Intel Macs Unleashed | Comments (7)
Posted in Apple on 11th January 2006, 7:31 pm by Stuart
I stayed up late last night watching the keynote to find out all of the juicy details about Apple’s latest announcements:
I like the idea of the new FM radio remote for the 5th Generation iPod and iPod Nanos. I’m guessing that this was something where the functionality was built in from day one, but Apple held back so they could release this add-on at a later date. It’s probably about time I bought an iPod as I’ve never owned one as yet!
The software within iLife ‘06 that relies on .mac I can’t get too enthusiastic about, though I can see that these tools make life a lot easier for your average Joe. I’ll be interested to see some examples of the code that iWeb outputs to find out whether the sites that it publishes are well put together.
The new Macbook Pro and the new iMac are packing a punch thanks to the move to Intel processors and Steve jobs mentioned that the iMacs are 2X faster and the MacBook Pro is 4X faster than their predecessors. I was fairly surprised to see that they look almost identical to their PowerPC counterparts but in a lot of ways this makes sense if the new Intel macs were physically very different from the previous versions this could have done more to upset anyone who purchased or received a mac for Christmas.
The big question for me is will these machines run Windows XP or will we have to wait until Windows Vista comes out before we see dual-boot Windows and OSX machines. The uncertainty comes from the fact that the new MacIntel machines use EFI instead of traditional BIOS. Apparently Windows XP doesn’t support this but Vista will. Until this issue is cleared up I will be holding off ordering one as the real attraction for me is not only the extra power but the ability to install Windows and Linux and to make the MacBook Pro the only machine I need. (Note to self: start saving for one now!).
Update: There’s a nice article over on engadget with more info on the issue of running windows on the new Intel Macs.
Update 2: If you were wondering about the ouput of iWeb like I was here’s your answer; iWeb’s HTML markup. Not so good.
From what I have read only Vista will work on the new Mac because the Apples use EFI - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface and XP doesn’t support that.
@Dennis: Yep I reckon you’re right but I think you’d overlooked the last paragraph of this post ; )
E que tal viver Moura? Fica aqui o convite. http://mouraviva.blogs.sapo.pt
I have a few mixed feelings about the some of the hardware features on the macbook pro - more raw power is great but I’m not sure if the mag-safe power connector is a good idea - it solves one problem but may create other ones if it disconnects too easily! Also losing the firewire800 connector - I’ve had a lot of cable problems with firewire800, but it’s got great bandwidth for external drives. It would be nice if apple added a second firewire400 port. I hope a 17" version is in the pipeline.
I wonder what the G5 replacement will be called - ‘powermac pro’?
@Dr Pixel: With the mag-safe connector at least it shouldn’t cause too many issues as switching to battery should be seamless. Not so good if you haven’t realised it’s fallen out and you’ve left it on all night though.
A 17" intel based mac laptop will be released in the not so distant future, it’s name really ought to be ‘The big mac’!
@Stuart: It’s for the all-night big final render with a deadline the next morning that the mag-safe would worry me - we all know murphy’s law…
Garrr, i’m drooling for the MAC Book Pro, particularly the Dual Core Processor since I’m also a Windows fan.