Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AidenShaw said:
The first is definitely true - there have been reports of Meroms being dropped into minis and iMacs.

The price for Merom has been quoted - and it is the *same* as the current price for Yonah. Of course, as Yonah gets "Celeron'd" by Merom, Yonah will be cheaper than Merom.

You're also assuming that Intel continues to make Yonah chips after Merom is out.... I wouldn't predict that that will continue well into '07.

Well, if that's true, Merom will be more easily adopted, but that doesn't rule out extremely fast Yonah notebooks with cheaper prices in the middle term. You equate bleeding edge with market needs...Apple is able to use Merom in its top-class notebooks and employ Yonah for the lower/mid range with a completely satisfied market demand.

Could you care about a new generation of 64-bit application quickening the obsolescence of your new purchase?

No, because 64-bit readiness has been advertised for ages, and NOBODY makes real use of it so far...if I need a machine I will buy it, knowing that Yonah will be great enough for my own needs and the highest software requirements for at least 1.5 year from now.

If your theory were correct, nobody would be using G3s, G4s, PIII and slower PIVs until our days...my iBook G3 chugs along pretty well on Tiger, by the way.

Then why shouldn't Apple put a Celeron M with GMA900 into the new iBooks? Those are also powerful enough for most people, and would increase Apple's profit margin!

It would definitely be good to put out a computer that's much less powerful than the competition....

Celeron has a baaaaaaaaaaad reputation in the market already, and Apple would never be so stupid as to use an older chip if it's JUST entering the Intel realm...Apple doesn't have an Intel legacy, so it will only use the newer offerings counting from its migration date...and this means Core Solo, Core Duo, Merom and all others in the future.
 
I still have problems with this

Ok, I changed my view to a 50% chance of a release a day or two ago after seeing Apple does appear to have a major presence (not just a routine presence) at E3 complete with "backrooms" to demonstrate products at. This implies some kind of release at E3. Though it may just represent a big push for the Intel Macs.

I still am sticking with 50% on the grounds that a release at E3 doesn't fit. I'm speculating about what a MacBook is, and I can't find a configuration that works.

If this is a GMA950 based machine, and they release it at $999 (which they pretty much have to if it has a Core Duo, if not even higher), the types of people who go to E3 will crucify Apple. E3 is a gaming show. The GMA950 is not a gaming chip. Its performance compared to the antiquated Radeon 9200 is poor. Now, some of you might be thinking "But it's fine! I don't play games" or "It's not the best, but it's good enough", but you're missing the point. This isn't something that's being launched from the Apple campus in a Stevenote aimed at .edu buyers. This is being launched at a games show. It'd be like Apple launching a "Video iPod" at the Sundance Festival that only shows movies in black and white, and has a limit of 30 seconds, 5 fps, for the movies it shows.

And remember: you can get a non-Mac notebook with proper ATI graphics and a much bigger screen for under $1,000 at the moment. Just do some looking around. If you want to really scare yourself, go to Staples or OfficeMax, don't just limit yourself to online offers. Yes, the 17" (!) laptop with the ATI graphics (!!) that costs $999 (!!!OMG WTF?!!!) at Staples (No, it can't be? He's making it up! He has to be!) may have a Cerelon, but it's not a bad CPU by modern standards. And games really do benefit more from good GPUs than good CPUs, hence UT2004 running faster on a G4 Mac mini than a Intel Core Duo Mac mini.

So, ok, they launch the MacBook with, say, an X1600. Or maybe an X1200. Now we're creeping in on iMac territory. For $999 (assuming they keep that as the low end price) you get a machine that almost certainly will have a smaller disk, and maybe a slightly slower GPU, but is otherwise comparable to the iMac that costs $300 more. A notebook that competes, on price, with the iMac.

So maybe Apple bumps the price, perhaps the low end Macbook will cost the same as the low end iMac. But that then undermines the Macbook's position as a low cost laptop. The EDU market may be suckers, but they're not going to tell all their students to get $1,300 laptops when a well spec'd laptop is generally in the $750-1,000 range. Yeah, short term it might work, as there are presumably many courses that rely upon Macs, but the long term effect of this would be for many establishments to move away, especially in an environment where they can tell students that already got them to just stick Windows on their machines.

There are several things I'm largely convinced of:

1. The low end Macbook will start at around $800-1,000. Before this week, and the revelations that all Macbooks will have Core Duos, I assumed $800-950 as the starting price, simply because the market's shifted, and $740-850 is what a top-of-the-line low-end laptop costs from companies like Dell and Acer (see previous comments.) The closer to $1,000 they get, the more overpriced their machines will look.

2. To get to that price, and not make higher end machines look expensive, they'll almost certainly forgo ATI graphics and use the Intel GMA950.

3. If they avoid (1), they have a chance of avoiding (2) too, but then they risk pricing themselves out of the market altogether. Essentially they would be withdrawing from the budget notebook market completely. All this fluff about Apple expecting this to be their top-seller tends to go against this.

4. E3 is not the right venue to launch a GMA950 based laptop that doesn't come with Windows.

What is Apple launching on Tuesday?
 
Why Macrumors is so great!

Just the sheer variety of speculation & wish-lists about anticipated new Apple products is an eye-opener! I just hope someone from Apple is reading this stuff & taking on board what people want. (I"m one of many who'd like a 15.4" Macbook with good graphics - sub £1,000).

The problem with these 13.3" Macbooks with integrated graphics is that many iBook owners don't really have the incentive to buy one. Game-playing switchers may also be disappointed. I'm VERY satisfied with my iBook G4. Should it breakdown, I'd buy another Apple laptop immediately. But if I was considering adding another computer to my iBook to run Windows & play games (which I am), I have to admit that (for e.g.) the Acer laptops outgun anything that Apple has to offer me at the same price.

I'd like my next computer also to be an Apple because I love the OS. But Macbook Pros are too expensive & what I've heard about these 13.3" Macbooks so far doesn't impress me greatly. I suspect many iBook owners are left feeling the same way.
 
It is also possible that it will come a MacBook & MacBook Pro.

MacBook 13 ", 1.6 ghZ Intel Core Duo, embedded grafics (probably), iSight, Front Row, iLife & Of course Mac OS X for $1200 or $1100 Superdrive
This one in both white and black.

MacBook Pro 12 ", 1.83 ghZ Intel Core Duo, ATI graphic card (X1600 maybe?), iSight, Front Row, iLife & Of course Mac OS X for $1800 Superdrive
This one in the same look as MacBook Pros.

The MacBook will be for students or those that not feel for gaming.

The MacBook Pro will be for proffesional artists that wants to be portable or play games.

Apple will skip the Combodrives, they will all have Superdrives. My guess.
 
peharri said:
What is Apple launching on Tuesday?

Perhaps we should start believing MOSR delusions after all...aren't they predicting a super-power-mega gaming Mac..? :rolleyes:

"In the process of researching recent reports from sources regarding Apple's "Gamer's Dream" Macs now in the late stages of development, we uncovered information suggesting that Apple is testing an alternate version of the Gamer's MacBook which would employ an nVIDIA nForce chipset and dual GeForce 7800GTX Mobile GPU's. Memory bandwidth would be slightly less than that offered by the existing Intel chipset in today's MacBook Pro's, but graphics performance would be even higher than the ATi X1800/X1900 based dual-GPU laptop design we've spoken about previously."

Source of delusion:
http://www.macosrumors.com/
 
ImAlex said:
It is also possible that it will come a MacBook & MacBook Pro.

MacBook 13 ", 1.6 ghZ Intel Core Duo, embedded grafics (probably), iSight, Front Row, iLife & Of course Mac OS X for $1200 or $1100 Superdrive
This one in both white and black.

MacBook Pro 12 ", 1.83 ghZ Intel Core Duo, ATI graphic card (X1600 maybe?), iSight, Front Row, iLife & Of course Mac OS X for $1800 Superdrive
This one in the same look as MacBook Pros.

The MacBook will be for students or those that not feel for gaming.

The MacBook Pro will be for proffesional artists that wants to be portable or play games.

Apple will skip the Combodrives, they will all have Superdrives. My guess.



that would be amazing.
 
Asus has some impressive 14" laptops with dual core and X1600 256MB in their pipeline. So we might see at least one MacBook with a X1600 and/or the MacBookPro gets a X1800.

I suppose Apple will release:

- MacBook with integrated Grafic
- MacBook with X1400
- MacBook with X1600
 
direzz said:
that would be amazing.

Yupp, because the proffesionals would probably not want a MacBook which students use. So it would be quite cool. ;)
 
BRLawyer said:
Celeron has a baaaaaaaaaaad reputation in the market already, and Apple would never be so stupid as to use an older chip if it's JUST entering the Intel realm...Apple doesn't have an Intel legacy, so it will only use the newer offerings counting from its migration date...and this means Core Solo, Core Duo, Merom and all others in the future.
But Yonah will be the new Celeron, as soon as Merom comes out - so your argument can be turned around to say that Apple must go to Merom.

You don't expect Intel to rename the Yonah chips to "Celeron Core" as soon as Merom builds volume? Intel also needs the brand segmentation - so the chips that "suck a little" will be called "Celeron" so that the price can be maintained on the "Core" chips.

In fact, there are already Yonah core Celeron-M chips! Go to http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/index_view_celeron_m.htm and notice that the Celeron-M 400 series are 65nm Yonahs....
 
My "gut" says they'll be available Tuesday to order....

Black or White Color Choice..

Prices : $1099.00 Low End
$1399.00 High End
 
AidenShaw said:
But Yonah will be the new Celeron, as soon as Merom comes out - so your argument can be turned around to say that Apple must go to Merom.

You don't expect Intel to rename the Yonah chips to "Celeron Core" as soon as Merom builds volume? Intel also needs the brand segmentation - so the chips that "suck a little" will be called "Celeron" so that the price can be maintained on the "Core" chips.

In fact, there are already Yonah core Celeron-M chips! Go to http://www.intel.com/products/processor_number/index_view_celeron_m.htm and notice that the Celeron-M 400 series are 65nm Yonahs....

Merom is the future. Sure. It's better, and there's no reason for Apple to ignore it.

I only take issue with your assessment that people will somehow ignore 32-bit processors in the future after everyone goes to 64-bit.

Name 1 software application that only works on G5s. Name 1 software application that only works on Athlon 64s.

95% of the market is 32-bit. Software makers would be silly to not include support for 32-bit chips.

Maybe in four or five years, applications will start to ignore 32 bit processors. I just can't see that happening in the near future, especially if Core Duo becomes "Celeron'd" - which means that it will garner even more market penetration as it gets included in lower end machines.
 
MrCrowbar said:
I like having a Computer that is well built. The iBooks are great in terms of durability. I know some people who still work on a G3 iBook and don't have any display hinge issues or whatever. You don't get that quality that often on cheaper brands. And believe it or not, but people are willing to pay more just to have a product more expensive than others have. Plus Macs have "the sex" :p

I agree Macs HAD "the sex". These new intel Macs are currently about as sexy as hairy-chested transsexuals stumbling around in ill-fitting stilettos, emitting the occasional high-pitched whine & doing just about everything non-native (using Rosetta) more slowly than the more than adequate power pc models they've replaced. Until everything's ironed out, sexy no more.
 
filterban said:
Merom is the future. Sure. It's better, and there's no reason for Apple to ignore it.
...
I just can't see that happening in the near future, especially if Core Duo becomes "Celeron'd" - which means that it will garner even more market penetration as it gets included in lower end machines.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1891375,00.asp?kc=EWNKT0209KTX1K0100440

"Microsoft Corp. will continue aggressively pushing customers toward the 64-bit computing platform by making a number of upcoming products only in 64-bit versions."

Of course, Microsoft sells true 64-bit operating systems - so they can do this.
 
Please release on tuesday!

I hope this really is the day seeing as all of the rumor sites have come to an agreement on this. Visit my video podcast about Apple and Macs.
AppleClips Daily Features commercials, video clips and tutorials and other videos related to macs and apple.
 
Project said:
Its 2006. Apple should not be shipping any new products with a combo drive. Its ridiculous.
I agree 110% with you. It would be a huge mistake to release it without SuperDrive, like you already said its 2006 and every other manufacturer has somekind of superdrive in their laptops...
 
MrCrowbar said:
I like having a Computer that is well built. The iBooks are great in terms of durability. I know some people who still work on a G3 iBook and don't have any display hinge issues or whatever. You don't get that quality that often on cheaper brands. And believe it or not, but people are willing to pay more just to have a product more expensive than others have. Plus Macs have "the sex" :p

I had a friend recently that spent quite a while in Israel. He told me that everyone there uses a Mac, because if something breaks they have to send it 1/2 way around the world to get it fixed. Mac's don't break.


Ok, I think apple will announce the macbook at e3, I got to the link on the ipod page before it was changed. Funny how there are little webpage "leaks" given before announcements these days.

Anyway, we had the infamous April Fools report from EGM, but could Apple be getting into gaming? I know that everyone dismisses the possibility, but it would be nice to see Apple do something new and refreshing.
 
macconen said:
I agree 110% with you. It would be a huge mistake to release it without SuperDrive, like you already said its 2006 and every other manufacturer has somekind of superdrive in their laptops...

I hope that they won´t make same mistake as they did with MBP, it has had too many small problems. Maybe Apple wanted to be sure that MacBook is ready for release. :D
 
AidenShaw said:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1891375,00.asp?kc=EWNKT0209KTX1K0100440

"Microsoft Corp. will continue aggressively pushing customers toward the 64-bit computing platform by making a number of upcoming products only in 64-bit versions."

Of course, Microsoft sells true 64-bit operating systems - so they can do this.


The one thing you failed to mention is that article is referring to all business/enterprise infrastructure stuff. Your point will be valid when Microsoft makes the new version of Office 64bit only and Apple makes the new version of iLife 64 bit only. We're still years away from that happening. How many people will be running Exchange 12 on their Macbooks?
 
blueimac'00 said:
a black laptop would be pretty ugly, why won't they offer silver!

The biggest reason I can think of is to differentiate between the Macbook and MBP lines - so silver is probably right out of the question.

Also, while at some point in the future they may offer a range of colors, at launch it makes sense to stick to one, max two colors to reduce back orders; the less choice customers have the more likely Apple will have just the right Macbook for them.

Imagine having to stock Macbooks in several colors; which ones:confused:
 
gregorsamsa said:
I agree Macs HAD "the sex". These new intel Macs are currently about as sexy as hairy-chested transsexuals stumbling around in ill-fitting stilettos, emitting the occasional high-pitched whine & doing just about everything non-native (using Rosetta) more slowly than the more than adequate power pc models they've replaced. Until everything's ironed out, sexy no more.


This is a subjective matter. I for one, am really into
hairy-chested transsexuals.
I get what you are saying about the stilettos.
 
ManchesterTrix said:
The one thing you failed to mention is that article is referring to all business/enterprise infrastructure stuff. Your point will be valid when Microsoft makes the new version of Office 64bit only and Apple makes the new version of iLife 64 bit only. We're still years away from that happening.
I was challenged to find something that didn't run on an x86 - something that requires an x64 CPU. The next version of Exchange fits that description.

You won't find a G5-only app, because OSX has very lame 64-bit support - it's not true 64-bit, severe restrictions apply to 64-bit apps.

A Merom in 32-bit mode will be about 25% faster than Yonah. A Merom in 64-bit mode will be about 50% faster than Yonah.

Those aren't small numbers.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.