Apple doesn’t go into great detail as to what may fail, but basically a couple of things can happen. One, the thin metal can warp if you open and close the bottom case many times (especially if you upgrade hard drives a couple of times, add in an SSD to replace your optical drive, and upgrade the RAM… like me). The other is that the rubber on the bottom can delaminate, causing the MacBook to look like it has skin cancer.

The solution is simple (now, at least), just head to Apple’s repair extension program page for the Late 2009 MacBook.

Now yes, you can use that 2.5-inch drive bay to house that old hard drive from your PlayStation 3 (before you maxed it out). However, the reason that it is there, is for SSD storage.

iMac is designed to not need any external storage. You can have 2 TB of storage, and back it up to another iMac somewhere else in your house. That’s not to say that you can’t have an external hard drive, it does have both USB 2.0 and FireWire… I’m just outlining Apple’s vision. With a 2.5-inch SSD drive, you can boot from SSD but store files internally on the larger hard drive.

And, I suspect, that is the future of MacBook Pro. With storage manufacturers flocking to the new MacBook Air blade-type storage format, I suspect MacBook Pro will tout it as an optional upgrade as well. Unlike a 2.5-inch drive, it can fit inside the MacBook Pro chassis with minimal modification.

And, with Mac OS X Lion getting TRIM support, SSDs on Mac will finally work properly. So, really, I’ll be more surprised if MacBook Pro doesn’t adopt SSD. This is one key feature that will finally allow Apple Pro Portables to stand out once again, and re-justify their hefty price tags. It will also help turn the tide away from the 13-inch MacBook, and back to the 13-inch MacBook Pro. While the Pro variant has been outselling the plastic non-Pro variant, it mostly has done so because of its shiny metal posterior… and not on technical prowess.

You can achieve this today, with a few different products that trade the optical drive for a second 2.5-inch slot. However, not only do you lose your optical bay, but you also have to deal with installation costs (including time) and maintenance (such as, pulling the drive when you need to send your MacBook in for care).

MacBook Having Windows 7 Audio Trouble? We’ve got your driver fix… – CentralGadget.com

The Mac mini has the longest lifecycle of any modern (post-1998) Mac. If you bought the Core 2 Duo Mac mini when it came out, you’d better have AppleCare Protection on it, or you’d be out of warranty already.

The Mac mini is the only system that requires a significant revision to be OpenCL-ready, so, well, it’s a no-brainer at this point. The Mac Pro just needs a graphics card swap.

My wish list for the new Mac mini? eSATA. I can understand losing FireWire, but eSATA would be a huge improvement, and would allow the Mac mini to sit for lots longer without a product rev. By making the mini the first Mac with eSATA, Apple can spend the next year adding it to the rest of the lineup. FireWire? I’ll miss it, but eSATA would be a happy tradeoff right now.

(Note, I seriously doubt Apple will embrace eSATA until it is on every single PC on the planet, in self-powered configuration no less).

P.S. I haven’t had a chance to say it on this blog, but cheers to Apple on the new MacBooks. I know it’s long overdue, but I was a key critic of the graphics in the MacBook and MacBook Air. There really aren’t any major complaints that I have with either system now… I just have to chose between the two for my next portable.

However, there is one problem. Perian replaces Apple’s H.264 processor with its own. Perian’s is more open to foreign formats, but it’s also a bit less friendly. For example, if you have a new MacBook with PureVideo, Perian knocks out the hardware H.264 decoding. This is because only Apple’s H.264 decoder is able to access the PureVideo technology on the GeForce 9400 (and 8600M… if Apple will do the right thing).

Today’s bug is a bit more dramatic however. Apple cautions that Perian cannot properly convert AVCHD video files for use with iMovie and Final Cut, in some circumstances. If the conversion fails, iMovie/Final Cut will crash.

Apple’s solution is to uninstall Perian. My suggestion to Perian is two-fold. One, switch back to Apple’s H.264 decoder (leave Perian’s as an advanced option, so someone can toggle to it if absolutely necessary). And, two, add a toggle switch for Perian, so that in the future, Perian can be temporarily disabled… without going through the hassle of reinstalling.

But, it appears that the new MacBook and MacBook Pro has its H.264 hardware decoding enabled. Yes, that’s right… Apple wants you to fork over $1,999 to enable upgrade to hardware H.264 decoding. Of course, if you boot into Windows, H.264 decodes on the GPU, meaning this is entirely a driver issue in Mac OS X.

I think, unfortunately, Apple will pull the same phony, false interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley (which has been dismissed by several legal experts). The claim is that Apple has to charge for software updates that enable new features. The only exception (Apple claims) is if they account for the product under a subscription-based billing system. That’s why iPhone and Apple TV owners get free, major upgrades… while iPod touch owners are out $20 (for two major updates). It’s also the same, false (in my opinion) reason that MacBook owners had to pay $1.99 to enable 802.11n in their systems.

Technically, Apple broke the law, in their own opinion on the 802.11n debacle. See, they enabled 802.11n in Boot Camp for free (when running Windows). Technically, they should have charged $1.99 for the driver update there. Apple, ready to sue yourself? Because, the SEC thinks this is all a load of… fill in the blank.

Here’s what I think will happen. Like many bang-head-against-wall issues with prior generations, Apple will make amends make you wait for Snow Leopard. I have no doubt that MacBook Pro owners will get PureVideo H.264 decoding in that release.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to hack through the drivers on the new MacBook Pro, to see if I can con and/or convince them to work with my MacBook Pro. I refuse to pay Apple for a product, that uses updated drivers as a selling point.

Closing Thought: I know some of you will be ready to knee-jerk harpoon me, and say that I haven’t given Apple enough time to release such an update. Apple has already released one NVIDIA graphics update for the new MacBooks, and in addition, they have refused to comment on this matter to-date. I am not asking Apple for instant driver gratification. I am asking them to commit to releasing this PureVideo support for the first Penryn MacBook Pro systems, and not make existing MacBook Pro owners wait for Snow Leopard.

Not that this would really tip my decision either way… but Microsoft added support for Bluetooth 2.1 in the Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless. There’s just one problem…

Like TV Pack 2008 for Windows Vista, you can’t have it! Microsoft is only making it available to “select OEMs.” Meaning, Dell can ship new systems with Windows supporting Bluetooth 2.1, but Apple can’t (because, they don’t sell Windows).

I view this as an abuse of monopoly powers. How is one version of Windows Vista different from another? What makes a Dell user more entitled to the Wireless Feature Pack, than a MacBook owner who bought the retail version of Vista?

Microsoft says that they will integrate this into Windows Vista SP2. But, that’s cold comfort for those trying to have the latest-and-greatest today. Thanks Microsoft.

Moral of the story, Microsoft… stop limiting updates to customers, based on where and when they bought their computer. It’s just wrong.

But, if I know my readership, you don’t want to wait for it to fail two-years-and-a-day from when you bought it. So, what can you do to quicken the process.

Basically, the chip burns out after long periods of high utilization. So, our goal is to subject the 8600M to as much of that as possible. Now, playing 3D games all day long is a good start… but maybe you value your time a bit much to play Halo seventeen times over… weekly.

There is a better solution, but it involves Boot Camp. The good news is, it’s for a good cause. After installing Windows XP or Vista, download the GPU2 client for Folding@home, and run it.

The GPU2 client for Folding@home uses the computational ability of your graphics chip, to help better understand how cellular tissue works. Basically, it helps us better understand the fundamental building blocks of life. The Folding team at Stanford found that GPU processing is much better for this type of research than CPU processing… and it was a major step towards developing OpenCL, which will be in Snow Leopard.

So, just set the GPU2 client to run at startup when Windows loads. Then, when you go to bed, reboot into Boot Camp (you will probably want to set Windows to automatically log in as well, running the GPU client as a service in the background is a pain).

After a prolonged period of doing this (I have no idea how long, it depends on your specific MacBook Pro), there’s a good chance your GPU will burn out and fail. And, that will obligate Apple to fix it for you.

It’s Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death all over again… at least Apple didn’t listen to NVIDIA, and did the right thing with a proper, public recall.

And what was the reason attributed by many financial analysts? Word of the impending release of a new MacBook Air.

It was nice to play kingmaker for a day, but the credit does ultimately go to Apple. I’d like to like the MacBook Air, so here’s hoping they get it right the second time around.

I was at a lunch the day before, talking up how my MacBook Pro has been running without a hitch, while everyone else was complaining about MacBook failures. I was asking for it… and boy did I get it today.

Basically, AirPort started locking up. I could connect to my network, and web pages would load, but any data-intensive requests locked up. For example, Mail would time out, and NetNewsWire would struggle to load pages.

At first I thought I was dealing with a bad AirPort Card. Booted up my USB 2.0 hard drive with a separate Leopard install… and everything was working. So, I realized it had to be an issue with something on my internal hard drive drive. I’m still not sure what went screwy. No filesystem errors, no bad sectors on the drive, cleared the caches, trashed all the network and AirPort plist files… and it still wouldn’t work.

My only option was to reinstall Mac OS X. And, I couldn’t recover system settings and user accounts. I tested with a second user account, and it was not working too. So, I know it was a system corruption, but I couldn’t rule out a defective plist file somewhere else in /Library.

What a waste of a day… now I’m reinstalling software, moving files back by hand, and setting everything back up. Thankfully, I have a 12-inch PowerBook G4 for when this happens, and I’ll be finishing the weekend with that.

Oh, and why I wrote this post… I suspect it may be Security Update 2008-005 that caused this problem, since I installed that right before the problems surfaced. If you are having any network issues after installing 2008-005, post away in the comments so I can help Apple pinpoint the issue.

Update: This is getting very annoying, and it has taken up too much time. I have to move on, and de-commission my MacBook Pro for a week. Wonderful (not). I have pinned it down to something in /Library/. But, it’s not a preference, an input manager, or a launch daemon, and it’s not a startupitem.

The result? I can’t trust anything inside of /Library/ and have to reinstall every single application by hand.

This really, really, feels like a Windows problem…