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Apple Refreshes MacBook Pro Lineup (arstechnica.com)
Apple said on Thursday it is refreshing the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models. Neither machines are getting major redesigns, but the innards are getting a spec update. For starters, both the models are powered by the 8th-generation Intel processors and house more cores than before -- a maximum of six cores on the 15-inch model (compared to four in last year's models) and four in the 13-inch model (compared to two). That means faster performance for many use cases. Maximum SSD capacity is also doubled, and the MacBook Pro line offers DDR4 RAM for the first time. ArsTechnica: The laptops also borrow some features from the iMac Pro and the iPad Pro -- the T2 chip and True Tone, respectively -- and feature a revised butterfly keyboard, the third generation of the design Apple introduced in 2016 (the revision is a little more significant this time around). Apart from those tweaks to the keyboard, the basic design of the MacBook Pro is unchanged. The top configuration of the 15-inch model includes an 8th-generation, six-core Intel Core i9 CPU clocked at 2.9GHz. Six-core Intel Core i7 processors are also options. The 2017 iteration of the MacBook Pro featured DDR3 memory with a maximum configuration of 16GB. This time, it's DDR4, and the maximum is 32. The faster memory uses more energy, so a bigger battery is now included -- but Apple's battery life estimate remains the same as last year's. The GPU in the top standard configuration is listed as an AMD Radeon Pro 555X.
The 13-inch model has different specs, of course. It still only offers integrated Intel graphics, for one thing -- Intel Iris Plus 655, this time with 128MB of eDRAM. But the maximum number of cores are again doubled -- in this case to four -- in 8th-generation Intel Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs, which run at up to 2.7GHz. Maximum SSD capacity is also doubled; it's now 2TB. The maximum memory is still 16GB. Apple claims the 13-inch model is up to twice as fast as its predecessor, though it will of course depend on the application. ArsTechnica says the keyboard on the new MacBook Pro models, though look similar to the one in the predecessor lineup, feel a little different to type on. The price of 13-inch starts at $1,799 while the 15-inch starts at $2,399.
The 13-inch model has different specs, of course. It still only offers integrated Intel graphics, for one thing -- Intel Iris Plus 655, this time with 128MB of eDRAM. But the maximum number of cores are again doubled -- in this case to four -- in 8th-generation Intel Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs, which run at up to 2.7GHz. Maximum SSD capacity is also doubled; it's now 2TB. The maximum memory is still 16GB. Apple claims the 13-inch model is up to twice as fast as its predecessor, though it will of course depend on the application. ArsTechnica says the keyboard on the new MacBook Pro models, though look similar to the one in the predecessor lineup, feel a little different to type on. The price of 13-inch starts at $1,799 while the 15-inch starts at $2,399.
Pretty sad when incremental hardware updates is big news. I guess it shows how infrequent Apple upgrades hardware on Mac's. PC makers upgrade model much faster without much fanfare.
It's gonna be exactly the same to everyone of their target group. At best(/worst) somewhat more restrictive and patronizing.
And this time, Jobs can't be re-hired to save the company from the tied management drones.
Base price on the 13 went up $500? ouch!
6 Core on the 15" and 4 Core on the 13", which makes the 13" a viable alternative for many people who could not previously consider it. More importantly, there is finally a 32GB option (welcome to the 2010s Apple), but as you'd expect from Apple only for the 15" and only at the time of purchase as it is soldered-on. Yeah, those 32GB RAM modules are too large to fit in just a 13" laptop.
Sadly, you only get USB-C connectors, which is the main reason I have asked my company to refrain from upgrading my 2015 MBP (my existing peripherals won't work, plus there will be an extra little box to carry around with me), although there was also the fact that so far there was no real hardware upgrade - esp. regarding memory (compare to a Mac Pro I have at home, with 48GB and 6 cores - sure not a laptop, but it almost a decade old, a 2010 model).
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
it's now $400 for the hardware, and $800 for the Apple logo on the back.
That RAM limitation really has been an issue for some people. That we can now go to 32GB on DDR4 will makean enormous difference.
Oh arse
I have a lingering doubt about the current case design. The previous Retina models had ventilation intake and exhaust opening to the top of the case (between the base and the screen). So when placed on a soft bed with all bottom-facing openings thoroughly blocked, they would not overheat. And this is how I work a lot, laying on a bed. That includes gaming that runs at maximum power and spins up the fans to the full speed.
The current design has the ventilation openings at the bottom only, that will be blocked when placed on a blanket or pillow.
Does this result in overheating and slowdown or thermal shutdown when running a computationally intensive task, like a game? Any informal reports on this aspect of thermal performance?
Another complication is that I am using Windows (i.e., no MacOS) that does not use energy saving features, so it will run hotter even when idling.
The touchbar is of course useless under Windows, but I guess I will have to put up with this blinking annoyance. There is still no word of 15" models without the touchbar. Apple keeps pushing this feature on the users. Just as they are pushing USB-C while lots of peripherals in continuing use need normal USB.
4 TB drive is fantastic. Just what is needed for scientists and creative pros who keep a lot of data. This is now four to five years ahead of the nearest competitor (Microsoft Surface).
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
I haven't cared this much in a long time
Just bought my first Windows PC ever: a cheap netbook. Maybe I'll get in on the next generation -- or on the MacBook version of a netbook.
Don't ever place a laptop on a blanket or pillow. That's never been a recommended practice for any laptop. Find a hard-cover book and place it on that while in bed.
The 32GB ram option is here now, but there is still so little options for a real pro portable mac. Make a "fat macbook" with USB-A, 17 inch screen and optical drive and long battery life and it will sell like hot cakes.
Later?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I have bought several Macbook Pros over the last 15 years, and I'd buy one of these if they didn't have the touchbar. I've tried the previous generation and I constantly touch it by mistake. And the virtual escape key is no good if you have to use it frequently, because it feels completely different from the real keys.
So I'll be sticking with my existing pre-touchbar model for another year at least.
Go find that in a hotel room, in vacation home, etc. That's a huge dongle to carry around! There are a few laptops that do not have ventilation openings at the bottom, MS Surface and the previous (2013) MacBook Pro are some of them. All the rest have shitty thermal design that requires air flow under the bottom.
In short, a notebook should not require any add-ons in normal use. Bed is my normal use.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
Find a hard-cover book and place it on that while in bed.
What? Now I have to go buy a new peripheral?
I've already switched back to Linux. I'm done paying twice the price for mediocre hardware.
Sure, the Mac experience can be nice, but it's not *that* nice.
what defect has been built into this one?
Do people not realize what kind of DRM this implements?
These x86_64 systems are now locked down harder than a fucking iPhone, all in the name of "user security".
Here's a hint for you- Apple isn't securing these devices for your benefit. They are securing these devices AGAINST YOU.
You can no longer run whatever software you want on a T2 enabled Mac (as far as macOS is concerned). The T2 implements numerous restrictions and security certificate checks that prevent you from running older software on the machine if newer software is available. You can only get authenticated copies of macOS (for your system only) through the App Store, and Apple removes the last version of macOS the moment a new version is available. Even if the installer still shows up in your purchase history and you can download it, it will not authenticate and run when it inevitably tries to grab the required data to allow the system to boot. If you ever have to do an internet recovery, you're getting the latest version of macOS whether you want it or not.
Furthermore, your SSD contents are now encrypted by default and TIED TO THE LOGIC BOARD.
This means that if ANYTHING happens to that system, you better fucking have backups, because your SSD contents are as good as gone. This is even worse than Filevault- at least with FV, if something happened there was a chance you might be able to recover your data because it was encrypted through software. With this system, if the T2 decides to blow away the encryption keys for your disk drive, you're totally fucking hooped.
It doesn't stop there either. Even the diagnostics for these computers are now INTERNET ENABLED and require authentication with a remote Apple server before they'll run. You can no longer download a copy of ASD and self service your OWN FUCKING HARDWARE. From what I've heard, even if you somehow obtain a copy of the diagnostics, they won't actually run unless the machine's S/N has been entered into Apple's service system and there's a valid repair order number associated with it.
Oh, yeah, and if you ever do anything that freaks out the T2 enough to send it into a panic mode- you need a second system (with another T2 security chip inside it) to resurrect the first one using a utility that needs to talk to a remote Apple server. If you piss off Apple enough, they can simply block your system from ever being resurrected again. At that point your hardware is as good as dead- you might as well throw it out and buy a new system.
Make no mistake, you do NOT own one of these computers. Apple does. At best, you are renting this hardware from them in perpetuity, and they can shut you down the moment they want to. You cannot modify it however you wish. You cannot repair it whenever you want. YOU DO NOT OWN THESE COMPUTERS.
Don't fucking fall for this ruse. These systems do not offer "user security". They are secured from YOU, the user, to protect Apple's bottom line (just like their iOS devices). I never thought I'd see the day when the freedoms associated with owning a PC were trampled on so heavily, but here we are. If you buy one of these computers, it is going to bite you in the ass eventually- regardless of what "premium" you may have paid for it.
Hamilton Beach has a new drip coffee maker, whose parts cost $0.17 less than the previous model but make coffee 2% faster!! (Why isn't this on Slashdot's front page yet?)
Oh, you use a French press? A French press, really. Looks like some snob is already getting ready for this weekend's celebrations, I see. Well, good for you! But some of us prefer drip coffee makers even though the coffee isn't nearly as good. And my favorite manufacturer is Hamilton Beach, which is why my coffee maker case-cover has a hole, to show off the Hamilton Beach logo.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
A hotel room is likely to have random cards for room service, and you can probably find a newspaper. You can also use a suitcase; even the softest of suitcases aren't likely to block the ports. This is a problem that I learned how to work around at least ten years ago, back in the era of the Aluminum case design, of which I had three. It was very nice looking, but crappy in so many ways, the cooling being just one of them. Unibody was an amazing improvement.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I have stayed in, hotels from Japan, to hostels in Sweden, dorm rooms in France, and ski cabins in Canada. I have never seen a hotel, hostel, dormitory, or AirB&B that doesn’t have a desk.
The butterfly keyboards has been phased out, and replace with a new design called "mote".
New mote keyboards will be 0.0001 inch thinner, only sacrificing minimal travel length, comes in 2 new colors.
Guys, sigh, don't tell me how to work. I'm too old to reconsider my habits :).
Here is the use case (not actual me): https://www.shutterstock.com/v...
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
The SMART (impossible) thing for Apple to do is simply attach the battery to the bottom of the case and make it part of the battery. They get all the size savings and users could remove and replace the battery with a little effort. This would also open the market to creating 3rd party bottom plates that are thicker with larger batteries (Apple could sell their own as well.)
The quality has gone down, especially as the phones take greater priority; Jobs being gone and those who retired around that time...
Apple needs to spin off the Mac division like they did with Claris (now Filemaker) and still owning them can share plenty between the two but separating and making the mac division survive on it's own may produce better results. The Mac side is not weak it's just being undermined and going downhill despite doing as well sales wise.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
15 years ago, I used to use a 12 inch Thinkpad and it had a matching hard-backed portfolio case that wrapped around it and zipped shut like a book cover. I kept using it as a rigid pad to put under newer notebooks when using them on my lap on a couch. It works well as a platform for 14 inch laptops even if they won't fit inside the case for travel. Because it has a nylon fabric covering, it's not too uncomfortable even if I am wearing shorts on the weekend and it sits across bare skin.
However, I don't always remember to pack it for travel. In remote places, I've improvised with locally found magazines and books as described in previous posts. I also found that a FedEx or DHL flat-pack envelope or rigid document mailing box works OK in a pinch. I've seen other people carry around a white or other colored plastic board for this purpose. They look exactly like cutting boards, so I imagine they probably are. It makes sense to me, as those are commodity priced and have a pebbled texture that will act as non-slip.
I imagine even the super-thin, plastic cutting-board liners would work. I.e. the ones meant to allow you to gently lift and fold the sheet to funnel chopped ingredients into a small pan etc. They are very light weight, but still rigid enough that they would keep fluffy bedding away from the vents. However, a rigid board would be better to maintain that 1-2mm air gap under laptop designs where tiny feet lift the entire device off the desk surface.
What, they're killing the magsafe power connector????
Darn-- I love that connector.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Still glued-in battery (consumer hostile)
Still no removable/expandable SSD (consumer hostile)
Still no removable/expandable RAM (consumer hostile)
Still no easily-replaceable keyboard (consumer hostile)
Still a horrible keyboard design that people will continue to hate
Still no necessary ports
Still no Magsafe, so users are back to busting their computer motherboard
Still overpriced, especially for repair parts like the display ($500 or more for some models)
Still not recyclable
There's nothing "Pro" about this. This is the "MacBook Contempt"... as in, Apple's overt contempt for their customers.
in the 90's proved more cores is not faster.
NeXTstep OS...which is the same kernel OS in MacOS X revealed that its architecture did not gain increases in throughput above 4 cores. This testing was done when 4+ cores emerged with " more cores the better" marketing hype.
Darwin kernel (ex BSD) with proprietary enhancements for MacOS X by Apple is not a modular kernel but hybrid monolithic/modular architecture that takes advantage of modularity by design.
Additional core improvement to throughput must be a function of off-loading CPU intensives by algorithmic and hardware optimizations.
Beig pro organized mass-murder spending is something only Americans or Nazi Germany could be.
You motherfuckers deliberately and willfully recruited, trained, armed and financed the very exact terrorists you now want us to waste money on, because this time a fuckin' third of the US budget was not enough ... now you wanted OUR MONEY too! And for that you deliberately sent masses of refugees our way, to destabilize us!
Fuck off, Nazi nation of mass-murderers and consumer livestock! It's our money! *You* deal with the shit you bred, or we will deal with you and your joke of a Trump government! Nobody cars if you go bankrupt in the process! (Maybe a few of your citizens will finally experience what it means for your mind to be free and to have an actual life instead of propaganda and slave work.)
And you need to tell people how much RAM they need? Why? For that matter why does Apple?
See, this is the thing. Different people have different needs, and when we can accommodate those needs (and easily too), we ought to do so. Why is this hard for some people?
DisplayLink is a USB based video adapter, that's just fucked up to begin with. Do the math on a 1080p/60 display...
1920 (horizontal) x 1080 (vertical) x 24 (bits of color) x 60 (frames per second) = 3 Gbps
3 Gbps the raw data rate for a 1080p/60 display on a bus that has a max speed of 5 Gbps data, 4K/60 needs 4 times that bandwidth. DisplayLink is trying to squeeze 4K and 5K video on a 5 Gbps, or maybe 10 Gbps if they use USB 3.1, and to do that they compress the frames and expand them on a chip they made. If they can't figure out how to make that work on MacOS then maybe they should get better code writers or use the built-in DisplayPort chip in every Apple computer with a USB-C port.
Other vendors can figure this out by using Thunderbolt and/or DisplayPort which can achieve 20 or 40 Gbps on the same USB-C port. With 20 Gbps that gets 5K/60 or 2x4K/30 without compression, with compression (which again is built-in to the DisplayPort chip in every Apple with USB-C and DisplayPort 1.4 displays) and/or 40 Gbps cables/adapters it gets up to 5K/120 or 4K/240.
A quick Google search tells me that DisplayLink and Linux have their own problems. Don't blame Apple on this. Blame the maker of your dongle for using DisplayLink chips for passing video or blame yourself for choosing crap dongles.
I had to take support calls on DisplayLink shit and so I have all kinds of hate for them. This isn't an Apple thing, or Linux thing, because even in Windows DisplayLink support sucks balls. DisplayLink can go fuck themselves.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
T2 chip puts an end to this useful workflow.
Fuck Apple.
Don't buy these units either.
Ignore.
Wait another few years, maybe the poor sales will finally sink the message home.
Are you trying to be willfully ignorant?
NATO is the reason you aren't speaking Russian, with a hammer and scythe flag waving above your house. Asshat.
My Lenovo P71 has its cooling fans on the sides and rear. Works great on a soft surface, no overheating at all.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Configured on the Apple and Dell websites with an i9 processor, 32GB, and 1TB SSD drive:
Macbook Pro - $3589
Dell XPS 15 - $3049
captcha - nonsense
Seriously, you can take away my ports if you give me Face ID on my Mac.
I miss Jobs. He'd quietly can bad products. Like the Cube. And the round mouse.
But Cook just doubles down on silly ideas like this touch bar thing.
At ESC could have been a physical key.
I'm going to have to build a hackintosh.
Interesting. I wouldn't say that from the pictures. Half the bottom panel is ventilation grille.
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
This, right here, is part of what is wrong with Apple. This endless desire to tell people what they need. No, you don't understand your own needs, only we do! And your needs magically fit perfectly within our product offerings...
"But in most cases, if you need that much RAM, you probably need a desktop with it..."
"A marketing point for most people. Having more RAM simply has to mean it is better, amirite?"
It's also this business of de-legitimizing and down-rating requests from customers. You might as well say, "if you are using that much RAM then you are Computing Wrong!"
I can imagine many scenarios, all valid, where a high RAM capacity would be beneficial or even essential. The fact that you cannot is your problem, not mine.
Are the 2018 MacBook pros upgradable with regards to RAM and SSD? I am thinking about switching from a PC to a Mac, but someone mentioned that the last couple of years they have not been upgradable. If that is the case I would prefer to stick with a PC.