MBA sales going well?

[iDisk]

hmmm. You say you know about the MBA yet you haven't received any information from your apple insider?? How can you possibly know then?



Who are you to say that sort of thing to another user? You have no right to judge a user whom you know nothing about just because they have a differning opinion.

As for my view, I think that apple will keep the MBA going for awhile yet. It does need a face lift but that will come when the time is ready. It doesn't really need to be fully up to date with technology as its just for light usage/browsing. The battery could do with a boost though!

Listen up man, I haven't spoke with him in awhile, but I know I would have heard something about it being EOL, since he knows how much I love the Air.

I will conclude with my conversation with you by saying, where in my sentence did I ever "judge" anyone?? Hellhammer does post alot, his post count and even he can tell you that, did I say that was bad? ... Let me answer for you... NO!

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11) Sprint PPC6850SP)

Did the "friend in Apple Hq." happen to mention any particular month or year for the Air getting its upgrade?

Without a time frame, it's almost like saying "It will rain, someday."

Nah when we speak, we don't really dive deep into what's going on at Apple, plus believe it or not those Apple employees are tight lipped. They love there jobs there, and I don't blame them for wanting to keep there job and keeping things quiet. ... As I said before, something like an EOL product will be mentioned though.

 

[soph]

FYI I have a friend that works in Apple HQ in there R&D dept, so you making a statement like that wouldn't work on me per se (maybe other forum users) .

I've never known an R&D departement that knew sales figures better than the average man in the street.

 

[iDisk]

I've never known an R&D departement that knew sales figures better than the average man in the street.

I never got my sales figures from the R&D dept.. Good try though kid-o ... Next question

 

[DoFoT9]

Your life shouldn't revolve around the internet and especially Apple

I will conclude with my conversation with you by saying, where in my sentence did I ever "judge" anyone?? Hellhammer does post alot, his post count and even he can tell you that, did I say that was bad? ... Let me answer for you... NO! .

Seems like judging to me.

What do you think will happen with the MBA? Go ask ur friend

 

[Hellhammer]

I will conclude with my conversation with you by saying, where in my sentence did I ever "judge" anyone?? Hellhammer does post alot, his post count and even he can tell you that, did I say that was bad? ... Let me answer for you... NO!

So is it a bad thing if I post a lot? DoFoT9 has even bigger post count than I do and there are plenty of people who have bigger than his. I think I have freedom of choice what I do on my freetime.

 

[DoFoT9]

So is it a bad thing if I post a lot? DoFoT9 has even bigger post count than I do and there are plenty of people who have bigger than his. I think I have freedom of choice what I do on my freetime.

Hey don't bring me into this lol. I've been here longer so I am invincible

 

[iDisk]

Seems like judging to me.

What do you think will happen with the MBA? Go ask ur friend

Back to the post question please....... The MBA sales are good, and an update is coming, just like with the Mac Pro.

If you want a Air or better yet NEED a Air then by All means buy one.

 

[iDisk]

So is it a bad thing if I post a lot? DoFoT9 has even bigger post count than I do and there are plenty of people who have bigger than his. I think I have freedom of choice what I do on my freetime.

No it's not bad, it just says you enjoy giving advice and helping others in the forums

You a good boy

So is DoFoT9

Your really helpful to the forum newbies on here.

 

[DoFoT9]

Back to the post question please....... The MBA sales are good, and an update is coming, just like with the Mac Pro.

If you want a Air or better yet NEED a Air then by All means buy one.

That is always the case. If you need it, buy it. But it is a bit different with these mac pro and mac book airs. They have notnbeen upgraded for quite a while, and users must that the performance increases into account when they want to purchase it. I think the performance upgrades will be massive, especially with regards to the gpu and battery life, as well as hard drive performances. I'd wait, but that's just me.

Now that's a better approach iDisk. I like ur last reply . You good boy too hahaha

 

[iDisk]

That is always the case. If you need it, buy it. But it is a bit different with these mac pro and mac book airs. They have notnbeen upgraded for quite a while, and users must that the performance increases into account when they want to purchase it. I think the performance upgrades will be massive, especially with regards to the gpu and battery life, as well as hard drive performances. I'd wait, but that's just me.

Now that's a better approach iDisk. I like ur last reply . You good boy too hahaha

Lol I'm glad you can see the humor, so many people are ready to start verbal jabs on the Internet lol.....


I say (just like every other millionth post/thread on here) if Apple upgrades the Air to 4GB Ram and at least a 200GB plus SSD model with the 320m Card then they'll probably sell many more.... And if there in the mood to "keep up with competition" then they'll have the next Air equipped with a 8GB ram and 512 SSD option (obviously I'm dreaming) but the Sony and Dell Air competitors I believe can achieve this.

Oh yeah and 3G cards that can work on ANY network built in would be nice if Apple wants to keep the " Most mobile computer " moniker..... I laugh every time I see the Air and Pro web page because Apple is still calling those technologies the latests and greatest and then when you click on the MB or MBP page and you see apple showing how the older graphics card (9400m ) gets left behind with the 320/330m lol....but that's good ol apple, they can pee in your face and tell you it's raining and everybody will say " Meh I guess it's raining then " lol

 

[DoFoT9]

Lol I'm glad you can see the humor, so many people are ready to start verbal jabs on the Internet lol.....


I say (just like every other millionth post/thread on here) if Apple upgrades the Air to 4GB Ram and at least a 200GB plus SSD model with the 320m Card then they'll probably sell many more.... And if there in the mood to "keep up with competition" then they'll have the next Air equipped with a 8GB ram and 512 SSD option (obviously I'm dreaming) but the Sony and Dell Air competitors I believe can achieve this.

Oh yeah and 3G cards that can work on ANY network built in would be nice if Apple wants to keep the " Most mobile computer " moniker..... I laugh every time I see the Air and Pro web page because Apple is still calling those technologies the latests and greatest and then when you click on the MB or MBP page and you see apple showing how the older graphics card (9400m ) gets left behind with the 320/330m lol....but that's good ol apple, they can pee in your face and tell you it's raining and everybody will say " Meh I guess it's raining then " lol

At the size of the MBA, I guess heat requirements come into consideration. Hellhammer will be able to answer that lol.

I don't have any use for the MBA, but for the sake of competition I sure hope that they can bring out something a little more powerful then a 2 year old computer.

 

[iDisk]

At the size of the MBA, I guess heat requirements come into consideration. Hellhammer will be able to answer that lol.

I don't have any use for the MBA, but for the sake of competition I sure hope that they can bring out something a little more powerful then a 2 year old computer.

Agreed ttyl dofot9

Keep helping out those newbies and eliminating the trolls

Hellhammer too

 

[Hellhammer]

Lol I'm glad you can see the humor, so many people are ready to start verbal jabs on the Internet lol.....


I say (just like every other millionth post/thread on here) if Apple upgrades the Air to 4GB Ram and at least a 200GB plus SSD model with the 320m Card then they'll probably sell many more.... And if there in the mood to "keep up with competition" then they'll have the next Air equipped with a 8GB ram and 512 SSD option (obviously I'm dreaming) but the Sony and Dell Air competitors I believe can achieve this.

Oh yeah and 3G cards that can work on ANY network built in would be nice if Apple wants to keep the " Most mobile computer " moniker..... I laugh every time I see the Air and Pro web page because Apple is still calling those technologies the latests and greatest and then when you click on the MB or MBP page and you see apple showing how the older graphics card (9400m ) gets left behind with the 320/330m lol....but that's good ol apple, they can pee in your face and tell you it's raining and everybody will say " Meh I guess it's raining then " lol

I think Apple should just keep it simple and give it a good price cut. 2GB RAM and +100GB SSD in low-end would be enough, if it gets a couple hundred $ discount. Then high-end with 4GB RAM and little faster CPU (maybe even 256GB SSD?). There are no 512GB 1.8" SSDs AFAIK. Built-in 3G would be very nice plus a better battery. Additional USB wouldn't hurt either.

Just give it a price cut, 4GB RAM and better battery and I'm buying one

EDIT: 320M is possible and likely but it's likely underclocked just like 9400M is in MBA. IF Apple uses Arrandale, then only Steve knows what GPU is uses as 320M cannot be used with it as the GPU needs to be dedicated. Thus it's likely that Apple sticks with C2D as then they can use the same 320M as in MBP. 330M is wa too hot. Wouldn't expect more than same CPUs and 320M, more RAM, bigger SSDs and better battery. All extra additions made by Apple are welcome though

 

[sammich]

At the size of the MBA, I guess heat requirements come into consideration. Hellhammer will be able to answer that lol.

I don't have any use for the MBA, but for the sake of competition I sure hope that they can bring out something a little more powerful then a 2 year old computer.

Given the downward trend in price of all of Apple's notebook ranges, I'm more than a little interested in how the new MBA will fare spec wise. The competition is way ahead, in comparable sizes, and if they give us something 13" MBP wise then it'll be quite good.

Also, I know the MBA was the first child of the Unibody manufacturing process, but I'd love to see how a UBv2 MBA would look. Maybe less tapery?

 

[DoFoT9]

Agreed ttyl dofot9

Keep helping out those newbies and eliminating the trolls

Hellhammer too

Haha thanks man. Sorry about being upfront before, just trying to suss out the reals from the others. Catchya round

I think Apple should just keep it simple and give it a good price cut. 2GB RAM and +100GB SSD in low-end would be enough, if it gets a couple hundred $ discount. Then high-end with 4GB RAM and little faster CPU (maybe even 256GB SSD?). There are no 512GB 1.8" SSDs AFAIK. Built-in 3G would be very nice plus a better battery. Additional USB wouldn't hurt either.

Just give it a price cut, 4GB RAM and better battery and I'm buying one

3G would be the biggest point besides the CPU/gpu (chipset) upgrade. Many people would want that, especially for RAS users

Given the downward trend in all of Apple's notebook ranges, I'm more than a little interested in how the new MBA will fare spec wise. The competition is way ahead, in comparable sizes, and if they give us something 13" MBP wise then it'll be quite good.

Also, I know the MBA was the first child of the Unibody manufacturing process, but I'd love to see how a UBv2 MBA would look. Maybe less tapery?

Good point. Apple of late hasn't used the top spec CPU and gpu, going for the mid range type of thing hoping that people will find it adequate enough. I think this is a silly tactic, but apple must make those profit lines lol.

Version 2 with or without black borders lol?

EDIT: 320M is possible and likely but it's likely underclocked just like 9400M is in MBA. IF Apple uses Arrandale, then only Steve knows what GPU is uses as 320M cannot be used with it as the GPU needs to be dedicated. Thus it's likely that Apple sticks with C2D as then they can use the same 320M as in MBP. 330M is wa too hot. Wouldn't expect more than same CPUs and 320M, more RAM, bigger SSDs and better battery. All extra additions made by Apple are welcome though

I think that the higher clocked c2d are wayyyyy out of the question. Thanks for the outline. I agree that they won't use the i3 chips. If they did then they would use the 4500hd, and NOBODY wants that lol!!

 

[Hellhammer]

I think that the higher clocked c2d are wayyyyy out of the question. Thanks for the outline. I agree that they won't use the i3 chips. If they did then they would use the 4500hd, and NOBODY wants that lol!!

Currently used CPUs are the fastest C2Ds in their category. Next level would be 8W hotter (25W) so unless Apple significantly improves the cooling, they are out of question. If Apple did that, they could switch the motherboard from µFC-BGA 956 to Socket P which is used in MBPs and thus use up to 2.66GHz CPUs (not gonna happen though)

 

[gwsat]

I agree with the suggestion, supported here by several posters, that the most likely reason for Apple's delay in updating the MBA is that Apple, as one poster aptly put it, "painted itself into a corner." I am inclined to agree. Apple may be hesitant to do an interim upgrade to the MBA of the sort it gave the 13 inch MBP. The MBA stopped being cutting edge some time ago. Despite a price cut having been put in place, it is still a premium product.

I would understand why Apple would hesitate to use another C2D chip in such an expensive machine. Unfortunately, Apple couldn't to go to an i5 or i7 chip without hurting graphics performance. If I were a gambling man, the odds I would place on the MBA's future would be about 60 percent that there will eventually be an upgrade and 40 percent that Apple will discontinue the MBA. Obviously, though, nobody knows, so we just have to wait and see what happens.

 

[DoFoT9]

Currently used CPUs are the fastest C2Ds in their category. Next level would be 8W hotter (25W) so unless Apple significantly improves the cooling, they are out of question. If Apple did that, they could switch the motherboard from µFC-BGA 956 to Socket P which is used in MBPs and thus use up to 2.66GHz CPUs (not gonna happen though)

Geeeez lol I doubt 2.26 is even possible in that tiny thing. That is probably what is stopping them from upgrading, the only thing atm that could really be done is the gpu which is a minimal upgrade. Of course a ssd/battery technology update would be nice but probably doesn't warrant enough justification for r&d costs.

Gwsat, I agree there. It certainly doesn't warrant an update. Too lame, as it were.

 

[Scottsdale]

Lol, The only information I received from him was the iPad, they had the 3G out before the keynote was announced (only like 1 day or 2 before) nothing major.

Btw I don't want to convince you to believe me. As far as I'm concerned your just a frequent poster in these here parts and I just comment occasionally when I have time to.

Your life shouldn't revolve around the internet and especially Apple

+1 I used to give a damn what others said about my posts or when people were accusatory. I realized, as you do, that it doesn't matter at all. I am not here to work at proving what I say is true. People either accept it or they don't. The rare few that publicly challenge you have their own problems to worry about, and it just doesn't matter if they care too much. We can share what we will, and people can choose to believe it or not... it just doesn't matter once we have written it! We share with those who care to read it and accept it.

I accept everything you post. Cheers.

Geeeez lol I doubt 2.26 is even possible in that tiny thing. That is probably what is stopping them from upgrading, the only thing atm that could really be done is the gpu which is a minimal upgrade. Of course a ssd/battery technology update would be nice but probably doesn't warrant enough justification for r&d costs.

Gwsat, I agree there. It certainly doesn't warrant an update. Too lame, as it were.

I think they could easily overclock certain SL9600 chips to 2.26 GHz. The bigger possibility here is to de-throttle the SL9x00 CPUs and give them true clock speeds as stated. Heck, we could easily have a 30% CPU clock speed boost just by de-throttling the current CPUs. As I have stated before, it opens a whole can of worms though... as it would show the average MBA buyer that they were "tools" of Apple's marketing of 1.86 GHz and 2.13 GHz CPUs that almost NEVER operated at those clock speeds to begin with. Let's face it, the 2.13 GHz CPU might be able to run at 2.13 GHz, but it isn't in the MBA.

While I originally thought Apple could just de-throttle the CPU and advertise gains of 30% and more with the same exact CPUs. However, I decided it wasn't smart because it does show that Apple has mislead people with the CPU clock speeds in current MBAs. In addition, if Intel is going to play anti-competitive "big dog" card and knock Nvidia out of the game, it isn't going to make another C2D SL9x00 series CPU for Apple as it would allow Apple around buying the Intel chipset for a whole series of MBA updates.

 

[gwsat]

First, let me express my enthusiastic agreement with the notion that it is a big mistake to become so emotionally invested in our own posts or the posts of others, it becomes emotional. I come here because I enjoy it. Not only do I learn a lot here, I might not otherwise learn, I am even able to help others from time to time. That's gratifying.

I had a reality check earlier today while using the Goodreader app on my iPad to download a recorded book, via iTunes, from an external drive attached to my MBP. If I had had an MBA or a 13 inch MBP to use to play recorded books, I could have simply dragged and dropped the whole book from the external drive to the smaller computer. As it was, though, I had to copy each disc's chapter files onto the iPad, via Goodreader's iTunes client, and then move them from the Goodreader's root directory to the correct disc directory. What a mess! The exercise reminded me of the bad old days of DOS -- only worse.

I am not going to give up on the iPad until we learn how much improvement iOS 4 provides. If there were a way to transfer files from a computer to the iPad that was even half way easy, I would love it. As it is, though, I have about decided that doing it the way I have to do it now is not worth the trouble. If I sound frustrated, you had better believe it. I may be less than courteous to the next poster who tries to tell us the iPad is the functional equivalent of the MBA. It's not. Trust me on this.

 

[entatlrg]

First, let me express my enthusiastic agreement with the notion that it is a big mistake to become so emotionally invested in our own posts or the posts of others, it becomes emotional. I come here because I enjoy it. Not only do I learn a lot here, I might not otherwise learn, I am even able to help others from time to time. That's gratifying.

I had a reality check earlier today while using the Goodreader app on my iPad to download a recorded book, via iTunes, from an external drive attached to my MBP. If I had had an MBA or a 13 inch MBP to use to play recorded books, I could have simply dragged and dropped the whole book from the external drive to the smaller computer. As it was, though, I had to copy each disc's chapter files onto the iPad, via Goodreader's iTunes client, and then move them from the Goodreader's root directory to the correct disc directory. What a mess! The exercise reminded me of the bad old days of DOS -- only worse.

I am not going to give up on the iPad until we learn how much improvement iOS 4 provides. If there were a way to transfer files from a computer to the iPad that was even half way easy, I would love it. As it is, though, I have about decided that doing it the way I have to do it now is not worth the trouble. If I sound frustrated, you had better believe it. I may be less than courteous to the next poster who tries to tell us the iPad is the functional equivalent of the MBA. It's not. Trust me on this.

Excellent post. I like to read 'real life' examples of peoples computer experiences. (much more than all these arguing/bickering posts - hint

The file transfer, viewing, editing isn't so easy. Apple could of made it easier, and they could of added at whole lot more features on their first release but they're famous for not doing that. The flurry of iPad knock offs on the way to market might make Apple step up their plans for the ipads features, capabilities, ports etc.

I wish they'd come out with the full featured machine on the first run and give people what they want, but I guess that's not the way to make the most money, and this is what it's all about, right?


No the iPad is no replacement for a MacBook Air, not if you are any kind of heavy user and do a lot of input.

We need a new MacBook Air soon, if we don't see it this coming Tuesday then I wonder if there's no hope until September at the soonest, then they may as well wait for the new chips in January??

Too bad to see such a great laptop ignored.

 

[fyrefly]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if/when this Intel/Nvidia thing drags out into 2011, Apple's A4 chip (or it's successor) will be a multi-core ARM A-9 (or that chip's successor).

The A9 is already at 2Ghz multi-core and KILLS anything in battery life from what I've read:

http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/Cortex-A9-Hard-Macro.html

Couldn't Apple just Port OSX to ARM (like they did with iOS4) and put out a 3lb ARM-powered MacBook Air? The battery life alone would be a great seller.

Just some random musings, from another "happy, but waiting for an update" MBA (Rev B 1.6Ghz, SSD) user.

 

[DoFoT9]

I think they could easily overclock certain SL9600 chips to 2.26 GHz. The bigger possibility here is to de-throttle the SL9x00 CPUs and give them true clock speeds as stated. Heck, we could easily have a 30% CPU clock speed boost just by de-throttling the current CPUs. As I have stated before, it opens a whole can of worms though... as it would show the average MBA buyer that they were "tools" of Apple's marketing of 1.86 GHz and 2.13 GHz CPUs that almost NEVER operated at those clock speeds to begin with. Let's face it, the 2.13 GHz CPU might be able to run at 2.13 GHz, but it isn't in the MBA.

While I originally thought Apple could just de-throttle the CPU and advertise gains of 30% and more with the same exact CPUs. However, I decided it wasn't smart because it does show that Apple has mislead people with the CPU clock speeds in current MBAs. In addition, if Intel is going to play anti-competitive "big dog" card and knock Nvidia out of the game, it isn't going to make another C2D SL9x00 series CPU for Apple as it would allow Apple around buying the Intel chipset for a whole series of MBA updates.

oh yea - without doubt those CPUs are capable of doing what you just said. but there are other factors - such as this being Apple they dont do the whole overclocking thing, rather the opposite as we all know. and as i said before, the MBA is a portable, web browsing device - i think they will focus more on battery life and "wirelessness" for consumers rather then the speed of the device.

aka the post below

Couldn't Apple just Port OSX to ARM (like they did with iOS4) and put out a 3lb ARM-powered MacBook Air? The battery life alone would be a great seller.

hmm yea i donno. i thought porting OSX to a different instruction set would be pretty hard - but ive never coded an OS before haha! that would be the idealogical way for apple to do it though, and they might even start developing laptop sized CPUs for all of their laptops! in 10 years we may all be using ARM CPUs for our Macs - i bet apple would LOVE that.

 

[Reason077]

hmm yea i donno. i thought porting OSX to a different instruction set would be pretty hard - but ive never coded an OS before haha! that would be the idealogical way for apple to do it though, and they might even start developing laptop sized CPUs for all of their laptops! in 10 years we may all be using ARM CPUs for our Macs - i bet apple would LOVE that.

Porting OS X to ARM would not be hard at all, considering it has already been done in the form of iOS.

The problem is that all applications would need to be ported as well, making an ARM Mac model an unattractive proposition to consumers.

You could get around this with a translation layer, like Rosetta, which worked very well during the PowerPC -> x86 transition. However, in those days the new x86 chips were a lot faster than the PowerPC chips they were replacing, so Rosetta was able to execute PowerPC code at "close enough" to native PowerPC speeds.

ARM chips perform excellently on a performance-per-watt basis, but they are slower in absolute performance compared to x86, and a translation layer would result in applications running much slower than they do on a native x86 cpu.

 

[DoFoT9]

Porting OS X to ARM would not be hard at all, considering it has already been done in the form of iOS.

wasnt the pervious gen iPhone already on the ARM?

The problem is that all applications would need to be ported as well, making an ARM Mac model an unattractive proposition to consumers.

You could get around this with a translation layer, like Rosetta, which worked very well during the PowerPC -> x86 transition. However, in those days the new x86 chips were a lot faster than the PowerPC chips they were replacing, so Rosetta was able to execute PowerPC code at "close enough" to native PowerPC speeds.

ARM chips perform excellently on a performance-per-watt basis, but they are slower in absolute performance compared to x86, and a translation layer would result in applications running much slower than they do on a native x86 cpu.

haha that would be the biggest PITA that EVER hit osx - AGAIN! hahaha. but yes the performance is really really good! apple will no doubt port to ARM in the near future (aka 10 years).