'MacBook Ultra' Coming Soon With These 12 New Features

[teh_hunterer]

why do people buy laptops with batteries?

As I just said, the computer is tied to the place you're using it because you're there using it. It's tied to the desk because you're at the desk. Or it comes with you because you left the desk.

You keep trying to promote this scenario of you and someone else simultaneously using the same computer which just makes no sense. Why do you do this?

Apple should market a pair of computers, a new Mini that’d run on USB power most of the time but also have a battery for UPS, and a lightweight cool and inexpensive Nano that can browse web on the couch, but can easily connect wirelessly to the Mini so the Mini doesn’t need a monitor or keyboard. But Mini could also have a monitor and keyboard, so it doesn’t need the Nano.

No they shouldn't.

Instead of having to listen back in the cramped control room, we could take Mini with us to the store, keep editing and mixing in the car, using the laptop or a phone just as the display, and plug back in when we get back.

Anyone who actually stops to read what you've written will immediately understand that this is just mental. So you are working on a song, but you need to go to the shops, so you take your desktop computer in the car with you to mix your audio... To connect to that desktop from a laptop that you also had to take with you.

Who is this "we?" that is also mixing music with you in the car? How are you all hearing the audio to make mixing decisions? This is a scenario that has never happened in all of human history.

But you didn't answer my question: You want to move your entire recording studio to the porch, and connect a mouse and keyboard and display and peripherals, so record and mix on the porch?

 

[Vincent Hanna]

It's honestly an obsession at this point. Guy brings it up, ignores any substantive arguments against it (as he did mine), goes back into hibernation and comes out and does it again in a few months.

I didn’t realize this was an ongoing cycle.

People are crazy.

 

[jinnyman]

can't wait for cellular connected Macs! This may be my upgrade time for M1 Max MBP

 

[HowardEv]

Cars have bluetooth stereos, you can connect a macbook to them and play and mix a Logic session without needing an interface. (The passengers can mix while driver drives). Bring it home and back to the studio, plug it back in to audio interface without even pressing stop. That is done with laptops now.

The problem is the laptop has to be a maxxed out $2000 Pro to run large sessions without hiccups, and when it is hooked up to the interface and monitor it is tied to the desk, hard to move to where you want it. And a thin laptop isn’t optimal for speed and passive cooling as the new mini should be. Splitting the Macbook Pro across two products, a cheap light cool silent Nano that connects wirelessly to be front end for a fast optimized Mini, is much more usable. I could have the Nano at the drumset when at the drums, and at the vocal mic when tracking vocals, connected wirelessley to the Mini which stays plugged in to the interface, hard drives and display. And I could bring just the Nano to the coffee shop to browse the internet while the band stays to record on the Mini. Or bring the Mini with me to the coffee shop. The point is there would much more freedom and usability.

Of course this is ongoing because the lack of a battery is ongoing. There could be a range of sizes, a tiny cheap one to allow brief unplugging, or splurge for all day battery, maybe modular and swappable batteries to run it all weekend at offgrid campsite.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

I’m sorry, your supposed use case is having a passenger mix a Logic session from the passenger seat of a moving car over Bluetooth to the car speakers? And WITHOUT the supposed penalty of using a laptop?

Do you even hear yourself?

 

[teh_hunterer]

Cars have bluetooth stereos, you can connect a macbook to them and play and mix a Logic session without needing an interface. (The passengers can mix while driver drives). Bring it home and back to the studio, plug it back in to audio interface without even pressing stop.

The fact you think this is a real use tells me you don't actually record music at all, either by yourself or with a band. It's a made up fantasy to justify this Mac Mini with a battery obsession.

You can't mix music over Bluetooth on a car stereo. Car stereos are not suitable for mixing music, even if the car wasn't moving. Then you add Bluetooth, which is also not suitable for mixing music. Then add all the noise of the car/road that makes it impossible to hear the fine details of the music you're trying to mix.

That is done with laptops now.

Nobody has ever done this, and nobody will ever do this.

The problem is the laptop has to be a maxxed out $2000 Pro to run large sessions without hiccups

No it doesn't. For someone who makes a lot of claims about the Mac, you sure have 0 idea how powerful the various Apple silicon devices are.

And don't think you can get away with simultaneously claiming that you need a massively powerful device to run large sessions but that the sessions are so simple and unimportant that you can mix them on a car stereo over bluetooth. Pick one at least, it can't be both.

could be a range of sizes, a tiny cheap one to allow brief unplugging, or splurge for all day battery, maybe modular and swappable batteries to run it all weekend at offgrid campsite.

None of these scenarios of mixing in a car, using a desktop computer at a coffee shop, using your computer while your bandmates simultaneously use your computer, using a desktop computer at an offgrid campsite, none of them are real.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

Thank you, teh_hunterer for refuting these absurdities point-by-point. I'm still too much in shock that a supposedly rational human would claim such things.

 

[HowardEv]

Google has my back:
Yes, recording and mixing engineers absolutely listen to their mixes in a car. Known universally in the music industry as "The Car Test," this is one of the most common and relied-upon methods for checking how a track "translates" from a perfect studio to the real world.

The Famous Motown Origin
The most famous historical pioneer of the car test was Berry Gordy, the founder of ⁠Motown Records. In the 1960s, Gordy built a small, low-power AM radio transmitter inside Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio. He would broadcast a fresh mix from the control room, walk out to his car in the driveway, and listen to it exactly how millions of teenagers would hear it on their car radios. If a track didn't "pop" through those cheap car speakers, it went back to the studio for a remix.

Famous Modern Examples
Many legendary, Grammy-winning mixing engineers openly refuse to finalize a record without taking it to the driveway:

• • Elliot Scheiner: An 8-time Grammy winner who has mixed for ⁠The Eagles, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, and Eric Clapton, famously states that he won't sign off on a final mix until he hears it in a car. He uses the car environment to ensure the vocals are sitting perfectly in the soundscape and that hidden details emerge.
  • Chris Lord-Alge (CLA): One of the most famous rock mix engineers in history (⁠Green Day, Muse, My Chemical Romance), actively debates and utilizes the car check as a critical benchmark for real-world translation.
  • Bruce Swedien & Quincy Jones: While mixing Michael Jackson's Thriller (the best-selling album of all time), the production team routinely took cassette tapes of the day's mixes out to the car to make sure the low-end punch of tracks like "Billie Jean" translated to consumer systems.

Why the Car Test Works
Engineers don’t use cars because they sound good; they use them because they provide a brutal reality check.

• • Familiarity Over Accuracy: An engineer might spend 10 hours a day in a studio, but they spend years listening to their favorite music in their own car. They know exactly how a finished, professional hit is supposed to feel in that specific driver's seat.
  • The Acoustic "Stress Test": A car cabin is a small, highly reflective box of glass and plastic, which naturally causes low-mid frequency build-up and masks high frequencies. If a mix sounds clear in a car, it will likely sound great anywhere.
  • Asymmetrical Listening: In a car, you sit closer to one side of speakers than the other. This shifts the "stereo image" and instantly reveals if your vocals or lead instruments are getting lost or facing phase cancellation.
  • Environmental Noise: Road and tire noise naturally mask the lowest bass frequencies. Testing a mix while driving forces the engineer to notice if the mid-range and top-end of the song can cut through real-world chaos.

Today, the practice is so embedded in music culture that audio software companies even make digital plugins—like ⁠Audified's MixChecker or ⁠Rocket Powered Sound's Car Test—that simulate the exact frequency response of a car stereo right inside the studio.

Me: Now producers can adjust the mix while they listen in the car, instead of taking notes and going back inside to make a new mix. That’s a game-changer.

And Logic Remote is a free iPhone app that connects to a Mac running Logic, for transport control, and can tweak the EQ and mix. No need to bring a laptop.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

Ok, I know you are a crazy person (in addition to not being a musician, and you’re making this all up) but I did use to be a recording musician.

The car test is indeed real, but it’s for testing a 2-track candidate mix, not for live mixing.

Nobody has ever done, or ever will do, anything of the things you are fabulating.

 

[teh_hunterer]

Google has my back:
Yes, recording and mixing engineers absolutely listen to their mixes in a car. Known universally in the music industry as "The Car Test," this is one of the most common and relied-upon methods for checking how a track "translates" from a perfect studio to the real world.

The Famous Motown Origin
The most famous historical pioneer of the car test was Berry Gordy, the founder of View attachment 2648985⁠Motown Records. In the 1960s, Gordy built a small, low-power AM radio transmitter inside Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. studio. He would broadcast a fresh mix from the control room, walk out to his car in the driveway, and listen to it exactly how millions of teenagers would hear it on their car radios. If a track didn't "pop" through those cheap car speakers, it went back to the studio for a remix.

Famous Modern Examples
Many legendary, Grammy-winning mixing engineers openly refuse to finalize a record without taking it to the driveway:

• • Elliot Scheiner: An 8-time Grammy winner who has mixed for View attachment 2648986⁠The Eagles, Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, and Eric Clapton, famously states that he won't sign off on a final mix until he hears it in a car. He uses the car environment to ensure the vocals are sitting perfectly in the soundscape and that hidden details emerge.
  • Chris Lord-Alge (CLA): One of the most famous rock mix engineers in history (View attachment 2648984⁠Green Day, Muse, My Chemical Romance), actively debates and utilizes the car check as a critical benchmark for real-world translation.
  • Bruce Swedien & Quincy Jones: While mixing Michael Jackson's Thriller (the best-selling album of all time), the production team routinely took cassette tapes of the day's mixes out to the car to make sure the low-end punch of tracks like "Billie Jean" translated to consumer systems.

Why the Car Test Works
Engineers don’t use cars because they sound good; they use them because they provide a brutal reality check.

• • Familiarity Over Accuracy: An engineer might spend 10 hours a day in a studio, but they spend years listening to their favorite music in their own car. They know exactly how a finished, professional hit is supposed to feel in that specific driver's seat.
  • The Acoustic "Stress Test": A car cabin is a small, highly reflective box of glass and plastic, which naturally causes low-mid frequency build-up and masks high frequencies. If a mix sounds clear in a car, it will likely sound great anywhere.
  • Asymmetrical Listening: In a car, you sit closer to one side of speakers than the other. This shifts the "stereo image" and instantly reveals if your vocals or lead instruments are getting lost or facing phase cancellation.
  • Environmental Noise: Road and tire noise naturally mask the lowest bass frequencies. Testing a mix while driving forces the engineer to notice if the mid-range and top-end of the song can cut through real-world chaos.

Today, the practice is so embedded in music culture that audio software companies even make digital plugins—like View attachment 2648987⁠Audified's MixChecker or View attachment 2648988⁠Rocket Powered Sound's Car Test—that simulate the exact frequency response of a car stereo right inside the studio.

Me: Now producers can adjust the mix while they listen in the car, instead of taking notes and going back inside to make a new mix. That’s a game-changer.

And Logic Remote is a free iPhone app that connects to a Mac running Logic, for transport control, and can tweak the EQ and mix. No need to bring a laptop.

You completely wasted your time with all of that. Or rather, you completely wasted everyone else's time who had to read that AI slop.

It's commonplace to listen to your mix on different equipment to know how it sounds on different systems.

But you never mix from those systems, especially not in a car, especially not over Bluetooth, especially not while someone is driving. Especially not from a desktop computer with a battery.

Nobody lays down a bunch of tracks and then mixes what they just put down from the car while someone drives them to the store. An artist might listen to the mix in the car and tell the producer to try again because it sounds bad in there. But this scenario you claimed is utter nonsense that has never happened.

You're just further demonstrating that this idea of you recording music with your bandmates is a fabrication, as are all these bizarre scenarios you keep coming up with.

 

[darngooddesign]

that's the iPhone hotspot's job, why put in a cellular modem when you can just force(ish) users to buy an $700-$1200 iphone

How many people do you honestly think are buy a MacBook Ultra who don't already have an iPhone or other smartphone. But if Apple is as bad as you believe, why isn't there a $150 cellular upgrade like with the iPads?

 

[nicoxlan]

Why is it that people who don't like a prospective feature feel that have "Veto Rights" to determine what features others of us want? Maybe it's not that "touch input sucks on laptops" as much as "I don't know HOW to use touch input on a laptop."

its the same HAHA, you want the touch screen and believe everyone should have a touchscreen just because you want one. They are just opinions, try to deal with the fact that, no everybody wants what you want. It doesn't hurt.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

Here's the solution for the touchscreen haters. Are you ready? I'm about to blow your mind....


don't touch the screen

 

[darngooddesign]

its the same HAHA, you want the touch screen and believe everyone should have a touchscreen just because you want one. They are just opinions, try to deal with the fact that, no everybody wants what you want. It doesn't hurt.

If you don't want touchscreen MacBook, don't buy the touchscreen MacBook. No one is shoulding you into it.

 

[domanca]

You completely wasted your time with all of that. Or rather, you completely wasted everyone else's time who had to read that AI slop.

It's commonplace to listen to your mix on different equipment to know how it sounds on different systems.

But you never mix from those systems, especially not in a car, especially not over Bluetooth, especially not while someone is driving. Especially not from a desktop computer with a battery.

Nobody lays down a bunch of tracks and then mixes what they just put down from the car while someone drives them to the store. An artist might listen to the mix in the car and tell the producer to try again because it sounds bad in there. But this scenario you claimed is utter nonsense that has never happened.

You're just further demonstrating that this idea of you recording music with your bandmates is a fabrication, as are all these bizarre scenarios you keep coming up with.

just to be devils advocate (and because I think this is a cool story worth sharing), alex tumay finished mixing Jeffery in an uber -

.
that being said I do not disagree with you at all haha