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Apple Should Stop Selling Four-Year-Old Computers (theverge.com)
It's been a while since Apple upgraded its MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro models. Four years, one month, and twenty-four days, to be exact, in case of the MacBook Pro. Apple is inexplicably still selling the exact same models for its Mac line that it introduced in 2012. Pretty much every Windows OEM has had an Intel Skylake-powered processor in its laptops for more than a year now, but Apple's computing lineup is still shipping with the three-to-four years old processor, and graphics card. Things have gotten so bad, that MacRumors' Buying Guide, which is considered to be an "online institution" among Apple nerds, has flagged all of Apple laptops as "Don't Buy" In a column, The Verge's Sam Byford says that Apple should stop selling the old laptops. He writes: Apple iterates quickly and consistently in mobile because the rate of technological progress is so much more dramatic in that arena. The company does amazing work to keep its iPhones and iPads ahead of competitors, performance-wise. Simple Intel processor upgrades are less important to laptops these days, however, and I'm finding this 2012 MacBook Pro fine to work from right now -- faster than my 2015 MacBook, at least, which is enough for my needs. But that doesn't mean it isn't unconscionable for Apple to continue to sell outdated products to people who may not know any better. Is the company really saving that much money by using 2012 processors and 4GB of RAM as standard? Even an update to Intel's Haswell chips from 2013 would have brought huge battery life improvements. Apple is bound by the whims of its suppliers to a certain extent, and it may not always make sense for the company to upgrade its products with every single new chip or GPU that comes out. But there's a certain point at which it just starts to look like absent-mindedness, and many Mac computers are well past that point now. [...] If Apple doesn't want to keep its products reasonably current, that's its prerogative. But if that truly is the case, maybe it shouldn't sell them at all.It's also ironic, coming from a company whose executive not long ago made fun of people who had five years old computer. Folks at Accidental Tech Podcast also discussed the same recently.
You should be buying a Mac as a fashion accessory. Gotta let everyone at the coffee shop know how hip and cool you are.
The 2012 laptop is faster than the 2015 laptop but Apple should stop selling it ... why, exactly?
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I didn't realize Apple was selling computers specifically designed for four year olds. Where can I get one for my daughter?
Pretty much every Windows OEM has had an Intel Skylake-powered processor in its laptops for more than a year now, but Apple's computing lineup is still shipping with the three-to-four years old processor, and graphics card.
Ahem. That's a bald-faced lie. The 2016 MacBook now has a Skylake processor.
Exhibit A.
IOW, nothing but Clickbait. As usual.
Um...they do perform better. With lower specs. Android is bloated and buggy and requires more raw power to accomplish the same productivity. Yes, I'm going to give you a car analogy: In 1985, you could buy a car that produced around 160 horsepower from a 5.7-liter V8 engine. Today's V6 engines produce 260+ horsepower from small 3.5-liter V6 engines.
Yes, your car in 1985 had a larger engine and used more gasoline, but it still gets outperformed by smaller, more efficient units today.
You think the machines weren't horrendously overpriced on day one either?
I have 10 Macs in the next room (I work in schools).
I guarantee you that they get one-hundredth of the usage of any other PC on site. And yet they cost nearly 8 times as much. And we give the kids free-reign, a lot of the staff use Mac at home, our systems are mostly online so support either setup, they are tied into our AD and file storage, they are connected to the same network, etc.
He have several hundred iPads. Those get use. But the Macs? Even the children barely bother to touch them, even when given free time in the room they are in. I've seen the same at many other schools.
The irony is that the only piece of software we regularly use them for used to be Mac-only and is now dual-platform. So they are literally lame ducks. And, no, our volume licensing doesn't allow us to use them via Boot Camp as they were NOT originally purchased with a copy of a Pro or Enterprise version of Windows. Even if it did, why would we do that rather than just sell them off, buy three or four equivalent PC's for each, and then just use those instead?
Mac's aren't anything very special at all. Their hardware is lacklustre, and pretty fixed, and over-priced, and their management is much more complicated than necessary for such "user-friendly" machines.
Honestly, two were stolen on an open day one year. I could have literally bought - there and then - six PC's for the price of the replacement new Macs that the insurance company forced us to have. Do I honestly get three times the functionality out of the Macs than the PCs? Nope. Not even in a school with music, drama (theatre shows, movie recording, etc), etc. departments using the facilities all day every day.
Last time I received a helpdesk ticket for them for something not working, we found out that the machine in question hadn't been switched on for three months (and, no, it wasn't a holiday). Timetabled classes of 20, 10 Macs in the room, you work that out.
I've even run Mac OS in a VM, and I honestly don't get the fuss at all. In fact, it run faster as a resource-limited VM on my Windows-based laptop that was also running over VM's than it did on the original hardware itself.
Don't even get me started on stupid proprietary cables that add nothing but cost, obstructions to centralised management of the machines, and - honestly - if I hear the word keychain one more time I will scream (it tends to be new users, but still, it drives us insane).
Three times I have submitted plans to remove the entire room and replace it with an IT suite with twice the machines and each time the only justification for refusal is how much it had cost to install them originally. I even factored into one of the proposals the ridiculous second-hand price they attract as a way of funding the change entirely.
But, still, they get 1/10th the usage of any other machine I manage. And one of those is in a cupboard.
This is a sensible strategy. Moores Law is over. Intels processor performance is only 30% better than it was 5 years ago. Computers aren't improving much year over year overall. The last jump in decent improvement was the introduction of SSD's. I am sorry to say it looks like digital computing is a dead end: we won't be seeing AI or the Singularity everyone wishes for with digital computers.
Thunderbolt is kind of an bust & Intel low pci-e count does not really help. But at least with skylake they will get DMI 3.0 that moves the 2.0 X4 DMI link to 3.0 X4.
Also the big thin push hurts them more with cutting ports and only having 1 TB bus so that all ext stuff has to shear the TB link with DP data. Now if they do put some stuff like E-net and wifi on the DMI / chipset bus. Then in the laptops / mini they can switch the X16 to X8 video (if the system has an non Intel gpu) X4 TB 3.0 X4 pci-e storage or with out video X8 2 TB 3.0 buses X8 2 X4 storage.
Now the macpro is a real bust and with 1 cpu the pci-e lane count does not give them the room to do TB 3.0 without an lot of changes. Like switch the video to X8 X8 freeing up 3 X4 links for TB and 1 more X4 for the 2th pci-e storage card. or adding an 2rd cpu giving them room for 2-4 storage cards and 4-6 TB 3.0 buses + 10 GB e-net.
It is never too late to join the glorious PC master race.
As it happens, I am writing this on a 4-year old MacBook Pro. It is fast and reliable and I have yet to find any Mac software I want that I cannot run. If I lost this one, I would definitely want to buy a replacement, but I don't feel a need to upgrade just because. Now, I know that having the latest-greatest CPU is cool, but what exactly would that buy me if I bought it?
This entire suggestion is stupid unless consumers enjoy paying for obscenely priced factory memory and non-removable hard drives, which these components being replaceable are two great features that still exist in this "dinosaur" model they're still selling.
And yes, I'm still considering biting the bullet to buy one for those specific reasons, since Apple has gone the asinine route and forces you to buy their memory and hard drive upgrades at time of purchase for every other model they sell. I already own a late-2012 i7 Mac Mini (which is almost identical hardware to this model) that absolutely SCREAMS with 16GB RAM and SSD upgrade, so I'm already familiar with how this "ancient" laptop would likely perform with some minor replaceable components.
Once this model disappears, you will be forced to purchase damn near every hardware upgrade you might ever need up-front and all from Apple. Dunno about anyone else, but I won't be enjoying that stupidity at all.
The whole article summary is cookoo flamebait. First Apple does have skylake processors in it's line up. https://apple.slashdot.org/sto...
They just don't use the intel model name "skylake" on their product descriptions.
The alleged website saying "dont buy" is not complaining about this. For example the macpro they list as "don't buy" is actually "can't buy". Apple doesn't list that model in it's store. And their reasoning for not buying it is because it's not a retina version, and there's not any price difference with the retina.
Finally like every single computer maker, mac does have a range of models and guess what the lower end ones have slower procesors. But they also get an hour longer battery life than the i7 models.
Guess what? the track pads don't have two buttons! Alert commissioner gordon!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
But they most certainly are not selling a 4 year old computer.
They actually are. As of this writing, the non-retina Macbook Pro is still available for sale on Apple's site. Go to apple.com, click Mac -> Macbook Pro -> Buy and then scroll about halfway down the page. That model, which is being sold for $1099, hasn't been updated since June 2012, though it did have a $100 price cut in July 2014.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
I don't own any Macs, but my next computer will be a Mac. It's more than a fashion statement.
Linux still doesn't "just work." If it does "just work," it's probably because you have old hardware. Linux will probably never be ready for the desktop unless hardware stops changing.
Microsoft? They've completely crossed the line with Windows 10. They're trying to make it like a big phone with invasion of privacy and telemetry. Microsoft has abandoned power users. I suppose gamers still need to use it, but they're giving up a lot.
Chromebooks aren't made for power users and are glorified web browsers.
What's left? Macs. They have good support, a desktop that works, and are based on BSD. Since it's not really a gaming platform, having the latest and greatest specs aren't that important, but generally they have solid specs. Expensive? They retain their resale value. I wish I could get rid of my 2014 Asus Zenbook even though it's really fast. Windows 10 is horrible and the drivers are constantly breaking when there are updates. I doubt I'd get a fair value on eBay or Craigslist, and I don't want to expose myself to fraud and/or idiots.
I am so sick of Slashdot posting bold-faced lies and FUD on their front page. You can buy Macbooks with Skylake, which is a CPU architecture that wasn't even released until about a year ago, and Macbook Pros with Broadwell, an architecture released in early 2015.
If you buy a 13" Macbook Pro (latest generation) on apple.com right now, it will come with a CPU and chipset released to market by Intel about a year and a half ago, not four years ago.
And if you're complaining about the physical chassis, well, maybe it's just that Apple has reached what they consider to be the optimal layout and dimensions for their chassis. I mean, IBM/Lenovo hardly ever changed their ThinkPad physical design characteristics for a number of years in the mid to late 2000s, until Lenovo started messing with a good thing, and ended up utterly ruining the ThinkPad brand and stopped providing the features that people who bought them wanted/needed.
I am not an Apple fanboy; I think the company is pretentious, greedy, anti-competitive, and significantly less visionary with the loss of Steve Jobs. The very little they do for open source is overshadowed by their aggressive litigiousness and the walled garden platform they created.
BUT -- and this is a big thing for me -- Apple can do *more* with 4 or 8 GB of RAM than Microsoft can do with 16 GB of RAM. Their software is extremely well-designed, optimized for fast, high-fidelity displays, and the font rendering is beautiful and second to none. They don't have a ton of old legacy code like Windows does; the legacy that does exist has easily been swept under the rug in favor of new designs. And being based on BSD is a huge plus for software dev.
The efficiency and responsiveness of Macbook Pro and iPhone has made me appreciate and admire these *products* that I own, even though I only started buying Apple products in 2015 after spending decades swearing I never would and preferring GNU/Linux or Windows-if-absolutely-necessary.
I'm tired of having to grossly over-spec my machines (and often end up paying even more than I paid for my Apple products) for trash software like Microsoft Windows and Android, two great examples of over-engineering plus bloat plus the worst parts of an open or semi-open platform (security vulnerabilities, malware, etc.) ... A $1800 MBP with a year-old processor and 8 gigs of RAM is faster, more enjoyable to use, lighter, and has better battery life than a $3000 13" Windows 10 "ultrabook". And my $1000 iPhone 6S Plus with 2 gigs of RAM is faster, far less buggy, completely free of bloat, and easier to use than any Android phone on the market.
Again, I'm not an Apple fanboy. I don't love the company and I have zero loyalty to them. I dare someone else to do better. For years I thought everyone else *did* do better, but it's clear to me now that I was actually deluding myself into thinking that having 4 gigs of memory wasted by background service bloat on Windows was "necessary".
I'm very satisfied with their products right now and extremely dissatisfied with their competition. I'd actually recommend to those in the market for a laptop to seriously consider the Macbook Pro. It's not ideal for gaming, of course, but it's great for anything from content creation to heavy web surfing to flash games and even does VMs extremely well in VirtualBox or VMware. And I also do some heavy C++ and Java dev on this box. It just never slows down no matter what I do. Love it.
Uh, no.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/...
On most benchmarks, the iPhone is faster. The iPhone SE, in fact, seems to be the top performer among iPhones, and it's the cheapest of the current generation.
Samsung's phones (and anything using the Qualcomm chips) tend to outperform the A-series chips when it comes to multi-threaded tasks, so you'll see physics simulations on high-end Android devices run better than iPhones. But honestly, that's not much of what most people do on their phones. On any real-world (ish) benchmark to do with browsing, IO or framerate, the iPhone is in the same ballpark or much faster.
Dollar-for-dollar, the iPhone is basically the best bet in town, even with 11-month-old silicon. Given that they're going to be announcing the next generation next month, this is only going to get better for Apple.
Look, there are lots of reasons to complain about both Apple and iPhones, and their SoCs have never been one of them. They produce power-efficient, highly integrated SoCs with great I/O throughput.