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Apple Predicted to Release Ultra-Slim 12-Inch MacBook with Retina Display in Mid-2014
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YES! I'm so sick of people saying there will never be another 17" MacBook Pro. Once Apple's stock plummets whenever iPhones / iPads go out of fashion, and they loose a big chunk of their capital, they will have to reconsider making products for their core customers like us pro users - if they are any of us left at that point.
The MBA offers all-day battery life and all-day portability (as in it's light enough you don't tire carrying it for 8-12 hours).
Steve was obsessed with thinness as well. Do you know what the word innovation means? Thinner and smaller is a form of innovation. It may not be what you want as innovation, but it is nonetheless. Your post is overly dramatic. Each laptop iteration and iProduct have improved on the last. People buy based on weight and thinness. If you don't, the Air is not for you. If the new one is thinner, lighter, more powerful, and retina, why are you complaining? Just to complain is my guess.
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What % of users bought 17 in MBP? Not enough.
That's solved by upgrading the current machines to Haswell. Haswell basically gets you 50% more battery life over Ivy Bridge, and the current machines are quoted at 7.5 hours.
I'm not sure why they're lagging so far behind, I had to buy the current spec last month when I needed a new machine.
I was intending on buying an Air, but once I upgraded it to the spec I wanted, the cost was negligible between it and the Retina MacBook Pro, and the RMBP is clearly the better machine.
The 13" Retina MBP is already thin and light enough compared to my old 15" and 13" MacBook Pros that any savings the Air brought in that department are meaningless to me.
Apple seem to have been doing pretty well focusing on the mainstream and abandoning pro users.
The Mac Pro is three years out of date, and there's still no sign of the new one - only an announcement without a date.
The redesigned "pro" is really a high-end consumer machine. Sure, it might have an expensive Xeon CPU in there, but there's no expandability other than connecting up a ton of external accessories via expensive Thunderbolt/USB3 connections. You can't swap out the GPU when you need something faster.
And with the lack of pro machines, a friend's company has resorted to buying max spec iMacs because they need desktop machines that run OS X, and that's your fastest option today. (Apple no longer sell the old Mac Pros here)
The size of these devices has decreased far beyond the point of diminishing returns. There is virtually zero functional advantage to making a laptop computer thinner than the current MacBook Air. It won't be any more portable for 99.9% of people than it was before. It's just a marketing gimmick to make it even thinner than it already is. Retina is like 15 months old, that doesn't count as innovation anymore. And Apple doesn't even make their own processors, they use Intel's, and Airs are basically the least powerful of all of Apple's computers, so that doesn't qualify either.
One thing keeps bothering me about this idea...
A 2304 x 1440 retina display would mean a usable screen estate equivalent of a 1152 x 720 normal resolution only... It's even smaller than the one on the current 11" MBA. Yes I know that you have the options to scale differently, but it wouldn't be perfect as OS X is still not completely resolution independent (controls and other system elements would be incredibly small on the screen).
And one can suppose that the default setting would be the retina resolution, and this would be the way how Apple demoes it. Now imagine somebody's surprise walking into an Apple Store, firing up this new 12" rMBA and realizing that he can hardly see the content of a webpage.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds pretty problematic to me.
A 2304 x 1440 retina display would mean a usable screen estate equivalent of a 1152 x 720 normal resolution only... It's even smaller than the one on the current 11" MBA. Yes I know that you have the options to scale differently, but it wouldn't be perfect as OS X is still not completely resolution independent (controls and other system elements would be incredibly small on the screen).
And one can suppose that the default setting would be the retina resolution, and this would be the way how Apple demoes it. Now imagine somebody's surprise walking into an Apple Store, firing up this new 12" rMBA and realizing that he can hardly see the content of a webpage.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds pretty problematic to me.
Yep and that's because Tim Cook is a bean counter. Not a visionary like Steve was.
I tell you what Apple, i've been waiting for 6 months for the next retina macbook pro to be release, but you move it and move it! Now it's mid of 2014????!!! Are you frigging kidding me?!!!
6 months? Your life must be hell.
Besides, you are confused it seems. This is an analyst's "best guess", not an Apple roadmap. Calm down.
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So, i think the 12" MBA will replace both the 11 and 13, consoldating the MBA lineup in a single formfactor thats in-between both current sizes.
But going retina will mean a likely price increase which means the air, as apple's current "entry level" laptop will have to be replaced.
I really think the rebith of the classic Macbook, the Macbook[c] is almost inevitable as a new entry point.
13" 1200x800/1400x900
i5-4200U
HD4400 graphics
4-8gb ram
500-1tb hdd
colourful plastic chassis
$899
But going retina will mean a likely price increase which means the air, as apple's current "entry level" laptop will have to be replaced.
I really think the rebith of the classic Macbook, the Macbook[c] is almost inevitable as a new entry point.
13" 1200x800/1400x900
i5-4200U
HD4400 graphics
4-8gb ram
500-1tb hdd
colourful plastic chassis
$899
Or maybe the lineup will go to
12" Air
13" and 15" Pro
All retina, the Air being similar in design to current Air and with less power and longer battery life than the 13" Pro. Doesn't look all that crazy anymore
Oh yea because this one has such a good track record with Apple's product pipeline. We're still waiting on the MacBook Pro with Retina + Haswell supposedly set for launch back in June. 'I predict that within 10 years, Apple will launch an ultra light laptop with more pixel density than the current one.' Such a ridiculous non-sense.
Yeah. You're asking a Best Buy rep for questions about a product that isn't "How many of these 50-feet gold-plated Monster cables should I buy?" That's the only question they can answer.
If you walk into a store to buy a computer and don't have it pretty darn narrowed down already, you didn't do your research. Hell, I wish some Best Buy person had said "those apps are worthless because in a year every box sold will have Netflix, and useful stuff like an ESPN ticker will be so slow and uncustomizable that it's really pointless to spend another $200 on this stuff."
But no. Apps = fancy.
I've owned two Apple laptops.... 12" iBook and 17" MBP. My kids still use the iBook - I think it stay in whatever version of garage band it has running! The oldest uses the 17" for school and whatever else.
I love the 12" form-factor. I am greatly tempted by the 11" air, but then I wish it was a bit taller.... So here I am using my iPad 1 and my mini. I definetly prefer a 4:3 screen over a 16:9 in tablet form, my boyfriends drives me bonkers or anything but movies.
I won't have money now to upgrade anything until spring, sooooo, I will just sit on the sidelines and see what happens!
I love the 12" form-factor. I am greatly tempted by the 11" air, but then I wish it was a bit taller.... So here I am using my iPad 1 and my mini. I definetly prefer a 4:3 screen over a 16:9 in tablet form, my boyfriends drives me bonkers or anything but movies.
I won't have money now to upgrade anything until spring, sooooo, I will just sit on the sidelines and see what happens!
Not only performance, but the keyboard will suffer as well. The keys will have no travel.
Just one thing is wrong with that. The iMacs are getting faster as is the MacBook line up. For those that are complaining about Apple taking out super drives, how many people still use them??????? DVDs and Blu-Ray will soon be going out. With Netflix, iTunes, Amazon and many others DVDs will be the past. I think Apple is going in the right direction (maybe a little too fast). Maybe they have decided to come out with a product to compete with the conversion tablets or web books. If I remember right there was a rumor about a bigger iPad screen, maybe this is the same product?????? Who knows!!! I am hoping they do great!!
Usb-no
Talking of ports, I really don't like USB any more, it is too big and only goes in one way, and I often seem to scratch the macbook around the port because it is also so sharp on the edges.
Now, lightning can obviously be used for USB, and you could fit 3 or 4 side by side if they were vertical in the space of a regular USB port.
I know that would mean you'd need USB/Lightning adaptors to start with, but if Sir Jonny Ive could design an awesome little adaptor that maybe sat over the top of the USB plug and offered a little wriggly lightning connector on the end then I'd be happy.
Yes, after decades of pain on this spinning globule of tar and rock, stomping around in my carbon-based human-sapien loan car, I'd be happy.
But only if all the above happens and I can have lightning ports everywhere
THEEND
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I definitely don't want an optical drive in any macbook again, I have an ultra slim USB3 drive that gets used about twice a year.
Obviously your needs must be different than mine, but why can't you just carry an external drive and be happy? That seems fairer than me having to lug around an optical drive taking up batter space in my macbook when I don't use it.
I'd definitely change your specs to get rid of the optical drive and improve on the single USB3.0 port.
And finally, I disagree that "Apple shouldn't update the the MacBook Pro until..." , I think they should update as often as they can. Then anyone buying a MacBook will have something really cool.
What possibly reason would you want Apple to hold back on any updates, so that anyone buying a macbook in that time has an inferior machine?
Talking of ports, I really don't like USB any more, it is too big and only goes in one way, and I often seem to scratch the macbook around the port because it is also so sharp on the edges.
Now, lightning can obviously be used for USB, and you could fit 3 or 4 side by side if they were vertical in the space of a regular USB port.
I know that would mean you'd need USB/Lightning adaptors to start with, but if Sir Jonny Ive could design an awesome little adaptor that maybe sat over the top of the USB plug and offered a little wriggly lightning connector on the end then I'd be happy.
Yes, after decades of pain on this spinning globule of tar and rock, stomping around in my carbon-based human-sapien loan car, I'd be happy.
But only if all the above happens and I can have lightning ports everywhere
THEEND
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I definitely don't want an optical drive in any macbook again, I have an ultra slim USB3 drive that gets used about twice a year.
Obviously your needs must be different than mine, but why can't you just carry an external drive and be happy? That seems fairer than me having to lug around an optical drive taking up batter space in my macbook when I don't use it.
I'd definitely change your specs to get rid of the optical drive and improve on the single USB3.0 port.
And finally, I disagree that "Apple shouldn't update the the MacBook Pro until..." , I think they should update as often as they can. Then anyone buying a MacBook will have something really cool.
What possibly reason would you want Apple to hold back on any updates, so that anyone buying a macbook in that time has an inferior machine?