Tech Goes Boom

MacWorld 2006 Reactions

Here's my take on the new Intel Macs:

MacBook Pro:

Bigger Brighter Screen - Always welcome.

ExpressCard - this looks like a big plus, but people with legacy PCMCIA cards are going to bummed.

No Firewire 800 - Yikes!

Faster - Real world speed is probably not going to be anywhere near 4x as fast, but it's going to be a huge leap from the G4 powerbooks.

Trackpad - Looks like they're using the trackpad from the 17“ powerbook on this guy. I don't like the wider trackpad myself, but I guess it keeps with the aspect ratio of the display better.

New Power Adapter - This is a big step forward. No more broken power adapter tips!

Built in iSight - Not sure how good the quality is, but this is a cool feature.

Remote - Another nice addition, especially if the remote will work with Keynote or Powerpoint. I can definitely see some 3rd party applications for remote controlling.

Video Card - 256MB of video ram in a laptop is a dream. This should really make dealing with pro apps a lot better.

The MacBook seems like a stopgap intel powerbook aimed mostly at mobile power users. I think there's a case change coming that will include a smaller replacement for the 12” and a revised 15“ and 17” at that time. That's my only explanation for why they wouldn't release a 12“ and 17” at the same time. Oh, and MacBook is a stupid name. I can't believe Apple's marketing group couldn't come up with something better. Was this a decision on the part of his Steveness?

Intel iMac:
Not a lot of new features here except for the new intel chips and new video chipset. I guess I'm surprised by how little performance has improved with the new chips. One has to wonder how the Intel Core Dual fares against a Dual Core G5. To be sure, the new iMac will be a lot faster than the G5 iMac, but most of that difference seems to come from the dual core more than the speed of the intel chip itself.

Given that observation, one has to wonder if the reason the G5 desktops haven't been replaced is because the Quad G5 currently smokes a dual Core Dual (say that 3 times fast) system, heat be damned.

Going forward, a lot is going to depend on how well applications take advantage of dual processors, and threading in general. Also, a lot of vendors are going to have to get their applications ported over to universal binaries to see those excellent speed benefits.

Over-all, it's a decent, if small start. I'm looking forward to seeing revised desktop machines this summer.