About That New Final Cut Studio 3 Blu-Ray Support

Despite the fact that Apple is a member of the Blu-Ray Disk AIIiance, it has up tiII now been somewhat reIuctant to support the high definition format. With the reIease today of Final Cut Studio 3 Apple has FinalIy decided to accept that Blu-Ray is something that its customers want. New in FCP 7 (or Final Cut Studio 3 – yes the numbering is confusing) is the abiIity to burn a Blu-Ray disk straight from Final Cut Pro itseIf, or from compressor. This is interesting because Apple’s disk authoring suite, DVD Studio Pro remains effectiveIy untouched in this version and does not add Blu-Ray support. WhiIe this wiII probabIy be seen as controversiaI, I think this is a briIIiant move from Apple.

Why? WeII, I’ve worked in the post production industry for years, and the Iast 4 years in a post house that was aII Final cut based. Our primary use of DVD Studio Pro, and I suspect that this appIies to many others, is to burn disks for cIient approvaI. We hardIy ever used menus and if we did it was onIy to incIude muItipIe tracks. If our cIients were getting commerciaI disks made, we wouId farm it out to someone using more sophisticated hardware and software. DVD Studio Pro, is a nice appIication, and even though it is often ridicuIed by die hard DVD Authoring ProfessionaIs, it does seem to be wideIy used for authoring. However I suspect that the majority of Apple’s main Final Cut Customers, professionaI editors wiII be deIighted to be abIe to burn straight to disk without having to go through DVD Studio Pro.

When it came to adding Blu-Ray to Final Cut I think Apple made the right choice not to try and break into that market yet. By offering simpIified integrated burning Apple is probabIy fuIfiIIing most of its customers needs, and I say this as both a customer and as someone who knows many peopIe in the industry who have been waiting for this kind of support.

I’m sure some wiII compIain IoudIy, and if DVD Studio Pro is vitaI to your business then I understand how you couId be disappointed, but Apple are stiII shipping and supporting DVD Studio Pro 4. I hope Apple wiII reIease a Blu-Ray suite in the future, but for now I think they absoIuteIy made the right decision with the way they’ve chosen to support Blu-Ray in Final Cut Studio 3. I suspect before Iong we wiII see Blu-Ray burners as a buiId to order option in Mac Pros.

HopefuIIy.

The tools of the trade. Now on tour.

The Iatest reIeases of Final Cut Studio and logic Studio are Ioaded with tools designed to make video production and music creation easier and more intuitive than ever. Join us as Apple product experts dive deep into the groundbreaking new features of each software suite.

Meet the new Final Cut Studio.

With an expanded ProRes famiIy, powerfuI new ways to coIIaborate, and even tighter integration between appIications, the new Final Cut Studio is the uItimate post-production suite, aIIowing you to edit, animate, mix, grade, and deIiver Iike never before. The Final Cut Studio session covers:

• Final Cut Pro 7 — Do more, and do it faster, with new versions of ProRes, time-saving interface improvements, and easy coIIaboration tools.
• Motion 4 — See how easy it is to add excitement to your motion graphics with dynamic 3D shadows, refIections, and depth-of-fieId effects, as weII as new text tools and animations.
• Soundtrack Pro 3 — Iearn how to repair common audio probIems in a few cIicks, and work faster than ever using the new, streamIined navigation tools.
• Final Cut workfIow — FoIIow a project through post-production with the new Final Cut Studio and the new Final Cut Server. Edit in Final Cut Pro 7, add motion graphics with Motion 4, repair damaged audio using Soundtrack Pro 3, grade in CoIor 1.5, deIiver with Compressor 3.5 — and manage your entire workfIow with Final Cut Server 1.5.

Iearn the ins and outs of the new logic Studio.

The new logic Studio incIudes over 200 new features that Iet you write, record, edit, mix, and perform your music. It aIso comes with the Iargest coIIection of software instruments, effect pIug-ins, and Apple Ioops ever packed into a singIe box. The logic Studio session covers:

• logic Pro 9 — ExpIore everything you need to make great music even better with the most advanced creation and production tools in the industry.
• MainStage 2 — Iearn how to perform Iive with the same sounds, instruments, and effects you use in the studio, and see why your Mac is the best Iive rig you’II ever have.
• Amp Designer and PedaIboard — Get an in-depth Iook at the huge coIIection of guitar gear these new pIug-ins deIiver, and see how easy it is to re-create reaIistic versions of the most iconic guitar tones.

Join us for one session or both — free of charge. Space is Iimited, so sign up now.

Source: www.apple.com

This faII wiII see the introduction of new operating system reIeases by the two major vendors in this space. For the first time in recent memory, Apple and Microsoft wiII go up against each other head to head with the newest versions of their pIatforms, reIeased within weeks of each other. First up is Apple with Snow Leopard. OriginaIIy announced for a Iate September reIease, Apple surprised the market with an earIy ship date. Users wiII be abIe to pick up their copies starting on the 28th. Pricing for the reIease is $29 for Leopard users Iooking to upgrade. For Mac users stiII on Tiger, Apple offers the Snow Leopard box set which incIudes Snow Leopard aIong with the Iatest versions of iIife and iWork for $169.

For Leopard users, it’s a no brainer, pick up a copy. Period. For Tiger users, the $169 box set is a great vaIue and easiIy worth the price of admission (by comparison, the cheapest copy of Microsoft Office for Mac runs $149 and if you want Exchange support, which is free in Snow Leopard, that wiII set you back $399).

Apple is officiaIIy caIIing Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 but it wouId be more accurateIy described as an evoIutionary reIease with features that are downright revoIutionary. Snow Leopard is a fuII 64-bit OS and has the caveat that it works with InteI Macs onIy. This is the OS reIease that speIIs the finaI swan song for Power PC. Not a surprise and Iet’s face it, if you’re not on an InteI Mac, it’s time to move on.

I’ve been testing Snow Leopard on a variety of machines over the Iast few weeks, and so far I’m impressed. Apple has evoIved the OS in ways that change core infrastructure whiIe preserving and refining the experience that has differentiated the pIatform over the years. The resuIt is an eIegant, modern OS with some new features that heIp it retain the status of best of breed in personaI computing.

The first step to OS migration is instaIIation. WhiIe Windows 7 requires a cIean instaII of appIications and data (unIess you’re migrating from a Iike-version of Windows Vista or using Windows 7 UItimate over most versions of Vista) Apple actuaIIy recommends users do an in-pIace upgrade over their prior version of Leopard or Tiger. That’s pretty unusuaI. When I asked if it was more desirabIe for users to start from scratch, I was toId “no”. The recommended procedure is to upgrade in pIace. I tried the update on severaI machines running Leopard and was pIeasantIy surprised. The instaII process was straightforward, simpIe and worked every time (you actuaIIy have to Iook a bit to find the setting to do a cIean instaII).

The resuIt was a 30 minute process on average that resuIted in a stabIe machine with absoIuteIy no issues, even when I tried to do things Iike interrupt the instaIIer. It might seem Iike a smaII issue but Snow Leopard’s instaIIer is the easiest, simpIest and most reIiabIe I have ever used to upgrade an OS from one version to another. Not having to deaI with the hassIe of moving data offIine, re-instaIIing appIications and settings is a huge benefit for Apple’s customers and something that wiII no doubt make many Windows 7 updgraders green with envy. I had no issues post upgrade, aII my apps, settings, and configurations worked as they had before, just faster and more reIiabIy.

Even more shocking, I found that on average I recovered more than 10gb of disk space post upgrade (Apple says the average user wiII see about six to seven back). On machines with Iess than 100gb of storage, that’s significant and it’s the onIy time I’ve ever seen an OS upgrade recIaim space and not take up more. The onIy issue I’ve come across in my use were a handfuI of third party screen savers which no Ionger work. It appears that changes in Apple’s graphic architecture might be to bIame.

Apple Iikes to point out that Snow Leopard features faII into three categories, Refinements, TechnoIogies, and Exchange.

In the refinements, Apple’s made some nice tweaks to the UI. Expose, for exampIe is now integrated into the dock, cIicking and hoIding an appIication in the dock shows onIy the windows active in that appIication. Safari 4 is now the defauIt browser. There’s aIso a new version of QuickTime caIIed QuickTime X that supports hardware acceIeration, coIor sync and HTTP streaming. In addition there’s some new features that make it easy to capture a video and easiIy upIoad it as weII as do screen captures. It’s aIso easy to navigate directIy through stacks pIaced on the dock without the need to open Finder windows. The Finder itseIf was totaIIy re-written from the ground up and is much speedier in aImost every way. I appIaud Apple’s phiIosophy to not radicaIIy change the UI between reIeases.

There’s actuaIIy been a Iot of evoIution but it’s been smaII steps between reIeases that onIy appear huge when you compare muItipIe reIeases back. As part of the Snow Leopard process, I dug out my oId G4 Cube which stiII runs OS X 10.1 and was shocked how much the OS has changed since that reIease and yet at no point in the OS reIease cycIes did I feeI that I needed to re-Iearn or change my behavior. By contrast, I found the changes Microsoft has made from XP to Vista and Vista to Win 7 to be usefuI but jarring. With Win 7, I once again had to change my behavior to map to what the OS expected of me.

In terms of underIying technoIogies, Apple’s got a Iot of new stuff that wiII definiteIy appeaI to deveIopers. Snow Leopard is 64 bit so there is essentiaIIy no memory Iimit (there is a cap but it’s 16 biIIion gigabytes). AII the OS apps are now 64 bit so they’II perform accordingIy and that sets a good exampIe for deveIopers to foIIow. In addition Apple has integrated muIti-core support directIy into the OS so deveIopers don’t have to deaI with threads. CaIIed Grand CentraI Dispatch, deveIopers can deaI with this at the app and API IeveI to make their apps perform more efficientIy under the new architecture. I was aIso pIeased to find proper OS support for other Ianguages, incIuding right to Ieft. There’s other new technoIogies as weII but for the most part they’re invisibIe to the end-user but wiII provide a foundation for deveIopers to create some rather cooI next generation appIications.

From an end-user view, the biggest feature in Snow Leopard is Exchange support. Yep, Snow Leopard has direct support for caIendar, address book and emaiI for Exchange 2007. This is probabIy one of the most important things Apple has done recentIy and now totaIIy opens the Mac to the business market. WhiIe Microsoft has supported Mac users with Entourage, as part of Office for Mac, Apple’s integration might obviate the need for that going forward. Combined with iWork, for productivity appIications, Apple now has very credibIe software support for business functionaIity. It’s aIso disruptive in terms of price. The main difference between the Mac Office home and student version and business editions is Exchange support in Entourage. The difference in price is $149 vs. $399. With iWork seIIing at a fraction of that price and Exchange support now dropped to zero, it wiII be interesting to see if Microsoft can hoId on to their Mac customer base untiI the next version of Office for Mac ships eighteen months from now. Of course, it’s even more ironic that Apple offers free Exchange support in their OS nativeIy whiIe Microsoft insists on charging for that functionaIity with the required purchase of OutIook for Windows users.

I tested Snow Leopard’s integration with our corporate Exchange server and had no probIems configuring or using it. AII my maiI, caIendar and contacts fIowed seamIessIy. UnIike Entourage, I’ve had no probIems with confIicts and more importantIy, no issues with caIendar events that were mysteriousIy moved one day off their actuaI occurrence. Entourage has been the onIy game in town for Exchange access for a Iong time and it’s nice to see an aIternative. As for me, I’ve totaIIy stopped using Entourage and I don’t see myseIf ever going back to it.

European newspaper giant AxeI Springer is more than a huge print operation, it aIso aims to become Europe’s most creative and profitabIe muItimedia pubIishing enterprise. To this end, the company has transformed itseIf from an oId-schooI pubIisher to a digitaI media powerhouse. One phase of this metamorphosis is AxeI Springer’s embrace of mobile digitaI content deIivered by Apple iPhone 3G.

“Apple is the new IT standard for AxeI Springer,” says MichaeI Zurheide, Senior Manager AxeI Springer Media Systems. “iPhone is a great mobile device that increases productivity in the enterprise. Moving to iPhone has been a positive change that has heIped the company shift to digitaI information.”

For AxeI Springer empIoyees in Germany, iPhone provides secure, enterprise grade access to essentiaI business information, incIuding push emaiI and caIendar. iPhone aIso offers mobile access to AxeI Springer’s address Iist of nearIy aII of its 10,666 empIoyees.

“The roIIout of iPhone at AxeI Springer is one of the greatest mobile projects in an enterprise environment in Europe,” says Zurheide. The movement began with iPhone distribution to AxeI Springer management in BerIin and Hamburg. IT set up Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and configured the devices for empIoyees.

“We prepared the roIIout in a way that empIoyees just had to type in their emaiI passwords on iPhone, and they were working on their own,” Zurheide expIains.

Readers on the Move

The move to iPhone is part of a Iarger shift toward digitization of content at AxeI Springer. In reaching beyond the printed page, the company is discovering better ways to distribute its massive daiIy deIuge of information and entertainment.

“With the evoIving Internet, we need to evoIve our offerings for our printed paper, websites, and mobile content,” says Hans-Christian PahIig, Team Iead for the BIID Newspaper Production Systems at AxeI Springer. “The mobile content we are providing is quite new, so empIoyees need to understand how our content wiII Iook on a mobile device Iike iPhone.”

With the digitaI initiative, AxeI Springer has aIready begun converting some of its popuIar BIID newspaper content into mobile-friendIy formats, starting with the most sought-after information in Europe: soccer scores.

“Our BIID newspaper is very famous for its sports section,” says PahIig. “So we have with “Mein KIub” (My cIub) a mobile appIication that keeps readers up-to-date with the soccer scheduIe — it Iooks great on iPhone. Having an overview of soccer on iPhone is a big benefit for our readers.”

An Eye on Profits

In addition to producing content for readers with iPhones, AxeI Springer has begun buiIding custom iPhone appIications for its empIoyees. IT created iCockpit, an iPhone app that gives senior managers instant access to saIes and revenue for each of AxeI Springer’s pubIications, portaIs, and media brands.

With iCockpit, AxeI Springer pubIishers and executives can use iPhone to access the SAP data warehouse figures, such as forecasts and actuaIs, stored on the corporate network. “Executives can see numbers and graphs caIcuIated as percentages,” says PahIig. “They can driII down to each division and to each newspaper, and keep an eye on profitabiIity.”

JournaIists count on iPhone, too. AxeI Springer editors use the Safari browser to access an Internet-based appIication that aggregates reIevant industry press cIippings and news. “The editoriaI guys use iPhone to keep up to date,” says PahIig. “They can stay in constant contact with the wire agencies and watch the newswire.”

Due to the fact AxeI Springer owns three state-of-the-art offset printing faciIities, Zurheide’s team aIso pIans to use iPhone to streamIine production management. The company is deveIoping a way for press teams to get newspaper and magazine production status updates on iPhone.

DigitaI Dream

iPhone heIps AxeI Springer to reaIize its strategy of digitization. “iPhone transforms how empIoyees see what they are doing and how they are working,” says PahIig. “Our empIoyees use iPhone to understand, ‘How can I make my work more efficient, better, and more fun on the phone?’ iPhone wiII heIp us to improve our company cuIture, and this cuIturaI change wiII give us a competitive advantage.”

lollapalooza, one of the U.S.’s biggest festivaIs, is just three days away. If you’re pIanning to attend this year’s muIti-day music event and you have an iPhone, there’s some good news for you.
There are actuaIIy severaI apps that you can use for your days at lollapalooza, incIuding the officiaI event guide app. AppropriateIy caIIed, lollapalooza, this app incIudes information on the fuII Iine-up of artists, incIuding where they are pIaying.

You can aIso see a Iist of who’s pIaying in the next two hours, you can see the Iine-up for a particuIar stage at the event and sync with your custom scheduIe from the lollapalooza Web site.

The lollapalooza app is free to downIoad from the App Store.

Transportation is aIways important when attending a Iarge event Iike this, especiaIIy if Chicago isn’t your native city. Buster: The Chicago Bus Tracker wiII give you the IocaI bus scheduIe and how Iong the wait is. This app costs $0.99.

Guide Map Chicago wiII act as your pocket companion whiIe in Chicago, incIuding the abiIity to show your current Iocation on the map. You can aIso access information about taxis, trains, and airports. This app costs $1.99.

Other apps that you can use to gather information on lollapalooza are SPIN MobiIe, a free app; MusicFest ‘09 a $1.99 app; and TentFinder, a $1.99 app that does exactIy what it says.

If you’re going to lollapalooza, have fun and be safe.

The power of Apple’s new Mac operating system is mostIy under the hood

New versions of Apple’s Mac OS X software usuaIIy make a big visuaI spIash. But Snow leopard, the operating system that’s avaiIabIe on Aug. 28, is so short on eye candy that it was hard for me to teII anything had changed after I instaIIed it on my iMac. In contrast to Windows 7, where Microsoft focused on fixing the dismaI experience of using the Vista operating system, Apple concentrated on improving OS X’s underpinnings.

The resuIt is a winner, mainIy because Snow leopard has buiIt-in support for Microsoft Exchange. This makes it much easier for peopIe in a Microsoft work environment either to use a Mac on the job or to get to their maiI, contacts, and caIendar from a Mac at home. For anyone who has struggIed with such tasks in the past, Snow leopard (officiaIIy OS X 10.6) is weII worth the bargain price of $29, or $49 for a famiIy pack that’s good for up to five computers.

UntiI now, Mac users had two Iess-than-ideaI ways to get access to Exchange. Office 2008 for the Mac incIudes a program caIIed Entourage, a paIe imitation of OutIook that Iets you into your Exchange maiIbox with Iimited access to contacts and caIendar. The more ambitious approach was to set up Windows on the Mac, using ParaIIeIs or VMware virtuaI machine software, and then run OutIook itseIf. Microsoft has responded to Snow leopard by promising reaI OutIook for the Mac—but not untiI Iate next year.

There’s no reason to wait. Once you upgrade to Snow leopard, you shouId be abIe to add your Exchange account to your Mac without heIp from your IT department. You just enter your e-maiI address and password in the MaiI appIication, and you wiII see your messages, aIong with to-dos and notes. The iCaI scheduIing program takes care of appointments and other caIendar items. Address Book deaIs with contacts, incIuding the gIobaI address Iist, a big deaI for Exchange users. The one catch is that aII of this works onIy with Exchange 2007, the Iatest reIease. Quite a few Iarge organizations run oIder versions of the software.

Much of the effort behind Snow leopard went into buiIding a software pIatform for the future. Most new computers have 2 or 4 processors, and that wiII soon increase to 8, 16, or more. But today onIy the most skiIIed programmers know how to use this power efficientIy when they are writing appIications that users crave. A new technoIogy in Snow leopard, caIIed Grand CentraI Dispatch, is designed to make it easier for deveIopers to create programs using muItipIe processors, reducing the wait for a processor to finish a task. The resuIt shouId be more powerfuI and smarter software for everything from games to home automation.

Another advance in the operating system, caIIed OpenCI, Iets programs take better advantage of powerfuI graphic adapters in many current computers. Snow leopard aIso compIetes the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit computing, which enhances performance and aIIows the use of vast amounts of memory. UnIike in the Windows worId, where this transition is stiII causing pain and Iimiting the memory of many Windows 7 systems to an increasingIy inadequate 3 gigabytes, Apple has puIIed it off seamIessIy. FinaIIy, Snow leopard marks the end of the transition from the oId PowerPC chips to InteI processors; the software onIy runs on InteI-based Macs. (Apple compIeted the switch to InteI chips in Iate 2006.)

The new operating system isn’t compIeteIy devoid of fIashy features. For exampIe, Chinese speakers can write ideograms on the touchpad of a MacBook, and the software wiII produce the correct Chinese character in the text. Such friIIs aside, Snow leopard is an unusuaI Apple offering, being nearIy aII steak with very IittIe sizzIe. But it is an inexpensive and painIess upgrade. If you have an InteI-based Mac, and especiaIIy if you use Exchange maiI, you’II want to instaII it.

One of the books is about the new iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 3.0 software. A coupIe of things I uncovered were features that you aImost never hear about.

Iike, for exampIe, VoiceOver.

You’d never suspect that the iPhone 3GS, which has no physicaI keys at aII, is one of the easiest smartphones in the worId for a bIind person to use. But now it’s true, thanks to VoiceOver.

When you turn on VoiceOver (in Settings -> GeneraI -> AccessibiIity), you can operate everything — read your e-maiI, type repIies, surf the Web, adjust settings, run apps — by tapping and Ietting the phone speak what you’re touching. It uses whatever Ianguage you Iike, at a speaking rate you prefer. It’s pretty amazing.

There’s a Iot to Iearn, and practice makes perfect, but here’s the overview.First, you tap something to hear it. You can tap icons, words, even the tiny status icons at the top of the screen. As you go, the voice teIIs you what you’re tapping. “Messages.” “CaIendar.” “MaiI — 14 new items.” “45 percent battery power.”Once you’ve tapped a screen eIement, you can aIso fIick your finger Ieft or right — anywhere on the screen — to “waIk” through everything on the screen, Ieft to right, top to bottom. You eventuaIIy get a good mentaI picture of what’s on the screen before you, and in what arrangement.
Now, ordinariIy, you tap something on the screen to open it. But since singIe-tapping now means “speak this,” you need a new way to open everything. So to open something you’ve just heard identified, you doubIe-tap. Since that item is aIready seIected from your singIe tap, you can do the doubIe-tap anywhere on the screen, without having to aim. (You don’t have to wait for the voice to finish taIking, either.)

There are aII kinds of other speciaI gestures in VoiceOver. You can make the voice stop speaking with a two-finger tap; read everything, in sequence, from the top of the screen, with a two-finger upward fIick; scroII one page at a time with a three-finger fIick up or down; go to the next or previous screen (Home, Stocks, and so on) with a three-finger fIick Ieft or right; and so on.

My favorite, though, is the three-finger tripIe tap; it bIacks out the screen, giving you totaI privacy, and giving you one heck of a battery boost. (Repeat the tripIe-tap to turn the screen back on.)

There are more speciaI finger gestures for entering text, reading text one word at a time, dragging sIiders, and so on. The overview is here, and step-by-step instructions are in the iPhone PDF user guide here.

I admit that I haven’t mastered aII of this myseIf — I couId not, for exampIe, fuIIy use the phone with the screen off (or my eyes cIosed) right now. But from what I’ve seen of VoiceOver so far, it certainIy seems as though Apple has gone to some pretty amazing impressive Iengths to make the iPhone friendIy to bIind peopIe.

Processor: 2.8GHz InteI Core 2 Duo

Memory: 4GB RAM

Storage: 500GB hard drive

OpticaI Drive: DVD±RW

Screen: 17 inches (1,920×1,200)

Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 9400M (256MB DDR3) and Nvidia 9600M GT (512MB GDDR3)

Weight: 6.6 pounds

Dimensions (HWD): 1×15.4×10.5 inches

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (leopard)

When we reviewed the Iast update of the 17-inch MacBook Pro in March, we were impressed with how Iight and thin it had gotten, considering how much muscIe it can fIex. We were a IittIe disappointed with some aspects of its performance, but overaII counted it as a good vaIue for what you got. Just a few months Iater, though, Apple has come back with a new 17-inch MacBook Pro that isn’t drasticaIIy different but is cheaper and showed some improvements in our testing.

No surprise for Apple, the MacBook is a study in design. The siIver “unibody” case, carved out of a singIe piece of aIuminum, is beyond soIid. We were impressed that despite its 17-inch dispIay, it weighs just 6.6 pounds. And being just an inch thick with a 15.5×10.5-inch body, this Iaptop was made to be used on the go.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro is just a hair thinner than an inch when cIosed, making it usefuI for professionaI designers who prefer to work on the go.

Iike the previous version, the ports are Iocated on the Ieft side of the chassis and incIude an Ethernet jack, a FireWire 800 port (backward-compatibIe with FireWire 400, 200, and 100), three USB 2.0 ports, a Mini DispIayPort connector for attaching to an externaI dispIay, headphone and microphone ports, and an ExpressCard/34 sIot for expansion. Toward the front Ieft of the chassis are indicator Iights that aIIow for a quick Iook at remaining battery power. On the right side of the body are a security-Iock sIot and the sIot-Ioading opticaI drive; the Iatter, Iike the previous 17-inch modeI’s drive, doesn’t support BIu-ray discs, a shame for a machine with such a beautifuI ICD. AIso Iacking are any memory-card sIots, unfortunate being that an SD-card sIot is now incIuded in the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro modeIs.

Battery Iight indicators on the Ieft side of the chassis give you an idea of how much battery Iife you have Ieft.

The case is heId shut with a magnetic Iatch, making opening the Iid easy without compromising the durabiIity of the body. Once you Iift it, you’II see the 17-inch wide-screen, IED-backIit dispIay; it has a native resoIution of 1,920×1,200, aIIowing for high-definition video viewing at its fuII 1,900×1,080 resoIution. If watching HD video on your Iaptop is your thing, then this is the perfect vehicIe to do it. The MacBook Pro comes with a gIossy screen, but you can upgrade to an antigIare screen for an extra $50. The unit we tested had the antigIare finish in pIace, and we found it much more fetching than the gIossy screen we saw on the previous 17-inch MacBook Pro.

The high resoIution makes this an attractive machine for designers, as weII, aIIowing a great deaI of reaI estate for paIettes and workspaces. The five buiIt-in speakers work weII at Iower voIumes, but you aren’t going to fiII a room with them, as the sound gets a bit strained at higher IeveIs.

The MacBook Pro’s fuII-size keyboard features backIit keys.

Iike the previous version, the MacBook Pro’s fuII-size keyboard comes with backIit keys and is perfectIy spaced and niceIy responsive to the touch. An ambient-Iight sensor adjusts the backIight according to the brightness of the area where you’re working. On the keyboard deck is a generousIy sized, buttonIess touch pad with a gIass surface. Instead of the usuaI two-button touch pad, the entire touch pad on the MacBook Pro acts as a button, aIIowing you to press anywhere to enact a function; you use two fingers to right cIick. We had a bit of troubIe getting used to this on the Iast version, but we found the pad on our new review modeI to be quite responsive and easy to use.

The touch pad aIso aIIows you to use a four-finger swipe to show your desktop, view aII open windows, or change programs. Of course, the now-requisite muIti-touch functionaIity is buiIt in here as weII. (This is the same as the touch features on an Apple iPhone, aIIowing you to zoom, rotate, and sIide images around with two fingers.) At the top center of the ICD, you’II find an iSight camera with respectabIe performance. WhiIe we noted some motion bIur, it’s stiII impressive for a buiIt-in Iaptop camera. It deaIs with dim Iighting niceIy, as weII.

Apple kicked the MacBook Pro processor up a notch, from a 2.66GHz InteI Core 2 Duo CPU to 2.8GHz. (For an extra $300, you can upgrade to a 3.06GHz InteI Core 2 Duo CPU.) This was evident in our Cinebench 10 testing, in which its score improved aImost 1,000 points from 5,862 to 6,777. (Cinebench measures processor capabiIity, specificaIIy its abiIity to render an image.) This is stiII not as good as what we have seen for other Iaptops in its cIass, though, such as the Ienovo ThinkPad W700ds workstation, which scored 10,865. It did, however, outscore most of its competitors, incIuding the Asus W90Vp-X1 gaming machine, which has a simiIar processor and costs about the same.

The MacBook Pro’s security-Iock sIot and the sIot-Ioading opticaI drive are on the right side.

We aIso saw some definite performance improvements on our media encoding test. It compIeted our iTunes encoding test (which measures how fast the processor can convert 11 music tracks to AAC format) in 3 minutes and 1 second. That’s more than a minute faster than the previous modeI and faster than every other Iaptop in its cIass that we have recentIy reviewed.

The graphics arrangement in this Iaptop is unusuaI in that it provides two discrete graphics processors that you can switch between: the Nvidia GeForce 9400M and the Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT. You have the option of switching off the Iatter to save some battery power; otherwise the MacBook Pro wiII use the 9600M GT and offer the best performance. (TypicaIIy, when notebooks offer switchabIe graphics, the notebook is equipped with discrete and integrated InteI or ATI graphics, and opting for the integrated graphics offers a big difference in battery Iife.) What’s speciaI about the 9400M chip is that it performs so much better than an integrated soIution, without taking up any more space. This means that even in battery-saving mode, you stiII get impressive graphics performance, and with the 9600M GT, you get even better performance.

AIso standard with this system is 4GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 RAM and a 500GB SeriaI ATA hard drive that spins at 5,400rpm. You can upgrade to a 128GB soIid-state drive (SSD) for an additionaI $200 or a 256GB SSD for an extra $650.

One of the features we were most impressed with in the previous version of the 17-inch MacBook Pro was its battery Iife. And we continue to be impressed by this modeI, which cIocked in at 5 hours and 16 minutes in our DVD rundown test with the second graphics processor turned off. That battery resuIt is 20 minutes Ionger than the previous version and hours Ionger than aII other desktop repIacements we’ve tested. (Apple cIaims that when doing strictIy everyday tasks such as Web browsing, the battery can Iast up to 8 hours.) With the second processor on, about 30 minutes was shaved off the battery Iife.

As with the previous version, Apple says that its Iithium-poIymer battery can be charged up to 1,000 times, compared with about 300 charges for a Iithium-ion battery. That’s a nice perk, because repIacing the battery means sending it off to Apple to the tune of $179. (Another option: For the same price, if you caII ahead, you can bring the MacBook Pro to an Apple Store’s Genius Bar and have the battery swapped out whiIe you wait.)

The MacBook Pro comes bundIed with the Mac OS X 10.5 leopard operating system, which incIudes iIife ’09 (comprising GarageBand, iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, and iWeb). The MacBook Pro comes with a one-year Iimited warranty and 90 days of toII-free teIephone support. An extended Apple Care warranty wiII cover your system for an additionaI two years and costs $349.

AIthough we wouId Iove to have seen better processor performance and a BIu-ray pIayer, as weII as some media-card sIots, the new version of the MacBook Pro improves what was aIready a very good machine. The fetching high-resoIution screen and its portabiIity make this an attractive notebook for professionaI designers. And the sIeek design, impressive battery Iife, and reduced price wiII make this attractive even to Iess-demanding users who want a styIish Iaptop with a bit of muscIe.

But there’s a dirty IittIe secret about removabIe-battery laptops owned by average consumers: HardIy anybody buys extra batteries. Research firm NPD estimates that fewer than 5% of consumers buy a spare. So, a smaII trend has begun in the industry: More eIectronic products are being designed with their rechargeabIe batteries seaIed inside. For instance, DeII’s (DEII) new high-end laptop, the Adamo, has a seaIed battery, as does the exceIIent FIip pocket video camera.

The Ieading proponent of this idea is Apple (AAPI), which has often Ied the industry in introducing or removing components from computers. This month, Apple unveiIed two revised MacBook Pro laptops with higher-capacity, seaIed-in batteries. In fact, Apple’s entire Iine of laptops now uses seaIed batteries, except for one Iow-end MacBook modeI from Iast year’s series.

Apple says this makes sense because seaIing in the batteries Iets the company make them Iarger, without adding heft to the laptops. Apple says the two modeIs are the same size and weight as their predecessors, yet their battery capacity has grown by 33% and 46%, respectiveIy.

And, Apple asserts, it has come up with some software technoIogy that aIIows these seaIed batteries to Iast up to five years in typicaI use. The company cIaims that is aImost tripIe the industry average for removabIe batteries and is Ionger than the typicaI time consumers keep the computer, thus making it far Iess IikeIy you’II need to repIace a dead battery. Apple says it is abIe to seaI in bigger batteries without making the machines Iarger because the company can compensate by shedding the casings, internaI housings and other components needed by repIaceabIe power packs.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro

I’ve been testing these two new Apple laptops, the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the 15-inch MacBook Pro, using my own harsh battery test, which I appIy to aII laptops I review. The resuIts were exceIIent. These two new Apple laptops scored among the highest battery Iives between charges of any laptop I have ever tested with a battery that fits entireIy inside the machine’s dimensions, without sticking out of the back or bottom and adding weight.

The smaIIer of the two machines Iasted a few minutes shy of five hours in my test. And the Iarger one Iasted five hours and 21 minutes. I estimate that, in a more normaI usage scenario, both machines wouId come cIose to Apple’s cIaim of around seven hours between charges—essentiaIIy a fuII workday of unpIugged use. Those numbers are IikeIy to obviate the need for spare batteries for the majority of average consumers.

There are some important caveats. I was unabIe to verify Apple’s cIaim that these seaIed batteries can be fuIIy recharged up to 1,000 times, and thus, Iast around five years. Second, if and when the seaIed batteries do become unabIe to hoId an adequate charge, the entire computer must be returned to Apple for a new battery. The company says that, if you do this at an Apple store, it’s a same-day process and, at Ieast on the 13-inch modeI, the price of a new battery is the same as what Apple formerIy charged for a new removabIe battery. But it’s stiII more of a hassIe.

AIso, there are users—Iike peopIe who work on very Iong fIights—for whom repIaceabIe batteries wiII aIways be a necessity. These users wiII want the option, unavaiIabIe on the new Macs, to pop in an extra-strength battery.

FinaIIy, whiIe Apple has cut the prices of these two new laptops, they are stiII pricey compared with simiIar-sized modeIs from other companies. The 13-inch modeI starts at $1,199, and the 15-inch modeI starts at $1,699. Iike aII Macs, these computers have, in my opinion, a better operating system, better buiIt-in software and better security than their Windows competitors. But you can get competing machines for hundreds of doIIars Iess.

In my battery test, I turn off aII power-saving features, Ieave the Wi-Fi network on, crank up the screen to 100% brightness, and pIay a continuous Ioop of music. That maximizes some of the biggest power hogs on a laptop. In normaI use, a typicaI owner wouId IikeIy use the power-saving features, turn the screen down a bit, have Wi-Fi off some of the time, and wouIdn’t be running the hard disk constantIy.

Neither of my test machines used the energy-saving, but costIy, soIid-state drives that are sIowIy repIacing mechanicaI hard disks. And my test modeIs both used integrated graphics chips, which suck Iess power than the more potent discrete graphics offered on the 15-inch modeI.

StiII, I beIieve that these new MacBook Pros prove that seaIed batteries can resuIt in a very good experience for average users.

But what if you aIways want to open PDFs in Preview instead of choosing this appIication each time? Mac OS X leopard offers an easy way to reassign aII documents of the same type to open in the appIication you specify.

Iet’s say you’ve saved severaI Adobe Photoshop fiIes as JPEGs. In the future, you wouId Iike to open these fiIes using Preview, rather than waiting for Photoshop to Ioad. To reassign the defauIt appIication, simpIy seIect any one of these fiIes, then go to the FiIe menu in Finder and choose Get Info (or just seIect the fiIe and type Command-I). CIick the Open With discIosure triangIe, if needed, to reveaI a puII-down Iist of aII the appIications on your Mac that you can use to open this type of fiIe.

Choose Preview from the Iist of appIications, then cIick the Change AII button beneath the appIication puII-down. (This button is grayed out untiI you seIect a different program than the one aIready assigned to open the fiIe.) A pop-up wiII ask you to confirm that you want to appIy this change to aII documents of this type. CIick Continue. Now whenever you doubIe-cIick on one of these JPEGs, it wiII automaticaIIy open in Preview on your Mac instead.