Macrumors positives and negatives

[Xtreme $niper]

Honestly, as an owner of a new i7 Macbook Pro, I simply got one because it was time to retire my original Macbook.

Fact of the matter is, I was disappointed with Apple's decision to continually leave out fairly vital interfaces of the so-called "Pro" lineup of laptops. Things like eSATA. Where is that? Do I have to get a 17" laptop so that I can buy an expresscard adapter that supports eSATA? I shouldn't have to. I would have preferred either a dedicated port or an expresscard slot in the place of this totally useless SD card slot (what SD device does not support USB transfer?). And I wish they had put a native HDMI port as well but I can understand their position that the DisplayPort is a small interface that allows you to plug into anything you want (including HDMI) so I'll give them some slack for that, even though it still cost me another $40 to get an adapter that supports audio output.

On top of that, yes, I am still waiting for Apple to speak up about TRIM support for SSDs.

I'm also still waiting for them to speak up and explain to developers the situation with these automatically switching GPUs in the new Pros, and how devs can write their apps so that they don't trigger the Nvidia GPU even for the most mundane of tasks.

I appreciate that Apple has been releasing "updates" to the Mac lineup, but that's all they are. Updates. What about a breakthrough? What about something new that no one else has? Apple is always 1-2 years behind in terms of common computer technology. The only thing they have going for them at this point are the trackpads, which they have mastered beautifully.

It's as if all their creative talent are working exclusively on iOS. "Updates" are no longer enough to keep up with competition. If I'm going to pay almost $3000 for a laptop, it better have everything I want and more. I was very close to not buying this laptop for the lack of features and options it has compared to the competition.

[rawr_boy81]

Honestly, as an owner of a new i7 Macbook Pro, I simply got one because it was time to retire my original Macbook.

Fact of the matter is, I was disappointed with Apple's decision to continually leave out fairly vital interfaces of the so-called "Pro" lineup of laptops. Things like eSATA. Where is that? Do I have to get a 17" laptop so that I can buy an expresscard adapter that supports eSATA? I shouldn't have to. I would have preferred either a dedicated port or an expresscard slot in the place of this totally useless SD card slot (what SD device does not support USB transfer?). And I wish they had put a native HDMI port as well but I can understand their position that the DisplayPort is a small interface that allows you to plug into anything you want (including HDMI) so I'll give them some slack for that, even though it still cost me another $40 to get an adapter that supports audio output.

Which are all niche requests; who uses eSATA? honestly? two men and their dog? it is all about USB2 these days.

On top of that, yes, I am still waiting for Apple to speak up about TRIM support for SSDs.

Valid point noted - strange they ship machines with SSD but no software to TRIM them.

I'm also still waiting for them to speak up and explain to developers the situation with these automatically switching GPUs in the new Pros, and how devs can write their apps so that they don't trigger the Nvidia GPU even for the most mundane of tasks.

It is switched based on load demand; you can IIRC force it to use the Intel one over the nVidia GPU if you want but I'm unsure how you go about doing that.

I appreciate that Apple has been releasing "updates" to the Mac lineup, but that's all they are. Updates. What about a breakthrough? What about something new that no one else has? Apple is always 1-2 years behind in terms of common computer technology. The only thing they have going for them at this point are the trackpads, which they have mastered beautifully.

It's as if all their creative talent are working exclusively on iOS. "Updates" are no longer enough to keep up with competition. If I'm going to pay almost $3000 for a laptop, it better have everything I want and more. I was very close to not buying this laptop for the lack of features and options it has compared to the competition.

Who cares about 'break through', I just want a laptop that works with good batter life and so far my 13.3 inch MacBook Pro is doing that fine and dandy - with the latest GPU drivers from Apple the performance has improved considerably.

[Xtreme $niper]

Which are all niche requests; who uses eSATA? honestly? two men and their dog? it is all about USB2 these days.

Anyone who wants speeds faster than a turtle wants eSATA. If people don't realize they want/need it yet, they would if Apple would introduce it to the masses. Every PC laptop (budget included) has this interface now and they can all backup to an external drive at ridiculous SATA speeds. Why not my Mac? USB2 is the slowest current interface for backups, only faster than Firewire 400... barely. Firewire 800 is almost double in speed but try finding an external drive enclosure that supports it without charging you way extra for the privilege (Firewire chips are expensive).

Valid point noted - strange they ship machines with SSD but no software to TRIM them.

Exactly.

It is switched based on load demand; you can IIRC force it to use the Intel one over the nVidia GPU if you want but I'm unsure how you go about doing that.

It is not switched based on load. That's what I thought when I bought this thing. It's switched based on what frameworks and APIs are being called. At no point does Firefox ever initialize the GPU, even when Flash is present. But if you use Chrome, every time Flash is on the screen it switches it on. Even if you load Tweetie or The Hit List, or a slew of other applications using Core Image, Core Animation, or any of those other APIs, it enables the GPU and starts draining the battery. Poorly thought out, but I use an app to lock it into a specific mode if need be so I'm tolerating it.

But you can be sure that I have been forced to stop using Chrome or Opera because of this.

Who cares about 'break through', I just want a laptop that works with good batter life and so far my 13.3 inch MacBook Pro is doing that fine and dandy - with the latest GPU drivers from Apple the performance has improved considerably.

Fair enough, to each their own. Apple machines are great, but they used to be the innovators, not the followers. They invented firewire, they used to be one of the cutting edge laptop makers. I can't recall right now but I thought I read somewhere that they were one of the first to implement USB into their machines.

[Joshie]

As a long time Windows user, I might have an idea why there's an overall sense of abandonment for the Mac platform.

For a couple years now, the desktop computing experience on the whole has been gradually put on backburner. Hardware innovation is nothing compared to what it was 15 years ago. To look at it like city planning, we've stopped building out (breaking new ground) and started building up (enhancing existing). We're making things faster, bigger, clearer, brighter, more colorful, more comfortable, etc.

A vast majority of hardware innovation has been taking place on smaller scales. And why not? That's part of computing's history in the first place. Computing became redefined in the 80s by the microcomputer. It isn't hard to think we're about due for another redefinition. It especially makes sense for Apple. They know very well that the desktop arena is not a battle they are equipped to win, if they even care to (they did in the 90s, but far less so since Jobs' rejoining). Isn't it just like Apple to push into a brand new market, marketing on an image of being a pioneer, rather than struggle as an underdog? It's the Apple computer all over again.

So they're putting all the attention on iOS and devices that will carry it. MacOS development continues, but it's very possible that Apple sees it becoming a professional OS in the background, geared to the designers who already swear by it (many companies fork like this), and heralding iOS as the new consumer machine. Despite the fact that a stylus equipped tablet would be far better suited to mathematics and quick note-taking, Apple is eager to point educators to the iPad, with a wide assortment of apps that can be useful in a classroom setting--and classrooms are where Apples really planted themselves for a lot of us, no?

[Saad_Salman]

The rant about Apple not caring for Mac platform is a complete BS. Look at the refreshed hardware & magical accessories. Snow Leopard is the most advance and stable OS & apple keeps seeding new builds to devs . The notion we get about apple loosing attention in Mac platform is due to media. Media digs iOS merely because of the market-share position. What apple need is to step up their game in mac marketing.

[Joshie]

The rant about Apple not caring for Mac platform is a complete BS. Look at the refreshed hardware & magical accessories. Snow Leopard is the most advance and stable OS & apple keeps seeding new builds to devs . The notion we get about apple loosing attention in Mac platform is due to media. Media digs iOS merely because of the market-share position. What apple need is to step up their game in mac marketing.

What magical accessories? That ridiculous touch surface is the only thing I've heard about recently, which is barely more than a Bamboo with a smoother feel and the loss of stylus input, and is an input device that 99% of software has no reason to accommodate. If anything, it's just an attempt by Apple to get Mac apps to start considering touch gesture input for if/when Apple decides to market a touch-screen Mac down the road.

[ccuk]

The rant about Apple not caring for Mac platform is a complete BS. Look at the refreshed hardware & magical accessories. Snow Leopard is the most advance and stable OS & apple keeps seeding new builds to devs . The notion we get about apple loosing attention in Mac platform is due to media. Media digs iOS merely because of the market-share position. What apple need is to step up their game in mac marketing.

What a load of claptrap. I have read a lot of complete rubbish in this thread, and this is a sad attempt at apologising for Apple's misgivings.

They are as far as I am concerned giving the pro segment the cold shoulder, killing off Shake, refusing to support Blu-Ray both in their OS and in Final Cut Studio, releasing slow updates to the pro platform, missing off USB 3.0, SATA 3.0 and forcing Mini DisplayPort down our throats when DVI is still the chosen standard. Quite frankly they appear shambolic at best. Snow Leopard brings no noticeable improvements over Leopard and in fact brings its own share of problems.

I miss the old Apple that brought innovations such as parking HDD heads, backlit keyboards, new consistent UIs and magsafe connectors. Instead we are seeing hardware that has been used in competing products months before Apple touch it at prices clearly above their competitors for no reason other than profitering.

Apple are heading into the murky iWaters of iOS based devices. It really will not surprise me if OS X ends at 10.7 / 10.8 and is replaced with an iOS variant that forces an app store down all our throats, that is where we are heading.

[rawr_boy81]

Anyone who wants speeds faster than a turtle wants eSATA. If people don't realize they want/need it yet, they would if Apple would introduce it to the masses. Every PC laptop (budget included) has this interface now and they can all backup to an external drive at ridiculous SATA speeds. Why not my Mac? USB2 is the slowest current interface for backups, only faster than Firewire 400... barely. Firewire 800 is almost double in speed but try finding an external drive enclosure that supports it without charging you way extra for the privilege (Firewire chips are expensive).

I look down the road and I don't see every laptop with eSATA being offered nor do I see a huge array of hardware on the shelf that is eSATA compliant. The dominant interface these days is still USB2 and I don't see that changing anytime soon because for most people it is 'good enough' technology.

Fair enough, to each their own. Apple machines are great, but they used to be the innovators, not the followers. They invented firewire, they used to be one of the cutting edge laptop makers. I can't recall right now but I thought I read somewhere that they were one of the first to implement USB into their machines.

I'd argue they haven't done anything innovative when it comes to their computers; their PowerPC line was a litany of quirks; SMP designs that led to instability issues, weird chipset designs where an eMac would get better disk I/O than a G5 iMac, then there were the hardware issues, the issues relating to IBM and Motorola dragging their heels and so on. It was hardly innovative back in the so-called 'good old days'. Innovation means nothing if it doesn't result in a product that is usable to the end user - I'd sooner Apple narrow down the scope, produce a few really good products than trying to be everything to everyone or otherwise you end up being like Microsoft where the OS is so compromised to meet all the demands that the UI experience is pretty horrible over all.

[.Neo]

Seriously? you actually believe that? the heat output of the i7 is not enough to burn a hole in a computer :/ and it isn't as if the output of the i7 is that much higher.

The 20 and 24-inch iMacs are equipped with mobile components for the processor and chipset for that exact reason. Apparently Apple couldn't cool desktop chips properly in there. They finally moved back to desktop compontents with the current generation iMac.

PS Really amazing to see you took my post literally...

[.Neo]

Every company beat Apple to market with Core i7 systems. It doesn't matter what form factor they took, the performance was available to consumers. Some companies even offered Desktop Class Core i7's in Notebooks.

It definitely does matter what form factor a computer has. Apple wants its computer as compact as posible, its part of their look-'n'-feel. Obviously the all-in-one concept limits performance compared to standard desktop PCs. If you can't deal with that simply buy a computer elsewhere.

Notebooks that include a screen and when closed are thinner than the iMac. So it is entirely possible to shoe-horn a desktop class chip in to an iMac form factor without 'burning a hole through the case' as it has been done.

All the ones I saw where extremely thick and really not that portable back in 2008/early 2009.

And my argument was, nothing to stop Apple from making a Mac Pro that took the Core i7 processors. You can even use Xeons the ones used in the Mac Pro in a Core i7 1366 socket. They could have supplied a Single chip Mac Pro with an i7 but they chose not to, delaying the availability of i7 equipped Macs by months and at exuberant costs due to their Xeon usage. But I know you didn't know this so it's okay (Y)

We never disagreed on this point and you never brought it up. I have absolutely no idea why Apple chooses to use Intel's Xeon processor in their Mac Pro, except to set it more apart from the iMac maybe? As far as I know there's no immediate benefit to using them over the Core i7 branded chips (not sure though how it stands with the new 6-core chips). At least not performance-wise. FYI, I know you can swap the Mac Pro's Xeon and replace it with a Core i7. I looked into it last year.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

reaffirm my belief that Apple needs to make a mid-tower computer between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro which has upgradable PCIe graphics cards and desktop chips not Server or Mobile chips.

There are about what 6 video cards that work for OSX/Mac unless you go the unsupported route and just hack the drivers in. So what would upgradeable PCIe vid card actually do. Especially since they put decent cards in there already.

Or is it not the PCIe part on why you want a mid-tower, but the really cheap part of the mid tower line what you want. Cheaply made stuff is the reason i build my own desktops and stay away from OEM's. I have never had a problem with Windows OS, any version, including WinME, perfectly stable. But I'd like to think it's because i don't have cheap crap parts in my system with half a** drivers. Ill take good build over crap.

[Vice]

There are about what 6 video cards that work for OSX/Mac unless you go the unsupported route and just hack the drivers in. So what would upgradeable PCIe vid card actually do. Especially since they put decent cards in there already.

Or is it not the PCIe part on why you want a mid-tower, but the really cheap part of the mid tower line what you want. Cheaply made stuff is the reason i build my own desktops and stay away from OEM's. I have never had a problem with Windows OS, any version, including WinME, perfectly stable. But I'd like to think it's because i don't have cheap crap parts in my system with half a** drivers. Ill take good build over crap.

Mid-Tower is basically what all the other PC's on the market are. Even the high-end £2000 machines can come in Mid-Towers just look at the mATX boards by EVGA. The reason consumers want a Mid-Tower is because they (like Mac Pro owners) want to be able to upgrade there graphics but beyond that they want cheaper starting options. They don't want to have to pay thousands of pounds for a base unit Mac Pro they want Core i7 chips not Xeons and they want a machine that doesn't come with a Display built in when they already own one.

[Subject Delta]

The 20 and 24-inch iMacs are equipped with mobile components for the processor and chipset for that exact reason. Apparently Apple couldn't cool desktop chips properly in there. They finally moved back to desktop compontents with the current generation iMac.

PS Really amazing to see you took my post literally...

This is the Internet, there is no facial expression to interpret. Words can only be taken at their face value, so if you want better interpretation, make your intent clearer.

And frankly, if they cannot design a computer around their cases, then it is an indication of poor design. Every other OEM managed to integrate new hardware into their existing lineups with minimal design changes, so Apple should have been able to do it. Taking a year to pull it off is just an embarassment.

[.Neo]

This is the Internet, there is no facial expression to interpret. Words can only be taken at their face value, so if you want better interpretation, make your intent clearer.

Next time I'll be sure to take into account that a handful of people like yourself take everything - even something as obvious as this - literally.

And frankly, if they cannot design a computer around their cases, then it is an indication of poor design. Every other OEM managed to integrate new hardware into their existing lineups with minimal design changes, so Apple should have been able to do it. Taking a year to pull it off is just an embarassment.

They can, I have the proof standing in front of me. Apparently Apple wasn't waiting to include a new processing chip only, but also new high resolution screens. They also made a shift from using mobile chips in the iMac line-up to desktop ones. I'm pretty sure that probably requires some redesigning. Your story doesn't hold much ground considering the fact that HP didn't introduce their updated all-in-one line-up with Core i7 processors until February 2010. That's four months later than Apple. Next to that I completely fail to understand what the big deal is. I'm pretty sure both Apple and HP had their reasons to hold off the release of their Core line-ups in their all-in-ones. So I'm finding it rather simplistic to call it an embarrassment.

[Southern Patriot]

Sure they refreshed the specs but still I believe Apple should release a desktop (tower) for personal users like they did back in their G4 days.

The PowerMac G3, G4, and G5 towers were NOT machines designed for personal users, like people seem to think these days. They, at the time, were the equivalent of the Mac Pro, and were priced accordingly. The iMacs and eMacs were the "personal user" machines, just as they are now. You have to go back to the mid to late 90's to see the last time that Apple made user-upgradable machines targeted at average consumers. Apple has not made machines in that form for over a decade now, so I really doubt they will start doing it again.

[.Neo]

Yeah, I don't remember Apple releasing a tower aimed at the same market as the iMac, except maybe for the Cube G4.

I have to say though that the Mac mini's pricing is pretty insane as well. Reminds me of the Cube.

[Southern Patriot]

I have to say though that the Mac mini's pricing is pretty insane as well. Reminds me of the Cube.

While I agree that the Mac mini is getting a little steep on it's price compared to where it started, it is nowhere near being in the same league as the Cube was in it's day. Even after the price drops, the Cube was always an expensive machine. I think the cheapest it ever got (new) was $1299. I'm really surprised that Apple hasn't dropped the price on the mini (EVER!!), even when they went ages without any updates. I'd love to see them begin shipping a $499 (or less) model again, and maybe even shipping an Atom-based model (although that would require re-enabling support in the kernel for the Atom, something I don't think Apple wants to do, since it would make netbook installs of OSx86 easier).

[.Neo]

The Mac mini costs €799 ($1016) in the Netherlands compared to the $699 (€550) in the United States. After taking taxes out of the equation Apple charges a whopping €120 more for it here with no apparent reason. The $1016 comes very close to the whole Cube debacle if you ask me.

The thing I love the most is the fact the 2010 Mac mini will give you largely worse specs at a higher price compared to the previous high-end Mac mini (Client version, non-Server) from 2009.

The MacBook (Pro) and iMac become very attractive the last few years and really improved. The Mac mini seems to be getting worse.

[Southern Patriot]

The thing I love the most is the fact the 2010 Mac mini will give you largely worse specs at a higher price compared to the previous high-end Mac mini (Client version, non-Server) from 2009.

I just priced it out on Apple's site (here in the US), and they come out at the same price. The previous high end model was $949 when using the BTO option to get the 2.66Ghz CPU with 4GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive. The same specs will cost you the same now, but with a better graphics chip, SD reader, and HDMI output.

Info and pricing on 2009 model from Apple-History.com

the $799 model shipped with a 2.53 GHz processor, 4 GB of RAM, and a 320 GB hard drive. The high-end model could be upgraded to a 2.66 GHz processor for as a BTO option for an additional $150.

[.Neo]

The 2009 model used to cost ?799 as well over here.