[Closed] New MacBook Pro's

jambalaya - Member
These prices seem very high to me

I knew it!

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Before buying my MacAir I had to consider Office compatibility, purely to transfer and amend/work on Work documents. Once I'd tried Office for Mac I simply bought that, loaded it and it's been faultless ever since. I have to say I have more compatibility issues with Work still running Office 2000 rather than the more recent software issues, but that's another argument about large organisations and IT.

I've been waiting for the technical specs on these new MB Pro's but I find the lack of info rather annoying. I want to compare the new ones with the old, the latter of which can be had a lot cheaper!

"Apple is making £8 less per computer sold in Britain than America."

"Earlier this week, Microsoft announced an increase of up to 22% for business customers of its cloud products"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/28/brexit-apple-mac-customers-prices-rise-us-dollar-pound-sterling

I have more compatibility issues with Work still running Office 2000

How can a modern organisation be running something so old (nearly 17 years!) in a critical productive environment, what kind of dark ages organisation do you work for!

But is this kind of thing that gives MS a bad name, the modern stuff is great, but if peoples experience at work is running something that old then it is easier to blame MS as that's the label they see on firing up everyday, than their crappy IT department.

bikebouy - Member

Before buying my MacAir I had to consider Office compatibility, purely to transfer and amend/work on Work documents. Once I'd tried Office for Mac I simply bought that, loaded it and it's been faultless ever since. I have to say I have more compatibility issues with Work still running Office 2000 rather than the more recent software issues, but that's another argument about large organisations and IT.

Good to know. Have you / anyone else used 365 and specifically Onedrive on it? That, movies in hotel (not that kind) and the above would be my primary use of it.

I haven't investigate which Surface I'd like yet, but anything I have gets carried in a satchel so it all needs to be lightweight and customer facing for Presentations. Of course, I'm in Sales so it should also be shiny 😀

That £8 profit difference is for the Mac mini only and is pretty fag packet analysis by the jurno.

The key bit despite the Guardian trying to turn it into a Brexit story is:

[b]however, all of Apple’s Mac customers worldwide are waking up to find out the company has significantly increased the average selling price of its laptop computers.[/b]

How can a modern organisation be running something so old (nearly 17 years!) in a critical productive environment,

Actually the more critical the environment the older the software is likely to be, because if you know it works and is stable for your specific needs then upgrading is much more of a risk. And cost.

Although I'm not sure this applies to MS Word, or that Office 2000 is more stable than 365! But it might be that their systems use say W2K and they need a similarly old version of office or something.

dragon - Member
I have more compatibility issues with Work still running Office 2000
How can a modern organisation be running something so old (nearly 17 years!) in a critical productive environment, what kind of dark ages organisation do you work for!

Because the people that hold the purse strings ask questions like :-

What does Office 2016 do that Office 2000 doesn't do?
How many of my employees are complaining that Office 2000 prevents them doing their job?
Do we need the extra functionality of Office 2016?
How much?

90% of the people use 10% of the features
No one spends any money on MS Office training so never progress beyond typing, copying, pasting, some basic formatting and using excel as a very expensive calculator.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37799235

So the price increase is due to Brexit then! 😀

"Earlier this week, Microsoft announced an increase of up to 22% for business customers of its cloud products"

As Jammers has pointed out, this simply means we we will just buy the similar, and probably superior, British manufactured product

I believe there is one in development, provisionally titled the Lemon

Actually the more critical the environment the older the software is likely to be, because if you know it works and is stable for your specific needs then upgrading is much more of a risk. And cost.

Yep, every time they bring out a new version of Office I have to find all sorts of workarounds for all the bugs / stability issues they've introduced into Office / VBA and somehow try and scrape back some performance (each new version runs significantly slower than the previous one). Total PITA for a load of new features no one uses.

I still use 2010, 10x faster than 2013 and 25x faster than 2016 when number crunching. 2003 was about 10x faster than 2010 as well, so they're just getting slower and slower......

Despite the headlines it really isn't clear without detailed analysis (that seems sadly lacking) on how much the impact currency fluctuations from Brexit is having an impact. [b]All[/b] of Apple’s Mac customers worldwide are waking up to find out the company has significantly increased the average selling price of its laptop computers. In the US the new MacBook Pros will set you back at least $200 more than last year’s models, and sometimes much more.

Prices are even higher in Europe. The MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar is 1,700 euros, or $1,853.

As for Office 2000 if your IT department is living that far in the past then I'd be looking to move to a different company.

200 dollars more is a lot less than 500 quid more - and yank wages are generally higher for the middle classes to make up for the weaker dollar. 96 thousdand dollars in the US to do a 35k R&D scientist role over here - that used to be acceptable when the pound was worth 1.6 dollars....

Hell, they're McDonalds employees are asking for 15 dollars and hour - can you imagine the laughs over here if they asked for 12 quid an hour here?

If the pound stays down, expect living and spending standards to drop pretty rapidly.

binners - Member

As Jammers has pointed out, this simply means we we will just buy the similar, and probably superior, British manufactured product

I believe there is one in development, provisionally titled the Lemon

What is the opposite of jingoism?

Realism?

[url= https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DL9-gZQttC4J:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk ]https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DL9-gZQttC4J: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk [/url]

If you look UK averages are already crap when you look at western europe.

and the UK isn't actually a cheap country either, things look bad and being honest aren't going to get better for a while if ever.

The whole "Macs are creative people" is a bit out of date - they were adopted by graphic designs and photographers, sure -

But now as I sit at work everyone is using a MacAir or MacPro - thats devs, product managers, scrum masters, UX, UI, QA, etc. The whole product dev stack uses Macs - they're simply just that much nicer to use, and now the whole managed integration thing has been worked out, they simply work.

The alternative is some really shitty Lenovo tough book - they terrible but they have the build quality needed for work environment (people tend to treat company owned hardware a lot worse than their own) - nothing else from the big windows boys has the physical build to match.

I expect work will do a round of updates at some point next year, but I won't buy one for home use.

The more I look at these new Macs I don't see the point. I'm sitting here with a 3yo 11" Dell Altitude E6230 with 8GB Ram, I7 2.9GHZ, a 500GB HDD of which 50% is free.

Apart from the fact its older even the cheaper-than-Surface aka cheaper than Mac Air's Dell Lattitude/Inspiron have the same or or lowe spec albeit with touch screens, what would I be gaining?

I appreciate mine's probably loaded with Win-junk by now, but it fulfils my needs for work.

(Crikye, look how cheap Dell's chromebooks are at the moment)

binners - Member

Realism?

My part of the UK does have good form for hi-tech manufacturing you know. 🙂

If you look UK averages are already crap when you look at western europe.

Don't worry, the Brexiteers are in charge, so we'll soon be competing in the Eastern European league!

My part of the UK does have good form for hi-tech manufacturing you know.

Indeed - ARM have had a good run via Apple et al.

However, I'm not expecting to see Acorn taking on the Surface and MBP any time soon. And that's the point.

Don't worry, the Brexiteers are in charge,

Yes, I'm sure this was all part of the Brexiteers' secret plan - paying much more for the things we all want, and making unknown special deals with companies to go ahead and make the investment they had always planned to pre-Brexit – and then claiming it all as a victory, in some exquisite twist of logic.

I've had enough of it!

#VoteLibDem

Indeed - ARM have had a good run via Apple et al.

ARM got sold to the Japanese a few months back didn't they.

😆

#VoteLibDem

That's what got us into this mess in 2010. A mistake I won't be repeating.

The whole "Macs are creative people" is a bit out of date - they were adopted by graphic designs and photographers, sure -

But now as I sit at work everyone is using a MacAir or MacPro - thats devs, product managers, scrum masters, UX, UI, QA, etc. The whole product dev stack uses Macs - they're simply just that much nicer to use, and now the whole managed integration thing has been worked out, they simply work.

The alternative is some really shitty Lenovo tough book - they terrible but they have the build quality needed for work environment (people tend to treat company owned hardware a lot worse than their own) - nothing else from the big windows boys has the physical build to match.

I expect work will do a round of updates at some point next year, but I won't buy one for home use.

Same in my company. To the point that those who opt for the very expensive Windows laptop instead of the mac all want to swap these days and are awaiting the refresh date.

Don't worry, the Brexiteers are in charge, so we'll soon be competing in the Eastern European league!

ARM don't manufacture anything anyway.
And the factory in South Wales that does manufacture computery things is up to its eyeballs pumping out as many Raspberry Pis as it can 😉

Maybe the plan was to price everyone out of the market, then produce a stock PC in UK with a custom OS at a controlled cheaper price. Basically Red Star Linux, rebranded 😉

That's what got us into this mess in 2010. A mistake I won't be repeating.

I would look at it the other way, what we have now would have been in 2011 if it wasn't for the Lib Dems. Only 4 years till a general election and the Tories being returned to power after a little bit of boundary manipulation.

Looking on the bright side all those offshored helpdesks will be coming back.

India will be offshoring theri help desks to the UK in a few years...

I would look at it the other way, what we have now would have been in 2011 if it wasn't for the Lib Dems.

I didn't see the Tories win a majority in 2010. The Lib Dems could have played much harder as an independent partner rather than full coalition, withdrawing support if their own needs weren't met, and even potentially proposing their own bills knowing they had Labour support.

In their power grab they sold most of their principles and were duly rewarded in 2015 as a result.

Hmm..refurb old style i7 512 Gb retina MBP for £1600, or a brand new specced up Dell XPS 15" and a refurb MB Air for travelling for the price of the new one? This is probably the most dumbass question of the day, but I'm going to ask anyway - I like the idea of shared clipboard, iMessages, photos, calls etc between products. I often use iPad then go straight to laptop etc. I'm used to basic video editing and reviewing using Apple and would like to continue. Is it possible to stick MacOS on, say a specced up Dell or is that not possible? I'm guessing not. The screen spec on the top level XPS sounds amazing with rave reviews and it seems only battery life (and that it''s a windows machine if so inclined) that's against it?

ARM's business gets more profitable as £ falls. Design costs in £ production/sales in $

Is it possible to stick MacOS on, say a specced up Dell or is that not possible?

Not really.

The Dell screen although sounding good won't offer the colour trueness of the Apple variant either most likely.

I wondered about that. Spec alone can be misleading. Thanks Somouk. That's helpful.

Apparently John Lewis have sold out of 2015 MBPs 🙁

edit: almost

I wonder who bought them all? Apple?

Hacintosh have been around for years.
It can be done but needs compatible components.

Apparently John Lewis have sold out of 2015 MBPs

edit: almost

It'll be interesting to see pricing when the remaining stock of the superseded models hit the refurb store- presumably Apple should be selling them off at the same price the genuine refurbs have been up till now- though maybe they'll take the opportunity to increase refurb store prices as well.

The same old comments regurgitated every time Apple come out with a new version of a product - it shouldn't be a surprise to people by now. The formula is exactly the same every time. A price hike: check, a hike in power and functionality: check, all in an ever shrinking package: check, a few controversial new features that will eventually become features that people wondered what they ever did before they came into existence: check.

Nice bit of kit, but way way too powerful for my needs (i.e. amazon shopping and spouting crap on here!) so the basic Macbook will do fine for me.

I'm typing this on a late 2009 basic Macbook still going strong and has served my every home computing need effortlessly. I purchased it in 2009 for £800, so about £1200 in today's money, so about the same as the current basic macbook. So it appears that Apple products have not increased in price in real terms. I remember when crisps were 8p a bag, they're now anywhere between 55p and £1.50. Things escalate in price - it's a fact of life.

The Pro is clearly a professional machine. I once spec'd up a Mac Pro for over £20k, but if you're a professional who needs that sort of computing power for your professional photo editing / professional video editing / creating music / doing design/cad stuff then it's a tool and a cheap one at that. The company I work for does all it's professional design work for marketing and advertising on iMac's with no issues at all, so a Pro must be a mini-super computer.

My current mid-2012 Pro was under £1000, the cheapest current Pro is £1249 which sounds OK by comparison until I take into account the small hard drive. Yes I know all about external drives and NAS but it's not the same as 1Tb on board is it?

I live in Canada, so it's different pricing, tax etc, but while yes, it is a big ball park, it's not a big as you think.

HP Spectre, dual core i7 (clocked faster than MBP), 256 SSD, similar weight etc, $1800, MBP non touch $1900. Definitely the same ball park.

There's no real point in arguing over prices, they're definitely expensive, but I guess if you want MacOS then you've not got a lot of choice. I would consider a windows machine but I hate the thought of going back to programming on one. You get used to your toolset, the bash terminal, your package managers etc. There'd definitely be a learning curve.

I purchased it in 2009 for £800, so about £1200 in today's money,

Hmm yes but normal inflation doesn't apply in computers - prices have been falling in numerical terms for decades. Your MBP in 2009 was about twice the price of a cheapo entry level Windows laptop. Now though with MBPs at £1500 and entry level Windows laptops at £200, that ratio is now 7.5.

You get used to your toolset, the bash terminal

Bash officially available for Windows now 🙂

the basic Macbook will do fine for me

It would do fine for me too if only it could drive two external monitors.

I've ended up with two Thunderbolt displays on my desk, so I have to get an MBP to get both of them lit.

I might as well get one with a Touchy-bar while I'm at it, just in case wobbliscott's 'wonder what I did without it' comment is right.

But I am dubious, much.

I think they have put up the prices in the return store too, which is very annoying and a bit underhand.

They're clearly a bit sore at having to pay tax now.

I think they have put up the prices in the return store too, which is very annoying and a bit underhand.

The return store? The refurb models? All prices have gone up, 2015 MBPs are more expensive and it wouldnt surprise me if the refurb ones are too. Don't see anything underhand about it, they're still cheaper than the new models.

Complaining that a basic macbook won't drive two external monitors? Well that is a pretty specific and not particularly common requirement that wouldn't have been spec'd in the basic macbook. A bit like complaining that a basic ford focus does't have full leather, heated steering wheel, radar guided cruise control and the better engine and gearbox combo. Those are the value-added features you pay a premium for in the higher end models.

The price of computers has nothing to do with memory. Memory has become cheaper over time. The ethos of modern computing and especially Apple is to have all your data in one location away from your main devices, and your devices access the same location for all your data storage needs. That is the way things are going. Instead the value you get from Apple products are better quality componentrary meaning that their devices last a very long time. As well as my 2009 macbook, i've also got an iPad2 and two original iPad mini's all going strong and many many years old. You don't get that with other cheaper similar products. So you are also paying for the longevity of the devices.

Wether you value the attributes of Apple products is upto the individual - if you don't then you think they are a rip off, if you do you think they are reasonably and fairly priced. There are other options available.

The return store? The refurb models? All prices have gone up, 2015 MBPs are more expensive and it wouldnt surprise me if the refurb ones are too.

Sorry predictive text on the phone - yes I meant the refurb store. My point is the refurb models - which have now also jumped in price - to similar prices to the prices that new ones where a few days ago - clearly have been in the country for some time - hence why they have been refurbed. The exchange rate therefore should not affect them at all - so Apple has just hiked their prices on them to reflect a constant 10-15% less than a full price machine i.e. just making more money on the same machines they have already imported.

anyway made my decision, walked into PCWorld and they had some old MacBook Pros for £999 only 128Gb but it will do. I either buy now and pay a chunk or wait until the power cable on my old one fails and face a shocking price hike.

@binners What does this mean:

Without getting into the old tired Mac v PC argument, I use CS on a Mac all day, every day. Would a PC be as intuitive to use. No. Simple as that. Horses for courses.

I use a Win10 box at work and Mac at home both running CS and there is no difference in the software. Actually, not quite true, the Mac refuses to remember open/place dialogue box position and size in Photoshop on the Mac and I have to resize the window every time, very irritating. Known issue for yonks with no solution I'm aware of.

If anything, I think I prefer the way Win10 structures the recent folders in Explorer versus hateful finder. I do miss the trackpad though...

Microsoft have dropped their Surface Book prices by around £200 and are throwing in £285 worth of Xbox One S. Seems to be over the last few days, so possibly a response to Apple's latest offerings.

I did wonder if the discount on the top of the range Dell XPS locally was timed to the announcement.

Keep the faith fanboyz think of it as an investment...

I'm typing this on a MBP and use a Mac Pro at work. The new version of the MBP looks interesting, but if you have a new iPhone it seems you can't plug it in without an adaptor and you can't connect the headphones either. Plus, you can't use your iPhone headphones with the phone because that is the same port connected to the computer!

From reddit:

[img] [/img]

and randomly this popped up in a feed
https://medium.com/charged-tech/apple-just-told-the-world-it-has-no-idea-who-the-mac-is-for-722a2438389b#.yl6hzgg1j
Yes I know I am due to be burned as a heritic for upsetting you all but how bad can that be 😉

Interesting to see that this thread and the Iphone 7 both seem to have the lack of gushing love that mac launches normally do.
Guess thats what the collective Meh on the share price was

It does seem apple isn't quite sure what it is doing at the moment,

I have an iPhone 6 and the contract expires soon, but i will probably just keep it as see no real benefit of going to a 7, i have replaced my 2009 MacBook pro but i bought a 2015 rather than one of the new ones, i get useful to me ports, SD card and USB. As for the price hike...

Curious to know what they plan to do with the three desktops. As the mini and the Pro are getting very old!

I think that, after this MBP (2012) and iPhone (6) die, I'm off.

There's nothing compelling for me any more, and that's in both Sierra and IOS. I'm liking all the Linux-ness of Win 10 now, and even the new Ubuntu is nice- and don't really like the way IOS has gone. For both to disappoint me at the same time is unprecedented.

Its more than that- the new MBPs aren't sufficiently upgradeable for me- this machine I'm on has had more RAM and an SSD from me, and runs well, and I know I'll get a few years out of it still. The new ones lack that, and I'm not willing to take the gamble at that price. In fact, I can't take the gamble- I couldn't afford one.

In fact, although its dodgy, I'd probably hackintosh a Thinkpad or Aspire laptop if this machine kicks it- at least then I'm not dongle-chaining, which would irritate me more than I think I can take.

The nicer things about IOS are just down to one, now- iMessage, and with better phone contracts, I can live without it.

This is a first for me, tbh.

Apple seem to be in the place now that MS were in after a good few of the Ballmer years. Cook has taken over, and like Ballmer at MS, has increased profits and been a steady hand. The only problem is, he doesn't have the innovation, creativity, vision or the cajones to take risks and drive the brand forward towards real innovation and new market sectors like Jobs and Gates did. The new man at MS has been trying to ready their situation and seems to be doing a good job, I wonder how long it will take before Apple realises what's going on?

[url= http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/25/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer/ ]http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/25/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer/[/url]

The iPhone/MBP disconnect is mental as well, if they knew they were about to release USB C only MBPs why not use that on the iPhone? It's a crazy lack of joined up thinking and, to me, demonstrate how far they've fallen.

The image on the previous page is weird though. If you're charing you're phone and using you're laptop, why would you want to plug your headphones into the phone? And didn't the iphone come with normal headphones and an adapter? I'm confused.

The more I look at the new 13" non touch bar pro, the more suitable it seems as a direct replacement for my 2012 Air. Smaller, more powerful, similar number of ports (though losing the SD reader kinda sucks). It kinda makes sense on it's own as a product.

The image on the previous page is weird though. If you're charing you're phone and using you're laptop, why would you want to plug your headphones into the phone? And didn't the iphone come with normal headphones and an adapter? I'm confused.

The new man at MS has been trying to ready their situation and seems to be doing a good job,

I went to the apple store today..... they had ONE new mbp on display (13" non-touchbar)

had a chat with the bloke:

Me: Have you got any of the 17" on display?
him: No
Me: Do you know when you are getting them?
Him: No
Me: I can't decide between a 1tb 13" or a 512 17". If I buy the 17", is the SSD user upgradable?
Him: Hmm, it used to be
Me: I know.... is it going to be in the new ones?
Him: It isn't in the macbook
me: I know, is it going to be in the new 17" mbps?
Him: I don't know.
Me: Ok, thanks for your help....

I'm an apple-phile, but there does come to a point that you have to declare that the emperor has no clothes on.

The 17" Macbook Pro that was discontinued in 2012? 😆

The image on the previous page is weird though. If you're charging you're phone and using you're laptop, why would you want to plug your headphones into the phone? And didn't the iphone come with normal headphones and an adapter? I'm confused.

I think the point is that those are the headphones that come with the iPhone 7 (with a lightning connector). And if you've got your phone plugged into your laptop, you then can't plug the headphones into either the phone (because the port is in use) or the laptop (because it doesn't have a lightning connector). On top of which you can't even plug the phone into the laptop without an adaptor anyway...

The new MBP without the touchbar has an upgradable SSD - see OWC teardown

http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/25/why-tim-cook-is-steve-ballmer/

that was a really interesting article, thanks

@doris (IMO) Gates was very far from visionary. He was a smart busnessman and recognised an exlucsive deal for his (really quite poor) OS was very valuable. Over the years he shut out competition via financial muscle - in 1985 I ran a DEC OS on my PC which ran 4 processes simultaneously, MS bought that OS and binned it as although it was streets ahead it did not have the benefit of the licensing exclusives he had elsewhere with DOS

What you are seeing with Apple is a computer market positioning which says their relative niche is where they want to be as its very profitable and a view that phones and tablets are they way forward

their relative niche is where they want to be

It's only profitable because of the cachet their devices have. If they lose that, they've not got much. And if this thread is anything to go by they're in a spot of bother in that respect.

Given all that cash they have they really ought to be putting it to work.

What you are seeing with Apple is a computer market positioning which says their relative niche is where they want to be as its very profitable and a view that phones and tablets are they way forward

I can't remember the last time I plugged my iPhone into the mac. I charge it on the mains and it syncs wirelessly.

So to all the apple users on here - would you be interested in a Surface style tablet/laptop device, like an iPad pro but that runs MacOS instead of iOS?

Hypothetically of course - I'm not Tim Cook honestly.

Not for me. I think touch has its place, but not much in my world.

And I can't stand fingerprint smears on monitors....uurggh!!

iPad running MacOS is exactly what I said the iPad should have been in the first place but with an interface that allows both touch and conventional kb+mouse interaction. But then I'm speaking as an ex-Apple user.

And I can't stand fingerprint smears on monitors

Me neither but somehow doesn't seem to be an issue on touch devices. I give it a wipe every few days. I was expecting it to be much more of a problem.

And I can't stand fingerprint smears on monitors....uurggh!!

So to all the apple users on here - would you be interested in a Surface style tablet/laptop device, like an iPad pro but that runs MacOS instead of iOS?

No, happy to not get smears all over the screen and as most applications don't really work as touch anyway not convinced.

So to all the apple users on here - would you be interested in a Surface style tablet/laptop device, like an iPad pro but that runs MacOS instead of iOS?

Probably. I do music so my main requirements are connectivity - firewire soundcards, USB drives, HDMI monitor etc - and CPU power/RAM (to run various synths and plugins). And I want to be able to take it to another studio and plug it in there.

A touchscreen might be quite nice - there are lots of great music apps that make use of the iPad's touchscreen.

So yeah, probably. But as mentioned elsewhere, the build quality of MacBooks means my 2015 model will probably see me through the next 4 or 5 years!

iphone sales are down and the lack of massive enthusiasm from the traditional buyers isn't good. What is actually innovative in the new stuff? What is actually a backwards step? Another lad in the office was saying how he normally buys one each year then trades up - not convinced this year.

in the music world I follow, it's always been accepted wisdom that you just get a mac. My timeline is usually full of overpaid producers off to buy the latest Apple thing on day 1 - this year it's they're all complaining that Apple have lost the plot and saying they'll skip this version...

Possibly molgrips - however I don't like laptops, I am desktop plus tablet/phone so won't pay a laptop premium (hence my ancient 2009 Mini). iPad Pro is too big imho. I'd also be suspicious that a non-Apple machine would run iOS properly.

Lots of talk of Mac OS becoming more like iOS which for me seems a step backwards in terms of functionality.

Anyway £2k plus for a laptop is bonkers but we have become normalised to £700 for a "phone"