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Will Apple make a laptop aimed for business use?
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well…
business laptop… for me, this is a sturdy construction. With a plastic surface (YES, plastic material is hi-Tec, NOT aluminum) In former times, Toshiba Tecra, IBM Thinkpad was like that. They had at that time also the best "mouse" (track point) ...They just did WORK, even though in THAT era, nobody even thought about "sleeves" or protections for laptops. Often, they did work even after a cup of coffee found its way onto the keyboard… ( a"classic" situation in business (airplane) … later on, the panasonic toughbooks
were the best ones for even rough professional use. waterproof.
a real business-laptop has a anti-glare-screen - not a make-up-mirror as the rMBP… (ok, the others care also less and less about ant-glare) ...
I switched over to apple about 7 years ago. Had to learn that MBPs are very sensible, the design is more stylistic than ergonomic (shiny, metal look, sharp corners instead of ergonomic round corners (look at the corners just in front of the touchpad!) .
For me, it´s hate and love: a very expensive, over expensive product, too easy to fail if not every time treated like my own baby and well-wrapped.
Both of my at that time top-of-the-line MBPs failed just some days after the end of the too limited guaranty. It tells a lot about a company, if they take a lot of money MORE to guaranty the same things others give you for grant.
ridiculous that they call it "protection plan" to get just even 10-20% more from their clients….
The keyboard of my last MBP failed exactly 2 days after the end of their "Guaranty" - had nothing to do with coffee or something else - it just did not work.
When I called apple, they gave me the feeling to be a baby-murder. Useless loss of time to "talk" with them. Being a newbie member of Scientology church must feel like that… useless to say, that they sated just "Bad luck" and wanted to charge lots of money for their no-so-well-designed-Diva-hardware..
I am a apple-User because their software is… well… WAS once extremely user-friendly. It still is.
But this is changing: Microsoft is getting better and apple is becoming more and more the bug-king… (IOS8, OSX 10.10xxx) …
A business-LAptop does work in rough circumstances, and it has a exchangeable HD or SSD.
It is interesting, that you all already accept that you give away a BUSINESS-LAptop with a all its data (not even "encrypted" with Filevault) on a long way to a unknown enterprise somewhere on this planet to "repair" your MBP. I am shure, you even mean a Cloud would be "Secure"?
So - for ME, the question of the thread opener is NOT stupid at all.
wrote this on my loved and hated MBP…
business laptop… for me, this is a sturdy construction. With a plastic surface (YES, plastic material is hi-Tec, NOT aluminum) In former times, Toshiba Tecra, IBM Thinkpad was like that. They had at that time also the best "mouse" (track point) ...They just did WORK, even though in THAT era, nobody even thought about "sleeves" or protections for laptops. Often, they did work even after a cup of coffee found its way onto the keyboard… ( a"classic" situation in business (airplane) … later on, the panasonic toughbooks
were the best ones for even rough professional use. waterproof.
a real business-laptop has a anti-glare-screen - not a make-up-mirror as the rMBP… (ok, the others care also less and less about ant-glare) ...
I switched over to apple about 7 years ago. Had to learn that MBPs are very sensible, the design is more stylistic than ergonomic (shiny, metal look, sharp corners instead of ergonomic round corners (look at the corners just in front of the touchpad!) .
For me, it´s hate and love: a very expensive, over expensive product, too easy to fail if not every time treated like my own baby and well-wrapped.
Both of my at that time top-of-the-line MBPs failed just some days after the end of the too limited guaranty. It tells a lot about a company, if they take a lot of money MORE to guaranty the same things others give you for grant.
ridiculous that they call it "protection plan" to get just even 10-20% more from their clients….
The keyboard of my last MBP failed exactly 2 days after the end of their "Guaranty" - had nothing to do with coffee or something else - it just did not work.
When I called apple, they gave me the feeling to be a baby-murder. Useless loss of time to "talk" with them. Being a newbie member of Scientology church must feel like that… useless to say, that they sated just "Bad luck" and wanted to charge lots of money for their no-so-well-designed-Diva-hardware..
I am a apple-User because their software is… well… WAS once extremely user-friendly. It still is.
But this is changing: Microsoft is getting better and apple is becoming more and more the bug-king… (IOS8, OSX 10.10xxx) …
A business-LAptop does work in rough circumstances, and it has a exchangeable HD or SSD.
It is interesting, that you all already accept that you give away a BUSINESS-LAptop with a all its data (not even "encrypted" with Filevault) on a long way to a unknown enterprise somewhere on this planet to "repair" your MBP. I am shure, you even mean a Cloud would be "Secure"?
So - for ME, the question of the thread opener is NOT stupid at all.
wrote this on my loved and hated MBP…
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I never seen any business people carry a MacBook, rMacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook with retina anywhere. All I can see hipsters, students, nerds, geeks, musicians, DJ, video editors, photographers, and average joe.
In the past I bought a new and powerful Compaq notebook they told I don't look good with this notebook so I switched to MacBook, they love me.
You should hangout at an Airport. I see plenty of Business people carrying Macbook pros (including myself).
Ethernet port...Really? All the hotels that cater to business travelers are now wifi only.
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BTW.....business laptop are not plastic, by nature anymore. Waterproof....really? Business people are not trying to type underwater or on a construction site. Some of you are clueless. Even the Ultrabooks that are designed for business users are aluminum now...for the most part (Thanks to MacBooks pros.)
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Business travelers want thin, light laptops with long battery life. Something that is easy to use and can sync with their smart phones, if necessary. Sound familiar?
I don't think you realize how much iPhones and iPads have penetrated the business market. Many company phones are iPhones now because they are easy to use with a very quick learning curve. By extension, more macbook pros are being used by business because of people wanting to use apple products.
The MBP is almost ideal for business use. It is well made, and if one compares it, to an identical (as close to weight and size), feature-by-feature clone by a PC brand... the MacBook Pro actually is a tad cheaper.
Plus, (with or without BootCamp), it can run Windows natively, which is important.
The -only- feature it doesn't have, that business Windows laptops tend to have is a TPM chip.
Plus, (with or without BootCamp), it can run Windows natively, which is important.
The -only- feature it doesn't have, that business Windows laptops tend to have is a TPM chip.
Hmmm, I use my rMBP for business and these days (like many other business pros), I prize portability and battery life over having a bunch of legacy ports that are very rarely used.
If I need to connect to an older projector with VGA, I use a TB to VGA adapter. Easy. But most modern projectors have HDMI, which I can connect to natively with a standard cable.
If I really need Ethernet (and 99.9% of the time, I don't), I can use an Ethernet adapter.
If I'm parked at a desk and need a bit more connectivity, I plug into a Thunderbolt dock (and there's your docking station answer).
I'm not quite sure how the rMBP would disqualify as a serious business machine because it already is one. Very few laptops have user serviceable parts these days. For example, just about every PC Ultrabook on the market today has soldered-in RAM.
If I need to connect to an older projector with VGA, I use a TB to VGA adapter. Easy. But most modern projectors have HDMI, which I can connect to natively with a standard cable.
If I really need Ethernet (and 99.9% of the time, I don't), I can use an Ethernet adapter.
If I'm parked at a desk and need a bit more connectivity, I plug into a Thunderbolt dock (and there's your docking station answer).
I'm not quite sure how the rMBP would disqualify as a serious business machine because it already is one. Very few laptops have user serviceable parts these days. For example, just about every PC Ultrabook on the market today has soldered-in RAM.
I can only hope that as the old guard changes, we can start to re-think which computers are used professionally. My company sprang for some very pricy Dell Latitude ultrabooks (E7450), and while they're nice, they're nowhere near the quality of a MBP.
I'm not sure of the inner workings of things, but if my company approached me with the idea of having some sort of separate encrypted partition and profile for work use, I'd not even think twice. Now that the newest version of Excel is pretty much the same as the windows version, I'd have no troubles at all aside from trying to use VMware to fire up MS Access.
I'm not sure of the inner workings of things, but if my company approached me with the idea of having some sort of separate encrypted partition and profile for work use, I'd not even think twice. Now that the newest version of Excel is pretty much the same as the windows version, I'd have no troubles at all aside from trying to use VMware to fire up MS Access.
The perfect business laptop is a Retina Macbook Pro with a better Apple Care.
Dell charges an affordable price which covers manufacture defects, spills and drops. Even those expensive Precisions have this kind of coverage.
Dell charges an affordable price which covers manufacture defects, spills and drops. Even those expensive Precisions have this kind of coverage.
Doesn't sound weird at all.
Macs have lower total cost of ownership.
And more productive as well
I know. I am a finance guy in a tech company.
Almost 100% MBP's
PS
Many tech guys want lots of ports, optical drives etc. to make their lives easier - not the user's. One day my perfect MBP will have zero ports.
Hmm. Interesting comment on VMware Macs.
We sort of compete with you - our developers are 100% MBP's.
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I never seen any business people carry a MacBook, rMacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook with retina anywhere. All I can see hipsters, students, nerds, geeks, musicians, DJ, video editors, photographers, and average joe.
In the past I bought a new and powerful Compaq notebook they told I don't look good with this notebook so I switched to MacBook, they love me.
Funny. Nice troll
Let me guess, you're a Citrix chap
Good guess but no, I wish.
But our point is:
MacBooks are used for hard core development work
As well as what I do like spreadsheets and legal agreements.
Wouldn't use anything else.
Hmm...perhaps you're from Parallels? Or perhaps Microsoft (Hyper-V), or Red Hat (REVH), or even Oracle?
I'm not working in the consumer-oriented side of VMware though, I'm in the corporate-oriented side (the vSphere, vCenter and Horizon part).
Even business people trend to be "chic" the ONLY reason why apple has this awful aluminum-design is the "show-effect" aluminum is something for pretenders. has nothing to do with hiTec.
You are totally wrong, they ARE plastic. Everywhere in the industry, where hiTec and lightweight is important, aluminum is about to be replaced more and more by "plastics" - look at Boeing and Airbus. And even the new Mac Pro
Especially in the era of wireless communication, it is ridiculous to cage them in a metal cage BTW therefore the iP5c had BETTER results in communication than the aluminum one
OMG !!!
You use NOTHING BUT public WiFi for business communication?
Did you ever hear the word "data-security" in your live?
Serious people do connect their laptop with the LAN, maybe by cellular, but never-ever WiFi in a hotel.
The reason apple abandoned all the nice ports others still have in their business-laptops is the fetishism of their designer to get the MBPs slimmer and slimmer
INSTEAD OF guarding the form factor and
1) implement MORE battery ---> would work longer in a hard BUSINESS DAY
2) still having the chance to deliver LAN-, TB-, USB3-, . ports ---> stressless connection with ALL BUSINESS-PArners (MBP 2011/2012 had not even USB3!!!)
3) abandon the ridiculous "retina" Screen full of glares and mirroring, and present a antiglare-Screen as before (until 2012) - would demand less energy either a antiglare-OLED screen instead of an LCD would be a REAL Innovation, not the make-up-mirror, called "retina"
4) .. and so on
BTW: Jonathan Ive is not a "Designer" at all - he is just a stylist.
Once apple stood for "Form follows function" - now (tragically) it is more and more like "function follows shiny glitter"
Do you know anything about Apple's computers? Just look at the new Macbook, there is a lot of battery innovation there.
At first I treated you seriously, now I think you're a troll..
I don't think you truly understand what the retina is there for.
Photographers need good colour rendering if their work is meant to go out for printing.
A retina screen (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with that.
A retina screen increases sharpness of the image to make it render closer to a printed paper, which is much, much easier on the eyes for longer periods. It also has the advantage of scalability. You can make it look like any resolution and it'll still look decent.
I wouldn't call a £2000 notebook a 'consumer' notebook. Whilst plenty of consumers buy them, they're certainly aimed at professionals. Your consumer notebooks are the lower end 13" MacBook Pro and MacBook Air which I'm guessing still account for the lions share of Mac sales at Apple.
From a hardware perspective, Apple machines are already more than suitable for enterprise use - most corporates are operating on low end Windows machines from 2-3 years ago because most of the strain is on the networks, not the hardware. The bigger issue lies in software - and cross platform compatibility but even they're becoming none issues.
From a hardware perspective, Apple machines are already more than suitable for enterprise use - most corporates are operating on low end Windows machines from 2-3 years ago because most of the strain is on the networks, not the hardware. The bigger issue lies in software - and cross platform compatibility but even they're becoming none issues.
well in my line of work, music production, i use a laptop and all my producer colleagues and lots of others out there probably 85%-90% of the time keep their macbooks in clamshell mode, hooked up to a usb hub and external monitor, so retina in that case is pointless because it will all depend on your monitor which most still use 1080p
the one-only port MacBook for business? You are kidding?
If problems with the USB-c ---> neither connected nor charging---> NoGO for business.
As for the retina for business:
I don´t know all about apple - nobody does that, even not their CEO or YOU.
But I know a little bit about ergonomics.
working on a computer has nothing to do with "sharpness" , but easy reading.
reflections and glare - they are not at all ergonomic.
For you everybody with substantiated critical thoughts about the "new way" apple goes is "Blasphemy" in the church of apple-scientology ?
I am not a apple-fanboy, I use these products - but I am still able to have critical view on their way to take us for fools (for example selling expensive "business-laptops" for 3000 USD and not being ashamed to demand 30-100 USD for additional adapters they forgot when designing them , as for USB3 in 2011 and 2012)
Or - for example - to refuse FOR YEARS !!! to accept bad design - as for the GPU-Problems for the 2011-2012 MBP:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/...es-petition-lawsuit-repair-programme-3497935/
And YOU will trust them for business laptops?
come on , you are just a fundamentalistic fanboy.
Ignoring bad customer service and bad design is not the way to go….
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I'm a little confused. If you're wondering when apple is going to have a red ball as a cursor the answer is never! That thing is such an eyesore! I've seen a TON of business men and women use the MacBook Air. If 12 hours of battery life isn't aimed at business use than I don't know what is.
If you have a docking station, then 2 and 3 are made largely redundant, since the dock takes on those functions. As for #4: there are lots to Thunderbolt docks available that pretty much handle the functions of 2, 3 and 4 with a single connector.
Not always true, and not all businesses (actually, only the very largest ones) even try to do their own repairs. Most will gladly have the vendor deal with it, which is what you do with a Mac.
Not slowly but surely. HDMI is the standard now, and MBPs have them built in. If you're still using VGA, It's well past time to upgrade.
Which by the way, is actually easier than most "business" laptops. We have a bunch of HP EliteBook "business" laptops at work that have full-size DisplayPort adapters. Ugh. They're a pain to work with on our new LED/LCD wall mount displays, which rely on HDMI. Ditto for trying to hook them up to our Cisco Telepresence endpoints when someone wants to do a presentation over videoconference.