For us, geeks, Mac-users and -lovers, what’s more important?

New products, of course!

On Oct 20th Apple introduced so many new produts and updates I barely can name all of them here, so let’s get a list to begin.

new iMac, it’s that simple: 21.5 and 27 inches display, new CPUs up to Core i7 Quad processors, up to 16 GB Ram (from the 8 Gig previously allowed). Simply gorgeous!
Several built-to-order options for Graphics cards, CPU, hard disk units available.
new MacBook: white policarbonate chassis but with unibody construction style, multitouch trackpad, 13.3 Led display.
new Magic Mouse: almost an iPod touch or a multi-touch trackpad – in a mouse! All the mouse surface is smart enough to keep track of your gestures!
Mac Mini: despite all rumors (and death bell tolls) it’s still alive – and fine! The 2009 Mac Mini sports a faster processor, twice the RAM, energy-saving features and a lot more!

A product I’m really interested in is the Mac Mini with Snow Leopard.
A special edition Mac Mini fully loaded with 4 Gigs of RAM, two 500 GB hard disks and pre-installed Snow Leopard Server with special remote management features.
Right now it’s the best way (and the most affordable yet) to get a great Mac server for your Home/Office and to fully integrate PCs and Macs!

Most Apple product should be available by the time you read this or eligible for pre-order; here are some prices:
Apple iMac 21.5-Inch starts at US $ 1.199
Apple iMac 27-Inch starts at US $ 1.699
Apple MacBook available for US $ 999
Apple Magic Mouse available for US $ 69
Apple Mac mini goes starts from US $ 599
Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server (unlimited license) is available for US $ 999.

A few features I loved and checked with ‘real life’ test drive (on a unibody MacBook too, thx Alex!):

Installation process

Installation process is truly pain-free and foolproof: no fear, no complex settings, no need to be OS X-skilled! Just put in the Snow Leopard DVD, double click and wait!

Installation time

Installation time: it took less than 30 minutes on the MBP and a little more on the MB.
I guess the worst part of it goes with the slowness of DVD read cycles.

Don’t touch my settings!

All settings were preserved, no data loss, no settings loss!
I found each and every icon, Finder settings, Safari cookies, documents and application history…
Just as I switched off Leopard and switched it on again: apparently no sign of 10.6 intervention!

Blazingly-fast boot time

Boot time: my MBP now takes 45″ (yes, that’s 45 seconds!) from ‘pressing the ON button’ up to ‘full operating computer’ with a desktop that’s (still, my fault) cluttered with icons! With Leopard, as far as I can recall it took at least 1′40″…
On the MacBook it takes a little more, going near to one minute to get a fully working Mac.
Try that on a Win-based PC

(Disk) Space: the final frontier

Before installing Snow Leopard on my MBP, I managed to get 17 GB of free space (out of the 250 GB size of the internal HD). After installing Snow Leopard, free disk space jumped to 25 GB!
It’s the first time ever in my (computer) life I ever see an operating system upgrade that frees (that much) space!

Browser wars

I confess… I’m a hungry Firefox user with tons of FF windows and tabs always taking up more CPU % than what’s available and I’m used to Safari just as a second-choice browser (work with a lot of FF plug-ins, BTW).
Now that Safari is the only (AFAIK) 64-bit browser available on my Mac, I see that the same amount of opened web sites on both browsers gives Safari a clear edge over FF!
CPU % and memory usage is a lot more efficient!
I guess here’s where Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) gets nasty and makes the difference.

Anyway, Xmas wishlist: please, bring me Firefox 64-bit!

Airport status menu

At last, the Airport status menu gives the only information a Mac-road-warrior needs: Wi-Fi signal strength before attempting to hook a wireless network, besides the usual “lock” sign stating a closed/password-based wi-fi hotspot.

Which applications dislike Snow Leopard?

Until now, only Chromium (a not-so-official Mac porting of the Google Chrome browser) refused to launch and closes immediately.
I’ve been checking this useful list (http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/) against 10.6-incompatible software and found just a few notable missing titles.

Hardware support

All the previously supported hardware still work with Snow Leopard.
Even my phone carrier HDSPA USB key from an obscure Taiwan company with almost indie drivers (rated for 10.5.x only) and vanishing support has been working from day one.

Suggestions

Any operating system upgrade should be done with a little planning, even on a Mac.
I love SuperDuper ease of operation and power: it allows you to almost replicate a fully working system on multiple drives.
If you need a proof of this, check Ken Rockwell’s blog and his “Free New Computer” post where Ken explains how he managed a disk upgrade on a Mac Quad G5 (not Intel!).

Conclusions

Go for it!
For less than US $ 30 you can get yourself not only the very latest operating system, usually a tech-geek desire, but a really useful and powerful way to revive your system, so go and grab a copy of Snow Leopard.
We’re not expecting miracles from Snow Leopard making older Intel-based Macs fly like an 8-Core Mac Pro, but at least you’ll get someting that fully exploits your existing hardware, makes a better use of available space and… eventually frees you from staring at a boot screen.

Mac Pro -> new versions with 4- and 8-core, both with a redesigned interior,
iMac -> four versions: from 20″ (now US$ 1,199) and three 24″ versions (all with 4 GB RAM),
Mac mini -> all rumors confirmed: it’s totally revamped with NVidia 9400M graphics, in two models.
The new Mac mini sports two outstanding features:
- it’s the “greener” products from Apple ever (less than 13 W of power when idle, Apple says)
- has a crowded backside with 5 USB 2.0, DVI and mini-DisplayPort (and yes, FireWire 800!).

Here’s the complete upgrage process, taking the unibody MacBook Pro 17″ from the out-of-the-box 4 GB RAM up to full 8 GB!

[ for truth's sake: Lux's MBP 17 comes fully equipped with the top 2.93 GHz processor and top 320 GB @ 7200 RPM ]

First screw…

… putting them all together (tiny screws slip easily away)

Off we go! Three bigger screws and a bunch of little ones and you can finally see what’s inside.

And here we go… taking off the lid!

A full top view, from top left, clockwise: SuperDrive DL, twin fan, hard disk 320 GB @ 7200 RPM (!) and (last but not least) the huge non-user-replaceable battery!

… side view…

The battery seal.

Upper top, the RAM dual banks.

Again the RAM banks.

No RAM at all!

Again, no RAM at all!

two 4-Gigs RAM modules fitting!

Closing the cover and…

Here’s the result: “About this Mac” reveals amazing details!

Check all pictures here.

At first glance, you could easily mistake the new 17-inch MacBook Pro for its predecessor, the legendary 17-inch PowerBook G4 ( ; January 2006 ). The new model has roughly the same dimensions—at 15.4-by-10.4-by-1.0 inches and 6.8 pounds, it’s a shade wider, but a tenth of a pound lighter—and it retains the familiar aluminum enclosure and sleek design.

Inside, however, the new top-of-the-line Apple laptop incorporates not only a completely different processor, but a slew of other changes you should consider before deciding whether—or when—this is a machine for you. (you should…)

The MacBook Pro 17″ desktop replacement of Apple can also be classified as a multimedia notebook, because of its 3.1 kg and only 2.59 cm height.

Feature list at a glance:

Apple MacBook Pro 17″ with unibody, 8-hour battery (even though non user-replaceable) and up to 8 GB RAM (!!!)

iLife ‘09 which, along with all updates, introduces an interesting Garageband feature: music school lessons with the best artist around!

iWork ‘09
that introduces iWork.com, right now a public-beta online service for document sharing

iTunes pricing changes:

(check our partner site iPodPalace.com about this iTunes-related topic)

Highly recommended: check these Garageband previews with music lessons from selected artists!

Apple Introduces New MacBook and MacBook Pro Models
Multi-Touch Trackpad Comes to MacBook Pro

Apple today updated its popular MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook lines with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives and 2GB of memory standard in most models. In addition, MacBook Pro includes the latest NVIDIA graphics processors, now with up to 512MB of video memory, and Apple’s innovative Multi-Touch trackpad, first introduced in MacBook Air.

Not that much to say, always better as usual… and some price slashing as well!

Impressed by the MacBook Air: so thin, so usable!
Manage to get your hands on one of these and see for yourself.
It’s so easy to forget this is an ultra-portable computer: full size keyboard, 13,3″ screen (LED-driven, immediately bright and soooo much shiny).
2 Gigs of RAM and a 5-hours+ battery get you running & working for a long time!

Quite impressed by Time Capsule: a must for every serious Mac (and Windows) user.

Will put update all info pretty soon; for some picture, have a look at my Flickr page.

The real news is about the (not only) improved Mac Pro:

The fastest Mac ever, the new Mac Pro has eight processor cores and a new system architecture that delivers up to twice the performance of its predecessor.* It combines two of Intel’s new 45 nanometer Quad-Core Xeon processors running up to 3.2 GHz, powerful new graphics and up to 4TB of internal storage [...]

What about graphics?

All-new high-performance graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA make Mac Pro graphics technology even more cutting edge. The standard graphics card — an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory, PCI Express 2.0, and two dual-link DVI ports — provides great performance for typical creative applications. And you get dual 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display support out of the box.

All of these cards feature the latest-generation unified shader model support. Compared to dedicated pixel and vertex shaders, shaders are no longer special-purpose and can now be utilized based on the needs of the graphics application.

Since when it has beeb first annouced, the Eee PC has raised mixed blessings.
From my point of view it’s an interesting approach to the portability issue: slimmer, lighter and power-savy.

Now Tuaw comes with this pretty suggestion: why not try to run Mac OS X (intel version) on the Asus Eee PC?

Quoting from Tuaw:

Naturally, this hack falls into a legally gray area, so you’ll want to proceed with extreme caution. You also have to bear in mind that the build of Mac OS X floating around on BitTorrent isn’t exactly legal either, although the PC-patched copy makes for a “moderately easy install.” Based on the specs on the Asus Eee PC, you’ll probably want to stick with Tiger rather than Leopard.

With all this hacking and modding, you’ve got to wonder why Apple hasn’t created a more compact version of the MacBook to compete against this beautiful UMPC. Call it the MacBook Nano and it’d sell like hotcakes.

Full story on Tuaw.

A new iMac, some rumors on new iPod Nano and an update for iLife suite.

Check here and here.

Speculation arises on Mac Mini’s life cycle coming to an end…

Not exactly an update of the previous models: some brand new features have been introduced: