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New MacBook Airs to Feature Minor Processor Update

sad

All this silly attention on the smallest issues gets rather boring. I realize 'MacRumors' is based on this weakness but I wish it could done with less angst.
 
RamGuy said:
Until then there isn't much to hope for, other than perhaps a MacBook Air with retina display introduced at WWDC'14 or something with a different SKU including something like the Intel HD 5000 or 5100 in order to drive the higher resolution display.
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From the photo, this update does seem to have Intel HD 5000.
 
captain cadet said:
New mini please - MacBooks can wait till WWDC :p
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Exactly.

Though I can wish for the moon, at the very least I want to see a cpu bump with HD5000 or Iris, and AC1300 built-in. Don't have a good way to hardwire Gigabit in my new place, so I'm really looking for AC1300 to get close to as close to wire gigabit speeds as possible.
 
lucidhysteria said:
To be fair, last year's rMBP was more than a tiny processor bump — it was a fairly significant processor bump that also included the addition of Thunderbolt 2, 802.11ac, PCIe-based flash, etc. (also, a slight change to the form factor of the 13-inch)

If this is the ONLY update to the MBA, it does seem like a rather small one, but it also seems like kind of a silly thing for anyone to complain about at this point (especially considering this is still technically just an unofficial rumor, not to mention the other rumors of the mysterious Retina Air product later in the year).

And personally, I'll be glad if they do get all their minor spec bumps out of the way before WWDC, to save plenty of time to show off the bigger things we're all hoping for...
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wrong update ;) there was a tiny upgrade before that one
 
ValSalva said:
1.3GHz to 1.4GHz? This is going to cannibalize Mac Pro sales for sure :D
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Lol. Sad thing is this was a reality back in the PPC days... 1.33 GHz to 1.42 GHz was an actual refresh for the PowerBooks (1.25 --> 1.42 for the Power Macs).
 
James Craner said:
i really don't understand why everyone is getting so worked up by this, having worked in the industry before it is pretty clear that Intel offered Apple a deal and want to move them onto a slightly different processor at the same or slightly better price, so that they can repurpose the fab that made the old processor. Clearly the only thing that has changed is the processor. This is not a re-design just a supply chain issue.
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Indeed, if they left it another few months people will moan - an incremental bump and they are still moaning.
 
satchmo said:
Curious, are there any competitive PC ultrabooks to this mythical rMBA?
i.e. Retina resolutions and haswell chips?
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You got the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus which for a Windows ultrabook is quite nice.. But sadly it features a pentile matrix display .. It's like Samsung has given up and just markets their display as high resolution even though they lack half of the red and blue pixels of a normal LCD display. But there is currently nothing like it in terms of "ultrabook" right now other than the MacBook Pro 13" Retina which technically is not a ultrabook.

The only problem is the fact that its utterly overpriced for what it is, those who claim Apple is overpricing the products should really take a look at the direction Samsung seems to be heading. The Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus and their new Samsung Galaxy Pro tablets are ridiculously for what they are.


And the poor Intel HD 4400 is simply not capable of handling all the pixel when you try to do anything other than 2D work. And the high-resolution display got some really nasty colour shifting issues as well as the text being fuzzy at times due to the pentile matrix being noticeable as this display doesn't not feature the same density as their mobile phones who normally get by it due to the fact that the PPI is so high that even though pentile is not as sharp it's hardly noticeable. But on a 13" it becomes another story.

And you got the fact that even though Windows 8.1 does HiDPI scaling just fine, barley any of the Windows software does. The high-resolution display is rendered rather useless when Google Chrome does not feature HiDPI scaling making text looking like a blurry mess, actually worse than normal low-resolution displays and that goes for about any third-party application which there are a lot of using Windows. And Adobe does not feature scaling at all making the UI-elements so small that they aren't really usable for anyone forcing you to lower the display resolution in the settings if you want to be doing anything.


They've got a long road ahead of themselves in order to get the scaling working in Windows due to the fact that pretty much 90% of all applications people are running is considered legacy. Barely any use any of Microsoft latest and greatest developer tools and languages and wont use any of the newer APIs making HiDPI something we wont be seeing in the majority of applications for a very long time.

And putting a 3200x1800 resolution (only 1600x900 for red and blue subpixels) on a Intel HD 4400 is another stupid move by Samsung. It comes with only 128GB SSD's have of the units shipped seem to be feature SanDisk SSDs.... For the price of $1'399,99 it's rather ridiculous.



Lenovo and a few others are also working on 3200x1800 ultrabooks, but they all seems to relay on the Intel HD 4400 and they all seem to be using the same LCD panel having huge trouble with yellow tint all over the display. And they will all face the exact same problem with Windows and application scaling.
 
ValSalva said:
Not sure why people are upset. At least the MBA's are getting processor bumps.

This is probably the last upgrade current MBA form factor will receive. Apple will keep them around like they do the 13" cMBP for a year or two and then discontinue them.

Better to get a processor bump than not. Darned if you do, darned if you don't...
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I agree. This isn't much of an upgrade but I would actually like to see Apple do more of this minor spec updates to their product line rather than have to wait 12+ months for updates. Not that this was a timely update.
 
Yvan256 said:
From the photo, this update does seem to have Intel HD 5000.
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I didn't catch that. Well that differentiates Apple even more from it competitors whom only use the Intel HD 4400 of all things in their line-ups and demand about the same amount, if not more than Apple for their ultrabooks in this range of quality.


EDIT:

Nevermind, Apple has always been using Intel HD 5000 in their MacBook Air lineup.. It's their competitors who are going for the Intel HD 4400 and some HD 4600..
 
mattbaar26 said:
What's the point of this? Seems like an extremely minor spec bump
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I'd say it has more to do with intel production schedules than anything else. Apple haven't advertised it as a spec bump - not yet at least. There doens't really have to be a point beyond production considerations.
 
lucidhysteria said:
To be fair, last year's rMBP was more than a tiny processor bump — it was a fairly significant processor bump that also included the addition of Thunderbolt 2, 802.11ac, PCIe-based flash, etc. (also, a slight change to the form factor of the 13-inch)
Click to expand...

He's not talking about the Mid-2013 update (WWDC), but rather the Early-2013 one, when the 15" was bumped from 2.3 to 2.4GHz and the 13"'s price was dropped.

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mattbaar26 said:
What's the point of this? Seems like an extremely minor spec bump
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Intel is now pushing new Haswell SKUs and phasing out the old ones.

The older SKUs (which the current MBA uses) would probably be more expensive to keep ordering, or simply impossible to order in an amount Apple needs.

This seems more like a necessity than a way to push MBA sales.
 
mattbaar26 said:
What's the point of this? Seems like an extremely minor spec bump
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It probably means that Intel has stopped production of the older Haswell chips and so Apple is using the newer versions for the remainder of the production run. OEMs do this all the time and no one notices. This same thing happened in February 2013 with the original Retina MacBook Pro. They all got CPU boosts of 100MHz. Back then the rumor sites didn't pick up on it until after it happened, as the website was updated overnight to reflect the new specs.
 
Gregintosh said:
For all those who say that the MBPr is already the retina Air, there is still quite a difference. Half a pound is pretty significant. Also the Pro is thick all around, where as the Air is only a similar thickness at its thickest point.

It's a smaller difference than comparing the Air to the full DVD drive included Pro, but still significant.

Although if they put a retina on the Airs its going to be cannibalize pro sales. A lot of people (me included) paid the premium to have a nice screen even if we don't use the specs to their full capacity.
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The real differentiation between the Air and the rMBP is battery life.

With the Air, you get a slightly lighter machine with a slightly fuzzier screen and absolutely kick-ass battery life.

The MBP gives you less battery life and slightly more weight, but a much better screen, more power, more (available) RAM, and one more TB port.

There's no optical drive on either of them. Both are pretty thin. (Maybe you were thinking of the old MBP).

Personally, I feel that there is room in Apple's lineup for all three: the old, conventional MBP, and the 2 new, soldered-RAM, semi-neutered ultrabooks.

Alas, Apple and their unnecessary downsizing...erm..focus drives me crazy. :mad:
 
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