–Steve Jobs in yesterday’s Apple earnings call, responding to a question about whether Apple will release lower-cost Macs

Let’s begin with a few disclaimers:

–I have no idea what products Apple is or isn’t working on;

–Attempting to reverse-engineer Steve Jobs’ thought processes is a hopeless task that usually leaves you guessing he’ll do the exact opposite of what he ends up doing;

–If you assume that Apple will jump on a bandwagon or respond to pricing pressures, you assume incorrectly–it’s quite possible that the company will never make anything remotely like a netbook;

–Making predictions about future Apple products most often ends up making you look dim and Apple look smart.

With that out of the way, the question that folks have been asking lately about whether Apple will or should release a netbook-like Mac is fascinating. Regardless of whether the company ever does unveil a small, cheap, simple Mac notebook, it’s fun to think about the prospect of one. And I’ve come to the conclusion that such a machine could be in the works, in a manner that’s consistent with the Apple way and the company’s product line as it stands today. I’m not calling this a prediction. But it is a scenario.

First, let’s consider the current Apple portable lineup–the one that’s been current for just over a week. With last week’s announcements, Apple released a new MacBook that, at $1299, is $200 more than the starting price for the MacBook it supercedes. But it also kept the old-style white MacBook on the market at a new low price: $999.

The new MacBook is, quite clearly, a $1299 product: It’s got a fancy aluminum case, an LED screen, more advanced graphics, and other features that suggest that Apple couldn’t slash the price to $999 any time soon even if Steve Jobs went through some sort of bizarre epiphany and became a price-cutting madman. So the $999 MacBook makes sense: It gives Apple a more affordable laptop that, while not an $800 MacBook, is much closer to being one than a $1299 MacBook is.

But it’s also an aging product: basically the same MacBook that Apple introduced back in the spring of 2006. It won’t live forever in its current form: Either Apple will replace it with a new model at some point, or it’ll discontinue it.

The prospect of Apple just killing the $999 MacBook and starting the MacBook lineup at $1299 (or, say, $1199 at some point) isn’t completely laughable. Apple has been known to bump up the starting price for a product before: The Mac Mini was originally a $499 Mac before it became a $599 Mac, and the $1099 MacBook replaced a $999 iBook. Every technology company would love to be able to do this; Apple is the only one that comes to mind that gets away with it from time to time.

But it seems more likely that Apple will release a new MacBook eventually that sells for $999. Note that figure: It’s twice the $500 pricetag that Steve Jobs said Apple can’t figure out how to reach. But it’s not completely out of whack with the price of higher-end netbooks: Here’s a well-equipped version of HP’s Mini-Note that sells for $819.

Historically, Apple has done very well with computers that sell for a bit more than a well-equipped Windows machine. So the notion of an Apple answer to the netbook going for $999 is plausible. (Or, if you prefer, for $899–which, last time I checked, is also a lot more than $500.)

But it seems unlikely that Apple would ever release something that’s basically an eee PC that runs OS X. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Apple products rarely have even a whiff of me-toosim about them; when it responds to industry trends, it usually does so with something that does so in a sideways fashion. Like the Mac Mini, which has very little in common with the low-cost Windows PCs it was originally designed to compete with. Or, for that matter, the iPhone. (Steve Jobs brings up the BlackBerry often enough when discussing the iPhone that it’s clear he thinks of it as a noble competitor, but the iPhone as originally released was sort of an anti-BlackBerry–no keyboard, little in the way of business applications, etc., etc.)

So what if Apple’s answer to the netbook was also a next-generation $999 MacBook that wasn’t actually all that netbook-like? I outlined such a machine in some non-predictions before last week’s Apple event, and it still makes sense to me. It might have:

–A 12″ or 13″ screen and a nice roomy keyboard (who doesn’t like more screen real estate and comfier typing?);

–A Core 2 Duo CPU (who doesn’t like more processing oomph than an Intel Atom provides?);

–A decent amount of RAM and hard disk space;

–Slick trimmings like Bluetooth and a MagSafe power adapter;

–A DVD burner, but maybe not–it’s clear that Apple is looking ahead to the day when high-definition downloads are the way of the entertainment world;

–A meaningfully thinner, lighter design than the current MacBook–maybe achieved in part by dumping the DVD drive, using a smaller form-factor hard drive, etc.–but one that doesn’t rival the smallest netbooks;

–Apple-quality industrial design;

–OS X;

–A surprising new feature or two that no cheap Windows notebook has.

Such a machine would appeal to some of the folks who currently pine for a Mac netbook, but it would also make perfect sense as the low end of the whole MacBook line–there would be nothing eccentric or niche-y about it. We know that Apple could make it and make money with it without making it a piece of junk. And Steve Jobs could enthusiastically unveil it at a Stevenote without coming off as chasing after a fad.

When would Apple release such a machine? You got me. But rumor has it that the company will release a new 17-inch MacBook early next year. The next-generation $999 MacBook and next-generation 17-incher would make for good fodder for the Jobs keynote at January’s Macworld Expo.

Wild card alternative scenario: Apple might go a totally different route and release a netbook that runs the iPhone’s version of OS X. It could happen–during yesterday’s earnings call, Jobs more or less said that the iPhone is Apple’s low-cost computing device–but Apple would have to do more work to the iPhone OS to make it make sense in a new form factor, and such a device would ship with no third-party applications (assuming that current iPhone apps would need to be rejiggered to work with a gadget that had a larger screen and, presumably, a keyboard).

It wouldn’t be startling to see an iPhone OS X-based machine that was a bit more like a traditional computer someday. Actually, it wouldn’t be startling if all or most Apple productd eventually run iPhone OS X. But that’s going to take time. A $999 MacBook that takes on netbooks without being a netbook would make sense just as soon as Apple decided to release it…

]]> http://technologizer.com/2008/10/22/the-case-for-a-mac-netbook/feed/ 16 Harry McCracken Apple iBook http://technologizer.com/2008/10/19/is-the-new-macbook-expensive/ http://technologizer.com/2008/10/19/is-the-new-macbook-expensive/#comments Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:38:40 +0000 Harry McCracken http://technologizer.wordpress.com/?p=3053 ]]> When I first tried to compare the cost of Macs versus Windows PCs, I said that “Are Macs more expensive?” is one of computing’s eternal questions. It’s not, however, one with anything like an eternal answer. And the pricing analysis I did in that first article was rendered obsolete last Tuesday when Apple unveiled its new MacBook–which turned out to be a substantially slicker computer at a higher price point.

So it’s time to compare Apples and oranges Windows computers again. Let’s begin with a standard Mini-FAQ on the research effort that follows…

Q. The new MacBook has a 13-inch screen, 2GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. You can find Windows laptops with more of everything and features no Mac has, like memory-card slots, for half that price. How can you even pretend that it’s not painfully obvious that Macs are incredibly expensive?

A. It’s completely true that you can buy some amazingly well-equipped Windows notebooks for much, much less than the cheapest MacBook. But the goal of this comparison is to see how the new MacBook stacks up against Windows systems that are roughly comparable, and to see if there’s some sort of unique “Mac Tax” that simply doesn’t exist in the Windows world. Those Windows cheapies are simply a different class of computer–just as a Monster Thickburger isn’t necessarily a better sandwich than one that involves less beef for more money.

Q. How did you decide which computers to compare the MacBook to?

A. I looked for ones with 13-inch screens and Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs, and I priced them in build-to-order configurations sold directly by the manufacturers so I could customize them to match the MacBook when possible. My goal was to make the machines as close as possible in terms of specs. I didn’t attempt to include every machine in this class–these comparisons get unwieldy when they involve too many systems.

Q. You should be giving the Mac huge brownie points for OS X, the lack of junkware, and/or the fact that Mac users don’t need to futz around with security software. Or maybe you should dock the Mac for all the things it doesn’t do, such as run most games (unless you install Windows and thereby turn it into a PC).

A. The differences between OS X and Windows are far more significant than any spec I discuss in this article. But I’m trying to focus mostly on speeds and feeds here–things that can be compared in an objective fashion. I cheerfully acknowledge that that’s only part of the equation, but when people talk about Macs being pricey, they’re comparing hardware, not software environments or user experiences.

Q. You can’t come to overall conclusions about the Mac Tax based on comparing one particular Mac system to a handful of Windows ones. Can you?

A. No, you can’t. And so I’ll do additional stories in this series from time to time. For now, I’m just considering this new MacBook and some roughly similar Windows laptops.

Q. You’re going to force me to click through three pages to learn your conclusions, huh?

A. No, no, I’ll give you an executive summary here. The MacBook is close in price to the laptops I looked at which it resembles most closely, all of which target what I think of as the low end of the high end of the notebook market; if there’s a Mac Tax here, it’s not worth worrying about. That said, it’s possible to get a somewhat more utilitarian 13-inch notebook–one that’s better-equipped than the MacBook in some respects, even–for a lot less.

Enough questions and answers–click to the next page, and we’ll meet the laptops in this comparison…

When I said that the death of MacBook FireWire was no biggie, I confessed that I was basing that mostly on my own experience. But it is true that it eliminates the ability to use OS X’s handy FireWire Target Disk mode, which lets you easily and quickly copy files between Macs by treating one of them as an external hard drive. I will miss Target Disk Mode, but I’m thinking that Apple will get around to making it work with USB, too. And Targus already sells a $50 cable that lets you do USB transfers between two Macs or a Windows PC and a Mac.

Apple has a history of eliminating features such as dial-up modems and floppy drives before the rest of the market, and catching some flak for doing so. I’m still thinking that it’s doing something that will eventually seem like a logical move–but doing it before everyone’s comfortable. One thing seems certain: FireWire ain’t coming back to MacBooks.

Anyhow, it’s clear that the people who love FireWire really love it–but I’m still not sure whether they’re a tiny-but-noisy minority or a sizable chunk of Mac users. Let’s take a poll of the Technologizer community, shall we?

(UPDATE: Our coverage of this story continues with “FireWire Isn’t Alone: A Brief History of Features Apple Has Killed.” I dunno whether a decade of other examples of Apple axing stuff will make FireWire fans feel better or worse…)

I didn’t mention the hinge on the MacBook Pro one way or another, but commenter Sensorrhea raised an interesting question:

What about the hinges? Can the screen be opened any wider than the previous MacBook Pro? The limited range has been a big problem for me in the past.

I compared the hinges on the old MacBook Pro and the new one, and found that the new one did indeed open much wider. (I’m out and about as I write this, so I can’t give you a precise number, but it looks like you can tilt the screen back about 135 degrees from the keyboard if you want.

And once I started thinking about the hinge, I noticed another change: It’s looser. (At least on my new MacBook Pro–it’s possible it’s a build-quality issue rather than a design decision.) When I raised the old Pro’s screen to a particular position, it tended to stay there even I picked up the notebook. But if I pick up the new Pro and aren’t careful, gravity kicks in and the screen starts to shift position. It is, in other words, a floppier hinge than the one on the previous MacBook Pro.

I do a lot of running around with my laptops, using them in my lap, then walking about without shutting them down or closing the case–if you’re a little less likely to move your notebook around without shutting it, you might not notice this.

And I haven’t noticed the hinge shift position when the Pro is sitting in one place. Actually, I just tested what happens, and the display gracefully comes to a full stop before it would have whacked the keyboard, and stays there. Which makes me wonder if the floppiness is an intentional change in the hinge’s behavior.

I’m not reporting this because it’s a huge design flaw: When the screen shifts, it does so gracefully, and I doubt that it’ll ever slam shut so unexpectedly that damage is done to either the computer itself or my fingers. But it’s yet more evidence that the new MacBook Pro really is a very new MacBook Pro. And I’m wondering if anyone else will notice this–and if they do, whether Apple will tweak the hinge’s behavior…

For no particular reason other than that it’s fun to write and easy to read, I’m structuring this review as a Q&A. But first, an executive summary: This is one of the polished Macs ever made, and therefore one of the most polished PC evers, period. It’s not cheap–folks who buy computers by finding the most features at the lowest price may find it shockingly pricey, actually. And it’s possible to nitpick a few aspects of the design (before this review is over, I will). But I’m sitting here with both the old MacBook Pro and this one at the moment, and the new one is simply a much nicer computer at the same price.

On to questions and answers:

Q. The old MacBook Pro’s industrial design was basically five years old, since it was practically the same as a late-model PowerBook G4. The new model sure looks different, but is it better?

Aesthetics are aesthetics, but I’d say it’s beyond debate that the new Pro is a significantly more highly-evolved piece of design. The old Pro may have had an aluminum case, but it used plastic trim to piece everything together; the new Pro’s unibody aluminum case is as close to seamless as that of any laptop I’ve ever seen. (Even the display is seamless, since it’s flush with the black border that surrounds it.)

The unibody case is carved out of a solid block of aluminum and feels like it: It’s noticably more solid-feeling than the old-style MacBook Pro–not to mention plastic-cased laptops–and doesn’t seem to flex in the least. (My oldstyle  Pro, on the other hand, squeaks a bit when I rest my palm on the wrist-rest area, like a creaky car.)

The new keyboard is the same design as that of the old-style MacBook and the MacBook Air, with keys that come up through individual holes in the case. They’re at least as comfy to type on as the old Pro’s more traditional keyboard, and I’ve found this design to be more reliable. (The keys are less prone to breaking off, and its harder for crumbs or bits of dust to get trapped beneath them.) The new Pro has also stolen the MacBook’s latchless hinge–a small refinement, but one you benefit from every time you open the laptop up.

I hate car metaphors in computer reviews, but I can’t help myself: The old MacBook Pro was a solidly-built Toyota, and the new one is a Lexus.

Q. Apple loves to shave bulk and weight off products when it does updates. Is this a thinner and/or lighter MacBook Pro?

It’s slightly thinner–it’s .95″ thick, which is .05″ thinner than the old Pro. But it’s also slightly heavier: 5.5 lbs., versus 5.4 lbs. for the old model.That’s despite the fact that Apple is touting the light weight of its new unibody case design–any weight that Apple saved was eaten up by other components. (The second Nvidia graphics processor, maybe?)

The new Pro has swoopier curves which have a pleasing placebo effect: It feels sleeker than the old Pro. Both new and old Pros compare well with other 15.4″ notebooks with built-in optical drives, such as Dell’s XPS M1530 and Lenovo’s ThinkPad W.

Q. Is the screen any good?

Yes indeed. As far as I can tell, it’s the same 1440-by-900 LED-backlit one as in the previous Pro, but it’s a beauty: really vivid when you crank up the brightness to its maximum setting, and still usable if you rachet it down to conserve battery life. The black border around the display gives the Pro a familial relation to the aluminum iMac, and helps to focus your attention on what’s onscreen–it makes the display look a little like a tiny movie screen in a darkened theater.

Previous MacBook Pros had old-style matte screens as standard and offered a glossy display as an option. With this generation of Pro, the glossy screen is the only option. I’ve encountered folks who don’t like ‘em–at certain angles, you can see your own reflection–but I find them good for applications of all sort and far better than matte screens for movie watching.

Q. This new MacBook Pro has two graphics processors, right?

Yes–Nvidia’s new GeForce 9400M, which provide integrated graphics which Apple says are up to five times faster than the Intel integrated graphics used in systems like last-generation MacBooks, plus Nvidia’s GeForce 9600M GT, a discrete graphics adapter with 256MB or 512MB of RAM. You can choose to use the integrated graphics and get better battery life (Apple says five hours–I haven’t tested this, but have historically gotten less life out of a charge than Apple estimates) or the more powerful discrete graphics (Apple says you’ll get four hours of battery life).

By contrast, the old MacBook Pro had just one graphics processor, Nvidia’s GeForce 8600M GT–more powerful than the 9400M, but less so than the 9600M GT–and Apple quoted a battery life of up to five hours.

Switching between the two graphics options isn’t exactly seamless: You do it in the Energy Saver settings in System Preferences, and must log out and back in to make the change. And you can’t choose to automatically use the integrated graphics when running off battery power and the discrete ones when plugged in–the change must be made manually.

The new Non-Pro MacBooks replace pokey Intel graphics with the GeForce 9400M, which sounds like it’s unquestionably a major advance, but I want to use the Pro more with heavy-duty applications such as 3D games before I come to any definitive conclusions about the dual-graphics approach.

Q. How about that touchpad?

It’s one of the most strikingly different thing about the new design: The touchpad is now significantly taller and wider–39 percent bigger overall–and made out of glass, serves as its own button (you can press it down to click), and supports additional gestures to perform tasks with a quick sweep of multiple fingers.

The idea of a glass touchpad sounds odder than the reality: It’s the same aluminumy color as the rest of the Pro, and feels slicker. At the press event introducing the new Apple portables, Steve Jobs described it as “silky smooth.” That’s accurate, but–so far at least–I’ve found it to be about equally pleasing as the more textured feel of the old touchpad.

I fumbled at first as I tried to deal with the lack of a separate button. I’m used to zipping my fingertips around the touchpad while keeping my thumb poised above the button; with the new touchpad, I tried pressing down with my fingers to click. Not too easy. Then I realized that I didn’t have to relearn a thing–I could continue to use my thumb exactly as before. (If I’d been using the computer blindfolded, I’d never know the button wasn’t there.)

With the old MacBook Pro touchpad, right-clicking required holding down the <Ctrl> key and stretching your fingers over to the touchpad, but the new model works well as a two-button mouse even though it has no buttons at all. Turn an option on in System Preferences–I’m not sure why it isn’t on by default–and pressing the lower right-hand corner of the touchpad simulates the right-click you’d get with the button that a Windows notebook would placee in that spot.

The new touchpad lets you brush four fingers up and down to trigger OS X’s Leopard and whisk all your application windows on or off the screen, a much faster way to use Expose than keystroke combinations. You can also brush fingers to the left or right to bring up the application switcher. Maybe I have fat fingers, but I had a little trouble getting them all on the touchpad at once. With practice, I’m sure it will get easier.

So Apple released two brand-new laptops today. It also did minor refreshes of the MacBook Air (which will be around for years to come) and the 17-inch MacBook Pro (which is probably toast, long-term). And it kept the white MacBook in the lineup but knocked its price down by $100.

But it also killed a notebook. One which I own two of, both of which I’ve logged many hundreds of hours using. I speak of the black MacBook–which was on sale to anyone who wanted one on Apple.com yesterday and is gone, gone, gone today.

It’s kind of shocking: Nobody onstage today even felt the need to justify the move. (Now that I think about it, I should have used the time I got to ask a question during the Q&A to demand an explanation–if not to cause an ugly scene.)

I bought my first black MacBook on May 16th, 2006–the day the MacBook debuted–and first wrote about it later  that very day on PCWorld.com. We went through some tough times together: Mine, like more than a few early MacBooks, had a tendency to crash without warning. I wrote about that, too. Repeatedly. Along the way, Apple replaced its motherboard–and later decided the whole dang computer was a lemon and replaced it. That one developed nasty cracks in its case; so did the faster model I bought to replace it. (The main reason I know that Genius Bar service is so impressive is because I spent so much time talking to the Geniuses at my local Apple Store, seeking help for my ailing MacBook.)

I haven’t even acknowledged the fact that for some is the first thing that leaps to mind about the black MacBook: It cost $150 more than an identically-configured MacBook in a shiny white case. Yes, I paid the “sucker tax.” So, apparently, did lots of other folks, or the black MacBook wouldn’t have stayed in the lineup for as long as it did. (The black matte finish just looked more businesslike–to me, the black MacBook had a crisper, more corporate look and feel than the pricer and supposedly more professional MacBook Pro.) For months, friends, relatives, and random strangers on airplanes mocked me for paying $150 for a color: I gritted my teeth and soldiered on.

I’m trying to channel Apple here, but if the main purpose of the black MacBook was to provide a more businessy-looking MacBook than the white one, I can see why the arrival of a metal-clad model would render it superfluous. I guess. Aluminum, apparently, is the new black.

The black MacBook hasn’t quite disappeared from the face of the earth–it’s still on sale at BestBuy.com, and I bet it’ll be a little while until the sales channel’s supply is completely depleted. I’m not quite ready to rush out and stock up on them. (Truth to tell, I moved on to a MacBook Pro as my main machine earlier this year, though I still have use of my black MacBooks as a backup and the other is on long-term loan to a friend.)

Now that I think of it, though, black MacBooks should continue to be available, albeit in an unusual form: A company called ColorWare does custom paint jobs on Macs and other computers, and two blacks–Jet Black and Carbon Black–are in its pallette. I’m not saying I’ll ever buy one, but it’s kind of comfortable to know that I could…

Okay, let’s recap and review:

First of all, I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that the event will begin with Steve Jobs entering the room and rolling off some impressive stats about Mac sales in general and MacBook sales in particular. He’ll likely say something about Mac sales shifting more decisively to mobile more quickly than the industry as a whole. [90% likelihood of happening] [WHAT HAPPENED: Steve did enter the room. But then he introduced Apple COO Tim Cook, who did the traditional rattling off of sales numbers which Steve usually handles.]

Unless someone other than Steve does this Stevenote. [.000000001%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Steve did do the keynote, but with guest stars. Not unusual, though Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive did perhaps a bit more of the heavy lifting than usual.]

No, it’ll be Steve. [99.999999999%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Steve presided.]

I’m thinking he’ll then say that he’s pleased to tell us that Apple is replacing its entire mobile line with new models. [70%] [WHAT HAPPENED: There were brand-new 15-inch MacBook Pros and MacBooks, but the 17-inch MacBook Pro and white MacBook stayed in the lineup.]

At some point in here, he may throw in a bit of mobile news that isn’t a new notebook. Improvements to MobileMe, maybe? [40%] [No new mobile news that wasn't about a notebook. Unless you count a new desktop monitor as a mobile announcement. And that didn't come until later.]

On to the new MacBooks. Starting with a new MacBook Air that really isn’t all that new–but which has a new Intel CPU and larger hard drive options. And either better specs at the existing price or comparable specs to the current one for $100-$200 less. [70%] [WHAT HAPPENED: A MacBook Air was unveiled, although not until later in the presentation. It has bigger hard drives, better graphics, and faster memory, but the same CPU as before.]

Next, a new MacBook Pro. It’ll dump the aging current industrial design in favor of something that looks closer to an aluminum-clad version of the current MacBook, with the sunken keyboard, latchless case, etc. [80%] [WHAT HAPPENED: The stuff I described]

It will be available in 15-inch and 17-inch versions with better CPUs, twice the RAM, and larger hard drives than the current MacBook Pros for the same as current models or $100-$200 less. [90%] [WHAT HAPPENED: The new 17-inch MacBook Pro is a very slight refresh of the old one. But both the 15- and 17-inch models boast improved specs. for the price points]

It may feature an NVidia motherboard and chipset. [Oh, I don't know--40%?] [WHAT HAPPENED: It features an Apple motherboard, and Nvidia graphics subsystem.]

It will offer Blu-Ray as an option. [33.33333333%] [WHAT HAPPENED: No Blu-Ray]

It may be carved out of a solid brick of aluminum with lasers and water jets [this is either 0% or 100%--I can't tell] [WHAT HAPPENED: Apple unveiled the idea of "unibody" cases carved out of a solid block of aluminum. Jonathan Ive did most of the explaining.]

Oh, and there’s a new MacBook Pro–one which essentially replaces the MacBook. It has a 13.3-inch screen and an aluminum case. It starts at $1200, $100 more than today’s 13.3-inch MacBook, but has faster CPUs, double the RAM, and bigger hard drives. It may also include discrete graphics. [65%] [WHAT HAPPENED: The 13.3-inch system is still a MacBook, not a MacBook Pro. It starts at $1299, not $1200. It has beefier specs and graphics that are much better, but still integrated.]

At this point, Steve looks like he’s wrapping up. But there’s…one more thing. [70%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Steve did the "one more thing" bit, but did it about the new MacBook.]

It’s a Mac portable at a price point you’ve never been able to get a Mac portable at. [80%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Apple did knock the price of the white MacBook down to $999, but there have been $999 Mac laptops before]

But he won’t mention that price point just yet. [90%] [WHAT HAPPENED: The white MacBook's price was not shrouded in secrecy.]

Steve will begin talking about netbooks, saying they’re a good idea, but then pointing out all their downsides–tiny screens, cramped keyboards, weak specs. [40%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Steve mentioned netbooks only in answer to a question from the audience at the end, and said only that it was a nascent market which Apple was not ready to enter.]

He’ll say people want a bigger screen, a great keyboard, and more performance. [40%] [WHAT HAPPENED: He didn't talk about netbook specs pro or con.]

And then he’ll introduce an all-new Mac notebook. [75%] [WHAT HAPPENED: He didn't introduce another all-new Mac notebook--he explained that the old white one survived.]

One that might be called just the MacBook [50%] [WHAT HAPPENED: It's called the MacBook, yes.]

Or if not, MacBook plus some new modifier. [50%] [WHAT HAPPENED: No new names emerged today--the new Macs are the MacBook and MacBook Pro.]

It will look somewhat like today’s MacBook, but at least somewhat thinner and lighter. [60%] [WHAT HAPPENED: It looks exactly like the current MacBook. It is the current MacBook.]

Most of its specs will be similar to today’s MacBooks; the basic configuration will sound somewhat skimpy, but there will be a better model and an even better one. [70%] [WHAT HAPPENED: I believe that Apple left the entry-level MacBook specs alone except for making the DVD burner, at long last, standard. There aren't additional standard configs, but you can order custom systems with more stuff.]

It will have an Atom processor. [10%] [WHAT HAPPENED: It has Core 2 Duo]

Or maybe a dual-core Pentium. [15%] [WHAT HAPPENED: I just told you--it has Core 2 Duo]

No, let’s say a Core 2 Duo. [75%] [WHAT HAPPENED: There you go.]

It will have a 13.3-inch screen. [60%] [WHAT HAPENED: It does]

Or if not, a smaller one, but no smaller than 12 inches. [40%] [WHAT HAPPENED: No, it's the same frickin' MacBook as before.]

It will dump FireWire and be the first USB-only Mac in a long time. [85%] [WHAT HAPPENED: As far as I know, the $999 MacBook still has FireWire, but the $1299 one doesn't. I am not, however, positive that you get FireWire for $999. I can't find detailed specs for the $999 model on Apple's Web site.]

It will not have an optical drive (Steve will recap his explanation from the MacBook Air launch at January’s Macworld Expo about why you don’t need one). If so, the machine will definitely be thinner and lighter than current Macbooks. [50%] [WHAT HAPPENED: It has a DVD burner. All the new Macs have DVD burners.]

All in all, the specs will be better than those of any netbook. Steve will recap why. [80%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Again, Steve mentioned netbooks only briefly, when asked.]

He’ll compare the new machine to a fairly pricey netbook, like one of the better-equipped configurations of the HP Mini-Note. [50%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Steve mentioned no netbooks by name.]

The price will be…$800. [85%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Wrong!]

Or a little less. [10%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Wrong!]

Or a little more. [5%] [WHAT HAPPENED: $200 more.]

Whatever the price is, the crowd will cheer and applaud. [99%] [WHAT HAPPENED: This was a subdued crowd, perhaps because events at Apple's headquarters are usually dominared by sober, restrained journalists--it's the ones at San Francisco's Moscone Center that are rife with Mac partisans. Besides, who can get that excited about a $999 laptop?]

Steve will say how proud Apple is of all the new products, and he’ll thank us for our time. [99%] [WHAT HAPPENED: He did.]

Not every one of the new models will be at the Apple Store instantly, but they will all be available within two weeks. [80%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Everything except the new MacBook Air is supposedly available tomorrow; the Air is due in November.]

But there is…just one more thing. [18.5%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Earlier in the event, there was one more new product: the new 24-inch LED-backlit Cinema Display.]

I don’t know what it would be, but it will be amazing. [33%] [WHAT HAPPENED: It wasn't amazing.]

Or just interesting and pleasing, but not amazing in any respect. [47%] [WHAT HAPPENED: That sounds about right.]

Or unimpressive. [10%] [WHAT HAPPENED: No, no, it looked pretty good.]

Steve will, once again, thank us for our time and say there are no more announcements. [100%] [WHAT HAPPENED: Steve was gracious, but he never explicitly told us there were no more announcements. as far as I can recall. It just sort of seemed to be obvious.]

But there will be a musical number by a famous person. [3%--this is a staple of iPod events, not Mac ones, right?] [WHAT HAPPENED: Nobody played music of any sort. Unless there was some recorded stuff as we exited the auditorium--I forget.]

Chances that everything I mention above will happen almost exactly as I lay it out: 5% [WHAT HAPPENED: No, I got many things either slightly or completely wrong.]

Chances that absolutely none of it will happen in any way that even faintly resembles any of the above: .03% [WHAT HAPPENED: Some of the stuff I figured would happen did inded happen.]

Chances that I’ll come back to all this stuff and compare it to what really happens tomorrow: 95% [WHAT HAPPENED: You're reading it!]

Unless I’m so far off that it would be too painful: 5% [WHAT HAPPENED: I wouldn't call this the greatest experience of my life as a journalist, but it's okay.]

Chances that if you’ve read this far, you’ll leave a comment with further thoughts: 100%–I hope… [WHAT HAPPENED: It's up to you--please say something. Anything. That isn't insulting.]

Rumors. Press event. Answers. More questions. That’s the standard cycle with new Apple announcement, and since today’s press event provided lots of answers, we’re now officially in the More Questions phase. This post is not me attempting to put together a definitive FAQ–actually, it’s not a FAQ at all, since some of the questions are unanswerable, or answerable only by people at Apple who’ll probably never tell us. What it is are a bunch of the things I’m still wondering about, complimented with some of the questions asked by the inquisitive folks who attended our live coverage of this morning’s proceedings.

Q. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing the launch of the Apple Hi-Fi and 10 representing that of the original Mac, how big a deal was today’s news?

A. Interesting question! About a 5, I guess. These aren’t landmark, world-changing products, but they have lots and lots of technical innovations, and people have been waiting for them for a long time. (Even at Macworld Expo in January, an all-new Mac portable lineup seemed overdue.)

Q. What happened to the $800 MacBook?

A. $800 MacBook? Did someone talk about an $800 MacBook? The rumor originated on Duncan Riley’s Inquisitr, with a post that was originally called Exclusive: Apple to Launch $800 Laptop but has now backpedaled to the less definitive Tip: Apple to Launch $800 Laptop. (Wouldn’t Falsehood: Apple to Launch $800 Laptop be even more accurate?) Riley is saying his tipster confused Apple’s new $899 display with an $800 laptop. That’s quite a bit of confusing to do, and it spawned a heck of a lot of hubbub that amounted to nothing. (Although discussing the implications of an $800 MacBook had a certain amount of value even if no such beast exists.)

Q. Maybe the $800 MacBook is real. but in the wings? It’s not unusual for Apple to hold an event, then follow up with related products not too long thereafter.

A. Anything’s conceivable, but if the rumor sprung from misunderstanding of a pricing sheet’s reference to the new display, then it presumably wasn’t rooted in reality at all. I think there’s a good chance that Apple will someday sell an $800 laptop, but the company seems to have no interest whatsover in competing with supercheap, feature-laden Windows machines. In fact, with the exception of the new $999 MacBook–which isn’t that cheap–today’s announcements make the MacBook line even more upscale, and less directly competitive with the teeming masses of cheap Windows laptops out there.

Q. Is it worth getting excited about the new $999 price for the old-style MacBook, which used to be $1299 and remains in the lineup?

A. No, not really–I maintain that $100 price differences aren’t large enough to obsess over when you shop for a PC that costs more than $1000, and this one only makes the old MacBook (which isn’t a bad machine) a slightly better value. Note that there’s nothing historic about a $999 Mac laptop–the iBook once sold for that price.

Q. So should I buy the $999 white MacBook or the $1299 aluminum MacBook?

A. Depends on your budget. The extra $300 for the new model gets you quite a bit: much more style, beefier specs in general, the new Nvidia graphics which are potentially a big deal, and more. On the other hand, new Apple notebook designs sometimes have quality-control issues at first. Early adopters of the new MacBook will learn how robust it is, but the old white MacBook is a tried-and-true design that should be pretty free of surprises.

Q. Hey, are the new Macs expensive compared to comparable Windows machines?

A. For some people, the reflexive answer here will be yes, since even the $999 MacBook costs twice as much as some Windows laptops which are in some ways better equipped. But to me, the most interesting and fairest issue is whether the Macs are pricier than Windows notebooks which are similar. I’ll answer that question, I promise, but I want to do so when I have time to delve into research and space to discuss it at length. One note, though: I’m currently shopping for a 13-inch Windows notebook, and most of them cost a lot more than either the $999 old-style MacBook or the $1299 new-style one.

Q. What’s the deal with the 17-inch MacBook Pro, which is still almost the same basic design that Apple intoduced with the aluminum PowerBook G4 back in 2003? Apple barely mentioned it until someone in the audience asked, and even then nobody from Apple could remember how the new “refreshed” model was better.

A. You got me. It seems unlikely that the now-retro 17-inch MacBook will be along for very long, though. I’m assuming that there’s enough of a market to make it worth Apple’s while to make a new-style one. Perhaps it just couldn’t roll out everything it wanted to at once–if a new 17-incher arrives in the next 90 days, I wouldn’t be startled in the least.

Q. So is Apple’s new “unibody” aluminum-case design the much-discussed “brick” manufacturing breakthrough?

A. Well yes, obviously, although the Apple folks onstage today never called it “brick.” And Apple’s Jonathan Ive did note that it’s based on ideas first expressed in the MacBook Air case earlier this year.

Q. Did Apple build a radically new factory to make unibody MacBooks?

A. I don’t know–if I’d had the chance to ask two questions rather than just one, I might have asked this. Here’s the video we saw at today’s event, with neat footage of a factory cranking them out. I’m assuming that the new Macs, like most computers, are actually built by contract manufacturers, though.

Q. How big a deal are the new Nvidia graphics?

A. I’m always leery about getting excited over new technologies based on theoretical technical excellence and benchmarks as opposed to real-world performance. But they sound neat across the board–the $1299 MacBook gets integrated graphics that close in on the performance of old MacBook Pros with discrete graphics, and the new Pro gets two powerful GPUs. From the standpoint of pure technical innovation, all this looks to be some of the bigger news to come out of Apple in a long time…even if Nvidia deserves most of the glory.

Q. The new touchpad–good idea? Bad? Neutral?

A. I wanna use it more before coming to any conclusions. Sorry!

Q. The new MacBook has no FireWire–a technology that Apple invented. Is that bad? Is it sign of things to come?

A. I don’t think it’s a huge deal. Professionals who use serious camcorders and superfast external hard drives still want FireWire, and the MacBook Pro still has it–in fact, it’s really part of what makes the Pro a pro product. For consumers, though, I think USB is fine. (I cheerfully admit to basing this conclusion on my own experiences: The only time I’ve used FireWire on my MacBook recently is to hook it up to another Mac for file transfers.)

Apple has a long history of getting rid of features that seemed mandatory a bit before the rest of the industry–floppy drives and dial-up modems come to mind–but it generally makes the right call, and I suspect it has here. This does, however, put the $999 old-style white MacBook in the odd position of having a port of interest to advanced users that’s missing in the pricier, more powerful new-style MacBook.

Q. Speaking of the old white MacBook, isn’t it kind of confusing that it has the same name as the new Macbook, even though it’s quite different?

A. Yes. Apple’s site calls it the “white 13-inch MacBook.” Which is accurate, but its whiteness is probably not the most significantly different thing about it compared to the new 13-inch MacBook. Maybe it should be called the “cheap MacBook” or the “plasticky MacBook?”

Q. How about Steve’s health? Did Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and Senior VP of Industrial Jonathan Ive do some of the heavy lifting at today’s event because Steve couldn’t, or to usher them in as potential substitute Steves?

A. I don’t like talking about Steve Jobs’ health and its relation to Apple as a business; I’m neither a doctor nor a financial analyst, and the guy deserves his privacy. Suffice it to say that he appeared only briefly at the start of the event, then Cook and Ive did some of the presenting that Jobs might typically have done. But then he came back for the rest of the presentation, took questions, and chatted with attendees at the end. As to Cook and Ive and their involvement in the presentation, it made sense to me–Cook talked about sales stuff, which was logical for an operations guy, and there’s nobody in the world I’d rather hear talk about industrial design than Jonathan Ive. I kind of think it makes sense for multiple Apple execs to be public faces of the company, no matter what.

Got more questions? I do…and I’ll probably either append them to this post or tackle them in a sequel…

But the good news is:

A) Steve Jobs, Apple COO Tim Cook, and marketing head Phil Schiller did indeed field questions from the audience;

B) I was the very last person who squeezed one in (Steve greeted me like an old friend–oh, not really, he called me “blue shirt”);

C) I asked a question on behalf of a Technologizer community member thinking that I might not get a real answer–but I did, and it’s one I haven’t seen elsewhere.

The question I asked was a boiled-down version of one posed by community member Patrick:

What are Apple’s plans for touch interfaces into the future? Both track pad and screen based, and across which platforms – phones, laptops and all-in-ones (like iMac).

That felt like several questions, and the Q&A was winding up, so I only tackled part of it: I noted that the new MacBook and MacBook Pro designs obviously show that Apple has put a lot of effort into making its touchpads into more ambitious multi-touch devices. Did that mean that Apple didn’t think that Macs with touchscreen interfaces made sense? (There’s been plenty of discussion of the possibility, including both rumors and idle wishes.)

Jobs noted that Apple has experimented with the idea–not a surprise, since patents show that to be true–and then told me that they don’t make sense so far.

So there you go. It’s Steve Jobs tradition to speak dismissively of ideas up until the moment that Apple embraces them in one form or another, so I don’t take his answer as conclusive proof that Apple won’t releasae a touch Mac sooner than you might expect. (Although I agree with Steve that there are issues with the idea–actually, I wrote about that awhile back.) But if he’d expressed an opinion on touchscreens for computers in public until now, I hadn’t seen it.

Thank you, Patrick, for the topic of discussion; thank you, Steve, for the answer…

[NOTE: The picture above is not from today; it's by Matthew Yohe and is borrowed from Wikipedia.]

]]> http://technologizer.com/2008/10/14/my-question-with-steve/feed/ 9 Harry McCracken Steve Jobs with MacBook Air http://technologizer.com/2008/10/14/new-macbook-pro-macbook-and-cinema-displayin-person/ http://technologizer.com/2008/10/14/new-macbook-pro-macbook-and-cinema-displayin-person/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:43:34 +0000 Harry McCracken http://technologizer.wordpress.com/?p=3015 ]]> Want some beauty shots of Apple’s new products? Sorry, don’t have any–Apple’s Web site is now rife with ‘em, though. What I do have are a few fuzzy photos I took at this morning’s event, plus some hands-on impressions.

One striking thing is that while the naming conventions of MacBook and MacBook Pro live on, the difference in industrial design does not. And even in terms of specs, the differentiation between the two classes of machine is blurry.

Below are both models–that’s the plain MacBook up top–and except for the size and minor differences in proportions, they’re twins. And both, of course, look essentially like portable versions of the current iMac.

So how do they look up close? Good. Steve Jobs was reasonably restrained in his use of the reality distortion field this morning, but the new design is a giant leap beyond the current MacBook Pro (attractive but aging) and MacBook (pleasant but plasticky).

I want to be cautious about expressing opinions about the “unibody” cases based on a very quck hands-on with the new notebooks, but they do feel strong and solid. My MacBook Pro creaks a bit when my palm rests to the right of the touchpad; with luck, that won’t be an issue with a unibody case.

Speaking of the touchpad, which is made of glass and is its own button, with new multi-touch gestures, I didn’t get enough time with it to come to any conclusions–Jason Chen of Gizmodo liked it, though.

I did take a look at the underside of the MacBook Pro–Apple is the only company that makes computers with interesting undersides–and found it to be even simpler and sleeker than that of current MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The design is all-new, with a cover that spans the width of the case:

And here’s the inside of the bay (this is a MacBook).That’s the battery up top and the hard drive below; looks like access to the drive couldn’t be much easier. (It’s not bad with the old MacBook, but you need to loosen some screws and remove a bracket; with the old MacBook Pro, you don’t want to try and remove the drive.)

Here are the sides of both machines, with all ports neatly lined up on the left–they’re the same except that the MacBook (to) lacks FireWire and Express Card. Elegant and basically a good idea, although there are times when the fact that my current MacBook Pro has USB on both sides is an advantage from an accessbility standpoint.

Lastly, here’s the new $899 Cinema Display. It’s not the wacky one you can slide an entire MacBook into that people have wondered about based on Apple patents, but Steve Jobs spoke the truth: It looks like an excellent match for the new machines

And that’s all the photos I have. Lots more coverage of the new Macbooks to come…