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Apple Launches MacBook 2016 With Intel Skylake Processor, Longer Battery Life
Apple, on Tuesday, announced a refresh for its 12-inch MacBook laptop. The 2016 MacBook comes with an Intel Skylake processor -- sixth-generation dual-core Intel Core M model, offering up to 1.3 GHz clock speed with Turbo Boost speeds of up to 3.1 GHz, faster 1866 MHz memory, and a 'rose gold' color variant. Apple assures 10 hours of wireless Web browsing time, or 11 hours of movie playback on a single charge. The new model will hit retail stores on Wednesday. It starts at $1,299 for the 256GB SSD and 8GB (up from 4GB) version, and goes all the way up to $1,599 for the top-of-the-line model which offers 512GB SSD.
A couple of points: the first-generation MacBook didn't fare well with reviewers and plenty of users alike. Second, today's announcement also hints that the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro lineups won't be getting the Intel Skylake upgrade for at least a few more months -- which is really sad, because, at present, they come equipped with almost three-year-old processor and graphics chips. No wonder, Oculus executive made fun of Apple's computers.
A couple of points: the first-generation MacBook didn't fare well with reviewers and plenty of users alike. Second, today's announcement also hints that the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro lineups won't be getting the Intel Skylake upgrade for at least a few more months -- which is really sad, because, at present, they come equipped with almost three-year-old processor and graphics chips. No wonder, Oculus executive made fun of Apple's computers.
Just a single USB-C port. While I like the magsafe charging connection of older macboks, I can support charging via USB-C - the more devices that can charge via the same standard connector, the better. While I like having the USB-A plugs, I'm willing to bet peripherals will transition with time to USB-C, and I can even deal with needing a dongle until that happens. What I find unacceptable is the fact that there is only a single USB-C port.
This makes me think of the early days of USB -- it was assumed people would chin their devices, as was common with SCSI. But then, peripheral manufacturers stopped including the pass-through connector. At first, this was annoying, but the fact is, it would be annoying to have to disassemble a chain of devices because you want to remove one from the middle.
I jumped over to TonyMacx86.com and as of 4/12/16 they have moved the recomended CPU from Haswell/Broadwell to Skylake.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/buil...
For those that like to tinker and build your own Hackintoshes.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Video decode uses a specialized, highly optimized decoder chip, most likely part of the GPU. The silicon is designed to decode H.264 and probably the various MPEG codecs using as little power as possible. CPU usage is very low while playing video.
Web browsing does JIT compilation of text-based script languages, initiates dozens of network connections per page load to pull in resources, and has to parse & render all of that using the general purpose CPU. That requires much higher CPU usage, and much greater power demands.
The difference is obvious on smaller (IE less compute) devices like phones. Smart phones have been able to play video flawlessly for years, but they still generally feel slower, more jumpy than most full computers for web browsing. Video decode has a very well defined, relatively small set of operations that can be optimized in silicon. Web browsing is wide open, anything goes in terms of computation. The additional flexibility required makes silicon-based optimization much more difficult, and power demands increase.
the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro lineups won't be getting the Intel Skylake upgrade for at least a few more months
Technical or commercial reasons?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
As much as I enjoy mocking Apple, I have to say that my desktop PC at home is running a Intel i7-2600K which first showed up in 2011, so is five years old now (well, 4.5, it was released around October IIRC). It's still very competitive and runs modern games and apps just fine. The Skylake equivalent is only about 5-15% faster for most tasks.
That CPU was a great purchase with hindsight. It's more than justified its high price. More luck than skill of course.
So anyway, I can't really mock Apple in this instance. Their hardware still sucks for many other reasons though.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I was almost sold on a Mac Mini until I found out that you cannot upgrade the RAM in the newer models.
Buy and upgrade an older model from OWC.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Apple_Systems/Used/Macs_and_Tablets
Another increment in technology, overpriced to get as much out of the less technical as possible...smh
Are macbooks overpriced? Last time I checked (a few years ago, I admit), they weren't, at least not significantly. They were in the same ballpark as others given the the specs which of course include weight, size and some general notion of "build quality".
Main difference is htey don't drop prices so before a refresh, they're a little overpriced for the specs relative to the competiton, but just after the refresh they're pretty decently priced.
I don't even owna mac.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
the 15" line needs a refresh badly, and we need the return of the 17" with a 4K display.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Aside from what the other posters have said, text rendering is actually one of the most processor-intensive tasks that a typical desktop does. Each codepoint has to be converted to one or more glyphs. These glyphs are sequences of bezier curves that are rendered to raster images (which are typically cached). Next, you need some fairly complex calculations to work out the spacing between glyphs, which is starts as a fixed advance and is then subtly tweaked based on pixel alignment and shape of the next character. Now you have a set of glyph runs, but you want to render a paragraph of text, so you need to work out where to break the lines. If you're something that sucks less than MS Word, you then use a fairly simple dynamic programming algorithm to work out the place to break the lines for optimum readability, otherwise you use a greedy strategy. This is fairly easy in a rectangle, though gets more complex if there's a background. Now you know where the glyphs need to go, and all that's left is to alpha-blend them with the background (remember, antialiasing needs an alpha channel and sub-pixel AA means that each rasterised glyph will be in three colours). This last step is typically offloaded to the GPU, because the CPU hit of just that part is quite noticeable.
And then, if it's a web page, something tweaks the DOM, or a new CSS file finishes downloading, and you need to do the whole thing again.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Semi related: how do you make a clickable link?
Like in HTML: <a href="http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac">MacRumors</a>
Which gives:
MacRumors
I don't know if there's a list of "allowed HTML tags and entities" anywhere anymore. BTW, I used <quote> for quoting you.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Compute CPU power is not much more than it was 3 years back.
In some regards, that is true, in others, less so.
Haswell to Skylake is rather pointless, but Sandy Bridge to Skylake is not, depending on what you're doing.
The other factor is power consumption, which has been Intel's real focus.
Or just get an Intel NUC or one of the many other, cheaper, better and smaller units.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
/ducks
And please leave me my freedom to buy what I want for what reason I want for what price I want.
Take a deep breath. Now let it out slowly and repeat after me: "Everything's going to be okay. No one's going to prevent me from spending as much as I want on a laptop."
Now don't you just feel better!
$499 of hardware? The list price of the processors is $281 - that doesn't leave much for the motherboard, screen, ram and SSD.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They have been RAM bandwidth constrained for a _long_ time.
Don't buy new motherboards because of a new CPU family. Buy new motherboards because of new RAM, which usually comes with a new chipset. If the chipset/CPU doesn't do anything for the RAM bandwidth, skip the upgrade.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It comes from a long line of Nerd hate.
Back in the 1980's the good old IBM vs Apple debate. Then it moved to a command line vs GUI debate.
by 1990's With Windows becoming the dominate "OS" Windows 3.1 was more of an advance shell for DOS, and the inclusion of a large range of PC Compatibles it morphed further to General Purpose PC's vs. Apple.
During these geek wars for the past generation, had diminished Apple.
Then during the late 1990's Apple switch to "Cute" with the Fruit Colored iMac. And the Powerbook. Which were popular enough to get a few converts. But the geek debates were much less than as the PC was still the victor. However you got the Linux fanboys joining up with the Apple Fanboys as Microsoft was the common enemy, giving Apple a bit of an edge, and impression of the underdog outsider.
Then there was the iPod, which was popular. That allowed people to get interested in Macs again. so during the 00's Macs were getting popular with Microsoft messing up with major security problems with Windows XP and failures like ME. A lot of the people switched to Macs to avoid being boring PC guys. But this caused the hate wars to begin again. As apple is now becoming a major player on the block. No longer the underdog, but a major influencing threat. The Linux allies broke off and started to side more with Microsoft on the grounds that you can get more versatile hardware.
Then Apple changed the game with the iPhone. Which spawned tablets and other touch devices. Which diminished the popularity of Personal Computers in general. So the war moved mostly to Apple vs Android, however interests in Macbooks vs PC's have diminished. But in terms of Hardware manufacture Apple is the big name, and who do we have as a popular PC manufacturer? No longer IBM, Compaq, Gateway, and Dell. Lenovo Thinkpads keeps the business market. But the others not so much, as the big name.
So the underdog PC's are now getting Apple hate.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You can say that about almost every one of Apple's main computer products these days. The older gear is better. The only notable benefit of their recent iMac, Mini, and laptop offerings is that they are smaller. Upgradability is less, maintenance (getting into them to fix or replace things) is more difficult, they've cheaped out on sub-2GHz CPUs at the low (affordable) end while keeping the prices roughly the same, and removed the discrete graphics in all but the highest-end machines. The new hyper-thin MacBook keyboards are ... crap. One USB-C port? Insane. Heck, I'd pay more for a "thick" laptop like the MacBook Pros of old with an even larger battery and the simple blessing of having screws to open it instead of glue to unstick.
I knew that Apple products were more expensive on average, but usually you got what you paid for. Their laptops, for example, lasted me for years more than a typical Windows machine. I still use one as my main machine now (upgraded with a bigger SSD and more RAM = years more use). But in the last couple of years Apple is slowly but surely losing it. They're just too expensive for what you get most of the time, and some of the cosmetic design decisions (e.g., thinness) come at too high a cost in terms of practicality. As much as I like the older hardware I own and still use regularly, I can't see getting any of the newer machines unless they suddenly reverse the trends of the last few years.
Will common shortcuts like alt-tab, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X work in OS-X?
Alt-tab was from Windows (but OS X has had it for over a decade), and how the hell do you not know that the Z/X/C/V for text editing came from the original 1984 Macintosh? It only got changed to use ctrl because Microsoft couldn't force computer manufacturers to add a command key to the keyboard. (They clearly got more powerful since then, as you can see from modern PC keyboards.) Just be thankful you don't have to use the original 3-button X Windows copy/paste!
I haven't cared much about the package management stuff in a while, but Fink is long dead, I think the current one is macports. And I don't know about what you've "heard" about breaking programs, but any OS can have DLL hell, even Linux. Maybe that's why Linux package managers are so good, because they have to be. The newer versions of OS X try to lock down the core OS, which can cause problems for some things, but it is well documented how turn that protection off. (Spoiler: you have to reboot in a special way first)
You could always try to find a cheap old unibody Macbook Pro laptop (be warned about trackpad click problems, they can be fixed if you know what to adjust, but you should research it first) and try it out. It might be better to get a cheap "learner" one before you go full into it. Or if you can get a good deal on a 2011 (pre-retina) model with an i7 in it, that might be as good for software development as a brand new one, plus you can easily upgrade to 16GB RAM. I'm still using my 2011 17" i7 and I'm a bit surprised that five years later it's still far from obsolete.
But no matter what you do, you'll always be lost for a few months when switching to a new OS until you get used to it. I only recently upgraded to 10.9 (OpenGL improvements motivated me) and that was essentially the same OS. On PCs, I'm still using Windows 7.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Funny thing - I went primarily Mac for my home user boxes because it was 1) an actual *nix (well, literally a certified UNIX variant), and 2) it could run all the CG/gfx app suites that I wanted it to run.
I never really got into the flamewars except for the occasional poking of fun at whatever side needed poking. For years on end, I happily ran a Mac Cube, the later a monster PowerMac on one big KVM switch with all my 'doze and Linux machinery.
I will say this, though: While I was re-installing Linux every year because I wanted to (distro-hopping), and reinstalling 'doze every 6-12 months on the PCs because I had to (Winrot)? I upgraded the Cube once in its 6 year lifespan, and the PowerMac once in its 9-year lifespan... both times only because I wanted the features that came with the upgrades. Now I just plop in the OS upgrade on my MacBook Pro, but have only had to re-install once - when I replaced the factory platter drive with a way faster SSD drive. The OS simply holds up at least as well as Linux over the long term.
As a fun side benefit, the MacBook Pros put up with my abuses just fine (my current one is nearly 3 years old), whereas before 2013 I was buying new laptops damned near every 12-18 months, with most of them dying off at the hardware level by month 13-14.
Overall though, I can happily use Macs and Linux side-by-side. Windows I only use when I have no choice in the matter (I use a Mac at work, BTW).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?