well, it turns out that my prediction might have come true about hardware acceleration in the extra GPU. Macbook Pro owners with the dual video card will get to take advantage of OpenCL and offloading tasks to the GPU when snow leopard rolls out. Of course it says, limited to the 9400M card only but then later in the article says that it supports both cards thats found in my macbook pro. So that is a little confusing.
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/06/10/snow-leopard-h-264-hardware-acceleration-and-opencl-requirements/ Either way, with a $29 price tag and an extreme performance increase, I am very excited for Snow Leopard. I'll probably pony up for the $49 fee for the family pack since I own a couple of Intel macs.
Also, I must say I know that I am in the minority here, but it totally SUCKS, SUCKS, SUCKS, about what they did with the new line of laptops! I was so pissed when I saw the new models come out. Here are my gripes with explanations:
1 - This is the main issue. Why get rid of the expresscard port?
Ok, so as someone who owns the EX1. I absolutely love being able to throw in my SxS card and have it rip down all the footage screamingly fast! I can understand that they wanted to go to SD cards which is the most popular by far. I commend them on adding that. But really, the design should have been able to incorporate both expresscard and SD slots. My reasoning for this is that ports were limited before because of the removable battery and HDD compartment. BUT they went to a fixed battery....something else i'm not keen on, but would allow for more ports because of not having the big door on the back. I believe they even gave that as a reason that the 17" was able to have 3 USB ports instead of two. On top of that, i know they didn't change the 17" because they would really be shooting themselves in the foot since it just came out. I'm sure they'll remove the expresscard slot next go around on the 17" model. But really, what requires more to lug around an SD reader or Expresscard Firewire 800 adapter? Get what I mean?
2 - Fixed Battery
Basically, they are giving their laptops less life. Smart for them to keep making money. Make it harder to refresh items that wear out in hope the customer will buy a whole new laptop instead of, say, a brand new battery. Couldn't they wait another year or so for Silver-Zinc batteries and make removable versions of that? Not only would they be able to have awesome batteries that last a long time per cycle and per battery life, but they still would be able to keep the whole green claim going. See this for more info:
http://www.zpowerbattery.com/ 3 - Release Cycles
For a long time they had long release cycles for their pro gear and now they are updating the lines every year? WHY? To me that devalues the product. I kind of understand why moving the 13" over helps because of the new product which I'll discuss later in the post.
4 - Moving the 13" over....NOT A GRIPE BUT...
The move to take the aluminum 13" Macbook, add a firewire port, and move it to the pro line kills two birds with one stone. They fix their own screw up of removing firewire after enough people bitched about it, and they also give people a smaller more portable configuration for on the go creatives which many people have been requesting since the days of the 12" laptop. Although my 15" is just fine and I don't get why people want smaller than that....FCP is already somewhat cramped on the 15" model. I couldn't imagine editing on a 13" model. Moving the 13" model also helps shift the focus on them being wrong for removing firewire.
SO NOW FOR MY NEWEST PREDICTION...
The plastic macbook is the only macbook now, which they will probably kill off in lieu of some kind of larger simpler tablet device to compete with netbooks and such but way better. Think ipod touch with bluetooth, front facing webcam, USB ports etc. I think that is why they are maturing the iphone OS so much. Think 10" iphonish type device. With all that could be done from that OS, honestly for the browsing, email, word processing(think google docs) etc., that is all most people would need and everybody would have something really nice and portable. Notice how price point didn't really change from the name change of the 13". This will also give more distinction on their model lines. If you need something more than an elegant simple tablet device to do basic home stuff.....then go to the Pro Laptop line which offers many price points. I'm thinking the new device should be somewhere around $750-$1000.
FINALLY, WHAT I AM REALLY WAITING FOR AND APPLE NEEDS TO HURRY UP WITH...
Final Cut Studio 3. Why? Because of the After Effects killer that is supposed to be motion. Motion is a good program (minus crashes), but is limited. The ease of use and power it offers is amazing....but as everyone knows, can't come close After Effects. After Effects, has become stagnant though, It's roughly been the same program with features piling up. This upcoming Motion is rumored to take everything great from shake and everything great from Motion and create a revolutionary product. Coming from Avid DS, I am a big fan of Node based compositing. Mixing all things motion, such as a decent timeline, a 3D interface as well as easy to use Library of items with Shake's powerful Node based compositing will win me over to go all apple for video. Also, full revamp of Color. Color and Shake were not original apple programs. They were programs from other companies which apple took over. So giving a consistent UI and revamping the technology to their standards will be nice. Honestly, I'd rather see them incorporate all of Color into the new motion and kill the idea of having ANOTHER program to send your work to. Color Correction to me is really something that should be done along with compositing. Anyways, the new Motion coming out should be REVOLUTIONARY!
One last note.....
I may gripe but don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on apple. I'm quite the opposite, usually what people call a mac zealot, but I do question some of their decisions.
-Nate
P.S.- And why can't we get the antiglare screen from the 17" MBP's on the new 15's and 13's?
LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS............
(Message edited by iamnathanhudson on June 10, 2009)
(Message edited by iamnathanhudson on June 10, 2009)
Threaded Mode