So... I want a Macbook

I wrote this post before. Then Vista bluescreened. A real, live bluescreen. I'm not sure I can blame Vista, as I've got a couple pieces of newish hardware in there (and Vista's brand new), but boy is that appropriate...

Right, this is a bit of a multi-topic post. I'd like to get as much real input from Mac users as possible before pulling the trigger, and I'd like to force myself to relax before I get too hasty with the credit card. (thus, discussion)

The reasons: I want to give OS X a serious try. I played with Linux and liked it, but wasn't motivated enough to hammer and wrench it into the way I wanted it. I played with OS X a little bit in the past, and was very impressed with Expose (one of those what-a-fantastic-obvious-idea moments). I'm impressed by the small-time developer community the OS seems to have. I want my laptop to make lightsaber noises. Lastly, the notebook in my sig (may it live long and in good health) is a smidge large for lugging around in the manner in which I like to lug.

The Hesitation: Does anyone else here have problems with iTunes syncing with your iPod ridiculously, pathetically slowly? Or is that just something specific to my setup/OS? iTunes, actually, is probably singlehandedly dousing a good portion of my interest in Apple in general. The more I use that program, the less I like it.

What's the news on the next iteration of Macbooks (the when, the what, whatever)? I've heard of people having trouble with the current graphics adapter driving an external monitor and the internal one at the same time, even with just simple 2d apps. I don't think I'd spend a ton of time with external montiors, but that is pretty sad. I'd love to get a macbook in a higher resolution too, but I don't see that happening. Maybe it'll feel roomier with the 72 dpi default vs the 96 in Windows...

What're your thoughts on my thoughts?

 

Well, I can tell you one thing: iPod + iTunes on a Mac has a lot less issues than it does on a PC. For obvious reasons, since it only has to support a few hardware setups and not the multitude that is today's PC. I've never had the syncing act slow on any Mac I've used at least.

Next iteration of Macbook is likely to appear sometime not too long after (or possibly even at the same time as) the Macbook Pro gets updated to the Santa Rosa architecture, which should mean this spring/summer sometime. Besides installing Santa Rosa it will also come with Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) since that will be released in spring as well (late Q1 they say, and the OS X developer's conference is in April so that's a likely launch point).

Haven't heard much about issues with external monitors, and those I have heard have all been with third-party monitors anyway (which is fairly obvious, almost noone that buys a Macbook will buy an Apple Cinema Display - still hoping they will release a cheaper version or cut prices), mostly Dell ones it seems (interesting, but I wouldn't read anything much into it really).

OS X is wonderful. I had barely seen it before I started working with Macs but I was turned (from Linux, mind you - I didn't need any turning from Windows, that OS exists purely for gaming for me for the past 7 years or so) in an instant. Though I'd still prefer Linux for servers, OS X is where I want to actually work or entertain myself (browsing, movies, music, etc. - all that stuff). It just feels more natural somehow.

(yay overuse of parantheses!)

 

Are you lusting for a MacBook or a MacBook Pro?

iTunes on PCs is much worse than on Mac. On OS X it tends to work really well.

The iApps are also very good, with the notable exception of iPhoto which sucks less and less with each release but still somehow sucks.

I don't think that MacBooks are 72 dpi - the 72 dpi mantra was dropped a long time ago. 13.3" at 1280 resolution is pretty much standard. The MBP has 1440x something.

As for when the much cooler, better, faster MacBooks will come out, I am not going to take a guess. I think Santa Rosa and Leopard will mark a big improvement, but then again I have been holding out on a new mac so long I had to buy a Windows machine to tide me over, so don't listen to me

OS X looks a lot better than Windows and it's more logical - the settings are much simpler to reach, applications don't screw with the system (no registry) and so on. For the technically inclined there's a proper command line.

 

iTunes not only performs poorly on a PC, while its running is consumes a lot of PC horsepower. Yes it does take forever to Sync on a PC.

iTunes does not seem to consume the resources on a Mac that it does on a PC and runs a LOT faster. Sync is still no speed demon, but a lot faster than on a PC.

I've used my MacBook on several standard and widescreen PC monitors and all have worked perfectly. You just have to make sure there is a video setting on the MacBook that matches the native resolution of the Monitor.

OS X is kind of Linux for the masses. All the power, speed, security, etc, and none of the hassles. You won't regret going there unless there are some unique applications that only run on Windows that you have to use a lot. You can put Windows on the Mac and its great for occasional use but kind of defeats the putpose if you are using it all the time ;-)

 

Macbook. I find the pro a little more appealing, except that the size isn't what I'm looking for. In fact, I'd probably buy a 12" if there was one.

I don't mean 72 dpi in the real world -- I mean that magical sort of software space. All else being equal, if it's 72 instead of 96, a given font will require fewer pixels, etc. I guess images would be the same size... my comment probably wasn't really meaningful. OS X does seem to have smaller interface elements, though (a good thing in a resolution-strapped environment... like 1280x800).

Yes. I get impatient about this sort of thing. I say "I want one now," and then I try to find some feature on the next model that is so fantastic that I'll shed tears if I don't have it when it comes out. Failing to find that, I tend to buy the current iteration of the product, and then just enjoy having it.

 

You got a Bluescreen on Vista? I'm impressed! And VERY glad that I switched. That just confirms it for me.

iPhoto sucks. I don't have time to effectively go through years worth of pictures and tag them. I hate how it grabs stuff and deals with it. I like my own way of organizing my photos and am looking for a better solution than iPhoto. That was one thing I liked on my PC: the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. I am sure that if i look around hard enough I will find something similar for Mac. If not, PSE here I come.

I don't have an iPod yet. I have a Sandisk Sansa e260 that I am getting rid of. I cannot do anything on this but use it as a jump drive for music because Sandisk doesn't support Mac or iTunes. I'm very annoyed that I can't even have my music in MY directories - only by artist, song, or album. Oh well. I'm planning on getting an iPod. I have heard that syncing iTunes is MUCH faster on Mac.

Sorry - no experience with dual display.

I do *love* OSX though.

 

I believe the displays are 96dpi now. I think mac moved away from 72 a while ago. I wasn't aware that Windows moved to 96 with Vista. XP was still 72 and while they were working on their dynamic resizing (forgot the appropriate name), I thought they had not gotten that to work.
I haven't heard of issues regarding the MB being able to run dual displays, but it will depend on the external display resolution.
Yes, iTunes sucks on windows. It rocks on mac. All the other iApps are sweet. I like iPhoto, but I'd love to upgrade to Aperature (pro level app, that is pretty cheap). iDVD, iMovie, and iCal are great. If you want a website, but don't want to deal with coding, iWeb is a pretty decent WYSIWYG.
Garageband is even a decent audio program, the baby of Logic.

The automater is one tool I have not really touched on the mac. It sounds neat, I just haven't found a use for it yet.

 

Hi,

try the app Xee for your pirctures - it works like the application you miss on windows.

You can change the short cuts to click to another picture.

 

The display DPIs are just whatever they happen to be. I can't speak for the Mac, but for XP, if you go to Display Properties -> Settings Tab -> Advanced Button -> General Tab, you'll see that the OS considers the display to be 96 DPI. The OS (xp, this is) is horrible with DPI changes. It doesn't handle it well, as some interface elements scale by stretching, fonts scale depending on where they are, and some elements don't scale at all. I hear the dynamic resizing thingy will be a part of .NET 3. Wasn't Apple making some noise about starting to do resolution-independant programming too?

It's heartening to hear that the Mac version of iTunes is better than the Windows version. Now if there were just a way to sync multiple computers without network shares and symlinks... maybe a little higher granularity control with some of the iPod syncing... tasty...

In an entirely related question, how often do you think there'll be black C2D Macbooks in the refurb section of Apple's online store?

 

Mac actually moved to real 96dpi a while back from what I read. The new systems are working to be resolution independant, but thats a real nightmare. In my experience, XP handled any change to DPI very poorly (had problems on my old laptop trying to change dpi).

What exactly are you looking for terms of syncing? You want multiple computers with itunes to sync from one computer? Or any one of them have a change in library, they all change?

The black refurbs... that all depends on stock.

 

That's interesting, the DPI thing on the Macs. I noticed they were a little lower res than I thought I'd like, but thought they were sized well for the "average consumer". So maybe that's the rhyme to the madness.

As far as syncing, I'm still mostly in the realm of vague happy thoughts. I've got a desktop, a laptop, and an iPod. What I'd love to be able to do, is sync the iPod automatically with the desktop, sync/share the desktop library with the laptop library as I see fit, and also have the option to put new stuff onto the laptop in order to move it from there to the iPod, and have the option of propagating that back to the desktop, with metadata preserved. It'd be nice if I wasn't constantly changing my iPod from "manual" to "automatically sync" too.

I know refurbs are based on returns and all... I guess it's pathetically, compulsively checking the apple website for me for the next while.