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Wheres the non-TB update???

W

weezerr

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 7, 2006
189
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Limping along with my 2011 air, finally they come out with a third gen butterfly, quad core 13 inch that looks fairly solid.

Do we think that there is just a temporary gap in the product line with this mystery rumored 13 inch lower priced model that will be released in the next few months? Perhaps they are going to discontinue the non-TB 13?
 
expect the nTB versions to be phased out. apple are all in on the TB and removing the 15" nTB proves it, expect the 13" to get the same treatment next cycle. Personally I believe there is a good chance to see bot MacBook and anything new with a TB in the future
 
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bigpoppamac31 said:
No one had issues with the function keys. Why Apple is getting rid of them is beyond me. As for the headphone jack. Wired will always be better than wireless for audio sound quality. I'm pretty sure that'd been proven many times over the years.
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Because for 90% of users the touch bar offers ore functionality. Apple isn’t going to get rid of it, and they aren’t going to indefinitely maintain models without it for the minority that doesn’t like it.
 
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I'm guessing we're going to see a new low end notebook soon. One that comes in 2 screen sizes, possibly 11 and 13 again and will replace the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook 13 non-touch.
 
Randall2018 said:
Because for 90% of users the touch bar offers ore functionality. Apple isn’t going to get rid of it, and they aren’t going to indefinitely maintain models without it for the minority that doesn’t like it.
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Well Apple can do what they want. But history has proven they don't always make the best decisions. Like I said no one was complaining about the function keys to begin with. It's just change for the sake of change. Like the old saying goes "if it ain't broke don't fix it".
 
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One possibility is that the current CPUs do not allow the update that Apple intends to make. I lost track of the CPUs developments, so I cannot say for sure. I guess we will see in a few months.

Also, remember the typical business strategy: release the most expensive versions first, so that customers who cannot or do not want to wait have no choice other than "over-spend"; then, release cheaper versions later, so that customers who do not have the funds also get to buy something...

So I am not giving hope on the nTB version quite yet. And I have time. :)
 
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bigpoppamac31 said:
Wired will always be better than wireless for audio sound quality. I'm pretty sure that'd been proven many times over the years.
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It has not.

There is no fundamental reason why wireless digital transmission should in any way be inferior to wired digital transmission. Differences can only be due to encoding and the quality of the reproduction equipment.

To make that claim is akin to claiming that webpages loaded over wired network connections are somehow better than webpages loaded over wireless network connections.
 
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bigpoppamac31 said:
Well Apple can do what they want. But history has proven they don't always make the best decisions. Like I said no one was complaining about the function keys to begin with. It's just change for the sake of change. Like the old saying goes "if it ain't broke don't fix it".
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No one was complaining about floppy discs before they dropped them either.
 
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chabig said:
It has not.

There is no fundamental reason why wireless digital transmission should in any way be inferior to wired digital transmission. Differences can only be due to encoding and the quality of the reproduction equipment.
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Perhaps. But I've never had a signal drop while listening to music with wired headphones. I've had plenty of signal drops with wireless either through bluetooth or Airplay.
 
Randall2018 said:
No one was complaining about floppy discs before they dropped them either.
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I figured you would use that kind of tired and worn out argument. I've used the touch bar and I don't see any practical uses. At least in my case. So is Apple going to eventually get rid of the entire physical keyboard in favour of a virtual one?? It made sense to replace floppy discs with CDs and USB sticks as the latter allowed for higher storage capacity. Replacing HDD with SSD made sense as SSDs are much faster and have no moving parts. Some things make sense to be updated and/or replaced. Other things don't.
 
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So we have the non-TB with an outdated processor, failure prone keyboard at the same price ... at least in Europe

I think the Apple laptop line right now is a mess.

Apple should phaseout the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro non-TB and revamp the MacBook entry line by offering MacBook in 12 and 13 inches sizes without touch bar at lower prices with 3 gen. keyboard.
 
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pepinto said:
So we have the non-TB with an outdated processor, failure prone keyboard at the same price ... at least in Europe

I think the Apple laptop line right now is a mess.

Apple should phaseout the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro non-TB and revamp the MacBook entry line by offering MacBook in 12 and 13 inches sizes without touch bar at lower prices with 3 gen. keyboard.
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Apple should get rid of the MBA. The Macbook 12" is essentially it's successor. Have the 12" MB and have the 13" and 15" MBP. All MB and MBP models should have the option at any configuration for the user to have a touch bar or not.
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
Apple should get rid of the MBA. The Macbook 12" is essentially it's successor. Have the 12" MB and have the 13" and 15" MBP. All MB and MBP models should have the option at any configuration for the user to have a touch bar or not.
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The need to lower the MB price before they can drop the MBA.

As for the Touch Bar I think they should either drop it completely or put it in every laptop and on the Magic Keyboard. Else it will never achieve its full potential.
 
Glmnet1 said:
The need to lower the MB price before they can drop the MBA.

As for the Touch Bar I think they should either drop it completely or put it in every laptop and on the Magic Keyboard. Else it will never achieve its full potential.
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Prices of all Apple products need to drop significantly. $179 for a MBP leather sleeve??? Seriously??

As for the touch bar I agree. I say make it an upgrade option like adding more ram or SSD.
 
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I use the function keys all the time.

Esc is crucial for vim and many other developer tools. Even to just go from full screen back to normal mode.

Changing brightness, volume, spaces, play/stop, all these could be accomplished very quickly with physical keys. And I used them ALL the time.

If the touchbar keeps changing it makes all these actions more complicated and time consuming. Sure I can set it to just display the function keys. But then whats the use of touchbar and why should all of us be made to pay for touchbar if we dont use it. Some people like it, fine. It should be optional.
 
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cfdlab said:
I use the function keys all the time.

Esc is crucial for vim and many other developer tools. Even to just go from full screen back to normal mode.

Changing brightness, volume, spaces, play/stop, all these could be accomplished very quickly with physical keys. And I used them ALL the time.

If the touchbar keeps changing it makes all these actions more complicated and time consuming. Sure I can set it to just display the function keys. But then whats the use of touchbar and why should all of us be made to pay for touchbar if we dont use it. Some people like it, fine. It should be optional.
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Fully agreed with all of this.
I use a 15"tb from my work and heavily rely on VMs. There too, the tb is a drag. The only thing that I like about it is the touchID, and it is very far from making up for the rest. In fact, I cannot count the number of times I activated inadvertently some keystrokes involving the tb, without noticing it, it is so frustrating.
I will probably purchase a laptop for personal use with the next 12 months, and *not* having tb will be a must.
 
bigpoppamac31 said:
Prices of all Apple products need to drop significantly. $179 for a MBP leather sleeve??? Seriously??

As for the touch bar I agree. I say make it an upgrade option like adding more ram or SSD.
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Just buy a $10 neoprene sleeve and forget about the overpriced Apple leather one, which is clearly an "idiot tax" item.

Making the TB an option would be great, but Apple would never do that because it is far too embarrassing when one of your much-vaunted innovations achieves no traction and I don't think they'd take that chance. As it is you can't use sales figures to judge whether it's popular or not, since there are more significant differences between the models with and without it, so everyone involved can believe what they want about it.

Personally I use the escape key heavily, and maybe half of the other function keys occasionally. My next machine will have a TB, because that's what's on offer, and as consistency of button placement seems more important to me than app-specific tailoring my plan is to use Better Touch Tool to create my own static version tailored to what I use (and which will never display an emoji selector ;)).
 
weezerr said:
with this mystery rumored 13 inch lower priced model that will be released in the next few months?
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No, apple wants its customers to buy the TB model, and that's the reason why they opted to not update the nTB computer. You'll not see a second refresh of a partial model line, what you see is what you get at this point. I know a lot of people are very unhappy with apple for not updating the nTB with the same love of of the TB, or not even including a nTB model for the 15" MBP. You only have one choice in the 15" MBP, and that the touch bar version
 
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