2008-10-15
Obligatory MacBook Post
After seven years of white plastic and five of aluminium, Apple’s laptop range has been unified under a new shiny banner. The MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro now share a design language, with aluminium bodies, black keys and and black-under-glass screens.
Rather than joining the chorus of people pontificating on the machines without seeing them, I took the opportunity to drop into the Apple Store on Regent Street and have a look. I’d been sceptical about the new style, twittering grumbles about it all day yesterday, but I must say that in the flesh (metal?), the 13” MacBook does look better than the previous generation. The body uses tapering, albeit not as aggressively as the Air, which makes it feel thinner, as does the lack of a border.
The screen, however, does seem a lot more reflective even than my white MacBook’s screen, let alone my matte 15” MBP. It’s difficult to judge in a shop, of course, but I do think that you’ll need to be a bit careful with lighting. On the other hand, Apple seem to have a clear belief that this is what the market wants, and they’re probably right. I dare say it’ll be another case of adapting once I have to.
One thing that didn’t take adapting to was the trackpad. I used the computer for about five minutes (waiting for Spore to download, which was futile, as it needs admin rights to install) and it was only after that time I suddenly looked down and realised “wait, there’s no button here”. I suspect that if you don’t think about it, it’ll be fine.
A surprise was how many people were using the new easy-access bottom panel design. I saw two staff members and three or four members of the public open it up to look at the battery and easily-removable hard drive. It’s odd that this seems to be a selling point, but it seems it is. (Personally I like the single-dividing-line aesthetic of it, but then I’ve always had a thing for clean laptop undersides. Apparently, I’m not alone in this.)
I had a quick look at the ports, but Sven-S. Porst’s post about the lack of FireWire and the many display adaptors in Apple’s past probably says everything I’d want to say. The new laptop-oriented display isn’t in stores yet, and I didn’t see the bumped MacBook Air (but I don’t think their external appearance has changed anyway), so nothing to add there either.
Overall, I think that Apple will have a hit on their hands with the MacBook; enough of one to compensate for it being harder to persuade people to make the leap to the Pro now. (It’s amazing how different the situation is from late 2003, when I got my PowerBook G4; iBooks then were very different from their grown-up cousins, but the last five years have seen steady gradual reductions in that gap, to the extent that now there’s little to choose other than screen size). Personally, I’ll wait, but I suspect a lot of people won’t.
