does it take to write each one of 4 GB one million times?
Answer: About thirteen years.
invalid assumptions...
Your statement assumes that you revisit the same block every 4 GB - but in reality filesystems tend to have "hot spots" in the meta-data files.
Every time you create a file, you need to write to the space allocation bitmap and to the file header (and probably a file header allocation bitmap) and to the directory.
These hot spots are the problem, not the file data.
Your statement assumes that you revisit the same block every 4 GB - but in reality filesystems tend to have "hot spots" in the meta-data files.
Every time you create a file, you need to write to the space allocation bitmap and to the file header (and probably a file header allocation bitmap) and to the directory.
These hot spots are the problem, not the file data.
Yes I can't wait for this product.. especially so that when/if it does come out people can complain that it isn't tailored to their specific needs and is underpowered to edit video/record 100 live audio tracks/render 3d graphics/convert to h.264 at blazing speeds/all while recording HD TV
One of the reasons why flash is ok for things like music players and maybe extra storage but not so much if you intend to use it for your boot volume. OS's are constantly writing and rewriting and appending to certain crucial internal files. It probably wouldn't take long to start getting directory corruption.
Full-size video iPods are not "delayed". Since iPhone was announced, every thinking person has assumed the iPod refresh would not be until the fall. Previous rumors about a full screen iPod were actually about the iPhone. That said, it is true that virtually every product announced or widely expected for the last 8 months or so has been late: Mac Pro and XServe (could have come a month earlier in the former case and several in the latter); MacBook Pro C2D refresh (nearly 2 months late); Apple TV (a month late); 8-core Mac Pro (nearly 6 months past the first possible rumored release date); Leopard (originally January 2007, then "spring" 2007, then widely expected to be pushed to the very end of spring, now October). Even the iPhone itself may not be out until the very end of June at this point.
About the subnotebook rumor.. I could have sworn this was rumored for early 2008 to begin with. I can't ever remember reading 2007. Can't say I'm disappointed.
Why so long?
This is what I'm waiting for, a pro, small, real replacement for a 12" Powerbook. Not in any hurry, but why another year?!
To all those fanboys getting excited about black laptops, well, they've been around for a long time! When Apple release the new iMac in beige, I can't wait to read those posts...
This is what I'm waiting for, a pro, small, real replacement for a 12" Powerbook. Not in any hurry, but why another year?!
To all those fanboys getting excited about black laptops, well, they've been around for a long time! When Apple release the new iMac in beige, I can't wait to read those posts...
The Mac ultra-small notebook rumor has been reported, and then re-reported and reinvented (as needed), many times within what -- the last year or so?
Yes, I have heard from the CD. It was invented by Philips.
If you would have said the walkman...
I concur
This also makes me believe that Apple will upgrade the laptop line without the Intel Turbo Memory (i.e. previously called Robson Cache) included in this update. These delays just strengthen the arguments of those who are waiting for Leopard to buy new hardware. For me, it is a practical choice. I figure I can buy new hardware with Leopard with iLife (Leopard) included and with Apple Care I won't have to worry about upgrading until Apple Care is expired. By then, Intel will have a whole new chip architecture with integrated memory controller, possibly also integrated graphics chip, and Apple will be releasing/have recently released a new OS by then. For me, this is the optimal upgrade cycle.
This also makes me believe that Apple will upgrade the laptop line without the Intel Turbo Memory (i.e. previously called Robson Cache) included in this update. These delays just strengthen the arguments of those who are waiting for Leopard to buy new hardware. For me, it is a practical choice. I figure I can buy new hardware with Leopard with iLife (Leopard) included and with Apple Care I won't have to worry about upgrading until Apple Care is expired. By then, Intel will have a whole new chip architecture with integrated memory controller, possibly also integrated graphics chip, and Apple will be releasing/have recently released a new OS by then. For me, this is the optimal upgrade cycle.