Talk:MacBook

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the MacBook article.
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Good article MacBook has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
April 16, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
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To-do list for MacBook: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:
  • Expand: Upon sales figures, and market perception.
  • NPOV: Opinion pieces should be deleted. Also it should not be a copy/paste job of appledefects.com
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[edit] Trolling

Someone has been altering the content and changing stuff like how it uses a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo to a PII and stuff like that. I don't know enough about all the hardware etc. to change it back to normal so if someone can look into that it would be appreciated

Jak3 dude (talk) 07:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criticisms removed

Some newer editors have taken the liberty to remove an criticism found in the intro which noted the now resolved random shutdown issues of early MacBook's. While I agree that this issue may no longer affect the MacBook, it is still most certainly relevant. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, therefore all relevant and well documented information relating to the entire history of a product (whether resolved or not) should be included. This is not a sales page for Apple, but an account on the entire history (good or bad) of the product.

The criticism in question was well sourced, NPOV, and integrated into the article instead of a separate section to further add to their objectivity. I hope to encourage some discussion regarding this. I have re-added it for the reasons noted. If you disagree with me please do so here and we can work out a consensus. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 09:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tech hints/troubleshooting site. This page does not have to include every technical issue concerning some MacBooks; it also has to place the MacBook in broader context (hence the importance of that new family page and link.) A fixed crash that affected some early MacBooks in its first incarnation (including the one you bought?) fails notability; if it affected most MacBooks it would be more likely to be notable. If someone's Mac is shutting down unexpectedly they'll get help and diagnosis; no-one else need be concerned. The majority of MacBooks are unaffected; this is not of general interest. The best I can suggest is an 'issues' section down the page, where well-sourced comments on crashes, discoloured palmrests, heat sinks, covered vent slots etc. affecting some Macbooks are placed; this issue information makes no sense in the introduction to the article, of all places, where broader context is set. The MacBook Pro page does have such an issues section - which is currently being questioned as to point. As to the MacBook vs Pro, that's a decision best made on the family page - otherwise the text answering 'which one is best?' would have to get repeated on both the MacBook and Pro pages. We have a 'comparison of Macbook family models' section on the family page, where the 'which one' is best addressed, and this page could include a link to that. 82.35.207.120 (talk) 12:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, this is an encyclopedia which is to include a wide array of information relating to a product. The information as presented does not give a hint or troubleshooting information; it is simply a statement of fact. An entire history of a product line is expected here, and the random shutdown issue was well known and recognised by Apple. Since the entire history of a product is notable, so are issues that plagued it during that time. This isn't apple.com wherre we act like the old models no longer exist and are no longer notable. As per Wikipedia policies articles are to maintain a neutral and thorough presentation. Your explanation doesn't seem to give (to me) a valid argument or cited Wikipedia policy to remove it. Use and watch this page to establish consensus among other editors on how to proceed as this is a community project.
Secondly, it is not good policy to create 'issues' sections. It's much more preferred to integrate the issues into the article so as to give a neutral presentation. Having an issues section is not only bad editing, but creates a non-neutral presentation of information since issues are construed as negative. Lastly I agree that moving the comparison of models to the new article is a logical decision -- though it should become a simple link to the article in the "see also" section at the bottom. No reason for it's own section as it's not within proper Wikipedia drafting. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I personally see no reason whatsoever for that item to be in the introduction to the article. In the article sure, in the introduction no. It simply is not that important. Compare Pentium, which (despite a hugely bloated introduction) makes no mention of the far-more-infamous FDIV bug until later in the page. — Aluvus t/c 19:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
It's always been there and it's the only part of the article that speaks about the old MacBook models; the rest of the article is focused around the current line-up. Where do you suggest it to go? There's no reason aside from personal taste that it cannot go where it has been. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 22:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
"It's always been like that" is not a compelling reason to do something. The purpose of the introduction is to provide an overview of the article topic. A factoid about a now-resolved issue does not belong there. It is not important enough and semantically does not fit in an introduction. If there is no other obvious place to put it, then either the article structure should be adjusted or the item should be left out. If creating an "issues" section is "bad editing", shoehorning things into the introduction for no good reason is even worse. — Aluvus t/c 23:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


Nja247, reasons for removing the text on the shutdown issue, as others have mentioned, are:
* it fails WP:NOTE. The Pentium division bug was a major design flaw in a processor expected to do maths, not a minor manufacturing flaw in a computer. And the Pentium bug didn't rate mention in the introduction to the article.
* the text itself describes itself as a 'resolved issue'. I see you've had no trouble removing issues sections previously.
Reasons for moving the text later in the article are:
* Placed in the introduction, it's just bad writing. It's not something that needs to be known immediately. It does not follow the well-known inverted pyramid, where you put the important stuff first. This is not a matter of personal taste. It's a minor technical erratum only of interest to those who have experienced it. I see you've been asked if you owned that particular model and experienced that problem, which would explain your interest. You do seem overly attached to that sentence.
I've moved the sentence as a footnote to the table, where it can reference the model it applies to. The text certainly doesn't belong in the introduction, that's for sure - as others above have agreed. It probably doesn't belong in the page.
Lloyd Wood (talk) 14:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


please improve this by putting macbook vs macbook pro (i don't know if the [] will let you go there) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.187.252 (talk) 22:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Overview'

Is it just me, or does this seem more like an advertisement? 220.253.17.191 (talk) 10:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it does. It has all these cool features! YAY ADS!

Luna

[edit] Screen Shot?

I have a screen shot. Do you want it?

Luna —Preceding comment was added at 14:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minimum Mac OS version number

It's quoted as 10.4.6 for the first-gen MacBook with the source as a Cnet review, but that has to be incorrect or at least only partially correct - mine came with 10.4.4 (or a variant thereof specially for the MacBook release), and that's the version on my Mac OS X install disc. *shrug* -Oscar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.40.11 (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The Apple Developer note for the model revision, released just after the revision, is the best source of minimum OS version; third-party reviews seem to come slightly later. I've found the Developer notes for the last two MacBook revisions (10.5.0 and 10.5.2), and referenced them. Haven't yet figured out how to get the Apple Developer search engine to cough up the urls to Developer Notes for earlier revisions, though. Anyone? (Annoying how this is not given in the Apple support pages). Lloyd Wood (talk) 04:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, the Apple Developer Note for the first MacBook in May 2006 agrees with the C|Net review, and also says 10.4.6. Lloyd Wood (talk) 00:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MiB and KiB v.s. MB and KB

I note that this article uses “MB” to denote megabyte. Other articles on Wikipedia use “MiB” instead of “MB”. For interested authors, debate and a vote is ongoing on Talk:MOSNUM regarding a proposal that would deprecate the use of computer terms like “kibibyte” (symbol “KiB”), “mebibyte” (symbol “MiB”), and kibibit (symbol “Kib”). It would no longer be permissible to use terminology like a “a SODIMM card with a capacity of two gibibytes (2 GiB) first became available…” and instead, the terminology currently used by manufacturers of computer equipment and general-circulation computer magazines (“two gigabytes, or 2 GB”) would be used. Voting on the proposal is ongoing here. Greg L (my talk) 21:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Spec Table Change Proposal

I would like to propose that we change the orientation for the specifications table or change it to a specifications list like that of the PowerBook pages and the iBook page. As Apple continues to release new MacBook models, we're going to see either columns get mushed or horizontal scrolling becoming necessary. Please discuss. Butterfly0fdoom (talk) 19:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

My comment is the same in regards to the same suggestion on the MBP article, however here specifically since the article was rated GA in its current format. Lists can be messy, and are sometimes not considered good editing. Wiki quality standards suggest tables (as current) over lists. Overall, once things get a bit bloated on the MacBook article it could easily be done where the older models are removed from the tables and the information arranged more as you propose, or in paragraph form or simply omitted. Honestly, aside from that they used different chipsets and processors, there is no real reason to offer a comprehensive list of what the old models offered (i.e. amount of RAM, etc).
The current models deserve the focus really and should remain in a similar setup as now, that is in a table format per quality standards. Alternatively, if a new MacBook came out, such as a complete redesign then I believe that would warrant a completely new table or article anyhow and would resolve such an issue. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)