I'm holding off on purchasing a MBA, hoping that they improve the stats a bit more. 4GB of RAM these days is a joke. Who are they kidding? I'm not even doing anything "power-user-ish" with my MacPro and I'm already using just under 4.5 GB of RAM. If they want to keep 4GB as a starting point, so be it, but allow us to drop 8GB in it. I shouldn't have to use a far more bulky laptop just to get more than a minuscule 4GB of RAM.
SSD Storage is progressing, albeit at the pace of molasses on a glacier. 256GB ought to be the starting point, 512 GB ought to be the upgrade option. The MBA is for people who travel (or are otherwise away from home) a lot. It's for that very reason that storage is so important. I'm not going to be bringing along an external drive just to have a decent iTunes and iPhoto library along with me for all the times I'm gone. I genuinely LOATHE HDD's in laptops as they are the #1 reason for my laptop failures. In my laptops, I've lost five hard drives! I'm not sure who Apple gets them from, but I'd love five minutes in a room with them alone. SSD's are where it's at. They just need to kick it in gear and offer them in a MBA as a build to order option.
I'm hoping there's a redesign of the MBA. I love the current design, but a redesign would mean that they are possibly providing more options. I don't want a MacBook or a MBP, as they are bricks of lead when compared to the MBA.
Thanks for your comments. I think the lack of an obvious new processor says it all. The original concept of the MacBook Air is probably now redundant, i.e. low power chip in thin and light enclosure. What is eminently 'do-able' is a MacBook Pro Lite, i.e. a MBP without the DVD drive.
If i were Apple, I would make just such a machine, giving it a high-end Core 2 Duo chip and excellent battery life in the lightest possible package. If it could support 8 Gb plus of RAM, so much the better. The way I see it, the only major technical challenge is keeping the weight of the enclosure down.
Having thought about it, I am sure that such a machine must be somewhere on the horizon. I guess it would migrate to being a regular MBP as everyone realises that the DVD is history.
Your comment about a Desktop iMac and an IPad serving just about all your needs is interesting. When Office for the Mac ports successfully to the iPad and a voice recognition program allows reliable speech input, you could be right. I certainly think that the iPad could be the blueprint for all future laptop computers.
In the meantime, I find myself running a MacBook Pro 13" connected to a 24" screen when not travelling, an iPad and an iPhone. I'd prefer just to have an IPad and an IPhone.
Thanks for your comments. I think the lack of an obvious new processor says it all. The original concept of the MacBook Air is probably now redundant, i.e. low power chip in thin and light enclosure. What is eminently 'do-able' is a MacBook Pro Lite, i.e. a MBP without the DVD drive.
All of the recent talk regarding AMD has me wondering if Apple will be using one of their chips (and ATI graphics) in the next MBA. We've seen the processing strategy go from GHz to being one demanding more cores to split up the work at lower power. Perhaps AMD gave Apple a glimpse at something coming up that's multicore, and doesn't limit them to the Intel chipsets. It would seem to me that they are waiting on something. iMacmatician mentioned the LV Core i7's in the post above and we might be waiting for those. It all could be Apple choosing to make sure the iPad launch is successfully spun-up prior to announcing the new MBA. If it's something revolutionary, and a huge change, we'll not see it until Steve walks out on stage in June.
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If i were Apple, I would make just such a machine, giving it a high-end Core 2 Duo chip and excellent battery life in the lightest possible package. If it could support 8 Gb plus of RAM, so much the better. The way I see it, the only major technical challenge is keeping the weight of the enclosure down.
Exactly! The weight is everything for people who truly travel a lot. I love the new MBP, but the weight when compared to the MBA is a deal breaker. There are many great reasons to have the MBP, but when weight is a prominent deciding factor, the MBA is the only solution. Personally, I'd rather see them go to a four core chip that's under powered, still giving better performance than the current C2D chips, due to the divide-and-conquer abilities of GCD. The 8GB of RAM is a must as far as I'm concerned and annoys me to no end with the current 4GB limits. I'm all for light weight, but sluggish performance is sub-par.
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Having thought about it, I am sure that such a machine must be somewhere on the horizon. I guess it would migrate to being a regular MBP as everyone realises that the DVD is history.
And the DVD can be history if they give us the storage to drop our iTunes library into it and still have elbow room. Just for fun, and a point of reference, go into your Music folder in your profile and CMD+I the Music folder to see how big it is. Mine is 309.26GB. And people wonder why I'm unsatisfied with a 256GB SSD. If they can figure out how to get two SSD's into the MBA, or get a 512GB one in there, then I can downsize my iTunes library and get most of what I want onto the MBA. Even if I cut down my iTunes library to 150GB, and then my iPhoto library to 100GB ( it's at 141.53GB on my MacPro), that's still 250GB from just those two Apps, not to mention all of the Keynote presentations I have to bring along (though, those aren't really space hogs). And PLEASE, let's hope Apple comes up with a solution for people who have a home computer and a laptop and need to sync their iPhone to both. You'd think they'd have made it seamless over the Internet by now, but no. End rant, back to the MBA :-)
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Your comment about a Desktop iMac and an IPad serving just about all your needs is interesting. When Office for the Mac ports successfully to the iPad and a voice recognition program allows reliable speech input, you could be right. I certainly think that the iPad could be the blueprint for all future laptop computers.
I use Siri regularly on my iPhone, and it's REALLY good at speech-to-text. I have only had a few times where it doesn't understand what I'm saying, and those times were due to them being the names of places like "Puyallup", or "Pend Oreille". Otherwise, Siri gets it right every time, and Apple just bought Siri. I'm hoping that it'll get folded into the full & mobile OSX and we'll be able to use our Apple headphones to dictate text to an iPad, iMac, or iPhone. We already have the great voice they put together "Alex" that can talk to us rather close to human, so we're on our way to that kind of spoken interaction (and for the record, he can't say those two names correctly either).
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In the meantime, I find myself running a MacBook Pro 13" connected to a 24" screen when not travelling, an iPad and an iPhone. I'd prefer just to have an IPad and an IPhone.
I've played around with an iPad, and I like where they are going with it, but I'll wait for a version or two increase before buying one. I hopped on the iPhone bandwagon the day they were released (Ver. 1) and saw just how much they changed between then and the 3G, I'm now the happy user of a 3Gs. As for the iPad, it's still not a MBA. I'll keep my MBA (and hopefully be upgrading soon into a far superior one when they are released). I'd just like to be able to bring along more more of my iTunes & iPhoto libraries (though iPhoto isn't a huge issue for me because I use iWeb for all of my photo and video sharing and can pull it down from the web whenever I want to see the pics).
I think the lack of an obvious new processor says it all.
Huh?!? What lack of an obvious new processor?
The obvious new processors available for a new MacBook Air are the i7-620LM, the i7-640LM and, soon, the i7-660LM. They are the successors of the current MBA processors.
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Originally Posted by Tailpipe
The original concept of the MacBook Air is probably now redundant, i.e. low power chip in thin and light enclosure. What is eminently 'do-able' is a MacBook Pro Lite, i.e. a MBP without the DVD drive.
I think it's time for the MacBook to lose the optical drive, but I don't think it's quite yet time for the MacBook Pro to lose the optical drive. However, a MacBook Air has so much more potential than a MacBook Pro without an optical drive. A new MacBook Air could do away with the drive bay completely by putting SSD directly on the motherboard. That will not be an option for the MacBook Pro for another several years. Apple could make the next MacBook Air 14mm. Dropping the optical drive from the MacBook Pro probably cannot be thinner than 23mm because of the need to accommodate a hard drive.
The obvious new processors available for a new MacBook Air are the i7-620LM, the i7-640LM and, soon, the i7-660LM. They are the successors of the current MBA processors.
Thanks for that. I had discounted these processors because they are rated 25 W not 17 W. How do they compare to what is in the latest 13" MBP? If they're in the same ballpark more or less then fine (can i play Call of Duty 4 being the crucial test) then great. Othwerwise, simply use the same chip set as the 13" MBP.
I still maintain what I originally said: just give me a lighter 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Of course, Brian Green in Seattle is exactly right: you need a larger hard drive to compensate.
The one thing I absolutely love about iTunes now is the ability to download movies. I have well over 100 loaded onto my machine. (I much prefer watching my own movies with my own computer when flying.) The problem is that iTunes movies chew up disk space. I am not sure that even a 512 Gb SSD would be enough. i kinda think that 2 Terabytes would do nicely.
Thanks for that. I had discounted these processors because they are rated 25 W not 17 W. How do they compare to what is in the latest 13" MBP?
They are better than the processors in the latest 13" MBP. However, the GPU performance would be weaker than that of the new 13" MBP. It would be much better than that of the Rev A MBA, but it's not clear how it would compare with the GPU performance of the current MBA.
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Originally Posted by Tailpipe
If they're in the same ballpark more or less then fine (can i play Call of Duty 4 being the crucial test) then great. Othwerwise, simply use the same chip set as the 13" MBP.
I don't believe the GPU in the new 13" MBP is compatible with Arrandale processors.
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Originally Posted by Tailpipe
I still maintain what I originally said: just give me a lighter 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Of course, Brian Green in Seattle is exactly right: you need a larger hard drive to compensate.
The one thing I absolutely love about iTunes now is the ability to download movies. I have well over 100 loaded onto my machine. (I much prefer watching my own movies with my own computer when flying.) The problem is that iTunes movies chew up disk space. I am not sure that even a 512 Gb SSD would be enough. i kinda think that 2 Terabytes would do nicely.
I would suggest that you get a 2TB Time Capsule, keep your movie collection on it, and transfer 20 or so onto your MBA before each trip.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with the changes. The flap for the USB port is interesting, but getting the USB from my scanner into it is difficult. My guess is that they measured for the iPod USB chord and didn't factor in that there are thicker USB chords out there. I've never used the minidisplay port so I don't know how it works. It seems to me that there's very little they could remove from the MBA that would make it lighter. I suppose there's always the option of making the aluminum thinner, yet figuring out how to keep the rigidity there. There's always different grades of aluminum.
The mobo is already little when compared to other ones. I suppose there's always a way to compact it more, but there's going to come a time when that's just not possible while keeping performance. I still have a feeling that combining chips is going to be something that'll make it lighter. Whether it's something new from AMD that we haven't seen yet, or the i7, we'll just have to wait to see. The screen can't get much thinner than it is right now, and the biggest elements to the whole thing are the battery and the SSD. I'm sure Apple is always working to find more efficient battery designs, and who knows, they may be able to put in more battery life for the i7, which everyone is saying is 25W. Maybe there's a GPU that ATI can deliver that is light on power and great with graphics, or NVIDIA has something that will work well that we haven't seen yet.
Perhaps we won't see a form factor change at all, and only internal components changed. The only thing I think they could change is the sloped design of it. If they brought the edges out like the pictures of the new iPhone, they would have more real estate that would house more SSD's or a different mobo design and battery configuration. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I have my credit card ready and waiting for it.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with the changes. The flap for the USB port is interesting, but getting the USB from my scanner into it is difficult. My guess is that they measured for the iPod USB chord and didn't factor in that there are thicker USB chords out there.
I suspect that they didn't factor in a lot of things or expected people not to use the port. It isn't just the cord but a host of dongles that have trouble with the port door and general location of the ports. It is just very poor design from the usability standpoint.
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I've never used the minidisplay port so I don't know how it works. It seems to me that there's very little they could remove from the MBA that would make it lighter. I suppose there's always the option of making the aluminum thinner, yet figuring out how to keep the rigidity there. There's always different grades of aluminum.
If anything the mods we want in this guy will make it heavier. Especially if Apple wants to recycle the machine.
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The mobo is already little when compared to other ones. I suppose there's always a way to compact it more, but there's going to come a time when that's just not possible while keeping performance.
That remains to be seen. At 32nm it is possible to do a good portion of the motherboard on one chip. See AMDs Fusion line for ideas. Even if it isn't the entire PC having the GPU on die with the CPU gives you space and performance benefits. The first generation Fusions might not be that impressive but they should mature rapidly.
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I still have a feeling that combining chips is going to be something that'll make it lighter. Whether it's something new from AMD that we haven't seen yet, or the i7, we'll just have to wait to see. The screen can't get much thinner than it is right now, and the biggest elements to the whole thing are the battery and the SSD. I'm sure Apple is always working to find more efficient battery designs, and who knows, they may be able to put in more battery life for the i7, which everyone is saying is 25W. Maybe there's a GPU that ATI can deliver that is light on power and great with graphics, or NVIDIA has something that will work well that we haven't seen yet.
The ideal AMD chip for this machine isn't out yet. Fir the SSD Apple needs to implement that on a PCI -Express card.
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Perhaps we won't see a form factor change at all, and only internal components changed. The only thing I think they could change is the sloped design of it. If they brought the edges out like the pictures of the new iPhone, they would have more real estate that would house more SSD's or a different mobo design and battery configuration. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I have my credit card ready and waiting for it.
Yep wait and see. Consider though making the entire unit more wedge like with the thick end towards the hinge. That would provide for room for ports at the back of the machine.
Whatever chip upgrade goes in the next MacBook Air, I think they have to change the form factor if only to align the trackpad with that in the MacBook and MacBook Pro models. I will do without Firewire and Ethernet ports, but i sure as hell want two USB ports, a mini-display port and an SD card slot.
What I envisage is simply a much thinner 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Sleek and slim, it should be significantly lighter than the MBP. That said, I too am beginning to wonder whether the iPad is in fact the new MacBook Air. IWork is incredible. Email is great. I don't plan on taking my macBook Pro with me when i go on vacation this summer. I won't need to.
Whatever chip upgrade goes in the next MacBook Air, I think they have to change the form factor if only to align the trackpad with that in the MacBook and MacBook Pro models. I will do without Firewire and Ethernet ports, but i sure as hell want two USB ports, a mini-display port and an SD card slot.
It really shouldn't be that difficult to deliver some of those features with minor changes to the AIR. The ultimate mix of ports isn't so much of an issues as is having enough to cover a variety of use cases. For example an extra USB port could handle an Ethernet dongle. As to the SD card there are a number of ways for Apple to handle that port standard and frankly getting to the SD slot via a trap door is less of an issue than trying to plug USB devices into the trap door arrangement they currently have.
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What I envisage is simply a much thinner 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Sleek and slim, it should be significantly lighter than the MBP. That said, I too am beginning to wonder whether the iPad is in fact the new MacBook Air.
Even I don't believe that and I honestly see the iPad replacing a lot of laptops. Ultra light laptops have their place and frankly it is still hard to beat a real keyboard. However not everybody needs that thus iPad becomes a viable alternative.
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IWork is incredible. Email is great. I don't plan on taking my macBook Pro with me when i go on vacation this summer. I won't need to.
I've been saying for some time that I expect to see a slow down in laptop sales as people move back to desktop machines in the home and iPad everywhere else. In general it results in a much better experience for those that don't need the heavy text input capabilities of the laptops. The current iPad is somewhat wanting here as it needs more RAM and a USB port so I expect the next rev to address these things. The RAM simply to better enable the features of OS 4.0 and the USB port for web cams of all things. Even now though iPad can be extremely useful for people on the go.
I'd be very surprised if the next MacBook Air is nothing more than a bump in the Core 2 Duo speeds, HD and SSD bumps or drops in prices for SSD, and a switch to Nvidia 320M.
In the midst of everything going on Apple is not going to tweak the MacBook Air form factor, IMHO. I estimate a 90% chance they won't do it. Not when iPad is in the headlines for the next several months.
There is an 18W i5, but it's only 1067MHz. All the rest of the i5 mobile chips are 35W. The i3 GPU is worse than what currently resides in the MBA. I don't think there is currently an Intel solution that improves on the current chips while maintaining the current low power level. If Apple has figured how they can have a 35W part in the Air and keep it cooled sufficiently, then there are plenty of options, such as the i5-430M. If the i3 GPU was supported in Open CL they could look at the i3 330 for both the 13" MBP and the MBA.
I'd be very surprised if the next MacBook Air is nothing more than a bump in the Core 2 Duo speeds, HD and SSD bumps or drops in prices for SSD, and a switch to Nvidia 320M.
In the midst of everything going on Apple is not going to tweak the MacBook Air form factor, IMHO. I estimate a 90% chance they won't do it. Not when iPad is in the headlines for the next several months.
And that's pretty much what I'm hoping for. If they can stick 4gb RAM and say, a 2.4ghz version of the CPU in the SSD Air for the same price as current then I'm there. It'd be nice if the Gfx and HDD got a kick too of course.
In retrospect, the Macbook Air may have been nothing more than a test bed of Apple's experimentation with the new chassis design that they are now using across all their aluminum notebooks. When it was first introduced, it was the ONLY notebook to have the unibody design and the integrated battery. Maybe it's served its purpose and is now ready for retirement?
As a very happy Air user, I hope they don't retired it. It's a good machine. Yes, you might be right in saying it was a sort of test platform (size of keyboard/screen and overall physical size, body build, battery, reduced number of ports), but I think it was one that carved its own niche, better than did the Apple TV, and that it certainly paid off well for Apple.
As a very happy Air user, I hope they don't retired it. It's a good machine. Yes, you might be right in saying it was a sort of test platform (size of keyboard/screen and overall physical size, body build, battery, reduced number of ports), but I think it was one that carved its own niche, better than did the Apple TV, and that it certainly paid off well for Apple.
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Originally Posted by Dudley
And that's pretty much what I'm hoping for. If they can stick 4gb RAM and say, a 2.4ghz version of the CPU in the SSD Air for the same price as current then I'm there. It'd be nice if the Gfx and HDD got a kick too of course.
I don't think the Macbook Air will be retired. I don't think they'll fiddle with the design as much though, with everything else going on. They could squeeze in another USB port, people would love that, but, who knows.
@Dudley yeah, a faster CPU with 4GB RAM on the higher-end SSD model for the same price as the current and that will consolidate the MacBook Air line going through the end of the year.
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SSD Storage is progressing, albeit at the pace of molasses on a glacier. 256GB ought to be the starting point, 512 GB ought to be the upgrade option. The MBA is for people who travel (or are otherwise away from home) a lot. It's for that very reason that storage is so important. I'm not going to be bringing along an external drive just to have a decent iTunes and iPhoto library along with me for all the times I'm gone. I genuinely LOATHE HDD's in laptops as they are the #1 reason for my laptop failures. In my laptops, I've lost five hard drives! I'm not sure who Apple gets them from, but I'd love five minutes in a room with them alone. SSD's are where it's at. They just need to kick it in gear and offer them in a MBA as a build to order option.
I'm hoping there's a redesign of the MBA. I love the current design, but a redesign would mean that they are possibly providing more options. I don't want a MacBook or a MBP, as they are bricks of lead when compared to the MBA.
Thanks for your comments. I think the lack of an obvious new processor says it all. The original concept of the MacBook Air is probably now redundant, i.e. low power chip in thin and light enclosure. What is eminently 'do-able' is a MacBook Pro Lite, i.e. a MBP without the DVD drive.
If i were Apple, I would make just such a machine, giving it a high-end Core 2 Duo chip and excellent battery life in the lightest possible package. If it could support 8 Gb plus of RAM, so much the better. The way I see it, the only major technical challenge is keeping the weight of the enclosure down.
Having thought about it, I am sure that such a machine must be somewhere on the horizon. I guess it would migrate to being a regular MBP as everyone realises that the DVD is history.
Your comment about a Desktop iMac and an IPad serving just about all your needs is interesting. When Office for the Mac ports successfully to the iPad and a voice recognition program allows reliable speech input, you could be right. I certainly think that the iPad could be the blueprint for all future laptop computers.
In the meantime, I find myself running a MacBook Pro 13" connected to a 24" screen when not travelling, an iPad and an iPhone. I'd prefer just to have an IPad and an IPhone.
An i7 would be impractical in something as thin as the Air - there would be no room for a battery big enough to power it, and the associated cooling.
These are LV Core i7's, which are 25 W (including GPU). That's competitive with current 17 W CPU + ~12 W GPU setup.
Wizard69/ Dave,
Thanks for your comments. I think the lack of an obvious new processor says it all. The original concept of the MacBook Air is probably now redundant, i.e. low power chip in thin and light enclosure. What is eminently 'do-able' is a MacBook Pro Lite, i.e. a MBP without the DVD drive.
All of the recent talk regarding AMD has me wondering if Apple will be using one of their chips (and ATI graphics) in the next MBA. We've seen the processing strategy go from GHz to being one demanding more cores to split up the work at lower power. Perhaps AMD gave Apple a glimpse at something coming up that's multicore, and doesn't limit them to the Intel chipsets. It would seem to me that they are waiting on something. iMacmatician mentioned the LV Core i7's in the post above and we might be waiting for those. It all could be Apple choosing to make sure the iPad launch is successfully spun-up prior to announcing the new MBA. If it's something revolutionary, and a huge change, we'll not see it until Steve walks out on stage in June.
If i were Apple, I would make just such a machine, giving it a high-end Core 2 Duo chip and excellent battery life in the lightest possible package. If it could support 8 Gb plus of RAM, so much the better. The way I see it, the only major technical challenge is keeping the weight of the enclosure down.
Exactly! The weight is everything for people who truly travel a lot. I love the new MBP, but the weight when compared to the MBA is a deal breaker. There are many great reasons to have the MBP, but when weight is a prominent deciding factor, the MBA is the only solution. Personally, I'd rather see them go to a four core chip that's under powered, still giving better performance than the current C2D chips, due to the divide-and-conquer abilities of GCD. The 8GB of RAM is a must as far as I'm concerned and annoys me to no end with the current 4GB limits. I'm all for light weight, but sluggish performance is sub-par.
Having thought about it, I am sure that such a machine must be somewhere on the horizon. I guess it would migrate to being a regular MBP as everyone realises that the DVD is history.
And the DVD can be history if they give us the storage to drop our iTunes library into it and still have elbow room. Just for fun, and a point of reference, go into your Music folder in your profile and CMD+I the Music folder to see how big it is. Mine is 309.26GB. And people wonder why I'm unsatisfied with a 256GB SSD. If they can figure out how to get two SSD's into the MBA, or get a 512GB one in there, then I can downsize my iTunes library and get most of what I want onto the MBA. Even if I cut down my iTunes library to 150GB, and then my iPhoto library to 100GB ( it's at 141.53GB on my MacPro), that's still 250GB from just those two Apps, not to mention all of the Keynote presentations I have to bring along (though, those aren't really space hogs). And PLEASE, let's hope Apple comes up with a solution for people who have a home computer and a laptop and need to sync their iPhone to both. You'd think they'd have made it seamless over the Internet by now, but no. End rant, back to the MBA :-)
Your comment about a Desktop iMac and an IPad serving just about all your needs is interesting. When Office for the Mac ports successfully to the iPad and a voice recognition program allows reliable speech input, you could be right. I certainly think that the iPad could be the blueprint for all future laptop computers.
I use Siri regularly on my iPhone, and it's REALLY good at speech-to-text. I have only had a few times where it doesn't understand what I'm saying, and those times were due to them being the names of places like "Puyallup", or "Pend Oreille". Otherwise, Siri gets it right every time, and Apple just bought Siri. I'm hoping that it'll get folded into the full & mobile OSX and we'll be able to use our Apple headphones to dictate text to an iPad, iMac, or iPhone. We already have the great voice they put together "Alex" that can talk to us rather close to human, so we're on our way to that kind of spoken interaction (and for the record, he can't say those two names correctly either).
In the meantime, I find myself running a MacBook Pro 13" connected to a 24" screen when not travelling, an iPad and an iPhone. I'd prefer just to have an IPad and an IPhone.
I've played around with an iPad, and I like where they are going with it, but I'll wait for a version or two increase before buying one. I hopped on the iPhone bandwagon the day they were released (Ver. 1) and saw just how much they changed between then and the 3G, I'm now the happy user of a 3Gs. As for the iPad, it's still not a MBA. I'll keep my MBA (and hopefully be upgrading soon into a far superior one when they are released). I'd just like to be able to bring along more more of my iTunes & iPhoto libraries (though iPhoto isn't a huge issue for me because I use iWeb for all of my photo and video sharing and can pull it down from the web whenever I want to see the pics).
I think the lack of an obvious new processor says it all.
Huh?!? What lack of an obvious new processor?
The obvious new processors available for a new MacBook Air are the i7-620LM, the i7-640LM and, soon, the i7-660LM. They are the successors of the current MBA processors.
The original concept of the MacBook Air is probably now redundant, i.e. low power chip in thin and light enclosure. What is eminently 'do-able' is a MacBook Pro Lite, i.e. a MBP without the DVD drive.
I think it's time for the MacBook to lose the optical drive, but I don't think it's quite yet time for the MacBook Pro to lose the optical drive. However, a MacBook Air has so much more potential than a MacBook Pro without an optical drive. A new MacBook Air could do away with the drive bay completely by putting SSD directly on the motherboard. That will not be an option for the MacBook Pro for another several years. Apple could make the next MacBook Air 14mm. Dropping the optical drive from the MacBook Pro probably cannot be thinner than 23mm because of the need to accommodate a hard drive.
Huh?!? What lack of an obvious new processor?
The obvious new processors available for a new MacBook Air are the i7-620LM, the i7-640LM and, soon, the i7-660LM. They are the successors of the current MBA processors.
Thanks for that. I had discounted these processors because they are rated 25 W not 17 W. How do they compare to what is in the latest 13" MBP? If they're in the same ballpark more or less then fine (can i play Call of Duty 4 being the crucial test) then great. Othwerwise, simply use the same chip set as the 13" MBP.
I still maintain what I originally said: just give me a lighter 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Of course, Brian Green in Seattle is exactly right: you need a larger hard drive to compensate.
The one thing I absolutely love about iTunes now is the ability to download movies. I have well over 100 loaded onto my machine. (I much prefer watching my own movies with my own computer when flying.) The problem is that iTunes movies chew up disk space. I am not sure that even a 512 Gb SSD would be enough. i kinda think that 2 Terabytes would do nicely.
Thanks for that. I had discounted these processors because they are rated 25 W not 17 W. How do they compare to what is in the latest 13" MBP?
They are better than the processors in the latest 13" MBP. However, the GPU performance would be weaker than that of the new 13" MBP. It would be much better than that of the Rev A MBA, but it's not clear how it would compare with the GPU performance of the current MBA.
If they're in the same ballpark more or less then fine (can i play Call of Duty 4 being the crucial test) then great. Othwerwise, simply use the same chip set as the 13" MBP.
I don't believe the GPU in the new 13" MBP is compatible with Arrandale processors.
I still maintain what I originally said: just give me a lighter 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Of course, Brian Green in Seattle is exactly right: you need a larger hard drive to compensate.
The one thing I absolutely love about iTunes now is the ability to download movies. I have well over 100 loaded onto my machine. (I much prefer watching my own movies with my own computer when flying.) The problem is that iTunes movies chew up disk space. I am not sure that even a 512 Gb SSD would be enough. i kinda think that 2 Terabytes would do nicely.
I would suggest that you get a 2TB Time Capsule, keep your movie collection on it, and transfer 20 or so onto your MBA before each trip.
The mobo is already little when compared to other ones. I suppose there's always a way to compact it more, but there's going to come a time when that's just not possible while keeping performance. I still have a feeling that combining chips is going to be something that'll make it lighter. Whether it's something new from AMD that we haven't seen yet, or the i7, we'll just have to wait to see. The screen can't get much thinner than it is right now, and the biggest elements to the whole thing are the battery and the SSD. I'm sure Apple is always working to find more efficient battery designs, and who knows, they may be able to put in more battery life for the i7, which everyone is saying is 25W. Maybe there's a GPU that ATI can deliver that is light on power and great with graphics, or NVIDIA has something that will work well that we haven't seen yet.
Perhaps we won't see a form factor change at all, and only internal components changed. The only thing I think they could change is the sloped design of it. If they brought the edges out like the pictures of the new iPhone, they would have more real estate that would house more SSD's or a different mobo design and battery configuration. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I have my credit card ready and waiting for it.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with the changes. The flap for the USB port is interesting, but getting the USB from my scanner into it is difficult. My guess is that they measured for the iPod USB chord and didn't factor in that there are thicker USB chords out there.
I suspect that they didn't factor in a lot of things or expected people not to use the port. It isn't just the cord but a host of dongles that have trouble with the port door and general location of the ports. It is just very poor design from the usability standpoint.
I've never used the minidisplay port so I don't know how it works. It seems to me that there's very little they could remove from the MBA that would make it lighter. I suppose there's always the option of making the aluminum thinner, yet figuring out how to keep the rigidity there. There's always different grades of aluminum.
If anything the mods we want in this guy will make it heavier. Especially if Apple wants to recycle the machine.
The mobo is already little when compared to other ones. I suppose there's always a way to compact it more, but there's going to come a time when that's just not possible while keeping performance.
That remains to be seen. At 32nm it is possible to do a good portion of the motherboard on one chip. See AMDs Fusion line for ideas. Even if it isn't the entire PC having the GPU on die with the CPU gives you space and performance benefits. The first generation Fusions might not be that impressive but they should mature rapidly.
I still have a feeling that combining chips is going to be something that'll make it lighter. Whether it's something new from AMD that we haven't seen yet, or the i7, we'll just have to wait to see. The screen can't get much thinner than it is right now, and the biggest elements to the whole thing are the battery and the SSD. I'm sure Apple is always working to find more efficient battery designs, and who knows, they may be able to put in more battery life for the i7, which everyone is saying is 25W. Maybe there's a GPU that ATI can deliver that is light on power and great with graphics, or NVIDIA has something that will work well that we haven't seen yet.
The ideal AMD chip for this machine isn't out yet. Fir the SSD Apple needs to implement that on a PCI -Express card.
Perhaps we won't see a form factor change at all, and only internal components changed. The only thing I think they could change is the sloped design of it. If they brought the edges out like the pictures of the new iPhone, they would have more real estate that would house more SSD's or a different mobo design and battery configuration. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I have my credit card ready and waiting for it.
Yep wait and see. Consider though making the entire unit more wedge like with the thick end towards the hinge. That would provide for room for ports at the back of the machine.
Dave
What I envisage is simply a much thinner 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Sleek and slim, it should be significantly lighter than the MBP. That said, I too am beginning to wonder whether the iPad is in fact the new MacBook Air. IWork is incredible. Email is great. I don't plan on taking my macBook Pro with me when i go on vacation this summer. I won't need to.
Whatever chip upgrade goes in the next MacBook Air, I think they have to change the form factor if only to align the trackpad with that in the MacBook and MacBook Pro models. I will do without Firewire and Ethernet ports, but i sure as hell want two USB ports, a mini-display port and an SD card slot.
It really shouldn't be that difficult to deliver some of those features with minor changes to the AIR. The ultimate mix of ports isn't so much of an issues as is having enough to cover a variety of use cases. For example an extra USB port could handle an Ethernet dongle. As to the SD card there are a number of ways for Apple to handle that port standard and frankly getting to the SD slot via a trap door is less of an issue than trying to plug USB devices into the trap door arrangement they currently have.
What I envisage is simply a much thinner 13" MacBook Pro without the DVD drive. Sleek and slim, it should be significantly lighter than the MBP. That said, I too am beginning to wonder whether the iPad is in fact the new MacBook Air.
Even I don't believe that and I honestly see the iPad replacing a lot of laptops. Ultra light laptops have their place and frankly it is still hard to beat a real keyboard. However not everybody needs that thus iPad becomes a viable alternative.
IWork is incredible. Email is great. I don't plan on taking my macBook Pro with me when i go on vacation this summer. I won't need to.
I've been saying for some time that I expect to see a slow down in laptop sales as people move back to desktop machines in the home and iPad everywhere else. In general it results in a much better experience for those that don't need the heavy text input capabilities of the laptops. The current iPad is somewhat wanting here as it needs more RAM and a USB port so I expect the next rev to address these things. The RAM simply to better enable the features of OS 4.0 and the USB port for web cams of all things. Even now though iPad can be extremely useful for people on the go.
Thanks
Dave
In the midst of everything going on Apple is not going to tweak the MacBook Air form factor, IMHO. I estimate a 90% chance they won't do it. Not when iPad is in the headlines for the next several months.
i7 not possible, i5 or i3.
There is an 18W i5, but it's only 1067MHz. All the rest of the i5 mobile chips are 35W. The i3 GPU is worse than what currently resides in the MBA. I don't think there is currently an Intel solution that improves on the current chips while maintaining the current low power level. If Apple has figured how they can have a 35W part in the Air and keep it cooled sufficiently, then there are plenty of options, such as the i5-430M. If the i3 GPU was supported in Open CL they could look at the i3 330 for both the 13" MBP and the MBA.
I'd be very surprised if the next MacBook Air is nothing more than a bump in the Core 2 Duo speeds, HD and SSD bumps or drops in prices for SSD, and a switch to Nvidia 320M.
In the midst of everything going on Apple is not going to tweak the MacBook Air form factor, IMHO. I estimate a 90% chance they won't do it. Not when iPad is in the headlines for the next several months.
And that's pretty much what I'm hoping for. If they can stick 4gb RAM and say, a 2.4ghz version of the CPU in the SSD Air for the same price as current then I'm there. It'd be nice if the Gfx and HDD got a kick too of course.
As a very happy Air user, I hope they don't retired it. It's a good machine. Yes, you might be right in saying it was a sort of test platform (size of keyboard/screen and overall physical size, body build, battery, reduced number of ports), but I think it was one that carved its own niche, better than did the Apple TV, and that it certainly paid off well for Apple.
And that's pretty much what I'm hoping for. If they can stick 4gb RAM and say, a 2.4ghz version of the CPU in the SSD Air for the same price as current then I'm there. It'd be nice if the Gfx and HDD got a kick too of course.
I don't think the Macbook Air will be retired. I don't think they'll fiddle with the design as much though, with everything else going on. They could squeeze in another USB port, people would love that, but, who knows.
@Dudley yeah, a faster CPU with 4GB RAM on the higher-end SSD model for the same price as the current and that will consolidate the MacBook Air line going through the end of the year.