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Higher Quality MacBook Pro Case Photos

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Has anyone noticed all the small parts already assembled on the underside. Notice especially the long rectangular bars near the hinge. There seem to be some more very small ones near the long reinforcement bar at the base of the keyboard. Hmmmmm... very interesting and elegant machine work.
 
AppliedMicro said:
Technically possible: yes.
Likely: not at all, if you ask me.

Now it seems like a really easy call:

  • Consumer camcorders come with USB (at least modern ones).
  • Apple hasn't offered any FireWire peripheral for a while now, right?
  • USB2.0 is good enough for hard drives (yes, it's a bit slower. But not very much so. Many won't even notice)
  • USB2.0 is way cheaper than FireWire
  • Dropping FW on the MacBook saves costs
  • Only including it on the Pro-books makes for nice product differentiation
  • There's no evidence of FW ports on the photos of the smaller notebook in this thread

Next MacBook will came without FireWire.
I'd be willing to bet on this.

(OK, that was really my ultimate and final say on the topic)
Click to expand...

I completely agree. I think a proper poll of people who use a MacBook (not a MBP) would show that most do not use the FW port on their MB.
 
Ombatay said:
Thoughts on the chances of seeing MM and keyboard updates too? I really want to get a bluetooth mouse with my MBP when I pick it up, but I do not want the mighty mouse... used a lot of wired ones, and frankly, crap. A bluetooth keyboard WITH a number pad + page up/down keys etc would be a bit handy.

Is this sort of schwag usually reserved for iMac updates?
Click to expand...

I doubt it.
 
I hope this pics are from MBs only and we dont see MBPs yet.
That would make sense if we look and the list with 12 different prices also rumored here...
 
AppliedMicro said:
Technically possible: yes.
Likely: not at all, if you ask me.

Now it seems like a really easy call:

  • Consumer camcorders come with USB (at least modern ones).
  • Apple hasn't offered any FireWire peripheral for a while now, right?
  • USB2.0 is good enough for hard drives (yes, it's a bit slower. But not very much so. Many won't even notice)
  • USB2.0 is way cheaper than FireWire
  • Dropping FW on the MacBook saves costs
  • Only including it on the Pro-books makes for nice product differentiation
  • There's no evidence of FW ports on the photos of the smaller notebook in this thread

Next MacBook will came without FireWire.
I'd be willing to bet on this.

(OK, that was really my ultimate and final say on the topic)
Click to expand...

Musicians and PRO VIDEO, not consumer, need firewire. If you are not one of these people, fine, but let's not start throwing out unsubstantiated facts about it. Because apple hasn't offered firewire, means nothing. If it wasn't for professionals, apple would have shut down a long time ago...and that proven. Firewire, is not expensive, and considerably faster than USB. Have you ever tried editing video with USB? Talk about slow. The macbook, especially the pro, needs firewire.
 
Will the old 15" Maccrook "Pro" be priced cheaper than $800 ? Seeing as the new Maccrook will be better in almost every way except for the fact that it magically doesn't have a firewire port. That's the only chance apple has to get my money.
 
So they give us Nvidia chips but take away FireWire…sigh.
If this is true, they should have at least added eSATA.

There goes my bus powered external drives and elegance of needing only one cable…:(
 
citi said:
Musicians and PRO VIDEO, not consumer, need firewire. If you are not one of these people, fine, but let's not start throwing out unsubstantiated facts about it. Because apple hasn't offered firewire, means nothing. If it wasn't for professionals, apple would have shut down a long time ago...and that proven. Firewire, is not expensive, and considerably faster than USB. Have you ever tried editing video with USB? Talk about slow. The macbook, especially the pro, needs firewire.
Click to expand...
Just to clarify the point: I'm firmly convinced the Pro books 15" will have a FW port. And it is very much needed of course. The technology is still expensive enough to make Apple want to drop it on the low-end non-pro, just as they did with the iPod.

By the way... anyone remember how the first MacBook Pro (CD) came without the FW800? ;)
 
AppliedMicro said:
Just to clarify the point: I'm firmly convinced the Pro books 15" will have a FW port. And it is very much needed.

(The technologoy is still expensive enough to make Apple want to drop it on the low-end non-pro, just as they did with the iPod).
Click to expand...

Looks like I won't be getting that 12" PowerBook replacement I was after…

Yes, MacBook Pro looks like it has FireWire 800 but the computer is too big :(
 
richthomas said:
good idea! i just made a poll for you. i will be very interested in the results.
Click to expand...
Guess it will be heavily biased towards FW use.
I mean... we as users here on this forums are the "enthusiast elite".
It goes without saying that I am using FW.
On the other hand, I know at least a dozen people who wouldn't even know what it is (contrary to USB), let alone use it.
But these people would also never participate in online FireWire usage polls.

:D
 
I use the firewire port on MY macbook..

I hope they have an adaptor, or a hidden firewire ability in the new macbooks - its an incredibly useful thing to have. I've used it a lot for target disc mode.. Sometimes I'll be working on a pretty big file on the uni machines and it's nice and quick to just plug the macbook in, mount it as an external drive and throw the files over.

Saying that I thoroughly expect it to be totally absent and become another arbitrarily assigned distinguishing feature between the consumer and pro line, and that apple will bring it back in the second revision due to popular demand. ;) Hell, if they put everything in a Rev.A, how are they going to get you to upgrade later? (I'm not really that cynical.. Probably)
 
TheReef said:
Looks like I won't be getting that 12" PowerBook replacement I was after…

Yes, MacBook Pro looks like it has FireWire 800 but the computer is too big :(
Click to expand...

Hopefully a 13-inch version is coming! PLEASE APPLE! They had a good amount of 12" PB users that'd go for a 13" MBP.

But personally, my dream Mac is probably a 14" MBP with at least 1440x900 resolution in the size of the current 13" MacBook case (and a 23+" cinema display for when I'm home with it.)
 
LoveCrusader said:
Will the old 15" Maccrook "Pro" be priced cheaper than $800 ? Seeing as the new Maccrook will be better in almost every way except for the fact that it magically doesn't have a firewire port. That's the only chance apple has to get my money.
Click to expand...

Don't hold your breathe on that one :lol:
 
No firewire boohoooo...I was planning on getting a mac specifically cos I wanted to make home videos & use firewire capture.

Now I have to look at the costlier MBP. !!!!!!!!!!!!!even previous gen refurb MBPs run atleast $1500
 
AppliedMicro said:
Anything to back this up?

Now, I'm really a noob at this camera thing, but I wanted to look this up.
I went to Amazon and looked up their bestselling camcorders:

http://www.amazon.com/Camcorders-Ca...&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=448566001&pf_rd_i=502394

There are some smallish cheap ones we don't need further lookup.
And there are some Canon ones, selling for a few hundred dollars.
Canon is a well-respected camera manufacturer, right?
They have a dedicated site for "consumer camcorder" (notice the distinction they make?):

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=173

These things go for a few hundred dollars, up to 1299$ on the high end.
That's more than an entry-level MacBook sells for, right?
Yet I couldn't find anything sporting FireWire.
Same with Sony HDR-SR12 selling for 1299$ at the Sony store.

So even camcorders which cost as much as a MacBook (more than 1000$!) come WITHOUT FireWire.

So who's still saying FireWire is a "must" for importing movies to iMovie?
And who's still insisting they cannot afford a MacBook Pro to along for their video editing?

Does Apple really need to keep FireWire around for the average iMovie guy?

:confused:
Click to expand...

Just because you didn't find a mention of Firewire on these sites doesn't mean that they don't have it. Amazon doesn't search the specs (only the product name).

Maybe you didn't know, but most camcorder makers don't call the port "Firewire" but rather IEEE-1394 or in the case of Sony, i-Link.

On the Canon site you linked, the HV20 and HV30 both have Firewire as their only connectivity port, as well as all of their mini-dv camcorders. They also have other lines of HD camcorders that use USB, but they are bundled with some Windows-only editing software. Video over USB is not as standardized as Firewire, and often the camcorders use some proprietary protocols that wouldn't work with OS X software like iMovie and Final Cut.

The Sony HDR-SR12 you mentioned does have Firewire as well as the majority of Sony high-end camcorder, and again, all of their mini-dv camcorders, you just didn't look for the right thing (i-Link or IEEE-1394).

Even if Firewire lost some ground over the last few years when it comes to camcorders, many Mac users bought Firewire cams over the last few years because they were the only ones that could work with OS X, and they still use them.

You keep saying that Firewire is less used nowadays (though it's used more than you assume), but the problem is that some people have invested in Firewire gears and still use those.
 
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Casiotone said:
Oh man I just spent half of my day reading this thread...
Click to expand...

I know what you mean, it took me over half an hour last night to select the posts I wanted to quote, and it was only 20 pages long then.

Searching for "mini-display port" only returns a few results on google (including two pages from this thread). Aside from the PDF you found, there's another interesting result from a chinese factory related forum:

http://translate.google.com/transla...?ThreadID=37088&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=zh-CN&tl=en

Well I think that there's a few errors in the translation, here's what I think it would mean:

"I heard that Apple created and owns a mini-displayport standard, much like the mini-DVI standard, and that they will open the specification to others, with no royalty fees.

Does anyone have information about it?
I would pay them $$$."
Click to expand...

Sounds appropriate. We'll all know Tuesday, looking forward to it greatly.
 
OK... Number One: We have NO confirmation that these photos are legitimate. They look very cool, but could easily be prototypes, very recent ones that give us a very good look at the design of the new laptops.

Hopefully Apple will not take Firewire away from the MB altogether. If they use a FW/Ethernet port or even develop an ethernet adaptor that works out of a firewire port (faster speeds), Firewire is too useful and so much of Apples software depends on the ability to get stuff in via video camera etc (which use Firewire). Perhaps Ethernet will come standard, and there will be an optional upgrade to the firewire/ethernet port...

As for the case design, the MacBook will definitely have a metal lid. The Airport manual thing (see the MacRumors homepage) is for both the MB and MBP. If the MB had plastic, then there would be no need for the Airport to go in the hinge...

Also - no mention of MBA in this manual, I am almost certain the MBA design isn't changing yet...

We will have to wait and see - hopefully Apple will wow us on Tuesday with a bunch of great new features, such as a docking system, ethernet/firewire integration, great new designs, battery life, smaller things like that rather than a massive update with 20,000x Superdrives and wireless charging and holographic projection screens etc.
 
Casiotone said:
Maybe you didn't know, but most camcorder makers don't call the port "Firewire" but rather IEEE-1394 or in the case of Sony, i-Link.
Click to expand...
Definately, when I bough my camcorder, and asked it included a FireWire cable they had no idea. I needed to buy a separate "DV Cable" for the "DV Port" as they called it.

You make a good point, Apple was the one who made FireWire popular (required!), it's not fair they do this to their users.
 
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