I can see how it would be nice for the people that want to use their MBs as HTPC or carry with them a stack of encrypted BRDs, but I can't see how that would be something Apple would cater to since the market for that is so small. Apple doesn't even market the Mac Mini as an HTPC by adding HDMI or allowing for it to boot into the AppleTV OS.
Apple has never understood the living room. It's why AppleTV is still a hobby. Apple are missing so many opportunities here to be head-and-shoulders above the rest of the market; it makes my head hurt.
How do you know what size the market is? The development effort required by Apple would be tiny; as you say just offer it as a $500 option and see who goes for it.
I think that you have a couple of choices: Settle for LCD performance or look at another brand of laptop. Gamers have looked elsewhere for years.
is this an example of the quantity vs. quality issue called earlier?
Everyone has opinions. Not all opinions are the same. Some are "good" opinions, based in actual vs. attributed fact. Others are questionable or "bad" opinions where facts are more, shall we say, loosely defined and the rigor is in flogging the opinion with great vigor, not accuracy.
The term "whiney" comes up in these threads a lot because much of the commentary stems out of the recurring theme of "I want, I want, I want". Or a Cartmaneque "RESPECT MA AUTHORITAY". There is a wide market of standard, semi-custom, and fully custom laptops out there. You can have Blu-Ray, eSata, HDMI, USB3, 16:9 full HD, and TB hard drives. It will perform as well as you desire it to (hopefully) and give you bragging rights on features. And a 10lb laptop. With 3 hours of battery life - unless of course you buy the 5lb extended battery, which will give you 6 hours. They are called trade-offs - which is why many in this forum are not in the computer industry as very successful designers and engineers of hardware. The proof of performance is not completely in the stats but in the actual hands-on usage. which is why you can buy a statistically higher performance/higher featured PC which still pretty much sucks and will be replaced on average in 3 years.
Apple has never understood the living room. It's why AppleTV is still a hobby. Apple are missing so many opportunities here to be head-and-shoulders above the rest of the market; it makes my head hurt.
How do you know what size the market is? The development effort required by Apple would be tiny; as you say just offer it as a $500 option and see who goes for it.
I can judge the desire by looking at the uptake of PCs with Blu-ray and the Blu-ray market as a whole, which includes the living room where Blu-ray is ideal. I don't think it's great enough for a company like Apple to worry about, especially with them working to push digital downloads and my other theory that they are holding to CD/DVD drives until they can remove the optical drive altogether since it's slow, power hungry and takes up 25% of the internal space of the 13" MB/MBP.
Plus, even if they add it they still have to support AACS in the OS for protected Blu-ray videos to play. It seems to me that if they were fine with Blu-ray as a technology they would have added the OS elements long ago so that external or 3rd-party internal Blu-ray drives could play Blu-ray media.
Licensing aside, is it really worth it for Apple to offer a $500 Blu-ray drive when their most popular product are 13" with 800 horizontal lines and 15" with 900 horizontal lines? .
Often the Blu-Ray versions of laptops come with 1080p screens.
is this an example of the quantity vs. quality issue called earlier?
Everyone has opinions. Not all opinions are the same. Some are "good" opinions, based in actual vs. attributed fact. Others are questionable or "bad" opinions where facts are more, shall we say, loosely defined and the rigor is in flogging the opinion with great vigor, not accuracy.
The term "whiney" comes up in these threads a lot because much of the commentary stems out of the recurring theme of "I want, I want, I want". Or a Cartmaneque "RESPECT MA AUTHORITAY". There is a wide market of standard, semi-custom, and fully custom laptops out there. You can have Blu-Ray, eSata, HDMI, USB3, 16:9 full HD, and TB hard drives. It will perform as well as you desire it to (hopefully) and give you bragging rights on features. And a 10lb laptop. With 3 hours of battery life - unless of course you buy the 5lb extended battery, which will give you 6 hours. They are called trade-offs - which is why many in this forum are not in the computer industry as very successful designers and engineers of hardware. The proof of performance is not completely in the stats but in the actual hands-on usage. which is why you can buy a statistically higher performance/higher featured PC which still pretty much sucks and will be replaced on average in 3 years.
Dunno what all this is about, but the OP said
"I use Vectorworks and need raw power for my CAD & 3D work. I'd be willing to sacrifice the giant battery if it meant getting a quad-core processor!"
No blueray, no hdmi, no full keyboard, no fair price! And I'm a mac user! Come on apple. 1799 for a low end i5? Show some competitive pricing. The MBP i5/i7 are priced like a some rare gem stone. i5/i7 are plentiful and priced less than 1500 on the pc. Fail
I was worried about that too, but I was just in an Apple Store that still had the older MacBook Pros on display - even on the older ones it was called "anti-glare" and not matte, at least on their signs.
They didn't have any new ones out yet, so I couldn't actually look at it to see if it was the same.
The Apple store here in Austin says the high res and anti glare will be on display tomorrow.
No blueray, no hdmi, no full keyboard, no fair price! And I'm a mac user! Come on apple. 1799 for a low end i5? Show some competitive pricing. The MBP i5/i7 are priced like a some rare gem stone. i5/i7 are plentiful and priced less than 1500 on the pc. Fail
"Oh, the food there is terrible! And such small servings!"
It's more like saying "we didn't get any service when we went to that restaurant! We just sat there for an hour and left. Oh and the service there is really slow."
The more time moves on the less I care about Blue Ray. I have yet to buy a BR disc or player. I am hoping to just skip the BR years and go straight to digital.
This digital thing you talk about had been available for years, maybe you have heard of VCD, SVCD, DVD etc?
I was worried about that too, but I was just in an Apple Store that still had the older MacBook Pros on display - even on the older ones it was called "anti-glare" and not matte, at least on their signs.
They didn't have any new ones out yet, so I couldn't actually look at it to see if it was the same.
Anti-glare is more descriptive than matte. it's pure marketing.
But I'll take Ant-glare over glossy any day. That's why I bought a ViewSonic pro 26" 1920 x 1200 monitor over an Apple.
Apple lost my $700, but they clearly don't seem to care.
No blueray, no hdmi, no full keyboard, no fair price! And I'm a mac user! Come on apple. 1799 for a low end i5? Show some competitive pricing. The MBP i5/i7 are priced like a some rare gem stone. i5/i7 are plentiful and priced less than 1500 on the pc. Fail
Please spare us the trollery.
If you spec out a Dell POS equally, it would probably cost more AND the worst part? You'd be stuck with Windows or Ubuntu. Sorry, but Hackintosh is for dorks.
Apple has announced that they would be discontinuing screen film things like that from the Apple Store. I'm not sure if that applies to this, but it does seem a bit silly.
Apple DOES have BTO options, but why not add a few more options?
I noticed that there are NO 7200rpm hard drive options for the 13" MBP. If they're talking about adding performance enhancements, this is one of the simplest and cheapest and best all-around system speed-ups.
If you spec out a Dell POS equally, it would probably cost more AND the worst part? You'd be stuck with Windows or Ubuntu. Sorry, but Hackintosh is for dorks.
No thanks.
I would love to see some current comparisons to other vendor's comparable notebooks now that Apple has Core-ix shipping
Apple has announced that they would be discontinuing screen film things like that from the Apple Store. I'm not sure if that applies to this, but it does seem a bit silly.
Apple DOES have BTO options, but why not add a few more options?
I noticed that there are NO 7200rpm hard drive options for the 13" MBP. If they're talking about adding performance enhancements, this is one of the simplest and cheapest and best all-around system speed-ups.
I thought that was just for their iDevices due to the touchscreen and usage patterns.
The BTO option for AG on the 15" is now $150 since you are also required to get the higher-res panel. The 17" MBP is still only $50 more since it only comes in one resolution.
7200RPM would be nice, but I'd have preferred to see higher capacity HDDs instead. I'd also have liked to see more options with SSD brands, but that does go against Apple's focus on simplicity.
Comments
I can see how it would be nice for the people that want to use their MBs as HTPC or carry with them a stack of encrypted BRDs, but I can't see how that would be something Apple would cater to since the market for that is so small. Apple doesn't even market the Mac Mini as an HTPC by adding HDMI or allowing for it to boot into the AppleTV OS.
Apple has never understood the living room. It's why AppleTV is still a hobby. Apple are missing so many opportunities here to be head-and-shoulders above the rest of the market; it makes my head hurt.
How do you know what size the market is? The development effort required by Apple would be tiny; as you say just offer it as a $500 option and see who goes for it.
Is the apple care essential? How long is the guarantee over here in the states? (just moved here)
Essential is hard to gauge, but it does come in handy. I find that it also helps if you resell your Macs frequently.
I think that you have a couple of choices: Settle for LCD performance or look at another brand of laptop. Gamers have looked elsewhere for years.
is this an example of the quantity vs. quality issue called earlier?
Everyone has opinions. Not all opinions are the same. Some are "good" opinions, based in actual vs. attributed fact. Others are questionable or "bad" opinions where facts are more, shall we say, loosely defined and the rigor is in flogging the opinion with great vigor, not accuracy.
The term "whiney" comes up in these threads a lot because much of the commentary stems out of the recurring theme of "I want, I want, I want". Or a Cartmaneque "RESPECT MA AUTHORITAY". There is a wide market of standard, semi-custom, and fully custom laptops out there. You can have Blu-Ray, eSata, HDMI, USB3, 16:9 full HD, and TB hard drives. It will perform as well as you desire it to (hopefully) and give you bragging rights on features. And a 10lb laptop. With 3 hours of battery life - unless of course you buy the 5lb extended battery, which will give you 6 hours. They are called trade-offs - which is why many in this forum are not in the computer industry as very successful designers and engineers of hardware. The proof of performance is not completely in the stats but in the actual hands-on usage. which is why you can buy a statistically higher performance/higher featured PC which still pretty much sucks and will be replaced on average in 3 years.
Apple has never understood the living room. It's why AppleTV is still a hobby. Apple are missing so many opportunities here to be head-and-shoulders above the rest of the market; it makes my head hurt.
How do you know what size the market is? The development effort required by Apple would be tiny; as you say just offer it as a $500 option and see who goes for it.
I can judge the desire by looking at the uptake of PCs with Blu-ray and the Blu-ray market as a whole, which includes the living room where Blu-ray is ideal. I don't think it's great enough for a company like Apple to worry about, especially with them working to push digital downloads and my other theory that they are holding to CD/DVD drives until they can remove the optical drive altogether since it's slow, power hungry and takes up 25% of the internal space of the 13" MB/MBP.
Plus, even if they add it they still have to support AACS in the OS for protected Blu-ray videos to play. It seems to me that if they were fine with Blu-ray as a technology they would have added the OS elements long ago so that external or 3rd-party internal Blu-ray drives could play Blu-ray media.
Licensing aside, is it really worth it for Apple to offer a $500 Blu-ray drive when their most popular product are 13" with 800 horizontal lines and 15" with 900 horizontal lines? .
Often the Blu-Ray versions of laptops come with 1080p screens.
is this an example of the quantity vs. quality issue called earlier?
Everyone has opinions. Not all opinions are the same. Some are "good" opinions, based in actual vs. attributed fact. Others are questionable or "bad" opinions where facts are more, shall we say, loosely defined and the rigor is in flogging the opinion with great vigor, not accuracy.
The term "whiney" comes up in these threads a lot because much of the commentary stems out of the recurring theme of "I want, I want, I want". Or a Cartmaneque "RESPECT MA AUTHORITAY". There is a wide market of standard, semi-custom, and fully custom laptops out there. You can have Blu-Ray, eSata, HDMI, USB3, 16:9 full HD, and TB hard drives. It will perform as well as you desire it to (hopefully) and give you bragging rights on features. And a 10lb laptop. With 3 hours of battery life - unless of course you buy the 5lb extended battery, which will give you 6 hours. They are called trade-offs - which is why many in this forum are not in the computer industry as very successful designers and engineers of hardware. The proof of performance is not completely in the stats but in the actual hands-on usage. which is why you can buy a statistically higher performance/higher featured PC which still pretty much sucks and will be replaced on average in 3 years.
Dunno what all this is about, but the OP said
"I use Vectorworks and need raw power for my CAD & 3D work. I'd be willing to sacrifice the giant battery if it meant getting a quad-core processor!"
No quad-core alternative for him I guess?
Might be time to find another option for my mobile business needs.
I was worried about that too, but I was just in an Apple Store that still had the older MacBook Pros on display - even on the older ones it was called "anti-glare" and not matte, at least on their signs.
They didn't have any new ones out yet, so I couldn't actually look at it to see if it was the same.
The Apple store here in Austin says the high res and anti glare will be on display tomorrow.
This troll is still waiting for the 13" matte/anti-glare option to upgrade from his 12" powerbook.
Might be time to find another option for my mobile business needs.
I've read good review about this.
No blueray, no hdmi, no full keyboard, no fair price! And I'm a mac user! Come on apple. 1799 for a low end i5? Show some competitive pricing. The MBP i5/i7 are priced like a some rare gem stone. i5/i7 are plentiful and priced less than 1500 on the pc. Fail
Apple is Doomed!?
"Oh, the food there is terrible! And such small servings!"
It's more like saying "we didn't get any service when we went to that restaurant! We just sat there for an hour and left. Oh and the service there is really slow."
Wikipedia doesn't think that the 2.4 GHz i5s have working AES units.
Even if they did, does FileVault take advantage of hardware acceleration?
The more time moves on the less I care about Blue Ray. I have yet to buy a BR disc or player. I am hoping to just skip the BR years and go straight to digital.
This digital thing you talk about had been available for years, maybe you have heard of VCD, SVCD, DVD etc?
This digital thing you talk about had been available for years, maybe you have heard of VCD, SVCD, DVD etc?
Real nice. I think we all know I was talking straight to download like iTunes. But if you didn't, now you do.
I was worried about that too, but I was just in an Apple Store that still had the older MacBook Pros on display - even on the older ones it was called "anti-glare" and not matte, at least on their signs.
They didn't have any new ones out yet, so I couldn't actually look at it to see if it was the same.
Anti-glare is more descriptive than matte. it's pure marketing.
But I'll take Ant-glare over glossy any day. That's why I bought a ViewSonic pro 26" 1920 x 1200 monitor over an Apple.
Apple lost my $700, but they clearly don't seem to care.
No blueray, no hdmi, no full keyboard, no fair price! And I'm a mac user! Come on apple. 1799 for a low end i5? Show some competitive pricing. The MBP i5/i7 are priced like a some rare gem stone. i5/i7 are plentiful and priced less than 1500 on the pc. Fail
Please spare us the trollery.
If you spec out a Dell POS equally, it would probably cost more AND the worst part? You'd be stuck with Windows or Ubuntu. Sorry, but Hackintosh is for dorks.
No thanks.
I've read good review about this.
Apple has announced that they would be discontinuing screen film things like that from the Apple Store. I'm not sure if that applies to this, but it does seem a bit silly.
Apple DOES have BTO options, but why not add a few more options?
I noticed that there are NO 7200rpm hard drive options for the 13" MBP. If they're talking about adding performance enhancements, this is one of the simplest and cheapest and best all-around system speed-ups.
Please spare us the trollery.
If you spec out a Dell POS equally, it would probably cost more AND the worst part? You'd be stuck with Windows or Ubuntu. Sorry, but Hackintosh is for dorks.
No thanks.
I would love to see some current comparisons to other vendor's comparable notebooks now that Apple has Core-ix shipping
Apple has announced that they would be discontinuing screen film things like that from the Apple Store. I'm not sure if that applies to this, but it does seem a bit silly.
Apple DOES have BTO options, but why not add a few more options?
I noticed that there are NO 7200rpm hard drive options for the 13" MBP. If they're talking about adding performance enhancements, this is one of the simplest and cheapest and best all-around system speed-ups.
I thought that was just for their iDevices due to the touchscreen and usage patterns.
The BTO option for AG on the 15" is now $150 since you are also required to get the higher-res panel. The 17" MBP is still only $50 more since it only comes in one resolution.
7200RPM would be nice, but I'd have preferred to see higher capacity HDDs instead. I'd also have liked to see more options with SSD brands, but that does go against Apple's focus on simplicity.