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Chronic keyboard reliability issues, overpriced and no better performing vs. the models they replaced.

I got my 13" 2015 retina 3 years ago for $500 Australian (or about 20%) cheaper than i could buy the equivalent spec 2017 model. The performance is almost identical.

The touch-bar is not worth $500 to me.

The options that don't have it are inferior to my 2015 model.

Truth.

Love my 2015 13” rMBP. Have all the ports I need/want and do not need dongles, plus the keyboard is reliable as can be.

Hopefully the 2018 MacBook Pros are worth it!

:apple:
 
I will never buy a laptop that makes it difficult to run Windows apps.

Make no mistake, Microsoft is inching towards the ARM direction as well. It's enough computer power for office work, browsing, playing video, listening to music, what the majority of people do all day. Very few people do video editing, software development, CAD work. Even gaming, most people buy $300 consoles instead of $3000 PCs or Macs. You can even do professional web development on ARM, some light programming work as well. Of course video editors and artists aren't going to leave Intel for a long time, and there will be Intel Macs for quite some time. Servers are going ARM as well, there's no point wasting that much power for essentially serving pages. Microsoft Office and many Windows apps will be available for ARM, no question about that. As long as they don't stop offering Intel machines, I'm fine with it.
 
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If this happens I will be ecstatic. It'll take Hackintoshes to the next level, allowing the BSD subsystem to be utilized more reliably on something like, lets say ... Raspberry PI devices.
 
Yeah, and it's nothing to do with the age of the products....

The entire mac lineup right now is depressing...
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I think it will definitely happen.

Apple can handle this, and an ARM based processor by Apple in the 15 watt plus TDP envelope will be more than fast enough to run x86 applications via translation like Rosetta did. Much of the heavy lifting in applications nowadays is done by the various apple frameworks which they can recompile for native code with the version of macOS it ships with. The 10.5" ipad Pro processor is fast enough to run in a notebook already, and the macbook form factor will give them far more performance potential via the additional thermal/power headroom.

Moving to ARM will give apple far more freedom to put out the hardware THEY want to make rather than being tied to what intel produce for the mass market.

This isn't aimed at people who want to run windows virtual machines. This is aimed at the 99% of users who want to run mac apps, and maybe some 365 office apps which you can even run in a browser these days.

Priced appropriately with decent screen, trackpad and keyboard it will sell like hot cakes.

Either way, we'll find out in 5 or 6 days anyway. If this is ARM-based, for release later this year, then Apple would probably do something similar to what they did in the past. Announce at WWDC, and give developers a chance to "win" a chance to purchase a development kit "soon" (ie: late summer, early fall,) which will include some sort of engineering sample ARM-based MacBook, and early access to the beta of the OS and SDK that will support it.

Personally, I doubt it'll happen. First, we get rumor that ARM is coming in 2020, and now a rumor that it's here this year, 2 years earlier than expected with the initial rumor? Highly suspect, IMO.

There might be some sort of MacBook Air-ish hardware update/announcement this year. ARM-based? Maybe ... big maybe ... but I doubt it.
 
ARM MacBook with cross-platform apps. Makes sense.

Problem: how do you chose between an iPad Pro and an ARM MacBook?

ARM MacBook if you want mouse and command-line terminal support.

I will never buy a laptop that makes it difficult to run Windows apps.

The majority of MacBook customers do not run Windows apps.

The proper way to run Windows apps from a thin laptop with a fast network connection is the same way the Valve Steam app would work (if Apple approved it), using a much higher power (Intel gamer chip + 100+ Watt GPU) remote server with a local desktop viewer on your iPad or MacBook. Much faster than running high-power Windows apps locally.
 
ARM MacBook if you want mouse and command-line terminal support.



The majority of MacBook customers do not run Windows apps.

The proper way to run Windows apps from a thin laptop with a fast network connection is the same way the Valve Steam app would work (if Apple approved it), using a much higher power (Intel gamer chip + 100+ Watt GPU) remote server with a local desktop viewer on your iPad or MacBook. Much faster than running high-power Windows apps locally.

FWIW, you could say the exact same thing about Mac apps too. In fact, I'd just remove the quantifier from that statement and call it a day.
 
So, do you remember the intel transition?
Yes, but do you remember PPC? This is what happens when you try to outsmart PC chip manufacturers.

this thing will run native mac software (yes, including third party applications), guaranteed.
Through the AppStore only of course.
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For some time applications uploaded to the app store have been in an intermediate byte-code format that apple can recompile themselves (without your source) to be native code for future platforms.
Most apps don't use bitcode. (BTW not forcing developers to enable it is the strongest evidence for a slow transition)

Additionally, most of the heavy work in a typical mac or IOS application (audio/video processing, etc.) is handled by the Apple frameworks.
Not true. Much yes, most no. Third party libraries are omnipresent in Mac apps for all sorts of things. Also, general performance does matter more than you think. But it should not be too difficult to recompile.
 
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Either way, we'll find out in 5 or 6 days anyway. If this is ARM-based, for release later this year, then Apple would probably do something similar to what they did in the past. Announce at WWDC, and give developers a chance to "win" a chance to purchase a development kit "soon" (ie: late summer, early fall,) which will include some sort of engineering sample ARM-based MacBook, and early access to the beta of the OS and SDK that will support it.

Personally, I doubt it'll happen. First, we get rumor that ARM is coming in 2020, and now a rumor that it's here this year, 2 years earlier than expected with the initial rumor? Highly suspect, IMO.

There might be some sort of MacBook Air-ish hardware update/announcement this year. ARM-based? Maybe ... big maybe ... but I doubt it.

Good comment. I also think the rumor going from 2 years out to this fall is a big change. If Apple is about to announce a transition to ARM in PC hardware, it is possibly as big and unexpected (for this time period) as the Swift surprise was.
 
So, do you remember the intel transition?

Were you perhaps one of the PPC guys who always claimed PPC was where it was at, and that Apple would never use a dirty intel processor?

....

edit:
this thing will run native mac software (yes, including third party applications), guaranteed. no different to the way things were using rosetta back for the PPC transition.

Yes , I remeber the Intel transition very well .
I was over the moon, much faster hardware and the transition went very smoothly .

But didn't you originally suggest ARM MacBooks would be a good idea, even while the rest of the line stays with Intel , and 99% of Mac users could live with limited 3rd party compatibility ? Seems that posting was edited .

Either way, PPC to Intel was a big step, and required some adaption, but actually less of a pain than moving from Snow Leo to Mavericks, or from Mavericks to High Sierra .

Considering that, Apple has shown no sign of interest in backwards compatibility of apps or new hardware re. the use of older OSs in recent years . Hence a smooth transition can not be expected .
 
Did Apple learn from the PowerPC fiasco? We need x86 compatibility with the 97% of the world, and that means Intel chips inside Macs! Otherwise, it is a deal breaker and switch to Windows. A shame for all.
That was long time ago.
 
We use Parallels with Win 10 Pro at our place for our administration users. This will be a huge letdown for some.

There is a lot of uneasy speculation. I wonder if we're going to be locked down to App Store only apps like iOS. I'm sure Apple will love that.
 
You know what those ratings are based on, right? They are based on MacRumors estimates of how soon each of those models will be replaced by a new one. Do you buy that a Mac Mini replacement is imminent?

lol, you're really shooting yourself in the foot with the mac mini example here, mate

those estimates are based on past refresh cycles that today no longer seem to have any value

indeed, the contrary appears be true: before apple decides to "update" your product of choice, hurry and get the previous model because it will most certainly provide more value while costing a lot less

don't buy = hurry up and buy while you still can

edit:
well, I guess (and hope) I initially didn't get the sarcasm here …
 
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"Making America Great...". Oops, I guess the Don must've meant "Making Taiwan Great".
 
"However, it's possible the rumor about ARM chips in Macs has been spun out of context: the Touch Bar on Apple's latest MacBook Pro is already powered by an ARM-based T1 chip as a companion processor, suggesting this could be the actual origin of ARM-based rumors. Indeed, Apple said last year that it had no plans for Macs powered solely by ARM chips, rather than Intel processors."

Either:

- Apple is just saying there is no plans to use ARM in Mac's because they wanna keep it secret regardless of upstream sources (or)
- Since the W1 chip using Touch Bar does use ARM, it could be all true.
- Mobile devices use ARM chips to that's gotta be "some" proof.

Keeping a separate chip on Mac would just seem, well, out of place.. Apple generally likes to go-with-the-flow.

I guess this would happen in stages, not all at once, because Apple likes to gradually introduce upgrades, even if chips are ready.
 
this seems very biased to me - the only reason not to buy MB, MBP or iMac right now would be to wait for mid-year refresh

only ones which are really not recommended would be MBA, Mini and MP

Just bought a MBA after the MBP 2011 died due to the well known GPU issue.

Everything else felt a little flimsy for the money, particularly the keyboard. To get work done on the go (type, some Lightroom, some iMovie) these are still brilliant machines. No funny adapters needed.
 
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Thank god!
Apple has been making huge strides with every single new A-series chip they release, even to the point that the latest A11 is already faster than their entry Macbooks which use Intel processors! Hell, I just saw someone on reddit a week ago who did a benchmark comparison between the processor of their gaming PC and their iPhone X and the iPhone X was just barely behind!
In addition, Apple has also managed to keep making their processors thinner, more energy efficient, while Intel has already hit a roadblock and can't get their processors any thinner. The fact that Intel is also affected moreso than others by the Meltdown/Spectre stuff doesn't help either.
Another benefit is that Apple can also design the integrated GPU for their processors while Intel's iGPU's have gotten noticeably worse and worse since about 2012.

All this also ignores the fact that with an A-series processor, this would allow the "universal apps" functionality that has been rumored for the Mac. :apple::)
 
I'll be interested to see what Apple comes up with RE: low-power ARM laptops.

But some of these comments make me chuckle: This whole idea that Apple is finally escaping Intel so they don't have to be beholden to them.

First of all... Intel has released literally HUNDREDS of processors over the last few years. Big and small, desktop, laptop and server, high-powered and low-powered... that's what Intel does. They are a CPU manufacturer.

Then there are some people who still say "Intel doesn't make what Apple wants"

Which brings me to my 2nd point... Apple is a fairly small customer of Intel. I know in the old days Intel would make a custom chip or two for Apple. But those days are long gone.

HP alone orders 3 times as many CPUs from Intel than Apple does. Then add Lenovo, Dell, Acer and others.

I'd say Apple represents about 7% of Intel's CPU sales.

So... is it any surprise that Intel doesn't bend over backwards to suit Apple?

Besides... there are suitable processors for almost all of Apple's computers. Feel free to browse ark.intel.com and choose the processor you'd love to see in your next Macintosh. You can't blame the lack of Mac Mini and Mac Pro updates, for instance, on Intel.

Ironically... Intel themselves have jumped into the mini-PC market. They have released over 40 NUC models in the time since Apple stopped updating the Mac Mini.

So whose fault is that?

I dunno... this whole thing is funny to me. People are trying to paint Intel as evil and Apple will be better off without them.

Let's see how that goes.

Like I said... I'll be interested to see what Apple does with a fanless, power-sipping ARM laptop.

But the bulk of Mac sales are high-powered laptops and desktops. It's gonna be a while before Apple abandons Intel for those types of machines.

I know there are some benchmarks that put iPad Pro over Macbook Pro.

However... real-world tests might have a different outcome. We'll have to see how well MacOS (and your favorite Mac apps!) run on a desktop ARM architecture.
 
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As keeps getting forgotten - the Mac sales within apple are a multi-billion dollar business in their own right.

Whilst the mac lineup may look old and neglected there are various "legitimate" technical reasons for that (mostly intel not building the processors apple want, and thus there being no *worthwhile* upgrade path that matches the constraints Apple have set out).
lol!!!

Yeah, legit reason for the Mac Mini to not be updated in 4 years, and the last update being a castration of the mini's power. It's also stuck at TB2 - Isn't Apple a big proponent of TB3? I guess not when it comes to their own products.

How about the Macbook Air? 1440 by 900 screen resolution, and lets take a look - Oh, TB2 again? Must be intel's fault again, right?

Stop kidding yourself, there is no intel reason for this garbage. It's Apple not caring about their computers and caring even less for large segments of potential computer purchasers.

Hmmm, 5 year old Mac Pro also has TB2. MAYBE we'll get an updated Mac Pro in 2019, if we're lucky.

So PLEASE, convince me that sticking with TB2 is because of intel.
 
The upgrade to the Core i7 is not criminally expensive, it is reasonably priced relative to the cost of swapping CPUs yourself at some point in the future.
That’s a ridiculous comparison - if you upgrade your CPU later you’ve bought and own two CPUs. Apple is charging you for two but only giving you one!
 
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