Warming-up for the all-new redesigned retina 2014 (2015?) MacBook Air

[skaertus]

It's worth asking yourself why computers look old. Certainly I can identify old Dell laptops because they have cheap accent pieces that were added by designers to make them look more interesting. A silver plastic ring around the keyboard, that sort of thing.

With the MBA, there are no superfluous design elements. Which makes the design timeless IMO. It would not bother me if I used a laptop that looks like my current 11" MBA for the next 20 years. Certainly it hasn't bothered me for the last 4.

Interesting that you asked that. I was just using my old 13" white MacBook yesterday, and I noticed how dated it looks now. It is thick and it looks old, especially compared to the very thin laptops available today.

The Air doesn't look that old. It is still a good design, but it's not timeless. In fact, I have compared the 13" MacBook Air to a 13" retina MacBook Pro and, in my opinion, the most "dated" element of the design is the bezel. The bezel is so much thinner on the Pro that it makes the Air look clearly older when they are side-by-side.

It certainly does not look antiquated or anything, but there are designs that are even cleaner and more minimalist these days.

 

[motrek]

Interesting that you asked that. I was just using my old 13" white MacBook yesterday, and I noticed how dated it looks now. It is thick and it looks old, especially compared to the very thin laptops available today.

The Air doesn't look that old. It is still a good design, but it's not timeless. In fact, I have compared the 13" MacBook Air to a 13" retina MacBook Pro and, in my opinion, the most "dated" element of the design is the bezel. The bezel is so much thinner on the Pro that it makes the Air look clearly older when they are side-by-side.

It certainly does not look antiquated or anything, but there are designs that are even cleaner and more minimalist these days.

Okay, the bezel could be smaller but I don't know anything else could look any more modern.

Right now, any MacBook Pro looks dated to me because of the thick front edge.

 

[skaertus]

Okay, the bezel could be smaller but I don't know anything else could look any more modern.

Right now, any MacBook Pro looks dated to me because of the thick front edge.

Including the retina MacBook Pro?

 

[motrek]

Including the retina MacBook Pro?

Yup. It's thinner but still not 11 millimeters or whatever the Air tapers down to.

 

[skaertus]

Yup. It's thinner but still not 11 millimeters or whatever the Air tapers down to.

This is probably to accomodate the battery. The Pro would be too thick on one of the edges if it adopted the same format as the Air.

 

[Nee412]

Yup. It's thinner but still not 11 millimeters or whatever the Air tapers down to.

0.11in or 3mm. It goes up to 17mm on the back edge. The current rumoured max depth for the new rMBA is 9mm. That's an incredible level of thinness I can't see Apple managing. Roughly the same thickness as the iPhone 4/4S for comparison. If they can make it 9mm at its thickest point when closed it'll be almost as thin as a pencil.

Stealing a bit of Apples own advertising there.

You're right though, this is miles away from the 18mm all round depth of the rMBP. The Air's tapered makes all the difference. More than it should. Even now when you hold or use a MBA it's noticeably lighter and slightly more comfortable to use.

 

[Manix]

I'm still using a Mid 2011 MBA (!) Core i5 1,7 GHz, 4GB, 128GB and it's doing his job pretty good except battery life of course waiting to exchange it in 2015 with the "new ultra slim design and a high resolution 12-inch Macbook" maybe !?

Got the info from the Macbook Air Info-page here (said to be already in production):

"It is unknown how the Retina 12-inch MacBook will fit into the MacBook Air lineup, as Apple already produces 11 and 13-inch versions of the portable notebook. It is possible it will coexist with those products, but it could also replace one or both as the Retina MacBook Pro gradually replaced the standard MacBook Pro."

 

[chleuasme]

It is true that in 2011 we couldn't have retina displays on the MacBook Pro. However, we could have a 15" MacBook Pro with a 1920x1200 resolution or a 13" with a 1440x900 or 1680x1050 resolution. Apple, however, adopted an all-or-nothing approach and stick with the low resolutions until it was able to release a laptop with very high resolutions. No middle terms.

1920x1200 at 15" or 1680x1050 at 13" work (that's the current largest options on current rMBP), but that's not ideal: most users would have issues reading comfortably their screen. There is a rigidity in the software UI that can't allow pixel densities out of the decided range of usability.
Apple's approach has been to pick a range of pixel density for its screens, and as it also controls the OS/software and the tools to build UIs for third parties, they could design their software relatively to it. At 1x, a desktop Mac will have 100-110 ppi screens, and laptops 115-135 ppi, and thus setting the supposed/ideal distance of use. If you break it, usability at 1x is really bad or non-optimal.

You didn't see a 1920x1080 screen on their 11" notebook as there has been for years in the Windows world, for example. At 1x, software would be unusable.
On Windows the approach has been (in particular when Win8 was unveiled at first, and with the original Surface Pro) to support the larger resolution on small screens with a 1.4x scale factor. And that's ugly for anything but images, because 1920x1080 at this size is barely offering pixels at a small enough size, and it looks blurry.
That's not acceptable in Apple's view, and they only targeted 2x the resolution proportional to the size of screens: 2560x1600 was a minimum for a 13" and 2880x1800 for 15".

That's always been the difference between Microsoft/Windows land and Apple's execution, at least over the last 15 years: Apple don't rush, and build hardware when it's offering a decent user experience. User experience is at the center of the product, not its specs. Microsoft struggled 15 years with tablets before the iPad, and failed because the hardware in this form factor couldn't drive a clunky heavy OS and its softwares, and written for a mouse cursor and not fingers or even styluses.
Apple could have released a tablet in 2003 maybe, some tech was already there, but it would have been heavy and hot, would have sport an ugly screen, and run a weird slow OS on slow hardware.
Microsoft was pushing for something that couldn't be realized simply because the tech wasn't their yet, every pieces of the puzzle needed to be invented or improved.

Today, it's all the same. Everyone wants to beat Apple appearing as a leader (you see it with laptops, and it's the same with smartphones or tablets), and rush some hardware to be first on a given spec. They only look bad when it's too early. Apple is not late, it's the others that try to be first but fail one after the others.

The MacBook Air already started to look old before the Broadwell models were released. It looks old compared to the design of the retina MacBook Pro, and also to the design of other models. To be fair, for a 4-year old design, it should look even older than it does now.

Ok, we are not exactly talking about the same things here. I was talking about the general design, the sizes and thickness/weight, the internals and screen. Not the look of it.

Don't like Windows, huh?

I gladly can ignore it daily. But it's sometimes fun to watch or read about it; always interesting to keep an eye on any different/parallel approach.

It's a trade-off. The MacBook Air has just the screwed screen... it's not bad as a 1366x768 screen, but it is starting to look dated.

You're losing track in the conversation, the point is this Asus laptop offers a great screen on paper but at the price of a low-performances chip with average battery life. Unbalanced. Then to gain battery life given the ultra-low TDP chip, you tell us it would need to also give in the high res screen. Even more unbalanced.

According to this review (http://www.digitalversus.com/laptop/apple-13-macbook-air-2013-running-windows-8-p16624/test.html), the 2013 MacBook Air (Haswell) does not even reach 8 hours running Windows.

Found other reviews with 10h and sometimes even more. Maybe was it with Win 8.1.

There are many more software available for Windows.

Oh my, had not heard that one in a while xD

I wouldn't say that one is objectively better than the other.

Good, that's not even discussed here.

The fact that the MacBook Air runs OS X instead of Windows is clearly an advantage for some users, and some of them consider a Windows laptop a deal-breaker just because it cannot run OS X.

You forget we're post-2006 and any Mac can run Windows now, if necessary.

 

[skaertus]

1920x1200 at 15" or 1680x1050 at 13" work (that's the current largest options on current rMBP), but that's not ideal: most users would have issues reading comfortably their screen. There is a rigidity in the software UI that can't allow pixel densities out of the decided range of usability.
Apple's approach has been to pick a range of pixel density for its screens, and as it also controls the OS/software and the tools to build UIs for third parties, they could design their software relatively to it. At 1x, a desktop Mac will have 100-110 ppi screens, and laptops 115-135 ppi, and thus setting the supposed/ideal distance of use. If you break it, usability at 1x is really bad or non-optimal.

Yes, Apple's approach for this is very good.

You didn't see a 1920x1080 screen on their 11" notebook as there has been for years in the Windows world, for example. At 1x, software would be unusable.
On Windows the approach has been (in particular when Win8 was unveiled at first, and with the original Surface Pro) to support the larger resolution on small screens with a 1.4x scale factor. And that's ugly for anything but images, because 1920x1080 at this size is barely offering pixels at a small enough size, and it looks blurry.
That's not acceptable in Apple's view, and they only targeted 2x the resolution proportional to the size of screens: 2560x1600 was a minimum for a 13" and 2880x1800 for 15".

Yes, Apple's approach is better. I am currently using a resolution that "looks like" 1920x1200 on my 15" rMBP. However, if I had bought my MBP in 2011, it would have been a non-retina model supporting 1440x900. A resolution of 1920x1200 is perfectly usable on a 15" MBP, but Apple did not offer this option back then; it offers now, as the 2880x1800 screen can be scaled to look like 1920x1200.

That's always been the difference between Microsoft/Windows land and Apple's execution, at least over the last 15 years: Apple don't rush, and build hardware when it's offering a decent user experience. User experience is at the center of the product, not its specs. Microsoft struggled 15 years with tablets before the iPad, and failed because the hardware in this form factor couldn't drive a clunky heavy OS and its softwares, and written for a mouse cursor and not fingers or even styluses.
Apple could have released a tablet in 2003 maybe, some tech was already there, but it would have been heavy and hot, would have sport an ugly screen, and run a weird slow OS on slow hardware.
Microsoft was pushing for something that couldn't be realized simply because the tech wasn't their yet, every pieces of the puzzle needed to be invented or improved.

Yes, PC manufacturers usually push too hard. But Apple sometimes wait too long. Apple could have released a 15" MBP with a 1920x1200 screen in 2010 or 2011, but it chose not to. Instead, Apple preferred to wait until the 2880x1800 screen was ready, so it could offer it.

Today, it's all the same. Everyone wants to beat Apple appearing as a leader (you see it with laptops, and it's the same with smartphones or tablets), and rush some hardware to be first on a given spec. They only look bad when it's too early. Apple is not late, it's the others that try to be first but fail one after the others.

With the MacBook Air, I am under the impression that Apple is late. Apple may do something very different, though.

Ok, we are not exactly talking about the same things here. I was talking about the general design, the sizes and thickness/weight, the internals and screen. Not the look of it.

Oh, OK.

I gladly can ignore it daily. But it's sometimes fun to watch or read about it; always interesting to keep an eye on any different/parallel approach.

I hardly ignore it, as I use it on a regular basis as well. But interesting to see how things evolve.

You're losing track in the conversation, the point is this Asus laptop offers a great screen on paper but at the price of a low-performances chip with average battery life. Unbalanced. Then to gain battery life given the ultra-low TDP chip, you tell us it would need to also give in the high res screen. Even more unbalanced.

OK. The Asus looks unbalanced indeed. But the MacBook Air has become unbalanced as well, with a battery life that's great but a screen that is underwhelming.

Found other reviews with 10h and sometimes even more. Maybe was it with Win 8.1.

It depends on how it is tested.

Oh my, had not heard that one in a while xD

Good, that's not even discussed here.

You forget we're post-2006 and any Mac can run Windows now, if necessary.

No. I don't forget it. I run Windows on a regular basis. Windows on Bootcamp is crappy because Apple's drivers are so bad! I would not recommend anyone to try to run Windows on a Mac because the experience is poor. It's far from the experience of running Windows on a decent PC laptop.

 

[chleuasme]

I am currently using a resolution that "looks like" 1920x1200 on my 15" rMBP. However, if I had bought my MBP in 2011, it would have been a non-retina model supporting 1440x900. A resolution of 1920x1200 is perfectly usable on a 15" MBP, but Apple did not offer this option back then
[...]
Apple sometimes wait too long. Apple could have released a 15" MBP with a 1920x1200 screen in 2010 or 2011, but it chose not to. Instead, Apple preferred to wait until the 2880x1800 screen was ready, so it could offer it.

A 15" screen at 1920x1200 is still usable under OS X at 1x but it's reaching the limits, and the degree of comfort is getting low on most apps, and especially text legibility of course. I think most users would have wanted to run it as a 1440x900 screen, because every bit of software were written for such pixel density in mind.
Having this default resolution as a transition would have meant once the hardware was ready for higher resolutions either a downgrade with the switch to 2880x1800 and a default back to 1440x900 (at 2x), or force to adopt 3840x2400 for the screen, but that would have asked even more resources (as we can see on the current rMBP15, even if it also has to downscale it to the pixel grid, it's near the limits of the hardware when switching to the highest resolution option).
It looks far superior to me to have waited, and now be able to offer to the users interested in gaining screen estate the option to have a bearable scaled larger resolution on their high pixel density screen.
Far better than having a majority of users needing to scale a lower resolution to a not too high pixel density screen because by default the OS and software are not very comfortable to use at the normal distance of use, only because you want to try to have the best specs and please a small portion of your users. And then, we didn't talk of the performances and battery life such a 2010-11 MBP15 would have had compared to what we had back then.

With the MacBook Air, I am under the impression that Apple is late.

That's looking like the same as what we are talking about on a 15" at 1920x1200. Here, they want a ~4MPx screen, not a ~2MPx screen.
Show me a ~12" (not 13") laptop with a 220+ ppi screen that kicks the MBA to the museum of PCs. There is not yet real decent and obvious better offering, they all make trade-offs on performances or lose in battery life when the screen is at such a high pixel density. Laptops with lower/intermediate pixel densities screens allow a better balance, but as we've just seen before we can likely dismiss them for a retina Mac notebook.

I hardly ignore it, as I use it on a regular basis as well. But interesting to see how things evolve.

Surely.

No. I don't forget it. I run Windows on a regular basis. Windows on Bootcamp is crappy because Apple's drivers are so bad! I would not recommend anyone to try to run Windows on a Mac because the experience is poor. It's far from the experience of running Windows on a decent PC laptop.

Maybe. There is also the virtualization option.
In the end, a Mac become then often superior as it also and in particular will have the advantage to run OS X, compared to any other PC (forgetting here the hackintosh community).

 

[skaertus]

A 15" screen at 1920x1200 is still usable under OS X at 1x but it's reaching the limits, and the degree of comfort is getting low on most apps, and especially text legibility of course. I think most users would have wanted to run it as a 1440x900 screen, because every bit of software were written for such pixel density in mind.
Having this default resolution as a transition would have meant once the hardware was ready for higher resolutions either a downgrade with the switch to 2880x1800 and a default back to 1440x900 (at 2x), or force to adopt 3840x2400 for the screen, but that would have asked even more resources (as we can see on the current rMBP15, even if it also has to downscale it to the pixel grid, it's near the limits of the hardware when switching to the highest resolution option).
It looks far superior to me to have waited, and now be able to offer to the users interested in gaining screen estate the option to have a bearable scaled larger resolution on their high pixel density screen.
Far better than having a majority of users needing to scale a lower resolution to a not too high pixel density screen because by default the OS and software are not very comfortable to use at the normal distance of use, only because you want to try to have the best specs and please a small portion of your users. And then, we didn't talk of the performances and battery life such a 2010-11 MBP15 would have had compared to what we had back then.

I agree that Apple's perspective is the best if you look at it this way. Apple released a 13" with a 1280x800 resolution and a 15" with a 1440x900 resolution in 2008, and then released a 13" with a 2560x1600 resolution and a 15" with a 2880x1800 resolution in 2012. The aspect ratio was kept the same. No in-betweens. No concessions.

That works if you look at the evolution of Apple's line-up. But from the perspective of an individual user, it may be worthless that Apple waited so long to update the screen.

I will give you my example. I was in the market for a new laptop in 2011. I took a look at the Macs. The 13" Pro had a poor 1280x800 resolution; the 15" Pro had a 1440x900 resolution. The 13" Air had a 1440x900, which was something better, but it was still stuck with Core 2 Duo processors, even though the Sandy Bridge architecture had already been released.

As I needed work area, I was not willing to buy a laptop with such a low resolution. I ended up buying a Windows PC laptop with a 15" screen and a 1920x1080 resolution. I found that the resolution was fine and I saw no legibility problems.

Apple itself allows the user to choose a screen resolution that resembles 1920x1200 in the 15" retina Pro; this means that Apple considers this screen resolution legible enough to be used. However, back in 2011, I could not choose this kind of resolution (nor 1680x1050 in the 13"), not even as an option. It was of no use that, one year later, Apple updated the screens to a whooping 2880x1800 resolution, since I had to buy the laptop in 2011.

This is what I am talking about. This all-or-nothing approach makes sense, but it may be evil to users. If I buy the retina MacBook Pro in 2012 or 2013, it will be cutting-edge. If I wait to buy it in 2016, it may have the same design as in 2012, and several elements could be obsolete; but Apple will only update them in the next design revision.

That's looking like the same as what we are talking about on a 15" at 1920x1200. Here, they want a ~4MPx screen, not a ~2MPx screen.
Show me a ~12" (not 13") laptop with a 220+ ppi screen that kicks the MBA to the museum of PCs. There is not yet real decent and obvious better offering, they all make trade-offs on performances or lose in battery life when the screen is at such a high pixel density. Laptops with lower/intermediate pixel densities screens allow a better balance, but as we've just seen before we can likely dismiss them for a retina Mac notebook.

I cannot think of a good 12" screen laptop right now, apart from the ThinkPad X240, perhaps. But the Air is still 13", and we can only hope that Apple will deliver a good 12". And if Apple intends to keep the lead, it should be the first to release it anyway.

Maybe. There is also the virtualization option.
In the end, a Mac become then often superior as it also and in particular will have the advantage to run OS X, compared to any other PC (forgetting here the hackintosh community).

The argument that a Mac is superior because it can run both OS X and Windows does not work for me, as I said earlier. If I use Bootcamp, Apple drivers are crap and provide a very poor experience under Windows. Any Windows laptop performs better than that. The trackpad of the Pro, for instance, is terrible under Windows, and much worse than any Windows PC trackpad. I can run Windows on a virtual machine, but that imposes a performance penalty. In addition, the battery is consumed too fast, since there are two operating systems running simultaneously. I run Windows 8.1 on Parallels, and, even though I have 8 GB RAM on a 15" retina Pro, I run into performance issues. I could have 16 GB to run Windows on a virtual machine, but then the price of the laptop becomes too high. If a laptop to run both OS X and Windows costs the price of two laptops, then it may be better to buy two laptops instead...

The bottom line is, if you really need Windows, a Mac is not a computer you should buy. The argument that a Mac runs both OS X and Windows only works for those who run Windows occasionally and for very specific purposes, and not for those who wish to run Windows very often, as the Windows experience is so poor under a Mac.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Well that was fun, not. I couldn't care less about windows laptops in a new MacBook Air thread.

I want to continue to run OSX and my applications. But yes I'm looking forward to a new one so I can give my current 13" to my daughter.

 

[chleuasme]

I will give you my example.
[...]
I ended up buying a Windows PC laptop with a 15" screen and a 1920x1080 resolution.

Individual anecdotes won't help you try to think larger as Apple has to. They want to build a consistent platform for their users and maximize profits.

I ended up buying a Windows PC laptop with a 15" screen and a 1920x1080 resolution. I found that the resolution was fine and I saw no legibility problems.
[...]
Apple itself allows the user to choose a screen resolution that resembles 1920x1200 in the 15" retina Pro; this means that Apple considers this screen resolution legible enough to be used.

Yes, again, it's possible now as an option, not the default.

[...] This all-or-nothing approach makes sense, but it may be evil to users.

I'd rather call this approach to minimize concessions and ensure balance. And yes, technologies aren't all moving gradually nor at the same pace.
Hard to quantify wether or how it did hurt MBP's sales in this particular case, but in the end, you can be sure Apple would have moved if it was a problem. You don't buy a Mac on specs and comparing to other PCs, software and services of the platform are the glue with Apple's consumers; if the sum of the hardware and software aren't convincing you, there is other ecosystem available, with other trade-offs/benefits.
The rMBP arrived as fast as Apple could release it, and actually was first on the market with such solid specs and performances.

The argument that a Mac is superior because it can run both OS X and Windows does not work for me, as I said earlier. If I use Bootcamp, Apple drivers are crap and provide a very poor experience under Windows.
[...]
The bottom line is, if you really need Windows, a Mac is not a computer you should buy.

With all so many softwares on Windows, as you were saying before, there is no way to tweak and enhance the experience on Windows?
Yes indeed, if you want to run mainly Windows, you can find cheaper hardware with every possible specs in the windows PC market. Apple tries to sell an experience to its users, and software is a big part of it.
You could as well blame Microsoft to not be able to support better Mac hardware by default.

 

[flur]

You could as well blame Microsoft to not be able to support better Mac hardware by default.

Actually, it's Apple that have limited the Windows software, by blocking access to some options within the hardware. Apple have specifically made Windows run poorly.

 

[chleuasme]

Options? Can you be more specific, to better understand how Apple make "specifically Windows run poorly"?

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Options? Can you be more specific, to better understand how Apple make "specifically Windows run poorly"?

Apple makes the hardware that goes into their computers. Since their hardware is unique, they also have to write the Windows drivers for the hardware - you can't get drivers from another OEM or the hardware manufacturer. And Apple's drivers are pretty poor. Their graphics card doesn't throttle, and the trackpad is crap. On some older model macbook pros, even the keyboard was buggy!

And so when you install Windows on a mac, you can't really use the mouse very well, the battery life is like 1/2 of what it should be, and it's 100% because Apple's drivers are terrible.

 

[andycho7]

What to expect?

12-inch IGZO display?
2304x1440 resolution?
Thinner and lighter?
Touch screen?
New materials?
Cheaper?
Better battery life?

Let's share our thoughts...

For me personally, I know I will opt out from the newer models if they end up using the Core M processors WITH the retina display, as the performance increase will most likely not be present due to the graphic.

I had 15" rMBP and even that machine seems to have little difficulty keeping up with smooth GUI transitions. Heck, my 11" MBA has smoother UI experience, though the quality of the screen is absolutely no match.

Not to mention that higher resolution will end up costing more ram (not significantly but will cost more at the end of the day) and more graphical power needed. I seriously wish a 1080p panel would be very nice for the size, but I know for fact that won't happen.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Apple makes the hardware that goes into their computers. Since their hardware is unique, they also have to write the Windows drivers for the hardware - you can't get drivers from another OEM or the hardware manufacturer. And Apple's drivers are pretty poor. Their graphics card doesn't throttle, and the trackpad is crap. On some older model macbook pros, even the keyboard was buggy!



And so when you install Windows on a mac, you can't really use the mouse very well, the battery life is like 1/2 of what it should be, and it's 100% because Apple's drivers are terrible.

Just run it in a virtual machine. I normally have one or two on the go for development purposes on my MBA. There is no issue with it whatsoever.

 

[chleuasme]

I don't get the point in complaining that Apple isn't the random PC assembler using standard random hardware, and is not working its ass out to support a weird third-party OS for a minority of its users. This is complaining on exactly the Apple's strengths, being able to sell fine-tuned hardware and software and creating a solid platform.

 

[skaertus]

I don't get the point in complaining that Apple isn't the random PC assembler using standard random hardware, and is not working its ass out to support a weird third-party OS for a minority of its users. This is complaining on exactly the Apple's strengths, being able to sell fine-tuned hardware and software and creating a solid platform.

I would not call Windows some weird third-party OS. Apple chose to produce its own OS, but it does not provide the variety of software that is available for Windows. It's the walled garden history all over again. Beautiful but limited software.

The Mac is a solid platform as long as you are happy with its offerings. There are plenty of software available only for Windows, or which have more features under Windows.

As a result, even some die-hard Apple fans have to run Windows sometimes. Apple could at least provide some decent drivers to make the Windows experience smoother. Instead, it is a pain to use Windows on a Mac.

----------

Just run it in a virtual machine. I normally have one or two on the go for development purposes on my MBA. There is no issue with it whatsoever.

A virtual machine is fine, but it imposes a serious performance penalty, especially if you are running it on a MacBook Air which usually has 4 GB RAM. In addition, the consumption of battery is high with a virtual machine running on top of OS X, offsetting any advantage the amazing battery life of the Air can have.

----------

Apple makes the hardware that goes into their computers. Since their hardware is unique, they also have to write the Windows drivers for the hardware - you can't get drivers from another OEM or the hardware manufacturer. And Apple's drivers are pretty poor. Their graphics card doesn't throttle, and the trackpad is crap. On some older model macbook pros, even the keyboard was buggy!



And so when you install Windows on a mac, you can't really use the mouse very well, the battery life is like 1/2 of what it should be, and it's 100% because Apple's drivers are terrible.

Totally agree. Some Apple fans say that a Mac can provide the best of both worlds, and some even say that a Mac is the best computer to run Windows. Not true. A Mac provides a bad Windows experience due to bad drivers. A reasonable PC runs Windows much better.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Sorry but when was the last time you ran a virtual machine. Serious performance issue my arse as Jim Royal would say. And additional battery consumption is utter rubbish as well.

As are the comments regarding available software. Sure if you have some unique requirement that is only available on window fair enough but otherwise all is well.

Your preconceptions seem to be the points made in the late previous century. None of the arguments put forward are current and relevant.

 

[motrek]

I would not call Windows some weird third-party OS. Apple chose to produce its own OS, but it does not provide the variety of software that is available for Windows. It's the walled garden history all over again. Beautiful but limited software. ...

The Mac is not a walled garden. Smaller garden, yes, but not walled.

 

[chleuasme]

Yes and UNIX/BSD OS X foundation has also opened access to a lot of software to the Mac platform.
MacOS and now OS X has always shown attractivity for developpers, and even more as interest continues to grow for the platform among consumers, and also when developpers already have had to convert/learn to develop for iOS. The software argument is really getting old.

I would not call Windows some weird third-party OS. Apple chose to produce its own OS

I love the way you present it: "Apple chose to produce its own OS". Yes, and before Windows was even an idea and on the market.
That's always how the company was driven, that's the idea. You really have to see Apple as a different company than simply a PC assembler whose only choice will under pressure essentially be to ship hardware for Windows.
Coming from the Windows world, you can of course have difficulties to grasp the concept. Which is a problem if you want to speculate and dicsuss Apple future lines of Mac.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I love the way you present it: "Apple chose to produce its own OS". Yes, and before Windows was even an idea and on the market.
That's always how the company was driven, that's the idea. You really have to see Apple as a different company than simply a PC assembler whose only choice will under pressure essentially be to ship hardware for Windows.
Coming from the Windows world, you can of course have difficulties to grasp the concept. Which is a problem if you want to speculate and dicsuss Apple future lines of Mac.

No one is saying that Apple shouldn't produce OS X, but that if they're going to use commodity hardware, and support Windows, they should actually support Windows, and not treat it like some weird 3rd party OS. If it's supported, it should be supported like any other first class OS. Possibly even more so, considering it's 90% marketshare to Apple's 10%

 

[motrek]

No one is saying that Apple shouldn't produce OS X, but that if they're going to use commodity hardware, and support Windows, they should actually support Windows, and not treat it like some weird 3rd party OS. If it's supported, it should be supported like any other first class OS. Possibly even more so, considering it's 90% marketshare to Apple's 10%

So are they using commodity hardware or are they using custom hardware that they support poorly? Can't be both.

Not sure why anybody would buy a Mac if they aren't going to use OS X.