Intel iBooks in March? Media Center and Cell Phone Rumblings

[steve_hill4]

They're choices will be colors and BTO options [if they want]. I think they'll offer the iPod mini colors plus possibly black and white. And no, it won't be a MacBook Express. It'll just be MacBook and MacBook Pro.

These colors, with a consolidated 13.3" size across the line, and a $999 price point would have the MacBooks flying out of the stores.

I sure hope so, but I would still like to see two sizes, maybe a 15.4" with same spec for $100 more, just to pick up those wanting a larger screen, but not wanting the Pro models.

It'll take awhile for "them" to figure out that just one of the "extras" is an Opersting System that doesn't suck. But it's happening more often and more quickly now, and ever since the switcher campaign started back in '02.

The bottom line is "they'll" learn. =)

Oh yeah, "they" might have to start realizing that the junk software that's bundled with those HP's is, well... junk, when compared to iLife, Front row, etc. and the fact that Apple's applications are seamlessly integrated with Apple's Mac OS which, again, doesn't suck. And all of this runs on Apple's own hardware configuration, which means a much higher level of quality control which equates to reliability and... this is where you read my signature below.

I agree, but I was talking about perception to an extent. If somebody sees two machines, (the ones we sell have a HP again at the same price as the 12" iBook currently is), and one appears to have more in the way of hardware, that a major hook. if Apple could try to remove one or two of those barriers without adding any/too much onto the price, people are more willing to look at them. Too many people dismiss them on simple things like it only having two USB2 ports and less memory than other models are now shipping with. When they have then got to potentially buy software to replace their current Windows range, it also puts them off. I know Macs have the best software included still, but they'll always be one style of app not included that adds cost. The HPs I have mentioned may have awful software, but most/all Sony Vaios at the same price even have Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, so from a consumer perception point of view, seems to have an equal, or better package.

Yeah, but at least you get a word processing software with a PC. Not even Appleworks is included anymore. And dont' give me the bull**** that "Textedit" is a good wordprocessor. Microsoft works, word, wordperfect, SOMETHING should be on the new iMacs so people don't HAVE to go out and buy MS Office. I bet that was the deal Apple made with MS to get them to agree to the new 5 year deal.

That is what is starting to annoy me about trying to sell a Mac, I have to try and get them to buy iWork or Office to go with it, but it's no major issue. Yesterday, persuaded a couple to buy a 20" iMac, (first ever home computer), and to take iWork because it did everything they needed for £55 over the £369.95 they would have paid for Office, but that's still extra cash they would have preferred not to spend.

Are you talking about MS Works word processor?!!!
Pfff... I've seen almost every PC buyer buy MS Office because of how much they hate that software. "It does everything but WORK with anything." That is such a junky bait and switch piece of *****ware from Micrapsoft!

I'm not angry at you "fluidinclusion", nor am I trying to belittle you. But one of the first things I've heard people say when they buy a new PC is "I need Office". When they are reminded that MS Works comes with the PC, again they say "I need MS Office"

As far as Mac users, they can buy try out and buy iWork. IMO, "Pages" kicks much MS Word a$$ and is a pretty darn good amateur desktop publishing application as well.

I agree, but MS Works does the job for most people looking to type a letter, print out themselves, or save as a *.doc and email off. If they want more features, it's up to Worksuite or Office, (which is rare unless they go for the Student version). However, they at least have that choice, unlike it seems with a Mac these days.

Why not continue to include Appleworks even if it is based on OS 9 and will run slowly? I thought it would still run natively on OS X, thus removing the need for Classic support, which the Intel Macs lack. It may be poor by todays standards, but matches up to MS Works and will do the job for those described above, (type, print, email).

I don't think I've ever seen 6 posts in a row made by the same person before...

Congratulations MacQuest!

Yeah well... I was going for 7 DAMNIT!!!

Now I gotta start over thanks to YOU, EricNau...

I was just reading through the day's posts and answering/commenting in order.

I do the same thing and feel I am annoying others by doing it, but a lot of messages get posted in a topic when I am either at work or asleep, (due to time difference).

I personally see nothing wrong with it as long as its contructive and not spamming.

 

[excalibur313]

So what exactly do they mean by a new enclosure? Also, what is the difference between a core solo and the last generation of chips? I thought the only thing changed for the dual yonahs is they took the same chip architecture and shrunk it down and made it share the same cache.

 

[MacinDoc]

Nah, look for the new iBooks to have the single core variants of Yonah in them.

But is the Core Solo really worth $100 more than the Celeron M for an iBook? If they are using Core, the 1.66 GHz Core Duo offers the most computing power per dollar, nearly twice that of the Core Solo.

I really see no reason for anyone to use the Core Solo, unless Intel drops the price a lot.

 

[rhsgolfer33]

But is the Core Solo really worth $100 more than the Celeron M for an iBook? If they are using Core, the 1.66 GHz Core Duo offers the most computing power per dollar, nearly twice that of the Core Solo.

I really see no reason for anyone to use the Core Solo, unless Intel drops the price a lot.

Its worth alot more sales, alot of people who are still in the market for a consumer notebook but who actually know anything about a computer will see Celeron and go elsewhere. The word crap has been associated with Celeron in peoples minds for a long time now. Personally, if they put a Celeron in the iBook ill wait for a 12-13 inch macbook pro or be forced to buy a core duo or core solo windoze notebook.

 

[iHateGates]

The ORIGINAL media mac

How can we possibly forget the orignal media center mac. Mac TV? Anyone remember this? At the time it seemed like such a lame idea, at least to me. Who'd want to watch TV on their computer. Now we're all dying for it.

http://www.lowendmac.com/500/mactv.shtml

 

[steve_hill4]

But is the Core Solo really worth $100 more than the Celeron M for an iBook? If they are using Core, the 1.66 GHz Core Duo offers the most computing power per dollar, nearly twice that of the Core Solo.

I really see no reason for anyone to use the Core Solo, unless Intel drops the price a lot.

It certainly is worth it. People avoid Celeron M and the Core Solo is almost the same in performance to the Pentium M, which is so much better than Celeron. The real question is is it worth going for the cheaper Solo over the Duo when it isn't that much cheaper and has just over half the performance. We are dealing with the consumer market here though and most of th people buying the MacBook will not be too bothered whether its Core Solo or Duo at that price and so the cheaper one should win.

Celeron will be a no-no, or Apple will lose out on the marketing front and many will laugh at them and avoid.

 

[Plecky]

Anyone see this yet?

I was just stumbling across another one of my favorite sites (aka digg.com) and came across this submission:

http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Special_Event_on_Feb_22nd_2006

It pretty much links to a flickr account of someone who appears to have scanned - or photoshopped so take with a grain of salt - a special event invitation much like the "one more thing..." one from October. Although it does appear like a update AirPort Express, anyone think this could be real/is possible? A special event well over a month before their 30th anniversary, let alone so soon? I don't know myself, although I think if it is real it'll just be the calm before the storm. Maybe some accessory updates, the 1 GB nano or update/replacement to the iPod shuffle line at most, but nothing hardware/Mac related. While the real deal will come closer to what we were thinking in late march or early April. Kind of like when they rolled out the Nano and one month later rolled out iPod Video, iSight/FrontRow iMacs, and then a week later updates to the PowerBook/PowerMac line. Sure we may see something cool like the Nano's were, but I think the onslaught will come a month later and closer to the 30th Anniversary. Your thoughts?

 

[Peace]

I was just stumbling across another one of my favorite sites (aka digg.com) and came across this submission:

http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Special_Event_on_Feb_22nd_2006

It pretty much links to a flickr account of someone who appears to have scanned - or photoshopped so take with a grain of salt - a special event invitation much like the "one more thing..." one from October. Although it does appear like a update AirPort Express, anyone think this could be real/is possible? A special event well over a month before their 30th anniversary, let alone so soon? I don't know myself, although I think if it is real it'll just be the calm before the storm. Maybe some accessory updates, the 1 GB nano or update/replacement to the iPod shuffle line at most, but nothing hardware/Mac related. While the real deal will come closer to what we were thinking in late march or early April. Kind of like when they rolled out the Nano and one month later rolled out iPod Video, iSight/FrontRow iMacs, and then a week later updates to the PowerBook/PowerMac line. Sure we may see something cool like the Nano's were, but I think the onslaught will come a month later and closer to the 30th Anniversary. Your thoughts?

Well the original post here :
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/178234/

That post says the "friend" said Feb.24th..

 

[Plecky]

Well the original post here :
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/178234/

That post says the "friend" said Feb.24th..

Oh I missed that, sorry. Thanks though Peace for bringing me up to speed!

 

[steve_hill4]

I hope this special event is genuine, but the invitation doesn't seem quite real somehow.

If it does, perhaps Airport, iPod and (universal) software announcements. We might get an update on Intel Mac sales too, but I doubt anything announced here would be that ground-breaking. Those products will be more likely saved for the special event on/around April 1st.

 

[MacQuest]

But is the Core Solo really worth $100 more than the Celeron M for an iBook? If they are using Core, the 1.66 GHz Core Duo offers the most computing power per dollar, nearly twice that of the Core Solo.

I really see no reason for anyone to use the Core Solo, unless Intel drops the price a lot.

The MacBook's Core Solo and MacBook Pro's Core Duo distinction is mostly to easily differentiate the pro line from the consumer line. PERCEPTION is the value, as in "Twice as fast!" for the MacBook Pro [not technically true, but this is sales] or "Half the price!" for the MacBook [compared to the 15" MBP]. From a sales perspective it just makes things easier to "qualify" a customer.

Also, what Apple "loses" in individual unit profit margin on the MacBook, they'll make up in overall volume sales which will also increase Apple's visibility and market share. It's called the "Taco Bell" theory. Basically, "Sell it a little cheaper and you'll sell a lot more."

Apple will not get into all the different variants of Intel processor choices and names either. They prefer a "streamlined" product line, not the confusing, mix and match, "swap meet" product lines produced by windoze pc manufacturers.

The word crap has been associated with Celeron in peoples minds for a long time now.

LOL! I agree. As I posted earlier, back in '99/'00, OfficeMax was selling pc's and basically there were 2 processors to choose from: Intel Celeron and AMD X2.

They couldn't give the Celerons away. I know that they've improved technically, but the "bad taste" is still there for a lot of people who even mention that processor.

 

[steve_hill4]

The MacBook's Core Solo and MacBook Pro's Core Duo distinction is mostly to easily differentiate the pro line from the consumer line. PERCEPTION is the value, as in "Twice as fast!" for the MacBook Pro [not technically true, but this is sales] or "Half the price!" for the MacBook [compared to the 15" MBP]. From a sales perspective it just makes things easier to "qualify" a customer.

Also, what Apple "loses" in individual unit profit margin on the MacBook, they'll make up in overall volume sales which will also increase Apple's visibility and market share. It's called the "Taco Bell" theory. Basically, "Sell it a little cheaper and you'll sell a lot more."

Ooh, I wish they would. Apple always seems to make less money on their machines than others do, even with often "better" tech specs. I think Apple think if they reduce the price, one or many things may happen. They will sell more, but not enough to justify the price drop, they have higher demand, but can't meet expectations or they over-estimate sales and are stuck with huge quantities of stock. That's why we are stuck with prices that are great alue, but preceived by consumers as more costly.

 

[MacinDoc]

It certainly is worth it. People avoid Celeron M and the Core Solo is almost the same in performance to the Pentium M, which is so much better than Celeron. The real question is is it worth going for the cheaper Solo over the Duo when it isn't that much cheaper and has just over half the performance. We are dealing with the consumer market here though and most of th people buying the MacBook will not be too bothered whether its Core Solo or Duo at that price and so the cheaper one should win.

Celeron will be a no-no, or Apple will lose out on the marketing front and many will laugh at them and avoid.

I'm talking about the Celeron M, not the original Celeron. They are entirely different creatures.

 

[Maxx Power]

I'm talking about the Celeron M, not the original Celeron. They are entirely different creatures.

P-M is fast mostly due to the extra fast L2 cache, which has the same latency as L1, as tested by various sites on the net, dating years ago. THe Celeron is very undesirable especially if emulation is going to be used (rosetta), since the code won't fit as nicely in quarter the cache 512KB.
Secondly, the celeron won't support ANY power functions, it won't downclock, downvolt or bus slew or anything like that, and as iBooks have had power functions implemented for a while now, that one stunt of taking it away is a bit PR blow to apple if they used celerons, since Intel's original aim of the mobile celerons was to NOT support the power functions intentionally. It doesn't make much sense to jeorpardize the current user base and potential switchers to use Celerons as they are created to be the symbol of the cheapest of the cheapest of the generic beige PC crowd.

They can almost certainly save money else where by going with compatible hardware here and there, as they have switched in the past. Intel will give them good deal prices if they bundle their wireless, chipset and CPU in the same notebook (either Centrino, or god help us - ViiV Cr@p).

 

[powermac_daddy]

remember my post?

 

[excalibur313]

remember my post?

Absolutely! Tell us more powermac_daddy! You are right on.

 

[corywoolf]

I hope that this is part of what they mean by stylish. Sony has a product line of Vaio notebooks that can be purchased in different colors. The blue ones and the green ones are almost always sold out. It is almost scandalous that the computer industry hasn't yet caught up to 80 year old ideas from the automotive industry. We know that the iBook is reliable and functional. Make it interesting, too.

What do you mean "hasn't caught up?"

Remember the clamshell ibooks.... big mistake. I say forget the colors. If you want your 'book colored go to colorware.com

(black and white are not colors)

 

[gammamonk]

What do you think the video card will be?

 

[artifex]

What do you mean "hasn't caught up?"

Remember the clamshell ibooks.... big mistake. I say forget the colors. If you want your 'book colored go to colorware.com

(black and white are not colors)

I think you mean colorwarepc.com, the other is a squatted domain.

P.S. I want a smoky translucent one.

 

[lasuther]

It seems like every 2 months Thinksecret releases a rumor about widescreeen iBooks. Thinksecret has been very unreliable, but eventually they are going to get lucky.

lasuther

 

[janstett]

I don't like the idea of having a DVR. It might be cool for you folks in the US who tend to use Cable which you can use the normal tuners in TVs or TV cards but over here in the UK we use satellite (Sky) way more than cable and the tuners are built into the decoder/receiver box supplied by Sky. An HD DVR that isn't supplied by Sky just wouldn't cut it. A Tivo connected to Sky can only ever access the channel Sky's plugged into and that's one channel at a time.

They make IR blasters for that purpose. Most of us here in the US enjoying High Def are doing so with cable box converters.

 

[AidenShaw]

They make IR blasters for that purpose. Most of us here in the US enjoying High Def are doing so with cable box converters.

For those who might not have seen them (or haven't heard of them by that name), these are small IR transmitters controlled by the TiVo, VCR or other device. They send the IR signals necessary to tell the cable, satellite or other box to change channels.

 

[MacinDoc]

P-M is fast mostly due to the extra fast L2 cache, which has the same latency as L1, as tested by various sites on the net, dating years ago. THe Celeron is very undesirable especially if emulation is going to be used (rosetta), since the code won't fit as nicely in quarter the cache 512KB.
Secondly, the celeron won't support ANY power functions, it won't downclock, downvolt or bus slew or anything like that, and as iBooks have had power functions implemented for a while now, that one stunt of taking it away is a bit PR blow to apple if they used celerons, since Intel's original aim of the mobile celerons was to NOT support the power functions intentionally. It doesn't make much sense to jeorpardize the current user base and potential switchers to use Celerons as they are created to be the symbol of the cheapest of the cheapest of the generic beige PC crowd.

They can almost certainly save money else where by going with compatible hardware here and there, as they have switched in the past. Intel will give them good deal prices if they bundle their wireless, chipset and CPU in the same notebook (either Centrino, or god help us - ViiV Cr@p).

Cache on the current Celeron M is 1 GB, but I agree, with Rosetta, more is better. Still, for the buck, I much prefer the Core Duo for iBooks.

 

[AidenShaw]

Cache on the current Celeron M is 1 GB, but I agree, with Rosetta, more is better.

Where are the benchmarks that show that QuickTransit performs better with a 2 MiB cache than a 1 MiB cache?

It very well may, but it is also possible that it makes very little difference.

For example, if a QuickTransit app is actively using 4 to 8 MiB of data and instructions, then there might be very little difference between a 1 MiB L2 and a 2 MiB L2. You'll see little reuse of data with both caches because neither of them is large enough to hold the active memory.

On the other hand, if the app is actively using 1.5 MiB, then there might be a big improvment going from 1 MiB to 2 MiB.

But, it isn't reasonable to blindly assume that "more is better", or more to the point, that "2 MiB is better than 1 MiB" for an environment as complicated as an app running under QuickTransit.

 

[Maxx Power]

Where are the benchmarks that show that QuickTransit performs better with a 2 MiB cache than a 1 MiB cache?

It very well may, but it is also possible that it makes very little difference.

For example, if a QuickTransit app is actively using 4 to 8 MiB of data and instructions, then there might be very little difference between a 1 MiB L2 and a 2 MiB L2. You'll see little reuse of data with both caches because neither of them is large enough to hold the active memory.

On the other hand, if the app is actively using 1.5 MiB, then there might be a big improvment going from 1 MiB to 2 MiB.

But, it isn't reasonable to blindly assume that "more is better", or more to the point, that "2 MiB is better than 1 MiB" for an environment as complicated as an app running under QuickTransit.

None of us are sure how much footprint the Rosetta related data is going to take up at the CPU Cache level, but the P-M architecture is optimized for quick L2 access to compensate the lagging FSB, and the Intel engineers have decided that between 2MB to 4MB is the sweet spot that will fit most program's instructions on core while executing. If you are emulating, the emulation layer has to be kept on die for fast access, as well as the program you are going to be emulating, and therefore, 2MB is the lower estimate for how much it is going to be needing if the emulated programs are small and rosetta is efficient. 4MB almost sounds essential for non-optimized programs and treating Rosetta as any other program per Intel's estimates.