Apple's Phil Schiller: 'We Don't Design for Price, We Design for the Experience'

[macjoshua]

if i ever meet one i will...

I want that device. I would buy it in a heartbeat. Chill out on the Apple defense. It's just a company. They don't get everything right. Most people think the touch bar is fine, but the price and crappy specs are the problem. As a pro designer, I rarely use my laptop's keyboard anyway. I'm always hooked into an external monitor - so unless they make a magic keyboard with the touch bar, it won't affect my day-to-day use in any way.

 

[smorrissey]

Let's break down the entry level 15" model with what we can figure out using the highest prices listed:

1. 6th Gen Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz Quad Core CPU: ~$378 (Direct from Intel)
2. PCIe onboard SSD: ~$250 (Current market listing)
3. Radeon Pro 450 2GB GDDR5 GPU: ~$200-225 (More difficult to determine)
4. 16GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 RAM: ~$100 (Crucial, OWC, etc)
5. 15.5" 2880x1800 220 DPI IPS Panel: ~$300-$400 (Panel seems same as previous models)

Total Base Components: ~$1028

Thunderbolt 3.0 Logic Board w/ USB 3.1, R&D and development pricing unknown, yet using current market high prices in establishing a reasonable baseline, it's difficult to justify the $2399 USD price point.

the justification is the brand's name: Apple = status.

 

[groovyd]

It wasn't vapourware... it existed!

It's not here today because it was quite gimmicky. And other laptops don't need a "standard"... if something can be macro'd, it can be put on it. It doesn't even need the software makers to design for it - it used macros, so anything that uses clicks or keystrokes to function (99.99% of things). That seems to make it *more* simple to use than this iteration of the same idea.

The only aspect this this version can do is swiping - a useful feature in some applications, but certainly niche.

your telling me it can have a slider set the color of a pencil in photoshop? what good is a simple WM_MOUSE event going to an app that no longer has a button in the same location it was yesterday. you can't 'macro' an interface into actually working across apps. have you ever used macro recorders for windows? they don't work. even apps that have their own macro interfaces built in hardly work.

 

[Woodcrest64]

Come on Apple. You can do better than that. At least you could under a certain Steve Job.

I see no serious update since my last MBP. And certainly no innovation at all. Ok I see your are to busy with your iPhone things.

Lets compare :

My current MBP-13 late 2013
2.8Ghz i7 - 16GB 1600MHz - 1TB SSD
Paid $3,291.74 with apple care, including taxes (Canadian dollar)
1x mage safe
2x USB 3
1x HDMI
1x SD
2x thunderbolt


New MBP-13 2016
3.3Ghz i7- 16GB 2133MHz 1TB SSD
Current price $3908.00 (Canadian dollar)
4 USB-C
no mag safe
no hdmi
no usb 3
no sd
no thunderbolt

Unfortunately my current Thunderbolt-Ethernet adapter is not compatible anymore.
I would need to purchase (and always have with me) multiple adapters for Ethernet, HDMI USB and SD.

So about 600$ more for a little speed bump and loosing all those ports? Really?

I think I will pass on this one.

lol! Yeah looking at your machine's specs for what you paid for, that's a deal compared to today's offerings.

 

[groovyd]

I want that device. I would buy it in a heartbeat. Chill out on the Apple defense. It's just a company. They don't get everything right. Most people think the touch bar is fine, but the price and crappy specs are the problem. As an pro designer, I rarely use my laptop's keyboard anyway. I'm always hooked into an external monitor - so unless they make a magic keyboard with the touch bar, it won't affect my day-to-day use in any way.

this is simply a feature we will not see any other laptop maker or even ms duplicate in any close proximity to any measure of success. we will see touchscreen laptops, sure. we will see companies like logitech try to set a standard on a handful of wireless keyboards no one will follow. that's it.

i'm not at all arguing that this is an important feature for you. just that this is a feature the competition will try to duplicate and never succeed.

 

[Dmunjal]

I haven't seen all the specs on these machines just yet but the price part jumped out to me.

My first MacBook Pro I bought was a 15" 2.4ghz w/ 512mb vram that was $2499. That was my first intel Mac and I used that until an SSD and a HD in place of the SuperDrive could not longer provide me value. I loved that Mac! Oh, and a MATTE screen! Haha

Come to think of it my 1984 Mac was exactly $2499. With 128KB of RAM!

 

[soucisyl]

APPLE MBP 13" without Touch Bar $2739

• Machined aluminium case
• 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz
• 16GB 1866MHz memory
• 512GB PCIe-based SSD
• Intel Iris Graphics 540
• Backlit Keyboard (English) & User’s Guide
• Two Thunderbolt 3 ports
• 2560-by-1600 native resolution at 227 pixels per inch
• Up to 10 hours wireless web
• Height: 1.49 cm (0.59 inch)
• Width: 30.41 cm (11.97 inches)
• Depth: 21.24 cm (8.36 inches)
• Weight: 1.37 kg (3.02 pounds)

A similar competitor, but touch screen, and a lot of ports:
Dell XPS 13 Touch Screen @ $1,899

• Machined aluminium case
• Windows 10 Pro 64-bit English or Ubuntu for less $$$
  
• 7th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-7500U (4MB Cache, up to 3.5 GHz)
• 16GB 1866MHz memory
• 512GB PCIe-based SSD
• Intel HD Graphics
• Full size, backlit chiclet keyboard; 1.3mm travel
• Two Thunderbolt 3 ports
• 13.3 inch QHD+ (3200 x 1800) InfinityEdge touch display
• Edge-to-edge Corning® Gorilla® Glass NBT™ on touch displays
  
• Up to 10 hours wireless web
• Ports (PRTS)
  2 USB 3.0 - 1 w/PowerShare
  1 SD card reader (SD, SDHC, SDXC)
  1 Headset jack
  1 Noble lock slot
  1 Thunderbolt™ 3 supports: Power in / charging, PowerShare, Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps bi-directional), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps), VGA, HDMI, Ethernet and USB-A via Dell Adapter (sold separately)
  
• Height: 8.95 mm to 15.35 mm (0.35 in to 0.60 in)
• Width: 304.16 mm (11.97 in)
• Depth: 200.25 mm (7.88 in)
• Weight: Touch screen: 1.29 kg (2.90 lb)

FOR MORE $1000 with Linux. I think seriously to change my mind. Apple products/services become more expensive and less attractive. My salary doesn't rise at the same step. Also, Apple become more a bell & whistle and paid services company than a performance/design with a good vision. They impose people their view to buy their products with less and less competitor. (Apple Music, iCloud, iBook Store, Apple Apps.)

So I have to pay $1000 more this year for a similar laptop product (MBP without Touch Bar, because my 2010 MBA is done now) to keep all features and services/products I had already bought in the pass (apps, music, books...).

I think it's wise to stop before I sunk deeper, because with time I'm sure I will be more tightly caught with Apple products/services with less pleasure at the end.

I'm not sorry, time changes and now I have the opportunity to get rid of the APPLE ADDICTION.

The 1000$ I will save today will pay the cost of the transfer for similar apps or books. But with long term I'm sure I will save more and maybe help weakened the monopoly of this company.

Bye Apple.

 

[Pootmatoot]

your telling me it can have a slider set the color of a pencil in photoshop? what good is a simple WM_MOUSE event going to an app that no longer has a button in the same location it was yesterday. you can't 'macro' an interface into actually working across apps. have you ever used macro recorders for windows? they don't work. even apps that have their own macro interfaces built in hardly work.

I only played with one once at trade show, and no, I don't think sliders were a thing, and obviously no colour.

But we're getting into flavours of cake here: they're both still cake. I just can't see this as *that* important or an Apple-only thing (which was your original point).

Its nice... but won't get daily use (and ruins touch typing for coders using F keys).

 

[AZ63]

have a think about your statement. in 2008 i paid $3k for a 2.8 core2duo with 4 gb of RAM and a 7200 rpm HDD

is apple selling a 2.8 core2duo with 4 gb of RAM and a mechanical hard drive for $3k today?

of course not. youre paying $3k for todays equivalent.

Just magical
Only Apple
At a boy
I have been buying Apple since the LC days. $1200 for monitor, CPU, and accessories including a printer. It could be up graded.
Apple won't sell current hardware that can be upgraded. Only top of the line for top dollar.
I wish I had your money.
Enjoy

 

[groovyd]

I only played with one once at trade show, and no, I don't think sliders were a thing, and obviously no colour.

But we're getting into flavours of cake here: they're both still cake. I just can't see this as *that* important or an Apple-only thing (which was your original point).

Its nice... but won't get daily use (and ruins touch typing for coders using F keys).

not arguing it to be a useful feature for you or not nor am i arguing that no one has ever made anything like it. i am arguing that they have all failed and will continue to fail trying because of the lack of tight hardware and software integration. i believe we will see some spectacular failures trying to duplicate this in the next year.

 

[Pootmatoot]

not arguing it to be a useful feature for you or not nor am i arguing that no one has ever made anything like it. i am arguing that they have all failed and will continue to fail trying because of the lack of tight hardware and software integration.

But as I said that wasn't an issue that seemed to be a problem when I used.

The reason if didn't get mass take-up was probably because of patents and it's sort of gimmicky, like fingerprint scanners were 5 years ago.

 

[trifid]

Wait what? Lenovo managed it 3 years ago with e-ink.

It worked well... but was pretty gimmicky then too, and forgotten about.

Wow, not only a lackluster feature from Apple but also ripoff from Lenovo? that's a new low.

I miss Steve Jobs

 

[groovyd]

But as I said that wasn't an issue that seemed to be a problem when I used.

The reason if didn't get mass take-up was probably because of patents and it's sort of gimmicky, like fingerprint scanners were 5 years ago.

i don't think that is the reason it didn't get mass take-up. more likely because it didn't just work without having to painfully program it first, not actually do what you wanted it to second, and no 3rd party apps used it, not to mention it was Lenovo. It wasn't even Lenovo's idea. Logitech has tried this too.

 

[itsamacthing]

They are so out of touch... I want to be excited, but I'm not. They used to use the best of everything and now..not so much. No magsafe? No SD card reader with CFast support, 4 USB-C ports? 3 would have been great with a 4th port for Magsafe. 16GB of Ram?! 16GB of Ram?! No Cuda support .. Might buy my first PC in 15 years.

 

[elmaco]

I'm not sorry, time changes and now I have the opportunity to get rid of the APPLE ADDICTION.

The 1000$ I will save today will pay the cost of the transfer for similar apps or books. But with long term I'm sure I will save more and maybe help weakened the monopoly of this company.

Bye Apple.

Yeah, I may buy the Dell as well. I will save money, get an SD reader, Kaby Lake and 4 more hours of battery life. The only thing I don't like is the camera placement

 

[Hank Carter]

I was also around. I barely missed having to punch cards in my first university level coding class. (The abysmal line editor we used still referred to each 80-character line as a "card"). Though I wanted a Mac badly, I couldn't hope to afford one, and had to be satisfied with my Commodore 64. Eventually I got a Commodore Amiga 1000, which bested the currently available Macs in many ways, but cost much less.

I couldn't afford a Mac 128k either, but ended up with an Amiga 1000 that I got at a fire sale, when a local computer shop went out of business. Oddly enough I got to punch cards in high school, long after they had become a historical footnote. We had an old VAX that the math department liked to tinker with. Eventually Commodore went bust and by then I had a real job and bought a Mac.

 

[Pootmatoot]

i don't think that is the reason it didn't get mass take-up. more likely because it didn't just work without having to painfully program it first, not actually do what you wanted it to second, and no 3rd party apps used it, not to mention it was Lenovo.

It was drag-and-drop, and took me literally 6 seconds to set up a new function... it seemed pretty snazzy.

It's a bit weird you're slamming something you've probably not used...

 

[bernuli]

My experience will vary greatly from others'. I loved Snow Leopard but if I bought a computer today I'd be sorely disappointed based on the crappy OS that is installed. Now if I bought a computer based on it's hardware specs that could install Snow Leopard that would be a different matter. I'd probably be very happy with modern hardware specs and an older OS.User experience is arbitrary and that's where Apple falls short.

I know. Snow Leopard would run SO fast on todays hardware.

Apple hardware is still pretty good sort of. But the OS and Apple Apps are getting clunky and are drfinitely buggy.

 

[\-V-/]

I know. Snow Leopard would run SO fast on todays hardware.

Apple hardware is still pretty good sort of. But the OS and Apple Apps are getting clunky and are drfinitely buggy.

The problem is the yearly updates instead of honing and perfecting their current OS. Snow Leopard was so great because it basically just improved every aspect of Leopard. They need to just have one OS called "macOS" and just keep improving on it year after year. It would become an absolutely phenomenal OS.

 

[devilcm3]

i dont understand how unemployed hipsters are going to afford this

food stamps

 

[iGeek2014]

If there's one thing that irks me it's the fact even the most expensive models ship with soldered RAM.

I'm not sure if it's Genius or Madness on Apple's part.

Genius because there are some folk who will happily upgrade perhaps every year or two or Madness because some people like to upgrade their components without paying Cupertino prices meaning they are more likely to look elsewhere?

 

[bernuli]

16GB RAM ??? and Apple advertises it as a powerful workstation (w/ 2x5k monitors and raids). Actually it is a powerful paging to disk machine. OS knocks down 4GB, 12GB are left, Power up a VM or 2 and a browser with several pages open and you've got a slow machine that pages to disk (time to do some stretching while we wait). Interesting design decision to keep the memory at 16GB and invest in other bells and whistles. When Apple experience the 'OOPS' moment and then the 'AHA' moment, we might see more useful RAM figures like 32GB or more.

I know. The lack of ram is such a kicker at the end of a long list of disappointments.

 

[kstotlani]

Sorry, but MBP is overpriced. There is nothing groundbreaking and yet the price hike is absurd. The Touch Bar is a gimmick that will not help with productivity at all. It's just flashy for the sake of being flashy.

You don't have to apologize for someone else'S greed

 

[RobbyIdol]

This might be a dumb question, but:

Is Apple done selling the Air or 12" Macbook now entirely? Or will they just exhaust remaining stock and then we're left only with these new MBPs?

 

[kstotlani]

I just realized they come with Skylake processors I assumed it'd come with Kaby Lake since many Windows machines have been shipping with them.

I had the live stream on the whole time on my iPad. Must've been a bird that flew by at the exact moment Mr. Schiller talked about the processor.

He managed to get some of us then. He actually named the processor as 6th generation intel to avoid saying skylake. This was the one of the first sentences while introducing new Mac.
[doublepost=1477627220][/doublepost]

'Care about affordability my ...'

I actually think the touch bar is nice. Touch ID is nice. A choice of silver or space grey is nice. But the obsession with thinness to the cost of functionality aspects, the prices, the need for adapters for so many things now, the lack of internal upgrading/expandability... taken all together it's all reaching shark-jumping proportions, if it hasn't already for many people.

People are still buying and the shipping has slipped further. The prices won't fall if people keep buying.