You don't get it, Apple doesn't make their profits by selling at prices you consider fair, they make their profits by selling at prices that enough people are willing to pay.
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Early Benchmarks Put Retina MacBook CPU Performance in Range of 2011 MacBook Air
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You don't get it, Apple doesn't make their profits by selling at prices you consider fair, they make their profits by selling at prices that enough people are willing to pay.
Agreed. People complaining about this model are ignoring the simple fact that the Macbook Pro is geared toward them. This is geared for something else.
I will say, though, if it weren't for the retina display, this could (and probably should) be a lot cheaper.
Ah, I see. If a performance metric goes down, it is a big problem. If a performance metric goes up, it is irrelevant. Got it.
Great username. For a minute there, I lost myself.
And yeah, I mean they are using Intel's mobile chipset so it does make more sense. It's not like it' scan i7 or something. Still though, Apple's chips have seriously advanced astoundingly quickly. The A8 and iPad Air 2 are screamers. I'm really excited for the future of the 9.7" iPads.
not sure I understood what I was saying myself come to think of it.
Intel started in the "higher end" Market. high power usage CPU's with the high end performance.
ARM based systems started the opposite. Low power usage cpus with low end performance.
5-10 years ago, there was virtually zero overlap. you want performance. Intel x86. you want battery sipping tech, ARM.
however the ultra portables, mobile devices and wearables market has indicated that there was a need for something in the middle.
battery sipping with performance.
ARM faced the hurdle of increasing performance while not increasing power / thermals
Intel has faced the hurdle of decreasing power / thermals without sacrificing power.
each of these directions have had to make trade off's with their original core business to try and hit this new market. and both have done it quite succesfully at this point.
its hard to make pure comparison though since we don't have a single operating system with the same driver sets and optimizations to compare both chips. But credit should be given to both Intel and the ARM camps for being able to provide products in this middle ground quite succesfully.
An iPad can't run OS X or Windows software. I will be able to run ALL on my new rMB.
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not true. and not what I have said.
Increasing a performance method with zero tangible benefits are hard to account for or consider.
If your usage has all your applications load in .1 second in 2011,
and your applications still load at .1 seconds in 2015, even though the hard drive speed is 100x as fast, then is that metric relevant? or is it just spouting specs for the sake of it?
(this is an argument that is often made in the android v iphone debate).
and as I said there was no clarity in your question
if you're talking about the 2015 MBA v 2015 rMB, then if using similar hard drive components with equal performance, while both are upgrades to the 2011, it is not a deciding factor in choosing either 2015 part.
Many will complain until it goes on sale and they hold this beauty in their hands. The sleek, fanless machine with beautiful display, Force Touch, fast SSD, and and OS X will, as a complete package, quickly become the top selling Mac.
Which Windows machines with similar specs are selling for $599? Even a Surface 3 + keyboard with half the storage and ram of the rMB is more than $599.
I agree, 2011 MBA does NOT have "horrid" performance
...when it was 2011 (which it clearly isn't now)
... or cost 1299 dollars (which it doesn't)
way to go, Apple!
2011 performance in 2015. But you put the engineering into what really matters.....it's THIN!
2011 performance in 2015. But you put the engineering into what really matters.....it's THIN!
That large price tag comes with just about every first generation tech. The first answering machine cost $200 in 1949! Prices for the first DVD players were $1000 or more in 1997. The list could go on and on.
I use a mid-2012 MBP with 4GB of RAM and a spinning disk, and have done quite a bit of work with Photoshop CC just fine. I do get an occasional beach ball, but I expect the MacBook's 8GB and high-speed flash to mitigate that.
Apple get away with everything they do... it's really sad that they are this popular because it doesn't matter what they produce, it's gonna sell millions. A retina screen in the existing Air would've been a homerun. Instead they come up with this glorified iPad...
my first computer was 16mb ram and around 500mb of storage at 2600 dollars back in 1998. I bought it happily but doesn't mean I will buy it Happily now at the same price
Oh, backwards development... I guess I'm keeping my mid-2012 rMBP 15" for a while. I would like one of these super-slim machines, I'd even go down to 13". But if I get a CPU that's 4 years old in terms of power, no thanks.
Same here. I want to replace my 2011 MBA with a laptop that has a better screen than the 2015 MBA and better performance than the 2015 rMB. I was unsure what to do until a few days ago when I when to the Apple Store and tried a new 13" MB Pro, which gives me what I need and isn't much heavier than the MBA. I hadn't given the new MB Pro much of a thought before, but now I'm almost certain that I'll get one.
You'ld be amazed at what I will doing with it. The toy can be used as a real workhorse too.
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iOS vs OS X: There is a big difference!
It's not in my sweet spot - heavy photo and video editing - but they will sell a ton to people who will be thrilled to have a fast and light internet machine. Nothing wrong with that. The technology and research might also advance the general line up. It's easy to criticize, but they know what they're doing. I'm waiting for the quad-core 15" rMBP.
This is gonna be a lagfest on Yosemite with a bunch of apps open. If my 2014 13" retina could barely go a few hours without major UI lag (now back on Mavericks), I struggle to see how that will even run decently on this 2011 guts Macbook.