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Apple Delaying Early Retina MacBook Pro Orders for Some Business Customers

iBug2 said:
Really? Didn't even know that, and sounds unfair to me.
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Walk into a Apple Store today and ask how many Retina Macbook Pros they have. They will probably tell you 0 or a few. Tell them you are a business customer and you will receive a email from a Business Sales Advisor within an hour or so who will tell you how many they really have in stock. Seriously.

I am sure the general stock situation is improving but they DO give preference to Business Customers.
 
Retina all the way

I have mine, base model and it is EXCELLENT!

Apple should have done this years ago!
 
ixodes said:
Don't be mislead. Apple is the master of illusion.

They're also one of the finest marketing masterminds of all.

By giving the impression that they're hard to get. Orders grow to massive proportions.

Never, ever... Underestimate Apple.
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Right because it's better to not sell something, and let sit in a warehouse somewhere. If they had them they would be shipping them...
 
spazzcat said:
Right because it's better to not sell something, and let sit in a warehouse somewhere. If they had them they would be shipping them...
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Let me clarify, all one has to do is look at the volumous sales figures to see that Apple _is_ selling in vast quantities. To my original point, Apple is the master of illusion. Creating a sense of urgency with their buyers, as though Apple simply can't produce enough, yet filling more orders than ever even while creating demand like never before.

It's a balancing act only Apple can pull off. Not only has Apple improved it's products over the years, but they taken their clever smoke & mirrors marketing to new heights before the death of their pitchman.

Now they'll run on autopilot as the death of the CEO is still fresh. Like a death of a rock star, public sympathy & hero worship kicks in, sales climb and all is well till the sentiment fades.

Apples unusually passionate followers will extend this period for years, as they've already been pre programmed to believe Jobs left behind his Master Plan. Just what the faithful live for.

Then at some unknown point in the future, like a newborn, Apple will be forced to learn to stand on it's own. Or not. Microsoft & Google have consistently been their own worst enemies thereby buying plenty of time for Apple to remain in the spotlight.

One things for certain, no one knows whats going to happen as the cast of unlikely characters each continues on their respective paths during these challenging times in the tech sector and beyond.
 
spazzcat said:
Right because it's better to not sell something, and let sit in a warehouse somewhere. If they had them they would be shipping them...
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Indeed. There's no reason why Apple shouldn't be shipping as much as possible. Apple sometimes waits until they have decent stock on new products and then announces it, but sometimes they don't. iPad 3 was available in large quantities on dray 1, rMBP is not.
 
wfaler said:
Can anyone report that they have in fact seen a 768GB SSD in the wild, or is this the 2010 "white iPhone" all over again?

I ordered a maxed out Retina MBP a few minutes after the shop reopened after the announcement, when standard configs had 3-5 days delivery time. My estimate rose to "3-4 weeks" immediately on the SSD, which did not go down at any point as of yesterday.

That, together with the screen ghosting issues made me cancel my order. I simply don't believe Apple actually have a ready 768GB SSD in production, if anyone would like to prove me wrong, I'd be happy.

I want a Retina MBP eventually, but I cancelled my order as I don't particularly want to pay $4-5K (in the UK) to be a beta tester for Apples manufacturing process.
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Today, full of Trolls No??????
 
macduke said:
Mine was supposed to be delivered by Friday at the earliest, but it got here on Tuesday morning! UPS said it was in Shanghai at about 3pm—then it was at my door at 8am CDT. It was crazy—I was so confused when someone was knocking on my door this morning! Now that's some fast shipping.

I love this thing. I can't put it down. Even my wife said "You know, I usually don't care about computer stuff at all—but that's the nicest screen I've ever seen!" You know your product is amazing when someone like my wife takes notice—usually she doesn't give two craps about the latest "MacPro Book". I think I saw some drool on her face today. Maybe I'll pick up an Air for her when they go retina.

Some of my observations today:

  1. OMG I CAN SEE FOREVER
  2. It runs much cooler idle than my early 2011. Like 30-40 degrees from my limited testing.
  3. It's really hard to get the fan up to speed. Only time I did was when I tested Skyrim Cider at 2880 Ultra. It was mostly playable on an emulator!
  4. The display really is less glossy. Had both machines side by side and could barely see the blinds behind me on the new one.
  5. Everything is INSTANT ON. There is no waiting around.
  6. Graphics are smoother than I expected. For instance, sliding between desktop spaces is buttery smooth for me even at the top 1920 scaled mode. On my old system, the 1920 native on my external monitor is jittery/laggy as I slide the mouse between desktop spaces. Everything seems to snap into place faster.
  7. My 512GB SSD read is 450MB/s and write is 400MB/s
  8. USB 3.0 works great. I've got a 7-port hub running my three drives, card reader, 2.0 hub for printer, wacom, etc and a usb audio device so I only have to plug one cord into my computer! Well besides the power. It's like a poor man's Thunderbolt dock. Two of my three drives are 3.0 capable and the margins over FireWire are only about 20%-30% faster at this point—though my G-Drive is using an eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter. Not sure if that's slowing it down any. The GoFlex wasn't a whole lot faster than before.
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Thanks for the report.

Michael Reichmann at the Luminous Landscape gave the RMBP
a very positive report in his photographer's perspective of the computer.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/macbook_pro_retina.shtml
 
No posts yet about how this is a bad machine, too expensive, can't get into it to tinker.
EPIC fail etc. etc.

Maybe the people ordering this know what they want and recognize a good product/idea when they see one ?

As for built issues anybody with Apple experience from the past NEVER orders the first generation of anything.

While this is already proven technology (via MB Air) this particular MBP has not been tweaked yet as Apple gets usage reports via returned product.

This item looks good for ordering when its in the third revision and they have quietly fixed everything as they always do.
 
Funny, mine was supposed to be delivered betwwen 16th and 20th of July and I got an email today which says it has been shipped and will be here on the 6th or earlier. :)
 
Honestly ...

I think we're going to see more of this too.
I'm still hanging onto my late 2010 model 17" Macbook Pro, and the new retina display 15" doesn't really motivate me to upgrade.

I mean, for starters - I have a great little docking station solution (3rd. party product called Henge Dock) and I'd have to give that up for the new model. I already upgraded to a 512GB SSD in this thing and it's filled with 8GB of RAM. It's pretty quick, and I love the larger size screen on it.

My wife has an Air, and I know in her case, it's just like you ... She thinks the retina display would be neat to play with for a little while, but she has no real compelling use for one. In fact, it's supposed to make images on some websites look distorted or fuzzy when they were low-resolution to start with.


Aco Strkalj said:
I returned my Pro. Didn't appeal to me that much. The hype dies in the first week after you play with it.

It's a great machine though. I just prefer the Air.
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To the people crying "unfair", you have to remember that Apple has taken a huge hit on the corporate side of things, thanks to a lack of concern for their needs. As an I.T. guy, if I choose Macs for our company's employees, I'm immediately saddled with additional headaches I don't get from any other PC vendor. For example, I can't order any kind of bundled on-site repair service. If a corporate Mac breaks, I have to personally deliver the thing to a local Apple store for repair or call up the same number everyone else calls, and eventually get an RMA so I can mail it back in. Heck - Apple won't even pre-load a dual boot configuration with OS X and Windows for me. It's "my own problem" -- which isn't really a very corporate-friendly attitude to take when businesses often rely on a few Windows-only applications.

So yeah, the least they can do is keep "business sales advisers" around who can pull a small favor like selling you one of the last remaining machines the store otherwise tries to keep in inventory.


RealEvil said:
Walk into a Apple Store today and ask how many Retina Macbook Pros they have. They will probably tell you 0 or a few. Tell them you are a business customer and you will receive a email from a Business Sales Advisor within an hour or so who will tell you how many they really have in stock. Seriously.

I am sure the general stock situation is improving but they DO give preference to Business Customers.
Click to expand...
 
It makes sense that the first batch of 768 SSD units pre-configured from China would be the top end units and they might underestimate the number of folks that would settle for one step down in processor speed. This is a simple demand mis-estimate and the delay is the shipping time of a container ship from China to USA. Who knows, they might even send some by air at far higher cost, if they have sufficient pre-contracted space available.

It is a little odd to shift from enterprise to consumer, if that is what is happening. It may simply be a particular SKU had overall demand higher than expected.

Rocketman
 
I saw one of these in the Apple store, I liked how confused the staff got when I hid the dock, inverted the colours and made the wallpaper the Android man :D
 
Katanae said:
Funny, mine was supposed to be delivered betwwen 16th and 20th of July and I got an email today which says it has been shipped and will be here on the 6th or earlier. :)
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Jealous of you lucky folks who have had estimates revised :( I ordered the base 2.3 model, no extras, the day after WWDC. Still says 'Processing'.

Looks like I'll be one of the unlucky ones whose delivery estimate is accurate (assuming it doesn't get pushed back even further!).

Hope it arrives soon - not sure how much longer my ageing MacBook is going to hold out...
 
faroZ06 said:
Well, the guy I bought my Mac Pro from on eBay still hasn't shipped it (it's been over a week), so now we have to report him and get the refund and get another one. Stupid scammers.
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Why would anyone purchase a brand new Apple product on eBay? Any savings on price would be massively countered by increase in poor service, delivery and overall risk.
 
Sheesh, maybe I should sell mine instead of returning it today.

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Sensation said:
I saw one of these in the Apple store, I liked how confused the staff got when I hid the dock, inverted the colours and made the wallpaper the Android man :D
Click to expand...

Oh, you're THAT guy. You're very clever. :rolleyes:
 
iBug2 said:
Indeed. There's no reason why Apple shouldn't be shipping as much as possible. Apple sometimes waits until they have decent stock on new products and then announces it, but sometimes they don't. iPad 3 was available in large quantities on dray 1, rMBP is not.
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Your lack of market forecasting experience is obvious. Trying to second guess future sales is very difficult at best. Trying to do it without being able to communicate with potential future customers because of new product secrecy makes it near impossible.

Delivery delays, in retrospect, let us know how well Apple did on their SWAG. I personally think they do an excellent job. Having to wait for 4 or more weeks for a new product is something I can handle.
 
I usually just press control and scroll with the mouse to just slightly zoom in the screen... (that part is me being a jerk)

Oh, and I command-Q all the open applications... (that part is a bit of OCD)
 
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In Uk I ordered the top spec couple of days after WWDC, shipping estimate was revised by a week, so should receive it early next week.

The base processor is what the majority ordered and the model that is being shipped all around the world for apple store stock, so understandably would be low in stock. The 2.7 processor orders should come on time, no matter what the configuration is.
 
Mine shipped today, base CPU with 16GB, doesn't feel like it's been two weeks. ..
 
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