Professional Mac Users' Complaints List Grows After 'Disappointing' Apple Event

[asiga]

I think it'll shock you how soon Apple laptops with ARM processors will arrive. When they do, Apple will have native iOS developer tools ready to go.

Didn't you know that both MacOS and iOS are architecture-independent? Multi-CPU support is a builtin kernel feature, since the days of NeXTSTEP back in the early 90s. The development of OS X was simultaneously done on (at least) both PowerPC and Intel from the beginning. It would surprise me if they haven't been building OS X on ARM too since quite a few years ago already.

So, an ARM MacBook isn't an iOS MacBook. It's a MacOS MacBook, with MacOS running on ARM. It doesn't make any difference on being able to build iOS apps from iOS, which is an OS-limitation rather than a CPU limitation.
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Oh please, there are many iOS developers building iOS apps using 5 year old Macs with 4GB of RAM.

Yes, and my G5 iMac is fully functional, has 2GB RAM, runs Tiger, and I still compile code on it for testing purposes. But what's your point? That everybody should be happy with 4GB? I'm very happy with my G5 iMac (one of the most beautiful desktops I've seen), but it doesn't change the fact that I need VR-class GPUs on Macs, and over 32GB RAM for simulation.

 

[NAYo2002]

Yes, and my G5 iMac is fully functional, has 2GB RAM, runs Tiger, and I still compile code on it for testing purposes. But what's your point? That everybody should be happy with 4GB? I'm very happy with my G5 iMac (one of the most beautiful desktops I've seen), but it doesn't change the fact that I need VR-class GPUs on Macs, and over 32GB RAM for simulation.

My point is that you can't use iOS app development as a reason for needing more than 16GB on a MacBook. Of course there are people who need more power and I'm sure apple will refresh MacBook Pro line once Intel releases Kabylake which can support LPDDR4.

You don't have to buy it now just because it's a new design. This is a laptop first and should be power efficient. This is the same reason why Microsoft doesn't offer more than 16GB on Surface Pros.

 

[Barry Marshall]

Apple started losing it's vision when the discontinued the 17" MBP.

 

[Abazigal]

Has anyone experienced this?

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/685103-new-macbook-pro-usb-c-kills-wifi/?page=1

Seems the limited bandwidth in the new MacBook Pro is killing wifi if used in tandem with other high bandwidth devices.

 

[asiga]

My point is that you can't use iOS app development as a reason for needing more than 16GB on a MacBook.[...]

I wasn't. What I was saying is that iOS app developers are Mac users, and what looks "sufficient" from an iOS user point of view is not necessarily sufficient from a Mac user point of view. The "look my iPad, it's cool and everybody should use an iPad for everything and your Mac shouldn't be more powerful than my iPad and Mac professionals are expendable" rationale that I've found in the thread is just nonsense, childish, and a symptom of ignorance regarding Apple and the Mac.

That childish rationale is not only present in threads like this, but across the Apple management itself. They're hitting their own feet, and consequences will be bad for Apple unless they really recover the pro users (not for the income of pro products purchase -quite little-, but because for the side-effects income that pro users produce, including iOS app development, Apple brand reputation, purchase recommendation to third parties, etc, etc).

Lose the pros, lose what Apple is^H^H was.

 

[mollyc]

Right. This is what I'm failing to understand. People need that much processing power probably need to wait for a Mac Pro refresh instead of complaining about Apple's choice to be more efficient with a mobile device by using the most power efficient RAM they could. A Pro with a dead battery is worse off then a Pro with slightly less RAM.

"Apple provided a bit more detail to Dan Frakes of The Wirecutter, noting that Apple elected to use LPDDR3 RAM, which is limited to 16 GB per chip, due to its performance/energy ratio. A reddit commenter notes that Intel's Skylake chips do not support the faster and more efficient LPDDR4 standard."

Yes, but the problem is that the people who are waiting for a desktop refresh are concerned that this current iteration of the MacBook indicates that desktop refreshes aren't going to have been worth the wait. Foreshadowing, if you will.

 

[asiga]

Right. This is what I'm failing to understand. People need that much processing power probably need to wait for a Mac Pro refresh [...]

The Mac Pro! Yes! For how long? One year? Two years? Three years? Ten years? And for getting exactly what after the wait? A cylinder that becomes outdated in a year because you cannot buy new GPUs nor CPUs for it?

EDIT: I was waiting for the Mac Pro. This summer I needed a new professional desktop. But I needed a Pascal NVIDIA GPU (or alternatively a Polaris AMD). I spent over $3000 on non-Apple hardware, much to my sadness, because I really wanted a Mac Pro. But there was none.

 

[AngryCrossMonkey]

The Mac Pro! Yes! For how long? One year? Two years? Three years? Ten years? And for getting exactly what after the wait? A cylinder that becomes outdated in a year because you cannot buy new GPUs nor CPUs for it?

EDIT: I was waiting for the Mac Pro. This summer I needed a new professional desktop. But I needed a Pascal NVIDIA GPU (or alternatively a Polaris AMD). I spent over $3000 on non-Apple hardware, much to my sadness, because I really wanted a Mac Pro. But there was none.

I did the same, as we needed two additional Final Cut workstations; so a couple 6-core i7s hackintoshes were made. I'd still get a decent Mac Pro in a heartbeat if something even remotely current AND easily upgradable existed.

Last note: my daily machine while not in the edit suite is my 2012 first-gen rMBP with 16GB of RAM - it's totally fine for even basic 4K editing on the go, but if I need to get a new machine it better damn well have more RAM than the computer I got over 4 years ago.

 

[Seanm87]

It wouldn't surprise me if the most vocal of complainers on here were the first to put their pre orders in the first chance they got.

 

[SimeoneSergio]

It wouldn't surprise me if the most vocal of complainers on here were the first to put their pre orders in the first chance they got.

Probably they are forced to order because they can't wait a refresh...

I'll personally go for it in couple of months but hey, for the amount of money we're paying a thinner laptop with a led bar isn't really what some of us were expecting.

 

[Pootmatoot]

Can you give a couple of examples of other 15inch (year old) ultrabooks that have 32GB and Skylake?

The Dell XPS 15 and the Asus ROG Strix.

Jump around this list. There are many.

http://www.ultrabookreview.com/8162-skylake-ultrabooks/

 

[bernstein]

Probably they are forced to order because they can't wait a refresh...

well i'd still rather buy a used 2011 mbp 17... sure it can't drive 4K displays & it's gpu hasn't aged well, but for running xcode, eclipse, vm's & server instances it's about the same speed.
luckily mine still works and got a brand new motherboard half a year back thanks to failing solder points on it's amd gpu & apple's extended warranty

 

[Pootmatoot]

No they are not. Tried at least a dozen of the most popular laptops and their trackpads suck balls

Which?

 

[MaloCS]

Just post this under every news article until everyone gets it

AWESOME!!!!! In his own words, Steve Jobs tells us why Apple is doing the things they do.

 

[Jcxa]

What is this MacBook Pro you keep talking about? Apple has not released one yet. They released a MacBook Air last week, sorry if you are confused. You can identify a MacBook Air easily, Is it thin and light? check; does it only have a few ports, check; long battery life as long as you do nothing with it, check, can you plug in your Iphone? Nope. A MBP is just the opposite, IT JUST WORKS! Plenty of ports, no problems plug a peripheral directly into the computer, even an Iphone; It may not be as small and light but it does have a larger battery and like I said before, IT JUST WORKS! MacBook airs are meant for a certain segment of Apple buyers. MBP are meant for people who need high performance and it JUST WORKS.

As to the name callers, You fail to see that the 'haters' are devoted fans who strongly disagree with the choices that Apple has made. It is rather appalling to see one customer segment bash/dismiss another customer segment because of the one size fits all mentality that now pervades Apple.

The MBA people have a very fine machine that meets their needs, The MBP are still waiting. And Apple, you should probably fix the factory glitch that is mislabeling MBA as a MBP.

 

[remydlc]

Can you explain without being dramatic why 16 GB of RAM on a Mac is a joke?

Let me save you the time: you can't. You simply don't need more than that. I have 24 GB of RAM in my iMac, and doesn't ever, under any circumstances, exceed 10 GB of usage, unless I spin up Virtual Machines that are being allocated memory. Which is the ONLY reason I have more than 16 GB.

So your argument is "i dont meed 16+gb so neither do you". I dont know what you do, im not even a media editor, im a system administrator and i top 15gb ram used like nothing and im hopping into another computer (windows) for java related tools. This is not a cache ram situation, is used, i need lots of tools open at times and browser tabs. When i use a VM, dont get me started, that thing slows down due to lack of available RAM and heats up like no other. So yeah, 16gb should have been the min and 64 the max maybe. I have the top of the line MBP15" of mid 2015 if that helps. OSX is a memory hog, cant deny that.

 

[admob71]

What Steve Jobs did was innovation. Since he died, no revolutionary products (except the iwatch) has been released.
All the rest have been minor updates (memory, small design, hardrive, etc...).
Cook, Schiller and IVe are marketing people that are not innovating. THey are doing things for consumers and forgot about the Pros Market. The entire mac hardware line up is outdated. The Macpro was not updated in the last 3 years. Look at the Surface studio and look at the iMac....

Many long time mac users are extremely dissapointed...

How was the iWatch revolutionary? It offered nothing new to what was already in the market.. unless I'm missing something..

 

[Gudi]

I don't know where you want to arrive to anyway. Are you happy with iOS? That's fine.

You really need to calm down. You won't define the purpose or the fate of neither macOS nor iOS. The needs of developers and professionals bear no additional weight, they are just consumers with a limited license of usage, like everybody else. As such they have the same three options, buy what Apple currently offers, wait and read rumors about what Apple might offer next or buy something else from somebody else. Pick one of these options and don't make a fuss.

 

[jweinraub]

So what does one do? I have a 2012 MBPr, having screen issues, battery issues, and track pad issues. It is a binary decision, buy now or wait. And while a lot of the complaints people have are valid, most aren't show stoppers. Their thinness fetish over functionality I am getting sick of, however. The removal of the magsafe is absurd. I really don't get why the removed SD since I use it a LOT. Not everyone is wireless, I don't want to use adaptors to use Ethernet, I like the idea of being plugged in all day. I rather not have a hub. Why not make it 3 mm thicker and 200 g heavier?

 

[The Mercurian]

So what does one do? I have a 2012 MBPr, having screen issues, battery issues, and track pad issues. It is a binary decision, buy now or wait. And while a lot of the complaints people have are valid, most aren't show stoppers. Their thinness fetish over functionality I am getting sick of, however. The removal of the magsafe is absurd. I really don't get why the removed SD since I use it a LOT. Not everyone is wireless, I don't want to use adaptors to use Ethernet, I like the idea of being plugged in all day. I rather not have a hub. Why not make it 3 mm thicker and 200 g heavier?

Wait. See if the early adopters show up any issues. There is at least one review where they had wifi issues when connected to some USB peripherals via dongle:

So if you can, wait and see what washes out.

Edit: Or buy a 2015 model on the refurb store
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How was the iWatch revolutionary? It offered nothing new to what was already in the market.. unless I'm missing something..

It included extra profit

 

[asiga]

You really need to calm down. You won't define the purpose or the fate of neither macOS nor iOS. The needs of developers and professionals bear no additional weight, they are just consumers with a limited license of usage, like everybody else. As such they have the same three options, buy what Apple currently offers, wait and read rumors about what Apple might offer next or buy something else from somebody else. Pick one of these options and don't make a fuss.

I'm calm. Maybe disappointed, because I spent on a PC the money that should have gone to a Mac Pro if there was one with current components. Anyway, I guess your point is that I shouldn't express Apple is wrong. Why? Is Apple the FBI or something?

 

[sarge]

This is hilarious!
Pro users whined about the Mac Pros but bought them anyway, they whined about Final Cut X but still use it anyway.
Now they're whining about the new MBPs yet it has become the most purchased MBP model ever!

Could it be that these so called "professional" users (which really just consists of YouTubers creating 5 minute clips with 183 jumpcuts) are just scared of change?

Or could it be that institutional buyers are filling those orders?

 

[The Mercurian]

This is hilarious!
Pro users whined about the Mac Pros but bought them anyway, they whined about Final Cut X but still use it anyway.
Now they're whining about the new MBPs yet it has become the most purchased MBP model ever!

Could it be that these so called "professional" users (which really just consists of YouTubers creating 5 minute clips with 183 jumpcuts) are just scared of change?

No. We actively want change. From 16GB to 32GB (or more)

 

[sleepydinosaur]

Thanks!

I just thought of something though...

Intel delays don't only affect Apple... every other OEM uses Intel processors too.

So if we're gonna blame Apple's problems on Intel... shouldn't everyone else have the same problems?

Is it because Apple only does one laptop refresh every 12-18 months... while Dell or HP will shove a new model onto the market at any ol' time?

As for this article... I don't think people are disappointed about just the processor choice. There are many other issues with the laptops Apple recently announced.

The prices were raised this time around... the lack of SD card reader and loss of regular USB ports bother many people... the Touch Bar is neat but probably isn't necessary... etc. And did I mention the price?

None of those things can be blamed on Intel's delays.

Hell... the processor should actually be cheaper now since it's a year old at this point!

What other computer manufacturer has the press on pin and needles when releasing new computers? NONE.
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I don't think anyone's expecting the MacBook 13 to have 32GB, but the 15 inch?

Other 15inch (year old) ultrabooks have 32GB and Skylake.

And much larger batteries

 

[moonjelly]

Not narrowly defining professional needs. Defining notebook roles. Roles that can expand as the products expand, and they have, but the goal posts keep moving. This product has a lot of "firsts" in its bag, its the first Pro Mac laptop with that be used all day while away from power, but its not the first Pro Mac laptop with 32 GB of RAM. It will eventually, but it couldn't be both this time around, so Apple naturally chose the one that benefits everyone, instead of the tiniest % of users.

I understand the business decision Turbo. I like the machine. I defend it against the attacks that say its not good value. Mostly these fail to consider the fast SSDs, non-spyware OS, and judge notebook display on arbitrary pixel count rather than side by side image quality. Lets look at that in person before deciding? It does hit a personal sweet spot for all around use.

But apple has neglected the high resource requirement professional, both the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro [which used to have a 17 inch high power version]. I'm saying neglect. Others are saying abandoned. We will see this year. The Mac Pro is at 3 years since an update? Not even a GPU boost? Many are being forced to competing platforms to pursue their profession.

The enthusiast customer base for Macs is not as tiny as you may think. Loose the enthusiast market and you loose more than the "tiniest % users" would suggest. There is a fine line between competing only at the mass market level and a race to the mass market whims.