I'm a little disappointed Apple, the new MBP doesn't have a top of the line graphics card, and it's still stuck to 16GB of ram. This is hardly a pro option.
I wonder if I need a #hackentosh if I want 32GB of RAM, and an nVidia 950M or better.
Did the Macbook Pros just get a whole lot more expensive in Europe (or specifically Germany?)? I don't remember the 15" MBP with a discrete graphics card being 2800€.
Or have they adjusted their prices to the weak Euro a while back?
Interesting that they're shifting towards AMD GPUs. Was actually hoping for a major update of the MBPR with the availability of NVIDIA's new maxwell architecture and broadwell based quad cores.
Anyone knows why AMD? Is it a margin/profitibility or performance thing?
The shift towards AMD GPUs actually makes me very, very wary of getting any new Mac hardware for a while. Every time I've tried an AMD/Radeon GPU in a PC, it's done nothing but crash over and over and over again (even after several returns).
I don't ever want an AMD/Radeon GPU in any system I own ever again. Intel and NVidia GPUs just work.
Apple has never tied themselves to one GPU vendor- they have gone back and forth more times in the past ten years or so that I have been watching Apple than I care to count.
give it 18 months and the new top-of-the-line will have nVidia in it again, assuming they don't move completely to integrated.
Presumably this means there won't be a major refresh to the 15" model announced at WWDC and available immediately or shortly, something Apple likes to do. I guess this is no surprise due to the lack of high-end Broadwell... Personally, I'm still hoping for a slightly higher resolution screen eventually.
I have a new Google's Pixel LS with 2 USB Type-C ports (at this point the only one in the world to have 2 as far as I know) and it's amazing. I can plug the USB Type-C charger from either side of the laptop. When was the last time you were able to do that?
Only if they didn't sacrifice the mag safe in favor of it like they did on the 13 inch.
The mag safe was one of the best inventions for MacBooks ever and it is sad to see how nonchalantly they retired it on the 13 inch. And I doubt the rumor it was because it is too light now. The mag safe is for when you trip over the cable with your leg. Doing that, you will always do so very abruptly. And so the weight of the MacBook cannot be that big a factor. Other wise, comparable things like the tablecloth trick would never work. The glasses and plates also do not weigh a lot. But tug on the tablecloth abruptly enough and away it goes with the glasses and everything still on the table. Same thing happens with a mag safe connector.
That's basically the same graphics card. AMD recently did an "OEM refresh", which didn't do much more than put new numbers on the old cards. They fiddled with frequencies, but they're basically the same old cards. Manufacturers demand this, and unlike Intel & nVidia, AMD doesn't have the clout to say no to stupid requests like this.
Significantly, they didn't refresh their retail range of cards, so there is still some hope that AMD has a significant refresh coming soon; AMD still doesn't have an answer for nVidia Maxwell, which was first released over a year ago.
Apple claims 12.5% longer life (from 8 to 9 hours) with only a 4.7% larger battery (95 Wh to 99.5 Wh), and without moving to Broadwell processors like in the 13" rMBP which we know are a big part of its battery life improvement.
So is this 15" rMBP battery life improvement software-driven or new hardware throttling or just wishful thinking? The video card and SSD have changed, but doesn't a full hour of battery life improvement seem optimistic? I guess reviews will expose the truth soon enough...
"Rather than 4.7% more capacity being responsible for a 12.5% increase in stated battery life, efficiency gains in the tested OS and software also likely contributed, since last year’s test was with Mavericks and an older version of Safari. Fortunately, those efficiency gains benefit old Macs, too."
"Notably, the chips are not Intel's latest-generation 'Broadwell' processors, which remain unavailable in quad-core configurations. As a result, Apple is still utilizing the previous-generation 'Haswell' architecture, albeit at faster speeds."
Really don't like the force touch trackpad for some reason... it feels a lot like the old macbook pro trackpad after years of use - kinda damp and spongey. There is nothing like the 'pop' of a new Mac trackpad, but I guess those days are over... ha.
I can't be part of THAT small a minority that needs to use CUDA and/or more than 16gigs of RAM.
From my perspective, these mbp are very little marginal benefit for computational work than a small air. (You'll just run everything on AWS/GCE/etc anyways)
It's nice. Adjustable click sound in trackpad preferences, so no more CLICK! at night when you use laptop near someone else. Force feedback makes it feel like you're really pressing a button.
The biggest selling point for it in my view isn't Force Click but the uniformity of the trackpad. You can press anywhere on the trackpad and it takes exactly the same amount of force to make a click. On the previous mechanical glass trackpads the amount of force required to make a click goes up the closer to the keyboard you press the trackpad. I'm now happy to use my thumb to click the trackpad because I can click it just under the spacebar easily.
It's very obvious when going back to the trackpad on my 2013 rMBP, which feels (and sounds) like junk in comparison.
On the 2013 rMBP I use the "Tap to click" setting so I don't have to press the awful button. On the 2012 MacBook I don't; it's just not necessary.
I have the 13" MBP with Force Touch. Hands down the best trackpad I've ever used. Apple continues to dominate in this space.
The "Taptic Engine" part of the Force Touch system is imperceptible from hardware "clicks". The ability to have a second level click seems interesting. Turning of the computer and pressing on the trackpad is like a magic trick.
While not many apps (and not many portions of the OS, even) are using the "pressure granularity" system of Force Touch, I will reserve judgement on its benefits and usefulness, but it is incredibly well-engineered.
Overall, I can see Apple including this across their entire product line, if technically feasible. It is as good as Touch ID.
I have only tried it in stores, but I find that even the highest "click" setting feels too shallow to me, and not as satisfying as the old trackpad. I also was not a fan of the very short travel distance on the new Macbook keyboard.
That said, I have heard generally uniformly good reviews, so I imagine it's one of those things that after a few weeks you get used to and perhaps even start to prefer.
I was really hoping to see 5th gen Intel Broadwell chips with the update. When are they expected? Intel said mid-year, but when will Apple incorporate them in?
If they released a new external display, it would have to be retina quality. That makes me think that Apple isn't yet confident in MacBook/MacBook Pro GPUs to drive multiple external retina quality screens like you can do now with the Thunderbolt displays. Maybe the top-of-the-line machines with the Nvidia/Radeon GPUs, but it doesn't seem very Apple like for them to release a new display with a disclaimer: only works with Nvidia/Radeon GPU equipped Macs.
Force touch user here! Contrary to what many people here seem to believe, the 13 inch retina MBPR has had force touch since its release in early 2015, when it was first announced. They have only just put them into the 15 inch, and I imagine they left the "big announcement" until all MBPR users could get it so they didn't waste all the novelty before it was ripe for media excitement.
My favourite thing about it is that the trackpad is automatically more clickable. The clickable surface area is larger than on my previous Mac (13" Air late 2013), and since I turned off right click (opting for two-finger click instead) I am far more causal about clicking things. This was really, really noticeable when going back to my Air briefly while I was giving it some TLC, and finding I couldn't use the top-left corner to click.
About the "force" aspect of it though... the sensation of pressing it down and watching some on-screen element change in size (which is the case for the dictionary lookup feature) is pretty fun. That's one of my favourite things to show people. It's like watching people use an analogue stick for the first time. At first it's confusing and hard to get the balance of, but soon you become quite proficient with it.
Unfortunately support outside of stock OSX applications is quite limited at the moment. The features that are supported in Safari have not yet made their way to Chrome, and features in Quicktime (changing fast forward speed, mainly) are not in VLC. Stuff like that. Having buttons on the screen which act differently depending on how hard you click them could be quite powerful.
With time, however, I think we'll see developers doing more interesting things with this. It could be quite useful in artistic applications for instance, doing exactly what Wacom tablets (and their ilk) have been doing to simulate the pressure of a brush or pen.
Another good use is as a replacement for right click or CTRL+click, i.e. to open a context menu. This is how it works on the dock, and it's quite nice to use too.
One thing I find wrong with it is that all of a sudden, holding onto a draggable element while scrolling with two fingers (e.g., try moving a playlist around in Spotify when you have lots of playlists) appears to not longer be possible. This might be a software issue with whomever is responsible for the software in question, though.
Finally, the myth that the trackpad doesn't move at all is not true. It moves a little, and if you press hard (as one Apple store employee did when I took it in to get looked at last week, insisting that it "wasn't force touch") it will move down noticeably - so don't overdo it.
Presumably they've measured latency with images and webfonts and found images load faster. There's nothing more frustrating than a webfont that takes 10 seconds to load.
It's not been my experience that things are getting worse in that respect; in fact, I'd say heat-wise things are significantly better than previous generations. Intel has put a lot of effort into making its chips more energy efficient, which has a side effect of generating much less heat. I'd guess that, combined with better chassis design, accounts for the improvement.
[+] [-] SandB0x|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdavid|10 years ago|reply
I wonder if I need a #hackentosh if I want 32GB of RAM, and an nVidia 950M or better.
[+] [-] outworlder|10 years ago|reply
You can have 64GB on a MacPro. Hope that's 'pro' enough.
[+] [-] whisdol|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myth_buster|10 years ago|reply
0: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=2Y
[+] [-] droidist2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sancha_|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] louhike|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ejbs|10 years ago|reply
Anyone knows why AMD? Is it a margin/profitibility or performance thing?
[+] [-] jackmaney|10 years ago|reply
I don't ever want an AMD/Radeon GPU in any system I own ever again. Intel and NVidia GPUs just work.
[+] [-] xmodem|10 years ago|reply
give it 18 months and the new top-of-the-line will have nVidia in it again, assuming they don't move completely to integrated.
[+] [-] hobarrera|10 years ago|reply
Mac is generally considered "the safe choice", when picking high end notebook for Linux.
[+] [-] SG-|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comex|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laichzeit0|10 years ago|reply
Skylake is the "major refresh" everyone that knows anything is waiting for.
[+] [-] amirmansour|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rockymeza|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neverminder|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcmillion|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yaeger|10 years ago|reply
The mag safe was one of the best inventions for MacBooks ever and it is sad to see how nonchalantly they retired it on the 13 inch. And I doubt the rumor it was because it is too light now. The mag safe is for when you trip over the cable with your leg. Doing that, you will always do so very abruptly. And so the weight of the MacBook cannot be that big a factor. Other wise, comparable things like the tablecloth trick would never work. The glasses and plates also do not weigh a lot. But tug on the tablecloth abruptly enough and away it goes with the glasses and everything still on the table. Same thing happens with a mag safe connector.
[+] [-] icpmacdo|10 years ago|reply
Edit: I think it was an Nvidia 750 before
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|10 years ago|reply
Significantly, they didn't refresh their retail range of cards, so there is still some hope that AMD has a significant refresh coming soon; AMD still doesn't have an answer for nVidia Maxwell, which was first released over a year ago.
[+] [-] emptybits|10 years ago|reply
So is this 15" rMBP battery life improvement software-driven or new hardware throttling or just wishful thinking? The video card and SSD have changed, but doesn't a full hour of battery life improvement seem optimistic? I guess reviews will expose the truth soon enough...
[+] [-] cerberusss|10 years ago|reply
Source: http://www.marco.org/2015/05/19/mistake-one (footnote2, at the bottom of the page)
[+] [-] Alex3917|10 years ago|reply
"Notably, the chips are not Intel's latest-generation 'Broadwell' processors, which remain unavailable in quad-core configurations. As a result, Apple is still utilizing the previous-generation 'Haswell' architecture, albeit at faster speeds."
[+] [-] dombili|10 years ago|reply
New rMBP: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/
Old rMBP: https://web.archive.org/web/20150424183842/http://www.apple....
[+] [-] bunkydoo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] radikalus|10 years ago|reply
From my perspective, these mbp are very little marginal benefit for computational work than a small air. (You'll just run everything on AWS/GCE/etc anyways)
[+] [-] marvel_boy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehwebguy|10 years ago|reply
I preferred to disable the two-level click in System Prefs, then it just felt like a normal macbook air trackpad.
It feels so real I turned off the unit in the store just to double check that there was no feedback with the power off (there wasn't)
[+] [-] vardump|10 years ago|reply
But nothing I couldn't live without.
[+] [-] krishicks|10 years ago|reply
It's very obvious when going back to the trackpad on my 2013 rMBP, which feels (and sounds) like junk in comparison.
On the 2013 rMBP I use the "Tap to click" setting so I don't have to press the awful button. On the 2012 MacBook I don't; it's just not necessary.
[+] [-] oflannabhra|10 years ago|reply
The "Taptic Engine" part of the Force Touch system is imperceptible from hardware "clicks". The ability to have a second level click seems interesting. Turning of the computer and pressing on the trackpad is like a magic trick.
While not many apps (and not many portions of the OS, even) are using the "pressure granularity" system of Force Touch, I will reserve judgement on its benefits and usefulness, but it is incredibly well-engineered.
Overall, I can see Apple including this across their entire product line, if technically feasible. It is as good as Touch ID.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] berberous|10 years ago|reply
That said, I have heard generally uniformly good reviews, so I imagine it's one of those things that after a few weeks you get used to and perhaps even start to prefer.
[+] [-] amirmansour|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdcravens|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkelsey|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] basicallydan|10 years ago|reply
There's a good list of things you can do with force touch here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204352
Some personal opinions about force touch:
My favourite thing about it is that the trackpad is automatically more clickable. The clickable surface area is larger than on my previous Mac (13" Air late 2013), and since I turned off right click (opting for two-finger click instead) I am far more causal about clicking things. This was really, really noticeable when going back to my Air briefly while I was giving it some TLC, and finding I couldn't use the top-left corner to click.
About the "force" aspect of it though... the sensation of pressing it down and watching some on-screen element change in size (which is the case for the dictionary lookup feature) is pretty fun. That's one of my favourite things to show people. It's like watching people use an analogue stick for the first time. At first it's confusing and hard to get the balance of, but soon you become quite proficient with it.
Unfortunately support outside of stock OSX applications is quite limited at the moment. The features that are supported in Safari have not yet made their way to Chrome, and features in Quicktime (changing fast forward speed, mainly) are not in VLC. Stuff like that. Having buttons on the screen which act differently depending on how hard you click them could be quite powerful.
With time, however, I think we'll see developers doing more interesting things with this. It could be quite useful in artistic applications for instance, doing exactly what Wacom tablets (and their ilk) have been doing to simulate the pressure of a brush or pen.
Another good use is as a replacement for right click or CTRL+click, i.e. to open a context menu. This is how it works on the dock, and it's quite nice to use too.
One thing I find wrong with it is that all of a sudden, holding onto a draggable element while scrolling with two fingers (e.g., try moving a playlist around in Spotify when you have lots of playlists) appears to not longer be possible. This might be a software issue with whomever is responsible for the software in question, though.
Finally, the myth that the trackpad doesn't move at all is not true. It moves a little, and if you press hard (as one Apple store employee did when I took it in to get looked at last week, insisting that it "wasn't force touch") it will move down noticeably - so don't overdo it.
This, IMO, is the killer feature of the new MBPR.
[+] [-] nsxwolf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phragg|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjammala|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarmig|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spanktar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ojbyrne|10 years ago|reply