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MacBook Review Roundup: Major Design Appeal, but Too Many Key Compromises
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Actually not. OS X is basically built on top of UNIX/BSD Operating systems dating to around 1978.
Aqua which was tacked onto it around 2000.
So what, how much code do you think is shared with research Unix or BSD 4.3? The BSD part of OS X relates to the system call interface and the Unix user land utils. The idea that OS X is basically BSD with Aqua is a gross over simplification.
Technology is not code, code is rewritten / maintained / replaced. It is no different than taking an application and rewriting it for a new platform, it does not automatically make it new technology. In 1978 it was already a fully multi-tasking, fully multi-user operating system which abstracted hardware. Around 30 years ago was the beginning of the Mach Kernel which was a rewrite of sorts taking trying to make it a smaller kernel etc. But a lot of the code for it came from BSD, from UNIX textbooks etc.
Strip away the graphical user interface (Aqua) and it does not feel or look much different than it did way back then.
What have they really added to the base operating system that did not exist in 1978?
You are certainly entitled to your opinion and this is a forum for open discussion. My view of the Macbook is totally different than yours.
Of course not, but just looking at the sheer code size, especially for research Unix which was a couple of thousand lines of code. It only shares general fundamental ideas with what is considered Unix. A lot of things have been added, or changed.
The BSD part is user land Unix utils and the system calls interface, hardware abstraction and scheduling is handled by Mach. Stuff that are added, IOKit, VFS, Dtrace, MAC, BSM, HFS. For user land there are a lot of services and frameworks that are OS X, launchd, directory service, spotlight etc.
If you restrict yourself to BSD utilities and stay away from any system related duties perhaps.
A lot!
Form is supposed to follow function. That's not the case here, obviously. Light, svelt, hip, and shiny trumped connectivity, processing power, and usability. And they are charging a premium for it too.
That's fine. Just as long as those that buy one of these understand what they are getting and that they might find some things hard to achieve from a usability standpoint. I feel the iPad Air 2 also went heavy on form and not enough on function. Apple does that sometimes. It's fine, just know what you are getting and more importantly what you are NOT getting.
IMO, a refurbished MacBook Pro or even a new MBA is a better purchase and a more complete machine for the same money.
That's fine. Just as long as those that buy one of these understand what they are getting and that they might find some things hard to achieve from a usability standpoint. I feel the iPad Air 2 also went heavy on form and not enough on function. Apple does that sometimes. It's fine, just know what you are getting and more importantly what you are NOT getting.
IMO, a refurbished MacBook Pro or even a new MBA is a better purchase and a more complete machine for the same money.
These are not reasons why it will fail, for the same reasons the MBA did not fail.
My 2008 MBA had only 1 USB Port. My current 11" MBA has only 2… Yes, it has a Thunderbolt port, but who is really using this for anything other than a display port en-mass on an 11" Air…? Macbook Pro maybe..
The Air has no Ethernet port either. I have been able to live with USB dongles for Ethernet (cannot remember when I last needed it), HMDI (often handy and cheap to buy).
As for video editing, this is not aimed at Pro-Video editing, even at the price point many are complaining about. Very little these days appears to be aimed at Pro's anymore… Apple is about selling iPods, Phones, Tablets and consumer laptops and now Watches.. Not saying that is a negative, it is just a broad reality. Apple is not the 'Pro' niche it once was.
I do agree that the power port, is a real issue. As pre-magsafe, every laptop I ever owned had a faulty power port at some point, from cable snagging. Seeing as that is the only port, it really concerns me.
But will it result in the failure of the line? I think that they will possibly add another USB-C Port like they added an additional port to the MBA.
The iPad, which has no thunderbolt, has no separate power port, just enough CPU power, but not an excess of it, that aims itself as the lightest of devices, is even handicapped by being designed as a consumption device..... has sold 200 million units (60 million in a down year last year).
This device brings the same ultra-portable lightweight design that need to run ordinary work applications and not just as a consumption device....
Will Apple never learn that you cannot sacrifice ports, expandability, excess CPU for an ultralight design????
I think your iPad argument is also flawed as you are not taking into consideration, market saturation and evolution. In simple terms, all those who would buy an iPad already have and do not need another unless it breaks or [really] needs upgrading.
Also I have rarely used my iPad mini, since my iPhone 6 and will probably never use it again once I get the 12" Macbook.
So the iPad has not failed, if anything it has served it's purpose and now it is time for evolution.
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I don't think think the situations are the same.
The iPad 3 was underpowered to drive it's display, whereas the Intel HD 5300 is sufficient. There are 5-8 year old Macs running Yosemite reasonably well according to forum members, thus my Mac should be fine. I will also just use the Mac for Office, writing, and web browsing for which it will be perfect.
The biggest reason is this: I can always reinstall or stay on Yosemite. My iPad 3 was a joy under iOS 5 and iOS 6. Starting with iOS 7 and finally iOS 8 it has become a chore to use. If that happens, I can revert back to a previous OS on a Mac. You can't do that on an iOS device.
I think this is well put. I bought one, but I'm fully aware that it isn't the best value per dollar in the scheme of things. It fits what I need, though, and if someone thinks I'm wasting money I can understand it. I can also get over it pretty easy too because it's not like spending $300 more than a laptop is worth is such a catastrophic error in the scheme of things. It's just something fickle for debate and not much else.
If anyone cares why I decided to take the plunge...
I travel usually once every 4-6 weeks for business and then add many personal trips on top of this. I have to have my business machine with me almost all time (either a windows block or rmbp) and also take my personal machine. I'm not lazy, and probably in much better shape than many insinuating along these lines, but it does let me "take the edge" off of the bulk in my bag. I like this.
Almost all my gear is wireless. I hate cables with a passion. Wireless headphones for music, Synology NAS for data, and even my Canon 6D DLSR. So the lack of ports is probably aimed at someone in my situation. The only item I'll regularly have to plug in is my Garmin, and I'm hoping as wearables/Strava for wearables improves I can replace that too.
I imagine I will also pack it along in my photography pack just to have it as an option in the field if I want to pull in some shots and check out on a larger screen with basic edits in Adobe Camera Raw. Save the final edits for the iMac 27 with Wacom at home of course... OS X on a tiny and light device that can reduce a little weight in my pack over the current rmbp is interesting.
I will most certainly upgrade to a more powerful version when it is released. Until then I'm pretty sure I can make this work. I'll have 14 days to try and figure that out.
Probably a good thing, since they nearly died..... and probably would have if they had not widened their outlook to more than just the niche they had at the time.
Every laptop you probably owned up until this point probably had a port soldered to your motherboard. The torque of you plugging in something into that port badly prying it back and forth until the connections to the motherboard failed. The solution was typically to remove the motherboard and replace it (unless you lived in a developing nation where they would have just taken a soldering iron and fixed it; but not in the developed world).
The current port is connected using a long cable that plugs into the motherboard and is not under any stress at the motherboard. If you decide to really man-handle it and break it, you open up the case pull out the wire and replace the port.... in that the current solution is actually better.
All phone devices, all tablets will have to use a common charger in Europe soon, and having separate manufacturing lines is not a great solution. Sure they could support both, but then they don't use magsafe in phones or tablets either.... which according to one - is because it won't work in such a small profile machine (don't know if it is true or not). I am however surprised they have not figured creating a new class of chargers that have magsafe on the other end of the cable or something like that.... but then for my use case - I would not be using it at a desk... I would charge it like my iPad and take it with me when I need a portable device (without the charger). Of course my usecase is not all, and I do understand the feeling about losing it.
BTW, I was being sarcastic about it failing..... I think it will succeed far beyond what the cynics here think it will.... I would not be surprised if it made up more than 50% of the unit sales be the end of the first year (after they fill out the Macbook line).... more than 10 million units per year.
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CE3
"So because there would be no iOS without OSX that makes me ignorant? Ok."
No your statement demonstrates an ignorance of the differences and power of the two OSs.
All those apps you use were written by people who us XCode from Apple and run solely on OSX. OSX is a true "multi-tasking" OS and requires a more capable processor. The A8X in the iPad could do more than it current does with iOS , but Apple seems to like the handshake between the two.
BTW all you do on the iPad can be done equally as well, as faster and probably with more capabilities. But until the Air and now the rMB, was not as protable as the iPad.
"So because there would be no iOS without OSX that makes me ignorant? Ok."
No your statement demonstrates an ignorance of the differences and power of the two OSs.
All those apps you use were written by people who us XCode from Apple and run solely on OSX. OSX is a true "multi-tasking" OS and requires a more capable processor. The A8X in the iPad could do more than it current does with iOS , but Apple seems to like the handshake between the two.
BTW all you do on the iPad can be done equally as well, as faster and probably with more capabilities. But until the Air and now the rMB, was not as protable as the iPad.
As i said the first generation 13'' rMBP has way more gpu power than most 5-8 year old macs and some animations are very slow in Yosemite. Scaling modes and second displays are laggy. I would play round with the 12'' rMB in the Apple Store (when it is finally available) before pulling the trigger. It is also a good occasion to test the new keyboard. But your usage case seems like a perfect match and you probably won't have any problems. It still a pricey solution, but if you can afford it, have fun. And i totally sign your last paragraph. The possibility to revert back to previous OS is a blessing. I wish i could do that on my rMini.
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Oh absolutely.
Next week I plan on spending a good hour or so in the Apple Store typing the the keyboard, running multiple apps, and testing UI fluidity. I'm also going to compare it to the 13" MBA and MBP.
If I am satisfied with its performance I think I'll get one, if I'm not satisfied, I won't waste $1299.
That is a wise course of action, always best to try it out first to see if it meets your needs. It is one thing I miss here, no Apple stores and the concept of returning without questions asked (minus restocking fee) does not exist here
I plan on trying one out.... but it will probably be a few months yet before I pull the trigger.... If I am lucky I will be able to hold off until the refresh (in the Fall if my guess is correct). I do find the design to be very exciting.... hopefully it will meet all my expectations.
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By 2012 when Apple gave us a Macbook Pro without a DVD I hadn't used optical media for years.
Plus, everyone had been exposed to laptops without optical drives for years and years, both on Macbook Air and on half a decades worth of Netbooks.
The biggest gripe seems to be the single port, not CPU.
Personally I welcome the low-power CPU. I will never buy the Macbook in its current form but its weak processor might force Apple to do some major optimisation of OS X, which will benefit us all.
They've got access to Apple hardware before the general release, of course they are picked by Apple.
Are you the terminator or something? When do you sleep?
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Yea, and how well did that sell? That's right, it didn't sell much at all. Not until they put back in all the stuff people wanted.
Are you being facetious? I honestly can't tell, because I could use the same flippant attitude to minimise pretty much any technological advance.
Homestly, i really only sleep about three hours a night. They don't quite know why, just usually can't sleep till i'm dead tired (like dont sleep for days), or i take something.
Dam, woke up this morning, the masses are just not co-operating with the Macbook failure.....
The US is now showing 4-6 weeks delivery on ALL models (the rest of the world was at that state 12 hours ago). It went from 1 - 3 days, then 3 - 4 weeks, now 4 - 6 weeks...... obviously not popular at all.
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For all the naysayers about the MBA, I have lost count of how many times these last 2 months when a new light laptop comes out it is sold and reviewed as a "macbook air killer". If it were a failure, it would not always be used as the measuring stick. When you take the lead it sometimes takes a few generations for customers to see how it fits into their usecase. The original iPod, iPhone, iPad were not smash hits when they were first introduced.... but each of them were successes.
First quarter sales of the Macbook will not be hampered by poor sales, they will be hampered by limited component supply (mainly the 12-inch panel). Even with that it will still likely sell 400K+ in the first quarter. Obviously enough people see a use case for them.
The US is now showing 4-6 weeks delivery on ALL models (the rest of the world was at that state 12 hours ago). It went from 1 - 3 days, then 3 - 4 weeks, now 4 - 6 weeks...... obviously not popular at all.
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For all the naysayers about the MBA, I have lost count of how many times these last 2 months when a new light laptop comes out it is sold and reviewed as a "macbook air killer". If it were a failure, it would not always be used as the measuring stick. When you take the lead it sometimes takes a few generations for customers to see how it fits into their usecase. The original iPod, iPhone, iPad were not smash hits when they were first introduced.... but each of them were successes.
First quarter sales of the Macbook will not be hampered by poor sales, they will be hampered by limited component supply (mainly the 12-inch panel). Even with that it will still likely sell 400K+ in the first quarter. Obviously enough people see a use case for them.
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Are you being facetious? I honestly can't tell, because I could use the same flippant attitude to minimise pretty much any technological advance.
I am not being facetious. Each release had incremental releases but already by the end of the 70s and early 80s (Xenix was 80, BSD was around that time) it had all the services needed to be a fully multi-user, multi-tasking, operating system with drivers for hardware that was pretty bleeding edge (early CrayMP computers used a customized UNIX until they created their own proprietary operating system). It had network stacks, it had disk drivers.... It might not have had drivers for the million different devices that have come and gone since then.... but then those are only drivers. You could write C code and compile it (then C++). In fact it had a lot of stuff in it that Apple failed in trying to add to their obsolete OS 9 - the reason why they had to go out and buy NeXT in order to survive (started in 1985ish) which took UNIX/BSD as it's starting point and put a UI on top of it.
Someone above mentioned how it did not have HFS and IO KIt and all that stuff was added after the fact. HFS is just a glorified (and archaic) B-Tree directory system for hard drives (hmmm... yes, those did not exist back then). IO Kit was just a framework for writing drivers.
The upgrades and rewrites have not added a whole lot of basic functionality, it does the same thing that it did a long time ago. They are more incremental in nature, better security (maybe), memory management for larger address spaces.
The newer software research like machine learning, artificial intelligence worked on over the last 20 years have not really made it into operating systems like Darwin (yet). Natural interfaces, which rely on these newer advanced technologies are still a long ways off in the future. People thought well if we just add voice recognition (still not much better than it was 10/20 years ago) we can all use natural interfaces.... but it is not like that. We communicate with each other in context, while software today still works with a more static conditional flow control model. Human hearing is actually quite a bit more complicated - often there is a lag between what is said and what we here because behind the scenes the brain is trying to decode the sound in context of what is being said and what was said before and what was said just after then filling in the details -- so that when someone says a word that is close to 10 other words of similar sound (which can differ depending on accent).... we know what the word is based on the context of the conversation etc. etc. etc. When we communicate with each other we often require knowledge of context or it sounds like code. Not just acronyms, but often we refer to knowledge or events because both of us know that. Talking to each other like neither of us have context or knowledge is tiresome and tedious.... which is why we have not moved forward with newer more advanced software technology. We are still trying to work out how to apply things like probability graph models and learning to fill in the gaps.... but we are still so far behind in the area of software. The advances we see right now are just minor incremental improvements that are made possible by hardware advances of faster CPUs, more memory, more storage etc..... nothing that is not based on old technology.
I looked at university Algorhythms courses taught these days and for all the advances almost all the "cutting edge" algorithms are very old (with maybe one new one from the 90s).
I also see the rMB as a solution for lightweight travel while having the programs and power of OSX. My only gripe is that is is overpriced compared with other Apple Macs (and particularly other brands).
Wireless.. I have a neat little Satechi travel router that turns hotel ethernet into wifi and has all the power outlet converters and USB (eg iPhone) port built in:
http://www.satechi.net/index.php/ga...and-more-in-us-ca-mx-uk-eu-au-nz-hk-and-china
It should work great with a rMB.
It is my gripe as well.... I hate when I cannot tell manufacturers resellers what I want to pay for a device instead of the other way around
Paying $130 more for a retina screen is just insane.....
+ Macbook Air $899
+ 4GB memory upgrade to 8GB $100
+ 128GB Flash upgrade to 256GB $200
= Core M CPU vs i5 -$30
means that the retina screen is costing you $130 over a normal screen.... If it were me I would just walk in the store and rip out the retina screen and demand $130 back
The only problem is right now they are selling like hotcakes and you have to wait 4 - 6 weeks at least to find one to rip the screen out of.....
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