That's pretty galling. Let's hope Apple does something about it and allows a BTO option for the 13" rMBP for 16GB of RAM.
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Slimmer 13" Retina MacBook Pro, Dual Mic MacBook Air Expected at WWDC
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That's pretty galling. Let's hope Apple does something about it and allows a BTO option for the 13" rMBP for 16GB of RAM.
Of course people would. People already go crazy about the Mac, but it's expensive. But Apple won't do that.
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At least not in third world countries like the USA.
But really, think about it: Every single person who purchased an iPhone in the USA with a data plan could easily afford a MacBook, because that iPhone and data plan over 24 months costs 50% to 100% more than a MacBook. (In the UK, it is slightly different: An iPhone 5 + 2 years service costs just about the same as MBA 11" + 64GB which is the cheapest MacBook).
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It might be cheaper, until the customs guys at the airport spot it. And then it gets a lot, lot more expensive. Prices in Brazil are not that high because Apple is ripping off the poor Brazilians, but because of taxes. So I suspect that they will watch very carefully for people trying to avoid those taxes.
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What is more likely:
1. Intel will never, ever, ever release Haswell mobile processors.
2. Intel releases various models of Haswell processors at different times.
Eh? Within Windows 8, just click on 'desktop' and it's the same desktop everyone knows and loves, only better thanks to the enhancements.
For people that are still crying about the lack of a Start button, well that will be rectified with 8.1, or just buy Start8 now for $4.99 (it's a great utility that gives you that classic Windows 7 Start button & menus).
OS X is nothing like Windows at all. In fact Mountain Lion looks a dated mess compared to Windows 7 or 8.
If a normal person is looking for a basic laptop what do you think they will go for... the cheapest 15" Mac at £1499 or a run of the mill 15" Windows laptop at around £329?
Now clearly the MacBook is a lot better, but at nearly 5 x as much money it seems totally unrealistic to your average joe.
If Apple could sell a low-speck MacBook at around £600 to £800 I bet they would sell almost as many as they do with their iPads.
I switch between Windows 7 and OSX all day long and the differences between the two are pretty minor. The main difference is Windows has terrible font handling and looks ugly as hell... You think that cheesy glass effect looks more modern than the minimalism of OSX?. If you say so.
Minor things like the way Win7 sometimes abbreviates file names in icon view bugs the hell out of me. The lack of column view when navigating complex directory structures is also a pain. I also find it very hard to live without quick view.
I know Win8 can be made to work like Win7 but users shouldn't have to put up with a company making their lives difficult for them.
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Change the display mode to a more standard resolution? There are tools available to do this even if apple don't include many settings
When you can get better PC's for less money, why would people buy a low-end MacBook with awful specs? Apple would never pack a decent spec into a budget machine otherwise it would cannibalise their premium machine sales.
The MacBook Air is skating on thin ice as it is as the UltraBooks offer much better value for money these days. The Haswell models I've already seen look pretty amazing.
Apple needs to up their game and lower the prices across the range otherwise sales are going to go into a heavy decline. And I don't need to be an 'analyst' to predict the obvious.
Build quality and design.
PC's are almost always a horrible hotchpotch of parts from different manufactures that haven't been properly tested in conjunction with each other. All this is then usually wrapped up in a horrible, poorly designed, creaky, plastic mess, covered in vents and screw heads of every shape and size.
The few exceptions to this rule never look quite as good as a Mac but end up costing just as much.
The specs on a low end cheap macbook wouldn't have to be terrible. Just take away the retina screen and the SSD and the only real difference to the manufacturing cost over PCs would be the fact they use aluminium instead of plastic. I also imagine Apple have much better buying power than most PC manufactures.
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Huh? Surely if you are designing at a pixel level you are going to be zoomed into the image, so each pixel will actually be made up of lots of pixels anyway, retina or not (Unless you were planning on holding a real magnifying glass up to your screen
). Retina displays will actually be much better for this kind of work as each zoomed pixel will be sharper and you won't get as much aliasing between the pixel squares.
You will also want to be able to see what your designs look like on a retina screen as all screens will be like this in a few more years.
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I think in doing so Apple would become just another computer seller. I would love a lower spec Apple computer but having a line of machines spanning the entire spectrum from cheap to very expensive would possibly taint the public perception about the quality of Mac computers.
I could be wrong, but keeping themselves in the higher end of the market is similar to companies in other markets doing the same thing, such as Coach purses.
Very true.
It's as though Apple's afraid that if they don't continue this tradition of making products thinner, thinner, thinner... sales would suffer. They are quick to toss common sense aside, in favor of a waif like end result.
The benefit on Apple's side is it gives them a reason to charge more, brag more, and continue to push their proprietary agenda.
its something that people use daily without realizing the benefits, hence assuming there are no benefits of thinner laptops.
Apple have already done this though with the iPad, and it was one of the best decisions they ever made. Mass market appeal is the thing that's made them so huge, first with the iPod and now with iOS devices.
Cheap doesn't have to mean poor quality. They sell iPod shuffles for £40 but they are still made out of the perfectly machined aluminium in all their other products. I'm not saying shuffles are good, but build quality and finish certainly isn't the problem.
Apple are introducing new high-end, expensive features, like retina and high capacity SSD etc, so they would still be able to retain the sort of customer who don't care about the cost and buy the top-speck systems whatever they happen to be at the time. But there is nothing stopping Apple from also appealing to all the people who can't afford that sort of thing.
Everything with Apple is about looks. Functionality comes a distant second.
This philosophy may have worked up until last year, but the game has changed. Apple isn't the leader in anything any more. They are playing catch-up.
Apple's arrogance with the pricing and specification of the 13" rMBP told them everything they need to know when they wondered why they had a massive inventory of unsold units. Only the stupid purchased the 13" rMBP direct from Apple.
I don't understand the dislike for the retina display. I personally think it's gorgeous and worth a few extra bucks. And after looking at it, I can't ever see myself going back to a non-retina screen.
I agree completely!
Who, after using an iPhone 4 (retina) display would ever want to back the previous iPhone display?
How would a budget MacBook have superior build quality & design over Windows PC counterparts?
The last budget MacBook was that awful white chunky plastic thing. I'd argue that wasn't really budget either as it was still a lot of money.
There's a lot more wrong with Windows 8 than the start button, though. I'm not a huge fan of Mountain Lion either but if I had to choose I'd rather have the OS that was designed for desktop computers (albiet with iOS features slapped on) than the one that insists on launching most of my files in fullscreen metro apps in such a counter intuitive way. Of course I've now changed the settings so it no longer does that but the whole metro concept is just so verbose in it's goal that it seems like extra bloat that gets in the way of an otherwise decent desktop experience, imo.
They used to sell one and it sold very well, though it never reached iPad sales levels.
The base model of the plastic cased MacBooks range used to cost between £699-£749 and they were still high quality computers. Moving to the aluminium unibody design resulted in the prices rising towards the £1000 mark.
This type of thinking is what Apple has programmed their followers to believe. For those of us that think for ourselves, have years of experience with laptops being the tools we use at work, we know the difference without having to look to Apple.
Very well said.
Years ago when I would buy a new PowerBook, function was as important to Apple as form. Then that shifted to form over function. Upon releasing the iPod & gradually morphing into an entertainment company that also built gadgets, Apple latched onto Aluminum as a way to emphasize style.
Shiny toys sell & Apple took full advantage of that as they displayed Aluminum gadgets & laptops, that featured reflective glass screens. That after using highly effective & preferred anti-glare as standard displays for years.
But now it's about money, bragging rights & growing its mobile iOS devices as fast as possible.
Let's be honest here, the reason that Apple computers cost more than their counterparts is due to Apple's high profit margin. I think they make around 30-40% margin on each machine which is unheard of in the rest of the computer industry.
However to justify that premium you have to offer something special. A Mac is essentially a collection of bought in parts these days so they can't differentiate on processor, spec, etc.
It essentially falls to two things: design and operating system. I don't think Apple's Mac designs are all that much better than some of the stylish Windows PCs around now, largely because Apple has dropped it's innovative design philosophy for a more conservative, tiny steps, nothing too radical policy on design changes.
So that comes down to OS. I hope they do something special with the next version of OSX as it's started to look a bit dated now. I quite like the tiles in Windows 8. At least it's different. I prefer OSX though because I've used both and I find OSX is easier to use and more stable. I'm not sure the average person in the street would appreciate that though.
I'm definitely not against it. I would appreciate being able to buy lower end Macbooks that could still fulfill my lesser-powered needs for a long time. It just seems like they have shifted toward the higher priced end of the spectrum across most of their product lines, with perhaps the iPods being an exception.
From the view of the iPad mini, they didn't really crack the code on price even though they offered an outstanding product at a price lower than the existing iPad. There is still a huge premium on the iPad Mini in terms of price because it seems to be along the lines of tablets half its cost in terms of power. For me, it was well worth that premium because the OS allows it to be fluid and smooth in most applications while some of the Androids in a lower price point (Galaxy Tab 2 and a couple others) were supposed to be of comparable specs but had much lower performance.
I don't disagree that they've captured some of the lower market with the iPad, but they seem to have pushed into the upper tier(s) with Macs and I wonder if they would delve back into the lower price points again since they exited that portion mostly with the creation of the unibody MBP and MBA.
I wish they would offer line in again on the 13" MBP. That is a silly omission.
Exactly. Asus, in fact, just did and I truly believe Apple should get on it.
MacRumors doesn't make up rumors their own rumors; they are basically a news aggregator. You can't assume all rumors reported here or on any other site are true. This particular one seems plausible.
As you have been told at least a half dozen times, this guy has a pretty great track record for being right. Although I am with you when it is an "analyst" spewing out a rumor, in this case I think you are simply off base.
Looking at the few specs from Asus, I think you're right about size but I don't think you're right about getting rid of the 11".
Indeed. It's the usual pattern. Apple is first out with some feature or hardware improvement, such as the retina screens. Other OEMs then soon follows, and also supercedes Apple in a spec race. Apple is left behind, stuck in their incremental upgrades and artificial limits on products, to milk money, and have to play catch up. Damn, so tired of this.
