Average eyesight can resolve 0.0035", if the distance is 24" to the screen. Meaning 286 PPI...
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Though Discontinued, Apple Offering a Plethora of Discounted 17" MacBook Pros
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Is there any merit to the argument for having a "bleeding edge" performance loss-leader prestige product? Like the 959 was for Porsche--more or less a testing platform for new performance tech? IIRC, even with the big price tag, Porsche LOST money on every 959 they sold due to the ridiculous R&D and production costs.
If one considers it, for all intents and purposes, a brand enhancement/marketing tool rather than a revenue-driving product, could tricked-out 17" MBPs be worth doing, even if the profit per unit sold is not as impressive as the rest of the line?
Seeing that the perception is that Apple caters to "creative" professionals (musicians, artists, writers, videographers/filmmakers, graphic designers, etc.) and the 17" still has some pull among those professionals, doesn't it weaken the brand a bit to discontinue them? Doesn't such a move, along with the glacial pace of the Mac Pro updates, sully Apple's brand, essentially painting Apple as an iToy consumer gadgets company first and foremost, and a productivity-enhancing high-tech hardware/software solutions provider second?
I am beginning to wonder if the iToy thing might be something of a bubble. Will the demand for them continue unabated? What happens when the market "matures?" It'd be nice if the tower division were positioned to take up the slack if and when people stop buying iPods/Pads/Phones in these volumes.
True
Good point. Apple got to great heights with creativity and innovation that started pro in MP and 17" complementing the itoys as new ideas trickled down. Not sure it could serve as loss leader in the way iPhones lead people to Mbps but there probably are pros that buy top gear first then buy into more of the ecosystem. Hope the apple managers didn't choose unwisely focusing on post pc world.
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Very surprising things to see in apple store
Like on a Friday workday a woman bought a brand new (no refresh) 17" Mbp, three iPads all with apple care plus and never asked for the $50 back to school cards.
Saw others buy new iMacs at full retail without using a student discount.
Man asked if iPad 3G supported all carriers simultaneously.
Others pissed about no 17"
How many people just drive to these stores never having read the apple website or a news/rumor page to get top value per dollar?
Good point. Apple got to great heights with creativity and innovation that started pro in MP and 17" complementing the itoys as new ideas trickled down. Not sure it could serve as loss leader in the way iPhones lead people to Mbps but there probably are pros that buy top gear first then buy into more of the ecosystem. Hope the apple managers didn't choose unwisely focusing on post pc world.
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Very surprising things to see in apple store
Like on a Friday workday a woman bought a brand new (no refresh) 17" Mbp, three iPads all with apple care plus and never asked for the $50 back to school cards.
Saw others buy new iMacs at full retail without using a student discount.
Man asked if iPad 3G supported all carriers simultaneously.
Others pissed about no 17"
How many people just drive to these stores never having read the apple website or a news/rumor page to get top value per dollar?
That me understand if my reading comprehension is good or not but I'm sure it was said many times here that Steve Jobs changed in past 2 or 3 years has his future was iToy for the average student like the iPods/Pads/Phones and macbook air and moving away from creative" professionals (musicians, artists, writers, videographers/filmmakers, graphic designers,scientists so on and doing away from the Mac pro and iMac.
Also the future of desktop OS like OS X , windows and many Linux distro is changing to like a iOS type and touch screen.
Both Apple and Microsoft and many Linux distro is going in new direction with doing away from desktop OS that is all still all very experimental in finding the best GUI. I think both Apple and Microsoft along with many Linux distro think the furure is iPods/Pads/Phones and macbook air and desktop computers Mac pro , iMac , tower computer or big large pro latop is of the past.
And yes Microsoft is still going to have to support desktop OS some what for businesses that use desktop computers not laptops.
Has for creative professionals (musicians, artists, writers, videographers/filmmakers, graphic designers , scientists so on there going be lost not knowing what to do.
No onw knows yet if Tim Cook has the same views has Steve Jobs in the past 2 or 3 years of desktop computer and OS X.
But from what I understand Steve Jobs wanted to be iToy for the average student like the iPods/Pads/Phones and macbook air .
May be there is some hope under Tim Cook has he has been running it for 10 months now and there is a update for Mac pro not enough time for major update or new radical update. You cannot get any thing done in 10 months with working on massive projects like new radical update Macbook pro ,working on mountain lion and iOS 6 not to say the map thing was big undertaking. And this is not to say if there is projects like retina iMac and other retina Macbook pro and Macbook air that there is engineering problems that have to be worked out before it is for the public not say also working on smart apple TV and other smaller ipad models and other bigger iPhone models.
Apple is bulding many new buildings and going to be getting many new skilled people to work in those new bulding . The big massive building http://www.mercurynews.com/business...rtino-new-details-headquarters-building-plans is massive.
So it is very likely apple has its hands in too many things with lack of resources. Well this should change when these new buildings are build .
And under Steve Jobs the future of desktop computers Mac pro and iMac looked bad.
Boiler of course you're right about all of the financial/economics info you put forth, but that's not what made Apple succeed in the first place. It was Jobs breaking the rules and, more importantly, his concentrating on QUALITY that put Apple in the position it is in today. Give the do-gooders in charge now another ten months on their current path and you're going to see the stock price halved. Why? Quantity over quality - it fails every time. The "pros" already see it, and we're the ones who raised Apple into the view of the consumer masses. Remember when Tekserve NYC and places like it were buzzing hubs of avant garde creative types? There needs to be a balance between profit and sustainability and this is something big business throws out the window in favor of big immediate profits.
My grandfather was CFO of GM in the 80s, and he told me one thing that has stuck in my head: "There is no formula." - So innovation and adherence to quality will always matter--and make for better business than simple profit-mongering. It's only in today's corrupt bloated bubble too-big-to-fail bailout atmosphere that a company as great as Apple could get as big as it is. And I wonder if it's being artificially bloated in order to use its bubble for nefarious purposes, similar to Facebook. In fact I suspect they've got a tear-down plan in place-- lets just hope it includes innovation for us pro-users, or we're going to have to migrate out of OSX/iOS, which will suck big time.
Well, that seems extraordinarily unlikely - or at least, unusual. Using average sales, there would be around 50 non-17" laptops sold in between each 17.
These are things that tend to change with the times. I remember when there were those that were clamoring for a 20" MacBook (actually, around the time there were 20" notebooks, the Mac notebook was called a Powerbook, but I digress.) Demand drives production.
Personally, I'd rather have seen them keep a non-retina display but make it IPS, and either use the extra space for more battery power or shrink the computer. It makes no sense that an iPad has a MUCH better screen (IPS) at $499 than any of the non-retina laptops.
Since at least Windows 3.1, in fact... but that's not really relevant to the enchancements they added in Vista...
Smaller - 100% = 96 DPI (Pixels/Dots Per Inch)
Medium - 125% = 120 DPI (Pixels/Dots Per Inch)
Larger - 150% = 144 DPI (Pixels/Dots Per Inch)
So much for "scaling".
Control Panel -> Personalization -> Adjust DPI -> Custom DPI.
Drag an on-screen ruler until 1" on the ruler matches 1" in reality. You can scale in 1% increments from 100 to 500%. (For reference, 100% corresponds to 96 dpi; 125% corresponds to 120 dpi; 500% would correspond to 480 dpi.)
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This sounds highly unlikely. Actually, your comment smells particularly odiferous.
Apparently, 17" MBP sales were trending toward 50K units per quarter before Monday's keynote. That's 548 per day. But the US is less than half of all sales, so let's say 250 per day throughout the US. (With that sales velocity, it's unsurprising that Apple killed off this product.)
That's 250 units from all sales channels, including bricks-and-mortar Apple Retail Stores, their online store at store.apple.com, and all 3rd party resellers (like Amazon).
B&M Apple stores account for maybe 30-40% of US sales, so we're talking maybe 80-90 units. That's really about one 17" MBP per location per day, except for larger market stores (like NYC, LA, SF, Chicago, a few others).
That sounds about right based on what I've seen as a customer at the Palo Alto Apple Store which presumably has a higher MBP sales rate due to its proximity to Silicon Valley.
Let's face it, Apple is drawing down inventory of refurbs for a discontinued product line. Not surprising that they don't have any local inventory. After all, it is claimed that Apple turns around their entire inventory in ten days.
They End-Of-Lifed the 17" MBP based on declining sales, so it really shouldn't affect many buyers.
Damn, I will miss the 17".
The extra 2 inches and with retina would be fantastic. Too bad.
Think at how much that would cost though, easily over $3000
There's a stock run going on the 17" MBP models from people that wanted to replace their older 17" models with a 2012 model and people that wanted to buy their first 17" model from the 2012 line-up.
Yet since there won't be a 2012 17" model, you will see that the previous week and for the next couple of weeks more than normal, 17" model buyers at the Apple Stores and premium resellers.
I bought mine on Tuesday and went to pick it up this Saturday. In the 50 minutes that I was there to buy it, get Applecare, get a hard cover and install the additional RAM memory, two other 17" notebooks were sold.
Now since there are in Belgium no official Apple Stores, but a Premium Reseller (that is so "Apple-ish" in its stores that I thought that we had official Apple Stores here) , they can keep selling there stock at normal prize in their shops until it's depleted, what they will expect by this Wednessday.
Actually, it's quite plausible that stores sold more 17" MBPs last week than they did in the previous 3 months.
However, that just means that everybody who really wanted a 17" and had been holding off buying in the hope of an update, dashed out last week to grab the remaining stock.
Its a blip, and says nothing about the long-term demand for this model. If it was selling well, Apple would have at least kept it on.
Pity - I think it was a good "desktop replacement" machine, whereas the new 15.4" Retina seems a bit wasted if it's not taken for regular long walks.
Not that tempted
As a current user of a 5+ year old 17" MBP that I love but sorely needs replacing, I'm less tempted because of, in order:
As a current user of a 5+ year old 17" MBP that I love but sorely needs replacing, I'm less tempted because of, in order:
- 2011 model is not able to run a 6Gb/s at full speed in the place of the DVD drive. (see http://blog.macsales.com/10433-macbook-pro-2011-models-and-sata-3-0-6-0gbs-update-5272011 ), whereas 2012's are (http://blog.macsales.com/14064-expand-the-2012-macbook-pros-with-an-owc-data-doubler)
- Performance gains of new chips over 2011 gen
- Lack of USB 3 built in (don't want to have to have use any dongle or card hanging off the side)
The Apple Store's should give them away with purchase of the $2800 build of the Retina Pro.
My local Best Buy had three 17" Pro's on the Manager's Special table, new in box, for $1899 each about a month ago. That was a better "special".
You're not talking about what I'm talking about. I'm talking about relative UI sizes vs PPI in normal mode, not in HiDPI mode rendering formats.
effective 160 PPI for laptops (1920x1080 usable resolution at 13.3") is still readable while giving you the highest possible usable pixel count. Higher than that can result in UI elements/fonts to be too small, lower than that, you end up with Duplo block size UIs that waste screen inches.
For desktops, it's lower than that obviously, on the account the monitor sits farther away.
Apple is just now catching up to these usable pixel counts wit the MBPR 15.4" scaled mode 1920x1200 resolution at 147 PPI.
There is always somewhat of a balance to it. You mentioned desktop displays. It's beyond just readability. The ability to efficiently navigate ui elements via mouse or trackpad is important. The comfortable size for ui elements for a given person tends to be somewhat static.
Going by PPI seems like a weird way to measure such things given that the perception is more gradual than this. It doesn't account for any of the complexities of vision or the gradual nature of resolving contrast. It doesn't account for viewing angles. They're assuming the display is precisely facing you and not accounting for the difference in viewing angle when you focus in on the corners. Basically Apple's marketing department is trolling all of you
. I wish they'd let go of this stupid retina branding and just let the product upgrade speak for itself. I will say that I'm irritated with the sealed in battery and drive. This is not an iphone that you typically buy on carrier subsidy for a few hundred (yes I'm aware you're still paying for it, but they don't discount your plan if you don't get a new phone after 2 years). It is more annoying on an expensive machine. I can deal with soldered ram as long as reasonable upgrades are available at the time of purchase, but they really need to make it clear on their cto pages that these things are not user serviceable. It's a newer concept, and it's a major change. It's not unreasonable to expect them to make it clear that if you want to change anything, do it now.
Apple must continue 17", introduce fair employment and pay tax!
Big mistake Apple to ditch 17".
I'm a graphic designer and media producer. Last Monday I was excited to upgrade my old 15" to a new 17" - It's taken six years for me to realize the 17" is actually the supreme ideal to deal with the on-screen workshop tools of Adobe suite and FinalCut Pro. The 17" is mobile and had it been an animal in the new retina family I could have made dynamic impacts at my client presentations, right at their desk or coffee house. It will fit in my bag and they are now light weight! I made a mistake living with the stress of a 15".
It makes LITTLE sense for Apple to build and focus on crunching big movie editing data with state of the art colour and definition for 15" and LITTLE TO NO sense for 13".
But it makes elegant sense to put everything on board a new 17".
Sorry Apple I didnt supprot your past 17" sales figures (only 50,000 compared with 13+15" @ over 1.5 million each. I waiting for this one but terribly disappointed.
The13+15" will always appeal across user groups, but the 17" should be the standard for design, art and movie making.
Monday has come and gone. I will not be buying a refurbished 17" nor any Mac soon.
Maybe I need to re-think everything. The Apple prices are outragious. The workers dont see the benefit, the prices could be cut, the workers paid properly and still Apple would be a big profit maker. Apple Chinese labor force is abused and this undermines employment in the developed nations where back in the day of an inkling of democracy, union families in the developed nations suffered and sacrificed like you would not believe to build some resemblace of a fair ecomony. Apple must pay taxes.
Big mistake Apple to ditch 17".
I'm a graphic designer and media producer. Last Monday I was excited to upgrade my old 15" to a new 17" - It's taken six years for me to realize the 17" is actually the supreme ideal to deal with the on-screen workshop tools of Adobe suite and FinalCut Pro. The 17" is mobile and had it been an animal in the new retina family I could have made dynamic impacts at my client presentations, right at their desk or coffee house. It will fit in my bag and they are now light weight! I made a mistake living with the stress of a 15".
It makes LITTLE sense for Apple to build and focus on crunching big movie editing data with state of the art colour and definition for 15" and LITTLE TO NO sense for 13".
But it makes elegant sense to put everything on board a new 17".
Sorry Apple I didnt supprot your past 17" sales figures (only 50,000 compared with 13+15" @ over 1.5 million each. I waiting for this one but terribly disappointed.
The13+15" will always appeal across user groups, but the 17" should be the standard for design, art and movie making.
Monday has come and gone. I will not be buying a refurbished 17" nor any Mac soon.
Maybe I need to re-think everything. The Apple prices are outragious. The workers dont see the benefit, the prices could be cut, the workers paid properly and still Apple would be a big profit maker. Apple Chinese labor force is abused and this undermines employment in the developed nations where back in the day of an inkling of democracy, union families in the developed nations suffered and sacrificed like you would not believe to build some resemblace of a fair ecomony. Apple must pay taxes.
I think people here are missing the bigger picture, the 17" was introduced at a time where 20" flatscreens would easily run you $1000, and thats for the bottom end. Now you can get amazingly huge and accurate monitors for a fraction of that. The 17" only really makes sense for the very small sliver of pros who dont spend most of their time docked to a monitor and whom 15"(even at a high resolution) isnt enough on the road.
That is an exceedingly small % of overall notebook users, and yes it doesnt take a lot of engineering resources to keep the 17" going, but it does take a lot of operational resources to do so(you have to keep your retail channels stocked with both models and parts, keep training up etc)
Monitors are cheap, buy one.
That is an exceedingly small % of overall notebook users, and yes it doesnt take a lot of engineering resources to keep the 17" going, but it does take a lot of operational resources to do so(you have to keep your retail channels stocked with both models and parts, keep training up etc)
Monitors are cheap, buy one.
I bought a refurbished 2.5 ghz Quad Core to replace my 2.6 dual core 17"
I'm going to be taking it to MCE, taking out the Superdrive, and put in over a terabyte of SSD, along with 16 gigs of RAM -
http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/...t_Code=OBSXGB-UNB&Category_Code=STORHDOPTIBAY
I'm a happy man (at least for the next 3 years, until I have to buy a 15incher)
I'm going to be taking it to MCE, taking out the Superdrive, and put in over a terabyte of SSD, along with 16 gigs of RAM -
http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/...t_Code=OBSXGB-UNB&Category_Code=STORHDOPTIBAY
I'm a happy man (at least for the next 3 years, until I have to buy a 15incher)
The same can be said when they drop the 15inch in favor of the 10inch quad retina display (say 5 years). The PPI will allow the 10inch to display more code, yet less weight. If thats the case, why put a display on the laptop at all. Just use your desktop display. That'll handle most of the use cases.
New 17"mbp?
When the pros came out the 17in mbp was for the pro user of graphics and audio heavy jobs, now what do we have really?
They are turning the pro line into cool gadgets for the future, it is great for 'innovation sake' and for those who can afford it but, what I wanna know is, HOW MANY people who buy these pro machines today actually use it for pro apps (audio and graphics) than just buying into the pro name cos it is a more powerful machine to play angry turkey(?) or star trek solitaire or type love notes for themselves on. Best one is when a majorly in debt - starving uni-kid carries one around to look cool but can't afford t.p.
If I look on ebay and kijiji or craigs list, there are as many macs on there. I know so many people who just store their old macs into dusty places in their homes or throw them out. I would also like to now the number of consumers of macs who recycle their 'outdated' machine cos I still have my 1994 LC 575 (laughing).
The 17" will make a big come-back I can feel it ^_^
When the pros came out the 17in mbp was for the pro user of graphics and audio heavy jobs, now what do we have really?
They are turning the pro line into cool gadgets for the future, it is great for 'innovation sake' and for those who can afford it but, what I wanna know is, HOW MANY people who buy these pro machines today actually use it for pro apps (audio and graphics) than just buying into the pro name cos it is a more powerful machine to play angry turkey(?) or star trek solitaire or type love notes for themselves on. Best one is when a majorly in debt - starving uni-kid carries one around to look cool but can't afford t.p.
If I look on ebay and kijiji or craigs list, there are as many macs on there. I know so many people who just store their old macs into dusty places in their homes or throw them out. I would also like to now the number of consumers of macs who recycle their 'outdated' machine cos I still have my 1994 LC 575 (laughing).
The 17" will make a big come-back I can feel it ^_^
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I believe that Apple's position on that issue is exemplified by what Steve Jobs said in the All Things D interview with Bill Gates. He (and Apple) see iOS as the future of computing as exemplified through his use of the cars vs trucks metaphor. In addition, I read somewhere that upon his return he wanted to take Apple deep into the consumer market (which he clearly accomplished). So it appears Apple is serious about putting the consumer market first.
The scary part is that Apple discontinues products that cater to the (obviously smaller) professional market suddenly and without warning. So while I greatly enjoy the so-called "iToy" (I disagree with that term), I understand the frustration of the professional market and agree that it may have an impact in how Apple is viewed.
On the other hand, Tim's comment ("who says Apple doesn't care about the pro market?") may be a beacon of hope. At this point, I guess it's wait and see.
I think that those who wanted a new 17" are in fact missing the "bigger picture", since it is actually gone! The reasons why they introduced it are irrelevant at this point to those who prefer a larger screen on their notebook.
There is just no replacement for the product. Period. Those who bought a 17" portable, were using the large screen. An additional monitor is not a substitute for the situations where it is useful/practical to have a 17" screen on a portable device. I cannot take a monitor on military deployments, for example.