12 ms·
Apple Updates Air, Pro Laptops, Kills Off the MacBook
- cutler 7y agoConsidering a 128Gb SSD costs $47 and a 500Gb SSD costs $78 Apples's $400 "upgrade" to 500Gb over the base model's 128Gb disk represents a 6-fold price hike on its market value. Why do we put up with this? Now it's soldered on so we don't even have the freedom to upgrade our own machines.
- outworlder 7y agoThe SSDs used in Macs outclass most other offerings. It's not fair to compare them with random SSDs on price alone, you need to compare with the best the market has to offer. The gap used to be an order of magnitude even against the 'best' SSDs commercially available. This is why they initially used their proprietary interface, then NVMe. The gap is getting smaller but it is still significant. And that's against SSDs you can buy - not the SSDs other companies will stuff on their laptops. What rubs me the wrong way is that Apple outfits all their cheapest devices with unpractical storage sizes, so you are essentially forced to upgrade.
- areoform 7y agoThat's Courage. For real this time, one of the first things Steve Jobs did when he came back to Apple was that he slashed the product line and killed off a ton of things so that the company could focus on what truly mattered; building great computing devices. I am positively encouraged that Apple has grown to the point where they took feedback critically and have returned to a more Jobs-ian way of operating. As they should have been all this time. They've renewed their emphasis on general computing, created new devices, and are iteratively getting out of the hole they'd dug themselves into. This is a turnaround that's taking place before a drastic turnaround needed to take place. And that takes Courage™
- geerlingguy 7y agoNot sure if the whole post or only part is /s, but IMO they need to have the courage to drop the Touch Bar. Everything else I can live with, but now there’s literally no MacBook Pro I will buy. I have the 2016 Function Key model, and maybe my next upgrade will be to a 2015 Pro... or to a non-Apple laptop (sigh).
- chrischen 7y agoI'm certain people who are OK with the touch bar don't care about it as much as the people who hate it, but I for one prefer that they are iteratively innovating on the keyboard for macs. I'd rather they do that than make a thick brick of a laptop with a row of mostly useless function keys that a vocal minority has been harping for.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tadfisher 7y agoThat's fine. I myself will continue to purchase from Lenovo, who tried something similar to the Touch Bar and removed it after listening to customer feedback.
- JadeNB 7y agoLenovo actively lost my trust (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish), as opposed to Apple which doesn't care about my opinion but is upfront about it.
- Despegar 7y ago>That's Courage. For real this time, one of the first things Steve Jobs did when he came back to Apple was that he slashed the product line and killed off a ton of things so that the company could focus on what truly mattered; building great computing devices. It's absurd that people keep suggesting this when it was a tactical move by a company near bankruptcy, had problems with too much inventory, and lots of models of computers that weren't differentiated.
- klodolph 7y agoWe see it as an obvious move in retrospect but this goes completely counter to the way most consumer electronics businesses are run then and now. It takes courage because various internal stakeholders, shareholders, and clients demand feature lists and cling to the hope that various markets will explode. Just take a look at the Dell or HP websites and browse for a minute or two.
- scarface74 7y agoTo prevent having to price match and to make it hard for consumers to compare products, a lot of companies have different models for different retailers - Apple did this before SJ came back. You still see this with products like mattresses.
- DonHopkins 7y ago“Focusing is about saying no.” -Steve Jobs, WWDC ‘97 https://medium.com/@donhopkins/focusing-is-about-saying-no-steve-jobs-wwdc-97-ff0174c171d0 https://medium.com/@donhopkins/focusing-is-about-saying-no-s...
- vbezhenar 7y agoI wish they would keep Macbook, Macbook Pro, Mac, Mac Pro, iMac, iMac Pro and so on. Pro is for Professionals (beefest CPUs, ECC memory, workstation-grade GPU, abundance of ports, big battery), ordinary model for ordinary people (desktop-grade hardware, design, etc).
- georgebarnett 7y agoRIP Macbook. You have been my favourite machine for a long time.
- bluedino 7y agoThe 11” Air was one of my all time favorite laptops and the 12” rMB was such a great replacement.
- bredren 7y agoThe 2015 11" Air was the best performance / value macbook Apple has ever made.
- jslabovitz 7y agoStill using mine. It's great. I'm gonna be really sad when it falls out of the supported lineup.
- bluedino 7y agoMine was a 2010 base model, but by 2015 I had grown weary of it's limitations. The form factor was just amazing, and even though the Core2Duo CPU wasn't anything special, with the SSD (at the time, they weren't very common) it was still a very usable machine. The battery life was my biggest complaint, only about 4 hours, and they didn't fix that until 2014.
- brycehamrick 7y ago100%. Macbook has been my daily machine for 3 years now, love this little thing. Quite disappointed there's no option under 2 lbs anymore.
- jonny_eh 7y agoSame, to me the only feature I missed was TouchID.
- hoveringcto 7y agoI can't imagine being on an airplane with anything but my trusty MacBook. Thinking of picking up a refurb one now to replace my 2 year old version. I also have a 13 MacBook Pro which I haven't touched in over a year.
- adarioble 7y agoAfter having the Touch Bar model I almost wish they kept the “Touchbar Escape” model. At least the choice is easier now - Apple NoChoice.
- ValentineC 7y agoDiscussion from a similar post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20393236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20393236
- galo_sengen 7y agoI hope they release a fanless version of the Air to make up for the lack of the Macbook. Are there any other fanless laptops on the market?
- boyter 7y agoSurface Book 2 13" has no fan on the CPU. The GPU has one, and the larger 15" has a CPU fan as well, but the 13" is dead silent otherwise. Although the charger can exhibit some coil whine at times which is annoying.
- gambiting 7y agoThe current Air might as well be fanless. The fan is nowhere near the heatsink on the CPU, once it finally kicks in it only pushes the air through the case, its impact on the CPU temperatures is minimal.
- saurik 7y ago"It has a fan, but the fan is useless" is worse than merely having a useful fan :/.
- Marsymars 7y agoAlso worse than no fan, since you could fill that space with battery if there wasn't a fan there.
- gambiting 7y agoYep. The only saving grace is that it takes a loong time for the fan to finally kick in, it's pretty much impossible to make it run with anything less than 100% CPU load, and even then it takes a few minutes to kick in.
- Marsymars 7y agoYes, but nothing without compromises. (e.g. AFAIK there doesn't exist a <2lb, >= 12" screen device with an Amber Lake CPU)
- 7y ago
- rolltiide 7y agoI’m almost ready to stop hating on the donglebook now that all my devices use wireless connectivity Even my hardware wallet is bluetooth and I’ll tolerate that Inconclusive on my DSLR-form factor cameras, but I plan to axe them for the iphone’s camera in a year or two as well, for how I use them
- __d 7y agoSo when Apple releases their new Apple Display Air with 60GHz wireless Thunderbolt4, and the new MacBooks finally get wireless charging, we’ll reach the nirvana of a totally port-less device. With some more work on the keyboard, it could even end up being totally coffee-proof!
- ggm 7y agoEye-FI failed. which annoyed me. There are others. I often read "oh how quaint: you have a camera with no wifi" but I do like my fuji X-20, and it is pre-wifi, and so I need a WiFi enabled SD card solution.
- persistent 7y agoThe price is not even that outrageous. When specified similar to the top-of-the-line ThinkPad X1 Carbon it's only $200 more, and you're getting a better display.
- pmlnr 7y agoBut a much worse keyboard.
- rayiner 7y agoThe X1C6 is pretty expensive unless you’re doing some Lenovo EPP swindle.
- tbrock 7y agoThe X1C7 just came out so the price will be dropping like a stone on the 6th gen pretty soon.
- mainlineman 7y agoUsing similar specs, (i7, 16GB ram, 512GB SSD, UHD screen) the MBP is $600 more than the XPS 13. And the XPS gives you the option for a 1080p screen, saving money and increasing But price aside, the real deal breaker for me is the soldered in SSD on the MBP. Being able to upgrade or recover data by removing the SSD is a huge benefit in my opinion.
- IgorPartola 7y agoWhy does choosing an Apple product always require a degree in Apple marketing and design? I generally like their products but you need to do so much research about everything from the weird ass product names (does Air even mean anything anymore?), to where exactly in the product cycle each product is. Am I about to buy something that will be upgraded in a week?
- scarface74 7y agoHave you been on any PC makers websites lately?
- baddox 7y agoSeriously. I wonder which consumer electronics/computing product sectors are supposedly easier to shop for. Other than smartphones, which generally just have a couple of size and storage capacity options, and much simpler/cheaper electronics like USB batteries, I can't think of any brand offering a simpler product line. Check out Dell's home computer landing page. It's a horizontal carousel with literally 29 different laptops with different model names/numbers/screen sizes. And that's just the laptops. Before any actual customization of RAM, storage capacity, etc. Even a pretty well-known sub-brand of laptops, ThinkPad, now presents you with four top-level choices (Laptops, Yoga, Tablets, Desktops), each of which has between 2 and 5 (apparently) completely different model lines. How do I buy the high-end "ultrabook" ThinkPad that I've heard is nice? I remembered it having "Carbon" in the name, so I searched the page for that and deduced that it's under the "X Series" of laptops. Then I click "Compare X Series Laptops." Then the fun begins. There are literally 14 different models of ThinkPad X1 Carbon, including "Yogas" (I guess it never remembered that I started the process by selecting Laptops).
- leetcrew 7y agoI think you are exaggerating how confusing the apple product stack is. I'm no apple fan and I know roughly what to expect from each model. the air is the low end model (for apple at least); you get this if you want the cheapest possible apple laptop. if you want to spend more money, you pick between the ultraportable macbook or a more powerful macbook pro. I couldn't tell you the difference between all the iphones and ipads off the top of my head, but if you're having a hard time deciding what you want, it's probably because you're not thinking about it the way apple wants you to. it's actually a pretty simple process. 1) look at and touch the different models and pick the form factor you want. 2) increase the specs until it costs as much as you're willing to pay. if the base model of your chosen form factor is too expensive, go back to 1) and pick a different one. if you care about the fact that macs tend to lag the latest processor skus by one or two generations, "you're holding it wrong."
- ChuckNorris89 7y agoWas expecting this. I imagine the Air will also be the first to make the switch to their in-house ARM processors.
- b212 7y agoOnce they move all products to the ARM (is it even possible? I mean Apple is Apple but they can’t put as much effort into CPUs as Intel or AMD - take a look at the latest Ryzens for example :o) will it kill Hackintoshes?
- once-in-a-while 7y agoHard to beat, even for Apple: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/10-14-inch/TUXEDO-InfinityBook-14-v2-passive-/-fanless.tuxedo https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Note...
- wwweston 7y agoMacbook Pro "improvements" over the last 3-7 years: * No more matte display * RAM soldered to the board * SSD soldered in * remove all ports except USB-C * make keyboard worse * remove function keys, replace with touch surface that's redundant at best But it's very thin! And even thinner was the recent Macbook, and if the law of "diminishing returns" matters as little as the usual defenses of all the above tradeoffs in pursuit of light/thin imply, you'd think that that'd be worth keeping. Maybe there is a limit, and Apple's actually reflected on that? Or... maybe it's just a recognition that the Air and Macbook had come to a place where there was little distinguishing them. And that really, the MBP is less and less designed/deployed with actual professionals in mind and more and more meant for a prosumer subsegment. In which case reducing focus to two models (general purpose consumer laptop, light netbook) makes sense.
- hanniabu 7y agoI like my 2013 MBP because the newer thin laptops I just feel like I'm going to break them.
- eanzenberg 7y agoI like my 2019 MBP because it's thin, has a better display, has a great trackpad, decent keyboard, and a touchbar that I use fairly frequently for auto-complete.
- wwweston 7y agoDisplays and trackpads are still something Apple does very well, maybe better than anyone else.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoI can't stand the current MBP trackpad. It's too big and too easy to accidentally touch.
- 7y ago
- TYPE_FASTER 7y agoAnybody run XCode on the Air? How is it? It’s pretty tempting as a MBP no TB replacement.
- iscrewyou 7y agoI feel like they are making way for the 16” MacBook(Pro).
- SkyMarshal 7y agoIs there some credible info about this somewhere, or is this just speculation?
- jasonhansel 7y agoFor all the devs wondering how to replace their MacBook Pros: I highly recommend running Linux on a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I've also heard good things about System76.
- rayiner 7y agoContrary view: https://medium.com/@hkdb/ubuntu-18-04-on-lenovo-x1-carbon-6g-d99d5667d4d5 https://medium.com/@hkdb/ubuntu-18-04-on-lenovo-x1-carbon-6g...
- loudmax 7y agoThat's not a contrary view, that's someone who seems quite pleased with his laptop. Yes it's a lot of tweaking to get the system to work optimally, but that is the nature of open source: you trade convenience for power. I'm pretty happy with the battery life on my X1 Carbon, but I might try some some of the settings from that article.
- v4ult 7y agoThe writer would of had an easier time if he read the Ubuntu docs. 16.04 works flawlessly on the 6th gen X1 Carbon. I've been using it for work for the past 4 months without issue. https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201712-26045/ https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201712-26045/
- adrianratnapala 7y agoHow is that a contrary view. That guy seems very happy with the Ubuntu and X1 combo. Though he does spend a long time obsessing about the battery, after his initial take was "yup, it's good enough for me".
- rayiner 7y agoThe guy initially declares “everything works out of box.” But then he spends a long time “obsessing about the battery” because without good battery life, a laptop is useless as a laptop. As Apple understands, alleviating battery anxiety is key to selling laptops.
- code_duck 7y agoHa, I was waiting for them to update it so I could buy a new one. It has been over 500 days since an update, which was unusual.
- chunsj 7y agoNow, there’s no macbook without screaming fan noise.
- mnm1 7y agoThis is the final "fuck you and fuck off" to professional developers from Apple. I expect the next generation of MBPros (and MBAirs) that are rumored for later this year to continue in this direction giving us developers the middle finger and likely it will continue into next year and beyond. Apple doesn't care. The laptops look great from the outside and most people don't know any better. Everything that makes this machine a laptop is indeed garbage (keyboard, touchpad, screen, cooling) as far as computing is concerned, but when you're a fashion company, computing is almost an afterthought. On the bright side, I'm looking forward to "smart" socks and underwear coming out in a few years from Apple. /s
- pier25 7y agoIf Apple was working on a complete redesign of the MBP with a new keyboard, how long do you think it would take them to release it? And if Apple were indeed working on that wouldn't it make sense to ditch the 12'' MB since it could not accommodate a thicker keyboard? I'm bitter too about what has been happening on the Mac front for the last 5 or so years, but I think Apple is correcting course albeit slowly.
- mnm1 7y agoRumors are a new mbpro is coming this fall. Or next year. So I guess about four to five years or so. It makes sense that they ditched the regular mb because it was garbage. You may be right, and I hope you are, but I doubt it. If they were correcting course why not ditch the touch bar for function keys instead of the other way around? They have both. Their software choices also point to the same thing with sip, their slow phasing out of apps not signed by Apple, and the increasing difficulty in installing and running any other OSes on their hardware, especially new hardware. Even if the new mbpro comes out this year or next with a new redesign, I wouldn't hold my breath that it would be better. It's likely to be worse given so many years of bad design and ideas not only in laptops but in all their products. They are literally making computers for computer illiterate people these days. That's great for the masses who can afford them. It's great for a phone that has very limited functionality and use cases as smart phones tend to have. It's terrible for an alleged general purpose computer.
- sakisv 7y agoIn a twisted way I welcome these news. If they had released a model without touchbar and with improved keyboard I would be really tempted to buy it to replace my XPS. Given their insistence on the touchbar is good way for me to accept that: a) the last good MacBook for me will remain the 2015 model and b) I will have to make do with Linux and XPS.
- exabrial 7y agoThat's because the new Macbook Pros are actually MacBooks. No I/O, no upgradability, gimmicky and useless touchbars, etc
- asdff 7y agoBut finally quad core with a screen that actually fits on a lecture desk.
- multibit 7y agoOn the bright side, as Apple continues to pervert the formerly most used *nix laptop, we may see a surge of interest in Linux. Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu and has an OSX-like aesthetic and simplicity that might appeal to newcomers wanting to switch.
- opportune 7y agoWhy the fuck is Apple getting rid of the option to not have a touch bar on Macbook Pros? They already made it so high-performance macbooks require them but at least you had the option to pick a worse performing model with the actual keys. Does the touchbar really do that well in focus groups? It is pretty universally reviled among all the techie people I know. It breaks one of the most basic principals of a keyboard interface which is that you don't need to look at it to know which button you're pressing. That would be fine if it was just settings like brightness/volume you don't change very often but putting the escape key there was just such an idiotic move I used to consider myself a big macbook pro fan. I would probably continue buying reskins of the 2013 model forever as long as they kept updating the hardware. I would rather the product stagnate than have apple repeatedly make it worse
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- HyperTalk2 7y agoI'm starting to think Apple is being subverted by high level employees who are carrying out directives from someone else, possibly a competing company.
- asdff 7y agoThey sure do have a knack to keep tumbling down the stairs every single product release since Jobs passed on.
- pier25 7y agoMaybe they are trying to get rid of their touch bar stocks :)
- babyslothzoo 7y agoStill has the unreliable keyboard Still has the annoying Touch Bar Still doesn't have a physical ESC key Still has an annoying port situation requiring a half dozen dongles Still is no user serviceable RAM / SSD / battery = Still not a "Pro" laptop