The laptop lineup is almost there, they just need to drive the price of the MB12 down to $1000. They can probably cut the SSD to 128 GB and sell the existing MB12 for $1000, or get really close. The 256 GB SSD model that is currently for $1300 dropped to $1200. The MBP lineup gets 15, 28 and 45W Coffee Lake processors.
I have two objections to that.
One is that at the low end you have a gimped computer that's still expensive. $1000 for only 128GB of storage and really limited power doesn't seem like a big seller.
The other is that the only 15" option is a top-of-the-line model. I'd prefer to see a good/better/best lineup with both small and larger versions of each.
For the big brands (MS, HP, Apple), hitting the $1000 price tier with a thin and light laptop currently requires giving up something: CPU, RAM, SSD, display. MS offers a $1000 Surface Pro SKU with an i5 and 128 GB SSD. The SKU with 256 GB SSD has an MSRP of $1300, but they have a $200 sale and people can get it for $1100. Still can hit the $1000 price point. Same thing with the Surface Laptop. For the $800 price points, MS is dropping down to 4 GB of RAM on Surface devices. Ouch.
The current MacBook Air has a Core i5-5350U, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD for $1000.
The current MacBook has a Core m3-7Y32, 8 GB RAM, and 256 GB SSD for $1300.
For the MacBook to hit $1000, it has to drop to a 128 GB SSD. It would be a better machine than the current MBA13: faster CPU, faster GPU, better display, lighter machine. Apple has no update choice with the 5W Intel processor lineup this year (other than moving up the Kaby Lake speed grades, but that means no m7 blah blah CPU upgrade option), but they can rev the MB with 2 TB3 ports, and drop the price. That’ll open up 5K monitors and eGPUs to the MB. It will be a very good machine at $1000 with 128 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM, Core m3, and 2 TB3 ports.
As an aside, I had an odd musing regarding the ARM processors Apple is gradually adding throughout its Mac lineup. If Apple uses an A11 in a $1300 MB or MBP, that A11 could be faster than the Intel processors in them. 😊
Interesting and informative stuff there. Thanks!
While reading it I realized that I was also applying my own bias to what constitutes a good value. I can't fathom how anyone e could live with only 128GB of storage, but then realized that many people obviously do. I discovered that when shopping for a used Air. Most of what I found on Craigslist only had 128GB, which means a lot of people bought them.
I hear you on storage prices. When I bought mine I late 2016, Apple’s prices were competitive for the type of storage used, but requiring 1TB on my production laptop sure did hurt...
OTOH, the previous machine had turned between twenty and thirty times the new machine’s price in revenues over the years, so it still seemed like a sound investment.
While reading it I realized that I was also applying my own bias to what constitutes a good value. I can't fathom how anyone e could live with only 128GB of storage, but then realized that many people obviously do. I discovered that when shopping for a used Air. Most of what I found on Craigslist only had 128GB, which means a lot of people bought them.
There was time 4 or 5 years ago when photo, music and video libraries were driving the need for average consumers to have terabyte hard drives, but I think for the vast majority of users today, that’s all gone.
People used to burn their music CD libraries onto their computers. Now it is streaming. People used to burn their video DVD libraries onto their computers. Now it is streaming. Photographs and videos can take up a lot of space. Now they can be stored in hard drives in the server and streamed to you client computer on demand. I have a 500GB multi-decade photo and video library in iCloud and I can access all of them from all client devices, including 64 GB iPhones. Not only that, HEIF and HEVC or whatever next gen compression schemes is set to further reduce the storage needs for devices, including on the server too.
8 GB RAM is the more important amount as that’ll enable the device to support future OS upgrades while 4 GB is a little tight for a laptop, especially when an external monitor is attached and you can have 3 or 4 apps open at the same time.
tht said: For the MacBook to hit $1000, it has to drop to a 128 GB SSD. It would be a better machine than the current MBA13: faster CPU, faster GPU, better display, lighter machine.
Maybe I'm missing something here... but a MB is faster than a MBA (CPU, GPU)? Do you mean once they upgrade to a next-gen chip?
lorin schultz said: I can't fathom how anyone e could live with only 128GB of storage, but then realized that many people obviously do. I discovered that when shopping for a used Air. Most of what I found on Craigslist only had 128GB, which means a lot of people bought them.
It's tough, especially if you are coming from (and used to) a hard drive based system. When I sold my 1TB iMac and went to my 128GB MBA, that was quite a difficult transition I still don't have fully worked out... though the reality of SSDs and what they do for performance, pretty much means no looking back.
I put all the really big stuff, like video or raw project archives, on an external drive/RAID, and did even with the iMac. But, trimming down the core 'internal storage' stuff was tough. The biggest change was that I use Dropbox, which uses and internal 'folder' as the base of it's structure. Unfortunately, that meant trimming Dropbox down to mostly stuff I need to share with family members or partners in various projects, but limited to smaller stuff.
Dropbox now had a paid option to get more specific about what gets included/excluded, and where it is stored, but it's somewhat expensive and a data-management workload.
I'm certainly going with 256GB in my next machine, possibly even 512, but with the amounts of data most of us are dealing with these days, it's still problematic in terms of workflow.
But, I guess I've come to terms with the fact that we aren't going back. Unless we have big budgets, small internal storage is a reality and needs to become part of our workflow.
tht said: There was time 4 or 5 years ago when photo, music and video libraries were driving the need for average consumers to have terabyte hard drives, but I think for the vast majority of users today, that’s all gone.
People used to burn their music CD libraries onto their computers. Now it is streaming. People used to burn their video DVD libraries onto their computers. Now it is streaming. Photographs and videos can take up a lot of space. Now they can be stored in hard drives in the server and streamed to you client computer on demand. I have a 500GB multi-decade photo and video library in iCloud and I can access all of them from all client devices, including 64 GB iPhones. Not only that, HEIF and HEVC or whatever next gen compression schemes is set to further reduce the storage needs for devices, including on the server too.
I don't know if it is gone (though it does seem to be going), but more that people were just forced to deal with the situation. If you're out of storage and 'cloud' solutions open up, most people use them, no matter how much they suck or what they are giving up. It's just we techies, I think, who often operated RAIDs full of media libraries.
I'm still searching for a good solution for photos. Music is kind of OK with an Apple Music subscription. I've been using Plex or Air Video for video, but still haven't gotten everything back in the shape it once was.
I'm sure at some point, someone will nail the cloud solution. I think Google is the closest, but who trusts Google with their data? I wish Apple would really sit down and think through their cloud solutions, but cloud and services have never been Apple's strong-suit.
tht said: For the MacBook to hit $1000, it has to drop to a 128 GB SSD. It would be a better machine than the current MBA13: faster CPU, faster GPU, better display, lighter machine.
Maybe I'm missing something here... but a MB is faster than a MBA (CPU, GPU)? Do you mean once they upgrade to a next-gen chip?
Comparing the current Core m3-7Y32 in the base model MacBook (Mid 2017) to the Core i5-5350U in the base model MacBook Air (Mid 2017). The MB is about a 10% faster. I expect the GPU to be a little faster as well. A 2017 MB with TB3 will be a very good device at a $1000 price point.
It looks like the next gen Intel 10 nm 5W Cannon Lake processors suitable for the MB has been delayed into 2019, and the MB currently has no CPU upgrade path in 2018, other than moving up the next Kaby Lake speed grade, like the base model goes to a Core m5-7Y54. The MB really should have TB3 though, so hopefully Apple revs it with TB3 this year.
tht said: Comparing the current Core m3-7Y32 in the base model MacBook (Mid 2017) to the Core i5-5350U in the base model MacBook Air (Mid 2017). The MB is about a 10% faster. I expect the GPU to be a little faster as well.
Interesting... I'll have to look into that. That flies in the face of what I thought I knew. That isn't some kind of peak speed until the chip throttles back, is it?
My friend who is pretty on top of this stuff, and has and loves his MB recommended my wife get a MBA because the MB just isn't up to the heavier tasks. That was a year or so ago, but has it changed that much?
Yea, if the MB had more ports (and especially TB3) I'd consider it instead of a MBA if that's true. (Except for the keyboard... the MBA has a better keyboard.)
tht said: Comparing the current Core m3-7Y32 in the base model MacBook (Mid 2017) to the Core i5-5350U in the base model MacBook Air (Mid 2017). The MB is about a 10% faster. I expect the GPU to be a little faster as well.
Interesting... I'll have to look into that. That flies in the face of what I thought I knew. That isn't some kind of peak speed until the chip throttles back, is it?
My friend who is pretty on top of this stuff, and has and loves his MB recommended my wife get a MBA because the MB just isn't up to the heavier tasks. That was a year or so ago, but has it changed that much?
Yea, if the MB had more ports (and especially TB3) I'd consider it instead of a MBA if that's true. (Except for the keyboard... the MBA has a better keyboard.)
Turbo speeds between the two are about the same, but Kaby Lake is a little faster per clock than Haswell, and has hardware decode for HEVC and HEIF. For the vast majority of the people who buy a MB or MBA, the MB should perform a little better, and in the case of HEVC and HEIF, a whole lot better.
If some one was running a process that exercised the CPU, like a computational simulation, the Core i5 will be a little faster as its base clock is 1.8 GHz vs the 1.1 GHz of the Core m3. These folks usually buy the MBP though.
A similar thing is going to happen with the 4-core Coffee Lake. The other thread has the XPS 13 scoring some healthy multi-core GB4 points over the 2-core MBP due to its 4 core architecture. But if you run a long running computational simulation, the MBP may end up performing about the same because the base clock is at 1.8 GHz on the 4 core while it is 2.3 GHz on the 2 core, whatever the actual frequencies are. Any thing that heats up the CPU, will cause them to go down to their base clocks, and 4x1.8 GHz isn’t going to be much faster than 2x2.3 GHz.
tht said: Would be interesting to see some actual testing.
Yeah. Thanks for the info. I had no idea it was that close, or in some cases the MB would be ahead. Maybe I was thinking the earlier MBs or something. Anyway, good to see the MB is becoming a viable option.
cgWerks said: [...] the reality of SSDs and what they do for performance, pretty much means no looking back.
Yup, and I'm willing to accept that SSD costs more than HDD. What I'm NOT willing to accept is Apple charging so much more than anyone else for it. A buck per gig is too much. Is it possible that Apple is trying to encourage iCloud subscription upgrades by making local storage unattractive, or is it just in keeping with Apple's standard operating procedure of making deep margins on anything they sell? Maybe the margins are lower on base models and Apple counts on those of us who buy BTO upgrades to bring up the average selling price across the line. I honestly don't know what Apple's reasons are, I just know that they're squeezing me out of buying their products.
cgWerks said: [...] the reality of SSDs and what they do for performance, pretty much means no looking back.
Yup, and I'm willing to accept that SSD costs more than HDD. What I'm NOT willing to accept is Apple charging so much more than anyone else for it. A buck per gig is too much. Is it possible that Apple is trying to encourage iCloud subscription upgrades by making local storage unattractive, or is it just in keeping with Apple's standard operating procedure of making deep margins on anything they sell? Maybe the margins are lower on base models and Apple counts on those of us who buy BTO upgrades to bring up the average selling price across the line. I honestly don't know what Apple's reasons are, I just know that they're squeezing me out of buying their products.
Well, while I haven't priced them out, be sure you're not comparing general 2.5" SSDs with the storage in the MacBook Pros (or Mac Pros, etc.). From what I understand, there is a considerable speed difference. Of course, we could wonder if that much speed is needed... and it probably isn't for prosumers. But, Apple has no mid-tier anymore (or I suppose some would say their low-end machines are mid-tier... but I mean within the Apple lineup).
re: iCloud - I suppose that's possible, but I wouldn't recommend using Apple's cloud heavily, nor letting their automated 'storage reducing' stuff do it. It might be OK, but Apple just has such a poor 'cloud' record that I don't trust it, and I hate their attempts to try and manage my storage behind the scenes.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage. This hasn't meshed well with Dropbox, but otherwise works pretty well.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
lorin schultz said: Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
Yea, I didn't say it isn't kind of a pain. It's just reality for most people now. Well, at least the ones who have gone SSD... a *lot* of people still use hard-drive based computers, I suppose, especially with PCs. That $500 laptop deal your uncle brags about probably doesn't have SSD.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
Can you explain your set up?
I have my iTunes library on an external drive but if I try to open up iTunes it asks me to choose a location or it will create one because it can't find my library. I'd think this would stop the app from being able to try to sync with an iPhone.
You can also disable auto-sync so that plugging in your iPhone doesn't try to sync automatically.
I feel like there's probably a solution for whatever setup you have.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
Can you explain your set up?
I have my iTunes library on an external drive but if I try to open up iTunes it asks me to choose a location or it will create one because it can't find my library. I'd think this would stop the app from being able to try to sync with an iPhone.
You can also disable auto-sync so that plugging in your iPhone doesn't try to sync automatically.
I feel like there's probably a solution for whatever setup you have.
Yes I’d love some thoughts on this too. My iTunes library is stored on a Time Capsule. Every time my system restarts ITunes creates a new iTunes library so I have to go to preferences and point it back to the external library. Soli - your setup where it least asks me to locate the library would be great.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
Can you explain your set up?
I have my iTunes library on an external drive but if I try to open up iTunes it asks me to choose a location or it will create one because it can't find my library. I'd think this would stop the app from being able to try to sync with an iPhone.
You can also disable auto-sync so that plugging in your iPhone doesn't try to sync automatically.
I feel like there's probably a solution for whatever setup you have.
Yes I’d love some thoughts on this too. My iTunes library is stored on a Time Capsule. Every time my system restarts ITunes creates a new iTunes library so I have to go to preferences and point it back to the external library. Soli - your setup where it least asks me to locate the library would be great.
1) I could've sworn AI did a how-to article for external iTunes Libraries at one point.
2) I can't be 100% sure without inconvenient testing right now, but I think I get that option because I moved my User folder to the external RAID. I did this for both security and for APFS copying.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
Can you explain your set up?
I have my iTunes library on an external drive but if I try to open up iTunes it asks me to choose a location or it will create one because it can't find my library. I'd think this would stop the app from being able to try to sync with an iPhone.
You can also disable auto-sync so that plugging in your iPhone doesn't try to sync automatically.
I feel like there's probably a solution for whatever setup you have.
Yes I’d love some thoughts on this too. My iTunes library is stored on a Time Capsule. Every time my system restarts ITunes creates a new iTunes library so I have to go to preferences and point it back to the external library. Soli - your setup where it least asks me to locate the library would be great.
I could've sworn AI did a how-to article for external iTunes Libraries at one point.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
Can you explain your set up?
I have my iTunes library on an external drive but if I try to open up iTunes it asks me to choose a location or it will create one because it can't find my library. I'd think this would stop the app from being able to try to sync with an iPhone.
You can also disable auto-sync so that plugging in your iPhone doesn't try to sync automatically.
I feel like there's probably a solution for whatever setup you have.
Yes I’d love some thoughts on this too. My iTunes library is stored on a Time Capsule. Every time my system restarts ITunes creates a new iTunes library so I have to go to preferences and point it back to the external library. Soli - your setup where it least asks me to locate the library would be great.
I could've sworn AI did a how-to article for external iTunes Libraries at one point.
I used Automator to delay the start up of every app that needs to connect to data on my external RAID. The apps will still launch if the external RAID doesn't show up and I have to give it 2 minutes, just to be safe. It works and I rarely have to restart my headless Mac mini, but it's not as slick as I'd like it be. Ideally I'd like to be able to have those apps not launch at all until the external RAID is ready and then launch those apps right away.
Do you know if Startupizer 2 has that option? [edit: I just downloaded and ran the app. Adding an external drive as a conditional item isn't an option].
PS: Do you also know of any apps that will stop other apps as soon as a network change is detected? Specifically, I'd like for all of Apple's services to not try to sync when I'm at, say, a coffee shop and need to connect my VPN. I'd like that the local network be allowed to send me a splash screen to authenticate to let me out, then allow my VPN to connect, and then my Mac can let all those other services do their thing.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage.
Now THAT'S a dongle! The computer got smaller and lighter, but now it has a lump the size of a wallet hanging off a cable!
Yea, pretty much. You just get a small HD or SSD in an external case hooked to TB3 or USB3. Or, if you have lots of cash, there are some really fast and slightly smaller options.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Using external storage with a laptop can have unexpected consequences. My video files are on an external drive. If I forget to connect it when I sync my iPhone, iTunes removes all the missing titles from the phone. Connecting the external drive solves the problem, but I have to wait an hour or more for it to re-copy gigabytes worth of video.
Can you explain your set up?
I have my iTunes library on an external drive but if I try to open up iTunes it asks me to choose a location or it will create one because it can't find my library. I'd think this would stop the app from being able to try to sync with an iPhone.
You can also disable auto-sync so that plugging in your iPhone doesn't try to sync automatically.
I feel like there's probably a solution for whatever setup you have.
Yes I’d love some thoughts on this too. My iTunes library is stored on a Time Capsule. Every time my system restarts ITunes creates a new iTunes library so I have to go to preferences and point it back to the external library. Soli - your setup where it least asks me to locate the library would be great.
I could've sworn AI did a how-to article for external iTunes Libraries at one point.
Thanks for these and I remember you kindly advising me on this previously. However, it seems as though the Time Capsule only starts spinning AFTER I’ve tried to start iTunes, but iTunes completes startup before the Time Capsule has spun up. Is there anyway of ensuring the external folder is visible before iTunes starts or to delay completion of iTunes startup so it doesn’t automatically create a new library? As I understand it, thus AppleScript works on the proviso that the folder is accessible after machine startup.
Comments
While reading it I realized that I was also applying my own bias to what constitutes a good value. I can't fathom how anyone e could live with only 128GB of storage, but then realized that many people obviously do. I discovered that when shopping for a used Air. Most of what I found on Craigslist only had 128GB, which means a lot of people bought them.
OTOH, the previous machine had turned between twenty and thirty times the new machine’s price in revenues over the years, so it still seemed like a sound investment.
There was time 4 or 5 years ago when photo, music and video libraries were driving the need for average consumers to have terabyte hard drives, but I think for the vast majority of users today, that’s all gone.
People used to burn their music CD libraries onto their computers. Now it is streaming. People used to burn their video DVD libraries onto their computers. Now it is streaming. Photographs and videos can take up a lot of space. Now they can be stored in hard drives in the server and streamed to you client computer on demand. I have a 500GB multi-decade photo and video library in iCloud and I can access all of them from all client devices, including 64 GB iPhones. Not only that, HEIF and HEVC or whatever next gen compression schemes is set to further reduce the storage needs for devices, including on the server too.
8 GB RAM is the more important amount as that’ll enable the device to support future OS upgrades while 4 GB is a little tight for a laptop, especially when an external monitor is attached and you can have 3 or 4 apps open at the same time.
It's tough, especially if you are coming from (and used to) a hard drive based system. When I sold my 1TB iMac and went to my 128GB MBA, that was quite a difficult transition I still don't have fully worked out... though the reality of SSDs and what they do for performance, pretty much means no looking back.
I put all the really big stuff, like video or raw project archives, on an external drive/RAID, and did even with the iMac. But, trimming down the core 'internal storage' stuff was tough. The biggest change was that I use Dropbox, which uses and internal 'folder' as the base of it's structure. Unfortunately, that meant trimming Dropbox down to mostly stuff I need to share with family members or partners in various projects, but limited to smaller stuff.
Dropbox now had a paid option to get more specific about what gets included/excluded, and where it is stored, but it's somewhat expensive and a data-management workload.
I'm certainly going with 256GB in my next machine, possibly even 512, but with the amounts of data most of us are dealing with these days, it's still problematic in terms of workflow.
But, I guess I've come to terms with the fact that we aren't going back. Unless we have big budgets, small internal storage is a reality and needs to become part of our workflow.
I don't know if it is gone (though it does seem to be going), but more that people were just forced to deal with the situation. If you're out of storage and 'cloud' solutions open up, most people use them, no matter how much they suck or what they are giving up. It's just we techies, I think, who often operated RAIDs full of media libraries.
I'm still searching for a good solution for photos. Music is kind of OK with an Apple Music subscription. I've been using Plex or Air Video for video, but still haven't gotten everything back in the shape it once was.
I'm sure at some point, someone will nail the cloud solution. I think Google is the closest, but who trusts Google with their data? I wish Apple would really sit down and think through their cloud solutions, but cloud and services have never been Apple's strong-suit.
It looks like the next gen Intel 10 nm 5W Cannon Lake processors suitable for the MB has been delayed into 2019, and the MB currently has no CPU upgrade path in 2018, other than moving up the next Kaby Lake speed grade, like the base model goes to a Core m5-7Y54. The MB really should have TB3 though, so hopefully Apple revs it with TB3 this year.
My friend who is pretty on top of this stuff, and has and loves his MB recommended my wife get a MBA because the MB just isn't up to the heavier tasks. That was a year or so ago, but has it changed that much?
Yea, if the MB had more ports (and especially TB3) I'd consider it instead of a MBA if that's true. (Except for the keyboard... the MBA has a better keyboard.)
If some one was running a process that exercised the CPU, like a computational simulation, the Core i5 will be a little faster as its base clock is 1.8 GHz vs the 1.1 GHz of the Core m3. These folks usually buy the MBP though.
A similar thing is going to happen with the 4-core Coffee Lake. The other thread has the XPS 13 scoring some healthy multi-core GB4 points over the 2-core MBP due to its 4 core architecture. But if you run a long running computational simulation, the MBP may end up performing about the same because the base clock is at 1.8 GHz on the 4 core while it is 2.3 GHz on the 2 core, whatever the actual frequencies are. Any thing that heats up the CPU, will cause them to go down to their base clocks, and 4x1.8 GHz isn’t going to be much faster than 2x2.3 GHz.
Would be interesting to see some actual testing.
re: iCloud - I suppose that's possible, but I wouldn't recommend using Apple's cloud heavily, nor letting their automated 'storage reducing' stuff do it. It might be OK, but Apple just has such a poor 'cloud' record that I don't trust it, and I hate their attempts to try and manage my storage behind the scenes.
My strategy has been to question what really needs to live on the internal storage, and then just add fast, relatively cheap, external storage. This hasn't meshed well with Dropbox, but otherwise works pretty well.
These machines are pretty sleek when you only need the machine. But, if you need them to do many of the things previous generation machines did, then it is docks and dongles, which is far less elegant if you're not at your desk (and somewhat even then).
Well, at least the ones who have gone SSD... a *lot* of people still use hard-drive based computers, I suppose, especially with PCs. That $500 laptop deal your uncle brags about probably doesn't have SSD.
I have my iTunes library on an external drive but if I try to open up iTunes it asks me to choose a location or it will create one because it can't find my library. I'd think this would stop the app from being able to try to sync with an iPhone.
You can also disable auto-sync so that plugging in your iPhone doesn't try to sync automatically.
I feel like there's probably a solution for whatever setup you have.
2) I can't be 100% sure without inconvenient testing right now, but I think I get that option because I moved my User folder to the external RAID. I did this for both security and for APFS copying.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/02/04/tips-delaying-the-start-of-itunes-to-avoid-the-missing-library-error-on-macos
Probably also relevant
Do you know if Startupizer 2 has that option? [edit: I just downloaded and ran the app. Adding an external drive as a conditional item isn't an option].
PS: Do you also know of any apps that will stop other apps as soon as a network change is detected? Specifically, I'd like for all of Apple's services to not try to sync when I'm at, say, a coffee shop and need to connect my VPN. I'd like that the local network be allowed to send me a splash screen to authenticate to let me out, then allow my VPN to connect, and then my Mac can let all those other services do their thing.