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MacBook 4,1 Worth Upgrading to Lion
- Thread starter Bluisnblklungs
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not had any problems with them on mine (although I disabled a few of them cause it confused me too much)
I can test any specific ones if you want to double check they are ok
"Of course" is the wrong term. The trackpad techincally supports multitouch 100%, Apple just refuses to support multitouch on it. However there are patches available that enable Multitouch for Leopard and SL. I guess it'll soon be available for Lion too.
Actually, the old trackpads (like the ones we're talking about) only support up to two touches. The newer trackpads have a separate controller, making it a hardware, not software, limitation. This has been common knowledge since 2008, when the new multitouch trackpads debuted.
Not sure why some are saying that the MBP 4,1 won't support multi-touch gestures on the trackpad. I have a 4,1--one of the last ones made probably--and I can do all of the multi-touch gestures.
I've only had Lion installed for a short time, but my initial impressions are very positive. I think there's no question that it's worth the $30. I downloaded the installer, but then immediately made an optical boot DVD and installed from that, as I did not want the installer to create a half gig recovery partition on my hard drive. If you want to do this, right click on the installer package, find the shared resources folder, then copy the InstallESD.dmg file to some other folder (like the desktop), then open disc utility, click "burn", select the InstallESD.dmg as the disc image source, pop in a DVD-R or DVD+R and !VOILA! you will have a good old fashioned optical install/boot disc. I restarted my computer with the disc installed, held down the "C" key, and when it finally opened (which took a long time), I fired up disc utility, wiped my internal hard drive clean, and did a fresh install of Lion. I immediately changed the two-finger scrolling direction and immediately made the scroll bars ALWAYS be present, but other than that, I am happy with Lion as it is. So far. Time will tell. And it does seem snappier to me, but that could be because I ditched Photoshop elements and MS Office. Just didn't install them. I bought Pages instead. I'm sick of MS Word, frankly. but, no offense intended to those who like it! Just going to try a change and see.
We were talking about the MacBook, not the MacBook Pro. I believe the MBP 4,1 was the first (alongside the MacBook Air) to have the newer trackpads that supported more than two finger gestures.
I think you'll still be able to take advantage of Launchpad and Mission Control either with the keyboard shortcuts or Hot Corners. Full screen makes a great difference to me, especially with documents and Safari.
EDIT: you can also purchase a Multitouch Trackpad (although that defeats the purpose of a laptop
) and take advantage of the new gestures
Not sure if anyone has thought of this but if you're like me and don't have a recent MB/MBP but do own an iPhone, there's an app in the app store called Touchpad by Edovia. The app turns ur phone into a multi-touch trackpad and connects to ur mac via wifi with no additional software required. It currently only supports Snow Leopard, however the devs have said they are working on a Lion compatible update which should be rolled out to the app store for approvaal later this month. If it does come out and work, I might not need to buy a magic trackpad or new laptop =) The software supports pinch to zoom 1 finger 2 finger 3 and 4 finger gestures.I haven't tried it yet but others have reported it works flawlessly. I'm the edge debating whether or not to upgrade, my thinking is that one of the major features of leopard and how the os is designed is the multitouch gestures and since my mbp doesnt support more than 2 finger touch i see no point to upgrading.
http://www.edovia.com/touchpad
http://www.edovia.com/touchpad
I've just updated my MBP 3,1 (spec in my sig) so a generation older than yours.
Yes, I don't get all the multi-touch functionality as my trackpad only supports 2-finger gestures
Go ahead and u/g; you know you want to
How is Mission Control working for you?
I've got the exact same machine, and MC animates poorly. Barely animates, actually. Trying to determine if this is unique to my install or if it's a hardware issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYxcmsvMKlY
They just updated it to support Lion. I can use the ipod touch as a multitouch trackpad now.
I've got a mate at work who has a Black MacBook, asked him about Lion and 64bit yesterday; his is running 64bit kernel mode, and he didn't have to do anything other than just install it. The 4,1 was the last model to be offered in Black, so I'm baffled why your machine can't boot into 64bit.
Have you tried editing /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist? If you change;
Code:
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>to..
Code:
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=x86_64</string>..that's a bit like a more permanent form of holding down '6' and '4' during boot.
If if fails to boot, just restart it and hold '3' and '2' down to force 32bit mode, and reverse the changes made to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist.
I second the graphics issues... I can't believe Apple (Intel maybe?) hasn't put the time into the GMA x3100 drivers on these computers. It is in the older Airs too, but it has always been terrible.
Graphics performance is pretty poor right now, though I also doubt we will see any change in that.
Graphics performance is pretty poor right now, though I also doubt we will see any change in that.
And GMA booster hasn't realsed an accelerator for the X3100 yet either:
http://www.gmabooster.com/download.htm
I really should have sold my 4,1 MacBook a year ago and upgraded to something newer... hell, I can't even run AutoCAD for OSX because the X3100 is not supported.
I wish we could lay the blame on Intel (even though they should be ashamed for ALL of their sad excuses for integrated graphics) but Apple is responsible for writing/updating drivers for the X3100 on their hardware.
Initially, my biggest apprehension to upgrading to Lion was graphical issues. I was pleasantly surprised that it's running as well as it does. I feel in some instances that things are actually smoother than they were in SL, especially considering I keep my MacBook hooked up to a 42" 1080p plasma most of the time. I feel the external display performance has definitely improved with Lion over Snow Leopard.
From reading other people's experience with Lion so far (especially from people with much more capable GPUs and newer machines), nearly everyone is having graphic issues here and there with the new animations. I change my stance about doubting that things will improve with dot releases. I'm not saying I think those of us with this poor GPU will have the 100% smoothness of others will REAL graphic cards, but I do think things like the full screen animation will improve. That specific animation has been my biggest annoyance and seems to be a peeve for quite a few others as well. If I recall correctly, when stacks were introduced in Leopard, they were choppy at first but improved with updates. So I have hope for Lion as well.
I don't have your particular machine, but I certainly believe that is something unique to your install. I was going to ask if you had anything running that was overly taxing on your GPU, but I didn't see anything. Is it always like that? If so, I might suggest doing a clean install.
The answer appears to be here, I'm baffled why they made this decision, but this is why your machine won't boot 64bit.
Thanks. Kinda sucks but this really has no affect on how I use my MB so it doesn't bother me in any way. The people who have said that their black MBs can boot up into 64Bit must be mistaken because they would not have enabled some and prevented some at the same time.
Mine is the early 2008, 2.4GhZ which I believe was the last black MB because the unibody was the next release.