MacWorld is what Apple will become

So Apple gives you a battery that lasts 3 times longer than standard laptop batteries (1000 recharge cycles and/or 5 years), with a longer run time than just about any other full strength laptop out there (we're not talking netbooks here) and you complain about having to take the machine back to Apple to have it replaced? One trip to Apple in 5 years is obviously such a hardship isn't it.
As for iTunes pricing, the music companies have got what they were after. They wanted to be able to vary the price of music over it's life (new/popular=expensive, older=cheaper, back catalog=cheap(ish)). Apple finaly caved and gave it to them. It's now up to the record companies to set the price point they want to sell a tune at, so blame them for any price hikes.

Things that fanboys believe...

I actually always thought it was nice to carry a second battery pack when having an important meet or a long trip. I guess it means, no Powerbook to me.

Could you let me know how much a generic PC laptop with the same spec costs please? It's hardly journalism if your argument is unsubstantiated and relies on the 'because I say so' logic.

Do you have any proof that Apple are lying when they say that their battery will last up to 5 years? If not then you're just switching one kind of belief for another, but with less to back you up (if the batteries DON'T last as claimed then Apple are going to have to replace them or face a class action suit). @acobar: what exactly is wrong with plugging an external battery pack into the power port? It's been done already for the Air and I can't see a technical reason that they can't do the same thing for paranoid Pro users too.

Oh ye of little faith! That battery could easily last five years. Each cell is individually kissed and blessed by Jobs himself; why, his very touch can turn water into electrolyte.

The new 17" Pro is, Nice. Looks nice, must feel nice (unibody), it even has the nicest OS on it, the is ""A thing of beauty"". The job done on battery is very good, but it seems to increase the system cost by a lot. If it last 3X what standar batteries do (We have not seen the small letters yet) I think you are paying like 4X what a standard battery will cost. The thing does not even comes with a serious Pro video card (Quadro anyone?) Does not have removable media bay, nor TPM chip, neither fingerprint reader... and it cost much more what systems with those features do. So, what is a Pro for apple? May be a professional who earns a lot and likes style to spare on fashonistas gadgets but will not necessarily use them for work... Apple is still not ready for the Pro who uses his system to earn that money.

Nick, you usually write crap. I don't like your stuff and I'm honest about it.

However.

Good story. And I think even some mac fanboys will be hard pressed to disagree with a few of the points.

Now the mac fellowship just need to wait for the second coming, no..wait.. third.

Macolyte Todd: Take a deep breath and chill out man. Not every comment that points out something negative about Apple is right against you. I know your religious urge to defend Apple products is hard to contain but try to take it easy and have a good laugh like everyone else does. Raskolnikov.

If I'm spending $2,799 I shouldn't have to work on the laptop at all. Let their techs do the work, thats what they get paid for.

I've bought extra batteries for every laptop I've owned (at least a dozen in the last 12 years), routinely carried them with me on trips, and I can't remember when I needed or bothered to shuffle them because one ran out of juice. If the MBP17 battery lasts significantly longer (a real-world 5 hours would be nice), then I'll be happier for that and happier still for not weighing down my bag with an extra battery I never use. The only time I recall using another battery was when the original stopped holding much of a charge, many years after purchase and long after I used the associated laptop much at all. The new Apple battery should make that even less likely to happen while I'm still actively using the laptop.

They must be speaking of a golden delicious variety. At first I was timid about having another swap out my 17 inch's battery. But have reckoned a quick time visit to eHormone.com gets'em sorted. Well that is thinking differently.

Sounds like Nick got out of the wrong side of the Microsoft bed this morning ;-)

...is afoot here. The Al case was selected to satisfy the greenies and materials fetishists; it's probably a pisser to carve more openings.

If I were designing such a thing, I'd try to work it so the guts can slide out the side or back, wherever the ports have to be exposed anyway, which I assume they have done.

I would think it's not too hard to use a flat-sheet battery with minimal packaging and let that slide out, too. However, a minimally packaged lithium battery is prone to being punctured or folded, which makes it a potential incendiary hazard to the clueless (Want to be on a flight with the moron who folded his in half and lets it be stabbed by his Mont Blanc? Or the delivery guy carrying a warranty return with the battery folded into a FedEx envelope?).

So having decided to go 'not user servicable,' they get to create an odd-shaped pack (with 'lumps' that preclude just sliding it out) and squeeze 8 hours of life in. Not bad, given their self-imposed constraints. The majority of schmucks don't know how to swap a battery, the minority of power users can carry a safely-packaged flat external battery, and as a bonus to Apple's revenues, the odd shape and custom design make it harder for aftermarket manufacturers to clone unapproved replacements. A fly in the ointment is that external batteries will have to license the MagSafe connector, limiting the supply of convenient off-the-shelf parts to those produced by Apple-friendly manufacturers. (At least Griffin Tech and Belkin will surely drink the kool-aid, though, since it lets them turn an existing commodity part into a popular Apple accessory at 200% markup beyond the cost of licensing.)

Now, who pays to recycle these machines when the approximate 3 year life of the pack is up? I smell trade-in offers; if they're smart, they've allocated some of the price of the machine to the inevitable recycling costs when they fall back in the company's lap. (Even smarter would be to design the motherboards to drop right into 2011's AppleTV or special-Apple-cut-rate-OLPC-competitive-educational-dumb-terminal [just add a shiny new iMac for the teacher to have a classroom], but Moore's Law might not cooperate for such 'green' efforts re: the power consumption per MIPS on obsolete hardware.)

"MacWorld is what Apple will become" - No, Nick, that's just your wishfull thinking...
I like the way you describe the people with macs copying other people's work to their blogs, haha. Very funny coming from the man who blatently copies whole articles from The Register and then puts his name to it. You're fooling no-one here.

You're just a bad writer with a massive Apple-chip on his shoulder. It's just sad really.

Great article Nick - even with herr Jobs down in his bunker with Eva Brown, the fanbois still cling to their ipods like life presevers -without Jobs - apple and the third reich will die. its about time too. Apple fanbios give us real techs a bad name
Thanks!!

Wow, an entire article dedicated to trolling Mac users. Nick is apparently the Ann Coulter of the tech pundits: big on smarmy put-downs, short on facts and accuracy. Give me back the minute it took me to read this tripe!