wiggin

jbdragon said:

Doesn't Netflix put their own servers into Comcast and others own Networks to speed up streaming, so it's really not going over the Internet? Still this whole 1TB CAP is B.S. nothing at all to do with Fairness and everything to do with trying to keep themselves from becoming a dumb pipe. 1TB really isn't that much. I've been over it a few times in a house with 2 people. It's all about getting money from you one way or another. If you're going to get your TV shows from someone else by streaming it from HULU or SlingTV or whoever, we're going to get a cut of the action as you go over your 1TB CAP. The faster speed you have, the faster you'll hit that CAP. The more people in your family watching Netflix and Hulu and playing Online gaming, etc the faster you'll hit that 1TB Cap. So now they're making people pay another $50 to get what they already had for years!!! What a joke.

mike1 said:

gatorguy said:

Apple really wants financial incentives? Wouldn't being able to sell more product to Indian consumers at near-typical Apple margins be enough incentive? It doesn't sound quite right IMHO for the richest company on the planet to expect common Indian taxpayers to cover some of the plant costs by way of reducing Apple's taxes that enable Apple to sell there. 

I don't like seeing big & relatively rich American corporations wrangle tax incentives from US states to build plants or add jobs/equipment. Amazon for instance doesn't need any financial assistance to build warehouses that they financially benefit from nor do big pharmaceuticals or health providers moving or adding headquarters. Yet State lawmakers who generally are relatively well-off themselves stumble all over themselves to pass these giveaways.  For what reason should a wealthy corporation receive tax benefits, to make themselves even wealthier? They're going to build plants and add offices anyway if the business is there. That this occurs in poor countries with very high levels of poverty is worse.

India made laws requiring a certain percentage of products be Indian-manufactured in order to push companies to invest and create jobs in return for access to their consumers. If they don't think India is important enough to invest in then they don't get to sell there. Big incentive for access to the 2nd largest country by population. But to then water-down the benefits by giving companies tax breaks to do so?? Seems far too typical that tax laws benefit the ones making the laws to the detriment of those of lesser influence. 

Huh? Of course, Amazon and every other company needs financial incentives to build facilities. Why would they choose one state over another. Whomever offers the best deal will get the jobs, construction jobs and increased tax base from everything else that the new facility brings. Same goes for countries. If one country makes it easier to do business, a company has every right and responsibility to maximize the opportunity. That being said, the governments need to due their due diligence and make sure what they are offering really will be beneficial in the long term.

flaneur said:

wiggin said:

flaneur said:

zoetmb said:

slurpy said:

Awesome move by Apple. This SHOULD shut up most of the complaints, but of course it won't. 

It's not like Apple is selling $500 laptops.   There's two ways to look at this:  

The first is that if someone is buying a laptop that starts at $2400, they should't be complaining about having to buy some adapters, even if they're overpriced and that if you're a pro, technology advances and the investment is the price of doing business.  

The other way to look at it is that if someone is spending between $2400 and $4300 (for the MBP with all options except for application software and AppleCare), Apple shouldn't have cheaped out and they should have provided 2 to 4 adapters in the box of the customer's choosing.   The price of four adapters/cables is as much as a cheap PC.   

And then my cost of ownership goes up because I can't replace the battery, expand memory or replace the SSD myself.   Or, if I Iive with a 256GB SSD, I've got to get a ton of external storage for pro-level photos and video and live with the hassle of not having every file with me when I'm out of the home/office.  

This is another example of Apple labeling something "pro" and then not understanding the workflow of their pro customers.   They did that with FinalCutPro and they did it when they moved away from the tower configuration of the MacPro.  

Every time Apple switches ports, they tell the market how their new choices are the greatest and how they want both manufacturers and consumers to commit to that port.  Then after a few years, they change their minds and they move on to something else.   Did they really need to drop Mag-safe?  What about all the people who bought extra power supplies to keep at home/office, etc.?   HDMI is ubiquitous on TVs and receivers and the cables have become inexpensive, but now I've got to buy an adapter that costs ten times what the cable cost?

What was Apple's rationale for going solely to USB-C?   Was it because they truly think this port is the future and that the accessory market will fully move to that port and that it provides technological advantages?   Or was it really because of Ive's anal-obsessiveness over thinness and not wanting to look at different sized/shaped ports on the side of the machine?   What drives me crazy is that Apple wants the machine to have this superior industrial design so that it looks great in photos and in ads, but they have no problem with users having to stick a bunch of dongles and adapters on the thing.   It's the same with the iPhone and the obsession with thinness, but then we have to put it in a case because it can't survive a fall.   So few are really seeing and feeling the thinness anyway.  Sometimes I think people at Apple don't actually use the products they produce in the real world. 

So, IMO, criticism is warranted.   If Apple wants my money, they're going to have to do a bit better.   I hate using PCs at work, but I'm not spending $4K to $5K on my next computer and I don't want to feel like I have less than what I have today.  So as much as I hate Windows, my next laptop might actually be a Windows machine.  And I've been an Apple customer for 35 years. 

Actually I think it's you and other dongle-phobes who are the anal-obsessives. 

There is so much pure, sculpted techno eroticism in the new form factor that you'd have to be a puritanical ass-wipe to give a second's thought to how it looks with an adapter or two plugged into it.

I can't believe the pettiness of you people. The new MBP is the culmination of five years of foresighted development, if you include —as you must — the investments they were jumping on in IGZO development going that far back to Japan, no less, where the tech was developed. 

Same with the keyboard. If Swiss watchmakers made keyboard switches, they would maybe be like this. Probably another five years in the making. And the aluminum machining — try to find a wonky tenth of a millimeter of misfit. How long have they been developing that? And the asymmetric fans, and so on.

Go get yourself a Windows machine. You may not deserve to handle one of these unless you come around. Meanwhile, millions are going to get limitless pleasure out of picking theirs up to pack it at the end of the day as they gladly take care to pack its adapters in the case with it. 

Edit: you know why there's no USB A? It's too big, that's why. It's as obsolete as the headphone jack is on the iPhone. If you want them to make the base thicker just to accommodate that port, you're disqualified as an Apple observer.

LOL. You’re not so hot as an observer, either. Why? Because you wouldn’t need to make the MBP base thicker to accommodate a USB A port. You just have to stop drinking the Kool-Aid long enough to see past Ive’s designed illusion of thinness. You clearly think that the thickness of the base is only that narrow flat band where the USB C ports are; and if that were true you’d be correct and an A port would not fit. But it’s not true. That is only about half of the base’s thickness, the other half is the rounded/tapered edge that Apple uses on many of it’s products, part for structural reasons but probably mostly for aesthetic reasons (aka, it makes it look thinner than it really is).

Given that Apple machines the MBP case, having one small section of that flat part, say about one inch, be about 2 mm thicker would be a trivial manufacturing change. And it would likely have zero impact structurally. So really, there is no technical, structural, or manufacturing related issue that would prevent them from easily doing that. (Alternatively, they could have made that band wider all the way around and reduced the thickness of the tapered curve to keep the same overall thickness. This would have the added benefit of actually creating more internal space for batteries, etc. But then that would not have given them the excuse that anything bigger than USB C was too thick.)

The only issue remaining is that there would be an ever so slight disruption to the aesthetics. And you would no longer have your perfectly sculpted erotic hardware to grasp in your hand.

Nice piece of design-work there, mate. The cutout for the old USB port is 4.7mm high, so to give the connector head and footroom you'd have to have a edge-face about 7,7. Run that much extra metal around the entire base and you're talking about a couple of ounces of wasted aluminum, along with destroying the whole tactile experience of this version. (Why did the Air sell so well? Because of those contours under your fingers.)

Ive is not going to waste metal on that dead and dying port. He's got too much integrity for that. Refresh your acquaintance with Buckminster Fuller if you don't see this as an integrity issue.

Your suggestion that a flat section be provided for the A port is hilarious. There is no "trivial" compromise when it comes to machining the feel of these laptops. Go to the store and check one out. There has never been anything technical for the consumer (or "pro") with the character of these instruments. We're unbelieveably lucky to have them coming out in these otherwise sorry times. Enough of the ungrateful whining! Learn to enjoy hooking up with adapters! Stop calling them dongles, you perverts! Grow up!

Soli said:

PS: I love these users that think Apple should never update to a better port interface that will last a decade plus because they may have to buy an adapter for some aging accessory, even though there is no one forcing them to join others in the modern age. We saw it with the optical drive, the 30pin connector, and the original USB. If these idiots had their way Macs would still have VGA, serial, and parallel ports.