tjwolf

1STnTENDERBITS said:

Smaller bezels, larger screen, basically same footprint?  Yes, yes, and yes.  New/old butterfly keyboard would make that an even more enticing proposition.  If it looks anything like this render... hell yeah.  I would even care if they kept the potato camera.  I would definitely upgrade my '15 MBP for the 2nd version of this.

I'm looking at my work 2017 15"MBP and I can't see how they'd accomodate an extra inch of diagonal space without changing the aspect ratio.  There's *barely* 1/2" from the top-left corner to the corner of the lid.,.there's plenty of room to make top/bottom bezels smaller, but side bezels not so much.

ireland said:

Let’s see the arguments now from apologists who say there’s nothing wrong with the butterfly design. Turns out key-travel and reliability matter to people. Sadly, Apple will use this as yet one more justification for price increase.

Price increase over what?  Apple currently isn't selling a 16" model, so there can't be a price increase.  There's a $1100 price difference between the cheapest 13" model and the least expensive 15" model.  So asking for $600 to go from the base 15" to a base 16" model seems reasonable.

The author seems to ignore the fact that the *types* of applications running on a "creation" device like the Mac are completely different than those on a "consumption" device like the iPhone/iPad.  From IDEs to command-line tools to photo/video editing movies, etc.  I use my MBP to develop enterprise software in Java, Javascript, etc.  How long will it be before someone ports the JDK and JVM to Apple's ARM?  Apple certainly won't do it.  It was easy for Apple to ignore the different programming languages and tools on iOS - it doesn't have that option on a Mac.  Content/software creators would abandon Mac in droves if Apple tried to force Swift or XCode on everybody :-)

I do believe Apple will eventually move to ARM for its Macs - but it will be a gradual move, I think.  First its chips need to become powerful enough to reasonably emulate x86 binaries (like it did when moving from PowerPC to x86) and then let some time pass so all the open source communities & commercial tool developers can begin to provide ports (with Apple providing free tools to do so).

I agree that nations have the right to tax however they please, as long as it’s not discriminatory.  I completely disagree that France should be able tax retroactively.  That’s like selling something and then, after the sale, tell the person who bought that they need to pay some more.

With respect to the title of the article, I find it interesting that Apple is singled out (as usual), when its services revenue is probably the least among the named mentioned companies (AMZN, FB, GOOG).

GeorgeBMac said:

The question of getting rid of all ports on the iPhone is a matter of when, not if.
They did that on the Apple Watch (except for the "diagnostic port" which is hidden and of highly restricted use) and its a matter of time before they do it on the iPhone as well.  (Actually the AppleWatch has more of a need of a connector than the phone because it would enable the watch to connect to and use a functional watch band.)

While that may mean some restrictions in functionality, Apple will no doubt make the leap just as they did for the headphone jack -- in order to provide other benefits.

Think about it:  How much and what do we use a lightening connector for?
--  Charging?   Old school

--  Connecting another device?   Old school

--  BackUps?   Old school

(That said, it remains a mystery to me why Apple continues to use the "smart connector" on its iPadPros.)

AFAIK, wireless charging is still slower than via lightning port - if so, wired charging isn't 'old school'.  I would agree that everything else can/is being done wirelessly already - so I have no idea what Apple is trying to accomplish with this research.  If it wasn't for charging and the fact that lots of cars still don't support wireless CarPlay, you could get rid of the lightning port today!   Anyway, I don't know anyone who's had "faster backups" or "faster connection to iTunes" on top of their wish list.  Wireless (via Bluetooth, wifi, cellular) seems pretty much fast enough for everyone's need.