6 ms·

I'm allergic to the "best product x Apple has ever built" line, it is such an obvious manipulative marketing spin. Of course every new device should be the best

by Tichy 14y ago

I'm allergic to the "best product x Apple has ever built" line, it is such an obvious manipulative marketing spin. Of course every new device should be the best they ever built. All the components have been improved - it is just the way computer technology has progressed for a long time now. Also, it is just a slightly slimmer notebook with a higher resolution. It is not "changing computing as we have known it".

rayiner 14y ago
Yet, lots of manufacturers release products that back-slide from their predecessors.
- Tichy 14y ago
  Give examples? I heard a lot of complaints about ThinkPads, but I think that was when they were no longer being made by IBM. Sure, it happens - but I suppose typically if the manufacturer as whole is in decline.
mwhawkins 14y ago
Even as a lifelong PC user, I tend to disagree somewhat. It's hardly just 'a higher resolution and thinner design' by a long shot. There is a lot more here, and I was a huge Apple sceptic in the past. First of all, this is a powerhouse of a machine in a relatively small form factor. It's also one of the first 'mainstream' laptops to feature full-flash storage as stock and not as an available upgrade (ultra books excluded here - I'm talking laptops with serious power, not portable form). Also, there is nothing on the market even remotely close to the Retina display (yet). I'm blown away by its clarity. Its also the quietest laptop I have ever owned, has the best input (trackpad) device, decent battery life, and really good sound. The OS is first-rate, too and beats Windows in form and function handily (although, with a few minor complaints). Full disclosure: The Retina MacBook Pro I'm typing this on is the first Apple computer I have ever bought in my 12+ years of professional IT experience. I've never owned an Apple device prior to this dating all the way back to the 80's. I also own three other PCs, most are relatively new, and for mobility I only own three or four Android devices thus far. Have been running either Windows or Linux for as long as I have been computing.
- Tichy 14y ago
  Of course it is better than most (maybe all) notebooks that came before it. But only slightly better. There have been slim notebooks with fast CPUs and even GPUs before. There have also been very high resolution displays (probably not as high as "retina", but still). The higher resolution is nice, but will it lead to completely new applications that have not been possible before? I have switched over to SSDs for quite a while now - it's nice that Apple does not even offer normal HDs anymore, but again, not a game changer. The rest of your post reads a bit like a marketing spin ("great sound"??) - to be honest I wonder if you were hired to scour the internet for discussion threads of the MBP and chime in with your anecdotes. Realistically speaking, companies must be doing this already.
  - mwhawkins 14y ago
    Not at all. I work in software engineering and project management and was the anti-fanboy for years. What changed my mind was actually giving the Macbook a thorough test drive. I have all SSDs on all my PCs at home, and the Apple still bests them easily. The Retina display is more than just high-resolution, its crisp and clear like nothing I have seen before. Doing web development work, its definitely a great thing to have. As for the cooling system the laptop is dead quiet and the sound is far, far better than the "Beats" audio in any of my new PCs. My late 2011 model HP DV6t quad (Sandy Bridge) sounds like a jet taking off at higher workloads, the trackpad drivers are garbage, and the "full HD" anti-glare screen (which I paid extra for) looks like absolute crap compared to the MacBook's Retina display. Its the little things that Apple pays attention to that matter whereas the "traditional" PC makers are content pushing out mass produced mediocre machines. Like I said, I have multiple PCs at home and have been working with Windows and Linux my entire career in enterprise software engineering.
    - pook1e 14y ago
      > My late 2011 model HP DV6t quad sounds like a jet taking off at higher workloads, the trackpad drivers are garbage, and the "full HD" screen looks like crap compared to the MacBook. Sigh, I hate these arguments. You're comparing a laptop with (currently) a starting price of $899 to a laptop with a starting price of $2199. Do you really expect similar quality? Anecdote time: My 2009 HP Elitebook is extremely quiet under regular workload, has a trackpad I've yet to have a single problem with, and a great screen that rivals the latest non-retina MacBook Pro.
ghshephard 14y ago
I don't recall anybody saying the first macbook air was the "Best product Apple has ever built" - it was _clearly_ a concept piece that i wasn't even tempted to purchased. Too Expensive. Too Slow. Too little storage. No Optical Drive. - it missed the mark on _everything_ except for being small and light. It took a few years before the price came (way) down, it got faster, storage started to recover (a bit) and the lack of optical drive became as irrelevant as not having a floppy. On the flipside - I'm tempted top purchase the 15" MBPro - and, where it not for the still-to-expensive storage and overall too great price, as well as having a display that's probably two years ahead of content/applications capability of supporting it - it would be a great device. Also - nobody got that excited about the MacPro update - it was widely lambasted as too little, too late.
- chime 14y ago
  You're missing the 'x' that the gp implied. Every MacBook is the "Best MacBook Apple has ever built", every Air is the "Best Air Apple has ever built." In that line, the gp's comments make more sense.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    Nobody has suggested that the latest MacPro is the best anything. It was a huge disappointment and Apple fell behind the curve with their release of it. Nobody is that excited about the new MacBook Airs - they are reasonable updates, but the big jump came in 2010, with some dandy performance improvements in 2011. This year was just an evolutionary move - fine for 2010 users, but very few people with a 2011 MBAir are that excited about upgrading. Likewise, the upgrade from the 4 to the 4S wasn't a must upgrade - most pundits indeed, even suggested you could take a pass if you were an iPhone 4 users. The rMBPro, on the other hand, moved the needle. I would reserve the "Best X Apple has ever made" for the 2010 MBAir, iPhone 4, iPad 3 - though, you are right, obviously any product that is better than a previous "best", should, in theory, inherit the next best label. Maybe "Best" has to be judged based on what you expect at any given time to be deserving of that trophy? I haven't played with the rMBPro - so not sure about that yet. I was never that pleased with any of the 3 MBPROs I owned from 2003-2009. They were well built, solid laptops (with the exception of having one battery go all bulgey on me) - but They didn't excite me the way recent products from Apple have. Who knows - I may still be "meh" on the MBPro - it's still pretty heavy. Expensive. Low Storage. And if you use it, sounds like 3.5-5 hours battery is all you can expect. Not to mention that there aren't that many apps or content that can support that crazy display.
achompas 14y ago
Also, it is just a slightly slimmer notebook with a higher resolution. It is not "changing computing as we have known it". Wow. This is like saying "the iPad is just a tablet you can touch." You're completely trivializing the rMBP's benefits. It's not just "slightly slimmer," it's a 15" laptop that weighs 4.6 pounds. I see one laptop in that range (Sony Vaio S series), and it has an i5 and a spinning platter. A "higher resolution" is also too hand-wavey, since the screen has 220 ppi. I couldn't find a 15" screen that comes within 80 ppi of that mark. [0] Apple's ridiculous marketing ("the most magical, splendiferous touchscreen device since the last touchscreen device we produced!") can be too much, but, I mean...have you used one of these? They're amazing in person--it weighs less than my 13" MBP, the screen is infinitely nicer, and apps launch so fast...[1] [0] http://sortable.com/find-laptops/high-PPI-laptops-15-to-16-screens http://sortable.com/find-laptops/high-PPI-laptops-15-to-16-s... [1] Granted, I don't have a SSD in my laptop, but still.
- Tichy 14y ago
  I've had laptops that weigh less than 4 pounds for years. It's nice that we can now have one with a bigger screen, but show me the revolutionary new things you can do with it that you couldn't do before? For what it's worth, I think broad availability of capable netbooks for 300$ was probably more of an evolutionary jump. Or things like the Rhaspberry PI - those things open up new use cases. Like, it makes a difference if everybody can afford to buy a notebook instead of a desktop PC, because it makes mobile computing take off (in turn leading to localized services).
  - achompas 14y ago
    I've had laptops that weigh less than 4 pounds for years. It's nice that we can now have one with a bigger screen, but show me the revolutionary new things you can do with it that you couldn't do before? You're doing it again. Do any of those machines have a quad-core CPU with SSD, 8GB RAM, a 220 ppi screen, and ~7 hours of battery life? I'm not arguing that the rMBP is revolutionary or magical or whatever, but give it it's due: this is a uniquely practical and powerful machine. I'm sure you've used sub-4lb laptops before, but I bet none of them posted Geekbench scores over 7000, much less 13000. [0] [0] http://www.maclife.com/article/features/benchmarking_macbook_pro_retina_display http://www.maclife.com/article/features/benchmarking_macbook...

by Tichy 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago

Yet, lots of manufacturers release products that back-slide from their predecessors.

Tichy 14y ago
Give examples? I heard a lot of complaints about ThinkPads, but I think that was when they were no longer being made by IBM. Sure, it happens - but I suppose typically if the manufacturer as whole is in decline.

mwhawkins 14y ago

Even as a lifelong PC user, I tend to disagree somewhat. It's hardly just 'a higher resolution and thinner design' by a long shot. There is a lot more here, and I was a huge Apple sceptic in the past. First of all, this is a powerhouse of a machine in a relatively small form factor. It's also one of the first 'mainstream' laptops to feature full-flash storage as stock and not as an available upgrade (ultra books excluded here - I'm talking laptops with serious power, not portable form). Also, there is nothing on the market even remotely close to the Retina display (yet). I'm blown away by its clarity. Its also the quietest laptop I have ever owned, has the best input (trackpad) device, decent battery life, and really good sound. The OS is first-rate, too and beats Windows in form and function handily (although, with a few minor complaints). Full disclosure: The Retina MacBook Pro I'm typing this on is the first Apple computer I have ever bought in my 12+ years of professional IT experience. I've never owned an Apple device prior to this dating all the way back to the 80's. I also own three other PCs, most are relatively new, and for mobility I only own three or four Android devices thus far. Have been running either Windows or Linux for as long as I have been computing.

Tichy 14y ago
Of course it is better than most (maybe all) notebooks that came before it. But only slightly better. There have been slim notebooks with fast CPUs and even GPUs before. There have also been very high resolution displays (probably not as high as "retina", but still). The higher resolution is nice, but will it lead to completely new applications that have not been possible before? I have switched over to SSDs for quite a while now - it's nice that Apple does not even offer normal HDs anymore, but again, not a game changer. The rest of your post reads a bit like a marketing spin ("great sound"??) - to be honest I wonder if you were hired to scour the internet for discussion threads of the MBP and chime in with your anecdotes. Realistically speaking, companies must be doing this already.
- mwhawkins 14y ago
  Not at all. I work in software engineering and project management and was the anti-fanboy for years. What changed my mind was actually giving the Macbook a thorough test drive. I have all SSDs on all my PCs at home, and the Apple still bests them easily. The Retina display is more than just high-resolution, its crisp and clear like nothing I have seen before. Doing web development work, its definitely a great thing to have. As for the cooling system the laptop is dead quiet and the sound is far, far better than the "Beats" audio in any of my new PCs. My late 2011 model HP DV6t quad (Sandy Bridge) sounds like a jet taking off at higher workloads, the trackpad drivers are garbage, and the "full HD" anti-glare screen (which I paid extra for) looks like absolute crap compared to the MacBook's Retina display. Its the little things that Apple pays attention to that matter whereas the "traditional" PC makers are content pushing out mass produced mediocre machines. Like I said, I have multiple PCs at home and have been working with Windows and Linux my entire career in enterprise software engineering.
  - pook1e 14y ago
    > My late 2011 model HP DV6t quad sounds like a jet taking off at higher workloads, the trackpad drivers are garbage, and the "full HD" screen looks like crap compared to the MacBook. Sigh, I hate these arguments. You're comparing a laptop with (currently) a starting price of $899 to a laptop with a starting price of $2199. Do you really expect similar quality? Anecdote time: My 2009 HP Elitebook is extremely quiet under regular workload, has a trackpad I've yet to have a single problem with, and a great screen that rivals the latest non-retina MacBook Pro.

ghshephard 14y ago

I don't recall anybody saying the first macbook air was the "Best product Apple has ever built" - it was _clearly_ a concept piece that i wasn't even tempted to purchased. Too Expensive. Too Slow. Too little storage. No Optical Drive. - it missed the mark on _everything_ except for being small and light. It took a few years before the price came (way) down, it got faster, storage started to recover (a bit) and the lack of optical drive became as irrelevant as not having a floppy. On the flipside - I'm tempted top purchase the 15" MBPro - and, where it not for the still-to-expensive storage and overall too great price, as well as having a display that's probably two years ahead of content/applications capability of supporting it - it would be a great device. Also - nobody got that excited about the MacPro update - it was widely lambasted as too little, too late.

chime 14y ago
You're missing the 'x' that the gp implied. Every MacBook is the "Best MacBook Apple has ever built", every Air is the "Best Air Apple has ever built." In that line, the gp's comments make more sense.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  Nobody has suggested that the latest MacPro is the best anything. It was a huge disappointment and Apple fell behind the curve with their release of it. Nobody is that excited about the new MacBook Airs - they are reasonable updates, but the big jump came in 2010, with some dandy performance improvements in 2011. This year was just an evolutionary move - fine for 2010 users, but very few people with a 2011 MBAir are that excited about upgrading. Likewise, the upgrade from the 4 to the 4S wasn't a must upgrade - most pundits indeed, even suggested you could take a pass if you were an iPhone 4 users. The rMBPro, on the other hand, moved the needle. I would reserve the "Best X Apple has ever made" for the 2010 MBAir, iPhone 4, iPad 3 - though, you are right, obviously any product that is better than a previous "best", should, in theory, inherit the next best label. Maybe "Best" has to be judged based on what you expect at any given time to be deserving of that trophy? I haven't played with the rMBPro - so not sure about that yet. I was never that pleased with any of the 3 MBPROs I owned from 2003-2009. They were well built, solid laptops (with the exception of having one battery go all bulgey on me) - but They didn't excite me the way recent products from Apple have. Who knows - I may still be "meh" on the MBPro - it's still pretty heavy. Expensive. Low Storage. And if you use it, sounds like 3.5-5 hours battery is all you can expect. Not to mention that there aren't that many apps or content that can support that crazy display.

achompas 14y ago

Also, it is just a slightly slimmer notebook with a higher resolution. It is not "changing computing as we have known it". Wow. This is like saying "the iPad is just a tablet you can touch." You're completely trivializing the rMBP's benefits. It's not just "slightly slimmer," it's a 15" laptop that weighs 4.6 pounds. I see one laptop in that range (Sony Vaio S series), and it has an i5 and a spinning platter. A "higher resolution" is also too hand-wavey, since the screen has 220 ppi. I couldn't find a 15" screen that comes within 80 ppi of that mark. [0] Apple's ridiculous marketing ("the most magical, splendiferous touchscreen device since the last touchscreen device we produced!") can be too much, but, I mean...have you used one of these? They're amazing in person--it weighs less than my 13" MBP, the screen is infinitely nicer, and apps launch so fast...[1] [0] http://sortable.com/find-laptops/high-PPI-laptops-15-to-16-screens http://sortable.com/find-laptops/high-PPI-laptops-15-to-16-s... [1] Granted, I don't have a SSD in my laptop, but still.

Tichy 14y ago
I've had laptops that weigh less than 4 pounds for years. It's nice that we can now have one with a bigger screen, but show me the revolutionary new things you can do with it that you couldn't do before? For what it's worth, I think broad availability of capable netbooks for 300$ was probably more of an evolutionary jump. Or things like the Rhaspberry PI - those things open up new use cases. Like, it makes a difference if everybody can afford to buy a notebook instead of a desktop PC, because it makes mobile computing take off (in turn leading to localized services).
- achompas 14y ago
  I've had laptops that weigh less than 4 pounds for years. It's nice that we can now have one with a bigger screen, but show me the revolutionary new things you can do with it that you couldn't do before? You're doing it again. Do any of those machines have a quad-core CPU with SSD, 8GB RAM, a 220 ppi screen, and ~7 hours of battery life? I'm not arguing that the rMBP is revolutionary or magical or whatever, but give it it's due: this is a uniquely practical and powerful machine. I'm sure you've used sub-4lb laptops before, but I bet none of them posted Geekbench scores over 7000, much less 13000. [0] [0] http://www.maclife.com/article/features/benchmarking_macbook_pro_retina_display http://www.maclife.com/article/features/benchmarking_macbook...