Various rumours from all around the web are saying that Apple will release the successor to its highly successful iBook product line coming Tuesday. Named the MacBook, it will be slightly thinner than current iBooks, available in both black and white, and slightly more expensive than the current iBooks. In the meantime, in a rare reply to rumours, Apple has denied that it will be ditching Aperture.
One of these suckers.
I’m glad aperture is still around. For one it gives adobe needed competition to make thier stuff better, and in turn Aperture will get better.
I know that a lot of people are going ga-ga over apple laptops (personally I *only* have a laptop), but I for one am quite curious to see when apple comes out with intel based xserves and intel based PowerMacs (you know, dual processor, dual core)
Not for a while. Powermacs will be the last to switch. They were the fastest machines going into the switch, so they had the least need. Also they won’t switch them till intel gets the 64bit chips out. All machines released so far don’t need the extra ram that 64bit gives you.
I wish the answer to that was never, or even better, “we’ve decided to use opterons for the next generation of powermacs, optimacs” or whatever…
I like OSX a fair bit, it is an interesting and fairly elegant *nix based system. That said, Intel is one of those companies that I very much loathe giving any of my cash or support to…
Intel, of course, has had 64-bit Pentium IVs (not to mention Itaniums) out for quite some time. But I’d expect to see new “Mac Pros” powered by Conroe chips introduced at WWDC in August.
I hope we’ll also see Woodcrest-based Xserves at that time, but I wouldn’t go so far as to expect it.
I wish the answer to that was never, or even better, “we’ve decided to use opterons for the next generation of powermacs, optimacs” or whatever…
I’m of the opinion that superior technology matters more than prejudiced ideology, but suit yourself.
human rights as well fair trade practices aren’t exactly vain prejudices…
however, on the purely technical areas, putting the future direction of your company in an unproven and till then pretty much non-existant technology from some “roadmap” as opposed to an established and proven player that has a real product here and now seems rather unwise.
I can only hope they’re not going the way of the integrated GPU. The previous ibooks had a radeon 9550, I hope they won’t do the same thing they did with the mini.
I might as well buy one if they offer at least the option of having a decent GPU. I really need a decent machine to work on CoreImage software.
In terms of PC laptops anything that is more expensive than 999$ comes with a game-capable GPU…
Unfortunately I don’t think the MacBook will have a “game-capable” GPU. The iBook/”MacBook” is not intended to be a gaming machine. It’s primary audience is mainly students needing a lightweight, small sized, cheap Mac with long battery life to carry with them to lectures etc (or often bought as classroom sets). The integrated GPU in the current iBook (I’m using one to write this post now). Ain’t much to write home about; so I think an integrated one would be just as good. Only negative I can see with integrated GPU in a possible MacBook is that its using the system RAM…
Also don’t forget the power dissipation benefits of integrated graphics. Even a low-end discrete GPU will use 10-15 watts. Compare that to the ~25 watts used by a 1.67 GHz Yonah, and you can see that a discrete GPU is going to have a significant impact on battery life. For a Macbook, running for 4-5 hours on a charge is going to be far more important than good 3D performance, and integrated graphics makes perfect sense.
For a Macbook, running for 4-5 hours on a charge is going to be far more important than good 3D performance, and integrated graphics makes perfect sense.
I for one want a decent GPU even in a notebook. Not for the need of 3D performance, but just to deal with Aqua alone. More and more of Aqua’s compositing is shifted to the GPU with each major OSX release, and it’s no big secret that Aqua loves VRAM.
Consider that and then ask yourself again, how pleasent would it be to run OSX on a notebook with shared VRAM?
OS X runs perfectly fine on the Mac Minis, and they use the same design. You see, OS X loves VRAM (which is only bounded by available memory in an IGP setup), but it isn’t particularly bandwidth hungry. The compositing process doesn’t use up all that much bandwidth, even on a busy desktop. Two dozen large windows (that’s about 80MBs of backbuffers), could be composited at 20 FPS using about 3-4 GB/sec of bandwidth. That’s entirely within the 5 GB/sec+ of excess bandwidth available on a dual-channel Yonah system.
Edited 2006-05-07 08:19
I don’t know, I have a GPU on my laptop, the nvidia geforce 2 go, it has the pentium 3m (dell inspiron 8100), and I get a 12+ hour battery life with dual batteries depending on what I’m doing, and I mean a minimum of 12 hours. Its not uncommon to end up with 14 or more hours. Its performance is still great (obviously not as good as the modern processors, but most people can’t tell its an old machine)… If I want great battery life at very little cost, my machine is the perfect combination. Battery life is insanely long, the resolution is high (1600×1200), and performance is decent with a real GPU, albeit an old one. I know I go days between charging my laptop, while everyone else I know has to charge it daily and often runs out before the end of the day and has to plug in. Oh, and my laptop is extremely quiet, quieter then my friends iBook, thats for sure, especially since I put Linux on it which scales down the CPU.
I agree. I hope that is the only Mac we will see with an Intel “video card” in it. IMO, anything that shares system RAM is junk. Go the extra mile and put a real graphics “card’ with its own dedicated RAM. OS X is already RAM hungry enough, we don’t need a video card eating it away when it shouldn’t be. Sure, the Intel stuff supports Core Image (I think), whereas the Radeon 9200 didn’t, but come on – I would still consider the move to the Integrated Intel stuff a step backwards, even if it is a faster card.
I know I for one, will not even think about a Mac Book if it isn’t ATi or nVidia with dedicated RAM. I’d just have to stick with an iBook. It has a better name anyway..
i think the intel integrated graphics are quite good, and a good integrated graphics chip might be better than a bad dedicated GPU. after all, the advantages of the integrated graphics are big in areas as power consumption, heat and price – and the latest might even beat many dedicated gpu’s. add some memory, and you’re settled.
Im a student and can’t afford the MacBook Pro, so I am keeping a close eye on the MacBook release. Integrated graphics would be a deal breaker from me, as they always tend to be underpowered. Im holding my breath on this one.
I also wonder which colour is going to be most popular black/white? Right now I can’t decide whick I would choose.
I think most of the time, they don’t reply to the rumour because the simple fact is, its doing no market place harm – and there is actually an element of truth in the rumour, hence, they don’t want to say anything to confirm or deny.
The issue with Aperture rumour was that it was not only factually incorrect, but could also detrimentally damaging to the long term success or failure of the particular product – when you start hearing that a piece of software is soon to be abadonware, the first thing you do is look at the alternatives, and plan for a migration.
Aperture has some growing pains, but I’m sure by the time 2.x or 3.x is released, it’ll be as mature as the rest of their protools line up.
I would love to see a new “iBook/Powerbook” Macbook hybrid laptop. I already have a Mac Mini Core Duo and from what I’ve seen the integrated graphics performs quite good in everyday tasks.
It has a few problems in World Of Warcraft but it is playable. So if apple chooses to go the integrated graphics route I would have no problem buying one.
I just want cheap, small and light.
is this a joke, the macbook’s been out for at least 2 weeks :
$3,299.00
Ships: 3-5 business days
Free Shipping
17-inch widescreen display
1680 x 1050 resolution
2.16GHz Intel Core Duo(1)
1GB (single SODIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory
One FireWire 400, one FireWire 800, and three USB 2.0 ports
oh well…
Read the bloody article.
You are listing the MacBook Pro line.
The article is discussing the MacBook.
One is the PowerBook (Professional use, proline – the Macbook PRO) and the other is the iBook equivalent (the consumer version targeted for Students and home use – rumoured to possibly be called the MacBook).
Doesn’t have a 17 inch screen, the MacBook will have a 13 inch screen.
I sure hope this rumor is true. Performance-wise, a Core Duo MacBook ought to just ream an iBook right up the a…
A good excuse for getting a Mac notebook is just what I need. Right now, there just isn’t any.