A video walkthrough of Apple's newest additions (Unibody MacBook, iMac, Magic Mouse)
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Oct 20th 2009 4:12PM
posted Oct 20th 2009 4:12PM
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"that were just dumped on us today...."
How sad to be you....
Yeah, that was funny. But you wonder how quick they have to turnover videos like this. I doubt they did more than one take, maybe two. They are competing against other news sites for one stop videos like this. So I guess Josh didn't have much time to rehearse.
Apple, dump one of these round my place too please.
No iMac touch. Come on Apple, Dell Hp and Sony and just about every other company has Multi touch screen already and all Apple comes out with is a "Magic Mouse"LOL (No zooming and rotating) .. 27" screen no HDMI Inputs super reflective..I'm very very disappointed..sticking to my old iMac..
Why in the world would you want Multi touch on a vertically oriented computer? Do you know how fast your arms would get tired. Also have you ever seen one of those computers after someone touches it, looks like total crap.
Does the mouse launch Expose? That was a big feature IMO
Nice midwest farm boy shirt josh, although you probably didn't get it at JC Penny.
What a crappy video. "dumped on us, 7 hour battery..probably gets 3" gee did you even test the battery life?? Your an idiot for putting out such a poor excuse of a video. Hey I got an idea,,.next time why don't you put some effort into your work.
"Your an idiot"
Oh the irony.
hondaictech: You just see what the others are trying to do, can you please explain me how you would use the touch screen on your desk? Your arms would get tired very fast i sopouse. Adding a multi touch screen only cause it sounds cool , is too expensive.
So think befor you say something like that. The multi touch mouse is way better then touch screen since your hand can lay on the table.
Why do I suspect mouse average prices will go up next year?
Why? It's the same price as before.
Maybe your senses aren't working lately ;)
If we start seeing a lot of multitouch mouse releases, the average price could go up. That being said, I'll still be sticking to my MX Revolution.
Funny to see how apple comes out 2 years after Logitech MX Air with a vastly inferior product, for what I bet will be an higher price and its fankids lap it up and even call it "revolutionary".
For one like me, who has connected his PCs to several monitors including a 60" plasma, 3 LCD TVs between 42" and 22" + a couple of LCD monitors (in different rooms obviously) the MX Air has become a necessity.
I have 2 of them, the oldest of which is about 2 years old and still working flawlessly.
No other mouse has ever come even close to the functionality of this amazing device, and I'm ready to bet that this magic mouse will be no exception.
thats a tiny keyboard in front of a massive screen
I don't understand why they would be shipping their top-of-line desktop computer with a keyboard that lacks a number pad.
Oh wait, form over function.
haha yeah. I hope they use it as an aesthetic reason to bring back the numpad keyboard... Any reason would be good. I reaaally don't get why they would eliminate it. I use the numberpad maybe once a day at home but when it's there I'm glad I have it.
Uh, you can select a keyboard with a numpad when you order it online. I'm typing on one right now.
Umm.
The Apple Wireless Keyboard comes standard with your iMac. Its ultra-compact design saves space and lets you place your mouse comfortably next to your keyboard. Or you can choose the wired Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad or the wired Apple Keyboard. In addition, you can select the language of the keyboard and documentation.
Can you not read?
So Apple has not figured out how to transmit numeric keys wirelessly?
how am i supposed to get through my day without a video of the new time capsule!?
Someone's a little jaded about battery life claims.
No kidding - Apple's actually tend to be pretty accurate as far as such claims go. If they say 7, I'm guessing it'll get 7.
Seriously. My 3 year old MacBook, with the original battery (697 cycles as of today), regularly gets me 3-4 hours of use still.
Also, he's an idiot for not being able to use the mouse.
My 2008 Macbook is lucky if it gets 5 hours. Also the mouse is a bad idea and a demonstration of why just because you can do something you still shouldn't.
697 exactly? Have you been counting?
Haha, no my Mac has been counting for me :)
Mac batteries have a bit of "intelligence" to them. I use a widget called IStat pro to view it's specs. With 1 click I can tell you that my battery is at 100% charge, has been through 697 cycle and has 100% health :)
You don't need to count battery cycles since it clearly shows you the number in System Profiler.
My MBP goes 6ish hours with wifi.
I just checked my MBP that I got in June and it has 107 cycles. At this rate I would have 963 cycles in 3 years. I need to cut down on my computing....
What apple products are you guys using? My less than 2 year-old Macbook Pro's battery lasts less than 2 hours on a full charge, and my 3-month old iPhone 3GS battery doesn't even make it to the end of the work day when it's fully charged in the morning, Wifi, Bluetooth, and Push all turned off. Complained to Apple about both and got turned away by their 'geniuses' because my battery performance was "within spec".
So file me under "jaded", please.
@Luscious
Really?
I've had 2 batteries on my MBP replaced (this last time, 2 weeks ago, it was out of warranty) by Apple for free.
To add to that, they told me that if I get the same issue, they'd take a look at my MBP just to check it's not the machine that's causing the problem even though my MBP is out of warranty.
For my iPhone, same story. I've had the original replaced for a dead screen and the replacement didn't have the charge capacity, so they gave me a "new" one.
We have 2 13" MB Pro's that are less than 6 months old. 1 has a cycle count of 60 and the other 77. Neither of them get more than 4 hours on a full charge, with screen at half brightness and just using wifi. We even had one of the batteries replaced just to make sure it wasn't the battery.
On the other hand my Dell Mini 9 that is over a year old and has a 4 cell battery still gets 4.5 hours per charge.
that was hilarious though... "they say it gets 7 hours, but it probably gets 3." i want joshua to do more of these product presentations!
yeah, noticed. thing is that all battery claims are the same. they are always 'up to' something that requires you to be using settings that are basically everything off.
and the times I've used the new laptops with the built in battery I have gotten better than the old batteries. so i still call it an improvement
No sorry, battery life on apple products does suck and depreciates real fast with age.
My Macbook can't last 5 minutes without being plugged in before unexpectedly shutting off.
It's essentially a desktop now.
If you've lost track of your battery cycles, don't worry. Al Gore knows exactly what you're doing and looks forward to charging you for it.
Apart from size I wonder why they didn't go all the way with the new mouse giving it the pinch/zoom features of the trackpads, seems like they only went half way?
If you have ever used that feature on the MBPs you may not be surprised. It's a cute idea "in theory". In practice it is god awful and one of the biggest requests was being able to disable it. Even on a bigger area like the trackpads I (and many others) would always end up resizing when we wanted to scroll.
Strange - I love the trackpad gestures. I have all enabled and use them daily (except the rotate). They work perfectly and I have never - not even once - had an accidental resize when one want to scroll. how on earth did you do that anyway? Scoll is two fingers down or up. resize is two fingers together or apart. heck, even how much I try I can't make any scroll-like action resize. Do you have any disabilities or other abnormalities or deformalities that could affect the useage?
New iMac is so sexy. Already bought a magic mouse. can't wait!
Annoying poster, stop being ironic.
love it...josh hittin em' left and right with disses...engadget rocks!
given the mono left channel, non-stereo vid, I'd say he's only hitting with the left... left.
Ahh, ok. So it wasn't just me who had the audio problem... The video didn't have a right channel.
@shaun and ThreeDee912
You haven't heard the Beatles until you've heard them in mono, likewise you haven't heard Josh until you've heard him in mono! ;)
Some nice spec updates and screen updates that were definitely wanted by a few. The mouse overall was the only large let down as states in other posts. The keyboard can probably go either way as it's not a huge update on the original. Still as unergonomic as ever before.
I like this. I think you need to do these video wrap-ups more often. Its nice to read over new release news, but having a concise, matter-o-fact video to sum it all up is pleasing to my eye and my ear.
In other video news, the Ben Heck interview should have been longer and the Engadget podcast needs to be shorter (at least last I checked.)
Much love.
Logan
Man being an Engadget reader is like being best friends with Brad Pitt or David Beckham, constantly watching them hang out with great looking women
Engadget you lucky bas&*rds!
Its a love/hate relationship lol
Pretty much confirms what I thought with respect to the magic mouse: Scrolling up/down and such works well, but anything going to the side is awkward. iMac kinda got a gloss over but that's somewhat expected since the real differences are in the screen size and the power inside it(core i5/i7 if you opt for such things)
It's pretty bad when you're trying to review a product and you keep going 'oops' and 'didn't mean to do that'. I was looking forward to upgrading my Mighty Mouse but I don't think this mouse will fit the bill.
why does everyone keep downgrading mark?
I'm starting to wonder if Engadget will fix the bot script that is ranking down Mark. Mark it's good to see you are still posting though.
@Templarian: Oh, looking through my history, I've found I'm posting more often. It's pretty thrilling watching some of my posts go from lowest ranked all the way up to highest ranked. Plus, it basically means there's no negative consequences, since the worst that can happen is I stay at the same ranking.
no worries, dood. ill make sure i uprank all your comments if i come across 'em :D
(unless you say something douchetastic... which you never do... so yea :D)
Apple fan boys seriously can't take an opinion no matter how much it make sense, Mark I tried what you about moving both fingers left to right and two minutes (or close) and my fingers started feeling weird, not saying it's is a bad concept, but as long as you speak against apple in an apple post, you will get down ranked.
@ trevor and mark
Get a room already ;)
He's just moron who doesn't know how to use a mouse.
You do not need to swipe both fingers for 2 finger actions- just touch the mouse with 1 finger (holding it steady) and swipe the second finger. Not too difficult.
@nd: woah, you actually managed to find a way that's more awkward than the two-finger swipe. Trying to move one finger side to side while simultaneously keeping the other stationary is crazy hard. At any rate, I'm gonna take the actual live video of a respected(and generally pro-apple) blogger over the word of some random commenter who may or may not have ever used it.
No problem. And you're correct, I have not used it (but apparently, neither has he). But I have used Mac's multitouch tech, and it's not that hard.
And no, leaving 1 finger stationary is not difficult.
To each their own.
@ trevor
maybe his avatar is stressing people out, and it has nothing to do with comments.
@trainwrecka: If that's the reason, then it's not really my fault. I've tried to change it probably 10 or 15 times so far and it just stays the same no matter what I do. However, given the comments from the user "K" at the exact time that this started, I doubt it's being caused by more than one person(on average, I'm sure some people don't like what I have to say)
@pal
hedgehogs arent into that kinda stuff.
My point exactly. Pal got ranked up, but did he say anything useful or funny? Nope. Keep at it boys, all fan buy acts the same way when what they purchase is criticized. Here, I LOVE APPLE.
great video, thanks for showing us! "mouse" looks lame as hell though. is apple revisiting the hockey puck disaster?
Please test the video input of the 27" iMac!! Its the best new feature for me, being able to hook up my Xbox 360 or PS3 with an HDMI to Mini Display Port adapter would make me think hard about picking this up.
That's what I was thinking (PS3 hookup). Question about BluRay; Josh mentions something to the effect of "no BluRay, so not great for watching movies." Hurm? Would a BluRay film really be noticeably superior to a standard DVD on a 27" monitor? Assuming you weren't sitting RIGHT in front of your iMac.
I thought iMac's dont support video in. How would you go about hooking up your ps3.
In the fine print on the apple store it says the 27" iMac mini display port allows input too. I've been all over the net looking for a test or confirmation but cant find a thing yet...hopefully tomorrow someone has a full review out and can test the feature.
"Hurm? Would a BluRay film really be noticeably superior to a standard DVD on a 27" monitor? Assuming you weren't sitting RIGHT in front of your iMac."
Besides resolution, BluRay movies have much higher bitrate than DVD counterparts, so you would notice the difference.
On a typical 27" TV, you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference. However, these Macs have much higher-resolution displays than typical 27" TVs. A DVD would look awful at that high of a resolution.
Ruben: Yes a blur ray film would look significantly better than a DVD on a27 inch monitor. IT looks better on anything that is capable of putting out the pixels necessary.
720 x 480 pixels vs 1080 x 1920 pixels
I wish my current iMac could play blu-ray discs or had a video input. The difference between simply 720p video and a DVD on my 20 inch imac is noticeable from 20 foot away.
Besides, Blu-Ray discs have higher quality color. DVDs tend to look orange.
thats probably what, $7,000 worth of hardware?
Only if you're really, really, REALLY bad at math.
hmm, $2000 plus $1000 = $7000?
Inneresting..
Or maybe it's OVER NINE-THOUSAND!!!!
I miss 16:10. My current iMac uses it. I don't really like the 16:9 aspect ratio in monitors/TV's. I guess I just like having the black bars at the top and bottom. Makes it feel more movie-ish to me.
Maybe its just me.
I like the letterboxing so subtitles (or media controls) don't block out the video.
massive screen, quad core i want oneeeeeeeeeeee
Why then you doint buy one?
I have a Dell UltraSharp 2709W (27"). Go buy one with a mac Mini.
you should do this video things way more often!!!!!! sweetness
You made a mistake in your video.
The keyboard uses 2 batteries instead of 3.
Hmm if that's true I wonder what they'll do. They usually go back and edit the article to correct the mistake. Maybe they'll dub over 1 and 2 with 2 and 3? That would be hilarious.
So does the Magic Mouse replacement gestures for the 3rd (middle) and 4th (side) buttons? It's convenient to have Dashboard and Expose access from the mouse.
I think it will be X number of fingers swipe up and down, just like the MBP trackpad.
"Built-in battery; they say it gets about 7 hours, uh, but it probably gets about three..."
Truer words couldn't be said. LOL I hate how they always over-estimate the battery life of these notebooks. They're NEVER the advertised lifespan! No one freakin' runs them on the dimmest brightness, no wifi/bluetooth, and surf only static web pages that won't suck up CPU like a flash video would for 7 hours!
The macbook pros actually have relatively accurate battery life estimates, so I would guess that this macbook does as well. Check reputable sites that have reviewed it like notebookcheck and anandtech (I think anandtech had an article about the new battery tech when they switched back to integrated batteries).
I do understand the jaded-ness though, as the notebooks from 95% of other manufacturers regularly get half the rated battery-life claims (including my own dell E4300).
Apple's battery ratings aren't based on the same benchmark as PCs.
It's 7 hours of "wireless productivity". While it's still most likely at the dimmest brightness, WiFi is on. I believe they rate it based on editing a document in iWork, browsing the web and checking email.
Realistically, I got around 5-6 hours out of my 17" Macbook Pro w/ the built in battery. I even got ~3 hours of gaming at full brightness.
are you serious? Apple battery estimates are the biggest bull ever.. they are no different than any other manufacturer, in fact, It's easy to argue that they are the most dishonest. and the reason you can't use the display at low brightness is because the shit glossy display turns into a mirror. I always used my ibook at the lowest setting and easily got about 5 hours of battery life.. that's pretty sad since here we are 5 years later and things have actually gotten worse.
The title of this should be "How Many Times Someone Can Say 'Umm' and 'ahh' in Less Than 3 Minutes." Holy balls...glad you guys are bloggers and not TV journalists.
Come-on, have a pity for a guy. What else one can say about just another 27" monitor and plain keyboard? Mouse is a different story but then, having got special delivery of merchendise from Apple, who would dare to say what he really thinks about this gimmick :-)
I'm glad you're neither :)
Yeah, because nothing says professional and accurate like the tripe you see on TV "news" these days.
Have you heard Obama without his teleprompter?
:-D
thank u J for not drooling over these lame product announcements
There is no middle button? :/
In the Video: "if you hate buttons..." Nice excuse :-) As we all know, there is only one person in the world that hates buttons" but this is a psychic anomaly and should not be referred to in general discussions :-)
Why would anyone hate something that helps to make the job done?
If you really like buttons get this:
http://eu.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga
Same ol' reason,form over functionality.
Same ol' reason,form over functionality.