This is what people have been saying for years. It was obvious with advancing internet speeds and ubiquity that digital distribution was going to be the way forward. Optical media has some place for movie ownership but it's not an essential component for a computer just like a printer isn't essential or a modem any more (laptops used to have modems in them). Optical is now relegated to external status.
I didn't clue into the fact that the new MacBook Pros don't have an ethernet port until I read your post. I looked up the specs and diagrams yesterday, but it just didn't click in my head that that was gone. I guess that's a testament to how little I use it.
So? Why is that a problem? It wouldn't adversely affect your ability to use Thunderbolt if you choose. Why would you care if some people choose to continue using Firewire?
I think what he's trying to say is, if people continue to use Firewire so much, despite it being the worse technology, companies will take the easier/cheaper way out and continue to develop Firewire accessories and ignore Thunderbolt. Those of us ready to use the new technology won't get a chance, because no one will develop it. If that happens enough, technological progress will slow. So in that sense, we need a big company to throw away the outdated stuff and force change and progress.
If Apple kept putting firewire ports on things, people would keep using firewire peripherals.
So? Why is that a problem? It wouldn't adversely affect your ability to use Thunderbolt if you choose. Why would you care if some people choose to continue using Firewire?
Same reason I'd care if they used a floppy drive, VGA port or a PS/2 port. It's legacy baggage that needs to go. The more that people use legacy tech, the more people put pressure on vendors to support it and it's wasteful of their time and compromises their hardware design and price. Removing unnecessary components allows them to allocate that budget elsewhere so they can improve the more important essential aspects like the display, internal storage and RAM.
Thunderbolt is a form of PCIe and is a catch-all for all of these protocols. USB 3 + TB is all people will ever need and a future revision of TB supports USB 3 so even the USB 3 ports may not be necessary but IMO, it would be a good idea to stick with at least 1 USB port.
I didn't clue into the fact that the new MacBook Pros don't have an ethernet port until I read your post. I looked up the specs and diagrams yesterday, but it just didn't click in my head that that was gone. I guess that's a testament to how little I use it.
In those cases, it's just a matter of getting a Thunderbolt or USB 3 adaptor. The ethernet port was too tall and was effectively limiting how thin they could get the MBP.
For an optical drive, portable Blu-Ray drives are cheap enough:
And when they break, they can be replaced easily unlike an internal. As you pointed out, people eventually realise how little they used these things anyway. It's a bit of a panic when the need crops up but it's nothing that a drawer-dwelling add-on can't fix just like the dusty printer in the corner.
Same reason I'd care if they used a floppy drive, VGA port or a PS/2 port. It's legacy baggage that needs to go.
That sounds elitist. I disagree with your assessment. I contend that my choice to use floppy disks has no affect on your computing experience whatsoever. I still respect and like you, I just think you're being too hard on average users.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
The more that people use legacy tech, the more people put pressure on vendors to support it and it's wasteful of their time and compromises their hardware design and price. Removing unnecessary components allows them to allocate that budget elsewhere so they can improve the more important essential aspects like the display, internal storage and RAM.
That appears, on the surface, to be demonstrably false. Some manufacturers continued to include legacy ports and floppy drives for years after Apple stopped offering them, and the result was the opposite of the scenario you describe. The existence of ports did not result in demands for products that used them. Rather, demand for such devices waned until there was no point in providing connections for them. People naturally migrated to better solutions over time. One could even argue that such an approach is better, because users weren't forced into abrupt, unnecessary and and untimely replacement of working peripherals just because they upgraded their computer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Thunderbolt is a form of PCIe and is a catch-all for all of these protocols. USB 3 + TB is all people will ever need and a future revision of TB supports USB 3 so even the USB 3 ports may not be necessary but IMO, it would be a good idea to stick with at least 1 USB port.
Thunderbolt is expensive to implement, USB3 is cheap. Thunderbolt is better, but only in a theoretical sense, since its advantages are beyond the needs of the vast majority of users. If USB3 is already 3X as much bandwidth as I can use, what's the advantage of having 10X as much? There is not a single application in my home for which I need Thunderbolt rather than just a less expensive USB3 solution.
On that basis I could argue that the inclusion of Thunderbolt diverts budget and design priorities away from where they will do the most good. I don't really believe that, but the logic is as valid as the argument for dropping all but the tech du jour.
I'm not saying I think Apple should or should not maintain support for legacy peripherals. I don't really care one way or the other. I'm just saying I don't buy the arguments that it would be "wrong" to do so.
And when they break, they can be replaced easily unlike an internal. As you pointed out, people eventually realise how little they used these things anyway. It's a bit of a panic when the need crops up but it's nothing that a drawer-dwelling add-on can't fix just like the dusty printer in the corner.
Absolutely, I agree - the last time I used the optical drive on my laptop, I was moving some old files over to an external drive because I knew the optical drive wouldn't be there on my next laptop! If it weren't for wanting to move those files, I can't remember when the last time I used the drive was.
Marvin, what's your opinion on the refurbished MacBook Pros from last year? On the Canada website, the new entry-level 13" is $1,399, while a 2013 model with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD is $1,279 - seems like the previous model is the much better deal, right? $120 less for double the disk space and it looks like all you're losing is ~5% processing power. With Apple, I probably have nothing to worry about with a refurbished product.
That sounds elitist. I disagree with your assessment. I contend that my choice to use floppy disks has no affect on your computing experience whatsoever. I still respect and like you, I just think you're being too hard on average users.
It's not elitist, it's tough love. Consumers don't know what's good for them because for the most part they don't understand enough about technology and they're not expected to. You can tell a consumer that a solid state drive is physically more durable, 10x faster, much better random read/writes, fewer beachballs and so on but they will focus on the price tag. Unless Apple takes the HDD out and sells SSDs as standard, they're not going to know the difference because they won't experience it. You mentioned yourself that you preferred HDD capacity but had problems with playing back high bitrate footage and were impressed with the Mac Pro import times for audio content. SSD is necessary for those things. Consumers don't know what an IPS display is nor what effect certain amounts of RAM has so when Apple chooses the options for them, it's because they are doing that quality control without them having to and they can simply sit back and enjoy the better quality. You might say it's empowering to let the user decide but it means letting people prioritize on price and bulk sales of low quality items makes that the more cost-effective option for the seller, which lowers their output quality.
That appears, on the surface, to be demonstrably false. Some manufacturers continued to include legacy ports and floppy drives for years after Apple stopped offering them, and the result was the opposite of the scenario you describe. The existence of ports did not result in demands for products that used them. Rather, demand for such devices waned until there was no point in providing connections for them.
As soon as any manufacturer chooses to drop support, they are doing the same thing as Apple, the only difference is in the volume of users affected by it. How do you know how many people use optical drives and how frequently or firewire ports or better still, how many will miss those things if they are taken away? If there was such a strong demand for internal optical drives and firewire, Apple would put them back in. They actually did put firewire back on one model, they removed it from the 2010 unibody white plastic Macbook and then put it back on the late 2010 unibody metal Macbook because at that point, there was no suitable replacement. Thunderbolt is a replacement for firewire so a dedicated port is unnecessary. The market data shows that optical use is dying down.
Thunderbolt is better, but only in a theoretical sense, since its advantages are beyond the needs of the vast majority of users. If USB3 is already 3X as much bandwidth as I can use, what's the advantage of having 10X as much? There is not a single application in my home for which I need Thunderbolt rather than just a less expensive USB3 solution.
USB 3 is a single protocol connection. Thunderbolt is bundling displayport and PCIe, that's not a theoretical advantage. You can't run anywhere near the same hardware over USB 3 e.g HDX card, Nitris DX, Red Rocket, fibre channel, a GPU even. Consumers might not need those things but they might need ethernet or firewire, which are also supported. They might need to output to a 4K TV one day. It doesn't really matter if they need it now or not, it's a catch-all port so whatever anyone does need, it has the ability to support it.
You have to realise that it's an external equivalent of the PCIe slots that you'd find useful in the old Mac Pro. They are channeling that functionality into a port the size of your fingertip instead of a slot the size of your hand and at the same time making it plug and play and output video and making it available to all computers even the Macbook Air.
Marvin, what's your opinion on the refurbished MacBook Pros from last year? On the Canada website, the new entry-level 13" is $1,399, while a 2013 model with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD is $1,279 - seems like the previous model is the much better deal, right? $120 less for double the disk space and it looks like all you're losing is ~5% processing power. With Apple, I probably have nothing to worry about with a refurbished product.
When Apple does minor updates to their machines like this time, it makes the refurbs really good value for money as you are pretty much getting the same machine. They haven't really changed much of the spec at all and their refurb process makes machines like new. New models do sometimes offer upgrades that aren't available on refurbs but it you find the spec that suits, you're just saving money.
You mentioned yourself that you preferred HDD capacity but had problems with playing back high bitrate footage and were impressed with the Mac Pro import times for audio content. SSD is necessary for those things. [...] You might say it's empowering to let the user decide but it means letting people prioritize on price and bulk sales of low quality items makes that the more cost-effective option for the seller, which lowers their output quality.
Let's say you're right, but then look at that particular example from the other side.
I can't AFFORD what a TB of storage costs from Apple. For me, the extra thousand bucks is a MUCH more serious issue than being able to play high-bitrate video. If Apple gave me the choice of slow-and-high-capacity in addition to fast-but-low-capacity and fast-but-expensive I might have been able to add another machine to the arsenal this year, and upgrade to SSD when either I have more disposable income or prices come down. In this example, I'd be forced to use external storage, which is just going to result in another HDD sale anyway!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
You have to realise that it's an external equivalent of the PCIe slots that you'd find useful in the old Mac Pro. They are channeling that functionality into a port the size of your fingertip instead of a slot the size of your hand and at the same time making it plug and play and output video and making it available to all computers even the Macbook Air.
Oh, I know. The beauty lies in its ability to adapt to whatever peripheral need arises.
I understand your point that people will do what's cheap and convenient. I agree, I just don't believe it's as destructive to the industry as a whole as you feel it is.
Besides, there will ALWAYS be some popular tech that's cheaper and more ubiquitous than the latest-and-greatest. Dropping it doesn't force adoption of the new approach, it just creates a market for stop-gaps. Apple dropped support for standard form-factor storage in favour of low-capacity, expensive storage that users can't upgrade with whatever is on sale this week and it hasn't slowed sales of SATA drives. They just live outside the chassis now where they're less convenient. Which is better: carrying a computer that's a couple mm thicker, or carrying a thinner computer AND an external drive? And a baggie full of TB-to-whatever adaptors...
Speaking of that external drive, how are users connecting them? A USB3 device is 15-25% less expensive than a Thunderbolt drive, and every computer on the planet has a port that will support it. Would it be a positive step for Apple to drop USB ports to force adoption of Thunderbolt? If not, how do we reconcile supporting THAT particular "inferior" technology while abandoning others? What are the criteria for determining which lesser technologies are worthy and which are not?
Earlier I wanted to reply to an excellent post from Lorin, but I didn't have the time. Then later on, while knowing I wouldn't be able to respond anyway, I read this excellent different view on the subject from Marvin, causing me to rethink Lorin's stance. Fortunately this went on, and still does.
I just want to say that you both make excellent points and I'm looking forward to more posts and views on the subject. With that, I 'thumb up the both of you'.
If Apple gave me the choice of slow-and-high-capacity in addition to fast-but-low-capacity and fast-but-expensive I might have been able to add another machine to the arsenal this year, and upgrade to SSD when either I have more disposable income or prices come down. In this example, I'd be forced to use external storage, which is just going to result in another HDD sale anyway!
That's the exception though. When you have machines shipping by default with HDDs, it becomes a crutch that people lean on because it's there. You also shouldn't need 1TB external, just the difference between the internal and external. You might for example pick up the $1199 13" Air with 256GB and then add a $235 480GB SSD with a $15 enclosure, $1449 total, that's still $300 more than the 1TB HDD MBP with less storage but the drive performance and reliability is much higher.
Apple dropped support for standard form-factor storage in favour of low-capacity, expensive storage that users can't upgrade with whatever is on sale this week and it hasn't slowed sales of SATA drives. They just live outside the chassis now where they're less convenient. Which is better: carrying a computer that's a couple mm thicker, or carrying a thinner computer AND an external drive? And a baggie full of TB-to-whatever adaptors...
For the person who needs the external, it may be less convenient but the internal drive is also faster and more reliable as would the external be if it's also an SSD. The choices that Apple makes are to benefit the majority. The majority of people are not going to need a 1TB HDD because they consume media and don't create it. To encourage the majority to carry bulkier, slower, less reliable laptops because they are cheaper when they have no need to is not the better option.
HDD sales have slowed down and the average selling price of a HDD is now around $50. That's why there's pretty much just two companies left making them - Seagate and WD. You have to keep in mind that every post-pc device uses solid state storage too and that's eroding sales of PCs with hard drives.
Speaking of that external drive, how are users connecting them? A USB3 device is 15-25% less expensive than a Thunderbolt drive, and every computer on the planet has a port that will support it. Would it be a positive step for Apple to drop USB ports to force adoption of Thunderbolt? If not, how do we reconcile supporting THAT particular "inferior" technology while abandoning others? What are the criteria for determining which lesser technologies are worthy and which are not?
That may happen with a future revision of Thunderbolt as it has USB 3 compatibility marked as a feature in which case all you'd have to do is get a Thunderbolt to USB 3 cable. It could be a positive step as you can fit 2 TB ports in the space of 1 USB 3 port but USB is very widely used.
One good design choice with TB was using mini-dp ports, these were display outputs that would be on the machine anyway. USB isn't a display output and it can't be used as a proper output as it's not connected to the GPU.
Why? It looks nothing like the current line of MacBooks, it's black. Besides, Apple only goes after companies that actually pose a threat. Not some tiny geek company.
I was hoping that Apple would use the revision to revisit their UK prices, but alas they have not. Apple’s pre-tax price of the entry-level 15” model is equivalent to $2265, and our high sales tax of 20% takes the final price to $2718.
Of course Apple can’t do anything about the tax, but a premium of $265 over the US price is not justifiable. I have defended Apple in the past, as it does cost more to do business here and some price premium is to be expected, but this is too much. It is cheaper for me to fly to the US, buy a MBP, and fly back again. Surely this can’t be right?
It seems to me that Apple have decided that the customers for their professional line are not price-sensitive, and have priced accordingly. To balance that, they are starting to get more aggressive on their consumer lines—note the price drops of the MacBook Air recently.
I'm not saying Apple SHOULD do anything, unlike you.
What difference does it make to you if Apple builds a model you're not interested in?
I've never understood that mindset either. If something doesn't interest me, I just don't buy it. I don't opine that no one else should be able to buy it. If Apple decides to make a laptop with a click-wheel instead of a keyboard, how does that affect me? Why on Earth would I care one way or the other?
Because some of us here care about Apple's long-term welfare, due to being shareholders. If we think they put out stuff that is liable to lose them money, then that's a concern.
Because some of us here care about Apple's long-term welfare, due to being shareholders. If we think they put out stuff that is liable to lose them money, then that's a concern.
That's fair, but I don't know if it's really a concern. I understand that shareholders are constantly clamouring for growth... growth... GROWTH! What I don't understand is how having a model or two that sell more slowly adversely affects that? The only way it makes sense if Apple is already selling every single device they make as fast as they can make them, and slower-selling devices are using up parts and factory space that could be used for something that would sell through more quickly.
Unless that's the case now, I can't see a reason to dump the old 13" MacBook Pro if they're still tooled up for it and some people are still buying them.
The only way it makes sense if Apple is already selling every single device they make as fast as they can make them, and slower-selling devices are using up parts and factory space that could be used for something that would sell through more quickly.
Unless that's the case now, I can't see a reason to dump the old 13" MacBook Pro if they're still tooled up for it and some people are still buying them.
Exactly. If you recall, when the rMBP was first launched, Apple kept the optical-drive equipped 15” model around, and that was then dropped with the third revision to the rMBP (October 2013). Clearly the sales of the non-retina version of the 15” model had reached that tipping point where Apple felt it was no longer viable. If Apple are keeping the optical drive 13” MBP there’s a reason - enough people are still buying them!
Comments
This is what people have been saying for years. It was obvious with advancing internet speeds and ubiquity that digital distribution was going to be the way forward. Optical media has some place for movie ownership but it's not an essential component for a computer just like a printer isn't essential or a modem any more (laptops used to have modems in them). Optical is now relegated to external status.
I didn't clue into the fact that the new MacBook Pros don't have an ethernet port until I read your post. I looked up the specs and diagrams yesterday, but it just didn't click in my head that that was gone. I guess that's a testament to how little I use it.
So? Why is that a problem? It wouldn't adversely affect your ability to use Thunderbolt if you choose. Why would you care if some people choose to continue using Firewire?
I think what he's trying to say is, if people continue to use Firewire so much, despite it being the worse technology, companies will take the easier/cheaper way out and continue to develop Firewire accessories and ignore Thunderbolt. Those of us ready to use the new technology won't get a chance, because no one will develop it. If that happens enough, technological progress will slow. So in that sense, we need a big company to throw away the outdated stuff and force change and progress.
Same reason I'd care if they used a floppy drive, VGA port or a PS/2 port. It's legacy baggage that needs to go. The more that people use legacy tech, the more people put pressure on vendors to support it and it's wasteful of their time and compromises their hardware design and price. Removing unnecessary components allows them to allocate that budget elsewhere so they can improve the more important essential aspects like the display, internal storage and RAM.
Thunderbolt is a form of PCIe and is a catch-all for all of these protocols. USB 3 + TB is all people will ever need and a future revision of TB supports USB 3 so even the USB 3 ports may not be necessary but IMO, it would be a good idea to stick with at least 1 USB port.
In those cases, it's just a matter of getting a Thunderbolt or USB 3 adaptor. The ethernet port was too tall and was effectively limiting how thin they could get the MBP.
For an optical drive, portable Blu-Ray drives are cheap enough:
http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-Player-External-Laptop-Burner/dp/B001TVAU0E
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SE-506BB-TSBD-External-Blu-ray/dp/B00AO1XFM0
And when they break, they can be replaced easily unlike an internal. As you pointed out, people eventually realise how little they used these things anyway. It's a bit of a panic when the need crops up but it's nothing that a drawer-dwelling add-on can't fix just like the dusty printer in the corner.
Same reason I'd care if they used a floppy drive, VGA port or a PS/2 port. It's legacy baggage that needs to go.
That sounds elitist. I disagree with your assessment. I contend that my choice to use floppy disks has no affect on your computing experience whatsoever. I still respect and like you, I just think you're being too hard on average users.
The more that people use legacy tech, the more people put pressure on vendors to support it and it's wasteful of their time and compromises their hardware design and price. Removing unnecessary components allows them to allocate that budget elsewhere so they can improve the more important essential aspects like the display, internal storage and RAM.
That appears, on the surface, to be demonstrably false. Some manufacturers continued to include legacy ports and floppy drives for years after Apple stopped offering them, and the result was the opposite of the scenario you describe. The existence of ports did not result in demands for products that used them. Rather, demand for such devices waned until there was no point in providing connections for them. People naturally migrated to better solutions over time. One could even argue that such an approach is better, because users weren't forced into abrupt, unnecessary and and untimely replacement of working peripherals just because they upgraded their computer.
Thunderbolt is a form of PCIe and is a catch-all for all of these protocols. USB 3 + TB is all people will ever need and a future revision of TB supports USB 3 so even the USB 3 ports may not be necessary but IMO, it would be a good idea to stick with at least 1 USB port.
Thunderbolt is expensive to implement, USB3 is cheap. Thunderbolt is better, but only in a theoretical sense, since its advantages are beyond the needs of the vast majority of users. If USB3 is already 3X as much bandwidth as I can use, what's the advantage of having 10X as much? There is not a single application in my home for which I need Thunderbolt rather than just a less expensive USB3 solution.
On that basis I could argue that the inclusion of Thunderbolt diverts budget and design priorities away from where they will do the most good. I don't really believe that, but the logic is as valid as the argument for dropping all but the tech du jour.
I'm not saying I think Apple should or should not maintain support for legacy peripherals. I don't really care one way or the other. I'm just saying I don't buy the arguments that it would be "wrong" to do so.
Absolutely, I agree - the last time I used the optical drive on my laptop, I was moving some old files over to an external drive because I knew the optical drive wouldn't be there on my next laptop! If it weren't for wanting to move those files, I can't remember when the last time I used the drive was.
Marvin, what's your opinion on the refurbished MacBook Pros from last year? On the Canada website, the new entry-level 13" is $1,399, while a 2013 model with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD is $1,279 - seems like the previous model is the much better deal, right? $120 less for double the disk space and it looks like all you're losing is ~5% processing power. With Apple, I probably have nothing to worry about with a refurbished product.
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/FE865LL/A/refurbished-133-inch-macbook-pro-24ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5
It's not elitist, it's tough love. Consumers don't know what's good for them because for the most part they don't understand enough about technology and they're not expected to. You can tell a consumer that a solid state drive is physically more durable, 10x faster, much better random read/writes, fewer beachballs and so on but they will focus on the price tag. Unless Apple takes the HDD out and sells SSDs as standard, they're not going to know the difference because they won't experience it. You mentioned yourself that you preferred HDD capacity but had problems with playing back high bitrate footage and were impressed with the Mac Pro import times for audio content. SSD is necessary for those things. Consumers don't know what an IPS display is nor what effect certain amounts of RAM has so when Apple chooses the options for them, it's because they are doing that quality control without them having to and they can simply sit back and enjoy the better quality. You might say it's empowering to let the user decide but it means letting people prioritize on price and bulk sales of low quality items makes that the more cost-effective option for the seller, which lowers their output quality.
As soon as any manufacturer chooses to drop support, they are doing the same thing as Apple, the only difference is in the volume of users affected by it. How do you know how many people use optical drives and how frequently or firewire ports or better still, how many will miss those things if they are taken away? If there was such a strong demand for internal optical drives and firewire, Apple would put them back in. They actually did put firewire back on one model, they removed it from the 2010 unibody white plastic Macbook and then put it back on the late 2010 unibody metal Macbook because at that point, there was no suitable replacement. Thunderbolt is a replacement for firewire so a dedicated port is unnecessary. The market data shows that optical use is dying down.
USB 3 is a single protocol connection. Thunderbolt is bundling displayport and PCIe, that's not a theoretical advantage. You can't run anywhere near the same hardware over USB 3 e.g HDX card, Nitris DX, Red Rocket, fibre channel, a GPU even. Consumers might not need those things but they might need ethernet or firewire, which are also supported. They might need to output to a 4K TV one day. It doesn't really matter if they need it now or not, it's a catch-all port so whatever anyone does need, it has the ability to support it.
You have to realise that it's an external equivalent of the PCIe slots that you'd find useful in the old Mac Pro. They are channeling that functionality into a port the size of your fingertip instead of a slot the size of your hand and at the same time making it plug and play and output video and making it available to all computers even the Macbook Air.
When Apple does minor updates to their machines like this time, it makes the refurbs really good value for money as you are pretty much getting the same machine. They haven't really changed much of the spec at all and their refurb process makes machines like new. New models do sometimes offer upgrades that aren't available on refurbs but it you find the spec that suits, you're just saving money.
You mentioned yourself that you preferred HDD capacity but had problems with playing back high bitrate footage and were impressed with the Mac Pro import times for audio content. SSD is necessary for those things. [...] You might say it's empowering to let the user decide but it means letting people prioritize on price and bulk sales of low quality items makes that the more cost-effective option for the seller, which lowers their output quality.
Let's say you're right, but then look at that particular example from the other side.
I can't AFFORD what a TB of storage costs from Apple. For me, the extra thousand bucks is a MUCH more serious issue than being able to play high-bitrate video. If Apple gave me the choice of slow-and-high-capacity in addition to fast-but-low-capacity and fast-but-expensive I might have been able to add another machine to the arsenal this year, and upgrade to SSD when either I have more disposable income or prices come down. In this example, I'd be forced to use external storage, which is just going to result in another HDD sale anyway!
You have to realise that it's an external equivalent of the PCIe slots that you'd find useful in the old Mac Pro. They are channeling that functionality into a port the size of your fingertip instead of a slot the size of your hand and at the same time making it plug and play and output video and making it available to all computers even the Macbook Air.
Oh, I know. The beauty lies in its ability to adapt to whatever peripheral need arises.
I understand your point that people will do what's cheap and convenient. I agree, I just don't believe it's as destructive to the industry as a whole as you feel it is.
Besides, there will ALWAYS be some popular tech that's cheaper and more ubiquitous than the latest-and-greatest. Dropping it doesn't force adoption of the new approach, it just creates a market for stop-gaps. Apple dropped support for standard form-factor storage in favour of low-capacity, expensive storage that users can't upgrade with whatever is on sale this week and it hasn't slowed sales of SATA drives. They just live outside the chassis now where they're less convenient. Which is better: carrying a computer that's a couple mm thicker, or carrying a thinner computer AND an external drive? And a baggie full of TB-to-whatever adaptors...
Speaking of that external drive, how are users connecting them? A USB3 device is 15-25% less expensive than a Thunderbolt drive, and every computer on the planet has a port that will support it. Would it be a positive step for Apple to drop USB ports to force adoption of Thunderbolt? If not, how do we reconcile supporting THAT particular "inferior" technology while abandoning others? What are the criteria for determining which lesser technologies are worthy and which are not?
It ain't black 'n white.
I just want to say that you both make excellent points and I'm looking forward to more posts and views on the subject. With that, I 'thumb up the both of you'.
Thank you.
That's the exception though. When you have machines shipping by default with HDDs, it becomes a crutch that people lean on because it's there. You also shouldn't need 1TB external, just the difference between the internal and external. You might for example pick up the $1199 13" Air with 256GB and then add a $235 480GB SSD with a $15 enclosure, $1449 total, that's still $300 more than the 1TB HDD MBP with less storage but the drive performance and reliability is much higher.
For the person who needs the external, it may be less convenient but the internal drive is also faster and more reliable as would the external be if it's also an SSD. The choices that Apple makes are to benefit the majority. The majority of people are not going to need a 1TB HDD because they consume media and don't create it. To encourage the majority to carry bulkier, slower, less reliable laptops because they are cheaper when they have no need to is not the better option.
HDD sales have slowed down and the average selling price of a HDD is now around $50. That's why there's pretty much just two companies left making them - Seagate and WD. You have to keep in mind that every post-pc device uses solid state storage too and that's eroding sales of PCs with hard drives.
That may happen with a future revision of Thunderbolt as it has USB 3 compatibility marked as a feature in which case all you'd have to do is get a Thunderbolt to USB 3 cable. It could be a positive step as you can fit 2 TB ports in the space of 1 USB 3 port but USB is very widely used.
One good design choice with TB was using mini-dp ports, these were display outputs that would be on the machine anyway. USB isn't a display output and it can't be used as a proper output as it's not connected to the GPU.
All RIGHT! It’s LAWSUIT TIME!
All RIGHT! It’s LAWSUIT TIME!
Why? It looks nothing like the current line of MacBooks, it's black.
Besides, Apple only goes after companies that actually pose a threat. Not some tiny geek company.
Another Apple Cult member who thinks Apple is the greatest product ever made.
It seems to me that Apple have decided that the customers for their professional line are not price-sensitive, and have priced accordingly. To balance that, they are starting to get more aggressive on their consumer lines—note the price drops of the MacBook Air recently.
Rest assured that you've made Apple happy with your purchase, and be content with that.
Because some of us here care about Apple's long-term welfare, due to being shareholders. If we think they put out stuff that is liable to lose them money, then that's a concern.
Because some of us here care about Apple's long-term welfare, due to being shareholders. If we think they put out stuff that is liable to lose them money, then that's a concern.
That's fair, but I don't know if it's really a concern. I understand that shareholders are constantly clamouring for growth... growth... GROWTH! What I don't understand is how having a model or two that sell more slowly adversely affects that? The only way it makes sense if Apple is already selling every single device they make as fast as they can make them, and slower-selling devices are using up parts and factory space that could be used for something that would sell through more quickly.
Unless that's the case now, I can't see a reason to dump the old 13" MacBook Pro if they're still tooled up for it and some people are still buying them.
Exactly. If you recall, when the rMBP was first launched, Apple kept the optical-drive equipped 15” model around, and that was then dropped with the third revision to the rMBP (October 2013). Clearly the sales of the non-retina version of the 15” model had reached that tipping point where Apple felt it was no longer viable. If Apple are keeping the optical drive 13” MBP there’s a reason - enough people are still buying them!