The long-awaited refresh of Apple’s desktop Macs arrived Tuesday with a thud.

Given how long it’s been – April 2008 for the iMac, January 2008 for the Mac Pro and August 2007 for the Mac Mini – one might have expected more dramatic improvements than what we got Tuesday.

Only the Mac Pro got a new processor chip, the Intel Xeon “Nehalem.” The other Macs just got speed-bumped versions of the currently used Intel Core 2 Duo.

Nor did Apple significantly change any of the Mac case designs.

And Apple didn’t budge on pricing, either – which will no doubt disappoint Wall Street analysts.

One could argue that today’s computers are already so powerful, big leaps in capabilities are no longer required. But if Apple can’t wow us with snazzy new hardware and droolworthy specs, it should sweeten the deal by nudging down prices -- particularly in these dark economic times.

While Apple seriously needed to refresh its Mac line, I’m not sure the new models will do much to revive its slumping desktop sales. The affordability factor will likely continue to trump other considerations (e.g, the Mac’s superior overall value), at least for the near term.

The unequivocal good news is that Apple boosted hard drive capacity and base memory in every model but the $599 Mac Mini.

Apple also has upgraded the graphics capabilities in its desktops, although I find the trend toward integrated graphics in the low-end iMacs disturbing.

Integrated graphics chipsets don’t have their own memory, but share the memory used by the rest of the system. Such chipsets became common in laptops because they’re cheaper and consume less power than dedicated graphics cards.

However, you trade off price for performance. Although charts on Apple’s Web site indicate the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics in the Mini and low-end iMacs is faster than the ATI Radeon HD 2400XT card the previous 20-inch iMac model used, that’s an older, low-end card.

Any current graphics card, even a low-end one, would deliver better performance particularly on systems with less system memory.

What puzzles me about this is that we are only months away from the launch of the next version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, which Apple promises will harness the graphics chips in your Mac to boost overall computing speed. It seems like an odd time to remove the dedicated graphics cards from any members of your flagship desktop line.

The Mac Mini always had integrated graphics, so the new NVIDIA graphics should be a hefty improvement over the long in the tooth Intel GMA 950 graphics used in the previous Mini.

One change that may irk veteran Mac users with legacy FireWire devices is the replacement of FireWire 400 ports with FireWire 800 ports on all models. After Apple did the same with its laptop line – and eliminated FireWire entirely from the MacBook Air and new aluminum MacBooks – the move is not a surprise.

But the transition may be an inconvenience for some. Unlike USB 1.1 and USB 2.0, the FireWire 800 ports are not the same shape as FireWire 400 ports. So users will need an adapter to connect older FireWire peripherals such as video cameras, scanners and external hard drives.

One other common change, also introduced on the aluminum MacBooks, is the adoption of the Mini DisplayPort. Like the FireWire 800 issue, this may mean the purchase of adapters for some users.

Apple is also promoting its new desktops as more environmentally friendly than ever, as they all comply with the new, stricter Energy Star 5.0 standards.

A closer look at the new Macs model by model:

Mac Mini: Not much changed. The $599 Mini gets a tiny speed boost and no extra base RAM; the $799 model gets double the base RAM but no speed boost. The Mini does use a faster type of RAM, and is now expandable to 4GB (up from 2GB).

Both models get substantially larger hard drives and a fifth USB port. The $599 gets upgraded from a combo drive (can burn CDs but only read DVDs) to a SuperDrive (can read and burn both CDs and DVDs).

iMac: Where are the quad-core iMacs? Many expected a quad core version at the top of the iMac line for this refresh. It have made sense, since another of Snow Leopard’s features will be to better capitalize on multiple processing cores. Maybe next time, eh?

The iMacs, like the Minis, benefit from a faster type of RAM. And Apple has increased the maximum RAM possible from 4 GB to 8 GB. But the 8x SuperDrives appear to be the same as those in the previous generation.

The biggest change here is to the middle-of the-line $1,499 model, which gets the larger 24-inch display and double the RAM and hard drive capacity. However, it’s saddled with the NVIDIA integrated graphics rather than the GeForce GT 120 card bestowed on the $1,799 model. And no speed bump whatsoever.

At least the entry-level 20-inch $1,199 iMac gets a tiny speed bump, although it too receives the downgrade to integrated graphics.

The $1,799 iMac’s dedicated graphics card and tiny speed boost combined with the doubled RAM and hard drive specs make it the most-improved iMac of the lot, and possibly the best deal.

In addition, Apple now offers a 3.06 GHz base variation (you could buy one before as a build-to-order option). This top-end iMac gets a better graphics card than the $1,799 model as well as the doubled RAM and hard-drive capacity, but whether it’s worth $400 more than its closest sibling is questionable.

Mac Pro: “The Mac Pro is a significant upgrade and starts at $300 less than before,” Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller boasts in the press release. Phil, I love you buddy, but aren’t you being just a bit disingenuous here? That $2,499 Mac Pro to which you refer is a quad core, but you’re comparing it to the price of the early 2008 8-core Mac Pro, which came in just one base configuration. Dropping that model down to a quad-core – the equivalent of the new quad model -- gave you a $2,399 Mac Pro. Shame on you, Phil.

Other than that, the new Nehalem chips are an excellent upgrade. It’s hard to say how much faster they’ll be than the Harpertowns in real world situations, but the benchmark charts on Apple’s Web site look promising.

The new Mac Pro also gets a slightly faster SuperDrive (18x, up from 16x), better RAM (1066 MHz DDR3, up from 800 MHz DDR2) and two more PCI Express 2.0 slots than its predecessor. Unfortunately, the base 8-core model also gets a $500 higher price tag. That’s crazy.

The quad model is much more reasonably priced -- $900 less than the 8-core -- but with one drawback. It has only four RAM slots, so is expandable only up to 8 GB (the 8-core can handle 32 GB in its 8 slots, just like the previous model). Otherwise its specs and architecture appear to match its pricier brother’s.

One final nit on the Mac Pros: Apple puts six 1 GB modules in the 8 core and three 1 GB modules in the quad, which leaves the users only two open slots in the 8-core and just one in the quad. So expanding RAM significantly will require the user to toss out some of those 1 GB modules. Why not put larger RAM modules in the Pros to retain more open slots?

Posted by David Zeiler at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
                       

Now I understand why so many people have complained about Apple’s Mighty Mouse.

I had noticed for months that I sometimes would have trouble using the tiny scroll ball atop the Mighty Mouse. Vigorous rolling with my finger usually cleared up the problem, presumably a speck of dust or dirt that got stuck inside.

But last week I could hardly get the scroll ball to work at all. Since I use the scroll ball constantly when browsing the Web, this became a big problem very quickly.

This Mighty Mouse, which came with the Mac Pro I bought in January, is barely 10 months old. I think that’s too soon for a mouse to go south; most mice I’ve used have lasted at least two years.

So I trolled the Mac Web for answers. In addition to a lot of other frustrated users, I found a good bit of useful information.

The folks at the Web site AppleMatters had a photo gallery on how to disassemble a Mighty Mouse. At first I thought this was great – if I could get inside the mouse I could clean the balky parts.

But when AppleMatters tried to remove the collar that’s glued in place on the underside of the mouse, it snapped in half. Another blogger claimed he had used a razor to separate the collar from the mouse, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

In any case, getting to the scroll ball involved several more tedious and risky steps with no guarantee of getting everything back together correctly.

Does anybody remember the old-style (pre-optical) Apple Desktop Mouse with the roller ball in its belly? Remember how whenever that mouse got fussy all one needed to do was twist the ring on the bottom, remove the ball and scrape the crud off the rollers with your fingernail? It could be done in two minutes. No tools required.

The scroll ball in the Mighty Mouse is roughly the same mechanism, except the user has no means of accessing the innards for cleaning. And for a Mighty Mouse to function optimally, it needs its scroll ball cleaned every few months or so.

After some poking around in forums, the best advice I found was to turn the Mighty Mouse upside down and roll the scroll ball firmly against a clean surface, such as a piece of paper.

In my case that only helped a little, so I tried a more extreme version recommended by another user. Instead of paper, I used a lint-free cloth dipped in alcohol. (To be totally honest it was an old dried-up baby wipe. But it served the purpose.)

That worked amazingly well. My Mighty Mouse now scrolls like a champ up, down and sideways.

Eventually I found a Knowledge Base article on Apple’s Web site that suggests cleaning the Mighty Mouse with a lint-free cloth, and rubbing the cloth on the scroll ball with the mouse upside down to dislodge any troublesome particles.

But I’m still annoyed at Apple for designing the Mighty Mouse in such a way that the scroll ball becomes difficult to use in an appallingly brief time. Can’t they figure out a way to provide scrolling without a physical rolling ball?

Apple already has solved similar engineering challenges. The famed iPod click wheel doesn’t actually move, for instance.

I bet it can be done, and Apple is just the company to do it.

Posted by David Zeiler at 8:44 AM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (17)
                       

Last week I read with alarm reports that Apple’s mightiest Mac, the Mac Pro desktop, could emit toxic gases.

I am alarmed not only at the notion Apple could have sold a device that -- simply by turning it on -- could damage the health of the user, but because I own a Mac Pro myself.

This news originated with the French newspaper Liberation (available in English via an awkward Google translation), which reported that a molecular biologist working for a French national agency in February 2007 grew suspicious when he noticed an odd smell coming from his new Mac Pro.

After 10 days of using the new Mac, the scientist experienced pronounced eye and throat irritation. He contacted AppleCare, which dispatched a technician to switch the power supply. The odor remained.

Apple even replaced the system with another Mac Pro but that, too, vented the same strange smell.

Finally, the scientist had the gases analyzed by another lab, which detected seven “volatile organic contaminants,” including benzene, a commonly used industrial solvent and a known carcinogen. Prolonged exposure to benzene vapors can cause such illnesses as leukemia and lymphoma.

The scientist sent the lab results to Apple, which characteristically has sat on the information. After he published his report on the Internet, Apple phoned the scientist to tell him it would “resolve the problem within eight days.”

As it turns out, many Mac Pro owners back in 2007 noticed the same unusual odors coming from their computers and were discussing it amongst themselves, including on Apple’s own forums. Browsing through the discussions, its evident that few if any of the Mac Pro owners had any idea how dangerous the gases might be, though some expressed concern.

A reader of ZDNet’s Apple Core blog said AppleCare of France confirmed the problem to him over the phone, but said it affected Mac Pros built before 2008.

The original four-core Mac Pro debuted in August 2006; Apple added an eight-core version in April 2007. Those models were sold through January of this year, when the current version replaced it. That’s a lot of Mac Pros potentially affected.

To my relief, my Mac Pro is an early 2008 model, which Apple has said is safe. Thankfully I’ve never noticed any strange smells coming out of it.

What really bothers me, however, is Apple’s silence on this issue, despite having been made aware of it many months ago.

This is not a trivial matter. This is not about a battery a user can’t remove. This is not about discolored plastic casing on a laptop. This is not about losing access to your e-mail account for several days.

This is literally a life-threatening situation. Owners of these machines are scared and worried. If Apple has proof the smells coming from first-generation Mac Pros are harmless, it needs to make a public announcement to alleviate the concern.

If Apple in fact has learned the fumes are dangerous, it will need to do much more. In either case, keeping silent only makes matters worse.

If there’s even the smallest chance some Mac Pro owners and their families have been exposed to hazardous gases, Apple needs to alert them immediately so they can seek medical attention. And those Mac Pros would need to be recalled.

Over the past couple of years, Apple has improved on its responsiveness to customer complaints and owning up to corporate blunders like the bungled iPhone 3G/MobileMe launch.

But all that pales beside a dire health threat. Apple owes its customers an official explanation on this situation – and fast.

UPDATE: I was remiss in not mentioning that Apple has indeed issued an official statement on this matter, though it's not quite an explanation. As noted by Peter Cohen below, Apple's Bill Evans told Macworld Oct. 1: “We have not found anything that supports this claim, but continue to investigate it for the customer."

Also, it occurs to me that given the time frame involved, this issue -- while serious -- likely affected a relatively small number of users. Otherwise we would have heard much more about it long ago.

Posted by David Zeiler at 12:36 PM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

Losing personal data stored on a PC – your music, your photos, your financial records – is one of the worst nightmares that can befall a computer user.

Though for years experts have repeated the mantra of backing up PC data frequently, few users did so. When hard drives fail – an unpredictable eventuality – they take all your data with them to their digital grave.

That’s why Apple developed the automated backup feature Time Machine, introduced with Mac OS X Leopard. In concept Mac users need only attach a spare hard drive, switch on Time Machine and never worry about losing important data again.

But a spate of bugs with Time Machine has me wondering whether I can fully trust it. If nothing else, backup software must be absolutely reliable.

The bug that caught my attention affects my Mac Pro. Since installing the incremental 10.5.3 Leopard update (released May 28), Time Machine occasionally craps out in the middle of one of its hourly backups.

It presents the following message: “Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.”

Not exactly reassuring, eh?

I always click on the “OK” button and have noticed the next hour’s backup usually goes without a hitch.

Still, it makes me wonder if all my data is getting backed up properly. Has some of it become corrupted? How would I find out? Ferreting out the problem files would be no trivial task – I have over 400 gigabytes of data on my backup volume.

As this issue discussed on blogs and in forums since the 10.5.3 update appeared, it clearly affects a fair number of Mac Pro owners. Some advise deleting the partial backup file from the backup volume, but others say that’s only a temporary fix.

Some have expressed hope the 10.5.4 update – rumored to be coming in mid-July – will resolve the issue.

I realize that no software is perfect, but Apple needs to be particularly careful with Time Machine. Users have reported an assortment of bugs with the feature since Leopard’s introduction last fall.

In fact, the very 10.5.3 update that appears to be causing the current problem with Mac Pro models included no less than seven fixes directed at Time Machine issues. The most ominous: “Addresses reliability issues when performing a full restore from a Time Machine backup.”

Few things breed misgivings over backup software like “reliability issues.” And while Apple almost always fixes such problems eventually, the company’s habitual refusal to acknowledge whether it’s aware of an issue and whether its engineers are working on it leaves users frustrated and confused.

At this point, I plan to continue using Time Machine on my Mac Pro while crossing my fingers my data is safe. But just in case I’m also going to dust off my copy of Super Duper! to run a second backup to my external network drive.

Wasn’t Time Machine supposed to make performing backups easier?

Posted by David Zeiler at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)
                       

A firmware update apparently has rectified the reboot-on-wake problem that has dogged the 2008 edition of the Mac Pro since its introduction just prior to the Macworld show in January.

I use the word “apparently” because Apple does not mention the issue in its explanation of the update’s benefits. Instead we get only a vague statement: “This update fixes several issues to improve the stability of Mac Pro (Early 2008) computers.”

Owners of the affected Mac Pros can obtain the fix by running Software Update. It shows up as “Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.3.”

(I have blogged about this before, since I own an affected Mac Pro. Other owners concocted all manner of solutions, none of which worked consistently.)

On the main thread on Apple’s support site where this issue has been discussed, everyone who applied the update reported success in eliminating the reboot-on-wake problem. It’s only been a few days since Apple released the fix (March 27), but so far so good.

Users are still talking to each other because Apple has failed to clarify whether the update includes a fix for the reboot-on-wake issue (although it did lock the discussion thread Sunday to prevent further comments, if that means anything).

If Apple has fixed the problem, why not say so in the update’s documentation? Why leave users guessing?

For the past three months, Apple support has told many Mac Pro owners (me included) they knew nothing of widespread sleep issues. I suppose it would be bad form to admit you solved a problem that you previously refused to acknowledge.

I have never understood why Apple so often denies issues that affect thousands of users.

Sometimes if the issues are severe enough and generate significant Web chatter Apple will make amends publicly, as with the MacBook random shutdown and discolored palm rest incidents in 2006. Even then, affected customers were told only to “contact AppleCare for service.”

But in many cases, particularly problems that it can fix with a software or firmware update, Apple never admits anything.

Perhaps the company fears bad publicity would follow from admitting to its problems. After all, one of Apple’s Mac marketing angles is superior reliability over Windows PCs.

But you don’t retain the customer loyalty by jerking them around when things go wrong.

Apple might worry that owning up to its product flaws will damage its reputation for quality, and maybe it would a little, but that couldn’t be worse than the damage the denials are doing to the relationship with its customers.

Honesty, on the other hand, would build trust between the Apple and its customers. People are more likely to forgive problems with a product if the company that makes it resolves those problems quickly and fairly.

It’s virtually impossible to build technically sophisticated products such as those Apple makes without suffering a few mishaps here and there. Product flaws are not a sin, but ignoring them is.

Apple would be far better off coming clean whenever such issues arise. If a software update can rectify an issue, just tell us you’re aware of it and will have a fix out as soon as possible. If it’s a hardware problem, issue a recall – sooner rather than later.

Understand me, I’m thrilled that Apple has fixed my Mac Pro. I just wish Apple could be more candid with its loyal customers.

Is that asking too much?

Posted by David Zeiler at 7:05 AM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (6)
                       

I’ve never understood why Apple conceals useful operating system features from its users. I’m talking about such things as changing the default file format for creating a screen shot or turning off the Dashboard app.

Sooner or later (usually sooner) some clever Mac geek figures out how to access and enable these hidden options via the Unix command line in the Terminal or writes a utility to facilitate the task.

Such is the case with Deep Sleep, a Dashboard widget that lets users put their Mac into a standby mode that completely shuts off the power, similar to the “hibernate” function in Windows.

I stumbled upon Deep Sleep in my continuing quest to resolve my Mac Pro’s reboot on wake problem. (It recurred for the first time in over two weeks yesterday. Nuts.) Several Mac Pro owners in the forums had suggested use of this widget to bypass the issue.

It turns out that the default sleep mode on a Mac is only one of three sleep options built in to the operating system. The others are “safe sleep” and “deep sleep.”

In the default sleep mode, the Mac maintains a continuous trickle of power to the computer’s memory. Without that stream of electricity, everything stored in the Mac’s memory (that is, whatever you have running on your desktop) would go poof in a nanosecond.

Because the information is preserved in memory, wiggling your mouse or tapping a key on the keyboard brings up your Mac desktop just as you left it.

Apple created the safe sleep mode for PowerBooks a few years ago, gradually making it a standard feature on all Mac laptops. To prevent data loss, safe sleep adds an extra step. It saves the contents of memory to the hard drive just before going into regular sleep.

With regular sleep, if the PowerBook’s battery ran out of juice, the computer’s memory would lose its lifeline of electricity. The state of the desktop would be lost, and any unsaved work in open documents with it. But safe sleep could retrieve that data from the hard drive. Once power to the laptop is restored, so is the state of the desktop.

The Deep Sleep Widget uses the safe sleep option of copying the contents of memory to the hard drive to eliminate the need for that memory-preserving trickle of electricity in desktop Macs as well as laptops.

The advantages of deep sleep over regular sleep is that 1) it saves your open files to the disk so you won’t lose any data and 2) it uses virtually no power. For laptop owners, the ability to sleep the Mac without consuming any battery power can be invaluable.

The primary disadvantage of deep sleep is that it takes several seconds longer to sleep the system (because the Mac must wait for you’re the contents of memory to write to the hard drive) as well as to wake it up (because the Mac has to read the data off the hard drive).

I have been using Deep Sleep for when I plan to leave my Mac Pro unattended for many hours (such as when I leave for work or go to bed at night) and use regular sleep the rest of the time. I started this to work around my reboot on wake problem, but I think deep sleep might be better for the Mac.

As for the potential power savings, don’t get too excited. According to an Energy Usage Calculator on Apple’s Web site, a Mac Pro running 24/7 (never sleeping) would use $120 worth of electricity in a year at 10¢ per kilowatt-hour, slightly less than the 10.86¢ BGE currently charges. (A 24-inch iMac would cost $123 because of the built-in monitor; a 20-inch iMac $74.)

Using regular sleep mode 12 hours a day would save a Mac Pro owner $57. Using deep sleep 12 hours a day should save you $60 -- just $3 more (assuming the Mac is drawing no electricity).

Not quite enough for a new iPod, but it could get you a movie rental from the iTunes Store.

Posted by David Zeiler at 3:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Uptime: Four days, 14 hours.

After weeks of frustration, I think I have resolved the issue of my Mac Pro rebooting at random times when I tried to wake it from sleep state, most often after an overnight sleep.

Many owners of the 2008 edition of the Mac Pro have struggled with this same issue. Forums at Accelerate Your Mac, Mac Rumors and even Apple’s own Web site have percolated with complaints, commiserations and proposed solutions for over a month.

The most suggested remedies – resetting the PRAM and SMC (System Management Controller) have worked for a few but often prove temporary fixes. The Mac OS X 10.5.2 update had no effect.

A few Mac Pro owners even returned their units to Apple, only to have the replacement unit exhibit the same problem.

I called Apple Support a little over a week ago and was told by the “product specialist” to delete three power management preference files. I did. The next morning after a night of sleep, I touched the space bar and the Mac promptly rebooted. Not a great moment for Apple product support.

During our conversation I had mentioned to the product specialist that I was booting off a hard drive I had added to the system rather than the one that came with the Mac. He suggested I also try booting off the original drive as part of the process of narrowing down where the problem might lie (hardware or software).

After his first suggestion flopped, I tried the second. Oddly, the Mac did not reboot for the several days I ran off the original drive. In fact, the problem did not surface originally until after I installed OS X on one of my new drives and started booting from it.

Still, I had all my new software installed on the new drive. I didn’t want to be stuck booting from the old drive forever just to avoid the reboot-on-wake issue.

Encouraged by several posts on the forums from Mac Pro owners who’d fixed the problem by swapping drives among the four available bays, I decided to give it a try. I put my preferred boot drive in Bay 1 and the original hard drive in Bay 3. (I left my third hard drive, which I use for Time Machine, untouched in Bay 2.)

I started up the Mac Pro, zapping the PRAM for good measure (the posts in the forums suggested doing it after a drive swap.) And I haven’t had the reboot-on-wake problem since.

I have not yet tried to boot off the original drive since I moved it to Bay 3 to see if it now is afflicted with the issue -- but I’m guessing it would.

I can’t guarantee the drive swap will work for every Mac Pro owner suffering from this problem, but it should work for some. Those with just the original drive could try plugging it into other bays.

Happy as I am to have (apparently) resolved the issue, I remain baffled as to why the drive swap fixed it. Does this mean the Mac Pro has an SMC firmware problem? Or is there a problem with the Mac Pro hardware itself (motherboard glitch? wonky SATA controller?)

I am not an engineer, so I can only puzzle over the possibilities (more knowledgeable readers are invited to contribute their thoughts below).

As far as I know, Apple has not acknowledged the problem officially, though some on the forums said Apple support people told them the company is aware of the issue and is working on a solution.

I hope so. At the very least Apple needs to add an entry to the Knowledge Base on its Web site so Mac Pro owners will have some information on the issue. I’d prefer a software patch eradicating the problem completely, though.

This much I do know: Apple owes the customers of its high-end Macs some sort of answer, and it needs to provide one ASAP.

UPDATE (March 10): I tried booting off the original drive in Bay 3. After three days, I've had no reboot problem. I still don't understand why, but I have not experienced the issue for nearly two weeks. Still no word from Apple....

Posted by David Zeiler at 3:49 AM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (4)
                       

Incremental updates to Mac OS X traditionally have consisted primarily of bug fixes. Significant changes to existing features are saved for the major updates (Panther, Tiger, Leopard).

So when Apple let loose the much-anticipated 10.5.2 update to Mac OS X Leopard Monday, changes to two features introduced with the release of Leopard last October pleasantly surprised many veteran Mac users.

One change is the addition of an option in the Desktop System Preference Pane to turn off the translucent menu bar at the top of the screen. Some Mac users detested this new feature because the patterns of desktop images could make menu items hard to read. Personally it didn’t bother me all that much, but it’s nice to have the option to make the menu bar opaque again.

Apple also tweaked the Stacks feature, which allows users to click on special folders in the Dock and see the icons of its contents fan out across the desktop. Some users didn’t like how the folder looked like a pile of icons with only the topmost icon identifiable. Not only that, but they disliked how the icons fanned out from the Dock. The more items, the harder the feature was to use.

Apple has addressed these complaints by offering users choices. Control clicking on a Stack reveals several new options, such as making the Dock icon appear as a folder and setting the folder’s contents to appear as a list. This works much better for folders with numerous items.

It’s very un-Apple-like to alter fresh features in a version of OS X not six months old. Could it be that Apple has decided to listen to its users?

Of course most of the 10.5.2 update consists of an assortment of fixes and system improvements (you can read Apple’s official list here.)

Other observations:

Mac Pro’s Reboot on Wake From Sleep: Incremental updates sometimes fix other issues not noted in Apple’s documentation. As have most other owners of the new Mac Pro, I had hoped the 10.5.2 update would fix the dreadful “reboot on wake from sleep” problem.

After a day and a half and more than half a dozen wake from sleeps, I have not yet had an unexpected reboot. However, reports on Mac forums indicate that other Mac Pro owners still are experiencing the issue even after upgrading to 10.5.2. Others owners also report unresolved problems with their graphics (which I thankfully have not had.) Apple needs to fix this soon. Its Mac Pro customers – those who have bought Apple’s priciest hardware -- deserve better. (UPDATE: I had a new twist on this issue occur; my Mac Pro rebooted while I was sleeping. When I went to wake it I faced the login screen. Zoinks!)

Improved performance: One point of speculation that dates back to before the Mac Pros were announced was that the 10.5.2 update would contain optimizations designed to extract even better performance out of the new models.

I have run both the Geekbench and XBench benchmarking software on my Mac Pro since upgrading to 10.5.2. Given the variable scores I tend to get from these programs, it doesn’t look like this update has boosted performance.

But the Leopard Graphics Update, which users only can install after installing 10.5.2, did improve my graphics scores noticeably in XBench’s Quartz Graphics Test, which leapt from averaging in the low 200s to averaging in the mid-250s, a 25 percent increase.

To upgrade to 10.5.2: If you’re running Leopard and haven’t yet updated to 10.5.2, simply click on the Apple Menu and select “Software Update.” After the Mac reboots, go back to the Apple Menu and repeat the process to obtain the Leopard Graphics Update. A word of warning: the 10.5.2 update weighs in at a bulky 343 megabytes, so a fast broadband connection will come in handy.

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
                       

It may be asking too much to expect new Mac hardware that doesn’t exhibit any odd behavior, but hope springs eternal.

A few days ago a strange anomaly affecting many owners of the new Mac Pro models turned up on my machine. Waking the Mac Pro from sleep sometimes causes it to spontaneously reboot instead.

I know it’s not just me because the issue is a hot topic on several Mac Web sites including Accelerate Your Mac as well as Apple’s own support forums. The best solution anyone has come up with so far is to reset the System Management Controller (SMC). To do that you unplug everything from the Mac Pro, including the power cord, for at least 15 seconds, then reconnect everything.

I did not have the problem for the first few days I had my Mac Pro, but once it started it happened every time I woke the machine from sleep. Very annoying. I reset the SMC two days ago, which has fixed the problem for the time being.

I say that because others have reported the problem reappears a few days after an SMC reset, necessitating a repeat of the procedure. A few customers even have returned their Mac Pro to the Apple Store for a replacement, only to see the problem flare up on the new one. No one yet has determined a cause. Apple, as usual in cases like this, has kept silent.

The best chance for a solution from Apple may lie in the imminent update to Leopard, 10.5.2, which is rumored to contain many bug fixes and improvements. But that will only help if the problem is software related. If it’s a glitch in the machine’s hardware, a fix won’t be so easy. Apple may have a lot of disgruntled Mac Pro customers on its hands.

Apple might try to weasel out of fixing the problem by telling customers not to put their Mac Pros to sleep, but many Mac desktop owners leave their computers on 24/7. The advantage of sleep is never having to wait for the machine to boot. Mac Pro customers will not want to change their habits to accommodate faulty hardware.

Historically, Apple tends to ignore problems with new Mac models until they get so widely reported it is forced to take action. Though Apple does well in most areas of customer service, rectifying manufacturing blunders has long been a weak spot.

For now, I have my fingers crossed the 10.5.2 update will do the trick.

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:34 AM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (8)
                       

With an extra 4 gigabytes of memory and two 500 gigabyte Seagate Barracuda hard drive successfully installed in my new Mac Pro, I fired up the benchmark programs to see if the upgrades have boosted performance.

First I ran GeekBench. I saw very little difference in the scores but for one of the memory tests, “Stdlib Write,” which increased from 2128 to 3689. It appears having 4 sticks of memory installed does aid performance.

Then I ran XBench, which includes a hard disk test. More to the point, it allows you to test any installed hard drive, not just the boot drive. To my surprise, the new drive bested the Apple-supplied drive by about 33 percent – with a score of 70.38 versus 52.80.

I’m pretty sure this is not a fluke, either. When Macworld magazine posted its initial tests of the same stock 2.8 GHz Mac Pro that I have, the hard drive was the weakest link:

“The eight-core 2.8GHz system lagged in some of our tests,” wrote James Galbraith, “results we attribute to its somewhat sluggish Seagate hard drive.”

The Macworld folks went further, swapping out a Western Digital drive from the previous generation 2.66Ghz Mac Pro. The swap slowed multitasking performance on the older machine by 14 percent while speeding up performance on the newer Mac Pro by 31 percent.

Just for kicks I ran XBench on my Mac at work, a dual 2.5GHz G5 Power Mac from mid-2004. The G5 scored 69.72 on the disk test, just a hair under the score for my 500 GB drives.

All of which raises the rather uncomfortable question: why did Apple put a subpar drive in such a premium machine? Almost everything else about the Mac Pro screams: its Quad-core Xeon CPUs, its 800 MHz memory, its PCI Express 2.0 expansion slots, its overall system architecture. Why skimp on one of the most critical components?

It can’t be the expense. The 500 GB Seagates I purchased from Other World Computing cost only $150 apiece. For the tiny nibble it would have taken from its huge profit margin on the Mac Pro – what are we talking about here, $20 $30? -- Apple could have included a better-performing 320 GB drive.

For that matter, Apple could put a better graphics card in the stock configuration. Many Mac Pro buyers are shelling out the extra $200 for the acclaimed NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. In the previous configuration, many paid extra for the Radeon X1900 because it was so much better than the default card. Why can’t the stock configuration have a card that’s somewhere in between?

And while I’m ranting: why does Apple charge so much for additional memory? Veteran Mac users have long known this, but does anyone know why they do it?

Had I ordered just an extra 2 GB of RAM from Apple, it would have cost an extra $500. The 4 GB kit I ordered from OWC cost just $200. That’s twice as much memory for less than half the cost. (For the morbidly curious, ordering a Mac Pro fully loaded with 32 GB of RAM costs an extra $9,100; a 32 GB kit from OWC will set you back just $2,900.)

Don’t get me wrong. I love my Mac Pro. It’s wicked fast and whisper-quiet, an awesome piece of hardware. But if you’re going to sell a premium machine, sell a premium machine -- $2,800 is not chump change in the PC market.

Sigh.

Posted by David Zeiler at 10:20 AM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (7)
                       

On Friday my Mac Pro upgrades arrived via UPS from Other World Computing – a 4 gigabyte memory kit and two 500 gigabtye Seagate Barracuda hard drives.

I installed them over the weekend – perhaps the easiest hardware upgrade I’ve ever performed. Thanks, Apple.

With the hard drives installed, I moved on to Phase 2: installing a copy of Windows XP Professional on one of the auxiliary drives using Apple’s Bootcamp utility.

Bootcamp worked as advertised, though I’m not sure I’d recommend it to users who aren’t particularly tech savvy. I can see such people getting very nervous during the install process. As Apple warns, making the wrong selection from one of the DOS-looking text menus along the way could wipe the Mac operating off your hard drive. I’d hate to be the tech support guy taking that call.

Once Windows XP was installed, the Mac Pro rebooted into Windows (creepy, I know). That’s when things turned sour.

Within seconds, Windows started to nag me with warning balloons bout the lack of anti-virus software, the urgent need to “activate” Windows and how great it would be if I took a “virtual tour” of Windows to learn about all its great features. Ugh.

The Windows Annoyance Factor rose quickly. I wanted to change a few of the system settings, so I went to the Control Panels area. Finding the Control Panel you want is easy enough, but navigating all the tabs and secondary menus is a nightmare. If you’re lucky (and persistent) you just might find the setting you’re looking for. It’s much easier to locate items in Mac OS X’s System Preferences.

After noticing a lot of essential services weren’t working (such as the Internet), I decided to actually read the Bootcamp instructions I had printed out. Yep, I needed to insert the Leopard disk that came with the Mac Pro to install the proper drivers.

Windows rebooted again, and voila! Everything worked.

That done, I moved on to Phase 3: installing Parallels to enable the use of Windows in the Mac environment without rebooting.

The Parallels installation went smoothly, but after I installed Parallels Tools – the software magic that enables the seamless integration of the Mac OS and Windows – the Windows Annoyance Factor reared its head again. Windows had detected a significant change in my hardware and now needed to be reactivated. (I later discovered a warning to this effect in the copious Parallels user manual.) I had three days until my copy of Windows stopped functioning.

I clicked on the warning balloon to reactivate, which should have been easy. Instead, Windows altered me that I had exceeded my allotted number of activations and needed to contact Microsoft for instructions. I had activated it for the first time just an hour earlier!

I called the toll-free number on the screen and within a minute or two was having a conversation with a computer. The computer voice told me to read an immense serial number-like code to it. After I did that, it gave me another lengthy code, which I typed into a series of 8 boxes. After that my copy of Windows was activated again.

At work, I never fuss with my Windows PC – the IT folk have it set up the way they want it, and that’s fine.

But having experienced a Windows installation at home, I’m learning first-hand at least one reason why many PC users have switched to the Mac. They’ve grown weary of the Windows Annoyance Factor.

Posted by David Zeiler at 12:37 PM in Mac Pro, Software by Apple | Permalink | Comments (5)
                       

The other day I wrote of my impressions of my new Mac Pro, and some readers expressed interest in its benchmark scores. So today I am posting the data files of the results of two benchmarking utilities, Geekbench and XBench.

This is a stock Mac Pro with the twin 2.8 GHz Quad-core Xeons, 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard drive and the ATI Radeon 2600 HD graphics card. The stock hard drive appears to be a Seagate Barracuda with an 8 MB cache, which could account for the less than stellar hard drive scores. I will test again when the new 500 GB Barracudas arrive with 16 MB of cache.

I have run the tests several times, usually after a fresh reboot and with no other apps running. I also ran the Cocktail utility. My typical XBench score runs in the high 150s; Geekbench has ranged from 7550 to 7992. Don't ask me to explain it.

Here are the test results saved in the format of the benchmark app that created them. Click on the link to download:

Geekbench results

XBench Results

Posted by David Zeiler at 2:34 AM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

It’s been a long time coming, my friends.

Friday I replaced my August 2001 Quicksilver G4 867 PowerMac with a new Mac Pro, the stock configuration with twin 2.8 gigahertz quad-core Intel Xeons.

I have on order from Other World Computing an additional 4 gigabytes of memory and two 500 GB Seagate Barracuda hard drives to populate two more of the Mac Pro’s four drive bays. (Tip for those new to the Mac: never buy memory or hard drives from Apple. The company has always drastically overcharged for those commodities. Better to buy such things from a Mac-oriented vendor like OWC, which – impressively -- had the faster memory modules designed for the new Mac Pros on its Web site the same day the machines were announced.)

I also plan to install a copy of Windows XP Professional on one of the spare drives to use with Bootcamp and Parallels. I don’t plan to use Windows often, but sometimes it is a necessary evil.

Now, on to my impressions of the Mac Pro thus far:

Its speed lives up to any Apple bragging. I haven’t been able to test many apps yet, but everything happens almost instantly. My Geekbench score was 7837, with the Quicksilver scoring 504 on the same test. I will test again when I get the additional memory modules; supposedly the Mac Pro prefers at least four of its eight RAM slots filled. There’s also speculation on some Mac Web sites that an update to Mac OS X (10.5.2), expected during Macworld next week, will bring further speed improvements to the Mac Pro. I will post benchmark results on the blog as I implement upgrades.

The Mac Pro is as shockingly quiet as it is blazingly fast. When I say quiet, I mean you wouldn’t know it’s running if you didn’t see the power light glowing on the front. The most noise it makes is when it’s accessing the hard drive, and even that’s barely audible.

It’s far quieter than the Quicksilver, and don’t get me started on Dual G5 wind tunnel I use at The Sun. Even though it sits under my desk, the G5’s multiple fans make an ever-changing distracting racket. I can feel it blowing heat on my legs. I wonder if there’s any money in The Sun’s computer hardware budget ...

So far I like the slim aluminum keyboard, but I had already gotten used to the “chiclet” style keys on my MacBook. I prefer it, though it may not please everyone.

The Mighty Mouse is another story. I found myself accidentally activating Exposé about every 15 seconds until I went into the System Preferences and turned off the side buttons. Trying to use the right side for right-clicking went poorly as well; one needs to be very precise in applying the pressure to get the mouse to right or left click. So I set both front buttons to left-click and set the scroll ball for right-clicks. I’ll give it a few weeks but could end up going back to the cheap Kensington mouse still attached to the Quicksilver.

One piece of Apple software that has not received the kudos it deserves is the Migration Assistant. I had never had the opportunity to use it before, and expected most of my basic files to be moved over, but was astounded when it transferred my entire user profile in every detail. When I rebooted, my desktop appeared exactly as it had on the Quicksilver, right down to the scattered files and folders and my choice of desktop background art.

Setting up the Quicksilver in FireWire Target Disk mode, the entire process took less than two hours, and that was with about 40 gigabytes of data to transfer. I can’t imagine how difficult this task would have been on a Windows PC.

One slight concern was that the Migration Assistant also transferred all the system hacks that I had running on the Quicksilver, which runs Tiger as its primary operating system. However, I had no meltdowns. FruitMenu appears to have disabled itself. MenuMeters works fine. (I can’t tell you how cool it is to see the eight CPUs tracked in the menu bar.)

I have not experienced the most widely reported problem with the new Mac Pros, the failure to wake from sleep or freeze up while waking from sleep. I have done it at least a half dozen times in the past two days without incident.

After 48 hours, I’m very pleased with this machine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back into “play” mode.

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:46 PM in Mac Pro | Permalink | Comments (5)