The new MacBook
apple.com
apple.com
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???
This isn't Reddit. Stop caring about Muh Internet Pointz.
1) I has more bugs (for instance, drag and dropping an image from a browser makes it crash).
2) The format has changed, it's now incompatible with computers running last year OS, Mavericks.
3) It automatically uploads new document or documents you open in the cloud.
4) I have lost my iCloud contents twice (each time when syncing from an iPad under poor network conditions, but that case should be handled).
I'm still on Pages 09 because I had a bunch of manuscripts made in that program. They don't format well in Pages 13. I'm going to keep using Pages 09 until Apple forces its obsolesence.
Probably will look at Word instead since they seem committed to stability and the ability to actually do real work on a computer.
What's not clear is: (i) how much it matters - the core desktop experience is very solid, and between web browsers and MS Office it's not clear how much the iLife(?) apps actually get run.
And (ii) whether it's a symptom of some deeper malaise - Apple still seems to be killing it in other areas so perhaps it's just a weak or resource-starved group within the company.
Personally, in my last years of using OS X, all I had open was the PDF reader app, a browser and a terminal. I don't know if that was my personal interpretation of the Cloud age, but suddenly I was completely OS agnostic. Incidentally, this led me away from buying Macs, as the operating system didn't do anything for me anymore. I don't know about the desktop experience. Either it seems to be "power user web crawling", for which the cloud is the best fit, or it's about spending the whole day in a random Pro App with its very own user experience.
I'm looking forward for their cars and watches, but I don't care much about their desktop computers. It seems they don't, either.
There are plenty of smart people who see VR finally coming around to be the disruptive technology that it was thought to be 25 years ago.
Still a tough sell to go outside apple simply due to the hardware quality & resale value, but at least we have some contenders today where a few years back there were none.
Also, another really annoying bug is when screensaver goes on and locks the screen. Sometimes, if I try and wake it up to fast it will freeze with a black screen for 60-120 seconds before I can unlock it again.
That is just the smallest of thing, but is so easy to spot and fix and really his square against the level of detail the hardware side gets.
Also, OS X has only been getting better IMO. They just need to do a release cycle where they work on polish, which I believe they intend to do.
I mean this more metaphorically than literally, but I'm so tired of complaints about the ridiculously primitive Finder being met with, "the edge of the iMac now appears even thinner, now that we've repositioned formerly convenient connectors and such into a bulge behind the screen. Surely you agree that the appearance of a thin edge is more important than usability of Finder or connectors."
Or a yearning for more battery life, or even just a swappable battery? "The bottom of our laptop looks better than the top of theirs!" Or, why is the text on my iPhone suddenly so low contrast and hard to read? "Surely you agree that having a fresh look matters more than readability! Look, the icons are flat. Don't you realize how critically important that is?"
Or, the apps get worse, not better, over time, and you always have to ask yourself whether each free OS upgrade is worth the risk of unreliable WiFi. Can't you work on this, Apple? "Thinner!"
Apple used to emphasize software quality and usability. Now, it's all about the style, about how the edges look in fashion magazines. And yet the rest of the industry is so fragmented that they don't do any better in terms of usability. The frustration is that unlike them, Apple could do so much better, but ever since the candy-colored iMacs, they've decided that Fernando (Billy Crystal's old SNL character) was right. When it comes to look and feel, "It's better to look good than to feel good!"
It might also boil down to something as simple as "Jony Ive". He strikes me as truly a designer of physical things by nature.
And a swappable battery would be wonderful but I can live without it.
In the meantime, if, like me, you are stuck on OS X because it's the best GUI for a *nix now and in the foreseeable future, I suggest buying PathFinder (http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/) to bridge the gap. It's certainly a much better tool than Finder or Windows Explorer.
In my experience, trying to replace core OS apps with 3rd-party replacements just never quite works 100% in all situations. My preference is more toward apps that augment/improve the core OS apps. Xtrafinder is of this type, adding additional functionality to Finder, rather than being a wholly separate app like TotalFinder.
I also don't understand your sentiment for preferring it over TotalFinder... they both feel and act like augmentations. I got the impression that XtraFinder would work alongside the normal finder, but that's not the case.
I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse)
I've found the various Linux desktop file browsers I've dabbled with clunky but serviceable, but again, I'm a command line guy. Just wondering what is out there that the Finder haters would prefer.
1) somewhere to copy the file path without opening a "get info" dialog 2) tree-based view instead of the HORRIBLE thin columns that never auto-size to display filenames in a way you can view 3) ability to open command line from whatever folder you're in
I could go on and on - these are all trivial to implement and they never ever happen. number 2 is one of the most irritating of all.
It seems as though apple is pushing non power users away from the finder altogether via apps that hide any notion of a filesystem from the user. Just try copying a movie project file from Final Cut - it's maddening. If they're going to continue down this road, then why not provide some additional features in finder for people who could use them (like breadcrumbs and the ability to type a file path like in windows, any IDE, etc).
When I ctrl-click (two-finger tap on a trackpad) on a file in Finder, I get a popup menu with several options, one of which is "copy". If I do this and paste in to a terminal window, I get the full pathname.
Alternatively, if I hilite the file in Finder, and press standard command-C (copy), then again the full pathname is pasted into the terminal window.
I thought this was widely known.
Most TC fans I know are Russian, and most Russians I know are TC fans.
I really wish TC was open source so it was more actively developed.
I can't overstate how much more productive I am with this tool. I wish the native file managers were anywhere near this good so I could have a high-quality experience on any given machine without having to install additional software.
As for open source - this one is, but it's written in delphi (pascal?) which makes it hard to contribute. Then again, it works well, so not sure what to contribute anyway.
Yes, I even have a copy of the Windows version of the original Norton Commander.
I used version 2.0 of NC in DOS 3 and version 3 in DOS 5.
I still miss the embedded viewing with Ctrl-Q that midnight commander is missing.
And I still prefer NC over TC, because it was so consistent.
I find the newer ones (especially total commander) much better than nc/mc.
* Directories are sorted separately as if they're some mystical entity that can't be mixed with files. Makes navigating by typing a PITA.
* List views can't show or sort by the size of directories.
* No spring-loaded folders makes drag and drop a huge PITA.
* I find the disclosure triangles to view multiple subdirectories in a single window extremely useful http://www.bgcarlisle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Fi...
Just lots of little stuff like this.
Apple usually doesn't let you customize anything. That's why I can have things like Tortoise Git/Hg/SVN and Mac users cannot.
And in Yosemite they've started opened up the Finder more with official extensions support.[1]
I don't see how Dropbox can do the things it does in the Finder and you couldn't do Tortoise Git on the Mac. It's just that nobody has done it.
[0] http://totalfinder.binaryage.com
[1] https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Genera...
Anyway, talk is cheap - have a look at all of the shell extensions you can build with Windows and compare them to what you can do in OS X: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc1...
[edit] it's Shift+Command+H for the home directory, which you were targeting specifically, Shift+Command+G lets you type in the path to any directory (with tab completion)
You can setup an OSX service to let you do it[1]. Doesn't really work for network shares through.
[1] see 4 from http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-copy-a-file-path-in-os-x/
I agree Finder could use some work, but I find your criticisms odd. If anyone is fantastic at consistent, system-wide keyboard shortcuts, it's Apple.
What's worse is that choosing something known to be under the home, like Desktop or Documents, yields a bare window with no way of seeing what's above it, in any of the view modes.
Eventually users will discover "Go" menu (yeah I guess Home is someplace I might want to "Go" - but I assumed that's where I already am and that it was just a view issue). Go menu seemss a pretty odd place to stash such an important location.
Not going to bite on the subject of requiring a three-finger solute just to go home ...
Seems a lot of people don't know about holding command then clicking on the folder in the title bar to view the hierarchy. I'm not sure what I think of that because I think once it's learned it's a pretty decent solution to the problem. Discovery is an issue though.
In the end I still say the Finder isn't perfect, but I find most complaints against it are from people that haven't learned it very thoroughly.
For more typical users it's a bigger problem I think, because they never learn to organize their files. I've seen the results of this with users having a Documents folder containing just a huge list of files with no organization whatsoever - just grouping some related files to send to someone else was a big chore. Theoretically, tagging is superior to a folder hierarchy, but most people just don't "get it" with tagging and never will. Tagging is not even very good for power users, because they will often use software that doesn't see the tags (cross platform editors/IDEs).
I don't disagree that Apple has done a good and thorough job with their keyboard shortcuts. I never felt motivated to learn these myself though because I spend a lot of times on various other platforms, where that muscle memory would be actually detrimental. This is as opposed to e.g. IDE/emacs/vi muscle memory which caries over pretty well across platforms.
But I just think Apple has taken a big step backwards by hiding home in favor of "All My Files". If you have a couple of repos under your home, or anything else with a lot of files that get updated from time to time, then "All My Files!" becomes pretty useless. I think they've pushed too far towards the tablet mentality and that it doesn't suit desktops and laptops very well for the way they are actually used.
They even removed the little dropdown widget that used to show the folder hierarchy (looking for that thing is what wasted my time and annoyed me before finding home under "go" menu). And the status bar at the bottom that shows the used/free space on the machine is also gone (you can turn it back on under the view menu but why make busy people go fumbling around to find these basic things?). Ask most Mac users now how much space they have left on their drive, and watch them fumble around for several minutes...
These things are all so easy to fix!
Then just click on those labels. It's even faster than typing the path in Window's location bar.
Disconnect and they disappear, never to be seen again.
What's with the stupid column per directory level? This is an extremely bad use of display space.
Haven't used Windows in a long time, and the equivalent in Linux is useless. (Or, more precisely, I don't use it.) But there are a number of irritations that have been there for a long, long time.
Because it isn't obvious, or even really very easy to find.
Also, people will spend days customizing their Linux systems, but think OS X needs to be exactly the way they want it out of the box. Why is that? I agree the software quality has declined over the past few years, but many people here seem to be nitpicking.
But it's shitty UX. You can navigate to folders, except this arbitrary list of them that you can't control, in which case you go somewhere else to navigate to them.
And the 3 or 4 ways to view the folders, in (at least) one of them you can't create a new folder, but others you can. Brilliant.
.. = parent directory
Here's the funny thing: Click the Go menu in Finder, and look down at the bottom where it says Go to Folder...
See the shortcut? Yup, it's Command-Shift-G.
I have no idea why I never paid attention to that before.
Keeps getting hidden and you have to set a preference option via the command line to show it... only for it get hidden on the next OS update. Very frustrating!
showfiles=`defaults read com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles` if [ "$showfiles" = "TRUE" ]; then defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE else defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE fi
In combination with the spotlight search it's really fast ;)
Edit: Formatting isn't that nice in the comments, here's a little gist which is pretty much the same. https://gist.github.com/rprieto/7349079
That said, I preferred that they never removed it, but for the common user, they wont ever need it.
To get to it, you can also hold down Option when pressing the Go menu item.
$ defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles yes
Other options are here, I wish I remembered all those I had changed because I still haven't gotten by Finder back to how I had it:
or Option + ,
You can then drag + drop other folders into the side pane. Also worth learning the finder keyboard shortcuts.
Why are such useful things so incredibly obscure?
Go to... has a menu entry and a shortcut in the finder...
I have been using Macs since 1989 and I have no idea. I believe it is similar to the equally useless "send to"-context item from Windows.
You can drag the file or folder (from the title bar or file list) icon icon into a terminal window and the path of that file/folder will be written to the command line. Not quite the same, but very useful (and a feature I often miss in Windows).
edit: I was mistaken about dragging files/folders into the Windows CLI, I was thinking about something else.
I'm a DOS guy not even PowerShell and I usually drag the folders icons to the CLI to browse directly to the location and complete the operation from the terminal ...
System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services > Enable New Terminal at Folder [0]
Not sure if this works in Yosemite.. 10.8.5 works fine for me currently, so not risked / bothered upgrading.
0: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/420456/open-terminal-here...
But, what iritates me is very poor handling of network shares. Those are critical to me, and it just won't work perfectly. On a previous job there was a windows share that could be browsed in command line but Finder wouldn't open the folder.
Or the credentials would get messed up every once in a while, with old values filled in when I logged in with the new credentials so many times already.
Or the Finder would go beachballing and stop responding when an nfs share is disconnected while navigating it in the Finder.
Or the list view refresh on a dropbox share while renaming a file, which can result in a partially typed file name getting commited automatically.
I hated windows, but I have to concede Explorer was rock solid and basically bug free in comparison.
It was really fast. As would be popular these days, it was WHITE everywhere and everything was FLAT.
I would cite regular frustrations with finder I wish I had been more assertive and suggested a move to windows server and stopping buying any macs at my curret place would make my job a lot easier and save money!
My biggest issue with my Mac was eventually working out that my Ethernet over Power bricks don't actually forward any mac networking info, so networking only works properly over wifi for me at home!
1)Finder search refuses to show the path for the files except in the status bar. So you can't sort by path.
2) Finder won't tell you the resolution of images.
In general, Explorer has way more columns in the Details view than Finder.
Even silly things like wanting to create a new folder and instinctively right clicking to look for a "New Folder" option. Nope, gotta go to the top menu and do it from there!
0) Good trackpad gestures.
1) Explorer can't sort alphabetically by name. WTH? No matter what I do, the closest I can get is "sort by folder/file status, THEN sort alphabetically by name." This really sucks for the common use cases of navigating the file tree by keyboard or unzipping into a crowded directory.
2) The retarded file open dialogs. I don't mean to say that all file open dialogs in Windows suck (although none of them allow drag-to-jump-to-file which is a minor PITA), I am referring specifically to a subset of file open dialogs which seem to be developmentally impaired by a few decades. They display the entire file hierarchy in a tree view that you have to scroll downwards vs the usual click-to-change-directory + breadcrumbs view. Ctrl+L to jump to a path doesn't work, they don't remember your location between invocations, they don't display common locations (desktop, docs, etc), jump-to-first-letter is broken, and they don't allow easy use of the down arrow to scroll because the next item is invariably hidden beneath the fold. These things are straight from the pits of UX hell, yet for some unknown reason they seem to constitute about ~20% of file selection dialogs on Windows. Ugh.
3) There are no consistent "jump to file" semantics (you know the "Open Enclosing Folder" contextual menu? Like that, but more universal). On OSX, this is the command key. Command click a document's icon in the header to jump to open an enclosing folder. Command click a search result or dock icon to jump to its location in the filesystem. Very handy. Very frustrating to find missing.
4) Hot corners to turn off the screen. Some screen/laptop manufacturers have a physical button, but some don't. Finder provides a built-in workaround. Explorer doesn't. In order to solve this issue I have to navigate the fake-download-button gauntlet and crapware-installer gauntlet twice before writing a line of code to emulate this feature with a keystroke. Yuck!
EDIT: added 0
I don't think Finder's as bad as everyone says, but I do wish there was an address bar available at the top.
3) Selecting a bunch of files and having it tell me how big the selection is so I know if they're going to fit on my 4gig USB stick BEFORE I try to copy them
4) Letting me sort thumbnails by newest modified. Finder's version of this seems to be completely broken IMO. It makes endless rows grouped
5) Letting me print photos with all kinds of options without any special software. 1up, 2up, 4up, etc.. (not that I need to print anymore :P)
6) Letting me use pretty much ALL features of windows explorer from any open/save dialog vs OSX where only some features are available.
This one does have a solution: Select your multiple items, then use Command-Option-I instead of Command-I. If you're not careful to include Option in this chord, you'll be highly displeased with the results, especially with many items selected.
With the File menu open in the Finder, holding Option reveals that this feature is called "Show Inspector". And since it does follow an "inspector" metaphor, it's a persistent window that will remain in place and update its display as you continue changing your selection. Useful.
http://i.imgur.com/LNRaPK7.png
It does.
Re: point 1.
True but I'm not sure how that would work as in the details view you're showing the files available in a particular directory. How would it sort by path? How does it work in Windows?
There seems to be this phenomenom where good products seems to get better right up until they get mainstream adoption, and then they steadily get worse. It's like up till then you have room to improve, and then suddenly you've hit the pinnacle of product design in your category, but rather than hold it there, you have to make random changes so your employees have something to do and don't quit.
(To be fair, the one company that's tried the "great, let's make a great product, kill off the competition, and then hold it there and reassign all the people" was Microsoft with IE6, and that worked fine up until Firefox and Chrome came around and then completely screwed them over.)
23 years later and I still can't consistently switch off "browser view" in the OS X Finder. Cmd-option-T works for windows on my local disks, but then I'll insert a USB stick or similar, and they appear as standard in browser view. Ah well.
EDIT: Article talking about it back during OS X 10.0 release http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/01q2/macos-x-final/ma...
Couple reasons:
1. It preserves the metaphor of your desktop being a place where you can directly manipulate your files and folders. On early Mac versions, the Finder "was" your files, it wasn't just "a browser for" your files. That metaphorical consistency is very important for building a good UI, but products these days have gotten so complex that most of them lose it.
2. It prevents you from getting into a situation where you've opened up a bunch of Finder windows, navigated through them, and then find that they're all pointing at your home directory again. Ironically, the reason Steve Jobs gave for the new MacOS X finder was that the old one popped open a bunch of windows that you'd have to manually "garbage collect", but I feel like I'm garbage-collecting a lot more on MacOS X than on System 7. The reason is because on System 7, the Finder window I had open was a natural extension of my current task and I just closed it when I was done with the task, while in MacOS X, I just usually have one or two windows open and then periodically feel like they're a distraction that's getting in my way.
I don't see the difference. When I open Finder I see _my files_, I don't even think about the Finder as a browser.
So, yeah I miss the spatial finder too, but after 10+ years, I have gotten over it. People blow this out of proportion.
Or are you referring to the files themselves? So if you open up somephoto.jpg in Preview, you couldn't open it up a second time?
I'm struggling to understand you here.
I'm not necessarily siding with the parent post, but I think the point was fairly clear.
System 7 (or 8, 9 for that matter), didn't have copy & paste. You could copy file names into SimpleText, for example, but you couldn't use it to manage files. Also, clicking anywhere outside a window would deselect every file you had carefully chosen, so dragging and dropping was a Zen exercise.
And there were invisible files, plenty actually. Like, the desktop for instance? An invisible folder. Or every single custom icon? An invisible "Icon\r" resource fork file. We inherited the invisible attribute in HFS+ from those days.
We did have a much simpler file system structure, and I miss that as well. I welcomed the column view, but the spatial Finder is indeed missed, though it still lives in a sense in iOS's springboard.
If the folder you're moving to isn't readily available just Cmd+N to open a new window, etc.
Copy, then hold down the Option key while pasting, by keyboard or menu. In the Edit menu, "Paste Item" will change to "Move Item Here".
Even though it's not as discoverable as it should be, this is a well-reasoned UI move on Apple's part. Even on Windows, cut & paste has different semantics for files than for text, and this solution sidesteps the weird "cut-in-progress" mode and inability to paste again.
As far as I can tell, the current Finder has all of the things you list as desirable features.
I don't understand what is confusing about the filesystem as it is presented. It is exactly as it appears on disk, with some system folders hidden. Which can be unhidden easily. That's it.
>it didn't get too fancy and guess at your common tasks
I have no idea what this means.
>it was still simple enough that you could wrap your head around exactly how it worked
What one earth, _specifically_, is confusing about the new Finder?
All of the complaints I hear about it are so incredibly vague, like the ones above.
There is a clear and obvious problem with the quality of Apple's desktop software. Someone in charge is making very bad decisions about the competence of Apple users and their requirements.
The software has always been questionable - not least iTunes, which is a horrible example of how not to make a clean and elegant UI.
But lately it's been getting worse. The cosmetics are - possibly - improving. But usability and features are suffering.
When does the current Finder try to guess your common tasks? Sure, by default it shows all the files in your home directory but this can be turned off easy as pie.
I'm not really sure what your problem with Finder is. The defaults are there for those who have little/no experience of OS X but all of these can be easily overridden if you've got the more than the very basics of OS X skills.
Like one of the commenters below, I'm finding you're being rather vague in what your problem is with it.
- integrated command line whose PWD matches the directory shown in the graphic view. This is killer.
- automatic numbering if you rename a bunch of files.
- a tab-completeable navigation bar.
- integrated context menu items (e.g. send via email, compress, encrypt, convert file type).
- pretty, Apple-style image previews.
I really think it has it all.
I'd have comments on other points as well but if there is one thing KDE apps generally aren't then they consistently aren't pretty. I know, eye of beholder, but it's almost as bad as TK. In the link you provided there are:
- grooved borders between every second UI element.
- icons are way too colorful with gradients everywhere.
- underscore hints on menus are ugly.
- places panel takes up way too much space and eats away at the tree view panel.
That said, I use Dolphin, but only because other file browsers on Linux are for various reasons bigger catastrophes.
https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma5.0/screenshots/apps...
Turn off that option in the OS; it's not an app thing. One of the nice things about KDE is that it still gives you old-school configurability.
It's a matter of accesibility, not taste.
If you care deeply about the latest fashions and what the new black of UI design is this season, then KDE is definitely not for you. If you just want something that works then it can be fine. I don't find any of those things to hinder my actual use of KDE, quite the opposite.
The bad design isn't of this trivial sort. If you think of stereotypical web pages from 90's you don't think that their design isn't current, you think that that their design is intrinsically bad.
> the latest fashions
KDE's analogue in clothing fashion is wearing potato sack. That is - this isn't even a mater of fashion. This isn't like ror, node or react.
> rather than usability
Nobody denies potato sacks can have nonzero usability. Visual clutter affects usability. That they completely fucked UI, even if usability were perfect, doesn't give users needed confidence that other areas were done competently either.
I love the sheer amount of customizability and options KDE offers.
I recommend Flattr icons[0] and the Hex QtCurve Style[1]
KDE and Dolphin send the transfer into the background immediately. You can track the progress in the system tray. Meanwhile, you can begin your next operation.
At least I'd like this feature..
This does sound good. I have a keyboard shortcut which launches a terminal in the current directory so that is kind of a workaround.
>- automatic numbering if you rename a bunch of files. >- a tab-completeable navigation bar. >- integrated context menu items (e.g. send via email, compress, encrypt, convert file type). >- pretty, Apple-style image previews.
Finder has all of these things.
When bash is more useful than finder, there's probably an issue.
Case in point: not being able to open a specific path (unless I bookmark it)
Case in point: when I open my home directory in finder, I don't necessarily want the directory tree that was last expanded to still be expanded. For directories with a large item count, this can take a _long time_, even on a retina imac.
Renaming a file is always an exercise in "did I click it in just the right way? Oh, crap, no, don't launch it to edit it."
Windows Explorer has neither of those issues.
-Press return to rename the selected file
Path Finder is a good Finder alternative but despite its nifty use case features I can't justify a license for it. Especially when i'm already using mc or CLI-fu.
I can't even configure Finder to show the damn full path at the top at all times.
It's far better more robust than Finder, it's got a much more powerful plugin environment and the keyboard acceleration actually makes sense, unlike Finder.
View -> Preview Pane.
Adds a pane in Windows Explorer that shows a preview of the file. I believe it was on by default back in the XP days, but since then it's just defaulted off.
EDIT: Huh. I knew it was there, but I never turned it on. It...actually looks pretty awesome. You can read an entire PDF in the preview pane.
Apart from that, Windows Explorer is definitely above the Finder that has been stalling for years now...
FWIW the Windows Explorer preview is much improved compared to what it used to be - it's not a little box, it's the entire right side of the Windows Explorer window. There's ample space to actually read a PDF, you have pagination controls, you can read spreadsheets, etc. I wasn't sure it even still existed until this thread, so thanks for that. :)
I use the cli (not via terminal.app, it crashes too), largely because finder does not want to be used.
Finder tabs should behave like browser tabs, where opening in a new tab is the default action unless the user really wants a new window. Total Finder, a third party app, did this better.
1. additional shortcut areas (instead of just a file tree; now we've got Favourites and Libraries)
2. big display areas (that irritating bar that sits above the status bar, repeating all the data found in the status bar)
3. a keyboard navigable top-of-list bar in list view (which stops you being able to tab between tree view, address bar and main pane)
4. a file tree that doesn't by default update the main pane on the right so you can quickly have no idea where the main pane actually "is" on the hard disk, or which part of your hard disk it is displaying because the treeview on the left can have an entirely different directory highlighted
5. inconsistent placement of menubar and toolbar / jigsaw-puzzle-designed ribbon bar (does the menu bar go ABOVE the toolbar or below? What does Windows' guidelines say? Load a few Windows apps [even under Windows 10] and spot the difference: Control Panel, Explorer, Internet Explorer, MMC, Notepad, MSPaint - none of them look the same; in fact under Windows 10 see how many different folder icons you can see: about 10 - is it flat, at a jaunty angle, at the opposite jaunty angle, bright or dark yellow: see https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Ia9kxBln51WTF0ekVWWjZCVnc for all the inconsistent icons and window layouts, non-themable notebook pages, with the View and Search pages in that notebook being white but the general page having an older window toolkit panel on it which ignore theming)
6. an additional bar to organize/uninstall and other things that are part of system management NOT file management, with this bar being on its own bar instead of the toolbar.
In short, it's a befuddled mess.
Finder's design means you have to use the mouse for most things. Using the keyboard, try moving a file from one place to another if you're in the List view: if you've got a directory expanded and are under a child node (with that child node highlighted), where does the file get pasted?
It forces you to open loads of new windows to move files. Admittedly this is easy if you're new to computers but it's frustratingly slow compared to the Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V.
I'm a big fan of the approach Directory Opus used on the Amiga. On Linux I'm pretty much a full time midnight commander user, on OSX I use forklift. The latter's not as full featured as DOpus but it gets the basics right.
Basically, Finder never lets me do my work without thinking. I am always tripped one way or another, so usually I just use the terminal instead.
Shift-cmd-g, /tmp
Some of these are also found from other people's comment but I want to highlight that they also matter for me.
1. The fact that most file browser has editable auto-complete location field. 2. That it doesn't show the size of the selected files in status bar. 3. That when you try to fix it by opening the info menu on the selection it does the most idiotic thing possible (in my judgement) and open a separate info window for each file. As far as I know I have no way in finder to find the size of a selection (to guess the time for a copy operation or space needed). 4. That the most basic operation in a file manager getting inside a folder or getting back requires a two key action (cmd+enter, cmd+delete). Seriously? 5. That opening a file is not the default but renaming is. Again seriously? 6. No cut-paste. 7. No compact view. Without it browsing a large selection of files quickly and organise cut/paste don't really work for me. 8. Zero find ability without index. Am I suppose to index all my portables?
I have been using xtraFinder so I don't know if I remember all the problem correctly. But I was almost ready to rip my hair off when I first moved to OSX specially when it felt like most people were happy with finder. It feels to me that for apple finder is kind of a file viewer in a limited sense and you are suppose to only organise files through the respective programs iPhoto, iMovie etc. I will shy away from calling finder a 'File Manager'. The way I try to manage/organise my files, finder is a nightmare.
The gold standard for me right now is Nemo. Handles all the above case and as a bonus (for me)
Just start typing and the cursor moves through sub selection starting with that prefix. Very helpful with a quick find or selection.
In the right click menu (where you'd normally go to "get info"), hold option/alt. You'll see "get info" (cmd+i) change to "show inspector" (cmd+opt+i).
Couldn't agree more that it's dumb, but there's your multi-file properties window.
6 - command-c, command-option-v
7 - Don't know if that's what you mean, but you can hide everything on the view menu.
8 - If you mean spotlight index, yes
7 - Essentially is the default view of Windows Explorer, files are listed from top to bottom and wrapping around to next column. This is the most compact way to browse a lot of files when you are not worried about their size/type and only interested in the names.
But even if some of the problems can be fixed by installing extra software or obscure shortcut the fact remains finder is simply painful to use as is to manage or work with files. It can't even find files unless someone provides an index and it's named finder.
Apple and OSX has a lot to love from build quality to universal copy-paste (a sore issue in linux). But I find in some failures/limitations apple is by far the worst player around.
But to me, it is still far better than any of the alternatives. I like the way it protects the user from doing potentially dangerous actions by hitting a single key and I'm not bothered by command-o, command-delete at all.
It finds files on unindexed disks for me, it just takes longer (as expected). You might have a permission problem or using an unsupported format (like NTFS, through FUSE)
You can also get crazy file density in the Finder: http://i.imgur.com/wLW9WvF.jpg
What danger is finder saving a user from that other file managers aren't?
Its great for you that you don't mind command-o for open and return for rename. But please don't ask me not to think that making the most used file browser operation to be multi-key shortcut isn't beyond insane. This is exactly the thing that I hate most about this ... 'you are holding it wrong' is the kind of feedback I get from most OSX users.
> You can also get crazy file density in the Finder: http://i.imgur.com/wLW9WvF.jpg
I'm honestly not sure whats the point of this. I don't want to fit many files just for the sake of it. I want it to be useful like this http://imgur.com/EqB1drO
Accidentally deleting a file by pressing a single key
But please don't ask me not to think that making the most used file browser operation to be multi-key shortcut isn't beyond insane.
What do you think is more likely: that other people have different trade-offs and are perfectly happy with the way things are or that they are all beyond insane?
This is exactly the thing that I hate most about this ... 'you are holding it wrong' is the kind of feedback I get from most OSX users.
Some things can be objectively measured, others can't. The funny thing about the 'you are holding it wrong' comment is the absurdity of thinking that there is a right way to hold it. There isn't (or there shouldn't be).
- Having a foldable tree structure of the system on the left, and the list of the current directory on the right
- Having the full path of the current directory on the top (and being able to click on any subdirectory of the path, or being able to select the full path).
In Finder you have the choice of different views, none of which has the same practical use in my opinion. In any of those I'm always missing something.
You won't get any argument from me about the command line, though.
In NeXTSTEP, as well as in Norton Commander and its clones, the view properties are associated with the window. You create a window, set the window size, adjust the sort order, set some filter and so on – and then you can visit any number of folders with those view settings applied. Another window can offer a different view of the same folder at the same time. This is the "browser" approach.
In the classic Finder, and in the OS/2 Workplace Shell, the view properties are associated with the folder. A folder can only be open in one window – the window is the folder. Other folders open in other windows. Any particular folder will always open its window in the same position and the same size (and in OS/2 have the same window background and various other properties). This makes it easier to find things (for reasonable amounts of files) because they stay where you put them and have the appearance you give them. This is the "spatial" approach.
If these very different approaches are combined they break down. If you try to use it as a browser, individual folders can suddenly override your view configuration. If you try to use it as a spatial file manager, folders will have their settings mangled any time you accidentally open two views of the same thing.
Windows Explorer has the same problem.
Why are we here? People have decided with their pockets, Apple is now the biggest company in the history of humanity. Don't get me wrong, Apple has done a lot of stuff right, the amount of design and engineering behind the original iPhone it's incredible, and yes maybe a lot of the technology already existed but they polished the combined products until they got something that worked in such a nice fashion; that's the "magic" behind their products but from there is downhill.
iPad: bigger iphone. iPad mini: mini- bigger iphone. MacBook Air: let's trade some some performance and take away the capability of upgrade the machine in a pursuit of a more thinner machine. MacBook: let's take the least powerful CPU from Intel (the reason behind the no-fan design"), cripple the typing experience, take away all upgrade-ability, cripple the semantics of touch from the track pad, take away all the ports.... WTF.. charge for the hub... and make it more expensive.....
But I think the problem is not Apple but the people buying their products and how they use them. It's a super glorified version of "I belong to the better group" psychology.
now that I type all this... it could make some sense to start looking all this not as a computer... or apple as a computer and software company but a boutique selling accessories.
I would love to tell you that thinkpads still make sense but the "no leds" and "screw keyboard" may prove me wrong.
Why is hardware upgradeability so important? What's the harm in just upgrading to the next device?
Besides, when I pay a premium price for a product I expect it to be useful for more than a couple of years.
I was specifically replying to this comment:
> Why is hardware upgradeability so important? What's the harm in just upgrading to the next device?
Not everybody has the money to buy the next device, so upgrading is a great option to get a couple more years of work from a little old but otherwise solid laptop.
But, whatever the reason, Apple hardware tend to hold on to its value longer, without doubt.
I recently sold my 2010 13' Macbook Air, dented and with a cracked screen a for 300$ on ebay (and I expected more based on similar auctions), about 1/4 the price of a new model for a broken 4.5 years old model.
Technically you could just upgrade every year and recoup at least 60%-70% of the original price.
This, incidentally, is almost certainly the purchasing behavior of the vast majority of computer owners. RAM and disk upgrades (particularly on laptops) are performed by a fairly tiny minority of consumers. Yet it seems disproportionately cited when shopping, likely due to an illusion of control or the laughable (in computing terms) myth of "future-proofing".
Also, I do upgrade every N devices. I'm not someone that buys the new model everytime they release one. I guess I should have phrased it "because not everyone can afford to upgrade to a new device".
I'm not an Apple hater despite saying that. If anything, I usually prefer Apple products over the competitors, and I've used iMacs or Macbooks for years now. But, between the $17k gold Apple Watch and the recent updates to the Macbook Air and iPad lines, it seems clear to me where Tim Cook is taking the company. And I don't think Apple as a fashion company is even a bad thing, it's just a transformation that some will like and others will resent.
And as regards the Finder, well... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTFF
My perspective: Apple IIe -> Mac -> IIcx -> PowerMac -> XP - OS X.
They're all about brand. This was ok when they had technically excellent products to talk about, but their products are today mediocre, arrogant, and speak of a new, stupider, wealthier target audience.
Fucking gold!
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-gold-iphone-5s-sold-out-i...
So I'm kind of wary of the 'wireless everything', which would be great if the wireless was working solidly in the first place.
I'll also add to this what might still be the biggest burden of Macos: its file-system. It's amazing that they can get away still providing this horror in 2015!
One can install optional filesystems on every OS. Like NTFS on Linux and OSX. ZFS on Linux, Ext4 on Windows.
I expect Apple under Cook to be far more predictable in this way and take the steps to maximise revenue that Jobs might have shunned in favour of something revolutionary and unproven.
Linux in general has problems with graphics, Wi-Fi and printers. I know this is not Linux's fault, but that doesn't fix it.
I guess the closest thing to a problem-free Linux experience would be the Dell developer edition laptops or maybe the Thinkpads, as Lenovo usually Ubuntu certifies them.
I want the hardware and the software manufacturer to be the same company. I think that's the only way an open source OS could get sufficient funds and a sufficiently narrow group of hardware to support.
(Off topic, but a good tip: buy a 64gig memory card and always keep it in the memory slot with a file system friendly to both Linux and OS X - there are cards designed to fit in flush on MacBook Airs. This lets my old 128gig MBA comfortably support dual boot, and the shared file system on the card is handy.)
Am I missing something?
I am mostly retired now, but I am working on a commercial product, and still write the occasional book, and advise consulting customers - that is my excuse for experimenting with LOTS of open source projects. If it is easier to check something out on Linux, then I take the minute to reboot.
That said, when developing I mostly "live" in IntelliJ (mostly for Clojure and ClojureScript, a little for Java and Javascript) and running IntelliJ on OS X (or even Windows 8.1) is nicer than on Ubuntu(because of trackpad issues).
Of course your needs are different from mine. Just curious.
Annoyingly at the end of the day, I just want a Unix OS with working drivers, and that can run photoshop. Linux doesn't quite cut it (no matter how much I love it).
YMMV, but I just run a VM. Fusion's plenty fast on my 15" rMBP and with 16GB of RAM I don't notice at all.
I have a Windows Boot Camp partition and rarely actually boot into it--I usually just run that in Fusion, too.
I thought that was strange, I used most of these apps before on older devices, why does everything no longer work on a device that's relatively new? According to those error messages the device is basically useful, it can't install apps any more, which is the heart of the ipod touch.
I searched around online and there's an official solution. I had to install itunes on a computer and login to the same account as the Apple account on the device. Then I had to download the incorrect iOS 7 version of the free app I wanted. That would assign it as a purchase to the Apple account. Then I could delete that download. Then, I had to open up the Apple store on the device like I was doing previously, find the free app on there again, and click download. After doing all that, it wouldn't give an error saying the device wasn't supported, but now ask if I wanted to install the last compatible version.
My mind was blown. How could such popular software provide such an awful user experience? The ipod touch said the app isn't supported for the device, but then I 'buy' the free app on itunes, and magically it is supported and I can download a compatible release.
I don't feel like this is a good thing to encourage in an industry that already has more than enough churn as it is.
The reason for the block on just automatically downloading an old version is that it is not the version advertised on the App Store. Advertising a product with features you won't actually get is generally frowned on. The reason the hack works is that it tricks the App Store into thinking you must have 'bought' an earlier version of the software, so supplying a previous version is fine.
Bear in mind governments take advertising accuracy very seriously. You casualy talk about free apps, but there's no such thing on the App Store now because the EU doesn't consider apps provided at no initial cost, but which might be add supported or have in app purchases as being free.
I like linux, I like Apple hardware, but as a graphics/game programmer, I find developing native OSX applications to be a miserable process.
And people say Intel has the best OpenGL support... :) Or maybe nvidia fares better?
iOS8 supports WebGL. iOS4 already supported WebGL but exclusive to iAds. There is the new iOS only metal graphics API to compete with OpenGl/WebGL in AppStore.
I'm not trying to bash Apple fans when I say this - I'm an OS X user too, and admittedly I only finally moved on from Snow Leopard last year (I actually like a lot of the changes, and most of the ones I don't like are ones that are easy to ignore). This phenomenon is certainly not exclusive to Apple fans either - just look at how many people still refuse to upgrade to Windows 8.
I've never heard of a company which had an endgame - what to do when the software is DONE. I have certainly suffered through many different applications which reached an apex of near-perfection and simply changed direction and went rapidly downhill though.
Windows touchpads are usually all over the place in my experience, mostly due to drivers/windows' poor touchpad support. super basic stuff like 2 finger scrolling is often very janky and unreliable on the windows laptops I've used. I had actually ended up switching from windows to linux on my previous laptops because the touchpad even worked better under ubuntu than it did under windows.
I love windows on my desktop PC, but I cannot stand on using windows on a laptop
For me osX was the reason to switch, yes, nice battery life (at the time, 2011) was nice but having iMovie for family movies, a pro-Photo-suite for 60$ (Aperture!) and being able to call family (who all have iPads) over facetime were most compelling.
Finder is indeed horrible, it never reconnects my Samba share, it never opens the way I left it and always in a window that I find too small, when browsing to a network share it may sometimes switch from icon view to tree view and the mapping of the folders in home is strange, in the terminal the folders are called differently in my language. And where is sshfs, ftp etc. Really, I have to download Cyberduck?!
I've been an Apple user for about 15 years, never used any of Apple's own software besides the OS, Keynote, the Mail app, and I've regularly replaced the latter for long periods.
The notion that Apple's application software was ever on par with their hardware and OS is a myth. Keynote is pretty much the only exception.
For ten years people have been posting this BS about Apple application software going downhill, while in reality it was always mediocre to start with.
I find OS X Yosemite to be fantastic. It works well, it's very stable. I run it on four different macs of different ages. The UX has definitely improved as a result of the redesign.
I'm not sure about the aforementioned apps. Keynote is fantastic, but I don't use those listed very much. iPhoto has always been a basic photo management tool; I use Lightroom.
There are times when a Linux box is preferable. I just run Linux in VirtualBox in those situations.
I don't know, I've been running Yosemite just fine since beta. Some issues here and there that have been slowly improving.
It's still UNIX, it still has a great UI. I don't think we always remember how good we have it.
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-converg...
But 1 port is sad, because now you have to choose between a lot of things (charging, using hdmi, whatever)
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...
I wish the power adapter itself would also have the passthrough.
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.
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.
This was back pre-USB 3, and the power limit of USB has only increased since then (USB 3, USB-C, etc). This means the wires get hotter, the hub gets hotter, and any short/surge will have an even more dramatic effect (e.g. fire?).
Honestly USB hubs should be up to the same spec as a surge-protector/multi-tap, but they aren't, even though they carry enough electricity to kill someone.
Do all monitors/printers/hard drives/etc provide pass through so you can charge? Or do you have to unplug your laptop from the power to get to your hard drive if you lose your dongle?
Not to mention the fact that every single mac apple peripheral you've ever owned is now worthless.
If they threw USB-C on as the charger alongside a USB and Thunderbolt I'd be stoked that mac is embracing new technology. If they put two or three USB-C ports and nothing else I'd be impressed with their commitment. With just one port, I'm left wondering what the hell they're thinking people use their laptops for.
[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2TY1K447...
Also, I haven't plugged in a printer in years. Many printers have Wifi built in, and if not, you can always attach it to an Airport base station.
External storage? Use Apple's Time Capsule or any other NAS to back up your data wirelessly.
I've even seen companies use Apple TVs connected to a projector for wireless presentations.
Sure, a USB thumb drive is invaluable when you need to copy some files to your uncles 10 year old laptop with broken wifi; but you can get pretty far without wires if you want.
Too bad USB-C didn't also do microphone in.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
I use a MacPro driving 3 27' displays and also have a few portables as well. It's just a matter of synching info. I can't imagine having to deal with hooking up a portable.
I'd seriously consider an iMac if Apple would solve b.
Synchronizing is hard. That's the problem.
I want to close my laptop after a day at the office and be able to continue working on the train or an airplane, immediately, if I need to.
This isn't easy to do without having a single machine.
Plugging my 2013 Air into my desk when I come home isn't a big hassle - I plug in the speaker cable, the power cable, the video cable, and the USB hub. It takes me ten seconds[1] to do unless one of the cables falls; they're normally sitting right where I put the Mac. It sits on a lower shelf and runs closed; there's a Bluetooth keyboard and a Wacom tablet on my desk. (I'm an artist.)
It'd be nice to have the single connector I guess. Once I got an adapter[2] and plugged everything into that I'd save all of, I dunno, five seconds?
I'm also not driving three displays. I have never liked multiple displays. They don't work well with a Wacom tablet, and I go crazy from constantly seeing slight color differences; when I'm at a cafe, I use the laptop screen; when I'm at home, I use the external monitor.
Now you have one person's explanation of why she schleps around a single laptop that she also uses for her desktop.
1: Literally; I just timed it. 6.6s to leisurely unplug it, 10.3s to casually reconnect it.
2: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av...
I think we'll see a lot of small USB hubs with a USB-C connector to your laptop and all your USB/audio/Displayport/ethernet out, so that getting back to your desk is one cable to plug in and not a half-dozen.
At airports for example I'm carrying only my MacBook and usually put in there charger and the my phone, now I have to also carry an adapter to do that.
To be fair, Apple had a lot of people on the USB-C standards... 'committee', second only to Intel.
Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/6/7505187/apple-macbook-2015-...
(Look at who attended what meetings, and where it was proposed, how far it was along when it was proposed, and then when apple started showing up. It looks like they saw the writing on the wall, and joined in to make sure they weren't going to get left behind)
No, USB Type-C allows multiple concurrent uses, such as: charging and using HDMI at the same time. See http://www.anandtech.com/show/8518/hands-on-with-usb-type-c-... : "This opens up the possibility for a dock scenario where a single cable to the monitor can charge a laptop and also mirror the laptop's display onto the external monitor, and the external monitor would also be able to serve as a USB hub for a keyboard, mouse, headsets, flash drives, and other USB peripherals."
Edit: @rakoo: I agree that in scenarios where you do not have a hub, it is annoying to have only 1 port. Even if the power brick integrates a USB hub it would be weird to have to plug a USB drive in the brick... I guess this opens a market opportunity: sell a tiny USB hub with 3 ports (type-C power in, type-C power out, type-A generic port) that is meant to be left almost permanently attached to the laptop or to the end of the power cord.
It may come with a 1-port USB plus power adapter in place of the standard power cable though?
edit: vocabulary
My laptop is connected to the power via magsafe and the monitors with HDMI and USB. Keyboard/mouse/webcam/microphone are connected to the monitors.
With the new USB-C plug I guess I'll be able to buy the hypothetical Antec "Super USB Charging Media Hub", which all my devices connect to. My laptop then only needs to plug into one thing.
I would really like PC manufacturers to standardize on this; it would make using laptops as nice as using non-Apple telephones/tablets/ereaders is now.
The decision to not include a single USB port is of course mind-boggling, especially given Apple's market. How are you supposed to share large files? No USB drives, no memory cards etc on the go.
Needless to say, I'm not very happy about no USB just as I wasn't happy about syncing.
They eventually released an update that re-enabled it, and it still works in Yosemite.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation, when I reach home I plug in power, network, external display and USB devices, but these things don't move with me, they're fixed desk accessories. I've got a separate set of them at work.
It wasn't addressed because Apple offers no solution (yet?).
If you need expansibility and are running a large external monitor, that sounds pretty 'professional' to me.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av...
and
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...
Unfortunately both only have 1080p HD. Let's hope there will be a (mini-)DVI version with a higher resolution soon.
So we have the "USB-C Charge Cable" $29 (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJWT2AM/A/usb-c-charge-cab...) -- I wonder if that is proprietary or if any cable would work. Then there's the "USB-C Power Adapter" $49 (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ262LL/A/apple-29w-usb-c-...).
Too bad they can't fit 29W into the smaller cube form factor which charges my phone. That would be incredible powering a laptop off of that.
Someone needs to create a much sleeker implementaion of a in-line 1-port hub. So basically something that looks like USB-C on both ends, but 4" from one side of the cable there's a quarter-sized circle of hard plastic that has the USB-C cable going through it, with another USB-C port available on the side.
I hope we will see USB-C to HDMI and USB-C to DisplayPort "cables" which are not big fat massive dongles but really function more like just a cable.
They're way too expensive ($80), but give Type C is a standard port I expect Amazon Essentials or Monoprice will fix that pretty soon.
They own Lightning themselves so they can do whatever they want there.
Another perspective I've seen recently about this is that this new Macbook will probably make people change their habit towards something traditionally only for smartphones: you'll see people keep their computer untethered for the larger part of the day, and only plug it for energy during the night. So, basically, mobile first instead of plugged first. You then have a port constantly available for whatever you want to plug on the go.
[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/8558/displayport-alternate-mod...
[2] http://www.anandtech.com/show/8539/usb-power-delivery-v20-an...
Also, there are dedicated wires for USB 2.0 as well that are separate from the SS lanes.
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.
And the USB 3.1 "SuperSpeed+" PHY is a 10Gbps thing that is very comparable to Thunderbolt electrically and would be expected to evolve similarly.
You're right that USB lacks the PCI framework (which many of us view as a feature). But DP/Thunderbolt similarly lacks a cabling standard with the sophistication of USB: no charging, not reversible connectors, no OTG-style switching of host/guest mode.
Apple had a choice of supporting both connectors, or giving up "PCI madness" or "nice cables" to get just one. They picked USB.
Supporting something like Thunderbolt is nice, but not exactly the same. It's not about "brand identity," it's about "does this equipment I have work with this machine?"
So, can the Type-C connector support Thunderbolt? Yes. Does the Type-C connector currently support Thunderbolt? No. Will someone add Thunderbolt over Type-C? Maybe.
I've only heard of PCIe over Type-C (via the spec docs) and DP over Type-C (from the VESA guys).
And thank goodness they did.
The "U" in USB may finally become reality. It's overdue.
Does USB-C work the same way?
So, you could talk to a single DP device, but that DP device could be a DP MST splitter. This could allow it to act as a DP hub for you to daisy chain a second monitor.
EDIT: there are physical limitations how electric current is transferred. USB contacts do not have good shape and will probably deteriorate more quickly.
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.
But I've never had electrical contacts on a charger wear out in the first place, so even if it goes faster it might never matter.
I think I'd have to say it's worth it for full standards-compliance, though.
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.
Granted, a lot of that is learned behavior because I know I can yank the Magsafe out without incurring a $500 repair.
I even have one installed in my motorcycle trunk for on-the-road charging. No worries about it damaging the machine.
If USB-C becomes the go-to port for charging, I can't imagine something like this not being far behind.
Related: Can you still open the lid with one finger without lifting the bottom case up with it?
Does anyone know if there was any emphasis put on making USB-C less flimsy and delicate?
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...
[1] http://www.usb.org/press/USB_Type-C_Specification_Announceme...
[2] http://www.usb.org/press/presskit/USB-IF_IDF_Shenzhen_2014_P...
My biggest gripe about the USB-C, and a big fuck up on the part of the standards committee, IMO
https://intel.lanyonevents.com/sf14/connect/fileDownload/ses...
http://www.geek.com/apple/apple-will-be-forced-to-use-micro-...
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.
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.
I think some of it in my bag is from a black sand beach. That stuff kills headphones as well as wonkifying magsafe sockets.
It's a bit of a dubious rhetorical move to cast anybody who works in an environment that doesn't contain a lot of ferrous dust as some sort of freakish outlier. You might be ever so slightly guilty of overgeneralizing your experience...
[1] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av...
[2] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...
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."
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.
or: $70-odd additional margin for Apple that people will be happy to pay once they notice they need it regularly. Clever.
Its temporary. In five years everything will have these ports and adapters will not be necessary. In the same way today you can get a DP to VGA adapter instead of having a bulky analog video output, even if it costs $15.
I have a nice integrated laptop but I have all these parts around in my bag that I sometimes lose or forget connected to a projector somewhere. What may have seem like a simpler solution really wasn't in the end.
VGA's popular because it's the only option that actually works for everyone, and it's not for a lack of newer alternatives - in fact, the plethora of newer alternatives is the problem here.
Otherwise, completely agree - the current situation is messed up. Yet I'm glad Apple is leading the way, just like with SSDs.
Full disclosure: I don't own any Apple products or stock.
Having a ton of adapters seems to be required for that niche
But the vast majority of people never have to make presentations or hook up to legacy projectors and monitors. So bulking up the machine itself to accommodate that does not really make sense.
I don't want to shell out another $900 monitor to replace my existing $900 monitor that adds no new features on top of what I had previously.
I am all for portability but there comes a point where you start trimming essential functions. I'm not saying every laptop needs to have a SCSI port, but ONE connector?! I thought Apple was bad before with two USB slots and mini-DP. My Thinkpad Yoga, which I bought specifically for portability, manages to have 2 USB connectors, HDMI, built-in SD card reader, and other useful peripherals onboard, and yes, I do actually use these.
I think MacBooks are cool but I always find myself unable to use them for serious work. If I was a casual computer user that just needed to update Facebook once in a while, they'd probably be fine, but every time I've tried something more serious than that with one, I've ended up on a non-Apple product because why torture myself over fashion?
Granted, most of what I do with my MBP is modern full-stack stuff, which I gather doesn't qualify as "serious" even if it does make me a good living. But I don't see how the type and number of ports on my laptop would make much difference if I were, say, writing Linux kernel modules for hardware nobody uses, or building a window manager in Haskell, or whatever the current definition of "serious" is among those who put so much weight on the term. I need to plug in a real keyboard; all else is commentary. (And who does embedded away from home, anyway? There's too much you need besides the computer, unless you're targeting an emulator, in which case what need have you of physical ports?)
But, hey, it's always easier to feel superior than it is to see the other guy's point of view.
At the moment, the two USB ports I have on my MBP are pretty much bare minimum but every now and then I find myself juggling peripherals.
You might consider the same cheat I use for charging, which is to keep a small but reasonably capacious USB battery [1] in my bag, and top it up via USB whenever I happen to have a port free. Since it's specified to fully charge an iPad twice, it can charge my phone several times before running flat, and a fully powered USB port can charge the battery itself in a matter of a few hours -- an overnight charge is ample. (And, hey, the only thing I ever plug in my phone for anyway is power, so it's not like I'm losing anything by not plugging into a port on my laptop.)
Another trick worth considering is, instead of using a USB headset, instead to use one which connects via the headphone jack proper. Mine is a Sennheiser HD558 with an aftermarket cable incorporating an Apple-style mic/remote module, but you don't have to get that elaborate, especially since the HD558 isn't designed to travel and does not do so well; for simple VoIP purposes, anything halfway decent will do, and serve the purpose of freeing up a USB port for things that a headphone jack can't do.
[1] http://www.nothingbutsavings.com/Product/270265-APB27US-Targ...
Do we care more about having the sexiest laptop in the airport or getting more productive time in? That's the dilemma one goes through when choosing PC v. Mac.
The sine qua non of a computer's usefulness to me is its ability to support Emacs. While my experience has been that, all else equal, any portable machine is inferior for this purpose to any desktop, I have yet to find a better portable Emacs machine than the 15" rMBP. When I do find one, I'll use it instead.
If your "all Apple users are fashion-obsessed lightweights" proposition is susceptible to the white raven's disproof, this should amply suffice. (When was the last time you ran across an Emacs user who was either "fashion-obsessed" or "lightweight"?) But I suspect you'll prefer to explain away a white raven, than to reconsider your apparent confusion of reality with an "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ad.
That's just me. A few of those things could be transferred to wireless peripherals, but not all of them, and wireless peripherals usually suck pretty bad. I have a Bluetooth headset that I try to use in the field occasionally and it's a nightmare switching between A2DP and telephony modes. I could switch to a wireless mouse, but then that's batteries and many of these take up a USB port anyway with a proprietary dongle. I don't usually carry a full keyboard around with me so I just gotta use what they have in the office, which again, even if it's wireless, often occupies a USB port.
To me, this is serious. I don't think I'm doing anything super special; I'm definitely not writing custom firmware for esoteric embedded devices from Starbucks or anything like that. Just your everyday developer and sysadmin.
Now, if I put a lot of effort into it and decided I was going to live on a MBP and therefore needed to keep my usage restrained to one or two USB ports max, I may be able to come up with an arrangement that works, but it's by no means the default; I most recently tried to live off a MBP for 5 months in the first half of 2013, and it didn't work out (the lack of ports was a constant annoyance, but not the impetus behind the change). I swapped it for a Thinkpad and was much happier. I find this happens to me every time I try to live off an MBP. The most successful run I had was 2006-2008 where an MBP was my sole laptop and I did a lot of remote work, but it was not really pleasant and I had a desktop that I used to supplement.
To be clear, I have bought 3 Apple laptops over the years of my own free will and used a few more that were owned by employers. It's not that I hate them (in fact I continue to be astonished by Retina displays, which I was sure was just going to be hype before I saw it in person, and wish PC makers would catch up), but I just don't think they're good workhorse machines for people who do real work. I think they're mostly a fashion thing that people force themselves to live with. I'd love to have one around the house as a casual computing machine, but it's hard to justify dropping $2k for the setup, when again, there is real work that would be better served by the same investment going to actually useful equipment or to labor.
I just don't really see a reason to force myself to heed Apple's insistence that while I think I may want more than two ports, I really don't. Even the way I use Apple hardware usually pisses off Mac devotees -- back in 2006 I made some permanent enemies out of a few acquaintances that were stunned I would be voluntarily using Fedora on a MacBook Pro. They kept repeating that they'd totally understand if it was a PC, but if I had to use Linux on a Mac, I was most likely just a retard who couldn't grasp the beauty gifted to earth by Humanity's Eminent Genius Steve Jobs. They continued this hostility every other time I saw them. Pretty bizarre.
Hey, I have one of these... it's called an iPod shuffle.
Which curiously uses the headphone jack as an USB port[1].
Perhaps there's hope for someone to hack up at least an USB2.0 port on the MacBook using this method?
[1] http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2006/11/usb-ip...
Congratulations, you've identified the target market for the new MacBook.
As far as I can tell, the market for Apple's laptops are normal hipsters, hipster devs that can't stop talking about how you can build a blog in only two hours with Ruby on Rails, video and photo editors clinging to the meme from the 80s that editing software is somehow superior on a Mac, and college students that don't want the embarrassment of using an "old person's computer".
Can we stop with this meme? There's no tax. There's a price for a product. Buy it or don't. I have followed the laptop market quite closely for very many years and I'm consistently disappointed in my attempts to find non-Apple laptops that are of comparable quality and specs at similar price points. And let's stop pretending that "specs" are simply "cpu/ram/harddrive", as those are a small subset of the factors that matter to consumers.
Nickel and $80'ering me on a $1400 computer is ridiculous. I'll stick with my thinkpad.
Go ahead and stick with your thinkpad.
College students? It's always a big hassle finding a dongle whenever a MacBook user has to give a presentation in class.
Personally, I think VGA is an abomination and people should react a bit stronger to be invited to a venue and having to deal with standards from 1987.
If you're going to harp on hospitality, please remember it cuts both ways.
Oh, forgot about iPads, 2 different ones for that, and android phones at least 2 MHL connectors and whatever google does in their phones. We haven't even got onto mini and micro HDMI.
At least 10 different connectors on recent devices then? Don't you just love standards?
To me, this is a great tradeoff: I get a lighter and thinner laptop for 100% of my computing, the downside being an adapter when I return the the dark ages of VGA connectors.
In fact, for my MacBook Pro, I will have fewer connections. Instead of power and Thunderbolt, I will just get one of the connectors that bridges power, external monitor and USB peripherals and plug in a single thing when I "dock" my laptop.
I will take that any day over the awkward Dell and Thinkpad docking stations I see my coworkers use.
I completely agree with this assessment. Even here on HN the majority of users are not giving presentations or even screen sharing. When it does matter, there is often a third party device they have to present from anway.
I'll take the adapter not being in the box, as for most users they won't be using it enough to warrant the extra cost.
Instead of buying mini DVI to VGA or Lightening to HDMI adapter, just buy this?
Wireless is usually OK in my living room but I would not count on wireless video working reliably in a conference room with 500 people on their laptop/phone. Shudder.
Moreover the YubiKey also acts as a PGP smartcard, giving you a private key (for e.g. SSH) that an attacker can't extract even if they obtain root on your laptop.
As much as I would like a "Retina MBA", the lack of a separate USB port is a dealbreaker for me too.
This is similar to standard SSH agent forwarding attacks. A sysadmin connects to a malicious server via SSH. If the sysadmin turns on agent forwarding, then "malicious root" can remotely ask the sysadmin's agent (running on the sysadmin's laptop) to authenticate to any other machine that accepts the sysadmin's public key. The malicious root can log in to any other server the sysadmin has access to, as long as the sysadmin still stays connected.
It's a slick device.
For the 2FA OTP portion: No. The button needs to be physically touched.
For the PGP (ssh) portion: Yes. (but again, the attacker can not obtain a copy of the private key, that's the critical difference to your scenario)
That's why (at least for critical servers) you should combine the two. That way an attacker can at most piggyback your connections. He can not initiate his own because he can not touch the button.
With this new macbook, one cannot charge and use a mouse at the same time without an $80 addon.
That mouse has literally been around forever, and no it's not what users are generally using now.
Is Apple's logic "that's what you get for having friends or working with people who do not buy the latest apple devices"?
For a disruptive product to be successful it should not be behind its time (where others are already there) it should not be too far ahead of its time (The technology might not be ready, the people might not be ready to understand the product, etc), It has to be just ahead of its time. I am sorry but I maintain that Apple has overshot with this product. This is not like removing DVD support or even removing flash support, because a lot of the world is still wired. Except for those who are fortunate to live in their own Apple bubble, many of the people who buy this will have to frequently face the frustration of owning such a device with practically no reward (apart from shaving of a few inches and grams off their laptop).
Seen such messages right when I NEEDED those files. Also - remember epic KDE failure? When they had corrupted repository and it was perfectly mirrored to 1500+ other repos? And they had to search offline PC with a uncorrupted snapshot?
In general "all cloud" tech is at most 50% ready for use by everyone.
This is exactly like the removal of the DVD drive in MacBook Airs. "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO USE MY DVDs?!?!?" The answer is: don't. Download things over the network instead.
Same logic applies here.
For gaming, you can get less input lag with wireless mice with dedicated dongles if you're intent on going wireless.
Can't you just use bluetooth? I prefer a bluetooth mouse anyway. Wires get in the way.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7357/11147888116_9be011e0b1_n...
Though I guess it's not that surprising. Back in the day, my Gen4 iPod came with a power brick, a USB cable and a Firewire cable. Now you get a single USB cable.
1. 12" is a weird size for me. I'd prefer 15" Pro edition.
2. One connector isn't enough, even with the adapter, I'd need more.
Casual Facebook users are not a target audience for anything, because almost everybody is a casual facebook user, including people who do 3D animation or need to compile huge codebases.
But I don't see that being realistic, yet, because (a) the new MacBook has less battery life than the 13" Air, (b) OS X is messier than iOS (system daemons love to run at 100% CPU once in a while), (c) as you said, almost everyone is a casual Facebook user and runs terrible crap like Flash. (iOS is at an advantage here again)
But yeah, it is a great device for people who only open their laptops occasionally and can recharge at night.
Oh, wait. That benefits Apple, too...
I think usage pattern probably matters far more than the strict cycle count. Specifically, "all-day" usage appears to correlate strongly with battery capacity falling off more sharply as cycle count increases — admittedly, based on user-reported behavior that I could find on the web with as much time as I can spare this afternoon to faff about on the matter.
I understand there is a market for these paper thin, disposable machines but Apple has lost the sensible buyer who wants a solid upgradable dev machine.
Video (sorry for linking to a Lenovo advertisement): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTZ7u5YNXV0&t=60
Great build, keyboard that perhaps beats the macbook
===<cord>==E |magsafe| =E laptop
Fortunately, the thing was closed, landed on the lid, bounced off the hardwood floor, did a flip, and was no worse for the wear. If it had been onto concrete or tile, or the lid had been open, it probably would have turned out worse.
My 2012 MBP retina has this infernal magsafe2 connector that disconnects every time I try to use it on my lap, but at least it'll disconnect if you trip on the cord. Or if you try to use one of the 5 magsafe1->magsafe2 adapters I've bought that consistently fail after a few months.
No spinning rust hard disk, no fan.
I bet it could take a lick or two. Can't speak for the plastic or the glass screen though.
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.
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.
There are different target audiences here, and thankfully, there are different products from different competitors to choose from.
The GP comment compares devices based on a couple of specs (e.g., bezel size). The isolate-on-a-couple-of-specs approach has been proven to (a) not capture where the market will go, and (b) not capture how well the device works.
It also tends to (c) come off as a justification for the speaker's own past purchases, or alternatively, a justification to view a new device as not quite worth purchasing yet.
It sucks that, 20 years on, the same retort ("... Lame.") is just as relevant as a critique of the specmanship game practiced in these forums.
In the end, you can look at the 12 inch MacBook as being a new notebook for people who care about running Mac OS/don't want to switch to Windows. It's a big deal because the Dell isn't an option most people want to consider :)
I still actually used that laptop until recently. Now I'm in the market and have been eying the XPS 13 and waiting for details about the Macbook Air.
Any idea/rumors about when the Ubuntu edition will launch?
I'd really like to spend less than a thousand bucks, because I just want something light that I can carry in addition to my work Macbook Pro. I like to use my commute-time on the train for side projects, but I'm concerned about using my work machine for various reasons.
The new offerings from Apple today are certainly appealing, but I'm still on the fence. I don't draw arbitrary allegiances with corporations, so I have no blind brand loyalty...
Based on the latest update from Project Sputnik lead Barton George, it sounds like the release is drawing near: http://bartongeorge.net/2015/02/23/update-2-dell-xps-13-lapt...
If I bought either the Windows model or the official Linux one I'd wipe it and install Debian or Arch or Mint, but I'd still prefer to wait for the Linux one so that I don't contribute money and a +1 sales statistic to Microsoft for something I don't want.
I'm definitely waiting for the developer edition, precisely for the reason you mentioned, to do my part in signalling to Dell and the industry that Windows vs OS X is a false dilemma.
Also, I notice that this XPS is 0.6-0.8 pounds heavier than the new MacBook, and as far as I can tell the XPS has a fan.
It's noisy as hell though, I can't say that battery life is great and I have some weird problems with music stuttering when I compile, also Visual Studio ocassionally locks up on deploy for some reason.
If I could have a Zenbook with the same screen thought I'd take that any day.
EDIT: aluminium bends too easily compared to other material. It does not have best structural integrity for its weight. Magnesium alloy, carbon fiber reinforced plastic or titanium composite usually has better parameters for weight.
But I am not saying that polished aluminium is bad or looks bad.
Plastic can flex to absorb the stress without permanently deforming, aluminum not so much. Even the panasonic toughbooks are plastic, and those are probably the most durable laptops I know of by a large margin.
It didn't boot or do much of anything after she had traipsed all over it.
That being said, I am not saying the MB would fare much better, but those Toughbooks are not as tough as they are advertised.
The corner itself was obliterated, leaving a small hole where it used to be, but that was the only damage the laptop sustained.
Unibody metal laptops are nice, but I think the structural advantage of them is heavily oversold. Plastic laptops with metal frames can be amazingly durable.
It will be interesting to see how much RAM the base configuration of the new Macbook will ship with, because the XPS 13 at $1299 comes with 8 GB.
[1] http://images.apple.com/live/2015-mar-event/images/d02cd9e29...
For that you get another inch on your screen and 73% more pixels (3200x1800).
That depth difference could feel pretty significant when the thing is razor thin.
Comparison article: http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/9/8177065/apple-macbook-specs...
Personally I would love to have a Linux laptop with the same design and build quality as the MacBooks, and I'm pretty sure plenty of fashion conscious folks would like something more exclusive now that Macs are everywhere.
The fact that the XPS 13 is the only machine that comes anywhere close is kinda sad.
Though it won't work as seamlessly with the hardware as OS X can.
http://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvalds...
The thing about Apple is that you don't have to worry about it, you can focus on the task and purpose of the tool rather than the hardware or it's specs.
Given Apple's nature of maximizing profits of their product line, there's still room for the next major update of MBP line to include the same kinds of edge-less screen, and people will collectively loose their minds over it. Are people going to be satisfied with just another incremental upgrade of specs and inclusion of the same technologies as the Mac? I think they will have to put some bling in their flagship devices.
This is very subjective to define. It's true, if you like apple, and all you are going to choose is stuff from apple, then you don't have to worry about examining choices in depth because there aren't very many. But quality is a subjective thing.
I personally find almost every computer that exists today horrifically boring, compared to when I was growing up. The jump from no computer to computer has been much more exciting than each iteration of slightly better computer. That's really what I call 'miles ahead'.
Smartphones with unlimited data were slightly revolutionary for me, in a "I can listen to music and walk anywhere I want without getting lost" kind of thing, but honestly, I haven't felt anything close to the feelings I used to feel as a kid. Trying to figure out how the entire internet is structured and comparing that to a giant computer is slightly more exciting. Comparing data models to the human brain is slightly exciting. But miles ahead sounds like we're making leaps when we aren't. And you can go ahead and argue that every leap is made up of tiny steps, but when you fade in and out of technology enough, even then, some things really feel like leaps, and other things really feel like steps. And I think that's subjective, so I'm biased, but I find it very hard to have opinions without bias, if not impossible.
Apple simply doesn't offer a device that can compete with this, so not only are they not miles ahead, I can't even see them in my rear-view.
If you did your research, I'm pretty sure you would find that you can do all of these things on a macbook.
Check out this Dell 8 inch tablet that does all of these things - http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Venue-Series-Windows-Tablet/dp/B0...
Instead what Dell do is release a 3000 model, with no digitizer and 1GB of ram. I have to assume that Dell are far too afraid of cannibalising their mid-range laptops to produce something truly great in the small tablet space, a very foolish and short-sighted position I think.
UPDATE: Here's an image gallery that I just made showing it in the jacket I'm wearing today, in the pants I'm wearing today and again in a pair of pants that I grabbed out my laundry pile - http://imgur.com/a/hFeDo
Not only does it fit in my pockets, but there's room to spare. Maybe it won't fit in some skinny jeans, but I don't wear tight pants because I'd rather be comfortable. In any case, whether it fits in your pocket or not isn't the point - it is true that Apple doesn't offer a highly portable device that runs a full OS for over 10 hours
I love my retina MBP but that statement is pretty biased. There are plenty of PCs more powerful than any mac, often for less money. Even Windows 10 isn't so bad, i think that OSX Yosemite is pretty flawed as well. Apple is still superior when it comes to the whole package, most importantly trackpad, battery life and overall experience, but if you don't fall exactly into Apples demographic you are pretty much out of luck.
It is difficult if not impossible to output a macbook to a tv over hdmi and also send audio. Also the dongle that does hdmi conversion breaks all the time. Our office has gone through like 4-5 of them.
It is/was very difficult to disable your laptop display when plugged into a monitor in MacOS(I doubt they have fixed this issue). Also the macbook is crazily overpriced.
Never tried that second part, but the multi monitor support in the last couple releases of MacOS have been amazing.
Can't you just do clamshell mode? I haven't had any issues with that with my Macbook Air.
In contrast: By friend who owns a mac tried to set up a appointment because her hard drive was making the sound of a grinder. They told her that they could not make an appointment on the phone, she needed to use the iPhone app to do that. Well, she doesn't have an iPhone so the only option she had was to stand in line at the apple store 40 minutes away and wait. She spend two days doing this since it closed before they got to her on the first day and then the took her hard drive and replaced it while erasing all her personal data. It's a good thing I made a backup first.
Great Customer Service for sure almost as good as Comcast.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2c2817%2c2452946%2c00.asp http://blog.laptopmag.com/tech-support-showdown http://www.thestreet.com/story/11366677/1/the-best-and-worst... http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/04/apple-is-top...
I've dealt with Dell, Microsoft, Acer, Asus, and HP in the past on multiple occasions for each, and it was always a headache. With Apple, it was always as simple as walking into the store and walking out with my issues resolved. I've even had them fix a keyboard that broke due to my fault on an out of warranty machine for just the cost of parts. The fact that you can go to a physical location and get service puts them on a different level.
PS: You can get a 512GB desktop SSD drive for under 180$ so cost wise it's a non issue. And 30$ micro SD cards are at 64GB so 512GB would not be a space issue.
Anyway, you will also note they did not actually send the i7 versions off for testing as the battery life would tank. IMO, there are three basic classes of laptop ultra-portable trade power for awesome battery life and light weight, desktop replacements which are meant to be used on a desk, and gaming machines. You can dump a large SSD into an ultra-portable without issue but dells approach of bumping RAM, CPU, HDD, etc. in lockstep just means their ultra-portables are stuck with tiny disks for little reason.
You might want to read that whole review if you haven't already. They found that the XPs 13 had excellent battery life, to the point that they tested it and it was exactly what was advertised. That is, for the low-end screen (1080p) they got over 15 hours of light usage. Dell provides battery life estimates for different configurations (visible in the review[1]), so it's not inconceivable that i7 light usage might get over 11 hours as Dell claims.
http://www.howtogeek.com/196582/why-you-probably-dont-want-t...
And an i7 would drop down to around 4.5 brand new under heavy usage. And around 2 before you start looking for a charger once the battery ages a little.
PS: The only reason I bring this up is their base numbers are rather low and they don't seem to have a way to configure the systems before checkout. Overall the i5 version seems like a real mackbook competitor, but their low end model seems to be designed more for halo effect (battery life, and price) vs an actual reasonable choice.
I'm not sure why you think it's fishy. As long as Anandtech has kept their benchmark tests consistent across different units tested, it should be fine. I'm not sure how you got HD video viewing as a light benchmark test, I've never heard of that before. Generally, decoding a highly compressed chunk of data and using it to constantly update the display seems close to a worst case scenario to me, unless you are doing serious data crunching (e.g. encoding) which while more common than it used to be, I wouldn't consider common enough to include as a regular benchmark in a general purpose review.
According to Anandtech's article, the 13-inch Macbook Air has a 54 Wh battery and the Dell has a 52 Wh battery, so the XPS battery is slightly smaller. The hardware drawing power from the battery is different through (Broadwell-U @ 14 nm vs Haswell @ 22nm), so extrapolating numbers in that way is not likely to yield very accurate results.
Anandtech then just displayed numbers for useage levels vs hms.
Anandtech then just displayed numbers for useage levels vs hours:minutes.
Yeah, the "Choose Options" menu under the "Hard Drive" section. Currently, the $999.99 and $1299.99 models can upgrade from a 128GB to a 256GB SSD for +$100, and the high end $1599.99 model can upgrade from a 256GB SSD to a 512GB SSD for +$300. Available options may vary at times.
Though I'd rather just replace the SSD myself, especially for the 512GB upgrade. Looks very easy to do do, based on YouTube videos.
It's like comparing the value of two watches using the slag value of melting them down. If that's how you shop, the device isn't for you.
Metro is largely insignificant on non-touch devices. Most days I only see it in the brief period during "Windows Key -> 'chr' -> Enter".
I never understood the Metro hate mainly because I find it such an unimportant part of the OS in non-touch day-to-day use.
If I was Dell, I would just sit down my entire design and marketing team and make a plan for redesigning and rebranding. Their website look exactly like it did 10 years ago when Dell computers were cool.
The one thing that could change my mind about patent trolls is if one of them were to pop up and banish those unsolicited floating chat windows by suing everyone who uses them.
I have a M3800 and am not unhappy with it, although the touchpad is too touchy and the fan is too fanny. Somebody needs to get their shit together and actually push Apple.
I was also hoping for a touch screen. While I don't use it a ton on my Windows machines with a touch screen I constantly finding myself to use it for scrolling.
Does the Dell have a camera? I don't see it mentioned on that page, so maybe not.
a) that marketing page compares against a processor that is 4 years old, i.e. the processor in the 2011 MBA?
b) Intel has made new core i5's in the last 4 years (or even 3 years, 2 years, last year...)
c) we're not at a point where physics allows us to make hardware that consumes < 1/3 the power, but performs better, using the same manufacturing processes.
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.
You can still scale the screen resolution and get a higher resolution than the Air's 1440x900.
Yes, I scale my 15'' rMBP all the time according to what I currently need and the quality difference is hardly noticeable.
> performance
That one I'm also curious about. My takeaway from this new MB however is that it's pretty much unusable as a business laptop anyways. For a serious laptop I still need power, display, ethernet and at least one USB port available at the same time as an absolute minimum, plus connectivity to both HDMI and VGA when needed. Even if they offered all the dongles for that, it would still be a mess to work with on a daily basis. So, really, even if the performance were good, it wouldn't change anything for me. I'm curious how version 2 of that machine will be - didn't we already have a similar situation with the first macbook air and then they readded more ports later, because you know, they'd also actually like to sell these things rather than just having Jony talk about them in a soothing voice?
Supported scaled resolutions:
- 1440x900
- 1280x800
- 1024x640
With this update, we effectively have three choices:
1) Low powered, nice screen. (MB) 2) Medium powered, regular screen. (MBA) 3) High powered, nice screen. (MBP)
What I want is 2') Medium powered, nice screen.
The Apple Display pushes power to the notebook via magsafe and interfaces its host of ports (Ethernet, Firewire, Thunderbolt, USB) through a single Thunderbolt cable.
In this new model, there will be only one cable necessary … and most users, while mobile, don't need more than one port at a time. And when plugged in, thanks to the new USB standard, the display its tethered to will push power and connectivity to it.
The Macbook Air took it partially there, and now they're fully closing that loop.
Apple really needs to get to the "next-generation" retina displays with 25% or more density.
I doubt that's happening soon. With this new macbook on the market, the only use Apple has for the Air is as a budget option. The new macbook is smaller and lighter, the only advantage of the air is its 12 hour battery life compared to this thing's 8, but that's to be expected considering how gutless the Air is.
For this reason, it seems clear they won't run it at 2x by default. This is perfectly okay with a Retina screen, as you can't tell the difference. I believe the iPhone 6+ is run at non-integer scaling, and it looks great.
> 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.
I imagine they will release a Cinema Display that provides power, display, and USB hub all over USB-C.
I've been using a retina Macbook Pro with the '1680 x 1050' scaling option for a couple of years; works very nicely. I wouldn't see this as a major worry.
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.
[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.
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.
They don't have the same screwdriver they use on the latest MacBook Airs, some alcohol wipes, and the same thermal grease they use on everything except today's MacBook? Try an Apple Authorized Service Provider – i.e. an independent shop that repairs Macs – they should be able to help you out.
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.
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.
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.
Apple design the hardware to work with what they want it to look like not design a device around the hardware.
I used to think that was stupid but it clearly works for Apple. Their business is not making the best device spec wise but the "best" device design wise (in their view obviously).
But they knew customers would want more battery life than 1 hour. So rather than make it as thin as possible, they figure out: what is the best battery life:heft ratio?
That is what I was questioning in my OP: is this ratio, in the eyes of Apple, out of sync with this ratio in the eyes of the consumers?
Obviously, Apple knows how to build products. But it would be naive to assume that Apple always strikes this balance perfectly. I'm just suggesting that they may be pushing slightly more towards design over function.
So while the laptop may be underpowered/under ratio _today_, it won't be in its next incarnation, i.e. same chassis but better batteries.
So it's more of a bet/investment/concept car. This first gen isn't where the ratio is satisfied. It's v2 and onwards.
Also please all saying this is only "design". This is design made from user problems. Apple is a master at solving actual user problems, and that's why they are so successful. As a side product, their hardware look handsome. But that's actually the less important side.
Real users don't care about 10% more processor or 20% more storage. They care that they can wear their laptop everywhere (and in their purse, many Apple customers are women), that they can type fast and not be bumed by the noise of the computer.
Call it design, I call this utility, and I'm glad Apple tackle those issues. They really care about the whole and are not just assembling off the shelf pieces together.
And Apple laptops already give really good battery life: my 2014 retina MBP gets 6+ hours on a full charge -- and that's while running VMWare Fusion with 2-3 VMs. I have yet to see a Windows laptop give anywhere close to that battery life under that type of load without a bulbous battery pack protruding from the back.
Man, at $1299 I hope that's not the case. It was amusing how the "logic board" was really mentioned as kind of an afterthought in the design video, and then only to point out how small it was.
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).
Its not uncommon for machines to have only one usb controller with multiple ports (i.e. a usb controller + hub which connects externally)
Within 18-24 months there will be a refresh that has two USB ports. It's already in the works and ready to manufacture.
Apple knows that people are using macbooks, successfully, for 4+ and even 5+ years, and they also know that a LOT of people will both buy the new macbook and buy a new one to get the "at long last" second USB port, which somewhat alleviates the "problem" of macbooks being too long-lived.
I kind of see the MB as very solid upgrade to anyone using the 11 inch MBA for non-dev stuff (e.g. school) and is rich enough to be willing to pay 30-40% extra, despite it being hard to figure this type of user to really need 8gb of ram for example.
For anyone on the 13 inch lineup, it feels like a step back either in performance, battery, ports, price, screen size.
I mean, 13' MBA? Cheaper, bigger screen, better ports, better battery. Not many people will really care that the MB is a tiny bit lighter/compact to the extent they're willing to give up all these things, except if they cared so much to have gotten the 11', hence how I see the MB as being an upgrade to the 11' MBA.
Unless you really wanted a retina display and want to give up screen space, a few hours of battery, pay a premium and have to get a bunch of peripherals.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...
The slightly cynical me tends to think the thunderbolt port was great and on every mac. now new adapters...
It looks like you connected a device from an untrusted Vendor ID which is enumerating as both a [display|power source|input device] and a [USB Mass Storage device]. Do you want to allow this?
[Unmount device] [Allow both]
People have different use cases to you. Deal with it.
Seriously though, I'm looking forward to cable-less future when it come to monitors.
Given it's USB-C there'll be plenty of hubs, docks etc... but it'd have been nice to get it out of the box (charger being a hub), or at least having two ports.
1 port is just ridiculous, it's basically 'we force you to make big tradeoffs, like an external screen or charging, unless you want to buy and carry with you various externals for what is supposed to be the most portable device in our Mac lineup'.
Lack of an SD card is another one of those things. Not as big of a problem but would 2 ports have really been that difficult?
Apple make plenty of higher-end products for people that want to compile code all day and have multiple ports.
This one is a "MacBook" and the other one is a "MacBook Pro". I think it's clear which one fits your needs better.
Happily, there are millions of people that don't want to code all day, and have probably never plugged anything into their laptop other that power. So this device is for them, not you.
That's too inelegant a solution for Apple, they'd rather just have a single port than have two ports that look like they should be identical but aren't.
It will also add significant protection costs: what if somebody plugs 2 chargers into the laptop? They'll be at almost but not the same voltage, and amperage levels will be high enough that significant damage could result. Obviously the laptop will only do the upgrade voltage & amperage handshake with one of the chargers, but I imagine that redundant hardware protection will also be required.
I don't really consider it to be a competitor though because Apple doesn't offer anything that can compete with a touchscreen device that can be used as a tablet and also a full general purpose computer.
[1] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD098ZM/A/apple-digital-av...
But it'd have been nice to get it out of the box, as it's an additional $50-150 depending on how fancy/slim/functional you want your new charger to be, at which point choosing it over the MBA with 8gb/256gb with a few hours extra battery life and an extra inch seems even less interesting.
I have been a macbook air user since 2008 (6 years with a 13 and 1+ with an 11) and I love them.
I will not buy one that has zero ports available while I am charging. No hard feelings - I just can't do it.
I am not a feature wizard and I don't need to address every possible use case, but I absolutely need to have the ability to charge my laptop while using a cellular dongle. It's an absolute requirement.
The current MBA design with a port on each side is sensible and highly usable, and is vastly superior to a design that limits you to zero ports while you are charging.
Let's not even discuss hub use while traveling. It's a clownish suggestion.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1L2AM/A/usb-c-vga-multip...
I sincerely hope this no magsafe or single port thing goes into the MBPs as well.
This new MacBook has nice battery life and if I had one I can see using it without needing to plug it in while i'm on the couch or something.
What worries me though is a precedent being set. I am not in the market for a MacBook or MacBook Air, however I do buy MacBook Pros. I do everything on them from software dev, video editing, playing games. Much of that use is not battery friendly so I will _need_ to plug those in while i'm on the couch or in a high traffic area. I love the idea of USB-C I just hope Apple keeps MagSafe around for form factors they are not trying to reduce to sheets of paper thickness.
Laptop > -(1-2 foot cable)- > Brick > Magsafe ---(full length cable)---> Wall
So good on them.
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.
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'
I think it's clearly the latter. They're pushing the boundaries of portability on a machine with a full sized keyboard. The port decision is clearly the future, but as with the original MBA, the market isn't quite ready to make the leap re: the tradeoffs. It's incredibly thin, light, and amazing looking machine with no compromises where it truly matters most, -the keyboard and the screen. The basic premise is in place. It feels to me like the Air will yield to this once the difference in value from the remaining tradeoffs (battery life, price, etc) shrinks a bit.
The MacBook Air may fit in envelope, but does all it's cables and adapters fit in that envelope with it?
Terrible design.
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.
All important questions to answer before you walk out the door without a dongle.
Why would they go out and buy new ones to fit in certain models of laptop if the limited capacity and slow speed hasn't already gotten them to replace it?
Another thing - that vibrating trackpad gizmo feels like a couple of innovations away from true touch feedback on an iPhone? Any thoughts?
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.
But more to the point, a netbook was optical-drive-free because you weren't expected to use it for more than just web browsing; you weren't going to need to load software onto it. The MBA was optical-drive free in spite of it being intended to be a fully-functional notebook computer. You would install software onto it over wi-fi. And you wouldn't need to rip CDs because you would buy all your music from the iTunes store. In 2008 that was still a bold idea.
Of course, one could argue they were specialist laptops which never had a large market. But maybe the same could be said of the MBA?
Apple's abandoning of the optical drive played a huge role in ensuring everyone provided a non optical disk way of getting their software or media content.
Apple did not invent the 'sub-notebook' form factor. There have been many notebooks without optical drives before it.
Where they were first (to the best of my knowledge), and were a bit controversial, was removing them as an option for their Desktops. That raised a few eyebrows.
Strictly speaking, Apple has not dropped optical drives across the line; you can actually still buy a 13" non-retina Macbook with one. Though given that it's worse in practically every way than the Air, and more expensive, I doubt that anyone does.
Do you mean they were the first to bring out a desktop/laptop with usb?
Also, do we consider price anymore? I tend to buy machines at most $500. An $800-1200 Mac really isn't an option for me. I don't care to spend that much, nor understand why I should. I guess a Mercedes is better than my Jeep, but that doesn't mean Jeep can't innovate. Its just they have to hit a certain price points and deliver certain things at that price point. The Mercedes can have auto-assist driving and rich Corinthian leather, but I don't really need those things.
I could see this being a new setting in iOS. There's a "Vibrate on touch" setting in Android (Settings > Sound > Vibrate on Touch), the device vibrates very slightly when typing and when you press navigation bar buttons.
For example, the NEC LaVie Z HZ550 is 1.75lbs and the case is made out of a magnesium-lithium alloy. The keyboard is integrated into the case. It uses a processor that consumes more power (an i5), but they will probably release a new one in a while that will use the same 5W core M and get similar battery life. The laptop is a whole 3mm thicker than the new air, but you get ports as a result.
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?
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.
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.
http://web.archive.org/web/20111030050311/http://www.lenovob...
Lenovo's blog post at the time:
http://web.archive.org/web/20111030050311/http://www.lenovob...
> PC vendors have almost zero say in this change. We simply have to adapt. As much as I would like it to be so, 4:3 is not coming back.
Apple has since gone on to sell hundreds of millions of 4:3 iPads, so this argument doesn't hold much water. Where there's a will, there's a way. Further dilution of the ThinkPad from a pure "business" machine.
I mean, the only thing I can see in favor of this is that 16:10 is better for working because it has more resolution, but that's not arguing for that aspect, only for more resolution.
Would you take a screen that was 1728*1080?
If not, then standardize on 16:9, get a higher resolution screen.
16:10 has proportionally more vertical screen space, which is much more important given that most our documents/sources are oriented vertically. Not to mention wasted vertical space that cannot be removed (toolbars/menus/etc). Having more horizontal space is useless if you're mostly working/viewing with a single document at a time. If you physically rotate the screen, the 10:16 ratio is again better at fitting a piece of a A4 paper.
The 16:9 ratio was driven by consumer demand, but no professional user I ever met liked it for working. There's a lot of unused horizontal space in just about every scenario. I personally stuck on 4:3 as long as I could, then switched to 16:10. Admittedly, 16:10 is "good enough" for me that I wouldn't necessarily go back to 4:3 now.
16:10 is better than 16:9 for anything but watching movies because the screen would be as wide anyway, so the 16:9 turns into a reduced height display. Furthermore watching movies with a little black stripes above and below the video is not so bad.
Only the MacBook Air 11-inch is 16:9
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.
But here we have venteprivee.com where like 3 or 4 times a year, operators put an offer for a lower price for their service. Every year, if you look around summer holidays, you can get internet for 2€/month instead of 20€/month and sometimes phone plans too for a very low price.
It usually only last for a year and then you go back to normal price. If you are like me and you don't care about keeping your phone number, then you can just cancel your plan whenever there is a better plan or at the end of the offer :)
It's funny because every operator uses that english term
I think you just answered your own question. It seems to make more sense to have one channel to the mobile data world (that being your phone) and reduce costs/complexity of including a mobile interface on the device itself.
I wouldn't be too surprised if Apple removes this for iPads as well at some point.
For the record I also think a camera with its own GPS is dumb.
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.
https://www.google.com/shopping/product/12203990123520892001
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pr...
You can still swap a drive in newer models, just with a PCIe card instead of an mSATA drive.
Simply put: Newer generation of hardware = newer storage interface.
Here is a replacement guide for a 2014 model Retina MacBook Pro:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Retina+Disp...
However, I've been pleased so far. The keyboard takes a little getting used to (because it is in the exact center of the laptop), but is good for typing overall. Good feel, no flex. The display is good too, with a wide viewing angle.
Interesting the MacBook is lighter than the MacBook Air.
They missed such a great opportunity to call it the MacBook Helium.
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.
Here's your gold bicycle.
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.
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).
What a bummer, I was seriously hoping to replace my 2012 MBA, but now... apparently the Core M processor will unfortunately be a good deal slower, than the one used 3 years ago. Which means I'll probably have to go with a Windows based laptop or wait for the MBP update.
The Core M *71 isn't that far off--3DMark is notably lower, but most others are pretty close.
But what concerns me is that reviews of other systems with the chip mention that it throttles itself pretty aggressively when hot. I have no idea how much that would or wouldn't hit these benchmarks. This might be best-case performance on a cool day, for the first 30 minutes.
Further, both processors are dual cores with hyperthreading. It'll be about 5% less performant than the previous Macbook Air while using vastly less energy (4.5 watts vs 15 watts).
Now, that said, this is a Core M; it may end up a little slower than the current Macbook Air.
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...
Let's see benchmarks first.
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?
http://live.arstechnica.com/apples-march-9-spring-forward-ev...
"What's on the inside is just as innovative as the outside. Latest unibody architecture. New MacBook has no fan at all."
Also, the fan is a big issue for me. You're not likely to see fanless systems with Haswell or the more powerful Broadwell processors. With Core M Broadwell, though, I expect fanless will be the norm. I expect I'll be getting the relatively new Asus UX305 soon; for me it compares favorably to new Macbook but is only $699. It's a little heavier (2.6 lbs), but has larger 13.3" 1080p screen, runs Windows and/or Linux well, quality aluminum build, same 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, etc. I suppose I'd prefer the new Macbook, but I'm not an OS X guy and the Asus is barely half the cost.
Amazon has temporarily inflated prices for this low-availability item. I'm waiting for NewEgg to get them back in stock.
Trackpad does seem to be one of the lowpoints of ux305fa. esp. if that's something that's important to you. I tend to adapt to trackpads and like whatever I use most.
I have a different Asus machine, the super-cheap X205, which I got for $180 at a Microsoft Store. It's plastic, but surprisingly well made. 2.2 lbs and fanless is great experience. Main problem is it's a pretty slow processor and has just 2 GB RAM, 32GB flash drive, basically tablet specs in a laptop form. I've extended it with 64GB microSDHC. I do find myself using more powerful machines at home (Lenovo X200 and X220) but even there I'm enjoying the X205 quite a bit.
A phone I don't feel so claustrophobic, but anything tablet sized and up just makes me feel awkward.
Come to think, it's probably great for most students. Plenty fast enough to browse and write papers, and it doesn't add to the volume or burden of your already-overstuffed bookbag.
It doesn't fit my needs, but that's okay.
I have a early 2014 Air with a Core i7 (4650U), and it can certainly hold its own.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7113/2013-macbook-air-core-i5-...
Thinner means lighter: I live in the middle of a very walkable area. So I walk a lot. It is great to be able to throw my computer into my bag and go out to work in the middle of a park or wherever; my computer plus my drawing tablet is only slightly more weight to haul then a hardbound sketchbook. I think the new machine would cut it down to about as much weight. It is pretty cool to go out carrying everything I need to do my job and only carry about six pounds of stuff on my shoulder. And that's including the bag I keep the laptop in, plus wallet and suchlike.
Thinner means style: In general, things that are slim are also things people see as "elegant". Back around 2000 I carried a Handspring Visor Edge in my pocket rather than a clunky plastic Palm Pilot, not because it was any more powerful, but because it was a sleek little piece of shiny metal that made me happy to hold in my hand.
There's a point where there is Enough Battery. I can take my 2013 Air out for a day of rambling around the city and drawing wherever I feel like stopping, and not worry about it running out of power as long as I charged it last night. I think the new Macbook has a lower estimated battery life than my current machine, so that's a downside of it.
I don't mind a bit of thickness as long as it's small in the other dimensions, and light as anything.
And for what? A razor thin laptop with just one port seems to be really pushing towards one extreme side of the function/form continuum. I thought giving up ethernet was bad enough with the Retina Macbooks.
It's very pretty, but it seems more like a toy than a serious computer. Maybe that's what Apple wants, but that's never something I would have said about the last few years of Macbook Airs.
Wonder if history will repeat itself here.
I really must disagree. I do Infrastructure by day (not just AWS, but physical colo as well), and quite a bit of microcontroller/CNC/robotics on the side/as a hobby. Nothing in the new Macbook stops me from doing this. I'll just move to using Bluetooth for my interfaces when I can, and when I can't, serial interfaces over USB-C.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography_of_Apple_Inc.#Keybo...
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.
Luckily however, the new 13inch MBP is actually perfect. I'm rather excited about it.
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.
Not really. Just look at the Passmark scores:
Macbook Air (Early 2014): 4159 [1]
Macbook : 3096 [2]
[1] http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4650U+%40+...
[2] https://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+M-5Y70+%40+1...
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.)
I googled, for the MBA 2014:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Hopefully you won't even notice you are resting on it.
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.
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.
What I've noticed, is that some apps, when left on my Windows 7 system, Like google earth, seem to eat a lot of memory, and then when I come back to them - I'm either getting a "Low memory warning", or I have to wait for everything to swap back in. For whatever reason, under OS X 10.8.x, this has never been an issue.
Honestly though - a lot (most?) of it probably has to do with flash drives - they make everything feel just so much more nimble.
The only people who require more than 8 GB on OS X are those who have Apps that specially require a lot of memory to perform - Image Processing, Databases, etc...
I used to be in the "Buy as much memory as you can afford" - but I really would never buy more than 8 GB on a Mac (with the caveat about memory hungry apps above)
Only specialists, or people with massive, massive data sets require more than 8 GB on OS X - I push my system really, really hard, and I rarely (if ever?) come close to maxing out memory.
This isn't to say there isn't a subset of people who can make do with more than 8 GB - but 95%+ of the average knowledge worker running the Office Apps, Google Earth, Safari, etc... will be fine for several years with that much memory.
In a software company I wouldn't stick anyone with an 8GB mac. But then, that is a specialist application technically.
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.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=2465&cmp%5...
The Air line was also upgraded to core i5 and i7 today.
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)
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...
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 (I know other products like it exist)
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.
Air < Macbook < Pro
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)
http://www.apple.com/mac/compare/results/?product1=macbook&p...
I wish that they would own that and unlock the iDrive so we can all interface with their amazing hardware.
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.
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.
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.
This is meant to be a sleek, fun machine that's portable and powerful.
Side note, what line of work are you in where you need so many ports? I could see if you're a photographer, where you have a camera, the charging cable, an SD card, and an external, but I can't really think of too many other use cases where you'd need multiple ports at once.
Just noticed you program OSX apps. Why do you need so many ports?
I also use my FireWire for running external mic preamps; it's really useful to have a rack mounted 8 channel mic preamp on FireWire and to turn up and record a practice / gig with just your laptop, particularly as the ADCs in the external hardware will be significantly better than the ones in the MacBook.
I use the ThunderBolt / Mini DisplayPort for hooking up to an external screen when I take the laptop home and want to game in Windows after rebooting; it is useful to have a device that will do all of that without external hardware, and I don't feel the extra pain of having a laptop half a centimetre thicker than a Retina model :-)
And the SD? For my ancient camera!
And the DVD writer is useful for giving CDs to other band members who don't like MP3s for odd reasons, or to play CDs in the car (yes my "ancient" 2008 Golf TDi supports MP3 CDs but the iPod interface for it is severely inadequate).
You're right about the Pro though - it's probably the thing I'd buy again.
It does seem a little insane to not be able to e.g., run a harddrive to backup the computer while it's plugged in...
And realistically, when I'm traveling with my laptop it's rare that I'm plugging anything into it besides a power cable. When it's "docked" it has the power cable, a Thunderbolt cable, and an audio out cable because I'm kind of a nerd and want to use my own speakers. That's all I need: the external hard drive and (non-wifi) printer hang off the monitor's built-in hub, as does external Ethernet. What would I lose with this new weirdo laptop? I'd plug one less cable in docked.
"But if you're traveling with it you'd need to bring a hub with you!" Well, if I was traveling and I expected to need to plug in USB stuff on the road, yes. But it's very clear that they're treating that as an edge case, making the assumption that many users can go almost entirely wireless, or will be able to in short order. And they're probably right. Maybe it'll be "daft" for you, but Apple has a history of doing daft things that more often than not drag the industry forward. (And keep pundits employed.)
Admittedly the disk is a major slowdown on this but I have a LOT of data to cart around (VMs, dev environments, and recorded audio and video).
I can take this thing all over the world and not worry about a bag of cables and adapters. It replaced my desktop machine and still fits that need, which is a good thing I think.
You're right about the screen though :-(
I've got a 2012 Retina MBP and 2011 Air and battery life is not something I even think about. These things last ages these days.
My current machine has two USB ports, power, Mini Displayport, audio, and an SD card. I do not think I have ever plugged an SD card into this computer. I think I may have plugged one into one of my computers once. I was happy to ditch a DVD drive a few years ago when I bought my first Air; I think I used one of those maybe twice in five years. I've never felt the lack of Ethernet or Firewire.
I used to say that I'd never want a laptop smaller than a 15", but the higher DPI of the Airs changed my tune. I love my 13" now. Would a Retina 12" screen work for me? I dunno. It might, it might not.
When I'm on the road, the most things I've ever had to plug in to my computer are three: my Wacom tablet, a power brick, and a video adapter. That last only happens when I'm giving a presentation at a con; most of the time I just go out to a cafe with the drawing tablet and no other accessories.
And yes, there are adaptors to plug video/power/USB into that single USB-C connector at the same time.
The Air makes you angry, and this is an expression of the same ideas that drove the Air: small, light, and minimalist. It's no surprise you dislike this one too.
Thanks for the info about the USB-C connector; I still find it odd that other similarly sized devices fit more ports on without the need for external adapters; it almost seems that they've put the port on just because they can.
Edit: having looked again at it, I was amazed by the tiny innards! The space metal grey looks good; perhaps I was too harsh.
(Can be seen in the picture of the space black model at the very bottom of the linked page.)
Looks like they're going with the same mini-TOSLINK/3.5mm stereo jack that they've gone with in the past.
So it's a laptop for people who don't do any real computing on their laptop?
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.
This coincides with being fanless.
Had Apple made this (say) the same thickness as the MacBook air, they'd have increased their volume by a measurable amount, they'd have been able to have a much more powerful processor, and no one would be able to say that ARM is a good proposition for them for the foreseeable future.
Now they have a fairly weakly performing computer, with an ARM-sized logic board, which is going to be bought by people who don't care about bottom line performance.
This is going to be the slowest Mac in a number of years - and if it's a success then making the next-slowest Mac be ARM wouldn't be such a jump.
I just don't really follow their path here. First they make the MB more expensive than the air, but run slower. They also make it lighter, smaller, thinner and quieter than the air (air having light-as-a-feather connotations).
I mean, what's the deal in 2 years? If it's the lowest powered device, it'll probably be the thinnest and lightest etc, too. So what about the Air? Will they just throw that powerful brand name out of the window?
Will they expect people to buy 12' and not the 13' MBA with a bigger screen, 3 hours more battery, more ports and a bunch more (20-30%) powerful yet equally less expensive?
In short, it's a bit of a strange lineup. And while I agree with you that it obviously is, and may likely remain the slowest Macbook (slowest Mac period, the Mini notwithstanding), I don't necessarily see how that means ARM as opposed to continuing with refreshed Intel Ms, or hell even an updated Atom lineup. Is there any indication they want to move away from Intel again? I mean, weak performance is one thing, but this is OS X we're talking about, for a device that costs beyond $1k, which probably has good enough profit margins on an Intel M, would they really underpower it even more with a weaker chip?
I'm not very familiar with CPUs though, would love some more of your thoughts on this. It's definitely true that it's now very feasible, and so it all comes down to who can deliver the best low-power CPU the next few years.
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.
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).
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!
Don't forget Regular vs Pro might not be as powerful as Air vs Pro, as Air doesn't just differentiate it from Apple's Pro, but also from competitors 'normal' laptops. i.e. a consumer might reason: even if I don't get Apple's pro product, I still want to get their Air, as that's better than the competitor's 'regular', as air means lighter, more battery, more portable.
That sounds really simplistic and silly, but I think these processes are a genuine part of people's buying decisions in the non-professional sector that the regular/air line caters to.
Which is why it surprised me a bit that they didn't go for naming it the 12' Air, especially it being the lighest and most portable and quiet. Of course that would've been a very tricky lineup as some Airs are on the Intel M chip and fanless and expensive and retina, while others are not, and with just 1 inch difference between them it'd have been too busy.
But yeah I agree, definite possibility. Had kind of expected the Air not to get a refresh, and for the Air 12' to be the Macbook Air Retina, and that in 2 years the 11 and 13 would be discontinued while the 12 kept getting updated, reduced in price and with 10h battery and decent performance for anything not professional. Would make a very simple lineup. 12' air, 13'/15' Pro, and iMac/Pro/Mini for any bigger form factors.
We'll see!
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think both could be marketable if this gets big in a generation or two.
I have to believe Dell could at least come close. I have an XPS13 and it just doesn't.
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
Guess I'll have to wait for the next iteration, which will hopefully "change everything, again" and add a second USB port...
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/15/why-i-changed-my-mind-abou...
> Force Touch trackpad
I'm annoyed by senseless techno-marketing jargon.
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.
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.
annihilate Google pixel 2 sales (if anyone expect any) before start
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.
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!
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.
I would say the free ride is over for Apple and they're now just another company doing things in the mosh pit.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3043324/tech-forecast/apple-intro...
(Disclaimer) Not a sponsor/promoter of them.
So now developers will have to target those resolutions exactly as they are. No more "elegant scaling" and whatnot.
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).