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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.
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...
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.
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.