New Apple notebooks

[Dan Euritt]

osx has finally given the mac platform the professional operating system that it's never really had before, and that is very interesting... but it still limits you to less than 10% of the software apps that are on the market right now, so it's not a viable alternative for me.

software is what sells hardware.

i need professional encoding software, which means that it has to be a windows o.s., and dvdsp is the only compelling reason i can think of to throw away 20 years worth of pc software licenses... edit and encode on the pc, author serious dvd's on the mac... so it's the dual-boot capability that's going to sell me on those new mac laptops, and even that will be contingent on how well dvdsp handles hi-def dvd creation in future releases... and whether or not there will ever be a pc dvd authoring app that can compare to dvdsp.

[Wayne Morellini]

Originally Posted by Dave Perry

Check out macrumors.com and macosrumors.com. The first one is better.

I did, checked macrumors, think secret, and appleinsider, didn't see anything about additional laptops?

Greg, pity that they only have one button for their mouse, 3 would be better, with options for 5 or seven (the manufacturer of one of my mice, makes eight button wireless, with track ball on top, and optical mouse underneath). Another thing is the location of the menu bar, if it could be location and window location sensitive, it would be better. I don't need to select a window then go to the bare and select the options back and forwards, whats wrong with the bar on the window, you select which window and option in one click.

Do any of these cheap laptops ship with an office suite and other software, surely that is something to way upto against Ilife (and the OS upgrades to fixed and enhanced versions of XP are free)?

So there are other compensations, and Apple could do he same. But I agree that Mac OSX is better, just wish it was smaller. Maybe they could make the BSD support optional, with optional Linux support, I understand that takes up a good deal of the space? If Apple wanted a truly revolutionary OS with a virtual engine to match (rather then all this dated Free OS stuff) there is an very efficient, very compact, option on the market at the moment, called "Intent" by Taos systems). They have some Open media format group which has many major consumer electronics manufacturers signed, some of which are also shareholders in Taos. The size is a fraction of other modern OS systems, and the efficiency more, and the speed probably too (this is an educated guess at the moment).

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

Greg, pity that they only have one button for their mouse, 3 would be better

The Macs have worked fine with 3 button mice for years now, they just don't ship with one. Buy the 3rd party mouse of your choice and use 3 buttons and scroll wheels to your heart's content...

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

The Macs have worked fine with 3 button mice for years now, they just don't ship with one. Buy the 3rd party mouse of your choice and use 3 buttons and scroll wheels to your heart's content...

I did exactly what Boyd said when I bought my iMac last year. I went straight over to the accesories aisle and picked out a 5 button Microsoft bluetooth mouse. It has OSX drivers and I can customize the mouse speed and program the buttons as well. The main side button is programmed to bring up dashboard and one of my widgets has stock quotes. At anytime during the day I want to check on stock prices, I just press my right thumb to show it, then again to make it disappear.

Right-clicking the mouse is the equivalent of command-click which essentially does the same thing that Windows does. It brings up a contextual menu.

Dan,

It may be DVDSP for you, but for me it was LiveType. I can't find a Windows app anywhere that does what this software does. I can even create my own livetype fonts if I want to take the time to do it.

You probably already know this, but DVDSP can already author HD DVD material. Speculation is that the forthcoming Powermac tower replacement might include a Blu-Ray burner so that would cover whichever format emerges for HD content delivery. If that happens, I would expect a patch or upgrade for DVDSP that would author Blu-Ray as well.

The 10 percent of the available apps is going to become a moot issue now that the Intel based Macs will boot into Windows. I saw Canon running their Windows only Console software on an iMac at NAB. Cindy, from Canon, told me that the program 'just flew' runnning on that system.

-gb-

[Ben Bixby]

I've been a PC fan boy for quite some time now, learning more and more everyday... but after the past few months working fluently with iMacs and G5 Macs, I can honestly say they are better for what I do. Now I was quite skeptical about getting a Mac until I found renewed confidence in Bootcamp and XP (as I want to run Sony Vegas Video and Battlefield 2 AHEM.... I mean, um, other cool programs.... hehe). I just ordered my new 17" Macbookpro, which should arrive at my doorstep in a week and a half.

Will be FAT32 paritioning the HDD and installing Windows XP as well as my Windows based programs. Will also be installing some Crucial 1 gig sticks of memory. So far from all the benchmarks, reviews, and personal experience with them at the store, it looks and will be phenomenal. Just need Microsoft to come out with a better Virtual PC later this year...

[Marco Wagner]

Hmmm, love BF2 -tee hee.

Be aware of the 4GB file size limit on FAT32.....

[Wayne Morellini]

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

The Macs have worked fine with 3 button mice for years now, they just don't ship with one. Buy the 3rd party mouse of your choice and use 3 buttons and scroll wheels to your heart's content...

Sounds good guys, but carrying around a mouse with your single button laptop is not my idea of fun (I had to do that with an old notebook once). I wonder if additional buttons are available as a stick on accessory?

[Andrew Khalil]

I really don't get the "it only has one button" argument. Sure, I admit I thought the same thing but after a week of using Mac, you really do get used to only having one button and it isn't a big deal in any way.

[Dylan Couper]

Originally Posted by Harrison Murchison

There's a synergy to Macs that PC users just don't quite understand yet.

Is it like the people who still drive old VW Beetles? You know, the ones that are overpriced, underpowered, break down all the time, and really only survive because of the "cool" factor?
I've diven VW Beetles. They do look cool, but I'd rather own a real car.

However, I *AM* glad Apple is finally putting out a product in black. Maybe people will start to take them seriously as professional products now.

(ok, THAT was a joke!) ;)

[Wayne Morellini]

Originally Posted by Andrew Khalil

I really don't get the "it only has one button" argument. Sure, I admit I thought the same thing but after a week of using Mac, you really do get used to only having one button and it isn't a big deal in any way.

That is why birds and rats can live their lives is a cage, they don't know better. Another interesting illustration, that apparently somebody did, they put fleas in a jar, the fleas normally jump high enough to jump out, but they put a lid on, and the fleas kept hitting the lid, ding ding ding, until they hit it less and less. After a number of days, they learned to stop jumping so high, and the lid could be taken off, and the fleas would no longer jump out. Yes, an extra button comes in useful sometimes when one is too awkward, I prefer five for really special occasions.


I checked that other site that Dave mentioned, and got an rumor gold mine on new products:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=68128

I have not seen other rumor sites reporting on this information, which makes me a little suspect. It was going in Area51 anyway.

Thanks

Wayne.

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

Sounds good guys, but carrying around a mouse with your single button laptop is not my idea of fun (I had to do that with an old notebook once). I wonder if additional buttons are available as a stick on accessory?

Wayne,

Wouldn't you be carrying your laptop in a protective case anyway? Just an FYI, here is the mouse I use with my laptop. Granted, my laptop is a Windows laptop, but the guy who turned me on to it was using it with his Apple Powerbook. The price shown on their website is full msrp. I got mine for a little over $30USD at a big box store.

If you currently have any laptop, I still recommend this mouse. Smaller, but fully functional.

-gb-

[Evan C. King]

Originally Posted by Wayne Morellini

Sounds good guys, but carrying around a mouse with your single button laptop is not my idea of fun (I had to do that with an old notebook once). I wonder if additional buttons are available as a stick on accessory?

If your using the new macbook or 17" macbook pro, you can tap with one finger on the track pad for left click and two fingers for right click.

or

You press on the button below the trackpad for left click and
if you press the button with two fingers on the trackpad it counts as a right click.

Either one works and they aren't too hard.

Unfortunately they haven't added that functionality to the 15" macbook pro, hopefully a future firmware update will.

But yeah if you want a macbook or 17" macbook pro you've got something as good as a right click and trust me it's not hard to do, I personally prefer tapping the trackpad to clicking buttons.

[Wayne Morellini]

Thanks, sounds good, if a bit indirect. Standard old digitisers would not be able to differentiate between one or two fingers in the past, so either they do now and an upgrade would work, or its just the 17inch model. Still prefer multiple buttons for games though.

So, I might be buying a Apple laptop after all, if the rumors of the gaming Macbook come in cheap, or the thin with GPU (the latter the ATI model though boys, the better for GPU programming support).