I hope they add the firewire back at some point

Same here. I guess I'll be holding onto my old MacBook for a while, not that I was really planning on replacing it, but lack of Firewire is a deal-breaker for me (need it for Duet).

What was his stance on Blu-Ray?

This is what AppleInsider said about it...

"Blu-ray is a bag of hurt. I don

Haha, I've seen a lot of whining by these designers you mention today too. If color perfection is as important to them as all that I can't imagine why they'd be using a laptop's on-board LCD to begin with. Surely something like NEC's ultra-wide color gamut LCDs would be a better choice. I do personally find the glare a pain, but it's nothing to do with color. I just use my laptop in rooms with windows behind me. Definitely easier to just put up with it than expect Steve Jobs to change his mind though like you say. It's not just Apple either. These glossy screens appear to be dominating the lines of various laptop makers these days.

Heh. We are a stubborn bunch. Despite the reputation for being open minded and unique, once most have been taught something, its pointless to question them. I had to put up with it for 4 years myself.

They make pan tones for a reason.

i think i'm going to have to drop off the macintosh forums for a week or so, because i'm sick of explaining to supposed "designers" doing "color-critical design work" (on laptops in bright rooms, no less!) that screens that don't have an anti-glare coating are actually inherently more accurate than screens that do, because in order for the anti-glare coating to work, it inevitably distorts and dulls what you're seeing, and that the glossy screens (and that of the new MB/MBPs, assuming that the glass is sufficiently clear for our purposes [which it most likely is, as properly made optical glass can be made with much greater transparency than textured plastic film]) only appear to have a "gamma skew," or some such nonsense, because the reflection of ambient light affects our perception of what is being displayed, and that, in a dark room, which is the proper environment for any work that requires careful color matching (ambient light plays with the human ability to recognize color differences, even when your computer monitor has a matte coating), the non-treated screens can be ever so slightly better calibrated than the treated ones, given sufficiently accurate calibration tools.

many can't seem to understand that this is simply the way the world works: all things being equal (which is attempted by removing other sources of light), the screen with the fewer layers between the physical representation of the image being displayed and your eyeballs is the one that will be more absolutely accurate. perception is not reality, and whining never changed Steve Jobs' mind.

Well if accurate color matching was the highest concern there would be a lot more expensive CRTs in use and everyone would own a spider. Course that would make a lousy laptop.

If you can't handle teh glossy oh noes, Amazon has the previous $2,500 Macbook Pro on sale for $1794 plus $150 mail-in rebate.

Gratuitous beaver internals shot.

Well if accurate color matching was the highest concern there would be a lot more expensive CRTs in use and everyone would own a spider. Course that would make a lousy laptop.

Use a SpyderPro2 every two weeks on mine...

Hope my laptop is ready this week...

Good article on updates here:

Top 10 things you didn't know about the new MacBook

FYI - Apogee just issued an official statement saying that both the Duet and Ensemble are fully Firewire 800 compatible:

With Apple's recent notebook announcements, Apogee would like to reassure its current and future customers of compatibility between new FireWire 800-equipped MacBook Pros and Apogee's Ensemble and Duet FireWire audio interfaces.

Connection between a "late-2008" MacBook Pro and Ensemble or Duet is made with a commonly available FW800 to FW400 adaptor or cable. The connection of Ensemble or Duet to a FW800 port is fully supported and in no way alters the performance of the interface.

They did not mention the complete lack of firewire on the Macbook, no shock there.

MacBook Pro Unibody First Look

Got my MBP back tonight. Spent 3 fucking hours pulling my hair out trying to connect to the internet. Whoever worked on it set the Security firewall to "Set Access For Specific Services & Applications" which forced my Mac to constantly pick 169. blah-blah-blah for an ip. They replaced the logic board and one of the memory sticks. When they brought out the bill I gave them the printout (thank you very much Hopstretch!) that Apple posted about repairing MBPs with video issues for free. They had to get the manager, but he said ok... no problem. Evidently they didn't know about the recall/fix. I was surprised about the memory stick going bad, but that might explain some issues I've had as of late.

Played around with a few of the new laptops. I still like mine, but I have to admit I kind of like the new keyboard. It's recessed down just a bit.

tomorrow, i am ordering a new mbp base model. decisions -- should i upgrade the ram to 4gb and hd to 7200?

tomorrow, i am ordering a new mbp base model. decisions -- should i upgrade the ram to 4gb and hd to 7200?

I'd suggest doing the upgrades yourself, as Apple anally rapes you on upgrade costs. Especially since you can easily upgrade HD on MBP now.

In my experience the midlevel upgrade from apple isn't that bad a deal. Pushing the upgrades to the extreme did seem like a bad deal.

it only costs $150 for the ram upgrade and $50 for the hd. i think buying and tossing or reselling those parts might cost a little bit more plus the work.

it only costs $150 for the ram upgrade and $50 for the hd. i think buying and tossing or reselling those parts might cost a little bit more plus the work.

I guess the upgrade costs are lot better than it used to be. At that cost, yeah, it would be much easier to have it installed from the get-go. Actually, $150 for 320gb/7200 isn't a bad deal either.

Everything is up and running. I have Vista installed with a 32 gb partition. All my office software is running.

Now the problem. When I play music ether through internet or itunes using my go-vibe dac is garbled as if slowing down every minute or two. This didn't happen with my other computer using the same dac. Any ideas?

The problem with the sound in Vista on the new MacBook is caused by a conflict with the driver for the wireless adapter. The problem was eliminated when I disabled the wireless adapter and connected to my network via ethernet. Hopefully, there will be a fix in the near future although as long as I can connect with ethernet, it won't be a problem for me.

Why are you using Vista to play music on your Macbook?

Why are you using Vista to play music on your Macbook?

He needs the WinOS to run his firm's client software if I'm remembering things correctly.

Mr. Maher is correct. In the office I run Vista for my case management software. When I am out of the office I boot in OSX. With the wireless adapter disabled and the mac connected by ethernet, no problems with skipping. Problem solved.

I am pretty impressed with the macs ability to run Vista.

I get it. Glad you resolved it.

New MBP to triple-interface external HD via Oxford bridge. Suggests that lack of FW400 isn't a massive performance issue for the standard MB, although it's still a pisser from a peripherals point-of-view.