I was thinking of the whole MBA range as an experiment, actually. Not just the first version. Experiment as in: if we minimize size, making compromises on user upgradability, would it still sell ? The answer is clearly: yes, it sells quite well.
That's largely not an experiment Apple is engaging in. One, experiments have end targets. The above alludes to an continuously ongoing process. An evolutionary development cycle is not an experiment.
Two the product category the MBA fits into existed before the MBA.
That is overall market forces and the response. Yes the "minimal" sells quite well. Apple just announced they sold more iPads last quarter than they will sell Macs all year. Apple already has a "solution" for the "draconian minimal" personal computer.
The "minimal" issue is a problem if really want to take on iPad level restrictions and compete head-to-head. That's a dubious move.
I don't know how much % of MBA sales are 11" vs 13", but I'm guessing the 13" sales are double the 11" because most people prefer the real estate.
that is an exceedingly dubious assumption since most buyers are constrained on price.
One, the average laptop personal computer selling price is far below the minimal Mac laptop price. The large majority of those coming to the Mac are price sensitive. Even those in the Mac market already are not price elastic.
Two, the lowly ( only one base config sold) MacBook would typically outsell all other Mac products except for the aggregated MBP 13/15/17 sales. The MBA which actually had two configs (variations on processor speed and RAM ) sold last, far behind the MacBook. Same size screen only the MacBook was several hundred dollars cheapers. This result is highly correlated with pretty firmly established economic principles that demand tends to go up as prices go down.
Magically when Apple killed the Macbook and coupled a $999 MBA 11" to the MBA aggregation it shot up to being a significant product volume sellers.
Your hypothesis seems to be that because there was now a 11" MBA more people found the 13" MBA more valuable. My hypothesis is that more people found the 11" MBA a better value.
You inference from that may be that the MBA 13" is sells 2:1 to the 11". Mine is the opposite (if not more. Probably more like 11" : 13" is more like 4:1 . It will get better now that the 13"'s price has come down some. But the price that is doing that. Not the screen size. )
But that's, of course, just a guess based mainly on forum input (and we all know how representative we are
).
The parenthetical comment is correct. This forum is probably the worst place on the planet to do unbiased statistical sampling from. If basing your assumptions on that kind of data and observation then we're just going to be in fundamental disagreement about even what "experiment" means. Warping flawed data is not an experiment.
1) The GPU is a complete non-issue. The HD4000 is 2.5x more powerful than the "discrete" GPU in my 2009 Mac Mini that is quite capable of running large displays (2560x1600 + 1920x1200) simultaneously.
Not sure which alternative universe you are typing from. There were no Mac Mini 2009 models with discrete graphics. If you think that the Nvidia 9400M is discrete graphics you are deeply mistaken. To even imply it with quotation marks is dubious. It is integrated graphics plain and simple.
The issue isn't 2D pixel filling. It is a 3D graphics issue. Going forward it is an OpenCL and 3D graphics issue. The OpenCL of the HD4000 is weak relative to the current mobile discrete offerings. While the HD4000 3D graphics performance is marginally "good enough", a surefire way of making it worse is increase the number of pixels being manipulated. The frame rates fall substantially as number of pixels double.
If you are implying that I'm in some "Intel graphics are horrible camp just because they are integrated" then that is offbase. HD4000 graphics are largely good enough for most folks in mainstream contexts.
Read up on the sudden disappearance of the Retina "lag issue" in the latest release of ML, while you're at it.
The lag on Mission Control / Launch Pad animation? If so the OS disco effects aren't the core issue.
2) With the Retina macbooks being 1.8cm thick and 2.5" SSDs being about 1cm, it'll be hard to fit one in.
I was talking about the current MBP 13" form factor. There are trade-offs Apple could make to bring the SSD standard to it also if willing to shrink user storage sizes with higher $/GB.
The MBP 13" HDD + ODD component costs are probably higher than the smallest mSATA derivative Apple puts into the thinner models. Pull both from the MBP 13" and insert one of mSATA drives and the MBP 13" entry model price would be lower than the MBA 13"
and a faster box. [There is an agenda that won't let that happen right now. ]
Assuming the derivative 13" also targets the 15" retina's target thickness, that is a MBA thickness.... so of course only the mSATA derivative fits. However, as I expressed before, that also means the new retina model is targeting the MBA 13" more than the MBP 13".
I'll tell my mom and dad next time they complain about the speed of their computers. I think this statement is mainly indicative of the fact that you are computer literate.
It isn't computer literacy as much as having done it multiple times.
The car maintenance analogy would be changing oil. Owners could do it themselves ( putting aside ecologically safely disposing of the old oil. ), but most don't. The ones that do it all the time typically bristle when folks imply it is some "highly trained mechanic with sophisticated tools" job.
