I wonder if the new Intel 5000 graphics will actually have OpenCL support. Still waiting for Apple to update the Intel HD 4000 driver to include OpenCL support. Maybe with this new OS X upgrade they'll bring it.
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Apple Announces New MacBook Airs with Haswell Processors and 'All-Day' Battery Life
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Wow that was the most disappointing announcement.
Just new Haswell (low-range btw) processor and GPU and so better battery life, but same SSD size, same screen resolution, same design/size, same RAM...
What a letdown, especially for the SSD and RAM. I'm sorry but 128Go/4GB for a >$1000 13" laptop is super weak.
Just new Haswell (low-range btw) processor and GPU and so better battery life, but same SSD size, same screen resolution, same design/size, same RAM...
What a letdown, especially for the SSD and RAM. I'm sorry but 128Go/4GB for a >$1000 13" laptop is super weak.
If anyone cares the processor options will be the i5-4250U as standard and the i7-4650U as the upgrade.
This actually brings up quite a few questions (well, rather, a long series of related questions 
). Please bear with me; I'm new here.
So, does this mean that there won't be any updates for the MacBook Pro (non-Retina, mind you)? If there will be, will they come out any time soon? I thought I read somewhere in the comments thread for this article that potential updates for the MBP would be more "silent," for lack of a better way of explaining it. Furthermore, will the next MBA operate on the new OS that was introduced today, or...? Going back to the possibility of "silent" updates for MBP, does that mean that these "new" MBP's would come with this new OS? In the case of this [these] new update, when would they be released to the public? I think I read that the new MBA is already available for purchase? So, then, what would that mean for a possible new model of the MBP?
Sorry, I know those are a lot of questions. I'm just kinda confused about all of this.
). Please bear with me; I'm new here. So, does this mean that there won't be any updates for the MacBook Pro (non-Retina, mind you)? If there will be, will they come out any time soon? I thought I read somewhere in the comments thread for this article that potential updates for the MBP would be more "silent," for lack of a better way of explaining it. Furthermore, will the next MBA operate on the new OS that was introduced today, or...? Going back to the possibility of "silent" updates for MBP, does that mean that these "new" MBP's would come with this new OS? In the case of this [these] new update
Sorry, I know those are a lot of questions. I'm just kinda confused about all of this.
Upgraded as soon as the store went live (had it refreshing the last 5 or 10 minutes of the keynote).
Got the 13" w/i7, 8GB of RAM and the 512GB SSD
Got the 13" w/i7, 8GB of RAM and the 512GB SSD
Anyone that says this is not a good update is on crack! 12 hour battery life! As mentioned last week, these new CPUs have given us double the battery life!
Seriously, some people's expectations were way too high
Last year, when received some Retina news/models, some people (including myself) tried to temper people's expectations with some models for at least 2013. Including the Airs.
If you look at the components out there (screens, batteries, chipsets, and chasses), many of us could simply see no possible way to put a Retina-type screen in the Airs in 2013. Perhaps not even 2014. There is simply no way to do it . . . unless the Airs become an IOS device (more on that below).
Most foresaw the Hawell update (Intel leaks/telegraphs certain things pretty well). I take battery tests with a grain of salt, but presumably Apple ran their tests with pre-production hardware and current hardware using the same parameters and same OS. Perhaps some of the battery life boost is OS X Mavericks. But most of it seems to be Haswell, and Intel should be roundly thanked. This alone is a justifiable update if you have the first (definitely) or perhaps second generation Airs. But the SSD is somewhat faster, and the graphics (again, thanks to Intel). I think this is a reasonable current product refresh. I do not like the way that option increases balloon the price (the faster cpu, double the ram, the bigger SSDs) into the "Pro" line territory, but that was true yesterday.
I think Apple is doing the following:
1) Existing Macbook Pros will die on the vine. No updates at all (excepting the OS it ships with, eventually). Maybe a price drop, but more likely just a phase out. Completely gone (with maybe educational units as the exception) for the WWDC or fall releases.
2) Macbook Pros (with Retina). Who knows if they will drop the Retina-in-the-name nomenclature by then. But they should have Haswell ready for them this year. I would love for them to make quad core standard across the whole line (even 13"), but I do not think we are that lucky (and lots of people have no need for it). Given what we just saw of the Mac Pro, I think they were waiting for Thunderbolt 2 (and maybe a chassis redesign on the 13"). I think Anand (anandtech.com) was speculating a drop of the discrete graphics card in the 15", but I cannot see how they can do that yet (an option, maybe--but a full drop? The HD 5x00 options do not seem to be that good yet). For just the OS+Retina+light gaming, maybe. But I think a discrete option will remain for the 15". With the single device throughput limits being raised with Thunderbolt 2, it would make sense if they waited. Plus Intel has not released it whole Haswell line for laptops yet. Maybe ones of those is one of the better performance Iris-based options (with higher TDPs, even--that seems to be what Anand thinks).
3) Macbook Airs. I think the the Airs (as we know them) will eventually die on the vine as is. Perhaps toward the end of 2014 the technology will be at a place where it would be feasible, but . . . I am just not seeing it right now. They would have to raise the price (at least a couple hundred dollars; the price difference is more than that for now). The would have to "back away" from some of the battery life discussion they were having today. And/or they would have to change the form factor to something "thicker/bigger". I just have trouble seeing that. Or (and here is my long-term bet) . . .
They get iOS to the point and ARM gets their arch (or Intel gets ATOM or Broadwell) to the point where Macbook Airs run a version of iOS that satisfies a lot more needs. I would actually (eventually) like to see something like that. A proper file system is just not going to happen (both Apple and Google have made that clear, as well as their reasoning, though I still do not like it). But a lot is about the Apps. They spent a lot of time talking about iWork (online and seamless capability with IOS and OS X, as well as MS Office). Also, did you notice how they spoke up their continuing work on multitasking? If you do something like this, then you really can put in a Retina-type screen at scale. I see the Air as the converged platform that makes sense for a lot of people (less the power users, but clearly that is a sizable market) in the next couple of years. Perhaps even lower price-point than now, but with just as much (or more) battery life as we saw today.
Last year, when received some Retina news/models, some people (including myself) tried to temper people's expectations with some models for at least 2013. Including the Airs.
If you look at the components out there (screens, batteries, chipsets, and chasses), many of us could simply see no possible way to put a Retina-type screen in the Airs in 2013. Perhaps not even 2014. There is simply no way to do it . . . unless the Airs become an IOS device (more on that below).
Most foresaw the Hawell update (Intel leaks/telegraphs certain things pretty well). I take battery tests with a grain of salt, but presumably Apple ran their tests with pre-production hardware and current hardware using the same parameters and same OS. Perhaps some of the battery life boost is OS X Mavericks. But most of it seems to be Haswell, and Intel should be roundly thanked. This alone is a justifiable update if you have the first (definitely) or perhaps second generation Airs. But the SSD is somewhat faster, and the graphics (again, thanks to Intel). I think this is a reasonable current product refresh. I do not like the way that option increases balloon the price (the faster cpu, double the ram, the bigger SSDs) into the "Pro" line territory, but that was true yesterday.
I think Apple is doing the following:
1) Existing Macbook Pros will die on the vine. No updates at all (excepting the OS it ships with, eventually). Maybe a price drop, but more likely just a phase out. Completely gone (with maybe educational units as the exception) for the WWDC or fall releases.
2) Macbook Pros (with Retina). Who knows if they will drop the Retina-in-the-name nomenclature by then. But they should have Haswell ready for them this year. I would love for them to make quad core standard across the whole line (even 13"), but I do not think we are that lucky (and lots of people have no need for it). Given what we just saw of the Mac Pro, I think they were waiting for Thunderbolt 2 (and maybe a chassis redesign on the 13"). I think Anand (anandtech.com) was speculating a drop of the discrete graphics card in the 15", but I cannot see how they can do that yet (an option, maybe--but a full drop? The HD 5x00 options do not seem to be that good yet). For just the OS+Retina+light gaming, maybe. But I think a discrete option will remain for the 15". With the single device throughput limits being raised with Thunderbolt 2, it would make sense if they waited. Plus Intel has not released it whole Haswell line for laptops yet. Maybe ones of those is one of the better performance Iris-based options (with higher TDPs, even--that seems to be what Anand thinks).
3) Macbook Airs. I think the the Airs (as we know them) will eventually die on the vine as is. Perhaps toward the end of 2014 the technology will be at a place where it would be feasible, but . . . I am just not seeing it right now. They would have to raise the price (at least a couple hundred dollars; the price difference is more than that for now). The would have to "back away" from some of the battery life discussion they were having today. And/or they would have to change the form factor to something "thicker/bigger". I just have trouble seeing that. Or (and here is my long-term bet) . . .
They get iOS to the point and ARM gets their arch (or Intel gets ATOM or Broadwell) to the point where Macbook Airs run a version of iOS that satisfies a lot more needs. I would actually (eventually) like to see something like that. A proper file system is just not going to happen (both Apple and Google have made that clear, as well as their reasoning, though I still do not like it). But a lot is about the Apps. They spent a lot of time talking about iWork (online and seamless capability with IOS and OS X, as well as MS Office). Also, did you notice how they spoke up their continuing work on multitasking? If you do something like this, then you really can put in a Retina-type screen at scale. I see the Air as the converged platform that makes sense for a lot of people (less the power users, but clearly that is a sizable market) in the next couple of years. Perhaps even lower price-point than now, but with just as much (or more) battery life as we saw today.
Processor speed
Hi. I may have missed this part of the discussion but what significance is the lower speed 1.3 GHz processor? Forgive my ignorance but while they have given us a chip upgrade doesn't this slower speed negate a lot of the benefits?
I've been hoping WWDC would help me decide between a MBA plus external monitor and the 21.5" iMac but I am still not sure what to do. An upgraded monitor would have swayed me (even if it was just HD). I'm now wondering if I should reconsider and just get another PC ultrabook. I was thinking of moving over to Mac but now I'm less sure. Some of the PC ultrabooks have a HD or better screen and there are none of those compatibility issues with external monitors.
Hi. I may have missed this part of the discussion but what significance is the lower speed 1.3 GHz processor? Forgive my ignorance but while they have given us a chip upgrade doesn't this slower speed negate a lot of the benefits?
I've been hoping WWDC would help me decide between a MBA plus external monitor and the 21.5" iMac but I am still not sure what to do. An upgraded monitor would have swayed me (even if it was just HD). I'm now wondering if I should reconsider and just get another PC ultrabook. I was thinking of moving over to Mac but now I'm less sure. Some of the PC ultrabooks have a HD or better screen and there are none of those compatibility issues with external monitors.
Have you noticed that all those models use complete different OSs? It looks like something to take into account...
Just FYI, trying to measure performance in the GHz number alone has been . . . problematic (and a point of a lot of discussion) for some time now. Quite simply, if you want to measure relatively performance for a CPU within a given family of CPUs (say, the current Intel Haswell line for Ultrabooks), using the GHz number alone may be enough information to make a valid comparison. Even that, though, is not the total answer (there is something called cpu cache which can greatly factor in, depending on the applications you run). The further you get away form that cpu family (say last year's model; or two years ago; or an entirely different product line (server line, let's say) or a different manufacturer (AMD or ARM) and it becomes really, really difficult. Sorry if this is pendatic or a little obvious, but I am just guessing at your level of knowledge/ignorance. An imperfect analogy might be trying to measure the "performance" of two automobiles by measuring only the horsepower numbers. But to give you a good answer, you really need to know the rpm level at which those horespower numbers or measure, you need to know the torque generated at what level, you need to know about your transmission, you need to know about your suspension . . .
What might be a better thing to ask is "How quickly can this model do X?" like does this sample workload (encode a movie, or play this game, or whatever) compared to last year's model? Even then, the platform upgrades (SSD upgrades, chipset upgrades, OS upgrades (when they drop Mavericks, which I assume they were testing with but will not release with the new hardware right away) may have something to say about how fast any given load happens. I have access to a base 11" 2012 model (with the only exception to base being the 128GB SSD option). I am hoping to go visit the Apple store in the next couple of days, and run some tests. I am not sure how much they will allow me to do/load, but if you are interested in anything in particular, let me know. People like Anand (anandtech.com) will probably do a much more intensive comparison than I would/could do, so you can also watch for those kinds of updates. Many testers will add things to their tests if you ask them nicely in the comments sections on their postings, and it does not take too much more time.
Given what I have seen from previous chips in this category, what I have seen from a recently released model of a similar Haswell chip, and given what Apple said today about OS X Mavericks, I would guess that this chip (even the lower end i5 model let alone the higher end i7 model) would be ample cpu power for most people for most of the time. It really would.
Given the relative cheapness of quad core cpus (at least in the desktop and server worlds), I personally would like not to buy anything new that does not have at least four physical cores. It just gives me a lot of flexibility for workloads (encoding, lots of background tasks, virtualization, etc). But the simple fact is that the great majority of people are not using their Airs for this purpose. Four threads over two physical cores with an elegant OS seems responsive enough for the majority of people's current workloads, I believe.
Having just recently sold my 2008 MBA, I'm very very happy with the announcement of the updated machine. I was tempted to buy a 13" rMBP, but today's announcement has changed that.
12 hour battery life trumps retina display every time for me. I'm just going to wait to see what the back to school sale is going to look like, then I'm purchasing. If I can get 4-5 years out of this MBA like I did the original, I'll be very happy.
12 hour battery life trumps retina display every time for me. I'm just going to wait to see what the back to school sale is going to look like, then I'm purchasing. If I can get 4-5 years out of this MBA like I did the original, I'll be very happy.
quick question for MBA users... If my primary tasks are recording music (just demos, nothing pro) and editing video (with the need to import from several different cameras) is the MBA a viable option? I was thinking of getting a new Mac in the fall because mine is no longer able to keep up. I like the slim profile of the MBA's, especially since I'll be going from room to room depending on my tasks, but I wasn't sure if just getting an iMac would make more sense.
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
Thanks Elwe. I'm not surprised by your answer regarding chip speed. If I buy an air I intend to use it as my main computer for writing/research (Scrivener/ Scapple / Word) and photography. In the first catagory I am a semi-professional, in the latter very much an amateur - but I would like to grow my skills in this area. I know the MBA isnt ideal for rendering but i like the idea of a computer that can be used at my desk connected to a monitor but also be light and ultra-portable when i need it to be. I know i can't get the best of all worlds in one purchase and I intend to keep whatever computer I get for ~ three years. I would max out the RAM anyway but I don't want to be frustred by processor speed even though the Haswell promises better performance.
Oh and I also want to stream video and watch it on my HD TV.
Also you said 1.5 GHz. On the apple store website (Australia) it says 1.3 GHz for the base model...
Oh and I also want to stream video and watch it on my HD TV.
Also you said 1.5 GHz. On the apple store website (Australia) it says 1.3 GHz for the base model...
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As tempting as a new MacAir is, I can't justify an upgrade from my 2011 one. The battery is great, though I rarely run out of juice, or if I do there is the iPad on hand. Overall I am happy enough with current speeds, so that area also hasn't swayed me.
Not to sound like a broken record and repeating others sentiments, but I think had the screen been upgraded and form factor improved I was ready to upgrade.
Those new to Air's though should feel very lucky to be coming in at this level of power.
Not to sound like a broken record and repeating others sentiments, but I think had the screen been upgraded and form factor improved I was ready to upgrade.
Those new to Air's though should feel very lucky to be coming in at this level of power.
I could watch porn nearly all the way to Dubai!
That is an insane battery life. I can't wait to see this filter down to their handhelds.
That is an insane battery life. I can't wait to see this filter down to their handhelds.
Am I the only one who is tired of these kind of comments? It's rude and disrespectful towards not only the current Apple cohort but also to Mr. Jobs (RIP).
In addition, wasn't it made clear that He had seen the road map/new goodies going out about 4 years?
Coachingguy.
That's why I'm keeping my 2010 13 MBA, flawless, and runs a lot cooler than SB, IB, and Haswell, and still gets 10+ hours of battery life.