
Apple Announces Major Consumer PC Upgrades - sant0sk1
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2009/10/apple_announces.html
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jws
New twist: In the imac 27", the Mini DisplayPort is both an input and an
output. You can plug your laptop into an iMac and use it as a display.

This probably adds $0 to the assembly cost, same connector, and depending on
how the bits get to the LCD, it could be near $0 in silicon costs. This
feature that will provide more life for the display after the poor computer
inside becomes obsolete.

~~~
riobard
I really love the screen. And consider that it is 2560x1440 at 16:9 and only
160 pixel "shorter" than the 30" Cinema HD (2560x1600 at 16:10), and the $100
CHEAPER with LED backlight --- guess what a pleasure it would be to code on
it! :)

~~~
jseliger
Ditto. I just wish the hard drive were user replaceable: from what I can
gather, the HD is the big bottleneck on most of my day-to-day activities and
would very much benefit from an SSD.

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riobard
I'd like the option to use SSD too. Aside from the performance improvement, it
would make the machine completely quite (fan not running and no CD spinning,
though) at night :)

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unalone
The new iMac looks nice, the Macbook looks like less of a wussy addition to
the lineup, the Mac mini still looks like a Mac mini. What I'm excited about
is that mouse. Multitouch scrolling is the feature that I love most about my
Macbook Pro; I feel somewhat crippled when I don't have it on the iMacs and
Mac Pros at my school. This mouse looks like what I've been waiting for from
Apple. Sexier and sturdier than the Mighty Mouse, and much more in line with
the rest of their technology.

EDIT: _Yes!_ This was a launch that came with Jonathan Ive talking about
things. Score one for Ive fanboys. <http://www.apple.com/imac/the-new-
imac/#large>

EDIT EDIT: Two smaller announcements: New remote, new Time Capsule.
[http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/20/apple-
updates-19-remote-p...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/20/apple-
updates-19-remote-predictably-coats-it-in-aluminum/) and
[http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/20/apple-quietly-updates-
air...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/20/apple-quietly-updates-airport-
extreme-and-time-capsule/)

~~~
tptacek
The Macbook has _never_ been a wussy part of the lineup. Until the unibody
MB/MBP was announced, the sanest Apple purchasing advice was always, "buy the
cheapest Intel Apple laptop, whatever that might be". Even now, the difference
between the MBP and the MB is largely build quality, and the build quality of
the plastic Macbook is still so much better than that of the Powerbook that
the MBP wins mostly on pure excellence and not utility.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I used to recommend the white MacBook, but since it became clear that the top
case nearly always cracked I stopped recommending them. Now I would say the 13
inch MBP is the most sensible recommendation.

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hyperbovine
I have already had the cracking thing repaired under warranty once. It has
since done it again. Now that my version of the MacBook is no more, I'm going
to haul it in on Nov. 28, 2010 (the last day of my AppleCare warranty) and
kindly request they fix it again :-) Who knows, maybe I'll get comped an
upgrade.

~~~
crux
They'll replace it for you without complaint, but as an Apple Service Provider
tech I can tell you, don't get your hopes up about the upgrade. Apple supplies
its providers with parts for machines well after their warranties are all up;
for a part like that, that's had problems all across the board, doubly so.

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blasdel
I was freaked out for a second when I saw the oddball screen sizes on the
iMacs and the "16:9!" blurb -- usually that means that you just get a shittier
lower-res panel in a larger size.

Instead, they switched back to S-IPS panels, and increased the resolutions
substantially -- 21.5 is 1920:1080, the 27 is 2560:1440.

~~~
spazmaster
Rather disappointing Apple is going along with this trend, HD-ing resolutions
of screens. I mean it's great for watching movies, but most people will be
word processing, e-mailing or surfing the web on iMacs, and that's when you'll
miss those 120 vertical pixels. (HD, 16:9 has 1080 vertical pixels, and 16:10
has 1200 vertical pixels.)

~~~
GHFigs
Neither model has lost any pixels. These displays are higher resolution in
both dimensions for both models. The smaller model has gone from 1680x1050 to
1920x1080 (+30 vertical pixels) and the larger from 1920x1200 to 2560x1440
(+240 vertical pixels).

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awolf
I'm rabidly anticipating some reviews of the Magic Mouse. The Mighty Mouse has
been pretty disappointing but this new one has real potential.

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iloveyouocean
Doesn't seem to be able to do a middle-click. Sad.

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unalone
What do you need a middle-click for? I used to only use it for scrollballs,
but multitouch killed my need for that.

~~~
spydez
I use it for closing tabs in Firefox when I don't have two hands on the
keyboard (W is on the right hand's side of the keyboard for us Dvorak folks).

A middle click anywhere on the entire tab is easier that hitting the lil' x
button. Plus, you can turn off the 'close tab' button it the options and make
your Firefox look a little bit cleaner.

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LogicHoleFlaw
If you don't have a middle-click, how do you open a link in a new tab? (honest
question, I buy mice for this.)

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slyn
If you use OS X, cmd+click.

Cmd+click even works on some things that middle click doesn't, for example
middle clicking on the home, back/forward, or top sites buttons in Safari will
do nothing at all, but cmd+clicking will properly open your home page,
previous page, or top sites page in a new tab.

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bensummers
Only thing missing in the iMac is an option for an SSD boot drive. I wonder
how much of a bad idea it would be to boot off an external firewire SSD?

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wizard_2
It would be slower and need more power - you need esataII

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bensummers
It doesn't have that port, though. Nor do I really feel like opening up an
iMac to replace the HD.

That said, it's more the seek time which is appealing about the SSD rather
than the raw data transfer speed, which is why using the Firewire interface
may not be too much of an issue. Obviously I wouldn't want to use USB.

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protomyth
Interesting that the nicer iMacs have the ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 instead
of a NVidia chip.

~~~
MikeCapone
I would guess that Apple is getting ATI and NVIDIA to outbid each other for
inclusion. Best way to get good prices.

~~~
protomyth
I was wondering if it was more an issue with NVIDIA's problems of late.

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scythe
You're quite correct. [http://www.hardwareinsight.com/apple-to-replace-nvidia-
gpus-...](http://www.hardwareinsight.com/apple-to-replace-nvidia-gpus-with-
ati-radeon-4000-series/)

~~~
catch23
Great for consumers IMHO. It will force nvidia to make their stuff better.

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GHFigs
A few interesting details: the iMac displays are now 16:9 (formerly 16:10) and
both models are specifically stated to use IPS displays (formerly only the 24"
did, but it was not advertised), which are higher resolution than the previous
models. Both now have SD card slots. Both now come with wireless keyboard and
new "Magic Mouse" standard. The 27" model's Mini-DisplayPort connector
functions as _both_ an input and an output.

~~~
slyn
I would love to see some of these IPS panels in the Macbook Pro's.

Currently the only things differentiating between the stock Macbook and the
13" MBP is build quality (unibody polycarbonate vs unibody aluminum), Memory
Cap (4gb max vs 8gb max), default HDD size (the MBP is actually smaller), and
the Pro has Firewire and a SD slot.

Granted the price difference between the MB and the 13" MBP is only $200, but
I think the perfect way to distinguish between the two is IPS. Seeing this
manifest itself in the iMacs is really unexpected to me given the industry
trend as a whole to keep displays as cheap as possible (I was previously just
hoping for a simple bump to 1680x1050 on the 15" MBP, which is what I own and
will likely buy again in the future), but this gives me hope that better panel
technology in the laptops is actually a potential option.

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yardie
You'll be waiting a long time. IPS on laptops is basically dead at this point.
The market has spoken and no one really wants an IPS laptop (5 years ago this
was different story). The problem with IPS is it's expensive to make. You'll
rarely find an IPS monitor (any size) for less than $500, except when Dell
does a fire sale.

Because laptop makers have stopped asking for them, LCD makers stopped making
them. Until something else comes along we'll be stuck with TN panels. And they
have slowly taken over each market. I've checked some online sites 20" is all
TN, 22" has a few old IPS displays, 24" was split 50/50 before the summer, now
it's down to 9 IPS out of 100. IPS is left at the high end. And that will
eventually go TN, I believe.

As an owner of a LG IPS display I'm miffed that my next display purchase will
probably be worse than the one I already have.

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aarongough
Personally I'm very glad I got my Aluminum MacBook when I did. I don't want a
polycarbonate case...

My guess is that machining the aluminum cases was just too expensive, it would
clearly be much cheaper to simply mold a polycarbonate case. But personally I
don't think they will match up from a durability perspective...

~~~
nixme
Huh? When did Apple ever sell an aluminum MacBook? Only the MacBook Pros are
aluminum AFAIK.

EDIT: I was wrong. Apple did have an aluminum 13" MacBook before the MBP
version. See replies below.

~~~
ynniv
There was briefly an aluminum MacBook before they introduced the 13" MacBook
Pro.

------
raquo
27" Screen would so much more useful if only OS X had system-wide font size
settings^. Parsing 10px fonts from a distance of even a couple feet is far
from accessible.

^ Resolution independence anyone?

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Yeah, I still run the first Apple flat 22" display which is decidedly low-res
these days, but works great for my old eyes!

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protomyth
Look at the new 27" iMac, that 16GB of RAM make it a very interesting machine.
I do wish the price on the new MacBook would have been $799.

~~~
bmalicoat
That iMac is basically a work station with the Nehalem processor and that much
ram. Still ridiculous that they charge $1400 for 16GB RAM though.

~~~
die_sekte
It's DDR3 memory and 16GB of it. Crucial has similiar prices for that.

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jsz0
Do you need 16GB of RAM? Seems like overkill unless you have a specific reason
for needing it in which case the price probably isn't a huge concern anyway. I
had 16GB in my Mac Pro until recently I downgraded to 8GB. I never came
anywhere close to using 16GB and FB-DIMMS on the MP are power hogs. -30W of
power yanking the extra memory.

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elai
It's fairly disappointing that they decided to not include the core i7 in
anything as a default processor. Considering they're the "high performance"
brand. They only have it on their top model mac pro. And as an upgrade. Core
i7s really up the snappiness of a system.

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DougBTX
Since when are they the "high performance" brand? High build quality, very
much yes.

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elai
I guess, but considering their high price, well built os, high build quality,
you'd think they would add an extra $100 a put a proper processor to fit the
image.

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jeduan
Does the new MacBook sport the Mini-DisplayPort? Can't tell from the images

~~~
GHFigs
Yes. It's listed on the specs page. No FireWire or SD, however.

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protomyth
I wonder how many people are thinking of ordering the Mac mini with Snow
Leopard Server? I have used a normal Mac mini with server as a secondary
server and it seems to do ok.

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axod
Dual HDD seems a handy addition.

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trin_
wow i still think $599 for the mac mini with a core duo and 160gb hdd is way
too much.

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jimbokun
But Mac mini with Snow Leopard server is kind of intriguing. (Maybe not worth
$999. But it does come with 2 500GB drives.)

~~~
cpr
Right, and 10.6 Server is basically coming for free. (Normal $500 value.)
Pretty good marketing move if you want to get more people to use the Server
version of Mac OS X for their small businesses, education back room machines,
etc.

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protomyth
They are also still selling the $899 20" to educational institutions.

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protomyth
Is that a new remote? It looks round.

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alex_c
You mean the mouse?

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protomyth
no, I actually mean the remote - I was pricing up one of the new iMacs and got
to the remote picture and it sure doesn't look like the old one.

~~~
alex_c
Ah, sorry - was just looking at the article pics.

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wesley
No matte screen is disappointing.

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krishna2
Still no HMDI, that sucks...

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mattyb
[http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&c...](http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042802&p_id=5311&seq=1&format=2)

