Apple held its keynote speech just now, kicking off its developer conference. The company announced minor refreshes for its laptop line, introduced a stunning new laptop with a Retina display, and gave a sneak peek of iOS 6, which will launch in the Fall.
Let’s start with the laptop. Apple calls it the next generation MacBook Pro, and the best way to describe it is probably a 15″ MacBook Pro Air. It’s got either a quad-core Core i5 or i7 processor, an Nvidia Kepler GeForce GT 650M GPU, a maximum of 8GB of RAM, a beautifully thin shell, and, of course, that gorgeous 2880×1800 15″ display. Battery life is still solid at 7 hours. It’s also rocking USB 3.0.
Such a machine doesn’t come cheap – the thing starts at $2199 (or a whopping €2279 in The Netherlands), with a 2.3Ghz quad-core Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256 GB SSD. It’s interesting to note that the refreshed regular MacBook Pros did not get a resolution bump, so they’re still rocking 1280×800 (!) for the 13″ and 1440×900 for the 15″ – and it’s obvious why. If Apple upgraded its regular MacBook Pros to resolutions a little less laughable, the difference between them and the Retina MBP would become too small.
Of note: a pixel density of 220ppi is impressive, but the Asus ZenBook Prime is already rocking a 1920×1080 11.6″ display, which comes down to a ppi of 190. Thanks to Asus and Apple, we’re slowly but surely entering the high-ppi display era, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s about damn time. OS X applications have to be adapted to make proper use of the new display, by the way.
Moving on, iOS 6 adds a lot of cool new little features, but many of them have been staples on other mobile operating systems for a while now, so nothing revolutionary going on here. The biggest – and most anticipated – change is the arrival of a new Maps application, replacing Google Maps.
It finally brings turn-by-turn navigation to iOS by default, and, most interestingly, adds a 3D mode which is exactly the same as what Google demonstrated a few days ago. Google stated its 3D feature would begin roll-out over the “coming weeks”, which netted the company criticism for announcing something without actually having anything to ship. Apple will launch iOS 6, with the new Maps application, coming Fall. Let’s wait and see if the same people – rightly so – criticizing Google will also criticize Apple. I doubt it.
Other new features in iOS 6 are Siri coming to the iPad, and, of course, new functionality for Siri as a whole, making the tool a little bit smarter. Rotten Tomatoes, for instance, has been integrated. It’ll also come with a faster JavaScript engine and the ability to sync tabs across devices. iOS 6 also finally brings Facebook integration.
As far as hardware requirements go, it will be available for the iPhone 3GS and up, the iPad 2 and up, and iPod Touch 4th gen. and up. Why the original iPad is left out in the rain and the 3GS isn’t remains an exercise for the viewers. The iPad is only 2 years old, and hardware-wise, more capable than the 3GS. Sure, compared to many Android upgrade cycles it’s still pretty good, but compared to the rest of the PC industry – what the iPad supposedly belongs to, everybody keeps telling me – this is downright criminal.
Lastly, Apple announced that Mountain Lion will be available in July, for a mere $19.99. Another good deal – I may not like OS X, but as far as pricing goes, Apple nailed that one down.
Overall, the new display is nice, but the rest doesn’t really strike me as particularly special or noteworthy. Spending close to 2 hours on this seems excessive, at best, but then again, these press events – not just Apple’s – have been suffering from a serious case of inflation for years now. In any case, I refused to postpone my evening co-op zombie killfest for writing this one.
Two hour keynote, only one kind of interesting thing (the Retina display). All software stuff was catch-up or “coming in five months”.
I’m no longer going to allocate time to this inflation of press events.
Aye, felt the same.
Buy a new iPad every three years! This sounds like a great future we’re heading towards 😐
If you pause and look at that “200” slide about all the new features in Mountain Lion, they had to _really_ scrape the barrel to fill that slide:
* Swipe between pages in Mac App Store 😐
* Share from within Mac App Store 😐
* Simplified scanning UI
* Calendar sidebar
* Do not track in Safari (it’s just a bloody checkbox and a request header!)
There were several things that impressed me.
I like the Do Not Disturb feature. I like the “Remind me Later” UI for declining calls. I, personally, will use the FB integration often. I like the potential for Passbook. I like the expansion of Siri, which was sorely lacking in v1. I like Facetime over 3G.
I love the subtle bits, like the multiple signatures and the pull to refresh.
I know these aren’t novel. I know these exist for Jailbreak and Android. But having just got a Galaxy Nexus and used ICS-current, I appreciate the fit and finish of iOS. So count me as excited.
Yeah, turn-by-turn navigation in the Maps app… isn’t that so Magical?
Its been quite a while since they keynotes really launched something new where the demo simply ‘wowed’ you.
You know the kind of thing, after they keynote your REALLY wanted product x and it was only a day or two later (once your Really thought about it) it was expensive and feature limited. I miss those days
Did the developers get anything really useful out of the keynote of the WorldWide Developer Conference?
I was bi***ng and moaning about the fact that WWDC and other developer conferences are getting reduced to product announcements and sessions with core team.
The opening keynote is a product keynote. For some products, launching them on a developer conference makes sense. The next generation Macbook pro requires developers to adapt their code. So it makes sense to make an announcement when you have the crumb of them gathered. Apple did the same for the switch to intel, when they announced the first intel-enabled product in the same form factor. Needless to say Retina Displays will trickle down in all Apple form factors eventually.
The WWDC opening keynote is just a warm-up and a kickstart for the week-long WWDC. After the opening keynote usually follows a technical keynote, which goes more into the meat and the potatoes. And ofcourse, there are the week-long sessions for getting into the gritty details.
If you’re really interested in getting to the bottom, make sure you get a WWDC ticket; or at least a paying Apple Developer account; which usually has access to WWDC related sessions as well.
You slug. I guess Siri’s SDK being opened for developers to link their apps to, OS 10.8, its $19.99 price, twin thunderbolt ports, power nap, passbook, etc., are yawn inspiring.
On the MBP retina, I tried finding another laptop that had 8GB 1600MHz DDR3L, 256GB SSD, 15.6″ Retina Display (Or close), Core i7 2.3 Quad, BT 4.0, with a Nvidia GT 650M 1GB, and guess what, HP doesn’t have any, Dell had some shit called the M4600 for $2764 with no SSD,so uh …yeah.
Edited 2012-06-12 02:30 UTC
Sorry, I might have missed that. Siri has an SDK now?!?!?!?
SSD price has dropped to $1.5 per GB already. A 240GB Intel 520 series SSD is retailing for $369, and is better than whatever that get put into MBP/MBA/UltraBook.
I purchased a refurbished M4600 for $850 last month. It is a -fantastic- linux box, which is what I wanted it for.
Apple has cornered the market on the 3k 15″ displays for now. We will have to wait until the producers are allowed to sell to third parties. Officially the panels Apple are using doesn’t even exist, and have never been demoed or launched by the component producers. You can get laptops with 1080 displays, even as far down as 11″ but not 1800 vertical.
Btw. 1920×1080 on 14″ thinkpad is not bad. It looks gorgeous, but really requires Linux to take full advantage of the high DPI.
I am sorry for you.
You run blog about future and everything you see is retina??
LOL!
Yes, because everything else is stuff I’m already using.
Hence the reason I didn’t watch it – it was nothing more than a glorified press release because that is what it is. The keynote is developed for the lowest common denominator, namely, the press club, bloggers, tech journalists etc. it isn’t there for those of us who want the juicy details. If you want the juicy bits wait till the WWDC 2012 videos are uploaded and jump straight for ‘Apple Platforms Kickoff’ which gives the sexy details of iOS and Mac OS X with a top level overview for both platforms.
IMHO the interesting part will be next week when the WWDC2012 videos appear and the details of the API changes and roadmaps are announced. What Apple have done with LLVM, OpenGL and OpenCL improvements, the gradual replacement of old carbon based API’s with nice new Cocoa ones, the future of Quicktime now that AVFoundation was announced at WWDC2011 etc. They’re the details I’m interested in so quite frankly the whole keynote was a waste of time.
With things like the shortage of ports and the proprietary memory/storage in the retina model it’s really a Macbook Air Pro
I was quite disappointed with the 13″ pro changes though.
Still a low res screen (the 13″ air is higher res) and no discreet graphics. It seems like this model should be called a Macbook and there should be a separate Pro version with the above points addressed.
The 13″ pro is their bread and butter for any current inroads they’ve made into the corporate world, and I’m assuming they didn’t want to mess with it.
Really what I thought so too. The 1280×800 display resolution is just to low for using it as a primars work computer without an external monitor.
With a higher resolution display this one could be a nice alternative to the new MacBook Pro Retina and the new Macabook Air because you can ugrade the harddrive and RAM yourself.
‘downright criminal’
They had to mess with the MagSafe!
A “stunning” laptop?
Apparently, it was a bombshell for some attendees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgttPt_1IG0
The new Macbook Pro with Retina display looks lovely. Unfortunately, at £1800 for the base model it’s way too expensive for me.
And I’m in the lucky position of actually being able to afford it.
Plus since this laptop is NOT upgradable the base model is not the real base price to look at. You need to figure in all upgrades you will ever need and add that to the base price. So the base price is useless.
Well, I was quoting the base price simply as an example of something I’m completely unwilling to pay for in a laptop. But yes, the point you’re making about the Macbook Pros not being upgradeable is a good one.
That said, I tend to use Thinkpads that cost about a little over a grand. They do everything that the Macbook Pros do (and more) and have the added bonus of replaceable batteries. Even forgetting the cost, the fact that I can’t swap out the battery on a long flight means that I can’t consider Macbooks at all.
Yeah, I am always using high-end ThinkPads as well. I just wish Lenovo would make a high-end ThinkPad edge. I would gladly pay for a lighter and thinner ThinkPad that looks a bit more modern. Unfortunately they are only available with low-res mirror screens (though apparently that is the same case with Macbook Pro classic LOL).
So, does iOS 6 finally allow us to transfer files/media to iPhones/Pads without needing a PC/Mac with iTunes installed?
Keep your hopes up for the apps integrating iCloud(that barely qualifies as a cloud).
With AirDroid on Android you don’t even need a cable. It runs a small webserver on your phone. Anything with a web browser can view it. In fact, my fiancé wanted a picture from my phone on her iPad. She just fired up Safari connected to my phone and got what she needed.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that its a real shame that Apple sacrifices all of this potential usability for the sake of “usability”? Its a shame they view iTunes as a feature when nearly anyone that uses it hates it meanwhile any other phone simply mounts as external storage.
Not from the OS itself as it seems.
There are a couple of apps that can help you do so, “Air Sharing” as an example. That gives you a webinterface to transfer files.
Looks like If you have a 1st Gen iPAD you’re left out in the cold on this ios release.
http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/
Looks like a greenlight for an alternative OS to me.
I am currently using a MBP 17″ that is now nearly one and a half years old and was hoping for a hardware refresh.
Since I am using the MBP to write code and other textual stuff I am interested in getting as much (readable) text as possible on the screen.
Currently with 1920×1200 pixels that works well. The retina display uses its pixel to display text smooth but not to display more textual information on the screen. I will give the display a try at 1920×1200 pixel resolution that is still supported as soon as a demo machine is available at my apple dealer, but I doubt that it will work out at this screen size plus the negative effect of dithering from 2880×1800 pixels down to 1920×1200 pixels.
So for me this round of hardware updates is bad news, as the end of the Xserve and the end of OS X Server (as the quite usable product before OS X 10.7) was.
From what I’ve been told, you can still disable HiDPI mode entirely and run the display at native resolution via Quartz Debug options still. HOWEVER, doing so is PRETTY crazy, as things become WAY too small.
What’s more interesting is that if you set the display options “Scaling” mode to “More Space”, it actually renders a 3840 x 2400 screen with GUI elements rendered in HiDPI (2x) mode… which is then scaled down to 2880 x 1800… giving something that is definitely has more effective real estate than a native resolution 1680 x 1050 display. (I tested the scaling via a full-screen screenshot that came from a Retina MBP 15″ onto my MBP 15″ display.)
Edited 2012-06-12 05:00 UTC
http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/06/11/first-look-retina-display-mac…
Replying to myself:
Today I had the chance to get the new Retina MacBook Pro at my hands and I have to say that it handles 1920×1200 pixel resolution very well.
I am still not sure if I want to have to look at this resolution for hours at just 15″, but the display is absolutely brilliant.
However, I wish that Apple will also release a 17″ Retina MacBook Pro…
Ah yes, the inevitable “I’m moving back to Linux”.
Seriously, every time any product is ever mentioned on this site that doesn’t run Linux, somebody says “I’m going back to Linux”. Like they ever left.
Give me a break.
Where the frak did he mention or even hinted at Linux? Insecure much?
In Italy a 15″ MacBook Pro is going to cost between € 1.899,00 and € 2.929,00!!!
Of course the 17″ has disappeared, what should be the prices?
End of an era. With no 17″, affordable MacBook Pro, when mine needs replacement I am moving back to Linux. Certainly I am not going to stomach Windows 8.
I had a corporate Dell D830 with a 1920×1200 resolution, which is about 45% the pixel density this new one. While nice as a bed warmer for arctic conditions (half an hour of arctic conditions, that is), or for weighting down a blimp, it was absolutely unusable without an external LCD. With WinXP, everything was SO small as to immediately be headache inducing. I was SO glad the day it gave up the ghost and it was replaced by something else.
But then, WinXP is laughable at adapting to higher pixel densities. Fonts may be enlarged, but that throws most programs into total disarray.
It is astonishing how different the situation was with Linux. Ubuntu tends to use fonts and widgets that are too large to start with, and it automatically adapts to the actual pixel density, so it really looked gorgeous in that screen. Even icons can be vector images, so they may be drawn at any size. It used to be extremely easy to choose smaller fonts which allowed me to make things exactly the size I liked.
Apple software (unlike desktop Linux or Android) seems dislike different pixel densities or resolutions, and apparently what Apple is only to double-up the size of things, which gives you much smoother fonts in any app and somewhat smoother widgets for updated apps. But the good thing in this distaste for adapting to other densities is that we get a huge 4x jump in resolution in one go.
Anybody knows how does W7 fare with high pixel densities? I guess I soon will, because new hardware is on the way, but I am afraid I won´t be pleased.
In Windows 7, an app declares in its manifest whether its “DPI-aware” or not. If so, then W7 doesn’t do anything to the app, since the app handles high DPI on its own (and when it’s done right, it’s very good).
But if an app doesn’t declare itself to be DPI aware, then W7 uses XP DPI scaling for DPI between 100% and 125% (where 100% is 96 DPI), then above 125% W7 just does a bitmap scaling, which looks horrible (though its more “accurate” than what XP would do). This is the default behavior, but the user can change that behavior in the DPI Control Panel (that is, the user can change the threshold for XP DPI scaling, and I think a user can choose to always use XP behavior for non-DPI aware apps).
Note: I typed the above from memory; I don’t vouch for it to be 100% accurate.
Windows 8 has a better high-DPI behavior, at least for Metro apps.
Apple has begun to ditch ethernet. The PC industry will take a decade to do so. (More re: timeframes: Apple’s entire line of products will likely be “Retina” in less than 3 years.)
It wouldn’t be bad news if the rest of the laptop industry didn’t follow Apple on that one. Everyone who lives in a house built with thick walls or reinforced concrete, or who relies on a WiFi router that typically has a dozen clients connected at the same time, knows how much WiFi is actually worth. It works well most of the time, but cannot replace wired connections for all intents and purpose.
Edited 2012-06-12 08:19 UTC
I wonder if that’s partly a matter of different customs in building methods …it seems that light frame wooden construction is quite popular in the US (also, suburban sprawl might help with less contention) – while relatively rare in the EU for example, where buildings typically use more solid methods (and people – so also routers – live more densely)
Alas, US is such big and profligate market that it can greatly influence the overall direction.
Yes, because if you don’t need it, no one does, right? No matter how totally unreliable and insecure wifi really is. Form > function.
Most of the time your laptop will be unwired. Why carry an ethernet port if it’s seldom used? Same for an optical drive.
The whole point of a laptop is to be portable.
If you want/need a network cable you might as well get a desktop computer.
My iMac at work has only one wire: the power cable.
Most wireless routers and high-speed modems require a hard-wired connection to configure them. I guess this means that you’ll have to make a trip to the Apple store and pony up $29 just for the ability to configure these devices. Also, I prefer to perform financial transactions over a wired connection. I use a strong WPA2 password for my wireless router, but I feel better knowing that the ciphertext can’t be sniffed over the air with a physical connection.
Besides, what do you have against “carrying an ethernet port”? You make it sound like they’re a separate, bulky item that takes up extra space and adds unnecessary weight.
Finally, the elimination of the 17-inch model guarantees that I won’t be using one of these to replace my current MacBook Pro.
Well, you’ve got a few points there. Although regarding routers/modems, I assume most people have a regular desktop around and a laptop being a second system.
Having an ethernet port is convenient, but if most people don’t it does it make sense to have one? Having a floppy drive can sometimes be convenient too, but most people would never or seldom use it, I use a USB floppy drive for the rare occasion.
I do think the Pro models should have one, because they’re expensive anyway and might as well offer extra options over the non-Pro models.
I don’t know if it’s a safe assumption to make nowadays. Most uni students I know only keep a (relatively large) laptop around nowadays, because buying both a full desktop AND a laptop is quite an investment, and because laptops fit a nomadic lifestyle better (less stuff to carry around when you change flats).
Well, students tend to flock in groups, one is bound to have a laptop with an ethernet connection.
But then again, students tend to be poor, so what are they doing with a MacBook Pro and an expensive router/modem anyway? :-p
I agree with both of your arguments, but this goes against the OP’s argument that all laptops should drop Ethernet connectivity.
Edited 2012-06-12 17:19 UTC
I think currently it would’t be a smart thing, but we are moving to a world where more and more wireless devices are in use.
Apple’s AirPort units can be configured without a wire, even with an iPhone. I can imagine other manufactures also going that way.
I mean, it’s rather silly having to setup a WiFi station using a wire as the whole point of such a device is to be able to have a wireless network! So it’s safe to assume that the person buying a WiFi station has a computer, laptop or tablet with WiFi. If they don’t there is no point of configuring the WiFi station anyway.
When did I argue that all laptops SHOULD drop ethernet?
In your original post…
“Apple has begun to ditch ethernet. The PC industry will take a decade to do so. (More re: timeframes: Apple’s entire line of products will likely be “Retina” in less than 3 years.)”
…you argue that Apple has a technological advance on other PC manufacturers (as illustrated by the second prediction that all their laptops will soon have high DPI), and semantically link that statement to the loss of Ethernet connectivity.
Edited 2012-06-13 08:51 UTC
You have a reading comprehension problem. Yes, I said it will take a decade for the PC industry to move away from ethernet. I did not say that all PCs should drop ethernet tomorrow. If the PC industry wants to serve legacy markets for years to come or hinder its progressions by refusing to move forward so be it. I could care less what the PC industry chooses to do.
You have a reading comprehension problem. Yes, I said it will take a decade for the PC industry to move away from ethernet. I did not say that all PCs should drop ethernet tomorrow. If the PC industry wants to serve legacy markets for years to come or hinder its progressions by refusing to move forward so be it. I couldn’t care less what the PC industry chooses to do.
An Ethernet port would be most probably physically too big to fit on a 0.7″ thick laptop. Should we keep forever thicker laptops just in case we need a wired connection and do not want to spend $29 on an adapter?
My ZenBook came with a free USB Ethernet dongle.
Which is something I think we as consumers may expect when we pony up 1000 EUR for a laptop (or in the case of the new MBP, 2279 EUR).
I’ve seen more than a few designs for fold-out ports. Looking back to the modem days, lots of ways to fit a big port in a slim case.
Besides, what do you have against “carrying an ethernet port”? You make it sound like they’re a separate, bulky item that takes up extra space and adds unnecessary weight.
Yes, yes it does take up space. We have been at the stage where the thinness of a laptop is dictated by an ethernet port (or, even worse in the case of most Windows laptops, a VGA port) for some time now. Apple just changed that.
Do you own a smartphone or tablet? Do you feel like it needs to have an ethernet port?
And meanwhile, all video projectors around still use VGA, forcing Apple users who do Powerpoint presentations to deal with an annoyingly overpriced MiniDP-VGA adapter that is way too easy to lose.
Dropping frequently used connectivity for the sake of extra thinness can certainly be justified, but it is always a trade-off.
I don’t do nearly as much on a smartphone or a tablet as I do on a reasonably large laptop, due to screen estate limitations. Do you ?
Edited 2012-06-13 09:11 UTC
And you can carry a fat laptop for the next decade because of your projectors. I never said you couldn’t nor did I say there weren’t trade offs.
The majority of my internet access has occurred on mobile devices for several years now.
Edited 2012-06-13 12:55 UTC
Plus the stuff done on a smartphone rarely requires very reliable connectivity.
No FPS online games, or high res streaming / big downloads (though, it is handy to leave bt on the phone during the night, while recharging)
You’re falling for a stupid aesthetic trick. If you actually look at it, this new MB is perfectly thick enough to accommodate RJ45 or VGA – but, Apple makes it with “slick” tapering edges, so people like you can fall into perceiving it as more thin that it really is…
Neolander will be able to carry just as thin laptop that can straightforwardly connect to projectors – just one more sensibly designed here and there.
MOS6510,
“Most of the time your laptop will be unwired. Why carry an ethernet port if it’s seldom used?”
http://cnettv.cnet.com/steve-jobs-demo-fail/9742-1_53-50088649.html
Haha! That is all.
His demo failed and now he’s dead.
Then again, would you add ethernet to a mobile phone and wire up hundreds of people in the audience?
i wouldn’t log into secure websites with a phone
If you look at security incidents it’s not people’s WiFi getting intercepted, it’s easy passwords, hacked websites or programmers not encrypting passwords in their software.
When it’s about getting money from people randomly trying to hack in to someone’s WiFi signal isn’t very efficient. Bank scammers tend to use phishing attacks to either make people use a fake website or install malware in to their computers.
Fact is most people don’t do Internet banking a lot of times during the day, so it’s very inefficient to wait in front of someone’s house with some clever system to intercept payments and alter them. When you go to places where a lot of people gather it will be highly unlikely that they’ll do Internet banking there, nor you hacking ‘n’ altering one. It would be easier to pull a knife and run off with their laptop.
When you have such technical talents you might as well hack a crapy webshop that may yield a number of credit card numbers.
MOS6510,
“Then again, would you add ethernet to a mobile phone and wire up hundreds of people in the audience?”
Don’t change the goalposts, you were talking about laptops not phones. And I’m just pointing out use cases where ethernet is still handy to have. It doesn’t make sense to take pride in a device that lacks ethernet, unless you find the scenario that Jobs found himself in to be acceptable. There are plenty of other use cases too, from dormitories to hotels, the lack of ethernet could leave you offline or with reduced data rates.
Wifi is often “good enough”, and when it is then we use it, but the reality is Wifi competes against many other users of the same unlicensed spectrum. The more gadgets that make use of this limited spectrum, the more frequently they will fail.
Edited 2012-06-12 20:51 UTC
Well, ‘a’ case and an extreme one. I’m not likely to be found in a room with over 500 laptop users all using WiFi.
Apple nor I take any pride in it. What I argue is that if a feature is seldom used it could be considered to be removed. From my personal experience I know I never use the ethernet connection, nor the optical drive or the VGA and parallel interface (IBM Thinkpad).
I consider a laptop a portable device, one that allows you to easily move it about and allow you to sit where you want and use it. If you wire it up you limit its mobility and places you can use it. Public places seldom (I can’t name any) have an network socket in the wall.
If you start plugging in all kinds of cables and wires you might as well use a desktop computer.
I agree WiFi isn’t very reliable sometimes, certainly not in public places, but you can also use the 3G connection of your phone.
My iMac at work is connected via WiFi and I never experience any problems, despite a lot of people walking around with mobile phones that are connected to WiFi.
MOS6510,
“Well, ‘a’ case and an extreme one. I’m not likely to be found in a room with over 500 laptop users all using WiFi.”
I shouldn’t need to spell this out, but your ignoring classroom settings were many students will have WiFi/bluetooth/etc devices competing for the same bandwidth. Ideally they shouldn’t have to pull a steve jobs so that the presenter can access the network. The situation may be even worse due to the fact that WiFi penetrates both walls and floors, and even weak signal interference can cause exponential back-off latency. Even if ethernet is not needed regularly, many computer users will be thankful to have it when WiFi is absent or inadequate. Laptops without ethernet should be available to consumers who *really* want that, but it would be a disservice for a company like apple to remove it from all product lines while pretending its best for everyone. Hopefully apple agrees to continue integrating ethernet into the future.
“Public places seldom (I can’t name any) have an network socket in the wall.”
I’ve seen coffee houses that offer WiFi with no visible sockets, but eithernet is usually available at airports, hotels, university classrooms, dormitories, offices.
A separate issue is that it’s easier to spoof WiFi APs than to physically bug ethernet wiring, which is an additional security risk. Consider how easy it’d be to setup rogue Wifi in a hotel, for example.
Edited 2012-06-13 04:32 UTC
A wire is still much faster than a wireless connection and there are many legitimate reasons to transfer large amounts of data from one machine to another. I should wait for wifi to eventually do it instead of my GB wired network?
We also use the notebook as a portable DVD player. Of course, Apple would prefer all movie watching happen through Itunes with second purchase of my existing movie library.. so no optical drive in a “Pro” hardware model either.
Why do these companies keep offering polished turds claiming they are gourmet?
Nothing stops you from watching a movie on a MacBook that isn’t bought via iTunes or even bought at all.
I have downloaded movies or ripped them from DVDs, they play fine on any Apple device.
Why bother with a DVD if you can store several movies on the internal disk.
When we go on holiday we used to bring a number of DVDs along and a portable DVD player. Now I put a few kids movies on my iPad for my son and a couple of movies + series on my iPod.
Offline distribution media are byzantine when you have high speed networks at your fingertips.
Sure, nothing stops me from ripping my DVD library to digital format and feeding it into the laptop that way. But, why should I be stopped from plucking a disk off the shelf and slipping it into the machine? Ripping disks ain’t always the most convenient method by time spent or quality of output either.
When they dropped floppies, optical disks where already well established and flashdrives where coming in fast. The “but they dropped flashdrives once” doesn’t cut it.
Ripping dvds isn’t a pleasant thing to do, I agree. But I can understand why they want to drop the optical drive.
It is used less and less, just like the floppy was when they released the original iMac.
It would be nice to have a laptop that has an optical drive, 1 or 2 ethernet ports, USB, Thunderbolt, FireWire, VGA/DVI/HDMI, serial and parallel interfaces, but it adds to the price and weight plus it increased the size.
If most people don’t need/use them, does it make sense to make them pay for it and make the laptop heavy and bulky?
To me it makes more sense not to include an optical drive and if people really want to access cds/dvds have them buy a separate drive.
If this is not an option then don’t buy a MacBook. When a lot of people do this Apple would have made a mistake and pay the price, but my feeling is most people wouldn’t even notice that there is no optical drive or ethernet port.
So you’re seriously arguing that RJ45 port impacts in any significant way the portability of a laptop… (instead of, say, “Form > function”*)
And that for this one minuscule port it’s sensible to get a desktop, and ignore the overall benefits of a laptop… (most people seem to use them in quite “stationary” / home settings BTW; they’re still much more convenient)
Try to limit RDF sometimes… * especially when it’s ultimately about a stupid aesthetic trick. Dropping RJ45 didn’t really make this MBP thinner – it’s for style, optically thinner (“slick” tapering edges)
And nearby…
Laptops outsell desktops for quite some time. There are plenty of my acquaintances with just a laptop in their home – or, at most, the desktop is usually at least partly broken, in storage (people rarely outright throw away such stuff here)
Lecture rooms at one nearby tech uni typically have ethernet at hand; wifi access is often a disaster, with so many machines around.
I’m not suggesting this in the least. (There is still an option with ethernet and there is an adapter for those models without it built-in.) What I am suggesting is that Apple can and does do more to move the state of the art forward.
It’s a laptop. If you need wired networking just buy a dirt-cheap USB ethernet. These things cost like $2 years ago when I got one and I presume they haven’t gotten more expensive since.
Plus they’re a bit shitty, take more overall space, and there might be a problem when the machines has 1 or 2 USB ports…
(not to mention they damage aesthetics!)
You’re missing the point. Its the entire notebook formfactor thats shifting and has been since its original incarnation.
Notebooks originally started their life as “foldable, luggable desktop machines” and are heading towards “foldable ipads with a keyboard”. Advances in this formfactor have been made along this vector for decades, dropping wired networking and making it thinner is just another step.
Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_HX-20 (also PX-8 Geneva)
http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/doc.asp?c=764
http://cosy.com/language/cosyhard/cosyhard.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TRS-80_Model_200_and_Vaio.jpg
Seems like we had pretty good idea from the start how we want a notebook to look like. But some people seem to remember only the high-performance “foldable, luggable desktop machines” early subgroup.
Edited 2012-06-18 22:41 UTC
Well…. they do have a thunderbolt dongle for it. So you can have ethernet if you want it. I personally would have rather had the ethernet port over the memory card slot.
wifi is to insecure
I love seeing people being negative that can’t spell.
Not to rain on your Apple-pride parade or anything but…”PC” laptops/netbooks/etc without ethernet has been available for a LONG time.
Edited 2012-06-13 05:35 UTC
I present you… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1 – no ethernet.
(while not strictly “PC industry” this one, there were some mainstream netbooks also omitting it; searching would be too tedious)
And, slowly but surely, Apple laptop pricing continues to go up. It makes sense, though, when every new iOS developer brings Apple extra hardware sales…
All the laptops went down in price and they added the retina MacBook Pro. Its pricer will come down too. Remember how expensive the MacBook Air was, it’s much cheaper and better now.
Laptops in general used to be much more expensive and crappier.
My problem with this comparison is that at the time where the original Air was released, people were still able to buy low-end Macbooks for about $900. Nowadays, the lowest end 13-inch laptops from Apple costs $1200. So even if Air prices have dropped, that’s still a 33% increase in low-end laptop cost.
If Apple plan on Retina-ing their whole MBP line in the future, that will only leave Air laptops in this price range, which are arguably a loss in terms of connectivity and expandability for current 13″ MBP users (even if they are lightweight and thin to compensate).
Edited 2012-06-12 17:35 UTC
I think Apple would be wise to have at least one sub-$1000 laptop.
Their laptops are good and popular, it wouldn’t make sense to price themselves out of the market. I know they don’t want to sell crap, but I’m sure they can make a fine MacBook for less than $1000 or even $900.
Considering the money they make with their iOS devices, I would strain the profit margins of MacBooks to gain market share. They can get some money back from app store sales anyway.
iMac sales are ever increasing, but at that rate it still will take 2 billion years to get a significant marketshare. They can expand OS X market share using MacBooks, if they can offer them at a low price.
After using Windows Laptops for all these years and the last one from Samsung (QX410 for $850) lasted just 1.5 years before the keyboard (which cannot be easily replaced) and SD-Card reader died I decided it was time to try something different and paid $1049 for a MacBook Pro.
If it lasts 1.5 years without troubles it’s at least as good as a Samsung
My current 17inch MBP is 3 years old and before that the 15inch Powerbook lasted over 5 years (and is still running elsewhere).
Each has had RAM upgraded and HDD replacements but so what.
Eighteen months shouldn’t be a problem…YMMV!
I’m typing this on a 9 year old Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop. It has only had a RAM upgrade. The battery life is now useless, so I must run off the mains, but other than that, this laptop still works 100%. It’s getting on the slow side now though, but no fault of Dell’s. My next laptop will probably be another Dell – I can’t justify paying the Apple tax for a similar (or under) spec’ed laptop. Though I must admit, my wife’s iMac is pretty awesome.
Best Buy has the 13″ MacBook Pro for $999.
Went back and got a price-match (21 days old).
A new Mac laptop for $999 sweet
I’m pretty sure Apple has a very strong sense of what their product mix is, how their pricing matrix affects this, and how to preserve sales while moving forward.
How do you mean the Existing Air models just went a hundred USD cheaper with faster specs. How is that “more expensive”
With that amount of money I can buy two laptops, or a high end ThinkPad W520 that beats the performance out of Apple’s stuff.
Edited 2012-06-12 08:26 UTC
and googling i still cannot find anywhere what makes a retina display, a retina display… given they don’t necessarily have the best resolution, nor the best dot pitch, and a variety of resolutions and dot pitches at that… i cannot even guess from a technical point of view what makes them retina… does apple make them? or perhaps… is a retina display just a rebranding of an existing samsung display? surely not…
“Retina display” is an Apple marketing term. They call their displays retina when the human eye can’t identify individual pixels from a certain distance (eye -> screen).
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/01/18/ipads-and-retina-displays-doing-the-…
i cannot even guess from a technical point of view what makes them retina
It is really simple (1 picture is better than 1000 words)
http://www.blogcdn.com/de.engadget.com/media/2012/03/apple-ipad-3-l…
Edited 2012-06-12 22:02 UTC
“rocking USB 3.0”, “rocking 1280×800”, “already rocking a 1920×1080”. I didn’t realize this was the standard way to describe tech specs.
Rocking. its the new “winning”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QS0q3mGPGg
i just saw that announcement video of the asymmetrical fan – i almost fell off my chair laughing at how the crowd cheered at such a thing… i don’t even want a fan, yet all those people in the crowd must have been waiting their whole lives for an asymmetrical fan lol… maybe it will be a ‘feature’ when the fan is removed like it is a ‘feature’ that the dvd drive is removed and omg, the ethernet too haha – i’m so hanging out to buy a laptop with an asymmetrical fan and a really slow wireless lan connection (compare to my current)… and I hope the computer is a wedge shape too, because omg, if it weren’t a wedge even by a mm slope, it will be totally flat and my marbles won’t roll off – that won’t be fun.
Does anybody know if the new OS can make use of Hyper-Threading?
The current 10.7.4 can’t; it only shows 2 cores instead of 4 (2+2 = 2 cores with HT).
Just asking because one thing that caught my eye was that the MacBook Pro I have gets really warm at the bottom when streaming video over wifi.
Thanks
Does anybody know if the new OS can make use of Hyper-Threading?
The current 10.7.4 can’t; it only shows 2 cores
Are you sure your CPU support HT? All 2011 models support it. My 2011 MacMini has 4 virtual cores.
Edited 2012-06-12 22:14 UTC
The machine is 3 weeks old…
This machine is 3 weeks old…
What are you talking about? Mac OS X does understand and makes use of hyper-threading.
If I bring up System Information on my MacBook Pro, it will tell me I’ve got an Intel Core i7 CPU, that there’s 1 2.3GHz processor, and total number of cores is 4. This is all quite correct. There are 4 physical cores in the CPU.
If I go to Activity Monitor and bring up the CPU Usage window, I see 8 graphs, since my CPU has hyper-threading.
Is it me or is the new iOS6, uhm what’s the word, boring. iOS’s look is getting to become very old looking. It no longer bothers me as I have moved on to a Galaxy Note, best phone I have ever owned. I was just hoping that the new iOS 6 would bring something new to the game that would make me want to come back. Nope, same ol’e, same ol’e, just new features that I have had since the past year and still no file manager, no home screen customization, no new media codec’s except those that iTunes support which is limited and just the same old UI.
Who exactly is iOS for because when I use it I feel insulted, like Apple thinks were all retards and must be told what to do.
That new Macbook Pro is cool, can’t wait till the retina screen comes to the Air.
Edited 2012-06-12 22:05 UTC
I don’t understand the whine about Ethernet ports. Why can’t you just use a USB Ethernet adapter? Even Apple sells these.
Ahh, right, so it’s about selling more overpriced accessories, why didn’t we see that…
It seems adapters really are the new ink-cartridges.
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ti994_long.jpg
I detest the 16:9 ratio that those rotten screen manufacturers are forcing on us. It looks like an envelope. 16:10 is the optimum ratio, and it is for that reason I baby my WUXGA Clevo like classic ‘Stang. As much as I dislike Mountain Lion, the screen on this new ‘Pro has me salivating.
I wonder – can one load Ubuntu on it?
I’m with you, brother. I keep my old 17″ Dell E1705 around precisely because it has a proper 1920×1200 display. My newer HP “full HD” 1080 screen laptop just doesn’t cut it for some things, even though it has a better CPU.
Too bad the new MBPs are essentially throwaway hardware, if you believe the iFixit teardown. Batteries don’t last more than 2 years in my experience. The aforementioned Dell is on its 3rd battery, 2nd motherboard, and the RAM and SSD upgrades I gave it turned it into a revitalized machine that I plan to use for some years now.
Stop whining after your favourite candy.
“Those rotten screen manufacturers [that] are forcing on us” actually offer what people want and are happy with.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?520644