Apple Announces 12-Inch Retina MacBook With Revamped Trackpad, Starting at $1,299

[numlock]

Theres a difference though between some things. I've been around for every transition.

Floppies were well and truly gone by the time of the iMac. Good move by Apple there.

Optical Drives don't have a real replacement - still very useful, Apple just decided they weren't -_-. Still the easiest & Cheapest way to have large numbers of TV shows and Movies. Also the easiest way to distribute things like home movies. iTunes tv shows are nice, but not if you have a large collection. Streaming from iTunes is also a poor thing for many due to slow internet. DVDs are pretty universal. I can take them places and play them. Stuff in iTunes, not as much (without major stuffing around).

The Classic Macbook Pro is still one of Apple's best selling Laptops, and I understand why. In doing tech constantly, there are still a lot of people who use Optical disks and need ports. The Mac rumours audience are the early adopter sort, but many are not.

Now I don't want Apple to put optical drives and ethernet ports back into Retina MacBooks. All I want them to do is continue updating the Classic Macbook Pro to allow for choice.

----------



I hate that Apple has removed functionality from the iMac and Mac Mini in this way. Especially just to make the iMac thinner - its unneeded.

Laptops are more understandable. If I had to use a Retina Macbook or Air, I'd be carrying around an external Optical Drive, a ethernet adaptor, and a firewire adaptor(though I use the firewire less these days) and a portable hard drive to make up for low internal storage - starting to be a bit non portable.

Luckily though I have a 2012 cMPB which does all of this, but internally.

i forgot to add the ir sensor in the new imacs. i mean come on

 

[unplugme71]

If they made it as big as an old 2009ish Macbook Pro, and donated all that extra space to battery, it might be able to do that and then some.

Hell. 10 hours is fine, unless you really, really don't want to plug it in every night to recharge after a full day's work.



----------



Being stuck in the past isn't necessarily a bad thing, so long as what worked in past performs better for what you need it for than the newest thing around. Doing otherwise is change for the sake of change.

Thing is, they say 9 hours, but I'm lucky to get 5 or 6 with my usage. So I don't get a full day. So if they say 12-15 hours, then I should get 8-9 hours hopefully which is my full day.

 

[oldmacs]

i forgot to add the ir sensor in the new imacs. i mean come on

OH YES! I use my Macbook to watch DVDs every night while I use the cycling trainer, and I use the Apple remote all the time, so not having that would drive me crazy.

As would the lack of battery life indicator.

 

[Kendo]

It's about as nice as a macbook air, they each have their pros and cons but it's in no way outclassed by the Air. The touch screen (what I have) make it feel "futuristic". My other half "forced" me to get it with the touch screen. Windows 10 on it is fantastic. Battery life is "meh", but "meh" of 12 hours is still quite respectable. "meh" of 15 hours if you go non-touchscreen is even more respectable.

If you could do it all over again with no input from the other half, would you go with the 1080p or touch? I am leaning towards 1080p because I feel that resolution is still very good for a 13" display and AnandTech states you get nearly 15 hours of battery life with the touchless model. Icing on the cake is the matte screen.

 

[mgipe]

Has anyone found any specs listed on the physical dimensions of this new Macbook? I can't seem to find a reference to them anywhere.

The resolution is 2304x1440, 16:10. Not counting the retina, the *working* default resolution will be 1152x720; a bit less than my current 11" Air. But, I fully expect I'd occasionally change the display to have a bit more real estate.

I know the new MacBook is lighter and mostly thinner than the 11" air... and that the bezel is smaller. But, what is the actual length and width of the computer? The 11" Air is 11.8x7.6 inches. Anyone know what the new MacBook is?

I ask because the small footprint of my 11" makes it my goto choice for travel. I expect the new MacBook will have almost the same footprint?

11.04 by 7.74 inches -- a bit smaller than your MBA.

 

[MellowFuzz]

The fatter Jony Ive gets...

... the more anorexically obsessed Apple becomes. Jony probably lusts after these skin-and-bone, mantis-like insectoid models with stinky breath from having such an unhealthy diet. I carry an A4 paper leather-bound notepad with me to meetings all the time - my back hasn't given out yet. More ports and more battery life? God forbid that Apple should tip the scales back to utility. It's clearly an iPad sans touchscreen for the costly privilege of running MacOS. The industrial design is fantastic but if they'd have put all that effort into the MacBook Pro lines, they could have dumped the Air altogether and they know it. Still, kudos for at least doing something I wished they'd done more of for years - embrace standard ports and be involved in setting the standards.

The proliferation of product lines, the neglect of products... it's abandoning the discipline of maintaining a clean product portfolio.

Don't get me started on their crappy software.

 

[MellowFuzz]

That was a little bit more complex situation. Main reason was that Forstall was a rival who lost his mentor.

Main reason was his complete unwillingness to admit his lack of good taste.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

Main reason was his complete unwillingness to admit his lack of good taste.

And because of his bad taste Jobs kept him... Give me a break.

 

[AppleWes]

Are they going to release a USB-C to Lightning cable? Not a cable, but provide Lightning cables with the USB-C at the end? Seems more logical than buying adapters.

Great question! I was wondering the same thing.

I could be wrong, but I think you have to connect an iPhone/iPad via cable to even "enable" WiFi syncing.

 

[mgipe]

Has anyone found any specs listed on the physical dimensions of this new Macbook? I can't seem to find a reference to them anywhere.

The resolution is 2304x1440, 16:10. Not counting the retina, the *working* default resolution will be 1152x720; a bit less than my current 11" Air. But, I fully expect I'd occasionally change the display to have a bit more real estate.

I know the new MacBook is lighter and mostly thinner than the 11" air... and that the bezel is smaller. But, what is the actual length and width of the computer? The 11" Air is 11.8x7.6 inches. Anyone know what the new MacBook is?

I ask because the small footprint of my 11" makes it my goto choice for travel. I expect the new MacBook will have almost the same footprint?

11.04 by 7.74 inches -- a bit smaller than your MBA.

 

[Zendokan]

Is it so difficult to add the 12" retina screen in an 11" MBA body and a 14" retina screen in the 13" MBA body?
Add the new Force touch pad and one USB-C (without removing any of the other ports) + the cycle-wise improvements of battery, CPU and GPU and most Apple users would be estatic.

This new "MacBook" should have been named the "MacBook Net", since it's just a netbook. I can remember Steve Jobs not so flattering words about netbooks at the introduction of the original iPad, so it really baffles me that Apple is building one.
It's a great technology demonstrator, maybe a great netbook but not a great notebook.

 

[dexterbell]

That turbo boosts to 2.4 GHz, and if you get the 1.3 GHz version, it turbo boosts almost to 3 GHz. Remember that the GHz speed isn't everything. Intel has improved the processors to work more efficiently, at lower clock speeds, reducing the power requirements as well as heat.

I'd love to see you work as fast on your phone as you can on this machine, in terms of processing power.

Will it be able to edit HD videos in iMovie without taking an hour? Will it be able to work with large files in Photoshop CS6 and various plugins? Im guessing no. This is just a glorified and very expensive web browsing machine. Very disappointed.

 

[JamesPDX]

MacBook Vacuum 1.0

I'm confused. If this isn't replacing the MacBook Air and it's THINNER than the Air, then doesn't the Air kind of lose its meaning?

Let's not confuse the issue with a lot of facts.

----------

Why can't Apple just leave things alone? Everyone just wanted a Macbook Air with a retina screen. They give you the retina screen but take away all the connectivity. Everyone wanted an updated Mini, they gave us a speed and spec bump but took away the upgradeability.

The problem is that Ive has way too much power internally at Apple and no one left to tell him when his **** stinks. He is surrounded by "yes" men. Having absolutely no connectivity so Ive can make the laptop a few millimetres thinner is insanity and evidence of his form-over-function design philosophy taken to the absolute extreme.

These new machines are the Virginia Slims of the computing world. Give me fatter, upgradeable machines with more ports and other options. I don't want to build a Hackintosh; that doesn't sound fun at all.

 

[xaqt93]

I Just want to point out that the MacBook Air was priced extremely high when it was first released, the MacBook is not going to be any different.

All of Apples first generation products are always kind of over priced...especially for the average consumer. Just like I have said with the Apple Watch, Apple will probably make this new MacBook much cheaper when it comes to releasing the next model. I honestly think you would have to be crazy to buy such a slow computer with a terrible low quality camera at such a high price.

The way I see it, Apple put a $1000 price tag on Mac OS X it self.

 

[Keirasplace]

Will it be able to edit HD videos in iMovie without taking an hour? Will it be able to work with large files in Photoshop CS6 and various plugins? Im guessing no. This is just a glorified and very expensive web browsing machine. Very disappointed.

You can blame Intel for being slow as slug in providing anything new.
Intel needs their butt kicked so they start going faster.

BTW, I edited videos on 2004 desktops just fine with a lot less power,slower disk,slower memory,slower GPU/CPU/less memory; so, unless your profession is video editor (then you'd buy something else), you can do it fine here for the times you'll do it.

Is it instantaneous. I guess not. But, how much time do you spend editing videos in a month? I spend about 2-3h max. I'm pretty skilled; some would take a lot longer. I don't think I'd save more than 20% of my time if the computer was twice a fast (15-20 minutes for a massively more expensive machines).

 

[steveyo]

More like tablet than real laptop...

 

[thejadedmonkey]

If you could do it all over again with no input from the other half, would you go with the 1080p or touch? I am leaning towards 1080p because I feel that resolution is still very good for a 13" display and AnandTech states you get nearly 15 hours of battery life with the touchless model. Icing on the cake is the matte screen.

Personally, I'd still get a touch screen. I use touch screens at work, and they're really handy, in the same way that touch ID is handy. It's not a necessity, just... nice. The touch screen is also brighter than the matte screen - to the point where I generally use it at less than 33% brightness - so the glossy isn't an issue.

The one caveat on the touchscreen are non-DPI applications. This is 100% on the developer, such as Adobe, for not supporting UI scaling properly. For example, Adobe doesn't do resolution independence on Windows. I have CS6, and it's unusable at the 1880p resolution it insists on displaying at. If you have Adobe CC, it's "more" usable with a 200% scaling "hack", but a lot of their programs still display like it's a 1880p screen. Bleh. I've also run into one or two games that don't work unless I drop the resolution down to 1440x900ish, but mostly it's Adobe.

 

[HunterGather]

Everything about this macbook is everything I wanted, except the single port!
It's just bizarre. So I have to worry about carrying around an extra pricey adapter to plug in and connect everything? ugh.
If they were wanting to go minimal, should have been ONE usb, ONE lighting, ONE magsafe.

I predict the revised one will bump it to 2...maybe..

I just wanted a damn 11" air with a retina, but now...

 

[Kendo]

Everything about this macbook is everything I wanted, except the single port!
It's just bizarre. So I have to worry about carrying around an extra pricey adapter to plug in and connect everything? ugh.
If they were wanting to go minimal, should have been ONE usb, ONE lighting, ONE magsafe.

I predict the revised one will bump it to 2...maybe..

I just wanted a damn 11" air with a retina, but now...

Agreed. This really threw me off in terms of buying a new laptop to replace my aging 2011 MBA. Now I have to decide between the MB with one single port (which I can't even use to charge my iPhone), a 13" MBP whose design is now outtdated (with a redesign probably coming in a year or two but I can't wait that long), and a Dell XPS 13 (which would be my first Windows PC in 5 years).

 

[diamond.g]

It won't turboboost for long without a fan to cool it off...
The Core M is Atom 2.0

Eh, the whole chassis should provide for a nice heatsink. What is interesting is the speeds that Apple provides (if you include turbo) don't exactly match up with what Wiki says Intel offers. So it is likely these things are using cTDP and are running 100Mhz hotter than the standard parts...

 

[Nosferax]

Eh, the whole chassis should provide for a nice heatsink. What is interesting is the speeds that Apple provides (if you include turbo) don't exactly match up with what Wiki says Intel offers. So it is likely these things are using cTDP and are running 100Mhz hotter than the standard parts...

Which mean a really uncomfortable experience for the user when using it on its lap or for the palm rest. The iPad 3 that I'm using at home also become uncomfortably hot when used without a case after an hour or so.

 

[numlock]

You can blame Intel for being slow as slug in providing anything new.
Intel needs their butt kicked so they start going faster.

BTW, I edited videos on 2004 desktops just fine with a lot less power,slower disk,slower memory,slower GPU/CPU/less memory; so, unless your profession is video editor (then you'd buy something else), you can do it fine here for the times you'll do it.

Is it instantaneous. I guess not. But, how much time do you spend editing videos in a month? I spend about 2-3h max. I'm pretty skilled; some would take a lot longer. I don't think I'd save more than 20% of my time if the computer was twice a fast (15-20 minutes for a massively more expensive machines).

intel can release whatever they want. apple decided to use this particular chip.

i assume the application you used 11 years ago needed less resources as well.

 

[Tanax]

Will it be able to edit HD videos in iMovie without taking an hour? Will it be able to work with large files in Photoshop CS6 and various plugins? Im guessing no. This is just a glorified and very expensive web browsing machine. Very disappointed.

I never ever said you'd be able to do that. Not that you'd even buy this machine if you really want to do that on a more professional level. If you're a regular user that wants to tune-up your movies/photos that you took with your phone however, this machine will more than likely be able to do it.

I don't see how you can be disappointed when Apple already has the machine for you, rMBP. You can't expect them to release a product that will be of use to everyone. In that case, no laptop would EVER be of any use to ANYONE since they are not as good as the Mac Pro, since obviously every laptop must be as powerful as they can get.

Some people prefer portability, lightness, thin and quiet above pro-performance.

 

[dealmaker]

You had ONE thing to do....

...Retina Screen

This product is a Major Fail.....all I wanted was a 12" MacBook Air with a Retina Screen - and OK maybe a slightly larger battery....thats it!

 

[JamesPDX]

You'll get nothing and like it!

I never ever said you'd be able to do that. Not that you'd even buy this machine if you really want to do that on a more professional level. If you're a regular user that wants to tune-up your movies/photos that you took with your phone however, this machine will more than likely be able to do it.

I don't see how you can be disappointed when Apple already has the machine for you, rMBP. You can't expect them to release a product that will be of use to everyone. In that case, no laptop would EVER be of any use to ANYONE since they are not as good as the Mac Pro, since obviously every laptop must be as powerful as they can get.

Some people prefer portability, lightness, thin and quiet above pro-performance.

Extrapolation of this direction in design indicates that the next Mac Pro could be the size of a coffee mug, battery-powered and have no connection ports other than two (2) USB-C ports. All this may come true because it's thinner, which is apparently more important than choice, functionality, and practical performance.

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video...a&sigb=13onoqtqi&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001