含蓄的张扬

The new Macbook Pro has been released not long ago. There are a few problems I have noticed and listed in the following:

Problem No1. Automatic graphic card switching.

The 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro models come standard with two graphic cards — Intel HD (low performance and low energy consumption) and Nvidia Geforce 330m (more powerful but more energy consumption). Both computers support automatic graphics switching. Quote from apple official website "It’s a breakthrough technology from Apple that switches graphics processors on the fly to give you performance when you need it." and "MacBook Pro transfers the workload between the powerful discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor and integrated Intel HD Graphics so seamlessly, you won’t even notice." But when I start to notice which graphic card I'm using. I am surprised that I'm always using the Nvidia card (which is the high performance one) simply because I have skype (and some times 1Password) open. I don't see why skype is a graphic intensive application nor 1Password. Common apple, if you cannot implement such function correctly, at least give users the option. My guess: the graphic switching function is implemented depend on whether an application use some part of the API. If it does turn on the NV graphic card, otherwise use Intel. This is not smart, and not a smart judge if an application is graphic intensive.

Now gfxCardStatus v1.6.1 has a experimental function that force the graphics card switching, which is good news.

Here is a incomplete list of applications that triggers the Nvidia Graphic card:

Tweetie
HyperSpaces
Skype
iWeb
iMovie
GarageBand
Parallels 5 Desktop
Microsoft Office 2004
Microsoft Office AutoUpdate daemon
RapidWeaver
PathFinder
Mathematica
Warp
Droplr
1Password
Clips
NetNewsWire
Koolclip
AppZapper
uTorrent

You can find complete discussions of this issue from apple support forum and macrumors.

Problem No2. Auto Sleep

I have noticed that sometimes the auto sleep for display or computer is broken. The system does not sleep when it is supposed to be. E.g. I set the auto display and system display to 1 minute, after half an hour, the display or computer still wouldn't sleep. After a bit of experimenting we found that this may be caused by running a full screen mode application (e.g. Need For Speed, World of Warcraft).

Problem No3. Trackpad Scroll Momentum

The new macbook pro came with a new feature called momentum scrolling. I like this idea in iPhone, because we have limited screen. Glad Apple have the option to turn this off. However, everytime I restart the computer, the momentum scrolling function are back on. It just won't go away! Of course I can turn it off manually every time after restart, but it is really annoying. Please have it fixed apple!