Live Coverage of Apple's 'Back to the Mac' Media Event

[n2arkitektur]

I got excited when he said 'One more thing...'

I was literally jumping up and down when he said "13.3 inches."

My heart sank when he said "Core 2 Duo."

I threw up my hands and walked away when he said "2GB memory."

The lighter and thinner is awesome. The more battery life is awesome. 128GB of flash storage is awesome. C2D with 2GB RAM is an epic failure. I've been waiting for 9 months for an MBA with 4 gigs. I guess I will wait another 9 months for a lighter, thinner MBP with flash storage, 4GB RAM, a decent processor (Sandy Bridge?), and OS X Lion. Here's to hoping my 2006 black MacBook lasts to its 5th birthday without a hard drive failure.

I was wrong. SJ didn't bring it up in the keynote, but there is a 4GB BTO option. The only thing holding back this product is the processor manufacturers, not Apple's fault. It will be interesting to see if they do a quiet update (around the time they updated the MBP's) with Sandy Bridge after it's released early next year.

 

[cburton]

It's sort of funny when people say "who would buy the new MBA's?", Maybe the people who don't want an iPad (Touchscreen) and have no real use for the MacBook pros/Macbook (Weight wise). (Although getting a Macbook would be a little better because of the specs/price is the same)

It's not going to be for everyone, ESPECIALLY people in Media. The MBA isn't a good machine for me (Music/editing), but it's probably great for someone on the go and need a keyboard constantly. AND it's extremely light.

No kidding ... considering a usable (for me) iPad is friggin $800. I need it for selling and redeeming tickets (barcoded) at our sporting events. That doesn't require mucho horsepower ... and honestly the smaller and more compact the better. I will make a decision after real specs are posted.

Chris

 

[Fraaaa]

Just read this: 2GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM onboard (4GB maximum)

 

[Neobond]

i just tried facetime with myself and it works really well no problems! though i was on the same network (mpb --> iphone 4)

Just "called" family out in cali, from minnesota, worked great! I don't know how I feel about video calling, it feels... unnatural.

 

[jacg]

Not a lot of new cool stuff

Anyone here hoping for some cool software to use NOW? All we get is £22.33 worth of iLife. Not a lot of radical new features, especially for iWeb and iDVD. And nothing about iWork?!!? Have Apple just caved to Office? I mean I know it looks all Mac-like now and you can turn off the ****** ribbon, but how long till you drill down to some really ancient code that makes it difficult to adjust the line spacing or something?

 

[sergey19]

1.4 ghz, are you kidding me, are u ****ing kidding me.

Steve on the ipad launch bashed netbooks for being slow, then he releases "next gen" macbooks with 2gb ram, and 1,4ghz.

WTF.

The display resolution is great, but the rest is bleh.

Disapointed overall, the osx lion was not shown, the mba is just measly. and the the new additions is just pure ipad/iphone copy/paste

are u kidding?? the macbook air can go up to 4 gb of ram and 2.13 ghz (on the 13-inch) are u serious?? Lion was not shown? were u even watching the presentation?? they said that it will come out summer 2011 and that the Mac app store will be out in the next 90 days.

get ur facts straight before commenting!

 

[skn]

Somehow I don't think we even saw a 1/3 of the new features.

I hope you are right! Let's wait for more news...

 

[billysea]

I am kind of excited for the 11in MBA. I will not get one (at least not until the next generation of MBA), but I like it being so small and position as a netbook. But didn't Steve said he dislike netbook?

I have to see one in person to see how small it is. Would be perfect on the go.

 

[jp102235]

Of course OS X apps can be full screen. There's never been a limitation there. This is something different, but the details from the live feed aren't clear, so I understand the confusion, an explanation is hopefully forthcoming.

Looks like it us using the "spaces" subsystem to allocate a "screen" to one app at a time. Interesting. I hope spaces is not completely gone.
I wonder how mission control will look with multiple monitors.

j

 

[jll62]

Interesting. There will be a touch screen in the future IMO but what format? iPad seems like the likely vehicle, but you may need more RAM and HD space.

The high end Air announced today will have 256 GB of on-the-board flash storage and 2 GB of RAM. What more do you need initially given the iPad's current specs? Theoretically, they could make a 0.68" thick device that has an 11.6" touch screen today by flipping the screen and removing the keyboard (assuming a necessary touch panel is available). Think of what we can get 12-18 months from now...

- We haven't even seen iPad 2 yet. It will improve on the current model and run iOS.
- OS X Lion will hopefully release between iPad 2 and 3.
- iPad 3 is the perfect opportunity to become the MacBook Touch (or iPad Mac, MacPad, etc). Could be a separate device, too.

 

[Nabby51]

I'm not sure why people are complaining so much about he MBA. If you don't like it don't buy it...

Also, if you're comparing it to a netbook, just stop. You're comparing what is pretty much a full blown notebook in a small form factor to something inferior, hardware wise.


Average Netbook:

1) Standard HDD
2) Crappy display
3) worst keyboards ever made...
4) Intel Atom Processor (pretty much crap for anything but basic functions)
5) 4-7 hours battery (depending on model and specs)
6) Standard trackpad
6) Integrated Intel craptastic graphics cards

MBA:

1) SSD HDD on all models
2) Super Thin LED backlit display
3) Full blown apple keyboard, none of this cramped keys garbage
4) Intel Core 2 Duo processor
5) Battery life: 5 hours on 11.6" and 7 hours on 13" screen
6) Glass multi touch trackpad
7) Nvidia 320m with 256MB memory graphics

You're paying for a better product is the bottom line. It's not a netbook by todays spec standards. I would drop in the OSX vs. Windows in the list too but that's not my point..

 

[wilycoder]

Or you know, it could have something to do with the fact that going with a Core i3 means settling for intel integrated graphics, which are much worse than the nVidia 320M... Core i3s have the integrated graphics included as part of the processor itself, eliminating the portion of the motherboard that integrated graphics would have been on. You can't have both on the same motherboard.

yeah dude we totally need the 320m because the new Air is gonna KILL at gaming! hell, its a gaming MACHINE!!!

LAWL

 

[skn]

They have done this already. It's called Snow Leopard and it's available today.

Yes, but Apple removed the ZFS support from it... For me it would be the most important feature on SL...

 

[MacTheSpoon]

Well, that's pretty much what I expected from the 11.6" model, unfortunately. Crap screen angle (even worse than usual), glossy screen, emphasis on looking light instead of being light. The main surprise is that the battery life is so poor; I know it's not a big priority for Jobs, but I thought Apple would do better. Even though my Vaio X is lighter it gets 15 hours of battery life, 10 hours with wifi. And you can even swap its battery.

I envy the MBA keyboard, mouse pad, and much more responsive performance, but I'll be staying with the Vaio X. I hope Sony does better with the keyboard and mouse pad in its next iteration.

 

[HLdan]

You would have thought with Microsoft announcing almost a year and half ago a huge update to their productivity suite (Office) that Apple would have spent that time to bring a major update to their own productivity suite (iWork 11). But by the looks of everything today, that is not going to happen. That is a real shame. I have always thought that Pages was due for a robust update to it's page layout features, things like advanced typography features, work group formatting, improved PDF live review, etc. These are features that I thought Apple could have added to Pages to really bring it more so into the realm of a semi-professional page layout tool, something in between what Pages is now and what InDesign is currently.

I really like the new iLife suite, but I am more than bit surprised that Apple did not take this moment to seize a real opportunity to overshadow the forthcoming Microsoft Office Suite. This could have been a huge bonus for Apple. Oh well.

I'm with you about iWork, but come on man, show some reality in your posts. Just because they don't show an update today doesn't mean there won't be one soon. Apple has been known to do updates several days after a keynote. They can't show everything in 90 minutes.

 

[smitty97]

I got excited when he said 'One more thing...'

I was literally jumping up and down when he said "13.3 inches."

My heart sank when he said "Core 2 Duo."

I threw up my hands and walked away when he said "2GB memory."

The lighter and thinner is awesome. The more battery life is awesome. 128GB of flash storage is awesome. C2D with 2GB RAM is an epic failure. I've been waiting for 9 months for an MBA with 4 gigs. I guess I will wait another 9 months for a lighter, thinner MBP with flash storage, 4GB RAM, a decent processor (Sandy Bridge?), and OS X Lion. Here's to hoping my 2006 black MacBook lasts to its 5th birthday without a hard drive failure.

relax, folks. you can put 4GB in it. click one of the "buy now" buttons and configure.

 

[freiheit]

iDVD dying on the vine, Garageband still missing one major feature for me

There really is a lot Apple could have been adding to iDVD over the years, instead of letting it die on the vine for the past 3 releases. iDVD is super easy, as expected for an iApp, but it barely scratches the surface of what DVDs can do. I can't accept that there are no other DVD-spec features which could be made simple.

And GarageBand continues to miss the one feature I want most -- the ability to score music within the app using standard music notation (the piano scroll interface is NOT the same thing). You've been able to VIEW standard notation for years, but I've yet to see that you can compose with that interface.

 

[scottsjack]

Not very much excitement here. Some real performance boosts for OS X would have been nice, maybe more finder options, better window resizing, better use of new processors.

Just about everything was family-friendly toys and fluff. The new Air shows the SJ/JI obsession with thinness to the expense of function. The idea of thinness created a great line of MacBook Pros but then became a perversion and ruined the Mac mini.

The new Air looks like a great netbook for Sally to take to high school or to pass around in the college dorm but not really something one can do real work on. Next spring's hardware updates will definitely show us the direction that Apple is going.

 

[blomma]

Now I've got to look for a 12-core PC tower (or better) and Apple just lost $10,000.

Lion? Lipstick on a pig. The iPadification of Mac OS.

Macbook Air? Jobs attempt to make notebooks into a toy as useless and thin as he is.

And of course, his fetish with Blu-ray comes complete with no optical drive whatsoever to deliver content to clients. Useless.

Now we pro content creator users can finally leave. All several million of us.

The era is finally over. The mac, as far as creating pro content, is dead. I'll be divesting my entire company's mac inventory as soon as my current rendering project is finished.

Buh-bye.



P.S. What did I expect from Willie Wonka? Sanity. Way too much to ask for.

Maybe you should apply some of that sanity on yourself man. What we saw was a brief introduction to lion, nothing he presented today will force you to work any different on osx.

 

[jacg]

Air = new sales

The Air is going to be great for most of the Mac users I know. Most people don't use a lot of power apps and don't need tons of storage. They will love it, especially if they can get a great product for less.

I will stick with my 15" MBP and I hope that they will add some great new features to this line in the future.

 

[0092762]

Checked the store and you can get an extra 2GB for $100 it seems.
So not so bad anymore...

 

[Piplodocus]

Fantastic Event! As good as I could have hoped for...

A few nice new things in iLife but nothing I'd probably spend the money (which I don't have) on.

OSX Lion Looks like it has a few nice new features when it comes next summer.

My new i7 17" MBP with 2x 500GB HDDs in is still the best, and hasn't been replaced by one with USB3, and an option for 2 internal HDDs with MBA external superdrive support!!! Winner! No sense of jealousy or any "must buy" I can't afford at the moment!

 

[oldwatery]

Boy, Keynotes sure bring out all the moronic haters.
Waaa...waaaa..moan....moan.
Maybe this time they will actually do what they say and leave the Mac community and give those of us with a balanced perspective on life a break from their constant "I want" childish rants.
Very interesting stuff. Lion looking good from the very little they showed us.
iLife....likewise.
The air is way slick for those needing more than an iPad and less than a MBP.
Overall a good set of announcements.
Was personally looking forward to a MBP upgrade....not that one is needed...but I need a new one and it seemed like end of cycle was just around the corner. No worries though.

 

[billysea]

I don't understand the whole "bring multi-touch to mac" thing if it isn't touch screen. My MBP has multi-touch trackpad ages ago. Desktop users can purchase that magic trackpad or magic mouse for almost a year already.

Am I missing something, or they are just restating the same facts again?

 

[QuarterSwede]

So, I'm a Windows guy...but OS X is just now getting the ability to run application in full screen?

No, they've always been able to you just had to drag the window to the size of your display or run iPhoto in full screen for instance. The difference is now devs are being persuaded to add a truly full screen mode (no wasteful titlebar, traffic lights, etc) to their app if it makes sense and Apple has added the ability for the zoom button (green one) to take the app to full screen. Apple still has the philosophy that a lot of apps don't need to run in full screen which is the entire reason of the zoom button in the first place (does your iChat buddy list need to be fullscreen? No. Does Safari need to be fullscreen most of the time? No, it's a waste of screen real estate).