13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 review: Incremental upgrade and unexciting

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 47
    Thanks for the superb review Mike!  I found it very useful and I'm sure there are a LOT more people who get the help they want from articles like this than the few who take issue with it.
    chasmwatto_cobra
  • Reply 22 of 47
    y2any2an Posts: 187member
    I think this review and others have missed what the likely market is for this model, which is enterprise. The rest of the product (especially the screen) may be a few years old but they are still good and still competitive against average Windows laptops, so in a sense were ahead of their time when they first came to market. Which today means they would be lower cost and give Apple considerable headroom for enterprise discounts on this model while maintaining margin. The M2 processor gives enough performance bragging rights to stay in the running for an enterprise bid. Why not list price this lower due to the other tech being older? That would be nuts, destroy the market for the Air which the rest of us would get. No, I’m quite sure this is deliberate - similar list prices to keep the Air more attractive to consumers, but be able to offer hefty discounts on the 13” Pro to enterprise customers.
    foregoneconclusionwatto_cobratenthousandthings
  • Reply 23 of 47
    timmilleatimmillea Posts: 242member
    Better to have dropped the 13" MBP - the M2 is incremental and now opens the model to ridicule, rightfully -  called the MBA just the "MacBook" and introduced a new 12" MacBook Air which is small, light and premium, as the MBA once was. 

    Apple continues to lose its way.
  • Reply 24 of 47
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    y2an said:
    I think this review and others have missed what the likely market is for this model, which is enterprise. The rest of the product (especially the screen) may be a few years old but they are still good and still competitive against average Windows laptops, so in a sense were ahead of their time when they first came to market. Which today means they would be lower cost and give Apple considerable headroom for enterprise discounts on this model while maintaining margin. The M2 processor gives enough performance bragging rights to stay in the running for an enterprise bid. Why not list price this lower due to the other tech being older? That would be nuts, destroy the market for the Air which the rest of us would get. No, I’m quite sure this is deliberate - similar list prices to keep the Air more attractive to consumers, but be able to offer hefty discounts on the 13” Pro to enterprise customers.
    What you're saying is not consistent with the folks at Disney, Deloitte, IBM, and others that we spoke to. Most of their capital investment is in the M1 machines which they are not replacing. For the next year, they're looking at the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro and Mac Studio for the folks that are on the higher-performing Intel machines that they kept.

    We'll see with time, of course. 
    edited June 2022 dewmemuthuk_vanalingamlkruppPascalxxwatto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 47
    nubusnubus Posts: 355member

    If I had my way, I'd abolish point-scores in their entirety. Google puts them forth as some kind of universal applicability, when they are very clearly not. For instance, AirPods hurt my ears -- every single one of them. For me, AirPods are a 1 out of 5, but it is clearly not that.

    And, if you don't have a point-score, Google will absolutely penalize you, no matter how complete your text.
    Well explained and thanks for taking your time.
    chasmwatto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 47
    charlesncharlesn Posts: 820member
    This really isn't about the latest MBP 13" being an "incremental" upgrade. Apple has a long history of doing spec bumps to refresh a model line. The real issue is that MBA M2 is going to be more "Pro" than the MBP, rendering it obsolete. Consider that the MBA M2 will have these pro-desired features that the MBP lacks: MagSafe charging, an extra port available for full-time use, a top row of real function keys instead of the hated Touch Bar, a slightly larger screen (Liquid Retina vs plain Retina MBP, whatever that means), plus it's all in a smaller, thinner and significantly lighter package.

    You lose all of that with the new MBP, but you do get a couple more hours of battery life, two extra graphic cores in the base model and a fan of theoretical value, although that value vs the passive cooling of the MBA has yet to be quantified. In short, the professional use case for MBA M2 is now stronger than for the MBP M2, a/k/a The Faux Pro. 
    muthuk_vanalingamentropyswatto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 47
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    charlesn said:
    This really isn't about the latest MBP 13" being an "incremental" upgrade. Apple has a long history of doing spec bumps to refresh a model line. The real issue is that MBA M2 is going to be more "Pro" than the MBP, rendering it obsolete. Consider that the MBA M2 will have these pro-desired features that the MBP lacks: MagSafe charging, an extra port available for full-time use, a top row of real function keys instead of the hated Touch Bar, a slightly larger screen (Liquid Retina vs plain Retina MBP, whatever that means), plus it's all in a smaller, thinner and significantly lighter package.

    You lose all of that with the new MBP, but you do get a couple more hours of battery life, two extra graphic cores in the base model and a fan of theoretical value, although that value vs the passive cooling of the MBA has yet to be quantified. In short, the professional use case for MBA M2 is now stronger than for the MBP M2, a/k/a The Faux Pro. 
    Yep. This is all addressed in the review text.
    chasmwatto_cobra
  • Reply 28 of 47
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    Here's my one paragraph summary of this machine:

    "The M2 13-inch MacBook Pro is the same platform as its M1 predecessor with a processor speed bump. Apart from some higher benchmark scores provided by the SoC, the only improvements are A.) high-impedance headphone support, B.) a slightly better power brick, and C.) a higher percentage of recyclable materials used in its construction. It runs faster than the model it replaces but that's it."

    That's the concise takeaway concerning this product.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 29 of 47
    This article mentions a price premium for the Pro compared to the Air. However, it might be worth clarifying that with the same configuration, the Pro is actually cheaper. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 47
    Alex_VAlex_V Posts: 212member
    Without contradicting any of the opinions expressed here, I’d like to remind everyone of one important concept, something that Apple does better than anyone in the industry: ‘amortisation’—the gradual process whereby a manufacturer recovers the initial capital investment on a new product. The sums invested in setting up production lines or factories are staggering. Ideally, as with iPhones, that investment is recovered quickly because of the fantastic volumes sold. But in product models that don’t sell in such great numbers, the longer you can keep that production line going the more profitable it becomes. It is like an orange where, instead of giving less juice the more you squeeze, it gives more. If Apple’s margin on hardware averages 25%, then the more production lines that it has churning out older models the more profitable the company can be, because older models make 35–40% (guesstimate). Also, by limiting their product range, Apple can go to their supplies and say: “We want this component, we plan to order 2 million a year, for the next 7 years.” If you are a supplier like LG or Sanyo or Samsung, you cry tears of joy when you win an Apple order, because you’re guaranteed revenue for so long! E.g. imagine how many LG-manufactured 27" 5K monitors Apple has sold since 2015. Apple can use that fact to bargain and drive component costs down, which is why no company can match Apple quality, for the same price, while hoping to come anywhere near Apple’s margins.
    edited June 2022 vladgellerPascalxxwatto_cobra
  • Reply 31 of 47
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    Alex_V said:
    Without contradicting any of the opinions expressed here, I’d like to remind everyone of one important concept, something that Apple does better than anyone in the industry: ‘amortisation’—the gradual process whereby a manufacturer recovers the initial capital investment on a new product. The sums invested in setting up production lines or factories are staggering. Ideally, as with iPhones, that investment is recovered quickly because of the fantastic volumes sold. But in product models that don’t sell in such great numbers, the longer you can keep that production line going the more profitable it becomes. It is like an orange where, instead of giving less juice the more you squeeze, it gives more. If Apple’s margin on hardware averages 25%, then the more production lines that it has churning out older models the more profitable the company can be, because older models make 35–40% (guesstimate). Also, by limiting their product range, Apple can go to their supplies and say: “We want this component, we plan to order 2 million a year, for the next 7 years.” If you are a supplier like LG or Sanyo or Samsung, you cry tears of joy when you win an Apple order, because you’re guaranteed revenue for so long! E.g. imagine how many LG-manufactured 27" 5K monitors Apple has sold since 2015. Apple can use that fact to bargain and drive component costs down, which is why no company can match Apple quality, for the same price, while hoping to come anywhere near Apple’s margins.
    That’s all fine and indisputable product development and supplier management concepts, which is all part of the Tim Cook mastery that has been executed within Apple with amazing precision during Tim’s time at the helm. This may have some bearing on the new M2 MacBook Pro feeling left-behind compared to its MacBook Air, but I think the reasons are a lot more diffused across a wider number of factors besides amortizing up-front, non recurring, and component supplier related investment costs.

    In my opinion, it’s probably a contributing factor, but not the primary one. I believe the primary throttle on Apple’s ability to move even faster is human resource limitations, as in getting enough people with the right skills assigned to its product teams. Apple threw down the gauntlet when they committed to Apple Silicon over Intel. To make everything more challenging they put a hard timeline around completing the transition, not simply starting it. This basically rewound every Mac product team back to square one and chopped the tail off of the ability to amortize the cost of certain components over a longer period of time. Fortunately, Apple’s profitability and war chest of funds allows it to absorb substantial unrecoverable sunk costs. 

    My opinion is that Apple isn’t putting older technology, like the Touch Bar, into products like the M2 MacBook Pro to “use up” their stash of Touch Bar assemblies acquired in great volumes, but rather that they lack the human resources to simultaneously redesign more than a couple of high demand new products at a time under tight schedule demands. If they could trickle out releases over an extended time frame things would be much different. But they set a tight timeline for the Apple Silicon transition so trickling out new products is not an option.

    The first generation of M1 Macs were obviously “transitional” designs, but now they are getting down to the serious business of designing products that fully exploit the benefits of Apple Silicon. It’s very telling that we have not seen a “transitional” version of the Mac Pro. As Apple’s top tier flagship Mac it would be a serious mistake for Apple to try to bring a transitional design of the Mac Pro to market. The next Mac Pro has to exude the benefits of Apple Silicon to its core, or more likely, its plethora of cores.
    vladgellerPascalxxwatto_cobra
  • Reply 32 of 47
    Alex_VAlex_V Posts: 212member
    dewme said:
    Alex_V said:
    Without contradicting any of the opinions expressed here… [snip] Apple can use that fact to bargain and drive component costs down, which is why no company can match Apple quality, for the same price, while hoping to come anywhere near Apple’s margins.
    That’s all fine and indisputable product development and supplier management concepts, which is all part of the Tim Cook mastery that has been executed within Apple with amazing precision during Tim’s time at the helm. This may have some bearing on the new M2 MacBook Pro feeling left-behind compared to its MacBook Air, but I think the reasons are a lot more diffused across a wider number of factors besides amortizing up-front, non recurring, and component supplier related investment costs.

    In my opinion, it’s probably a contributing factor, but not the primary one. I believe the primary throttle on Apple’s ability to move even faster is human resource limitations, as in getting enough people with the right skills assigned to its product teams. Apple threw down the gauntlet when they committed to Apple Silicon over Intel. To make everything more challenging they put a hard timeline around completing the transition, not simply starting it. This basically rewound every Mac product team back to square one and chopped the tail off of the ability to amortize the cost of certain components over a longer period of time. Fortunately, Apple’s profitability and war chest of funds allows it to absorb substantial unrecoverable sunk costs. 

    My opinion is that Apple isn’t putting older technology, like the Touch Bar, into products like the M2 MacBook Pro to “use up” their stash of Touch Bar assemblies acquired in great volumes, but rather that they lack the human resources to simultaneously redesign more than a couple of high demand new products at a time under tight schedule demands. If they could trickle out releases over an extended time frame things would be much different. But they set a tight timeline for the Apple Silicon transition so trickling out new products is not an option. 

    You are right “that it is all part of the Tim Cook mastery.” Thank goodness for that! Basically Apple manufactures products, and the more profitably they can do that, the better. Innovating is one marvellous way to make profit. That’s why it’s ‘all hands on deck’ to launch new iPhones every year—profit is healthy and volumes are phenomenal, which keeps the company in the black. I agree that Apple have limited personnel, and a precious few who can lead new product development (NPD) at the company. But, time and again, people moan about Apple not updating this or that product, or not adding this or that new technology. Tim Cook has to walk a fine line between innovative NPD which is fantastically expensive and time consuming, and incremental changes to old-model products which is much cheaper and more profitable. In a ‘just-in-time’ system there are no Touch Bars lying around. With the updated 13" MacBook Pro, they simply switch the processor and this or that part, and keep the production line going. Meanwhile existing components for that particular model get ever cheaper, so Apple can drop the price a little, yet still maintain their healthy margins. It’s like car companies having many different models—sedan , sport utility, compact etc.. Apple puts the product on the shelf, and so long as there is demand, they keep churning it out. Once demand dries up, they retire the product.
    edited June 2022 dewmevladgellerwatto_cobra
  • Reply 33 of 47
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    Marvin said: The only reason to get the 13" Pro over the Air is the active cooling but I suspect Apple would prefer people to buy the 14" Pro.
    It's not just the cooling. The M2 MBP gets the 10 core version of the GPU for $200 less than the M2 MBA.
    That MBP model has 256GB less SSD though.

    The entry M2 Air is $1199, add the 10-core GPU for $100 and it's the same $1299 as the MBP.
    Or take the entry M2 MBP at $1299 and add 256GB SSD and it's the same $1499 as the higher M2 Air.

    Air 8C/8G 8GB/256GB = $1199
    Air 8C/10G 8GB/256GB = $1299
    Air 8C/10G 8GB/512GB = $1499

    MBP 8C/10G 8GB/256GB = $1299
    MBP 8C/10G 8GB/512GB = $1499
    muthuk_vanalingamdewmePascalxxwatto_cobra
  • Reply 34 of 47
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,905member
    Tribe has spoken. Will take next update/version of 13.3" Macbook Pro without Touch-bar.
  • Reply 35 of 47
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 1,989member
    dewme said:
    tomwolsy said:
    F keys are horrible, pointless chiclets, when you can have a multifunctional bar that can also have F keys. It’s so childish to give up the capabilities across applications of the Touch Bar in favor of keys simply so that you can feel them. Every creative app has used the Touch Bar to great advantage, most with full slider controls. What a waste of space the useless F keys are. 
    The Touch Bar is very clever. However putting a control surface that dynamically changes based on application context outside of the sight line of touch typists is not ideal. I’m not a a great touch typist, but knowing that everything on the keyboard surface is static is reassuring. If you’re going to throw controls that change on-the-fly at me, put them on the screen where my eyes are focused. Just my 2 cents.  
    See, I kind of like the Touch Bar, and kind of wonder if I should upgrade to this device as the last chance to get one attached to a device that will retain utility for a number of years into the future.

    Also, I don't get the line-of-sight complaint. With a notebook computer, the keys and screen are really close to one another. It takes no more eye motion to look from text mid-screen to a menu bar at the top of the screen than it does to look at text mid screen down to the touch bar. Suggesting that it's disruptive or takes any more effort is really a slide into the black-and-white, slo-mo, overacted 'problem statement' clips in a Ronco infomercial. I'm picturing someone rubbing their eyes and grabbing at their sprained neck after glancing down at the Touch Bar. 
    edited June 2022 roundaboutnowwatto_cobra
  • Reply 36 of 47
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 1,989member
    Alex_V said:
    dewme said:
    Alex_V said:
    Without contradicting any of the opinions expressed here… [snip] Apple can use that fact to bargain and drive component costs down, which is why no company can match Apple quality, for the same price, while hoping to come anywhere near Apple’s margins.
    That’s all fine and indisputable product development and supplier management concepts, which is all part of the Tim Cook mastery that has been executed within Apple with amazing precision during Tim’s time at the helm. This may have some bearing on the new M2 MacBook Pro feeling left-behind compared to its MacBook Air, but I think the reasons are a lot more diffused across a wider number of factors besides amortizing up-front, non recurring, and component supplier related investment costs.

    In my opinion, it’s probably a contributing factor, but not the primary one. I believe the primary throttle on Apple’s ability to move even faster is human resource limitations, as in getting enough people with the right skills assigned to its product teams. Apple threw down the gauntlet when they committed to Apple Silicon over Intel. To make everything more challenging they put a hard timeline around completing the transition, not simply starting it. This basically rewound every Mac product team back to square one and chopped the tail off of the ability to amortize the cost of certain components over a longer period of time. Fortunately, Apple’s profitability and war chest of funds allows it to absorb substantial unrecoverable sunk costs. 

    My opinion is that Apple isn’t putting older technology, like the Touch Bar, into products like the M2 MacBook Pro to “use up” their stash of Touch Bar assemblies acquired in great volumes, but rather that they lack the human resources to simultaneously redesign more than a couple of high demand new products at a time under tight schedule demands. If they could trickle out releases over an extended time frame things would be much different. But they set a tight timeline for the Apple Silicon transition so trickling out new products is not an option. 

    You are right “that it is all part of the Tim Cook mastery.” Thank goodness for that! Basically Apple manufactures products, and the more profitably they can do that, the better. Innovating is one marvellous way to make profit. That’s why it’s ‘all hands on deck’ to launch new iPhones every year—profit is healthy and volumes are phenomenal, which keeps the company in the black. I agree that Apple have limited personnel, and a precious few who can lead new product development (NPD) at the company. But, time and again, people moan about Apple not updating this or that product, or not adding this or that new technology. Tim Cook has to walk a fine line between innovative NPD which is fantastically expensive and time consuming, and incremental changes to old-model products which is much cheaper and more profitable. In a ‘just-in-time’ system there are no Touch Bars lying around. With the updated 13" MacBook Pro, they simply switch the processor and this or that part, and keep the production line going. Meanwhile existing components for that particular model get ever cheaper, so Apple can drop the price a little, yet still maintain their healthy margins. It’s like car companies having many different models—sedan , sport utility, compact etc.. Apple puts the product on the shelf, and so long as there is demand, they keep churning it out. Once demand dries up, they retire the product.
    There's also a continual need in development of existing product lines to strike a balance between accumulating enough new features and additional speed, etc. to entice those with aging hardware to upgrade, while not adding so much at once as to anger the customer who just spent $1,300+ on the prior model within the last few months. They need to simultaneously get a "wow" out of the former and a "meh" from the latter.

    The side-effect is that people who are looking at this stuff all the time are much more prone to write "meh" into reviews and online comments. 
    Alex_Vwatto_cobra
  • Reply 37 of 47
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    AppleZulu said:
    dewme said:
    tomwolsy said:
    F keys are horrible, pointless chiclets, when you can have a multifunctional bar that can also have F keys. It’s so childish to give up the capabilities across applications of the Touch Bar in favor of keys simply so that you can feel them. Every creative app has used the Touch Bar to great advantage, most with full slider controls. What a waste of space the useless F keys are. 
    The Touch Bar is very clever. However putting a control surface that dynamically changes based on application context outside of the sight line of touch typists is not ideal. I’m not a a great touch typist, but knowing that everything on the keyboard surface is static is reassuring. If you’re going to throw controls that change on-the-fly at me, put them on the screen where my eyes are focused. Just my 2 cents.  
    See, I kind of like the Touch Bar, and kind of wonder if I should upgrade to this device as the last chance to get one attached to a device that will retain utility for a number of years into the future.

    Also, I don't get the line-of-sight complaint. With a notebook computer, the keys and screen are really close to one another. It takes no more eye motion to look from text mid-screen to a menu bar at the top of the screen than it does to look at text mid screen down to the touch bar. Suggesting that it's disruptive or takes any more effort is really a slide into the black-and-white, slo-mo, overacted 'problem statement' clips in a Ronco infomercial. I'm picturing someone rubbing their eyes and grabbing at their sprained neck after glancing down at the Touch Bar. 
    That’s the thing, everyone has their own opinion about user interface related stuff. Some people like personal computers with touch screens and some people hate them. Some people actually liked the Pocket Fisherman … have you tried putting a full sized fishing pole in your glove box? But I digress.

    When the Touch Bar was announced my first impression was that Apple was doing a kind of end-around move to get some touch-screen-like interaction on the Mac, something that was strictly prohibited under Steve Jobs, without committing to actually having a touch screen. You know, we’ll put this little strip of touchiness really close to the screen without actually having a touch screen. If a few releases later if the touchiness spreads upward, like a rash, and on to the actual screen, maybe nobody would object? 

    From a versatility perspective the Touch Bar makes perfect sense. It allows you to multiplex several different functions, in a highly visual way, into the same physical area and control space. This same exact technique has been exploited for several decades in military combat system consoles and aircraft “glass cockpits.” It greatly reduces the number of individual, physical UI controls like switches/activators and displays/indicators.

    Functionally, the net result is a more generic control that can morph to perform several different tasks. When there are multiple instances of these generic controls it can also buy you resiliency and fault tolerance. On the user interaction side, it requires a more attentive operator, a potentially steeper learning curve, and in some cases, unlearning things that have been baked into muscle memory. We saw a lot of complaints around the Touch Bar related to the Escape Key exactly because of muscle memory issues. 

    Personally, I thought the Touch Bar was a better alternative to having a touch screen, which I’m not a fan of at all. The only top row hard key that I truly care about is the Escape key. All of the other keys show little signs of wear and are rarely used, other than the power on/off key. 
    Alex_Vmuthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 38 of 47
    charlesncharlesn Posts: 820member
    dewme said:
    I believe the primary throttle on Apple’s ability to move even faster is human resource limitations, as in getting enough people with the right skills assigned to its product teams. 
    When you are the richest and most successful consumer tech company on the planet--as well as being one of the world's most admired brands and rated as one of the very best places to work--"getting enough people with the right skills" isn't a primary problem. Apple has a significant advantage in attracting talent over any other tech company out there. 
  • Reply 39 of 47
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    charlesn said:
    dewme said:
    I believe the primary throttle on Apple’s ability to move even faster is human resource limitations, as in getting enough people with the right skills assigned to its product teams. 
    When you are the richest and most successful consumer tech company on the planet--as well as being one of the world's most admired brands and rated as one of the very best places to work--"getting enough people with the right skills" isn't a primary problem. Apple has a significant advantage in attracting talent over any other tech company out there. 
    I disagree. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc., always have very many (at least several hundred) unfilled job positions waiting for the right individual to fill the position. In top tier companies, at least prior to the pandemic, it was never been about settling for the "best match" from the currently available pool of candidates, it's about getting the right match.

    The last time I talked with someone in HR at one of the aforementioned companies, the rep said that they've been carrying over 4,000 open staffing requisitions for several years, which would only be filled if the right candidate came along. But some companies are more selective than others, and who knows whether that number is based on projects that are waiting to staff up or the company is trying to show its exclusivity, like Harvard admissions.

    I do know that everyplace I've worked outside of military related contracts, the number of things the company could go after in parallel was always staffing limited. This meant that some things got serialized and stretched out rather than done across a broad front. The release rate of new products from Apple over the past decade or so seems to indicate that Apple is facing similar resource issues, which are now compounded by supply chain issues.

    Getting warm bodies is one thing, getting the right people with the right skills is quite another. I don't think Apple has any exclusivity in this area despite its reputation and deep pockets. Making smart hiring decisions is probably the single most critical business decision that a company can make. 
    Alex_Vwatto_cobra
  • Reply 40 of 47
    Thoughts on SSD speeds?
    watto_cobra
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