You're kidding right? Browsing on Dell's site I see a Lattitude with 8Gb of RAM and 128 Gb of SSD for $1,619.00.
Three weeks ago I purchased Dell New Open Box 2 in 1 with skylake processor, i5 8GB RAM(Upgradable to 16 GB), and 255GB SSD(Upgradable) with full touch screen,13" and( 15" IPS display), with 360 table mode and Aluminium Chassis like Macbook Pro for $435 with full one year warranty. Brand new was $500. Same deal with same configuration was there for HP Spectre and Lenovo 710 on alternate weeks for $500. Guess who is savvy shopper and who is blind trust in one brand shopper.
Since you avoided giving exact model for comparison I searched for HP Spectre - the new one and it came in at $1000ish from their web site. Then of course there was the upgrade for the operating system to "pro" (I never used Home) -- and it used the HD level graphics (I believe Macbook Pros from Apple tend to use the one for Iris level graphics which come out much later in the cycle). But then you would have to pay me to use windows again
When doing comparisons on price, people often pick the farthest model away based on build/component quality. There is some good hardware out for Windows/Linux machines - but rarely do they come in at that great of savings.
I am hoping you are smart enough to search a deal for it and not always give out max price what it shows, unless you are in habit of paying asking price. As said just small search will give you results for all three models in last 4 weeks only and it keeps coming every other week. My model was Dell I7368. Here is one one example for $799 http://www.adorama.com/le80ru00fsus.html?sdtid=8977427&emailprice=t&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_source=rflaid62905
OK, so you wanted to cheap out.... rather low resolution screen (HD not retina), old low level Intel HD Graphics 520 rather than Intel Iris level. If they are hitting those low points, but the deal breaker for me is the extremely slow SSD that they put in it (and even then a very small one to start with).
Lol,there is no pointing arguing with a guy who has made up his miding spending more. Display for Dell is IPS FHD and not just HD. Have you seen $799 link I gave you? Tell me similarly configured Mac and then come back to me.
Display is FHD.... do you know what FHD is? it is "Full HD" i.e. 1080p not 720p (I had that back in my last Dell laptop more than a decade ago). The display you are screaming about is old old old technology....
Google the difference between IPS FHD and FHD and then argue more. Here from Dell site saying it is IPS FHD. 13.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Truelife LED-Backlit Touch Display with Wide Viewing Angle (IPS)
They are two different acronyms for two different factors within the monitor.
IPS is the display technology and it is the more common display technology in "affordable" displays. Most laptop displays are going to use IPS (unless they are OLED). Typically better colour than the older technology TN but slower.
The other acronym is the resolution. FHD is "Full HD" which is the resolution that you have mentioned (1080p), which is HALF the resolution of the retina screens.
My Dell laptop from more than a decade ago was FHD resolution....
So -- yay! you have a laptop with half the resolution.... big advancement
Maybe you need to go back to school. Tell me the PPI difference between this laptop and ratina Macbook Pro. Maybe Elementary school kid can help you confirm if the difference is double or what.
You're kidding right? Browsing on Dell's site I see a Lattitude with 8Gb of RAM and 128 Gb of SSD for $1,619.00.
Three weeks ago I purchased Dell New Open Box 2 in 1 with skylake processor, i5 8GB RAM(Upgradable to 16 GB), and 255GB SSD(Upgradable) with full touch screen,13" and( 15" IPS display), with 360 table mode and Aluminium Chassis like Macbook Pro for $435 with full one year warranty. Brand new was $500. Same deal with same configuration was there for HP Spectre and Lenovo 710 on alternate weeks for $500. Guess who is savvy shopper and who is blind trust in one brand shopper.
Since you avoided giving exact model for comparison I searched for HP Spectre - the new one and it came in at $1000ish from their web site. Then of course there was the upgrade for the operating system to "pro" (I never used Home) -- and it used the HD level graphics (I believe Macbook Pros from Apple tend to use the one for Iris level graphics which come out much later in the cycle). But then you would have to pay me to use windows again
When doing comparisons on price, people often pick the farthest model away based on build/component quality. There is some good hardware out for Windows/Linux machines - but rarely do they come in at that great of savings.
I am hoping you are smart enough to search a deal for it and not always give out max price what it shows, unless you are in habit of paying asking price. As said just small search will give you results for all three models in last 4 weeks only and it keeps coming every other week. My model was Dell I7368. Here is one one example for $799 http://www.adorama.com/le80ru00fsus.html?sdtid=8977427&emailprice=t&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_source=rflaid62905
OK, so you wanted to cheap out.... rather low resolution screen (HD not retina), old low level Intel HD Graphics 520 rather than Intel Iris level. If they are hitting those low points, but the deal breaker for me is the extremely slow SSD that they put in it (and even then a very small one to start with).
Lol,there is no pointing arguing with a guy who has made up his miding spending more. Display for Dell is IPS FHD and not just HD. Have you seen $799 link I gave you? Tell me similarly configured Mac and then come back to me.
Display is FHD.... do you know what FHD is? it is "Full HD" i.e. 1080p not 720p (I had that back in my last Dell laptop more than a decade ago). The display you are screaming about is old old old technology....
Google the difference between IPS FHD and FHD and then argue more. Here from Dell site saying it is IPS FHD. 13.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Truelife LED-Backlit Touch Display with Wide Viewing Angle (IPS)
They are two different acronyms for two different factors within the monitor.
IPS is the display technology and it is the more common display technology in "affordable" displays. Most laptop displays are going to use IPS (unless they are OLED). Typically better colour than the older technology TN but slower.
The other acronym is the resolution. FHD is "Full HD" which is the resolution that you have mentioned (1080p), which is HALF the resolution of the retina screens.
My Dell laptop from more than a decade ago was FHD resolution....
So -- yay! you have a laptop with half the resolution.... big advancement
Maybe you need to go back to school. Tell me the PPI difference between this laptop and ratina Macbook Pro. Maybe Elementary school kid can help you confirm if the difference is double or what.
I should have been more accurate.... 1.975308 times more resolution.
I did not say double the PPI, I said double the resolution.
Resolution is typically quoted as height x width (in pixels) for any given monitor.
13" Dell monitor = 1920 x 1080p = 2,073,600
MacBook Pro 13" = 2560 x 1600 = 4,096,000
Simple math time now.... MacBook resolution / dell resolution = 4,096,000 / 2,073,600 = 1.975308 which most people would just round to "double the resolution"
We'll get Kaby Lake it's not too late. You'll see!
I hope you're right. Since I'll be using it for three to five years, I'd rather wait a few months for features that will be commonplace in a year or two than get whatever Apple can release now and run into usability compromises two years sooner.
i do hope Intel moves quickly though. My existing MBP has a display problem, making the wait for a new one truly excruciating!
Half the issue is that the machines for the last 4 years are unbelievable well built. I am typing this on a 4 year 1st gen rMBP. It still screams and the only issue is that the battery is beginning to lose its charge ($200 for a replacement that includes new keyboard). The other half of the issue is that Apple really wants to add significant features and that relies on the chipset being capable of USB 3 and the latest lightning.
Apple does need to shift the emphasis and start releasing Mac models more frequently. I'm sure that power users may not be satisfied with small updates but a refresh every year can help stimulate sales.
I was going to make a joke about this, but seems some are taking this seriously. We may see an A series chip in the Mac some day, but it won't this year, and certainly not in the Mac Pro.
I was going to make a joke about this, but seems some are taking this seriously. We may see an A series chip in the Mac some day, but it won't this year, and certainly not in the Mac Pro.
I think the first computer to get an Ax processor would be a MacBook Air (i.e. low priced saving probably close to $250 to $300 on the processor alone; maybe $100 off the SSD at 128GB) laptop but would only happen after they have the App Store ready for downloading either ARM based applications or Intel applications (without the user having to worry about which one they are on).
I would actually like a clustered approach of services (IoT sort of) to high end computing. You could have a case with slots about the size of Mac Mini computers connected to a high-speed private bus between computers and every time you needed more power you would plug in another component (computer would consist of CPU/Memory or GPU/Memory or storage etc.). It would take some major reworking at the lowest level of the operating system so it would be a big project (long term). The extra CPU modules would be slave processes or devices to the master device.
I am a pro user since 2000 and i believe Apple's story became unbelievably self centered, egostistical, no longer "havin a dream" to create greatest products but continuing the milking process of people who wants to show off. Well, i can not believe that i say this (even to my self) but with this non-professional attitude, i am out of Apple's citizenship. What is this? Compare Dell or HP to a Mac Pro? I mean is this a joke? Compare Alienware to Mac Book Pro?
I am missing the days we had Final Cut and FC Library, Shake.. even QT Pro, even Pages 9. Now we have bunch of non sense crApple. They are supposedly updated but for any pro user they were seriously downgraded. And the sad part is Adobe CS not great either for Professional updates. What, microsoft? God no. Google? Nope, definitely not. God help us.
And we pros loved Apple, we made Apple what it is. Now, Apple lost us!
Apple lost you because the pro market changed. You don't need expensive tools and archaic UI to produce professional results. You can get what you need from an iPad for most things and if you can't, you probably needed a loaded PC to do a few things that the Pro Macs never would do anyway. Trust me, I was a pro Mac user for years when non-linear editing took off. I had a $20k rig but now I'm shooting and editing 4K same day with great results using FCPX. I'm still looking forward to using my iPad Pro in conjunction with FCPX and one day, completely in place of it.
I haven't read the rest of the comments, so hopefully this hasn't been beat to death already...
Pro users aren't going away. At least not anywhere I see pro users of Macs. And I see a lot of them in my work as a freelancer.
i do notice a lot of high-spec imacs, rather than the Mac Pros I would have seen a few years ago.
i understand the point the author makes. I also get that the goal is to stir the pot a bit before the 'Apple Show' next week. I just don't feel pros are abandoning ship. The pro market is in huge flux. I definitely relive that. I have done things on my iPad and iPhone that would have been unthinkable 5 years ago. The pro is not necessarily defined by use of the absolute most advanced computer hardware. I'd say the pro is defined as much by specialized inputs (in my business Pens and Graphic Tablets are huge) or even mobile apps crafted for specific creative use. Sure, the Mac is a HUGE part of that workflow, but it is no longer only mark of the pro. And I don't think this is bad for macs. Especially since Apple has already invested in Pencil tech and is working on pro features like wide gamut and true tone displays. There are lots of areas aside from raw performance for Apple to make improvements that will aid the pro.
I am a pro user since 2000 and i believe Apple's story became unbelievably self centered, egostistical, no longer "havin a dream" to create greatest products but continuing the milking process of people who wants to show off. Well, i can not believe that i say this (even to my self) but with this non-professional attitude, i am out of Apple's citizenship. What is this? Compare Dell or HP to a Mac Pro? I mean is this a joke? Compare Alienware to Mac Book Pro?
I am missing the days we had Final Cut and FC Library, Shake.. even QT Pro, even Pages 9. Now we have bunch of non sense crApple. They are supposedly updated but for any pro user they were seriously downgraded. And the sad part is Adobe CS not great either for Professional updates. What, microsoft? God no. Google? Nope, definitely not. God help us.
And we pros loved Apple, we made Apple what it is. Now, Apple lost us!
Apple lost you because the pro market changed. You don't need expensive tools and archaic UI to produce professional results. You can get what you need from an iPad for most things and if you can't, you probably needed a loaded PC to do a few things that the Pro Macs never would do anyway. Trust me, I was a pro Mac user for years when non-linear editing took off. I had a $20k rig but now I'm shooting and editing 4K same day with great results using FCPX. I'm still looking forward to using my iPad Pro in conjunction with FCPX and one day, completely in place of it.
I worked in video post in Austin for 20 years until 2013. We used Macs everywhere we could. The big iron Discreet/Autodesk machines used high end HP or Boxx computers. We had a couple of XServes used for various file conversion and utility functions. Talking to friends who are still in the field it really does seem like the days of a truly pro Mac are numbered. The current Mac Pros seem to exist solely for running FCPX to it's fullest. The rest of the powerful video/film softwares in the world are clearly being written and optimized for Windows and/or Linux. Sure there are still plenty of programs available for MacOS, but almost every one of them has a Windows equivalent that can be run on hardware much more powerful than any Mac.
The changes in Mac hardware began under Steve. I think most people here have read enough about him to know he was not sentimental about Apple products. If something had served it's function, made the profits and was no longer valid he would dump it. I think he was headed that direction with Macs. It was under Steve that the Mac Pros languished almost unchanged for years. Steve killed the XServe and Xserve RAID which also had declined under his tenure. I think the reason they languished is that it was easy for him to see that things were changing in that market segment like Wigby said above. Adobe became an enemy and no longer favored Macs and sold a lot more for Windows. Avid rewrote it's software to work on Windows and that was a big deal. PCs kept getting cheaper and small businesses love that. Video post was transitioning from a big money, big hardware model to a tight budget, do it with software model. He saw no point in putting a lot money into Mac R&D for high end pro hardware if it wasn't going to sell in big numbers. Yes, FCP changed video post and sold a ton of Macs, but with the new changes in industry structure, that Apple driven sea change wasn't going to happen again. And let's keep in mind that video post is a pretty small industry with relatively small sales potentials and lots of competition. Sure there are other market segments that have utilized Mac Pros (science, math, 3D visualization etc.), but they also are not particularly large with mediocre sales protential. Apple is probably doing the right thing from a business standpoint by moving away from high power Mac hardware. We don't like it, but it is what it is.
How Apple considers a Mac that can only have 16GB of RAM a "pro" computer is beyond me.
Maybe because with 4 year old MBPr and 16 GB of Ram I can run Parallels running a Windows 7 CAD Simulation Program, run HD movie in iTunes, run HD movie in Photos, run Ashlar Vellum Argon, Safari, Calendar and Mail all simultaneously with out glitching. Any reason for me to do all these together absolutely not and I have no reason to upgrade if I can run OS X and Win 7 using two different CAD programs. When NASA engineers and Physicists from every National Lab are using MBPr, I think we can say these are "Pro" laptops as indicated by the caliber of Professionals that use them and not by someone that looks at "big numbers" and associates that with throughput.
I am a pro user since 2000 and i believe Apple's story became unbelievably self centered, egostistical, no longer "havin a dream" to create greatest products but continuing the milking process of people who wants to show off. Well, i can not believe that i say this (even to my self) but with this non-professional attitude, i am out of Apple's citizenship. What is this? Compare Dell or HP to a Mac Pro? I mean is this a joke? Compare Alienware to Mac Book Pro?
I am missing the days we had Final Cut and FC Library, Shake.. even QT Pro, even Pages 9. Now we have bunch of non sense crApple. They are supposedly updated but for any pro user they were seriously downgraded. And the sad part is Adobe CS not great either for Professional updates. What, microsoft? God no. Google? Nope, definitely not. God help us.
And we pros loved Apple, we made Apple what it is. Now, Apple lost us!
But u know how thick is Alienware laptop? Not to mention the look.
All of this hand-wringing (and loss of pro users) is the result of Apple's dependence on Intel.
I disagree.
Apple is choosing to neglect the Mac. period.
Intel has upgraded the Xeon E5 chip found in the MacPro twice. With Kaby lake released, the current MacBook Pro is again 2 generations back. If we want to blame intel, All of Apples machine should be at least running the latest processors that intel provide.
I don't have a problem with a lack of upgrades if the whole industry has the same issue. I blame Apple because their competition is selling systems today with cpu's that are 2 generations ahead and graphic cards that are 3 generations ahead.
So I don't buy this "intel is the problem, they need to switch to Arm". No... Apple is the problem. Match what the competition is selling, add your 10% apple tax and everyone will be a happy camper. To pay the 10% apple tax on 3 year old tech makes even the die hards look at PC's.
I think a vast majority of MBP users could care less if their laptop is missing the 3% performance boost from the newest Intel processor. The people that should really care would be people trying to do large CAD assembly design, animation, computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis but of course they let offload that work to supercomputers. It seems like 90% of people interested in CPU cycle times are gamers trying to up their friends by the latest rig they put together. If I see a room completely filled with the most renown physicists of our time or NASA engineers using MacBook Pros I have to say I'm in great company!
Holy crap! Zen engineering samples were demonstrated to beat Broadwell-E with Blender running straight CPU to CPU [each benched at 3Ghz] sampling and rendering. Add in Apple and AMD's OpenCL stack, throw in the APU that is coming out for Zen and not a single person in these forums would be asking Apple to use Intel. Most certainly they would be asking to use the ARM A-Series chips that Keller pioneered for Apple, who now is the pioneer behind AMD Zen.
Apple needs to cut ties with Thunderbolt as Intel refuses to license this to AMD.
AMD Zen has USB-C 3.2 version 2.0 with 10Mbps throughput built-in along with every single other current tech that Intel has on their CPUs.
The cat's out of the bag for all it offers. Go see the specs on AMD's site.
There is no other compelling reason for Apple to use Intel exclusively than Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is also the most overly hyped and priced serial port every invented. 99.9% of all consumers never touch it.
Apple has custom ASIC designs from AMD coming very soon. If they would pull the trigger on FX and APUs from AMD costs for Apple systems would be considerably lower and performance would actually improve.
AMD Zen chips are committed to 16 and 32 physical cores with 32/64 threads respectively. Apple could choose to adopt the Summit Ridge 8 physical core/16 threads for iMac and the beefy 16/32 Naple cores for Mac Pros if they wanted. They can have custom ASIC designs made from AMD and manufactured by Samsung/Global Foundries and even TSMC.
You're kidding right? Browsing on Dell's site I see a Lattitude with 8Gb of RAM and 128 Gb of SSD for $1,619.00.
Three weeks ago I purchased Dell New Open Box 2 in 1 with skylake processor, i5 8GB RAM(Upgradable to 16 GB), and 255GB SSD(Upgradable) with full touch screen,13" and( 15" IPS display), with 360 table mode and Aluminium Chassis like Macbook Pro for $435 with full one year warranty. Brand new was $500. Same deal with same configuration was there for HP Spectre and Lenovo 710 on alternate weeks for $500. Guess who is savvy shopper and who is blind trust in one brand shopper.
Since you avoided giving exact model for comparison I searched for HP Spectre - the new one and it came in at $1000ish from their web site. Then of course there was the upgrade for the operating system to "pro" (I never used Home) -- and it used the HD level graphics (I believe Macbook Pros from Apple tend to use the one for Iris level graphics which come out much later in the cycle). But then you would have to pay me to use windows again
When doing comparisons on price, people often pick the farthest model away based on build/component quality. There is some good hardware out for Windows/Linux machines - but rarely do they come in at that great of savings.
I am hoping you are smart enough to search a deal for it and not always give out max price what it shows, unless you are in habit of paying asking price. As said just small search will give you results for all three models in last 4 weeks only and it keeps coming every other week. My model was Dell I7368. Here is one one example for $799 http://www.adorama.com/le80ru00fsus.html?sdtid=8977427&emailprice=t&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_source=rflaid62905
Has anyone noticed that the Intel specs for the i7 cpu show that it is a DUAL Core with HT. Apart from a little cpu speed bump there is little or no difference to the i5.
Anyway back to the main topic. Moving to ARM would be a big mistake without the support of the software makers that Pro's use. I would not buy an ARM powered laptop unless Lightroom and Photoshop ran natively. I know that I am not alone in that. apple know that as well. I'm sure with enough grease (aka money) the likes of Adobe etc could be persuaded to work on the porting. How long that would take is the big unknown. One thing is sure and that is Adobe will raise the price of Adobe CS to compensate.
Personally, I don't think the bits around the CPU that a general purpose computer would need are all there yet. Sure, you can get ARM server boxes but these are pretty specific solutions. Apple could do the work of making an ARM SOC (or as much that is needed) for an ARM laptop but I wonder how much resource in this Area Apple actually has. Buying AMD would make sense but would piss off Intel no end. That is one behemoth you want on your side IMHO.
Interesting times. In the meantime, my 2012 15in MBP (max ram and 2TB of SSD) will do the job nicely.
I am a pro user since 2000 and i believe Apple's story became unbelievably self centered, egostistical, no longer "havin a dream" to create greatest products but continuing the milking process of people who wants to show off. Well, i can not believe that i say this (even to my self) but with this non-professional attitude, i am out of Apple's citizenship. What is this? Compare Dell or HP to a Mac Pro? I mean is this a joke? Compare Alienware to Mac Book Pro?
I am missing the days we had Final Cut and FC Library, Shake.. even QT Pro, even Pages 9. Now we have bunch of non sense crApple. They are supposedly updated but for any pro user they were seriously downgraded. And the sad part is Adobe CS not great either for Professional updates. What, microsoft? God no. Google? Nope, definitely not. God help us.
And we pros loved Apple, we made Apple what it is. Now, Apple lost us!
I have to agree with lots you say – although I don't want to agree. I once thought Pages is a superior product. Even more so with Keynote. Both still are my primary tools in this sector. But I can't believe how few progress there is with both programs. And how many bugs these have. It doesn't seem to be the most complicated software to write. These really should be some much more rock solid products.
Something similar could be said about MacBook Pro – but my hopes are still high Apple will soon release a convincing update. I'm ready for it.
I dont not believe Ax currently offers what Apple want. The best bet for now is still Intel. Skylake is buggy on mobile devices.
I think we will see Apple slowly transition to AMD Zen. Which should offer performance similar to Broadwell. And Zen+ will be Kabylake performance in 2 years time. Since CPU performance is no longer the bottleneck, Apple may switch to Zen APU design, much like Microsoft and Sony are doing with consoles in the next 4 years, before finally making Mac dead and move on to iOS Ax completely beyond 2020.
Comments
I did not say double the PPI, I said double the resolution.
Resolution is typically quoted as height x width (in pixels) for any given monitor.
13" Dell monitor = 1920 x 1080p = 2,073,600
MacBook Pro 13" = 2560 x 1600 = 4,096,000
Simple math time now.... MacBook resolution / dell resolution = 4,096,000 / 2,073,600 = 1.975308 which most people would just round to "double the resolution"
Primary school math....
i do hope Intel moves quickly though. My existing MBP has a display problem, making the wait for a new one truly excruciating!
Apple does need to shift the emphasis and start releasing Mac models more frequently. I'm sure that power users may not be satisfied with small updates but a refresh every year can help stimulate sales.
I would actually like a clustered approach of services (IoT sort of) to high end computing. You could have a case with slots about the size of Mac Mini computers connected to a high-speed private bus between computers and every time you needed more power you would plug in another component (computer would consist of CPU/Memory or GPU/Memory or storage etc.). It would take some major reworking at the lowest level of the operating system so it would be a big project (long term). The extra CPU modules would be slave processes or devices to the master device.
IOS app variants for the desktop could work.
For that do, if they keep the pro line, they can still keep Intel for that.
Pro users aren't going away. At least not anywhere I see pro users of Macs. And I see a lot of them in my work as a freelancer.
i do notice a lot of high-spec imacs, rather than the Mac Pros I would have seen a few years ago.
i understand the point the author makes. I also get that the goal is to stir the pot a bit before the 'Apple Show' next week. I just don't feel pros are abandoning ship. The pro market is in huge flux. I definitely relive that. I have done things on my iPad and iPhone that would have been unthinkable 5 years ago. The pro is not necessarily defined by use of the absolute most advanced computer hardware. I'd say the pro is defined as much by specialized inputs (in my business Pens and Graphic Tablets are huge) or even mobile apps crafted for specific creative use. Sure, the Mac is a HUGE part of that workflow, but it is no longer only mark of the pro. And I don't think this is bad for macs. Especially since Apple has already invested in Pencil tech and is working on pro features like wide gamut and true tone displays. There are lots of areas aside from raw performance for Apple to make improvements that will aid the pro.
The changes in Mac hardware began under Steve. I think most people here have read enough about him to know he was not sentimental about Apple products. If something had served it's function, made the profits and was no longer valid he would dump it. I think he was headed that direction with Macs. It was under Steve that the Mac Pros languished almost unchanged for years. Steve killed the XServe and Xserve RAID which also had declined under his tenure. I think the reason they languished is that it was easy for him to see that things were changing in that market segment like Wigby said above. Adobe became an enemy and no longer favored Macs and sold a lot more for Windows. Avid rewrote it's software to work on Windows and that was a big deal. PCs kept getting cheaper and small businesses love that. Video post was transitioning from a big money, big hardware model to a tight budget, do it with software model. He saw no point in putting a lot money into Mac R&D for high end pro hardware if it wasn't going to sell in big numbers. Yes, FCP changed video post and sold a ton of Macs, but with the new changes in industry structure, that Apple driven sea change wasn't going to happen again. And let's keep in mind that video post is a pretty small industry with relatively small sales potentials and lots of competition. Sure there are other market segments that have utilized Mac Pros (science, math, 3D visualization etc.), but they also are not particularly large with mediocre sales protential. Apple is probably doing the right thing from a business standpoint by moving away from high power Mac hardware. We don't like it, but it is what it is.
Apple needs to cut ties with Thunderbolt as Intel refuses to license this to AMD.
AMD Zen has USB-C 3.2 version 2.0 with 10Mbps throughput built-in along with every single other current tech that Intel has on their CPUs.
The cat's out of the bag for all it offers. Go see the specs on AMD's site.
There is no other compelling reason for Apple to use Intel exclusively than Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is also the most overly hyped and priced serial port every invented. 99.9% of all consumers never touch it.
Apple has custom ASIC designs from AMD coming very soon. If they would pull the trigger on FX and APUs from AMD costs for Apple systems would be considerably lower and performance would actually improve.
AMD Zen chips are committed to 16 and 32 physical cores with 32/64 threads respectively. Apple could choose to adopt the Summit Ridge 8 physical core/16 threads for iMac and the beefy 16/32 Naple cores for Mac Pros if they wanted. They can have custom ASIC designs made from AMD and manufactured by Samsung/Global Foundries and even TSMC.
Apart from a little cpu speed bump there is little or no difference to the i5.
Anyway back to the main topic.
Moving to ARM would be a big mistake without the support of the software makers that Pro's use.
I would not buy an ARM powered laptop unless Lightroom and Photoshop ran natively.
I know that I am not alone in that. apple know that as well.
I'm sure with enough grease (aka money) the likes of Adobe etc could be persuaded to work on the porting. How long that would take is the big unknown. One thing is sure and that is Adobe will raise the price of Adobe CS to compensate.
Personally, I don't think the bits around the CPU that a general purpose computer would need are all there yet. Sure, you can get ARM server boxes but these are pretty specific solutions.
Apple could do the work of making an ARM SOC (or as much that is needed) for an ARM laptop but I wonder how much resource in this Area Apple actually has.
Buying AMD would make sense but would piss off Intel no end. That is one behemoth you want on your side IMHO.
Interesting times. In the meantime, my 2012 15in MBP (max ram and 2TB of SSD) will do the job nicely.
I think we will see Apple slowly transition to AMD Zen. Which should offer performance similar to Broadwell. And Zen+ will be Kabylake performance in 2 years time. Since CPU performance is no longer the bottleneck, Apple may switch to Zen APU design, much like Microsoft and Sony are doing with consoles in the next 4 years, before finally making Mac dead and move on to iOS Ax completely beyond 2020.