12-Inch MacBook Now Available in Apple Retail Stores via Personal Pickup

[zhenya]

If one takes two iPhone 6's and put them ontop of each other you've doubled the volume. These are extremely small machines already.

What is special about the chips? They're standard chips with comparative sizes/performance to their competition. They're not magical mini chips, it's not like they've compressed the power of the MBP into the MB. They're weaker.

And your point being? Would you rather carry the iPhone that is double the size and weight, or the phone as it is now? There is absolutely a noticeable difference in the size and weight of the MacBook compared to the MBP - it's a pound and half of weight, plus the larger power brick, plus the charger that I no longer have to carry for my iPhone and/or iPad. Take out the MacBook on an airplane tray table and it fits easily. The Pro? Not so much. You don't see people carrying around a Pro in their handbag all day because it's heavy enough to be a burden.

You are the one who said that the chips in the MacBook are standard size, only cheaper. That's patently false. Much of the advantage comes from their reduced size. And they aren't cheaper, they are premium parts that are designed with a different set of priorities than the chips in the MBP. In fact, for MOST use, they have done just that - the Core M is tailor-made for the bursty nature of most modern workflows, and as such, it generally performs within spitting distance of it's similar Core i5 brethren.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9117/analyzing-intel-core-m-performance/6

 

[kungpaaao]

All of the reviews?

Oh, except the unfair ones.

As deemed unfair by who exactly?

Could it possibly be that the reviews actually fall into these groups:

a. if you're a power user who needs all the ports and additional power, and aren't so worried about portability, the MB isn't for you.

b. if you're not a power user who doesn't need all the ports and additional power, and portability is a greater priority for you, then the MB could well be for you.

You can't just say (as so many have tried to) that the factors you care about are the ones that objectively and fairly decide if the MB is a good laptop or not.

I wanted to like the MacBook. I want it and my wife wants to get it for me for my b-day. I want light and small and retina. It would be perfect.

I watched a 1/2 dozen youtube reviews, and not power users, and they all said the same things, pretty much. And they all summed it up with "all the 'bad' things added up to make it not worth it, so wait for v.2" Which I will do.

1/2 dozen reviews (including marques brownlee) singing the same song, was enough convincing.

Yes, it's not for the power user. I think the big issue is that it's still an experiment and too costly. Some people may like it. Great. I'm sure I could like it if it was cheaper and not slow and had 2 ports (just in case!)

To each his own. Thanks for your feedback. I'm sure v.2 of the MacBook will be great. Add 1 more port, make it faster, add in the included dongle so you don't need to buy one. Then get rid of the crappy Airs (screenwise - overpriced for not having better screens).

 

[kungpaaao]

All of the reviews?

Oh, except the unfair ones.

As deemed unfair by who exactly?

Could it possibly be that the reviews actually fall into these groups:

a. if you're a power user who needs all the ports and additional power, and aren't so worried about portability, the MB isn't for you.

b. if you're not a power user who doesn't need all the ports and additional power, and portability is a greater priority for you, then the MB could well be for you.

You can't just say (as so many have tried to) that the factors you care about are the ones that objectively and fairly decide if the MB is a good laptop or not.

I would say that this laptop is not for the average user. Most anyway.

it's a futuristic product that's for a niche who don't care about the shortcomings or the keyboard (that some people can't get used to). It will sell. I'm sure of it. I still would consider one. If it was $1000 I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Again, thanks for the counterpoint/questioning my post. It's all good and helps me to re-evaluate what I wrote.

I use a Chromebook now, which is my $100 version of a light laptop (with obvious shortcomings if you need gaming).

 

[johngordon]

You still haven't really said what all these negatives or shortcomings actually are. You've just repeated what people said on YouTube.

I use it for email / internet / photos / music / MS Office / web development / light Illustrator and Photoshop use.

And its absolutely fine.

So despite your two posts above I'm still not sure why you think its not for "the average user".

What sorts of things do you think the average user would be doing that they would struggle with on the MB?

 

[JDHiro]

For all the talk of the MB being "underpowered" no-one has ever really expanded on that soundbite.

Could you (or anyone else) talk a bit more about exactly what sorts of things people can't do on their MB because it is so "underpowered"?

I owned a rMB for about a week. Compared to my rMBP, for professional tasks, it's painful to use. If you're hanging out in a web browser all day, it's totally fine.

My experience included installing Xcode, compiling software, using the javascript console in Chrome, using large spreadsheets, editing multiple documents in Word (all of these things individually, not even at once), and it just didn't cut it for these things.

 

[johngordon]

Professional tasks? And what does the P stand for in rMBP?

I absolutely get that for professional, CPU intensive stuff the MB probably won't cut it.

What I absolutely do not get is all the stuff about how the MB is some sort of beta experiment that average users can't even use for average computing. That much is just nonsense.

 

[hans1972]

So what? The argument of the person I replied to was that the future is cloud and wireless. If his argument is cloud and wireless, and Chrome apps run in the cloud, then Chrome is sufficient.

His argument was that the transfer of data is happening wireless and is stored in the cloud or synced to devices through the cloud. Not that all applications will be running in the cloud.

For me this is a great computer. I value a great screen, small size and low weight, and do not value CPU/GPU performance or wired connectivity that much since almost everything I do is done wirelessly.

 

[hans1972]

I think the better question is, why buy this laptop over the retina MacBook Pro, when they're so close in price.

Size, footprint, weight, no movable parts, makes no sound.

 

[JDHiro]

Professional tasks? And what does the P stand for in rMBP?

I absolutely get that for professional, CPU intensive stuff the MB probably won't cut it.

What I absolutely do not get is all the stuff about how the MB is some sort of beta experiment that average users can't even use for average computing. That much is just nonsense.

For starters, I love that Apple pushes the envelope on this stuff. They are one of the few companies that has the guts to go against the grain on what they believe in. So given that, I love this little machine, and I can't wait for parts of it to come to the Pro machines that are more aligned with my work.

That said, even for a "normal" user:

• Even "normal" users in my family are starting to use 4K displays, and it's not an option with USB-C.
• In my opinion, even 12" is too small to have as the ONLY option.
• Seriously, I felt slowdowns just playing music + Word + web. I really do feel like the performance needs to come up just a bit to not feel compromised.
• The price point is a couple hundred dollars too high - but I don't blame Apple on this. As a new product with low volume, they should focus on the right hardware now and driving cost down later.
• "Normal" users are confused when their normal USB stuff doesn't just work without an adapter.

Next year is going to be great, when Apple rolls out the V2, with a larger size option, levels up to the latest hardware, and replaces the Air outright.

 

[hans1972]

I hope this is a real flop for apple, it might make them realise we are not all obsessed by thinness and some of us would like a computer with a decent amount of ports and specs and perhaps some decent speakers for a change?

"[...]The customer satisfaction is off the charts on it. Customer demand is great." -Phil Schiller about the new Macbook in interview with John Gruber.

And here is what he said about device thinness:
"If you want a product that's thicker with a bigger battery, well, it's also heavier, it's also more costly, it also takes longer to charge. It's also... y'know, there are... all these things have ramifications [when] designing a total system.

And we look at this very, very, very carefully. The engineering team and the industrial design team work together and model every thickness and every size and every weight and we hold these things, and we work with them, to discover what the feature benefit/tradeoffs are.

And I don't think we've hit the point yet where we're trading off thinness for features and capabilities at the expense of the best optimized product. I really don't.

I love my new 12-inch MacBook. I think it's an incredible product. I use it constantly, and I love how thin and light that feels. And I love the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and I think we've made great choices there."

 

[johngordon]

For starters, I love that Apple pushes the envelope on this stuff. They are one of the few companies that has the guts to go against the grain on what they believe in. So given that, I love this little machine, and I can't wait for parts of it to come to the Pro machines that are more aligned with my work.

That said, even for a "normal" user:

• Even "normal" users in my family are starting to use 4K displays, and it's not an option with USB-C.
• In my opinion, even 12" is too small to have as the ONLY option.
• Seriously, I felt slowdowns just playing music + Word + web. I really do feel like the performance needs to come up just a bit to not feel compromised.
• The price point is a couple hundred dollars too high - but I don't blame Apple on this. As a new product with low volume, they should focus on the right hardware now and driving cost down later.
• "Normal" users are confused when their normal USB stuff doesn't just work without an adapter.

Next year is going to be great, when Apple rolls out the V2, with a larger size option, levels up to the latest hardware, and replaces the Air outright.

Thanks for the list, although I don't buy for a second that hooking up a laptop to a 4K display is that typical or commonplace yet.

Screen size is down to personal preference - we had a 15" MBP (non retina) before the MB, and I wasn't even sure I would want a 13". But the 12" MB has the same real estate as the old 15", and is much sharper - so it wasn't the deal breaker for me it might once have been.

I haven't really noticed much slowdown, maybe I'm lucky. Before I bought it I tried playing some HD and 4K video on YT expecting it to struggle, but it was fine.

I love how "normal users" went from hooking up laptops to their 4K displays, to being confused about needing a USB adapter.

I agree that future versions will only get better, I just think the supposed or theoretical downsides of the MB have been completely overstated by many, and more often than not by people who haven't really used one for any length of time.

 

[hans1972]

That said, even for a "normal" user:

• Even "normal" users in my family are starting to use 4K displays, and it's not an option with USB-C.

• Seriously, I felt slowdowns just playing music + Word + web. I really do feel like the performance needs to come up just a bit to not feel compromised.

• "Normal" users are confused when their normal USB stuff doesn't just work without an adapter.

I think very few users of small laptops are hooking them up to 4k displays. But the Macbook do support 4k. And very few Mac notebooks from before 2015 supports 4k displays.

It seems that everyone who don´t like the computer can´t even run Word on it without performance problems. Those who do like it can run virtual machines, graphic programs, games without much issue. Strange.

Normal users either stop using their USB devices, find another solution or they buy a dongle.

 

[zhenya]

It seems that everyone who don´t like the computer can´t even run Word on it without performance problems. Those who do like it can run virtual machines, graphic programs, games without much issue. Strange.

The difference is that the people who claim it can run VM's, do reasonable graphic editing, etc. are generally the owners and those claiming that it's slow in Word generally 'tried it in the store.'

 

[johngordon]

It might be interesting to know people's expectations and how tolerant they are - if a program pauses for half a second occasionally I probably wouldn't bat an eyelid. Others might see that as a serious performance issue.

With USB, I know pack one of these just in case I ever need to use a thumb drive:

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/M...c6a091c885faa3476ebee1186e967ff7f2c8511783b3c

Hardly that big a deal, and certainly a small inconvenience to trade for the massive plus of the weight and size of the computer.

 

[hans1972]

I am not that guy. I need a USB disk as my library plus download disk and OneDrive sync disk. Internal storage is way too small (128GB ). So I constantly need to use at least one USB port to access those data. And I need even more ports to transfer data between disks without using internal storage.

You do not need USB disks to store large amount of data. I have a budget NAS that supports up to 16Tb of storage. Also the Macbook does not need to be your only machine. You can have several Macs and only storing the stuff you need right now on the Macbook.

 

[hans1972]

That is right.

I even install some huge applications on external disk to save space on internal one because OS is not suitable to install on external disk.

Therefore external disk will stay with me 7/24.

The only good reason to do that is if you can´t afford to buy enough internal storage. Most people buying the rMB are not on a budget. If you need 512Gb you buy that. If you need more you buy a different computer.

 

[nviz22]

Apple is having an identity crisis w/ the Air, MB 2015, and MBP 2015. The price points for me with similar specs outside of the processor and ssd quantity, were relatively the same: $1200 for MBP, $1239 Air (13" w/ 8GB of RAM), and $1250 MB. The Core M seems like a processor that belongs in the Air since it's high benchmarks for low computing fits the Air concept. Of course the prices I listed are education discounted. I chose the MBP 2015 today because it was a major upgrade over the Dells I used. My 2011 Dell Inspiron 17R: i5, 4GB of RAM, 500gb HDD, and 768p display I think. I love the color change on the base 2015, but not the keyboard or Core M clock speed.

The problems the MB 2015 has that most people can agree with are: usb type c, lack of IO ports, and higher cost of ownership if one wants to supplement their machine.

 

[Gsm18439]

As someone who has used the new Macbook 12" Retina for 2 months, I respectfully disagree with most of these posts. I travel internationally once a month. The Macbook 12 fits all of my requirements. (Note: I bought it souped-up with the faster processor, larger memory, etc.) It is light, powerful for what I do 95% of the time - word processing, complicated and large PowerPoints with embedded videos, some Photoshop, etc - has a decent battery life, etc. I do a lot of video editing within PowerPoint and have never had an issue. I previously used a 13" MBA and liked it a lot; if there had been a 13" MBA with a retina screen, I would have had a hard decision. Regardless of the benchtop tests, the Macbook 12 is as fast as my most recent MBA from a practical standpoint. The screen's aspect ratio compensates for the slightly smaller screen size; I put the dock on the left rather than on the bottom to give even more height to accommodate open windows. While the single USB-C port is a bit of a nuisance, I have learned to deal with it. I would, however, recommend the purchase of a USB drive that has both USB-A and USB-C male connectors; they are made by Scandisk and Kingston. It alleviates the necessity for a dongle. I back-up wirelessly so most of the time the USB-C port is idle. The smaller charger is also a plus, and I find that I carry fewer peripherals (cords and such). Any new computer requires a bit of a learning curve and a bit of accommodation. This was true for the MBA and every other Macbook that I have had going back 20+ years. I would buy the 12" Macbook again in an instant. Of course, there will probably be a better version in a year's time, but that is typical of Apple.

 

[hans1972]

So, to answer your dilemma, as has been mentioned before, if those are the things you require, don't buy a Chromebook nor 12" Macbook, buy the Macbook Air, which is similar price as the 12" Macbook, but so much more. Your argument is pointless and you've just proven the point that the new 12" Macbook is pointless and nothing more than an overpriced profit margin grab.

The Macbook Air 11" has a terrible screen and resolution! Even the MBA 13" do not have a good screen in comparison to the rMB. It do not matter for a lot of us if the MBA is better in almost every other aspect when the screen is not good.

To me, the MBA line has become pointless. Either go for the rMB or the 13" MBP.

The point of the rMB is if you value screen, size, footprint and weight above all else, and are willing to pay for it. A lot of users are willing to do that. For those users, CPU/GPU performance and wired connectivity is less of a priority.

 

[kungpaaao]

You still haven't really said what all these negatives or shortcomings actually are. You've just repeated what people said on YouTube.

I use it for email / internet / photos / music / MS Office / web development / light Illustrator and Photoshop use.

And its absolutely fine.

So despite your two posts above I'm still not sure why you think its not for "the average user".

What sorts of things do you think the average user would be doing that they would struggle with on the MB?

I'm sure it is fine for you. Fine for a lot of people.

Issues are with 1 port, keyboard, price

You still haven't really said what all these negatives or shortcomings actually are. You've just repeated what people said on YouTube.

I use it for email / internet / photos / music / MS Office / web development / light Illustrator and Photoshop use.

And its absolutely fine.

So despite your two posts above I'm still not sure why you think its not for "the average user".

What sorts of things do you think the average user would be doing that they would struggle with on the MB?

Everything. Except trackpad which is great. Keyboard, memory, price, 1 port, speed, feels like a beta.

I'm sure it will get better and I may still consider one.

 

[johngordon]

Oh. So when you talk about the average user not being able to do stuff, you actually just mean power users who frequently need a lot of ports.

I didn't really ask what you don't like about the computer - I asked what things an average users can't do, or would struggle to do, on the MB?

 

[Shirasaki]

You do not need USB disks to store large amount of data. I have a budget NAS that supports up to 16Tb of storage. Also the Macbook does not need to be your only machine. You can have several Macs and only storing the stuff you need right now on the Macbook.

NAS requires Internet connection. And I don't want to create multiple exactly the same iTunes library. Plus I need to manage them even in the go. NAS is not my choice.

The only viable alternative is carry an external disk all the way travelling.

 

[Shirasaki]

The only good reason to do that is if you can´t afford to buy enough internal storage. Most people buying the rMB are not on a budget. If you need 512Gb you buy that. If you need more you buy a different computer.

Can I tell you even 512 is completely not enough for me?

Although I admit I may use less than 200 GB of my total data on the go, I can never tell which 200 would I use.

You can simply ignore my use case because you can 100% think this is too extreme. For me, This retina MacBook is simply an underpowered, too thin, too bad keyboard using feeling, too expensive machine I cannot either handle or maintain. Without Mac OS X, this machine would might be a pain when using on the go.

 

[kungpaaao]

Oh. So when you talk about the average user not being able to do stuff, you actually just mean power users who frequently need a lot of ports.

I didn't really ask what you don't like about the computer - I asked what things an average users can't do, or would struggle to do, on the MB?

2 ports would do. But honestly, I'd probably not use more than one port. Also, SD card slot missing, but no big deal.

I personally feel it's slightly limiting in speed (for games) and overpriced. It's basically a fancy iPad with a keyboard (in a usage sense). I am being unfair about the trackpad not counted. There is slowness in the UI. Isnt' the processor the same as an iPad?

Again, I'd consider, if I had real work or gaming to do, but a Chromebooks suffices at $200.

 

[kungpaaao]

Oh. So when you talk about the average user not being able to do stuff, you actually just mean power users who frequently need a lot of ports.

I didn't really ask what you don't like about the computer - I asked what things an average users can't do, or would struggle to do, on the MB?

I will only speak for myself and I'm sure its a great computer for everyday tasks. The keyboard could be an issue for some people, esp people who type a lot.