Apple Event 2016-10-27 -- New Macs finally

[Commodus]

You need to upgrade to the $1800 (before tax) model to use the power, external monitor and USB stick simultaneously.

It's pretty clear that the 13-inch Pro minus Touch Bar is the new Air... albeit for $500 more. Much like the 12-inch MacBook, I don't think it's the lack of ports that's the issue so much as the price. At least you're getting a more powerful system than you would if it was a straight-up Air replacement.

 

[Eug]

SSD in base model non-Touch Bar 13" Pro is removable.

http://blog.macsales.com/38440-ssd-in-late-2016-entry-level-macbook-pro-removable

 

[sxr7171]

That would be completely unreadable for me. That's one reason I hated the MacBook Airs.

I think 200% is a good option.

 

[sxr7171]

It's pretty clear that the 13-inch Pro minus Touch Bar is the new Air... albeit for $500 more. Much like the 12-inch MacBook, I don't think it's the lack of ports that's the issue so much as the price. At least you're getting a more powerful system than you would if it was a straight-up Air replacement.

I find that very hard to agree with. Beacause 3lbs is not "air". It's not light. The retina MacBook is the new Air and it was not updated this time. As an aside, it would be the only machine in the Apple stable I would be interested in since I value portability. These machines are optimized for performance not weight.

 

[sxr7171]

SSD in base model non-Touch Bar 13" Pro is removable.

http://blog.macsales.com/38440-ssd-in-late-2016-entry-level-macbook-pro-removable

I think it's fair to say the SSD in anything is removable if you are willing to open the case.

 

[Eug]

I think it's fair to say the SSD in anything is removable if you are willing to open the case.

Nope. In some Mac laptops, the SSD storage is soldered to the motherboard. Some had guessed the 13" non-Touch Bar model would take this route too.

I find that very hard to agree with. Beacause 3lbs is not "air". It's not light. The retina MacBook is the new Air and it was not updated this time. As an aside, it would be the only machine in the Apple stable I would be interested in since I value portability. These machines are optimized for performance not weight.

The new 13" MacBook Pro is almost the exact same weight as the 13" Air was. The Air was 1.35 kg. The Pro is 1.37 kg. As in 20 g difference, but the new non-Touch Bar 13" gets Retina.

By the way, I'm hoping the 12" MacBook gets Thunderbolt 3 in the spring. I'm not optimistic though.

 

[sxr7171]

Nope. In some Mac laptops, the SSD storage is soldered to the motherboard. Some had guessed the 13" non-Touch Bar model would take this route too.


The new 13" MacBook Pro is almost the exact same weight as the 13" Air was. The Air was 1.35 kg. The Pro is 1.37 kg. As in 20 g difference, but the new non-Touch Bar 13" gets Retina.

By the way, I'm hoping the 12" MacBook gets Thunderbolt 3 in the spring. I'm not optimistic though.

I see what you're saying and my point is sort of that only a Mac user has to deal with that distinction of whether their machine has a glued on mass storage device. I can't think of any other consumer who would have to worry about that.

The weight of the 13" Air was not even appropriate for a 2009 ultra book. So many machines were under 2.5lbs. Right now Samsung's 13" is 1.85lbs. It's not an exotic product neither is it priced with a premium nor is it hard to find. The major difference is that there is far less marketing behind it.

The Air never had the best specs of anything of Apple. They wouldn't even allow anything with the Air name have a Retina display. They sold a compromised machine optimized for portability for people who wanted light weight over power. Three pounds was a pathetic weight for those set of constraints. I guess using metal that people think is bling-bling is more important than moving to Carbon fiber or Magnesium Alloy that feels plasticky.

In short I'm saying the 13" Air was a pig. The 11" was tolerable but it had the smallest screen in its class. That was the compromise to get a light Apple laptop. In hindsight it was not worth it.

Also what I'm saying is that if your frame of reference is only Apple stuff then it's going to be limited in terms of performance to weight specs.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Scaling in Windows 10 is fine for me, I'm using a 27" 3840x2160 monitor at 150%, so 2560x1440 equivalent desktop space. Sometimes if my eyes get tired I'll go to 200%.

It also works fine on my MBP 13", 2560x1600 at 200%, so 1280x800 equivalent.

Problem is some third party apps still haven't been fixed (VMware), and some only scale well if you use 200% (Adobe). I still wouldn't buy anything without a high-res screen these days.

And Core M/Y whatever is just too slow, has that "Atom netbook" feeling LOL. The 12" MacBook retina I thought I'd hate because of the keyboard, but that wasn't so bad. What bothered me was the performance.

 

[Eug]

I see what you're saying and my point is sort of that only a Mac user has to deal with that distinction of whether their machine has a glued on mass storage device. I can't think of any other consumer who would have to worry about that.

The weight of the 13" Air was not even appropriate for a 2009 ultra book. So many machines were under 2.5lbs. Right now Samsung's 13" is 1.85lbs. It's not an exotic product neither is it priced with a premium nor is it hard to find. The major difference is that there is far less marketing behind it.

The Air never had the best specs of anything of Apple. They wouldn't even allow anything with the Air name have a Retina display. They sold a compromised machine optimized for portability for people who wanted light weight over power. Three pounds was a pathetic weight for those set of constraints. I guess using metal that people think is bling-bling is more important than moving to Carbon fiber or Magnesium Alloy that feels plasticky.

In short I'm saying the 13" Air was a pig. The 11" was tolerable but it had the smallest screen in its class. That was the compromise to get a light Apple laptop. In hindsight it was not worth it.

Also what I'm saying is that if your frame of reference is only Apple stuff then it's going to be limited in terms of performance to weight specs.

Well, first off the 11" was not 11". It was 11.6" so closer to 12". Second, its screen was pretty mediocre, and it had one of those tween PPIs. So it shouldn't even be a consideration. The 13" Air's screen was considerably better quality. But I still didn't like it because it didn't have the appropriate default font sizes IMO and the scaling was an issue partially because it had a tweener PPI again. It suffered similar issues as moderately high PPI Windows laptops.

Much of the point of Retina in OS X is the proper scaling and appropriate default font sizes. I would have expected that Windows 10 fixed all of this, but it doesn't apparently. If it's the same behaviour as scaling on Windows 8.x, then IMO it's a major PITA.

Note: I have three Windows 10 machines, but none of them are uber high PPI. They all use standard PPI screens. I'd rather that than the tweener resolutions and I'd often also rather that than uber high PPI with improper scaling support.

P.S. Regarding those non-removable SSDs in some Macs, it's not as if they took an SSD and glued it in place. The SSD is actually built into the motherboards of some Macs, much like a Thunderbolt controller chip might be, or memory, or on-board GPUs, etc. There is no glue to remove. To replace the SSD would mean swapping the entire motherboard.

 

[Commodus]

I find that very hard to agree with. Beacause 3lbs is not "air". It's not light. The retina MacBook is the new Air and it was not updated this time. As an aside, it would be the only machine in the Apple stable I would be interested in since I value portability. These machines are optimized for performance not weight.

It's the same weight as the Air, and it's overall thinner and smaller. I'm not one of those "if you can't carry X pounds you're weak" types, but 3 pounds for a 13-inch system with a regular-power Core chip is pretty light. You're not going to get much lighter than that... the latest XPS 13 is lighter, but it's also using low-voltage CPUs.

 

[Eug]

So I'd been contemplating Sierra-izing my 2009 MacBook Pro (which isn't officially supported by Sierra), while I wait for that Kaby Lake MacBook 12". However, at this point, it's too much hassle. Too much like a Hackintosh. Defeats the point of having a Mac.

I think I'll just just wait until Sierra gets its last update in summer 2017, and then upgrade it once and for all. Instead of dealing with potential issues with each and every point update of Sierra 10.12. The annoying part is having to keep a USB installer around for Sierra at all times to fix such problems that crop up.

Actually, running Sierra, I don't notice that much difference actually, aside from stuff like Photos, but I don't use Photos on my MacBook Pro. That's strictly on my iMac. Even Sierra's iMessage is basically the same. No animated effects on Sierra. It seems the Mac side isn't keeping up with what iOS is doing.

 

[HiroThreading]

...well, that was a pretty disappointing announcement by Apple.

 

[Eug]

...well, that was a pretty disappointing announcement by Apple.

Well, without the launch of the new MBPs, we wouldn't have TouchFart.

 

[sxr7171]

It's the same weight as the Air, and it's overall thinner and smaller. I'm not one of those "if you can't carry X pounds you're weak" types, but 3 pounds for a 13-inch system with a regular-power Core chip is pretty light. You're not going to get much lighter than that... the latest XPS 13 is lighter, but it's also using low-voltage CPUs.

In all honesty it's not about carrying weight for me as much as it is about bedtime use. Lighter machine means no imprint on the chest. The Retina MacBook is 2lbs which is a light machine for Apple. Every machine I've had for almost a decade is under 2.5 either with 12" or 13.3" displays. My current is 1.7lbs.

A 13" Air refresh would be under 2.5lbs. The only machine above 2.5lbs I would consider now is either the X1 or X1 yoga at 2.6 or 2.8lbs respectively. But that bumps the screen up to 14".

There were several machines that met the under 2.5lbs requirement. On the Apple side it was 11.6" MacBook Air. On the Windows side there was Vaio Z, Dell E2400, Thinkpad X series. Right now Samsung's 15" is 2.85lbs. 13.3" machines for example are Samsung 9 13.3" at 1.85lbs. NEC Lavie Z at 1.7lbs (my current machine).

So if the Air premise were refreshed, let's say they do a 13.3" retina MacBook it would have to be under 2.5lbs to be an "Air". The Pro at 3lbs is pretty good but it is not optimized for weight, more for performance.

 

[sxr7171]

Well, first off the 11" was not 11". It was 11.6" so closer to 12". Second, its screen was pretty mediocre, and it had one of those tween PPIs. So it shouldn't even be a consideration. The 13" Air's screen was considerably better quality. But I still didn't like it because it didn't have the appropriate default font sizes IMO and the scaling was an issue partially because it had a tweener PPI again. It suffered similar issues as moderately high PPI Windows laptops.

Much of the point of Retina in OS X is the proper scaling and appropriate default font sizes. I would have expected that Windows 10 fixed all of this, but it doesn't apparently. If it's the same behaviour as scaling on Windows 8.x, then IMO it's a major PITA.

Note: I have three Windows 10 machines, but none of them are uber high PPI. They all use standard PPI screens. I'd rather that than the tweener resolutions and I'd often also rather that than uber high PPI with improper scaling support.

P.S. Regarding those non-removable SSDs in some Macs, it's not as if they took an SSD and glued it in place. The SSD is actually built into the motherboards of some Macs, much like a Thunderbolt controller chip might be, or memory, or on-board GPUs, etc. There is no glue to remove. To replace the SSD would mean swapping the entire motherboard.

I picked 11.6" because for me 3lbs is too much for what I use these for. I agree the screen was not good. That's why in hindsight I felt I should have gotten a 12.5" Thinkpad which would have been same weight with a slightly bigger screen. Those days Thinkpad screens were TN and bad compared to what's out there now.

If you are conflicted about scaling just go to Best Buy, confirm the return policy and have them order you something like a Yoga 900s or XPS13 and try it for 2 weeks. Imho the scaling issue is overblown. My experience is only with a 13.3" 1440p screen. It's never been an issue for me. But only you can make the determination for yourself. For me I noticed it automatically scales for the display and I've never had an issue. I don't use notepad but I've used regedit and command prompt. If you use external monitors that might be different as the scaling issues seem to be for people who need different scaling on different monitors.

The only machine I've ever had that had soldered on mass storage was a Vaio X. It was a 1.6lb (not a typo) Atom based 12" laptop. Built completely of Carbon fiber. In that machine I can see why they did it that way. It was heavily optimized for weight so even a SSD case would add weight. There was no M.2 back then.

I could see a company soldering on mass storage if they are severely optimizing for weight but otherwise I don't see the point. In Apple's currently lineup it would be possibly excusable in the Retina MacBook. I say possibly because M.2 is an option now and confers most of the weight saving advantages of soldered NAND flash.

 

[Kazukian]

Am sort of at a loss, lots of criticism in the forum of the updates, but the reviews are generally positive.

 

[Eug]

Am sort of at a loss, lots of criticism in the forum of the updates, but the reviews are generally positive.

IMO the new machines aren't bad machines and have better-than-MacBook keyboards and a great big trackpad along with that OLED Touch Bar, but not really compelling either, and stuck on Skylake (because of Intel) and at a high price. And some are short on ports.

They're fine machines overall but given the high price and pro-dongle approach for a last gen CPU, people are bound to be disappointed.

I'm not completely surprised though. Often in the first gen of a new Apple design, some things just need to be fixed. For this round I think what needs to be fixed is price and Skylake, and of course USB-C / Thunderbolt product availability. A lot of that isn't under Apple's control but nonetheless I suspect gen 2 will see happier customers.

 

[Kazukian]

IMO the new machines aren't bad machines and have better-than-MacBook keyboards and a great big trackpad along with that OLED Touch Bar, but not really compelling either, and stuck on Skylake (because of Intel) and at a high price. And some are short on ports.

They're fine machines overall but given the high price and pro-dongle approach for a last gen CPU, people are bound to be disappointed.

I'm already living the dongle life with rMB. The industry will catch up eventually.

 

[jpiniero]

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/743284?baseline=888017

Top rMBP 13" 15W (6360U) versus Top model with the 7200U (unsure if it is cTDP up or not despite the 2.7 clock denoted). Pretty close, huh. You can see the scores where the edram really helps.

 

[Commodus]

Am sort of at a loss, lots of criticism in the forum of the updates, but the reviews are generally positive.

That seems to be generally true of Apple products in general as of late. Forum goers who've never touched hardware condemn it; reviewers who've tried it, as well as actual users, are generally positive.

My theory is that enthusiasts love to nitpick hardware, because they're the sort who care about getting everything just right... but they're not most people. While forums obsess over factors like bezel ratios, removable batteries and legacy ports, most everyone else is too busy enjoying the devices to notice. This isn't to excuse risky decisions like no headphone jack on the iPhone 7 or the absence of an SD card reader on the new MacBook Pro, but they'er not the life-and-death issues that they're made out to be here.

 

[Spicedaddy]

In Canada, the MBA13 8GB/256GB is 1449$.
The cheapest new MBPr13, also 8GB/256GB is 1899$.

Pretty big difference. The MBA13 is what most people buy, and what they'll continue buying because the new MBP is too expensive. So Apple's bestseller will continue to be an old laptop with huge bezels and crappy screen.

Meanwhile, a Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake 8GB/256GB goes for 1399$ currently.

 

[quikah]

Am sort of at a loss, lots of criticism in the forum of the updates, but the reviews are generally positive.

The issues are price and it is just nothing all that special (though what did anyone really expect?). I think if MS didn't have an event the previous day with an innovative product reveal I think there would be a lot less grousing.

Also, I think Apple has somewhat damaged their reputation this year with their hubris. The "courage" line and essentially making fun of people using old computers during iPad Pro 9.7" event, strange that both of those were Phil Schiller...

 

[Eug]

In Canada, the MBA13 8GB/256GB is 1449$.
The cheapest new MBPr13, also 8GB/256GB is 1899$.

Pretty big difference. The MBA13 is what most people buy, and what they'll continue buying because the new MBP is too expensive. So Apple's bestseller will continue to be an old laptop with huge bezels and crappy screen.

Meanwhile, a Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake 8GB/256GB goes for 1399$ currently.

As mentioned, I'm likely getting the 12" MacBook when it gets updated. Overall it's a way nicer machine. However, it does have limitations and it costs more.

 

[Kazukian]

As mentioned, I'm likely getting the 12" MacBook when it gets updated. Overall it's a way nicer machine. However, it does have limitations and it costs more.

I still love my 1st gen rMB, it's the best notebook for my use case.

 

[lefenzy]

In Canada, the MBA13 8GB/256GB is 1449$.
The cheapest new MBPr13, also 8GB/256GB is 1899$.

Pretty big difference. The MBA13 is what most people buy, and what they'll continue buying because the new MBP is too expensive. So Apple's bestseller will continue to be an old laptop with huge bezels and crappy screen.

Meanwhile, a Dell XPS 13 Kaby Lake 8GB/256GB goes for 1399$ currently.

That $1399 is the XPS 13 with the 1080p screen. It goes up to $1699 for the QHD+ display. Still $200 difference to go for the MBP, although you get a stronger processor (intel HD 540 graphics).

It's a smaller difference in the US.