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15" MBP a "red-headed step child"?
- Thread starter lankox
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What do you mean? Obviously Apple cares about the 15" rMBP more than they do the 13-inch. They want people to buy the 15".
I was surprised that the refresh took a while (Jun 2012 - Oct 2013) and that there were so few changes. The 13" actually saw a small redesign and the refresh time was shorter. There is still UI lag and I believe that Apple could eliminate totally if it was a high priority for them. Anand still hasn't posted his review. It seems as of late, there are more posts in this forum about the 13" instead of the 15". I'm wondering if the 15" is experiencing the industry switch from power/performance to portability/price.
I share this feeling just based on the poor quality control I've experienced with these notebooks. Never before have I seen such poor QC from Apple.
FYI I'm waiting for my 4th unit as I write this, been unable to get one defect free as yet. First two had yellow in parts of the screen, looked like cat piss stains. The 3rd unit was perfect for the first few days and then developed a shadow over only parts of the display which has gotten worse and worse each time I use it.
In two days from now it will be a month since my original order and I still haven't got one that I can use which is a total joke.
Contrast that with my iPad Air which is perfect in every way with a dazzlingly brilliant screen it is easy for me to feel like the 15" rMBP is the step child of the group.
Not to mention it took them from June 2012 to October 2013 to update it to Haswell while their competitors (even Razer) were shipping them in July 13'
I think it is clear Macs are not important to them any more. If it doesn't run iOS they couldn't give a ****, iOS is where the money is, iOS is where they can innovate the largest amounts. There isn't much you can add to a notebook now all the parts are dictated by 3rd parties (Intel, NVIDIA, AMD etc) with their iOS devices they can make their own chips and due to their volumes they can get companies to produce whatever they want at whatever size they want it at like the Retina IGZO displays and the fingerprint reader.
I love all their products I just wish they came as advertised.
FYI I'm waiting for my 4th unit as I write this, been unable to get one defect free as yet. First two had yellow in parts of the screen, looked like cat piss stains. The 3rd unit was perfect for the first few days and then developed a shadow over only parts of the display which has gotten worse and worse each time I use it.
In two days from now it will be a month since my original order and I still haven't got one that I can use which is a total joke.
Contrast that with my iPad Air which is perfect in every way with a dazzlingly brilliant screen it is easy for me to feel like the 15" rMBP is the step child of the group.
Not to mention it took them from June 2012 to October 2013 to update it to Haswell while their competitors (even Razer) were shipping them in July 13'
I think it is clear Macs are not important to them any more. If it doesn't run iOS they couldn't give a ****, iOS is where the money is, iOS is where they can innovate the largest amounts. There isn't much you can add to a notebook now all the parts are dictated by 3rd parties (Intel, NVIDIA, AMD etc) with their iOS devices they can make their own chips and due to their volumes they can get companies to produce whatever they want at whatever size they want it at like the Retina IGZO displays and the fingerprint reader.
I love all their products I just wish they came as advertised.
This is nothing new. Macs don't count for a large part of Apple's business anymore. It really has nothing to do with Apple not caring about the 15". Perhaps you just have high expectations?
Keep in mind that there was just a major redesign last year.
True but the 13" had a major redesign last year and Apple gave it a minor redesign with less time between refreshes than the 15".
The only reason for that was because the 13" was thicker than 15", and Apple made the 13" lighter/thinner by a very small margin so it matched the 15". The 15" also came out first last year.
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This is so true. While it's frustrating to hear about your inability to get a flawless screen from Apple, they really only care about iOS these days. However, I think they are doing just enough with the Macs. Let's be honest, they could put a lot less effort in.
I think what happened with the 13" is the original 13" Retina was supposed to take a 2.5" Solid State Drive / Hard Disk. That is what that massive void under the trackpad was for (A 2.5" SSD fits in there perfect) but then later on they realised it would be better to use an SSD Stick, the same one that the iMac, MacBook Pro and eventual Mac Pro would use.
Then they realised there is little point redesigning the whole notebook just because we want to change the SSD arrangement so they put in a little plastic holder in where the 2.5" drive was supposed to go and ran a long cable between the SSD Stick and the motherboard.
A very strange design right?
Then 2013 Rolls around, the void is removed, the motherboard and battery arrangement is altered, no longer is the SSD stick attached by a cable it is connected directly to the motherboard like the 15" is.
That is my theory as to why the 13" was redesigned. I actually think they were originally going to go with a 2.5" Hard Drive in the system to keep costs low but later realised if this was going to be a Retina MacBook Pro and "looking towards the future" as Phil put it on stage when the 15" was unveiled that it would need to use an SSD Stick but by the time the economics made sense it was too late to redesign the notebook so they waited until the next year to fix things.
Then they realised there is little point redesigning the whole notebook just because we want to change the SSD arrangement so they put in a little plastic holder in where the 2.5" drive was supposed to go and ran a long cable between the SSD Stick and the motherboard.
A very strange design right?
Then 2013 Rolls around, the void is removed, the motherboard and battery arrangement is altered, no longer is the SSD stick attached by a cable it is connected directly to the motherboard like the 15" is.
That is my theory as to why the 13" was redesigned. I actually think they were originally going to go with a 2.5" Hard Drive in the system to keep costs low but later realised if this was going to be a Retina MacBook Pro and "looking towards the future" as Phil put it on stage when the 15" was unveiled that it would need to use an SSD Stick but by the time the economics made sense it was too late to redesign the notebook so they waited until the next year to fix things.
Same here - my MBP is great. Only problem I've had is with Parallels 9 when running office in coherence mode, but that's parallels not MBP.
I did have to exchange my iPad Air because I noticed when playing Farm Story(lol), the grass was ridiculously green. I got another one, but I think it's almost the same. On other sites, it looks fine so it must be a matter of adjusting.
Quu: Hope they can get one that works to you. That's ridiculous - you got yours a day before me and it sucks you're still playing this silly game with them. Can you go to the apple store and get a loaner?
There was a speed bump in February. A super lame speed bump, but a bump nonetheless.
As for changes, what were you expecting? What was introduced was pretty much what everyone with an ounce of common sense expected. 802.11ac, TB2, PCIe, Iris Pro (for better or worse), and of course Haswell.
Major cosmetic changes only happen every 2-4 years. Go back 12 years in history for the evidence on this. The TiBook (PowerBook G4) came out in 2001; 2003 saw the move to aluminum; 2006 witnessed the shift to Intel and the launch of the "MacBook Pro" line; 2008 brought us the unibody; and it stuck around until 2012 with the Retinas.
I don't know what you were expecting, but it sounds like it wasn't realistic. We all wish for more cool stuff and firepower, but the premise of this thread is silly.
It's the 13" that's being abnormal here. Apple doesn't usually do cosmetic redesigns so fast. It's like they weren't satisfied the first time and started over with a more efficient internal layout.
If you look at past generations of MBPs, they don't usually get significant new stuff just one year after.
Look at the 2008->2009 15" cMBP bump. What were the big changes? Nothing major, the most notable change is that they removed discrete graphics on the base model to lower the price of entry. Reminds you of something?
If you look at past generations of MBPs, they don't usually get significant new stuff just one year after.
Look at the 2008->2009 15" cMBP bump. What were the big changes? Nothing major, the most notable change is that they removed discrete graphics on the base model to lower the price of entry. Reminds you of something?
Are you sure? I remember looking at the website and I thought it said it was just a dGPU with something like 256MB's of vRAM vs 512MB's...Apple loves cutting vRAM for lower prices...but I could be wrong.
Nope, those were the two top default configurations (there were three that year). The base model only had a GeForce 9400M (integrated).
See the table at the bottom here: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP544
The 2008 > 2009 was a significant change. The ExpressCard was changed for the SD slot, the battery system changed over to the non removable type with double the cycles, and the screen was made noticeably brighter with better colors, just to name a few.
Oh, gosh, if that's the case, then yes. That thing is basically dead. The fact that I was confused about the post in the first place points to that fact.