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MacBook Announcement Expected on Tuesday
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat May 06, 2006 11:10 AM
from the new-toys dept.
from the new-toys dept.
wwhsgrad2002 writes "Both ThinkSecret and Apple Insider are reporting that Apple could hold a press conference as early as Tuesday, May 9th, to announce their new line of MacBooks. The laptop will be the Intel-based successor to the company's popular iBook line. The 13.3-inch widescreen MacBook is expected to sport Core Duo processors from Intel Corp and pack novelties such as a completely magnetic latching system, built in iSight video camera, and MagSafe power adapter. Additionally, each MacBook is expected to come bundled with Apple's Front Row and PhotoBooth software applications. A coding glitch with Apple's Web site has all but confirmed the MacBook moniker for the new consumer laptop."
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MacBook (Score:2)
Re:MacBook (Score:5, Insightful)
It is in fact a great example of name: as one stated elsewhere, one of the issues Apple had in the past was that upon reaching the Apple Store website people would see Powerbooks and their extremely high prices, and not necessarily notice the ibooks. Here, when the potential customer sees Macbook Pro for $2k, either he goes "great, i'll take 5" or he sees the Pro, considers that he is not one and deduces by himself that there may be a non-pro line more fit to his wallet.
Customer Confusion? Not a snowball's chance in hell, and "Pro" suffixes are extremely common and well understood by the public: it's better, more powerful, more featured, but it's also much more expensive.
And nowadays you only need 3 letters to say all that.
Parent
Re:MacBook (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MacBook (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:MacBook (Score:3, Funny)
That's what I hate about Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
The most important feature in a laptop is portability. I don't want a fucking iBook. I want the smallest fully-featured PowerBook imaginable, and, ideally, I want it to have 1600x1200 even on a 12" screen (OK, perhaps that's hyperbole. But 1280x1024 at minimum. Fuck 1024x768.)
Why can't Apple just make it happen? I don't want to lug around a 15" machine just to get all the real features.
Parent
Re:That's what I hate about Apple. (Score:3, Interesting)
Fuck anything above 1024x768. You know what I want? I want software developers to stop designing their applications to take up the most screen real estate they possibly can. Back in my day I had a Mac IIci running at 640x480x8 an
Pricing could be interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Pricing could be interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Pricing could be interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pricing could be interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like the 200 Dell monitors my company bought two years ago that are so dim now that you have to squint to see them for the first two hours until they warm up?
Apple has never tried to compete on price. It's always been about quality with Apple. Hopefully that won't change. Windows users are so used to being abused by cheap prices and shoddy products that they forget what a quality is like.
Parent
Video computer game on tv (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're going after the college kids market AT ALL, the macbook has to be able to game at least most of the time.
Good luck (Score:3, Insightful)
This is super disappointing to me. I was really hoping Apple would come out with a small tablet with a discrete graphics controller. I love mine [whiningdog.net], but would get rid of it in a second if Apple came out with something just like it.
Re:Video computer game on tv (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Video computer game on tv (Score:3, Informative)
-- attributed to Edsger Dijkstra [wikiquote.org]
I'd say that can be extended to replace "computers" with "individual programming languages" and suggest that you need to find a better computer science program elsewhere... Computer Science is not about creating maintenance programmers.
Why during E3? (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that they're different markets, but all eyes are going to be on Nintendo that day. They could easily put it off a week and get 100% of the attention.
Two reasons, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, I doubt Apple thinks it will be upstaged in ANY way by Nintendo -- and I think that judgment will be correct. Many gamers and geeks will be paying attention to Nintendo's announcement, but an Apple announcement will greatly upstage it in terms of media attention, IMO.
David
Parent
Re:Why during E3? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nintendo's game console is going to get a lot of attention, but in the whole scheme of things, getting the MacBooks out this week rather than next week could mean millions of dollars in additional revenue.
Parent
Re:Why during E3? (Score:3, Interesting)
magnetic latching system threat to your floppies (Score:5, Funny)
Re:magnetic latching system threat to your floppie (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:magnetic latching system threat to your floppie (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:magnetic latching system threat to your floppie (Score:3, Funny)
this is news? (Score:3, Funny)
Will Apple ever release a sub-notebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a frequent business traveler, I have been buying and using small Intel based Japanese sub-notebooks for 8 years, and would love to buy a Apple notebook that can run MacOSX, especially now that I can use bootcamp to multiboot other OS's as well. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Maybe Apple should licence an OQO or similar sized device and port their OS to it, if they aren't interested in building a sub-notebook from scratch.
Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Will Apple ever release a sub-notebook? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah! And they could call it the Newton!
Parent
Apple wants notebooks to be full-featured. (Score:3, Interesting)
The old 12" iBook was 2.2kg, the 12" PowerBook was 2.1kg. So far, the MacBook Pros have been a little thinner and lighter than the PowerBooks they replaced. If the new MacBook
Re:Will Apple ever release a sub-notebook? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not just wait until Tuesday... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not just wait until Tuesday... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
MacBook Pros and Core Duos (Score:4, Interesting)
Mac is the brand name (Score:3, Insightful)
"What kind of car do you drive?"
No one says "oh, I drive an SC 430." They just say, "I drive a Lexus.
Focus the brand!
Duh, MacBook (Score:5, Interesting)
The pro line is called the MacBook Pro, so the consumer line is called the MacBook. I expect the Intel towers, if they ever appear, to be called the Mac, MacTower, MacPC, or the like. They do seem to be moving away from the brand of 'power' to the brand of book.
As far as the screen size, the industry does seen to be standardizing on the 13.3 screen as the small entrant. In terms of cost, this is probably the best choice for the entry level portable. What is interesting is that this probably means that we will see a consolodation of the iBook and Powerbook into a Macbook. The MacBook will be a compromise dimension betwen 12 and 15 inches, while the pro models will be 15 and 17 inches.
Which also leaves the 12" models in limbo. These are really a perfect size, and if the 12" PowerBooks are ever $800 dollars I may buy one, as we are unlikely to see such a machine again. I wonder how long Apple is going to produce PowerPC based macines, which is, really to ask, how long until the PowerMacs are replaced. Or is Apple just going to produce laptops and media centers, and leave the pro image editing to the MS crowd? I shudder to think.
In any case, we will see what happens over the next few day and the next year. Certainly Apple has plenty of time to pull an rabbit out of it's hat since we won't see big PC sales until christmas of 2007 when MS vista will be ready for prime time.
Oh, the joys of life. Perhaps I will get a PowerMac G5 yet, even if they slurp electricity like it is water.
I work at Apple and can confirm.. (Score:4, Funny)
A quick thought (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now I have the PB G4 and a Core Duo Mini. I sold the G4 tower (it was also pumped full of upgrades) and just about made enough to cover the cost of the mini--try doing that with a 6 year old PC.
Here's my point--the Core Duo Mini is the coolest piece of Apple kit I've used since OS X 10.2 came out and I switched over permanently. The 1.66 Duo is enough faster than the 1.25 G4 in my PowerBook that I have started to complain about the PowerBook. The OS feels tighter, somehow. I've never had a single problem with Rosetta, apart from a few PrefPanes and plug-ins not loading, which was expected. Mundane things, like browsing in Safari, are hilariously faster. Harder things, like transcoding video, are noticeably quicker. Parallels is nice to have around, even if I never use it.
If the new Macbooks are this good, they're going to be the biggest hit Apple's ever had, particularly at the college level. I don't know any non-geek students who still buy desktops, and the speed and polish of the MacBook coupled with the whole BootCamp/Parallels thing is going to wow a lot of people. I was initially hesitant about the Intel thing, but it really has breathed a whole new life into Apple's product line.
Not everybody... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
In comparison to what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or because there's no tablet (hint- they won't do it until they get it right - after two PC stumbles, who can blame them)?
Or because the Apple market has held its own and continues to build eas of use and value? Count me in.
Case in point. My wife just bought the latest Acer which has the touted features of:
- brightview screen (a shiny piece of plastic that produces glare and fingerprints at an astounding rate)
- constant light for the bluetooth status (thanks - eats batteries)
- constant light for the wifi status (ditto batteries)
- constant light for the battery, num lock, cap lock (all of which are mirrored in the taskbar anyway)
- three USB ports Woohoo! One more than an iBook!
- a four cell battery which is an eight cell battery with four cells torn out. Honestly, you can squeeze the case and feel where the missing cells are supposed to be.
- 2.5 hour battery life if you spring for the 8 cell battery separately.
- Speed. It's a 2.something, if I turn off all the fancy XP graphics under system performance, it can almost keep up with my 1.33 iBook for general use with a few apps open.
- software. none. after loading her up with picasa and itunes, whenever something mildly novel comes up, she shuts the lid and asks me to do it on the iBook. And she knows how to work a PC - she does it all day at her job. She's a wiz at office + access, but for real world stuff, the integration just isn't there - they made this point in one of the new apple ads - and it's about time.
I'd rather spend my time getting the work done than figuring out the workaround or forking over the license fee for getting it done on a PC.
Parent
In comparison to past Apples... (Score:5, Interesting)
Essentially it's moved its entire product lifecycle up a gear. You'll see newer, faster Apples appearing much more frequently than you used to, because Intel release interim speedbump chips throughout the year - maybe as many as 5 or 6. For Apple, this is a good thing.
But, Intel also releases a new platform technology every year or so, so when Yonah's successor Merom is released, Apple has no choice but to do the same, otherwise it has a marketing dilemma of people doing a like-for-like speed comparison between a Yonah Mac and a Merom PC.
Now, we know that comparing Macs to PCs is apples and oranges, but Joe Public doesn't know that and would possibly plump for a fast new Dell over what on paper looks like a slower, older Mac.
The other downside is that by keeping up with Intel releases, Apples are going to date a lot faster. In a year, the 15" Macbook Pro will be a slow Macbook Pro assuming Apple keep up with Intel. Now it may not be slow to use as OSX software doesn't seem to bloat as fast as PC stuff, but it could potentially cause confusion for new buyers.
The bottom line is that essentially, Apple have rescinded some of their control over their product line development. While they can innovate on peripheral elements such as illuminated screens, magnetic power cords and the like, the core of their machine is now owned by Intel and they are going to have a much tougher time exhibiting the kind of product differentiation that they have been able to in the past.
Parent
Re:First hand experience of macs (Score:5, Informative)
The whole "they don't have the software" argument has been dead for a long time - the only markets where OS X software isn't up to par with windows are niche ones - specialized proprietary software with a small user base, or things like games. As much as it might shock some people, most people don't buy their computers to play games.
Come on, if you're going to bash macs, update your talking points. 1998 called, it wants its troll back.
Parent
Linux on Macs (Score:3, Insightful)
Fortunately, Linux runs on them, so you can have the best of both worlds: Apple hardware and Linux software.
In a couple of weeks I plan on getting one of the new 17" Macbook Pros and was thinking about setting it up for dualboot. As it has BSD under the hood though I don't really think it's needed. Installing Linux on a new Mac is more a desire than a need the way I see it.
FalconRe:First hand experience of macs (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you elaborate on that? If you mean they don't support Windows software, well that's like saying the Apple orchard doesn't support orange juice production. If they don't support some specific piece MacOSX written software package then I would have to ask since when is it the OS maker's job to support the software? That's the software company's job. I don't complain to Microsoft w
Re:First hand experience of macs (Score:5, Informative)
I don't really think there is a lot that makes the Mac an inherently better platform for 'design' - or rather, I don't think there is anything that makes the Mac a better platform for design that doesn't ALSO apply to other fields.
As for software support in general - as a software developer who uses both PCs and Macs, I've not found myself stuck for anything. I use different programs on both machines, but you can achieve the same functionality on both platforms. Sometimes I find myself cursing not having Expose, Xylescope, native PDF support or the Omni apps on the PC. Sometimes, as with Oracle XE, the problem is in the other direction.
If you're not a troll, I'd suggest developing a bit of curiosity towards the systems you use, and a bit of flexibility with your tools - it could pay dividends for your career.
Parent
Re:First hand experience of macs (Score:3, Informative)
Apple may not have a choice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now some will say that Apple does not have to consider Dell or XP notebooks in their plans I think they do. The price segment the new MacBook will be headed into will be up against the bulk of the XP systems out there. Also take note that many college age kids will loo
Re:Core-Duo - really ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you aware that 15" are fuck fail for portable laptop? (and 17" are even worse of course). That's why some people are waiting for a Macbook (Pro or not) at or under 13" as their personal saviour.
10-14" is where you get laptops, over that it's undersized desktop with batteries.
Re:Transition from PowerPC to Intel (yes, AGAIN).. (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to think that the processor makes a Mac. It doesn't. Apple may well keep up with Intel speed bumps but that doesn't mean they have to make a big product announcement every time. Apple commonly tweaks their product lines with little or no fanfare and their real innovation has always been outside the processor.
Rosetta chip? What?
Parent
Re:Transition from PowerPC to Intel (yes, AGAIN).. (Score:3, Funny)
color of the cat (Score:3, Funny)
Control Click is awkward and nasty. (Score:3, Insightful)