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Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

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Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#61

Post by DougBTX »

unalone wrote: post #13
mdasen wrote: post #5

I'm a tad frustrated. I love Apple and the Mac OS, but sometimes it really gets to be that the Mac space is a one supplier game. Apple has decided for me that I like glossy screens. I was pretty sure I hated them, but I guess Apple must be right. I also hate real buttons I guess. I'm looking forward to when Apple replaces my keyboard with a pretty glass piece as well. I really need a new laptop (PowerBook is ready to…

I would guess that the glossy screen is necessary for the construction of the computer. Is glass-and-matte possible? (I'm not knowledgeable here; I might be wrong.)

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/793754/2/i...

My guess is that they could, at the very least they could just add a matte coating. Also, they claim that the track pad is glass, and it certainly isn't shiny, though how an LCD would look through it I'm not 100% sure.

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#63

Post by jimbokun »

petercooper wrote: post #9
axod wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Porsche should drop their prices as well eh. They still cost way more than a ford focus.

Apple is not trying to be a Porsche of the computer industry. Apple is a mass market company with growing marketshare - it's one of the biggest computer manufacturers in the world. Porsche's output is tiny compared to that of Ford. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, especially when it makes no sense.

"Porsche's output is tiny compared to that of Ford."

Apple has 3.6% of the world computer market.

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#64

Post by ken »

Oompa wrote: post #33
SwellJoe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also leaving Firewire 400 off is interesting, as I prefer it to USB 2.0 for the higher speed. If you mean "lower" when you say "higher", then your statement is true. USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps. Firewire 400 is...100, 200, or 400 Mbps. Firewire 800, on the other hand, tops out at 800 Mbps, but uses an incompatible cable type, thus making it even less common than Firewire 400, and practically useless except for folks doing hi…

480 Mbps is theoretical speed. Most things don't reach that. In real life usage, Firewire 400 tends to be quicker than USB 2.0, or at least that's the case from my experience.

I keep hearing "theoretical speed" applied to USB, as if there's some theory under which one would be able to get 480 Mb of data transferred in one second.

No, 480M is the baud. (Download the USB 2.0 spec and check out the wire protocol.) The fastest you can transfer data is with a bulk transfer, which top out at 53248000 Bps = 406.25 Mbps. (That's what I would call the "theoretical speed".) Other transfer types are slower.

Companies like advertising "480 Mbps" because it's a high number, but it's not physically possible to transfer data over USB2 that fast.

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#65

Post by netcan »

jcl wrote: post #41
mechanical_fish wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm the only one who feels like Apple is getting arrogant with their marketshare. Methinks you have cause and effect backwards. Apple's willingness to simplify their product line is the reason they have a growing marketshare. Apple's been making design decisions like this since Steve Jobs insisted on the one-button mouse. And left the floppy out of the original iMac. And released a notebook without a CD-ROM dri…

You can have any color so long as it's aluminum. Nice turn of phrase. The irony is that Ford made everything black because it was cheaper. Jobs is making everything aluminum because it acts as a distinguishing factor, so it lets him charge more... I imagine we're only a few years away from hardwood computers.

http://thegeekreview.com/2008/04/25/steampunk-mac-mini/

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#66

Post by Prrometheus »

unalone wrote: post #13
mdasen wrote: post #5

I'm a tad frustrated. I love Apple and the Mac OS, but sometimes it really gets to be that the Mac space is a one supplier game. Apple has decided for me that I like glossy screens. I was pretty sure I hated them, but I guess Apple must be right. I also hate real buttons I guess. I'm looking forward to when Apple replaces my keyboard with a pretty glass piece as well. I really need a new laptop (PowerBook is ready to…

I would guess that the glossy screen is necessary for the construction of the computer. Is glass-and-matte possible? (I'm not knowledgeable here; I might be wrong.)

I won't use a glossy screen. If all Mac offers is glossy, then I won't use Mac.

This is why I didn't get a Dell Ubuntu laptop.

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#67

Post by unalone »

sunkencity wrote: post #26
unalone wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. You don't get a Macbook just for the aesthetic - though the aesthetic is tremendous. You get it for the operating system.

well, it's a sexy machine to run linux on too, when you are too frustrated with manually compiling tarballs or fighting with the ports system.

True. And I'd imagine that the drivers for Mac computers are all completely covered in Linux, considering there's not, ahem, too much variety to pick from. So that's an advantage.

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#68

Post by unalone »

LogicHoleFlaw wrote: post #25
alaskamiller wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No Apple just has a hardon for glossy.

The slides say that the screen overlay goes edge-to-edge and is glass. So I'd say that matte is not an option because the screen is behind a glass panel.

Ah. So matte is something that goes over a screen?

In that case, yeah: what you said makes sense. I like the glass-over-everything aesthetic: it unifies everything. And losing matte is a shame, but I'll reserve criticism until I see the new Macbooks in action. If the screen really is bright enough to cancel out overbearing glare, then I'll forgive Apple for this. If not... then I'll just hope they have some revolutionary anti-glare thingie coming out soon.

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#69

Post by kylec »

weegee wrote: post #8

the Macbook keyboard takes some getting used to. it's a shame they moved away from the nicer keyboards on the old Macbook Pros. I use a bluetooth keyboard while at home with my Macbook as well as an external monitor, which makes it a lot nicer. Also leaving Firewire 400 off is interesting, as I prefer it to USB 2.0 for the higher speed. Looks like I'll not be buying another Macbook for a while.

If Firewire is gone, is there another mechanism to replace the target disk mode? If not, that's pretty disappointing.

Re: Apple's all-new MacBook Pro

#70

Post by kylec »

allenbrunson wrote: post #18

it looks very pretty. the no-seams aluminum case looks cooler than i thought it would, and makes my four-month-old macbook pro look dated by comparison. i think the glossy screen is a deal-breaker for me, though. i'm hoping the next round will add a matte option.

To be fair, the MacBook pro has looked dated for a while. The design is nearly identical to the aluminum PowerBook G4 that came out in 2003:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_G4#Aluminium_PowerBoo...

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