MacWorld Announcements
So I was somewhat wrong about the intel mac rumors. No Mac Mini: iMac. No IBook: PowerBook MacBook Pro. I said that the "iBook and mini" rumor sounded legit because it gave people a chance to poke at the new technology, but then again "sell expensive stuff up front and then sell cheaper stuff to the cheapskates six months later" is a tried and true business model. I'm guessing that they changed the name because "PowerBook" was branded to emphasize the PowerPC chip that's being abandoned. Keeping the "PowerBook" name would be like Ford selling a "HorseBuggy" as their new line of car. Never mind. The original PowerBook 100 had a 16 MHz 68HC000 chip, not a PowerPC. I have no idea why Apple just abandoned their considerable name recognition for "MacBook Pro" which seems a lot clunkier.
matrushkaka (who is attending the event) lamented "I guess my PowerBook is obsolete". Welcome to computer ownership, babe. Actually it's not quite that clear-cut. Yeah, now there's something more current, but right now all the apps we're using are only availiable on PPC and the MacBook won't ship till February anyway. I'm guessing that by next fall or so it'll be time for non-insane people to consider upgrading to a MacBook. It's a little troubling that they don't mention battery life. That's the whole deal, right? Performance per watt? Then again if the performance per watt is 4x better and this is a 4x faster laptop then we're back to the same battery life. Anyone know how much disk-bloat a Universal Binary adds, and whether it's possible to strip out the non-native code once you've installed the app?
The changes I see:
Ships with 100GB/1GB (single chip) instead of 80GB/512MB
667mhz frontside bus rather than 333mhz (dual pumped?)
Radeon X1600 graphics chipset instead of Mobility Radeon 9700
optical digital input/output (is this actually useful to people - even musicians?)
Built in iSight camera means that I don't have to carry the camera and cords anymore although having a camera "always on" will make me paranoid about programming naked.
Slightly thinner, but still 5.6 lbs will make it seem either heavy or well-built depending.
60w/h lithium polymer battery instead of 50w/h lithium ion battery.
Screen resolution is now 1440x900 instead of 1440x960 (!?!?)
4x Single-layer DVD burner instead of 8x dual-layer DVD burner (!?!?)
Heat vents on the back instead of the side, can't find any photos, including a decent angle in the QuicktimeVR.
No more AirPort plastic doohickeys on the side: antenna moved to the hinge.
ExpressCard/34 instead of PCMCIA
They dropped firewire800, not firewire400, while my expensive WeibeTech enclosure cries "no please no" noises and sobs. (!?!?)
MagSafe power connector, so that when you get up suddenly or your stupid hyperactive dog runs under your desk and snags the power cord it pulls off easily rather than yanking onto the unforgiving floor. Attention, doug_runs. Hopefully it's either symmetrical so that I don't have to remember which end is up or the poles of the magnets turn the plug to the correct orientation.
matrushkaka (who is attending the event) lamented "I guess my PowerBook is obsolete". Welcome to computer ownership, babe. Actually it's not quite that clear-cut. Yeah, now there's something more current, but right now all the apps we're using are only availiable on PPC and the MacBook won't ship till February anyway. I'm guessing that by next fall or so it'll be time for non-insane people to consider upgrading to a MacBook. It's a little troubling that they don't mention battery life. That's the whole deal, right? Performance per watt? Then again if the performance per watt is 4x better and this is a 4x faster laptop then we're back to the same battery life. Anyone know how much disk-bloat a Universal Binary adds, and whether it's possible to strip out the non-native code once you've installed the app?
The changes I see: