From complaints about the Intel Core-M processor to the color choices to the decision to use USB-C, it seems that anyone with skin in the Mac game has found something to pick on regarding the new Macbook. I think it’s all utter bullshit.
The thing that spec monkeys need to remember is that most people don’t care about what they care about. Most people buying new computers aren’t interest in how many cores a CPU has or how many GB of RAM or storage it has. Very few of the people I sell computers to have more than a passing interest. They want to know what the computer can do. What problems it solves for them.
While the gushing, endless praise for Apple/Mac/OS X in the article borders on the nauseating (hey it’s iMore, what did you expect), I do agree with the main point. A similar reaction could be seen when Samsung announced the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, where ‘power users’ started complaining about the non-removable back and lack of an SD card slot as if it these ‘issues’ matter one bit to the masses buying Galaxy phones (or any other brand, for that matter).
It’s something I like to refer to as ‘the bubble’. You can become so enveloped in the platforms and devices you use that you end up in a bubble. Your own specific use case becomes all that you can see, and because you read the same websites as other people inside your bubble do, it’s easy to lose perspective of what lies beyond your bubble.
The end result is that you think stuff like removable batteries or SD card slots actually matter to more than 0.1% of the smartphone buying public, or that not having an USB port matters to the people buying this new MacBook. The same happened with the original iPhone, the first iMac, and god knows what else. A lot of people – vocal people – assume their own use case is the benchmark for everyone, and as such, if some new piece of kit does not fit that use case, it must, inevitably, fail.
I always try to make sure that I look beyond my own bubble – that’s how I can lament the Apple Watch as a ugly, square, computery iPhone Wrist, while still acknowledging that it will most likely do quite well, because what I want in a smartwatch – watch first, computer fourth or fifth – is probably not what most other people want.
This new MacBook is going to be a huge success, and so will the new Galaxy S6. Nobody cares about removable backs, SD card slots, or ports.
I like the USB-C plug. I like that you can charge the machine from it as well as hook up peripherals all on the same port. I don’t worry that not many devices support it yet. There will be USB-C thumb drives shortly. The issue I see coming is that it is only one of them. This means that you cannot charge the machine and use your external drive at the same time. Sure, more people are going to network based storage, but it would have been so much better to put one USB-C port on each side.
I’m not saying your wrong (obviously – many people see it as you do). But this is how I look at it (as a current 11-inch Macbook Air user).
My machine has 2 USB ports, 1 Thunderbolt port, and a magsafe power port. This is how I use them:
At Work:
1. USB 1 – I’ve never touched it.
1. USB 2 (the one next to the thunderbolt port) – Plug in my USB hub when I get to work.
2. Thunderbolt – Plug in my external monitor
3. Magsafe port – plug in power.
When traveling:
1. USB 1 – Ive never touched it
2. USB 2 – Occasionally plug in a thumbdrive (I think I have needed to do this about 3-4 times).
3. Thunderbolt – Ive never touched it
4. Magsafe port – plug in power when battery is low (which is not very often at all).
I probably clock at least 12 hours on this machine a day on weekdays, it varies on weekends but most of the time at least 2-3 hours.
For my use case, 1 USB-C port does absolutely everything the above can do, and it does it with only a single cable. Why?
1. My keyboard and mouse are both bluetooth. I travel with a seperate bluetooth mouse as well.
2. I use a USB-to-ethernet adapter at work, but it is plugged into my hub.
3. I have bluetooth headphones.
4. I own a superdrive from my previous Macbook, but I stopped carrying it around because I haven’t needed it in like 2 years.
5. I don’t charge my devices with my laptop, I have a travel charger for that. I haven’t plugged my iphone into my laptop in like a year.
The only scenario that I can come up with where 1 port is a real problem (for me) is if I need to plug in a thumb drive and charge the laptop at the same time. There will most certainly be port replicators that can facilitate this – but I doubt I would need it as I would probably have sufficient charge 99% of the time. Hell, there are even wifi base flash devices now that c an give you external storage without any cables at all if you just need storage space.
I’m just saying, I use the machine the way it was meant to be used. In other words, a 2 lbs laptop the size of a tablet was not meant to have 6 USB devices plugged into it. If you actually need that kind of connectivity, just get a travel hub, or get some bluetooth or wifi devices, if that is too much of a bother then it just wasn’t meant for your use case.
I know my opinion is probably not all that popular, but I like having a single port, if it gets me a smaller, thinner, and lighter machine. If they could add another one that would be great, but I looked at the design and frankly there is no where to put one without altering the thickness of the machine (or giving up the headphone jack and mic). Where would you put it?
I just don’t see it as a real problem for what the machine is…
Edited 2015-03-13 23:10 UTC
On a related note…
I’ve been around long enough to remember a few Apple product intros. Everyone screamed bloody murder when they took the Ethernet port away on the Retina Macbook Pro. Before that they screamed when they took it away from the Air. Now? No one cares…
This is the same thing, everyone screams and yet it sells like hotcakes anyway. Obviously there is some cognitive dissonance going on…
Apple makes the products they believe people will actually want once experienced with all of the trade-offs inherent to their design choices. If they made the products people say they want they would be out of business by now…
Now they get it wrong sometimes, no doubt. But I don’t think this is one of those times.
The only thing I dislike in general is the removal of magsafe, which has saved a lot my my MacBooks over the years. Other than that, you are completely right, same thing with the removal of the optical drive, not providing Flash on the iPhone, etc.
Will I buy the new Air? No, I want a Core i7 CPU, which my current Air provides. Would I recommend it to non-techie Mac-using friends? Hell yes! It’s even flatter, lighter, has a retina display. And this time around, the base model has a decent amount of RAM and SSD.
Next year, there will probably be a 13″ Retina Air with Core i5/i7. That will be a good moment to start thinking about a new model
.
Edited 2015-03-14 12:29 UTC
You have exactly explained my issue:
The power is the same one port. There are new external devices with USB-C. The problem is using them while charging. I don’t want to carry the dongles and hubs.
Do you carry your monitor with you?
Do you carry your USB hub with you?
Those two items are heavier than a dongle which you should not need to carry with you during the day unless you are doing a presentation… and in that case I carry dongles and extra cables to make sure I am not caught without (unless it is my own office and I would know they would have a dongle and cable for me).
Typically I would not carry anything with me during the day, no dongle, no hub, no monitor, nada…. At most I would carry a wireless mouse. I leave all the other stuff at the desk, same with my iPad – I don’t carry all that junk with me… just the iPad.
Edited 2015-03-16 18:28 UTC
It’s a great new MacBook, small, light, high res, all good, reassuringly expensive and gold.
But 1 port? Really is that because Joe Shmuck needs only 1 port. Really?
Sorry for me it still spoils the beauty of the design.
Why not 1 mm more height and 2 or 3 ports or 1 hour less battery? Apple’s design decisions are weird imho, nothing to do with power users, more with ‘we are different just because..’. Or is it they can charge another fortune for a USB hub? Really there is nobody who thinks 1 port is enough.
On the same note: yes, we see phones now with > 2500 pixels for 5.5 inch or < 7mm height, it’s nuts. Please stop the pixel and thinness race and think what it useful, nothing to do with power users: bigger batteries, small bezels, better cameras almost anything is better for any type of user.
Just reverse the argument: why doesn’t Apple make a phone or laptop with dual sim, replaceable battery or SD card? Not because they can’t (and still have a superb design) but because they want buyers to use the telcom carriers, upgrade to a new phone, use iTunes respectively.
Edited 2015-03-13 22:37 UTC
The loss of ports each person has to determine their own use case and where they use their device. You have to ask what do you carry with you, what do you use at the desk.
Keyboard and mouse tend to be wireless these days (bluetooth will handle that issue). I carry my mouse, but not the keyboard during the day. External hard drive (that will eat extra power if you use) – I don’t generally carry extra storage around with me during the day…. at home I have a storage array that can be accessed by network or other. USB keys, I usually plug them in and copy the files then take it out. Power lasts all day but if you commute… most people I know invest in one charger/dock for the office anyway.
I don’t see one port being a big issue for most people.
If you take it with you during the day, I would do the same as I would for my iPad…. put it in a light carrying case and take only it…. light enough that I don’t worry about it. A laptop in a laptop bag, I can’t wait until I get to some place to put it down.
At home, I can dock it or use a dongle if I have an external monitor, keyboard, external storage etc. During the day…. I don’t see many people lugging around a lot of different peripherals to plug in. If you go away for a week or two at a time, I would pack a little heavier, but then I do the same for an iPad. If I carry it into work everyday, I probably would not need to recharge during the day… but I would probably have a second charger for that. If you are using it for presentations, I would bring an extra HDMI cable with me normally with different plugs etc…. just so that I am not caught by surprise that someone did not have the right adapter….. so a dongle is not that much more to carry.
If you are doing video editing, this computer is not likely for you. For most other tasks, it will have more than enough power for word processing, web access, even coding…
In short, a lot of people are fretting about the lack of ports, but for a large number of people that would not be an issue…. Students, Starbuck squatters, commuters — this computer will suit just fine for most people.
Edited 2015-03-13 22:59 UTC
ok different horses for courses. you only need 1 port apparently and think that most people only need 1 port.
But just a straight question: I am sure you were delighted with your MacBook Air 3 years ago.
Now just picture they didn’t make the Macbook 24 percent smaller but kept it the same size, instead they introduce 2 or 3 USB-C ports and 24 percent better battery life and a 25k screen. OR 50 percent better battery life and same ‘just’ a HD screen.
Wouldn’t be more people be happy?
If the new macbook is not for you.
There are Apple portable lines serving different needs. There will likely be a full refresh of Macbook pros which will likely be smaller than the current once the new Skylake processor is out and has processors to replace all of the current ones (Broadwell won’t likely have the 4 core HQ processor used at the top end, so it will likely be a Skylake refresh of that line… probably fall or there abouts – maybe announced just before Sept). If the Macbook pros shrink enough – the are line might get squeezed out eventually – for macbook pros of slightly varying sizes.
Most people will be quite happy with the macbook though, you can carry it around like an iPad (a few oz heavier) – and from someone who had spent 3 years on the road, I would love to have had the new macbook. Of course at home, nothing less than the mac pro line will do since I want 3 x 40″ 4K monitors on my desk (currently have 4 monitors of varying sizes connected up to 2008 mac pro). But then, my bubble is small.
Edited 2015-03-13 23:31 UTC
So lets say they add three… Which ones support DisplayPort? The Intel GPU can only handle 2 monitors at high resolution without blowing chunks, so you either can only have 1 external DisplayPort, or you have 2 and when both or plugged in you disable the laptop’s screen…
So do you have 1 “special” port for an external monitor? Do you have 2 “special” ports, but disable the laptop screen when both are plugged in? Do you just support it on all of them (which is doable from a technical perspective but is expensive to manufacture) but support them only in a certain order? What happens when someone invariably tries to plug in 3 monitors? Which ones work?
I’m just saying, it isn’t as simple as people think… The simplest solution (given the inherent limitations of the GPU) is to just have a single port. No one will ever be confused and it is cheaper to manufacture.
I’m going out on a limb, so mod me down if you like.
My initial reaction to the complaints about the single port is that probably 95% of those complaining would have never bought one of these anyway. In the grand scheme of things pretty much everyone that actually matters (i.e. actual potential customers) is already happy. Seriously, I think performance questions concerning the new CPU and the new keyboard are WAY more common among actual potential customers. The single port? Hardly anyone cares…
Edited 2015-03-13 23:44 UTC
Ugh, just look at the logic hoops the iFans are jumping through trying to justify this BS. I mean get real guys does anybody really think having only a single port was done for the USER, really? How many times have you had your friends or yourself say “ya know what I need, I need less ports, because being able to plug two things at once is just spoiling me!”.
lets cut through the bull, shall we? This cuts down on production costs AND insures they will be able to sell more overpriced all to hell hubs…that’s it. this isn’t done for YOU the customer, its done to appease the shareholders and make them more iMoney in case the iWatch turns out to be a dud.
And on a final note, riddle me this iFans…if MSFT did the exact. same. thing. would you be cheering their “innovation” or would you be pointing out just how dumb that was? yeah, thought so. If you truly “love” a brand (never did get that, everybody makes some good and some bad, everybody already forget “ur holdin it wrong”?) then at least have the guts to point out when they do stupid or anti-consumer crap, otherwise frankly you do not deserve any better since the company has ZERO reason to treat you as anything but a rube.
For the life of me I don’t get this point of view. Obviously this machine wasn’t made for you, so don’t buy it. It doesn’t meet your needs (and apparently a lot of other people’s here), got it.
Apple does make other machines with lots of ports, this isn’t one of them. It isn’t one of them because lots of ports take space, and that space takes away space that could be used by the battery, which is pretty f*cking important on a 2 lb machine with a 12 inch screen in a tablet sized body…
So the trade-off is it has a single USB-C port. Some other manufacturers figured out different trade-offs. Dell’s XPS 13 has 2 full sized USB ports and the power and display are separate, so maybe buy one of those? The battery life is 3 hours less though. Why? Because those extra ports take up room that could have been battery… But I can see someone making that trade-off because they need the extra ports. I personally don’t need the extra ports, but I get it. Good, everyone gets what they want…
What I don’t get is why the f*ck do people care so much about products they don’t want? They built something that meets other peoples needs and you were excluded… Does that bother you personally or something??? I think the XPS 13 is actually a great machine – but I would still rather the Macbook because I prefer OSX and I don’t care about having extra USB ports… Should Apple deprive me of this machine because you think it is stupid?
At the end of the day this will end up selling like food in a famine regardless of what you or I think – that is virtually guaranteed. Does that suddenly mean you are wrong for thinking a machine with a single port can’t possibly be useful to anyone? Does anyone really care if you are right or not?
No. Not really.
So I should simply say its for people that LIKE getting ripped off? Would that make you happy? You DO know that you can excuse ANY douchey corporate behavior with that lame ass excuse…yes? “Oh Comcast is screwing their customers? Well its not for you so you should go elsewhere”…do you see NOW how damned dumb that sounds?
And again you ignored my question…if MSFT did the exact. same. thing. would you be “praising the innovation” or would you rightly be pointing out its fricking stupid? And again who in the history of anything has said “You know what I need on my laptop? I need less ports, that way I can overpay for a stupid hub if I want to do something normal like use a fricking flash stick while charging the laptop…yeah that’s the ticket!”
Jump through as many iHoops as you want because you know what? That was not made for you, it was made to appease the shareholders by lowering costs while giving them another stupid overpriced dongle to sell to iSuckers…and wadda ya know, they will have plenty begging to be iRipped so they can worship the cult of Steve…sad, that is what it is, just sad. Tell me…did you make excuses for the ever bending iPhone 6? Did you tell people they were holding it wrong with iPhone 4?
Tell me is there ANYTHING that Apple could do to even get you to complain? If you take what you are given and never complain you DESERVE to be treated like a Rube, because Apple has ZERO reason to treat you as anything other than a sucker.
No, but I will say the iWatch is not for me…. and I would not buy a $10,000+ disposable watch…. If I were to spend that much on a watch — it better be something like Rolex (which lasts a lifetime — on other peoples wrists).
Price Wise the new macbook is lined up with probably the Macbook air (low end) being priced starting at around $999 once you factor in the difference in memory and PCIe SSD.
If Microsoft did it, I would have been very surprised – would not have complained (except maybe about Windows) but I might have considered buying it wiping it and installing Linux (I do have some Microsoft ergo-keyboards at home – which I like, and even a self-built Windows machine (as well as a Linux one)). The one I use daily, is my 2008 Mac Pro though…. the others are only used for specialized testing purposes. Given choices, I prefer OS X over Linux (though I have a fondness for Linux) and prefer both over Windows (and that was before Microsoft screwed it up).
I personally think giving up size, weight, and battery life for ports I will never use is getting ripped off. Well, actually, no – I don’t really think those things are “getting ripped off”. They are simply compromises, just like this is…
I don’t think it is “dumb” because only ignorant asshats on internet forums would say something like that. Rationale design trade-offs are not worthy of petty poop throwing. But you started the poop throwing so here it goes…
Actually Ill go a bit further. I don’t think it is “douchy” for Apple to try and sell me a machine with a single port when it is plainly obvious that adding any more would have required at least some design compromise. It would have been thicker, it would have had less battery, something would have had to go. I want thinner and lighter, I want a better screen, I want excellent battery life. They are trying to sell me exactly what I want. I haven’t decided if I’m buying yet, because I am not willing to compromise on performance much, so I’m waiting to see how that goes, but if it is too slow for me Ill wait until the next model and see what happens…
I’m sure you think that surely no one really would be willing go give up having multiple ports to save a bit of weight or get a few more minutes of battery life. You are absolutely f*cking wrong…
Now I understand for some people that one port might be too much of a compromise. So buy an Air then, it doesn’t require that compromise. Why the f*ck is that so much of a problem???
I think the Surface (for example) is an incredibly innovative machine… I said so when it was introduced. I still think so. I think the Macbook makes better compromises for me, but I don’t take anything away from Microsoft for the Surface – it is a damn nice piece of hardware.
To answer your question, yes – I would be “praising the innovation”, I actually already did… Go look at my comment history asshole.
btw, the Surface only has one USB port. It of course is not used for charging or video out, so it is a bit less dramatic of a compromise – but when it came out a bunch of knee jerk idiots just like you said exactly the same kind of shit you are now. It mattered then about as much as it does now.
When the first laptop that omitted an optical drive shipped, everyone said it was stupid. Now hardly anyone cares. Same thing with Ethernet ports getting yanked, people said that was stupid too. Why haven’t all those laptop makers seen the light by now and realized how many sales they are losing because of their stupidity?
You know what is “fricking stupid”? You are fricking stupid. Stupid for thinking your use case is the same as everyone else’s, or frankly that your use case is even all that common among Apple users. It might be a bigger deal in the PC world where bluetooth and wireless devices are just starting to become the norm, but it has been that way on Apple hardware for almost 5 years… I honestly could get by without ANY USB ports, one is certainly enough for me… I promise you I’m not all that unique…
You know what I need on my laptop? Less f*cking laptop. Less space. Less size. Less weight. More battery life. Those are my priorities. You are welcome to yours, but if you think I’m “stupid” because I don’t need multiple USB ports you can go f*ck yourself…
Oh my. Your really don’t know me at all. Let me count the ways:
1. Apple abuses the patent system and they are assholes for it.
2. Their “walled garden” as far as I am concerned is a prison cell. I get it, but I certainly don’t like it.
3. They nickel and dime their customers to death over accessories (yes, I totally admit they do this – surprise!)
4. They charge obscene amounts of money for memory and CPU upgrades.
5. Steve Jobs was an asshole.
Do I need to keep going? Thing is, if you want a decent f*cking laptop they are just about the only game in town, because virtually everyone else (in my opinion) makes the same crap as everyone else, shitty keyboards, ackward trackpads, poor battery life and build quality, etc. There are a few exceptions, but not many. And even if I were to decide that Apple is too scummy to deal with, what choice do I have? All the other companies are pretty much just as bad in one way or another.
I don’t have to like everything Apple does to buy things from them. They are a company, not a f*cking religion.
The ideea is like this: Normal people buy the products they are more accustomed to.
If they have a Samsung TV at home and they see the phones advertised as being compatible then they will buy into it, regardless the specs which usually don’t mean one thing.
Same for Apple, Sony or any other OEMs that bundle their products. If you get the customers to buy in your line of products then it’s a success story.
Remember how much Windows Xp lasted? We wouldn’t even have been discussing about the desktop being dead if Microsoft didn’t for some reason reinvent the wheel with Windows 8 and tried to change what normal people where used to..
I see a increasing disdain for “power users” lately.
These days you are either a user, with sharply curtailed options, or a “developer” (who seems to fear the user for what “idiocy” he may attempt to do with their precious “app” or “cloud service”).
For me at least ports and replaceable batteries deals with product longevity. But that is likely an affront to the corporate beancounters that eternally fret about the share price and quarterly earnings growth.
Maybe i am getting old and grumpy…
I disagree on this Thom. This minority is important because they can be the trend setter for the future. It is easy to say that most people do not need a changeable battery, but that option is nice to have. And if we do not have these options when do we say that it is enough? People don’t need to be able to have software without online connection, it is just a vocal minority who complains about this. Or that you can install any software on Windows. Why don’t we opt for an online store instead? Same about that stupid start button on Windows, or the design of Win8, which is not that horrible actually. I prefer the old design and its flexibility, but most people just want to start Facebook so why bother? Even at the workplace the Win8 UI is not a set back only for a few power users. So why bother? Why bother with systemd? It is just a vocal minority whom are complaining, I just want my Linux working, and use my apps.
My phone has 2 days of battery life, way more than my gfs iPhone. Even if people are annoyed by that, they won’t raise their voice, they can live with it. But if you want improvements you need to raise your voice. And company people should try to listen and get the useful info from that. Because if you don’t do, that is how you lost your leadership in the long run.
Edited 2015-03-13 22:52 UTC
I’m either inside a bubble within which I’ve escaped the whole discussion of whether the MacBook is any good, or I’m ouside the bubble within which the discussion took place. But either way I apparently ‘need to shut up’.
Isn’t it typical Apple for it to be apparently under-specced until you look at the details and see that it’s fairly competitive, though?
Most users have mobile devices because they consume entertainment and communication services through them.
Others have mobile devices because they can fiddle with them and experiment with them, adding modules, changing the software, customizing the hardware and occasionally also consuming entertainment and communication services through them. Primarily though, it’s shiny and something to fiddle with.
Vendors treat consumers as consumers (unsurprisingly). This means that fiddling (ideally, from the point of view of the vendor) is out.
For that reason (as a techie person), I don’t find mobile interesting at all. They are locked down from the baseband processor up through to the app store. “It’s not yours to fiddle with”. Sure, you can jailbreak it if you’re lucky, but then you’re swimming upstream. Far more satisfying – if you like SD slots and expandability – would be to build a PC and experiment with different operating systems on that, and give up on trying to find locked-down app-pipe consumer phones remotely interesting.
It seems that Apple are trying to market their Mac devices toward the consumers of iPhones and iPads – with content creators as consumers, themselves.
Edited 2015-03-13 23:05 UTC
My late 2008 MacBook Pro is still in use. I upgraded it to 5 Gig RAM and put in a fast SSD. But now the battery is finally dying.
According to Benchmarks the new Core M will be twice as fast as the Core 2 duo in my old Laptop, and it’s got faster RAM and a faster SSD.
Will I miss the optical drive? Sure not since the only thing I used it for was burning rescue disks for Windows PCs (the truth) or to try some Linux or Aros live distributions, but I found using a VM more convenient.
SD cards? Not in the last couple of years.
Thumbdrives? Less and less, since the web is everywhere, Dropbox or Airdrop is working fine and of course my all time favorite: scp.
So I can do all the stuff I did on my old Laptop, but a little faster and without a fan.
Sure 12″ is small compared to my old 15″, but I gain a lot of mobility.
So guess, what my next buy will be…
Edited 2015-03-13 23:07 UTC
Also the new MacBook didn’t replace the Air or the Pro because Apple does acknowlege its not for everyone. Give it another year or two and it will replace probably the Air. For now it’s a test system, and will likely sell well as such.
Or creates.
In particular when previous models were solving it well.
If caring about having *at least* two multipurpose connectors on your next laptop is being a power user, by same logic any people caring about having at least two electric wall sockets per room is an ultra tech expert.
This is ridiculous.
Devil is in the detail. Always was.
It’s not because big market players wants you to surrender all your needs to them that we must accept they know better than us what’s important for us. “One fits all” is a marketing lie since start.
It’s just another way to say politly “tell us what you need, we’ll explain how to do without”.
My money. My needs. My specifications list.
Period.
If I don’t want my next laptop to be oversimplified, I’m not necesseraly a power user, just, maybe, a customer old enough to know that over simplification is in fact often too much simplification and pratically more of a complication that anything else.
I agree with this, but with a caveat. I don’t care what processor or how many cores the new Macbook has, it could run on unicorn farts for all I care, but I do care if it is significantly slower than what it will be replacing.
No, specs themselves don’t matter in absolute terms. But they do give a general indication of relative performance. Remember the original Macbook Air? Not many people bought those… Why? It performed like a 1-legged dog on tranquilizers… The tradeoff was too extreme.
People will accept tradeoffs, but only to a point. Hopefully, the performance tradeoff on this thing is negligible. We’ll see.
Except it’s not replacing anything. The other lines of laptops still exist. People might be buying these to replace iPads just as much as Airs or Macbook pros.
You misunderstand. I mean what it is replacing for me, which in my case is an 11 inch Air with a core i7.
I will accept it being a tad bit slower, but if it is more than 10%-15% slower for my day to day stuff Ill probably skip it.
The problem with that statement is that you cannot determine from specs whether even if the CPU were 10% to 15% slower it would be 10% to 15% slower for your day to day tasks. Unless you are doing something like mining bitcoins on your computer (which I would definately not recommend)…. most of the time the CPU is mostly idle. It is only used in spurts. Having too little memory, or paging to much slower storage has as much effect (probably even more) than a slightly slower CPU. I often see people getting top of the line CPUs and thinking to themselves their computer is now 30% faster than that other one…. in reality it is often only a few percent.
Now I don’t now what you are using on your computer, your use case and whether something like the macbook would be too little power – but from my personal observations…. most people don’t use the power of the new computers. They notice if things are not snappy, but then the CPU may by itself not be the issue.
Edited 2015-03-16 21:58 UTC
And it may (or may not be “significantly” slower…. we cannot benchmark that exact machine (which is dependant on the CPU, memory, and SSD together).
I have seen some sites that have tested the stock processors of the old one and the one in the macbook and it is close (and there have been some reports that there is some difference (using other manufacturers computers) – which may or may not be attributed to the combination of the CPU and errant power saving utilities). The only thing I know for sure is it likely is not meant for video editing nor for running virtual machines on there (since it is only dual core and splitting one dual core between that and another operating system is likely not a good idea)… but then there is only the highest end macbook pro with a quad core (and it is not energy efficient).
We will have to wait til next month to get real numbers to either backup your theory or disprove it.
I don’t really have a theory… I just don’t know if I will notice a performance hit or not. Im thinking probably not, but Im waiting to see like everyone else is.
I reread it and yes, you did not specify a theory only a position.
Of course a lot of what I have been comparing through third party sites running different processors is really stock processor to stock processor… and obviously you’re not using the stock processor.
I am looking forward to being able to play with it in-store (though it would be nice to be able to test out specific applications). Also looking forward to finding out what everything looks like it once Skylake details are all settled and they refresh the all intel based portables. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Macbook air and Macbook pro line will look more like one line with a wide variety in performance and 2 or 1 thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) ports.
I think the whole magsafe custom mac adapters will ALL be replaced by a USB-C port (which is in response to or in advance of – European pending mandates on common charger specifications in regards to all radio wave emitting devices — which would have likely included the iPad but specifics of who is covered was open to a specific agency to decide).
Edited 2015-03-17 00:44 UTC
It doesn’t matter for me whether it matters to others.
Whatever unmet need I have is valid for me to complain about. The met needs of others do not enter the equation.
I’m someone who finds my 2014 MacBook Pro’s two USB ports annoyingly limited, so this really isn’t the laptop for me, and I don’t have a problem with that.
I just hope that Apple don’t feel the need to slim down future versions of the MacBook Pro in the same way. I like being able to hook up multiple displays and drives when I’m at home, and I don’t want to have to carry dongles and adapters to be able to use someone’s USB drive when I’m on the move.
I already carry around a thunderbolt to ethernet adapter, USB hub, and a miniDP to DVI adapter for when I need to use a projector (I’ve had problems with its HDMI compatibility). Lugging around much more stuff in my bag would defeat the object of making the laptop a few mm thinner.
Having said that, there are a few compromises I’d make for a quieter MacBook Pro with better battery life…
At least for me, talking down to that kind of product design isn’t “I don’t like this, so no one should” it’s “The market is moving in a direction that will no longer support my tastes/use case.”
I know most consumers don’t care, especially the kind that will buy things at release price. I’m sure those products going to succeed, and other manufacturers are going to ape their design compromises, and products that appeal to me are going to get pushed out of the market.
It’s happened with tactile touchpad buttons, and physical keyboards on phones, it’s happening with removable storage and batteries. I’m still mostly using a Thinkpad T510 and a ca-2011 MyTouch 4G Slide as my daily drivers because every time I shop for replacements or use my newer products they are worse in the ways I care about (ex:I have a little Inspiron 11-3000 whose gigantic, featureless touchpad actually makes me angry every time I use it, despite hours of driver tweaking and putting adhesive pips on it to make tactile reference points). I find myself doing round after round of buying expensive items on the basis of “least terrible,” and end up buying cheap down-market stuff because I’m unwilling to pay a premium for things that are distinctly not what I want, perpetuating the cycle.
I’m not going to celebrate my preferences getting pushed out of the market, even when it appears inevitable.
My MB Pro has USB cables sprouting out in every direction, powering my phone when I need a work hotspot, powering my iPad when I need to show off software I’ve developed.
They try to push a new device, a watch, that needs charging every day, and remove the means to charge it every day.
For those idiots who think Apple can do no wrong, they’ve legitimately damaged my use case for Apple computers. But, inevitably, I will have to put up because I need Xcode.
“they’ve legitimately damaged my use case for Apple computers. But, inevitably, I will have to put up because I need Xcode.”
That is one of the more “ridiculous” comments I have heard. They introduce a NEW computer line, and somehow it damages your “use case”. If it does not fit your “use case” then don’t buy a computer from that line…. no one is forcing you.
Edited 2015-03-13 23:38 UTC
I certainly won’t buy one of these. I love what I have, but I worry about this trend moving further into the range. If Apple stop offering usable, expandable computers at reasonable prices, then it’s not unreasonable to suggest that professional users will not be tempted at all.
What we generally call the “thin end of the wedge” argument.
Its not about power users, its about a deliberate dumbing down of everything from hardware to software.
Its about a worrying trend that will eventually lead to only iLike devices.
I for one dread that future.
Sorry, I know it’s extremely cheap and cheesy to cut and paste a Youtube link here but it is really funny and reflects my sentiment really well about the new Apple netbook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHZ8ek-6ccc
It’s in the style of the ‘Der Untergang’ (Downfall) meme.
My main comment is this: it seems ridiculous to be offering another portable device that needs regular charging, and then to launch a new computer that makes that harder. I’m the least anti-Apple person around; I love my i-everything, I’ve given the company thousands of pounds – real money – but it’s idiotic to release a mainstream computer with ONE PORT.
And that is where you are looking at it wrong, what does a new iWatch have to do with the macbook. You would not charge your watch from an iPad would you? This is a “mainstream” device that is going to probably cannibalize a portion of the dropping iPad devices, and some of the Macbook Air devices. It is an ultraportable device that for most people will last the whole day and allow you to actually do work (word processing, spreadsheets, satisfy the bulk of students needs – including CS where you can do enough coding on it for University, checking email, editing pictures, etc.) with the exception of serious video editing. It is light enough not to both you when you carry around (similar to an iPad that way). The iPad is an ultraportable device meant ONLY for consumption – video, reading and the odd replying to email but nothing that serious. That is probably the largest market segment out there (70% – 80%). This macbook does that nicely. If that is not you, then it is not you…. The comments for the most part seem to be like a group of jealous children that where one gets something nice and new and the others are told theres is 6 months away…. As a main computer for me, it would not be for me but then my setups tend to be what others call a little crazy… and so far the ONLY computer that fully meets my needs is the Mac Pro. This macbook though might replace my iPad for times I am occasionally on the road (what would serve most mainstream users all the time). Now if one day they come out with a laptop that can handle 3 x 4K monitors, then I might consider it and then I would probably just get another iPad….. but then different devices work out for different use cases. This device though does meet the need of the bulk of people though.
I’m going to ask you to be entirely honest now: are you claiming that you have never seen someone sit down at their computer and connect their phone or other mobile device (such as a tablet) to a USB cable connected to said computer in order to charge it without having to plug in an additional power charger? You’ve never, ever, seen that and you’re not aware that people do that? Have I got that right?
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2015/03/samsung-gives-…
Sedans, minivans, and pickup trucks are different markets. Yes, people will care.
But this is a new model of MacBook, the others will still be there. It depends on the use-case. I happen to need a desktop replacement (with all kinds of ports, it’s a PC and I think I’ve used everyone and all those on the docking station). My old Netbook had fewer, but worked for when I needed a light portable.
I got one of the OLED 8.4 Samsung galaxy tablets. The battery life is not very good. I wish it was twice as thick or more. (And I wish my old Toshiba Thrive’s screen wasn’t cracked – it had a full USB and HDMI port and a swappable battery!). The worst evil is when the battery can’t be swapped, it takes forever to recharge, and it doesn’t last very long. 2 of 3 are tolerable
I also have a BLU 7.0 Studio Phablet – yes, it is fully a phone. It has good battery life.
Each have their uses.
I’ve owned a number of computers and I can safely say that the Apple computers I’ve bought have been very reliable hardware (save for my PowerBook 100 from the early 90’s that crapped out after about 5 years – see what happens when you buy ‘open box’ for the discount?). I’m currently writing this on an HP desktop running Linux which is slated to become OpenBSD 5.7 when the DVDs arrive in May – I use other things besides Macs.
I think it’s funny to watch a lot of Apple bashing, for example, when they got rid of the CD/DVD drive. Or they got rid of replaceable batteries. Or even when they got rid of floppy drives. For what the MacBook is, one port is probably sufficient. My guess is that 75% of the users won’t ever attach anything to that port but the power adapter. Most people buying the MacBook will probably be people who just don’t think an iPad is enough because it doesn’t have a keyboard and can’t connect to other ‘stuff.’ They’ll share files using Box, Google Drive, or whatever. Email, web, casual games, and some casual gaming is probably the vast majority of the typical MacBook user.
I also find it funny that people will pick apart the specs and say ‘look, you can get a 12″ Lenovo Yoga for half the price from the dealmaster post on ars.’ In some cases it’s a completely apples to oranges comparison with different screens, different battery lives, different hardware. For example, a lot of laptops use SATA drives but Macs use SSDs that attach to the PCI express bus. They’re a lot faster and on a faster bus. An better comparison would be to other computers also using M2 SSDs instead of standard SATA SSDs, for example. I’ve seen people complain about the lack of discrete video and point to some cheap, all plastic Dell with 3 hours of battery life a 1366×768 screen as being “a better deal.”
Apple hardware isn’t cheap, but it’s usually fairly priced. But then again the not-shit hardware from Lenovo or HP is not cheap. If you actually price out equivalent hardware (although not always) you’ll find that the Windows/Linux equivalent is about the same price. The good Lenovo (the T-Series), well decked out, is a 2,500 USD laptop. It starts much cheaper because you can get a low res scree, an i3 or i5 instead of an i7, and you can start with 4 gigs of ram. The T400 I had was great, with lots of RAM and (at the time a very cool) 7200 RPM drive, but I would’t say a POS Yoga is a ‘better deal’ than a fully decked out T540.
Apple’s also fairly spot on when it comes to how people actually use their products. I don’t carry USB drives any more (external or thumb) and am almost always in WiFi range. I’m much more likely to e-mail a file, share it over Google drive, or push to github. In fact, it isn’t really safe to plug thumb drives into your computer, but that’s a discussion for another day. I do plug my laptop into projectors, which always seem to come with a 15 pin VGA cable.
Where I would fault Apple is that they make some things annoyingly locked down, like the Mac Mini. I also think they’ve let some of the quality slip in their software. It doesn’t feel as stable as it did two or three years ago. My next work computer will most likely be an HP because the company I work for is getting bigger and they’re making more noise about not wanting to support Mac Users. My next home laptop will probably also not be a Mac because I’m going to buy a plastic POS I’ll replace in two years because I’m thinking about hacking on BSD. Instead of a nice, shiney metal box that will last me 5+ years, but I’ll run FreeBSD in a VM, I’ll be able to run FreeBSD natively without my fans going ape-shit. (Either way it works out to about 400-500 a year).
Edited 2015-03-14 01:14 UTC
Apple hardware is competitively priced only – even cheaper – with recent refreshes. The trouble is, they go longer between refreshes than their competitors, and the don’t drop prices. Towards the end of the product cycle, they are over-priced compared to the competition.
This applies to all their product lines. For example: The Mac Pro is almost a year and a half old, but has the same hardware and the same price. It was a good deal when it was new, but now, not so much…
I think people see Apple’s pricing as high because (most of the time) on release of a new product they position their low end model (feature wise) to target the industry sweet spot. In other words they want their low-end model to compete with everyone else’s mid-tier products. They want nothing to do with what the rest of the industry calls low-end.
So if everyone else is selling entry level machines with 4GB of RAM, they start at 8GB. If everyone else is selling entry level SSDs with 128GB of storage, they start at 256GB. If everyone else has entry level machines with 1080p screens and only offers hiDPI on the higher end models, they omit 1080p entirely. Etc. etc.
This way they can be competitive on price because they are hitting the competition where their margins actually are… It helps to mask Apple’s high margins in a sense.
It also has the problem that invariably people who bargain shop ignore features when comparing entry level pricing, so it looks high to them, when in reality they simply are not comparing the same things. Luckily for Apple they don’t really care to sell things to bargain shoppers…
Here’s the thing…
The MacBook Pro isn’t going away any time soon. They have lots of ports. And, most importantly, they aren’t really all that much heavier than the new MacBook. (Hell, I have a 6 lb 17-incher I carry around all the time.)
So if you want more ports and you want a small retina-display Mac, get the 13-inch MacBook Pro and be happy.
if, on the other hand, your first priority is to minimize weight, then you won’t really be having in mind the number of ports when you make your purchasing decision.
I’ve been waiting for a retina Air-class Mac to come out for some time. My main interest in getting one, as a second notebook, was the ability to take it to conferences and to class (I’m a professor) and do presentations without having to lug around my heavy 17-incher. While I was a bit taken aback by the lack of ports on the MacBook, the truth is that this has zero effect on the use cases I wanted to apply it to.
Sure, this particular model isn’t targeted toward them, but at the same time Apple doesn’t make a machine for power users anymore.
We have no upgrade path and our systems are getting old!
Consider:
MacBook Pro – slower than 2012 Mac Mini quad core
iMac – mid range CPUs
Mac Pro – no drive bays, no longer upgradable except RAM and one flash card (tiny disk space). Designed for graphics people only.
MacBook Air – slow
MacBook – slow
The only two machines that out perform my mac mini are a Mac Pro and a high end iMac. I bought the Mini because I couldn’t wait for the new Mac Pro (it replaced a first gen Mac Pro) In 2015, I can’t buy a new machine for less than $2500 that is faster than a 3 year old computer that cost $1000. Explain that to me.
Honest answer:
Because there is no money in “faster”… Faster makes Intel money, not Apple. Faster makes SSD manufacturers money, not Apple. It makes Samsung and other IC vendors money, not Apple. There is absolutely no upside for Apple in just making the same thing go faster – their goal is (and always has been for the most part) “fast enough”.
The money is all in smaller, lighter, better battery life, better screens, better keyboards, better build quality. Why? Because people will pay top dollar for that shit. Apple can build this stuff cheaply, charge a hefty premium for it, and make lots of money.
There are mountains of really fast laptops on the market. A handful make their manufacturers money – the rest have single digit margins (if they are lucky) and the only people who make money on them are component manufacturers…
Its not hard to see why Apple chooses to go their own way. They have lots of customers who want what they make and are willing to pay top dollar for it, and the vast majority of them don’t even have “faster” in their top ten list.
And I hate to tell you but it will only get worse. I almost guarantee there will be a switchover to ARM in the future (2-3 years) for OSX. If you want faster Apple is not for you – they are going the other direction…
I was with you, until your ARM prediction.
They won’t switch to ARM for desktops or laptops, simply because at that point, the performance delta WILL become an issue. At that point, they won’t be fast enough – not for doing anything that needs more power than an iPad offers. There is a reason they left PPC behind – the performance delta was too large.
For the performance levels people expect with laptops, Intel chips are far, far more suitable anyways. High-end ARM isn’t nearly as fast as low-end Intel Xeon, nor is it as power efficient – at least, not for ARM servers. Hell, even Atom is beating ARM now.
You made a few mistakes, they switched from PPC because it could not serve their needs — not because it lacked performance. The power series still runs way more powerful hardware than you buy from Apple. They dropped it because there was not enough advancement in the area of being able to build portable laptops (heat, etc.). The PPC processors Apple used were made by a 3rd party which could not supply Apple in a timely manner without preordering nightmares which made the upgrade cycle problematic. Intel came to the table and gave Apple much more flexibility and input.
I have my doubts about the rumour to switch to ARM, personally I think that is a rumour that is out there for the sole purpose of helping with negotiations with Intel…. but ARM is making great gains in the performance of their RISC processors and there is no reason to believe that one day they could not have processors that are meant for datacenters that both have good power profiles and as powerful as Intel XEON processors…. but predicting the future is silly when it comes to stuff like this. For all intensive purposes Intel will continue to drive the Mac hardware for the foreseeable future. ARM does worry Intel execs.
If someone else came out with a processor that was both powerful enough and power efficient… I am sure Apple would take a look at it…. but the problem is flexibility if they are the only major user of a specific processor since they would have to pre-order in the millions and would have to keep the CPU maker informed far in advance of changes to their devices so they could switch over production…. something that Apple would not relish.
The current compiler technology that Apple uses, would make it easy for developers to re-release applications to run natively under the new platform without much issues…. if they ever decide to switch again, but I think betting on it is probably lower odds than a 99-1 longshot at the horse track….
I don’t at all disagree with anything you said. The performance delta is huge (but shrinking) and the power delta is small (but also shrinking). And I don’t expect Apple to switch desktops and laptops over to ARM. That isn’t what I mean…
I do however predict, in the next few years, they will introduce some sort of crossover product (a relatively cheap ultrabook or convertible tablet) that will be ARM based and will run OSX. And unless someone in Cupertino works some serious voodoo it won’t be able to run x86 code either, so no backwards compatibility through emulation.
But they will do it anyway, because even if it is not a hugely successful product, it gives them some inroads into establishing control of their own destiny. I don’t think it will be a successful product, and I don’t think it will sell all that well, but they didn’t jump into ARM chip design just for iPhones and iPads…
…and that is the exact reason they will try to leverage ARM beyond mobile eventually – because they don’t want to be beholden to the IBMs/Intels/Samsungs of the world.
That is true now, but high-end ARM is rapidly approaching performance levels of Intel’s high-end mobile offerings. It isn’t there yet, and who knows, it may never be… But I would wager the difference between high-end ARM and high-end x86 at sub 15W power levels in 3 years time will be almost nil.
Edited 2015-03-14 07:08 UTC
To be fair Apple sold $76.4 billion worth of iPhones alone in Q1 of this year for $18 billion in profit and now they are making ARM based watches too. CarPlay and Apple TV could be ARM too but I haven’t looked. I think if they want to sell more ARM chips they could introduce new products to do it (connected home, IoT etc.) easier than they could port OSX.
I do agree there would be a lot of issues they would have to solve for ARM OSX like incompatible compilers and software and also people not being able to dual boot windows and some of the software they use there as well.
If they just want to remind Intel they don’t need them to squeeze them for another $20/chip in negotiations there are other ways of going about it. For starters the smaller ARM devices often have faster upgrade life cycles than Desktops and laptops than use Intel chips and if all else fails AMD’s entire market cap is only 2 billion which is less than 2 weeks net profit for the iPhone in Q1. They probably make more than 2 billion per day in revenue, financially buying AMD would hardly even be a blip on their numbers for the month and they are using some AMD GPU’s in their lineup today.
Intel probably needs Apple more than Apple needs Intel.
Being able to dual boot Windows or run it in a virtual machine would be problematic and likely too slow…. that would be the hardest of those tasks (and something Apple would not do themselves). ARM processors – although narrowing the gap – they cannot outfit the complete line of macs (from the laptops to the mac pro) and having part of the lineup on ARM and part not would cause too much market confusion to even consider. It is all or nothing.
The operating system (OS X), Cocoa, compilers would be relatively easy. All compilers compile using LLVM which is really like a high level assembly language that allows for better development environment and easy of moving from one processor family to another. The fact is the LLVM already does ARM code (iPad, iPhone etc.) so that is already there. OS X already has been ported to ARM before (iPhone and iPad have a slightly customized version). The one running on Intel could merge some of the custom code for ARM branch in (probably some embedded assembly language). The Cocoa stuff is written in Objective-C which uses the LLVM. All that is left is some device drivers which they have to worry about whenever they release new versions of devices and/or macs. In short, technically there is nothing holding them back other than the ARM not being able to support the entire lineup of macs….. and that is not likely to be the case for the foreseeable future (2+ years). Never say never, but very very unlikely.
Edited 2015-03-15 21:52 UTC
I guarantee, hell actually I would practically bet my life, that OSX is already running on ARM somewhere in Cupertino. There would be no porting effort to speak of, I’d wager they did that 5 years ago just for R&D purposes (just like they had OSX running on x86 years before they shipped an Intel machine).
But that isn’t the point. It’s not about selling more ARM chips, it is about their margins. The path of least resistance for them to keep their high margins is to reduce costs. They CPU is the mostly costly single component in most of their machines. Its a no brainer…
They already have fully working compilers for ARM… iOS and OSX are not really that different from a development point of view. And no, bootcamp (and probably even running existing OSX apps without updates) would be a no go – that is why I said a “crossover” product. Something they can drop into the market without disrupting their existing product line too much. By yeah, its just conjecture, I could be totally wrong. Since I’m just a random guy on the internet I probably am
AMD is a no go. Apple could buy them, but AMD’s x86 license is non-transferable. I have actually read the contract – that is not going to happen. Really, the only way that could happen is if AMD bought Apple, and Apple is way too big for that to happen. And yes, many people have cited creative accounting as a way around this, and it won’t work. The contract was written by creative accounts explicitly to make sure what you are talking about never happens. AMD’s x86 line dies with them, no one else can ever get it.
Oh, I don’t disagree with that. But being able to dictate their own destiny without having to adhere to other company’s road maps (even if said company bends over backwards for them) is not something they would dismiss out of hand. I’ll put it another way, I don’t know that Apple has near-term intentions for doing OSX on ARM, but I guarantee they have a plan to do it if the market shifts in a way that would allow them to do so.
Although not core to your argument I take issue with your characterization of the new Mac Pro vs the old one. I am a developer, not a graphics person…. and I like a large desktop (video) area to be large since I like things in my view (I hate working switching back and forth for code, debugger, reference material). As such I bought a 2008 Mac Pro many years ago (which still suites my needs though I am beginning to crave a new one) – because I could put two video cards in it etc. I am told by many people that that is far superior to the new one because it is very expandable. I disagree, I think the new one is way more expandable for my purposes. The reasons why are…
I have two video wide video cards ATI 5770 which take up the wide slot and another two spaces leaving one smaller slot for any further expansion. The new Mac Pro has more powerful graphics (options) by far, which will power 3 x 4K monitors (I have 4 HD monitors) easily. My Mac Pro would have problems with 4K monitors. That leaves one measly slot with no high speed connections (highest being USB2) which would not handle the full bandwidth of a high-end disk controller. I have 50TB of storage on my network…. which though I might like it…. I could NEVER put inside the case. Now, I do love my Mac Pro, but the new one is WAY more expandable (might have additional cost, but then external drive enclosures for a SAS controller are not cheap by themselves). The new Mac Pro has the equivalent of 36 potential more high speed devices being able to be connected vs my measly little slot. If not for the 4K monitors my 2008 computer would serve me at least another 3 years (3 times as long as any Windows computer in the past). So even though it may have cost more, it has served me longer, and still has a resell value if I chose to sell it now (much more than my Windows computers). With the new Mac Pro I could easily hook up one external enclosure that could handle 24 drives (more than I currently need) using a high speed SAS controller for not much more than I would have spent for a 24 drive enclosure had I been able to put the board directly in my Mac Pro. That still leaves the ability to expand by 35 more devices, and two open PCIe slots in the Netstor enclosure. Yes, I am a bubble user, but I find it funny that people say how expandable the old Mac Pro is vs the new one.
As a second computer, the new Macbook would serve my purposes perfectly. As a primary one… I am too much of a bubble user for that (but not for most), but I am not going to cry and whine because the new macbook (macbook air or even the macbook pro) cannot handle 3 external 4K monitors.
The attitude seems to be… if it is not for me… it is not for anybody…. without looking at how well it will serve most of the users needs.
Edited 2015-03-14 06:44 UTC
I’m glad you find the limitations of the Mac Pro ok.
The expandability you mention requires boxes all over my desk which is ugly. The whole point of a Mac is elegance . When Ive is designing these things, he forgets about all the power bricks, ugly external drive enclosures, and external optical drives that have to live all over my desk now because apple is too good to put in internal drive bays. Also, I have to deal with slow speeds thanks to USB. Sure, if I pay a ridiculous sum, I can buy a high end thunderbolt based array but that is a lot of money. If I already have $3000 into a Mac, I don’t want to spend $2000 on external drive bays. An old Mac Pro was big, but self contained at least and only 300 watts. (add up all those power bricks when you compute the new value for a new mac pro)
Silly me, I thought the whole point of the Mac Pro was power…. if I wanted elegance I would get an iMac… but the iMac is not for me. I guess I prefer the inelegant.
As far as cables, I have 2 or 3 cables on average for each monitor (10 cables) already…. a few more daisy chained devices or a cable going from a computer to a drive enclosure is going to make it suddenly worse… Of course if you wanted wireless to more drives you could always get a NAS with a wireless adapter.
Old or new Mac Pro, there is not much drive space room…. I have 50 TB+ of drive space, there are going to be cables somewhere…. and there is no way to squeeze that many drives in an old Mac Pro – so whether I buy a $2000 SAS drive enclosure for that or a $2,300 drive enclosure with thunderbolt there is going to be a cable or drive enclosure somewhere.
Now even if I could squeeze everything into the 4 bays, I am still going to need something to back up to since I don’t think the old Mac Pros supported RAID internally and hard drives fail sometime. You also not have your boot drive in that array so now you are down to 3 drives internally.
Edited 2015-03-14 15:27 UTC
Reading through the article on Ars I was laughing at 4 out of 5 comments. All talking about the small minutia of the technical specs, comparing to random laptops that outpace it in one area or another. One commenter had it perfect:
Nerds love to think their technology needs represent the needs of the public. They usually do not.
If you look around the coffee shop at the non-nerds on their macbooks/ipads/phones and you will find the same.
The guy who is taking up two tables with his alienware and external keyboard/mouse is not the general public.
Ever eeen to a XYZ Conf or meetup? You see a sea of bright white apple logos pointed at the stage. Even going hardware hacking I see Macs all over the place (and with hardware having a Mac makes your life a lot harder). I think it’s a certain type of Geek that obsesses over hardware numbers for the computers that have not bought (and probably will not buy.)
[edit for Engrish]
Edited 2015-03-14 02:05 UTC
Maybe I’m old, but the whole point of a PC is that it has tons and tons of inputs and outputs.
A DVD burner, a BluRay player, a SD car reader, serial cards, parallel cards, etc. etc.
Maybe this MacBook is going to do everything BluTooth or wirelessly. I can see that someday.
But there should at least be a $399 dock the MacBook hooks up to for old-time users expecting lots of io ports.
Edited 2015-03-14 01:45 UTC
Thom, pretty much describing your own self here, yet your completely blind to it… Didn’t you post something about Google no longer selling the nexus 5 oh no tragedy about updates, yet the average consumer doesn’t care about the latest version of Android or software updates.. Take a good long hard look at the mirror my friend you are just as stuck in the “bubble”.
Edited 2015-03-14 01:58 UTC
Your comparing gripes about hardware choices (very specific, intentional, well thought out choices) with gripes about Android OEMs and carriers being f*cking morons…
Lot’s of people don’t like Apple’s design choices and they scream about them. And it doesn’t matter one bit, because lots more people do like them (for the most part). They represent trade-offs, for some the trade-offs are good, for others not so much.
But no one likes the fact that their Android phone cannot be upgraded, because the fact is for most devices, there is no trade-off. You are not getting something else in exchange for not getting the latest software. There is simply no reason you shouldn’t be able to get the latest software. It’s complete and utter ineptitude on the OEMs part and carrier politics…
Show me someone (all other things being equal) that would prefer not having OTA upgrades for the phone. Anyone? Cause reality is that in this particular case all other things really are equal – it would cost OEMs nothing but giving up on stupid glitchy modifications, ugly skins, and carrier apps no one actually wants – they could instead spend all that effort tracking the next version of Android, optimizing it for their hardware, and rolling it out when Google does…
Frankly its ridiculous Google even feels compelled to make Nexus devices to fill this void. The OEMs are just idiots…
You have fallen into the same trap…
The most popular handsets are android and the most popular Android manufacturer is Samsung, which doesn’t upgrade to the latest and greatest version of Android as soon as its available.
Most users don’t care about the latest version of Android, obviously you do, this is a major issue for you …
My parents don’t care and I also don’t care in fact my father is visually impaired and he hates the new lollipop upgrade as its made the phone unusable for him, my biggest regret has been getting him a nexus device as the interface constantly changes, for any one with accessibility problems these constant interface changes are an absolute tragedy, yet you will have clowns talking about ui design without even taking accessibility into consideration, which clearly shows that they are selfish idiots trapped inside their own little bubbles, with no understanding of the real world accessibility needs of those less fortunate.
The same logic can be applied to show Thom and sites like the verge talk complete bollocks about design and premium materials, again the most popular smartphone handset so far has been Samsung’s with removable batteries and plastic cases … Having all phones produce the same metallic slab with glass just show how inside their own little bubble they truly are, why are tech “bloggers” and tech “journalists” such closed minded idiots ? They all seem to parrot each other …
Power users shouldn’t shut up, power users should step in and help the less technologically inclined to realise when a companies marketing machine is trying to sell them complete shite. The fanatics should shut up the idiots who blindly follow the marketing machines should shut up, not those of us that actually use our brain cells to make rational objective choices.
For what its worth I think the new macbook pro 13″ retina is worth every penny and the 1st gen macbook 12″ is one of the most over priced pieces of trash to be released …
I don’t think you actually read the Nexus 5 item very well.
No they don’t. If none of their complaints damages sales, then by definition they are ineffective. They can keep saying anything they like. People need to learn to stop listening to every opinion about the smallest thing.
I never hear “average” users complain about ports. I do hear some, not a lot but some, complain about lack of removable batteries. SD slots on the other hand, yes tons of those “average” users want them. It’s not hard to understand why either. They take a zillion photos & videos with their cellphone, they install a ton of apps, and then they run out of space. Rather than backup & delete, or simply purge all of the crap they don’t really need, they complain about having no more space and how they wish they could pop in a big sd card to solve the problem.
The thing about the SD card is that it makes it easy to pop-out and transfer to a PC. Doing it “in the cloud” or otherwise is usually a slow, painful process. And face it, not everyone wants their data “in the cloud”.
I am not quite understanding this use case (which may not be surprising since I don’t use SD cards)…. If I want to transfer something to a PC — I copy it across the network. If I am copying it across a “cloud” then it likely means that I am not local and therefore a physical sneaker-net option is not available. I have no real data in the cloud (other than bitbucket – which is not personal info) and I still don’t have an SD card. If it is a camera, I usually just plug it in and it says do you want to copy and I say yes. It then asks if I want to delete from the camera and I usually say yes….
Maybe you can expand on this so some SD luddite cum neophyte like me can understand…
My wife, for example, doesn’t hook her phone up to her computer very often. She doesn’t use Google Photos – we don’t want the data there – or anything similar She just wants an easy way to expand the 8GB of storage on her Samsung phone.
I don’t do that either with my ASUS Transformer tablet where it just easier to push the stuff on to the SD card, pop the card, insert it into the adapter and dump it to a laptop that has an SD card reader.
People understand SD card transfer.
Now compare this to USB transfer where:
– You plug in the phone to the USB cord, and the cord to the computer
– wait for the phone to recognize it
– tap the “allow USB storage” connection or similar
– transfer the data
People, especially the uncomplicated masses, understand that if they take photos/videos on the phone it will go to the SD card when one is available – that happens be default. They don’t necessarily understand the USB process – they’ll just complain it’s broken and doesn’t work.
Funny too how all the high end phones have removed the SD cards, while all the low-end phones abound with them. Guess which the masses tend to buy?
Ah, so you’re using it as a small floppy drive :p I vaguely remember having it in my SLR camera (which has been in the cabinet for years) and I remember buying a large one and putting it in the camera…. but I still just plugged the camera into the computer. I suspect the high end cameras replaced the slower SD card with higher end/faster more expensive chips (which is why it is not in lower end cameras).
You outline step by step on plugging your camera into a computer (probably to exaggerate the difficulty) while just popping in an SD card (to make it seem simple)… probably did not do that on purpose – often people do tend to exaggerate things to push a specific scenario. I never realized how arduous plugging in my iPhone to the computer was :p I wonder with all that difficulty how anyone could keep their phones charged…. plugging one end of cable in one side and plugging in other end of cable in other side etc…..
Edited 2015-03-16 20:36 UTC
No. We pull it out of the camera because it is more power efficient to do. Not sure if they’ve changed that on newer models, but it would eat battery badly to do the transfer via USB.
I gave a specific use-case. For those familiar with the technological, the “newer” way to do it via USB may make sense – oh, you need to check the phone to enable the USB access on the phone to computer…duh… – but to those not technologically minded they want something that “just works”.
They can get that “plug this in to charge it”.
They get lost at the “enable storage on phone for computer to receive data from it”.
Now, the iPhone is probably less of an issue since iTunes is probably used for that any way – and it takes care of the “enable phone to do X” issue. But on Android…it can vary from vendor to vendor where some have enabled protocols that make the phone work as a digital camera to do that, and others leave it to the built-in Android functionality (which has to be explicitly enabled).
I would not say it is a newer way or older way, I had some of the first digital cameras which I quite honestly cannot remember how I used – it might have even had a floppy. I have been transferring using USB (I believe) since the first Canon Rebel was released. I don’t remember it being arduous…. or difficult… but then it has been a while. I don’t get “enable storage on phone for computer to receive data from it” – which in itself seems not very user friendly (at least in words).
Now in my bubble, I don’t know anyone that transfers using an SD…. but then it might be important for some people… and that might be a showstopper, but I cannot fathom it from my personal experiences. I am surprised that Android is not consistent for such a basic feature…
I’ve been seriously considering a Chromebook lately, but I’ll have to compare the two.
This is the laptop what I’ve wanted since 2001. It has a terminal emulator, ssh, a text editor, and a web browser.
My original vision had the laptop running FreeBSD or Linux, but that’s a minor detail. It also had a trackpoint, but another minor detail.
Great great article, I agree 100% with the author. He has a point.
I hate all this stupid “power user” mantra usually used to criticize anything innovative or disruptive.
If you really are a “power user” then a Macbook is not for you, Macbook is a consumer device not a Pro one. If you are so “power user” then buy a pro notebook and stop complaining!!!
Same thing happens with the phones… if the removable battery is so important and you are so tech-savvy then don’t buy a Galaxy… buy a Jolla or another geeky phone that satisfy your “power user” needs.
I think “power users” don’t want to accept that technology is not for tech-savvy people anymore. Today, powers users are a minority and consumer devices are not designed for them. Get over it.
Shut up? Really?
Specs somehow don’t matter anymore? Even if what you are selling is hardware, and aside from the design, it is, in fact, nothing but specs?
Perhaps regular users don’t care about cores and clock speeds and such, but they will care if the thing underperforms. It will underperform.
And one port? No, just no.
Apple has always had the tendency to choose form over function, and that’s fine as long as some compromises are made, but one port just isn’t enough.
Having the balls to design a product this way is … admirable. I’m sure it will sell, but it is crippled, simple as that.
And i don’t need some schmuck to tell me to shut up. What’s that all about? How about you shut up? Your case doesn’t apply to others, just as you assume that our case doesn’t apply to you.
It’s not enough for YOU, not an universal truth. For me it doesn’t matter, I didn’t use my Macbook Air USB ports since… I don’t remember!!
I prefer thinness over ports any day. If I need more ports in the future… well I just buy a port multiplier, not a problem.
So you’ve never used a usb flash drive?
Not the writer but I will answer it even though it is a facetious question, but I have used a USB drive before…. for OS installation purposes and flashing purposes of PCIe devices…. but that is about it. If I have to give something to someone, I send it attached to an email, dropped on the storage array on network, airdropped it. Basically all the things that I can still do with a USB-C drive (only quicker).
Huh, that’s weird. We use them all the time at work – our files are often too large for the mailing system, fileserver storage doesn’t really work for guests, and airdrop doesn’t work with PCs. Besides, compared to the somewhat overloaded wifi net here (I typically get 1-2 MB/s), a USB3 stick is insanely fast.
Of course, we’re also the kind of people that like ethernet ports on laptops, for much the same reasons – and I’ll happily accept that we’re a small niche.
Edited 2015-03-17 15:55 UTC
Thinking back to the office….what did we use there…. for most things with customers/guests (which could or could not be onsite) the documents that were be transferred would be word documents, spreadsheets etc. which all email just fine.
For transmitting updates for the “software”, ftp would be used….
The office had policies against plugging storage systems into computers at work – if you were caught doing it…. you were terminated…. lots of security was implemented to make it very difficult to do so.
In an effort to see if I can get past your furious blast of righteousness, I’m going to be a little mean. So you basically don’t understand that Apple has the MacPro line for people who want lots of ports and i7 processors instead of M series processors and 1 port. So if you’re a power use that needs to get your spec boner on, you can buy a MacPro.
Individual specs don’t really matter at all. It’s a matter of system performance and the business decisions a vendor makes. For example, Vendor A may make a laptop that allows you to choose between a variety of drives connected through the SATA port. That’s not as fast as PCIe storage offered by Vendor B, but PCIe storage means it’s harder to upgrade and more expensive. But PCIe storage is betweeen 3 and 9 times faster than SATA SSDs. Vendor A made the business decision to reduce cost and allow consumers to choose even though system performance is worse. Vendor B’s laptop may have a slower processor at a higher price point but will probably outperform Vendor A’s laptop, even though it comes with a faster processor and a whopping 13 USB 3 ports, 4 SD slots, and a parallel port.
So who’s ‘screwing’ anyone in this situation? The vendor that provides a crappy storage interconnect but the fast processor? The vendor that uses only PCIe storage but has a slightly slower processor? The vendor that is selling you ‘choice’ is really playing on the fact spec nerds will go for the fast processor, even though overall performance is worse.
When I hear a lot of people crapping on Apple hardware, I think of the Stephen Colbert quote that goes something like “I don’t like homosexuals – especially the ones that turn me on.”
[Edited for clarity]
Edited 2015-03-14 14:29 UTC
You mean the vendor that uses a proprietary storage port instead of the industry standard M.2, which accepts both SATA and pure PCI-e based devices? You do realise we could have both performance AND choice?
So I went to retailer sites looking for the “choice.” In an effort to compare apples to apples (forgive the pun) I looked at their selection of ultraportable consume laptops. HP didn’t seem to have any options for an M2 drive (although I didn’t dig through every model exhaustively). Lenovo did have an option for a 16 gig M2 drive (probably used as a cache by Windows).
But it was still a tough comparison. In some cases there were no configurable options on some of the consumer models. In other cases the screen was stuck at 1366×768. So not always a lot of choice there, but at least they were cheap. Actually some of them weren’t that cheap, either. I focused on consumer models because that’s what this MacBook is targeting, Ma and Pa Kettle – not MEs that run SolidWorks on their laptops. Again, most people don’t realize that individual specs don’t matter but most of the PC vendors are just selling you a list of specs and giving you a false sense of choice. That’s different from selling you a complete system where you have fewer choices. At least 80% of the PC market is shit and mediocrity. The bright spots are few and far between, and Apple is one of them.
Self styled power users often complain loudly and endlessly about the choices that real engineers and industrial designers make in designing products. Usually products that will work very well for their intended users. You don’t just see it with Apple products, you see it with things like reviews of cameras, where people just count megapixels on cameras, or just compare cars on their favorite metrics. They don’t look the whole performance profile. Just because your Subaru can chew up and spit out an M3 off the line, doesn’t mean it’s a better car. That’s just one metric.
Most of the comments I read on the Apple MacBook announcement were just that, people who took apart one aspect like the choice of an M series processor and said ‘it’s underpowered’ and therefore a ripoff. Usually they’re ignorant loudmouths that don’t understand that it’s all about tradeoffs. A hotter processors mean you have to work harder to pull heat off the computer. In this case it also probably means a larger motherboard, and therefore less room for battery. Which then cuts into your battery life. Of course you can make it thicker, add more batteries and a faster processor, and a fan. Then you could add some more ports (why not, you’ve made it thicker?). Maybe add discrete graphics, but that requires more battery because you need more air flow to cool the GPU. Congratulations – you just made a MacBook Pro.
But wait, let’s add the ability to put in a SATA or M2 drive because people need a choice. Do we need to make it thicker or take out some battery to accommodate the space for the SATA? How about a removable battery? Because 4% of our users have ever bought a second battery – because shit – we need to give them choices. Why not add a DVD drive and VGA 15 port for easier connectivity to projectors? Congratulations, dude, you’re getting a Dell.
Edited 2015-03-15 01:48 UTC
just 1 usb port seems like an unnecessary mistake
at least they can say “100% MORE CONNECTIVITY” next year when they add 1 more port
Unlikely, more likely they will add newer high speed wireless protocols based on WiGig or some other standard once there is enough support to drive the device supply chain.
Think of where they have headed, wireless networking, airdrop, air printers, handoff….. wires are so last century :p
Edited 2015-03-14 08:08 UTC
So if 99% of the consumers are sheep, we should also shut up and become sheep, and gratefully accept what the big players feed us.
With such mentality there would be no alternative operating systems, no open computers, no customizability, no option.
That is not what the original opinion was about. It is about how “power users” tearing apart a platform that is not meant for them…. are tearing something apart because this “new” item gives a more mainstream audience a very useable platform for most tasks a nice shiny new device while making them wait. Jealousy is unbecoming. Cries of add more ports, make it bigger, make it heavier, make it just like a Macbook air but with a retina screen and less battery power (6 to 7 hours instead of 9 or 10). Pretty silly making a new platform that is exactly like another line but with one minor difference. Buy a macbook air if you want battery life/portability combo, buy a macbook pro if you want power…
Edited 2015-03-14 08:02 UTC
My sister is not a power user by any means. She bought a 11 inches macbook air 2 years ago. Overall she likes it, but she certainly whishes she had more USB ports available.
We will see how this machine sells. Maybe people really don’t need these ports after all.
Of course each has different use cases, but iPad sales continued to slide (probably as some people find they need more) — to 60 million units in 2015. I expect the new macbook may cannibalize at least 25% of that market for people that need more. It will cannibalize a portion of the Macbook air market, and it will have quite a few new users that may decide that it does everything they need. I expect it to be a very hot seller.
So, most end users don’t have even subtle understanding of technology behind devices they are buying, and this somehow leads us to conclusion that those who do should shut up and endorse mass ignorance?
There are two related quotes I’d like to share:
^aEURc “We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.” ^aEUR” Carl Sagan
^aEURc “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” ^aEUR” Friedrich Nietzsche
Mass ignorance…. how arrogant.
From the very beginnings of the personal computer “revolution” there was a belief that this is a transitory state…. much like that back in the beginnings when you could go out and buy a “general motor” and people that were early adopters knew about the inner workings of the motor and how it could be used etc. Most people don’t care about the inner workings, don’t care about what CPU it has, what memory it has….. it all comes down to what function it does and can I use it for what I want. The early belief was that eventually we would reach a state where computers were everywhere, but unrecognizable to those of us early users…. which is the direction it has taken – Phones that are small computers, eReaders that are really computers, fridges doing their own ordering, cars driving themselves. For most people function is more important…. you might not like it but most people don’t care about what is inside….. Up until now specs for most people have become a distraction…. if a device has 4x then 8x is better, if the brain is x fast then 1.2x is 1.2 times faster (which is not the case, but computer makers have not cared – they would prefer the average user be confused lest they really understand that they are being oversold their needs for the sake of it.
So you argue that consumers should not be interested in inner details of product they consume because they are not interested? You may call me arrogant again, but I just can’t see any sense in your rationale.
People go out and buy cars all the time, most people don’t care and don’t want to know the inner workings of the car. They might have an idea here or there but generally not. They buy the car and told the schedule for servicing, checkups…. They know they want it to drive to work, drive to cottage and for shopping and maybe the odd holiday…. They may know that their last car was great or maybe that it needed a little more power on the highway. A “knowledgeable” person on the other hand might say, they need a car with 320hp, dual exhaust because anything less than that won’t have the power…. Knowledgeable people often have a habit of transferring their needs onto someone that does not know or care about the inner workings. Most people know that they want one that can drive a certain distance a year, drive on the highway, drive in the city and drive smooth and be the colour red.
Apple sold maybe 20 million macs (all types from macbook airs, macbook pros, and mac pros), they sold 60 million iPads. Although Apple sold their iPad as a consumption device, some people probably bought it with the idea that it could do more. I would not be surprised that a quarter of iPad users would find the new Macbook to be more ideal, they found themselves hampered by the lack of keyboard and “mouse”. There are probably a certain portion of people that looked at the macbook air and thought – yeah, I need a keyboard and mouse because I do a lot of typing and then I submit a story to the editor each week. These are tasks that the new macbook would be easily suited to and it is lighter. The majority of people do some web surfing, writing emails, maybe some editing of documents might skype with friends, go to class etc. Nothing that taxing on the CPU, not a billion devices that they need hooked up… they would have got an iPad but they want a keyboard (ipad has a more limited port). Someone like you comes along and tells them they are more knowledgable than them, you need 3 ports at least you need a more powerful CPU because you can’t do anything without a more powerful CPU…. and maybe if someone is confident they might push back – why and you would be struggling to justify why… “well you might…” “you might …” and “you might…” the person thinks for a second and says back “not likely, I would have said so if “I might”…. “knowledgeable” people like you are transferring your needs on those that “are too stupid to know”. iPad sales would not be 3x all other lines if people needed much power or many ports in the first place.
Edited 2015-03-14 22:00 UTC
Again, you argue that it is good because it is the way it is. It is not necessarily true, and I strongly hold to opinion that it is completely and utterly wrong on all accounts.
That said, I have little clue about inner details of my car. I can’t repair it in most cases. But I can’t readily say that I don’t care, and I have actually bought this particular car because at the time I did dig into the technical side deep enough to be able to make an informed choice.
Yes, knowledgable people, particularly in tech, tend to care more about things that are not necessarily importent for others. But this has nothing to do with commoners’ habit of blindly buying shiny stuff because of being incapable of making informed choice. I don’t argue that every buyer must be fully aware of all inner details of the good they buy, but they should have at least some basic understanding which should allow them to assess the features of goods and align their choice to their needs, as opposed to trendiness, “cool factor” and popularity.
Computers, phones and cars are tools, just like medical equipment. It is pretty obvious that an operator of laser eye correction device must be familiar with its operation principles, caveats and some level of technical details. I just can’t see why this should not apply to operators of computers, phones and cars.
Got three USB ports on my laptop of which one is broken, so I’m left with two. I only use the laptop at home and have a USB mouse attached. So that leaves me with one free USB port. Yes, I miss the third port sometimes.
I’ve been reading through the comments here and I do feel that we’re still comparing apple to oranges here, without putting ourselves outside the box and understanding how a user thinks.
For example I had a discussion with two friends at work (one male and one female).
He was a total “oh Apple sucks .. because it just does” and she did not understand a single bit of what a computer specification means in term of functionality.
Somehow when I told her about Apple she smiled (like really wanting one) but when I told her about Samsung, Asus, Clevo she looked at me at asked: I don’t want chinese stuff on my lap no matter how fast it is.
She did not like Samsung as well because her old Samsung TV broke.
Besides this there is a different aspect that I guess it kind of gets overseen but it’s vital here: Thhe majority of laptops running at work Windows OS run like crap.
This is because the “business class” laptops are overpriced like sky is the limit and the IT department managing them usually bundle them with notorious applications just to keep the users “safe”.
Why would anyone invest in this type of laptop/desktop at home when they can see how it runs at work?
Do I feel a 12″ display is way too small? One USB-port way too little? Absolutely. Do I feel they’re aiming for a pretty and light device at the expense of actual features? Sure. If the display was slightly larger or the laptop came with more USB-ports would I then be willing to buy it? Well, no.
I do not belong in its target-market and I have no interest in the Apple-ecosystem. I value features and capabilities over thinness or weight and I am not one of those people who sit at caf~A(c)s trying to look cool by sporting the latest “hip” computers. I’ve actually been eyeing an Asus ROG G751JY ( http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_ROG_G751JY/ ) as of late; it’s big, it’s heavy and I don’t doubt at all that your average self-conscious Jane or Joe would hate it. And I don’t care.
Now, even though I know I’m not in the market for a Macbook and I already have my eyes on a laptop that suits me much better should I just graciously accept the situation and be silent so as not to ruffle anyone’s feathers? Well, no, I don’t quite think so. Of course equating yourself with everyone and then extrapolating your tastes as facts from that is a fallacy, but not all power-users are like that.
The thing is, power-users are much more capable of giving feedback on specific issues than your average user and may even be able to suggest ways of improving the situation, whereas your average user would just whine loudly and not be able to say anything concrete or helpful. They may even help you find a new niche for your products or better define the one you’re after. Power-users are also often in charge of buying-decisions or at least very much influential in such decisions, so their opinions matter when it comes to mass-purchases. One shouldn’t just brush all power-users aside just simply because of them being in the minority.
Nobody cares enough about those things at the time of purchase. This does not signify that when you get annoyed these elementary features are missing you suddenly become a power user, just that you don’t want to get burned twice.
When buying my last phone I didn’t care either about removable batteries and storage – now that the battery is old and the storage is filled with photos and music I have to either restrict my phone usage or buy a new phone as a result of this carelessness.
When buying my last notebook I did pay attention to things like a VGA and ethernet port. I see people around me fiddling with/forgetting dongles
(even to the point of delaying presentations) while I can just connect the computer and get on with the job at hand.
In my opinion this does not make me a power user, just an informed consumer.
Just because not many people care about your issues at the time of purchase doesn’t mean that they are not valid points. People with deeper knowledge should certainly make their voice heard. Over time, it may prevail.
Apple fanboi want power users to shut up so that his favourite corporation can sell more gadgets.
What I find most interesting about this laptop, is that it generates far more discussion on tech sites than the Apple Watch does. Considering that the majority of the early adopters of smartwatches will be techies, I predict that the Apple Watch will be a relative flop.
This device just doesn’t make sense.
Obviously they are aiming quite highly on the specs with a big and fast SSD, high res screen, lots of RAM but then the CPU is entirely out of line with those specs.
Then they only put one crazy modern port on it that nobody can use for anything except charging without using adapters…and they also put one crazy old fashioned port on it (headphone). If you argue that “keyboard/mouse” can be connected via Bluetooth, then why don’t you argue that headphones can be connected via Bluetooth so that port is not needed?
The internal screen is very high res and small, but if I want to connect it to a big high res monitor I need an adapter that will only give me low res (well, 1920×1080 max)
Everyone keeps claiming that this is needed to make this machine so thin and light, but other machines are at least just as thin and light and DO have enough ports that will greatly enhance the way you can work with them. And none of the compromises Apple made here have resulted in exceptional battery life or lower price either
Apple already sells something that is aimed at the kind of people that would buy this machine. It is called an Ipad Air and is twice as light and thin and cheap.
You’re making the assumption that this is the complete line. I expect with the crossover of those looking for an ultra-portable device that it is going to have quite high demand to begin with…. and it would not make sense to ramp up production of the whole line at once (more risk, less reward). I expect there to be a 128SSD version of this in the future with 4GB of ram (-$300 based on Macbook air options)…. maybe even a non-retina version for even a few bucks less. Once the initial sales settle down along with the Skylake refresh, I expect the rest of the line to be introduced in the fall or winter. Introduce the high-end first…. judge demand…. then introduce the lower end once you are no longer stressing out production capabilities.
I am not making any assumptions. Only 2 versions were announced and both don’t make sense. Apple doesn’t add models to a line-up later.
It is going to be difficult to fix this MacBook.
1) They cannot put a more capable CPU in it technically. 2) They cannot lower the rest of the specs or the price because that would put it in MacBook Air territory. see B) later
3) They cannot make the keyboard as good as on their thicker models. They tried with this “butterfly” design but if that really worked they would have put it on all their hardware.
A) …But putting another USB Type C (see the new Pixel) will be easy. “With the new MacBook we removed the final legacy port and put another of our amazing universal ports on it for your convenience. You can now charge your laptop from both sides or connect everything you want at the same time. This will revolutionize the way both left-handed and right-handed people will work with the best MacBook we ever made.
B) They had the components to make a good line-up. They just mixed the components weirdly so some ended up in the MacBook and some ended up in the Air that should have been exchanged. What they should have done (from a customer point of view) was to switch the CPU’s and bodies:
–“new MacBook Air” (1000 dollar): Put the lower-end components of the current Air in the thinner body, use that Core-M CPU to have enough battery life, still put enough ports on it (Two Type-C’s for everything modern) and sell it for the current price of a MacBook Air. (slightly slower, but more modern and portable)
— “new MacBook Pro” (1250 dollar): Put the higher end components of the MacBook in the Airs body, use a 5th gen Core i5 CPU. Replace the MagSafe with a Type-C but keep the rest of the ports.
— Next Step: Put the rest of the Pro’s in an Air body. All other Ultrabook manufacturers seem to be able to put that much performance in a body that is thinner than the Air and certainly than the PRO
The result would have been: iPad Air, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro with mobility going down, price and performance going up.
Do not go gentle into that walled garden
Expertise should burn and rage at form over function;
Rage, rage against the dumbass crowd.
Though wise men at their keyboards know mechanical is right,
Because their buckling springs had forked no imitations they
Do not go gentle into that rubber dome.
Good men, the last to facebook, crying how fast
Their coded creations might have compiled with more cores and ram.
Rage, rage against dying of workstation class laptop.
Wild men who bought the model left in store,
And lean, too late, nothing is upgradable in any way
Do not go gentle into that soldered on future.
Grave men, near respawning, who frag with blinged out rigs
Polygons could glow volumetrically and have fluid dynamics,
Rage, rage against the dying of the PC gaming.
And you, my Ivy fan boy, there in your sad reality distortion field,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that Apple store.
Rage, rage against the dying of the practical form factor.
The new Macbook is probably going to be a success but I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be because average Joe doesn’t need USB ports. It’s going to be a success because it’s an Apple product. People will buy it anyway because it’s Apple and those are quality products… right? People buy name brands because they are name brands and that means quality to them. Apple has a reputation for “it” to just work and they capitalize on that reputation. Apple doesn’t care much about advanced users that want USB ports, replaceable batteries, serial ports, etc. They are after the hip trendy crowd that has to have latest and greatest every couple of years.
Average Joe doesn’t know what those flat rectangle ports are called on the sides of their laptops any more than most people on the planet can really understand General Relativity. I know because I have to explain where to plug the speaker jack in for my wife every few weeks because of a bug in port detection on her desktop, and I certainly can’t explain General Relativity. But they will be kicking themselves a few months down the road when they find out rectangular tab A doesn’t fit in… DOH! Where’d the slot go?!
So….we’re praising Samsung for taking a page out of Apples design playbook now? “Yes sir, may I have another?” As long as it’s for the good of the silent majority, the “power users” needs be damned?
yes
I would like to have more than one port in case one breaks (and occasionally use two when backups are done), this product is therefore not for me and I am fine with that.
I wouldn’t call myself a power user as such, but expandability and ports are important to me. I dual boot my MacBook Pro with Ubuntu and only one of the current MacBook range supports that now (the standard-display MacBook Pro 13′), not only because Linux doesn’t support Retina properly (its fault), but because the Retina models don’t have a proper Ethernet connector – only a Thunderbolt port – or an optical drive (yes, you can boot off a USB SuperDrive but that costs extra, unless you had to buy one already for your Mac mini which doesn’t have one built-in either). Given Yosemite’s record in supporting wifi (which is still not reliable on mine, even after two updates and a re-install), I’m not willing to buy a Mac laptop that doesn’t have an ethernet port.
As for SD cards, I switched to Nexus in 2012, I think, and never missed the SD card slot, although I can see why others might. Some people will have stuck with the Samsung Galaxy S-series precisely because of that — because they want to be able to take the card out and put it in another device, perhaps because they can’t get USB data transfer to work or just don’t have a USB lead to hand. OTOH, SD cards are tiny and easily lost, so perhaps it’s a format that was going out of favour anyway.
“This new MacBook is going to be a huge success, and so will the new Galaxy S6.”
Well, that is easy to say without defining what “huge success” would mean. Please put some number on it or even a comparison with another model. For example “This new MacBook will sell as much as the current MacBook Air”, “At least 10 million Apple watches will be sold before the end of the year” or “The S6 will outsell the S5 by 25%”
“Nobody* cares about removable backs”…Agree
“SD card slots”…Agree
” or ports.”…whoooooooooa, absolutely wrong on this one. Ports basically define how you use a device. If ports were not important, why didn’t they just put a MagSafe on it and be done with it? Why would they immediately start to sell all kind of adapters and converters?
* Yes, we all now that some people DO care
Edited 2015-03-15 11:17 UTC
I will quantify what / why I think this will be a huge success. A huge success means that it will likely outsell all other macs (i.e. make up 50%+ of unit sales). Yes some people care about ports, some people not as much, and some people will do a use case on whether it will serve their needs. iPads with one lightning port (with lots of adapters) outsells the entire mac line by a 3 to 1 margin (down from close to 4 to 1).
Although Apple marketed the iPad as a consumption device, a large number of people are using it as anything other than… and a large number of those get a little irritated at problems with copy / paste or the touch keyboard. They have purchased 3rd party keyboard for when they want to type anything of any size into the iPad (emails, word processing etc.) [which is why the iPads peaked]. I would estimate that 25% of iPad users are potentially open to being resold on laptop that is as portable as the original iPad (within a few ounces) — with all day battery capacity.
Then you have a portion (I have no idea how large) that are relatively light users of the Macbook air users which don’t have lots of devices they are lugging around looking to be plugged into the macbook air (I rarely see anyone using a macbook air with devices plugged in — if they are not in the office or home) — I don’t know what percentage that will be but it will be a fair number of people that would be attracted to a ultra-light-portable.
Then you have new users that will be attracted to the new toy on the block and all the users using it. You will also have new users that are new to the platform.
Add all those up (with the fact that iPad market with limited expansion — is way more popular) and you will end up with 50%+ of the mac market being macbooks of this line. It will also put a surge in the overall mac market from new mac users (both iPad and new users). The downside is you will see the iPad numbers depress a little (probably dropping to just below 50 million units per year).
I think in some way having an already lower profile platform within Apple (“power users”) shrunk in overall importance even more scares some people… but to me — I look at the overall numbers increasing more rapidly – expanding the market for mac software to be a longer term plus for even the macbook pro and iMac lines down the road as some of the new users second time around upgrading to a more powerful (yet smaller) macbook air/pro or imac computers.
If ports were all that important as some people indicate, iPads would never have been so popular.
> 50% of the entire Mac LineUp? That is a very daring prognosis.
Only a VERY small percentage of iPad buyers (500 Euro) would by this new MacBook (1250 Euro) because it doesn’t do much that their iPad doesn’t do. It also does it more difficultly and in a device that is twice as heavy and thick.
But I agree that this is the target market for this device. And if Apple can pull it of to replace iPad sales with MacBook sales they are going to make a ludicrous amount of money. This would indeed be the market that wouldn’t require ports (but would still benefit from them if they had them)
I am going to be sad for the entire market that brings already put beautiful, more useful products that cost less but don’t have Apples cool factor
My iPad weighs about 1.5 lb (iPad Gen 3 – not that old; had a Gen 1 version before). Earlier models are even a bit heavier. I know quite a few people that have bought devices like the logitech keyboard for the iPad which weight 0.75 lb. Put those two things together and you have something that weighs more than the new macbook and more clunky to carry around (I don’t have one, but I know plenty that do).
Half of the iPad users I know have had very frustrating experiences that would make them rethink it (though I know a few that refuse to admit it to themselves – i.e. giving up on doing something on the ipad and waiting until they are near their computer again to complete it). I always knew that I would tend to keep postings very short when using my iPad, one or two lines where normally I might expand on it…. instead just one or two lines and hope it holds until I am back in front of my computer at home before someone asks me to expand on it.
Three weeks ago, it reached absolute and complete frustration when I took the long weekend off (nothing on my plate) and the first day I was out some french translations that I had requested almost a month ago came in and it was an emergency to add them into a report (code)…. A mere 10 headings that I had to cut and paste into the source and test….. something that would have taken me 30 minutes normally. It took me 5 hours of trying to simulate a mouse and cut and paste through Remote Desktop/Cisco VPN – and on top of that it was VERY frustrating.
I am not away from my computer at home that often that I wanted to carry with me a bulky laptop, so I settled for an iPad for lightness sake — which I can sling over my shoulder (in a light case) and carry all day without really a second thought. I carried a heavier laptop (at one time two because one for my company and one for the customer) for 3 years – and like most people it is always going to favour one shoulder…. which in my case pushed things out of alignment (I could see one shoulder lower than the other)…. so lightness really does count for people like me.
I can also remember carrying a laptop (not heavy, but heavy enough and bulky enough) and always looking for a place to put it down before going off to lunch or something else where I did not need it….
With the iPad it is not really important to drop it because the total weight is pretty insignificant. I needed something I could bring with me when I fly for a day or two to countries in the region. I think you are under estimating the market, but we will have to wait and see.
Edited 2015-03-15 19:50 UTC
But this is exactly the point that powerusers tried to make.
When the iPad came out they said you would be better of using a laptop and you are now saying they were right.
When this MacBook comes out you are now saying that it will suit your needs, but there will be that weekend when you will miss that USB-Port desperately just like you missed a keyboard and a mouse that weekend.
You say “Half of the iPad users I know have had very frustrating experiences that would make them rethink it”. Tim Cook said that they had a 99% satisfaction rate. Something doesn’t add up here. (for the record, I think that that 99% satisfaction rate is nonsense as I am not 99% satisfied with my iPad2)
Why Powerusers (like you and me) should complain about this device is to show Apple that they took some unneeded shortcuts. More ports would have fitted into the machine without sacrificing anything except the “OMG only 1 port marketing hype”. And a machine that is going to be used for very light to light tasks shouldn’t cost this much. And personally I am getting really sick and tired of hearing all the media tout this device as being amazingly thin and the beginning of a new era. There have been plenty of machines out there for the last year that are gorgeous and are this thin and they make less sacrifices to the user experience while mostly costing less. Why is Apple getting all that praise but others don’t?
My half — which I would estimate would be maybe 25% overall. Works great for what it was designed for…. Watching videos, reading books and maybe a few facebook posts….
Falls flat when you start trying to use it as anything other than a consumption device or menu… basically anything that uses the keyboard heavily (other than social media which tends to be short) or where your editing documents (or Microsoft Remote Desktop). (my friends for the most part are compsci types – even if they have been elevated to c-level execs they are still at heart techies).
I believe the satisfaction surveys would be slanted by people that would answer satisfied, but if you dug deeper in the questioning would mention frustrating situations – but would ignore it because they were using it for more than the original intent. [i.e. a person satisfied 80% of the time is going to say they’re satisfied].
Overall, I would say I was satisfied with the iPad…. for what it is…. but…. for me I am going to have to be more available to last minute changes / requests that my iPad was not good for. When I was flying to Singapore for a meeting or KL, and not doing contract work where I have to be available during their workday (12 hours difference) or “on-call”.
Although there is a possibility sometime I might miss a USB port, it is far from likely (especially since no laptop serves my needs for my home office). I don’t generally plug anything in when I am away other than to recharge. I don’t carry a second keyboard, I will bring a mouse (wireless) if I go away for more than the day. I usually can fit my active work on a 256GB SSD (though I have a 50TB array holding oracle databases, videos etc.).
At home I have wires going everywhere since I use a wired internal network but not much I would consider taking with me other than a mouse.
Why would a laptop not suit my needs at home? I have 4 monitors hooked up to an elderly 2008 Mac Pro (2 video cards) – 8 cables, 2 ADSL modems load balanced to a load balanced switch, 50TB external array of disks (which would not fit in any laptop), 2 UPSs (power outages every few days for a few minutes), external speakers, external cameras (which I am not going to carry with me). Unless a laptop can run 3 x 4K monitors (my next upgrade at home) @ 60hz…. it is not going to be my primary computer…. but that market is not that large.
What would I carry with a laptop? Nothing heavy or bulky (other than a wireless mouse). If I am buying a laptop because it is light, I am not going to buy a heavy bag and fill it with lots of plug-in devices.
What would I definately not use the new Macbook for…. video editing and virtual machines (vmware fusion).
If I do have a power setup at home, I don’t need a laptop that has all that much power and the macbook would serve those needs… A person that is a macbook pro user would never consider the macbook, but a portion of the macbook air users probably would and a portion of the ipad users would etc.
When I look around and I see the non-techie people in my life (including 2 sisters that are civil servants)… I see people that use it for consumption, for writing, spreadsheets, email, etc. all things that the new macbook will handle with ease.
I posted a blog entry in reply to this:
http://www.blogistan.co.uk/blog/mt.php/2015/03/15/yet-another-thing…
Thom –
Your headline is beyond insulting and is a sign that you should consider just folding up the site and going home since you obviously can’t participate in reasonable discourse. Someone has a different opinion than you? They should just “shut up”, right?
You owe ALL of your readers an apology, as well as your advertisers. They should get better than this.
Scott Lowe
His headline, is not “his” headline…. did you even bother to click the link to the article that he is referring to in his comments?
“NSFW: ‘Power Users’ need to shut up
I’ve had quite enough of “power users” who think they’re too good for the new MacBook.
I’ve been using a Mac for 30 years. I got my first one in 1985. I sell Macs on the weekends and write about them during the weekdays. I am, by any definition, a “power user.” Yet I detest that term, and I react viscerally whenever I hear someone else use it.
….”
No… I didn’t and that is my fault and I accept responsibility. I just read what was here and reacted poorly. Trying to figure out how to edit my comment…
Thom – please accept my apologies and please feel free to remove my comment.
Edited 2015-03-15 20:23 UTC
The easiest remedy to your allergic reaction to that term is to not care about it. They’re just opinions.
bkkcanuck,
Even my parents, who are technophobes, specifically asked for a built in SD card reader on their last computer purchase (which is a good thing, because I wrongly assumed an adapter would have been good enough for them), so this MacBook wouldn’t be good enough for them either. But then who cares? If a product is good enough for group A but not group B, who gives a crap? This is much ado about nothing.
I would define power user to mean someone who has higher requirements and/or expectations in usage than regular users. Regular users don’t have to be “newbies” or inexperienced, they just have regular needs. Those parents I alluded to earlier are regular & inexperienced users who’s needs would rule out the new MacBook. So lashing out at “power users” seems a bit misdirected to me…this has nothing to do with us. This product clearly has underwhelming features even for some regular users with completely elementary needs. Once again, who gives a crap? (*1)
*1: I know, I know… Because Apple
You are quoting a quote from the original article to which the original poster for OSAlert is writing his opinion piece about then addressing it like it is my words. I have enough words weaved through here you should very well know where I stand :p
OS X – Yay! Linux – Great! Windows – Boo! (but I have it on one computer); Macbook – yay!; iPad – ok, but sometimes frustrating; Macbook air – yay!; Macbook Pro – too heavy, but love the ports (probably change that opinion in the fall); iMac – Not for me thanks; mac mini – love those little devils; Mac Pro – Yay Yay Yay Yay!; iWatch – Meh!; iWatch Edition – Meh for the insanely rich – for the rest ha ha ha!; iPhone – Yayish (but I don’t get exited about each new version – 4s is still fine for me); Microsoft Keyboard – Yay!; Microsoft Phone – Meh!
bkkcanuck,
Quite right, after 100 posts I can’t remember anymore!
I use windows and linux, I need both for work. I might use OSX too except that I vehemently disagree with apple’s stance on prohibiting it from running on my own computer builds – I still prefer to build my computers. I think apple could take a huge bite out of the MS monopoly if it played nicer with other manufacturers since MS hasn’t exactly been on the ball. I’ve been upgrading my computers piecemeal since I was a teen. Reusing stuff probably doesn’t mean much to normal users, but it gives me a good feeling and makes upgrading more affordable. It would seem that apple isn’t remotely interested in catering to users like myself though.
As far as tablets go, I will have zero interest in IOS until they relinquish control over the users, which probably means never.
Edited 2015-03-16 03:34 UTC
One of the better and more cogent arguments that I have seen in opposition. I built my own computers up until my 2007 mac portable. I wanted a laptop replacement; wanted bleeding edge but run Linux on it — and I had had enough fighting with Linux with new laptop hardware…. so I gave the new apple computers a chance (I had limited experience with apple before – one customer was a mac shop and gave me one to use while working with them). The fact that the new OS X at the time was UNIX under the hood and just worked on the laptop was the original reason why I started using it. I then bought a Mac Pro the following year – which I still use to this day and still meets my needs. I still build computers from time to time (one windows, one linux). I have even considered making a hackintosh, but probably not. For them to get back into licensing clones, they would have to change their business model which they are not going to in any foreseeable future. It is more likely that Microsoft would get into the computer hardware business with both feet.
Maybe someone already touched on this, but the whole ‘you don’t need exchangeable batteries’ bullshit is pissing me off. We all know that battery life degrades, when you’re paying 600-700 dollars for a device (not to mention the several thousand for the macbooks) you should be able to swap out a freaking battery!
Our stupid throwaway culture is out of control. When it’s cheaper to buy a brand new printer instead of buying ink cartridges, you know there is something wrong.
https://www.apple.com/batteries/service-and-recycling/
Not sure if the post was made in jest or what. Regardless, it’s sorta funny.. not over the top funny… but ok.
Now, there’s an issue to understand here, which very many people are angry about. For a long time now, every single ‘innovation’ seems to concentrate to making devices and tech ‘simple’r and – at least that’s what the preaching is all about – easier to use. Now, I call bullshit on that. Making something ‘simpler’ or ‘easier’ doesn’t mean it’s better. As experience tells us, it usually means it’s being dumbed down to such an extent that below-average-joe users can’t break it and are still being able to remember which of the the two available buttons to push eventually. For others it means most of this utter crap ‘innovations’ are either unusable, or can be used only by accepting a relevant amount of associated pain. Pain that sometimes rivals proper physical pain.
Now, proper innovation would be to provide solutions that can be used by the not-much-caring masses, while also being usable for those who know better, without making them constantly frustrated.
And this goes for a lot of areas, not only desktop&laptop PC and mobile device OSes and apps, but also for lots of other hardware and software designs and implementations.
For everyone on this site cheering for the new Macbook, what are you thinking? You are happy that Apple is foisting a new laptop on you that is very close to the same size as the 13 air, yet, has lower specs, and only one port? Who cares if you NEED more than one port. Why are all you people so quick to pay more for a device that doesn’t have them? They obviously fit in the design or they wouldn’t be in the air. This is just more opportunity for you people to lose your dongles all over the place. Having worked at a university, I collected a box full of Mac adapters pretty much every year. Oh, and have fun getting your macbook repaired when you damage that usb-c connector which isn’t magsafe protected anymore. (one of apples truly great additions to laptops) Hopefully it doesn’t short out your motherboard since it has all that power running through it.
Apple fans be crazy people.
EDIT: Didn’t Apple add magsafe because the power port was so easily damaged? Going backwards it seems.
Edited 2015-03-16 06:26 UTC
Are you going solely by the whole “12 inch” thing, or did you not bother to read the actual specs? Its actually smaller than the 11 inch Air in all dimensions except depth (and then only by 0.6 centimeters). It is no where near the size of the 13 inch Air, which is huge by comparison… Its also an entire pound lighter (which considering we are talking about a < 3 lb device to begin with is quite a difference).
…and the Air is substantially larger and heavier (the 13 inch at least). The Macbook is roughly the same size as the 11 inch Air, but quite a bit lighter and thinner and has a larger screen with a better aspect ratio. To do that required some compromise to ensure there was enough battery to power the hires screen, and thus you have a tiny PCB and only a single port.
It isn’t crazy. Its a perfectly understandable design trade-off. But for some people the Air might be a better choice. That is why they make both…
“To do that required some compromise to ensure there was enough battery to power the hires screen, and thus you have a tiny PCB and only a single port.”
No, you actually have two ports. One of them is an ancient audio jack. With all of the talk about Bluetooth keyboard here, Bluetooth mouse there, Bluetooth headset, etc you would think that they could have put another of those ultra-modern ports in there.
Other devices that are just as thin DO have multiple ports so it was a choice that Apple made, not a necessity.
It was a bad, anti-consumer choice that they are rightfully getting all these questions about. What I don’t understand is why other consumers are answering those questions with
1) 1 port is all the target market needs
2) They couldn’t fit another port in there because it is so amazingly thin
3) They have adapters
4) They have other laptops with more ports
What I don’t understand is why people think that they should be given custom designed devices that meet their needs.
What most of us understand is that the market has a wide variety of devices and if something does not meet it we can look elsewhere either from the same manufacture or from someone else. Apple is not doing it to spite you, they built a product based on what their research said would be the right target audience – if that is not you then it is not you. I look at everything out there and then I go, well that is sweet and I chose what is out there. Do I hope something meets my needs better – sure, but I don’t get in a huff about it. I have been waiting for years for a portable that would meet my primary needs, but no-one has built a laptop with what I exactly want (not exactly true, but they met my specs 15 years late – and now my desired specs have changed).
There is still no single device that meets all my needs. I could whine and complain that they hate me, or I can figure out what best suits my needs.
I have seen many posters that would not even buy a device from apple and yet they complain that apple is spiting them. It is sort of Apple derangement syndrome. Of course it is not unique to Apple, you see it all the time with different successful companies… you saw it with Microsoft, you saw it with IBM before it (with their Thinkpads).
Edited 2015-03-16 10:55 UTC
Yes. A couple of them are even made by Apple (the Airs)… That is the point. They could make this trade-off because they already offer an alternative for (the few) that can’t live with one port comfortably.
I have not seen pictures of detailed internals for the Macbook yet, but I do know that unlike the existing Airs the PCB does not span the width of the device…
That means the ports on the side have to be connected to the PCB by cabling. The cabling for a USB-C port designed to carry DisplayPort signaling is obviously much more complex than the 2 wires it takes for a headphone/microphone. Maybe there was not room for another set of headers on the tiny board? Maybe wiring 2 ports to the GPU was physically impossible because of layout issues. Maybe routing the cabling would have been an obstacle? I really don’t know, but I am assuming (I think safely) that if it were simple and easy to just slap another port on the thing they would have…
Thing is I don’t really think it matters, because like you said, everyone is using bluetooth this and wifi that, and having only one port is simply not a big deal for many people.
I don’t know, maybe because all of those are logical answers to the question??? The one and only illogical answer is the one you seem to be implying, namely that Apple is actively anti-consumer and did this on purpose to punish their users by selling them a flawed product they wouldn’t actually want if only they were smart enough to realize it.
Yeah. That must be it.
Edited 2015-03-16 12:53 UTC
You are being disingenious here. First you say
“The Macbook is roughly the same size as the 11 inch Air, but quite a bit lighter and thinner”
then you say
“Other devices that are just as thin DO have multiple ports. Yes. A couple of them are even made by Apple (the Airs)”
No, Apple forces you to choose: thin OR ports. Other manufacturers give you thin AND ports. Yet all the reviews keep using superlatives for how unbelievably thin and light this machine is.
I already wrote a post here about the strange mismatching of components and price but in no case should a device like this force you to use converters for daily use.
And yes, I do think Apple wanted to get so much media attention to focus on this “one port” that they put that marketing item ahead of the interest of the consumer and it seems to work. You mention the headphone jack in one sentence and 1 port in the next.
Apple also has a history of bringing products to the market before they are any good. The fist Air wasn’t a good device but it got better. The first retina iPad wasn’t a good device but it got better. Apple Maps? MobileMe? Basically all other cloudservices from Apple? Even Airdrop didn’t work between OSX and IOS at first but it doesn’t stop Apple from up-talking amazing innovation and charging more than others with extreme profit margins. This MacBook shouldn’t have been a mass-consumer product. People that will buy it will look at their TimeCapsule and headset, shrug and buy some more converters. They will miss out on that quick datadrop from a friend on a USB-Stick. And at home they will keep looking at that tiny screen because they cannot hook it up to their external monitor. So I will advice my friends and family to avoid the shiny until their world is ready for it. That will also give them some time to save that 1250 Euro.
Are devices with only Type-C the future? Yes.
Should you buy a device with only one such port now? No.
Are there other super light and thin devices on the market that offer enough power and extensibility? YES
The difference in thickness is small – I just meant Airs are _relatively_ thin. Yes, they are a thicker and heavier of course, but the trade-off might be worth it if you really need the extra ports.
But you say other manufacturers give you thin AND ports. Show me another 2 lb ultrabook with 10 hour battery life and a 12 inch hiDPI screen… There aren’t any. Hence it is a compromise.
Your basically saying you value the extra ports more than the size, weight, and battery life – and because of that you assume everyone else should too. I don’t. At all. Not even close.
Im sure someone else will eventually make something comparable. It may even have 2 ports. You may be happy with that one. I don’t care, I’m content with this one.
Which is a direct result of it only having 1 USB port…
And Im sure this will get better too. Maybe in the next one they will work out how to fit 2 ports in it? I don’t know. Don’t much care either, because I don’t need them. Just because a product isn’t ready for everyone doesn’t mean it isn’t ready for anyone.
Says you and a bunch of other people using twisted logic and missing the entire point. It probably won’t sell in the same volume as the Airs do initially, because the product requires different trade-offs that will be objectionable to some people. Im not arguing this is for everybody. But you are arguing that it isn’t for anybody, and that is complete and utter bullshit. Lots of people will buy this and be happy with it.
Where? Show me one. There are certainly other products roughly the size and weight of the 11 inch Air with 12 inch hiDPI screen (Dell XPS 13 is damn nice). But 2 lbs and with a 10 hour battery life and comparable build quality? Nope. None. The only thing remotely close is the Surface Pro, and it weighs 2.5 lbs with the type cover and is actually bigger than the Macbook even without it.
That is a trade-off some people might make though. I think the Surface Pro is a damn nice machine. Not for me though, I want a laptop, not a kickstand (I don’t like it). But you know what, Im not shouting like an idiot saying it shouldn’t be a mass market product because of it…
I doubted if I should respond to someone that is disingenuous, changes the goal posts and says I am shouting like an idiot. That is why I will not go into every point you make but will just leave you with this:
“But you say other manufacturers give you thin AND ports. Show me another 2 lb ultrabook with 10 hour battery life and a 12 inch hiDPI screen… There aren’t any. Hence it is a compromise. ”
This is why I say you are disingenuous and change goal posts. The topic is “thin AND ports” and now you want me to show you something that beats each and every spec. Have a look at http://blog.laptopmag.com/best-ultrabooks to see if such a device exists
You already mentioned the Surface Pro 3. That device is quite a big lighter and thinner than the MacBook and even if you include the keyboard there is hardly a difference. Surely nobody is going to complain that that machine is to thick and heavy for them. Battery life and hiDPI screen…sure. Good CPU and ports…sure, although an extra USB3 port would have been appreciated.
The point is, thinness and battery life didn’t require the removal of ports but that is what Apple did anyway
Yes. What else would I mean? You do realize that practically every ultrabook on the market would qualify as “thin AND ports”… My 11 inch Air is “thin AND ports”. A 5 year old Asus ZenBook would be “thin AND ports”.
Im not arguing that there are no other machines that are comparable that have multiple ports. There are lots of them (hell I named a few). Im arguing that no other machine hit this size and weight target with 12″ hiDPI screen and good battery life. That is the entire point of the machine, and that is why it only has 1 port – to hit those targets.
If you are so confident that such a machine can be built easily with multiple ports show me one…
Frankly, even if there were some, I probably wouldn’t want them. I like Apple’s build quality, keyboard layout, trackpad, OS, etc. But the Dell XPS is a damn fine machine. So is the Surface. They don’t fit my personal tastes, but you don’t see me telling you they aren’t fit for mass consumption though do you?
I don’t need to. It doesn’t.
No. It required a completely different form factor. One that I don’t want and don’t personally like. Its neat, I appreciate the cleverness of the design, but it isn’t a laptop. Its a tablet with a really awkward keyboard cover with a way-too-small trackpad that doesn’t work very well.
But your right. It didn’t require the removal of ports. It required the removal of the entire keyboard instead… Different compromise…
galvanash:
The new macbook has a 12 inch diagonal screen, the 13 inch air has a 13 inch diagonal screen. But since you seem hung up on wanting small, lets go with the 11 inch macbook air.
11 in air: 11.8 x 7.56 2.38 lbs
macbook: 11.04 x 7.74 2.03 lbs
Thats pretty close to the same size. The air is also $500 less. I will grant you the new macbook does have a better display, but that could be just as easily added to the air line.
As for the PCB, pretty sure is about the same size. I will even go so far as to bet that the board has spots for the ports and that they were just never added.
With a trade-off of 20% – 30% less battery life. (6 to 7hrs).
Cost of difference of screen between two models – maybe $100 option? Don’t know, can’t really calculate it.
Cost of upgrading Air from 4GB to 8GB +$100
Cost of upgrading Air from 128GB storage to 256GB storage +$200
So yes, the air is $500 less – before you start adding in options that are included in the new macbook.
And you have gone from a laptop that you can go without charging during the day to a laptop that you cannot and must bring a recharger.
It has different trade-offs that may or may not be important to certain people.
Edited 2015-03-16 18:19 UTC
Yes. Very close. Just a bit thinner and lighter.
That isn’t true. It’s $500 dollars less with half the memory, half the storage, and dramatically inferior screen. An Air with the same memory and storage would cost $1199. The new Macbook costs $1299… In my book, considering the screen, the new Macbook is a much better deal.
And no, you can’t just add that screen to the Air. It has a different aspect ratio (16:10 vs 16:9) so it would not fit. It also requires alot more power to switch all those pixels and push light through them… It would probably knock at least an hour maybe 2 off the battery life of the Air.
The PCB in an 11 inch Air takes up roughly 1/3 of the footprint of the device. The PCB of the macbook is about 1/3 of that – not much bigger than an iphone. It is WAY smaller. And I know it does not have “spots for the ports” because it sits centered in the device and doesn’t touch either side – it has no ports at all. The ports are on daughter cards connected by header cables.
Its smaller so they can use the freed up space for battery. And they need the battery to power the new screen. And they could not fit a USB-C port on both sides and still have room for a headphone jack and microphone, so it only has one.
I know everyone seems to enjoy armchair engineering the damn thing, but it wasn’t designed by monkeys… It has a single USB port for a reason.
Edited 2015-03-16 18:58 UTC
Not the same size, considerable size difference. The new Macbook’s logic board is actually smaller than the Raspberry Pi….
And yet the raspberry pi offers 4 usb, ethernet, hdmi, power, audio.
And why do the 13 inch macbook pro and 13 inch macbook pro retina have similar battery life times if the retina uses up SO much more power than the macbook needs to basically be all battery?
As for price, lets also consider that the price for the 11 mac air was set some time ago. Hardware prices get cheaper. So there really shouldn’t be a difference in price even though the specs went up a bit. Like the reason why the raspberry pi 2 costs the same as the original did. The original now costs less.
There is pretty well NOTHING on the board but ports and 2 chips (one being a small ARM chip)…. and it still would not fit in the macbook because it is too thick. I kept on trying to count all the chips on the macbook but kept losing count.
Personally, I don’t know if it COULD fit another port on the board or not, but that is not the point… they did not… and they did it just to spite their customers (just kidding). I would not miss it for what I would use the macbook for… but by all means if something better suit your needs – buy that.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/new-macbook-smaller-than-ras…
Oh come on… Your being ridiculous.
Maybe because the non-retina Macbook Pro is 2 years older, has an Ivy Bridge instead of a Haswell with different clock speeds, older PCB design, etc. etc. It is basically a completely different machine. And they don’t have similar battery life, the retina has 3 more hours of battery life. It also has a much larger battery. There is basically no way to compare them…
Instead, why don’t you look at the Dell XPS 13 for a realistic comparison. Same exact machine, offered with 2 different screens – one 1080p and one hiDPI. Everything else is exactly the same:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8983/dell-xps-13-review/6
The hiDPI screen uses about 40% more power – and everything else is exactly the same. Its right there in a nice simple graph. It results in a 5 hour difference in battery life… So yeah, I would say the screen makes a little bit of difference.
I paid $1500 for my Air. I bought it when it originally shipped. It now costs $1350… Yes, hardware gets cheaper.
“A bit”… It is a completely different machine. It has a much bigger and better screen, and managed to get smaller and lighter in the process. RAM and storage didn’t go up “a bit”, they doubled! Come on man, you are just arguing for the sake of arguing now right??? It costs $100 more than the closest comparable Air – the screen is worth at least that much.
Yeah. Because that is exactly the same thing…
Edited 2015-03-16 22:16 UTC
Apple and Samsung are peddling to the lemmings. Power users might wish the masses were more intelligent. They are idiots though and will buy anything that has the Apple logo. It’s like marriage, having kids, being a Republican or Democrat, being a devout member or your local geographic superstition, supporting military actions in other countries, and watching tv.
I still await the moment when laptops will have zero ports, not even a power-connector. Let’s hope that with skylake we come closer to this target. What I hate most, is the fan, I prefer less performance, but instead no fan. Sadly the yoga 3 pro has like this new mac a core-m proecessor…but it still has a little fan. Even if it’s little, it’s still annoying.
I will celebrate the day of “exernal-portless” and fan-less laptops/phones, and this new macbook is the closest.
That’s hilarious. No sane user does that.
People care about SD cards and USB ports. Apple brainwashes people to think they don’t care.
Edited 2015-03-16 18:36 UTC
Some people do, some people don’t. I have never used an SD card with a computer…. If it is important to YOU it is important to YOU but it is not important to ME.
Sometimes they’re just not so vocal.
Or in my case, I received a MacBook Pro Retina for use. It’s an okay computer, but a lousy laptop:
– 2 USB ports, one of which goes to a 7 port hub so I can plug ‘n play my peripherals
– 1 HDMI monitor connection
– 2 thunderbolt connectors (1 ethernet, 1 DVI)
– a uselessly high screen resolution unless I want to park my face only a few inches from the built-in display, it does nice as a place holder for windows I don’t need temporarily and a picture display though.
Of course, I also switched out Mac OS X for Linux (w/KDE) on it, but I still had all those same issues under OS X; lower resolutions don’t do it justice either.
So I use my 2 external monitors at the office, and a single one when I work from home- where I also plug in a USB hub for all the peripherals that go with me and what I keep at home (keyboard).
Sure there will be a lot that won’t notice. But once you need to start hooking things up, you quickly realize the limits. May be they resolved that with USB-C since Thunderbolt was only ever a 1:1 addendum to the machine.
The new macbook would not be for you in this case, since it only supports one external 4K monitor (don’t see any references to multiple/MST – but I could be surprised). Personally if I had a nest like that I would look around for a thunderbolt dock (though I don’t know how all that works with Linux). I have installed Linux on many machines, but never my Apple products….
I think there’s always a danger in speaking for the preferences of anybody but oneself. I agree with the central point about “power users”, but the flip side I see just as often is an attitude that everyone else is an idiiot. People like what they like, and marketing is complex. In the end, large companies are working with statistical data the rest of us don’t have. And which we might not even be qualified to work from.
The current Macbook supports USB 3.1 Rev 1 Type C connector. USB 3.1 rev 1 in this case is actually USB 3.0, they renamed (USB consortium) it for “consistency” but ended up totally confusing the situation. USB supports up to 5Gbps.
Once chipsets are deployed that changes to support the actual USB 3.1 standard the equivalent would be USB 3.1 Rev 2 Type C connector which will support 10 Gbps.
I have read that the C connector itself supports up to 20Gbps (future), and I have read the new macbook supports Displayport 1.2 natively — which has a much higher bandwidth than 5Gbps which makes me think that yes, the current USB data stream is limited to 5Gbps but when you connect up the displayport it may support higher speeds than the USB data stream.
It also gets me wondering whether the reference to 20Gbps is a reference that another alternate mode that Apple will add in the future will support thunderbolt 2 data streams….. I am not technical enough to know if that is possible.
Of course thunderbolt 3 comes out in a few months with the Skylake chipset and the maximum speeds for that are 40Gbps. I would think that the Mac Pro will continue supporting the top speeds possible, while maybe the macbook pro line might cap out at 20Gbps.
The situation right now is cloudy for me, but by the fall we should begin to have a clearer picture.