I waited a year for gen-2 and they still insult my intelligence with a horrific camera of epic proportions. I just sent Apple my displeasure. Perhaps you should as well:
And don't give us the "there isn't a 720p camera that's thin enough" cop out. Making excuses for Apple only says "I'm as smart as Apple." Which isn't very smart at all since neither you nor Apple can fit good tech in a thin chassis. I say DO A STEVE JOBS. When stupid engineers tell me it can't be done, I say, DO IT ANYWAY. Where there's a will, there's a way. There's always a way. No excuses for stupid 480p tech. None. Zero. Nada.
Why we fight to have better front camera on laptop ? Better back camera on iphone or ipad is desirable because it is meant to take good pictures of many things. For, front video chat camera, I rather have less pixel camera that not let me see other people's expressions/issues(pores,cut,bruises,not clean etc) on face and nor to show mine. Front camera is just a face representation on both side for mainly audio conversation. .
So what will your excuse be when they DO add a 720p camera?
and you don't wanna see people's expressions...classic.
a little disappointing that they didn't add more ports and drop the price...at $999 with at least two ports it would be a pretty appealing laptop.
Adding more ports isn't like a spec bump, it would require a redesign. Did anyone seriously think Apple would redesign this machine only one year after releasing it? The MBA received 3 spec bumps before it got a redesign (almost 3 years after it was announced). Outside of expecting a price drop I think people's expectations were out of whack.
It would probably need a bit of reworking to get two USB ports, the audio cable is at the bottom in the image and the USB cable up top:
It's limiting for people with it also being the power input. The original Air had a single USB port but power was separate. Now you can't plug it in and use a USB product without an adapter. If they could even get a magnetic plug like the Watch that attached somewhere else, that would free up the port while charging. They could also ditch the audio port and supply a USB C to 3.5mm cable, like the mini USB one below:
The 480p camera quality is shown in the following video at 1:20:
I'd say the bigger problem with camera quality isn't the resolution (480p is DVD resolution, people have watched millions of movies at DVD resolution ok), it just has a grainy, muddy picture quality. If the screen is 1440x900, the camera image of 848x480 would take up just over half the screen, which is an ok size for webcams. The girl in the video mentioned she used a 720p webcam for making Youtube videos and the Macbook one wouldn't really come up that quality. If the next iPhone has a dual camera tech, that might be an option for the Macbook.
The processors in these machines came out last year. The Surface Pro 4 got these Skylake chips in October, 6 months ago. It helps retain the resale value of older models I suppose. The performance of these CPUs is ok, this video shows the last model doing 4K video:
I don't expect the Macbook to change much in design going forward. Wireless or magnetic charging would be one thing they could add. Apple got a patent recently for a laptop without a keyboard, replacing it with a large touchpad, they've had similar patents years ago:
They could do some useful things with that like pencil input, custom controls per app. For tactile input, there could be rubber or mechanical addons that stick to the surface magnetically or with suction. Design changes typically solve problems, once there's nothing more to improve, the designs will change less often or not at all. People can settle for the last-gen model at a lower price and not feel like they are missing out:
After 1 year I still love my 2015 12" retina Macbook. I've always felt as if Jony Ive and I sat down and he designed this laptop just for me. Although the processor is slower, I have never noticed a difference from my previous Macbook Pro for the type of work I do - web-based business programs and Office. Only issue has been battery life - I typically get a max of only 6 hrs - so the battery upgrade is welcome. I'd recommend this to computer to anyone who wants a lightweight, fun to use laptop and doesn't need more processing power.
I couldn't go back to the that battery life. My 13" Air gets about double that.
Would your 13" Air with a Retina display get double that?
Why didn't Apple upgrade the camera? It is still the 480p camera of 8 years ago!
Why? So Apple can announce another "all new" Macbook a year from now with an upgraded camera and maybe Thunderbolt capability (which it could easily have included in this upgrade) and sell a whole slew of "all new" MacBooks to the dolts that bought one this month. This is what I hate about Apple. It trickles out upgrades and improvements that are released late solely to ensure a market demand for these upgrades that should have been included when they were already well-established in the market.
Just one port and just 480 pixel. So what? Apple has a multitude of MacBooks. This one is just the first fanless laptop on the market. I prefer this, you prefer another one that shows your nose hair... What is the point of writing kilometers of lamentation ?
So what, you ask? Apple used to want the best, most advanced products on the market. Period. They still start out with a great idea, sure. But then it's all about money: build them as cheaply as you can and keep them in the game as long as you can. Look at the accessory pricing. Totally ridiculous.
Not sure why some of you are bitching about the price and components of this refresh. This laptop is such a great piece of technology. Use one before you judge. I am not crazy about the camera either but if this is that important to your daily life I would think you would use a USB version anyway. There is not a laptop on the market that is as nice as this when you look at every aspect.
The Dell XPS 13 is just better in almost every aspect and is cheaper
Not sure why some of you are bitching about the price and components of this refresh. This laptop is such a great piece of technology. Use one before you judge. I am not crazy about the camera either but if this is that important to your daily life I would think you would use a USB version anyway. There is not a laptop on the market that is as nice as this when you look at every aspect.
The Dell XPS 13 is just better in almost every aspect and is cheaper
That's weird...you'd think if it were actually better in almost every aspect it would be well reviewed...and yet it's only got 3 stars on Dell's own site. It's almost like it seems good on paper, but falls apart in actual execution, and all the little details that Apple gets right. (In other words, spec-whores will _never_ understand Apple)
And upon a little more investigation, your comment is just patently false. The closest XPS 13 with 256GB SSD and retina-class display is the "developer edition" for $1650. If you're willing to do without a high-res display, then you could get the lower model for $1100. Of course both of those come with Ubuntu. While I'm a huge fan of Linux, it is not going to fly with the vast majority of users as a desktop. Oh, and they're also bulkier, and weigh 35% more than the MacBook. Ultimately, these kinds of comparisons are somewhat pointless...there's never an exact matchup to allow a value assesment. But if you take a step back and think "For most end-users looking for a small/highly portable laptop, what are the key needs/wants?" Well, it's size/weight, screen quality, storage, and build quality (probably in that order). Apple clearly understands and nails this. Dell tends to bait and switch in terms of "starting at only $xxx" but then when you spec up to anything worthwhile, it's at least as expensive, and lacks all the refinement. You end up with a bigger, clunkier, heavier, and grossly non-optimized system. Sure it's got a much more powerful CPU, but that's not a benefit for the vast majority of users, and in fact it's a hidden liability, as it sucks more power...and the Dell has a small battery. Ultimately, I think the "dell is better AND cheaper" guys must be really young and have missed the past 15 years of Apple and the market clearly disproving this. Apple products are supremely well optimized to what consumer needs _ACTUALY_ are, regardless of perceptions. Of course they won't hit the perfect sweet spot for every user, but that's simply not possible.
I waited a year for gen-2 and they still insult my intelligence with a horrific camera of epic proportions. I just sent Apple my displeasure. Perhaps you should as well:
And don't give us the "there isn't a 720p camera that's thin enough" cop out. Making excuses for Apple only says "I'm as smart as Apple." Which isn't very smart at all since neither you nor Apple can fit good tech in a thin chassis. I say DO A STEVE JOBS. When stupid engineers tell me it can't be done, I say, DO IT ANYWAY. Where there's a will, there's a way. There's always a way. No excuses for stupid 480p tech. None. Zero. Nada.
It's not an excuse, it's a reality. The cameras are sourced from third-party manufacturers and there isn't one thin enough to fit into the thin display assembly of the 12 inch MacBook. If someone were to manufacture a 720P camera thin enough, then I'm sure Apple would happily upgrade the camera. Don't know what the fuss is all about, the front facing camera is hardly worth shouting about.
I don't understand why they don't just have a camera bump then? They do it with the iPhone after all ;-)
Um yeah because Apple isn't in the business of redesigning a product only a year after its introduced. If they wanted it to have more than one port they would have designed it that way last year.
Not sure why some of you are bitching about the price and components of this refresh. This laptop is such a great piece of technology. Use one before you judge. I am not crazy about the camera either but if this is that important to your daily life I would think you would use a USB version anyway. There is not a laptop on the market that is as nice as this when you look at every aspect.
The Dell XPS 13 is just better in almost every aspect and is cheaper
I wasn't aware this laptop was designed to compete with the XPS 13. Also rMBP's haven't been refreshed yet and the year isn't over. Finally Apple has never competed on price.
Why didn't Apple upgrade the camera? It is still the 480p camera of 8 years ago!
Why? So Apple can announce another "all new" Macbook a year from now with an upgraded camera and maybe Thunderbolt capability (which it could easily have included in this upgrade) and sell a whole slew of "all new" MacBooks to the dolts that bought one this month. This is what I hate about Apple. It trickles out upgrades and improvements that are released late solely to ensure a market demand for these upgrades that should have been included when they were already well-established in the market.
You really think someone is going to upgrade their computer just because of the webcam? No.
Not sure why some of you are bitching about the price and components of this refresh. This laptop is such a great piece of technology. Use one before you judge. I am not crazy about the camera either but if this is that important to your daily life I would think you would use a USB version anyway. There is not a laptop on the market that is as nice as this when you look at every aspect.
The Dell XPS 13 is just better in almost every aspect and is cheaper
I have one of those. Worst machine I've bought from any manufacturer. The whole thing feels rather cheap. The whole keyboard flexes while typing and it crashes a lot (though I suspect this is down to buggy drivers in Windows 10 and not the hardware).
Still, it was cheaper than an Apple and I wasn't expecting a high level of build quality at such a low price.
Yes. There's only room for two ports on that thing, and the 3.5mm jack takes up one of the spots. Apple hasn't removed the 3.5mm jack from the iPhone yet. Until they do, they can't remove it from the rMB, and they don't want to ask customers to start using adapters yet, because they haven't announced theirs yet either.
My guess is that if the iPhone 7 debuts without a 3.5mm jack, we'll see a mid-cycle refresh in September for the rMB, just like we did with the iPad 3 and 4 going from the 30-pin dock connector to Lightning, only this will replace the 3.5mm jack with a Lightning 2 port, which can be used for charging, thus leaving the USB-C port free for standard peripherals, and allow the new Lightning earbuds included with the iPhone 7 to be natively used with the MacBook, not to mention double as a high speed USB 3 compliant port if needed (with an adapter of course).
Also, no rush for this because the device is meant for wireless file management for the most part, so the targeted user isn't plugging a lot of USB devices into it for a very long amount of time. This is fairly evident in their choice to offer rose gold, which is obviously a more important consideration to their target customer than an extra USB-C port. For everyone else, there's the MBA, until Apple adds the Lightning 2 port, then they will likely drop the price of the rMB and depreciate the MBA.
Not sure why some of you are bitching about the price and components of this refresh. This laptop is such a great piece of technology. Use one before you judge. I am not crazy about the camera either but if this is that important to your daily life I would think you would use a USB version anyway. There is not a laptop on the market that is as nice as this when you look at every aspect.
The Dell XPS 13 is just better in almost every aspect and is cheaper
It is "better" in what way? If you are referring to specs only you may have a point. Screen quality, build quality of the case (not even close) keyboard and track pad (I have yet to use an HP or Dell track pad that is worthy). I am referring to overall quality not just "the processor is faster". From a user experience it is going to be hard to beat. But I am sure you have used both products? I have used the XPS 13 and own the Macbook.
Totally expected. Though I'm sure some will complain because Apple didn't redesign it into a retina MacBook Air.
Nope some of use will object because Apple didn't address glaring issues with the design. The lack of a second USB-C port being one of them or a built in hub in the charger as an alternative.
Comments
Utter hogwash.
So what will your excuse be when they DO add a 720p camera?
and you don't wanna see people's expressions...classic.
It's limiting for people with it also being the power input. The original Air had a single USB port but power was separate. Now you can't plug it in and use a USB product without an adapter. If they could even get a magnetic plug like the Watch that attached somewhere else, that would free up the port while charging. They could also ditch the audio port and supply a USB C to 3.5mm cable, like the mini USB one below:
The 480p camera quality is shown in the following video at 1:20:
I'd say the bigger problem with camera quality isn't the resolution (480p is DVD resolution, people have watched millions of movies at DVD resolution ok), it just has a grainy, muddy picture quality. If the screen is 1440x900, the camera image of 848x480 would take up just over half the screen, which is an ok size for webcams. The girl in the video mentioned she used a 720p webcam for making Youtube videos and the Macbook one wouldn't really come up that quality. If the next iPhone has a dual camera tech, that might be an option for the Macbook.
The processors in these machines came out last year. The Surface Pro 4 got these Skylake chips in October, 6 months ago. It helps retain the resale value of older models I suppose. The performance of these CPUs is ok, this video shows the last model doing 4K video:
I don't expect the Macbook to change much in design going forward. Wireless or magnetic charging would be one thing they could add. Apple got a patent recently for a laptop without a keyboard, replacing it with a large touchpad, they've had similar patents years ago:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3528632/Is-Apple-set-kill-keyboard-Patent-shows-laptop-design-giant-touchpad-senses-movement.html
They could do some useful things with that like pencil input, custom controls per app. For tactile input, there could be rubber or mechanical addons that stick to the surface magnetically or with suction. Design changes typically solve problems, once there's nothing more to improve, the designs will change less often or not at all. People can settle for the last-gen model at a lower price and not feel like they are missing out:
http://www.apple.com/shop/product/FJY32LL/A/refurbished-12-inch-macbook-11ghz-dual-core-intel-core-m-space-gray
There's an article here saying Apple is going with AMD for machines that use dedicated GPUs:
http://wccftech.com/amd-polaris-radeon-400-series-gpus-sweep-apple-design-wins/
Some AMD GPUs are rebrands but hopefully Apple will go with Polaris models. These updates probably won't happen before June.
And upon a little more investigation, your comment is just patently false. The closest XPS 13 with 256GB SSD and retina-class display is the "developer edition" for $1650. If you're willing to do without a high-res display, then you could get the lower model for $1100. Of course both of those come with Ubuntu. While I'm a huge fan of Linux, it is not going to fly with the vast majority of users as a desktop. Oh, and they're also bulkier, and weigh 35% more than the MacBook. Ultimately, these kinds of comparisons are somewhat pointless...there's never an exact matchup to allow a value assesment. But if you take a step back and think "For most end-users looking for a small/highly portable laptop, what are the key needs/wants?" Well, it's size/weight, screen quality, storage, and build quality (probably in that order). Apple clearly understands and nails this. Dell tends to bait and switch in terms of "starting at only $xxx" but then when you spec up to anything worthwhile, it's at least as expensive, and lacks all the refinement. You end up with a bigger, clunkier, heavier, and grossly non-optimized system. Sure it's got a much more powerful CPU, but that's not a benefit for the vast majority of users, and in fact it's a hidden liability, as it sucks more power...and the Dell has a small battery. Ultimately, I think the "dell is better AND cheaper" guys must be really young and have missed the past 15 years of Apple and the market clearly disproving this. Apple products are supremely well optimized to what consumer needs _ACTUALY_ are, regardless of perceptions. Of course they won't hit the perfect sweet spot for every user, but that's simply not possible.
I wasn't aware this laptop was designed to compete with the XPS 13. Also rMBP's haven't been refreshed yet and the year isn't over. Finally Apple has never competed on price.
You really think someone is going to upgrade their computer just because of the webcam? No.
I have one of those. Worst machine I've bought from any manufacturer. The whole thing feels rather cheap. The whole keyboard flexes while typing and it crashes a lot (though I suspect this is down to buggy drivers in Windows 10 and not the hardware).
Still, it was cheaper than an Apple and I wasn't expecting a high level of build quality at such a low price.
My guess is that if the iPhone 7 debuts without a 3.5mm jack, we'll see a mid-cycle refresh in September for the rMB, just like we did with the iPad 3 and 4 going from the 30-pin dock connector to Lightning, only this will replace the 3.5mm jack with a Lightning 2 port, which can be used for charging, thus leaving the USB-C port free for standard peripherals, and allow the new Lightning earbuds included with the iPhone 7 to be natively used with the MacBook, not to mention double as a high speed USB 3 compliant port if needed (with an adapter of course).
Also, no rush for this because the device is meant for wireless file management for the most part, so the targeted user isn't plugging a lot of USB devices into it for a very long amount of time. This is fairly evident in their choice to offer rose gold, which is obviously a more important consideration to their target customer than an extra USB-C port. For everyone else, there's the MBA, until Apple adds the Lightning 2 port, then they will likely drop the price of the rMB and depreciate the MBA.