Why don't MacBooks come with cellular networking?

http://www.marco.org/2013/02/26/why-no-4g-macbooks

by shawndumas • 13 years ago

55 65 13 years ago

largesse• 13 years ago

Their plan is to transition people to cellular enabled devices rather than transitioning non-cellular devices to cellular devices.

contingencies• 13 years ago

Net result: Apple gains clout with cellular carriers, end user privacy suffers.

shurcooL2• 13 years ago

Having OS X be cellular-plan aware would still be nice, if you happen to tether your MacBook to your iPhone.

ayuvar• 13 years ago

It's not like it's never occurred to them. In fact, Apple had a 3G MacBook Pro prototype a few years ago that someone snapped up on Craigslist: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20099494-248/apple-wants-i...

A magnetically attached antenna is an interesting choice. I feel like I'd lose mine within a few days if it went to production like that.

niels_olson4• 13 years ago

I always thought the space bar would provide an adequate window.

dmishe• 13 years ago

Do whatever, just push 4G dataplans to bigger caps, I would drop cable for that.

zach• 13 years ago

Sure would make a great feature for a Mac OS X release named Lynx, right? Just saying.

tsotha• 13 years ago

If you could buy a MacBook with cellular service you wouldn't need to buy an iPhone.

madeofchalk• 13 years ago

Uhhh.... why?

Laptops and phones have totally different use cases.

You could make a much better argument saying that an iPad with cellular means you wouldn't need an iPhone.

Watabou• 13 years ago

That still wouldn't be right. My huge iPad doesn't fit in my pocket. And I will feel silly holding said huge iPad to my face when I want to make a call.

shurcooL2• 13 years ago

I actually use an iPad mini with LTE as my only mobile device. I make phone calls on it (when needed) and everything.

FireBeyond• 13 years ago

And this is an area that Windows wins at. In Windows 8 on my tablet, it shows a Mobile Broadband connection. All the Windows Update, Outlook application, etc are aware of this - Outlook says "You may be on a metered connection" and prompts for desired behavior.

On my laptop, I can even flag a given Wireless (or indeed any) connection as metered and get the same result.

recoiledsnake2• 13 years ago

Windows 8 also has a nice API for it so that apps are aware of it and can prompt for big downloads or disable automatic syncing.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh75031...

I think it makes sense that Apple is not very interested in making new features for OS X. They make only a tiny fraction of their profits from it and Mac sales have been down close to 20% from last year. To use Jobs' post-PC analogy, Why invest in making better trucks if you think the world is moving towards cars?

Meanwhile, Windows is Microsoft's bread and butter.

thomasjoulin• 13 years ago

Yet, they produced the Macbook Air, when they were actively working on the iPad, and the world was moving towards mobile. Also your argument that Apple is not very interested in making features for OS X falls when they announced last year that they will move the yearly release cycles.

niggler7• 13 years ago

I'd argue that Office is Microsoft's bread and butter. Check the Operating Income figures from the last quarter -- $3.565B for Office compared to $3.296B for Windows:

https://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Ear...

rhplus• 13 years ago

The mobile broadband and metered connection experiences are details with screenshots in this blog post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/20/engineering-wi...

endlessvoid94• 13 years ago

I've always said my perfect laptop is an 11" macbook air + retina display + integrated LTE. My understanding is that the LTE thing happens because the networks aren't ready for it...

dublinben• 13 years ago

Lenovo offers several notebooks with integrated LTE modems that are just as portable as the MacbookAir.

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=...

city41• 13 years ago

Is this becoming a common need for people? I just bought a Chromebook the other day and adding cellular network support wasn't much more, but I opted against it. I find if I'm on a laptop then wifi is pretty much always available.

colomon• 13 years ago

The one significant use case I'd have is we're on a long road trip and my wife is driving the car. But it's not such a significant case for me that I've ever actually spent $10 a month to turn my phone's tethering on.

dkasper• 13 years ago

I tether my macbook almost every weekday while commuting 45 minutes by train. It also comes in handy at places where the wifi isn't free like some airports or coffee shops for instance. Also the 4G speed where I life is just as fast as DSL (only option in my building), so if there weren't bandwidth caps I would gladly ditch DSL and go with 4G all the time.

rrrhys• 13 years ago

For those with a few hours of commute daily, it's a no-brainer.

cmwelsh• 13 years ago

They should at least launch an OS with first-class support for iPhone tethering.

rangibaby2• 13 years ago

What do you mean? On 10.8, I plug my iPhone in and it "just works".

iansinke• 13 years ago

My experience is that, if you're in a place where you want to work on a laptop, that place will probably have wifi. Sure, in the park, on the street, your chances are lower -- but that's where you'd be pulling out your phone or tablet instead of your laptop.

niels_olson4• 13 years ago

You take laptops to where wi-fi is. I'd rather go to Balboa Park or the Black Mountain Preserve.

ajasmin• 13 years ago

Are you coding from these places?

bdcravens• 13 years ago

Most places where there's WiFi, speed is terrible. I always end up tethering to my phone. Heck, LTE ends up being faster than my home connection. (Obviously used judiciously given the small dataplans you can get)

caublestone• 13 years ago

Based on their sales history with iPads, it doesn't make sense. Dropping in a modem also requires a lot of engineering from software drivers to the custom hardware to the compliance testing with any carrier network the device would be operating on. Apple has made the right choices in the past by focusing on the important problems. Unfortunately, carrier pricing makes the demand for LTE on all our devices weaker and the challenge not worth it.

http://gigaom.com/2012/03/20/sorry-carriers-9-out-of-10-tabl...

niels_olson4• 13 years ago

My brother and I started a bet on this in November 2011. At that time, I'd already had a Cr-48 with 3G for a year. As of Superbowl 46, someone everyone here would recognize thought that Apple would roll out cellular in what proved to be the retina MacBooks. The bet comes due in April 2013. So far, I'm still losing. Anyone got a Campagnolo chain they want to send me? :-)

niggler7• 13 years ago

In a few years, I speculate that 99% of people using macbooks will find themselves in areas with some sort of wifi access, and if that's not acceptable I find Clearwire's service to be excellent in the NYC metro area. The cellular networking would not have the same impact that it would have had 3 or 5 years ago.

blhack• 13 years ago

I think people have been saying exactly this for over a decade.

niggler7• 13 years ago

Panera introduced free wifi in 2005. Starbucks introduced free wifi in 2010. Nowadays pretty much every coffeeshop IN THE US offers free wifi. There's demonstrable progress and the pace is picking up.

EDIT: added clarification that I was referring to the US.

rdl2• 13 years ago

I hate it when you are stuck using a MiFi instead, because then it really isn't clear to your Mac that it's on an expensive network, and stuff like backups, iTunes downloads, etc. continue running in the background. There really needs to be some way to communicate cost to the OS (maybe configurable as profiles) for various networks.

anthonys• 13 years ago

Assuming the OS does/does not do this in the future, it would be great if applications that are data intensive considered this in the interim.

Apps like Backblaze, Dropbox, Spotify etc. should be "aware" of the type of network they are operating on and the user able to specify the desired behavior such as only sync files smaller than x, don't do anything on this network etc.

rdl2• 13 years ago

The only way I could think of doing it is having a profile manager which ran separately and killed or changed settings of various specific programs based on the network you're on. I remember there being such things under XP, and bundled with various PC-Card cellular adapters, but it never working very well.

donniezazen• 13 years ago

My recent trip to Bestbuy convinced me that the future of computer lies in touch screen devices both mobile and desktop. No wonder Windows 8, Gnome, Unity, etc. are so eager to grab the touch screen market. Like several of the other Apple products, there is a strong resistance in Apple to accept new realities that originate in non-Apple camps.

mbreese• 13 years ago

With as small as Apple is pushing their newest MacBooks, I doubt they have the real estate on the logic board for the chip, not to mention the associated antenna in the case.

Anyone that needs cellular networking (and can't find wifi) probably can tether their iDevice or has a USB stick (I assume there are Mac compatible ones).

It would be nice though to have an API that helps differentiate network classes to stop thing like Dropbox from syncing over cellular.

brittohalloran• 13 years ago

Usually my phone is plugged into my Macbook for power, and my Macbook is using my phone for Internet (rooted android wifi tether). The word symbiosis always comes to mind.

jws• 13 years ago

To start, Apple could just put cellular-connection detection and repsonsible-usage logic into iTunes and Software Update.

… and Xcode documentation downloader, and PhotoStream sharing in iPhoto, and TimeMachine if I have a VPN running, and Mail because sometimes it decides to redownload every email I've ever received on GMail…

I don't think a sloppy solution is going to cut it when you are talking hundred and thousand dollar ambush fees from the telcos.

lucisferre• 13 years ago

As an alternative solution carriers could collectively remove their heads from their asses on bandwidth fees and rate plans.

Yeroc• 13 years ago

I can't say I care much about having cellular networking in my MacBook but what I want to know is why they're still being sold with internal DVD drives and no hybrid SSD/HDD drive combination. Apple doesn't sell a laptop with a SSD large enough to fit my photos/video clips so my only option is a relatively slow HDD. They should be offering the best of both worlds by providing a combination of the two. Other PC manufacturers are doing this but not Apple. Somehow Apple seems to be fixated on display and battery technology and is failing to address storage issues and appear to be just waiting for SSD prices to fall. All I can say is it's not happening quickly enough...

jsz0• 13 years ago

I tether my MacBook to my iPhone often and it would be a tough sell. ~$150 more on hardware plus another data plan? Even with data plan sharing its too much. You could say the same about the cellular iPad but the way these devices are used is just a lot different. Most of the MacBooks are just too big to use this way. You have to stop somewhere, take it out of a bag and sit it down. At that point is turning on tethering, activating a wifi cellular AP, or even plugging in a USB modem all that much of an extra burden? It's already not so practical. The iPad though can be carried outside of a bag and used standing or even walking. I would at least consider the cellular iPad but so far have not opted to get one for some of the same reasons. Turning on tethering isn't very hard and it works great. Both the iPad and MacBook are distant seconds for me in cellular data usage and would continue to be even with integrated cellular. The iPhone just covers my needs for that stuff. So my guess is Apple hasn't done it because there's just not a big enough market. I would be surprised if even 10% of MacBook owners use cellular data and of that 10% a lot are probably like me and content using tethering. That leaves a tiny fraction of a fraction to sell a cellular MacBook too. For Apple that's maybe even too niche.

rangibaby2• 13 years ago

They at least considered it at some point: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/14/photos-of-a-prototype-ma...

EiZei• 13 years ago

What about all the countries that have reasonable data plan pricing? In some African countries cellular data is actually quite often the only thing resembling broadband because wired endpoints are just way too expensive.

I am not exaggerating when I say that north Americans are probably paying 2-3 times more than they ought to.

mukundmr• 13 years ago

Why don't people use an USB data dongle instead of tethering their phones? Data only plans are cheaper and having it on an USB makes it portable across multiple devices. There are cellular data devices which act as mini-wifi radios as well. That frees up the USB slot and allows multiple devices to simultaneously share the same connection.

killerpopiller• 13 years ago

most argue here, OSX hinders that, as it disregards metered connecions and overuses that with e,g. background updates and so forth.

I couldn't live without 3G at my eeepc

donavanm• 13 years ago

"OS X isn’t designed to behave differently while on different types of networks"

Funny. This was exactly one of the justifications for writing launchd. "daemons" would be signaled on state change, like a network state transition. This behavior would isolate applications/developers from explicit dependency management.

Also, mobile radio prototypes are built all the time. And as noted a lot of hardware ends up on ebay/craigslist. Ironically that's all dvt hardware, not actual proto builds.

samworm• 13 years ago

Do you have a different broadband conenction for your xbox and your pc? No, you have one for the house and then share it. Likewise you only need one portable network connection (your cell phone) and all your other devices share it. If you own and cell phone and have data enabled devices (tablet, laptop etc) you're doing it wrong.

codex• 13 years ago

Almost everyone who is rich enough to own a high-end MacBook also owns a fast phone with a data plan, which can be used for tethering. How many cellular radios do I need to carry with me at once, anyway?

Note that this is in contrast to the iPad, where the owner cannot be presumed to have a fast phone data plan, simply because they may be too poor to own both an iPad and a fancy iPhone.

Why don't MacBooks come with cellular networking?

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