Apple updates white 13-inch MacBook to NVIDIA architecture - Page 3

I had assumed that the white MacBooks had been kept around in recognition that the current economy could not have been forecasted at the time the unibody macbooks started design. So the whitey is a bridge to maintain the flow of switchers while money is tight. I imagine the whitey will stay around until people have more money to burn, and meanwhile get little upgrades as a combination of maintaining value for the dollar and managing parts in stock ( old vs new ). This is probably the kind of stuff that Tim Cook is great at. I bet he has some serious Numbers spreadsheets working it all out to the cent. Apple is in good hands.

I think the real question we should be asking is what this means for the forthcoming Mac Mini revision.

This macbook now as a decent gpu, 2g standard memory, and a 2 Ghz processor at a price of $1000

Compare that with the current Mac mini, which has a similar/same processor, only 1 G, and a much crappier gpu.

Basically, this macbook looks a lot like what the Mac Mini revision will probably be (although let's hope they go for a larger HD and faster memory). However, it only $200 dollars more than the current Mac mini. If I'm not mistaken, the macbook screen costs in the neighborhood of $150-200 to produce, which makes the $800 price point sound about right.

You've never seen any evidence of that? Maybe you should open your eyes. Apple is completely inflexible on feature sets.

You can't say "I want a MacBook with a 15" display" because they don't make one. If you want a 15" display you're also stuck paying for discrete graphics, FireWire 800, ExpressCard slot, etc.

Over in the PC world you have choices. Want a larger screen without all the other extras? Sure at least 4 manufacturers will sell you exactly what you're willing to pay for. Want the discrete graphics in a machine with only a 13" display? Sure, someone sells that configuration too.

I'm not saying Apple should provide the variety available on the other side of the fence, they're doing very well with their current business model, I'm just showing how they force people to pay for features they may not want.

Now going back to a comment on the first page... one person wondered whether Apple will start following the rest of the industry and quietly updating their products more frequently. That's a double edged sword. More updates = more opportunities for buyers to be upset that their "brand new" machine is suddenly out of date. At the same time it should stop people from holding off purchases in anticipation of big changes.

Now I've seen on some forums the simple advice "if you need a computer now, buy it now", but it's rarely that simple. It's not all that common for a computer to die and need replacement immediately. Most new computers take the place of older ones that still work. In every one of those cases the buyer has the choice of when they buy. Smart buyers either follow Apple release dates or know someone who does. I'd be shocked if more than a handful of desktop Macs have been purchased since August 2008 by people who have any indirect link to an Apple Insider or Mac Rumors regular.

Having said that I know someone who bought an iMac for Christmas. Initially I said "That's crazy, new iMacs will be introduced on January 6". However, this buyer was looking at a older model store demo that had been upgraded and discounted. I looked at the exchange rate for the Canadian dollar. At the time we'd fallen from US$1.10 down to 85 cents and Apple had raised the price of the new notebooks. I concluded that they would be raising the price of new iMacs and thus old models would cost the same amount in January as they did in December.

Personally I'm in the market for a new Mac and the continued tumble of the Canadian dollar has me really scared that I'll be looking at price increases of 25% when the new models come out. Having said that any desktop without an OpenCL compatible GPU and fewer than 4 processor cores is going to be a dinosaur the day Snow Leopard is released. I'll gladly pay an extra 25% to get a machine that'll last me an extra year or more.

I wonder if they underclocked the 9400M in the White MacBook like in the MBA. The MBA underclocks and undervolts to save power and heat, but nVidia would no doubt offer a discount on lower clocked reject 9400M that couldn't make the higher bin of the other models, and it would definitely help Apple's margins at the $999 price point. With the 9400M in the White MacBook being memory starved with DDR2 667 a reduction in clock speed really wouldn't be noticeable anyways.

On the DDR2-667 issue, I can understand Apple not going with DDR3, but no going with DDR2-800 is a strange choice. The price difference is minimal and DDR2-800 is already used in the iMacs so the supply chain is in place. The only other model that still uses DDR2-667 is the Mac Mini, which really points to any upcoming Mac Mini refreshes having similar specs to the White MacBook, namely a 9400M with DDR2-667. At least they were nice enough to include 2GB of RAM, which is pretty much the minimum nowadays.

I noticed the processor was lowered slightly from 2.1 GHz to 2.0 GHz presumably to match up with the lower priced aluminum one. The graphics upgrade more than makes up for that though.

Yeah I wish the 20" cinema display was 1920x1200 but it's not that's the 24" which is fine for most macbook users.

But wow now I'm torn because I was almost sold on the aluminum macbook but now the old one with the same chipset and graphics + firewire might be a deal breaker for me. I'd be choosing design+weight over firewire+cost, being able to use my firewire drives and offload footage portably again would be awesome.

I'm gonna have to think really hard over the next two weeks.

This was certainly a surprising move! Geez, what next? An anti-glare option on the 15-inch MacBook Pro?

If you care to look, Apple has a list of crimes as long as your arm and has often been found to be 'up to no good'. Crippling low end machines has been one of its specialties. Only now, in the intel mac era have things changed for the better.

I'm not saying that people should automatically assume the worst but Apple has earned its reputation in this area.

So Apple should just stop all technology advancements just because you just bought a new Mac? What can I say...cry me a river.....

Care to go into details????

This is an easy one.

Back in the iBook days, for example, Apple didn't allow monitor spanning. You could only mirror the display to a 2nd monitor. It took a hack to get monitor spanning to work.

I can remember back to the first of the "Quicksilver" towers the Power Mac G4 where the low-end model lacked L3 cache. This made the 733MHz G4 processor run as slow or slower than a 500MHz G4 processor.

Or how about all of those years that Apple gave its diminutive 12-inch PowerBook G4 such a shitty graphics card compared to the larger 15- and 17-inch models?

In addition to what you wrote:

Apple refused to update first and second generation iPods with the new features from the third and fourth gen models to force people to upgrade.

No expansion slots of any kind in anything but "Pro" models, despite every PC maker in the world offering them throughout their ranges.

Or it could be that some of those are just you assume Apple is doing this for that reason. Or, it could be that you have to save money somewhere for a low end device. You can't put $1200 worth of hardware into an $900 computer.


I really fail to see how that is Apple purposely scaling down low end models. This falls into the area where Apple chooses to compete in certain areas of the market it can be successful in. Cheap/mid-range towers it just doesn't choose to compete in. You can either accept that or go buy what suits your needs. Apple isn't forcing you to stay Mac. If a mid range tower from HP better suits your needs then go buy it.

HALLELUJAH. Here I was cracking my f**ing head figuring out how I could get back playing Steam games and Left 4 Dead. $999 US. Score. Max 6GB RAM on this one, right? 9400M. Enough for Valve: Source and DawnofWar2 on lower settings. Yes yes yes. Time to save save save. Only problem: It's still white.

I'm not talking about a tower. I'm talking about no Apple notebooks but the Macbook Pros having an expresscard slot. It's been that way since the iBook came out. Sure, they are rarely used, but I'd like to have the option without having to carry a 15" notebook around.

It has nothing to do with there being two RAM modules. Memory speed and FSB speed are related, but they cannot be compared the way I think you did. DDR is double-data rate, so DDR2-667 is actually 333MHz, while the FSB is quad-data rate, so the 1066MHz bus is a 266MHz base clock multiplied by four.

Buy a speck products colored hard plastic cover for your macbook

http://www.speckproducts.com/product...te-or-black/24

and change the color of your macbook.

These covers are great and come in eight colors and a clear one too. They fit like a glove and right now the older model macbooks 13-inch covers cost only $24.95.

check them out.

Speck cases are not too bad... ...Now how do I change the color on the *inside* of the MacBook? www.colorwarepc.com maybe...?

I must be a sicko. Why do I have a burning desire to get one of these and install Vista 64Bit on it?

Actually, it's even more complicated than that. The term "Double Data Rate" has become somewhat of a misnomer as it only logically applies to the first generation. DDR2 is actually effectively quad-pumped so DDR2-667 uses a 166 MHz bus clock, and DDR3 is effectively "octo"-pumped so DDR3-1066 uses a 133 MHz bus clock.

As we know from the PPC "MHz Myth" days, comparing speed is more complex than just looking at the raw MHz numbers. To compare the speed of the FSB and RAM bus, we need to know things like latency and bus width. Whether the RAM is single-, dual- or triple-channel will have a significant effect on the theoretical peak throughput of the RAM.

One thing we can do is compare is the peak bandwidth of the RAM and the FSB. DDR2-667 (aka PC2-5300) has a peak bandwidth of 10.6 GB/s, whilst Intel's 1066 FSB has a peak bandwidth of 8.5 GB/s (see page 39 of this pdf).

It was improved. Superdrive included for $300 less than before (with a minor speed reduction). All in all, it was a nice uptick in October and an even better one now.

Care to explain why it should? What about the 17" MBP or the rest of the Mac line? Either Apple has has to release uncompleted HW revisions or hold back updates of other models to be sold while they wait for other products to finish. Neither of those sound like a smart business move. To expect that all products can magically be made in an instant or that all products are developed at the exact same rate makes no sense to me, but I'm willing to hear you out.

They don't force you to buy anything.

Well, others have already given examples but as you asked I'll add to those. There was a time that Apple shipped an iMac to the US market with double the VRAM of the exact same model in Europe. The Yikes machine was basically a G3 class Mac with a G4 in it. However, they dressed the thing up to look very much like a real Sawtooth. Prices in Europe were considerably higher than prices in the US for an unbelievably long time with no real justification. It wasn't until the dollar crashed that Apple put things more or less into order.

As you can see, it's better to thoroughly check through the specs and compare before buying any version of any Apple product.

Apple marketed the Performa 6xx line as running at 66Mhz. In truth the processor only ran at 66Mhz internally. It communcated with the rest of the system at 33Mhz.

Apple marketed PowerPC hardware for its faster performance for many years while enormous chunks of the OS were not native PPC. Apple marketed the 68K emulator as the solution to backwards compatibility on PPC but in the fine print revealed that the FPU wasn't emulated. Apple has established RAM specs on several occasions only NOT to enforce them from the outset. People bought macs, added memory that worked and then saw that memory stop working when Apple decided to finally enforce the specs more strictly through new (required) firmware updates. I can't think of a single valid reason as to why they didn't enforce RAM specs from the outset.

Obviously no one is suggesting that Phil Schiller and Johnny Ive are going to corner you, put a gun to your head and force you to buy a Macbook Pro.

But the simple fact remains that if you want certain basic features on a computer that runs OS X legally, you have to buy a grossly overbuilt system that may not fit your needs for a variety of reasons. One should not have to choose between expansion or portability. The only logical reason for excluding basic features is to force you to upgrade to machines with bigger margins if you really want them.

You can qualify anything to make such a point. Apple has a business plan and sells certain types of machines. To state that you are being forced to buy something that you don't want or to complain that they are grossly overbuilt is just silly.

And yes, one should have to choose between expandability and portability as these things are antitheses of each other in the physical world. A notebook will not be as powerful or as expandable as any tower. Just as no tower with tonnes of expandabilty will be very portable. Apple chosen a market direction long ago, they have stuck with that, that is it: either their products fit your needs better than other products or they don't.

PS: You don't have the infinite options among other OEMs that you mentioned earlier.

Then go buy something that better suits your needs. Apple can't be everything to everyone...

Yes, because always having a combo drive in the lowest end macbook must of actually been to keep the price down, and not intentionally crippling the machine .

I don't buy the premise either, and I never said Apple was trying to "screw consumers." The satisfaction levels at and after buying with hardware, software and support - number one year after year in Consumer Reports, for example, don't paint a pic of people "feeling screwed."

Beyond that, they're making lots of efforts to create greener products. And their products have done much to empower the less technically adept among us. And they're simply the most interesting company in the world to follow with their history of innovation, design excellence, entertaining marketing, and even for some interesting failures and simply for being the best soap opera story in the last 50 years of the business world.

That's the very picture of an "ethical/moral" company: delivering most of what it promises (A, Inc products are excellent but not "perfect") at the price it advertises.


Ever compared customization options between say on the one side Dell and HP and on the other Apple?

There is no comparison. You can - if you're willing to put up with Windows computing and its fragmented, multi-company infrastructure and outsourced support - fine tune your PC options to a very granular degree.

With Apple's new aluminum notebooks a FireWire port is now going to cost you hundreds of dollars by being bundled with a bigger, heavier machine with other options you may not need.

And only "pros" can buy a 15 "cher and pros can't buy a 13" computer. Etc., etc.

Can anyone who's not on drugs really dispute this?

The real question implied here is not about whether Apple sells "packs" as they absolutely, manifestly do, but rather about "business morality" and "morality/ethics" in general. And it's an irrelevant, oversimplified and overly pious argument.

Apple practices "line differentiation" as a strategy to compete against the WinTel "megagopoly" computer infrastructure as its management long ago decided it couldn't compete by trying to be all computer things to all computer-using people.

It's a practical, not a moral issue with many variables involved for a company that's been traditionally defined as a "niche" company, a "boutique" company, a "cutting edge design and function" company and a "premium product" company.

From a marketing point of view Apple creates coherent, easy to understand lines of products with memorable names. Go to most computer, music player or cell sites and you're bombarded with a huge number of numbingly numbered products whose specs and prices change sometimes daily -- sometimes (on price) hourly for that matter.

Go to the Apple store and you'll have the whole lay of the land in minutes, and in between new line announcements, it'll be almost the same line at the same price the next day, week and month, though some components are quietly updated, for several months.

From a manufacturing point of view, stability and a limited number of configs make it easier to focus on build quality, durability and more. Inventory and channel control benefit in a similar fashion. And fair trade pricing doesn't establish an expectation of wild fluctuation where customers wait for a sale or special rebate (except during back to school season and around Black Friday).

From a software design and maintenance point of view, the fewer number of processors, graphics chips, mobos, drives, screens, etc. that need to work optimally with the OS make it much easier to keep control of code.

From an R&D point of view Apple is more able to take a long term tack, as putting more effort into creating lines that will have a longer shelf life allows more of a focus on quality and design than constantly changing between the latest "good enough for now" options thrashed through by the WinTel manufacturers.

From a support point of view, too, it's vastly easier for Apple to understand the hugely smaller number of variables that can go wrong with its stable, limited number of parts.

And from a gross margins point of view, these are much easier to maintain with more standardized manufacturing, less frequent retooling of manufacturing line and a much smaller parts bin. And to be the David among Goliaths Apple has been (though less so now!), to produce the best hardware and best software with a much smaller unit volume than MS and friends, that development and marketing capital has been an absolute necessity.

So. Apple benefits from line differentiation in that it's enabled it to maintain the high levels of fit, finish, design, ease of use and functionality that have kept it profitable and relevant. And that means Apple customers, at least those for whom its products do meet their needs, benefit as well.

Nothing to do with good v. evil in the real economic world.

That it also means I'm stuck with useless FW drives and other peripherals is a side effect. My argument with Apple's "packs" is that I would've made different ones, e.g., a 13 and 15" MacBook and a 13 and 15" MacBook Pro, e.g.


So it's definitely not "just about the money" - but if anyone wants to tell you that making a profit is not the first necessity of any company, I have some shares of Stanley Steamer, Studebaker and Circuit City available. Cheap.


See above. You HAVE to want to make money "doing it."


For anyone who wants a model of how capitalism can function ethically in the modern world, I recommend researching former Brit PM Tony Blair's ideas on "stakeholder capitalism."


As noted above, indeed they do, as well as the other intertwined benefits I mentioned.

Just remember that A, Inc. is first and foremost a business that provides a useful public function in a transparent way, not a useful public function that happens to be provided by a business.

Absolutely.

The new Macbook now has a 1066 mHz bus and DDR3 RAM, leaving only the Mini with 667 mHz and DDR2. I've been looking at Mini's on eBay with upgraded RAM and HD, but they're still using the old bus.

I'd feel utterly gutted if, after waiting so long, the Mini went to Ion with is 533 mHz bus. That thing better go to 1066 and it better do it now.

Someone hasn't read the article or any of this thread.

The update to the white MacBook has delivered a 1066 FSB but the RAM is still DDR2-667.

nevermind.

This MacBook update was so logical, even though unexpected. I hope Apple does the logical thing with the Mac mini too and gives it the same specs. If not, I'll probably just buy one of the MacBooks in a couple of months. Its screen and keyboard will hardly be used though. I'd just as soon not pay for them.

Ugh, I was looking at Apple's website.

I had read the article and the first page, but it seemed so silly that it would still have DDR2 that I didn't remember, and checked Apple's website to verify. When you go to tech specs for the Macbook, it just bundles them all together.

They're probably waiting 18 months to do the same bullshit to the Mini. Sometimes I really fucking hate Apple.

As I recall, DDR3 has less bang per clock than DDR2. The included DDR2 memory should still be more than fast enough to keep up with the processor. The bandwidth of a dual channel DDR2 667MHz memory system still exceeds that of the chip's FSB.

Nowhere in our economy is a higher quality product sold for the same amount or less than a lesser one. Where did this idea come from? Is our educational system this weak?

Computing power is available to everyone at every price point just as autos, furniture, houses, clothes and you name it. Equal PC to equal Mac with user's desired performance, similar price. Please, don't rant on the hardware .. that's a small part.

There seems to be a theory that we are entitled to what ever we want at what we want to pay.

Really???

The first Mac we purchased was March 1984, the 128: Cost $4,000. The first PC in August 1984, IBM 286 (6 Mhtz. upgraded to 25 a couple of months later): Cost $3,000. (no monitor or software)

Honda Civic doesn't cost the same as a Mercedes but does the same job.

A lot of really good posts, as always; but, the 'whines' about cost is not among them:

So does this mean the new white macbook can run the pro software with the same speed as the old Macbook pro's? Motion, FCP, shake, ect.