New Apple product rumours gain pace

It’s that time of year when anticipation of the Apple WWDC starts to grow. We already know that iPhone firmware V2 will be released in June, and now the much rumoured aluminium refresh of the Macbook has had its credibility boosted. MacRumors.com has some images found on a .Mac web page that show an aluminium Macbook as well as a redesigned Macbook pro. The Macbook looks much more expensive than the current range, so how will Apple separate the two price points in terms of spec? The graphics chip alone doesn’t seem like a big enough difference to justify the price jump so what other treats are in store for the Macbook Pro?

Multiple Apple updates

It’s Tuesday, and that means Apple have some product updates for us. It’s been getting to be a bit of a ritual since Macworld Expo, and this has to be the busiest Tuesday so far. First off is the Macbook update, which seems to have been overlooked on the rumour front, with the focus on the Macbook Pro getting a multi touch mouse pad. So the new models are:

• White 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo, 1GB ram, 120GB hard drive and Combo drive for £699
• White 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB ram, 160GB hard drive and DL SuperDrive for £829
• Black 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB ram, 250GB hard drive and DL SuperDrive for £949

Nothing different on the design front, just updated processors, memory and hard drives for the same price. The Macbook Pro gets a more substantial update, with the arrival of the much discussed multi touch trackpad and LED backlights. Also new is the Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT with 256Mb or a rather stingy 128Mb. The full updates spec and prices are:

• 15 inch with 1440 x 900 resolution, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, 200GB hard drive, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 128MB SDRAM for £1,299
• 15 inch with 1440 x 900 resolution, 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, 250GB hard drive, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 256MB SDRAM for £1,599
• 17 inch with 1680 x 1050 resolution, 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, 250GB hard drive, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 256MB SDRAM for £1,799

Today’s final update is the iPhone/iPod Touch 1.1.4 firmware. Reports so far suggest very little new has been added over the recent 1.1.3 firmware, with just a few bugs being fixed. As usual, wait a few days for the jailbreaks to be tested and released before upgrading.

WiFi woes with 10.5.2

Until yesterday my Macbook sat next to a 20 inch monitor, keyboard and mouse acting as my main computer. With the success of my new DIY Mac I unplugged all of that with the intention of finally using it around the house as originally intended. This was the first time I tried using a wireless network connection since upgrading to 10.5.2, and to my surprise it no longer works. I currently have two wireless routers in occational use, an old Benq 802.11b AWL500 and a belkin Pre-N F5D8230-4 v2. The Belkin router is now invisible to my Macbook, and although the Benq can be seen and I cannot connect to it unless I disable the wep security. Not an advisable practice. So I no longer have a wireless Macbook.

There’s a huge list of users suffering the same problems in Apple’s support forums, along with the usual fanboys and ‘experts’ denying it’s related to the software update. So lets put it like this. Every other piece of WiFi equipment I have, including an iPod Touch, can still see and connect to both wireless routers. The Macbook cannot. Still not sure? I made a backup of 10.5.1 to an external USB hard drive before upgrading. I just booted from that, and wireless networking is back.

Hackintosh part 6

After yesterday’s post I had a working 10.5.1 system with my applications and home folder copied from a backup drive. Everything looked to be where it should when I logged in so I started the testing.

The first app I tried was iMovie 08. I know it’s had a lot of flack from the iMovie HD purists, but I find it a lot easier and quicker to use than the last version. So what if it doesn’t have themes? The speed of editing means I don’t put off making the holiday videos due to the time it takes. The biggest issue was running iMovie 08 on my Macbook. Even maxed out with 2Gb of memory the editing process wasn’t smooth. It’s fine with standard video from a miniDV camcorder, but I treated myself to a Sanyo Xacti HD2 last year before a holiday in Florida. The camera was light and easy to carry around all day and took 7 megapixel photo’s and 720p HD video (that’s 1280×720). The Macbook hardware just struggled to handle that resolution of video. Playback had lots of stuttering and spinning beach ball delays.

Who makes my next Computer?

It’s the time of year when I take a look at my computer and ask if I want to upgrade anything. My Macbook (first generation 1.83Ghz) has been fairly solid for the year and a half since I got it. Sudden shutdowns were the biggest problem, and after six weeks of use it was off to Apple for a mystery repair. Apple said they replaced a cable and a bracket but the machine came back with a different hard drive as well. Around six months ago the dying battery was replaced for free, but then half the world seems to have suffered from defective batteries.
The source of this latest round of upgrade angst is Geekbench. It’s a processor benchmarking program that lets you compare processor performance in any supported operating system. I tested the VideoPC (Windows XP, Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz) and got a result of 1560. The Macbook was a surprise (Mac OS 10.5.1, Core Duo 1.83Ghz) returning 2304. I still use the VideoPC for a range of video editing tasks, but it’s a noisy power hungry beast. If the Macbook is 50% faster I would be better served moving all my work to the Macbook. especially since UK energy prices are going through the roof.