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Apple's First MacBook Pro With Retina Display is Now 'Vintage'

trifid said:
Just curious, did he explain what 'vintage' meant exactly? Because this is exactly what I dislike about these types of announcements, 'vintage' or 'obsolete' in Apple talk doesn't mean what most people think it means, and I'd bet the confusion is intentional to stigmatize older products and get people to upgrade.

Like for example a vintage Macintosh 128k belongs in a museum, while a vintage Macbook 2012 rMBP still gets OS updates like Mohave :rolleyes:
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And yet there is an Apple Support document explaining in simple terms what the designation means. In case anyone wants to know. How could Apple be more transparent?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht201624
 
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Westside guy said:
Apple still sells the 2015-era 15" model. It's a little larger than I like, but I may buy one of those myself - the last good Apple MacBook Pro.
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What I'm reading this on. Bought it last fall because I thought exactly that: what if this is the last real MacBook Pro?
 
trifid said:
No, the point is the 2012 is very much relevant today in 2018, and nowhere near "near end of life". And that discontinued hardware support is unnecessary forced obsolescence whether justified or not. This 2012 rMBP can easily last 5-10 more years and have comparable performance to some 2016-2018 Macs.
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I sure hope you are correct. It would go along with my desire to have my GMC with 160k miles on it last until they come up with an autonomous driving electric vehicle in that same time-frame.
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jscooper22 said:
Waiting for them to remove all functionality and connectivity in the name of thinness. Here's a sheet of paper.
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Aluminum foil is a better analogy -- sorry, couldn't resist...
 
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It is unfortunate that having moved so much of our screen time to smartphones and tablets that Apple has to walk away from laptops and desktops for business reasons. That is, the consumer that uses the phone every day is incentivized to upgrade that every two years at the expense of laptops and desktops. Apple is only reacting to the market it created by not investing as much in technologies that the average consumer upgrades every five years.

It is similar to Verizon and AT&T who invested in wireless networks as “new business” without accounting for the fact that the average household could not afford to double their phone/data bill, and who now ask regulators to let them abandon the few remaining wireline customers who are less profitable.
 
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dogslobber said:
It’s not but we’re at the start of a phase where a lot of hardware is gonna start to become vintage and not supported anymore by Apple. So more and more people are going to become unhappy about no more support.
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How in the world "a lot of hardware is gonna start to become vintage" if the rule has not changed AT ALL?

It has been 5 years for as long as I can remember.
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trifid said:
No, all I'm showing is that a 2012 machine is relevant today even though it's 5-6 years old, performance-wise it still screams and performs very well compared to some newer macs. Yet Apple wants it labeled "Vintage" and Macrumors says "near end of life". That's what that comparison is for. For the 11th time.
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The "ccomparable machine" (i.e. base 2017 macbook pro) is 70% faster.

Your comparison is the same as saying that a 1990 Ferrari is as fast as a 2018 Lexus. Well, of course it will be. We would be surprised if it wasn't...
 
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AppleHaterLover said:
The "ccomparable machine" (i.e. base 2017 macbook pro) is 70% faster.

Your comparison is the same as saying that a 1990 Ferrari is as fast as a 2018 Lexus. Well, of course it will be. We would be surprised if it wasn't...
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Wrong, ~30% CPU performance difference between base 15" 2017 vs 2012:

https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks

JifOdOw.png


My original point stands though, which is that 2012 rMBP is relevant today and far from near end of life as Macrumors stated.
 
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justperry said:
Oh, it doesn't bother me either, there's only a few times you see it is having a difficult time, for instance scrolling in Safari.
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How much RAM do you have in yours? I upgraded mine to 16GB and have an SSD in it as well. Back when I was running the 4GB the MBP came with, it would not be smooth while scrolling at all. Pages in Facebook and Instagram with heavy graphics would just slow to a crawl until I upgraded to the 16GB.
 
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JackieInCo said:
How much RAM do you have in yours? I upgraded mine to 16GB and have an SSD in it as well. Back when I was running the 4GB the MBP came with, it would not be smooth while scrolling at all. Pages in Facebook and Instagram with heavy graphics would just slow to a crawl until I upgraded to the 16GB.
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Same as yours, 16 GB and a 512 GB SSD, pretty sure it's not the RAM, it's smooth overall but sometimes it struggles.
 
justperry said:
Same as yours, 16 GB and a 512 GB SSD, pretty sure it's not the RAM, it's smooth overall but sometimes it struggles.
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Where do you see the biggest slowdowns?

Is it application loading and quitting?: That’s probably memory constraints and swapping.

Is it OS graphics performance? Expose and Spaces?: That’s probably GPU performance

Is it application scrolling/redrawing? That could be a entirely one of, or a mix of, memory and graphics constraints.
 
JoeSixPack said:
It is unfortunate that having moved so much of our screen time to smartphones and tablets that Apple has to walk away from laptops and desktops for business reasons. That is, the consumer that uses the phone every day is incentivized to upgrade that every two years at the expense of laptops and desktops. Apple is only reacting to the market it created by not investing as much in technologies that the average consumer upgrades every five years.

It is similar to Verizon and AT&T who invested in wireless networks as “new business” without accounting for the fact that the average household could not afford to double their phone/data bill, and who now ask regulators to let them abandon the few remaining wireline customers who are less profitable.
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Not sure about this. Apple has historically been slow to update the Mac. And they sell more Macs today than they ever have in the past. While it may be a fraction of their total sales, the Mac has been selling well. If anything, the “problem” is that computers have plateaued. They don’t become obsolete nearly as fast as they used to be. With SSDs, for example, the speed of even a 2013 iMac like the one I own is as fast as it was when I bought it, and shows no signs of slowdown.
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bopajuice said:
It's bizarre to think the Mac Mini which Apple still makes (And sells NOW) could be obsolete in a few years based on the current schedule.
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Vintage products are labelled as such 5 years after manufacturing stops, so this wouldn’t be the case. But I get your point. The Mac Pro is even more glaring.
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jscooper22 said:
Waiting for them to remove all functionality and connectivity in the name of thinness. Here's a sheet of paper.
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Thunderbolt 3 is the most robust connectivity available on any notebook or desktop. And Apple includes several on their MacBook Pro, so I’m not sure where they are lacking in connectivity. As for functionality, that is pretty subjective; can’t please every possible user. As for thinness, I don’t understand the hate on for this. It absolutely makes sense to make a “portable” computer as thin and lightweight as possible. That’s it’s primary purpose. If you need power, the desktop will always be the best option. Always has been this way.
 
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I'm using this 2012 MBP model now and it has never skipped a beat. It's pretty much as fast to my colleague's 2016 MBP in most cases and even ran DaVinci Resolve when my 2015 iMac 27" would not... I use it every day for up to 24hrs a day when rendering and encoding. It's so good.
 
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willp0w3r said:
I'm using this 2012 MBP model now and it has never skipped a beat. It's pretty much as fast to my colleague's 2016 MBP in most cases and even ran DaVinci Resolve when my 2015 iMac 27" would not... I use it every day for up to 24hrs a day when rendering and encoding. It's so good.
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Likewise, I have a 2012 13" MBP (non-Retina) fully loaded with 16GB RAM and the i7 processor. Wonderful machine!
 
jscooper22 said:
Waiting for them to remove all functionality and connectivity in the name of thinness. Here's a sheet of paper.
Click to expand...


So, no ports at all.. not even Bluetooth. nor Wi-Fi, ... But you still have mobile carrier access... You can't take *that* away from me.
 
For years I have been sitting and waiting for a compelling reason to upgrade my mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro Retina and none have come - including this announcement. I paid over $4,000 for a maxed out (2.7ghz i7, 16GB, 756GB) model and it has been my daily driver for 6 years now. I've had the motherboard and battery replaced a couple years ago for $650 (due to discrete graphics card giving out) and I spent $40 to upgrade the wifi card to AC speed. What I have now 6 years later is a completely competent, "still looks like new" machine. The only thing that is tempting for me to upgrade for is the brighter screen, -.5lbs on the newest MacBook Pro and the ability to have a 2TB SSD. I'm tempted to keep this sucker and see just how long it will last. It's built like a tank and is super reliable - it could last ten years. So far the only fatal design flaw I have found is that the black feet on the bottom break off over time but even superglue has fixed that.

I remember the knot in my stomach as I pressed "buy" 6 years ago and watched $4,000 disappear from my bank account but now I feel totally justified that I did it. What an awesome machine this has been.
 
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JackieInCo said:
How much RAM do you have in yours? I upgraded mine to 16GB and have an SSD in it as well. Back when I was running the 4GB the MBP came with, it would not be smooth while scrolling at all. Pages in Facebook and Instagram with heavy graphics would just slow to a crawl until I upgraded to the 16GB.
Click to expand...
Feenician said:
Where do you see the biggest slowdowns?

Is it application loading and quitting?: That’s probably memory constraints and swapping.

Is it OS graphics performance? Expose and Spaces?: That’s probably GPU performance

Is it application scrolling/redrawing? That could be a entirely one of, or a mix of, memory and graphics constraints.
Click to expand...
My 2012 is slow too at times; seems to have to do with one of the recent OS updates more than any real cpu based issue.

I also noticed Safari being very slow so switching more and more to Chrome and FF/Brave which don't have these issues. Don't know exactly what Safari is doing. It's not even maxing out the CPU. Safari + Facebook in particular.
 
orthorim said:
My 2012 is slow too at times; seems to have to do with one of the recent OS updates more than any real cpu based issue.

I also noticed Safari being very slow so switching more and more to Chrome and FF/Brave which don't have these issues. Don't know exactly what Safari is doing. It's not even maxing out the CPU. Safari + Facebook in particular.
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Without detailed examination my guess would be running out of RAM and hitting swap on disk. If it was that though I would expect Chrome and FF to be worse and not better, since they're even more piggish than Safari when it comes to memory. Hmm. Not sure what to suggest, other than perhaps disabling or removing any extensions temporarily and seeing if that helps.
 
Woo hoo! So I’ve been monitoring the Apple refurb store, and just managed to grab a 2015 MacBook Pro (and AppleCare+) that should serve me well for the next 4-5 years. I was waiting for a model with 16GB of RAM... didn’t so much care if it was an i5 or an i7.

I already have my work-provided one... but I’m thinking about switching jobs and can’t really do without a computer.

Refurb Tracker FTW!
 
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Got a keyboard, screen and battery refurb from Apple back in 2015 on my 2012 MPBr. Currently waiting for the 2018 update to replace it with but not super excited. Just need a machine to keep on Mojave re: 32bit apps.
 
JoeSixPack said:
It is unfortunate that having moved so much of our screen time to smartphones and tablets that Apple has to walk away from laptops and desktops for business reasons. That is, the consumer that uses the phone every day is incentivized to upgrade that every two years at the expense of laptops and desktops. Apple is only reacting to the market it created by not investing as much in technologies that the average consumer upgrades every five years.

It is similar to Verizon and AT&T who invested in wireless networks as “new business” without accounting for the fact that the average household could not afford to double their phone/data bill, and who now ask regulators to let them abandon the few remaining wireline customers who are less profitable.
Click to expand...

Precisely my view(s). Apple needs to #Wakeup and soon. Once customers move away from Apple machines, they will move away from iPhones. Yes, they will...
 
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