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Open Letter to Tim Cook

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Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#141

Post by solatic »

smegel wrote: post #18

The reason motorcycle companies invest in racing is not just to establish cred, but to actually push the boundaries of technology and innovation that they can then incorporate into their "consumer" models. A "true Pro grade" computer offers no such advantage - in fact most of the innovation comes from making things smaller and thinner - as soon as you take away the weight/size restriction, sure you can make supercomp…

>A "true Pro grade" computer offers no such advantage - in fact most of the innovation comes from making things smaller and thinner - as soon as you take away the weight/size restriction, sure you can make supercomputers in a box, but it's also pretty darn easy to do so.

Except that it's not easy to put supercomputer-level performance in a lightweight box (with decent battery life) that you can slip into your bag.

If Apple really wanted to push the boundaries in that way - getting great performance while still using an impossibly small laptop - there's actually a few directions they could've gone in, namely anything where you push computation into the cloud and then see the results locally. Basically come to market saying "you Windows/Linux schmucks and your tons of local VM's. You don't need that, we'll run your VM's in the cloud, and we'll make it Apple-easy for you to do so." No more local rendering, local building, nothing. The original assets are kept on some Apple cloud, a cache is kept on your machine, and whenever you start an operation, it starts the operation both on the cache and on the Apple cloud, and if the Apple cloud finishes first, then the results are returned to your computer.

Unfortunately, Apple just doesn't care anymore about its professional customers. It started with the EOL for XServe (which could've been transitioned, along with OS X Server, into a private-cloud oriented offering) and it has worked its way down into its end-user offerings.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#142

Post by lukeholder »

dbg31415 wrote: post #5
girfan wrote: post #2

The 15inch MBP has i7 Quad Core processor, Radeon graphics and double the RAM than the default 13inch models. This is not a minor jump in performance. I agree that they do sometimes prioritize size, thickness and beauty over performance but I don't see what else could go into the 15inch MBP that it currently lacks?

Right, but the point is the specs really haven't changed since 2013... it's a very minor upgrade over the 3 year-old laptops. Would be curious to see what the benchmarks come back as, but I'd guess no more than a 10% improvement for common activities at most. MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,3 Processor Name: Intel Core i7 Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz Number…

Totally new CPU architecture lookup skylake vs the older haswell.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#143

Post by white-flame »

sotojuan wrote: post #9
girfan wrote: post #2

The 15inch MBP has i7 Quad Core processor, Radeon graphics and double the RAM than the default 13inch models. This is not a minor jump in performance. I agree that they do sometimes prioritize size, thickness and beauty over performance but I don't see what else could go into the 15inch MBP that it currently lacks?

The new Macbooks are so close to being great it's annoying. The specs are fine by me and I'm neutral on the Touch Bar, but the price and lack of ports just makes them not worth it. While I'm glad Apple is trying to move the industry to use USB-C for everything, it wouldn't had killed them to include some USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI port. It's going to be at least 3-5 years until the industry uses USB-C and by that poin…

> I'm glad Apple is trying to move the industry to use USB-C for everything

They make the device itself simple & light, but at the expense of having a ton of octopuses hanging around for whenever you actually need to plug it into anything. They've been doing this for a while, including the Mac Pro.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#144

Post by cialowicz »

Mithaldu wrote: post #3

To be honest that zoolander phone is utterly excellent and if it were a real thing i would buy it in a heartbeat. If only so i have a phone i can use for phone calls where i don't need to worry about the battery running out, and which i can stuff into any pocket on my body.

Have a look at the Long CZ J8. ~$50, 68mm x 23mm x 11mm.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#145

Post by woah »

snoman wrote: post #140
greggman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My number one consern was weight. I've been carrying my MBP for the last 3 years working out of coffee shops and co-working spaces. I'm tired of lugging around 4.5 lbs. Especially when there are 2 lbs 15 inch notebooks. Apple lowered the weight .3 lbs to 4.1, still double the lightest 15 incher.

Not sure how to say this without sounding offensive, but that seems you're very finicky, have some extreme environmental/situational requirements or like you have a medical condition resulting in serious physical weakness. Your body will naturally fluctuate double that in a day without your knowing.

Real men have huge computers

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#146

Post by sigjuice »

abhinavk wrote: post #134
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me neither. Thankfully the 13 inch mode doesn't have a toxh strip so the upgrade is clear.

The 13-inch model has only two USB-C ports instead of four.

It is actually less than two USB-C ports. There is no separate power port.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#147

Post by snoman »

sudobear wrote: post #24
ktRolster wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>models now are 16gb of ram only Do you have a use for more than 16gb? Serious question.

Running multiple VMs

Shit... Just one will start to put strain on the system.

If I'm developing an iOS/Android frontend in osx with Xamarin Studio and an asp.net backend with Visual Studio, then 16gb just won't do.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#148

Post by sxcurry »

smrtinsert wrote: post #98
initram wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple doesn't seem to know or care. Oh nonsense! They showed like a dozen ways that the new touch pad alone makes using professional apps easier, faster, and generally better in their keynote. They are clearly thinking specifically of the professional market. Whether they hit their mark or not is up to the market to decide. The new computers are already back-ordered by 4-5 weeks, so clearly someone's ordering them.

The new touch pad looks ridiculous. It looks like novelty they're throwing out to placate the masses they get a real touch screen together behind the scenes. I have absolutely 0 desire to use a tiny strip of touch above a perfectly good keyboard.

And the good news is .... you don't have to!

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#149

Post by jsz0 »

graeme wrote: post #35
IBM wrote: post #20

Best comment [1] I read a couple of days ago: >One thing constantly said to founders here is "don't let a vocal minority come in, tell you they love your product, and then turn into bullies that tell you how you should make said product. You never made it for them; they aren't your market. Don't get confused into thinking they are, just because they're loud." I think that about sums up the relationship between Apple…

Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro ? I'm not a developer. I run an online business and use a MacBook Pro for video recording, editing, and general website admin. I needed the extra processing power, and the ports. The new model has me apprehensive, though I'll certainly look at it. What's the target demographic this new MBP is serving, though?

> Are professional users really a "vocal minority" of the MacBook Pro?

A lot of professionals have workflows / infrastructure that does not rely on the specs of any individual computer. Past a certain point it's the only practical approach for scaling. I suspect the vocal minority are the users in the upper end of the prosumer range who can't really justify moving to truly pro workflows / infrastructure.

Re: Open Letter to Tim Cook

#150

Post by boulos »

grzm wrote: post #120
phire wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current laptop is thinner than the new 13" Macbook Pro (bearly, by just 0.5mm). Way thinner than the 15" Macbook Pro. Yet it has full sized USB 3.0 ports, a USB-C port, SD slot and an HDMI port. The only reason those ports don't fit on the new MacBooks, is because the bottom curves up near the edges.

Oh, don't tease! :) What's your current machine?

Presumably a Carbon X1 or similar.
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