The Macbook Air: A Sign of Things to Come

Along with the release of the Macbook Air on Wednesday, Apple did two things.  They dropped the price of the external SuperDrive from $99 to $79, and then made it completely unnecessary.  The Macbook Air was originally criticized for its lack of an optical media drive, limiting its ability to install new software.  To mitigate this problem, Apple allowed the Air to wirelessly share the optical drive of another computer over Wi-Fi or you could purchase the external SuperDrive if need be.  A lot of complaints died down however once people realized that they really didn’t use optical media much anymore.  Think about it, when was the last time you used your CD drive?  For me, almost never.  I watch movies through streaming services, load music from iTunes, and can install most software through the internet.  However still, there are still a few instances where I still need my media drive.  Namely: to install high profile, commercial software like iLife and Microsoft Office, or to repair my computer with the restore software bundled with the hardware in the event of a meltdown.

On Wednesday, Apple removed those needs for the CD drive through the Mac App Store and a tiny USB drive that comes with the System Restore software on the new Macbook Air.  From now on, I may never need a CD drive again.  Think about it: I can now download upgrades to iLife and iWork instead of purchasing the CDs.  Hell, I can pick and choose which specific programs in the suite I want to upgrade and just by those.  The USB drive is smaller and probably faster and more reliable than using a DVD for system restore anyway.  We can definitely expect for Apple to start shipping these USB drives in future notebooks.  Jobs has explicitly said that the Macbook Air is the future of the Macbook, so this is only one small way that the Macbook Air will push its enhancements upon the rest of the line.

OSX 10.7 Lives!

This was a delightful surprise for me to gush over with my morning coffee: Apple has announced an October 20th press conference titled “Back to the Mac”.  Obviously the conference will deal with the Mac platform and may include new hardware and a most definitely a preview of Apple’s newest operating system: OSX 10.7.  See the lion peaking through the apple logo there?  Guess that confirms that this release will be titled “Lion”, which seems about right.  Now the question is what will the new OS have in store?

Snow Leopard was had a feature-freeze in order to do some serious work under the hood, so now it may be time to bring user-end features back.  Off the bat, I’m pretty sure we’re going to see a new UI style to replace the depreciated and now inconsistent Aqua design.  Back during development of 10.6, rumors swirled that Apple was experimenting with a new UI called “Marble” that took many iOS design cues like glossy, glassy blues and black window frames, more color, and tighter integration.  Apple has already experimented with this in 10.6, as seen by Quicktime X which has a black, glossy window frame.  As well, the UI design of iTunes has changed several times between 8 and 10, making me think that Apple is experimenting with different styles to see which consumers enjoy the most.  Along with UI changes, I expect that Apple is going to bring some kind of iOS integration back into the mainstream platform, maybe in the form of a new app launcher to replace the dock or some kind of “Instant-On” OS that side loads with the main system.

As for under the hood, I’m praying that Apple updates their graphics stack to support OpenGL 4.1, because right now that is an Achilles heel in a platform that is finally having a gaming renaissance with Steam.  I’d expect some improvements to OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch as well.  Overall though, we will just need to wait and see.

October 20th ladies and gentleman, mark on your calendars!

New Mac Hardware

Before I begin, excuse the usual lack of quality and possible gramatical errors in this post. This was very sudden news to me in my Internet-deprived state and I’ve resorted to punching this post up on my iPhone over an EDGE network.

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day for me. Apple has finally updated the long stale Mac Pro and refreshed the iMac. The Mac Pro has recieved some really nice additions like faster base speeds, much more impressive graphics, and support for 6 and 12 core processor configurations. Processors now start at 2.8Ghz on the quad core model and 2.4Ghz on the Octo core units. The top speeds for all processor configurations have been boosted. Most interesting is that the quad core chips are derived from Intel’s hexa core technology and as such have the full 12MB of L3 cache for even more impressive boosts.

On the graphics side, Apple has cut the bullshit and started using really strong graphics. The base card is the ATI HD5770 with 1GB of RAM. It’s a fantastic card with far more RAM which is crucial in professional applications. For more power, Apple offers the HD5870 with 1GB of RAM as well. This is leaps and bounds superior to the old Mac Pro.

Unfortunately, these new features come at a price. Instead of doing a much needed price drop, the Mac Pro can now be priced signifcantly higher due to the hexa core support. I was desperately hoping that we’d see a price drop on the quad core configration. But that has not happened (duh, it’s Apple).

The iMac has also seen a modest improvement. Gone are the legacy Core 2 Duo parts. Instead the iMacs have adopted Core i3s at 3.06 and 3.2Ghz speeds. While similar in clockspeed, the integrated memory controller and hyperthreading should lead to an overall performance boost. An optional 3.6Ghz Core i5 is available which adds turbo boost back into the equation. Quad core parts are also available with a 2.8Ghz i5 and a 2.93 i7. I was sorry to see less Core i5 options, since the i3 lacks Turbo Boost and is only available at lower speeds. It would have been nice to see a midrange iMac with an i5 standard.

Graphics have improved as well. With no more Core 2s Apple can’t use integrated parts like the 9400M or 320M. Instead, all iMacs now come with Discrete graphics in the form of an HD4670, HD5670 or HD5750 with 256MB, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, respectively. I’m pretty happy that the we’ve ditched these laptop grade parts for real cards. However the 5700 class parts are not leaps and bounds better than the old setup, so users will see the most improvement on the lower end machine.

The new iMacs now also support faster 1333 Mhz DDR3 RAM and have SSD support, as do the new Mac Pros. Overall it’s a more modest update for a more consistently improved machine. Also joining the product line is a new 27″ Cinema Display that is very much like the panel in the iMac. Unfortunately, it looks like the cheaper 24″ model is being killed off and there is no budget 21.5″ option like I’d hoped.

Another day, more new Macs. Kind of a ho-hum improvement that keeps the machines current though doesn’t change the pricing issues that plague the Mac platform.

My Geekbench Odyssey

Yesterday I went to the Apple store, looking into buying a new computer for college.  Months ago I resolved that if I could get the money, I would be buying a 15-inch Macbook Pro.  That became more solidified when the most recent updates to the computers showed that the 15 and 17 inch models are the only ones with the Core i5 and i7 CPUs, requisites for my techie lifestyle of needing more power than I probably need.

Of course, with great power comes great cost, and man are Macs expensive (duh).  Sure, I’ve saved and worked enough to pay for the machine, but while at the Apple store I began to wonder if I could get away with one of the cheaper 13-inch Macbook Pros.  Oh sure, they don’t have a nice Core i5 or a dedicated graphics card, but I figured that a 2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo and that new 320M could get me through college while saving a few bucks.  The problem is, its hard to measure real world performance of these two computers when you’re at the store.  They both launch programs in no time flat, run applications with out a sweat, and play HD video with ease.  It was hard to differentiate between the two computers.  But I, being the resourceful geek I am, would not be fooled by just what I saw.

Goodbye ‘Get a Mac’ Ads

Over the weekend it was confirmed that Apple’s long standing “Get a Mac” ad campaign featuring Justin Long as the hip and youthful Mac and John Hodgman as the comical and buffoonish PC has been canceled.  The ad campaign was started back in 2006 as a sort of rebranding of Apple’s culture.  Instead of being about changing the world, the Mac was now the computer of the hip and cool youth who could be creative and artistic in comparison to the uptight nerdiness of the PC.  I always loved the series for their comedy and wonderful portrait of the Mac environment.  They were clearly biased towards the Mac and did not do Windows justice, but they were effective.  The ads have been used as a blueprint for numerous spoof videos on Youtube and Microsoft even embraced the John Hodgman stereotype in their “I’m a PC” ads.  I personally liked those ads far more than the “Windows 7 was My Idea” ads.

I’ll miss the “Get a Mac” ads, even if the later ones were definitely hit-or-miss.  But I’ll always love “Touché” the most:

Core i5 Macbook Pros Leaked. Oh the Possibilities….

Whoops.  Looks like Intel got a little trigger happy and let loose Apple’s plans to upgrade the Macbook Pros a little sooner than planned.  Promotions given to Intel’s Retail Edge Program outlined a contest where the prize was “…2 chances to win one of 2 MacBook Pro laptops with the accelerated response of an Intel Core i5 processor….”  While it’s not exactly unexpected that Apple would adopt Intel’s new Mobile Nehalem chips, a leak such as this rarely happens and we can be sure Steve Jobs will do some chewing out before this day is over.  Yet, more important than the possibility of some poor sap getting fired is what will differentiate these new laptops from the old.

In terms of form factor, we can expect for things to stay the same as the current Macbook Pros, using that oh-so-sexy unibody aluminum design.  The only difference I could see would be Apple’s adoption of a 16:9 aspect ratio like on the newest iMacs.  Such a decision would make the Macbooks slightly wider though possibly less deep and may allow for higher screen resolutions.  However, 16:9 is not a very common ratio used in laptops because of how long it makes the designs.  It’s only a possibility and something that would be an interesting choice to differ the machines from the competition.  We can expect the same amount of ports – 2 or 3 USB ports, a Firewire 800 port, and Mini DisplayPort, an SD Card slot (with a possible option for an ExpressCard/34 slot instead), etc.  As well, the new standard integrated battery will stick around, RAM will probably be 4GB standard with expanded support for 16GB.  In terms of these features, don’t expect anything dramatic.  Adopting the new USB 3.0 spec would be a god send and increase speed from 480Mb/s to 4.8Gb/s – a ten fold increase in capacity.  But don’t count on it.