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Phil Schiller Discusses Retina MacBook, Apple's 'Intense Collaboration'
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Those are great, but still, the minimum for me is:
Charge
USB C
USB C
Display Port
Headphone
I really do use all of this stuff all of the time. External slim WD Passport drives, backups, storage, iPhone, music, Often charging the phone and the computer at the same time, I agree, the Air is in desperate need of a refresh, retina air would be perfection to me. Just the same computer as the air is right now, with retina display, and slimmed down to match the design of the rMB.
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I whole wholeheartedly agree with you but Apple wholeheartedly disagrees with you and I.
I had to go back and edit... Also, display port for a Cinema Display. At the same time, the rMB is seeminly directed at a different market, I just hope they don't mess up the pro or Air lines.
Apple has you covered, it's called a MacBook Pro. But for everybody else the MacBook has separate charge and headphone ports and doesn't need a video port. When you connect to a display you want power and audio/video to go over the same cable anyway. Why use two connectors when one is capable of doing both?
So it all comes down to you not wanting other ports but more of the same USB-C ports. But can't Apple not make one notebook which doesn't act as a USB hub and leave that role to the external display? When you use multiple accessories frequently, you probably want a stronger CPU anyway.
It's not that Apple doesn't understand which ports an ultraportable needs. It's people who actually don't want an ultraportable laptop complain that the MacBook is an ultraportable laptop.
Apple has you covered, it's called a MacBook Pro. But for everybody else the MacBook has separate charge and headphone ports and doesn't need a video port. When you connect to a display you want power and audio/video to go over the same cable anyway. Why use two connectors when one is capable of doing both?
So it all comes down to you not wanting other ports but more of the same USB-C ports. But can't Apple not make one notebook which doesn't act as a USB hub and leave that role to the external display? When you use multiple accessories frequently, you probably want a stronger CPU anyway.
It's not that Apple doesn't understand which ports an ultraportable needs. It's people who actually don't want an ultraportable laptop complain that the MacBook is an ultraportable laptop.
You've outlined a good case. I suppose, to refine my argument, what I would like, is an MBA updated to have the following:
-Charge (Magsafe or USB C)
-USB C
-USB C
-Thunderbolt
-Headphones
-Retina Display
And a design that is updated to match the rMB style. The problem, is really that the Air and Pro Lines are long overdue for an update, and, I will still argue, that the rMB should at least have two USB C ports, one to charge, and one for connections, would have been nice. even if ultraportable. In that, I feel lies a design mistake. Think about it. iPods, iPhones, iPads, all slave devices if you will, where the laptop and any computer is a master device. Now, what they have done, is taken a laptop, and made it slave as well. Well, more accurately, you can have it serve as a master, but you have to get creative to even do that. Additionally, you can't have it plugged into the wall, and also charging another device at the same time, without getting creative and having an adapter (or even at all?). I just think it is a mistake in design and logic. Two ports would have been a better design choice. And simultaneously releasing a USB C to lightning cable. I will argue that all day.
Mostly just worried after seeing that that they might mess up the pro and Air lines, but usually they are pretty good .
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Thunderbolt 3 will incorporate the protocol and form factor of USB-C. All you really need is a couple of TB3 ports and a Headphone Jack. The number of ports is limited by the available PCIe lanes provided by the CPU. Naturally the bigger more powerful MacBooks will have more of those ports. But even the 12" MacBook should be able to do all this with it's single port once it's updated to Skylake and TB3.
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All pretty exciting stuff for the future. Hopefully not too long a wait to see what they do. Good reasons to have waited.Thunderbolt 3 will incorporate the protocol and form factor of USB-C. All you really need is a couple of TB3 ports and a Headphone Jack. The number of ports is limited by the available PCIe lanes provided by the CPU. Naturally the bigger more powerful MacBooks will have more of those ports. But even the 12" MacBook should be able to do all this with it's single port once it's updated to Skylake and TB3.
The Retina MacBook Air already exists - - it's called the Retina MacBook Pro.
The 13" MBP weighs only half a pound more than the 13" MBA, just the amount of weight that the bigger battery needed to drive the retina screen requires.
Additionally, the MBP already has a smaller footprint (12.35" x 8.62") than the MBA (12.8" x 8.94").
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At their current price points there simply is no room between the new MacBook and the MacBook Pro. It's hard to see how a Retina MacBook Air could fit in. Apple isn't exactly the company to offer too many variants over the whole power and size spectrum. For decades now some users have demanded a desktop Mac between Mac mini and Mac Pro that isn't an all-in-one like the iMac. But such a device wouldn't excel in anything, not the smallest, not the fastest, not the best screen. Because of that there might never be a new Retina MacBook Air. It woudn't be the fastest or the smallest, so Apple doesn't know how to impress with it.
These are all early adopter issues. After having gone through this with several new Apple (and others) products (1st MacBook Pro, 1st iPod Touch, 1st Retina MacBook Pro), I've learned to wait for the 2nd version of a new model. Plus, Apple tends to really bump up the performance on the 2nd go-round.
It seems to me the OS X software was not initially ready for the new hardware. All is good now. So I don't see how a second generation of the hardware would be any more ready for whatever OS X version is released when the second generation hardware comes around.
That's similar to what happened with the 1st gen. Retina Macbook Pro. Lion was woefully unprepared for the demands of the Retina display. Things improved greatly with Mountain Lion.
But then came the Late 2013 rMBP with Haswell processors (expected), PCI Flash storage (unexpected), Thunderbolt 2 and Wireless AC -- all of which left me feeling some serious buyer's remorse.
well you are of the minority..just because you are happy with the un-acceptable shortcomings and compromises of this product doesn't mean you are a reflector of majority..there are hundreds if not thousands of complaints about this product's problems and limitation JUST ON THIS WEBSITE alone..
maybe you were also happy if it's battery lasted only 2 hours..and if the storage was fixed 64GB...but would that make it a good product?
The lag between hardware and software seems to be a problem. IMHO it shortens the useful life of the hardware. In other words new hardware is beta until the software catches up. On the other hand, I've gotten great life out of a late 2008 Macbook Pro after an SSD transplant, and El Capitan. But I don't see anything happening like this for the rMB.
They can't merge, each notebook line is build around another type of CPU with different power and heat constraints.
12" rMB: 5W Core-M processor
11" MBA: 15W U-processor
13" MBA: 15W U-processor
13" rMBP: 28W U-processor
15" rMBP: 45W H-processor
The MBA processor consumes three times as much energy and also produces more heat even without running a Retina display. A real rMBA would grow in size and weight (or lose battery life) to compensate for Retina.
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Perhaps not.
In any event, I'm waiting to see if the 2016 13" rMBP (with Skylake) adopts some of new tech introduced in the rMB (so I can finally downsize from my feeling-more-heavy-these-days 15" rMBP).
Core M is a step into a new world of almost "tablet-like" fanless PCs. Apple mentioned it on the keynote, but still managed to underplay it's significance. MacBook Air itself was only possible because of low-power CPUs. And now we have a kind of an Air version of the MacBook Air. Double-Air or (Air)². An Ultrabook to Ultrabooks if you will.
The smaller key travel and clickless trackpad are all nice and contribute well to the overall size and weight of the design, but they wouldn't do wonders without this new kind of Intel CPUs (equally available to all competitors). On short tasks it's burst performance rivals that of much more power-hungry CPUs. On longer tasks it's sustained performance lags far behind them.
Core M finds a new balance between speed, heat and energy consumption that suits a whole lot of users better than anything before. Most people will flock to the MacBook in one or two revisions. It's good to life in the future.
Intel released the official details for its upcoming Skylake chips. Users can expect four families of chips, including Y, U, H and S. The Y-Series replaces the Core M marketing name, and will power next-gen Retina Macbooks. The Y-Series will offer up to 10 hours of battery life, 10% to 20% faster CPU performance and up to 40% GPU performance increase than last year’s Core M models. (link)
So Y is the new M and a Skylake-Y chip will be able to drive an external 4K monitor via Thunderbolt 3 in a fanless MacBook sometime in 2016. The MacBook will be charged through the same cable at the same time and the monitor will serve as a USB-C hub for the MacBook.
So Y is the new M and a Skylake-Y chip will be able to drive an external 4K monitor via Thunderbolt 3 in a fanless MacBook sometime in 2016. The MacBook will be charged through the same cable at the same time and the monitor will serve as a USB-C hub for the MacBook.
That is overly dramatic. What you mean is the 13" MBP and it isn't that much bigger/heavier than the MBA nor does the battery life decrease a lot. The problem is the MBA being the weird one here. The electronics is very similar to the MBP but the form factor is more similar to the MB.
The MB and MBA can merge and will merge eventually because they are made for the same thing: an easy to carry notebook. That means thin, light, small and not having much computing power (because that means heavier, thicker, larger). The computing power difference will get smaller and smaller with each new CPU release since CPUs are drawing less and less power yet become more and more powerful (energy efficiency is increasing a lot).
The only real issue would be Thunderbolt as it still requires an additional chip to be put on the circuitboard. There has to be room to do that and that might be a problem with the MB. This won't be fixed in the near future, it'll probably take quite some time before Intel integrates it in their CPUs. The same goes for USB3.1 Gen 2 (MB is currently on USB3.1 Gen 1 aka USB3.0 which comes with the Intel CPU) but we might see that one incorporated in the CPU much sooner than Thunderbolt. I'm hoping it'll be in the next model but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes another 2 generations.
Sure it does.
13" MBA 1.35kg, 1.3mpx display 15W processor, 54.0Wh battery, 12h web browsing
13" rMBP 1.58kg, 4.1mpx display, 28W processor, 74.9Wh battery, 10h web browsing
Despite the Air being an older design from 2010 with squared, equal sized, non-terraced battery packs, it still gets two hours more battery life than the Pro on a battery which is 20.9 watt hours smaller. That's because it doesn't have to run a Retina display and uses a lower power processor.
12" rMB 0.92kg, 3.3mpx display, 5W processor, 42.4Wh battery, 9h web browsing
Instead of being 20.9 watt hours bigger, the battery in the new MacBook is now 11.6 watt hours smaller than in the MacBook Air and it also has to run a Retina display with two and a half times as many pixels. That's only possible because of Core-M/Y-Processors.
MacBook Air
You're pretending as if the difference between the 13" MBA and MBP is the same as between the 11.6" MBA and the 15" MBP but as the specs you posted clearly show this isn't true at all. A difference in weight of 200 grams is almost nothing. When holding both machines you won't be able to tell the difference except if you know that they differ. The same goes for size. So yes, you are most definitely being overdramatic.
As for battery life it becomes clear that you've fallen into its pitfall. Advertised battery life is theoretical and only applies to a workload that is almost idle. Battery life is highly dependant on how you use the machine. If you do something that requires more power the difference in battery life between the machines diminishes. On these forums there have been people with far better battery life on higher end models than some people on lower end models with a higher advertised battery life. That's because of how they use the machine.
If you take a good look at the Apple notebooks you'll see that they have similar battery life with very differing hardware. The reason for that is very simple: they are balanced systems. That means that every component in the machine is built in order to give that amount of battery life. It is not just the retina screen and cpu, every other component counts just as much. It's also about having the same kind of battery life throughout, not just when being (almost) idle (read: web browsing). Since hardware is becoming more and more energy efficient and thus requiring less energy that also means the battery doesn't have to have a high capacity. That in turn means smaller and/or thinner batteries which means smaller/thinner devices.
The very small difference between the MBA and MBP also shows why the MB makes sense. The MBA is losing it's concept of being thin, light and small due to the MBP becoming increasingly thinner, lighter and smaller (again, hardware is becoming more energy efficient). The MB is simply the next version of the MBA. Merging the MBA and MB will only consist of putting more powerful hardware in the MB, or put differently: the MBA will disappear the moment the MB has similar performance. It will also increase the difference with the MBP range.
As for battery life it becomes clear that you've fallen into its pitfall. Advertised battery life is theoretical and only applies to a workload that is almost idle. Battery life is highly dependant on how you use the machine. If you do something that requires more power the difference in battery life between the machines diminishes. On these forums there have been people with far better battery life on higher end models than some people on lower end models with a higher advertised battery life. That's because of how they use the machine.
If you take a good look at the Apple notebooks you'll see that they have similar battery life with very differing hardware. The reason for that is very simple: they are balanced systems. That means that every component in the machine is built in order to give that amount of battery life. It is not just the retina screen and cpu, every other component counts just as much. It's also about having the same kind of battery life throughout, not just when being (almost) idle (read: web browsing). Since hardware is becoming more and more energy efficient and thus requiring less energy that also means the battery doesn't have to have a high capacity. That in turn means smaller and/or thinner batteries which means smaller/thinner devices.
The very small difference between the MBA and MBP also shows why the MB makes sense. The MBA is losing it's concept of being thin, light and small due to the MBP becoming increasingly thinner, lighter and smaller (again, hardware is becoming more energy efficient). The MB is simply the next version of the MBA. Merging the MBA and MB will only consist of putting more powerful hardware in the MB, or put differently: the MBA will disappear the moment the MB has similar performance. It will also increase the difference with the MBP range.
Because it's a five year old design. The outer form of the MacBook Air is tapered, but the inner form of the battery packs isn't terraced. Despite its reputation, the Air is wasting a lot of space and weight. Both rMB and rMBP do a much better job at filling available space with battery.
So the weight difference between MBA and rMBP may not be that big, but the difference in battery capacity and battery life is significant. MBA 12 h on 54 Wh, rMBP 10 h on 75 Wh. It's running longer on a smaller battery, because a Retina display is a huge power drain. With the same screen and processor as in the Air, an imaginary non-retina MBP would run 16.5 hours on its 39% bigger battery. But it does not run 16, not 14, not 12, only 10 hours. That's the tax of more pixels and the power to drive them.
Going Retina with the MBA would have the same devastating effect. Instead of 12 hours, battery life would immediately drop to about 6 hours when (almost idle) web browsing. Far less than Apples goal of "all day" battery life. Just to gain back a few minutes, Apple would need to do all the same things to the rMBA, which people hate about the rMB. A shallow keyboard, clickless trackpad and single port, because all that space is needed for more battery. And of course the machine would feel a little underpowered for the number of pixels it has to push.You can't just demand a rMBA and assume it will basically have the same size, weight and battery life as a MBA. That's impossible. When the MBP was going Retina, it still had an optical drive to lose. So it could become smaller and lighter despite using a more power-hungry display. This trick doesn't work with the Air, which never had an optical drive. When the Air goes Retina it will grow in size and weight and lose it's battery life advantage.
No, I'm not. You're just not getting my point. One way to reduce the high cost of going Retina is to use a 12" 3.3mpx display instead of a 13" 4.1mpx display. That's almost 20% less work for the GPU. And if you can use a 5W Core-M, you may end up with a machine that is worth to be called an "Air". While when you start with a MBA and go Retina, you end up in a higher weight class. To reach the goals Apple had in mind for a MBA successor, something had to give. And the result of these compromises is the new MacBook. It has the screen, size and weight, you would want in a rMBA, because that's what it is.
Except the screen, which is becoming less energy efficient when quadrupling the pixel count. The MBA is losing it's concept, because with Retina the bulk of energy consumption is coming from the screen no longer from the processor. And the rMBP is not becoming increasingly thinner and lighter anymore. It can't shrink and remain a Pro machine.