[Macworld 2008] Official Thread

I think the LED screen and the solid state drive probably contribute a lot to extended battery life.

 

eh...not my cup of tea. I mean it's cool and all, but I'm not the type to drool over something because it's 1 inch thin and half a pound as opposed to 5 inches thin a 5 pounds. At some point, it's thin enough.

It's like the 7 minute abs bit in Theres Something About Mary.

And I'm still not a Mac guy anyway.

Now, OLED technology, I will "drool" more over...but not because you go from current plasma/lcd thin to OLED thin, but because it has potential to do stuff like this:

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1buy3N_Fvsg&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1buy3N_Fvsg&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Point being, the Macbook Air and the push to get lighter and thinner will likely lead to some kind of completely new "laptop" creation in a few years (heck, probably in combination with the OLED technology above), but until then, to me, it's just another laptop.

 

The SS drive is optional, no?

 

Yeah, you can either have an 80 gig hard drive (like the one in iPods, I believe) or 64gig solid state. I'm betting the battery life rating is based on the solid state drive, though.

 

I think I'm going to stick with buying a new black macbook with Leopard.

 

Just like the iPod, there is no user-replaceable battery for this.

That's a big downer I would think.

 

I thought about that too. And then i realized that a replaceable battery is totally impracticle for this size of laptop. If you need 15+ hours of unconnected power, this just is not a laptop that meets your needs - get a macbook pro.

Not that I plan on getting one or anything, just my two cents.

 

I don't believe the major hangup with people will be the inability to get 15+ hours out of it, it will be the "what if?" scenarios. If I'm traveling, and all of a sudden my battery dies, I now have to go find the nearest Apple store to have them fix it? With an iPod it's not that big of a deal, but as a business traveler I'm SOL without my laptop.

 

Do batteries die all of a sudden often? (I'm not being facetious, honestly wondering). And not just die as in you have to recharge it but die as in you can no longer recharge it (which is what I'm assuming you are referring to)

 

I would think Apple went to incredible lengths to make sure these in fact do not die very often.

But it will happen.

Just the thought would terrify me if I used this as my main computer. I think alot of would be users feel the same way.

Regardless of all that, I still think this looks awesome and I'm not a Mac guy whatsoever.

 

wow the new iPhone/Touch firmware is ridiculously lame...they make you pay $20 bucks on the itouch for maps/mail etc. when all you have to do is jailbreak it and you get MORE features!

 

http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2008/01/is_mac_os_x_update_1052_coming_friday_in_a_bi.html

Is Mac OS X update 10.5.2 coming Friday, in a big way?

image If you're running Leopard on your Mac, keep your eyes peeled Friday for something big. I mean, really big.

That's when, according to MacRumors.com, the 10.5.2 update of Mac OS X will be dumped into the tubes. It will bring with it some significant updates, according to those who've tested early builds.

• The ability to share DVD/CD drives.

• You'll be able to turn off translucency in the menu bar.

• Tweaks to Stacks, including List View.

• The ability to use an external disk connected to the USB port in AirPort Express as a Time Machine backup destination.

There are more -- a lot more -- fixes and enhancements. Some reports have put it over 400 megabytes.

As big as it is, maybe Apple should start referring to it as a Service Pack!

 

I'm looking forward to the update (again), it's a doozy. I hope it really comes Friday. Looks like they've been listening to all the complaining going on, down to the somewhat trivial translucent menu bar.

BTW, supposedly the Macbook Air battery only takes a minute to replace, but again it must be done at an Apple store.

 

So much for that update today.

 

The update is now available!

 

Woot! Installing as I type.

 

Let's hope it puts an end to Firefox crashes, although it hasn't been as bad as of late.

List of fixes here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307109