12/29/2008, 5:45pm, EST
Monday, December 29th
Briefly: MacBook DVI adapter, TextExpander, forensics
In brief: Apple has begun shipping its Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapters ahead of schedule, according to a MacNN reader. A recent order that was quoted to ship from Apple sometime between January 5th to the 7th actually arrived on December 26th, almost two weeks ahead of schedule. The connector is required for new MacBooks, MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros with the new Mini DisplayPort technology for connecting a 30-inch Apple Cinema Display HD. The current lead-time listed on the Apple Store website is one to two weeks. The adapter costs $99.
LiveDigitally has introduced a holiday contest featuring two free license give-aways. One prize will be given to the person that provides the closest guess of the number of hours that the program has saved Jonathan Berger of LiveDigitally, while the second license will be awarded to the creator of the best new snippet. The contest ends this Wednesday, with winners announced early next year.
SubRosaSoft has scheduled an interactive forensics discussion to be held Tuesday, January 6 at the Westin San Francisco Market Street, located at 50 Third Street in San Francisco. The MacWorld meeting runs from 3-5 p.m. in a roundtable format, with a law enforcement appreciation reception to follow. The focus of the meeting will be Snow Leopard's new forensic strengths, and Apple Product Management team members will also be available for questions.
Filed under: software, accessories, Apple
Other story tags: Mini DisplayPort
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$99
So, if the new Mac Minis have MDP on them, it's another $99 on top to be able to "bring" your existing video display?
Great - another £70ish to use my 20" ACD!
bend over for progress
$99 for a video adapter is highway robbery. Woopie, let's hear it for progress. I think Apple just changes these display connectors every few years so they can make a bunch of money on adapters each time they switch. If it was $50, it would be a painful pill to swallow but ultimately not a deal breaker; at $100, it really makes you stop and reconsider whether the new aluminum Macbook is worth the premium over the plastic one.
In the negative column, we now have lack of Firewire AND a $100 additional cost to hook up an external monitor (discounting the value of dual-link support, since just about no one uses a monitor large enough to use it). Add another $100 if you need to hook up a projector (VGA or composite/S-video adapter), and these negatives are really starting to add up. Apple would do well to consider the consequences of trying to get their margins on these adapters to the value proposition of the new laptops, especially as they still sell the older model without these expensive birthing pains.
Apple should either sell these things at or below cost until the scale is eventually large enough to start making money, or get several 3rd party manufacturers on board sooner, so there is competition right from the start. Finding out you need to spend another $100 to hook up your monitor after you've dumped a minimum of $1300 on a laptop just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. It simply promotes the image of Apple's products as expensive and proprietary.
DUAL DVI
I think that people need to reread the article, this time for comprehension. That's $99 for a DUAL-LINK adaptor, to convert a Display Port signal to the DUAL DVI signal needed to run a $1,800 30" display.
Which, WiseWeasel, is somethng the "plastic one" couldn't do in the first place.
"Standard" DVI and VGA adaptor cables are just $29.
Woops
OK, nhmlco is correct; that's not that steep of a price. If the standard DVI adapter is $30, that's entirely reasonable, and the few people who DO need dual-link probably don't mind spending $100 on the adapter. For some reason, I missed the availability of the regular DVI adapter for $30. Mod my last post down to oblivion.
Now if they can resolve their performance issues with the Dual-link adapters, we'll be sitting tight:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/12/29/report-apples-mini-displayport-to-dl-dvi-problems-abound
price
Wow, that's nice. Apparently $30 is not that steep of a price in order to hook up your existing monitor to your computer. Or, Apple could have just thrown in the adapter for free, since most people have that video anyway.
Oh, right, that goes against apple's philosophy of removing features and adding them as external adaptors, and then charging for the adapters.
Free?
testudio, I hate those stupid free adapters Apple includes. At client location after client location, I have drawers and boxes full of them! I'm sure there are at least a couple banging around the trunk and back seat of my car.
Not everyone needs them, and including them with every Mac is just downright wasteful and dumb.