Commentary: 2009 Apple MacBook Line
Tom on October 15, 2008
Intertwined in the consumer technology industry is a complicated stream of product cycles, updates, launches, facelifts, upgrades, and obsolescence. While, for many companies, these cycles can be fairly random and therefore difficult to track, a rule of thumb for the union of Apple fans is the ‘one year rule’. From launch, it should be around a year that your new Apple will last - before being replaced.
As a May 2007 buyer of a Revision C (late 2006) MacBook Pro, this ever-changing product cycle became alarmingly clear when the computer I had just spent well over A$3,000 on was incrementally upgraded less than a month later. Since then, it’s been a 9-18 month wait with bated breath to experience the latest in computing from the Cupertino powerhouse.
This morning the entire Apple notebook line was refreshed. The consumer MacBook, prosumer MacBook Air and professional MacBook Pro benefit from enhanced processing power, stronger graphic capability, and general increases in specification. For the two core models, the MacBook, and MacBook Pro, a new manufacturing process, design, and industry-first features have been included for the end-of-year holiday rush, and the 2009 model year.
Design innovations for this year include increased environmental qualities, a new manufacturing process, and a button-less glass touch-pad supporting advanced Multi-Touch gestures and anywhere-clicking.
We’ll start with the model with the least alteration, the MacBook Air.
MacBook Air
Despite the controversy which surrounded the MacBook Air’s launch - speeds well under Apple standard, no bundled optical drive, far too many compromises - the MacBook Air has a defined soft spot with me which has only accentuated over the day. Obvious reasons for this include the option of a hard drive disk, and the included dedicated graphics, offering, we’re told, up to six times the performance of the older Intel shared chips.
This physical, material reasoning is not, though, at the heart of my liking for the MacBook Air. Instead, it is centred at the fact that the MacBook Air is the last remaining model that retains the ‘plain’ aluminium design of the previous MacBook Pro, and the PowerBook G4 before that. No overdone black bezels, no glossy touch-pad. Being honest, I don’t want either of those features right now. Give me durable. Give me usable. That’s all.
The MacBook Air - the model which was seen as ‘the compromise’ of the Apple notebook range - is now, really, the only model I feel completely satisfied with.
MacBook
The best-selling machine from Apple, and the successor from the iBook before it, has settled in the hearts of students to corporates alike since its polycarbonate-laden, 2006 introduction. Classic Apple plastics - white or black. That has been the most important choice for so many of these buyers for the past two, glorious years.
Introduced for October 2008 onwards are the new form, of aluminium, a glossy, iMac-esque LED screen with black bezel, move to more efficient ports, higher performance, dedicated graphics and a much thinner profile - now 0.95 inches. Also added is a glass touch-pad - much rumoured - with no click-button at all. Instead, you tap where you like.
Today, the MacBook has taken on a more grown-up, sophisticated, and perhaps, just perhaps - more conservative image. Although Apple’s extensive use of aluminium and glass are both elegant, durable, and environmentally responsible, they do not, as yet, provide that spirit of fun, ‘laid-back’, relaxed, iLife-centric portable computing that the previous MacBook instilled in its fans and users.
While Apple’s new manufacturing process for notebooks - that of constructing the entire casing from a single block of aluminium - is certainly a process of care and time, the MacBook has, I believe, joined the MacBook Pro in presenting an aesthetic that promotes suave, sophisticated, work-orientated style over that young, let’s-lead-the-Mac-revolution look of the previous model.
I bought a MacBook Pro for these integral features - function through form. It was a work computer, but it had to be smart and stylish. Many friends and acquaintances whose very introduction to the Mac universe was through the polycarbonate MacBook wanted the contrasting sense of fun first - speed, graphics performance, and even looks came second. I was a big fan of that contrast - the MacBook - the fun model; the MacBook Air - for wireless junkies; and the MacBook Pro - where the work was done.
This new image is growing on me, for my own uses - I would like the power of my 2.16GHz MacBook Pro in the form factor of the MacBook, and that is now a very viable option.
MacBook Pro
The MacBook and MacBook Pro share a form factor as well as major design features. The revised MacBook Pro, only available in the new design at 15″, currently, simply appears as an up-sized MacBook - and the MacBook a downsized MacBook Pro, in turn. My above comments on the design of the MacBook apply here also, although to an even further extent.
I use my (previous) MacBook Pro on a daily basis, at school - I use it at nearly every class - as well as at home in a desktop setup, studying, taking to friends’ and colleagues residences, and into the CBD when I travel there. Alex, a Genius at Apple Sydney, described my usage of my MacBook Pro, after 1.5 years, as ‘thrashing the computer’.
So. Users like myself who supposedly ‘thrash’ their MacBook Pros want one thing out of that model. Durability. The previous aluminium enclosure, though prone to shallow scratches and minor warping, has held up remarkably. I am more than pleased. With my 2007 MacBook Pro, I am elated. I call it my ‘Swiss army knife’, as it fulfils so many different tasks.
I am sure that the new MacBook Pro, and the MacBook with it, could fulfil even more. But I am, initially, worried that all that glass, and not enough ‘padding’ is not going to be as durable as the previous model(s). I’m concerned in that area, and until I’ve felt, tangibly, the new design in my own environment, those concerns will remain.
There is no debate in that the design is spectacular. I love it - it’s like having an iMac in your backpack. It’s a beautiful, showy, Mac-users-are-on-top styling job that is one of Jonathon Ive’s best. It is a stunner of a performance notebook and it’s a screamer under the hood, I bet. 2.5GHz+ processors, 512mb of dedicated video memory and up to 4gb of physical RAM aren’t going to be slow, are they? Performance-wise, this new MacBook Pro will run even more rings around the competition, following in the deep footprints of the last.
I love the look and I’m sure I’ll love the feel. But I want a piece of very expensive (they’ve gone back up in price, I see) piece of computing equipment to last as long as possible - up to three years, if necessary. If it could - and it may well - I would have one tomorrow.
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If my initial fears of durability can be cured - by my upcoming experiences with these new models - than I will be able to really love the new MacBook and MacBook Pro. They’re wonderful in terms of performance and design. But when it comes down to parting with A$3,000, function and form, which are fused here like no other, must be complimented by longevity.
