Gurman: Cheaper iPad to Debut Next Week, Sub-$1,000 MacBook Likely Not Ready Yet

[iMi]

The iWork suite is actually quite underrated.

Keynote, believe it or not, holds its own alongside MUCH more expensive design software. I've used it extensively for high-level corporate presentations and PowerPoint can't even begin to compare. Recent versions of PPT have gotten better, but fluidity of the motion effects is just not there, no matter how hard you try. Everyone at the company loved it... except for the fact that you can't run a Keynote deck on a PC. (And that's not even getting into the fact that you can paste vector objects directly between Adobe Illustrator and Keynote and transform them in all kinds of ways, which is a designer's dream). I kind of used Keynote as a trojan horse to make them give me a Mac and to generally have more Macs around the office

Pages, I don't know as much about, but it seems to have a lot of the same very smart layout tools as Keynote, and generally performs beautifully. I'm sure there are some features that it doesn't have that Word has, but my guess is 95% of users never touch them. Most editors I've seen mostly just use commenting and revision tracking, which Pages does nicely.

Numbers? I love it, but spreadsheet nerds need more. People do mind-blowing thngs with Excel. At my old job they used to have it pull and update info directly from some big database somewhere. And the charting it can do is insane. I'm not a spreadsheet person so I'm kind of talking out my *** here, but I do know Numbers is not remotely in the same league. Score one for Microsoft here.

People don't seem to realize this, but you can collaborate in real time on iWork documents right from the apps. Kind of like Google Docs, but not inside a frickin' browser and not being info-harvested by Google. People also don't realize (and Apple doesn't seem to have publicized enough) that iCloud.com lets you edit iWork documents much the way Google Docs does.

Anyway, yeah, iWork is great -- but in the larger corporate world? Office has decades of advantage there and even if Apple did make a cross-platform version of the iWork suite (which they will not), it would never take a foothold.

Agree with 100% of everything you said. That’s why I hope they improve it. I work a lot with iWork and love it, especially Keynote. Compatibility and feature improvements versus Excel in particular would be very welcome. I hope to someday stop using Office all together because iWork suite is far more power efficient. Great apps to work with on the go.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Sure it does. It even puts stuff in its entry level machines that are cutting edge and cost extra to put in, stuff that even higher end machines of the same era from competitors don't have.

For example, Apple had USB before anyone else.

And the MacBooks had FireWire for a long, long time... right from launch. Hell, even the G3 iBooks had FireWire.

Yeah, reaching back to early Jobs II era really has no application in the Tim Cook era. I mean you are reaching back 10+ years to find an example. If you want to hope a $750 entry Mac laptop is going to have TB3 go ahead and waste your weekend. It's not worth debating anymore.

 

[EugW]

Yeah, reaching back to early Jobs II era really has no application in the Tim Cook era. I mean you are reaching back 10+ years to find an example. If you want to hope a $750 entry Mac laptop is going to have TB3 go ahead and waste your weekend. It's not worth debating anymore.

Who said anything about a $750 laptop? First of all we were talking MacBooks in 2019, not 2018, and personally I’d guess a cheaper entry level Mac would be $900.

BTW, you changed your goalposts. You said Apple wouldn’t do something and when I proved they did, you said that doesn’t count. Nice.

 

[truthertech]

Apple kills the Air in favor a cheaper Macbook with garbage keyboard and no ports!

Woohoo!

And Apple will tell us how "courageous" it is . . .

That "courage" slam is so dated; you've got to come up with something new to slam Apple with. In fact, it was old in about a week a couple of years ago. Maybe bring up something about dongles? Or, you could attack the Mini as very dated. Wait, they are all pretty stale. Please try and think of something new.

 

[ignatius345]

Everything is wireless today. Keyboards, mice, cloud storage, etc.

Transfer a 64GB card full of photos wirelessly sometime and let us all know how fast that happens. Or do a backup of your machine over crappy wifi while someone else is streaming a movie. Maybe in Apple commercials "everything is wireless" but in the real world you still need to plug things in. Besides, it's not like we're really getting anything in exchange for losing ports, except shaving a few millimeters of thickness that nobody asked for.
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Makes more sense than releasing an updated MacBook Air. The 12 inch MacBook is an awesome machine, just throw an extra port on the other side and many would be happy.

And a real keyboard. And a more substantial battery. And... oh wait, this is turning into a MacBook Air with a retina screen. Oops.

 

[csurfr]

Transfer a 64GB card full of photos wirelessly sometime and let us all know how fast that happens. Or do a backup of your machine over crappy wifi while someone else is streaming a movie. Maybe in Apple commercials "everything is wireless" but in the real world you still need to plug things in. Besides, it's not like we're really getting anything in exchange for losing ports, except shaving a few millimeters of thickness that nobody asked for.

I do live "in the real world", and do everything just fine wirelessly. My 5k iMac / 2017 MacBook Pro all backup to an AirPort Extreme Time Capsule 2x/day. All the while I can can transfer files to/from the USB Drive attached to said Time Capsule AND stream a 4k movie without zero issues. I have Time Capsule backups run perfectly fine over my "crappy wifi" 5ghz network and so do transfers to my other USB Drive. That same "crappy wifi" lets my machines download at over 35-40MB / sec via the internet. Not sure what router you have at home, maybe you should look at upgrading it.

 

[ignatius345]

I do live "in the real world", and do everything just fine wirelessly. My 5k iMac / 2017 MacBook Pro all backup to an AirPort Extreme Time Capsule 2x/day. All the while I can can transfer files to/from the USB Drive attached to said Time Capsule AND stream a 4k movie without zero issues. I have Time Capsule backups run perfectly fine over my "crappy wifi" 5ghz network and so do transfers to my other USB Drive. That same "crappy wifi" lets my machines download at over 35-40MB / sec via the internet. Not sure what router you have at home, maybe you should look at upgrading it.

Everyone really applauds your wireless life, mate. You're doing really well. Meanwhile, other people want a place to plug their **** in.

 

[csurfr]

Everyone really applauds your wireless life, mate. You're doing really well. Meanwhile, other people want a place to plug their **** in.

Yep, life is pretty good being untethered. You should try it sometime.

 

[Applebot1]

I understand why Apple made the transition. The point of bringing it up was to point out that Apple once had control of it's CPUs and Intel got out ahead of it so far that Apple felt compelled to switch. The specific reason why is not so important as the idea that Apple having control of it's CPU doesn't automatically mean they would keep their CPU up to snuff vs. entities like Intel. So wishing Apple would adopt A-Series Macs may be wishing for a somewhat repeat of history.

Those of us that went through that transition may not remember it as too painful because Rosetta mostly smoothed over the potential pain. But- best I know- there is no Rosetta 2 laying around out there somewhere to smooth over this hypothetical transition. IMO, had there been no Rosetta, our memories of the transition would not be nearly so mild... and, if so, even the hint of going through another CPU transition would be more toward the terrifying instead of easily tossed around like the biggest issue here is simply Apple slugging in a different CPU.

In this scenario, there would be a new A-Series Mac laptop rolled out joining all the rest of the Macs all based in Intel. Do the non-Apple devs start aggressively transitioning their software to support this one Mac or do they opt to wait and see how well it sells since that will probably drive whether Apple would opt to take the rest of the Mac lines that way too? Do consumers that don't automatically buy anything Apple chooses to roll out jump on this or wait and see if key software is adapted to run on it too? If Apple doesn't see fairly quick, fairly huge profits from it, do they lose interest?

What made it go smoothly last time is that the consequence of "wait & see" did not apply (thanks to Rosetta). Macs were clearly falling behind and Intel advantages were piling up. Lots of us were waiting (pent up) demand for the PowerPC G5 laptop. Rosetta made it possible for Apple to fully embrace Intel in all Macs (not just one) and not break lots of third party software, nor put consumers in a "wait & see" mode. This time, it appears to be different. And Apple knows that.

Yes I see your point and very valid. Just maybe though Apple could be working on an emulator?
They certainly have the resources.

It would be interesting to see what they would do if they did move from Intel. You know I think they will in the future but this is based on pure speculation and nothing else. Add to this it wouldn’t surprise me if they introduced a completely new designed OS as well at the same time to better suit the architecture.

 

[chucker23n1]

Transfer a 64GB card full of photos wirelessly sometime

How often do you find yourself doing that? (Even so, given an 800 Mbit/sec Wi-Fi, which is roughly what I get at home, it would take 12 minutes. That's not too terrible.)

If you're a pro photographer, sure, that's an integral part of your workflow. In that case, the MacBook is hardly for you, though.

Or do a backup of your machine over crappy wifi while someone else is streaming a movie.

Aside from Time Machine generally being rather slow, which isn't Wi-Fi's fault, this works fine for me.

Maybe in Apple commercials "everything is wireless" but in the real world you still need to plug things in.

I think you'll find that your use cases are outliers.
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Yes I see your point and very valid. Just maybe though Apple could be working on an emulator?
They certainly have the resources.

They could emulate x86 in ARM (Microsoft does this in Windows 10), but this wouldn't be an adequate solution for the entire Mac line-up. It might replace the MacBook, though.

 

[EugW]

I don’t use my MacBook ports much either but nonetheless having 2 ports would make usage and purchasing of adapters less annoying. I’d be fine with one charging port and one USBC i/o port but 2 ports would be better.

The fact that a few people have no use for ports and do everything over WiFi is irrelevant because most people can benefit from having 2 ports, even if only occasionally, esp. since one of the ports would be used for charging.

Ironically though, the MacBook actually DOES have 2 ports... but the second port is a headphone jack. Personally I would have chosen 2 USB-C ports and no headphone jack over 1 USB-C port plus headphone jack any day. This is especially true now that I was pushed to get AirPods after my courageous iPhone 7 Plus purchase, and I got a free set of Beats Wireless Solo3 headphones with my last edu Mac purchase.

 

[ignatius345]

How often do you find yourself doing that? (Even so, given an 800 Mbit/sec Wi-Fi, which is roughly what I get at home, it would take 12 minutes. That's not too terrible.)

If you're a pro photographer, sure, that's an integral part of your workflow. In that case, the MacBook is hardly for you, though.



Aside from Time Machine generally being rather slow, which isn't Wi-Fi's fault, this works fine for me.



I think you'll find that your use cases are outliers.
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They could emulate x86 in ARM (Microsoft does this in Windows 10), but this wouldn't be an adequate solution for the entire Mac line-up. It might replace the MacBook, though.

Hear that, everybody complaining about not having ports? You don't need them!

 

[chucker23n1]

Hear that, everybody complaining about not having ports? You don't need them!

How is that even remotely what I said?

(The single-port MacBook wouldn’t work for my needs at all. It might for someone else’s, though.)

 

[DNichter]

Transfer a 64GB card full of photos wirelessly sometime and let us all know how fast that happens. Or do a backup of your machine over crappy wifi while someone else is streaming a movie. Maybe in Apple commercials "everything is wireless" but in the real world you still need to plug things in. Besides, it's not like we're really getting anything in exchange for losing ports, except shaving a few millimeters of thickness that nobody asked for.
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And a real keyboard. And a more substantial battery. And... oh wait, this is turning into a MacBook Air with a retina screen. Oops.

They can improve on the existing machine.

 

[Tech198]

They can improve on the existing machine.

They can, but if u start bringing over all the bells and whistles from other machines which make them stand apart from each other, the choice is not really a choice anymore.

Apple needs to keep each of these separate, while at the same time not cluttering up the features, like they do with previous iPad's

eg.. if u wait long enough the older generations will have the same features as iPad Pro.
So far its only been about ports... USB-C down to older Mac's so lets hope Retina screens will stay where they are.

They will if Apple doesn't up the graphics.

 

[DNichter]

The can but if u start bring over all the bells and whistles from other machines which make them stand apart from each other, the choice is not really a choice anymore.

I was just referring to battery life and keyboard improvements, not necessarily features.
[doublepost=1521934831][/doublepost]Besides photo and video work, people still need ports? I only ask because I had a MacBook and never needed them. Now I use an iPad Pro and cloud works fine. I also just keep any files I need on my NAS. Is it not possible to do photo or video work through a similar set up? One port to a larger display is the only thing that I’d need.

 

[Naimfan]

I was just referring to battery life and keyboard improvements, not necessarily features.
[doublepost=1521934831][/doublepost]Besides photo and video work, people still need ports? I only ask because I had a MacBook and never needed them. Now I use an iPad Pro and cloud works fine. I also just keep any files I need on my NAS. Is it not possible to do photo or video work through a similar set up? One port to a larger display is the only thing that I’d need.

I use all the ports on my 15" MBP every day. Not all at the same time, but every one of them gets used each day. Some work can't be done wirelessly for legal or security reasons.

 

[DNichter]

I use all the ports on my 15" MBP every day. Not all at the same time, but every one of them gets used each day. Some work can't be done wirelessly for legal or security reasons.

That’s fair. I guess specific use cases make sense. On this site, it seems like 4 ports are a must or the machine is a failure. I just didn’t see it. Thanks for the reply.

 

[albebaubles]

And sure, there are exceptions, like the new Mac Pro but they are for products that don't really have any existing sales that could be delayed by customers, either because the category didn't exist yet in Apple's portfolio (eg, Apple Watch) or have almost no sales (trashcan Mac Pro at this point in time). The MacBook Air hardly falls into that category, it's Apple's best selling Mac.

They always announce in advance now, just as they did with the original phone, the watch, the AirPods....

 

[manu chao]

They always announce in advance now, just as they did with the original phone, the watch, the AirPods....

Sure, when there is no existing (Apple) product category that people could put off buying, announcing things early can help build up expectations (iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods) but even that is not universal, note the iPad.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Sure, when there is no existing (Apple) product category that people could put off buying, announcing things early can help build up expectations (iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods) but even that is not universal, note the iPad.

Apple pre-announces quite regularly, mostly with the intent on freezing purchases on competing products. Just in the last year: the Mac Pro (probably ships this year but maybe next year, as far as we know); the iMac Pro, the Mac mini (sort of, anyway, though Cook actually said it’s not time to share any details), HomePod, the AirPod wireless charging case, the AirPower charging mat, and maybe others I’ve forgotten.

Apple Watch seems to be on a yearly update schedule (Sept), but at some point the category will mature and I’d expect a 18-24 month update cycle. And of course iPhones are in Sept as well, so those don’t need to be pre-announced.

MacBook Pro and iMacs are usually updated every year, but the exact schedule is influenced more by Intel’s shipping schedule than anything else, so the exact timing varies—and yearly updates aren’t a given. But for the most part users know the drill and tend to wait for the year’s new release if they can, but buy the current model if they need something now and can’t wait.

What they don’t tend to announce in advance are next-gen updates to products that aren’t released regularly: iPad, iPad Pro, iPhone SE, AirPods, Pencil, MacBook Air come to mind. Apple thinks the current models are great, and new models will be even better. (For the most part that’s proven true.) No reason for Apple to freeze customers’ purchase decisions by pre-announcing. It would only serve to cause a hiccup in the supply chain, and push out revenue, needlessly.

 

[manu chao]

Apple pre-announces quite regularly, mostly with the intent on freezing purchases on competing products. Just in the last year: the Mac Pro (probably ships this year but maybe next year, as far as we know); the iMac Pro, the Mac mini (sort of, anyway, though Cook actually said it’s not time to share any details), HomePod, the AirPod wireless charging case, the AirPower charging mat, and maybe others I’ve forgotten.

Your ability to ignore a point being made when it doesn't fit your narrative is remarkable. Almost all your examples are for products where Apple didn't have an existing product that people might stop buying when Apple pre-announced something new, with the rest being products (Mac Pro and iMac Pro) where Apple has extremely low sales already (current Mac Pro). I've made this point several times already, your refusal to even acknowledge it just shows how unable you are to admit that you were wrong. And in regard to the Mac Mini, calling an email by Tim Cook that there will be something interesting as an announcement is really grasping at straws and that is before taking into a account that the sales of the Mac Mini are also pretty tiny right now.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Your ability to ignore a point being made when it doesn't fit your narrative is remarkable. Almost all your examples are for products where Apple didn't have an existing product that people might stop buying when Apple pre-announced something new, with the rest being products (Mac Pro and iMac Pro) where Apple has extremely low sales already (current Mac Pro). I've made this point several times already, your refusal to even acknowledge it just shows how unable you are to admit that you were wrong. And in regard to the Mac Mini, calling an email by Tim Cook that there will be something interesting as an announcement is really grasping at straws and that is before taking into a account that the sales of the Mac Mini are also pretty tiny right now.

1) I’m not who you think you I am
2) I was (I think) agreeing with you that it’s mostly new product categories (specifically, where Apple wants to freeze buyer purchase decisions for competing products) that are pre-announced.
3) I mentioned many products that are not pre-announced precisely because Apple doesn’t need the disruption that the Osborne effect would cause—I presume you agree but you snipped it for reasons unknown.
4) Apple’s uncharacteristic communication regarding Mac/iMac Pro (and Mac mini) have more to do with damage control/PR/common decency in acknowledging long-neglected product lines rather than the fact that they are low volume models. The professional sector is strategic to Apple and is valuable beyond what the low sales numbers would indicate.