Apple updates processors and drops prices of MacBook Pro with Retina Display [u] - Page 4

No, what this is is sad and pathetic that you two would outright lie when the evidence is all right here in text.

I clearly I addressed the use of synonyms (see underlined text) and couldn't find any that backed up jragosta's lie that I didn't state my opinion.

What I objected to and what you and jragosta continue to do is fail to read properly. This is becoming a habit with you. You can be angry all you want that I call you out on your bullshit but it doesn't change the fact that you have once again outright lied in this thread. Whether this is some intentional vendetta for my besting you or hubris that prevents you from simply admitting you failed to comprehend plain English remains to me seen.

Lets see what you fail to read properly, too...

 

Both the CPU (3.7 vs 3.2 Ghz) and GPU (1.3 Ghz vs 1.1 Ghz) run a bit faster.

 

In the previous models (2.9 Ghz i7 vs 2.5 Ghz i5) the CPU was around 13-14% faster and the GPU around 9-13% faster.

 

Of the two the GPU being around 10% faster is probably more important.

 

I dunno...I don't feel that 8GB RAM is sufficiently future proof so I'd either go for the 15" MBPr with 16GB RAM or buy the cheapest 13" MBPr model possible and get the $1,499 base model unless I had to have 256GB of SSD.

 

If you buy and sell your laptop often then any is fine.  If you buy and hold...man, that extra $500 for the base 15" MBPr with 16GB RAM over the $1899 13" MBP i7 is a lot more future proof.

 

Dude...you clearly wrote "I don't see any other conclusion than they are now using a smaller process node to double the NAND density".  

 

Who's angry?  The one calling people names or the one laughing at the person calling people names?  I don't mind but you sure talk tough on the internet buddy.

 

I quoted you exactly every single time.  I disagree there's a significant difference between "conclusion" and "explanation" in the context of what you wrote but that's neither a misread nor a lie. So you'll have to show where I lied.

 

 

Is "conclusion" and "explanation" direct synonyms?  Nope...at least not in my thesaurus.  But man are they related enough that replacing one with the other isn't unusual given the phrasing you used.   He misspoke by using the wrong, but closely related word.  You'll have to provide what you think the horrible difference in meaning really is in the context of your quote.

 

Read properly?  LOL.  From the guy that only skims AI articles before he comments on them:

 

 

Project much?

 

Of course you stated an opinion.  Your opinion was you didn't see any other conclusion other than using a smaller process node.  

 

Jragosta thinks your opinion that there are no other conclusions is (I presume...if he doesn't think so then at least I sure do) stupid, not that you didn't state an opinion or that you aren't allowed to have one.

 

Keep digging buddy.  Soon you'll pop out in a Foxconn factory and you can give us a report on the iPhone 5S...heh

The statements, "I don't see how all that stuff is going to fit in your mini van" and "It is impossible to fit all that stuff in your mini van" are not saying the same thing. They just aren't. "I don't see" implies that something might not be seen that allows for an alternate possibility. "I don't see how he could have made it from Berlin to Paris in that amount of time." -- "I believe he took a high speed train." -- "Oh, that seems reasonable. I hadn't thought of that."

To reject this use of language is childish. He wasn't expressing a philosophical axiom in a dissertation, but the opinion that one possibility was the most probable, amongst others that are less probable. If this were a class on formal logic, you would be told not to use the phrase "I don't see," because it is ambiguous. So your argument is still broken, because you're conflating "It is impossible" with "I don't see," which is absurd in any imaginable context. They are VERY clearly not expressing the same degree of certainty.

 

If it were the case his position was one of disbelief or one accepting alternate possibilities then the response "Oh, that seems reasonable. I hadn't thought of that" would be expected.  That was not the response provided.

 

You make a good point.  However, I disagree that "I don't see how you can arrive at any different conclusion" is the same as "I don't see any other conclusion".  The latter is expressing a far greater degree of certainty.  There is no how in the original quote.  I agree that injecting the word how would make the statement more questioning but this is not the case.

 

Besides, your premise is incorrect.  I am not conflating "I don't see" with "It is impossible".  My position is that "I don't see any other conclusion except X" is saying the same thing as "I don't believe [there are] any other conclusions except X".  

 

I also don't see how (heh) the statement "I don't see any other conclusion..." to be materially different from "I don't see any other explanation..."

 

Childish is calling other folks liars because you disagree and can hide in the anonymity of the internet.

@Dean

 

That was perhaps too wordy and I'm sure you'll have a cogent rebuttal for the poorly written parts of my last post.

 

To put it more simply and clearly I do not believe that the two statements:

 

"I don't see how other birds [are] in the car"

 

and

 

"I don't see any other birds in the car"

 

are the same kind of statements despite both starting with the phrase "I do not see".  The latter is expressing a great degree of certainty.

Edited by nht - 2/13/13 at 11:15pm

Retina? What is "Retina"?

It's less common for them to trim pricing mid cycle. Usually you see these things happen around refreshes. I guess they could always move away from that to even out demand somewhat as demand will naturally be high at the start of a product cycle, around fall college courses, and around the holidays.

According to my own memory and everymac, it was always $1799. That appears to be the base 15" spec.

Anandtech also liked the Asus one, although they mention caveats and Amazon comments mention other things. I'm a little surprised by the number of negative comments on there. Asus is capable of turning out solid machines. Scrolling through the negative comments, keyboard problems come up a lot.

They used to do this primarily at refresh times. I did think the pricing was pretty aggressive for a 13" notebook, but it obviously depends on their anticipated volume. It would be difficult for me to pick up a machine so full of proprietary parts and connections. I wouldn't personally pick up a first generation on something like this.

If we assume the iMac makes up 25% of the Mac sales, then it would have sold 1.3 million units last year in Q1. This year's Q1 Mac sales were 4.1m vs 5.2m and the iMac was not on sale for 6-8 weeks. If they'd maintained their 25% growth, they'd have sold 6.5 million Macs, which without half of the iMac sales should have been about 5.6m units. Even if there was no growth, the Mac sales are still lower.

In the worst case but that wouldn't happen and it's small relative to what they make. All their prices are a balance between profit and volume. They could be losing $1b profit at any point by not pricing $200 higher if you just look at the pricing and nothing else but if they price too high, they lessen their appeal to buyers. They have to find the best margin that gives them the highest overall return taking into consideration what people are willing to pay for.

The iPad Mini is in high demand and already competitively priced. Having a 13" dual-core laptop starting at $1699 wasn't all that competitive. Clearly MBP buyers are willing to pay more but $400-500 more is pushing it.

It depends on how fast the Haswell GPU is. It's likely to be on par with a 640M. This makes it 70% the speed of the 650M. If they get it to match the 650M as one demo showed, even better. It would be like getting the 2012 model with a Retina display for the same price.

There was a model next to the base one for $1999 but they've moved it to be a BTO option.

 

Exactly. The MacBook Pro line is always supposed to be about performance. For everything else, there's Air.

Our problem is that even the current top-end rMBP is barely keeping up with its own framebuffer, let alone maintaining a capability for serious rendering. For all the fuss Apple makes (made?) over squeezing every last ounce of performance from their chips via GCD and OpenCL, having a fatter pixel pipe in the first place would be a big help...

Though I do agree with OS X invoking the dGPU less often in normal operation. Before, the threshold was comically low: running any app that might use Core Animation at some point. Want to open the official Twitter app? dGPU, motherfucker.

 

Current estimate for Haswell rMBP is June at the earliest.

 

 

Ever see a white guy claim that racism/sexism isn't a problem, because he's never been the target?

You don't see a problem because Apple's current product line actually serves your needs. Those of us who are willing to pay for the utmost performance in a portable form factor? Not so much. This revision still has us stuck under a low graphics ceiling, uncharacteristic of the MBP line throughout history.

I think it is fair to say, colloquially, that he was "expressing a great degree of certainty." Note, though, that this is ambiguous in terms of formal logic, in the same way that "a great degree of dead" would be, (that is, you can be dead or not dead, certain or not certain; this is a "light switch;" on or off, yes or no, true or false) but in casual use "a great degree of certainty" does have a use which we are familiar with.

More to the point, SolX usually has something to say concerning the subject of the article, and I think the parsing of his assertion along the lines of truth values is excessive. I don't always agree with what he says, I might even mostly disagree, but he has something to contribute, and that is why I paused to say something in defense of that.

Cheers.

 

When I said "a great deal of certainty" I was using your phrasing as I don't believe there's ambiguity in the statements "I see no other birds in the car" or "I see no other conclusions".

 

As I quoted, while SolX usually has something to say concerning the subject of an article, by his own admission he often simply skims the article as opposed to reading it...I would say that greatly degrades the value of his contributions leading to some silly questions and dubious assertions.

 

 

My impression was they were supply constrained with the MBPr as well for period.

 

 

My assumption is that they have done just this relative to their supply constraints and costs.   My recollection was that MBPrs were priced higher than the regular MBPs price points and are drifting back toward the price points that Apple has set.

 

 

 

I'm just saying that if Apple is willing to take a potential $1B hit then I would think that strategically doing so with the iPad Mini to be better.  It is in high demand but also under greater competitive pressure and of greater strategic importance.

 

The 13" MBP is just has not been a good bang for the buck platform.  If it were me and I were to take a $1B margin hit I'd rather add a GPU to the 13" MBP line and live with the cannibalization of the bottom end of the 15" MBP line.  My ASPs drop either way but I preserve the 15" MBPr price points.

 

 

Except by then being on par with the 640M will be being on par with last years budget GPU.  It would be like getting a 2012 model retina display for the same price in 2013...

With regard to my phrasing, I am only saying it's qualified as a coloquial usage (and there isn't anything wrong with that.) To evaluate some truth value, though, you would have to develop, or invoke, some specialized usage of the phrase "I see no other" that would be applied retroactively, which would be difficult to justify as it was not your expression, or mine, but his (and his intention is anyone's guess.) I think we should agree that "I see no other" does not mean absolutely that there CANNOT be, some other, but it may be used that way.

As to the latter point, SolX has contributed to discussions in the past that I recall as having merit. For a forum, that is about as much as you can ask.

They resolved the rMBP backlog by the end of August. I don't think they had any stock shortages throughout Q1 2013.

It would be nice to see a dedicated GPU in the 13" but I think Haswell is going to be enough. Apple really hasn't done enough to win over the Windows PC crowd and I can't see that happening without the price cuts. I pointed out an example some time ago with a Lenovo priced at $900 less than the old optical MBP with HDD:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/155322/apple-now-selling-refurbished-15-retina-macbook-pros-at-over-550-off-list-price

Some people will pay a premium for Apple but few will pay double. They obviously shouldn't try and match Lenovo's crazy margins, nor lower build quality noticeably but there has to be a better starting price point than even $1799 for their 15" laptop so they can appeal to more customers.

Really? Then how do you explain this:

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/11/apples-share-of-u-s-pc-shipments-rises-to-12-in-2q-2012/

Specifically,

This news raises the question of whether they can shave $200 off the price before Haswell to make the retina 13" start at $1299.

 

That would probably be the point at which the non-retinas go away and the line turns to three flavours of 13" Retina MBP portables, right?

It's nice to see someone on here acknowledge that there's more to pricing than manufacturing cost.

It was $2200. They had a 2.6 version with the 1GB 650m for $2200, which was in line with prior pricing strategies. If you saw something else, they could have changed it more than once, but they've stuck to $1800 and $2200 as their price targets for some time. It seems like in cto form, you can upgrade the cpu for $200, so it's almost the same thing. I'm not sure why they go so skimpy on video memory. It's too easy to saturate 512 in anything that directly accesses the gpu.

 

 

Normally they do this at product refreshes. The new one is sometimes cheaper than the old one. It may be that they want to even out demand spikes somewhat. Demand normally spikes around product introductions and seasonal variables. Shifting price point shifts away from annual refreshes would be a different strategy. They did cut the first generation iphone pricing after the first couple months. That's the last time I can remember such a thing. With the mac pro, they only adjusted pricing after two years.

There are no new components *Yet*.  Perhaps people were buying stock configurations and so they weren't pushing their order of the 2.7Ghz processors for example, which were a BTO option.

 

Intel will release it's new Haswell processors this summer.  That's when something will actually change inside.  You didn't miss anything, just a cheaper price (which is also good)

My 2008 MBP is still going strong enough.  I'm waiting for Haswell processors for better battery life.

I really don't like the 15" model. I tried it already and find it to be too big and unwieldy. So I'm definitely getting a 13" model. I want to do photo editing and I have a lot of photos. I also want to be able to run windows. So I'm trying to decide between 2.6 ghz i5 and the 3.0 ghz i7. I can't really afford more than the 3.0 ghz i7 model but wonder if for my needs the 2.6 ghz i5 would be sufficient. Thanks. Sorry if my questions sound dumb. I can see there are a lot of smart people on here and I'm not one of them.

Photo hobbyist here. I use Aperture on a Mac Pro. It came with 6GB of memory and I never needed more. I did install additional RAM but don't really see anything happen 'any faster than before' - in Aperture. The processor doesn't need to be the fastest one, in your case I would get the 13" rMBP with 2.6GHz processor. It's the same price as the $1499 with upgraded Flash storage (to 256GB) and your getting 2.6 instead of 2.5GHz processor. Other specs are the same anyway.

I don't know your storage requirement for your photo's, not your application. I do recommend Aperture over iPhoto, especially now that it's become dirt cheap (I paid $499 for v1). If you have 'lots of photos' chances are they won't fit on the internal storage anyway. Then Aperture makes a lot of sense because you can keep your original (and large) files on an external HDD and have Aperture store previews on the internal SSD. Requiring way less space and you can set the previews to the max size of your display.

If at some point in the future the 8GB RAM won't suffice take a look here for upgrades, or go to Newegg:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_1600MHz_SDRAM

edit: Disclaimer: if you live anywhere near a B&M Apple Store pop in over there for advise as well. I'm just someone on the internet with an opinion and experience with my setup / config / workflow and without knowing all the ins and outs of your workflow a bit difficult to give solid advise.
Edited by PhilBoogie - 2/16/13 at 1:38am

 

A faster processor will reduce the amount of time spent waiting for complex filters to render, but the difference won't be night and day, more like late afternoon to early evening. If you plan on batch processing files with multiple filters the multithreading of the i7 will be beneficial (faster), but otherwise you'll probably never notice the difference over the i5.

 

The only concern I'd have is editing large images on a small screen. I find that one of the most significant obstacles to productivity (and enjoyment of the process) is dealing with constantly scrolling around the image. If you're trying to create a selection, that sliding around can often cause you to accidentally wreck the selection making it necessary to start all over again. Today's cameras capture really large images, so a small screen is going to mean a lot more zooming in and out and scrolling up/down/left/right. You may accept that as an acceptable compromise to reduce bulk, but be aware of it when making your choice.

 

Remember that you have some time to return whatever you buy, so if you think you've made the wrong choice you can return it and get the other one.

They could always use an external monitor when getting into a serious editing spree, once it's been properly color calibrated.

 

Macs have sometimes had a considerable breadth of processor speed options; this is currently not the case. The difference between a 2.6 and 2.7 right now is, for overnight video render, probably only cutting half an hour from an 8-hour queue.