Apple stabilizes new Mac notebooks
Apple has released stabilizing updates for its new MacBook, shown here, as well as other systems introduced in October.
(Credit: Apple)Apple has released several new firmware updates aimed at solving problems with its latest batch of notebooks.
Updates are available for all three Mac notebooks released in October: the new MacBook Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Air. In usual fashion, Apple didn't provide a whole lot of detail about the issues that are corrected by the EFI firmware updates, other than to note that they "improve the stability" of those new systems.
The company also released firmware updates for the SMC (system management controller) chip inside Mac notebooks, which helps regulate power consumption among other things. Those updates "improve the sensing and accuracy of the MagSafe Power Adapter indicator light, and the battery charge indicator lights" on the new MacBook Pro and MacBook. The SMC update for the MacBook Air tackles just the MagSafe issues.
Several problems have been reported of late with the new notebooks, which also saw a firmware update issued earlier this year to correct a problem with the new glass trackpad design introduced with those systems. The SMC is the same part that would require a firmware update to fix the sleep/wake problems noted by some users, even though Apple doesn't call that problem out in the release notes for that firmware.
The updates should be popping up in Software Update as you read this; let us know if you have any trouble applying the updates or notice any significant changes. Owners of laptops purchased before the major redesign in October need not worry about Wednesday's firmware releases.
UPDATED 3:25pm - The notes accompanying the Software Update notification explain that "this update improves the stability of MacBook computers and addresses issues with sleep-wake, USB, and device compatibility," adding a little more information and suggesting that this batch of updates should fix some of the problems we noted yesterday.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.
The reason people are "quick to slam the writers on cnet.com" is that some of them don't write original content, they just lift stuff off of a press release and resubmit them as an "article/survey". Okay, I need to give them credit for stuffing some questions in there, massaging the text, and making a few inferences.
For more Apple press releases go to:
http://www.apple.com/pr/
That's what journalism is: reporting about what someone or some group has said or done. If they were just making up stories, that would be called fiction. If one of the news outlets reports what Barack Obama said in a press conference, I guess that's not good journalism because if Barack Obama already said it, it doesn't need to be repeated by a news source.
I had no idea that Apple had released updates to try to correct some problems. I'll be interested to hear what Mac users have to say about whether or not the updates fixed some of those problems. Not everyone has the time needed to peruse every internet tech site on the web for every bit of information, so it's nice to get summaries like this one about what is going on in the tech world in one convenient place. If I want to know more about a particular subject, I research further.
Save the criticism for when a writer makes a mistake, is untruthful, or reports inaccurate information. As far as I can see, this brief article is accurate, and I'm sure there will be follow up as soon as mac users report on the efficacy of the updates. Save complaints for real issues or you just sound like a whiner.
Don't get me wrong, I have seen mistakes made by several writers on cnet.com, but let's make sure there is actually a mistake before pointing one out. That's all I'm saying.
heyo.
Wait that would be racists wouldn't it.
Way to go crappy commenter! :)
Couldn't exactly say the same for dell, or hp, or any of those other groups who continue to write for windows, while apple does everything in-house. Give them credit at the very least.
firewire.. yeah, its certainly faster than USB. But let's look at it from a really funny POV.
USB = Universal Serial Bus. UNIVERSAL serial bus. Everything is made in USB these days, and apple followed that trend.
IEEE 1394 = .....Yeah, I know what it stands for. Sure, it's still available if you look, but less and less devices are firewire. USB 3.0 talk has really made things look good. (and usb ports take up less area, allowing for a slimmer design)
macbook pro's do have an express card slot. and aluminum with glass, we're using LED's now in these macbooks. so not only are they more eco-friendly than any of those HP's you're referring to (had to guess because of the media reader comment). I can understand preferring windows to OSX, but to slam apple for putting out a truly precision instrument, one that you can't get from other companies, hey, we like quality.
Plastic = flimsy? Yes, in some cases (a pun?). But if it were a real problem then why does the world's manufacturers use it? Its alll good, be happy with your aluminum machine. I agree, its cool, but to stick your nose up in the air and say "you like quality" while implying everything else is not... of course we all like quality. i personaly also like getting my money's worth out of a machine.
And the "greeen" thing. (rolls eyes)... reminds me of the south park episode with the hybrid cars!
There's a difference between consumer quality and business quality laptops. Dell offers consumer items for less than $1000 that are fine for your home use or light travel. But take the same unit and put it into a much stronger case, one designed for the abuse of every day use and travel abuse and you have a machine that can cost $1000 more- even though it may have the same features and specs.
Typically most OEM's offer a 1 year warranty on consumer and 3 year warranty on business level products.
Lenovo recently has shifted from offering both levels of build quality to only the consumer level and the amount of broken cases and returns is showing it. The quality simply isn't there as it was when IBM held the name of Thinkpad. Times change.
Durabilty is something the MacBook Air is experiencing toruble with. But the broken displays and overheating issues are more a limitation of design and space than of build quality. You can only go so thin before you have to worry about the case flexing or the display cracking. Sometimes you want that bulk to reinforce the case assembly. That's another reason why business class models are typically heavier than consumer models.
P.S. Still no MMS on my iPhone Apple? Seriously, ***?
It's great when you can address the issues with a firmware update instead of having to replace hardware.
I have had an iPhone for about 6 months. It's been jailbreaked since day three.
What can I say, you put so much into a phone and you expect MMS.. Well, IT is available if you want to do the legwork. It's not enough to have an ipod and a camera is it.
someone realy needs to take apart a macbook and figure out the actual costs to make the thing. IMO, the driving design factors for these aluminum macbooks are two things; cost to build, and heat. They build machines with the bare minumim of hardware, lowering mfr costs (while retail remains very high). But, you then have to deal with heat. An all aluminum body acts as a large heatsink, so now they are able to put a faster graphics chip in the machine (though still lagging against cheaper systems). But that makes things a little too costly for apple, so they drop firewire and dvi - which is ironic since they touted firewire for so many years and seem to have slowly (and of course quietly) moved away from touting video-editing capabilities which would necessitate firewire.
Plastic = flimsy? Yes, in some cases (a pun?). But if it were a real problem then why does the world's manufacturers use it? Its alll good, be happy with your aluminum machine. I agree, its cool, but to stick your nose up in the air and say "you like quality" while implying everything else is not... of course we all like quality. i personaly also like getting my money's worth out of a machine.
And the "greeen" thing. (rolls eyes)... reminds me of the south park episode with the hybrid cars!
Let's put all preconceived 'typical mac guy' images aside. I merely want to point out that apple is using LED's that are eco friendly and perform BETTER, while aluminum happens to be recyclable AND shows to distribute heat BETTER rather than just hold it in its particles like plastics.
The aluminum macbook is still a basic notebook that isn't for gaming, and only has a better graphics chip to support the new LED 24" display. Again, it's eco friendly, but is also a better performing device.
Don't get me wrong, i'm all about style and I really love this computer, but I am in no way an elitist because of the looks. Running windows faster than your gateway is something I take a lot of pride in.
And you bet your rear I suggest everything else is not quality. I'm only 24, and have been using windows 95/98 nonstop until 2001 where I switched to xp until last november where I went mac. I'm also an I.T. professional and have seen what consumers can do to machines. somehow aluminum seems more durable as well.
so you can like yours and I'll keep liking mine, but you had better put facts before your personal opinions.
-
by weeman17
December 12, 2008 12:27 PM PST
- I am gonna be honest. I like the macbooks design changes. However, the software is something that should be dealt with before release. The problem with the computer software (mainly) industry is that the makers do not run these processes very thoroughly. As for the gaming aspect, the apple computer can't run microsoft games (unless you want to spend an extra $300 on XP or Vista) so that has been the only major issue i have had with the computers. Otherwise they are excellent.
-
Reply to this comment
-
(27 Comments)