Everyone says this, and then the first second they go to work and get anything less than a full 8 hours of YouTube they start whining hysterically that the battery life is terrible.
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Intel Shares New Details on Low-Power Core M Broadwell Processors
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Everyone says this, and then the first second they go to work and get anything less than a full 8 hours of YouTube they start whining hysterically that the battery life is terrible.
Why won't this idea die?
People want the MacBook Air and iPad to merge. People want the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air to merge.
If you draw a spectrum from high-end laptop to mini-tablet, Apple has picked points along the way to make products, and made really great products at that.
MBP > MBA > iPad Air > iPad Mini
Pick a product, or products that fit your needs. Don't condense the entire line into one jack-of-all-trades that's good at nothing.
So why are you here? This is a site for Mac rumors. If you're still one of the hopefuls that wants Apple to cater to the tiny market that wants a super powerful Mac laptop, you're delusional.
In the meantime, lets get back to being excited about the fact that portable computing is continuing to get more portable.
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Do you know what else most people are doing?
Buying PCs.
Most people aren't buying thick, super powerful PCs though. They are buying cheap, small, overclocked and inefficient PCs.
These are great posts guys - thanks! Far more knowledgable about the details than I am.
I see what you're saying Usamaah and I would tend to agree with you in that I wouldn't be upset in the slightest if Apple lays off the processor this go around and only makes minor tweaks. As you stated, there still aren't any apps that truly push the A7 to its max and Apple has such a large lead here it would go against their business history to jump even farther ahead than they really have to.
On the other hand, as name99 points out, Apple has increased processor performance by at least 1.4-1.5x with every new generation - especially since they took over the designing of the A series chips.
Should be interesting to see what they pack in there. I would be surprised if we see the "X" variant pop up again - A8 in the iPhone 4.7" and iPad Mini, A8X in the iPhone 5.5" and iPad Air. Something to make the $100 price jump feel more valuable.
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My work Dell runs on a Core 2 Duo. Granted I don't do a ton of heavy lifting, but the A7 is just as powerful processor wise.
The real work lies in the adaptation of legacy software to a different processor type/architecture. But we're already starting to see that with Office. It'll take more niche/specialized software a little longer to get there, but we're far closer than a decade let alone 2 away from it being a reality.
I get it that Geekbench isn't the end all be all and there's more to it - but its a good general tool to compare:
Intel Core 2 Duo P9400 (Dell Lattitude): MultiCore Score = 2204
Apple A7 (iPad Air): MultiCore Score = 2467
I'm just looking forward to when they can get that down to 2.5 nm....which is the thickness of human DNA. Then we'll REALLY have wearables.
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Think this is relevant to our discussion and someone just posted it over in the Alternatives section:
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/130...t-64-bit-arm-chip-with-192-cores-so-important
And another link
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2463900/nvidia-reveals-pc-like-performance-for-denver-tegra-k1.html
Is Apple really that far ahead?
Nvidia is taking the "Apple" approach - dual core processor, big graphics power.
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You are off by quite a bit.
We are already much thinner than human hair, which is around 15-200 microns (not nanometers).
We are already much thinner than human hair, which is around 15-200 microns (not nanometers).
HA - that's what I get for not reading....
2.5 nm is the thickness of human DNA. Which, still works for my post.
Laptops are a much more mature market. They have existed for a lot longer. You see very little change from one model to the next. Pretty much just minor processor bumps. iDevices, on the other hand see considerable change. In addition to processor bumps (which themselves are more significant than desktop class bumps, since they use processors that are far less mature), you see improvements to other tech.... form factor, cameras, wi-fi, screens, NFC,...
And besides... what improvements to laptops are available but not implemented? What great processor is available but is not being used by Apple?
I am saying that lower power Xeon should have been given priority over ultrabooks.
In a desktop environment I'd agree. I'll take a power hungry beast that I can over clock to the moon over a CPU that sips electricity. In a laptop however, or any mobile device, I welcome power savings.
So i understand you correctly, you are saying you want Xeon (server class) processors in notebook computers? I can't see power consumption mattering unless that is what you are saying...
Well, it appears some companies are doing such... such as Eurocom. But their own opinion on it is:
"Eurocom won't like us calling it a laptop: the official name is Mobile Server supercomputer-class laptop.
Doesn't much seem like this would target anywhere near enough people to be worth the effort. So maybe 1/2 of 1% of computer users would want/need such a thing... so Apple should cease development on different products that target different users altogether and focus on this?
Yea, Broadwell feels like a stop-gap CPU, even though it's an amazing achievement.
Skylake brings: DDR4, USB3.1, SATA Express, WiGig = More interesting.
Those are the Clevo chassis I'm referring to. They are 6cm thick, weigh 5.5Kg, and battery time is minimal. So it is a very small niche market.
If there were lower power Xeons that made possible something like a 3cm thick computer, there would be a lot more people buying them, still within the mobile workstation market.
These processors would also be in high demand at datacenters, were ARM is making inroads because of the high cost of power and cooling.
Apple has a lot of money, if they cared about computing besides maximising profits at massive margins and huge volume, they would dedicate a bit of resources to this.
The "simplification beyond reason" philosophy would also be at fault here.
But this discussion is not about what Apple does, but Intel.
Fair enough... but it's going to be quite a while. And yes, this is an Intel issue. Unless Apple wants to start their own fab. And unless that has already been ongoing in secret, with secret factories filled with oompa loompas, would take even longer to have anything good than what Intel will do.
Wrong. Have a look at THIS:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/26446030?tstart=0#26446030
500+ pages thread about radeongate. And in some previous MBP models, Nvidia cards showed problems, too.
Like I said: after nearly 20 years of using Apple products, I won't be buying another laptop from them – unless they acknowledge and rectify the problem. A $2k laptop HAS to last longer than 2-3 years.
In a year or two, we'll know more about the retina line's longevity... but 'til then, it's a gamble.
Older Apple laptops may last longer. And to be honest: I still have a 2008 white Macbook which is running fine. I'm actually using it this very moment, because the 2011 MBP hit the dust.
