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MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

arstechnica.com

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Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#281

Post by blubbix »

fjorder wrote: post #226
fjorder wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent a reasonable amount of time using Windows, Linux, and OSX. All of them suck. All of them are also awesome, at different things. If you want an living room PC for entertainment, Windows is king. Neither Linux or OSX support Bluray properly and Windows still has a huge edge in gaming. Windows also supports the most hardware. That's become unimportant to most people, but if you work in a research lab with var…

One further note on hardware quality: Perceived hardware quality is something Apple is fantastic at. Their laptops look and feel great. They feel like they'll last decades. This is misleading since they're actually built to be disposable. e.g. If you spill coffee on your Macbook Air, it's dead. You can't fix it because you can't remove the battery in a timely fashion and don't have the tools to open it. Apple won't f…

Do oter manufacturers except Panasonic cover spills? How is the machine milled MacBooks designed to fail at the first sign of trouble?

The batteries are actually designed to last for many years and pretty easy to replace with a screwdriver.

My MBP from 2008 is still going strong, and that's the less solidly built pre-unibody. Unlike many others, Apple extended the warranty because of the nVidia chipset bug.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#282

Post by msutherl »

SiVal wrote: post #214
calinet6 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO Apple fanboyism is not a problem in the hacker community. It's a well-built solid metal portable development workstation. With BSD UNIX. And a pretty layer on top. Among programmers, I never need to explain why we would buy these things. It's outside the programming groups that the conversation gets hostile. I find most programmers avoid this completely, knowing that they're simply using the best tool available…

If things keep going the way they're going, Apple fanboyism will become less and less of a problem among hackers. Apple appears to be in a gradual transition process from MacOS computers to iOS "Don't worry, just watch the pretty pictures, and we'll tell you which PAY button to press" devices. Windows, not wanting to be left behind selling computers instead of devices (Yuck! Computers! That's SO 20th century), is mak…

The move toward integrated, worry-free, easy to use products for consumers is a good thing.

In order to keep such things being developed, Apple will need to provide an adequate development environment.

Thus, Apple has an incentive to keep both worlds alive.

The only thing to worry about is that, because they only have the incentive to keep their development ecosystem merely adequate, we won't see much improvement in developer tools – just slow, linear change. Fortunately Xcode has competition from Visual Studio to keep it going, but whether they will continue offering a competitive BSD development environment is a legitimate question. Most Linux distributions already provide a better experience in this respect, having package managers and user communities and such.

Ultimately, I find the attitude you present here to be a bit overreactive. Lion and Mountain Lion introduce a number of iOS-like features and integration, but as far as I know, the developer tools were not crippled in any way, only improved, a bit.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#284

Post by bryanlarsen »

jakeonthemove wrote: post #273

2880x1800 pixels on a 15.4 inch display? That's pretty impressive from a technical stand point, but I can't see how it's going to be useful in real life - I find 1680x1050 to be at the threshold of usability for me. 1600x900 is perfect on a 15.6, and 1920x1080 is the maximum I'd go for on a 17 inch display. Any higher and I'd just connect a bigger external display... Can anyone give me an idea of what this resolution…

Just think of it as an extra-sharp 1440x900 resolution screen. All menubars and buttons will be the same physical size on the 2880x1800 mbp and the 1440x900 mbp. Anything that's not zoomable in an application will actually take up more screen real estate on the 2880x1800 mbp than on the 1680x1050 mbp.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#285

Post by sandipc »

ditoa wrote: post #274
sandipc wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

custom. looks like the RAM is custom too, just like on the Air.

That is what I suspected. It is a shame as I doubt the built in SSD has the performance of the Intel SSDs :(

Supposedly Apple is using "faster" flash memory now... we'll see soon when the first reviews come out.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#286

Post by tomkarlo »

jerf wrote: post #258
tomkarlo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the sales charts, it seems this is what the customers want, too. For some reason folks like to believe that Apple is somehow "fooling" customers into buying that experience. What if it's simply what non-developers want? Isn't that a simpler explanation?

The objection is that this isn't mutually exclusive. You can provide all the niceties, and make it so that there are still ways in to the simplified UI so that a nine-year-old can set out on their own and learn things about how the machine works. The companies are using this paradigm shift as an excuse to lock us in a box, they are not locking us in a box because the tech or the experience is only available if they d…

Yes, you can do both, but if consumers aren't demanding you do so, why do it? Ultimately it costs more to deliver that experience, so from a business perspective it doesn't make sense to do it if you're not losing a material number of product sales without it.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#287

Post by jsprinkles »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #107
jurre wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I study computer science and the amount of banter I get from fellow students for using a macbook air is unbelievable. Other people usually seem quite ok with it, although self proclaimed power users usually seem to have an opinion about it.

This is just rich to me. Yes, enjoy your Visual Studio and broken command line, I'll be using lightweight tools and an actual POSIX command line. *edit: Wow, -10? Sorry, I was just sharing my experience of being mocked by people who proudly brag about their Windows 7 machine and are barely proficient at .NET programming who give me a hard time because "Macs are lame and Windows is for geeks". Didn't know there were s…

Remember how you were surprised I was accusing you of being a troll a while back? And you were adamant that you aren't, and that I had you all wrong? (Amusing, given your bio.)

Now step back and read this comment, as well as your PowerShell response below, then rethink why I'd say that.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#288

Post by jarek »

dangrossman wrote: post #103
pclark wrote: post #23

all I want is 3g on laptops

What would be the point when there's not a single US cell network that offers unlimited 3G data for computers? Or is there someone in California? There's not here. Might as well just tether from your phone since you can only do it a few times a month without hitting your data cap.

Who said anything about unlimited? 3 or 5 GBs of backup data for when you can't find or can't be bothered to find an open wifi network could still be quite nice. It won't replace your stream-HD-movies-all-day-wireless-N but it doesn't have to.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#289

Post by pivo »

sciurus wrote: post #57

I think the comparisons to the Macbook Air are misleading. At least for me, the distinct appeal of the Macbook Air is that it's light; either 2.38 or 2.96 pounds. The new model Macbook Pro may be a great laptop in many ways, but at 4.46 pounds it's not light. I'm going to notice that in my messenger bag to a much greater extent than I would an Air.

I'm kind of amazed that the pro is only that much heavier than the air. It feels like it's like it's at least twice as heavy.

Re: MacBook Pro gets Retina Display; MacBook Air updated with Ivy Bridge

#290

Post by jurre »

rbanffy wrote: post #262
jurre wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they actually all use windows!

Microsoft has a very strong technology evangelizing program targeted at upper education. They almost pay colleges to offer Windows-centric courses and Windows-only labs. The Linux users generally consider OSX a nice Linux-like OS that lacks a decent package manager ;-) Much like Microsoft, the hardware is great. Disclaimer: I am mostly a Linux user who also uses Macs for certain tasks.

Hey we have homebrew nowadays :P

And microsoft is actually really generous towards students, I can get basically any software except for office for free.

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