Macworld to Bring Updates to Laptop Lines?

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting on the breathless anticipation that leads up to Macworld every year. Many analysts are hedging their bets that this year will bring a long overdue update to the Mac laptop family. From the article: 'We think the iBook, PowerBook, Mac Mini, and potentially Xserve are areas that are going to move to Intel first,' said Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research."

Burn baby Burn

[Anonymous Coward]

If only I could get a hold of the old Mac commercials when they slam on the Intel Processors

No G4 laptops or desktops - that is my prediction

[IntelliAdmin]

The article suggests that they will introduce new G4 based models. I find this highly unlikely. They will need to push their new Intel Line. I suspect they will reveal new Intel Based laptops, and as always a surprise that rocks the world from Mr Jobs himself

Here's hoping...

[WigginX]

My money is on the Apple Tablet being unveiled. ... but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Dual boot laptop

[shut_up_man]

I had considered a Mac last time I was shopping for a laptop, but I couldn't get past the facts that:

a) I can't work on Microsoft products like SQL Server on a Mac
b) The Mac only has a few games, compared to the PC

If these Intel Mac laptops arrive, and they really can be dual booted into XP, these two problems go away. I could easily see myself getting a Powerbook and using OSX for all my daily fiddling, and then booting into Windows when I needed to. /me crosses fingers...

Laptop Standard

[superpulpsicle]

If iPod is the defacto standard for music players, it's going to be difficult to raise the iBook to be the laptop standard. Everywhere I look companies are too heavily invested into Dell and other big name PC laptops. But I'd like to see Jobs try and win this one.

Waiting for the big dissapointment...

[EuroChild]

While, granted, there are a whole lot of rumors flying around about intel macs, what if there is no intel update? AFAIK, Apple have never stated that they would move to intel this early. So what will this do to apple, not only to the fans (myself included) but to the greater public, if we see another tiny bump to the laptop lines? Apple stand to loose a lot of face should they not be able to deliver...

Small, but no smaller.

[shmlco]

O'Grady is betting on a Powerbook nano (blog [zdnet.com]), thought I'm not. Personally, I'm getting kind of tired of the Apple everything-must-be-thin-to-be-sexy design philosophy.

Here's an idea: Apple, do everything you need to do to create the next "impossibly small" version of one of your products. Then don't do it. Keep it the same size, and fill the available space with a BATTERY so we actually use and enjoy all of those cool features.

A video iPod that can barely display two hours of video? Please.

Re:Dual boot laptop

[catmistake]

a) I can't work on Microsoft products like SQL Server on a Mac

Maybe you can't run SQL Server... but you can certainly work on it!

What kind of work are you doing?

Re:Depends

[AnotherDaveB]

Two problems: Apple needs to upgrade its aging portfolio of laptops, but at the same time they can't risk introducing a flawed first Intel model; it's gotta be more or less perfect, and it's gotta be so much better than a G4 in almost every regard.

Then they're out of luck because Apple's first attempt is invariably flawed.

Personally, I don't think it matters. The iBooks have had awful failure rates before, they still look pretty, and they still sell. And-I-want-one!

Re:Burn baby Burn

[goombah99]

Clueless comment. If you watched the last Apple meeting they played they commerical before they brought in the intel speakers. It was their humble pie. In a way it was a compliment to intel too. Intel did have a heat problem and look at all the new processors: low power.

Now lets look at the CES show with it's tepid announcements. Google-pak? well okay make it easy for the unwashed to have a standard set of apps all the technorati have. Of course those or better have always come on apples so we can forgive all the apple owners with the WTF look on their faces. And some TV show downloads? hmmm whoopeee. What are they going to play them on, an Achos pocket brick? And then there's a flock of dull over prices ipod wanabees, that got scooped by the Nano and cant even compete on price.

In any case tommorrow all apple has to do to blow the pants off everyone is to announce, feature length movies available .mac starting tommorrow, and the intel processors availabel in march on ibooks and mac minis. For the pro-crowd they just need to stretch their pro-video and maybe throw in some eye candy like 32 inch displays or intel plasma display. Maybe announce a toshiba SED by august (probably not though). Apple wont announce much other pro stuff since that usually comes at the developers conf later in the year.

This year CES made it easy. everything at CES is so far behind the curve and unintegrated apple hardly has to do more than what people already expect and everyone will be happy. This is the first year there's no breathless anticipation. (though I'm mighty curious about the intels, since I'm a pro-user I'm not expecting anything for me this go-around).

Re:xserves...hahahaha

[TubeSteak]

the merom, conroe, and whatever else intel has up their sleeve are at least 6 months away from production, and that's optimistic.

the state of journalism, especially tech journalism, is absolutely revolting these days.

While you may or may not be right about the state of tech journalism, there's this thing called a "soft" launch.

A "soft" launch is when a company prints up a bunch of promo material, throws out some specs, "announces" the product... and then nothing.

You can't buy it in stores, distributors don't have it, often times samples aren't available for review. As a consequence, your sad tech journalists are limited to parroting PR material, because that's all that is available.

This is one of the reasons you get speculation about prodcuts, that even when announced, aren't available for months.

Re:Dual boot laptop

[aristotle-dude]

a) I can't work on Microsoft products like SQL Server on a Mac

Have you ever heard of Aqua Data Studio [aquafold.com] or thought of using MS Remote Desktop Client for OSX [microsoft.com]?
b) The Mac only has a few games, compared to the PC

Are games really that important to you? But there are games like WOW, WCIII.WCIIIFT, Doom 3. Quake 4, UT2k3, UT2k4 etc...

We have less games but we also have less crap games as a result. Next time you troll make sure you try a little harder.

Re:Small, but no smaller.

[dal20402]

The largest and fastest currently available 2.5" HD's are...

120G, 5400rpm or
100G, 7200rpm.

Both are currently available in your 15" or 17" PowerBook -- standard in the 17" (your choice of which) or as BTO options in the 15".

I hope you don't want Apple to come out with a BrickBook big enough for a 3.5" drive (which would more than use up your extra battery anyway)?

(I'm all for thinner, by the way. I'm happy with 4 hours of battery, but I want lighter and cooler-looking.)

Re:Dual boot laptop

[shut_up_man]

Actually I hadn't heard of either (thanks for the info) but I was thinking more about using the laptop as a complete dev environment, with SQL server running on it as well. That way I could do SQL Server / .NET / ASP work without having to cart around a mini sized server box. If it's a greenfields project, I will choose MySQL / PHP hands down, but a good percentage of my work is maintenance or modifications of Microsoft stuff, which means having Windows somewhere along the line.

my guess is mactv

[cwg_at_opc]

the local NPR station here in the Los Angeles area, KCRW is having their spring fund-drive and will be giving away one of the newly announced products to a subscriber. the DJ said she didn't know what it was, as it was still secret, but they would announce what it is on tuesday. my guess is similar to what some previous posters have said: a mini-based plasma DVR.

One Word - NewtonX

[Bodhammer]

Specs:

640 x 364 x 24 bits 4.25" 16x9 LCD
Weight 257g, 6.5" x 2.8 x .85"
40GB Hard Drive, 2GB Flash (Instant On/Standby)
Touch screen with Inkwell, full Qwerty Keyboard Twistable Clamshell
      (see Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100), touch wheel as joystick in landscape, edge buttons for gaming - see Zodiac/PSP
OSX Lite based on FreeBSD w/ Linux Layer Enabled
802.11G/Bluetooth/IR/IEEE 1394
Headphone Jack
USB 2.0 (2)
Compact Flash Slot
4 AA NiMH 2300Mah batteries, user replacable
Software
    Open Office
    iCal Sync
    iTunes

Price $649

Re:second gen Pentium M

[Cadallin]

Eh? Firstly, the new G5's available from IBM are much lower in power consumption. A G5 powerbook could have happened very easily after June '05, and Secondly that Pentium M you are touting has more in common with that Pentium II you just trashed than any other processor design. Intel has gone back to their old Pentium Pro Architecture. Meanwhile, in POWER land, POWER5 and POWER5+ based POWERPC processors could have succeeded the G5, (A POWER4 based design).

All of the current top3 Supercomputers in the world are POWER5 IBM designs. The intel transition was a mistake IMO. Intel doesn't have any solid plans for the future of x86, they're just going to keep using process advances to cram more PII cores on a chip, until they end up with an x86 based NIAGRA clone

Re:second gen Pentium M

[Jeff DeMaagd]

A G5 powerbook could have happened very easily after June '05,

Yeah, if you wanted to be stuck at 1.4 or 1.6GHz with an equal CPI as competitors running chips available 2.2GHz and beyond. G5 isn't better at CPI than G4, a 1.6GHz G5 would be about as fast as the current 1.67GHz G4, so there was generally little to no performance gain to be had by making a G5 Powerbook other than maybe status. Where a G5 laptop would have been useful is if they were available in mobile form at 2+ GHz six months or a year previous. IBM's product was too little, too late, their product should have been available a year previous, the same goes for 3GHz G5s.

I really don't think comparing the supercomputer capabilities of specialized revisions of the POWER or PPC architecture matters if IBM can't consistently scale the speed as well as control the thermal and electrical issues demanded for desktop and mobile use. These are vastly different markets with different demands and different optimizations.

Re:second gen Pentium M

[Cadallin]

I understand the argument there, but I'm inclined to think that the game consoles stealing IBM's attention is a bit of a red herring. I think the real reasons are:

1. Marketing (Most people won't look any further than a CPU's clockspeed to evaluate it's "performance," even though this is often a weak indicator at best)

2. Steve's ego, and his anger at IBM for failing to deliver as promised. (Even though EVERYONE had a disasterous time with the 90nm transition. Nobody was really prepared to deal with the immense increase in heat dissipation, and if you'll remember, even Intel stalled during this period)

3. I think it's very like Intel made Apple "an offer they couldn't refuse," (especially keeping in mind point 2) The PC platform is stagnating really badly, and there aren't any Apps really driving the sale of higher performance desktops, Intel NEEDED Apple, as they are the only ones pushing in this direction. I think Apple probably got some OBSCENE discounts for agreeing to become an Intel shop.

Mac Games

[ClamIAm]

So, anyone think we'll be seeing more games for OS X once the Intel switch is complete?

Re:Burn baby Burn

[Heembo]

Google-pak? well okay make it easy for the unwashed to have a standard set of apps all the technorati have

You missed the big one here. Google's new "Google Updater" will automatically install and alert you when new versions of Adobe Acrobat, FireFox and other popular 3rd party applications are available. They install or update quickly without requiring a reboot. This is a crucial security feature that does NOT come standard with any version of windows for 3rd party apps, and other software that manages apps like this are expensive and clunky. I think this a a killer security app to keep my 3rd party apps fully patched against new vulnerabilities. And, Google updater is free.

Intel Yonah 32bit? What happens to the 64bit??

[Kildjean]

What I mean is... One of the things Apple has enjoyed a long time before people on Intel/Windows have is the 64bit "inside". I understand (correct me if Im wrong) that PowerPC has been 64bit since the G4's or at least the G5's and OSX is 64bit ready. My question or concern is what is going to happen to that? Is Apple switching from 64bit to 32bit Yonah's or has intel made a 64bit Yonah just for apple.

that is the only factor from this whole "switch" to intel thing that has had me worried. What do you guys think or know of this?

Re:My predictions...

[Axmondo]

And my predictions!

1. Plasma Inteligent HDTV

A large Plasma HDTV set with the ability to play and burn DVDs, import and play audio CDs, import and display digital photos and movies, analogue and digital TV tuner all from a Front Row-esque interface.

OS X will not be installed on this unit, just the media elements, although media will be available wirelessly on OS X or Windows XP machines.

Big new feature will be the ability to stream real-time DVD-quality movies directly to the screen via the upgraded .Mac service. Various movies will be avalialbe straight away, inc. all of Pixars!

Will be priced roughly the same as an average Plasma HDTV and will be sold with a catch line, something like, "Same price as an HDTV, but with all this extra lovely stuff"
Will be US only, initially

Price - ~$3,500

2. Intelligent HDTV Set-top Box

Will sport the same features as above, but will be in a set-top box, for pluggin in to HDTVs or standard TVs.

Will not have full OS X on it either.

US only initially.

Price - ~$499

3. iBook Intel

Will sport a new form-factor that will mimick the current generation iPods and the iMac. Its top will be set in a layer of see-through plastic and a lower layer of white plastic and the lower halve will be set in stainless steel and white plastic.

Will be capable of using the new video .Mac services via its built-in wireless networking.

There will be some virtualisation software which allows Windows to run natively in OS X.

Will sport much nicer screens than current iBooks. Widescreen.

Price - New low price for base model: $799, then £999 for the top-end model.

4. iLife '06

Garageband 3.0
iPhoto 6.0
iTunes 6.0 (already released)
iMovie HD 2.0
iDVD 6.0
iWeb (?) - A new easy to use web-design application with lovely looking templates.

Will support blogging, various standard php-based forms and some kind of database functionality.

Will tie into an upgraded .Mac service that will offer mySQL and PHP, although this will be invisible to the user from iWeb. It will just work.

Price - Free with Macs or $79 to buy separately, .Mac price will be reduced ~20%

5. iWork '06

Pages 2.0
Keynote 3.0
Calc (?) 1.0 - A new speadsheet program with a nice selection of good-looking templates, useful for home-users / small businesses

Price - $79

That's all folks! Here's hoping this comes true!

Re:No G4 laptops or desktops - that is my predicti

[Fulkkari]

AFAIK Intel Macs won't have BIOS functionality, which means booting the kernel won't work the same way as on the common PC, i.e. current i386-compatible operating systems won't (most likely) boot of the shelf. It does not however prevent OS developers adding OpenFirmware support to their products.

Re:Burn baby Burn

[goombah99]

Well yes I'll grant you that's a very nice feature: a consolidated trusted update agent. But C'mon? Google Pak is the best thing CES can come up with? Yes it was, and that's sad. None of the tech features offered at CES showed any integration besides this. Very tepid show this year. If apple just barely meets expectations they will again steal the innovation spotlight.

Re:second gen Pentium M

[chrish]

You guys are missing an important fact.

Besides the "flagship" desktop/latpop chips, Intel makes a boat-load of embedded chips.

Apple sells a boat-load of embedded systems (iPod).

If Apple can get major discounts on embedded CPUs for their top-selling hardware, their margins will go way up.