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More to Come from Apple... Soon?

snowmoon said:
Here are several full time devices I could see..

Keyboard+Mouse or graphics pad ( 1 port )
Printer ( 1 port )
USB key for security ( 1 port )

That would make it difficult to attach the following regular devices some of the time
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I suppose just 2 USB ports is a bit of a drawback for some people. On a desktop PC, I never seem to have enough but using a notebook I never use more than the two (or haven't so far). I don't think the *majority* of mobile people carry printers around with them or a seperate keyboard.

I've got a USB four port hub that's smaller than my ipod so if I need more ports on the move I can use that. It's small, very cheap but works well. If you're carrying more than 2 USB devices, a little USB hub isn't an inconvenience. So if Apple want to stick to two ports for cosmetic reasons, I'm happy to have to buy such an item. Same goes with the modem. Not sure about how expensive the express card FW800 adaptor will be but that seems like a reasonable option for the *relatively* small number of people that would need/want one. I'll be getting one for my Lacie drive.

There's really nothing that Apple have done away with on the MacBook that I can really complain about. Yes there are people that will want more but there are cheap convenient solutions for that.
 
Tomaz said:
You seem to be a picky guy in your posts, so I'm picky too: It's 0.29 GHz difference, that's 13.5% slower. Anyway, it's not about the speed difference, it's that fact that they say the "fastest notebook ever", which is not true.


That's why there's ibooks for people like you. POWERbooks are not supposed to be for the normal user, but for the POWER user.


It's very simple, I have a small external USB hardrive that I use all the time. One of the Powerbooks shortcomings is that it can't use just one USB conncetion for the data AND the energy, I have to connect the HD with both USB cables to the Powerbook all the time. Funnily, on an ibook, connecting just one USB cable is enough. That was btw one of my major criticisms with the old Powerbook. So there you go, both USB ports blocked all the time. If I wanna attach a mouse, printer, Ipod, Palm, I need more ports. Very simple. No Lego set or other "funny" thing involved.


As mentioned before, the Powerbook (now MacBook PRO) is not meant for normal users, but for PROs or POWERUSERs. iBooks are for the normal user.
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All is fine, apart from the fact that the "Pro" character of a notebook is not given by the number of USB ports...

And if you are a "pro" user, you will be using a FireWire HD, not a USB one...really. I keep my opinion...2 USBs are more than deserved for a PB/MPB; ,more than that is "let's cram everything in there and **** the design".
 
nagromme said:
I'm curious too--it would be an odd thing to claim without further explanation. Maybe the "fastest notebook ever" comment merely came from rapidly-typed live reporting during the keynote. These things tend to get repeated out of control :)
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I didn't see the keynote yet, just transcripts. That's where I read that. So if he said "our", then that's of course correct. But hey, any new computer from the "Power" line should be their fastest ever, no?!

Anyway, I was just hoping that now with the Intel switch the Mac hardware is gonna be top notch again (no pun on the PowerPc architecture intended). I'm willing to pay more for a Mac, but I also want to get more (I know we get more with the design, the cool-factor and the OS, but I'm talking pure speed and features)
And now I learn, that the not even released-yet MacBook Pro is already beaten GHz- and feature-wise by Thinkpads, Travelmates and stupid Dells.
:(
 
BRLawyer said:
All is fine, apart from the fact that the "Pro" character of a notebook is not given by the number of USB ports...

And if you are a "pro" user, you will be using a FireWire HD, not a USB one...really. I keep my opinion...2 USBs are more than deserved for a PB/MPB; ,more than that is "let's cram everything in there and **** the design".
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But they took away FW800 :mad:
 
tux said:
Not only that, he is usually more enthusiastic and energetic when delivering his keynote. But I observed in this last keynote that he doesn't have the same level of energy, does not seem prepared, seems to be looking for words, and stalling! How many times did he take a sip from his water bottle in the middle of a sentence?
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How many times do we need to address that? He was sick and coughing a lot, that's all. That's why he rushed through things, that's why he paused a lot, that's why he said "thank you very much" to that iTunes song a woman was singing in the demo...he is not being fired, people; and Fox Mulder is not here...take it easy.
 
BRLawyer said:
All is fine, apart from the fact that the "Pro" character of a notebook is not given by the number of USB ports...

And if you are a "pro" user, you will be using a FireWire HD, not a USB one...really. I keep my opinion...2 USBs are more than deserved for a PB/MPB; ,more than that is "let's cram everything in there and **** the design".
Click to expand...

I have a larger (non-portable) FW harddrive. But anyway, I don't care if you think im a pro or whatever. That's not the point. The point is, Apple cut several connections (video, FW) without adding anything useful.

And if you read my other posts, you see that I'm not only unhappy with the lack of USB ports, but also with the speed.
For the SAME price as the 1.67GHz MBP, you can get notebooks sporting 2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB HD, 256MB VideoRAM (and 4 USB Ports). That's a shame, just cool design can really make up for that.
 
Just a couple comments:

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but Apple might have a Intel ViiV Mac in the works. Viiv is a concept/set of requirements sort of like Centrino. It's geared towards a media center centic PC.

I saw earlier someone equating the drop mhz to a equivalent drop in performance. Mhz is very overrated as a performance measuring stick, and should not be taken at face value. The amount of cache and the architecure of the chip play a much bigger role in performance. Why do you think a Athlon 64 2.0 ghz could perform just as well or better than a Pentium 4 running at 3.0ghz?

Sure, mhz is important, but not as much so as sometimes people make it out to be.
 
Cryomancer said:
I can't believe no one has figured it out yet. Cooler than a 12" or 17" MBP? Its a two button MBP! :rolleyes:
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How about a dual monitor laptop? (don't ask me how they'd make that beast a reality, though) ;)
 
nagromme said:
That would be great! But the latest info I seem to find is that Merom is due in July-December 06, and that Conroe will come AFTER Merom but also in 06. That makes me think August is the earliest date for Conroe, and that later is likely too. Is there any newer info that looks more hopeful than that? I'd love to have a Conroe PowerMac sooner rather than later :)
Click to expand...
I was searching and couldn't find a timeline for Conroe vs. Merom, aside from expectations that both would be Q3 releases, at about the same time. I'm curious - where did you see that Merom was expected first?
 
mad jew said:
With Core Duo chips though?... Perhaps...

This rumour makes sense. It's slightly ironic (only slightly) that Steve is once again waiting for the CPU maker.
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I too appreciate the irony, but its the tradeoff of being the only customer and one of many (bigger) customers.

Besides - Core Duos have been shipping for less than a month. If they were expecting no supply constraints after less than one month, that was a bad assumption. Surely within a few months things will improve.

Assuming these sources are right (and I agree that the pace was crazy and it seemed like Steve spent twice as much time on ilife as expected), and given CES had just happened, you have to wonder why not just introduce the product "almost as a teaser" and then just list a later shipping date?

Everyone from the hype expected something big, and media-related. Without the announcement there, the presumption is that its not coming soon. That almost cedes advantage to MS, Google, others.

A tough decision though for Steve!
 
gugy said:
Now the plasma rumor even though I would love to have one, I think is not feasible. Pioneer Elite 50" and 42' are one of the best plasmas out there. They are going on retail for over $6k for the 50".
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The best-in-class in plasmas comes down to the Pioneer Elite's and the Panasonic Industrial Models (better blacks on the Pannys; punchier colors on the pioneers). And the Panasonics are available for $2000/$2900 for a 42"/50".

The price points quoted are super tight... but given the expected drop in plasma prices this year they're not impossible. And I still maintain that an Apple TV is the only convergence device that makes true sense. Your average person isn't giong to buy a computer to hook up to their TV; it's not the way they think. But an Apple Plasma TV is the ultimate Trojan horse; they will create this market all by themselves, just as they did with music downloading.
 
Peace said:
They took away FW800 for a reason.One that we will know more about in the next few months..
Click to expand...

And that reason is USB 3. :eek:

Or WirelesFireWire/FireWireless... Or whatever. :cool:

And by the way, USB 3 doesn't have to be as CPU-intensive as USB 2. It's all data and protocols in the end, USB 3 could have a dedicated processor just like FireWire.
 
hscottm said:
I too appreciate the irony, but its the tradeoff of being the only customer and one of many (bigger) customers.

Besides - Core Duos have been shipping for less than a month. If they were expecting no supply constraints after less than one month, that was a bad assumption. Surely within a few months things will improve.

Assuming these sources are right (and I agree that the pace was crazy and it seemed like Steve spent twice as much time on ilife as expected), and given CES had just happened, you have to wonder why not just introduce the product "almost as a teaser" and then just list a later shipping date?

Everyone from the hype expected something big, and media-related. Without the announcement there, the presumption is that its not coming soon. That almost cedes advantage to MS, Google, others.

A tough decision though for Steve!
Click to expand...


Arent they ahead of schedule anyway? With release of the intel Macs that is.
 
Sark said:
Just a couple comments:

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but Apple might have a Intel ViiV Mac in the works. Viiv is a concept/set of requirements sort of like Centrino. It's geared towards a media center centic PC.

I saw earlier someone equating the drop mhz to a equivalent drop in performance. Mhz is very overrated as a performance measuring stick, and should not be taken at face value. The amount of cache and the architecure of the chip play a much bigger role in performance. Why do you think a Athlon 64 2.0 ghz could perform just as well or better than a Pentium 4 running at 3.0ghz?

Sure, mhz is important, but not as much so as sometimes people make it out to be.
Click to expand...

You can still use it to compare speed within the same architecture..
 
Intel maybe tooo slow.

The problem is that Intel can't meet demand right now. So this additional demand for chips hurts Apple as they can't get new products out the door fast enough.
 
I'm skeptical about there being any other products scheduled for the keynote. If someone at Apple is high enough to know about new products he is most likely not about to talk about it with someone who he knows will post that information or advise him not to buy Apple products. Another reason to be skeptical is Steve never likes to announce to many products at any one time as he wants the most amount of attention available on what was announced. If he announces 5 new products some may not get much attention in the media if one or two of the others overpower the others. Case in point was last year when they had one music releated event then just a few weeks later had another music releated event. This gets the most amount of attention possible.
 
All you people need to know something...

Apple engineers,developers and the whole crew have worked their butts off to get moved to the Intel platform.People here complain about it..

Apple came out with the rev A for a couple important puters SIX MONTHS EARLY..

Show these engineers some frackin respect..

or go by a Dell..
 
As you guy's can read from my other post. I think Intel at the moment can't keep up with the demand from apple. I think thats why Intel stock went down. There is lot of demand and low supply from intel.

Remmember intel makes chips to lot of companies not just Apple. I think because of this apple delayed some of the new products at the Expo.

I would bet in couple months we will see new products from Apple.
 
ICEBERG said:
As you guy's can read from my other post. I think Intel at the moment can't keep up with the demand from apple. There is lot of demand and low supply from intel.
Click to expand...

That really would be ironic :rolleyes:
 
I think in a certain sense we've got our blinders on in automatically expecting a 12- and 17-inch version of the MacBook as it stands. Who's to say that something a bit more innovative won't appear? I like the idea of a 20-inch desktop replacement appearing...especially if Apple can manage to make it the sveltest, sexiest desktop replacement anyone has ever seen--to the point you forget that's what it even is.

I also think the time is ripe for a set-top box or other sort bigger media endeavor. Apple needs to broaden the video market its selling too--and the surest way to do that is come up with some new products. The timing couldn't be better. Apple already has the lead on the nascent segment. Now time to blow everyone out of the water with the slickest content-delivery and playback system anyone has ever dreamed of. And I'd say sooner rather than later we'll see something.

Yeah, maybe Microsoft did win the PC war back in the day. But we're idiots if we think that the PC is really the future of technology. It's a dead end. The future of tech will be the whole house. An Apple set-top box or other Viiv product would be one more step towards Apple being the unquestioned leader in this segment. I also think a new AirPort/AirPort Express based on 802.11n with a much better Intel processor under the hood capable of streaming video will be a critical puzzle piece in the equation.

If nothing else, 2006 is sure to be an exciting year.
 
An observation

I guess there must have been quite a pent up need to discuss upcoming Apple products.
Someone makes the rather obvious statement that Apple is going to come out with new products some time in the future and this very busy thread takes off.
Isn't it nice to be a Mac fan?:D
 
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