- There is no indicator light to show that the machine is sleeping
- There are no indicator lights to show the battery level
- The 2880x1800 is only a doubled 1440x900 and gives less space than the previous 1680x1050 display (unless you enable some performance degrading indirect rendering with scaling, obviously I'm comparing a 15" RMBP to a previous 15" MBP).
Alternatively:
- Still no possibility to change the size of many things, e.g. the font size in the menu bar (which for example the Amiga could do 20 years ago).
- The keyboard feels cheaper than on the older MBP
- The L-style MagSafe suited me better
I agree with all the things you mention. They feel like musical chairs at best, at worst unnecessary amputations. Even the least used features seem like things that I will miss. Each of these things are used by everybody somewhat, or by small professional niches a lot.
I would add:
-Losing the IR sensor would have been better if they replaced that feature with something, anything. Apple should perhaps develop a phone that could perhaps control the computer. Nah, crazy idea.
-Losing the power button seems like a loss. That was a nice touch point. I know they put it on the keyboard (which feel like a cheap move). I worry about hitting it (I know that it is a momentary switch style button, but still).
-Power key on an outside part of the clamshell seems like a better move to me. Some people never open their laptops except to power them on. Put it near the magsafe port.
-Losing the eject button kinda made sense. Except that we do still eject volumes. So they just moved the power button here, because they had the space. Again, they didn't do anything to make this feel other than a cheap move. I would much rather see the function keys space out in clusters of four, like we see on more usable keyboards, so we can start to feel the keyboard out better.
- Alternatively, they could have moved the fn key up to where the power key was. Like it is on the extended keyboard, and where my muscle memory wants it to be placed consistently.
- Ethernet port. If you're going to make an adapter necessary, design one that doesn't have the bulk of a pregnant goat. Zero IT departments are transitioning away from Ethernet as a wired protocol.
- Plugs on both sides. Ports/slots switching sides. Ugly/musical chairs.
- Give us an HDMI port only after we stopped asking, what is that about?
They feel like retrograde maneuvers instead of strategic advances from Apple. I think people accept the rMBP designs because it's Apple, and there are some new features, but Apple did not present them as a evolution, just as an opportunity that they saw to change some things. It just felt like they threw things together for the sake of weight and slimming. They needed to consider that they have existing customers and try to position these decisions as advantages to them. It could have been handled waaay better.
However, look at the bright side. While the retina launch lacked any leadership or imagination, it could have been way worse.
- All retina models have crazy amounts of monitor expansion.
- Super high speed TB connectivity. Windows PCs are steering clear of this for various reasons, and it's their loss. The OEMs are hamstrung by cheapo customers who are clinging to VGA ports.
- They didn't take away our SD Card slot.
- Doubled 1440x900 as native is nice for when you are using your monitor at a distance with another main external. I have the 1050px MBP but I scale it so it's ugly but legible when I'm using it in this way. I probably would have been better off with the cheaper panel.
- The 13" is super sexy, but not limited.
- The 15" is super powerful, it's big but slim.
- Insane battery life.
- Best in class storage speed.
- Magsafe adapters exist and are not as expensive or bulky as we'd expect.
- Haven't lost anything like Target Display or Target Disk mode, Boot Camp, or AirPlay. Not yet at least.
Now that retina scaling has been duly beta tested by their customers, all Retina models are good values. But I'm waiting as long as I can because they are value products masquerading as feature products. It's all Apple quality, so top notch, but they are being overly parsimonious with their resources.
There are a lot of us putting padlocks on our wallets until we see something that really strikes us as solving our particular problems. For me and my problem of wanting a "dockable" station, that's probably a refreshed Thunderbolt Display and a Retina model, or an iMac and a bootable TB drive.
But I will probably join this generation at some point, and I'll try to embrace it as much as I can. Before they haul me off to the poorhouse.
