And then someone will come up with the brilliant idea to attach the keyboard to the screen with a hinge, add some I/O ports and we are back at square one. Another important difference is the OS of course, which is much more open ended in use on the traditional desktop/laptop. I sincerely hope it stays that way as well.
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Intel's Iris Graphics Boost 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro GPU Performance by 50% or More
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And then someone will come up with the brilliant idea to attach the keyboard to the screen with a hinge, add some I/O ports and we are back at square one. Another important difference is the OS of course, which is much more open ended in use on the traditional desktop/laptop. I sincerely hope it stays that way as well.
The future you're predicting is a distant past. iOS is already outselling OS X ten to one.
Yes, there is nothing Pro about the "second-highest resolution notebook" in the world. Why should anyone want to have such a machine? In the end the only thing that really says professional is frames per second in gaming, not pixels per inch in some stupid work related application where things don't move.
I doubt everyone will be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I do see touch eventually becoming the main method of input in the near future. At the very least, dockable screen laptops will replace MBA/MBP style machines, and I think it'll be some future version of a high end iPad, rather than a Mac, that will be what leads the charge into that form factor for Apple.
This is one of the reasons why I think it will happen, but the big change-over hasn't happened yet. The iPad as it is still isn't the best place to do everything you want to do. It's not as, to paraphrase Subsonix above, open ended as a traditional laptop. Some improvements need to be made to iOS, and it needs to be able to accept more methods of input before it'll happen.
Great, because it is already.
The market share of computers that accept mouse input is roughly 1/3.
And it will never be the best place for everything.
But in its simplicity it is open to much more users than even the best desktop OS.
Not for everything. We're still not at the point where a tablet can completely replace a laptop, and do all the things a laptop can do just as well as, if not better than one.
We're getting to that point, but we're not there yet. Right now, if you want to do certain tasks, you gotta get a laptop.
A good OS is one that's simple enough that everyone can use it, but powerful and flexible enough a power user can do what they want to do with it.
It's not always just about simplicity.
Quite contrary, I do believe there is a lot of reasons why someone would want to have such a machine. I just don't think it warrants the Pro name as much as it's bigger brother with the discrete GPU.
Also no where did I say gaming -- I do happen to enjoy playing games myself, but the HD 4000 graphics in my Mac mini more than covers my needs in that department. I also happen to be someone who has used the GPU for professional reasons and I saw first hand issues that happened on integrated video that never happened on a relatively cheap Nvidia or AMD GPU. There is a huge difference. For daily usage, any integrated GPU is going to be fine. But toss a few shaders at it doing multisampling and some complex pixel transformations, and it's going to buckle.
And if GPUs aren't really that important to professionals, why does the Mac Pro have two high end GPUs? One of them is even rumored to be for computation only and not connected to the display path in any way. All of that is certainly not for gaming.
I think part of the problem is that Apple used to have two product lines -- the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. And it was pretty clear which line was meant for. The MacBook Air muddied the water because in some ways, it fit in between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro (all SSD storage, for example) and also at the low end ($999 for the 11"). Since then, we've had the introduction of the Retina MacBook Pros and the plain MacBook has gone away. There is a lot of crossover between -- I know people with Airs that use them professionally and people with Pros that bought them for home use. And I think that Apple realizes too that there is less money to be made catering for the high end professional user and has instead decided to cater to the 80% that are okay with integrated GPUs. I don't have a problem with that, but it has diluted the MacBook Pro name a bit, IMO.
Currently, I really have only one option to get a Mac laptop with a discrete GPU if I want to buy a current model (and, yes, I'm planning to buy it in the next month or so). It used to be an option on all of the Pros while the MacBooks all had integrated GPUs. Now the Pro name no longer means that, which is a shame.
Only if you're throwing all "computers" together. You know, saying that people are not using laptops and desktops in favor of a smartphone or tablet, not seeing them as the companion devices that they are for a majority of the world.
And we don't need to. The fate of tablets is not defined by their ability to replace laptops. Much like the fate of laptops was not defined by replacing a desktop with a beefy graphics card. Each viable computer category has its own rules for success.
We are not going there and we will never arrive there. Tablets do not develop into become the next kind of laptops. That spot is taken by Ultrabooks. Tablets are becoming even more like tablets are.
Certain tasks in a certain way. Tablets will find new ways to do the same tasks or simply avoid doing these tasks at all.
Nope, a good OS is doing its task in the best possible way. iOS has no obligation to be for power users. Most of the people are not and will never be power users.
If you want to reach all of human kind than simplicity will always be king.
Actually, yeah they were. Laptops outsell desktops by a huge, HUGE margin, and they were able to do so because they can replicate 99.9% of everything a desktop can do. Desktops will, of course, have better access to faster GPUs, but it's not like a high end laptop is achingly slow in comparison.
Everything you can do on a laptop can be done on a tablet. But yes, it'll have to do those same tasks a different way. As we're finding out with the Surface Pro, traditional mouse driven interfaces don't work with touch based input. You'll have to have new UIs to account for the different methods you'll be using to interact with the device.
And no, tablets aren't becoming more focused on what tablets have traditionally been used for. They're slowly expanding in both functionality and power, and are starting to make their way into places normally held by laptops and desktops. This trend is only going to continue.
Exactly. A good OS is doing it's task in the best possible way. You've got that right. But a good OS has to both address people who want to use their device for mere entertainment, or get some work done in an efficient manner. To reach all of human kind as you're saying, you have to have an OS capable of addressing every possible need.
Simplicity for the sake of simplicity only addresses the lowest common denominator, and won't ever excel at anything besides being simple.
So it is kind of Pro, just not as Pro? Half pregnant.
Is Iris Pro considerably faster than HD 5000? Yes! And thats all it needs to be a Pro not an Air.
Because they are desktops and battery life isn't a concern with stationary computers. MacBook Pros never had the same graphics capabilities as Mac Pros. And they never will. Instead of iPhone 5s, Apple could have named it the iPhone Pro because its twice as fast as an iPhone 5c and thats the only adequate level of comparison. The MacBook Pro only needs to be Pro in concern with other MacBooks who are none Pro.
There is no problem. iBooks used to be computers, now they are an ebook file format. The meaning of names is changing. Just deal with it.
And in my opinion, you can only call it a MacBook Pro if it has a Retina Display. I don't consider dedicated graphics a pro-feature if they come with low-resolution displays. They should have renamed the old "MacBook Pro" to "MacBook with Spinning Disks" instead. And the "MacBook Pro with Retina Display" should just be called the "MacBook Pro". Because that what it is to me, no matter whether the graphics are integrated or dedicated.
Pro also used to mean having to carry around a heavy optical disc drive. This is no longer the case (at least not with new MacBook Pros) and that is hardly a shame. Go with the future and have a read.
Tablets and smartphones are outselling desktops and laptops by an even larger margin, and they do so by not replicating everything the others can do. And a laptop is a very bad replacement for a desktop considering screen size.
And while laptops have become more functional and powerful every year, they didn't somehow turn into desktops till today. Because of heat and power constraints laptops will always lag behind desktops in CPU and GPU capabilities. And now laptop GPUs even become integrated with low-power CPUs because thats much better for being a laptop.
No you don't. You can address everyones simple needs with the same simple OS. And address the special needs of the few computer savvy people with another more sophisticated OS incorporated into a second device. OS X will remain as an OS for computer scientists and professionals.
With a simple tab, you can start a pre-programmed app, that is doing all kinds of sophisticated tasks for you. Someone else (the programmer of the app) just needs to do the complicated work for you in advance. So you can simply execute it. Thats enough for 99% of all tasks normal people can come up with. They couldn't do the complicated things themselves anyway, so there is absolutely no point in giving them file system access and control. They wouldn't know what to do, even if the OS would allow them to do everything.
You can always plug a laptop into an external monitor.
Plus tablets are smartphones are only replacing laptops for people who never truly needed a laptop in the first place. That doesn't necessarily mean that all tablets should be made specifically for people who don't need anything more. The form factor is too useful to relegate it to the role of glorified Facebook machines.
People have been able to buy desktop replacement laptops for years now. The only changes we're seeing now is that those very same desktop replacement machines are becoming thinner and more efficient.
My question is why have two OSes when one can do it all? Remember, simplicity isn't about removing features. It's about designing it so everything is intuitive and easy to come to terms with. A souped up iOS doesn't necessarily have to be any more difficult to use than iOS is now. You just have more options available to you.
As long as the underlying complexity stays out of the way for your average user, but is easy to access for people who need it, then no one's losing anything in the process. It can still be simple enough for Grandma to pick up and play with it, yet deep enough for power users to get things done with it.
That is a good OS. Not one stripped of parts, but one that's well designed. It's all about the ergonomics of the thing.
Of course there will be things you won't be able to do with a tablet. I wouldn't want to render something on anything but a beefy desktop. But there are things tablets can do quite well that they're not doing well right now. They don't currently, as in right this very moment, have the hardware or software to do it. I don't see why we should sacrifice potential for the sake of grandmas. Yeah, they deserve their simplicity, but they're not the only ones who deserve to have their computing needs taken care of, simply because there are more of them out there than there are 3D artists, painters, or movie editors.
On Mountain Lion the 2012 rMBP is sluggish. On Mavericks it's butter smooth. It's more like a software issue to me.
The 13in is way too small to do excessive work and lacks power.
So, the 13in Pro should just be a "MacBook"
In mean time the Air would pass the iGPU in the 13in.
So the 15in should be the only "Pro" in the MBP line.
(And/or bring back the damn 17in)
I still would buy it since I love the touch screen on that thing.
And it is a failed device bringing us closer to the day when Microsoft files for bankruptcy.
Thats what Windows 8 tried to achieve, one OS to rule them all. But you always have to make compromise. When you want both, you will lose a third thing. If you want a Tablet and also USB ports to connect all the old peripherals never designed for mobility, than your battery life will suffer. If you don't create something like AirPrint and make it the only accepted printing method on tablets, than you need to provide drivers for all printers out there. This will bloat your OS and kill the storage space in your 16GB Surface. So you will need to go with 32GB as minimum and loose your price competitiveness. You can create a squashy Touch Cover keyboard but it will never be as sturdy as an actual laptop, which now has kind of the same price as your hybrid device. Any true power user who actual needs the capabilities of a laptop will always go for a laptop and ignore your frankenstein experiment.
Thats the majority of people in the world. The same people who never truly needed a desktop.
iWork apps are free with all new iPads. That doesn't mean they are or will ever be desktop-class applications. Touch input limits the precision with which things can be selected and screen size limits the number of selectable choices. These are limitations of the form factor itself.
And they keep complaining about no dedicated graphics and no upgradeability because they still misunderstand what a laptop is. Its not a desktop to go, it has its own form factor limitations.
But mobility is about removing features, reducing everything to the minimum core of what you need to preserve the most basic functionality together with battery life. Thats what a tablet is and why it can't be a laptop.
Simplicity also means that you can not mess up the system no matter what you try to do. Higher complexity comes with more possibilities for failure and misunderstandings, which is the opposite of simplicity.
Grandpa is still smart enough to detect complexity where ever it hides and play with it till its broken. Power users always only want the best and thats more like a Mac Pro. Power users settle with less mobility in exchange for more power.
I don't know, maybe the A7 together with iMovie is already good enough to render movies. But it will never be the very best device to do this kind of tasks. As long as fingers are bigger than pixels mouse pointer will always be more accurate than touch screens.
All your higher computing needs are already taken care off by said desktops. The computer development began with fulfilling higher needs and is propagating into lower needs, finally coming down to people who only need them to update their relationship status on Facebook.
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And while your at it, bring the optical drive back!? A laptop is supposed to be a portable computer. 17-inch is at the very edge of only just being portable. The 17-inch existed as long as the 15-inch couldn't show as many pixels and the Air didn't set new weight expectations for laptops. With the 15-inch Retina Displays capability to show a scaled resolutions of 1920 by 1200, the old 17-inch display is useless. And a new 17-inch Retina Display would need to have 3840x2400 pixels. Good luck finding a mobile GPU running this resolution with a performance so that people around here are not complaining about it not being "Pro" enough.
You can think of it as the 15" macbook air that could have been.
Actually for me its an AirBook Pro.
Nothing bad with this except for the price.
2000€ are too much for a scaled down MacBookPro
and 2600€ are too much for a real MacBook Pro even more
if you consider how close is to the new Mac Pro price.
Last,if a quad core will land in the 13 after the retina coming in the Air,
i wonder then how many MacBookAir Pro with no discrete
would be sold and if Apple doing this would add back at a reasonable price
the discrete in.
Thats why i'm slowing down this time not buying already even if i have my money ready,its because i see the 2014 very crucial to understand which direction is really going Apple.
I hope they backpedal a little.
Thats why for me its very important to have the best gpu card i could put in in the moment i buy it,to last better and longer even because as IfixIt points out Apple is becoming a "glue hardware company addicted" which screws me a little.
A iGpu doesn't give me that sensation.
They are different machines,with Ipad you can start to work with ease in the very first beginning of an idea in the moment it comes because Ipad,Iphone are always on,then at home you can post-work your file and put the heavy brute force of a real desktop machine and software..thats why i'm considering to skip this Haswell generation to buy and Ipad Air and mini retina and then later on Spring a Mac Pro looking at what next June 2014 will bring in terms of Air and consequently in terms of 13 MacBook Pro.If 13 will add a quad i will buy it quite for sure even because Broadwell is rumored to have a 40% gain in terms of Igpu.
I would like it back.
In fact Im disappointed that they even took it out of the iMac.
Oh they would come out soon enough to power a 4K res.
Its just matter of time and whether Apple still believe they can benefit.
For portability issue that is exactly what the Air and MacBook is/was for.
Besides I even carry my 17in around from time to time.
Just bring the 13in down to a MacBook and keep the 15in.
Or at least add a dGPU to the 13in.
Some people cant benefit at all just from the Iris.
Iris Pro 5200 was rumored to be two and a half times as fast as the previous HD 4000. So the 150% gain from IvyBridge to Haswell iGPUs doesn't give you the sensation, but the 40% gain from Haswell to Broadwell iGPUs does?
The switch from dual-core to quad-core would mean an instand doubling in CPU power in certain scenarios, additional to the generational gains. But Intel will ask for more money for these chips and Apple wants to bring the price for the 13-inch Retina down. Not so good premises for this to happen.
And what does that have to do with the post that I replying to? It is the closest device currently available that meets the description Renzatic stated in his post.
that might take a while. their latest earnings are in; http://www.microsoft.com/investor/E...s/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY14/Q1/default.aspx
He wanted a more capable tablet, but the Surface Pro 2 is a hybrid. With an i5 Haswell processor, it is a laptop disguised as a tablet. That is not the same as being a tablet. Like drag queens aren't woman.
Because of Windows 8 lots of real laptops have touch screens now and they are even an requirement under the latest Ultrabook standard. I don't know what it is good for, maybe it's just a case of tablet-envy. Windows 8 isn't the answer for more capable tablets, maybe it is the answer for less capable laptops. (Also no one asked that question.)
Metro apps are dumped down to being able to even run on a phone. They are a great way to reduce the capabilities of a full-fledged laptop. Windows 8 might still lead to some new kind of touch desktop OS in a far future. Thats when they give up on Metro and use a Touch API for standard desktop applications. We will see. But it will do nothing for the progress of tablets. And at the moment it is an OS to be avoided. Especially if you think of yourself as a power user.