Apple predicted to release new iMacs, MacBooks in weeks - Page 3

Because not everyone likes matte? Why is this such a difficult concept? Glossy produces richer colors while matte prevents glare. It's all strictly a matter of preference. It's not any more difficult to reach out and turn a 13" laptop display than it is to reach out and tilt a 24" iMac display. To say one is better than the other is pointless as it is all personal opinion. Glossy is popular because people like it. If you've forgotten, the glossy screens are a relatively new offering, but very popular. Popular demand and consumer demand has forced manufacturer's to produce glossy to the point where it wasn't cost effective to keep both. If there wasn't a demand, they wouldn't be doing it. Calling it 'cheap' is just insulting to those of us who do prefer glossy.

actually you don't know of any Apple events early next year either. they aren't doing MacWorld anymore which was the only early year standing event. in part because now they can release things when they have something ready, not on someone else's calendar or paying them for the privilege of being there to draw a crowd in.

as for when they might release something on the desktops, logic says before holiday shopping is full swing. but don't expect a huge physical redesign. Apple seems rather happy with the current look so any changes will be subtle and/or internal.


yep, rather than slam folks with too much at once, they go in waves. last winter it was mainly software (I think there was a light upgrade/price drop to the imacs, etc), hit june with the back to school/laptop refresh, september for the ipods/itunes and then somewhere around oct-nov we get the family friendly desktops just in time for that "Christmas" shopping


and they would be correct. the majority (and by that I mean the 85-90% that don't read and have never heard of sites like this one) don't know the difference and don't care. they want to know what they can do and how long it will take. period.

it's only the technogeeks that dig into the specs and debate if this or that graphics card is better and what's the speed difference between DDR2 and DDR3 etc



nope. not at all. in fact I find that it's more a pain unplugging them.



your opinion and not a shared one. many folks think the Pro is priced just fine and the Mini is a great little machine for what they want to use it for (and they aren't trying to make it a Pro level tower in a small box)


or not. at least not to your definition of 'improve' cause what you think is a must is probably not what the majority cares about.

also Apple has never been one to lock step to what the boys in the WinHood were up to. so don't ever try to play the "well if Dell is doing it, Apple will to" game.


take your own advice as well. what you think everyone needs is not always the truth.

this is the dark side of boards like this. folks get up on the soapbox talking about systems have to have this, not having that is stupid blah blah. but they forget that they are among the elite, not the common man. and what they are calling must haves is really what they themselves want, not what the masses will buy. and the masses are where the real money is.



that call is easy. are the sales likely there.

with the laptops they had AG 15 and 17 in the stores. and they likely have numbers saying that the 15s didn't sell at all and the 17 barely did. so they dropped it. why waste the money (especially since the price was the same). there was screaming so they bring it back but now with an added cost and only one of the 3 15 models can be bought in store as AG.

if the sales of the custom item pan out, they will likely bring it back to the stores. with the imac and the display they could try the same game. make it a custom, slight cost item and see if it really sales. or if it is really just a very vocal 1% screaming about how AG is a must and most folks don't really care

remember at all times and in all things that this is a business and it is about making money.

Correct. But that doesn't mean they can provide options. No one product suits all. There are those with different needs. Why not provide more options so depending on your need there is something for you?

Options cost money. Each additional option on a product line requires extra cost to provide. I would imagine that is why they ditched the matte option to begin with. Demand reached a point where it just wasn't cost effective to continue offering it. As the desktop continues to lose out to laptop models that may change.

Just keep in mind that your must have may not be all that important to the majority of buyers. You may find you're better served by another manufacturer's offerings. Speak with your pocket book as well...

Oh I completely agree.

When they say updgrades to MacBook in weeks do they mean just MacBooks or MacBook Pros as well. According to the Macrumors buyers guide the Macbook Pro is in the middle of the average model cycle, though I realize you never know.

I think that was kind of the idea: you could put an external hard drive back there and never see or think about it again. (I don't usually turn off my external hard drives, even when I shut down my computer. Is that bad?)

Overpriced, though.

I think they just mean MacBooks, not Pros — but, you never know.

This feeling seems to be coming more common.



I have been using laptops since 1997 as my main machine, back when they very costly and very slow. I prefer the convenience and now I get that and more than enough speed.



Does anyone know if those low-power, desktop-grade C2D that Intel designed for AIOs are available yet?



I think Apple is doing the keynote at CES. Since the venue has a lot more people at it, especially ones that arent Apple customers already they already have a booth each year, and its in the same week it does make a lot more sense to just do the January release then.

The one thing that comes to mind is replacing the hard drive...there's a long, drawn-out process involving removing the front glass and display in order to access the hard drive. While it might sacrifice thinness, an easier access to the hard drive would be much more useful than shaving another bit off the dimensions.

I would like Apple to support this in the refresh -

1. New cordless mouse design. The mouse has always been one of Apple's weakest points.

2. Easy access to the hard drive. I really hated upgrading my hard drive by having to disassemble the screen.

3. Solid state drive option.

4. USB 3.0 with x2 extra ports.

5. A display without image persistence, gloss / matte option.

6. Faster DVD drive, maybe a Bluray option

7. Easy access to the video card.

Overall I would like to see Apple refresh their lineup with new components more frequently throughout the year, since tech specs go stale very quickly.

Having said all that, I'm still happy with my Macs. I've been a user / customer since 1990.

What Intel chips have come out that would be ready for these machines? I hope they finally add a 4x3 display to the trackpad.



This is Apple. Dont expect an easier to access HDD unless it doesnt interfere with the aesthetics.

Maybe the iMac will come in 2 flavors: 1 with SSD drives and one with the hard disk option. Would be nice to have two hard disks and be able to put those in a RAID 1 or 0 configuration with software RAID.

I would also like to see a Blu-ray or an SD card slot BTO option or both in at the same time.

I'll set my expectations low.

MacBook - Upgrade the processor to the low end Pro and possibly replace DDR2 memory at 800 MHz with DDR3 at 1066 MHz. The glossy or matte would choice also works.

iMac - I think someone said a while back to "remove the chin", that would be all right. I'm not so sure it needs to be thinner as that it what the air is for. 4 GB of RAM should become the standard on all models. Glossy or matte choice if not already.

I'd like a lot of other things too; Blu-Ray, Radeon cards, etc. but that's for later I suspect.

I agree the iMac should be thinner and smaller! O wait they already have made a Macbook Pro. Never mind! Make it just the way it is!
:P

Show me a cheap ($700 - $800) iMac computer and you will get my business! Otherwise I am content with what I have.

I would think it would be a simple thing to put the hard drive near the edge of the case, much like the memory in an iMac. Easily accessible from the bottom by removing only a single screw.

All these posts about adding Blu-ray drives. I just dont get it. Why call for BRDs in the iMac when the Mac Pro doesnt even have it with its full sized optical drive bay or the fact that OS X wont be able to play any DRMed Blu-ray movies?

Well they would have to add the DRM support. OSX already has DRM support built into itunes for it's own DRM.

Even if it wasn't an issue with playing the discs many people want to use them as a storage format. Or you could rip your movies to hard drive. Though I do my BD ripping in windows due to software limitations for OSX. Though it would still work for some.

Though unlikely, I'm still holding out for an update to mini as Apple refreshes its desktop line-up.

I don't mind if it's a clip-panel on the back, but make it easy to get to.

An internal BD drive would make my ripping work easier as well. I haven't replaced all of my DVD players with Blu-Ray yet. I often rip BD's and convert them to DVD for the other players. I currently have to do this on an HP laptop, although I supposed I could buy an external BD-Rom drive for 100-200 bucks.

They are not the same thing in the least. On top of that, the drives Apple would need for its iMac are still more expensive than other vendors use for their notebooks and Blu-ray is a competitor to Apples digital store. The longer DVD is good enough for people and digital downloads get more popular the less likely we to see Apple throwing support behind it. Eventually they might, but likely only after they see Blu-ray as no threat and the HW cost have come come.


Apple isnt going to add a Blu-ray drive just to tell you to use Windows to rip or watch. If you want to use BRD for backups then you have plenty of options. Apple isnt stopping you.

And here I was thinking that I was the only one cooking breakfast on their early 2007 MPB 17 C2D.

One could say the same thing about buying a mac just to run windows. Apple will do whatever is profitable while maintaining their standards. To deny that Blu-Ray is the successor to DVD seems foolish to me. Although online downloads are becoming popular, the vast majority of folks still like a physical disk they can pop into a player and keep indefinitely. Something they can watch at a friends house, or take into the van on a long drive.<BR><BR>

IMO it is only a matter of time before they support Blu-Ray out of the box.

If Apple drop the optical drive from the plastic MacBook and redesign the case to be thinner, lighter, and less expensive, then they will have a real winner.


I expect that in five to ten years, all computers will be laptops, tablets, or servers. The writing is on the wall and the trend is clear.

It is the same. Absolutely. There is support in OSX that allows you play DRM content. They would need to add support for the DRM on the blu ray discs. Same thing. The DRM checks for different things to allow playback but it's the same thing.


You don't have to use windows to rip. You can rip them in OSX. Even re-encode them if you so wish. The difference is if you want lossless DTS-HD MA in flac without the DRM you have to use windows. Aside from that you can do it in OSX.

The fact is people want blu ray drives in their macs. They have been asking for it for years. As you well know it's come up in these threads time and time again. Whether apple will provide it or not, only time will tell. But the demand is certainly there.

For home theater, sure. For doing backups its slow, prone to errors and expensive per GB.



FairPlay and AACS are NOT interchangeable simply because you can call them both DRM. Having FlairPlay in iTunes does NOT make AACS protected media automatically play.

I never said they were interchangable or that fairplay makes AACS media play.

I didn't mean they were physically the same thing. The concept is the same thing. OSX already has DRM support built in. Adding DRM support for blu-ray is not a big deal(to those with issues with DRM)

The only things I want, are:

Dust filter over intake vent.
Restoration of the remote control holder magnet.
Restoration of the sleep indicator light.
Anti-reflect screen option.
Color option (I prefer white, why does the iMac have to be black?).

Basically revert to the white iMac, add the air filter, and put in modern hardware! Although getting rid of that ugly area below the screen and using a more stable stand would also be nice. Can you name one person that didn't like the G4 design?

Oh and maybe tack $40 to the price and double the RAM so we don't have to do it ourselves every purchase?

If you're only interested in getting rid of the wires, wouldn't an iMac all in one be the best choice?

Both being Digital Rights Management doesnt make them the same thing. Are Windows Server and iPhone OS X are both Operating Systems but they are not the same thing. They are had differently, they have different costs and work competely differently despite having the same basic category of OS the way AACS and FairPlay have a basic category of DRM.


Its obvious its a big deal to them. Jobs has publicly pointed the finger at the licensing as an issue. This has changed since then, but that answer was not the only reasons why Apple would not want to add AACS to Mac OS X. They didnt even have to add Blu-ray drives to their machines, just add AACS support for Snow Leopard so that 3rd-party drives can be used, yet they have chosen not to do it. So, why havent they done it if it is no big deal to Apple?

I hated the base on the G4 iMac. (And aluminum is, in my opinion, much more attractive than white plastic.) The current stand seems plenty stable to me and provides a nice spot to store the keyboard when you want it out of the way.

I'd be happy just as long as Apple gets the MacBook Pro off the 2 core (2 thread) train to slowville. If you want to do any kind of serious HD video editing/ rendering on an Apple computer, you have to spend a ba-jillion dollars on a Mac Pro.

Apple, please, please put either a 2 core (four thread) Arrandale, or a 4 core (8 thread) Clarksfield into the MacBook Pro... because I desperately need a mobile HD video editing/ rendering laptop with some oomph to it.

Either that or re-write FCP / FCE in OpenCL asap so we can start utilizing the GPU for rendering... something!... anything!... I need a MacBook Pro that's really "Pro"!

Given the thickness of the 17" MacBook Pro can be less than 1" thick and still support a 2.8GHz dual core processor (despite the fact that it has a two-piece hinged enclosure and a built in keyboard) I don't see why Apple cannot make an iMac enclosure that is much thinner than the current version, especially if the display is LED backlit.

Why? Just because it looks way cool may be a good enough reason for Apple...

You know, "Ben". you're acting more like an uninformed troll everyday ,,, so "unlike you".
If you're going to SPREAD rumors, like you always do, at least TRY to give a few examples, with links, to back up your "claims", unless, of course, you're just trying to START them.

The 65 W ones? They've been available for a while.

Man, I love that shelf. So handy!

That's true. I've often said that if they insist on using laptop parts in their desktops, Apple should just go ahead and turn the 20" iMac into a MacBook. It would be too large for the jetsetters, but luggable enough for home users.

And at least MacBook owners can change their hard drives.

Wouldn't a USB hub (pretty cheap, nowadays) placed anywhere you wanted be the answer?

Marketshare increasing, profits increasing, customer satisfaction the highest in the industry, everyone and their dog trying their hardest to copy Apple products and business model .... yea, I'd say Apple is right. Stop bitchin' and just buy the stock/ products and enjoy the ride.

heating problems can occur.

I vote that it doesn't need to be thinner.