MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Sep 15, 09 - 04:07 pm Comment from: breeze

just like clockwork

Sep 15, 09 - 04:07 pm Comment from: 84 Mac Guy

Without rumors and wild-ass guesses what would technical reporters do? Oh, I know, they would become journalists.

Hopefully this will include the rumored prosumer video-focused iMac. Even if it doesn't, my kids' homework reqirements are beginning to outgrow my beloved eMac.

Mac users dont need or want netbooks, We have our iPhones and iPod Touches. Now a properly designed and lightweight touchbook with amazing handwriting recognition would be worthwhile. Also Apple knows better than to try to compete with bargain priced notebooks. Macbooks are of such higher quality and capability. Yes the Macbook needs a refresh, but not much of one, mostly just a hardware update and a packaging refresh to slim it down and make the battery last longer. Who smells an incorporated battery ala the Macbook Air?

I believe it. A few months back I was at my job bartending and a gentleman that worked for Apple Education came through town. He had lunch at the bar and we started talking about Macs. At the time I had a G4 PowerMac and was talking about getting something new but wanted to get through the summer to see what they were gonna release for fall back-to-school and the holiday season. He wouldn't say much except that if I could hold out until October, I'd have a "good chance" of seeing something new.

Just as good as all these "unnamed sources" lately...

Why does MDN insist on calling Windows 7 a Vista service pack, while not referring to Snow Leopard as a Leopard service pack? And no, I'm not a Microsoft shill as I write this from my Mac Pro. It just seems, childish...

Sep 15, 09 - 04:27 pm Comment from: cptnkirk

@Ronin

Because . . . Apple calls it a new version of OS X and sells it for $29 and it really is a new version with new features and made my MBP seem like a new machine and Windows sells W7 for many times more money and it's really just a re-skinning of Vista with a few (not many) 'borrowed' features from older Mac OSes.

Sep 15, 09 - 04:36 pm Comment from: HMCIV

@Ronin

Remember. Snow Leopard is merely a jump from 10.5 to 10.6.

Windows Marketing department is jumping from Vista (or Windows 6) to Windows 7 while claiming it's worth several hundred dollars. In reality there's very little architecture change, just a few fixes and updates to the core Vista OS. RoughlyDrafted.com did a fairly thorough comparison a while back if you want all the gory details.

Come on USB3!

Sep 15, 09 - 04:44 pm Comment from: TowerTone

Without rumors and wild-ass guesses what would technical reporters do? Oh, I know, they would become journalists."

one word-
National Enquirer.....

Does this mean quad core iMacs & Macbook Pros?

"in the next several weeks."?????
Wow man, did you use a super computer to get that exact date? I almost can see the seconds and the nanoseconds in the count down. lol

Sep 15, 09 - 05:03 pm Comment from: macslut

Just a thought, but maybe new Intel chips = new Macs.

Sep 15, 09 - 05:07 pm Comment from: Erk

new intel chips, time to finally upgrade this white intel iMac!

Sep 15, 09 - 05:13 pm Comment from: Harvey

Steve Ballmer said that "Windows 7 is Vista done right." That means that Windows 7 is not a service pack, it is an apology. When was the last time anyone charged you to receive their apology?

New Intel chips = a Mac refresh, true, but Snow Leopard adds a lot of stuff that current Macs can barely take advantage of. I wouldn't be surprised to see a revision of the product line to bring the hardware in line with Snow Leopard.

Sep 15, 09 - 05:14 pm Comment from: ken1w

New iMacs? Unlikely, but since the existing external design has been around for a while, I suppose it is possible as a headline-grabbing media-manipulation marketing ploy at about the time of the Windows 7 release. And just before the holiday shopping really gets started. It would be cool if it happens.

Sep 15, 09 - 05:19 pm Comment from: ninetimesoutoften

Usual time of year for a speed bump anyway, not exactly a leap of logic. New mobile chips, Christmas shopping period, end of back-to-school surge....

New design? Aluminium iMacs are only 2 years old and Apple has only just finished completing the migration of other form factors to the same Al and glass look (white MB excepted) so why would they jump so soon?

Boring, next amateur Nostradamus please.....

Sep 15, 09 - 05:21 pm Comment from: Harvey

@ HMCIV

In Apple's numbering scheme, 10 is the name of the operating system, 6 is the release, and 1 is what Microsoft would call a service pack. If we take out the redundant 10, Snow Leopard is OS X 6.1

Microsoft has marketing names that vary from the actual version numbers. The numbering for NT began with 3, to stay parallel with the old code base. We had NT 3.1, NT 4, and then the marketing names took off in another direction. NT 5.0 was called Windows 2000; NT 5.1 was called Windows XP, NT 6.0 was called Vista. Windows 7 identifies itself as Windows 6.1.

So in reality, Snow Leopard is a major release, while Windows 7 is a dot release. Or to put it poetically, Windows 7 is the same hog with new pearls, only the hog has been working out, so it is faster. OS X, then, is a new hog with the same pearls, except they replaced the hog with a race horse and polished the pearls.

Sep 15, 09 - 05:44 pm Comment from: Shadowself

New iMacs and MacBooks now, or in the next month or so, would be foolish.

Intel's new mobile chips will start "revenue" shipments in the fourth quarter (an official statement from Intel) and true volume shipments early in the first quarter of next year. Apple's next iMac and Macbook should use those new chips rather than update now using old chip designs and update again in six to nine months. Just update right after the first of the year (maybe late January). Besides, it has not been THAT long since the last update. Without a major architecture change (such as Intel's coming chips) why update now?

Maybe a minor refresh to bring back the matte screen to iMacs and 13" MacBook Pro. There's plenty of Mac users waiting for this, as you can tell from the 500+ petitions (and counting) at http://macmatte.wordpress.com petition site.

Sep 15, 09 - 05:53 pm Comment from: auramac

I fully expect new iMacs soon, probably quad-core, though non-glossy option would also lure my credit card into action. As for Macbooks, how about new 15" Pros with matte and Express card options? Though, I personally have decided upon new iMac and next Touch with video camera, if ever.

Sep 15, 09 - 06:07 pm Comment from: Deus Ex Technica

I certainly could imagine a new iMac with an LED display (not LED backlit, but LED pixels). That would be gloriously thin and cool.

Does the iMac need to get thinner? Nope. It needs better internals.

Sep 15, 09 - 06:22 pm Comment from: ken1w

@ Deus Ex Technica

LED pixels. LOL. I hope you were joking around.

It would look like one of those vintage toys where you push colored translucent pins into a dark background that is lit from behind, to create an image. Forget what it was called...

Sep 15, 09 - 06:49 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

WHAT?! No iTablet?!

Sep 15, 09 - 06:50 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

What I want to see in new Macs:

FireWire 3200. The standard is now a year old. So implement it already!

part of the confusion about service packs is that MS releases a service pack every year or two, maybe only 2 or 3 services packs total for a new OS rev. This is close to Apple's major release period.

Apple releases 8 or more "service packs", a new one every couple of months, for every major OS rev. There are bugs that need fixing and eventually they do get fixed.

Snow Leopard is a major rev. Most of the code was rewritten and while it looks much the same, that is by design. Look for new forward facing features in 10.7. The result is that it is smaller, faster than it's predecessor. This doesn't happen in Windows-land.... EVER. Further, the Mac will get even faster once the app developers incorporate the new behind the scenes features of Snow Leopard. Because of the lack of forward facing features, it is being marketed at less cost than a typical major OS upgrade, mostly to get most everybody (with an Intel Mac anyway) on board as quickly as possible. The low cost sparks the claim that it is a service pack, but it is so much more than service pack bug fixes.

Win 7 is a hybrid between a service pack and a major OS rev. It's primary purpose is to fix the things that were done so badly in Vista, hence a service pack. It is marketed as a "new" OS though, but after reading about it, I don't see much that is all that new except cleaning up some menus, the UAC and adding yet more eye candy (in candy colors no less). It won't be smaller, faster and less expensive than Vista. After using Vista for just one afternoon, it became painfully obvious that it needed some major fixes. It was a journey down the wrong path. It appears that Windows 7 will not vary much from that same path.

- gws

Sep 15, 09 - 07:26 pm Comment from: Cubert

@Harvey and HMCIV,
Ballmy said a while ago that Winblows 7 is Fista SP1 with a new GUI. At least they can admit it.

No USB 3.0.
No Clarkdale CPUs.
No LED displays.
No deal.

I'm tired of waiting for significant improvements for regular Mac users. The time is NOW!. Get hoppin', Apple.

Sep 15, 09 - 09:01 pm Comment from: nekogami13

@new or better- enjoy your Dell dude.

USB 3 is a new spec, they just recently got the standards approval board set up.
No motherboards support it and according to manufacturers- pc built now will only support around 50% of it's full capacity.
Give USB 3 a year-then let's adopt it.

It's now like New Tide at Apple. Didn't the New MacBook Pros just get released?

Sep 15, 09 - 09:32 pm Comment from: Mr. Reeee

@kenw1... Lite-Brite! I had one!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lite-Brite

http://huhinteresting.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/lite-brite.jpg

nekogami wrote, "Give USB 3 a year-then let's adopt it."

Wait? Wait? Who wants to wait? Because you seem content with aging technology doesn't mean others aren't eager to replace USB 2.0 with a vastly superior design. Then again, maybe you like your Mac crippled and inferior - just like yourself.

I think predicting new iMac for the early fall season isn't any prediction at all. It has been long enough for Apple to refresh the iMac line even if just a little. Personally, i've been expecting to hear something like this any day now. So to me these guys are probably just looking for something to print and this October guess is probably not too far off target.

I agree with some of the other posters that the next refresh would/should likely include some significant new hardware specs and features that really emphasize the performance potential of Snow Leopard. I'm due for a new system soon but will definitely wait until the next significant hardware revision comes along on the iMac line. I'm hoping for at least quad core and an outrageous frontside bus, and outrageous video card. Of course coupled with an LED back lighted display on the iMac. Don't need a blue-ray but that would be cool too.

I'll buy 17" MacBook once it has quad-core processor, USB3 and Blu-ray. I guess we are not going to get all those yet. But hopefully in 1st half of next year.

I'm not a fan of Windows at all but I do have to use it as part of my job (you gotta make a living somehow) and Windows 7 really is an improvement over previous versions. And I think that credit should be given where credit is due. Otherwise, you're being disingenuous and lose your credibility. But, realistically, I never expect to see anything like that on this web site so carry on.

Sep 16, 09 - 12:36 am Comment from: Yours Smugly

Why do these people insist on talking out of their asses?

Sep 16, 09 - 12:38 am Comment from: Yours Smugly

Besides, everybody knows Apple never releases something just like that (well, maybe sometimes - the first MacBook for example). But usually, there's always a special event to go with the introduction, or MacWorld or WWDC.

The day after next Saturday will produce a huge fire ball in the sky. It will be forever know as Sunday. Mark my words.

That schedule works for a neighbor of mine. When her PC died, she asked my help to setup a spare PC she'd borrowed from another. When that one failed to hold a network connection, I loaned her my nine year old Powerbook ("Pismo"). She was so taken by it, she's now looking to buy a Mac notebook.

Possible for the iMac and 17" MacBook Pro if Apple uses the new (code name Clarksfield) Intel chips but unlikely for the smaller laptops until at least early next year.

Expect "thinner, organic design, likely with smoothed or rounded edges." In other words "Expect style over substance."

How much will a change in aesthetics cost? Too bad no sooper seekret photos or Photoshopped illustrations accompanied this rumor.

@ nekogami13,

USB 3.0 was demonstrated late 2007 and the specifications for this updated technology completed late 2008.

Why would you wait another year AFTER its release to consumers? I'm sure that the millions who purchased 10.6.0 wold be more than willing to update their hardware as well.