Questions from a Mac Noob

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

I love Apple...however, I am quite ignorant in several ways in their products. My uncle gets around 65% off on all Apple products...and I am interested in the MBP...I love it! However, I really want to know when is the tentative release date for updated MBP?

 

[jackc]

No one knows, the next possibility is Macworld in a few weeks.

More importantly, can you hook me up with that discount?

 

[iTeen]

More importantly, can you hook me up with that discount?

no sh*t!!!

 

[capitanbuzo]

Yeah...Hook us up.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

my only explanation is that he is a graphic designer and gets alot of perks from various companies. i do graphic designing as well but, more or less as a hobby now since i am in the air force. i just want to use the mbp for my nikon camera, illustrator, and for work since most programs i use at work have the same programs on a mac.

when is macworld? does anyone have any idea what could possibly be brought up there? i heard about a possible touch mac and new processors for the books...

 

[kajitox]

my only explanation is that he is a graphic designer and gets alot of perks from various companies. i do graphic designing as well but, more or less as a hobby now since i am in the air force. i just want to use the mbp for my nikon camera, illustrator, and for work since most programs i use at work have the same programs on a mac.

when is macworld? does anyone have any idea what could possibly be brought up there? i heard about a possible touch mac and new processors for the books...

Nobody really knows, it's all speculation. I believe it's in mid January (?), and announced computers would likely be available in February.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

i'm a bit nervous to purchase a laptop though...because of the lack of ability to "upgrade" as tech moves on vs a pc. but, i really love the quality and finesse that apple brings...especially when i am working with adobe programs.

how long do typical users keep their macbooks...and how much upgrading can be done? also, does apple offer any kind of trade in after a period of time or no?

 

[capitanbuzo]

my only explanation is that he is a graphic designer and gets alot of perks from various companies. i do graphic designing as well but, more or less as a hobby now since i am in the air force. i just want to use the mbp for my nikon camera, illustrator, and for work since most programs i use at work have the same programs on a mac.

when is macworld? does anyone have any idea what could possibly be brought up there? i heard about a possible touch mac and new processors for the books...

The keynote for Macworld is January 15. MBP-wise, we could see a case redesign, we could see nothing. I expect that we will see a processor bump to 2.6ghz Penryn on the high-end model, possibly Apple clocking the graphics card normally, and possibly a bigger, standard HDD.

 

[kajitox]

i'm a bit nervous to purchase a laptop though...because of the lack of ability to "upgrade" as tech moves on vs a pc. but, i really love the quality and finesse that apple brings...especially when i am working with adobe programs.

how long do typical users keep their macbooks...and how much upgrading can be done? also, does apple offer any kind of trade in after a period of time or no?

It depends on the user. I know many people keep their MacBooks far after they get new machines because they still work well, people just want to keep their things upgraded. Many people are still using Powerbooks from a while back just fine. I think I read a story of someone installing Leopard on a Powerbook and it running BETTER than Tiger...

I think I would personally update my computer every 3-4 years, and I think my 8 mo. old MBP will do just fine lasting that long and beyond as long as I don't do anything stupid. Also, the upgrading is limited; new SR MBPs can fit 4 GB of RAM, and new HDD, but I think that's about it.

Lastly, I don't believe there's any trade in value, but I think (for a computer) Macs have decent resale value.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

can macs use bittorrent? say i wanted to download something from a torrent site i would normally download from my pc? i heard of mac bittorrents so i would only assume there would be no difficulty downloading using a mac bittorrent app from those sites as well?

 

[Nugget]

There are plenty of bittorrent clients (not to mention the real one). Azureus seems to be the most popular one. I use Acquisition and rtorrent.

 

[kajitox]

can macs use bittorrent? say i wanted to download something from a torrent site i would normally download from my pc? i heard of mac bittorrents so i would only assume there would be no difficulty downloading using a mac bittorrent app from those sites as well?

Torrents work just as they normally would. A good open source program for torrents is Transmission. And there is no such thing as a "mac torrent," those are just torrents that contain programs that work on a mac. For instance, a torrent in a mac section would not contain a program that only runs on windows, like an exe. You can download any torrent, but if you download and exe you're not going to be able to run it via OSX (minus the options like boot camp, parallels, etc)

EDIT: I also heard Azareus has some issues with 10.5, so you might want to check that out before you go downloading it.