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post #151 of 177
6/13/09 at 2:19pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
I realize these new batteries are rated for 1,000 charges and 5 years
of use, but I like the idea of having a spare battery on long flights so
that I can use my laptop continually. Nor particularly happy about
this revelation.

I hear you Ron...and feel the same way. BUT...in the situation you describe, more and more airlines are starting to add features to their airline seats, including regular AC plugs. I know Virgin America is one airline at the start of this. They have a regular AC plug and a USB charging port at every seat on the plane regardless of first class or coach ticket. Of course, they also have inflight WiFi and TVs with Dish Network.

As airlines start adding the WiFi feature, I am sure we will see them add things like AC plugs for your laptops as well. Since the entire seat needs to be changed for the technical upgrade...they are starting to re-design them to include power ports as well.

There is hope for those long flights yet.
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post #152 of 177
6/13/09 at 3:59pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Yet again Apple is prioritizing design features for its envisioned audience. This audience apparently doesn't buy and own spare batteries to swap on long-haul flights. And apple certainly has the data to know if this is a good business decision: tally individual batteries sold versus laptops sold.

For those like Ron who want or need a swappable battery, this could be a problem. Although I wonder how much of a problem, really? This new MBP has double the battery duration of the previous model. So unless you carried two additional batteries, you're still better off with this non-swappable battery.

But for us normal folks, this is a great design change. Because now it's like I got a bonus battery without the expense or bother of buying and carrying it. Seriously, a power laptop with 5-8 hours of life? This is somewhere between "sweet" and "game changer"; how does this not put every other laptop maker on notice?
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post #153 of 177
6/13/09 at 7:04pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

As someone who has an appointment at a Genius Bar on Monday morning to address how my 36 cycle count battery is now down to 3300mAh (with Apple Care, so there's a glimmer of hope for me), I'm personally happy to see the longer life battery which apparently uses a completely different technology than the one that's currently failing me right now. I was going to buy a new battery, and keep this dying one as a "spare", but given the 8 hour time of the new MBP, that's going to be the equivalent of 3 batteries for me (including this lame one). Hopefully, Apple will swap mine with a new one, and I'll just make do with the 5500mAh new one until I can buy a new MBP, hopefully in early 2010 when the Nehalem ones (likely) will come out.
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post #154 of 177
6/13/09 at 8:15pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Carlo,
I suffered the bad battery problem six months after purchase and had it replaced. If your battery is at 3300 mAh out of 5500 mAh, it's at 60% after 36 cycles. I would expect Apple to replace that.
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post #155 of 177
6/13/09 at 11:13pm
Thread Starter 

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

I thank all of you for the links and words of advice. Been doing
a lot of reading thanks to the information you provided.

While all of you seem to be happy with the battery situation, I am
still not convinced.

I am about 3 weeks from buying the new 15" MBP but the lack
of a replaceable battery is a major concern (in addition to one
other problem I will talk about in a moment).

A flight from NJ to Los Angeles is easily 5.5 hours. To run a laptop
for that amount of time, sometimes doing graphic intensive work
for webpage design or just watching a DVD or two puts a lot of strain
on that battery. I don't expect to get the full 5.5 hours.

When I eventually sell the MBP, the fact that I can't give the buyer
the option of easily replacing a battery whose amount of usage is
questionable is another concern.

One more thing....

I am sitting here on the fence wondering if I should buy now or wait
another 6-9 months.

It's not a question of a faster computer coming out. It's a question
of a solid state drive. Within a year those drives are going to be dirt
cheap and appearing standard on most laptops. I was surprised that
Apple is still charging a huge premium to add them in now. I am
spending $2k on this MBP and in order to get the solid state drive I
have to spend and additional (I believe) $700.
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post #156 of 177
6/14/09 at 1:24am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Ron, it's hardly just Apple charging big bucks for SSD's...all the manufacturers are. It isn't like RAM, where the computer manufacturers mark up the price of the product 50% or more relative to third party vendor prices. You aren't going to find very many third party vendors right now selling 256GB SSD's for less than $700.
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post #157 of 177
6/14/09 at 5:03am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
A flight from NJ to Los Angeles is easily 5.5 hours. To run a laptop
for that amount of time, sometimes doing graphic intensive work
for webpage design or just watching a DVD or two puts a lot of strain
on that battery. I don't expect to get the full 5.5 hours.
What's your current battery life now? It's realistic to expect 50% more with the new battery. Perhaps double that. This may still be insufficient; your work case is apparently not what Apple is prioritizing (which then stinks for you).

Quote:
When I eventually sell the MBP, the fact that I can't give the buyer
the option of easily replacing a battery whose amount of usage is
questionable is another concern.
Can't they have Apple replace it for ~$129? In two years this might be a Genius Bar task.

Quote:
I am sitting here on the fence wondering if I should buy now or wait
another 6-9 months.
DaveF's first law of computing: the best time to buy a computer is always tomorrow In 6-9 months there will be a refresh. Faster computer. bigger harddrives. more ram. maybe better battery life. all for the same or lower cost as today.

Sometimes that's a really important rule: sometimes we know about a watershed change, like the shift to Intel or the shift to Core2Duo from Core Duo; or the introduction of a new product like the Air or iPhone. If you think that will happen in 6 months, even more the better to wait.
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post #158 of 177
6/14/09 at 11:25am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Putting a solid state drive in a MBP seems to be putting a VW engine in a lotus.
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post #159 of 177
6/14/09 at 12:10pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
It's not a question of a faster computer coming out. It's a question
With what Sam noted: SSD's don't save energy (don't prolong battery life). I think they have faster read times, so booting and launching apps is faster. But in general usage, they aren't any faster than conventional drives. From what I've read, they don't seem to be a real improvement yet over normal drives.

If you're eager to get a new MBP, you can buy it now and upgrade to a SSD next year when prices meet your needs.
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post #160 of 177
6/14/09 at 4:56pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

It seems Apple has quietly downgraded the SATA Interface from 3.0Gbit to 1.5Gbit speeds in some of the new MacBook Pros introduced last week.

13" and 15" MacBook Pros Have a Slower SATA Interface - Mac Rumors

Quote:
The slower SATA interface is unlikely to affect the bulk of users as even the fastest traditional hard drives are unable to saturate even the 1.5 Gbit interfaces. However, if you are planning on buying a fast Solid State Drive (SSD), it could affect the drive's performance. The downgrade of the interface in the new MacBook Pro has also been confirmed in early benchmarks using a fast enough SSD.

Not a good move in my opinion. I for one who use the laptop as a remote recording studio...need as much throughput on the HD as I can get with mutiple audio tracks streaming. Of course my main rig is a tower machine in the studio. But when I need to be on the road or record something off-site. This combined with them removing the ExpressCard slot which can be used for external audio connections, audio plug-in cards like the Universal Audio UAD-1...and adding additional ESATA hard drives for streaming video...these MacBooks are definitely NOT pro audio friendly and I hope this apparent design trend will NOT continue.
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post #161 of 177
6/15/09 at 9:17am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig S
OK, Engadget is saying you will pay $200 more for the 3GS if you're in "mid-contract". No details on what that exactly means. I'm still on the contract I started at the end of June 2007. I guess worst case for me is I have to wait a couple of weeks. Folks who upgraded to the 3G last year may be screwed.

AT&T just plain SUCKS.

Not picking on you Craig. I just need a quote for context and yours was the one I ran across first. I know many 3G owners are upset about the upgrade cost, but there is a counterpoint:

Counterpoint: AT&T isn't cheating iPhone 3G customers
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post #162 of 177
6/15/09 at 9:32am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Brian, I feel your pain. I do get the sense that Apple is changing their definition of "pro". Clearly you (and others who do music/movie production) are the original definition of "pro" which is why a lot of that stuff that 99% of others don't use (like the ExpressCard slot) was present. I think Apple is shifting to the "pro" user in the sense of someone who is more akin to a PC "power user" (i.e. techies who can build/maintain their own machine, use some sophisticated programs, yet aren't necessarily industry pros), as evidenced by their recent changes in product specs.

Although I likely won't be affected by the Sata 1.5Gbps switch, I still am unhappy with it. And while I do use SD cards, I also use CF cards, so it's curious why they would abandon Expresscard to be more "consumer friendly" yet only offer the SD card option vs. a multi-card option allowing for CF cards as well. Many of Canon's "pro" cameras use CF so I'm not buying the "most people using cameras are using SD" argument. If they weren't going to give people options to plug in the various mem card formats, they should have kept the ExpressCard slot to allow users to buy the all-in-one readers.
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post #163 of 177
6/15/09 at 12:14pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
Carlo,
I suffered the bad battery problem six months after purchase and had it replaced. If your battery is at 3300 mAh out of 5500 mAh, it's at 60% after 36 cycles. I would expect Apple to replace that.

Wish I had your "Genius". Was totally denied by mine, telling me it's just a "worn out battery" and didn't offer replacement.

Going to write to corporate and see if that makes a difference. Sigh
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post #164 of 177
6/15/09 at 1:16pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlo Medina
Wish I had your "Genius". Was totally denied by mine, telling me it's just a "worn out battery" and didn't offer replacement.

Going to write to corporate and see if that makes a difference. Sigh
Try simply calling Apple Care first -- maybe you'll get a better result. They replaced my wife's dead 1.5 ~ 2 year old MacBook battery for free, BUT I only called them in the first place because I had read about some sort of model wide defect with those batteries. FWIW, the replacement she got is amazing -- it seems to last forever.
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post #165 of 177
6/15/09 at 1:39pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted Todorov
Try simply calling Apple Care first -- maybe you'll get a better result. They replaced my wife's dead 1.5 ~ 2 year old MacBook battery for free, BUT I only called them in the first place because I had read about some sort of model wide defect with those batteries. FWIW, the replacement she got is amazing -- it seems to last forever.
Yes. I called AppleCare.

Your "Genius" is simply wrong. 36 cycles is not "worn out". Apple has a requirement for determining if the battery is bad; I believe it is 60% capacity at some low number of cycles. Your situation is likely close to that threshold.

Mine was replaced with 60% capacity and about 50 cycles.
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post #166 of 177
6/15/09 at 9:55pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Thanks Dave, I'll try calling Apple Care in the near future. Hopefully they'll remedy the problem. I think the "Genius" had a problem with the length of time I've owned the laptop (2 years) rather than the number of cycles.

On a related note (in the sense of giving more money to Apple):

Pulled the trigger today. Went to my local Best Buy and paid my $50 for the iPhone pre-order. 32GB iPhone 3G[s] Black. My appointment is scheduled for 11am on Friday. I'm excited, to say the least. I was surprised that they offer the iPhone with a white back. I've never seen one in the wild. Does anyone buy this color? When the salesman asked me which color I looked at my girlfriend, who rolled and her eyes and said "black, why would you buy white?"

Although my work does use a MS Exchange server, I think in order to save $15 a month I'm going to start out with the basic iPhone data plan and just check my email via web (which my work also supports) rather than pay the extra and do the Exchange Server configuration (though at that point the mail and calendar of Outlook would, from my understanding, be synced up with my iPhone's Mail and Calendar apps).

I have a question for those who are familiar with both Mac OSX Snow Leopard and Exchange.

Snow Leopard is supposed to bring us full Exchange support. If I upgrade my Mac to Exchange support, I'm thinking it will update both Mac Mail and iCal with my email and calendar from Outlook at work. I'm assuming I can do this for free as long as I do the config correctly.

Will I then be able to sync my iPhone to my Mac's mail and iCal, and hence be sync'd--albeit with some delay based on my last Mac to Exchange sync, not truly in real-time--with Outlook Mail and Calendar from work? Without having to pay for the extra Exchange support for my iPhone?
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post #167 of 177
6/16/09 at 3:45am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlo Medina
Thanks Dave, I'll try calling Apple Care in the near future. Hopefully they'll remedy the problem. I think the "Genius" had a problem with the length of time I've owned the laptop (2 years) rather than the number of cycles.
Hopefully that won't be a problem. But...Apple's official recommendation is to cycle the battery monthly to keep it working properly. But that would be only 24 cycles in two years. Good luck!
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post #168 of 177
6/16/09 at 8:06am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

I'm aware of that recommendation and have been doing it (okay, maybe sometimes 1 1/2 months between charges). But I told the "Genius" that up front. I was very honest and said my machine stays plugged in most of the time I use it, but that I power cycled/drained it every month or so. And that only recently did it do this decline.

To make matters worse, it's completely sporadic! I've "recalibrated" the battery per their instructions several times. Sometimes when it's working, it reports the full charge capacity as up to 4100 mAh. And sometimes it dips below to 2000 mAh. But it usually hangs around in the 3000s. I told her this and she didn't seem to care.

To me if a battery has worn down, it's full charge mAh should be in decline, not varying wildly, 2000 one use, 4000 the next, 3000 the next, etc. etc. And when I'm running on battery it will change on the fly, like my % life will go quickly from 100 to 60, then jump to 75, then decline steadily again (indicating that while powered on and running on battery, the full charge mAh will have jumped from say 2700 to 3600).

Keep in mind I'm describing what appears in the "Full Charge" rating, not what the current battery charge is, which is why I find the jumping back and forth between values to be faulty.

Thanks for the well wishes, I'm going to call some time this week, time permitting, from work.
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post #169 of 177
6/16/09 at 7:27pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF
With what Sam noted: SSD's don't save energy (don't prolong battery life). I think they have faster read times, so booting and launching apps is faster. But in general usage, they aren't any faster than conventional drives. From what I've read, they don't seem to be a real improvement yet over normal drives.

IMO the ONLY reason to go to SSD right now is if you need to be absolutely positively sure you will never throw a drive head. Modern hard disks are absolutely rock solid so this is not a consideration for the vast number of consumers and the big deal with SSD is they let Apple charge you a premium for them when the can no longer get away with doing so on RAM and standard hard disks.
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post #170 of 177
6/16/09 at 7:33pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlo Medina
I also use CF cards, so it's curious why they would abandon Expresscard to be more "consumer friendly" yet only offer the SD card option vs. a multi-card option allowing for CF cards as well. Many of Canon's "pro" cameras use CF so I'm not buying the "most people using cameras are using SD" argument. If they weren't going to give people options to plug in the various mem card formats, they should have kept the ExpressCard slot to allow users to buy the all-in-one readers.

Don't think of them as a card reader for consumer cams.

Think of them as infinitely swappable but semi-slow boot-camp partitions. So you don't have to taint your 'real' hard disk with boot camp but you can have a Windows XP, Vista, 7 or Linux flavor of the week (hi ubuntu!) on a SD card any time you want. Yes, you can boot from the SD card slot! For $50 a pop and easily user serviceable. And when real high speed SD cards are available at real cheap prices, this will be even more attractive.

Note: this feature is not fully baked yet. But it will be.
Boot from the SD card slot in new MacBook Pros - Ars Technica

Sam
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post #171 of 177
6/16/09 at 9:10pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Posten
Modern hard disks are absolutely rock solid so this is not a consideration for the vast number of consumers and the big deal with SSD is they let Apple charge you a premium for them when the can no longer get away with doing so on RAM and standard hard disks.

Unfortunately I don't feel this way anymore. I've seen more hard disk failures in the last 18 months than I have probably seen in the previous 10 years. Can't stress to people how critical backups are.
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post #172 of 177
6/16/09 at 9:57pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael_K_Sr
Unfortunately I don't feel this way anymore. I've seen more hard disk failures in the last 18 months than I have probably seen in the previous 10 years. Can't stress to people how critical backups are.
If you have been using Seagate Barracudas or Drobo enclosures I feel your pain. Otherwise, do share, so I'll know what to avoid. Until my recent encounter with those bad boys I had never had a single Mac HD failure. I've had good results with numerous OWC external drives and Western Digital internals.
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post #173 of 177
6/16/09 at 10:20pm
Thread Starter 

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

The reason I am looking at SSD (though too pricey that I will
actually purchase) is for boot-up speed. If I am hearing correctly,
there is a significant boost in overall boot-up. Plus, the resale value
on a SSD laptop knowing that there is no wear-and-tear like a drive
is a real plus as well.
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post #174 of 177
6/17/09 at 3:59am

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
The reason I am looking at SSD (though too pricey that I will
actually purchase) is for boot-up speed. If I am hearing correctly,
there is a significant boost in overall boot-up. Plus, the resale value
on a SSD laptop knowing that there is no wear-and-tear like a drive
is a real plus as well.
Given the plummeting cost of SSDs, I'd think you'd get better resale value from a conventional drive until SSDs prices are the same. And SSDs do have "wear and tear": they have limited read-write cycles that are balanced across the drive via smart software to maximize drive life. These effects have been reduced substantially; but then again conventional drives can last years without incident.

On MacBreak Weekly, Leo Laporte noted that his SSD MacBook had fast bootups and app load times. That seems to be the only benefit right now. (disappointing to those of use who thought SSDs would usher in improved battery life or be faster in all cases)

I don't know about hard drive failures. I hear talk about bad Seagates and good WD. A few years ago, it was the opposite; WDs were the ones likely to fail and Seagates had the warranty and were rock solid. Anecdotally, you should not a hard drive from anyone
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post #175 of 177
6/22/09 at 6:08pm

Re: WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian W. Ralston
It seems Apple has quietly downgraded the SATA Interface from 3.0Gbit to 1.5Gbit speeds in some of the new MacBook Pros introduced last week.

13" and 15" MacBook Pros Have a Slower SATA Interface - Mac Rumors



Not a good move in my opinion. I for one who use the laptop as a remote recording studio...need as much throughput on the HD as I can get with mutiple audio tracks streaming. Of course my main rig is a tower machine in the studio. But when I need to be on the road or record something off-site. This combined with them removing the ExpressCard slot which can be used for external audio connections, audio plug-in cards like the Universal Audio UAD-1...and adding additional ESATA hard drives for streaming video...these MacBooks are definitely NOT pro audio friendly and I hope this apparent design trend will NOT continue.
Brian,

Looks like Apple heard loud and clear from you and your fellow pro constituents, at least about the SATA interface (I'm afraid there's no going back on the ExpressCard slot at least on this revision of the MBPs).

But let's hold out some hope. Firewire disappeared from the 13" Macbook line, only to reappear once they were rebranded to MBPs this time around. So all is not lost for ExpressCard, especially since they've opted to keep it in the 17" model.
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post #176 of 177
8/14/09 at 9:51pm
Holy thread resurrection, Batman! 

I submitted a less than stellar review of my Genius Bar experience, basically saying how their Genius should have listened to me more as I had told her up front that I had followed all of her recommendation she said I should have followed to extend battery life. It was as if she wasn't listening to me talk for the first couple of minutes when she asked me to explain the problem.

Anyway, they left a voicemail for me at work and I promptly went on vacation then forgot all about it. While clearing out my voicemail I ran across it, called them back, spoke to what I suppose is a Level 2 tech who listened to my explanation. I also told him that I had done screen grabs of the power tab of System Profiler which showed my Full Charge mAh rating fluctuate from 2700 to 4000 to 2200 in the span of 30 minutes. He simply said, "bring it in for a replacement."

Took 5 minutes. They didn't have a service battery to swap out, so he tore open a new one and swapped batteries with me. 5530 mAh in the house! Draining it right now so I can calibrate it overnight. Such a marked difference from the first time I was at the Genius Bar. I was so happy, I'm now thinking of a Mac Pro purchase. Maybe when Snow Leopard comes out and post-September keynote announcement (rumored) so I can make sure they don't put out a new Mac Pro in the next few weeks...  

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveF View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlo Medina
Thanks Dave, I'll try calling Apple Care in the near future. Hopefully they'll remedy the problem. I think the "Genius" had a problem with the length of time I've owned the laptop (2 years) rather than the number of cycles.
Hopefully that won't be a problem. But...Apple's official recommendation is to cycle the battery monthly to keep it working properly. But that would be only 24 cycles in two years. Good luck!
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post #177 of 177
8/15/09 at 6:23am
Good to hear! I thought for sure your battery would be replaced without question. Glad to hear that someone came through, despite your unusually brain-dead first "Genius".
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Home Theater Forum › Home Theater Forum › Other Diversions › Apple and Macintosh › WWDC Live Discussion Thread: All today's BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS are HERE!