I'm old enough to remember that public hand-wringing always accompanies major updates to Apple product lines. The Macbook Air was WIDELY panned when it was first released. It went on to be the most popular laptop they sell, and one of the most popular in the U.S.
Apple has a ton of money and a willingness to percolate new ideas. We won't be able to really evaluate the new MBP--and the ideas it contains--for years.
>> The Macbook Air was WIDELY panned when it was first released.
The Air wasn't a replacement of the Pro. It was a new device, an ultra portable.
It didn't become popular until they added a second USB port and SD card reader, added a higher resolution screen, fixed the battery life issues, fixed the horribly slow performance, and reduced the price big-time.
The Macbook Pro has seen its share of pro hand-wringing, like
- When they dropped the matte screen option
- When they dropped the 17-inch screen size
- When they dropped the Express Card slot
- When they dropped the optical "super drive"
- When they dropped Ethernet and Firewire
- When they made the battery non-removable
- When they made the display Retina
Many of these complaints were driven by legitimate concerns at the time (for example first-gen Retina machines really did struggle sometimes). Ultimately Apple saw significant sales growth, even among pros, and I don't see many calls these days to reverse those decisions.[1]
[1] This thread will probably now be inundated with calls to reverse those decisions.
And all through this, they kept selling macbook pros that were competitive in term of specs. The first macbook pro retina could already be ordered with 16GB ram.
This time, they do not have a single laptop with competitive specs. This time, they do not have a single laptop that has enough horsepower to be good upgrade for a lot of professionals. The new graphic card is average at best and there's only 16GB ram.
There's actually only one decision from your list I'd love to reverse. I liked the 17 inch macbook pro and I'd love to have one again... I have a macbook for when I need portability, my macbook pro is my work machine and just needs to go from my desk to my client's office.
When is the last time a Macbook Pro had a graphics card that was better than average? I don't think it has ever been a GPU monster.
It's fine to criticize Apple for that (plenty have), but to me it seems weird to single out the newest model for something that has characterized the line for years.
I expect the 32GB option will appear with the next Intel architecture. They undoubtedly engineered the case for that point in time and will just suffer the complaints until they get there. The case is not something they can change from year to year; the logic board is.
In the meantime it will be interesting to see what happens when people actually try the new machines.
Yeah, with respect to your footnote, I grew up on Apple products. Sometime in college (2009) I switched to using Linux primarily. For my last dev job, I was given a MacBook Pro (previous generation). It lacked an optical drive, it lacked an ethernet, and the shiny screen meant that I could not easily work with it outside (something I love to do).
Each of these lacks did impact my life, in the way of significant, but manageable, annoyances. The lack of optical drive meant my partner and I couldn't watch DVDs on it. The lack of Ethernet meant that transferring any significant amount of data off of it was a pain in the butt. And I went through periods of eye strain as a result of the screen.
Each of these was a serious annoyance that bothered me. But I put up with it, and was even considering getting a new Macbook Pro as my next machine, because the rest of the experience was great. Now, I'm definitely not going to be getting a new Macbook Pro, because the most recent changes cross over the line from significant, but manageable, annoyances in to the realm of major hindrances.
This is way off topic, but as a linux user, did you ever dual boot linux distros on macbooks? Work gave me a macbook and after fruitlessly trying to learn a new OS (and hotkeys...) I just threw ubuntu as a dual boot on it... and it's a nightmare. Crashing, freezing, hanging, video glitches, stuck pageflips, etc. Would love to know your experience.
Yeah, the first Air was pretty awful - so focussed on being so thin and so light that it sacrificed almost everything else. You know, like being useful.
The second Air was a genuinely good machine, and that's when it became really popular.
Yeah, exactly. In this case the first MacBook (with the single USB-C port) would be the first awful prototype. The new MacBook Pros would be the improved followup. But I don't think they'll be as popular as the Air, not yet.
I know in my case I wanted one instantly but my MBP wasn't stolen until several years later so I didn't buy an Air right at launch. Wasn't because of ports or anything.
Apple has a ton of money and a willingness to percolate new ideas. We won't be able to really evaluate the new MBP--and the ideas it contains--for years.