Technology MacBook Pro?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[mustangsally65]

I just saw Apple's homepage. I'm both shocked and amazed, entranced and a bit put-off.

While any new laptop introduction is great (built in iSight, sweet!), I don't like the name as much. MacBook? That doesn't flow right. What was wrong with PowerBook or iBook? Or even eBook? I'm sure it will grow on me, but my first gut-feeling is, that it makes me sad.

The new power cord looks great, I've been through three in the past three years because the cord is so small and it wears through with heavy use. My current power cord has electrical tape around it to keep it from shocking me.

A brighter display, 4x the speed of the G4 PowerBooks, and an illuminated keyboard. Now all it needs is a 12" version and I'll be buying.

"What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC."

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[16846]

I just want to know if it has a "Mighty Mouse" style trackpad (R&L click exist under what looks like one button) or it has the same ******ed one button mouse that would be useless for Windows. If it doesn't have R&L click, its useless for windows people.

 

[mustangsally65]

I just want to know if it has a "Mighty Mouse" style trackpad (R&L click exist under what looks like one button) or it has the same ******ed one button mouse that would be useless for Windows. If it doesn't have R&L click, its useless for windows people.

Hmmm. Well, I've made it 10 years without having a right and left click, so I don't think you're gonna die without it. That said, I didn't read much about the trackpad except that it has the scrolling where it's kind of like having a click-wheel. But if they have it in the Mighty Mouse, I don't see why they couldn't put it in the laptop's trackpad. Maybe in the next generation?

 

[southerndoc]

The MacBook Pro does look sweet. I want a 12" version!!

 

[notJERRYFALWELL]

I just ordered mine . I know its bad to get the first gen of something so different, but I couldn't resist. I'll post pics and such when I get it.

 

[mustangsally65]

I just ordered mine . I know its bad to get the first gen of something so different, but I couldn't resist. I'll post pics and such when I get it.

Ooooh, you'll have to keep us posted. Can't wait to hear about them.

A question for all of you in med school/applying to med school: if your school requires a PC that runs Windows, can they still tell us we can't use Macs since Macs will now seamlessly run Windows? I know Virtual PC has been out for a while, but I've never tried it. Do you think if I get accepted to a school that requires say a ThinkPad, as long as my laptop can run all the required programs can I get a Mac instead?

(Of course, I have to be accepted first, and I know it would be better to find out each individual school's policy on computers, but I was just curious. If i have to get a PC laptop then I won't be able to get one of the new Macs.

 

[Stroganoff]

What's the real reason for med schools requiring this or that laptop? I think it's ridiculous. Should be the student's responsibility to get something adequate, but computer conformity? That's when throats get slit.

 

[16846]

What's the real reason for med schools requiring this or that laptop? I think it's ridiculous. Should be the student's responsibility to get something adequate, but computer conformity? That's when throats get slit.

Reasons:

1) They know for sure that the software\hardware they want you to use will indeed be 100% compatible.

If they let students bring their own, they have an unknown number of configurations and potential ages for the varied hardware to deal with, and this is a worst case scenario for ensuring capability and compatibility.

2) No headache for IT

Since everyone will have the same hardware/software, this will significantly decrease the cost of having an IT department/having an IT contract with an outside company. It's much easier to restore or repair a system when you know exactly what the guts are as well as where everything should be. The staff only has to know one system or one set of systems. Also, since it’s easier to restore, students get systems back faster, which I'm sure they are happy about.

If someone brings you some really strange off-brand PC, with no restoration disks, and all the technical documentation is written in a foreign language using quatrains, it can literally take days upon days to get anywhere near figuring out what the problem is, let along fix it. That's a waste of a lot of resources and time.

3) Old Laptops = Scary, Nasty **** Living In It

Besides compatibility issues, you have no idea what is living in peoples laptops. Someone with a computer running Windows 98, that has never been patched, has no virus protection, no malware scanner, and no firewall could hook into your network and end up crashing everything and infecting everyone else with the motherload of all viruses, worms, trojans, and malware. IT departments worst nightmare.

4) Deal!

Bulk purchase of hardware allows them to get a discount, which they can pass on to the students. Students are usually poor, so any savings is usually appreciated. OTOH, they can get the discount and still sell them at the retail price to a captive audience and make more money, which is evil, but it’s also the nature of life.


There are many more, but these are the major ones. It’s easy to see why they do this, even if students don't like it. If you want your tuition to go up so they can cover the additional costs and/or loss of revenue, I’m sure they would be happy to be hardware/software/platform agnostic.

 

[Stroganoff]

Reasons:

1) They know for sure that the software\hardware they want you to use will indeed be 100% compatible.

If they let students bring their own, they have an unknown number of configurations and potential ages for the varied hardware to deal with, and this is a worst case scenario for ensuring capability and compatibility.

Well, they should require, say:

* Software
-Windows XP Pro/Home with SP2
-MacOS X (whatever the latest version is)
-major antivirus with up-to-date definitions
-antispyware/adware/malware

* Hardware
-Specify minimum CPU, RAM, storage, etc.

2) No headache for IT

Since everyone will have the same hardware/software, this will significantly decrease the cost of having an IT department/having an IT contract with an outside company. It's much easier to restore or repair a system when you know exactly what the guts are as well as where everything should be. The staff only has to know one system or one set of systems. Also, since it’s easier to restore, students get systems back faster, which I'm sure they are happy about.

If someone brings you some really strange off-brand PC, with no restoration disks, and all the technical documentation is written in a foreign language using quatrains, it can literally take days upon days to get anywhere near figuring out what the problem is, let along fix it. That's a waste of a lot of resources and time.

A university's IT should not have to do 100% of the troubleshooting of students' PCs unless directly related to network connectivity or super basic issues. The rest should be either the student's responsibility to fix him/herself or to contact the manufacturer and use their tech support. It's trying to do too much to place the burden on a university IT staff.

3) Old Laptops = Scary, Nasty **** Living In It

Besides compatibility issues, you have no idea what is living in peoples laptops. Someone with a computer running Windows 98, that has never been patched, has no virus protection, no malware scanner, and no firewall could hook into your network and end up crashing everything and infecting everyone else with the motherload of all viruses, worms, trojans, and malware. IT departments worst nightmare.

I agree completely, but they should require a minimum OS as stated above but not require students to purchase their computer package.

4) Deal!

Bulk purchase of hardware allows them to get a discount, which they can pass on to the students. Students are usually poor, so any savings is usually appreciated. OTOH, they can get the discount and still sell them at the retail price to a captive audience and make more money, which is evil, but it’s also the nature of life.

This I believe is the major reason. Deals are GOOD but should be completely optional for the students to take advantage. My only pet peeve is the schools that require their students to buy such-and-such computer/laptop/PDA. The university gets some kind of kickback. It's all a money-hungry greed thing. Once again, bulk discounts for students are really nice, but students should reserve the freedom to buy what they want from the free market.

We're med students, out-of-college adults for pete's sake. We don't need to be spoonfed.

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What exactly is so special about computers for med school? As far as I know, all med students need are an Internet browser of their choice, Acrobat reader for PDFs, and Office. This is all standard issue anyway.

 

[deleted87716]

if your school requires a PC that runs Windows, can they still tell us we can't use Macs since Macs will now seamlessly run Windows?

The issue of running Windows on one of the new Intel-based Macs was curiously not mentioned at all during the product announcement. From what I've gathered since then, you can't install current versions of Windows on these Macs due to Apple's use of EFI instead of BIOS. However, Windows Vista will supposedly support EFI, so you should be able to install it (in theory, at least) when it's available.

Here's an article that explains it better than I can.

As for Virtual PC, it won't currently work on the new Intel Macs, except perhaps running in emulation under Rosetta, which would be an exercise in frustration. Anyone who's run Virtual PC knows that it's already dog slow on a good day running natively. Presumably, Microsoft will release a version of Virtual PC that will run natively on the Intel Macs, but users will have to wait until then.

In a nutshell, if your school makes you buy a Windows machine for certain things, you'll still need a Windows machine. If it were me, however, that wouldn't stop me from using a Mac. I'd just get the cheapest Windows machine I could find and use it only for the stuff that I had to use it for. For everything else, I'd use the Mac.

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

Doesn't it piss you off a little bit that they are advertising this as 4X faster than the older computers due to the Intel chip? How friggin slow were the previous computers that you can make one 4X faster by changing a chip?

 

[deleted87716]

Doesn't it piss you off a little bit that they are advertising this as 4X faster than the older computers due to the Intel chip? How friggin slow were the previous computers that you can make one 4X faster by changing a chip?

The advertised speed increase is based on benchmarks, not real-world operations. From what I've read, the actual speed increase for most tasks will be more on the order of 10-25% compared to the G5. And no, it doesn't piss me off. That's marketing.

 

[southerndoc]

Doesn't it piss you off a little bit that they are advertising this as 4X faster than the older computers due to the Intel chip? How friggin slow were the previous computers that you can make one 4X faster by changing a chip?

The G4's were pretty slow.

 

[southerndoc]

The advertised speed increase is based on benchmarks, not real-world operations. From what I've read, the actual speed increase for most tasks will be more on the order of 10-25% compared to the G5. And no, it doesn't piss me off. That's marketing.

The Intel iMac is advertised as 2x faster (thanks to 2 CPU's in the dual core chip). The MacBook Pro is advertised as 4x faster (thanks to 2 CPU's in the dual core chip and comparing it to the outdated G4 in the Powerbooks).