Two birds, one stone. The Macbook.
When the Macbook came out, it took the iBook and 12″ Powerbook down for the count. I’ve been looking at this thing over and over and here are some things that everyone should pay attention to.
1) The Macbook uses the same MagSafe connector, but different wattage from its Pro brother. You could use the Macbook charger on a Macbook Pro; though Apple seems to say avoid it like the plague. The Macbook uses a 60W adapter and the Pro uses 85W. You can safely charge the Macbook with a MBP charger. In fact, Apple only sells 85W chargers in the San Diego stores. Maybe they will offer 60W, but I doubt it because the 85W is universal and another charger means unneeded additional costs.
2) Shared video is the reason it isn’t a ‘Pro’ machine. Applications such as Aperture and Final Cut Studio don’t run on this thing. That’s fine for most consumers who would stick to iLife apps. The ‘Pro’ consumer would look to the higher end anyway. Edit:The pro apps will install with a warning but Apple doesn’t support it, and no announcement has been made that they will at this time.
3) External video adapters used to come with Apple laptops. This is not the case on the Macbook, and a Mini-DVI to DVI or Mini-DVI to VGA is going to cost ~$20. One could say that this should be common gear to a laptop, but from Apple’s perspective the numerous things their laptops can display on doesn’t warrant an included adapter for each. The majority of consumers never use an external display and end up losing the one it came with (guilty). So I don’t see this as a major exclusion. I see it saving the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, and giving consumers the option to get only the adapter they need, saving the environment the cost of making 2 or 3 adapters per laptop (as was the iBook’s case), and lowering the cost of the units. Win-win.
4) Glossy screen not optional like the Pro machines. I agree with John on the glossy screen issue, and would prefer to rip it off than deal with glare. It’s bad enough on my supposed anti-glare glasses, now I have to deal with it on my laptop. Lame.
I still like them, despite these four things. They feel better and seem much more scratch resistant than previous offerings. The resolution is great on them and they can power a 23″ display. The benefits and improvements are welcome.
Silver on May 22nd, 2006 at 8:38 am
One thing I would love to have seen in the MacBook: an even-cheaper single-core version. It’s great that the MacBook has the Core Duo (many were afraid Apple would go single-core only), but a single-core option would be nice. Less heat, less money, more battery life…for my portable needs it would be a great option.
Alan on May 22nd, 2006 at 9:43 am
Scroll down this thread from the Apple support forum:
Aperture does run on the new MacBooks, but it is NOT officially supported, due to limitations with the graphics card. This means if you call AppleCare, you’ll simply be told that you’re running Aperture on an unsupported configuration. It’s an “at-your-own-risk” experience.
That being said, Aperture will install and run on a MacBook…at least you’re not disallowed from using it. No hacks needed!
And of course, Aperture is fully supported on all MacBook PRO models.
Joe Schorr
Sr. Product Manager, Aperture
Apple
mike on May 22nd, 2006 at 9:57 am
same with final cut… it will work, it’s just not supported.
Curt on May 22nd, 2006 at 10:27 am
How about the fact that the MacBrick is overweight at 5.2 lbs?
You’d think Apple would be making lighter laptops to replace past products. I can’t see replacing my 1.33Ghz 12″ G4 PB weighing in @4.2lbs with a MacBrick. And heck, the 12″PB weighs more than comparable Windoze laptops with 12″ screens (Panasonic, Sony 2.2-2.4lbs).
Factor in the crippled graphics ability, I don’t see the MacBrick as progress at all. It seems that Apple is narrowing it’s product line while migrating to faster chips, but not really giving what many of us really need.
mungler on May 22nd, 2006 at 10:30 am
anyone know how well Aperture runs on a MacBook?
Silver on May 22nd, 2006 at 10:46 am
I agree that the 5.2 lb weight on the MacBook is a disappointment, but it’s hardly fair to compare it to 2 lb. PC ultralights that don’t even have an onboard optical drive…
Personally I can’t wait for the day when we have flash-RAM-based laptops and drop the heavy, noisy, and power-sucking hard drives entirely.
Christiaan on May 22nd, 2006 at 11:21 am
Matte display for MacBook petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/38djhak2/petition.html
Jonathan on May 22nd, 2006 at 11:36 am
The MacBook has problems with Motion, not with Final Cut. Think about it: people have been using FCP on much slower machines and the Intel 950 is not behind where graphics were just a short time ago. The MacBook isn’t ideal for FCP but most people are using it on older, even less ideal machines.
Alan on May 22nd, 2006 at 12:04 pm
I’m a new Apple customer who just bought a MacBook (black) on Friday. While I’m still trying to acclimate myself to the OS (I’ve been a Windows user since 3.0), I find the hardware to be wonderful–the weight and size perfect.
I wasn’t sure if the screen would be too small; but it’s not. I placed the dock on the right of the widescreen so my application windows can take advantage of the vertical space. As far as temperature goes, it’s not any warmer than my old, “long dead” Dell Inspiron (850MHz PIII). In fact, it seems to actually run cooler.
It’s also whisper quiet. I have yet to hear a “mooing” sound from its fan. And I’ve yet to hear the hard drive being accessed. The only noticeable sound it makes is when it wakes up from sleep and checks for insert of a DVD.
I like the glossy screen. But I suppose if someone used dark backgrounds it would pick up a lot of reflections. But with any notebook, a slight adjustment of the screen and the reflection goes away. And BTW, the colors are brilliant.
I like the keyboard. The lettering is very large and easy to read. And it’s very easy to type on…..though, I’m not sure how to use some of the Mac keys.
My track pad is set so it’s scrolls with two fingers and selects with a one finger tap and “right clicks” with a two finger tap? I’m not sure how you Mac users got along without that second mouse button. :)
Anyway, it’s just what I need without the pointless extras. Although, I wish it had a “home” and “end” key without having to also press the “apple” key. And BTW which is the “command” key?
Silver on May 22nd, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Thanks for the insight, Alan. I’m glad to hear the temperature issue experienced in the ArsTechnica review may have just been a faulty unit. The review was linked on Engadget, so of course all the bitter Apple haters (where do these people come from and what exactly motivates them???) had to jump in with their “ha ha, Apple sucks” ignorance.
Ryan on May 22nd, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Alan:
Here’s some tips for you, if you like.
You will likely find the need to ‘right click’ comes along far more rarely than it does in windows. It’s similar to linux, right clicking just isn’t that common since the UI’s are typically better designed. I hardly use the ‘alternate click’ functionality on my laptop even though I have it hooked up to a 20″ cinema with a logitech wireless laser mouse… you just dont need it as often. It is helpful to have it accessible with only 1 hand since using just my laptop i have to ctrl-click to get a context menu, certainly can’t hurt to make it easier no matter how sparse your use of it is.
As far as home and end, you’ll find that home and end don’t work the same on osx as they do in windows. Home takes you to the top of the document and end takes you to the end, not the beginning and end of lines like it does in most windows apps. -> is how you type ‘end’ as you’re talking about, and ‘ they mean the command key ⌘ which is the same as the apple key ).
Lastly the ‘other mac keys’ are pretty straight forward, option will be pretty much the same as your windows ‘alt’ key (infact my pb g4 says option and alt on the same key, macbook might be different). Control is also just about the same. Your best bet for figuring that stuff out is to just go through the menu’s a bit and look at the shortcuts. Here are the icons for the different buttons which are different than on windows, by far, infact…
⎇ – Option (this icon is actually upside down from the one in the menu’s, couldn’t find the ‘real’ one in the character palette :))
⇧ – Shift
⌃ – Control
⌘ – Command
Hope that helps you.
Ryan on May 22nd, 2006 at 2:25 pm
By the way, if you can’t see any icons in my post above becuase they all look like jibberish then go into the View menu and choose Text Encoding and change it to UTF-8, I’m surprised TAB doesn’t use this as it’s default encoding…
Todd Baur on May 22nd, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Curt: How about the fact that the MacBrick is overweight at 5.2 lbs?
Really? Is this heavy to you? You could be carrying this
Alan on May 22nd, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Yes it does help, Ryan. And the symbols came through as you intended. Thank you.
Josh Pigford on May 22nd, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Actually we do. Take a gander at the “charset” in the meta tag. It’s “utf-8″.
Ryan on May 22nd, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Hmm, so it is… My bad I guess. For some reason Safari had it set to ISO Latin 1… Interesting…
Roland Dobbins on May 22nd, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Aperture runs great on my black MacBook – something like 10x faster than on my 1.5GHz 15″ AlBook. The lack of support for it at this time most likely has to do with testing time, not anything to do with the video adaptor. There’s just a little message about video resolution (when Aperture was coded, the minimum AlBook resolution was 1280×854, the MacBook resolution is 1280×800) which pops up when you start Aperture on the built-in LCD. You just click on through it and it works fine, and you don’t get the message at all when the MacBook is hooked into a Cinema Display.
My guess is that the next major rev of Aperture will officially support the MacBook; unlike 30fps of video in FCP, the video adaptor requirements for editing still photos aren’t very demanding, IMHO.
'ju:femaiz on May 22nd, 2006 at 7:22 pm
damnit – why oh why did they go glossy?!?!?
Still looking at ordering one in a week :D
'ju:femaiz on May 22nd, 2006 at 7:22 pm
damnit – why oh why did they go glossy?!?!?
Still looking at ordering one in a week :D
Richard Jones on May 22nd, 2006 at 9:53 pm
I initally went to the Apple store to grab up a MacBook, but there were a few things that I didnt particularly like about them. I am not a big fan of the keyboards, the video card is an obvious(but for most consumers something of no concern). I loved the glossy display when I looked at it it dead on, when I was at any sort of an angle I hated it. To make a long story short, the MacBok is a great machine, though a bit on the heavy side for the Mac label. On the weight note, when you pick them up their form factr makes them feel even heavier than they are due to weight distribution(imho). It is, however, a great bargain!!! That being said, I ended up going with a MBP 2.0 with 1GB of memory. Needless to say, I love it. I would have no doubt thoroughly enjoyed a MacBook as well. To anyone looking for aa budget laptop with great features, you really cannot go wrong with a Mac Book.
mungler on May 23rd, 2006 at 8:02 am
Roland Dobbins: Thanks very much. Aperture was the clincher for me choosing between a MacBook and a Pro. I’d actually prefer to get the non-pro, so its good to hear a positive report. :)
henning on May 23rd, 2006 at 11:20 am
I just ordered a MacBook and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. It’s my first Mac.
On Windows, holding down CTRL while doing a HOME or END brings you to the top or bottom of the document.
Is there a place where I can see what ALL the keyboard shortcuts do?
Diesel on May 23rd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
@ henning. mac help (finder) has all the info you need on keyboard shortcuts.
eromitlab on May 23rd, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Todd;
thanks for the insight on the new MB… I’m considering a new portable right now and reviews, notes and other comments on these new units offer some food for thought before heading into the Apple Store (the last portable I bought sort of on a whim and I have never been truly satisfied).
oh, and those glasses probably have an anti-reflection coating that reduces glare from the lenses themselves… only polarized lenses cut glare from surfaces.
Gustavo Gallegos on May 25th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
To get Aperture to run on your Macbook without giving you that warning about your screen size being small just do:
defaults write /Applications/Aperture.app/Contents/Info RKMinimumDisplayPixelHeight 800
(look at that plist for other minimum requirement get-arounds)
Tom on May 25th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
hey Guys for some reason I cant run Aperture on my macbook
It states that I dont neet the requirements
I know Ive read that now hack is need, what am I to do to get it to work.
I have the 2.0GHz Interl duo mackbook with 2 Gb ram
Any suggestions…
Gustavo Gallegos on May 25th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
Which version of aperture are you running. Do a Software Update until you have v1.1.1 (which adds Universal Support)
tim on May 31st, 2006 at 7:23 pm
all – never posted on something like this but felt duty bound to do so
i was a staunch dell latitude laptop user until about 2 years ago when i got a 12″ powerbook. loved it, and switched the company i run to apple. we’ve a selection of ibooks and powerbooks and a couple imacs. all work great and love them.
my powerbook HD failed catastrophically a few weeks back, so in i went to the macstore in seattle for a repair…but i needed to send my powerbook away. curiosly, my mac blew up on the same day the macbooks were released….(perhaps my pb picked up a signal from the mothership?!?) and i bought the black macbook
keyboard – i HATE the look of it. similar to a ZX spectrum 128k from my time in the uk as a kid….but despite crappy looks it seems to work really well though i’m also growing to like the retro look
screen – someone somewhere posted that with a matte screen, typing outside was a nightmare as the screen difused the light and meant that nothing was legible from any angle. they’re right. with the new screen it’s much clearer in or out. the exception would be at a specific angle where you can perhaps get a reflection…so you move the angle. simple.
screen part 2 – curiously if you sit with you back to a strong light source (the sun) and turn the screen off….you can see everything just great! something happens whereby the external light makes the screen work – excellent for increasing battery life!
wifi – much much MUCH better reception than either the powerbook or ibook – big improvement
graphics – i’m all photoshop (www.digitaltriathlon.com) and not moving images, and i’ve found everything great. with the increased screen contrast this marks a big improvement in the powerbook
ram – man this needs it. upgrade immediately – i put in 2gb from http://www.macsales.com (cheaper than apple store)
heat – it’s not cool….not sure if this is normal, but i’ll watch it over time
magnet latch – i don’t like it – it’s cool and all that but it’s nearly been dropped a couple of times – one of those things that you learn how to carry it
cable – clever idea and i like the “baby proof” nature of it having a couple of small kids
everything else is good – hope that helps
Eirik Øverby on July 14th, 2006 at 12:27 am
Hoi,
just wanted to drop in and mention that my wife just got a MacBook 2ghz, and with 1.5gb memory Aperture flies. We have a 55GB library, with about 30% (in numbers) RAW and the rest JPG. Working with images is a breeze, the stacks function is just great, louping and scrolling to compare images is a wonderful thing, and adjustments etc. take .. about the time I’d expect.
And to add some objectivity to the mix: When mounting the same Aperture library on my MacBook Pro, the experience is the same. Even when doing heavy and fast-paced work, I can’t say I notice any difference between the two.
Note that I’m using an external 1600×1200 screen – whether Aperture would complain about the resolution on the MB I don’t know, but I couldn’t care much less. It runs on the internal screen if it has to, that’s the important thing.
/Eirik
Him on January 15th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Well now there’s that 3.0 pound alumnium labtop that came out about 6 hours ago. Expensive but really good features it looks like.
scott on April 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I have a MacBook, my first. How do I move cursor to beginning and to end of a document in Mac:Word from a keyboard that has no Home or End keys?
(Command+appropriate arrow key moves cursor to beginning and end of line.)
Thanks,
Scott
Cely on June 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Hello I need help I have a macbook bought this 2008 in pasadena calif but im in mexico so im not really familiarized cause here its all pc windows the most, how can i get de “ñ” or al letters used in spanish language? in mac is there a character map like in windows?
what is aperture for? where is it?
I think I have many questions so can anybody help me in the msn messenger please?
thanks
celia
inlakech @ live .com. mx
MacMatte on August 3rd, 2009 at 5:50 pm
There’s a detailed petition at http://macmatte.wordpress.com which is a blog format so that petitioners can leave detailed submissions, as lengthy as they want, to make their case to Apple about why matte screens are needed. So far, there are around 480+ petitions at the MacMatte website.