Wwdc 2012

what? No pretentiousness?

darn (tootin)

Man I was hoping for new iMacs!
Soon ...I hope.

MYmacROX said:

Man I was hoping for new iMacs!
Soon ...I hope.

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Next year, Fall. It's back to school time now, so Apple will focus on Notebooks.

Here's another thing I don't truly understand. Tim Cook is reported as having said that "big things are in the pipeline" for the Mac Pro line next year. This raises some questions for me:

1. After all this time, not only why bother to bring up the Mac Pro line, but at the same time, slap those in the face who have been waiting for a refresh for so long with a literal "wth is this pitiful crap" minor speed bump?

2. After all, we know that the iMac refresh will be coming in the Fall of 2013 because this is now "back to school" time, and that's when Apple concentrates on laptops. So wouldn't it have made a LOT more sense (given what Tim has said) to simply wait for a REAL Mac Pro refresh at the same time as the iMacs?

3. During WWDC, the rumor mills were saying that the Mac Pro line would be dropped, in favor of the new breed of MBP with retina display and such. But now that we know better, I'm still confused as to why the new flagship MBP is less flexible than its smaller siblings. If anything, I'd think they'd make the former less user serviceable instead.

(I was typing this at about 1 am in the morning and fell asleep. Can't remember what else I wanted to say or what points I had.. .Kind of flubbed my third point!)

Doug

I was actually just imagining something. Think of how cool it would be if Apple automatically had an extended warranty on the MBP's parts that are not replaceable anymore. Kind of how cars have different warranties on drivetrains, chassis, and etc. The new battery seems to be really hard to service due to its adherence to the chassis by glue. Soldered ram is known to be more dependable/reliable, but it can still have problems.

Probably won't happen though.

Here's iFixit's teardown of the Next Gen MacBook Pro

Got to check out the new MBP in person today at my local Apple store. I've got to say, the screen is nice and all, but I'm glad I held myself back from another impulse decision. The trackpad was seriously messed up. It worked sporadically between clicking and touch sensitivity, though I read that they are rolling out updates right now for this issue. The performance(flash ssd/ram) was blistering fast. I was thinking of counting the start-up time, but it finished loading before I could start counting(I thought too long, and my finger couldn't wait to hit the power button(which is now where the old MBP's eject button was)).
What I also noticed was that moving app windows around kind of glitchy.

I can tell you this though, the structure of the new MBP is SOLID! WAY more rigid than the current MBP 15". I was really impressed with the build quality!

Is Apple not testing designs anymore before they are sold to the public?

Thanks for the report!

iggibar said:

Got to check out the new MBP in person today at my local Apple store. I've got to say, the screen is nice and all, but I'm glad I held myself back from another impulse decision. The trackpad was seriously messed up. It worked sporadically between clicking and touch sensitivity, though I read that they are rolling out updates right now for this issue. The performance(flash ssd/ram) was blistering fast. I was thinking of counting the start-up time, but it finished loading before I could start counting(I thought too long, and my finger couldn't wait to hit the power button(which is now where the old MBP's eject button was)).
What I also noticed was that moving app windows around kind of glitchy.

I can tell you this though, the structure of the new MBP is SOLID! WAY more rigid than the current MBP 15". I was really impressed with the build quality!

Click to expand...

What does the top row of the keyboard look like without the Eject key?

Stretch said:

What does the top row of the keyboard look like without the Eject key?

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It was pretty much the same, but the eject button is now the power button.

I also think it was stupid to not place the model name on the lower screen bezel.

iggibar said:

I also think it was stupid to not place the model name on the lower screen bezel.

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Any particular reason why? It's obvious that it's not an Air.

vansmith said:

Any particular reason why? It's obvious that it's not an Air.

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Simple: It has no name! It's called a MacBook Pro, put the name on it.

I have to say, usually when they come out with a new MacBook Pro, I feel a twinge of regret for not waiting.

This time, not so much.... they are nice looking machines, but in my mind, a step backward from what a professional notebook should be. I wouldn't want one.

iggibar said:

Simple: It has no name! It's called a MacBook Pro, put the name on it.

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The name is there. It's on the backside. Personally, I like it better without a logo in my face.

Doug

Having thought about this for a bit, from a photographer's point of view where editing is concerned, I think that the retina display is a bit irrelevant.
Is it beautiful? Yes. Gorgeous, in fact. But is it more important to have resolution, or more important to have a monitor that calibrates properly? Obviously, the latter. Also, when editing while in the studio, on location.. it's infinitely more important to get things done quickly, than it is to be concerned with pixels.

No one can tell me that before now, professionals weren't getting their work done without this type of pixel pitch. Furthermore, when one isn't on location, they're using a real matte 27-32" calibrated monitor for editing, and even at that size with standard common resolutions, one can not see the actual pixels.

Were I to get another MBP, it would be a base model 15" with the best processor available and I'd upgrade the RAM myself, and would take the optical drive out, and replace it with an SSD for my boot drive with Apps and keep the HDD for files/data. Boom.

Doug

iggibar said:

Simple: It has no name! It's called a MacBook Pro, put the name on it.

Click to expand...

The aesthetic minimalist in me likes everything really plain so this is why I ask.

I agree with you Doug which is why I think the retina display as a feature of Apple machines would be a better sell if they simply became the norm. In other words, the retina display may be nice but I'm not sure that selling it as an "enhanced feature" does much. For instance, compare it to the iPhone or iPad - both have the retina displays standard. Apple might have been better to do the same with the MBP.

vansmith said:

I agree with you Doug which is why I think the retina display as a feature of Apple machines would be a better sell if they simply became the norm. In other words, the retina display may be nice but I'm not sure that selling it as an "enhanced feature" does much. For instance, compare it to the iPhone or iPad - both have the retina displays standard. Apple might have been better to do the same with the MBP.

Click to expand...

Agreed for the most part. However, they can't do this without absorbing a lot of the production costs at this point I suppose. This is why those models are a bit more expensive to begin with. Plus, if they threw those displays on all models, I think it would interfere with the actual structural design, and we might see the end of HDD's and replaceable RAM. I think.


Plus, you can't discount the obvious marketing strategy which states that it's bleeding edge tech and you have to pay for such a thing.
Doug

Doug b said:

Plus, you can't discount the obvious marketing strategy which states that it's bleeding edge tech and you have to pay for such a thing.
Doug

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Oh absolutely, I know that the choice was a marketing one as well. However, if you want developers to adopt the benefits of retina displays, it would help if you made them easier to get a hold on.

I don't know if this has been mentioned but iFixit gave it a score of 1 out of 10 in terms of repairability (source).

vansmith said:

Oh absolutely, I know that the choice was a marketing one as well. However, if you want developers to adopt the benefits of retina displays, it would help if you made them easier to get a hold on.

I don't know if this has been mentioned but iFixit gave it a score of 1 out of 10 in terms of repairability (source).

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But Van, it's a Tim Cook Mac. It will last forever, well at least till the next OS that makes it die!

Edit: I just read the whole iFix it article. Wow, battery really will not come out without breaking it, display ever breaks you need the whole assembly. It's like some appliances, use it till it does and get another but at that price, not easy to do.

dtravis7 said:

But Van, it's a Tim Cook Mac. It will last forever, well at least till the next OS that makes it die!

Edit: I just read the whole iFix it article. Wow, battery really will not come out without breaking it, display ever breaks you need the whole assembly. It's like some appliances, use it till it does and get another but at that price, not easy to do.

Click to expand...

All kidding aside, you really can tell that this was not a product line refreshed under Jobs. Had Jobs presided, the existing, "old style" MBP would have been discontinued and all MBPs would look like the Retina model, for better or worse.

The line is way too confusing and cluttered now for the average layperson. Jobs would have hated that.

I guess the part that disturbs me most is the glued in batteries. You can kind of rationalize (or at least try to) everything else, but batteries fail. ;P

What do you do then?

In all fairness, she did want to preserve the batteries from damage since they were still good. If I had batteries that were dead...I'll get them off, whether they like it or not.