Looks like we’ve been given an early holiday present by Apple: a break from the Apple rumor mill. Apple made an official statement this week that there will be no updates to product lines before the end of the year. No new iMacs or Mac Minis, which is the opposite of what we’ve heard on Apple rumor sites.
Now the reason for such an unusual announcement is obvious: Apple wants to sell some product for the holidays and they want the selling to start now. Rumors of new product updates always get people waiting instead of buying, hoping to avoid buying a computer just before a new version comes out.
So this may be the perfect time to buy, knowing you’ve got at least two months ahead where your purchase will remain the latest and greatest.
Of course early January brings MacWorld, where Apple traditionally announces something new. New iMacs and a Mac Mini update or replacement are likely there. But that’s a long time to wait if you need a new machine.
Gary Rosenzweig looks at seven free iPhone applications: Google Earth, iTalk, Fring, Fonts, Translator, Wikipandion and FaceBook. You can find iPhone Apps using the MacMost iPhone App directory at https://macmost.com/iphoneapps/ .
Everyone is in agreement that the new MacBooks look great. But almost everyone is also in agreement that the biggest problem with the new MacBooks is the removal of a Firewire port. The MacBook Pros have one, but not the new MacBooks.
The primary use of this Firewire port was to import digital video from a camcorder. They can also be used to connect external hard drives and some other devices. But hard drives are usually USB2 nowadays, which are comparable in transfer speed to Firewire. So the main problem with not having Firewire on the new MacBooks is in connecting camcorders.
But Steve Jobs defended this move, saying that many new camcorders use USB2 anyway. This is surprisingly true. I haven’t bought a new camcorder in about 2 years, and then Firewire was the standard. But looking around now, I see that USB2 has indeed moved into this area. There are still Firewire connectors on some camcorders, but USB2 does seem to have taken over.
In addition, the home video camcorder market has changed. Nowadays, any decent digital camera has a video mode that captures at least 640×480 video at 30 frames per second. The quality isn’t pro-level, or even Web video level in many cases, but it is definitely family reunion video level. And these videos are transferred to your computer via USB2, or using a card reader. Also, with the popularity of small, cheap video cameras like the Flip, many people are forgetting about consumer-level camcorders all together in favor of this cool little devices.
So the only problem I see is the situation where someone who has a Firewire-only camcorder buys a new MacBook to replace an old one. Now they find they can no longer connect the two. Their upgrade has turned into a downgrade. And with no expansion slot on a MacBook, and no way to adapt USB2 to Firewire, they really are stuck. There is just no way to use Firewire on their new MacBook.
So existing MacBook users that use their MacBooks with a Firewire camcorder need to either get a new camcorder or upgrade to a MacBook Pro, not a MacBook.
Looking at it from Apple’s point of view, I do see this taking care of one problem: how to differentiate the MacBooks from the MacBook Pros. In the past, the case has been different, as well as the video chips. Now that they are the same, we’ve got Firewire, expansion slot, and larger screen, to name the major differences.
So the good news is it will be easier to choose between MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The bad news is that if you really want Firewire, you’re going to have to pay a lot more for it. But with a difference in price of $700, you can afford to replace that old camcorder with a new one anyway.
Summary: Jobs announced new MacBook Pros, a new 24-inch display, and new MacBooks. He also announced an update for the MacBook Air. The new MacBooks and MacBook Pros feature a new style of construction where the the aluminum body is carved from a single block. They include new Nvidia graphics chips for better video performance, and a new mini display port. There is also a new glass trackpad that supports multi-touch for gestures and the entire trackpad is a the button.
Here was the play-by-play:
10:05 Steve Jobs comes on stage and introduces Tim Cook, the Apple COO.
10:08 Cook talking about the success of Mac taking more market share over the last few years.
10:10 Cook says Mac actually has 31% market share when you measure in revenue.
10:12 Jobs introduces Jonathan Ive, Apple VP and lead designer to talk about MacBook design.
10:15 Ive talking about building notebooks by taking a single piece of aluminum and carving parts out of it.
10:17 Start with a 2.5 pound piece of aluminum and end up with a single .25 pound piece.
10:20 Jobs now talking about the Nvidia 9400M chipset, which will provide video and a GPU, 5 times faster than the current MacBook integrated video.
10:22 New MacBooks will feature a multi-touch glass trackpad, where the entire trackpad is the button.
10:23 New trackpad will include multi-touch gestures and multiple button support through software.
10:24 New MacBook Pro: Glass LED-backlit screen, connectors on one side only, mini display connector, new trackpad, new graphics chips, new rigid aluminum body built with new technique.
10:25 Also: Backlit keyboard, iSight and mic, magnetic latch, motion sensor.
10:26 New mini port connector will be on all new Macs?
10:29 NVIDIA GeForce 9400M or the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M.
10:31 Will include Firewire 800, two USB, mini display port, audio in and out, ExpressCard 34, and a battery indicator. No Firewire 400 (But you can use an adapter). Have slot-loading superdrive.
10:33 Option for Solid State Drive. Can access the drive and battery through lid at bottom.
10:34 .95 inches thick.
10:35 Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n.
10:36 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 3MB L2 Cache, 2GB Memory, 250GB hard drive and SuperDrive for $1999.
10:36 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 6MB L2 Cache, 4GB Memory, larger hard drive and SuperDrive for $2499. Also better video chips.
10:38 Shipping today!
10:39 Upgrading MacBook Air: Nvidia 9400M, 120GB drive, mini display port (November)
10:40 New 24-inch display with 1920×1200, iSight, mic, stereo speakers, 3-port USB, $899 (November)
10:41 New MacBooks: Nvidia 9400M, mini display port, glass screen, multi-touch trackpad, new construction technique like the MacBook Pro, better battery life.
10:44 2.0 GHz processor model with 160GB drive for $1299 and 2.4 GHz for with 250GB drive for $1599.
10:45 Old white plastic MacBook still on sale for $999. MacBooks on sale today, in stores tomorrow.
10:46 Video shown about new MacBook and manufacturing process.
10:52 Jobs jokes about health, shows current blood pressure on screen (110/70).
10:53 Q&A session.
10:54 Display Port used instead of HDMI because HDMI can’t drive 30-inch monitor.
10:56 Blu-ray left out because it is too hard to license it.
10:58 17-inch MacBook Pro will also be refreshed, but later.
11:00 Only glass screens, no more matte ones in the future.
11:02 Jobs says touch screens don’t make sense yet.
11:03 No Mac “netBook” yet as market is too new.
The Apps in the Apps Store are a huge success. There has been just the outpouring of creativity and innovation that everyone expected. But the App Store itself is very inadequate.
First of all, try navigating around in it. Slow and sometimes just unresponsive. But that is par for the course when you consider the music store has always been that way. The iTunes store works as an online store, but it could work a lot better, especially considering it is a specialized piece of software communicating with a specialized server.
Second, it clearly does not meet the needs of the developers or the users. Consider how many developers right now are communicating with their audience through updating the description of the app. Notes are sometimes changed daily with little messages about updates and such. Clearly the description area is not where this should be. Perhaps a notes, messages or developer mini-blog are needed. Perhaps the store just needs to make it clearer to users that they should visit the developer’s Web site for information like this.
Two-way communication also seems to be a problem. Users are using reviews as a way to talk to the developer. Maybe this is because developers are being unresponsive? Or maybe it is because there is no clear line of communication between the developer and the users. Or maybe it is because the barrier to entry for a developer is so low that a single person can soon find themselves with tens or hundreds of thousands of paying customers, but no system in place to respond to requests.
What is clear is that reviews should be reviews. That needs to be fixed. Apple already fixed it somewhat by requiring that you purchase the product in order to leave a review.
Perhaps the App store should be taken out of iTunes altogether and put on the Web where it can be faster, presumably. We’ve done it at MacMost, sort of, by creating our own iPhone Apps directory. I enjoy using it myself just because I can quickly and clearly see what apps are new each day.
You can get free iPhone ringtones from MacMost.com. Just subscribe to the free iPhone ringtones podcast. You can then download the 100+ free iPhone ringtones to your iTunes library, and then set up your iPhone to make them all available to be used as ringtones.
