For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer. Sigh.
Next problem is what you get for the price. Again, it doesn't matter how great something is if you don't really need it. Some people love retina screens but I could get by easily with non retina. Same for soldered RAM/SSD. Once again, I could get by without the fastest options if flexibility were factored into the offer. The option to upgrade down the line is something I have always taken advantage of.
Thinness? This is probably a Jony Ive obsession which I can easily live without if accessibility and longer battery life are the end result. The previous line was already thin. Having the battery glued to the upper casing is something I could also do without and after repeated use in different stores I still dislike the keyboard.
Touch Bar and Touch ID? For the added cost that comes with it, I could easily do without both. At the end of the day they are convenience items. Nothing more.
So what we have is an expensive (no other word for it) base system that could easily cost far less and which you have to BTO at current Apple pricing pushing the price even higher.
I haven't bought a laptop for a few years now and my current upgraded Macs have new blood in them. I will not be buying into this line until prices come down and/or ugradeability is looked at with a new corporate perspective.
People will say something stupid like 'Apple doesn't cater to me'. That is irrelevant. Apple caters to sales. It seems clear that new MBP sales didn't fly off the charts. There was pent up demand and that was quenched. We will see what Apple does in the future if sales flatten out. After many people claiming the MBA was eol, that wasn't the case. Just as it wasn't the case that anything not USB-C was 'legacy'.
Apple put itself into a pigeon hole. If people are willing to buy into the sealed up, glued in, BTO at purchase, short warranty, expensive laptop, that's their decision. Mine is to pass.
The question is how many others pass or not.
Compromise always sucks because it involves, well, compromise.... Power vs portability Price vs functionality ... are at the top of the list...
Believe me. I know where your coming from. No problem with that but I believe compromise wasn't needed in the first place.
They could have done exactly what they did with the latest iMac refresh (expand options on existing MBP design) and added the new thinner 'future' design at the top of the lineup.
That's exactly what they did with the MBA back in the day but at the opposite end of the range.
Of course, that would have led us to a dilemma and although I've mentioned it many times before, no one has really answered this question: what would sell more? Upgraded architecture on the previous design or the new thinner one?
My thinking is that the first option would kill the new offering and that's why it doesn't exist.
If you want the new architecture you basically have to jump through the hoop and that is where Apple's problems begin IMO.
I've never said the new architecture shouldn't exist, just that having wholesale change was unnecessary.
But if the market were to decide we might less future thinking than Apple is willing to accept.
1 - Not just Mr. Ive. The majority of the purchasing population. 2 - A good USB-C to USB-B cable is about $8. A USB-A to USB-B cable is about $5. 3 - See #2. 4 - Disagree with your assessment, but I expect mileage may vary. 5 - So what? The OS does a pretty good job of letting me know when its charging. 6 - Yup, palm rejection. It works, too. 7 - The illuminated Apple logo was from light bleed on the old screens. I'm not certain why this is a failure. 8 - See also #1, and Kaby Lake's limitations in this regard, that we've been telling you all about for eight months.
You know full well that Apple doesn't have meetings to see who they can piss off next. They have meetings on how to advance what the company wants, while at the same time, retaining or growing its user base.
I get what you want, and why you want it. I'm not saying that I don't want some things that the machine doesn't have.
But -- one more time -- We are not Apple's target market anymore, and they owe us nothing.
Be mad. Tell Apple corporate what you like and what you don't -- you are doing that, right, and not just howling into the void or venting at Apple retail people?
Just don't expect them to bend to your will, or decide that the 1% of the 12% deserve more than 0.001 percent of Apple's attention.
Apple made a promise in the line's refresh, and it refined it in this iteration. It just didn't make that promise to you.
Smaller battery to make the case as thin as Mr. Ive alone wanted
No internal SD card slot, necessitating the need for a stupid dongle
Not even 1 legacy USB-A connector, necessitating the need for another dongle or adapter
No MagSafe = NotSafe
No LED on power connector
Trackpad so large you need extremely advanced palm rejection to make it usable
No illuminated Apple logo on back
Still no 32GB of RAM
Your first point on the buying population got me thinking.
I commute. Three hours a day and I see a fair amount of laptops on the train both from workers and tourists. In the seven months since release, I have yet to see a new MBP in the wild. Although it doesn't demonstrate anything it shocked me all the same. It just hadn't clicked until now and I always pay attention to this kind of stuff.
I wonder if other people are seeing similar small or non existent sightings.
For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer. Sigh.
Next problem is what you get for the price. Again, it doesn't matter how great something is if you don't really need it. Some people love retina screens but I could get by easily with non retina. Same for soldered RAM/SSD. Once again, I could get by without the fastest options if flexibility were factored into the offer. The option to upgrade down the line is something I have always taken advantage of.
Thinness? This is probably a Jony Ive obsession which I can easily live without if accessibility and longer battery life are the end result. The previous line was already thin. Having the battery glued to the upper casing is something I could also do without and after repeated use in different stores I still dislike the keyboard.
Touch Bar and Touch ID? For the added cost that comes with it, I could easily do without both. At the end of the day they are convenience items. Nothing more.
So what we have is an expensive (no other word for it) base system that could easily cost far less and which you have to BTO at current Apple pricing pushing the price even higher.
I haven't bought a laptop for a few years now and my current upgraded Macs have new blood in them. I will not be buying into this line until prices come down and/or ugradeability is looked at with a new corporate perspective.
People will say something stupid like 'Apple doesn't cater to me'. That is irrelevant. Apple caters to sales. It seems clear that new MBP sales didn't fly off the charts. There was pent up demand and that was quenched. We will see what Apple does in the future if sales flatten out. After many people claiming the MBA was eol, that wasn't the case. Just as it wasn't the case that anything not USB-C was 'legacy'.
Apple put itself into a pigeon hole. If people are willing to buy into the sealed up, glued in, BTO at purchase, short warranty, expensive laptop, that's their decision. Mine is to pass.
The question is how many others pass or not.
Good that you pass you would not be happy with a Mac so go on to a different computer that won't last as long as a Apple computer. With Apple you get your money's worth.
My previous MBP lasted 8 years and was far less expensive, even adjusting for inflation, so I'm not sure we are getting our money's worth (I did buy the late 2016 MBP, but I was very pissed at the high price.) There is no question that Apple is ripping us off on the SSD storage costs and I'm with those who think these machines should have removable storage, memory and battery. There is absolutely no reason why Apple couldn't have used standard SSD modules that were on a plug. None. (Except greed). Is anyone really going to maintain that the best way to build a machine is with a lot of glue? Really?
Without being able to upgrade memory and storage and change the battery, the machines don't "last as long" in terms of useful life and it belies Apple's commitment to being green, since the machines will wind up in the trash faster. (I went to a recycling fair recently and it was amazing what people were recycling: hundreds of computers (maybe thousands), both Macs and PCs). The only reason my previous late-2008 MBP lasted so long is because I was able to upgrade memory and storage and replace the battery. If that makes the machine a little thicker, so be it. Apple's (Ive's?) obsession with thinness and no lines in the case as opposed to all else borders on mental illness, IMO. It's like their obsession with the design of the iPhone which few people ever actually see because almost everyone keeps theirs in a case so it survives a fall.
Other than that, it is a very nice machine, but the touch pad is too large as part of my palms rest on it and sends the cursor to places I don't intend for it to go. This has radically slowed down my typing and I don't sense that the larger pad has any advantages. The touch pad drives me nuts and it's apparent to me that Apple did not test this larger touchpad with real users. It is not a natural position to rest the palms outside of the touchpad. Maybe Apple thinks that people type with their hands in the air without resting their palms. I, for one, don't. The TouchBar is almost worthless because your eyes don't naturally look there. It might have been better if it had been located right at the top edge.
The switch to USB-C didn't bother me, except for losing magsafe. Why people get so upset adding a dongle or adapter to a cable is strange to me. Just make believe it was always part of the cable. You can get adapters for as little as $4. People defend Apple when there are complaints that an equipped machine is $3K, but then they complain about a $4 adapter or $10 cable? Having said that, I do have one problem: I have a USB cable that goes to a USB speaker system. If I plug it in with the dongle attached, the system does not automatically switch to the speaker system. If I pull the USB-C out and plug it back in to the Mac, it still doesn't switch. But if I detach the USB-A from the adapter dongle and plug it back in to the adapter, it does switch. It's a minor annoyance, but still an annoyance as it requires two actions instead of one.
For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer. Sigh.
Next problem is what you get for the price. Again, it doesn't matter how great something is if you don't really need it. Some people love retina screens but I could get by easily with non retina. Same for soldered RAM/SSD. Once again, I could get by without the fastest options if flexibility were factored into the offer. The option to upgrade down the line is something I have always taken advantage of.
Thinness? This is probably a Jony Ive obsession which I can easily live without if accessibility and longer battery life are the end result. The previous line was already thin. Having the battery glued to the upper casing is something I could also do without and after repeated use in different stores I still dislike the keyboard.
Touch Bar and Touch ID? For the added cost that comes with it, I could easily do without both. At the end of the day they are convenience items. Nothing more.
So what we have is an expensive (no other word for it) base system that could easily cost far less and which you have to BTO at current Apple pricing pushing the price even higher.
I haven't bought a laptop for a few years now and my current upgraded Macs have new blood in them. I will not be buying into this line until prices come down and/or ugradeability is looked at with a new corporate perspective.
People will say something stupid like 'Apple doesn't cater to me'. That is irrelevant. Apple caters to sales. It seems clear that new MBP sales didn't fly off the charts. There was pent up demand and that was quenched. We will see what Apple does in the future if sales flatten out. After many people claiming the MBA was eol, that wasn't the case. Just as it wasn't the case that anything not USB-C was 'legacy'.
Apple put itself into a pigeon hole. If people are willing to buy into the sealed up, glued in, BTO at purchase, short warranty, expensive laptop, that's their decision. Mine is to pass.
The question is how many others pass or not.
"For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer."
So follow your own logic here. Can you afford a $100 laptop? Yes. Can you afford a $700 laptop? Yes. Can you afford a $2000 laptop. No? Save more money to spend on one unless you don't need one in which case you are wasting all of our time.
No illuminated Apple logo on back: Personally, I'd prefer the logo not blind everyone else in a dark room, and I'm sure millions of others will appreciate that too. There is literally zero benefit of a glowing logo. Another made up "problem".
Not quite. The glowing logo offered Apple free advertising, as we've seen with many images of classrooms and seminars filled with attendees with Mac notebooks. That's a quantifiable benefit for Apple so for Apple to remove that free advertisement there must be a reason, like the lack of display bleed with the new display tech or preparing to move to, say, mOLED which definitely won't have that side-effect.
Outside of that there's no reasonable decision for the glowing logo. if we're talking about a customer wanting a glowing logo it's merely so they can show off that they have a Mac notebook. Is there a more pathetic reason than status symbol over its utility for wanting a Mac?
For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer. Sigh.
Next problem is what you get for the price. Again, it doesn't matter how great something is if you don't really need it. Some people love retina screens but I could get by easily with non retina. Same for soldered RAM/SSD. Once again, I could get by without the fastest options if flexibility were factored into the offer. The option to upgrade down the line is something I have always taken advantage of.
Thinness? This is probably a Jony Ive obsession which I can easily live without if accessibility and longer battery life are the end result. The previous line was already thin. Having the battery glued to the upper casing is something I could also do without and after repeated use in different stores I still dislike the keyboard.
Touch Bar and Touch ID? For the added cost that comes with it, I could easily do without both. At the end of the day they are convenience items. Nothing more.
So what we have is an expensive (no other word for it) base system that could easily cost far less and which you have to BTO at current Apple pricing pushing the price even higher.
I haven't bought a laptop for a few years now and my current upgraded Macs have new blood in them. I will not be buying into this line until prices come down and/or ugradeability is looked at with a new corporate perspective.
People will say something stupid like 'Apple doesn't cater to me'. That is irrelevant. Apple caters to sales. It seems clear that new MBP sales didn't fly off the charts. There was pent up demand and that was quenched. We will see what Apple does in the future if sales flatten out. After many people claiming the MBA was eol, that wasn't the case. Just as it wasn't the case that anything not USB-C was 'legacy'.
Apple put itself into a pigeon hole. If people are willing to buy into the sealed up, glued in, BTO at purchase, short warranty, expensive laptop, that's their decision. Mine is to pass.
The question is how many others pass or not.
"For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer."
So follow your own logic here. Can you afford a $100 laptop? Yes. Can you afford a $700 laptop? Yes. Can you afford a $2000 laptop. No? Save more money to spend on one unless you don't need one in which case you are wasting all of our time.
I really don't see a problem here.
That would depend on how you define 'problem'. Technically I am in the market for a MBP. Practically, Apple isn't getting the sale because of the factors I mentioned.
If there are hundreds of thousands of users like me just sitting on the fence, there is a possibility Apple will do something about it. With that in mind I decided to sit things out. Saving more isn't an option.
It was entirely possible to take the older design and rearchitect it. The new iMac is an example. Just removing TouchBar, TouchID would chop a few hundred off a 15inch machine. A non-Retina option would also cut the price down. Would the resulting machine be that much less useful?
Would such a machine be a top seller for Apple? I very much think so. Would it seriously impact high end (retina, TouchID, TouchBar) sales? Once again, I very much think so. IMO, enough for Apple to not offer such a machine with the new architecture.
We have now had two earnings calls post MBP re-design, and very little reference to sales. Schiller came out beating his chest in the first week of release. Then he went silent. Cook described sales as simply 'strong' and now we have one of the fastest refreshes in living memory. Most reviews made a point of mentioning price and they weren't calling it reasonable. We're free to interpret that as we see fit. My personal interpretation is that sales of these new MBPs haven't broken any records and after satisfying pent-up demand, are finding it difficult to get into their stride.
For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer. Sigh.
Next problem is what you get for the price. Again, it doesn't matter how great something is if you don't really need it. Some people love retina screens but I could get by easily with non retina. Same for soldered RAM/SSD. Once again, I could get by without the fastest options if flexibility were factored into the offer. The option to upgrade down the line is something I have always taken advantage of.
Thinness? This is probably a Jony Ive obsession which I can easily live without if accessibility and longer battery life are the end result. The previous line was already thin. Having the battery glued to the upper casing is something I could also do without and after repeated use in different stores I still dislike the keyboard.
Touch Bar and Touch ID? For the added cost that comes with it, I could easily do without both. At the end of the day they are convenience items. Nothing more.
So what we have is an expensive (no other word for it) base system that could easily cost far less and which you have to BTO at current Apple pricing pushing the price even higher.
I haven't bought a laptop for a few years now and my current upgraded Macs have new blood in them. I will not be buying into this line until prices come down and/or ugradeability is looked at with a new corporate perspective.
People will say something stupid like 'Apple doesn't cater to me'. That is irrelevant. Apple caters to sales. It seems clear that new MBP sales didn't fly off the charts. There was pent up demand and that was quenched. We will see what Apple does in the future if sales flatten out. After many people claiming the MBA was eol, that wasn't the case. Just as it wasn't the case that anything not USB-C was 'legacy'.
Apple put itself into a pigeon hole. If people are willing to buy into the sealed up, glued in, BTO at purchase, short warranty, expensive laptop, that's their decision. Mine is to pass.
The question is how many others pass or not.
Judging by the successful sales increase, Apple got it right again.
1 - Not just Mr. Ive. The majority of the purchasing population. 2 - A good USB-C to USB-B cable is about $8. A USB-A to USB-B cable is about $5. 3 - See #2. 4 - Disagree with your assessment, but I expect mileage may vary. 5 - So what? The OS does a pretty good job of letting me know when its charging. 6 - Yup, palm rejection. It works, too. 7 - The illuminated Apple logo was from light bleed on the old screens. I'm not certain why this is a failure. 8 - See also #1, and Kaby Lake's limitations in this regard, that we've been telling you all about for eight months.
You know full well that Apple doesn't have meetings to see who they can piss off next. They have meetings on how to advance what the company wants, while at the same time, retaining or growing its user base.
I get what you want, and why you want it. I'm not saying that I don't want some things that the machine doesn't have.
But -- one more time -- We are not Apple's target market anymore, and they owe us nothing.
Be mad. Tell Apple corporate what you like and what you don't -- you are doing that, right, and not just howling into the void or venting at Apple retail people?
Just don't expect them to bend to your will, or decide that the 1% of the 12% deserve more than 0.001 percent of Apple's attention.
Apple made a promise in the line's refresh, and it refined it in this iteration. It just didn't make that promise to you.
Smaller battery to make the case as thin as Mr. Ive alone wanted
No internal SD card slot, necessitating the need for a stupid dongle
Not even 1 legacy USB-A connector, necessitating the need for another dongle or adapter
No MagSafe = NotSafe
No LED on power connector
Trackpad so large you need extremely advanced palm rejection to make it usable
No illuminated Apple logo on back
Still no 32GB of RAM
Your first point on the buying population got me thinking.
I commute. Three hours a day and I see a fair amount of laptops on the train both from workers and tourists. In the seven months since release, I have yet to see a new MBP in the wild. Although it doesn't demonstrate anything it shocked me all the same. It just hadn't clicked until now and I always pay attention to this kind of stuff.
I wonder if other people are seeing similar small or non existent sightings.
So you want to compare 5-6yrs worth of the old design to 7 months of the new MacBook Pro to determine sales? Like you know which MacBook Pro you're looking at when you see it other then possibly the current design vs the old which is pretty old. Hahahahahahaha!!!! Try again!
For me, everything starts with price. It doesn't matter how great something is if I can't afford it. One of the most absurd comments I've heard on the subject is to save for longer. Sigh.
Next problem is what you get for the price. Again, it doesn't matter how great something is if you don't really need it. Some people love retina screens but I could get by easily with non retina. Same for soldered RAM/SSD. Once again, I could get by without the fastest options if flexibility were factored into the offer. The option to upgrade down the line is something I have always taken advantage of.
Thinness? This is probably a Jony Ive obsession which I can easily live without if accessibility and longer battery life are the end result. The previous line was already thin. Having the battery glued to the upper casing is something I could also do without and after repeated use in different stores I still dislike the keyboard.
Touch Bar and Touch ID? For the added cost that comes with it, I could easily do without both. At the end of the day they are convenience items. Nothing more.
So what we have is an expensive (no other word for it) base system that could easily cost far less and which you have to BTO at current Apple pricing pushing the price even higher.
I haven't bought a laptop for a few years now and my current upgraded Macs have new blood in them. I will not be buying into this line until prices come down and/or ugradeability is looked at with a new corporate perspective.
People will say something stupid like 'Apple doesn't cater to me'. That is irrelevant. Apple caters to sales. It seems clear that new MBP sales didn't fly off the charts. There was pent up demand and that was quenched. We will see what Apple does in the future if sales flatten out. After many people claiming the MBA was eol, that wasn't the case. Just as it wasn't the case that anything not USB-C was 'legacy'.
Apple put itself into a pigeon hole. If people are willing to buy into the sealed up, glued in, BTO at purchase, short warranty, expensive laptop, that's their decision. Mine is to pass.
The question is how many others pass or not.
Judging by the successful sales increase, Apple got it right again.
Have you see the numbers broken down? If you have the new MBP sales figures for the last two quarters, please share.
If you are referring to the Q1 increase, the most notable reference on those sales was that most of them went to non-Mac users.
But -- one more time -- We are not Apple's target market anymore, and they owe us nothing.
I'm not sure I completely agree about what they do or don't owe their long-term loyal customers. I guess it depends on whether you see business as cold numbers, or as a relationship.
What I do know is that it's really hard to boil a large operation down to pie-charts and spread-sheets. I'm sure on paper, it looks like Ford's efforts put into racing or making a GT40 isn't nearly as profitable as pouring steam into the F150 trucks. I think if Apple leaves the creative pro users behind - because pie-charts - there will be a much bigger price to pay in the long-run. I'm hoping their recent efforts are due to their realization of this, and not just blowing smoke!
But, back to the laptops....
I'm mixed over this new model. In some ways, it's the machine I've been waiting for for so long. With TB3 and an eGPU, it could pretty easily be the one-machine dream solution I've always wanted. However, there are several problems with it, IMO.
First, while I haven't spent a lot of time with the keyboard, it really seems like a weak point. I think I could get used to it, but I've heard a lot of people complaining about it's durability. That's a huge problem on such an expensive machine that I'd plan to use for many years. And, I've never had that kind of problem with Apple laptops of the past.
I guess I'll take your word for the palm-rejection, but in stores, I *HATE* the huge track-pad. Again, if it works reasonably well, I suppose I can get used to it?
I'm not that happy Apple has moved all but the very top models of each line to only dual-core CPUs. You used to get quad-core, even in the base models several years ago. I don't think you can even get a quad-core in the 13" at all. While I'm happy to hear it's better in terms of heat, I do worry it might be underpowered in the CPU department.
Across the Apple line, storage has introduced some problems, at least with the one-computer plan. Because the SSDs are now so small (as much as I love the performance), Dropbox has become almost useless. You pretty much have to have a separate 'server' machine where the Dropbox data is stored and synced... and then carefully manage what gets excluded to these tiny-storage devices.
Hopefully Kaby Lake fixes the energy drain issues of the 2016 with USB or external devices connected? (I didn't see that in the article, unless I missed it.)
Also, Mike, you made a comment on the podcast about the speed of the ports on the 13" and eGPUs. Could you elaborate on that a bit more?
I had really hoped that once we got to TB3, I might be able to just go laptop only with a dock and phone. What I hadn't counted on is Apple compromising much of what I loved about previous MacBook Pros (though they were never perfect, especially in heat dissipation!). Now, I might have to re-think things and move back more towards a desktop / portable combo again (but, iPad or MacBook?). Or, maybe 'server', laptop, (iPad?), phone.
But -- one more time -- We are not Apple's target market anymore, and they owe us nothing.
Across the Apple line, storage has introduced some problems, at least with the one-computer plan. Because the SSDs are now so small (as much as I love the performance), Dropbox has become almost useless. You pretty much have to have a separate 'server' machine where the Dropbox data is stored and synced... and then carefully manage what gets excluded to these tiny-storage devices.
But -- one more time -- We are not Apple's target market anymore, and they owe us nothing.
Also, Mike, you made a comment on the podcast about the speed of the ports on the 13" and eGPUs. Could you elaborate on that a bit more?
I haven't been on the AI podcast in ages, and I don't think you're listening to mine, but I can answer the question anyway. Confusingly, we have Mikey Campbell who's been here forever, and me, who's coming up on one year here in a few days.
It's a question of available PCI-E channels on the processor used in the 13, versus the 15. TL;DR, connect to the left ports for the full-speed TB3 experience on the 13-inch with Touch Bar for max speed.
1 - Not just Mr. Ive. The majority of the purchasing population. 2 - A good USB-C to USB-B cable is about $8. A USB-A to USB-B cable is about $5. 3 - See #2. 4 - Disagree with your assessment, but I expect mileage may vary. 5 - So what? The OS does a pretty good job of letting me know when its charging. 6 - Yup, palm rejection. It works, too. 7 - The illuminated Apple logo was from light bleed on the old screens. I'm not certain why this is a failure. 8 - See also #1, and Kaby Lake's limitations in this regard, that we've been telling you all about for eight months.
You know full well that Apple doesn't have meetings to see who they can piss off next. They have meetings on how to advance what the company wants, while at the same time, retaining or growing its user base.
I get what you want, and why you want it. I'm not saying that I don't want some things that the machine doesn't have.
But -- one more time -- We are not Apple's target market anymore, and they owe us nothing.
Be mad. Tell Apple corporate what you like and what you don't -- you are doing that, right, and not just howling into the void or venting at Apple retail people?
Just don't expect them to bend to your will, or decide that the 1% of the 12% deserve more than 0.001 percent of Apple's attention.
Apple made a promise in the line's refresh, and it refined it in this iteration. It just didn't make that promise to you.
Smaller battery to make the case as thin as Mr. Ive alone wanted
No internal SD card slot, necessitating the need for a stupid dongle
Not even 1 legacy USB-A connector, necessitating the need for another dongle or adapter
No MagSafe = NotSafe
No LED on power connector
Trackpad so large you need extremely advanced palm rejection to make it usable
No illuminated Apple logo on back
Still no 32GB of RAM
Your first point on the buying population got me thinking.
I commute. Three hours a day and I see a fair amount of laptops on the train both from workers and tourists. In the seven months since release, I have yet to see a new MBP in the wild. Although it doesn't demonstrate anything it shocked me all the same. It just hadn't clicked until now and I always pay attention to this kind of stuff.
I wonder if other people are seeing similar small or non existent sightings.
So you want to compare 5-6yrs worth of the old design to 7 months of the new MacBook Pro to determine sales? Like you know which MacBook Pro you're looking at when you see it other then possibly the current design vs the old which is pretty old. Hahahahahahaha!!!! Try again!
I can tell the difference. You clearly missed the point, though. It's not a question of 5-6 years. It's a question of not seeing one single machine out of a store setting in more than seven months. You would think that what with the high sales, I should be seeing at least a few. My point was if others were experiencing a simliar situation.
If you want me to expand on that I can add that I haven't seen any at my destinations either. I travel a lot. I didn't mention that as PCs laptops and Chromebooks dominate most of the fields I work with. There are occasional MBPs but usually for personal use.
Of course, a 2,250€ starting price for an Iris Pro, Pro 15 inch laptop might have something to do with it. Discrete graphics blasts the price way over 3,000€. That is something I will never pay for a laptop.
Let's see, you stated "because the SSDs are now so small." SSDs are clearly getting larger, not smaller, as you imply with your "now" statement. Additionally, Apple offers SSDs that are larger than any previous HDD they've ever shipping in a Mac notebook. The largest I'm seeing was a 5400RPM 1 TB HDD for a mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro. They also had a 7200 RPM option but it maxed out at 750 GB.
When did Apple offer at least a 1TB SSD in their MBP? The next year. Even then, they had already offered 768GB SSDs before that. So when exactly did the SSDs become smaller?
And don't try to say you're talking about desktop Macs now that I've mentioned Mac notebooks since you've clearly stated, "you pretty much have to have a separate 'server' machine where the Dropbox data is stored and synced," which means you can't reasonably have an external drive attached. Even then, you can get 3TB in an iMac.
You also say "Dropbox has become almost useless […] and then carefully manage what gets excluded to these tiny-storage devices" which makes erroneous assumptions that everyone pays for additional Dropbox storage to get at least 1TB of cloud storage and everyone is using an excessive amount of cloud storage with Dropbox, as if all Macs used to all have much greater than 1TB+ HDDs before Apple moved to SSDs, despite the aforementioned options to 2TB, which is double what was ever offered in a previous Mac notebook.
.,, But -- one more time -- We are not Apple's target market anymore, and they owe us nothing.
Be mad. Tell Apple corporate what you like and what you don't -- you are doing that, right, and not just howling into the void or venting at Apple retail people?
Just don't expect them to bend to your will, or decide that the 1% of the 12% deserve more than 0.001 percent of Apple's attention.
If we are not Apple's target for a "rMBP" then who is? Going a step further, who is the target for the Mac Pro? Only Pros? Or is it "anyone who has both money and desire to buy either one of those machines"? And what percentage of the tiny slice of Mac buyers who buy a pricey Mac Pro participated in the "constant negativity" which Apple publicly said made them rethink the Mac Pro completely? (Apple bending to the will of the complainers.) This is an important point of consideration.
You strongly emphasized numbers and insignificance. It is however rather interesting to note though that Tim Cook himself does not follow such strict obedience to the numbers. Tim Cook himself has become a political activist of sorts for a tiny and arguably "insignificant" percentage of the population, standing in their defense. In other words, the numbers which preach "insignificance" aren't everything at Apple.
Apple owes its customers great value for the price, and through the years Apple has done a decent job of that. But an overly broad statement that "Apple owes us (paying customers) nothing" is not correct. If I pay Apple to buy a Mac, they owe me the Mac until it is in my hands. If I buy AppleCare, they old me 3 years of special support in accordance with the terms of the AppleCare agreement. I could go on, but the point is clear. There are indeed situations when Apple "owes." And let's face it. If Apple didn't feel they owed their retina MacBook Pro customers anything, they would not have extended the screen replacement program for the laminated screens until October 2017. People who have purchased Apple devices since the 1980s and have seen an extremely high level of quality through the early years will naturally expect Apple to continue producing the same level of quality as time goes on. There's nothing really wrong about that.
I do send Apple feedback on the variety of topics and about many different products on a regular basis, and I've even mentioned that I do so in these forums. I would like to encourage everyone else here to do so as well. And you know what? I even send Apple feedback of praise when I feel overjoyed they done something really, really right. Feedback to Apple doesn't always have to be negative.
Lastly, even when we disagree, let us be nice to each other (which you were, Mike, thank you) but let us also show some empathy. Just because a couple people in a forum here aren't praising Apple perpetually (I praise Apple more than complain) doesn't mean we ought to go in the defensive and try to protect Apple as if they are somehow unable to do that themselves. People who are feeling down about an Apple purchase really don't need to hear an endless defense of the status quo at Cupertino. Apple is more than capable of defending themselves. If the world needs anything, it's not a new Mac. It's love of our fellow man and empathy and when we see someone is down.
Anyway, let us know how the smoked pork turned out. That sounds great!
Tim Cook himself has become a political activist of sorts for a tiny and arguably "insignificant" percentage of the population, standing in their defense.
There are indeed situations when Apple "owes."
First point, regarding Tim Cook: no, he's not a political activist for "a tiny and arguably 'insignificant' percentage of the population." He's a human rights advocate. He naturally aligns with at least one group of the oppressed, but he has repeatedly spoken out on behalf of oppressed groups he is not a member of, and human/civil rights generally. Human rights advocates are naturally going to focus on groups that are suffering oppression, but in fact they are arguing for equality, justice, and civil rights for all people. I would not call "humans" a tiny and "insignificant" percentage of the population: I would call that "all of" the population.
Second point, regarding Apple "owing": you're (willfully) misinterpreting what Mike has said. He's been clear in saying that Apple doesn't "owe" veteran customers machines that are exclusively geared to them (as if there was consensus among "pros" and "veteran Mac users" as to what they want, which is another popular but unsupported fantasy), particularly at the expense of marketshare. Just because such groups are louder than the population in general doesn't mean they represent the majority -- quite the opposite, in fact. The fact of the matter is that Apple makes devices that they *think* will appeal to the broadest possible range of buyers with a minimum of compromise to their own design ideals. Apple doesn't "owe" you a Mac Pro just because you want one any more than Dyson "owes" you a vacuum cleaner that sucks more than the last one you bought (ha, "sucks").
Back in the 80s and early 90s when the majority of Mac buyers were "creative pros," Apple built machines that excelled at that. Today, that is a TINY percentage (well under 10 percent, probably closer to four percent) of their sales, and they are the most valuable company on the planet. These two things are not unrelated: Apple started building great all-around machines like the iMac, the Mac mini, and the iBook/MacBook Air/MacBook, and the (largely) PC-buying public responded by starting to switch. As Jobs himself said (paraphrasing), capturing even five percent of the PC-buying populace would double or triple Apple's revenues, and would barely register as a rounding error to Redmond. Turns out he was articulating Apple's strategy, and his plan worked exactly as described.
If Apple "owes" anyone, it's their shareholders. They owe it to them (or at least the shareholders believe this) to keep growing, keep selling, keep designing things the public is fascinated by and keep positioning Apple as a "premium brand" but one that is a bit more within reach than most premium brands. That's the market Apple "owes" things to, because that, and not us, are the people causing their revenues to more than octuple over the past 10 years.
I'm mixed over this new model. In some ways, it's the machine I've been waiting for for so long. With TB3 and an eGPU, it could pretty easily be the one-machine dream solution I've always wanted. However, there are several problems with it, IMO.
First, while I haven't spent a lot of time with the keyboard, it really seems like a weak point. I think I could get used to it, but I've heard a lot of people complaining about it's durability. That's a huge problem on such an expensive machine that I'd plan to use for many years. And, I've never had that kind of problem with Apple laptops of the past.
I guess I'll take your word for the palm-rejection, but in stores, I *HATE* the huge track-pad. Again, if it works reasonably well, I suppose I can get used to it?
I'm not that happy Apple has moved all but the very top models of each line to only dual-core CPUs. You used to get quad-core, even in the base models several years ago. I don't think you can even get a quad-core in the 13" at all. While I'm happy to hear it's better in terms of heat, I do worry it might be underpowered in the CPU department.
Apple has never in its history sold a 13" laptop with a quad-core processor, ever. (Intel has never made a quad-core which would fit within the thermal envelope of Apple's 13" models - traditionally <30W, IIRC. They probably will at some point next year for the first time ever, according to their roadmap.)
All 15" models have been entirely quad-core for many years now.
The keyboard on the current MacBooks Pro is the best I've ever used - except *maybe* the old ADB Extended Keyboard (I - for some reason I could never share the excitement over the EK II; it always seemed a tad rubbery to me) that I used from '89 to '95
Tim Cook himself has become a political activist of sorts for a tiny and arguably "insignificant" percentage of the population, standing in their defense.
There are indeed situations when Apple "owes."
and they are the most valuable company on the planet. These two things are not unrelated: Apple started building great all-around machines like the iMac, the Mac mini, and the iBook/MacBook Air/MacBook, and the (largely) PC-buying public responded by starting to switch. As Jobs himself said (paraphrasing), capturing even five percent of the PC-buying populace would double or triple Apple's revenues, and would barely register as a rounding error to Redmond. Turns out he was articulating Apple's strategy, and his plan worked exactly as described.
Nice try, but Apple is not the most valuable company on the planet because of the Mac. It's all because of the iPhone. Let's get real. I don't know the exact percentage, but Mac is a very small part of Apple's overall revenues.
Comments
They could have done exactly what they did with the latest iMac refresh (expand options on existing MBP design) and added the new thinner 'future' design at the top of the lineup.
That's exactly what they did with the MBA back in the day but at the opposite end of the range.
Of course, that would have led us to a dilemma and although I've mentioned it many times before, no one has really answered this question: what would sell more? Upgraded architecture on the previous design or the new thinner one?
My thinking is that the first option would kill the new offering and that's why it doesn't exist.
If you want the new architecture you basically have to jump through the hoop and that is where Apple's problems begin IMO.
I've never said the new architecture shouldn't exist, just that having wholesale change was unnecessary.
But if the market were to decide we might less future thinking than Apple is willing to accept.
I commute. Three hours a day and I see a fair amount of laptops on the train both from workers and tourists. In the seven months since release, I have yet to see a new MBP in the wild. Although it doesn't demonstrate anything it shocked me all the same. It just hadn't clicked until now and I always pay attention to this kind of stuff.
I wonder if other people are seeing similar small or non existent sightings.
Without being able to upgrade memory and storage and change the battery, the machines don't "last as long" in terms of useful life and it belies Apple's commitment to being green, since the machines will wind up in the trash faster. (I went to a recycling fair recently and it was amazing what people were recycling: hundreds of computers (maybe thousands), both Macs and PCs). The only reason my previous late-2008 MBP lasted so long is because I was able to upgrade memory and storage and replace the battery. If that makes the machine a little thicker, so be it. Apple's (Ive's?) obsession with thinness and no lines in the case as opposed to all else borders on mental illness, IMO. It's like their obsession with the design of the iPhone which few people ever actually see because almost everyone keeps theirs in a case so it survives a fall.
Other than that, it is a very nice machine, but the touch pad is too large as part of my palms rest on it and sends the cursor to places I don't intend for it to go. This has radically slowed down my typing and I don't sense that the larger pad has any advantages. The touch pad drives me nuts and it's apparent to me that Apple did not test this larger touchpad with real users. It is not a natural position to rest the palms outside of the touchpad. Maybe Apple thinks that people type with their hands in the air without resting their palms. I, for one, don't. The TouchBar is almost worthless because your eyes don't naturally look there. It might have been better if it had been located right at the top edge.
The switch to USB-C didn't bother me, except for losing magsafe. Why people get so upset adding a dongle or adapter to a cable is strange to me. Just make believe it was always part of the cable. You can get adapters for as little as $4. People defend Apple when there are complaints that an equipped machine is $3K, but then they complain about a $4 adapter or $10 cable? Having said that, I do have one problem: I have a USB cable that goes to a USB speaker system. If I plug it in with the dongle attached, the system does not automatically switch to the speaker system. If I pull the USB-C out and plug it back in to the Mac, it still doesn't switch. But if I detach the USB-A from the adapter dongle and plug it back in to the adapter, it does switch. It's a minor annoyance, but still an annoyance as it requires two actions instead of one.
So follow your own logic here. Can you afford a $100 laptop? Yes. Can you afford a $700 laptop? Yes. Can you afford a $2000 laptop. No? Save more money to spend on one unless you don't need one in which case you are wasting all of our time.
I really don't see a problem here.
Outside of that there's no reasonable decision for the glowing logo. if we're talking about a customer wanting a glowing logo it's merely so they can show off that they have a Mac notebook. Is there a more pathetic reason than status symbol over its utility for wanting a Mac?
If there are hundreds of thousands of users like me just sitting on the fence, there is a possibility Apple will do something about it. With that in mind I decided to sit things out. Saving more isn't an option.
It was entirely possible to take the older design and rearchitect it. The new iMac is an example. Just removing TouchBar, TouchID would chop a few hundred off a 15inch machine. A non-Retina option would also cut the price down. Would the resulting machine be that much less useful?
Would such a machine be a top seller for Apple? I very much think so. Would it seriously impact high end (retina, TouchID, TouchBar) sales? Once again, I very much think so. IMO, enough for Apple to not offer such a machine with the new architecture.
We have now had two earnings calls post MBP re-design, and very little reference to sales. Schiller came out beating his chest in the first week of release. Then he went silent. Cook described sales as simply 'strong' and now we have one of the fastest refreshes in living memory. Most reviews made a point of mentioning price and they weren't calling it reasonable. We're free to interpret that as we see fit. My personal interpretation is that sales of these new MBPs haven't broken any records and after satisfying pent-up demand, are finding it difficult to get into their stride.
If you are referring to the Q1 increase, the most notable reference on those sales was that most of them went to non-Mac users.
I'm not sure I completely agree about what they do or don't owe their long-term loyal customers. I guess it depends on whether you see business as cold numbers, or as a relationship.
What I do know is that it's really hard to boil a large operation down to pie-charts and spread-sheets. I'm sure on paper, it looks like Ford's efforts put into racing or making a GT40 isn't nearly as profitable as pouring steam into the F150 trucks. I think if Apple leaves the creative pro users behind - because pie-charts - there will be a much bigger price to pay in the long-run. I'm hoping their recent efforts are due to their realization of this, and not just blowing smoke!
But, back to the laptops....
I'm mixed over this new model. In some ways, it's the machine I've been waiting for for so long. With TB3 and an eGPU, it could pretty easily be the one-machine dream solution I've always wanted. However, there are several problems with it, IMO.
First, while I haven't spent a lot of time with the keyboard, it really seems like a weak point. I think I could get used to it, but I've heard a lot of people complaining about it's durability. That's a huge problem on such an expensive machine that I'd plan to use for many years. And, I've never had that kind of problem with Apple laptops of the past.
I guess I'll take your word for the palm-rejection, but in stores, I *HATE* the huge track-pad. Again, if it works reasonably well, I suppose I can get used to it?
I'm not that happy Apple has moved all but the very top models of each line to only dual-core CPUs. You used to get quad-core, even in the base models several years ago. I don't think you can even get a quad-core in the 13" at all. While I'm happy to hear it's better in terms of heat, I do worry it might be underpowered in the CPU department.
Across the Apple line, storage has introduced some problems, at least with the one-computer plan. Because the SSDs are now so small (as much as I love the performance), Dropbox has become almost useless. You pretty much have to have a separate 'server' machine where the Dropbox data is stored and synced... and then carefully manage what gets excluded to these tiny-storage devices.
Hopefully Kaby Lake fixes the energy drain issues of the 2016 with USB or external devices connected? (I didn't see that in the article, unless I missed it.)
Also, Mike, you made a comment on the podcast about the speed of the ports on the 13" and eGPUs. Could you elaborate on that a bit more?
I had really hoped that once we got to TB3, I might be able to just go laptop only with a dock and phone. What I hadn't counted on is Apple compromising much of what I loved about previous MacBook Pros (though they were never perfect, especially in heat dissipation!). Now, I might have to re-think things and move back more towards a desktop / portable combo again (but, iPad or MacBook?). Or, maybe 'server', laptop, (iPad?), phone.
It's a question of available PCI-E channels on the processor used in the 13, versus the 15. TL;DR, connect to the left ports for the full-speed TB3 experience on the 13-inch with Touch Bar for max speed.
If you want me to expand on that I can add that I haven't seen any at my destinations either. I travel a lot. I didn't mention that as PCs laptops and Chromebooks dominate most of the fields I work with. There are occasional MBPs but usually for personal use.
Of course, a 2,250€ starting price for an Iris Pro, Pro 15 inch laptop might have something to do with it. Discrete graphics blasts the price way over 3,000€. That is something I will never pay for a laptop.
When did Apple offer at least a 1TB SSD in their MBP? The next year. Even then, they had already offered 768GB SSDs before that. So when exactly did the SSDs become smaller?
And don't try to say you're talking about desktop Macs now that I've mentioned Mac notebooks since you've clearly stated, "you pretty much have to have a separate 'server' machine where the Dropbox data is stored and synced," which means you can't reasonably have an external drive attached. Even then, you can get 3TB in an iMac.
You also say "Dropbox has become almost useless […] and then carefully manage what gets excluded to these tiny-storage devices" which makes erroneous assumptions that everyone pays for additional Dropbox storage to get at least 1TB of cloud storage and everyone is using an excessive amount of cloud storage with Dropbox, as if all Macs used to all have much greater than 1TB+ HDDs before Apple moved to SSDs, despite the aforementioned options to 2TB, which is double what was ever offered in a previous Mac notebook.
You strongly emphasized numbers and insignificance. It is however rather interesting to note though that Tim Cook himself does not follow such strict obedience to the numbers. Tim Cook himself has become a political activist of sorts for a tiny and arguably "insignificant" percentage of the population, standing in their defense. In other words, the numbers which preach "insignificance" aren't everything at Apple.
Apple owes its customers great value for the price, and through the years Apple has done a decent job of that. But an overly broad statement that "Apple owes us (paying customers) nothing" is not correct. If I pay Apple to buy a Mac, they owe me the Mac until it is in my hands. If I buy AppleCare, they old me 3 years of special support in accordance with the terms of the AppleCare agreement. I could go on, but the point is clear. There are indeed situations when Apple "owes." And let's face it. If Apple didn't feel they owed their retina MacBook Pro customers anything, they would not have extended the screen replacement program for the laminated screens until October 2017. People who have purchased Apple devices since the 1980s and have seen an extremely high level of quality through the early years will naturally expect Apple to continue producing the same level of quality as time goes on. There's nothing really wrong about that.
I do send Apple feedback on the variety of topics and about many different products on a regular basis, and I've even mentioned that I do so in these forums. I would like to encourage everyone else here to do so as well. And you know what? I even send Apple feedback of praise when I feel overjoyed they done something really, really right. Feedback to Apple doesn't always have to be negative.
Lastly, even when we disagree, let us be nice to each other (which you were, Mike, thank you) but let us also show some empathy. Just because a couple people in a forum here aren't praising Apple perpetually (I praise Apple more than complain) doesn't mean we ought to go in the defensive and try to protect Apple as if they are somehow unable to do that themselves. People who are feeling down about an Apple purchase really don't need to hear an endless defense of the status quo at Cupertino. Apple is more than capable of defending themselves. If the world needs anything, it's not a new Mac. It's love of our fellow man and empathy and when we see someone is down.
Anyway, let us know how the smoked pork turned out. That sounds great!
All 15" models have been entirely quad-core for many years now.
The keyboard on the current MacBooks Pro is the best I've ever used - except *maybe* the old ADB Extended Keyboard (I - for some reason I could never share the excitement over the EK II; it always seemed a tad rubbery to me) that I used from '89 to '95