Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 541 posts

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

#441

Post by sneak »

rdl wrote: post #207
dvdhsu wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i.e. conference tables have MagSafe power adapters zip tied to them semi-permanently, since that's what almost everyone uses. It's too bad that Apple is moving to MagSafe II with the new retina MacBook Pro. I guess we'll all have to carry around adapters now: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD504

Dear god why? I am actually quite unimpressed by the entire WWDC lineup, but they made so many stupid mistakes like this. There is almost no advantage to using a slightly slimmer MagSafe, and moderate cost; there would be greater advantage to a smaller iPod Dock connector, but much higher cost, so I guess they'll do that too.

That was exactly my response, as well, as I have something like 7 85W magsafe adapters scattered throughout my house and bags.

Then I saw the backward-compatibility adapter[1]. It's not so bad. You can probably just leave it on the computer (or cable) 24/7 and never notice it. It's _tiny_, and only $10. Whenever I end up with a device that uses it, I will probably just buy 10 of them and leave 2 or 3 in every bag I own.

Still debating if I want to drop $4k just for retina, as my current machine is the quad-3.4 iMac with 32GB. I will probably wait for a retina Air or retina TB Display.

Now, if they'd made it a clunky dongle, or charged more than $15, I would be sharpening my pitchfork. Connector conspiracy or no, I get the impression that this was a situation where this was the only possible way to get the new case just right.

It's not like they'd do this just to fuck with us - the thing has asymmetric _fan blades_, for fuck's sake.

[1] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD504

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

#443

Post by ericabiz »

stan_rogers wrote: post #336
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…

I'm still using a couple of ancient 15.6" Windows laptops (the cool kids all laugh at me) because they have 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 displays -- and I'm in my fifties, finding that my arms get shorter and shorter every year (that is, creeping presbyopia -- combined with myopia -- means that I need different glasses for everything now). Apart from text-based activity (development and such), I do a considerable amount o…

The new ASUS Zenbook Prime runs 1920x1080 in 13": http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/asus_zenbook_prime_u...

I prefer Windows--I'm going to try this out vs. the new Macbook Pro, but I may indeed pick up the ASUS.

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

#444

Post by tedunangst »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #413
trimbo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone at Samsung is really dropping the ball and I hope they're shown the door soon Amen brother. It's astonishing to me that so much of what Apple creates is actually made by Samsung, and yet they constantly seem so far behind. Have you seen their new 15" Ultrabooks though? They are awesome. 15" screen and weighs more than a pound less than the new MBP (obviously, with tradeoffs) http://www.samsung.com/us/comput…

Uhm, I couldn't find any 15" ultrabooks on their site, just a 14" one. Is that one of the tradeoffs you were talking about? Still a very nice machine!

The link is to a (supposedly) 15" model, even if the page title says 14". Specs do say 15".

Biggest tradeoff being the Samsung has a low voltage (slow) dual core vs a full speed quad core plus a massive GPU. I don't think we'll see anything much lighter than the Macbook just due to the need to vent the heat. It's considerably lighter than any other quad I know of.

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

#445

Post by X-Istence »

_b8r0 wrote: post #348
X-Istence wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use Ctrl + Shift + Eject to lock your screen, also if you open up Keychain Access, then in options (Apple + ,) select "Show keychain status in menu bar", now you have a lock that shows up next to the rest of the menu bar icons, clicking on it provides an option named "Lock screen".

It's annoying that I have to do some sort of three finger claw salute. This is just me being lazy but is there any way to reconfigure the shortcut?

I don't know. I've never had an issue with running three fingers up one side of my keyboard!

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

#446

Post by tedunangst »

ericd wrote: post #398
pkamb wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac App Store version is dead for Snow Leopard, but you can still download 10.6 compatible builds directly from the developer portal.

I tried pretty hard to find that, since I'd been able to do that for a previous version, but I came up empty. If you're telling me I could have avoided giving up SL, I'm pretty sad about that.

I tried as well. There does not appear to be a download link available anywhere for free. Everybody keeps saying you can download it, but I don't think anybody actually has in quite some time, and nobody has posted a link.

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

#447

Post by 3diablo3 »

alexobenauer wrote: post #235
zyb09 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a real flaw, a old 15" MBP with 1680x1050 would practically be a better choice. This is just dumb, that a 2880x1800 display is worse than a 1680x1050 display because of the way the software handles these resolutions. Unless I'm missing something...

That's interesting... I didn't realize this until you said it. I currently have the 15" MBP at 1680x1050. Buying the new retina display would be a downgrade in screen real estate, since it would show an equivalent 1440x900. Sure it would be crisper, but when I'm developing on my laptop, it's all about screen real estate. This is odd.

that depends on how mountain lion implements the high dpi mode.

when using linux or windows on it you will get full resolution,

osx will be a blend, icons such as close/minimise... will be scaled up but the actual content will be crazy rez..

just wait until it comes out before you say it is only 1440x900 which it is NOT.

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

#448

Post by skeletonjelly »

flixic wrote: post #172
breckinloggins wrote: post #3

This may sound weird, but I'm most curious to see how the terminal looks on a retina display (when Apple or someone like iTerm makes one for it). I think having paper-resolution monospaced fonts will be awesome.

I know that true hackers don't anti-alias monotype fonts, but I have been using anti-aliased Consolas for a few years now. It is a font best-designed coding books use ( http://www.abookapart.com/ ), and it should only look better, not worse, on print-like display.

It was basically designed for Visual Studio 2010 to use ClearType anti-aliasing yeah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolas

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

#449

Post by X-Istence »

rbanffy wrote: post #434
X-Istence wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually argued against the Windowsification of all of the classes in my college and pushed back at every opportunity. I don't think it makes sense for a college that is teaching computer science to dedicate all of their resources and tools on Windows only software. C++ is used outside of Microsoft Visual Studio, and the code that works in VS will most likely not even compile due to not being standards compliant (A…

I agree that Visual Studio is an excellent IDE if you are targeting Windows and that SQL Server is a very good RDBMS, but why would anyone, except for some disgustingly wicked form of auto-flagellation, actually want Exchange and SharePoint?

Because familiarising yourself with software that costs thousands of dollars for free is kind of fun?

The fact that I have at least part of the knowledge makes me more valuable for an employer.

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

#450

Post by barrkel »

AncientPC wrote: post #377
barrkel wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask that question the other way around: if you could get all the command-line goodness you want from Linux but also have all the device support (particularly, solid graphics card drivers), apps, games etc. of Windows, isn't that better? Linux GUIs (Android only partially excepted), in my experience, are amateur in the worst way: dilettantish, faddish, inconsistent, incomplete, and replaced with something new and diff…

What about package managers? Windows management (e.g. Xmonad)? You don't like the KDE/Gnome defaults and don't want to spend time customizing. Fonts? Install from package manager. Themes? Install from package manager. Or download from gnome-look.org and install using gnome-tweak-tool. Yet you go out of your way to tweak Windows to your liking. I don't have driver issues, but that's from researching purchases before b…

Window management: I prefer cascaded windows (the bottom-left corners effectively start working like tabs - see http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-win...). Tiled windows are a waste of screen space; I have far more open windows than can ever fit tiled.

And what about package managers? Cygwin has a package manager; combined with cygports, it has just about everything I need, resolves dependencies just fine. I also mirror both repositories locally, where the relatively smaller sizes (18G + 19G) pay off, and I don't have to be worried about internet connectivity to install an app.

Package managers on Linux (I run Ubuntu Netbook and Debian), Solaris (I run Nexenta NCP3) have given me plenty of headaches, mostly from packages disappearing from repositories, or repository servers going away. There's been times I've just wanted to e.g. update my text editor to the latest version, and started pulling on a thread that led to needing a new kernel - that never happens with Cygwin. Stuff starts failing to install because dependencies are no longer available. It's probably because I don't update enough, which is in turn because I don't want to break something that works (none of these machines are public facing); but I can go years between Cygwin updates without issues.

Look at the information density of Windows explorer details view - http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/SK54tc5PEzI/AAAAAAAAAC... - I could never get Nautilus to display data with this density, listview items always had huge margins around every item in the details view, like in this picture: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NwFlqMh7ZG0/Ty3Qrbk2gqI/AAAAAAAAAd...

Driver issues: I don't have any, and I don't have to research anything! When I need a new machine, I just buy the latest hardware (for example, currently I have an Nvidia 680GTX), download the latest driver from the vendor, and it works. Linux? Just look at this fun here: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4O...

Post reply on HN