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Resellers Getting Signals for a Wide Range of Apple Updates?
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Hahahaha ok, the Mac Mini is in need of some sort of update (or a discontinuing) but the Notebooks should definitely be number one because of students/business people.
hope they dont discontinue mac mini, it was very stable small computer for normal everyday use.
I agree, HD laptops, and Macbooks will always use integrated video, it is the one thing that separates the Macbooks from the MacbookPro's.
I saw today that Dell announced a new laptop in a 16x9 screen (i think just overseas though) It was a 15.6" screen.
What kind of pixel density would be needed to get a full 1920x1080 on that sized screen? Can it be done?
That would be the sweet spot for the Macbook Pro to me.
looks like Dell has these laptops in the works too...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10026936-1.html
Excellent point, and I concur completely. Emphasizing a low 'initial' investment in buying a computer can very well mean later 'investments' of cost, time, hassles, hair-pulling frustration when you need to be working...
13 inch MacBook and MacBook Pro
I agree MacBooks won't be getting a GPU, but that doesn't prevent Apple from releasing a 13 inch MacBook Pro (with a GPU), just like it did with the 12 inch PowerBook vs. iBook line a few years back.
I agree MacBooks won't be getting a GPU, but that doesn't prevent Apple from releasing a 13 inch MacBook Pro (with a GPU), just like it did with the 12 inch PowerBook vs. iBook line a few years back.
I've heard this a couple other places (low-end Mac and ?). If this is a real possibility, then I'd probably wait for both MB and MBP releases...double agony
No - but the existence of MacBook and MacBook Air together should prevent Apple from doing that.
A third notebook line with 13.3" screen?
Total overkill. Never, never ever going to happen, IMO.
They'd much rather substitute the current GMA in the "plain" MacBook with some NVIDIA or ATI part. I still doubt it very much... but at least there'd be some sound rationale in it. Like...
1. Lowering the AirBook's price to make it more attractive as a small and/or go-everywhere companion. If you think about it... should the AirBook be that expensive to make, if (1) CPUs are not "custom" anymore, (2) prices for SSD have gone down (3) you produce the thing in larger quantities than previous subnotebooks, to warrant a premium price like now? Lowering its price, Apple might have some real "killer" on hand for the less enthusiast-minded customers out there. I am talking about the "I don't couldn't give less about what fancy parts are in my computer or how much GHz this thing has, as long as it reliably works... I'm certainly not going to mess around (read: upgrade, remove battery, etc.) with it" crowd here. They type of people who don't know what System Profiler or macrumors.com even is. And, at least judging from my mother (
) and some others, these people are quite exactly the ones despising hideous wiring in the living room (like... ethernet cables, for instance). After all, where do many of the complaints about the AirBook originate from? From the more tech-savvy and performance-demanding people frequenting forums like this one. Last but not least: lowering the AirBook's price might also constitute a valid response to "threats" of EEE PC and the like...2. Making the MacBook more attractive to casual gamers. After all, aren't there some young people who wouldn't mind playing some WoW (or what games are popular today?), aren't they?
Now, of course this is just some idea I was playing around with. But it doesn't look that implausible to me either.
I agree completely! I'm a student/working person who needs a new notebook! I want a MBP update!
I've also convinced my sister (not her hubby yet, like that matters, though
) to get a Mac Mini, so I'm hoping they do not discontinue, rather update, the Mini.I guess time will tell what happens.
That makes some sense...
I would imagine that there is a big following of folks that just send email and save/file family pictures. And that's all they do.
I would imagine that there is a big following of folks that just send email and save/file family pictures. And that's all they do.
1. Lowering the AirBook's price to make it more attractive as a small and/or go-everywhere companion. If you think about it... should the AirBook be that expensive to make, if (1) CPUs are not "custom" anymore, (2) prices for SSD have gone down (3) you produce the thing in larger quantities than previous subnotebooks, to warrant a premium price like now? Lowering its price, Apple might have some real "killer" on hand for the less enthusiast-minded customers out there. I am talking about the "I don't couldn't give less about what fancy parts are in my computer or how much GHz this thing has, as long as it reliably works... I'm certainly not going to mess around (read: upgrade, remove battery, etc.) with it" crowd here. They type of people who don't know what System Profiler or macrumors.com even is. And, at least judging from my mother (
2. Making the MacBook more attractive to casual gamers. After all, aren't there some young people who wouldn't mind playing some WoW (or what games are popular today?), aren't they?
Now, of course this is just some idea I was playing around with. But it doesn't look that implausible to me either.
I totally agree, they got the suckers to pay the big bucks for this, and cover the R&D. Now they need to drop the price. This could be the casual user system. Casual users don't need gigantic hard drives, or a gaggle of ports, the Macbook Air would be perfect for them.
But I do think you have to make the battery user replaceable. I have to replace mine every year.
To me, an analgoy:
MacBook Air: iBook G4 or the "new MacBook" of Macs
New MacBook: The new "12" PowerBook G4" of Macs
That's the kind of updates I think are going to happen.
We shall see what Apple has in store.
Yes - I just had Applecare replace my daughter's wrist-wrest, mouse button, and bottom casing for cracks. The wrist-wrest is a definately known problem (the little tabs on the inside of the lid crack the plastic they touch) AND be sure to check the base under the hinge area - many of the White Macs develop cracks all along the edge on the bottom between the hinges.
Thanks for that helpful info. I didn't want to lug my MacBook to the Apple Store over nothing but I'm glad it turns out that it is covered under AppleCare. I also hope it doesn't take weeks to fix. Maybe they'll have some helpful suggestions on cleaning the (natural skin) oil discoloration that has happened to the track pad. If the new MacBooks do have glass track pad screens, I may be tempted to give (I mean trade) to my girlfriend.
But anyway, after I get it fixed, I think I'll buy one of those Speck cases for the MacBook. Granted, with their color schemes, some might think my laptop is a Dell with those cheap color covers they have.
Again, thanks for the info!
I'm not excited about the AppleTV product. Sure, it would be nice to have yet another Apple ecosystem product, but I have a hard time justifying the purchase of it when my Playstation3 works so well with Blu-Ray discs that I've either purchased or rented from NetFlix. If Sony would get their act together and make it standard to include "portable" MP4 files on their Blu-Ray discs to transfer to the PSP, Apple would finally have some respectable competition. What bugs me about the PS3 is the difficultly of transferring video files from a Mac to it over a network versus from a (gasp) Windows PC.
But getting back to the AppleTV product, I think it will ultimately come down to what I need more...it or finally putting my Series2 TiVo out to pasture for the TiVoHD. I've been fence sitting on the TiVo because I don't think I can trust Comcast to keep backwards compatibility with CableCard 1.0/2.0 devices when they switch their services over to the IPTV-like SVG or whatever the acronym is for what they are moving to. Plus, the AppleTV feels like a heat sink (or the bottom of the MacBook after it runs for awhile) if you stick your hand on its top! And with 1080p capable flat screens dropping in price like stones, it doesn't look good spec-wise when your product only does 720p.
As exhaustively said before by many, 99.99% of the market will NEVER open a computer case, let alone add a PCI board, which apart from hardcore gamers who need new bragging rights every quarter, is simply unknown and useless to any normal user. Apple is the ONLY company realizing that, and that's why it's so successful, growing more than double the ordinary IT sector.
I've never considered adding anything more than RAM, an external drive or assorted USB or FW devices...just as pretty much anyone out there...add-on boards had only two roles in the Mac's history...either to run PC software or to run Apple II software in the Mac LC...
I'd agree with you if you drop that statistic down to 75%. If you drop by Fry's or Best Buy, you will see quite a few people - who are not gamers - buying internal hard drives, burners, video cards, and up until a couple of years ago, sound cards.
One should remember that Creative used to make a PCI based Sound Blaster for the Power Macs.
Plus, Apple likes customers with disposable income [or those who do nothing but spend their money - disposable or not - on tech]. If they made an xMac, then they could get in on the gamer market...the customers who won't bat an eyelash over purchasing the latest $600 video card but would skip buying a $3000 standard MacPro or an Alienware/FalconNorthwest rig. This would also go along way to fixing the abysmal video card situation in the Mac world. I myself have a MacBook but I need to finally ditch the desktop PC and I'd rather have a mythical xMac than an iMac.
Blu-ray is end-all for the next decade. Commercial video downloads are going to go nowhere because the cable companies and phone companies offering broadband are not going to let Apple and the like cash in while using their infrastructure and hurting the PPV and OnDemand market. Comcast just announced that 250GB cap, and we're going to see companies cap lower than that.
A typical Blu-ray release is 50GB, so with that cap in place, that's 5 movies per month...of course, iTunes and other net based content only do 720p and not 1080p, so it would be less per film.
Point is, downloads won't surpass Blu-ray. And by the time there's infrastructure in place to offer 1080p, Blu-ray could switch to UltraHD (2160p) by simply adding 2 more layers to the disc. I'm quite certain that within 3 years, there will be 2160p flat screens on the market as prices continue to drop dramatically for 1080p. And again, downloads will be behind the times.
As for Jobs's prognostications, he's just bitter over having backed DVD big time when it first came out at the expense of the popularity of CD-R drives. They had to do a complete 180 in strategy to announce that marketing campaign of "Rip Mix and Burn" because they were so caught off-guard. So he's unsuccessfully trying to shift the paradigm in Apple's favor instead of getting burned by DVD's successor. But Blu-ray's popularity is already being adopted at a faster rate than DVD did, even with that prior year wasted on the Microsoft-financed format war...
UltraHD pfft...you'd need more storage than Blu-Ray for all of that to fit on one disc...
if they released that now they'd screw themselves over on sales, now that they finally are getting 720p and 1080p to become standard
read up on your tech before making claims like that
I do believe that with ISP's imposing download caps, this will actually spur more adoption of Blu-ray players, and that means we'll be seen iMacs, Mac Pros and Mac-based laptops with Blu-ray drives within the next year or so.
DO NOT buy the speck hardshells for macbooks.. i had one and it scratched the heck out of my macbook.. and messed up the hinges tryin to take off the case
2160p? No way, the reason 1080p matters is because it is the broadcast standard, 1080p is not going anywhere for a long long time. Thus Blu-ray will be a standard for a long long time. All the more reason to get on board now. Maybe someday direct downloads will take over, but even if that's true, that would make blu-ray the longest lasting standard, because it would be the last physical format.
i am not going to be shocked if first we see lawsuits over the capping. if not by companies like Apple then by the consumers. make the whole monopoly argument, illegal tying and all that.
i would double check that, because at least in Cali it is not 30 days but 14 days to return items, computers included. and price adjustments are the same 14 days
because some folks will do it anyway without any clue. but note the very first line of the instructions. including "Follow the instructions in this document carefully. Failure to follow these instructions could damage your equipment and void its warranty. "
which is not proof that anything else is going to happen. only that there is time if they decide to.
frankly I am not holding off on any thing under the assumption that they might, maybe, could perhaps announce something new at some point in the future.