Updated MacBook Pros

The new notebooks feature faster versions of Intel's Haswell processors, as all 13-inch models now come with 8GB of RAM standard while all 15-inch models now feature 16GB of RAM. The high end 15-inch model also received a $100 price cut, going from $2599 to $2499.

and this analysis:

Today's minor refresh is primarily a stopgap measure until Apple can launch a more significant update to its Retina MacBook Pro line once Intel's next-generation Broadwell processors hit the market.

asenna• 12 years ago

From what I have read, the Broadwell processors will only be ready by Q1 2015 and not the holiday season 2014?

jamespo• 12 years ago

£200 more for 128 -> 256GB SSD on the 13" stings a bit

kgorin• 12 years ago

Now base 15" model has 16 gigs of RAM, that's actually pretty sweet improvement

bfwi• 12 years ago

For those of you who choose Pros over Airs; why does a Pro serve you better than an Air? Is it because it's your only machine, and you need the hardware to be beefy?

seanmcdirmid4• 12 years ago

Retina. Once you stop seeing pixels, it's painful to start seeing them again.

shortnamed• 12 years ago

*distinguishing

rbanffy5• 12 years ago

I second that. My MBPr13, while natively having a screen equivalent to the 800x1280 of the old 13, is now configured to the 1050-line display once found on the 17 inch model and it still looks great.

Once you can't see the pixels, the display becomes infinitely flexible.

swah• 12 years ago

Ì'm waiting for the retina iMac/display, because working without external mouse and keyboard never worked for me (and 15" is probably too small for the desktop)

weland• 12 years ago

Post-1999 life is amazing, isn't it?

hyperliner4• 12 years ago

I got an Air, then I got a Pro and "forgot" to return my Air. My wife reminds me every day.

swombat3• 12 years ago

Hello hyperliner,

This is your wife. We need to have a serious chat tonight.

jackvalentine• 12 years ago

I'm still a few years away from replacing this 2012 Air, but when I do it'll be to something with a retina screen because of cramped gross asian characters.

http://i.imgur.com/1RgQSOc.png

http://blog.gatunka.com/2009/11/03/japanese-computers-still-...

gregschlom• 12 years ago

For me yes, it's because it's my only machine and I need good hardware for game development. (13" MBP)

jameswilsterman• 12 years ago

Wanted 15" and retina

andyfleming4• 12 years ago

I chose an air a while back, and it has been fantastic for a lot of things. However, now I'm considering going back to the pro.

The biggest limitation for me is the single thunderbolt port. If I want to connect to ethernet, a display, or other thunderbolt devices (like an audio interface I have), I can only connect to one. Even on the 13" MBP, I can connect all three since there are two thunderbolt connections plus HDMI. The other biggest limitation has been video performance and CPU performance. I've ran into performance issues with virtualized boxes for local development and also with connecting an external display.

As far as retina, I could care less. It's nice, but not a necessity for me. Also, you get more battery life without it. That said, I'll still be moving to a MBP.

zenpaul• 12 years ago

The screen size! The day they announce the 15" Air I'm there.

imdsm• 12 years ago

I asked about this, and it's against the concept of the Air. The reason being that it becomes unportable. Was there a 15" air, I'd have gone for it, but there wasn't, so I went with a 15" MBP.

I like it, but it does get hot, and is quite heavy compared to the airs. I'm happy with it but I think they're missing a trick!

gordeh• 12 years ago

It was a simple choice for me, much better screen and high specs generally without a huge compromise on cost or weight.

I went from an 11in Macbook Air to the 13 MBP retina and I've not regretted it once. I carry my laptop around all day and I've not noticed the extra weight.

taude2• 12 years ago

Mostly for GPU needs. Also, my 15" Pro must stay cooler because the fan almost never comes on (except doing something GPU intensive). The AIRs around me always seem to have a fan humming, though the noise isn't nearly as bad as it used to be. (I'm on a non-Retina, but that's not a big deal to me)

computerjunkie• 12 years ago

Screen estate on the go (specifically the 15inch). And like what seanmcdirmid said, the retina display looks good.

I'm impressed with the the 15inch retina starting specification. All the 15inch models come with 16GB of RAM for a starting price of £1,600. I always tell everybody if your doing graphical work or video production, get a desktop setup. The Intel isis pro GPU is more than enough for the work I do. extra £300 an average discrete mobile GPU on a laptop is not worth it.

scott_karana• 12 years ago

Pixel density, better colour gamut, and more peripheral hookups.

(The one thunderbolt on the Air means no Ethernet + Display at the same time, unless you're using a USB adapter... for which there are only two ports)

extra88• 12 years ago

Comparing only the 13" models, you get 2 Thunderbolt ports so you can use an external display and Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter at the same time. Actually if you use HDMI for your display you can use a Thunderbolt drive as well. The 13" Retina is only .5 lbs heavier than the 13" Air. It still has integrated video but it's a generation better than the current Air's.

pppaul• 12 years ago

battery life isn't improved?

rsynnott• 12 years ago

This is only a minor iteration; they've bumped the processors, but left them at the same TDP, and bumped the RAM. That's about it. Battery life changes will happen when Broadwell Macs show up, late this year or early next depending on how Intel's schedule works out.

deusebio• 12 years ago

Looks like you can get the 13" at close to the specs of the 15" now. Seriously considering downsizing on my next one.

weiran2• 12 years ago

Lack of quad core is the only serious issue I have with the 13" now. Hopefully Broadwell will let Apple put a quad core into the 13".

SandB0x2• 12 years ago

Am I right in thinking you need to buy the top ($2500) model if you want to do any CUDA work? Or am I misreading the table and all the MBP models have both the Intel and nvidia GPUs?

hav• 12 years ago

No, you are right. Only the higher end MBP comes with a separate discrete nvidia card.

seanmcdirmid4• 12 years ago

For CUDA HPC work, you really need a desktop/server Linux machine that you can use remotely from your laptop. Only the highest end MBP has a discrete nvidia GPU.

mdda• 12 years ago

Yes to the more reasonable px/performance of a desktop/server Linux backend for HPC. OTOH, if you were doing OpenCL instead of CUDA, the i5 would happily run that as an OpenCL target (albeit more slowly), so that you could do compilation/test dev on any newish laptop.

SandB0x2• 12 years ago

I agree that is the better setup, however I'm often on a train or other environment where I can't rely on a connection. In that situation a weak CUDA device is better than nothing.

Udo4• 12 years ago

I'm seriously wondering what my upgrade path is supposed to be.

I have an ancient 2011 15" MBP, which was also the last user-upgradeable Apple laptop ever, but I remain hesitant to buy a new model. There is just not enough storage in the new ones, or in models that come close to my old one (1TB+) it's prohibitively expensive.

At some point soon, my old MBP will probably disintegrate or get stolen, and it has features I'm not going to get back. I'm used to having my music, my ebooks, my documents, my photos, and my code with me at all times. It's really convenient.

QuadDamaged• 12 years ago

I use a 2008 15'' MBP, replacing the superdrive with an optibay + SSD and rolling-out my own fusion drive extended the lifespan of this machine to no ends.

I am just slowly starting to consider getting another laptop in 2015, but the fact that the new line of MBP adhere to the soldered-on-and-force-obsolescence philosophy is really putting me off this purchase.

Udo4• 12 years ago

That's basically my current setup.

XorNot• 12 years ago

If I could retrofit a retina display to 2nd hand 2011 model MBP, then I'd replace my old Dell laptop with one today. Unfortunately every model of MBP since I've been wanting to upgrade has been less and less user serviceable or even technically repairable. Which puts me looking at spending a lot of money for the hope of more battery life really.

hyperliner4• 12 years ago

The fact that you are still free to upgrade and mod it awesome. What kind of work do you do that would cause it to break? Just B E C A R E F U L. It's like owning a vintage car. Everybody will be envious.

Udo4• 12 years ago

The fact that you are still free to upgrade and mod it awesome.

It is, although of course the downside is sheer heft. Compared to the new models, that thing is a huge and heavy aluminum brick. But yeah, I can cope with that in exchange for the convenience of more storage and upgradeability.

What kind of work do you do that would cause it to break?

I'm just carrying it with me 24x7, basically. This laptop has seen the world, and it shows.

It's like owning a vintage car. Everybody will be envious.

Doubtful but it's an interesting take ;)

nimish• 12 years ago

Stop being a packrat and move cold data to an external drive.

Bonus: now you have your data around even if your laptop breaks.

Once I learned to live with a 64GB macbook air, I realized that 90% of the data I was keeping around was not useful.

It's very liberating.

Yes, I realize 64GB of data is huge, but not for modern machines.

Udo4• 12 years ago

Stop being a packrat and move cold data to an external drive.

How does lugging around an extra piece of equipment that is inconvenient to handle equate to being less of a packrat? No. Inventing time-consuming and frustrating coping strategies just because newer tech is more limited than the old stuff? That's not a path I'm going to embark on. There is nothing liberating about it.

The restrictions Apple currently imposes on us do not exist because they believe we should throw away our data as a matter of Zen. They exist because SSDs have not caught up yet, though at some point they will.

Bonus: now you have your data around even if your laptop breaks.

What does breakage even mean in this context? My laptop right now has an SSD for fast system things and an HDD for bulk data. If one of them breaks, the laptop will still be usable and I just put in a spare part. If the laptop is completely destroyed, chances are an external HDD in my backpack will also be.

It's not like carrying an external backup HDD is impossible just because my laptop has adequate onboard storage - it's obviously a false dichotomy.

It's very liberating.

I absolutely get that shedding ballast is a liberating experience, but it pertains to physical things. I have gotten rid of many, many things in my life that didn't have any real value anymore - including almost all of my books, CDs, and DVDs. The books and CDs are still with me in digital form, which is kind of the point here (the DVDs are, too, but on my home server).

The neat thing about digital possessions is that they can scale very well without encumbering you.

boobsbr• 12 years ago

Stop being a packrat and move cold data to an external drive.
Bonus: now you have your data around even if your laptop breaks.

External drives are pretty unreliable. It's more probable the external drive will die before the laptops internal one.

_delirium2• 12 years ago

I'm not sure how much longer it'll be around, but this latest refresh still left one non-SSD/non-retina MBP, the 13" model that comes with a 512 GB hdd and upgradeable to 1 TB. Price after upgrade is $1149 (vs. $2299 for a retina model with 1 TB): http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/. Not an option if you like the 15" screen though.

Volscio• 12 years ago

The overall system performance improvement of an SSD is worth it alone for an upgrade (or replacing it in your current laptop if you can). It turned my old plastic MacBook into a new laptop for me. I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet. You will love using your laptop even more, and you can get a small form factor external to complement it.

TheLoneWolfling• 12 years ago

My laptop right now has an SSD for fast system things and an HDD for bulk data

on_and_off• 12 years ago

I have an early 2011 15" mbp. I always only had a 500gb hd in it. Recently, its performances have starting becoming inadequate, so I switched its 4gb of ram for 16gb & its hard drive for a 480gb ssd. It is a night and day difference that should be enough to make me keep it one more year at least. The only really weak part now is the graphic card that may be too weak to support an high size high resolution screen.

mark_l_watson• 12 years ago

If you usually have a good Internet connection, one possibility (that I use) is for you to keep most files in Dropbox (or equivalent service) and unsync folders that you don't need. I do this for large data sets that I use periodically, and arrange for my videos and photos to be batched in folders with the year in the file name. If I want to watch a video I made two years ago, I just resync a folder, and it is soon available.

A disadvantage of this approach is that unsynced folders are not in Time Machine backups.

syf81• 12 years ago

No idea how you use laptops, but I've never needed more than 1TB on mine, let alone more than 256gb and I still have more than 50% free most of the time.

Perhaps it's time to declutter your digital life?

kaonashi• 12 years ago

My last upgrade path was to pay $300 to get my MBP completely factory refurbished, then replace the internal HDD with an SSD.

bane• 12 years ago

I've set up an old laptop on my home network with about 7TB of storage. Plex handles all my video and music needs (so long as I can get a decent internet connection). And teamviewer and dropbox lets me access the rest as I need.

If I need to go on a trip where I won't have good internet, there's more than enough storage for a dozen movies or tv shows or whatever and hundreds of hours of music. I just load it up and delete it when I get back.

It sucks in some ways to set up, and it's a lot of work, but it really does payoff later. And having all my media self-hosted somewhere I can get to from my laptop, my desktop, the web, my phone, my tablet, and chromecast to my tv is actually better than lugging all that around.

duiker1013• 12 years ago

wow, I bought one less then a week ago for £2200 and now it costs £1999 and has more stuff... did I just gifted them £200 or if I complain I might at least get the new model?

EDIT: thanks all, yes I remember asking the return policy is 14 days. I will do that.

mrknmc• 12 years ago

If it's less than one week you could probably return it and get a refund or the new model.

ewang1• 12 years ago

Not sure what the return policy is where you're located. But in the US, I'd just return it within the 14 days and get the new model.

hyperliner4• 12 years ago

I am sure it is still under warranty and you can bring it back to where you bought it and decide to get cash or beefier.

collyw• 12 years ago

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

duiker1013• 12 years ago

Want to know even a funnier thing? I don't like Apple at all, the last product I bought was an iPhone 3G because I didn't like their business practice but I gave in to the mbp because it's a nice machine and I wanted to expand myself instead of keep developing only on Windows. Guess I was right when I decided to ditch Apple.

brainburn• 12 years ago

You thought it was worth the price, so what's the problem?

hyperliner4• 12 years ago

Does anybody have an estimate for when Airs will get their next refresh?

weiran2• 12 years ago

Unlikely to have a major upgrade until the Broadwell is out in mid-2015.

waitingkuo• 12 years ago

You can reference mac buyersguide http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Air

tkubacki2• 12 years ago

Nice but my next laptop will be some Chromebook + ElementaryOS rooted - if all you use is terminal/sublime and browser - Mac is a waste of money.

thejosh• 12 years ago

sublime runs on ARM?

pgeorgi• 12 years ago

There are tons of x86 chromebooks

jokoon3• 12 years ago

will you be able to make work some C++ IDE on it ?

tkubacki2• 12 years ago

dunno - I'm not working with C++. To be honest I work mainly on Linux desktop now, so maybe I'm overestimating Chromebooks perf (eg. seen Chromebook with i3-4005U)

rbanffy5• 12 years ago

I understand the appeal of a more or less throwaway computer, but I have to add the Retina screen is outstanding, the OS is good enough and the machines are incredibly well built.

My wife was in a car crash about two years ago and, while the car was totalled, her MBP survived with exactly one scratch.

FireBeyond• 12 years ago

That's kind of a weird thing to support that - not that I disagree, I love the build of my MBP... but a) it takes very little to consider a car totaled, and b) as a firefighter/paramedic, the very large majority of the time, even the most serious of car accidents don't result in the vehicle being crushed to the point where a laptop sitting on a seat is destroyed.

frik3• 12 years ago

Why doesn't Apple ship MacBooks with optional anti-glare display anymore? Is a third party anti-glare matte screen protector useful?

I would like to use the notebook outside too. Using the iPad outside on a sunny day strains the eyes.

tim333• 12 years ago

I think there was low demand for the anti-glare stuff. For what it's worth I've been using my macbook air (2013, 11 in) outside without much issue. I think as long as the screen image is sufficiently brighter than the reflected scenery it kind of looks ok.

taude2• 12 years ago

I think a lot of professionals who like the anti-glare have it on their second screens, so it's not a deal breaker as much as it once was. Last time I got a new Mac, I didn't feel like waiting for the special anti-glare screen version to be shipped to my house. I now just make do with the glossy while traveling, and still have a nice matte screen to plug into.

coldtea6• 12 years ago

Why doesn't Apple ship MacBooks with optional anti-glare display anymore? Is a third party anti-glare matte screen protector useful?

Because it was not of very high demand, plus it's awful for color accuracy and deep blacks, not to mention that it destroys a lot of the niceties of having a retina screen -- it's literary adding a diffusion material over your screen, that besides reducing glare also makes it more blurry.

Plus, the solution to glare is quite easy: turn the display away from a light source. It being a portable computer, that's quite easy.

frik3• 12 years ago

turn the display away from a light source

Working outside in nature (country side) or on a train/bus (next to a window), a glare display doesn't work well.

I like to work outside under the shadow of trees and the wind constantly blows through the leaves and shake them around.

A business notebook with mate display works fine in such conditions and the colors are good and not blurry at all (one can always attach a high quality monitor).

jedanbik2• 12 years ago

I'll upgrade when I start seeing 32 GB RAM options.

andyfleming4• 12 years ago

Why do you need 32 GB RAM in a laptop? (not criticizing, just asking) I've found with the speed of these SSDs, memory swap is almost unnoticeable anyway.

hippiefahrzeug• 12 years ago

While I can't speak for someone else, I find myself in the same place: I have 16GB in my mid 2010 MacBook and it's not enough when you develop with Xcode (incrementally eats memory up to and over 1GB), have an IntelliJ (~1.5GB) up while having one or two ubuntu VMs running (each 4 GB). Add to that the fact that Chrome eats a terrible amount of memory and all these developer tools running at the same time (kaleidoscope, sourcetree, db browser, xemacs, sublimetext, etc) have their demands as well, and I find myself running out of memory all the time. Fast paging doesn't do the trick.

jedanbik2• 12 years ago

I don't need it now, but I like it when my equipment lasts as long as possible. I've seen other manufacturers creating laptops with 32 GB RAM, so I know that it can be done.

If I'm going to buy a state of the art computer, I want it to have state of the art specs, know what I'm saying? I think it's inevitable that 32 GB RAM on a MacBook will be a thing, so that's what I'm waiting for.

ghshephard• 12 years ago

Note for application performance (as opposed to Data Usage), OS X seems to scale a lot better than my Windows 7 system (more effective use of shared libraries? I have no clue). I've got a Dell Desktop with 16 GB of Ram - and, when I have roughly the same app load as my MacBook Air with 8 GB of Ram - the Windows 7 system starts running low on memory (Google Earth is a common culprit), whereas I never seem to have memory pressure with my MacBook Air for baseline application usage.

Obviously, applications that need the data space (as opposed to executable), will greatly benefit (Oracle, Scientific Apps, Analytics, etc...) - but my 2010 MacBook Air continues to be a rock solid performer with an average of 20 Apps running. I will certainly benefit from the greatly increased SSD storage performance, but I'm not really that interested in a 16GB system anymore.

I used to say I was going to hold out for a 16 GB MacBook air to upgrade, but, the reality is 8GB is sufficient for my reasonably power-user-intensive ways.

eeeeeeeeeeeee• 12 years ago

I agree, I'm not buying a new laptop until it comes stock with 192GB of ram. Shame on Apple.

jongold• 12 years ago

The best time to buy a Mac is when you need one; if you wait forever you'll never end up buying one. My work machine died less than a month ago; a little bit annoying that this happened but there's always going to be a better, faster, cheaper Mac in the future.

supercoder• 12 years ago

No the best time to buy one is immediately after they release a refresh.

Deinos• 12 years ago

That is assuming that being on the cutting edge matters to you. If you just need a machine spec'd to accomplish the tasks that you perform on a daily basis, you buy when your old machine can no longer get that job done (and the smart money might even be on an older model at a discount if it suits those needs).

jsmeaton• 12 years ago

Picked up a new one about 2 months ago just knowing in the back of my mind that something new would be released soon. Glad I didn't miss out on too much =)

jon-wood• 12 years ago

If you bought it less than a month ago there's a pretty good chance that Apple will replace it free of charge (I even got a small refund in one case, when they dropped the price of MacBook Airs at the same time as a hardware refresh).

blackaspen• 12 years ago

Sigh... I'd still like to see real graphics on the 13".

chx• 12 years ago

This is the same; there's nothing new; the whole laptop market is dead. There's not a single machine I would buy -- the combination of decent keyboard, screen and user replaceable components is nonexistent now. ThinkPads had good keyboards and replaceable components and (unless you want to go back to T60 times) shitty screens. Now they have shitty keyboard, many don't have replaceable components but the screen is good. The Apple trajectory is not better.

teekert• 12 years ago

Compared to my 2011 MBP I Like the Retina, 16GB is nice as a standard but I have that now (and honestly I don't foresee needing more soon). But man would I trade that 256GB SSD for a 2 or 4 TB HDD in a heartbeat.

mrvagabond• 12 years ago

Just add an external HDD if you need the storage. Booting and running your OS off an SSD is a major speed improvement over HDD.

jontro• 12 years ago

What is the difference of the high end models compared to the release last fall?

Only thing I can see is a faster cpu, is there anything else?

skrause• 12 years ago

Slightly faster CPUs, more RAM for some models and somewhat lower prices.

The real update has to wait because Intel's Broadwell CPUs are delayed until 2015, so they're releasing a minor spec dump today to keep customers happy.

jokoon3• 12 years ago

if only they could serve warfare tested windows drivers.

I can't believe when people tell me my macbook pro 2009 with 2GB of ram is a "little too cheap" for mavericks or xcode 5. I can't even install windows on it because the superdrive is busted. I managed to install ubuntu, but there's ALWAYS a wifi/touchpad/heating issue.

Not to mention the hardship getting some C++ project working on xcode. (like ogre for instance). Making games on it seems to be a pain since you need to find a way to move around the displaylink.

I won't try to get a mac again. If a computer cannot be nice enough to build C++ projects with, I won't use it. You all are working on web based apps, but I'm clearly not a customer of this.

preference:

1. windows laptop 2. linux laptop 3. mac laptop

It's a shame because the hardware is great, but since apple force feeds you with itunes and doesn't really want you using windows, I'll pass. Their hardware is dedicated to their OSX thingy, and I don't want it.

andyfleming4• 12 years ago

Yeah, it doesn't seem like Apple really focuses on any development outside of their platforms (iOS, OS X). It has naturally become a popular choice for web design and development because of the strong graphic design user base. Over time, the community has built a lot of great tools for web dev on the mac, though.

"Their hardware [being] dedicated to their OSX thingy" is actually a great thing for every day use. Their software (OS as well as other pieces) can be testing against very specific hardware and think that is a big part of why it is pretty reliable. That and being unix-based is a big win over windows IMO.

WorldWideWayne6• 12 years ago

I tried to use OS X as my main OS, but I just couldn't get past what I considered "illogical" and "inconsistent" keyboard acceleration, keyboard navigation and user interactions.

For instance, in Windows and Gnome I can hunt through menus with the keyboard by simply press ALT and then the underlined letter of a menu (then use the arrow keys to look around and press ENTER or SPACE to pick one). This is consistent throughout those environments but on OS X you can't navigate like that, you have to memorize 2,000 hot-key combinations. Microsoft kind of ruined that nice feature with the "Ribbon" but the new keyboard navigation system for the ribbon is still more logical and consistent than what I've seen with OS X.

That's why I like to just put my Unix dev environment in a VM on Windows. I get the best desktop experience (for me) and when I need it, I have Unix.

aschampion• 12 years ago

Then don't use xcode as your C++ IDE. Xcode is for developing in the Apple ecosystem, but there are plenty of other options on OSX if that's not your target. Nearly every C++ toolchain and editor available to you in linux is available in OSX as well through brew/macports(/fink).

Also windows can be installed from USB nearly as easily as ubuntu.

jokoon3• 12 years ago

Then don't use xcode as your C++ IDE.

if the native IDE is not adequate, I don't think I'll find anything else. Most native apple things are cocoa-centric.

also the last version of Ogre3D engine is not even available, because of XCode and how apple builds its stuff. I hate hacking through galaxies of makefiles. I've lost patience :) It's just exhausting to rebuild everything everytime there's a xcode or OSX upgrade. I'm done. Microsoft supports backward compatility much better.

philliphaydon• 12 years ago

I currently have a 2012 MBP/r, but considering getting the Asus NX500. After 2 years of seriously using a mac... I still can't stand it. I feel much more productive in Mint or Windows.

/opinion

defective• 12 years ago

Thanks for mentioning the NX500 -- I have the 2012 as well, and I have been looking for months for something that could be a better Windows laptop than the rMBP -- I've come up with nothing. I like OSX when I'm a user, but not for working.

The NX500 looks like it might be the one -- but I'm probably filling in the information gaps with hopes and dreams.

sellmyair• 12 years ago

I just got a Mac Book Air for similar price two days ago. Should I refund it and get these? Will apple refund it? When will these start shipping?

rbanffy5• 12 years ago

You can return it and get a new model.

mattcornell• 12 years ago

In the "mine is older than yours" category, I still program on a mid-2007 15" MBP! I recently upgraded it to 6GB RAM (I don't know why I waited so long), but I now have those vertical lines on the display that are from the internal connector (or something similar). Drat! Now I feel dumb for upgrading the RAM. The machine isn't bad, but replacing the screen is a no-go given that I could buy one on ebay for the price of a replacement screen. And I agree re: new ones' not being upgradable. I'd rather have a relatively bulkier form factor that's hackable, but Apple disagrees. Also, $2K is a lot for me.

underlines3• 12 years ago

I needed to buy a MacBook Pro 2013 13" retina for live music performances. The 1000$ soundcard has optimized OSX core audio drivers and Win7 drivers.

Danger: Cynical, heavy stereotyping and biasing comment following...

I can work with OSX, nix and Win boxes, no problem, but OSX' interface isn't optimized for simple tasks like cutting and pasting various folders form one to another, where some of them will be overwritten, as there is no merge option and no CTRL+X short cut. Are they nuts? Yeah, I can write a shell script to do it, or I can install XtraFinder and also have Folders on top of Files in lists. But wtf? Is that system designed for idiots and grandmothers? Oh yeah and I love to pay a shtload of money for kinda outdated hardware components... Still some things are cool on OSX. It's snappy, fast and it has a decent shell. The retina display is even usable, when installing the 5$ pupil.io to natively switch resolutions for non-idiots (Actually seeing the resolution as xxx X xxx value instead of Small, Middle, Large)

Enough OS bashing for today.

PS.: Windows sux and *nix as well.

underlines3• 12 years ago

And I love the fact that the "upgrade path" of Mac users is kind of "buy it, use it until the next gen comes, throw it away". Thats super cool and totally fits into the common starbucks customer, wearing neon colored running shoes while listening music on beats head phones.

vten2• 12 years ago

If one can afford it then why not? It's everywhere, not just gadget industry. People buy new models of premium cars when they come out, people buy a new pair of $600 shoes when new collection arrives. Those people don't quite fit to your description of a common Starbucks customer.

thatswrong0• 12 years ago

Except for the fact that macs maintain their value, so selling your last-gen Mac and upgrading to the new one is pretty cheap, all things considered.

semanticist• 12 years ago

You're complaining that the Finder doesn't work like Windows. Well done, it doesn't. Design choices made decades ago mean that Macs work differently - I find a lot of the differences really frustrating when I use a Windows machine, because I'm used to Macs, but that doesn't mean that Windows is for 'idiots and grandmothers'.

Something not conforming to your personal preferences does not mean that it's only suitable for the hard of thinking.

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