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The new MacBook
- c0wb0yc0d3r 12y agoI see they are pushing tethering to an iPhone. Does you still have to pay the carrier for that feature?
- dceddia 12y agoI know that at least AT&T isn't charging for this right now. In fact, my bill went DOWN when I switched from a 250mb/450minute/limited texts plan to a 1gb/unlimited talk/texts plan that included tethering. The tethering isn't a separate item on the bill. But it's possible that older plans won't "support" it - I think that was the case with mine.
- sosborn 12y agoIt depends on the carrier. No issues doing this with Verizon.
- mmastrac 12y agoUSB-C as the "one connector to rule them all" is the big news. That's the end of MagSafe and the exploding era of USB-C docking stations that work for multiple devices. I think we'll start to see an era of expandable computing coming up soon: USB-C is a perfect connector to push your data and state into a larger desktop experience. Why not carry around your laptop in tablet form when you are mobile? [1] [1] https://grack.com/blog/2015/01/16/usb-31-ara-are-the-convergence-end-game/ https://grack.com/blog/2015/01/16/usb-31-ara-are-the-converg...
- DannyBee 12y agoI'm glad apple picked this up after so many others pushed it forward :) But 1 port is sad, because now you have to choose between a lot of things (charging, using hdmi, whatever)
- function_seven 12y agoI will guarantee you that their charger will have a port on it to pass through. Still awkward, but I can't imagine that they'd force users to choose between data and power on that one port.
- geoelectric 12y agoI just hope the passthrough is up near the part that plugs into the laptop, or it's going to be awfully inconvenient for a lot of different kinds of peripherals.
- function_seven 12y agoLooks like I had it backwards. It's the other items that pass through the USB C port. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multiport-adapter http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip... I wish the power adapter itself would also have the passthrough.
- bane 12y agoIt just means we're going to stay stuck in dongle hell. When I'm on the road the minimalism of a Mac is nice, but at my desk, hooked up to everything I really need for heavy work, my desktop is a cluster-f of cables and adapters and wires.
- mmastrac 12y agoTo be fair, it's at least a single standard dongle hell. And now with USB-C you can have thunderbolt-style docks that give you a near-universal docking experience (ie: DVI/HDMI/dozens of USB ports/DVD drive/power) with a single cable when you're at your desk.
- Someone1234 12y agoI agree, that is the theory. However we might be at least a year from such hubs being affordable. I guess what I am saying is, I wouldn't want to be queued outside the Apple store for one of these. The supporting accessories aren't there yet (yes, even with Apple's two hubs/adapters). However when they do the refresh on this line, one or two years from now, the supporting hubs, wires, and so on will be available and it will be a very fun experience.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoIs this the end of Thunderbolt as well?
- mmastrac 12y agoThunderbolt runs over USB-C, as well as DisplayPort. USB 3.1 features re-configurable lines that can negotiate almost any protocol. [1] [2] [1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/8558/displayport-alternate-mode-for-usb-typec-announced http://www.anandtech.com/show/8558/displayport-alternate-mod... [2] http://www.anandtech.com/show/8539/usb-power-delivery-v20-and-billboard-device-class-v10-specifications-finalized http://www.anandtech.com/show/8539/usb-power-delivery-v20-an...
- afandian 12y agoI've not read those docs (sorry) but what if I want to run DisplayPort for my monitor and simultaneously plug in an external USB drive? Can a single line switch between protocols?
- mmastrac 12y agoYes you can. IIRC you can run USB3.x-speed devices and one alt-mode over a single line.
- lsaferite 12y agoThey will be able to MUX two DP lanes onto two of the USB SS lanes and keep one for USB 3.1 as well. Also, there are dedicated wires for USB 2.0 as well that are separate from the SS lanes.
- djrogers 12y agoDisplayport != Thunderbolt. Displayport is a protocol that can run over a thunderbolt port, but the thunderbolt spec includes much more than that. I don' believe we'll be seeing the 40Gbps PCI extension that is today's thunderbolt over USB 3.1.
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- jkot 12y agoI am not too happy about that. HP already has USB charger for laptop, and it had bunch of problems, including fire hazard. That was just ARM chromebook, not sure how it will on 'full' mac. EDIT: there are physical limitations how electric current is transferred. USB contacts do not have good shape and will probably deteriorate more quickly.
- headShrinker 12y agoIn the old days, HP had a high standard of quality. More recently, almost coinciding with the introduction of inkjet printers, HP quality standards have slipped to a new dismal low. I'm not surprised to hear of fires.
- jkot 12y agoUSB connector was not simply designed for 10 amps or how much they push through it.
- mark_l_watson 12y agoI just purchased a little HP 11" Stream, and the build quality is pretty good - I was pleasantly surprised, especially for a $199 laptop that includes $125 in free software coupons. (Pro-tip: if you need a Windows laptop, but it directly from Microsoft so you don't get any crap-ware loaded on it.) That said, I am kind of looking forward to my (about) 4 year old MacBook Air eventually dying and then I will buy the new model that was announced today :-) MacBooks are beautiful.
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoMy only regret is that MagSafe is actually really cool. I think I'd have to say it's worth it for full standards-compliance, though.
- jowiar 12y agoBattery life is long enough such that MagSafe isn't as necessary as it used to be. Back when you had to haul your power cord to meetings, coffeeshops, and the like, cord tripping was a serious problem. Now? Far less so.
- Xylakant 12y agoHave kids and/or pets run around in the same area where your computer is plugged in. Sooner or later one is going to tear on the cord - heck, even I do manage from time to time. And the connector looks so flimsy I'm afraid one time is all it's going to take. Nah, macsafe was the best invention ever in terms of charging.
- chockablock 12y agoparent's point is that your laptop now spends far less time plugged in during use. I bet consumer behavior has changed, and that laptops with 10+hr battery life probably get charged more like phones: overnight and in a safe location.
- Xylakant 12y agoso I have a reduced chance of incident occurrence, but if it does, it's probably fatal vs. a high chance of non-fatal incident. Bad trade if you ask me.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- cweiss 12y agoCounter-point: As not-the-primary-computer, my MBA is plugged in 80% of the time and gets moved from place to place as my crowded workspace dictates. I can't count the number of times I've accidentally yanked the Magsafe connector out trying to move it just out of cable reach because I needed to get at something underneath. Granted, a lot of that is learned behavior because I know I can yank the Magsafe out without incurring a $500 repair.
- wahsd 12y agoI am a bit on the fence about them seemingly jettisoning the lighting connector? Why go with a plug that has a delicate prong in the center rather than a plug with the contacts around the perimeter? Does anyone know if there was any emphasis put on making USB-C less flimsy and delicate?
- grandalf 12y agoIt will just be so nice to have the port be standardized.
- fuzzywalrus 12y agoI'll add another question: Does USB-C have a spec for requesting additional wattage? Example: I have a USB-C Printer/Hard drive/or otherwise, and plug in my MacBook Air, will it charge my MacBook or will I need an intermediate like a specialty hub to charge? This seems egregious if every device needs to provide power for the potential of charging device in question...
- sharth 12y agohttp://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/ http://www.usb.org/developers/powerdelivery/
- ghostly_s 12y agoThere's actually a supplemental spec, USB-PD(Power Delivery) which now accopmanies USB 3.0 and addresses this. It is carried over the USB physical layer but does not rely on the data layer for communication.
- ghostly_s 12y agoTo answer more specifically; yes— not only is every node in the bus network addressable for power needs and capabilities, even each of the two ends of a cable is a separately addressable node (mostly used to figure out which way a swappable cable is oriented, I think).
- azdle 12y agoIt does, but it's not a requirement for all devices so you may or may not need a hub to provide power back to the laptop depending on the device. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_Power_Delivery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#USB_Power_Delivery
- swalsh 12y agoI wonder if the iPhone 6S will have a usb-c port that lets you dock the phone and use it for work.
- Grazester 12y agoThat is not going to happen. Apple licenses out the use of its connectors for docking stations and other accessory usage. If they just drop the lightening connector on the iphone this soon after implementing it, I dont think manufacturers of these accessories would very happy about that.
- ghostly_s 12y agoWhy would Apple start giving a flying f about accessory manufacturers?
- Grazester 12y agoBecause they are the ones that support Apple's products and pay a license to do so. If you change standards every Monday morning then these manufacturer would have to retool their products which would no doubt cost them.
- ghostly_s 12y agoApple has a long history of completely disregarding the needs or desires of accessory manufacturers, and only started the MFi program after years of categorically responding with cease-and-desist letters. The program is primarily in serving Apple's interests in a level of reliability in the accessory ecosystem; it's an absolutely insignificant revenue stream.
- baddox 12y agoIs this really the case? They certainly seemed to stick with the 30 pin connector for far longer than they had any reason to other than the massive third party accessory/dock/speaker market.
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- joshvm 12y agoIt also looks like (finally) the complete modularisation of the power supply. You should be able to have a localised wall cable, power brick and separate USB cable to the computer. In principle this should mean an end to ridiculously overpriced power supplies (currently north of £60). It's even more galling given that they realised the cables were so poorly made that US customers have a special return program for fraying while the rest of the world doesn't - hooray for litigation culture? The new 29W brick currently costs £40 and the 2m USB-C cable £25. Typically it's not the brick that fails, it's the poor strain relief on the laptop cable. Being able to replace just the cable with (probably) an aftermarket product is a massive step up.
- scandinavian 12y ago£25 for a 2m cable is ridiculous.
- whytry 12y agoWhy don't you just sell me a prison?
- blhack 12y agoThank god. The magsafe adapter is cool, but has some serious flaws to it. Namely: it's magnetic, so any sort of [ferrous] metal dust will accumulate inside of it, preventing you from getting a good seal on the connector. If you work in any environment other than a sterile coffee shop, this will be a huge problem for you. I spend almost all of my time working in a hackerspace, and fiddling with my power connector on my less than 1 year old laptop is a constant annoyance.
- ddoolin 12y agoI've had three MBPs over the course of a few years and never had this issue. Though, I have noticed a very small dust build up but it definitely hasn't compromised the magnetic seal. Is it an older version? I don't plug/unplug a whole lot so that may also be contributing.
- robotresearcher 12y agoIt is a problem if your environment includes ferro-magnetic crud. All my lab's magsafe ports are wobbly and it's hard to clean them out.
- stcredzero 12y agoStrong adhesives are often a good way to defeat magnets. (I've used this principle, but not in the specific context of removing magnetic crud from inside a magsafe plug.) A properly designed magsafe power plug would have a way of either easily replacing the plug or removing/defeating the magnet.
- robotresearcher 12y agoThanks, that's a good tip.
- trose 12y agoNot to be a dick here but I think you're in a minority. I dont think many users are going to run into this issue.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Crito 12y agoI am guessing the logic here is that everyone uses wireless mice, or that anyone with a laptop doesn't use an external mouse. I mean, I used a wired mouse, and I'm guessing you do as well, but it seems like wired mouse users are not taken seriously anymore.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- blkhp19 12y agoYou use a wired mouse?
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- jayfuerstenberg 12y agoYou don't need to have the mouse on the left side. Either go with bluetooth or a cable longer than 20cm.
- ben174 12y agoI don't know anyone who uses a wired mouse anymore. Especially on a laptop.
- krapp 12y agoI still use a wired mouse and a wired keyboard for my laptop (since I prefer the size and of a standard keyboard to the little rubber chiclets HP calls a keyboard.) It has literally all the advantages of a wireless setup, without ever having to worry about batteries. This trend in laptop design towards providing fewer ports for what seems to be little more than aesthetics seems a bit backwards.
- Finbarr 12y agoSeems like there are some new $79 adapters to split out the USB-C port into power, usb and av[1]/vga[2]. [1] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport-adapter http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av... [2] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multiport-adapter http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...
- Someone1234 12y agoThanks for posting that. I think when the rumour was spreading about USB-C/loss of Magsafe everyone was asking if Apple was going to do something like that, or even if it was feasible to both charge AND provide back out USB/Mini-Displayport ports. I hope IFixIt guys takes those things apart, I bet they have their own little OS and processor just like we've seen in previous Apple "adapters."
- drinchev 12y agoOne more thing to carry in the bag I guess.
- stcredzero 12y agoThat's fine for portability...except that it's a whopping $79. What we also want is a hub into which we can plug our monitors and additional storage. For desktop use, this should have a longer cord, of course. (There are such hubs for USB 3, which can already be bought for ~$79 t0 ~$250 depending on what you want out of video compatibility.
- cheald 12y agoAs a guy with small children, the loss of MagSafe is actually a huge downgrade for me. The number of times MagSafe has saved my laptop and/or power cable from damage after a child blitzed through the living room and tripped over the power cable is not insignificant.
- safepants 12y agoi think the idea is not to have it plugged in to power while using it, only charge overnight
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- cheald 12y agoThat's a fine intention, but I sometimes like to compile code or use Chrome.
- jbrooksuk 12y agoI don't think that you're the target audience - along with the majority of us here.
- nostrademons 12y agoThis seems to be true, but then I wonder who they expect to develop the software for their target audience?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Gustomaximus 12y ago> Why not carry around your laptop in tablet form when you are mobile? For me I prefer a laptop because its workable on the lap and small surfaces. I have seriously considered a Surface Pro but using a kick stand doesn't work on a bus/train/lounge which are common usages for me when on the move. And given tablets are about the same size as an ultrabook I may as well get the additional usage benefit. If I did want the mobile tablet form I would prefer a larger size phone that docks and become my desktop when at home/work.
- ericfrederich 12y agoCool article. Seems like you need to have managed source code to transplant an application from one type of processor to another. Java, .NET, Dalvik, etc all fit this category. I wonder if we'll start seeing fat binaries for native code that ship with LLVM IR so that even C and C++ code can be transplanted from your phone's ARM processor to your desktop's Intel.
- dchuk 12y agoSay what you will about the logic behind a single port for everything (as far as I know this is the first computer to do this so there's nothing to compare it to), this Air is a pretty drastic change from what we're all used to when it comes to laptops. We're basically hitting the limits of thinness at this point right?
- drblast 12y agoI'd hate to have to worry that I'll cut myself on my laptop. Is there anyone that's super-excited about a thinner Air? My preference is always for greater battery life. I'm curious if there are people that wish their already thin laptop were even thinner, and if so, why?
- mmastrac 12y agoI'd prefer a thicker laptop with better battery life myself. I ended up buying a batterybox to extend the life of my current device when I'm mobile. I suppose that being thinner and dying sooner gives us the option to just throw-and-go without much weight if you don't require a long period of computing.
- dchuk 12y agoThe combo of thinner/lighter/no fan is pretty awesome in my opinion. These aren't for peopled doing hardcore computing, they're for people doing hardcore commuting really.
- mwcampbell 12y agoDo you have a source for the "no fan" bit? If the Core M processor can deliver the same performance as a Haswell ultrabook processor (i.e. the previous Air) without requiring a fan or getting unreasonably hot, I think that's a pretty nice feature.
- Jtsummers 12y agoIt was one of the first things mentioned in the presentation. Pic from Ars: http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-march-9-spring-forward-event/images/DSC00066.JPG http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-march-9-spring-forward-ev...
- xienze 12y agoThere were "artist renderings" of this thing that leaked a while back. They were pretty much 100% on the money, the big thing being the USB-C port.
- jzelinskie 12y agoIIRC, the leaked renderings had the power key where the esc key is -- so they were close, but not final.
- colinramsay 12y agoAre there things here where Apple is significantly further ahead than the competition? Innovating on keyboards, trackpad, battery life, power usage and form factor - there just seem to be innovating simultaneously on more levels than the competition. Another thing - that vibrating trackpad gizmo feels like a couple of innovations away from true touch feedback on an iPhone? Any thoughts?
- pconner 12y agoYou get diminishing returns on "innovation" when working inside an existing paradigm. Companies are rarely significantly further ahead of their competitors unless they invent or popularize a new class of product.
- jameshart 12y agoApple's role here is often to be more opinionated, or braver, than others. They were the first to adopt USB, first to stop shipping floppy drives, first to ditch optical drives, first to make high-DPI ('retina') displays a standard feature... they are willing to be the one who goes out there and says 'we all know this is where things are going - so let's quit pussy-footing around and just do it'. This new MacBook announcement was just item after item of taking things to the next logical step, and it's setting a new bar which every other laptop manufacturer out there will now have to meet.
- cma 12y agoPlenty of laptop manufacturers had laptops without optical drives before Apple, so I'm guessing you mean across the whole line?
- jameshart 12y agoI said first to ditch optical drives, not first to add them. The MBA was, at the time of its launch, controversial for its lack of a DVD drive. The 'air' referred to the fact it got all its software over the network - which was wireless, because it also lacked ethernet (also controversial).
- mdeslaur 12y agoSeriously? Couldn't they have put _two_ ports in it so you can plug something in while it's being charged without lugging around a usb hub?
- pisarzp 12y agoI really hope that all the gadget will just be stackable...
- Osmium 12y agoI believe (someone correct me if this is wrong?) that you can in principle daisy chain a USB-C connector for both data and power?
- thedufer 12y agoThe USB 3.1 spec has separate pinouts for power out and power in, so this should be possible. Anyone who wants to use the USB for peripherals regularly will just need a hub.
- acomjean 12y agoThis won't work well when using an air to do presentations and you can't switch between a monitor and power.... The slightly cynical me tends to think the thunderbolt port was great and on every mac. now new adapters...
- look_lookatme 12y agoPresumably accessory manufacturers will create peripherals that allow video out + power at the same time?
- exprL 12y agoThat's the stopgap solution, I think. Looking at the larger picture, it's silly that a projector only looks for video-in, instead of video-in/power-out, considering it's already plugged to a wall outlet.
- blawa 12y agoI love my Surface Pro 3, thank you very much :-)
- nullrouted 12y agoWay to add to the discussion....
- roho 12y agoThreads and threads of comments and this one was most attractive. I'm over the fashion show and though I appreciate Apple pushing the industry by ignoring the standards I'm tired of collecting adapters. As far as software is concerned, I spend more time working around it than with it. I've been holding out, with envy, glancing at my coworkers deving on their new Surface Pro 3s, waiting for my chance at the MacBook/iPad Air combo. But it's Apple. They are obviously doing plenty of things right and at this point they have terminal nerds arguing and soccer moms stocking up.
- fit2rule 12y agoHow does Linux run on the SP3? I'm considering moving from Apple one my rMBP bites the dust - is the SP3 fully Linux-compatible, do you know by chance?
- blawa 12y agoSorry, I don't know about that. Would this help: http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-ubuntu-on-the-surface-pro-3-1594864/ http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-ubun... ?
- MBCook 12y agoNoticed the changed the headline? The Air still exists and is NOT replaced by this. I believe it's staying because it's non-retina, but I may be wrong. Either way, they seem to have made a call a bit too early when posting this.
- baddox 12y agoThat's not an uncommon practice. I believe there was a non-Retina Macbook Pro in the product line for quite a while after the introduction of the Retina Macbook Pro.
- proggR 12y agoThere's still one left (I just got one). The pricing model of the Retina MBPs is just craziness to me. To get larger storage sizes you have to jump entire model lines to get it, you can't just upgrade storage on them.
- MiguelHudnandez 12y agoFor what it's worth, you can replace the SSD in a Retina MacBook Pro with third party hardware. https://www.google.com/shopping/product/12203990123520892001 https://www.google.com/shopping/product/12203990123520892001 http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pro-retina-display-faq/macbook-pro-retina-display-how-to-upgrade-ssd-storage.html http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pr...
- imeron 12y agoJust for the older Retina models. Copied from the link you provided: "Specifically, the "Mid-2012" and "Early 2013" models use a 6 Gb/s SATA-based SSD whereas the "Late 2013" and "Mid-2014" models use a PCIe 2.0-based SSD. These SSD modules are neither interchangeable nor backwards compatible."
- MiguelHudnandez 12y ago
- dchuk 12y agoWhat's interesting to me as well is that they don't seem to have announced any sort of dock or usb hub or even really mentioned what the charging brick looks like right? That seems like a really important thing to cover when announcing you have 1 port for all peripherals now.
- jameshart 12y agoright - if the charging brick has a conventional USB port and a displayport out on it, a lot of people's concerns go away.
- xngzng 12y agoApple most likely will release a new Thunderbolt Display (probably with name change, Apply Display?) that can act as USB-C hub. It is not ready I guess, this new MacBook also is available about one month later.
- thesimon 12y ago1.2Ghz processor seems like a dealbreaker for professional applications (Coding, Video editing) but for applications the Air was used before it actually seems okay.
- rsynnott 12y agoI have a 1.7GHz 2012 MBA, and have used the more recent 1.3GHz Haswell version, which is a little faster (clock speed is not everything). It's fine for programming, though it does perhaps push Scala compile times into annoying territory. Now, that said, this is a Core M; it may end up a little slower than the current Macbook Air.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ssmoot 12y agoThis is my worry. Can the 1.2GHz version run IntelliJ and SBT comfortably "for the most part" (I don't really mind if a clean compile takes ~30% longer) or will I wish I'd bought the 13" i7 MBA? I wish I knew how to find compiler benchmarks for these CPUs. Or even better how it would compare to the i7 3770 in my iMac...
- cmg 12y agoThis is the new laptop for the casual user who's browsing Facebook, maybe typing something up in Word/Pages, and listening to iTunes. I was pretty interested until I saw that it's a Core M, and won't replace my I7 anytime soon for web development with multiple virtualmachines and light video editing.
- geoelectric 12y agoThe CPU is a little worrisome for me too. I don't do a lot that stresses the i7 in my 2011 Air, but I don't have a sense of how much slower a Core M is and what that'll mean day to day. Edit: chased down some benchmarks, and it's quite a bit slower than any current i-series combo, though the turbo makes up for it some (probably at steep cost to battery life).
- jkot 12y agoI am bit disappointed. Dell has similar sized laptop, with bigger display, smaller bezel and higher resolution. http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd
- BryantD 12y agoWell. 25% heavier. Edit: which is not to say that the new MacBook is better; I'm just saying there are tradeoffs here. They both look pretty good to me.
- reustle 12y agoIs 25% heavier on such a light laptop that big of a difference at the end of the day?
- nfoz 12y agoOne will be comfortable in a purse, and the other will not. There are different target audiences here, and thankfully, there are different products from different competitors to choose from.
- bitwize 12y agoNo wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
- geoelectric 12y agoNo wireless?
- codezero 12y agoThis is a joke referring to how Slashdot made fun of the iPod when it came out: http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ip...
- itsbits 12y agoOne only port...Data Vs Power??..I hope they thought it through..
- Ezhik 12y agoNo (standard) USB port. Weird. I wonder if it'll ship with a USB cable? To be honest, the one USB device that I use the most is my mouse, and I suppose Apple expects me to get a wireless one, and that is fine. But what about stuff like USB drives? I am not looking forward to not being able to just give somebody a file on a USB drive because they forgot their OTG cable.
- zodvik 12y agoIt does have a USB-C port.
- sharth 12y agoUSB Type C to USB Standard A Receptacle adapters are supported by the USB specification. As I understand things, the desire from the USB-IF is to basically have USB Type A and Type B start to disappear. Until we get to that critical mass point... Yeah. It'll be annoying. But hopefully we will get to enjoy this standard for at least a few years before it is replaced.
- higherpurpose 12y agoThey messed up the resolution. No more "4x the resolution" as "retina" anymore for Apple devices, it seems. It's the end of that, as we've seen with the new iPhones. So now developers will have to target those resolutions exactly as they are. No more "elegant scaling" and whatnot.
- wnissen 12y ago226 ppi, apparently. Straight pixel doubling would be a pretty small screen in terms of logical pixels, to be sure.
- rsynnott 12y ago> So now developers will have to target those resolutions exactly as they are. People writing MacOS software do not typically target a particular number of pixels; it's a windowed operating system. One point will be 2x2 pixels, as on the retina MBP and iMac, and on all retina iOS devices except the big iPhone (where one point is 3x3 pixels).
- sergiotapia 12y agoI'm disappointed that this has only one port. I shouldn't have to choose between charging my laptop and using my USB port for something. Having said that, battery power is my number 1 priority when buying a laptop. My 2013 Macbook Air is great in this regard, it charges to full in 40 minutes and lasts for a long ass time. If this new model has even better battery tech, I'm all for it.
- Yhippa 12y agoThat is odd. I wonder if we'll see something like USB Type-C octopus connectors protruding from there that might let you charge and connect other things?
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoBattery is about 3h worse than the MBA 13'. The port sucks but usually anything you want to plug in for longer periods of time are not a problem. i.e., a USB stick? Take out charger, plug in, transfer files, put charger back in. No problem. A mouse or keyboard or monitor? Well you're probably at home or work, so you buy a usb hub and stick it on your desk. Problem solved. It sucks as the new MB is supposed to be the lightest most portable Mac in the lineup, dedicated hubs don't fit that story. And it's another $50-150 depending on if you need 1 or 2, or a fancy slick one. Me I'm just gonna go with the refreshed 2015 MBA 13'. Better battery, 1 inch bigger screen, a lot cheaper with all the ports I need and hey, a better processor, too (1.6gh instead of 1.4 and HD 6000 instead of HD 5000 on the new 2015 version versus the older 2014 one).
- bryanlarsen 12y agoThe obvious end game for USB 3.1 type C is replacing your laptop with a phone. USB 3.1 type C is the "universal docking station", providing power, data & display over a single cable. Obviously useful for a laptop, but even more useful to a phone. Apple obviously could merge OSX & iOS into a single OS, but I have real difficulty seeing them doing that. (It also seems unlikely that they'll replace Lightning with USB 3.1 type C). It seems much more likely that Ubuntu, Microsoft and possibly Google are going to go there first. By pushing USB 3.1 type C, Apple really seems to be opening doors for their competitors...
- mmastrac 12y agoExactly. And modular smartphones as well (see this submission) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9172605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9172605
- Brakenshire 12y agoBut improving life for their customers. So good on them.
- djrogers 12y agoThis is actually called simply MacBook (no Air). The Air remains a lower cost alternative.
- Opossum 12y agoThey actually introduced a new line of laptops called the MacBook (so the title is technically incorrect). The existing MacBook Airs and 13" MacBook Pro got minor refreshes. Interestingly no refreshes on the 15" Pros.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y agoI think the single port is a deal breaker for me-I really like the 12 inch form factor (finally!) but this is too. But at least it starts out with 8GB of RAM-I wouldn't have put it past Apple to put only 4 in the base model.
- mironathetin 12y agoApple supplies an adapter with usb, vga or hdmi ports. From there, we are back to the usb hub on the desk. The adapter costs only 79$ (:o)
- Animats 12y ago"designed for a world where your primary computing device is your smartphone, not your laptop." So it's a laptop for people who don't do any real computing on their laptop?
- DIVx0 12y agoI'm really sorry to see magsafe go. Between my dogs and kids I would have gone though a dozen macbooks without magsafe. I sincerely hope this no magsafe or single port thing goes into the MBPs as well.
- bergie 12y ago9h of battery life means you don't have to be constantly plugged in -- just charge it at night, like you do with a phone
- nijiko 12y agoIt will probably be closer to 6h of actual usage.
- aqme28 12y agoEspecially after you've been using the computer for a year.
- tgcordell 12y agoApple's battery tests are much more real world than I have to translate for other companies.
- duskwuff 12y agoApple's laptop battery life estimates have historically been pretty on-point -- I've found that they often hit, or even exceed, the estimates in real-life usage. I see no reason to imagine their latest laptop is any different.
- sfeng 12y agoThis is always so interesting to me, because as a person without dogs or children, the magsafe adapter has only ever been annoying. It seems like the world is divided into people with small creatures who love the magsafe, and people without who don't get it.
- 12y ago
- koof 12y agoMan, there's something about a gold laptop that just makes me want to never give money to a company again.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y agoIt seems Apple has settled on the same corporate colour scheme for everything except watch straps and budget iPhones - champagne, space gray, and white. From a design POV, I'd have loved to see this in more cheerful colours. I don't think it would have disappointed the target market, either.
- koof 12y agoJobs always said stuff like computers were the bicycles of the mind right? Here's your gold bicycle.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y agoGiven the spec, maybe it's more of a gold scooter.
- mahyarm 12y agoThere are market segments (hint: china & others) that LOVE the gold color. You don't have to buy it.
- koof 12y agoYep, I was saying that too!
- tabrischen 12y agoAgreed. My first instinct is why is this in gold? Why is everything in gold?
- mrinterweb 12y agoConsidering the $10,000+ price tag on the gold Apple Watch, I'm surprised their gold MacBook isn't priced for high-end luxury consumer.
- enahs-sf 12y agoReally hoping this can at least be bumped to 16gb of RAM. Processing power seems diminutive to say the least. I guess this will just be a good looking, fancy SSH machine for me.
- jfernandez 12y agoAccidentally clipping the power cable is something I definitely got used to not worrying about anymore. I'm loving the single mother-of-all ports USB-C will provide but I highly appreciated the magnet component of MagSafe..
- stcredzero 12y agoI wonder if someone can come up with a "mag-breakaway" adaptor for USB-C? It's a "null" adaptor -- it has USB-C female and USB-C male -- but it splits down the center and is held together by magnets. You can just put one on the end of your USB power adaptor. There you go: you have your Magsafe back again.
- Someone1234 12y agoThat sounds really cool. I'd buy that. Off the top of my head the only concern is: How do you turn on/off the flow as the magnets lose contact? Last thing you want is arching as it comes apart.
- danpat 12y agoAll connections arc as they come apart, it's just that the arc size is a function of the dielectric medium (air?), potential difference (voltage) and current. You design for "number of disconnects" and choose materials and power design so that the connector will survive as long as specified. Apple MagSafe connectors are on the same voltage (20V) as these new Type C connectors, although Type C seems rated for a higher current (5A). Looking at the pinout, the GND and VBUS are a bit longer, so will disconnect last upon removal. This may be to allow for the voltage to be dropped in anticipation of a disconnect, but you'd need enough intelligence at the power supply end to notice that. Lowering the voltage prior to disconnect would reduce the arc size.
- sterlingross 12y agoNo only that, but clipping power is much safer than a data stream in mid transfer.
- 12y ago
- unicornporn 12y agoSo this be replacing the 11" Airs? If so I'll be the first to get a grab the old machine. No ports no buy.
- jjcm 12y agoNope, old air line was updated with faster processors as well. This is being released in addition to the old style airs.
- brador 12y agoI didn't even know there was a show today. From a long time Apple fanboy, I think that says a lot about what this company has left in free marketing from the internet channels. I would say the free ride is over for Apple and they're now just another company doing things in the mosh pit.
- jbhatab 12y agoI think they understand marketing just fine and focus on the broader mainstream audience now.
- brador 12y agoBroader mainstream audience is fickle and shows loyalty to nothing (see Nintendo Wii -> Wii U)
- gress 12y agoSo you read no technology blogs or news sources? This has been anticipated for months.
- brador 12y agoI believe the market that anticipates an Apple keynote is shrinking. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
- pwenzel 12y agoCorrected headline should read "Apple: Fuck everything, we're doing one connector."
- wz1000 12y ago> Taptic engine > Force Touch trackpad I'm annoyed by senseless techno-marketing jargon.
- gress 12y agoWhat would you rather they said?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- amyjess 12y ago"Force touch" sounds like something you wouldn't want to advertise.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y agoIt sounds like a Jedi power.
- paulornothing 12y agoI think this is the most important announcement from the event. Sadly all the click bait news will be about how expensive the Gold Watch will be. This laptop is extremely light and has good specs.
- akhilcacharya 12y agoI'm anticipating a large market for wireless USB adapters using AC/WifiDirect.
- ComputerGuru 12y agoNo new 15" MacBook Pro? I wonder when that will be coming.
- sohailk 12y agowhenever intel comes out with their new broadwell CPUs (different to the newly released macbook version).
- mhuffman 12y agoThank you! It is hard for me to believe that macbooks (that receive all the attention) are always getting the royal treatment, when macbook pros are more expensive, and are (regularly) paid for by a business. Furthermore, my niece in college does not need a new macbook as often as I (as a professional) need a new macbook pro!
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- nsxwolf 12y agoSo someone had it nearly exactly right with those renders that were floating around, except the power and escape key are not reversed. Glad that turned out not to be the case.
- reilly3000 12y agoI found it telling that nothing about iCloud has changed. It seems that Apple has decided to be a hardware company, and frankly they are damn good at it. I wish that they would own that and unlock the iDrive so we can all interface with their amazing hardware.
- SG- 12y agoGive it time. For one this isn't WWDC, this was a special event for specific products. iCloud has been getting better over time for users and devs and gaining new features, I'm sure it will continue to do so. And while Apple continues to make money from hardware, they are not just a hardware operation, they provide an entire platform and ecosystem which iCloud is part of.
- rohunati 12y agoAnybody know how the headphone jack will work?
- chockablock 12y agoThe MacBook appears to have a standard headphone jack on the side opposite the USB-C connector. (Can be seen in the picture of the space black model at the very bottom of the linked page.)
- brandon272 12y agoIt has a headphone jack.
- artimaeis 12y ago> "Headphone/optical digital audio output (minijack)" Looks like they're going with the same mini-TOSLINK/3.5mm stereo jack that they've gone with in the past.
- sauere 12y agoIf i was to buy a new MacBook today it would definitely be the 13" Air or Pro. It's a cool device, but not for anyone doing serious dev work. The DO-IT-ALL-USB-C might be a neat idea, but it practice it means that i have to carry a ton of (expensive!) adapters around with me for the next few years. And then there is performance. I can live with 1,5GHz /w Turbo or whatever.... but 1,1GHz? That is painful.
- olso 12y agoI want to buy the updated 13". How much RAM does Yosemite take up? Not sure if I should go for the 16 GB version.
- nixgeek 12y agoBuy as much as you can afford. If you expect to be using this laptop in 4-5 years time, the OSX and applications of that era will probably only perform well on >8GB RAM.
- ghshephard 12y agoThat used to be the theory - but four years now, and I've been fine with 8 GB, more than fine. I wouldn't recommend purchasing more right now - Unless you have special requirements (Running Oracle, or some intense image management/CAD system/Development platform) - Wait for the next round of upgrades in 5 years to see if more than 8 GB is needed - I'm guessing it probably won't be even then.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoThanks for the comment. Looking to buy 8gb soon, but it's disheartening to hear people call it sluggish or saying they're pushing 16gb let alone 8. Hell I don't know how the people with 4 do it! In any case it's always useful to hear what people are actually doing. Can't imagine pushing 16gb when doing some basic front end work for example.
- 12y ago
- niix 12y agoStill seems to be that the 13 in MBP w/ retina is best compared to the new Macbook. http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/results/?product1=macbook&product2=macbook-pro-retina-13 http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/results/?product1=macbook&p...
- usaphp 12y agoIt's not MacBook Air, its called Macbook.
- dang 12y agoWe changed the url from http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/09/apple-introduces-a-reinvented-macbook-air/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/09/apple-introduces-a-reinvent... to Apple's page for this product, since it was making the front page repeatedly and there shouldn't be two threads on the same thing.
- alain94040 12y agoHN really needs a feature where you can combine multiple links into one discussion. Techmeme does this very well.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jrochkind1 12y agoDo I understand right that it's got one port, which can be used for either power or USB, but not both at once? Man, that's the future? I was hoping they'd give it two USB ports, if it was supposed to serve as the new full powered macbook. It never occured to me they'd actually take away a port, and give you charging or USB peripheral but not both at once. Bah humbug.
- tjl 12y agoYou can do both at once over the port, you'd just need a hub. It's not really the new "full powered" MacBook. Look at the processors it uses. It's intended to a a good performance, lightweight laptop. Realistically, they can't support 2 USB-C ports as it's unlikely it could support a full power draw on both ports (100W each).
- chacham15 12y ago> Realistically, they can't support 2 USB-C ports as it's unlikely it could support a full power draw on both ports (100W each). Its not uncommon for machines to have only one usb controller with multiple ports (i.e. a usb controller + hub which connects externally)
- 12y ago
- jader201 12y agoIs the world really as obsessed with smallness as Apple thinks it is? From what I keep hearing (and this is anecdotal, of course), it seems that most people would prefer to (reasonably) maximize the battery life with the downside of adding a bit more heft. Of course, there's always a balance that has to be stricken, but it seems like Apple always pushes much more to the side of size over battery vs. what seems to be the desired balance (leaning more towards improved battery life).
- aet 12y agoWhere do you need the battery life? (I mean what scenario)
- jader201 12y agoThe scenario where you're on a long flight and need to heavily use your laptop to catch up on things, or just pass time. The scenario where you forget to plug it in at night, and don't realize it until you're ready to head out for the day. Just to name a couple. And both of these scenarios have happened with my phone, which has arguably better battery life.
- dmarcos 12y agoI work at coffee shops and airplanes. Having 24 hours battery life so I don't even have to carry the power adapter is my dream. You could easily trade the weight of the charger with more batteries in the laptop (You will end up carrying the same weight in your bag) I want to charge my laptop the same way I charge my phone: while I'm sleeping.
- ansible 12y agoThere are various external battery packs that can charge laptops. I've been looking at them, but haven't decided on buying one yet.
- Tehnix 12y agoAt university I move around a lot, and often there isn't a power plug because tables are out in the middle of rooms or something. I could try and sit next to a wall or something, but why bother when battery isn't a concern.
- aikah 12y agoSpecs are interesting - 8gb ram,256 gb flash drive,1.1/2.4 turbo ghz, but 1300$ ? way too expensive,as it cost as much as the mb pro.A price under 1000$ would have made way more sense for a macbook. But I guess they have the data that show people are ready to pay that price for that item. Still , the pricing strategy between mb,mb air and mb pro is a bit confusing. -----
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y agoRecall that the MacBook Air originally cost way, way more than the MacBook Pro and was way, way less powerful. The price'll fall in two years or so.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoTrue, but you had a radically improved form factor that was actually light and had a nice battery, while the performance was fine for the type of users it marketed to. Meanwhile this thing takes away ports from your 13 inch MBA, takes away 1 inch of screen, takes away 3 hours of battery, takes away CPU performance, and it gives back? It's not like the MBA is heavy, thick or noisy. The retina screen is really nice but to me it doesn't really look like a good deal. Not saying it won't be popular, I think it'll be very. Just don't see it being so interesting right now myself even if I had $100m to spend, there's some big tradeoffs with this new MB. Strangest thing to me wasn't really the pricing fit, I think I would've done the same. But that we ended up with an 'Air' line that's heavier, bigger, thicker and noisier, and hell better performing, than the regular MB line. At least it's still got better battery life, well the 13' that is! Looking forward to 2016's edition!
- svachalek 12y agoI think the naming points to the future. In a couple of years, the changes that seem daring and unforgivable in this version will seem bland and expected and there will be no reason to hold on to the current MBA line with its fans and obsolete connectors. Then it quietly disappears and we are back to two lines, the MB and MBP.
- hobbe80 12y agoI wonder if it would be possible to build a USB-C charger where the tip is connected to the rest of the cord with magnets. I don't see why we would need to give up the disconnect-when-tripping-on-the-cord just because the final connector now becomes more solidly connected to the laptop?
- akhilcacharya 12y agoThat depends on how magnetic the body is. Unless you mean a magnetic breakaway cable, but that would mean a dongle that would stick out all the time. I think both could be marketable if this gets big in a generation or two.
- api 12y agoWhy wouldn't they include 4G/LTE in this? It's a serious question. It's basically a "mega-tablet," a high-end mobile device with a "real OS." It's designed for doing serious work in an ultra-portable fashion. I can tether to my phone of course, but this seems like an option they should have considered.
- grinich 12y agoBecause they also sell a phone.
- josefresco 12y ago...that for an additional fee (paid to your carrier), can broadcast a local wifi signal
- mahyarm 12y agoWhich is a smaller fee ($0-$20) than another sim for your laptop.
- pmalynin 12y agoBluetooth tethering.
- baby 12y agoI'm gonna brag: here in France I pay 10€/months for unlimited calls, unlimited texts, unlimited internet (5Gb of "fair use"). I can do whatever I want with the internet, be it VOIP or hotspot station. And I can cancel my plan whenever I want.
- X-combinator 12y agoCan't wait to get it.
- twright 12y agoI think one subtle change is the Apple icon will no longer glow, it's been chromed like it is on all the iDevices. No need to cut a plastic translucent Apple logo => fewer parts? (Furthermore, how will I know what computers people are using in a dark room now?)
- joesmo 12y agoThe specs list 8gb as the only option which is a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping they would offer 16gb and up the rMPBs to 32gb. Otherwise it looks fantastic. I can't wait to try it.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoIt has the worst CPU in the entire Mac lineup as far as I know, worse than the 11 inch MBA (which is such a confusing brand message. The MB Air is heavier and more noisy than the regular MB, but the MB isn't as powerful as the Air, bit strange right?) In any case, it doesn't really scream '32gb' to me. i.e. what could you possibly need 32gb of ram for where you won't get bottle-necked to hell and back by a processor more often used in tablets and small 2-in-1s than laptops. Let me know what you were planning to use the memory for, genuinely curious!
- joesmo 12y agoI was hoping it could replace the Air as an all-purpose laptop. 32gb might be a bit overkill, but 16gb is not unheard of, especially considering a life of 5-8 years. If it is roughly as fast as a 2012 Air (which some sites compare it to), it's plenty fast enough for everyday tasks as well as work where I need to run a few VMs. Thus the memory. Still, I'm more interested to see if there will be a DisplayPort dongle and if it could output 4k @ 60hz. If not, the new Air / Retina upgrades are much more interesting.
- CHY872 12y agoThis seems like an obvious prelude to ARM CPUs in MacBooks.
- baq 12y agoexcept with top intel cpu which no ARM comes close to.
- CHY872 12y agoNot really. This processor will be far slower than what they've got in the current-gen MacBook Airs. Provided that this is a success then (which it will be) it'll make the barrier for success for an ARM MacBook far lower.
- trishume 12y agoThis actually looks to me like a huge win for Intel. A full fast Intel CPU, with no fan! The ability to be passively cooled was previously one of ARMs serious advantages.
- CHY872 12y agoNo one actually cared that a laptop needed a fan, though. Apple could have put a fan in this and no one would have seen it as a huge deficiency.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoStill it's massively useful. It means more space for the battery and it also indirectly means that if you need no fan, you probably generate very little heat, which means you have a crazy efficient CPU meaning even more battery. Which is how they can do the same amount of battery life as the 11', despite having a bigger screen and a retina display. And a big part of that equation is probably the fanless chip. But it's true it's not like users were complaining about e.g. the MBA lineup being so noisy.
- 12y ago
- nkoren 12y agoThis is a beautiful machine. Once again, Apple excels at hardware. But what the living hell is going wrong with Apple's desktop software? OS X and Apple's applications suite have been getting steadily worse with every release. Look at the App store: the latest releases of OS X, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers are (in stark contrast to earlier versins) all rated at 2.5/5 stars, with the plurality being 1-star reviews. People are LIVID -- and not just for trivial NOOB reasons, either: the quality of the work is frankly shoddy. Who's steering that part of the ship???
- JustSomeNobody 12y agoWhy is this getting down voted? There IS a point in there.
- _abattoir 12y agoBecause Apple is systematically downvoting negative comments. Most tech companies do some form of damage control on HN because they know a prominent portion of their userbase comes here frequently.
- drinchev 12y agoDo you have some proof of what you are saying or that's just an opinion?
- thrownaway2424 12y agoIt's the top comment.
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- omonra 12y agoI'm not sure you're supposed to downvote comments you disagree with, do you? I thought it was to enforce a civil debate.
- crystaln 12y agoI've been considering upgrading from an Air to a Pro for the retina display and was waiting for this update. Now this has me a bit confused because the new MacBook has a retina display. It seems like Pro may yet be the best choice for anyone doing demanding work, because the processor is 2x+ faster. While the 13" Pro may be a brick compared to this new MacBook, it's still incredibly light.
- ghostly_s 12y agoIt's looking like this new MBAir will actually perform 20% worse than the current-gen Airs due to the Core M processor. If performance is at all a factor in what you do I don't think it's even worth considering. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=2465&cmp%5B%5D=2238 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=2465&cmp%5...
- jcomis 12y agoThis is not an Air. This is a "Macbook". The Air line was also upgraded to core i5 and i7 today.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- james-skemp 12y agoA search against the comments returns no results: 2304×1440 resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio? Showing a few co-workers and a quick suggests what I thought: a bit of amazement at 16:10. Does anyone have any insight into why they didn't go with a 16:9 ratio?
- tenfingers 12y ago16:10 is a much better ratio for working compared to 16:9.
- news_to_me 12y agoCan you explain? I'm interested why this is. Is there any research into this?
- Xorlev 12y agoDo you need research to appreciate vertical screen real-estate? I have two 16:10 monitors and love the extra space. I loved it enough that I then flipped one of my 16:10s into portrait. It's occasionally problematic in that pages I make sometimes pack the perfect amount in on my display, and get cut off on 16:9s.
- Maome 12y agoI don't disagree with you but your argument seems to promote the idea that 4:3 would be even more ideal for the same screen size because it has more vertical screen real-estate. I don't think you answered the question at all.
- scarhill 12y agoObviously it's subjective, but I'd prefer a machine with a 4:3 display, because when I'm coding or reading I need vertical real estate much more than horizontal. I always assumed that the move to 16:9 for computers was driven mostly by either manufacturing economies of scale or the coolness factor of HDTV's.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- JustSomeNobody 12y agoI'm surprised they introduced colors. Even three SKUs seems excessive for something that doesn't sell as hotly as an iDevice.
- DerekL 12y agoI don't think so, Apple has made Macs in multiple colors before. Once the iMac and iBook were available in four or more colors, but that was way back in 2000.
- Dofuss 12y agoApparently my current Macbook Pro Retina has better power than "the new macbook" -- http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/results/?product1=macbook&product2=macbook-pro-retina-13 http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/results/?product1=macbook&p...
- Someone1234 12y agoIt also weighs almost twice as much.
- cheald 12y agoFortunately, the market overlap between MacBook users and malnourished 6-year-old children for whom an extra 1.5 lbs is a deal breaker is minimal.
- saddestcatever 12y agoAppears as if the new Macbook is sitting in between the Air and the Pro... Air < Macbook < Pro
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoThe confusing thing is that it doesn't. Looks like it's MB < Air < Pro. The Intel M chip at 1.1gh certainly doesn't beat the air's 1.6 gh i5. Nor does the HD 5300 beat the HD 6000. Let alone if you max out both, it'll be 1.3gh vs 2.2gh for the MB and Air respectively. Sure the MB starts with more mem/ssd. But you can configure the air to have just as much without spending more. With the air 13' having an extra inch, 3 hours more battery, more ports, better performance, the only thing the MB has going for it is resolution. And that doesn't seem to override all its cons and put it ahead of the air in my opinion. (11' is a different story, but even that has better CPU/Graphics)
- quaunaut 12y agoI'm just supremely disappointed in the Macbook itself- I have a 3 year old Macbook Air, that is more powerful than this Retina. That's just absurd, that it's that much of a step back in terms of raw CPU. Luckily however, the new 13inch MBP is actually perfect. I'm rather excited about it.
- eropple 12y ago"More powerful" is a little hard to isolate as tightly as you are doing here. The 1.1GHz model will burst a single thread at 2.9GHz. I'm disappointed there's no 16GB RAM model, and that'll keep me from buying it, but CPU perf is not on the list of my worries.
- moe 12y ago"More powerful" is a little hard to isolate Not really. Just look at the Passmark scores: Macbook Air (Early 2014): 4159 [1] Macbook : 3096 [2] The new Macbook is 25% slower than the MacBook Air. [1] http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4650U+%40+1.70GHz http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4650U+%40+... [2] https://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+M-5Y70+%40+1.10GHz https://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+M-5Y70+%40+1...
- eropple 12y agoWhere are you getting those specs? AFAIK the 2014 MacBook Air doesn't come out of the box with an i7 4650U, but rather an 4260U, which has a Passmark score of 3617. Also note that the Apple presentation noted a Turbo Boost top of 2.9GHz, not the 2.6GHz of the Core M 5Y70 that you linked. It's the difference between horsepower and 0-60. There are other factors involved. (This is largely academic, though, because I doubt anybody who owns one is going to really care.)
- moe 12y agoWhere are you getting those specs? I googled, for the MBA 2014: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/specs/macbook-air-core-i7-1.7-13-early-2014-specs.html http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/specs/macb... For the new Macbook you are right that Apple appears to use a slightly faster variant of the 5Y70 that doesn't seem to have a benchmark on cpubenchmark.net yet (at least I couldn't find it). I'd be surprised if these 300MHz made a significant difference, though.
- moe 12y agoI love it. It pains me that I can't use my YubiKey with it, which is a dealbreaker for me. Guess I'll have to wait for the next iteration, which will hopefully "change everything, again" and add a second USB port...
- X-combinator 12y agoMore insight from FastCompany: http://www.fastcompany.com/3043324/tech-forecast/apple-introduces-a-super-thin-12-inch-macbook-with-retina-display http://www.fastcompany.com/3043324/tech-forecast/apple-intro...
- ciupicri 12y agoWhat insight? I don't see anything new on that page.
- Xoxox 12y agoMaybe he/she met is a promoter of FastCompany.
- X-combinator 12y agoI just met to show FastCompany's story on it. Cuz I liked it. (Disclaimer) Not a sponsor/promoter of them.
- ciupicri 12y agoI can understand that, but if it doesn't bring anything new, there's no point in mentioning it here.
- X-combinator 12y agoOK chief.
- 72deluxe 12y agoI'm not sure if I'm an old fart or something (I'm 31) but this has to be the daftest MacBook I've ever seen. I have a 2012 MacBook non-retina, with DVD writer and all the ports I need (MagSafe, Gigabit ethernet, FireWire, ThunderBolt (also Mini DisplayPort so I don't need fiddly adapters to connect to TVs), 2 USB ports, an SD card slot, as well as headphone output, and line input (both switchable to digital optical S/PDIF), and a decent sized screen with plenty of space to rest my hands on the device. I truly believe I have the last decent model! The RAM is upgradable and the battery and hard disk replaceable (but it's impossible to plug in two USB dongles next to each other, silly or what). This new MacBook is firstly tiny (nowhere to rest my hands), a screen size that is the same as a Samsung Note (the big 12" one), everything is along the edges, and THERE IS ONE PORT. Do I now need to carry along a hub in addition to all of the adapters???? It's so stupid I am struggling to comprehend who their target audience is? They mention the USB-C and that you can plug screens, power and devices into it - but the big question is: can I do all three things at the same time?? Or would I need to eject my USB stick just to power my device? Even my monochrome 386SX Amstrad laptop from 1991 had more ports (only 4MB of RAM mind you). My first monitor that I could get was a 10" IBM CGA screen which was tiny - this is competing for the most ridiculous sized screen on a daily use machine. Perhaps they are converging with the Apple Watch? When I saw it I thought it was a funny joke and then I realised that it was actually true and on Apple's site; I realised that Apple in their pursuit of extreme thinness have abandoned all the reasons why people bought a laptop in the first place (a portable computer, you know, with ports that you can use). I frequently use a MacBook Air at work and it makes me angry pretty quickly - tiny screen, no ports. I have to wander around with a bunch of dongles to use it with other devices (I need ethernet for AVB audio and sometime must demonstrate on a TV). This new MacBook looks like the plasticy bendy laptops you see in the budget range of PC shops - not a good look to be going for. I was saddened to see that the ordinary applications that are part of the OS are labelled "apps" at the bottom of the screen, and truly hope this isn't a move towards the merging of OSX and iOS as has been feared for some time, starting with the merging of styles. I develop software for OSX as my day job on a Mac Pro (the ones you could drive over) and this saddens me. This is truly the daftest thing I've seen, and I'm an Apple fan and OSX/iOS developer with a stash of Apple gear, a daily Mac OSX development job and sideline OSX job too. Disclaimer: I thought I'd best add that because there is a sad tendency here on HN to behave like "slashdot" and ridicule other people for having opinions. And about Force Touch: I would prefer Force Invisibility or Force Persuasion, like in Jedi Knight please. EDIT: Just noticed they're still doing the MacBook Pro and I have engaged in much confusion, but still it's a crazy device that won't be able to compete with ordinary PC laptops with ports, methinks.
- pearjuice 12y agoOkay, okay, allright. I can forgive the price. I can forgive the anemic CPU. I can forgive the so-think-it'll-break-in-half thing Hell, I can even forgive the no ventilation and housefires. But, APPLE. ONE SINGLE USB PORT? THE SAME USB PORT THAT HAS ZERO (0) DEVICES ON THE MARKET? A SINGLE NEW STANDARD USB PORT THAT IS NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE WITHOUT AN ADAPTER? WHY? I CANNOT CHARGE THIS THING WHILE IT'S CONNECTED TO A EXTERNAL SCREEN I CANNOT INSERT A USB STICK WHILE THIS IS CHARGING TWO, TWO PORTS WAS IT SO HARD, APPLE?
- ryaneager 12y agoYes you can charge and hook a display up. And use USB at the same time. Maybe look before hating? http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multiport-adapter?fnode=51 http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...
- rareEarth 12y agoI can't believe the new MacBook has no internal fans. [0] Fanless architecture The new MacBook is the first Mac notebook ever without a fan. Since the Intel Core M chip draws only 5 watts of power and therefore generates less heat, no fan or heat pipe is required. Instead, the logic board is seated on top of an anisotropic graphite sheet, which helps disperse any heat that is generated out to the sides, all while your Mac stays virtually silent. I've had issues in the past with macbook pro fans failing, so it's great to remove that potential mechanical failure. But I've also had issues with my macbook pro outputting an unreasonable amount of heat. I'm curious if they've solved that issue, especially now with no internal fans. [0] https://www.apple.com/macbook/design/ https://www.apple.com/macbook/design/
- duskwuff 12y agoThe CPU dissipates a maximum of 5W, there's no discrete GPU, and the power dissipation of the other logic board components is minimal (maybe a watt or two at most). That's barely enough to warm the machine up, let alone to make it hot.
- bhayden 12y agoI wonder with an SDD and no fan if that means there are no moving parts at all anymore. I can't think of anything else that would have a motor. I guess the vibration in the touchpad?
- irrelative 12y agoI believe the camera has focusing components that move as well, but I think they're very close to having nothing moving.
- iso8859-1 12y agoLoudspeaker? :P
- jd3 12y agoExactly. My daily driver is still a mid-2009 macbook air whose CPU actually actually hit its TJMAX for the first time ever last week. I've asked Apple in the past to clean out the hardware with compressed air and re-apply the thermal paste, but I don't think they did, and they told me that they can't re-apply the thermal paste because they don't have the tool to do it anymore [Bethesda, Maryland store]. I've never had an Apple product that hasn't had overheating issues at some point in its lifecycle, and this new no-fan architecture honestly has me worried for this product in the long run.
- ocdtrekkie 12y agoIt befuddles the mind that you would develop a laptop that defeats the entire point of being a thin laptop, by ensuring you must carry a bag full of adapters and dongles. The MacBook Air may fit in envelope, but does all it's cables and adapters fit in that envelope with it? Terrible design.
- aeturnum 12y agoI feel silly defending apple, but if it really does have a 8 hour battery life and your workflow doesn't directly involve peripherals - what would you need to lug around?
- Eric_WVGG 12y agoI don't understand people who complain about dongles. What is the difference between carrying around a corded peripheral, and a corded peripheral with a two-inch extension that solves your legacy connector problems?
- ocdtrekkie 12y agoTo me the biggest case is going places where I might have an unexpected peripheral need. For instance, it's not uncommon for someone to need to transfer me some files with a flash drive. If I were to buy this thing, I'd have to carry a USB Type-A dongle all the time, just in case. Rather than have say... an extra millimeter of thickness, and the USB port just built right in.
- cweiss 12y agoI'm fairly sure it wont be too long before they come out with USB/USB-C flash drives. I've already seen several USB/Micro-USB drives.
- ocdtrekkie 12y agoSure, but what will be the adoption rate? Do people have to have both or drives with both ports? For how long will you be more likely to see standard USB flash drives than USB-C ones? What will the cost of USB-C flash drives be compared to standard USB ones? All important questions to answer before you walk out the door without a dongle.
- beloch 12y agoOne thing I'd love to see Apple do is waterproof their laptops. There are coatings available, such as liquipel, that can make laptops highly water resistant, so why doesn't Apple use such a coating? A coffee spill is probably the most likely cause of early death for a laptop, and all Apple has done is put water sensors inside their laptops so they can deny warranty coverage.
- cseelus 12y agoVery interesting device overall, might replace my Air. The resolution seems quite low though. 2304x1440 at 226 ppi might sound not too bad, but straight pixel doubling would yield a pretty small screen real estate of 1152x720 in terms of logical pixels.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoIt supports the 1440x900 too though if you want it.
- yehat 12y agoAbout magsafe - I wonder why they didn't move it to the charger side? Any thoughts? It could work for what concerns most people who like it.
- carlosyasu91 12y agoI don't like the gold color, everything else seems nice.
- sliken 12y agoKickstarter for magsafe type c connector in 3...2...1..
- npalli 12y agoLooks like apple has finally introduced a netbook or iPad with a keyboard. Frankly, I'm disappointed with this macbook as I was expecting a full scale retina macbook air. After seeing the Dell XPS 13, I was hoping apple will take the retinafy the regular air. Ah well, the wait continues. Let's see -- 1. Resolution of 2304x1440 which means at Retina this is 1152x720!. This is worse than the 11 inch air, much less the 13 inch 1440x900. I don't think people realize how cramped this will seem if you start doing work on this laptop. 2. single port might be cool, but I suspect everyone will have to pony up for a usb multi-port dongle to make this work. everyone is saying single port will suffice -- battery will last 9 hours but try driving a monitor and doing some work. Don't be surprised if you get 3-4 hours. Then what do you do. Plug it off and wait for 1 hour to recharge? What if you need to do development, how do you plug your device. Yeah the usb dongle will be needed which kind of defeats the point of having a single port.
- dignati 12y ago> Resolution of 2304x1440 which means at Retina this is 1152x720!. This is worse than the 11 inch air, much less the 13 inch 1440x900. I don't think people realize how cramped this will seem if you start doing work on this laptop You can still scale the screen resolution and get a higher resolution than the Air's 1440x900.
- npalli 12y agoyeah, i know you can scale it. Will it look good though? In addition, it has a pretty weak processor, so we will have to see how the performance works out if you scale it. Especially if you drive a monitor.
- vidoc 12y agoI can't wait for Audioquest USB Type-C cables!
- joesmo 12y agoIs there a USB-C to thunderbolt adapter/hub that would work with existing Cinema displays as well as power the laptop? Or a similar adapter/hub for HDMI?
- dismal2 12y agoI remember in collage (2000's) when everyone just started to get laptop and before magsafe macbooks the broken power ports were THE cause for people breaking their laptops. Sometimes repair shops could fix this but usually the motherboard was damaged and you just had to get a new machine. Sad to see it go, it was a brilliant idea.
- notphilip 12y agoOEMs (generally) eventually started making the power ports a replaceable part to make it a cheaply resolvable issue. Hopefully they will apply that wisdom to USB-3c ports on devices that use it exclusively for their power connection.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mattmaroon 12y agoI really wish someone made a Windows notebook with this kind of hardware build quality. I realize mobile is the new sexiness, but people still buy notebooks. There were a few hundred million PCs sold last year. I have to believe Dell could at least come close. I have an XPS13 and it just doesn't.
- paulrouget 12y agoWhat's wrong with the XPS13? I'm looking for a new notebook. Hesitating between this new Macbook and XPS13.
- niels_olson 12y agoI'm confused: did someone dislike MagSafe? It's gotta be one of my favorite parts of my MacBook. I hear the guys complaining about iron build-up in the port, but they've gotta be in the minority, and a far smaller demographic than, say, parents. Somebody should make a low profile magsafe charger adapter. That would solve both problems: easy to replace the rare-earth magnet and preserves the utility of magsafe. If you want to charge and use multiple ports, stick the adapter in. Frankly, I think the one-port decision was wrong, but I doubt Ive and company care.
- barumrho 12y agoI'm curious if this machine will be able to drive a 5k monitor when Apple makes one. The tech spec says the USB-C port will support DisplayPort 1.2 (not 1.3), so it doesn't seem promising :(
- coryfklein 12y agoHow about this as a solution to the 1-port problem: Integrate the USB-C hub into the brick of the power charger. Then when you are charging, you can plug your USB or display devices into the power brick, and you don't have any extra hubs to carry around.
- wingerlang 12y agoBut then you have to keep the brick close.
- dsg42 12y agoSo I'm not allowed to use thumb drives anymore?
- sytelus 12y agoI'm actually quite unhappy with this obsession with "thinner and lighter" mantra which throws away features at the expense of saving 0.01mm of thickness. These new computers don't have interfaces like Ethernet, DVD player, common interfaces for video. All of these is supposed to be outdated while it is very clearly not. You can't even do trivial upgrades like RAM let alone putting in new bigger SSD. These things are way too expensive to be entirely replaced just because you need 8GB of more RAM. When you travelling and wireless is painfully slow in places like hotels, wired Ethernet connection is truly a life saver. I hate to carry so many dongles and even worse, they are so easy to lose which can be devastating when traveling. I hate even more carryieng external DVD players because running Netflix is too choppy. When I'm presenting, I hate to carry dongles for VGA, DVI, HDMI etc to connect to projectors. Just few years ago, all of these were built-in to laptops and I used to carry zero dongles. Most people carry laptops in backpack which are often heavier and combined with the weight of all dongles it diminishes any weight reduction done on these devices. So these whole obsession looks pretty stupid to me and detrimental to getting work done for users.
- sliverstorm 12y agoThere are still many laptops with all the interfaces and features, right? Beauty of choice, and all that.
- bobbles 12y agoPeople are acting like Apple reps are travelling around soldering all their ports closed
- titanomachy 12y agoI once felt the same way as you did, but I'm coming to appreciate the allure of minimalism. Come on. Join us. Look at the shiny laptop. Pretty, isn't it? You don't need ports, or reliably functioning software. Drink the Apple cider.
- nodesocket 12y agoAre there any performance benchmarks of the Intel Core M (Macbook) vs 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (MacBook Pro). The new keyboard, new touchpad, new design, improved battery are awesome, but for nearly the same price, you can get a MacBook Pro.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoEh well the M isn't even as performing as the MBA lineup, let alone the MBP lineup. I wouldn't expect the MB to be anything near a powerhouse. And the MBP 13' has better battery life by 1-2 hour than the MB. (not the non-retina MBP, which is 2 hours worse), but the retina (which is priced the same as the MB. (although you'd need to add 128gb storage to make it equal which increases the price a bit). The keyboard doesn't actually seem any better. Yes it's backlit by individual button and yes the buttons are a bit bigger than normal with a new system. Is that better? I'd say it looks like they did a good job of not making the keyboard suck more. After all, they have less space for the keyboard as it's 12' big, less travel for the keyboard as it's thinner. But less travel is generally worse, less space between keys (more mistakes) is generally worse, keys right next to the touchpad is generally worse. So I'd prefer the MBP keyboard and battery, the MBP screen, CPU and Graphics, magsafe charger and ports. The MB's pros is the touchpad (will have to try it first, looks interesting but I doubt the 3rd click will see much software support the first year anyway, beyond that it's nothing new). And the fact it comes with 256gb at the same price. But it doesn't make up for a shitty CPU and graphics, tight keyboard with little travel, 1 port requiring externals, 1-2 hours less battery and 1 inch less screen. If I wanted the smaller form factor I'd still go for the MBA 13'. 3 hours more battery, extra inch, a lot cheaper, better performance. Sorry couldn't answer your specific question, haven't seen benchmarks, just know the M sits between their low-power low-performance chips and the i5/i7 core chips. The fact it draws 5 watt and is fanless tells you enough :P
- cheesedoodles 12y agoSomething that doesn't seem to get mentioned in the comments is the placing of the trackpad; so near the keyboard. This was one the first things I recognised as a potential err. I once had a ASUS notebook which had a similar design. The problem was that my tip of one or both thumbs or part of it, often touched the touchpad in a fashion that it selected text if working in a editor. This would happen so fast that my typing replaced the text. Very annoying, so annoying that I bought a new notebook of different brand. I imagine something similar could happen on the Macbook Notebook.
- ryanisinallofus 12y agoMissed opportunity to place an HDMI port and a USB port on the power brick.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- irascible 12y agoBut will it bend?
- kendallpark 12y agoYeah, it looks pretty. I'm way more interested in news about the 15" Macbook Pro. It really is the only developer laptop I'd consider at this point. Given the fresh reviews about the new Macbook and the trackpad update to the 13" model, I'm a little worried they're going to do something screwy with the 15" model. Haptic feedback? Do I want this? I think it would be rather frustrating to have wikipedia entries popping up when I'm trying to highlight my code. Touch pressure is such an individual thing. I tend to pound on my keys and trackpad. It's the way I am. This Force click business (while reminding me of Force Push and Force Pull) seems very different from a binary "click" vs "no click." Even if you can adjust the sensitivity, it doesn't help when someone else has to use your laptop.
- currysausage 12y agoFor people interested in typography: It seems like the Apple Watch UI font (San Francisco) replaced VAG Rounded as keyboard font. This is interesting because it would be the first time (AFAICT) that Apple uses the same font for keyboard and UI. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography_of_Apple_Inc.#Keyboards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography_of_Apple_Inc.#Keybo...
- muyuu 12y agoI think no magsafe and just 1 port is a bit excessive. Also, what's the niche for MBA now?
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoThe MB is far from cheap, especially for such an underpowered device. Comparing it to the 11' MBA, I see the MB as being better in virtually every way. But the MBA 11 is the cheapest in the macbook lineup, the price difference with the 12' is so big that its niche is essentially catering to a lower-end price segment. For the 13' the price difference is still there, but not as big. But the 13' has 3 hours more battery, better ports and an extra 1 inch, while again being cheaper. Add to that the fact that the MB is actually quite underpowered (1.1ghz, HD 5300), the MBA 1.6 Ghz, HD 6000 is a significant step up. Meaning for any dev work for which you don't need a MBP (probably the majority of web stuff both front/back end, and a fair bit of development outside of that), you're going to want to more powerful MBA. The MB to me feels like a replacement for the 11' for rich peeps who want a slick device for school, entertainment, office work (e.g. PR, marketing, management), while the MBA 11' is in the cheap macbook niche and the MBA 13' is in the 'all-day aspiring workhorse that's not quite as powerful as a MBP, but very affordable' niche. The new MB is certainly not in the cheap niche, and it's not quite all-day or an aspiring workhorse. Longer-term though, I have no clue. It's a confusing lineup for sure. MB is less powerful than the air. What? Air is thicker, bigger, noisier than the MB, what? The Air/Pro was a great lineup, the new MB is a weird one in the story.
- dankohn1 12y agoLike the Macbook Air, it does not offer a 16 GB RAM option. That's a bummer for web developers who keep lots of tabs open.
- ElCapitanMarkla 12y agoI know right, it's so frustrating because I would happily pay the extra for it.
- osw 12y agono fans no ports lmao
- scelerat 12y agoLoss of MagSafe is huge. I can't count how many times it's prevented a mangled receptacle or saved a laptop from flying to the floor.
- azinman2 12y agoSo in switching from thunderbolt to usb-c, I'm wondering about the technical reasons. They went from 20-40g/s of thunderbolt to 5 in this version of usb-c, which is quite a reduction by itself. My understanding of previous USB specs is that USB is poll (and thus creates a lot of CPU load), versus firewire which was push. Is USB 3.1 now finally push?
- jpgvm 12y agoThey weren't delivering power over Thunderbolt (though technically possible I think). By moving to USB-C they are now on tech the rest of the world is likely to pickup. It's also pretty likely that it's more power-efficient than Thunderbolt and less complicated. (The Intel Thunderbolt controller is a mean looking IC that gets pretty hot)
- errorr42 12y agoultimate facebook machine basically annihilate Google pixel 2 sales (if anyone expect any) before start
- mrinterweb 12y agoMacbook $1299 "Up to 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor" Macbook Air $899 "Up to 2.2GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor" Seems like a big step down in processing power at a higher price.
- serve_yay 12y agoIf all else were equal, sure. But it's not, starting with RAM and display and continuing on from there.
- mrinterweb 12y agoThe retina screen is definitely better, but the Air can be upgraded to 8GB of RAM. The overall design of the new MacBook is revolutionary, but I can't believe they chose a CPU that is considerably less powerful and charge a premium price. If you can stand 1.5 lbs more, you can have a MacBook Pro for the same price which is considerably more powerful (also with a retina display).
- gambiting 12y agoI disagree. As someone who used an Air and then MacBook Pro Retina 13", the weight difference is small but definitely noticeable for the worse. If you walk a lot it makes a difference.
- ant6n 12y agoHaswell+fan vs Broadwell w/o fan.
- rwhitman 12y agoSeems like Apple is trying to evolve the Macbook Air into some sort of large iPad. Single port, no fan, guts are mostly battery etc.
- sunflowerdeath 12y agoThis is not a real laptop, as they claim it is. 2 core 1.2Ghz no discrete video, it has only ONE extension port. Really, u cannot connect at the same time mouse, screen and external drive, WTF? It is not suitable for most of professional tasks, it is like an iPad with keyboard and multitasking, thats all.
- nfoz 12y agoThis comment is ridiculous. What is it about "laptop" that makes you think "professional tasks with a mouse and external drive"?? That's not how most people use their laptops. Given that it runs OS X and not iOS it seems more comparable to the Surface than to Androids-tablets-with-keyboards, so I'm not sure why you'd say this is more like an iPad+keyboard than simply a low-power mac laptop.
- gcr 12y agoIs this laptop aimed for the high-end Macbook Pro users, or is it poised as the spiritual successor to the Macbook Air? According to the tech specs, this has the slowest processor (1.1 Ghz Intel Core M) of all of their models and the oldest graphics card (Intel HD Graphics 5300). Granted -- I know I shouldn't commit the cardinal sin of "The number is lower so it's worse." My words aren't meaningful. I guess I'm just confused about who this product is aimed for. EDIT: After looking around, this machine seems less powerful than the Air. I'm guessing it's aimed for those who want something more stylish with pizzazz at the expense of higher specs. The target user wants to own a machine that feels futuristic and magical. This machine is just certainly not targeted toward my needs. In terms of specs, it's This machine < Air < MBP. In terms of style, it's this machine > Air > MBP (?). In terms of price, it's Air < this machine < MBP.
- bobbles 12y agoAs a non-mac owner, this and the 5K retina imac are the first machines to really make me consider the switch.
- gcr 12y agoInteresting! What qualities won you over?
- bobbles 12y agoI have a work laptop (chunky ass dell from 2010 '1366x768') and a gaming rig at home (built early 2012 '1920x1080'). Both are on windows 7. There are a few things: * I've had iPhones since they came out, love them, but nothing has compelled me to go to the Mac. (also have retina ipad mini) * I don't want to upgrade one of my main machines to retina if my other machines don't have it. It's bad enough switching back from the phone/tablet. * I've also just recently gotten into photography and video editing. I've been waiting for a laptop to be 'good enough'. The retina macbook pros are excellent machines, but if I upgraded I really wanted it to be to an air-like device. My main tasks for the laptop are using the web, using skype and using email. (& I might add, carrying it ALL THE TIME) As my main 'need' for my desktop has essentially transitioned from gaming into photography / video.. the 5K iMac is just.. i mean.. have you seen the screen in person? Goddam its nice. The games I would play will run on it at 1440 with no problem whatsoever. I have seen the scaling issues on windows at 4K and am just not interested in dealing with that crap these days. OSX Pre-Yosemite just never appealed to me. (although I had used macs previously at various jobs) It feels like the OS and the Hardware have each now hit their point where the effort of switching is going to pay off much sooner than any time prior. I have a feeling the mac market is going to continue growing, as there will be more and more people in a similar position (main PCs need an upgrade, etc) that will finally be saying 'time for a mac'
- kzrdude 12y agoThis link changed after I voted.
- azimuth11 12y agoAre the individual LEDs under the keys controllable with software?
- Tepix 12y agoThat's what I was wondering. Would allow for some fun games.
- Tehnix 12y agoI see a lot of people hating much on the one port. Arguably, I wouldn't have minded just one on each side, but to be honest, I operate all most all of my connected things wirelessly. Bluetooth mouse, bluetooth keyboard, wifi sync of iOS devices etc. If I had the use for more things connected, I'm either sitting down and connecting an external screen, in the same place always or I'm not doing it for long enough time for power to be an issue. Thus, a dock or dongle at that place would be natural (hell, I use one atm just to convert from HDMI to mini-DVI). I see this as a good and pleasant move to pressure more things to go wireless. Still waiting for Airtame[0] to get out, so I can get rid of that annoying cable from monitors to my Air :) The one gripe I do have, is the rather low GHz on those CPUs :( Max of 1.3GHz? Ugh... [0] https://airtame.com https://airtame.com (I know other products like it exist)
- beedogs 12y agoWow, so a $1300 laptop with no USB ports? Why does Apple keep making their new products worse -- less features but subjectively more "beautiful" -- than the ones before? Somewhere in the attic at One Infinite Loop, is there a painting of Steve Jobs that slowly gets younger as time passes?
- supercoder 12y agoIt has one USB port.
- Luyt 12y agoI like the Dorian Gray reference.
- cheshire137 12y agoNo MagSafe, a single port for USB, more expensive than an Air with worse specs. If I wanted a simple machine just for browsing the web, I'd use my iPad. I don't know who this laptop is aimed at.
- karimhossenbux 12y agotravelers, journalists, bloggers, writers, girls (my girlfriend got her eyes on the gold one), ...
- neillyons 12y agoIt's amazing how small they made the circuit board http://images.apple.com/v/macbook/a/overview/images/internals_layer_start_large.jpg http://images.apple.com/v/macbook/a/overview/images/internal...
- zaroth 12y agoAlmost like they have experience building smartphones ;-) Seriously, it's an x86 iPhone 7 sitting in a Macbook chassis. Just imagine it with the single USB port located on the bottom center.
- JBiserkov 12y agoI believe at least some of the credit should go to Intel http://www.anandtech.com/show/8355/intel-broadwell-architecture-preview/5 http://www.anandtech.com/show/8355/intel-broadwell-architect...
- thomasfoster96 12y agoI'm currently looking for a new laptop, which will probably be a Mac, given I'm not familiar with using Linux nor have I liked using Windows lately. Looking at the pricing for this, I can't see much of a reason for why I'd get this over a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro w/ Retina. Using Australian prices - This - $1799 11" Air - $1249 13" Air - $1399 13" Retina - $1799 (I've seen $1599 in authorised reseller stores) 13" Pro - $1549 Is a retina display and losing a third of a pound worth paying $400-$550 for? Nope. Paying the same price for less ports (if you're getting a Macbook Pro, ports are likely important) and and less speed? Nope. I think Apple must be hoping this new Macbook is going to eat into 13' Macbook Pro sales (just as the 13" Pro ate into the old Macbook sales), because I can't see it eating into Macbook Air sales.
- paradite 12y agoIt will not replace Pro series. The CPU for the new MacBook (1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core M processor) cannot even out-perform current MacBook Air, let alone MacBook Pro.
- dgorges 12y agoI wonder how this will impact the resell prices of the former models.
- thomasfoster96 12y agoWell if you're looking at CPU speed when buying it won't, but a suzeable number of Apples market probably doesn't.
- hsitz 12y agoIn the U.S. the cheapest Mac Air with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD is the 11", which sells for $1,199. That's compared to the new Macbook's $1,299. That they barely differ in price is precisely the thing that struck me most.
- vinceyuan 12y agoI hope there will be a 14-inch version with the sd card reader and more USB ports. Will we see it this fall?
- cies 12y agoNoooo! See the cursor-arrow keys? They dont leave out the two bits over the left and right keys anymore. I've always hated keyboard maker to do that (many laptop keyboards do this), as you will not have a tangible cue on where the cursor keys start. Well, I guess that since they are so much on the edge of the device you can simply use the corner of the device as a cue...
- vvpan 12y agoIt's hard for me to believe that somebody actually likes the no-ports philosophy. In some offices where I worked it seemed like every 10 minutes somebody would run around asking for some dongle for their macbook. And again, not to sound to grumpy-cynical, the whole thing to me looks like a fad. A lot of inconvenience just to shave off a few grams and look sexy.
- lucio 12y agoI understand the benefits of a single connector, but, Isn't this a security nightmare? Today you can avoid plugging an usb drive as a security measure, but with a single connector you're exposing your laptop when charging or when connecting a proyector in a conference room.
- carlesfe 12y agoInteresting take. Maybe somebody will write a kernel extension to easily disable the USB subsystem/hub on demand?
- XorNot 12y agoLess ports is not what I want in a laptop. At all. Dongles and whatnot are a plague on portability, and take up more space then whatever gains are made in the hardware usually. The laptop I want? One which has it's entire power supply, and the 110/240VAC cable and plug able to coil up inside it so I can literally just carry "the laptop" and not have to worry about chargers.
- ant6n 12y agoI'd want one that uses an USB for charging. Same charger as phone. Charging from a USB plug in an airplane. ... I guess this is actually it. Except it needs more than one connector.
- seaghost 12y agoSteve would never approve this product.
- laacz 12y agoDoes USB type-C in Macbook mean that on all other slim devices (namely - iPad and iPhone) lightning will be replaced with USB?
- icantthinkofone 12y agoOT but, on Chrome and Firefox on FreeBSD, all the images and most of the text have the opacity of the images set to zero in their CSS and I can only see a couple of headlines. I presume their javascript is not detecting something correctly and not doing this right. Interesting. I've never seen that before. EDIT: I just now noticed that the link above goes to /macbook/ but, if you go to the Apple site and click on Mac, the pathname is /mac/ and now I can see and read everything. Also interesting. EDIT2: Ah but the Macbook link still doesn't show everything.
- jpalomaki 12y agoApple's product lineup keeps on growing and growing. Wonder if this is a good direction? Now there are five different iPad models, five different laptops and three desktops. Sometimes choice is good, sometimes not. It used to be that buying an Apple did not require too much thinking because there were not that many to choose from.
- gabamnml 12y agoThink they did a great job but I think they are pointing to a slightly more general public leaving out developers, musicians where they use plenty of peripherals working in parallel without being dependent on a multipurpose adapter which by the large amount of workload this has little duration of life for the multiple use is given much is to connect power, monitor, external sound plate, mechanical keyboard, etc ... all this to make it flatter slopes of implementing the USB-C
- Red_ 12y agoIs it really that good? http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/15/why-i-changed-my-mind-about-the-new-macbook/ http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/15/why-i-changed-my-mind-abou...