I can see that a lot of workflows don't use a card slot, but then there some that do and flexibility is the key, now we are down to one FW input and no express slot this makes the 15" not much use to any video workflow that that isn't memory card based.
The ability to plug in a video deck + external storage via fw or esata(via card slot) is still a regular need.
Are there really that many video editors working at the level that requires a deck plus external drives AND are working on a 13 or 15? Wouldn't most editors working at that level want the 17 anyway?
Quote:
Originally Posted by macxpress
Customers want lots of things. Its impossible for Apple to fill every single niche people think they need.
Of course. But BD is a mainstream meda format, it's not like something wacky and exotic that nobody has heard of.
If I had a nickel every time Mac commentators or forum members ridiculed PC makers for including SD slots.....
Great to see Firewire back on all Macs (except Air). So much for the "but there's no room to include it!!!" argument. This is a pretty big deal for laptop using musicians (who are overwhelmingly Mac users) since all but the most basic audio interfaces use Firewire. Plus it frees up a USB port for MIDI devices which will negate the need for a hub for many.
On the other hand I'm pretty disappointed to see Express Card dropped from all but the 17" model. I plan on getting a MBP to replace my desktop PC once Snow Leopard and the whole 64 bit transition gets settled in a year or so. I require Express Card or PCIe for a special audio DSP card (UAD-2) for running plugins. I know I could get a used MBP with ExpressCard but this is a less than ideal solution, especially long term.
Also disappointed by the continuing lack of eSATA. eSATA drives are much faster than FW800 and also a lot cheaper. The only disadvantage is it requires a power adapter while 2.5" USB/FW can be powered from their cable. But for cheaper, faster, higher capacity 3.5" drives which require power no matter the connection, eSATA is by far the superior choice.
Overall though, very impressive updates for the laptop line.
Glossy screens and built-in batteries = Apple shares tanking $5 on the news.
Wonder if they are going to give the public what they want any time soon?
Watch the MS commercials: What the public want is a "cheap, fast notebook computer with a big screen." Nobody is advertising blu-ray drives, matte-finish screens and removeable batteries because the major portion of the profitable laptop-buying market wants a cheap portable computer to do email, facebook, twitter and YouTube on. No doubt 80-90% of the laptop owners in the world never bought a second battery unless the first one died. Not everyone is an IT or business person, and don't think like one.
No the two circumstances are entirely different. Its only BD supporters who are attempting to make them the same. When DVD was first introduced it was a revolutionary new product and had no real competition. BD is not revolutionary and has a lot of competition.
If BD has much more competition than DVD did at the same point in their lifetimes, shouldn't the BD numbers be worse compared to DVD instead of better? It makes no sense to counter numbers that make BD look like it's doing well with comments saying that BD has had bigger challenges to get to those numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rain
Glossy screens and built-in batteries = Apple shares tanking $5 on the news.
Wonder if they are going to give the public what they want any time soon?
AAPL always drops after keynotes no matter what Apple announces, it's a horrible measure of the response to the announcements. And if laptops with more features AND price drops aren't what the public wants, I'm not sure what is. You REALLY think the stock dropped because of "Glossy screens and built-in batteries"?
With external magsafe battery packs, you don't need to switch out batteries like other laptops, you just plug in the external battery and keep on trucking - no shutdown/restart required.
These new batteries last a lot longer as well, and have greater power capacity, but the side effect is that they're non-replaceable.
The Macbook Pro updates were an unexpected surprise, and I think Apple did the right thing in dropping prices as well as increasing specifications. Moving the Macbook 13" to Macbook Pro status, with SD card and FW800 is sensible, and fixes the flaws in this product - as well as making it cheaper.
Are there really that many video editors working at the level that requires a deck plus external drives AND are working on a 13 or 15? Wouldn't most editors working at that level want the 17 anyway?.
Well yes i think so, i prefer the 15' to lug about and spend 50% of my time working on one 50% on a tower- it's not the price that really worries me. but the 15" is ideal in the field.
my point is that if you need variety in your expansion- with the new line up- your limited to one model of pro laptop. and in my books what has made mac laptops good work horses has been robustness, good video cards and great expansion that will enable you to plug just about anything into them as long as the drivers exist.
Being able to capture from live or tape onto external disks/raid sets (USB if useless for this) is kind the basic stuff you need to be able to do.
I bet if Apple offered a blu-ray drive it would be pretty damn expensive. It would have to be an ultra-thin slot loading drive. Those aren't cheap by any means. You better want to watch movies on your laptop pretty bad! Other than watching movies, blu-ray is practically useless. If they also had a blu-ray burner in the same drive it may be useful for people using video/DVD editing apps.
Exactly!
PC laptops manage to have them. It's even mentioned in one of MS's new Ads. It's a selling point.
Well it all comes down to licensing. Perhaps Apple doesn't want to pay for a license when they already offer an HD solution. And I'm sure the fact that Apple sells a thing called AppleTV with the iTunes Movie store has nothing to do with the lack of blu-ray.
You don't see any 3rd party developers making an OS X player either do you?
They can't do that until the OS supports it. You didn't see apps for Windows either until MS added support.
Quote:
$500-$700 option? I doubt many will take it up! Not enough to make up for the cost of having it.
It would be more like $300 at most. You can get thin players for $150.
No the two circumstances are entirely different. Its only BD supporters who are attempting to make them the same. When DVD was first introduced it was a revolutionary new product and had no real competition. BD is not revolutionary and has a lot of competition.
But it's still doing very well.
Quote:
BD may help Apple sell a few hundred more computers, but I don't believe it would help sell hundreds of thousands.
Glossy screens and built-in batteries = Apple shares tanking $5 on the news.
Wonder if they are going to give the public what they want any time soon?
The entire market is down today. It's not just Apple. When the market goes down, Apple almost goes down more. When it goes up the same thing happens. I wouldn't worry about it.
I would doubt that Apple is down because of the popular glossy screens.
I think the old glossy was the best of both worlds because it had a Rayleigh coating or some other kind of reflection diffraction coating. Not a terrifically strong one like the old high end CRTs had (including Apple's) but it was there, and it does help and does work. Look at the patterns of a bright object reflected in the screen and you'll probably see what I mean. The new glass glossy doesn't seem to have this, looks like plain polished glass to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonefree
If I had a nickel every time Mac commentators or forum members ridiculed PC makers for including SD slots.....
I know. But SDHC is now the prevailing card standard. The kind of devices, including SLRs that usually had CF is now moving to SDHC, camcorders seem to be moving to SDHC in large numbers, and the nonsense Memory Stick and xD formats haven't taken hold.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hattig
With external magsafe battery packs, you don't need to switch out batteries like other laptops, you just plug in the external battery and keep on trucking - no shutdown/restart required.
Comments
I can see that a lot of workflows don't use a card slot, but then there some that do and flexibility is the key, now we are down to one FW input and no express slot this makes the 15" not much use to any video workflow that that isn't memory card based.
The ability to plug in a video deck + external storage via fw or esata(via card slot) is still a regular need.
Are there really that many video editors working at the level that requires a deck plus external drives AND are working on a 13 or 15? Wouldn't most editors working at that level want the 17 anyway?
Customers want lots of things. Its impossible for Apple to fill every single niche people think they need.
Of course. But BD is a mainstream meda format, it's not like something wacky and exotic that nobody has heard of.
Great to see Firewire back on all Macs (except Air). So much for the "but there's no room to include it!!!" argument. This is a pretty big deal for laptop using musicians (who are overwhelmingly Mac users) since all but the most basic audio interfaces use Firewire. Plus it frees up a USB port for MIDI devices which will negate the need for a hub for many.
On the other hand I'm pretty disappointed to see Express Card dropped from all but the 17" model. I plan on getting a MBP to replace my desktop PC once Snow Leopard and the whole 64 bit transition gets settled in a year or so. I require Express Card or PCIe for a special audio DSP card (UAD-2) for running plugins. I know I could get a used MBP with ExpressCard but this is a less than ideal solution, especially long term.
Also disappointed by the continuing lack of eSATA. eSATA drives are much faster than FW800 and also a lot cheaper. The only disadvantage is it requires a power adapter while 2.5" USB/FW can be powered from their cable. But for cheaper, faster, higher capacity 3.5" drives which require power no matter the connection, eSATA is by far the superior choice.
Overall though, very impressive updates for the laptop line.
Glossy screens and built-in batteries = Apple shares tanking $5 on the news.
Wonder if they are going to give the public what they want any time soon?
Watch the MS commercials: What the public want is a "cheap, fast notebook computer with a big screen." Nobody is advertising blu-ray drives, matte-finish screens and removeable batteries because the major portion of the profitable laptop-buying market wants a cheap portable computer to do email, facebook, twitter and YouTube on. No doubt 80-90% of the laptop owners in the world never bought a second battery unless the first one died. Not everyone is an IT or business person, and don't think like one.
No the two circumstances are entirely different. Its only BD supporters who are attempting to make them the same. When DVD was first introduced it was a revolutionary new product and had no real competition. BD is not revolutionary and has a lot of competition.
If BD has much more competition than DVD did at the same point in their lifetimes, shouldn't the BD numbers be worse compared to DVD instead of better? It makes no sense to counter numbers that make BD look like it's doing well with comments saying that BD has had bigger challenges to get to those numbers.
Glossy screens and built-in batteries = Apple shares tanking $5 on the news.
Wonder if they are going to give the public what they want any time soon?
AAPL always drops after keynotes no matter what Apple announces, it's a horrible measure of the response to the announcements. And if laptops with more features AND price drops aren't what the public wants, I'm not sure what is. You REALLY think the stock dropped because of "Glossy screens and built-in batteries"?
Built-in batteries is very disappointing.
With external magsafe battery packs, you don't need to switch out batteries like other laptops, you just plug in the external battery and keep on trucking - no shutdown/restart required.
These new batteries last a lot longer as well, and have greater power capacity, but the side effect is that they're non-replaceable.
The Macbook Pro updates were an unexpected surprise, and I think Apple did the right thing in dropping prices as well as increasing specifications. Moving the Macbook 13" to Macbook Pro status, with SD card and FW800 is sensible, and fixes the flaws in this product - as well as making it cheaper.
Are there really that many video editors working at the level that requires a deck plus external drives AND are working on a 13 or 15? Wouldn't most editors working at that level want the 17 anyway?.
Well yes i think so, i prefer the 15' to lug about and spend 50% of my time working on one 50% on a tower- it's not the price that really worries me. but the 15" is ideal in the field.
my point is that if you need variety in your expansion- with the new line up- your limited to one model of pro laptop. and in my books what has made mac laptops good work horses has been robustness, good video cards and great expansion that will enable you to plug just about anything into them as long as the drivers exist.
Being able to capture from live or tape onto external disks/raid sets (USB if useless for this) is kind the basic stuff you need to be able to do.
Because Blu-ray has been such a runaway hit?
Actually, yeah.
Considering the recession, BD is doing quite well.
I bet if Apple offered a blu-ray drive it would be pretty damn expensive. It would have to be an ultra-thin slot loading drive. Those aren't cheap by any means. You better want to watch movies on your laptop pretty bad! Other than watching movies, blu-ray is practically useless. If they also had a blu-ray burner in the same drive it may be useful for people using video/DVD editing apps.
Exactly!
PC laptops manage to have them. It's even mentioned in one of MS's new Ads. It's a selling point.
That's party line, but doesn't mean much when BD is still a fraction of DVD and DVD sales are plunging.
BD sales are way up, as are the sales of movies.
Only if the inclusion of BD would help increase sales of Apple computers, there is no evidence this would be the case.
How can you cite evidence for something that doesn't exist?
Got a link to that?
Sure, here you go an easy one to TIGERDIRECT.com
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=4354126&csid=
a BD reading CD/DVD burning drive at retail is only $89, the wholesale price has got to be closer to $40 for a company like apple.
Well it all comes down to licensing. Perhaps Apple doesn't want to pay for a license when they already offer an HD solution. And I'm sure the fact that Apple sells a thing called AppleTV with the iTunes Movie store has nothing to do with the lack of blu-ray.
You don't see any 3rd party developers making an OS X player either do you?
They can't do that until the OS supports it. You didn't see apps for Windows either until MS added support.
$500-$700 option? I doubt many will take it up! Not enough to make up for the cost of having it.
It would be more like $300 at most. You can get thin players for $150.
Sure, here you go an easy one to TIGERDIRECT.com
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=4354126&csid=
a BD reading CD/DVD burning drive at retail is only $89, the wholesale price has got to be closer to $40 for a company like apple.
I thought this was talking about a laptop BD drive, specifically one thin enough to fit in these laptops?
No the two circumstances are entirely different. Its only BD supporters who are attempting to make them the same. When DVD was first introduced it was a revolutionary new product and had no real competition. BD is not revolutionary and has a lot of competition.
But it's still doing very well.
BD may help Apple sell a few hundred more computers, but I don't believe it would help sell hundreds of thousands.
Thousands, at least.
Glossy screens and built-in batteries = Apple shares tanking $5 on the news.
Wonder if they are going to give the public what they want any time soon?
The entire market is down today. It's not just Apple. When the market goes down, Apple almost goes down more. When it goes up the same thing happens. I wouldn't worry about it.
I would doubt that Apple is down because of the popular glossy screens.
while matte was still available.
I think the old glossy was the best of both worlds because it had a Rayleigh coating or some other kind of reflection diffraction coating. Not a terrifically strong one like the old high end CRTs had (including Apple's) but it was there, and it does help and does work. Look at the patterns of a bright object reflected in the screen and you'll probably see what I mean. The new glass glossy doesn't seem to have this, looks like plain polished glass to me.
If I had a nickel every time Mac commentators or forum members ridiculed PC makers for including SD slots.....
I know. But SDHC is now the prevailing card standard. The kind of devices, including SLRs that usually had CF is now moving to SDHC, camcorders seem to be moving to SDHC in large numbers, and the nonsense Memory Stick and xD formats haven't taken hold.
With external magsafe battery packs, you don't need to switch out batteries like other laptops, you just plug in the external battery and keep on trucking - no shutdown/restart required.
I've not seen these things, do you have a link?
Sure, here you go an easy one to TIGERDIRECT.com
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=4354126&csid=
a BD reading CD/DVD burning drive at retail is only $89, the wholesale price has got to be closer to $40 for a company like apple.
That thing doesn't apply to notebooks. Apple would need ~9mm thick notebook drives in order to put them into notebooks.
this is bullsh/t
we just bought a new macbook pro on friday for my uncle and it's already being taken overseas. what should i do ???
Not buy a machine just before a major mac conference next time?
Call apple, you can probably send it back or at least get a discount on it.