Apple’s 45nm Refresh: New MacBook & MacBook Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 29, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Oh Hashmir, Multitouch Me Down There
Normally I don’t like reusing borderline comedic material from other reviews I’ve written but it’s late and I couldn’t type the word multitouch without giggling.
The MacBook Pro gets the same multi-touch technology from the MacBook Air’s trackpad. The multi-touch surface itself isn’t quite as large as it is on the Air, but the functionality is the same.
Two fingers on the trackpad will let you scroll up and down or left and right. Three fingers and you can swipe back and forth to traverse your web or folder history (as well as pages in Preview).
You get scroll, right click and zoom functionality with the base MacBook's touchpad but no ability to rotate or swipe-to-navigate
You can even rotate images by making little rotate motions with your fingers when in Preview or iPhoto.
I'm rotating this image entirely using my fingers on the touchpad
As I mentioned in the MacBook Air review, while I definitely appreciate the multi-touch features of the new notebooks (much more so than I expected actually) Apple is in dire need of better OS integration for the multi-touch gestures.
The latest example of this is the three finger swipe-to-navigate gesture. If you’ve got a Finder window open in column view and want to go forward in the directory structure, you can’t unless you’ve previously been there. The swipe gesture only controls the forward/back buttons in Finder, it doesn’t actually control traversal of folders.
Using three fingers to swipe works for going back, but you can't swipe forward here (see the greyed out forward arrow button in the top left of the Finder window)
Obviously this is something Apple is working on, as other OEMs are focusing many resources on touch-enabled interfaces for PCs. The Apple advantage is that it controls the software stack, so our expectations are higher - we want a version of OS X designed around touch, not one with some added touch UI functionality.
Think iPhone meets OS X, now make it happen Steveo.
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myusernamehere - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
either of the displays led backlit?DavidK - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
There's been numerous complaints about the Agere firewire chipset in the previous version of the MacBook Pro. Has it been replaced with the TI set, or is it still the Agere?Tigerotor77w - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
You compared the 2.4 GHz Penryn to the 2.2 GHz Merom, but what about the 2.4 Penryn to the 2.4 Merom? If I'm looking solely at clock speeds, how do those two compare?Additionally, is it conceivable that the $1999 price point remain for the Montevina-based MBPs?
Sunrise089 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Good point, but he compared the notebooks he physically possessed. As in, he bought each of the tested models at one point or another.I strongly believe any future Macbook or Macbook Pro will keep a pricing model determined by the marketing department. Apple has no direct competition (mobile OSX market) so they can simply select the hardware to include that allows them to keep the margins they want.
Tigerotor77w - Saturday, March 1, 2008 - link
Makes sense. Nevertheless, I'm curious how the two 2.4 GHz processors compare (I saw that gizmodo had a comparison, but I'm not sure how that plays out qualitatively).As for the price point, what you said certainly makes sense -- I'm wondering whether they'll keep the $1999 point. Will they give up the sub-$2000 market for 15" notebooks? Or will they want the higher margins on the $2499 MBP?
HopJokey - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Anand,In your article you mentioned that Yonah was built on 90nm technology when in fact it is built on 65nm manufacturing. Thanks.
slashbinslashbash - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
I don't think so Anniend. You want me to do things to you like the sun and the moon. Idiot!acejj26 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
My becomes once the battery ages and no longer manages to hold a full charge.Umm??
acejj26 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
on page 6, you wrote "blacklit" not backlitGary Key - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Fixed. :)