You guys 'member? Ohh, I 'member!

[vipergts2207]

https://www.wired.com/2007/10/fastest-windows/

Excerpt:
"The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year is a Mac. Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year–or for that matter, ever–is a Mac."

I think part of the reason so many people are unhappy with the new MBP's and Apple's current direction with the MBP lineup in general is because the idea of this headline being true nowadays is laughable. Apple, at one time was able to deliver incredible power with a great form factor and in a timely fashion to boot. It seems like perhaps the Mac division isn't firing on all cylinders the way it used to.

In addition to the above article, in 2011, Apple was the first to market with Intel's Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt. That's also when they made the semi-unexpected jump to quad-cores from dual core. Apple actually used to occasionally surprise their customers in a good way with respect to their hardware. In retrospect, it turns out that the new 15" MBP's got processors that could've been in them a year ago. On top of that, a lot of people were expecting more and better RAM options (32 GB and DDR4). Some people plan on using these things for 4 or 5 years (especially at these prices!) and what is good enough now, may not be in 2 or 3 years time.

Some complaints people have I'm not bothered by too much, but are understandable. Mainly, the loss of legacy ports and the SD card slot. Some people don't like the GPU choice though I think the Radeon 460 model will likely perform fairly decently. Obviously it's not going to be a powerhouse, but Apple's never put top-end GPU's in the MBP's that I know of. Usually it's upper-midrange chips on the high-end MBP's.

Then there's the whole pricing issue, which I agree with, but in the past first-gen models of a revision got a price hike, followed by a modest decrease for the following revision. The pricing issue wouldn't be as bad if Apple didn't price most BTO options sky high as well. Hell, we in the US are somewhat lucky, overseas customers really got the shaft on pricing.

In summary, it seems Apple's Macs have gone from often exceeding most people's expectations, to not even meeting them for many people. It's not exactly unprecedented for Apple to do the former.

 

[Malus120]

I know how you feel. I'm doing my best not to get over involved in the negativity on this forum, but I have to say Thursday's presentation was another disappointing presentation in what has been a year of almost exclusively disappointing Apple presentations.

The passion is gone, the reality distortion field is gone, and we're left with a company that still does brilliant things sometimes, but outside of iPhone has real problems with execution and doesn't seem to understand its professional or even prosumer user base.

Some people might give excuses for why there wasn't a Mac Pro, iMac, or Mac mini announcement, "if they weren't released today it'd hurt sales," they say. There is no excuse, Apple already destroyed the sales potential for the Mac Pro and Mac Mini by not updating them.

You know what took courage? Announcing the nMP half a year before its release.

You know what took insensitivity and a truly special level of tone deafness? Wasting everyone's time showing football with the new TV app at what was supposed to be a Mac focused event.

 

[Ghost31]

I

You know what took insensitivity and a truly special level of tone deafness? Wasting everyone's time showing football with the new TV app at what was supposed to be a Mac focused event.

This is what got to me. Its like having a conversation with someone on the street and 5 seconds in you realize how freaking boring they are. They have no sense of how to hold a decent conversation and what THEY think is exciting, is really just meaningless sounds coming out of their mouth and you counting the seconds until you can walk away and laugh at the memory of you standing there in the first place.

Nobody cared about the apple tv part of the presentation. AT ALL. This could have just been talked about in a press release. Unless Apple is going to make big changes like their own tv service or something, then...why go on a stage and talk about it? Oh great. We can look at twitter on the tv. Did we really need to be reminded the apple tv had apps? There was an entire keynote about it already.

Great! A new tv app. That...doesn't include netflix? Ugh... And then the macbooks. Could have been a silent update. You could just tell from the demeanor of tim cook and the rest of the presenters that even they weren't excited. It was quite surprising how dead they looked.

 

[theNatest]

I member..

 

[ugru]

Member

 

[Eorlas]

I agree entirely, the performance aspect of a "pro" device seems to be entirely lost. "Pro" seems to be a title reserved for an upper echelon of expense rather than "pro" tier hardware.

I was stoked about the presentation, super excited, thought the touch bar was really cool, then you get to the important things:

-nicer display, that's cool
-improved speakers with HDR, awesome.
-i7 skylake, great! good direction.

and then:

-Radeon 460

...

What?

-16GB Ram. DDR3

McScuse me?

Finally, you get to the price and then it's like a punch in the face.

I think the major offense is it's "pro" tier, but the hardware in it is nonsense. You can put a much better GPU in a computer with internals to match and not even scratch $1000. And DDR4 RAM isn't prohibitively expensive anymore. If you're building a PC nowadays it doesn't make sense to pick DDR3 over 4 if you have a mobo to support it.

I'm writing this from my 2015 MBP, and I can't say that I have an inclination to replace this machine in favor of something that really isn't impressing at all. I don't get the impression that the expense for the new machine has any major jump over what I'm using at this moment.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

I dont know anyone who was expecting 32GB Ram.

Or actually needs it with how fast the I/O is now.

Definitely dont need it for Photoshop/FCP/Logic.

Dont know what software they are using to want that.

 

[Eorlas]

I dont know anyone who was expecting 32GB Ram.

Or actually needs it with how fast the I/O is now.

Definitely dont need it for Photoshop/FCP/Logic.

Dont know what software they are using to want that.

For me it'd be a proper justification for the price, but even 32gb of DDR4 RAM isn't making these $$ make sense to me.

 

[vipergts2207]

I dont know anyone who was expecting 32GB Ram.

Or actually needs it with how fast the I/O is now.

Definitely dont need it for Photoshop/FCP/Logic.

Dont know what software they are using to want that.

You must not have been reading the forums too much since the announcement then. Don't know if I personally would've opted for it or not if it was a choice. Probably would have if it was less than a $250 upgrade, but that's kind of a moot point now.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

You must not have been reading the forums too much since the announcement then. Don't know if I personally would've opted for it or not if it was a choice. Probably would have if it was less than a $250 upgrade, but that's kind of a moot point now.

What did u guys need 32 for?

I edit long stuff on FCP in 4K with no hiccups. Also have Logic/Ableton sessions 100+ tracks all with heavy plugins no buffering.

What could need more memory than that?

 

[mjs402]

https://www.wired.com/2007/10/fastest-windows/

Excerpt:
"The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year is a Mac. Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year–or for that matter, ever–is a Mac."

I think part of the reason so many people are unhappy with the new MBP's and Apple's current direction with the MBP lineup in general is because the idea of this headline being true nowadays is laughable. Apple, at one time was able to deliver incredible power with a great form factor and in a timely fashion to boot. It seems like perhaps the Mac division isn't firing on all cylinders the way it used to.

In addition to the above article, in 2011, Apple was the first to market with Intel's Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt. That's also when they made the semi-unexpected jump to quad-cores from dual core. Apple actually used to occasionally surprise their customers in a good way with respect to their hardware. In retrospect, it turns out that the new 15" MBP's got processors that could've been in them a year ago. On top of that, a lot of people were expecting more and better RAM options (32 GB and DDR4). Some people plan on using these things for 4 or 5 years (especially at these prices!) and what is good enough now, may not be in 2 or 3 years time.

Some complaints people have I'm not bothered by too much, but are understandable. Mainly, the loss of legacy ports and the SD card slot. Some people don't like the GPU choice though I think the Radeon 460 model will likely perform fairly decently. Obviously it's not going to be a powerhouse, but Apple's never put top-end GPU's in the MBP's that I know of. Usually it's upper-midrange chips on the high-end MBP's.

Then there's the whole pricing issue, which I agree with, but in the past first-gen models of a revision got a price hike, followed by a modest decrease for the following revision. The pricing issue wouldn't be as bad if Apple didn't price most BTO options sky high as well. Hell, we in the US are somewhat lucky, overseas customers really got the shaft on pricing.

In summary, it seems Apple's Macs have gone from often exceeding most people's expectations, to not even meeting them for many people. It's not exactly unprecedented for Apple to do the former.

Love the South Park associated title.

 

[wegster]

What did u guys need 32 for?

I edit long stuff on FCP in 4K with no hiccups. Also have Logic/Ableton sessions 100+ tracks all with heavy plugins no buffering.

What could need more memory than that?

One or more virtual machines running different OSes running dev tools and/or debugging environments, including mysql, SQL Server, Visual Studio - any number of things.

 

[spacebro]

This is what got to me. Its like having a conversation with someone on the street and 5 seconds in you realize how freaking boring they are. They have no sense of how to hold a decent conversation and what THEY think is exciting, is really just meaningless sounds coming out of their mouth and you counting the seconds until you can walk away and laugh at the memory of you standing there in the first place.

Nobody cared about the apple tv part of the presentation. AT ALL. This could have just been talked about in a press release. Unless Apple is going to make big changes like their own tv service or something, then...why go on a stage and talk about it? Oh great. We can look at twitter on the tv. Did we really need to be reminded the apple tv had apps? There was an entire keynote about it already.

Great! A new tv app. That...doesn't include netflix? Ugh... And then the macbooks. Could have been a silent update. You could just tell from the demeanor of tim cook and the rest of the presenters that even they weren't excited. It was quite surprising how dead they looked.

I've been waiting for a ram upgrade for my macbook. The only part of the presentation that didn't piss me off was the apple tv stuff. Thats great a unified app for all the streaming services. My apple tv is the only mac product I don't want to throw out the window right now.

 

[vipergts2207]

What did u guys need 32 for?

I don't need 32 GB, certainly not right now anyway. Hence why I'm not sure I would've opted for it. The question isn't necessarily do you need all 32GB, but do you need more than 16GB. A large number of people who want 32GB are probably in the latter category, rather than the former. Additionally, some users are probably regularly using 14+ GB of RAM already. If they're already close to 16 GB now, why would they not want make sure they're massive investment in one of these computers is still going to be useful in 2 or more years. The price of these things means people are going to expect to use them for several years most likely.

 

[The Mercurian]

I dont know anyone who was expecting 32GB Ram.

Or actually needs it with how fast the I/O is now.

Definitely dont need it for Photoshop/FCP/Logic.

Dont know what software they are using to want that.

What did u guys need 32 for?

I edit long stuff on FCP in 4K with no hiccups. Also have Logic/Ableton sessions 100+ tracks all with heavy plugins no buffering.

What could need more memory than that?

MCMC Bayesian models with upwards of 20,000 variables running will do it

 

[Bobby Corwen]

One or more virtual machines running different OSes running dev tools and/or debugging environments, including mysql, SQL Server, Visual Studio - any number of things.

Thats not worth the decrease in battery life. Also for some of those you might use a different computer like a desktop for that. Its not what Mac laptops are ultimately targeted for so not worth losing battery over it honestly.

I don't I need 32 GB, certainly not right now anyway. Hence why I'm not sure I would've opted for it. The question isn't necessarily do you need all 32GB, but do you need more than 16GB. A large number of people who want 32GB are probably in the latter category, rather than the former. Additionally, some users are probably regularly using 14+ GB of RAM already. If they're already close to 16 GB now, why would they not want make sure they're massive investment in one of these computers is still going to be useful in 2 or more years. The price of these things means people are going to expect to use them for several years most likely.

Exactly nobody needs it, a vast majority people would have the same experience they have now with 8GB of DDR3 2000 RAM. We have 16GB at 2133 with I/O on the SSDs so fast its almost like memory itself nothing matters anymore its all instant.

Its definitely not worth losing battery over it. There is no reason to believe the near future will require 32GB we are already working with 4K video. And for the next five years 4K will be the normal standard.

MCMC Bayesian models with upwards of 20,000 variables running will do it

Its still not worth sacrificing battery life over it.

 

[The Mercurian]

Its still not worth sacrificing battery life over it.

Yeah there is a whole thread on this you need to catch up on to see the various ways in which that statement is wrong:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...6gb-ram-due-to-battery-life-concerns.2010291/

But lets assume for a moment you are right (you are not - but lets pretend). Make the thing 1mm thicker - it would still be smaller than th elast one, yet have room for a bigger battery AND then they could have kept everyone happy (well.....ignoring the prices for the sake of argument)

 

[wegster]

Thats not worth the decrease in battery life. Also for some of those you might use a different computer like a desktop for that. Its not what Mac laptops are ultimately targeted for so not worth losing battery over it honestly.

Exactly nobody needs it, a vast majority people would have the same experience they have now with 8GB of DDR3 2000 RAM. We have 16GB at 2133 with I/O on the SSDs so fast its almost like memory itself nothing matters anymore its all instant.

Its definitely not worth losing battery over it. There is no reason to believe the near future will require 32GB we are already working with 4K video. And for the next five years 4K will be the normal standard.



Its still not worth sacrificing battery life over it.

It's nice that you share your opinion, even if wrong, but many differ, as do facts. It's not solely bandwidth, where RAM wins, but also latency and concurrency.
If I've got time after heading out for dinner, I may dig up some actual bandwidth comparisons of RAM vs even the latest SSDs. From memory, we're still at what, 2-3GB/sec SSD vs 20Gb/sec+ for RAM. While improvements anywhere in I/O bottlenecks are welcome and storage has been high up the list on areas for improvement, sod recent SSD improvements are very welcome, but it's not the complete picture nor an equivalent 1:1 replacement for lack of, or need for, RAM.

 

[vipergts2207]

Exactly nobody needs it, a vast majority people would have the same experience they have now with 8GB of DDR3 2000 RAM. We have 16GB at 2133 with I/O on the SSDs so fast its almost like memory itself nothing matters anymore its all instant.

Quite interesting that that, is the conclusion you reached from my reply. People have already given examples of why they or others need it anyway, but feel free to continue ignoring that.

The point of this thread wasn't necessarily to relitigate all the individual things people don't like about the new MBP's. It was more to tie all of those things together and point out that Apple has, in the past surprised people with more than they expected, and for the most part, they really no longer do that. That surprise you got sometimes, was part of the "Apple magic". For another example, watch the video where Steve Jobs tells the audience about Wi-Fi coming to the iBook. Watch how the audience reacts, to this revelation.

 

[Ghost31]

I've been waiting for a ram upgrade for my macbook. The only part of the presentation that didn't piss me off was the apple tv stuff. Thats great a unified app for all the streaming services. My apple tv is the only mac product I don't want to throw out the window right now.

Huh? Apple TV Mac product? I think you mean apple.

But yeah man I agree. I like the tv app, but it was really cringe worthy watching them talk about it. Their presentation style has taken a nose dive

 

[wegster]

Exactly nobody needs it, a vast majority people would have the same experience they have now with 8GB of DDR3 2000 RAM. We have 16GB at 2133 with I/O on the SSDs so fast its almost like memory itself nothing matters anymore its all instant.

To hopefully close this out, as promised, some actual numbers vs your 'I feel' and your patronizing attitude that you somehow speak for the collective professionals using Apple hardware for their jobs.
This is only through Skylake, not KL..showing write speeds for DDR3 and DDR4.

So let's say ~50GB/second, shall we? Call it 45GB/second if you'd prefer, but we do need to be aware of clock speeds as well.
Source: a year old article from Corsair: http://www.corsair.com/en-us/blog/2015/september/ddr3_vs_ddr4_generational

The quite fast Samsung 950 EVO M2, which hits a bit above 2GB/second using PCIe 3.0, 4 lanes. We can believe Apple has worked with Samsung or others and we may see ~3GB/second reads on the new MBPs.
http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-m2-pcie-ssds-raid0-performance_161753/5

So is this 'almost likely memory itself?' Is it 'almost like memory itself' for those running in-memory large data sets for computational (AI, large data processing, even just large databases)?

I hope you can agree that a 10x performance boost or more for RAM..is not insignificant to those that use their systems for work outside of running Office apps?

I'd say I think not, but I don't need to - real benchmarks say it is not, no matter your 'feelings or opinion.'
This is before we even start to get into latency (think of the delay before something starts to happen, e.g. before you really start reading or writing to a medium, or what gamers dislike with a network connection or on gaming displays).

Finally, there is promise to see SSD performance improve, although don't expect RAM to remain waiting in the meantime. Today's desktop systems have 16x PCIe lanes, and PCIe 3.0 has nearly doubled the per lane throughput (more or less), which can yield theoretical almost 1GB/second per lane. But today's laptops have just moved to 4x lane PCIe - so there's a ways to go yet, and again that's before we examine latency, while different mixtures of files (small vs large, content or compressibility, ..) have real impacts on actual write speeds, as does serving numerous concurrent requests.

Fast SSDs are awesome, but don't beat or make up for lack of RAM in many cases, even if they make it less painful than if your 'storage of last resort' were only a platter drive.