mr. h

Is there really that much demand for cellular-connected laptops? Just use your iPhone as a hotspot.

lkrupp said:

SpamSandwich said:

I think Morgan Stanley (and Katy Huberty, especially) are full of it, but I’d be pleasantly surprised if it hit that high.

What has always amazed me is how far off some analysts are from each other in their calls. Huberty says $152 and I read about some bear market analyst saying $85. Assuming they read the same data how can they be so far off?

Whoever is projecting $85 is clearly a total moron. I seriously can't understand people who are overtly bearish on Apple; they've been proven wrong quarter after quarter after quarter for over a decade! You'd think they'd get it by now! Eventually, the bears will probably be correct, but there's simply no sign of it at the moment. Right now, Apple is an unstoppable money-making machine - and the new Apple Silicon Macs are a huge step in the right direction to maintain that for at least the next 5 years.

k2kw said:

I think that Apple thought switching to USB C would help the world switch over to it

The big problem here is the massively elongated refresh cycles for laptops and desktops compared to prior to about 2010. It used to be that a three-year old laptop was barely useable for newer software, with new machines dramatically faster and more capable in every way, often whilst being smaller and/or lighter and/or having longer battery life. This made it relatively easy to shift a very large % of the installed base to a new I/O solution. That just hasn't happened with USB-C.

I'm still using a six-year old MacBook Pro, and for the most part it is plenty fast and capable for everything I want to do with it, and I don't feel I'm missing out on much by not having USB-C. However, if I moved to a machine with USB-C only, that would be sure to frustrate me with the number of peripherals out there that still use USB-A, and the number of displays that support HDMI.

GeorgeBMac said:

asdasd said:

GeorgeBMac said:

The TouchBar was meant as a substitute for touch screen displays.  
Apple not only lost that battle but, the industry has already moved on from that primitive configuration.

The future is in 2 in 1's.

My 8th grade grandson needs either a 2 in 1 or both a laptop and a separate tablet if he is going to complete his school work. 

A MacBook can't do it by itself and neither can an iPad do it by itself (although it can come closer!) -- and that's for an 8th grade student!

It's yet to be determined if the iPad will fill the role of the 2 in 1 or if it will be the MacBook -- or maybe a brand new third product.   But Apple has fallen too far behind the times and, one way or another needs to catch back up.

Not going to happen. Two totally different paradigms. 

… the iPad is … better than half way there -- they just have to build out the OS so it has the power needed to do the job in its laptop mode.

Read: let it run macOS Big Sur when keyboard and mouse are connected. macOS Big Sur introduced quite a few touch-friendly changes to the UI. It can't be a coincidence.

Mike Wuerthele said:

mr. h said:

AppleInsider said:

Apple is also employing its toughened Ceramic Shield glass to the front and back [emphasis added]

Is this definitely correct? Yours is the first review I’ve seen that states this. I was under the impression that only the front glass had the Ceramic Shield and that the back glass is an older generation of Gorilla Glass.

This is what we've been told, but other than that, we have no way to confirm it independently.

The front and back glasses are mounted on different substrates. The front is laminate, with that OLED display. The rear is effectively glued to the metal back of the phone. That in itself changes the behavior of the glass under different stressors.

OK, thanks for the reply. Did they say if this is specific to the Pro Max? Because not only have I not seen anyone else say the back glass is Ceramic Shield on the Pro Max, I've seen other reviews (for non-pro models) that specifically mention that the back glass is definitely not Ceramic Shield. Perhaps you could get back to Apple on this for clarification? Much appreciated.