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Did you guys read this? Its clear Apple has had it with the people who line up only to buy a bunch of their products and ship them to China or put them online to make a profit while their real customers get left out in the cold many times. They are probably also tired of having to deal with huge lines and large crowds and its working. The news is showing local LA stores that would have normally had huge lines today for the Watch, no lines at all. I wonder how this will effect the iPhone going forward.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/apple-watch-macbook-online/

A statement from Apple’s senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts has taken that sentiment even further, and has added the new 12-inch Macbook for good measure. Ahrendts sent Apple Store staff a memo, titled “Get in line online,” which reads: “The days of waiting in line and crossing fingers for a product are over for our customers. The Apple Store app and our online store make it much easier to purchase Apple Watch and the new MacBook. Customers will know exactly when and where their product arrives”

The other issue is now you cannot buy a new Apple product with cash. The federal government forced Apple stores to accept cash years ago, and it seems now Apple has found a way to get around that. I don't like this at all, because cash is currency and I should be able to use it in the store. Of course, if the store doesn't "have it" for sale then I am forced to use a credit card. That is not right.

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In all fairness, the MacBook is a new product too. Uses no parts from existing MBs I know of, built new from the ground up.

No, it's not a new product. It's a new laptop. Please stop staying the rMB is a new "product", it's not. It's just anther laptop model from Apple. The iWatch is a new product.

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If I had to guess, I'd say someone didn't want any chance of distracting anyone from the Apple Watch launch. That's the new product line, and I'd bet they want all hands on deck to be focused on making sure it sticks.

Which is not to say I AGREE with it, I'd have loved to see what I'm buying in person before nabbing one. You can only get so much from video reviews.


PS: my MacBook shipped from Shanghai, 2:08 CST this morning. Apple's website on a space grey base model still says "ships 1-3 days" [at time of posting]

So they HAVE stock, even if it is only specific models.

Some have said this but I don't believe it. If they wanted to keep the two devices separate all they had to do was change the launch date for the rMB. There is no reason for them to have had the rMB launch and the demo iWatch on the same day.

Also, every single person I've spoken to who is interested in the rMB does not give two hoots about the iWatch. Even being at the store two days in a row many were outside waiting for the store to open. When staff asked who was here to try on the iWatch it was barely anyone (1-2 people out of 15 people).

The two devices are targeting two separate types of people. I've been in the Apple store twice and haven't even looked at the iWatch, didn't even walk by the display.
 
The other issue is now you cannot buy a new Apple product with cash. The federal government forced Apple stores to accept cash years ago, and it seems now Apple has found a way to get around that. I don't like this at all, because cash is currency and I should be able to use it in the store. Of course, if the store doesn't "have it" for sale then I am forced to use a credit card. That is not right.


Small point, but you are able to use a debit card online, which is effectively cash.

Some of us don't have credit cards :)
 
The other issue is now you cannot buy a new Apple product with cash. The federal government forced Apple stores to accept cash years ago, and it seems now Apple has found a way to get around that. I don't like this at all, because cash is currency and I should be able to use it in the store. Of course, if the store doesn't "have it" for sale then I am forced to use a credit card. That is not right.


Small point, but you are able to use a debit card online, which is effectively cash.

Some of us don't have credit cards :)

So you would carry thousands of dollars in cash into an Apple Store to buy something? I would not feel comfortable carrying that much cash.
 
So you would carry thousands of dollars in cash into an Apple Store to buy something? I would not feel comfortable carrying that much cash.

Not me no, I was quoting someone else earlier in the three, but obviously mucked up the quote!

I would/do use my debit card to pay for everything.
 
From the posts I'm seeing on this forum as well as on Twitter it sure seems like people's opinions are changing once they see this product in person and get to play around with it. I makes no sense to me why Apple wouldn't have models in every retail store. And if the 4-6 week delay is legit why didn't Apple wait to launch until they knew they'd be able to have adequate supply at launch?
 
From the posts I'm seeing on this forum as well as on Twitter it sure seems like people's opinions are changing once they see this product in person and get to play around with it. I makes no sense to me why Apple wouldn't have models in every retail store. And if the 4-6 week delay is legit why didn't Apple wait to launch until they knew they'd be able to have adequate supply at launch?

Yeah - or if it's going to be a pre-order launch, just call it that so people don't get burned up about botched delivery and availability. :rolleyes:

Until I got a chance to use it yesterday I was on the fence, leaning toward waiting for the next version. Using it completely turned me back around on this, even with the likely $ hit if I feel like I need to resell it when v2 hits the shelves.
 
Think I am out. Tried a 1.1 in the local Apple store today and it`s everything we have heard; The display is fabulous the colours really pop. The keyboard is a non issue for me, the the keys have very shallow travel, however they are extremely responsive with very nice positive feedback. Trackpad works as promised, a clever development on the original. All in all it`s a great package, definitely best looking Notebook I have ever seen.

The bad, the 1.1 display model was still in 10.10.2, which is not a big deal, just an observation. Switching the display to 1440x900 (scaled) which for me is a necessity, opening multiple apps in fullscreen lag in the UI was very apparent more so than I have seen on any other Retina :( I also noticed that the demo units software image was sparse to say the least, only Apple applications, certainly nothing heavyweight, I had to take pause to think what to open to load the GPU.

The store was packed being the weekend, so I will likely go back midweek and have another look on a freshly booted machine to see if there is any difference. I have always had concern on the GPU`s capabilities due how OS X scales/renders Retina Apple advised in store availability will be 4 weeks FWIW.

I am definitely going to get a MacBook, however maybe not the current version as Skylake will likely resolve much of the GPU issues.

Q-6
 
The bad, the 1.1 display model was still in 10.10.2, which is not a big deal, just an observation. Switching the display to 1440x900 (scaled) which for me is a necessity, opening multiple apps in fullscreen lag in the UI was very apparent more so than I have seen on any other Retina :( I also noticed that the demo units software image was sparse to say the least, only Apple applications, certainly nothing heavyweight, I had to take pause to think what to open to load the GPU.



Q-6

Interesting. The five I got my hands on yesterday were 10.10.3. I loaded up a dozen 1080p YouTube videos, changed the resolution toe 1440x900, then opened Excel, Word and iMovie and checked for things like UI lag and did not see anything of note. It was noticeably better than the MBA 11" I had last month.
 
Apple never said it would be available in store, people need to learn to read. They said:


The all-new MacBook will begin shipping Friday, April 10 through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

That means you can order it yourself via the online store, you can have an Apple employee order for you at a retail store or you can order it from select resellers. Nowhere did they ever say it would be available in stores April 10th
 
Did you guys read this? Its clear Apple has had it with the people who line up only to buy a bunch of their products and ship them to China or put them online to make a profit while their real customers get left out in the cold many times. They are probably also tired of having to deal with huge lines and large crowds and its working. The news is showing local LA stores that would have normally had huge lines today for the Watch, no lines at all. I wonder how this will effect the iPhone going forward.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/apple-watch-macbook-online/

A statement from Apple’s senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts has taken that sentiment even further, and has added the new 12-inch Macbook for good measure. Ahrendts sent Apple Store staff a memo, titled “Get in line online,” which reads: “The days of waiting in line and crossing fingers for a product are over for our customers. The Apple Store app and our online store make it much easier to purchase Apple Watch and the new MacBook. Customers will know exactly when and where their product arrives”

I know we all want to believe that Apple cares about people buying product and shipping it elsewhere, I don't think its something they worry about. What they WILL worry about is the bottom line through the supply chain. Lets say a base macbook costs them $500.00 to manufacture boxed and ready to go - in China. Now factor in marketing and all the other costs associated with a product (before shipping and warehousing) - Lets say they're now at $600.00.

Great, now you have a large customer base ready to walk into Apple stores everywhere around the world to purchase this laptop. For a launch your talking about expedited cargo flights all over the world. These flights are very expensive. Once the flights reach their different destinations they have to pay to have the goods trucked to distribution centers and finally pay again for local delivery to the store (Apple or otherwise) Somewhere along the line someone says wait, we can pick up an extra 5%-10% profit margin if we simply ship once directly from China. Expedited shipping, the customer pays for. Brilliant. Plus we don't have these gear heads (us) mucking up our fashion line launch crowding the stores to finger a new laptop they probably won't buy today. Understand too that Apple is easily making much more profit on a SS watch then on a $1299 laptop. Which would they rather sell? If I were Apple, I would make this move too.

I am amazed that on any given day of the week there are 20-30 customers in an Apple store. Most want to know how to check their email or work FaceTime - in other words, they ain't buying anything - Yet they have to pay 20 kids to handle everyone walking in the door. This gets expensive. Yea it sucks that they took a Christmas morning away from everyone last Friday but I think this will be the new business as usual for launches (except phones - They know EVERYONE in line on launch day for a phone will actually take a phone)
 
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