[alevale]

palane, on 15 June 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

I just don't buy it. Every time Apple comes up with a significant new product, we get the same crop of complaints. Usually drive by posters who register, fire up the usual arguments, and vanish.

Group I: All the Apple fanbois and lemmings will buy it, because of the shiny Apple logo on it. Flame bait.

Group II: I've been using Macs since the 512ke computer and have never been so disappointed in the company. Concern troll.

The facts are that Apple significantly upgraded the MB-Air and MB-Pro lines and introduced one with a retina display as well. I never saw the particular point to the 17" laptop as it's unwieldy. I do need screen space, which is why I've got a 24" monitor on my desktop. We'll see if this one sells well. If it doesn't, then Apple will be forced to rethink its approach. I don't think they've guessed wrong. Pro does not mean computer technician any more than driver means mechanic.

BB

truthjustice, on 15 June 2012 - 04:28 AM, said:

My house is filled with every conceivable product made by Apple. I've converted many friends and colleagues to Apple over the years. But, for the first time, I'm no longer excited by this company...

Yes! Apple is found of saying the desktop is dying, even the laptops, but I believe that computer sales have been declining because they are bad machines, if they made a decent PRO computer, (like they know how to do) with retina and thunderbolt and kept our ability to CHOOSE what we want from a PRO computer, sales would pick up. They don't see that they are offering now just a nicer packed white line, only the prices went PRO. People who make their living out of the machines are not going to get a computer where in about a year and a half or so, they will have to STOP working for a few days (in the US, weeks sometimes overseas) to change a battery!!! Also not being able to upgrade their OWN machines! RAM and HD or SSD always run out of space. they want to keep it all in the cloud, my info in the cloud... (again internet overseas is not always available) until the day they get hacked and then all the security issues come to light.

Did you see the "upgrade" for the mac pro? they want people who depend on a computer for a living to wait 3 years for a decent upgrade? as they said 10 years in aviation are 50 in normal years, in IT 3 years are an eternity. They are loosing the people who were their opinion formers. since 1990 I have " converted " a lot of people, they all still look for my opinion every time a new product comes out. Lately, I am not advising them to change. When apple looses one of us, it is word of mouth that spreads fast. Anyone who knows marketing knows that word of mouth brings 3 out of 10, and bad words scare 7 out of 10. IOS and its devices are great, beautiful, but also cheap and replaceable. Soon someone comes out with the NEXT thing and Apple will become just another IT company that got to big and stopped listening.

Bottom line: PRO machine line is a very expensive machine that one can upgrade and have the MOST options available, not a very expensive machine that has to come out of the box and be attached to adaptors, external monitors, external drives, video adaptor, ethernet adaptors, external optical drive... etc etc... PRO means choices. Don't want to give us that anymore? fine, but call it a macbook with a nice display, don't take away choices and bump the price just to call it PRO.

This post has been edited by alevale: 19 June 2012 - 05:08 PM

[bastion]

alevale, on 19 June 2012 - 05:06 PM, said:

Yes! Apple is found of saying the desktop is dying, even the laptops, but I believe that computer sales have been declining because they are bad machines, ...

And the rest of this post really doesn't matter. The problem with this line of argument is that it presupposes a falsehood: That computer sales have been declining. Presuming we're talking about Apple - as the context of this message suggests - the reverse is true. Apple's computer sales have been steadily growing for years.

[Baguio]

I do not agree with many of the comments. A fixed RAM is not real an issue, and be honest, 8GB is, in face of a the very fast SSDs no real limitation. Even if one day there is requirement for some virtual ram mapping on the SSD , it's very fast and will unlikely affect your performance to a noticeable extend. Also, I do not understand the critic on the lacking interfaces. I do appreciate, that Apple cuts them to the essentials, since with Wifi and USB3 (not even to mention thunderbolt) U can fast and easily connect to peripheral devices without the danger of drowning in an array of adapters and standards. In the past , I did order my Macs with the smallest available hard disks and memory to upgrade them by myself ( saving lots of money). The really big issue for the professional is in my opinion the lack of internal storage available. Most power users have exchanged the obsolete internal superdrive for an SSD ( which increases the speed of any computer dramatically) > to install OSX and all programs on it and use a 2.5 internal harddrive for data storage. As a hobby to semiprofessional photographer, my Aperture Files alone require about 480 GB Disk-space and it would be a lot more if I didn't convert many RAW files into jpeg. I'm convinced, that within the next few months you can upgrade your SSD with some second party drives l( as for instance OCW offers upgrade kids for the macbook air). But I fear, that 1 TB or more of memory won't be available in the near future or will at least be quite costly. So I'll probably be forced to use my retina MacBook with an external USB Drive for Data, which I do not really find a very thrilling solution. But guys,the performance and beauty of this device is breathtaking.
2. Point , someone criticized the Apple TV. I'm very happy with it since the APP Air Video can stream any AVI or other Video file format via Airplay to my apple TV. One only requires a MAC ( have a Mac Mini as Server but my macbook would also do) or a Windows PC on which the free client program "Air Video Server " is installed. Many of us do have a vacant Computer or Server in their Homenetwork that can perform tho task.

[GerryYaeger]

Has anyone profiled one of these screens? What goes the colorspace look like? The resolution sounds great but what about the color gamut?

[d00d]

Johnnydadda, on 18 June 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

programmers are still trying to get value out of multicore CPUs.

Yeah, because threaded programming is such a new fangled technology. (end sarcasm)

[photoshop61]

[quote name='Johnnydadda' timestamp='1339931719' post='977223']
I've got a MacBook Pro, I bought it in 2006. It has a matt screen - no glare. ...

I agree entirely. I have a 2007 MBP and while the new Retina screen is a nice enhancement, I prefer my current laptop with it's optical drive, plus I prefer my trackpad over those on the current models (my wife has a new MBP). I also have a matte cinema display in my MacPro which I love, but a the large glossy screen on my iMac is annoying in many situations where glare simply can not be reduced.

[bastion]

d00d, on 20 June 2012 - 07:33 PM, said:

Johnnydadda, on 18 June 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

programmers are still trying to get value out of multicore CPUs.

Yeah, because threaded programming is such a new fangled technology. (end sarcasm)

You can hold the sarcasm; you're both right. It's nothing like a new topic but it is one that a lot of people have difficulty getting right and applying appropriately.

[Miro1098]

I am sure that many of you remember the Keynote when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. He explained how the iPhone will use the best "stylus" in the world: Finger!
People couldn't accept this for long time. The second big thing was the keyboard. People wanted the hardware keyboard because they always had it before. They couldn't understand that this was the best thing on the iPhone. Everybody copied this but BlackBerry and they went out of business. The iPhone was the first device with built in battery. Everyone, including the technical writers criticized that. I still have my original iPhone, packed in the box. At least twice a year I turn it on to charge the battery. Guess what? It is 95% full. And this is 5 years old phone. The battery is still like new!
Every time Apple announces something new what you cannot understand you write bad about that. Apple products are not for everyone. They are sophisticated and many of their innovative products changed our lives. I am very thankful for that. Many of you will need more time to understand all the changes we have on this new Retina MacBook Pro. It is too bad and I feel sorry for you. Don't you remember the bad things you said publicly in the past about Apple but later on you realized that you were wrong. Why you do this again?

[d00d]

bastion, on 21 June 2012 - 01:42 AM, said:

d00d, on 20 June 2012 - 07:33 PM, said:

Johnnydadda, on 18 June 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

programmers are still trying to get value out of multicore CPUs.

Yeah, because threaded programming is such a new fangled technology. (end sarcasm)

You can hold the sarcasm; you're both right. It's nothing like a new topic but it is one that a lot of people have difficulty getting right and applying appropriately.

True, but that doesn't mean that multiple cores aren't of great value. A value which increases over time as our computers do more and more concurrently. I'm just a bit tired of people asserting that they are of questionable value and giving developers a pass when they don't consider threading as a part of their design.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

d00d, on 24 June 2012 - 04:41 PM, said:

bastion, on 21 June 2012 - 01:42 AM, said:

d00d, on 20 June 2012 - 07:33 PM, said:

Johnnydadda, on 18 June 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

programmers are still trying to get value out of multicore CPUs.

Yeah, because threaded programming is such a new fangled technology. (end sarcasm)

You can hold the sarcasm; you're both right. It's nothing like a new topic but it is one that a lot of people have difficulty getting right and applying appropriately.

True, but that doesn't mean that multiple cores aren't of great value. A value which increases over time as our computers do more and more concurrently. I'm just a bit tired of people asserting that they are of questionable value and giving developers a pass when they don't consider threading as a part of their design.

Writing multithreaded applications well is a supremely non-trivial task. Even the best software engineers in the world struggle to do certainly thing efficiently in a multithreaded manner. This is part of the reason Apple focused on building multithreading into core libraries instead of simply demanding developers do it all themselves. Most developers simply aren't well equipped to deal with multithreading well (and it not necessarily worth them spending the time to become well equipped).

[joaohornburg]

Lack of upgradable RAM bothers me too. I've always upgraded RAM on my computers to give them a mid-life boost. This was a cheap boost, since the prices decrease over time. 16GB now is much more expensive than 16GB in 1 year. Might not be an issue over there in the US, but here in Brazil these things are really expensive.

I was thinking of selling my Late 2011 MBP in 1 or 2 years. But the exchange rate of the brazilian Real got a lot worse since I've made that plans. Well, maybe I'll replace de HDD with a SSD and use it until it breaks.

Another thing that might be an issue is the glued battery. We don't have Apple Stores here, so replacing the battery is not that simple as just having Apple replace it for you.

[d00d]

Stewsburntmonkey, on 24 June 2012 - 08:37 PM, said:

Writing multithreaded applications well is a supremely non-trivial task. Even the best software engineers in the world struggle to do certainly thing efficiently in a multithreaded manner. This is part of the reason Apple focused on building multithreading into core libraries instead of simply demanding developers do it all themselves. Most developers simply aren't well equipped to deal with multithreading well (and it not necessarily worth them spending the time to become well equipped).

I think I have a good handle on the difficulty level of writing multithreaded applications, but thanks anyway.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

d00d, on 25 June 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

Stewsburntmonkey, on 24 June 2012 - 08:37 PM, said:

Writing multithreaded applications well is a supremely non-trivial task. Even the best software engineers in the world struggle to do certainly thing efficiently in a multithreaded manner. This is part of the reason Apple focused on building multithreading into core libraries instead of simply demanding developers do it all themselves. Most developers simply aren't well equipped to deal with multithreading well (and it not necessarily worth them spending the time to become well equipped).

I think I have a good handle on the difficulty level of writing multithreaded applications, but thanks anyway.

If you do, then you have a very valuable skill. Whether you actually understand it or not, most developers don't and learning is, as I say, a rather involved process. In the end it is unlikely to ever be practical to rely on developers to take on that level of computer science just to write apps for phones (or even consumer applications for personal computers).

[d00d]

Stewsburntmonkey, on 25 June 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

d00d, on 25 June 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

I think I have a good handle on the difficulty level of writing multithreaded applications, but thanks anyway.

If you do, then you have a very valuable skill. Whether you actually understand it or not, most developers don't and learning is, as I say, a rather involved process. In the end it is unlikely to ever be practical to rely on developers to take on that level of computer science just to write apps for phones (or even consumer applications for personal computers).

You're probably right. I do tend to take some of the education and opportunity to practice that knowledge for granted.