Apple announces new 13-inch MacBook - Page 2

apple has really screwed the pooch on this one, i was planning on upgrading from my 2 yr old mac mini to a mb when i heard they would start at 899, now they are 999 and the next up is 300 bux more... no way. i can go to craiglist buy one for 700 bux and still get the same features at the entry lever for 300 bux less. It is a disappointment that in this time where money is tight and the economy sucks that apple would stay at the same price points

Its ridiculous... the specs are either lowered or the same.... All they focused on was the graphics card. If all the people that had bought their BEST Selling laptop the Macbook had previously focused on Graphics they wouldn't have bought it.

Most people in a 13in laptop don't need top of the line graphics, I see no reason to upgrade from my 2.4ghz $1299 to 2.0 ghz when I have an Xbox 360 and a dedicated gaming pc.

And besides, honestly I think mine looks better. I don't like the black around the screen. It should have been all aluminum.

The Mac mini won't cost $599, that is without tax. What you are missing is the fact that in the US we will get charged the $58 in tax on the $599 Mac mini.

Since the entry $999 Macbook is likely aimed at college students it will really cost $899 because of the education discount.

Equal or better specs on a $500 laptop? Does it run OS X? No. Not equal.

I agree with the comments on no Firewire... I hadn't noticed that before. The arguments kind of remind me of all the hoopla surrounding the lack of a floppy drive on the original iMac though. Is it really that big of a deal?

If you have Firewire peripherals you might have to invest in the Macbook Pro or buy an iMac. Or, you could sell them to all of the other people who are still happily using their current Macbooks.

Let's get some perspective people. Apple has revolutionized the notebook. Give them credit.

And stop your WHINING!!

I think you're confused. The Mac mini in the UK store is £339.57 ex VAT, that today is $594. So right now the Mac mini in the UK store is approximately the same price as in the US store ($5 cheaper).

Where you're getting this $350 from I can't say. $115 it is, and I believe you can probably explain that by the fluctuations in the value of the pound an dollar, after all a few months ago the pound was $2. Now it is $1.75. This is probably why the new machines are slightly more expensive.

Sucks for sure, but I still think that most of your $350 figure you can blame on the UK goverment's VAT rate.

Yup. And this is part of why AAPL took a dive minutes after the event wrapped.


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Does anyone know what the slit on the front right corner is for on the new MacBook?

Erm, your comparing the UK price minus VAT (Which is 17.5% and not 17% but that's a tiny difference) to your US dollar price after you've added on your 7% sales tax.

Surely you need to do $1415.23-$1299 which is $116.23 dollars difference.

Is it really 'whining' to note that Apple kinda screwed the pooch in some ways here?

The pricepoints aren't as aggressive as ppl hoped, especially considering that we're likely entering a prolonged worldwide recession. And the no Firewire is just plain inexcusable.

That said, I love the sexy new casings, and the improved graphics performance. But it's just such a mixed bag. Like many others, I was expecting more. Not sure Steve helped himself here.

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Apple's logic is simple.

Among the existing Macbook users, how many use Firewire? 1%? (I don't).

If Firewire costs $10, does it make sense to include it in the Macbook when 99% users don't use it?

By the way, to those who have Firewire external drives....look at the back, I am 100% sure it also have USB connection. As far as I am concerned, the only difference is no DV camcorder connection and no target disk mode.

Actually, the whole market took a dive, so Apple decision will surely destroy the economy.

Just kidding....but we all know AAPL takes a dive everytime after a product announcement. This has always always been the pattern for the last 3 to 4 years.

Actually, while the Dow was also down right after the event wrapped, it wasn't down by nearly as much as AAPL was down.

Far as AAPL 'always' diving after a product announcement, was that true for the announcement of the iPhone at MacWorld '07? I don't know either way, just asking.

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I'll bet more than that.

Some hard drives have both, but there are tons of peripherals that only have one or the other.

Except that the whole market took a dive at the same time. Considering AAPL only went down a couple percent after the event, it's hard to blame the new machines for that.

How come it's $999 when the http://www.apple.com/macbook/ says "The next generation of notebooks starts at $1299." WTF?
Also, no firewire.

You can put firewire in if they have an ExpressCard slot.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fw...esscard34.html

I know it would be handy to have it built into the computer, but still, you aren't dead in the water.

No FireWire? This has to be one of the dumbest moves imaginable!

How much would it have cost Apple to include a FireWire port on the MacBook? $3-$5 at the very most per unit? I'd have given 'em an extra $30 for it.

These things are seriously hobbled and now seriously overpriced this side of the water.

..."New design. New features. New technologies.
All engineered to standards that don’t even exist yet."...

"Yea, and while were at it, let's un-engineer one of the very technologies that attracts so many video/audio people to the Mac 'cos were sooo forward looking."
What about the standards that do exist? The very technology that a helluva lot of people here use daily?

Unbelievably bad move Apple. That Sony vaio is looking sweeter by the day.

Again, not exactly.

AAPL was down by as much as 7.05 right after the event. That's more than a 6% drop, not a 'couple of percent'. And the market as a whole was not down by nearly that much at the time.

Even right now, with the market nose-diving due to profit-taking, it's still down only 2.5 percent as of this writing. AAPL was/is down a lot more.

Check out the DOW vs APPL today:

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=A...urce=undefined

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This may sound silly, but I can't see a fan anywhere on it. How does it keep cool?

The MacBook doesn't have an ExpressCard slot.

Keping an eye on this forum and a few others, this is the first time in my 4 years of Mac tracking that practically nobody is positive over the new stuff... It's also the first time I'm disappointed with a new release.

I'm usually on the "you guys need to stop whining"-side, but this time, Apple seems to have missed the ball and the entire internet agrees. (Save 2-3% of people)

This thing is too expensive and overspecced for the student-target group, but is also missing some essential features for the pros. Who are they aiming this at?

You get what you pay for.

the missing firewire port is really annoying. it's not just because of cameras..

there are a ton of djs, electronic musicians that use a macbook because of it's size. infact i think that almost all acts that I've seen in the last 3 years had one on stage, but without firewire you can't connect most external soundcards (which you need for djing and performing).

It's really weird that I can't get a mac now. The Pro is too big for my needs and the without firewire I just can't connect my soundcard.


very weird move apple... and I've sort of already gotten over the glossy screen issue

By sitting in its box on the shelf at the Apple store gathering dust.

Even though all my hard drives are USB, I still can't believe Apple removed Firewire from the Macbook. They discontinued their own technology and went Intel. Wow.

Ok, I'll admit that I like everyone else was disappointed when I learned that the $900 price point was really for a display. But let's all be honest... we are really mad at ourselves for letting expectations get out of control based on little more than wishful thinking. I don't know much about manufacturing and such but it seems to me that these Macbooks will retain their value better than the average "budget" PC laptop just because of their design.

Attention to detail - better graphics - buttonless glass trackpad - ambient light sensor and backlit keys - "green" design - OS X - Bootcamp... is $1300 really that bad?

Apple is an aspirational brand... if you can't afford a Macbook than figure out a way to change your life, make more money, and move on. I think people forget that the iPhone is only $200 in the US because AT&T is paying about $400 of their own money to make the price competitive. Macs cost more because they are better in many ways.

I was hoping for a lower cost on the Macbooks... and I'm sure a lot of us were. That speaks volumes about the desire for Apple products. No, let's turn our energy towards paying down our own debts, reigning in our wasteful spending, and making due with what we have. In time we will be rewarded with a Mac portable worthy of the Apple brand.

Sorry...but that is still not a HUGE difference. Also exchange rates change, and maybe in a month or two you'll be paying less. It may also be a higher cost of doing business in the UK. Since Apple has company stores in the UK, they may have to pay business taxes in the UK (and like most taxes in Eurpoe, it's probably more expensive). Buy it on your next trip across the pond, if that little difference irritates you.

One of the nice features is the removal HDD. Buy Macbook and swap 5400 rpm for 7200rpm. (Use the 5400 in a box for TM).

Many photogs are going be pissed about the glossy screen, I wonder now is it that bad ?

The new LED screen is interesting with iSight, Mic and Speaker, but no audio jack for external speakers that would of being easy to include on the back.

The engineering is awesome that went into this. The FW thing is dumb tough.

Gavin

FYI: Backlit keys are still a "Pro" feature only. EDIT: OK, so now the store is up it appears I'm wrong, sorry. It doesn't list backlit keyboard on the Tech Specs page, but does on the Apple store when you try to purchase one.

Or just buy something else that is cheaper.

I guess i'm irked by the UK/US price difference. Which i don't honestly think is all down to VAT or importing or doing business in the UK. In the past comparable prices have been pretty close bar the cost of the 160Gb Apple TV which is still a rip off price here in UK-land.

What bothers me more is the HD camcorder, external hard drives and Cinema displays which are now in effect redundant if you consider the new Macbook at the new state of Apple computing. As I've read on this forum this seems like a needless way of differentiating the Macbook against the Pro version and a way of forcing buyers to go for the pricer option. It's even more weird when you consider that they've keep both an original plastic macbook at cheaper price point and the 17 pro in the overall product family. For a company that prides itself on the aesthetic this seems frankenstein like lineup, much in the way my Alu Imac, has a matching Alu keyboard and then nice gloss white mighty mouse to spoil the effect.

Someone please tell me it's me!!!!!

I agree that they should have kept the firewire but are you kidding about downgrading the processor. It's an upgrade, it may only be 2.0 instead of 2.1 but it's got a 1066Mhz front side buss instead of a 800. That will more than makeup for the 0.1 loss in processor speed. Oh, one more thing, we don't know which processor so a 2.0 could be faster than a 2.1.

The more I look at this the more angry I get. The options for the new "MacBook Pro", which is now really just a larger version of the MacBook, include the option for a 7200 rpm hard drive. No such option is offerred for the MacBook! The form factor of the drives is certain to be the same, so this amounts to an arbitrary decision that was likely motivated by the expectation that it would encourage people to buy the "MacBook Pro" (which is now really just a larger verson of the MacBook) instead! This is absurd, and it just pisses me off. Aaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh!

I am really, really disgusted with Apple. I rue the day that I bought Apple stock, and if there were a shareholder vote on whether to fire Jobs, I would not hesitate to fire him. This is all screwed up. It should have been about the reduction of the manufacturing cost so that MacBooks could be cost competitive with other notebook computers, and instead what they did was to substantially increase the manufacturing cost by requireing the chassis to be cut out on ultra expensive CNC machinery. It is utterly asinine. They didn't address the problem with the system fonts not being scalable, and instead of lowering their cost per unit, they increased their cost per unit! They added a nice touchpad and improved the graphics speed, but the 15" MacBook Pro now has the crappy keyboard and crappy glossy screen of the MacBook! This is all in all just about as moronic as it could possibly be! I'm stunned that Jobs presided over this disaster, and I for one advocate that he should be replaced immediately! He has quite obviously lost his mind!

No offense, but your apparent elitism is a bit tiresome. \

While I personally am doing very well financially (recently came into a great deal money, and thanks to the timing, am able to invest it in the market when it's at or near a bottom), it doesn't change my view that the new MacBooks aren't a particularly great value. And the puzzling lack of FireWire worsens the equation.

Maybe I'm looking at it from more of an investor standpoint, but Apple had an opportunity to grab quite a bit of marketshare, above and beyond what they've been able to peel away from MS to date. They didn't do it. It's disappointing.\\

And the market apparently agrees, as AAPL nosedived quite a lot more than the DOW and 'DAQ did during/right after the event.

Add to my annoyance that my current notebook is about at the end of its lifespan, and that I may have to hold my nose a bit and buy one of these no-FireWire MBs (or grossly overpay for an MBP).

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Yeah, but in the past the pound was worth more dollars than it is today. The dollar-pound rate changes, you can't expect Apple to change their prices daily to always match the current exchange rate.

Thank you for the information, I was about to ask whether this existed.

Opps, spoked too fast, the MacBook does not have an ExpressCard slot.

You don't need it though because the MacBook Pro has Firewire 800.

The rumors say they'll introduce a $799 or $899 MacBook and they go and RAISE prices?? In this economy??

No wonder the stock is getting hammered. I should have sold yesterday.

For me, yes. A very big deal. I use it all the time for networking, so I can do fast backups. Also what of Target Mode? I also have an older 3G iPod which uses Firewire. I'm a bit gutted with the new NVidia video, but I'm so glad I've got my Firewire.

Another thing - USB = sh*t, Firewire = great. One USB port would have done. I don't get why they're moving everything to USB. It's terrible.

Hear, hear!

I sold my 12" PB in March and got a Feb '08 MBP. Now I'm thinking hard about going for the entry level MacBook!

The display quality and non-LED-backlit-ness and the poor integrated graphics in the MB were what drove me to the higher end, and there is now much more feature parity there - LED-backlighting, check; much better graphics, check.

Not to mention very pretty new form factor, big jumps for FSB and RAM speed, and the option for a non-backlit keyboard (the new arrangement in the F-keys irks me, and I haven't ever found a -need- for the lighting) are pretty appealing. I will also welcome a return to the smaller size, especially for carrying around, and I should be able to sell the MBP for more than the stock-with-max-RAM 2.0GHz MB!

Finally, I've been enjoying using the new Apple wireless chiclet keyboard more than I do the old MBP style one; and my needs/wants have changed a bit. While I will undoubtedly be tempted back to WoW with the new expansion next month, I don't really feel the need to play any more demanding games; I tried to like Age of Empires III, which I have been running on Vista on the MBP; but it just isn't anything like as good fun as AoE II, and now they're not going to do any more updates or new games anyway *sigh*.

I agree it's a shame that there is no 7200 RPM drive option on the MB though. There is the smaller SSD, but at quite a cost! What is the speed of the SSDs like btw, as compared to 5400 or 7200?

To recap, the 12" PB's second coming ... has come.