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So who was going to buy a Mac in June but will now wait for Leopard?

A Contrarian View

I am a veteran Windows user (since 3.1) who switched to the wonderful iMac 24 in Feb for my graphics design and video business.

Now I want to replace my personal laptop with a MB or MBP. I was about to buy one now, expressly because I never want to have the first release of any new OS, even Leopard. If that makes no sense to you, remember my Windows past.

Before the Leopard delay announcement, the WWDC timing could not have been worse. I felt like I needed to make my laptop purchase in the next month yet I really wanted to see what MBP improvements came out in June. Now I can sit back and watch WWDC, let all that sort out a bit, and still have the last Tiger-equipped laptop off the assembly line, so to speak.

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled with the Leopard features. I just want to not be on the bleeding edge of progress.
 
I was planning on hopefully getting a new Mac this summer, once both Santa Rosa and Leopard are out, but now I think I will buy once one of these two things happen:

My antique (G3 700Mhz) iBook dies. (In that case, I would probably get the top-of-the-line MacBook Pro, and get Leopard later), or,

Apple comes out with a Matte Screen MacBook. (I have enough glare on this CRT at work, and do not want to have a glossy screen at home. Plus, my dad is an artist, and I want to be able to loan my laptop to him if he ever needs it, and a glossy screen just won't do).

If none of these things happen, I might just wait until Leopard, as even though the iBook is ancient, it still does everything I need it to do, and a lot of what I want it to do, even though it is now super slow.

-Sam
 
Upgrade Soon

I will probably upgrade soon. My first criteria was that CS 3 would run natively on the Intel chips and not have to be emulated through Rosetta Stone.

My second criteria was that the 8 processor machines would be out. This should drive the prices down on the 3 ghz quad chips and make this perhaps a machine of choice.

My third criteria was that the new displays would be out. With the price drops in LCD displays and contrast ratios of 1000:1, if Apple can not produce reasonably priced displays, I may try to find a third party monitor that is reasonably priced and can be calibrated. I tried this before, but the results can be unpredictable. If Apple's displays are reasonably priced on the next release, I would prefer to stay with them.

I would upgrade to the 24" IMac line, if the system bus speed was at least as fast as on the MacPro. With the slower Bus, the coding speed for DVD's is hampered. The other problem with the 24" Imac is three Gig. You can put four Gig into the machine and it will think it was three gigs of memory. Did the Diebold Hardware engineers design these things?

The final thing that would be desirable is that the optical drive should be able to read all current formats plus HDD and Blue ray. The user should have the option of buying HDD or Blue ray burning for the optical drive. Ideally both Blue ray and HDD burning would be included in the same drive.

Will Apple wow at NAB or WWDC with hardware rollout? I'm going to wait at least until after NAB. Recent price drops may indicate upgrades to the displays and the Mac Pro line. If not it is WWDC and if not I will wait for Leopard in October. I do not need the aggravation of troubleshooting Windows programs or Windows itself, so I do not understand why I need Boot Camp to work with Leopard. I do not want two of everything. Sure the Ark was a great idea but I do not want to buy two virus checkers, two disk repair programs, two spyware programs so OS X can run Windoze.

But if new hardware is not released before Octber, I will wait for Leopard.
 
For those waiting primarily for Leopard and not a hardware upgrade, you can't go wrong with getting the current refurbs right now. They're still the same top of the line hardware, and the amount you save on a refurb over a brand new machine will pay for your copy of Leopard down the road.
 
I decided not to take the advice of many on this board and took the plunge a little over a month ago. Looking at the latest news, this was the best decision I could have made! I would feel so stupid now, knowing that I could have had my macbook for an extra 5 weeks without sacrificing anything. I originally went with a refurb, saving 200 dollars right away and if the possible hardware upgrades are significant when they arrive, I can just sell my macbook for almost what I paid for it because Macs hold their value pretty well.
 
I'll probably get a new MBP in June.

I am hoping during WWDC that the new Macbook Pros come out. I've been waiting since Nov when they last updated, mostly cause I was saving, but now that I have enough and June is right around the corner I might as well wait. Leopard is good and all but I think I'll hold off on it until all the programs I am going to use are capable of working with it. I know Pro Tools will take forever to run on the new OS so my worries are basically over. I was kinda scared that getting the new mac with Leopard, I'd be screwed. I'm an audio engineer and I will mostly be using it to work with in Pro Tools and Logic, Logic will most likely work but deff not pro tools, now I can have Tiger and Santa Rosa and just wait till Leopard establishes itself with Digidesign and what not. JUNE IT IS, unless they are announced in June and are coming out in July then JULY IT IS! :p
 
There's always going to be that 'next great thing' on the horizon, whenever you buy. Just buy what you can afford when you need to buy it. Get off the 'gotta have the latest & greatest' hamster wheel...you'll be glad you did!
 
It would sure be nice if Apple gave everyone buying a computer from now until October a free upgrade of leopard when it came out. That would solve a lot of peoples dilemma.

I'm waiting for an update to the MBP. I mainly care about upgraded hardware because I won't buy a computer with the same video card from 1/2006 a year and a half later.
 
macjonny1 said:
It would sure be nice if Apple gave everyone buying a computer from now until October a free upgrade of leopard when it came out. That would solve a lot of peoples dilemma.
Click to expand...
They'd probably lose more money by doing that.
 
Exactly how much money does Apple make on the sale of Operating Systems? I would bet you the amount of profit made on hardware exceeds the cost of a Leopard license, yet people are clearly holding off buying the hardware becuase they want the latest and greatest OS.

On the other hand, Apple could offer an "express upgrade" of sorts for those interested in Leopard later, and people would feel more secure buying hardware now.

As for me, I'm happy using a MacBook Pro now. When Leopard comes out, maybe I'll upgrade to it, and then maybe I won't. The features Tiger affords me are plenty good for now.
 
i just bought a macbook pro this very day. yay for employee purchase plan! it should arrive mid next week. i feel kinda iffy about it, due to the impending upgrades, but i have so many co-workers with old powerbooks who love them to death. i've been working on macs as a designer for 10 years and it's funny that this is the first one i've bought :)

hope this works out and i don't feel shafted!
 
this makes me feel better...as soon as I flip my mini and laptop I'm going to buy one...hopefully it'll be around the 2-3 week in May that that happens.
 
I think il get the next MBP update. If that happens in next couple of months by the time leopard comes out I would have to think about waiting for the next hardware update.

So if the cash funds are OK I wont be waiting.
 
Veracon said:
However hypocritical that may sound, I'm actually hesitant to at all get a Mac now. Partly because I really wanted Leopard (but I need to buy a laptop in July at worst) and I don't want to shell out $180 to upgrade it when it does come out, but even more so because I'm starting to lose faith in Apple. Having seen two delays of this OS, I'm beginning to think they ARE neglecting the Mac side of their products a bit...
Click to expand...

C'mon dude..seriously don't lose faith just because the OS has been delayed...just look at how long it took MS to come out with Vista..Moreover, the fact that Apple has expanded its horizons is no need to panic...Besides Tiger is still by far the best OS currently running...Macs are the fastest computers on the market that have the longest computer life...let's face it there is nothing better than a Mac don't sell yourself short...

Sorry for the long reply but I just had to set things straight!
 
MacDonaldsd said:
I think il get the next MBP update. If that happens in next couple of months by the time leopard comes out I would have to think about waiting for the next hardware update.

So if the cash funds are OK I wont be waiting.
Click to expand...

I totally agree!!! If my cash flow permits I think I'm pulling the trigger on a 15" MBP with all the fixings!!! When Leopard comes out then I will jump on it...I just can't torture myself any longer....
 
Yea, I am probably going to wait. I was planning on June + Santa Rosa but now by the time Leopard comes out it will be at least a Rev B product (which is good).

Plus maybe by that time if Penryn (or whtever it is called) is right around the corner (isnt that slated for Q3?) I might just wait to purchase at or after Christmas time.

Plus hopefully a new full screen video ipod will be out by then so that I can buy both at once and get a nice big discount (company discount=17% everything apple).
 
bgerber said:
I am a veteran Windows user (since 3.1) who switched to the wonderful iMac 24 in Feb for my graphics design and video business.

Now I want to replace my personal laptop with a MB or MBP. I was about to buy one now, expressly because I never want to have the first release of any new OS, even Leopard. If that makes no sense to you, remember my Windows past.

Before the Leopard delay announcement, the WWDC timing could not have been worse. I felt like I needed to make my laptop purchase in the next month yet I really wanted to see what MBP improvements came out in June. Now I can sit back and watch WWDC, let all that sort out a bit, and still have the last Tiger-equipped laptop off the assembly line, so to speak.

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled with the Leopard features. I just want to not be on the bleeding edge of progress.
Click to expand...

As someone who has done that before, I would recomend against it. If I were you I would just wait until Chistmas time to purchase, that way Leopard will have been out for several months and there will be several significant bug fixes. I would say that it took Tiger about 2 months too become stable but it was released before WWDC and there was not as much Beta Testing, so it will be a lot better this time around. Also, you might want to remember that it is likely we will see new hardware dedicated to Leopard, as in say a touch interface track pad or something along those lines.

If I were you, pocket the $150 to spend on something when you get your laptop (or a nice dinner in the interum, ha) and then just buy the lappy with Leopard, it is not worth buying in June.
 
I'm not waiting. My G4 PB just had a DC converter board failure. I'm going to replace the board, but it's clear the the thing is on it's last legs. It'll make it another 6-8 weeks until the SR MBPs are out but I won't trust it for important work much longer than that.

I wouldn't have waited for Leopard to be released in Oct. anyway. It's too far ways for a $129 saving to be worth it.
 
I was waiting for either Leopard or a new Mac Pro octocore, but now... um, I'm kinda confused :/

lol
 
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