There's something cool about Apple announcing a new product and saying "Shipping today" on stage right after, but I'm wondering if this time it was the right thing to do with the rMBP for a couple of reasons:
1. Availability. While it's nice to have a product ship the day it's announced, what really matters is the time we actually receive it and begin actually using it. For a lot of us, that's nowhere near the announcement date. The shipping estimate slipped to 2-3 weeks only hours after the announcement, to later slip to 3-4 weeks and some BTOs with the 768GB SSD option had even worse delays. There's no doubt that releasing the rMBP a month and a half later would have allowed to produce more of them and have faster delivery, not to mention some situations where people received other items under their rMBP's AppleCare before thus reducing the covering period of their rMBP to slightly before 1 year. Having people receive their laptops at different dates also has an effect of reducing the hype around the release.
2. Scrolling performance issues. People make a big deal about this. They don't expect such an expensive computer to have that kind of issue. It's known that Mountain Lion will improve scrolling performance by using Core Animation, but reviews were mostly made with Lion and a lot of them won't be updated to mention the improvements made with Mountain Lion. Even if Mountain Lion completely fixes this, people will still be reading about those issues and fear they're still be there.
3. Retina-enabled third-party applications. Developers had no time to prepare Retina-enabled apps since most didn't know in advance. 1 month and a half between the announcement and release would have been enough for a lot of developers to make such an upgrade, and while most apps obviously won't support Retina for a while, at least some very popular ones like Chrome could have had a stable release before the launch of the rMBP. It's weird that a lot of people use the Canary build as their primary browser, which is unstable at times. Some professional applications like Photoshop could also have been updated, or at least closer to the release of an update.
4. No OS upgrade process. Of course, I know the upgrade to Mountain Lion will be free and as easy as it can get, but it will still take some time and make some people stress about problems in the process or applications becoming incompatible. Even if everything went perfectly and no laptop were bricked in the process, you still don't get the perfect "out of box experience" that Apple touts about. Waiting for Mountain Lion would have allowed to get improved software directly out of the box. Anandtech's review mentioned that while the rMBP received a bronze Editor’s Choice award, it could have gotten a silver one if Mountain Lion and more Retina-enabled apps were ready at launch. I'm sure other people feel the same.
5. Accessory availability. There could have been third-party cases directly at launch, the Thunderbolt to FireWire would have been ready and other accessories like locks, screen protectors and such would have been all ready for launch. Some people depend on FireWire and can't upgrade without the adapter being released and if you're going to move your laptop around, you probably want to protect it and not have to buy a temporary 15" legacy MBP case that you will replace a month later because you find it too loose.
In my opinion Apple did the wrong choice by releasing the rMBP that soon and I feel that people would have felt more satisfied with their computer at launch if they had decided to wait a bit longer. Releasing your computer the day it's announced is cool in theory, but it looks like Apple weren't prepared enough for such a fast release.
As consumers, do you think you would have been more satisfied if Apple announced the rMBP at WWDC, yet started shipping it only when Mountain Lion is released, considering it would have had faster shipping times and better store availability, less performance issues, more Retina-enabled applications, no OS upgrade process and more accessories at launch?
1. Availability. While it's nice to have a product ship the day it's announced, what really matters is the time we actually receive it and begin actually using it. For a lot of us, that's nowhere near the announcement date. The shipping estimate slipped to 2-3 weeks only hours after the announcement, to later slip to 3-4 weeks and some BTOs with the 768GB SSD option had even worse delays. There's no doubt that releasing the rMBP a month and a half later would have allowed to produce more of them and have faster delivery, not to mention some situations where people received other items under their rMBP's AppleCare before thus reducing the covering period of their rMBP to slightly before 1 year. Having people receive their laptops at different dates also has an effect of reducing the hype around the release.
2. Scrolling performance issues. People make a big deal about this. They don't expect such an expensive computer to have that kind of issue. It's known that Mountain Lion will improve scrolling performance by using Core Animation, but reviews were mostly made with Lion and a lot of them won't be updated to mention the improvements made with Mountain Lion. Even if Mountain Lion completely fixes this, people will still be reading about those issues and fear they're still be there.
3. Retina-enabled third-party applications. Developers had no time to prepare Retina-enabled apps since most didn't know in advance. 1 month and a half between the announcement and release would have been enough for a lot of developers to make such an upgrade, and while most apps obviously won't support Retina for a while, at least some very popular ones like Chrome could have had a stable release before the launch of the rMBP. It's weird that a lot of people use the Canary build as their primary browser, which is unstable at times. Some professional applications like Photoshop could also have been updated, or at least closer to the release of an update.
4. No OS upgrade process. Of course, I know the upgrade to Mountain Lion will be free and as easy as it can get, but it will still take some time and make some people stress about problems in the process or applications becoming incompatible. Even if everything went perfectly and no laptop were bricked in the process, you still don't get the perfect "out of box experience" that Apple touts about. Waiting for Mountain Lion would have allowed to get improved software directly out of the box. Anandtech's review mentioned that while the rMBP received a bronze Editor’s Choice award, it could have gotten a silver one if Mountain Lion and more Retina-enabled apps were ready at launch. I'm sure other people feel the same.
5. Accessory availability. There could have been third-party cases directly at launch, the Thunderbolt to FireWire would have been ready and other accessories like locks, screen protectors and such would have been all ready for launch. Some people depend on FireWire and can't upgrade without the adapter being released and if you're going to move your laptop around, you probably want to protect it and not have to buy a temporary 15" legacy MBP case that you will replace a month later because you find it too loose.
In my opinion Apple did the wrong choice by releasing the rMBP that soon and I feel that people would have felt more satisfied with their computer at launch if they had decided to wait a bit longer. Releasing your computer the day it's announced is cool in theory, but it looks like Apple weren't prepared enough for such a fast release.
As consumers, do you think you would have been more satisfied if Apple announced the rMBP at WWDC, yet started shipping it only when Mountain Lion is released, considering it would have had faster shipping times and better store availability, less performance issues, more Retina-enabled applications, no OS upgrade process and more accessories at launch?
