1: Well no not really. It is slightly better just like he said. The cache on the 15" Iris Pro chip is not only for the iGPU but the CPU also.
So there is a bit of a performance boost there. And if applications are optimized for it, it can do more. Haswell is mostly a performance per clock upgrade, But the cpu performance is still a SLIGHT upgrade from Ivy bridge.
2: Yes it can be both thinner and lighter. You have NO idea about if it will or not.
Since Haswell is less power hungry and the 15" will be missing a dGPU (most likely) there is room for some improvements. And there may be other optimizations they can do also. Just like they have done before.
3: You do realize people do more then just surf with their computers right?
A lot of people are backing up their works every day. And got most of their work/files on a NAS or things like that.
Also many have upgraded their routers to AC already (Im one of them). And AC WiFi does a HUGE difference compared to N.
4: The SSD is more or less a benchmark thing yes. You will notice it in some situations. But in normal usage you wont.
5: True they are cheap now. And a good choice. At least the 15" is. The 13" is a different story.
But since we don't know what price point the new line will have. Or what upgrades will come. It is still better to wait it you don't really need one right now.
6: This is just speculation from your side also.
Their could be huge improvements in the new line. There is just no way to know right now. We could see stuff like IGZO, 4k, TB2, Redesign, and so on... And the battery can be more then 2h for sure. (especially if it gets a IGZO screen)
We just don't know now. And that's the reason why buying now, if you don't really need one this moment, is a bad idea.
1) You have slightly better performance per clock but you also have lower overall clockspeed with the Iris Pro-equipped lineup. So in reality, you aren't gaining any performance at all. Look at the Haswell MacBook Air. Performance improvement? Hardly. Just better battery life.
2) They removed the dGPU in the 15" lineup before. There wasn't any significant change to thickness or weight of the machine. Again, this isn't the iPad. If you think otherwise, I think you will be sorely disappointed.
3) If you are a professional and your work is so important, you wouldn't want to use NAS or any network solution to back up your work at all. Straight up connection to Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 is far faster and far more secure for that stuff. Or please feel free to prove me wrong.
4) Hence it's not exactly an 'enhancement'
5) Iris Pro equipped CPUs cost the same as non-Iris CPU + dGPU. If you are expecting Apple to cut prices, then they will have to do so elsewhere. Also dropping prices on the Retina line would cannibalize the Air line. I don't think they want to do that... at least not until they migrate the Air line to Retina as well.
6) It's not speculation. It's common sense. IGZO is prohibitively expensive... so unless you want a price hike on the Retina line, I wouldn't expect it right now. People were going crazy about OLED on MacBooks as well. But again, this is one of those things that just can't happen. 4K is already supported on the current rMBP since they have HDMI 1.4 ports. If you are talking about 4K at 60Hz, then it'll only be possible through Thunderbolt 2.0 until they finalize the specs for HDMI 2.0 next year. So you're losing Thunderbolt channel bandwidth to drive a display. That's not really a worthwhile tradeoff if you need the Thunderbolt channels for something else... (like an external video decoder/encoder + high speed Thunderbolt transport) I'd wait until next year to get HDMI 2.0 personally, so I don't have to clog my Thunderbolt channels. Oh, and that's pretty useless in reality as well, unless Apple wants to be the first to market with a 4K 60Hz display.
Why buy now? Because Apple can't make miracles happen... as much as people wish for them to do so.
When all clues point to Haswell being this regular and insignificant upgrade, why must you make up reasons for it to be something it's not? This is just as futile as wishing for this refresh to happen before the usual October event.
I don't get this... I said in March and April of this year that an 'upgrade' just happened in February, so people shouldn't hold their breath for another one anytime soon, but people waited for WWDC... and then June... and then July... and then August... and now September...
Sigh...
