Apple issues software update for new 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros
By Vlad Savov 
posted April 14th 2010 10:24AM
posted April 14th 2010 10:24AM
posted April 14th 2010 10:24AM
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They're going crazy. iPad, iPhone OS 4, Opera, new MacBook Pro's, Software Updates, the iPad's are completely sold out and they're producing as hell, all this in only 10 days. whoa.
@Niklasnick Mind Blown
@Niklasnick I like Apple products, but this is too much. I think I'm starting to get sick of all this Apple news. This is not Apple hater talk... It just feels like they're in the media even though the news themselves are not newsworthy.
Oh well, new Macbooks look nice. I might upgrade to them.
@Niklasnick Apple isn't just two guys any more. They have, what, like 100 employees? At least.
@GarkKrag You realise that would be 900 million people, right?
@Niklasnick
ACTUALLY......they are still selling iPads at my university. Their not ALL sold out....well not yet anyway.
@abedinthehouse .. well the iPad stock level situation is bad enough that they have delayed international sales of iPad by another month :(
Not to mention it could be months before we get a Wifi+3G version.
@GarkKrag - try 5% worldwide. Not even in the US (where Apple is by far the most successful) they reach more than 10% of the total computer market, and in huge countries like China or India, Apple is nearly non-existent.
@Niklasnick
2010 macbooks have cheap built quality.(check Images )
I don't care about other apple products.
@GarkKrag 15% of 6 billion people is quite a lot, my friend. (not an Apple fanboy)
@XRX "2010 macbooks have cheap built quality.(check Images )"
Images? That's how you judge build quality??
@XRX
Sorry, I'm german, and only pupil, I'm not sure I understood it right. You mean, the 2010 MacBook housing's cheap? A friend of mine has a white MacBook, and though they're plastic and that's not as worthy as my aluminium MacBook Pro I think they don't really feel cheap. It might look weak on photos, but it looks much better in real. Not as good as the aluminium Apple uses at the MBP's for years, but not cheap ;-)
@DonnyChi91
You guys took his comment out of context. It's more like 5-8% of computer users. Not every person on earth has a computer.
@NewL
I'm sorry but you are misinformed ! I'm Indian ! I'm typing this on my 24-inch iMac ! and there is a sizeable amount of the populations with the iPhone ! Get your facts right :)
@Niklasnick First of all, at best he meant 15% of computers and smartphones combined are Apple. Not everyone has a computer and many would have 2+ distorting facts.
On to the other point. This deserves a down rank, but from the iMacs screen issues last year to a software update coming out post release, I just wonder if one of Apple's core strengths -releasing complete, or work-in-progresses that at least feel complete, - is diminishing. I don't care, and you can say every company does it, but not every company hits the margins that Apple does, and I get the feeling that they could've done even more hiring along the way since things are so good in Cupertino and shitty for the rest of us while they continue to grow. But hey, capitalism at its best, and if it aint broke don't fix it. However, I think we should admit the Apple refresh was a long time coming and even if the software is best to put out after the release so to not show their hand, I do have my other reasons to come to the same conclusion but I'm gonna be downranked anyways...
@AnAnt I'm sorry I'm from India. (Delhi) and though yes there are people with macs and iPhones in India, the number is anything but sizeable. What less than 0.5% of smartphone users have an iphone? less than 0.2% computers are macs. Thats not really a percentage at all. Cmon, if India was a decent market for apple, we would have got iphone 3GS in 2009, and not like 2 weeks ago.
Oh and by the way, typing this on my macbook pro (early 2009) and I have an iPhone 3GS that I bought in January from the greay market after waiting like forever for it to come out officially.
@juanvaldez
Name a computer product that is released without patches already lined up for the those that take them home on day one?
Have you read articles on the Netbook's with 3G built in from Verizon and AT&T? All kinda of people complaining about how they use up their data plans just doing the updates on day one and saying that they should warn people to connect them via wifi only until all the patching is done.
Or any OS released in say the last 10 years that have patches already between the code going to production and arriving on the shelf or computers?
In todays world of constantly changing software and technologies there really isn't a "final" version of many computer related technologies anymore.
@Niklasnick Actually, Apple quotes all of its runtime with WiFi enabled and screens and all other settings at default. for example: "The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%." The wireless productivity test is the quoted battery life number... Question is, will you get it.. Opinions. http://bit.ly/macbook-corei5i7-series
@Niklasnick
http://i40.tinypic.com/20foja1.png
@juanvaldez "First of all, at best he meant 15% of computers and smartphones combined are Apple. Not everyone has a computer and many would have 2+ distorting facts."
While Apple does have a small market share, the bigger one that PC machines have is due also to some old junk sitting in banks. I mean if we take the population that is actually buying computers more regularly we will see much more Apple comps. I think...
"but from the iMacs screen issues last year to a software update coming out post release, I just wonder if one of Apple's core strengths -releasing complete, or work-in-progresses that at least feel complete, - is diminishing."
Now, I am not saying the question isn't valid, but I think this problem was blown out of proportions. How many units were really affected from the units sold?
Here are some numbers (not great, but hey that's what we have for now):
http://imac.squeaked.com/results.php
We have 2584-609 issues (all issues included, not only flickering display or yellow screen) and even 175 are on a 21" screen iMacs.
Of course, as the site states:
"The data presented here is based on information submitted by people on this web site or taken from comments posted in Apple's Discussion boards"
Meaning that we don't have those people who didn't post on Apple's forums or this website.
Here I am starting some guessing:
Let's triple this number 1800 (I am not including the 21" problems here)=5400 (the guess here being that only 1/3 of the people with issues wrote on Apple's forums)
I think it is a pretty safe guess that Apple sold around 100 000 27" iMacs (probably more). We get 5.4% with issues (all issues included, even noisy fans). That is a pretty good number especially given that the iMacs use some laptop parts and that while the iMacs existed for a long time the 27" is a first.
Now, of course, all this is pure guessing, but I think we can't just say Apple's quality is going down. It is pretty arguable and frankly I think it is just the coverage that Apple gets.
Also, about the yellow tint. Some of Dell's 27" have the same issues (same panel from LG) and Dell's and LG's stance is that this is a normal panel issue and are not going to replace it.
@Atkins I think your guesstimate might be on the low end, think about it, if numbers were this low and things were just getting over-blown by the media wouldn't it have been in Apple's interest to say how few problems were being reported. It might go against their typical corporate policy, but I know the 27" iMac was the most appeal device to me since the first iPhone and for essentially similar reasons. While, I don't think I would've bought one, it was literally the only computer I'd think about buying seeing as how I'd build a PC myself; in any case the screen (and shortages) put too much pause and in the end I never got close to thinking about it again. If I had known that it wouldn't likely been an issue it might have never fallen off my radar. Also, in the stats, I think Apple has a culture that would be reporting non-issues more than most companies, and for each screen flickering issue that was reported there was less than 1 "perfect" mac reported. Add in some "minor" and unknown issues and maybe it's close to 2-1 near-mint machines. Extrapolate that and we might be closer to that is way above double digits and just about as unfair to predict anything based on.
In the automarket, car manufacturers just give this information up because it's a matter of life or death and a liability. We're lucky the logic isn't applicable here, but it'd be nice if they were just forthcoming with the information. But, just as I'd justify any random company, or one I like, I can say I understand (even more so if there are actually a number of problems. If the number were in the low 1-3% though, I think that should, and might actually, come out from Cupertino.)
I think another and (maybe?) even better comparison I should've made would've been to the availability of OS 4.0 for iPad.
@juanvaldez forgot to expand on the last part. I think there are good reasons why they maybe didn't have 4.0 prepared. It could have to do with it being hacked, or it could maybe be wanting developers to get their initial developments on the iPad with a familiar OS and after getting their hands on an iPad for longer to be able to think about and integrate 4.0 features. There could even be a reason that was published or speculated better than what I have done. Perhaps, in the end, it could be a worse comparison.
I do think the overheating from the 3GS where they told users to not play games for extended periods of times was a bit of a joke (I was thinking about replacing the OS 4.0 with this but accidentally hit submit). There are more things coming up and you are absolutely correct that they are just in the news more and that accentuates the good with the bad; they're just under a microscope. I just like, when my favorite companies (honestly, it usually is just small companies and Google I can say that about) for all news to be good news.
I'll say in attack of my favorite company Google has had it's share of &*$@-ups and haters. I think Google's haters are even more well-deserved as Apple is a very-avoidable company. And to the point of this post, no one really releases more work-in-progress software/experience than Google.
I've obviously started to get off topic, but I just find it a bit interesting how
In other news today:
Windows released a security update
Linux got a new driver
@Arcticpenguins and the Ubuntu One music store is open for testing!
@Arcticpenguins .. And in other news. Another idiot doesn't get it.
Your comment just meant another ad impression and yet another reason why Engadget keeps favouring Mac articles. So you are commenting on the very problem you are causing !
@Arcticpenguins
Windows only holds 90%+ market share. It's not relevant.
@Alex
Windows may hold a large chunk of the market share, but among the 20-40 year-olds, Apple holds closer to 50% total share, and they have the sure majority among computers >$1000 (for various reasons, including they only have 1 computer that's under $1000).
I think those statistics more closely represent the young professional gadgeteers that read Engadget.
But I could be wrong ...
@James Sonne
Ah! the internet, a "wonderful" place that anybody can make their own assumptions/statics/conclusions and post them to the rest of the world.
@Sor1 Without a massive fanboy war.. I think he's got a point.
Either ways, this is a discussion.. He can post his opinions, as I have just done, and you've just done.
@James Sonne
statistics can prove anything 90% of the time.
Come on guys, this is special. I mean if MS made it's own PCs and offered updates after a hardware refresh then it'd be guaranteed to show up on the pages here. Just let go of that why Apple cry for a while. Ok kids, here's your candies now go and play!
@hero785 really? nokia updates quite often but they don't seem to be featured. but i'm not really questioning it, i'm used to engadget being the way it is.
@hero785 There shouldn't be any cry. Laptop manus. issue software updates (which wind up on Engadget). Microsoft's 7SP1 information was on here a week ago. There probably won't be a flamewar here, and if there is, let's hit that "report" button for good measure ^^.
@N900 SP1 vs a general update (something MS does too) are 2 completely different things. Just arguing for the sake of arguing.
Everyone knows arguing on the internet is an activity people with no free time do a lot, since I'm busy, I'm jumping in.
+1 internet points for me? No? Damn, I guess I'm at 0 internet points for today.
@N900
It just doesn't make any sense to complain about such news. I mean come on it doesn't make you lose sleep so why bother. If you don't want to read it then pass on to something else!
I love updates
@sajd4000 Updates are yummy, especially with a side of 10Mb/s connection.
Todays top story: Apple releases a fluidware update that contains more white blood cells to increase the stability of the Unicorn blood that transmits the internal information
Why are Apple's updates always in the 100's of MB?
@el Capitan
Not sure about this patch, but for Itunes and Quicktime (which are bundled together with no choice to install separately, ANNOYING AS HELL) they make you download the whole damn program again.
@Nitesh
Don't be an idiot.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
That does not include Quicktime. It's just iTunes.
@el Capitan Why do you think it will add 100MB necessarily? Updates delete older files too.
@Atkins
You didn't pay attention. I made no mention of adding. Of course old stuff is deleted and replaced.
Still. Updated my girl's Snow leopard the other day. 1.2 GB in updates since Feb. Heavy stuff for no noticeable features. On my windows machine i installed some 7-8 updates yesterday. They were less than 20 MB.
Not a big problem today, but sucks for people who use (capped) 3G connections, are abroad or live in remote dsl locations. Should these skip on features and compromise security?
So whose ever heard of a 258MB graphics driver!!?
@Jack
We're talking about UPDATES, Einstein. Thats the standalone product.
@Jack
Apple force you to download both in one package because they are unable or unwilling to make an iTunes that can function without quicktime.
@Fanman
I just hate it, every time there is an update I have to go disable all the junk services all over again.
@Jack
LOL! Your the idiot, this conversation was about updates. When an update is released, QT and itunes are bundled.
@pielover
And yet you can still download them individually, so what does that tell you?
iTunes needs Quicktime which is the reason they come together in updates. Not because of some ulterior motive to piss you off and bundle things you don't want. If you want iTunes, you need Quicktime so moronically bitching about them both coming down at once is, well, moronic. You know, since one doesn't work without the other.
They have to do it this way on Windows because OS X has a Quicktime layer built in. Windows doesn't. It's just a basic fact. You can continue to cry about it or you can do the math and figure it out.
@Jack
You still have not answered to having to download the whole program again rather than just a small patch. Don't you have somewhere else to be a moron?
Where is the patch that makes the 13" not have an old processor?