It is FUNCTIONALLY the same thing; and not likely to be large enough to cause problems. However, I wouldn't want to waste a whole USB-C/TB3 port on just that. As I said, BackBlaze is a very affordable solution that is vastly superior to any "you can lose it" SD/MicroSD solution.
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What to Expect at Apple's October 30th Event: New iPad Pros, Mac Mini, Low-Cost Retina Notebook and More
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Why are there so many uninformed people on these forums these days making comments that have zero basis of truth? Apple may glue all their computers together but at least they are trying to be more 'green'. I don't see similar policies from many other manufacturers equal to Apple.
BackBlaze is encrypted, and you can even have a secondary encryption on it, too. Their "Business" product allows you to setup with any one of several storage providers, and provides other advantages, too, at the slight advantage of a little more complicated admin/setup. The O365 cloud drive isn't free, it is INCLUDED with your O365 subscription. But if you like your data in the hands of MS, be my guest...
The rationale for the 5w Y-Series was to create the thinnest, lightest, quietest portable Mac that Apple could at the time. I firmly believe Apple thought they had the next MacBook Air hit on their hands, until it became apparent that the 5th Generation Core m-Series CPU were truly too anemic and the unit itself was too expensive to actually replace what has been an iconic Mac since the 2010 re-design. Apple chose to ignore the MacBook Air and EOL'd it while not just getting rid of it as they have done before. Flash forward 3 years and the Y-Series is much better than it was in 2015, but it still only now seems to be approaching the level of the current nTB 13" MacBook Pro using the Core i5-7360U.
This begs the question as to whether the 12" MacBook will be updated at all or sent to purgatory. In my opinion, perhaps it should just be put out to pasture. It really needs all of the following updates to be worth it, in my opinion:
- Amber Lake top to bottom (a given, since I do not think a 15w can dissipate in that tiny chassis)
- Updated iGPU (whoops, still stuck with HD 615 Graphics, which is complete BS on Intel's part, but I digress)
- Updated DRAM from DDR3L-1866 to DDR3L-2133 (16GB MAX still)
- Somehow peel off x2 PCIe 3.0 lanes for the SSD and get it up to MacBook Pro speeds (at least 2.2GB Reads/1.8GB Writes). I know speeds are hampered by the number of NAND chips on that tiny logic board, so the extra speed may not be possible.
- 1TB SSD option - I honestly do not think this is quite technically possible yet, but maybe it is, I would have to research that as I have not been following NAND tech as closely as I should.
- Higher resolution Retina display of 2560x1600...I despise the weird 2304x1440 resolution (1152x720@2x). Just up it to something that can at least be reasonable at a true 2x instead of a scaled resolution which is harder on the GPU than just doing it right in the first place.
- DCI P3 color gamut.
- 720p HD Facetime camera.
- Two USB-C Gen 2 ports...it's built in to the CPU now, so just quit with the 1 port postulating and give users a second port on the right side. The whole point of USB-C is to plug-in wherever there is a port. I love being able to plug-in right or left depending on configuration needs when I am moving around to different locations. I need someone to call out the pretentious and make it practical. I am not the only one.
- Same or slightly longer battery life - I would expect better battery life is needed to help with the items above that are going to eat a bit of extra power.
Jeez, this list is longer than I thought it would be...makes me wonder if the 12" MacBook had too many compromises after all. Pity that Apple still has not. Or maybe they have? I guess we will see on Tuesday.
Real Pros shoot RAW. SD cards take a bit to store those files. You can easily outrun the RAM in your camera if you are trying to shoot multiple/burst shots or video.
Like USB sticks, they are going the way of the floppy and Zip discs.
And the Touchbar is functionally the same thing as the function key. Then again, a full size HD in a docking station is functionally the same thing as a Nifty Drive but no one would confuse the two use cases.
I don't want to risk it; and either way it is not nearly as good a solution as a Nifty drive or low profile drive, for me; which is why I would like Apple to reintroduce a slot but don't expect them to do it.
It's not a waste for me. To each his own.
And ARQ / Office 365 / One Drive is an even more affordable cloud backup solution, with a lot more functionality for the price, for me; and SD/microSD is a good solution for how I use it.
As a said before, to each his own. What works for you may not for me.
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For me, One Drive has zero marginal cost above the $40 I paid for a year of O365; so I might as well use it instead of paying yet another company for the same service. ARQ was easy to setup, haas great tech support and I do not have to worry about some provider having a key since does its own encryption at my end; and I can easily move my backup to any provider if I decide to drop my O365 subscription. I could even decide to use multiple cloud services for multiple backups if I want. I'm glad BB works for you, I simply find MS to be a better choice for me. As for MS, I trust them to be around longer than BB.
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Probably neither this year.
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It's actually harder for me to imagine what you would call this Air replacement laptop if it isn't a newer, lower cost tier of the MacBook. The MacBook Cheap?
If it is a different notebook line, it could continue to be thicker, etc. While technically retina, it could have a cheaper screen tech. It could have a cheaper CPU with power targeting a lower battery life target (90 minutes to 6 hours instead of 2-10 hours). The macbook could get thunderbolt or faster SSD tech, or a larger baseline size.
I hope instead they have figured out a way to make the MacBook cheaper, and we'll get thunderbolt, larger SSD, faster CPU tiers, etc as upgrade options.
It is also possible that analysts are wrong about the price, and Apple is shooting for $1099 as a new baseline price for the macbook. This would also have interesting effects on analyst statistics, since now Apple would have no presence in the sub-$999 market.
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I think it will come to the next rev of the iMac Pro and MacBook Pro, along with a T3 chip (which will internally be based on the A12).
Otherwise, I suspect the cost of the sensors and the T3 just make the feature too expensive for Apple to absorb into the manufacturing cost - similar to putting a Touch Bar on a non-integrated keyboard, we just won't see it for a while.
Of course, if they come out with ARM-based Macs, I expect it to be a launch feature.
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The iPad Pro has two demographics - computer supplements and computer replacements. I think certain consumer demographics the iPad Pro has become very popular; people who use the iPad pretty much "excessively" and so figure it is worth having the nicest iOS tablet possible. If Apple is bothering to launch the iPad Pro before xmas, I assume it is this market and not the pro market. Of course - it could be they just haven't gotten a consistent launch down yet.
The primary education market doesn't seem to be adopting the pro at all; even new AR features may not tempt them. That said, there could be a fair number of iPad Pro features targeting that March point release. That is actually when I would expect new pro apps.
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The Mini was launched as a consumer switcher device, but nobody is plugging in their USB keyboards and CRT monitors from their old eMachine to switch from Windows to Mac anymore. They are just buying an iMac or a notebook.
Even in 2011 Apple wasn't sure how to bucket the Mini - when they cancelled the Xserve, they started recommending people use the Mini as a possible replacement. Hence the 2011 model with a software raid rather than an optical drive, and the 2012 model with quad core.
I've seen a lot of companies that used the mini to run macOS Server for things like cache server and network-based installs - but other services like mail and calendar have gone to cloud providers, and macOS Server itself is pretty much dropped support for all features other than MDM.
You have people using it as a media PC or home server, but this isn't the sort of market that apple normally targets. Home server-wise, the macOS server changes and change from your PC to iCloud being your "digital hub" don't fair well for apple making a product there, and they have the Apple TV for the living room.
Hell, they get out of markets like printers, monitors, and wireless gateways because they don't think the profits are worth the distraction. I'm still convinced that a number of Logitech/Belkin products and the LG Ultrafine monitors were pretty much Apple designs that they talked partners into manufacturing and selling.
So, I'm very curious the product and design motivations around not just killing the Mini outright. My suspicion is that it will be a different product line to fill in the "low end" of the professional market, so that they can have a clear delineation between "Mac mini" and "Mac Pro" the way they have today for "MacBook" and "MacBook Pro" or "iMac" and "iMac Pro", or "iPad" and "iPad Pro".
If thats the case, it may not be Mini at all. It might be something closer to a low-end, non-user-upgradable, non-Xeon 2019 Mac Pro.
Or it might be something different. This'll be fun!
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My money is no, because cost.
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I hate to say it, but for a Modular Apple Pro system, that $500 part would be the power supply ;-)
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The chip came out something like six weeks ago. The MacBook notebooks are designed around the TDP of core chips. Unless Apple has a sweetheart deal, those chips make up nearly 20% of the retail cost of the whole laptop. What cheaper, faster, equivalent TDP x86 chip do you propose instead to the Apple engineers?
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There's an adapter to charge via lighting cable. I suspect Apple Pencil 2 will be similar to the AirPods setup. As in, ship with a Pencil Case that charges with the same charger as the iPad Pro, whatever port that is
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I do love how whoever made that image overlapped the camera with Mickey's ear.
<comes in to see what people are chatting up about>...
Sees relentless bickering and arguing over nonsense.
Sees relentless bickering and arguing over nonsense.
Originally the lineup was to have three buckets: consumer, ultra-portable, and powerful. Somehow, we got to the point where the previous ultra-portable replaced exists not just as a second consumer option - but is the bulkiest laptop they sell. The path is unclear, but the motivation to have this aging consumer option is build price.
We know the Air, MacBooks, and 13" Pro are all aged and assume they are about to get replaced, but we don't know if it will be by a consumer category that includes the ultraportable category, of it come Tuesday we'll have two categories with 1 or 2 new products.
I suspect two categories still, which would mean that the current ultraportables (MacBook) may actually get more expensive and gain features to justify the distinction.
I've heard these (sans backlight) quite a bit from others. I suspect the home screen grid is a UX thing where they are targeting a min/max # of items per screen/per folder because they think it will help people organize into categories. I wind up having a "Junk Drawer" folder for all the apps which I only suspect I'll only launch via other methods (search, hyperlink, integration into some other part of the system).
If they won't add more rows/columns, they should make the icons larger. That would also give them a chance to try to make them a multiple of the iPhone sizes for the poor art guy ;-)
I suspect we'll get a case similar to the AirPods. They'll pair via proximity with the case, the case will likely be a rounded rectangle with at least two flat sides, and the case will protect the pencil and charge it when not in use as well as serve as the off button. As long as I'm speculating, the case may be open/spring-released to make getting/storing the pencil easier. And sure, I'll speculate magnets too
I suspect Apple originally wanted the MacBook to be a single lower tier, but is going to now have three categories with their own hardware - entry-level, ultra-portable, and powerful.
If the MacBook becomes the "executive"/"Jet-setter" tier, I see all these as valid options and the price to increase to justify. Spitballing, FaceID probably would add $120 to the build cost of a Mac because of its need for an Apple ARM chip a-la T2. A T2 security chip and biometrics in a business-class ultra-portable seems smart. And, it's more likely they would do iMac Pro Grey.
But likewise, I don't know if any of these would be features in the consumer tier. At some point, they'd push you to a different bucket.
I'd love IEM Air Pods with the noise isolation and more consistent bass they'd bring, but I understand I may be unique (and there's likely engineering issues with making a case with variable earpieces).
Noise cancellation and focused mics would probably require a second tier, similar to Solo vs Studio on the Beats side of the company. And yeah, with the popularity of the AirPods I suspect colors are coming with the next version.
I have already said that Apple is one of if not the best companies out there; this includes how green they are from A-Z.
The best quality here is how long their products last at near peak condition - directly resulting in less need to throw away the products. And, when the inevitable end does come, they take the products back to recycle.
All good.
The issue is how their products are changing directions now. Starting with the iPhones that were consigned to trash when the battery fiasco happened (hundreds of thousands of them in the USA alone), to making laptops that are not all-in-one anymore. All of them need accessories, which need separate production lines, those pieces not lasting as long, lost pieces needing repurchase, removing jacks that consign analog wired headphones to the obscure drawer, throwaway AirPods, are symptomatic of the waste they don't care about because of the revenue.
The need for Apple to buy back a product that is not even two years old because it became obsolete, (still about those iPhones condemned too early) is faux green.
Add to this, most people still don't recycle - not Apple's fault directly. When entire lineups are changed to the throwaway mode, the 2015 onward fused to the body keyboards that need wasteful, and expensive replacement, not just at the consumer end, but also at the Apple end, makes it all not green.
Even so, Apple is a very green company - just that the recent direction is not up to their reputation.
No, it doesn't. Apple has used different DPIs and stated they are all 'Retina'. Facts matter.
The base iPads are price constrained for certain markets (kiosk, education). I wonder about them doing this with a forehead/chin, to house the camera assembly and square up/drive the LED screen.
Guess we'll find out in March.
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It'd be nice if Apple would commit to longer warranties, since (at least the assumption is) they can recycle off of these large assemblies and even use the parts to refurbish, as long as the repair is first or second party. It also would motivate Apple to prioritize repairability if the longer warranty created more repair services (for instance - making just the keyboards on the MacBook and MacBook Pro replaceable, without it being a replacement for half the computer.
They could also take steps to recycle devices, such as prompting the user during a migration, offering partner programs at retailers like Target and Best Buy, and including everything needed to ship your old device to Apple when you purchase by mail.
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Who says it is an iPad event? Not Apple.
This is a "lets get new inventory in stores before everyone starts rushing off to do Christmas shopping" event.
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This is mostly because there needs to be a compelling reason to switch, because there's no legal dongle to plug USB-C cables into USB-A ports. So anyone who wants to charge with a USB-A charger or on the road via a USB-A laptop will have to grab a different cord.
People who are early adopters for USB-C already know they may need to buy another cord or get a dongle (I just use a multi USB-A wall wart when I travel - but its also worth noting, there are no multi USB-C wall warts)
Oh people will complain a lot more here about Apple switching to a butterfly keyboard, enough to drown out any USB-A woes ;-)
The Air is their best selling computer because of price. A revved or new laptop at the same price point will sell equally well (excluding any reputation-destroying engineering flaws)
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This is likely more of a "Getting ready for the Christmas Quarter" event by apple - getting out the laptops they wanted to have out for Back to School, the yearly iMac update, iPad Pro because.. either because its ready, or they are finding out that the Pro moniker is a bit of a misnomer, and that there's people who use the iPad enough as a primary computer that they are buying the nicest iPad on the market. AirPod update to give people a cheapest Apple Logo Gift Option. To Be Honest, I hope they don't release a new Mac mini because it implies they don't have a new budget-pro focus, they are just throwing it out there because its ready.
I suspect Logic and FCP are coming for iPad, as well as external storage. Soonest I would expect it is the March iPad/Education event (which is pretty regular because Apple needs to work on the school's evaluation/purchase timelines)
Physics hint - resolution varies based on distance and sub-pixel pattern since impact is due to angular acuity.
If the iPad Pro is going bezel less, I wonder if the current budget iPad models will move to the current iPad Pro form factor when it next gets updated?
Absolutely, facts matter, the problem just seems to be that you don't know a whole lot of the facts in regard to the use of the term Retina by Apple.
Apple defined the term 'Retina' very clearly: "A resolution that at the typical viewing distances results in most people not being able to see the individual pixels." Naturally there is some leeway in what the typical viewing distance and how 'most people' are defined, but pick values for this and the necessary minimum dpi of a display to be called retina by Apple is simple math. And the word 'minimum' is important here, you can always go higher if this makes software implementation easier or to improve on the 'most people' metric, including to allow for people that view the screen from a closer distances than typical.
When Apple released the first device with a screen labelled 'Retina' with the iPhone 4 in 2010 it explained that everything above about 300 dpi fulfils their definition of Retina on a phone screen (ie, for the typical viewing distances for phones). That it ended up at 326 dpi was due to this being exactly twice what the previous iPhone screens used which enabled a simple mixing of Retina and non-Retina screen software assets. Larger typical viewing distances then allowed them to pick lower resolutions for larger screened devices:
326 dpi for the iPhone
264 dpi for the iPad
220 dpi for the MBP
218 dpi for the iMac
Of course, it is not a coincidence that those values are exactly 2x what the last pre-Retina model had as a screen resolution. This 2x factor (and 3x factor on some later phones) was necessary for the way Apple implemented Retina in software. It also helps to have a jump in resolution of (at least) a factor of 2x, for customers to clearly notice the difference.
So your claim that Apple calls everything above 'standard HD' Retina is clearly total baloney, in particular since 'standard HD' doesn't refer to a screen resolution measured in DPI but to the total number of pixels of a screen.
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Well, you will almost certainly outrun a wireless setup under heavy shooting - if a fast and reliable network even exists on your shoot . And that's a big if .
Offsite cloud storage for fast, heavy duty file transfer is not even an option, for very obvious reasons .
So much to be excited about for this event. You can put me down for a new iPad Pro, Pencil 2, and AirPods. I am hoping the MacBook is ARM based, but I don't think it's likely. It is rumored to include the T3 chip though, which is an A12 variant. This means the T3 will be even more powerful than whatever Intel chip they have in there. I am hoping when WWDC 19 comes along, you can run macOS off the T3 and switch to the Intel chip only for backwards compatibility.
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Surprising. I use mine daily at the gym for an hour per day and they last me about 3 weeks before I have to plug them in. I guess it depends on how long you are using per day.
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I think we could see an XR style iPad next year, but I am curious as to what concessions they'll make to drive the cost down. I'd expect $399 or $499.
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I'd expect more than that. Definitely not the 85/15 mentioned above, but I would say 50% of the time on the iPad and Pencil. This is one of the most innovative areas for Apple in the coming years, their future of computing, and definitely something they want to spend a good bit of time on. With a lot of changes to both products, they'll need to walk through all of them.
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Surprising. I use mine daily at the gym for an hour per day and they last me about 3 weeks before I have to plug them in. I guess it depends on how long you are using per day.
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I think we could see an XR style iPad next year, but I am curious as to what concessions they'll make to drive the cost down. I'd expect $399 or $499.
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I'd expect more than that. Definitely not the 85/15 mentioned above, but I would say 50% of the time on the iPad and Pencil. This is one of the most innovative areas for Apple in the coming years, their future of computing, and definitely something they want to spend a good bit of time on. With a lot of changes to both products, they'll need to walk through all of them.
Cassettes and floppies were gradually phased out when good alternatives had displaced their use.
CD and DVD are still in use, but not common enough to warrant inclusion of an optical drive, that being a large and costly mechanical component that consumes power and lets dust in. A reasonable decision, as external drives are good enough, readily available and fairly inexpensive for something that really does get the job done.
Ethernet was removed on the Air first, when WiFi had become ubiquitous and it was clear it would be the only thing you'd need for what you'd use an Air for. It was removed from the MBP when it was clear there was no longer a real use for that port, except for a few special cases, and at the time most younger customers had barely even seen an ethernet port, let alone used one. WiFi is a perfectly good replacement unless you need something faster than a regular ethernet port.
SD-cards are still in use and not going away any time soon. Photography is slowly migrating to other solutions, but is still predominantly on SD-cards. There is no full featured replacement at this time. It's not rare. It's not a special case. There are a substantial number of users of SD-cards, and it's a standard that took a long time to establish. Many replacements, such as WiFi transfers, don't have Mac support at all. Those devices do generally support SD-cards, however. Thus, if you want to do photography, you can play it safe and drop the Mac, or you can alter your whole workflow to accommodate the purported wisdom of the folks kind enough to let you pay money to borrow their enlightened hardware and spend plenty of time working around that wisdom.
Moreover, it's easy to make a "perfect" internal SD-card reader, at virtually no cost, and difficult to make a non-ludicrously priced and passable quality external SD-card reader. Yes, you can find a good one online, a heavy external device that will cost about four orders of magnitude more than it would cost to include one. But, if you do buy a good one, you eventually end up forgetting it, losing it or dropping it. Then you're left looking for one that's actually useable at whatever passes for an electronics store in the area, a search that's never been fruitful for me.
Heck, even if you're the most meticulous photographer in the world, at some point the people at United will mistake your external card reader for a guitar, and then you're back to searching for a new one, locally, or picking up something more capable than a Mac, such as a Chromebook, to get the job done.
And if you know a lot of artsy types, you may have noticed a lot of them don't particularly relish changing their workflow, or replacing thousands of dollars of perfectly good equipment they're familiar with, just to cater to someone else's idea of progress.
I could see removing it from some, or even most, of their portables, but it should've remained available on at least one of them for another decade or so. The older USB ports are much easier to do without than the newer one. Even electronics stores in rural India will have something that will let you work around not having Type A ports. But good luck finding any stores that carry an SD card reader you can rely on, in anything but the most affluent of areas.
I get that the Mac is for light workloads and media consumption, but it could've been so much more, too.
Apple should challenge itself and the market by simultaneously releasing 2015 MacBook Pro with the newest internals, substituting the TB with USB-C and the 2018 MacBook Pro with equal internal specs. Let the market dictate what they want - heck even price the 2015-version a $100-200 more and see what happens.
Be brave, Apple.
Even better ... Be Best!