Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New MacBook Pros Said to Launch in 2017 With Price Cuts and Up to 32GB of RAM
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Lightning on the MBP...
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...rview-phil-iphone-ios-criticism-a7393156.html
I don't really mind the touch bar, and would probably get use out of it. My main problem with these new machines is the specs. For that amount money I should bet getting some beefier specs than what are in these.
If Apple can make their own chips and not depend on Intel then they need to go ahead and do it. Because what they are doing now is not consumer friendly on any user level.
I am still using my 2012 MacBook Air personally and will use it until it dies. But I do IT for designers (Photo, Video, Web & Programing) who need more in a portable device than what they are now offering.
Now we have Illustrators and Graphic Designers drooling over the new Surface Studio. We had the Apple presentation up on the TV's playing during work and the general reception around the office was pretty much "meh".
If Apple can make their own chips and not depend on Intel then they need to go ahead and do it. Because what they are doing now is not consumer friendly on any user level.
I am still using my 2012 MacBook Air personally and will use it until it dies. But I do IT for designers (Photo, Video, Web & Programing) who need more in a portable device than what they are now offering.
Now we have Illustrators and Graphic Designers drooling over the new Surface Studio. We had the Apple presentation up on the TV's playing during work and the general reception around the office was pretty much "meh".
I'm having a hard time believing there are a lot of "Pro" users in this discussion, and I am not stating that because I am supporting Apple's new computers either. Most of the arguments against or for the 2016 models seem to center around "your rights" as a consumer or "where you think" the company should go with product design, specs, and price. I support all of those arguments as a general consumer, and for my family's computers, but little of it has to do with my work.
Related to work, what programs are people using a laptop for that will be greatly affected by the new MacBook Pro's? If you tell me that you do professional video editing, which Mac did you previously use, and why can't you keep using it or buy last years model if you need a new one? I am not reading a lot of real world work issues around the new machines. I would love to be a "pro" user, but sadly have to outsource that work to contract employees. Our music studio uses a 2012 27 inch Imac. It had 8gb of ram and they needed 16gb. I put in 16gb, so now it has 24gb and they are happy. The one guy I hired to do video work also teaches at a university and he uses and older MacBook pro with 16gb of ram while traveling and an iMac in his office. He does quite well with his older machines. I know there are much higher end video editing users, but on laptops?
Related to cost, I run a small business and the hardware price differences pales in comparison to the learning curve, and time spent away from work to move to windows. Let alone the extra IT support that windows requires. If I was running a new office and needed 50 new computers, then I would seriously explore the stability of Windows 10 - we did lose a network machine to the ransom virus around a year ago. The four employees I have that use windows machines sucks up most of my IT budget for computer support. My IT guy rails on Mac's and iPhones every time he comes into my office, but still wants us to use windows 7 pro -Microcenter as well, because of stability concerns. We use windows 10 anyway, because I think that argument is ludicrous, but it does show concerns Windows IT people have with their systems.
Lastly, the Mac hardware ecosystems has always seemed stifling to me. The main benefits I have had with their hardware is durability, layout, and portability. However, for most of us, it is the OS that keeps us coming back. If windows proves to be as stable as Mac's OS's, I'll gladly switch. Good competition pushes the envelope more than anything else.
Related to work, what programs are people using a laptop for that will be greatly affected by the new MacBook Pro's? If you tell me that you do professional video editing, which Mac did you previously use, and why can't you keep using it or buy last years model if you need a new one? I am not reading a lot of real world work issues around the new machines. I would love to be a "pro" user, but sadly have to outsource that work to contract employees. Our music studio uses a 2012 27 inch Imac. It had 8gb of ram and they needed 16gb. I put in 16gb, so now it has 24gb and they are happy. The one guy I hired to do video work also teaches at a university and he uses and older MacBook pro with 16gb of ram while traveling and an iMac in his office. He does quite well with his older machines. I know there are much higher end video editing users, but on laptops?
Related to cost, I run a small business and the hardware price differences pales in comparison to the learning curve, and time spent away from work to move to windows. Let alone the extra IT support that windows requires. If I was running a new office and needed 50 new computers, then I would seriously explore the stability of Windows 10 - we did lose a network machine to the ransom virus around a year ago. The four employees I have that use windows machines sucks up most of my IT budget for computer support. My IT guy rails on Mac's and iPhones every time he comes into my office, but still wants us to use windows 7 pro -Microcenter as well, because of stability concerns. We use windows 10 anyway, because I think that argument is ludicrous, but it does show concerns Windows IT people have with their systems.
Lastly, the Mac hardware ecosystems has always seemed stifling to me. The main benefits I have had with their hardware is durability, layout, and portability. However, for most of us, it is the OS that keeps us coming back. If windows proves to be as stable as Mac's OS's, I'll gladly switch. Good competition pushes the envelope more than anything else.
Wow, Apple hitting its users below the belt, doing a bait and switch on us like that. They know we want all better specs and if they had included those better specs (even just more RAM and SSD) with the new prices people would have not been in such an uproar, but jacking up the price and giving us dumbed down specs only to toss them out in 6 months and screw over everyone that put in their hard earned money is a bad move. Shame on you Apple.
Wait now. 16GB of RAM is no longer enough it seems. So buying older laptops are 1) not possible with the 16GB limit and 2) are suddenly no longer pro due to only offering 16GB max.
Hate to break up the angry old men backscratching party you two seem to be having, but there are a lot of actual "pros" who are less than thrilled with the new MBPs. These pros include people who develop software for MacOS and iOS. Guess what happens when the developers decide they don't want to buy a mac. They stop developing for MacOS and iOS (which can only be coded for on a Mac, btw...). Guess what happens to your user experience when the developers start to leave. And the ones that stay are constrained by 16GB of RAM, chipsets from 2015, and a company who is obsessed with sacrificing performance for thinness and (less) weight. Phil admitted that they sacrificed RAM capacity (a.k.a. performance) for battery life. Tim, the goddamn CEO said, “I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?”. Everyone agrees that the entry-level "Pro" actually belongs in the ultraportable laptop category, formerly filled by the Macbook Air. In other words, everyone knows that the entry-level "Pro" machine is not actually being marketed towards professional users. Yet, it's much more expensive than the Air, and also more expensive than the 2015 entry-level Pro. Have you stopped to ask why? It doesn't even have the Touch Bar...
Look, I get you guys. I've loved Apple products for a long time. I've waited to upgrade my 2010 MBA for a long time. I was hoping that my next Mac would be a Skylake MBP, and it still might be (I'm still undecided). I was part of the epic Waiting for Skylake thread. If I was a hater, I would have jumped ship a long time ago, but I stuck it out. I (and a lot of other genuine Mac fans who you are dismissing as "haters") have concerns that are valid. If you're going to be dismissive, at least back it up with valid arguments rather than labeling the people who voice those concerns as "tweeners" or gamers.
Btw - gamers actually drive the tech industry in a big way, so you should be glad some of them are interested in Macs. I would hazard a guess that the average 15 year old gamer who builds his/her own PCs knows a hell of a lot more about computers than you. And tweeners seem to be Apple's favorite demographic lately. If Apple actually targeted professional users rather than tweeners, we probably wouldn't even be here.
When you are a PC, for sure. People let slide a lot of things with PCs. When you are a Mac, having two out of four ports only doing 20 Gbit/s (with the other two doing 40 Gbit/s) results in a 1200+ post complaint thread.
[doublepost=1478111644][/doublepost]
To steal somebody else's line: We all want Apple to innovate but also to not change anything.
[doublepost=1478111815][/doublepost]
I think what he is supposed to complain about is have to spend $10 on two USB-C to USB-A adaptors. Because not having USB-A ports is clearly the most disliked aspect of the new MBPs.
[doublepost=1478114157][/doublepost]
I am sure, people say the same for, eg, Mercedes cars.
This reaction is reason enough to probably ignore 90% of the initial complaints about these new Macs. It's a prime example of people so set in their ways that any change violently upsets them, merely because it is a change. You have no idea how the Touch Bar will affect you, yet you already made it the reason to not buy the new MBP. How more irrational can a reaction get?
You already are carrying accessories around (or have placed them at strategic locations). They are called cables. Do the count, how many different cables do you use on a semi-regular basis (and not just count different cable types but also multiple copies of the same cable stored in different locations). I have: USB-A to USB-B, USB-A to USB3, USB-A to USB mini (2x in different locations), USB-A to USB micro (2x in different locations), USB-A to USB-Sony, USB-A to USB-Panasonic, USB-A to Lightning cables (2x in different locations, until earlier this year this also included a USB-A to 30-Pin), FW800 to FW800 (2x in different locations), FW800 to FW400 (2x in different locations), Magsafe (3x in three different locations), mDP (2x different locations), and USB-A to Fitbit.
That is 20 physical cables (of 12 different types) that each get plugged into my computer semi-regularly. If I could consolidate even only half of those 12 different types into USB-C to USB-C cables, my cable drawer would look quite a bit less crowded.
Last edited:
Sure, I get Apple likes to play the middle of the road to reap maximum profits and truthfully I don't have a problem with that, but Apple also put out a desktop Mac that did cost more and could compete on RAM and graphics cards with Windows machines.
I say we don't draw the line at laptops. How about that for a line?
Apple doesn't draw the line at laptops. iMacs have been updated fairly regularly (Apple even used the Haswell drought to introduce the 5K iMac). But I agree, the Mac Mini and Mac Pro situation is untenable.
Except for the 2015 15" MBP, Apple hasn't skipped any processor generation in their laptops. Not doing the same with the Mac Mini either feels like keeping the Mini around only as a token effort ('How often do we have to update the Mini to prevent its sales getting so low that we loose money with it') or a deliberate attempt to keep the MBP and the iMac appear more appealing.
The Mac Pro looks like an even bigger disaster, where at best development resources to it were allocated only after every other product had achieved its product design goals. Quite possibly, design goals have shifted several times, with each adding another delay.
If power is all you need on the road, then that number of cables hasn't changed.
What makes you think they aren't?
Probably will still be a while before ARM processors are capable of taking on Intel chips in terms of performance, but I won't be surprised if Apple turns out to be closer to this goal than we think.
Sure add another line and this is like the 90's again. Because having a whole bunch of different product lines is what ended up hurting Apple a while ago and those who don't learn from the past are going to repeat it.
Sorry you didn't follow the whole thread.
From what you said Apple doesn't need a desktop Mac. Really, maybe you don't remember or don't know but when Steve Jobs came back he put forth a plan that brought Apple back to profitability. The famous 4 square and two of the squares were taken by laptops and desktops.
Thanks for joining the conversation. Apple has all but killed the desktop. Where have you been?
What Steve Jobs said 19 years ago is immutable truth. Nothing should change in two decades of technological progress
Glad you agree.
As I said, Apple mining the fat middle to maximize profits from the laptops and iMacs and all but ignoring the other lines. Good word choice, "untenable" behavior from Apple.
[doublepost=1478147357][/doublepost]
Interesting, you believe Apple should not have a pro line of desktop computers.
I guess you are Tim's right hand man.
I didn't say that. Not at all. Trying to hammer everything that ever happens forever more into the same quadrant His Holiness drew up 20 years ago is pure folly though.
Wrong, it's called buy AMD, or scale up mobile processors (which are already not far off from desktop ones these days anyway). That's what you do when you have oogles of cash...unless you're Apple. In that case you buy a hyped up maker of really crummy headphones.
I'm a really loyal apple fan, but I'm also a rational person. For the first time, I hopelessly fell apple really messed up this round of release. I think apple's problem is getting unmanageable.
Tim can be a great COO and a VP of supply chain, but he is not and he will never become the brain and heart of Apple.
What apple needs is not time, not patient from customers, not fancy marketing, but a visionary who is competent enough to envision and guide Apple in next 50 years. Someone who can sell products in simple plain paper envelopes. Someone who can define the future of computing while presenting products that seamlessly transitions from the past industry standards. Someone who lust engineering perfection in products while understanding business economics. Someone who is a system builder that integrates all the service and products within the Ecosystem to provide an ease of mind for customers (starting by allowing iPhones to be plugged into Macbooks, Apple ear pods to be plugged into Macs, Mac standard USB-c to be plugged into IOS devices). Someone who leads, someone who creates, someone who can be the center of Apple - the Apple core, just like Steve.
Apple's outcome today was theorized by Steve decades ago. You can skip to 25:44s to see Steve's explanation of the fall of a great company or watch the entire interview. Link is here ---https://youtu.be/TRZAJY23xio?t=25m44s
My deepest condolences to Apple - once a miracle of greatness, no longer.
Tim can be a great COO and a VP of supply chain, but he is not and he will never become the brain and heart of Apple.
What apple needs is not time, not patient from customers, not fancy marketing, but a visionary who is competent enough to envision and guide Apple in next 50 years. Someone who can sell products in simple plain paper envelopes. Someone who can define the future of computing while presenting products that seamlessly transitions from the past industry standards. Someone who lust engineering perfection in products while understanding business economics. Someone who is a system builder that integrates all the service and products within the Ecosystem to provide an ease of mind for customers (starting by allowing iPhones to be plugged into Macbooks, Apple ear pods to be plugged into Macs, Mac standard USB-c to be plugged into IOS devices). Someone who leads, someone who creates, someone who can be the center of Apple - the Apple core, just like Steve.
Apple's outcome today was theorized by Steve decades ago. You can skip to 25:44s to see Steve's explanation of the fall of a great company or watch the entire interview. Link is here ---https://youtu.be/TRZAJY23xio?t=25m44s
My deepest condolences to Apple - once a miracle of greatness, no longer.