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> The Ugly: Really expensive, even in the context of past MacBook Pros. I find this conclusion, and the article's discussion of Apple's current laptop lineup,

> The Ugly: Really expensive, even in the context of past MacBook Pros. I find this conclusion, and the article's discussion of Apple's current laptop lineup, to be the most interesting part of the article. In comparison to the 2015 13" MacBook pro, you get some minor hardware updates, a bit of increased thinness, some changes to ports, and the honor of paying an extra $200. It doesn't seem like a very good value, especially when it's the bottom of the lineup distinguished more by what's missing (touch bar, touchID and extra ports) than what it adds to last year's model. I was hoping that the marketplace would punish them, but if Schiller's comments about the new MacBook Pro getting more orders than any previous pro model are accurate, it looks like I'm in the minority.

altern8 10y ago
I wonder if anyone really cares about thinness. How is an already super-thin laptop becoming 1mm thinner be better than having > 16MG of RAM?
blowski 10y ago
The number of fanboys who buy on day one just to get the new shiny is not that interesting. It's how many people weigh up the value for money compared to similar machines on the market that really tell you what's going on. Maybe people will continue to shell out and all other laptop prices will also go up. Maybe they won't. Time will tell.
- wbond 10y ago
  It is also noted the most online orders they've received for a pro laptop launch. It seems for previously launches you could buy it in the store, getting the machine faster. With this release, there isn't a reason to buy anywhere but online. If it was really more pro laptops sold, adding online would be an odd choice of words.
jackhack 10y ago
Last year's technology, at tomorrow's prices. A $200 price bump for an old design? no thanks. I suspect the secondary market for good, clean, used 2011-2015 MBPs (and replacement batteries) will be booming for some time unless Apple corrects course.
- forgettableuser 10y ago
  Maybe Apple is using something like the Big Mac inflation index to determine their costs/pricing. From January 2013 to July 2016, the price of the Big Mac went from to $4.37 to $5.04. This works out about the same percentage increase for the $200 price bump.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    Yes, but there are multiple reasons why food prices have been going up lately, from high gas prices to increases in ethanol usage reducing corn supply, to a rising amount of meat consumption throughout the world. That's driving food prices up more than usual right now. Apple didn't make this raise for anything except "well we added a touch bar!" Meanwhile they've made a much less powerful machine when people expect more power. Source for the food prices info: https://www.thebalance.com/why-are-food-prices-rising-causes-of-food-price-inflation-3306099 https://www.thebalance.com/why-are-food-prices-rising-causes...
542458 10y ago
Hasn't this been (historically) how Apple laptop hardware revisions work? First gen of a refresh gets +200$ or so, with the bottom model missing some of the changes (retina, ssd or i5/i7 chips, for example). Next year they'll apply the changes to the old bottom model and drop all prices by $100 or so, and then drop them again the year after that. Maybe I'm misremembering, but this seems to be what they've done before.
- zerohm 10y ago
  Yeah, but we were a bit spoiled for the past 6 years where Apple was actually very competitive on price in the $1k - $1500 range. Apple was no longer behind in CPU / RAM generosity, and when other vendors tried to match them on build quality, they would fall short somewhere usually with a shitty track pad or battery life.
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    This is a beautiful summation of what was expected. They may have been a -><- tiny bit behind on some aspects, but all in all they made up for it with the trackpad, magsafe, and other goodies.
bdon 10y ago
The extra $200 is because the 2016 base model starts at 256GB disk instead of 128. If you configure the 2015 model with 256GB the price is the same.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  Using apple math. Look at the aftermarket prices of SSD's... reminds me of the 16gb iPhone? [1] [1] https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-survive-an-iphone-with-only-16gb-of-storage/ https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-survive-an-iphone-with-on...
- StillBored 10y ago
  Lest you failed to notice, the price of SSD's has been falling, right now you can buy a top of the line 1TB SSD for ~$300, and lower end devices are approaching $200. So, this bucks the trend of the past 4 decades where the new models had more storage for the same amount of money.
  - bdon 10y ago
    That's certainly the case, I'm just pointing out that price really isn't a factor in buying the 2015 model over the 2016 one unless you specifically want 128GB disk.
rz2k 10y ago
Unlike last year, your power cord, mouse, monitor, external hard drive, even an outboard gpu can all use the same physical connector, and it's a non-proprietary, industry standard. Last year's laptop was slow because the internet is slow and storage is slow. 802.11ac isn't the bottleneck, so they couldn't speed up the internet, but they did double the speed of the storage. However, I think the statement about the headphone jack was silly. Audio professionals use USB DACs or have them integrated in their studio monitors, but not being able to plug in headphones is annoying to regular users. It would be great if instead he acknowledged that Lightning has become a garbage, proprietary standard, and they made a mistake not switching to USB C or including a headphone jack on the last iPhone.
- EpicEng 10y ago
  >your power cord... Why do I care if my power chord used USB? You know what I care about? Not damaging my machine if I trip over the chord. Magsafe was great, and it's gone. >...mouse, monitor, external hard drive, even an outboard gpu can all use the same physical connector, and it's a non-proprietary, industry standard. Yeah, if I replace each and every one of them (or buy more dongles.) Seriously, how many people have USB-C versions of these already? Also, these devices already use standard connectors, so we're not gaining anything on that front. I'm also not going to thank apple for doing away with HDMI and forcing me to buy a new cable.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Now that it's USB you'll be able to get a third-party charger, or if you're in a bind you can limp along using any old USB-C charger that you happen to find. Your complaints are exactly the same as when Apple killed off the SCSI port in favor of USB. People were losing their minds that they'd invested so much in these peripherals and now they had to go and buy new ones. Apple also discontinued their proprietary video display connector and settled on VGA at first, then variations on DVI, Mini-DisplayPort, HDMI, replacing all that with Thunderbolt 3 in the USB-C connector form. It sucks because it's new, but in the end it will be great. Most monitors will serve as USB hubs which means plugging in fewer things. They've also removed Thunderbolt-specific ports, FireWire ports, and a few other quirky Apple ports in the name of conforming to standards. Just imagine how many ports the laptop would have to have if Apple was loathe to remove any of them.
cableshaft 10y ago
Well for me at least, I waited very patiently for this announcement, expecting to get the new one, as I really need something more current to portably develop iOS with. They made the announcement, and I bought a refurb instead. If they weren't quite so greedy this time around, they might have gotten me to spend a couple hundred more. But no, they had to make the entry level with the Touch Bar a crazy $1800, instead of $1300 or $1400 as everyone was expecting.

altern8 10y ago

I wonder if anyone really cares about thinness. How is an already super-thin laptop becoming 1mm thinner be better than having > 16MG of RAM?

blowski 10y ago

The number of fanboys who buy on day one just to get the new shiny is not that interesting. It's how many people weigh up the value for money compared to similar machines on the market that really tell you what's going on. Maybe people will continue to shell out and all other laptop prices will also go up. Maybe they won't. Time will tell.

wbond 10y ago
It is also noted the most online orders they've received for a pro laptop launch. It seems for previously launches you could buy it in the store, getting the machine faster. With this release, there isn't a reason to buy anywhere but online. If it was really more pro laptops sold, adding online would be an odd choice of words.

jackhack 10y ago

Last year's technology, at tomorrow's prices. A $200 price bump for an old design? no thanks. I suspect the secondary market for good, clean, used 2011-2015 MBPs (and replacement batteries) will be booming for some time unless Apple corrects course.

forgettableuser 10y ago
Maybe Apple is using something like the Big Mac inflation index to determine their costs/pricing. From January 2013 to July 2016, the price of the Big Mac went from to $4.37 to $5.04. This works out about the same percentage increase for the $200 price bump.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Yes, but there are multiple reasons why food prices have been going up lately, from high gas prices to increases in ethanol usage reducing corn supply, to a rising amount of meat consumption throughout the world. That's driving food prices up more than usual right now. Apple didn't make this raise for anything except "well we added a touch bar!" Meanwhile they've made a much less powerful machine when people expect more power. Source for the food prices info: https://www.thebalance.com/why-are-food-prices-rising-causes-of-food-price-inflation-3306099 https://www.thebalance.com/why-are-food-prices-rising-causes...

542458 10y ago

Hasn't this been (historically) how Apple laptop hardware revisions work? First gen of a refresh gets +200$ or so, with the bottom model missing some of the changes (retina, ssd or i5/i7 chips, for example). Next year they'll apply the changes to the old bottom model and drop all prices by $100 or so, and then drop them again the year after that. Maybe I'm misremembering, but this seems to be what they've done before.

zerohm 10y ago
Yeah, but we were a bit spoiled for the past 6 years where Apple was actually very competitive on price in the $1k - $1500 range. Apple was no longer behind in CPU / RAM generosity, and when other vendors tried to match them on build quality, they would fall short somewhere usually with a shitty track pad or battery life.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  This is a beautiful summation of what was expected. They may have been a -><- tiny bit behind on some aspects, but all in all they made up for it with the trackpad, magsafe, and other goodies.

bdon 10y ago

The extra $200 is because the 2016 base model starts at 256GB disk instead of 128. If you configure the 2015 model with 256GB the price is the same.

monkmartinez 10y ago
Using apple math. Look at the aftermarket prices of SSD's... reminds me of the 16gb iPhone? [1] [1] https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-survive-an-iphone-with-only-16gb-of-storage/ https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-survive-an-iphone-with-on...
StillBored 10y ago
Lest you failed to notice, the price of SSD's has been falling, right now you can buy a top of the line 1TB SSD for ~$300, and lower end devices are approaching $200. So, this bucks the trend of the past 4 decades where the new models had more storage for the same amount of money.
- bdon 10y ago
  That's certainly the case, I'm just pointing out that price really isn't a factor in buying the 2015 model over the 2016 one unless you specifically want 128GB disk.

rz2k 10y ago

Unlike last year, your power cord, mouse, monitor, external hard drive, even an outboard gpu can all use the same physical connector, and it's a non-proprietary, industry standard. Last year's laptop was slow because the internet is slow and storage is slow. 802.11ac isn't the bottleneck, so they couldn't speed up the internet, but they did double the speed of the storage. However, I think the statement about the headphone jack was silly. Audio professionals use USB DACs or have them integrated in their studio monitors, but not being able to plug in headphones is annoying to regular users. It would be great if instead he acknowledged that Lightning has become a garbage, proprietary standard, and they made a mistake not switching to USB C or including a headphone jack on the last iPhone.

EpicEng 10y ago
>your power cord... Why do I care if my power chord used USB? You know what I care about? Not damaging my machine if I trip over the chord. Magsafe was great, and it's gone. >...mouse, monitor, external hard drive, even an outboard gpu can all use the same physical connector, and it's a non-proprietary, industry standard. Yeah, if I replace each and every one of them (or buy more dongles.) Seriously, how many people have USB-C versions of these already? Also, these devices already use standard connectors, so we're not gaining anything on that front. I'm also not going to thank apple for doing away with HDMI and forcing me to buy a new cable.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Now that it's USB you'll be able to get a third-party charger, or if you're in a bind you can limp along using any old USB-C charger that you happen to find. Your complaints are exactly the same as when Apple killed off the SCSI port in favor of USB. People were losing their minds that they'd invested so much in these peripherals and now they had to go and buy new ones. Apple also discontinued their proprietary video display connector and settled on VGA at first, then variations on DVI, Mini-DisplayPort, HDMI, replacing all that with Thunderbolt 3 in the USB-C connector form. It sucks because it's new, but in the end it will be great. Most monitors will serve as USB hubs which means plugging in fewer things. They've also removed Thunderbolt-specific ports, FireWire ports, and a few other quirky Apple ports in the name of conforming to standards. Just imagine how many ports the laptop would have to have if Apple was loathe to remove any of them.

cableshaft 10y ago

Well for me at least, I waited very patiently for this announcement, expecting to get the new one, as I really need something more current to portably develop iOS with. They made the announcement, and I bought a refurb instead. If they weren't quite so greedy this time around, they might have gotten me to spend a couple hundred more. But no, they had to make the entry level with the Touch Bar a crazy $1800, instead of $1300 or $1400 as everyone was expecting.