AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

Macworld has been busy.  I didn't think they would be this fast but they've got benchmarks up for the new Macbooks.  It's ready for your consumption. I just want to point out some things about the benchmark as it relates to the new Mac portables. The 2.4Ghz MB more than held its own against the Macbook Pro.  Of the nine tests, it won four of them.  Adobe PS Suite, MPEG encoding, iTunes, and zip archive. With it's dedicated Nvidia 9600 GPU and larger cache, the new MBP won the Speedmark 5, unzip archive, and, obviously, the Quake 4 frame rate with 59 FPS. The 2.4Ghz MB achieve a wonderful 39 FPS in the Quake 4 test, coming at 67% of the MBP number. The 2.4Ghz MB with 39 FPS in the Quake 4 test is more than 5X the early 2008 Macbook.  The new 2.0Ghz MB also bested the early 2008 Macbook more than 5X. The new white Macbook bested the 2Ghz Macbook in 4 of the 9 tests, likely because of the higher clock rate. Personally, I'm still leaning towards the 2...

In keeping the white Macbook, we'll call it WMB, Apple has effectively created two lines of Macbooks along with the Aluminum Macbook, AMB. Why the two?  This is simply beyond making Macbooks more affordable for the general public.  In fact, Apple may now finally have a corporate strategy, if only based on looks. You may not well go into a client meeting with a WMB but going in there looking fresh with an AMB is definitely a plus.  Furthermore, corporations has already begin to realize the benefits of using Macs in their environment.  But Jobs did something brilliant in going after the corporate market. How?  Steve Jobs said in the Macbook event, you can buy into the aluminum case, LED screen, and much improved graphics experience for $700 less for the low-end AMB and $400 less for the high-end AMB.  Just like Jobs is asking a lot of the boardroom-friendly Macbook Air, he is doing the same with the AMB. On the other hand, the WMB will still appeal to...

Thee are a lot of rumors going around the Internet that we will not see a low end Macbook lower than $999. I have to say that this is more consistent with Apple's behavior. They have crunched the numbers and this is the optimal scenario for them. For those who might be disappointed with this news, I am going to throw this out there. The lack of change increases the chance that there is a better chance of "one more thing..." Why do I think that? Consider this. Folks are now expecting what we already know. Nothing new will be offered, or so we think. We'll know in a few hours. The word is that the some portable Macs will not be upgraded and the eventual upgrade may happen at Macworld. So this leaves Jobs something to talk about at Macworld and today to dazzle us with something totally new. Posted with LifeCast

Whether it's $799, $899, or no change in the price of the entry level Macbook, we are in for another big shift in the underlying technology along with OS X that may change computing once again for Mac users.  Well, we should be in for a change.  Nothing is certain until Steve Jobs makes it so. Tomorrow.  10AM PST.  The follow sites are offering live blogs since Apple issues press passes and has stopped webcasting their events eons ago. Macrumors - via Twitter Engadget - excellent.  If one of the other sites don't work, you can always rely on them. Macworld - you get the bone.  They provide the meat later through the day after the event and into the next day.   Gizmodo - excellent.  The best live site for Mac and other Apple events CNet - it's good to keep in mind.  But they're generally one of the worst Ars Technica I think those live blogs are good enough.  There are many others and if you think I should include them, let me ...