Shownotes:
Martin Sargent from Internet Superstar asked me to come on the show while I was in the Bay Area, so we headed to the Revision3 studios on our way out of town. That episode will drop next week. While I was there, I grabbed Patrick Norton from Tekzilla to chat about the Apple announcements. There’s a new generation of MacBook Pros, MacBooks, a new Cinema Display, and a few updates to the MacBook Air. We also talk about decision not to support Blu-ray.
There are two new 13″ MacBooks, and are available now. The 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo version is $1299. It has 2GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics Processor and the new glass Multi-touch trackpad. The 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo version is $1599. It has 2GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics Processor and the new glass Multi-touch trackpad.
The 2.4GHz, 15″ MacBook Pro is $1999. It has 2GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a SuperDrive, the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics Processor and the new glass Multi-touch trackpad. There’s also a 2.53GHz 15″. The 17″, 2.5GHz Pro is $2799, with 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, DVI output, the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics Processor and the new glass Multi-touch trackpad.
The MacBook Air also got an update with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics Processor.
A new Cinema Display was designed specifically to connect to the new MacBook/MacBook Pro line to use as an additional display, and will sell for $899.
You can save money on domain name registrations and renewals from GoDaddy.com with discount codes GB1, GB2 and GB3. For an explanation of each code, click here.
**UPDATE: By the way, we’ve had some major problems with broadband this week, so we had to hunt for a place with adequate upload speeds. 3G wasn’t doing it, and we finally found a Starbucks in Willow, California. The staff was very nice, and it only took about an hour to get everything up.
**UPDATE 2: The 17″ MacBook Pro is NOT the new design. It did get some updates, but the new design will come later. Thanks, Craig!
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October 15th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
About the New Mac Book Pro, Steve Jobs was saying the new screen design was of Higher resolution. The Specs. are (1440 by 900) for 15.4″ Display. but isn’t the Model it is replacing has (1920 by 1200) resolution. isn’t Last week’s Model better?
October 15th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Call me a “Fan Boy” but I was thrilled with the new notebooks and display from Apple. I have a 1 year old MPB and I still want a new one and the matching 24″ monitor. (Maybe an additional 24″ for home so I can dock it there as well.)
It seemed like your excitement was held in reserve as Patrick Norton expressed his opinions. I haven’t seen Patrick before (I need to get out more), but he seems like a PC that says he’s a Mac. As for me…. I’m all Mac… and who cares how expensive their hardware is…. it just keeps me from purchasing everything they come out with the day it launches. :)
Can’t wait to hear what you really think of all the new products when you’re back in your studio.
October 15th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I agree with Douglas in that there is no way to compare an Apple to any Windows PC. I buy an Apple because it works better and saves me time which is money. In the long run IMO buying better equipment and software saves money!
October 15th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Tekzilla and most of Rev 3’s show personalites pretty much suck except for Digg and the defunt Control-Alt-Chicken.
October 15th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
@Boots – What? Have you watched Patrick? I love the guy – he’s very talented. Same goes for Veronica.
@Douglas – my excitement was more reserved because I barely had a chance to take in the announcements. We were packing up and checking out of our hotel WHILE Steve was on stage, haha!
October 15th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
People like Douglas, Craig and Boots is what give Apple a bad name, instead of taking a product and judge it for what it is, they just close their mind and say Apple is great and who cares how expensive blah blah blah.
Douglas, How can you justify a 24in monitor for 800+ when similar or better spec can be purchase yesterday for 1/3 the price without the apple logo?
Graig, you say Apple saves you time which is money, sir this is 2008 and everybody know it is the sw that is what count, that photoshop will run as well on your generic Dell as your latest 1999 mbp and will works as well or bad.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Nice set!
Do you know the model and format of the cameras over there?
October 16th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Cali, I cannot believe you didn’t mention that the new MacBook doesn’t have FireWire anymore! I’m so disappointed. What were they thinking?
October 16th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Not supporting blue ray is typical for Apple, although I am surprised at the lack of firewire support. The IPhone only allows you to load apps from their app store. If they thought they could get away with it, the IPod would only allow you to load music from their store too. Apple is a closed system and likes to lock in their revenue stream where they can. Supporting blue ray just isn’t as good a money maker for them as their store.
Apple loves to overcharge for their hardware (the original IPhone was WAY overpriced) and once they have you locked in, they don’t like to let other hardware vendors put out hardware for their platform. The company relies on fanaticism, customer loyalty and to a large degree the anti-Microsoft factor from their user base to keep them going. An example was when OS X came out with 0 support for previous Apple software. No other company could get away with no support for previous software in their platform, but Apple users did not complain.
As for buying better software saves money, its interesting that the three most popular software titles on the Mac are Microsoft Office, Photoshop and Parallels. Parallels is used to run a Windows instance to run software that will not otherwise run on the Mac. None of the most popular applications on the Mac are produced by Apple.
I will most likely buy one of the new Mac books, as I like to have hardware I am likely to support (and Mac in businesses always requires a lot of support). I will stick with my quad core 64 bit pc for most of my real work though.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
@Cali – Patrick is alright. Just a little dry sometimes. He needs a RedBull.
I don’t care what he says about the new notebook lineup – I *JUST* got a 15 inch MacBook Pro and it kicks butt… and GeekBrief is the very first website I visited on it!
October 16th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I’ll reserve my final judgment until I actually play with one, but overall I’m not thrilled with some of the design, especially no option other then the glossy screen and the overall specs. I was quite disappointed there was no tablet announcement and Steve’s remark on touchscreens discouraged me more. I was ready to purchase a apple tablet, but if they don’t see a market for it I guess it’s not gonna happen.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
btw, Patrick might have some annoying little behaviors, but overall from all the shows I’ve seen him on, he’s the most unbiased tech reviewers I’ve seen. If you don’t like what he says that’s fine, but take a close look and see if he’s completely pulling it out of his ass or if what he says has merit. 9 times out of 10 he knows what he’s talking about.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
@tc I didn’t say I could justify it, only that I wanted it. :) However, I was a “PC” for 10 years, built my own computers,and was all of my friends tech guy for their computers. I know I personally have had less problems, and been 250% happier in my daily use of computers since I switched to Apple. In my mind, I can justify that.
@Cali… I had to take a business call in the middle of the announcement… very frustrating :) … your unboxing shoot was awesome!!!
October 17th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Hey Cali, This episode had your best lighting yet! Also the leather jacket is fab, should be standard issue for the GIA.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:09 am
wait…i didnt get what they said in one part…
Not having the _______ option…wat was that…(5:02)
October 18th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Apple isn’t choosing to offer the “matte” option anymore – for the screen.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:58 am
uhh they do offer the old displays still…
October 18th, 2008 at 11:09 am
I’m not familiar with Techzilla, but I thought the guy was biased against Apple. I had PCs for years and switched to a MacBook 2 years ago. Macs are more expensive, but the time you save by not having to deal with problems easily makes up for it. My PC friends/family waste HOURS dealing with issues. Yesterday I was using MS Office when suddenly it wouldn’t open and told me a bunch of technical stuff I had to do to solve the problem. Instead, all I did was remove Office then restore it with Time Machine. Problem solved in 5 minutes!!
Time is money too!!
As far as the new MacBooks…no firewire is a big mistake.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I don’t agree with a lot of Patrick’s opinions. I’m more towards the Apple Fanboy side. He’s seems more like a reluctant switcher.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I can understand Apple not including Blu-ray. The technology is littered with DRM and requires going through all sorts of DRM hoops in the hardware to even get a license. It’s so onerous that it is likely to make a system less stable.