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Apple to Release Thinner MacBook Pro at WWDC
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There are features that the MacBook Pro has that the MacBook Air doesn't. Most consumers that can live without one of them can live without all of them.
I'm sorry, is that too complicated for you?
I agree Gigabit Ethernet is a utility that is widely adopted and frankly has been for over a decade. Maybe 802.11ac will come close, but for business and security and compatibility applications GigE is ubiquitous.
Need faster wired? How about 40gigE?
http://mellanox.com/ethernet/40gbe_index.php
Wireless is a great "convenience" feature, but for outright speed and security wired is still a needed option. With laptops being the primary desktop machine for most people, they need to have some of the I/O capabilities of legacy desktops.
I have no objection to port simplification using TB and updating USB to USB3. But I do think Apple should make a legacy port dongle for TB. I do really think Apple should keep GigE in as many upper end units as possible. If anything, all TB equipped Macs should have dual ports, so it supports TWO endpoint pieces of equipment.
Rocketman
Need faster wired? How about 40gigE?
http://mellanox.com/ethernet/40gbe_index.php
Wireless is a great "convenience" feature, but for outright speed and security wired is still a needed option. With laptops being the primary desktop machine for most people, they need to have some of the I/O capabilities of legacy desktops.
I have no objection to port simplification using TB and updating USB to USB3. But I do think Apple should make a legacy port dongle for TB. I do really think Apple should keep GigE in as many upper end units as possible. If anything, all TB equipped Macs should have dual ports, so it supports TWO endpoint pieces of equipment.
Rocketman
It's not too complicated. It's just not logical. I can live without my car's XM radio feature. That doesn't mean I'd be willing to give up my fuel economy. Logically, a person may not really need a feature on a Macbook Pro. That doesn't mean then that they probably don't need any number of completely unrelated features.
I'm with you. I'm a motion graphics designer. I never use the ethernet port. I rarely use the optical drive except for the occasional person who still uses dvds to give me assets or I have to rip a movie off a playable dvd because we no longer use dvd players to serve movies to projection screens. The vast majority of people in my world uses thumb drives for file sharing. I can find another computer to get a file off a disc or I would just carry an external. But ALL of the other differences between a MacBookPro and an Air make a world of difference to me. An Air would never suffice for what I do.
Yebubbleman, you are only looking at things the way they work for your circumstance. It doesn't apply to other people.
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So, because people are using laptops instead of desktops, people who use laptops in a mobile fashion, as they were meant to be, have to suffer? The reason DOCKS were invented was for the purpose you want. Laptop mobility with all the ports you miss from having a desktop. Then everyone gets what they need.
What if they designed a new ethernet port? Maybe the original side would still connect into the modem, but a specially designed one to fit into a smaller MacBook? Because I find it hard to just get rid of the port completely. Although I feel like hardwired internet connections are usually through desktops on a server, like at a high school, college, or a cubical in an office. The point of a laptop is for it to be on the move, and with the decrease in size, which we are unsure of how significant, the laptop could feel like any other of Apple's newer products, as in a woman could fold it and put it in her purse comfortably, this way it fits in the same line up as the iPhone, iPod, iPad, MacBook just the plastic keyboard still gets to live on. I'm sure it will come with 4G capabilities like their other products.. So maybe we just don't understand yet?
I'm sure this could have an earlier release from after the WWDC because you have to remember a lot of kids go to college every year and thats when they get their new laptop. So there has to be plenty of time to save up!
I'm sure this could have an earlier release from after the WWDC because you have to remember a lot of kids go to college every year and thats when they get their new laptop. So there has to be plenty of time to save up!
We are not talking about you, nor are we talking about cars. We are talking about the vast majority of consumers. The vast majority of people shopping for a Mac that can live without one of the things setting the MacBook Pro from the MacBook Air are just as easily able to live without all of said things. Shocking, I know. Hard to believe, I know. Poll a large number of people IRL (i.e. not on this forum) and you'll be surprised at what you find. That is not to say that this is the case with ALL consumers. I never ever said that. There are plenty of those out there that don't need the optical drive, but need everything else in the MacBook Pro; every MacBook Pro forum on this site has a ton of anti-ODD zealots in them as well as people who, for some insanely silly reason, can't fathom the use of a gigabit ethernet port nor the fact that gigabit ethernet has, by far, a superior link connection to any LAN than any wireless standard due on any Mac anytime soon. My point wasn't that people like that don't exist at all, just that they are in the very small minority as evidenced by the fact that as things have stood for a while now, there are MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs and little room, both in terms of practical engineering and in terms of actual demand, for anything in between, save for maybe a 15" MacBook Air entirely unrelated to anything in the MacBook Pro line.
How am I looking at things the way they work for my circumstances? What sort of reality distortion field are you reading this site through? I am reporting facts based on recorded data. I'm sorry you don't agree with that, but those are the facts. Frankly, as long as Apple makes the Mac I intend to buy later this year, I have no vested interest in what they do with the rest of the line. And again, in case you somehow misunderstood that as me skewing things based on my needs, I'm not. I'm calling it like I see it. I'm sorry that your needs don't agree with that assessment. Apple can be fairly limiting in its options sometimes.
Trying to pass off your generalizations as recorded facts doesn't make for a compelling argument. We can agree to disagree.
There's a huge difference between generalizing and noting the trends of the majority. Once again, I'd like to clarify this: I'm doing the latter not the former. I'm not saying that EVERY consumer can live without MacBook Pro features. I'm saying that a MAJORITY of consumers that can live without one of said features can live without all. Apple has a ton of customers. I don't preclude the possibility that there are a ton of those for whom that doesn't apply, because clearly there are a ton of those for whom that doesn't apply. All I mean to state is that if you poll a thousand random people claiming that they could do without one feature that sets apart the MacBook Pro from the MacBook Air, a majority of those people would say that they could live without all of them.
I have surveyed literally thousands of people given that I work with thousands of Apple customers on a weekly basis. I wouldn't call it a "generalization", but it is a clear trend from a sample that is certainly common; it's not like I'm only polling people who already own iMacs and are buying their MacBook Air as a secondary computer, because I'm sure that if that were the case, the numbers would be way skewed.
Feel free to disagree with this assessment, but calling it a generalization is grossly incorrect.
Someone with some sense. Much appreciated.
DOCKS. Any legacy port you want can be handled by a dock. ODD can be handled by a slim external drive. Don't want to carry something around? That's tough, because lots, I dare say most laptop users want a mobile device that's portable and does what they need it to do on the go. Anyone who has serious requirements for other stuff should probably think about pairing a laptop with a desktop.
I was so excited for this announcement, until i read my bank statement.
Make some haggis and sell it to American tourists on the Royal Mile. You'll make a fortune.
All I got out of what you said is that many people buy the wrong computer for their actual needs. My contention is that my needs shouldn't suffer because of this. I expect Apple to continue to do the RIGHT thing and not the POPULAR thing.
Then reread it. That's not at all what I said. I said that most people don't need all that much. That's not the case with you, that's not the case with me, and that's not the case with most of the people on here, but it is with most consumers.
Your preaching to the choir. If Apple ceased to make a 15" MacBook Pro with an optical drive, Gigabit Ethernet port, a FireWire 800 Port, a quad-core CPU, and a discrete GPU, I'd be seriously unhappy. If they made it so that I needed to go to a 17" to get these features because they feel like the 15" MacBook Pro should be needlessly thinner, I'd be similarly unhappy. But if they did away with this stuff altogether, I'd be very conflicted in a very unhappy sort of way. That said, there are more of these consumers than there are of us. Sad - I hate it - but true.
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If you have any numerical data that says legitimately Pro users still use the optical drive and ethernet at a frequency and population that warrants keeping them around, I'd love to see the study.
It could get thinner without loosing the Ethernet port. The side of the MacBook Pro makes it look thinner than it is. They could just make the bottom flat, unlike the current gen.
Or, just provide a gigabit ethernet port - USB. If the CD drive is going to go, and ethernet port, which no one I know uses, can go, too.
Or, just provide a gigabit ethernet port - USB. If the CD drive is going to go, and ethernet port, which no one I know uses, can go, too.
Glad to have the current macbook pro
I'm glad I got the current macbook pro when I did. This will allow me to put in my own SSD in the future when prices on SSDs are down -- and Apple is still charging 3-4 times for theirs. Best of all, this doesn't need to be a replacement for my current HD -- it can be an addition to it if I put it in the optical drive bay : )
If SSD is built into the future macbook pros, that's bad. It means you need to configure your order or get stuck with stock options without the possibility to upgrade easily (unless you fancy surface-mount soldering). It's the same thing with RAM.
I can get 16GB of 3rd party RAM... even though the stated max on my macbook pro is 8GB (check out OWC RAM). I currently have 8GB, but again, the price of 16GB of this type of RAM just ~might~ drop later on (though RAM prices actually go up for legacy RAM)!
So can I say that I have it better than those who get the next dumbed-down version of the macbook pro -- if it's indeed true that they'll be getting rid of all those nice expansion possibilities? Retina-Display graphics? That's another feature that introduced problems -- most apps don't even HAVE retina graphics yet, so if you do get a retina-display, all your icons and interface elements will look blocky because the OS will have scale them up (either that or they'll be TEENY-weeny on the screen).
My current macbook pro, fitted with upgrades after 3-4 years, will be good for another 3-4 years, and that's perfect enough for me to be getting a replacement then, when all the issues above are no longer 'issues'.
I'm glad I got the current macbook pro when I did. This will allow me to put in my own SSD in the future when prices on SSDs are down -- and Apple is still charging 3-4 times for theirs. Best of all, this doesn't need to be a replacement for my current HD -- it can be an addition to it if I put it in the optical drive bay : )
If SSD is built into the future macbook pros, that's bad. It means you need to configure your order or get stuck with stock options without the possibility to upgrade easily (unless you fancy surface-mount soldering). It's the same thing with RAM.
I can get 16GB of 3rd party RAM... even though the stated max on my macbook pro is 8GB (check out OWC RAM). I currently have 8GB, but again, the price of 16GB of this type of RAM just ~might~ drop later on (though RAM prices actually go up for legacy RAM)!
So can I say that I have it better than those who get the next dumbed-down version of the macbook pro -- if it's indeed true that they'll be getting rid of all those nice expansion possibilities? Retina-Display graphics? That's another feature that introduced problems -- most apps don't even HAVE retina graphics yet, so if you do get a retina-display, all your icons and interface elements will look blocky because the OS will have scale them up (either that or they'll be TEENY-weeny on the screen).
My current macbook pro, fitted with upgrades after 3-4 years, will be good for another 3-4 years, and that's perfect enough for me to be getting a replacement then, when all the issues above are no longer 'issues'.
Funny, all Yebubbleman is saying is that Apple knows the figures and will sculpt their products according to those figures, and he gets down voted for that?
Some people here are in serious denial...
Though I do agree with Laurim, and I'd want to believe that Apple will indeed do the RIGHT thing. This would mean keeping the STORAGE and RAM as user-upgradeable options.
Some people here are in serious denial...
Though I do agree with Laurim, and I'd want to believe that Apple will indeed do the RIGHT thing. This would mean keeping the STORAGE and RAM as user-upgradeable options.
Agreed, one day there will be a market for Pro level machines that have all board-integrated RAM and storage, but that day is still probably a few years off. Most people who use their systems professionally would still like the option of being able to upgrade some of these components.
Although I can definitely see Apple actually putting a SSD daughterboard module into the system, and at the same time retain a 2.5" bay for a rotational disk drive. That probably would give the best of both world, with very little additional space required above today's systems. This would be possible given that other areas of space savings are coming, such as getting rid of FW, Ethernet, Superdrive, etc.
That's not going to be the case....
The Retina display will have higher pixel density. But when you scale up the old icons in the higher def UI, the size and the pixel density of the icons will still be the same, they will in fact have the exact same PPI as before. They just won't be as sharp as the new icons specifically designed for the new resolution. This will be a non-issue, and updating some bitmap images with newer high-res versions will be one of the easiest things you can do as an app developer.
What happens if we want to run Windows on a Mac with retina display? (like in Parallels, for example). Will everything in Windows look teeny-tiny? Will everything look blurry? Or ???
You can use the large-UI options in Windows; or you can also scale the resolution (may cause some blurry edges) to a non-native resolution. Otherwise, it would default to something that most people would consider unreasonably small text/UI-elements.
Why not? Windows already has the most advanced resolution independence there is in an os and is perfectly capable to scale up and down user interface elements, as well as setting dpi for fonts.
Looks fine. I'll give you a quick example.
This is the default 100% whatever DPI. Decent enough for my 1920x1080 monitor.
This is it bumped up to 150%. Not blurry in the least, just...overly large. Which wouldn't be a problem on a 2880x1620 monitor. It'd be the same size as the default, just crisper.