Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
No, we're going to lose more and more ports to the reality that they will become obsolete, replaced with wireless options, cloud services or simply shrunken versions of their former selves.

The concept of the MacBook Air is that there is a market full of people that want as thin and light a notebook as possible. Those people don't give a damn about ports. They want as much of a standalone device as possible.

Speak for yourself. If I can't have a DVD drive, I need to be able to hook one up. I also need to have a way to put things on there without networking. USB isn't obsolete, wireless doesn't always work. Storage will never become obsolete.
 
Yep, was making a reference to the quality of the new iWork applications. Well, really, they basically rewrote large portions of the app (apparently). I'm told it's 64-bit now and wasn't before. If they did a large amount of rewrite, a little loss is expected.

Maybe functionality will be restored to the iWork and iLife apps in much the same way (and hopefully as a quickly) as Apple updated Final Cut Pro X.
 
Speak for yourself. If I can't have a DVD drive, I need to be able to hook one up. I also need to have a way to put things on there without networking. USB isn't obsolete, wireless doesn't always work. Storage will never become obsolete.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think it is important to look at the new Mac Pro to get an idea where Apple is headed. If Apple wanted to move away from USB, the Mac Pro would probably have even more Thunderbolt 2 ports with a USB adapter option. While Apple has dumped Ethernet across the laptop lines (except for the old 13" MacBook Pro), it is still available in all desktops and there is a Thunderbolt gigabit Ethernet adapter for laptops. It makes sense that Apple's laptops don't have a dedicated Ethernet port, since laptops are usually mobile anyway.

I really hope storage capacity keeps increasing in Apple's various devices as SSDs get cheaper, because I will always prefer to keep my data stored locally (and backed up locally) instead of storing it all in the cloud.
 
I wouldn't call Chromebooks cheap computers for people so poor their idea of fine dining is eating straight out of a can of Chef Boyardee that was cooked over a hotplate, but they are disposable computers.

That's their shtick. They're not meant to be slick, top of the line PCs. They're what you get if you just want something cheap to work with. They're no frills, no spills, no emotional attachment machines. If you accidentally drop one down the stairs and shatter it into a million pieces...oh well. Just buy another.

All computers are disposal, and no one should EVER become emotionally attached to a computer. That's unhealthy.

----------

We haven't deployed the new iWork in our school district, but many of our students use the old version of Keynote for digital storytelling, portfolios, and, of course, presentations. I guess you are making a statement about how bad the new iWork is? It is too bad many features have been removed. Hopefully, Apple will add them back. I am guessing they had to remove features to give the user nearly the same experience on the OS X, iOS, and cloud versions. Luckily, the old apps are still very functional. We will likely continue to deploy them until we are satisfied that the new version of iWork (or individual apps) meet our needs.

The only issue I could see with that is in the future, there is a very good chance that Office will stay the standard in the workplace, I would perfer the kids using Office from a young age, so it becomes second nature. I was glad we always used Office in school when I got into college, as everything in college was 100% office. As is everything in the business world.

----------

No, we're going to lose more and more ports to the reality that they will become obsolete, replaced with wireless options, cloud services or simply shrunken versions of their former selves.

The concept of the MacBook Air is that there is a market full of people that want as thin and light a notebook as possible. Those people don't give a damn about ports. They want as much of a standalone device as possible.

Ports will not die out, a physical port is more reliable and more secure than a wireless connection, and local storage will always be more secure than the cloud.
 
Um...??

The desktop and workstation market is dead. It's not the trend anymore. Those are devices we are forced to use in a work environment.

You are failing to see the big picture here: there are more ****ing smartphones and tablets in the market right now than there are total desktop/workstation units, and all this happened in the last 5 years!

So... yeah... Intel ****ed themselves. You get complacent and you WILL be run over and you WILL die.

FOLLOW THE MONEY!

Desktops and workstations are dead?

You realize all that useless Angry bird content you pay for on the iTunes store, or any software needs to be created on high performance hardware? Tablets are not high performance hardware, most Laptops are not either.
 
Wow - that has only taken 20 years or so to be adopted. ARM first appeared in the BBC computer
 
Maybe functionality will be restored to the iWork and iLife apps in much the same way (and hopefully as a quickly) as Apple updated Final Cut Pro X.

Hope so.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think it is important to look at the new Mac Pro to get an idea where Apple is headed. If Apple wanted to move away from USB, the Mac Pro would probably have even more Thunderbolt 2 ports with a USB adapter option. While Apple has dumped Ethernet across the laptop lines (except for the old 13" MacBook Pro), it is still available in all desktops and there is a Thunderbolt gigabit Ethernet adapter for laptops. It makes sense that Apple's laptops don't have a dedicated Ethernet port, since laptops are usually mobile anyway.

I really hope storage capacity keeps increasing in Apple's various devices as SSDs get cheaper, because I will always prefer to keep my data stored locally (and backed up locally) instead of storing it all in the cloud.

Local always beats the cloud.
 
I hope this says nothing about the future of the MacBook Air or any Mac.

What's the difference? If ARM gets to the point that it is is capable of delivering the same experience while making the hardware thinner, lighter, more power efficient then the chip inside is moot. It's all about the experience and nobody knows that better than Apple.
 
What's the difference? If ARM gets to the point that it is is capable of delivering the same experience while making the hardware thinner, lighter, more power efficient then the chip inside is moot. It's all about the experience and nobody knows that better than Apple.

Because I'd rather have one computer that gets all my work done, whether it be OS X or Windows. And if it comes down to it, I'd have to give up OS X and go back to Windows for good. There's more to x86 than power, there's compatibility. ARM doesn't run much in the way of things I need.
 
Desktops and workstations are dead?

You realize all that useless Angry bird content you pay for on the iTunes store, or any software needs to be created on high performance hardware? Tablets are not high performance hardware, most Laptops are not either.

Sure. And people don't buy those every year. You're living in a world where you assume there are more techies than normies out there.
 
iOS and OS X merge codebase in 2015. I'm calling it. Announcement at WWDC 2014. It's why the iWork apps are all getting lined up and why the 5S has a 64-bit proc.

"We decided not to introduce iOS 8 and OS X.10. We're introducing AppleOS 1."

Yes, what you predict isn't that far fetched at all. Very likely indeed.
 
Apple would lose some software developers by switching away from Intel Core processors.

Being one of them, I can tell you that switching any software written in the last three years to ARM is about as difficult as adding a switch to the compiler settings and compiling again.

----------

Not even close, all apple has really done is license the arm architecture and make very slight tweaks. The brute of the work is still done by ARM itself. Also arm is still no where near the performance of laptop and desktop class x86 chips.

Yeah, Apple paid $300 million for PA-Risc just to make a few tweaks...
 
Being one of them, I can tell you that switching any software written in the last three years to ARM is about as difficult as adding a switch to the compiler settings and compiling again.

----------



Yeah, Apple paid $300 million for PA-Risc just to make a few tweaks...

I assume you're offering to recompile all the software people need, and then make the software that people use that only works on Windows also work on OS X? Because if you are, I'm totally down for the change. :D
 
Don't see any reason for Apple to give Intel more control than they already have. Apple's current setup seems to be working well for them.

Intels processes advantage over, well... EVERYONE is a damned good reason.
 
Sure. And people don't buy those every year. You're living in a world where you assume there are more techies than normies out there.

Actually, lots of development houses and production houses and engineering companies update their workstations every year to the latest and greatest, or upgrade workstations hardware to the best, because the faster tasks can be accomplished, the better productivity you have.

The company I used to work for until very recently would spend about 35-40K per work station every other year.
 
Because I'd rather have one computer that gets all my work done, whether it be OS X or Windows. And if it comes down to it, I'd have to give up OS X and go back to Windows for good. There's more to x86 than power, there's compatibility. ARM doesn't run much in the way of things I need.

If ARM gets to the point that it is is capable of delivering the same experience

Is there a reason OSX (or OSXI) couldn't be engineered to run on ARM the same way OSX was retooled to run on Intel? That was my point.
 
Is there a reason OSX (or OSXI) couldn't be engineered to run on ARM the same way OSX was retooled to run on Intel? That was my point.

And ... everything I have that runs on OS X at this point is going to get recompiled by the recompile fairies?
 
Last edited:
Is there a reason OSX (or OSXI) couldn't be engineered to run on ARM the same way OSX was retooled to run on Intel? That was my point.

Yep.

If your dealing with anything that requires lots of CPU power, or lots of multi tasking, or audio and video editing, lots of number crunching.

The Current Crop of ARM just won't cut it. They can't compete with Intel processors. The A7 for example can hardly run with a Core 2, which is based on technology that's nearly 10 years old now.
 
I think Intel is manufacturing the new ARM CPU's for another reason: they will the main processing chip for a new generation of wireless routers with improved 802.11b/g/n/ac support. Indeed, don't be surprised by late 2014 that new 802.11ac wireless routers from Asus, Belkin, Netgear, etc. all use these new Intel ARM CPU chips.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.