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Say goodbye to 15in Non-retina MBP

dtravis7


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Also I make my living fixing computers. Fun stuff when that stops. Oh well. :D
 
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Hopefully it'll change rather than stop! Repair of boards that do fail out of Apple Care (or due to user fault) may provide opportunity. The chips are smaller and the soldering tools change, but the job can be done. I see local guys repairing phones that I would've thought were fit for retirement.

Other things like the glued-in battery should also create opportunity...
 
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So where can you still get them? I really wanted the glossy hi-res display... :(
 

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Dennis,

it's not a matter of biting, I'm putting forward a reasonable argument.

With Apple Care (which I think is a good idea on products of this type), I would say all parts will be covered for the reasonable part of the product's life.

Considering electronics, for sure any component can fail. Let's look at it: so can the CPU, GPU, jeez, even a single cap can fail on the board - and I'm not sure that RAM will be more susceptible to failure. Looking at electronics, you typically expect to see a bathtub failure curve, which means that you will be covered for the initial high "infant-mortality" phase and well into the "flat" part of the curve. On the contrary, with a factory-controlled specification, you have less chance of failure. I'm pretty sure Apple studies these statistics quite carefully.

We design and manufacture electronic systems (using ARM, Microchip) at our company and our most reliable systems by a long way are those designed to be purpose-specific, with no removable components.

I think that we're used to an old way of doing things and we need to adapt our view (I'm relatively new to Macs, but have been tinkering with PCs since the early '90s).

I agree with most of your arguments but not your overall premise, consider this....

All of these compromises are made to achieve a hair thinner form-factor, which I can guarantee you that few true professionals care about. That is the only net benefit - well, that and ensuring a shorter overall service life, which pads Apple's already fat bottom line.

I object to paying more money for a less serviceable machine. Period.
 
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I think I could change hardware with no problem. I certainly like to tinker with everything and don't go along with the new Apple MBP. But God I love OS X it's just the best. Not sure it can be replaced. I would go with some form of linux or bsd I guess. Just not sure what would make me happy in a OS. I have a 2010 MBP I7 core. So I'm good for a bit. Perhaps some option will show up in the next year or so. As it stands now I just can't see tossing down $2700 to replace my MBP that has a limited life.

I'm very sad about the options Apple has left me.
 

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V6Pony, I 100% agree with you on OSX. There is nothing out there that can truly replace it for me. That is what makes this all so hard.
 
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As long as my 15" is alive and kicking, I won't have to say goodbye to anything.
 
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V6Pony, I 100% agree with you on OSX. There is nothing out there that can truly replace it for me. That is what makes this all so hard.

I have heard there is a version of linux that is trying to be like OS X. But that is all I know at this point. I think OS X is based on Darwin BSD. I would like to find a close version.
 
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My major complaint is you can only get Apple Care for 3yrs and it is technically no-user upgradeable or repairable thats a lot of money for a 3 yr guarantee they either need to drop the price a lot more ,include Apple Care or extend it to 4yr.
 
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I agree with most of what's been said about phasing out 15" non-retina MBP. It was the first thing I thought of last night when watching the video and initially I was sorely disappointed.

HOWEVER... the people I see having a true dilemma are the pros who need the power machines. Good points have been brought up about repair and upgrading RAM and internal storage. Maybe many of those individuals will move away from Apple notebooks. Time will tell.

Most average users will be able to get by with a MBA once prices and specs and tech adjust in the next couple of yrs. **Moore's law** Also, someone like myself won't even need a notebook 5 yrs from now The iPad will keep getting better and iCloud functionality will improve. My iMac will be my main storage hub and my iPad will be my point of access. Everything is saved to the cloud and synced to my iMac. More affordable than a new MBP.

Well, that's just my take and I could be missing a few things. I'm no expert. :) It's just how I see things progressing in the next half decade. *shrug*
 

dtravis7


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MyMacRox, the one thing many are missing is what CWA brought out yesterday. The MBP IS supposed to be a Machine for Pros. MBP means Macbook Pro. It was a portable PRO machine and since the retnia really is a glorified better Air. That is what is bugging us. It's still a good machine if you ignore the upgrade part, but it's really no longer a Pro machine to us.
 

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Well, that's just my take and I could be missing a few things. I'm no expert. It's just how I see things progressing in the next half decade. *shrug*

I agree. I put aside my desire for another portable Mac and instead have decided to get a 27" iMac to replace my 21.5" 2011 model. I'm not sure I would spring for another iPad though. My iPad 3 will have to last for another year at least. My next tablet will likely not be from Apple. There are just too many other great choices which are more economical and as far as I'm concerned just as good.
 

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My iPad 3 will have to last for another year at least. My next tablet will likely not be from Apple. There are just too many other great choices which are more economical and as far as I'm concerned just as good.

Before you get too caught up in that mindset, be sure to try out a non-Apple tablet. And I mean, from anyone - Microsoft, Acer, ASUS, you name it...

What you'll find is that though the hardware may be roughly equivalent, the software is a whole 'nother story.

Most Android tablet apps are blown-up phone apps that haven't been optimized for tablets, and even when they are, they're not made for a specific screen size. Beyond that, Android apps, in general, are rarely as well made as their iOS counterparts because of the extent of Android fragmentation and the Java-based SDK, which is designed around the theory of programming for the least common denominator (in terms of hardware).

The Surface RT is a joke, because frankly, there's just a paltry selection of half-baked HTML5 apps. The Surface Pro might be a bit more appealing because it can run Windows apps, but then, most of those are not made to be touch-centric, so the experience is subpar.

Apple really has a good thing going with the iPad, and though I agree that they could be a bit more economical, particularly with the higher capacity versions (+$100 increments for storage is laughable in this day and age when a 128GB SSD is less than $100), the quality of the software more than makes up for the price difference. And after all, we buy these things to run software. So, if the software sucks, what's the point?
 
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Most Android tablet apps are blown-up phone apps that haven't been optimized for tablets, and even when they are, they're not made for a specific screen size. Beyond that, Android apps, in general, are rarely as well made as their iOS counterparts because of the extent of Android fragmentation and the Java-based SDK, which is designed around the theory of programming for the least common denominator (in terms of hardware).

The Surface RT is a joke, because frankly, there's just a paltry selection of half-baked HTML5 apps. The Surface Pro might be a bit more appealing because it can run Windows apps, but then, most of those are not made to be touch-centric, so the experience is subpar.

Apple really has a good thing going with the iPad, and though I agree that they could be a bit more economical, particularly with the higher capacity versions (+$100 increments for storage is laughable in this day and age when a 128GB SSD is less than $100), the quality of the software more than makes up for the price difference. And after all, we buy these things to run software. So, if the software sucks, what's the point?

Though I love my Android phone(Note 3), your statement about all the other tablets is just about spot on. The only other tablet I enjoyed owning, besides the 1st gen iPad I used to have, was the BlackBerry Playbook. It was nice, easy to use, but it's getting old now, and didn't have as large of an app marketplace selection. Everything else is garbage in my opinion, and they're just trying to hard to make something work/be something it isn't. Most of those other tablets are also so difficult to work around in terms of UI, and it's just not a comfortable experience. This is especially evident when you are trying to lure new buyers by letting them play with your display models. And then "smart" people will try to spin that around as being a positive attribute.

Back to the Retina MBP models. I actually think people are way over exaggerating the "upgrade" abilities that no longer exist. If someone was serious about using high amount of ram, they would just get it stock from Apple with high amount of ram...or storage space(with the ability of being able to self-upgrade in the future). There's really not that much of a trade off in my opinion. If you compare the performance specs of today's MBP to those of not that long ago, the performance difference is worthy on its own. I don't even know of normal(average Joes) people who use more than 8gb of ram in their personal computers. All the ones I know who do have more than 8gb of ram work in design or advertising.

As for fixability...yeah, nothing much to argue about there. It's a pretty $$$$ to fix them. That's the only thing that hurts everything for me. I have this weird thing with buying something that has very limited amount areas where I can fix it on my own. That's why I love huge tower PCs and the Mac Pro that I have.

Since I'm nowhere near to being in the market for anything new right now from Apple's line of computers, all I can do is appreciate the awesome amounts of power they are capable of delivering in such a small unit. And, knock on wood, I've never owned a laptop that has been as reliable(in all aspects) as my MBP. That same thing could also be said about 13" MBP I bought used off this forum. Just about to go on 5 years of being its owner on my 15", and still on the original battery(though it's at 55% health). I need some time to go knocking on every piece of wood I can find. :)
 
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Sorry, I just can't get my head around the rMBP not being a Pro machine. Why exactly is it not a Pro machine? Because:

  • It's slim?
  • It has a retina display (screams Pro to me)?
  • Has soldered RAM?
  • It has a specific (fast) SSD?
  • Is the performance any less than the standard MBP?
  • It uses Iris on the lower-end model?

Or maybe, please define what constitutes a Pro machine.
 
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My major complaint is you can only get Apple Care for 3yrs and it is technically no-user upgradeable or repairable thats a lot of money for a 3 yr guarantee they either need to drop the price a lot more ,include Apple Care or extend it to 4yr.
Yeah, it is WAYYYY cheaper on iMac's, but it doesn't cover drops and stuff so I don't get it.

I agree with most of what's been said about phasing out 15" non-retina MBP. It was the first thing I thought of last night when watching the video and initially I was sorely disappointed.

HOWEVER... the people I see having a true dilemma are the pros who need the power machines. Good points have been brought up about repair and upgrading RAM and internal storage. Maybe many of those individuals will move away from Apple notebooks. Time will tell.

Most average users will be able to get by with a MBA once prices and specs and tech adjust in the next couple of yrs. **Moore's law** Also, someone like myself won't even need a notebook 5 yrs from now The iPad will keep getting better and iCloud functionality will improve. My iMac will be my main storage hub and my iPad will be my point of access. Everything is saved to the cloud and synced to my iMac. More affordable than a new MBP.

Well, that's just my take and I could be missing a few things. I'm no expert. :) It's just how I see things progressing in the next half decade. *shrug*
Ha screw Air's and pads, it would take me 3 times as long to post this on a touchscreen tablet than on my MBP, and airs are just size for money, if you need small or just a facebook machine there good but otherwise MBP all the way.

Apple seems to be stuffing it's self in to niche corners and letting everyone else (android, samsung, microsoft) take over the rest of the market, even in phone's they refuse to make a 128gb model or put in an SD card slot and then they make iOS more like android... so people just buy inexpensive android phones or Galaxy S4's for cheap because iPhones hardly ever go on sale.

They are trying to be ahead of the times by taking stuff away, the iPad isn't that good yet, and CD's and optical disks are still used, and people will always like to replace there ram and HDD.
 

cwa107


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Sorry, I just can't get my head around the rMBP not being a Pro machine. Why exactly is it not a Pro machine? Because:

  • It's slim?
  • It has a retina display (screams Pro to me)?
  • Has soldered RAM?
  • It has a specific (fast) SSD?
  • Is the performance any less than the standard MBP?
  • It uses Iris on the lower-end model?

Or maybe, please define what constitutes a Pro machine.

These are the things that make it less than a "Pro" machine to me...

  • It's designed to be disposable (glued together).
  • It lacks an optical drive
  • It's compromised in terms of storage and memory expansion solely for the sake of slimness.
  • It has a novelty display that is of no practical use and in fact, results in diminished performance for no net benefit.
 
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These are the things that make it less than a "Pro" machine to me...

  • It's designed to be disposable (glued together).
  • It lacks an optical drive
  • It's compromised in terms of storage and memory expansion solely for the sake of slimness.
  • It has a novelty display that is of no practical use and in fact, results in diminished performance for no net benefit.

Interesting points.

  • Manufacturing techniques are changing - it can be a negative, but I think it provides a better overall construction. I'd certainly take a glued rMBP over a "soon-to-rattle-to-pieces" LeNovo. I'd agree on glued battery though.
  • Optical drives are becoming a relic, with broadband, streaming and thumb-drives that are many times the size of optical discs...their days are numbered. Not to mention write speeds. I'd bet the vast majority of people hardly use optical drives. That would be a waste of space in my view (following point).
  • I agree with the slimness, storage may be compromised. But: with USB3 and Thunderbolt...you lug when you need to, but when you don't you have a slim, light machine...translated = sexy machine. And sexiness is important - it's a compromise, but very important in a product. Although an engineer, I actually want sexiness in the tools I use.
  • I have to disagree about the display - it may have compromised performance on the first iteration, but that issue will soon disappear, if it hasn't already. A retina display is a huge step forward in personal computing, I think it's brilliant that Apple was the first - retina will eventually be a standard.

I suppose it's difficult to please everyone though, as we can see. Possibly statistics dictate that today's definition of a Pro has changed from what it used to be a few years ago.

In my case, I develop on Windows (yay) and for many different microprocessor families. I generally have 3 Fusion VM's open at any time, running XP and 7 (not a single one with 8, bald enough already!). I run them on either my 2011 iMac or 2012 15" MBP with hi-res display (both 16GB RAM) and they both laugh at the task (my MBP's fans do run quite hard in summer). In my case, without being pretentious, I'd say I am a Pro user and the rMBP would be a great tool for me: power, etc, with good screen real-estate. But that's one user in how many?

I believe that Apple genuinely tries to create the best product possible. Naturally the business case must make sense, but only the business case would lead to failure ultimately. I personally don't think we're at business-case-only at this point.

Maybe a look at them in the Store will give a better sense of what they're all about...
 
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Hi guys, here's a review. Thoughts?
 

cwa107


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