Guys I wanted to ask, how have you managed to convince yourself to stick to Apple. I am looking for an eco-system for the long term and there are a few things Apple have done recently that have made me think, I need to move away.
I am not trying to hate, if anything, looking for reassurance/convincing that these Macbook Pro's are worth purchasing?
Now let's remember, usually when things get updated yearly or every 2 years etc, a spec bump is expected for it to be worth purchasing at whatever price point. So I don't believe a spec bump justifies huge price increases. If you bought a 4th generation i7 3 years ago at £100 for example, I don't expect a 7th generation i7 to suddenly cost £250 because it is x times more powerful than the 4th generation - because of the power of time. That 4th generation is now worth maybe £35.
Now let me try evaluate without being biased what Apple has done in the past year.
On the iPhone:
- They have no longer kept to their 2 year major update cycle, the iPhone 7 really was just an iPhone 6S+
- Removal of headphone jack, I could somewhat get with, if not for the fact they didn't do it across all their new products (note new macbooks).
- Still lightning, why not USB-C like the 12" rMB
On the 12" Macbook:
- The Keyboard on 12" rMB has serious quality issues in design (many threads about this)
- Why no HD camera, I am sure there are thinner laptops out there which hav at least 720p
iPad
- The donkey method of how you charge the iPad pencil. Also, why not an elegant attachment solution like the Surface?
On iCloud:
- Too little space for free
- iCloud mail still somewhat sluggish compared to my Outlook/Gmail (which is funny since my Outlook has ads!)
Now the new Macs
- No way to connect flagship Macbook to iPhone without buying a cable. This makes me question Apple as a company to support, like what kind of flawed philosophy is this.
- 25% battery capacity hit on both 15 and 13" laptops. Sorry but just saying "But skylake efficiency" does not justify this kind of battery drop. Skylake laptops are not anything new and they don't increase your battery life by 25%. If anything, I wanted the new ones not to EQUAL the old ones, but to exceed them. This has been the biggest downside to get over for me, if the battery capacity was kept the same (99.5kwh/75khw instead of 75khw/54khw for 15"/13" respectively), I would have already purchased one I think, possibly..
- Somehow the 13" has a better iGPU now than the 15".
- Both have really old CPU's, making their release more in line with coming out 6 months+ ago
- The screen is "Meh", just talking about brightness and wider gamut is fodder. 4k resolution or 100% Adobe RGB/HDR is what I was really hoping for. I could live without touch screen, don't want that.
- Touch Bar looks so cool, except when you realise, you don't want to be staring at your keyboard area when using a MacBook.
- Maximum 16GB Ram.
- Keyboard has had some bad reviews already.
- Why do we have a touch swimming pool instead of a touch pad? What was wrong with it before?
- The prices, oh the prices. I can afford it, but do I want to buy old tech at that ridiculous price?
- Weaker GPU option than expected, and to boot, you have to upgrade to the Pro 460, when we was expecting a RX460 as default. Funny thing is, no one was THAT happy expecting the RX460 in the first place!
- no iGPU version of 15", combined with the 25% battery capacity hit, say goodbye to your battery life.
- The new Air replacement, not only being MUCH more expensive, it will have probably half the battery life! Half!
- The complete lack of upgrades for the Mac Pro, Mini, iMac etc - kick in the face to developers who drive their iOS app business.
- Intead of a new Thunderbolt display, they ended up advertising one from LG. Not what I was hoping for.
I wish I kept my 2015 rMB 15", that was actually good value in my opinion. These laptops, I feel like if I buy them, I am already using outdated tech and I cannot say for sure if they will last the 4/5 years I wanted with the CPU and RAM limitations.
I know a lot of you have used Apple for a long time and are hoping this will all be fine, but sorry to say, give it a month or so, I can almost guarantee people will feel that Apple went a step back with these. The previous generation MacBooks were best in class when they came out, these are not. I am even worried about benchmarks coming out showing how some of the newer ones are weaker, or so minutely different that you are better off with the old generation.
Next year will be my switch away from Apple, they have not done anything interesting for a long time now. I actually liked my Apple watch so will be sad to see that go, but I don't really mind parting with my iPhone 7. I was also actually happy with Apple Music, but I heard I can use that on Android so I'll keep that going.
