[BrettBrewer]

JFC! Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave. I've been a mac lover and sometimes hater since I bought my first MacIIcx in 1989. I just went to price a new 17" MacBook pro and find out they stopped making them!!? WTF!!!? I use my 17" macbook pro as a desktop replacement because I'm semi-disabled and have to work from bed on a laptop desk, but I also occasionally need to travel and be able to use my computer for more than 30 minutes without having to plug it in. The only reason I chose a Mac was because they offered the ONLY choice for a powerful 17" laptop with a decent screen resolution, 3d video card and acceptable battery life. Having a 15" model with a higher resolution than my current 17" model would be a complete waste of resolution that hurts my eyes just to think about -- as if I want to have to squint even harder to read my code. This ridiculous decision by Apple reduces my reasons for buying a new Mac to exactly ZERO. Now my only choice for a 17" desktop replacement is some behemoth with crappy battery life and inferior build quality. Fortunately I was smart enough to switch to Windoze back in 2000 due to the Mac's lack of stable OS (remember OS8.6 and OS9?), decent software and affordable hardware, but I'd started to become a Mac fanboy again in recent years due to their excellent (though still overpriced) laptop hardware and because I could run Windoze on Macs after they wised up and switched to Intel chips. But alas, I guess all the good ideas DID die with Steve Jobs -- it's a damn shame. Since decent battery life in a 17" laptop will no longer be an option, I finally have an excuse to buy that GScreen Spacebook I've had my eye on. GScreen here I come!

[BrettBrewer]

fastguitars, on 06 September 2012 - 03:00 AM, said:

There is a real need for a 17 inch Laptop.
I have this need...and in response to...."well, just get a big monitor"..
well, my response is "get real".
Let me ask you a question.
Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of professional and amateur musicians use ONLY an Apple 17 laptop and Logic to make music?
The answer is..all of the pros, and a good part of the amateurs.
The Apple 17 laptop IS the go to device for this one single thing in the music making "home studio" industry.
So, Apple has now castrated this market with the flick of a bad decision.
Way to go.
Of course now Dell and Acer and Samsung and the rest of the 17.3 laptop suppliers are all drunk with joy at Apple decision.
Who can blame them.

Amen brother! I rely on a 17" macbook pro for programming, professional photography, multitrack audio recording and occasionally to pwn some kid in an FPS. I'm the textbook definition of a power user, started programming on TRS-80s in 1983, owned an Atari, and Apple IIe, a MacIIcx, a PowerMac 7188/80av, a PowerComputer PowerCenterPro 180 (mac clone), a Blue&White PowerMac, and more self-built PCs than I can even count at this point. I'm a grown up computer user with high expectations of my systems. I've been staring a computer screen now for 30 years and I can assure you that a smaller 15" MacBook Pro with a higher resolution is too hard to see from any reasonable distance for a variety things I regularly do. I'm not a 17-year-old gamer anymore. I've looked at the 15" retina display models in person and there is no comparison...the higher resolution absolutely DOES NOT make up for the lost screen size. I don't want to squeeze even more pixels onto a smaller screen. I don't want my laptop to turn into a friggin iPad or a smartphone. I use a mouse and keyboard and like a big screen for a REASON (CounterStrike veterans know what I'm talkin' about). I keep hearing morons talking about how laptops and desktops are going away. I've been hearing that same sad story now for over 10 years. There will ALWAYS be a need for a larger, more versatile device for REAL power users. A 15" laptop to me is like an overpriced toy, not a real machine for doing real work, just something I'd grudgingly use to get by until I can access a REAL computer. There's a reason I bought a 17" laptop in the first place and resolution wasn't the only reason. I like to be able to read my code, edit my images, compose my music and frag my enemies without having my face glued to the damned screen. So, for everyone out there who knows why they need a bigger screen, since battery life and large screen size can no longer be found in the same computer anymore, I suggest you all go look at what's offered by companies like GScreen, or XoticPC. You can get all the screen realestate you want with twice the horsepower and full customization options and it will still be cheaper than one of these little 15" macbook toys.

[kikisoso]

I agree, this is completely ridiculous, i am a bit late on the bandwagon here but i was just looking at the options of an upgrade on my one year old 17" macbook pro core i7 , 2.66 GHz , 8 GB RAM which is starting to lag a bit becasue of the new operating systems drain and found that there was no 17" available. Sure, even a 17" doesn't have enough real estate to work on ALL the time (this is my own opinion) but that is why I have an apple 27" monitor in my office but, having tried to work with a 15" retina display MacBook, I can safely say it is definitely no replacement for my work as a graphic designer. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a laptop for me if I have to throw my massive screen in the boot of the car too when off to meet a client in another town. That is why I never bought a Mac Pro even though I could have done with the extra power.

Bad move Apple, turning on the customers who made your product a success. Looks like I will have to learn how to use a PC again or are they all going to follow suit and lose the 17" display now too.

[solzilla]

Apple is actually abandoning the pro market. Discontinuing the 17 inch macbook pro is the tip of the iceberg. Apple discontinued super-drives and totally thrashed what made final cut pro great with FCPX (I mean iMovie Pro). They're pushing toward the regular consumer than those who stuck by them from the beginning. Eliminating the 17 is going to alienate a lot of pros, who are the real sellers of apple products. Even if the 17 isn't selling, those who use it invest a lot more into it than a regular consumer does. While they're at it, why not dumb down the mac pro to make it more desirable for consumers too? It seems like that's apple's only concern...

Quote

jaydahba said
it is the pro users, that small minority, that kept Apple alive late 90ies early 2000's before the iGimmicks came and redefined Apple: it now caters to an enormous cunsumer base instead of a small, creative "elite". It may be "bad business" for Apple to continue certain products in terms of revenue, but is an insult to all of us who still remember Mac OS before the X (or the [strikethru] MAC [/strikethru] OS) and photoshop 4 (no history...) I love this entitlement attitude from "pros" - what's the alternative? For the iPhone and iPad to never have existed? For Apple to be continually teetering on the brink of extinction? Apparently your only remembering the good. I remember the bad - all too vividly. Talk about romanticizing the past! Whether "pros" like it or not, there are far more consumers than "pros" - If Apple didn't have the profits from the iPod, iPhone and iPad where do you think they would have gotten the resources and buying power to produce the Retina MacBook Pro for the price they have released it today? As has already been pointed out MULTIPLE times in this thread, the RMBP is a triumph of price and functionality vs. the original MacBook Pro - and that's comparing strict dollars - adjust the older dollars for inflation and the gap is even greater! Ugh - get over yourself. If your going to be constantly offended great - here's your cookie. Here's your acknowledgement your your being dissed and marginalized. Feel better? No? Really hate it? Go switch to someone else who will cater to you better. Seriously. I'm so over people who think that if Apple doesn't kiss their foot for every esoteric want and desire that it's somehow an appalling snub to some community that "deserves better". But if you seriously think that Apple is abandoning the "pro" market you really need to adjust your tin foil, or just ditch it entirely. They wouldn't be kicking out kit like the RMBP, Final Cut Pro X and other similar stuff if they were purely in to "iGimmicks" (really? Might as well type Windoze while your at it).

[GrayDred]

I also regret Apple's decision to abandon the 17" laptop. DocNo and others don't get it. I use the 17" laptop for film editing and for digital back up/conforming in the field, green screen preview and slop edits on film/video sets- all places where you can't bring an additional monitor. The 15" model simply does not provide enough real estate to work effectively.
No one is saying that MAC should abandon their other products - I like and use them, but the pro creative users are the ones who helped Apple define their brand. Kids like MAC because filmmakers, musicians and artists used MAC's - that defined the difference between "MAC and PC" in those classic ads. These products and high end towers are loss leaders- they don't make you money, they even cost money, but they protect your brand. If the cool creatives are forced over to PC's because Apple abandons the pro market (as they did with Final Cut X, delayed upgrades to the Towers and the 17" laptop) then they will lose this marketing advantage and this will begin to cannibalize their entire product line, including the iPhone and IPad.
Tim Cook and his advisors are businessman, thinking quarterly profits. They are not visionaries looking to build a brand and that will ultimately lead to Apple's decline.

[FiJiLLiAn]

I just picked up one yesterday for a steal. Brand new and last years model for $679 out the door. It is my first MacBook Pro and I was going to get a 13" w/ Retina but for the price I just had too.

[BL888]

Pro-Photographer / Designers / Architects etc., they can send email from iPhone or iPad but for serious work on the road 15 Inch LT is a joke ...

I think that 17 or maybe even 19 Inch with Retina display and more RAM will be back soon ...

[cypressdrive]

I'm way late to this conversation. Bad, bad decision to abandon the 17". I am a hardcore spreadsheet user (complex and very large models) and there is a big difference in real estate between the 15 and 17. As much as the weight of the 17 is a pain when I travel I can't see going to a 15. The person who commented about getting an external monitor needs to get a brain. It's a portable computer. When I'm at home I work from my Mac mini with an external monitor.

Apple annoys me more than anything lately and it appears they are putting a lot of effort into marginalizing the users that got them to where they are today (or at least up to the time that iOS became the focus). The creation of an increasingly dumbed-down ecosystem designed so that any idiot can have an Apple product or two runs counter to so much of where Apple came from.

[Chris Breen]

cypressdrive, on 23 February 2013 - 08:16 PM, said:

The creation of an increasingly dumbed-down ecosystem designed so that any idiot can have an Apple product or two runs counter to so much of where Apple came from.

Steve Jobs, from the earliest days, claimed he wanted computers to be appliances. We're closer to "where Apple came from" than ever before.

[infinitybbc]

Apple's decision to drop 17" MacBook Pros ranks up there among it's other idiotic decisions throughout its entire history.

in doing so, it has effectively removed the most valuable tool for creative people on the go who need more than 15" of screen real estate.

i'm certain that other laptop manufacturers don't sell as many 17" versions than they do 15" either, but they're still making them… because they understand that creative professionals NEED 17" laptops for their work! how has it come to pass that Apple no longer gets this?

personally, i purchase a new 17" MacBook Pro every ~2.5 years, and sell my old one just prior to my Apple care running out from my last one.

so, what are "the rest of us" supposed to do now... buy a Winblows 17" laptop?

and why don't people seem to understand that the 15" retina display is NOT a substitute for the additional screen real estate of the 17"?

looks like i might have to just keep my 17" and fix it whenever it breaks down in the future rather than purchasing another new one from Apple.

way to go Apple leadership… NOT!