News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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Apple has a chequered history with industry standards. It was almost solely responsible for popularising USB, for example, leading many people to think it was Apple’s invention (it was Intel’s). Its support of its own FireWire standard has been spotty, and of course it came late to the USB 2.0 party in an attempt to prop up FireWire. And let’s not forget how long it clung to ADB — long after everyone else had abandoned it.
Nonetheless, its use of “standards” in today’s MacBook and MacBook pro announcements was interesting at best, baffling at worst.
For instance, the reason given for not adopting Blu-ray was because it hasn’t really taken hold in the market yet, and until it’s an established standard, Apple doesn’t want to burden its users with the early adoption tax.
Thoughtful, really.
Then there’s Mini DisplayPort. Maybe I just don’t follow the display industry closely enough, but I had never heard of DisplayPort until this morning, much less learned that a “Mini” version had come out. The world moves so fast.
By all accounts though, DisplayPort is hardly what you’d call an established standard. Yes, there’s a bunch of companies signed on to support it and therefore help it become established, but it isn’t there yet. There’s also a bunch of companies signed on to support Blu-ray, including Apple.
Nonetheless Steve Jobs described it as an “industry standard” and announced that Apple would be adopting it across the board (it wasn’t clear whether he meant Apple would be adopting different versions of DisplayPort, just as it had adopted multiple variants of DVI, or whether the Apple standard is going to be Mini DisplayPort). So in the next refresh of every machine Apple makes, it will be dropping the old display connectors and adding this new one.
Which will be fine, if all the displays in the world adopt it too. They haven’t. Most displays still use DVI, and probably will for a while, unless Apple “does a USB” again.
Remember ADC? No, not the Developer Connection, the Apple Display Connector, a display standard that incorporated DVI as well as power and USB. It was fantastic, and at the time DVI hadn’t really taken off so there was no reason not to have a go with something new. The G4 Cube used it, as did Apple’s own displays of the time.
Problem was, almost nobody else adopted it (LaCie was the exception I think). DVI took off, and ADC died a quick death — leaving only owners of ADC-equipped displays who then needed to buy $140 adapters when they bought a new computer to remember it by.
It’s a lot to pay for an adapter, isn’t it? Interestingly, it’s almost as much as you’ll pay for the adapter to connect your new MacBook Pro to your 30-inch Cinema Display. Remember how your old MacBook Pro could run that baby right out of the box?
So we’re not to be burdened by the price of adopting Blu-ray, but we’ll get lumped with Mini DisplayPort whether we like it or not. Because it’s a “standard”.
Apple’s marketing tag line for the new MacBook Pro appears to be “Built to standards that don’t exist yet”. Now you know what that means.
I have three cats, and one MacBook. You’d think that pure numerical superiority would be enough for the cats to feel confident in their lot — but that’s not entirely the case. Even the fact that the MacBook is only portable where the felines are fully mobile isn’t enough for them. You see, I’ve come to the conclusion that at least one of my cats is — there is no better word — envious of my MacBook.
Alex Kidman | Dec 10, 2007
Many decades ago, there was a linoleum layer’s apprentice. For the sake of personality, let’s call him Alf. Like most apprentices, Alf was given all the tedious, noisy, potentially painful jobs that nobody else wanted to do. On one particular day in 1962, Alf was given the job of nailing down a large Masonite board to some timber, in preparation for some truly hideous lino to be set down. Alf was bored, Alf was feeling rebellious, and Alf knew it would be a long time before anyone spotted what he was up to — so he went nuts. Spiral patterns of staples, double, triple and quadruple staples — this board wasn’t going to come up without a fight.
Alex Kidman | Dec 10, 2007
The MacBook range is second-rate for internet access, and it’s high time Apple did something about it. OK, perhaps that’s a bit unfair. On WiFi or Ethernet, the MacBook is a fine internet access device -- Draft 802.11n and all that -- but what if you’re out on the road? In an era when just about every notebook manufacturer offers several models with inbuilt mobile broadband capabilities, Apple’s notebooks are notably devoid of this handy option.
Dan Warne | Jan 7, 2008
The timing of the announcement is a curious tactic for Apple. Announcing a refresh of a major product line six days out from theMacworld Expo is a little weird; I can't think why Steve Jobs wouldn'thave wanted to pull a big blue sheet off a Mac Pro (the Xserve marketis pretty specialised when you come to it) and startle the world withit. Then again, perhaps he's got something even snazzier in mind; aFlash-based MacBook Pro that costs $300, reads your mind, does yourironing and has a Time Machine that works with any wireless networkconnection.
Alex Kidman | Jan 10, 2008
