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2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

macperformanceguide.com

81–90 of 97 posts

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#81
If accurate this is the sort of thing that field testing should reveal. However, because the Apple community has made a fetish over the most minor hardware releases and an industry has sprung up around stealth photos, Apple has given themselves little opportunity to uncover this sort of basic design flaw. In some way, it appears to be the same sort of issue that was discovered with the iPhone 4 antenna after its release.

These sorts of functional failure may indicate a weakness in Apple's design process and one which Apple may have trouble addressing without changing the relationship between marketing strategy and product development.

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#82

I keep hearing things like this about the Retina MBPro. Dangit I WANT one, but my spidey sense keeps insisting that this is first round, early adopter technology and that I'll be MUCH happier if I hang onto my early 2008 17" MBPro for another few months or maybe a year until the next laptop line bump from Apple.

I have no idea why anyone would buy a "Retina" MacBook any time in the near future. There are a huge number of popular apps that still don't support it. Lack of Office & VirtualBox support by itself would be a non-starter for me.

Because it's a thin, light 15" Mac laptop with a sharp high-resolution display?

I lugged a 2011 MBP 15 laptop around a lot. Now I lug a 2012 rMBP around, big difference in weight. Plus, I can jack the screen resolution up to 1900x1200 or whatever when I need it.

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#83
post #67

I've had mine wake up and sleep when closed when a magnet passed by.

Yeah, those are fun. Putting another Mac on top of it can also flip that magnetic switch, and I've had my laptop go to sleep because I had something magnetic near it :|

I get this a lot with my since discontinued MBP 17". Placing my iPhone on the empty space beside the trackpad will black the laptop out. Never knew it was to do with magnets.

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#84

Interesting. In the past, an external mouse (BT or USB) was required in order for a MacBook to operate in "clamshell mode". If no such device were connected, you couldn't get the laptop to turn on. Period. This makes me wonder if there isn't a firmware bug? EDIT: An additional requirement (forgot): an external display must be attached. I'm doing some testing with my 2011 MacBook Air that is still running Lion. CORREC…

I did some very detailed testing. I cannot wake my MacBook Air with the keyboard, regardless of condition. https://gist.github.com/3699744

That's a lot of work!

I had issues with Snow Leopard where it wouldn't actually go to sleep. The screen shut down, but the power led stayed on, and it would drain the battery as if in use. This could be something similar.

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some very detailed testing. I cannot wake my MacBook Air with the keyboard, regardless of condition. https://gist.github.com/3699744

That's a lot of work! I had issues with Snow Leopard where it wouldn't actually go to sleep. The screen shut down, but the power led stayed on, and it would drain the battery as if in use. This could be something similar.

Yeah, as I started, ideas kept coming and the test kept expanding. It was a cool exercise though. I feel like doing this kind of thing, while a waste of time, is good practice. It's helpful to go through the motions of detailed testing and reporting on simple little tasks like this, because those skills translate directly to more complex tasks.

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#86

Interesting. In the past, an external mouse (BT or USB) was required in order for a MacBook to operate in "clamshell mode". If no such device were connected, you couldn't get the laptop to turn on. Period. This makes me wonder if there isn't a firmware bug? EDIT: An additional requirement (forgot): an external display must be attached. I'm doing some testing with my 2011 MacBook Air that is still running Lion. CORREC…

This happened to me with my older MacBook Pro. On that model, the magnet next to the latch would loosen, causing the laptop to power up in my bag on the train or bus. I wouldn't notice this until I picked up the bag and noticed that it was very hot.

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#87
post #45

Hm, this might explain why my 2011 Air is occasionally on and hot when I pull it out of my laptop bag, too. I only started noticing it after the Mountain Lion upgrade, so I figured it was more likely something to do with their crazy new sleep mode, but hey, perhaps it's a combination of factors?

I don't think the Air can fully turn on in clamshell mode, unlike the pro. This is (I believe) because the air uses its body as a heat sink.

The Air has a fan that is hidden in the hinge, and it is unobstructed even when the lid is closed. So this is probably not the case.

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The #1 reason to buy it is if you want a 15" MacBook Pro with an SSD that's larger than 128GB and want to pay as little as possible for it. At the moment, the 2.3 GHz "Retina" MBP is $2199 with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD (bare-minimum specs) A "non-retina" 15" MBP with bare-minimum specs (4GB RAM, 2.3 GHz processor) but with the same 256GB SSD is $2299. At the other end of the spectrum, a 2.7GHz "retina" with 16GB of…

I wasn't aware of that price difference. Why is the Retina MBP so much cheaper, despite the more expensive screen? And when I say unsupported, I mean that they look crappy because they don't have Retina support.

I can't tell you for sure on the price difference.... Maybe not needing the extra stuff like the SSD housing and whatnot matters? Or maybe it's just arbitrary pricing? Or maybe a way to encourage people to buy retina machines? Who knows, outside Apple.

> I mean that they look crappy because they don't have > Retina support.

Well, more precisely they look just like they do a non-retina mbp. Which is worse than Safari or Terminal on the retina mbp, of course, but not any worse than you'd deal with if you got the non-retina machine. Or am I missing something?

Re: 2012 MacBook Pro Powers on By Itself on Rough Roads

#89
post #83
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, those are fun. Putting another Mac on top of it can also flip that magnetic switch, and I've had my laptop go to sleep because I had something magnetic near it :|

I get this a lot with my since discontinued MBP 17". Placing my iPhone on the empty space beside the trackpad will black the laptop out. Never knew it was to do with magnets.

Yeah, happens to me occasionally when I'm shuffling around gadgets with a mid-2011 15" MBP. It's rather annoying when it happens, but it still beats having clips that often snap off on the pre-magnetic laptops. If only I could solve the other problems with my laptop... such as when I put it to sleep, the fans spin up for about 60 seconds before it actually goes to sleep, and since upgrading to 10.8, my battery life is around 3hrs and it's very flaky on certain WiFi connections. I do get the impression Apple's software quality in particular is going down :(
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